Hosts

Wait. Kate had said the guy carried a Bell Atlantic ID. Bell Atlantic didn't exist anymore.

He motioned Kate closer and cupped his hands around her right ear.

"Ignore anything I say out loud from now on," he whispered. "Got it?"

She gave him a puzzled look but nodded.

"Only five minutes?" he said aloud. "I guess he couldn't have stolen anything significant in that time. Nothing missing, right?"

He motioned for Kate to chime in.

"Missing? No. Everything's here."

The best thing would be to go home and retrieve his bug detector for a 5-to-1,000 MHz sweep of the room. And he might yet have to do that. But for now a simple visual check would have to suffice. All he needed to vindicate his paranoia was to find a single bug. After that it was like being a little pregnant—didn't matter how many more there were, he'd know they were under surveillance.

Which could work to his advantage by allowing him to spread some customized disinformation to the listeners.

He turned on the radio—loud—and started with the kitchen wall-phone. A seemingly obvious place, but only to someone looking for a bug. He disassembled it but found nothing. A search of all the lighting fixtures and the undersides of the counters and cabinets yielded nothing either.

Time for another perspective: he lay on the floor and slithered around like a snake, looking for anything that didn't belong. His joints felt a little stiff, his muscles sore. He wondered why. Hadn't done any-thing strenuous lately. And it felt kind of good to lie down. If he had a choice between a nap and hunting for bugs right now, he knew which one he'd take. But he had to keep looking.

He glanced at Kate who was staring at him as if he were crazy as he wriggled out of the kitchen into the dining area, checking out the underside of the chairs, the table—

"Holy shit!"

Jack's saliva drained away as he stared at the bomb duct-taped to the underside of the table. And no question it was a bomb—fine wires running from a tiny travel alarm clock to the ends of a block of either Semtex or C-4.

"What is it, Jack?" Kate said.

Looked for the readout on the alarm clock but it was dark. Had the battery died? Couldn't risk it. Might already be too late. Had to get Kate out of here as fast as—

Wait. Nothing sophisticated here. In fact a pretty basic piece of work. Could see the ends of the blasting caps jutting from the plastique. All he had to do…

"Jack, what did you find?"

Jack dried his hands on his pants and reached up to the bomb. His fingers trembled as he gently tugged the caps from the plastique—the one in the left end came loose first, then the right. As they fell free, dangling from the clock, Jack ripped the plastique from the underside of the table and rolled away.

Panting, sweating, he lay on his back with closed eyes, pulling himself together.

"What is that?" Kate said.

Jack sat up and looked at the block. As soon as he saw the olive drab wrapper he knew it was C-4.

"Enough plastique explosive to make a real mess of this building."

One of Kate's hands flew to her mouth while the other fluttered behind her, searching for a chair. It found one and she dropped into it.

"No!" Her blue eyes were wide in her ashen face. "You can't… you must be mistaken!"

"I wish I were."

"But that looks like modeling clay."

Jack lay the C-4 on the floor and reached back under the table. He found the little clock, ripped it free of its securing tape, and held it up.

"And here's the timing device."

He placed the clock on the kitchen counter, found a carving knife, and chop-severed the wires to its two dangling detonators, scarring the Formica in the process. Had to be done. Blasting caps can do some mean damage on their own.

Kate had risen from the chair. She eyed the timer like she might a snake. She opened her mouth to speak but no words came out.

"I know," Jack said. "Who and why, right?"

She could only nod.

"Let's think about that," he said.

Possibilities were buzzing through Jack's head like a swarm of killer bees. He retrieved the brick of C-4. Holding that in one hand and the timer in the other, he did his thinking out loud.

"Here's the situation: We've got two people living in this apartment at the moment, one of them acting real strange. The other resident and her brother hear the strange one say some weird things, things they maybe weren't supposed to hear. The strange one's cult leader arrives out of nowhere and removes her from the premises. A couple of hours later someone calling himself a phone repairman shows up, maneuvers himself into being alone in this room, then leaves. Immediately after that we find a bomb. Let's guess who the target might be."

Kate slumped back into the chair, shaking her head. "No. I can't believe it. Jeanette would never—"

"She's not really Jeanette anymore, is she. But for your sake let's give her the benefit of the doubt and say that she may not have known. But that doesn't change the fact that someone wants you, and perhaps me as well, out of the way. Permanently."

Someone wanted to kill his sister. Even the hint of such a thing should have sent him into a wall-punching rage. But the brick of army-issue C-4 in his hand cooled him, chilled him. Reminded him of a pair of brothers he'd been hired to deal with a few years ago. What were their names…?

Kozlowski. Right. Stan and Joe Kozlowski. They'd put the arm on somebody who hired Jack to take the arm off. And he had. Found the K brothers' stash and torched it.

The stash had been chock full of C-4 bricks exactly like this one. Lots of domestic bombers made their own; not hard to do if you don't mind working with red nitric acid. The international set tended to favor

Semtex, usually of Czech origin. But the K brothers had built their rep with ultra-reliable U.S. military-grade C-4. Word was that Joe K had hijacked a truckload in the nineties, enough to stock them up for decades. Jack was sure that other bombers had sources for army C-4, but still… this olive-drab wrapped brick bothered him.

Could I be the target?

Didn't seem possible. This wasn't his place. And the Kozlowskis had vanished. With just about every law enforcement agency in the US looking for them, they'd gone to ground and no one had seen or heard from them in years. Everything else pointed to Holdstock and his cult, but Jack couldn't bring himself to get on that train just yet.

"What do we do?" Kate said.

Good question. He looked at the little travel clock. The LED display had been disabled. Why? Only reason he could think of was so the glow from the numerals wouldn't give away the bomb's location.

Which could mean the bomb had been timed to go off later, after all the lights were out. Later… when odds were highest that the occupants would be home and in bed.

But what time had it been set for? The answer might be important.

Jack stepped to the window and looked down at the street. Watched the cars and the pedestrians cruising through the fading light. Someone down there might be the bomber; then again, the bomber might be miles away. But Jack would bet that, come the moment of the blast, the bomber—or the one who'd hired him—would be nearby, watching, waiting. Because this amount of C-4 was gross overkill. Irrational. Something more than simple murder going down here. Jack could all but feel the raw emotion radiating from the brick of plastique in his hand.

He turned to Kate. "Will you be all right if I leave for a little while?"

"Do you have to go?" He could tell from her eyes that she didn't want to be alone here.

"I think so. It could be important."

"Okay. Just don't be long."

"I won't." He'd disappeared on her once; he wouldn't again. "By the way, you haven't noticed anything around the apartment about escape routes during a fire have you?"

He needed to find a way to leave unseen.

18

"Nu? You're thinking maybe the Kozlowskis?"

The innards of the travel alarm clock lay spread out between them on Abe's work bench. The Isher Sports Shop was officially closed but a call to Abe had brought him back. Since disassembling a bomb timer was not something either of them wanted a curious passerby to witness through the store window, Abe had suggested they move to the basement.

"That's just it," Jack told him. "I don't think it. It's against all logic. But my gut keeps saying otherwise."

"So listen. A man shouldn't ignore his guderim."

They sat in a cone of light, surrounded by Abe's true stock in trade—things that fired projectiles or had points and sharp edges or delivered blunt trauma. Unlike the chaotic arrangement on the upper floor, these items were carefully shelved and neatly racked.

Jack watched as Abe's stubby but nimble fingers resoldered the tiny wires from the display to the circuit board. Jack was no good with electronics. He could use the equipment, but the innards baffled him.

"There!" Abe said as the display lit with the time.

"Neat," Jack said. "Now check the alarm."

Abe pressed a button and 3:00 appeared.

"Three A.M.," Jack said with a sick coil in his stomach. If he hadn't found this today, tomorrow he'd have awakened without a sister. "The son of a bitch."

"You have a next step in mind?"

"Not yet."

Abe stared at him. "You don't look so good. You feeling all right?'

Did it show? He felt tired and achy. Irritable too.

"I'm okay. Nothing that can't be cured by a good night's rest and finding the guy who made this."

"Well, while you're figuring how to do that, I should tell you that I ordered your new back-up pistol. Should be here in a few days."

"I don't know, Abe. I'm having second thoughts about giving up the Semmerling."

"Listen, schmuck, a .45 that small stands out too much for a guy who shouldn't be noticed. Like a signature, that pistol."

"Wait," Jack said as a thought detonated in his skull.

"What?"

"Just stop talking a minute." Realizing he'd snapped, he added, "Please."

Like a signature… like all his jobs, Jack had tried to work his fix on the Kozlowskis from the sidelines, looking to move in, cripple them by blowing their stash, and then take off without ever making direct contact. But it hadn't worked that way. They'd shown up at their farm when they were supposed to be in the city and he'd had to shoot his way out. He'd used his Glock mostly, but he'd needed the Semmerling at one point. The Kozlowskis had seen the Semmerling, and seen his face…

And if they read the papers… and saw mention of a tiny .45… and decided to follow the reporter who claimed he'd been in touch with its owner…

"Damn him!" Jack pounded the workbench with his fist.

"Who? What?"

"Sandy Palmer! He damn near got Kate killed! I ought to wring his scrawny neck!"

He explained to Abe.

"Possible," Abe said, nodding. "Very possible."

"What am I going to do about him?"

"The reporter? I think maybe you should worry about the Brothers K first, don't you?"

"Them I can handle—especially now that I know who I'm dealing with. But Palmer… I think he sees me as some sort of cryptofascist comic book character. He was quizzing me about Nietzsche today—can you beat that?"

"Nietzsche? Have you ever read Nietzsche?"

"No."

"Don't try. Also Sprach Zarathustra? Unreadable."

"I'll take your word." He pounded the bench top again. "What a nightmare. Palmer's like a junkie—he'll keep biting my ankles until I lose it and strangle him or he slips up and exposes me. He thinks he's got this idea that I can make his career. Thinks he wants to be a great journalist, but what he really wants is to be a famous journalist."

Abe shrugged. "A product of the Zeitgeist. But listen: sounds to me like he admires you. If he sees you as some sort of comic book hero, then maybe you should play to that. Comic book heroes have boy sidekicks, don't they?"

"You mean, if I'm Batman, let him think he's Robin?"

"More like that boy reporter who was always tagging along after Superman." Abe snapped his fingers. "What was his name? Timmy…"

"Jimmy Olsen."

"Yeah. Get Jimmy Olsen's focus off you and onto something else."

"Like what?"

Abe shrugged. "I should know? You're Repairman Jack. Me, I'm just a lowly merchant."

"Yeah, right."

At least it was an approach, a possible way out of this mess. But Jack didn't have the faintest idea how to make it work. Yet. This would take thought. In the meantime, he had to deal with the Kozlowskis.

"Okay, lowly merchant. Show me your wares. I've got a feeling I'm going to need some specialized equipment to help me through the night…"

SATURDAY

1

"It's quarter to three, Jack. Aren't you ever going to sleep?"

Exhausted, Kate leaned in the doorway of the bedroom. Jack was a silhouette against the window overlooking the street.

"Not tonight, I'm afraid."

He turned toward her and she jumped when she saw two glowing green spots where his eyes should have been. Then she remembered the strange headgear he'd donned before turning out the lights and mumbling something about night vision.

He'd brought it back from his trip, coming and going via the roof somehow. He'd been gone almost two hours—the longest two hours of her life. When he'd returned he'd said almost nothing, and seemed even grimmer than when he'd left. He didn't look good. Pale, a glassy cast to his usually clear eyes. She chalked it up to stress. More than enough of that going around. She wondered how she looked to Jack. Probably worse.

At least the bomb was gone. He'd said he'd left it back at his place.

"Can I make you more coffee?"

He lifted his mug. "I'm set, thanks. Why don't you go lie down, close your eyes, and try for some sleep."

"Someone tried to bomb us! Someone wants us dead! How can I sleep?"

"I've got the watch. Nothing's going to happen while I'm here, I promise you. You're tired; sleep will come if you let it. Trust me."

She did trust him—more than anyone. And she was desperately tired. She needed sleep but even more she needed the escape it offered from the gnawing anxiety that had seeped into her.

She stepped back into the bedroom and crawled under the covers; she lay flat on her back, folded her hands between her breasts, and closed her eyes.

I'll pretend I'm dead, she thought. Why not? That's what someone wants.

Lord, what a thought. What had happened to her life? Facing the fact that she wasn't the all-American soccer mom she'd always thought herself to be had been tough, but she'd finally come to accept being bent in a straight world. She'd thought her life was turning topsy-turvy then, but that was nothing compared to this past week.

And poor Jeanette… where was she now? What was she doing?

Are you thinking of me, Jeanette? she asked the dark. I think of you constantly. Does a single thought of me ever cross your mind? Or are you so taken with this cult that nothing else matters?

And Kevin and Elizabeth… she'd been away from them too long… had to get back to them… she's…

… floating…

No. Not floating. Flying. She has multiple transparent wings jutting from her shoulder blades, vibrating in a buzzing blur, propelling her through a hive-like structure, a glowing golden maze of myriad stacked hexagonal tubes that stretches away in all directions, reaching into infinity.

And in the air about her, a hum, myriad voices joined in singing a single note.

As she flies on she sees that the tubes are not empty. People within them, faces staring out at her, strangers, but calling her name.

Kate… Kate… Kate…

Who are these people? There seem to be millions of them, but with only half a dozen different faces. She's never—

And then Kate recognizes Jeanette reaching for her from one of the tubes, smiling, calling her name. Kate turns toward her, but as she nears, Holdstock lunges from an adjacent tube, clawing for her. Kate veers away and comes face to face with another Jeanette… and another… thousands of Jeanettes calling her name, the sound so loud, deafening.

Kate… Kate… Kate…

She flees, soaring through the hive at blinding speed, zigging and

zagging, dodging this way and that until she sees an opening in the wall. She flashes through into the outer darkness. It's cold and lonely-out here, especially after the warmth and light of the hive, but darkness or no, she knows she must keep going, must flee those voices that never tire of calling her name.

Kate… Kate… Kate…

The voices slow her, pull her back, prevent her from reaching escape velocity. Finally her outward momentum ceases. For a single heartbeat she pauses, suspended between the hive and open space. Then she begins falling backward. She turns and sees the hive from away and above. It's blue and brown and cloud swirled…

It's Earth…

2

"Fuck!" Joe shouted. He pushed back in the passenger seat and began kicking the dashboard. "Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!"

"Easy, Joe."

Stan checked his watch again: 3:14 and no explosion.

"He must have found it!"

"Think about that, Joe. You think he'd still be up there if he found a whole block of C-4 in his apartment? No way. He'd be heading for the hills."

"So you're sayin' I fucked up, is that it?"

Stan heard the menace in his brother's tone. Had to tread carefully. Lots of pride at stake here. Better simply to lob the question back.

"Joe, no rig you've ever made has ever misfired, right?"

"Right."

"But something did go wrong tonight. What? What's different about tonight?"

"Nothin'! I made the simplest damn fucking rig ever! I always keep in my head what you told me when we first started out: Keep it simple—the more bells and whistles, the more chances for a malfunction. So I had no bells and whistles. And I used two detonators instead of one, just for insurance."

"You said you disabled the display. Could that—?"

"Naw, I triple checked it, reconnecting and disconnecting. The clock advanced each time. The alarm stayed set for three. The rig was sweet. He found it. I tell you, Stan, the fucker found it."

Stan didn't want to mention Joe's scarred-up hand and how he was pretty sure that was why his rig had failed. Hard to solder fine wires when one of your hands looks like melted wax.

"So let's go back to my question: what's different about tonight?"

"I told you: Nothin'!"

"But there is: how you're burning up. Every time we've done a job it's been business, pure and simple. Never emotionally involved. Never knew the people on the receiving end. But tonight's not like that. We want this guy. And when you get emotions involved, things go wrong."

"That wasn't it, Stan. I—"

"How big a hard-on you got for this guy, Joe? Think about it."

Joe sat silent, staring out the windshield. Finally he shook his head.

"Shit." His voice was laden with disgust. "I fucked it up."

"It's all right," Stan told him. "The night's not over yet." He started the car. "You get out and wait here. Watch the place while I go cook up something."

My turn now, he thought. And this time no mistakes.

3

Jack sat huddled under a blanket, fighting to keep his eyes open. Four-thirty-five and he felt miserable. Must have picked up a flu of some sort. Great time to get sick.

First he'd been wracked by chills, and just when he'd reached the point where he feared he'd never be warm again, he'd broken out in a drenching sweat, so profuse he'd had to snag a towel from the bathroom to dry off.

The aftermath was weakness and lethargy. Too weak to keep standing at the window, so he'd pulled up a chair. Down the street, to the left, his Viper-1 night goggles had spotted a Taurus pulling away at 3:20 or so, leaving a man standing in the deep shadows of the sidewalk. But even at maximum magnification he remained a featureless blur.

A Kozlowski blur, Jack was sure.

This was why he'd remained on watch: for a moment like this, to confront the bomb setter face to face.

Problem was he was in no shape to confront anyone. An arthritic old lady in a wheelchair would be a challenge right now. The Kozlowskis would mop up the street with him.

All he could do was watch and wonder. He knew the man in the shadows was watching the apartment house door; but where had the car gone? What was the driver up to?

And then the Taurus was back.

Jack stiffened. When had that happened? He flipped up the night goggles and checked his watch: 4:50. Must have dozed off. Damn!

There, almost directly below, a man crossing the street, moving away. Getting into the driver side of the Taurus.

Jack's heart began hammering. Where'd he come from? Had he been in the building? Set another bomb, a bigger one, in the lobby maybe?

He watched the Taurus. It stayed put. Good sign. A bomb in the lobby big enough to kill the people in a third-floor apartment would take out half the block. But their car was parked in the blast zone.

That meant a smaller bomb, if any. But where?

He'd have to go down and check.

That was when the second bout of chills slammed him…

4

"What if the fucker sleeps till noon?" Joe said from the back seat where he'd stretched out.

Stan yawned. He still sat in the driver seat, eyes on the mirrors, mirrors on the Crown Vic.

"Then we get him at noon."

Long night. When was the last time they'd stayed out till sunup? The sky was brightening but the streets remained quiet. The city started moving a little later on Saturday mornings.

"Yeah, well, whenever it is, let's hope we have better luck with your rig than mine."

"We will, Joe. Because I stayed cool while I was making it. And I kept it simple."

Stan liked to call it the Kozlowski Kar Krusher. A quarter brick of C-4 sandwiched between a remote electronic detonator and an aluminum-insulated refrigerator magnet. He wasn't the first to rig one, he was sure, but he'd perfected it to the level of art.

Too bad it wasn't legal to sell them. He'd often imagined an infom-ercial for the Kozlowski Kar Krusher…

Got an annoying neighbor? An in-law who's making you crazy? A

boss who's on your ass all day? A wife who's taking you to the cleaners in divorce court? Sure you do!

And you probably thought you just had to put up with it, just had to grin and bear it, right?

Well, think again!

The Kozlowski Kar Krusher changes all that! It's so easy! And safe too! Reduce your problems to rubble in just three easy steps! Here's all you do:

First, identify the car of the one who's darkening your days.

Second, walk by the target car and stop to tie your shoe. While you're kneeling, simply slip the rig under the car and let the magnet attach itself to the frame. No need to get in the car or under the hood, no dicking around with ignition wires. Simply place the Kozlowski Kar Krusher under the driver side, the passenger side, the rear compartment, the gas tank: the choice is YOURS!

Third, just straighten up and walk on.

And that's IT! Blow the bastard or the bitch to hell whenever you want! What could be easier, or more fun?

