The drone lights turn on with power. Now each of the mindless soldiers is two weapons in one: A human with a gun and a machine with a laser. Gunther closes his eyes to order his troops again, only now the drones buzz with life, and the soldiers' eyes fly open. In one monotone voice, they say in unison, "Algorithm upload complete."

It's as if they've all been empty shells this whole time, and new souls now fill them, rediscovering life. They search their bodies for a moment in confusion. General Kazemi uses this opportunity to open fire on them from their northern front, and the forest erupts in bullets and electric pulses. The line of soldiers directly in front of them fall dead, and I fight everything inside myself not to weaken at the sight.

The soldiers all turn toward the northern front. "The Germans!" one of the soldiers in front of us yells. "They're attacking the Ardennes! Hold them back!"

"Do they think they're allied soldiers in World War II?" Mom asks under her breath.

There's no time to think about who Gunther's soldiers think they are. I have to lead my troop.

"Try to preserve their lives," I say, thinking of Ian. This way, I'll be able to see if they can survive it, and if they can, we'll be giving these people the best chance to survive. "Aim for the drones. Fire," I order my troop.

Beneath the chaos of war, luckily only a few of the nearby soldiers overhear me, but when my entire troop opens fire, those soldiers are no longer problems. Light from our electric weaponry bursts from our front, hitting most of the soldiers' drones and knocking them unconscious. Some of my soldiers miss and hit the soldiers instead, but this is war. It's us or them, like Phoebe once told me it would be back when this was just an immersion. Now it's real, and I have to be serious if I want to survive and keep my people alive.

Most of Gunther's soldiers are focused on General Kazemi's attack at the northern front, but some have shifted their attention to us. As they approach our trench and as our guns charge, I yell, "Aim for their drones! And fire!"

We spring up and shoot at the soldiers again, but now they scatter, running into the forest and closer to our trench. The soldiers who avoid our shots hide behind trees and reload their weapons as we charge ours. An English accent cuts through the shots: "Be strong, men. Remember who you're fighting for back home." Sergeant Major Lawrence.

"You are not in the Ardennes," I shout from beneath the trench. "You are outside of Washington DC in the United States of America. You are Sergeant Major Belinda Lawrence. You are not an allied soldier."

"They speak English," one of the other mindless soldiers says from behind a tree.

"In position," I whisper down the trench, and my troop pokes out from beneath the cloth. My mom and my dad are stone faced, but Celia pants with anxiety. "We're getting out of here," I tell her, and she nods, still fixed on the trees around us.

"Now!" one of the mindless soldiers shouts, and they reveal themselves from around the trees.

We fire. I aim for Sergeant Major Lawrence's drone, but my shot only tears some bark away from the tree she's taking cover behind before she and the rest of the mindless soldiers hide again.

We're sitting ducks here, I think. We need to spread out. I peer down the trench toward Jane and Meg, and they meet my gaze. I wave my hand toward the woods as a signal for them to run behind a couple of trees to corner the soldiers hiding in front of us. They nod, and as they begin to run out from the trench, I yell, "Cover!"

Only three of the mindless soldiers are dumb enough to poke their heads out from behind their trees, and Mom, Dad, and I get their drones. They fall to the ground unconscious.

As our guns recharge, the rest of the mindless soldiers pop out to fire on us, but are startled by the spray of bullets from Jane and Meg, leaving the rest of my troop long enough to shoot them down. I don't check to see if blood leaks onto the snow. I can't afford to.

Instead, I check the tree above us again. The person who had been perched in the branches is gone now. Maybe Nomads aren't here to help us after all.

"What now?" Jane asks, emerging from behind her tree. Now that our front is clear of mindless soldiers for the time being, we have time to breathe, but the war is still explosive at the northern front. Where Declan is.

"Destroy the drones," I order from the trench, "and pull the soldiers who may still make it into the trench. We will save as many lives as we can. Then we will move to help on the northern front. If we attack from the southwest, we can corner Gunther's soldiers back toward the rubble sweepers troops."

What I don't say out loud is that the rubble sweepers should already be attacking Gunther's troops from behind, though the forest to the east is quiet, which could mean any number of things, none of them good.

