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Chapters (58)
  1. DEDICATION
  2. PART 1
  3. CHAPTER ONE
  4. CHAPTER TWO
  5. CHAPTER THREE
  6. CHAPTER FOUR
  7. CHAPTER FIVE
  8. CHAPTER SIX
  9. CHAPTER SEVEN
  10. CHAPTER EIGHT
  11. CHAPTER NINE
  12. CHAPTER TEN
  13. CHAPTER ELEVEN
  14. CHAPTER TWELVE
  15. CHAPTER THIRTEEN
  16. PART 2
  17. CHAPTER FOURTEEN
  18. CHAPTER FIFTEEN
  19. CHAPTER SIXTEEN
  20. CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
  21. CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
  22. CHAPTER NINETEEN
  23. CHAPTER TWENTY
  24. CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
  25. CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
  26. CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
  27. CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
  28. CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
  29. CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
  30. CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
  31. CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
  32. CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
  33. CHAPTER THIRTY
  34. PART 3
  35. CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
  36. CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
  37. CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
  38. CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
  39. CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
  40. CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
  41. CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
  42. PART 4
  43. CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
  44. CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
  45. CHAPTER FORTY
  46. CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
  47. CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
  48. CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
  49. CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
  50. CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
  51. CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
  52. CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
  53. CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
  54. CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
  55. CHAPTER FIFTY
  56. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
  57. ABOUT THE AUTHOR
  58. ABOUT THE PUBLISHER

“Skin of my teeth,” said Kira. “These look like wet suits under their armor. Do you suppose they swam here? We’re right on the shore of Lake Michigan, and unless there are any talking freshwater sharks you haven’t told me about, traveling by water would be a lot safer than traveling by land.”

“Part of the way, maybe,” said Samm. “They’d still need to cross Michigan on foot, it’s too wide to go around it.”

“They seem perfectly capable of breathing on land,” said Kira. “They could have done both.”

“It doesn’t check out,” said Heron. “If they’d followed us from Manhattan, they wouldn’t have bothered sending gilled agents, because they wouldn’t have known where we were going—for all they know we were headed to the plains, or west into the toxic wasteland. If Morgan had agents stationed here already, though, some kind of outpost in Chicago, what better agents to guard a flooded city than ones with gills?”

Kira nodded. “That’s true. Or—” She stopped herself, not wanting to propose the other explanation so brazenly: Or one of you is a spy, and used our radio to tell them exactly where we were and where we were going.

“Or what?” asked Heron.

“Nothing,” said Kira. She looked at the gills again, avoiding Heron’s eyes, though the faint touch of the link hinted at her feelings: LACK OF TRUST. BE ON GUARD.

CONFUSION. Kira was pretty sure that was from Samm, and felt a wave of relief. If he was confused, then he wasn’t in on it. She’d have to find a way to talk to him in private before Heron did.

“Take their gear,” said Samm. “I’ll dump the bodies in a closet upstairs.” He and Heron began cleaning up the mess of the battle, but Kira went back to Afa. He was breathing better now, thanks to the painkillers she’d given him, but he was still unconscious. The shards of his screen lay around him in pieces, the gray side handle still attached to the server with a cable. The screen was like a smaller version of the glass desk upstairs; the glass was just the monitor, and all the processing and memory were housed in the frame; in this case, in the handle on the side. The server itself seemed undamaged, and for all she knew the data transfer was still going, dumping all of ParaGen’s secrets into the handle. Without a screen, though, they wouldn’t be able to read it.