Partials

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

The wagon rolled out of town at 12:02, a small group armed for battle. Jayden had found an old salvage report for a southwestern location — a high school on the South Shore that no one had ever followed up on. Schools tended to have well-stocked nurses’ stations, so requesting Kira had been easy; this particular school was also fairly old, which made it easy to request Haru: He’d test the place for stability, and Kira would look for meds. There was nothing out of the ordinary, and Jayden’s superiors had rubber-stamped it without a second glance. The border patrol didn’t even stop them, they just saw the uniforms and waved them through.

They reached the wilderness. Phase one was a success.

Kira and Marcus had fought again last night: his final attempt to talk her out of going. It drove Kira mad that he could be so obtuse — that he could misunderstand her so completely — and she was still fuming as she sat in the Grid wagon, trying to think of something else. She looked at the group they’d assembled. Driving the wagon was the same girl they’d had on the last run, a small-framed girl named Yoon-Ji Bak. Next to her at the front of the wagon was Gabriel Vasicek, a battle-scarred mountain of a man who made the phrase “riding shotgun” sound pathetic — he was riding “chain-fed minigun,” a giant metal monstrosity with at least eight barrels. Nobody who saw him wielding it was likely to give them trouble. In the back with Kira were Jayden, Haru, and two soldiers Jayden identified as Nick and Steve — Kira had no idea which was which, and chose to think of them as Skinny and Scruffy. They watched the empty houses roll past without comment.

Jayden laid out a map of the island. “We head south on Meadowbrook, west on Sunrise, and then south on Long Beach Boulevard to the edge of the island. We’ll actually get pretty close to the school in the salvage report, just a few blocks away, so anyone who sees us and happens to get asked about it will report that we went exactly where we’re supposed to.”

Kira pointed at the map’s south shore, a rough-edged maze of bays and inlets and narrow islands. “Your path takes us over a bridge — are we sure it’s still up?”

“You’re thinking of the wooden ones,” said Haru. “These that we’ll be using are steel, and even without maintenance, they can last a lot longer than eleven years.”

“But why so far south?” asked Kira. “If somebody sees us near the school, hooray, we have a witness, but is that really likely enough to warrant going a day or more out of our way?”

“We have to head south anyway,” said Jayden, tapping the western half of the map, “for two reasons. First is the airport, the block marked ‘JFK’—it’s big and solid and we don’t use it for anything, which makes it practically the Voice capital of the island. Everyone who doesn’t want to follow the rules ends up there sooner or later.”

“Everyone but us,” said Kira.

Jayden smirked. “It’s also perfectly situated between East Meadow and the military base in Queens, which is our other big obstacle. If we travel too far north, we hit the Defense Grid, which is obviously out of the question; if we travel through the middle, we risk Voice raids out of JFK. But if we go all the way south, we avoid them both — we get pretty close to the airport, but our scouts say the Voice don’t tend to patrol that far down.” He gestured to Skinny and Scruffy; one of them nodded once, the other did nothing. “The shore has less loot to steal, and fewer people to rob, and a pretty straight shot here, to Brooklyn.” He tapped the map again, then moved his finger south, to a place called Staten Island. “This is empty as far as we know, plus the Defense Grid collapsed this bridge, so there’s no good way across. Obviously there’s nothing south of us but ocean, which means ninety-nine percent of the military is up here, in Queens, where our land and their land are closest. All together, that means the route we’ve planned cuts deep to the south and far around everything we want to avoid.”

Kira nodded, seeing their plan. “So we follow the southern coast, hope all these bridges still work, and then cut up behind the Defense Grid through”—she peered at the map labels—“Brooklyn.”

“Exactly,” said Haru, “and we cross on the Brooklyn Bridge.”

Kira frowned, studying the map. “If this area is so undefended, why aren’t we worried the Partials will sweep across it and kill us? The bombs you were talking about?”

“We’ve filled that area with every explosive we could find,” said Jayden. “There are guard posts and watchtowers all through the area, and mines and traps all over both the city and the bridges. We can avoid them because we know where they are, but an army marching through would get blown up, bogged down, and sniped to death while our own forces march down to flank them.”

“Aren’t the Partials going to have the same defenses in … what is it called, the Bronx?”

“Possibly, if that’s where they are, but I honestly don’t think they even care. We’re gnats to them: a few thousand humans against a million-plus Partials. They likely don’t defend as well as we do, because they don’t expect us to be stupid enough to attack.”

Kira snorted. “I don’t know if ‘we’re stupider than they think we are’ is a really great attack strategy.”

“Just trust us,” said Jayden. “We know what we’re doing. We can avoid our own mines — Nick and Steve here set half of them themselves — and we can find theirs before they get us. This will work.”

Kira looked at Skinny and Scruffy again. One of them nodded, the same one as before. His companion again stayed silent. Kira pushed her hair from her face.

“We trust all these people? Nick, Steve, Gabe, Yoon?”

“Haru picked them,” said Jayden. “He trusts them, so I have no reason not to. They know what we’re doing and why, and they agree that it’s worth the risk. I’ve met them before; they won’t turn on us or rat us out, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Just curious,” said Kira. She turned to Skinny. “What do you say? Why are you here?”

“I want a piece of a Partial.”

“Great,” said Kira. “Real upstanding motives.” She looked at Scruffy. “How about you?”

Scruffy smiled, his eyes hidden behind jet-black glasses. “I just want to save the little babies.”

“Awesome,” said Kira. She looked at Jayden and opened her eyes wide. “Awesome.”

“It’s eleven miles to Long Beach,” said Haru, “then we’re going to push west as far as we can before dark. If you need some shut-eye, now’s the time to get it. Vasicek, you got front?”

“Sir,” said Gabe.

“I’ll watch back for now. The rest of you rest up, it’s going to be a long week.”

“It’s a double bridge,” said Yoon, scanning ahead with binoculars. They had reached the small bridge to Long Beach on the southern shore of the island. “Steel and concrete, both sides look pretty good. Better than good, actually, they’re almost clean — there’s debris built up on the edges, but nothing in the center.” She lowered the binoculars. “Those bridges get used, and regularly.”

Kira peered ahead. “Voice?”

“Probably just a fishing community,” said Jayden, “couple of makeshift family groups who use the bridge to sell fish in East Meadow. They’re all over down here.” He clicked his tongue and shrugged. “Doesn’t mean they’re not bandits when the opportunity presents itself.”

“Then we make the opportunity as unappealing as possible,” said Haru. “Vasicek!”

The giant man stirred and woke, moving from wagon-shaking snores to full alertness in a matter of seconds. “Sir?”

“Get back up front with that minigun; try to look scary.”

Gabe shouldered the minigun and climbed forward, shaking the wagon perilously with every step.

“Why on earth is that called a minigun?” asked Kira. “It’s bigger than I am — is it like calling a fat guy Tiny?”

“It’s the same kind of gun they use on tanks,” said Haru, “but small enough for infantry. When you call something mini, you gotta remember the scale of the original.”

“So you’re a walking tank,” said Kira, whistling low as Gabe settled into the seat by Yoon. “Remind me not to call you Tiny.”

“Move out,” said Haru. Yoon whipped the horses, and the wagon lurched into motion. Kira watched the bridge as they approached it, her eyes flicking back and forth to the other buildings they were passing. The street here was wide, lined with parking lots and looted stores, and where it merged with another road, there were triangular patches of grass and trees springing up between the lanes. As they passed the last building on the corner, Kira whipped her head around to look down the other street, expecting an ambush at any minute, but all she saw were broken storefronts and rusted cars.

The wagon rumbled forward, the horses’ hooves clattering on the broken asphalt. They reached the tip of the bridge, and Kira saw the narrow bay stretching out on either side, and then they were on it, out in the open, with hundreds of yards to cross without a tree or a building or any kind of cover. Kira had never felt so exposed. She’d grown up in the center of the island, surrounded by … stuff. By everything the old world had built and grown and left behind. It held its own dangers, but she’d learned to deal with them — holes to hide bandits or animals, walls to collapse on you if you weren’t careful, metal spikes and shards of glass and a hundred other threats. She knew them, and she was used to them. To be out here, away from everything, with nothing to hide behind or shelter beneath or even lean against, she felt like the world was empty and alone.

The beach on the far side of the peninsula was, if possible, worse. Gray waves rolled against the shore, topped with white and whipped by a salty wind. Whereas the north shore looked across to the mainland, here the ocean simply continued, flat and featureless as far as Kira could see. She had often dreamed of the world beyond the island, the ruins and wonders, the danger and isolation. Here she saw the world as a great gray nothing — a broken wall, an empty beach, a dull wave slowly grinding it away to nothing. She saw a dead dog half-buried in the sand, brown with old blood and speckled white with maggots. She turned back to the road and kept her eyes from wandering.

If there were people on Long Beach they kept to themselves, and the wagon rumbled along without incident to another bridge on the western tip. Here they crossed back to the main island, circumventing a wide, marshy bay, and then turned west again through another empty city. This shore was much closer to the road than it appeared on the map, which heightened Kira’s unease for reasons she couldn’t explain. All the soldiers were awake now, alert in the fading light, and Jayden whispered at Kira’s side.

“This is the closest we’ll get to the airport — this urban strip heads straight up to it, just three or four miles.”

“You think we’ll see any bandits?”

“You got your rifle?”

Kira nodded, picking it up and checking the chamber. She took a deep breath, trying to calm her nerves. “Locked and loaded.”

“Then you’re ready, either way.”

Kira swallowed and pointed the rifle out away from the wagon, holding it the way they’d taught her in school: left hand supporting the barrel, right hand on the grip, finger next to but not on the trigger. She thumbed off the safety and watched the buildings roll by — fancy town houses with tall, old-growth trees in the front yards, probably millions of dollars apiece before the Break. Now their windows and doors were broken, their yards had gone to seed, and rusted cars squatted in their driveways like giant, dead insects. They passed a stretch of trees, and a row of tall buildings beyond them — an old beach resort, probably half-flooded by now. She saw a glint of light in an upper-story window: an idle reflection from a shard of glass? Or a signal to someone hiding in the city?

The trees gave way to more buildings, the heart of the old town community, and Kira began to see signs of modern habitation: graffiti on the walls, tarps over broken roofs, boards nailed up across shattered windows. The front of an old bank had been hung with corrugated aluminum, and the cars in the parking lot had been pushed together to form a barricade. She couldn’t tell how recently the work had been done, or if anyone was still there. Nothing moved, and no one spoke.

Two blocks later a loud clap echoed through the air, and Kira jumped in fright, clutching the gun. “Was that a shot?”

“Sounds like something fell,” said Jayden, eyes peering carefully into every corner and shadow as they passed. “A sheet of plywood or something, I can’t be sure.”

“So we’re not alone?”

“Oh, we’re definitely not alone.”

Kira scanned the windows along the road — old homes, condos, restaurants, and ice cream shops, all empty, all looted, all scarred by time and weather and human violence. Yoon kept the horses steady, whispering softly to calm their nerves. Gabe brandished his minigun like a talisman, half standing in his seat for better leverage. Skinny and Scruffy crouched low in the wagon, sighting odd places with their rifles that Kira would have never thought to look: a Dumpster by an alley, a billboard, a tipped delivery van lying dented on its side.

Footsteps echoed down the street, and Kira’s heart tensed in her chest. She couldn’t tell if they were running toward her or away. She strained her eyes and saw nothing.

“Could be Voices planning an ambush,” said Jayden. “Could be fishermen thinking we’re the Voice.”

“You’ve got uniforms,” said Haru. “They should know that we’re safe.”

Kira gripped her rifle tighter. “That also makes us a target for the Voice.” She saw a flash of movement in an upper window and swung around quickly, training her gun on the enemy, finger moving fluidly to the trigger to fire the first shot.

It was a kid, maybe fourteen years old. As young as Saladin. His face was dirty, and his shirt was ragged and oversize. Kira gasped, breathing heavily, seeing the boy in her sights and feeling her finger on the trigger. She lowered her gun. “Nobody shoot him.”

Jayden was already watching the boy in the window, who looked down at them stone-faced. The wagon rolled forward, and he disappeared from view. Kira turned and slumped against the inner wall of the wagon, dropping the rifle and covering her face.

The wagon rumbled on.

The peninsula was long, far longer than the last one. The sun began to set, and the buildings cast long shadows over the road. Kira watched as the stores turned to houses, the houses to apartments, and the apartments to forests of kudzu and narrow saplings. Just when Kira thought it was too dark to go on, Jayden called a halt and pointed to a run-down marina office. Skinny and Scruffy jumped out of the wagon and practically disappeared, melting into the shadows. Kira waited tensely, so nervous she even picked up the rifle again. She tried to speak, but Jayden hushed her with a motion of his hand. Minutes passed like hours, until a small light shone out from the windows of the marina. Jayden whistled softly, and Yoon flicked the horse’s reins, guiding them toward the building. The front wall had been solid glass, a showroom for fishing boats, and the opening was wide enough to drive the whole wagon into shelter. Jayden jumped out, and Gabe dropped heavily to the floor, keeping his eyes on the street behind them.

“One door in the back,” said Skinny, “and two windows too big to board up.”

“Let’s go,” said Jayden, and they disappeared into the back rooms. Haru started untying the gear, and Kira hurried to help — blankets and food, extra ammunition, even explosives. She hadn’t known about those. They handed them down to Yoon and Scruffy, and together they ferried it all into a back room with no other entrances. Last of all was the medical computer, a portable unit with its own generator, designed for fieldwork in undeveloped countries. Kira couldn’t remember what the old world looked like — the old days, when she was a child, when the wasteland she lived in was still “developed.” She thought about the maggots on the dog, crawling and eating and blind.

They tended to the horses, set a watch, and settled in for the night. Kira wrapped herself tightly in her blanket, not cold but still somehow freezing, teeth chattering in the darkness. Drifting through the air was a soft voice singing — Gabe, standing watch. His voice was low and sweet, surprising from such a large frame, and he sang an old song Kira’s teacher had sung sometimes at the school, about losing a love and hiding from the memory. It made her think of Marcus, and the last thing they’d said to each other. She loved him, or she thought she did, or she thought she used to. And yet every time he talked about being together, she couldn’t handle it.

Why can’t I talk to him? About the things that really matter? And why can’t he see that it’s not enough to just give up and wait for the end? How can anyone even think that?

She covered her head with her blanket and listened to Gabe’s melancholy singing. When she fell asleep, she dreamed of death — not just for her, not just for her species, but for every living thing she had ever known. The Earth was flat and wide and brown, a field of dirt as barren as the moon, a single road stretching into the endless distance. The last to fall were the buildings, distant and solemn, the gravestones for an entire world. Then they disappeared, and there was nothing left but nothing.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Jayden woke her early in the morning, and together they roused the others and set off through a thin gray mist. Haru was leading the horses this time, flicking the reins gently and clicking his tongue to urge them on. Yoon sat in the back with Kira, rolling her shoulders in slow circles to work out the kinks in her muscles. In the early light they could see the airport across a wide bay. Fog curled off the water.

They traveled through a few more miles of city before reaching the next bridge, the longest yet, stretching far across the bay to reconnect the peninsula with the main body of the island. They saw the bridge long before they reached it, and Kira hoped desperately that it was still intact. If they couldn’t cross here, it would mean days lost from their journey.

Were people already looking for them? The salvage run was scheduled to go overnight, so no one should miss them yet — unless Marcus had told someone the truth about where they were going. She wanted to trust him, she couldn’t think of a single reason not to, and yet he had refused to help. He had refused to come. She needed him with her more than she needed the rifle she was holding, and yet…

They stopped by a massive parking lot, acres across from one shore of the peninsula to the other. The bridge was blocked at the mouth; they crept forward to find a makeshift barricade of old cars, now long abandoned. Skinny and Scruffy stood watch while the rest of them heaved and pushed, hooking up the horses to clear a path through the wreckage. Kira forced herself to stand tall in the wagon as they crossed the bridge, the tallest thing for hundreds of yards in every direction. It terrified her. That was why she did it.

The far side was more open than the peninsula, full of fields and trees instead of abandoned buildings, and Kira breathed more easily with the airport far behind them. The openness lasted only a few miles before they plunged back into the city, following a wide avenue past shopping centers and close-pressed homes of wood and brick. Most of them were crumbling in on themselves, vine-covered ruins in a hungry jungle.

A cluster of cars in an intersection were charred and blackened by some ancient fire — an accident, maybe, or the central bonfire of some long-forgotten riot. This was a bigger city than East Meadow, denser and more populated than any of the places Kira had visited on salvage runs and other trips. The section of the island east of East Meadow had caught the RM virus with dignity, gathering their families and dying quietly in their homes. The outer boroughs of New York City, on the other hand, had fought back harshly, lashing out at themselves when there was no other enemy to fight, and the city showed it. Now it was empty.

Kira had grown up in the shadow of the Nassau hospital, the tallest building in East Meadow and, she had assumed, the tallest building in the world. The distant Manhattan skyline destroyed that illusion almost as soon as they got to Brooklyn. The road cut almost straight northwest, but Jayden pulled out a new map and guided Haru through corners and side streets, sometimes sticking to the main roads and sometimes taking long detours around them. After a few miles they halted by an overgrown cemetery and watered the horses in a pond, and while they drank, Yoon and Scruffy tied thick bundles of old T-shirts around the horses’ hooves to muffle the sound. As Kira watched, a family of antelope crept out from the distant trees — beautifully striped, with delicate spiral horns. They nibbled on the green shoots growing up between the headstones, then sprang into motion in perfect unison, bolting away at desperate speed. A deep black blur followed close behind them.

“Panther,” said Yoon.

Kira pulled her rifle closer. “Good to know.”

“Panthers are supposed to be night hunters,” said Yoon. “This doesn’t fill me with confidence.”

They climbed back into the wagon and continued moving, following the convoluted path on Jayden’s handmade map. The buildings got larger as they approached Manhattan, and once in the late morning they paused in the shadow of a thirty-story apartment complex, waiting for nearly an hour while Jayden peered carefully around the corner. Skinny slipped into the building beside them, and Scruffy disappeared behind a line of cars. Kira leaned close to Haru.

“What are we doing?”

“There’s a watchtower at the end of this road,” Haru whispered. “Two men and a radio, watching the line for any Partial movement. There’s no good way to avoid it, so we’re waiting.”

“Waiting for what?”

“They’ve got to pee eventually.”

“Seriously?” Kira peeked around the corner cautiously, seeing nothing. “I can’t spot anything.”

“That’s the point,” said Haru, pulling her back. “We know where to look, so Jayden’s got a bead on him. As soon as he moves, we move.”

“And then we get seen by his partner,” said Kira. “If this is as easy as you guys make it out to be, anyone could sneak across.”

“We only make it look easy,” said Jayden, lying behind a car with binoculars mounted on a tripod. “We’re just too damn good at our jobs.”

“Even the most dedicated watchman gets lax after a decade of never seeing anything,” said Haru. “More than likely his partner’s asleep from taking the night watch. Be patient, but be ready to blaze the instant we give the signal.”

Kira sat down on the curb, looking up at the high buildings surrounding them. Every now and then she saw a feral house cat creep through the rubble, or watch her from a windowsill. Minutes seemed to last for hours, and in the bottom of the steel and plaster canyon, Kira couldn’t tell how much time was truly passing. She started tossing bits of gravel into the street, trying to land them in the open window of a car across the way, but Gabe stilled her with a meaty hand.

“I know the watchmen can’t see it, and they probably can’t hear, but it’s safer not to do that anyway.”

Kira smiled sheepishly. “Yeah, sorry, that makes sense.” She saw a flash of movement from the far side of the street and looked over to see Scruffy waving from behind a broken wall.

“How did he get over there?”

Jayden raised his hand. “Get ready.”

Yoon grabbed the reins, and Kira jumped to her feet, swallowing anxiously. Jayden paused, his hand in the air, and suddenly dropped it.

“Go!”

Yoon flicked the reins and the horses leaped out, muffled feet thudding across the asphalt. Kira jogged along with the others, glancing up again at the watchtower, but still saw only empty buildings.

They reached the far side and pulled the wagon behind the wall of another building, and Jayden peeked back out with his binoculars. Scruffy emerged silently from the shadows.

“How did you get over here?” Kira asked.

He shrugged and climbed into the wagon.

“He’s still not back yet,” said Jayden, eyes glued to whatever he was watching. “And I don’t hear any radio traffic. I think we’re still secret.” He ducked back behind the wall and stood up. “Let’s go.”

Skinny joined them a few blocks later, appearing out of nowhere and climbing into the wagon.

“He didn’t see us,” he said simply.

Jayden nodded. “Perfect.”

They continued to dodge and weave through the buildings, keeping to low, narrow streets and using the map to avoid the Defense Grid watchmen. They stopped at a large stone courthouse, and Yoon began unhooking the horses.

“You can’t see it from here,” said Jayden, “but we’re only a few blocks from the river. There are two bridges right next to each other, and a single watch post that covers both of them. We think we can sneak across, but we’re leaving the horses and the wagon here.”

Kira looked at the forested park across the street and imagined it full of more panthers, hiding in the shadows. “Is Yoon staying with them?”

Jayden shook his head. “I’d rather have an extra gun in Manhattan and risk walking home.” He pointed up the steps to the courthouse. “We’re going to put them in there and hope nothing happens.”

The stairs were too steep, and the wagon too heavy, to risk pulling it up as well; they carried up the gear by hand and carefully walked the horses up the narrow granite steps. The courthouse windows were broken, of course, but the heavy doors were more or less intact. Yoon took Gabe and Kira to the park across the street, cutting armloads of tall grass with a thick, curved knife and carrying it back to the horses. They pushed the desks into a makeshift corral and blocked the doors closed with a set of heavy metal couches. It occurred to Kira that if they didn’t make it back, the horses would be trapped inside forever. She shook the thought from her head.

The soldiers checked their weapons carefully, making sure the barrels were clear, the chambers were loaded, and the moving parts moved the way they were supposed to. Kira examined her rifle as closely as she could, studying pieces of the weapon she’d never even thought about before, realizing for the first time that her life literally depended on them. The chamber was fully loaded, plus she had more clips in her backpack, cinched tightly to her back, and two more in easy reach on her belt. Gabe revved his minigun, checking the rotation of the barrels, and shouldered a massive backpack full of ammo. Jayden slung his rifle over his shoulder and examined a pair of semiautomatic handguns on his hips. Skinny and Scruffy bore long-barreled rifles with thick sound and flash suppressors. Haru’s gun was short and versatile with a collapsible stock; Yoon had a similar gun, plus the long, wicked knife strapped to her back.

Jayden clapped Kira on the back. “You ready?”

No, Kira thought, I’m cold, and I’m hot, and I’m tired, and I’m terrified, and I’ve never been less ready for anything in my life. She forced herself to smile.

“I’m ready. Let’s go attack some super-soldiers.”

The bridge started by the courthouse, and they were on it for nearly half a mile before they reached the water. As they neared the edge they dropped down to hands and knees, crawling below the rim of a waist-high wall, a tiny strip of concrete that would shield them from the sight of the invisible watchman on one of the buildings above. Skinny and Scruffy crawled ahead, marking traps and defusing trip wires for the rest of the group to pass through safely. Even with the marks, Kira sometimes couldn’t see what each trap was supposed to be.

She imagined a vast Partial army hiding in the skyscrapers across the river, coincidentally — or not — choosing this exact moment to mount an attack. The traps were down; the door was open. Was she betraying humanity?

No. She was saving it. She clenched her jaw and kept crawling.

Brooklyn had surprised Kira by making tall buildings commonplace; Manhattan shocked her completely by making those giant buildings seem small. The island was a mountain of metal, stretching so high into the clouds it seemed to be literally scraping the sky. The base of the city was a carpet of green — parks and trees and strips of grass had long ago overrun their borders and stretched out into the streets, seeds finding cracks and roots finding weak spots until the asphalt had become warped and broken, and the roads had become a forest of new growth. Kudzu crept inexorably up the sides of buildings, coating the bottom stories in a layer of vines and leaves so thick the buildings themselves seemed to be growing out of the ground.

As their bridge reached the far side of the river and stretched out into the city, they finally stood up. Kira found herself at treetop level in a literal urban jungle. Birds nested in the vines and rain gutters, and feral cats prowled cautiously through the latticed framework of exposed offices hundreds of feet in the air. She heard a baying of hounds and, she was certain, the distant trumpeting of an elephant.

“They should call this Animalhattan,” said Gabe, shooting Kira a quick smile. She grinned and nodded.

“Everybody stay down,” said Jayden. “We know Brooklyn pretty well, but this is all new territory. We shouldn’t see any Partials here, but it doesn’t hurt to be careful.” He pointed to a pale building just a block or two to the north. “That tower will give us the best vantage point over this section of the island; we’ll go up, get the lay of the land, and move on from there. Stay close and try to keep quiet.”

Kira crawled after the others as the bridge angled down and curved through a stand of towering trees. Ground level was a whole new world — a schizophrenic blend of forest and junkyard where Kira had to be extra careful with her footing. The sheer mass of the skyscrapers around them resulted in more debris than usual — shards of glass and chunks of stonework, bits of plaster and crumbled drywall and untold reams of paper, some of it blowing free and some of it half-decomposed in a thick accumulation of dirt, leaves, and fungus. Long green tendrils wrapped around faded soda cans, wove through the spokes of rusted bicycles, and clung fiercely to the sides of old taxis and buses and road signs.

Kira and the soldiers followed the road carefully, picking their way between leafy cars and rusty trees and piles of unrecognizable rubble. When they reached the pale building, Gabe set watch at the bottom of the stairs, and the rest climbed as high as they dared before Haru grew worried about stability. Twelve stories proved to be enough — this part of the island was mostly government buildings and apartments instead of giant office buildings, giving them an unobstructed view of the terrain to the north.

“That strip of deeper green was probably a park,” said Jayden, pointing northeast. “Looks like it goes at least ten blocks, and those trees will give us good cover.”

“They’ll also slow us down,” said Haru. “We should pick a wide street and head straight up the middle.” They debated for several minutes, while Yoon leaned out the neighboring window to coo at a pair of brightly colored birds. Kira studied the skyline, trying to drink in as much of the city as she could. Were there any landmarks she could use? Distinctive buildings she could find and remember if she ever got lost? As her eyes rolled over the cityscape, she saw a thin white line that seemed to be moving — a reflection, maybe, or … no. It was smoke. She pointed to it.

“There’s a fire. Do you see it?”

Jayden and Haru stopped talking, following her finger with their eyes.

“Just beyond those three brown buildings, the ones sticking up.”

“I see it,” said Haru. “It’s not a house fire, it’s too small and controlled. I think it’s a campfire.”

“It’s a chimney,” said Jayden, peering through binoculars. “Someone’s living there.”

Kira frowned at the distant smoke. “Living or camping?”

“I didn’t think there was anyone on the island,” said Yoon. “Why would someone still be living here alone?”

“It might be a watch station,” said Haru. “A Partial outpost.”

“It’s too low for a good watchtower,” said Jayden. “It’s just a small government building, maybe three stories at the most.”

“A Partial camp, then,” said Haru, “like Kira said. A patrol or something, stopped for the day.”

“It doesn’t have to be Partials,” said Kira. “It might just be some weird old coot who didn’t want to leave his home.”

“There’s no way anyone untrained could have made it this far without setting off an explosive,” said Haru. “We should check it out; if it’s Partials, we can set up an ambush and save days off our trip.”

“And if it’s just a refugee, we risk exposing ourselves unnecessarily,” said Jayden. “Anyone crazy enough to survive out here is also paranoid enough to know we’re coming, and to shoot first.”

“You’re the one being paranoid,” said Haru.

“You’re damn right I am,” said Jayden. “If ‘crazy hermit with a gun’ doesn’t scare you, how about ‘Partial trap’? They might be setting this up just to lure us in and catch us.”

“They don’t even know we’re here.”

“We’ll stay alive longer if we assume that they do,” said Jayden. “I don’t want to get near it.”

“Noted and overridden,” said Haru. “We go toward the smoke — but we’ll go carefully. When we hit those three buildings Kira pointed out, we’ll climb one for another look, and we’ll send Nick and Steve around the sides to look for anything out of the ordinary.”

“You’re not in charge,” said Jayden. “You’re not even real military anymore.”

“That’s my wife and child back there dying,” said Haru. “You can try to take command away from me, but I’m not going to make it easy.”

“That’s not how it works, Haru.”

“The scouts are on my side,” Haru hissed. Skinny and Scruffy shifted slightly, as if subtly reminding the others of their presence. “What do you have, a couple of girls? We’re going to the smoke.”

In a heartbeat the room turned cold and still, each person looking at the others, gauging their distance, watching their hands.

Jayden gritted his teeth, visibly swallowing his pride. “We’ll have to use the radios to coordinate,” he said. The tension in the room eased. “Channel thirty-five, with no real locations in case the Partials are listening in. We’ll call the target building Holly, and the three towers next to it Max; Partials are Fred and humans are Ethel, assuming they’re wearing uniforms we can use to identify them. Anyone we can’t identify is Lucy.”

Jayden sketched out a quick map of the city, marking the smoke and any other landmarks he could find. The trip back down the stairs was tense, but nothing happened. Haru explained the plan to Gabe, and they set off through the city, climbing frequently on top of cars to get a clear view over the saplings that filled the street. Kira noted key buildings as they passed them, and stopped in surprise when she saw a lean black horse nibbling grass from a gutter. The horse looked back at her, whickered primly, and turned and trotted away down a side street. Yoon watched it go with almost wistful appreciation.

“You like horses?” asked Kira.

Yoon nodded. “Horses, dogs, cats, you name it. I had a pet penguin for years before I joined the Defense Grid.”

“Why’d you join?” Kira asked. “Why not become a vet or a rancher or whatever?”

“Because my mom was a soldier,” said Yoon, shrugging. “At least I’m pretty sure she was. I remember she had a uniform — navy, I think. It was blue. I have a picture somewhere.” She paused a moment, then leaned in closely and whispered, “Keep your eyes open. We all knew Haru was a blowhole, but I never thought he’d challenge Jayden like that. And Nick and Steve are his guys, not ours.”

“What about when we split up?” Kira whispered. “That will change the power structure.”

“Nick and Steve are a lot more dangerous when you can’t see them,” said Yoon. “Them leaving isn’t going to set my mind at ease.”

Kira watched Haru like a hawk all afternoon, but nothing happened. They reached the three apartment buildings — actually five, now that they had a better angle to see them — and Skinny and Scruffy split off on their flanking missions. Haru led the others to the northern building, and they picked their way carefully through the lobby and up the stairs. The building smelled strongly of rot, both plant and animal, and Kira pulled on her face mask to blot out the stench. They reached the top floor and quietly popped the lock on an apartment door. The family was still inside, leathery skin stretched tightly over old, dry skeletons. A swarm of rats scurried back into the walls, leaving a dead sparrow half-eaten on the floor. Jayden kicked it away and crept to the window.

The smoke was clearer now, a mere half mile away, rising up in a single windless pillar from a chimney in a small brick house. Jayden and Haru and Yoon all pulled out binoculars, and Gabe set up a watch in the hall behind them. Kira looked out the window — hundreds of houses and buildings, thousands of tiny black windows staring back like blind eyes. One of those eyes was looking for them — had it already seen them? Would they see it first? Which group of soldiers with binoculars would find the other, and what would happen then?

They watched and waited. A pair of rats crept out from the wall and pulled their sparrow under the couch. Kira grew restless and explored the apartment: one skeleton on the living room couch, one on the kitchen floor, two in the back bedroom. Their arms were draped over each other in a final embrace. Kira closed the door gently and walked back to the living room.

A radio crackled quietly. “Timmy calling Jimmy.” The voice was distorted enough by static that Kira couldn’t tell if it was Skinny or Scruffy.

Haru put his radio to his mouth. “This is Jimmy. Sitrep.”

“I’ve got eyes on Holly, and I don’t see anything. You want me to get closer?”

“Negative, Timmy. Maintain your position.”

“Copy,” said the voice on the radio. “No sign of Fred or Ethel, but Holly does appear to be inhabited: paths to the doorway, that kind of thing. Whoever’s there has been there for a while.”

“Copy, Timmy. Let me know if anything changes.” Haru set down the radio and rubbed his eyes. “We’d better see something soon. I really don’t want to sleep in this apartment.”

Kira opened the cupboards, looking for canned food. She’d worked enough salvage runs that the habit was ingrained. “Jimmy and Timmy, huh? You guys have the manliest call signs ever.”

“That’s nothing,” said Haru. “The other one is Kimmy.”

As if on cue, the radio crackled softly. Kira pulled a trio of canned vegetables down from a cupboard over the fridge, and Haru picked up the phone.

“Kimmy calling Jimmy.”

“This is Jimmy. Sitrep.”

“The report from Timmy was false, repeat false. Fred is at Holly, I have them in my sights right now. Timmy is compromised.”

“Radio silence,” said Haru immediately, and set down the radio. “Bloody hell.”

Jayden turned from the window, his brow furrowed in sudden worry. “That’s not good.”

Haru hit the table. “We do not have time for this!” He hit the table again.

Kira frowned. “They got… Timmy? Which one is he?”

“Steve,” said Yoon.

“Skinny or Scruffy?”

Yoon hesitated a moment. “Skinny.”

Kira swore. “You think he’s dead?”

“We don’t know that it’s him,” said Jayden. “The second call might have been a warning that the first was fake, but it’s just as likely that the second was fake, trying to confuse us.”

“If the second was fake,” said Kira, “wouldn’t the first have called us back to let us know?”

