TWELVE YEARS AGO    DALLAS, TEXAS

"Please, Carol, let me explain." John's voice took on a pleading tone. Carol knew that tone all too well. John had lost track of other people's feelings again. He was using his "why me" voice.

Carolyn Ann Boyle, for once, felt no twinge of sympathy for him.

"You've had over six years to explain." To avoid looking at him, she grabbed another box from the closet and tossed it on their bed. It nested in a mass of clothing Carol hadn't thought worth packing. She shoved more clothes in the new box. She tore part of a nail as she forced a handful of her underwear in with her old college textbooks. Her hands shook.

"It isn't what you think," he said.

God save us from cliché in moments of crisis, Carol thought.

She glanced at John and felt the familiar sympathy trying to make itself felt. She was supposed to love this man, wasn't she?

John stood at the door of the bedroom, hands spread, framed by the chaos Carol had wrought of their clothing. John didn't belong here, not with his Marine haircut, creased pants, and polished boots. He was too neat, too organized, for a world that was falling apart around her. For too long, it had been easy to look at him and pretend that he could make everything right.

A flare of anger knotted her gut, now as much for herself as for John.

Carol stood there, bra and panties in one hand, lab coat in the other. She couldn't believe that he didn't understand. It was inconceivable that he could be that blind.

Not just blind to the risk he had placed her and Allie into, but blind to the fact that his lies mattered. How could he have lied about his connection to Prometheus? How could he have continued that lie for all the years she knew him? How could he do that and claim this was a misunderstanding?

She shoved more underwear in with the textbooks, emptying the pockets of her lab coat after it. "You told me you had no connection to their research." A torn sheet of manila computer paper fell out of one of the coat's pockets amidst scattering pens and paper clips.

Seeing the paper again made Carol's breath catch. That sheet of paper had driven her from the Prometheus Research Institute this afternoon. Her flight had been so panicked that she had left her street clothes and had fled wearing the lab coat....

If John wasn't head of security, Carol supposed PRI would already be looking for their wayward PhD.

"Exactly what am I supposed to think?"

"What could I say--"

"You could have said something!" Carol shouted as she shoved the paper deep in the box with the clothes and textbooks. She yanked the last item of importance from the lab coat, a flat gray film canister. It sat cold and heavy in her hand. She felt the embossed plastic text on the label. It read "Case #867."

She'd grabbed the film in the rush to get away. She had some idea that she could threaten Prometheus with it if they came after her. Right now the idea seemed small, silly, and useless.

She shoved the film canister into the box so that John couldn't see what it was. She still clutched the lab coat. She'd been carrying it ever since she had begun packing. It was bunched up, but she could still see PRI's eternal flame logo on the right breast. Her ID tag was still clipped to it:

"Prometheus Research Institute: Dr. Carolyn Ann Boyle," next to an incongruously smiling picture.

The tag was green. If it wasn't for Dr. Colson treating her like a delivery girl rather than a researcher, then she wouldn't have been anywhere near a yellow area: if only she wasn't a speed reader; if only Cobb and Charvat weren't names close together in alphabetical order; if only John hadn't lied to her...

Carol dropped the lab coat; neither it nor the ID mattered much anymore.

"Something," Carol repeated. "You could have said something about this! My God, you knew how I felt."

"But--" John began, but he was interrupted by a cry from behind him.

"Mommy?"

Carol stormed out of the room, shouldering John out of the way. Allie was standing in the doorway, looking as lost as her father did. Carol picked up her daughter and said, "Shh, Mommy's sorry for waking you up."

"Scared me," Allie said into Carol's shoulder. Guilt started clawing into Carol's heart, and she glared at John over Allie's head. "Shh, Mommy's here." She carried Allie back into her bedroom and placed her in bed. God, can I do this? To both of us? She needs a father.

Carol kissed Allie on the forehead.

"Can I have a drink of water?" Allie asked.

Carol gave a smile that hurt deep in her chest. "Sure, honey."

As Carol left the bedroom, John was there. Carol ducked around him, heading toward the kitchen. "You can't just leave," John said.

Her hand shook as she filled Allie's glass. "Why not? Why not, John?"

"I love you," John said.

Carol looked into the sink and whispered, "Bullshit."

She heard his voice, but she was seeing the moment when her world had fallen apart.

Dr. Colson had sent her to pick up a video cassette from the lab where they were doing film to video transfers. She had been given a temporary pass into the secure part of the PRI lab complex, just so she could run errands for Colson. They hadn't even allowed her to enter the transfer lab.

She'd waited, alone in an anteroom with all the obsolete junk the PRI complex was in the process of disposing of-- acoustic modems, old VTR terminals, a row of teletype machines.

Two cardboard boxes sat by the door. One overflowed with yellowing manila computer paper, the other was filled with old film canisters, both violently marked, "to be destroyed."

It had been a long wait, and curiosity got the better of her. She had glanced in the box of paper to be shredded. Most of the box had been a list of names, a list that she had never expected John Charvat's name to be on.

