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Chapters (32)
  1. ONE
  2. TWO
  3. THREE
  4. FOUR
  5. FIVE
  6. SIX
  7. SEVEN
  8. EIGHT
  9. NINE
  10. TEN
  11. ELEVEN
  12. TWELVE
  13. THIRTEEN
  14. FOURTEEN
  15. FIFTEEN
  16. SIXTEEN
  17. SEVENTEEN
  18. EIGHTEEN
  19. NINETEEN
  20. TWENTY
  21. TWENTY-ONE
  22. TWENTY-TWO
  23. TWENTY-THREE
  24. TWENTY-FOUR
  25. TWENTY-FIVE
  26. TWENTY-SIX
  27. TWENTY-SEVEN
  28. TWENTY-EIGHT
  29. TWENTY-NINE
  30. THIRTY
  31. THIRTY-ONE
  32. THIRTY-TWO

He headed over to the garage doors and pushed them open, still gasping hoarsely. Brilliant sunlight spilled across the concrete as he gazed out at the same buildings and the airstrip he’d viewed from his cell. The Rockies stood blue and hazy on the horizon beyond the airstrip. He’d never seen anything more beautiful.

The anger had felt good, even cleansing. Mitchell worked at regaining some semblance of calm, all too aware of how lucky he was that nobody had yet noticed his escape from the cell and sounded the alarm.

He stepped back to the van, and rummaged around in the rear until he found a set of overalls. He pulled them on quickly. They were baggy and loose, but a lot better than the paper blues he’d been wearing before.

Mitchell got back in the cabin and touched the dashboard, listening with satisfaction as the van’s engine vibrated with latent power. He tapped a softly glowing panel and the wheel unfolded from its slot, the vehicle reconfiguring itself slightly in order to accommodate his smaller frame. He took a grip on the wheel and steered it, slowly, on to the narrow road that ran beyond the garage.

The other Mitchell, the one who’d been kept under sedation ever since he’d been brought back from Site 17, was still locked away in another facility near Omaha. And the only one who could possibly have got him out of there, he realized at last, was himself.

But first he was going to need some help.

ELEVEN

Flathead Lake, Montana, 29 January 2235

By the time late afternoon of the next day rolled in, there was still no sign of Dan returning. Missoula wasn’t much more than a couple of hour’s drive away, and the spring floods had abated, leaving the roads clear. When e.

He had packed only those items he considered essential into a light backpack he normally used for making short treks. Anything else, he abandoned in the cabin’s bedroom. He passed Dan’s wand over the contents of the backpack several times, listening carefully with satisfaction to the device’s monotone beep every time it fried another locator chip. After that he pulled on his hiking boots and stepped outside to stare across the lake, which was spread out below him like a great dark mirror, bringing back unpleasant memories of Site 17. The sun had finally slipped below the horizon, staining the upper slopes of the mountains across the valley a fiery red. It occurred to him that this might be the last time he would ever set eyes on Flathead Lake.

Whatever might happen next, he wanted to fix this memory in his mind.