by Dan Wells
“I can get one from supply, sir. Our battery packs are dwindling, though.”
Shon nodded. “We have prisoners hand-cranking the generators twenty-four hours a day, charging new ones.” And with any luck, we’ll get new orders from Morgan any day now, calling us home. Until then . . .
“May I ask a question, sir?”
Shone considered him a moment, then nodded. “Yes.”
“Why not flush them out with more hostages, sir? There are more guerrillas in these woods almost every day, but we still have East Meadow locked down. If we threaten to kill a few of them, it might get these rebels to stop—”
“We’re not murderers, soldier.” Shon’s words were accompanied by a harsh sting across the link, and he noted with satisfaction that Thom flinched when he sensed it. “The rebels are enemy combatants, and fighting enemy combatants is literally in your DNA. We were built to win wars while protecting innocent lives, and if you can’t do the one thing you were designed to do, maybe you’re not fit for this army.” It was a ferocious counterattack, the cruelest insult a Partial could give to another, but Shon had seen this same attitude growing in the ranks and he was determined to stamp it out. Thom recoiled, his link data a mixture of shock and shame, but barely a moment later his data was overpowered with rage, and he shot back a comment of his own.
“Dr. Morgan had us killing civilians, sir, and she had more right to her authority than some jumped-up infantryman—”
“Soldier!” He sent his anger thundering across the link, so powerful that his guards came in from the room beyond, hands on their guns and ready for trouble. “Have this man court-martialed,” said Shon, “and held in custody for the duration of the occupation.”
The guards linked their shock at the order but obeyed without question, taking Thom’s weapons and leading him away. Off to one of the cages, Shon thought. Out here in the wilderness, the modified trucks were the only form of prison they had. We’ve never used them to lock up one of our own before. The way things are going, that might become a lot more common.
Shon looked at the note again. Why the name? Why the flippant attitude? And what, in the end, was their plan? The day full of sniper shots had kept the entire camp on eggshells: hiding from the shots, searching for the shooter, returning fire when they could—fruitlessly, he realized now. But what purpose did that serve? The recent string of guerrilla attacks had been almost deliberately random, apparently not even decoys designed to lead them in a certain direction. But of course not, Shon realized. If we could tell that they were trying to lead us in one direction, we’d go directly in the other, and they know that. They’re not trying to lead us anywhere, just keep us busy. So it is a decoy tactic, but for what?
Keep us busy long enough, he thought with a sigh, and sooner or later the whole army’s going to fall apart. We have insurgency in the ranks, the bioweapon’s still destroying our patrols, and we haven’t heard from Morgan in weeks. I don’t even know if my messages to her are getting through. All we have are the same old orders, the last orders she ever gave us: contain the population, and hold the island. No explanation of what we’re holding it for, just . . . hold it. It doesn’t make sense.
According to his scouts, the mysterious giant creature had finally left the island—he’d moved north, talking to everyone he could, and when he’d reached the North Shore he’d just . . . walked into the sound, still heading north. That’s one less thing to worry about, he thought. And maybe if Morgan sees it for herself, she’ll realize how disordered things have become over here. Maybe she’ll finally take command again, tell me something about what I’m supposed to be doing here. Anything.
But I’m not Thom, he thought. I don’t question my orders. She told us to hold this island, so we’re going to hold it.
Or die trying.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Kira woke to the sound of dripping water. She tried to move, only to feel handcuffs on her hands and feet. The small chains rattled as she scraped her limbs across the floor, struggling to sit upright. Her face and body were wet, pressed onto something soft and damp, like a layer of slimy growth. The scent of mold filled her nose. She opened her eyes, but it was too dark to see.
She coughed, hacking up water, and tried to right herself. Her hands were trapped behind her back, and when she rolled faceup to get a real breath, her fingers squished deep into the soft something covering the floor. She coughed again, staring around wide-eyed yet blind. Dark shapes emerged as her eyes began to adjust: a wall, a window, a dim blue star. She looked away from it, trying to penetrate the inky black corners of her prison.
Something moved, slow and heavy.
“Who’s there?” Kira’s voice was barely a whisper, the words rasping from her throat with another cough and a spurt of filthy water. She retched and backed away, only to realize that she didn’t know where the sound was coming from; she might be backing blindly toward it. “Who’s there?”
Another movement, closer now. A dark black shadow moving in the darkness.
Kira tucked her legs up close to her chest and scooted her bound hands down past her hips and around to the front of her body. Her feet were cuffed too tightly to properly stand, so she crawled on her hands and knees to the wall with the window. Something was coming after her, moving much more quickly than she could. She stood up and found the window glassless and open. She braced herself against the sill, ready to vault out, but a pair of thick hands grabbed her from behind, one on her stomach and one on her mouth, clamping down over her scream, dragging her back to the floor. She kicked and thrashed, and felt hot breath on her ear.
“Stay down and be quiet. They’ll hear you.”
Kira kept kicking, fighting as hard as she could to get away. The man holding her was strong, and his arms were like iron bands.
“I’m on your side,” the man hissed. “Just promise me you’re not going to scream.”