“I turned it off,” said Haru. “If one of the scouts is compromised, they’ve already got the drop on us. The only reason to give up that info is to figure out where we are. They might have already traced the signal — I don’t know what kind of tech they have.”

“But both messages knew our code words,” said Kira. “There’s got to be some way that both scouts are still safe. Maybe they just didn’t see the same thing — maybe they were looking at two different buildings.”

“No.” Haru shook his head. “They’ve worked together too long — they wouldn’t accuse each other that plainly if they weren’t completely sure. If the first call was real, the second can’t be, and if the second call was real, obviously we have to believe that the first was lying.”

“They couldn’t have tortured anyone that fast,” said Jayden, standing slowly. “There’s no way they could have gotten the code words unless…” He paused. “What about… It couldn’t be, that’s insane.”

“What are you talking about?” asked Haru.

“It’s nothing,” said Jayden. “I’m just being paranoid.”

“That’s a pretty healthy thing to be right now,” said Kira.

Jayden swallowed, glanced at Haru, then looked back at Kira. “What if one of the scouts is a Partial?”

“That’s not even—” said Kira, but stopped midsentence. She was about to say it wasn’t possible, but what if it was?

“That’s ridiculous,” said Haru. “I’ve known both Nick and Steve for years.”

“Since before the Break?” asked Jayden.

“Well, no,” said Haru, “but still. There’s no way.”

“They look exactly like us,” said Jayden. “Who’s to say some of them haven’t been living among us this whole time?”

Kira leaned back against the wall, her legs weak, feeling the sudden need for support. The ramifications were terrifying, but the logic … didn’t hold up. “Why now?” she asked. “If they wanted us dead, they could have done it at any time — what do they gain by betraying us here, in the middle of nowhere?”

“I don’t know,” said Jayden harshly. “I’m just thinking out loud.”

“Everybody calm down,” said Haru. “They’re not Partials.”

“Voice, then,” said Jayden. “They could be using a traitor in our own ranks to sabotage the mission.”

“I vouched for both of them!” whispered Haru.

“That’s exactly what I’m saying,” said Jayden, and Kira saw that his hand was creeping near his pistol. She pressed herself back against the counter, caught between the two soldiers. Out in the hallway, Gabe turned to watch the exchange with a look of angry shock.

Haru saw the position of Jayden’s hand, caught the tone of his voice, and stiffened immediately. “You bastard—”

“Wait,” said Kira, “we don’t have time for this — if one of us were a traitor, he could have betrayed everyone a lot more effectively a long time ago.” She took a deep breath and stepped forward, blocking the line of fire between them. “There is a real enemy out there, whatever they end up being, and they know where we are. If one of the scouts was compromised, through torture or whatever else, he may have already told them we’re in one of these apartment buildings — the only thing he didn’t know was which one. That means they’re closer than we think—”

Kira stopped and turned toward the hallway. Was that…? She thought she’d heard something, but it was gone now. She made a move toward her gun.

A loud shot echoed through the hallway, and Gabe dropped like a side of beef. Kira yelped, staring at Gabe’s fallen body in shock. Haru ran toward the door, stopping a few feet back to examine the body. He turned back and mimed with his hands: a explosion pointing one way, a gun, and then a strong point back in the other direction. The blood sprayed toward the left, Kira translated, which means the shooter was standing to the right. Haru pulled a grenade from his belt, pulled the pin, and tossed it toward the right. The building shook when it exploded, knocking dust from the walls.

“That’ll buy us some time,” he grunted, and picked up his rifle.

Kira fought to regain her composure, trying to force herself to react, and finally ran forward. Haru tried to pull her back, but she strained against him.

“I have to help him.”

“He’s dead.”

Kira struggled to pull away. “I’m a medic, I can help him!”

“He’s dead, Kira,” said Haru fiercely. He whispered sharply in her ear, keeping his voice low while his hands held her back like iron bands. “Gabe’s been shot and killed, and whoever shot him is still in that hallway, and the next person to stick her head out there is going to die with him.”

“You have to let me help him!”

“There’s nothing you can do for him,” said Jayden softly. “Right now we’ve got to figure out how to survive the next five minutes.”

Kira looked up and saw both Jayden and Yoon down on one knee, tucked into the corners of the room, rifles trained on the doorway. Of course, she thought, slowly regaining her composure, the Partials took out Gabe because they’re coming for us next. She stopped pushing toward the door, and Haru slowly released her and raised his rifle, falling back into the cover of the hallway. She followed him, keeping her rifle up and her eyes trained on the open door.

“How much time do we have?”

“No idea,” said Jayden, crossing to their hallway while Kira and Haru covered the door. Yoon followed. “Haru got that grenade out there pretty quick; they’re going to be a little reticent to charge in.”

“Which is the only reason we’re still alive,” said Yoon. “If this turns into a straight-up fight, we lose.”

“There are no other exits,” said Haru. “This is going to turn into a straight-up fight sooner or later.”

“We could go out the window,” said Yoon, “maybe get behind them.”

“That’s too exposed,” said Jayden, “not to mention five floors up.”

Kira cocked her head, listening. “They’re coming again. Do you have any more grenades?”

Jayden frowned. “You can hear them?”

“You can’t?”

Jayden shook his head, primed a grenade, and tossed it out the doorway blindly, past Gabe’s motionless body and off to the right toward the Partials. The building shook, and Kira put a hand on the wall for stability.

“Couple more of those and there won’t even be a floor for them to walk on,” said Haru.

Jayden grinned and pulled out another grenade. “Not a bad idea.”

“Wait,” said Kira quickly, grabbing his arm. “Take out the hallway and all you do is postpone the attack.”

“I know,” said Jayden. “That’s kind of the point.”

She lowered her voice to the softest whisper she could make. “Do you have any other explosives?”

Jayden looked at her quizzically, and Haru stepped closer to listen. Yoon kept her gun on the doorway.

“Do you have any other explosives?” Kira repeated, as softly as she could.

Haru patted his backpack and whispered back. “C4.”

Kira nodded. “If we take out the hallway, we’ll still get attacked, but we won’t know when or where it’ll come from. But if we take out this living room, while the Partials are in it and we’re not, we neutralize the threat.”

“That could work,” said Haru, “and honestly it might be our only chance against them, but this old building might not take it — it’s mostly unreinforced masonry. Anything big enough to take out a team of Partials could take the whole building with them, or at least a few floors.”

“A hole in the floor is a viable escape route,” said Kira, “if we survive. It’s that or a firefight, and I don’t think the odds are in our favor.”

Jayden nodded. “Let’s do it.”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

The Partials were being cautious; by the time Kira heard them, they were already at the front door. A footstep, maybe, or a loud breath — she couldn’t be sure what she’d heard, but she’d heard it. She waited, the silence stretching out to an eternity, then abruptly something clattered across the rubble in the doorway, followed by a loud bang like a gunshot. A flashbang grenade. The four of them stiffened, staying as silent as possible in the back room as heavy, booted feet ran into the kitchen beyond.

Jayden was lying on the floor by the closed doorway, holding one of Kira’s medical tools: a small viewer with a narrow, flexible handle. It was designed for looking at noses and throats, but it worked just as well as a sort of tiny periscope — he’d curled it under the door and around the corner, giving him a perfect view of the rigged living room.

Kira heard a low mutter from the living room, and listened more closely. She couldn’t be sure, but it sounded like Which group is this? There was no response.

Jayden raised his hand, preparing to give the signal, and Haru hovered his finger over the detonator. Kira stopped him, trying desperately to mime the phrase, There’s one more in the hallway. She could hear its footsteps. Haru seemed to understand and nodded.

Jayden gave the signal and curled up behind the mattresses they’d piled against the wall. When nothing exploded, he turned in alarm; when he saw Haru waiting, he mouthed obscenities and gave the signal again.

Kira pointed at the hallway, miming as best she could, There’s one more. She held up three fingers, stabbing the air emphatically. Jayden slowly, silently moved back to his looking device, then leaped up in surprise the instant he looked through it, lunging for Haru with wide, terrified eyes. The doorknob turned — one of the Partials was coming in — and Kira slammed her hand down on the detonator button.

The world roared.

The explosion shook the building, knocking frames from the walls and plaster from the ceiling. The wall shattered and flew toward them, and even with the mattresses it felt like being hit in the head with a hammer. In the same instant the entire room started sliding downward, the floor giving way with a sickening sense of vertigo. Kira clung to the empty bed frame, though it was sliding along with everything else. She heard another massive roar, saw an avalanche of wood and plaster thundering toward her, and let go of the bed to cover her head with both hands.

She felt herself buffeted from all directions, then enveloped by something rough and massive. The movement slowed, stopped, and as she slowly uncovered her head she saw other parts of the building still shifting — a shower of dirt and rubble, a falling refrigerator, a rug slipping slowly into a hole. The building’s rooms and floors had become meaningless, smashed together in a three-dimensional chaos. Kira tried to move; she was buried to her waist in rubble. Her legs felt pinned by something huge and heavy.

She heard a cry from somewhere in the distance and shouted back, her throat dusty and her voice raw.

“Hello! Jayden!”

A hand rose up from the rubble in front of her, clad in the dark gray uniform and body armor she recognized from countless war-era photographs. It was a Partial.

Kira strained at her legs, unable to move, then looked for her rifle. It was nowhere — even her medkit was gone. The arm in the rubble moved slowly, tenaciously, searching by touch for something to hold. It found a jutting piece of rebar and gripped it tightly, straining at its own weight, and Kira saw the rubble begin to shift. The Partial was rising to the surface—

— and then a rat fell from the sky.

Kira flinched back in shock, her mind taking a second to process the object. The rat hit the ground, twisted to right itself, and hissed. Kira grabbed a piece of plaster from the pile that held her trapped and threw it at the rat, shooing it away. She heard more chittering above her and looked up to see a slanted ledge two feet above her head, the whole surface boiling with rats.

“No.”

A couch behind the rats shifted suddenly, plunging six inches ahead. Two more rats fell toward her, one landing in her hair; she knocked it away and dug furiously at the rubble around her. The Partial arm still strained, the debris slid and shifted, and slowly a helmet came into view. The thing’s face was covered with a black visor, but she could hear it growl, low and guttural. Kira dug wildly, pulling in vain against the weight that pinned her legs. The couch above screeched harshly against the floor, bringing another shower of rats — three, five, she didn’t bother to count them. The Partial lunged upward, and suddenly both arms were free. It shook itself to dislodge more rubble, knocking away broken bricks and shards of plaster.

Kira didn’t have time to think — she reached up, grabbed the ledge, and pulled it down with all her strength. The rats tumbled down in a shower, covering her in fur and claws and writhing, wormlike tails. The Partial lunged forward, its hands like claws, and in that moment the couch gave way, plunging forward like a boulder, catching the Partial in the face and slamming it backward to the floor. Kira screamed as the couch ground the skin from her knuckles, screamed as she batted away the frantic swarm of rats. There were answering shouts in the distance, but she couldn’t make them out. She strained again at her legs and felt them move, ever so slightly; the falling couch must have shifted whatever was pinning her. She pulled as hard as she could, then changed her focus and started pushing, flexing against the weight to push it even farther away. If the couch had dislodged it, she might be able to move it farther.

The couch moved again. The Partial underneath was still alive.

Kira grunted with effort, clenching her teeth and heaving against the rubble with all her strength. It shifted again, gravel running past her legs, and with a loud groan the entire floor beneath her seemed to disappear, sucking her down with a cry of terror. She fell ten or fifteen feet and landed in a coal-black pit, scrambling for footing as more debris rained down from above.

She heard an urgent whisper.

“Hello?”

“Yoon, is that you?”

“Kira! Help me move this dresser.”

Kira’s eyes adjusted slowly, and the pitch-black nothing became a dark gray outline of shapes and angles. The windows must have all been covered by rubble. She followed Yoon’s voice, slipping and sliding across the rubble, and found her pinned beneath a heavy wooden dresser. She had a better angle of leverage than Yoon, and together the two girls shoved it aside. A loud thud sounded behind them, and Kira turned to see that the Partial from above had jumped down the hole after her. It landed easily, like a cat, and immediately stood. Kira ducked back, hoping its eyes would take longer to adjust than hers had, but it lunged forward with perfect accuracy and tackled her to the floor. She kicked and scratched, screaming for help, but the Partial had arms like iron; she felt its weight like a cage, its arms as solid as bars, and then suddenly it stiffened, its back arched. Yoon ripped her knife from the Partial’s back, spun, and slashed again at its upraised throat. It fell to the side with a hissing gurgle and a spray of hot blood.

Yoon panted. “You are damn lucky he didn’t know I was there.”

“There’s at least two more we haven’t accounted for,” said Kira, crawling to her feet. “We’ve got to find Jayden and Haru.”

The building was more solid down here, two levels below the explosion, and they were able to move more easily. The first door they found was blocked by rubble, but they pried it open and explored quietly, listening for sounds. They found Jayden coming the other direction down the long central hallway; he still had both of his pistols, and gave one to Yoon.

“There doesn’t seem to be much damage below,” he said, “though the structure’s getting weak on the west end. If Haru’s still alive, he’s above us.”

Kira nodded, and they worked their way to a stairwell on the eastern, more stable half of the building. Two floors up they heard a faint voice and followed it all the way back to the far side. Light was shining through a wide hole where the outer wall had been blown away, and Haru was clinging to an exposed pipe, his elbow wrapped around it; his other hand clung to the backpack strap of a dangling, unconscious Partial.

“It’s alive,” said Haru through clenched teeth, obviously straining not to lose it. “I caught it just as the wall gave way.”

“Then drop it,” said Jayden, frowning as he struggled to identify a safe path toward Haru around the gaping hole in the floor. “We’ll save you and get its arm or something down on the ground.”

“Not a chance,” said Haru. He grunted and adjusted his grip on the strap. “I want this thing alive, so I can beat the hell out of it back at home.”

Kira shook her head. “We’re not taking it home, we just need blood and tissue to study.”

“We’re taking it, and we’re interrogating it. Our people don’t even know where we are, and somehow the Partials were here, waiting for us? I want to know why they’re here, I want to know what they’re doing, and I want to know if our scouts are Partial agents.”

“He’s got a point,” said Yoon. “Nick and Steve set half the traps in Brooklyn — if one of them’s a Partial, our entire defense perimeter could be useless. And if the Partials are planning something, like an attack…” She trailed off.

Jayden frowned. “Kira, you still have your medkit?”

She shook her head. “Just the belt pouch; the main kit got lost in the rubble.”

“Sedatives?”

Kira checked and nodded. “A painkiller that will do the same job, if we give it enough.” She looked at the body swinging from Haru’s arm. “And if its biology works the same as ours.”

“I don’t mean to be a burden,” Haru grunted, “but this thing’s a lot heavier than it looks.” Jayden slowly picked his way around the periphery of the room to reach him. Kira studied the destruction, found a solid wall, and carefully climbed down to the next level. Yoon followed her, and together they grabbed the swinging Partial through the window and pulled it in. Jayden retrieved Haru, his arm hanging uselessly at his side.

Kira and Yoon laid the Partial down on a stable bit of floor. Kira pulled off the Partial’s helmet and stopped, staring. She had expected them to look human — of course they looked human, that was the whole point — but even so, seeing one for the first time was… She couldn’t put it into words.

A human face. A human mouth and nose. Human eyes staring blankly at the ceiling. A young man, handsome, with short, dark-brown hair and the beginning of a bruise on its jaw. The greatest enemy mankind had ever faced, the vicious monster that had ended the world.

It couldn’t have been more than nineteen years old.

“It’s weird, isn’t it?” said Yoon. “All this talk about how they look like us, and then they just … look like us.”

Kira nodded. “I don’t know if that makes it less scary, or more.”

Yoon drew the semiautomatic she got off Jayden and pointed it at the Partial. “Whatever you’re going to do, do it fast.”

Kira pulled out a bottle of Nalox.

“Best-case scenario, this keeps it down,” she said, glancing at Yoon.

“Worst case it dies?”

“Worst case, it wakes up.” Kira prepped the shot and held it over its neck. “We have no idea how these nanoparticles will react to its physiology. As far as I’m concerned, its death is very close to the ‘best case’ end of the scale.”

She stabbed the needle into its neck, pushed in the plunger, and stowed the syringe. “It’s done,” she called out. Jayden was helping Haru climb down into the room. “But there’re still one Partial we haven’t accounted for.”

Haru raised an eyebrow. “Not two?”

“Yoon killed one,” said Kira, and Haru’s eyes went wide. Kira laughed dryly. “I’m totally serious. Practically took its head off. Of course, that was after it got buried alive twice, caught a couch with its face, chased me through two stories of rubble, and almost killed me.”

Jayden nodded. “And the explosion got the other one — I found enough pieces of it when I was upstairs that there’s no way it’s still a threat. Must have been right on top of the bomb when it blew. So we should be good.”

They hefted the unconscious Partial between them and carried it carefully out of the building, through the multistory crater and down the stairs to the outer doors. Jayden stopped them.

“Wait — I spoke too soon,” he said, scanning the overgrown apartment grounds. “There is at least one enemy unaccounted for: One or both of our scouts are still out there, and we still don’t know whose side they’re on. Plus, there could be more of these things that didn’t assault the apartment.”

Kira watched the grounds, saw the saplings waving in the breeze; they’d provide some cover, but it was essentially open ground. “We’ll have to run for those buildings,” she said, “but we can’t move very fast with this deadweight between us.”

Haru rubbed his left arm, the one he’d been hanging from, trying to force some feeling back into it. “Nothing to do but do it.”

Jayden lifted the Partial, taking the full weight across his shoulders. “Sorry, ladies, I’m going to be selfish and keep the meat shield for myself. Now run!”

They dashed out through the vines and saplings, running full tilt for the next building. They reached it, rounded the corner, and kept running, between the cars and across the street to another building beyond. Just as Kira thought they were safe, a bullet ricocheted off the car beside her, inches from her head, and she ducked for cover.

“Don’t stop running, Kira, move!” Jayden ran past with his load, and Kira took a deep breath and jumped back to her feet, expecting at any moment that a bullet would slam into her spine. Another bullet whipped past, several feet to the side. They reached the next road, a wide thoroughfare lined with high trees and battered storefronts. Yoon cut left and the group followed, using the cover to charge across the street and take shelter in a crumbling delicatessen.

“It’s single shots, spaced out,” said Jayden, gasping for breath. “That probably means it’s not a group, just one sniper.”

“Skinny or Scruffy,” said Kira, “whichever one’s the traitor. Nice going, Haru.”

“We don’t know if it’s one of them,” Haru snarled, but Kira could tell he had the same fears she did. Yoon was watching by the front windows, all but invisible behind a screen of overturned tables.

“We can’t stay,” said Kira.

“We’ll head out the side window and down this little street,” said Jayden. “We need to cut back and forth between the streets — the sniper’s not as dangerous without a straight path and the time to line up a shot.”

“The park you saw before is just a few blocks west,” said Haru. “We can follow it most of the way back, and we won’t lose time running back and forth.”

“Agreed,” said Jayden. “Let’s go.”

They slipped out the side, moving the captured Partial carefully over the broken glass. Yoon ran to catch up.

“I still don’t see anything.”

“What about the scout who didn’t turn on us?” asked Kira, struggling to catch her breath as they ran. “Shouldn’t we wait for him? Or try to find him?”

Haru shook his head. “If we can’t trust one of them, we can’t trust either of them.”

“But we know one’s innocent.”

“And we don’t know which,” said Haru. “That makes them both suspects. There’s the park; sprint to the trees and head left.”

Another shot zipped by as they crossed to the thick forest, and Kira swore under her breath as she ducked behind a car. The others ran past her and she steeled her courage again, racing for the trees. The park turned out to be riddled with fences, keeping them out of the dense cover in the center, but the outskirts were still better than nothing, and they ran from tree to tree, always keeping something at their backs. Every few blocks a wide street cut through the trees, but the park kept going.

Jayden stopped by a cluster of taxis and lowered the Partial prisoner to the ground, wincing.

“Keep going,” said Haru fiercely. “You can rest when you’re dead.” Jayden nodded and reached for the Partial, but Kira saw a drop of blood fall from his arm.

“Jayden, you’re bleeding!”

“Keep going!” repeated Haru.

“He’s been shot in the arm,” said Kira, looking at Jayden’s wound. “How long ago did this happen?”

“Just a few blocks.” Jayden reached for the Partial.

“Haru can carry it,” said Kira. “You just run. I’ll bandage this when we get somewhere safe.”

“My arm’s practically broken,” hissed Haru.

“Nut up and carry it,” said Kira, shoving him toward the Partial. She took Jayden’s semiautomatic and checked the chamber. “I’ll take the rear, now run.”

They took off again, Yoon leading the way through a maze of fences and trees and rusted cars. They passed a subway entrance, a dark stairway down underground, and Kira looked in as they ran past: It was flooded halfway up the stairs. No cover there. They kept to the park, and soon a thick steel tower rose up ahead of them.

“That’s the bridge,” said Jayden. “Take the first entrance you see.”

Kira shook her head. “That’s not the same bridge.”

“Do you really care which bridge?” asked Jayden. “Just get off the damn island.”

“But the traps,” she insisted, glancing behind her as she ran. “The traps will still be in place on this one. It’s too dangerous to cross.”

A bullet flew by, and Jayden cursed. “We don’t have a lot of options right now.”

They burst out of the park and into a wide street. The bridge rose before them at an angle, up and southeast toward the river, and the four runners were now so tired that they staggered up the incline, panting with dry, scratched throats. A shot pinged off the cement barrier, and they collapsed behind it out of sight.

“I didn’t see who it was,” said Kira.

“Whoever it is,” said Yoon, showing her pistol, “the Partial’s effective range is a lot longer than ours. We can’t outshoot it.”

“You go on ahead,” said Jayden, grabbing Yoon’s gun. “Find the traps, defuse them or mark them or … whatever you can do. Haru and Kira will follow with the Partial. I’ll guard the rear.”

“She just said you can’t outshoot it,” said Kira. “Are you crazy?”

“I can’t outshoot it at this range,” said Jayden, and pointed back toward the base of the bridge. “I can outshoot it just fine from down there, if I get a drop on it. It has to come around that corner sooner or later if it wants to pursue us, so I’ll hide behind one of the cars and wait.”

“Then I’m waiting with you,” said Kira. “I’m your medic, you idiot, I’m not leaving you behind with a bullet hole in your arm.”

“Fine, just stay low.”

Yoon crawled forward, and Haru followed, dragging the Partial behind him. Kira crept back down with Jayden and took position behind a fat truck tire. Jayden crouched by the next tire over, keeping an eye on the edge of the barrier below. The truck’s driver, a weathered brown skeleton, stared forward blankly.

“Who do you think it’s going to be?” asked Kira. “The Partial, I mean: Nick or Steve?”

“You mean Skinny or Scruffy?”

Kira laughed emptily. “It’s not like they’re hard to tell apart, I was just too embarrassed to ask which was which.”

“I’ll guess we’ll see,” said Jayden.

Kira looked up at the bridge, then whispered softly, “The watchmen will see us crossing the river.”

“I know.”

“We’ll get reported, we’ll get arrested, you’ll probably get court-martialed. Our secret mission isn’t going to stay secret.” Kira watched him, but he said nothing. “I’m beginning to think this was kind of a stupid idea.”

She saw a tiny smile at the corner of his mouth.

“Shut up, Walker,” Jayden whispered. “We’re trying to set an ambush here.”

They waited, Jayden watching the edge of the barrier and Kira watching the rest of the road. As soon as the Partial appeared, they’d—

She heard a click.

“Drop it.”

She looked up to see a Partial standing over them — not Skinny or Scruffy, a Partial soldier, likely one of the team they had encountered, black faceplate gleaming in the sun. Somehow it had gotten behind them. It gestured with its automatic rifle, and Jayden set down his pistol with a sigh. Kira set hers beside it.

“Don’t make a sound,” said the Partial. “There’s a—”

A wide crack spiderwebbed out across his faceplate, centered around a small hole that seemed to appear out of nowhere; half a second later the soft puff of a suppressed gunshot wafted past them. The Partial crumpled to the ground, and Kira stared in shock. Jayden grabbed his semiautomatic. They heard running footsteps, and Kira managed to turn herself around to see Scruffy running toward them, his rifle in his hands.

“That takes care of the sniper,” Scruffy called out, “but there are more coming. We’ve got to move fast.”

“You’re the one who warned us,” said Kira.

“You can act surprised later,” said Scruffy, dropping to one knee by the dead Partial. He slung his rifle over his back, picked up the fallen Partial’s automatic, and turned to Jayden. “I’m serious — there’s at least ten more behind us. We have to blaze.”

Jayden paused a moment, then stood and started jogging up the hill. “Come on, Kira. This is a long damn bridge.” They ran upright, not bothering to stay below the barrier, trusting speed and distance to keep them clear of the bullets. They caught up with Haru somewhere in the maze of stopped cars.

“Good to see you, Nick.” Haru dropped the Partial prisoner with a painful grunt. “My arm’s broken and Jayden’s is shot; take a turn with the mutt.” Scruffy looked behind, shrugged, and handed Haru his weapon. Before he could even pick up the prisoner, Haru shot him in the head. Kira yelped, Scruffy toppled to the ground, and Haru shot him again.

“What the hell are you doing?” Jayden shouted.

“I told you,” said Haru, “as far as I’m concerned, they’re both guilty. I’m not taking any more Partials home than I have to.”

“He saved us!” Jayden shouted. “He killed a Partial soldier!”

“That doesn’t mean anything,” said Haru, checking the assault rifle. “Now shut up and carry the prisoner.”

“He was also telling the truth about the group behind us,” said Kira, looking back. “I can see at least one soldier already. We’re not going to reach the other side in time.”

Jayden frowned. “If the cat’s out of the bag, we might as well catch some mice with it.” He clicked on his radio and started shouting as he shouldered the Partial. “Calling all personnel, repeat all personnel, there is a Defense Grid strike team crossing the Manhattan Bridge. Partials in pursuit, we are taking fire, repeat, human soldiers taking enemy fire. Request all possible assistance.” They were running now, Kira taking the lead and Haru following behind, turning and firing periodically to slow the Partials down. “Kira,” said Jayden, “switch my channel.” Kira clicked the knob on Jayden’s belt, and he repeated the message. “Calling all personnel, there is a human strike team taking enemy fire on the Manhattan Bridge. Request all possible assistance. Change my channel again.” Shots were coming toward them now, close enough to scare them into cover. They wove between the stopped cars, watching the ground for trip wires and other triggers, hoping desperately that Yoon had managed to find and mark them all. Haru fired back at the Partials, doing his best to keep them at bay; Kira chanced a look behind her and saw at least seven Partials in pursuit, and gaining quickly. Jayden ran out of breath, straining under the heavy prisoner, and Kira took over, repeating his message again and again in the hope that someone was listening. They caught up to Yoon far too quickly, and she shook her head grimly. “There’s no way we can keep ahead of them and still avoid the explosives. This bridge is a death trap.”

“I’m out,” called Haru, dropping the assault rifle and taking Jayden’s sidearm as they ran. “They’re getting closer.” A bullet glanced off the car in front of them, shattering the side mirror. “We’re not going to last much longer.”

“Calling all personnel,” Kira said again, barely keeping her breath as she clutched the radio, “there is a human strike force on the Manhattan Bridge taking—”

“I’ve got you in my sights, strike force,” the radio crackled back. “Please identify.”

“We don’t have time to identify,” shouted Kira. “We’ve got a Partial army behind us.”

“Jayden Van Rijn,” said Jayden, “sergeant second class.”

“There’s a large pylon tower about twenty yards ahead of you,” the voice crackled.

Kira looked up. “We see it.”

“Proceed straight forward on the outside lane, pass the purple car on the left, and go past that pylon. Take shelter behind the big red delivery truck.”

“Shelter from what?” asked Kira. The group jogged as fast as they could down the path they’d been given, each step lancing Kira’s exhausted muscles. “What are you going to do?”

“What do you think he’s going to do?” asked Yoon, pulling them down behind the Coke truck. “From what I’ve seen so far, this bridge has more C4 than steel.”

“You don’t mean—”

The bridge behind them exploded in a giant fireball, bright enough to sear Kira’s eyes even in the cover of the truck. The bridge lurched, cars flew into the air, and the force of the blast shifted the Coke truck ten feet forward, pushing the fugitives across the asphalt. Kira dropped the radio, covering her ears, and when the shock wave subsided, she staggered out to look.

Twenty yards behind them, beyond the nearest pylon, the bridge was gone. Chunks of steel and concrete dangled from support cables. The river beneath was a churning sea of fallen scrap. The Partials pursuing them had been vaporized.

“Maintain position,” squawked the radio. “We’re sending a team to pick you up, and you’d better have one hell of a good explanation for this.”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

“Well,” said Mkele. “It looks like we have another chance to chat.”

“Always a pleasure,” said Kira.

They were camped for the night in the lee of a freeway junction. After verifying that no more Partials were going to try to pursue over the remaining bridge, the Grid had reset the watch and Kira and her companions had been taken inland, as far as they could make it before nightfall. They were unchained, but a large group of Defense Grid soldiers were keeping a very close watch. The Partial was still unconscious, secured firmly to a heavy roadside barrier.

“Last time we spoke, Ms. Walker, we discussed a number of very important issues.” Mkele had arrived moments earlier on horseback, with a team of mounted rangers who quickly dispersed to strengthen the perimeter. He pulled her away from the others. “I apologize that I apparently did not make those issues sufficiently clear. Let’s start with the most obvious: It is considered very suspicious, and in fact highly treasonous, to enter Partial territory, consort with them directly, and bring one back into human territory.”

“I think you and I might have different definitions of ‘consort.’”

“What were you doing in Manhattan?”

“I’m a medic at the Nassau hospital in East Meadow,” said Kira. “I’m trying to cure RM, and my best chance of doing that was to obtain a Partial.”

“So you decided to just … go and get one.”

“I made the request through proper channels first,” said Kira. “You have no idea how medically valuable that thing could be.”

“I find it hard to believe that I need to spell out for you how dangerous this is,” said Mkele. “How idiotic it is. The bridge you blew up — do you honestly think that will keep them out? That any of our elaborate defenses are in any way deterring them from attacking us should they decide to launch an assault? There are a million of them, Walker, all better trained, better armed, and physically stronger than we are. We are only alive because the Partials have chosen not to kill us. And you may have just changed their minds, for all we know?” His voice was a furious roar. “And even if they don’t attack, do you have any idea how much of a threat this one Partial represents, all on its own? Our intel from the Partial War suggests that it was the Partials themselves who released RM — not technologically but physically, using their own bodies as living incubators. If that is true, every single one of them is potentially a doomsday weapon. Who knows what kind of biological weapons they could have cooked up in the last eleven years? Their mere existence is a threat to our species.”

“That’s all the more reason we should be studying them,” said Kira. “There could be a wealth of information in just a drop of their blood, and with a full complement of organs and tissues to study, who knows what we could learn? If they created RM, and especially if you’re right and they preserve or synthesize it in their bodies, they may very well hold the secret to curing it. You have to see that.”

“Your job is mankind’s future,” said Mkele. “My job is its present, and without the present there is, as I’m sure you’ll agree, no future at all. If your job ever comes into conflict with mine, mine takes priority.”

“That’s idiocy,” said Kira.

“It’s the truth,” said Mkele. “As a medic, you’re familiar with the Hippocratic oath: First, do no harm. First. There are approximately thirty-six thousand human beings left alive on the entire planet, and our first responsibility is to keep them alive. First. After that is taken care of — and only after that is taken care of — our job then becomes to ensure that we can produce more human beings to strengthen our position.”

“You almost sound sweet when you say it like that.”

“You risked the lives of five soldiers, a technical specialist, and a medic. Three of those soldiers didn’t return. And now I’m going to destroy this Partial anyway.”

“You can’t,” said Kira quickly. “We need it.” After everything we’ve been through to get this thing, I’m not letting you throw it away for nothing.

“I will allow you to take a blood sample,” said Mkele, “for the sole purpose of testing, in a controlled location far from any population center, should the Senate deem it allowable.”

“That’s not good enough,” said Kira. “We need the medical tests now — there are newborns dying every week—”

“I am tired of explaining why that is impossible.”

“Then interrogate it,” said Kira, trying to think of anything that would convince him to at least wait. “It was part of a larger unit, in a place where no Partials should be operating, and with some kind of contact inside our own military.”

“I’ve heard the report.”

“We need to find out why,” Kira insisted. “One of our scouts may have been a Partial—”

“Or he may simply have been interrogated in the field,” said Mkele. “A tortured soldier is a simpler explanation, and therefore a more likely one, than a widespread infiltration of our entire society.”

“They look exactly like us,” said Kira. “If I hadn’t watched two of them survive an explosion, I’d never have even known they weren’t human. Given how easy it would be, and how chaotic it was when we retreated to this island in the first place, we’d be idiots to not at least entertain the theory.”

“Partials don’t age,” said Mkele. “There’s no way one could live among humans for eleven years without being noticed.”

“Maybe not as a teenager,” said Kira, “but what about adults? What about you?”

“I assure you that everything is under control,” said Mkele, his voice more dangerous than Kira had ever heard it before. “Do not presume to tell me how to do my job, which thanks to you is now a thousand times more difficult.”

Kira closed her mouth, watching him, trying to gauge the situation. He was right about some of it — this had been stupid, and dangerous — but she was right too. This had to be done. She couldn’t just let him throw it all away now that the Partial was right here in their grasp. How far could she push Mkele? How could she get more than just a blood sample before they destroyed the Partial?

