The Passage

FORTY-SEVEN

They had been on the road for hours. With nothing to lie on but the hard metal floor, sleep was all but impossible. It seemed that every time Michael closed his eyes, the truck would hit a bump or swerve one way or the other, sending some part of his body slamming down.

He lifted his head to see a glow of daylight gathering beyond the compartment’s only window, a small porthole of reinforced glass set in the door. His mouth was bone dry; every part of him felt bruised, as if someone had been hitting him with a hammer all night long. He rose to a sitting position, pushing his back against the jostling wall of the compartment, and rubbed the gunk from his eyes. The rest of the group were propped on their packs in various postures of discomfort. Though they were all banged up to some degree, Alicia seemed the worst off. She was facing him, her back resting against the wall of the compartment; her face was pale and damp, her eyes open but drained of energy. Mausami had done her best to clean and bandage Alicia’s injured leg the night before, but Michael could tell the wound was serious. Only Amy seemed to be actually sleeping. She was curled on the floor beside him, her knees pulled to her chest. A fan of dark hair lay over her cheek, pushed to and fro by the bouncing of the truck.

The memory hit him like a slap.

Sara, his sister, was gone.

He remembered running as fast as he could, through the kitchen and out onto the loading dock and into the street with the others, only to end up surrounded-smokes everywhere, the street was like a goddamn smoke party-and then the truck with its immense plow driving toward them, spewing its jet of flame. Get in, get in, the woman on top was yelling at him. And a good thing she had, because Michael had found himself, at just that moment, paralyzed with fear. Nailed to the ground with it. Hollis and the rest of them were yelling, Come on, come on, but Michael couldn’t move a muscle. Like he’d forgotten how. The truck was no more than ten meters away but it could have been a thousand. He turned and as he turned one of the virals locked eyes with him, cocking its head in that funny way they did, and everything seemed to slow down in a way that wasn’t good. Oh boy, a voice in Michael’s head was saying, oh boy oh boy oh boy oh boy, and that was when the woman hit the viral with the flamethrower, coating it with a jet of liquid fire. It crisped up like a ball of fat. Michael actually heard the pop. Then someone was pulling him by the hand-Amy of all people, whose strength was surprising, more than he would have guessed from the little thing she was-and she shoved him into the truck.

Now it was morning. Michael felt himself pushed forward as the vehicle decelerated. Beside him, Amy’s eyes shot open; she rolled into a sitting position and drew her knees to her chest once more, her gaze fixed on the door.

The truck drew to a halt. Caleb scrambled to the window and peered outside.

“What do you see?” Peter had risen to a crouch; his hair was matted with dried blood.

“There’s some kind of structure, but it’s too far away.”

Footsteps on the roof, the sound of the driver’s door, opening and closing again.

Hollis was reaching for his rifle.

Peter put a hand out to stop him. “Wait.”

Caleb: “Here they come-”

The door swung open, blazing their eyes with daylight. Two backlit figures stood before them, clutching shotguns. The woman was young, with dark hair shorn close to her scalp; the man, much older, had a soft, wide face and a nose that looked punched and a few days’ growth of beard. Both were still encased in their bulky body armor, making their heads seem strangely undersized.

“Hand over your weapons.”

“Who the hell are you people?” Peter demanded.

The woman cocked her shotgun. “Everything. Knives, too.”

They disarmed, sliding their guns and blades along the floor in the direction of the door. Michael didn’t have much more than a screwdriver left-he’d lost his rifle in the dash from the hotel, never having fired the damn thing once-but he handed it over anyway. He certainly didn’t want to get shot over a screwdriver. While the woman collected their weapons, the second figure, who had yet to utter a word, kept his gun trained on all of them. In the distance, Michael could make out the shape of a long, low building set against a bulge of barren hills.

“Where are you taking us?” Peter asked.

The woman lifted a metal pail from the ground and placed it on the floor of the truck. “If you have to piss, use this.” Then she slammed the door.

Peter slapped the wall of the truck. “Fuck.”

They drove on. The temperature was rising steadily. The truck decelerated again, turning west. For a long time the vehicle bounced violently; then they began to climb. By now the air in the cabin had become intolerably hot. They drank the last of their water; no one had used the pail.

Peter pounded on the wall that separated them from the truck’s cab. “Hey, we’re roasting back here!”

Time passed, and passed some more. No one spoke; just breathing was an effort. It seemed that some terrible joke had been played on them. They had been rescued from the virals only to be cooked to death in the back of a truck. Michael had begun to drift in and out of a state that felt like sleep but not exactly. He was hot, so hot. At some point he realized they were descending, though this detail seemed trivial, as if it pertained to some other person.

Gradually the fact seeped into Michael’s awareness that the vehicle had stopped. He had been lost in a vision of water, cool water. It was pouring over and through him, and his sister was there, and Elton too, smiling that off-kilter smile of his. Everyone was there, Peter and Mausami and Alicia and even his parents, they all were swimming in it together, its healing blueness, and for a moment Michael willed his mind to return to it, this beautiful dream of water.

“My God,” a voice said.

Michael opened his eyes to a harsh white light and smell, unmistakable, of animal dung. He rolled his face toward the door and saw a pair of figures-he knew he had seen them before but could not say when-and standing between them, brilliantly backlit so that he seemed almost to hover, a tall man with steel-gray hair, wearing what appeared to be an orange jumpsuit. “My God, my God,” the man was saying. “Seven of them. It’s beyond belief.” He turned to the others. “Don’t just stand there. We need stretchers. Hurry.”

The pair jogged away. The thought reached Michael’s brain that something was very wrong. Everything seemed to be happening at the far end of a tunnel. He could not have said where he was or why, although he also sensed that this knowledge had abandoned him only recently, a feeling like déjà vu in reverse. It was a kind of joke but the joke wasn’t funny, not at all. Some large, dry object was in his mouth, fat as a fist, and he realized this was his own tongue, choking him. He heard Peter’s voice, a labored croak: “Who… are… you?”

“My name is Olson. Olson Hand.” A smile lit up his wind-chapped face, only it wasn’t the silver-haired man anymore, it was Theo-it was Theo’s face at the far end of the tunnel-and that was the last thing Michael saw before the tunnel collapsed and all thought left him.

He did not come to so much as slowly surface, ascending through layers of darkness over a period of time that felt both short and long, an hour turned into a day, a day turned into a year. Darkness yielding to a widening whiteness above him, and the gradual reassembly of consciousness, distinct from his surroundings. His eyes were open, blinking. No other part of him seemed capable of movement, just his eyes, the damp plink of his lids. He heard the sound of voices, moving over him like the songs of distant birds, calling to one another across a vast expanse of sky. He thought: Cold. He was cold. Wonderfully, amazingly cold.

He slept, and when he opened his eyes again, some unknown interval of time having passed, he knew that he was in a bed, that the bed was in a room, and that he wasn’t alone. Lifting his head was out of the question; his bones felt as heavy as iron. He was in some kind of infirmary, white walls and white ceiling, angled beams of white light falling upon the white sheet that covered his body and beneath which, it seemed, he was naked. The air was cool and moist. From a place somewhere above and behind came the rhythmic throb of machinery and the drip of water falling into a metal pan.

“Michael? Michael, can you hear me?”

Seated next to his cot was a woman-he thought it was a woman-with dark hair short as a man’s, and a smooth brow and cheeks and a small, thin-lipped mouth. She was gazing at him with what appeared to be intense concern. Michael felt as if he’d seen her before, but his sense of recognition stopped there. Her slender form was draped in a loose-fitting orange costume that seemed, like everything else about her, vaguely familiar. Behind her was some kind of screen, obscuring his view.

“How do you feel?”

He tried to speak but the words seemed to die in his throat. The woman lifted a plastic cup from the table by his bed and held the straw to his lips: water, crisp and cold, distinctly metallic in taste.

“That’s it. Sip slowly.”

He drank and drank. How amazing, the taste of water. When he had finished, she returned the cup to the table.

“Your temperature’s down. I’m sure you’ll want to see your friends.” His tongue felt slow and heavy in his mouth. “Where am I?”

She smiled. “Why don’t I let them explain that to you?”

The woman disappeared behind the screen, leaving him alone. Who was she? What was this place? He felt as if he’d been asleep for days, his mind adrift on a current of disturbing dreams. He tried to remember. Some fat woman. A fat woman breathing smoke.

His thoughts were broken by voices and the sound of footsteps. Peter appeared at the foot of his bed. His face glowed with a grin.

“Look who’s awake! How are you feeling?”

“What… happened?” Michael croaked.

Peter took a seat by Michael’s bed. He filled the cup again and held the straw to Michael’s lips. “I guess you don’t remember. You had heatstroke. You passed out in the truck.” He angled his head toward the woman, who was standing to one side, silently observing. “You’ve already met Billie, I guess. I’m sorry I wasn’t here when you woke up. We’ve all been taking shifts.” He leaned in closer. “Michael, you’ve got to see this place. It’s fantastic.”

This place, Michael thought. Where was he? He pointed his eyes toward the woman, her serenely smiling face. All at once the memory coalesced in his mind. The woman from the truck.

He flinched, knocking the cup from Peter’s hand, sending water splashing all over him.

“Flyers, Michael. What’s the matter?”

“She tried to kill us!”

“That’s a bit of an exaggeration, don’t you think?” He glanced at the woman and gave a little laugh, as if the two of them were in on some private joke. “Michael, Billie saved us. Don’t you remember?”

There was something troubling about Peter’s good cheer, Michael thought; it seemed completely out of step with the facts. Obviously he was very ill; he might well have died.

“What about Lish’s leg? Is she all right?”

Peter waved this concern away. “Oh, she’s fine, everybody’s fine. Just waiting for you to get better.” Peter leaned toward him again. “They call it the Haven, Michael. It’s actually an old prison. That’s where you are now, in the infirmary.”

“A prison. Like a lockup?”

“Sort of. They really don’t use the prison itself much anymore. You should see the size of their operation. Almost three hundred Walkers. Though I guess you could say we’re the Walkers now. And here’s the best thing, Michael. Are you ready? No smokes.”

His words made no sense. “Peter, what are you talking about?”

Peter gave a puzzled shrug, as if the question wasn’t interesting enough to warrant any real thought. “I don’t know. There just aren’t. Listen,” he continued, “when you’re up on your feet, you can look for yourself. You should see the size of the herd. Actual beef cattle.” He was grinning at Michael vacantly. “So what do you say? Think you can sit up?”

He didn’t, but something about Peter’s tone made him feel that he should at least try. Michael eased himself up on his elbows. The room began to tip; his brain sloshed painfully inside his skull. He fell back down again.

“Whoa. That hurt.”

“That’s okay, that’s okay. Just take it easy. Billie says a headache’s perfectly normal after a seizure like that. You’ll be back on your feet in no time.”

“I had a seizure?”

“You really don’t remember much, do you?”

“I guess I don’t.” Michael breathed steadily, trying to calm himself. “How long was I out?”

“Counting today? Three days.” Peter glanced at the woman. “No, make that four.”

“Four days?”

Peter shrugged. “I’m sorry you missed the party. But the good news is that you’re feeling better. Let’s focus on that.”

Michael felt his frustration boiling over. “What party? Peter, what’s wrong with you? We’re stranded in the middle of no place. We’ve lost all our gear. This woman tried to kill us. You’re talking like everything’s fine.”

They were interrupted by the sound of the door opening and a burst of cheerful laughter. Alicia, on crutches, swung around the screen. Trailing her was a man that Michael didn’t recognize-fierce blue eyes, a chin that looked like it had been chiseled from stone. Was Michael hallucinating or were the two of them playing some sort of chase game, like Littles?

She stopped abruptly at the foot of his bed. “Circuit, you’re up!”

“Well, look at that,” the blue-eyed man declared. “Lazarus, back from the dead. How you doing, pardner?”

Michael was too startled to respond. Who was Lazarus?

Alicia turned to Peter. “Did you tell him?”

“I was just getting to that,” Peter said.

“Tell me what?”

“It’s your sister, Michael.” Peter smiled into his face. “She’s here.”

Tears sprang to Michael’s eyes. “That’s not funny.”

“I’m not joking, Michael. Sara’s here. And she’s perfectly all right.”

“I just don’t remember.”

Six of them were gathered around Michael’s bed: Sara, Peter, Hollis, Alicia, the woman they called Billie, and the man with the blue eyes, who had introduced himself to Michael as Jude Cripp. After Peter had told Michael the news, Alicia had left to retrieve his sister; moments later she had burst into the room and flung herself upon him, weeping and laughing. It was all so completely inexplicable that Michael hadn’t known where to begin, what questions to ask. But Sara was alive. For the moment, that was all that mattered.

Hollis explained how they had found her. The day after their arrival, he and Billie had driven back to Las Vegas, to look for the Humvees. They’d reached the hotel to find a scene of total destruction, a smoking mound of rubble and twisted girders. The whole east side of the building had collapsed, filling the street with a mountain of debris. Somewhere beneath this lay the Humvees, smashed to pieces. The air was thick with soot and dust; a rain of ashes coated every surface. The fires had leapt to an adjacent hotel, which was still smoldering. But the building to the east, where Hollis had seen the viral taking Sara, was intact. This, as it turned out, was something called the Eiffel Tower Restaurant. A long flight of stairs led to the structure at the top, a large round room encircled by windows, many broken or missing, that looked out on the demolished hotel.

Sara was curled under one of the tables, unconscious. At Hollis’s touch she seemed to rouse, but her eyes were glazed, unfocused; she appeared to have no notion where she was or what had happened to her. There were scratches on her face and arms; one of her wrists seemed broken from the way she held it, cradling it in her lap. He lifted her into his arms and climbed down the eleven flights of darkened stairs and into the smoke. It wasn’t until they were halfway back to the Haven that she had started to come around.

“Is that really how it happened?” Michael asked her.

“If he says so. Honestly, Michael, all I remember is playing solo. The next thing I knew I was in the truck with Hollis. The rest is a big blank.”

“And you’re really okay?”

Sara shrugged. It was true: apart from the scratches and the wrist that was not broken after all but merely sprained, wrapped with a splinted bandage, she had no visible injuries at all. “I feel fine. I just can’t explain it.”

Jude twisted in his chair toward Alicia. “I’ve got to say, Lish, you sure know how to throw a party. I’d have liked to see the looks on their faces when you tossed that grenade.”

“Michael should get some of the credit. He was the one who told us about the gas. And Peter was the one who used the pan.”

“I still don’t completely understand that part,” said Billie, frowning. “You say it saw its own reflection?”

Peter shrugged. “All I know is, it worked.”

“Maybe the virals just don’t like your cooking,” Hollis suggested.

Everybody laughed.

It was all so strange, Michael thought. Not just the story itself but the way everyone was acting, as if they had no worries in the world.

“What I don’t get is what you guys were doing there in the first place,” he ventured. “I’m glad you were, but it seems like quite a coincidence.”

It was Jude who answered. “We still send regular patrols down to the city to scavenge up supplies. When the hotel went up, we were just three blocks away. We’ve got a fortified shelter in the basement of one of the old casinos. We heard the explosion and headed straight for it.” He gave a closed-mouth grin. “Just dumb luck we saw you when we did.”

Michael paused to consider this. “No, that can’t be right,” he said after a moment. “I remember it distinctly. The hotel blew up after we got out. You were already there.”

Jude shook his head doubtfully. “I don’t think so.”

“No, ask her. She saw the whole thing.” Michael turned his head to look at Billie; she was observing him coolly, that same look of neutral concern on her face. “I remember it distinctly. You used the gun on one of them, and Amy pulled me into the truck. Then we heard the explosion.”

But before Billie could respond, Hollis broke in: “I think you’ve got it a little mixed up, Michael. I was the one who pulled you into the truck. The hotel was already burning. That’s probably what you’re thinking of.”

“I could have sworn… ” Michael fixed his eyes on Jude again, his chiseled face. “And you were in a shelter, you say?”

“That’s pretty much it.”

“Three blocks away.”

“About that.” An indulgent smile. “Like I said, I wouldn’t second-guess a stroke of luck like that, my friend.”

Michael felt the nervous heat of everyone’s attention. Jude’s story didn’t add up; that was obvious. Who would leave the safety of a fortified shelter at night and drive toward a burning building? And why was everyone going along with it? The streets on three sides of the hotel were all blocked by rubble. That meant Jude and Billie could only have come from the east. He tried to recall which side of the building they’d exited from. The south, he thought.

“Oh hell, I don’t know,” he said finally. “Maybe I’m not remembering it right. To tell you the truth, the whole thing is pretty mixed up in my mind.”

Billie nodded. “That’s to be expected after a long period of unconsciousness. I’m sure in a few days things will start to come back to you.”

“Billie’s right,” said Peter. “Let’s let the patient get some rest.” He directed his voice to Hollis. “Olson said he’d take us out to the fields to look around. See how they do things.”

“Who’s Olson?” Michael asked.

“Olson Hand. He’s in charge around here. I’m sure you’ll meet him soon. So, how about it, Hollis?”

The big man offered a close-lipped smile. “Sounds great.”

With that, everyone rose to leave. Michael had resigned himself to lying in solitude, puzzling over these strange new circumstances, when at the last instant Sara darted back to his bedside. Jude was observing her from the edge of the screen. Taking hold of Michael’s hand, she kissed him quickly on the forehead-the first time in years she had done this.

