Partials series 1-3. Dan Wells

at the watchtower, but still saw only empty buildings.

      They reached the far side and pulled the wagon behind the wall of another building, and Jayden peeked back out with his binoculars. Scruffy emerged silently from the shadows.

      “How did you get over here?” Kira asked.

      He shrugged and climbed into the wagon.

      “He’s still not back yet,” said Jayden, eyes glued to whatever he was watching. “And I don’t hear any radio traffic. I think we’re still secret.” He ducked back behind the wall and stood up. “Let’s go.”

      Skinny joined them a few blocks later, appearing out of nowhere and climbing into the wagon.

      “He didn’t see us,” he said simply.

      Jayden nodded. “Perfect.”

      They continued to dodge and weave through the buildings, keeping to low, narrow streets and using the map to avoid the Defense Grid watchmen. They stopped at a large stone courthouse, and Yoon began unhooking the horses.

      “You can’t see it from here,” said Jayden, “but we’re only a few blocks from the river. There are two bridges right next to each other, and a single watch post that covers both of them. We think we can sneak across, but we’re leaving the horses and the wagon here.”

      Kira looked at the forested park across the street and imagined it full of more panthers, hiding in the shadows. “Is Yoon staying with them?”

      Jayden shook his head. “I’d rather have an extra gun in Manhattan and risk walking home.” He pointed up the steps to the courthouse. “We’re going to put them in there and hope nothing happens.”

      The stairs were too steep, and the wagon too heavy, to risk pulling it up as well; they carried up the gear by hand and carefully walked the horses up the narrow granite steps. The courthouse windows were broken, of course, but the heavy doors were more or less intact. Yoon took Gabe and Kira to the park across the street, cutting armloads of tall grass with a thick, curved knife and carrying it back to the horses. They pushed the desks into a makeshift corral and blocked the doors closed with a set of heavy metal couches. It occurred to Kira that if they didn’t make it back, the horses would be trapped inside forever. She shook the thought from her head.

      The soldiers checked their weapons carefully, making sure the barrels were clear, the chambers were loaded, and the moving parts moved the way they were supposed to. Kira examined her rifle as closely as she could, studying pieces of the weapon she’d never even thought about before, realizing for the first time that her life literally depended on them. The chamber was fully loaded, plus she had more clips in her backpack, cinched tightly to her back, and two more in easy reach on her belt. Gabe revved his minigun, checking the rotation of the barrels, and shouldered a massive backpack full of ammo. Jayden slung his rifle over his shoulder and examined a pair of semiautomatic handguns on his hips. Skinny and Scruffy bore long-barreled rifles with thick sound and flash suppressors. Haru’s gun was short and versatile with a collapsible stock; Yoon had a similar gun, plus the long, wicked knife strapped to her back.

      Jayden clapped Kira on the back. “You ready?”

      No, Kira thought, I’m cold, and I’m hot, and I’m tired, and I’m terrified, and I’ve never been less ready for anything in my life. She forced herself to smile.

      “I’m ready. Let’s go attack some super-soldiers.”

      The bridge started by the courthouse, and they were on it for nearly half a mile before they reached the water. As they neared the edge they dropped down to hands and knees, crawling below the rim of a waist-high wall, a tiny strip of concrete that would shield them from the sight of the invisible watchman on one of the buildings above. Skinny and Scruffy crawled ahead, marking traps and defusing trip wires for the rest of the group to pass through safely. Even with the marks, Kira sometimes couldn’t see what each trap was supposed to be.

      She imagined a vast Partial army hiding in the skyscrapers across the river, coincidentally—or not—choosing this exact moment to mount an attack. The traps were down; the door was open. Was she betraying humanity?

      No. She was saving it. She clenched her jaw and kept crawling.

      Brooklyn had surprised Kira by making tall buildings commonplace; Manhattan shocked her completely by making those giant buildings seem small. The island was a mountain of metal, stretching so high into the clouds it seemed to be literally scraping the sky. The base of the city was a carpet of green—parks and trees and strips of grass had long ago overrun their borders and stretched out into the streets, seeds finding cracks and roots finding weak spots until the asphalt had become warped and broken, and the roads had become a forest of new growth. Kudzu crept inexorably up the sides of buildings, coating the bottom stories in a layer of vines and leaves so thick the buildings themselves seemed to be growing out of the ground.

      As their bridge reached the far side of the river and stretched out into the city, they finally stood up. Kira found herself at treetop level in a literal urban jungle. Birds nested in the vines and rain gutters, and feral cats prowled cautiously through the latticed framework of exposed offices hundreds of feet in the air. She heard a baying of hounds and, she was certain, the distant trumpeting of an elephant.

      “They should call this Animalhattan,” said Gabe, shooting Kira a quick smile. She grinned and nodded.

      “Everybody stay down,” said Jayden. “We know Brooklyn pretty well, but this is all new territory. We shouldn’t see any Partials here, but it doesn’t hurt to be careful.” He pointed to a pale building just a block or two to the north. “That tower will give us the best vantage point over this section of the island; we’ll go up, get the lay of the land, and move on from there. Stay close and try to keep quiet.”

      Kira crawled after the others as the bridge angled down and curved through a stand of towering trees. Ground level was a whole new world—a schizophrenic blend of forest and junkyard where Kira had to be extra careful with her footing. The sheer mass of the skyscrapers around them resulted in more debris than usual—shards of glass and chunks of stonework, bits of plaster and crumbled drywall and untold reams of paper, some of it blowing free and some of it half-decomposed in a thick accumulation of dirt, leaves, and fungus. Long green tendrils wrapped around faded soda cans, wove through the spokes of rusted bicycles, and clung fiercely to the sides of old taxis and buses and road signs.

      Kira and the soldiers followed the road carefully, picking their way between leafy cars and rusty trees and piles of unrecognizable rubble. When they reached the pale building, Gabe set watch at the bottom of the stairs, and the rest climbed as high as they dared before Haru grew worried about stability. Twelve stories proved to be enough—this part of the island was mostly government buildings and apartments instead of giant office buildings, giving them an unobstructed view of the terrain to the north.

      “That strip of deeper green was probably a park,” said Jayden, pointing northeast. “Looks like it goes at least ten blocks, and those trees will give us good cover.”

      “They’ll also slow us down,” said Haru. “We should pick a wide street and head straight up the middle.” They debated for several minutes, while Yoon leaned out the neighboring window to coo at a pair of brightly colored birds. Kira studied the skyline, trying to drink in as much of the city as she could. Were there any landmarks she could use? Distinctive buildings she could find and remember if she ever got lost? As her eyes rolled over the cityscape, she saw a thin white line that seemed to be moving—a reflection, maybe, or . . . no. It was smoke. She pointed to it.

      “There’s a fire. Do you see it?”

      Jayden and Haru stopped talking, following her finger with their eyes.

      “Just beyond those three brown buildings, the ones sticking up.”

      “I see it,” said Haru. “It’s not a house fire, it’s too small and controlled. I think it’s a campfire.”

      “It’s a chimney,” said Jayden, peering through binoculars. “Someone’s living there.”