The claws drew away from his face. The body jumped down off him. He turned around to find a woman glaring at him. She was small, her hair dark. She wore a soiled pink housecoat and wet, devastated bunny slippers, the little fur noses all black and dismal.

Gina said, “This is Mark Bryan. He’s a soldier, too. We’re here to help.”

“All the soldiers are dead,” the woman murmured.

Mark looked to Gina. Obviously, they weren’t on another planet, and she knew perfectly well where they were.

“Are you familiar with this place?”

“This is the Flower Conservatory,” she replied. “We’re in Golden Gate Park.”

So they were still in the fight—but not completely, not without the rest of the unit. His responsibility.

He thought at once of the bombs. When the drone was directly above the city—when it had disintegrated—they had still been in it. So where were they now?

But for the dripping water, the place was silent—except for the breathing, which was everywhere. He could distinguish the slow breathing of adults, the struggling breath of the injured, the faster breath of children.

“There are people all around us,” he said softly.

“I know it.”

From outside, in the distance but becoming more distinct, he heard a low rumble of wild and syncopated drums.

“Okay, folks,” he said aloud. “We’re here to help you and I don’t think we have a lot of time. You need to show yourselves.”

A man came out of a dense planting. He wore muddy pajamas. He was hand in hand with a girl of perhaps ten.

In moments, a crowd had appeared, dozens of people, all staring with fixed, terrified eyes.

Mark looked back at them, seeking for some words, something to say that would encourage them.

There was nothing.

Chapter Twenty

CHAPTER TWENTY

THE UNDERWORLD

As they appeared, many of the people revealed injuries, such as angry red blotches where slabs of skin had been removed or, in the case of one man, an exposed brain. He was missing the top of his skull, his brain a wrinkled shadow beneath the dura mater. He was hand in hand with a girl of about sixteen, her face rigid with anger.

More and more of them came out from among the plants, in pajamas, underwear, street clothes, you name it. These people had survived because they were fast and smart. Most of them, the instant they’d seen the thing looming in the sky, had run. How each had come to do this would be, Mark knew from his experience of refugees and survivors, an individual and unique story.

“We’re U.S. army,” Gina said.