“It’s a new form of the virus,” said Kira, turning it on the screen to get the best possible view. “The airborne Spore is supposed to turn into the blood-borne Blob—they’re the only two variations of RM in our entire database.” She looked desperately for anything she could understand. “This is new.”

She ticked her fingers across the screen, dissecting the image as best she could, pulling it apart to see what made it work. The computer was right—it was a partial match for the Blob, bearing many of the same protein structures in the same basic arrangement, but beyond that it was completely new—and unlike the Lurker, it was definitely viral. Is this because of Samm? Is this new virus a result of the Lurker? Kira tagged the image and told the computer to search its database again, looking for anything that matched it more closely. There were five hits, all in the archive of newborn blood tests: mostly premature babies, plus one stillbirth, all more than eight years ago. It didn’t show up enough to stand out, but it did show up, and years before Samm got here. That means it’s not Samm’s fault. But then where did it come from?

Kira tapped back into the main medicomp imager. If it’s not that common, she thought, then maybe it’s just a mutation. Maybe this is the only instance of it in the sample, and I just happened to pick exactly the wrong spot to start looking. She told the scope to find more of it in the blood samples, and it pinged almost immediately, then pinged again, then again and again and again, even more pings now than when it was searching for the airborne Spore. It’s everywhere. Kira called up image after image, the new virus filling every screen, multiplying like mad. Frantically she called up a new search, looking for the Spore again, but there was nothing. The computer had saved the original images, but the structure itself had disappeared from the blood. Every instance of the Spore had morphed into this one—this Predator—and they were still replicating.

Shaylon spoke slowly, his voice thin and nervous as he looked at Samm. “What is that?”

“I have no idea.” Kira gritted her teeth and dove into the growing pile of reports and scans and images, determined to find what she was looking for: the process of evolution from Spore to Blob, the details that would tell her how the virus functioned—the individual chemical steps behind every process. It was like trying to drink from a waterfall.

Shaylon froze, his finger on his earpiece, then dropped into a crouch. “Get down.”

“Why? What’s going on—”

“Get down!” said Shaylon fiercely, pulling her to the floor behind the metal bulk of the microscope. “There’s someone here, someone sneaking around. They think it might be a jailbreak.”