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Rear fins undulated slowly, pus.h.i.+ng the Platypus toward the crack in the dry deck shelter. Small internal motors activated, pulling the machine’s sides in tighter. As it slid through the crack, it hit something soft — the severed leg that had once belonged to Wicked Charlie Petrovsky.

From the black shoe, which was still tied, up to midthigh, the leg looked normal. Wet, but normal. From the midthigh up, however, it was a study in damage. A jagged shard of bone stuck up from streamers of pale, bloodless muscle. The impact with the Platypus made Charlie’s leg spin in a slow-motion circle, shreds of tissue marking the curve like morbid little comet tails.

Just as the Platypus moved past, the fleshy ma.s.s of Charlie’s thigh spun into the sonar-eating foam, kicking up a small cloud of Charlie meat that danced in the robot’s wake.

The leg bounced away.

The Platypus moved to the open hatch that Bo Pan had spotted several hours earlier. In it went. It swam past motionless bodies, moved around wreckage, squeezed through doors that had been bent and torn by a torpedo’s lethal shock wave.

Steve Stanton’s creation quickly found the submarine’s nose. It entered. It located the locker that stored its objective. Recent programming told the Platypus to wait here, wait for someone or something to come and open that locker.

It used infrared to scan the room: measuring, calculating, searching for the best place to hide. Empty racks lined the walls. Airtight cases that had once rested on those racks now gently bobbed against the ceiling.

The Platypus flapped all its fins, gently but firmly, turning as it did. It swam into the empty racks and wedged itself down near the floor, nose aimed into the room in case it sensed a threat and needed to move quickly.

A threat, or, an opportunity.

For the second time, the Platypus shut down almost all its systems. No lights, no motors, nothing but a camera lens that was — ironically — shaped like a fish eye.

It watched.

SCARY PERRY

She knew she was dreaming, because she’d had this dream before. So many times. That didn’t make it any less gutting.

“h.e.l.lo, Perry.”

Perry Dawsey smiled.

They stood on an empty street in a desperate, run-down area of Detroit. It was the last place she had seen him alive. The bloated, Thanksgiving Day Parade float of a woman had just burst, scattering a dense, expanding cloud to float on the light breeze. The cloud was made of dandelion spores, little self-contained crawlers that would instantly infect whomever they touched.

They had touched Perry.

He was going to die. He knew that.

“Hey, Margo,” he said.

“Hey,” Margaret said. The words in the dream were always identical, both her part and his.

“I got Chelsea,” he said. His smile faded. “The voices have finally stopped, but … I don’t think I’m doing so good. I’ve got those things inside of me.”

I’ve got those things inside of me, he’d said. What he hadn’t said was: again. What he hadn’t said was: It’s not fair. I fought hard. I won. And I’m going to die anyway.

His face wrinkled into a frown, a steady wince of pain.

“It hurts,” he said. “Bad. I think they’re moving to my brain. Margaret, I don’t want to lose control again.”