Day five. His left arm is at seventy percent. His right arm at forty. His chest feels like breathing through resistance.
He sits down in the middle of a Septur street and does not get up.
The figure stops. Turns. Looks at him.
Max ignores it. He looks at the ground between his feet and thinks.
'Running has not worked. Four days of sustained effort toward the obvious solution — close the distance, establish contact, resolve — and the obvious solution has not worked once. The first principle of any failed approach: if the method has not worked after sufficient repetition, the method is wrong. The solution is not more running. The solution is a different analysis of the problem.'
He starts from the beginning.
Not from the chase. From before the chase. From the door.
