Isolation by Dan Wells

an air strike. It was a brilliant, devastating plan.
    But it would work only if the Partial army was in the factory complex. Without that threat of overwhelming force, the Chinese would have no need to bring in so many of their own soldiers—pull the Partials back, and the Chinese would pull back as well. The air strike would hurt but not destroy them. The Partial army was bait.
    The Partial army was a sacrifice.

PARAGEN BIOSYNTH GROWTH AND TRAINING FACILITY, UNDISCLOSED LOCATION
    April 12, 2059
    H eron lived with the Chinese prisoners for nearly a month: eating with them, sleeping in their barracks, talking and listening and learning everything she could. Though they didn’t know it, they were teaching her invaluable information she couldn’t possibly have learned in a classroom: regional slang, body language, communal experiences that she studied, processed, and adopted into her own persona. The city of Zuoquan held a lantern festival every year, and had done so for centuries. Her history teacher had told her about the meaning of the festival, its origins, its size and timing and location. The prisoners had told her about Chen’s Noodle House, and the sidewalk cart he used every year with the squeaky wheel on one side. They’d told her about Grandmother Mei and her old yellow dog, sitting on her roof and howling at the fireworks. They’d told her about the year the dragon had faltered in the rain, ruining the paper and halting the parade and forever branding Li Gong’s oldest son as the Lord of Mud. Each story Heron heard she internalized, and as she moved from group to group she became one of them, so strongly identified as a Zuoquan native that many of the prisoners claimed to have known her as a girl.
    They were a proud people, cheerful in the face of hardship, strong in the depths of captivity, and ruthless in their pursuit of freedom. She admired them, and was proud, in a way, to pretend to be one of them. She helped them plan half their escape attempts, and eavesdropped on the other half, and reported all of it back to her superiors. She was a secret hero to both the prisoners and the guards.
    “It’s time to send a message,” said Vincent. He was her new trainer, and one of the de facto masters of the prison camp; she had thrown a rebellious fit, as she did every few days, and they used her alleged confinement as a time to talk. “Who are the leaders?”
    “Li Gong is the oldest,” said Heron, “and he has a lot of cultural presence because of it. People do what he says, but he doesn’t say much. More active, but less important, is this young man.” She tapped a photo in the prison log book. “Hsu Yan. He wants to lead an escape, and he doesn’t like the way Huan Do is doing it. Do is the other leader, he and his wife, Lan. The two of them are probably the biggest leaders in the camp, Do and Lan.”
    “Define ‘biggest,’” said Vincent.
    “The most followers,” said Heron. “The most influence, over both the prisoners and the guards. The most likely to form an escape plan capable of succeeding, and to unite a group capable of carrying it out.”
    “The most important, then,” said Vincent. “The gear that makes the whole clock run.”
    Heron nodded. “In a way, yes.” She looked up. “What message do you want me to send him?”
    “He’s not the recipient,” said Vincent; “he’s the message. We’re using him to send a message to the entire camp.”
    “You’re going to kill him,” said Heron.
    “No,” said Vincent, “you’re going to kill him.”
    The plan he laid out was simple. A message like this would usually require a lot of flash and visibility—a public execution to keep the rest of the camp in line—but what Vincent wanted was silence and mystery. If Huan Do died in public, the prisoners would learn to fear the guards, but they already feared them. They hid in the shadows and trusted only one another. But if Huan Do died in the shadows, safe among friends, the