But that's not all!

If you're dealing with a suspicious type who has a remote start on his car, or a cowardly type who sends someone else out to start it while he's safe in the house, no problem! The Kozlowski Kar Krusher has got you covered! YOU are in control. Just wait till the human blot on your existence is in the car, then press the red button on the Kozlowski Kar Krusher Remote Detonator (batteries not included) and BOOM! Bye-bye bitch! Bye-bye bastard!

But wait! There's more!

Why blow up the car in front of the target's house? Why be so ordinary? The Kozlowski Kar Krusher allows you artistic expression, lets you choose the venue of your enemy's demise! How does mid-span on the Brooklyn Bridge sound? Or right in front of City Hall? Or better yet, in your ex-girlfriend's driveway! With the Kozlowski Kar Krusher you don't simply eliminate the problem—you make a statement!

The Kozlowski Kar Krusher! Regularly $119.99, but now, for a limited time only, get two for $200!

Wouldn't that be something, Stan thought. Wouldn't that be a pisser.

He shook himself out of his reverie and checked the Crown Vic again in the mirror. He'd attached the rig under the driver side. When it went, the C-4 would shred the car and leave nothing recognizable of whoever was sitting inside.

Stan had decided to take no chances. As tempting as it would be to follow the guy around and wait till he was near a cop car before hitting the button, Stan knew getting cute could backfire. A traffic glitch could put the rig out of range of the detonator, or a stray transmission from a two-way radio on the wrong frequency could set it off when they were too close. Keep it simple, stupid, and blow the guy to hell right there in front of his own building.

He stiffened as he saw the apartment building's glass front door swing open. A man stepped out and leaned on the door as it closed behind him.

"Check this guy out," Stan said. "Is that our boy?"

Joe's head popped up, looking through the rear window. "That's him all right. That's the fucker. Looks like shit, though. Like he's been smokin' rock all night."

The guy did look a little wasted as he slumped there looking up and down the street. That was what had made Stan unsure about him a moment ago. Here was a guy who'd been moving like a cat yesterday, but this morning he looked like a tired old hound.

Stan glanced at his watch. "He's an early bird."

"Nah," Joe growled. "We're the birds. He's the fuckin' worm."

Stan pulled the remote trigger from his shirt pocket. It was shiny and black, the size of a cigarette pack. He extended the transmitter aerial but left the little hinged red metal guard in place over the button.

As he watched the guy step away from the building, digging in his pants pocket as he moved, Stan thought, Please be going for your car keys.

And he was. A keychain appeared in his hand; he selected one and stuck it into the lock.

"Gimme the button," Joe said, thrusting his good hand over the back of the front seat. "I gotta do this. I just gotta."

"Just wait a sec. We're in no hurry here. Plenty of time. He's ours when we want him."

"You think I don't fuckin' know that?" Joe said, voice rising. "Just gimme the button!" %

The guy had the door open and looked about to duck inside, but then Stan saw him step away from the car and go back to the apartment door.

"We missed him!" Joe shouted. He started pounding the seat back. "Shit!"

"Easy, Joe," Stan said as he looked around and spotted a young black woman striding their way along the sidewalk. Her route would bring her within a few feet of their car. He stuck the trigger back into his pocket. "Keep it down. We got company. We don't want nobody remembering us."

"We shoulda done him soon as he opened the car door," Joe hissed.

"Uh-uh. Worst thing is to blow it too earjy. We only hurt him instead of killing him now, we might never get another chance. He probably forgot something. He'll be back."

Sure enough, a minute later the guy appeared again.

"All right, so I was wrong."

As Stan removed the trigger again from his pocket, Joe snatched it from him.

"Damn it, Joe—!"

"It's all right," Joe said. "I'm cool, I'm cool. I'll wait till he's sealed in, I promise."

Stan didn't like this. Something about the whole setup was gnawing at him. He didn't like Joe with the trigger, but that wasn't it. Maybe it was the way the guy was standing inside his open car door scanning the street, like he was looking for something? Did he suspect?

Stan glanced around for the black girl—gone. Nobody else on the street now—no cars, no pedestrians…

As the guy slipped behind the wheel and closed the door, he heard the button guard click back and Joe say, "Now, baby, now!"

And in that instant Stan knew what was wrong and he reached for Joe's hand, screaming, "NOOOOOO!" as he tried to keep his brother's joyful thumb from jamming down on the button.

5

The explosion rocked the pavement as the car dissolved in a dazzling cloud of flaming debris. Jack ducked below his dashboard in case a piece came flying through the windshield. His big car was well insulated, muffling much of the sound, so his ears weren't ringing when he stepped back onto the sidewalk to survey the damage. A deep hole smoked in the pavement where the Taurus had been parked; the cars fore and aft of it were crumpled and burning, sending up dark twisting spirals of smoke. Shattered glass, twisted metal, and fuming pieces of plastic were strewn everywhere. The blast had broken auto and building windows up and down the street; alarms blared and rang and whooped; an unfortunate tree near the blast had been stripped bare and its leaves were still fluttering back to earth.

Jack closed his eyes against a wave of weakness and nausea—not because the bomb had been meant for him, but because he was almost too sick to stand. If he'd felt this bad a few hours ago he never would have found the bomb.

Good thing he'd pushed himself then. Sneaked down to the street via the fire escape of a neighboring building and crawled along the gutter to his car. His Viper goggles had allowed him to spot the bomb on the undercarriage. He'd removed it and, again with the aid of the goggles, made his way to the Taurus. Recognized Stan Kozlowski behind the wheel; took a bit longer to peg the heavier man with him as brother Joe. At that point it took Jack about a nanosecond to decide what to do. These guys were too dangerous to leave running around.

So he'd attached the bomb to the Taurus's underbelly and crawled away.

Barely made it back to Jeanette's where he collapsed with an alarm clock next to his ear. Just after sunup he'd staggered down to the street, hoping he'd be the only one up and about. On a mostly commercial block like this he should have been, but he'd spotted this black woman approaching the K brothers' car, so he'd gone back inside until she passed.

Okay. No more Kozlowskis—no more bombs for Kate to worry about. Looked up. Jeanette's windows had escaped damage. Saw Kate's strained face through the intact glass directly above, looking down. He waved that he was okay.

"What happened?" said a voice behind him.

Jack turned and saw a fiftyish fellow in jogging shorts and a NYAC sweatshirt.

"I don't know," Jack said. "I stopped to tie my shoe and next thing I knew I was flat on my back."

The man looked at him strangely. "You don't look so good. Are you okay?"

Jack ran a shaky hand across his face—the chills were back so he didn't have to fake the tremor. "If my lace hadn't come loose I would have been right down there by the blast. I'd be… dead!"

"Oh, man, talk about luck. I'd frame that shoelace if I were you." He looked around. "Anyone call nine-one-one?"

Just then the sound of sirens filtered through the morning.

"I guess so," Jack said.

"I'm going down for a closer look," the jogger said.

"I think I'll stay right here."

The braver souls and the too curious were filtering out of the Arsley, but otherwise the street remained deserted. Jack edged away, back up toward Sixth Avenue. When a howling pair of blue-and-white units screeched onto the street, he slumped himself into a doorway, head down, allowing himself to look as ill as he felt. As soon as they roared past he was up and moving again, heading east, but not quickly enough to raise suspicion.

On Sixth he walked down to the Twenty-third Street subway station and hopped the first train heading uptown. The car was almost empty and it felt good to sit down. Another chill shuddered through him.

How the hell did I catch this? he wondered. Flu season's long gone.

After listening yesterday to Fielding talk about the contaminant in his cultures, a viral infection now was unsettling. But he remembered

Fielding's mention that the contaminant didn't cause any symptoms. That was comforting, because Jack had symptoms aplenty.

Needed to get home, needed major rack time under a pile of blankets.

6

"The phones haven't stopped all morning," George Meschke said. "The response has been wild, beyond anything I imagined."

Sandy sat in his editor's office, leaning back, his ankle resting on his knee. Last week he'd have been on pins and needles, hoping he wasn't going to get chewed out about some little mistake. Now he was totally relaxed. Chillin' with the bossman. Because he was in the catbird seat. Circulation was soaring. Ad revenues this week alone had been equal to the entire first quarter's.

And all because of one person, Sandy thought. Moi.

He said, "I knew my amnesty idea would strike a chord."

"But what a chord!" Meschke said, running both hands through the few remaining stands of hair atop his head; his thick mustache was the same shade of gray. "It's Saturday morning and people have already read the story and are burning up the phone lines! Amazing!"

Equally amazing, Sandy thought, glancing around at the otherwise deserted editorial area, is that it's Saturday morning and I'm at work. And what's truly mind-blowing is I'm glad to be here.

"They should be calling City Hall," he said. "That's where it'll do some good."

"Speaking of which, you need to talk to City Hall yourself. I know it's Saturday, but see if you can track down the mayor and the DA and the police commissioner for their reactions. We need something for Monday." Meschke rubbed his hands together and grinned like a little kid. "Can you imagine? We've just had a Saturday issue, now we'll have another on Monday. Four issues of The Light in one week! Who'd have believed it?"

Monday edition or not, Sandy was not anxious to do those interviews. Any other time he'd have been chomping at the bit, but after this morning's issue he knew he wasn't going to be the most popular guy with the city brass, not after putting them on the spot like this.

But that's the game, he told himself. They of all people should know you can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs.

"I'll see who's still in town."

"We've got to milk this, Sandy. Every extra issue we put out brings in more advertisers and more readers, many of whom—we hope—will stay with us when we go back to weekly."

Back to weekly… suddenly he was depressed.

"And I want you to know," Meschke said, lowering his voice and leaning forward, "I talked to Harness about you. How you deserve recognition for what you've done for the paper. He's ecstatic about how things are going and agrees completely." He winked. "Be prepared for a surprise in your next paycheck."

"A bonus?" Sandy said. "Cool!"

But his thoughts were ranging ahead. Calvin Harness was the publisher and major stockholder. No doubt he was ecstatic because the bigger profits and higher profile from Sandy's articles enhanced the chances of The Light being bought up by one of the big national chains. Harness would clean up. Meschke's stock options would put him on Easy Street as well. But Sandy… what did he have?

Time to get out the old resume, he thought. Bring it up to date and start sending it out. Strike while the iron was hot. But until he wrangled himself an offer at one of the big three in town, he'd have to find ways to keep his name in the news.

And the only way he knew to do that was the Savior. He had to push the amnesty for all it was worth, find a way to make it national.

But how…?

7

Hot.

Jack kicked off the covers. The chills of an hour ago were gone. Now his skin seemed to be steaming. Sheets were soaked, sweaty T-shirt and boxer shorts plastered against him.

Thirsty. Mouth parched, lips flaky as he ran his dry tongue over them. Needed something wet. Tried to sit up. Almost made it half way. Flopped back onto the soggy pillow. Tried again with the same result. Last time he'd felt this weak he'd been bleeding to death… last summer… sitting in a chair in the next room… and the last time he'd had a fever like this had been directly after that… from infection in the wounds… Doc Hargus had pumped him full of antibiotics and pulled him through, but it had been tough going.

No wounds this time, just dying of thirst. And water, lots of icy bottles of gloriously wet Poland Springs, lay stacked on the bottom shelf among the beers and Mountain Dew in his fridge just a dozen or two feet away in the kitchen.

Might as well be in Westchester.

This was scary. Sick and sweating without taking in any fluids… he could wind up dehydrated… leaving him weaker still… a steady downward spiral…

Jack closed his eyes, gathering strength for another try.

"Here," said a voice.

He turned his head and started at the sight of an older woman standing at the side of his bed. She was thin, her thick black hair streaked with gray and pulled back into a bun, wearing a gray sweatsuit with pink piping. Couldn't see her feet but he'd bet she was wearing sneakers.

Questions about who she was and how she got into his locked apartment rose in his brain but were pushed aside by the sight of what she held in her hand.

A glass of water.

"Drink," she told him. She rolled the r.

Jack was already reaching for it as she spoke. The glass was wonderfully cool against his palm. He raised his head as far as he could and gulped it down, spilling precious drops in his haste, then let the enormous weight of his head drop back.

"More," he rasped. "Please."

"In a moment," she said. Her accent… Russian. Take Natasha Fatale, add thirty or forty years, stick her in a jogging suit… this was her. Where was Boris?

And then Jack saw the dog sitting beside her, an enormous pure-white malamute. It cocked its head and stared at him.

Hadn't Kate said something about an old woman with a Russian accent and a dog… the woman who'd given her Jack's number?

He tried to raise himself up on his elbows but sagged back. The water had left him less thirsty but no stronger.

"Who are you and how'd you get in here?"

"That does not matter. You must—"

"It sure as hell does matter. This is my place and my door was locked—quadruple locked."

"Listen to me," she said urgently. "You must fight infection and you must win."

"Only a flu of some sort."

"If only that were so. Is not flu. Is same virus that is in the others, in your sister's lover as well as in your sister herself. Is in you too."

Fielding's virus? The contaminant? Never mind how she knows about it; if she's right…

"That can't be. Fielding said it doesn't cause symptoms and it's only spread through blood."

"And did you not bleed yesterday?"

"No. I—"

Oh, hell. Holdstock. The scratch on my hand as he passed by on his way out of the apartment with Jeanette.

"Jeez, did you say Kate…?"

The woman nodded; sadly, he thought. "Four days ago."

"Wait. If I was infected only yesterday and already this sick, why didn't she—?"

"She cannot fight it. None of them can fight it."

"You're talking crazy. If she couldn't fight it she'd be sicker, and she's fine."

The woman shook her head. "Only you can fight it."

"Yeah, right," he said. He closed his eyes. All this talk was exhausting.

"Do not speak," the woman said. "Save strength and listen: virus will spread. It will infect many, and the many will infect many others. There will be war between those infected and those not, war such as we have never seen, turning man against woman, parent against child, child against parent, brother against brother."

"It didn't happen with AIDS so why—?"

"Is different. Virus will spread like wind. All harmony, all trust will vanish as uninfected kill infected, kill those they merely suspect of being infected. But infected will fight back, striking from within, spreading their disease. The bloodshed, the death, the hatred, the terror—this planet has seen terrible things but never on such a scale. For there are so many more of you now, and no one—no one—will be spared."

"What's so bad about this virus? What does it do to you?"

"That is no matter. Virus is not end, virus is simply means."

"Means to what?"

"To what I have told you: war, hate, death, fear, pain, destruction."

"Who the hell wants that?"

"The Adversary."

Jack forced his eyes open and looked at her.

"And who's that? The devil?"

She shook her head. "You know. You have met. Adversary feeds on human misery, on discord, on chaos. Virus will create feast."

No doubt about it, the lady was a loon. And she'd invaded his home—brought her damn dog too—and Jack was powerless to make her leave.

But she had another glass of water in her hand. He took it and gulped it down. Maybe she shouldn't leave.

"How do you know all this?"

"I watch. Always I watch."

"Why tell me? I'm just one guy. Go to the government."

"Government cannot stop virus. Only you. You must stop virus. You are only one."

"I couldn't stop a lame kitten right now."

"You must. Is war and you are warrior."

"I don't join armies."

"Is no army. Just you. And one does not join. Is chosen. Others go before you. All dead except one, and he is too old. You have been chosen."

"Like hell I have."

"Stop virus before it spreads, or all you love will perish." She turned and headed for the bedroom door. "I leave you now."

Jack felt the temperature drop. No… more chills. He pulled the covers back over him.

"Lady, who are you?"

She and her big white dog stopped at the door and looked at him. "I am your mother."

Nonplused, Jack struggled for a reply. She was nothing like his mother. Finally he resorted to a simple statement of fact.

"My mother's dead."

"She was your birth mother," she said. "I am your other mother."

And then she was gone.

Jack felt a shiver of fear slip among the fever chills. He knew he'd imagined the woman, but her words had struck resonances that still rang through his brain. Her warning about something that fed on misery and hate…

And then the phone rang. Jack snaked a wavering hand over to the night table and wrapped his fingers around the receiver.

"Hello," he croaked as he shuddered with a chill.

"Jack, is that you?" Gia's voice. "You sound terrible."

"Sick," he said. "Fever. Delirious. Wouldn't believe the hallucinations I'm having."

"I'm on my way."

Good, Jack thought as he heard the click on the other end. Gia will know what to do.

He tried to hang up the receiver but didn't have the strength.

8

Kate jumped at the sound of the key in the door, thinking, Jack's back. Thank the Lord.

She'd been a wreck all morning. Jack had tried to ease her mind by telling her that the bomb he'd found had been meant for him, not her. Had he expected her to be relieved that her brother was some madman's target? Well, she wasn't. But he'd said he had a good idea who the bombers were and how to protect himself and her from them.

At least that had allowed her to go back to sleep. But then Jack had been up at dawn, looking terrible, all sunken-eyed and exhausted, saying he had to go out and instructing her to stay away from the windows and not worry if she heard a loud noise.

A few minutes later a car exploded on the street below.

Not Jack's, thank the Lord. His was still out there when she'd looked, and he'd waved up at her. She'd hoped he'd come back up, to tell her he hadn't blown up that car. She didn't want to believe he'd done such a terrible thing. Even if someone had been trying to kill him, he'd endangered everyone on the block.

But he must have done it, must have known it was coming. Why else would he have warned her to stay away from the windows?

But then instead of returning, he'd walked off.

He hadn't told her where he was going, but it didn't matter. He was back now.

But it was Jeanette who stepped through the door. And Holdstock. And others, six more men and women of varying ages, trooping in, all smiling at her with the open friendly faces of old friends. She knew them, she'd seen them through Holdstock's window.

Jeanette had brought her cult home.

"Hello, Kate," Jeanette said, beaming. "I've asked some friends over to meet you."

Kate swallowed. "That's nice."

They didn't seem threatening—if anything their expressions virtually glowed with amiability. So why then did she feel this cold dread seeping up from her stomach?

"I was so worried about you," Jeanette said, taking Kate's left hand and pressing it between both of hers.

Kate felt rather than heard a strange hum in her head, a faint, faint echo of Jeanette's voice.

"Were you? Why?"

"Why, the explosion, of course. When I heard about it and realized it had happened right on our block, I wanted to fly here. But then I learned that no one had been hurt except two men with criminal records, and I was so relieved. But still, I didn't think you should be alone."

That odd hum continued, but Kate sensed that she truly had been in Jeanette's thoughts, and that warmed her.

"That's nice, but—"

"So I brought my dearest friends to keep you company. You remember Terrence, don't you?"

Holdstock stepped forward, smiling warmly as he offered his hand. "I know we didn't get off on the right foot, but I'm sure I can make amends for that."

Kate didn't want to shake hands with this man, but how could she snub him with a radiant Jeanette still clutching her left hand? She extended her right, Holdstock grasped it—

—and the hum in her head grew louder.

Something wrong here! She tried to pull free of Holdstock but his grip was like a steel clamp.

"Let me go!"

"Don't be frightened, Kate," Jeanette said, smiling reassuringly while clutching Kate's other hand. "It's all right. Trust me, it's all right."

"No!"

The others were moving forward. Holdstock held out his free hand and one of them, a woman, took hold of it—

—and the hum in Kate's head increased—

—and then someone took the woman's hand and stretched out his hand to another—

—and the hum in Kate's head further increased, a roar now, like the ocean, and her heart was a panicked rabbit, battering itself against the cage of her ribs, trying to break free—

—and someone took his and another took hers and the roaring doubled and tripled and she felt her strength slipping away and through her blurring vision she saw Jeanette free one of her hands from gripping Kate's and reach it out to another hand, the last free hand in the world, and Kate saw them touch, closing the circle—… and suddenly all is peaceful.

