by Dan Wells
They turned from Foxhurst to Long Beach, and from there to Atlantic Avenue, always pressing west, always trying to stay ahead of the ravenous army behind them. The suburbs slowly melded into a city, and the buildings each held terror in their shadows. A force of Partial soldiers burst out of a side street, guns blazing and the stench of DEATH wafting off them. Refugees screamed and fell, ducking behind the snowed-in hulks of old, wrecked cars and scrambling for their weapons, or simply dying in the blood-spattered snow. Kira returned fire, Marcus and Falin and even Green joining in; Falin died, and nearly fifty of the humans, before they finally fought off the attackers. Kira assumed that one or both of her scouting teams were dead as well. She ordered the humans to drop their packs, abandoning their food and its weight so they could go even faster.
“If they catch us, we’re dead,” said Kira, frost burning at her face and fingers. “If we’re still alive in the morning, we can look for more food then.”
Night closed in tightly around them. Their world was a cave full of cold and death and horror. The smell of the sea was stronger now, but so was the link data of the Partials, and even Kira could feel it coming in from both sides.
“We’re surrounded,” said Kira. She was guarding the rear of the column, sending the rest of the refugees as far ahead as possible.
“What do we do?” asked Marcus. “Scatter? They can’t chase all of us.”
“They can,” said Kira. “They’re everywhere, and there’s more of them, and they’re better at this. They can see better in the dark, they can coordinate through the link while we can barely even find each other in the snow—”
“I’m not giving up,” said Green.
Kira protested. “Neither am I—”
“Then stop talking like you are,” said Green, “and let’s do something.”
Kira nodded, struggling to think. “Tell them to go to ground,” she said. “If the Partial army’s in front of us now, there’s no sense moving forward—send the message for everyone to seek shelter, to stay dark, to stay quiet. We’ll lead the army away.”
“Whoa,” said Marcus. “Who’s ‘we’? You have to stay safe.”
“I have to protect these people,” said Kira. “If that means a blaze of glory, then . . . that’s what it means. I’ll lead them away, I’ll give the army their vengeance, and maybe the others can make it to the coast.”
“I’m coming with you,” said Marcus.
A burst of gunfire roared out of the snow behind them, and they dove for cover. “Get down!” shouted Kira. “Everyone get down!”
She heard a muted echo of unintelligible shouts, and checked her rifle with fingers she could barely feel. She was down to her last magazine. Feet crunched behind her in the snow, and she tried to burrow deeper. Link data drifted in, closer and closer, a chemical confusion she couldn’t sort through. Rifles and handguns fired in the darkness. A row of soldiers loomed over their snowbank, and Kira and Marcus and Green fired up at them, killing them or scaring them back into cover; she couldn’t tell which.
“I’m out,” said Marcus. “That was my last magazine.”
“Mine too,” said Green.
“I have maybe five shots left,” said Kira. She looked at the others, dim shapes in the darkness. “I’m sorry.”
“For having more bullets than us?” asked Marcus. “How dare you?”
“I mean for bringing you here,” said Kira. “I thought we could make it. I wouldn’t let us leave East Meadow without the rest of the refugees, and even before that I’m the one who dragged you both into this—”
“We came because we believed,” said Green. “If we die for something we believe in, that’s . . . more than the rest of my squad could say for themselves.”
A harsh voice drifted through the storm. “This is General Shon, acting leader of the entire Partial species. Those of you who have betrayed your race and joined the human terrorists are complicit in the bombing of White Plains and the death of hundreds of thousands of Partials. Surrender now and you will be forgiven; stay with the humans and we will exterminate you with the rest of the vermin.”
“We have to work together!” shouted Kira, but the only answer was another hail of bullets.
“Give me your rifle,” said Marcus. “You can run for it, and I’ll cover you—”
Another Partial soldier appeared above them, and Kira screamed and fired, desperate to protect her friends even if only for a moment, but more soldiers appeared, and more beside them, and Kira’s rifle was empty but she still kept pulling the trigger, screaming and crying her defiance—
—and the Partial soldiers were cut down by a wave of gunfire.
