TWENTY

Log of the Watch
Summer 92

Day 41: No sign.

Day 42: No sign.

Day 43: 23:06: Single viral sighted at 200 m, FP 3. No approach.

Day 44: No sign.

Day 45: 02:00: Pod of 3 at FP 6. One target breaks off and attempts the Wall. Arrows released from FP 5 + 6. Target retreats. No further contact.

Day 46: No sign.

Day 47: 01:15: Runner Kip Darrell reports movement at fireline NW between FP 9 and FP 10, unconfirmed by Watch on station, officially logged as no sign.

Day 48: 21:40: Pod of 3 at FP 1, 200 m. One target makes approach to 100 m but retreats without engagement.

Day 49: No sign.

Day 50: 22:15: Pod of 6 at FP 7. Hunting small game, no approach. 23:05: Pod of 3 at FP 3. 2 males, 1 female. Full engagement, 1 KO. Kill at the nets made by Arlo Wilson, assist to Alicia Donadio, 2nd Capt. Body disposal referred to HD. Note to HD crew to repair split seam toehold at FP 6. Received by Finn Darrell for HD.

During this period: 6 contacts, 1 unconfirmed, 1 KO. No souls killed or taken.

Respectfully submitted to the Household,
S. C. Ramirez, First Captain

To the extent that any singular occurrence may be meaningfully placed within a local framework of events, the disappearance of Theo Jaxon, First Family and Household, a Second Captain of the Watch, could be said to have been set in motion twelve days prior, on the morning of the fifty-first of summer, after a night in which a viral had been killed in the nets by the Watcher Arlo Wilson.

The attack had come in the early evening from the south, near Firing Platform Three. Peter, stationed at his post on the opposite side of the Colony’s perimeter, had seen nothing; it wasn’t until the early-morning hours, as the resupply detail was assembling at the gate, that he received a full recounting.

The attack was in most ways typical, of the kind that occurred nearly every season, though most often in summer. A pod of three, two males and one large female; it was thought by Soo Ramirez—and others were in agreement—that this was probably the same pod that had been sighted twice over the previous five nights, prowling near the fireline. It often happened this way, in discrete stages, spread over several nights. A group of virals would appear at the edge of the lights, as if scouting the Colony’s defenses; this would be followed by a couple of nights of no sign; then they would appear again, closer this time, perhaps one breaking away to draw fire but always retreating; then, on a third night, an attack. The Wall was far too high for even the strongest viral to mount it in a single leap; the only way for them to ascend was along the metal seams between the plates, employing these slender cracks, caused by the inevitable shifting of the plates, as toeholds. The firing platforms, with their overhanging steel nets, were positioned at the tops of these seams. Any viral who made it this far was usually fogged by the lights, sluggish and disoriented; many simply retreated at this point. Those who didn’t would find themselves hanging in an inverted position under the nets, giving the Watcher on station ample opportunity to shoot them in the sweet spot with a crossbow or, failing this, to take them on a blade. Only rarely did a viral make it past the net—Peter had seen this occur only once during his five years on the Wall—but when one did, it invariably meant the Watcher was dead. After that, it was simply a question of how weakened the viral was by the lights and how long it took the Watch to bring him down, and how many people died before this happened.

That night, the pod had made a run straight for Platform Six; only one, a female—a detail Peter always found it curious to note, since the differences seemed so slight and served no purpose, as virals did not reproduce, as far as anybody was aware—had made it as far as the net. She was large, a good two meters; most distinctively, she possessed a single shock of white hair on her otherwise bald head. Whether this hair indicated that she had been old when she was taken up, or was a symptom of some biological change that had occurred in the years since then—the virals were thought to be immortal, or something close to it—was impossible to say; but no one Peter knew had ever seen a viral with hair before. Scrambling up the seam, a channel no wider than half a centimeter, she had quickly ascended to the underside of the platform. There she turned, leaping away from the Wall, into space, and grasped the outer edge of the net. All of this had unfolded in at most a couple of seconds. Suspended now, hanging twenty meters above the hardpan, she had rocked her body like a pendulum and, with a quick tucking motion, vaulted out and over the net, landing on her clawed feet on the platform, where Arlo Wilson had shoved his cross against her chest and shot her, point-blank through the sweet spot.

In the lifting morning light, Arlo related these events to Peter and the others with vigorously specific detail. Arlo, like all the Wilson men, liked nothing more than a good story. He was not a Captain, but he seemed like one: a large man with a heavy beard and powerful arms and a genial manner that communicated confident strength. He had a twin brother, Hollis, identical in all respects except that he kept his face clean-shaven; Arlo’s wife, Leigh, was a Jaxon, Peter’s and Theo’s cousin, which made them cousins, too. Sometimes in the evenings, when he wasn’t standing the Watch, Arlo would sit under the lights in the Sunspot and play guitar for everyone, old folk tunes from a book left behind by the Builders, or go to the Sanctuary and play for the children as they readied for bed—funny, made-up songs about a pig named Edna who liked to wallow in the mud and eat clover all day. Now that Arlo had a Little of his own in the Sanctuary—a mewing bundle named Dora—it was generally assumed that he would serve at most a couple more years on the Wall before standing down to work some other, safer job.

That it was Arlo who had gotten credit for the kill was a matter of chance, as he himself was quick to point out. Any one of them could have been stationed at Platform Six; Soo liked to move people around so much you never knew where you might be on a given night. And yet there was more than luck involved, Peter knew, even if Arlo’s modesty prevented him from saying so. More than one Watcher had frozen in the moment, and Peter, who had never taken a viral close in like that—all his kills had been dozers, shot in broad daylight—couldn’t say for sure that it wouldn’t happen to him. So if there was luck involved, it was everyone’s good luck that it had been Arlo Wilson who had been there.

Now, in the aftermath of these events, Arlo was among a group who had gathered at the gate, part of the resupply detail that would travel to the power station to swap out the maintenance crews and restock supplies. The standard party of six: a pair of Watchers front and rear and in between, on muleback, two members of the Heavy Duty crew—everyone called them wrenches—whose job was to maintain the wind turbines that powered the lights. A third mule, a jenny, pulled the small cart of supplies, mostly food and water but also tools and skins of grease. The grease was manufactured from a mixture of cornmeal and rendered sheep fat; already a cloud of flies had gathered around the cart, drawn by the smell.

In the last moments before Morning Bell, the two wrenches, Rey Ramirez and Finn Darrell, went over their supplies, while the Watchers waited on their mounts. Theo, the officer in charge, took first position, next to Peter; at the rear were Arlo and Mausami Patal. Mausami was First Family; her father, Sanjay, was Head of the Household. But the previous summer, she had paired with Galen Strauss, making her a Strauss now. Peter still couldn’t quite figure that. Galen, of all people: a likable enough guy, but when it came down to it, there was a vagueness about him, as if some essential substance inside him had failed to harden completely. As if Galen Strauss were an approximation of himself. Maybe it was his squinty way of looking at you when you spoke (everyone knew his eyes were bad) or his generally distracted air. But whatever it was, he seemed like the last person Mausami would choose. Though Theo had never said as much, Peter believed that his brother had hoped, someday, to pair with Mausami himself—Theo and Mausami had come up in the Sanctuary together, been released the same year, and apprenticed straight to the Watch—and the news of her marriage to Galen had hit Theo badly. For days after the announcement he’d moped about it, barely uttering a word to anyone. When Peter had finally raised the subject, all Theo would say was that he was fine with it, he guessed he’d waited too long. He wanted Maus to be happy; if Galen was the one to do that, so be it. Theo wasn’t one to talk about such things, even with his brother, so Peter had been forced to take him at his word. But even so, Theo hadn’t looked at him as he’d spoken.

