by Dan Wells
“It’s not like that,” she said.
“It’s exactly like that,” said Marcus. “Nobody has a . . . destiny. I mean, nobody has some kind of inescapable path for their life. This mug was made from clay, and that clay could have been anything at all until somebody made it into a mug. People aren’t mugs, we’re clay. Living, breathing, thinking, feeling clay, and we can shape ourselves into anything we want, and we keep shaping ourselves all our lives, getting better and better at whatever we want to be, and when we want to be something else we just smooth out the clay and start over. Your lack of ‘purpose’ is the single best thing about you, because it means you can be whatever you want.”
She closed her eyes, her chest swelling with hope, her heart crying out to believe him, but she couldn’t. Not yet. “What about the Partial soldiers?” she asked. “They were built for one thing, and one thing only—are they locked in one place? They can’t even disobey orders without working against their own biology. What are they supposed to do now?”
“Believing that they had no choices is the attitude that ended the world,” said Marcus. He paused, staring at the floor, and then spoke again. “I had a friend named Vinci—I suppose after the nuke you might never get the chance to meet him, but he was a good man. He was Partial infantry, a sentry in Trimble’s army, but he was also funny, and clever, and smart enough to see that his world wasn’t working, and brave enough to try to change it. He remade himself as much as any human ever has. Look at Green, or Falin.” He shrugged, and his voice grew distant. “Look at Samm.”
“Samm changed,” said Kira, nodding. “So did Heron.”
“You saw Heron again?”
“We were almost friends,” said Kira, and stared at the swirls of her tea. “Not quite, but almost.”
“She helped you get to Denver?”
Kira nodded. “I came back with Morgan, but Samm and Heron stayed behind to help the survivors. I thought one day I might see them again, but then the snow made travel almost impossible, and now with the bomb, I just . . .” She thought about Samm, and their final moments. Their one and only kiss. She searched for the right words to express feelings she wasn’t even sure of. “I miss them, but I’m glad they’re not here. I’m glad they’re safe. I hope they stay safe, and stay in Denver, and if I’m right about the cures, they can live long, happy lives way after the rest of us all die of cancer or hypothermia or . . . bullets. Or crazy madmen who want to kill us and steal our blood.”
Marcus took a sip of his tea. “You make it sound so dangerous here.”
Kira laughed—not a loud laugh or a strong one, barely a chuckle, but more genuine than anything she’d felt in a long time.
“Dangerous and hopeless,” said Marcus. “But I don’t believe it is. You weren’t ‘designed’ to cure RM, but you did it anyway. You weren’t designed to cross the toxic wasteland, but you did that too, and then you escaped from I don’t know how many bad guys, and crossed through the middle of a war zone, and while every other group of weary, bloodied refugees is getting smaller and smaller, yours is getting bigger. You’re teaching people, and you’re recruiting people, and it’s not because you were built that way, or because you had some kind of glorious destiny to fulfill, but because you’re you. You’re Kira Walker. You’re not going to save the world because you’re the chosen one, you’re going to save it because you want to save it, and nobody in this world works harder for what they want than you do.”
Kira put down her mug. “I’ve really missed you, Marcus.”
He grinned. “I’ll bet you say that to all the guys.”
She had loved him once, but then she’d changed and he hadn’t. Now that she’d found him again . . . “You’re not the man I left.”
“It’s been kind of a busy year.”
“Put down your mug.”
He blinked, surprised, then set his mug on the table just before she stepped into him, wrapping her arms around him and kissing him fiercely. He kissed her back and she pressed him against the counter, holding him tightly, needing him more in this moment than she’d ever needed anything. Outside the storm raged, the mainland burned, and the island cowered in fear. Kira forgot it all and kissed Marcus.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
“They’re coming,” said Falin.
Kira looked up from her pack, fitting in the last bottles of frozen water. “Who?”
