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dismembered remains of Patrick Duchaine, one of the Beekeeper’s creations who had been sent into the isolation room to test the capabilities of the Werner thing.
    A transition module connected the monitoring hub to Isolation Room Number Two. At each end of the module was a massive round steel door made for a bank vault. By design, both doors could not be open at the same time.
    Ripley looked at the vault door on this end of the transition module. Nothing on Earth, whether natural-born or made by Helios, could get through that two-foot-thick steel barrier.
    A camera in the isolation room revealed that the inner vault door remained shut, as well.
    He doubted that the Werner thing was loose in the building. The instant someone saw it, an alarm would have been sounded.
    Only one possibility remained. At some point, the inner door might have cycled open long enough to allow the creature into the transition module before closing behind it. In that case, it waited now behind not two steel barriers, but behind one.

CHAPTER 4
    BY THE TIME Bucky and Janet Guitreau reached the front porch steps of the Bennet house, they were rain-soaked.
    “We should have used an umbrella,” Bucky said. “We look strange like this.”
    They were so excited about killing the Bennets that they had not given a thought to the inclement weather.
    “Maybe we look so strange they won’t let us in,” Bucky worried. “Especially at this hour.”
    “They’re night owls. This isn’t late for them. They’ll let us in,” Janet assured him. “We’ll say a terrible thing has happened, we need to talk to them. That’s what neighbors do, they comfort one another when terrible things happen.”
    Beyond the French windows and the folds of silken drapes, the front rooms were filled with soft amber light.
    As they climbed the porch steps, Bucky said, “What terrible thing has happened?”
    “I killed the pizza-delivery guy.”
    “I don’t think they’ll let us in if we say that.”
    “We aren’t going to say that. We’re just going to say a terrible thing has happened.”
    “An unspecified terrible thing,” Bucky clarified.
    “Yes, exactly.”
    “If that works, they must be amazingly trusting people.”
    “Bucky, we aren’t strangers. They’re our
neighbors
. Besides, they love us.”
    “They love us?”
    At the door, Janet lowered her voice. “Three nights ago, we were here for barbecue. Helene said, ‘We sure love you guys.’ Remember?”
    “But they were drinking. Helene wasn’t even half sober when she said that.”
    “Nevertheless, she meant it. They love us, they’ll let us in.”
    Bucky was suddenly suspicious. “How can they love us? We aren’t even the people they think we are.”
    “They don’t
know
we aren’t the people they think we are. They won’t even know it when I start killing them.”
    “Are you serious?”
    “Entirely,” Janet said, and rang the doorbell.
    “Is the Old Race really that easy?”
    “They’re pussies,” Janet declared.
    “Pussies?”
    “Total pussies.” The porch light came on, and Janet said, “Do you have your camera?”
    As Bucky withdrew the camera from a pants pocket, Helene Bennet appeared at a sidelight to the left of the door, blinking in surprise at the sight of them.
    Raising her voice to be heard through the glass, Janet said, “Oh, Helene, something terrible has happened.”
    “Janet killed the pizza guy,” Bucky said too softly for Helene to hear him, just for his wife’s benefit, because it seemed like the kind of thing you would say when you were having fun, and this was as close to fun as they had ever known.
    Helene’s face puckered with concern. She stepped away from the sidelight.
    As Bucky heard Helene opening the first of two deadbolts, he said to Janet, “Do something spectacular to her.”
    “I hate her so much,” Janet replied.
    “I hate her, too,” Bucky said. “I hate him. I hate them all. Do something really amazing to her.”
    Helene disengaged