Which was Theo’s way: like their father, he was a man of compact expression who communicated with silence as much as with words. And when, in the days that followed, Peter recalled that morning at the gate, he would find himself wondering if there had been anything different about his brother, any indication that he might have known, as their father had seemed to know, what was about to happen to him—that he was leaving for the last time. But there was nothing; everything about the morning was as usual, a standard resupply detail, Theo sitting atop his mount with his customary impatience, fingering the reins.

Waiting for the bell that would signal their departure, his mount jostling restlessly under him, Peter was letting his mind drift in these thoughts—it was only later that he would come to fully understand their bearing—when he lifted his eyes to see Alicia headed their way on foot from the Armory, moving at a purposeful clip. He expected her to stop in front of Theo’s mount—two Captains conferring, perhaps to discuss the night’s events and the possibility of mounting a smokehunt, to chase out the rest of the pod—but this was not what happened. Instead she moved straight past Theo to the back of the line.

“Forget it, Maus,” Alicia said sharply. “You’re not going anywhere.”

Mausami looked around—a gesture of puzzlement that Peter perceived at once as false. Everyone said Maus was lucky to have taken her looks from her mother—the same soft, oval face, and rich black hair that, when she undid it, fell to her shoulders in a dark wave. She carried more weight than many women did, but most of it was muscle.

“What are you talking about? How come?”

Alicia, standing below them, rested her hands on her slender hips. Even in the cool dawn light, her hair, which she wore tied back in a long braid, glowed a rich, honeyed red. She was, as always, wearing three blades on her belt. Everybody joked that she hadn’t paired yet because she slept with her blades on.

“Because you’re pregnant,” Alicia declared, “that’s how come.”

The group was stunned into a momentary silence. Peter couldn’t help it; turning in his saddle, he let his eyes fall quickly to Mausami’s belly. Well, if she was carrying, she wasn’t showing yet, though it was hard to tell under the loose fabric of the jersey. He glanced at Theo, whose eyes betrayed nothing.

“Well, how about that,” Arlo said. His lips curled into a broad grin inside the pocket of his beard. “I wondered when you two would get around to it.”

A deep crimson had bloomed across Mausami’s copper-colored cheeks. “Who told you?”

“Who do you think?”

Mausami looked away. “Flyers. I’m going to kill him, I swear it.”

Theo had shifted on his mount to face Mausami. “Galen’s right, Maus. I can’t let you ride.”

“Oh, what does he know? He’s been trying to get me off the Wall all year. He can’t do this.”

“Galen’s not doing it,” Alicia interjected. “I am. You’re off the Watch, Maus. That’s it, end of story.”

Behind them, the herd was coming down the trace. In another few moments they’d be subsumed in a noisy chaos of animals. Looking at Mausami, Peter did his best to imagine her as a mother, but couldn’t quite. It was customary for women to stand down when the time came; even a lot of the men did when their wives became pregnant. But Mausami was a Watcher, through and through. A better shot than half the men and cool in a crisis, each movement calm and purposeful. Like Diamond, Peter thought. Quick when she needed to be quick.

“You should be happy,” Theo said. “It’s great news.”

A look of utter misery was on her face; Peter saw that her eyes were pooled with tears.

“Come on, Theo. Can you really see me sitting around the Sanctuary, knitting little booties? I think I’ll lose my mind.”

Theo reached for her. “Maus, listen—”

Mausami jerked away. “Theo, don’t.” She averted her face to wipe her eyes with the back of her wrist. “Okay, everybody. Show’s over. Happy, Lish? You’ve got your wish. I’m going.” And with that, she rode away.

When she was out of earshot, Theo folded his hands on the horn of the saddle and looked down at Alicia, who was wiping a blade on the hem of her jersey.

“You know, you could have waited until we got back.”

Alicia shrugged. “A Little’s a Little, Theo. You know the rules as well as anyone. And, frankly, I’m a little irritated she didn’t tell me. It’s not like this could stay a secret.” Alicia gave the blade a quick spin around her index finger and pushed it back into its sheath. “It’s for the best. She’ll come around.”

Theo frowned. “You don’t know her like I do.”

“I’m not going to argue with you, Theo. I already spoke with Soo. It’s done.”

The herd was pressing upon them now. The morning light had warmed to an even glow; in another moment Morning Bell would sound and the gates would open.

“We’ll need a fourth,” Theo said.

Alicia’s face lit up with a grin. “Funny you should mention that.”

Alicia Blades. She was the last Donadio, but everyone called her Alicia Blades. Youngest Captain Since The Day.

Alicia had been just a Little when her parents were killed on Dark Night; from that day it was the Colonel who had raised her, taking her under his wing as if she were his own. Their stories were inextricably bound together, for whoever the Colonel was—and there was considerable disagreement on this question—he had made Alicia into the image of himself.

His own history was vague, more myth than fact. It was said he had simply appeared one day out of the blue at Main Gate, carrying an empty rifle and wearing a long necklace of shimmering, sharp objects that turned out to be teeth—viral teeth. If he’d ever had another name, no one knew it; he was simply the Colonel. Some said he was a survivor from the Baja Settlements, others that he had belonged to a group of nomadic viral hunters. If Alicia knew the real story, she’d never told anyone. He never married and he kept his own company, living in the small shack he’d constructed under the east wall of discarded scraps; he declined all invitations to join the Watch, choosing to work in the apiary instead. It was rumored that he had a secret exit that he used to hunt, sneaking out of the Colony just before dawn, to catch the virals as the sun rose. But no one had ever actually seen him do this.

There were others like him, men and women who for one reason or another never married and kept to themselves, and the Colonel might have slipped into a hermit’s anonymity if not for the events of Dark Night. Peter had been just six years old at the time; he couldn’t be sure if his memories were real or just stories people had told him, embellished by his imagination over the years. He felt certain that he remembered the quake itself, though. Earthquakes happened all the time, but not like the one that had struck the mountain that night as the children were preparing for bed: a single, massive jolt, followed by a full minute of shaking so violent it seemed the earth would tear itself apart. Peter remembered the feeling of helplessness as he was lifted up, tossed like a leaf in the wind, and then the shouts and screams, Teacher yelling and yelling, and the great rush of noise and the taste of dust in his mouth as the west wall of the Sanctuary collapsed. The quake had hit just after sunset, taking out the power grid; by the time the first virals breached the perimeter, the only thing to do was light the fireline and retreat to what was left of the Sanctuary. Many of those killed had been left trapped in the rubble of their houses to die. By morning, 162 souls had been lost, including nine whole families, as well as half the herd, most of the chickens, and all of the dogs.

Many of those who survived owed their lives to the Colonel. He alone had left the safety of the Sanctuary to search for survivors. Carrying many of the injured on his back, he had brought them to the Storehouse, where he made a final stand, holding off the virals through the night. This group included John and Angel Donadio, Alicia’s parents. Of the nearly two dozen people he rescued, they were the only ones to die. The next morning, covered in blood and dust, the Colonel had walked into what remained of the Sanctuary, taken Alicia by the hand, declared simply, “I will take care of this girl,” and walked back out with Alicia in tow. None of the adults present in the room had been able to summon the energy to object. The night had made an orphan of her, as it had so many others, and the Donadíos were Walkers, not First Family; if somebody was willing to see to her care, this seemed like a reasonable bargain. But it was also true, or so people said at the time, that in the little girl’s compliance they had felt the workings of fate, of something no less than the settling of a cosmic debt. Alicia was meant, or so it seemed, to be his.

