[POV Era]

  Time, that universal constant governing the lives of mortals, stopped for me once again. But this time, it wasn't a pause to pn a brilliant strategy. It was a pause to witness my own execution.

  The fourth Ganut, the forgotten beast of the alleys, was suspended in the air, frozen in my accelerated perception. It was less than a meter from my back. I could see every grotesque detail with microscopic crity: the thick, stringy saliva flying from its open maw, the bckened, retracted gums, and the fangs... daggers of filthy, yellowish ivory, at least eight centimeters long, aimed directly at the junction of my neck and right shoulder.

  My body was in a compromised position, crouched and half-turned after wiping the leader's blood from my hands. My center of gravity was low, but my defensive angles were closed.

  <[CRITICAL ALERT: IMMINENT IMPACT.]>

  <[CONTACT TIME: 0.4 SECONDS.]>

  <[EVASION ANALYSIS: SUCCESS PROBABILITY 0%.]>

  The red letters fshed across my retina with the finality of a death sentence. Zero percent. There was no possible dodge. Physics was absolute; the Ganut's mass and velocity were already committed to a trajectory that intersected with mine.

  Orion’s panic exploded, a pure white scream of terror. Move! Throw yourself to the ground! Do something!

  But then, a new line of text appeared, cold and blue, contrasting with the red arm.

  <[RECOMMENDED PASSIVE DEFENSE PROTOCOL: MAINTAIN POSITION. DO NOT INITIATE EVASIVE MOVEMENT.]>

  <[WARNING: MOVEMENT WILL INCREASE TRACTION DAMAGE. MAXIMUM MUSCULAR RIGIDITY ENGAGED.]>

  "What?" I thought, disbelief mixing with terror. "Stay still? Let it bite me?"

  It was madness. It went against every survival instinct that evolution had etched into the mammalian brain over millions of years. When something attacks you, you move. You flee. You fight. You don't stand there like a statue waiting for your jugur to be ripped out.

  But my body, controlled by machine logic rather than human fear, obeyed the system.

  My servos locked. My synthetic "muscles" tensed until they became solid steel. I became a monolith of immobility, closing my eyes (a useless but human gesture) and waiting for the pain. Waiting for the tear. Waiting for the end.

  Time snapped back into its normal flow with a violent crack.

  The Ganut smmed into me.

  It was like being hit by a sack of cement dropped from a second floor. The weight of the beast, nearly a hundred kilos of muscle and bone, collided with my back. Its front paws cwed at my torso, the talons shredding the fabric of my blue shirt like it was tissue paper.

  And then, the bite.

  I felt the jaws close around my right trapezius, encompassing part of my neck and shoulder. I felt the immense pressure—hundreds of pounds of force per square inch applied at a focal point.

  I heard the sound. A loud, sickening CRACK.

  But it didn't come from me.

  There was no pain. There was no sharp sting of teeth piercing skin, no wet heat of gushing blood. I only felt... pressure. A distant, annoying pressure, as if someone were squeezing my shoulder with a strong hand, but nothing more.

  I opened my eyes, confused.

  The Ganut was on top of me, growling, shaking its head violently from side to side, trying to do what its instinct dictated: bite, sink, tear, and rip out a chunk of flesh.

  But it couldn't.

  Its teeth slipped over my skin. The sound was horrific, like a nail scratching a chalkboard or metal screeching against bulletproof gss.

  <[STRUCTURAL INTEGRITY: 100%.]>

  <[EXTERNAL DAMAGE: NULL.]>

  <[ENEMY STATUS: JAW COMPROMISED.]>

  The system spoke again, and this time, its words weren't a suggestion; they were a tactical order.

  <[COUNTERATTACK OPPORTUNITY: NOW. TARGET: SKULL.]>

  The paralysis of fear evaporated, repced by a surge of disbelief and power. It hadn't cut me. It hadn't even scratched me.

  My left arm moved, free and fast. I twisted my torso, ignoring the weight of the beast hanging uselessly from my shoulder. My hand closed into an alloy fist.

  "Get off me!" I yelled.

