August 23, 2077, Later That Evening.
The bus ride north had taken the better part of the day. Their only stop had been a cramped lunch break at a lone diner somewhere near the halfway point — twenty minutes of stale air, buzzing lights, and the faint smell of fryer grease before they were herded back aboard. Nearly a hundred candidates were spread across three repurposed city-liner buses, each one bracketed front and rear by Michigan State Police cruisers moving with steady, unblinking precision.
Daniel Lindholm was a Michigan native through and through. He stood six-foot-three, sandy-blonde hair cut close, with the kind of build that didn’t come from gym memberships but from real work. His shoulders had been shaped by years of lifting feed bags, repairing fences, hauling equipment. His hands bore the faint calluses of rope, metal, and soil. His skin carried the uneven tan of someone who’d spent more days outdoors than in — long summers under a relentless sun, long winters under sharp, bitter cold.
His family had been farmers for generations — one of the old immigrant lines that had rooted themselves in the northern part of the state back when the land was unforgiving and the nearby towns were little more than scattered crossroads. They had survived droughts, storms, price crashes, and shifting markets. In recent years they’d weathered the economic turmoil better than some, though only by the narrowest margin. Government subsidies, careful management, and sheer stubbornness kept the place afloat.
That was why Daniel had enlisted a little over a year ago.
Not for glory. Not for adventure.
But because the farm needed the money, and his family needed him to step up.
Duty began at home — and he carried that with him now.
Fatigue settled over the group early. They had been stripped of nearly all personal belongings before boarding, handed only thin, pre-approved reading materials that did little to hold anyone’s attention. To Danny Lindholm, whose tastes ran toward history books, pulp adventure, and farm journals, the selection felt like a punishment more than an amenity.
The windows weren’t fully blacked out, but the heavy tint dulled everything beyond the glass. In the early afternoon he could catch glimpses of the familiar — stretches of pine forest, farm fields gone fallow, the quiet rolling landscape of the northern Lower Peninsula. But as the sun slid lower and shadows began to stretch across the road, the outside world blurred into indistinct shapes. By evening, Danny stopped trying to make sense of what passed by.
The last clear sight he remembered was the Mackinac Bridge rising over the water like a steel spine against the horizon. The convoy crept across its length, high above the churning straits below, and the air coming through the vents grew noticeably colder. For a moment, Danny felt a flicker of awe — the kind he’d had as a kid riding with his parents on summer trips. That moment faded quickly.
The bridge told him more than the officers had.
They were no longer anywhere near home.
And wherever they were going, it wasn’t on any map he had ever seen.
The ride hadn’t been entirely dull. Danny spent long stretches of the afternoon talking with some of the other candidates — men and women who, like him, had been swept into this new “special program” the recruiters had described with confident, almost rehearsed enthusiasm. At first, the conversations felt normal enough: the usual mix of nerves, curiosity, and bravado you’d expect from young recruits headed someplace classified.
But by the time they reached the lunch stop, there were twenty minutes of greasy diner food and stiff legs under a flickering, humming row of fluorescent tubes — the cracks in the story had begun to show. A few of them compared notes, and the pattern became obvious. The phrasing the officers used. The strange wording in the paperwork. The abrupt orders to pack and report without delay.
Volunteering had been printed neatly at the top of every form.
But the more they talked, the clearer it became that none of them had actually volunteered.
Knowing the program existed had been commitment enough.
A couple of recruits joked about being “voluntold,” but the humor fell flat.
Even Danny couldn’t muster a smile — and he normally tried to.
After that, the mood on the buses shifted. Not panic. Not anger.
Just a quiet, sinking resignation Danny recognized well: the same feeling that settled over the farm when dark clouds rolled in too fast, when the only thing left to do was brace yourself and hope the storm didn’t take out half the crop.
The change in the bus’s motion snapped him out of his road-numb haze. The steady hum of highway speed softened, and the chassis gave a deep, familiar shudder as the brakes began their slow, controlled drag. Danny sat up straighter, rubbing the grit of exhaustion from his eyes as the overhead speaker crackled.
“Attention. We have arrived at our destination. Please collect your belongings and prepare to disembark.”
The voice carried a faint Minnesotan drawl, the kind you heard around lake country — usually friendly enough, but here wrapped in a clipped, professional tone that made it feel oddly dissonant.