In the Colonel’s hut under the Wall and, later, as she grew, in the training pits, he taught her all the things he’d learned out in the Darklands—not just how to fight and kill but how to give it up. Which was what you had to do: when the virals came, the Colonel taught her, you had to say to yourself, I’m already dead. The little girl had learned her lessons well; at the age of eight, she had apprenticed to the Watch, quickly outdistancing everyone in her skills with bow and blade, and by fourteen she was on the catwalk, working as a runner, moving up and down between the firing platforms. Then one night a pod of six virals—they always traveled in multiples of three—came in over the south wall just as Alicia was headed down the catwalk toward them. As a runner, Alicia wasn’t supposed to engage—she was supposed to do just that, run, and sound the alarm. Instead she got the first one with a throwing blade, dead on through the sweet spot, drew her cross, and dropped the second one in midair. The third she took with a knife close in, using his weight to shove it under his breastbone as he fell upon her, their faces so close she could taste the breath of night washing over her as he died. The remaining three scattered, back over the Wall and into the dark.

No one had ever taken three like that, single-handedly. Certainly not a fifteen-year-old girl. Alicia stood the Watch from that day forward; by the time she was twenty, the rank of Second Captain was hers. Everyone expected that when Soo Ramirez stepped down, Lish would be the one to take her place as First. And ever since that night, she’d worn three blades at all times.

She told Peter about it late one night under the lights, the two of them standing the Watch. The third viral: that was when it happened, when she’d given it up. Though Alicia was Peter’s commanding officer, they had formed a bond that seemed to make the question of authority moot. So he knew she wasn’t telling him to make a point; she was telling him because they were friends. Not the first or second, she explained, but the third. That was when she knew, absolutely knew, that she was dead. And the strange thing was, once she knew this, drawing the second blade was easy. All her fear was gone. Her hand found the knife like it wanted to be there, and as the creature fell upon her, all she’d thought was, Well, here you go. As long as I’m headed out the door of the world, I might as well take you with me for the trip. Like it was a fact, like she’d already done it.

The herd had departed by the time Alicia returned on her mount, a small canvas bag and a canteen of water slung from the saddle. Alicia had no proper home to live in; there were lots of vacant houses, but she preferred to bunk in a small metal shed behind the Armory, where she kept a cot and the few things she owned. Peter had never known her to sleep more than a couple of hours at a stretch, and if he ever went in search of her, the Armory was always the last place to look; she was always on the Wall. She was carrying a longbow, lighter than a cross and more comfortable on horseback, but she wore no guard; the bow was just for show. Theo offered to cede first position to her, but Alicia declined, taking Mausami’s spot at the rear instead. “Don’t mind me. I’m just out to take the air,” she said, guiding her mount into the slot next to Arlo. “This is your ride, Theo. No point in confusing the chain of command. Plus, I’d rather ride with the big fellow back here. All the talk keeps me awake.”

Peter heard his brother sigh; he knew Theo found Alicia overbearing at times. She should worry a little more, he had said to Peter on more than one occasion, and it was true: her confidence bordered on recklessness. Theo turned in his saddle, looking past Finn and Rey, who had offered only wordless indifference through the entire scene. This was Watcher business, who rode with whom. What did they care?

“That okay by you, Arlo?” Theo asked.

“Sure thing, cuz.”

“You know, Arlo,” Alicia said, her exuberant mood lighting up her voice, “I always wondered. Is it true that Hollis shaved his beard so Leigh could tell you apart?”

It was commonly known that as young men the two Wilson brothers had swapped girlfriends more than once, allegedly without anyone being the wiser.

Arlo gave a knowing smile. “You’d have to ask Leigh.”

The time for talk was over; they were running late as it was. Theo gave the order, but as they were approaching the gate, they heard a shout from behind:

“Hold up! Hold at the gate!”

Peter turned to see Michael Fisher jogging toward them. Michael was a First Engineer of Light and Power. Like Alicia, he was young for this job, just eighteen. But all the Fisher men had been engineers, and Michael had been trained by his father straight out of the Sanctuary. No one really understood what the engineers did—Light and Power was by far the most specialized of all the trades—beyond the fact that they kept the lights on, the batteries humming, the current coming up the mountain, a feat that seemed both as remarkable as magic and also completely ordinary. The lights, after all, came on, night after night.

“I’m glad I caught you.” He paused to catch his breath. “Where’s Maus? I thought she was riding with you.”

“Never you mind about it, Circuit,” Alicia called from behind. Her mount, a chestnut-colored mare named Omega, was pawing the dust, eager to ride. “Theo, can we please just go?”

A flicker of exasperation crossed Michael’s face. At such moments, his eyes pinching under his thatch of blond hair, his pale cheeks reddening, he managed to look even younger than he was. He said nothing but instead reached up to pass Theo the object he’d brought with him: a rectangle of green plastic with shining dots of metal decorating its surface.

“Okay,” Theo said, turning it in his hand to examine it, “I give up. What am I looking at?”

“It’s called a motherboard.”

“Hey,” Alicia called, “watch your language.”

Michael turned toward her. “You know, it wouldn’t kill you to pay a bit more attention to how we keep the lights on.”

Alicia shrugged. Her mutual antagonism with Michael was a matter of record; the two of them squabbled like squirrels. “You push a button, they come on. What’s to understand?”

“Enough, Lish,” Theo said. He tipped his eyes toward Michael. “Just ignore her. You need one of these things?”

Michael pointed to the board to show him. “See this here? The little black square? That’s the microprocessor. Never mind what it does. Just look for these same numbers if you can, but anything that ends in a nine ought to work. You could probably find the exact same one in almost any desktop computer, but roaches eat the glue, so try to find one that’s clean and dry, no droppings. You might try the offices at the south end of the mall.”

Theo examined the board once more before depositing it in his saddlebag. “Okay. This isn’t a scavenging trip, but if we can fit it in, we will. Anything else?”

Michael frowned. “A nuclear reactor would come in handy. Or about three thousand cubic meters of negatively ionized hydrogen in a proton exchange stack.”

“Oh, for godsakes,” Alicia moaned, “speak English, Circuit. Nobody knows what the hell you’re talking about. Theo, can we just please ride?”

Michael shot Alicia one last look of annoyance before returning his eyes to Theo. “Just the motherboard. Get more than one if you can, and remember what I said about the glue. And Peter?”

Peter’s attention had wandered toward the open gate, where the last of the herd was still faintly visible as a cloud of dust in the morning light, flowing up and over the hill toward Upper Field. But it wasn’t the herd he’d been thinking of. He’d been thinking of Mausami, the look of panic on her face when his brother had reached out his hand—as if she’d been afraid to let him touch her, that this would be too much to bear.

He shook the image away and returned his gaze to Michael, standing below him.

“My sister asked me to give you a message,” Michael said.

“Sara did?”

“Just, you know,” Michael said, and gave an awkward shrug. “Be careful.”

The distance to the power station was forty kilometers, nearly a full day’s ride. Within an hour of leaving, the group fell silent, even Arlo, lulled by the heat and the prospect of the day ahead. Portions of the roadway down the mountain were washed away, and they had to stop and lead the animals by hand across these sections. The grease had begun to stink, and Peter was glad to be riding up front, out of the plume of its smell. The sun was high and hot, the air breathless, without the slightest breeze. The desert floor shined below them like hammered metal.

At half-day they stopped to rest. The HD crew watered the animals, while the others took positions on a rocky outcrop above the cart, Theo and Peter on one side, Arlo and Alicia on the other, to scan the tree line.

“See there?”

Theo was using the binoculars and pointing toward the shadow of the trees. Peter held a hand over his eyes against the glare.

“I don’t see anything.”

“Be patient.”