“I’m glad you’re okay,” she said. “Just focus on getting your strength back, okay? That’s what we’re all waiting for.”

Michael listened closely for their departure. Footsteps, then the sound of a heavy door, opening and closing again. He waited another minute, to be certain he was alone. Then he opened his hand to examine the folded slip of paper Sara had secreted there.

Tell them nothing.

FORTY-EIGHT

The party Peter had spoken of had been held the previous evening, the third night after their arrival. This had been their one chance to see everyone, the whole of the Haven, in one place. And what they saw did not ring true.

Nothing did, beginning with Olson’s claim that there were no virals. Just two hundred kilometers to the south, Las Vegas was crawling; they had traveled at least that far from the Joshua Valley to Kelso, through similar terrain, and the virals had followed them the whole way. The stink of that herd, Alicia pointed out, would travel far downwind as well. And yet the only perimeter appeared to be a metal fence, far too insubstantial to protect against an attack. Except for the flamethrowers on the vans, Olson had confessed, they had no useful weapons at all. The shotguns were just for show, all their ammunition having been used up decades ago.

“So you see,” he had told them, “our existence here is an entirely peaceful one.”

Olson Hand: Peter had never met anybody like him, so apparently at ease with his own authority. Apart from Billie and the man known as Jude, who seemed to function as his aides, and the driver of the truck that had brought them from Las Vegas-Gus appeared to be a kind of engineer, in charge of what they termed “the physical plant”-Peter could detect no other structures of command. Olson had no title; he was simply in charge. And yet he wore this mantle easily, communicating his intentions with a gentle, even apologetic manner. Tall and silver-haired-like most of the men, Olson wore his hair in a long ponytail, while the women and children were all closely shorn-with a stooped frame that seemed to barely fill his orange jumpsuit and a habit of placing the tips of his fingers together when he spoke, he seemed more like a benevolent father figure than someone responsible for the lives of three hundred souls.

It was Olson who had told them the history of the Haven. This had transpired within the first hours of their arrival. They were in the infirmary, where Michael was being attended by Olson’s daughter, Mira-an ethereal, slender-limbed adolescent with close-cropped hair so pale and fine it was almost transparent, who seemed to regard them with a nervous awe. After they had been carried from the van, the seven of them had been stripped and washed, their belongings confiscated; all would be returned, Olson had assured them, except for their weapons. If they chose to move on-and here Olson had paused to note, with his customary mildness, that he hoped they would elect to stay-their weapons would be returned to them. But for now their guns and blades would remain locked away.

As for the Haven: A lot was simply not known, Olson explained, the stories having evolved and changed over time until it was no longer clear what the truth really was. But a few points were generally agreed on. The first settlers had been a group of refugees from Las Vegas who had come there in the last days of the war. Whether they had come by design, hoping that the prison, with its bars and walls and fences, might offer some safety, or had simply stopped here on the way to someplace else, no one could know. But once they realized there were no virals, the surrounding wilderness being too inhospitable-forming, in fact, a kind of natural barrier-they had chosen to remain and eke out an existence from the desert landscape. The prison complex was in fact made up of two separate facilities: Desert Wells State Penitentiary, where the first settlers had housed themselves, and the adjacent Conservation Camp, a low-security agricultural work camp for juvenile offenders. That was where all the inhabitants now lived. The spring from which the prison took its name provided water for irrigation, as well as a steady stream of water to cool some of the buildings, including the infirmary. The prison had provided much of what they needed, right down to the orange jumpsuits nearly everyone still wore; the rest they scavenged from the towns to the south. It was not an easy existence, and there were many things they lacked, but here at least they were free to live their lives without the threat of the virals. For many years they had sent out search parties to hunt for more survivors, hoping to lead them to safety. They had found some, quite a few in fact, but not for many years, and had long since given up hope of ever finding any more.

“Which is why,” Olson had said, smiling benignly, “your being here is nothing less than a miracle.” His eyes actually misted over. “All of you. A miracle.”

They had spent that first night in the infirmary with Michael and were moved the next day to a pair of adjacent cinder-block huts on the outskirts of the work camp, facing a dusty plaza with a pile of tires in the center, the edges lined by fire barrels. This was where they would spend the next three days in isolation, a mandatory quarantine. On the far side were more huts, which appeared to be unoccupied. Their quarters were spartan, each of the two huts with just a table and chairs and a room in the back with cots; the air was hot and dense, and the floor crunched underfoot with grit.

Hollis had left with Billie in the morning, to look for the Humvees; working vehicles were in short supply, Olson had said, and if they had survived the explosion, they would be worth the hazards of such a trip. Whether Olson intended to keep them for his own use or return them, Peter did not know. This fact was left ambiguous, and Peter had elected not to press. After their experience in the van, the seven of them nearly cooked to death in the heat, and with Michael still unconscious, the wisest course seemed to be to say as little as they could. Olson had questioned them about the Colony and the purpose of their journey, and there was no avoiding offering some explanation. But Peter had volunteered only that they had come from a settlement in California and had gone looking for survivors. He told Olson nothing about the bunker, his silence suggesting that the place they came from was well armed. There would come a time, Peter thought, when he would probably have to tell Olson the truth, or at least more of it. But that time had not arrived yet, and Olson had appeared to accept the caginess of his explanation.

For the next two days they received only fleeting glimpses of the other inhabitants. Behind the huts stood the growing fields, with long irrigation pipes radiating from a central pumphouse, and beyond that the herd, several hundred head kept in large, shaded pens. From time to time they could see the boiling dust of a vehicle moving against the distant fence line. But apart from this, and a few figures in the fields, they detected virtually no one. Where were the other people? The doors to their huts were not locked, but always across the empty plaza were two men, wearing the orange jumpsuits. It was these men who brought them their meals, usually in the company of Billie or Olson, who reported on Michael’s condition. Michael appeared to have lapsed into a deep sleep-not a coma necessarily, Olson assured them, but something like one. They had seen it before, they said, the effects of the heat. But his fever was down, a good sign.

Then, the morning of the third day, Sara was returned to them.

She possessed no memory of what had happened to her. This part of the story that they related to Michael, when he awakened the following day, was not a lie, nor was Hollis’s tale of how he had found her. They were very happy and very relieved-Sara seemed fine, if a little slow to come around to the news of their new circumstances-but it was also true that both her capture and her return were deeply puzzling. Like the absence of lights and walls, it simply made no sense.

By this time, whatever happiness they felt at the thought of finding another human settlement had been replaced by a deep unease. Still they had seen almost no one, apart from Olson and Billie and Jude, and the two orange-suited men who watched them, whose names were Hap and Leon. The only other sign of life was a group of four Littles in raggy clothing who appeared each evening to play on the tires in the square, though, strangely, no adults ever appeared to claim them; they simply drifted away when the game was over. If they weren’t prisoners, why were they guarded? If they were, why all the pretense? Where was everyone? What was wrong with Michael, why was he still unconscious? Their packs, as Olson had promised, had been returned to them; the contents had obviously been examined, and a number of items, such as the scalpel in Sara’s med kit, had been taken. But the maps, which Caleb had tucked into an inner compartment, had apparently been overlooked. The prison itself was not on the Nevada map, but they found the town of Desert Wells, north of Las Vegas on Highway 95. It was bordered to the east by a vast gray region, no roads or town in it at all, marked with the words NELLIS AIR FORCE TEST RANGE COMPLEX. Situated at the western edge of this region, just a few kilometers from the town of Desert Wells, was a small red square and the name YUCCA MOUNTAIN NATIONAL REPOSITORY. If Peter was correct about where they were, they could see this structure plainly, a humped ridge forming a barricade to the north. Hollis’s drive south with Billie and Gus had given him the chance to scout out more of the landscape. The fence line, Hollis reported, was more robust than it appeared-twin barricades of heavy-gauge steel, roughly ten meters apart, topped with concertina wire. Hollis had seen only two exits. One stood to the south, at the far edge of the fields-this seemed to connect to a roadway that encircled the compound-and the main gate, which connected the compound with the highway. This was flanked by a pair of concrete towers with observation posts-manned or not, they didn’t know, but one of the orange-suited men was stationed in the small guardhouse at ground level; it was he who had opened the gate for Hollis and Billie to pass.

The Haven itself was situated just a few kilometers off the highway that had carried them north. The original prison, a forbidding bulk of gray stone, stood at the eastern edge of the compound, surrounded by a few smaller buildings and Quonset huts. Between the perimeter and the highway, Hollis said, they had crossed railroad tracks, running in a north-south direction. These appeared to head straight toward the ridge of mountains toward the north-odd, Hollis noted, because who would run a pair of tracks straight into a mountain? In their first meeting, Olson had mentioned a railroad depot, in response to Peter’s question about where they got fuel for their vehicles. But on the drive south, Hollis said, they hadn’t stopped, so he couldn’t say if there was a fuel depot or not. Presumably they got fuel somewhere. It was only in the course of this conversation that Peter realized that the idea of leaving was already taking shape in his mind, and that this would require stealing a vehicle and finding fuel to run it on.

The heat was intense; the days of isolation had begun to take their toll. Everyone was antsy and worried about Michael. In their stifling huts, none of them was sleeping. Amy was the most wakeful of them all; Peter didn’t think he’d seen the girl close her eyes. All night she sat on her cot, the features of her face gathered in what appeared to be intense concentration. It was as if, thought Peter, she was trying to work out some problem in her mind.

On the third night, Olson came for them. Accompanying him were Billie and Jude. Over the preceding days, Peter had come to suspect that Jude was more than he had first appeared to be. He couldn’t say why this was, exactly. But there was something disconcerting about the man. His teeth were white and straight, impossible not to look at, like his eyes, which radiated a piercing blue intensity. They gave his face an ageless quality, as if he had slowed time, and whenever Peter looked at the man, the impression he received was of someone who was looking straight into a gale of wind. Peter had become aware that he had yet to hear Olson give the man a direct order-Olson addressed himself entirely to Billie and Gus and the various orange-suited men who came and went from the hut-and in the back of Peter’s mind the idea had begun to form that Jude held some measure of authority, independent of Olson. Several times he had observed Jude speaking to the men who were guarding them.

In the falling dusk, the three appeared across the square, striding toward the hut. With the day’s passing heat, the Littles had appeared on the tires; as the three passed by, they abruptly scattered, like a flock of startled birds.

“It is time to see where you are,” Olson said when he reached the door. He was smiling munificently-a smile that had begun to seem false. It seemed like a smile with nothing behind it. Standing next to Olson, Jude was showing his line of perfect teeth, his blue eyes darting past Peter into the dim hut. Only Billie seemed immune to the mood; her stoic face betrayed nothing.

“Please come, all of you,” Olson urged. “The wait is over. Everyone is very excited to meet you.”

They led the seven of them across the empty plaza. Alicia, swinging on her crutches, kept Amy close to her side. In watchful silence, they moved into a maze of huts. These appeared to be arranged in a kind of grid, with alleyways between the lines of buildings, and were obviously inhabited: the windows were lighted with oil lanterns; in the spaces between the buildings were lines of laundry, stiffening in the desert air. Beyond, the bulk of the old prison loomed like a cutout shape against the sky. Out in the dark, no lights to protect them, not even a blade on his belt; Peter had never felt so odd. From somewhere up ahead came a smell of smoke and cooking food and a buzz of voices, growing as they approached.

They turned the corner then to see a large crowd, gathered beneath a wide roof that was open on the sides and held aloft by thick steel girders. The space was lit by smoky flames from the open barrels that encircled the area. Pushed to the side were long tables and chairs; jumpsuited figures were moving pots of food from an adjacent structure.

Everyone froze.

Then, from the sea of faces gazing at them, first one voice and then another rose in a buzz of excitement. There they are! The travelers! The ones from away!

As the crowd enfolded them, Peter had a sense of being softly swallowed. And for a brief time, subsumed in a wave of humanity, he forgot all about his worries. Here were people, hundreds of people, men and women and children all so apparently joyous at their presence he almost felt like the miracle Olson had said they were. Men were clapping him on the shoulder, shaking his hand. Some of the women pressed babies to him, displaying them as if they were gifts; others merely touched him quickly and darted away-embarrassed or frightened or merely overcome by emotion, Peter couldn’t tell. Somewhere at the periphery of his awareness Olson was instructing people to stay calm, not to rush, but these warnings seemed unnecessary. We’re so happy to see you, everyone was saying. We’re so glad that you have come.

This went on for some minutes, enough time for Peter to begin to feel exhausted by it all, the smiling and touching, the repeated words of greeting. The idea of meeting new people, let alone a crowd of hundreds, was so new and strange to him that his mind could scarcely capture it. There was something childlike about them, he came to think, these men and women in their threadbare orange jumpsuits, their faces careworn and yet possessing a look of wide-eyed innocence, almost of obedience. The crowd’s warmth was undeniable, and yet the whole thing felt staged, not a spontaneous reaction but one designed to elicit the very response it had produced in Peter: a feeling of complete disarmament.

All of these calculations were moving through his mind while part of him was also struggling to keep track of the others, which proved difficult. The effect of the crowd’s advance had been to separate them, and he could detect only quick glimpses of the others: Sara’s blond hair peeking above the head of a woman with a baby over her shoulder; Caleb’s laughter, coming from somewhere out of range. To his right, a nugget of women had encircled Mausami, cooing with approval. Peter saw one dart out her hand to touch Mausami’s stomach.

Then Olson was at his side. With him was his daughter, Mira.

“The one girl, Amy,” Olson said, and it was the only time Peter had ever seen the man frown. “She can’t speak?”

Amy was standing close to Alicia, ringed by a group of little girls who were pointing at Amy and pressing their hands to their mouths in laughter. While Peter watched, Alicia lifted one of her crutches to shoo them away, a gesture half playful and half serious, sending them scattering. Her eyes briefly met Peter’s. Help, she seemed to say. But even she was smiling.

He turned to Olson again. “No.”

“How strange. I’ve never heard of that.” He glanced at his daughter before returning his attention to Peter, looking concerned. “But she’s otherwise… all right?”

“All right?”

He paused. “You’ll have to forgive my directness. But a woman who can bear a child is a great prize. Nothing is more important, with so few of us left. And I see that one of your females is pregnant. People will want to know.”

Your females, Peter thought. A strange choice of words. He looked toward Mausami, who was still surrounded by the women. He realized that many of them were pregnant, too.

“I suppose.”

“And the others? Sara and the redhead. Lish.”

The line of questioning was so odd, so out of the blue, that Peter hesitated, unsure of what to say or not say. But Olson was looking at him intently now, requiring at least some kind of response.

“I guess.”

The answer seemed to satisfy him. Olson concluded with a brisk nod, the smile returning to his lips. “Good.”

Females, Peter thought again. As if Olson were speaking of livestock. He had the disquieting sense of having told too much, of having been maneuvered into surrendering some crucial bit of information. Mira, standing beside her father, was facing the crowd, which was moving away; Peter realized she hadn’t said a word.

Everyone had begun to gather around the tables. The volume of conversation settled to a murmur as food was passed out-bowls of stew ladled from giant vats, platters of bread, pots of butter and pitchers of milk. As Peter scanned the scene, everyone talking and helping themselves, some assisting with children, women with babies bouncing on their laps or suckling at an exposed breast, he realized that what he was seeing was more than a group of survivors; it was a family. For the first time since they had left the Colony, he felt a pang of longing for home, and wondered if he had been wrong to be so suspicious. Perhaps they really were safe here.

And yet something wasn’t right; he felt that, too. The crowd was incomplete; something was missing. He couldn’t say what this missing thing was, only that its absence, nibbling at the edge of his consciousness, seemed more profound the longer he looked. Alicia and Amy, he saw, were with Jude now, who was showing them where to sit. Standing tall in his leather boots-nearly everyone else was barefoot-the man seemed to tower over them. While Peter watched, Jude leaned close to Alicia, touching her on the arm, and spoke quickly into her ear; she responded with a laugh.

These thoughts were interrupted when Olson rested his hand on Peter’s shoulder. “I do hope you choose to remain with us,” he said. “We all do. There’s strength in numbers.”

“We’ll have to talk about it,” Peter managed.

“Of course,” said Olson, leaving his hand where it was. “There’s no hurry. Take all the time you need.”

FORTY-NINE

It was simple. There were no boys.

Or almost no boys. Alicia and Hollis claimed they’d seen a couple. But when Peter questioned them more closely, they were both forced to confess that they couldn’t say for sure if they’d seen any or not. With those short haircuts all the Littles wore, it was difficult to tell, and they’d seen no older children at all.

It was the afternoon of the fourth day, and Michael was finally awake. The five of them had gathered in the larger of the two huts; Mausami and Amy were next door. Peter and Hollis had just returned from their trip out to the fields with Olson. The real purpose of this trip had been to get a second look at the perimeter, because they had decided to leave as soon as Michael was able. There was no question of taking this up with Olson; though Peter had to admit he liked the man and could find no outward reason to distrust him, too much about the Haven simply failed to add up, and the events of the night before had left Peter more uncertain than ever of Olson’s intentions. Olson had given a short speech welcoming them all, but as the night had worn on, Peter had begun to find the crowd’s empty warmth oppressive, even disturbing. There was a fundamental sameness to everyone, and in the morning, Peter found he couldn’t recall anyone in particular; all the faces and voices seemed to blur together in his mind. Not one person, he realized, had asked a single question about the Colony or how they’d come to be there-a fact that, the longer he considered it, made no sense at all. Wouldn’t it be the most natural thing, to wonder about another settlement? To question them about their journey and what they had seen? But Peter and the others might just as well have materialized out of thin air. No one, he realized, had so much as told him their name.

