FBI agent Jamie Perrin has investigated some pretty strange cases in her time but this one may be the strangest of all. During the last fifty years, seventeen men throughout the country were all murdered with the same gun. This gun is traced to Dr. Theresa Givens, a scientist who recently left a top-secret government agency. This discovery deepens the mystery because Givens was only five years old at the time of the first murder. The gun itself hadn't even been made. While investigating further, Perrin discovers a secret that lies behind the locked door in Dr. Givens' office and learns first-hand of the temptations and dangers of undoing the evils of the past.

Dr. Sam Stein has always lived for his work. His dedication has paid off with the development of the Computer Aided Visual Environment system of CAVE, which allows doctors to jack-in directly to the brain of patients. When an accident puts his colleague Rachael Carter in a coma, Stein decides to use CAVE for his own purposes, reaching into Rachael's brain to tell her what he couldn't while she was conscious: that he loves her. Stein discovers, however, that love takes strange turns when it enters CAVE's virtual world and that the complexities of the human heart are not easily translated into bits and bytes.

Embittered after a friend's betrayal cost him his Army career, Lee Taylor helps a self-styled militia major hijack an Army shipment. He reaps a deadly reward. The militia, which includes Lee's brother Calvin, expected a missile shipment. Instead, they find a mysterious, sealed cargo and a lone Army Guard. Under threat of death, Captain Teri Washington refuses to reveal the nature of the cargo but warns it is deadly. The major thinks she is lying until an alien lifeform begins a chilling series of attacks. Discipline crumbles and loyalties are tested as the creature stalks its prey with impersonal efficiency.

Devon Taylor, a 20 year-old physics whiz, has heard a lot of strange sounds coming from space as part of his job assisting Dr. Evan Swift at the radio observatory -- but something tells him this signal, coming from the direction of Certus? (In the short story, it is the constellation Cetus), is special. Devon's suspicions are confirmed when he takes a tape of the signal home and his 17 year-old sister, Joyce, and her boyfriend, Vic, react as if they have heard the most beautiful music in the world.