Kate's vision blurs as she descends into a deep pool of tranquility, leaving no ripples, no trail of bubbles as she sinks.

There, says a soft, sexless voice that seems to come from within and without, from nowhere and everywhere. Isn't this better? Isn't this wonderful, the most wonderful feeling you've ever known?

And it is wonderful, a feeling of complete acceptance, of absolute belonging, of soft arms lovingly enfolding her and drawing her to a motherly bosom.

Her vision clears and she sees the others, the eight who've formed the hand-holding circle of which she is now a part.

Is this why Jeanette was sneaking off to the Bronx? she wonders. Is this what she was experiencing when I watched her through the window?

The Everywhere Voice answers. Yes. That was when The One Who Was Jeanette was like you and could experience oneness only by touch. Now that she is of the Unity she is with us always, dwelling within the oneness.

Kate isn't sure she follows that but it doesn't matter. What does is this glorious feeling of peace, of belonging. All the anxieties and uncertainties these past few years about the course of her life and where it will lead her, all the fears about revealing her true self to the children are gone, vanished as if they've never been. She can barely remember them.

Unconditional love and acceptance, simply for being. This is the way all of life should be, all the time.

And it will be.

No, Kate thinks. You've got it wrong. It's human nature to fear what's different.

Human nature can be changed.

Kate is about to laugh at the absurdity of this when a thought strikes her. The Voice reminds her of Jeanette's, but Jeanette's lips haven't moved.

"Who are you?" she says aloud. "Whose voice is this?

It is us, all of us. The Unity.

"Then why do you sound like Jeanette?"

Because that is who you feel most comfortable listening to. But it's not the One Who Was Jeanette. It is all of us.

Kate looks around and sees the eight of them, Jeanette, Holdstock, and the rest, nodding in unison.

Kate senses an alarm bell trying to ring, to warn that this is all wrong, that she should not be conversing with voices in her head. But the cotton-thick ambiance of peace and harmony smothers it, and all that seeps through to her is confusion.

"I don't understand."

We have been united. We are one. We are the Unity. We know each other as no others have known us, even more intimately than we have known ourselves. Every thought—

"You can read each others' minds?"

We are each others' minds. We share every thought, every emotion.

Kate feels a twinge of fear. Is she crazy? Are they?

Don't be afraid.

And now a stab of terror. They know what she's feeling!

You need not fear the Unity. We love you. You are our sister.

"But why me? And how—?"

And then Kate knows.

The virus. The mysterious contaminant in Fielding's cultures.

Yes! It brought us together, repairing the faults in our brains, linking our minds into this glorious Unity.

"And me?" She looks at Jeanette. "I was infected, wasn't I. Why?"

You were following the One Who Was Jeanette, spying on her—

"I was concerned!"

And we sensed that. But we also feared that your loving con-

cern might turn into interference, and since we are at a delicate stage of development, we brought you into the Unity.

"But I wasn't asked! You had no right!"

The niggling alarm sounding within Kate has escalated, clamoring through the swaths of bliss, but still so faintly.

It was never a matter of if, Kate; merely a matter of when.

"What do you mean?"

We are the future, Kate. You are witnessing the conception of a new day for humanity. This is where the new world will begin—with us, with the nucleus of the Unity. And you will be part of it, Kate—a part of the Cosmic Egg that fuels the Big Bang. As we gather more and more minds to expand the Unity—

"Wait. Gather how?"

Infiltrate their nervous systems, just as we've done with you.

"You're not going to ask them either?"

Of course not. They'd never agree.

"How can you justify—?"

We know what is best, Kate. The Unity is the future. Disconnected intelligences running loose are the past. Now that we exist, they are as relevant as dinosaurs: too prone to conflict, too inefficient.

"We haven't done so bad. Look at the diseases we've conquered. And now that we've mapped the human genome, there's no telling what miracles we can accomplish."

But at such a cost! War, racism, hatred. And no matter what your science can do, it cannot mend the basic flaws in human nature.

"You've got something better?"

Yes! A world where all minds are united, where differences in race and gender no longer matter because all minds are equal."

A vision takes shape before her eyes, a sunny landscape checkered with fields of wheat and corn. And closer in, people working those fields.

A world where hate and suspicion disappear because every thought is known, every lie is exposed.

The vision shifts to a factory where contented workers operate weaving machinery and clothing production lines.

Where no one is a stranger and no one is an outsider because no one is excluded. Because all are one.

And now Kate sees a cluster of buildings, a classic Midwest small town with people walking on the sidewalks and in the streets, dropping off produce and picking up clothing. And though no one's smiling, no one looks unhappy; merely intent, industrious.

The Voice glows with anticipation. Won't that be a wonderful world?

"World? That's not a world. That's a hive."

A long pause as Kate feels her thoughts and feelings being sifted. Then…

We understand. You are not yet far enough along for full integration. But as days pass you will learn, Kate. You will come to appreciate our benefits, just as you will come to accept our inevitability… the Great Inevitability.

Inevitability… she wonders about that. She thinks about Fielding and about the CDC and NIH and feels those thoughts sucked from her mind, like a shucked oyster slurped from its shell.

Yes… Dr. Fielding… we owe him much and yet… he knows so much about us… too much perhaps. We heard what he told you yesterday.

Suddenly she's listening to Fielding's voice repeating his parting words in his office yesterday…

If I'm going to get stuck with the blame for the contaminant, then I might as well take the credit for discovering how to control it. You watch. Before the CDC has even begun to roll, I'll have the solution for you.

Startled, Kate says, "Did you just take that from me?"

We could have, but no… we were there, listening ourselves.

In my head… listening. Kate is too stunned to respond.

You had an opportunity then to help the Unity, Kate. You did not have to insist on Dr. Fielding immediately contacting the Center for Disease Control. We tried to tell you, tried to make you see that bringing in government agencies so soon was not in the Unity's best interest, but you wouldn't listen.

Kate remembers her unaccountable indecisiveness yesterday, the difficulty she had telling Fielding to make the call.

"You were influencing me?"

Merely trying to let you see our side.

Kate is reeling. Her thoughts are no longer private. How much longer will she be able to call her thoughts her own, her actions her own? How long before she's doing things against her will? How long until she has no will?

You see, Kate? There's the problem: will—too many wills. You shouldn't have to worry about your will or our will. Within the Unity there is only one will. It makes life so much simpler.

But Kate senses something… a subtle shift in the Unity's mood, a hint of uncertainty. And she realizes that this oneness of theirs is a two-way street. They can see into her mind, but she can also see into theirs. Not clearly, not deeply, but enough to gather impressions.

"You're afraid, aren't you."

A dark ripple through the enveloping bliss. No. Of course not. We are the future. We are inevitable. We have nothing to fear.

But Kate can't be sure whether that's true belief or merely wishful thinking.

"What if Fielding finds a virucide that works against you? Or better yet—a vaccine? What happens to your inevitability then?"

He will not. He cannot. He hasn't enough time.

"He's got plenty of time. You're hampered by your nature. You're a blood-borne infection. It'll take decades—"

Kate gasps as a wave of joyous anticipation washes over her, blotting out her fears and suspicions in a surge of pleasure as intense as an orgasm.

Not true! You'll see! We will prevail! We will sweep across the globe. And you will be a part of it!

"No. Because if Fielding doesn't stop you, I have a feeling someone else will."

You're speaking of your brother? The Voice laughs. How can he stop us when he will soon be one with us?

Kate feels her knees sag. Not Jack! How? When?

Yesterday morning. He seemed too resourceful so the One Who Was Terrence scratched him with a pin dipped in our blood.

"No!" she screams and kicks and twists and wrenches her trapped hands, taking the Unity by surprise, breaking free, breaking contact, and abruptly the bliss and peace and belonging vanish, replaced by a void filled with fear and anguish.

Vision blurs, dark splotches expand before her eyes, merging, engulfing her.

9

"Is Jack gonna be all right, Mom?"

Disembodied voices echoed faintly around Jack. He tried identifying them but his mushy brain was having difficulty focusing.

The last one, a child's voice… what was her name? Vicky. That was it. But she sounded as if she were at the far end of the Lincoln Tunnel. He tried to open his eyes to find her but the lids weighed tons.

"Of course, honey," said another voice, female, older… Gia's voice. But she sounded even farther away—the Jersey side of the Holland Tunnel. "He's been sick like this before. Remember last summer?"

"I don't like to think about last summer."

"I know you don't. But remember after all the scary times were over and he was hurt and sick and we nursed him?"

"Yes."

"Well, this is like that time."

"But Jack had a doctor then."

"So to speak."

Even in his delirium agony Jack had to smile. Gia had never had much faith in Doc Hargus.

He felt the once cool, now warm washcloth peeled from his forehead.

"Here, honey. Go run some cold water over this again."

Over the fading patter of Vicky's retreating footsteps Jack heard Gia's voice, low and close to his ear.

"Jack, are you listening?"

"Nnnngh."

"Jack, I'm scared. You've got a temperature of a hundred-and-four and I don't know what to do for you."

He managed to put two words together. "Dc Hrgs."

Doc Hargus had had some run-ins with officialdom over the years, so his license wasn't exactly current. But that didn't mean he didn't know his stuff, just that it wasn't legal for him to practice. Jack had entrusted his life to him before, and he'd do it again.

"I've called him three times." He could hear the tension in Gia's voice. "All I get is his answering machine, and he hasn't called back."

"Mnth zit?" Jack said.

"Month? Don't you even know? It's June."

Hell. Hargus went to Arizona every June to visit his grandkids. So much for help from him.

"I'm scared, Jack. You looked like you were in a coma before."

Coma? As in comatose? With this fever, more like coma-toast.

"I'm going to call an ambulance."

"Nuh!"

"Please, Jack. I'm afraid you're dying!"

Couldn't go to a hospital. Too many questions, too many bean counters prying into the nooks and crannies of his life in search of money.

"Nut dine. Nuh husptl."

"I can't take this any more, Jack. I just can't sit here and watch you boil inside your skin. I'm getting help."

As Gia rose Jack slid his hand across the covers and clutched her arm. Not hard enough to haul her back—no way he had the strength for that—but the gesture stopped her.

Had to think. Couldn't let her wheel him into an ambulance.

Abruptly she pulled away. "Why didn't I think of this before? How dumb can I be?"

What was she doing? Wanted to cry out for her to stop. Please, Gia. No EMTs! I'll be fine. Just need some heavy rest. Don't do this to me! But his voice was gone.

His dread was swamped by the overwhelming fatigue that engulfed him and took him under again.

10

Kate came to on the couch with Jeanette next to her, holding her hand.

What happened? was the intended question but Jeanette answered before she'd completed the thought.

"You passed out."

Kate looked around. "Where are the others?"

"We… they left. A matter to attend to."

Did it really happen? Kate wondered, squeezing her eyes shut against a blinding headache. Or was I drugged or hypnotized?

"It really happened," Jeanette said.

Kate snatched her hand free and slid to the opposite end of the couch. This wasn't Jeanette. And she was reading her thoughts.

Could this be? Could a strange new virus change human brains and link minds? It was too bizarre. This sort of thing only happened on that Sci-Fi Channel that Kevin liked to watch.

And yet, if it wasn't real, what had she experienced a few moments ago?

And why this feeling now that her mind was no longer completely her own? Was it the power of suggestion… or real?

"We know how you feel, Kate."

"Do you? I doubt that."

"Fear…"

"More like terror."

"… uncertainty…"

"How about betrayal, Jeanette?" Anger heated her face. "Do you feel betrayed? I know I do. I loved you, Jeanette. I trusted you."

She realized with a start she was using the past tense. "And you… you…

"You'll thank us, Kate. In a few more days, when you're fully integrated, you'll bless that little pinprick in your palm."

"Never! And bad enough you infected me, but my brother as well! I'll never forgive you for this!"

Kate rose unsteadily. Never before had she wanted to hurt someone, but Jeanette's true-believer complacency made her want to hit her. Or worse.

"But you will. And so will Jack. In a few days you'll come to see—"

"A few days! Is that all? It took you much longer!"

"A mutation in the virus lets it spread much faster now through a host system. We—"

"'We'? 'We' who?"

"Sorry. Once you're part of the Unity it's difficult to think of yourself as an 'I.' All of them are with me now and I am with all of them, even though we are miles apart."

"You referred to yourself as T earlier when you walked in here with the others."

"That was so as not to alarm you."

"Maybe you should keep it up. Because right now I'm very alarmed."

"Okay, okay," she said soothingly. "I've been where you are, Kate. I fought it at first. I was so frightened, but it was only fear of the unknown. Now that I'm fully integrated, it's wonderful beyond description."

"But where are you going with this, Jeanette?"

"You know. We showed you. A transformed world."

"But what I saw was not all that transformed."

"What you saw was not the important part. It was what you didn't see that truly matters."

"You're talking in riddles."

"Think back, Kate. Did you see cattle farms? Did you see streets full of cars? Did you see jet contrails marring the skies?"

"So?"

"The Unity will change the way we live. Humanity will have a healthier lifestyle in a healthier environment. The first things to go will be the animal farms. Existing livestock will be consumed while we convert all the fields now devoted to feed grains to vegetable farms for humans."

"A race of vegans!" Kate preferred vegetables to meat but liked to have the option of fried chicken once in a while.

"Not at all. Wild animals that are caught will be consumed, but cattle, pig, and chicken farms will be a thing of the past. Too inefficient. It takes seven pounds of feed corn and soy to produce one pound of pork. So much simpler and healthier to eat the grains directly. Less waste that way. And speaking of waste, the cattle required to feed the average American family its annual supply of beef produce a pile of manure larger than that family's house. The methane released and the manure runoff into streams pollute the environment. All that will stop."

Now this was consistent with the old Jeanette—she'd often railed against what she called "the institutionalized animal cruelty of agribusiness," but her objections had always been on ethical grounds; this sounded more like simple pragmatism.

"There will be no need to travel within the Unity. You are everywhere everyone else is. And the environmental benefits from that are as enormous as they are obvious. Clothes, food, building materials will move on the rails and highways, but not people."

"But you showed me factories, so I assume there'll be industry."

"Only certain ones, the ones that provide the necessities: agriculture, clothing, housing."

"But what about business—banking, finance, international trade?"

"For what purpose? To sell stocks? To lend money? No family, no matter how large—and in the world of the Unity, families will be very large—will go without sufficient food, clothing, or shelter. What more will they need?"

"How about art, literature, and entertainment for starters?"

"No one will feel a need for those things. After all, what practical purpose do they serve? Whatever artistry you wish to express will be instantly appreciated by the entire Unity."

Kate felt her exasperation, growing. "What about relationships?"

"The Unity is the ultimate relationship. You felt just a hint of it. The closeness, the 'oneness'—you've never felt such an intimate bond; it far surpasses what can be experienced with a mere individual."

That stung. "Meaning me?"

"This is different. This goes beyond what an unintegrated mind can grasp."

"Then what you and I had is gone?"

Jeanette nodded. "What we had was a procreative dead end."

"What?" Kate couldn't believe she'd heard correctly. "What did you just say?"

"There is no homosexuality in the Unity. It does not serve our purposes."

If she'd had any hopes that the Jeanette she'd loved might still exist somewhere, this quashed them. Kate backed away from her, toward the center of the room. She didn't want to ask but she had to know.

"What purposes?"

"To bring all minds into the Unity, of course. And then to create a perpetual flow of new minds to keep expanding the Unity. Since homosexuality is not procreative, it is counter to that goal."

"And so you wipe it out?"

"Nothing is wiped out. It simply is not a consideration that will arise within the Unity."

"Never mind considerations, what about feelings? What about love?"

Jeanette gave her a quizzical look. "Love? The Unity is love, complete and unconditional. It is bliss that increases every time a new mind is added. No one will need love outside the Unity. The only need will be the craving to add new minds, more and more, expanding our billions."

Kate backed further away from this puppet that had once been Jeanette, edging toward the kitchen. But something within wanted her to stay close to her and was making it difficult to move, the same something that was trying to soothe her riled emotions, calm her fears, ease her anger.

But she forced her legs to move, to inch toward the kitchen.

"That's not a human agenda, Jeanette. That's a viral agenda. It's aimed at one thing: more hosts in which to replicate. A virus is a parasite—the ultimate parasite. It can't even reproduce on its own. It enters a cell, co-opts the cellular machinery, then reprograms it to create copies of itself so it can go occupy more cells. That's what this whole plan is about, Jeanette: creating more hosts for the virus."

Jeanette followed her, a missionary trying to convert a heathen. She reached out but Kate avoided her touch.

"You don't understand, Kate. An outsider cannot possibly understand the Unity."

Kate felt as if she were wading against a current in chest-high water as she fought her way into the kitchen toward the microwave, and fought the anger-and fear-numbing tranquility forcing its way through her mind.

"Oh, but I do. I understand perfectly: the Unity is the virus. In taking over your brains it's imprinted its agenda on your minds—or on your uber-mind or whatever it is. Be fruitful and multiply… and multiply… and multiply—and create nothing else. That's a virus's code of ethics, and that's what you're spouting."

Jeanette moved closer, her expression intense.

"Think of it, Kate. No nations, no borders. No me and not-me, no mine and not-mine—the sources of all conflict. Nothing can belong to anyone when everything belongs to everyone. The Unity future—"

"—is a sterile existence, Jeanette!" Hard to speak now. Her words slurred, her thoughts sludged. And Jeanette was closer, still reaching for her. "You want to turn humanity into a homogeneous mass of content, well-fed, healthy bodies in a healthy environment where we can breed like rabbits. You say you'll do away with livestock, Jeanette, but the truth is you'll become livestock!" Kate whirled, punched random buttons on the microwave over control panel. "And I refuse to live like that!"

Kate hit START.

And suddenly her mind cleared, her limbs freed up.

"Thank goodness!" she said. She turned to Jeanette. "Now we can really talk."

But Jeanette stood facing her, shaking her head and smiling ruefully.

"If you're looking for the old me, that won't work anymore. Not on me. I'm fully integrated now. The old me is gone, shucked like a worn-out skin. There's only the new me now."

Kate felt her breath clog in her throat. "Oh, no."

"The Unity doesn't understand why, but the vibrations caused by microwaves interfere with oneness in the unintegrated, causing the Unity to become blind to you. But it's only temporary. Once you're fully integrated, nothing can come between you and the Unity."

Kate's vision blurred as tears filled her eyes. Jeanette was gone, replaced by this… drone.

"Don't cry, Kate. I've never been happier. And you'll be happy too. Don't waste tears on the old me, and don't fight for the old you. The battle is already won. In a few more days the new, better you will emerge triumphant. And as for this…"

She reached past Kate, unplugged the microwave, then slid it off the counter and let it smash on the floor.

"… don't waste your time."

Immediately Kate sensed that her thoughts were again no longer completely her own.

"Jeanette—"

The phone rang. They both stared at it, waiting for the fourth ring when the answering machine would pick up. Kate heard a beep, then a woman's voice.

"Oh, Kate. I was hoping you'd be there. I—"

Kate snatched up the receiver. "Yes? Who is this?"

"Oh, I'm so glad you're in. This is Gia. We met—"

"Yes, of course. I remember you. Jack's friend." She sensed the strain underlying the other woman's voice. "Is something wrong?"

"It's Jack. He's sick."

Her gut clenched. "How sick?"

"A hundred-and-four temperature. Delirious. Shaking chills alternating with drenching sweats. I don't know what to do."

