Ruins

If Kira was right, somewhere in the life cycle of the RM virus there was a cure for expiration. Obviously it wouldn’t be in the Spore, because then the Partials could heal themselves; it wouldn’t be in the Predator, either, because the mere presence of the Partials removed the Predator from the bloodstream. No, the cures seemed to be designed to activate only when the species intermingled, so what she was looking for would be buried in the Blob. The Partials would give humans the Lurker, thus saving them, and then the humans would turn around and give something back to the Partials and save them . . . but what? Was there a fourth stage of the virus she hadn’t encountered yet? Was there another interaction she hadn’t seen? It was possible that some of the Partials who’d spent a lot of time around humans would have already been exposed to the cure, but the only way to test that was to wait until their expiration date and see if they died. She opened a new file on her medicomp and made a note to check the records for something like this, but she didn’t hold out much hope for it—if any of the Partials had survived their expected expiration, it would be bigger news. Very few of the Partials had come into contact with the humans anyway, not for nearly eleven years. The Partials involved in the East Meadow occupation had received plenty of human contact, but was it enough? How much did it take? How quickly could it take effect? There were too many variables, and they were running out of time—observational data wasn’t good enough. She would have to test her theory directly, and that meant hands-on experimentation: She had to obtain a sample of the Blob and expose it to Partial physiology.

It was a good plan. It was the only plan she could make. But the steps she would have to take to carry it out made a part of her die inside.

“We need to kidnap a human.”

Dr. Vale looked up from his medicomp screen; another iteration of the same data Kira had been poring over for days. He stared at her a moment, blinking as his eyes refocused from the screen to her face. “Excuse me?”

“We need a human test subject,” said Kira. “We have to study the interactions between the stage-three RM virus and a living Partial, and the only way to get stage-three RM is from a human. I’m not human, and you’ve already used gene mods to make yourself immune. The only way to get what we need is from a human—I don’t like it, but it’s a medical necessity. What we learn in this experiment could save the world.”

Vale stared a moment longer, his face blank, before finally furrowing his brow and turning fully toward her. “Forgive my incredulity, but is this the same young woman who called me a monster for keeping Partials imprisoned under the pretense of medical necessity?”

“I told you I didn’t like it. And I’m only talking about taking blood samples, not inducing a comatose state in our subject for years on end—”

“Is this also the same young woman,” Vale continued, “who was herself kidnapped and studied? In this same facility?”

Kira gritted her teeth, frustrated both with him for resisting, and with herself for suggesting it in the first place. It tore her apart even to consider it, but what other options were there? “What do you want me to say?”

“I don’t know,” said Vale. His voice sounded lost and weary. “I’m not fishing for a specific response, I’m just . . . surprised. And saddened, I suppose.”

“Sad because this is our only option left?”

“Sad because I may have just witnessed the death of the world’s last living idealist.”

Kira clenched her fists, trying to calm herself as tears threatened. “If we can find the interaction between the species, with RM as a catalyst for both cures, we can save the world. We can save everybody. Isn’t that worth every sacrifice we can make?”

“When you gave yourself to this research, it was a sacrifice,” said Vale. “I didn’t like it, but I admired you for it, but now—”

“Now we have even less time to debate the ethics of it—”

“Now you’re talking about someone else,” said Vale, raising his voice to talk over her. “Now I see I was wrong about you, because you weren’t giving yourself for a cause, you were just obsessed, as obsessed as Morgan is, and you only gave yourself because you didn’t have anyone else to give.”

Kira’s tears were real now, streaming hotly down her face as she screamed back at him. “Why are you fighting me so much?”