  I unched the blow backward and upward, a blind hook guided by proximity sensors.

  My fist connected with the side of the Ganut's head. I felt the bone give way beneath my knuckles. The creature let out a muffled howl, and its jaws opened involuntarily, releasing my shoulder.

  It fell to the ground, dazed, shaking its head, spitting white fragments and blood. It had shattered its teeth against my skin.

  I didn't give it time to recover.

  I turned fully, my right boot rising and coming down with the force of a hydraulic press on its deformed skull. Once. Twice.

  By the third stomp, all movement ceased. The fourth Ganut, the st of the pack, y dead beside its brothers.

  Silence returned to the underground parking lot, deeper than before.

  I stood there, breathing the stale air I didn't need, looking at the four corpses. My human mind was reeling, trying to process what had just happened. I had been bitten. A monster designed to kill had bitten me with all its strength in the neck. And I was still standing.

  Slowly, with a trembling hand, I touched my right shoulder.

  The blue shirt was destroyed. The fabric hung in rags, soaked in the beast's saliva and some blood from its broken gums. I pushed aside the shreds of cloth to inspect the "wound."

  I approached one of the abandoned cars and used the side-view mirror, which was miraculously intact, to see myself.

  There was no wound.

  My white skin, smooth and luminescent, was pristine. No teeth marks. No bruising. Not even a superficial scratch. The bite of a Ganut, capable of shattering human bones, hadn't even managed to dent the surface of my body.

  "My God," I whispered, running my fingers over the area. It felt soft, like cold silk, but I knew that beneath that softness was a hardness that defied biological logic.

  I looked at the dead Ganut at my feet. Its mouth was open in a death grimace. I saw its broken, splintered fangs.

  A scientific curiosity, cold and detached, took hold of me. I needed to understand the limits of this. I needed to know what I really was.

  I knelt beside the corpse and, with a sharp tug, ripped one of the intact fangs from the beast's lower jaw. It was a piece of bone and enamel about ten centimeters long, sharp as a razor and curved.

  I held the fang like an improvised dagger.

  I looked at my left hand. The palm open, the white skin glowing in the dimness.

  "Let's see," I murmured.

  With considerable force, I ran the sharp tip of the fang across the palm of my hand. I expected to see a line, a white scratch, something.

  The fang slipped without leaving a trace.

  I pressed harder. Much harder. I applied enough pressure to pierce a wooden board.

  The tip of the fang snapped with a dry crack.

  I looked at my palm. Perfect. Intact.

  My internal system didn't even register the attempt as damage.

  Then, I looked at the nearest reinforced concrete column. I approached it with the rest of the fang in my hand.

  "Test two," I said.

  I lunged with the fang against the concrete.

  The fang sank into the gray stone as if it were warm butter. There was no resistance. The strength of my arm, combined with the hardness of the Ganut's bone (which was evidently harder than cement, but softer than me), allowed it to penetrate deeply.

  I pulled it out. It left a clean, deep hole.

  I dropped the fang and let it fall to the floor.

  The conclusion was inescapable and transformative. I wasn't just strong. I wasn't just fast. I was, for all practical purposes in this environment, indestructible against conventional threats. The lead bullets from the old man in the shelter would have likely bounced off or fttened against me like wet paper balls. The fear I felt seeing the shotgun, the panic seeing the Ganut bite... it had all been a residue of my human fragility, a ghost of Orion that still didn't understand the rules had changed.

  "I'm a tank," I said, a strange smile forming on my perfect lips. "I'm a damn tank with porcein skin."

  That revetion changed everything. The fear that had been my constant companion since I woke up retreated, hiding in the deepest corners of my mind. The outside world was still dangerous, yes. The ships in the sky, the invaders who created the Ganuts... they would have weapons that could hurt me. But the daily dangers of this apocalypse—the beasts, the hostile survivors, the debris—were no longer a mortal threat. They were nuisances.

  I looked at my clothes. The blue shirt was ruined, exposing my shoulder and part of my chest in a way I no longer cared about for modesty's sake, but rather for the need to maintain a low profile. Walking around looking like a bright white combat robot wasn't the best way to go unnoticed, even if I was invulnerable.

