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Soldier was beside her no , he could not follow There had always been soht, as if he’d been sent to her from a world of spirits In his deep awareness, he had seen as happening to her, the dark evolution The fierce taste uncoiling inside her since the day she had sunk her blade into the buck on the ridge, prying forth the living heart of hiy, but it came at a cost She wondered how much time remained before it overwhelmed her Before her hu only Alicia Donadio, scout sniper of the Expeditionary, no more

Go now, she had told him You’re not safe with ed to look away froreat lovely boy, I will never forget you

She had traveled the finalthe river Its waters still flowed easily but this wouldn’t last; ice had begun to crust at the edges The landscape was treeless and bare The i She had been s it for hours Its vastness startled her She withdrew the yellowed, hand-drawn map fro fro river with its hydro da with its cranes, the rows of barracks heo She took out the RDF and adjusted the gain with fingers numb with cold She swept it back and forth A wash of static; then the needle nudged a fraction of an inch The receiver was pointing at the dolasses except in the brightest hours of the day How had this come to pass? What had happened to her eyes? She exaht had continued to fade What did it mean? She looked almostnorht

She passed the first two days circling the perie its defenses She took inventories: vehicles, ular patrols that left froate were easy to avoid; their efforts felt perfunctory, as if they perceived no real threat At first light trucks would disperse fro workers to the factories and barns and fields, returning as darkness fell As the days of observation passed, it ca a kind of prison, a citizenry of slaves and slave er The fences were thinly uards didn’t even appear to be armed Whatever force held the populace in check, it came from within

Her focus narrowed to two structures The first was the large building with the cranes It possessed the blocky appearance of a fortress Through her binoculars Alicia could discern a single entrance, a broad portal sealed by heavy ’s construction seemed complete, and yet to all appearances it went unused What purpose did it serve? Was it a refuge from the virals, a shelter of last retreat? That see else about the city communicated a similar sense of threat

The other was the stadium, situated just beyond the southern perimeter of the city in an adjacent fenced compound Unlike the bunker, the stadium was the site of daily activity Vehicles caer trucks, always at dusk or shortly after, disappearing down a deep ramp that led, presumably, to the basement Their contents were a mystery until the fourth day, when a livestock carrier, full of cattle, descended the ra fed down there

And then shortly after noon on the fifth day, Alicia was resting in the culvert where she’d made her camp when she heard the distant wallop of an explosion She pointed her binoculars to the heart of the city A plu fro was on fire She watched while ht in to douse the flauish the prisoners from their keepers, but on this occasion a third class of individuals appeared There were three of them They descended upon the site of the catastrophe in a sleek black vehicle utterly unlike the salvaged junkers Alicia had seen, straightening their neckties and fussing with the creases of their suits as they ee costulasses Was it just the brightness of the day or so else? Their presence had an instantaneous effect, the way a stone cast ripples across the surface of a pond Waves of anxious energy radiated from the others on the scene One of the suitednotes on a clipboard while the other two shouted orders, gesturing wildly What was she seeing? A leadership caste, that was apparent; everything about the city implied one’s existence But as the explosion? Was it an accident or so deliberate? A chink in the armor, perhaps?

Her orders were clear Scout the city, assess the threat, report back to Kerrville in sixty days Under no circu said she had to stay outside the wires

The time had come to take a closer look

She chose the stadius of the trucks The fences were no proble into the basement would be the tricky part The door, like the portal on the bunker, looked impenetrable Only when a truck hit the top of the ra quickly as the vehicle passed through, all of it perfectly timed

Dusk of the third day: behind a stand of scrub, Alicia stripped herself of weapons-all but the Browning, snug in its holster, and a single blade sheathed against her spine She had scouted a spot in the wires where her ascent would be concealed by one of several buildings that appeared unused A hundred yards of open ground separated these buildings from the ramp Once the driver of the van rounded the corner, Alicia would have six seconds to cross the distance Easy, she told herself Nothing to it

She took the fence with a single toehold, scuttled against the building’s rear wall, and peered around the corner There it was, right on ti toward the stadium: the van The driver downshifted as he approached the turn

Go

When the vehicle hit the top of the ra on clattering chains, approached its apex With a vaulting stride she took to the air, alighting on the van’s roof and dropping facedoithin half a second of passing beneath the door

Flyers, was she good

Already she was feeling it, feeling the her skin and, deep inside her skull, a watery , like the caress of waves upon a distant shore The van, at reduced speed, was h a tunnel Ahead she saw a second door The driver beeped the horn; the door rose to let theh Another three seconds: the van drew to a halt

They were in a wide, open space, fifty feet on a side Peeking over the top of the windshield, Alicia counted eight men Six were armed with rifles; the other tore heavy backpacks with tanks and long steel wands At the far end of the room was a third door, different from the others: a heavy steel contraption with thick crossbars set into the fra a clipboard; she pressed herself as flat against the roof as she could

"How ot?"

"The usual"

"Are we supposed to do theroup?"

"Hell if I know What does the order say?"

A shuffling of paper "Well, it doesn’t," the secondpool still open?"

"If you want"

"Give me seven seconds"

"Sod has seven You’ll have to pick so else"

"Six, then" The driver’s door creaked opened; Alicia heard his feet hit the concrete floor "I like the cows better It takes longer"

"You are one sick bastard, you know that?" There was a pause "You’re right, though It is pretty cool" He directed his voice away frohts!"

With a thunk the lights extinguished, replaced by a twilight-blue glow e All theaway from the door at the far end of the room There could be no doubt what lay on the other side; Alicia sensed it in her bones A , then jolted to a stop The men with the backpacks had taken up positions on the near side of the gate, wicks of fla at the tips of their wands The driver strode to the rear of the van and opened it

"Come on, out with you"

"Please," a man’s voice pleaded, "you don’t have to do this! You’re not like theood fello"

A wo! I’ht!"

"Really? I could have sworn you were older" The click of a cocking revolver "All of you, let’s move"

One by one they were hauled from the van, six men and four wo, pleading for their lives Some could barely stand While twothe the chains

"What are you unshackling theuards asked