The moment he shone his light across his old lab bench, a flush of relief went through him. A layer of mold was on the gray marble surface, and the shelving was visibly rotting. Far to the back of the long space, he could see the two alien devices. They were blacker than black, appearing almost as if they had been fashioned out of dark matter. Nobody had ever been able to determine what the material was, or even scrape off a sample of it. They seemed made of darkness itself, as if the stuff of some primordial evil had been turned into a machine.

He went closer. In contrast to the front of the lab where the more conventional genetic work had been done, this area was free of mold and dust. Finally he stood before the editor, shining his light over its intricate, menacing surface.

He had tried hard not to bring superstitions to his contact with the aliens, they all had. But this was impossible. The impression of their evil had been overwhelming.

“Dr. Turner, please turn around slowly.”

The most intense shock of surprise that he had ever known shot through him, so intense that he almost dropped his flashlight—but then clutched it. He turned around—and found himself confronting a big shadow.

Frantically, he brought his flashlight to bear. For an instant, he was completely at a loss: What was a Delta Force operator in full battle dress doing in here?

Then he recognized the face and was so surprised that he gasped aloud. It was one of Mark Bryan’s men, absolutely no question. This was Sergeant Bart Louis. Like them all, Tom had chosen this man personally. Like them all, he was a human being of extremes—extreme speed, extreme intelligence, extreme aggression.

But he was also dead.

“Sergeant Louis,” Tom said, “do you know that you’re listed as killed in action?”

“You need to please do as I say,” Louis said in a tone Tom had heard before, the same tone used by the gen threes when they were in a dominant position. He had studied the way vocal tone projects power, and designed it himself.

No matter who or what Louis appeared to be, Tom knew this man all too well underneath, because he had designed his mind.

What had they accomplished here? This was—what?—a perfect clone of a dead man, created in just a day and fitted with a gen three mind?

“Walk deeper into the facility please.”

He had to play the authority card. If the programming had held, it would work.

“Sergeant, you don’t give me orders. You take orders from me. You probably don’t realize this, but I’m Colonel Bryan’s superior. I chose you for your mission.”

Louis said in that same deceptively, disturbingly soft tone, “We have a use for you.”