“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 t
he 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 dishonorab
ly 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.”