“You’re human,” he said.
She didn’t bother to correct him. “You’re not in handcuffs.”
“They don’t care about the cuffs,” he said dismissively, holding up a small metal key. “They just use them to transport us.”
“They don’t care if we escape?”
“Where you gonna go?” he asked. He scooted toward her, and after a moment she held out her wrists for him to unlock. “You’ll understand when you look outside. But be careful—if they see you awake, they’ll come back.”
He unlocked her, and she rubbed her wrists while he opened the cuffs on her ankles. “They want us unconscious?” she asked.
“They don’t care either way,” he said again. “But you’re new—if you’re awake, they’ll come for you. We may as well put that off as long as we can, right?”
He unlocked her ankles, and she drew her legs in close, suddenly chilly in the damp air, her clothes wet and her body soaked to the bone. She took a moment to feel for her equipment—all gone—and looked around to see that she was in a house, just like any other wealthy pre-Break home; the damp, squishy surface that had disgusted her so much was just a carpet, completely saturated with water, and indeed the entire building seemed suffused with extra moisture—the corners were shaggy with moss, the walls were ringed with mold stains, and even the ceiling seemed to sag and drip.
“Where are we?” she asked.
“Come take a look.” He crawled across the floor to a set of squishy stairs and led her up to a second and then a third floor. It was drier up here, though it still showed signs of water damage. The room at the top of the stairs had windows on three sides, all covered with blankets, and a hallway on the fourth led to more rooms. There was a low wall around the open stairwell, and Kira glanced over to see a long drop down to the second floor. The wooden furniture had all been broken down, stacked like firewood in the corner, and it seemed like every mattress in the house had been shoved against the walls. Kira guessed it was for insulation; it was colder here than she’d expected.
“I live up here,” said the Partial. “So did the others, before they were taken. You can peek out the windows, but be careful—move the cloth too much and they’ll see it. With a newbie in here, they’re bound to have someone watching.”
Kira walked slowly to the nearest window, putting a hand on the stiff blanket and pulling it just slightly to the side, barely wide enough to peer through the gap. There were trees outside, just below the level of the windows, and beyond that the dark black water of the lake. Tiny wavelets reflected the starlight. She couldn’t see the ground, and guessed that the lake came almost to the base of the house. The view from the other windows was the same, and when he led her to another room to look out the last side, she realized they were on an island—no roads, no bridge, just water. The front side of the house looked across to another island, maybe two hundred feet away, and the back window showed another at least three times the distance. The water between was dark and ominous, and Kira remembered the pale, gilled man bursting up from the deep. She shivered and sank to the floor.
“That’s why they don’t tie us up,” said the Partial. “No one is dumb enough to cross that water.”
“Have people tried?”
“And died.” His voice was barely a whisper in the darkness. “We figure this was some rich human’s vacation house, a mansion on a tiny little island. There’s a dock outside and everything, but of course the boat’s gone.”
“I suppose we’re lucky,” said Kira. “This island is the best prison around, whether or not there’s a house on it.” She shrugged. “At least this way we get a roof.”
“I guess so.”
She crawled to the side window and peered out again, seeing the faint white glimmer of a dock on the far shore. She couldn’t tell if it was the same one she’d been pulled from. She sat back down and looked at the Partial, a man-shaped outline in the darkness. “What’s your name?”
“Green.”
Kira nodded toward the wall and the dark black lake beyond it. “Let’s start with the obvious question: what the fat holy hell?”
Green laughed dryly. “The things that captured you are Partials, but some model we’ve never seen before.”
Kira frowned. She’d run into gilled Partials before, and Heron hadn’t known what they were either, assuming they were Morgan’s “special operatives.” “They’re not on Morgan’s side?”
Green shook his head. “I’ve been with Morgan practically since the Break, and I’ve never seen anything like them. She’s done some interesting gene mods on select Partials, heightened senses and things like that, but never gills.”
Kira remembered the short entry about the Ivies in Morgan’s files, now more sure than ever that she had no clue what they really were. “They actually live in the lake?”
“They have some kind of modified temperature regulation system in their bodies, so they can stand the cold. I think they prefer it.”