They would have to steal a vehicle; on this point, everyone was agreed. Fuel was the next question. They could follow the train tracks south, looking for the fuel depot, or if they had enough, drive south to Las Vegas to the airport before heading north again on Highway 15. Probably they’d be followed; Peter doubted Olson would let go of one of the vans without a fight. To avoid this, they could head straight east instead, across the test range, but with no roads or towns, Peter doubted they could make it, and if the terrain was anything like it was around the Haven, it didn’t look like the kind of place where they wanted to get stranded.

This left the matter of weapons. Alicia believed there had to be an armory somewhere-from the beginning she’d maintained that the guns they’d seen were loaded, no matter what Olson said-and she’d done her best to feel out Jude on this question the night before. Jude had stayed close to her all evening-just as Olson had stayed close to Peter-and in the morning he had taken her out in a pickup to show her the rest of the compound. Peter didn’t like it, but any chance to glean more information, and to do so in a way that would go undetected, was one they had to take.

But if there was an armory, Jude had given no hint where it might be. Perhaps Olson was telling the truth, but it wasn’t anything they could risk. And even if he was, the weapons they had brought with them had to be somewhere-by Peter’s count, three rifles, nine blades, at least six magazines of ammunition, and the last of the grenades.

“What about the prison?” Caleb suggested.

Peter had already thought of this. With its fortresslike walls, it seemed the natural place to lock something away. But so far, none of them had been close enough to see how they might get inside. For all intents and purposes, the place seemed abandoned, just as Olson had said.

“I think we should wait till dark and scout it out,” Hollis said. “We can’t know for sure what we’re up against if we don’t.”

Peter turned to Sara. “How long do you think until Michael can travel?”

She frowned doubtfully. “I don’t even know what’s wrong with him. Maybe it really was heatstroke, but I don’t think so.”

She had expressed these misgivings before. Heatstroke serious enough to make him seize, Sara had said, would almost certainly have killed him, because it would have meant the brain had swollen. His protracted state of unconsciousness might follow from that, but now that he was awake, she detected no sign of brain injury at all. His speech and motor coordination were fine; his pupils were normal and reactive. It was as if he had fallen into a profound but otherwise ordinary sleep from which he had simply awakened.

“He’s still pretty weak,” Sara went on. “Some of that is just dehydration. But it could be a couple of days before we can move him, maybe more.”

Alicia sank back on her cot with a groan. “I don’t think I can keep this up that long.”

“What’s the problem?” Peter asked.

“Jude is the problem. I know we’re supposed to play along here, but I’m wondering how far I’m going to have to take this.”

Her meaning was plain. “Do you think you can… I don’t know, hold him off?”

“Don’t worry about me. I can take care of myself. But he’s not going to like it.” She paused, suddenly uncertain. “There’s something else, nothing to do with Jude. I’m not sure I should even bring this up. Does anybody remember Liza Chou?”

Peter did, at least by name. Liza was Old Chou’s niece. She and her family, a brother and her parents, had all been lost on Dark Night-killed or taken up, he couldn’t recall. Peter remembered Liza vaguely, from their days together in the Sanctuary. She was one of the older children, practically an adult in his eyes.

“What about her?” Hollis asked.

Alicia hesitated. “I think I saw her today.”

“That’s impossible,” Sara scoffed.

“I know it’s impossible. Everything about this place is impossible. But Liza had a scar on her cheek, I do remember that. Some kind of accident, I forget what it was. And there it was, the same scar.”

Peter leaned forward. Something about this new bit of information seemed important, part of an emerging pattern his mind couldn’t quite discern. “Where was this?”

“In the dairy barns. I’m pretty certain she saw me, too. Jude was with me, so I couldn’t really break away. When I looked again she was gone.”

It was conceivable, Peter supposed, that she had escaped, and somehow ended up here. But how would a young girl, as Liza was at the time, travel such a distance?

“I don’t know, Lish. Are you sure?”

“No, I’m not sure. I didn’t have the chance to be sure. I’m just saying she looked a lot like Liza Chou.”

“Was she pregnant?” Sara asked.

Alicia thought for a moment. “Come to think of it, she was.”

“A lot of the women are pregnant,” Hollis offered. “It makes sense, doesn’t it? A Little’s a Little.”

“But why no boys?” Sara went on. “And if so many of the women are pregnant, wouldn’t there be more children?”

“Aren’t there?” asked Alicia.

“Well, I thought so too. But I didn’t count more than a couple dozen last night. And the children I see all seem to be the same ones.”

Peter said, “Hollis, you said there were some kids outside.”

The big man nodded. “They’re playing on that pile of tires.”

“Hightop, check it out.”

Caleb rose from his bunk and moved to the door, opening it a crack.

“Let me guess,” Sara said. “The one with the crooked teeth and her friend, the little blond girl.”

Caleb turned from the door. “She’s right. That’s who’s out there.”

“That’s what I mean,” Sara insisted. “It’s always the same ones. It’s like they’re always out there so we think there’s more than there are.”

“What are we saying here?” This was Alicia. “Okay, I agree it’s strange about the boys. But this… I don’t know, Sara.”

Sara turned to face Alicia, squaring her shoulders combatively. “You’re the one who thinks she saw a girl who died fifteen years ago. She’d be, what, in her midtwenties now? How would you know it was Liza Chou?”

“I told you. The scar. And I think I know a Chou when I see one.”

“And that means we’re supposed to take your word for it?”

Sara’s sharp tone seemed to bristle through Alicia. “I don’t care if you do or not. I saw what I saw.”

Peter had heard all he wanted to. “Both of you, enough.” The two women were glowering at each other. “This isn’t going to solve anything. What’s the matter with you?”

Neither woman answered; the tension in the room was palpable. Then Alicia sighed and flopped back on the cot again.

“Forget it. I’m just tired of waiting. I can’t sleep at all in this place. It’s so goddamn hot, I have nightmares all night long.”

For a moment no one spoke.

“The fat woman?” Hollis said.

Alicia sat up quickly. “What did you say?”

“In the kitchen.” His voice was grave. “From the Time Before.”

Caleb stepped toward them from the door. “I tell you, the boy isn’t just dumb… ”

Sara finished for him: “… he’s been struck dumb.” Her face was astonished. “I’m dreaming about her, too.”

Everyone was looking at Peter now. What were his friends talking about? What fat lady?

He shook his head. “Sorry.”

“But the rest of us are having the same dream,” said Sara.

Hollis rubbed his beard, nodding. “It would appear so.”

Michael had been drifting in and out of a formless sleep when he heard the door opening. A girl stepped around the screen. Younger than Billie, but with the same funny orange costume and severe haircut. She was holding a tray before her.

“I thought you might be hungry.”

As she advanced into the room, the smell of warm food hit Michael’s senses like an electric current. He was suddenly ravenous. The girl placed the tray on his lap: some kind of meat in a brown gravy, boiled greens, and, most wondrous of all, a fat slice of buttered bread. Metal utensils lay beside it, wrapped in a rough cloth.

“I’m Michael,” he offered.

The girl nodded faintly, smiling. Why was everybody always smiling?

“I’m Mira.” She was blushing, he saw. What little hair she possessed was so fair it was practically white, like a Little’s. “I was the one who took care of you.”

Michael wondered what this meant exactly. In the hours since he’d awakened, bits of memory had come floating back to him. The sound of voices, shapes and bodies moving around him, water on his body and moistening his mouth.

“I guess I should say thank you.”

“Oh, I was glad to do it.” She studied him for a moment. “You’re really from away, aren’t you?”

“Away?”

She gave a delicate shrug. “There’s here and there’s away.” She lifted her nose toward the tray. “Aren’t you going to eat?”

He started with the bread, soft and wonderful in his mouth, then moved on to the meat and finally the greens, stringy and bitter but still satisfying. While he ate, the girl, who had taken a chair beside his bed, kept her eyes on him, her face rapt, as if each bite he took brought her pleasure as well. What strange people these were.

“Thanks,” he said, when all that remained was a smear of grease on his plate. How old was she, anyway? Sixteen? “That was fantastic.”

“I can get you more. Whatever you want.”

“Really, I couldn’t eat another bite.”

She took the tray from his lap and put it aside. He thought she was preparing to leave but instead she moved toward him again, standing close to the cot, which was positioned high off the floor.

“I like… watching you, Michael.”

He felt his face grow warm. “Mira? It’s Mira, right?”

Nodding, she took his hand from where it lay on the sheet and wrapped it in her own. “I like how you say my name.”

“Yes, well, um-”

But he couldn’t continue; she was suddenly kissing him. A wave of sweet softness filled his mouth; he felt his senses collapsing. Kissing him! Of all things, she was kissing him! And he was kissing her!

“Poppa says I can have a baby,” she was saying, her breath warm on his face. “If I have a baby, I won’t have to go to the ring. Poppa says I can have anyone I want. Can I have you, Michael? Can I have you?”

He was trying to think, to process what she was saying and what was happening, the taste of her, and also the fact that she had now, it seemed, climbed on top of him, straddling him near the waist, her face still pushed into his own-a collision of impulses and sensations that rendered him into a state of mute compliance. A baby? She wanted to have a baby? If she had a baby she didn’t have to wear a ring?

“Mira!”

A moment of complete disorientation; the girl was gone, vaulted away. The room was suddenly full of men, large men in orange jumpsuits, crowding the space with their bulk. One of them caught Mira by the arm. Not a man: Billie.

“I’ll pretend,” she said to the girl, “that I didn’t see this.”

“Listen,” Michael said, finding his voice, “it was my fault, whatever you think you saw-”

Billie nailed him with a cold glare. Behind her, one of the men snickered.

“Don’t even pretend this was your idea.” Billie pointed her eyes at Mira again. “Go home,” she commanded. “Go home now.”

“He’s mine! He’s for me!”

“Mira, enough. I want you to go straight home and wait there. Don’t talk to anyone. Do I make myself understood?”

“He’s not for the ring!” Mira cried. “Poppa said!”

That word again, Michael thought. The ring. What was the ring?

“He will be unless you get out of here. Now go.”

These last words appeared to work; Mira fell silent and, without looking at Michael again, darted behind the screen. The feelings of the last few minutes-desire, confusion, embarrassment-were still whirling inside him while another part of him was also thinking: just my luck. Now she’ll never come back.

“Danny, go bring the truck around back. Tip, you stay with me.”

“What are you going to do with me?”

Billie had withdrawn a small metal tin from somewhere on her person. With thumb and forefinger she pinched a bit of dust from the tin and sprinkled it into a cup of water. She held it out to him.

“Bottoms up.”

“I’m not drinking that.”

She sighed impatiently. “Tip, a little help here?”

The man stepped forward, towering over Michael’s bed.

“Trust me,” Billie said. “You won’t like the taste, but you’ll feel better fast. And no more fat lady.”

The fat lady, thought Michael. The fat lady in the kitchen in the Time Before.

“How did you-?”

“Just drink. We’ll explain on the way.”

There seemed no way to avoid it. Michael tipped the cup to his lips and poured it down. Flyers, it was awful.

“What the hell is that?”

“You don’t want to know.” Billie took the cup from him. “Feeling anything yet?”

He was. It was as if someone had plucked a long, tight string inside him. Waves of bright energy seemed to radiate from his very core. He’d opened his mouth to declare this discovery when a strong spasm shook him, a gigantic, whole-body hiccup.

“That happens the first time or two,” said Billie. “Just breathe.”

Michael hiccuped again. The colors in the room seemed unusually vivid, as if all the surfaces around him were part of this new nexus of energy.

“He better shut up,” warned Tip.

“It’s fantastic,” Michael managed to say. He swallowed hard, pushing the urge to hiccup down inside him.

The second man had returned from the hallway. “We’re losing the light,” he said briskly. “We better get a move on.”

“Get him his clothes.” Billie steadied her gaze on Michael again. “Peter says you’re an engineer. That you can fix anything. Is that true?”

He thought of the words on the paper Sara had slipped him. Tell them nothing.

“Well?”

“I guess.”

“I don’t want you to guess, Michael. It’s important. You can or you can’t.”

He glanced toward the two men, who were looking at him expectantly, as if everything depended on his answer.

“Okay, yes.”

Billie nodded. “Then put your clothes on and do everything we tell you.”

FIFTY

Mausami in darkness, dreaming of birds. She awoke to a quick bright fluttering beneath her heart, like a pair of wings beating inside her.

The baby, she thought. This baby is moving.

The feeling came again-a distinct aquatic pressure, rhythmic, like rings widening on the surface of a pool. As if someone were tapping at a pane of glass inside her. Hello? Hello out there!

She let her hands trace the curve of her belly under her shirt, damp with sweat. A warm contentment flooded her. Hello, she thought. Hello back, you.

The baby was a boy. She’d thought it was a boy since the start, since the first morning at the compost pile when she’d lost her breakfast. She didn’t want to name him yet. It would be harder to lose a baby with a name, that’s what everyone always said; but that wasn’t the real reason, because the baby would be born. The idea was more than hope, more than belief. Mausami knew it for a fact. And when the baby was born, when he’d made his loud and painful entry into the world, Theo would be there, and they would name their son together.

This place. The Haven. It made her so tired. All she could do was sleep. And eat. It was the baby, of course; it was the baby that made her think about eating all the time. After all the hardtack and bean paste, and that awful strange food they’d found in the bunker-hundred-year-old goop vacuumed in plastic; it was a miracle they hadn’t all poisoned themselves-how amazing to have real food. Beef and milk. Bread and cheese. Actual butter so creamy it made the top of her throat tickle. She shoveled it in, then licked her fingers clean. She could have stayed in this place forever, just for the food.

They’d all felt it right away: something wasn’t right. Last night, all those women crowding around her, holding babies or pregnant themselves-some actually both-their faces beaming with a sisterly glow at the discovery that she was pregnant too. A baby! How wonderful! When was she due? Was it her first? Were any of the other women in their group also with child? It hadn’t occurred to her at the time to wonder how they’d known-she was barely showing, after all-nor why none had asked who the father was or mentioned the fathers of their own children.

The sun was down. The last thing Mausami remembered was lying down for a nap. Peter and the others were probably in the other hut, deciding what to do. The baby was moving again, flipping around inside her. She lay with her eyes closed and let the sensation fill her. Standing the Watch: it seemed like years ago. A different life. That was what happened, she knew, when a person had a baby. This strange new being grew inside you and by the time it was all over, you were someone different, too.

Suddenly she realized: she wasn’t alone.

Amy was sitting on the bunk next to hers. Spooky, the way she could make herself invisible like that. Mausami rolled to face her, tucking her knees to her chest as the baby went thump-thump inside her.

“Hey,” Maus said, and yawned. “I guess I took a little nap there.”

Everybody was always talking that way around Amy, stating the obvious, filling the silence of the girl’s half of the conversation. It was a little unnerving, the way she looked at you with that intense gaze, as if she were reading your thoughts. Which was when Mausami realized what the girl was really looking at.

“Oh. I get it,” she said. “You want to feel it?”

Amy cocked her head, uncertain.

“You can if you want. Come on, I’ll show you.”

Amy rose, taking a place on the edge of Mausami’s cot. Mausami held her hand and guided it to the curve of her belly. The girl’s hand was warm and a little damp; the tips of her fingers were surprisingly soft, not like Mausami’s, which were callused from years of the bow.

“Just wait a minute. He was flipping around in there a second ago.”

A bright flicker of movement. Amy drew her hand away quickly, startled.

“You feel that?” Amy’s eyes were wide with pleasant shock. “It’s okay, that’s what they do. Here-” She took Amy’s hand and pressed it to her belly once more. At once the baby flipped and kicked. “Whoa, that was a strong one.”

Amy was smiling too now. How strange and wonderful, Mausami thought, in the midst of everything, all that had happened, to feel a baby moving inside her. A new life, a new person, coming into the world.

Mausami heard it then. Two words.

He’s here.

She yanked her hand away, scurrying up the cot so she was sitting with her back pushed to the wall. The girl was looking at her with a penetrating stare, her eyes filling Maus’s vision like two shining beams.

“How did you do that?” She was shaking; she thought she might be ill.

He’s in the dream. With Babcock. With the Many.

“Who’s here, Amy?”

Theo. Theo is here.

FIFTY-ONE

He was Babcock and he was forever. He was one of Twelve and also the Other, the one above and behind, the Zero. He was the night of nights and he had been Babcock before he became what he was. Before the great hunger that was like time itself inside him, a current in the blood, endless and needful, infinite and without border, a dark wing spreading over the world.

He was made of Many. A thousand-thousand-thousand scattered over the night sky, like the stars. He was one of Twelve and also the Other, the Zero, but his children were within him also, the ones that carried the seed of his blood, one seed of Twelve; they moved as he moved, they thought as he thought, in their minds was an empty space of forgetting in which he lay, each to a one, saying, You will not die. You are a part of me, as I am a part of you. You will drink the blood of the world and fill me up.