When she had seen Carol Cobb's name on the same list, she had panicked. She had taken that page from the printout, and a random film canister. She hadn't known exactly what she'd been doing then, and she still didn't.

All she knew was that John ran security at PRI, and had a red clearance.

"Carol?" John's plea brought her back to the present.

"I said, `bullshit,' John. If you cared for me and Allie like you cared for your job, you would have told me."

John started to say something, but he just stood there, looking lost again.

"You were just about to tell me how you might lose your job for telling me, right?"

John remained silent.

"I make my point," Carol said. She walked to the door, stopping in front of John. "Would you please step out of my way?"

"You couldn't expect me to--"

Carol backed up a step. "Expect? Expect!" Carol threw the glass of water at John's feet. It shattered on the linoleum. "I gave up the idea of marriage so that you could keep your position. You expected me to defraud them. I went six months without pay so that you could keep Allie a secret. I expect too much from you?"

John limped backward. Some of the damp on his trousers was blood. "Please--" he began.

"Mommy!"

"Mommy's coming, honey," Carol said, shouldering past John. As she did, John grabbed her elbow. "Let go of me," she said.

"I didn't plan things like this."

"Did they?"

"What?"

" `Did they?' I asked. Did Stone and his cronies at Prometheus encourage our relationship?"

John dropped her elbow and looked stunned. "God, is that what you think?"

"It's what they do, isn't it? Don't they have a standing bounty for names on their list?"

"Yes, but that's--"

"Your name's on the list, John. You didn't tell me about that."

"I'm sorry, I really am sorry. I didn't think you'd understand. You've never liked that part of PRI. I thought you'd see me as some sort of botched experiment."

"All this time I thought you cared about company policy."

"If we got married, one of us would have to quit--" John said plaintively.

"And what you cared about was the bounty."

"That's not it. You know that's not it."

Carol sighed. "I know, because my name's on the list, too."

John stared at her, disbelieving.

"Mommy," Allie cried in the distance.

"If you don't mind, John. My daughter needs me." Carol walked to Allie's bedroom.

"You can't be..." John whispered behind her.

Allie was sitting up and sobbing in bed, and Carol went and hugged her. You don't like Mommy angry, I know. I don't like me angry either, kid.

Carol rocked with Allie cradled in her arms. John appeared in the doorway and said in a whispery voice, "I checked."

"I have more than one name, John. I'm listed under one of my foster families."

"Oh, God," John whispered.

"You honestly didn't know, did you?" Carol looked at him with more pity than anger. He wasn't part of the scientific establishment of Prometheus, he was security. Carol doubted he understood the implications of what she was saying, for either of them, or their daughter. In certain ways, on a genetic level, she and John had been a perfect match.

For her, for John, and especially for Allie, that was very bad.

"I didn't know," John repeated.

Allie seemed to have calmed down, now that the adults had stopped shouting. Carol picked up Allie's favorite stuffed animal from the floor. It was a ratty old Cat-in-the-Hat doll that had come from a garage sale. Allie's four-year-old face broke into a grin the moment Carol produced it. Carol wiped the tears from Allie's cheeks with the back of her hand.

"It's not just you, John. You have to see that."

John nodded.

"You know what's happened with kids at Prometheus. You don't want that for Allie."

"I can't stop you?" John's voice held a resigned tone.

Carol hugged her daughter. "No."

SIX YEARS AGO, GRAND RAPIDS, MICHIGAN

Jessica Mason watched her house burn. The sight rooted her to the spot even though she knew she should run. She had only moved when pushed aside by firemen and gawking spectators. The crowd had gradually pushed her away from her house until she stood in the snow and could barely feel the heat from the blaze.

She felt invisible. No one recognized her. No one connected her to the burning house. If her neighbors knew her or cared about her at all, it was only as a hysterical voice they heard in the night. They probably knew her father, but not her.

No one knew her, no one cared for her, and her father was the first part of the house to burn. That was probably why she felt safe standing here. That, and the fire had its own power, power to hold her.

She faced a scene of terrifying, potent beauty. The house formed the center of an invisible sphere that had folded in from another world. Inside the circle of spectators and fire trucks, the world upended. The blue-gray of snow and moonlight changed into the red-yellow of mirrors and flame. Water coated every surface with ice. Neighboring clapboards, the sidewalk, a telephone pole, all had turned into refracting mirrors. Every icicle held a flame in its heart.

By the time her head had ceased throbbing enough for her to understand what she was seeing, her house was unrecognizable. The walls, where they were still visible through the flames, were black. In less than ten minutes, the house where she had lived for all thirteen years of her life had faded to nothing more than a shadow. A shadow that was the only barrier between the real world and a force from another universe. A force that Jessica had unleashed.

I did that, she thought.

Her memories were still confused, hazed by the pain in her skull. Too much had happened. All she could clearly remember was the fire embracing her father. She remembered him falling to the couch, igniting it. She remembered him calling desperately for help before the fire sucked the air out of his lungs and turned his skin black.

She remembered the same fire burning inside of her brain.

