Last Guard by Nalini Singh

The Architect

I am God. Death is meaningless.

—Suicide note left by participant in Operation Scarab (circa 2003)

THE ARCHITECT STAREDat the back of her hand, at the fine blue veins that made her heart pump, her brain work. How was it possible that someone like her, someone of the ascendent race, was still bound by flesh?

Picking up a letter opener with a razor-sharp edge, she cut a line on her skin. Blood blossomed wet and a bright, bright red. She tilted her head, watched the line of it form, bubble, then slowly drip down the side of her hand when she angled that mortal thing of bone and skin and distasteful organics.

She was beyond this, her body nothing but a weight holding her down.

There had to be a better way to exist, to grow, to become all that she was meant to be.