I touch the freezing metal radio box to my throat. "Rubble sweepers, come in," I say. Nothing. "Jacob, Ava, come in." Still nothing.

A million thoughts pulse through my brain. They could have abandoned us after seeing the size of Gunther's army. But Ava wouldn't do that. They could have been killed off already. And if they have, who else is out there to fight against? Or they could have found a different threat to fight against that we can't see. What could it be?

"How could Gunther have programmed the soldiers to think they were fighting in World War II?" Celia asks as our troop clears the area, shooting still functioning drones dead if necessary.

"There were tons of World War II video games before the end of the world," Mom answers, "he could have very easily taken his from one of those even. What matters is that we know how that battle went, so we can use that knowledge to our advantage."

"We can?" Dad asks.

Mom smiles. "Some of us know how that battle went, so we can use it to our advantage. Isla, do you remember if Daniel ever told you about the Ardennes?"

Daniel was always a World War II nut, but history was never my favorite subject. I desperately wish now I had listened to him more all those times he geeked out to me. "No," I admit.

"It was the Battle of the Bulge," Meg chimes in. "A really small allied army was surrounded by a huge army of Nazis. I don't remember all the details, but it was a surprise and they fought for days until finally, the allied forces won."

"How?" I ask.

"The Nazis ran out of gas or bullets or food, I forget. They wasted all their supplies basically, because they didn't anticipate the battle lasting as long as it did. Then Patton came in with reinforcements for the final blow."

"So we fight the supplies out of Gunther and then hope for reinforcements?" Celia asks.

Meg shrugs.

"We do whatever we need to do," I say.

The troop gathers back in the trench with nearly ten unconscious bodies piled around them. I don't ask about the others still left around the trees. Heated blankets and the white cloth from our trench tent cover the unconscious bodies, because if we want to give them any chance of surviving, they'll have to stay warm. I see the Sergeant Major among the bodies, and I'm relieved. If we can save her, she can help rebuild this world in positive ways.

"Alright, troop, are we ready to move out?" Mom calls.

No one replies, as all their eyes focus on me.

"Are we ready?" I ask, and they nod.

"Right, Isla's army," Mom says, smiling.

It is my army, but knowledge is power and the more knowledge we have at our disposal, the more powerful we can become.

"Listen up," I say, "from here on out, you take your commands from me and my mom, understand?"

Jane starts the salute of respect toward me and my mom, and the rest of the troop follows suit.

"Good," I say. "Now let's move out."

We snake northward through the trench until the sounds of screams and gunfire are so loud, they sound like they're coming from right on top of us. I look up and notice something I wasn't expecting. More Nomads than I can count, gathered in the surrounding tree limbs, drawing back spears. I nudge my mom, and she looks up, along with the rest of the troop. They lift their weapons, but I gesture for them to hold their fire. The Nomads aren't pointing their weapons at the Deathless... they are pointing them at Gunther's soldiers.

They are cloaked in bushy furs and tucked behind the late autumn leaves still holding onto life and the night's darkness. It appears that no one is aware of them but us, so we crouch further into the trench. In the distance, just above the slope, I see Deathless soldiers, scientists and Originals, popping out of foxholes to shoot at Gunther's soldiers, and climbing into the pods, armed with weapons. They look as though they plan on rolling over the front line of Gunther's soldiers.

I hold the radio to my neck. "General Kazemi, fire from the trees coming for Gunther's soldiers," I say.

"See them. Good to hear from you, Isla," General Kazemi responds in my ear.

I release my fingers from the radio, and look upwards to the Nomads in the trees. They are still poised, ready to throw their spears, waiting. "Fire," I yell out of instinct, and the Nomads are unorganized enough to listen. They release their spears into the drones, necks, and chests of Gunther's soldiers below them.

I poke my head up to assess the situation. Red stains the yard around the forest line. Gunther's soldiers station themselves behind whatever debris they could find for shelter: slabs of concrete, metal doors, panels of metal wall. Behind the line of Gunther's combat soldiers, I spy others carrying supplies from the planes and frantically running back and forth between the plane and the landing strip where they're leaving the crates of materials.

