Fragments (38 page)

The Lower Bay was a treacherous maze of sunken masts and scaffolds and radar antennas,
jutting up from the water like a barnacled metal forest. Their pilot was the best
they could find on the island, and he navigated through it with white-knuckled intensity.
Their yacht was not the most maneuverable thing, and the controls were old and stiff.
Marcus crossed the narrow boat—a braver act than he liked to admit—and gripped the
far railing next to Woolf, who was looking at the ruins of the wrecked ships as they
glided by.

“Please tell me these aren’t what’s left of your previous missions,” said Marcus.

“In a manner of speaking,” said Woolf, “but these missions failed twelve years ago.
This is the last great NADI fleet, sailing north to attack the Partial stronghold
in New York—quite possibly the one we’re headed to now in White Plains. It was sunk
by Partial aircraft before it could enter the narrows.”

“And they’re still here?” asked Marcus, looking around at the wreckage. “Some of these
ships are sticking so far out of the water I don’t know if we can count them as sunk,
just grounded.”

“The bay through here was only about forty feet deep,” said Woolf, “more in the center
where they dredged it as a shipping lane, probably much less now that it’s collected
more than a decade’s worth of silt. The bigger ships are out there,” he said, pointing
to the southeast, “on an ocean shelf just south of Long Island. All the bigger ships
that couldn’t make it in this far.”

“Why were any of the ships trying to get in this far?” asked Marcus. “Even if they
weren’t attacking a narrow river, a fleet this size would be overkill.”

“I imagine overkill was exactly what they were going for,” said Woolf, watching as
another metal monstrosity floated gently past. They twisted up from the ocean floor
like giant metal tentacles, the last, frozen remnants of a rusted kraken. “I know
my unit was.”

They left the worst of it when they passed south of Staten Island, crossing from the
Lower Bay to the Raritan Bay, but even here there were shipwrecks and hazards. Their
pilot watched the northern shore with a practiced eye, taking them into a small inlet
that narrowed quickly to a kind of swampy marsh.

“Why are we stopping?” asked Woolf.

“This is it,” said the pilot. “This is the Arthur Kill.”

“This is the canal?” It looked more like a creek through a winding park than the deep
shipping lane they’d seen on the map. “Are you sure?”

“Trust me,” said the pilot, “I used to live around here. That thing west of us is
the Raritan River—this is the Arthur Kill. It’s man-made, and back before the Break
they had to dredge it every year to keep it open. Now that it’s not being dredged,
I guess it just filled up with silt.”

“Enough to grow reeds on the sides,” said Woolf. “Can we still make it?”

“I can give it a shot,” said the pilot, and cranked the engine into low gear. They
putted almost lazily up the narrow passage, marsh birds screeching and singing and
hooting back and forth around them, and Marcus felt like he was on a safari through
a giant metal canyon. The buildings on both sides were oppressively industrial, not
the once-shiny buildings of Manhattan but the weather-beaten processing plants of
the Chemical Coast. The water everywhere around here had an oily sheen to it, and
Marcus wondered how the birds could survive on it. A giant fish jumped in front of
them, snapping at something near the surface, and Marcus couldn’t help but imagine
the reeds full of hungry, mutant crocodiles.

The driver took them as far as the Rahway River before making a detour; the Rahway
was pumping enough water into the channel to keep the river south of it clear, but
the tributaries farther north presumably had better outlets for their water than this
artificial ditch, and the span between here and Newark Bay appeared to be sealed tight
with sediment and reeds. They turned west up the Rahway, surrounded now on both sides
by tall chemical silos, and wound through it until a series of massive bridges passed
over them: a railroad and a multilane highway so broad it took four bridges to contain
it. “That’s the Jersey Turnpike,” said the pilot, and brought them into shore near
the base of the railroad. “I lived off exit 17E.”

Woolf had the pilot steer them toward the coast, and the Gridsmen gathered their equipment
and starting wading to shore; Marcus eyed the reeds on the riverbank warily, still
half expecting a crocodile, before jumping in after them.

The New Jersey Turnpike plowed straight through the city on the shore, a giant metropolis
separated from Manhattan by yet another giant metropolis between them. “Either they’re
not watching us this far west,” said Woolf, “or they see us no matter what we do.
I say we screw stealth and make the best time we can.”

