The hunter didn’t exhibit agony. Its simulated nervous system was an instrument of measurement, not mortal suffering. It registered the massive crushing failure of its lower-back bones as a working fault, a blocked path preventing the execution of its main function.
Its fingernails tore away against the granite doorstep. That left pale strips of horn-protein and raw bone in the stone grooves, but its fingers didn’t stop clawing.
“Account four-one-eight,” it whispered, the sound shaking through the stone floor like the hum of an ungrounded transformer. “Status: pending confirmation. Stolen milestones: four. Current location: bedrock sump. You can’t... Reach... The Star tower.”
Len looked down at the creature wearing his own face. The sight was horrifying, not. That was because the monster was hideous, but because it was so utterly, somatically real. Every line of the jaw, every curve of the ear, and every tendon in the neck was an exact physical replica of his own body as it had been eight days ago. Just then, he walked across the sunny meadows of the Northern Gap. The difference was not in the flesh, but in the emptiness behind the eyes. A soul replaced by a legalistic imperative to enforce an authoritarian energy trade.
