Ivara Quill observed the subtle, terrifying shift in the copy’s physical stance.
It was no longer watching Len’s eyes, nor was it tracking Doma’s iron ladle by the hearth. Its chin had lifted three inches, its neck canted at an acute angle toward the vaulted ceiling. Its ears were twitching in tiny, clockwork increments, aligning its head with the iron steam risers that ran along the floor beams.
The transfer of Milestone 8 had fully integrated into its copied neurology.
The hearing landscape of Rookvale at midnight was a dense, choking tangle of heavy-duty noise.
To an ordinary human ear, the valley was a chaotic din: the low, shaking drone of the spark power yard transformers on Seventh Avenue. The rhythmic thump of the mine air-flow fans in the Quarry five miles to the west. The high-pitched singing of white-hot steam escaping through rusted spreading joints. And the dull, irregular scrape of coal carts rolling across the switching yards. Added to this was the surrounding living clutter of a crowded heavy-duty basin. The barking of watchdogs in the fuel yards, the distant crying of sick infants in the refugee dormitories, and the muffled shouting of curfew guards at the Boundary Toll.
