Car rides usually went by in silence for the Sommers sisters; Jaime couldn't sign or turn her face towards Becca, after all. If there was something to be said, it had to wait until the car stopped, like it did when Jaime pulled in front of Madison High School.

"I'll pick you up at five, okay?" Jaime said.
"Yeah," Becca said. "Sure."
I love you, Jaime signed. I'll be okay. I promise.
Becca smiled. "Love you, too," she said. Then she turned and left, the passenger door snapping closed behind her.

Jaime watched her little sister go, all the way to the building. Most days she didn't linger, but…

"Sommers, do you copy?" someone sitting right next to her said. Jaime wrenched her head around, scanning the back seat, but saw nobody else in the car with her. "Sommers, this is Berkut Operations," the voice continued. "I'm transmitting through your ear implant. Just say 'yes' if you can hear me."
"...yes?" Jaime tentatively answered.
"Cool," the voice of Operations said. "Oh, I'm Nathan, by the way. So, you ready to come in for the day or do you have anything else to take care of?"
"No, I'm good," Jaime replied. "But...how do I get to Wolf Creek? I was unconscious for the other times I went there."
"Oh, yeah," Nathan said. "You're gonna want to head north on the 1 up through Muir Beach and...actually, let me try something. Just a sec." Two seconds later, a green line appeared painted into Jaime's vision, floating gently over the street ahead.
"Whoa!" Jaime shouted. "Hey, what did you just do?"
"Set a waypoint," Nathan said. "Telemetry has your current location down to within 10 feet, I restricted the navigation to surface streets and bam, perfect route. Not to brag but I figure that's gonna be in everyone's glasses in ten years. It's called augmented reality. Pretty cool, huh?"
"Well, right now it's in my head and I didn't ask for it," Jaime said.
"Yeah, I guess," Nathan said. "Still, it works. Pret-ty cool. Yeah?"
"No, it's an invasion into my own head," Jaime snapped back. "Turn it off and ask next time."
"Gotcha, paper maps mode," Nathan said. After another second, the green line cleared from her vision. "Like I said, take the 1 northbound, and uh, when you get through Muir Beach, just say 'Operations'. I have a keyword alert, that'll ping me to start listening in, I'll talk you through the rest. Got that?"
"Well, at least you're not always listening," Jaime said.
"Yeah, about that," Nathan said. "You're still stopped, I can give it to you straight and not have you swerve into traffic, right?"
"Yeah," Jaime said.
"I might not always be listening, but the system is," Nathan said. "Records everything. Transmits it to us, usually live as long as you're anywhere with cell reception. That's how it can react when you say 'Operations' and...you know, a few other CARNIVORE keywords that might indicate you're in an interesting kind of situation, gun, bomb, that sort of thing. It's, uh, I get that it's a privacy nightmare but it's orders from up top. You're...kind of a big deal. Bledsoe does not want to lose you."
Jaime closed her eyes and took a deep breath, her hands clenched on the wheel. "It's...okay," she said. "It's not your decision, and...thank you for doing what you can. But still, ask next time. Got it?"
"Got it," Nathan said. "I mean, I get it. It's not...cool, but it's better than no one listening in at all." He paused. "Anyway. You should get going. I can stick around to answer questions if you got 'em, otherwise I'll leave you to it until you call in. Sound good?"
"Sounds good," Jaime said. "See you in a couple of hours."

Just about two miles west of Paradise, a roadside gas station had become very busy in the earliest hours of morning. Plenty of cars and SUVs, all black with tinted windows, none of them here for gas or snacks. About half of the people now swarming the area were dressed in some sort of business suit, the other half in fatigues with big "FBI" stencils on the back of their load-bearing vests. Though some tents had already been erected and the road blocked off, the site had a long way to go to becoming a proper checkpoint. Most of the work was being done out of the back of vans and pickup trucks as agents scrambled to erect temporary shelters, the only generators powered up were supporting the decontamination tent, and nobody had gotten around to wetting up the dirt to keep the site from turning into a dust bowl. When the latest arrival - a small helicopter - got to within a hundred feet above the ground, the sand went flying around the landing site. Quickly, the brownout grew into a veritable cloud, swallowing the machine on its final approach, and by the time the desert wind got around to blowing that cloud away, the helo was already on the ground, spooling down its engines to idle and letting the rotor settle.

Will Anthros watched where the wind blew from inside - the dust from the helicopter blew away from the FBI encampment and away from the town. It seemed they were upwind of the hot zone here. At least one less thing to worry about.

