“We don’t know anything about Kira Walker,” said Ariel, deflecting the question. She forced herself not to glance at the door, not to give her thoughts away so easily again. Even if Nandita didn’t want to use the link to control them, she could pick up the dropped rifles and attack—a surprise shot that dropped one was all they needed, and in the confusion Ariel could take Isolde’s pistol and finish the other one. Or if we’re going to shoot them anyway, she thought, just use the damn mind control and make it easy on us. Was Nandita really that careful—that paranoid and secretive—that she’d risk losing them all in a firefight just to keep her best weapon hidden?

Of course she is, thought Ariel with a snarl. This is Nandita—she’s always been like this, and she always will be. She’ll sell out every one of us to protect herself.

“We don’t know why my daughter didn’t die,” said Madison, telling the lie they’d agreed on in case they ever got caught. “She’s immune, just like we are. Please leave us alone.”

“We had a program called the Hope Act,” said Kessler. “We created as many pregnancies as we could—statistically, some of them were bound to share their parents’ immunity. This one did.”

“Are there more?” asked Cedric. The other Partial watched the door, and Ariel watched him.

Kessler shrugged. “We don’t know. I’d heard that maybe there were, way out in the east, but we don’t know where.”

“That’s where we were headed,” said Madison. “We thought maybe if there were more children there, we could meet up and try to stick together. That’s all.”

“There’s no one left in the eastern part of the island,” said Cedric. “We’ve gathered everyone into East Meadow.”

“Why?” asked Ariel. She held no hope that the soldiers would answer, but she couldn’t help herself. Why gather the humans to a single location? What were they planning to do once they had them all? As expected, the soldier ignored her question completely.

“Tell us what you know about the resistance,” said the other Partial. Ariel recognized this as the first question Cedric had asked, while they were still outside. She hadn’t been aware that there was a resistance movement, but it seemed to be a pretty big deal.

“There is no resistance,” said Xochi. “Maybe a few groups like us, trying to get out of East Meadow, but that’s it.”

“The humans have been running a guerrilla campaign for the full length of the occupation,” said Cedric. “Tell us about the biological weapon.”

“What biological weapon?” asked Ariel.

“Tell us about the rocket strikes in Plainview,” said Cedric. “Where did they get the rockets? Where are the ringleaders hiding?”