All the while, Gunther stands in his force field. In the moonlight, I see the edges of it perfectly. It's definitely emanating from his cufflinks. Magnets... his cufflinks must be some kind of powerful magnets, creating the field around him.

I reach for my neck to make sure the necklace Declan gave me is still there, and it is. I smile to myself. If I can get close enough to Gunther, I can set it off and disturb his force field, at least long enough to get a shot in. But there's no way I can do that now, not with his thousands of soldiers around him, ready and more than willing to shoot at what they will assume to be a young Nazi girl.

"Behind," Dad yells, and I turn quickly. Running toward us are the soldiers who went after MacArthur, their weapons raised to us.

"Behind," I repeat, and the troop turns. "Open fire," I yell, but Gunther's soldiers have already begun pulling their triggers. Out of the corner of my eye, I can't see who has been hit yet, but I catch the blood spurt onto the snow. Some even splashes onto my face.

My cheeks heat with anger, but something else brews inside me too: guilt. I gave the order too late. I wasn't focused. I have to focus.

I continue to shoot along with most of my troop, though some have stopped to try to care for the wounded. I aim for the drones, but one soldier continues to charge at us, firing. When one of his bullets pierces through my dad's shoulder, my vision blurs and everything dulls except for the seering fury burning behind my temples. Dad's blood is literally on my hands as I hurry to cover the wound.

With my right hand, I aim my electric gun directly at the soldier's skull. I have forgotten myself, but I also don't care. All I feel is heat. All I see is blood.

My finger is about to tighten over the trigger when someone else shoots him in the face, leaving a bloody pit of broken skull and muscles in its place.

Smoke leaks from the tip of my mom's gun, and as she lowers it, she pushes mine down as well. "Save yourself for as long as you can," she tells me. "There's no coming back from killing."

"We... we have to get Dad to safety," I stutter.

"I'm fine," he protests. "Just bandage me up."

"No," Mom says, examining his wound. "We need to get you to the Beast to clean this out and make sure it's properly treated. You're not fighting anymore tonight." She looks around for a way out of the trench, but bullets zip over us and drone lasers kick up dirt around the trench. For the first time in a long while, Mom's cool exterior breaks, and she allows a look of panic to consume her face.

"I'm fine, really," Dad insists. "I can stay."

"No, you can't, Todd. Don't be stupid. That's going to get infected if you leave it," Mom says. "I can get you to the Beast, I think... but I can't leave Isla."

"Mom, go," I say. "I can handle things here."

"Isla, I love you and I trust you, but I'm not leaving you. You're still my daughter. I'm not walking away from you in the middle of a battle."

"Then we stay together, and we all retreat," I say, swallowing my fear away. I have to be a leader. "Our whole troop retreats to the Beast, and we come back, guns blazing with the tank. We're going to need medics, and most of our troop worked as Caregivers at the estate. They know how to take care of people. Gunther already knows we're here, so there's no need to keep the Beast in town."

Mom scans the area—the blood and bodies and disheveled earth—and nods blankly. "Yeah... yeah, that's the best option."

I reach my hand to Mom's cheek and our eyes lock. "This is what we have to do," I say.

"You're right," she says, smiling briefly. "Lead us."

I assess the area, and after seeing that no other soldiers are in the area, I crouch down to run toward the center of my troop. "Who's been hit?" I ask over gunfire.

At the far end of our troop, I catch sight of Jane. Her face and armor trickle with blood. Oh God, not Jane, I think.

But it isn't her. She's crying. Not out of pain... out of grief.

She holds in her arms a lifeless body. Meg. The woman who had once believed there was no hope for her. Was she right, or...?

A gnawing pain consumes my gut. What am I doing? First Dad is hit, and now Meg and some of my other loyal followers are dead. Panic and regret fill me: I want to go back home. I don't want to be here anymore. I want to start again.

I shake the thought away. I can't think that now, I have to get these people to safety.

"Listen up," I say, "we have to get to the Beast. We need medics, and we need to step up. We know how to care for people. We can do this."

