The Harvester was behind them.
Not close—far enough back in the corridor that it was visible as presence rather than immediate threat, the stolen faces arranged in their permanent expression. It did not rush. It moved at the pace of something that knew the geometry of the situation and understood that the geometry was working in its favor. It had always been working in its favor.
They ran faster.
The formation had degraded from what it had been when they'd left the side corridor—the clean seven-person structure that Tank had established had been revised by ten minutes of running and the Harvester's herding and the reality of seven people with varying injuries running at the pace that the slowest injured person could sustain.
