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in the pod and they would not relax until these mutant children were out of their hands in Cape Wrath. It would be a difficult journey for them all.
    But as London was left behind, Ellie began to recover. She rubbed her eyes and gazed out the window with a new, sharperlook. She’d left her parents, but Mika was still with her and they had an important job to do. For their planet was soaked in human tears as volatile as gasoline, and if the match struck, it would burn bright, but just for a few moments, before it crumbled to dust.
    Many children had been born during wars before, but never had a whole generation of twelve- and thirteen-year-olds been snatched from their homes to fight one.
    But they would not fight it. They would solve the problem of The Wall a more intelligent way, a way that helped their parents understand that those forests were as much a part of them as their arms and legs.
    They thought about this as they flew toward the fortress.
    They were no threat to the men around them.
    It was Mal Gorman who had something to worry about.
    Tom ran with the red-haired boy and a few other children across the dark wasteland between the fortress and the town. They ran from black rock onto concrete and glass that cut and bruised their feet, but they were now so numbed by the cold, they didn’t feel it.
    They could see more children running ahead and even more behind, but they were spread out over a greater distance now. It was quieter. They could still hear the boom of waves against the cliffs, but mostly they ran to the sound of their own hard breath and the howl of wind. They were beginning to feel grateful for all that training in Fit Camp. They would never have been able to survive those cliffs or run like this before.
    The nearest town, Sandwood Seven, looked achingly familiar. It was a sprawl of refugee towers, factories, and wasteplants just like the towns they’d grown up in. Now their thoughts turned to home and their parents, who were slowly fading like cut flowers in this concrete cage. Tom began to wonder how his mother was coping without him. She had the lung disease people caught in The Shadows.
    “I have to get home,” the boy managed between breaths. “I help my gran look after my baby brother.”
    “What’s your name?” Tom asked.
    “Luc,” he gasped.
    “I’m Tom,” Tom replied. “We’ll stick together. Don’t worry, we’ll get home somehow.”
    They began to run faster. But as they reached the first buildings on the outskirts of the town, they heard the rumble of freighters and turned to see several rise from the fortress and fly slowly toward them.
    Panic-stricken, they ran down a road flanked by factories and warehouses. Then they spread out and banged on doors, hoping to find people who could help them. But it was late evening. Most of these buildings were serviced by borgs in the hours between dinner and dawn. All the children saw through these windows were the blinking lights of security cameras.
    The freighters had almost reached them.
    They’d run out of time.
    They gave up on the doors and began to look for places to hide.
    Tom sprinted with Luc and a few others farther up the road, then down the side of a Tank Meat factory. They squeezed behind a line of refuse containers and stood in a foul, stinking slime. The freighters came down. They felt shadows fall on their heads. Then they crouched farther, trying to make themselvesas small as possible, with the stinking slime squelching through their toes. They felt as if they’d waited an hour, when they heard a heavy clunk. A container had been dropped at the front of the Tank Meat factory. For a while it was quiet again, then they heard the familiar tap of spike-tipped feet.
    Creeper Nets.
    They pressed their bodies hard against the factory wall, hoping that if they stayed still, the Creeper Nets wouldn’t find them. But Creeper Nets didn’t hunt by sight, they tracked by scent. For a few moments the wind blew in the children’s