For the last thirty-six hours the track star has been ducking through back streets and alleyways, hiding in shadows—avoiding people. She cannot go to her apartment. She cannot contact her parents or friends, fearing the men who murdered Professor Gabeheart will come after her loved ones, just as they are coming after her. She has not eaten, since the purchase of food requires identity scans, and hers has been excised.

Lauren doesn’t know who the enemy is, but she has her suspicions. Late the previous night, as she lay alone on the beach, her mind had finally quieted enough to piece things together.

Whoever wanted Gabeheart silenced feared the professor might learn the truth about Yellowstone’s caldera. To resort to murder means pressure within the caldera system must be building, which means an eruption is imminent.

The last eruption in Yellowstone led to an ice age. If this next one is anywhere near as devastating … oh, Jesus!

Lauren did not sleep, the threat to her own life suddenly overshadowed by the thought of a super volcanic winter. Somehow she had to get a warning to the public. Somehow she had to make the world listen while there was still time to act … assuming there was still time and there was another course of action.

But who would listen to her? She was a nobody, someone who could easily be snatched away before the first television camera could be turned on. And what proof did she really have?

But there was someone the media would listen to, someone they wanted to interview, someone who received more news coverage than any scientist, any geology student ever could.

Lauren needed to find Sam.

Lauren watches the Student Medical Center side entrance from her vantage behind a row of shrubs. Her hair is slicked back with water and tucked under a baseball cap.

She crosses the street, blending in with a family as they enter the facility. She follows a crowded corridor, then waits in line to access an automated hospital help station.

Presses PATIENT DIRECTORY. ‘Kirk Peacock’s room.’

KIRK PEACOCK IS LOCATED IN ROOM 310, BED B. HAVE A NICE DAY.

She looks around, bypassing the elevator for the stairs.

Kirk Peacock is lying in bed, his drooling mouth open, his eyes cloaked behind a virtual-reality headpiece. Lauren takes a seat by his bed, averting her eyes as a robonurse enters and changes his IV bag.

‘Kirk. Hey, Kirk!’ She knocks on the VR helmet, then yanks it off his head.

‘Cut the fubitchshitting … Lauren? Hey … what’re you doing here?’

‘I came to see you. You feeling okay?’

‘Fuck no. Got needles and tubes comin’ outta my bunghole. Haven’t done a leech in days. They took my contacts, my body piercings, my hair’s growing in over my ’too, and my father’s making me restain my pigment flesh tone. Life blows.’