13
Once they parted from the Ankara, Trina had directed them southeast for an hour, along a trail she had been unable to follow while escorting the children. From the hope in her voice, Ono had surmised that they would find more here than before, for what little that was worth.
He waited on the walker while Trina knelt in a small pit beside a brook.
“There it is again,” she mumbled. “That strange fingerprint. Something on this network is running non-standard protocols. It must coincide with that physical anomaly in the strand.”
“I love it when you talk sexy.” He waited for the scowl, then continued, “How do you know it’s physical? What if it’s a worm with some new way of spreading?”
She shook her head. “Everything matches with the samples I took from the remnants of the attacking crea
