Fragments

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

Kira walked in silence through the dark subterranean hall, feeling the weight of the empty syringe in her hand. It seemed heavier now than it ever had when it was full.

“I don’t know you how you do it,” said Kira.

“That much was obvious,” said Vale, “since you kept insisting that I couldn’t do it at all. Now, I think, you have a glimpse of what it costs to be a leader.”

“That wasn’t right,” said Kira. “It wasn’t the right thing to do. But . . . it was the only thing I could do.”

“Whatever helps you sleep tonight,” said Vale. He sighed, and his voice became distant, pensive. “In twelve long years, every hour I haven’t spent tending the Partials and harvesting the cure, I’ve spent trying to figure out how to do it without them. They won’t last forever, but this colony needs to. These children will grow up and have children of their own, and what will save them then? I can stockpile enough Ambrosia for another generation, maybe two, but then what? Even a ‘cured’ human is still a carrier—RM will be with us forever.”

“You have a year to figure it out,” said Kira. “Eighteen months at the most, before every Partial dies and we lose them forever.”

“The expiration date,” said Vale, nodding. “It’s as tragic as the Failsafe.”

Only the Trust knows about the Failsafe. It’s time to confront him. “You’re one of them, aren’t you?” asked Kira. “The scientists who made the Partials. The Trust.”

Vale paused in midstep, casting her a glance. When he started walking again his voice was different, though Kira couldn’t discern his mood—was he curious? Defensive? Had she made him angry?

“You know a great deal about what I thought was secret,” said Vale.

“The Trust is why we’re here,” said Kira. “I . . .” She paused, not sure if she should reveal everything. She decided to play it safe and keep everything as vague as she could. “I knew a woman named Nandita Merchant. She told me to find the Trust, with the implication that they’d have the answers we need to save both species. She disappeared before I could ever ask her about it directly.”

“Nandita Merchant,” said Vale, and this time Kira had no problem reading his emotions—he was struck with a deep sadness. “I’m afraid she’ll never be able to recover from what she did with the Failsafe. She is as guilty as the rest of us.”

It was Kira’s turn to stop in surprise. “Wait,” she said. “The Trust did this? The Failsafe was a virus, we learned that in Chicago, but you’re saying . . . you’re saying that Nandita, that all of you, built it to target humans? On purpose?”

“I didn’t build it at all,” said Vale, still walking. “I built the Partial life cycle, their growth and development, the way they accelerate to an ideal age and stay forever—until, of course, they reach the expiration date. Sheer poetry, I assure you, one of the most sophisticated bits of biotech in the entire project.”

Kira’s mouth fell open. “You created the expiration date?”

“It was a kindness, I assure you,” said Vale. “When the government requested a Failsafe, I posited the expiration date as a more humane alternative—”

“What’s humane about killing them?”

“It’s not humane, it’s ‘more humane.’ Humans, of course, have an ‘expiration date’ as well, when we’ll die of old age. It’s the same principle. And expiration doesn’t put any humans in danger, which a Failsafe might have—and eventually did. But my arguments about the Failsafe and the expiration date were all in the beginning, before we could see the entire picture. Graeme and Nandita, who were tasked with creating the Failsafe, saw it long before the rest of us did. They were the ones who built RM.”

“I knew Nandita,” said Kira. “I . . .” She hesitated again, but decided there was nothing wrong with a little more information. “I lived with her for years—she ran a kind of orphanage, and I was one of the kids she helped. She’s not a mass murderer.”

“No more than any other human in her position,” said Vale, cryptically. “But by any measure imaginable, she, and the rest of us, are indeed mass murderers.”

“But that doesn’t hold together,” said Kira adamantly. “If she wanted the human race dead, completely eradicated, she could have betrayed us to the Partials, or started spreading poison, or a million other things to kill us, but she didn’t. It had to be her partner,” said Kira, following him breathlessly as she sorted through the clues in her head. “Graeme Chamberlain, the one who killed himself. Could he have, I don’t know, re-engineered the Failsafe behind everyone’s back?”

“You’re still not seeing the entire picture,” said Vale, never looking at her as he walked briskly down the hall. There was something he was keeping from her, something he was reluctant to tell. Kira pressed on.