Then Peter saw it. Two hundred meters distant, a barely detectable movement, no more than a rustling, in the branches of a tall pine, and a gentle shower of needles, floating down. Peter drew in a breath, willing it to be nothing. Then it came again.

“He’s hunting, keeping to the shade,” Theo said. “Squirrel, probably. Not much else around here. He must be one hungry son of a bitch to be out in the day like this.”

Theo whistled a long, windy note through his teeth to signal the others. Alicia turned sharply at the sound; Theo pointed two fingers at his own eyes, then a single outstretched digit toward the tree line. Then he held up his hand, cupping it in the shape of a question mark: Do you see it?

Alicia replied with a closed fist. Yes.

“Let’s go, brother.”

They clambered down the rocks and rendezvoused at the cart, where Rey and Finn were sprawled over the grease bags, chewing on hardtack and passing a plastic jug of water between them.

“We can draw him out with one of the mules,” Alicia said quickly. With a long stick she began to draw in the dirt at their feet. “Switch out the water for grease, move her down a hundred meters closer to the trees, see if he takes the bait. He probably already smells it. We set up three positions, here, here, and here”—she scratched these in the dirt—“and catch him in the cross fire. Out in the sun like that he’d be easy.”

Theo frowned. “This isn’t a smokehunt, Lish.”

For the first time Rey and Finn looked up from the cart.

“What the hell,” Rey said, “are you serious? How many are there?”

“Don’t worry, we’re moving out.”

“Theo, there’s just the one,” Alicia said. “We can’t just leave him there. The herd’s only, what, ten clicks?”

“We can and we will. And where there’s one, there are others.” Theo arched his eyebrows at Rey and Finn. “Are we ready to move out?”

“Who cares?” Rey rose quickly from the floor of the cart. “Flyers, nobody ever tells us anything. Let’s get the hell out of here.”

Alicia regarded them another moment, her arms crossed over her chest. Peter wondered how angry she was. But she’d said it herself, at the gate: chain of command.

“Fine, you’re the boss, Theo,” she said.

They continued on their way. By the time they reached the foot of the mountain, it was midafternoon. For the last hour they’d descended in full view of the turbine array, hundreds of them spread over the flats of the San Gorgonio Pass, like a forest of man-made trees. On the far side, a second line of mountains shimmered in the haze. A hot, dry wind was blowing, ripping away their words the moment they were uttered, making any conversation impossible. With each meter of their descent the air grew hotter; it felt like they were riding into a smithing furnace. The road ended at the old town of Banning. From there, they’d head inland along the Eastern Road, another ten kilometers to the power station.

“All eyes, everyone,” Theo called over the rush of the wind. He took another moment to scan ahead with the binoculars. “Let’s close it up. Lish on point.”

Peter experienced a quick flash of irritation—he was in second position, the point was his to take—but let the feeling pass without comment; Theo’s choice would smooth things over between him and Alicia, and by the time they got to the power station, they’d all be friends again. Theo passed her the binoculars; Alicia heeled her mount and rode briskly ahead an extra fifty meters, her red braid swinging in the sun. Without turning, she held up an open hand, then dropped her palm so that it was parallel to the ground. A thin, birdlike whistle from between her teeth. Clear. Forward.

“Let’s go,” Theo said.

Peter felt a quickening in his chest as his senses, dulled by the monotony of the long ride down the mountain, revived, bringing him into a heightened awareness of his surroundings, as if he were viewing the scene from several angles at once. They rode forward at an even pace, their bows at the ready. No one spoke except Finn, who had climbed down from the cart and was leading the jenny by hand, murmuring calming words to her. The course they followed was little more than a sand track, rutted from years of use by the carts. Peter felt, like a tingling at his extremities, each bit of sound and movement from the landscape: the soft howl of wind through a broken window; a bit of flapping canvas caught on a tipping utility pole; the creak of a metal sign, its words long since scoured away, tossing to and fro above the fuel pumps of an old garage. They passed a pile of rusted cars, half-buried and twisted in a heap; a block of houses, piled with dunes that reached nearly to their eaves; a cavernous metal shed, bleached and pitted, from which issued the cooing of pigeons and, as they moved downwind, the fetid cloud of their droppings.

“All eyes, everyone,” Theo repeated. “Let’s get through here.”

They moved in silence into the center of town. The buildings here were more substantial, three or four stories, though many had collapsed, carving open spaces between them and filling the street with mounds of undifferentiated debris. Cars and trucks were parked at haphazard angles along the roadway, some with their doors standing open—the moment of their drivers’ flight frozen in time—but in others, sealed away beneath the blasting desert sun, were the dried-out corpses known as slims: raggy masses of bones folded over the dashboards or pressed against the windows, their shriveled forms virtually unrecognizable as human beings except for a tuft of stiffened hair still tied with a ribbon, or the glinting metal of a watch on a skinless hand that still, after nearly a hundred years, clutched the steering wheel of a pickup truck sunk to the tops of its wheel wells. All of it unmoving and silent as the grave, all just as it had been since the Time Before.

“Gives me the creeps, cuz,” Arlo murmured. “I always tell myself not to look, and I always do anyway.”

As they approached the highway overpass, Alicia pulled up sharply. She turned, one hand raised, and rode briskly back to them.

“Three dozers underneath. They’re hanging in the rafters on the back side, over the culvert.”

Theo absorbed this news without expression. Unlike the viral they’d seen on the mountain road, there was no question of taking on a whole pod, certainly not this late in the day.

“We’ll have to go around. The cart can’t make it without a ramp. Lish? Agreed?”

“No argument. We close up and go.”

They turned east, tracing the course of the highway at a distance of a hundred meters. The sun stood four hands; they were cutting it close now. It would be slow going over open ground with the cart. The next entrance ramp was two kilometers away.

“I hate to admit it,” Theo said quietly to Peter, “but Lish had a point. When we get back, we should put together a hunting party and clear out that pod.”

“If they’re still there.”

Theo was frowning pensively. “Oh, they’ll be there. A single smoke bagging squirrels is one thing. This is something else. They know we use this road.”

What the smokes knew and didn’t know was always a question. Were they creatures of pure instinct, or were they capable of thought? Could they plan and strategize? And if the latter was true, didn’t it follow that they were still, in some sense, people? The people they had been, before they were taken up? A great deal was simply not understood. Why, for instance, some of them would approach the Wall, while others would not; why a handful, such as the one they had seen on the road, would hazard the daylight to hunt; if their attacks, when they came, were simply random occurrences or triggered by something else; the distinctive manner in which they moved, always in groups of three, the actions of their bodies coordinated each to the others, like phrases of a rhyme; even how many there were out there, prowling the dark. It was true that the combination of the lights and walls had kept the Colony secure for most of a hundred years. The Builders seemed to have understood their enemy well, or at least well enough. And yet watching a pod moving at the edge of the lights, appearing out of the night to patrol the perimeter before departing to wherever it was they went, Peter often had the distinct impression of watching a single being, and that this being was alive, soulfully alive, no matter what Teacher said. Death made sense to him, the body joined to the soul in life, ceasing together in death. His mother’s final hours had taught him as much. The sounds of her last, ragged breaths, and then the sudden stillness: he knew that the woman she had been was gone. How could a being continue with no soul?

They reached the ramp. To the north, at the base of the foothills, Peter could discern, through a haze of airborne dust, the long, low shape of the Empire Valley Outlet Mall. Peter had been there plenty of times before, on scavenging parties; the place had gotten pretty picked over through the years, but it was so vast you could still find useful stuff. The Gap had been cleared out, and J. Crew too, as had the Williams-Sonoma and the REI and most of the stores on the south end near the atrium, but there was a big Sears with windows that offered some protection and a JC Penney with good exterior access so you could get out fast, both still containing usable things, like shoes and tools and cooking pans. The thought occurred to him that he might go looking for something for Maus, for the baby, and maybe Theo was thinking the same thing. But there was no time for that now.

