He waited, saw nothing more.

"Please. Just tell the police. Don't let her burn."

But the silent watcher was gone. Cara lay unmoving. Can't she feel the heat ? It took everything he had to hold the shard in place.

Then: "Professor Gu? Is that you?"

It was some pestering student! There were so many afterimages, he couldn't be sure, but someone was there, partly submerged in the molten ooze.

"It's me, Zulfi Sharif, sir."

That name was familiar, a weaselly arrogant student. But now his skin wasn't green. That meant something, didn't it?

"I've been trying for some hours to call you, sir. It's never been this bad before. I… I fear I may have been truly hijacked. I'm so sorry." He was mostly submerged in the glowing rock. A ghost.

"You're injured!" said the ghost.

"Call the police," said Robert.

"Yes, sir! But where are you? Never mind, I see! I'll get help straight — "

The glowing rock dribbled over Robert's makeshift dam, onto his arm. He descended into a pit of mindless pain.

33

The New Annex to Crick's Clinic was less than five years old, but the spirit of the place was straight out of the last century, when hospitals were great imposing places where people had to go for a chance at survival. There was still some need for such places: the most extreme intensive-care units were not something you could pack into a first-aid box and sell to home users. And of course, there were always tragic cases of incurable, debilitating diseases; some small portion of humanity might always end up in extended-care nursing homes.

The New Annex satisfied certain other needs. Those occurred to Lieutenant Colonel Robert Gu, Jr., every day when he drove onto the hospital grounds. Every day since the debacle at UCSD, he'd pull into the Crick's traffic circle, get out, and look down along the cliffs and beaches toward La Jolla. The clinic was just a short hike up the hill from some of the most fashionable resort properties in the world. Just a few miles inland were the biotech labs that ringed UCSD, perhaps the most prestigious source of medical magic in the world. Of course, those labs could have been on the other side of the world for all that their location made any real difference. But psychologically and traditionally, this joint nearness to resort luxury and magical cure was a lure for the very richest of the very ill.

Bob Gu's wife, daughter, and father were not stuck here because they were rich. Once you walked past the imposing — and totally real — main entrance, you had privacy. In this case, the privacy was a combination of the clinic's basic design and the fact that Uncle Sam had taken a special interest in certain patients.

What better place to keep sensitive cases hidden from contact than in a resort hospital. The press flitted around beyond the walls and speculated — without having grounds for a civil-liberties complaint. It could be a very good cover.

Bob hesitated just outside the main entrance.

Oh Alice ! For years, he had lived in fear that JITT would take her. For years, he and she had fought about the limits of duty and honor, and the meaning of Chicago. Now the long-imagined worst had happened… and he found himself quite unprepared. He visited her every day. The doctors were not encouraging. Alice Gu was stuck under more layers of JITT than these guys had ever seen. So what did they know? Alice was conscious. She talked to him, desperate gibberish. He held her in his arms and begged her to come back. For unlike Dad and Miri, Alice was not a federal detainee. Alice was a prisoner in her own mind.

Today Bob had an official assignment at Crick's. The last of the detainee interrogations — that is, the last of the debriefings — were complete. Dad was scheduled to be awake by noon, Miri an hour later. Bob could spend some time with them, in the virtual company of Eve Mallory, a DHS officer who fronted for the investigation teams.

At 1200 hours, Bob was standing in front of a very old-fashioned-looking wooden door. By now he knew that such things were never faked at Crick's. And he'd have to turn the doorknob if he wanted to go in.

Eve — > Bob: We're especially interested in this interview, Colonel. But keep it short. Stick to the points in our memo.

Bob nodded. For a moment he didn't know who he was most angry at, his father or the jerks from DHS. He contented himself with pulling the door open without knocking, and stepping abruptly into the hospital suite.

Robert Gu, Sr., was pacing the windowless room like a caged teenager. You'd never guess he'd recently had one leg crushed and the other fractured; the docs were good at fixing that kind of thing. As for the rest, well, his burns were hidden by medical pajamas.

The old man's gaze snapped up as Bob came in the room, but his words were more desperate than angry. "Son! Is Miri okay?"

Eve — > Bob: Speak up, Colonel. You can tell him everything about your daughter.

"… Miri is fine, Dad." He waved at the plush chairs by the table at the side of the suite.

But the old man just kept bouncing around the room. "Thank God, thank God. The last I remember was the heat and lava crawling toward her." He looked down at his pajamas, and suddenly seemed very distracted by what he saw.

"You're at Crick's in La Jolla, Dad. Miri wasn't hurt in the fire. Your left arm was pretty much destroyed." The flesh had burned down to the bone in places, burned all the way through the lower forearm.

Robert Senior touched the loose sleeve. "Yes, the doctors told me." He turned and dropped into one of the chairs. "That's about all they've told me. You're sure Miri's okay? You saw her?"

The old man never behaved like this. There was strain all around his eyes. Or maybe he's just reacting to the look on my face . Bob sat down across from this father. "I've seen her. I'll be talking to her later this afternoon. Her worst problem is some mental confusion about what happened in the labs."

"Oh." Then more softly, "Oh." He sat mulling the news, and then he was fidgeting again. "How long have I been out? There's so much you need to know, Bob… Maybe you should get some of your law-enforcement buddies in here."

Eve — > Bob: So he doesn't remember the debrief? I didn't think we were that good.

"There's no need, Dad. There maybe follow-up questioning about particular points, but we've dredged up all the dirty little secrets. You've been under interrogation for several days."

His father's eyes widened slightly. After a moment, he gave a nod. "Yeah, all those weird dreams… So that means you know about, about my own problems?"

"Yes."

Robert looked away. "There are strange bad guys out there, Bob. The Mysterious Stranger — the one who hijacked Zulfi Sharif — he was on my case all the time. I've never known anyone who could manipulate me as he did. Can you imagine someone riding on your shoulder all the time, telling you what to do?"

Eve — > Bob: Just as well not to follow up on the Rabbit.

Bob nodded. Rabbit — that was the name they had pried out of the Indo-Europeans — might be something new under the sun. Rabbit had compromised the SHE. Scenario-building within the DHS and USMC had actually been in support of Rabbit. The Indians and the Europeans and the Japanese had a lot to answer for, but Rabbit's scam might never have been detected if they hadn't launched their revocation attack against the creature. But how had Rabbit managed its trick? What else could it do?

Those were burning questions, but not ones to discuss with your trai-torous father. "We're taking care of the loose ends, Dad. Meantime, you have results and consequences to catch up on."