“Kira!” a voice shouted. “Fall back to our position! We have you covered, fall back!”
The voice was impossible to identify in the midst of the wind and gunfire, but they were desperate for any help they could get. Kira and Marcus scrambled to their feet, dragging Green between them and stumbling through the snow. Bullets howled through the air around them, slamming into snowbanks and ricocheting loudly off the dark hulks of cars, but the vague shapes in the storm kept beckoning them forward. She didn’t know who they were, but they were on the link, and she wondered how a group of friendly Partials had appeared out of nowhere from the west.
She felt something familiar and almost stopped in shock.
“Keep coming!” said the voice. “We can hold them here—fall back behind us!”
She dragged Green and Marcus forward, and then there he was, kneeling behind the protection of a snow-covered car, holding off the enemy.
“Samm?”
“Kira,” he said. “I told you I’d find you.”
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
“Where did you come from?” Kira demanded.
“West,” said Samm. He kept his eyes on the road to the east and fired another short, controlled burst from his rifle.
“But how?” asked Kira. “Why? What about the Preserve? I thought I’d . . . never see you again.”
“Go ahead and kiss him,” said Marcus, throwing himself down behind the same car for cover. “He saved our lives—if you don’t kiss him, I’m going to.”
“Questions later,” said Samm. “Do you have any ammo left?”
“We’re out,” said Kira.
“I have a pistol in my side holster,” said Samm, firing another quick burst. “Take it, and get your people to safety. I’ll hold this line to give you and Heron more time.”
Kira took the gun. “Heron’s here too?”
“Planting explosives,” said Samm. “There’s a bridge two blocks behind me.”
Kira looked ahead, trying to spot it, but it was impossible to see anything that far through the snowfall. She looked back at Samm. “I won’t leave you here.”
“I’ll be right behind you,” said Samm, and Kira saw now that there were other soldiers with him, dug in across the width of the road. “Get your people to safety, and wait for my signal. Now go. And Kira?”
She looked at him, her heart still twisting at the confusion of seeing him here. “Yes?”
“I’m . . . glad you’re safe,” he said. It was a simple sentence, but the link data that came with it was so powerful it made her hands tremble. She nodded, trying to say the same thing back, but it came out as a confused mumble. She’d thought he was gone for good, trapped on the other side of the wasteland. She’d dealt with it. She glanced from Samm to Marcus and back to Samm again.
She didn’t know what to do now.
“Let’s go,” said Marcus, and Samm gave them another burst of covering fire as they helped Green to his feet and ran forward through the howling storm. Cars and buildings and lampposts loomed like ghosts on the edge of their vision. Bodies lay in the snow, already half-buried by the relentless storm. The close buildings gave way to a wide, empty parking lot, and then they reached the bridge—the ocean inlet it crossed was narrow, barely thirty feet wide at the most, and it wouldn’t hold the army for long. In this weather, though, removing
it would buy Kira’s people a few precious hours.
Someone waved them forward to the bridge. “They came out of nowhere,” said the man; he was one of the humans Kira had sent ahead, though she couldn’t remember his name. He gestured to Heron, climbing up from under the bridge with Tomas, the demolitions tech. “She says they know you.”
“They do,” said Kira, looking at Heron’s eyes as she approached. “I’m starting to think I don’t know them, though.”
“Hey, girlfriend,” said Heron, though her tone was hardly playful. “You miss me?”
“You’re lucky I haven’t already shot you for selling me out to Morgan,” said Kira.
“I don’t think it counts as selling if I didn’t accept any payment,” said Heron.
“How am I supposed to trust you? Nothing you do makes sense.”
“Pay better attention,” said Heron, and looked at Tomas. “You ready?”
“Samm said to wait for his signal,” said Marcus. “He covered our retreat.”
