A sudden thought consumed her, and she crept closer to the mark to examine it. Dogs and other animals used smells to mark their territory, and the Partials’ link system was similar in a lot of ways. Could their data pheromones persist in the same way? It was possible that this sign was more than visual, that the mark merely pointed out where the real data could be found. She’d practiced with Samm to develop her own small connection to the link; if there was something there, she might be able to sense it. She walked up cautiously to the mark on the tree, breathing deeply as she went. She sensed nothing. When she reached it she touched the bark gently, feeling the edges of the three white lines: IV. They looked like they’d been hacked in with a hatchet, two quick chops per line to break through the bark and expose the white wood underneath. White except for an odd discoloration at the bottom of each letter, like something had dripped there, or been smeared on purpose.

It was blood.

Kira hesitated, glancing nervously at the forest around her. Nothing moved, not even wind in the leaves. She looked back at the bloody letters, wondering why the blood was there at all. Was it an accident? A warning? Was that the best way to make the link data persist long-term? She leaned in, steeling herself, taking a deep breath.

DEATH PAIN BLOOD BETRAYAL—

She staggered back, gasping for breath, rubbing her nose to get the smell out.

DEATH BETRAYAL PAIN THEY’RE KILLING US—

She tripped over a tree root, yelping as she fell, rolling to her feet and grabbing handfuls of dirt and leaves and grass as she came up. She ran through the forest, irrationally, helplessly terrified, clutching the ground cover to her face and sucking in the smell, trying desperately to drown the signal out.

DEATH PAIN—

DEATH

And then it was gone. Kira collapsed to the ground, her heart still racing, her blood pounding in her ears. The link was designed as a combat tool, a fast, wordless way for the Partials to warn one another of danger and coordinate their movements on the battlefield. When one soldier died, he released a burst of death pheromones, warning his companions that something was wrong; Kira had sensed it before, but it was nothing like this. That had been data, in its truest form: an announcement of what had happened, and where. This was a frantic, overwhelming warning, a pheromonal scream. A normal death would produce nothing like it, and she didn’t even want to think about what could. Partials had been murdered here, probably tortured, perhaps solely for the purpose of creating that data. She’d had to walk right up to smell it, but her link connection was weak.

Did the whole forest smell like that? Was this warning spread around the entire lake?