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