“Mr. Mkele!” Mkele and Kira turned to see one of the soldiers jogging toward them, waving his arm. “Mr. Mkele, we’ve received a coded call from the Senate.”

Mkele paused, glowering, then looked at Kira and pointed at her feet. “Don’t move.” He followed the soldier back to the radio, and Kira watched as he carried on an unheard conversation. At last he handed the radio back to the soldier and stormed back to Kira.

“Somehow the Senate has gotten word of what you’ve done,” he said darkly. “They want to see the Partial for themselves.”

Kira smiled briefly. “Isolde to the rescue,” she whispered.

“Don’t get too excited,” said Mkele. “Your team and that thing are both going to be questioned and sentenced in a formal Senate hearing. You will not enjoy it.”

Kira looked up, suddenly alert. Some of the soldiers were moving, grabbing their weapons while Jayden and Yoon and Haru watched warily from the side. Mkele looked around quickly, searching for what had alerted them, then stepped back with a start.

The Partial was moving.

It was leaning to the side, groaning softly. Mkele stayed back; the Partial was locked into four different sets of handcuffs, two of them chaining it tightly to a steel-and-concrete road barrier, but there was still a wide circle around it that nobody seemed willing to enter. Even at a distance Kira could tell that it was still groggy, struggling to wake up, but somehow it still seemed menacing. She felt for her rifle, remembered she’d been disarmed, and cursed softly.

The Partial drew its knees in toward its chest, then stretched out as far as its chains would let it. As soon as it reached the limit of the restraints it stiffened, and Kira saw its head jerk slightly as it fought against the sedatives.

Mkele whispered softly. “How recently did you sedate it?”

“Just a few hours.”

“How big of a dose?”

“Two hundred milligrams.”

Mkele stopped, staring at her. “Are you trying to kill it? It’ll asphyxiate.”

“It’s not straight morphine,” said Kira. “It’s Nalox — part morphine, part nanoparticle Naloxone. If the body loses too much oxygen, it synthesizes more Naloxone to reactivate the lungs.”

Mkele nodded. “You could stand to give it a little more, then. Its body can clearly take it.” He turned to his team. “Weapons ready, and clear away from the sides — this isn’t a mob execution.”

“It isn’t an execution at all,” said Kira. “You have to take it to the Senate — they said so.”

Mkele’s face was hard. “Unless it’s killed while trying to escape.”

“You can’t do that,” said Kira, glancing at the row of armed soldiers; they were waiting for any excuse to fire, their fingers practically twitching on their triggers.

Kira thought about Madison’s baby, about her haunted face.

“Aim,” said Mkele. Weapons clacked into place. The Partial moved again, coughing, its throat sounding raw and horrible.

Suddenly Haru leaped into the middle of the circle, standing at the Partial’s feet, and turned to face the firing squad. “You can’t kill it.”

“Get out of the way,” growled Mkele.

“This thing is my daughter’s only hope,” said Haru. “The Senate ordered you to bring it in alive.”

The Partial moved again, struggling to wake up. Half the soldiers stepped back, the other half surged forward, weapons searching for a clear shot around Haru. Haru cringed, gritting his teeth and closing his eyes, but he held his ground.

“That thing is a walking bomb,” said Mkele.

“Yes, it’s dangerous,” said Haru. “But this is the most important tool we have ever had in this war. We need time to learn everything we can.”

The Partial groaned again. The soldiers kept their guns up, ready for the order to fire.

Please, thought Kira, please don’t kill it. She summoned her courage, stepped forward, and planted herself beside Haru.

The Partial moved again, brushing against the back of Kira’s leg. She flinched and closed her eyes, half expecting it to rise up and kill her, but she held her ground.

Mkele stared at her, anger seething in his eyes. “Sedate it again,” he said at last. “Give it everything you’ve got. I don’t want it waking up again until we get it in a cell. We leave for East Meadow first thing in the morning.”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

“This hearing is now in session.”

Kira sat in the front row of the small Senate chamber, Jayden and Haru and Yoon sitting quietly beside her. They’d been given a change of clothes and a chance to wash up, but they were still under heavy guard. Kira felt the eyes of the whole city on the back of her head, but it was just nerves — there were no spectators, and if Mkele had done his job right, nobody even knew they were there. The soldiers present had been sworn to secrecy, the local guards had been sent away, and even most of the Senate was absent, leaving a committee of only five stern-faced politicians. Kira was grateful that Senator Hobb was among them; he never went anywhere without his assistant, and Isolde’s presence gave Kira strength.

Despite Kira’s discomfort, even the few people who were in the room weren’t looking at her — they were looking at the Partial, chained upright to a rolling metal rig in the center of the room. It was awake, and its eyes were watching everyone closely, studying them, waiting in silence for… Kira didn’t know for what. It was held in place with leather straps, handcuffs, chains, and even loops of rope and wire. Nobody knew exactly how strong it was — the restraints might be overkill, or they might be laughably inadequate. The room was rimmed with armed security just in case.

“You’ve got an interesting jury,” said Isolde, sitting by Kira’s side and whispering in her ear. She nodded toward the table at the front of the room. “Senator Hobb will be fair, and Dr. Skousen you already know; he tends to stay quiet during most Senate meetings, but with this whole medical angle you’ve got going on, I have no idea. Next to him is Cameron Weist, who I don’t know much about. He’s the new representative from the Grid base in Queens. The one in the middle is Marisol Delarosa, the Senate chair, and of course the harpy next to her is Xochi’s mom, the representative from the farms. I have no idea why she’s here. I’ve softened them up as much as I can, but just … be careful anyway. They’re not your biggest fans right now.”

Kira looked at Dr. Skousen. “I know.”

Senator Hobb tore his eyes away from the Partial and stood up. He was as handsome as ever, almost awkwardly so. “This hearing has been called for two reasons: the discipline of these four young adults, and the determination of what should be done with this… Partial. Senator Weist.”

“As the military representative on this council,” said Weist, “I’ll start with the most clear-cut matter. Jayden Van Rijn and Yoon-Ji Bak, please stand.” Jayden and Yoon rose to their feet. “You are charged with falsifying military forms, abandoning your assigned mission, disabling the defense system on the Brooklyn Bridge, entering enemy territory without leave, and engaging in unauthorized activities resulting in the deaths of three of your fellow soldiers. What do you have to say to these charges?”

“Guilty,” said Jayden. His face was grim and void of emotion. He stared straight forward.

Senator Weist looked at Yoon. “Private Bak?”

Yoon was silent, but Kira could see a tear in her eye. She swallowed and raised her head, standing as straight as she could. “Guilty.”

“The penalty for these crimes is harsh,” said Weist, “but the Defense Grid wishes to be lenient. You’re both young, and frankly, we can’t spare many trained soldiers. Even criminals.” Weist glanced quickly at the Partial — a split-second look from the corner of his eye — then picked up a sheet of paper. “In a private military tribunal held this morning, it was determined that Private Yoon-Ji Bak, as a subordinate in these activities, was following orders from her superior officer and is as such not culpable. Private Bak, you will return with me to Fort LaGuardia, where you will be reassigned. Please be seated.”

Yoon sat, and Kira could see that she was crying more freely now. She reached over and squeezed Yoon’s knee.

Weist looked at Jayden. “Lieutenant Van Rijn. Just as Private Bak’s rank makes her less guilty in this matter, your rank makes you more so. You’ve lied to your commanding officers, put civilians in danger, and gotten three of your own men killed. That they were volunteers and coconspirators doesn’t matter to us, and it shouldn’t matter to you — you were their leader, and now they are dead.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You are hereby dishonorably discharged from military service and remanded to the custody of the civilian court. The Defense Grid recommends a sentence of imprisonment and hard labor, but that is the court’s decision, not ours. Please be seated.”

Jayden sat, and Kira whispered softly from the corner of her mouth, “He’s a blowhole.”

“He’s right,” said Jayden softly, “and he was more than fair. By rights I should have been executed.”

“Well, don’t sound so eager.”

“Thank you, Senator Weist,” said Hobb. “We will now proceed with the civilian hearing. Private Bak, you’re excused.”

“I’ll sit with my friends, thank you,” said Yoon, and stayed in her chair. Senator Hobb paused, shrugged, and carried on.

“Mr. Haru Sato, will you please stand?”

Haru rose to his feet.

“That was a good move for Yoon,” said Isolde softly. “She’s showing solidarity with the rest of you — Senator Hobb eats that stuff up.”

“Will it sway any of the others?”

“I can’t be sure,” said Isolde.

“Haru Sato,” said Hobb, “at twenty-two years old, you are the oldest member of this group, and the only adult. What do you have to say for yourself?”

Haru’s eyes were as hard as steel. “Don’t patronize them, Senator.”

Kira heard a low murmur ripple through the court and did her best to hide her grimace. Haru, you moron, what are you doing? You’re supposed to be winning their favor, not antagonizing them.

“Would you like to explain that comment?” asked Senator Hobb coldly.

“You just punished Jayden for making a poor choice as a commanding officer, and yet you’re not going to call him an adult? Kira and Yoon are sixteen years old, an age you yourselves are currently debating as the new pregnancy age. You’re going to force them to have children, but you’re not going to call them adults?” He stared at each of the senators in turn, piercing them with his gaze. “I was eleven years old in the Break — I watched my father die in a Partial attack. I watched my mom and my brothers die two weeks later in a high school gym packed so full of refugees that RM went through it like a brush fire. I was the only person left alive in the entire city — I walked twenty miles, alone, until I found another group of survivors. I haven’t been a child since that day, Senators, and these three went through the same thing even younger than I was. They risk their lives for this society every day, they have jobs, and any day now you’re going to demand that they have children, too, and yet somehow you have the gall not to treat them like adults? This is not the paradise you lost in the Break, and it’s high time you accepted that.”

Kira listened with wide eyes. Way to go, Haru. You tell ’em. She leaned toward Isolde. “That ought to earn some respect.”

“For him, yes,” Isolde whispered. “It’s actually really bad for you. He’s trying to set you up as equals, to make sure this looks like a joint conspiracy of adults instead of one adult leading a group of minors. He could get a harsher sentence if they think he masterminded the whole thing. He doesn’t want to get slammed on your behalf like Jayden was for Yoon.”

“But that’s…” Kira frowned, looking back and forth between Haru and the senators. “But he sounded so noble.”

“It was brilliant,” said Isolde. “A conniving weasel like that is wasted in construction.”

“Very well,” said Senator Hobb. “Kira Walker, do you wish to be tried as an adult?”

Damn. Thanks a lot, Haru. She stood slowly and held her head high. “I made my own decisions, Senator. I knew the risks and I understood them.”

“You seem very certain of that,” said Dr. Skousen. “Tell me, Kira, what were you planning to do with this Partial once you caught it? How were you going to keep it contained? How were you going to address the threat of a new contamination?”

“I wasn’t planning to bring it back at all, sir. That was your idea.” She paused, watching Dr. Skousen’s brow grow dark with anger, wondering if she’d pushed him too hard. She forged ahead, glancing at the Partial; it looked back darkly, and she tried not to imagine how quickly it could break out of its restraints. “I was going to cut off its hand and test it in the field,” she said, “with a medicomp we brought to Brooklyn. There was never any threat to anyone until—”

“No threat to anyone?” asked Dr. Skousen. “What about the three men who died across the river? What about the two women of breeding age who almost died with them? Surely you of all people, with your job in maternity, understand the need to protect every possible pregnancy.”

“If you please, Doctor,” said Kira, feeling her face grow hot with anger. “We’ve asked to be treated like adults, not cattle.”

The doctor stopped short, and Kira gritted her teeth, forcing herself to keep her face as calm as possible. What am I doing?

“If you wish to be treated as an adult,” said Senator Delarosa, “I encourage you to keep a civil tongue.”

“Of course, Senator.”

“Can you tell us, for the record, what you expect to gain from your study of Partial tissue?”

Kira glanced at Dr. Skousen, wondering how much he’d already told them. “We’ve studied RM for years, but we still don’t know how it works. Everything that should be effective in abating it isn’t; everything that should inoculate us against it doesn’t. We’ve hit a dead end, and we need a new direction. I believe that if we study the immunity from a Partial perspective — not the chance mutation that keeps us from developing symptoms, but the engineered resistance that makes them wholly immune — we can find the cure we’ve been looking for.”

Senator Weist narrowed his eyes. “And you thought the best way to do this was to run screaming into the middle of enemy territory with no planning and no backup?”

“I asked Dr. Skousen for backup,” said Kira. “He made it clear I wouldn’t get any help from the Senate.”

“I made it clear that you should not attempt it under any circumstances!” roared Skousen, slamming his hand on the table.

“My friend is pregnant,” said Kira. “Haru’s wife; Jayden’s sister. If we’d done what you said, that baby would die, just like every other child you haven’t saved for eleven straight years. I didn’t study medicine to watch people die.”

“Your motives were admirable,” said Senator Kessler, “but your actions were stupid and irresponsible. I don’t think there’s any argument on that point.” Kira looked at her, seeing again — as she always did — a remarkable similarity between her and Xochi. Not in their appearance, of course, but in their attitudes: Adopted or not, Xochi had managed to grow up with Senator Kessler’s same stubborn, passionate zeal. “We have laws in place to deal with people who do stupid and irresponsible things,” she continued, “and we have courts in place to adjudicate those laws. Frankly, I find these criminals’ presence here a waste of the Senate’s time: I say we send them to criminal court and be done with them. This, on the other hand…” She gestured at the Partial. “We are in a hearing, and this is what I’d like to hear.”

“We have laws,” said Senator Hobb, “but I think this is fairly obviously a special case—”

Senator Kessler glared at Kira, who did her best to meet the look with as much dignity and resolve as possible. “I move that we send this criminal hearing to the proper court,” said Kessler, turning back to Senator Hobb, “and deal with the real problem instead.”

“I second,” said Skousen.

“And I object,” said Delarosa. “The presence of a Partial on Long Island, let alone right here in East Meadow, is of the utmost secrecy — we can’t allow anyone, and certainly not an investigative court, to know anything about it. We will speak to the Partial, and then we will decide what to do with the defendants.”

“I second,” said Weist.

“I have no objection,” said Hobb. Kessler paused, her face stern, then nodded.

Senator Hobb gestured for Kira and Haru to sit, then turned to the Partial. “Well. You have the floor now. What do you want to say?”

The Partial said nothing.

“Why were you in Manhattan?” asked Delarosa. She waited, but the Partial didn’t respond. She waited a moment longer, then spoke again. “You were part of an armed strike team making a temporary camp only miles from our border. What was your mission?”

The Partial remained perfectly silent.

“Why now?” continued Delarosa. “After six months of brutal rebellion and eleven years of complete absence — why are you back again?”

“Just kill it,” said Senator Weist. “We should never have brought it here to begin with.”

“Study it,” said Kira suddenly. She stood up, feeling all eyes on her again. This was her last chance — with the Partial refusing to talk, they’d lost what little reason they’d had to keep it alive. It would be dead in minutes. She had to make them see; she had to convince them not to throw this opportunity away. “Going out on our own was dumb, and there’s a million ways it could have gone wrong, and probably a million ways it could still go wrong, but look at what we’ve got: a live Partial, right there, just waiting to be studied. Punish us if you want — kill us if you want us killed — but somebody, please take advantage of this opportunity and study it. If I’m wrong, I’m wrong — that’s okay, the damage has already been done. But if I’m right, we can cure RM and finally start putting our society back together again. No more RM, no more Hope Act, no more Voice or armed rebellions — a unified society with a chance at a future.”

The senators stared at her a moment; then Delarosa called them together and they leaned in closely, whispering softly among themselves. Kira strained to listen, but couldn’t make it out. Every now and then one of them stole a glance at the Partial.

“That was good,” Isolde whispered. “I just hope it works. They keep staring at you, though, and that’s making me nervous.”

“Wait,” said Kira, “at me? I thought they were looking at the Partial.”

“Now and then,” said Isolde, “but mostly you. I don’t know what that means.”

The senators conferred a moment longer, and Kira could see that yes, their furtive glances across the room were looking past the Partial and straight at her. She swallowed nervously, wondering what punishment they were going to give her. Finally they leaned back, silent, and Senator Hobb rose.

“The Senate has reached a decision,” he said. “We have become convinced of the necessity for study: The Partials are immune to RM, and if we can discover the secrets behind that immunity, we may finally be able to find a cure. This Partial’s body may be the key to our survival, and it doesn’t appear to present any immediate threat when restrained and sedated.” He glanced at Dr. Skousen, straightened, and spoke in a loud, clear voice. “We are moving the Partial to a secure facility in the hospital, confidentially and under guard, where it may be studied and analyzed in detail. After five days, it will be dismantled and disposed of. As for the study, it will be conducted by you, Ms. Walker.” He looked at Kira; she was too stunned to read his expression. “You have five days. Use them well.”

Kira spluttered, still trying to process the information. “You mean I’m not arrested or … you’re giving me the body? You’re going to let me do my tests?”

“Not just the body,” said Dr. Skousen. “You can conduct better tests if it’s alive.”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

“It doesn’t make sense,” said Xochi. “My mother hates Partials — she would have killed that thing with her bare hands if they’d let her get close to it. Why do they want it alive?”

“Keep it down,” said Kira. She glanced out the window again, peering through a small gap in the shades. “If anyone hears you — if anyone even finds out that we told you — there’s going to be some serious hell to pay.”

“Mkele probably wants to try to interrogate it,” said Jayden. He and Haru started their sentences in hard labor the next morning, but the Senate had given them the night to gather their things. Haru was at home with Madison, but Jayden had come to Nandita’s place. Nandita was gone, off on another herb-collecting trip; Kira shuddered to think of the explaining she’d have to do when Nandita got back. She could take insults from people she hated, but it was the disappointment from someone she loved that always broke her down. She started tearing up just thinking about it and forced herself to think of something else.

“I think you may be forgetting a key fact here,” said Isolde. “Apparently Partials are smoking hot. If you’d have told me that before you left, I would have gone to Manhattan with you.”

“Come on, Isolde, that’s gross.” Kira grimaced.

“You saw it, same as I did,” said Isolde. “That thing is an Adonis. Do something for me: When you get to spend your five days alone with that genetic perfection, try to find time for a close physical examination. Just for me.”

“It’s not even human,” said Jayden.

“In what sense?” asked Isolde, continuing to bait him. “It’s got all the right parts in all the right places. If this is what Para-Gen was going for when they started making artificial people, now I’m even sadder that it went nuts and tried to kill us.”

“The questions in this hearing were nothing,” said Jayden, finally deciding to ignore her. “All slow-pitch softball. Tonight they’re going to put it in a subbasement somewhere, torture it, and learn everything they can. A night with some Grid soldiers in a soundproof room will take the fight right out of it.”

“Now you’re really turning me on,” said Isolde.

“Shut up,” said Jayden, and Xochi laughed.

“But why do they want me in charge?” asked Kira. “There are researchers with more experience than me, there are more skilled lab techs, there are—”

“I know,” said Xochi. “Anybody in that hospital would be better for this than you. No offense.”

“None taken,” said Kira. “That’s what I’ve been saying all night.”

“Right,” said Xochi. “So think about it: Why put your most junior student in charge of something that important unless you want to guarantee that it’ll go wrong? Or to use her as a scapegoat when the whole thing blows up in their faces?”

“I’m sure there’s a better reason than that,” Kira said, though at heart she wasn’t sure at all. She looked out the window again, scanning the dark street. Nothing.

“I don’t think he’s coming,” said Xochi.

Kira turned back quickly. “What? No, I was just … looking at the trees. At the open street that isn’t teeming with panthers and poison ivy.”

“The world across the line was pretty different,” said Jayden, nodding. “I don’t know how to describe it.”

“It’s because there weren’t any people,” said Isolde. “Manhattan’s gone more primal than Long Island because there’s never anyone scaring away the animals or stomping down the plants.”

Jayden laughed thinly. “There are forty thousand people on Long Island,” he said. “There used to be millions. Sometimes I think this island doesn’t even know we’re here.”

“It’s not just Manhattan,” said Kira, “it’s everywhere — we saw a panther in Brooklyn. We saw a baby antelope — a little antelope fawn, probably two months old at the most. Someday they’ll wonder where all those weird, two-legged animals went, and then they’ll take a drink from a river, and look up at the clouds, and then they’ll forget they were ever even thinking about us at all. Life will go on. There’s no point even leaving a record behind, because there will never be anyone, ever again, who can read it.”

“Somebody’s depressed,” said Jayden.

Xochi punched him in the arm. “Does anyone want some more home fries?”

“Ooh, me,” said Isolde, sitting up. “Forget extinction — I’m dying the day all our vegetable oil finally runs out.”

Xochi passed her the plate and stood up. “I’m sick of ‘Antonio, on His Bar Mitzvah.’ Any requests?”

“Phineas,” said Kira. “No — Nissyen. He always cheers me up.”

Xochi sorted through her basket of players, glancing quickly at the generator to make sure there was power. Isolde took a bite of potato and pointed at Kira with the other half, talking with her mouth full.

“I think you’re just spooked,” she said. “All joking aside, that thing almost killed you in the field, and now you have to work with it.”

“Not with it.”

“With it in the room,” said Isolde. “You know what I mean. I think it’s scary.”

“I think you’re scary,” said Xochi. She plugged in a music player — TO NISSYEN FROM LISA — and bubbly techno started playing in the background. “You’re the most elegant one of us,” Xochi continued, sitting next to Isolde, “and here you are flinging fried potatoes around like you’re an outlands street vendor.”

“I may be a little drunk,” said Isolde seriously, pointing at Xochi with her half-chewed fry. She raised her eyebrow. “Senator Hobb gave me some champagne.”

“Ooh la la,” said Xochi.

“Maybe beacuse the hearing went better than expected?” said Isolde. She shrugged. “I wasn’t going to say no.”

“But they didn’t get anything they wanted,” said Kira, sitting up straighter. “Four dumb kids forced them into…” She stopped. “Unless that’s what they wanted all along.”

“They wanted it alive?” asked Jayden. “They wanted you to study it?”

“I don’t know,” said Kira. “None of it makes sense.” She looked out the window. Still nothing.

“Doesn’t it make you a little suspicious, though?” asked Xochi. “If the Senate is running some kind of weird scheme here, how many other things are they doing that we don’t know about?”

“You’re being paranoid,” said Jayden. “What kind of horrible conspiracies do you think they’ve got going?”

“They’re hiding a Partial inside the city limits,” said Xochi. “If they’re capable of that, why not more?”

The room went quiet.

“Attacks against the farms,” said Xochi. “Accused Voices disappearing in the middle of the night. We accept these things because we think we know the reasons behind them, but what if we don’t? What if the reasons we’ve been told all along are just lies?”

“I’ve been Senator Hobb’s assistant for nearly a year,” said Isolde, “and I can guarantee you I’m not keeping any dangerous state secrets.”

“You’re defending the honesty of a group that you know, firsthand, is lying to the people of East Meadow,” said Xochi. “And they’re doing it too effectively to be first-timers. The only surprising thing about it is that any of you are surprised.”

“I think Xochi’s right,” said Kira. She felt a pit in her stomach, slowly growing deeper and darker as she thought through Xochi’s logic.

“Why are you so desperate to attack them?” asked Jayden. “Listen, Xochi, I’m sorry your mom is a bitch, but she’s not the entire Senate. And what about the Defense Grid? You’re talking about people who defend us and keep us safe — people who die in the outlands so that you can sit here with your monogrammed music players and your fancy foods and whine about how oppressed you are.”

“Not counting your own fiasco,” said Xochi hotly, “when’s the last time a soldier actually died in combat?”

“Last year, in the Voice raid on the Hampton farms.”

“And how do you know that was the Voice?” Xochi demanded.

“Why would they lie to us?”

“How do you know there wasn’t just some disgruntled farmer,” Xochi pressed, “who refused to send in his quota, so the Long Island Bloody Defense Grid went out to rough him up a little?”

“Why would they lie to us?” Jayden repeated.

“Because it keeps us in line!” Xochi shouted back. “Look at everything we go through — armed soldiers in the streets, invasive searches of everyone going in and out of the market; they’ve even started searching homes. The Senate says jump and we ask how high because they’ve convinced us the Voice will kill us if we don’t. Our boys go to war, our girls get pregnant, and we always do everything they say and it never changes anything. Nothing ever gets better. You know why? Because if it gets better, we don’t have to listen to them anymore.”

Kira flicked her eyes from person to person, shocked by the outburst. Everyone else seemed as shocked as she was.

Jayden grumbled and stood up. “You’re insane,” he said, walking to the door. “I’ve got better things to do with my time than waste it here.”

“Idiot,” Xochi muttered, and stormed into the kitchen.

Kira looked at Isolde, who looked back with wide, startled eyes.

“They’re not evil,” said Isolde. “I work with them every day — they’re just people. Hobb’s really trying to do his best.” She paused. “You should take your own gun tomorrow. We have no idea how strong the Partials are, or what they’re capable of. Do you have a handgun?”

Kira shook her head. “I’m a rifle girl, but that’s mostly just at home. It wouldn’t be very useful inside the lab.”

“I’ll give you mine,” said Isolde. “Town hall is swarming with soldiers, and you just became zookeeper to a hyperintelligent predator. You need it more than I do.”

Kira looked out the window at the empty street. “I guess we may as well go get it,” she said softly. “The party’s dead anyway.” She walked out with Isolde, paused on the porch, and waited a few long seconds before stepping down and leaving.

Marcus never came.

Dr. Skousen led Kira down a long hall. “This used to be a quarantine room,” he said, pointing toward the heavy steel door at the end of the corridor. “We haven’t used it for that, or for anything else, really, in years. The custodians spent all night cleaning it out. I’m afraid that the seals aren’t all as tight as we’d like them to be, but we’ve got the salvage crews working overtime looking for new medical supply stores and new hospitals and clinics — anywhere that might have the right kind of plastic for the doors and windows. We’ll be safe enough for now.”

And I’ll be locked inside with a Partial, thought Kira. She clutched her stack of vials and notebooks and other equipment, trying not to drop them as she matched Skousen’s brisk pace.

He lowered his voice, whispering covertly as they turned the final corner. “We’ve spent the night searching it for anything that could be a weapon, cleaning it, weighing it — anything that required it to be unrestrained. Now it’s strapped down, and it’s all yours.”

They reached the door, a seven-foot steel barrier flanked by two soldiers in helmets and body armor. One of them was Shaylon Brown, the private she’d met on the Asharoken salvage run, and he smiled as he turned to unlock the door. Kira looked at Skousen, keeping a tight grip on her precarious load of equipment.

“Anything else I need to know?”

“Learn everything you can,” he said gravely. “I didn’t want you to do this, and I still think it was idiotic to attempt, but now that we have one … this is a rare opportunity, and I honestly don’t know how long the other senators are going to allow it, five-day promise or not. Make sure you report everything directly to me, especially if you find something … ominous. The last thing we want is a panic.”

“Got it,” said Kira. “Well then.” She turned to the door, took a deep breath, and walked past the soldiers. “Thanks for keeping me safe, guys.” If you need me, I’ll be locked inside here with the monster.

The entryway was a short tube of clear, flexible plastic, with a soft electric hum from a grate on the floor — an electromagnetic grid designed to pull foreign particles from her shoes. There’s supposed to be a— She looked around for the air jets just in time to get blasted in the face by an artificial whirlwind, sweeping her clean and pulling dust and hair and other contaminants down to the same electric grid. She managed to keep her grip on her vials and papers, and when the air stopped, she pushed forward into the room itself.

The Partial lay on an operating table in the center of the room; it was strapped down tightly with thick leather restraints, and the table was bolted to the floor. It was awake, its eyes alert, watching her as she stepped into the converted room. The walls were lined with counters and medicomps and other equipment, all clean and well-lit. She had Isolde’s semiautomatic on her hip.

She’d never been more terrified in her life.

Kira stood for a moment, saying nothing, then crossed to the wall and set her things on a counter. The sample vials rolled free and she paused to gather them up, placing them one by one in a plastic rack. She swallowed, staring at the rack, willing herself to turn and face the Partial. It was nothing — it was one man, not even a man but a teenager, all alone and tied up. She’d faced it and others like it under far worse conditions only a few days before. And yet things felt different here; everything seemed off and out of place. A Partial in the wilds was an enemy, and she knew how to think about it, but a Partial here, in East Meadow, in the same room…

She saw a glint of light in the corner of her eye, and turned to see the lens of a small camera mounted in the corner. It was obviously new and out of place, mounted blockily on the wood of the counter with thick screws. She turned to scan the room and saw five more: one in each corner, and two higher up to get specific angles on both the Partial’s table and her own workstation. Mkele’s work, she assumed, and she felt some of her nervousness lift at the thought that he and his soldiers were watching her so closely. If the Partial tried anything, they’d see it and respond.

Kira let out a breath she didn’t realize she was holding. She couldn’t decide if knowing Mkele was watching made her feel more safe, or less. She walked past the bound Partial to the window.

She was on the second floor, looking out through a strip of tall trees to a wide parking lot full of sagging cars. Many of the parking lots in town were empty — not much business at the local restaurants while civilization was collapsing around you — but the hospital had been packed and overflowing eleven years ago, and their cars remained like ghostly reminders.

I need to take a blood sample, Kira told herself, forcing herself back to the task at hand. I need blood and tissue. I went all the way to a war zone to cut the hand off an enemy soldier, I can take a biopsy from the thing lying tied up fifteen feet away.

She walked back to the sample vials she’d brought with her — blood samples she’d taken from Marcus. Relics of her first attempt at studying RM, before Manhattan and the Partial and everything else. Before Marcus didn’t come. She still had all the notes she’d taken from the blood, full descriptions of platelet counts and white cell counts and glucose and electrolytes and calcium levels and the vast, terrifying mass of viral structures. Every human being was a carrier, poisoning their own children long after the Partials had disappeared. Were the Partials carriers as well? Was this whole catastrophe useless?

She breathed deeply, wiped her face, and turned to look at the Partial — not a faceless thing in a black visor but a man, a boy barely older than she was, tied to a table and stripped almost to nothing. With his shirt off, she could see his body was toned and muscular, not bulging like a bodybuilder but simply fit: strong and lean and capable. Genetic perfection, as Isolde had put it. Kira tried to summon her zeal from the fight in Manhattan, tried to imagine herself cutting off its hand for study. It had brown eyes, like hers. It looked back calmly.

Dr. Skousen had said that they’d washed the Partial, but Kira looked again and saw there were flecks of something around its face and head. She stepped closer, trying to get a better look, then closer again, peering at its face. It was flecks of blood, dried and black, ringing its mouth and eye and dotting its ear on the other side. She reached out to brush away its hair, paused with her hand halfway, and dropped it back to her side.

“I take it they beat you?”

The Partial said nothing, simply watching her through dark eyes. She could feel its anger like the heat from an iron stove, radiating out in waves. She steeled herself and reached out again, and this time the Partial turned on her suddenly, jerking its head and straining at its bonds. Kira jumped back involuntarily, her heart racing, and reached for her gun. She didn’t pull it out, merely felt it, solid and reassuring in her hand. She forced herself to calm down and stepped forward again, standing straight. After a moment she pulled out the gun anyway and held it up for the Partial to see.

“I was part of the group that captured you,” she said. “I’m not trying to threaten you, I’m just telling you how serious I am. We’ve got five days together, and if you want to spend them fighting, I am more than ready.”

It watched her, eyes cold and hard, as if studying her for any break it could use, any hole in her defenses it could slip through—

— and yet behind the cold eyes it was terrified. She could tell, just by looking at it, that it had never been this scared in its life. She took a step back, looking at the situation from its perspective: It was alone, a prisoner of war, beaten and chained and strapped down to an operating table, and now she was holding a gun on it.

Kira looked down at the gun in her hand and put it away. “In case you couldn’t tell, everyone here is pretty much terrified of you. We don’t know what you can do or how you work. For all we know, you’re a biological weapon with legs.”

She paused, waiting, but he stayed silent. She prompted him with her hand, but still nothing. She sighed. She wasn’t sure what she was waiting for from him.

He watched her closely, and she felt uncomfortably like a bug in a jar. Who was really studying who?

“Fine, then,” she said. “If you don’t want to talk, that’s fine. I don’t think I would in your situation either, frankly, but then again I don’t know if I could help myself. Humans are very social creatures; we like to communicate in order to feel—”

“You talk too much.”

Kira stopped, eyes wide. His voice was dry and hoarse from days of disuse — as far as she knew, it hadn’t said a word since they’d captured it, now more than fifty hours ago. She almost wasn’t sure she’d heard him right. The first human to communicate with another species in eleven years, she thought, and he tells me to shut up. When the initial shock wore off, she almost started laughing.

“Point taken,” she said, nodding. “But first let me explain what I’m going to do. Most of our tests here are going to be sensor-based, noninvasive stuff, looking at your organs, that sort of…” It closed its eyes, pointedly ignoring her, and she trailed off. “All right then, no medical explanations.” Kira walked to a side counter, rooted through the drawers, and came back with a sterilized glass tube and a handful of little instruments. “Let me at least warn you, though, this finger poker is going to hurt a bit — it’s nothing horrible, just a spring-loaded pin about two millimeters long. Are you going to let me use your finger, or are we going to fight again?”

He opened his eyes, saw the finger poker, and looked up at Kira’s face. After a long moment, he unrolled his fist and laid out his fingers.

“Thank you.” She shook a few drops of ethanol onto a ball of cotton and swabbed his index finger. His hands were firm and warm. The poker was about the size and shape of a dental floss container, and she pressed it against his fingertip. “Brace yourself.”