  I turned toward the ramp leading up to the supermarket. My tactical X-ray vision—or whatever my system used—indicated that the structure above was stable.

  "Supplies," I decided. "And new clothes. Clothes that won't break every time I move."

  I walked up the ramp, leaving the Ganut cemetery in the garage behind. My steps were heavier now, more confident. I was no longer walking like prey in flight. I was walking like an alpha predator that had just discovered its pce in the food chain.

  I reached the surface level and entered the supermarket through the automatic sliding doors that had been forced and left open.

  The interior was vast and plunged in shadow. The aisles stretched out like silent canyons. The smell of rotting food was intense here: meat thawed weeks ago, vegetables liquefied on their shelves, sour dairy. My olfactory system registered it and immediately filtered it as "NOT RELEVANT/LOW TOXICITY."

  My eyes adjusted, illuminating the pce.

  It had been looted, of course. The front shelves—those containing chips, alcohol, and candy—were empty or overturned. But human looters usually have haste and little imagination.

  I walked toward the clothing section first. It was a small, generic section, but sufficient. I found a section of work and outdoor wear that seemed to have been ignored in favor of more recognizable brands.

  I grabbed a thick canvas jacket, olive green, with an inner lining. It was tough, ugly, and perfect. I also found some bck tactical pants from a cheap private security brand sold there. I tried them on. They fit me better than the ones from the b. I put the jacket over my shredded shirt and zipped it up to the colr.

  I looked at myself in a convex security mirror in a corner.

  Era stared back. She no longer looked like a lost rookie cop. With the green jacket, bck pants, heavy boots, and silver hair falling over her shoulders, she looked like something out of a post-apocalyptic movie. She looked dangerous.

  "Better," I said.

  Now, supplies.

  I didn't need food. My system had confirmed it: <[POWER SOURCE: BIOTIC FUSION. ESTIMATED AUTONOMY: 120 YEARS WITHOUT EXTERNAL RECHARGE.]>

  I didn't need water.

  But I needed tools.

  I headed to the hardware and home section. I grabbed a durable hiking backpack, about 50 liters. I started filling it.

  Nylon rope. Industrial duct tape. A set of screwdrivers. A small crowbar (though my hands were better, the crowbar gave me reach). Fshlights (so I wouldn't always have to use my energy or for signaling). Batteries. A fixed-bde hunting knife that, while not as hard as my skin, was useful for cutting things without dulling my fingers.

  As I walked through the aisles, my mind returned to the computer at the police station. To the ships. To the Harvest.

  I had an indestructible body. I had infinite time. And I had a question that burned brighter than any sun: Why me? And where was everyone?

  I reached the electronics section, almost empty. But on a lower shelf, hidden behind some fallen printer boxes, I saw something that made my eyes narrow.

  A radio. A shortwave radio, the kind used by enthusiasts and preppers. It was in its box, dusty but intact.

  I pulled it out.

  <[LONG-RANGE COMMUNICATION DEVICE DETECTED.]>

  <[INTERFACE CAPABILITY: COMPATIBLE.]>

  If there was anyone else out there—like the person who recorded the video, or the man from the shelter, or resistance groups—they would be using radio waves. The internet was dead. The satellites were likely controlled or destroyed. But radio... radio was old, analog, and hard to kill.

  I stowed the radio in my backpack.

  "If there's anyone alive worth finding," I thought, "this will help me hear them."

  I slung the backpack over my shoulder. It weighed about fifteen kilos, but to me, it was like carrying a feather.

  I walked toward the supermarket exit, ready to return to the night. I was no longer seeking shelter. Shelter was for the weak, for those who needed to hide from the cold and the Ganut's teeth.

  I didn't need to hide.

  I stepped out into the street. The wind blew, ruffling my new jacket. I looked at the horizon, toward the city center, where the shadows were densest and the ruins highest.

  "Come for me," I whispered into the void, defying everything hiding in the darkness. "Come and break your teeth."