“But Chamberlain acting alone doesn’t add up either,” said Kira, slowing a bit as she thought deeper into the problem. She ran to catch up. “The cure was part of the Partials’ design, embedded in their genetic makeup. Why would he make a virus obviously intended to kill every human on Earth, and then also build a cure perfectly designed to stop it? It doesn’t make sense. But it does make sense if . . .” The answer was right there, on the tip of her brain, and she struggled to grab it—to force it to coalesce into a simple, understandable thought. There were so many of them working, she thought, on so many different pieces. How do they fit together?

Vale walked a few more steps, dragging slowly to a stop. He didn’t turn around, and Kira had to strain to hear his voice. “I was against it in the beginning,” he said.

“But it’s true?” Kira approached him slowly. “You and the rest of the Trust—you did this on purpose? You altered the Partial Failsafe to kill humans instead, and you built them to carry the cure so that . . . Why?”

Vale turned to face her, his face once again tinged with deep anger. “Think about the Failsafe for a minute—about what it is, and what it represents. We were asked to create an entire species of sentient creatures: living, breathing individuals who could think and, thanks to the UN Resolution on Artificial Emotional Response, feel. Think about that—we were specifically instructed to make a being that could think, that could feel, that was self-aware, and then we were told to strap a bomb to its chest so they could kill it whenever they wanted. Ten minutes ago you wanted to free ten comatose Partials, and you couldn’t stand to kill a single human child. Would you be able to condemn an entire race to death?”

Kira stammered under the sudden onslaught, searching for words, but he carried on without waiting for an answer. “Anyone who could create a million innocent lives and, in the same moment, request a means to kill all of them, without mercy, is not fit for the responsibility of those million lives. We realized what we were creating in the BioSynths—creatures every bit as human as ourselves. But the ParaGen board and the US government saw mere machines, a line of products. To destroy the lives of these ‘Partials’ would be an atrocity on par with every mass genocide we’ve seen in human history. And yet, we could tell, even before we released the first of them for combat testing, that they would never be regarded as anything other than weapons, to be cast aside once they were no longer useful.”

Kira expected his face to grow harsher as he spoke, more furious at this remembered horror, but instead he became softer, weaker. Defeated. He was repeating an old argument, but with all the fervor drained out of it.

“At the most fundamental level,” he said, “humanity would not learn to be ‘humane,’ for lack of a better term, unless their lives quite literally depended on it. So we created RM, and with it the cure, both embedded in the Partials. If the Failsafe was never activated—if humanity never got to the point where they felt the need to destroy the Partials in one moment—then no one would have been the wiser. But if humanity decided to push the button, well . . .” Vale breathed deeply. “The only way for humans to survive, then, would be to keep the Partials alive. Just as disenfranchising the Partials would cost humans their humanity, so destroying them like defective products would cost them their lives.”

Kira could barely think. “You . . .” She searched in vain for the words to make sense of it all. “All of this was intentional.”

“I begged them not to,” said Vale. “It was a desperate plan, one of terrible consequence—even worse, in the end, than I’d prepared myself for. But you have to understand that we had no other choice.”

“No other choice?” she asked. “If you objected so strongly, why not go to the executives, or to the government? Why not tell them it was evil, instead of going through with this horrible . . . punishment?”

“You think we didn’t try?” asked Vale. “Of course we tried. We talked and persuaded and kicked and screamed. We tried to explain to the ParaGen board of directors what the Partials really were, what they represented—a new sentient life form introduced to the world without a thought for how they would live in it once the war was over. We tried to explain that the government had no plans for their assimilation, that there was no possible outcome but apartheid, violence, and revolution, that it would be better to shut down the entire program than to condemn humanity to what was going to happen. But the facts, as they saw them, were simple: number one, the army needed soldiers. We couldn’t win the war without them, the government was going to get them from somewhere. Number two: ParaGen could build them those soldiers, could build them better than any other company in any other industry. We were miracle workers; we made giant trees with leaves like butterfly wings, delicate and perfect, and when the wind blew they fluttered like a cloud of rainbows, and when the sun set behind them, the world lit up with iridescent shade. We made a cure for malaria, a disease that killed a thousand children a day, and we erased it from the world. That’s not just expertise, little girl, that’s power, and with that kind of power comes greed. And that’s fact number three, and the most damning fact of all. The CEO, the president, the board of directors . . . The government wanted an army, and ParaGen wanted to sell them one, and what good were the Trust’s arguments in the face of five trillion dollars in revenue? If we didn’t build their Partial army, they would have found someone else with more malleable morals to do it instead. You don’t remember the old world, but money was everything. Money was all that mattered, and nothing we did would stop them from buying, or ParaGen from selling.

