Partials (2 page)

“That’s a good idea,” said Kira, “but you’ll have to do it without me—we have a salvage run today.”

“But you were up all night!” Madison protested. “They can’t make you do a salvage run.”

“I’ll grab a nap before leaving,” said Kira, “but I need to go—I’ve been falling apart at work, and I could use the change of pace. Plus I need to prove to Skousen that I can handle it. If the Defense Grid wants a medic on their salvage run, I’ll be the best damn medic they’ve ever seen.”

“They’re lucky to have you,” said Madison, hugging her again. “Is Jayden going?”

Kira nodded. “He’s the sergeant in charge.”

Madison smiled. “Give him a hug for me.” Jayden and Madison were siblings—not adopted siblings, actual birth siblings, the only direct genetic relatives left in the world. They were proof, some said, that RM immunity could be inherited, which only made it more frustrating that so far none of the newborns had done it. More likely, Kira thought, Madison and Jayden were an anomaly that might never be repeated.

Jayden was also, as Kira often informed Madison, one of the more attractive human beings left on the planet. Kira glanced impishly at Marcus. “Just a hug? I could pass along a kiss or two.”

Marcus looked awkwardly at Haru. “So. Any idea what the meeting’s gonna be about?”

Kira and Madison laughed, and Kira sighed happily. Madison always made her feel better.

“They’re closing the school,” said Haru. “The youngest kids on the island are turning fourteen, and there are practically more teachers now than students. I’m guessing they’re going to graduate everyone into trade programs early, and send the teachers somewhere they can be more useful.”

“You think?” asked Kira.

Haru shrugged. “It’s what I’d do.”

“They’re probably going to yak about the Partials again,” said Madison. “The Senate can never shut up about those things.”

“Can you blame them?” asked Haru. “They killed everyone on Earth.”

“Present company excepted,” said Marcus.

“I’m not saying they
weren’t
dangerous,” said Madison, “but it’s been eleven years since anyone has seen one. Life goes on. Besides, we’ve clearly got bigger problems now. I’m guessing they’re going to talk about the Voice.”

“We’ll find out soon enough, I guess,” said Kira, nodding toward the north; the coliseum was just visible beyond the trees. The Senate had its own building, of course, in an actual town hall, but “town hall” meetings like this one, where the entire city was asked to attend, were held in the coliseum. They rarely filled it, but the adults said it used to fill up all the time, back in the old days when they’d used it for sports. Before the Break.

Kira had only been five years old in the Break; most things about the old world she couldn’t even remember, and she didn’t trust half the things she could. She remembered her father, his dark face and his messy black hair and his thick-framed glasses pushed up on the bridge of his nose. They had lived in a split-level house—she was fairly certain it was yellow—and when she turned three she had a birthday party. She didn’t have any friends her age, so there were no little kids, but most of her father’s friends were there. She remembered she’d had a big toy box full of stuffed animals, and she’d wanted to show it to everyone, so she’d puffed and strained and pushed it down the hall; it seemed like a half an hour or more in her mind, but she knew it couldn’t have been that long in real life. When she’d finally reached the living room and shouted for everyone to look, her father had laughed and chided her and taken the whole thing back to her bedroom. All her effort, gone in seconds. The memory didn’t bother her; she never thought of her father as mean or unjust. It was simply a memory, one of the few she had of her life in the old world.

The crowd was heavy now, pressing together as they passed through the trees around the coliseum. Kira held tight to Marcus with one hand and Madison with the other, Haru trailing off the back like the end of a human chain. They wove a path through the mass of people and found a row of empty seats—near a door, like Marcus wanted. Kira knew he was right: If Senator Kessler got off on another rant, or if Senator Lefou got talking about shipping schedules or whatever boring thing he was on about this month, they’d need an easy way to slip out. Mandatory attendance was one thing, but once the important stuff was over, they wouldn’t be the only ones leaving early.

As the senators filed onto the dais in the center of the floor, Kira shifted uncomfortably in her seat, wondering if Haru would be right. There were twenty senators in all, and Kira recognized just about all of them, though she didn’t know all their names. One of the men, though, was new: tall, dark, powerfully built. He stood like a military officer, but his suit was simple and civilian. He whispered something to Dr. Skousen, the Senate representative from the hospital, then slipped away into the crowd.

