Ruins

“He was one of the senators,” said Shon. “We thought they’d all gone into hiding. But why . . .” He stared at the note, turning it over in the halfhearted hope of finding another clue on the back. There was nothing. “Why identify himself? Is it just a taunt, or is there a deeper message to it?”

“Maybe he’s trying to rile us up?” asked the messenger. “After all those sniper shots into the camp, the soldiers are ready to burn the forest down to find them.”

Shon sighed and rubbed his eyes, feeling the strain of the long day more keenly than ever. “What’s your name, soldier?”

The messenger straightened to attention. “Thom, sir.”

“Thom, I want you to follow the scouts trying to track whoever set up that rifle. Report to me immediately when you find who’s responsible. You have a radio?”

“I can get one from supply, sir. Our battery packs are dwindling, though.”

Shon nodded. “We have prisoners hand-cranking the generators twenty-four hours a day, charging new ones.” And with any luck, we’ll get new orders from Morgan any day now, calling us home. Until then . . .

“May I ask a question, sir?”

Shone considered him a moment, then nodded. “Yes.”

“Why not flush them out with more hostages, sir? There are more guerrillas in these woods almost every day, but we still have East Meadow locked down. If we threaten to kill a few of them, it might get these rebels to stop—”

“We’re not murderers, soldier.” Shon’s words were accompanied by a harsh sting across the link, and he noted with satisfaction that Thom flinched when he sensed it. “The rebels are enemy combatants, and fighting enemy combatants is literally in your DNA. We were built to win wars while protecting innocent lives, and if you can’t do the one thing you were designed to do, maybe you’re not fit for this army.” It was a ferocious counterattack, the cruelest insult a Partial could give to another, but Shon had seen this same attitude growing in the ranks and he was determined to stamp it out. Thom recoiled, his link data a mixture of shock and shame, but barely a moment later his data was overpowered with rage, and he shot back a comment of his own.

“Dr. Morgan had us killing civilians, sir, and she had more right to her authority than some jumped-up infantryman—”

“Soldier!” He sent his anger thundering across the link, so powerful that his guards came in from the room beyond, hands on their guns and ready for trouble. “Have this man court-martialed,” said Shon, “and held in custody for the duration of the occupation.”

The guards linked their shock at the order but obeyed without question, taking Thom’s weapons and leading him away. Off to one of the cages, Shon thought. Out here in the wilderness, the modified trucks were the only form of prison they had. We’ve never used them to lock up one of our own before. The way things are going, that might become a lot more common.

Shon looked at the note again. Why the name? Why the flippant attitude? And what, in the end, was their plan? The day full of sniper shots had kept the entire camp on eggshells: hiding from the shots, searching for the shooter, returning fire when they could—fruitlessly, he realized now. But what purpose did that serve? The recent string of guerrilla attacks had been almost deliberately random, apparently not even decoys designed to lead them in a certain direction. But of course not,

Shon realized. If we could tell that they were trying to lead us in one direction, we’d go directly in the other, and they know that. They’re not trying to lead us anywhere, just keep us busy. So it is a decoy tactic, but for what?

Keep us busy long enough, he thought with a sigh, and sooner or later the whole army’s going to fall apart. We have insurgency in the ranks, the bioweapon’s still destroying our patrols, and we haven’t heard from Morgan in weeks. I don’t even know if my messages to her are getting through. All we have are the same old orders, the last orders she ever gave us: contain the population, and hold the island. No explanation of what we’re holding it for, just . . . hold it. It doesn’t make sense.