“We could read the writing on the wall. This army was going to be built, and there would be no plan to give these Partials rights equal to humans. There were only two outcomes: either the Partials would be killed with this Failsafe in a genocide on par with the Holocaust, or a violent revolution would break out, which the Partials, superior in every way, would win, destroying humanity as we knew it. Any way you sliced it, one species would be decimated, and the death of one would come at the expense of the soul of the other. All we had left was to try to, somehow, provide for a way in which both species could work together—that they had to work together just to survive. And so when Armin pitched us his plan we . . . well, we didn’t like it, not at first and not ever. But we knew we had a responsibility to see it through. It was the only plan in which both species made it out alive.”

Kira’s breath caught in her throat. “Armin Dhurvasula.”

“You know him, too?”

She quickly shook her head, hoping her face didn’t give her away. “I’ve heard of him.”

“A genius among geniuses,” said Vale. “This entire thing was his plan—he devised the pheromone system, and designed the entire interaction of the Failsafe and the cure and everything else. It was a masterpiece of science. But despite his plan and our best efforts, the worst still came to pass. I promise you that we didn’t mean for it to be this devastating; we don’t even understand how RM turned out as ruthlessly efficient as it did. I suppose it’s small consolation that, when it comes down to it, this was unavoidable. From the moment we created the Partials, from the moment we thought about creating them, there was no other possible outcome. Humanity will destroy itself, body and soul, before it will learn a simple lesson.”

Kira was too stunned to speak. She had expected a plan, she had hoped and prayed that the Trust had a plan, but to learn that it was a plan of mutual annihilation—to force both species to work together or die apart—was too much. When she finally spoke her voice was small and scared, more childlike than she’d sounded in years, and the question she asked was not the one she thought she would. “Have you . . . seen him? Anywhere?” She swallowed, trying to look less nervous. “Do you know where Armin Dhurvasula is now?”

Vale shook his head. “I haven’t seen him since the Break. He said he had to leave ParaGen, but I don’t know where, or what he’s doing. As far as I know, Jerry and I are the only ones left—and Nandita, now, I suppose.”

Kira thought back on her list of the Trust. “Jerry Ryssdal,” she said. “He was one of you, too. Where is he?”

“South,” said Vale solemnly. “In the heart of the wasteland.”

“How can he survive?”

“Gene mods,” said Vale. “He came here once, in the night, and I barely recognized him—he’s more . . . inhuman, now, than even the Partials are. He’s trying to cure the Earth, so there’s something left for the meek to inherit; I told him he’d do better helping me cure RM, but he was always single-minded.”

“And there are two more back east,” said Kira. “Two factions of Partials are led by members of the Trust: Kioni Trimble and McKenna Morgan.”

“They’re alive?” His eyes were wide, his jaw open. Kira couldn’t tell if he was glad to hear it or not. “You say they’re leading the Partials? That they’ve sided with them, against the humans?”

“I think so,” said Kira. “They . . . I’ve never met Trimble, but Dr. Morgan’s gone completely mad, kidnapping humans and trying to study them so she can cure the Partial expiration date. She didn’t know about it until Partials started dying, apparently, but she’s convinced she can solve it with human biology.” And with me, she thought, but she didn’t say it out loud. She still didn’t know what she was, or what Vale would do when he found out. And she had to ask him. She felt torn between paranoia and desperation.

“Trimble knew about our plan,” said Vale. “Morgan and Jerry didn’t; they designed most of the Partials’ biology, but we weren’t sure we could trust them with the issue of the Failsafe, and since it didn’t touch their work, we didn’t need to.”

“Who are the others?” asked Kira.

“What others?”

“I found all those names in my research,” said Kira, “but I never found yours, and I’ve heard of two others that I still don’t know anything about.”

“My name is Cronus Vale,” he said, and Kira nodded in recognition.

“Cronus I’ve heard,” she said, and shot Vale a careful glance. “Dr. Morgan seems to think of you as a threat.”

“Don’t tell me you’ve met her.”

“It was not the most pleasant experience of my life.”