"Good to go!" the pilot shouted over his shoulder. "Keep your heads down!"

Truewell nodded and hopped out of her side of the helicopter, slinging her overnight bag onto her shoulder and grabbing one of Will's "supplies" cases with her free hand. Will was several seconds behind her, first having to work the strap of his bag over his head and across his chest, then hefting two sturdy pelican cases with his lab equipment out from under the seat benches of the helicopter.

"Are you sure you don't want help?" Truewell shouted as the helicopter continued to spin down.

Will turned to shout back at her, then remembered the cabin door, turned back to the helicopter, set down a case and struggled the door closed. Ducking and grabbing the case again, he hoofed it through the dust. When he came up to her, he turned away again and spat some grit onto the ground. "Fine," he coughed. "I got it." He straightened up and looked back at the helicopter one more time. "I got it."

Truewell knew better than to argue with Will Anthros when his mind was made up. Instead of dealing with that, she just turned around and kept walking towards the edge of the helipad, where three FBI agents in suits were running to meet them. "Ruth Truewell!" she shouted. "We're the DARPA team you were notified about!"
"Ben Tarzi!" answered one of the agents, a thin brown-skinned man with a shaved head. "Welcome to Paradise, Dr. Truewell!" He looked past her to Will, who was struggling to keep up. "And this is -"
"Dr. Will Anthros," Truewell said, able to lower her voice from a shout to merely speaking loudly. "He's...very particular about his equipment."
"Well, we're just glad you could make it this quickly," Agent Tarzi said. "These are Agents Bellamy" - he kinked his head to the agent on his right, a 30-something pale-skinned woman with big sunglasses and a big bun of brown hair - "and Daub" - he turned to the agent on his left, a man with dark, deeply furrowed skin that had to be in his mid-50s at least. "Can I treat you to a cup of joe inside?"
"We'd prefer to get right to work," Will said, huffing and puffing with the effort of carrying all his gear. "Time's wasting standing around and our agent could be degrading as we speak."
"Gotcha," Tarzi said. "In that case, if you'll follow Agent Bellamy to the checkpoint, she'll get you fitted for your suits. Agent Taub can help you with the -"
"I got it," Will cut him off. "Not my first hot zone." He looked to Bellamy. "Lead on."

With Will still humping fifty pounds of lab equipment by himself, they followed Bellamy past the gas station to a large decontamination tent. It was the only equipment the FBI had completely set up so far, and for good reason. Judging by the expandable tunnels on either end and air filtration setup, the tent was meant to be an airlock for entry into a contaminated area.

"Kind of pointless, isn't it?" Will asked.
"We're fresh out of town-sized plastic bubbles," Tarzi said. "You have a better idea, let's hear it."
"Simple, don't let anybody out until I give the all-clear," Will said. "Just a thought."
"Suggestion noted," Tarzi said. "Now, if you'll follow us, we can get you suited up -"
"I know how to put on a hazmat suit, Agent," Will said, stepping around the group and into the tunnel to the airlock room.
Truewell turned to Tarzi. "He's very good at his job," she said.

Getting them both suited up took about a half hour, with Will saving as much time by skipping them through the safety brief as he wasted berating the field techs for the way they handled the equipment. Truewell gamely went along with it all; getting sealed into a fully-body moon suit to take a stroll through a deadly environment was stressful enough without trying to rein her "partner" in. The only thing close to satisfying about it was hearing his muffled huffing and puffing as they walked out the other side of the airlock to a waiting SUV, Will still insisting on carrying his lab gear all by himself.

"Two minutes to Paradise," the driver told them as she helped them climb into the truck with their suits. "Your supply's good for two hours. I'll expect you back at the drop-off point in one."
"Thank you, Agent," Truewell said. If Will grumbled something, it was muffled by the suit.

Even with only going 40 mph, they passed the edge of Paradise quickly. Base camp too close to the hot zone, Will complained, but Truewell's attention was on the town itself. There was a certain mercy about the attack having been at night. It meant most people had died in their beds, hopefully asleep, and in any event they weren't going to drive through most of the town. Out of sight, then. As it was, she only caught a few glimpses of people who had been outside when the attack came. One compact car was pulled over on the shoulder of the road, its sole occupant slumped over the steering wheel with his muscles locked too tight to slide off. A delivery truck has gone through a garden fence of an outlying trailer home and only been stopped by the corner of the double-wide on the lot; its cabin was too dark to tell what had happened to the driver. As the SUV slowed down on approach to Paradise Station, Truewell made out another casualty: an old man, collapsed on the dirt path along the road in a puddle of his own vomit - and next to him a dog, curled up as if to rest.

