Walls of fire sprung up in front of and behind him, transforming the 
night into a holocaust. His hypersensitive eyes were blinded by the 
sudden blaze, and he threw his arm up to shield them in the crook of 
his elbow, until the lenses of the cowl dimmed and polarized. The 
flames erupted thirty feet into the air; they spanned the entire width 
of the road and scored the trees that fenced the street, cutting a 
swath through their ranks. 


Nathan had to fight the reflexive impulse to slam on the brakes. 
Instead, he applied even more pressure to the gas. A large 
sycamore had been guillotined and the cloven trunk was toppling 
into the street. If he didn't beat it he'd get trapped behind it. 


Or crushed beneath it. 


| hacked the drone, the Director informed him, and deployed the 
remaining Hellfires. Direct strike on the Foundation vehicles. 
They've already regained control of the drone, but not before | set it 
into a nosedive. 


The fire was fading as quickly as it had bloomed. Nathan drove into 
the newly-formed crater. Waves of heat prickled his flesh and sweat 
issued from every pore, engaging the suit's climate control. The 
Explorer shook and rattled across the scorched bowl as if skiing 
over moguls. He could feel the rubber of the tires melt and try to 


adhere to the chunks of baking macadam. Of the Foundation 
vehicles only one remained — they'd all been blasted into scrap 
except for a sedan that had been lagging behind the formation. It 
was now nothing more than a charred husk. Tines of fire lapped the 
interior, and flames poured from the driver's mouth and eye sockets. 
The corpse was still strapped in with its hands fused to the steering 
wheel. 


The descending sycamore's branches raked the roof of the Explorer, 
gouging the paint in a high-pitched squeal, like nails ona 
chalkboard. It was going to be close. A window coughed inward, 
showering the unconscious Foundation agent with glass as a limb of 
the tree speared through the back seat. The hatchback door was 
ripped from its hinges and disappeared in a spray of foliage. The 
sycamore's bole grazed the rear bumper, briefly lifting the SUV off 
the front axle until the bumper tore off and the Explorer squirted out 
from under the immense weight of the tree. Nathan clipped the burnt 
sedan's fender in his haste and sent it spinning off the road. 


The Ford, limping along on its last leg, managed to make it the rest 
of the way to the old fire road. Nathan stepped out and doubled- 
over, bracing his arms against his knees while he tried to catch his 
breath. It felt like a python was squeezing his lungs. His eyes 
scanned the road, up and down. It was unbelievably deserted in 
comparison to mere seconds ago. Through the burning trees he saw 
a light on at the nearby ranch, and heard a one-sided conversation 
as a neighbor, out on the wrap-around porch, screamed on the 
phone at a 911 dispatcher. 


A buzz with a Doppler shift drew his attention. What now? Nathan 
groaned inwardly. The noise seemed to be plummeting out of the 
sky, right above his head. It quickly terminated as another explosion 
burgeoned just twenty yards away. It was smaller than the Hellfires 
and lacked the forceful punch of the missiles. 


"The fuck was that?" he said, reverting back to verbal 
communications. "They're shelling artillery now?" 


The Foundation stalled the drone trying to pull it out of the dive. 


Nathan chewed his lip. It was the first piece of good news he'd 


Fetuses that were not given names by students are listed as "John 
Swine" (male) and "Jane Swine" (female). 


Sample 887-4930: An extensive guide on how to conduct a 
"speedrun" of the video game Buck Bumble. The guide details 
numerous exploits and glitches players can use to get a finish time 
of under 30 minutes. Written in Middle High German. 


Sample 887-1102: An intricate drawing of a thumbprint. Claimed to 
be that of an unnamed Scythian soldier. 


Sample 887-7395: A newspaper advertisement detailing a perfume 
referred to as "Rotten Delights." The advertisement claims that the 
perfume will cause men to "drop like flies" and that "all the prettiest 
Diptera swear by it!". 


Sample 887-3921: A continuation of the previous sample that 
details how and where to apply the perfume. Apparently intended to 
be read by flies in the family Tabanidae. Unlike the newspaper 
advertisement, the guide is written in Korean. 


Sample 887-6743: A professional dissertation detailing the health 
benefits of adding amniotic fluid to baby formula. The dissertation 
gradually becomes more incomprehensible as it progresses, with 
the final section consisting of the phrase "LET US DRINK, LET US 
WEEP, LET US THRIVE" repeated 1192 times. The final page 
contains a diagram of an unknown protein. 


Researcher: Dr. Cleverpork 


Sample 887-9583: A map of Hakodate as it was in 1935. Locations 
are labeled in a creole of Ainu and Japanese. 


Sample 887-9584: A list of all grocery stores in Minnesota, 
Wisconsin, and Michigan, transcribed into Inscriptional Pahlavi. 