Jessica remembered thinking of all the times in this house that she had called for help, and no one answered. Then the peeling walls had erupted with sheets of fire, and she ran.

As her mental fires receded, the house began to dissolve. The windows on the top floor were first, folding into the rolling fire with a majestic slowness. The collapse released a million embers to spiral into the sky like negative snowflakes, like something finally set free....

That's me, Jessica thought. Free.

Jessica kept watching the fire. She watched well past the point of the fire's death. By the time the flames were gone, and the crowd was reduced to firefighters and police, she was left hugging herself in the cold, waiting to be arrested.

She was paralyzed. Even more so than when her father had come home and the pain had begun in her skull. It was ridiculous. She was finally free of her father, and she couldn't move. She couldn't even decide between turning herself in to the cops, or just running away into the night.

Now that the crowd was gone, it shouldn't take long for them to figure out that the redheaded teenager with no jacket had something to do with the fire. Jessica hugged herself and shivered.

I don't regret it, she thought. If the cops pick me up, I'll tell them exactly what I did...

If I can remember what I did.

After her house had become little more than a heaped pile of smoking ash, rejoining the night-gray world, she felt a hand on her shoulder.

"Miss Jessica Mason?"

She turned around, expecting to see a uniform-- police, paramedic, or firefighter. But the man talking to her wasn't any of those, at least not to look at him. He was stocky, in his late forties, or early fifties. Older than her father. He was balding, and what hair he had was slate gray. The expensive suit he wore was marred by standing in the snow too long. Abstract salt stains rippled across the legs of his trousers and the lower edge of the black trench coat he wore. His tiepin was a golden bald eagle.

To Jessica, the eagle looked as if it had been caught in the midst of diving after some small mammal.

"Miss Mason?"

"Who are you?" Jessica asked. They were the first words she'd spoken since her father's clothes had ignited. It made her realize that her mouth tasted like smoke.

The man flipped out his wallet to show her an official-looking ID. "Special Agent Fred Jackson, ASI."

The initials meant nothing to Jessica, and Agent Jackson only held out the ID long enough for her to see his picture and catch the fact that ASI stood for "Agency for..." something or other.

As far as Jessica was concerned, that meant this guy was a cop. She felt an urge to run, but there were cops and firemen all over the place. There was really no place to run to. She began to realize that she wanted to be caught. She had freed herself from her father, permanently, but she had also destroyed her home, and her life, in the process. Her mother was dead, and she had no relatives to turn to.

She looked up at Agent Jackson. He was smiling, trying to project a reassuring manner. In it she thought she saw a hint of the same false sincerity that her dad projected when he wanted something from her.

It took Jessica a few moments to remind herself that her father was dead. She nodded at Agent Jackson because she didn't trust herself to talk.

Agent Jackson nodded. He obviously knew who she was. He'd probably been watching her watch the fire for a long time. "I'm sorry to come to you at a time like this," Agent Jackson said.

For some reason, that struck Jessica as funny. As if there was any other reason to talk to her. She wasn't anyone. The only thing that made her partway noticeable was the fact she'd torched her only parent and the house she'd lived in. Barely enough to make the news.

Jessica shivered and felt her eyes watering.

"I'm here to help you," he said.

"Yeah, right," Jessica responded, sniffing. She was long past anyone's help. If anyone had ever bothered to help her, her father might still be alive. She didn't want any help.

"We want to help you understand what happened here."

Not a cop, a damn social worker. She tried to fix him with a withering glare. The effect was ruined by the tears streaming down her cheeks. "I know why. I just think of Daddy, and I know why."

Jessica realized, belatedly, that she had just made an indirect admission of arson. She also realized that she didn't care.

Agent Jackson, however, looked unsurprised at her outburst. Either he was too dense to read between the lines, or he already knew what Jessica had done. Jessica looked at him and suspected the latter, even though there was no possible way he could have known.

"You know why," Agent Jackson said. "Do you know how?"

Jessica opened her mouth, but no words came out. It wasn't the question she expected. It was also a question to which she had no answer. She remembered her anger, she remembered Daddy's clothing sprouting a dozen jets of flame, she could remember that she had done it--

But she didn't remember what she had done, or the memory didn't make any sense. She knew she had set him on fire, but she didn't remember touching him, or even so much as lighting a match.

The fact that this stranger saw so deeply into her own confusion was terrifying.

"We want to help you, Jessica. We know what you're going through."

Jessica was frightened, but she also had an intense desire to understand what this man was offering. The fact he knew so much scared her. But it also meant he probably knew more.

She had done something to her father. She was just beginning to understand that it might not have been anything simple or mundane. She had watched her house explode into an inferno in a matter of minutes. She had watched the walls of the living room spontaneously erupt into rippling sheets of flame.

Maybe understanding exactly what happened was the only way she could prevent it in the future. She looked at the smoking ruin of the house, remembering the power of the flames that had reduced everything to ash.

Maybe understanding exactly what happened would be the only way she could do it again.

Jessica looked up at Agent Jackson. "What do you want?" she asked.