Partials

“Great for them,” said Kira, still watching her friends through the binoculars. “How are we going to get past the rebels?”

Samm held up a waterlogged blanket, one of the ones they’d found in the old yacht, and started ripping it into strips. “The link data is transmitted primarily through our breath. If I cover my mouth and nose tight enough, I should be able to mask my presence. A little.” He frowned.

“Are you going to be able to breathe?”

“That’s why this isn’t a perfect solution,” he said. “A gas mask isn’t perfect, but it’s much better. I don’t know how much the rebels know about the mission we launched in Manhattan, but it’s conceivable that things have escalated, and if so, that’s what their scouts will be wearing. They’re the ones we’ll have to be careful of, because I won’t know they’re coming until it’s too late.” He wrapped the wet black cloth around his face, covering his mouth and nose and tying the ripped blanket tightly behind his head. He took a deep breath, trying it out, then tied another strip over the first to give it more grip.

“This should work for a while.” His words were muffled, only barely discernible. Kira nodded and followed him back through the grounds of an old manor house, wishing she’d managed to keep hold of her guns in the shipwreck. She didn’t like the prospect of meeting other Partials without them.

The manor house turned out to be on a small, rounded promontory, connected back to land by a series of narrow asphalt lanes. They crossed each one at a run, crouching low and then ducking behind the nearest spray of foliage, looking for signs that they’d been spotted. If there were other Partials watching, they kept themselves hidden. Kira looked back across the harbor whenever she could, hoping to catch a glimpse of her lost friends, but they were hidden as well. She doubled her pace, desperate to round the harbor and find them before they wandered too far away.

Samm led her through a small shipyard, full of dry, cracking boats and rusted tracks leading down into the water. Beyond that was an old park, overgrown with trees and kudzu, yet originally big enough, Kira estimated, to have made for a series of good-size cornfields. It surprised her that the Partials hadn’t planted it, but she supposed a war zone wasn’t the best place, and this was, as she understood it, the outskirts of the Partial civilization. Perhaps all their farms were farther north? Or did they get food by some other means she couldn’t guess at? It bothered her, suddenly, how little she really knew about the Partials: Here she was, in unknown territory, trusting the enemy she’d been raised to hate. The reason she was an orphan. The reason she’d learned to fire a gun at eight years old.

Do I really know what I’m doing?

Samm led her away from the water’s edge, into the wooded park where they’d be harder to see. He moved quickly but carefully, his eyes darting back and forth, examining not only their flanks but the ground and the trees above them. Kira fell into rhythm beside him, watching for ambush, avoiding fallen branches. They passed a funeral home, and she studied it solemnly. Death seemed to hover in the air.

Beyond the trees they came to a highway, flanked on the far side by another row of thick trees. It cut through the forest like a hallway, and Samm peered down it in both directions — flat to the west, and climbing a small hill to the east. “We’ll make better time on this than next to it,” he said. “It doesn’t take us through the town, just around the edge, so there might not be anybody watching.”

“Will it take us to Marcus and the others?”

“They’ll have to cross it, too.” Samm nodded. He pointed toward a curve in the road, far to the east. “That’s the end of the peninsula, if I’m remembering correctly. If they haven’t already crossed, we can catch them there.”

They ran quickly, making up for lost time; the highway was raised, with extra layers of asphalt between it and the dirt below, and nothing had managed to grow through. No one crossed their path, ahead or behind them. Soon the road began to rise, and Kira realized with shock that the rest of the country wasn’t rising with it — it wasn’t a hill, just an elevated road. Smaller roads began passing underneath it.

“Stop,” she said. “We may have already missed them.”

“I was thinking the same thing.”

“We need to find them.”

“We’re almost to the base now,” said Samm, shaking his head. “We should go straight there and then send out a search party — they’ll find your friends better than we can.”

“Unless someone else finds them first,” said Kira. She looked out from the elevated road, trying to see through the gaps in the trees below. “We can’t just leave them out here for the rebels to find.”

“I don’t think they will,” said Samm, tapping his face mask. The link.

“Then you go,” said Kira, “and I’ll look for Marcus. Your search-and-rescue team can find me just as easily as they can find them.”

“We can’t split up again,” Samm insisted. His voice was low, barely audible through his makeshift mask. He seemed jumpy for the first time, and Kira felt herself grow nervous at the sight of it.

“What’s wrong?”

She heard the roar of an engine, a distant echo through the trees, and she went pale.

“You use cars, too?”

“Electric, mostly, but yes. There’s an oil refinery farther north.”

Kira glanced up and down the highway, trying to pinpoint the sound. “Behind us?”

“I think so.” He started jogging forward. “We have to run.”

“We don’t have time,” said Kira, peering over the edge of the sidewall. It was at least twenty feet down, but the trees were crowded close, and she thought she could reach one. “We need to climb down.”

“We can’t go down,” said Samm fiercely, rushing back to grab her arm. “We have to move forward.”

“The engines are getting closer, we don’t have time to—”

“There are rebels down there,” he whispered urgently.

Kira dropped to her knees, crouching behind the wall. “You’re linking with them?”

“I can’t help it.”

Which means they know we’re here. Kira stared at him, studying his eyes. We don’t have weapons. We can’t fight. The enemy already knows we’re here.

Do they know my friends are here as well?

“How close?” Kira whispered.

Samm grimaced. “It’s not that precise when it’s muffled like this, but I can tell they’re close. Seventy, eighty yards.”

“That’s pretty precise,” said Kira. “You think they heard us talking?”

Sam shook his head. “They’re on alert, but it might not be for us. We have no way of knowing until they’re closer, and then if we’re wrong, it’s too late.”

Kira punched the concrete with the side of her hand, swearing under her breath. I’m not going to let them get captured. She took a deep breath, shaking her head at her own stupidity, and stood up. “We’re going down.”

“We can’t go down.”

She jogged to the spot with the closest tree, looked at the underbrush two stories below, and clambered onto the sidewall. Samm pulled her back, and she shook him off. “I’m not leaving my friends,” she said firmly. “You can either come with me or go for help.” She climbed back up, balancing carefully, and tried to gauge the distance. Seven feet. Maybe ten. That’s long for a standing jump, but I’ll get extra distance as I fall.

Which is not very encouraging.

“Don’t do it, Kira.”

She jumped.

She kept her hands wide and wrapped her arms around the biggest branch she could, catching it with her elbows and swinging wildly beneath it. The tree caught her as she caught it, and the rough branches dug sharply into her skin and clothes. The tree shook with a second shudder, and she saw that Samm had followed her. She smiled. “Thanks.”

“You’re crazy,” he muttered.

“That’s what everyone keeps saying.”

They climbed down quickly, hearing the roar of the engine grow louder and louder. The sound split as it