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"Who a?"

Her eyes sharpened with anger; his words had hit the ar, sa because I believed he’d leave Kerrville alone Yes, he was good to me I never said he wasn’t Believe it or not, I actually feel sorry for the guy, until I remember what he is"

"And what’s that?"

"The ene? For the moment, it didn’t e he could use

"Tell ainst, how ht"

"The rest of Fanning’s forces are in New York, in other words He’s holding them in reserve"

Alicia nodded "I wasn’t followed, if that’s what you mean The rest are in the tunnels under the city"

"And you don’t knohat he wants with A is a fool’s errand He’s a complicated ured him out completely Mostly, he just seems sad He doesn’t like what he is, but he sees a kind of justice in it Or, at least, he wants to"

Peter frowned "I’hts "In the station, there’s a clock Long ago, Fanning was supposed tostory I can give you all of it, but it’d take hours"

"Give me the short version"

"The woman’s naht short

"Yeah, it surprisedloved her since they were young When she , but not really Then she got sick She was dying, some kind of cancer Turns out she loved hi to run away, spend her last days together You should hear him tell the story, Peter It’d just about rip your heart out The clock here they were going todidn’t know that; he thought she’d changed her ot drunk in a bar and went hoer, nobody he knew He killed her"

"So he’s a murderer, in other words"

Alicia made an expression of demurral "Well, it was sort of an accident, the way he tells it He was half out of his ht his life was basically over She pulled a knife on hi hiot aith it He actually felt awful about the whole thing He was plenty mixed up, but he was no hardened killer, at least not yet It was later that he went to South America with Lear, which is where the virus coht he could use it to save his wife, though that was a uy as totally obsessed"

"Was that how Fanning caught the virus?"

Alicia nodded "As far as I can tell froh in his head Lear was responsible After Fanning got infected, Lear brought hi to use the virus as a kind of cure-all, but the ot involved They wanted to use it as a weapon, make soht in the twelve inhts crystallizing: "What about Amy? Why did the Army make her?"

"They didn’t; that was Lear He used a different virus, not descended fro carried That’s why she’s not the sa I think hetoit"

"Like I said, Fanning is pretty much of the opinion that the ’sthe Twelve was a test--not of us, since we never stood a chance against the her I don’t knohy I didn’t think of it at the ti them all in one place like that He was never particularly fond of them, to put it mildly A bunch of psychotics, is how he puts it"

"And he’s not?"