Nods ripple through the group, stopping at Jane and Meg. By now, the color has completely drained from Meg's face. Jane cradles her, crying and shaking, trying in vain still to plug a hole in Meg's neck with her hand.

I find Celia beside me. "Lead the troop to the Beast," I tell her.

"Really?" she asks.

I nod. "Lead them down the trench to our camp. From there, you can head back through the woods to the Beast. Go, sister."

She smiles and puffs her chest. "Move out," she orders the troop, and they run after her through the trench, back toward our camp; but Jane still sits in the trench, clutching Meg. Mom and Dad wait with me as I approach Jane.

A bright white firework shoots into the sky above us, bursting with light over the area. Gunshots erupt, and screams sound from above the trench.

"Medic! We need a medic!" someone shouts from our side of the line.

"Isla, let's go," Mom insists.

I shake Jane's arm. "Jane... Jane, we have to go," I say. I try not to see the blood, but it's all over both of them.

"She saved me," Jane cries. "I can't leave her."

I poke my head over the trench. Gunther's soldiers are still gathered at the frontline, though some have begun filtering into the forest. If we stay here much longer, they'll find us.

"We will come back for her, but right now, we have to go. The soldiers are coming," I tell her.

Jane leans up to peak over the trench and quickly returns. "Okay," she whispers, rubbing the tears from her face with the back of her hand, smearing blood into the white grease paint around her eyes, which drips down her cheeks in the pattern of her tears.

She lays Meg down on the floor of the trench, and reluctantly moves her hand from her bullet hole. Jane kisses Meg's pale forehead. "We'll come back for you Meg," she says, and then turns back to me. "Okay, I'm ready."

The four of us begin running down the trench away from the frontline. We're about halfway to our camp when an explosion sounds from the yard. The shock sends me tumbling to the ground.

"Isla," Jane calls, rushing to help me up.

"What was that?" Dad asks, and the four of us peek over the edge of the trench to see.

A line of fire burns from along the airstrip. Every single plane is consumed in flames, and Gunther has been knocked to the ground in front of them. His back is to us, but I can only imagine what his expression looks like now: Confused, shocked, and more than anything, furious.

General Kazemi is using Gunther's soldiers' temporary shock to strike back with force. Light sparks from the tips of guns firing from the forest, and one of Gunther's soldiers screams for them to retreat. As they run around the bunker's chasm toward Gunther, the rubble sweepers finally reveal themselves and join the fight. They filter into the yard from around the line of fiery planes, shooting the soldiers and guiding the survivors back into the woods behind the planes. Gunther runs too, and I smile seeing him scramble.

The rubble sweepers have created a new frontline out of the fire, and the rubble sweepers take the opportunity to celebrate. They jump up and down, hooting and hollering, and with another burst of light, I realize why: Gunther's soldiers run into the forest, and straight into mines the rubble sweepers must have set up while in radio silence. Explosives ignite the far forest in rhythmic bursts.

"General Kazemi, Isla, Declan, Beatrice," Ava's voice sings through my earpiece. "Sorry about not responding earlier, we were busy setting up explosives." She laughs.

"Welcome to the fight," General Kazemi says.

"Thank God," Declan replies.

"Anyone in need of medical attention, Isla's army is on our way," Celia says from the Beast.

I hold the radio to my throat to join the conversation. "What happens now?" I ask.

General Kazemi answers. "We care for our wounded, we camp out, and we keep pushing the line back. Now that we're all together, we can face Gunther's army with more force. Ready or not, the war has started, and it won't be over as quickly as we'd hoped."

Jane and I exchange worried glances before I look to my parents. They grip each other tightly, freely showing their fear before they realize I'm looking.

"This is our gateway to the new world. Right here, right now," General Kazemi says. "If we ever want to be free, to live how we want and think our own thoughts, we will have to fight every moment of every day until we win."

For a few haunting moments, all is silent. No gunfire, no orders, nothing. Only the sound of crackling flames.

Jane turns to me. "More of us will die," she says.

This is war, I think. Even if we win, Gunther will be victorious is proving one thing to us: We will never be "deathless." He's going to kill as many of us as he can.