Dark Oracle Read Online Free PDF

“He and I were assigned to the same unit, several years ago.” She stubbornly refused to elaborate.
    “Is it normal for him to be so. . . hands-off?”
    “What do you mean?”
    Li gestured to the plastic bubble and frustration shone in his voice. “He hasn’t even looked around. I haven’t worked with him long, but. . .”
    Tara smirked. “Small piece of advice, Agent Li. Richard Corvus never gets his hands dirty, nor is he in the habit of putting himself in harm’s way. He doesn’t want to get any glowing particles from the atom smasher on his new suit.”
    Li’s eyes widened at her directness. “I, uh. . . Thanks for the tip.”
    “Sure.” Troubled, Tara turned away and looked at her reflection in the window, a pale ghost against the desert landscape. She’d half expected Li to jump to his supervisor’s defense. She’d said what she did to both provoke him and warn him. Li seemed a decent enough guy, and she didn’t want what had happened to her to happen to him.
    TARA’S BREATH FOGGED THE PLASTIC SHIELD OF THE RADIATION suit helmet, obscuring her vision. The white disposable Tyvek suit was too large; it pooled around her wrists and ankles, cold and sticking to her skin. A suit like this wasn’t intended to prevent direct touching or inhalation of radioactive particles, and was nowhere near as safe as a dense material like Demron or a vapor-sealed Level A encapsulation suit. Although Li had double-secured the seams with duct tape to try and make it vapor-tight, Tara knew that a thin suit like this didn’t provide a complete barrier against radiation. The military wouldn’t have enough encapsulation suits on hand for a disaster like this. The suits at least offered some protection and, maybe more importantly in military-think, they made people feel safer.
    She could hear her breath rattling in the flimsy respirator helmet, swirling, making fog-ghosts, and being sucked back through her mouth and the filter. It seemed like a walking meditation, as she could not escape her own breath. She tried to focus on it, even it out, while ignoring the zing and panic of thoughts that buzzed between her ears. At this elevation, her inhalations felt shallow in her lungs. She smelled chemical fire-retardant foam, and it made her eyes itch.
    As soon as she’d donned the hood, she’d felt trapped. The air, thin at this elevation anyway, seemed entirely too close and stale. She had to be careful to control her breathing. Her chest tightened. Tara had the sense of being suffocated in a plastic bag. If she breathed too quickly, the plastic crackled. She tried not to envision sucking the plastic into her nose and mouth, choking her. Tara took deep draws of air, trying to compensate for her fear and the weak oxygen.
    Breathe. Just breathe, she reminded herself, trying to resist the urge to rip the mask off her face.
    She turned her head, and the hood did not move with her. Agent Li had carefully duct-taped the hood to her shoulders and the gloves to her sleeves. The suit was one piece, footed like children’s pajamas, crinkling as she walked. She held her small digital camera wrapped in a plastic storage bag concealed in her palm. She always took a camera to every crime scene: the lens of a camera could capture details that were easily missed but could be detected and dissected later. She paused to catch her breath under the guise of snapping a few photos.
    Breathe.
    As she trudged behind Li into the caldera, the black grasses whipped snow in their wake. Snow spat from the sky, dusting the ground. Glass particles strewed the snow, like sequins on a wedding gown, crunching underfoot. The footprints they made were uneven, the plastic booties shifting in shape with each step. They stepped over the shallow concrete tracks spreading over the caldera. They reminded her of pipes, and her feet rang hollow against the surface as she clambered over. Based on what little she knew about the technology, she supposed these were the