POV RUBY
Six days.
That was how long it had been since my feet touched thewhite sands of Egypt. Six days since Nevan’s pulse vanished from my biological sensors. Most people wouldhave accepted the mourning, erected an empty headstonefacing the sea, and tried to forget. But I wasn't mostpeople. Now, I was the system.
I stood in a penthouse overlooking Cairo, a glass-and-steelsanctuary I had "acquired" digitally within seconds oflanding. In front of me, a wall of holographic monitorsflickered with the speed of thought. I no longer neededkeyboards. My fingers moved through the air, manipulating data streams that flowed from surveillancesatellites down to the fiber-optic cables crossing the oceanfloor.
The Sovereign within me was no longer an intruder. It wasmy voice. The "Birth" at the Li
