I've watched them come and go and come again. From atmospheric trails to dusty footprints on the stone, the color of power is a tangible thing. There is no name for the spirit that sets them apart, no single word that sums up the will to live and triumph in the face of crushing opposition. "Attitude" is an inadequate description of the quality that brings them out, year after year, to take up the torch and tend to the flame... yet there is no better.

I protect the legacy they leave behind. Preserved in lucite, etched into silicon chips, and lingering always in the halls of the place that drove them on, those memories are more than just recorded history. They are the inspiration that comes to everyone who hears their story.

More come to learn than to emulate, these days, and so it always is in times of peace. For only in chaos can true heroes emerge--only in crisis does the pressure that turns carbon to diamonds arise. Today even gypsum remains intact, trailing its own kind of dust wherever it goes... dust that dulls the shine on the walls and muffles the urgency in the air. Everything fades with time.

They worry about going soft, and with good reason. This is not the world it once was. Perhaps it is a better world. Perhaps not. One day, however, the cycle of history will come full circle and vibrant purpose will clear the cobwebs from these minds. This planet has never fallen... for that which has no name resides here. It has not left. It can not leave. It exists only to drive the world on whenever the need is greatest.

And so I stand, once a vital military base: reduced to rubble in a day and restored to museum quality sheen in a year. Ghosts gather in these rooms, unheeded and drowned out by the speculation of what was. I see what is--and because of this, what will be is clear.

The Power Chamber will be so again.