Sources:

1. https://sfstandard.com/business/first-republic-employees-laid-off-in-brief-scripted-phone-calls/
2. https://www.marketwatch.com/story/jpmorgan-lays-off-about-1-000-former-first-republic-employees-c2afa328
3. https://www.wicz.com/story/48974110/jpmorgan-is-cutting-about-1000-first-republic-bank-employees
4. https://www.ft.com/content/935fa23a-c295-4ba0-abd5-63fcf9649609

https://sfstandard.com/business/first-republic-employees-laid-off-in-brief-scripted-phone-calls/:

In scripted calls this morning, roughly 1,000 employees at First Republic Bank were informed that their service was no longer needed.
Job cuts were expected at First Republic, which was acquired by JPMorgan Chase May 1 in a deal that involved a government seizure of the San Francisco-based regional bank. First Republic employees were told in a May 11 email that some employees would be laid off within weeks, with others offered transitional roles of between three and 12 months or permanent positions with JPMorgan.
A JPMorgan spokesperson didn't confirm the total number of employees who were laid off, but said that the company offered either transitional of full-time roles to "nearly 85%" of First Republic employees. The number of employees who did not receive an offer is less than the 20%-25% job cuts First Republic announced in an April earnings release, said the spokesperson.
San Francisco-based First Republic had 7,213 employees at the end of last year, according to its most recent annual filing, which would imply a layoff of roughly 1,000 employees on Thursday.
"The vast majority of First Republic employees will be offered employment at JPMorgan Chase—either through a transition period, or in many cases full-time," the bank said in a statement. "Employees who have not been offered a role will receive pay and benefits covering 60 days and will be offered a package that includes an additional lump sum payment and continuing benefits coverage."
California's Employment Development Department said it had not yet received any layoff notices from the banks.
'Cutthroat'
Laid-off employees will receive regular pay through June 9 along with payments in lieu of the company's 401K match, according to a recording of a layoff call obtained by The Standard. On or around June 13, they will receive a lump sum equivalent to 45 days of day and are eligible for additional payments based on years of service, said a human resources employee who delivered the news.
A First Republic employee, who asked not to be named due to potential employment reprecussions, said laid-off employees received the news in brief calls during which a department head and a human resources employee read prepared scripts that gave no reason for the layoff.
Employees said that even high-level employees at First Republic were not privy to the specifics of the layoffs and were not included in discussions.
Throughout Thursday, laid-off First Republic employees gathered on a private discussion forum to commiserate and share information on how to access benefits. Employees who had paid family leave scheduled said they were unclear on whether they were entitled to company compensation for that period, writing that they had received no additional information from human resources that day.
"Everyone has been kept in the dark, even high-level managers are not being consulted," the First Republic employee said, describing the layoff process as unceremonious and "cutthroat."
Banking Chaos
The First Republic job cuts are the second major banking layoff this week in the Bay Area, with around 500 former employees of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) getting pink slips from the bank's new owner, First Citizens Bank, on Wednesday.
Laid-off SVB workers were told in meetings with human resources staff they would remain employees of the First Citizens until June 9, with additional details about severance coming via email. According to one director-level employee, additional layoffs may be coming.
First Citizens snapped up SVB at a fire sale after the Santa Clara-based regional bank, which had served the Bay Area's technology and investment sectors for decades, was abruptly shut down by regulators after a bank run drained $40 billion from its balance sheet in a matter of hours. Two days before it was placed under receivership, SVB had revealed in a filing that it had sold a trove of securities that had lost value as the Federal Reserve ratcheted up interest rates.