He barely flinched. The pin jabbed into its fingertip, and she pulled it away quickly, pressing a skinny glass tube against the wound. It slowly filled with blood, more slowly than usual, and she squeezed its finger, pressing out more. The flow stopped before she could even fill the tube.

“Your blood pressure might be low,” she commented, sealing up the tube with a frown. “Usually I can fill two vials on one finger. Unless…” She peered in closer, watching the blood in the tube as it started to congeal. She looked at its finger, prodding the hole gently. It had already sealed itself closed. “That’s amazing,” she whispered. She held the glass tube up to her eye; the blood was turning a rusty brown, firming up until it was capped on both ends by a small, solid scab.

She looked back at the Partial. It said nothing.

Kira’s first impulse was to poke it again, deeper this time, but she recoiled from the idea almost as quickly as she had it. She wasn’t here to torture it, and fast healing or not, it could still feel pain. Its flinch at the finger poker had been proof enough of that. She didn’t have the stomach to wound it just to watch how it reacted.

And yet … wasn’t that what the Senate wanted? Wasn’t that what she was here to do? She wouldn’t just go cutting him with knives, but they had told her to study him, and if the Partial resistance to RM was based on a powerful self-regenerative system, then she would have to test the limits of his healing power and determine how, if at all, they could use it for themselves. If she couldn’t find the answer elsewhere, she would have to look there.

Could it take a gunshot? What would happen to the bullet? Her gut warred with her scientific curiosity. She shook her head and set down the scabbed-over tube.

“I’m not going to torture you,” she said, going back to the drawers and retrieving a small plastic syringe and a short, sharp needle. “But I do have to get another blood sample. The medicomp needs liquid blood to give me a good picture of what’s going on in there, so if you scab over on instant contact with air, we’ll have to keep air out of the equation for as long as possible.” She fitted the syringe with the needle, found a tube of saline solution, and drew it in and out of the needle until she was fairly certain all the internal space had been filled with liquid. She swabbed the vein on the Partial’s inner elbow and held the needle above it. “Get ready for another poke.”

This time it didn’t flinch at all. She drew a cubic centimeter of blood and started to tape a cotton ball to the hole in its arm, but quickly realized that it was, of course, already healing over. She felt a little foolish and turned away, putting the entire syringe, needle and all, into the medicomp. The blood was still liquid. She stripped off her gloves and started tapping the screen, calling up blood tests and liver screens and everything else she could think of, triggering the “comprehensive scan” message that had identified the virus last time. With Marcus. She tapped yes and waited, practically holding her breath, while the medicomp catalogued the blood.

She hadn’t allowed herself to think about Marcus yet; she hadn’t ever really had time. Less than twenty-four hours ago she was still in the back of a Defense Grid truck, pulling into East Meadow for her secret hearing with the Senate. Marcus hadn’t come to Xochi’s last night — and she hadn’t gone to look for him — and then in the morning she’d come straight here. Was he still mad at her? Was she even still mad at him? Yes, she was — of course she was — but at the same time she could see his side. She knew now that he had been … what? Trying to protect her? She didn’t need to be protected, not when she was the only one trying to do something here. But was he right about RM — that it couldn’t be cured, and they were ruining their lives by trying? She couldn’t believe that, couldn’t even allow herself to think it. She was going to cure the damned thing, and that was all there was to it. But then what did she think she understood about Marcus?

That he was scared, and thought he was going to lose her. She could understand that. She’d been half convinced she was going to die herself.

The medicomp chirped, and Kira looked back at the screen. It had higher-than-average electrolytes in its blood, a glucose level that looked borderline diabetic, and a white cell count so high she couldn’t help but take its temperature, fearing an infection. It was 98.6 degrees exactly, just as she was. Maybe its physiology had a slightly different baseline of normal? The results that would indicate illness in a normal human patient, but as far as she knew, they were normal for a Partial. She copied the details down in her notebook, marking the anomalies she wanted to go back and study later.

But the most important part of the scan was what was missing after she’d gone through it all. It had no trace of RM whatsoever.

No RM. She looked up, ecstatic; the Partial was still lying on the table, staring silently at the ceiling, and somehow still managing to look dangerous. Anyone else in that position would look like they’d given up, but there was something about it — the tension in its muscles, the alert flicker of its eyes — that told Kira its mind was racing.

In that moment it didn’t matter. Kira felt like laughing — the Partial had no trace of RM in its blood, just like she’d predicted. Its body could destroy or expel the virus completely. All she had to do was figure out how.

She tapped the screen quickly, fingers dancing across the surface as she pulled up the files on the virus. Now that she knew the Partials didn’t carry it, she had to figure out how, exactly, the humans did — what was the infection process? It wasn’t enough to just say, “They got sick”; she needed to know how the virus traveled from person to person, and what happened when it got there, in precise microbial detail. She needed to watch the process in a human and in a Partial, to see how they differed. She pulled up the image of the virus again, the yellow-tinged blob that lived in the blood. You look like a balloon, she thought, but you killed 99.996 percent of the human race.

She needed to focus. What information did the file already have? Size, for one thing: four hundred nanometers. That was huge for this scale — definitely big enough to be stopped by a good air filter. She glanced across the room to the plastic tunnel by the door, wondering what kind of filter it used. A system like that should be able to stop a four-hundred-nanometer virus, she thought. Four hundred nanometers should keep it away from a fetus, as well; nothing that big should be able to cross the placental barrier. That could explain why the babies don’t get sick until after they’re born.

Kira paused, caught by a sudden thought. If the virus is big enough to be contained, why can’t we deliver infants in a contained environment? They scrubbed the room, they sterilized their tools, they wore gas masks — they did everything they could think of, yet the virus still got through.

I’m not the first person to ask that question, she thought. Marcus and Dr. Skousen both said that people have been researching this since the Break. That means there’ll be records somewhere of their findings. She called up the database files in the microscope, searching for studies of all their clean-room births, and found several. None had been successful, obviously; the rate of sickness and the onset of RM was virtually identical to that of normal births, as if the clean room had shown no effect at all. Attached to the records was another set of studies, this time focusing on the existence of an RM variant found only in the air. Kira opened this with interest — she knew that RM was airborne, of course, but the actual structure of the airborne virus was not exactly entry-level medicine, and they hadn’t talked about it yet in any of her classes. The report contained more images, similar to those in her blood sample but much smaller: between twenty-three and thirty-one nanometers. Kira frowned. Something that small would be almost impossible to catch, even with a clean room. She looked at the Partial, feeling a surge of her old anger.

“You made pretty damn sure we couldn’t get away from this thing, didn’t you?”

The Partial turned its head to look at her, and Kira felt like she could almost see the thoughts whirring through its mind. When it spoke, its eyes seemed almost … curious. “You can’t reproduce.”

“What?”

“That’s why you’re trying to cure RM. We don’t have children, so their absence didn’t seem odd at first, but you don’t have any, do you? You’re trying to cure RM because your children don’t survive it.”

Kira wanted to scream at it, to force it to acknowledge its own hand in their extinction, to attack it for daring to speak so matter-of-factly about something so terrible, and yet she stopped, one thought catching in her mind.

Did it not know the virus was still killing them? She knew she shouldn’t trust it, but it seemed like something it was just now understanding. It really hadn’t known. But if it hadn’t known, that suggested two very important things: first, that the Partials weren’t spying on them. The theories cropped up now and then, that Partials were hiding among them, infiltrating the island with deep cover spies. But if that were true, this one would already have known that human infants were dying. Its surprise meant they weren’t being watched.

Or if they are watching, she thought, they aren’t telling each other what they see.

The second thing it suggested was that the Partials — or at least this Partial in particular — did not know how RM worked. It hadn’t expected the virus to stick around, and presumably most of the Partials it interacted with thought the same. Were the Partial leaders hiding the information from their own soldiers, or did they not know either? And how could they not know the function of a virus they’d created? It was possible the virus had mutated; Kira shuddered at the thought of it. If something as deadly as RM was mutating, acting beyond its original parameters, who knew what it was capable of?

She supposed there was one way to find out how much he knew. “You,” she said, “Partial. What do you know about RM?”

It didn’t answer.

“Oh, come on,” said Kira, rolling her head back in frustration. “Are we going to go through this again? Can’t you at least say something?”

“Well, human,” he said, “you’re going to kill me in five days. I don’t see much of an incentive to say anything.”

Kira stormed back to the medicomp and threw herself into the chair, so angry she could hardly think. It was going to be killed because it had killed Gabe, and Skinny, and six billion other people. After everything it had done, every atrocity it had been a part of, how dare it have the temerity to imply that it was a victim?

The images on the screen seemed to swirl and blur; how could she concentrate with that thing lying twenty feet away? It was times like this when she needed Marcus to make a joke, to defuse the situation and help her realize what mattered and what didn’t. She looked at the door, but of course he wasn’t there. He didn’t even know where she was.

The Partial was right about one thing: She only had five days. She needed to work. She pushed the Partials out of her mind and forced herself to focus on the task at hand: a screen full of viral images, a series of reports on the viral structure. It had two forms, one for blood and one for air; the Blob and the Spore, the yellow and the blue. Concentrate! The Spore was tiny, perfect for traveling through the air. That must be how the virus passed from host to host. But then what was the Blob for?

None of the studies had the answer; they knew both forms of the virus existed, but not how they worked together. Kira turned back to the sample report from Marcus’s blood, combing through the results for any sign of the Spore. If it could get into the body, it would; there should be some sign of it in Marcus’s sample, but there was nothing. That meant that whatever happened to the Spore when it got into the body was happening very quickly, and leaving no trace.

That is, the Blob was the trace. Kira ran through the possibilities in her head: The virus obviously reacted to human blood and tissue — that was how it worked, using the host body’s own material to replicate itself — so maybe there was an extra layer of interaction. Maybe the Spore wasn’t designed to replicate itself at all, just to convert itself into the Blob and let that one replicate. It was weird, but it was possible. Whatever it does, thought Kira, it has to do it quickly: By the time we get a chance to test the blood, any samples of the Spore have all been converted. Kira ran her fingers through her hair, trying to figure out how to see the transformation in action. If she could get a sample of uninfected blood, and get it into the medicomp fast enough, she’d be able to study the actual process of infection. But where could she find uninfected human blood?

In the newborns. There were four pregnant women in the city due to deliver in the next week, and several samples beyond that if one of the other mothers delivered early.

She would put a request in to Dr. Skousen, just to see what he said. They always took blood samples at birth, but they usually didn’t test those samples for several minutes while they dealt with other problems — most blood samples aren’t this time-sensitive. If Kira’s theory was correct, they’d have to test the blood immediately if they wanted to see this specific reaction.

The next question was the more difficult one: If the Blob came from transformed Spores, where did the Spores come from? Did the Blob create them, or did it transform back? Observing that change would be difficult, because she had no idea how it worked, and thus how to re-create it. Obviously the transformation couldn’t happen in the blood, because it would reverse itself instantly. The lack of any Spore samples in Marcus’s blood attested to that. In the lungs, then? Does the Blob react to oxygen the same way the Spore reacts to tissue? It was the simplest answer, which made it the best place to start. But how could she test it?

I need to isolate the virus first, she thought. She looked around the room for something that could trap the tiny virus, and her eyes fell on a box of latex gloves. She remembered how she and Marcus used to inflate them in school, pinching them almost closed and blowing them full of air. If the virus transformation really did happen in the lungs, her breath would be full of it. And if a rubber glove will hold oxygen, it’ll contain the virus too, at least long enough to take a look at in the medicomp. She walked to the rubber gloves, held one to her mouth, and blew it up like a balloon. Now what? She stood in the middle of the room uncertainly. Would the medicomp be able to read anything through the rubber? Probably, even if she felt stupid shoving an inflated rubber glove into the sensor bay. But there was another problem, which was that whatever she did with her own breath, she’d have to do the same with the Partial’s breath as well. Both tests needed to be the same, or the results wouldn’t mean anything, and she was pretty sure the Partial wouldn’t blow up a rubber glove. She let the glove deflate. She’d have to think of something else.

“We were winning the war,” said the Partial softly. Kira still started when it spoke, not expecting to hear anything from it.

“What?” Kira stared at it, then shoved the glove into her pocket. “Why the hell are you bringing that up?”

“Because you think we created the virus; that’s why you’re studying me as part of your mission to cure it. You think we engineered it.” It shook its head. “We didn’t.”

“Obviously I expect you to lie to me,” said Kira, “but I was hoping you’d be a little more creative.”

“It’s the truth.”

“It is not true!” she shouted. The Partial didn’t respond, simply watched her from the table. Its eyes were dark and serious. “You attacked us, you killed us, and you released that virus to finish the job.”

“We were winning the war,” it said again. “We were the largest branch of your military, so there was no effective way for you to fight back; we struck quickly, we took out your communications, we crippled your counterattack. You had no way of stopping us. In another few weeks, maybe as few as two, we would have taken full control of the government, and we would have done it without losing the infrastructure your society had created — electricity, natural gas, shipping and industry and food production—”

“Was that your plan?” asked Kira bitterly. “To use us as slaves? As labor to maintain your infrastructure?”

“You mean the same thing you had done to us?”

Kira stared at it, anger rising up by the second, hot as a welding torch burning through her from inside. She pulled the glove back out of her pocket, stalked to the medicomp, and threw the glove into the hazmat can.

“We didn’t want to enslave you,” said the Partial. “Even if we did, we didn’t want or need to kill you to do it. There was no purpose, tactical or political or otherwise, in releasing a killer virus.”

“You expect me to believe that a perfect supervirus, which destroyed humans and left you unscathed, was coincidentally released in the middle of your attack — and that you had nothing at all to do with it?”

“I admit that it seems far-fetched.”

“Far-fetched is an understatement.”

“We’ve been searching for an explanation ever since,” it said, “but we still don’t know where it came from.”

“I don’t know why I am even talking to you,” said Kira. It was crazy to think she was putting any credence in anything it said — and she was crazy to be listening to it at all. She turned back to the medicomp, staring angrily at the images and data, but she couldn’t stop herself from glancing at the Partial, first once, then again. It knew something. If she could see through its lies, perhaps there was something useful in what it was saying. Everything it said was flat and emotionless, almost as if it didn’t, or couldn’t, care. She swiveled fully toward it, leaning forward in her chair. “All right,” she said, “since you’re in such a talkative mood: Why were you in Manhattan?”

It said nothing. She waited, staring at him, and asked again in frustration, “What was your mission? Why were you so close to our border?”

“I can’t tell you.”

“Why not?”

The Partial stared at the ceiling. “Because I don’t want them to kill me.”

CHAPTER NINETEEN

It was nearly midnight when Kira left the hospital, and she shivered slightly in the cool air — summer or not, night on Long Island could still get chilly. The Partial had refused to say any more, and Kira was half grateful: As desperate as she was to know what he was talking about, she was also scared. If what it knew was so dangerous that even talking about it would get it killed … she shivered again, just thinking about it.

Instead, she’d spent the day buried in the medicomp files, studying the virus: its specific structure, the proteins that made up the walls and receptor nodes, the genetic payload it carried inside. The hospital had some incredibly advanced genetic equipment, some of the same old devices they had once used for genetic modification — everything from curing diseases to changing eye color — but all the people who knew how to use them had died in the Break. It was ironic, in a way, that they had such incredible technology, from a time so recent, that no living person could understand. Sometimes Kira almost thought of them as magic: mystic artifacts from some forgotten civilization. Dr. Skousen and his researchers studied them in darkened rooms, surrounded by the ancient tomes of their craft, but the magic was gone. They could find the genetic coding in RM, but they couldn’t change it or even read it. All they could do was watch, and guess, and hope for a breakthrough.

Kira had found no breakthroughs. There were four days left.

She walked slowly through the city, eager to go home and collapse into sleep but still aimless, in a way, as if her brain were too tired of focusing, and wanted simply to meander. She followed it through the darkened city, passing quiet houses and cracked sidewalks and dirty roads beaten smooth by traffic. At night East Meadow seemed almost as empty as the outside world — the omnipresent plant growth was kept in check by the sheer mass of people and animals, but the houses were just as dark, the streets just as empty, the world just as quiet. In the daytime the city was populated but sparse; in the night, it was just another part of the ruin that covered the world.

Kira rounded a corner and realized where she was — where she’d been walking, subconsciously, since the moment she left the hospital. Marcus’s street. She stood on the corner, unmoving, counting down the houses five, four, three, two, one and then his on the right. He’d lived with an older man for several years, then moved in with another foster parent when the first man died, and when he turned sixteen he moved out into his own place. It was no big deal, moving; all you had to do was find a house in good condition, clean it up, and there you were. The owners were all dead, the banks were all defunct, there were more than enough for everyone to have two, five, even ten houses if you wanted them. Long Island had been home to millions of people. The old world had been consumed with the search for More Stuff. Now there was more stuff than anyone could ever use, and little or none of anything else.

Kira saw a gleam of yellow light, faint and distant. She paused, squinting, and saw it again. It was definitely Marcus’s house. Why was he up this late? She walked forward, stepping carefully over the tree-root cracks in the buckled sidewalk, keeping her eyes on the flickering light. It was a candle, shining softly through the window. She stopped on the lawn in front, peering in at the room beyond: a candle, a chair, and Marcus, asleep sitting up. The walls were bare, marked with the nails of somebody else’s photos, now pulled down or stored or thrown away. She watched Marcus for an endless moment, and then suddenly he was watching her, his head raised, his eyes open.

He sat still, watching with wide eyes, waiting for her to move. She stood still and watched back.

The candle flickered.

Marcus stood up and disappeared behind the frame of the window, and then the front door opened. Kira was running up the porch steps before she even knew what was happening, and when Marcus appeared in the doorway, she threw her arms around him, sinking her face into his chest. He caught her tightly, holding her close, and she closed her eyes and soaked him in: his strength, his smell, his presence, as recognizable to her as her own. He’d been a part of her life for as long as she could remember; he was more real than anything in the old world. That was the life she’d been born in, but this — East Meadow, Marcus, even RM — was the life she lived. She held him close, raising her face and finding his. Their lips met in a long, fierce, desperate kiss.

“I’m sorry I didn’t go with you,” Marcus whispered. “I regretted it every day you were gone.”

“You could have died,” said Kira, shaking her head and then kissing him again.

“But I should have been with you,” he said, his voice hard. “I should have been there to protect you. I love you, Kira.”

“I love you too,” she said softly, but a voice in the back of her head said, You didn’t need to be protected.

She ignored the voice, shoving it away. Right now, all she wanted in the entire world was to be in his arms.

“You got one, didn’t you?”

Kira paused, not wanting to talk or even think about the Partial, then nodded. “Yeah.”

“The rumors are going around. Everybody knows the Grid brought something back from the west end of the island, but nobody knows what. It wasn’t hard for me to put two and two together.”

Kira felt a wave of tension creep back through her body, remembering how tense the city had been before she’d left it. How close the people were to civil war. “You think anyone else has figured it out?”

“I doubt it,” said Marcus. “Bringing a Partial into the middle of East Meadow is not exactly the first thing that’s going to leap into anyone’s mind.”

“Maybe not the first,” said Kira, “but the second, or the fifth, or the twentieth. Someone might figure it out.” She felt suddenly cold, pulling away from Marcus to rub her arms. He put a hand on her back and led her gently inside.

“We have plenty of other things to worry about,” he said, uncharacteristically somber. “There was another Voice attack while you were gone, a big one. They raided the kennels and killed or kidnapped almost every trained dog the Grid had. Now we can’t—”

Kira stopped and grabbed him by the arm, her heart pounding. “The kennels? Isn’t that where Saladin worked?”

“The boy wonder,” Marcus nodded, “the youngest human on the planet. They took him when they took the dogs, and half the people working with him. It was a pretty big blow, psychologically. Without the dogs we can’t track the Voice through the wilderness anymore, but without Saladin … it’s like they came in, kicked a puppy, and stole a baby. A lot of people are calling for an all-out war.”

“Why would they do that?” asked Kira. “Obviously it was going to make people mad — it’s almost like they went out of their way to piss us off. It’s certainly not going to win them any new supporters. Maybe they’re trying to start a war?”

“They might be holding him for ransom,” said Marcus. “He’s a pretty big bargaining chip, and they left a note.”

“A note?”

“Well, technically they tagged the kennel with twenty feet of graffiti, but still. The message was clear, the same as it’s always been: ‘Repeal the Hope Act.’”

Kira pushed her way through the plastic tunnel. “Good morning.” She said it without thinking, then paused, wondering why. When had she started to think of it as a person?

The Partial, of course, said nothing. It didn’t even seem to react when it heard her, and Kira wondered if it was asleep. She crept closer, trying to stay as quiet as she could, but the Partial groaned and coughed, rolling his head to the side and spitting.

“What are you—” She froze.

The spit was red with blood.

Kira dropped her files and rushed to his side, gently lifting his head. His face was black with bruises and crusted blood.

“Holy crap, what happened to you?”

He groaned again, slowly blinking his eyes open. “Blood.”

“Yeah,” said Kira, running to the cupboards to look for towels, “I can see you’re bleeding, but why? What happened?”

He didn’t say anything. He tilted his head, popping the joints in his neck, then held up his right arm; it moved about three inches before the restraint jerked it to a stop. He had been given a change of clothes, and Kira pulled back his sleeve to reveal an arm covered with thin lacerations, tender and pink. “They cut me.”

Kira’s mouth dropped open in horror. “Who?” The horror turned to anger almost instantly. “Who was it? The guards? Doctors?”

He nodded slightly, and probed his mouth with his tongue, making sure all the teeth were still in place.

“That’s ridiculous,” said Kira, fuming. She stomped to the microscope, snarled, and stomped back. Everything she’d thought about doing, and rejected for being inhumane, someone else had come in and done. She shot a long, cold glance at one of the cameras, an unblinking eye that stared back without emotion. She wanted to smash it, but took a breath and forced herself to calm down. Getting angry wasn’t going to solve anything. I’m trying to be the good guy here, but … is coddling the Partial really “good”? Would I be serving humanity better by testing his limits? She walked to her desk and sat down, still staring straight ahead. I don’t even know what to do.

She hung her head, and while looking down she saw the crumpled rubber glove in the garbage can. The breath test — she still needed to find a way to isolate the Partial’s breath so she could search it for samples of the airborne RM. The Spore. She still hadn’t found a good way to do it. The rubber gloves would work, she was pretty sure, but only if the subject was willing. She glanced at the Partial, grim and silent on the table.

She stood, pulled out another rubber glove, and walked slowly to the table.

“Do you have a name?”

The Partial eyed her carefully, that slow, studying look that made her feel like he was calculating everything about her.

“Why do you want to know?”

“Because I’m tired of calling you ‘Partial.’”

He studied her a moment longer, then smiled, slowly and warily. “Samm.”

“Samm,” said Kira. “I have to admit, I was expecting something more unusual.”

“It has two Ms.”

“Why two Ms?”

“Because that’s what it said on my rucksack,” said Samm. “‘Sam M.’ I didn’t realize the M was for a last name: I was two days old; I’d never met anyone with a last name. I was just… Samm. I spelled it that way on a report, and it stuck.”

Kira nodded and crouched down next to him. “Samm,” she said, “I know you have no reason to help me, no reason to do anything I say, but I want you to understand that this is very important. You guessed yesterday that RM is still a big concern for us, and you were right. Everything I’m doing here — everything we’re all doing — is to find a way to cure it. That’s why we were in Manhattan, because nothing we have left here on the island was giving us any answers. I don’t know if that’s important to you in any way, but it’s incredibly important to me. I’d give up my life to find a cure. Now I know this sounds weird, but I’m going to ask you a favor.” She paused, almost talking herself out of it, then held up the rubber glove. “Will you breathe into this?”

His eyebrow went up.

“I need you to inflate it,” she explained. “That will allow me to isolate your breath sample and study it in the medicomp.”

He hesitated. “Tell me your name.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m tired of calling you ‘human.’”

She cocked her head, looking at him. Was that a joke? His voice was still as flat and unemotional as ever but there was something almost playful behind it. Was he reaching out to her? Testing her? Behind it all, that calm, calculating look never left his eyes. Whatever he was doing, he must have more than one reason for doing it. She pursed her lips, thinking, and decided to go along with it. “My name is Kira.”

“Then yes, Kira, I will inflate your rubber glove.”

She held it to his lips, feeling his breath on her hand, then clamped it down tight while he blew strongly into the glove. It took a couple of tries to get the seal right, but soon she had a small breath sample and pinched the glove off tightly. “Thank you.” She put the glove in the medicomp sample bay, feeling only slightly ridiculous, then closed the chamber and started flicking through the screens. The scope began the long process of finding as many structures as it could, saving them for Kira to look at.

Almost immediately, a small message popped up in the corner of the screen — the scope had found a “partial match” to something in its database. Kira shook her head. No pun intended, right, microscope? A moment later another one popped up, then two more, then four more, partial match after partial match. Kira pulled up the image and found a bizarre protein construct, completely new and yet, like the scope said, very familiar. She peered closer. There were dozens of matches now, climbing swiftly toward the hundreds. Something in Samm’s breath looked very similar to — but not exactly like — the RM Blob. Kira’s fingers flew across the screen, magnifying the image, rotating it, pulling it apart. It was remarkably close to the blood-borne version of RM — a similar size, a similar shape, even some of the same nodes and receptors on the surface. It wasn’t exactly RM, but it was close enough to make Kira shiver. The few small differences were the most terrifying part, because they meant it was new. A new strain of the virus, perhaps.

And Samm was breathing it out.

Kira looked up at the ceiling, moving her eyes from corner to corner. She thought about calling out, or just running out of the room, but she paused. I need to think this through. First of all, she wasn’t sick; she had no symptoms, no discomfort, no signs of any pathogenic attack. She peered closer at the screen, studying the object: It looked like RM, but it didn’t look like a virus. A virus would have a core particle in its center, a little packet of genetic information that entered a host cell and corrupted it, but the thing in Samm’s breath didn’t have one. She searched it carefully, using her fingers to peel back the layers of the image, examining the structure in detail. As nearly as she could tell, this new particle didn’t have any way of reproducing itself. It was like a nonvirus version of the virus.

Whatever it was, the thing had given Kira something to concentrate on. She cross-referenced the image with the others in the database, searching for any sign of its purpose or function. Two possibilities immediately suggested themselves, and she jotted them down on her notepad: first, that Samm’s body could, at one time, produce the Blob, and that somehow that ability had been removed or reduced, leaving only this inert, nonviral structure. It was a vestigial particle, like the human appendix: the evidence of a previous function. Kira thought about that, staring at her notepad. Is this how the Partials spread RM? Did they just breathe it out and kill everyone? But then how did that function go away — what flipped the switch and made the deadly virus turn inert? The Partials are engineered, she thought. A switch like that, and the power to flip it on and off, could have been built right into them. But who holds the key to flipping it?

Kira shuddered, the ramifications twisting her stomach into queasy knots. And yet her second guess about the particle seemed even worse: that the particle in Samm’s breath was a precursor to the active virus, designed to transform on contact with human blood and become the deadly Blob. Was that the secret of Partial immunity? A virus that couldn’t even arm itself until it found a human target? That was the worst possible situation for Kira, because it meant there might be nothing she could use — no defensive mechanism she could copy from the Partials to help fight off the virus. If RM targeted humans, specifically and directly, then the only defense against it was to not be human anymore.

Maybe the only way to survive was to be a Partial.

Kira shook her head, throwing down her notepad and shoving the thought from her mind. She couldn’t think like this — she wouldn’t think like this. There had to be something in the Partial genetic code that rendered RM inert, and there had to be a way to copy it and apply it to the human genetic code. And she was going to find it. The only thing this proved for certain was that what Samm had said yesterday was true: The Partials did have a connection to RM, at a very basic level. But what was it?

She tapped on the screen, opening the particle’s profile information to give it a name. The blood-borne form was the Blob, because it was fat; the airborne was the Spore, because it was, presumably, how the virus spread. This new one she labeled the Lurker, because it didn’t have any obvious function at all. It simply sat and waited, presumably, for the right time to strike.

“You’re not going to find what you’re looking for.”

Kira started again; Samm had a funny sense of timing. But she was curious. “And how do you know what I’m looking for?”

“You’re looking for a solution.”

“I’m looking for a cure.”

“The cure is only part of it,” said Samm. “You’re looking for a solution to your problems: rebels, plagues, political unrest, civil war. You’re scared of everything, and to be fair, everything in your lives is pretty scary. You’re looking for a way to move past it, to bring your lives back together. But you’re not going to find the answers simply by curing RM. And you know it.”

He’s been listening to us, thought Kira. A lot of that he could have picked up from the hearing, but not all of it. Not the Voice, certainly. But he’s been paying attention, and he’s figured it out. Her first thought was to stop talking, to make sure the Partial couldn’t glean any more info. And yet, he was tied up and had four days to live. How could deducing an impending civil war possibly help him to escape?

She felt trapped in the room and marched past Samm to open the window for air. It wouldn’t budge. She strained against it as hard as she could, muttering curses at the Senate for locking her in, then remembered that this was ostensibly a sealed room, and felt stupid for even trying to open the window, which only made her curse more harshly.

“We don’t want you to die,” said Samm.

“Then why did you kill us?” Kira whirled to face him, feeling her face grow hot and red.

“I told you, we didn’t create RM.”

“What I found in your breath suggests otherwise.”

If that was news to Samm, he didn’t show it. “If we wanted you dead, you would be dead,” said Samm. “That’s not a threat, it’s a fact.”

“Then what do you want from us?” Kira demanded. “Why did you keep us alive? What are you planning? Is this why you were in Manhattan?”

He hesitated for a moment. “You seem like you’d do anything to ensure humanity’s survival. How far are you willing to go?”

“What are you talking about?” she asked. “What are you suggesting?”

He glanced at the corner, to a camera she knew was watching and listening to everything they said. He closed his mouth and looked at the ceiling.

“No,” said Kira, leaning over him, “you can’t just say something like that and then clam up again. Why did you even start talking if you’re not going to finish?”

He didn’t answer; he didn’t even look at her.

“Is this what you were talking about yesterday? That you can’t tell us because you don’t want to die? I’ve got news for you, Samm: You’re going to die anyway. If you’ve got something to say, say it. You were in Manhattan for a reason; are you saying it had something to do with RM?”

She waited there for a full minute, but he stayed silent, and she turned angrily back to the window, slamming the pane with her hand. The sound of the slam echoed back, but distantly. That was weird. She frowned, peering at the window, and hit it again, wondering what had caused the sound. Nothing happened. She leaned in closer, and suddenly a loud string of rapid pops drifted in from the city beyond. She looked out, trying to see what the noise could possibly be, and saw a plume of smoke rise up from somewhere beyond the trees. It couldn’t have been more than a few blocks away. The popping continued, short bursts of rapid, rhythmic noise, but it wasn’t until she saw people running that she realized what it was.

Automatic gunfire. The city was under attack.

CHAPTER TWENTY

“The Voice,” said Senator Weist. Kira was packed into a hospital conference room with Mkele and the same five senators she’d met at her hearing, and the atmosphere was more tense than she’d ever felt it. “They hit the Senate building. It was the biggest strike team yet — at least forty insurgents, maybe more — and we didn’t take a single one of them alive.”

“What if we’d been there?” demanded Hobb. His wavy hair was limp and sweaty, and his face was pale as he paced restlessly through the room. “We don’t have enough guards for this—”

“The Senate was not their target,” said Mkele. “With no meetings in session, and no senators on site, they attacked during the lightest possible guard rotation. Their purpose was obviously to get inside with as little resistance as possible.”

“So it was a robbery?” asked Delarosa. “It still doesn’t make sense. Everything we store in the Senate building they can get more easily just scavenging the outlands.”

“They were looking for the Partial,” said Mkele. The room went quiet. “Rumors are already going around. That’s why I’ve invited Ms. Walker to join us.”

“One of the soldiers talked,” said Senator Kessler, “or Kira did. We never should have trusted her.”

Kira started to protest, lining up her best and most horrible insults for Kessler’s smug face, but Mkele cut her off.

“If Kira had talked,” he said, “they would have known to attack the hospital. I think it’s more likely that the Voice didn’t know what we had, just that we probably had something; they obviously didn’t know where it was. Even the message they spray-painted on the building was vague: ‘The Senate is lying to you. What are they hiding?’ If they’d known what we were hiding, don’t you think they would have said it?”

“Only if they wanted to start a riot,” said Weist. “News of the Partial would incite nothing less.”

“A riot might be their only plausible goal at this point,” said Delarosa. “The only way for them to create enough unrest to stage a coup.”

“Given how little we actually lost,” said Mkele, “this attack helped us more than it hurt us. The information they apparently had, combined with the information they obviously didn’t have, gives me a valuable estimate of their intelligence network.”

“That’s great now,” Hobb sneered, “but what about before the attack? How did our secret get out? If you’re so brilliant, why didn’t you stop any of this from happening?”

“If you had any delusions that this was going to stay a complete secret in a community this small, you were fooling yourself,” said Mkele. “I advised against the Partial’s presence from the beginning.”

“We made our decision based on your assurances,” said Kessler. “If there’s a leak in the Defense Grid, you need to find it—”

“We knew exactly what we were getting into,” said Delarosa. “If our plan with Ms. Walker carries through, every attack will have been worth it. The potential benefits outweigh the obstacles.”

“If it works,” said Kessler, throwing a sharp glance at Kira, “and if the Voice don’t launch a consummate attack before we’re done. That’s a lot of ifs.”

