"Candle told me. You know she and River are like sisters; they don't have many secrets. But this was one. She noticed River sneaking out and when River came back, she confronted her. River wouldn't tell her anything, just said she had to trust her and not to tell anyone. Candle didn't, until yesterday. She became worried after you got back from your visit with the Weatherman and she heard about the dead Croaks, so she decided to tell me."
Hawk shook his head. "Who would she be meeting?"
"I don't know. But Candle says she was taking something with her in a bag when she saw her leave that one time. She thinks she's been doing this for a while. Hawk, I don't know what to do. I don't want to confront her about it. She would know it was Candle who told me, and that would ruin their relationship.
They're too close for me to do that."
He nodded. "But we have to do something."
"Maybe you could keep an eye on her, and when she sneaks away again, you could follow her."
That sounded a good deal easier than it was likely to turn out to be, he thought. River was pretty good at looking out for herself, and she would not be caught off guard. If he was going to find anything out by following her, he would have to be particularly skillful about it. It was not something he was anxious to attempt, in any case. Following any of his family secretly was a demonstration of his lack of trust in them and a betrayal of their trust in him.
"I don't know," he said to Owl.
"I don't know, either," she agreed, "but I don't think we can let her go off by herself like this without knowing what she's doing. Being a family means assuming responsibility for each other, making sure that we look out for each other. I don't think we're doing that if we ignore the possibility that she is putting herself in danger."
He knew it was true, but that didn't make him feel any better about it. He resented the fact that this was happening now, when there was so much else that needed his attention. He wanted to confront River on the spot and tell her that he didn't need this added distraction, but he knew that wasn't the way to handle things.
"Let me think about it," he said.
Owl's attention was back on the game. "Don't take too long. I don't think this can wait."
Hawk didn't think it could, either.
WHEN THE GAME was finished, he took Panther, Bear, Fixit, and Candle with him to forage for purification tablets for the catchment system. They had been running low on the tablets for some time, and he had been delaying replenishing their stock because it meant traveling all the way across the city to a supply source nearly two miles away, a distance he didn't normally like to travel. But clean drinking water was a must, and he couldn't put off the trip any longer.
Owl and the others retired to the underground to work on cleaning and mending chores, busywork that would keep them all occupied until the others returned. Hawk took the biggest and the strongest with him, a necessary precaution on a journey into territory that was only marginally familiar. Candle was the exception, but he took Candle because of her ability to sense danger. It would take them all afternoon to go and return, and there was no guarantee they would find what they were looking for, but at least with Candle present they would have a better chance at staying safe.
The day was gray and overcast and the streets deserted. It rained on them as they walked, a misting that left them beaded with water droplets. Panther was still griping about the outcome of the stickball game, which his team had lost.
He walked wing on the right with Fixit on the left, Hawk on point, and Bear and Candle in the center. Hawk glanced over at him every now and then, distracted by his mumbling, half inclined to tell him to shut up and knowing it wouldn't do any good. All four boys carried prods. Panther held his like he was hoping for a chance to use it.
Panther was carrying around a lot of pent–up anger.
He had been born on the streets of San Francisco, the youngest of five brothers and sisters. He was called Anan Kawanda. He was mostly African
American, but with other blood mixed in, too. His father was dead before he was born. No one ever talked about what had happened to him, and when he asked he was told that no one knew. His mother was tough and determined, part of an extended family living in Presidio Park, a group that disdained the compounds and the countryside alike. They lived in tents and deserted buildings and even on platforms constructed in trees. There were several hundred of them, all part of the same neighborhood before the move to the Presidio. Most were black and Hispanic. Most knew more than a little something about staying alive. His mother and the other adults believed that survival depended on adaptation to the altered environment, and that in turn meant building up immunity to the things that threatened you. The changes in air, water, and soil could be tolerated once you developed this immunity, and living behind walls or fleeing to the countryside was not the answer. They were city people, and the city was where they belonged.
Freaks were a threat for which there was no immunity, and some of the bigger, meaner ones–the mutations–preyed on people like them, people living out in the open. But the community was well armed with flechettes, prods, and stingers–dart guns loaded with a particularly toxic poison. They organized themselves into protective units within their enclave, and they never went anywhere alone. Sentries stood watch at all times, and the children were heavily guarded. There were rumors of rogue militias roaming the countryside and attacking the compounds. There were rumors of atrocities committed by creatures that weren't human, that were something less, creatures of a darker origin.
Neither of these dangers had surfaced in San Francisco yet, but no one was taking any chances.
There was a plan for evacuation from the city when they did appear, but no one really believed they would need it. Panther grew up playing at survival and quickly passed into practicing the real thing. In the brave new world of collapsed governments and wild–eyed fanatics, of plagues and poisons and madness, of bombs and chemical strikes, childhood in the traditional sense was over early. By the time he was seven, he already knew how to use all the community weapons. He knew about the Freaks and their habits. He could hunt and forage and read tracks. He knew which medicines counteracted which sicknesses and how to recognize when places and things were to be avoided. He could keep watch all night. He could stand and fight if it were needed.
He grew up fast, athletic, and strong, a quick study and an eager volunteer. By the time he was twelve, it was already accepted that one day he would be a leader of the community. Even his older brothers and sisters deferred to his superior judgment and skills. Panther worked hard at being accepted, at being the best. In the back of his mind, he knew he'd need to be. Talk of the armies that were sweeping the eastern half of the country continued to surface.
Everyone knew that things were getting worse, that the dangers were growing.
Once, long ago, there had been talk about things going back to the way they were—a way Panther knew nothing about and could only envision. But that sort of talk had diminished over time. It was accepted that the past was lost forever and nothing would ever be the same.
It bothered the older men and women, the ones who remembered a little of better times. It was less troubling to Panther and his peers, who only knew things as they were and felt comfortable with the familiar, no matter how dangerous. It seemed to Panther that the best any of them could do was to take things one day at a time and watch their backs.
For a while, that was enough.
Then one day, shortly after he turned fourteen, he returned with four others from a weeklong foraging expedition and found everyone he had left behind dead. They lay sprawled all across the park, their bodies rigid with agony, arms and legs flung wide, mouths agape, blood leaking from their ears and noses.