Ruins

“And they tried to destroy us,” said Audra. “This prison camp idea isn’t all that different from what we’ve done all along, keeping them isolated to Long Island. But keeping them alive was a mistake. Do you know what else we’ve seen on the satellite? They’re massing in the south—a giant human army, armed to the teeth, gathering for a final push.”

“Gathering in the south?” asked Vale. “As far away from us as possible?”

“They’re getting out of the blast radius,” said Audra. “What else could it be? They retreat to the South Shore, send her to trigger the bomb, and then come around Manhattan and up the river to clean up any survivors.”

“That’s a military plan,” said Vale. “They’re not an army! That’s what you’d do, but not—” But even as he said it, he realized he was caught in a loop of flawed logic generated by racist suspicion, one he could never hope to talk his way out of. “Just . . . get out, all of you.”

“But—” Vinci protested, but Vale sent a surge of linked authority, and the Partials started filing obediently through the door.

“I’m going to talk to the prisoner,” said Vale. “Keep the door closed and locked, and resume your patrols, all of you. You are not to mention any of this to anyone.”

The door closed, and Vale locked it, then wearily walked to the corner where Delarosa lay red-faced and helpless. He pulled an office chair toward her and flopped down in it heavily, making no attempt at ceremony or formality. I’m too tired, he thought, then he said it out loud. “I’m too tired.”

The woman remained still, watching him with dark, serious eyes.

“You must just be burning up right now,” he said. “Aren’t you? Caught in a trap by the very people you were looking to kill. And I suppose that includes me. I’m not a Partial, but I’m just as guilty as any of them for what has happened to this godforsaken planet. No, guiltier.” She saw the surprise in her eyes, and nodded. “I’m a member of the Trust, though I don’t suppose you know what that is?”

She paused a moment, then shook her head. Vale let out a long breath.

“Not many humans do.” He looked at the nuke, mud-spattered and scratched by a hundred thousand rocks and roots and whatever else it had passed through to get there. It was a simple metal cylinder, battered and dingy and absolutely terrifying. “The finger of God,” he said softly. He leaned over to grab the wheeled cart and pulled it closer. The end screwed off, and he found the inner electronics jury-rigged with a series of yellowed plastic light switches, probably scavenged from an old abandoned home. “You’re old,” he said idly, then shot her a quick glance. “Not old, of course, I’d never be so rude to a lady like yourself. But you’re old enough to remember the old world. The things we left behind. You remember how in all the movies and the holovids, everyone always had big red timers on their nuclear bombs? It looked like someone had stuck a digital alarm clock on there, though I suppose that’s still more high-tech than these things.” He gestured to the switches, their wires exposed, but he didn’t dare touch them. “The bad guy sets the bomb, or the good guy sets it accidentally, and then everybody watches as it counts down: fifty-nine, fifty-eight, fifty-seven. Tick, tick, tick. None of that for you, though.” He looked at her again. “No timer, no ‘run like hell’ period where you try to get to safety. You were just going to flip these switches and blow up right along with us.” He screwed the lid back on, then looked at Delarosa, lying bleeding on the floor. He leaned forward and pulled off her oxygen mask. “I figure it’s not much of an interrogation if you can’t even talk.”

Delarosa watched him, saying nothing. Vale said nothing back. After a moment she spoke, and Vale heard the pain in her voice.

“This is still not much of an interrogation.”

“The things I want to know you don’t have any answers for.”

She adjusted her shoulder slightly, wincing. “Such as?”

“Such as why everybody in this entire world hates everybody else. Why I can’t get four people to agree to a peaceful resolution even when I lead them by the hand ninety-five percent of the way.”

“I don’t hate you,” said Delarosa. “You or them. Not personally.”

“But you still want to blow us all to hell.”

“This is going to end in war,” said Delarosa. “Everyone in the world is dying, and there’s no hope left, and the nerves are too raw. Look back at what’s happened and tell me which part we could have avoided.”

“You could have not brought a nuke into the middle of an army,” said Vale. “You think your island got invaded? Just wait until word of this gets out.”

“You heard them talking just now,” said Delarosa. “This warhead is an excuse. You said it yourself—they’re an army, bred for battle; the humans are just as desperate. War is inevitable.”

“So you wanted to end it before it could start.”

“It seems like the only moral option.”

“‘Moral,’” said Vale. “That’s an interesting adjective to apply to ‘genocide.’”