SVB's failure kicked off a period of chaos in the banking sector as shareholders scrutinized other regional banks with high rates of deposits above the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation's $250,000 limit and liabilities on their books. Customers of First Republic, which served well-heeled customers likely to hold uninsured deposits, withdrew about $100 billion in deposits during March; JPMorgan Chase and a coalition of other banks deposited $30 billion into the bank in an attempt to shore up the floundering institution.
In an April 24 earnings release, First Republic announced a plan to lay off up to 25% of its workforce and other cost-cutting initiatives, but those efforts failed to reassure investors as the bank's stock sunk to new lows: It closed at $3.51 per share the Friday before it seized and sold to JPMorgan. Shareholders are expected to be wiped out in the deal.
First Republic employees described mixed emotions regarding the bank's failure but noted anger and disappointment among employees who had significant compensation tied up in the company's stock. In a statement to Congress this month, former First Republic CEO Michael J. Roffler said that First Republic was "contaminated overnight by the contagion that spread from the unprecedented failures of two regional banks," referring to SVB and New York-based Signature Bank, which was also shuttered in March.
First Republic was founded in San Francisco by Jim Herbert in 1985 and grew to become the third-largest bank in the Bay Area and the 14th largest in the country at the end of last year. It catered to high-net-worth individuals, with roughly 40% of its deposits originating in the Bay Area, and was known for attractive mortgage rates and high-touch customer service, gaining a base of loyal customers and longtime employees.
Laid-off First Republic employees who spoke with The Standard described the abrupt layoffs, delivered by department in the form of scripted video calls lasting less than 10 minutes, as the culmination of a tense few weeks during which they received very little communication from JPMorgan.
"There was no respect; they treated us like a red-headed stepchild," said one East Coast-based First Republic employee, who asked not to be named due to job repercussions.
The employee likened the temporary positions offered by JPMorgan to "golden handcuffs" because if employees refuse the offers, they will not receive any exit pay. On or around June 1, employees who are offered temporary roles will receive information about the duration of their transition period in their offer letters, said a JPMorgan spokesperson.
"It's unnecessary to put anyone through that. At least with SVB, they just killed everyone right then and there," the employee said. "I don't understand why [JPMorgan] is dragging this out."
Changing Customer Service
A major lender and employer in the Bay Area, First Republic was considered a cornerstone of the region's real estate sector.
The bank offered low-rate mortgages to affluent clients and understood the nuances of Bay Area business, making it the lender of choice both for many individuals, startups and small businesses. It was also embedded in San Francisco's pool of affordable housing, having offered a $100 million revolving credit facility to the San Francisco Housing Accelerator Fund, which assists nonprofits in acquiring and renovating low-income housing.
First Republic customers received letters from JPMorgan Chase earlier this month informing them that they should continue to use their usual branches for banking. First Republic customers will eventually get access to JPMorgan’s services, according to the letter.
First Republic employees said that given limited communication from JPMorgan, people in client-facing roles had struggled to answer questions from customers beyond the bare minimum what would happen with their accounts.
But there are signs that JPMorgan, the largest bank in the U.S., will be taking a much different approach to lending than First Republic.
JPMorgan has begun culling personal lines of credit, telling customers that they will no longer be offered when they come up for renewal, according to the Information. The bank reportedly does not offer personal lines of credit.
Real estate professionals believe that the failure of First Republic could have ripple effects in the Bay Area housing market as well. On a May 2 shareholder call, JPMorgan Chase CEO indicated that the days of low-cost mortgages were over.
“We’re not going to be putting a lot of cheap jumbo mortgage loans on our books,” Dimon said. "First Republic did a great job at service. But being in the low-cost lending business is not what JPMorgan does.”