They were his to command. When they ate, he ate. When they slept, he slept. They were the We, the Babcock, and they were forever as he was forever, all part of the Twelve and the Other, the Zero. They dreamed his dark dream with him.

He remembered a time, before he Became. The time of the little house, in the place called Desert Wells. The time of pain and silence and the woman, his mother, the mother of Babcock. He remembered small things-textures, sensations, visions. A box of golden sunlight falling on a square of carpet. A worn place on the stoop that fit his sneakered foot just so, and the ridges of rust on the rail that cut the skin of his fingers. He remembered his fingers. He remembered the smell of his mother’s cigarettes in the kitchen where she talked and watched her stories, and the people on the television, their faces huge and close, their eyes wide and wet, the women with their lips painted and shimmering, like glossy pieces of fruit. And her voice, always her voice:

Be quiet now, goddamnit. Cain’t you see I’m trying to watch this? You make such a goddamn racket, it’s a wonder I don’t lose my goddamn mind.

He remembered being quiet, so quiet.

He remembered her hands, Babcock’s mother’s hands, and the starry bursts of pain when she struck him, struck him again. He remembered flying, his body lifted on a cloud of pain, and the hitting and the slapping and the burning. Always the burning. Don’t you cry now. You be a man. You cry and I’ll give you something to cry about, so much the worse for you, Giles Babcock. Her smoky breath, close to his face. The look of the red-hot tip of her cigarette where she rolled it against the skin of his hand, and the crisp wet sound of its burning, like cereal when he poured milk into it, the same crackle and pop. The smell of it mingling with the jets of smoke that puffed from her nostrils. And the way the words all stopped up inside him, so that the pain could end-so he could be a man, as she said.

It was her voice he remembered most of all. Babcock’s mother’s voice. His love for her was like a room without doors, filled with the scraping sound of her words, her talk-talk-talk. Taunting him, tearing into him, like the knife he took from the drawer that day as she sat at the table in the kitchen of the little house in the place called Desert Wells, talking and laughing and laughing and talking and eating her mouthfuls of smoke.

The boy isn’t just dumb. I tell you, he’s been struck dumb.

He was happy, so happy, he’d never felt such happiness in his life as the knife passed into her, the white skin of her throat, the smooth outer layer and the hard gristle below. And as he dug and pushed with his blade, the love he felt for her lifted from his mind so that he could see what she was at last-that she was a being of flesh and blood and bone. All her words and talk-talk-talk moving inside him, filling him up to bursting. They tasted like blood in his mouth, sweet living things.

They sent him away. He wasn’t a boy after all, he was a man; he was a man with a mind and a knife, and they told him to die-die, Babcock, for what you have done. He didn’t want to die, not then, not ever. And after-after the man, Wolgast, had come to where he was, like a thing foretold; and after the doctors and the sickness and the Becoming, that he should be one of Twelve, the Babcock-Morrison-Chávez-Baffes-Turrell-Winston-Sosa-Echols-Lambright-Martínez-Reinhardt-Carter-one of Twelve and also the Other, the Zero-he had taken the rest the same way, drinking their words from them, their dying cries like soft morsels in his mouth. And the ones he did not kill but merely sipped, the one of ten, as the tide of his own blood dictated, became his own, joining to him in mind. His children. His great and fearful company. The Many. The We of Babcock.

And This Place. He had come to it with a feeling of return, of a thing restored. He had drunk his fill of the world and here he rested, dreaming his dreams in the dark, until he awoke and he was hungry again and he heard the Zero, who was called Fanning, saying: Brothers, we’re dying. Dying! For there was hardly anyone left in the world, no people and no animals even. And Babcock knew that the time had come to bring those that remained to him, that they should know him, know Babcock and the Zero also, assume their place within him. He had stretched out his mind and said to the Many, his children, Carry the last of humankind to me; do not kill them; bring them and their words that they should dream the dream and become one of us, the We, the Babcock. And first one had come and then another and more and more and they dreamed the dream with him and he told them, when the dreaming was done, Now you are mine also, like the Many. You are mine in This Place and when I am hungry you will feed me, feed my restless soul with your blood. You will bring others to me from beyond This Place that they should do the same, and I will let you live in this way and no other. And those that did not bend their wills to his, that did not take up the knife when the time had come in the dark place of dreaming where Babcock’s mind met theirs, they were made to die so the others could see and know and refuse no longer.

And so the city was built. The City of Babcock, first in all the world.

But now there was Another. Not the Zero or the Twelve but Another. The same and not the same. A shadow behind a shadow, pecking at him like a bird that darted from sight whenever he tried to fix the gaze of his mind upon her. And the Many, his children, his great and fearful company, heard her also; he sensed her pull upon them. A force of great power, drawing them away. Like the helpless love he had felt so long ago, when he was just a boy, watching the red-hot tip rolling, rolling and burning against his flesh.

Who am I? they asked her. Who am I?

She made them want to remember. She made them want to die.

She was close now, very close. Babcock could feel it. She was a ripple in the mind of the Many, a tear in the fabric of night. He knew that through her, all that they had done could be undone, all that they had made could be unmade.

Brothers, brothers. She is coming. Brothers, she is already here.

FIFTY-TWO

“I’m sorry, Peter,” said Olson Hand, “I can’t keep track of all your friends.”

Peter had learned that Michael was missing just before sunset. Sara had gone over to the infirmary to check on him and found that his bed was empty. The whole building was empty.

They had fanned out in two groups: Sara, Hollis, and Caleb to search the grounds, Alicia and Peter to look for Olson. His house, which Olson had explained had once been used as the warden’s residence, was a small, two-story structure situated on a patch of parched ground between the work camp and the old prison. They had arrived to find him stepping from the door.

“I’ll speak with Billie,” Olson continued. “Maybe she knows where he went.” He seemed harried, as if their visit had caught him in the midst of some important duty. Even so, he took the trouble to offer one of his reassuring smiles. “I’m sure he’s fine. Mira saw him in the infirmary just a few hours ago. He said he was feeling better and wanted to have a look around. I thought he was probably with you.”

“He could barely walk,” Peter said. “I’m not sure he could walk at all.”

“In that case, he can’t have gone far, now could he?”

“Sara said the infirmary was empty. Don’t you usually have people there?”

“Not as a general matter. If Michael chose to leave, they’d have no reason to remain.” Something dark came into his face; he leveled his eyes at Peter. “I’m sure he’ll turn up. My best advice would be to return to your quarters and wait for his return.”

“I don’t see-”

Olson cut him off with a raised hand. “As I said, that’s my best advice. I suggest you take it. And try not to lose any more of your friends.”

Alicia had been silent until now. Suspended on her crutches, she bumped Peter with her shoulder. “Come on.”

“But-”

“It’s fine,” she said. Then, to Olson: “I’m sure he’s okay. If you need us, you know where to find us.”

They retreated through the maze of huts. Everything was strangely quiet, no one about. They passed the shed where the party had been held, finding it deserted. All the buildings were dark. Peter felt a prickling on his skin as the cooling desert night descended, but he knew this sensation was caused by more than just a change in temperature. He could feel the eyes of people watching them from the windows.

“Don’t look,” Alicia said. “I feel it too. Just walk.”

They arrived at their quarters as Hollis and the others were returning. Sara was frantic with worry. Peter related their conversation with Olson.

“They’ve taken him somewhere, haven’t they?” Lish said.

It seemed so. But where, and for what purpose? Olson was lying, that was obvious. Even more strange was the fact that Olson seemed to have wanted them to know he was lying.

“Who’s out there now, Hightop?”

Caleb had taken his position by the door. “The usual two. They’re hanging out across the square, pretending they’re not watching us.”

“Anyone else?”

“No. It’s dead quiet out there. No Littles, either.”

“Go wake up Maus,” Peter said. “Don’t tell her anything. Just bring her and Amy over here. Their packs, too.”

“Are we leaving?” Caleb’s eyes shifted to Sara, then back again. “What about the Circuit?”

“We’re not going anywhere without him. Just go.”

Caleb darted out the door. Peter and Alicia exchanged a look: something was happening. They would have to move quickly.

A moment later Caleb returned. “They’re gone.”

“What do you mean gone?”

The boy’s face was gray as ash. “I mean the hut’s empty. There’s no one there, Peter.”

It was all his fault. In their haste to find Michael, he’d left the two women alone. He’d left Amy alone. How could he have been so stupid?

Alicia had put her crutches aside and was unrolling the bandage from her leg. Inside, secreted there on the night of their arrival, was a blade. The crutch was a ruse: the wound was nearly healed. She rose to her feet.

“Time to find those guns,” she said.

Whatever Billie had put in his drink, the effects hadn’t worn off yet.

Michael was lying in the back of a pickup, covered with a plastic tarp. The bed of the truck was full of rattling pipes. Billie had told him to lie still, not to make a sound, but the jumpy feeling inside him was almost more than he could bear. What was she doing, giving him a concoction like that and expecting him to lie perfectly still? The effect was like shine in reverse, as if every cell in his body were singing a single note. Like his mind had passed through some kind of filter, giving each thought a bright, humming clarity.

No more dreams, she’d said. No more fat lady with her smoke and smell and awful, scratchy voice. How did Billie know about his dreams?

They’d stopped once, just a few moments after they’d left the infirmary, which they’d exited through the rear. Some kind of checkpoint. Michael heard a voice he didn’t recognize, asking Billie where she was going. From under the tarp Michael had listened anxiously to their exchange.

“There’s a broken line out in the eastern field,” she explained. “Olson asked me to move these pipes around for the crew tomorrow.”

“It’s new moon. You shouldn’t be out here.”

New moon, Michael thought. What was so important about the new moon?

“Look, that’s what he said. Take it up with him if you want.”

“I don’t see how you’re going to make it back in time.”

“Let me worry about that. Are you going to let me through or not?”

A tense silence. Then: “Just be back by dark.”

Now, sometime later, Michael felt the truck slowing once again. He drew the tarp aside. A purpling evening sky and behind them, in the truck’s wake, a boiling cloud of dust. The mountains were a distant bulge against the horizon.

“You can come out now.”

Billie was standing at the tailgate. Michael climbed from the truck bed, grateful to move at last. They had parked outside a massive metal shed, at least two hundred meters long, with a bulging convex roof. He saw the rusted shape of fuel tanks behind it. The land was lined with railroad tracks, heading off in all directions.

A small door opened in the side of the building; a man emerged and walked toward them. His skin was covered in grease and oil, so much that his face was practically black with it; he was holding something in his hands, working at it with a filthy rag. He stopped where they were standing and looked Michael up and down. A short-barreled shotgun was holstered to his leg. Michael remembered him as the driver of the van that had brought them from Las Vegas.

“This him?”

Billie nodded.

The man moved forward so their faces were just inches apart and peered into Michael’s eyes. First one eye, then the other, shifting his head back and forth. His breath was sour, like spoiled milk. His teeth were lined in black. Michael had to force himself not to pull away.

“How much did you give him?”

“Enough,” Billie said.

The man gave him one more skeptical look, then stepped back and shot a jet of brown spit onto the hardpan. “I’m Gus.”

“Michael.”

“I know who you are.” He held up the object for Michael to see. “You know what this is?”

Michael took it in his hand. “It’s a solenoid, twenty-four volts. I’d say it comes off a fuel pump, a big one.”

“Yeah? What’s wrong with it?”

Michael passed it back, shrugging. “Nothing I can see.”

Gus looked at Billie, frowning. “He’s right.”

“I told you.”

“She says you know about electrical systems. Wiring harnesses, generators, controller units.”

Michael shrugged again. He was still reluctant to say too much, but something, some instinct, was telling him he could trust these two. They hadn’t brought him all this way for nothing.

“Let me see what you’ve got.”

They crossed the railyard to the shed. Michael could hear, from inside, the roar of portable generators, the clang of tools. They entered through the same door the man had emerged from. The interior of the shed was vast, the space illuminated by spotlights on tall poles. More men in greasy jumpsuits were moving about.

What Michael saw stopped him where he stood.

It was a train. A diesel locomotive. And not some rusted derelict, either. The damn thing looked like it could actually run. It was covered in protective metal plating, three-quarter-inch steel at least. A huge plow jutted from the front of the engine; more steel plates were riveted over the windshield, leaving only a thin slit of exposed glass for the driver to see by. Three boxy compartments sat behind it.

“The mechanicals and pneumatics are all up and running,” Gus said. “We charged the eight-volts using the portables. It’s the electrical harness that’s the problem. We can’t pull a current from the batteries to the pump.”

The blood was racing through Michael’s veins. He took a breath to calm himself. “Do you have schematics?”

Gus led him to a makeshift desk where he’d laid out the drawings, broad sheets of brittle paper covered in blue ink. Michael looked them over.

“This is a rat’s nest,” he said after a moment. “It could take me weeks to find the problem.”

“We don’t have weeks,” Billie said.

Michael lifted his face to look at them. “How long have you been working on this thing?”

“Four years,” Gus said. “Give or take.”

“So how much time do I have?”

Billie and Gus exchanged a worried glance.

“About three hours,” said Billie.

FIFTY-THREE

“Theo.”

He was in the kitchen again. The drawer was open; the knife lay gleaming there. Tucked in the drawer like a baby in its crib.

“Theo, come on now. I’m telling you, all you got to do is pick it up and do her. You do her and this will all be over.”

The voice. The voice that knew his name, that seemed to crawl around inside his head, waking and sleeping. Part of his mind was in the kitchen, while another part was in the cell, the cell where he had been for days and days, fighting sleep, fighting the dream.

“Is that so fucking hard? Am I not being absolutely clear here?”

He opened his eyes; the kitchen vanished. He was sitting on the edge of the cot. The cell with its door and its stinking hole that ate his piss and shit. Who knew what time it was, what day, what month, what year. He had been in this place forever.

“Theo? Are you listening to me?”

He licked his lips, tasting blood. Had he bitten his tongue? “What do you want?”

A sigh from the far side of the door. “I gotta say, Theo. You do impress me. Nobody holds out like this. I think you’ve got some kind of record going.”

Theo said nothing. What was the point? The voice never answered his questions. If there even was a voice. Sometimes he thought it was just something in his head.

“I mean some, sure,” the voice went on. “In some cases you could say it goes against the grain, carving the old bitch up.” A dark chuckle, like something from the bottom of a pit. “Believe me, I’ve seen people do the damnedest shit.”

It was terrible, Theo thought, what staying awake could do to a person’s mind. You went without sleep long enough, you made your brain stand up and walk around day after day after day no matter how tired you felt-you did push-ups and sit-ups on the cold stone floor until your muscles burned, you scratched and slapped yourself and dug at your own flesh with your bloodied nails to keep awake-and before long you didn’t know which was which, if you were awake or asleep. Everything got blended together. A sensation like pain-only worse, because it wasn’t a pain in your body; the pain was your mind and your mind was you. You were pain itself.

“You mark my words, Theo. You do not want to go there. That was not a story with a happy ending.”

He felt his awareness folding again, taking him down into sleep. He dug his nails hard into his palm. Stay. Awake. Theo. Because there was something worse than staying awake, he knew.

“Sooner or later everybody comes around, is what I’m saying, Theo.”

“Why do you keep using my name?”

“I’m sorry? Theo, did you ask me something?”

He swallowed, tasting blood again, the foulness of his own mouth. His head was in his hands. “My name. You’re always saying it.”

“Just trying to get your attention. You haven’t been yourself much these last few days, if you’ll pardon my saying so.”

Theo said nothing.

“So okay,” the voice went on. “You don’t want me to use your name. Don’t see why not, but I can live with that. Let’s change the subject. What are your thoughts on Alicia? Because I do believe that girl is something special.”

Alicia? The voice was talking about Alicia? It simply wasn’t possible. But nothing was, that was the thing. The voice was always saying things that were impossible.

“Now, I thought it would be Mausami, the way you described her,” the voice went merrily on. “Back when we had our little talk. I was pretty sure my tastes would run in her direction. But there’s something about a redhead that just gets my blood boiling.”

“I don’t know who you’re talking about. I told you. I don’t know anyone by those names.”

“You dog, Theo. Are you trying to tell me you put the wood to Alicia, too? And Mausami in the condition she is?”

The room seemed to tip. “What did you say?”

“Oh, I’m sorry. You didn’t hear? Now, I’m surprised she didn’t tell you. Your Mausami, Theo.” The voice lifted to a kind of singsong. “Got a little bunski in the ovenski.”

He was trying to focus. To hold the words he was hearing in place so he could grasp their meaning. But his brain was heavy, so heavy, like a huge, slippery stone the words kept sliding off.

“I know, I know,” the voice went on. “It came as a shock to me, too. But back to Lish. If you don’t mind my asking, how does she like it? I’m thinking she’s an on-all-fours-howl-at-the-moon kind of girl. How about it, Theo? Set me straight here if I’m wrong.”

“I don’t… know. Stop using my name.”

A pause. “All right. If that’s how you want it. Let’s try a new name, shall we? How about: Babcock.”

His mind clenched. He thought he might be sick. He would have been, if there had been anything in his stomach to come up.