Around him, recruits who had been nodding off stirred awake. Heads lifted. Blinks sharpened. A few exchanged unfocused, puzzled looks — the kind you give when your brain hasn’t quite caught up to where your body has ended up.
Several leaned toward the windows, trying and failing to make out anything beyond the darkened glass. The tint, the hour, and the heavy shadows of unfamiliar terrain blurred everything into smudged shapes and faint reflections.
Danny reached down, grabbed his duffel from under the seat, and slung it over a shoulder. His heartbeat picked up, just a little.
Wherever they were, this was the end of the line.
Harrow waited with the rest of his command staff as the buses rumbled into the entry yard, their engines growling against the cold night air before settling into a heavy, echoing idle. The floodlights overhead cast stark white angles across the concrete, catching the rising plumes of exhaust and turning them into drifting, ghostlike veils.
Stark was absent from the command line — deliberately so. He and the other Lycans had taken positions along the fringes of the receiving area, lingering where the light thinned into shadow. Their silhouettes were little more than suggestions: a tall shape here, a shifting outline there, the occasional faint movement of a tail flicking in quiet, restless arcs. After a week of discussion, they had agreed this was best. The coming days would be unsettling enough for the new recruits. There was no need to greet them with fangs and towering forms the moment they stepped onto the base.
Still, the Lycans stayed close enough to watch. Close enough to study the new blood as it spilled out of the buses in tired, uneven lines.
Harrow exhaled slowly and pushed back the gray thoughts that had followed him all day — worries better left for later. For now, his focus had to remain on the candidates taking their first steps into this place: young men and women pulled abruptly from familiar lives and delivered into a program none of them fully understood. The days ahead would be difficult, no matter how he handled it, but he intended to make the transition as smooth as the circumstances allowed.
They hadn’t been given much choice in coming here.
The least he could do was not make the weight on their shoulders any heavier.
Danny let out a tired yawn as he swung his bag over his shoulder and followed the line off the bus. The night air hit him as soon as his boots touched the ground — a cool, unexpectedly sharp chill that didn’t belong to late summer, the kind that settled in quick once the sun dipped behind the pines. It carried a clean, resinous bite drifting down from the tree line, layered over the warm, metallic hum of the buses’ small reactors still cycling down. The faint tang of hot coolant mixed with the usual scents of oil and machinery, and beneath it all lingered the crisp smell of freshly cut pine.
That combination told him more than any briefing had. Wherever they were, it was deep in the northern peninsula — well away from cities, highways, or anything remotely familiar.
He hitched his duffel higher on his shoulder as the recruits were funneled toward the far end of the motor pool. A line of officers waited under the harsh glare of the floodlights, their silhouettes rigid and unmoving against the stark white glow. Everything about the process had the same sharp efficiency: no explanations, no wasted motion, no space for anyone to pause and take stock.
Danny swallowed, rolled his shoulders against the cool air, and kept moving with the rest.
Stark and the other Lycans watched from the shadows at the edge of the motor pool, their silhouettes barely visible where the floodlights thinned into darkness. Their tails flicked in slow, idle arcs, though nothing about their attention was idle. They observed in silence, taking in the recruits with senses far sharper than human — reading posture, breath, unease, and the subtle tells no ordinary soldier would ever think to hide.
One movement in the crowd pulled Stark’s attention at once.
The young man he’d noticed earlier hadn’t just stepped off the bus differently — he was looking into the darkness now, his gaze tracking the fringe of the motor pool with a cautious, uncertain focus. Most recruits didn’t look toward the shadows. They looked at the officers, the lights, the ground beneath their feet. But this one paused for a heartbeat, eyes narrowing slightly as he stared straight toward the Lycans’ position. Not with fear — but with the puzzled concentration of someone trying to decide whether he was imagining shapes in the dark or if something was truly there.
Stark felt the muscles at the back of his neck tighten with interest.
He rarely saw a human pick up on them so quickly.
Even half-trained soldiers didn’t usually look that way.
Yes… this one was different.
The young man shifted back into line, but the moment stuck with Stark — the awareness, the instinctive alertness, the way he carried himself without broadcasting nerves.
“Mmm… that one,” Stark murmured.
A voice beside him broke the quiet.
“Already picking favorites, eh?”
Mikhail stepped closer, eyes glinting faintly as he followed Stark’s gaze.
