Ruins

“What’s left of it,” said Falin. He looked at Green. “Can he walk?”

“Not very well,” said Kira. They’d spent five more days in East Meadow, rounding up as many people as they could and all the supplies to sustain them, and now there were only five days left before Green’s expiration. Kira had never seen it happen, so she didn’t know what to expect, but the Partials didn’t seem surprised by Green’s early signs of weakness, growing slow and weak as his body turned its energy against itself.

Kira had hoped that Green’s interaction with the humans of East Meadow would save him, but it wasn’t working; either it needed more time to function, or it didn’t work at all. Watching him grow more frail and damaged caused the entire group’s spirits to sink. They had begun to see her as a savior, but now they were terrified that Kira’s shining promise was just one more false hope. They had gathered nearly four hundred human refugees, and ten more Partial soldiers had joined the group, but without any hope of salvation, Kira didn’t know how long the group could stick together. She prayed that Green would pull out in time, recovering miraculously, but the prospects were bleak. A part of her still feared that this would be her end as well—not expiration, but simply death. Four hundred and twenty people, running through a snowbound hell, chased by nuclear fallout and a vast army of super-soldiers. What chance did they really have?

Kira looked at Tomas, the Partials’ demolitions expert. “You’re ready with the explosives?”

Tomas nodded. “All we have to do is make it across the first bridge.”

Kira looked at the slow train of refugees trudging through the snow, packs of food and ammunition heavy on their shoulders. No one had brought extra clothes; there was enough of that to be found as salvage in the homes they sheltered in, and an entire continent of salvage waiting beyond the water. If we can get there, she reminded herself.

“Tomas, Marcus, Levi, come with me; we’ll push ahead and start setting the explosives, so they’ll be ready to go when the rest of the group reaches the bridge. Falin, keep them moving, and don’t let them panic. Green.” She knelt down in front of the ailing soldier and grasped his hands. “You’re going to be okay.”

“I’m not an invalid,” he said, but his voice was raspier than she’d heard it before, and his eyes looked more sunken.

“I couldn’t have made it this far without you, Green. We’re going to get through this.”

“Then stop yakking and do your job.”

Kira smiled. “That’s the Green I know.” She patted his arm and stood up, looking at her advance team. “Let’s go.”

The brief gaps of sunshine over the last few days had made the snow harder than ever to walk through, softening vast swathes of lightweight powder only to see them refreeze into crusts and chunks of ice when the weather turned dark again. Instead of hip-deep snow they forced their way across the precarious upper layers of an impossible snowbank—sometimes slipping on the ice, sometimes breaking through the brittle crust, sometimes cutting themselves on the razor-sharp edges. The fact that thousands of refugees had already passed this way, leaving jagged footprints and dropped objects frozen into the ice, only made it more treacherous.

There were two long causeways crossing from the main island to the outer beaches, and Kira’s group was on the road toward the western one, Meadowbrook, which leapfrogged across four swampy islands on its way to Long Beach. Their plan was to blow each bridge as they crossed it, leaving the Partial army stranded behind them—it wouldn’t stop their pursuit completely, but it would force them to find a different route. Even the Ivies, they hoped, would be reticent to follow them, deterred by the wide channels of frigid ocean water and ice floes.

Except that my father has a rotor, thought Kira. When he comes, he could come from anywhere.

“Do you think Armin’s still searching for me?” she asked Marcus. “The explosion probably spooked him, just like it spooked all of us, but he’s had days to regroup and he hasn’t come back.”

“He’s probably raiding the rest of the refugees,” said Marcus, nodding toward the road ahead. “Everyone who went before us. With that rotor and his band of Ivies, he’ll have the pick of anyone’s DNA he wants.”

“But he still wants mine,” said Kira. “He’s going to make another play for it eventually, and we won’t have a nuclear bomb to distract him.”

“Have you considered just giving him your blood?” asked Marcus. “Peacefully, I mean—a pint or two, safely drawn, and then he can go on his way and leave us alone.”

“And create another species that will smash the planet to pieces trying to justify its existence?” Kira shook her head. “No more playing God, even for people with godlike powers. When he comes for me, we have to stop him.”

“That makes you sound like bait,” said Marcus warily.