Standing above the sand at the base of the ramp was a sign, bent with the prevailing winds:

nt  sta e 10 E
P lm    ings 25
In io 55

Alicia rode back to them. “All clear underneath. We better get a move on.”

The roadway was in passable shape; they were making good time again. A broiling wind was tearing through the pass. Peter’s skin and eyes felt scorched, like kindling on the verge of combustion. He realized he hadn’t urinated since they’d stopped to water the horses and reminded himself to drink from his canteen. Theo was scanning ahead with the binoculars, one hand loosely holding the reins. They were close enough now that Peter could see the turbines with enough detail to discern which were turning, which not. He tried to count the ones that were but quickly lost track.

The shadow of the mountain had begun to fall over the valley as they moved off the Eastern Road. At last they saw their destination: a concrete bunker, half-submerged in the valley floor, ringed by tall fencing charged with enough current to set anything that touched it aflame, and behind that the power trunk, a great rust-colored tube that ascended the mountain’s eastern face, a wall of white rock forming a natural barricade. Theo dismounted and took the leather lanyard that held the key from around his neck. The key opened a metal panel on a post; there were two such panels, one on each side of the fence. Inside was a switch to control the current, another to open the gate. Theo killed the current and stood back while the gate swung open.

“Let’s go.”

Adjacent to the station was a small livery, shaded by a metal roof, with troughs for the horses and a pump. They all drank greedily, letting the water stream down their chins and pouring handfuls over their sweat-soaked hair, then left Finn and Rey to see to the animals and went to the hatch. Theo withdrew the key once more. A thunk of metal as the locks freed, and they all stepped inside.

They were met by a blast of cool air and the basal hum of mechanical ventilation. Peter shivered in the sudden chill. A single bulb in a cage provided the only illumination to the flight of metal stairs that took them down below ground level. At the bottom was a second hatch, which stood ajar. Beyond it lay the turbine control room, and, deeper still, a barracks and kitchen and rooms for storage and equipment. At the rear, accessible by a ramp leading to the outside, was the stable where they overnighted the horses and mules.

“Anybody home?” Theo called out. He nudged the door open with his foot. “Hello!”

No reply.

“Theo—” This was Alicia.

“I know,” Theo said. “It’s weird.”

They stepped cautiously through the hatch. Across the long table in the center of the control room lay an assemblage of guttered beeswax candles and the remains of a hastily departed meal: tins of paste, plates of hardtack, a greasy cast-iron pot that looked like it had contained some kind of meat stew. None of it appeared to have been touched in a day or even longer. Arlo waved his blade over the pot, and a cloud of flies scattered. Despite the whir of the fans the air was close and rank, thick with the smell of men and hot insulation. The only light, a pale yellow glow, came from the meters on the control panel, which monitored the flow of current from the turbines. Above them the station’s clock told the hour: 18:45.

“So where the hell are they?” Alicia asked. “Am I missing something, or is it almost Second Bell?”

They moved through the barracks and storage areas, confirming what they already knew: the station was empty. They climbed the stairs and stepped back into the late-day heat. Rey and Finn were waiting under the shade of the livery’s awning.

“Any idea where they might have gone?” Theo asked.

Finn had balled up his shirt to douse it in the trough and was wiping down his chest and armpits. “One of the tool carts is missing. A jenny, too.” He cocked his head, shifting his eyes to Rey, then back to Theo, as if to say, Here’s a theory. “They could still be out on the turbines. Zander likes to play it close sometimes.”

Zander Phillips was the Station Chief. He wasn’t much to talk to, or look at, for that matter. All that time out in the sun and wind had dried him like a raisin, and the days of isolation had made him gruff to the point of silence. It was said that nobody had ever heard him say so much as five words in a row.

“How close?”

Finn shrugged again. “Look, I don’t know. Ask him when he gets back.”

“Who else is down here?”

“Just Caleb.”

Theo moved out of the shadow of the livery, to face the turbine field. The sun had just begun its dip behind the mountain; soon its shadow would stretch clear across the valley to the foothills on the far side. When that happened, there was no question: they’d have to seal the hatch. Caleb Jones was just a kid, barely fifteen; everyone called him Hightop.

“Well, they’ve got half a hand,” Theo said finally. Everyone knew this, but still it needed to be said. He looked at each of their party in turn, a quick glance to verify that his meaning was acknowledged. “Let’s get the animals inside.”

They led the animals down the ramp into the stable and sealed the bulkhead for the night. By the time they finished, the sun had dropped behind the mountain. Peter left Arlo and Alicia in the control room and went to join Theo where he was waiting at the gate, scanning the turbine field with his binoculars. Peter felt the first flickering chill of night across his arms, on the sun-baked skin at the back of his neck. His mouth and throat were dry again, tasting of dust and horses.

“How long do we wait?”

Theo didn’t answer. The question was rhetorical, just words to fill the silence. Something had happened, or Zander and Caleb would have been back by now. Peter was also thinking of their father, as he believed Theo was as well: Demo Jaxon, gone into the turbine field without a trace, headed out on the Eastern Road. How long had they waited that night to close the hatch on Demo Jaxon?

Peter heard footsteps approaching and turned to find Alicia striding in their direction from the hatch. She took a place beside them, directing her gaze across the darkening field. They stood without speaking for another moment, watching the night march down the valley. As the mountain’s shadow touched the foothills on the far side, Alicia drew a blade and wiped it on the hem of her jersey.

“I hate to say it—”

“You don’t have to.” Theo turned to face the two of them. “Okay, we’re done here. Let’s lock it up.”

The day-to-day. That was the term they used. Thinking neither of a past that was too much a story of loss and death, nor of a future that might never happen. Ninety-four souls under the lights, living in the day-to-day.

Yet it was not always so for Peter. In idle moments, standing the Watch when all was quiet, or lying in his bunk waiting for sleep to come, he would often find himself thinking of his parents. Though there were those in the Colony who still spoke of heaven—a place, beyond physical existence, where the soul went after death—the idea had never made sense to him. The world was the world, a realm of the senses that could be touched and tasted and felt, and it seemed to Peter that the dead, if they went anywhere at all, would pass into the living. Perhaps it was something Teacher had told him; perhaps he had come to the idea on his own. But for as long as he could recall, since he had come out of the Sanctuary and learned the truth of the world, he had believed this to be so. As long as he could hold his parents in his mind, some part of them would go on; and when he himself should die, these memories would pass with him into others still living, so that in this manner, all of them—not just Peter and his parents but everyone who had gone before and those who would come after—would continue.

He could no longer envision his parents’ faces. This had been the first thing to go, leaving him in just a matter of days. When he thought of them, it wasn’t a question of something seen but something felt—a wash of remembered sensations that flowed through him like water. The milky sound of his mother’s voice and the look of her hands, pale and fine-boned but strong too, as she went about her work in the Infirmary, touching here and there, offering what comforts she could; the creak of his father’s boots ascending the ladder of the catwalk on a night when Peter was running between the posts, and the way he had passed beside him without speaking, acknowledging Peter only with a hand on his shoulder; the heat and energy of the living room in the days of the Long Rides, when his father and uncle and the other men would gather to plan their routes, and later, the sounds of their voices as they drank shine on the porch well into the night, telling the stories of all they’d seen in the Darklands.