"I'll be right over. Wait—I don't know where he lives." Gia gave her an Upper West Side address. "Don't leave him. I'm on my way."

"Your brother is sick," Jeanette said—a statement, not a question. Her expression was troubled.

"Yes. No thanks to you and your virus."

"But… this is not right. The virus does not make one sick. It slips past the immune system and—"

"Well, my brother's has thrown up a roadblock."

At least Kate hoped that was what it was. Those symptoms could indicate any number of infections, pneumonia among others.

She hurried to the bedroom where she changed into khaki pants and a chambray shirt. She gathered up the stethoscope and diagnostic kit she'd brought along in case she needed them for Jeanette—that was a laugh—and stuffed them into her oversized shoulder bag.

"Good-bye, Jeanette," she said, more from reflex than anything else, as she headed for the door.

Jeanette said nothing. She still stood where Kate had left her in the kitchen, staring at the wall, her brows knitted.

11

"Take another breath, Jack," Kate said. "Deeper this time."

Clad only in damp boxer shorts, he lay sprawled on a rumpled double bed. Jack didn't respond so she had to be satisfied with listening to his tidal respiration.

Kate pressed the diaphragm of her stethoscope more firmly against the perspiration-beaded skin of his mid back. She hadn't realized how sleekly muscular her brother had become. His almost total lack of body fat left the muscles close to the skin. The way he dressed gave no hint that this sort of body moved within his clothes. Men in Jeanette's end of town who had bodies like Jack's tended toward tank tops and skintight muscle shirts; their object was to attract attention; Jack's seemed to be to deflect it.

She strained to hear the crinkling cellophane rales that would signal fluid in the alveoli. She heard none.

"No sign of pneumonia," she said.

Gia sighed. "Thank God."

Not necessarily good hews, Kate thought. Means we're dealing with something else. And if Jeanette had told the truth, that something else was most likely the contaminant virus.

"What do you think it is?" Gia said.

Kate looked at this pretty blond woman and thought back to the night—Lord, had it been only two nights ago?—that she and Jack had come over. Kate might have found herself attracted to her if not for everything that had been happening. She remembered how she'd been struck by the easy camaraderie between Jack and Gia, the way they laughed with each other and, when listening to Gia speak of Jack, how deeply she cared for her brother.

And now she saw the near panic in Gia's eyes, and thought, You're so lucky, Jack, to have someone who loves you this much. Don't ever lose her.

She decided to tell Gia part of the truth. "It's most likely a virus."

"Is it catching? Vicky's been in and out, helping me. Bad enough Jack's this sick. But Vicky's so little. What if—?"

"She should be fine."

Kate had met the dark-haired, blue-eyed child on the way in and her pigtails had made her ache for the days when Lizzie had been that age. Life had seemed so simple back then.

"I hope so," Gia said. "I've had to change his T-shirt three times. Finally I stopped. He pulls the covers over himself when he chills and throws them off when he sweats."

"That's part of the infection-fighting process."

But why is his system fighting it when mine didn't?

Kate felt a tug in her mind, a nanosecond of scrambled thoughts, and then a question leaping out before she could stop it.

"Has he ever been sick before?"

"This sick? Yes, once."

"When?"

She couldn't control her voice!

"Last summer. After…"

Kate tried to lock her throat, succeeded, but not before she said, "After what?"

"I don't know if I should go into that. Maybe Jack should tell you."

Now Kate herself wanted to know what Gia was talking about but was determined not to let the Unity hear the answer. She sensed fear and uncertainty in the Unity and that worried her. What might they do to wring the answer out of Gia?

She fought to regain control of her voice, and squeezed her eyes shut with the effort.

"Kate, are you all right?"

She felt beads of sweat pop out on her forehead… and then suddenly she was back in the driver seat… but she could still feel other hands reaching for the wheel.

"I'm okay. Just a bad headache."

"Oh, I'm sorry. Can I—?"

"You know what?" Kate said. "On second thought, it might be better, for Vicky's sake, if you go."

"Oh, no." She was shaking her head. "I couldn't leave Jack. I'll just keep Vicky in the other room and—"

"I'm concerned that if you catch whatever this is you might pass it on to her, and then…" Kate let the sentence hang and watched Gia chew her upper lip. She added, "I'll look after him, Gia. I've had a bit of training in this sort of thing."

"I know." She shrugged, her expression unhappy. "But I still feel like I'm abandoning him."

"I promise to watch over him as if he were a member of my own family."

This earned a smile. "Yes, I guess I can count on that, can't I." She sighed. "Okay. I'll take Vicky home. But you'll call me as soon as he comes out of this, won't you?"

Kate sensed increased efforts in her head to make her stop Gia from leaving but she beat them back.

"Of course."

Gia started for the door, then stopped and turned. Keep going! Kate wanted to shout. She didn't know how long she could hold out.

"Just one thing."

"You really shouldn't stay here any longer."

"I know, but I just want to warn you that Jack might not be too happy to find you here."

"I don't understand."

"It was my idea to call you over. When I told him he didn't respond, so I'm not sure it got through."

"Why would that be a problem?"

"He's a little quirky about this place. He… well, he doesn't like anyone to know where he lives. Hardly anyone does. And as for being here, Vicky and I are the only regulars. This is his sanctum."

"But I'm his sister."

"But you didn't know the address, right? I had to give it to you. See what I mean?"

"I think so."

"So if he's upset that you're here, don't take it personally."

Kate glanced at the sprawled sleeping man. "Strange guy, my brother."

Gia's lips said, " 'Unique' is more like it," but her eyes seemed to say, If you only knew.

Minutes later, when the door had closed behind them, Kate felt the pressure ease. The Unity was still desperate to know how Jack was reacting to the virus, but must have realized it could only watch and wait right now.

Was this what it had been like for Jeanette—fighting minute to minute, losing ground inch by inch? Maybe not. At least Kate knew she was in a war. Jeanette had probably had no idea. Most likely she wrote off any early alien feelings or thoughts as part of the healing process, a side effect of the tumor's shrinking. And when finally she'd realized that her mind was being usurped, it was too late.

When will it be too late for me? Kate wondered.

She thought of what was developing inside her head, the Unity virus running free through her brain, inserting its own genes into more and more of her brain's neurons until it had nibbled away everything that was her and replaced it with someone else, someone with viral ethics, another drone like Jeanette.

That possibility pushed up a bubble of acid to the back of her throat. She had to find a way to stop it. And bring Jeanette back. But first she had to save herself.

She looked at Jack. If his immune system truly was fighting the virus, it would be producing antibodies. If she could isolate those globulins and inject them into her own bloodstream…

Her excitement died aborning. If-if-if… even if it were true, the process would be lengthy. She'd be a born-again member of the Unity by then.

She'd have to find another way. Maybe Fielding would come up with something. Whatever happened, Kate sensed that Jack would be the key. But everything was stuck on hold until he pulled through this, if he did.

She checked him again—still sleeping but less sweaty—then wandered into the dizzying clutter of his apartment's front room. She stopped when she saw something that looked like a gun on an end table. Dear Lord, it was a gun. She stepped closer. Did Jack own a gun? Obviously. Kate hated guns. Bad enough for her brother to own one, but she couldn't believe he'd be so careless as to leave it out like this with a child around. Gia's little girl could have—

Wait. It had a red plastic handle and the rest of it looked made of tin. The knob of a power dial bulged from the side next to a pair of words framed by lightning bolts etched into the metal: Atomic Disintegrator. Kate smiled and shook her head. A toy raygun—no, a cap gun. Ancient, too.

She did a slow turn. Look at this stuff. What did he do, go through flea markets and pick up everything that wasn't nailed down? And none of it seemed less than fifty years old. A Daddy Warbucks lamp, a Dick Tracy alarm clock—lots of clocks, all old, none working. Framed certificates and more clocks, their pendulums arrested in final swing, hid the walls. She stepped closer to check out the certificates—all from clubs and secret societies devoted to the Shadow, Captain Midnight, Doc Savage… what on earth did he see in this junk?

The only thing she could find that belonged in the Twenty-first Century—or in the latter half of the twentieth, for that matter—was the computer monitor atop the oak rolltop desk. And a vaguely familiar-looking black object resting on the monitor. Kate leaned in for a closer look and stiffened when she recognized the timer clock from the bomb Jack had found yesterday. She knew it was the same clock by the four cut ends of the wires snaking out from its casing. The only difference now was that the display was lit, showing the time.

And next to it were those silvery little AAA-battery-size things with the rest of the cut wires that had been attached to the clock. What had Jack called them? Blasting caps. But where was that clay-like explosive?

She checked the rest of the desk top and hunted through the room but didn't see it. Must have hidden it away. She didn't like poking through Jack's desk drawers but she'd feel better if she knew the explosive was here too. She suspected that Jack had used it to blow up that car this morning, and she hated the thought.

But the drawers in the old rolltop held nothing but papers and video catalogues. She made a point of not reading any of the papers and moved on to the equally old oak secretary. And there in the top drawer, next to what looked like another toy gun, she found it—still wrapped in cellophane, with the empty holes where the blasting caps had been inserted.

What a relief. When he recovered, maybe Jack could explain how that car exploded, but at least now she could be sure this stuff hadn't been used. Meanwhile, she didn't want to have to look at that timer and the blasting caps whenever she was in this room, so she put them in the drawer with the explosive.

As she wiggled the drawer to push it back in it slipped out of the desk. She stood there holding it, wondering why it was so shallow—only half as deep as the base of the secretary. She peered into the slot and saw what was obviously a false rear wall.

Curious, Kate replaced the drawer and angled the secretary away from the wall. She felt around the weathered rear panel until she found a recessed catch. A gentle tug released the board; it fell toward her, revealing a hidden compartment with three shelves.

And on those lay at least half a dozen pistols of varying shapes and sizes and finishes, extra clips, boxes of bullets, knives, blackjacks…

A miniature armory.

She stared for a dry-mouthed moment, then replaced the panel and pushed the secretary back against the wall. She opened the drawer again and took out the tiny pistol she'd seen before. Heavy… too heavy for a toy. She dropped it back in and shoved the door closed. Shaken, she retreated to the center of the room and stared around her.

She had to face it: Jack was a gun nut or worse. Some sort of criminal. Had to be. What other reason could he have for owning all that weaponry?

Who was her brother? What on earth had he become?

She'd thought he was exaggerating when he'd said his closet was deeper and darker than hers. Now she knew he wasn't.

And yet… he was still her brother. And despite all this damning evidence, she sensed a core of old-fashioned decency within him. A man you could trust, a man whose word meant something.

Was that the key to all this pulp era junk? Memorabilia from a time before he existed, relics of an antiquated obsolescent code of honor to which he still hewed?

Or was she reading too much into this? Not every idiosyncrasy had to have deep psychological overtones. How did the saying go? Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. Maybe Jack simply thought this stuff was cool—or "neat," as he liked to say—and picked it up whenever he came across it.

Kate heard a sound from the bedroom and stepped back inside. Jack was tossing back and forth under the covers, moaning, mumbling, whining. He seemed frightened.

She watched him closely, wondering what terrible sort of nightmare would scare a man like Jack…

12

… Jack looks up as the girl in the middle of the store check-out line coughs. He watches from the rear as people ahead and behind her back away.

"Just a cold," the girl says, her voice slightly muffled by her surgical mask.

Everyone in the store, including Jack, wears a surgical mask. Jack loves the style—not only keeps out germs but hides the face. And the store is packed. Rumor got out that the place managed to get in a shipment of produce and people are buying up as much as they can carry. Jack left Gia* and Vicky back at his apartment where they're safe from infection and ventured out alone. His cart—and it is truly his because he pushed it to the store from home—is loaded with corn and peaches and tomatoes that look like Jersey beefsteaks. He managed to snag some canned beans and a box of fusilli from the nearly naked shelves as well.

Good haul, he thinks, happy with his finds. Food shipments are so sporadic these days, what with survivalist groups hijacking trucks for themselves, so you take what you can find. Looks like Italian on the menu tonight. Gia can whip of some of her famous red gravy and—

"She's one of them!" cries a heavyset woman in a turquoise sari directly behind the girl with the cold, backing farther away from her. "I saw her pull out the bottom of her mask before she coughed!"

"Just a cold." The girl has wide blue eyes and short black hair. "I swear it's just a cold."

"I saw her too," says the black man behind the saried woman. "Pulled the mask halfway off her face!"

Jack has a feeling he might have seen it too, but only out of the corner of his eye, so he doesn't say anything. The girl's been tagged twice. A third won't change her fate.

Sensing where this could be going he angles his cart out of this particular line and backs it toward the rear of another. But he passes that and keeps on backing away, edging closer to the exit doors.

The checkout girl is signaling to the deputy but he's heard the commotion and is already on his way over. He's a thin little guy, and in any other situation he might be hesitant, but he's wearing the tan uniform of a duly deputized NYC militiaman, he's got a testing kit, and he's armed. And his strut says I'm official so don't mess with me.

"What's up?" His mouth is probably set in a grim line but the surgical mask hides it.

The cashier points to the girl. "They say she coughed outside her mask. On purpose."

"Is that so?" The deputy's eyes narrow as he reaches for the serology tester clipped to his belt. "Okay. Gonna need some of your blood."

"Just a cold," the girl says, backing away.

"If that's all it is, you can go on about your business—after the test."

Jack, who by now has edged into a corner near the furthest checkout counter, notices how the deputy doesn't say what happens if it's not just a cold.

"No!" The girl rips off her mask. "No blood test! We spit on your blood tests!"

Then she charges into the crowd around the cash register and starts spitting—not on the blood test but on people. Terrified shoppers scream and try to flee but there's no room to run. The deputy has his pistol drawn but it's plain if he shoots he's going to crease a load of innocent bystanders.

Suddenly Jack sees something flash in the girl's hand—an old-fashioned straight razor—and knows what's coming next. So does everybody else.

"She's a kamikaze!" someone screams as panic takes charge.

Jack watches the girl ram the point of the blade deep into her throat and rip it sideways. Then she throws her arms wide, tilts her head back, and begins to spin. There's a certain grace to her movements, and it might be a beautiful thing to watch except for the scarlet stream arcing from her throat in a spasming geyser that sprays everyone in a ten-foot circle.

It's a brief dance. Her legs falter, her knees buckle, and she collapses to the floor, a crumpled waxen lump centered in a crimson spin painting.

But though the dance is done, the audience is still reacting: the screamers trapped at the row of checkout counters keep pushing back, deeper into the store; those just entering do a quick about-face and rush back to the relative safety of the streets. Jack, positioned in the no-man's land between, opts for the street and rolls his laden cart though the swinging doors. He'll settle up with the store tomorrow. Could be an hour, maybe two, before the mess is cleaned up in there. He wants to get back home.

Six months ago a scene like that would have blown him away. Now… he feels nothing. Had the dubious distinction of being on hand for two other kamikaze deaths before today's, but never this close. The Hive's MO is pretty much the same all over: find a crowded place and try to spread the infection surreptitiously—the cough, the sneeze, smearing a little saliva on vegetables—but if caught, go down in a glorious spray of body fluids. Pure pragmatism: sacrifice one of their number for the opportunity to infect dozens more.

The Hive is relentlessly pragmatic. That's the key to its success.

Half a block from the store he stops and unties his mask; he pulls off his windbreaker and drapes it over the cart. The November wind slices at him but his flannel shirt blunts its edge. He removes the Glock from the nylon small-of-the-back holster and positions it in plain sight atop the jacket. Then he starts moving again.

This gray, sullen, blustery fall day matches the bleakness Jack feels. He wishes the sun were out—to warm his skin, and maybe even take some of this chill off his soul. But sunlight would bring out more people—maybe they think it's healthier, that the extra UV will kill germs—and Jack prefers the streets damn near deserted like this, especially when he's hauling a load of food. Even so, his senses are on full alert.

Ahead he sees a familiar face, a nodding acquaintance coming his way.

"Hey," the guy says with a grin, eyeing Jack's cart. No way he can miss the Glock. "Leave any for me?"

"Plenty," Jack says. "But you might want to wait awhile. A kamikaze did her thing in there."

"Shit!" the guy says. "They don't know when to quit, do they. They know we've got the vaccine. Why do they keep trying?"

"Just because they've got lots of brains doesn't mean they're smart."

The guy doesn't think this is funny. Neither does Jack, but it's better than talking about the rumor that the vaccine isn't what it was cracked up to be, that it's been failing all over the country. What's left of the U.S. government says these are lies spread by the infected to demoralize the uninfected, but no one knows who to believe.

"Guess I'll just go down to the store and wait outside till they clean things up."

Jack waves good-bye and watches him go. Once he's sure the guy's not going to do a spin and jump him from behind, he resumes his walk home. Knows he's always been a bit paranoid, but six months ago he'd have kept the Glock holstered and wouldn't be worried about being jumped for his food. As the saying goes, you're not paranoid if they're really out to get you. And they are. Oh yes, they are.

As Jack walks along he can feel the threads of the social fabric tearing, parting one by one.

Trust is gone, because anyone, your best and oldest friend, your dearest, closest relative, could be carrying the virus. Bad enough they're infected—that's not their fault—but less than a week after their inoculation they become someone else, someone dead set on infecting you.

Compassion is a memory. Sure, feel sorry for the victims of the virus—after they're dead.

Jack doesn't know about the rest of the country, but the tenuous sense of community that existed around the Upper West Side is atrophying. You'd think it would be the other way around, a community of the uninfected linking arms and closing ranks against the contaminated. But not when yesterday's uninfected ally could be today's infected enemy.

Jack figures he can extrapolate the local to the national, even to the international, and that means the whole world's going in the toilet—old social orders fragmenting while a new world order expands, relentlessly, irresistibly, geometrically, a rolling snowball of humanity with an unquestioned singleness of purpose.

Strange mix of feelings roiling through him these days. He's spent most of his adult life hiding from the social order, rejecting it, damning it. But despite its toxicity, now that it's on the brink of ruin he finds himself rooting for it, hoping it will find a way to hang on. Because the Hive is even more toxic than the world order it hopes to replace.

Not so much worried about himself—being a ghost in the Hive machine will be more of a challenge than his existence in the American social engine, but he'll manage it. His piercing concern is for Gia and Vicky and the jeopardy they face. They're not cut out to live in the cracks, and the Hive is too vast and pervasive for Jack ever to defeat on his own. Hates to admit it, but he needs help to protect the two people he cherishes. He knows he can't expect it from Democrats and Republicans, but maybe some genius in the medical establishment will come up with a killer app.

And most daunting is that deterioration to the current state has taken a mere five months.

First the virus mutated into an airborne form, then the original tiny nucleus of the Hive fanned out to all the New York travel hubs—LaGuardia and JFK airports, Penn and Grand Central Stations—to spread the virus. From there the bug raced across the country and around the world. Tens of millions were incorporated into the Hive before hardly anyone even realized it existed. Initially the two parties in Congress saw the Hive as a potential constituency and vied with each other to see who could grant it more special rights and entitlements. But after a majority of the politicians became infected, debate stopped.

By the time most people began to appreciate the enormity of the threat, it was too late.

The CDC's initial approach to containment was an influenza model, which proved ineffective. First off, folks with influenza know they're sick and so do the people around them; secondly, flu victims feel lousy and just want to get better. For Hive folk the infection's a party and the more the merrier.

And they were everywhere, contaminating water supplies, infiltrating food processing plants and dairy farms. People became afraid to eat anything they hadn't heated to a boil or prepared themselves.