“She’s petty and arrogant and heartless,” said Vale. “By the end, she had all but given up on humanity as a species.”

“That sounds like her.”

“If she ever finds this place,” said Vale, “we’re all doomed. My philosophies are, as you’ve seen, somewhat opposed to hers.”

“You’re trying to protect humanity, even if it means the enslavement of the Partial race,” said Kira, and the truth was beginning to dawn on her. “What happened to your ideals? What is your plan now? For the survival of both races?”

“After twelve years, I’ve finally come to understand something,” said Vale. “Extinction has a way of making you choose sides,” said Vale. “I don’t want to hurt anyone, but if I can only save one species, I’ve made my choice.”

“It doesn’t have to be one or the other,” said Kira. “There’s a way to save both.”

“There was,” said Vale. “But that dream died with the Break.”

“You’re wrong,” said Kira, and she could feel tears welling up. “You, Armin, Nandita, and Graeme . . . all of your work was about this, about both races surviving. There must be something that I can do!”

“I promised you information,” said Vale, “and I’m a man of my word. Tell me what you need to know, and I’ll give you everything I can.”

They climbed the stairs to the hidden lab in the spire, and Kira considered the question: She had so many; where should she start? She wanted to know how RM worked, and what exactly the relationship was between the virus and the cure. If the same being produced both, how did they interact? She also wanted to know about the expiration date: how it functioned, how they might be able to work around it. Vale had been working on RM for years without cracking it, but he seemed to have no interest in the expiration date; he might know something valuable that he hadn’t followed up on yet. “Tell me about the expiration date,” she said.

“It’s really just a modification of my own work on the life cycle,” he said. “I designed the Partials to accelerate to a certain age and then sit there, freezing the aging process by continually regenerating their DNA. At the twenty-year mark, that process reverses, and the DNA is actively degenerated. They’re essentially aging a hundred years in a matter of days.”

“Samm didn’t say they age,” said Kira, “they just . . . decay. Like they’re rotting alive.”

“The effect is the same at that speed,” said Vale. “It’s not the nicest way to die, but it was the most elegant, biologically speaking.”

Kira furrowed her brow, still searching for the stray pieces to complete the puzzle. “How did you keep the expiration a secret from Morgan?”

“ParaGen was a maze of secrets,” said Vale. “Nobody trusted anybody else, and the board of directors trusted our primary scientists even less. That’s why we had to build two Failsafes.”

Kira raised her eyebrow. “Two?”

“A Partial killer, like they wanted, and the human flu that Graeme and Nandita built as part of our plan. The Partial Failsafe was never put into production, of course, but I still created it, as a cover for the rest of our plan. The board could see the Partial Failsafe, could get progress reports and testing data, and content themselves that we were following orders; meanwhile, the other Failsafe is what we eventually incorporated into the mass-produced Partial models.”

“Wait,” said Kira. She opened her backpack and rooted around for the old computer handle from Afa’s broken screen—the one with all the info they’d downloaded in Chicago. “Do you have a monitor I can plug this into?”

“Of course.” He offered her a cable, and she powered up the handle.

“Before we came here,” she said, “we pulled a bunch of records from a data center in Chicago. One of them was a memo from the ParaGen chief executive officer to the board of directors; we read it because it mentioned the Failsafe, but it didn’t make sense at the time. In light of what you just said, though . . .” The list of files appeared on the screen, and Kira scrolled through it quickly, looking for the one sent by the CEO of ParaGen. “Here.” She opened it and read the pertinent line: “‘We cannot confirm that the Partial team is working to undermine the Failsafe project, but just in case, we’ve hired engineers to imbed the Failsafe in the new models. If the team betrays us, the Failsafe will still deploy.’”

Vale’s jaw dropped. “They went behind our backs.”

“That’s all we thought when we read it,” said Kira, “but after what you’ve told me, it’s got to be more than that—if the board didn’t know about the human Failsafe, then the only one they could add to the new models was your decoy. The one that kills Partials. That means it might still be out there, and if it kills the Partials, it will kill everyone, since that’s our only source for the cure.”

“True,” said Vale. “But look at the time stamp: July 21, 2060. That was two full years after the final batch of military Partials was created. I can only imagine that this email referred to the line of Partials that was never put into mass production.”

“New models . . .,” said Kira, trailing off. It’s me, she thought. That’s what I am—a new Partial model. That’s even the year I was born, five years before the Break. It’s talking about me.

