The Grays

ourselves. The Three leaped out of the craft and dropped down through the air. As he fell, a great mass of fire enveloped him and the whole collective howled his pain and his loss. He saw fire all around him, a red haze. He felt his bones growing hot, felt essential processing systems in his body begin to boil.

He reached the lip of the great tank. The whole structure was unstable, he could feel it shaking, could see the flames licking at it. It would not last long, but even another moment was too much time. He ripped off the antenna, pulling it away from the concrete lip of the huge tank to which it had been affixed.

As he looked for the transmitter, a great tongue of fire enveloped him. His skin began to pop and shatter, his limbs to shake, then to gyrate wildly as millions of micromotors lost control of themselves. He broadcast, Alarm, alarm as he felt himself ceasing to function. He dropped the antenna, which went sailing off into the flames. His left eye exploded in a shower of sparks. He fell farther.

The One went after him, dropping also into the flames, attempting to save him, struggling against the fire. And he, too, caught fire. His head exploded in a flashing mass of sparks.

The antenna was gone, but not the transmitter. It remained taped to the lip of the tank, its red diode gleaming, still sending its signal—although weakened—to every one of Wilkes’s killers.

The Two took the craft up fast, faster than a bullet, all the way to the edge of space.

CONNER FELT THEM LEAVING HIM. Don’t go, his mind cried, don’t cut me off. But he was cut off, there was now no sense of the presence of the collective within him. He felt it as a silence at the center of his being. “Come back to me,” he screamed, but the Thieves could not hear him, not the dead, not the frightened, confused survivor far away.

DAN AND KATELYN REACHED CONNER at last.

“Mom, Dad, something’s wrong, we have to go!”

“Oh, Conner, dear God, Conner, I couldn’t find you!” Dan said. Katelyn threw her arms around him. “Let’s go home now,” she said. “Right now!”

“Hi, Mrs. Callaghan.”

Katelyn backed away from the girl. She knew what was in her hand, she had seen it.

“Stay right there,” she told her. “Don’t you come near him!”

The girl stepped closer. She was a pretty girl with a sweet, open smile. “There’s nothing wrong, Mrs. Callaghan.”

“Then what do you want?”

“Nothing.”

“Why are you carrying that knife?”

The girl raised it and leaped straight past Katelyn. Conner stepped to one side and she slashed down where he had been standing. Snarling, she raised it again, looking around as if she couldn’t see him.

Katelyn grabbed her arm, then Dan leaped on her from behind and got the knife out of her hand. “Who are you? What the hell’s the matter with you?”

The girl crumpled, bursting into tears. Here and there other people, freed by the weakening signal, began screaming, holding their heads, throwing down weapons.

ON THE ROOF OF THE grain elevator, the metal skeletons of the two grays smoked and sparked in the licking flames. They moved, though, flickering and twitching, as if they wanted to stand. High above, the Two concentrated, his head down, his hands over his face.

One skeleton actually rose a few inches, stretched an arm toward the transmitter, trembled, and fell back. The bones fell into the the maelstrom. Now the other moved a little—its hand scraping along the lip of the tank, then touching the edge of the transmitter, the black claws scrabbling at its power switch—then falling to a jumble of gleaming metal bones and black claws. The tiny red diode on the transmitter remained lit.

At that moment, the grain elevator collapsed, leaving only the three enormous tanks standing. The light on the transmitter flickered, went out—but then came on again, glowing steadily. Huge pieces of concrete began falling off the tank.

INSIDE, ROB AND HIS TEAM threw themselves into the cellar where the elevator’s motors were housed. A massive tongue of fire roared at them from above, coming through the hatchway like a living, questing monster, grasping for their lives. The space was long, the far end collapsed and burning. The floor above them groaned, ready to buckle. He thought he had perhaps twenty seconds to get these men out of here.

THE CALLAGHANS BEGAN MOVING AWAY from the debris, Katelyn and Dan shielding their son as best they could.

As they headed for their car, Jimbo Kelton came over to them. He was smiling.

“Hey, Jimbo,” Dan said, “watch our backs, we—”

Jimbo lifted his arms over his head and brought a rock down on Conner.

Conner ducked, but not fast enough to avoid getting hit in the shoulder. A stab of pain went through him and he cried out.

Jimbo raised the rock again. Then another rock hit Conner in the neck and bounced off. It had been thrown by Mrs. Kelton, and she and Jimbo were both gathering more projectiles, fragments of lumber, of tin—anything to throw at him. Their faces were gray, their eyes watery and crazy.

As a third rock hit Conner, he ran toward the car. Now Terry Kelton tackled him and tried to drag him down, but he pushed him off. Catching up with him, Katelyn grabbed his jacket and dragged him toward the car as Dan fought off the Keltons, screaming and kicking, backing toward the car.

“Dan, John has a rifle!” Katelyn shouted as she and Conner reached the car. “Run!”

Conner jumped into the back of the car and crouched down on the floor. His head and his back throbbed where he’d been hit. Katelyn and Dan got in and slammed the front doors. As they pulled out, a rock hit the back window, transforming it into a haze of cracks.

“What in damn hell is the matter?” Dan yelled.

“Look, please, I’m sorry, I know I did something, and I’m so sorry.”

“You didn’t do a damn thing, son.”

As they drove away, Conner came up from the floor. He sat hunched against the door, staring out the window at the bizarre scene, which faded quickly into the gathering winter evening.

They went toward Oak Road, turning up Wilton, taking the lonely way.

“This is a mistake,” Conner said.

“What do you mean?” Dan asked.

“The lonely way.”

THIRTY-TWO

LAUREN WAS ALMOST INSANE WITH worry and fear when at last a two-car convoy appeared at the main gate. Rob’s car was in front, a Cherokee behind full of specialists in fire control gear.

As he pulled up, he opened his window. “We’re not out of the woods, and I need you right now.”

She ran around and got in the car. The Cherokee headed off into the base.

“Why in hell didn’t you call me? My God, I almost lost my mind.”

“You had orders, Colonel.”

“Orders? Dear God, the military mind is—oh, forget it. What’s our situation?”

“Crew is dead and Wilkes is at large. He may have made an escape in a stolen TR.”

“What’s a TR?”

“Classified vehicle,” he replied tightly.

“He killed Lewis Crew?”

“Details later, we’ve got a hell of a situation back there. I don’t know exactly what else he’s done, but we’ve