Partials (33 page)

“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.