LITMIR.BIZ

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only two ways of doing things: my way, and everybody else’s way.”

      “I’m not a big fan of your way,” said Marcus, eyeing the rifle. “Do I even want to know everybody else’s way?”

      “You’ve seen it before,” said Heron. “It was called the Partial War.”

      “In that case, I like your way better,” said Marcus.

      “Then help me,” said Heron. “Find Nandita Merchant. She’s somewhere on this island. I’d do it myself, but I have business elsewhere.”

      “Off the island,” said Marcus, and ventured a guess. “You’re looking for Kira.”

      Heron smiled again.

      “What do I do if I find her?” Marcus asked. “Assuming . . . that I look for her at all, because you’re not the boss of me.”

      “Just find her,” said Heron. She took a step backward. “Trust me, you don’t want to do this their way.” She turned and walked into the shadows.

      Marcus tried to follow her, but she was gone.

      

ira crouched low in the brush, staring through her new rifle scope at the door of the electronics store. This was the fourth one she’d visited, and every one had been previously scavenged. Normally this wouldn’t have been strange, but the ParaGen offices had made her wary, and her closer investigations had all proven the same thing: The scavenger, whoever he was, had come recently. This was more than just eleven-year-old looting from the end of the world—someone in the wilds of Manhattan had been collecting computers and generators within the last few months or so.

      She’d been watching this place for nearly an hour and a half, focusing her energy, trying to be as cautious in tracking the looter as he was being in hiding his tracks. She watched a few minutes more, scanning the storefront, the neighboring storefronts, the four stories of windows above them—nothing. She checked the street again, empty in both directions. No one was here; it was safe to move in. She checked her pack, clutched her assault rifle tightly, and raced across the broken road. The door had been glass, and she leapt through the shattered opening without pausing; she checked her corners, gun up and ready for action, then carefully sighted down each aisle. It was a small store, mostly speakers and stereo systems, and most of that was long gone, thanks to the original looting. The only person here was the skeletal remains of the cashier, holed up behind the counter. Satisfied that it was safe, she slung her rifle over her shoulder and got down to business, examining the floor as carefully as she could. It didn’t take her long to find them: footprints in the dust, clear imprints that could only have been made long after the storefront was destroyed and the building had filled with dirt and debris. The prints here were even clearer than they’d been before, and she measured one with her hand—the same huge shoe size she’d seen before, maybe size fourteen or even fifteen. The prints were also shockingly well preserved: Wind and water would naturally erode the prints over time, especially those in the centers of the aisles, but here there had been almost no erosion at all. Kira dropped to her knees, examining the prints as gently as she could. The others had been made within the last year; these might have been made within the last week.

      Whoever was stealing generators was still out there doing it.

      Kira turned her attention to the shelves, trying to deduce from their condition, and from the placement of the footprints, exactly what the scavenger had taken. The main concentration of prints was, predictably, in the corner where the generators had been displayed, but the more she looked, the more she saw a deviation in the pattern: He had taken at least two trips to the opposite side of the store, one slow as if he were looking for something, and one firm, the prints deeper, as if he’d been carrying something heavy. She glanced over the shelves, her eyes sliding past dusty plastic phones still tethered to the metal frames, past slim notebook computers and tiny music players like Xochi used to collect. She followed the trail carefully through the rubble on the floor, ending at a low, empty shelf near the back. He’d definitely taken something. Kira bent down to brush away the dirt from the shelf tag, and struggled to decipher the weathered writing: ham. Ham? No electronics store would sell ham. She peered closer, picking out the faded, filthy word that followed: radio. HAM radio, the “ham” all in capital letters. Another acronym, like IT, that she’d never come across before.

      Computers, generators, and now radios. Her mysterious scavenger was putting together quite the collection of old-world technology—and he was obviously an expert, as he’d known precisely what the thing on this shelf had been without having to clean up the tag first like she had. More than that, though, he’d taken some very specific equipment from the ParaGen offices, which couldn’t possibly be a coincidence; he wasn’t just grabbing certain kinds of technology, he was grabbing specific pieces of it. He was gathering old computers from ParaGen, and the generators to be able to access them. And now he was gathering radio systems, but who was he trying to call?

      Manhattan was a no-man’s-land, empty, an unofficial demilitarized zone between the Partials and the human survivors. No one was supposed to be here, not because it was forbidden but because it was dangerous. If something happened to you out here, either side could get you, and neither side could protect you. It wasn’t even great territory for a spy, since there was nothing interesting to observe and report on—except, she supposed, the ParaGen files. She was looking for them, and this scavenger was doing the same—and he’d gotten there first. Now, thanks to him, there weren’t any generators left for her to take back to the ParaGen offices, and no guarantee that the computers left there would have the information she needed. She’d hoped to find a generator to get the top executive’s desk computer running again, to see if it contained what she was looking for, but this mysterious scavenger was obviously searching for the same things, and he had ignored the executive’s computer completely. Most likely, the scavenger had everything she was looking for. If she wanted to read those records, she’d have to find the scavenger himself.

      She had to find out what ParaGen was doing with the Partials, with RM, with her, but there was another reason she was here. Nandita’s last note had told her to find the Trust— the Partial leaders, the high command who gave all the others their orders—and while she wasn’t going to find them here, she might, again, find some clues as to where to start her search. But . . . could she trust Nandita? Kira shook her head, frowning at the ravaged store. She used to trust Nandita more than anyone in the world, but learning that Nandita had known her father before the Break, had known Kira herself, and never once told her . . . Nandita had deceived her, and Kira had no way of knowing what her intentions were in telling Kira what to do next. But it was the only clue she had. She had to keep looking for information about ParaGen, scary mysterious scavenger or not—that was where the answers would be, and this new stranger was where she had to look for them. Whether he was a Partial or a human or double agent or whatever, it didn’t matter, she had to find him and learn what he knew.

      Another thought came to her then, the mental image of a column of smoke. She’d seen it last time she was here, with Jayden and Haru and the others: a thin trail of smoke rising up from a chimney or a campfire. They’d gone to investigate it and run into Samm’s group of Partials, and in the rush to get back out, she’d forgotten that they’d never actually learned where the smoke was coming from. She’d assumed it was part of the Partial camp, but her experiences with them later made that seem almost laughably wrong—the Partials were far too clever to leave such an obvious sign of their presence, and far too hardy to need a campfire in the first place. It seemed more likely that the smoke came from a third party, and the Partials had shown up to investigate it the same time the humans did; their two groups had annihilated each other before either could find out what was going on. Maybe. It was a long shot, but it was better than anything else she had to go on. Certainly better than staking out hardware stores in a vain hope the scavenger would hit one while she was watching it.

      She’d

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