in that psychic shell. Reaching out with her mind, she took a tentative exploratory step into the world beyond the confines of her own brain.
She sensed instantly that something had changed.
The cacophony of stimuli that had assaulted her earlier was gone. She hesitated, certain that at any moment Adam would sense that she had opened herself again and let down her defenses, however slightly, and attack.
The attack didn’t ome.
She opened the crack in her shell wider and began to let her mind emerge once again. Still, she remained cautious, creeping forth into the computer’s circuitry, searching for the weapons she was certain were trained on her.
Slowly, almost imperceptibly, she began to sense that Adam was gone. She could no longer feel his presence, nor detect the stimuli emanating from his brain.
Was he hiding? Had he, too, closed himself down, waiting for her to drop her defenses entirely so that he could spring forth out of the black nothingness of the circuitry?
She reached further, exploring the world within the microchips and the data that were stored there.
Nowhere was there any trace of Adam.
There were voices coming through the microphone, though. A babble of voices that were being instantly digitalized and transmitted to her brain, tumbling over one another so that none of them was distinct.
She emerged completely from her shell, searching through the computer for some clue as to what had happened, some explanation for Adam’s disappearance. For she had already discovered that the support system for his tank was no longer functioning, nor could she find, anywhere, any trace of activity coming from his mind.
Ranging through the computer, she discovered the archive files, closely compressed, that the powerful Croyden had been steadily generating through every phase of the experiments that had been conducted in the laboratory. Reviewing them in an instant, she watched everything that had transpired in the lab while she had pulled herself down into the deep, black well she had imagined. It was as if she was experiencing a dream, the action as clear as if she’d been watching it herself, but being absorbed into her mind within the space of a split second.
From the still-running cameras suspended from the ceiling, she could see her parents in the laboratory now.
And Josh was there.
Other people, people she didn’t recognize at all.
Did they know what had happened in the laboratory? Or why it had happened?
Her mind fully functional once more, she began to work furiously, for suddenly she knew how it had to end—and what she must do to prepare for that ending.
“What is it?” Margaret Carlson whispered, her eyes riveted on the monitor displaying the activity within Amy’s brain.
Gordon Billings stared at the same monitor. What he saw was impossible. And yet there it was. The alpha patterns, the beta patterns, all of it familiar. And there was no arguing with what it told him. “She’s waking up,” he said quietly. “She’s coming into consciousness.”
“Consciousness?” Frank Carlson repeated. “That’s not possible! That’s not Amy in that tank! It’s not a human being at all! It’s nothing more than a mass of tissue! For God’s sake, someone turn that damned machine off and let it die!”
His words echoed in the room. For a moment no one said anything at all. Then, just as Gordon Billings was about to speak, a voice came from the speaker in the ceiling.
“Not yet, Daddy,” Amy said. “I’m not ready yet.”
Frank Carlson froze, and Margaret, at the sound of her daughter’s voice, instinctively glanced around the room as if half expecting to see her daughter hidden somewhere there.
“Amy?” Josh breathed. “Are you okay? What happened?”
The adults in the room stared at the boy, who seemed to accept that what they were hearing was actually Amy Carlson’s voice, impossible though it patently was. But before any of them could react, Amy herself spoke once more.
“Adam tried to hurt me,” she said. “He tried to make me go crazy, and I had to hide from him.”
Josh frowned, trying to fathom what she could be talking about. Hide where? How? “But what happened?” he asked again. “They’re dead, Amy. Jeff and Adam, and Dr. Engersol. And Hildie, too. They’re all dead.”
Amy was silent for a moment. When she spoke again, her voice was trembling. “Adam killed them, Josh. He took over everything, even the elevator. I never meant for Hildie to die, but he took over and killed her. He killed them all.” Even as she spoke, Amy’s mind continued to work, manipulating data within the massive