They’re talking about my work as if they’re the ones doing it, thought Kira. Her first impulse was to protest, but she held back. No. If they think we’re working on this together, that means they’re invested in the outcome. They’re supporting the project. It doesn’t matter who gets the credit as long as somebody finds a cure.

“A lot of ifs,” Hobb continued, “and all it takes is one of them to go wrong and suddenly we’re traitors and war criminals. Weist is right about the riot: If word gets out that we’ve got a Partial in custody, no one’s going to wait for an explanation. They’re going to smash everything in sight until they find it, and then they’re going to destroy the Partial, too.”

“Then we have to move it,” said Skousen. “The attack on the town hall was highly destructive; if they do the same at the hospital, it puts too much at risk — the patients, the facilities, even the structure itself.”

“But we can’t move him,” Kira insisted. “The Nassau hospital is the only facility on the island with the resources we need for the study. Nowhere else even has the equipment.”

“The best scenario is to say nothing at all,” said Mkele. “Senator Weist’s initial reaction was correct, according to my simulations: If word gets out that we’re hiding a Partial in the middle of East Meadow, the public outcry will be passionate and violent. People will riot, or defect to the Voice en masse. I recommend we double the police patrols and triple the guard at the Senate.”

“Why complicate things?” asked Kessler. “We should just execute the thing and be done with it.”

“There’s still a lot we can learn—” said Kira, but froze when Kessler shot her a furious glance. What is that woman’s problem?

“I agree,” said Mkele. “What we need to decide is whether or not the things we stand to learn warrant the risk of this secret getting out. Ms. Walker, can you give us a report of your progress?”

Kira glanced at him, then back at the panel of senators. “We finish the five days,” she said quickly.

“We want a report,” said Delarosa, “not an opinion.”

“The tests have already revealed priceless medical data,” said Kira. “Even the first blood test alone told us more about Partial physiology than we’ve ever known before. He has an advanced platelet system—”

“It,” said Dr. Skousen.

Kira frowned. “I’m sorry?”

“‘It’ has an advanced platelet system,” said Skousen. “You are talking about a machine, Kira, not a person.”

Kira scanned the room, seeing the senators’ eyes filled with a mixture of distrust and anger, all aimed at her because she was speaking on behalf of their enemy. She couldn’t afford that attitude, not while they were deciding how quickly to kill him. When had she started calling it “him” anyway? She nodded obediently and looked at the floor, trying to appear as unthreatening as possible. “Sorry, just a slip of the tongue. It has an advanced platelet system that allows it to heal cuts and other wounds at an exponential rate — several times faster than a healthy human.”

Weist shifted in his seat. “And you think its … advanced healing abilities might hold the secret to curing RM?”

“Possibly,” said Kira, though in her mind it seemed unlikely; she had to make this sound as positive as possible. “Even more likely is something I found this morning.” She was exaggerating this part as well, but she needed to buy more time. “The Partial’s breath contains traces of neutralized RM.”

The senators made a chorus of surprised noises; Hobb even smiled. Kira could tell they were happy, and plunged ahead. “I was analyzing the Partial’s breath to see if I could find evidence of the airborne virus, what I’ve labeled the Spore, but instead I found an inert, nonviral form of the blood-borne virus. It literally looks exactly like someone took an RM sample and stripped all the functional viral portions of it away — it can’t reproduce, it can’t spread, it can’t do anything. It’s the surest evidence we’ve seen so far that Partial biology holds some promise of helping us combat RM.”

“I’m impressed,” said Delarosa, nodding. She glanced at Skousen. “Were you aware of this?”

“She found it this morning,” said Skousen. “I haven’t had time to review her records yet.” The old doctor turned heavily toward Kira. “Are you certain this is a neutralized RM, and not an RM waiting to be activated?”

I knew he’d call me on that. “I’m still researching it.”

“It seems premature to present it so definitively when you don’t even know what it is.”

“What little evidence there is points toward a promising conclusion,” said Kira. “If it were a new virus, we’d see signs of it somewhere — new symptoms, new patients, probably an epidemic. He — it — has been in human custody for a few days, and no one’s getting sick. I’ve been around it longer and more consistently than anyone, and I’m fine.”

“What if it’s not a new virus?” asked Skousen. “What if it’s the same old RM, which all of us are immune to, so the sample is remaining dormant?”

“That’s definitely possible,” said Kira, “but my point is that so is the other theory. This could be a good sign, and either way it’s the strongest, most promising lead yet. A more promising lead than I expected to find after just a day and a half, frankly.”

“There might actually be something to this,” said Weist. He leaned forward, looking at the other senators. “What if there really is a cure?”

“We proceed as planned,” said Delarosa, and shot Weist a look that seemed, to Kira, surprisingly harsh. “Ms. Walker, I agree with your assessment: Positive or not, these findings are worth following up on. Learn everything you can, and don’t hesitate to ask for anything you need.”

“I need newborn blood,” said Kira quickly. She grimaced at the gruesome nature of the request, wishing she’d phrased it less grotesquely. “The next time a baby is born, the instant it crowns, I need a blood sample. I’m trying to study the process of infection, so speed is paramount.”

Delarosa looked at Skousen, who sighed and nodded. She looked back at Kira. “We’ll do what we can.”

“But what are we going to do about security?” Skousen demanded. “A Voice attack on the hospital would be devastating.”

Delarosa stared at the same fixed point on the table again, deep in thought. “Mr. Mkele, this is your arena.”

“More soldiers,” said Mkele, “though we need to be careful with the hospital. If the Voice realize we’ve increased security here, they’re sure to make it their next target.”

“So let’s move the Senate here,” said Hobb. “They’ll think the increased security is for us.”

Mkele shook his head. “That only makes the problem worse. The Senate will continue to meet in the town hall—”

“Are you crazy?” said Hobb.

“The Voice have already searched the town hall,” said Mkele, drowning him out, “and they didn’t find what they were looking for. They won’t attack there again. Our goal now is to confuse them with too many targets, not to lead them to the next obvious choice. We’ll increase guard patrols around the city, we’ll pull soldiers from LaGuardia, and we’ll add armed, visible police presence to every major landmark in East Meadow. Nothing we do will give them any hints about what we’re hiding or where, and they’ll have to rely on their own, obviously poor, intelligence gatherers. It will buy us time, if nothing else.”

“How much time?” asked Senator Weist.

Mkele looked at Kira. “All we need is three and a half more days, right? Then we destroy it and be done.”

Hobb shook his head. “It’s not enough to just destroy it, like we’ve said before. Word will get out, and we need to appear blameless. It’s the only way to maintain control.”

“Control?” asked Kira. She remembered the way she’d snapped at Isolde for using that word. Was that really how the Senate thought of them?

Delarosa turned to face her, her eyes cold and penetrating. “Yes, control. Perhaps you’re aware of the growing unrest on this island?”

“Well of course, but—”

“The Voice?” she continued. “The terrorist attacks on innocent people? The very real possibility of a civil war tearing the tattered remnants of humanity to pieces? What do you propose we do with this situation if not wrest it back under control?”

“That’s not what I’m saying,” said Kira.

“But it’s what you’re implying,” said Delarosa. “You are implying that control is bad, and that people, left to their own devices, will sort this problem out on their own without any help from us. You can’t look at the state of the world and honestly suggest that it could sort itself out.”

Kira saw Kessler leer in the corner of her eye, but pressed forward anyway. “What I am saying is that maybe you’re squeezing too hard. The Voice’s main complaint is the Hope Act — they think you’re exerting too much control over common human rights.”

“And what is our alternative?” asked Delarosa. “To back down? To give up on our goals for successful, immune childbirth? The future of the human race is, as you so frequently remind us, the vital heart of everything we do. We established the Hope Act to maximize our chances for reproduction — it’s the simplest and best method of doing so, and yes, a lot of people complained, but there comes a point in the life of a species when complaints and civil rights take a backseat to pure, unmitigated survival.” She put her pencil down and clasped her hands. “Do you know what I did before the Break, Ms. Walker?”

Kira shook her head.

“I was a zoologist. I worked to save endangered species. At one point I was in charge of the world’s entire population of white rhinos — all ten of them. Two males. Do you have any idea what happened to them when the world collapsed around them?”

“No, ma’am.”

“I opened the gates and let them go free. I relinquished control.” She paused. “One of them was attacked by a mountain lion the same night. I passed its corpse the next morning on my way to the nearest shelter.”

“So that’s it, huh,” said Kira, trying to ignore the chill that swept over her. “We’re just another endangered species in your zoo.”

“Do you deny it?” asked Delarosa.

Kira clenched her jaw, struggling to think of any response that didn’t play right into the senator’s hand. “There’s more than ten of us.”

“Thank God.”

Kira looked at the row of senators, at Mkele standing stoically behind them. She couldn’t think of anything to say.

“The world is in shambles,” said Hobb. “We know this. What you need to understand is that we are trying to save it the best way we know how. Look around this room: Skousen is the top medical mind in the world, Delarosa is the best long-term administrator I’ve ever met, and Kessler is the reason you have fresh food to eat — she literally created our farm and market program. They work night and day to solve the problems you’re just beginning to understand, and they’ve been doing it since before you knew how to read. There are plans and contingency plans you couldn’t even guess at. Please trust us.”

Kira nodded slowly, parsing their arguments. “You’re right,” she said. “I said the same thing when we planned our mission to Manhattan: Nothing is more important than making sure we have a future. I was willing to sacrifice anything.”

“Exactly,” said Delarosa.

“So then…” Kira paused. “So your plan for the future is the Hope Act, and your plan for control is to kill the Partial, like Senator Hobb said, in a way that makes you look good.”

“In a way that maintains order,” said Hobb.

Kessler huffed. “You don’t need to spell everything out for her.”

“Then what about my work?” asked Kira. “What about everything I’m doing to find a cure — how does that fit in?” She frowned. “Is it even a priority?”

“Plans within plans,” said Hobb. “If you can find something, we’ll jump on it, but if you can’t … we have to be ready.”

“Just remember,” said Delarosa. “Absolutely no one can know of this. We brought you into our confidence first because you forced our hand, and again because you’ve proven yourself intelligent and capable. But you must have known this the moment you set foot back on this island: If anyone finds out about what we’re doing, we won’t just have a riot. We’ll have a revolution.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Kira went to the cafeteria instead of going straight up to the lab. She needed time to think.

What was the Senate planning? Part of her knew they were right, but there was still a voice in the back of her head telling her she needed to be alert. They saw the same problems she did, but their solutions were so different: Kira wanted to cure RM, but they seemed to take it as a means of maintaining control. And yes, they had very good reasons for maintaining control — the society in East Meadow was anything but solid, and the societies beyond, in the outlands, were even worse. They needed strong leadership, a strong hand to guide them.

And yet.

She closed her eyes, breathing deeply and switching gears. No more Senate — I need to get back to work.

Kira walked quickly through the halls, ignoring the bustle around her. She nodded to Shaylon, standing watch by the door, and went inside the lab. The blower hissed, the decontamination circuits buzzed in the floor, and there he was, still strapped to the table, arms extended, face to the sky, eyes dark and solemn. He glanced at her as she came in, then turned back to the ceiling.

She tapped the medicomp screen to wake it up and found the breath analysis still open; the scanner had finished its task, cataloguing thousands of different particles. Many of them it recognized, both organic and inorganic: the unusual gasses present in exhalation, fragments of shed skin cells, microscopic flecks of dirt, trace amounts of minerals, and a handful of common bacteria. Nothing special. The list of particles it didn’t recognize, on the other hand, was a dozen times longer. She expanded it, scrolling through with a tap of her finger: image after image of bizarre little chemical compounds, some big, some small, all oddly shaped and incredibly strange. She’d never seen anything like them before. As she flipped through them, she noticed that many of the images were similar, and the compounds seemed to break down into several major categories, repeated over and over. She started marking the images, studying the molecules and flagging what looked like key identifiers, separating them into subgroups, teaching the medicomp how to recognize the different pieces. Soon it was flying through the list on its own, dividing the compounds into nine major types with a tenth group of unconnected outliers. It still offered no hint as to their function, and Kira couldn’t discern one by looking at them. Whatever they were, Samm’s body was full of them.

None of the compounds were remotely as complex as the Lurker, but they still didn’t match with any substance Kira was familiar with — not fabric, not food, obviously not mineral or plastic. She looked over at him, then back at the screen, then pursed her lips and stood up. They were too common and consistent to be accidental, so they obviously had a purpose, and his body would need creation or receptor sites to take advantage of that purpose. Perhaps this had something to do with their resistance? There was only one way to find out. She walked to the table, unlocked the wheels, and started pushing it across the room. She expected Samm to ask what she was doing, but he stayed perfectly quiet.

She pulled him to a stop at the DORD scanner, a heavy machine nearly as big as some of the cars out rusting in the parking lot. This was the big gun in her laboratory arsenal: a medical scanner that could catalog an entire body, layer by layer and piece by piece. She hit a switch to turn it on, then crossed back to the medicomp while it booted up. The definitions she’d created for the categories of compounds were still there, along with several of the clearest images, and she froze them to the screen before sliding the screen out, disconnecting it from the medicomp, and carrying it carefully to the DORD. The screen had an impressive amount of computing power all on its own, but it was nothing compared to the sensor systems it could attach to. She slid it into the DORD, hearing the click as it locked into place, and a few quick finger taps later the machine was ready to go. The DORD would scan Samm’s lungs, throat, and nasal passages for anything resembling the mysterious compounds, which would give her a good idea of where they came from and where they went. She’d have to intuit the rest from there. Kira raised the sensor array, swung it out, and centered Samm beneath it; it was a thick, heavy piece of equipment in a white plastic shell, easily the heaviest thing in the room, but it held its own weight perfectly. She tapped start, and the DORD whirred to life.

Kira watched the screen closely, eager to see what the scan turned up. It was not a quick scan. She drummed her fingers nervously on the DORD housing, then turned and walked to the window; she wanted to ask Samm if he knew what the particles were, despite his refusal to talk, but now that the scan had started, any significant motion would upset it. She turned again and watched him, steady as a rock, almost as if he were holding still on purpose.

She saw motion on the screen and ran to check it; the DORD was already displaying and categorizing some preliminary images. She flipped through the list and opened one for the compound labeled M, a funny little horseshoe-shaped particle. The DORD had found several structures in Samm’s body that it thought might be related to it: one in the nasal cavity and the rest in the lungs. Kira pulled them up, side by side on the screen, and studied them; they looked almost like glands, though not any glands Kira was familiar with. The one in his sinuses was significantly larger, and the DORD had cross-linked it to several other files. Kira opened the list and flipped through it quickly, mildly surprised at what she saw; the DORD had linked that image to every compound it had scanned for thus far. They each had a little gland of their own in the lungs, but they were all connected to the big one in his head.

Kira studied the gland closer while the DORD kept working. What did it do? She couldn’t just ask the computer to guess, but she could ask it to search its database for partial matches. She started the search and looked back at the image again, buckling down for another long wait, but the results were almost instantaneous: no match. She frowned and ran the test again. No match.

Guess I’m going to have to do this manually. Given that each particle had two related structures, the obvious first guess was that one structure created the particle and the other one caught it: a writer and a reader. Which implied that they carried information. She ran another search, this time looking for anything in the database that wasn’t human. The DORD found an old file, pre-Break, where somebody had scanned a dog, and she asked the computer to look for partial matches in there. One popped up almost immediately, displaying a structure remarkably similar, though far simpler, than the one in Samm. It was a vomeronasal organ.

Samm had an incredibly sophisticated pheromonal system.

Kira pulled up more files, reading what she could on pheromones: They were a system of simple chemical communication, like a form of smell but far, far more specialized. Insects used them for simple things like marking trails or warning one another of danger; dogs used them to claim territory and to signal breeding times. What did the Partials use them for?

I may as well try asking, she thought. “Tell me about your … pheromones.” Predictably, Samm said nothing. “You have a highly developed system of chemical synthesizers and receptors; can you tell me about it?”

No response.

“Can’t blame me for trying.” She thought a moment, looking around the room, then opened the medicomp and pulled out the rubber glove Samm had breathed into. She brought it near his face, pricked it with a pin, and squeezed it as hard as she could, propelling the air directly into Samm’s nose. He coughed and spluttered, jerking his head to get out of the stream of air, but Kira watched in wonder as his demeanor seemed to grow more calm — his heart rate rose as he reacted to the forced air, then fell again almost immediately as he reacted to … something else. The pheromones. His eyes relaxed, his expression softened, his breathing became more even.

He seemed, Kira thought suddenly, like he was making exactly the same face he’d made in the morning, when he’d agreed to blow into the glove.

“Kuso,” he said. “That’s not fair.”

Kira put her hands on her hips. “What just happened?”

“You’re using my own data against me, and now I — damn it.” He closed his mouth and looked at the ceiling.

“What data?” asked Kira. “The pheromones? Is that what you call them?” She looked at the glove in her hand, now deflated and floppy. “You just told me something you didn’t want to tell me, didn’t you? You’ve never done that — this was a slip. What did the pheromones do?”

Samm said nothing, and Kira brought the glove closer to her face, examining it closely. She walked to the center of the room, envisioning the way it had been laid out that morning — the DORD over here, the table over there, and Samm on top of it. She’d asked him to breathe into the glove and they’d shared something, a moment of … of something. Of actual communication. She’d made a joke about his name, he’d made one back, and then he’d agreed to help her collect a breath sample. He’d trusted her.

And then just now, after she blew it back in his face and asked him a question, he’d trusted her again — not for long, but long enough for his shield of hostile self-control to falter. He’d answered her question.

The pheromones had re-created the trust he’d felt that morning and forced him to feel it again.

“It’s like a chemical empathy system,” she said softly, walking back toward Samm. “Whatever you’re feeling, you broadcast with these pheromones, so that other Partials can feel it too. Or, at least know that you’re feeling it.” She sat in the chair next to him. “It’s like the social yawn: You can standardize one person’s emotional state across an entire group.”

“You can’t use it against me anymore,” said Samm. “I’m not breathing into your gloves.”

“I’m not trying to use it against you, I’m trying to understand it. What does it feel like?”

Samm turned to look at her. “What does hearing feel like?”

“Okay,” said Kira, nodding, “that was a stupid question, you’re right. It’s doesn’t feel like anything, it’s just part of who you are.”

“I’d forgotten that humans couldn’t link,” said Samm. “All this time I’ve been so confused, trying to figure out why you were all so melodramatic about everything. It’s because you can’t pick up each other’s emotions from the link, so you have to broadcast them through voice inflection and body language. It’s helpful, I’ll admit, but it’s kind of … histrionic.”

“Histrionic?” Kira asked. It was the single longest speech she’d ever heard him give. Was he talking openly, or was this more of his calculated planning? What did he have to gain by talking? She kept going, trying to draw out the conversation and see if he’d keep talking. “If you depend on chemical triggers to tell people how you’re feeling,” she said, “that explains a lot about you, too. You don’t display nearly enough emotion for human society; if we seem melodramatic to you, you seem downright deadpan to us.”

“It’s not just emotions,” he said, and Kira leaned forward, terrified that he would stop at any second, his openness popping like a bubble. “It lets us know if someone’s in trouble, or hurt, or excited. It helps us function as a unit, all working together. The link was intended for battlefield use, obviously; if someone’s on watch and sees something, a human would have to shout a warning, and then the other humans would have to wake up and figure out what the watchman was saying, and then they’d have to get ready for combat. If a Partial watchman sees something, the data goes out through the link and the other soldiers know it immediately; their adrenaline spikes, their heart rates speed up, their fight-or-flight reflex kicks in, and suddenly the entire squad is ready for battle, sometimes without even a word.”

“The data,” said Kira. “Links and data — very technological words.”

“You called me a biological robot yesterday,” said Samm. “That’s not entirely inaccurate.” He smiled, the first time she’d ever really seen him do that, and she did the same. “I don’t know how you people even function. It’s no wonder you lost the war.”

The words hung in the air like a poison cloud, killing any hope that the conversation might grow friendly. Kira turned back to the screen, trying not to yell at him. His attitude had changed as well; he was more solemn, somehow. Pensive.

“I worked in a mine,” he said softly. “You created us to win the Isolation War, and we did, and then we came home and the US government gave us jobs, and mine was in a mine. I wasn’t a slave, everything was legal and proper and ‘humane.’” He said the word as if it tasted bitter. “But I didn’t like it. I tried to get a different job, but no one would hire a Partial. I tried to get an education, to qualify for something nicer, but no schools would accept my application. We couldn’t move out of our government-assigned slum because our wages were barely livable, and nobody would sell to us anyway. Who wants to live next door to the artificial people?”

“So you rebelled.”

“We hated you,” he said. “I hated you.” He turned his head to catch her eye. “But I didn’t want genocide. None of us did.”

“Somebody did,” said Kira. Her voice was thick with held-back tears.

“And you lost every connection to the past,” said Samm. “I know exactly how you feel.”

“No, you don’t,” Kira hissed. “You say whatever you want, but don’t you dare say that. We lost our world, we lost our future, we lost our families—”

“Your parents were taken from you,” said Samm simply. “We killed ours when we killed you. Whatever pain you feel, you don’t have that guilt stacked on top of it.”

Kira bit her lip, trying to make sense of her own feelings. Samm was the enemy, and yet she felt sorry for him; his words had made her so mad, yet she felt almost guilty for feeling that way. She swallowed, forcing out a response that was part accusation, part desperate plea for understanding. “Is that why you’re telling me all this? Because you feel bad about killing us?”

“I’m telling you this because you have to understand that the cure is not enough. The war was devastating, but the problems started long before that.”

Kira shook her head, her words coming out harsher than even she expected. “Don’t tell me what I have to understand.” She left his side and went back to work.

“It’s a communication system,” said Kira. It was early evening, and since she’d skipped lunch she’d decided to join Marcus for an early dinner. He’d brought sushi from a street vendor, and they were eating together in an empty room on the third floor, away from all the bustle and people below. She took a bit of sushi, swallowed it, and kept talking, so eager she could barely keep up with herself. Her conversation with Samm still burned in the back of her mind, glowing banks of hot emotional coals, but she forced herself to ignore them. “A chemical communication system, like with ants, but a zillion times more complicated. Imagine being able to talk to people just by breathing — you wouldn’t have to say a word, you’d just know everything—”

“I can’t imagine you not saying a word,” said Marcus. “I think you’d go crazy first.”

“Ha-ha,” said Kira, rolling her eyes.

“So, how does it work, then?”

“Well, I don’t know what kinds of things they can say chemically — I catalogued at least twenty separate pheromones, but even at ten times that amount it would be an incredibly small vocabulary — but if, say, one of them was ‘I’m wounded,’ as soon as one soldier got wounded, all the others would instantly know about it, and they’d have a pretty good idea of where to find him. It’s a sense we don’t even have, like a social sense, and to him it’s constant and second nature. Can you imagine what it would be like to be cut off from that? He must feel more alone than…” She thought again about what he had said, calling humanity his parents; what was it like out there, the vast expanse of America lying empty and silent? “They’re alone, Marcus. That’s kind of tragic, don’t you think?”

“Good thing he has you to look out for him, then,” said Marcus. “I’d hate for the poor Partial to feel lonely.”

“That’s not what I meant,” said Kira. “This is what I love to do, Marcus — you’re a medic too, I thought you’d understand why this is so cool. It’s not about Samm, it’s about—”

“Ah, so now you guys are on a first name basis, huh?” He tried to play it off like he was joking, but Kira could feel real emotion beneath it. She knew him too well. “I’m kidding, Kira. But seriously, he’s a Partial. Mankind’s greatest enemy, remember?”

“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. I don’t know that they are anymore.”

“Is that what it’s trying to tell you?” He looked at Kira the way the Senators had. Like she was an idiot. “He’s alone and he’s chained up and that makes you feel sorry for him, but he tried to kill you — not just in the Break, but last week, in Manhattan, with a gun. He is an enemy soldier, and a prisoner of war, and if he got out of his chains who knows what he’d do, to you and to the entire city.”

“I know,” said Kira, “I know. But you haven’t talked to him — he doesn’t talk like a monster. He doesn’t … feel like a monster.”

“Two days ago he was your subject,” said Marcus, “an experiment. Two days before that he was some faceless enemy you were ready to kill and dismember for study. In two more days who knows what he’ll be? A friend?”

“I’m not saying that.”

“In three days he’ll be dead. I’ve known you forever, Kira, and I can see exactly where this is going: First you’ll feel sorry for it, and then you’ll get attached to it, and then when he dies it’s going to tear you apart because you think you have to save everybody. It’s like with the newborns — you feel personally responsible for every one that dies. The Partial is just a test subject, made worse because it’s smart enough to tell you exactly what you want to hear. All I’m saying is I just don’t think you should get too attached.”

“Too attached?” asked Kira. She felt her anger rising again. “How attached do you think we are?”

“Hold on,” said Marcus. “That is not what I meant at all.”

“It’s not?” asked Kira hotly. “Because it sure sounded like you were accusing me of something.”

“I’m not accusing you of anything,” said Marcus. “I’m just warning you—”

“Warning me?”

“That came out wrong.”

“Warning me about what?” demanded Kira. “Warning me not to make any friends you don’t approve of?”

“I’m warning you about yourself,” said Marcus. “You know you have a tendency to get caught up in these enormous dreams and then be crushed underneath when they fall down on you. You’re not satisfied with helping babies, you want to cure RM; you can’t just study a Partial, you have to, what? Make peace with them? Is that what Samm’s saying?”

“No, of course not,” said Kira. But even as she said it, she wasn’t sure. “I’m just saying that, whether or not I believe Samm, there’s more to them than anyone around here thinks. They rebelled because humans had oppressed them, so if we play nice with each other maybe … it’ll work this time. I don’t know.” She tried to sort out her thoughts. “I’m not saying we need to drop our defenses and forget everything that’s happened, just that they might not mean us harm anymore. And if they hold the key to curing RM, maybe peace is our only chance.” She looked at Marcus nervously, praying that he understood her.

“They rebelled and killed us,” Marcus repeated.

“The American colonies rebelled against England almost three hundred years ago today,” said Kira. “They got over it, and eventually they were best friends.”

“America didn’t release a virus that destroyed the world.”

“And maybe the Partials didn’t either,” said Kira. “Maybe there are a lot of things about the war we don’t know. All we talk about is what they did to us, but it can’t be that simple. If Samm’s telling the truth—”

“It all comes back to Samm, doesn’t it?” asked Marcus, shaking his head.

“What is this about, Marcus?” She turned to face him directly. “Are you jealous? I love you.” She held him with her eyes. “Please, try to understand what I’m saying.”

“You really love me?”

“Of course I do.”

“Then marry me.”

Kira’s eyes went wide. It was the last thing she expected him to say, now, here, in this situation. “I…”

“We’re young,” he said, “but not too young. You can live with me. I found that big house for you. For us. We can grow old there, and when you cure RM we can have a family there. But we don’t have to wait. We can be together right now.”

Kira looked at him, imagining his face beside her — in the evening when she went to sleep, in the morning when she woke up, always with her through anything and everything. It was what she had always wanted, ever since she and Marcus were children together watching stars on the roof of the school.

But it wasn’t that simple anymore.

She shook her head slowly, so slowly she could barely feel it, hoping maybe if it was slow enough Marcus wouldn’t see her saying no. “I’m sorry, Marcus. I can’t.”

Marcus kept his face straight, hiding his emotions almost, but not quite, perfectly. “Not now, or not ever?”

She thought about the newborns, and RM, and the war and the Partials and her work in the lab and everything Samm had told her. Curing RM wasn’t enough, he’d said. Was peace the next step? Was it even a possibility? There were too many questions, too many shadows for her to see clearly. She shook her head. “Not now. I won’t know about ever until I get there.”

“Okay.” He paused, nodded, and shrugged. “Okay.” He was taking it too well, like he’d been expecting it.

That was the hardest part of all.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Kira was only two-thirds of the way through the DORD images when they all started bleeding together. She wanted to know how the pheromone system worked, but she was starting to realize that she wasn’t going to make any progress on RM there. When she hit the point where she could barely keep her eyes open, she decided it was best to call it quits for the night. I don’t want to walk home, she thought. I need a mattress here I can crash on. She needed more help — there was no way one person could parse all the data it would take to study Samm’s biology and find what she needed to find. Samm was still awake — she wasn’t certain he ever slept at all — but since she returned from dinner he had been silent. She wanted to say something to him, but didn’t know what.

The nighttime guards looked rougher than the day shift; Shaylon and his companion were gone, replaced by a pair of older soldiers, weathered and grim. She paused as she passed them, wondering if they were going to “interrogate” Samm again tonight, beat him or stab him or whatever sick tortures they could think of. She wanted to tell them not to, but what good would it do? The thought made her sad, and she shot one last glance at the soldiers, before hanging her head and walking away down the hall.

On the street outside she paused, taking a slow, deep breath of the night air. It was warmer than before. She started to walk and saw a movement in the moonlight; she froze, fearing the worst — a Voice attack, storming the hospital to find Samm — but then she heard a voice, Haru’s voice, slicing desperately through the darkness.

“It’s okay,” he was saying. “We’re almost there, it’s okay.”

Kira jogged forward a few steps, straining her ears to hear it more surely. Was it Haru? The shadow grew larger, and the voice clearer: It was Haru, and Madison was with him, breathing in short, painful bursts.

Kira’s heart sank, just for a moment, and she exploded into action. “Mads!”

Madison gritted her teeth in pain, clutching Haru’s hand in a white-knuckled death grip. He urged her forward gently but firmly, almost in the hospital parking lot by the time Kira reached them.

“She’s bleeding,” he said quickly, “and the pain is like nothing she’s felt before.”

Kira looked back at the hospital, taking Madison’s other arm and helping her forward as gingerly as she could. “You shouldn’t have brought her here,” she said tersely. “You should have had her driven, or come for a wheelchair and an EMT so we could pick her up ourselves.”

“I’m not going to leave her home alone!”

“She shouldn’t have walked here, no matter how close you live.”

“Just…” He hesitated. “Just help her.”

“Come with me,” said Kira. “There’s always a full staff in maternity, even at night.” She prayed silently as they brought Madison in through the doors, begging anyone who was listening to please, please spare Madison’s baby. It was too early; it might die of poor development or breathing before it even had a chance to die of RM. She helped Madison around the corner toward maternity and stopped short, nearly colliding with a nurse running desperately down the hall.

“Sandy!” shouted Kira, recognizing the woman from her time as an intern. “She needs attention!”

“The Barnes baby is flatlining,” said Sandy, shouting over her shoulder as she ran. “Tell her to hang on!”

“They’re not going to help?” asked Haru.

“Everyone’s busy,” said Kira. “Come with me.” She led them to an open door and flicked on the light, helping Madison settle into a large, soft chair.

“There goes another one,” said Madison, clenching her jaw and whistling. “Oh please no.”

Kira pointed Haru at a medicomp cart in the corner of the room. “Fire up the ultrasound machine,” she said. “The outlets marked in red have power.” She crouched down by Madison’s side, brushing her hair from her face. “Hey, Mads, you want to tell me what’s going on?”

“I think it’s contractions.”

“You’re still two months early,” said Kira. “Your pregnancy has been perfectly healthy so far, there’s no reason for you to be having contractions.”

“These aren’t just cramps, Kira.” Madison winced again, squeezing her eyes closed and clutching Kira’s arm so tightly Kira had to bite her tongue to keep from screaming. The pain subsided and Madison collapsed back into the chair, panting.

“Is the pain rhythmic?” asked Kira. Madison shook her head. “Can you point to it?” Madison traced an area across her belly and side, and Kira nodded. “I don’t think that’s your uterus, Mads, that’s your stomach. I’m going to do an ultrasound.”

“She’s bleeding,” said Haru again. “Aren’t you going to do something about the bleeding?”

“I’m doing everything I can, Haru, just bring the machine.”

He dragged the cart over, parking it next to Madison’s chair with a terrified expression. Kira pulled on a pair of sterilized gloves and pulled up Madison’s shirt to expose her belly. “Hold still,” she said, placing the ultrasound probe against Madison’s skin. “Screen up.” The screen flickered on, a black-and-white grid with a wedge-shaped image in the center. The image flashed and moved: a sonographic re-creation of the organs in Madison’s abdomen. Kira had been completely lost the first several times she’d seen an ultrasound, but after weeks of practice the fuzzy pictures seemed crystal clear. “That’s your bladder,” she said, moving the probe with one hand and touching the screen with her other, defining labels and boundaries that the computer then remembered and kept track of in real time. “That’s your stomach, that’s the baby’s foot. There we go, the baby’s body.” She worked quickly, her fingers scurrying over the screen, lighting up measurements and calling up archived statistics from Madison’s previous visits. “Head development good, chest development good, inner organs all look good. Heartbeat strong. Bladder filling and emptying. Spine looks good.”

Madison grimaced again, gritting her teeth and clutching the arms of her chair. Two nurses rushed in behind them, Sandy and Nurse Hardy. “We’re here, Walker, thanks for getting her started.” Hardy pulled on a pair of gloves and took the probe; Kira gave it up nervously, stepping back as Nurse Hardy’s more practiced hands took over the ultrasound. “Describe the pain,” asked Hardy.

“Strong but inconsistent,” said Kira, “localized toward the side with the stomach. She’s also bleeding — I think it’s an abruption.”

“What’s that?” asked Haru. “Is it bad? Is she okay?”

“We’re doing our best, sir,” said Hardy. “We just need room to work.”

“What about the baby, is the baby okay?”

