Free Isolation by Dan Wells Page B

watched, stone faced, as the soldiers prepared the final death rite: Without speaking a word the windows were thrown open, the curtains cleared, the fans turned on. Humans met death with crying, with speeches, with wailing and gnashing of teeth. The Partials met it as only Partials could: through the link. Their bodies were designed for the battlefield: When they died they released a burst of data to warn their fellow soldiers of danger, and when they felt it those soldiers would release more data of their own to spread the word. The fans churned at the air, blowing that data out into that world so that everyone would link it and know that a great man had died.
    Samm waited, tense, feeling the breezes blow back and forth across his face. He wanted it, and he didn’t; it was both connection and pain, community and sadness. It was depressing how often those two came together these days. He watched the leaves flutter on the trees below him in the valley, watched the branches sway gently as the wind brushed past them. The data never came.
    He was too far away.
    Samm packed up his scope and the directional microphone, stowing them in his pack with their small solar battery. He searched the site twice, making sure he’d left nothing behind—the plastic bag of food was back in his satchel, the earbuds were stowed in his pack, his rifle was slung over his shoulder. Even the marks of the tripod in the dirt he kicked smooth with his boot. There was no evidence he had ever been here.
    He looked one last time at his colonel’s funeral, pulled on his gas mask, and slipped back into exile. There was no room in that warehouse for deserters.

COPYRIGHT
    Balzer + Bray is an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.
    Isolation
    Copyright © 2012 by HarperCollins Publishers
    All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins ebooks.
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    ISBN 978-0-06-220818-7
    Epub Edition © JULY 2012 ISBN: 9780062208187
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    FIRST EDITION

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