world, where people lived and loved and worked and played, but it wasn’t a place for her. Her job was to watch from the outside, appraising the “normal” people with a wistful smile of jealousy and predation. Could she hurt them? Sure. Possibly. Probably. But she suppressed those urges. Her friends at DARPA knew that. There had to be a scope trained on her somewhere, or they were even more provincial than she’d imagined. In the meantime, they’d forged her into exactly what they wanted: an executioner’s sword, stripped and sharpened until everything that remained had lethal purpose. Brianna was born the first time on August 4, 1976, in lower-middle-class West Virginia. Her mother was a flower in full bloom, the kind of woman who struck poets speechless. Wild blond curls and eyes so blue they made you thirsty. She was a chosen one, that Lucy Hennessy was, blessed with vigor and grace and infinitely generous love. And her voice… Her voice was a warm quilt. She was the town’s perfect child.
