Partials

Samm nodded and started walking, and the others fell into step beside him. “The link is… I still don’t know how to describe it to you. It’s a sense. It’s like describing sight to someone who was born blind.”

“Is it a network device?” asked Jayden. “An implant? I thought we took everything when we bagged you in Manhattan.”

“Not a device,” said Samm, holding out his hands. “It’s just a … link. We’re all linked together.” He nodded slightly at the houses around them. “If we were a team of Partials, walking through these ruins at night, we’d all know, intuitively, how all the others were feeling. If Kira saw something that made her wary, she’d register that chemically, and we’d all sense it, and within seconds we’d all be wary: Our adrenaline would increase, our fight-or-flight response would prime, and the entire group would be ready for something only one of us saw. If someone in our group got hurt, or captured, we’d all be able to sense what was wrong and follow that sensation to wherever that soldier was.”

“Probably don’t get lost very often, then,” said Marcus. “If I could tell where the rest of you were, I wouldn’t ever wander off.”

“No,” said Samm firmly, “you wouldn’t.”

“Sounds like it could also tell you friend from foe,” said Jayden, nodding. “That would come in pretty handy.”

“It doesn’t work on humans,” said Samm, “because you don’t carry any data. But yes, it does help us identify other Partials who aren’t in our unit, which makes telling my faction from the others pretty simple. It also makes it easy for other factions to find me, which might be a problem.”

“But that’s the part I don’t get,” said Kira. “The link tells you friend from foe, it tells you one unit from another—it stands to reason it would carry authority as well, right? You were created as an army, with generals and lieutenants and privates and all that: Does the link tie into that command structure?”

Samm’s answer was stiff. “It does.”

“Then how could you split into factions? It doesn’t make sense.”

Samm said nothing, stomping irately through the underbrush. After a long pause he said, “After the—” and then stopped again almost immediately, standing in the middle of the road. “This isn’t easy to talk about.”

“You have disagreements,” said Kira simply. “Everyone has those, all the time—”

“We don’t,” said Samm. His voice was even, but Kira could sense an undercurrent of … frustration? “Is disobedience really so common among humans that you can’t understand why we’d want to obey? We’re an army; we obey our leaders. We follow our orders.” He set off down the road again. “Anyone who doesn’t is a traitor.”

“We’re coming up on a bridge,” said Xochi.

The group slowed, studying the terrain in the moonlight, then stopped to confer.

“A river?” asked Samm.

“Only in a really bad rainstorm,” said Kira. “That bridge goes over the expressway; most of these roads pass over it.”

“We want to follow it west,” said Jayden, “but probably not directly. Too easy for anyone following to find us.”

Kira wondered how long it would take Mkele to figure out what their plan was; as soon as he did, he’d be right on their tail. Sneaking off the island wouldn’t be the first thing he’d suspect, which might buy them some time. She set down her bags and stretched her back, twisting from side to side to pop out the kinks. “Do we want to cut west now, or after we cross?”

“Definitely after,” said Jayden. “It’ll be the least cover we pass through until we reach the water, so let’s get it out of the way.”

Kira pulled on her pack and shouldered her shotgun. “No sense waiting around then.”

They crept forward through the trees, eyes scanning the bridge ahead, ears alert for anything that stood out from the ambient sounds. This was beyond the reach of the old urban areas, just thick forests and old-growth trees. Lighter foliage on the right probably led to an old mansion, the grounds now overgrown with kudzu and hundreds of tiny saplings. The bridge was wide ahead, easily double the width of the back road they’d been following. They crossed another narrow road and ran through the trees to the thick cement barrier at the edge of the bridge.

“Nothing to do but do it,” said Marcus. They gripped their packs and guns, took a deep breath, and ran.

The bridge was shorter than the waterways they’d crossed on their trip to Manhattan, but her fear and tension gave Kira the same feeling of dangerous exposure. The expressway stretched out for miles in either direction—anyone looking would be able to see them. We just have to hope we made it here first. They plunged back into the trees on the far side, panting from exertion, taking quick stock of the area.

“Clear,” said Samm, lowering his rifle.

“I didn’t see anyone out there,” said Xochi.

“Doesn’t mean they didn’t see us,” said Jayden. “We can’t stop until we cross the sound.”

The road continued just a short way before hitting a T, and here they turned west to follow the curve of the expressway.