As he pushes along the sidewalks, Jack wonders as he often does about his sister. Kate exited his life as quickly as she'd entered it. He searched for her but she stayed on the move, spreading the virus with the rest of the Hive vanguard, and he never caught up with her. But just last week he tried calling her office in Trenton and learned she was back in practice. She'd refused to take his call and he'd hung up sick at heart. He thinks of Kate as a pediatrician, with trusting parents, fearing their children might become infected, bringing them to her to be vaccinated against the virus. And Kate making sure if they aren't infected when they enter her office they damn sure are when they leave. All it takes is plain saline in the vaccine syringes and a little of the virus on the tongue depressors…

The thought of Kate betraying those children, breaking her oath to do no harm, negating the decent caring person she once was fills Jack with impotent rage. He wants to hurt, maim, kill, make someone pay, but how do you even a score with a virus?

He wonders if he should take a ride down to Trenton and… do something. But what? Put down the fouled thing that used to be his sister? The old Kate, the real Kate would want him to do that. Beg him to.

But can he? Take a bead on his own sister—even if she's not really his sister anymore—and pull the trigger? Can't imagine that.

Jack picks up his pace as he nears his block. Two old cars are parked nose to nose, blocking the near end of the street; he knows two more junkers are similarly situated at the far end—knows because the whole setup was his idea. Sometime last month he went door to brown-stone door talking—usually at a safe distance through windows or from the sidewalk—to neighbors he'd never bothered to meet despite years on the block, planting the idea of the block sealing itself off. Someone with better people skills picked up the ball and organized the residents, breaking the watch into shifts. Now no outsider enters the block unless accompanied by a resident.

Jack nods to a guy he knows only as George, standing behind one of the cars with a sawed off twelve gauge resting against a thigh. As George waves him through, an NYPD blue-and-white goes by, two cops in the front. Passenger cop's gaze lingers on Jack and George, then slides by. Can't miss the Glock or the sawed-off, but he doesn't react. The tattered remnants of officialdom are no longer worried about armed citizenry—the unseen danger of the virus is a far greater threat to the city. And besides, not enough police to go around as it is. They were the Hive's first target: call the cops out to a domestic dispute, infect them, then form a fifth column within the ranks to infect the rest. Uninfected cops stayed home until the blood tests were developed.

The vaccine and the blood tests—cheap little home kits, like pregnancy tests—are the final fingers in the dam against rising tide of the Hive. If they should fail…

Jack drag-bounces the cart to his third-floor apartment—his fortress islet within the atoll of his closed-off block—and knocks on the door; he has a key but Gia's so edgy these days he figures it'll go easier on her nerves if he doesn't just barge in.

"Oh, Jack!" he hears her say through the door, and he knows she's got her eye to the peep lens, but he detects a strange note in her voice. Something's up.

And when she opens the door and he sees her red eyes and tear-streaked face, he knows it.

"What's wrong?"

She pulls him inside, leaving the cart in the hall, and closes the door.

"The test!" she sobs. "Vicky and I—we're positive!"

Jack's heart drops. Gia's been obsessed with the virus, and rightly so, to the point where she's been testing the three of them every day. Jack's been buying kits by the gross, figuring if it gives her peace of mind, then fine, do it twice a day if you want.

But in the back of his mind he's always dreaded the possibility of this moment: the false positive.

"No." His tongue is an arid plain. "No, that can't be. There's got to be a mistake!"

She's shaking her head, fresh tears spilling onto her cheeks. "I just repeated it. Same result."

"Then it's a bad batch."

"Same batch as yesterday."

Jack can't accept this. He moved them here so he could protect them, keep them safe. They've been under his wing, rarely leaving the apartment.

The sick feeling in his stomach worsens as an appalling thought hits him like a runaway train: Is it my fault? Did I bring it home?

"Do it again," he says. "All three of us this time."

Gia nods and wipes her eyes. "Okay." She turns and calls, "Vicky!"

"What?" says a little girl's voice from one of the back rooms.

"Come in here for a minute, okay?"

"But I'm watching a movie!"

"You've seen that movie a hundred times already. Come here just for a second, okay?"

"The Parent Trap again?" Jack says, trying to look cheerful as Vicky mopes in.

"And I was just at the good part where they find out they're sisters!"

"That the nice thing about videos—you can stop them any time and pick up later right where you left off."

Gia has seated herself at Jack's rolltop. "Let me have your finger, Vickie."

A groan, an eye roll. "Not again!"

"Come on. One more time. Jack's doing it this time too."

"Oh, okay."

She walks over to Gia and presents her finger, flinches as her mother stabs the tip with a microlancet, and allows a drop of blood to be milked onto the circle of absorptive paper in the center of the test kit card.

"There," Gia says with a smile Jack knows is forced. "Was that so bad?"

"No. Can I see my movie now?"

"Sure."

As Vicky hurries off, sucking her tiny wound, Gia's trembling fingers squeeze a drop of reagent from its bottle onto the bloodied circle. She glances at her watch, puts the card aside, and looks up at Jack.

"Your turn."

Jack allows his finger to be subjected to the same ritual. Barely feels the prick. Soon his blood sample is doused in reagent and waiting for ten minutes to pass.

And Gia's makes three.

The wait feels interminable, with Gia pacing back and forth, rubbing her hands as if scrubbing them, a beautiful young blond Lady Macbeth working at a stubborn stain. Jack opens his mouth twice to say something, anything to soothe her raw nerves, but can't think of a damn thing that isn't lame or inane.

Finally she looks at her watch and says, "Time." But she doesn't move. "Jack… will you? I can't… I just…"

"Sure, Gi."

Jack steps to the desk, flips the three cards over and, carefully maintaining their sequence, lifts the rear panels. One by one, the flip side of the absorbent paper is revealed, and around the blood spots on the first and third cards… a blue halo. Around the second, only a ring of moisture.

Jack closes his eyes and feels the room rock around him.

Can't be. This isn't happening. Got to be a mistake. We've all been vaccinated, we all eat the same, drink the same, and I'm the one who's in and out, I'm the one with all the exposure. It should be me, not them.

He opens his eyes and looks again, begging for a different outcome. But nothing has changed: two positives flanking a negative.

Gia is staring at him. "Well?"

Jack swallows. "Positive." His voice is a hoarse rasp. He quickly gathers up the cards. "All three."

"Oh, Jack," Gia sobs, floating toward him. "Not you too!"

She flings herself against him and they stand there clinging to each other, Gia weeping, Jack's throat too tight to speak.

He crumples the test cards in his fist. Can't let Gia know. If she learns he's negative she'll blame Vicky's infection on the only other person the child could have caught it from: her. She'll never accept that she could have caught it from Vicky. Gia will assume all the guilt, and it will crush her.

And Jack's negative will open a gulf between them—she'll recede from him, fearing that a kiss, a caress, even a word spoken too close will infect him, and Jack couldn't bear that, not now, not when she needs him most.

"Christ, I'm so sorry, Gia," he manages. "I must have brought it home."

"But how can that be? We took every precaution. And the vaccine…"

"Doesn't work. That's been the word on the street lately. Now we know it's true."

She buries her face against his chest and sobs again. "Vicky… I can't bear the thought…"

"I know," he says, pulling her closer against him and feeling a sob building his own throat at the thought of Gia and Vicky becoming meat puppets controlled by the Hive. "I know."

What now? he asks himself, trying to corral his panicked, skittering thoughts. What can I do?

He hasn't heard of anyone beating this infection. But that doesn't mean no one ever will. There's always a chance for a breakthrough, for a wild card.

Look at me—I should be infected but I'm not. Maybe that means something. But how to find out?

Abe. Abe knows everything.

He releases Gia and looks her in the eye. "It's not over."

"What do you mean?"

"When I was talking to Abe yesterday he mentioned something about a new breakthrough."

"The days of breakthroughs are gone," she says dully.

"Gia, if there's anything in the pipeline, anything at all, Abe will have a line on it. I'll call him right now."

He grabs the cell phone and punches in Abe's number, something in the past he never would have considered doing, but a lot has changed in five months. He waits through a dozen rings—Abe doesn't believe in answering machines—then tries again. Still no answer. Abe's always in this time of day. Maybe he's in one of his black, ignore-the-phone moods. He's been having more of those lately.

"Looks like I'm going to have to go see him," Jack says. He doesn't want to leave Gia but time is critical. The fact that they've just turned positive means she and Vicky are in the early stages. If something can be done, the sooner the better. "I won't be gone long. You'll be okay?"

Gia nods wordlessly.

"Gia," he says, taking her by the shoulders, "we're going to beat this." And he knows he sounds like a hack actor in a bad soap opera but he can't stand seeing her like this. He's got to give her some hope. "Have I ever let you down?"

"Jack…" she says, and she sounds so tired. "This is different. This isn't something your methods can fix. The best scientific minds in the world have tackled this and they've all come up empty. Every time they think they have a solution, like the vaccine, the virus mutates. So what can you do?"

And when she puts it like that, what can he say? No reason to think he can offer Gia and Vicky a chance when the big brains can't. But still he's undeterred.

"Maybe I suffer from terminal hubris. And maybe I can't stand by and just let this happen. I've got to do something."

He doesn't say that guilt has pretty much taken him over. He brought Gia and Vicky here to protect them, but the bug got to them anyway. So even if it's not his fault, he feels responsible.

"Then do it," Gia says, without a hint of enthusiasm, "but don't expect me to hope, Jack, because as much as I want to, I can't. I'm looking at the end of everything I am and you are and whatever we might have been, and the strangulation of everything Vicky could be."

"We're not through yet."

"Yeah, we are. Our futures end in a few days. If it was death, I could accept that—at least for myself. But this is a living death… and…"

Her voice trails off, and her gaze slips off Jack and settles somewhere in space.

Jack has never seen her like this. What's happened to her indomitable spirit? It's as if the virus has already changed her, reached inside somehow and snuffed out an essential spark.

He holds her in his arms again and kisses her forehead. "Don't write us off. I'm going over to Abe's and see what he knows." He releases her and backs toward the door. "I should be back in an hour or so. I'll call if I'm going to be any later. Okay?"

Gia nods absently. "I'll be here. Where else can I go?"

Jack turns at the door and sees her standing in the middle of his front room, looking like a lost soul. And that's so un-Gia he has second thoughts about leaving. But he's got to see Abe. If there's any cause for hope, Abe will know.

Free of the cart this trip, Jack makes good time through the empty streets toward Amsterdam Avenue, not sure if he is fleeing the dark reality of his apartment or running toward a ray of hope. Soon he is standing before the Isher Sports Shop. The lights are on inside but the front door is locked. That's not right. He bangs on the glass but Abe doesn't appear.

Worried now—for years Abe has been a heart attack waiting to happen—Jack pulls out the defunct Visa card he keeps in his wallet for moments like this. Looks up and down the street, sees no one near enough to matter, and uses it to slip the door's latch. Abe's never devoted much effort to protecting his street-level stock, but it would take a Sherman tank to get into his basement.

"Abe?" he calls as he steps inside, relocking the door behind him. "Abe, it's Jack. You here?"

Silence… and then high-pitched cheeping as something pale blue flutters overhead. Parabellum, Abe's parakeet. Abe always cages the bird when he leaves, so he must be here.

Jack's apprehension intensifies as he heads for the rear, toward the counter where he and Abe have spent so many hours talking, solving the problems of the world time and again. And then as he rounds a corner piled high with hockey sticks and the counter hoves into view, he stumbles to a halt at the sight of all the red—the counter puddled with it, the wall behind splattered.

"No," Jack whispers.

Gut in a knot, he forces himself forward. Not Abe. Can't be Abe.

But who else's blood can this be?

He creeps toward the counter, edges around the side, looks behind—

It's Abe, on his back, white shirt glistening crimson, head cocked at a crazy angle, throat a ragged hole, torn away by a blast from the sawed-off shotgun lying by his knees.

Jack spins away, doubles over, sick. He doesn't vomit but wishes he could. Rage steadies him. Who did this? Whoever tried to make this look like a suicide didn't know Abe, because Abe would never…

After a while Jack straightens, staggers to the back of the store, finds an old tarp, and drapes it over Abe's body.

The blood… still so wet… couldn't have happened more than twenty, thirty minutes ago.

If only I'd left a few minutes earlier I might have been here in time to…

And then he sees something on the far corner of the counter. The square of a virus test kit. He steps closer. A used kit… and the blue halo says it's positive.

Jack sags against the counter. "Aw, Abe."

And he understands: Abe saw no hope for himself. That means Jack will have none to offer Gia and Vicky.

He sits a long while, feeling lost and paralyzed as he stares at the test card. Finally he pushes himself into motion. Can't leave Abe here like this. What's he do? Call the cops? Will they even come? And if they do, there'll be an investigation and someone will find the armory in the basement. And all the while Abe's body will molder in a drawer in the morgue's cooler.

No. Can't have that. Jack knows what he has to do: come back tonight with the car and take Abe's body to Central Park. No cops, no inquests, just a quiet private burial for his oldest and dearest friend.

But what about Abe's family? The only family Jack knows of is a daughter in Queens. Sarah. Jack's never met her; he hid Gia and Vicky at her place during the rakoshi mess last summer, but she was out of town then.

Jack reaches for the blood-spattered Rolodex and flips through it. Abe used a computer down in the basement but stuck to old-fashioned methods up here on the main floor. An ache grows in his throat at the sight of Abe's crabbed handwriting and for a moment the letters blur. He blinks and tugs on the "S" tab, and there it is: simply "Sarah" and a number.

He calls the number and when a woman answers he asks for Sarah.

"This is she."

"I… I'm a friend of your father's. I'm afraid—"

"Yes, we know," she says. "He's dead."

Jack's alarms go off at the we. "How can you—?"

"We were hoping to get him to the point where we could stop him from such tragic foolishness, but those damn tests are so—"

Jack slams down the receiver. He can imagine how it went down. Sarah stops by with a peace offering. They've never gotten along, but these are extraordinary times and maybe they should bury the hatchet. She's brought something sweet, something her father can't resist, something heavily spiked with the virus.

And later, when Abe's blood turns positive, he knows he's a goner and knows who made him that way and it's all too much for him. Never would have believed it of Abe, but no telling what a person will do when the whole future goes dead black without a single glint of hope—

Jack's breath freezes in his chest as he remembers Gia's ten-mile stare when he left her and now he's heading for the door with his heart tearing loose. The phone rings and he knows he should ignore it but doubles back on the slim chance it might be Gia. She knows he's here, maybe she's trying to reach him.

"Jack," Gia says in response to his barked hello. "Thank God I caught you."

"What's wrong?" The preternatural calm of her tone sends screams of warning through him. "How's Vicky?"

"Sleeping."

"Sleeping?" Vicky is not a napper. "Is she sick?"

"Not anymore. She's at peace."

"Christ, Gia, what are you saying? Don't tell me you—"

"I didn't have enough sleeping pills for both of us, so I gave them all to her. Soon she'll be safe."

"No!"

"And I've got one of your guns for me, but I didn't want to use it until I called you to say good-bye—"

The phone slips from Jack's fingers and he's dashing for the door, bursting onto the sidewalk, and sprinting east when he glances up and skids to a halt at the sight of a giant face staring down at him. It's the Russian lady but she's grown to Godzilla proportions.

"NOW DO YOU SEE?" she cries, her booming voice echoing off the buildings. "NOW DO YOU UNDERSTAND? THIS WILL BE IF YOU DO NOT STOP VIRUS NOW!"

What does it mean? That this is all a dream? No. Much as Jack wishes it were true, he knows it's not. This is too real.

Averting his face from her giant, blazing eyes, he starts running again, down the center of a treadmill street with cardboard buildings sliding by on each side to give the illusion of forward progress, but he's getting nowhere, and no matter how much speed he pumps into his legs, no matter how he cries and screams at the top of his lungs, he's no closer to home than when he started…

13

"Kevin's being a real dickhead about it, Mom."

"Elizabeth Iverson, that is no way to talk about your brother. And where did you pick up that kind of language?"

"I can't help it, that's what he is. And I don't care if he comes. Who wants him around anyway."

Kate clung to her cell phone as she peeked into Jack's bedroom—he was still tossing this way and that under the covers—then returned her attention to Lizzie. With everything that had happened, she'd missed her morning call to the kids. Just as well; they both slept in on Saturdays. She'd waited till after dinner to check in.

All she'd wanted to do was touch base with them before they went out with their friends, but had wound up in the middle of a sibling contretemps. She should have seen it coming, but this was the last thing she needed now: Kevin was refusing to go to Lizzie's recital on Monday. Lizzie was acting tough but Kate could tell she was hurt. Ron had never been good dealing with arguments between the kids so, exhausted though she was, Kate had been designated referee.

She sighed. "Put him on."

"I said, I don't care!"

"Lizzie, please put your brother on."

A few seconds of muffled sounds, then a sullen, "S'up, Ma?" from Kevin.

"What's up yourself, Kevin? Have you got something better to do Monday night?"

"Aw, Mom, I hate that music, you know that."

"No, it's not Polio, I'll grant you that," she said, referring to her son's favorite band, perpetrators of cacophonies he referred to as "slash metal" or "thrash metal" or some such unlistenable noise. She realized that every generation needed music that rawed their parents' nerves, but please. "The music's not the issue, however. Your sister's feelings are."

"You heard her. She doesn't want me to go."

"That's just a defense because you hurt her feelings. We've always done things as a family, Kevin. Even after the divorce, how many of your soccer games did your father and Lizzie and I miss? Very, very few. And just like your soccer tournament, Kevin, we're planning to attend this concert as a family. Family includes you."

"But Ma, the flute! Of all things, the flute! It's so whipped!"

"It's Lizzie's big moment. She's performing a solo she's been practicing for months and we should be there to share it with her. Are you telling me you can't spare two hours out of your busy schedule to attend her concert? Think about it, Kevin. In the grand scale of things, is two hours on a Monday night such a big deal?"

"No, but—"

"Sleep through the concert if you must, but be there for her."

"Sleep? That music's deadly. When it's over and you find me dead in my seat, how will you feel?"

"Don't worry. I know CPR. I should be home by mid-afternoon Monday. I'll come over to Dad's and we'll all go together. As a family. I'd like to count on that, Kevin. Can I?"

A long pause, then, "I guess so."

"Great. See you then. Love you."

"Me too."

She broke the connection and took a deep breath. Another domestic crisis averted. She empathized with Kevin; her own musical tastes were mired in sixties and seventies pop and she found classical music as trying as he did—except when Lizzie was playing—but the concert was a family thing, not a music thing, and she had to keep the family together. That was her mission, a responsibility that possessed her. Because the divorce had been her doing.

She rose and checked Jack again. He'd finally stopped moaning and lay deeply sunken in sleep; his skin had been cool and dry for almost two hours now.

"Looks like you made it, Jack," she whispered, stroking his matted hair. He might spike another fever around four A.M. or so, but she sensed that his immune system had the upper hand now. "Looks like you beat it."

But beat what? she thought as she wandered back to the front room. Exactly what infection had he been fighting all day? She hoped it was the contaminant. That would mean it was not as invincible or as "inevitable" as it seemed to think.

But the possibility existed that Jack had caught some other virus and his symptoms had been due to his body's war against that.

Only time would tell.

Kate yawned and stretched. Not much sleep last night. She was tired but doubted she could sleep. Not after what she'd been through today, not after learning that something calling itself the Unity was hell bent on erasing her personality, her individuality, her very self.

She felt a sob build in her throat. I don't want to die!

