It was raining on Magen two weeks later, too, and the rain beating down on the starscrapers of Magen’s corporations and the mere skyscrapers of its stockholders flowed in rivulets and gushing streams down their sides, along the skybridges, and cascaded in waterfalls off edges and balconies, these waterfalls torn to spray in the wind to fall again as rain far below.  The shredded falls, in their turn, beat on the roof and windows of the housing block far below where Terek 318-1224 slept in the sound sleep of a Magen clone, undisturbed by the cacophony of the falling water.

Hour by hour, the bionanomachines within him went about their work. Within minutes of the ice sliver having melted in his neck, the released bionanites had found their way to their targets, colonizing roughly every tenth follicle on Terek’s head. And now, while the hairs fibers grew and slid imperceptibly slowly outwards, they went to work, plating a thin strand of conductive carbon film helically around each fiber.

A small, microscopic change, using nothing but natural elements of the body in barely detectable quantities; it was nothing that would alter the outward color or texture of his hair, but more than enough to fulfill its purpose…