“Then let’s shut up and cover his,” said Heron, and pointed back down the road to Samm and his men, dashing from car to car for cover as the Partial army surged forward behind them. Kira fell into position next to Heron, their differences temporarily forgotten as Heron handed her a new magazine and they began firing. Samm turned and raced toward them, his arm around a wounded companion.
“Get clear!” he shouted. “Are the other two set?”
“Ready to go,” said Heron calmly, and then their whole group fell back, racing away from the oncoming swarm of soldiers. Tomas unspooled a long roll of wire as he ran, and they threw themselves to the ground behind a snowbank. Kira felt the final commands race across the link:
CLEAR
READY
NOW
Tomas pressed the detonator, and the bridge exploded in a bright orange ball barely ten feet in front of the leading enemy runners. Kira turned her head away, covering her eyes against the blinding orange fireball, and felt the percussive thump of two more explosions, one and two blocks north on the same ocean inlet.
“That’s it,” said Samm. “Let’s get as much distance between us and here as we can before they cross that canal.”
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
Heron walked in silence, listening to the others speak.
“How did you get here?” Kira demanded, looking completely bewildered. “How did you cross the wasteland?”
“We were better prepared this time,” said Samm. “We knew what to expect, and Phan and Calix have lived in Denver long enough to be experts at finding clean food and water in the poison.”
As if on cue, Phan and Calix emerged from the storm, Calix barely even limping anymore. Heron had to admit she was impressed with the girl—she’d faced the journey without ever complaining; riding the horse, yes, but pulling her weight in other ways, leading them to water sources Heron would never have found on her own. Calix could read the weather in the wasteland’s pastel clouds as easily as if she were reading a book, and she had kept them free from the acid rain. She was a valuable asset.
Heron watched, and listened.
“A child was born healthy,” said Samm. “The pheromone you discovered, the one that cures RM, was already in her system. That’s all it takes, Kira—we lived in the Preserve for weeks, just part of the same community, and it worked. That’s all we have to do. We think it helped the Third Division, too.”
“Who’s that?” asked Kira.
“Vale’s comatose Partials,” said Samm. He gestured at the rugged man trudging through the storm beside them. “This is Ritter; he’s the acting sergeant. He’s twenty-two years old, Kira. He survived his expiration.
Kira peered at Ritter more closely. “Nice to meet you. You look like . . . I’m sorry, you’re not a model I’ve met before: you’re too old for infantry but too young to be an officer or medic.”
“That’s because I’m aging,” said Ritter, and though Heron couldn’t see it, she knew the man was smiling. The Third Division was stupidly proud of their new, human-like attributes. “When we first woke up we thought it was an effect of the muscle atrophy we experienced. Now we’re fully recovered, and I still look almost thirty years old.”
“It was Dr. Vale,” said Kira, and Heron rolled her eyes at the eager thrill in the girl’s voice. “Even with his gene mods he was still human, and it must have been his breath that set the reaction in motion. I thought it would stop expiration, but I didn’t realize it would restart the normal aging process as well. That’s amazing. I wonder if it also cured your sterility?”
“We haven’t exactly tested that yet,” said Ritter, “though Dwain was doing his best before we left.”
“Shut up,” said Dwain.
“It might be the human interaction,” said Samm, “but we’re still not sure.”
Heron moved slightly closer, for this was the key to the whole thing. Now that White Plains was gone, and Morgan with it, Heron had no chance of surviving expiration except this one, small hope.
“It’s possible,” Samm continued, “and even probable, that what happened to the Third Division was a one-time thing—that Vale did something to them, either directly or through Williams, to keep them alive.”
“Vale didn’t do it on purpose,” said Kira. “I spent weeks with him trying to cure expiration, and he was as clueless as I was.”
Heron held her breath, listening to every word, breathing them in.
