Fragments

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

Kira stared in shock. “What is this?”

“This is salvation,” said Vale. “Everyone you’ve met here, every child you’ve seen, what you’ve called a miracle . . . It’s here because of these ten Partials.”

“This is . . .” She stopped, stepped forward, and shook her head, still struggling to process what she was seeing. “Are they asleep?”

“Sedated,” said Vale. “They can’t hear or see you, though I suppose our voices might drift through the back of their dreams.”

“They dream?”

“Perhaps,” said Vale. “Their brain activity is not an important part of the process; I haven’t paid any particular attention to it.”

Kira stepped forward again. “They never wake up?”

“What would be the point?” asked Vale. “I can tend them more easily in their sleep—they’re far less trouble this way.”

“You don’t ‘tend’ them,” said Kira. “They’re not plants.”

“By strict biological definition, no, but the metaphor is apt.” Vale walked toward one, checking the tubes and wires that connected him to the apparatus in the ceiling. “They are not plants, but they are a garden, and I tend them carefully to harvest the crop that keeps the human race alive.”

“The pheromone,” said Kira.

“The technical name is Particle 223,” said Vale, “though I’ve taken to calling it Ambrosia.” He smiled. “The food of life.”

“You can’t do this,” Kira found herself saying.

“Of course I can.”

“Of course you can, but . . . we’d always known this was a possibility, but . . . it’s not right.”

“Tell that to the thousands of lives they’ve saved, and the hundreds more they’ll save this year alone.” Vale’s smile faded, and his face grew solemn. “Ten for two thousand, that’s two hundred lives each. We should all be so benevolent.”

“But . . . they’re slaves,” said Kira. “They’re worse than slaves, they’re . . . your creepy human garden.”

“Not human,” said Vale firmly, “things. Living things, yes, but mankind has used living things as tools since his first sentient thought. A bush in the wild is simply a bush—under human care it becomes a hedge, a wall to keep us safe. Berries become inks and dyes, mushrooms become medicine. Cows give us milk and meat and leather, horses pull our plows and carriages. Even you used horses to cross the toxic wasteland, a job I’m sure they would never have chosen on their own.”

“That’s different,” said Kira.

“Not different at all,” said Vale. “A horse, at least, is a part of the world. They exist today because a million years of natural selection failed to kill them: They earned their right to live. The Partials were grown in a lab, made by and for the aid of humanity. They’re . . . seedless watermelons, or blight-resistant wheat. Don’t let their human faces fool you.”

“It’s not just their faces,” said Kira hotly, “it’s their minds. You can’t talk to one and tell me they’re not real people.”

“Even computers could talk, by the end,” said Vale. “That didn’t make them people either.”

Kira shook her head, closing her eyes in anger and frustration. She was so repulsed by the revelation she could barely think. “You have to free them.”

“And then what?” asked Vale. Kira looked up to see him gesturing broadly, encompassing not just the laboratory but the Preserve, perhaps the entire world. “Should we go back to the way your people live? Struggling in vain to cure a disease that can’t be cured, watching thousands of your own children die so that ten men—ten enemies, who rebelled and murdered you—don’t have to suffer?”

“It’s more complicated than that,” said Kira.

Vale nodded. “That’s exactly what I’m saying. You say it’s cruel to keep them like this, unconscious and emaciated; I say it would be crueler, and to more people, to let them go free. Do you know how I keep them sedated? Come over here.” He walked to the end of the first row of tables, gesturing for Kira to follow. The Partial on the last table looked similar to the others, but his equipment was different. Instead of the tube poking out from below his jaw, his entire throat had been fitted with what looked like a respirator. Kira approached slowly, her gun forgotten in her hand, and saw that he had a small set of fans set into his neck.

“What is it?” she asked.

“It’s a ventilation system,” said Vale. “I call this one Williams, and he was my last creation before time and wear rendered our gene mod equipment unusable. Instead of producing Ambrosia, he produces another particle of my own design, an extremely powerful sedative that only affects Partials. The biomechanics behind that were monumental, I assure you.”

Kira’s voice caught, thinking of Samm, and Vale nodded as if he guessed exactly what she was thinking. “I assume your Partial friend is upstairs somewhere, sound asleep?” He gestured at the ceiling. “The ventilation system in the spire still functions admirably well, and pumps the Partial sedative throughout the building and out into the Preserve. I’d be interested to know how far he got before succumbing; Williams here may well become our primary defense if the other Partials you spoke of ever attack us.”

Kira thought back: Samm hadn’t felt the effects until they’d approached the central clearing—she’d guess fifty yards from the spire at most—but he’d been oddly lethargic all afternoon. Was that from the sedative, or something else?

And how far would she have to take him before the effects wore off?

She looked back at Vale. “You can’t just do that.”

“You keep saying that.”

“You can’t just turn a person into a weapon.”

“Child,” he said, “what do you think the Partials are?”

“Well . . . of course that’s what they are,” said Kira, “and look how that turned out. Didn’t you learn anything from the end of the world?”

“I learned to protect human life at all costs,” said Vale. “It’s an edge we danced much too close to, trying to have it both ways.”