The real blood was reserved for their ultimate destination: the gas station where the incident started. The semi-truck was still next to the station, though it had long since stopped spewing smoke. The man without a name was still on the asphalt, just where the video had shown him falling after getting shot, and the rust-brown pool of dried blood under him had run out into little streaks over the driveway. The driver pulled to a stop at the edge of the parking lot, hung around just long enough for Will to offload his equipment, and then drove away.

"So," Truewell said. "Where do we start?"
"The bodies," Will said. "Find me whoever's nearby, the more the better. And don't touch anything."

Wolf Creek, Jaime found, was still thirty minutes beyond Muir Beach. A particularly sharp hairpin turn on the Shoreline Highway put her onto what probably served as a turnout, though with the blacktop continuing on past it and into a wooded valley. There were worn chainlink fences topped with rusty razor wire to either side of the road with a worn metal sign on old concrete posts: "Marin Defense Distribution Depot - NO PUBLIC ROAD - AUTHORIZED PERSONS ONLY BEYOND THIS POINT". Frankly, it looked older than her, and just the right mixture of boring and forbidden to signpost a secret government facility, even if this one didn't much bother with hiding. Just past the fence was a corrugated plastic shelter standing on old galvanized pipe, covering a portable shelter containing a bored-looking soldier and a set of TVs, only one of which was tuned to a sports game. Jaime pulled her truck up to the shelter and lowered the window.

"ID please, ma'am," the soldier - Corporal Paul Bel, US Army, Wolf Creek security detail she heard in her head - said as he turned in his chair towards her.
"Uh." Jaime started to dig in her purse, came up with her driver's license and showed it to Corporal Bel.
"Military ID, ma'am," Bel said. The eye roll wasn't present, but implied.
"Um, well, I don't have one?" Jaime said. "I'm with...can you call…"
Oh shit you're at the gate already? Nathan said, the rattle of his headset ringing in her bionic ear. Tell him you're with the medical division and stick out your right arm.
"I'm with the medical division?" Jaime echoed, and stuck her bionic arm out the window.
The soldier grabbed a handheld scanner off the table in front of him, leaned out of the window, and scanned her wrist. A second later, a green light came on. "Thank you, ma'am." He leaned back inside and went back to watching the security cameras.
"...guess I'm allowed in the clubhouse," Jaime muttered to herself, put the car back into Drive and continued down the road.
Just pull ahead to the parking lot, I'll let Captain Ginsburg know you're here. He'll escort you the rest of the way.
"Ginsburg," Jaime repeated. "Got it."

Half a mile later, the road didn't end so much as it flowed into a sea of asphalt ringed by a double layer of newer-looking chainlink fence. Situated on the asphalt pad were a collection of prefab shelters, some 1980s-looking small buildings, a motor pool of a half-dozen military cargo trucks - M1120 LHS, as the voice in her head insisted - and a large, clear area marked out as a helicopter landing pad. Besides those items, every conceivable bit of space was filled with a drably multi-colored collection of shipping containers, most stacked two high and two side by side, with a few spots where specialized models such as Hi-Cubes, refrigerated units and containerized electrical generators were stood just one high. All in all, Jaime clocked fifty containers easy; a more thorough walkaround may have well pushed the inventory up to three digits. Squeezing in between were a handful of people in fatigues going about whatever their business was; Jaime let their names and ranks as suggested by the voice in her ear wash over her until she picked out Captain Ginsburg's name from the chant. Spotting a small hangar with other civilian-looking vehicles, Jaime pulled up her truck alongside them, got out and made her way across the tarmac to make contact.

