Ruins

Kira peered at Ritter more closely. “Nice to meet you. You look like . . . I’m sorry, you’re not a model I’ve met before: you’re too old for infantry but too young to be an officer or medic.”

“That’s because I’m aging,” said Ritter, and though Heron couldn’t see it, she knew the man was smiling. The Third Division was stupidly proud of their new, human-like attributes. “When we first woke up we thought it was an effect of the muscle atrophy we experienced. Now we’re fully recovered, and I still look almost thirty years old.”

“It was Dr. Vale,” said Kira, and Heron rolled her eyes at the eager thrill in the girl’s voice. “Even with his gene mods he was still human, and it must have been his breath that set the reaction in motion. I thought it would stop expiration, but I didn’t realize it would restart the normal aging process as well. That’s amazing. I wonder if it also cured your sterility?”

“We haven’t exactly tested that yet,” said Ritter, “though Dwain was doing his best before we left.”

“Shut up,” said Dwain.

“It might be the human interaction,” said Samm, “but we’re still not sure.”

Heron moved slightly closer, for this was the key to the whole thing. Now that White Plains was gone, and Morgan with it, Heron had no chance of surviving expiration except this one, small hope.

“It’s possible,” Samm continued, “and even probable, that what happened to the Third Division was a one-time thing—that Vale did something to them, either directly or through Williams, to keep them alive.”

“Vale didn’t do it on purpose,” said Kira. “I spent weeks with him trying to cure expiration, and he was as clueless as I was.”

Heron held her breath, listening to every word, breathing them in.

“I thought I was right before,” said Kira, “but then I confirmed it firsthand. I talked to the man who designed the system, the leader of the Trust. This was his plan all along: If humans and Partials can coexist, they can live.”

Heron breathed again, slow and controlled. She could live. Everything she’d done, every risk she’d taken, every gamble of trust, had led to this moment. She could live.

“It can’t be that easy,” said Samm. “After everything we’ve been through, all the hell and the wars and the end of the world . . .”

“It’s not easy,” said Kira. “It never has been, and it never will be. Look at the hell we’ve gone through just to get this far—just to convince even a tiny portion of each species to work together. It’s always easier to die for your own side than to live for the other one. But that’s what we have to do: to live, day after day, solving every new problem and overcoming every new prejudice and building on every common ground we can find. Waging war was the easy part—making peace will be the hardest thing we’ve ever done.”

One of the East Meadow refugees spoke up; Heron thought she recognized him as the one called Marcus. “As important as it is that we, you know, stand around and breathe on each other, we should probably focus on getting the hell out of here. That little blown bridge isn’t going to hold them forever.”

“The rest of the humans are southwest of here,” said Samm, “on a narrow slip of land called Breezy Point.”

“That’s where we figured they’d go,” said Kira. “Have you talked to them?”

Samm shook his head. “We came in through Brooklyn, and since I didn’t know how else to find you, we went to the closest human stronghold, which was the JFK airport; there were a few stragglers there, and they told us where the humans were gathering. Sounds like most of the island managed to make it there—twenty thousand at least, maybe thirty. They didn’t know anything about you, though, so our plan was to go to East Meadow next, and that’s when we heard the gunfight. I didn’t know it was you until we found the front of your column and asked who was in charge.”

“We were glad to see you,” said Marcus, and Heron caught him glancing uncertainly at Kira. He didn’t sound as glad as he claimed to.

Heron dropped back, ignoring them as their conversation turned to the more mundane topic of what to do next, and how to do it. They had more than three hundred human refugees in Kira’s group, and seventeen miles to go before they could join the rest of the humans at Breezy Point. The Partial army would catch up to them, maybe not immediately, but inevitably. After this midnight chase had failed they were likely to wait before the next assault, gathering their forces and then coming down on the humans with overwhelming force. Kira’s little band was doomed, and every other human on this island, and Heron did not intend to be here when that doom arrived. Thirty thousand humans were impossible to hide, even with a handful of Partials to protect them.

But one Partial, and one human to protect her from expiration, could disappear forever.