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/jpmorgan-lays-off-about-1-000-former-first-republic-employees-c2afa328:

JPMorgan Chase & Co. laid off about 1,000 former First Republic Bank employees Thursday, weeks after its takeover of the failed lender.
The bank said about 85% of the former First Republic’s roughly 7,200 employees received full-time or transitional roles with JPMorgan.
JPMorgan JPM, +0.24% said it had been transparent from the beginning with the former First Republic employees that not everyone would be retained.
“The vast majority of First Republic employees will be offered employment at JPMorgan Chase – either through a transition period, or in many cases full-time,” JPMorgan said in a statement. “Employees who have not been offered a role will receive pay and benefits covering 60 days and will be offered a package that includes an additional lump sum payment and continuing benefits coverage. We’re also providing resources to help them find new opportunities here or outside the firm.”
JPMorgan noted that the cuts were smaller than the 20%-25% layoffs First Republic had announced in April, and said most of those laid off Thursday had been initially identified in April.
The New York-based banking giant took over First Republic on May 1 after winning an FDIC auction after a disastrous run on deposits that battered its stock. San Francisco-based First Republic became the fourth U.S. bank to fail this year, and was the second-largest bank failure in U.S. history.

https://www.wicz.com/story/48974110/jpmorgan-is-cutting-about-1000-first-republic-bank-employees:

JPMorgan Chase informed about 1,000 First Republic Bank employees on Thursday that they will no longer have jobs.
JPMorgan acquired most of First Republic’s assets earlier this month after the San Francisco-based regional bank was seized by the government. It marked the second-biggest bank failure in US history.
A JPMorgan spokesperson told CNN that the bank updated all First Republic employees on Thursday about their future employment status and the vast majority — or nearly 85% — have been offered a transitional or full-time role.
That leaves 15%, or about 1,000, First Republic employees who are not receiving an employment offer. News of the job impact was previously reported by the Financial Times.
JPMorgan said the company’s May 1 deal with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation to buy most of First Republic did not include all of the company’s employees.
“We’ve been transparent with their employees and kept our promise to update them on their employment status within 30 days,” JPMorgan said in a statement. “We recognize that they have been under stress and uncertainty since March and hope that today will bring clarity and closure.”
The bank said that employees who have not been offered a role will receive pay and benefits covering 60 days and will be offered a package that includes an additional lump sum as well as continuing benefits coverage and resources to find new opportunities.
It’s not clear how many First Republic employees that have been offered employment at JPMorgan will have full-time versus transitional roles.
The transitional roles being offered to some First Republic employees will last for a period of between three and 12 months, JPMorgan said.
After regulators shut First Republic down, JPMorgan won a competitive bidding process run by the FDIC. JPMorgan agreed to make a $10.6 billion payment to the corporation.
Some progressives including Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., have been critical of the First Republic deal because it allowed America’s biggest bank to get even bigger.

https://www.ft.com/content/935fa23a-c295-4ba0-abd5-63fcf9649609:

JPMorgan Chase is cutting about 1,000 First Republic employees following its rushed takeover of the California-based bank earlier this month, said people familiar with the matter. The job losses, which will be felt across all of First Republic’s businesses, are equal to about 15 per cent of its roughly 7,000 workers, the people said. JPMorgan notified the affected First Republic employees on Thursday that they would not be receiving an offer to move to JPMorgan, one of the people said. The cuts are a further blow to First Republic employees who have already had a difficult two months. Following the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank in March, customers of First Republic withdrew tens of billions of dollars of deposits. First Republic was ultimately shuttered as US regulators orchestrated its sale over a weekend to JPMorgan. JPMorgan said it had followed through with a commitment to First Republic employees to provide clarity on their employment status within 30 days of the deal, which closed on May 1. “We recognise that they have been under stress and uncertainty since March and hope that today will bring clarity and closure,” the bank said. “The vast majority of First Republic employees will be offered employment at JPMorgan Chase — either through a transition period, or in many cases full-time.” Workers in transition roles will be employed for up to 12 months. News of the cuts was reported earlier by Bloomberg. JPMorgan, which has about 300,000 staff worldwide, said employees who had not been offered a new position would receive pay and benefits for two months and will be offered a lump-sum payment with continuing benefits. The JPMorgan action is less severe than cuts planned by First Republic last month, days before it was sold, to cut as much as 25 per cent of its workforce in order to reduce costs. Marianne Lake, co-head of JPMorgan’s consumer and community banking division, said in a presentation to investors on Monday that First Republic’s business had “seen stabilisation of clients and deposits”. “In fact, since the acquisition we’ve actually seen a small net inflow of deposits, she said. “That’s something we’re very focused on both of those two things — stabilising and winning back the client and their business.” First Republic primarily catered to well-off customers with millions of dollars in assets. JPMorgan’s acquisition will boost the Wall Street bank’s efforts to expand in wealth management.

REMINDER:

Under an SLA, the FDIC absorbs a portion of the loss on a specified pool of assets sold through the resolution of a failing bank - in effect sharing the loss with the purchaser of the failing bank.