Ginsburg turned to her as she approached and stepped forward to meet her. Captain Antoine Ginsburg, US Air Force (ret), the voice told Jaime. "Get me the count by 1200," he told a soldier hovering next to him.
"Sir," the soldier answered, clutched his clipboard to his chest and strode off, no doubt to do something very important with one of the containers.
"Welcome to Wolf Creek," Ginsburg said, extending his hand to shake hers. "Antoine Ginsburg. You find your way here okay?"
"Yes," Jaime said. "Your secret base isn't that hard to drive to, you know."
Ginsburg smiled. "It's not," he said. "I'll be honest, though, I couldn't think of a better ice-breaker. Do you mind if we walk and talk?"
Jaime nodded and started walking past Ginsburg. "Let's get this over with."
"Okay," Ginsburg said, falling in beside her. "Has anyone actually told you why you were supposed to come here today?"
"Nope," Jaime replied.
"Communication's not the strong suit of this project," Ginsburg said. "First official order of business is basic firearms training with Mr. Kim." He looked at her for a reaction. Jaime didn't turn around. The tone of her shoes on the floor was all the reply Ginsburg needed. "There's something else I need to take care of before that, though." He paused. "I'm sorry for what we did to you."
"But?" Jaime asked.
That wasn't a response Ginsburg was expecting. "What?"
"But...it was necessary to save your life?" Jaime asked. "But at least you have bionic super-powers? But now some crazy super-soldier wants you dead, so better get training?" She turned back to glare at Ginsburg. "But what?"
"...the kind of sorry without a but," Ginsburg said. "What happened to you...sucks. I've got friends that...I know people who've been wounded like you were, and no matter how cool the prosthetics are, it still sucks for everyone. And they weren't conscripted afterwards, either." He nodded. "I get it, and I'm sorry. I'm guessing you haven't heard that without someone trying to justify what we're doing, huh."
Jaime took a deep breath. "No." She paused, and took another one. "Thank you. It does suck."
Ginsburg nodded. "Well, we'll both get shouted at if we're late."
"Right," Jaime said. She took a step, then stopped. "I actually have no idea where we're going. I just was...really angry."
"No worries," Ginsburg said, and stepped around her. "Follow me."

As they came up on the building, he sped up a bit so he could get ahead of her, then got the door and held it open for her. The small building, Jaime noticed, had blacked-out windows, a half dozen soldiers on standby and neither hallways nor rooms; it was all open space, centered around a reinforced concrete pillar that emerged from the ground beneath. An opening in the pillar was just big enough for a passthrough to an elevator cab. Without asking, two of the soldiers approached, scanning both Jaime's arm and Ginsburg's ID another time. Ginsburg was led off to the side after that, where Jaime watched him unload and clear the pistol he carried with him.

"Devices," the soldier next to her said, holding out a clear plastic bin.
Jaime pulled her cell phone out of her purse and dropped it in the bin.
"Thank you," the soldier said, as if reading off a phrasebook, then another one keyed his radio.
"Ginsburg and Sommers coming down," he said. A few seconds later, the elevator doors opened.
"Thank you," Ginsburg told the soldiers, then ushered Jaime into the waiting elevator cab. They were barely inside when the double doors closed behind them, and with a hiss and a bit of a pop in Jaime's unaugmented ear, the cab pressurized and started its descent.

Stepping out of the surface elevator, Jaime and Ginsburg entered directly into a checkpoint, one soldier behind thick perspex checking Ginsburg's ID, three more waiting with their weapons in reach and a no-kidding ceiling-mounted machinegun tracking their movements. Exiting through a narrow hallway, they came to the vast vertical shaft housing the underground part of the Wolf Creek facility. Passing yet more soldiers on patrol, they made their way along a walkway to the center spire, where the next elevator waited for them. Another short ride and they got off a few sublevels below, following signage all the way to the firing range.

The interior of the "range", then, offered a glimpse of the rock the whole facility was built into. What might have once been a cave the size of a studio apartment had been dug out, expanded and reinforced until it resembled a near-perfect cuboid of concrete and steel. Rails attached to the ceiling transported attached paper targets out to the farther reaches at 25 and 50 meters downrange, while the near side house segmented shooting benches, pegboards with rows of shooting glasses and earmuffs. Waiting for them at the benches was Jae Kim, ponytail neat, black t-shirt tight and utterly focussed on the task of reassembling a pistol.

"Hey," Ginsburg announced their arrival. "Jaime Sommers, Jae Kim."
"Welcome," Kim said, not looking up from the weapon. "Please find some fitting protection, Miss Sommers. I'll be with you in a moment."
Jaime looked around before grabbing a set of glasses and ear protection.
"...I'll see you later, then," Ginsburg said, gave an unacknowledged nod to Kim and then exited the range.

For a few seconds, only the sound of click-clacking metal against metal echoed through the room, then Kim had the pistol back together. Seeming satisfied, he put it down on the bench and approached Jaime. He stopped a few feet away from her, bowing his head slightly.

