Partials

“We’re not sure how quickly this works,” said Dr. Morgan, watching Kira closely. “We haven’t experimented on humans since just after the Partial War.”

Kira breathed deeply, summoning her control after the violation of the injection. The particle still rotated slowly on one of the screens. Am I going to die? She said the Lurker’s not a new version of RM—then what is it? And what are they expecting to see?

She remembered one of their snatches of overheard whispering and looked back at the images on the wall: the virus and the Lurker, so similar and yet so unlike a virus. It had always confused her, dealing only with her own incomplete information, but here with the Partials she knew more. She had heard them talking about it.

“You called it a pheromone,” said Kira.

Dr. Morgan paused suddenly, looking at Kira quizzically. She followed Kira’s eyes to the images on the wall, then looked back at Kira. “You know this particle?”

“We thought it was a new stage of RM, because it looked so much like the other, but you called it a pheromone. That’s why Samm was producing it—it’s part of your link data.”

Dr. Morgan glanced to the side of the room, beyond Kira’s field of vision, and Kira could tell from her eyes that she was frowning. She looked back at Kira. “Your knowledge is more extensive than I expected. I confess that when you—a human, of all things—told me you were a medic, I didn’t really take you seriously.”

Kira fought down a wave of nausea, still reeling from the pain of the injection. She composed herself again and looked at Dr. Morgan. “What does it do?”

“That’s what we’re trying to find out.”

“Is it part of the link?” asked Kira. “Is the whole RM virus just a side effect of your abilities?”

“Over the past twelve years I’ve catalogued every pheromone the Partials produce,” said Dr. Morgan. “I’ve isolated every particle, I’ve tracked them back to the organ that produces them and the stimulus that triggers their production, and I’ve determined their precise purpose and function. Every one of them.” She nodded at the image on the wall. “Except that one.”

Kira shook her head. “Why would you have a pheromone with no purpose? Everything about you was built with a purpose.”

“Oh, there’s a purpose,” said Dr. Morgan. “Everything at ParaGen had a purpose, as you say. One of those purposes was a fixed time of death, and it is our suspicion that this pheromone might somehow be related to it. If we can study certain reactions, we might be able to combat it.” She gestured at the images behind her. “As you can see from the wall screen, the pheromone doesn’t react with other Partials, and it doesn’t react with humans. It reacts with RM.”

Suddenly Kira saw the two images in a new light: not as versions of each other, but as a combination. The Predator didn’t just look like the Partial pheromone, it was the Partial pheromone, with an airborne RM Spore wrapped around it. That was how the Spore became the Predator—not on contact with blood, but on contact with the pheromone. On contact with blood, the Spore turns into the Blob. Kira’s mind filled with the image of the newborn baby’s blood, the bizzarre Predator virus multiplying like mad and yet not causing any damage to the cells. Samm was right there: he’d been breathing the Lurker into the air for days. It got into the sample, attached itself to the Spore, and rendered the virus inert.

That was the secret of RM. That was the cure. A tiny little particle inside their greatest enemies.

“When the humans fell, we began to research the question of Partial sterility, to see if we could undo it.” Dr. Morgan seemed oblivious to Kira’s shock—or was interpreting it as uneducated bewilderment. Kira struggled to hide her emotions as the doctor kept talking, suddenly terrified at the prospect of this cold, calculating woman in possession of so powerful a secret. If Dr. Morgan was concerned about Kira’s reaction, she didn’t show it. She walked to the wall, tapped the screen, and called up a series of other files—other faces, other human girls, as pale and wide-eyed as Kira, strapped to the same table and subjected to the same experiments. “We needed a nonsterile control for our experiments, and naturally this led us to the study of humans. It was only after the last girl died that we noticed the link between our pheromone and RM: Somehow the virus is absorbing the pheromone into itself, though how and why we have no idea. Eventually we were caught up in … other concerns, but when the crisis of the expiration date began to surface, we realized we needed to take up the studies again.” She turned back to Kira, idly playing with the empty syringe in her hands. “And here you are.”