Chapter 41

41: All around Marble Cliffs were living people who had not chosen to be a Defector or Untaken.  Many of them knew very little of what was going on except that the town was deserted.  There was no TV, radio, internet or phones.  This was a particularly hot and arid day.  Small pockets of people had gathered together to try to figure out the situation, but no one had any way of knowing what fate had befallen Marble Cliffs.

  The wind started picking up and a little girl pointed off into the distance.  When people saw what she was pointing at, they crouched protectively to the ground, covered their ears and shut their eyes and mouths tight.  They were no strangers to dust devils and this was a big one.  All kinds of flying debris assaulted their flesh, while pieces of paper and empty plastic bags swirled all around them.  The noise was horrendous.  This inexorable barrage kept up for almost two full minutes and then gradually moved on its way.

  One by one, people started to cautiously open their eyes and get up from the ground.  Sand and dust was in their hair, all over their skin and in some of their ears.  Those with pockets found that sand and detritus had completely filled those as well.  Shoes, shirts, pants.  Nothing remained completely untouched by the fiercely invasive debris.  Twigs and other sharp objects had caused cuts and scrapes.  All around them, trash cans were overturned and tree branches were downed.  The area was generally a horrible mess.

  This wasn't the worst of it because, by the time an hour had elapsed after the dust devil, not a single person who had been outdoors was left standing.  Many of them had gotten home or to shelter of some sort.  Most of them just ended up lying on the ground in the dry heat of an Arizona summer.  They had all been exposed to the Scathing and their bodies were ravaged by the disease.  Of course, they didn't stay down long.

Chapter 29

29: While everyone was having a good time, a knock suddenly came at one of the large windows of the restaurant.  The room went silent and all attention honed in on the source of the sound.  There was a man outside.
  "It may be one of the Defectors," warned Barney.
  "He doesn't have the red aura," said Daniel.
  Mina looked at the man knocking on the glass and agreed with Daniel.  "He's right.  That man out there may need our help.  We should at least question him.  If we need to, we can always cuff him for our safety."  Gene and Barney went to the closest door and let the man in.  Carrionette cuffed him.  He was out of breath as if he had been running for quite a while.
  Most people were stuffed to the gills by the time the strange man showed up so they gathered around in the restaurant to hear his story.  Barney sat and let him catch his breath.  "I must say, you startled me when you knocked.  Who are you and what are you doing here?"
  "My name is Chadwick Johnson.  I was with the Defectors, but I got the hell out of there.  The leader is a man called Rend.  He's a Nocent, which is an alien race from the planet Sypraxia.  He's made of water.  I've seen it.  He can turn into water or he can look like anyone or anything he wants to.  He implanted these chips into people's hands, but they started to get sick.  He called the disease the Scathing.  He said it was a Sypraxian virus.  I think those people died.  But they didn't stay dead.  When they started coming back to life, he called them the Revenant.  He said he's not in control of them and he's not sure how the Scathing spreads.  The Revenant are a danger to him and to you.  He was going to leave the mill for a safer place.  I high tailed it out of that damn copper mill and found a bicycle which I rode here because I heard you guys had come here."

Chapter 21

21: One by one, the Defectors who had gotten the chip started falling to the floor where they stood.  They were apparently going into a deep coma of some sort.  The Defectors who did not have a chip looked to Rend for an answer.  "Master, what is going on?"
  Rend thought for a moment and it slowly dawned on him what may be the problem.  "On Sypraxia, we have a common virus that we call the Scathing.  The first symptom is this coma-like state which these people are exhibiting.  Think of it as our version of tuberculosis.  The virus must be living in those chips that we implanted.  Since you humans have not been exposed to it, it seems to be affecting you in a much more serious way than it would one of us."  The unaffected Defectors helped put the ones who had succumbed to the Scathing in neat rows lying on the floor.  "Now there is nothing to do but wait for their bodies to start fighting the virus.  They should recover within a day or two."
  When a few hours had passed, their skin became translucent and you could see their veins and muscles underneath. Then their skin dried out and took on a grayish tone.  No one knew what to do to help at all.  Rend had the unaffected stay away so that they would remain out of reach of the virus.  He then had a realization that many of the Defectors had gone into town and were all over Marble Cliffs.  People everywhere would be falling victim to the Scathing.  Their eyes, visible beneath their translucent eyelids, clouded over and became gray.  This was not even the worst of it.  After a couple more hours, they stopped breathing and began to get up.