To anyone glancing upwards at the night sky, it would have seemed like a brilliant shooting star... but moments later electronic equipment of every kind began to spark and explode throughout the city. The following morning, college student Beau Stark is the first to pick up one of the countless strange black discs scattered far and wide. After an initial sharp pain like a bee-sting, he becomes gradually 'infested'. His flu-like symptoms signify the revival of an alien virus implanted millions of years in mankind's genetic code - and since then lying dormant until the unwitting hosts are sufficiently developed to aid its relentless progress. Meanwhile, all over the nation, other human beings and animals succumb to the same virus and start to behave bizarrely and symbiotically - as if controlled by some outside influence. As Beau assumes leadership of this growing band of the 'infested', his college friends quickly realize that something truly horrifying is happening around them. Desperately struggling to piece together the puzzle, they soon become hunted refugees in a desperate quest to save humanity - before the Gateway opens. 'Leave it to doctor-turned-novelist Robin Cook to scare us all to death' Los Angeles Times