explosives secret.”
“Where?” demanded Jayden.
“Some in the cart, some in little caches around the island.”
Gianna leaped away from the cart. “I’ve been leaning on a bomb?”
“It’s stable,” said Tovar, standing up. The soldiers retrained their guns on him, but he held up his hands in a show of innocence. “They’re perfectly stable, okay?” He shuffled to the cart, limping in one heavy boot and one bare foot. “It’s a water gel—it’s completely inert until you activate it, and even then it needs a detonator.”
“Where do you find explosives out here?” asked Jayden, still following him with his rifle. “I thought the military gathered up all that kind of stuff years ago.”
“They got the weaponized stuff, yeah,” said Tovar, “but this is used commercially all the time.” He pulled back the heavy canvas tarp on his wagon and pointed to a white plastic package, like a ration bag of water. “I got this at a construction site; the activation powder’s on the other side of the cart. And I swear I haven’t sold any of it to anyone.”
Kira looked back at Jayden. “If this is a lie,” she said, “it’s the most convoluted, well-acted lie in the history of the world. We’re all headed back to East Meadow anyway, so let’s just put down the guns and let them deal with it. If they decide he’s guilty, then they can put him in jail, but I won’t let you kill him here.”
“That is the second worst idea I’ve ever heard,” said Tovar, “but since the first worst is you shooting me in the face, I’m all for it.”
Jayden stared at Kira, his eyes burning into hers like smoking coals. After an eternity of waiting, he lowered his gun. “Fine. But if he tries anything between now and then, I don’t wait for your approval: He’s a Voice, and he dies.”
Kira slept fitfully, listening to Marcus and the others as they shifted and snored and muttered in the darkness. The camel made odd, semihuman moans all through the night, and the house creaked in the rain. Even the mice, ubiquitous in every home she could remember, seemed louder and more bothersome than usual as they skittered through the floor and walls. Rats, maybe, or something bigger.
Through it all, she couldn’t stop thinking about Tovar’s words. Was there really a war coming? Was the Voice really that desperate—or that organized? The Senate seemed to paint them as half-wild terrorists, raiding and running and killing indiscriminately, but then, she supposed, the Senate would want to paint them that way. If there were actually enough of them to mount a serious front, and start a real war, then they were a bigger threat than she had ever imagined.
RM would slowly strangle humanity, one death at a time, with no new generations to replace it. A war, on the other hand, could snuff it out in weeks.
Kira pressed herself deeper into the couch, willing herself to fall asleep.
In the morning she was tired and stiff.
Tovar led them out the back of the house and through his maze of safeguards: over a temporary bridge, through another house’s weathered patio, and back to the road nearly half a mile down. The rain had stopped, and Dolly pulled the cart swiftly, so they kept a good pace. Kira tried to force herself not to look behind, not to focus on the hundred phantom Voices she imagined behind every tree and broken car. They had to stay visible, in case the Defense Grid backup came looking for them, but that visibility made Kira feel vulnerable and exposed. Even Jayden seemed anxious. They broke for lunch when the sun was high overhead, and Kira drank the last of her water while she watched the rows of ruined houses. Nothing moved. She rubbed her aching feet and checked Lanier on his stretcher; he was unconscious, and his temperature was dangerously elevated.
“How is he?” asked Gianna.
“Not good,” Kira sighed. “We’re running low on Nalox, and now I think he’s got an infection.” She rummaged in her medkit for antibiotics and began prepping a small shot.
“Is it good that he’s asleep like that?”
“Well, it’s not awesome,” said Kira, “but it’s not bad. The painkiller we’re using is designed for battlefield use; you can give him way too much and not worry about killing him. Our battlefield cleansers, on the other hand, don’t seem to be doing their job.” She stuck him with the antibiotic and injected the full dose. “If we don’t get picked up by reinforcements pretty soon, he’s in big trouble.”
Kira heard a distant whistle and looked up suddenly; Jayden had heard it too. “The scouts,” he said. “They’ve seen someone.” They pulled everyone back into a nearby house, the windows broken out and the interior filled with enough windblown soil to support new plant growth; kudzu already covered the couch. Kira crouched in the corner behind a sagging upright piano, Lanier trembling fitfully behind her. Marcus caught her eye and forced a smile.
She heard another whistle, a series of short bursts she recognized as “the people I warned you about are friendly.” She started to stand, but Jayden motioned her back down.
“Doesn’t hurt to make sure,” he whispered.
A minute later a wagon rolled past, a long, armored trailer pulled by six stamping horses. Jayden whistled loudly—“friendlies coming out, don’t shoot”—and trooped outside. Kira and Marcus carried Lanier onto the porch, where they were met by another team of medics. Kira gave them a full update on his condition, and the newly arrived soldiers handed out water and protein bars as they helped everyone into the wagon.
Tovar led Dolly out from behind the house, grimacing unhappily. “Do they shoot me now, or when they get home?”
“Ideally they don’t shoot you at all,” said Kira.
Jayden saluted the leader of the new soldiers; Kira didn’t recognize his rank insignia. “Thanks for the pickup.”
The other soldier saluted him back. “We didn’t expect to find you for a few more hours; you’re making good time.”
“This trader’s been a big help,” said Jayden, nodding to Tovar. “Carried most of our gear in his wagon.” He took a drink of water and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “We haven’t seen anybody else, so if anybody followed us, they decided not to mess with an armed Grid patrol.”
“Damn Voice,” said the soldier. “We have outriders looking for whatever they can find—your explosion out there stirred up a lot of trouble back home. We’re going to stop at Dogwood for a debrief.”
The wagon turned and carried them back, the driver lashing the six-horse team into a pretty good gallop. The sun on the armored shell was hot, baking the inside, and Kira felt herself drifting away; she woke up with her head in Marcus’s lap, sitting up abruptly as the wagon jerked to a stop. Dogwood turned out to be an old power station, a guardhouse on the edge of the settled East Meadow area. There was a high chain fence all around it, and another soldier opened the gate for them as they approached. Kira saw more soldiers on the perimeter.
“We can walk from here,” said Kira, but the lead soldier in the wagon shook his head.
“Mkele
