“How much of Delta Force has gone in?” he asked the director.

“Two troops of Squadron A. Sixty operators.”

“You understand that the hybrids are blind. We believe that we blinded the ones that were linked to the drone when we put it out of action.”

“What does this mean?”

“Well, basically, that it’s not Gina Lyndon out there with Delta Force.”

“But she’s a hybrid, too. So she would be blind.”

“I’m one, and I’m not. This is because neither of us is linked to their network. Let me put Gina on now.”

“What?”

Gina gripped the phone. “I’d terminate that operation and withdraw those men.”

“It’s going smoothly.”

“Stop putting people in there, sir. You are killing them.”

“Now, wait a minute. What are you telling me, here?”

“You are murdering Delta Force by dropping them where you are dropping them,” Gina replied. “You are dealing with a hyperintelligent enemy, which operates as a massive linked social organism. They are smarter than you are. They are faster than you are. And they have tricked you by creating a false version of me, which they are now using against you.”

There was a silence, which extended.

Gina gave the phone back to Mark. “I think we lost him.”

Mark said into the phone, “Hello? Sir?”

“All right. We are downlooking live on the Delta Force operation and seeing things that don’t make sense. A lot of operators are invisible in the woods, and we are not bringing them up in infrared, which means that their bodies are cool, therefore dead. So how can I help you?”

“I need you to get me the coordinates of those bombs.”

“Where will you detonate them?”

“We’re taking them underground,” Mark replied. “Deep as we can.”

“Carrying them in and detonating them?”

“That’s correct.”

“But your lives—you can’t survive that.”

“No.”

Gina was watching the stairs, but also listening to him, and when she heard that word, she came closer to him. Her young face was strong, but to it had come as sad an expression as he could remember seeing.

“Are we doing what I think we’re doing?” she whispered.

“In my heart, I’m holding you,” he said.

“I’m holding you.”

Mark terminated the call. The director would do all he could. There was no further reason to talk.

Chapter Twenty-Three

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

THE DARK BELOW

Nobody on the surface had the faintest idea of just how far—how very far—things underground had gone. But a brilliant, exquisitely sensitive society of creatures, with both the flexibility of biological entities and the extreme accuracy of machines, was down here fighting with ferocious energy to secure its place in the cosmos.

The hybrids already knew about more than one alien race. They knew that others could travel among the stars. They understood that the universe was a jungle, and they intended to be masters of that jungle.