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The light was leaving theun to move; from the command post on the catwalk, Peter felt, with cold clarity, the thinness of their defense A six-, an enear said nothing on the subject, Peter could read the ive herself up; maybe the dracs wouldn’t come, after all Maybe they would anyway; e of A back All that kept hi was the certainty of what lay ahead in the next few hours He had a role to play, and he would play it

Chase arrived on the platfornize his chief of staff The nia had been rehly as if in a hurry, perhaps out of respect; he was toting a rifle, trying to seeing over a fireplace for years Peter was about to say soar raised a skeptical eyebrow, but that was the extent of it

"Where’s Olivia?" Peter asked finally

"In the president’s hardbox" Chase seeht"

The three men listened as the stations called in All stood ready, braced for attack The shadows lengthened over the valley It was a beautiful evening in su with color

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Amy did not have to know the place The place, she kneould coround flying beneath theritty cloud; clods of dirt flew up fro built within her It er, calling theait was powerful and smooth You have taken wonderful care of our friend, A You will always be remembered Green fields await you; you will spend a noble eternity aht their horses to a halt and dismounted The rich foam of his efforts boiled from Soldier’s mouth; his dark flanks flashed with sweat

"Here," A; Ae of fear She stepped away and stood in silence, waiting The windAll seereat calround before her, her shadow stretched--longer, longer She felt the moment of the sun’s union with the earth, its first touch upon the line of hills, audible, like a sigh She closed her eyes and sent herinto darkness; the ripples widened on the lake’s tranquil surface high above

Anthony, I’m here

First, silence Then:

Yes, A

Coht fell

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They were called dopeys But in their lives, they had been s

They hailed from every quarter of the continent, every state and city Seattle, Washington Albuquerque, New Mexico Mobile, Alabama The toxic chemical swamp of New Orleans and the ept flatlands of Kansas City and the icebound canyons of Chicago As a body, they were a statistician’s drea of the inhabitants of the Great North American Empire They ca metropolises; they were every color and creed; they had lived in trailers, houses, apartments, mansions with views of the sea In their human states, each had occupied a discrete and private self They had hoped, hated, loved, suffered, sung, and wept They had known loss They had surrounded and comforted themselves with objects They had driven auto sets and waited in line at the grocery store They had said stupid things They had kept secrets, nurtured grudges, blown upon the eod at all They had awakened in the night to the sound of rain They had apologized They had attended various ceremonies They had explained the history of theers in bars They had, at unexpected moments, experienced bolts of joy so unalloyed, so untethered to events, that they seeed to be known and, soe of Anthony Carter, Twelfth of Twelve, they were intrinsically less bloodthirsty than their counterparts; it had been remarked many times by human observers that the dopeys satisfied their appetites with an attitude of joyless obligation, and that it was this characteristic, singular a virals, that made them easier to kill Dumb as a dopey was the phrase This was true, while also concealing a deeper truth Indeed they did not like it; the butchery of innocents disturbed them Yet within them lay an unexpressed ferocity, unwitnessed by hu the day when the call would come to release this hidden power