Kane was terrified and confused. He threw down the book and the slide and tried pushing every button on the panel. They all lit up and started flashing. The elevator was gaining momentum and beginning to shake violently.

10...9....8...

'My God!' Kane screamed, pounding on the panel, pushing every button, flipping every switch.

5...4...3...

The elevator suddenly lurched to a stop, throwing Kane to the floor. In the dead silence that followed, Kane lay very still, afraid to move, afraid even to breathe.

Slowly, carefully, he rolled over and sat up. He couldn't believe it. He felt himself all over, checking for broken bones, anything, but he was seemingly all right—shaken, but not hurt. He noticed that the slide had shattered, but he didn't care. He was so glad to be alive.

High up above him, in the elevator shaft, a single cable had snapped from the pressure of the elevator's sudden stop, and now was lashing down the shaft like a giant, lethal whip.

It was then that Kane heard the noise; a high, piercing, metallic whine. He looked around but could not tell where the noise was coming from. Finally he looked up—just in time to see the cable rip viciously through the roof of the elevator and slice down through the floor, cutting him in half in the process.

***

Damien's body finally relaxed; his eyes closed, and he slept with a peace he had not known since the strange stirrings had begun inside him on the sixth day of June.

Chapter Ten

CHAPTER TEN

Richard and Ann lay in bed, reading the morning papers brought up to them along with breakfast. Richard always read The Wall Street Journal first, while Ann preferred The Chicago Tribune.

This morning, when Ann opened the paper, she gasped. 'Richard! Look!' she said, passing the newspaper across to him.

It was a gruesome photograph of the late Dr Kane, with an accompanying story on the elevator accident the night before, with a short account of the gas leak accident at Thorn Industries.

Thorn was momentarily more concerned about how the story of the accident at the plant was handled than the account of the doctor's death.

'We were with him just yesterday,' Ann said, twisting a strand of hair between her fingers. 'Doesn't that make you feel weird?’

'Hmmmmm...’

Ann took a sip of coffee and looked over at Richard. 'What kind of tests did Dr Kane want to make, anyway?'

'I'm not sure,' Richard said. 'I don't think he even-' he broke off suddenly. 'Where are the boys?' he asked.

'Asleep, I suppose. Why?'

Richard put the papers down and shifted around to look at Ann. 'I just don't want them to hear about this.'

'Why?' Ann was concerned. 'What did the doctor tell you?'

'It seems that Damien was unaffected by the gas.'

'What's so bad about that? We should all be grateful...'