“J
ust a few more minutes,” said Haru. “They’ll be here.”

“And the Partials with them,” said Private Kabza.

“We’ll be fine,” said Haru. “How many of these drops have we made, and how many times
have you been murdered by Partials?”

“That’s not an entirely fair way to frame it,” said Kabza, but Haru cut him off.

“I said we’ll be fine,” Haru insisted. “Check with the rear guard again.”

Kabza got on the radio and sent their rear guard a brief, coded message, whispering
into the mic and then listening carefully as the man on the other end whispered back.
He signed off and turned back to Haru. “Our exit route’s still clear. I say we dump
this stuff and run; the Voice can find it themselves without us here to hand it to
them. It’s not like they’re paying us.”

“Did you say ‘the Voice’?” asked Haru.

“Of course I did,” said Kabza. “What do you call them?”

“Delarosa hated the Voice,” said Haru. “She’d never take on their name.”

The radio blinked, and Kabza held it to his ear. After a moment he breathed a quick
“Confirmed, over” and looked at Haru. “Point guard’s spotted them. They should be
here in a few minutes.”

“Are they being chased by Partials?”

“He didn’t say,” said Kabza dryly. “I think he might have led with that if it was
an issue, but I can call back to see if maybe it just slipped his mind.”

“Just relax,” said Haru, “this is what I’ve been telling you. We’ll be fine.”

“Fantastic,” said Kabza. “I’m glad you have such unerring trust in this woman.” He
paused, watching the forest, then spoke again. “Speaking of which, why do you have
such unerring trust in this woman? I thought you hated her.”

“Delarosa and I . . . disagree on some things,” said Haru. “When she first escaped,
she was using innocent civilians as bait—including me, which I think made me a little
justifiably upset. But her core principles I agree with completely: that our shores
need to be protected, that the Partials need to be destroyed, and that desperate times
call for desperate measures. Delarosa is willing to do what it takes, and she knows
that as long as she doesn’t put innocent humans at unnecessary risk, I’ll support
her.”

“Define ‘unnecessary risk,’” said Kabza. “I’ve spent the last three days in hostile
territory, picking my nose and hoping nobody decides to shoot me while I hand Delarosa
something we could easily have just left at a dead drop. Is that unnecessary?”

“She asked for something . . . unusual this time,” said Haru, peering into the trees.
“I want to know what she’s planning on doing with it.”

A moment later their perimeter guard flashed a silent hand signal, and Haru and Kabza
watched as three cloaked figures stepped out of the trees. Delarosa pulled off her
hood and stood silently, waiting. Haru stood up from cover and walked to her. “You’re
late.”

Delarosa’s face was stony. “You’re impatient. Do you have my gear?”

Haru waved, and Kabza and another soldier brought out two heavy crates full of scuba
equipment: masks, fins, wet suits, and four tanks of compressed air, recently filled.
“The tanks are almost mint,” said Haru. “Best condition you’ll find on Long Island,
and removed at great personal risk from the ruins of the Defense Grid armory.” Delarosa
motioned her followers forward, but Haru stepped in front to block them. “Before you
take them anywhere, I want to know what you’re going to use them for.”

“For breathing underwater,” said Delarosa. Haru didn’t respond, and Delarosa cocked
her head to the side. “You’ve never asked about my plans before.”

“Because everything you’ve asked for has had an obvious purpose,” said Haru. “Bullets,
explosives, solar panels, radio equipment—that’s all standard stuff for a band of
guerrillas. But you know my rules, and the conditions on which I’ll bring you these
gear drops, so I want your assurance: No civilians will be harmed by whatever you’re
doing.”

“Civilians are being harmed by every second we delay here,” said Delarosa.

Haru kept his gaze steady. “What is the scuba gear for?”

“Scavenging,” said Delarosa simply. “In twelve years we’ve picked a lot of this island
clean, but there’s still plenty to be found offshore. By giving me this, you’re assuring
that I won’t have to ask you for nearly as many favors in the future.”

“What’s been underwater for twelve years that could possibly be so useful?” asked
Haru. “Seems like any supplies or weaponry submerged for that long would be pretty
corroded by now.”

“I guess we’ll see.”

