"That was all I needed ... to hear it from one of his best friends ... And one of my best friends ... who wouldn't lie to me..."Luke's been out with N...talie," I broke the news to Rachel the next day over lunch."Seriously?! Where did you find that out?" Andrew."She made a face, "Guys will do anything to cover their buddy's tracks." And did you see the way they were acting on Sunday?"Her face relaxed. "Good point." What am I supposed to do now?" What do you mean?" What am I supposed to do? He's. "Yes!" he almost shouted."This is bloody good," Gary commented. "You don't see it at first, and it isn't obvious at any time, but if you watch that for long ... well, I'll show you what it is." He closed the screen down and then turned on another. "I downloaded it onto this bit of kit, because I can slow the speed right down on this one. It's slowed down by a factor of eighty percent. Now watch!" The screen came alive with the scene they had watched before, but the action was so slow it was. “Um. Oh, wow,” Emily muttered, looking past him into the ransacked and half-emptied apartment. “She sent me to make sure she didn’t miss anything. I kiiinda doubt that she did.”Ah. Here on Chloe’s behalf, then. Well, they did all share the same basic circle of friends. This was bound to get all kinds of awkward. He slowly stepped aside to let her into the apartment.“Is she okay?” he asked in a detached tone.“Yeah. Yeah, she’s doing... she’s doing great,” she said, nodding her head as she. It sounded far away, but as Raz had said, there were indeed gunfights going on.I was startled by the sound of running, turning to see a squad of a dozen Marines in black combat armor jogging past the column, their rifles at the ready. They ran past us, headed upspin. The subtle curvature of the torus let me see above the recruits in the line ahead of me, and something slowly came into view from beneath the roof ahead of us.It was one of the objects that the hive ship had launched, its surface.