That was what Peter had wanted: to feel himself a part of them. To be one of the men of the Long Rides. And yet he had always known this would never happen. Listening from his bed to the voices on the porch, their rich masculine sound, he knew it about himself. Something was missing. He did not know the name for this thing; he wasn’t sure it had a name at all. It was something more than courage, more than giving it up, though these were a part of it. The only word that came to him was largeness; that was what the men of the Long Rides possessed. And when the time came for one of the Jaxon boys to join them, Peter knew it would be Theo whom his father would call to the gate. He would be left behind.

His mother had known it about him too. His mother, who had so stoically borne their father’s disgrace and then his final ride, everyone knowing but never daring to utter the truth; his mother, who, in the end, even when the cancer had taken everything else from her, had spoken not a single ill word of their father for leaving them. He’s in his own time now. It was summer, as it was now, the days long and blazing with heat, when she’d taken to her bed. Theo was Full Watch by this time, not yet a Captain though that was soon to follow; the duty of their mother’s care had fallen to Peter, who sat with her through the days and nights, helping her eat and dress and even bathe, an awkward intimacy they both endured because it was simply necessary. She might have gone to the Infirmary; that was how things were usually done. But his mother was First Nurse, and if Prudence Jaxon wanted to die at home in her bed, no one was going to tell her otherwise.

Whenever Peter recalled that summer, its long days and endless nights, it seemed a period of his life from which he had never completely departed. It reminded him of a story Teacher had told them once about a turtle approaching a wall; each time the turtle moved forward, he decreased the distance by half, guaranteeing that he would never reach his destination. That was how it felt to Peter, watching his mother die. For three days she had drifted in and out of a feverish sleep, speaking hardly a word, answering only the simplest questions required for her care. She would take a few sips of water, but that was all. Sandy Chou, the nurse on duty, had been to visit that afternoon, and told Peter to be ready. The room was dim, the light of the spots filtered into dappled shadow by the tree that stood beyond the window. A sheen of sweat gleamed on her pale brow; her hands—the hands that Peter had watched for hours in the Infirmary, going about their careful work—lay motionless at her sides. Since nightfall Peter hadn’t set foot from the room, fearing that she would awaken to find herself alone. That she was close to death, within hours, Peter knew; Sandy had made this clear. But it was the stillness of her hands where they rested on the blankets, all their patient labors ended, that told him so.

He wondered: How did you say goodbye? Would it frighten her, to hear him say the word? And what would fill the silence that came after? There had been no chance to do this with his father; in many ways, that had been the worst of it. He had simply slipped away, into oblivion. What would Peter have said to his father if he’d had the chance? A selfish wish, but still he thought it: Choose me, Peter would have said. Not Theo. Me. Before you go, choose me. The scene was perfectly clear in his mind—as Peter imagined it, the sun was coming up; they were sitting on the porch, just the two of them, his father dressed to ride, holding his compass, flicking the cover open with his thumb and closing it again, as was his habit—and yet the scene did not conclude. Never had he imagined how his father might have answered.

Now here was his mother, dying; if death was a room the soul entered, she was standing at the threshold; and yet Peter could not find the words to tell her how he felt—that he loved her and would miss her when she was gone. In their family, it had always been true that Peter was hers, as Theo’s was their father’s. Nothing was ever said about this; it was simply a fact. Peter knew there had been miscarriages, and at least one baby that was born early with something wrong and died within hours. He thought this baby was a girl. It had happened when Peter was just a Little himself, still in the Sanctuary, so he didn’t really know. So perhaps that was the missing thing—not something inside him, but inside her—and the reason that he had always felt his mother’s love so fiercely. He was the one she would keep.

The first soft light of morning was in the windows when he heard her breathing change, catching in her chest like a hiccup. For a terrible instant he believed the moment had come, but then he saw her eyes were open. Mama? he said, taking her hand. Mama, I’m here.

Theo, she said.

Could she see him? Did she know where she was? Mama, he said, it’s Peter. Do you want me to get Theo?

She seemed to be looking into some deep place inside herself, infinite and without borders, a place of eternity. Take care of your brother, Theo, she said. He’s not strong, like you. Then she closed her eyes and did not open them again.

He had never told his brother about this. There seemed no point. There were times when he thought, wishfully, that he might have misheard her, or else could attribute these final words to the delirium of illness. But try as he might to construe them otherwise, her words and meaning seemed clear. After everything, the long days and nights he had cared for her, it was Theo she had placed at her bedside in her final hours; Theo to whom she had given the last words of her life.

Nothing more was said of the missing station crew. They fed the animals and then themselves and retired to the barracks, a cramped, foul-smelling room of bunk beds and soiled mattresses stuffed with musty straw. By the time Peter lay down, Finn and Rey were already snoring away. Peter wasn’t accustomed to going to bed so early, but he’d been up for twenty-four hours straight and felt himself quickly drifting off.

He awoke disoriented, his mind still swimming in the current of anxious dreams. His internal clock told him it was half-night or later. All the men were still asleep, but Alicia’s bunk was empty. He made his way down the dim hall to the control room, where he found her sitting at the long table, turning the pages of a book by the light of the panel. The clock read 02:33.

She lifted her eyes to meet his. “Don’t know how you slept, with all that snoring.”

He took a chair across from her. “I didn’t, not really. What are you reading?”

She closed the book and rubbed her eyes with the tips of her fingers. “Damned if I know. I found it in the storage room. There’s boxes and boxes of them.” She slid it across the table to him. “Go ahead and look if you want.”

Where the Wild Things Are, the title read. A thin volume, containing mostly pictures. Peter turned the brittle, dusty-smelling pages one by one. A little boy in some kind of animal costume, with ears and a tail, brandishing a fork as he chased a small white dog; the boy’s banishment to his room, and the room being enveloped by a forest, magically growing; a moonlit night descending, and a journey across the sea to an island of monsters, unimaginable beings of grasping claws and gnashing teeth and huge yellow eyes. The Wild Things.

“That whole business about the boy looking them in the eyes and telling them to be still,” Alicia said. She yawned into her hand. “I don’t see how that would do any good at all.”

Peter closed the book and put it aside. He had no idea what to make of any of it, but that was the way of most things from the Time Before. How did people live? What did they eat, wear, think? Did they walk in the dark, as if this were nothing? If there were no virals, what made them afraid?

“I think it’s all made up.” He shrugged. “Just a story. I think he’s dreaming.”

Alicia lifted her eyebrows, her expression saying, Who knows? Who can say what the world used to be?

“I was actually hoping you’d wake up,” she announced then, rising from her chair. She lifted a lantern from the floor. “I’ve got something to show you.”

She led him back through the barracks and into one of the storage rooms. The walls were lined with metal shelving, stacked with supplies: greasy tools, coils of wire and solder, plastic jugs of water and alcohol. Alicia placed the lantern on the floor and stepped to one of the shelves and began to move its contents onto the floor.

“Well? Don’t just stand there.”

“What are you doing?”

“What does it look like? And keep your voice down—I don’t want to wake the others.”

When they’d cleared everything away, Alicia instructed him to stand at one end of the shelf, positioning herself on the opposite side. Peter realized that the back of the shelf was a sheet of plywood, concealing the wall behind it. They pulled the shelf away.

A hatch.

Alicia stepped forward and turned the ring and swung it open. A narrow, tubelike space, with a flight of metal stairs rising in a spiral. Metal crates were stacked against the wall. The stairs vanished in the gloom, some unknowable distance over Peter’s head. The air was stale and choked with dust.

“When did you find it?” he asked, amazed.

“Last season. I got bored one night and started poking around. I figure it’s some kind of escape route left by the Builders. The stairs go straight to a crawl space on the roof.”

Peter gestured toward the crates with his lantern. “What’s in those?”

