Mark could see no sign of movement in the flies or anywhere else on the stage. But that meant nothing.

“Come on,” he said to Gina.

When Zack started to follow them, Mark told him to stay behind.

“Please,” Zack said.

“If we encounter resistance, you’ll be a liability.”

For a moment longer, Zack hesitated, but then he turned away.

The stench in the soundstage was thick and now all too familiar, a mixture of blood and fear. Deep inside himself, Mark felt a tiny, excited stirring, and he hated it and pushed it away.

Gina came closer to him, and that was good. She climbed the spiral staircase behind him.

Three-quarters of the way up, they could see past the flies into the dark rafters. Long, slick bulges were along the cabling that controlled the scenery. What were they? He was not sure, but they weren’t part of the cables, clearly.

The hybrid army could design and deploy creatures at will, and fast. They had probably been purpose-built to lie in wait here.

He and Gina moved very, very quietly—but not quietly enough, because all at once the forms sprang off the cables and shot toward them through the air, their silver bodies flailing and twisting.

Gina cried out as one sped past her head and smashed into the far wall. It fell to the floor and began whipping wildly, its segmented steel body making a fearsome snapping sound.

Mark had a chance to see only that they were snakelike before one struck his chest and went twining around him. As fast as it was, he was able to raise his knife and cut it in half—only to watch in astonishment as the two halves sprang together and melted into one again.

The controlling mind had become aware of the effectiveness of the knives, too, so now its forms were specifically designed to minimize their damage.

As another coiled around Gina, he sliced it in two, pulling off the severed half and throwing it to the floor thirty feet below. Then he cut the one on him again, and this time he threw the back three feet of it off into the oncoming mass of them, which tangled in confusion and went clattering and sliding through the air around him and Gina as they slashed with their knives.

Most of the things fell to the floor, some hit the walls, some snapped back together again and came racing up cables. Then the ones that had fallen sprang back up, snapping against the floor with a sound like a cracking whip as they launched themselves.

“Get out,” Mark shouted. “Now!”

Gina vaulted up the spiral staircase and through the door at the top. Mark followed her, slamming it behind him.

Silence. But how long would it last?

Gina went to a small control console. “I think this is it.”