They crossed the dark melted rock waste flats between the Tramway interchange and the northern ridge. Then, Len checked his internal screen.
The crimson transfer flash had subsided fully. Behind his breastbone. There, the heat of Milestone 8 had burned for three days like a hot iron stove, there was only a vast, hollow numbness. The system band had reset to an inert, slate-gray line. It was cold, thin, and silent as a grave marker. There was no leftover warmth, no lingering system feedback. No compensatory perk to ease the strain on his injured shoulder.
The registry had closed the account, debited the eighth ordinal to his name. Then he passed the physical enhancement to his hunter with the cold dispassion of a royal tax collector seizing a cart.
Len walked with his ash sounding pole in his right hand. He swept the bronze metal ring six inches ahead of his boots. The ground here was lonely, a heavy-duty wasteland of crushed boiler clinker, coal shale, and white bitter salt crust that crunched underfoot like frozen gravel. The air was turning bitter as they left the warm exhaust chimney pipes of the kitchens behind. They dropped toward twenty degrees as the mountain draft swept down from the granite crests.