The image on the screen flopped in and out of view as her abdomen flexed, and Kira pointed at the screen.

“There was a shadow.”

“I saw it,” said Nurse Hardy, moving the probe farther down to the side and altering the angle. When Madison stopped squirming, the image stabilized on a large black oval, the stomach, and behind it a fuzzy black triangle. The computer identified it almost immediately, marking it in red. “The placenta’s separating from the wall,” said Nurse Hardy. “It’s a partial abruption, just like you said.” She stared closely at the screen, at the deep red slash across the center. “Good work, Walker.”

Kira felt the wave of tension begin to seep out of her, down through her feet and into the floor, leaving her drained.

“What does it mean?” asked Madison.

“It means you’re going to be okay,” said Kira. “It means the placenta is pulling away from the uterus, which isn’t good but isn’t really threatening to you or to the baby if we stay on top of it. They’re going to put you on bed rest, so you can’t move around much, and they’re going to do it here in the hospital so we can keep an eye on you twenty-four-seven.”

“I can’t stay here,” Madison protested.

Kira put a hand on her shoulder. “Think of it as a resort vacation. Breakfast in bed, servants ready at all times… Nothing will happen to you or to your baby without us being right here to solve it.”

“You’re sure it’s not dangerous?” asked Madison. “I mean, if you have to bring me into full-time care—”

“Twelve years ago I would have sent you home with tampons and Tylenol,” said Nurse Hardy, “but these days we don’t mess around.”

“Okay,” said Madison, “but bed rest? Like, I can’t get up at all?”

“As little as possible,” said Nurse Hardy. “Placental abruption is rare, but in a case like yours, it’s almost certainly caused by overexertion. We need to stop that immediately.”

“No more housecleaning,” said Kira. “I’ll talk to Xochi, we’ll figure out how to take care of it for you.”

Madison smiled guiltily, sucking in a breath. “I shouldn’t have walked here.”

“And I’m going to beat Haru with a bike chain because of it,” said Kira. She shot him a dark look. “But for now, just relax.”

“We need to do a blood test,” said Nurse Hardy, “and then we’ll give you some painkillers, and then you can take a nap.”

Kira squeezed Madison’s hand and stepped back as the other nurses pressed in to take care of her. The adrenaline rush was still wearing off, and Kira walked into the hall and collapsed into a chair. That was too close. She blew out a long, slow breath, thinking about all the things it could have been — all the ways it could have been worse. I can’t bear to see Madison like Ariel, pounding helplessly on a window just for the chance to hold her dead baby.

But I still don’t know how to save it.

She stared at the floor, too tired to think.

“Hey.”

Kira looked up to see Xochi standing beside her. Her face was drawn and tired.

“Hey,” said Kira. “You heard about Madison?”

“Yeah,” she said, “but that’s not why I’m here.”

Kira frowned. Please, no more disasters. She sat up straight, forcing herself upright. “What is it?” Her voice sounded stronger than she felt.

“Isolde just got back from the Senate,” said Xochi. “They’re going to make an announcement tomorrow. The Hope Act has been amended. The age is sixteen now, Kira.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

“It’s official,” said Isolde. She was lying down on their couch, holding a bottle of some kind of liquor. It was half-empty. “It passed this afternoon. Or yesterday afternoon, I guess — it’s past midnight, isn’t it?”

“I can’t believe this,” said Xochi. She stared at the floor. “I can’t believe this.”

Isolde took a swig. “It doesn’t matter if you believe it or not. Your government just gave you two months to get knocked up.” She held up the bottle, her face dull and red. “Cheers.”

“You better get your fill of the booze now, then,” said Xochi. “You’ll be drinking for two pretty soon.”

Kira sat on the couch in silence, watching the other girls complain and thinking about the Senate’s motives. On the surface, this was likely due to the Voice’s ultimatums. Anything less would be seen as a concession, and they were making a statement in direct opposition to them. But in her heart, she knew it had to be because of Samm. The “contingency plans” Hobb had hinted at. She had warned them to ease up, but instead they were tightening their grip, exerting more control. For the people who believed in the Hope Act, sure, this might be seen as a sign of strength and solidarity, but to everyone else? It was practically a declaration of war.

The worst part was keeping the secret. She knew that Mkele was right — if the truth about Samm got out now, with tensions so high, the riot would be terrifying, and she’d be right in the middle of it. She didn’t dare say any more about Samm, or the tests, or anything else. Better to work as hard as she could, and cure the virus before anyone else had to die.

And yet even after two full days, she wasn’t any closer. She knew how Samm thought, how he communicated, how he breathed and ate and moved, but she still didn’t know how his immunity worked. She was confused. And because she couldn’t tell anyone, she was confused alone.

She felt like she was drowning.

Isolde took a swig from her bottle. “Drinking while pregnant is punishable by incarceration and full-time monitoring,” she said. “I have to enjoy this now.”

“Your baby is more important than your rights,” said Xochi. “As far as the Senate is concerned, you’re just a uterus with legs.”

“Grow up,” said Kira sullenly. As soon as she said it, she felt guilty — she agreed with Xochi, so why was she attacking her? The Hope Act wasn’t working, and the Senate was strengthening it for the wrong reasons. Maybe it was the way she said it, the focus on personal rights over everything else. Kira had believed that too, but things were different now. She’d seen the Senate debate this — she’d seen the fear in their eyes. This was about extinction, like Delarosa had said. The other girls turned to her, and their surprised looks only made her angrier. “Did it ever occur to you that maybe something is more important than your rights? That maybe the survival of your entire species is more important than your right to whine about it?”

Xochi raised her eyebrows. “Someone’s feeling bitchy.”

“I’m just sick of hearing about everyone’s civil rights and everyone’s privacy and everyone’s inviolable power of choice. We either solve our problems or we go extinct — there is nothing in between. And if we’re going to go extinct, I don’t want it to be because Xochi Kessler was too worried about her rights to pitch in and save us.”

Xochi bristled. “We’re not talking about pitching in,” she said, “we’re talking about institutionalized rape. We’re talking about the government taking full control over your body — what it’s for, what you do with it, and what other people can do to it. I’m not letting some horny old dude screw me just because the law says I have to.”

“Then pick a horny young dude,” said Kira, “or get inseminated artificially — those are all options, and you know it. This isn’t about sex, it’s about survival.”

“Mass pregnancy is the worst possible solution to that problem,” said Xochi.

“Okay now,” said Isolde, her voice slurring, “let’s all calm down for a minute. Nobody’s happy about this—”

“Sounds like Kira is,” said Xochi. “Of course she’s the one with a boyfriend, so I guess that makes sense — she’s probably doing him anyway—”

Kira jumped across the room with a scream, blind with fury, clawing for Xochi’s neck, but Isolde leaped up to block her, tripping drunkenly over her own feet. She lost her balance, but clung to Kira so strongly Kira couldn’t get past her to Xochi; Kira tried to fight past her, shoving Isolde away, gouging her forehead with her fingernail. Isolde yelped in pain, and Kira’s struggling devolved into tears.

“Damn,” gasped Xochi.

“Just sit down,” said Isolde, easing Kira onto the sofa beside her. Kira sobbed, and Isolde held her gently. She shot Xochi a cold glance. “That was over the line.”

“I’m sorry.” Xochi settled herself back into her seat. “I’m sorry, Kira, you know I didn’t mean it. I’m just going crazy — this whole damn thing is over the line.”

“What’s done is done,” said Isolde. “The law is passed. Now we can complain about it, or we can get drunk enough to not care.”

“You’ve had too much of that as it is,” said Xochi, standing up and ripping the bottle from Isolde’s hands. Isolde’s grip was loose, her strength used up in the struggle with Kira, and Xochi took it easily, opening the window and throwing the bottle outside.

“Hey, Xochi!” It was a voice from the street, one of the local boys — Kira didn’t recognize it exactly. “Crazy stuff with the Hope Act, right? You guys wanna talk? Can we come in?”

“Go to hell,” said Xochi, and slammed the window closed.

“That was my bottle,” said Isolde, her voice slurring. Nobody paid her attention.

“I’m sorry, Xochi,” said Kira, sitting up straighter. She rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand. “I’m not mad at you, I’m mad at … pretty much everything else in the world. But the world doesn’t have a face, so I was going to take it out on yours.”

Xochi smirked, but her expression fell again just as quickly. “I’m not ready,” she said softly. “None of us are ready.”

Isolde traced a pattern on the couch with her finger. “Haru was right, you know. What he said in the Senate hearing. We don’t have any children left, just adults who don’t know what they’re doing.”

The girls sat quietly, lost in their thoughts. Kira thought about Marcus — she’d rejected his advances, and now the government had changed everything. A two-month grace period to get things going, and then she could get arrested just for not being something she’d never been before. If she had to have children, she wanted them to be Marcus’s, she guessed; she’d never thought about anyone else, not seriously. But if she told him now, he’d know it was for the law, and not for him. She couldn’t do that to him. And yet she couldn’t go to anyone else without hurting him even worse.

Besides, she didn’t want to be pregnant. Not like this. If she was going to create a new life, she wanted to do it because it meant something, not because she’d been forced to.

And yet she’d just yelled at Xochi for proposing the same idea. She didn’t even know what to think anymore.

For just a second — just the briefest fraction of a moment — she thought about Samm, and wondered if a half-Partial child would be immune.

“Do any of you remember your mother?” asked Isolde. “Not your new one, Xochi, your old one. Your real mother from before the Release.”

“A little,” said Xochi. “She was tall.”

“That’s it?”

“Like seriously tall,” said Xochi. “In every image I have of her, she’s towering over me, and not just because I was little — she towered over everyone. Six-four, maybe six-six.” Her voice softened, and Kira could tell she was drifting into memory: Her eyes were wet and unfocused, staring blindly into space. She grabbed a lock of her coal-black hair. “She had black hair, like mine, and she was always wearing jewelry. Silver, I think. She had a big fat ring on her hand like a flower, and I used to play with it. We lived in Philadelphia — I used to think that was the name of the state, but it’s a city. Philadelphia. Someday I want to go back and find that ring.” She rolled her eyes. “You know. Someday.”

“My mom sold airplanes,” said Isolde. “I don’t know how, or to who, but I remember that’s what she told me, and I thought it was so amazing, and now I look back and I think: We don’t even have airplanes anymore. We don’t have gas to put in them, I don’t know if we even have anyone left who could fly them if we did, but my mom used to sell them like they were nothing, like they were fish rolls in the market.”

“I don’t think I had a mother,” said Kira. “I mean, obviously I had one at some point, but I don’t remember her, just my dad. I don’t even remember him talking about her, but I’m sure he did. I guess they were divorced, or she was dead. Probably divorced: We didn’t have any pictures of her.”

“So imagine something awesome,” said Xochi. “If you don’t remember your mom, that means she can be anyone you want — she can be an actress, or a model, or the president of some giant company, or … anything you want.”

“If you can’t know the truth,” said Isolde, “live the most awesome lie you can think of.”

“All right then,” said Kira. “She was a doctor, like me — a brilliant scientist renowned for her work with children. She invented … gene sequencing. And nanosurgery.” Kira smiled. “And normal surgery, and penicillin, and she cured cancer.”

“That is a pretty awesome dream,” said Xochi.

“Yeah,” said Kira. “I guess awesome dreams are all we have left.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

“Stay alert today,” said Shaylon.

Kira eyed the young soldier warily, her eyes still red from tears and fatigue. “More so than normal? What’s going on?”

“Mr. Mkele thinks someone’s planning an attack,” he said, gripping his rifle more tightly. “The Voice hiding in town, still looking for whatever they didn’t find at the town hall. The new amendment to the Hope Act probably didn’t help matters, either. He’s sending more patrols outside, but he told us to be careful here anyway, just in case.”

Kira nodded. “I’ll keep my eyes open.” She pushed her way through the door into the decontamination tunnel, rubbing her face with her palms as the air blasted around her. I should be using Shaylon a lot more than I am. If I can find a way to talk to him alone, maybe after hours, I can probably learn a lot more about what the Grid is doing.

Kira sighed. Like I have time for another project.

She set down her stack of notebooks and crouched by Samm’s table, checking his face and arm — a ritual that had become standard now.

“They beat you again.”

Samm, of course, said nothing.

Kira watched him a moment, then glanced nervously into the corners. “They shouldn’t be doing this to you. It’s inhumane.”

“I’m not sure that statement has any bearing on me.”

“It doesn’t matter if you’re human or not,” said Kira, probing the Partial’s shins through the fabric of his pants, searching for more wounds. “They’re human, and that means they need to act like it.” She pulled up his pant legs. “You’ve got a few new cuts on here, but they’re not bleeding, obviously, and you should be okay.” She rolled them back down. “None of these wounds has ever gotten infected.” She wondered if Samm’s body produced some kind of natural antiseptic or antibiotic, and made a mental note to check it out later — through some means other than just stabbing him with a dirty knife. “You should be fine,” she said, and walked to the computer.

Kira noticed immediately that the files had been read: her DORD images, her preliminary notes on the pheromones, even her handwritten notes in her notebook. Someone had moved them, sorted them, paged through them. Is Skousen checking my work? she wondered. Is he duplicating it? Some of the files were new; he’d done studies of his own while she was away. She didn’t know if she should be grateful someone was watching, or indignant that they didn’t trust her results. She was nearly too tired to care.

I only have three days left, she told herself. Stop whining and work. She struggled to concentrate on the DORD images, looking for any discrepancy between Samm’s physiology and that of a human, but she kept thinking about what he said yesterday. The sincerity in his voice. What if he was telling the truth — what then? If the Partials had never created the virus in the first place, then who did? The Lurker in his breath, whatever it was, proved that he had some relationship to RM, but that didn’t mean he made it. The Partials were soldiers, not geneticists; they had doctors, but they weren’t necessarily capable of this level of engineering. What if the similarity meant something else entirely?

What if it was a sign of common ancestry? What if RM and the Partials were both created by the same third party?

Kira closed her eyes, trying to remember what she’d learned in school. What was the name of the company? Para-something? It was so hard to remember the details of the old world — names and places and technologies that simply had no meaning in modern life. Food companies were easy, because the ruins were all around her: Starbucks and Panda Garcia and a dozen more like them. She could even remember eating at some of them as a child, before the Break. Genetics companies, on the other hand, were completely outside the realm of her experience. She’d learned the name in her history class, but they hadn’t made a big deal about it. It was the government who’d commissioned the Partials, Para-something was just the contractor.

Para-Genetics, she remembered. They were called ParaGen. Haru had mentioned them the other day. But what could they have to do with RM? Certainly they hadn’t created it — they were human too. It doesn’t make sense.

“Did you have a mother?” asked Samm. The question broke Kira’s train of thought in an instant, and she looked at him quizzically.

“What?”

“Did you have a mother?”

“I … of course I had a mother, everyone has a mother.”

“We don’t.”

Kira frowned. “You know you’re the second person in the last twelve hours to ask me about my mother?”

“I was only curious.”

“It’s okay,” said Kira. “I never really knew my mother. I guess that makes us more alike than we thought.”

“Your father, then,” said Samm.

“Why do you want to know about him? I was five when he died, I can barely remember him.”

“I’ve never had a father either.”

Kira scooted her chair closer, coming around the edge of the desk. “Why are you so curious?” she asked. “You never talk, for two solid days, and now this morning all of a sudden you’re obsessed with families. What’s going on?”

“I’ve been doing some thinking,” he said. “A lot of thinking. You’re aware that we can’t reproduce?”

She nodded warily. “You were built that way. You were … well, you were intended to be weapons, not people. They didn’t want self-replicating weapons.”

“Yes,” he said. “The Partials were never intended to exist outside the infrastructure that created us, but we do, and now all those old design parameters are—” He stopped suddenly, glancing at the cameras. “Listen, do you trust me?”

She hesitated, but not for long. “No.”

“I suppose not. Do you think you ever could?”

“Ever?”

“If we worked together — if we ever offered a truce. Peace. Could you learn to trust us?”

This is where he’d been angling since day one — since she’d asked him what he was doing in Manhattan. He was finally willing to discuss it, but could she trust him? What was he trying to get from her?

“I could trust you if you proved yourselves trustworthy,” said Kira. “I don’t… I don’t know that I distrust you on principle, if that’s what you’re asking. Not anymore. But a lot of people do.”

“And what would it take to earn their trust?”

“Not having destroyed our world eleven years ago,” said Kira. “Short of that… I don’t know. Putting it back together.”

He paused, thinking, and she watched him carefully — the way his eyes twitched, as if examining two different objects in front of him. Every now and then they flicked toward one of the cameras, just a fleeting glance. What is he planning?

She looked him in the eyes. When in doubt, don’t hold back. “Why are you telling me this?”

“Because the only hope, for either of us, is to help each other. To work together.”

“You’ve said that before.”

“You’ve asked about our mission. That was it, Kira — we were coming here to try to make peace. To see if we could work together. You need our help to cure RM, but we need you just as much.”

“Why?”

He glanced at the camera again. “I can’t tell you yet.”

“But you have to tell me — isn’t that why you’re here? If you came on a mission of peace, what were you going to say? ‘We need your help, but we can’t say why’?”

“We didn’t know how much you still hated us,” said Samm. “We thought perhaps we could persuade you with an offer to work together. When I was captured and brought here, when I saw what’s going on here … there was no way. But you, Kira, you listen. More than that, you understand what’s at stake. That no price is too high to pay when it means the survival of your species.”

“So just tell me,” she pleaded. “Forget the cameras, forget whoever’s listening on the other side, and tell me what’s going on.”

Samm shook his head. “It’s not just a matter of them not believing me,” he said. “If they find out why I’m here — the instant they know the reason — I’m a dead man.”

It was Kira who glanced at the camera this time, suddenly filled with unease, but Samm shook his head and glanced at his wounds. “It’s okay, they know I have a secret.”

She folded her arms and sat back in her chair. What could be so dangerous he’d be killed just for saying it? Something they didn’t want to hear — or something they did? She racked her brain, searching for a theory that made sense. Was he really a bomb, like they’d initially feared, and Samm thought the Senate would kill him to get rid of him? But what did that have to do with peace?

Peace. It was exactly what she had hoped for when she was talking with Marcus the day before. She wanted to reach out and touch it, to taste it, to know what it felt like not to live in constant fear. They hadn’t known true peace since the Hope Act was established, and the Voice rebelled and the island started its slow spiral into chaos. They hadn’t even known it in the years before that — the desperate rebuilding after the Break, the Break itself and the Partial rebellion, even the Isolation War that sparked the creation of the Partials in the first place. She had lived in a world of discord since the moment she was born, and the world before had been no better. They were on the brink of destruction, and everyone had their own solution, but Kira had been the only one to suggest that they might need the Partials. That they might need to work together.

That is, she’d been the only one until now. Now a Partial was suggesting the same thing.

“No,” she said slowly, suspicion creeping through her like a spider. “It’s too perfect. It’s like you’re saying exactly what I want to hear.” She shook her head. “I don’t believe you.”

“Why would we want anything else?” asked Samm. “It’s the most basic instinct of life — to outlive yourself. To build another generation that’s going to see tomorrow.”

“But you’ve never even known family,” said Kira. “You didn’t have families, you didn’t grow up, you have no idea what it’s even like. What if creation is just a phantom instinct, held over from some lost shred of DNA?”

Like a flash, Kira remembered a dog — it was giant in her memory, a growling mass of muscle and teeth. It chased her through a park or a garden, something green with grass and flowers, and she was terrified, and the dog was almost on her, and suddenly her father was there. He was not a strong man, he wasn’t big or powerful, but he put himself between her and the dog. He was bitten, and she thought it was very bad. He did it to save her. That’s what fathers did.

“What do you think it says about us that we don’t have any parents?” She looked up and caught Samm’s eye. “I don’t mean us, I don’t mean kids, I mean no fathers at all — a whole society, two whole societies, with no parents at all. What do you think that’s done to us?”

Samm said nothing, but he held her gaze. There was a tear in his eye — the first time she’d ever seen him cry. The scientist in her wanted to study it, to take a sample, to find out how and why and what he was crying. The girl in her simply thought of the Hope Act and wondered if a law like that could ever pass if a voter knew it would be forced upon his own daughter.

Kira looked at the screen, seeing not the image but her memory of Manhattan: of the Partial attack; of Gabe’s body lying slumped in the hall where the Partials had shot him. If they were on a mission of peace, why did they shoot him? She frowned, trying to reconcile that event with Samm’s protestation of innocence. They didn’t even try to talk to us first. It doesn’t make sense.

She racked her brain for more memories, trying to call up anything that would support what she desperately wanted to be true. What was it the Partials said right before we blew up the apartment? She struggled to remember. “Which group is this?” She’d heard it clearly — at least she thought she had. Which group of what? Had they been expecting someone else, maybe a group of bandits or the Voice? Was it pure luck that they’d found Kira instead, the one human who seemed willing to listen?

Or was Samm simply telling her exactly what she wanted to hear?

The doors opened with a sudden buzz, and the decontamination blowers roared to life. Shaylon came through the tunnel, clutching a plastic syringe full of blood, and ran to her in a rush.

“The nurse said to give you this,” he said quickly, holding out the syringe. “She said you’d know what to do with it.”

“You’re not allowed in here,” said Kira.

“She said it was an emergency,” said Shaylon, then stopped and looked at Samm. “So that’s him?”

She took the syringe gingerly; the tube was still warm from the blood inside. “What is it?”

“She said you’d know,” said Shaylon. “It’s from the maternity ward.”

Realization dawned, and Kira’s eyes went wide. “It’s from a newborn! One of the mothers had her baby!” She rushed to the counter, pulling out slides and vials and pipettes in a flurry. “Do you know which one?”

“She said you’d know what to do with it!”

“I do know,” said Kira. “Calm down.” Please, God, don’t let it be Madison. She piped a drop onto a slide as quickly as she dared and dashed to the medicomp. “This is uninfected blood, do you understand? The babies are born healthy and then the virus hits them, and we have only minutes, maybe less, before the virus morphs and attacks.” She punched in the commands and raced back to the counter, preparing another slide. “There’s an airborne virus and a blood-borne virus, and I’m trying to catch them as they transform from one to the other. Turn on the microscope.”

“Which one’s the microscope?”

“This one.” She flew across the room with the slide in hand, opening the viewing chamber and slamming the slide home. She flicked on all the switches, drumming on the scope anxiously while it slowly hummed to life, and when the screen flickered on she started the viewer, telling the computer to search for viruses. A small ping told her it had already found one of the airborne forms, and she called up the image immediately. The tiny virus appeared on the screen, a red highlight in a sea of gray. It was already beginning to change, but it was a still image, trapped partway from one form to the next; the scope was advanced, but nothing could take moving video at this level of magnification. More pings sounded as the medicomp found more viruses. “If we get enough good pictures,” said Kira, “at different stages of the transformation, we can probably reconstruct the entire process.” She told the medicomp to take another image of the same area, to see if the airborne virus had completely converted to its larger form.

The computer popped up a small notice: Partial match.

Shaylon pointed at it, his voice terrified. “The baby’s a Partial?”

“No, it means the object it found only partially matches the records in the database.” Just like the Lurker, she thought. “We’ve got something that’s kind of RM-ish, but isn’t a virus.” She pulled up the image and stared in shock: She didn’t recognize it. “That’s not good.”

“What is it?”

“It’s a new form of the virus,” said Kira, turning it on the screen to get the best possible view. “The airborne Spore is supposed to turn into the blood-borne Blob — they’re the only two variations of RM in our entire database.” She looked desperately for anything she could understand. “This is new.”

She ticked her fingers across the screen, dissecting the image as best she could, pulling it apart to see what made it work. The computer was right — it was a partial match for the Blob, bearing many of the same protein structures in the same basic arrangement, but beyond that it was completely new — and unlike the Lurker, it was definitely viral. Is this because of Samm? Is this new virus a result of the Lurker? Kira tagged the image and told the computer to search its database again, looking for anything that matched it more closely. There were five hits, all in the archive of newborn blood tests: mostly premature babies, plus one stillbirth, all more than eight years ago. It didn’t show up enough to stand out, but it did show up, and years before Samm got here. That means it’s not Samm’s fault. But then where did it come from?

Kira tapped back into the main medicomp imager. If it’s not that common, she thought, then maybe it’s just a mutation. Maybe this is the only instance of it in the sample, and I just happened to pick exactly the wrong spot to start looking. She told the scope to find more of it in the blood samples, and it pinged almost immediately, then pinged again, then again and again and again, even more pings now than when it was searching for the airborne Spore. It’s everywhere. Kira called up image after image, the new virus filling every screen, multiplying like mad. Frantically she called up a new search, looking for the Spore again, but there was nothing. The computer had saved the original images, but the structure itself had disappeared from the blood. Every instance of the Spore had morphed into this one — this Predator — and they were still replicating.

Shaylon spoke slowly, his voice thin and nervous as he looked at Samm. “What is that?”

“I have no idea.” Kira gritted her teeth and dove into the growing pile of reports and scans and images, determined to find what she was looking for: the process of evolution from Spore to Blob, the details that would tell her how the virus functioned — the individual chemical steps behind every process. It was like trying to drink from a waterfall.

Shaylon froze, his finger on his earpiece, then dropped into a crouch. “Get down.”

“Why? What’s going on—”

“Get down!” said Shaylon fiercely, pulling her to the floor behind the metal bulk of the microscope. “There’s someone here, someone sneaking around. They think it might be a jailbreak.”

Kira glanced around the edge of the computer; Samm was watching them with interest. Is someone really coming for you? Her gun was on the counter, tucked safely in its holster, far out of reach from where she was hiding; if somebody came now, she wouldn’t be able to get it in time.

She glanced back to see Shaylon listening intently to his earpiece. “They think it’s outside,” he said softly. “You stay here, I’m going to look out the window.” He rose to a crouch and ran to the far wall, his body low, his rifle at the ready. Kira glanced at Samm, then at the door, then ran to the counter and grabbed the pistol, pulling it with her to the floor. She had cover from the window, but not from the door. Was the second soldier still out there? She drew the gun and tossed the leather holster into the corner, checking the clip and chamber to make sure she was ready.

“I can’t see it,” Shaylon was saying. He stood carefully, looking out the window at the tightest possible angle. He had his hand to his ear, talking anxiously with Mkele. “I don’t see — wait, out in the cars. Are they still that far away?”

It doesn’t make sense to attack the hospital in daylight, thought Kira. The cars are good cover, and there are trees at the base of the building, but it’s hardly ideal. If they’re coming in through the wall, why not do it at night? Why not wait until they would have cover right up to the building?

Wait, she thought suddenly, if they’re coming in through the wall—

She jumped to her feet and ran toward Shaylon. “Get back! You’re too close to the—” and then the wall exploded, brick and metal and plaster caving inward like a giant bubble, the shock wave catching Kira and throwing her backward like an invisible hand. Shaylon flew to the side, hitting the wall and flopping down like a rag doll. Even Samm was blown clear, the force of the explosion tossing his operating table like a leaf. It slammed into Kira’s desk and toppled to the ground.

Kira hit the back wall with tremendous force, knocking the wind from her lungs and wrenching the gun out of her hand. She fell behind the massive DORD machine, already wobbling on its edge, and it crashed down with her, pinning her painfully to the floor. She screamed in agony, certain that her leg was broken, but forced herself to calm down.

Deep breaths, Kira, deep breaths. Get yourself under control. Slowly the world came back into focus; the pain in her leg coming clearer as she breathed. It’s not broken, it’s just pinned. I can push it off. She heard movement in the room, rubble falling and scattering. She looked around anxiously, but the DORD blocked her view of everything but the door. The plastic tunnel hung from the ceiling in tatters; a wave of rubble from the wall had shredded it and slammed into the door, blocking it shut. She felt a small electric shock in her pinned leg and saw that the plastic housing around the DORD machine had fractured. The machine is shorting out. I’ve got to get away from it. She heard more noises, definitely movement this time. Is it Shaylon or Samm? She pressed her arms and back against the wall, braced her legs against the machine, and pushed with all her strength.

She moved it an inch, then another, each one slow and agonizing, when suddenly she heard an audible snap in the bowels of the machine, and a surge of electricity racked her body.

The pain was excruciating. Every muscle in her body clenched at once, flexed tighter than she ever knew was possible, and suddenly the pain was gone, and she was gasping for air. Her head felt fuzzy, and she struggled to think; she felt like she’d been beaten with a metal bat but couldn’t tell where. She croaked, trying to speak.

“Help.”

The surge came again, a raging maelstrom of electric current coursing through her body. Her eyes rolled back and the world went dark. Her entire world was formless, placeless pain, and suddenly the shock was gone again. Her heart was fluttering erratically, and she felt her head grow light. She fought to stay awake.

“Help me,” she whispered. Her voice was feeble and hoarse. “The scanner is … electrocuting—”

Another burst of electricity cut her off, drowning her in pain, and when it stopped her lungs took five full seconds to start working again, her heart run ragged by the extra current, her body too confused to know what to do. When she finally breathed again, desperately sucking in air, she smelled the acrid stench of her own charred flesh. Her eyes focused slowly, and she saw that the door was open now, just a few inches, and an eye was peeking through — two eyes, one white and one black.

Not an eye, she thought, her brain like mush. It’s the barrel of a gun.

The door rocked slightly, shoved uselessly against the pile of rubble by the soldiers beyond. It didn’t budge. “It’s the girl. Is anyone else alive in there?”

“You have to help me,” she croaked. “My heart is stopping.”

“Can you see the prisoner? Has he already escaped?”

“The beats are … too erratic,” she said, feeling her body start to shut down — her muscles, her heart, her lungs slowly fading into nothing. “You have to help me. One more shock … and I’m.…”

She heard voices — shouting and screaming that seemed a hundred miles away. A warm breeze blew softly across her face, and she opened her eyes. The world was a formless blur, and yet something was there, moving, and suddenly the pressure on her legs was gone. The massive DORD machine flew across the room; the world rang in her ears. Strong arms pulled her clear of the wreckage, and she tried to focus. Someone was holding her, carrying her, checking her for wounds.

“Thank you,” she coughed. Her voice was so quiet she could barely hear it herself. She clung to her rescuer tightly. “I think … he got away.”

“I’m right here, Kira.”

I know that voice.

She struggled to think, straining her eyes, and slowly the world came into focus: Samm was holding her, his clothes still smoking from the explosion, the tattered restraints hanging useless from his arms. Around them the room was destroyed, the floor covered with rubble, the wall a gaping hole. The trees swayed in the wind. The crumpled mass of the DORD machine lay discarded in the corner; Shaylon lay in the other corner, bloody and still.

She looked up at Samm. “You saved me.”

The door finally wrenched open, and soldiers poured in like a flood. “Put her down!”

“He saved me.”

“Put her down now!”

Samm knelt, laying Kira gently on the floor. As soon as she was clear, the soldiers sprang forward and knocked him down with the butts of their rifles. Kira tried to speak, struggling to protest, but she was too weak. All she could do was watch.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

The room was dark. Hospital equipment beeped softly, tiny lights blinking on and off in the shadows. Kira opened her eyes, then closed them, gasping, her mind still full of pain and light, as if she were still in the midst of the explosion.

Samm saved me.

The soldiers had beaten Samm for almost a full minute before chaining him back up, kicking him in the stomach and hammering him with their rifles. He never fought back — he didn’t run when he had the chance, and then he didn’t fight back, he just let them hit him, over and over, an agonizing string of thuds and cracks and grunts of pain.

He’s a Partial, she told herself. She had told herself the same thing a hundred times over the past three days. He’s not even human. We don’t know what he’s doing here, what he’s thinking, what he’s plotting. And yet even as she said it, she knew she didn’t believe it. He wanted the same thing she did: to solve their problems instead of just working around them. On the entire island he was the only one she’d found who agreed with her.

But he was a Partial.

Kira tried to sit up, but a pain in her leg knocked her breath away. The same leg she’d had burned by the DORD machine. She moved the blanket for a better look, but was bandaged and she couldn’t see it well. She could recognize the itchy burn of her muscle fibers knitting back together, and knew she’d been treated with a regen box. It would be a while before she was well enough to sit up, let alone stand or walk.

She heard a soft sigh and looked across the room at another hospital bed. There were more than enough rooms in the hospital, but only enough juice to power a few floors, so most patients were doubled up. She peered closer at the shape in the bed, nearly faceless in the dim light, and realized with a start that it was Shaylon. He must have been shattered by the explosion — the way he was bandaged, he must have had dozens of broken bones, and hundreds of cuts and abrasions from the shrapnel.

His breaths were small and feeble, but he was breathing on his own, and he appeared stable. It looked like he was going to pull through.

He’d seen the Predator in the blood, and he’d heard her speculations on its nature. Had she given too much away? Had she exposed too many secrets? The island was ready to burst into flames at the slightest spark; when he wakes up, please let him keep quiet.

Kira heard footsteps in the hallway and looked at the door just in time to see it open.

“You’re awake,” said Nurse Hardy.

“What happened?” Kira demanded. “How long was I out?” She stopped short when she saw the nurse wheel another bed into the room. It was Madison. Kira sat up quickly, gasping at the stab of pain in her leg.

“Madison, are you all right?”

“She went into early labor,” said Nurse Hardy. “We managed to stop it, but I don’t know if she’s going to make it much further.”

“I’ll be fine,” said Madison. She looked over at Kira. “They won’t even let me sit up anymore, let alone walk. Let alone use the bathroom.”

“Just stay calm and rest,” said Nurse Hardy. “We’ll keep you in here for a few hours while you recover, and then we’ll see if we can take you back to your regular room. You have to relax.”

