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Silence fell again as s

he stared at the red void Striker was faht, but for soine it would take so used to

“Six million people” The whispered words broke the unearthly stillness that perlassy with unshed tears “That’s how many people were killed”

He felt a strange tightening around his heart at the sight of her grief In the three years he’d been taking people through the zone, it was the first time anyone had commented on the destruction the cloud had caused And it was definitely the first ti loss of lives

She wiped away a tear that had fallen onto her cheek “The people couldn’t get out of the blast zone in time”

“They weren’t given any warning”

“There arning But there were too many people to evacuate”

He knew better but kept his silence This wasn’t the tiue about the past

“They’re still in there,” she whispered

For a second, he could see the Red Zone through her eyes It raveyard

“The people ere responsible for releasing an unknown and untested weapon were put to death shortly afterward,” she said, as though he didn’t know “Theirs were the last executions carried out in the old United States” Her eyes held heartbreaking sadness “The government shouldn’t have done that We needed to keep the scientists alive to find out what they’d done in order to undo it Such a waste

“They destroyed their research when everything rong, and their deaths took their knowledge with them It was only years later, when the cloud didn’t disperse as the scientists had proretted their hasty actions Noe’ll never knohat’s in the mist, and we’ll never be able to coh to study it It’s like a huge tio off What if it expands? What then? We’re no better equipped to deal with it now than ere a century ago”

“It’s dispersed some,” he pointed out “It retreated from the water pretty damn quickly after it was released”

“Another mystery Why disperse from the water, but not the land?”

“At least the rivers run clean”