“That,” she said, smiling mischievously, “is the best part.”

Together they dragged one of the crates out onto the floor of the storeroom. A metal locker, a meter long and half as deep, with the words U.S. MARINE CORPS printed on the side. Alicia knelt to undo the hasps and lifted the lid to reveal six sleek black objects, cradled in foam. It took Peter a few seconds to understand what he was seeing.

“Holy shit, Lish.”

She passed him a weapon. A long-bore rifle, cool to the touch and smelling faintly of oil. It was shockingly light in his hands, as if made of some substance that defied gravity. Even in the dim light of the storage room he could detect the lustrous gleam in the finish of the muzzle. The guns he’d seen were all little more than corroded relics, rifles and pistols the Army had left behind; the Watch still kept some in the Armory, but as far as Peter was aware, all the ammunition had been used up years ago. Never in his life had Peter held anything so clean and new, untouched by time.

“How many are there?”

“Twelve boxes, six guns apiece, a little over a thousand rounds. There are six more crates up in the crawl space.”

All his nervousness was gone, replaced by a lusty hunger to use this wonderful new object in his hands, to feel its power. “Show me how to load it,” he said.

Alicia took the gun from his hands and drew back the bolt and charger. Then she took a magazine of bullets from the box, shoved it into place in front of the trigger guard, pushing forward until it caught, and gave the base two hard taps with her palm.

“Aim it like a cross,” she said, and turned away to demonstrate. “It’s basically the same, only with a lot more kick. Just keep your finger off the trigger unless you mean business. You’ll want to, but don’t.”

She passed the rifle back to him. A loaded gun! Peter raised it to his shoulder, searching for something in the room that seemed worthy of his aim, and finally selected a coil of copper wire on the far shelf. The urge to fire, to experience the explosive force of its recoil in his arms, was so strong it required an almost physical effort to push the thought away.

“Just remember what I said about the trigger,” Alicia warned. “You’ve got twenty rounds per magazine. Now, load this one so I know you know how.”

He traded the loaded rifle for a new one. Peter did his best to recall the steps: safety, bolt, charger, magazine. When he was done he gave the clip two hard taps, as he had seen Alicia do.

“How’s that?”

Alicia was watching him appraisingly, holding her rifle with the stock against her hip. “Not bad. A little slow. Don’t point it down like that, you’ll blow your foot off.”

He quickly raised his barrel. “You know, I’m a little surprised. I thought you didn’t believe in these things.”

She shrugged. “I don’t, not really. They’re sloppy and they’re loud, and they make you too confident by half.” She passed him a second magazine for his waist pouch. “On the other hand, the smokes believe in them just fine if you do it right.” She tapped a finger against her sternum. “One shot, through the sweet spot. Closer than three meters you have a little slop, but don’t count on it.”

“So you’ve used these guns before.”

“Did I say that?”

Peter knew better than to press. Six crates of Army rifles. How could Alicia possibly resist?

“So whose guns are they?”

“How should I know? As far as I can tell, they’re the property of the United States Marine Corps, just like it says on the box. Quit asking questions and let’s go.”

They reentered the hatch and began to climb. He felt the temperature rise with every step of their ascent. Ten meters up they reached a small platform with a ladder. In the ceiling over their heads was another hatch. Alicia rested the lantern on the platform, reached overhead on tiptoes, and began to turn the wheel. They were both sweating hard; the air felt almost too thick to breathe.

“It’s stuck.”

He reached up to help her. With a rusty squeal, the mechanism released. Two turns, three; the hatch dropped open on its hinges. Cool night air tumbled through the opening like a current of water, smelling of desert, of dry juniper and mesquite. Above, Peter could see only blackness.

“Me first,” Alicia said. “I’ll call you up.”

He heard her footsteps moving away from the opening. He listened for more but heard nothing. They were up on the roof somewhere, no lights to protect them. He counted to twenty, thirty. Should he follow her?

Then Alicia’s face appeared above him, floating over the open hatch. “Leave the lantern there. It’s all clear. Come on.”

He ascended the ladder and found himself in a small crawl space, with pipes and valves and more crates stacked along the walls. He paused, letting his eyes adjust. He was facing an open door. He took a deep breath and stepped forward.

He stepped into the stars.

It hit him in the lungs first, shoving the breath from his chest. A feeling of pure physical panic, as if he’d stepped onto nothing, onto the night sky itself. His knees bent beneath him, his free hand scrabbled at the air, searching for something to hold on to, to give himself a feeling of form and weight, the working dimensions of the world around him. The sky above was a vault of blackness—and everywhere, the stars!

“Peter, breathe,” Alicia said.

She was standing beside him. He realized that her hand was resting on his shoulder. In the dark Alicia’s voice seemed to come from very close and far away at once. He did as she said, letting deep gulps of night air fill his chest. Bit by bit his eyes adjusted. Now he could make out the edge of the roof, spilling into nothingness. They were in the southwest corner, he realized, near the exhaust port.

“So what do you think?”

For a long, quiet moment, he let his eyes roam the sky. The longer he looked, the more stars appeared to him, pushing through the blackness. These were the stars his father had spoken of, the stars his father had seen on the Long Rides.

“Does Theo know?”

Alicia laughed. “Does Theo know what?”

“The hatch. The guns.” Peter shrugged helplessly. “All of it.”

“I never showed him, if that’s what you mean. I’m guessing Zander does, since he knows every inch of this place. But he’s never said a word to me about it.”

His eyes searched out her face. She seemed different somehow, in the dark: the same Alicia he had always known, but also someone new. He understood what she had done. She’d saved it for him.

“Thanks.”

“Don’t go thinking this means we’re friends or anything. If Arlo had woken up first, it’d be him standing here.”

That wasn’t true, and he knew it. “Even so,” he said.

She led him to the edge of the roof. They were facing north, across the valley. Not a breath of wind was blowing. On the far side, the shape of the mountains was etched into the sky as a dark bulk pushed up against a shimmering rim of stars. They took positions, lying side by side with their bellies pressed against the concrete, still warm with the heat of the day.

“Here,” Alicia said, reaching into her pouch. “You’ll want one of these.”

A night scope. She showed him how to fix it to the top of the rifle and adjust the gain. Peter placed his eye to the viewfinder and saw a landscape of shrubs and rocks, all washed in a pale green light, with a pair of hatched crosshairs bisecting his view. At the bottom of the scope he saw a readout: 212 METERS. The numbers rose and fell as he swept the rifle back and forth. Amazing.

“You think they’re still alive?”

Alicia took a moment to answer. “I don’t know. Probably not. It can’t hurt to wait, though.” She paused again; there wasn’t much else to say on the subject. Then: “You think I was too hard on Maus today?”

The question surprised him. As long as he’d known her, Alicia had never been one to second-guess herself.

“Not the way it worked out. You did the right thing.”

“She’s a loss. You can’t say she isn’t.”

“It doesn’t matter. You said it yourself. Maus knows the rules as well as anyone.”

“I’d rather keep her than Galen.” She groaned. “Flyers. That guy. What the hell could she see in him?”

Peter lifted his face from the scope. The sky was so thick with stars it was as if he could reach out and brush them with his hand. He’d never seen anything so beautiful in his life. It made him think of the oceans, the names in the book like the words of a song—Atlantic, Pacific, Indian, Arctic—and about his father, standing on the edge of the sea. Maybe the stars were what Auntie meant when she spoke of God. The old God, from the Time Before. The God of Heavens who watched the World.

“Do you ever … ” Alicia began. “I don’t know, think about it?”

Peter shifted to face her. Her eye was still pressed to her scope. “Think about what?”