“You’re not doing this to protect humans,” Kira snarled, stepping back and raising the pistol. “You’re doing this for power. You control the cure, so you control everything, and everybody has to get in line.”

Vale laughed out loud, so unexpected, and so genuinely amused, that Kira couldn’t help but take another step back. What am I missing? she thought.

“What human oppression have you seen here?” he asked. “What iron boot am I wearing that no one else can see? Are the people of the Preserve unhappy?”

“That doesn’t mean they’re free,” said Kira.

“Of course they’re free,” said Vale. “They can come and go as they please, we have no guards or police. We have no curfew but the inherent dangers of acidic storms; we have no walls but the deadly expanse of the Badlands. I don’t demand tribute, I don’t control the schools, I don’t keep any secrets at all except this one.” He gestured at the comatose Partials.

Kira bristled. “Phan and Calix said you won’t let them leave.”

“Of course I told them not to leave,” said Vale. “It’s dangerous out there. Phan and Calix and all the hunters are vital to our community. But they are still free to go anytime they choose. Just because they made the choice I recommended doesn’t make me a tyrant.” He pointed at Kira. “Even you’ve been free to leave, this entire time—the rabble-rousing newcomer and her dangerous pet Partial. No one’s stopped you from leaving, no one’s shadowed your movements. Tell me, Kira: What are you railing against?”

Kira shook her head, confused and defensive. “You’re controlling these people.”

“By a loose interpretation, I suppose,” said Vale. “You come from a land where control, from what I gather, comes at the point of a gun—where the government buys your obedience through scarcity. Through what they hold back. I maintain order by giving people exactly what they want: a cure for RM, food and shelter, a community to be a part of. They accept my leadership because I lead them well and effectively. Not every authority figure is evil.”

“That’s very self-righteous talk from a man in a secret lab full of half-dead prisoners.”

Vale sighed, staring at her for several moments. Finally he turned, walking to the side of the room, and drew a syringe of clear liquid from a tray. “Come with me, Kira, I want to show you something.” He walked to a door in the far side of the room, and after some hesitation Kira followed. “This entire complex is connected by a series of underground tunnels,” said Vale. “Let me remind you, before we rejoin the others, that they don’t know about the Partials. I would appreciate your discretion in the matter.”

“Because you’re ashamed of it?”

“Because many of them would react like you have,” he said, “and some would try to punish the Partials further.”

“You don’t know me very well, Doctor, but I’m not really the kind to stay quiet about things I don’t like.”

“But you are good at keeping secrets,” he said.

Kira glanced at him sideways. “You’re talking about Samm?”

“Do you have other secrets, too?”

Kira studied him a moment, trying to see if he knew, or even suspected, what she was. Probably not, she decided, or he would have asked why I’m not affected by the Partial sedative. Unless he knows more about me than I do. . . .

Of course he knows more, she thought, he’s part of the Trust. He knows everything we came here to learn. I can’t stop what he’s doing by myself, not now, but if I get the answers I need, I may not have to. She pondered a moment longer before speaking.

“I’ll keep your secret—for now—but you have to give something to me.”

“The cure?” he asked. “As you can see, it’s the same cure you’ve already discovered—and, as I told you before, it’s not exactly portable.”

“Not the cure,” she said. “It’s evil, and whatever you’re about to show me won’t change my mind about that.”

“We’ll see,” said Vale.

Kira persisted. “What I want is information.”

“What kind of information?”

“Everything,” she said. “You helped build the Partials, which means you know about RM and expiration, the Failsafe. I want to know what your plans were, and how everything fits together.”

“Whatever information I have is yours,” he said. “In exchange, as you said, for secrecy.”

“Agreed,” said Kira.

“Good,” said Vale, stopping beside a door in the hallway. “But first, we go up.”

Kira read the label on the door. “‘Building Six.’ That’s the one you converted to a hospital.”

“It is.”

“I’ve already seen the hospital.”

Vale opened the door. “What you haven’t seen is the baby born this afternoon. Follow me.”

He climbed a set of stairs, and Kira followed, suddenly nervous. Of course there would be a new baby—why else would he go to the spire to retrieve a syringe of the cure? Her stomach tightened involuntarily; she had spent so much of her life in the East Meadow hospital, toiling in maternity while infants died and mothers wailed in despair, that she couldn’t help but feel the same tension again. But it was different now—Vale had the cure. This child wouldn’t have to die. Except she knew where the cure had come from. She closed her eyes and saw the Partials’ gaunt, withered faces. Keeping them like that was wrong, no matter what Vale said to excuse it. And yet . . .

They came out into a hallway, locking the door carefully behind them. People bustled back and forth, and Kira was shocked to see that most of them were happy—they laughed and talked and smiled, cuddling tiny warm bundles to their chests. Mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters. Families, real, genetic families, like she’d never seen them before. The maternity ward she’d worked in was a place of death and grief, a place of exhausted struggle and a relentless, implacable foe. It was the only kind of maternity she’d ever known. Here, though, everything was different. The mothers who came to give birth knew that their children would live. This was a maternity ward full of hope and success. Kira had to stop for a moment, steadying herself against the wall. This is everything I’ve ever wanted, she thought. This is what I want to create at home—this is what I want to bring them. Hope and success. Happiness.

