RM would slowly strangle humanity, one death at a time, with no new generations to replace it. A war, on the other hand, could snuff it out in weeks.
Kira pressed herself deeper into the couch, willing herself to fall asleep.
In the morning she was tired and stiff.
Tovar led them out the back of the house and through his maze of safeguards: over a temporary bridge, through another house’s weathered patio, and back to the road nearly half a mile down. The rain had stopped, and Dolly pulled the cart swiftly, so they kept a good pace. Kira tried to force herself not to look behind, not to focus on the hundred phantom Voices she imagined behind every tree and broken car. They had to stay visible, in case the Defense Grid backup came looking for them, but that visibility made Kira feel vulnerable and exposed. Even Jayden seemed anxious. They broke for lunch when the sun was high overhead, and Kira drank the last of her water while she watched the rows of ruined houses. Nothing moved. She rubbed her aching feet and checked Lanier on his stretcher; he was unconscious, and his temperature was dangerously elevated.
“How is he?” asked Gianna.
“Not good,” Kira sighed. “We’re running low on Nalox, and now I think he’s got an infection.” She rummaged in her medkit for antibiotics and began prepping a small shot.
“Is it good that he’s asleep like that?”
“Well, it’s not awesome,” said Kira, “but it’s not bad. The painkiller we’re using is designed for battlefield use; you can give him way too much and not worry about killing him. Our battlefield cleansers, on the other hand, don’t seem to be doing their job.” She stuck him with the antibiotic and injected the full dose. “If we don’t get picked up by reinforcements pretty soon, he’s in big trouble.”
Kira heard a distant whistle and looked up suddenly; Jayden had heard it too. “The scouts,” he said. “They’ve seen someone.” They pulled everyone back into a nearby house, the windows broken out and the interior filled with enough windblown soil to support new plant growth; kudzu already covered the couch. Kira crouched in the corner behind a sagging upright piano, Lanier trembling fitfully behind her. Marcus caught her eye and forced a smile.
She heard another whistle, a series of short bursts she recognized as “the people I warned you about are friendly.” She started to stand, but Jayden motioned her back down.
“Doesn’t hurt to make sure,” he whispered.
A minute later a wagon rolled past, a long, armored trailer pulled by six stamping horses. Jayden whistled loudly—“friendlies coming out, don’t shoot”—and trooped outside. Kira and Marcus carried Lanier onto the porch, where they were met by another team of medics. Kira gave them a full update on his condition, and the newly arrived soldiers handed out water and protein bars as they helped everyone into the wagon.
Tovar led Dolly out from behind the house, grimacing unhappily. “Do they shoot me now, or when they get home?”
“Ideally they don’t shoot you at all,” said Kira.
Jayden saluted the leader of the new soldiers; Kira didn’t recognize his rank insignia. “Thanks for the pickup.”
The other soldier saluted him back. “We didn’t expect to find you for a few more hours; you’re making good time.”
“This trader’s been a big help,” said Jayden, nodding to Tovar. “Carried most of our gear in his wagon.” He took a drink of water and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “We haven’t seen anybody else, so if anybody followed us, they decided not to mess with an armed Grid patrol.”
“Damn Voice,” said the soldier. “We have outriders looking for whatever they can find—your explosion out there stirred up a lot of trouble back home. We’re going to stop at Dogwood for a debrief.”
The wagon turned and carried them back, the driver lashing the six-horse team into a pretty good gallop. The sun on the armored shell was hot, baking the inside, and Kira felt herself drifting away; she woke up with her head in Marcus’s lap, sitting up abruptly as the wagon jerked to a stop. Dogwood turned out to be an old power station, a guardhouse on the edge of the settled East Meadow area. There was a high chain fence all around it, and another soldier opened the gate for them as they approached. Kira saw more soldiers on the perimeter.
“We can walk from here,” said Kira, but the lead soldier in the wagon shook his head.
“Mkele wants to debrief all of you, not just the trader.”
Debrief, thought Kira. Military-speak for “interrogate politely.” “Who’s Mkele?”
“Intelligence,” said the soldier. “Command’s getting pretty freaked out by your news. I think they’re just hoping you’ll know something important.” He helped them down from the wagon and led them into the old power station building. A young man in full combat armor took Kira to a small room and left her there, closing the door behind him.
She heard the lock click shut.
The room was small and unadorned, though she could see from the discolored linoleum that several pieces of furniture had been recently removed. Rough outlines of desks and bookshelves covered the floor like a ghostly office, an afterimage of an older time. There was no table, but there were two chairs in the far corner.
She sat and waited, planning out her conversation, scripting both sides and sounding effortlessly brilliant, but the wait grew longer, and her subtle barbs about being held unfairly for questioning turned to angry rants about unlawful imprisonment. Eventually she got bored and stopped altogether.
There was a clock on the wall, the old circular kind with little black sticks, and she wondered for the umpteenth time in her life how they worked. She had a similar clock in her house, prettier than this one—whoever had lived there before her, before the Break, had had a thing for glass. Apparently the hands would move if you powered them, but digital clocks used less energy, so they were all she’d ever seen.
Well, all she could remember. Had her father ever had a round clock with sticks? It was stupid that she didn’t even know what this type of clock was called—there was no good reason for something so ubiquitous to just disappear from human vocabulary. And yet try as she might, she couldn’t remember ever seeing one that worked, or learning how to read them, or hearing what they were called. They were a relic of a dead culture.
The big stick was pointing at the ten, and the little stick was halfway between the two and the three. Ten oh two and . . . a half? She shrugged. This clock ran out of juice at exactly ten oh two and half. Or whatever it said. She stood up to examine it. It must be bolted to the wall, or it would have fallen off by now.
The door opened and a man walked in—Kira recognized him as the mysterious man from the town hall meeting. He was perhaps forty years old. His skin was even darker than her own—mostly African descent, she guessed, as opposed to her mostly Indian.
“Good evening, Ms. Walker.” He shut the door behind him and extended his hand; Kira stood and shook it.
“It’s about time.”
“I am deeply sorry for the wait. My name is Mr. Mkele.” He gestured to Kira’s chair, pulled the other a few feet away, and sat down. “Please, sit.”
“You have no right to hold me in here—”
“I apologize if you got that impression,” said Mkele. “We are not holding you here, it was simply my desire to keep you safe while you waited. Did they bring you food?”
“They