Kira frowned, trying to parse the information. “Some kind of amphibious soldier, then? The Isolation War kicked off with two different ship-to-shore assaults; maybe this was a special model, designed specifically for those battles.”
Green cocked his head to the side. “You’re not nearly as overwhelmed by this as I expected.”
“I’ve been around.”
“Apparently,” said Green. “I didn’t think humans ever left Long Island; you’re pretty far from home.”
Kira smiled. “This is nothing. What would you say if I told you this isn’t even the first time I’ve seen gilled Partials?”
“I’d ask where you saw them.”
“Chicago.”
Green whistled softly. “Now I know you’re either lying or—” He stopped abruptly. “What did you say your name was?”
“I didn’t,” said Kira. “And I don’t know if I should. Are you still with Morgan?”
“Not since I went AWOL.”
“In that case, hi.” She extended her hand. “I’m Kira Walker.”
“That explains a lot. Last I heard, Morgan had found you.”
“Her experiments didn’t pan out,” said Kira. “I left her labs a week ago.”
Green’s voice was quiet. “Damn. AWOL or not, I was still hoping she’d find a way to cure expiration.”
“Why’d you leave?”
“My whole squad left,” said Green. “We figured we’d join one of the other factions still holding out from her authority, and the Ivies seemed like a good choice. You can see how well that turned out.”
“But why?” asked Kira. “You’d been with her for so long.”
Green didn’t answer.
Kira drummed her fingers on the damp carpet. “I found another Partial out there,” she said, “on a dock on the lake’s edge. I assume he was one of yours.”
“Still alive?”
“Only barely. Probably not anymore.” She put her hand on his. “I’m sorry.”
“That might be Alan,” said Green. “He tried to swim for it about five days ago. I saw them pull him under, and then . . . well, he was the last one. I’ve been alone since.”
Kira couldn’t bear to tell him the grisly details. “I tried to help him, but it was too late.” She sat up suddenly, remembering his final words. “He tried to warn me—he said something about ‘the Blood Man.’”
“That’s what we call him,” said Green, nodding. “The gilled soldiers seem to obey him, though he’s not one of them, as far as we can tell.”
“That’s a pretty dramatic name,” said Kira. “I didn’t realize Partials were superstitious.”
“We’re not,” said Green. “We call him the Blood Man because he literally takes blood from us. We think he collects it.”
“What does he look like?”
“We’ve never seen him,” said Green. “The Ivies, or whatever they are, came and took some of our group, one every few days. Our sergeant, our driver, and one of the infantry.”
“One each of the surviving Partial models,” said Kira.
“Exactly.”
“That sounds like he’s collecting DNA,” said Kira. “And no one’s ever talked to him? The Ivies didn’t say anything about him?”
“Just that he needed their blood,” said Green. “And then they told us he’d left to find more.”
Kira’s heart sank. “Don’t say he went south.”
“Where else?” asked Green. “They told us he had all the Partial blood he needed, and it was time to visit the humans.”
“He’s going to hunt humans now? Why does he need their DNA?”
“Why does he need anybody’s?” asked Green, his calm exterior cracking with fear and frustration. “He’s a psychopath with a blood fetish, and an army of super Partials to back him up.”
“We have to stop him,” said Kira, but her words froze in her throat when she heard a loud, sharp click from somewhere below.
“That’s the door,” Green whispered. “They’re here.”
K
ira looked to Green with wide eyes.
FEAR.
“Come out,” a voice called from downstairs. “We only want to talk.”
“What do we do?” Kira whispered.
“They’ll be armed,” said Green. “And probably wearing body armor.”
Kira nodded, remembering the fight in Chicago. “They’ll link you and know we’re up here. Is it worth trying to fight?”
“If they wanted you dead, they would have killed you already.”
“Or they’ll kill me after they interrogate me,” said Kira. “With the Blood Man gone, they have no reason to keep us alive.”
“That we know of,” said Green. “They haven’t killed me yet.”
“So you’re just waiting until they do?”
“Don’t make us look for you,” said another voice. “You know that only makes us angry.”
