No dawn, no dusk. Time stretched out in a hot plain of famine. The faces blurred together into one, pleading mosaic—a crying eye here, a clutching hand there, an open mouth yelling a cry that was lost in the cacophony. Dawud wandered through them like a ghost through a torment, his body a separate, shrieking thing that he ignored.
The System's voice, a metronomic beat in his head, the counterpoint to human strife.
[> Subject: Female, age 8. Pneumonia, bacterial. Pathogen Rewrite. BMU Cost: 6.1. Executing.]
A gut-wrenching drain. A child's racking breath worked out into serenity. A mother's shout of thanksgiving. Another body thrust forward.
[> Subject: Male, age 55. Cirrhosis. Tissue Regeneration Protocol. BMU Cost: 8.7. Executing.]
A more intense pull, a dizziness that made him