“I’ll relax,” said Madison dutifully. “I’ll stare at the ceiling and won’t move a muscle.”

“You should sleep,” said Nurse Hardy. She glanced over at Kira. “And you should too. You were only asleep for a few hours, and your body needs rest. Let’s have a look at your leg.” She pulled back the sheet over Kira’s legs and lifted up the edge of the bandage; Kira held her breath, trying not to react to the pain as the moving bandage tugged at her burn. Nurse Hardy tutted disapprovingly at the palm-size patch of blackened skin, gooey with burn cream and antiseptic. “It’s healing, but it’s a nasty burn. We’ve already used a regen box on it just a few hours ago, so we’ll have to wait awhile before another treatment.”

“Thanks,” said Kira, gasping softly as the nurse gently laid the bandage back down.

“Go to sleep,” said Nurse Hardy, “both of you.” She left the room, quietly closing the door behind her. Kira looked at Madison’s outline in the darkness.

“Mads, do you know what happened up there? Was it the Voice?”

“It must have been, but I don’t know much more than you do. There was an explosion. Someone got through the security perimeter.”

Kira hesitated. “And Samm?”

“Samm?”

“The Partial.”

Madison gave her an odd look. “I’m sorry, Kira, I don’t know. I had more problems with the abruption, and I was getting examined when the explosion hit. I haven’t been able to move, much less talk to anyone who has any idea what’s going on.”

Kira fell back into her pillow, grunting at the release of tension in her burned leg. “I can’t be here. I have to find out what’s happening.”

“You and me both.”

Kira laughed dryly. “Sounds like you’re just as bad off as I am.”

“Oh, you know. Sunshine and rainbows.” Madison shifted on the bed, trying to find a comfortable position. “I’ve got ten weeks left, and I’ll be lucky to make it four.” Her voice grew soft and sad. “I’m going to lose her, Kira.”

“You’re not going to lose her.”

“Even if she’s born on time — even if she’s born late, with plenty of time to develop — I’m going to lose her to RM.”

“I’m not going to let that happen.”

“You can’t stop it,” said Madison. “I know you’re trying, I know you’ve done everything you can possibly do to help, but it’s not enough. Maybe someday, but not for me.” Her voice broke. “Not for Arwen.”

Kira cocked her head to the side. “Who’s Arwen?” She thought she knew all the pregnant mothers. Maybe Arwen’s a new one? I’ve only been working with Samm for three days, but that’s plenty of time for a new mother to get on the list.

Madison started to speak, hesitated, then whispered softly. “Arwen is my baby. I named her.”

The thought hit Kira like a punch in the gut.

“Mads—”

“I know I shouldn’t have,” said Madison. “I know. But I love this baby, Kira. I love her more than I can even describe to you. It’s like I know her already — she’s so independent, and so strong, and so … funny. I know it sounds ridiculous, but she makes me laugh every day. It’s like we’re sharing a joke no one else can hear. I couldn’t not name her, Kira. She’s a real person.”

“I’m so sorry, Mads.” Kira wiped her eyes. “I can’t imagine what it must be like for you to have Samm here in the same building—”

“Haru doesn’t know I’ve named her,” said Madison. “And no, I don’t hate the Partial.” Kira thought she saw her shrug in the darkness. “Whatever the Partials did, they did it eleven years ago: If I held a grudge that long, I’d be just as dead as everyone we left behind. I don’t want to live in a world full of dead people.” She paused, breathing deeply. “And anyway, even if she dies, at least I got to meet my daughter. At least I got to laugh with her jokes.”

The door opened again, and Nurse Hardy returned with a syringe. Kira wiped her eyes.

“Just a little something to help you sleep,” said the nurse.

“I don’t need it,” said Madison.

“You don’t want it,” Nurse Hardy corrected, prepping the needle. “I’m the one who decides what you need. Some sleep will do you good.” She pulled the cap from Madison’s IV tube, inserted the needle, and pressed the plunger. “All done. It should only take a few minutes to kick in, and you’ll finally get some rest. I’ll see you again in the morning.”

Madison sighed. “Fine.”

“I want to see Mkele,” said Kira. “Now.”

“And what do you expect me to do about it?” asked Nurse Hardy. “There’s been an attack on the hospital; Mkele’s busy.”

“Can you find him?”

Hardy gestured at Madison and shrugged helplessly. “She’s one of seven mothers on the floor right now. I’m pretty busy myself.” She sighed. “If I see him, I’ll let him know you’re looking for him.”

“Thanks.”

Nurse Hardy left, and the room returned to darkness.

Kira wiped her eyes again. “Arwen Sato,” she said. “It’s a beautiful name.”

“It’s my grandmother’s,” said Madison. “I know Haru wants a Japanese name, but I think he’ll like this one.”

“I think he’ll like it a lot,” said Kira.

“Then I’ll see you … in the morning.” Madison yawned again. Kira watched as her friend slowly calmed, stilled, and fell asleep. Her breathing was deep and rhythmic.

I’m not going to let her child die, thought Kira. I don’t care what it takes. That baby is going to live.

But how? She shook her head, completely overwhelmed. The civil war may have already started, and I can barely walk. And that last blood sample — it was exactly what I never expected it to be. A new strain of the virus that no one’s ever seen? It doesn’t make sense. I thought I knew how RM worked, but now … everything I thought I knew was wrong. And I’m out of time to find the answers.

Kira drummed her fingers nervously on the rails of her hospital bed. I need to put all the pieces together. She thought back over the things she’d learned, trying to see them in a new way. RM had four forms, or at least four that she’d found thus far: the airborne Spore, the blood-borne Blob, the Lurker from Samm’s breath, and the Predator from the newborn’s sample. I thought the Spore would turn into the Blob, but it didn’t. It turned into the Predator. And according to the older records, it had done the same thing in the past, so it wasn’t an anomaly. Does it happen every time? What if the Predator is an intermediate step between the Spore and the Blob?

She mentally reordered the versions of the virus, naming the airborne Spore Stage 1, the Predator Stage 2, and the Blob Stage 3. No one had ever actually seen the Blob virus kill anyone — it was in everyone’s blood, so they made the natural assumption, but it had always been in the survivors’ blood. What if it wasn’t actually deadly? What if the killer is the Predator, and then by the time we run a test it’s changed into the Blob?

Kira shook her head, cursing the explosion. If I could test another sample, without an explosion interrupting me, I could know for sure what’s going on here. Maybe. But I don’t have time for more tests — I don’t even have a lab anymore. She shifted again, trying to move, and gasped at the pain in her leg. She cried out in frustration. How can I fix this when I can’t even move?

The door opened again, and Kira looked up to see Dr. Skousen, and after him Mr. Mkele. Skousen walked to Shaylon’s unconscious body.

Mkele locked the door.

“You’re awake,” said Mkele, studying Kira carefully. She smoothed the sheets on her legs and stared back defiantly. “I’m glad. This concerns you.”

“What happened?” she asked. “And where’s Samm?”

Dr. Skousen walked to Madison’s bed, probing her head and face carefully with his fingers. “She’s asleep.”

“Good,” said Mkele. “Let’s get started.”

“What the hell is going on?” Kira repeated, trying to sound as firm and commanding as possible. Instead she felt weak and vulnerable — wounded and tired, half-naked in a hospital bed. She pulled the sheet tighter around her thighs and back. “That was a Voice attack, right? Have they attacked other sites — has the civil war already started? And someone tell me what’s happened to Samm!”

Dr. Skousen pulled a small bottle from the pocket of his lab coat, followed by a small syringe and a tiny needle. The needle seemed to fill Kira’s vision, glinting softly in the faint light.

“Samm is contained,” said Mkele. His eyes looked tired, his face gaunt. “We’re here to contain the other loose end.”

Kira tensed, eyes shooting around the room to look for exits — the door was locked, the window was locked, and her leg screamed in pain even just thinking about running. She looked at Dr. Skousen, slowly filling the syringe, then at Mkele. “You’re going to kill me?”

“No,” said Mkele, walking toward her, “though we do ask that you refrain from shouting.”

Dr. Skousen held up the syringe, and flicked it with his finger. Kira’s eyes grew wide, she opened her mouth to scream, and Mkele clamped a hand over her mouth, grabbing her shoulder and holding her still. Dr. Skousen stepped not toward her, but back toward Shaylon. He inserted the needle in the young soldier’s IV tube and pushed in the entire dose.

“We did not want this,” said Mkele, practically whispering in her ear. His voice was thick and heavy. “Whatever else you think of us, know this: Our hand has been forced.”

Kira watched in horror as the chemical from the shot swirled through his IV tube and into his body. No, she thought. No, no, no.

“I’m going to let go of you now,” said Mkele, hands still clamped tight around her face. “I’m going to uncover your mouth. You are not going to scream.” He waited until Kira nodded, still wide-eyed with terror, then lifted his hands and stepped away. “There. It’s done.”

“What did you do?”

“We gave him medicine,” said Mkele, “but I fear that even with it, he won’t pull through.”

“You killed him,” said Kira. She looked at Dr. Skousen. “You killed him.”

“No,” said Skousen. He sighed. “He died tragically from injuries caused by the explosion.”

“But why?” she pleaded.

“He saw too much,” said Mkele. “Far more than he was intended to see. He would have told others, and we cannot have that.”

“We could have stopped him first,” said Kira. “We could have isolated him, and explained what we needed, and—”

“You’ve met the boy,” said Mkele. “I trust him to go where I tell him, and to shoot where I aim him, but I do not trust him to keep this secret. Not after what’s happened.”

“Then what about me?” Kira demanded. “Obviously I can’t keep a secret either, so why not kill me too?”

“Shaylon was a liability. You are an asset.”

Kira felt a chill run down her spine.

“It won’t be long now,” said Dr. Skousen, dropping the implements back into his pocket and glancing a final time at Shaylon. He looked at Kira, said nothing, and turned away.

“As for the Partial,” said Mkele, “we’re meeting as soon as we can to decide how best to dispose of him.”

Kira’s heart stopped in her chest. “But I have two more days.”

“You have no lab, and you can’t even sit up. East Meadow is turning into a war zone, and we do not have time for anything that will jeopardize our ability to win that war. Harboring a live Partial is too great of a risk, but a dead one…” Mkele sighed and rubbed his eyes. When he spoke again his voice was soft, almost sad. “I had hoped you could do it, Kira, truly I did. Perhaps someday we can try again.”

“We don’t have to give up.”

“You’re no closer to a cure now than when you started three days ago — you’re further, in fact; your records were destroyed in the explosion, along with all of the equipment you were using, most of it irreplaceable. If not for the Voice, we might have been able to salvage something — anything — but there’s simply no time left. We had to act.” He straightened, and the old, cold demeanor crept back into his face and stance. “It’s time for us to step in and put this society back together, one way or another. Good night, Kira.”

They opened the door and walked away.

Kira looked at Shaylon, her heart pounding in her chest. He lay quietly; she watched the lights blink on the wall behind him. I’ve got to do something. She threw back the sheet and tried to move her legs, biting back the scream as her burn shifted and stretched. If the drug they gave him was a poison, there might be an antidote; there had to be something she could do to save him. She took a deep breath, screwed up her courage, and threw her legs over the side, clutching the bed rail and groaning loudly as another wave of pain tore through her. The lights behind Shaylon began to blink more rapidly; the soft beeps became more strident. She put her legs on the floor, cold and bracing against her feet, and limped to a stand, being careful not to put any weight on her ruined leg. Even with that, the change of position was more painful than she’d expected, and her legs gave way, dumping her on the ground. She screamed in agony, her hands curled into claws, her legs flailing in the air, and in that moment the alarms went off over Shaylon’s bed. His body began to buck and writhe, broken bones grinding together. Feet pounded down the hall, nurses bursting into the room and throwing on the lights. Kira clamped down on her pain, struggling to sit up.

“It’s a heart attack,” said a nurse.

“Get the crash cart,” said a doctor. They ignored Kira on the floor, trying desperately to save Shaylon’s life while his broken body flailed and twisted. They drugged him, they shocked him, they bound him and hit him and did everything they could think of, and all the while Kira watched from the floor, oozing new blood and sobbing uncontrollably.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

“You shouldn’t be out of bed.”

Kira winced, leaning heavily on the IV stand for support. “I’m fine.” She wasn’t, but she didn’t have time to lie around. Her time was up: Samm would be killed, the cure would be lost, Arwen would die, the entire island seemed ready to collapse in a cloud of rubble. Kira had a plan, and she wasn’t going to let a charred leg keep her from carrying it out.

The nurse shook his head. “You have a third-degree burn the size of a tennis ball. Let me help you back to your bed.”

Kira held out her hand, favoring her burned leg as well as she could. “I’m fine, really. The regen box has already knit most of the skin back together, and there was barely any muscle damage. Just let me walk.”

“Are you sure?” the nurse asked. “You look like you’re hurting pretty bad.”

“I’m sure.” Kira took another step, using the IV stand as a cane and dragging her burned leg gingerly behind her. The nurse watched her, and she did her best to smile and look normal. In truth she felt horrible — she’d given herself a second treatment with the regen box, despite the risk of overdose, and the burned cells were only just starting to grow back. But she had to get up. She had to reach the Senate.

They were nearby, she knew it. They were likely still using the town hall, as Mkele had suggested, but for a secret meeting of their Machiavellian subcommittee she knew they’d be here, in the hospital, hidden from the world and surrounded by guards.

She just had to find out where in the hospital they were.

The IV stand was on wheels, which squeaked softly as she limped down the long, white hallway. Every step was agony. She stopped at a nurses’ station, panting with exertion.

“Are you okay, Kira?” It was Sandy, the maternity nurse.

“I’m okay. Do you know where Dr. Skousen is?”

Sandy shook her head. “He’s asked not to be disturbed.”

“Sandy, I know he’s in a meeting with the other senators,” Kira whispered. She watched Sandy’s face for a flash of recognition, saw it, and smiled inwardly. “It’s related to the secret project they’ve had me working on. I need to be there.”

Sandy leaned toward her. “Look, I don’t want any part of this. They’re in the smaller conference room on four. Do what you need to do.”

“Thanks, Sandy.” She headed for the stairs as quickly as she could. The fourth floor: ten steps up, turn a corner, ten more steps. Repeat twice more. Kira gasped. I’m never going to make it. She shook her head, remembering Shaylon’s dying body, remembering Samm. I have to find them. I don’t have any choice. She gripped the handrail tightly, planted the IV stand on the first step, and slowly raised herself up. The wheeled stand wiggled slightly on the stair, but she held it in place. Every step hurt her leg, and soon her arms were exhausted from supporting so much of her weight. At the first landing she collapsed against the wall, her head resting on the plaster while she sucked in huge gulps of air. Her leg hurt more than she’d ever imagined anything could hurt, but she couldn’t stop. They’re going to kill Samm. She clenched her jaw and kept going, forcing herself to take the next step, then the next, then the next. Landing after landing. Floor after floor. When she reached the fourth floor she fell to the tile and crawled, until a soldier guarding the conference room ran to her side. It was the same guard from the last meeting, which meant he’d recognize her. Kira said a silent prayer of gratitude and hoped they hadn’t thought to tell him she wasn’t allowed in this time — why would they? They thought she was still bedridden.

“Are you okay?” He lifted her to her feet. “They didn’t tell me you were coming.”

Thank you. She struggled to her feet, holding on to the soldier with one hand and her IV stand with the other. “I wouldn’t miss it. Help me in there.” She leaned on his arm and limped to the door, throwing it open with all the force she could muster.

Mkele and the senators were clustered around a table, Samm bound with chains in the corner. Everyone looked up at her in shock, and Kira could feel the hate in Kessler’s eyes like a laser. Delarosa merely raised her eyebrow.

Hobb turned to Skousen. “You told us she was too injured to move.”

“Turns out he’s not actually a very good doctor,” said Kira, wincing and dragging her leg into the room. The soldier grabbed her shoulder, stopping her short.

“I’m sorry, senators,” he said. “I didn’t realize. I’ll take her back.”

“No,” said Delarosa. “She made it up here, the least we can do is listen to whatever she has to say.”

“We know exactly what she’ll say,” said Kessler.

Delarosa turned to the soldier with a stern glare. “Thank you; please wait outside. And if anyone else shows up, announce them before you let them in.”

“Of course, ma’am.” The red-faced soldier closed the door, and Kira glanced at Samm. He hadn’t been cleaned up since the explosion, and his clothes hung in filthy tatters. What skin she could see was riddled with scrapes and gashes, already healing but still obviously painful. He said nothing, but nodded curtly in acknowledgment.

She turned back to the senators, still panting from her exertion, and collapsed into a chair. “Sorry I’m late.”

“This meeting does not concern you,” said Weist. “Your project has been terminated, we’re going to get rid of this … thing, and if we’re lucky, we might be able to clean up the mess.”

“But the project is working,” said Kira. “I’m almost done mapping the development of the virus, and if I could just have a bit more time—”

“You’ve accomplished nothing,” said Skousen. “We risked the security of our city and the integrity of this council so that you could study a Partial, and when we need to see results all you can do is ask for more time?”

“But now we understand—” said Kira, but Skousen was too furious to be stopped.

“You understand nothing! You say the virus has multiple forms: What triggers the change from one to another? Can we stop it? Can we bypass it? Can any of the forms be attacked or negated? Science is about specifics, Ms. Walker, not grand, helpless gestures of defiance. If you can give us a mechanism of change or a specific means of defense, then do so, but if not—”

“Please, I just need more time.”

“We don’t have any more time!” shouted Delarosa. It was the first time she had ever raised her voice, and Kira quailed at the force of it. “Our city is falling apart — our entire island is falling apart. Voice attacks in the streets, bombs going off in the hospital, rebels fleeing the city and infiltrating our defenses and killing our citizens. We need to save some semblance of this civilization.”

“You’re not listening to me!” said Kira, and the sound of her own words shocked her. “If Samm dies we all die, not today but inevitably, and there will be nothing we can do to stop it.”

“This is an obsession,” said Delarosa. “A noble one, but still an obsession and still dangerous. We will not let it destroy the human race.”

“You’re the ones who are going to destroy it,” said Kira, tears beginning to creep into her eyes.

“I told you,” said Senator Kessler, “the same canned message every time.” She looked Kira over. “You sound exactly like Xochi, like the Voice, spouting this groundless, incendiary tripe.”

Kira struggled for words, but they caught in her throat.

“Your job is the future,” said Mkele softly. “Ours is the present. I told you before: If our goals ever conflict, ours takes priority. An organized Voice attack on East Meadow is imminent and there are only so many battles we can fight at one time. Before we do anything else, the Partial must be destroyed.”

Kira glanced at Samm. As always, he was expressionless, but she could tell that he knew this was coming. She turned back to the senators. “Just like that? Not even a trial or a hearing or—”

“The hearing was four days ago,” said Weist. “You were there, and you heard the decision.”

“You gave us five days of research,” said Kira. “We’ve only had three.”

“The laboratory is destroyed,” said Skousen, “along with most of your work. You’re in no condition to continue, and there’s not enough data left for anyone else to finish what you started. Not in time.”

“Then move us to another laboratory,” said Kira. “Surely somewhere we have the equipment — all we need is the time. The five days was an arbitrary timeline in the first place.”

“And risk further attacks?” asked Delarosa. “Absolutely not.”

Hobb leaned forward. “The plan we’re considering will still allow for—”

“Then let him go free,” said Kira suddenly. She swallowed, nervous, watching as their eyes grew dark and narrow. She plunged forward before they could protest. “He’s done nothing to hurt us, he’s even helped with the research. There’s no reason why we shouldn’t let him live.”

“Is this a joke?” hissed Kessler.

“It serves your purpose,” said Kira. “You want him gone: He’ll be gone. If nothing else, it will help alleviate the possibility of a Partial retaliation.”

Skousen and Kessler scowled, and Weist shook his head. “Do you honestly think that will do any good?”

“Of course she does,” said Mkele. “She’s an idealist.”

“She’s a plague baby,” said Kessler. “She’s developed an attachment to this thing, but she has no idea what the Partials are really like.”

“And you do?” asked Kira. She tried to stand, gasped at the shock of pain, then rested back and turned in her chair. “You fought them eleven years ago — eleven years. Is it impossible to consider that something may have changed?”

“You can’t believe anything it tells you,” said Mkele.

“He’s a soldier, not a spy,” said Kira. She turned to look at him; struggling, in this last moment, to decide once and for all if she could trust him. If he had been honest the last few days, or if he was really the monster the senators made him out to be.

He watched her, outwardly calm and yet not quite concealing his nervousness, his determination. His hope. She looked back at the senators and spoke strongly. “Samm has faced captivity and torture by people who want to see his entire race destroyed, and he’s done it without crying, without complaining, without begging, without anything but strength and determination. If the other Partials are half as understanding as he is, we might just stand a chance—”

“I’m on a mission of peace,” said Samm. His voice was firm and confident; Kira turned to him, tears forming again in her eyes as he stepped forward to the full reach of his manacles. The senators were silent. “My squad was in Manhattan because we were coming here, to talk to you. We came to offer a truce.”

“Lies,” snarled Kessler.

“It’s the truth,” said Samm. “We need your help.”

But why? thought Kira. We can’t trust you if you don’t tell us why.

He looked at Kira for a moment, fixing her with his eyes, then turned to the senators and drew himself up, standing as tall and proud as he could. “We’re dying.”

Kira’s eyes went wide; the entire room was shocked into silence.

“Like you, we can’t reproduce, though ours is an engineered sterility built into our DNA — a fail-safe to keep us from getting out of hand. That never bothered us before because we don’t age, either, so there was never any danger of us disappearing. But apparently there’s a fail-safe for that, too.”

Dr. Skousen regained his voice first. “You’re … dying? All of you?”

“We discovered ParaGen designed us with an expiration date,” said Samm. “At twenty years, the process that halts our aging reverses, and we shrivel and die within weeks, sometimes days. It’s not accelerated aging. It’s decay. We rot alive.”

Kira’s mind reeled. This was the great secret he’d never dared tell — that the Partials had a ticking clock, just like the humans did. That’s why they wanted a truce. She was too shocked to move, but looked at the senators, trying to guess what they were thinking. Kessler was smiling, but Hobb and Weist were staring at Samm with shocked eyes and open mouths. Delarosa looked like she was trying not to cry, though Kira couldn’t tell if they were tears of joy or sorrow. Weist was mumbling under his breath, his mouth moving almost as if he didn’t realize it. Mkele was stone faced and silent.

“They’re dying,” said Kessler, and Kira nearly recoiled from the vicious glee in the woman’s voice. “Do you realize what this means? The first Partials were created in the third year of the Isolation War, which was … ten years before the Partial War. Twenty-one years ago. The first wave of them would have started dying last winter, and the youngest have what, two years left? Three at the most? And then they’ll be gone forever.”

“Everyone will be gone forever,” said Samm, and Kira felt more emotion in his voice, more earnestness, than she’d ever felt before. “Both of our species are going extinct — every sapient life form on the planet is going to die.”

“Our shelf life is longer than yours,” said Delarosa. “I think we’ll take our chances on our own.”

“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you,” said Kira, finally finding her voice. “Without them there is no cure.” She looked at Samm, finally understanding his pleas. “We have to work together.”

Samm nodded. “You can have babies, but they die of RM; we’re completely immune, but we can’t reproduce. Don’t you see? We need each other. Neither species can beat this alone.”

“Think what this will do for morale,” said Hobb. “Once the people hear this, they’ll … they’ll declare it a holiday. A new Rebuilding Day.”

“What is wrong with you people?” Kira demanded, struggling to stand before collapsing heavily back into her chair. “He thought you’d kill him when you heard his secret, but it’s worse.”

“We were always going to destroy it,” said Mkele. “That was never in question.”

“What this means now,” said Delarosa, “is that we’re going to do it in public, where this news can get out and do its job: unifying the human race.”

“Try to see the larger picture,” Hobb said to Kira. “You’re trying to save a group of people who are actively killing one another in the streets. Do you think a treaty with the enemy is going to change that? If they won’t even listen to us, what makes you think they’ll do anything for a Partial?” Hobb leaned forward, earnest and intense. “The Voice were calling for our heads long before the Partial showed up, and if word gets out that we’re hiding one, it will only get worse. The people are going to want answers; they’re going to need answers. And they need us to provide those answers, because when we provide them we’ll win the people back. We’ll have control of the island again; we’ll have peace again. We know you want peace.”

“Of course,” said Kira, “but—”

“Be careful,” murmured Delarosa, looking not at Kira but at Senator Hobb. “What are you telling her?”

“She can help,” said Hobb. He fixed Kira with eyes so deep and blue she felt herself caught by them, drawn in like water in a glass. “You’re an idealist,” he said. “You want to save people; we want to give you that opportunity. You’re also intelligent, so you tell me: What do the people want?”

“They want peace,” said Kira.

“Nobody blows up a building because they want peace,” said Hobb. “Try again.”

“They want…” Kira watched Hobb’s face, wondering where he was going with this. What do the people want? “They want a cure.”

“Too specific.”

“They want a future.”

“They want a purpose.” Hobb spread his hands, gesturing grandly as he spoke. “They want to wake up in the morning knowing what they’re supposed to do, and how they’re supposed to do it. A future will give them purpose, and a cure will give them a future, but down at the core, the purpose is all they really want. They want a destination — they want a goal they can reach for. When we established East Meadow, we thought that the goal of curing RM would be enough. But it’s not a goal we’ve been able to reach, and over eleven years of fruitless nothing the people have fallen apart. Their purpose has withered and died. We need to give them something attainable — do you see where I’m going with this? We need to give them Samm.”

“No!” shouted Kira.

“Nobody knows who caused that explosion,” said Senator Delarosa. “It was probably the Voice, yes, but what if it was a Partial?”

Kira felt the room grow cold. “It wasn’t.”

“But what would it mean for humanity if it was?” Hobb licked his lips, gesturing with his hands as he spoke. “Humanity needs a purpose, and now this Partial has blown up our hospital.” He snapped his fingers. “There’s their purpose: an enemy! The people grow enraged — not against us, but with us. The island unites against a common foe. It might even sway the Voice — can you imagine what a coup that would be? All the rebels back on our team again, all this anger and violence directed out instead of in. The human race is tearing one another apart, Kira, but this will save it. Surely you can see that.”

“But it’s a lie,” said Kira.

“Because only a lie will save us in time,” said Delarosa. “I want a cure more than anyone, and yes, a real cure might unite us, but the clock has run out. The Voice have issued an ultimatum of civil war; the devil is at the gates. If we don’t do something now, tomorrow, we lose our chance to do anything at all.”

There was something wrong with their story — even beyond the obvious deception, there was something deeper and darker lurking somewhere inside. It made Kira queasy. “Why are you telling me this?”

“This plan will work without you,” said Hobb, “but think how much better it will be with you. You’re young and pretty, you’re capable and idealistic, and you’ve been at the heart of everything we’ve done — you went to Manhattan and brought back the secret, you searched for the cure, and you were injured in the line of duty by the first Partial attack in eleven years.” He gestured at her leg. “If we tell this story, people will believe it; if you tell this story, people will die for it. You can make it personal and meaningful — you can be the hero who unites the world again. You’ll be the face of peace.”

“This is evil,” said Kira. “You’re asking me to lie to everyone I know.” She pointed at Samm. “You’re asking me to be a part of his murder.”

“The wolves are hungry,” said Delarosa. “We can kill ourselves fighting them, or we can throw them a body. The death of one Partial is the cheapest price for peace we could ever hope to pay.”

And then all at once, like a thunderbolt in her brain, Kira saw it — the deeper secret she couldn’t see before. The senators wanted to use this explosion to win back the Voice, but that would never work if the Voice had been the ones to set the bomb: They would know the Senate was lying. The only way to blame Samm was to use an event that no one knew the truth about, and that meant the Voice didn’t set that bomb.

For the Senate’s plan to work, the bomb had to be set by … the Senate.

She almost shouted it out right there, accusing them without thinking, but for once in her life she managed to hold her tongue, biting down on the truth that she knew would get her killed where she stood. The Senate had set the bomb — the Senate had masterminded this entire thing from the beginning. They wanted to solve the Voice problem by creating a common enemy, and she had given them one; she’d dropped Samm right in their laps with her idiotic trip to Manhattan. That was why they’d brought him back, and that was why they’d put her in charge of the project — so that one day they could blow it all up without losing anyone important, and they could pose with the rubble and bring everyone together against the big, bad enemy they could never let go of. It was the same general plan they’d just explained to her, but deeper and older and far more sinister. They wouldn’t back out of it now, no matter how much she talked.

Kira looked at Samm — not just looked at him but stared at him, thought at him, willed him to understand her, wishing with all her being that she could link with him and breathe her thoughts straight into his brain. I’m sorry, she thought. I can’t stop them. Please… I’m sorry.

“It’s time for you to choose,” said Delarosa. “Join us, bring peace to the island, put an end to the Voice threat … or stay a rebel, and live your days as an exile. You could live comfortably on one of the farms.” She leaned forward. “You are a firebrand, Ms. Walker — people follow you, and if you join our cause, they will follow you into the brightest future we’ve seen in decades. A new dawn for humanity. The choice is yours.”

I’m sorry, she thought again. She gripped the IV stand, gritted her teeth, and dragged her charred leg one step back toward the senators. “There’s nothing I can do to stop you.”

She could feel Samm’s shock like a wave of betrayal, slamming her in the back and washing up and over her head. Just trust me, she thought.

Hobb narrowed his eyes. “You’ll do it?”

“No, I won’t.” She half turned, not daring to look Samm in the face again. “I can’t keep fighting you — look at me, I can barely stand up — but that doesn’t mean I’m going to sell him out to help you and lie to my friends.” A tear rolled down her cheek, but she kept her gaze firm, desperate for them to believe her. “Do whatever you have to do and be done with it. I won’t stop you.” She turned to the door, took a painful step, then paused, gasping for air. “And get one of your goons out there to carry me back downstairs. I can barely move anymore.”

“Of course,” said Hobb. “Take your time. Recuperate. This will take us a few hours to set up anyway.”

Kira nodded. That’s exactly what I’m counting on.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

The guard laid her gently in her hospital bed, cringing as she groaned in pain. It wasn’t fake — her leg seemed to hurt more now than it had climbing the stairs. She tried to arrange the blanket over her legs, but even that much motion brought tears to her eyes. The guard moved her legs for her, then turned off the lights and left. Kira closed her eyes, clenched her teeth, and forced herself to sit up.

Never underestimate me.

The regen box was still in the room, and Kira gave herself another treatment — a third in less than eight hours, accelerating her cell growth far past the point of safety. It would cause long-term damage, but in the short term it would let her walk. She peeked out the door and smiled grimly. Her wound was so bad, and her walking so debilitated, that the guard hadn’t even stayed to watch her.

She found Marcus in the cafeteria, staring silently at a tray of untouched rice. Will he even help? He has to. She inched slowly toward him across the empty floor. “Hey.”

He looked up, eyes wide with shock, and leaped to his feet. “Where have you been? I came in as soon as they reopened the building, and you weren’t in your room — I tore the building upside down until they finally made me come in here and wait.” He looked her up and down, frowning in renewed concern. “How on earth did you get in here? You can barely walk.”

“Magic,” she said coolly. “Can you do me a favor?”

“Of course.”

“I need an MRI.”

He frowned again. “They won’t give you one?”

“I want you to do it.”

“Why?”

“I want you to hold my hand while it runs.”

“I … okay.” He grimaced, obviously confused. “Wouldn’t you rather have a DORD, they’re so much better—”

“I need an MRI.”

“Then let me find someone to run the scan while I—”

“Just you,” she said firmly. “Just you and me.”

Marcus nodded, his face worn and worried, but there was a look in his eye — he was starting to pick up on what she was doing. “Okay, sure.” He offered his arm and she took it gratefully, staggering alongside him back into the main hallway.

“What’s really going on?” he whispered.

“Call it a medical hunch. I want to see something.” She hesitated for a moment, trying to figure out what to say to him. They hadn’t spoken since his proposal.

He walked in silence, and she did the same. After everything I’ve done to him, will he even trust me anymore?

They made their way down the hall to the radiology center and found a private room. Marcus eased her onto the exam table, and she let out a gasp as the weight came off her leg. She felt like she’d been running a marathon through a sea of broken glass. The MRI machine was smaller than the DORD in her lab — just a doughnut instead of a full-body box, and not nearly as powerful — but its electromagnetic field was exactly what she needed.

“I need to go turn it on,” said Marcus. He ran to the viewing room, fiddled with the controls, and Kira took a deep breath. This is it. This is either the beginning, or the end. The machine hummed to life, the powerful magnetic field washing over her, and she reached out her hand as Marcus came back.

“We don’t have much time, so just listen,” said Kira, leaning back while the MRI ran its sequence. “Mkele has me under heavy surveillance, and I am almost certainly wearing some kind of listening device. The field from this machine will disrupt it, but I don’t know how much time we’ll have before his goons get suspicious.” She glanced over at him, and then faced forward again. “Do you trust me?”

“What?”

“Do you trust me?” She felt him staring at her, but she kept her eyes forward.

“Yes. Of course I trust you. What’s going on?”

“The Senate set the bomb that blew up my lab. They killed Shaylon and threatened me. This entire thing — Samm, the studies, the bomb — has all been a ploy to generate enough fear, aimed in a precise direction, to cement their power over the island. Now they’re using this scenario in order to—” She dropped her eyes, then found her courage and finally looked at him. “Marcus, they’re going to kill Samm.”