“Maybe,” Stark said, ears angling forward. “I’m going to keep my eye on him.”
They kept watching as the recruits formed up. A few Lycans exchanged low comments when they spotted the female candidates in the group — curiosity and muted excitement, nothing more. They’d known the program was shifting toward longer-term planning, but seeing it firsthand stirred an undercurrent of restless energy.
Stark rolled his eyes and let out a quiet grunt.
“Remember — they’re recruits,” he said, tone low but firm. “I know some of you are eager about the expansion, but rules still apply. That includes relationships.”
A ripple of snickers moved through the group — soft, familiar, swallowed quickly by the darkness and the fading hum of the buses’ reactor cores.
Danny looked around as they were herded toward the line of officers. The closer they moved, the stronger the nagging sensation became that the recruits weren’t the only ones observing the scene. Every few steps he caught what looked like tiny pinpricks of reflected light at the edge of the motor pool — the kind of brief glint you saw when an animal’s eyes picked up a beam of light at just the right angle.
Shadows pooled thick around the perimeter, darker than they should’ve been under the floodlights. Shapes seemed to shift just outside the reach of the glow, never stepping fully into the light, never fully disappearing either. For a split second, he thought he saw something flick — a tail? Or something shaped like one, vanishing before he could focus on it.
Maybe it was exhaustion messing with him. Maybe his eyes were playing tricks after the long ride north.
But the unease crawled just beneath his skin, subtle and insistent.
Whatever was out there… it wasn’t just trees or equipment.
He didn’t get long to puzzle it out. A commanding voice cut through the murmurs of the recruits, sharp enough to pull every drifting thought back into line.
Major Harrow had begun speaking.
Harrow cleared his throat as the group came to a stop in front of him.
“Good evening. I am Major Elias Harrow, your commanding officer going forward.” His voice carried the balanced weight of someone accustomed to being obeyed without bluster. “There will be time for proper introductions later. I know you’ve had a long trip getting here, so we’ll keep this brief.”
He paused to sweep his gaze across the recruits — fatigue, confusion, and frayed nerves written plainly on their faces. His expression gave nothing away.
He checked his watch, then continued.
“Dinner is in thirty minutes. You’ll be processed in before heading to the mess. After that, I strongly suggest you get the best night’s rest you can.” His tone remained steady, almost gentle — but absolute. “It may be the last chance you have for anything close to that over the next few weeks.”
A beat of silence followed. Not threatening. Not dramatic.
Just the truth.
“You are all dismissed.”
The words landed cleanly, decisively — a gate closing behind them and another opening ahead.
As the recruits were led away, Harrow turned toward the gates of the mine complex. Stark drifted into step beside him halfway there, his presence quiet and unassuming in that way only the Lycans managed — silent until the moment he chose not to be.
“These pups know something’s up,” Stark said at last. “You can see it in their eyes. The way they carry themselves.”
Harrow gave a small nod. “I’m not surprised. Some of the recruiters were less subtle than others. And after a trip like theirs, I’d be disappointed if none of them sensed something off.” His voice remained even, steady. “I don’t intend to insult their intelligence when it’s time to drop the other shoe.”
Stark made a low, contemplative sound deep in his chest.
“Can I see the personnel records for this batch?” he asked. “There was one who stood out. Taller than the rest. Fair hair. Carried himself differently.”
“The Lindholm boy?” Harrow said. “I noticed him too. What’s your interest?”
Stark’s ears angled forward, a small but telling sign of focus. “He carries himself well. Might have leadership potential.” He paused, weighing the thought. “Provided he doesn’t break.”
Harrow nodded as they reached the reinforced entrance. He pressed his access card to the reader, and the lock gave a sharp, metallic click before the heavy door swung inward.
“You’ll have the records before dinner is over,” he said. “And yes — as I recall, he tested well. Above average across most evaluations. Minimal disciplinary history. Comes from good stock too. Farming family down in the Lower Peninsula, so he knows what real work looks like.”
Stark offered a quiet grunt of acknowledgment — approval, or at least interest.
They continued down the corridor in companionable silence. The evening shift was in full swing, and the sounds of the facility rose around them: clipped conversations bouncing off concrete walls, the steady rhythm of boots on polished floors, the distant thrum of generators and ventilation systems threading through the hall. It formed a familiar cadence — one both men had long since internalized — wrapping around them as they made their way deeper into the heart of the complex.
