The group dashed out, backpacks slamming up and down against their spines, their feet slapping furiously across the asphalt. The edge of the road was cracked and broken, as the plants struggled to reclaim their ancient territory, but the road was so wide that the center remained smooth—covered with dead leaves and windblown dirt, but still one piece. They ran behind a delivery van, and then in front of a pickup. Three lanes across. Four lanes. Ariel was almost to the center barrier when she heard a shout, and looked up to see figures on the nearby bridge.
“Partials!” she screamed. “Keep running!” She crouched down by the rusted hulk of an old SUV and started firing, trying to force the soldiers into cover. The figures disappeared, but Ariel kept her eyes on the bridge, ready to fire at the first head that popped up. “Just keep going!” she called. “We have to move south!”
Xochi reached the barrier first and launched herself over it, then reached back to hold Arwen as Madison passed her over. Both girls ran for the southern trees, while Kessler, close on their heels, found more cover in the lee of a moving van and laid down another burst of fire.
“Ariel,” she shouted, “I’ll cover you! Catch up!”
Nandita jumped nimbly over the barrier, then paused to help Isolde clamber over with Khan still strapped to her chest. Ariel heard the baby scream, probably woken by the shooting. She reached the barrier just as Isolde cleared it, and leaped over without pausing.
A voice called out from the bridge during the brief moment of quiet. “Don’t shoot!”
“The hell we won’t,” snarled Ariel, running past Kessler to take cover behind a faded white sedan skewed sideways in the road. A skeleton slumped over the wheel. Ariel drew a bead on the bridge and shouted for Kessler to move up. “Get into the trees!” She fired another burst. “We can lose them in the houses on the other side!”
“There’s a chain-link fence!” Xochi called back. “You’ve got to buy us more time to knock it down!”
Ariel gritted her teeth and fired again. “Come on, you little bastards, stick your heads out.” She fired again. “Come on, I dare you.”
“Don’t shoot!” shouted the figures on the bridge. “Madison!”
Ariel frowned in confusion. Madison whipped around. “Did it just say my name?”
“How do all these things keep knowing our names?” Kessler demanded, reaching the far side and throwing her weight against the fence.
“Madison,” the voice shouted, “it’s me! Madison, we’ve found you!”
Madison ran back into the street. “That’s Haru!”
“It’s not Haru,” Ariel snarled, “it’s just a trick. Get your head down before you get shot!”
“We’re through the fence!” shouted Xochi.
“Madison, tell them not to shoot.” The voice echoed through the tree-lined gully. “It’s me, I’m standing up!”
“Don’t shoot him,” hissed Madison, “that’s my husband.”
“It can’t be,” said Isolde.
A figure stood up on the bridge, and beside him another, then another. They were more than a hundred yards away, and hard to distinguish, but Ariel could tell they weren’t wearing Partial uniforms.
“That’s him!” Madison fell to her knees, racked with sobs. “That’s him, he’s alive.”
“Meet us on the far side,” said Haru, and ran south across the bridge. A few other figures joined him, while some hung back, dropping down to take up firing positions and cover the women’s final push across the street. Ariel didn’t know what to think and stayed crouched in cover, aiming right back at them.
“Come on,” said Isolde. “If they were bad guys, they would have shot us.”
“Unless they want us alive,” said Ariel.
“That’s Haru,” Isolde insisted. “You don’t know him like we do—I recognize his voice.”
“Get off the road,” Kessler yelled. “No matter who it is, we have to get out of the open.”
Ariel growled in frustration but realized Kessler was right. She took one last look at the shooters on the bridge before jumping up and running to the trees. Xochi and the others had knocked down enough of the fence that they could scramble over it, and Kessler and Nandita were helping Isolde. Khan was screaming piteously, awakened again to his life of endless pain. Isolde cleared the fence, with Kessler and Nandita close behind. They hadn’t even pushed through to the service road at the top of the hill when Haru came crashing through the underbrush, screaming Madison’s name. She called back and ran to him, rushing into his arms with Arwen pressed between them: the first reunion of a real family in thirteen years. Ariel saw Isolde and Xochi crying; even Kessler’s eyes were wet. Ariel wanted to cry too, but the tears didn’t come. Nandita was as emotionless as ever.
“I found you,” said Haru, “I found you. I found you.”
“I thought you were dead,” said Madison.
“We have to go to ground,” said Haru. “We’ve made too much noise already. Every Partial on the island can hear us, and—” He stopped abruptly, looking back and forth between Arwen and Khan. “The screaming baby’s not Arwen? There are two babies?”
