Ruins

There was a sudden thump from the back room of the house, and a strangled shout that got cut off just before it became loud enough for the sound to carry outside. Marcus spun to face the sagging kitchen door, his rifle up and ready, but stopped in surprise when he heard Vinci’s soft voice.

“It’s just me.”

Marcus furrowed his brow, confused. “What on earth?”

“They sent flankers through the back of the house,” said Vinci. “I don’t know if they’re Delarosa’s people, but they’re definitely human.”

“So you attacked them?” asked Woolf.

“Just disarmed them,” said Vinci. “Don’t shoot, I’m opening the door now.” He pushed open the kitchen door and led two cloaked figures into the front room. Marcus stared at them in surprise, then jumped up eagerly as he recognized the girl in front.

“Yoon?”

The cloaked girl looked at him, a slow smile spreading across her face as she realized who he was. “Marcus?” The smile disappeared almost immediately, and she frowned at him sternly. “Are you trying to get yourself killed?”

“We’re trying to find Delarosa.”

“By scaring the hell out of us,” asked Yoon, “and then shouting loud enough to attract every Partial in the forest?”

“Sorry,” said Marcus. “None of that was really how we intended this to go.”

“I recognize you,” said Woolf, standing up. “You’re one of the Grid soldiers who went with Kira and captured the Partial named Samm. I remember you from the disciplinary hearing.”

“I was reassigned to an outpost on the North Shore,” said Yoon. “When the Partials invaded we fled south, and the unit broke apart, and eventually I ran across the Rhinos.” She pointed to her companion, a young man who looked sixteen years old at the most; Marcus realized with a start that this made him one of the youngest humans left in the world. “This is McArthur.”

Marcus shook the boy’s hand. “You have a first name?”

“No, sir,” he said, and Marcus nodded. It had become common for some of the youngest humans to drop their first name altogether, preferring their surname because it linked them to the past. A three-year-old kid who lost everything he ever loved usually remembered that he had parents, but wasn’t likely to remember much of anything about them. Identifying himself by his surname told people like McArthur that he came from somewhere, and helped him feel connected. Sometimes that was more important than an individual identity.

“Well then,” said Marcus. “Yoon, McArthur, say hello to Galen, Vinci, and Commander Asher Woolf. We’ve been looking for you everywhere.”

“We’re not easy to find,” said Yoon. “Though there’s probably a better way to say hello than just shaking the hell out of the kudzu on the side of the house. We thought it was an ambush.”

“That was an accident,” said Marcus, giving a small, embarrassed nod. “It did work, though, so there’s that.”

McArthur frowned. “How are you still alive? We thought you all died months ago.”

Woolf clapped the young man on the shoulder. “I like this kid. But we’ve made enough noise here to attract every Partial scout in the forest, so what do you say we get back to your group and continue this conversation where it’s safe?”

Yoon looked at Vinci. “Can we have our weapons back?”

Vinci handed them over freely—two sturdy rifles and a wide, curved blade. “Just making sure we didn’t have any more accidental ambushes.”

Yoon took a rifle and the knife, sliding the latter into a slim leather scabbard on her back. She stepped to the window, whistled a short birdcall, and waited silently for an answer. Marcus was expecting another whistle but was surprised to hear a low, rumbling growl. Yoon opened the door and a massive black cat peered in, yawned, and stalked away into the trees.

“That’s a pet?” asked Marcus. Small cats, the kind the old world kept as pets, had adapted perfectly to the post-Break world and were practically ubiquitous across the island, but Marcus had never seen one so large. “It looks like a panther.”

Yoon grinned wickedly. “That’s because it’s a panther.”

“You keep panthers?” Vinci’s voice was calm and even, though Marcus had come to know his moods well enough to view this as surprise.

“Not typically, no,” said Marcus. “Yoon is . . . special.”

“We found wild ones in Brooklyn,” said Yoon. “I think they escaped from a zoo. On patrol last year I found this one as a baby, and I’ve been raising him. He’s pretty tame.”

“Until Yoon tells him to rip somebody’s head off,” said McArthur. “Then everybody has nightmares for a few days.”

A man in a dark-green cloak stepped up to the doorway, a rifle in his hands and a pair of night-vision goggles pushed up across his forehead. “You sounded the all clear. What’s going on in here?”

“Commander Asher Woolf,” said Woolf, holding out his hand to shake. “We’re looking for Delarosa.”

The soldier looked over the group quickly, sizing them up. “You and you I recognize from the Grid,” he said, pointing at Woolf and Galen; then he looked at Marcus. “You look like Marcus Valencio.”