“Good morning.” The voice boomed through the massive stadium, echoing through the speakers and off the ceiling. The center of the coliseum lit up with a giant holo-image of Senator Hobb. There were twenty senators, but they always let Hobb take the lead in town hall meetings, delivering the opening remarks and most of the announcements. He was definitely the most charming.

“This town hall meeting will now come to order,” Senator Hobb continued. “We’re very glad to see you all here; it’s important that you take part in your government, and these town hall meetings are the best way for everyone to stay connected. At this time we’d like to offer special thanks to the Long Island Defense Grid, specifically Sergeant Stewart and his team, for hand-cranking the generators all night here in the coliseum. As we have pledged to you, these meetings have never and will never draw electricity away from the community.” There was a light smattering of applause, and Hobb smiled kindly while he waited for it to die down. “We’ll start with our first order of business. Ms. Rimas, if you’d please join me on the stand?”

“It’s the schools,” said Kira.

“I told you,” said Haru.

Ms. Rimas was the head of the East Meadow school system, which had dwindled over time to a single school for which she now served as principal. Kira listened with her hand on her mouth as the old woman spoke proudly of the work her teachers had done, the success their system had shown over the years, and the great things accomplished by the graduating students. It was a send-off, a triumphant look back at their hard work and dedication, but Kira couldn’t help feeling sick about the whole thing. No matter how they spun it, no matter how much they tried to focus on the positives, the ugly truth was that there simply weren’t any children anymore. They were closing the school because they had run out of students. The teachers had done their job, but the doctors hadn’t.

The youngest human being on the planet, as far as anyone knew, would be fourteen years old in a month. It was possible that there were survivors on other continents, but no one had ever been able to make contact with them, and over time the refugees on Long Island had come to believe that they were alone. That their youngest was the world’s youngest. His name was Saladin. When they brought him onstage, Kira couldn’t hold back her tears.

Marcus put his arm around her, and they listened to the string of heartfelt speeches and congratulations. The youngest students were being accelerated into trade programs, just as Haru had predicted. Ten were accepted into the pre-medic program Kira had just completed; in another year or two they would begin interning at the hospital just like she was. Would anything be different then? Would infants still be dying? Would the nurses still be watching them die and recording their stats and wrapping them for burial? When would it all end?

As each teacher stood to say good-bye and wish their students well, the coliseum grew quieter, almost reverent. Kira knew they were thinking the same thing she was. The closing of the schools was like the closing of the past, the final acknowledgment that the world was ending. Forty thousand people left in the world, and no children. And no way to ever make more.

The last teacher spoke softly, tearfully bidding her students good-bye. The teachers were joining trade schools as well, moving on to new jobs and new lives. This final teacher was joining Saladin in the Animal Commission, training horses and dogs and hawks. Kira smiled at that. If Saladin had to grow up, at least he could still play with a dog.

The last teacher sat down, and Senator Hobb rose and walked to the microphone, standing calmly in the spotlight. His image filled the coliseum, solemn and troubled. He paused a moment, gathering his thoughts, then looked up at the audience with clear blue eyes.

“This didn’t have to be.”

The crowd murmured, a rustle of movement rippling through the stadium as people muttered and glanced at their companions. Kira saw Marcus look at her; she grabbed his hand tightly in her own and kept her eyes glued on Senator Hobb.

“The school didn’t have to close,” he said softly. “There are barely twenty school-age children in East Meadow, but across the whole island there are more. Far more. There’s a farm in Jamesport with ten children almost as young as Saladin—I’ve seen them myself. I’ve held their hands. I’ve begged them to come in, to come here where it’s safe, where the Defense Grid can better protect them, but they wouldn’t. The people with them, their adopted parents, wouldn’t let them. And just one week after I left, a mere two days ago, the so-called Voice of the People attacked that farm.” He paused, composing himself. “We’ve sent soldiers to recover what we can, but I fear the worst.”