“Now we’re getting somewhere. You know about Babcock, don’t you, Theo?”

That was what was on the other side, the other side of the dream. One of Twelve. Babcock.

“What… is he?”

“Come on, you’re a smart fellow. You really don’t know?” An expectant pause. “Babcock is… you.”

I am Theo Jaxon, he thought, saying the words in his mind like a prayer. I am Theo Jaxon, I am Theo Jaxon. Son of Demetrius and Prudence Jaxon. First Family. I am Theo Jaxon.

“He’s you. He’s me. He’s everyone, at least in these parts. I like to think he’s kind of like our local god. Not like the old gods. A new god. A dream of god we all dream together. Say it with me, Theo. I. Am. Babcock.”

I am Theo Jaxon. I am Theo Jaxon. I am not in the kitchen. I am not in the kitchen with the knife.

“Shut up, shut up,” he begged. “You’re not making any sense.”

“There you go again, trying to make sense of things. You gotta let go, Theo. This old world of ours hasn’t made sense in a hundred goddamn years. Babcock isn’t about making sense. Babcock just is. Like the We. Like the Many.”

The words found Theo’s lips. “The Many.”

The voice was softer now. It floated toward him from behind the door on waves of softness, calling him to sleep. To just let go and sleep.

“That’s right, Theo. The Many. The We. The We of Babcock. You gotta do it, Theo. You’ve got to be a good boy and close your eyes and carve that old bitch up.”

He was tired, so tired. It was like he was melting from the outside in, his body liquefying around him, around the single overwhelming need to close his eyes and sleep. He wanted to cry but he had no tears to shed. He wanted to beg but he didn’t know what for. He tried to think of Mausami’s face, but his eyes had closed again; he had let his lids fall shut, and he was falling, falling into the dream.

“It’s not as bad as you think. A bit of a tussle at the start. The old gal’s got some fight in her, I’ll give her that. But in the end, you’ll see.”

The voice was somewhere above him, floating down through the warm yellow light of the kitchen. The drawer, the knife. The heat and smell and the tightness in his chest, the silence plugging his throat, and the soft place on her neck where her voice was bobbing in its rolls of flesh. I tell you, the boy isn’t just dumb. He’s been struck dumb. Theo was reaching for the knife, the knife was in his hand.

But a new person was in the dream now. A little girl. She was seated at the table, holding a small, soft-looking object in her lap: a stuffed animal.

– This is Peter, she stated in her little girl’s voice, not looking at him. He’s my rabbit.

– That’s not Peter. I know Peter.

But she wasn’t a little girl, she was a beautiful woman, tall and lovely, with tresses of black hair that curved liked cupped hands around her face, and Theo wasn’t in the kitchen anymore. He was in the library, in that terrible room with its stench of death and the rows of cots under the windows and on each cot the body of a child, and the virals were coming; they were coming up the stairs.

– Don’t do it, said the girl, who was a woman now. The kitchen table at which she sat had somehow traveled to the library, and Theo saw that she wasn’t beautiful at all; in her place sat an old woman, wizened and toothless, her hair gone ghostly white.

– Don’t kill her, Theo.

No.

He jerked awake, the dream popping like a bubble. “I won’t… do it.”

The voice broke into a roar. “Goddamnit, you think this is a game? You think you get to choose how this is going to go?”

Theo said nothing. Why wouldn’t they just kill him?

“Well, okay then, pardner. Have it your way.” The voice released a great, final sigh of disappointment. “I got news for you. You’re not the only guest in this hotel. You won’t like this next part very much, I don’t expect.” Theo heard the boots scraping on the floor, turning to go. “I had higher hopes for you. But I guess it’s all the same. Because we’re going to have them, Theo. Maus and Alicia and the rest. One way or the other, we’re going to have them all.”

FIFTY-FOUR

It was the new moon, Peter realized, as they made their way through the darkness. New moon, and not one soul about.

Getting past the guards had been the easy part. It was Sara who had come up with a plan. Let’s see Lish do this, she had said, and marched straight out the door across the square to where the two men, Hap and Leon, were standing by a fire barrel, watching her approach. She stepped up to them, positioning herself between them and the door of the hut. A brief negotiation ensued; one of the men, Hap, the smaller of the two, turned and walked away. Sara ran one hand through her hair, the signal. Hollis slipped outside, ducking into the shadow of the building, then Peter. They circled around to the north side of the square and took positions in the alleyway. A moment later, Sara appeared, leading the remaining guard, whose quick step told them what she’d promised. As she walked past them, Hollis rose from his hiding place behind an empty barrel, wielding the leg of a chair.

“Hey,” said Hollis, and hit the one named Leon so hard he simply melted.

They dragged his limp body deeper into the alley. Hollis patted him down; strapped to the man’s leg in a leather sheath, hidden under the jumpsuit, was a short-barreled revolver. Caleb appeared with a length of laundry line; they bound the man’s hands and feet and stuffed a wadded rag into his mouth.

“Is it loaded?” Peter asked.

Hollis had opened the cylinder. “Three rounds.” He snapped it closed with a flick of his wrist and passed the weapon to Alicia.

“Peter, I think these buildings are empty,” she said.

It was true; there were no lights anywhere.

“We better hurry.”

They approached the prison from the south, across an empty field. Hollis believed the entrance to the building was located on the far side, facing the main gate to the compound. There was, he said, a kind of tunnel there, the entrance arched in stone and set into the wall. They would attempt this if they had to, but it stood in full view of the observation towers; the plan was to look for a less risky way in. The vans and pickups were kept in a garage on the south side of the building. It would make sense for Olson and his men to keep their hard assets together, and, in any event, they had to look somewhere first.

The garage was sealed, the doors drawn down and secured with a heavy padlock. Peter looked through a window but could see nothing. Behind the garage was a long concrete ramp leading to a platform with an overhang and a pair of bay doors set in the prison wall. A dark stain ran up the middle of the ramp. Peter knelt and touched it; his fingers came away wet. He brought his fingers to his nose. Engine oil.

The doors had no handles, no obvious mechanism by which they could be opened. The five of them formed a line and pressed their hands against the smooth surface, attempting to draw it upward. They felt no sharp resistance, only the weight of the doors themselves, too heavy to lift without something to grip. Caleb scampered back down the ramp to the garage; a crash of glass and he returned a moment later, holding a tire iron.

They formed a line again, managing to lift the door far enough for Caleb to wedge the iron under it. A blade of light had appeared on the concrete. They drew the door upward and ducked through one by one and let it fall closed behind them.

They found themselves in some kind of loading area. There were coils of chain on the floor, old engine parts. Somewhere nearby water was dripping; the air smelled like oil and stone. The source of the light lay up ahead, a flickering glow. As they moved forward, a familiar shape emerged from the gloom.

A Humvee.

Caleb opened the tailgate. “Everything’s gone, except for the fifty-cal. There are three boxes of rounds for that.”

“So where are the rest of the guns?” Alicia said. “And who moved this in here?”

“We did.”

They swiveled to see a single figure step from the shadows: Olson Hand. More figures began to emerge, surrounding them. Six of the orange-suited men, all of them armed with rifles.

Alicia had drawn the revolver from her belt and was pointing it at Olson. “Tell them to back off.”

“Do as she says,” Olson said, holding up a hand. “I mean it. Guns down, now.”

One by one the men dropped the barrels of their weapons. Alicia was the last-though Peter noted that she didn’t return the gun to her belt, but kept it at her side.

“Where are they?” Peter asked Olson. “Do you have them?”

“I thought Michael was the only one.”

“Amy and Mausami are missing.”

He hesitated, appearing perplexed. “I’m sorry. This isn’t what I intended. I don’t know where they are. But your friend Michael is with us.”

“Who’s ‘us’?” Alicia demanded. “What’s going on, goddamnit? Why are we all having the same dream?”

Olson nodded. “The fat woman.”

“You son of a bitch, what did you do with Michael?”

With that, she raised the gun again, using two hands to steady the barrel, which she aimed at Olson’s head. Around them, six rifles responded in kind. Peter felt his stomach clench.

“It’s all right,” Olson said quietly, his eyes fixed on the barrel of the gun.

“Tell him, Peter,” Alicia said. “Tell him I will put a bullet in him right here unless he starts talking.”

Olson was gently waving his hands at his sides. “Everyone, stay calm. They don’t know. They don’t understand.”

Alicia drew her thumb down on the hammer of the revolver to cock it. “What don’t we know?”

In the thin lamplight, Olson appeared diminished, Peter thought. He seemed hardly the same person at all. It was as if a mask had fallen away and Peter was seeing the real Olson for the first time: a tired old man, beset by doubt and worry.

“Babcock,” he said. “You don’t know about Babcock.”

Michael was on his back, his head buried beneath the control panel. A mass of wiring and plastic connectors hung above his face.

“Try it now.”

Gus closed the knife switch that connected the panel to the batteries. From beneath them came the whir of the main generator spinning up.

“Anything?”

“Hang on,” Gus said. Then: “No. The starter breaker popped again.”

There had to be a short in the control harness somewhere. Maybe it was the stuff in the drink Billie had given him or all that time he’d spent around Elton, but it was as if Michael could actually smell it-a faint aerial discharge of hot metal and molten plastic, somewhere in the tangle of wires above his face. With one hand he moved the circuit tester up and down the board; with the other he gave a gentle tug at each connection. Everything was tight.

He shimmied his way out and drew up to a seated position. The sweat was pouring down. Billie, standing above him, eyed him anxiously.

“Michael-”

“I know, I know.”

He took a long swig from a canteen and wiped his face on his sleeve, giving himself a moment to think. Hours of testing circuits, tugging wires, backtracking each connection to the panel. And still he’d found nothing.

He wondered: What would Elton do?

The answer was obvious. Crazy, perhaps, but still obvious. And in any event, he’d already tried everything else he could think of. Michael climbed to his feet and moved down the narrow walkway connecting the cab with the engine compartment. Gus was standing by the starter control unit, a penlight tucked in his mouth.

“Reset the relay,” he instructed.

Gus spat the flashlight into his hand. “We’ve already tried that. We’re draining the batteries. We do this too many times, we’ll have to recharge them with the portables. Six hours at least.”

“Just do it.”

Gus shrugged and reached around the unit, into its nest of pipes, feeling his way blind.

“Okay, for what it’s worth, it’s reset.”

Michael stepped back to the breaker panel. “I want everybody to be very, very quiet.”

If Elton could do it, so could he. He took a deep breath and slowly released it as he closed his eyes, trying to empty his mind.

Then he flipped the breaker.

In the instant that followed-a splinter of a second-he heard the spin of the batteries and the rush of current moving through the panel, the sound in his ears like water moving through a tube. But something was wrong; the tube was too small. The water pushed against the sides and then the current began to flow in the wrong direction, a violent turbulence, half going one way and half the other, canceling each other out, and just like that everything stopped; the circuit was broken.

He opened his eyes to find Gus staring at him, mouth open, showing his blackened teeth.

“It’s the breaker,” Michael said.

He drew a screwdriver from his tool belt and popped the breaker from the panel. “This is fifteen amps,” he said. “This thing wouldn’t power a hot plate. Why the hell would it be fifteen amps?” He gazed up at the box, its hundreds of circuits. “What’s this one, in the next slot? Number twenty-six.”

Gus examined the schematic that was spread out on the tiny table in the engine’s cab. He glanced at the panel, then back to the drawing. “Interior lights.”

“Flyers, you don’t need thirty amps for that.” Michael jimmied the second breaker free and swapped it for the first one. He closed the knife switch again, waiting for the breaker to pop. When it didn’t, he said, “That’s it.”

Gus was frowning doubtfully. “That’s it?”

“They must have gotten switched. It’s got nothing to do with the head-end unit. Reset the relay and I’ll show you.”

Michael moved forward to the cab, where Billie was waiting in one of the two swiveling chairs at the windshield. Everyone else was gone; the rest of the crew had left just after dark in Billie’s pickup, headed for the rendezvous.

Michael took the other chair. He turned the key set in the panel beside the throttle; from below they heard the batteries spinning up. The dials on the panel began to glow, a cool blue. Through the narrow slit between the protective plates, Michael could see a curtain of stars beyond the open doors of the shed. Well, he thought, it’s now or never. Either there was current to the starter or there wasn’t. He’d found one problem but who knew how many others there might be. It had taken him twelve days to fix one Humvee. Everything he’d done here, he’d done in a little under three hours.

Michael lifted his voice to the rear of the car, where Gus was priming the fuel system, clearing any air from the line: “Go ahead!”

Gus fired the starter. A great roar rose from below, carrying the satisfying smell of combusting diesel. The engine gave a shuddering lurch as the wheels engaged and began to push against their brakes.

“So,” Michael said, turning to Billie, “how do you drive this thing?”

FIFTY-FIVE

In the end, they could only take Olson at his word. They simply had no choice.

They divvied up the weapons and split into two groups. Olson and his men would storm the room from ground level while Peter and the others entered from above. The space they called the ring had once been the prison’s central courtyard, covered by a domed roof. Part of the roof had fallen away, leaving the space open to the outside, but the original structural girders were intact. Suspended from these girders, fifteen meters above the ring, was a series of catwalks, once used by the guards to monitor the floor below. These were arranged like the spokes of a wheel with ducts running above them, wide enough for a person to crawl through.

Once they had secured the catwalk, Peter and the others would descend by flights of stairs at the north and south ends of the room. These led to three tiers of caged balconies encircling the yard. This would be where most of the crowd would be, Olson explained, with perhaps a dozen stationed on the floor to operate the fireline.

The viral, Babcock, would enter through the opening in the roof, on the east side of the room. The cattle, four head, would be driven in from the opposite end, through a gap in the fireline, followed by the two people slated for the sacrifice.

Four and two, Olson said, for each new moon. As long as we give him the four and two, he keeps the Many away.

The Many: that was what Olson called the other virals. The ones of Babcock, he explained. The ones of his blood. He controls them? Peter asked, not really believing any of it yet; it was all too fantastic-though even as he formed the question, he felt his skepticism giving way. If Olson was telling the truth, a great deal suddenly made sense. The Haven itself, its impossible existence; the strange behavior of the residents, like people carrying a terrible secret; even the virals themselves and the feeling Peter had harbored his whole life that they were more than the sum of their parts. He doesn’t just control them, Olson answered. As he spoke, a heaviness seemed to come over him; it was as if he’d waited years to tell the story. He is them, Peter.

“I’m sorry I lied to you before, but it couldn’t be helped. The first settlers who came here weren’t refugees. They were children. The train brought them here, from where exactly we don’t know. They were going to hide in Yucca Mountain, in the tunnels inside it. But Babcock was already here. That was when the dream began. Some say it’s a memory from a time before he became a viral, when he was still a man. But once you’ve killed the woman in the dream, you belong to him. You belong to the ring.”

“The hotel, with the blocked streets,” Hollis ventured. “It’s a trap, isn’t it?”

Olson nodded. “For many years we sent out patrols, to bring in as many more as we could. A few just wandered through. Others were left there by the virals for us to find. Like you, Sara.”

Sara shook her head. “I still don’t remember what happened.”

“No one ever does. The trauma is simply too great.” Olson looked imploringly at Peter again. “You must understand. We’ve lived this way always. It was our only way to survive. For most, the ring seems a small price to pay.”

“Well, it’s a lousy deal, if you ask me,” Alicia cut in. Her face was hardened with anger. “I’ve heard enough. These people are collaborators. They’re like pets.”

Something darkened in Olson’s expression-though his tone, when he continued, was still almost eerily calm. “Call us what you like. You can’t say anything I haven’t said to myself a thousand times. Mira was not my only child. I had a son, too. He would be about your age if he had lived. When he was chosen, his mother objected. In the end, Jude sent her into the ring with him.”

His own son, Peter thought. Olson had sent his own son to die.

“Why Jude?”

Olson shrugged. “It’s who he is. There has always been Jude.” He shook his head again. “I would explain it better if I could. But none of that matters now. What’s past is past, or so I tell myself. There’s a group of us who’ve been preparing for this day for years. To get away, to live our lives as people. But unless we kill Babcock, he’ll call the Many. With these weapons we have a chance.”

“So who’s in the ring?”

“We don’t know. Jude wouldn’t say.”

“What about Maus and Amy?”

“I told you, we don’t know where they are.”

Peter turned to Alicia. “It’s them.”

“We don’t know that,” Olson objected. “And Mausami is pregnant. Jude wouldn’t choose her.”

Peter was unconvinced. Even more: everything Olson had said made him believe that Maus and Amy were the ones in the ring.

“Is there another way inside?”

That was when Olson explained the layout, the ducts above the catwalks, kneeling on the floor of the garage to draw in the dust. “It will be pitch-black for the first part,” he warned, as his men were passing out rifles and pistols from the cache taken from the Humvee. “Just follow the sound of the crowd.”

“How many more men do you have inside?” Hollis asked. He was filling his pockets with magazines. Kneeling by an open crate, Caleb and Sara were both loading rifles.

“The seven of us, plus another four in the balconies.”

“That’s all?” Peter said. The odds, not good to begin with, were suddenly much worse than he’d thought. “How many does Jude have?”

Olson frowned. “I thought you understood. He has all of them.”

When Peter said nothing, Olson continued: “Babcock is stronger than any viral you’ve ever seen, and the crowd won’t be on our side. Killing him won’t be easy.”