No. When the FDIC calculates the estimated cost of a failure, it takes into account all expected losses on the assets covered in shared-loss agreements (SLAs). These current market assumptions are built into the cost of failure at the time of resolution. Thus, the cost of all expected future payments are recognized at the time of bank failure and no losses are deferred. Any sharing loss payments are made from receivership funds from the specific failed bank or thrift or, if those are insufficient, from the FDIC's Deposit Insurance Fund (DIF). The DIF is funded by assessments paid by insured banks and thrifts and it is not taxpayer funded.

The FDIC uses two forms of shared loss. The first form is for commercial assets and the second for residential mortgages. For commercial assets, the SLAs cover an eight-year period with the first five years for losses and recoveries and the final three years for recoveries only. The FDIC typically offers a range of coverage terms depending upon the market conditions and the location of the assets on covered assets up to a stated threshold amount (generally the FDIC's dollar estimate of the total projected losses on shared loss assets). Loss coverage may also be provided for loan or note sales, but such sales require prior approval by the FDIC. Recoveries on loans which experience loss events are split, in most instances, with 20% of the recovery going to the assuming bank and 80% to the FDIC. For single-family mortgages, the SLAs are for ten years and have the same 80/20 split as the commercial assets. The FDIC provides coverage on three basic single-family first lien mortgage loss events: modification, short sale, and when the property is sold after foreclosure. Second liens are permitted to be charged off according to regulatory criteria when the first lien is not held by the assuming bank. Since the inception of SLAs, the basis for sharing losses with an assuming bank has undergone some change. Until March 26, 2010, the FDIC shared losses with assuming banks on an 80/20 basis until the losses exceeded an established threshold defined in the SLA, after which the basis for sharing losses shifted to a 95/5 basis. Sharing losses on a 95/5 basis was eliminated for all SLAs executed after March 26, 2010.

Yes. If there are recoveries on assets that have been charged off by the failed bank or the assuming bank, then the FDIC receives 80 percent of the recoveries.

The FDIC covers credit losses. The FDIC does not cover losses associated with changes in interest rates. For single-family loans, the assuming bank is paid when the loan is modified or the property is sold. For commercial loans, the assuming bank is paid when the assets are written down according to established regulatory guidelines or when the assets are sold.

When the FDIC is preparing the sale of a failing bank or thrift, the FDIC reaches out to numerous potential bidders to bid for the customer deposits and the failing bank's assets. The sale relies on a confidential, competitive bidding process. In addition, the FDIC uses financial advisors to estimate asset values. After the bids are received, the FDIC selects the least costly option. To facilitate that analysis, the FDIC may dictate the terms and conditions of a sharing loss arrangement and the assets to be covered when potential assuming banks bid on a failing bank. This allows the FDIC to more quickly analyze and compare each of the bids to determine which is the least costly to the Deposit Insurance Fund. The terms and conditions also enable the FDIC to monitor the SLAs effectively. When market conditions are at their worst, shared loss can save the Deposit Insurance Fund money. As a result, shared loss agreements enabled the FDIC to sell the assets, but without requiring that the FDIC accept the low prices prevalent at the time. Instead, the FDIC sold the assets to assuming banks at a discount and they were incented under the SLAs to service and manage the assets, resolving them at a higher recovery amount once market conditions improved, splitting the higher recovery with the FDIC.

During the recent Financial Crisis the FDIC entered into 590 shared loss agreements with Acquiring Institutions from 304 Failed Bank receiverships covering $216.4 billion in assets. The estimated savings exceed $41 billion, compared to an outright cash sale of those assets. List of shared loss Agreements since July 10, 2008

The FDIC has developed a variety of resolution methods designed to enhance the marketability of a failing bank. SLAs are just one of the resolution methods the FDIC has available to utilize. Market conditions dictate the resolution types the FDIC offers for each failing bank and by law the FDIC must select the least costly resolution transaction for the failing bank.

The FDIC conducts annual on-site reviews and regular off-site monitoring of records of covered losses and overall compliance with the SLAs. It also requires assuming banks to provide quarterly reports to ensure compliance with the program and to monitor the performance of the assets. Lastly, if the assuming bank is not in compliance with the SLA, the FDIC has the right to stop shared loss payments until the problem findings are resolved, and, in extreme cases, to sell the assets through a competitive bid process.

