"I am. But I still need oxygen."

"Like a shark," Cassie says.

Ringer nods. "Like that."

Sullivan leads the kids into the garage. Ringer drops into the hole and lies flat on her back in the dirt. I pick up the rifle where she dropped it and lower it toward her. She shakes her head. "Leave it up there."

"You sure?"

She nods. Her face is bathed in starlight. I catch my breath.

"What?" she asks.

I look away. "Nothing."

"Zombie."

I clear my throat. "It's not important. I just thought-for a minute there-flashed across my mind . . ."

"Zombie."

"Okay. You're beautiful. That's all. I mean-you wanted to know . . ."

"You get sentimental at the weirdest times. Hose."

I drop one end down. She closes her mouth over the opening and gives me the thumbs-up.

I can hear the chopper now, faint but growing louder. I shovel the dirt over her, sweeping it into the hole with my right hand while I hang on to the hose with my left. She doesn't need to say the words; I can read them in her eyes. Hurry, Zombie.

The sickening sound of the dirt hitting her body. I decide not to look. I watch the sky as I bury her, gripping the end of the hose so hard, my knuckles turn white. The nearly endless number of ways this can go wrong races through my mind. What if there's a full squad on board that chopper? What if it isn't just one Black Hawk but two? Or three, or four? What if, what if, what if, what if, whatever.

I'm not going to make it back to the garage in time. Ringer is completely covered now, but I'm out in the open with a shot-up leg and a hundred yards to cross before the chopper-which I can see silhouetted against the backdrop of stars, a black naught against the glittering white-is in range. Never tried to run with a bullet in my leg. Never had to. Guess there's a first time for everything.

I don't make it very far. Maybe forty-five, fifty yards. I pitch forward, landing face-first in the dirt. Why the hell didn't Cassie bury Ringer? Would make more sense for me to hunker down with the kids, and besides, Sullivan would probably leap at the chance.

I heave myself upright. I'm vertical maybe five seconds, and then I'm down again. It's too late. I have to be within range of their infrared by now.

A pair of boots pounds toward me. A pair of hands haul me up. Cassie throws my arm around her neck and pulls me forward as I swing my bad leg around, hop with my good one, swing the bad one, but she bears most of the load. Who needs a 12th System when you have a heart like Cassie Sullivan's?

We fall into the bay of the garage and Cassie hurls a blanket at me. The kids are already covered, and I shout "Not yet!" Their body heat will gather beneath the material, defeating the purpose.

"Wait for my go," I tell them. Then, to Cassie: "You've got this."

Incredibly, she smiles at me and nods. "I know."

54.

CASSIE.

"NOW!" BEN SHOUTS, probably too late: The chopper thunders over us. We dive under the blankets, and I begin the countdown.

How will I know when it's time? I asked Ringer.

After two minutes.

Why two?

If we can't do it in two minutes, it can't be done.

What did that mean? I didn't ask, but now I suspect that two is just a random number she pulled out of her ass.

I count it out anyway.

. . . 58 one thousand, 59 one thousand, 60 one thousand . . .

The old blanket stinks of mildew and rat piss. I can't see a damn thing. What I hear-all I hear-is the helicopter, which sounds like it's two feet away. Has it landed? Has the recovery team been deployed to check out the mysterious mound of dirt that looks suspiciously like a grave? The questions roll across the landscape of my mind like a slow-crawling fog; it's hard to think when you're counting-maybe that's why it's a recommended sleeping aid.

. . . 92 one thousand, 93 one thousand, 94 one thousand . . .

I'm having trouble breathing. This may have something to do with the fact that I'm slowly suffocating.

Somewhere around 75 one thousand, the chopper's engines had revved down. Not stopped, just the pitch and volume dipped. Landed? At 95 one thousand, the engines pick up again. Do I stay here until Ringer's arbitrary two minutes are up or do I listen to that wise little voice screeching in my ear, Go, go, go, go now!

At 97 one thousand, I go.

And damn does the world seem blindingly bright after bursting from my woolen cocoon.

Clear the bay doors, sharp right, then fields, trees, stars, road, and chopper, six feet off the ground.

And rising.

Crap.

Beside the Ringer-hole, a whirling shadow by the broken earth and another shadow that moves so slow in comparison, it seems as if it isn't moving at all. Ringer's sprung her trap on the search party. Sayonara, search party!

I'm running full out toward the Black Hawk, and the supplies in my uniform make me feel like I'm weighed down with bricks, the rifle bouncing against my back, and, shit, it's too far away and rising too fast, pull up, Cassie, pull up, you're not going to make it, time for Plan B only we don't have a Plan B, and two minutes, what was that, Ringer? If you're the tactical genius in this operation, then we're so totally screwed, and the space shrinks between me and the chopper while its nose dips slightly, and how good's your vertical, Sullivan?

I leap. Time stops. The chopper hangs suspended like a mobile above my fully extended body-even my toes are pointed-and there is no sound anymore or draft from the blades lifting the Black Hawk up or pushing my body down.

There was this little girl-she's gone now-with skinny little arms and bony little legs and a head topped with bouncy red curls and a (very straight) nose with a special talent only she and her daddy knew about.

She could fly.