“What am I supposed to do?” Green hissed. “Even if we can overpower multiple armed soldiers, what then? For all we know, this whole lake is crawling with them—there could be hundreds more just under the water.”
A stair creaked, loud and haunting.
They’re coming up to find us
, Kira thought.
We’re running out of time and they’ll have guns and—
“Wait,” said Kira. “You said they’re armed, right?” She thought back to the soldiers in Chicago, who’d been carrying both tranquilizer darts and standard assault rifles. “The Ivies might be fine underwater, but their guns aren’t. Normal firearms can’t fire when wet.”
“We had waterproof rifles in our armory in the Isolation War,” said Green.
“Have you seen any since then?”
“Maybe these guys have them all.”
“Or maybe those weapons are too rare, and the Ivies are carrying the same thing as everybody else.” Kira grabbed his shoulder, whispering urgently in his ear. “They have to store them on land, and they’ve got to transport them somehow.”
Another creaking stair. Green stared at her. “You think they came in a boat? Sometimes they have one when they move prisoners, but—”
“Not only do they have a boat,” said Kira, “but any more of them watching from underneath the water won’t think twice when they see that boat leave the island. We only have to make it what, two hundred feet, to the other island? There’s a causeway from there to the mainland, if I remember the map right. Then we’re on solid ground again and we can make a run for it.”
“Until they realize what’s going on, and the whole lake rises up to get us.”
“Do you want to escape or not?”
A gun clicked, a slide racking back. They sound close enough to be on the second floor now, and almost to the final set of stairs. Green’s link was boiling over with terror. “What do we do?”
Kira didn’t have time to plan; she had to wing this as best she could. She put her face against his ear, whispering softly so the Ivies couldn’t hear. “They can’t link me. Lead them out the window.” She pushed away from him and slipped away on all fours, her toes and fingertips barely touching the floor as she stole around the corner to the hallway. Green hesitated, but seemed to understand her plan; he jumped up suddenly and ran to the window, tearing down the blanket and climbing out onto the slanted roof beyond. He disappeared past the edge of the window frame just as the first Partial came into view up the stairs.
“They’ve gone out the window,” said one.
“Check it.”
Kira pressed herself back against the wall, out of sight around the corner, trying to tell how many Ivies there were. She’d heard only two speak, but without looking there was no way to tell for sure. She had to act fast. This part of the hallway contained more broken furniture, neatly stacked like firewood, and the room beyond held the disassembled metal shell of a dryer, which the prisoners had folded out into a flat platform to contain their fires. A table leg in the pile of wood looked like it might make a good weapon, but Kira knew she had no chance in a club-versus-assault-rifle fight. She needed something better, something that used the only advantage she had right now: surprise. There was a large, ornate mirror leaning against the wall, which would be deadly but far too unwieldy to fight with, and an old 3D projector, which would be too lightweight to do any damage. She swore silently and reached for the table leg, knowing she was running out of time.
“They’ve jumped down to the balcony,” said a voice from near the window. They were talking softly, rather than coordinating over the link, but that made sense: They were chasing Partials, so the link would give them away. They didn’t know Kira was listening in. “I’ll follow—you go back down and cut them off.”
Kira saw the scene clearly in her head—one Partial gone out the window, the other walking back down that deep well of a staircase. She made her decision in a flash, grabbing the giant mirror with both hands and heaving it up, holding her breath to keep from puffing with the effort, padding across the floor as fast as she could without making any noise. The frame weighed at least forty pounds. She reached the wall around the staircase and hefted the mirror up and over, pausing only half a second to aim before letting go. The Partial heard her, or saw the motion, but it was too late; he looked up and the mirror crashed into his face, the full forty pounds focused in on a single edge right on the bridge of his nose. His faced caved in, his body crumpling to the stairs below, and Kira raced down after him.
DEATH
Already the link was broadcasting his death; even outside the building, his partner would know. Kira grabbed his gun and turned to look back up the stairs, bringing the rifle in tight to her shoulder. The starlight through the open window made a small trapezoid of light, and she watched it intently, her finger hovering over the trigger, waiting for the other Partial to come into view.