Kira stole a glance at Samm, then looked back. “Would you let new people in? If we could bring people here?”

“Are you kidding?” asked Phan. “That’s like a dream come true. We’d probably make a red carpet just so we could roll it out for you.”

“They never let us explore too far, though,” said Calix. Her face and voice were more somber, suddenly, and she looked at Kira as she spoke—the first time she’d addressed her instead of Samm practically since they’d arrived. “We keep pushing for more expeditions into the Badlands, the younger generation especially, but the leaders don’t like it—they want us to stay close, where it’s safe. They say the Preserve has everything, but . . .” She gestured at Samm and Kira. “You’re the proof that it doesn’t. That’s why you need to tell us what’s out there, and who’s out there, so we can convince them to let us explore. Paradise or not, we can’t stay here forever.”

“That sounds like someone else I know,” said Samm, though Kira didn’t respond. It would take more than a mistrust of authority for Calix to earn her trust.

“Tell us about the Partials,” said Phan. “We were told stories about them when we were kids, hiding here after the Break. Can a Partial really throw a car?”

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

Marcus and the soldiers flew as far as they could in the stolen Rotor, but the rioting Partial army was hot on their trail. A lucky shot clipped their left wing somewhere over New Rochelle, and Woolf managed to coax another few miles out of the flier before an antiaircraft emplacement on the coast forced them into an emergency landing in Pelham Bay. Vinci wanted to head southwest, crossing the Throgs Neck Bridge to Long Island, but Woolf said it was too dangerous—the bridges were covered with traps and explosives, and there was no way they could cross them safely. Instead they found a motorboat on City Island, filled it with as much good gas as they could find, and made the crossing that way; Partial pursuers fired at them from shore as they raced across the water, but nothing hit. They landed in Queens near the ruins of the Defense Grid base.

It was a blackened husk, bombed to oblivion and burned to the ground.

“Welcome to the last human refuge,” said Woolf. “As you can see, we’re not really equipped for visitors.”

“Great,” said Galen. “We got away from one Partial army just to end up behind the lines of another.”

“But at least we got away,” said Marcus. “What’s the next move?”