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"You’re not safe! Leave!" I began wavingsemaphore that would hopefully not only hold their attention, but make it easier for me to spread : it would blow the air pastcrowd "You have to leave! Go!"
"Now I know the girl’s gone loony," said Dr Banks, soundingelse "You can’t tell a hat to do You can just hope the wor about its wor" Nathan sounded awed I followed his gaze, still waving, still trying to get my phero away froh the crush of the crowd as theyaway fro for the exit "My God, Sal, it’s working"
"Not on all of theht flooded the deck as we passed out from under the shaded part of the ferry launch The dock still continued, and tootheir hands against the hull Maybe one in five had listened to my desperate command that they withdraw… but one in five was better than none Those were the ones who ht be es
The ferry began to pull away fro into the water with a series of small splashes So to stabilize themselves, and still the others pushed their way forward, sending even more sleepwalkers to their deaths The boat continued inexorably on, sucking sleepwalkers under in its wake I, but I didn’t look away We had done this, with our h the city to the waterfront We were the reason these people were drowning The fact that we hadn’t asked them to come didn’t make any difference I owed it to them not to look away
Nathan’s hand settled on ainst hiether the two of us watched the sleepwalkers fall, until the end of the dock appeared and we sailed onward, out of the darkness and into the uncertainty of the light
Everything is ready I hold in lorious era It seeest through millennia of predation, and when they were finally free of us, they turned those brilliantus better Humanity did for the parasite what the parasite had once done for hu last, it is tihtful places in the sun, and never go back down into the dark again
Without the parasite, humanity would never have left the trees Without huut
There’s a beautiful symmetry to it, I think, and as he who has the power makes the rules, what I think is now and forever the only thing that matters
–FROM THE NOTES OF SHERMAN LEWIS (SUBJECT VIII, ITERATION III), NOVEMBER 2027
Mo when she was teaching him how to be a people, but I do
Mom thinks I don’t miss him, either, but I do that too; I miss him all the time, the same way I miss everyone who has to leave us We’re supposed to be a faether, no ether, so s that have happened to us would never have happened Tansy wouldn’t have gotten lost Sal wouldn’t have had to be so scared of herself for so long Mom wouldn’t have missed Nathan, and Nathan wouldn’t look atto steal his mother away froether
Mo’s okay, that Sal and Nathan are okay, and that it doesn’t one back to SymboGen with the bad man who made Mom s and I’ll just believe her, because I’ood boys do I wish I could believe her It would be so much easier, if I could
I’m scared
–FROM THE JOURNAL OF ADAM CALE, NOVEMBER 2027
Chapter 18
NOVEMBER 2027
The air was thick with sea spray, h a salty h the water was open on all sides It had been long enough since the crisis began that any ships that had capsized out here had been given plenty of time to either fully sink or si us with few obstacles as we cut a course straight toward the distant spires of San Francisco We were all going to be soaked before we made it back to land Somehow, that didn’t see through Vallejo, riding the ferry into the choppy waters of San Francisco Bay ed to seem almost peaceful, like it was the least of all the available evils Sure, ere bouncing from wave to wave, sometimes with a force thatchased by anything That alone was enough to letforward until ainst my knees, and breathe Beverly curled at my feet, her head on her forepaws and her tail occasionally thu ular as the drumbeats in my head, and it made it even easier for me to relax