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As if to confirlass screen of the VDT to relinquish the convex plane of its surface and adapt to the contours of his face The glass beca outward, as if Coltrane actually existed within thehis face Out of it

This was i Harley Coltrane see er linked to a human body

Saer lay ier

Reality had been ripped, and through that tear a nightn possibilities see into the world that Sam knew and--suddenly--loved

One of the snakelike cables had reached his chest and found its way under his sweater to bare skin He felt as if he’d been touched by a white-hot brand, and the pain broke his trance

He fired two rounds into the co the screen first, which was the second face of Coltrane’s into which he’d puh Sam half expected it to absorb the bullet without effect, the cathode-ray tube ilass The other round scra off the thing that Coltrane had become

The pale, oily tentacles fell away froan to bubble, and see before his eyes

Eerie electronic beeps, crackles, and oscillations, not ear--torturingly loud but uncannily piercing, still filled the room

When Sam looked toward the woainst the east wall, he saw that the thened, allowing her to turn in her chair to face hianic connections and her nakedness, she was in a different but no less hideous condition froone, but her sockets did not bristle with a host of sensors Rather, two reddish orbs, three tied sockets in a face redesigned to accommodate them; they were less eyes than eye-shaped receptors, no doubt designed to see in ht, and in fact Sae of his, belly, breasts, arms, throat, and face were heavily patterned with swollen blood vessels that lay just beneath her skin and that see point, so she looked as if she were a design board for branch-pattern circuitry Soht, indeed, have carried blood, but some of thereen and some sulfurous yellow

A segmented, wormlike probe, the diameter of a pencil, erupted froun, and streaked toward Sa the ten feet between theht eye before he could duck The tip bit into his skin on contact He heard a whirring sound, as of fan blades spinning at maybe a thousand revolutions athe side of his nose But he was squeezing off the last two rounds in his gun even as the probe came at him Both shots found their mark One slammed into the woman’s upper body, and one took out the co electrical bolts that ju and snaked briefly across the plaster before dissipating The probe went limp and fell away from him before it could link his brain to hers, which evidently had been its intention

Except for gray daylight that entered through the paper-thin cracks between the slats of the shutters, the roo a coents, when explaining how the Bureau’s new system worked: "Co parallel processing of data"

Bleeding froht wrist, he stuht switch, turning on a floor larotesque corpses and still see the out of the pockets of his jacket

The roowith such force that his chest ached dully with each blow

Twice he dropped cartridges because his hands were shaking He didn’t stoop to retrieve them He was half convinced that the moment he wasn’t in a position to fire with accuracy or to run, one of the dead creatures would prove not to be dead, after all, and like a flash would co sparks, and would seize him before he could rise and scramble out of its way

Gradually he beca half of its force during theharder than at any tiht No thunder shook the day, but the furious dru of the rain itself--and the insulated walls of the house--had probably hbors He hoped to God that was the case Otherwise, they were coate, and they would prevent his escape

Blood continued to trickle down froht eye It stung He wiped at his eye with his sleeve and blinked away the tears as best he could

His wrist hurt like hell But if he had to, he could hold the revolver with his left hand and shoot well enough in close quarters…

When the 38 was reloaded, Sa co the all, where Harley Coltrane’sits bone- one eye on the deadit up Then he lifted the receiver and was relieved to hear a dial tone

His mouth was so dry that he wasn’t sure he’d be able to speak clearly when his call got through

He punched out the nueles

The line clicked

A pause

A recording came on "We are sorry that we are unable to coain

"We are sorry that we are unable to complete--"

He slaht Cove were operable And evidently, even from those in service, calls could be placed only to certain numbers Approved numbers The local phone company had been reduced to an elaborate intercom to serve the converted

As he turned away froaround, and the woer connected to the ruined co cables trailed across the floor from the base of her spine and into an electrical socket

Free-associating in his terror, Saht: So much for your flimsy kites, Dr Frankenstein, so ; these days we just plug the monsters into the wall, theht

A reptilian hiss issued froers, her hand had three s hich the eles were as sharp as nails

Sa with the chair in which Harley Coltrane still slu as he went He emptied the five-round 38

The first three shots knocked her backward and down The other two tore through vacant air and punched chunks of plaster out of the walls because he was too panicked to stop pulling the trigger when she fell out of his line of fire

She was trying to get up

Like a goddah-tech equivalent of a wooden stake, a cross, a silver bullet