The terms of the SFSLA require the Acquirer to modify loans using an approved modification program for single-family, owner-occupied loans. One of the approved programs is the FDIC loan modification program which adjusts the current loan terms to achieve an affordable payment by first reducing the loan interest rate, then extending the loan term, and, where necessary, offering forbearance of principal. The goal of the loan modification programs is to provide an affordable monthly payment. The Acquirer can propose an alternative loan modification program that will achieve the goals of providing affordable payments consistent with cost effectiveness. If the FDIC concurs, then the Acquirer can use the alternative program.

Yes, if the FDIC consents and the assuming bank satisfies the applicable provisions of the agreement.

• Managing the Crisis: The FDIC and RTC Experience 1980-1994, Chapter 7
• Crisis and Response: An FDIC History, 2008-2013, Chapter 6
• Supervisory Insights Article: FDIC Loss-Sharing Agreements: A Primer - PDF

TLDRS:

• First Republic Bank, recently acquired by JPMorgan Chase, has laid off roughly 1,000 employees. These layoffs were expected following the acquisition and came after an email announcement that some employees would lose their jobs, while others would be offered transitional roles or permanent positions.
• Despite this, a spokesperson for JPMorgan stated that almost 85% of First Republic employees were offered either transitional or full-time roles, which is less than the 20%-25% job cuts announced by First Republic in an April earnings release.
• Laid-off employees will receive regular pay until June 9, and payments equivalent to 45 days of pay. Additional payments will be offered based on years of service.
  • First Republic Bank has laid off employees in what one anonymous employee described as a "cutthroat" process.
  • Laid-off staff received the news through brief, scripted calls that didn't provide specific reasons for the layoffs.
  • Even high-level employees were reportedly not involved in the discussions about layoffs and were kept in the dark about the specifics.
• Reminder, At the beginning of the month, the FDIC and JP Morgan Chase entered into a loss-share transaction on single family, residential and commercial loans it purchased of the former First Republic Bank.
  • The FDIC will share in the losses and potential recoveries on the loans covered by the loss–share agreement with JP Morgan.
• Even so, those 1000 folks had to go!

...blood drips on her flesh, her pale flesh, reflective now, flesh as cold as dead metal... ...he watches through passion - dimmed eyes as Moneta’s lips wither and curl back, revealing rows of steel blades where teeth had been... her eyes... ...her eyes like red jewels, blazing with a mad heat... ...Kassad slams both hands against the soil, lifts himself away from her... from it... his strength insane but not enough as terrible gravities press them together... sucking like a lamprfey’s mouth as he threatens to explode, looks in her eyes... the death of worlds! [3]

- How did I land? Suspensor field? Parachute? - You descended under a wing of gold foil. [3]