Dinner that night had been surprisingly good — too good, some of the recruits whispered. The spread looked like something reserved for senior officers: real cuts of fresh meat, trays of steamed vegetables, warm rolls, and spices that hadn’t come out of a military ration tin. It was a welcome change after the long trip, but the quality only deepened the suspicion simmering beneath the surface.
Programs that started with this kind of treatment were rarely ordinary.
Danny found a seat beside another recruit, Jacob Gauthier — wiry, sharp-eyed, and carrying himself like someone who’d spent more than a few years north of the bridge. Jacob seemed to know more than anyone else about where they’d ended up.
“So like I was saying,” Jacob continued between bites, “we crossed the Mighty Mac, then kept going forever.
That puts us somewhere in the Huron Mountains. Has to. Only place you’d hide something like this.”
Danny nodded. He hadn’t spent as much time in the U.P. as Jacob clearly had, but the guess felt right.
After a moment, Danny leaned in slightly. “Did you see anything weird when we stepped off the bus?”
Jacob paused mid-chew. “Weird how?”
“Shadows just outside the lights… eyes reflecting back at us like animals. I thought I was seeing things.”
Jacob snorted. “Oh, I saw ’em. Plain as day. But think about where we are, man. And what kind of program we got pulled into.” He shrugged, almost too casually. “Figured if whatever it was is inside the wire, it ain’t gonna jump us. They’d have warned us if it was dangerous.”
Danny raised an eyebrow. “You’re taking that awfully well.”
Jacob smirked around a mouthful of food. “Danny, this ain’t the strangest thing I’ve seen up here.”
Danny blinked. “What do you mean?”
Jacob swallowed, then leaned back with the ease of someone dropping a story he’d told before.
“You ever hear of the Michigan Dogman?”
Danny frowned. “Never. Should I have?”
Jacob’s laugh came out muffled as he reached for another roll. “You call yourself a Michigander and you ain’t heard of the Dogman? Didn’t you say you’re from the northern LP? That’s prime sighting territory.”
Danny shrugged, unsure whether Jacob was pulling his leg.
Jacob continued, warming up to the topic.
“Yeah, I’ve been chased a couple times by what had to be the Dogman. Never caught me, but they don’t, from what the stories say. They just run you off. Supposed to be some kind of half-dog, half-man thing. Not really a werewolf, not exactly.” He stabbed his fork toward Danny for emphasis. “More territorial. They don’t maul folks like in the old legends. They just make damn sure you know you’re not welcome.”
Danny wasn’t sure whether to laugh or not. Between the odd shadows outside and the strange feel of the place, Jacob’s story didn’t seem quite as ridiculous as it should have.
Their conversation dipped into a quiet lull as the clatter of plates and low murmur of other recruits filled the mess hall. Danny pushed a forkful of vegetables across his tray, Jacob’s story lingering in the back of his mind like a cold draft slipping under a door.
Jacob leaned back slightly, lowering his voice. “Point is,” he said, “strange things live up here. Folks don’t always talk about it, but they know. They feel it.” He tapped his fork against the edge of his tray. “And whatever those shadows were outside? That wasn’t the Dogman.”
Danny felt a subtle tension settle in his shoulders. “Then what do you think they were?”
Jacob shrugged — not dismissive, just wary. “No idea. But it wasn’t anything from civilian life. That much I’ll bet on.”
Before Danny could respond, the overhead speakers crackled sharply, cutting through the room.
“Attention recruits. Dinner period is now concluding. All personnel report to your assigned evening debrief stations.”
Chairs scraped back across the floor as conversation tapered off. The recruits rose in waves, trays clattering as they were stacked, bodies shifting into the half-formed lines of people still unsure of routines and expectations.
Jacob huffed a quiet sigh as he stood. “Well… that’s the end of story time.”
Danny pushed his chair back and followed. As they stepped into line, moving with the others toward the mess hall exit, he cast one last glance toward the darkened windows along the far wall — a reflex he couldn’t shake.
Something shifted just beyond the spill of the floodlights. A tall, still silhouette. Watching.
Then it slipped back into the dark as if it had never been there.
Danny blinked, uncertain whether he’d truly seen it or if exhaustion was shaping shadows into meaning.
