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contained than Orhikee. Even Cal had said it was beyond him.
    And didn’t that just make me angrier? I’d never trusted the fucking thing, and now it had evolved to a point where its maker couldn’t even touch it.
    Just like Shiloh.
    “I am not Shiloh, you know,” the machine advised, as if it could read my mind or something.
    “Never said you were,” I snapped.
    “You were thinking it.”
    “Fuck off.”
    “Talking to yourself again?” Alan asked, as he slid into the seat beside me. We’d salvaged quite a little pile of ancient luxury. God knows what building this had once been, but I was thinking perhaps a palace or maybe the seat of parliament. Something grand and imposing.
    I was sure the chair I was sitting on was older than Wánměi. Than whatever Wánměi had once been.
    “Fucking Calvin,” I griped.
    “Not our best move,” Alan agreed. Meaning allowing the Shiloh to go global, thereby accompanying us on this mission.
    Mission! Fuck! So far it had been one cock-up after another, and now Lena wasn’t talking to me.
    I was the one who was meant to be pissed off. Not fucking her!
    “You’re doing it again,” Alan said calmly, handing me a water bottle. I snatched it from his outstretched hand, making the plastic buckle. “Growling,” he added, for good measure.
    “He should just go talk to her,” Calvin offered, as if he was somehow part of this conversation.
    “Nah,” Alan said, answering as though the fucking thing was real. “He should spank her arse.”
    Thank you! Finally someone who thinks like me.
    And then my eyes found her again; like they always seemed to do. Naturally. Automatically. Inexplicably. Her head was bent over a map Beck’s Cardinals had drawn of the surrounding city. It wouldn’t tell her anything, other than a vague impression of the streets that had at one time been here. We’d found nothing to indicate life. No u-Pol and no Lunnoners.
    It meant something. And I was concerned that we didn’t know what.
    I watched on silently as Beck pointed out something on the map and another Cardinal added his latest intel. As Lena listened intently, attention riveted to the Cardinal. And as Beck’s attention was riveted to Lena.
    My fists bunched. A noise somewhat similar to a growl, I admit, sounded out. I knew it was me. I couldn’t stop it. I wanted to hit something. Preferably starting with a C.
    “If they weren’t Lunnoners,” Alan said, disregarding my meltdown, “and they weren’t u-Pol, then what does that leave?”
    “We’ve been over this,” I complained, settling back into my chair and trying to ignore how Beck’s shoulder rubbed against Lena’s. “There’s been no evidence of Lunnoners surviving whatever happened here. They were wiped out or rounded up by u-Pol; the nearest surviving metropolis.”
    “Exactly.”
    “Still doesn’t help us identify who attacked us when we arrived,” I pointed out.
    “They had laser guns. Modern tech. Not ours, not Merrika’s so…”
    “Urip’s.”
    Alan shrugged a shoulder. “Could be.”
    “But you don’t think they’re from there.”
    “I don’t know,” he mused. “Just… the guns that Mikhail dude had were like ours. Not the same, but close enough. The guns we found on the Lunnoners were different. Strange. Almost hobbled together from bits and pieces. None of them matched.”
    “Still lethal.”
    “Yeah, but different.” I couldn’t argue with that.
    “So… what exactly?” I pressed. I’d already thought of this, I needed someone else to say it and prove I wasn’t crazy.
    “What if there’s another settlement?” Alan asked, eyes staring off across the room unseeing. Or maybe not. When I saw where exactly he was staring - right at Irdina - I was thinking he was seeing everything. “What if Urip, Merrika and Wánměi are not alone.”
    I crossed my arms over my chest and rocked back on the spindly-arse chair.
    “Calvin has advised there are settlements all over the globe, some small, some