Sole Survivor

dollar-bill on which the serial number, minus the fourth digit, provided the phone number at which Mark of lnfiniface could be reached in an emergency. “And before you start driving, I want to tell you how to find the cabin in Big Bear-in case I can't hold on until we get there.”
        “Don't be silly. You'll make it.”
        “ Listen ,” she said, and again she projected the charisma that commanded attention.
        He listened as she told him the way, and his familiarity with the Big Bear area was such that he didn't need to write down the directions.
        “And as for Infiniface,” she said, “I trust them, and they are my natural allies-and Nina's-as Mark said. But I'm afraid they can be too easily infiltrated. That's why I wouldn't let them come with us tonight. But if we're not followed, then this car is clean, and maybe their security is good enough. If worse comes to worst and you don't know where to turn… they may be your best hope.”
        His chest tightened and his throat thickened as she spoke, and finally he said, “I don't want to hear any more of this. I'll get you to Nina in time.”
        Rose's right hand trembled now, and Joe was not certain that she could hold the Orange Crush. But she managed it, drinking thirstily.
        As he drove back onto the San Bernardino Freeway, heading east, she said, “I've never meant to hurt you, Joe.”
        “You haven't.”
        “I've done a terrible thing though.”
        He glanced at her. He didn't dare ask what she had done. He kept that shiny black pearl of knowledge tucked deep in the purse of his mind.
        “Don't hate me too much.”
        “I don't hate you at all.”
        “My motives were good. They haven't always been. Certainly weren't spotless when I went to work at Project Ninety-nine. But my motives were good this time, Joe.”
        Driving out of the light storm of Los Angeles and its suburbs, toward the mountain darkness where Nina dwelled, Joe waited for Rose to tell him why he should hate her.
        “So… let me tell you,” she said, “about the project's only true success…”
        Ascend, now, in the elevator from the little glimpse of hell at the bottom of those six subterranean levels, leaving the boy in his containment vessel, and come all the way up to the security room where the descent began. Farther still, to the southeast corner of the ground floor, where CCY-21-21 resides.
        She was conceived without passion in the same month as 89-58, though she was the project not of Doctors Blom and Ramlock, but of Rose Tucker. She is a lovely child, delicate, fair of face, with golden hair and amethyst eyes. Although the majority of the orphans living here are of average intelligence, CCY-21-21 has an unusually high IQ, even higher perhaps than 89-58, and she loves to learn. She is a quiet girl, with much grace and natural charm, but for the first three years of her life, she exhibits no paranormal abilities.
        Then on a sunny May afternoon, when she is participating in a session of supervised play with other children on the orphanage lawn, she finds a sparrow with a broken wing and one torn eye. It lies in the grass beneath a tree, flopping weakly, and when she gathers it into her small hands, it becomes fearfully still. Crying, the girl hurries with the bird to the nearest handler, asking what can be done. The sparrow is now so weak and so paralysed by fear that it can only feebly work its beak-and produces no sound whatsoever. The bird is dying, the handler sees nothing to be done, but the girl will not accept the sparrow's pending death. She sits on the ground, grips the bird gently in her left hand, and carefully strokes it with her right, singing softly to it a song about Robin Red Breast-and in but a minute the sparrow is restored. The fractures in the wing knit firm again, and the torn eye heals into a bright, clear orb. The bird sings-and flies.
        CCY-21-21 becomes the centre of a happy whirlwind of attention. Rose Tucker, who has been driven to the contemplation of suicide by the nightmare of Project 99, is as reborn as the bird, stepping back from the abyss into which she has been peering. For the next fifteen months, 21-21's healing power is explored. At first it is an unreliable talent, which she cannot exercise at will, but month by wondrous month she learns to summon and control her gift, until she can apply it whenever asked to do so. Those on Project 99