- The HTN stuff doesn’t simulate, - whined Cadet Radinski, the best AI expert Kassad could find and bribe to explain, - it dreams, dreams with the best historical accuracy in the Web - way beyond the sum of its parts cause it plugs in holistic insight as well as facts - and when it dreams, it lets us dream with it. Kassad had not understood but he had believed. And then she came again. In the First U.S. Vietnam War they made love in the aftermath of an ambush during the darkness and terror of a night patrol. Kassad wore rough camouflage clothes - with no underwear because of the jungle crotch rot - and a steel helmet not much more advanced than those at Agincourt. She wore black pajamas and sandals, the universal garb of the Southeast Asian peasant. And the Viet Cong. Then neither of them wore anything as they made love standing in the night, her back against a tree and her legs wrapped around him, while beyond them the world exploded in the green glow of perimeter flares and the sputter-crack of claymores. She came to him on the second day of Gettysburg and again at Borodino, where the clouds of powder smoke hung above the piles of bodies like a vapor congealed from departing souls. They made love in the shattered hulk of an AFC in Hellas Basin while the hovertank battle still raged and the red dust of the approaching simoon scraped and shrieked at the titanium hull. “Tell me your name", - he had whispered in Standard. She shook her head. "Are you real - outside the simulation?" - he asked in the Japanese-English of that era. She had nodded and leaned closer to kiss him. They lay together in a sheltered place among the ruins of Brasilia while deathbeams from Chinese EMVs played like blue searchlights on broken ceramic walls. During an unnamed battle after a siege of a forgotten tower city on the Russian steppes, he pulled her back into the shattered room where they had made love, and he whispered: "I want to stay with you." She touched his lips with a finger and shook her head. After the evacuation of New Chicago, as they lay on the hundredth-floor balcony where Kassad had set his sniper’s nest for the last U.S. Presidents hopeless rear-guard action, he placed his hand on the warm flesh between her breasts and said: "Can you ever join me… out there?" She touched his cheek with her palm and smiled. ... Kassad dreamed of her often. He had never learned her name, she had never spoken, but he could have recognized her touch and scent in total darkness among a thousand others. He thought of her as Mystery. When other young officers went whoring or seeking girlfriends in the indigenie populations, Kassad would remain on base or take long walks through strange cities. He kept his obsession with Mystery secret, knowing full well how it would read on a psych report. Sometimes, on bivouac under multiple moons or in the womblike zero-g of a troop transport hold, Kassad would realize how insane his love affair with a phantom truly was. But then he would recall the small mole under her left breast which he had kissed one night, feeling her heartbeat under his lips as the ground itself shook from the firing of the big guns near Verdun. He would remember the impatient gesture with which she brushed back her hair as her cheek rested on his thigh. ... On the night before the Ouster retreat, Kassad left the command conference on the HS Brazil, farcast to his HQ in the Indelibies north of the Hyne Valley, and took his command car to the summit to watch the final bombardment. The nearest of the tactical nuclear strikes was forty-five kilometers away. The plasma bombs blossomed like orange and blood-red flowers planted in a perfect grid. Kassad counted more than two hundred dancing columns of green light as the hellwhip lances ripped the broad plateau to shreds. And even before he slept, while he sat on the flare skirt of the EMV and shook pale afterimages from his eyes, she came. She wore a pale blue dress and walked lightly between the dead burr-root plants on the hillside. The breeze lifted the hem of the soft fabric of her dress. Her face and arms were pale, almost translucent. She called his name - he could almost hear the words - and then the second wave of bombardment rolled in across the plain below him and everything was lost in noise and flame. [3]

