Kira grinned. “Haven’t you heard? I’m the most wanted criminal on the island. I think it’s about time I start living up to my reputation.”

“Hell, yes,” said Xochi.

Tovar paused, studying her, his brow furrowed. Finally he broke into a smile. “When you put it that way,” he said, “I’m pretty sure I heard a talking dog just last week. Didn’t drink its piss, though.” He stood up. “It’s still midmorning, and the weather’s with us; if we start now, we can get you beaten and in police custody before dinner. I have a few tricks up my sleeve, though. I’ll round up the troops.”

Chapter Thirty-Six

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

One of the tricks up Tovar’s sleeve turned out to be uniforms: dozens of Defense Grid uniforms stolen from the depot they’d raided in the old East Meadow High School. “We stole a mountain of ammunition and trail rations, too,” he said slyly, “just to make it look like we were after their supplies, but this was the real prize. Worth a thousand bullets each if you use them right.” Kira nodded and shrugged one on over her normal clothes.

The living room, already cramped, was now packed with an assortment of Voice leaders. Kira studied them as they talked, poring over makeshift maps of the island; they were determined, at the very least, and appeared capable enough, but they lacked the smoothness she had seen with the Defense Grid. The Grid was better organized, even for something as simple as a salvage run. One person laid out the plan, while the others listened attentively. The Voice could not have been more different.

“This is Farad,” said Tovar, pointing to a stern man with a fiery shock of red hair. “The uniforms are nice, but he’s our real secret weapon: a Grid soldier, so newly defected to our cause that the Grid leaders, we hope, don’t even know he’s left.”

Farad glanced around the room nervously, visibly uncomfortable in a room full of people who were so recently his enemies. “I tried to hang on after the riot,” he said softly, “and the new rules, but… I just can’t anymore. They’ve taken this too far.”

“Farad was a driver,” Tovar continued, “and it just so happens that we’ve recently, ah, liberated a jeep from a Grid outrider.” He turned to Kira. “Probably one of the same ones that tried to chase you down after the riot. It’s in good condition, has a covered back with the official Grid logo, and Farad knows the passwords to get it through the border.”

“He knew the passwords,” said a large man by the wall; he was old, with gray hair and a beard, but his arms were thickly muscled. “They might have changed them—they will have changed them if they’re smart.”