Ruins

They sat in silence for a moment, and Kira smiled sadly. “I’m seventeen, actually. Almost eighteen.”

Vale smiled back, though the smile seemed just as sad and forced as Kira’s. “When’s your birthday?”

“I have no idea. Sometime in January. I always just celebrate it on New Year’s.”

Vale nodded, as if that meant something profound. “A snow baby.”

“Snow?”

Vale sighed again. “I forget you kids don’t know about snow. When was the last time . . . ? I can’t remember. . . . Even I must’ve been a kid the last time it snowed. Anyway: a New Year’s baby, then.” He turned back to his monitor. “That’s good luck. We’re going to need it.”

Kira looked at the glowing DNA strand, trying to read it like he did, but it meant virtually nothing to her. She’d trained as a medic, so she knew the terminology, but genetics were not her specialty. She traced the tape holding the IV tube to her arm. “Are you sure there’s nothing more I can do to help?”

“Find Armin,” he muttered, staring at the screen, “and ask him what the hell we’re supposed to do now.”

Kira felt a surge of excitement at the suggestion, but she knew it was a hopeless plan—there was too little time left, and no idea even where to begin. And when it came right down to it, she wasn’t even sure she wanted to find her father. What would she say to him? She didn’t even know if she’d be angry or glad. “I’ve tried looking for the Trust already,” she said at last. “I can do more good here, helping you and Morgan with your research.”

“That’s what you keep saying.”

“I know you’re just trying to help me,” said Kira, “and I appreciate that, but I’m serious about this.” She felt a flutter of fear, as she always did thinking about her situation, but forced it down. She thought about Samm, and steeled her resolve. “I don’t go back on my promises.”

“Even if they have no purpose?”

Kira frowned. “You don’t think Morgan will find anything?”

“I think she’s looking in the wrong place. All she’s going to find in you is a basic Partial template, an example of a Partial genome with no expiration triggers.”

“Which is exactly what she’s looking for,” said Kira.

He dismissed that notion with a wave. “It’s a solution she can’t implement. Even if she finds the right genes, what then? We don’t have the time or the means to disseminate the cure to more than a handful of Partials, let alone every Partial in the world. I’ve talked to her about it, but she’s determined.”

Kira started to speak but trailed off, uncertain and terrified. “But if I’m not . . .” It was a fear she hadn’t even realized she had, but which sprang up in her mind like a nightmare, shaking her to the core.

I’m not a cure for RM, and I don’t have any special powers or abilities that anyone can find. I’m not even the Partial Failsafe, according to every test they’ve been able to run. I thought I was created for a purpose, but I’ve tried everything else, and curing expiration is the only purpose left.

But if I’m not the cure for expiration, what good am I to anyone?

She tried to control her tears, but they burst out in a flood. Vale looked up in surprise, his face a mask of confusion; he looked like he wanted to help but had no idea what to do or say, and Kira stood up quickly, grabbing her rolling IV stand and walking away before he could try to comfort her. She was still sobbing, so much she could hardly see, but she knew that a single word from anyone, even a kind one, would wreck her completely. She staggered out of the room, closing the door behind her, and sagged against the wall in a torrent of tears.

I thought the Trust had a plan to save everyone, and the more I looked the more it kept coming back to my father, to me, to the questions that no one could answer. Why did he make me? Why would anyone hide a Partial among the humans? What was I intended to do or be or accomplish? What was I . . . She sobbed, completely unable to even articulate the thought anymore, even to herself. She’d dared to believe that she was the plan—that her father had created her for this time, for this purpose, to cure both species and save the world. To lose that dream was hard enough, but the sheer arrogance of having that dream in the first place broke her in half.

Dr. Morgan found her twenty minutes later, curled on the floor and shivering in her hospital gown.

“The spinal fluid was another dead end. I want brain tissue.”