The New Bushido Code which governed Colonel Kassad’s life had evolved out of the necessity for the military class to survive. After the obscenities of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries on Old Earth, when military leaders had committed their nations to strategies wherein entire civilian populations were legitimate targets while their uniformed executioners sat safe in self-contained bunkers fifty meters under the earth, the repugnance of the surviving civilians was so great that for more than a century the word “military” was an invitation to a lynching. As the New Bushido evolved it combined the age-old concepts of honor and individual courage with the need to spare civilians whenever possible. It also saw the wisdom of returning to the pre-Napoleonic concepts of small, “nontotal” wars with defined goals and proscribed excesses. The Code demanded a forsaking of nuclear weapons and strategic bombing campaigns in all but the most extreme cases but, more than that, it demanded a return to Old Earth medieval concepts of set battles between small, professional forces at a mutually agreed-upon time in a place where destruction of public and private property would be kept to a minimum. ... From his first minutes on South Bressia, Kassad realized that the New Bushido was dead. Eighty thousand superbly armed and trained FORCE:ground troops advanced from their staging areas, seeking battle in an unpopulated place. Ouster forces retreated behind a line of scorched earth, leaving only booby traps and dead civilians. FORCE used farcasters to outmaneuver the enemy, to force him to fight. The Ousters responded with a barrage of nuclear and plasma weapons, pinning the ground troops under forcefields while the Ouster infantry retreated to prepared defenses around cities and drop-ship staging areas. What had been forecast as a two-day battle ground on for thirty days, then sixty. Warfare had been thrown back to the twentieth or twenty-first century: long, grim campaigns fought through the brick dust of ruined cities over the corpses of civilians. The eighty thousand original FORCE troops were ground up, reinforced with a hundred thousand more, and were still being decimated when the call went out for two hundred thousand more. Only the grim resolve of Meina Gladstone and a dozen other determined senators kept the war alive and the troops dying while the billions of voices of the All Thing and the AI Advisory Council called for disengagement. Kassad had understood the change of tactics almost at once. His street-fighting instincts had risen to the forefront even before most of his division was wiped out in the Battle of the Stoneheap. While other FORCE commanders were all but ceasing to function, frozen into indecision by this violation of the New Bushido, Kassad—in command of his regiment and in temporary command of his division after the nuking of Command Group Delta—was trading men for time and calling for the release of fusion weapons to spearhead his own counterattack. By the time the Ousters withdrew ninety-seven days after the FORCE “rescue” of Bressia, Kassad had earned the double-edged nickname of the Butcher of South Bressia. It was rumored that even his own troops were afraid of him. And Kassad dreamed of her with dreams that were more—and less—than dreams. On the last night of the Battle for Stoneheap, in the maze of dark tunnels where Kassad and his hunter-killer groups used sonics and T-5 gas to flush out the last warrens of Ouster commandos, the Colonel fell asleep amid the flame and screams and felt the touch of her long fingers on his cheek and the soft compression of her breasts against him. When they entered New Vienna on the morning after the space strike Kassad had called in, the troops following the glass-smooth, twenty-meter-wide burn grooves into the lanced city, Kassad had stared without blinking at the rows of human heads lying on the pavement, carefully lined up as if to welcome the rescuing FORCE troops with their accusatory stares. Kassad had returned to his command EMV, closed the hatches, and—curling up in the warm darkness smelling of rubber, heated plastics, charged ions—had heard her Whispers over the babble of the C3 channels and implant coding. On the night before the Ouster retreat, Kassad left the command conference on the HS Brazil, farcast to his HQ in the Indelibies north of the Hyne Valley, and took his command car to the summit to watch the final bombardment. The nearest of the tactical nuclear strikes was forty-five kilometers away. The plasma bombs blossomed like orange and blood-red flowers planted in a perfect grid. Kassad counted more than two hundred dancing columns of green light as the hellwhip lances ripped the broad plateau to shreds. And even before he slept, while he sat on the flare skirt of the EMV and shook pale afterimages from his eyes, she came. She wore a pale blue dress and walked lightly between the dead burr-root plants on the hillside. The breeze lifted the hem of the soft fabric of her dress. Her face and arms were pale, almost translucent. She called his name—he could almost hear the words—and then the second wave of bombardment rolled in across the plain below him and everything was lost in noise and flame. [3]

Later, in the carnage of the valley, Moneta and a few others of the Chosen Warriors found Kassad’s body still wrapped in a death embrace with the battered Shrike. They removed Kassad with care, carried him to a waiting tent in the valley, washed and tended to his ravaged body, and bore him through the multitudes to the Crystal Monolith. There the body of Colonel Fedmahn Kassad was laid on a bier of white marble, and weapons were set at his feet. In the valley, a great bonfire filled the air with light. All up and down the valley, men and women moved with torches while other people descended through the lapis lazuli sky, some in flying craft as insubstantial as molded bubbles, others on wings of energy or wrapped in circles of green and gold. Later, when the stars were in place burning bright and cold above the light-filled valley, Moneta made her farewells and entered the Sphinx. The multitudes sang. In the fields beyond, small rodents poked among fallen pennants and the scattered remnants of carapace and armor, metal blade and melted steel. Toward midnight, the crowd stopped singing, gasped, and moved back. The Time Tombs glowed. Fierce tides of anti-entropic force drove the crowds farther back—to the entrance of the valley, across the battlefield, back to the city glowing softly in the night. In the valley, the great Tombs shimmered, faded from gold to bronze, and started their long voyage back. [3]

