Partials series 1-3 (Partials; Fragments; Ruins). Dan Wells
“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.
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