Partials

“We have not yet decided a course of action,” said Hobb, his voice rich with earnest sincerity. “Our medics and researchers are working to unlock the secrets of the cure, and once they do we will begin synthesizing more. This is our plan for the time being, but should things change, rest assured that your votes will decide what steps we take next. Our society will work together, or not at all.

“But there is one thing more.” He paused, a purely theatrical moment that Kira saw worked marvelously well: The crowd hushed and leaned forward. Hobb raised his finger, tapping it gently in the air, and finally resumed his speech. “There is one thing more that we discovered in our experimentation on the Partial. Something that will change the course of our lives, and of the entire world.” He took a breath. “The Partials are dying, rapidly, and there’s nothing they or anyone else can do to stop it. In a year, our greatest enemy will be gone forever.”

The cheer that rose from the crowd shook the coliseum to its core.

“We can’t synthesize it,” said Kira. Marcus had walked her home after the town hall meeting, and they were sitting in her living room. Kira knew the truth, and it burned inside her like a white-hot coal: The cure, the Lurker, could not be replicated artificially, and her own private tests had shown that she did not produce it. If she was truly a Partial, as Dr. Morgan and the others had claimed, her purpose and her origins remained a mystery she could only guess at.

She prayed it was not sinister.

“We can’t make it, we can’t fake it, we simply don’t have the tools,” she continued. “I’m not even sure the tools exist—maybe ParaGen had something, and whoever made the virus in the first place, but they’re gone now. The only way to get it is from the Partials themselves.”

“Isolde says the Senate is preparing for the possibility of an attack on the mainland,” said Marcus.

Kira nodded. “A contingency plan.” She was the island’s expert on the subject and consulted with the Senate often, but she worked more closely with Skousen; she knew they were planning something, but she didn’t know the details. “Did Isolde say anything about a timeline?”

“A few months, maybe.” Marcus shrugged helplessly. “It was one thing to watch the newborns die before, but now that there’s a cure… Three more have died since we saved Arwen, and the women Tovar injected with the other two doses haven’t given birth yet. We don’t know what’s going to happen, but regardless, the people aren’t going to sit still once things go back to the way they were. And now that they know the Partials are dying, it’s only a matter of time before they start calling for a new plan. There are proposals for peace talks and envoys, too, not just war, but with the state of things we saw over there…” He shook his head. “Any ambassadors we send are as likely to get shot as deliver a treaty.”

“Just like what we did to them.” She frowned. “Maybe.” She still wasn’t sure what to think about Samm—had he been lying the whole time? Was peace with the Partials even possible?

“Kira,” said Marcus, and instantly she heard the change in his voice: a deep breath, a softer pitch, a searching tone that filled her name with a deep and portentous meaning. She knew exactly what he was going to say, and she cut him off as gently as she could.

“I can’t stay with you.”

Even as she said it, she saw Marcus deflate—first his eyes, the brightness bleeding out of them, his head hung low. His face fell, his shoulders drooped.

“Why?” he asked.

Not “why not,” thought Kira, but “why.” It’s such a different question. It means he knows I have another reason—not something pushing me away from him, but something pulling me toward something else.

“Because I need to go away,” said Kira. “I need to find something.”

“You mean someone.” His voice was rough, tears close to the surface. “You mean Samm.”

“Yes,” said Kira, “but not like … it’s not what you think.”

“You’re trying to stop a war.” He said it simply, a statement rather than a question, but Kira could sense the same question underneath it: Why? Why was she leaving him? Why wasn’t she asking him to go? Why did she need Samm when he was right here? He didn’t ask, though, and Kira wouldn’t have been able to answer him anyway.