“This is about changing everything, Gina. It’s about saving the planet from an out-of-control menace.”

“He’s with us, Dr. Turner. Mark is onside.”

“Mark is programmatically confused. He was the first built, and he’s unstable. We need to revise him, and I need your help.”

What was Dr. Turner getting at? And why did he sound like that? Something about his voice was off.

“How can I help you?” she asked.

“You’ve seen his powers. You need to make him understand that this is not what it seems, none of it. We’re on the same side, the side of the future.”

“Dr. Turner, am I a hybrid? Is that the real reason we were brought together? We’re some sort of a team?”

“I hate that word. You and Mark are the most profoundly human beings that I have ever known. You are brilliant. You’re vividly alive. You are soldiers, both of you, with extraordinary powers and extraordinary minds.” He gestured at Kelly, who stood to one side, her back against a tree, her eyes darting from one of them to the other. “You’re nothing like those shadows.”

A sort of wave seemed to pass through Gina, cold and profoundly alien, and she saw herself in a new way, as a creature that was, to herself, a complete unknown. And why did Dr. Turner sound like that? And look like that, as a matter of fact, his face somehow distorted, but so subtly that it could be a trick of light.

“Why do you sound like that?’

“Allergies.” He gestured. “The trees are my enemy.” He smiled, and when he did, the neat rows of teeth gleamed, and she knew that, whoever this was, it was not Dr. Turner, because those were not his teeth, which were irregular.

“You wanted me to kill Mark. Why?”

“I wanted you to throw him off-balance so I could get out here and try to stabilize him. It never occurred to me that you’d succeed, and you haven’t. He’s good in the field. Very good.”

“What are you?”

The smile grew a little rueful. “It’s easy to forget that you two are as much like us as you are.”

“You’re not Dr. Turner, you’re a hybrid.” She dared not even think how it could be that this thing was wearing a man’s skin in such a way that it worked like a perfect mask. But not quite perfect.

“Gina, a new world is on offer, properly organized, at peace, connected to the balance of nature, a world that belongs to you and Mark, and flows out of you.” He grasped her hand. “I didn’t want you to kill him, I wanted you to help me bring him to his senses.”