Sample 887-9585: The full names of all researchers at Site-57 filled 
into a crossword grid. Clues for the crossword refer to personal 
events within their lifetimes, with the exception of Dr. Cunningham, 
whose Clue is a series of random alphanumeric characters. 


heard all night, and it momentarily caught him off guard. He stifled a 
laugh. "Are there any agents left in the area?" 


A pair of military helicopters have been deployed out of Worcester. 
ETA seven minutes. Local law enforcement is much closer, they're 
only ninety seconds out, but they're approaching from the southeast 
and will be blocked by the felled tree if you follow my directions. 


He jogged down the fire road and hopped into the Camry, backing it 
out onto Hammond Hill. "Some painkillers right about now would 
really hit the spot." 


| administered them at the same time as the hormones and otic 
compound. 


"You did? Why didn't you tell me?" 


Because | wanted you focused on the task at hand and not thinking 
about it. 


Could Nathan feel the opioids coursing through his bloodstream, 
releasing pain-blocking neurons in his brain? Certainly he could feel 
the hormonal stimulant by now, his mind honed to the sharpened 
point of a single atom, body thrumming like a finely-tuned 
instrument. Likewise the otic compound seemed to be working since 
his balance no longer troubled him. But he still ached all over. A 
heavy weight had settled over his chest due to the collapsed lung. 
And even more worrisome were the injuries he couldn't feel — the 
internal bleeding in his lungs and bowels. He could wind up 
drowning in his own blood or bleeding to death through his ass. 


"Did you ever stop and wonder if by withholding that information you 
were having the opposite effect than intended?" 


Yes. 


He pulled the Toyota alongside the SUV, swapping the prisoners 
from one vehicle to the other. He placed the woman in the 
passenger seat, right beside him where he could keep a close eye 
on her. From his travel kit he ripped open a packet of powdered 
antibiotics coupled with a cauterizing agent. He dumped the entire 


package down the ugly hole in her tactical vest to try and staunch 
the bleeding and keep her alive, at least until he got her to the 
ambulance and she became someone else's problem. 


When Nathan laid the old man in the backseat he spasmed, 
shackled arms and legs outstretched as the atrophied muscles 
seized and contracted. His gnarled hands beat a drum solo against 
the upholstery, and a dry keening ejaculated from the back of his 
throat like a Passing Bell. 


"| think we might be losing the old man," Nathan remarked. 
Is there anything you can do? 


"| don't think so. Are you hearing this shit? It looks like he's having a 
convulsion or something." 


You must have some medication that will help. 
"| wouldn't even know what to give him." 
Let me see him. 


Nathan took a hard, steady look at the old man, letting the Director 
soak it all in. His spine arched as he writhed and spittle ran through 
his beard. 


That's not good. 
"Thank you, doctor." 


His condition could be caused by a multitude of different injuries. It 
could even be neurological or biological. 


"Yeah, definitely biological. Has nothing to do with the missile that 
landed on his head." 


Do you have chlorpromazine? 
"I'm not sure what that is. Maybe." 


It's Thorazine. 


"Yeah, | think I've got it somewhere." He fished through the travel kit 
and found the small glass vial and a single-use syringe. 


Aaminister ten CCs intravenously. 


Nathan bit the cap off the syringe and spat it out onto the ground. He 
stabbed the needle through the vial's rubber stopper and retracted 
the plunger until the barrel was filled with ten cubic centimeters of 
the clear fluid. 


"You think this will be enough?" The dose looked paltry and 
insubstantial. 


| think it might be too much for a man in his state and estimated 
weight, but | have no clue. Give him the shot. 


"Isn't this stuff for psychotics?" 


It covers a wide range of receptors, which is why we supply it to our 
field agents and why we're going to give him some without knowing 
exactly what's wrong with him. | can guess that his injuries are 
probably similar to your own, but you don't happen to have any extra 
nanodocs or clotting factors in that bag, do you? 


"Sorry, fresh out." 


So give him the Thorazine. It's not going to treat his injuries, but it 
might ease his symptoms and prevent him from hurting himself. 


It was easy finding a vein, since they were all highlighted in ink. He 
chose one on the calf, waiting for the small muscle to unclench, and 
then thumbed the plunger of the syringe. 


"Okay, done. Anything else?" 
No. The police are arriving. Just get to Ware. 


The Camry, as a Director-issued vehicle, came with an electronic 
countermeasure pod installed in its undercarriage, coupled with 
stealth advances to deceive an array of detection systems. It was a 
Toyota in appearances only. By putting the two prisoners in it 
Nathan made them vanish from any aerial surveillance that might be 


spying. The ECM applied various passive and active techniques to 
manipulate surveillance intelligence and sensing behavior. It could 
engage in soft-kill measures such as electronic warfare to jam 
communications, mask acoustics or confuse missile guidances with 
directional IRCM, and even substitute image-feeds with false 
pictures, erasing the car from visual recordings. 


