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Kate, we've missed you so. Did he hurt you? You mustn't let him do that again.

A flood of disjointed thoughts and impressions swirled and eddied around the words as they flowed through her.

We need you, Kate. Now more than ever.

"Fifteen seconds," Jack said.

Why was he counting? she wondered. An instant ago he'd cracked the microwave oven's glass door and turned it on, but now it was off.

"Sixteen."

She sensed she had lost time. How much?

"Seventeen."

He must have started the oven and broken her contact with the Unity.

Yes, Kate. He took you away from us for a long time. Is he going to do it again? Is that why he's counting?

I don't know.

"Eighteen."

How long before he turns it back on?

I don't know!

Why didn't she know? He must not have told her.

He mustn't turn it on again!

She agreed. This was too good a feeling to lose. But then another part of her, a shrinking part, cried out to press the button herself.

"Nineteen."

She saw Jack reach for the start button.

Stop him!

"Wait, Jack." She gripped his arm. "Don't—"

"Damn," he said and hit the button.

NOOOoooo…

Abruptly the hum and peach-glow warmth faded, replaced by the cold fluorescent reality of Jack's kitchen.

"It got you, didn't it," he said.

Kate nodded, fighting back a tide of depression. "Somewhere around twelve seconds."

"Jeez."

"But Jack, it was the strangest thing. Once the Unity came back I had no idea why you were counting. Neither did the Unity. Eventually it was obvious you were going to turn on the oven again, but I didn't know when. We'd agreed on twenty seconds but the memory was completely gone. The Unity appears to be blind to what I experience with the microwave running; so blind that my Unity self has no memory of it once the oven is turned off. It's like I'm two people now."

"So can we risk leaving you alone?"

"We'll have to, Jack. Just pick up what you need and get back here as soon as you can."

"I can just wait till the storm passes."

"No. Now's a good time. They've put you on a back burner to settle with later."

Jack's eyes narrowed. "How do you know that?"

"I'm not sure. The Unity doesn't communicate solely by words. Feelings are a major mode, but half-formed thoughts and what I guess you'd simply have to call data filter through as well. I got the impression it's put the 'Jack problem' aside while it deals with something else, something it considers momentous."

"Like what?"

"The Great Leap, whatever that is. They were planning on assembling this evening for it. They'd been so sure about it before, but now I get the impression that with the loss of Ellen this Great Leap doesn't seem quite as inevitable as they'd thought. I sensed a lot of confusion."

"Okay, but I still don't trust them."

"And I sensed something else, Jack."

"Like what?"

She rubbed her upper arms against a sudden chill. "Something outside the Unity, but connected to it. Not controlling it, exactly, but… nudging it."

Jack closed his eyes and sighed through his teeth. "The Otherness."

"The what?"

"Long story."

"You're not getting off with that again. If this involves me, I want to know."

He nodded, then, speaking rapidly, launched into a outlandish story about two huge opposing forces in conflict, with Earth and humanity as the prize.

"Cosmic dualism," she interjected when he paused for breath. "I never would have imagined you a believer in that."

"I'm not," he replied with a grim expression. "I'm a knower. There's a difference."

"But a war between Good and Evil? That's so…"

"It's not as simple as that. As it was explained to me, it's not a matter of good and evil, it's more like an endless conflict between a nameless force that's largely indifferent, and a truly evil one that some people have labeled the Otherness. But just so we don't start feeling too important, we aren't the big prize in this game; we're a tiny piece in an obscure corner of their cosmic chessboard."

"How do you know all this?"

"Because somewhere along the way I became involved."

"You? How?"

"Not my idea. Got drafted somehow. But if the Unity virus is connected to the Otherness, that means you're involved too. Someone once told me that the Otherness feeds on the worst in us, and if that's so, I can see now how it'll use the Unity to bring that out."

"But the Unity's goal is just the opposite. It wants to eliminate conflict by turning us into a single-minded herd of contented cows."

"But before it reaches that goal—if it ever does—it's going to spark a global race war between the infected and uninfected, just like in my dream. And that's when the Otherness will chow down."

The faces of Kevin and Lizzie loomed before her. "We've got to stop it… them."

"I know. And the first step is to put you out of range. Once you're safe, we stop playing defense."

He dragged a chair in from his front room.

"Here. Might as well be comfortable while I'm running my errands." He started for the door, then turned. "I'm locking the door. If anyone knocks, it's not me, so don't budge from that spot. I'll be back as soon as I can. Don't go away."

"Very funny."

After the door closed, she heard the multiple latches snap closed. Then she was alone with the humming microwave… and through the open windows in the front room… was that a rumble of distant thunder?

6

"I don't see how that's any of your business," the man told Sandy and stepped back to shut his front door.

Sandy put out a hand to stop it. "You know, don't you, that he was picked up for questioning about a murder in Queens?" he said quickly.

The door stopped, then opened wider.

That always got them.

Back in Pelham Parkway for the second time in as many days, Sandy had been knocking on doors up and down Holdstock's block, trying to get a handle on what the neighbors knew about his cult. Not much, it turned out. The few who were home on a Monday afternoon were suspicious and reluctant to talk, but tended to open up when they learned that the police were interested in their neighbor as well.

"You don't say?" the man said, stepping forward again.

"Yes. That was yesterday. And today a member of a group that meets in his house was found murdered in Riverside Park."

"No kidding?" He scratched his stubbled chin. "You know, I've seen a fair number of people going in and out of there lately. I'd heard he was sick and I just figured it was friends and family, or some prayer group or something."

"The police will be questioning him again today." At least that was what McCann had said. The new victim, Ellen Blount, had died on McCann's turf so now he was directly involved. "But besides extra visitors, have you noticed anything strange going on?"

"Like what?"

"Shouts, screams."

The man shook his head. "Can't say as I have."

That seemed to be par for the course. One lady had heard what she thought was chanting once, but that was it.

"Hey, there he is now," the man said, pointing over Sandy's shoulder. "Why don't you ask him yourself?"

Sandy turned and saw Terrence Holdstock hurrying down his walk to a green Accord parked at the curb. He got in and drove off with a squeal of tires.

"Wherever he's going, it looks like he's in a hurry."

"Thanks for your time," Sandy said and rushed for his own car.