All this time Kristen was just standing and staring blankly into space, but there were growing storm clouds welling in her eyes. It caused Ally to wonder what was really going on with her. Had this troubled girl been made permanently childlike, or was there a split personality at work? Did she have a new mind now, or a parallel mind? "We're still trying to stabilize her condition," Van de Vliet said in a soothing tone. "We just need a little more time." That was when Kristen wrenched free of her mother's grasp. Her eyes had just gone critical, traveling into pure madness. She strode over and seized a glass jar containing a clear solvent. "I want them all to die," she said in a little girl's voice. "They're going to kill me if I don't kill them first." Now Katherine Starr had turned and was staring at her. "Kristy, honey, put the bottle down. I'm going to take you home. I don't know what he's done to you, but I'm not going to let you stay here anymore. You're coming with me." This is not going to end well, Ally thought. She began struggling to her feet, trying to clear her mind enough for an exit strategy. Nina was upstairs, or at least that was where she had been. Okay, the first order of business is to get her out. Stone could probably manage on his own . . . Now Kristen was walking over to an electric heater positioned on a lab workbench. She switched it on and the tungsten elements immediately began to glow. Then, still holding the bottle, she turned back to Van de Vliet. "I see things that I never saw before. My mind has powers it never had till now." He nodded knowingly. "I always suspected that--" "I'm able to think just like I did when I was little," she continued, cutting him off. "Sometimes I'm there, in that world. Then sometimes I flip back. But I can always tell when grown-ups are lying to me. What did you do to my mind?" "Kristen," Van de Vliet said "the brain has many functions that we still only barely understand. With the Beta procedure, we don't really know what activates general cell replacement or what the nature of the replacement tissue actually is. We're just at the beginning of a marvelous--" "I'm seeing a future in which nothing exists," she muttered despairingly, still holding the glass bottle of solvent. "I don't want to be a part of it." Van de Vliet was staring at her, his eyes flooded with alarm. "What . . . what are you seeing, Kristen?" "I'm seeing you dead." She glared around "All of you." Then, with an animal scream, she whirled and flung the glass liter bottle at the electric heater on the laboratory workbench. It crashed into the shiny steel case with a splintering sound followed by an explosion that sent a ball of fire and a shock wave through the room. In an instant the entire end of the lab was engulfed in a sea of flame. Ally sensed herself being knocked to the floor, but she also felt a surge of adrenaline. This was endgame, the moment when everybody found out who they were.