“The whole damn Partial army,” said Falin, racing to catch up. He’d been halfway up an office building, scouting behind them while Kira and Marcus and the rest of the refugees foraged for food. “They’re in East Meadow now, but they’re not stopping. They probably already got word that the humans had fled.”
“The entire army?” asked Marcus.
“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 beache
s, 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.
“It makes me feel like bait,” said Kira, and nodded back to the refugees struggling behind them. “I just hope none of the others get caught when the trap goes off.”
They traveled nearly a mile, and Kira felt her toes and face go numb, when Levi called out a warning. “Bridge out!”
“What?” Kira scrambled ahead to join him, and stared openmouthed at the giant gap in the road. “Did it collapse?”
“It looks like someone ahead of us already blew it,” said Tomas, and pointed at the rubble. “That’s a blast pattern, and you can see the blackened marks under the edges of the snow.”
Kira walked farther forward, looking at the rocky shores of the island. “We’ll have to swim across.”
“In this weather?” asked Marcus. “That channel is deep and ice cold—if it weren’t seawater, it’d be frozen solid. Not to mention, we were planning to blow every bridge we crossed—if whoever’s ahead of us did the same, we’ll never make it across every gap. We’d just be stranding ourselves out there.”
Kira cursed, grinding her teeth. “They’ve probably blown the eastern causeway, too.”
“It’s not worth going three miles out of our way to find out,” said Tomas. “We’ll have to go back north, and then west on the mainland.”
Kira shook her head. “The army’s behind us.”
“And now it’ll be closer behind us,” said Levi. “Do we really have a choice?”
“No,” said Kira. She made a fist, growling in frustration, then took a breath and forced herself to think critically. “If we assume they’ve blown all the other bridges, our only access to the landing zone—or what we assume is the landing zone—is overland through Inwood and Rockaway.”
“That’s right,” said Marcus.
She turned and started trudging back up the road. “Come on. We have to get back to the others and turn them around.” She rubbed her hands together, looking at the sky as the clouds slowly closed overhead, heralding another storm. Maybe Marcus is wrong, and I do have a destiny. Maybe we all do.
Maybe it’s our destiny to die.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
Kira led her refugees north, around a narrow inlet of the bay that cut deep into the ruined city, and then west along a broad thoroughfare called Merrick Road. It made them easy to find, but with the army so close behind them, they had no hope of hiding. Their only hope was to outpace the army, and Kira drove the group as hard as she could, shouting at them to run long after they had no breath to keep going.
A straggler in the back stumbled and fell, blood welling up from a gunshot wound; seconds later the sound of it reached them, echoing dully through the empty streets.
“Long-range sniper,” said Green. He winced with each step, struggling to keep up even with the slowest humans. Kira opened her mouth to yell, ready to tell the group to scatter into cover, but Green stopped her. “The snowfall’s getting thicker by the second; they won’t get more than a few more shots that good. They’re just trying to slow us down.”
“I don’t want to let anyone die,” said Kira. But she didn’t want to leave the main road, either, and taking cover would only give the army time to catch up. I’d hoped we might be able to talk to them, she thought, but if they’re shooting us on sight, that’s probably not an option. She studied the road and saw an apartment building two blocks ahead that protruded farther out than its neighboring buildings; the upper windows had a commanding view of the entire road behind them. She scrambled across the ice to Levi, half a block ahead of her, and pointed it out. “With a sniper up there, we can bring their pursuit to a halt. They’ll be walking straight into our fire.”
He turned toward the building, ready to carry out the plan, but she stopped him. “No, not you.”
“What?”
“Whoever goes up there might not come down,” she said. “You’re not a hired gun here, you’re one of us.”
“It’s a solid plan,” said Levi. “And I’m a—”
Kira cut him off before he could say it. “Partial, human, it doesn’t matter. We’re all in this together now. I’m not going to send you into that building just because you’re designed for it. We’re working together now, and—”
“Kira.” Levi held up a hand. “I wasn’t going to say ‘I’m a Partial,’ I was going to say ‘I’m a crack shot.’ But I appreciate the sentiment.”