Kira couldn’t escape, so she tried to hold still despite her pounding heart and the adrenaline surging through her like fire. She clenched her hands into tight fists, forcing herself to concentrate. Her mouth was covered, but she took a deep breath through her nose.
FEAR
The room was saturated with it. The man was a Partial, and he was just as scared as she was. She tried to slow her breathing, and finally nodded her assent.
The man let her go. She rolled away instantly, but only a few feet, and stayed out of view from the window. With her eyes better adjusted to the dark she could see him now, a standard Partial infantry model. His uniform hung in tatters, and his face, while difficult to see clearly, was covered in grime.
“You’re human,” he said.
She didn’t bother to correct him. “You’re not in handcuffs.”
“They don’t care about the cuffs,” he said dismissively, holding up a small metal key. “They just use them to transport us.”
“They don’t care if we escape?”
“Where you gonna go?” he asked. He scooted toward her, and after a moment she held out her wrists for him to unlock. “You’ll understand when you look outside. But be careful—if they see you awake, they’ll come back.”
He unlocked her, and she rubbed her wrists while he opened the cuffs on her ankles. “They want us unconscious?” she asked.
“They don’t care either way,” he said again. “But you’re new—if you’re awake, they’ll come for you. We may as well put that off as long as we can, right?”
He unlocked her ankles, and she drew her legs in close, suddenly chilly in the damp air, her clothes wet and her body soaked to the bone. She took a moment to feel for her equipment—all gone—and looked around to see that she was in a house, just like any other wealthy pre-Break home; the damp, squishy surface that had disgusted her so much was just a carpet, completely saturated with water, and indeed the entire building seemed suffused with extra moisture—the corners were shaggy with moss, the walls were ringed with mold stains, and even the ceiling seemed to sag and drip.
“Where are we?” she asked.
“Come take a look.” He crawled across the floor to a set of squishy stairs and led her up to a second and then a third floor. It was drier up here, though it still showed signs of water damage. The room at the top of the stairs had windows on three sides, all covered with blankets, and a hallway on the fourth led to more rooms. There was a low wall around the open stairwell, and Kira glanced over to see a long drop down to the second floor. The wooden furniture had all been broken down, stacked like firewood in the corner, and it seemed like every mattress in the house had been shoved against the walls. Kira guessed it was for insulation; it was colder here than she’d expected.
“I live up here,” said the Partial. “So did the others, before they were taken. You can peek out the windows, but be careful—move the cloth too much and they’ll see it. With a newbie in here, they’re bound to have someone watching.”
Kira walked slowly to the nearest window, putting a hand on the stiff blanket and pulling it just slightly to the side, barely wide enough to peer through the gap. There were trees outside, just below the level of the windows, and beyond that the dark black water of the lake. Tiny wavelets reflected the starlight. She couldn’t see the ground, and guessed that the lake came almost to the base of the house. The view from the other windows was the same, and when he led her to another room to look out the last side, she realized they were on an island—no roads, no bridge, just water. The front side of the house looked across to another island, maybe two hundred feet away, and the back window showed another at least three times the distance. The water between was dark and ominous, and Kira remembered the pale, gilled man bursting up from the deep. She shivered and sank to the floor.
“That’s why they don’t tie us up,” said the Partial. “No one is dumb enough to cross that water.”
“Have people tried?”
“And died.” His voice was barely a whisper in the darkness. “We figure this was some rich human’s vacation house, a mansion on a tiny little island. There’s a dock outside and everything, but of course the boat’s gone.”
“I suppose we’re lucky,” said Kira. “This island is the best prison around, whether or not there’s a house on it.” She shrugged. “At least this way we get a roof.”
“I guess so.”
She crawled to the side window and peered out again, seeing the faint white glimmer of a dock on the far shore. She couldn’t tell if it was the same one she’d been pulled from. She sat back down and looked at the Partial, a man-shaped outline in the darkness. “What’s your name?”
“Green.”
Kira nodded toward the wall and the dark black lake beyond it. “Let’s start with the obvious question: what the fat holy hell?”
Green laughed dryly. “The things that captured you are Partials, but some model we’ve never seen before.”
Kira frowned. She’d run into gilled Partials before, and Heron hadn’t known what they were either, assuming they were Morgan’s “special operatives.” “They’re not on Morgan’s side?”
Green shook his head. “I’ve been with Morgan practically since the Break, and I’ve never seen anything like them. She’s done some interesting gene mods on select Partials, heightened senses and things like that, but never gills.”
Kira remembered the short entry about the Ivies in Morgan’s files, now more sure than ever that she had no clue what they really were. “They actually live in the lake?”
“They have some kind of modified temperature regulation system in their bodies, so they can stand the cold. I think they prefer it.”
Kira frowned, trying to parse the information. “Some kind of amphibious soldier, then? The Isolation War kicked off with two different ship-to-shore assaults; maybe this was a special model, designed specifically for those battles.”
Green cocked his head to the side. “You’re not nearly as overwhelmed by this as I expected.”
“I’ve been around.”