She saw something play across his face. Whether it was horror or shock or jealousy, she couldn’t tell. His eyes flicked up toward the ceiling, then slowly turned back to her.

“Kira,” he said, “they were always going to kill it. To kill… Samm. You know this.” His voice was even and controlled, enough that she knew he must have been repressing something powerful. “Besides, why would they blow up their own people? Their own hospital?”

“Because it’s part of their plans,” said Kira. “I could never figure out why I got the assignment to study Samm, but this must have been it. I’m just a plague baby to them, the least experienced medic and the most expendable. If the bomb had killed me, they could have used me as a martyr, but since I lived, they offered me a role as their figurehead; the brave young scientist who survived the Partial attack.”

“The Partials set the bomb?”

“The Senate set the bomb, I told you that. But they’re going to blame Samm, they’re going to kill him, and they’re going to use his death to rally support.” She begged him with her eyes, willing him to believe. “They told Shaylon to go to the window, Marcus. They told him to stand right next to the wall before they blew it up.”

“No,” said Marcus, shaking his head. “It was the Voice — they’ve been attacking East Meadow for weeks, there’s probably at least one cell of them here in the city.” But as he was speaking, she could hear the doubt creeping into his voice.

“Did anyone actually see them?” asked Kira. “Did anyone actually attack the hospital, or did the military just say they did to cover their own tracks?”

Marcus stared at her, saying nothing.

“I know it sounds crazy,” said Kira, but Marcus cut her off.

“No, it’s not crazy. Coming from Xochi it would sound crazy, but from you…” He took her hand. “I trust you, Kira. If you say that they’re trying to kill you, then I believe that they’re trying to kill you.”

Kira closed her eyes, praying to anyone who would listen. Thank you, thank you, thank you. She looked at Marcus and spoke quickly. “I don’t know how much longer we have before someone comes to see why the listening bug isn’t working.” She took a deep breath. “We need to break him out — I’ll explain everything later, but that’s our goal: We get him out, we take him north, and we follow him home. They’re dying, just like we are, and they’ve offered a truce. We’re going to take them up on it.”

Marcus stuttered, searching for words. “Are you nuts?”

“He saved me, Marcus. Samm had the chance to run when the bomb hit: He was free from his bonds, and no one was watching, and there was a giant hole in the wall. He could have run and been free, but he picked up the DORD that was electrocuting me and saved my life.”

Marcus froze, looking her straight in the eyes — in her eyes and past them, to something she could only imagine. The pain in his face nearly broke her heart.

“I should have…,” he said. his gaze still lost. “I tried to…”

“You tried to save me and I wouldn’t listen.” Kira choked back a sob. “I’ve been reckless and stupid and I know it, and now I’m in too deep, and I know you want to pull me out and make me safe but we can’t do it — not yet. I need you to come with me. I know it’s dangerous, and I know you don’t want to do it, but I need you, Marcus. I need you to believe me; I need you to trust me. I need to hear you say you’ll come with me.”

Marcus stayed silent. He rubbed his eyes, pulled on his face, gritted his teeth. Kira covered her mouth with her hands, blowing out a long breath, never taking her eyes off him. Please, Marcus. Please say yes.

Marcus stood, turning to the side. Kira closed her eyes, crying silently.

“I’ll do it,” he said. Kira’s eyes flew open.

“You will?”

He stepped back to the table. “I’ll help you break him out, I’ll help you take him home, I’ll do anything for you. For you.”

“Oh, Marcus…”

“Last time you left, it killed me. I’m not going to let you do this on your own.” He stared at her, loving and longing, then turned and threw his hands helplessly in the air. “Now, how the hell are we going to do it?”

Her mouth opened and closed. She had no idea. “Whatever it is, we have to do it tonight.”

“We’ll need Xochi’s help,” said Marcus. “Xochi and Isolde at the very least. Jayden and Haru if we can convince them to help.”

Kira shook her head. “They’re never going to trust a Partial. We have to do this without them.”

Marcus whistled low. “This is crazy.” He shrugged. “Get Xochi and Isolde together, and give me some time to gather a few things. We’ll meet at your place in two hours.”

“Perfect,” said Kira. “Now get back over there and run some kind of analysis on the images this thing just took — anything at all, it doesn’t matter, we just need this to look like a real MRI.”

Marcus nodded and ran to the computer, sitting down and typing something out. Barely a minute later a soldier poked his head in the door: Kira was lying quietly on the table, and Marcus was in the viewing room, watching the screen. The soldier looked around, nodded, and went back outside.

Marcus waited until the door was shut, then met her gaze and stared. Kira stared back.

They had two hours.

Kira flexed her leg. She’d been tempted to use the regen box again, but it seemed to be healing just fine, it was the pain that was the problem; she’d split the difference and given herself a prodigious shot of painkillers. She checked the wrapping on her burn a final time, making sure it was tight, and pulled on her pants. She walked with a limp, and she was more than a little dizzy, but at least she could walk.

She peeked out of her room; she was still unguarded. Either the senators believed her willingness to go along with their plan, or they thought Mkele’s surveillance was enough to keep tabs on her. Which wasn’t to say that the hall was clear of guards: There were at least ten, maybe more, armed to the teeth and clustered around a door at the far end. At least we know where they’re keeping Samm, Kira thought. She slipped into the hall and limped briskly in the other direction. Sandy wasn’t at her desk. Kira still had a little luck left.

It was nearly dusk now, a familiar half-light she recognized from so many long days at work, but tonight the familiarity made her heart catch in her throat. She couldn’t help but wonder if this would be her last time in East Meadow — her last time crossing the turnpike, her last time passing the big blue house on the corner, her last time watching the sushi vendors amble slowly down the sidewalks. She turned on her street, let herself into her house, and quietly packed her backpack with everything it would hold: extra lights and batteries, several pairs of dry socks, a knife and a set of tools. She broke down her rifle and stowed that as well, concealing it in the backpack as best she could — it wouldn’t be a military operation this time, so all they’d have were the weapons they brought with them. She still had Isolde’s pistol strapped to her hip — hardly an uncommon accessory these days — and made sure to pack plenty of ammunition for both weapons. Last of all she grabbed her medkit, sealed her bags tightly, and set them by the front door, waiting for the others to arrive. She sat down, frowned, and realized that Nandita still hadn’t come back from her trip.

Nandita had been gone longer now than she ever had before, and Kira wandered into the kitchen, suddenly anxious. Everything looked normal enough. She walked to the back of the house, and when she found no one she sped up, taking a full inventory of the house. Nandita wasn’t anywhere.

Did the police take her? Was she attacked while collecting herbs? It was possible she’d simply left, like Kira was doing now, packing her essentials and heading out to a farm or another outlying community, but she never would have left without saying something. This doesn’t feel right.

Marcus came first, nodding to Kira in silence and slowly sweeping her with a digital stethoscope; she looked at it quizzically, but he motioned for her to be patient. Xochi and Isolde came a few minutes later, and Kira kept them silent while they watched Marcus search the rest of the room. The scope beeped softly as he ran it past the speaker hub, and he spoke loudly and clearly.

“Hey, Xochi, is it okay if I listen to some music?”

“Sure,” said Xochi, just as clearly. She glanced at Kira, and Kira could see from the gleam in her eyes that she’d figured out what Marcus was doing. They turned to watch him work.

Marcus went to the hub, pulled out a monogrammed pod — KAYLEIGH, 2052—scanned it fruitlessly, then unplugged the hub unit itself and pulled it from the shelf, turning it over and around and examining it from every angle. He paused, looking at the back of it and motioned for the girls to come and see. He pointed through the black metal grille to a small object hidden inside, and they nodded and stepped back.

“Be careful with that drink,” said Xochi. “Last time you almost ruined my player.”

Kira filled a bucket of water in the kitchen and set it in front of Marcus. He crouched over it with the stereo.

“Thanks. Oh, crap—!” He plunged the stereo into the bucket, bugged speaker first, and held it under for a few seconds. He tried the scope again, found no signal, and smiled. He ran a quick scan of both Xochi and Isolde, found nothing, and nodded to Kira. She connected KAYLEIGH, 2052 to a smaller speaker, cranked it as loud as it would go, and set it in the center of the room.

Marcus held up the digital scope. “I was one of the on-call medics when the bomb went off this morning, and I happened to get this thing a little too close to one of Mkele’s listening devices in your lab. Looks like it makes a pretty good detector.” He dropped it on the couch. “The room’s clear, and anyone listening from outside will have a hard time hearing over this.”

Kira looked at each of her friends in turn. “We’re about to commit treason, so if anyone wants to back out, now’s a really good time to do it.”

Xochi looked at Kira. “Is this what I think it is?”

Kira shrugged. “Do you think it’s a plan to attack the hospital, free the Partial, take him home, and conspire with his people to save the world?”

Xochi’s eyes went wide. “Actually no, I wasn’t really thinking that at all.” She shook her head, a quick jerk as if she was shaking water from her face. “Rescue the Partial? Are you serious?”

“They’ve offered a truce, and the Senate has rejected it.” Kira took a deep breath. “If I can work with them I can cure RM — I know I can. But you’ve got to trust me.”

Xochi’s jaw worked up and down, lost for words. Finally she nodded. “I trust you, Kira. Let’s commit some treason.”

“Rock on,” said Marcus. Isolde nodded as well, but looked pale and nervous.

Kira sat down, speaking softly even with the music blaring, just in case. “The Senate has lost it. They blew up the hospital so they could frame Samm, and now they’re going to kill him in a political power play. Madison’s baby is coming any day now, and we still don’t have a cure, and the Voice is practically champing at the bit to stage a coup.”

Xochi grimaced. “What’s the plan?”

“We’ve got to get Samm out of the hospital and off the island,” said Kira. “Start by packing clothes, camping gear, and weapons, and meet me at the corner of Turnpike and Prospect in an hour. Isolde,” she said, unbuckling the pistol holster, “I’ve still got your gun—”

“I can’t go with you.”

“You said you were in,” said Xochi.

“I’ll do everything I can from here,” said Isolde. “I just can’t leave.”

“We’ll need everyone we can get if things go bad out there,” said Kira.

“I can’t go,” Isolde insisted. “If it were just me, I’d be with you, but I’m…” She paused. “I’m pregnant.”

Kira’s jaw fell open. “You’re what?”

“I’m pregnant,” said Isolde. “I found out this morning. You know I’ll help you, but I… I can’t risk it.” She looked Kira in the eyes. “I’m sorry.”

Kira shook her head, still trying to parse the information. She looked at Isolde’s belly, still supermodel flat, then up at her face. “Was it … artificial?”

Isolde shook her head. “Senator Hobb.”

Kira gasped.

“Was it consensual?” snarled Xochi. “Because if it wasn’t, I’m going to take a detour to the Senate chambers on my way out of town, and I’m going to shoot him first.”

“No,” said Isolde quickly, “there was nothing improper — well, I guess he’s my boss, which is improper, but he didn’t force me. I wanted him to. We were working late, and I—”

“Were you drunk?” asked Marcus.

“That’s Isolde’s business,” said Kira. “She said it was her choice.” She flashed Xochi a hard look. “We can shoot him when we get back. Isolde will stay behind and cover our trail. She did it perfectly last time.”

“What is our trail?” asked Marcus. “Even if we can get him out of the hospital, what then? Down through Brooklyn, like you did before?”

Kira shook her head. “They’ll be watching that route as soon as they figure out what we’re doing. We need to head north, and cross the sound.”

The room fell silent; the very idea was terrifying. None of them knew how to pilot a boat, and Xochi was the only strong swimmer in the group. Plus, the land between here and there was riddled with the Voice.

“She’s right,” said Xochi slowly. “There’s too much Defense Grid between us and Manhattan; north is the best way.” She drummed her fingers on the table. “How helpful is this Partial going to be? Does he know where to find a boat?”

“There are boats all along the North Shore,” said Kira. “We see them all the time on salvage runs. All we have to do is find one with a full tank of gas — the gas’ll be old, so it’ll destroy the engine, but it should get us across before the engine dies.”

“If we can make it there,” said Marcus. “The way things are these days, the Voice are more likely than ever to attack a group from East Meadow.”

“They’re not going to go after a bunch of unarmed kids,” said Xochi.

Kira shook her head. “Oh, we’ll be armed.”

“Still,” said Xochi, “they’re revolutionaries, not murderers.”

“You’re planning too far in advance,” said Isolde. “None of this will matter if you can’t get Samm out of the hospital. Or if you can’t even get into the hospital.”

“That’s the hard part,” Kira admitted. “They’re holding him in a reinforced room on the first floor — I saw it on my way out. It’s swarming with guards. If we can find a way to surprise them—”

“He’s actually not there,” said Marcus. Kira raised her eyebrows, and Marcus leaned forward to whisper. “Mkele’s set up the first-floor room as a decoy. Samm’s being held upstairs in the conference room, with just two guards on the door.”

“How do you know?” asked Xochi.

Marcus smiled and looked at Kira. “You know that new fish guy who works the hospital parking lot? I got one of the guards hooked on his oysters, and he asked me to bring him some for dinner tonight. There’s just two of them up there.” He grinned. “It pays to be nice.”

“That’ll help us get in,” said Xochi, “but as soon as we hit that room they’ll call for backup, and we’ll never get out again.”

“How about a diversion?” asked Isolde. “I won’t be with you, so what if I do something to pull all the soldiers’ attention somewhere else?”

“A diversion might work,” said Marcus, “but it’s going to have to be huge — we can’t just distract the guards, we have to put them onto something else and hope to get out in the commotion. But it has to be epic.”

Kira nodded, staring coldly at the floor. If she was in, she needed to be all in.

She spoke slowly. “How about a citywide riot?”

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Kira stood on the corner of Turnpike and Prospect — a block from the hospital, in the shadow of an old ruined restaurant. Aladdin’s. A kebab place, by the looks of it, but all fallen and overgrown. The coating of kudzu helped her peek around the corner without being seen, watching the hospital. A crowd was already starting to form. Word was spreading.

“Isolde’s doing well,” Kira murmured. “I guess when a known Senate aide starts spreading rumors, people listen.”

“The Senate will know it was her,” said Xochi. “They’ll kill her for this.”

“Even if they trace it back to her, she’ll be fine,” said Kira. “She’s pregnant now. Not even Mkele would risk hurting her.”

“So he can preserve his image?” asked Xochi. “He won’t even have one after this. Killing a baby will be the nicest thing he’s done all week.”

“Isolde will be fine,” Kira insisted. She paced a few steps, testing her leg; it still hurt terribly, and she grimaced at the thought of the grueling workout she was about to give it. She paused, thinking, then pulled off her backpack and opened the medkit.

Xochi watched with a frown as Kira pulled out a syringe and a bottle of Nalox. “Drugs?”

“I can barely walk,” said Kira, prepping the needle. “If I’m going to spend my night running from Grid gunmen, I want some more painkillers.”

Xochi smirked. “Did you bring enough for everybody?”

“Shut up.” Kira pricked her leg, drove in the injection, and slapped a Band-Aid on the tiny bubble of blood that welled up from the hole. Almost immediately she felt the reaction, more in her head than her leg: a buzz in her perception, a slight delay in her movements. The morphine was strong. Did I give myself too much?

“Better?” asked Xochi. Kira nodded, and Xochi shook her head. “Just stay in front of me if we start shooting. I don’t want your drug-addled reflexes getting me shot in the butt.”

“There’s Marcus,” said Kira, and pointed at a large group coming down the street. Marcus’s tall frame walked at the center of it. The crowd was shouting and mumbling and arguing loudly. Kira caught snatches of conversation: “… said a Partial … why wouldn’t they tell … new kind of RM … the Senate knew…”

“If it wasn’t before, the secret’s definitely out now,” said Kira. “It’s going to ruin the Senate’s plan either way.”

The crowd passed by, angrily calling for Kira and the others to join them. Kira picked up her bags and fell in with the back of the group; Xochi followed her, and Marcus hung back to join them.

“Nice night for a vigilante execution,” Marcus whispered.

The crowd in front of the hospital was enormous, shouting and chanting. The front doors were blocked by a wall of armed soldiers, and the crowd moved loosely before them, forward and back like an uncertain tide. Kira felt a surge of doubt: What if the riot led to more deaths? Madison and the other mothers, at least, should be safe — the maternity center was the best-defended spot in the city. It was too late to back out now. She said a silent prayer and kept walking.

“We’re going to have to be very careful getting him out of there,” said Marcus. “If this group finds him, they’ll tear him limb from limb.”

“They don’t know what he looks like,” said Xochi. “We can sneak him out like one of us.”

“They’re just as likely to mistake a human for a Partial as the other way around,” said Kira, scanning the mob nervously. “We may have overdone this a little.”

“We haven’t done anything yet,” said Xochi, pressing forward. “This mob doesn’t do us any good until it gets inside and starts breaking things.” She charged into the crowd, pushing toward the front, shouting loudly as she went. “They’ve been in league with the Partials all along! This is how they do it — new diseases, new deaths, new oppressions. This isn’t the first time!”

Kira and Marcus followed as best they could, jostling violently through the heart of the throbbing crowd. The drug haze in Kira’s head made the crush surreal and terrifying, loud and angry and larger than life. She shook her head, trying to concentrate.

Xochi reached the front and turned around, climbing on the hood of an old, discarded car. “Do you know why they’re doing this? Because they want to control us! Because if we’re terrified, we’ll do anything they tell us to.” The crowd roared in agreement, and Xochi continued. “‘Inform on your friends!’ ‘Don’t leave the city!’ ‘Get pregnant before RM kills us!’” The crowd was louder now, more agitated, roiling around Kira in fierce Brownian motion.

Someone threw a rock at the soldiers, missing the men but cracking loudly against the glass door behind them. More rocks followed, a vicious hail, and Xochi kept shouting as loudly as she could.

“We’re sick of secrets! If the Senate has a Partial in there, bring it out where we can see it!”

The crowd surged forward, a flood of fists and anger. The soldiers fired into the air and the crowd pulled back, but not as far as before; the gap was smaller now than ever.

“They didn’t shoot anyone,” said Kira. “They’re probably under orders not to. We have to rush the doors now, before they’re cleared to use lethal force.”

“They’re firing on their own people!” shouted Xochi, reaching for her own pistol. Kira and Marcus shoved forward in alarm, struggling to reach her before she turned this into a shoot-out.

“They have automatic rifles!” Kira shouted, her voice drowned by the crowd. “Xochi, don’t!”

Xochi turned, pistol in hand, and Marcus grabbed her leg and yanked her down. She fell with a thud on the hood of the car, pistol up, and Kira grabbed it, keeping it pointed at the sky. Xochi choked, fighting for breath, then groaned and coughed when it finally returned.

“Ow,” she gasped.

“You can’t shoot yet,” Kira hissed. “The soldiers will turn this into a massacre.”

“Then we need to make this happen now,” said Marcus, and jumped on the car beside Xochi with a rock in each fist. “Storm the doors!” he shouted, throwing his first rock. It hit a soldier in the arm and he whipped up his rifle, pointing it at the crowd; the officer next to him pulled the soldier’s arm back down, shouting something Kira couldn’t hear. Marcus threw his second rock and hit one of the doors squarely in the center, shattering the safety glass into a pile of tiny cubes. It was like a signal to the crowd, and they surged forward again. Xochi shoved her pistol back into her hip holster, and the trio ran forward with the crowd, slamming to a halt as the front line impacted with the soldiers. Kira felt herself being smashed from both sides, felt her feet being stepped on, felt a painful kick against her burn that almost brought her to her knees. If I go down, I’ll be trampled to death. She fought for air, pushing forward with all her strength.

“The crowd will turn to the right when we break through the doors,” said Marcus, grunting with the exertion. “Go left and head for the stairs.”

The crowd behind was pushing forward too strongly, but there was nowhere to go; Kira’s chest compacted under the pressure, the air slowly squeezed out of her lungs. She saw spots, felt her head go light, and suddenly the dam broke. Rioters surged ahead through the doors, pressing the soldiers back or simply swarming around them. Kira ran forward blindly, carried by the crowd, trying simply to stay upright. She passed through the doors and into the wide foyer, picking up speed as the crowd spread out beyond the bottleneck. She shook her head, trying to clear it, then remembered the stairs and cut left, weaving through the angry mob, keeping her eyes on the unmarked door to the stairwell. Marcus reached it just as she did, and Xochi just after; they pulled it open and dove through into blessed empty silence.

Kira panted, slowly getting her breath back. Her leg throbbed dully. “Anyone following us?”

“Doesn’t look like it,” said Xochi. “Let’s blaze — we have to go now, before the soldiers regain control.”

“Assuming they even can,” said Marcus, leaping up the stairs two at a time. He turned the corner, and his voice echoed down. “We’ll be lucky if we have an island left to save after this.”

Kira pulled out her pistol and moved up after him, Xochi close behind. Fourth floor, thought Kira, counting each flight of stairs as they passed it. Will the Grid pull guards away from Samm to help downstairs, or will they see what’s happening and add even more?

They reached the fourth floor, and Kira crouched by the door, bracing herself.

“Give me a minute to get out my shotgun,” she said, reaching for her bag. “If we’re starting a firefight with armed soldiers, I don’t want to be stuck with this peashooter—”

She was interrupted by the loud crack of a gunshot on the other side of the door. She looked up in alarm.

“They’re already firing?”

“That wasn’t toward us,” said Xochi. “Somebody’s beat us to the Partial’s room.”

“The other stairwell,” said Kira, and threw open the door. Halfway down the corridor the soldiers were crouched low, facing the other direction, guns trained on the far end of the hall. She gasped: Haru was there, and Jayden, and three other armed rioters, though Kira couldn’t tell who was with who. She dropped to the floor and brought her pistol forward, though at this range it would barely do anything.

“Behind us!” shouted one of the soldiers, turning toward Kira, and in that instant one of the rioters landed a lucky shot on the man’s shoulder. The soldier cried out and fell prone, and Haru swung his rifle around and shot the rioter. The lone remaining soldier pressed himself even farther into the doorway.

“We’re surrounded!” he shouted, thumbing his radio. “We need backup on the fourth floor ASAP!”

“They’re going to kill Samm,” Kira growled, racing forward. “Haru! Jayden!”

The second soldier was down, and at least one of the rioters lay sprawled on the floor several yards behind the rest. The group swung up their rifles, but Haru and Jayden recognized Kira and ordered everyone to lower them again.

“Kira,” said Haru, “can’t say it’s a surprise to see you here.” He checked his chamber and racked the slide, pointing back the way they had come. “Barricade those doors. Most of the mob hasn’t figured out he’s up here yet, but they’re going to eventually.”

“We’re not here to guard him,” said Kira. “We’re here to break him out.”

Haru stared, then laughed and shook his head. “Are you serious? Are you crazy? We brought that thing here so we could interrogate and dissect it, and now you want to make a deal with it? I was with you before, Kira, but this has gone too far.” He pointed his rifle at her chest. Xochi and Marcus pointed their guns at him, and Jayden and the other three pointed their guns back. Kira stood in the middle, breathing slowly, trying desperately to stay calm. Her head swam with the morphine.

“Samm is innocent,” said Kira. “The group we met on the island was coming to East Meadow to offer us a truce. Peace, Haru.”

“How do you know this?”

“He told us.”

Haru looked around, as if to ask if he was the only one who hadn’t lost his mind.

“It’s true,” said Marcus.

“He tried to kill us,” said Haru, turning his gun on Marcus. “They took our scout, shot Gabe in the face, and chased us off the island with a squad full of rifles, and all of a sudden that means they wanted peace? That’s not the kind of peace I want any part of.”

“He’s an ally,” Kira insisted. “He can help us rebuild.”

Haru shook his head, as if the world had gone mad. “Damn plague babies — do you have any idea what we lost the last time we trusted the Partials?” He gestured angrily toward the city. “Every one of the houses out there used to be filled. Every building was still standing — every school was full of children. Ninety-nine point nine percent of the population died, Kira: If that happened again, we’d have two people left. Two, on the entire island. We will never rebuild anything.”

“They’re dying,” Kira insisted, “just like we are. If we work together, we can save us both—”

“I don’t want to save us both!” Haru shouted. “I want to save my child and murder every Partial on Earth!”

“Saving your child is why we’re here!” Kira said, raising her voice. “You can guard him all night if you want but the Senate is going to kill him in the morning, and we don’t have a cure yet. If I go with him, we can find one.”

Haru stared at her, rage and confusion warring in his eyes. “I’m not letting you take it.”

“She named her, Haru.” Kira felt her voice crack and forced herself to stay firm. “Your baby has a name: Arwen Sato. Your daughter is Arwen Sato.” She glanced at Jayden. “Your niece is Arwen Sato.” She looked back at Haru, drilling into him with her eyes. “We can save her.”

“Not in time,” said Haru. His eyes were wet, his face red, his teeth bared.

“No.” It was Jayden. He moved his arm, swinging his rifle around from Marcus to Haru. “Kira’s right. Put down your gun.”

“Are you crazy?”

“I hate the Partials as much as you do,” said Jayden, “but Maddy is relying on us. If there’s any chance we can save my sister’s baby, I’m willing to take it.”

“So you’re going to kill her husband instead?”

“Not if he puts down his gun.” Jayden’s eyes were cold. “The rest of you too, put them all on the floor.”

Slowly Haru complied, and the other three men behind him. Xochi gathered their weapons while Jayden kept them covered with his rifle. Kira tried the door, rattling the locked knob, then dug through the pockets of the dead soldier until she found a ring of keys.

“This one’s still alive,” said Marcus, examining the other downed soldier.

“Stable?” asked Kira.

“If we stop the bleeding.”

“Wrap it,” said Kira, standing up. “We’ll lock him in with the others and they can help him after the riot.”

“Speaking of which,” said Xochi, “we need to get out of here. These guys called for backup, and the instant this riot comes even partly under control they’re going to send every soldier they have up here.”

Kira nodded. “See if you can see how they’re doing.” Xochi ran back to the stairs. Kira turned to the door, trying several keys before finding the right one. The room beyond was dark, and Samm was chained to a chair in the middle of it, speckled with cuts and scabs and bruises.

“You look like hell,” said Kira.

“It’s okay,” said Samm, grunting in pain, but Kira could have sworn she saw the hint of a smile. “I have a very advanced platelet system.”

Kira ran forward painfully and searched through her key ring for something to unlock the chains. There were two pairs of manacles and three different padlocks, and she opened each one with a turn and a click.

“You didn’t have to save me,” said Samm.

“You didn’t have to save me.” She opened the last lock, pulled away the chains, and paused there, crouching beside him. He turned his eyes from the door and looked at her for a split second, their eyes only centimeters apart, his breath on her cheek. When she spoke again, it was a whisper. “Thank you.”

Samm stood and followed her into the hallway, squinting at the light and rolling his head back and forth to work out the kinks.

Jayden led Haru and the others into the room as they left it; Haru spit on Samm as they passed, but Samm didn’t respond. Marcus finished binding the soldier’s wound and put him into the dark room with the others, and Kira locked the door tightly.

The door at the end of the hall swung open, and Jayden and Kira spun to face it, guns ready, but it was only Xochi; she ran toward them anxiously.

“We have to get out of here now. The soldiers gave up on the decoy room and fell back to guard the maternity ward, so the mob’s searching the whole building for this thing.” She motioned to Samm with her chin. “It’s only a matter of time before they make it up here.”

“Give me one of their guns,” said Samm.

“Do we trust him with a gun?” asked Jayden.

“We’re a long way past that,” said Xochi, handing over Haru’s rifle. Kira unconsciously tensed as Samm took the weapon, but if Samm noticed he didn’t show it. He checked the gun expertly, then squatted down and quickly gathered the remaining ammo from the discarded packs on the floor.

He stood calmly. “How do we get out?”

“There’s a back service stairwell in the north wing,” said Marcus. “It’s locked on all floors, so no one will be in it, but we could shoot the lock.”

“And so could the mob,” said Samm and Jayden, almost in unison. They looked at each other, and Jayden raised an eyebrow.

“The elevator shaft, then,” said Kira. “There’s a ladder that runs down to the ground level — we used to play around in there when Marcus and I worked custodial during school. We can take that to the basement and look for the service door out the back.”

Samm frowned. “That could be dangerous with a mob searching the building. The elevators will likely be running.”

Marcus whistled. “Now I really want to visit Partialville. You guys have enough juice to run elevators?”

“Ah,” said Samm, nodding. “Unused elevator shaft it is, then.”

They ran quickly down the corridor, searching for the elevators, and found a maintenance door in a side hall. The elevator shaft was a long drop — they were on the fourth floor, plus the hospital had two basements and a sublevel filled with elevator machinery. Kira leaned over the edge, peering deep into the pit. It disappeared into blackness just a few floors below. She summoned her courage and started the climb down. Marcus followed quickly after, then the others one by one; Jayden came last, locking the door behind him. Kira’s backpack seemed heavier than before, dangling over the seven-story drop, and her medkit swung wildly with each new rung of the ladder. She heard voices through the wall on the third floor, and someone on the first floor was banging loudly on the elevator doors. The entire shaft echoed with fierce, metallic clangs.

“Where do we get out?” whispered Xochi.

“At the bottom,” said Kira, trying to speak softly. “If we go all the way to the basement, there’s a loading dock they used to use to bring in supplies — it’s all back corridors and rear exits, so we’re not likely to see anybody.”

“And if we do?” asked Samm.

Kira didn’t have an answer for that.

The halls here were even darker than those above; there was no power on this floor, and no windows to let in the moonlight. Distant shouts and crashes told her that the mob had already made it down here. Kira searched in her bag for a flashlight and clicked it on, shining the thin white beam against the walls. Marcus and the others joined her quietly, searching the shaft for an exit.

“You remember where that loading dock is?” whispered Marcus.

“Sort of.”

“Awesome.”

Kira found the door out of the shaft and turned off her light before opening it, wary of attracting unwanted attention. The hall was dark and empty, and she turned the light back on, covering it with her hand; it glowed soft and red, giving just enough light to see the walls. “This way.” They crept cautiously down the hall. A string of footsteps echoed behind them, rubber shoes squeaking against the linoleum, and then they were gone. Kira held her breath and kept walking. They came to a crossroads and she uncovered her flashlight, risking the full beam: nothing to the left, but sudden faces on the right, eyes shining in the darkness.

Kira reared back, but Samm dove forward, one of the intruders falling limply to the floor before she even knew what was happening. The bright beam of the flashlight shook wildly as she staggered away, and the hallway became a staccato slide show of darkness and terror: Samm’s foot in the side of a screaming man’s knee, Samm’s rifle butt buried in another man’s face. Lances of light strobed across a Grid insignia on a flailing arm, droplets of blood hanging in the air, a man half fallen as he tried to flee. Jayden brought up his rifle at the same time Kira regained control of the flashlight, and by then it was over: Samm stood motionless, poised for a counterattack, and the floor around him was littered with fallen soldiers. Kira counted six men, all unconscious.

“Holy…,” muttered Jayden, staring at the scene. He pointed his rifle at Samm. “What did we let out?”

“None of them are dead,” said Samm. “The blood is from the third one’s nose.”

Kira tried to gather her thoughts. “What just happened?”

Samm dropped to the floor to gather their guns, disassembling them with practiced efficiency. “I’m not used to humans, so I was relying too heavily on the link and they got too close. I think it worked out, though, since we didn’t have to shoot anyone.”

“Well, thanks for not shooting anyone, I guess,” said Marcus. “My contribution was to somehow refrain from peeing myself. You can thank me later.”

“We need to go,” said Samm, standing up; he held the fallen soldiers’ firing pins, and dropped them into his pocket. “There are at least two more groups down here, and maybe more that I can’t hear.”

“Okay,” said Kira slowly, “just … don’t do that to any civilians.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Kira led the group to the left, then to the right, pausing here and there to read signs on the walls and to listen for more footsteps. There were at least two other groups in the basement, prowling and shouting and cackling in the darkness. She heard a crash of breaking glass. She pressed forward.

She found a wide tunnel capped by a high metal door, and broke into a jog. “This is it — there’s a big ramp on the other side that leads up to the rear parking lot. We head north and we watch for patrols — the Defense Grid will be everywhere, but they’ll be distracted. As long as we don’t call any attention to ourselves, we should be able to slip through the gaps.” She turned to Jayden. “Thanks for your help — we would never have gotten out of there without you.”

“What do you mean, ‘thanks’? I’m going with you.”

Kira looked at him carefully, ghost white in the beam from the flashlight. “You sure?”

“You’re going to need all the help you can get,” he said. “Besides, I just freed a Partial and locked five pissed-off patriots in his cell. If I stay here, I’d be lucky to get arrested before they shot me.”

Kira nodded and saw the others doing the same. She put her hand on the doorknob and opened it slowly. The sky was dark, but still brighter than the pitch-black tunnels of the basement. Kira jogged slowly up the ramp, listening to the sounds of a city in chaos: shouts and screams; the scuffing and pounding of running feet; the intermittent cracks of sharp, staccato gunfire. She reached the top and saw a deep orange glow through the eastern trees — a fire. A group of three or four rioters ran past her in the dark.

Xochi whispered over Kira’s shoulder. “You think Isolde made it to the Senate building?”

“I hope so,” said Kira. “It’s going to be the only safe place in town for the next several hours.”

“You think we did the right thing?” Xochi’s voice was hesitant; uncertain. “You think we’ll have a home to come back to?”

“I think Mkele’s a lot better at his job than we give him credit for,” said Kira. “It might look different by the time we get back, but it’ll all still be here.” She looked behind her, saw that the group was all together, and looked forward into the darkness and chaos. “Move out.”