“Oh.” Kira blinked. “Well, I need you with the group. You’re a natural leader. And you’re not the only one who can shoot.” She turned to face the line of human refugees. “How many of you can shoot a rifle?”
A few people tentatively raised their hands, and Kira nodded. “Now: How many of you are trained?”
Two hands stayed up. Kira swallowed her sudden guilt and self-loathing, forcing herself to think of the group, and pointed to the heavier of the two. “What’s your name?”
“Jordan.” The rest of the column shuffled past them, trudging onward through the snow.
“Let me do it,” said Levi. “I’m a better shot.”
“You’ve never seen me shoot,” said Jordan. Levi merely raised his eyebrow.
Kira handed Jordan a rifle and pointed to the window above them. “I want you to go up there, watch behind us, and shoot any pursuers you see.”
Jordan looked back and forth between Kira and Levi, processing the request.
“Accuracy isn’t as important as just keeping them busy,” said Kira. “If you’re as good as you said you were, you’ll be fine.”
“Until they shoot me or capture me,” said Jordan.
Kira clenched her jaw. “Look, I know it’s a lot to ask, but you would be—”
Jordan grabbed the rifle from Kira’s hand. “Hells yeah, I’ll do it.” He checked the sights. “The world’s ending anyway, and if I get to go down taking out a bunch of Partial bastards—” He glanced nervously at Levi. “I mean, enemies. Enemy soldiers. Sorry about that, friend. Old habits.”
Another shot rang out, and a refugee in the back of the line fell down with a strangled cry. Kira shouted for the others to hurry, then looked back at Jordan. “You can save a lot of people.”
Jordan let out a long, nervous breath, then checked the rifle one more time. “I was getting sick of walking anyway. Bad leg.”
“You’re a hero,” said Kira.
“Then do me a favor and keep enough of these people alive to remember me.” Jordan turned and stomped through the snow. Kira ran back toward the fa
llen refugee, but Green and the human supporting him waved her away.
“He’s dead,” said Green. “Get this line moving faster.”
“You’re the weak link,” Kira shouted back, trying to sound playful but knowing she’d failed miserably.
“I’m going to catch up to you and slap you in the mouth,” said Green, teasing much more successfully than Kira had. She looked at the two sniper victims, facedown and motionless in the snow, fading into the cold gray storm as the group walked on. She pushed forward, encouraging where she could, prodding and cajoling, trying to keep the column moving. Another sharp crack split the air, closer and with a markedly different sound; Jordan had started firing.
The army was getting close.
The snow stung their eyes and clung to their lashes, and the whole city seemed to blur into a pale white limbo. They passed homes and schools and parks and trees, all blended to the same featureless nothing, their steps marked by the sounds of gunfire behind them: single shots that echoed through the storm, amplified and muffled and everywhere and nowhere. The column reached a crossroads, and Marcus led them southwest on Foxhurst Road, still miles away from their destination. The single shots behind them erupted into a cacophony of automatic gunfire, a vicious onslaught that tore through the storm and then just as abruptly fell silent. Jordan’s gone, thought Kira. I hope he bought us enough time.
Night fell, and the pale-white limbo darkened to a deep, black shadow that seemed to shroud the world in danger. The falling snow was even more blinding now, and the refugees begged for rest, but Kira didn’t dare stop moving. More bullets flew out of the darkness, not sniper shots but advance scouts, harassing their flanks while the main army hurried to catch up. Kira assigned a team to hold them off—Levi and three of the humans—and another to explore the city on their sides, looking for Partial forces that might be trying to flank them. Kira tried to think of how she could possibly hail them and convince them of her cause, but the chances of that seemed to fall with every new attack, every new gunshot, every new fleeing victim left bleeding and dead on the side of the nightmare road.