And that was what integration with the Unity would be: death. Sure, her body would live on but the person inside would be obliterated. All her values, the little things that made her who she was, gone. She would no longer care about the music, the paintings, the movies she now loved because they'd serve no practical purpose in expanding the species. And Kevin and Liz would be downgraded from the two most cherished beings in her life to a pair of potential hosts who shared some genes with her, valued only for their capacity to breed more hosts.

She had to see Fielding again—first thing Monday morning, before she headed home. Maybe he was right. He'd said he was Jeanette's best chance; maybe he was hers as well. The Unity clearly was concerned about Fielding. And whatever made it uneasy could orly be good for her.

Come to think of it, she hadn't felt the Unity tugging at her thoughts for the past few hours. Too occupied with something else? She wondered what it was up to. No matter. As long as it wasn't bothering her.

But if sleep was out of the question, at least she could lie down and rest her eyes now that Jack was over the worst.

She stretched out as best she could on the couch and laced her fingers atop her chest. Usually she looked forward to the next day, but not tonight. Would the Unity try to take over again, try to use her to wrest the secret of Jack's resistance from him?

Kate closed her eyes. She had to prevent the Unity from stealing what was hers—what was her. But how?

The question trailed her into sleep…

14

"You don't look like you're having much fun," Jay Pokorny said.

The four of them—Sandy and Beth and Pokorny and his longtime girlfriend Alissa—were standing at the long bar near the front of Kenny's Castaways on Bleecker in the Village, having a few drinks. The bar ran along the left side of the front section; tables cluttered the rear floor where a small stage huddled against the rear wall. Kenny's had been Pokorny's idea—something about a new band they had to hear. But here it was eleven already and still no music.

"So far it's just a bar," Sandy said.

He felt a nudge in his ribs and turned to see Beth smiling up at him. God, she looked great tonight.

"Be nice," she whispered.

He winked at her. "Okay."

"Yeah," Pokorny said, "but wait till you hear this chick in the band. Name's Debbie something. She's this little thing that looks like Betty Boop, but when she opens her mouth to sing—wow."

"Well, I hope she opens her mouth soon."

As much as Sandy liked live music, he wasn't crazy about bars. Especially a bar this packed and smoky and hot. Wasn't the AC working? None of which helped his lousy mood. He was hoping loud music and Beth's company would help him forget a strike-out day.

He hadn't been able to track down the police commissioner, but had cornered the mayor at a fundraising luncheon. He'd ducked Sandy's questions, rambling on about how it was a complex issue and how he'd have to know the details of the crime and run it past the Corporation Counsel and maybe a few judges. Yadda-yadda-yadda. Not much to write about there.

He checked his cell phone to make sure it was on. Yeah, it was, and no new calls. This sucked. Totally.

"Hey, Palmer," Pokorny said. "That's like the fifth time you've checked that phone since we got here. What's up? Expecting another call from the Savior?"

Sandy yielded to an instant of shock, then forced a laugh. "Yeah, right."

Truth was he'd placed two calls to the Savior today, and neither had been answered. Was the guy going to stiff him now?

A girl with lime Kool-Aid hair must have overheard Pokorny's Savior remark. She was leaning back from the bar, craning for a look at Sandy.

"It's you!" she said, her eyes widening with recognition. "You're the guy from the paper, aren't you. The one who was talking to the Savior."

Sandy shrugged, embarrassment and heart-singing joy tugging him in different directions.

"Damn right he is," Pokorny said. "That's Sandy Palmer himself, ace reporter and subway survivor."

Pokorny's sarcasm was lost on the green-haired girl who turned excitedly to her friend. "Kim! Kim! Look who's here! It's that reporter from the subway, the one who talked to the Savior!"

In less than a minute—less than half a minute—Sandy found himself with his back to the bar, enclosed in a tight, steadily thickening semicircle of men and women, all about his age. Pokorny and Alissa were been quickly elbowed out of the way but Sandy kept his arm around Beth's shoulder. This was a little scary.

They started asking him questions, general ones at first—what was it like, how did he feel, tell us how it really went down—then moving on to specifics like how much blood there was and what the Savior's voice was like and what kind of gun had he used. He pretended he hadn't heard that one.

He'd covered all this in his articles and lots of these people seemed to have read them, but that didn't matter. They wanted to hear him tell it, listen to him speak the words. Straight from the horse's mouth, so to speak.

And Sandy gladly obliged.

He felt a tap on his shoulder. When he turned, the bartender shoved a Bass Ale into his hand.

"On the house, mac."

And that started a flood of freebies as other people started buying him beers. But he didn't need alcohol. The recognition, the instant acceptance, the sea of rapt faces hanging onto his every word already had him higher than a kite.

This is what it can be like, he thought. Everywhere I go—Right this way, Mr. Palmer. Never mind the line there, we'll have a table ready for you in a moment. Meanwhile, we're chilling a bottle of champagne for you now, compliments of the house.

It's like a drug, he thought. No, it is a drug; a truly bodacious high. And I can see why people get hooked on it. Because there's nothing better than this. Nothing.

And then it occurred to him that Beth had been on the train too. She deserved a little attention. And he wasn't greedy. He could share the spotlight.

The question was, did Beth want this known?

What a question. How could she not?

He raised his hand and pulled her closer. "I'd like to introduce Beth Abrams. We met on the train that night and we've hardly been apart since, which proves that even the darkest cloud can have a silver lining."

The burst of applause and cheers, and the grins from the encircling crowd swept over him in a warm wave. He glanced at Beth and found her smiling up at him.

"That was sweet," she said.

She leaned toward him and they kissed, sending the crowd into another outburst of whoops.

"We're a hit," he said into her ear as he hugged her. "Maybe we should get an act together and take it on the road."

He was only partly kidding. If he could feel just one tenth of this every night…

Another tap on his shoulder. He turned and found a fellow about his age but all in black with a closely shaved head and a stud through his left eyebrow.

"Anytime you want to ditch this scene," he said in a low voice, "let me know."

"I don't get you."

"I'm talking about going some place very cool."

"This seems pretty cool." At least at the moment. Certainly a lot cooler now than when he'd arrived.

"This is nothing. I'm talking about a club. An exclusive club."

"Exclusive, huh?" He didn't have much money on him. The cover here had been only five bucks. In some of those clubs, "exclusive" was just a euphemism for overpriced-up-the-wazoo. "What's it called?"

"It's not called anything. I'm talking about a place so exclusive it doesn't even have a name. Doesn't need one."

"I don't know…"

"Don't worry. I can get you in. You'll be my guest. I think the regulars would like to meet you and your lady."

"Who might these regulars be?"

"Big names who wouldn't want me talking about them. But you've heard of them—everybody has. We're talking household names. You've seen their faces on the screen—the big one, not the little one. And if not their faces, then you've seen their names in big letters. You don't look like the fashion magazine type, but if you check out the Victoria's Secret catalog now and then you've seen some of the ladies' bodies."

Sandy had heard of such places: celebrity hangs for supermodels and movie people—stars, directors, producers—who wanted a place where they wouldn't be ogled and hounded for autographs.

And this guy's inviting me. Me! Shit, I don't believe this!

"All right," Sandy drawled with maximum cool. "I suppose we can check it out." He turned to Beth. "Come on. We're leaving."

"Where are we going?"

"A special place where we can have a little peace and quiet."

"Okay by me. I'll find Jay and Alissa and—"

"They're not invited. Just us."

"You think that's right?" The truth was, he hadn't thought about it. "Believe me, Beth, you'll want to be in this place."

"Fine, but the least we can do is say good-bye. I'll go find them." As he watched her thread through the thicket of people, he thought, I'm out on the town with my conscience.

Which, all things considered, probably wasn't such a bad thing.

15

She thought she'd fallen asleep, but now Kate is up and walking.

She's outside. Where? Somehow she left Jack's and is walking the street. But not Jack's street. It's much wider, with houses instead of brownstones. She's in Queens, in a place called Middle Village.

Somehow she knows that. But how? She knows nothing of Queens.

She feels a buzz of anticipation as she turns up the walk toward one of the houses. It's dark on the first floor, with a single window lit on the second. Up the three steps, across the front porch, she reaches her hand toward the bell—

No! That's not her hand! It's too big, the fingers too thick. And she doesn't own a ring that looks anything like—

She knows that ring. She saw it on Holdstock's hand. But how did she get it? And what's happened to her hands? She watches as one of them pushes the bell button, not with a fingertip but with a knuckle. Strange way to ring. And what is this undercurrent of dread she senses?

The door opens then and it's Dr. fielding standing behind the screen.

"Terrence," he says. "What a surprise."

Terrence? Isn't that Holdstock's first name?

"I hope I'm not disturbing you, Doctor," she hears herself say in Holdstock's voice, "but I need your help."

"Come in, come in," Fielding says, pushing open the screen door. "As a matter of fact, I could use your help too. Maybe we can help each other."

As she follows him inside, kicking the door closed behind her, she begins to realize what this is: another one of those surreal dreams she's been having. What's the symbolism here? What conflict is her unconscious trying to resolve?

Then she sees it: Because he was the first to be infected, Holdstock represents the leadership of the Unity. She's terrified by the Unity's invasion of her mind and body, so her subconscious is dealing with that by turning the tables and portraying her as having invaded Holdstock's.

But understanding doesn't release her from the dream's iron grip. She's simply going to have to ride it out.

Fielding is leading the way. "Let's go to my study where we can talk."

Her dread increases as she closes on Fielding's back, fumbling in her—Holdstock's—coat pocket and withdrawing a slim wire with a wooden handle on each end. Although she's never seen one, Kate knows it's a garrote. And she knows that Holdstock made it himself this afternoon, spending an hour drilling a midpoint hole through each of two short lengths of doweling, threading electrical wire through, winding it around and around and triple-knotting it.

Kate from the outset disliked this dream, and hates it now, but she can't stop Holdstock from crossing his wrists and looping the wire over the unsuspecting Doctor's head, from wrenching back on those handles and cinching the wire tight around Fielding's throat, from twisting the wire against the nape of his neck to lock it in place.

A grunt from Fielding as he claws at his throat and tries to turn but she—Holdstock—she—Holdstock—dear Lord, she can't be sure—keeps a relentless grip on the handles and stays behind the frantically struggling doctor. She can see half of his panicked, wide-mouthed face as it darkens toward blue, see one of his baffled, bulging, blood-engorged eyes as it pleads for mercy, for air, for life.

And Kate wants to scream but she's mute, tries to loosen her grip on those handles but cannot.

And now Fielding is kicking and spasming and clawing and twisting madly, slamming the both of them against the dining room table, doing anything within his fading power to break free, but Holdstock's body outweighs his by at least fifty pounds and Kate uses that to hang on, a homicidal rodeo rider on a doomed horse.

Stop it! Oh, dear God, let the poor man go!

But her cries are silent, her pleas unheeded.

And now Fielding's legs give way and he drops to his knees. Kate goes with him, directly behind, maintaining her relentless tension on the wire. His frantic movements slow, his body sags to the side. But Kate stays with him all the way to the floor, never letting up, shoving him onto his face and jamming her knees into his back and hanging on through the terminal spasms as the cells in Fielding's oxygen-starved brain and myocardium fire randomly, agonally, and then finally, not at all.

A stink fills the air as Fielding's sphincters relax. That's the sign she's been waiting for. Kate unwinds the wire and pulls it free. She jumps as Fielding sighs—a flat, atonal sound. But it's only the trapped air in his lungs escaping past his vocal cords. Gripping the table she hauls herself to her feet.

She stares down at the corpse of what had once been a brilliant man. Her dread has changed to remorse, deep regret… such a waste.

Heading for the door, she stuffs the garrote in one pocket and pulls a glove from another. She pulls on the glove and uses that hand to open the front door and close it behind her.

Kate is weeping inside as she walks back down the street, pursued by regret and remorse, and perhaps even a trace of guilt that is not her own.

SUNDAY

1

"Did last night really happen?" Beth said, her lithe body snuggled against his under the sheet.

Sandy stroked her bare shoulder. "Last night? That was this morning, babe. And I can't believe it's only eight and we're awake already."

They'd stumbled in around five, too wired for sleep, so they'd stripped and made wild, wild love. Sandy didn't know about Beth, but last night had been the best of his life—not that he had a whole lot to compare it to.

"I don't think I slept at all—I mean, I know I closed my eyes, but I don't think I slept a wink. Did it really happen? Was it a dream or was that really Leo DiCaprio with his hand on my shoulder? Was that really us in that club?"

"That was us," he replied. "And that's going to be us from now on."

On the way to Tribeca in the cab, the mysterious fellow they'd hooked up with at Kenny's told them his name was Rolf—he pronounced it strangely, as if he'd stuck an umlaut over the o—and how he knew all sorts of interesting people, and how his hobby, his mission in life was putting interesting people together with other interesting people.

That turned out to be a major overstatement, but Rolf had not been exaggerating about the club. Its entrance was an unmarked red door on Franklin Street. He'd had Sandy and Beth wait in the cab while he talked to someone inside the door. Finally, after what had struck Sandy as more of a negotiation than a conversation, the three of them were passed through.

Through the course of the next few hours Sandy learned that Rolf's day job was managing an ultra-exclusive accessories department in Blume's where he met the rich and famous, and his real talent seemed to be an ability as a hanger-on to parlay his acquaintanceships into entrees to exclusive scenes; he'd used Sandy's celebrity as a wedge into the nameless space, a place he'd never be admitted to on his own.

Once inside Rolf led them up a narrow staircase to a low-lit room with a small bar and lots of comfortable chairs grouped around low tables. It had taken all of Sandy's will to keep from gawking and tripping over his own feet as they followed Rolf to the bar.

He left them there and Beth's nails had been digging into Sandy's upper arm as she whispered, barely moving her lips: "Did you see who was in the red chair? And over in the corner—don't be obvious—is that who I think it is?"

It was.

Rolf meanwhile circulated to a few tables, bending and whispering in ears. Minutes later he'd returned and said, "Bobby would like you to join him at his table for a drink."

"Bobby?" Sandy said. "Bobby who?"

"De Niro, of course."

Oh, shit, he'd thought. I can't do this. He's… he's fucking De Niro and he's going to see right through me! But then he thought, Wait. Has De Niro ever been trapped in a speeding subway car with a murderous psycho blowing away everyone in sight? Fuck, no.

But Sandy had. So what was so scary about Bobby De Niro?

"Okay," Sandy had said, cool as a cube. "Let's go."

And so they'd had a drink with De Niro while Sandy told the story, and during the telling other famous faces had gathered around, listening, nodding, murmuring approval and awe.

And then Harvey Weinstein had drawn Sandy aside, talking about working up a piece for Talk with an eye toward developing the article into a screen property. Sandy could barely speak, just kept nodding, agreeing to anything, everything, his gaze always drifting back to Beth, deep in filmspeak with De Niro and DiCaprio.

"I still can't believe I spent the night talking about my student film with Robert De Niro—who kept telling me to call him 'Bobby'! How could I call him 'Bobby'? The word wouldn't pass my lips."

"I heard you calling DiCaprio 'Leo'."

"That's different; he's my age. But Robert De Niro… he's a god. He's Mister De Niro. And he's going to help me with my film! Lend me equipment! Let me use his AVID! Pinch me, Sandy."

He did. Gently. "There. And we're still right here together. You're on your way, Beth."

"And I owe it to one person. The Savior."

Sandy was a little miffed. He'd thought she was going to name him.

"The Savior didn't get you into that club."

"Not directly, but if not for him, the only place I would have been last night was six feet under."

Sandy couldn't argue with that. A small part of him kept insisting that he would have found some way to survive, but when he took a hard look back on that scene on the Nine… no way.

"Do you really think you can get him amnesty?" Beth said, stroking his arm.

"I think so." He hoped so. "I'm going to try like all hell, but the decision won't be up to me."

It won't be up to anybody if he doesn't get back to me, he thought.

And what if he didn't get back—ever? A sick feeling wormed through Sandy's gut. What if he'd scared the Savior with the amnesty talk, what if he'd picked up and left town? If the Savior was off the map, so was Sandy. How interested in Sandy Palmer would Harvey Weinstein be a few weeks from now when he literally was yesterday's news? No Talk article, no film development…

"You've so got to get this amnesty for him, Sandy."

And once more he was struck by Beth's different perspective.

For him? No, I'm doing it for me.

2

"What day is it?"

Kate jumped at the sound of Jack's hoarse voice. She turned from the TV and found him leaning in the bedroom doorway with a blanket draped over his shoulders. Dull-eyed and unshaven, his hair sticking out in all directions, but he looked so much better than yesterday.

"Sunday."

He shuffled into the front room and dropped into the recliner. He closed his eyes and let out a deep breath as if the short walk had exhausted him.

"I've been sick for a week?"

"No. Just a day."

"Feels like a month."

"You were pretty sick yesterday. Delirious at times."

"You should have seen it from my side. You wouldn't believe the nightmares."

Should she tell him about her own dream? If that was all it had been, then why bother. But if not…

Kate shuddered. She'd been up half the night trying to reach Dr. Fielding. She hadn't expected anyone to answer his office phone at four A.M. on a Sunday morning, but since his home number was unlisted she'd tried anyway. Finally she'd pulled out her cell phone—long since blocked to caller ID to keep patients from phoning her instead of whoever was on call for the group—and called 911; she flat out told the police to check on a Dr. James Fielding in Middle Village because he wasn't answering his phone and she feared, well, something awful.

She'd been flipping back and forth between the local TV channels ever since, looking for some mention of the murder of a respected medical researcher. So far nothing. She prayed it would stay that way.

"You didn't happen to make any coffee, did you?" Jack muttered.

"Just some instant, but you should be drinking something like Gatorade to replenish your fluids and electro—"

"Coffeeeeeee," Jack intoned, sounding like a muezzin calling the faithful to prayer. "Coffeeeeeeee."

"Jack—"

"I've got a splitting headache from caffeine withdrawal. This is not to feed a habit, this is a medical necessity. Coffeeeeeeee!"

"For crying out loud," she laughed, heading for the kitchen. "All right. I'll get you some. Just stop that moaning."

"You know what?" Jack said from the other room as she filled an eight-ounce measuring cup with water and stuck it in the microwave. "Fever must make you hypersusceptible to suggestion. I dreamed about your mysterious Russian lady."

"Russian lady?" What on earth—? "Oh, yes. The one who gave me your name."

"Right. Dreamed she paid me a visit with her big white malamute."

Kate smiled. That was the breed—a malamute. She hadn't been able to place it. And then with a start she realized…

"Jack, I never told you it was a malamute."

"Sure you did. How would I have known?"

"Jack, I didn't know. I couldn't recall the breed. So how could you know?"

"Had to be from you, because the Russian lady's visit was all in my head. See that four-way bolt on the front door? Nobody gets in here unless I let them. So you must have told me."

Kate was sure she hadn't but wasn't going to argue.

"What did she tell you? In the dream, I mean."

"All sorts of apocalyptic stuff about the virus. Like if I—me and me alone—didn't stop it, the world as we know it would end in bloodshed, death, hatred, terror, all that good stuff."

Kate dumped two spoonfuls of instant coffee into a large mug. Not quite the communal agrarian paradise the Unity had pictured for her. Although the part about the end of the world as we know seemed right on the mark.

"What would make her think you could stop a virus?"

"Damned if I know. That's for guys like Fielding and the government's alphabet soup agencies."

Kate closed her eyes and took a breath. Yes, Fielding… if he's alive.

"But she said something even crazier. She said you and I were already infected."

Kate gripped the edge of the sink as the room seemed to tilt. "She told you that?"