I’m carrying the Partial Failsafe.

“You look terrified,” said Vale.

Kira brushed her hair from her face, trying to control her breathing. “I’m fine.”

“You don’t look fine.”

Kira looked at the ten Partial prisoners lying inert on their tables. If something triggers me, I’ll kill them. I’ll kill Samm. She tried to keep the quaver out of her voice. “What was the trigger?”

“For the Failsafe? It was triggered by a chemical, administered either through the air or by a direct injection. Only some of the Partials were carriers—viral factories, essentially, that could be turned on at a specific moment. We could turn on the cure the same way.”

“Yes,” said Kira, “but what is the trigger? Specifically? And would it be the same for the new models?”

“None of that matters,” said Vale. “The president triggered the Failsafe to stop the Partial rebellion, and when I saw how vicious RM had become I triggered the cure. It’s over and done. Those new models that were mentioned in the email were only prototypes, and as far as I know, none of them survived the Break. They were young children at the time.”

“But what if they did survive?” asked Kira. What if something triggers her accidentally, and she destroys every Partial left on the planet?

Vale stared at her, his face confused and pensive. Slowly his expression changed, and Kira couldn’t help but take a step backward.

Vale took a step back as well. “You said you lived with Nandita, right?” he asked. “An orphanage. How exactly did she find the girls she adopted?”

Kira watched his face warily, trying to guess if he’d guessed what she really was. He seemed suspicious, but how much did he know for sure? How much did he need to know before he acted—and what actions would he take? If he thought she was a threat, would he kill her right here?

She opened her mouth to speak, but couldn’t think of anything that wouldn’t give herself away. I can’t look like I know too much, she thought, but I can’t look like I’m dodging the topic, either. “She had four girls,” she said. “She found us the same way as every other foster parent on the island. I think some of us were assigned by the Senate.” She wasn’t sure if it was true, but it sounded good without professing any specific knowledge. “Why do you ask?”

“Some were assigned,” he said, “but not all?”

“Nandita raised us like any other kids,” she said, but suddenly Marcus’s questions about experiments flashed through her mind. That’s it, it’s me, she thought, it makes too much sense.

He watched her closely, taking another step back. Kira glanced over his shoulder—was he backing away from a threat, or slowly inching toward an alarm? How much time do I have? The tension in the room was thick enough to choke on, and she felt a thick bead of sweat run down the small of her back.

“Do you realize,” he asked softly, “how much damage the Partial Failsafe could do in the open at this point? To the Preserve, to East Meadow, to the entire world?”

“Please,” said Kira, “think about what you’re doing—” But it was the wrong thing to say, and Kira knew the instant the words were out of her mouth that a plea was as good as a confession. Vale spun around, diving for the table behind him, and Kira didn’t even wait to see what he was reaching for. She turned and ran, sprinting as fast as she could from the room. A gunshot rang out behind her, and sparks flew from the door frame just inches from her head. She ducked around the corner and hurtled toward the end of the hall.

There were more shots behind her, but she was faster than he was, and already too far away for his unpracticed aim. She stumbled around each corner, barely slowing to change direction, racing back to the elevator shaft she’d come down through. Only when she reached it did she realize she’d left her computer handle back in the lab, plugged into Vale’s computer. “No time,” she muttered, leaping onto the ladder and hauling herself up. “I’ll come back for it later.” She might be able to take Vale—she might, depending on his gene mods—but he could have sounded an alarm by now, and called for backup, and she couldn’t face the entire Preserve. Her only hope was to get to Samm and carry him out, before anyone on the outside knew what was going on.

But how far would she have to take him before they escaped the sedative’s influence? And how long before the dose in his system wore off?

She reached the second floor and clambered out through the elevator door, still wedged half-open. Samm lay nearby, right where she’d left him, and she pulled his backpack on over her own before heaving him to his feet. He hung limp and heavy from her arms, two hundred pounds of muscle turned to dead, useless weight. She threw his arm over her shoulders and lifted, grunting with the effort, listening all the time for noise of pursuit. There was nothing behind her, and she couldn’t hear anything outside. She hobbled to the stairs, half carrying and half dragging Samm. She reached the ground floor and leaned against a wall to rest, looking out across the overgrown clearing that surrounded the spire. There were two people talking to the west, resting in the shade by one of the makeshift apartment buildings, but they didn’t seem to be on alert. Kira readjusted her grip on Samm and hauled him through the lobby to the other side of the building, slipping out the eastern edge where no one was waiting. The ground was uneven, broken by roots and gopher holes, and she was forced to move slowly with Samm weighing her down.

