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Chapters (51)
  1. Cover
  2. Title Page
  3. Dedication
  4. Contents
  5. Part 1
  6. Chapter One
  7. Chapter Two
  8. Chapter Three
  9. Chapter Four
  10. Chapter Five
  11. Chapter Six
  12. Chapter Seven
  13. Chapter Eight
  14. Chapter Nine
  15. Chapter Ten
  16. Chapter Eleven
  17. Chapter Twelve
  18. Part 2: Three Months Later
  19. Chapter Thirteen
  20. Chapter Fourteen
  21. Chapter Fifteen
  22. Chapter Sixteen
  23. Chapter Seventeen
  24. Chapter Eighteen
  25. Chapter Nineteen
  26. Chapter Twenty
  27. Chapter Twenty-One
  28. Chapter Twenty-Two
  29. Chapter Twenty-Three
  30. Chapter Twenty-Four
  31. Chapter Twenty-Five
  32. Chapter Twenty-Six
  33. Chapter Twenty-Seven
  34. Chapter Twenty-Eight
  35. Part 3: Four Hours Later
  36. Chapter Twenty-Nine
  37. Chapter Thirty
  38. Chapter Thirty-One
  39. Chapter Thirty-Two
  40. Chapter Thirty-Three
  41. Chapter Thirty-Four
  42. Chapter Thirty-Five
  43. Chapter Thirty-Six
  44. Chapter Thirty-Seven
  45. Chapter Thirty-Eight
  46. Chapter Thirty-Nine
  47. Acknowledgments
  48. About the Author
  49. Credits
  50. Copyright
  51. About the Publisher

Samm nodded. “Haven’t you ever wondered why the world isn’t more messed up than it is? Why the cities aren’t burning, why the air isn’t black with nuclear fallout? You died too quickly—some of you had time to shut off the power plants and the factories before you disappeared, but not everyone, and all it takes is one unattended reactor to cause a lethal meltdown. Even when we realized what was happening, we couldn’t shut them all down; we lost one in New Jersey, and another in Philadelphia, and more and more as you move west across the continent. That’s why we tend to stay east of the Hudson. Other parts of the world had even more reactors than we did, but without an army of Partials to step in and stop them, we think a lot more of them may have gone critical. Maybe as many as half.”

Nobody spoke. The coughing buzz of the motor filled the boat. We always wondered if there were more survivors, thought Kira. The RM immunity would have left the same percentage alive in other countries that it left in ours.

Is it really possible that everyone else is dead?

“The question about what to do with you is what eventually split us apart,” Samm continued softly. “Some wanted to just finish you off, but most of us, like I said, wanted to save you. Even then, we couldn’t agree on the best way to do it. The arguments grew … heated. To say the least. And then the first wave of our leaders started dying, and it all fell apart. D Company is practically all that’s left of the truly obedient Partials—the only ones with a direct link to the Trust.”

“And what’s the Trust?” asked Kira.

“The senior command,” said Samm, “the generals of the Partial army, and probably from advanced genetic templates, because none of them have died. Well—none of them have died from an inherent expiration date. There were eight of them, men and women, but I think the rebels may have killed two, or at least captured them.” His voice changed as he said this, and his expression grew dark. “It was the Trust that told D Company where to make our base, and when to approach the humans.”

“I’m getting the impression that D Company is relatively small,” said Marcus. “That’s wonderful—we finally form an alliance, and it’s with a persecuted splinter group just as messed up as we are. This’ll make the rest of the Partials even more determined to kill us.”