Not Linton but he had something to do with this. He often does.

The story was that the fennec depicted was a top flight specialist in technology and in particular had a gift with mechanical animals. This was important as this was a Britain taht was in the middle of a crisis, one where nuclear annihilation had resulted in deserts and made the islands nearly uninhabitable. He was part of team, part of whom were terraforming, the other part were looking at ways to bring wildlife back. Short term, the solution was mechanical or nanotechnology.

He was borederline obessive about his creations succeeding. One of them was the first successful horse EQUUS-001. He'd named the horse Zero. Mysteriously he found himself unconscious in a forest with EQUUS-001. At this point his life takes a very different direction as he flees from the forest and onto open savannah then desert towards Londinium. Along the way he meets a strange eccentric who notices the bond between fennec and technology, pointing out 'You know, in a certain light, you look very much alike.'

The fennec's been strained by this point. Little food, conservin water as much as he can, coupled with feelings of envy towards his creation. As much as he loves Zero and takes care of every little detail in case the horse malfunctions, an unspoken craving to be as well crafted as his beast was starting to creep over him. He ahd no idea but the eccentric was an avatar of Linton in a different shape and as he noticed the feelings creep over the fennec, he worked a little probability, a touch of Chaos and his master's bidding to give the fox his wish. The eccentric was killed not long after but strangely no body was found after.

As travel went on, he noticed changes. No longer as hungry, thirst was lower, he could rest for less without thinking. His mind suddenly felt sharper like he could compute twice as fast as before. I unnerved him and yet Zero looked fuller of life than ever before. Eventually the transformation began.

With my transformation, my preference was always body first, slow and gradual, to then completely consume the mind. My victims as it were see and feel everything then finally the mind is swallowed up and it's literally a changed person. Seeing the change is the one thing taht can either cause great elation or panic. And thee's nothing they can do to stop it.

He can't stop it and he changes from a live real fennec to ne who look real but is in fact a perfect recreation of a fennec inside with far greater computational speed, strength and endurance than he had bfore. It's then that he realises his transformation was a trade off: he traded technological advances in Zero to give Zero full life as a real horse.

The story was not completed. Started but never completed. The end was mapped though. He changed then realised what had happened. Then the story ends as a flight of primitive steam powered vultures flies overhead. (The were remnants of an earlier time and few, if any steam powered creatures exist. Their lives are considerably more finite yet somehow these ones outlasted many more advanced creations.) The point of it was a bit like the arc Captain Ahab has wth the obsession of the white whale. Except that the fennec had very high key horny energy for his creation, something I've also been fascinated with. Linton just gave unsaid dreams an outlet.

You may see taht I reference Linton but he's not actually there. That's because its exactly how he works. You never know he's made your life different/miserable/whatever until you see he's gone. By that point, he's done what he needed to.

The title is another Porcupine Tree song. This one I absolutely love and was the genesis of this story.