Partials

Before he even finished whispering, they heard footsteps and voices in the yard behind them. Jayden grabbed his gun and ran to the back door, crouching behind the sagging wall.

“This is the Long Island Defense Grid,” Jayden shouted, glancing back at the others and gesturing for them to pick up their guns. “You are ordered to drop your weapons and surrender immediately.”

There was a small pause, and Jayden listened with his head cocked. After a moment a voice shouted back, “Is that you, Patrol Forty?”

Jayden smiled wickedly. “Yes, it is. Is that Checkpoint Twenty-Three?”

Kira heard the men outside cursing. “Don’t tell me we lost them!”

Farad pulled on his uniform cap and stepped carefully out of the back door. Kira watched through a tiny gap in the crumbling wall.

“We checked this whole area,” he said. “They haven’t come through.”

“What do you mean they haven’t come through?” asked the soldier. “We chased them right down this alley.”

“I’ve got men in half of these houses,” said Farad, gesturing around him, “and none of them have seen anything.”

“How could you let them get past you?”

“Listen, soldier,” said Farad, “you’re the ones who let them get past the border—we’re trying to clean up your mess here, not ours. Now spread out. We’ll check these houses, you check those, and don’t forget to leave someone here to guard this alley. The last thing we need is more of them crossing your checkpoint.”

The other soldiers muttered a bit, and Kira heard them tromp away to the next house. She exhaled, then continued checking herself for a bullet hole. Finally finding it—in her backpack. She hadn’t been hurt, but her equipment was destroyed.

Farad stepped back inside, whistling lowly in relief. “Let’s get out of here.”

“I can’t believe that worked,” said Xochi.

“It won’t work for very long,” said Jayden. “They’re going to search Gianna eventually, and they’re going to see she’s wearing a Grid uniform. We’ve got about sixty seconds to disappear.”

They worked their way to the front of the house and slipped from there into the next yard, then the next, moving deeper into East Meadow and as far from the infiltration site as they could. As they walked, the city became more populated, the houses better tended, and at last Kira saw the glint of window glass. I’m home. And yet even as the city looked familiar, it looked wrong; the houses were occupied, but the doors were all closed and the glassed-in windows were all curtained or even boarded up. On a nice summer night like this, even after sunset, the streets should be full of people talking, chatting, enjoying themselves, but now the few people who walked the streets did so quickly, eager to get back inside again, avoiding eye contact with everyone else. Groups of Grid soldiers and Mkele’s special police patrolled the city at regular intervals, and Kira saw more than one of the scared, furtive citizens stopped and questioned in the streets. They’re looking for us, she thought, but they’re punishing the wrong people.

They reached the Turnpike and took shelter in a ruined storefront, looking across at the hospital that had practically become a fortress. There were guards on the doors, but more important there was a perimeter of guards all around the grounds. The rear door they’d been planning to use was probably still available, but without their Grid jeep they couldn’t get to it safely, let alone get out again with Madison.

“This is going to be interesting,” said Xochi.

“No kidding,” said Jayden. Farad merely shook his head.

“Bad news,” said Marcus, and motioned them over to the radio. They clustered around him, and Kira heard a staticky voice shouting an urgent warning: “… I repeat, the Voice has Defense Grid uniforms. They are already inside the city, and there may be more coming. Full identification checks are now mandatory for all encounters, code protocol Sigma.” The message repeated, and Marcus shook his head. “This just keeps getting better and better.”

“I don’t know code protocol Sigma,” said Farad, pacing nervously in the ruined building. “Some of it, maybe, but not enough. We won’t get past anyone now.”