Read Nancy Kress for Free Online Page A

how that sounds,” Keith said. “I’m not saying I believe it myself. But Miller did tell people he’d been abducted, and he was missing for a month. My investigator, who’s the best there is, verified that.”
    Reeder finished his second drink. “I prefer to stick to facts. There’s only one more I haven’t given you. In every case I’ve tested, it looks as if the trance state began with the onset of puberty. There are numerous genes that switch on then, and it’s possible they also switched on whatever of the inserted genes are active in the children’s brains.”
    Puberty. Lillie’s blossoming body, the box of tampons, the lipsticks clattering to the floor. “I see.”
    “I’m not sure there’s anything more I can tell you,” Reeder said. “If you give me your e-mail address, I’ll—”
    Someone screamed.
    Reeder tore out of the room. Keith followed, not caring that it wasn’t his house. Reeder ran up a flight of stairs, down a hall to a bedroom.
    Linda Reeder stood by a pink-covered bed, her hand to her mouth, eyes wide. On the bed sat a young girl in pink pajamas, looking puzzled and a little scared.
    “Mom? What’s wrong? What did I say? Dad, what’s wrong with Mom?”
    Hannah. Looking like a normal thirteen-year-old girl, long blond hair parted in the middle, music cube on the night stand, holographic poster of rock star Jude Careful above the bed. A window framed by white curtains was open to the warm April air.
    “Mom? All I said was, the pribir are coming. Well, they are. Mom?
    “Dad?”
     
    By the time Keith drove back to New York, doing ninety miles an hour on Route 87, Lillie had been awake three hours. He’d given Iris permission over the phone for Dr. Asrani to run whatever tests she wanted as long as Lillie agreed and didn’t seem too upset. He could not, in this context, have defined “too upset.”
    “Uncle Keith!” Lillie said. He hugged her hard, until, blushing, she pushed him away. She was never physically demonstrative. Maybe it reminded her too much of Barbara. Her beautiful gold-flecked eyes looked clear and alert.
    “How do you feel?” Such banal, ordinary words! As if she’d had a head cold, or the flu.
    “Okay. That doctor said it’s April 28 and I’ve been knocked out for weeks. Is that true?”
    “Yes.”
    “How come? Did I get hit by a car or something?”
    Shoba Asrani must have told her all this, but he saw that she wanted to hear it from him. “No. You just sort of collapsed in the living room, and I called 911.”
    “A heart attack?”
    “No, sweetie. Nobody knows why you collapsed.” God, how much was he supposed to tell her about the extra DNA, the brain structures, Miller, the other kids? How did you discuss what utterly baffled everyone?
    “Well, can I go home now?”
    “I don’t know. I’ll ask. Look, I’m going to talk to Dr. Asrani. You get back in bed and wait for me.”
    “I don’t want to get into bed. I’m not tired.”
    “Then sit in that chair.”
    “I’m hungry,” she said. “Is there a vending machine? In the hall, maybe?”
    The sheer normalcy was eerie. Keith gave her money. He found Dr. Asrani in her office, apparently waiting for him. She looked as unsettled as he felt, too unsettled for small talk.
    “Keith. We ran tests. The structure in Lillie’s frontal lobe and olfactory glomeruli is now active. The PLI isn’t like anything we’ve seen, a totally new firing pattern. Usually neurons fire at intervals of―”
    He wasn’t yet interested in details. “Is she in danger? Is the growth harming her in any way?”
    “Not that we can tell. She checks out fine, and she says she feels fine. Of course, we want to keep her several days to run — “
    “No. She wants to go home.”
    Asrani took a step forward, waving one arm. “No, we need to — “
    “I’m taking her home. I’ll bring her in here every day, if you want and she agrees, or someone will — ” How long could he be away from the SkyPower legal