The heat didn’t start in his veins. It started in the marrow of his collarbones.
It felt as though someone had poured molten lead into his throat. It was followed by a handful of crushed glass ground into an open spark socket.
Lin Ke’s jaw snapped shut with a wet, sickening crack that sent blood spraying from between his lips.
The real body could never be rolled back.
Code deployed to meatspace had to be written into the living cell, the protein strand, the nervous sheath, and the calcium lattice of the bone.
*
Lin Ke fell forward off his knees. His forehead struck the cold dark rock floor with a dull, hollow thud.
His spine arched backward in a reflex, tetanic burst so violent that his lower-back bones clicked like dice rolled across an iron plate.
