THE ROOF SPACES

Graham is standing beneath the rotating ventilator when a voice reaches him from above.

Between the spinning blades he catches a glimpse of a man's face.

Then a hand reaches down.

The fan strikes it.

Blood begins dripping onto the floor.

The fan is stopped.

Snow whirls briefly into the warm room.

A young man appears upside down in the opening, soaked by melting flakes and straining to hold himself in place.

He asks whether Graham is the Sleeper.

Graham says yes.

The stranger gives a name: Ostrog.

The rescuers have been trying to reach Graham for three days.

They tell him that the people are rising in his defence and that the Council has decided he cannot be allowed to interfere.

Drug him, perhaps. Kill him, perhaps.

The exact method matters less than the implication.

Graham's fear of the Council is no longer merely imagination.

More men drop through the ventilator.

Metal is cut. A ladder is lowered.

Howard enters carrying a tray and is struck down before he can react.

Someone calls the contents poison.

Graham chooses escape.

Graham climbs into the night.

The warm interior disappears beneath him.

He emerges into snow, darkness and machinery on the roof of a city that no longer possesses ordinary roofs.

Enormous wind mechanisms turn in the storm. Thick cables cross the surface. Electrical flashes reveal structures too large to understand at a glance.

The escape becomes increasingly dangerous.

Graham follows guides across slippery metal and through the upper infrastructure of London, often understanding neither where he is going nor who controls the surrounding spaces.

The rescuers tell him his people are waiting.

At one point the cable carrying him is cut.

He falls toward a packed hall below and survives the descent.

Thousands of voices explode around him.

The Sleeper has escaped.