“A few Partials dead in a riot is still better than an entire city disintegrated in a mushroom cloud,” said Vinci. “If it takes a public announcement and a citywide search, then that’s what we do.”

“Another batch dies in two weeks, give or take,” said Vale. “Another fifty thousand people gone, not in the blink of an eye but in a debilitating, agonizing process. Fifty thousand death signatures saturating the air in this city until you can barely breathe without losing your mind to depression or madness. Do you know what that’s going to do to the army here? Do you know who they’re going to blame?”

“You?” asked Vinci.

Vale frowned. “They should, but they won’t—even if the Trust’s role in their expiration was common knowledge, killing me wouldn’t be enough. Their problems have always had their root in humanity: the war, the poverty, the oppression, the Last Fleet. Even expiration—Morgan and I pushed the buttons, but it was the human species as a whole who asked for it, who planned it, who paid for it. Now the humans have a bioweapon? They have a nuke? Tell me you believe for one minute that the Partials won’t retaliate with lethal force, falling on that island with everything they have and more. Even with two-thirds of your species dead, you outnumber them ten to one. You have rotors, you have ATVs, you even have a few tanks left—enough for an armored brigade, at least. The humans have survived this long only at your mercy, and that mercy will be gone if word of the nuke gets out. I want to find that nuke as much as you do, but we need to keep it secret.”

Vale closed his eyes, exhausted and frustrated. There was a squawk from the radio.

“Arrow Team to General Vale,” said the voice. “Code White, repeat, Code White.”

“Code White,” said Vale, his eyes snapping open. “They’ve found her.”

“And Arrow’s one of mine,” said Vinci, a slow wave of fear spreading out across the link. “That means she’s in the city.”

“Damn.” Vale climbed to his feet and crossed to the radio. “This is General Vale. This line is not secure, repeat, this line is not secure. We will come to you. State your location. Over.”

“Unsecure line acknowledged,” said Arrow Team. “Checkpoint Seven. Over.”

Vinci spread a map across the table and scanned it quickly. “Here,” he said, pointing to the western edge of the city. “It’s an old college.”

“Barely a mile from downtown,” said Vale. “If she sets it off there, it’ll kill every Partial in White Plains.”

“Then we’d better make sure she doesn’t.”

Vinci frowned, then pressed the radio button to speak. “Checkpoint Seven: We’ll see you in a few minutes. Over and out.”