In the stands Jelo was running the arithmetic the way he ran arithmetic for every fight—not consciously, the calculation happening in the same layer where the principles were stored.
Drex is spending more per exchange than Cullen is, he thought. A burst costs more compression than a repair costs generation. But Cullen is closer to contact range. If contact happens before either resource runs out—the ice starts and the cost calculation changes completely.
Atlas said: "It's a race."
"It's always a race," Mira said.
Cullen was eight feet away.
He had been closing distance through the burst rhythm—slowly, each step costing something, the approach a sustained expenditure that had been running since the fight began. Eight feet was inside the range where Drex's burst accuracy was most precise but also inside the range where Cullen's reach with the ice-coated forearms became relevant rather than theoretical.
