The building was larger than Nella had expected and seemed a giant cube of black glass planted in a large clearing. It was surrounded by old forest that seemed to be spreading its fingers toward the building. Even the gravel parking lot was almost invisible, covered by early grass and unopened dandelion heads. Nella had been outside of the City many times with the Cure team, and she had seen the roads and buildings begin to decay, to be drawn back into the ground, swallowed by grass and trees. But this place felt almost surreal. It looked so untouched. No windows were broken that she could see. The roof looked whole and wasn't sagging. There was no paint to peel, because it was all glass and she couldn't see if there were any disorder within because the windows were reflective. It was intimidating, this thing that stood impervious to the devastation that had spread around it, from it even, if Dr. Pazzo was to be believed."What if she isn't here?" asked Frank as they reached the dark,

There's an executive bathroom attached. I brought up all the first aid kits I could find, just in case. You are welcome to use them. Do you mind if I take a look?" Dr. Schneider approached Nella and lifted the edge of her shirt without waiting for an answer."Uh- sure," said Nella, beginning to ease her way out of the sling and her sweater with Frank's help. She didn't want to look at the wound, afraid it would be worse than what she imagined, but she couldn't ignore Dr. Schneider's sharp intake of breath when the bandages were removed. Nella looked at Frank instead of Dr. Schneider. Instead of smiling reassuringly at her, he had gone very pale and tightened his arm around her waist."Let's put her down on the sleeping bags," Dr. Schneider said, "I've got some tetracycline from the labs. It should work if she has a staph infection, which is the most probable. It was a bite wasn't it?""Yes," said Frank as he eased Nella down onto the pile of sleeping bags in the center of the room, "B

Nella immediately realized why no alarms were activated with the airlocks forced open. Whoever had opened the vault had attempted to incinerate it. She wondered how the rest of the floor, the rest of the building, actually, had avoided catching fire. All of the surfaces were covered with soot. The scavenger team and Dr. Schneider had left footprints in the thin layer of ash on the floor. Beakers had melted into coin sized puddles of glass, now dark medallions fused with the lab tables. Along the edges of the room were round vats, all hanging open like hell's buried treasure chests dug up. Nothing else was recognizable. Nella walked carefully over to one of the vats. They had no soot inside and the glass vials seemed intact, which meant they must have been opened after the fire rather than before. Except one. She could see it in the gray light, its lid cracked and blackened. She walked over to it. She could only see into the top part of the cylinder, but it was enough. The vials had me

It was almost laughably predictable. Nella watched Frank and Dr. Schneider comb through the first tapes for the third time without comment. She had tried to tell them that whoever set the fire in the vault must have had the security codes and it was unlikely that they'd left video footage of themselves behind. But Dr. Schneider was convinced that whoever it was would have missed something. There were so many power outages, that they couldn't tell when the cameras had been deliberately stopped and when the solar cells had been depleted.Nella tried to use the time more wisely, attempting to engage Dr. Schneider in conversation, but the videos engrossed the doctor's attention. Nella had to wait until late afternoon, when they were all exhausted, to get Dr. Schneider to concentrate.Dr. Schneider sat slumped in her chair not bothering to watch the video feed that never changed, where only the light moved. Frank had left, going back to the executive office to pack their gear in frustratio

She woke up in the passenger seat of Frank's car, with no memory of how she got there. They were rolling slowly through the long spring dusk toward Frank's house. Nella hadn't seen the other side of town since she was a poor graduate student. Since things like poor and wealthy had mattered. Now, she guessed, it was immunity that separated people. She had felt slightly depressed when she had been forced to choose a row house during school. All those people around her, she always felt so claustrophobic and unable to concentrate. Nella had felt like one tiny insect among many then and it had irritated her. Now, as row house after row house unrolled before the car, like an unending snake skin long shed, Nella was overwhelmed with loneliness. She kept expecting to see a mother on each porch yelling to their kids to come in for dinner. Or a couple of old men leaning on the metal fencing around their yards impassively watching the car pass by. But no one appeared. The houses were dark and th