"Yeah. And you know what? The Russian-lady delusion must have tripped a switch in my brain because that fueled an even weirder dream. Weirdest I've ever had."

Kate was almost afraid to ask. "How so?"

The microwave chimed. Her hand trembled as she removed the measuring cup and poured the water into the mug.

"Well, the whole dream was based on the idea that Fielding's mysterious contamination virus doesn't just cause personality changes, it links all the minds of the people it infects into one group consciousness—a hive mind. Isn't that wild?"

Kate, stirring Jack's coffee, dropped the spoon.

"Wh-what? What did you say?"

Jack was describing the Unity, describing it perfectly. But how could he know? And how could he know he was infected?

"A hive mind."

Was that how he knew? During the battle between his immune system and the Unity virus, could his subconscious have realized what was at stake and tried to warn him? No, she couldn't buy that. Too New Age-y. But somehow… Jack knew.

Feeling a bit punch-drunk, Kate carried the coffee into the front room and handed it to him quickly to hide her trembling hands, then lowered herself onto a nearby hassock.

"Tell me about it."

"It took place just a few months from now when we're in the middle of an all-out war between the infected and the uninfected."

A war. Yes, Kate thought, that's what could happen if the virus were easily spread—say, airborne. Thank the lord it isn't.

She listened to his chilling, tragic scenario with a lump in her throat. She didn't know this Abe Jack mentioned, but she'd met Gia and Vicky and was deeply disturbed by hearing of Gia overdosing her daughter.

"I don't know her that well, but I can't see Gia doing something like that."

"Neither can I," Jack said. "Like most dreams it's got Swiss cheese logic. Like where Gia got the sleeping pills; I never questioned it in the dream, but I don't think she's ever taken one in her whole life. Lots of things got by me, and the weirdest one concerned you."

Kate felt her insides tighten. "I was in your dream?"

"Not in person. But my dreamself was thinking about you as being one of the infected. It wasn't a shocking revelation or anything like that; more like something I'd known for a while."

Kate felt as if she were slowly becoming a block of ice. "Is that all?"

"Not quite. I was thinking awful thoughts about you, imagining you returning to Trenton and using your practice to infect all your kid patients.

Kate closed her eyes and fought a wave of nausea.

"Sorry for being such a sicko, Kate," Jack was saying, and his voice seemed to be coming from the far end of a long corridor, "but that was the dream, not me. I know damn well you'd never do something like that."

But that was what she found most sickening: it was exactly what she'd do. Because that was what the Unity would command her to do. And even worse, she'd want to do it. Once fully integrated she'd be an enthusiastic participant in anything that brought more minds into the Unity.

"Kate?" Jack's voice, echoing from somewhere. "Kate are you all right?"

She had to tell him. He had to know.

"Jack…"

But he was staring at the TV screen, pointing. "Holy, Christ, Kate! Look at this!"

Kate turned and saw Fielding's face, obviously a personnel file photo, on the screen.

Jack had grabbed the remote and was bringing the sound up.

"… on a tip, police this morning found the body of medical re-

searcher Dr. James Fielding in his home in Middle Village, Queens. Cause of death appears to have been strangulation. Police have no motive or suspects yet. In other news…"

Jack hit the MUTE button and stared at her. "What the hell?"

But Kate couldn't speak. Her throat had locked. Last night's dream hadn't been a dream. The Unity had murdered Jim Fielding, and she'd been there, could still feel the handles of the garrote against her palms.

"Jack, I'm infected!" she blurted.

He stared at her, wide-eyed. "What? How?"

"Jeanette."

As ill as he was, something fearsome flashed in his eyes and contorted his features. "I'll kill her!"

"No, Jack. It's not her fault. She—"

"How do you know you're infected? Are you sure?"

"Because…"

And suddenly Kate felt a surge within her, an invisible hand reaching through her mind and clamping down on her tongue, trying to paralyze it. The Unity was back—or maybe it had never gone away, maybe it had sat quietly within her, eavesdropping, monitoring her conversation, ready to react if she intended to say or do anything that might threaten it. And now it was pouncing.

Kate fought back, managing to push the words past her lips.

"Because the part of your dream about the hive mind is true."

"Can't be. That was fever. I was delirious."

"No, Jack. The hive mind spoke to me yesterday. Jeanette, Hold-stock, and half a dozen more of Fielding's other patients are part of a single mind. And they're pulling me in too. They're in my head right now, trying to keep me from telling you this, but I guess I've still got enough uninfected brain cells left to resist."

Jack stared at her from his recliner, the rage in his face shifting to disbelief.

"They killed Fielding, Jack. They were afraid he might come up with a vaccine or a way to kill the virus."

"How… how can you know that?"

"Because I was there! I witnessed it through Holdstock's eyes."

That odd look on his face, worried for her, wondering no doubt how someone can seem sane one day and then suddenly lose her mind. She had to convince him, had to make him believe. Because if they killed Fielding, they just might kill Jack too.

"And Jack… that Russian lady… whether a dream or not, she was right. You're infected too."

3

Kate had lost it. That, or he was still running 104 and having another fever dream. Or…

Or it was true.

A year ago Jack would have snickered at the idea of a hive mind. But since last summer he'd come face to face with too many things he'd once thought impossible, so he couldn't just write this off. Especially when the source was someone as thoroughly anchored as Kate.

And even if this hive mind was a fantasy, he still did not want to be infected with Fielding's virus.

He felt lousy, too weak for a long, drawn-out discussion. Had to move this along.

"Okay," he said carefully. "First things first: if we're infected, how did we get that way?"

"With infected pins. Jeanette punctured my palm and Holdstock scratched your hand when he was here the other day."

The coffee went cold and bitter on Jack's tongue. He had never mentioned that scratch to Kate.

"How did you know about that?"

"The Unity told me."

She went on to describe yesterday's hand-holding session with Holdstock and Jeanette and the rest.

"You weren't imagining it?" he said finally, shaken because this was so much like his dream. "They were really talking to you… in your brain?"

Kate nodded. "Not just talking, showing me images of the future they envision for humanity."

"And you couldn't block them out?"

"No. In fact they're in my head right now."

Her words were a cold knife between Jack's shoulder blades.

"You mean they're here, listening to us?"

Kate's expression was bleak as she nodded. "Through me. And trying to keep me from telling you all this."

Revulsion stirred and crawled through Jack's gut as he tried to imagine the horror of what that would be like. He couldn't. His mind… invaded, violated, raped, and dominated… unimaginable.

"But Kate… you were never sick."

"That's because my immune system is like everyone else's, I guess. This virus can slip past the perimeter defenses and take control before it has time to react. But not in your case."

"What's so special about me?"

"That's what I'd like to know. Because…" With knitted brows Kate stopped and turned her head, as if listening.

"Something wrong?"

"The pressure just let up."

"What pressure?"

"The pressure to silence me… it's gone." Her eyes widened. "The Unity wants the answer too. You beat the virus, Jack."

"How do you know it wasn't some other virus I picked up—a summer flu or the like?"

"Oh, the Unity knows, Jack. Believe me, it knows. And it's afraid of you. You're a wild card, an aberration, an unexpected glitch in their master plan. Maybe you shouldn't say anything."

"Listen, we're related, so if I've got something inside me that can fight this, maybe you do too. You want to test my blood, it's yours."

"I don't have the equipment or the knowledge, but NIH and CDC do—you'll be invaluable to them. But the why still remains. Immune systems react to invading substances like viruses and attack them. It's a 'me' / 'not-me' reaction. Anything classified as 'not-me' must go."

"I like that."

"Sometimes it can overreact to innocent things like pollen, resulting in allergies, but the basic xenophobic protocol never changes. Viruses like HIV get past by invading the immune cells themselves, eventually destroying them; but this is ultimately bad for the virus since it then leaves the host open to every infectious organism that comes along. The Unity virus has a more practical approach: co-opt the immune system and leave it intact to function against everything but the Unity virus. That's what it did to me."

Jack squeezed his eyes shut. Aw, Kate. I can't stand this.

He said, "Why not me then?"

"I can't say. I can only guess that sometime in the past your immune system has battled something similar to, but not exactly like, the Unity virus."

"Why do you qualify it?"

"Because if you'd fought off something exactly like it before, you'd be fully immune and your system would have wiped out the virus as soon as it entered. Remember when you had chickenpox as a kid? The infection left you with permanent immunity: cellular guns loaded with varicella-seeking bullets. Should you get too close to a poxy kid and pick up some of the varicella virus, it's gobbled up the instant it hits your bloodstream, without your having an inkling it was there at all."

"But I got sick as a dog, so that means my guns were not loaded for the Unity virus."

"Right. But unlike my immune system, yours got put on alert by something about the Unity virus. My guess is a minor antigenic similarity. Maybe because of a previous infection, it recognized just one or two base sequences in its protein coat; whatever it was was enough to trigger an immune response, and your T-cells declared war."

Love those T-cells, Jack thought, but why should mine be special?

"The thing is, Kate, I'm almost never sick. I don't even get the usual infections, let alone special ones."

"Gia told me you were terribly ill last summer—just as sick as you were yesterday."

"Oh, that. That wasn't a bug I caught, that was from some infected wounds."

"Wounds?" Kate's brow furrowed. "Who wounded you?"

Jack was about to say, Not who—what, when it all came together, whipping his head around like a backhanded bitchslap.

"Holy shit!"

"What?"

How could he tell her about the creatures that had almost killed him last August, about how the gouges one of them had torn across his chest became infected, leaving him fevered up for days after? If some contaminant from those things had primed his immune system, allowing it to recognize the Unity virus, then that meant the virus was linked to them.

Was the same power responsible for those creatures also behind the virus? Was that what was going on here? He needed more information but didn't know where to find it.

"Jack, what's wrong?"

Could he tell her? Nope. His story was even more fantastic than hers. Sound like he was playing Can You Top This? And how could he explain what he didn't understand himself? All he knew was that they were dealing with pure evil.

Used to be Jack didn't believe in evil as an entity. But he'd come to know it was out there—no belief necessary, he'd experienced it—and very real, very hungry.

He pressed the heels of his palms against his eyes but it didn't slow his spinning mind. Couldn't worry about the big picture now. Had to stay focused on Kate and what was infecting her.

"Just a splitting headache," he lied.

"You were going to tell me about some wounds."

"There were nothing special."

"You don't know that. Something—"

"Please, Kate, we can worry about that later—"

"But I'm worried about it now, Jack!" she said and he saw tears filling her eyes. "I don't want to die."

"You're not going to die."

"Yes, I am! What's me, who I am…" She tapped her right temple as the tears spilled down her cheeks. "I'm dying in there, being eaten alive neuron by neuron. Soon I'll be gone, Jack, and I don't want to go. I've got too much left to do!"

Kate seemed to shrink, looking more like a frightened little girl than a professional and mother of two, and Jack's heart broke for her.

He struggled from the recliner. The effort, along with the change in position, made the room spin but he clenched his teeth and held on.

He dropped to his knees before his sister and put his arms around her, enfolding her in his blanket. She was trembling like a wounded thing.

He whispered in her ear. "I swear to you, Kate, that's not going to happen. I won't allow it."

"You don't know that. You can't say that."

"Yes, I can."

A cold resolve had taken shape within him, and Jack knew now what he had to do.

He waited till she'd composed herself, then sat back on his haunches, looking up at her.

"First we need to gather our facts. How many people in this Unity now—not including you?"

"Eight."

"Do you know their names and where they live?"

"No, I—" And then she stopped and cocked her head again. "I'll be darned. I do know."

"Great. Write them down and—"

"Why?" she said sharply. "So you can track them down and shoot them?"

Her words rocked him. "What makes you think I'd do something like that?"

"I found your guns, Jack."

Damn.

"That doesn't mean I'm planning to go out and shoot them."

But that was what was running through his head. Jack rarely believed in following the shortest course between two points, but with Kate at risk, the rules changed. He figured with Holdstock and the others dead there'd be no ubermind to control her. As the only surviving infected brain, Kate could remain Kate.

He hoped.

"Don't lie to me, Jack. And I don't know how you can even consider such a thing. They're not evil."

"Tell that to Fielding."

"The aggregate, yes—it's ruthless and will do anything to protect itself, but the individuals are innocent. They didn't ask to be infected. You heard Jeanette before she became fully integrated—she was terrified, pleading for help we couldn't give her. I'm sure they all felt that way but couldn't tell anyone. You can't kill innocent people, Jack."

Oh, yes, Kate, he thought, in this case I can. They threaten your existence. A choice between eight of them and one of you is no choice at all.

"Are you worried about them all, or just one?"

"Maybe I'm especially worried for Jeanette—I've lost her and I want her back. And I know her well enough to know she'd rather be dead than exist as she is now. But think, Jack: What if CDC or NIH test the virus and discover what to do? Jeanette and Holdstock and the rest can all be returned to their former selves. But not if they're dead. Could you live with that on your conscience, Jack?"

"One hell of a what-if, don't you think?"

"Maybe. But I know this, Jack: If you do something awful to them I will never speak to you again."

And if I don't, he thought with a deep pang of worry, you might never speak to me again anyway… because you'll be gone.

But to save her and then face her loathing…

At least she was sounding more like herself. She'd regained her composure, and the moral authority of an older sister.

Jack sighed. Might as well temporize. As if he had a choice. He was in no condition now to take any sort of action. In fact, just walking himself back to his bed would be an accomplishment. He'd need a day, maybe two to get his legs back. Question was, What could he do in the meantime?

"All right," he said. "I promise, nothing 'awful,' okay? But I've got to do something."

"Leave that to NIH and CDC."

Yeah, right.

"Holdstock seems to be the leader," he said. "Maybe—"

"You have to understand, Jack, there is no leader. That's why it calls itself the Unity—it's one mind and… oh dear, I just realized something. I had a dream shortly after I was infected, a landscape of coins with only the tail sides showing."

"Reverse—the head is the obverse side, the tail is the reverse." He stopped as he noticed her staring at him. "I know coins."

"Okay, only reverse sides showing, so that everywhere I looked I saw 'e pluribus unum'."

"'One from many'."

"Yes. I guess something in me knew what was happening even then."

"Back to Holdstock: you say he's not the leader, but he is the one who killed Fielding."

"His body was sent to kill Fielding. He had no say. He's an appendage, a tentacle on an octopus."

"Okay." He held up his hands, palms out. "You've made your point. What I want to know is why him?"

Kate opened her mouth, then closed it. She bared her teeth as if in pain.

"Kate! Are you all right?"

"The Unity… doesn't want me… tell you about this."

"What can I do?"

Jack held back a roar of frustration, wanting to grab and throttle whatever was mauling Kate's mind. But how do you tackle something you can't see?

"Because physically he's the largest member," she blurted, then gasped before continuing. "I've got it now."

"You're sure?"

She nodded jerkily. "Yes. They needed a body with the strength to overpower Fielding, and Holdstock was it."

"Why not just shoot him or stab him?"

"The idea was to leave as little evidence as possible. No noise, no bullet, no weapon, no bloodstains. Arrive, strangle him, leave, dispose of the electrical cord and wooden handles in separate locations on the way home."

"They told you all this?"

Kate shook her head, her expression bleak. "No. They didn't have to. I just… know."

Good plan… simple… grimly efficient. If the target knows you and doesn't fear you, it's perfect.

"Holdstock didn't touch anything?"

"No. Fielding opened the doors for him going in and he put on a glove going out."

"Think carefully, Kate. He touched nothing?''''

"It all happened so quickly, I don't—wait." She winced and closed her eyes for a few seconds, then spoke through her teeth. "When he rose from the floor after the struggle with Fielding, he used the dining room table for support."

"Touched it with his bare hand, not his forearm or his elbow?"

"Put his hand flat on the tabletop—I'm sure."

"Well, well, well," Jack said.

A whole handprint, fingers and palm. Beautiful.

"Can you use that?"

"Can't say just yet." Telling Kate would be telling the Unity.

Jack couldn't guarantee that his newly conceived scheme would work but, short of executing eight people, it was all he had right now. Holdstock might not be the leader, but his murdering Fielding made him vulnerable. If Jack couldn't eliminate the Unity, maybe he could distract it, and maybe that would buy Kate time.

"Can I ask you, Jack," Kate said, her face grave as she stared at him, "why you have so many guns?"

"Because I can. Because I want to. Because they expand my comfort zone."

"You're not one of those NRA gun nuts, are you?"

"No." He smiled. "Those are citizens."

"I hate guns. Ron bought one back when we were still together. He said he hated them too but he figured some day he might not be allowed to buy one, so…" She shrugged.

"Smart man. I don't pretend to know the answers, Kate. I'm not in the business of solving society's problems, but trying to control violence by disarming potential victims strikes me as whacked-out insane."

"Is this some sort of Second Amendment thing with you?"

Almost laughed. "Not likely. Amendments, Second or otherwise, don't apply much to me. If it's any sort of 'thing,' Kate, it's a bad-guy/ good-guy thing. As long as there's bad guys out there ready to stab, rape, shoot, bludgeon, and torture to get what they want, then their potential victims need a decisive way to respond. Guns weren't called 'equalizers' for nothing. The frailest woman with a gun in her hand is a match for any rapist."

"So I take it, then," Kate said slowly, "that if all the bad guys went away, magically disappeared, you'd give up your guns?"

"Not a chance."

Kate nodded. Didn't smile, but her eyes said, Gotcha.

Using an arm of the recliner for support, Jack pushed himself to his feet.

"Right now I'm too pooped to argue. Maybe after a nap…" Shuffled back to his bedroom and collapsed on the bed. After resting a moment, he picked up the phone and punched in a number. He'd checked his voicemail before leaving the bedroom and found two messages from Sandy Palmer, boy reporter. Jack would call Gia, let her know he was feeling better and see how she was doing, then it would be time for Superman to call Jimmy Olsen and get him involved in something more productive than amnesty for the Savior…

4

Meet me at noon at the bar where you were told how to find me. I need your help.

The words bounced around the inside of Sandy's head. Especially the last four: I need your help.

He felt light and giddy, ready to laugh aloud as he hurried up Broadway. The Upper West Side was taking advantage of the sunny Sunday morning: dinks brunching al fresco, yuppie couples herding their kids along the sidewalk toward church or the latest IMAX offering.

Look at me! he wanted to shout. Last night I was shoulder to shoulder with the ultraglitterati, and this morning I'm answering a call from the mystery man the whole country is talking about, and he wants me to help him out. Don't you wish you were me? You all know you do! Say it!

This was so cool. Who'd ever dream life could be this cool.

The call had been a surprise. After Sandy had all but given up hope of hearing from the Savior, the man phones and he wants to meet. Because he needs help.

Help with what? Amnesty wasn't mentioned. Could he be in some sort of jam?

But back to cool: that was how Sandy was determined to be at this meet. Cool. Ultracool. Don't let the excitement show, don't buy right away into whatever he wants you to do. Think about it… check it out from all angles… weigh all the pluses and minuses…

Then jump in with both feet.

He grinned. Yes!

He'd forgotten the exact location of Julio's and made a couple of wrong turns before he found it. He stepped inside and it was déjà vu all over again: the dead plants in the window, the dark interior, the musty smell of stale beer, and at the bar, the same two hard drinkers who'd given him a hard time before. What were their names? Barney and Lou. Right. Everything exactly the same, like he'd stepped back in time: the same shots and drafts on the bar, and Sandy could swear Barney was wearing the same faded T-shirt. Did these two live here?

"Hey, meng."

Sandy glanced right to see the muscular little Hispanic owner strolling his way.

Julio said, "You've come to give me my share of the inheritance, eh?"

"What?" Sandy said, baffled.