"Welcome again," he said. "We start with safety. Please, take a seat."

Ruth Truewell could feel the suit press the breath from her lungs when she squatted down. This was the fifth body close to the gas station she had turned up, and it didn't look much different from the other four: pale and cramped up after a few feet of crawling. She swallowed down a wad of saliva and resisted the urge to wipe the sweat off her brow, because that sweat was caught with her inside the suit - the slick plastic confines smearing the sweat everywhere, from the leather headband that kept the helmet in place, down the back and her legs, even into the boots and gloves. Gingerly, she pushed against the suit and reached into the field kit set onto the ground, from which she retrieved another colored flag. Steadying the pennant between her fingers, she wrote a "5" on it with a felt pen, trying to keep her breathing even as she felt the glove slowly constrain her fingers. The flag went into the ground. Aching fingers clicked on the heavy flashlight - the sun was rising, but still, best to have as much light to see as possible, especially through the fogging faceplate pressed up against her face. Reaching for her chest, she keyed down the transmit button on her radio.

"Specimen Five located," she said. "Male, mid-40s." She paused. "Some abrasions visibly on hands and face. Looks consistent with loss of balance and falling over." No response. She checked the gauge of her air tank attached to her left arm. Thirty minutes until bingo - the red line at which they would have to get out immediately or risk running out of air inside the hot zone. Will still hadn't responded, so she stood up and looked back across the parking lot. Will was standing still, staring down at something at his feet. "Will? Specimen Five looks like the others."

Still no response, and Truewell's heart rate just about doubled. "Will?"
"What?" Will shouted back. "I'm right here, and we're on the radio, no need to shout."
"I called your name three times," Truewell said, starting to walk his way, the suit constraining her every step. "You were just standing there."
"Well...I...it was...there was something interesting, and I was studying it," Will shot back.
"What was it?" Truewell asked.
"It was...look, it doesn't matter," Will said as Truewell walked up to him. She pointed her flashlight into Will's face. "What the hell - get that out of my face!"
Will's sunken eyes and pale face said it all. "When's the last time you slept?" Truewell asked.
"That's not important right now," Will said.
"You haven't slept since before the crash, haven't you," Truewell said. "Jesus, that was over two days ago now. Have you been sneaking caffeine pills, and…they're wearing off now, aren't they."
"I said, it's not important," Will said, stepping off towards the gas station attendant's shack.
"If you fucking cut your suit open and die from whatever did this because you're too tired to cut a sample, I'd say that's pretty damn important," Truewell replied. Will leaned into the shed, looked around, and leaned back out. "Anthros, are you listening to me?"
"Unfortunately yes, I can still hear you," Will said. "But if I were to sleep, I would be down for twelve hours or more, and this situation requires our immediate attention or who knows what might happen next. Jaime is still in post-op, if she has an issue, she will also require my attention, if not my hands. So, Agent Truewell, as I have been saying, it is not important right now." Will leaned back into the shed, and swept a finger along the outside of the shed.
"What are you doing now?" Truewell asked.
"Take a look at my finger," Will said as he held it up for her. "Is there a black smudge on my fingertip? I can't be sure, because as you have pointed out, I haven't slept in two days."
Ruth dragged her suit over to him and peered as best she could through the smearing of fog over her mask. "Yes, there is."
"Then whatever came out of that truck wasn't just smoke," Will said. He turned back and started struggling with the latches on the truck's hood. "Goddamn these gloves!" he shouted.

Ruth grabbed a pry bar from the tool kit; with its help, she had the latches on the other side popped open in a few moments. She trudged back around and shoved it into Will's hands as his sweaty hands and gloves still struggled with his first latch.

"Try this," she said.
"...thank you," Will said, and got his own latches open.

When the last latch was released, the hood raised up to reveal the massive diesel engine inside. Most of it looked...well, like a dirty old truck engine should, but something shiny and new poked out above the engine on the other side. Will and Truewell both circled around to the other side. What it was wasn't exactly clear, but neither one of them thought that surgical stainless steel and a high pressure spherical tank belonged inside your average truck. The device the tank was attached to was lined with small holes, and was surrounded by a dense smearing of whatever black dust coated the area and Will's finger.

"...what the hell is that?" Truewell asked.
"Whatever it is, we only have a half-hour to make it safe and take it off so we can find out," Will said.
"I'll grab the tools," Truewell replied.