Either way, the overhead voice repeated the order, and the line began to move.
Danny had some time to think as they moved from the mess hall to their assigned debrief location — a room that sat somewhere between a small auditorium and a large meeting space. The architecture was purposeful: tiered seating that wasn’t quite theater-style, acoustics shaped to carry sound both forward and back. When one person spoke, even from the rear, the whole room heard it. It felt less like a classroom and more like a chamber built for briefing, assessment, and being assessed in return.
The officers shepherded them into rows. Conversations died off quickly.
At the front stood the same Major who had greeted them at the motor pool — Harrow, dressed in an officer’s field uniform. The detail caught Danny off guard. They weren’t deployed, they weren’t in hostile territory, and yet the man wore his uniform like he expected to step outside into a warzone at any moment.
Danny didn’t have long to dwell on it.
Harrow stepped forward, posture crisp, voice carrying cleanly through the room’s engineered acoustics.
“Good evening. First off, I hope you had a good meal. I’ve always believed the best way to start anything is with a proper dinner.”
A few recruits shifted, unsure whether that was meant as humor. Harrow didn’t pause long enough for them to find out.
“Now, I know most of you probably have a lot of questions, and I intend to answer them in due time. However…” He tapped a control on the podium.
A projector screen lowered behind him with a quiet mechanical hum.
“For tonight, we’re only covering the schedule for tomorrow.”
The screen flickered to life, displaying a neatly organized timeline for the following day. At first glance it looked like the standard rhythm of any military installation — early-morning PT, breakfast, shower rotations, administrative processing.
But then Danny caught the entries that didn’t belong.
Morning Orientation — Restricted
Medical Screening — Phase One
Project Lycanthrope — Initial Brief
His pulse picked up.
Project Lycanthrope.
He’d heard the name tossed around once or twice on the ride north, though never in full, never explained. No one had told him the name of the program they had been pulled into — not clearly, not directly. And now that word was on the screen, sitting there like a puzzle piece that should connect to the shadows outside the bus, the strange shapes at the edge of the motor pool, the eyes that reflected like animals but sat too high to belong to anything he knew.
Was this it?
Was this the thing they had all been roped into?
His thoughts tightened, spiraling down possible explanations, none of them comforting.
Harrow’s voice cut through his reverie.
“…and I suggest the lot of you get as much sleep as you can tonight.” Harrow’s tone shifted just slightly — not grim, not ominous, merely matter-of-fact. “It may be the last time you have the opportunity for a while.”
A quiet murmur rippled through the recruits. Danny felt it more than heard it.
Harrow gave a firm nod.
“You are all dismissed. See you in the morning.”
The dismissal echoed through the chamber, final and unambiguous. Chairs scraped. Boots shuffled. No one spoke loudly — not after that schedule, not after that name.
Danny followed the flow toward the exit, mind chewing on one thought he couldn’t shake:
Whatever Project Lycanthrope was… tomorrow, they would find out.
That night was anything but restful for most of the recruits. Unease clung to the barracks like a film — a mix of nerves, unanswered questions, and the lingering memory of strange shapes prowling just outside the floodlights. Every creak of the building and every shift of footsteps in the hallway seemed to spark a fresh round of whispered speculation.
Danny and Jacob had lucked into bunks beside each other, though “bunk” barely seemed like the right word. The beds were twice the size of standard issue, wider and longer, the frames reinforced and built low to the ground. The entire barracks was oversized — higher ceilings, wider aisles, bulkhead-style doors — subtle hints that whatever lived here before them had not been ordinary soldiers.
Most recruits tried not to think too hard about that.
Danny lay back on the unusually firm mattress, hands behind his head, staring at the dim outlines of ventilation pipes overhead. He could hear Jacob shifting in the bunk across the aisle, trying (and failing) to get comfortable.
“Feels weird, don’t it?” Jacob muttered. “Beds like this? Makes you wonder who they were built for.”
Danny huffed a soft breath through his nose. “Yeah. I noticed.”
The room wasn’t dark — not fully. The recessed emergency lighting cast a soft, amber glow that pooled in corners and left long shadows across the empty floor space. A few other recruits whispered quietly, but most lay wide awake, staring into the half-light.
