Dark Oracle Read Online Free PDF Page B

conduits through which the particles were accelerated, to be crushed together at the nexus where their paths crossed in the now-destroyed building.
    Seeing the other suits milling about, she realized they were all entirely indistinguishable from one another. Anyone could be here; she had no way of measuring rank or looking anyone in the eye, a true handicap to her work. It would be like working blind.
    Her heart hammered, and cold sweat trickled between her shoulder blades. She closed her eyes to center herself and listened. The wind rattled plastic, sliced through the grasses, cut through the zing of Geiger counters and the low murmur of voices. As barren as this place looked to the eye, it seethed with something that made her skin buzz.
    Perhaps it was the altitude. Or the residual radiation.
    Breathe.
    Breathe.
    She followed Agent Li to the massive tent, and he drew the veil-like plastic aside. Her breath snagged in her throat as she stepped into an entirely different world.

Chapter Three
    W HILE THE caldera had been pristine white, nearly peaceful in its sterility, the inside of the shell of the tent seethed black and chaotic and filthy. Like a crushed beer can cast aside by a hungover god, the peeled-open particle accelerator was ripped apart from its moorings. It lay on one side, steel skin sheared back to reveal blackened guts of tightly spiraled copper tubing, wires, and ash. It was massive, at least two floors high, laced by the remnants of ladders. Carbon dusted the scene in a fine blanket of sticky black, obscuring the hazard signs still remaining on the walls and filtering like silt from the twisted ceiling beams. Above, the roof had dissolved, revealing an artificial white plastic sky. Two exterior walls were similarly missing, concrete blocks shattered and strewn on the ground. Like ants searching for food, workers vacuumed up debris with long hoses, carrying it away in handcarts. The spacemen-ants precisely and quickly swarmed over the machine. There was no indecision, no hesitation or flinch; these were soldier ants. Soldier ants with special expertise in these types of cleanups.
    Other workers sealed charred electronic components in plastic bags, cataloguing the remains in the autopsy of this monster. Tara surreptitiously snapped a few photos with the tiny camera in her hand, hidden in the too-large folds of the glove.
    “They’re destroying the scene,” Li muttered. “There’ll be no evidence left by the time we get to it.”
    “We’d better work quickly.” As she breathed, Tara could feel the plastic sticking to her back like an ever-shrinking second skin. She would like nothing better than to get in and out quickly. She wanted to see the scene, to get some feeling for the place Magnusson had spent his days, to get a sense of the invisible fingerprints he’d left on his corner of the world.
    “Who’s in charge here?” Li asked a passing worker-ant, but was ignored. He caught the sleeve of another, repeating his demand, and was shrugged off.
    “There.” Tara pointed to a suit tapping away at a bright yellow laptop perched on a wheeled cart, covered in a clear plastic bag. She’d seen how the other people diverted their paths around this person, like water around a rock. A man, Tara guessed, by the build and height. Clearly, he was someone important.
    Li strode to the white-wrapped figure. “Are you in charge?” His voice was muffled by the plastic and filters, but sharpness still crackled in his tone.
    The figure turned. Through the plastic shield, she could see the burn of blistering blue eyes. No verbal acknowledgement, only that scalding glare.
    “Are you in charge?” Again, the test of wills.
    “Who’re you?” A voice like gravel. He sounded as if he smoked steel wool.
    “Agent Li, Special Projects Division. Who are you, and why are you dismantling my crime scene?”
    The blue eyes crinkled in amusement. “Major Gabriel, Defense Intelligence Agency. And let me clarify a couple of