As she drifted through the alien city, Ah-hotep felt herself moving through the liminal zone of the matrix. The soul-deadening throb of the resonator and Simut’s necrolith-infused warriors lay like a shroud on the buildings, a dead calm that felt like cooling ice on the plas­mancer’s inorganic senses. It was a sensation of complete and utter stillness, devoid of the slightest turbulent thought or emotion. The stasis faded as she and her bodyguard of Szarekh dynasty warriors advanced on the last zone of resistance. Around them, the conurbation’s inhabitants wandered listlessly, sometimes frowning in dismay at the metallic skeletons and wraith-like plasmancer, but such was the extent of their reaction. Most barely registered the necrons at all. They slumped at the roadside or stood staring up at the black needle of the resonator high above, gaze drawn to the pylon that dominated their thoughts and suppressed their souls.

Sometimes the necron warriors had to thrust aside wandering humans, who would stagger away and either sit down or somehow totter a few steps before retaining their balance, coming to an unconscious equilibrium once more. Others would briefly flinch at the skull-faced phalanx, shuffling out of their path in a half-daze. Their mouths fell agape as they watched the column of animated soldiers marching past, strides in perfect unison, the clash of their tread rebounding from glass-faced spires and walls decorated with large ceramic tiles, the light of gauss energy dancing emerald gleams from every reflective surface.

It seemed like an age since Ah-hotep had given her physical environs anything more than a cursory acceptance. She took a moment to study the painted tiles, wondering who the people displayed on the glossy murals were, their hands held up to a bird figure at the summit of the wall. It seemed so inconsequential. In time, nothing would remain of the city except its constituent particles, engulfed by the great void and scattered on the stellar winds. Matter was impermanent; only energy endured.

The thought was prompted by a nagging emptiness in the heart of her floating construct-body. Sustained by incorporeal power, Ah-hotep first and foremost saw the universe as interconnected energies. She could sense the electrical power still coursing along cables beneath the street, and the waves of electromagnetism pulsing around the planet. Each human was a flicker of bioelectrical activity; the heat of slow breath-puffs of lambent radiation.

She turned her attention to one of the aliens, a short male that lingered by the corner of an alley, one shoulder against the wall, a hand half-lifted as though to point at the apparitions marching past. She could see its make-up down to the cellular level, the tiny bonds that kept it held together, so easily parted by the gauss effect of necron weapons. They formed blood vessels that became pulsing rivers of heat and vitality, feeding the organs and the powerful muscles.