And yet . . .

Behind all the sounds of activity was one that Kira knew all too well—the wail of a dying child. She knew from intense personal experience exactly how the virus would progress; how it would attack the child from moment to moment. If the child had been born just a few hours ago, as Vale suggested, then RM was still developing in its bloodstream. The child would have a fever, but not yet a deadly one; the virus was slowly replicating itself, cell by cell, building more viral spores, eating the tiny body from the inside until finally—tomorrow, perhaps—the child would practically cook itself alive trying to keep up. This early in the process the pain could be assuaged, the fever controlled, but the process could not be stopped. Without the pheromonal cure, death was inevitable.

Vale walked through the hall toward the sound, nodding politely to the people he passed, and Kira followed numbly behind. Is this what he wanted her to see? The cure in action, saving an innocent life? She didn’t know what he hoped to accomplish with that—she already knew the stakes, probably better than he did, thanks to living so long with no cure at all. It wouldn’t sway her opinion on the captive Partials, and it wouldn’t buy her silence or compliance. Dr. Vale pushed through the last door, entering the room, and Kira saw the mother practically collapse in joy at the sight of him. The father, equally grateful and nervous, shook Vale’s hand enthusiastically. Vale reassured him with small talk and a smile, prepping the syringe, and all the while Kira stood against the wall, watching the baby squall and scream in the bassinet. The parents glanced her way but quickly dismissed her, their focus turning back to the child. Kira watched them as they held their child, looking for all the world like Madison and Haru. Like every set of parents she had ever seen.

It doesn’t matter, she thought. They can’t justify what they’re doing to those men in the basement. If these parents knew that living, breathing people were suffering like that, would they be so glad to see the cure? Would they even accept it? She wanted to tell them, to tell them everything, but she felt frozen.

Vale finished prepping the shot and turned to the parents, shooing them from the room. “Please,” he said softly, “we need a moment of privacy with your child.”

The mother’s eyes went wide in fear. “Will he be okay?”

“Don’t worry,” said Vale, “it will only be a moment.” They were reluctant to leave, but they seemed to trust him, and with a bit more gentle urging and another quizzical glance at Kira, they left the room. Vale locked the door behind them and turned with the syringe—not toward the infant, but toward Kira, holding it out to her like a gift. “I told you that I lead these people by giving them what they want,” he said. “Now I’m doing the same for you. Take it.”

“I don’t want your cure,” said Kira.

“I’m not giving you the cure,” said Vale. “I’m giving you the choice—life or death. That’s what you wanted, right? To decide for everyone what is right and what is wrong. What is justifiable and what is irredeemable.” He offered her the syringe again, walking toward her, holding it up like a grail. “Sometimes helping someone means hurting someone else—we never like it, but we have to do it because the alternative would be worse. I have destroyed ten lives to save two thousand: a better ratio, I think, than most nations could ever hope for. We have no crime, no poverty, no suffering but theirs. And mine,” he said, “and now yours.” He held out the syringe again. “If you think you know better than I do how to weigh one life against another, if you feel like you should decide who lives and who dies, then do it. Save this child or sentence it to death.”

“This isn’t fair.”

“It isn’t fair when I have to do it either,” said Vale harshly. “It still has to be done.”

Kira looked at the syringe, at the screaming baby, at the locked door with the parents on the other side. “They’ll know,” said Kira. “They’ll know what I choose.”

“Of course,” said Vale. “Or are you suggesting that your choice will be different depending on who knows about it? That’s not how morality works.”

“That’s not what I’m saying.”

“Then make your choice.”

Kira looked at the door again. “Why’d you send them out if they’re just going to find out anyway?”

“So we could have this discussion without them screaming at you,” said Vale. “Make your choice.”

“It’s not my place.”

“That didn’t bother you ten minutes ago when you told me what I had done was evil,” said Vale. “You said that the Partials ought to be released. What’s changed?”

“You know what’s changed!” shouted Kira, pointing at the screaming baby.

“What’s changed is that your high-minded morality is suddenly faced with consequences,” said Vale. “Every choice has them. We’re dealing with the very real threat of human extinction, and that makes the choices worse and the consequences horrible. And sometimes with the stakes this high a choice you would never make before, that you would never consider in any other circumstance, becomes the only moral option. The only action you can take and still live with yourself in the morning.” He pressed the syringe into her hand. “You called me a tyrant. Now kill this child or become a tyrant yourself.”

Kira looked at the syringe in her hand; the salvation of the human race. But only if she dared to use it. She’d killed Partials in battle—was this any different? Taking one life to save another. To save a thousand others, or maybe ten thousand by the time they were done. In some ways this was more merciful than death, for the Partials were simply sleeping—

But no, she told herself, I can’t excuse this. I can’t justify it. If I give this child the cure, I will be supporting the torture and imprisonment of Partials—of people. Of my people. I can’t pretend like that’s okay. If I do this, I have to face it for what it is.

Is this what is left, at the end of everything? A choice?

She held the baby’s foot, pushed in the needle, and gave him the shot.