I'm going to have Levine drive. 


"Go for it," Nathan replied. It was one less thing to have to worry 
about. "Tell him to be gentle. Precious cargo." 


The Camry was then remotely controlled by Levine, a professional 
driver on the Director's payroll. He'd driven for Nathan on several 
prior occasions, during a car chase on the Los Angeles freeway and 
an extraction in Mumbai. 


Of course, none of the stealth advances in the world did any good if 
you had a police cruiser riding on your tail or a helicopter pinning 
you in its spotlight. That's where the performance upgrades came in. 


The car's engine was an after-market V16, essentially two V8 
engine blocks linked to one crankshaft. The immense size and 
weight necessitated a custom chassis and hood to accommodate 
the mount and an enlarged heat sink to hide its thermal output. The 
car purred as it chewed up the road. They broke sixty miles per hour 
in under two seconds. But as a back road in New England it wasn't 
exactly like racing on a salt flat; the street consisted more of hills 
and potholes than actual pavement, and their speed was constantly 
hindered. 


Nathan let his eyes drift shut. "You know, I've been thinking... " 
Don't. Stick to things you're good at. 


"Funny. You should heed your own advice and leave the humor to 
the professionals. But seriously, how come I'm getting the feeling 
the old man isn't a priority anymore?" He glanced in the backseat. 
The tremors — or whatever the hell they were — were still present, 
but had subsided in their intensity. "Why did | pull this guy out? | 
mean... why don't we stick him in the ambulance and | take Little 


Miss Foundation over here — " he hooked his thumb at the agent " 
—to the train instead." 


| don't pay you to question motives, especially mine. That being 
said, it seems I've learned an important lesson which you, 
unfortunately, have not. 


"Oh, yeah? And what's that?" 


What's done is done. As unpropitious as Herbert McKeown's death 
may be, there's no point in getting upset over something that can't 
be changed. It's counterproductive. Do | wish it had gone differently? 
More smoothly? Of course. But I've adjusted my plans accordingly 
and we will continue to forge ahead with the resources that are 
available to us — not lament over what could have been. And that 
means getting the agent into surgery as soon as possible to remove 
the implanted Foundation trackers. 


"Is he even the right guy?” Although Herbert was the eldest of the 
McKeown clan, that didn't automatically make him their target. It 
could just as easily have been that the Sothian talent in the family 
skipped a generation, and his daughter was the sorceress, or that 
the grandson showed an aberrant proclivity for the cult's particular 
brand of black miracles, one the rest of the family didn't share. 


| have no idea. It might turn out he doesn't know anything and his 
death won't be a loss to us. Certainly the capture of all three 
members would've been preferable to just one that might die 
anyway. Even their bodies could've aided us in our research. 


"Yeah, I'm not going back to the house to pick them up. You'd need 
a fucking wet vac for that job." 


And I'm not asking you to. 


"| know. That's not what | meant, though. You're getting me 
sidetracked. | want to know why you suddenly became interested in 
the girl." He allowed his sight to linger on her. "What's so special 
about her?" 


There's nothing inherently special about her; not that I'm aware of. It 


was simple opportunistic predation. The drone was investigating the 
car, it was going to take me at least another thirty seconds to hack 
into it, and so | had you retrieve her. Can you not see the benefit in 
capturing a Foundation agent alive despite the risk? 


He still couldn't believe she was alive. They'd been standing right 
next to each other when the Hellfire hit, and she'd been impaled like 
a goddamned kebab. 


"Are you sure she's even alive? She looks dead. | might just be 
carrying a Foundation tracker inside a hundred pounds of rotting 
meat." Her head rested against the window, and he noted there was 
no condensation formed on the glass around her lips or nose. 


She's alive, the Director said. And | intend to find out the explanation 
for that as well. 


Nathan shook his head but remained quiet. It wasn't like a movie 
where the action star bodysurfs the shockwave of an explosion. If 
something had the power to toss you through the air for thirty feet, 
could bend metal and shatter glass, then you weren't somehow 
getting back up unscathed and without a single hair out of place. 


The car slowed down as they entered Ware. Like a lot of places in 
the area, it was an old mill town that had seen better days. Just 
when exactly those fabled better days had been no one seemed to 
recall. The car drifted through empty streets and vacant lots; 
buildings elbowed for space perched above the Ware River. Some 
of them had been converted into retail and residential space since 
the textile industry had parted ways overseas, but most remained 
untenanted and abandoned. The Toyota crossed a bridge over a 
spillway and turned into the lot of one such building. 


Hidden in the shadows of the tin roof overhang was the ambulance. 
"You sent a helicopter?" 


Yes. As you're aware, time is crucial. What'd you think | was 
sending?