“Let’s walk while we talk,” said Marcus. “We’re still being chased, you know.”

Samm nodded and started walking, and the others fell into step beside him. “The link is… I still don’t know how to describe it to you. It’s a sense. It’s like describing sight to someone who was born blind.”

“Is it a network device?” asked Jayden. “An implant? I thought we took everything when we bagged you in Manhattan.”

“Not a device,” said Samm, holding out his hands. “It’s just a … link. We’re all linked together.” He nodded slightly at the houses around them. “If we were a team of Partials, walking through these ruins at night, we’d all know, intuitively, how all the others were feeling. If Kira saw something that made her wary, she’d register that chemically, and we’d all sense it, and within seconds we’d all be wary: Our adrenaline would increase, our fight-or-flight response would prime, and the entire group would be ready for something only one of us saw. If someone in our group got hurt, or captured, we’d all be able to sense what was wrong and follow that sensation to wherever that soldier was.”

“Probably don’t get lost very often, then,” said Marcus. “If I could tell where the rest of you were, I wouldn’t ever wander off.”

“No,” said Samm firmly, “you wouldn’t.”

“Sounds like it could also tell you friend from foe,” said Jayden, nodding. “That would come in pretty handy.”

“It doesn’t work on humans,” said Samm, “because you don’t carry any data. But yes, it does help us identify other Partials who aren’t in our unit, which makes telling my faction from the others pretty simple. It also makes it easy for other factions to find me, which might be a problem.”

“But that’s the part I don’t get,” said Kira. “The link tells you friend from foe, it tells you one unit from another—it stands to reason it would carry authority as well, right? You were created as an army, with generals and lieutenants and privates and all that: Does the link tie into that command structure?”

Samm’s answer was stiff. “It does.”

“Then how could you split into factions? It doesn’t make sense.”

Samm said nothing, stomping irately through the underbrush. After a long pause he said, “After the—” and then stopped again almost immediately, standing in the middle of the road. “This isn’t easy to talk about.”

“You have disagreements,” said Kira simply. “Everyone has those, all the time—”