“Apparently,” said Green. “I didn’t think humans ever left Long Island; you’re pretty far from home.”
Kira smiled. “This is nothing. What would you say if I told you this isn’t even the first time I’ve seen gilled Partials?”
“I’d ask where you saw them.”
“Chicago.”
Green whistled softly. “Now I know you’re either lying or—” He stopped abruptly. “What did you say your name was?”
“I didn’t,” said Kira. “And I don’t know if I should. Are you still with Morgan?”
“Not since I went AWOL.”
“In that case, hi.” She extended her hand. “I’m Kira Walker.”
“That explains a lot. Last I heard, Morgan had found you.”
“Her experiments didn’t pan out,” said Kira. “I left her labs a week ago.”
Green’s voice was quiet. “Damn. AWOL or not, I was still hoping she’d find a way to cure expiration.”
“Why’d you leave?”
“My whole squad left,” said Green. “We figured we’d join one of the other factions still holding out from her authority, and the Ivies seemed like a good choice. You can see how well that turned out.”
“But why?” asked Kira. “You’d been with her for so long.”
Green didn’t answer.
Kira drummed her fingers on the damp carpet. “I found another Partial out there,” she said, “on a dock on the lake’s edge. I assume he was one of yours.”
“Still alive?”
“Only barely. Probably not anymore.” She put her hand on his. “I’m sorry.”
“That might be Alan,” said Green. “He tried to swim for it about five days ago. I saw them pull him under, and then . . . well, he was the last one. I’ve been alone since.”
Kira couldn’t bear to tell him the grisly details. “I tried to help him, but it was too late.” She sat up suddenly, remembering his final words. “He tried to warn me—he said something about ‘the Blood Man.’”
“That’s what we call him,” said Green, nodding. “The gilled soldiers seem to obey him, though he’s not one of them, as far as we can tell.”
“That’s a pretty dramatic name,” said Kira. “I didn’t realize Partials were superstitious.”
“We’re not,” said Green. “We call him the Blood Man because he literally takes blood from us. We think he collects it.”
“What does he look like?”
“We’ve never seen him,” said Green. “The Ivies, or whatever they are, came and took some of our group, one every few days. Our sergeant, our driver, and one of the infantry.”
“One each of the surviving Partial models,” said Kira.
“Exactly.”
“That sounds like he’s collecting DNA,” said Kira. “And no one’s ever talked to him? The Ivies didn’t say anything about him?”
“Just that he needed their blood,” said Green. “And then they told us he’d left to find more.”
Kira’s heart sank. “Don’t say he went south.”
“Where else?” asked Green. “They told us he had all the Partial blood he needed, and it was time to visit the humans.”
“He’s going to hunt humans now? Why does he need their DNA?”
“Why does he need anybody’s?” asked Green, his calm exterior cracking with fear and frustration. “He’s a psychopath with a blood fetish, and an army of super Partials to back him up.”
“We have to stop him,” said Kira, but her words froze in her throat when she heard a loud, sharp click from somewhere below.
“That’s the door,” Green whispered. “They’re here.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Kira looked to Green with wide eyes.
FEAR.
“Come out,” a voice called from downstairs. “We only want to talk.”
“What do we do?” Kira whispered.
“They’ll be armed,” said Green. “And probably wearing body armor.”
Kira nodded, remembering the fight in C
hicago. “They’ll link you and know we’re up here. Is it worth trying to fight?”
“If they wanted you dead, they would have killed you already.”
“Or they’ll kill me after they interrogate me,” said Kira. “With the Blood Man gone, they have no reason to keep us alive.”
“That we know of,” said Green. “They haven’t killed me yet.”
“So you’re just waiting until they do?”
“Don’t make us look for you,” said another voice. “You know that only makes us angry.”
“What am I supposed to do?” Green hissed. “Even if we can overpower multiple armed soldiers, what then? For all we know, this whole lake is crawling with them—there could be hundreds more just under the water.”
A stair creaked, loud and haunting. They’re coming up to find us, Kira thought. We’re running out of time and they’ll have guns and—
“Wait,” said Kira. “You said they’re armed, right?” She thought back to the soldiers in Chicago, who’d been carrying both tranquilizer darts and standard assault rifles. “The Ivies might be fine underwater, but their guns aren’t. Normal firearms can’t fire when wet.”
“We had waterproof rifles in our armory in the Isolation War,” said Green.
“Have you seen any since then?”
“Maybe these guys have them all.”
“Or maybe those weapons are too rare, and the Ivies are carrying the same thing as everybody else.” Kira grabbed his shoulder, whispering urgently in his ear. “They have to store them on land, and they’ve got to transport them somehow.”
Another creaking stair. Green stared at her. “You think they came in a boat? Sometimes they have one when they move prisoners, but—”
“Not only do they have a boat,” said Kira, “but any more of them watching from underneath the water won’t think twice when they see that boat leave the island. We only have to make it what, two hundred feet, to the other island? There’s a causeway from there to the mainland, if I remember the map right. Then we’re on solid ground again and we can make a run for it.”
