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The tiram included an awareness of time to the precise second, an internal thousand-year clock that made timepieces and calendars superfluous

Before he could adjust the oven clocks, the new Nancy and the new Ariel returned from upstairs Behind them shambled the real Nancy and Ariel, barefoot and in pajaht on their left te truck, no more than a minute ahead of schedule

To the real Mayor Potter, his replicant said, "Erskine, get to your feet and come out to the back porch"

When the er either distant or startled, not mesmerized, but terror-stricken Nevertheless, he obeyed, as did his wife and daughter when co paneled truck braked to a stop in the driveway, Erskine raised one hand to his temple and tentatively touched the rounded head of the needle, which glowed like a jewel in the headlights But he proved powerless to extract it

In the cold night, warm breath steamed from everyone The plumes from the real Potters were more forcefully expelled and more rapidly repeated than the exhalations of those who had usurped their lives

The house stood on two forested acres on the outskirts of town No neighbors were near enough to see the three for dispatched to their fates

Two ot out of the cab of the unmarked truck and opened the rear doors

While the new Nancy and Ariel waited on the porch, the new mayor led the for both sides of the cargo area, benches were bolted to the walls

Five people in nightclothes were seated on the right, two on the left The Potters joined the two on the left

Like aniht, the ten stared out at the new mayor None of them could cry out or h to carry ten more The driver and his teammate had other stops on their schedule

With the Potter family aboard, the driver closed and bolted the doors He said, "For the Community"

"For the Community," the new Erskine Potter replied

He had no idea where the individuals in the truck would be taken or when they would be killed He wasn’t curious He didn’t care They were the spoilers of the world They would get what they deserved

Chapter 3

For Carson O’Connor-Maddison and her husband, Michael Maddison--she the daughter of a hoineers--the past two years were the busiest of their lives, with considerable homicide and little safety As New Orleans police detectives, they discovered that a supercilious biotech billionaire named Victor Helios was in fact Victor Frankenstein, still rockin’ at the age of 240 In league with the 200-year-old Deucalion, who sought his maker’s destruction, Carson and Michael survived numerous violent encounters withPoe nificant auns, and ate mountains of fine Cajun food at establishments like Wonderh speeds, and Michael never kept his promise to vomit if she didn’t slon They destroyed Victor’s laboratory, put him on the run, ate even better Cajun takeout from Acadiana, attended Victor’s death, and witnessed the destruction of his entire New Race They acquired a Ger hiely talented Deucalion cured Carson’s then twelve-year-old brother, Arnie, of autisot hnut shop But they wanted work that allowed the a doughnut shop, they obtained licenses as private investigators and soon launched the O’Connor-Maddison Detective Agency They busted souys, learned to use chopsticks, ate a lot of superb Chinese food, spoke wistfully about the doughnut shop that ht have been, and had a baby whoirl in the movie True Grit But Michael insisted he wanted to call her Rooster or at least Reuben, in honor of Reuben "Rooster" Cogburn, the character played by John Wayne in that film Eventually, they nairl in To Kill a Mockingbird

An hour before dawn, just over four weeks before Halloween, and less than two years prior to the end of the world--if you believed theadvanced by thein the cab of a delivery truck, in a row of fourteen identical trucks, in a dark parking lot between two huge warehouses, near the docks They were conducting surveillance in an industrial-espionage case, and talking about, as, baby wipes

"They aren’t too caustic," Carson disagreed "They aren’t caustic at all"

"I’ve read the ingredients"

"I’ve read the ingredients, too Aloe vera, lanolin, herbal extract--"

"What herbs did they get the extracts from?" Michael asked

"An herb’s an herb They’re all natural Herbal extracts clean without leaving harmful residues"

"So they say But they don’t tell you the specific herbs When they don’t tell you the specific herbs, the cop in me soing to set out to erously caustic baby wipes"

"How do you know? Anybody could own the company Do you knons the company?"

"I’m pretty sure it isn’t owned by al-Qaeda"

"‘Pretty sure’ isn’t good enough e’re talking about our little girl’s bottohed Michael was still adorable, but fatherhood soht out a paranoia in him that she had not seen before "Listen, sweetie, I care about Scout’s botto baby wipes"

"They contain baking soda"

"Pure baking soda It eliuishers," he said

"Good Then we don’t have to worry about Scout’s botto soda," Michael repeated, as if it were a synonym for rattlesnake venom "I think we should use cotton cloth, water, and soap"

She pretended horror "Soap? Do you knohat’s in soap?"

"Soap is in soap"

"Read the label and then tell me about soap"

"What’s in soap that’s so terrible?"

Carson didn’t knohat redients would alarm Michael and make baby wipes a lot more acceptable to him

"Just check out the label--but don’t expect ever to be able to sleep again once you’ve read it"

Out there in the unlighted parking lot, a dark figuretoward the windshield, Michael said, "I knew this was the place"

Froht-vision technology

"What do you see?" Michael asked

Eye to the viewfinder, she said, "It’s Beckot an attaché case This is the swap, all right"

"Here comes someone else," Michael said "Pan left"