“Yes, you are,” said Kira. “Our plan is destroyed, we can’t get Madison out, but we can still give her the shot—if we can get inside. You don’t need me to be there when you do it, and I was serious about giving my life for this. If Arwen lives, I don’t care what the Senate does to me.”

“We’re not going to give you up,” said Xochi.

“Yes, you will,” said Kira. “You pull down your hat brims, march up to the door, and tell them you caught me trying to sneak across the border. It’s the most believable story we could possibly come up with, because any soldier smart enough to be listening to his radio will know people have been hitting the border all day. They won’t even ask for ID, because why would Voice spies turn in one of their own?”

“Good question,” said Xochi. “Why would we? That doesn’t gain us anything.”

“It gets you inside the hospital,” said Kira. “Just hand me off to the guards inside, they’ll take me up to the Senate, and you head to maternity.”

“We don’t have to hand you off,” said Marcus, “once we’re in we could just … make a break for it.”

“And set off every alarm in the building,” said Kira. “If you turn me over, you can work in peace.” She took Marcus’s hand. “If this cure works, humanity has a future; that’s the only thing we’ve ever wanted.”

Marcus’s voice cracked when he spoke. “I wanted it with you.”

“They might not kill me outright,” said Kira, smiling weakly. “Maybe we’ll get lucky.”

Marcus laughed, his eyes wet with tears. “Yeah, our luck’s been awesome so far.”

“We’ll need to call ahead,” said Farad, hefting the radio, “just like we did with the checkpoint. If they hear us before they see us, we stand a much better chance of making this work.”

“We can’t risk the same trick twice,” said Jayden. “Someone who knows exactly how many patrols there are, and where they’ve been assigned, is going to be listening. It won’t take long to figure out we’re lying.”

“We can’t just show up without calling in first,” said Farad. “How suspicious would that look?”

Xochi drew her pistol, screwed on a silencer, and shot the radio squarely in the center; Kira and the others leaped back with a chorus of startled yelps. “Problem solved,” said Xochi, holstering her weapon again. “The evil terrorist Kira Walker shot our radio during the fight. Now: Kira is my best friend in the world, but she’s right. Her plan is the best, fastest way to get us inside that hospital, so take her weapons away and let’s do this.”