"It's really not safe out here in the dark." Mouse shivered in the freezing wind. "We've got land mines everywhere."

Ukiah slipped his most recent find—a thumb-sized disk of matte black stone—into his jeans pocket, picked up Schrцdinger, and went back in, none the wiser on the location of his mouse.

As they walked into the house, the phone rang.

Mouse froze, a look of utter terror on his face as he stared at the phone. It rang again, the noise jarring in the sudden stillness of the house.

Ice came running down the stairs and paused at the bottom of the steps. "Was that the phone?"

The phone rang in answer.

"We're all here," Mouse whispered.

Ice approached the phone with caution and snatched it up as if it were a poisonous snake, barely holding it to his ear. "Hello?"

Ukiah's keen ears caught the voice on the other end.

"Ice? Is that you? It's Parity."

"Parity?" Ice gasped as if punched.

"Parity. Only Parity—no one else. None of them. But listen—they know where you are! They're coming to get you. They're pissed as hell and they plan to make you all one of them."

"H-h-how?"

"It was so hard to think straight at first. I had to tell them something so I gave them some old addresses—places I knew you wouldn't be. I told them about the boat slip. When we found the wolf boy there, I managed to slip away long enough to clear out my head."

"How do they know about the island?" Ice growled.

"Ping—Ping told them. They've got her at Totten Pond. I haven't been able to get to her. She said something about the wiretapping. They traced the tap back to the satellite provider and you're the only connection within miles of that GPS position."

Ice glanced upward as if to see the satellite overhead, pinpointing them.

"You've got to move before they get there. They'll be there in force—like a hundred of them. You've got to get out! I'll get hold of you later, somehow. I've got to go."

The phone clicked to silence but Ice stood there with the phone to his ear for another minute, pale and stunned. Finally he hung up, whispering hoarsely, "They know where we are. Start an evacuation."

The cultists remained still, reflecting his shock.

"Where are we going to go?" Ether finally asked.

"I'll think of something," Ice said. "Go on. Grab only the bare necessities and get them down to the boats."

"We just believe him?" Link said.

"We don't have a choice." Ice sighed heavily.

Link started to protest, "But he didn't sound like one of—"

"Move!" Ice shouted, and flung the phone at Link.

The cult scattered like a flock of frightened birds.

Ice focused on Ukiah. "Is it possible? Could he be one of them—and yet not be?"

Prime had been a mutation—a sole individual—but they didn't know why. What had caused Prime to be different? If Parity had been exposed to Kittanning, the Ontongard, and Invisible Red, maybe he had built up a resistance.

"Yes or no?" Ice hissed.

Ukiah replayed the conversation with Parity, listening to the words and the tone of voice. There had been a slight drag, but it wasn't Hex's emotionally dead intonation. There had been fear, sorrow, and true concern—things a Get seemed incapable of understanding despite its human form, its original personality drowned under Hex's alien mind. "Yes. He might be something new."

"Do you know what they're building yet?"

"No."

Ice gave a weary sigh. "We're running out of time, angel."

***

An hour later, Ice declared that ready or not, they needed to leave. "Meta, get the angel down to the boat."

The tall, burly cultist caught Uriah's elbow and guided him toward the door. Ukiah snatched up Schrцdinger, determined that the kitten wouldn't be left to the mercy of the Ontongard.

Outside, Ice pulled Mouse aside, saying, "Link, we're all out of the house. Set the defenses and come down to the boats."

"Keep to the path." Meta urged Ukiah down the hill to the boathouse. "It would be inconvenient if you got blown to pieces now."

Ukiah wasn't sure if Meta was teasing him or not, but kept to the graveled path. Ice and Mouse trailed behind, arms over each other's shoulders, heads close together, deep in whispered conversation.

There seemed to be some kind of preplanned system, as the twenty cultists split themselves in orderly fashion between the two boats. Ukiah found himself firmly escorted to a boat called the Ashpool.

Ice and Mouse stood on the dock, the younger man crying openly.

"We're going ahead with the Cleansing," Ice said. "Take the angel and go south."

"South?"

"As far south as your diesel will get you."

Link came dashing down the path. "Everything's set," he said, and scrambled on board the Nautilus.The engine revved up and the boat started to pull away from the dock.

Ice hugged Mouse fiercely, kissing him on the forehead. "Go on. Live for us."

Ice jumped onto the Nautilusand the boat leapt forward away in a spray of water.

Ukiah was on the wrong boat to stop Ice.

***

They went south as fast as the Ashpoolwould take them, the cultists silent as the big engines roared. The Nautiluswas nowhere in sight, and the island quickly vanished behind them. Ukiah huddled in the corner of the stern's sitting area, with Meta in the opposite corner, keeping close watch on him.

He'd screwed up. He should have done something, anything, although even now he wasn't sure what.

He considered his options. There was the radio, but he still didn't know where he was, where Ice was heading, nor where the Ae were, except they hadn't been loaded onto the boats. His chances of overpowering all ten cultists to steer the boat to land, which presumably lay off to the west, were laughable.

He eyed his guard. Meta was pale and unfocused, as if the heaving boat were making him seasick. Ukiah wasn't prone to motion sickness; after the first few minutes of jiggling, his body would ignore his inner ear as alarmist.

"Are you okay?" Ukiah shouted over the engine's roar. When Meta didn't respond, Ukiah leaned over to prod the cultist. "Meta?"

Meta's eyes rolled up to white and he went rigid, his arms and legs stiffening and starting to jerk rhythmically.

"Mouse! Mouse!" Ukiah eased Meta to the floor.

The little cultist appeared at the cabin doorway, swore, and hurried to Meta. "Oh, no, not again."

"What's wrong with him?" Ukiah made way for Mouse.

"It's Blissfire withdrawal!" Mouse turned and shouted for the other cultists. "Oh, God, please don't die, Meta. Please don't die."

Ukiah found himself pushed to the bow of the boat as the other cultists crowded around the fallen Meta. Qwerty had a small bag that she dipped her fingers into. She painted a glittering cross onto Meta's forehead, and then, as others pried open Meta's jaw, coated the inside of his mouth. It was doubtful Meta could be saved once the drug triggered its extermination subroutines, but apparently the cult had pulled others back from the brink, using a new dose of the drug to override the kill order. Qwerty kissed the unresponsive man, her tears falling on his face and the hands of the cultists holding him still.

Rolling thunder pulled Ukiah's attention away from the desperate scene. A 747 jet passed low overhead. Its flaps were up and its landing gear down. It vanished from sight over the shifting horizon, but he could hear the whine and roar as braking jets kicked in.