Partials series 1-3. Dan Wells

all was the medical computer, a portable unit with its own generator, designed for fieldwork in undeveloped countries. Kira couldn’t remember what the old world looked like—the old days, when she was a child, when the wasteland she lived in was still “developed.” She thought about the maggots on the dog, crawling and eating and blind.

      They tended to the horses, set a watch, and settled in for the night. Kira wrapped herself tightly in her blanket, not cold but still somehow freezing, teeth chattering in the darkness. Drifting through the air was a soft voice singing—Gabe, standing watch. His voice was low and sweet, surprising from such a large frame, and he sang an old song Kira’s teacher had sung sometimes at the school, about losing a love and hiding from the memory. It made her think of Marcus, and the last thing they’d said to each other. She loved him, or she thought she did, or she thought she used to. And yet every time he talked about being together, she couldn’t handle it.

      Why can’t I talk to him? About the things that really matter? And why can’t he see that it’s not enough to just give up and wait for the end? How can anyone even think that?

      She covered her head with her blanket and listened to Gabe’s melancholy singing. When she fell asleep, she dreamed of death—not just for her, not just for her species, but for every living thing she had ever known. The Earth was flat and wide and brown, a field of dirt as barren as the moon, a single road stretching into the endless distance. The last to fall were the buildings, distant and solemn, the gravestones for an entire world. Then they disappeared, and there was nothing left but nothing.

      

      Jayden woke her early in the morning, and together they roused the others and set off through a thin gray mist. Haru was leading the horses this time, flicking the reins gently and clicking his tongue to urge them on. Yoon sat in the back with Kira, rolling her shoulders in slow circles to work out the kinks in her muscles. In the early light they could see the airport across a wide bay. Fog curled off the water.

      They traveled through a few more miles of city before reaching the next bridge, the longest yet, stretching far across the bay to reconnect the peninsula with the main body of the island. They saw the bridge long before they reached it, and Kira hoped desperately that it was still intact. If they couldn’t cross here, it would mean days lost from their journey.

      Were people already looking for them? The salvage run was scheduled to go overnight, so no one should miss them yet—unless Marcus had told someone the truth about where they were going. She wanted to trust him, she couldn’t think of a single reason not to, and yet he had refused to help. He had refused to come. She needed him with her more than she needed the rifle she was holding, and yet . . .

      They stopped by a massive parking lot, acres across from one shore of the peninsula to the other. The bridge was blocked at the mouth; they crept forward to find a makeshift barricade of old cars, now long abandoned. Skinny and Scruffy stood watch while the rest of them heaved and pushed, hooking up the horses to clear a path through the wreckage. Kira forced herself to stand tall in the wagon as they crossed the bridge, the tallest thing for hundreds of yards in every direction. It terrified her. That was why she did it.

      The far side was more open than the peninsula, full of fields and trees instead of abandoned buildings, and Kira breathed more easily with the airport far behind them. The openness lasted only a few miles before they plunged back into the city, following a wide avenue past shopping centers and close-pressed homes of wood and brick. Most of them were crumbling in on themselves, vine-covered ruins in a hungry jungle.

      A cluster of cars in an intersection were charred and blackened by some ancient fire—an accident, maybe, or the central bonfire of some long-forgotten riot. This was a bigger city than East Meadow, denser and more populated than any of the places Kira had visited on salvage runs and other trips. The section of the island east of East Meadow had caught the RM virus with dignity, gathering their families and dying quietly in their homes. The outer boroughs of New York City, on the other hand, had fought back harshly, lashing out at themselves when there was no other enemy to fight, and the city showed it. Now it was empty.

      Kira had grown up in the shadow of the Nassau hospital, the tallest building in East Meadow and, she had assumed, the tallest building in the world. The distant Manhattan skyline destroyed that illusion almost as soon as they got to Brooklyn. The road cut almost straight northwest, but Jayden pulled out a new map and guided Haru through corners and side streets, sometimes sticking to the main roads and sometimes taking long detours around them. After a few miles they halted by an overgrown cemetery and watered the horses in a pond, and while they drank, Yoon and Scruffy tied thick bundles of old T-shirts around the horses’ hooves to muffle the sound. As Kira watched, a family of antelope crept out from the distant trees—beautifully striped, with delicate spiral horns. They nibbled on the green shoots growing up between the headstones, then sprang into motion in perfect unison, bolting away at desperate speed. A deep black blur followed close behind them.

      “Panther,” said Yoon.

      Kira pulled her rifle closer. “Good to know.”

      “Panthers are supposed to be night hunters,” said Yoon. “This doesn’t fill me with confidence.”

      They climbed back into the wagon and continued moving, following the convoluted path on Jayden’s handmade map. The buildings got larger as they approached Manhattan, and once in the late morning they paused in the shadow of a thirty-story apartment complex, waiting for nearly an hour while Jayden peered carefully around the corner. Skinny slipped into the building beside them, and Scruffy disappeared behind a line of cars. Kira leaned close to Haru.

      “What are we doing?”

      “There’s a watchtower at the end of this road,” Haru whispered. “Two men and a radio, watching the line for any Partial movement. There’s no good way to avoid it, so we’re waiting.”

      “Waiting for what?”

      “They’ve got to pee eventually.”

      “Seriously?” Kira peeked around the corner cautiously, seeing nothing. “I can’t spot anything.”

      “That’s the point,” said Haru, pulling her back. “We know where to look, so Jayden’s got a bead on him. As soon as he moves, we move.”

      “And then we get seen by his partner,” said Kira. “If this is as easy as you guys make it out to be, anyone could sneak across.”

      “We only make it look easy,” said Jayden, lying behind a car with binoculars mounted on a tripod. “We’re just too damn good at our jobs.”

      “Even the most dedicated watchman gets lax after a decade of never seeing anything,” said Haru. “More than likely his partner’s asleep from taking the night watch. Be patient, but be ready to blaze the instant we give the signal.”

      Kira sat down on the curb, looking up at the high buildings surrounding them. Every now and then she saw a feral house cat creep through the rubble, or watch her from a windowsill. Minutes seemed to last for hours, and in the bottom of the steel and plaster canyon, Kira couldn’t tell how much time was truly passing. She started tossing bits of gravel into the street, trying to land them in the open window of a car across the way, but Gabe stilled her with a meaty hand.

      “I know the watchmen can’t see it, and they probably can’t hear, but it’s safer not to do that anyway.”

      Kira smiled sheepishly. “Yeah, sorry, that makes sense.” She saw a flash of movement from the far side of the street and looked over to see Scruffy waving from behind a broken wall.

      “How did he get over there?”

      Jayden raised his hand. “Get ready.”

      Yoon grabbed the reins, and Kira jumped to her feet, swallowing anxiously. Jayden paused, his hand in the air, and suddenly dropped it.

      “Go!”