Haru stared at her, trying to decide what he thought. Finally he turned and walked
away. “Don’t make me sorry I helped you.” He walked back to the rest of his men and
signaled that it was time to leave. Private Kabza fell into step beside him.

“That’s a relief,” said Kabza. “The more they scavenge for themselves, the less we
have to put ourselves at risk like this.”

“Maybe,” said Haru, still thinking about what Delarosa had said, and how she’d said
it.

“What are you going to do?”

Haru furrowed his brow, plans already forming in his head. “We’re going to follow
them.”

K
ira and her companions lost most of their gear in the river: Samm’s rifle, Afa’s radio,
and almost all their food. Afa held on to his backpack, but the documents inside were
soaked and useless, the paper disintegrating and the ink running hopelessly. His screen,
thankfully, survived the trip, but the Tokamin to power it had washed away. Kira knew
that this was potentially the most devastating loss, but it wasn’t the one that made
her saddest. That was Heron’s horse, Dug, who’d broken both front legs in the crash.
He’d survived, but all he could do was scream in pain and fear, his breath frantic
and his mouth flecked in foam. Samm had ended his misery with a bullet.

They kept moving as soon as they recovered enough to do so, Samm and Heron and Kira
taking turns on Buddy and Bobo while Afa, still wounded and nearly delirious, had
to be tied into Oddjob’s saddle to keep from falling off. Kira was convinced that
his leg was infected, and they raided every pharmacy they passed, trying to replace
their lost meds. As they traveled Kira was surprised at her ability to keep up with
the others, matching not only the horses’ pace, but their stamina as well. She had
always known she was strong, and chalked it up to a lifetime of bitter survival—she
had to work for everything she got, and that had made her physically fit—but she realized
now that it was more than that. She could match the Partials stride for stride, mile
for mile. It was a boon, but it disturbed her to learn it. Another piece of evidence
that deep down inside, she was profoundly inhuman.

Their path took them north a few miles, back up past the river to Highway 34, and
on this they struck out west. The land there was more of what they’d passed on the
east side of the river, flat prairies as far as the eye could see, dotted here and
there by stands of trees or dark lines of scrub and underbrush, marking a gully or
a ditch or an old homestead. Kira thought it was pretty, especially when the sun began
to set and the entire scene, both earth and sky, lit up in fierce reds and yellows
and oranges. She looked at Samm, the beauty of the scene too much not to share with
somebody, but his eyes were dark, and his face morose. She angled toward him and caught
his attention with a nod.

“What’s wrong?”

“What? Nothing.”

“Samm.”

He looked at her, then out at the glowing sunset. “It’s just . . . this.”

Kira followed his gaze. “It’s gorgeous.”

“It is,” said Samm. “But it’s also . . . I was stationed here, or I guess I just traveled
through here, during the revolution. It was . . .” He stopped again, as if the memory
was painful. “You know how back home, in the east, everything’s so broken, and run-down,
and the buildings are all in ruins and overgrown with kudzu and weeds and everything
looks . . . old? We’re surrounded, every minute of our lives, by the evidence of what
we’ve done, what we’ve destroyed. But out here . . .” He paused again. “Look around.
There’s not a house for miles, just a flat road that’s still in pretty good condition.
It’s as if the war never happened.”

“So you miss the reminders of destruction?” asked Kira.

“It’s not that,” said Samm, “it’s just . . . I used to think the world was worse for
what we’ve done, both our species, but out here I don’t think the world even cares
who we are. Or were. We came and went, and life goes on, and the land that was always
here before us will still be here after we’re dead and gone. Birds will still fly.
Rain will still fall. The world didn’t end, it just . . . reset.”

Kira fell silent, thinking about his words. They seemed so pure, in a way, so unexpected
from the Samm she thought she knew. He was a soldier, a fighter, a stoic wall, and
yet here was a softer side, an almost poetic side, that she’d never known was there.
She cast a long look at him as they rode: He looked eighteen, as all Partial infantry
did, but he’d been alive for nineteen years. He’d been eighteen years old for nineteen
years. But he’d started life as an eighteen-year-old, so did that make him . . . thirty-seven?
The thought twisted her brain into knots, trying to figure out how old he really was
inside. How he thought of himself, and how he thought of her.