Alicia gave a nervous laugh—a sound he’d never heard her make. “You’re going to make me say it? Pairing, Peter. Having Littles.”

He had; of course he had. Almost everybody paired by the time they were twenty. But standing the Watch made it hard—up all night, sleeping most of the day or else walking around in a daze of exhaustion. But when Peter faced the question squarely, he knew that wasn’t the only reason. Something about the idea simply did not seem possible; it applied to others, but not to him. There had been girls for him, and then a few he would have described as women; each had occupied a few months’ time, working him up into such a state that they were, briefly, most of what he thought about. But in the end he had always drifted away or found himself, inexplicably, directing them toward someone he thought of as more suitable.

“Not really, no.”

“What about Sara?”

A feeling of defensiveness rose up inside him. “What about her?”

“Come on, Peter,” Alicia said, and he heard the exasperation in her voice. “I know she wants to pair with you. It’s no secret. She’s First too, it would be a good match. Everyone thinks so.”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“I’m just saying. It’s obvious.”

“Well, it isn’t obvious to me.” He paused. They had never spoken like this before. “Look, I like Sara fine. I’m just not certain I want to pair with her.”

“But you do want to? Pair, I mean.”

“Someday. Maybe. Lish, why are you asking this?”

He turned his face toward her again. She was looking through her scope across the valley, slowly sweeping the horizon line with her rifle.

“Lish?”

“Hold on. Something’s moving.”

He rolled back into position. “Where?”

Alicia quickly lifted the barrel of her rifle, pointing. “Two o’clock.”

He pressed his eye to the scope: a solitary figure, darting from one stand of scrub to another, a hundred meters past the fence line. Human.

“It’s Hightop,” Alicia said.

“How do you know?”

“Too small to be Zander. Nobody else out there.”

“He’s alone?”

“I can’t tell,” Alicia said. “Wait. No. Ten degrees right.”

Peter looked: a flash of green in the scope, skipping like a stone over the desert floor. Then he saw a second, and a third, two hundred meters and closing. Not closing: circling.

“What are they doing? Why don’t they just take him?”

“I don’t know.”

Then they heard it.

“Hey!” The voice was Caleb’s, high and wild and full of fear. He was up and running toward the fence, waving his arms. “Open the gate, open the gate!”

“Flyers.” Alicia rolled to her feet. “Come on.”

They raced back to the crawl space; Alicia quickly opened one of the containers stacked by the hatch. She withdrew a pistol of some kind—short, with a fat, snub-nosed barrel. Peter had no time to ask. They ran back to the edge and Alicia pointed it up and over the turbine field and fired.

The flare shot skyward, dragging a hissing tail of light. Peter instinctively knew he shouldn’t look but he couldn’t stop himself, he looked anyway, his vision instantly seared by the image of the flare’s white-hot center. At its apex the flare seemed to stop, suspended in space. Then it exploded, bathing the field in light.

“We’ve bought him a minute,” Alicia said. “There’s a ladder down the back.”

They slung their weapons over their shoulders; Alicia descended the ladder first, taking it like a pair of poles, her feet not even touching the rungs. As Peter scrambled down, she shot another flare, arcing it over the station toward the field. Then they ran.

Caleb was standing on the far side of the metal gate. The virals had scattered, back into the shadows. “Please! Let me in!”

“Shit, we don’t have a key,” Peter said.

Alicia shouldered her rifle and aimed it at the panel. A burst of fire and noise; a shower of sparks poured forth as the panel shot from its pole.

“Caleb, you’ll have to climb over!”

“I’ll fry!”

“No you won’t, the current’s off!” She looked at Peter. “You think it’s off?”

“How should I know?”

Alicia stepped forward and, before Peter could say anything, pressed her palm to the fence. Nothing happened.

“Hurry, Caleb!”

Caleb curled his fingers between the wires and began to climb. Around them the shadows flattened as the second flare completed its descent. Alicia withdrew a fresh flare from her waist pouch, loaded the pistol, and fired. Up and up it sailed, riding its tail of smoke, and burst above them in a shower of light.

“That’s the last,” she said to Peter. “We’ve got about ten seconds before they figure out the current’s off.” Caleb was straddling the top of the fence now. “Caleb,” she yelled, “move your ass!”

He took the last five meters at a drop, rolling as he landed and vaulting to his feet. His cheeks were wet from crying, smeared with dirt and snot; his feet were bare. In another few seconds they’d be in the dark again.

“Are you hurt?” Alicia said. “Can you run?”

The boy nodded.

They took off toward the station. Peter felt the virals coming before he saw them. He turned in time to see one launching toward them from the top of the fence. A blast of gunfire went off next to his ear: the creature twisted in the air and went down, skidding across the hardpan. He turned to see Alicia, her rifle shouldered, her eyes fixed on the fence. She let off three more shots in quick succession.

“Get him out of here!” she yelled.

He raced with Caleb to the ladder. Behind them, Alicia continued to fire, the sound of her rifle shots reaching him as muffled pops that echoed through the yard. More virals were inside the fence line now. Slinging his rifle, Peter mounted the ladder; when he reached the top, he turned to look. Alicia was backing toward the wall of the station, shooting into the shadows. When her gun went silent she cast it aside and began to climb; Peter shouldered his rifle and aimed in the same general direction and squeezed the trigger. The barrel kicked up, his shots sailing uselessly into the dark. His whole body shook with the feel of it, its wild force.

“Watch what you’re doing!” Alicia cried, pressing her body to the ladder below him. “And for godsakes, aim!”

“I’m trying!” There were three now, coming out of the shadows toward the ladder’s base; Peter took a step to his right, clamping the stock hard against his shoulder. Aim it like a cross. He had very little chance of hitting them, but maybe he could scare them off. He squeezed the trigger and they jumped away, rolling across the yard and skittering into the dark. He’d bought a few seconds at most.

“Shut up and climb!” he yelled.

“I will if you stop shooting at me!”

Then she was at the top. He found her hand and pulled hard, vaulting her onto the concrete surface of the roof. Caleb was waving to them from the mouth of the hatch.

“Behind you!”

As Alicia clambered down the hatch, Peter turned; a single viral was standing on the edge of the roof. Peter raised his gun and fired, but too late. The place where the creature had stood was empty.

“Forget the smokes!” Alicia yelled from below. “Come on!”

He dropped straight through the opening, tumbling into Caleb, who folded under him with a grunt. A sharp pain sliced his ankle as he hit the platform; the rifle clattered away. Alicia stepped over the two of them and reached up to seal the hatch. But something was pressing down on the other side. Alicia’s face clenched with exertion; her feet scrabbled at the ladder, fighting for leverage.

“I … can’t … close it!”

Peter and Caleb leapt to their feet and pushed. But the force on the far side was too great. Peter had done something to his ankle when he’d fallen, but the pain was vague now, unimportant. He scanned the platform below for his rifle and found it, lying at the top of the stairs.

“Let go,” he said. “Drop the hatch. It’s the only way.”

“Are you crazy?” But then he saw, in Alicia’s eyes, that she understood his intentions. “Good, do it.” She turned to Caleb, who nodded. “Ready?”

“One … two … ”

“Three!”

They released the hatch. Peter dropped to the platform, the pain exploding in his ankle as he made impact; he lunged for the rifle and swung around, thrusting the muzzle upward through the opening. There was no time to aim, but he hoped he wouldn’t have to.

He didn’t. The end of the barrel went straight into the viral’s open mouth. The barrel speared him like an arrow, sliding past the rows of glossy teeth, coming to rest where it pressed against the bony ridge at the top of his throat, and Peter looked him in the eyes and thought, Be still, giving the rifle one hard shove to drive it home before he shot Zander Phillips through the brain.