The convoy moved along the He-Chao-Wu Expressway. Great Vajra led, occupying two full lanes, the V-blade lowered to the road surface, clearing everything in its path for the twelve vehicles following behind.

The twelve vehicles behind it were not built for speed. Each one trailed a string of wooden cargo trailers, forming a long caterpillar of a convoy. The sight carried a faint echo of how the world used to move — something almost prosperous about it, in a ruined kind of way.

Shen Cong drove with one eye on the rear camera feeds, studying the Motor Battalion's vehicles: their weapons loadouts, their drive systems. Iron people's bonded vehicles were perhaps the strangest evolutionary phenomenon he'd encountered — he didn't understand what caused the bond, and neither did the Research Institute.

The vehicles represented in the garrison's iron person roster skewed heavily toward automobiles of various kinds. Beyond that: one motorcycle, bonded to "Plastic Rabbit" — currently the only known iron beast rather than iron person. One transformer substation unit, its iron person a former substation maintenance worker named Bian Fukang, now responsible for the camp's electrical output. One reverse circulation drilling rig, bonded to Xiong Yuliang, a former rural contract driller.

There had also been an iron person bonded to a rice-milling machine — the one who'd died in a siphon event. Bad luck from the beginning.

Looking for common threads, the Research Institute had found two consistent factors: iron people had been unconscious while physically present with their bonded vehicles, and they'd had frequent, habitual contact with those vehicles beforehand. Xiong Yuliang had used his drilling rig daily for work. Bian Fukang had routinely maintained his substation. The drivers were all experienced operators.

Shen Cong was no exception. He'd built Vajra himself over six years, spending more time inside it than anywhere else. When the bond formed, he'd been unconscious in the cab.

A possible research direction. But without more sophisticated tools, the Research Institute could only document the surface pattern without reaching the underlying mechanism.

The in-car speakers played music.

He stopped thinking about iron people —…