fields, returning as darkness fell. As the days of observation passed, it came to Alicia that she was seeing a kind of prison, a citizenry of slaves and slave masters, yet the structures of containment seemed meager. The fences were thinly manned; many of the guards didn’t even appear to be armed. Whatever force held the populace in check, it came from within.
Her focus narrowed to two structures. The first was the large building with the cranes. It possessed the blocky appearance of a fortress. Through her binoculars Alicia could discern a single entrance, a broad portal sealed by heavy metal doors. The cranes sat idle; the building’s construction seemed complete, and yet to all appearances it went unused. What purpose did it serve? Was it a refuge from the virals, a shelter of last retreat? That seemed possible, though nothing else about the city communicated a similar sense of threat.
The other was the stadium, situated just beyond the southern perimeter of the city in an adjacent fenced compound. Unlike the bunker, the stadium was the site of daily activity. Vehicles came and went, step vans and some larger trucks, always at dusk or shortly after, disappearing down a deep ramp that led, presumably, to the basement. Their contents were a mystery until the fourth day, when a livestock carrier, full of cattle, descended the ramp.
Something was being fed down there.
And then shortly after noon on the fifth day, Alicia was resting in the culvert where she’d made her camp when she heard the distant wallop of an explosion. She pointed her binoculars to the heart of the city. A plume of black smoke was uncoiling from the base of the hill. At least one building was on fire. She watched while men and vehicles raced to the scene. A pumper truck was brought in to douse the flames. By now she had learned to distinguish the prisoners from their keepers, but on this occasion a third class of individuals appeared. There were three of them. They descended upon the site of the catastrophe in a sleek black vehicle utterly unlike the salvaged junkers Alicia had seen, straightening their neckties and fussing with the creases of their suits as they emerged into the winter sunshine. What strange costumes were these? Their eyes were concealed by heavy dark glasses. Was it just the brightness of the day or something else? Their presence had an instantaneous effect, the way a stone cast ripples across the surface of a pond. Waves of anxious energy radiated from the others on the scene. One of the suited men appeared to be taking notes on a clipboard while the other two shouted orders, gesturing wildly. What was she seeing? A leadership caste, that was apparent; everything about the city implied one’s existence. But what was the explosion? Was it an accident or something deliberate? A chink in the armor, perhaps?
Her orders were clear. Scout the city, assess the threat, report back to Kerrville in sixty days. Under no circumstances was she to engage the inhabitants. But nothing said she had to stay outside the wires.
The time had come to take a closer look.
She chose the stadium.
For two more days, she observed the comings and goings of the trucks. The fences were no problem; getting into the basement would be the tricky part. The door, like the portal on the bunker, looked impenetrable. Only when a truck hit the top of the ramp would the door ascend, sealing quickly as the vehicle passed through, all of it perfectly timed.
Dusk of the third day: behind a stand of scrub, Alicia stripped herself of weapons—all but the Browning, snug in its holster, and a single blade sheathed against her spine. She had scouted a spot in the wires where her ascent would be concealed by one of several buildings that appeared unused. A hundred yards of open ground separated these buildings from the ramp. Once the driver of the van rounded the corner, Alicia would have six seconds to cross the distance. Easy, she told herself. Nothing to it.
She took the fence with a single toehold, scuttled against the building’s rear wall, and peered around the corner. There it was, right on time, churning toward the stadium: the van. The driver downshifted as he approached the turn.
Go.
When the vehicle hit the top of the ramp, Alicia was just twenty feet behind it. The door, ascending on clattering chains, approached its apex. With a vaulting stride she took to the