Page 40 (1/2)

A pause "The feh mind left to understand Tell me the details"

"EarthTwo received a telepathic and electronic Mayday from its operation in Sunshine, Alaska, approxieotiated part of their contract with us We were able to mobilize a small Tk unit and teleport to the location"

"How many dead?"

"One hundred and twenty" The speaker could’ve been talking about stocks and bonds, so calm was his tone of voice "The population numbered one hundred and fifty Three were seriously injured, while sixplaces"

"That leaves twenty-one"

"Yes, sir It appears various members of the teah not in a central location They attacked each other and the nonfragmented members of the expedition Of the twenty-one who survived the initial incident, ten died atte to attack the Tk team, while eleven were neutralized and put into involuntary comas"

"Sunshine?"

"An isolated outpost We can send in a team to clean up the inificant nuher-priority tasks in order to fully erase the settlement"

"Viability of the ithout telekinetics?"

"There’s always a risk of detection with flying in - the opsilence "Were all the staffthat the encampment was abandoned after the outbreak of a lethal airborne virus That should keep anyone else fro"

"Katya!" Dev shook the wo carried her outside to the cold when she refused to respond to him in the dormitory

Her eyes fluttered "Dev?"

"It’s me, baby Come on, come back"

"I remembered," she whispered, her voice husky

"Tell me in the car" Only when he’d settled her in the backseat and crawled in to take her into his arain "Your eyes" It was like she’d ceased to exist, or gone so deep that he couldn’t see her anyht no terror could come close to what he’d experienced as a child He’d been wrong

She hugged hi kisses to his jaw "I’m sorry - I think I must’ve slipped into so the caresses, needing to know that she was alright "Tellhis hand up her spine, he closed his hand over her nape

Horror spread its fingers through his chest as she began to speak, the invasion hard and pitiless "Over twenty people went insane at once?"

"More than that - some would’ve been killed when they first turned on each other"

"How is that even possible?" He pulled her into his lap, needing to feel the living war in higher nu about a case of mass insanity"

"I didn’t believe the rumors," she said "Not until I heard that"

He waited

"A number of our - mine and Ashaya’s - contacts reported that there were stories of certain parts of the Net going ’dark,’ like so that ate up or buried the fabric of the Net"

"The influence of the DarkMind?"

"Yes, that’s a possibility I just don’t know" She shook her head "No one could ever actually point to an example, so we didn’t pay it that much attention We couldn’t - we had to focus on e could actually see and change"

"Go on"

"You knohat itin the sea There’s no way to avoid co into contact with any pollutants"

Dev pulled off his knit cap with an impatient hand "You think this ’rot,’ " he said, for want of a better word, "seeped into all those minds?"