“Has anyone ever tried?”

“Once.” He hestitated. “A small group, like us. It was many years ago.”

Peter was about to ask what had happened. But he heard, in Olson’s silence, the answer to this question.

“You should have told us.”

A look of abject resignation came into Olson’s face. Peter realized that what he was seeing there was a burden far heavier than sorrow or grief. It was guilt.

“Peter. What would you have said?”

He didn’t answer; he didn’t know. Probably he wouldn’t have believed him. He wasn’t sure what he believed now. But Amy was inside the ring, of that he was certain; he felt it in his bones. He popped the clip from his pistol to blow it clean, then reinserted it into the handle and pulled the slide. He looked toward Alicia, who nodded. Everyone was ready.

“We’re here to get our friends,” he said to Olson. “The rest is up to you.”

But Olson shook his head. “Make no mistake. Once you’re in the ring, our fights are the same. Babcock has to die. Unless we kill him, he’ll call the Many. The train will make no difference.”

New moon: Babcock felt the hunger uncoiling inside him. And he stretched out his mind from This Place, the Place of Return, saying:

It is time.

It is time, Jude.

Babcock was up. Babcock was flying. Soaring over the desert floor in leaps and bounds, the great joyful hunger coursing through him.

Bring them to me. Bring me one and then another. Bring them that you should live in this way and no other.

There was blood in the air. He could smell it, taste it, feel its essence coursing through him. First would come the blood of the beasts, a living sweetness. And then his Best and Special, his Jude, who dreamed the dream better than all the others since the Time of Becoming, whose mind lived with him in the dream like a brother, would bring the ones of blood that Babcock would drink and be filled by it.

He mounted the wall in a single jump.

I am here.

I am Babcock.

We are Babcock.

He descended. He heard the gasps of the crowd. Around him, the fires blazed up. Behind the flames were the men, come to watch and know. And through the gap he saw the beasts approaching, driven on the whip, their eyes fearless and unknowing, and the hunger lifted him up in a wave and he was sailing down upon them, tearing and ripping, first one and then the other, each in its turn, a glorious fulfillment.

We are Babcock.

He could hear the voices now. The chant of the crowds in their cages, behind the ring of flames; and the voice of his One, his Jude, standing on the catwalk above, leading them, as if in song.

“Bring them to me! Bring me one and then another! Bring them that we should live… ”

A wall of sound, ascending in fierce unison: “… in this way and no other!”

A pair of figures appeared in the gap. They stumbled forward, pushed by men who quickly stepped away. The flames rose again behind them, a door of fire, sealing them inside for the taking.

The crowd roared.

“Ring! Ring! Ring!”

A stampede of feet. The air shuddering, hammering.

“Ring! Ring! Ring!”

And that was when he felt her. In a bright and terrible burst, Babcock felt her. The shadow behind the shadow, the tear in the fabric of night. The one who carried the seed of forever but was not of his blood, was not of the Twelve or the Zero.

The one called Amy.

Peter heard it all from the ventilation shaft. The chanting, the panicked cries of the cattle, and then the silence-of bated breath, of some terrible spectacle about to unfold-and then the explosion of cheers. Heat was rising in waves to his belly and, with it, the choking fumes of diesel smoke. The shaft was just wide enough for a single person crawling on his elbows. Somewhere below him, gathering in the tunnel that connected the ring to the prison’s main entrance, were Olson’s men. There was no way to coordinate their arrivals, nor to communicate with the others stationed in the crowd. They would simply have to guess.

Peter saw an opening ahead: a metal grate in the floor of the duct. He pressed his face against it, gazing downward. Below the grate he could see the slats of the catwalk and farther still, another twenty meters, the floor of the ring, wrapped by a trench of burning fuel.

The floor was covered in blood.

On the balconies, the crowd had taken up its chanting again. Ring! Ring! Ring! Ring! Peter guessed he and the others were positioned over the east end of the room now. They would have to cross the catwalk in full view of the crowd to reach the stairs to the floor below. He glanced back to Hollis, who nodded, and lifted the grate free, pushing it to the side. Then he freed the safety on his pistol and crawled forward so that his feet straddled the vent.

Amy, Peter thought, it’s nothing good, what’s down there. Do what you do or we’re all dead.

He pushed himself off, dropping feet first through the opening.

He fell and fell, long enough to wonder: Why am I always falling? The distance to the catwalk was more than he’d expected-not two meters but four or even five-and he hit the metal with a bone-rattling bang. He rolled. The pistol was gone, squirted from his grasp. And it was as he rolled that he glimpsed, from the corner of his eye, a figure below: wrists bound, body slack with submission, wearing a sleeveless shirt that Peter recognized. His mind grabbed hold of this image, which was also a memory-of the smell of pyre smoke on the day they’d burned the body of Zander Phillips, standing in the sunshine outside the power station, and the name stitched over the pocket. Armando.

Theo.

The man in the ring was Theo.

His brother wasn’t alone. There was someone else beside him, a man on his knees. He was stripped to the waist, slumped forward on the ground so that his face was obscured. And as Peter’s vision widened he realized that what he was seeing on the floor of the ring was the cattle, or what had once been the cattle-they were strewn in pieces everywhere, as if they had been situated at the heart of an explosion-and crouched at the center of this heaping mass of blood and flesh and bone, its face bent to bury itself in the remains, its body twitching with a darting motion as it drank, was a viral-but not like any viral Peter knew. It was the largest he had ever seen, that anyone had ever seen, its curled bulk so immense that it was like some new being entirely.

“Peter! You’re in time to watch the show!”

He had come to rest on his back, useless as a turtle. Jude, standing above him, wearing a look that Peter had no name for, a dark pleasure beyond words, was aiming a shotgun at his head. Peter felt the shudder of footsteps coming toward them-more orange-suited men racing down the catwalks from every direction.

Jude was standing directly below the vent.

“Go ahead,” Peter said.

Jude smiled. “How noble.”

“Not you,” Peter said, and flicked his eyes upward. “Hollis.”

Jude lifted his face in time for the bullet from Hollis’s rifle to strike him just above the right ear. A misty bloom of pink: Peter felt the air dampen with it. For a moment, nothing happened. Then the shotgun released from Jude’s hands, clattering to the catwalk. A large-butted pistol was tucked at his waist; Peter saw Jude’s hand grope for it, blindly searching. Then something released inside him, blood began to pour from his eyes, a pitiful weeping of blood, and he dropped to his knees, flopping forward, his face frozen in an expression of eternal wonderment, as if to say: I can’t believe I’m dead.

It was Mausami who killed the operator manning the fuel pump.

She and Amy had entered from the main tunnel just before the crowd arrived and had hidden under the stairs that connected the floor of the courtyard to the balconies. For many minutes they had waited, huddled together, emerging only when they heard the sound of the cattle being driven in, the wild cheers exploding above. The air was broiling, choked with smoke and fumes.

There was something terrible behind the flames.

As the viral tore into the cattle, the crowd seemed to detonate, everyone pumping their fists, chanting and stomping their feet, like a single being caught in some great and terrible ecstasy. Some were holding children on their shoulders so they could see. The cattle were screaming now, bucking and tearing around the ring, racing toward the flames and backing away in confusion, a mad dance between two poles of death. While Mausami watched, the viral sprang forward and snatched one by its hind legs, lifting upward with a deep cracking sound, twisting until the legs came free, then flinging them through the air to slap against the cages in a spray of blood. The creature left that one where it was-its front legs twitching at the dirt, struggling to pull its ruined body forward-and seized another by the horns, applying the same twisting motion to break its neck, then shoved its face into the stilled flesh at the base of the animal’s throat, the viral’s whole torso seeming to inflate as it drank, the steer’s body contracting with each of the viral’s muscular inhalations, shriveling before Mausami’s eyes as the blood was pulled from its body.

She did not see the rest; she’d turned her face away.

“Bring them to me!” a voice was calling. “Bring me one and then another! Bring them that we should live… ”

“… in this way and no other!”

That was when she saw Theo.

In that instant, Mausami experienced a collision of joy and terror so violent it was as if she were stepping from her own body. Her breath seized up inside her; she felt dizzy and sick. Two men in jumpsuits were pushing Theo forward, driving him through a gap in the flames. His eyes had an empty, almost bovine look; he seemed to have no idea what was happening around him. He lifted his face to the crowd, blinking vacantly.

She tried to call out to him, but her voice was drowned in the foam of voices. She looked for Amy, hoping the girl would know what to do, but couldn’t see her anywhere. Above and around her the voices were chanting again:

“Ring! Ring! Ring!”

And then the second man was brought in, held at the elbows by two guards. His head was bowed, his feet seemed barely to touch the floor as the men, supporting his weight, dragged him forward and pitched him onto the ground and darted away. The cheers of the crowd were deafening now, a wash of sound. Theo staggered onward, scanning the crowd, as if someone there might be bringing help. The second man had brought himself upright on his knees.

The second man was Finn Darrell.

Suddenly a woman was standing before her: a familiar face, with a long pink scar stitched to the cheekbone like a seam. Her jumpsuit bulged with the belly of her pregnancy.

“I know you,” the woman said.

Mausami backed away, but the woman gripped her by the arm, her eyes locking on Mausami’s face with a fierce intensity. “I know you, I know you!”

“Let me go!”

She pulled away. Behind her, the woman was frantically pointing, shouting, “I know her, I know her!”

Mausami ran. All thoughts had left her but one: she had to get to Theo. But there was no way past the flames. The viral was almost done with the cattle; the last lay twitching under its jaws. In another few seconds it would rise and see the two men-see Theo-and that would be the end.

Then Mausami saw the pump. A huge greasy bulk, connected by long trailing hoses to a pair of bulging fuel tanks, weeping with rust. The operator was cradling a shotgun across his chest; a blade hung on his belt in a leather sheath. He was facing away, his eyes, like everyone’s, trained on the spectacle unfolding beyond the fluttering wall of flame.

She felt a flicker of doubt-she’d never killed a man before-but it was not enough to stop her; in a single motion she stepped behind the guard and drew the blade and shoved it with all her strength into his lower back. She felt a stiffening, the muscles of his frame drawing tight, like a bow; from deep inside his throat came an exhalation of surprise.

She felt him die.

Punching through the din, a voice from high above: Peter’s? “Theo, run!”

The pump was a throbbing confusion of levers and knobs. Where were Michael and Caleb when you needed them? Mausami picked the largest one-a wild guess, a lever as long as her forearm-and wrapped it in her fist and pulled.

“Stop her!” someone yelled. “Stop that woman!”

As Mausami felt the shot entering her upper thigh-a strangely trivial pain, like the sting of a bee-she realized she’d done it. The flames were dying, guttering around the ring. The crowd was suddenly backing away from the wires, everyone yelling, chaos erupting. The viral had broken away from the last of the cattle, drawing itself erect-all throbbing light and eyes and claws and teeth, its smooth face and long neck and massive chest bibbed in blood. Its body looked swollen, like a tick’s. It stood at least three meters, maybe more. With a flick of its head it found Finn with its eyes, head cocking to the side, body tensing as it took aim, preparing to spring, and then it did; it seemed to cross the air between them at the speed of thought, invisible as a bullet was invisible, arriving all at once where Finn lay helpless. What happened next Mausami did not see clearly and was glad that she did not, it was so fast and terrible, like the cattle but vastly worse, because it was a man. A splash of blood like something bursting, and part of Finn went one way, and part of him another.

Theo, she thought, as the pain in her leg abruptly deepened-a wave of heat and light that bent her double. The leg folded beneath her, sending her pitching forward. Theo, I’m here. I’ve come to save you. We have a baby, Theo. Our baby is a boy.

As she fell she saw a figure sprinting across the ring. It was Amy. Her hair was pulling a trail of smoke; darting tongues of fire were licking at her clothing. The viral had shifted his attention toward Theo now. Amy charged between them, protecting Theo like a shield. Faced with the creature’s immense, bloated form, she seemed tiny, like a child.

And in that instant, which felt suspended-the whole world brought to a halt while the viral regarded the small figure before him-Mausami thought: that girl wants to say something. That girl is going to open her mouth and speak.

Twenty meters overhead, Hollis had dropped through the vent with his rifle, followed by Alicia, holding the RPG. She swung it toward the floor, pointing its barrel at the place where Amy and Babcock stood.

“I don’t have a shot!”

Caleb and Sara dropped through behind them. Peter snatched Jude’s shotgun from the floor of the catwalk and fired in the direction of the two men racing down the catwalk toward them. One man uttered a strangled cry and fell away, tumbling headfirst to the floor below.

“Shoot the viral!” he called to Alicia.

Hollis fired and the second man dropped, face-down, onto the catwalk.

“She’s too close!” Alicia said.

“Amy,” Peter yelled, “get out of there!”

The girl stood her ground. How long could she hold him that way? And where was Olson? The last of the fires had gone out; people were streaming down the stairs, an avalanche of orange jumpsuits. Theo, on his hands and knees, was backing away from the viral, but his heart was nowhere in this; he had accepted his fate, he had no strength to resist. Caleb and Sara had made it across the catwalk to the stairs now, descending into the melee on the balconies. Peter heard women screaming, children crying, a voice that sounded like Olson’s, rising over the din: “The tunnel! Everyone run to the tunnel!”

Mausami lurched into the ring.

“Over here!” She stumbled, catching herself with her hands as she fell to the floor. Her pants were soaked in blood. On all fours, she tried to rise. She was waving, screaming: “Look over here!”

Maus, Peter thought, keep back.

Too late. The spell was broken.

The viral rocked its face toward the ceiling and drew down into a crouch, its body gathering energy like a coiled spring, and then it was flying, lofting through the air. It rose toward them with a pitiless inevitability, arcing over their heads and seizing one of the ceiling struts, body rotating like child swinging on a tree limb-an oddly exhilarating, even joyful image-and landed on the catwalk with a shuddering clang.

I am Babcock.

We are Babcock.

“Lish-”

Peter felt the RPG sailing past his face, the scald of hot gas on his cheek; he knew what was going to happen before it did.

The grenade exploded. A punch of noise and heat and Peter was shoved backward into Alicia, the two of them tumbling onto the catwalk, but the catwalk wasn’t there. The catwalk was falling. Something caught and held and they banged down hard, and for a hopeful moment everything stopped. But then the structure lurched again, and with a pop of rivets and a groan of bending metal the end of the catwalk broke away from the ceiling, tilting toward the floor like the head of a hammer, falling.

Leon in the alley, face-down in the dirt. Goddamn, he thought. Where did that girl go?

Some kind of gag was in his mouth; his wrists were bound behind him. He tried to wriggle his feet, but they were tied, too. It was the big one, Hollis; Leon remembered now. Hollis had risen out of the shadows, swinging something, and the next thing Leon knew he was all alone in the dark and couldn’t move.

His nose was thick with snot and blood. Probably the son of a bitch had broken it. That was all he needed, a broken nose. He thought he’d cracked a couple of teeth, too, but with the gag in his mouth, his tongue stuffed behind it, he had no way to check.

It was so goddamn dark out here he couldn’t see two feet in front of his face. The reek of garbage was coming from somewhere. People were always putting it in the alleys instead of taking it to the dump. How many times had he heard Jude tell people, Take your fucking garbage to the dump. What are we, pigs? A joke, sort of, since they weren’t pigs but what was the difference, really? Jude was always making jokes like that, to watch people squirm. For a while they’d kept pigs-Babcock liked pork almost as much as he liked the cattle-but some kind of sickness had wiped them out one winter. Or maybe they’d just seen what was coming and decided, What the hell, I’d rather just lie down and die in the mud.

No one would be coming to look for Leon, that was for sure; the problem of standing up was his to solve on his own. He could sort of see a way to do it, by drawing his knees to his chest. It made his shoulders hurt something terrible, twisted back like they were, and pushed his face, with its broken nose and teeth, into the dirt; he gave a yelp of pain through the gag, and by the time he was done with it, he was woozy and breathing hard, the sweat popping out all over. He lifted his face-more pain in his shoulders, what the fuck had that guy done, tying his hands so tight-and raised his upper body until he was sitting up, his knees folded under him, and that was when he realized his mistake. He had no way to stand. He’d sort of thought he could push off with his toes, jumping his way into a standing position. But this would just send him pitching forward onto his face again. He should have scooched over to the wall first, used it to shimmy his way up. But now he was stuck, his legs jammed up under him, frozen in place like a big dumbshit.

He tried to cry for help, nothing fancy, just the word “Hey,” but it came out as a strangled Aaaaa sound and made him want to cough. Already he could feel the circulation going out of his legs, a prickly numbness crawling up from his toes, like ants.

Something was moving out there.

He was facing the mouth of the alley. Beyond it lay the square, a zone of blackness since the fire barrel had gone out. He peered into the dark. Maybe it was Hap, come to look for him. Well, whoever it was, he couldn’t see a goddamn thing. Probably his mind was playing tricks on him. Alone outside on new moon, anybody could get a little jumpy.

No: something was moving. Leon felt it again. The feeling was coming from the ground, through his knees.

A shadow streaked above him. He lifted his head quickly, finding only stars, set in a liquidy blackness. The feeling through his knees was stronger now, a rhythmic shuddering, like the flapping of a thousand wings. What the goddamn-?

