The lights go out — not the electrical ones, but the violet veins of Negative Energy that are the nervous system of An'karset's empire. For one microsecond, the undying Pharaoh's control is severed. A disruption signal pulses from the irradiated Badlands, broadcasting on a frequency he hasn't seen since the pre-war labs. Armed with a meteoric-iron blade and accompanied by Nari — the anomalous slave girl — An'karset ventures into the desert to perform surgery on a wound he doesn't yet understand.
