Dan Wells - Partials series 1-3 (Partials; Fragments; Ruins)

Jayden clapped Kira on the back. “You ready?”

No, Kira thought, I’m cold, and I’m hot, and I’m tired, and I’m terrified, and I’ve never been less ready for anything in my life. She forced herself to smile.

“I’m ready. Let’s go attack some super-soldiers.”

The bridge started by the courthouse, and they were on it for nearly half a mile before they reached the water. As they neared the edge they dropped down to hands and knees, crawling below the rim of a waist-high wall, a tiny strip of concrete that would shield them from the sight of the invisible watchman on one of the buildings above. Skinny and Scruffy crawled ahead, marking traps and defusing trip wires for the rest of the group to pass through safely. Even with the marks, Kira sometimes couldn’t see what each trap was supposed to be.

She imagined a vast Partial army hiding in the skyscrapers across the river, coincidentally—or not—choosing this exact moment to mount an attack. The traps were down; the door was open. Was she betraying humanity?

No. She was saving it. She clenched her jaw and kept crawling.

Brooklyn had surprised Kira by making tall buildings commonplace; Manhattan shocked her completely by making those giant buildings seem small. The island was a mountain of metal, stretching so high into the clouds it seemed to be literally scraping the sky. The base of the city was a carpet of green—parks and trees and strips of grass had long ago overrun their borders and stretched out into the streets, seeds finding cracks and roots finding weak spots until the asphalt had become warped and broken, and the roads had become a forest of new growth. Kudzu crept inexorably up the sides of buildings, coating the bottom stories in a layer of vines and leaves so thick the buildings themselves seemed to be growing out of the ground.

As their bridge reached the far side of the river and stretched out into the city, they finally stood up. Kira found herself at treetop level in a literal urban jungle. Birds nested in the vines and rain gutters, and feral cats prowled cautiously through the latticed framework of exposed offices hundreds of feet in the air. She heard a baying of hounds and, she was certain, the distant trumpeting of an elephant.

“They should call this Animalhattan,” said Gabe, shooting Kira a quick smile. She grinned and nodded.

“Everybody stay down,” said Jayden. “We know Brooklyn pretty well, but this is all new territory. We shouldn’t see any Partials here, but it doesn’t hurt to be careful.” He pointed to a pale building just a block or two to the north. “That tower will give us the best vantage point over this section of the island; we’ll go up, get the lay of the land, and move on from there. Stay close and try to keep quiet.”

Kira crawled after the others as the bridge angled down and curved through a stand of towering trees. Ground level was a whole new world—a schizophrenic blend of forest and junkyard where Kira had to be extra careful with her footing. The sheer mass of the skyscrapers around them resulted in more debris than usual—shards of glass and chunks of stonework, bits of plaster and crumbled drywall and untold reams of paper, some of it blowing free and some of it half-decomposed in a thick accumulation of dirt, leaves, and fungus. Long green tendrils wrapped around faded soda cans, wove through the spokes of rusted bicycles, and clung fiercely to the sides of old taxis and buses and road signs.

Kira and the soldiers followed the road carefully, picking their way between leafy cars and rusty trees and piles of unrecognizable rubble. When they reached the pale building, Gabe set watch at the bottom of the stairs, and the rest climbed as high as they dared before Haru grew worried about stability. Twelve stories proved to be enough—this part of the island was mostly government buildings and apartments instead of giant office buildings, giving them an unobstructed view of the terrain to the north.

“That strip of deeper green was probably a park,” said Jayden, pointing northeast. “Looks like it goes at least ten blocks, and those trees will give us good cover.”

“They’ll also slow us down,” said Haru. “We should pick a wide street and head straight up the middle.” They debated for several minutes, while Yoon leaned out the neighboring window to coo at a pair of brightly colored birds. Kira studied the skyline, trying to drink in as much of the city as she could. Were there any landmarks she could use? Distinctive buildings she could find and remember if she ever got lost? As her eyes rolled over the cityscape, she saw a thin white line that seemed to be moving—a reflection, maybe, or . . . no. It was smoke. She pointed to it.

“There’s a fire. Do you see it?”

Jayden and Haru stopped talking, following her finger with their eyes.

“Just beyond those three brown buildings, the ones sticking up.”

“I see it,” said Haru. “It’s not a house fire, it’s too small and controlled. I think it’s a campfire.”

“It’s a chimney,” said Jayden, peering through binoculars. “Someone’s living there.”

Kira frowned at the distant smoke. “Living or camping?”

“I didn’t think there was anyone on the island,” said Yoon. “Why would someone still be living here alone?”

“It might be a watch station,” said Haru. “A Partial outpost.”

“It’s too low for a good watchtower,” said Jayden. “It’s just a small government building, maybe three stories at the most.”

“A Partial camp, then,” said Haru, “like Kira said. A patrol or something, stopped for the day.”

“It doesn’t have to be Partials,” said Kira. “It might just be some weird old coot who didn’t want to leave his home.”

“There’s no way anyone untrained could have made it this far without setting off an explosive,” said Haru. “We should check it out; if it’s Partials, we can set up an ambush and save days off our trip.”

“And if it’s just a refugee, we risk exposing ourselves unnecessarily,” said Jayden. “Anyone crazy enough to survive out here is also paranoid enough to know we’re coming, and to shoot first.”

“You’re the one being paranoid,” said Haru.

“You’re damn right I am,” said Jayden. “If ‘crazy hermit with a gun’ doesn’t scare you, how about ‘Partial trap’? They might be setting this up just to lure us in and catch us.”

“They don’t even know we’re here.”

“We’ll stay alive longer if we assume that they do,” said Jayden. “I don’t want to get near it.”

“Noted and overridden,” said Haru. “We go toward the smoke—but we’ll go carefully. When we hit those three buildings Kira pointed out, we’ll climb one for another look, and we’ll send Nick and Steve around the sides to look for anything out of the ordinary.”

“You’re not in charge,” said Jayden. “You’re not even real military anymore.”

“That’s my wife and child back there dying,” said Haru. “You can try to take command away from me, but I’m not going to make it easy.”

“That’s not how it works, Haru.”

“The scouts are on my side,” Haru hissed. Skinny and Scruffy shifted slightly, as if subtly reminding the others of their presence. “What do you have, a couple of girls? We’re going to the smoke.”

In a heartbeat the room turned cold and still, each person looking at the others, gauging their distance, watching their hands.

Jayden gritted his teeth, visibly swallowing his pride. “We’ll have to use the radios to coordinate,” he said. The tension in the room eased. “Channel thirty-five, with no real locations in case the Partials are listening in. We’ll call the target building Holly, and the three towers next to it Max; Partials are Fred and humans are Ethel, assuming they’re wearing uniforms we can use to identify them. Anyone we can’t identify is Lucy.”