A figure darted into the alley. Hap.

Aaaaaaaaa, he said through the gag. Aaaaaaaaa. But Hap seemed not to notice him. He paused at the edge of the alley, panting for breath, and raced away.

Then he saw what Hap was running from.

Leon’s bladder released, and then his bowels. But his mind was unable to register these facts as all thought was obliterated by an immense and weightless terror.

The end of the catwalk impacted the floor with a massive jolt. Peter, clutching one of the guardrails, barely managed to hold on. An object tumbled past him, clattering end over end before bounding into space: the empty RPG, spiraling a meteoric wick of smoke from its tube. Then something heavy struck him from above, ripping his hand away-Hollis and Alicia, tangled together-and that was that: the three of them were falling free, sliding down the angled catwalk to the floor below.

They hit the ground in a confusion of arms and legs and bodies and equipment, scattering across the floor like balls tossed from a hand. Peter came to rest on his back, blinking at the distant ceiling, his mind and body roaring with adrenaline.

Where was Babcock?

“Come on!” Alicia had grabbed him by the shirt and was pulling him to his feet. Sara and Caleb were beside her; Hollis was hobbling toward them, somehow still carrying his rifle. “We have to get out of here!”

“Where did it go?”

“I don’t know! It jumped away!”

The remains of the cattle were strewn everywhere. The air stank of blood, of meat. Amy was helping Maus to her feet. The girl’s clothes were still smoking, though she seemed not to notice. A patch of her hair had been scorched away, revealing a raw pinkness of scalp.

“Help Theo,” Mausami said, as Peter crouched before her.

“Maus, you’re shot.”

Her teeth were clenched with pain. She shoved him away. “Help him.”

Peter went to where his brother was kneeling in the dirt. He seemed dazed, his expression disordered. His feet were bare, his clothing was in tatters, his arms were covered with scabs. What had they done to him?

“Theo, look at me,” Peter commanded, gripping him by the shoulders. “Are you hurt? Do you think you can walk?”

A small light seemed to go on in his brother’s eyes. Not the whole Theo, but at least a glimmer.

“Oh my God,” said Caleb, “that’s Finn.”

The boy was pointing toward a bloody shape on the floor a few meters away. Peter thought at first it was a piece of the cattle, but then the details came into focus and he understood that this lump of meat and bone was half a person, a torso and head and a single arm, which lay twisted at an odd angle over the dead man’s forehead. Below the waist there was nothing. The face, just as Caleb had said, was Finn Darrell’s.

He tightened his grip on Theo’s shoulders. Sara and Alicia were lifting Mausami to her feet. “Theo, I need you to try to walk.”

Theo blinked and licked his lips. “Is it really you, brother?”

Peter nodded.

“You… came for me.”

“Caleb,” Peter said, “help me.”

Peter pulled Theo upright and wrapped an arm around his waist, Caleb taking him from the other side.

Together, they ran.

They exited into the dark tunnel, into the fleeing crowds. People were tearing toward the exit, pushing and shoving. Up ahead, Olson was waving people through the opening, screaming at the top of his voice: “Run to the train!”

They burst from the tunnel into the yard. Everyone was making for the gate, which stood open. In the darkness and confusion a bottleneck had formed, too many people trying to shove their way through the narrow opening at once. Some were attempting to scale the fence, hurling themselves against the wires and clawing their way up. As Peter watched, a man at the top fell backward, screaming, one leg tangled in the barbs.

“Caleb!” Alicia cried. “Take Maus!”

The crowd was surging around them. Peter saw Alicia’s head bobbing above the fray, a flash of blond hair he knew to be Sara’s. The two of them were moving in the wrong direction, fighting the current of the crowd.

“Lish! Where are you going?” But his voice was overpowered by a blast of sound, a single sustained note that split the air, seeming to come not from one direction but from everywhere at once.

Michael, he thought. Michael was coming.

They were suddenly propelled forward, the energy of the panicked throng lifting them like a wave. Somehow Peter managed to keep hold of his brother. They passed through the gate and into another mob of people compressed into the gap between the two fence lines. Someone banged into him from behind and he heard the man grunt and stumble and fall beneath the feet of the crowd. Peter fought his way through, pushing, shoving, using his body like a battering ram, until, at last, they burst free of the second gate.

The tracks were dead ahead. Theo seemed to be rousing, doing more to carry his own weight as they fought their way forward. In the chaos and darkness Peter couldn’t see any of the others. He called their names but heard no answer over the yelling of the figures tearing past him. The road ascended a sandy rise and as they neared the top he saw a glow of light coming from the south. Another blast of the horn and then he saw it.

A huge silver bulk churning toward them, parting the night like a blade. A single beam of light shot from its bow, shining over the masses of figures crowding around the tracks. He saw Caleb and Mausami up ahead, racing toward the front of the train. Still holding Theo, Peter stumbled down the embankment; he heard a squeal of brakes. People were racing alongside the train, trying to grab hold. As the engine drew closer, a hatch opened in the front cab and Michael leaned out.

“We can’t stop!”

“What?”

Michael cupped his mouth. “We have to keep moving!”

The train had slowed to a crawl. Peter saw Caleb and Hollis lifting a woman into one of the three open boxcars trailing the engine; Michael was helping to pull Mausami up the ladder into the cab, Amy pushing from behind. Peter began to run with his brother, trying to match their speed with the ladder; as Amy ducked into the hatch, Theo grabbed hold and began to ascend. When he reached the top, Peter dove for the ladder and pulled himself up, his feet swinging free. Behind him he heard a sound of gunfire, shots pinging off the sides of the cars.

He slammed the door closed behind him to find himself in a cramped compartment, glowing with a hundred tiny lights. Michael was sitting at the control panel, Billie beside him. Amy had withdrawn to the floor behind Michael’s chair, her eyes wide, her knees protectively pulled to her chest. To Peter’s left, a narrow hallway led aft.

“Flyers, Peter,” Michael said, swiveling in his chair. “Where the hell did Theo come from?”

Peter’s brother was slumped on the floor of the hallway; Mausami was holding his head against her chest, her bloody leg folded under her.

Peter directed his voice to the front of the cab. “Is there a med kit in this thing?”

Billie passed him a metal box. Peter popped it open and withdrew a cloth bandage, rolling it into a compress. He tore the fabric of Mausami’s pant leg away to reveal the wound, a crater of torn skin and bloody flesh, and placed the bandage against it and told her to hold it there.

Theo lifted his face, his eyes flickering. “Am I dreaming you?”

Peter shook his head.

“Who is she? The girl. I thought… ” His voice trailed away.

For the first time it struck him: he had done it. Take care of your brother.

“There’ll be time later, okay?”

Theo managed a weak smile. “Whatever you say.”

Peter moved to the front of the cab, between the two seats. Through the slit of windshield between the plates he could see a view of desert in the beam of the headlamp and the tracks rolling under them.

“Is Babcock dead?” Billie asked.

He shook his head.

“You didn’t kill him?”

The sight of the woman filled him with a sudden anger. “Where the hell was Olson?”

Before she could answer, Michael broke in. “Wait, where are the others? Where’s Sara?”

The last Peter had seen her, she was with Alicia at the gate. “I think she must be in one of the other cars.”

Billie had opened the cabin door again, leaning out; she ducked her head back inside. “I hope everybody’s on board,” she said, “because here they come. Hit the gas, Michael.”

“My sister could still be out there!” Michael shouted. “You said no one gets left!”

Billie didn’t wait. She reached across Michael, knocking him back into his chair, and gripped a lever on the panel, pushing it forward. Peter felt the train accelerate. A digital readout on the panel sprang to life, the number swiftly rising: 30, 35, 40. Then she shoved her way past Peter into the hallway, where a ladder in the wall led to a second hatch in the ceiling. She briskly ascended, turning the wheel, directing her voice to the rear of the train. “Gus! Up top, let’s go!”

Gus jogged forward, dragging a canvas duffel bag, which he unzipped to reveal a pile of short-barreled shotguns. He passed one to Billie and took one for himself, then lifted his grease-stained face to Peter, handing him a weapon.

“If you’re coming,” he said gruffly, “you might want to remember to keep your head down.”

They ascended the ladder, Billie first, then Gus. As Peter lifted his head through the hatch, a blast of wind smacked him in the face, making him duck. He swallowed, pushing his fear down inside himself, and made a second attempt, easing through the opening with his face turned toward the front of the train, sliding onto the roof on his belly. Michael passed him the shotgun from below. He eased into a crouch, trying to find his footing while simultaneously cradling the shotgun. The wind was slapping him, a continuous pressure threatening to push him over. The roof of the engine was arched, with a flat strip down the middle. He was facing the rear of the train now, giving his weight to the wind; Billie and Gus were already well ahead of him. As Peter watched, they leapt the gap between the first and second boxcars, making their way aft, into the roaring dark.

He first saw the virals as a region of pulsing green light from the rear. Above the din of the engine and the squeal of the wheels on the rails he heard Billie yelling something, but her words were yanked away. He drew a breath and held it and leapt the gap to the first boxcar. Part of him was wondering, What am I doing here, what am I doing on the roof of a moving train, while another part accepted this fact, strange as it seemed, as an inevitable consequence of the night’s events. The green glow was closer now, breaking apart as it widened into a wedge-shaped mass of bounding points, and Peter understood what he was seeing-that it was not just ten or twenty virals but an army of hundreds.

The Many.

The Many of Babcock.

As the first one took shape, vaulting through the air toward the rear of the train, Billie and Gus fired. Peter was halfway down the first boxcar now. The train shuddered and he felt his feet begin to slide, and just like that the shotgun was gone, falling away. He heard a scream and when he looked up there was no one-the place where Billie and Gus had stood was empty.

He had barely found his footing again when a huge crash from the front of the train pitched him forward. The horizon collapsed; the sky was gone. He was sliding on his belly down the sloping roof of the car. Just when it seemed he would sail into space, his hands found a narrow lip of metal at the top of one of the armored plates. There was no time even to be afraid. In the whirling darkness he sensed the presence of a wall shooting past him. They were in some kind of tunnel, boring through the mountain. He held on fast, feet swinging, scrabbling at the side of the train, and then he felt the air opening beneath him as the door of the boxcar flew open, and hands grabbing him, pulling him down and in.

The hands belonged to Caleb and Hollis. In a heap of arms and legs they spilled onto the floor of the boxcar. The interior was lit by a single lantern, swaying from a hook. The car was nearly empty-just a few dark figures huddled against the walls, apparently immobilized by fear. Beyond the open door the walls of a tunnel were flying past, filling the space with sound and wind. As Peter climbed to his feet, a familiar figure emerged from the shadows: Olson Hand.

A furious anger broke inside him. Peter seized the man by the scruff of his jumpsuit, shoving him against the wall of the boxcar and pushing his forearm up against his throat.

“Where the hell were you? You left us there!”

All color was drained from Olson’s face. “I’m sorry. It was the only way.”

All at once he understood. Olson had sent them into the ring as bait.

“You knew who it was, didn’t you? You knew it was my brother all along.”

Olson swallowed, the point of his Adam’s apple bobbing against Peter’s forearm. “Yes. Jude believed others would come. That’s why we were waiting for you in Las Vegas.”

Another crash detonated from the front of the train; everyone went spilling forward. Olson was ripped from Peter’s grasp. They were out of the tunnel again, back on open ground. Peter heard gunfire from outside and looked to see the Humvee racing past, Sara in the driver’s seat, her knuckles clenched to the wheel, Alicia up top on the big gun, firing in concentrated bursts toward the rear of the train.

“Get out!” Alicia was waving frantically toward the last boxcar. “They’re right behind you!”

Suddenly all the people in the car were yelling, shoving, trying to scramble away from the open door. Olson gripped one of the figures by the arm and pushed her forward. Mira.

“Take her!” he yelled. “Get her to the engine. Even if the cars are overrun, it’s safe there.”

Sara had drawn alongside, matching her speed to the train’s, trying to narrow the space.

Alicia was waving to them: “Jump!”

Peter leaned out the door. “Bring it closer!”

Sara drew in. The racing vehicles were less than two meters apart now, the Humvee positioned below them on the angled rail bed.

“Reach out!” Alicia called to Mira. “I’ll catch you!”

The girl, standing at the edge of the doorway, was rigid with fear. “I can’t!” she wailed.

Another splintering crash; Peter realized the train was barreling through debris on the tracks. The Humvee swayed away as something large and metal went whirling through the space between the vehicles, just as one of the huddled figures leapt to his feet and made a dash for the door. Before Peter could speak, the man had hurled himself into the widening breach, a desperate plunge. His body slammed into the side of the Humvee, his outstretched hands clawing at the roof; for a moment it seemed possible that he would manage to hold on. But then one of his feet touched the ground, dragging in the dust, and with a wordless cry he was whisked away.

“Hold it steady!” Peter yelled.

Twice more the Humvee approached. Each time, Mira refused to go.

“This won’t work,” Peter said. “We’ll have to go over the roof.” He turned to Hollis. “You go first. Olson and I can push you up.”

“I’m too heavy. Hightop should go, then you. I’ll lift Mira up.”

Hollis dropped to a crouch; Caleb climbed aboard his shoulders. The Humvee had swayed away again, Alicia firing in short bursts at the rear of the train. With Hightop on his shoulders, Hollis positioned himself at the edge of the door.

“Okay! Let go!”

Hollis ducked away, keeping one hand gripped on Caleb’s foot; Peter grabbed the other. Together they pushed the boy upward, propelling Caleb over the lip of the door.

Peter ascended the same way. From the roof of the car he could see that the mass of virals, having passed through the tunnel, had broken apart into three groups-one directly behind them, two following on either side. They were racing in a kind of gallop, using both their hands and their feet to propel themselves forward in long leaps. Alicia was shooting at the head of the central group, which had closed to within ten meters. Some went down, dead or injured or merely stunned he couldn’t tell; the pod closed over them and kept coming. Behind them the other two groups began to merge, passing through one another like currents of water, separating once again to re-form their original shapes.

He lay on his belly beside Caleb and reached down as Hollis lifted Mira up; they found the frightened girl’s hands and pulled, drawing her onto the roof.

Alicia, below them: “Get down!”

Three virals were on the roof of the last boxcar now. A blast of fire erupted from the Humvee and they jumped away. Caleb was already vaulting across the gap to the engine. Peter reached for Mira but the girl was frozen in place, her body pressed to the roof of the car, her arms hugging it as if it were the one thing that might save her.

“Mira,” Peter said, trying to pull her free, “please.”

Still she held on. “I can’t, I can’t, I can’t.”

From below, a clawed hand reached up, wrapping around her ankle. “Poppa!”

Then she was gone.

There was nothing else he could do. Peter dashed toward the gap, took it at a leap, and dropped through the hatch behind Caleb. He told Michael to hold the train steady and swung open the door to the cabin and looked aft.

The virals were all over the third boxcar now, clinging to the sides like a swarm of insects. So intense was their frenzy that they appeared to be fighting with one another, snapping and snarling for the right to be the first ones inside. Even over the wind, Peter could hear the screams of the terrified souls inside.

Where was the Humvee?

Then he saw it, racing toward them at an angle, bouncing wildly over the hardpan. Hollis and Olson were clinging to the vehicle’s roof. The big gun was depleted, all its ammo spent. The virals would be all over them any second.

Peter leaned out the door. “Bring it closer!”

Sara gunned the engine, drawing alongside. Hollis was the first to grab the ladder, then Olson. Peter pulled them through into the cab and called down, “Alicia, you go!”

“What about Sara?”

The Humvee was drifting away again, Sara fighting to keep them close without colliding. Peter heard a crash as the door of the last boxcar was ripped away, tumbling end over end into the receding darkness.

“I’ll get her! Just grab the ladder!”

Alicia jumped from the roof of the Humvee, hurling her body across the gap. But the distance was suddenly too great; in his mind Peter saw her falling, her hands grabbing at nothing, her body tumbling into the crushing rush of space between the vehicles. But then she had done it; her hands had found the ladder, Alicia was climbing hand over hand up the train. When her feet reached the bottom rung, she turned, stretching her body into the gap.

Sara was gripping the wheel with one hand; with the other she was frantically trying to wedge a rifle into place to brace the gas pedal.

“It won’t stay!”

“Forget it, I’ll grab you!” Alicia called. “Just open the door and take my hand!”

“It won’t work!”

Suddenly Sara gunned the motor. The Humvee shot forward, pulling ahead of the train. Sara was on the edge of the tracks now. The driver’s door swung open. Then she hit the brakes.

The edge of the train’s plow caught the door and sheared it off like a blade, sending it whirling away. For a breathtaking instant the Humvee rocked onto its two right wheels, skidding down the embankment, but then the left side of the vehicle banged down. Sara was moving away now, rocketing across the hardpan at a forty-five-degree angle to the train; Peter saw a skid in the dust and then she was pulling alongside again. Alicia stretched a hand out into the gap.

Peter: “Lish, whatever you’re going to do, do it now!”