Julio held up Sandy's original Identi-Kit printout and waved it in his face.

"The guy you were looking for, meng! I toF you where he was, so now you give me my cut, right?"

What was this—some kind of shakedown?

"Th-that was just a joke."

Julio's expression was grim. "You see me smiling, meng? You hear me laughing?"

"Maybe this was a mistake," Sandy said, turning toward the door. "I think I'd better—"

Julio's sudden grip on his arm was like a steel manacle. "He's waiting for you in the back."

He gave Sandy a push toward the shadowed rear section; nothing rough about it, but firm enough to let him know which way he was going whether he liked it or not.

Behind him Sandy heard Barney and Lou snigger. Joke's on me, I guess. Ha-ha. Everyone's a comedian.

As he wound his way among tables laden with upended chairs, a pale form began to take shape behind a cleared table set with a large bottle of orange Gatorade. The Savior… his back against the rear wall. But he looked terrible. Even in this murky light Sandy could make out his sunken, half-glazed eyes and sallow skin.

"My God, what happened?" Sandy asked.

"Sit down." The voice was a weak rasp.

Sandy pulled out a chair and settled opposite him, as far away as possible while still at the same table. Whatever he had, Sandy didn't want it.

"Are you sick?"

The Savior shook his head. He seemed barely able to stay upright. "I was poisoned."

It took Sandy a few seconds to process the words. Poisoned? Poisoned?

"No shit! Who? Why?"

"Let me start at the beginning. You were right to doubt what I told you about doing undercover work for the government: all bullshit."

Am I good or am I good, Sandy thought with a surge of pride. He suppressed a grin and let a sage nod suffice.

"I make ends meet," the Savior went on, "by doing odd jobs for cash. One of those jobs is bodyguarding. Sort of a freelance thing, you know? Last week a certain Dr. James Fielding was referred to me. You recognize the name?"

Sandy had never heard of the man but didn't want to look dumb. "Sounds familiar but I can't place him."

The Savior sipped from his Gatorade bottle. "You may have heard it on the news this morning: he was murdered last night."

"Oh, man! And you were supposed to protect him!" Sandy put two and two together. "Is that why you were poisoned?"

The Savior nodded. "Fielding wouldn't tell me why, but for some reason he was afraid of a former patient named Terrence Holdstock. He said he didn't have enough to go to the police, but he feared for his life."

"Some sort of malpractice thing?"

"I'm not sure. I did a little investigating—in fact I was on my way back from doing just that when our friend on the Nine started shooting. What I learned is that this Holdstock is the leader of some sort of cult."

"A cult? I helped research a feature we did on local cults a while back but I never heard of him."

"It's a small cult, and relatively new. And get this: all members are former patients of Dr. Fielding."

"Oh, that's weird. That's really weird."

"Wait. It gets weirder. They drew lots and Holdstock won: he got the honor of murdering Fielding. And not by just any means—by strangulation."

Sandy leaned back and stared at this man. Yes, he'd saved Sandy's life, but he'd also lied to him. Was he lying again? Sandy prayed not. Few things on earth were sexier—news-wise, of course—than a murder cult.

"How do you know all this?"

"I can fill you in on the how later. What matters is Holdstock succeeded, and damn near offed me in the process." He lifted his Gatorade bottle. "I tend to drink this like water. But yesterday they spiked it with something that was supposed to kill me."

"Why kill you?"

"Because I knew too much. And I stood between Fielding and the cult. But they must have miscalculated the dose because it only put me down, way down, but not out. I couldn't move but I could still see, and I watched Holdstock strangle Fielding with an electrical wire garrote."

"You're an eyewitness? Oh, man! Oh, man, oh, man, oh, man! You can put this guy away!"

Sandy's mind was ranging back and forth, inspecting the story from all angles. If it was true—and please, please, please, God, let it be true!—and if Sandy could break the story…

But the Savior was shaking his head. "Not me. I'm not putting anyone away."

"Why not?" And then he remembered. "Oh, shit, yes. You're wanted."

"Right. And as if that's not bad enough, I left the scene—dragged myself away is more like it—and didn't report it. If I open my mouth I'm open to even more charges. That's where you come in."

Sandy sensed what was coming and he liked it. Liked it a lot. He leaned forward. "What do you have in mind?"

"Holdstock goes down." His mouth tightened into a grim line. "I

took on a job and didn't get it done because of him. That hurts my rep. I work on referrals and this will be bad for business. But even worse, he damn near killed me in the process. So he's going down."

"Where do I come in?"

"You must know cops. You call one of them and tell him. I'll be a confidential source, someone who witnessed the murder but can't get involved. I saw your name in The Light and figured you're the one to call."

Something about this bothered Sandy. It was too easy, too pat. If this didn't pan he could end up looking like a gullible fool. But why would the Savior dupe him? What did that gain him?

Unless he was crazy, a complete paranoid who'd dreamed this whole thing up.

Which would make him an armed paranoid.

Or even worse, what if he'd killed this doctor himself?

Sandy felt his buttocks clench. He'd better be very careful what he said right now, and how he said it.

The murder was easily verifiable, but what about the rest?

He cleared his throat. "I'm all for helping you, but I can't just call up the NYPD and say, 'So-and-so did it.'"

"Holdstock. Terrence Holdstock. Lives in the Bronx. I'll give you his address."

"Great. But I'll need more."

"You can tell them about the electrical wire garrote. I'll bet they've figured that out by now but haven't released it."

"That'll help. But if there's no known motive, what do we have to connect Holdstock to this doctor, besides being his patient?"

"How about a handprint at the scene of the crime?"

Sandy straightened in his chair. "You're sure about that?"

The Savior nodded. "Holdstock covered his tracks, very careful not to touch anything in the house, but I saw him lean on the dining room table right after he finished with Fielding."

"Now you're talking."

Sandy's thoughts raced ahead. Worst case scenario: This is all a load of bullshit. If so, the worst that can happen is the cops think I'm just a reporter who got a bum steer from a wacked-out source. I can live with that.

How about best case scenario? If it's all true…

Sandy had to grip the edge of the table to keep from soaring away. If it's all true it means he'll be instrumental in exposing not only a murderer but a murder cult. He'll be all over the front page again. But more than a brighter spotlight, this new story will earn him real credibility. His amnesty campaign for the Savior will make his bones in advocacy journalism while this murder cult story will simultaneously establish him as a major investigative reporter. No one will be able to call him a flash in the pan or a lucky one-hit wonder. Sandy Palmer will have arrived.

Harvey Weinstein can develop the subway massacre into a studio property, but Sandy could see the murder cult story going up for auction.

Hold on, he thought, reining in his fantasies. We're not even to first base here yet.

"All right," Sandy said. "I'll run it up the flagpole with some cops I know and see if they salute."

The Savior squinted at him. "You're going to what?"''

"I'm going to run with it. But I've got to ask: what do you want out of this?"

"Besides anonymity? I want Holdstock in Rikers getting passed around the showers like a party favor."

Sandy shuddered. "You have to know this might mean I can't devote as much time as I'd like to your amnesty cause."

"Told you I'm not interested in that."

Maybe not, but I am.

But even if the Savior should skip town as Sandy had feared this morning, he still had this murder cult to keep him hot.

"You should be, but right now I guess we've got a hotter fish to fry." He pulled out his notepad. "Okay, let's get some of these details down so I have my facts straight when I call the cops…"

5

Kate came out of Jack's kitchen when she heard the door open. He looked terrible as he stumbled across the front room like an exhausted homing pigeon flapping toward its roost. She followed and watched as he tumbled face first onto the bed she'd just made up. She'd opened the window to freshen the stale, sick air.

"Jack, are you all right?"

"Just swell," he said, his words muffled by the bedspread against his face.

"You could have fooled me."

"Imagine what's left of the Hindenberg on the Lakehurst tarmac after burning and crashing and you have the beginning of a hint."

"I was worried about you."

Those words startled her, not because they weren't what she'd intended, but because she wasn't saying them. A stormwave of terror smashed against her.

Someone else had control of her voice.

The words were true—he'd been gone awhile and she'd waited with growing concern—but the words weren't hers, and she couldn't stop them.

"Where did you go?"

Of course. That's what the Unity wanted to know. It had overheard him mention a countermove.

"Out."

"What did you do?"

"Nothing." He turned his head and looked at her with one eye, like a cat. "Is this a conversation or the title of a book?"

Kate tried to gesture to Jack, to let him know that she wasn't in command anymore, but her hands remained at her sides.

"If you're worried about the Unity listening in, it's okay. It's left me for the time being."

Lies! Jack, don't listen!

"Why would it do that?"

"I think it waited as long as it could for you to come back, then had to focus its attention elsewhere."

Jack rolled onto his back, staring at her, not quite convinced.

"You're sure?"

Kate felt her head nodding, tried to stop it—and succeeded. It worked! She wasn't completely helpless. But her voice… she still couldn't reclaim her voice.

"All right," Kate's voice said. "If you've still got your doubts—and I can't say I blame you—don't give me any details. But I'd like to know something. After all, I'm involved in this too—more than you."

Don't listen to me, Jack. It's trying to sucker you into revealing something.

He sighed and ran a hand over his pale face. "You've got a point there, I guess. Sorry."

"Well, then, how did it go? Were you successful?"

"I think so. I put some wheels in motion. We'll see if things turn out like I hope."

"Which is?"

Don't answer!

As Jack opened his mouth to reply, Kate willed her hands to move, to wave in the air before her.

Jack's eyes widened. "Kate? What's up?"

And suddenly her voice was hers again. She sagged against the bed.

"Oh, Jack!" she gasped. "That was the Unity! It took control for a few minutes there and I…" A sob burst from her throat. "It was awful!"

Jack sat up and gripped her hand. "But you fought them off. Keep fighting, Kate. We should know by late this afternoon if my plan works. Can you hang in till then?"

She nodded. "I think so. But don't tell me anything, Jack. Even if I'm in control, the Unity is part of me. It's always there, always listening."

His features hardened. "I shouldn't have let you talk me out of Plan A, damn it."

"Don't talk like that. You promised, remember."

"Promise or not, Kate, if Plan B doesn't work, it's back to A."

"It will work," she told him, and sent up a silent prayer that it would. "Whatever it is, it will buy me enough time for CDC and NIH to come up with a cure." If they can.

"It better." He flopped back onto the spread and closed his eyes. "And they'd better. Because if they don't, I'll use my own virucidal agent. Don't know about theirs, but mine's administered via nine-millimeter, hollow-pointed injection."

How could he speak so casually of killing eight people? Could he do that? Could her brother be such a cold-blooded murderer?

Looking at his features now as they relaxed toward sleep, she found it hard to believe. She touched Jack's cheek.

"Get your rest," she whispered.

She had an uneasy feeling he was going to need all his strength back, and soon. She'd sensed something while the Unity was controlling her voice. The same background of ecstatic anticipation she'd experienced last night, and something else: fear. The Unity feared her brother. It had feared Fielding, too, and look what happened to him.

Kate went to the front door and locked it.

And then an awful thought jarred her, stiffening her limbs with dread: How much of her would remain in the morning? Would she have enough of her own volition left to fight off the Unity and go home for Lizzie's concert? Maybe the distance to Trenton would attenuate its influence.

She prayed so.

6

"They didn't arrest Holdstock?" Sandy said into his cell phone. He wanted to shout but this was an NYPD detective he was talking to. "Why not? I served him up to you on a silver platter."

He'd called in his "tip" to McCann—the only NYPD detective he knew by name—who relayed it to the Queens precinct investigating the murder. Sandy had figured if the Savior's info was true, Holdstock would be locked up in no time. But when he'd called the 108th Precinct to confirm the arrest, he was told Holdstock had been sent home and no more. Unbelievable. He'd been trying to get hold of McCann ever since. Finally McCann had returned his call.

"You should get stuff appraised before you buy," Detective McCann said, his voice thin through Sandy's cell phone. "That silver platter of yours was mostly tin."

Sandy felt a twinge of nausea. Had he been set up?

He was seated in the dark in the front seat of a car he'd gone out and rented immediately after hearing the news. He was tempted to roll down a window for a breath of night air, but didn't. After what he'd seen a few moments ago, he wanted the windows up and the doors locked.

"What do you mean?"

"Had an alibi," McCann said. "Airtight, as they say on the tube."

"Who?"

"The seven other members of his cancer support group say he was with them at a meeting at the time of the killing. Hard to argue with that."

Cancer support group? What the—? Of course! The cult.

Sandy fumed. He should have foreseen they'd band together and cover for him.

"But the handprint—"

"Was just where you said it would be, and a perfect match."

That was a relief. At least he knew the Savior had been telling the truth about that.

"Well? Doesn't that prove he was there?"

"It does, but it doesn't tell us when. Holdstock says he must have left it there when he visited Fielding last Thursday."

"He's lying. He was there last night."

"He says different. It's not like they didn't know each other. Fielding treated Holdstock, and Holdstock says they struck up a friendly relationship."

"Bullshit. When was the last time your doctor invited you over to his house? And that's not a cancer support group Holdstock's been meeting with, it's a cult, and he's their leader."

McCann's chuckle grated through the little speaker. "You're a piece of work, Palmer. You come up with this interview with the Savior that says he's a former SEAL—which we're pretty sure now he's not—and now you come up with this eyewitness to a murder who says it was done by a cult. Where do you find these people?"

"I don't. They find me. And as for the cult, I'm sitting half a block from Holdstock's place now and believe me, this is a cult."

"Don't do anything stupid, Palmer."

"Not me. I'm just watching."

It was stuffy in the rental, the warm air tinged with the sour smell of old spilled coffee, but Sandy kept the windows up. His quick peek through one of Holdstock's windows had sent him scurrying back here with a bad case of the creeps. All those people sitting around the living room, grinning and humming as they stared into space. He shook off a chill and took a tighter grip on the phone.

"Listen, detective, every member of that cult is a former patient of Fielding's." Sandy hoped the Savior had his facts straight because he was going out on a limb here. "My source says they developed some delusion that Fielding had caused their tumors just so he could experiment on them, and so they decided to kill him."

"Let's put the cult aside and talk about your source," McCann said.

"The boys over at the One-Oh-Eight are still looking into Holdstock as a possible, but they're very interested in your source. They'd like to speak to him."

"Her," Sandy said.

That should throw them off. Sandy had been expecting this and figured he'd cover himself the same way he had after the Savior interview.

"Okay… her. She knew about the handprint and the electrical wire. Only way she could know that was to be in the room when the murder went down."

"She told me she was outside, looking through a window."

"The One-Oh-Eight boys say you'd have to be nine feet tall to see through the dining room window."

"Maybe she plays for the Liberty. I've never seen her, only spoken to her on the phone." Sandy smiled, happy with the way he'd slipped that in there.

McCann sighed. "Gonna run that on me again, are you, Palmer? No personal contact, everything over the phone, right? Well, listen up. The guys at the One-Oh-Eight think your source knows too much, and might be the killer himself."

"I told you she's—"

"Yeah-yeah, I know what you told me. But the killer wasn't a woman. It was a fairly strong guy. So if your source is really a guy, watch your back."

And then McCann cut the connection.

Sandy hit END on his phone and considered McCann's parting words. It had occurred to him before but now McCann had brought it up: could the Savior be the real killer and trying to use Sandy to divert attention from himself?

But why? Reading between the lines of his conversation with McCann he'd gathered that the cops in Queens had no suspects beyond what Sandy had provided. And Holdstock's print was there, just as the Savior had said.

And as for watching his back, if the Savior had wanted to harm him, the perfect time and place would have been at Julio's this morning: nobody had seen Sandy go in, and no one would have noticed if he never came out.

So far everything the Savior had lold him about the murder had been dope. Still, you couldn't be too careful…

What Sandy needed was a story beyond the crime itself. He needed to link Holdstock and his cult to the crime. And since the cops weren't doing it, it was up to him.

That was why he was sitting here. In the dark. In the Bronx.

But hey, that was what investigative reporting was all about, right?

He stared at the lighted windows of Holdstock's place, partially visible through the trees along the sidewalk. He'd watch, but from here. No way he was going back to that window and listen to that humming.

Maybe he'd be lucky. Maybe they'd kill someone else tonight.

7

Kate yawned. Tired. She'd watched the eleven o'clock news for further word of the Fielding murder but it wasn't even mentioned. James Fielding, MD, pioneering medical researcher, had been reduced to a statistic.

Sic transit gloria.

She unfolded the couch in Jack's TV room, expanding it to a bed, then went through the apartment turning out lights. In the kitchen she noticed the dinner dishes still in the drainer. Might as well put them away.

Jack had awakened around five, feeling better but still far from a hundred percent. She'd heated a couple of the frozen entrees from his fridge and wanted to know if he lived on that stuff. He'd explained that like many New Yorkers, he rarely ate in.

They ate and talked about old times, warily avoiding the subject of Jack's activities earlier in the day. Jack had faded after dinner and headed back to bed, leaving Kate alone with her fears.

The Unity hadn't bothered her since this afternoon. It had stayed in the background, far in the background, all day, as if preoccupied. Which was fine with Kate.

She put the two dinner plates into a cabinet with their mates, but as she dropped the spoons and forks into their slots in the utensil drawer, her hand drifted to the side and gripped the black handle of a long, wide-bladed carving knife. She tried to pull away but her grip only tightened.

An icy hand clutched her throat. No!

She'd meant to say it, to wail it, but her voice remained silent.

Her hand lifted the knife and held it before her, twisting the blade back and forth to catch the light. Her left hand stroked the sharp cutting edge, then touched the point.

This will do.

The Unity! Speaking to her. But how? No one else was here. She'd had to be touching them before, holding hands with their circle to hear the Voice. How—?

And then she knew and she wanted to scream.

Yes, Kate. You are of us now and we are of you.

No, please, I don't want this! Please!

You will, Kate. The closer you move toward full integration, the more you will welcome it.

Don't I get a say?

Integration is inevitable. Arguments are futile, a waste of time, and time is everything right now.

With the knife held before her, Kate turned and began walking from the kitchen.

What are you doing?

Your brother is a threat to the future. Threats must be eliminated.

No!

Kate tried to stiffen her knees, dig her heels into the floor, hurl herself against the wall, but she moved relentlessly forward, turning the corner toward Jack's room.

She made no sound, but her words were a sob in her mind. Please don't do this! Jeanette! Where are you? Stop this, I beg you!

You are not doing this, Kate. We are all doing it. Together. As one. As we will do everything.

But you're not murderers! You're all decent people! You can stop this! There must be some other way!

We are one and he cannot be of us. He is not a host, and he threatens us, so he must be eliminated. He used what you told him this morning to put the One Who Was Terrence under suspicion. He is free now but the police may return. If the One Who Was Terrence is taken to jail he could be hurt, even killed, and then all our plans will have to be changed. All because of your brother. He must be stopped.

I can stop him. I can tell him things that will make him stop.

No. Too late. You've told him too much already. He won't trust you now.

She was in Jack's room now, standing over his bed. He lay supine before her, legs akimbo, deep in sleep. Her hand reversed its grip on the handle and Kate watched with escalating horror as it lowered the point to the fourth intercostal space just left of the sternum.

We're so glad you are a doctor. Your medical knowledge tells us the best place to strike.

God in heaven, stop this!

And then her hand was raising the knife high, and her second hand was joining and coupling with it. She felt the muscles tighten, readying a powerful two-armed thrust.

No! Kate threw every last fragment of her crumbling will into her arms. NO!

Sweat burst from her pores as the blade moved down an inch, then paused, suspended in a wavering hover.