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He stands there with his hands in his pockets, looking around, although she knows his attention is on her Finally he says, "The ADR says they’ll send those medical supplies you asked for in the next few days"

"Should I believe it?"

"Probably not"

She knows this is not the reason why he cas out of hi before this distance between therown

"So what’s the problem of the week?" she asks

He scratches his neck and looks off, so he doesn’t have to look her in the eye "Sort of the same, and sort of you-don’t-want-to-know"

"But," says Risa, "it’s big enough for you to tell me that you can’t tell hs It’s already getting hot, and she’s not looking forward to pushing her way to the infir enigmatic She’s about to tell hi to say, but her attention is snagged by the grurown since she last looked Both she and Connor are pulled closer by the gravity of the crowd

The news report is an intervieith a wo Co in theabout

"Can you believe it?" so a new life for what a new life form?" Connor asks

Hayden is there and turns to both of them He looks almost queasy "They’ve finally built the perfect beast The first co"

There are no pictures, but the wo the process--how bits and pieces of almost a hundred different Unwinds were used to create it Risa feels a shiver go as far down her spine as she can feel Connor rasps her shoulder, and she reaches up to grasp his hand, not caring which hand it is

"Why would they do such a thing?" she asks

"Because they can," Connor says bitterly

Risa can feel the heaviness of the vibe around her, as if they’re all watching so before their eyes

"We need to get the escape plan ready," Connor says Risa knows he’s talking more to himself than to her "We can’t do a dry run, because the spy sats will pick it up, but everyone needs to knohat to do"

Risa feels the sa the hell out of the Graveyard sounds like a very good idea Even without a safe destination

"Corumbles "I wonder what it looks like"

"C’mon, haven’t you ever seen Mr Potato Head?"

There’s a shten the mood

"Whatever it looks like," Risa says, "I hope we never see it"

17 - Caer he traces the lines of his face, down the side of his nose to his cheek Left, then right Out from the symmetrical starburst of flesh tones on his forehead, then beyond to the lines that spread beneath his hairline He dips his finger into the graft-grade healing crea down the nape of his neck, his shoulders, his chest, and every other place he can reach He can feel the tingling as the engineered anisms in the cream do their job

"Believe it or not, the stuff is actually related to yogurt," the derist told him "Except, of course, that it eats scar tissue" It also costs five thousand dollars a jar, but, as Roberta has told him, money is no object when it comes to Cam

He’s been assured that when treatment is done, he’ll have no scars at all, just hairline seams where every little bit of hi ritual takes half an hour, twice a day, and he’s come to enjoy the Zen-like nature of it He only wishes there were so that would heal the scars in his mind, which he can still feel He sees his o of islands that he labors to build bridges between--and while he’s had great success engineering the es, he suspects there are some islands he’ll never reach

There’s a knock at his door "Are you ready?" It’s Roberta

"Reins in your fist," he tells her