How Alicia managed it, Peter would never fully comprehend. When he asked her about it later, Alicia only shrugged. It wasn’t anything she’d thought about, she told him; she had simply followed her instincts. In fact, there would come a time, not much later, when Peter would learn to expect such things from her-extraordinary things, unbelievable things. But that night, in the howling space between the Humvee and the train, what Alicia did seemed simply miraculous, beyond knowing. Nor could any of them have known what Amy, in the engine’s aft compartment, was about to do, or what lay between the engine and the first boxcar. Not even Michael knew about that. Perhaps Olson did; perhaps that was why he’d told Peter to take his daughter to the engine, that she’d be safe there. Or so Peter reasoned in the aftermath. But Olson never said anything about this, and under the circumstances, in the brief time they had left with him, none of them would have the heart to ask.

As the first viral launched itself toward the Humvee, Alicia reached out, snatching Sara’s wrist off the steering wheel, and pulled. Sara swung out on Alicia’s arm in a wide arc, separating from the vehicle as it swerved away. For a horrible instant her eyes met Peter’s as her feet skimmed the ground-the eyes of a woman who was going to die and knew it. But then Alicia pulled again, hard, drawing her upward, Sara’s free hand found the ladder, and the two of them were climbing; Sara and Alicia were up and rolling into the cab.

Which was when it happened. An earsplitting boom, like thunder: the engine lurched violently forward, free of its weight; everything in the cab was suddenly airborne. Peter, standing by the open hatch, was slapped off his feet and hurled backward, his body slamming into the bulkhead. He thought: Amy. Where was Amy? And as he tumbled to the floor he heard a new sound, louder than the first, and he knew what this sound was: a deafening roar and a screech of metal, as the cars behind them jumped the rails, jackknifing into the air and careering like an avalanche of iron across the desert floor, everyone inside them dead, dead, dead.

They came to a stop at half-day. The end of the line, Michael said, powering down. The maps Billie had shown them indicated that the rails petered out at the town of Caliente. They were lucky the train had taken them this far. How far? Peter asked. Four hundred kilometers, give or take, said Michael. See that mountain ridge? He was pointing through the slitted windshield. That’s Utah.

They disembarked. They were in some kind of railyard, with tracks all around, littered with abandoned cars-engines, tankers, flatbeds. The land here was less dry; there was tall grass growing, and cottonwoods, and a gentle breeze was blowing, cooling the air. Water was running nearby; they could hear the sound of birds.

“I just don’t get it,” Alicia said, breaking the stillness. “Where did they hope to get to?”

Peter had slept in the train, once it was clear no virals were pursuing them, and awakened at dawn to find himself curled on the floor beside Theo and Maus. Michael had stayed up through the night, but the ordeal of the last few days had eventually caught up with everyone. As for Olson: perhaps he’d slept, though Peter doubted it. The man had spoken to no one and was now sitting on the ground outside the engine, staring into space. When Peter had told him about Mira, he hadn’t asked for any details, just nodded and said, “Thank you for letting me know.”

“Anywhere,” Peter answered after a moment. He wasn’t sure what he was feeling. The events of the night before-the whole four days at the Haven-felt like a feverish dream. “I think they just wanted to get… anywhere.”

Amy had stepped away from the group, into the field. For a moment they watched her, moving through the windblown grass.

“Do you think she understands what she did?” Alicia asked.

It was Amy who had blown the coupler. The switch was located in the rear of the engine compartment by the head-end unit. Probably it had been connected to a drum of diesel fuel or kerosene, Michael surmised, with some kind of igniter. That would have been enough to do it. A fail-safe, in case the cars were overrun. It made sense, Michael said, when you thought about it.

Peter supposed it did. But none of them could explain how Amy had known what to do, nor what had led her to actually throw the switch. Her actions seemed, like everything else about her, beyond ordinary understanding. And yet it was because of her, once again, that they were all alive.

Peter watched her for a long moment. In the waist-high grass she appeared almost to float, her hands held out from her sides, grazing the feathered tips. Many days had passed since he’d thought of what had happened in the Infirmary; but watching her now as she moved through the grass, he was washed by the memory of that strange night. He wondered what she had told Babcock when she had stood before him. It was as if she were part of two worlds, one that he could see and one that he could not; and it was within this other, hidden world that the meaning of their voyage lay.

“A lot of people died last night,” Alicia said.

Peter drew a breath. Despite the sun, he felt suddenly cold. He was still watching Amy, but in his mind he saw Mira-the girl’s body pressed to the roof of the train, the viral’s hand reaching for her, pulling her away. The empty space where she had been and the sound of her screams as she fell.

“I think they’d been dead a long time,” he said. “One thing’s for sure, we can’t stay here. Let’s see what we’ve got.”

They inventoried their supplies, spreading them out on the ground by the engine. It didn’t amount to much: half a dozen shotguns, a couple of pistols with a few rounds each, one automatic rifle, two spare clips for the rifle plus twenty-five shells for the shotguns, six blades, eight gallons of water in jugs plus more in the train’s holding tank, a few hundred gallons of diesel fuel but no vehicle to put it in, a couple of plastic tarps, three tins of sulfur matches, the med kit, a kerosene lantern, Sara’s journal-she had removed it from her pack when they’d left the hut and stashed it inside her jersey-and no food at all. Hollis said there was probably game out there; they shouldn’t waste their ammo, but they could set some snares. Maybe they’d find something edible in Caliente.

Theo was sleeping on the floor of the engine compartment. He’d managed to give them a rough accounting of events as best he could recall them-his fragmented memory of the attack at the mall, then his time in the cell and the dream of the woman in her kitchen and his struggle to stay awake, and the taunting visits of the man whom Peter believed was almost certainly Jude-but the effort of talking was clearly difficult for him, and he’d eventually fallen into a sleep so profound that Sara had to reassure Peter that his brother was still breathing. The wound to Mausami’s leg was worse than she’d claimed but less than life-threatening. The shot had blasted through her outer thigh, cutting a grisly-looking bloody trench but exiting cleanly. The night before, Sara had used a needle and thread from the med kit to sew the wound closed and had cleaned it with spirits from a bottle they’d found under the sink in the engine’s tiny lavatory. It must have hurt like hell, but Maus had borne all of it with a stoic silence, gritting her teeth as she clutched Theo’s hand. As long as she kept it clean, Sara said, she’d be fine. With luck she’d even be able to walk in a day or two.

The question arose about where to go. It was Hollis who raised it, and Peter found himself taken aback; the thought had never occurred to him that they would fail to press on. Whatever lay ahead of them in Colorado, he felt more strongly than ever that they had to find out what it was, and it seemed far too late to turn back now. But Hollis, he was forced to concede, had a point. Theo, and Finn, and the woman whom first Alicia and now Mausami claimed was Liza Chou-all had come from the Colony. Whatever was happening with the virals-and obviously something was happening-it appeared that they wanted people alive. Should they go back and warn the others? And Mausami-even if her leg was all right, could she really continue on foot? They had no vehicles and very little in the way of ammunition for the weapons they possessed; they could probably find food on the way, but this would slow them down, and soon they would be entering the mountains, where the terrain would be more difficult. Could they expect a pregnant woman to walk all the way to Colorado? He was only posing these questions, Hollis said, because someone had to; he wasn’t sure what he thought. On the other hand, they had come a long way. Babcock, whatever he was, was still out there, as were the Many. Turning around brought risks of its own.

Sitting on the ground outside the engine, the seven of them-Theo was still sleeping in the train-discussed their options. For the first time since they’d left, Peter sensed uncertainty among the group. The bunker and its bounty of supplies had given them a sense of security-a false one, maybe, but adequate to propel them forward. Now, stripped of their weapons and vehicles, with no food but what they could find, and having been cast four hundred kilometers into an unknown wilderness, the idea of Colorado had become much more tenuous. The events at the Haven had left them all shaken; never had it occurred to them that they would have to count among their obstacles the other human survivors they might encounter, or that a being like Babcock-a viral but also something far more, possessing a power to control the others-could exist.

Alicia, unsurprisingly, said she wanted to press on, as did Mausami-if only, Peter thought, to prove that Alicia was no tougher than she was. Caleb said he would do whatever the group wanted to do, but as he voiced these words his eyes were fixed on Alicia; if it came to a vote, Caleb would side with her. Michael also spoke for continuing, reminding everyone of the Colony’s failing batteries. That’s what this all comes down to, he said. As far as he was concerned, the message from Colorado was the only real hope they had-especially now, after what they’d seen at the Haven.

This left Hollis and Sara. Hollis plainly believed they should turn back. That he had come short of actually saying so, however, suggested that he believed, as Peter did, that the decision had to be unanimous. Sitting beside him in the shade of the train, her legs folded under her, Sara appeared more uncertain. She was squinting across the field, where Amy was continuing her solitary vigil in the grass. Peter realized it had been many hours since he’d heard her voice.

“I remember some of it now,” Sara said after a moment. “When the viral took me. Bits and pieces, anyway.” She lifted her shoulders in a gesture that was half shrug, half shudder, and Peter knew she would say no more about this. “Hollis isn’t wrong. And I don’t care what you say, Maus, you’re in no shape to be out here. But I agree with Michael. If you’re asking for my vote, Peter, that’s it.”

“So we keep going.”

She shifted her eyes toward Hollis, who nodded. “Yes. We keep going.”

The other question was Olson. Peter’s distrust of the man had not abated, and though no one had said as much, he obviously represented a risk-for suicide, if nothing else. Since the train had stopped, he had barely moved from his place on the ground outside the engine, staring vacantly in the direction they’d come. From time to time he would run his fingers through the loose dirt, scooping up a handful and letting it fall through his fingers. He seemed like a man who was weighing his options, none of them very good, and Peter suspected where his thoughts lay.

Hollis pulled Peter aside as they were packing up the supplies. All the shotguns and the rifle now lay on one of the tarps, beside the piles of ammo. They had elected to spend the night in the train-it was as safe a place as any-and set out, on foot, in the morning.

“What should we do about him?” Hollis asked quietly, tipping his head toward Olson. Hollis was holding one of the pistols; Peter had the other. “We can’t just leave him here.”

“I guess he comes.”

“He may not want to.”

Peter considered this for a moment. “Leave him be,” he said finally. “There’s nothing we can do.”

It was late afternoon. Caleb and Michael had gone around to the rear of the engine, to siphon off water from the tanks with a hose they’d found in a closet in the engine’s aft compartment. Peter turned to see Caleb examining a hinged panel, about a meter square, hanging off the underside of the train.

“What’s this?” he asked Michael.

“It’s an access panel. It connects to a crawl space that runs underneath the floor.”

“Anything in there we can use?”

Michael shrugged, busying himself with the hose. “I don’t know. Have a look.”

Caleb knelt and turned the handle. “It’s stuck.”

Peter, watching from five meters away, felt a prickling sensation along his skin. Something clenched inside him. All eyes. “Hightop-”

The panel flew open, sending Caleb tumbling backward. A figure unfolded from inside the tube.

Jude.

Everyone reached for a weapon. Jude stumbled toward them, lifting a pistol. Half his face had been blasted away, revealing a broad smear of exposed meat and glistening bone; one of his eyes was gone, a dark hole. He seemed, in that elongated moment, a being of pure impossibility, half dead and half alive.

“You fucking people!” Jude snarled.

He fired just as Caleb, reaching for the pistol, stepped in front of him. The bullet caught the boy in the chest, spinning him around. In the same instant, Peter and Hollis found the triggers of their weapons, lighting up Jude’s body in a crazy dance.

They emptied both their guns before he toppled.

Caleb was lying face-up on the dirt, one hand clutched at the place where the bullet had entered. His chest rose and fell in shallow jerks. Alicia threw herself onto the ground beside him.

“Caleb!”

Blood was running through the boy’s fingers. His eyes, pointed at the empty sky, were very moist. “Oh shit,” he said, blinking.

“Sara, do something!”

Death had begun to ease across the boy’s face. “Oh,” he said. “Oh.” Then something seemed to catch in his chest and he was still.

Sara was crying, everyone was crying. She got on the ground beside Alicia and touched her elbow. “He’s dead, Lish.”

Alicia shrugged her violently away. “Don’t say that!” She pulled the boy’s limp form to her chest. “Caleb, you listen to me! You open your eyes! You open your eyes right now!”

Peter crouched beside her.

“I promised him,” Alicia pleaded, hugging Caleb close. “I promised him.”

“I know you did.” It was all he could think to say. “We all know it. It’s all right. Let go now.”

Peter gently freed the body from her arms. Caleb’s eyes were closed, his body motionless where it lay in the dust. He was still wearing the yellow sneakers-one of the laces had come untied-but the boy he was, was nowhere. Caleb was gone. For a long moment, nobody said anything. The only sounds were the birds and the wind in the tips of the grass and Alicia’s damp, half-choked breathing.

Then, in a sudden burst, Alicia shot to her feet, snatched Jude’s pistol from the ground, and strode to where Olson was sitting on the dirt. A furious look was in her eyes. The gun was huge, a long-barreled revolver. As Olson looked up, squinting at the dark form looming over him, she reared back and struck him across the face with the butt of the gun, knocking him flat to the ground, cocked the hammer with her thumb, and aimed the barrel at his head.

“Goddamn you!”

“Lish-” Peter stepped toward her, his hands raised. “He didn’t kill Caleb. Put the gun down.”

“We saw Jude die! We all saw it!”

A trickle of blood was running from Olson’s nose. He made no motion to defend himself or move away. “He was familiar.”

“Familiar? What does that mean? I’m sick of your double-talk. Speak English, goddamnit!”

Olson swallowed, licking the blood from his lips. “It means… you can be one of them without being one of them.”

Alicia’s knuckles were white where she clutched the butt of the revolver. Peter knew she was going to fire. There seemed no stopping this; it was simply what was going to happen.

“Go ahead and shoot if you want.” Olson’s face was impassive; his life meant nothing to him. “It doesn’t matter. Babcock will come. You’ll see.”

The barrel had begun to waver, driven by the current of Alicia’s rage. “Caleb mattered! He was worth more than your whole fucking Haven! He never had anyone! I stood for him! I stood for him!”

Alicia howled, a deep animal sound of pain, and then she pulled the trigger-but no shot came. The hammer fell on an empty chamber. “Fuck!” She squeezed again and again; the gun was empty. “Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!” Then she turned to Peter, the useless pistol dropping from her hand, leaned into his chest, and sobbed.

In the morning, Olson was gone. Tracks led away into the culvert; Peter didn’t have to look to know which way he was headed.

“Should we go look for him?” Sara asked.

They were standing by the empty train, assembling the last of their gear.

Peter shook his head. “I don’t think there’s any point.”

They gathered around the place where they had buried Caleb, in the shade of a cottonwood. They’d marked the spot with a scrap of metal Michael had popped from the hull and etched with the tip of a screwdriver, then affixed to the trunk of the tree with sheet-metal screws.

CALEB JONES

HIGHTOP

ONE OF US

Everyone was there except Amy, who was standing apart, in the tall grass. Beside Peter were Maus and Theo. Mausami was leaning on a crutch Michael had fashioned from a length of pipe; Sara had examined her wound and said she could travel, as long as they didn’t push it. Theo had slept straight through the night, awakening at dawn, and now seemed if not better, then at least on the mend. Yet, standing beside him, Peter could feel something missing in his brother; something had changed, or broken, or been taken away. Something had been stolen from him, in that cell. In the dream. With Babcock.

But it was Alicia who worried him most of all. She was standing at the foot of the grave with Michael, a shotgun cradled across her chest, her face still swollen from crying. For a long time, the rest of the day and all that night, she had said almost nothing. Anyone else might have supposed she was simply grieving for Caleb, but Peter knew differently. She had loved the boy, and that was a part of it. They all had, and Caleb’s absence felt not just strange but wrong, as if a piece of them had been cut away. But what Peter saw now, as he looked into Alicia’s eyes, was a deeper kind of pain. It was not her fault that Caleb was dead, and Peter had told her so. Still, she believed she had failed him. Killing Olson would not have solved anything, though Peter couldn’t help but think it might have helped. Perhaps that was why he hadn’t tried harder-tried at all, really-to take Jude’s gun away from her.

Peter realized he was waiting out of habit for his brother to speak, to issue the command that would set the day in motion. When he didn’t, Peter hitched up his pack and spoke.

“Well,” he said, his throat thick, “we should probably get going. Use the daylight.”

“Forty million smokes out there,” Michael said glumly. “What chance do we have on foot?”

Amy stepped into the circle then.

“He’s wrong,” she said.

For a moment no one spoke. None of them seemed to know where to look-at Amy, at one another-a flurry of startled and amazed glances passing around the circle.

“She can talk?” Alicia said.

Peter stepped gingerly toward her. Amy’s face seemed different to him, now that he had heard her voice. It was as if she were suddenly present, fully among them.

“What did you say?”

“Michael is wrong,” the girl stated. Her voice was neither a woman’s nor a child’s but something in between. She spoke flatly, without intonation, as if she were reading the words from a book. “There aren’t forty million.”

Peter wanted to laugh or cry, he didn’t know which. After everything, for her to speak now!

“Amy, why didn’t you say anything before?”

“I am sorry. I think I had forgotten how.” She was frowning inwardly, as if puzzling over this thought. “But now I have remembered.”

Everyone fell silent again, gaping at her in astonishment.

“So, if there aren’t forty million,” Michael ventured, “how many are there?”

She lifted her eyes to them all.

“Twelve,” said Amy.