Ruins

Samm felt his chest constrict, and he hesitated before speaking, as if there was some way he could save them from the news he was about to give. “The Partials are just north of them,” he said, “in our old headquarters in White Plains. All”—he paused—“two hundred thousand of them.”

“Two hundred thousand?” asked Ritter. “You’re joking.”

“I am not.”

“What happened to the rest of us?” demanded Gorman. “Did the humans attack? We heard rumors of a naval assault, but then we came here and . . .” His voice broke, and the swirl of link data through the room turned bitter with sadness. “They did it, didn’t they? The Last Fleet broke through and slaughtered our army.”

“The Last Fleet was stopped,” said Samm. “The humans didn’t kill anyone.”

“At least not directly,” said Heron.

Gorman shot her a look, then turned back to Samm. His voice was weak, still wheezing on the respirator, but his link data practically sparked with indignation. “Then what happened?”

“About three years ago the first generation started dying,” said Samm. “The first wave of Partials they built for the war, all the veterans who were first on the shores in the Isolation War, just . . . died. Healthy one day and then rotting the next, like a piece of fruit left out in the sun. We discovered that every single one of us was built with an expiration date. On or around our twentieth birthday, every Partial dies.” Samm paused a moment, giving them a moment to absorb it. “The next batch goes in one month; the final batch—my batch—has about eight. Depending on when you came out of the vats, you have between four and thirty-two weeks to live.”

The room was silent, each Partial sitting quietly, thinking. Adding. Even Heron was silent, watching Samm with deep, dark eyes. Link data crackled through the air in a disjointed blend of confusion and despair.

“You say it kills everyone?” asked Gorman.

Samm nodded. “It’s not a disease, it’s built into our DNA. It’s unstoppable, incurable, and irreversible.”

“Twenty years?”

“Yes.”

“And you say this is 2078?” asked Gorman.

Samm frowned, confused by the string of questions. He had expected some disbelief, but Gorman’s linked confusion was growing less heartbroken every second. “October. Why?”

“Soldier,” said Gorman, “we’re Third Division. Out of the vats in 2057.” He opened his eyes wide, as if even he could barely believe what he was about to say. “Five months ago we all turned twenty-one.”

Samm stared at him. “That’s impossible.”

“Obviously not.”

“No one has ever lived through expiration,” said Samm, “we’ve tried everything—”

“How do we know this expiration date is even real?” asked Ritter.

“I’m not making this up, if that’s what you’re implying,” said Samm.

“If he’s lying about this, he could be lying about everything else,” said Dwain.

“I’m not lying,” said Samm. “It is 2078, and the world is dying, and somehow you’ve been saved from that and we need to figure out how—”

In a blur of motion Heron stepped out from the wall, pulled a combat knife from a sheath on her belt, and grabbed Ritter by the shoulder. Before Samm could even blink, Ritter was down on the floor, his chair clattering away across the tile, Heron’s knee on his chest and her knife pressed down against the skin of his throat. “Tell me the truth,” she said.

Samm jumped to his feet. “Heron, what are you doing?” He was joined by a chorus of cries from the others, most of them too weak even to stand up. Gorman struggled against the breathing tubes around his neck, trying to rise, but the effort was too much and he sagged back into bed. Outrage coursed across the link in waves.

“How old are you?” asked Heron. She pressed the knife closer against his throat. “Don’t make me show you how serious I am.”

“He can barely breathe,” shouted Dwain. “How’s he supposed to say anything with you crushing his rib cage?”

“Then somebody answer for him,” said Heron, “before I put him out of his misery and start looking for a new hostage.”

“We’re twenty-one,” said Gorman, coughing out the words between deep, thirsty breaths from the respirator. “Everything we’ve said is true. We’re twenty-one years old.”

Heron stood up, dropping her knife back into her sheath almost as quickly as she’d drawn it. She offered Ritter a hand up, but he batted it away with a scowl and lay gasping on the floor.

She looked at Samm. “Something here is keeping them alive.”

Samm raised an eyebrow. “Something in the life support?”

“Is it really going to be that simple?” asked Heron.

“How do you know it isn’t the coma?” asked a Partial named Aaron near the wall.

Samm glanced over at the soldier. He considered the idea. “It could have been, but I think it’s unlikely. If slowing a person’s metabolism postponed expiration, we’d have seen more variation in the dates.”

“Not the coma itself,” said Aaron, “I mean the coma’s cause. The sedative. What if the humans who did this to us built in a way to keep us going?”

Heron still hadn’t taken her eyes off Samm. “Is Williams the cure?”

“That would be ironic,” said Samm.