The war against the Ghost Fever had been a stealthy, killing siege upon an enemy lineless and faceless. Reuben had been a channel for the System's cold mathematics for weeks, his own humanity dwarfed by the stern requirement to ration, validate test results, and coordinate the silent, global recall of blood-stained death. The migraine was a smoldering flame that burnt in his head, a Sacrifice Point purchase that had branded itself on him as irremovably as his own heartbeat. He moved through the antiseptic halls of Aegis Haven an automaton, his interactions reducing to curt commands and hard facts. The Creator of Life had become a tool for postponing death.
It was in this dazed exhaustion that Liam found him, standing before the vast strategic map, watching the last of the Ghost Fever hots