My outstretched fingers banged on the edge of the open cargo doorway. I caught hold of something cold and metallic, and I locked down on it with both hands as the chopper soared straight up and the ground sped away from my kicking feet. Fifty feet up, a hundred, and I sway back and forth, trying to swing my foot onto the platform. Two hundred feet, two-fifty, and my right hand slips, I'm hanging on with just the left now, and the noise is deafening, so I can't hear myself scream. Looking down, I see the garage and the house across the street from the garage and down the road the black smudge of where Grace's house once stood. Starlight-bathed fields and woods shining silver-gray and the road stretching from horizon to horizon.

I'm going to fall.

At least it will be quick. Splat, like a bug against a windshield.

My left hand slips; thumb, pinky, and ring fingers thrum empty air; I'm attached to the chopper by two fingers now.

Then those fingers slide off, too.

55.

I'VE LEARNED it is possible to hear yourself scream over the jet engines of a Black Hawk helicopter after all.

Also, it isn't true that your life flashes before your eyes when you're about to die. The only things that flash before mine are Bear's eyes, unblinking plastic, bottomless, soullessly soulful.

There's several hundred feet to fall. I fall less than one, jerking to a stop so hard, my shoulder's nearly ripped from its socket. I caught nothing to abort the plunge; someone caught me, and now that someone is hauling me on board.

I'm slung facedown onto the floor of the chopper's hold. First it's like, I'm alive! Then it's all, I'm going to die! Because whoever rescued me is yanking me upright, and I have basically three choices, four if you include the false choice of the gun, because firing a gun within the metallic cocoon of a helicopter is a very bad idea.

I've got my fists, the pepper spray contained in one of the twenty-nine million pockets of my new uniform, or the hardest, most terrifying weapon in all of Cassie Sullivan's formidable arsenal: her head.

I whip around and smash my forehead into the center of the face, crunch!, breaking a nose, and then there is blood. As in a lot of blood, practically a geyser, but the blow has no other effect. She doesn't move an inch. She doesn't even blink. She's been-what word did she use to describe the incredibly creepy and scary thing Vosch did to her?-enhanced.

"Easy there, Sullivan," Ringer says, turning her head to spit out a golf-ball-sized wad of blood.

56.

RINGER.

I PUSH SULLIVAN down into a seat and shout in her ear, "Get ready to bail!" She doesn't say anything, just stares up into my bloody face uncomprehendingly. Arteries cauterized by the microscopic drones swarming in my bloodstream, pain receptors shut down by the hub; I may look horrible, but I feel great.

I climb over her to the cockpit and plop into the copilot's seat. The pilot recognizes me immediately.

It's Lieutenant Bob. The same Lieutenant Bob whose finger I broke in my "escape" with Razor and Teacup.

"Holy shit," he shouts. "You!"

"Back from the grave!" I yell, which is literally true. I jab my finger at our feet. "Put her down!"

"Fuck you!"

I react without thinking. The hub decides for me-and that's the terrifying thing about the 12th System: I don't know anymore where it ends and I begin. Not fully human, not wholly alien, neither, both, something loosed within me, something unbound.

Afterward I realize the brilliance of it: The most precious commodity of any pilot is his sight.

I rip off his helmet and shove my thumb into his eye. His legs kick; his hand flies up to grab my wrist; and the chopper's nose dips. I intercept his hand and guide it back to the stick as I pour myself into him: Where there is panic, calm. Where there is fear, peace. Where there is pain, comfort.

I know he won't go all kamikaze on us, because no part of him is hidden from me. I know the desires he would deny even to himself, and there is no desire within him to die.

As there is no doubt in his mind that he needs me to live.

57.

ZOMBIE WAS RIGHT all those months ago: As sanctuaries in the apocalypse went, the caverns of West Liberty were damn hard to beat.

No wonder the Silencer priest claimed them for his own.

Gallons of fresh water. An entire chamber stocked with dry and canned goods. Medical supplies, bedding, cans of heating fuel, kerosene, and gasoline. Clothes, tools, and enough weapons and explosives to outfit a small army. A perfect place to hide, even cozy, if you ignored the smell.

The Ohio Caverns reeked of blood.

The largest chamber was the worst. Deep underground and humid, with very little ventilation. The smell-and the blood-had nowhere to go. The stone floor still shimmers crimson in our lights.

A slaughter took place here. Either the false priest picked up the spent shell casings or he sliced his victims open, one by one. We find a spot against the wall with a sleeping bag, a stack of books (including a well-worn Bible), a kerosene lantern, a bag full of toiletries, and several rosaries.

"Of all the places he could bunk, he chose this spot," Zombie breathes. He's pressing a cloth against his face to filter the air. "Crazy SOB."

"Not crazy, Zombie," I tell him. "Sick. Infected with a virus before he was even born. That's the best way to think of it."

Zombie nods slowly. "You're right. That is the best way to think of it."

We've left Bob the pilot with Cassie and the two kids in another chamber, after packing and bandaging his wound and giving him antibiotics and a massive dose of morphine. He's in no condition to fly any farther tonight. Just getting us as far as the caverns exceeded his endurance, but I sat beside him and kept him focused and calm, his ballast and his anchor.