Senator Hobb’s hologram surveyed the coliseum closely, piercing them with his earnest stare. “Eleven years ago the Partials tried to destroy us, and they did a pretty damn good job. We built them to be stronger than us, faster than us, to fight for us, in the Isolation War. They won that war handily, and when they turned against us five years later it didn’t take them long to wipe us off the face of the earth, especially after they released RM. Those of us who survived came to this island with nothing—broken, fragmented, lost in despair—but we survived. We rebuilt. We set up a defensive perimeter. We found food and shelter, we created energy and government and civilization. When we discovered that RM would not stop killing children, we passed the Hope Act to maximize our chance of giving birth to a new generation of humans with RM resistance. Thanks to the act and our tireless medical force, we grow closer to realizing that dream every day.”

Senator Hobb nodded to Dr. Skousen, sitting beside him on the dais, then looked back up. His eyes were shadowed and solemn. “But along the way, something happened. Some of us decided to break off. Some of us forgot about the enemy that still lurks on the mainland, watching us and waiting, and they forgot about the enemy that fills the air around us, that fills our very blood, killing our children like it killed so many of our families and friends. Because some of us have now decided that the civilization we built to protect ourselves is somehow the enemy. We’re still fighting for what is ours, only now, we’re fighting with one another. Since the passing of the Hope Act two years ago, the Voice, these gangsters, these armed thugs in the mocking guise of revolutionaries, have been burning our farms, pillaging our stores, killing their own flesh and blood—their own brothers and sisters and mothers and fathers and, God help us, their own children. Because that is what we are: We are a family, and we cannot afford to fight one another. And whatever their motivations are, whatever they claim to stand for, the Voice—let’s just call them what they are: barbarians—are simply trying to finish the job the Partials started. And we are not going to let them.” His voice was hard, a force of pure determination. “We are one nation, one people, one will.” He paused. “Or at least we should be. I wish I had better news, but the Defense Grid found a Voice strike team raiding a supply depot last night—do you want to know where? Can you guess?”

A few people in the crowd shouted out guesses, mostly outlying farms and fishing villages, but the giant holo-image shook its head sadly. Kira looked below to the man himself, a tiny figure in a worn brown suit made almost white by the spotlight. He turned slowly, shaking his head as the crowd called out locations from all across the island. He stopped turning and pointed at the floor.

“Here,” he said. “Actually, just over there, south of the turnpike, in the old Kellenberg High School. The attack was small, and we managed to contain it without much bloodshed, so you may not have even known about it, but still, they were right there. How many of you live near there?” He raised his hand, nodding at the others in the crowd who raised theirs as well. “Yes,” he said, “you live right there, I live right there, that is the heart of our community. The Voice isn’t just out in the forest anymore, they’re here, in East Meadow, in our own neighborhood. They want to tear us apart from the inside, but we are not going to let them!

“The Voice objects to the Hope Act,” he continued. “They call it tyranny, they call it fascism, they call it control. You call it our only chance. You want to give humanity a future; they want to live in the present, and to kill anyone who tries to stop them. Is that freedom? If there’s anything we’ve learned in the last eleven years, my friends, it is that freedom is a responsibility to be earned, not a license for recklessness and anarchy. If someday, despite our strongest efforts and our deepest determination, we finally fall, let it be because our enemies finally beat us, not because we beat ourselves.”

Kira listened quietly, sobered by the speech. She didn’t relish the thought of getting pregnant so quickly—she had fewer than two years left before she came of age—but she knew the Senate was right. The future was the most important thing, certainly more important than one girl’s hesitation to take the next step.

Senator Hobb’s voice was soft, grim, resolute. “The Voice disagrees with the Hope Act, and they’ve decided to express their disagreement through murder and theft and terrorism. They’re allowed to disagree; it’s their methods that are the issue. There was another group, not so long ago, who used the same methods—a group who didn’t like the way things were and decided to rebel. They were called Partials. The difference is that the Partials were unthinking, unfeeling, inhuman killers. They kill because that’s what we built them to do. The Voices are human and, in some ways, that makes them even more dangerous.”