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nized the common factor in all three of his visions-
C. W. Thrush, who claimed to be a hybrid of human,
Archon and machine. He didn't live, but he existed.
During the unforeseen temporal dilation effect
when Lakesh' s interphaser was used as a portable
mat-trans, he, Brigid, Grant and Domi had been
swept to four focal points in history. As disembodied
spectators, all of them had witnessed Thrush's in-
volvement in past events that affected the future and
ultimately led to the nukecaust.
Brigid had described Thrush as a prototypical
MIB, a Man In Black, one those sinister figures as-
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sociated with the conspiracy theories of the twentieth
century, whether they dealt with UFOs or political
unrest.
A faux human she had called him, a fake, and that
appellation proved to be more than a guess during
their fin~ confrontation on that Newyork roof. He
replayed, as best he could, what Thrush had said
about himself: "Colonel Thrush is not an individual,
but a program. My body is mortal, but the program
will simply animate another like me."
Kane had believed him to be an Archon agent, a
chrononaut dispatched by the Directorate to prevent
their machinations in time from being undone. In ret-
rospect, Thrush had never actually admitted to work-
ing for the Archons, and it hadn't occurred to Kane
to ask Balam about his true nature and purpose. He
doubted he would have received a solid answer to
even the most specific questions.
He remembered Thrush's parting words to him.
"Another time."
A sudden click startled him into opening his eyes.
DeFore had turned off the EEG machine, and the
scratching of the pens ceased. Looping the graph pa-
per over an arm, she announced, "That's it, Kane."
He reached up and started carefully peeling the
tape from his forehead. DeFore pushed his hand
away, saying crossly, "That's not the way to do it."
Ruthlessly, she ripped away the adhesive strips,
plucking more than a few hairs out by their roots.
Kane barely noticed the pain. It was nothing com-
pared to the sleet storm throbbing within the walls of
his skull.
Wincing, he pushed himself to a sitting position.
"Do you have anything stronger than those pills you
gave me?"
DeFore eyed him critically. "Your head still
hurts?"
"You have no idea."
She glanced down at the triple row of jagged lines
on the paper. "I haven't interpreted the results yet,
but the EEG doesn't show any spikes indicating head
trauma. ' ,
Kane didn't move from the table. "I don't give a
shit," he rasped hoarsely. "I'm hurting and I'm hurt-
ing bad. Now will you get me something, or will I
have to find it myself?"
DeFore gave him another appraising stare, unease
flickering momentarily in her dark eyes. Kane met
her stare through narrowed eyes. DeFore had never
disguised her dislike of him-or rather, her dislike of
what he represented. In her eyes, as a former Mag-
istrate, he embodied the strutting arrogance of ville
law enforcement, glorying in his baron-sanctioned
power to deal death indiscriminately.
She also believed that because of his Magistrate
conditioning, he was unable to reconcile his past with
his present, and the psychological conflict had him
teetering on the brink of nervous collapse. Therefore,
she didn't believe he could be trusted.
Still, she had treated Kane for a number of injuries
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since his arrival at Cerberus, from broken bones to
burns, and through the worst of it he had never ut-
tered so much as an "Ouch."
Stepping to a cabinet, DeFore removed a syringe
and a glass ampule of clear fluid. As she filled the
hypodermic she said curtly, "I'm giving you a so-
lution of a predark analgesic known as Percocet, a
class-A narcotic. If it doesn't clear up the pain, or if
it returns in the same intensity, we'll have to come
up with another approach."
Kane rolled up the right sleeve of his body suit and
she injected the contents of the syringe into his bra-
chial vein. The sting of the needle was remote.
"Sit there for a minute," she instructed him.
"We'll see if it works."
Kane nodded. "Thanks."
DeFore only grunted and busied herself gathering
up the graph paper.
Brigid appeared in the doorway. Her white body-
suit, the duty uniform of Cerberus personnel, clung
in the all the right places to her tall, willowy figure.
Her thick mane of red-gold hair was tied back, and
Kane noted the small filmlike patch of liquid bandage
shining dully high on her forehead.
"How are you doing?" she asked.
Kane forced a smile, indicating DeFore with a nod.
"Ask her. She's the expert."
DeFore faced him. "You really must be out of
your head, Kane, to make that admission."
She turned to Brigid. "The EEG is complete, but
I haven't done the workup. It'll be several hours.
He's still complaining about a severe headache, so I
gave him a few cc's of diluted Percocet. We'll see if
it reduces the pain."
Kane realized that the agony was slowly receding.
"It is," he said in relief.
"Good. Go to your quarters and stay off your feet
for a while. Try to sleep. Even diluted, that stuff will
make you woozy."
He edged off the table, then grabbed it as the floor
seemed to tilt beneath his feet. "So I see."
The surge of dizziness passed and he moved to-
ward the doorway, slowly at first, then with growing
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