Marcus and the soldiers traveled north, through the ruins of Jersey City and Hoboken and the vast metropolitan cityscape west of the Hudson River. Their plan was to swing wide around any hostile Partial lookouts hiding in Manhattan or the Bronx, and this required them to go much farther north than they strictly needed to, just to find a way back across the Hudson River. North of Manhattan it widened significantly, becoming more of a bay than a river, and the bridge they finally found crossed it at nearly its longest point: a white needle through the sky called the Tappan Zee Bridge. It was newer than any bridge Marcus had seen before, and he guessed it had been recently rebuilt sometime just before the Break. It was miles long, and took nearly a full day’s march to cross. That it had survived at all was amazing; that it had survived in nearly perfect condition was a testament to the glories of the old world. It made him wonder if future generations, assuming they ever had any, would look at this impossible architectural feat with the same awe and reverence as the pyramids, or the Great Wall of China. A pathway through the sky. They’ll probably come up with some ridiculous religious explanation for it, he thought, like we built it as a road to get to heaven, and each pillar represents some aspect of our belief, and the length of the bridge times the height is the sign of the vernal equinox. The bridge was covered with cars, many of them crashed or sideways or strewn together into arcane patterns, and they had to move slowly through the mess, stopping and starting and climbing over the hot metal relics as they baked in the sun.

The city on the far side of the river was called Tarrytown, and as they followed the bridge down toward the surface streets a loud voice rang out through the ruins.

“Stop!”

The soldiers raised their rifles, but Commander Woolf gestured for them to put them back down. “We mean no harm!” he said loudly, answering back. “We’re here to talk!”

“You’re humans,” said the voice, and Woolf nodded, gripping his rifle by the barrel and holding it up in the air, demonstrating as clearly as possible that he was not holding it near the trigger.

“Our guns are for defense only,” he said. “We’re not looking for a fight. We want to talk to whoever’s in charge.”

There was a long silence, and when the voice shouted back, Marcus thought it sounded . . . hesitant.

“State your purpose.”

“A Partial by the name of Morgan has attacked our settlement and taken our people hostage, and we know she’s your enemy as much as she is ours. We have an old human saying: ‘The enemy of my enemy is my friend.’ We’re kind of hoping that makes us friendly enough to talk for a minute.”