To Kassad’s left, the Valley of the Time Tombs stretched away as always, only the cliff walls were toppled now, worn down by erosion or landslide and carpeted with high grass. The Tombs themselves looked new, only recently constructed, with workmen’s scaffolds still in place around the Obelisk and Monolith. Each of the aboveground Tombs glowed bright gold, as if bound and burnished in the precious metal. The doors and entrances were sealed. Heavy and inscrutable machinery sat around the Tombs, ringing the Sphinx, with massive cables and wire-slender booms running to and fro. Kassad knew at once that he was in the future—perhaps centuries or millennia in the future—and that the Tombs were on the verge of being launched back to his own time and beyond. Kassad looked behind him. Several thousand men and women stood in row upon row along the grassy hillside where once a cliff had been. They were totally silent, armed, and arrayed facing Kassad like a battle line awaiting its leader. Skinsuit fields flickered around some, but others wore only the fur, wings, scales, exotic weapons, and elaborate colorations which Kassad had seen in his earlier visit with Moneta, to the place/time where he had been healed. Moneta. She stood between Kassad and the multitudes, her skinsuit field shimmering about her waist but also wearing a soft jumpsuit which looked to be made of black velvet. A red scarf was tied around her neck. A rod-thin weapon was slung over her shoulder. Her gaze was fixed on Kassad. He weaved slightly, feeling the seriousness of his wounds beneath the skinsuit, but also seeing something in Moneta’s eyes which made him weak with surprise. She did not know him. Her face mirrored the surprise, wonder … awe? … which the rows of other faces showed. The valley was silent except for the occasional snap of pennant on pike or the low rustle of wind in the grass as Kassad gazed at Moneta and she stared back, Kassad looked over his shoulder. The Shrike stood immobile as a metal sculpture, ten meters away. Tall grass grew almost to its barbed and bladed knees. Behind the Shrike, across the head of the valley near where the dark band of elegant trees began, hordes of other Shrikes, legions of Shrikes, row upon row of Shrikes, stood gleaming scalpel-sharp in the low sunlight. Kassad recognized his Shrike, the Shrike, only because of its proximity and the presence of his own blood on the thing’s claws and carapace. The creature’s eyes pulsed crimson. “You are the one, aren’t you?” asked a soft voice behind him. Kassad whirled, feeling the vertigo assail him for an instant. Moneta had stopped only a few feet away. Her hair was as short as he remembered from their first meeting, her skin as soft-looking, her eyes as mysterious with their depths of brown-specked green. Kassad had the urge to lift his palm and gently touch her cheekbone, run a curled finger along the familiar curve of her lower lip. He did not. “You’re the one,” Moneta said again, and this time it was not a question. “The warrior I’ve prophesied to the people.” “You don’t know me, Moneta?” Several of Kassad’s wounds had cut close to bone, but none hurt as much as this moment. She shook her head, flipped her hair off her forehead with a painfully familiar movement. “Moneta. It means both ‘Daughter of Memory’ and ‘admonisher.’ That is a good name.” “It’s not yours?” She smiled. Kassad remembered that smile in the forest glen the first time they had made love. “No,” she said softly. “Not yet. I’ve just arrived here. My voyage and guardianship have not yet begun.” She told him her name. Kassad blinked, raised his hand, and set his palm along her cheek. “We were lovers,” he said. “We met on battlefields lost in memory. You were with me everywhere.” He looked around. “It all leads to this, doesn’t it.” “Yes,” said Moneta. Kassad turned to stare at the army of Shrikes across the valley. “Is this a war? A few thousand against a few thousand?” “A war,” said Moneta. “A few thousand against a few thousand on ten million worlds.” Kassad closed his eyes and nodded. The skinsuit served as sutures, field dressings, and ultramorph injector for him, but the pain and weakness from terrible wounds could not be kept at bay for much longer. “Ten million worlds,” he said and opened his eyes. “A final battle, then?” “Yes.” “And the winner claims the Tombs?” Moneta glanced at the valley. “The winner determines whether the Shrike already entombed there goes alone to pave the way for others … ” She nodded toward the army of Shrikes. “Or whether humankind has a say in our past and future.” “I don’t understand,” said Kassad, his voice tight, “but soldiers rarely understand the political situation.” He leaned forward, kissed the surprised Moneta, and removed her red scarf. “I love you,” he said as he tied the bit of cloth to the barrel of his assault rifle. Telltales showed that half his pulse charge and ammunition remained. Fedmahn Kassad strode forward five paces, turned his back on the Shrike, raised his arms to the people, still silent on the hillside, and shouted, “For liberty!” Three thousand voices cried back, “For liberty!” The roar did not end with the final word. Kassad turned, keeping the rifle and pennant high. The Shrike moved forward half a step, opened its stance, and unfolded fingerblades. Kassad shouted and attacked. Behind him, Moneta followed, weapon held high. Thousands followed. [3]