generation grows up and they can’t have any children and the whole world dies. Eight months later than it would have.” Her voice was hot and angry, spitting the words through clenched teeth. “Why?”
Samm pointed at Number Three. “I’m helping them, too.”
“By putting them through this?” Heron yanked on the leather cords.
GETOUTGETOUTGETOUT
“Their expiration dates are even sooner than yours,” said Heron. “You’re waking them up, detoxing them from whatever mind warp Vale put them under, forcing them through this torture, just so they can wake up and die?”
“I’m helping them.”
“Are you?”
“I’m giving them a chance,” said Samm. “That’s more than they had before.”
“Then give yourself the same chance,” said Heron. “Live now, and figure out how to keep living tomorrow. These people are gone, so give them up—come with me back to Morgan and get the cure and live through your expiration. Let’s go home.”
“We don’t even know if she’s found a cure.”
“But if you go home, there’s a chance!” Heron roared. “Go home and you might die anyway, stay here and you die no matter what.”
“It’s not just about living—”
“What the hell else is it about?”
“It’s about living right.”
Heron said nothing, staring at him with fire in her eyes.
“These soldiers kept the Preserve alive for thirteen years,” said Samm. “There are thousands of children who are alive today because these nine men helped them—maybe not willingly, maybe not even knowing what they were doing, but they did it, and they went through hell to do it, and I can’t just leave them to die for that. Let’s say only half of them wake up sane, and only half of those are in shape to make the journey back to Morgan; that’s still two of them she can give the cure to, and two is twice as many as me. Staying here doubles the number of Partials I can save from expiration, at the very least, and even your emotionless calculator brain has to see that that’s worth the trade.”
His fervor grew as he spoke, and he spit the final words like an indictment, feeling good to let his emotions out. He sat watching Heron, waiting for a response, but the link was empty. The soldier had fallen asleep, and Heron was a blank page. An empty shell.
“You can save more Partials …” Her voice trailed off. “But none of them are you.”
She stood up and left, as silent as a shadow, and as Samm watched her go, he couldn’t help but wonder if he’d completely misinterpreted the conversation.
Marcus watched the forest through the broken glass of an old window frame, holding his breath. Commander Woolf had chosen the hiding spot just outside of Roslyn Heights, and it was a good one—a house so covered in vines that no one outside would even know there was a window in this part of the wall, let alone that four people were hiding inside. Galen, one of Woolf’s soldiers, was watching the front door with their biggest gun—an assault rifle they’d salvaged from a dead Grid patrol—while the fourth man in their group, a Partial named Vinci, kept watch from a different window. Their ragtag group were the only survivors from Woolf’s ill-fated diplomatic mission to the Partials. They had been hoping to form an alliance with the largest of the Partial factions, in a desperate bid to fight back against Dr. Morgan’s invasion, but a schism in the Partial ranks had destroyed that plan almost before it could start. The friendly faction fell, and now Morgan ruled them all—all but Vinci, and a handful of tiny, independent factions scattered through the mainland. Woolf’s new plan was to unite those factions to oppose Morgan’s army, but they couldn’t do it alone. They needed to find the only successful group of human resistance fighters.
They needed to find Marisol Delarosa.
Marcus saw a movement from the corner of his eye—just the shake of a leaf, but he’d learned from experience not to take anything for granted. He watched the leaf, and the foliage around it, with a keen intensity, his mind racing with any number of horrifying possibilities: It might be one of Delarosa’s guerrillas, or it might be a Partial soldier; maybe a whole squad of Partial soldiers, slowly surrounding them, getting ready to attack. Maybe it was a Partial sniper, buried in leaves and sticks and camouflage, lining up the perfect shot to drill Marcus right through the eye.
This is when the little bird hops into view and I chuckle derisively at my own paranoia, thought Marcus. Nothing moved. Come on, little birdie. You can do it. He stared at the foliage for two minutes, for five minutes, for ten, but no bird appeared, and no soldiers. Probably just as well, he thought. If I chuckled at my paranoia, I’d probably give myself away and get sniped. Thanks for throwing me off my guard, hypothetical bird.
Commander Woolf crept up beside him, settling into position where they could whisper the latest report.
“Anything?” asked Woolf.
“Just cursing imaginary animals.”
“Crazy or bored?”
“Well,” whispered Marcus, “it’s so hard to pick just one.”
“Vinci hasn’t linked any other Partials,” said Woolf, “so we’re pretty sure there are no patrols in the area. I don’t know if that makes us more or less likely to find Delarosa, but there it is.”
“It makes us a lot less likely to be killed by Partials,” said Marcus, “so I’ll take what I can get.”
Delarosa’s White Rhinos, as she called them, had been evading the Partials for months, thanks to a combination of keeping her groups small, sticking to familiar terrain, and executing a clever system of decoys and distractions—all classic tactics of a defensive guerrilla force, and all devilishly effective. Marcus and his companions had had no more luck than the Partials in finding the elusive army, but they had a few tricks the Partials didn’t. Now and then they’d come across other human refugees, just lone fugitives, lying low from the occupation, who assured them that the White Rhinos were heading north, in a slow, secret march toward the shore. Some of the refugees had been rescued by the Rhinos, others had been fed or given other supplies, but all told the same tale. The human resistance had a plan, and they were coming this way. All Marcus’s group had to do was wait for them.
But they’d been waiting for days, and they were running out of supplies.
“You’re due for sleep soon,” said Woolf. “Go early and try to get some rest; I’ll take over your watch.”
“How much food do we have left?” asked Marcus.
“A day’s worth,” said Woolf. “Maybe more. I don’t think Vinci is eating a full share.”
“Maybe he doesn’t have to,” whispered Marcus. “For all we know he’s … photosynthetic or something. Or he’s been eating these.” Marcus picked at the vines growing across the interior wall. He pulled too hard,