“I thought I was right before,” said Kira, “but then I confirmed it firsthand. I talked to the man who designed the system, the leader of the Trust. This was his plan all along: If humans and Partials can coexist, they can live.”
Heron breathed again, slow and controlled. She could live. Everything she’d done, every risk she’d taken, every gamble of trust, had led to this moment. She could live.
“It can’t be that easy,” said Samm. “After everything we’ve been through, all the hell and the wars and the end of the world . . .”
“It’s not easy,” said Kira. “It never has been, and it never will be. Look at the hell we’ve gone through just to get this far—just to convince even a tiny portion of each species to work together. It’s always easier to die for your own side than to live for the other one. But that’s what we have to do: to live, day after day, solving every new problem and overcoming every new prejudice and building on every common ground we can find. Waging war was the easy part—making peace will be the hardest thing we’ve ever done.”
One of the East Meadow refugees spoke up; Heron thought she recognized him as the one called Marcus. “As important as it is that we, you know, stand around and breathe on each other, we should probably focus on getting the hell out of here. That little blown bridge isn’t going to hold them forever.”
“The rest of the humans are southwest of here,” said Samm, “on a narrow slip of land called Breezy Point.”
“That’s where we figured they’d go,” said Kira. “Have you talked to them?”
Samm shook his head. “We came in through Brooklyn, and since I didn’t know how else to find you, we went to the closest human stronghold, which was the JFK airport; there were a few stragglers there, and they told us where the humans were gathering. Sounds like most of the island managed to make it there—twenty thousand at least, maybe thirty. They didn’t know anything about you, though, so our plan was to go to East Meadow next, and that’s when we heard the gunfight. I didn’t know it was you until we found the front of your column and asked who was in charge.”
“We were glad to see you,” said Marcus, and Heron caught him glancing uncertainly at Kira. He didn’t sound as glad as he claimed to.
Heron dropped back, ignoring them as their conversation turned to the more mundane topic of what to do next, and how to do it. They had more than three hundred human refugees in Kira’s group, and seventeen miles to go before they could join the rest of the humans at Breezy Point. The Partial army would catch up to them, maybe not immediately, but inevitably. Afte
r this midnight chase had failed they were likely to wait before the next assault, gathering their forces and then coming down on the humans with overwhelming force. Kira’s little band was doomed, and every other human on this island, and Heron did not intend to be here when that doom arrived. Thirty thousand humans were impossible to hide, even with a handful of Partials to protect them.
But one Partial, and one human to protect her from expiration, could disappear forever.
Heron looked at the group, wondering who would be the best target. Calix was the obvious choice: she was capable, she was brave, and she could help Heron more than hinder her. She might put up a struggle at first, but she had the same fierce survivor’s instinct, and when all her other options were gone, she’d see the wisdom of their partnership. On the other hand, Samm seemed oddly attached to Calix, like she was a puppy, and if Heron chose her he might come after her, his stupid sense of loyalty overwhelming all his more logical priorities.
Marcus wasn’t an option either, for the same reason, this time thanks to Kira’s attachment, and Calix was attached to Phan. It’s like a web of dependent obsessions, she thought. They’d kill themselves, and maybe everyone else, just to save their friends. What good does it do? There are so many humans, all virtually identical. Why risk so much for one person?
Heron quickened her pace, pressing forward into the long column of humans, looking for one that no one would miss. “Where’s she going?” she heard Kira ask behind her, but Heron ignored them. She looked closely at each human as she passed them, assessing which ones might be best prepared for a journey out into the wilderness—who had food and water, who was dressed for the weather, who was armed and looked like they knew how to use their weapons. None of the beleaguered travelers inspired much confidence, but Heron supposed that was understandable. These were the last stragglers, the ones who hadn’t dared to leave East Meadow until the bomb had actually gone off, and Kira had dragged them from their homes with dire warnings of the end of the world. I might have to wait until we reach the others, she thought. Or simply take Calix and hope Samm’s smart enough not to chase me.