If only I knew where the horses were, she thought, but there was no time to find them. If she carried the Partial Failsafe, then it could mean the death of Vale’s Partials, the death of the Preserve, and the eventual death of all humans and Partials. Kira was a living bomb, and destroying her before she went off would supersede every other goal he had. He would sacrifice his secrecy, his authority, whatever it took to preserve the human race. She had to escape or die.

She reached the end of the clearing just as a man came around the corner of the nearest building. He stopped in surprise; she clenched her teeth, nearly borne down by Samm’s weight, and forged past him. “Hello,” he said. “Is he okay?”

“He fainted,” said Kira. “He just needs some fresh air.” We just need to get to the gate, she thought, just reach the gate and we’ll be fine.

“You’re the newcomers,” he said, matching pace with her. “Were you in the spire?”

“We’re just out walking,” said Kira, looking ahead. Another clearing loomed before them, and another building, and beyond that the fence and the edge of the city. If we can just get to the city, we can hide . . . but I need to get rid of this guy. “Do you know Calix?” she asked.

“Of course.”

“Find her,” said Kira, “and tell her we left a valuable medicine in our bags in her room—a red bottle, wedge-shaped, with a green ring around the lid.” It was an antibiotic, but this man didn’t need to know that; she just needed to draw him away. The man nodded and ran off, and Kira struggled on. She reached the next building, and now there were more people around, adults and children. Just a hundred feet, she thought. We’re almost there. A few of the people asked about Samm, their faces concerned, and Kira did her best to play it off without attracting more attention, but the crowd began to grow.

“What’s wrong?”

“Where are you going?”

“What’s happening?”

And then another voice, in the distance behind them. “Stop them!” The crowd looked up, confused. Kira pushed through them. “Stop them!” the voice cried again, and Kira recognized it as Vale. She kept walking, struggling to keep Samm from falling. A woman in the crowd grabbed her arm.

“Dr. Vale wants you to stop,” she said.

Kira drew her gun, and the woman backed off quickly. “Dr. Vale wants to kill us. Just let us leave.” Only fifty feet.

The woman retreated, hands up, and Kira crept forward, hunched far to the side to keep Samm’s weight centered over her. She clung to him with one hand, dragging him forward and warding off the crowd with her gun. She stole a glance behind her and saw Vale approaching with a group of armed hunters.

Samm groaned, groggy but awake. “Where are we?”

“We’re in bad trouble,” said Kira. “Can you walk?”

“What’s going on?”

“Just trust me. Wake up.”

“Stop them!” shouted Vale again. “They’re spies, come to destroy the Preserve.”

“We’re leaving,” said Kira through clenched teeth, struggling step by step for the open gate. Samm was still leaning on her heavily, trying to walk but too unsteady to do it effectively. The townsfolk hadn’t stepped in to stop her, still wondering what to do. “Just let us go.”

“Let them go and they’ll return with a thousand more like them,” said Vale. “They’re Partials.”

Samm’s speech was slurred. “So the recon trip didn’t go as planned?”

“You’re not helping,” said Kira. “Can you walk yet?”

Samm tried to stand up, reeling slightly, and fell back onto Kira’s shoulder. “Not well.”

“Is it true?” asked a voice. Kira turned to see Phan, and the look of betrayal on his face struck Kira through the heart.

“I’m a person,” she said. “The Partials—”

“The Partials destroyed the world,” said Vale, catching up to them. “And now they’re here, trying to finish the job.”

“You’re lying,” Kira hissed. “You destroyed it, and now you’re living in a fantasy, trying to pretend like the past never happened.”

“Don’t listen to their deceptions,” said Vale.

The crowd moved in on them, the open path to the gate become smaller and smaller as the crowd closed in. Kira swung her gun around wildly, trying to balance Samm with her other arm. “Please, Samm, I need you to wake up.”

“I’m awake,” he said, the crowd now mere feet away from them. “I can walk.”

Kira let go of him, and he stayed steady enough. “We have to—”

Vale fired.