Where Samm was pointing, Kira saw a metal prong sticking out of the water, lodged somehow in the pieces of the bridge. She pulled out her binoculars and looked again, focusing them in on the metal, and saw that it was the cannon of a tank. The body bulged up, just under the flow of water, wedged between two pieces of concrete and steel. The markings on the side read 328. “There was a tank on the bridge when it went down.”

“Probably dozens of them,” said Samm. “328 was a Partial armored platoon. I’m guessing the local militia rigged the bridge and blew it when the Partials were crossing, killing as many as they could.”

“They wouldn’t have done that,” said Kira.

“They did that and worse,” snapped Heron.

Samm’s voice was more gentle. “By the end of the war they were desperate enough to do anything,” he said. “The Partial victory was already decisive, and the release of RM made everything worse. Humans were dying by the millions. Some of them were ready to blow up anything they could—their bridges, their cities, even themselves—if it meant killing even one of us.”

“Really great ethics,” said Heron.

“What about the fleet off New York Bay?” Kira snapped back, whirling to face her. “I saw it in Afa’s documents—twenty human ships brought down, all hands lost, the most devastating attack of the war.”

“Twenty-three,” said Afa.

“Self-defense,” said Heron.

“Are you kidding me?” asked Kira. “What could the Partials possibly be defending themselves from?”

Heron raised her eyebrow. “Why do you keep saying that?”

“What?”

“Saying ‘them’ instead of ‘us.’ You’re a Partial—you’re different, but you’re one of us. And you’re most definitely not one of them. You keep forgetting it, but your human buddies aren’t going to. And they will find out.”

“What does that have to do with anything?” asked Kira.

“You tell me,” said Heron. “What’s your little boyfriend Marcus likely to do to you when he finds out what you are?”

“Easy,” said Samm. “Everybody just calm down. This argument is not going to get us anywhere.”

“Neither is this bridge,” Kira growled, and turned Bobo’s head to lead him back down to the highway. She wanted to yell, to scream at them both, even at Afa—that this was their fault, that they had fought this war and destroyed the world before she was even old enough to defend it. But this one part of it, this massive act of destruction, she couldn’t even blame on them. That was the worst part of all. “Let’s find another way around.”

Chicago was flooded.