With a gasp that was half sob, half battle cry, Ellie dropped to the floor. The cold linoleum shocked her knees. The graze on her arm from the pier firefight burned like a brand. Ignoring it, she shoved herself under the bed, into the dim space filled with dust and the hum of machinery. The Eclipse device was a malignant spider clinging to the underside of the frame, its LEDs painting the darkness in pulses of urgent crimson. Wires, like synthetic veins, snaked from it into the hospital’s ...