Jacob rolled onto his side, propping himself up on one elbow. “So anyway,” he said, picking up the comfortable thread of their earlier dinner conversation, “like I was saying — half my family runs a small copper claim up by Mohawk. Been in the family three generations. The other half’s been doing logging near Baraga, got a little timber mill they’re proud of.”
Danny smiled faintly. “Guess we’re not so different then. My folks have been farming outside Marion for about as long as anyone remembers. Mostly potatoes, some dairy, bit of everything else depending on the year.”
Jacob gave a low whistle. “Hard life, that. Respect.”
Danny shrugged. “Wasn’t easy, but… it was home.”
For a moment, the barracks felt almost normal — two young men swapping stories about small-town families, long workdays, and the kinds of rural upbringings that didn’t leave much room for complaining. It grounded them, anchored them to something familiar amid the strangeness.
Then the lights flickered — just once, barely noticeable — and the hum of the ventilation system shifted pitch, deeper and slower, like a sleeper drawing a long breath.
The two exchanged a look.
“Tomorrow’s gonna be something else,” Jacob said quietly.
Danny nodded, settling back into his bunk, though the tension in his shoulders refused to ease. “Yeah. I’ve got a feeling.”
Sleep came late, and lightly, for both of them.
Harrow stood atop the gantry again, alone with his thoughts, a cigarette burning low between his fingers. The night was cool and still, the waxing crescent moon climbing slowly through a clear, star-pricked sky. From this height he could see almost the entire facility — the dim perimeter lights, the distant silhouettes of vehicles, the faint glow of the barracks windows where recruits tossed in restless sleep.
A soft padding of footsteps on metal drew his ear. He didn’t bother to turn.
“Before you say anything,” he said dryly, smoke curling from his lips, “yes, I’m aware this is very much against protocol.”
Stark came to stand beside him, silent as the night around them, gaze lifting toward the same moon.
“I wasn’t going to say anything about that,” Stark murmured.
He let the quiet stretch a moment before continuing. “I went over Lindholm’s records. Not bad. A tour in China before reassignment here. Same with several others. Only a handful were sent directly to this facility.”
Harrow nodded slightly. “His father served during the annexation of Mexico. Military service seems to run in that family. Good trait to have.”
Stark’s ears twitched in acknowledgment. “I imagine he’ll be one of the first to step into the chamber when the time comes.”
Harrow glanced at him sidelong. “You sound pretty confident.”
Stark kept his eyes on the stars. “Like I said — the way he carries himself, the way he looks into the dark instead of away from it… he has the makings of a leader. And sharp senses. Both will serve him well, if he doesn’t break.”
Harrow let that sit, chewing on the thought with a slow, private exhale.
“You’re not wrong,” he said eventually. “He’s yours to guide if you want him. Might also look into that Gauthier kid he’s attached himself to. Closest thing to a native of these parts we’ve got. Could be useful. Should be in the same set of files.”
Stark gave a single, firm nod.
The two stood in companionable silence then, gazing up at the wide sky. With no nearby towns, no light pollution, the heavens stretched overhead in a clean sweep — raw, unbroken, and ancient. The kind of sky that made a man feel both grounded and very small.
After a few long moments, Stark’s voice cut softly through the quiet.
“How’s your family holding up?”
The question made Harrow take a long drag from his cigarette. He exhaled slowly, watching the smoke drift away into the night.
“It’s… complicated,” he admitted. “My wife understands the long absences. I write. I call. But it’s hard. The distance. The knowledge that everything you say is screened, everything you write is read by someone else before it reaches them. Even when it’s something personal.”
Stark gave a low, sympathetic sound. “They been moved yet?”
Harrow nodded, jaw tightening a fraction. “Along with the other families connected to project personnel. Government’s worried about blackmail, hostage situations… all the obvious threats.”
He rubbed the bridge of his nose with a weary thumb. “It’s the one thing that’s kept me from going gray faster, honestly. Knowing they’re somewhere safe.”
He flicked the spent cigarette over the railing and watched the ember fall in a small arc of orange light before it vanished in the dark.
“That’s something we’ll need to tell the recruits tomorrow,” Harrow added quietly. “Most of them still have families of their own. They deserve to know the truth — or at least as much as we can give them.”
Stark didn’t speak right away. He simply stood beside Harrow, the night breeze stirring the fur along his arms, both of them looking out across the silent compound — each aware that the next morning would change everything for the young men and women sleeping restlessly below.