"Does John know about who you truly are?"
Ricky's voice was like a sudden fissure cracking through a frozen lake. He stopped Cissel in her tracks, throwing the question directly into her face without the slightest hint of a lead-in.
The two had been running for hours, methodically checking the outskirts of the northern fog. They had tracked the remnants of machine squads, hunting for the source of the mysterious sixth den until they had reached the absolute northern limit of the trial zone.
Initially, their investigation had led them through the Bulltors' territory, but finding nothing in the silent plains, they had moved further north, to the very first territory where their journey had begun.
