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I need to concentrate. I need to shape-shift myself into a vehicle or an animal or anything that can help get Jericho back to the camp for help.

Please help me, memory. Please help me, instincts. Please help me find inside myself the teachings and training that Dache once gave me.Just a bit of power from some hidden spot inside me. If not to change physical shape, then to be able to make psychic contact with Margo or Burbank or Dr. DaSilva, since my handheld device seems to have been fried by the nearby lightning strike.

But before I can, I hear a voice, a comforting, familiar voice, a woman’s voice.

“On your knees, Lamont? Are you praying?”

My God. It is Dr. DaSilva. If I had been praying, the wise and kind Dr. DaSilva would indeed be the perfect answer to my prayer.

She stands looking down on me, on Jericho, on the smoldering fire that was once Glenn Ambrose. Her hands are on her hips. She makes no effort to assist me and Jericho.

“Please,” I say. “Jericho needs help. He’s—”

Dr. DaSilva finishes my sentence. She shouts, “Dead! Yes, he’s dead and gone and over. Unlike the last time, he will not be coming back. But who cares about a wretch like Jericho? Let us consider the new leader of the universe. Let us consider the great Khan!”

What the hell?

I am, all at once, frightened and confused. Am I hearing correctly?

“This is what I’ve always wanted, Lamont. This is the dream come true. You have stopped me so many times before. But now, with impeccable planning, with exquisite precision, now I am ready.”

What in hell is she talking about? Who the hell is this new and terrifying woman?

I try to stand, but, weakened by shock and grief, I cannot hold myself up. I lie on the ground between the sad pile of Ambrose’s ashes and the metal box.

My eyes, tired and burning and aching, remain the best they can on the good doctor.

Then Dr. DaSilva’s body begins to vibrate.

The wind picks up, causing the flames to spread onto Jericho’s unmoving form.

The vibration grows faster, and then faster, and thenfaster. She becomes a vibrating blur, a jumble of pulsating color. She is unrecognizable, but this cyclonic storm of color does not disappear, does not speak, does nothing but…

Unbelievably, Dr. DaSilva turns into a whole other person.

Unbelievably, Dr. DaSilva turns into Shiwan Khan.

CHAPTER 118

THIS NEW PRESENCE, this new person, this Shiwan Khan, a man of unparalleled greed and evil, begins shouting and babbling. Complete insanity is unraveling all around me.

“You have ruined everything,” my longtime nemesis yells. He then continues yelling. No pause. No relief. Nothing but madness.

“Don’t you see, you incompetent, ignorant fool? I am the genius. I am the power. I created the Newbola virus. Through my carefully built network it was poised to infect the entire world, passing from person to person. From Australia to Europe to the Americans, to Asia… to everyone. Billions of people, almost everyone, would be wiped out. Only a few select colleagues of mine would be spared. Then together we would breed a whole new universe, a universe where I would once again be in supreme control.”

Khan pauses. He almost seems exhausted from his rant and rave, from the recollection and communication of his original vile plan.

I tap into my small amount of remaining energy and speak.

“But then… but then…” I try to say more. But I am horribly weak.

“But then someone who foolishly thought he was stronger and smarter than I created Terrageddon. The world could now be destroyed, literally destroyed, wiping out all forms of life.There would be no world because of Terrageddon. And… how could I rule the Earth if there was no Earth left to rule?”

What is the state beyond unbridled anger? Unbridled insanity.

As for me right now, watching Khan and learning the true details of the situation, discovering that throughout the entire execution of Khan’s fantasy of world domination, he was posing as Dr. Anna DaSilva, I begin to understand how I came to experience the horror I find myself in right now.

As Khan admitted, he was the creator of the Newbola virus, and, as Dr. DaSilva, he enlisted my assistance, not to advance the cure for Newbola but to find the creator of Terrageddon. And that is exactly what happened. I led Khan directly to Glenn Ambrose and his mysteriously powerful Earth-destroying machinery. And with our finding Ambrose, Khan will be rewarded with the success of his plan to rule the Earth.