Excerpt from Chapter 1

Some people are not meant to be in this world very long. They know it, too, in the back of their minds. Maybe they're uncertain, shaky in the way they live life. Maybe they're fragile. Others are the opposite extreme, too reckless. Some, like Ray Burgess--

Who was only twenty-seven years old, that night, in a remote Nevada lab--

--Some are just prone to being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Death seems to know who's going to be the antelope that strays too far from the herd.

Right now, Burgess was crouched behind an overturned metal table in the break room, the table's stainless steel legs projecting away from him toward the door. The lights of the lab were still burning, out there, but here he huddled in the dark next to a soft-drink machine that made him twitch every time it hummed and clicked inside itself. A little light came from the slightly opened door; from the softly suggestive glow of the vending machine.

His right-hand thumb was clamped between his teeth, and every time he heard any kind of metallic noise or the sound of something moving, from the next room, he bit down hard to keep from yelling. It was crumpled and torn, that thumbnail. Pretty soon blood would be seeping out.

He tried to see the luminous face of his watch but, he had his glasses on, thick glasses for his severe nearsightedness, and they made it harder to see things very close. He didn't want to move enough to lift his glasses. He was afraid if he moved, he might bump the table, might make some kind of sharp noise. Did the watch say 9:10?

If it was 9:10 P.M., then he'd been crouching here for more than two hours.

He wondered if Ahmed had bled to death, in that time.

Chances were, Ahmed was pasted to the floor by a sticky puddle of his own blood by now.

He pictured a skin on the pool of Ahmed's blood, like on cooled cocoa. He had always liked Ahmed; the little guy had a sense of humor that was balanced by a kind of trusting optimism. He might still be alive.

If I could get out, get someone to take care of Ahmed.

Probably not going to happen. The damn things had of course cut the phone lines, right out of the box. They might even have incorporated the phone lines -- fused them with tissue, somehow.

He'd never make it to the phone down the hall. And thanks to the Dazzling Geniuses, as Ahmed called them, in Security, they weren't allowed to have cell phones in Lab 23. It had never made sense, and now not being allowed to have cell phones made it more likely, it seemed to him, that he and Ahmed were going to die.

Optimistic Ahmed.

Ahmed is going to bleed to death, if he isn't dead already, and I...

Ahmed's death might be merciful, really, considering the way Kyu Kim had died. The things had picked Kyu because he was the one who opened the Development Box. He was the one who'd discovered that they had disengaged the Lab's safety circuits.

The breakouts had divided Kyu's body into five parts, to use as many muscle groups as they could commandeer. Which meant Kyu's legs began to thrash and work themselves free from his torso, like snakes being born from eggs. And then his limbs started moving around the room on their own. The torso, with the head still attached, went humping off in another direction.

And Ahmed had fallen in front of the Kyu's reorganized body and Kyu's new jaws started that snap-snap-snapping like electric lawn clippers and ripped into Ahmed's side --before Ahmed had pulled the sterilizer down onto Kyu's head... and smashed it. Smashed Kyu's head broken and bloody.

But Kyu's body wasn't dead. Burgess could still hear it thrashing in the next room, now and then, under that big metal cabinet.

Ahmed lost blood fast, lost consciousness when the blood went, and Kyu's eyeless limbs proved to be more or less useless to them. The breakouts were always experimenting, ironically -- so they'd abandoned Kyu's parts and started some other kind of "interconnected mutual e-construction." Wasn't that the term the Pentagon boys had come up with?

Something went click-click in the lab next door, and Burgess gnawed more deeply into his thumbnail, beginning to taste blood.

Dr Sung will have his daybreak shift at the lab. He'll put out the alert, if they didn't have it already, and maybe the Secure Penetration Team would find a frequency, or set up a decoy or something

Or would they just abandon him? Once Ahmed had said something about how they might have to firebomb the Facility under certain conditions as if it was a bioweapons lab in Condition Red. It almost was a bioweapons lab. But then again it wasn't. They had developed no virus nor bacterium; not one,

He had to pee and it was getting worse. Could he hold it? Could he pee on the floor without the breakout subjects hearing? How good was their sense of smell?

He had taken the wrong road in life, the fatally wrong road, signing on for the Facility. He knew that now. But there was no excuse for it: Everyone at the National Security Agency Advanced Research Facility knows that once you're in the Facility, you were committed.

You can't just say, I've decided to go into something else. If you thought that Chinese scientist at Lawrence Livermore had it bad, just try walking out on the Facility. Suddenly you'll be "an enemy agent".

Not like there hadn't been warnings. There had been rumors. Things had been going wrong before he'd arrived. There'd been more than one infection. There'd been a Lab 21 and a Lab 22, dedicated to the same project, and they'd both been quarantined. But the new protocols were supposed to be more than enough. "Micro-womb integrity," they liked to say. Burgess had just the gift for tunneling-electron manipulation they needed; and they had offered the two hundred grand a year starting salary he'd needed. It had seemed right.

But he'd known. He's always known that life had it in for him. He'd been pretty sure of it since his mother joined that Christian end-times bunch. The cult had sucked her right in, like some kind of mutually incorporating program. He'd watched her drive away with those guys. Thin, underfed, faintly smiling guys in prim, cheap suits. And since Dad wouldn't have anything to do with them, he knew then he'd never see her again.

Right now, he really, seriously had to pee.

He peered at his watch, squinting. Pretty sure it said 9:12. Time was...well, it was crawling. The breakouts were so methodical, it wouldn't be long before they came in here. They'd divided things up into sectors by now, probably, and made their assignments. They'd come here when it was most efficient.

Come on, man, there's hope. The Facility will get its SP Team together, and they'll break in to save you. Any second now.

Was the break-room door swinging inward, just now, a little?

It did seem that the wedge of light spilling from the lab into the darkened room was wider. Was something peering in, looking for him?

The door opened just a centimeter or two more. Not like a person opening a door. Not like someone coming to save him

Burgess prayed it wouldn't turn on the light. He didn't think he could see one without screaming. And if he screamed they'd know for sure he was here.

I won't go on drinking binges with Belinda anymore. I know it was wrong, I know she's married and has a little child and I won't ever do that again.< I'll go see my dad back home, I swear. I know he's got maybe a year to live and I never go see him. But I will, I'll go visit my dad.

Just don't let it turn on the light.

There was a muttering, clickety sound from the door.

And the light came on, and he couldn't help looking over the edge of the table.

And Burgess gave a short scream, distantly aware that he was wetting his pants.

They had stripped all the skin off Ahmed's skull, to be used in some other project, but they'd left the eyes and there was no mistaking those big brown eyes. Ahmed's eyes.

The skull ratcheted up on a shiny metal improvised spinal stalk, turning slowly, like a periscope, to look right at him.

Then the thing began to crawl his way.

The breakouts climbed into some people and reorganized them, like with Kyu. Others were just...parts.

Which was maybe why it pushed the overturned table top against him, and simply crushed him against the wall.

He was mostly dead before his head popped off his shoulders.

Which was proof, wasn't it, that death is often merciful?