Ruins

“They’d be grateful,” said Samm. He glanced to the two soldiers by the window, and the sunny courtyard beyond. “Have you talked to the others?”

“I think I’m stuck here no matter what,” said Gorman. “The healthier ones are itching to get back.”

“To White Plains?”

“To wherever,” said Gorman. “The world’s changed, and they want to see it. And if things are really as bad as you say, they want to help. Partials killing Partials, humans still dying of RM, the war still raging between the species . . . it’s hard to sit here in a paradise on the wrong side of the world knowing that the rest of our species is going to hell.”

Samm raised an eyebrow. “Tell me about it.”

“We could stop it, you realize that?”

“What?” asked Samm. “The war?”

“The plague,” said Gorman. “These are good people, like you say, but they’re just a fraction of the humans left alive, and the community in East Meadow doesn’t have you around to keep them healthy. We have a new baby in this hospital every week or so, sometimes more; the people in East Meadow probably have at least that many, and because they don’t have the cure, they all die. All of them. We could stop that.”

“I’ve thought the same thing,” said Samm. “What we have . . . if we could get there, and if they’d listen to us, and if they’d ever accept our help . . . we could do a lot of good.”

Gorman nodded. “And if they haven’t all killed each other.”

“You couldn’t make the journey,” said Samm. “The Badlands are hell on earth, and they’re only half the distance.”

“So you go in my place,” said Gorman. “Take Ritter and Aaron and Bradley and whoever.”

Samm knew the air was filled with his conflicting emotional data—a sudden rush of fear and worry and desperate, overwhelming hope. Could he really leave? He’d given his word to stay.

“Take that little hunter,” said Gorman. “Phan, or whatever his name is. He could handle your Badlands just fine, even for a human—if there’s a storm on the face of this earth that could kill him, I’d like to see it.”

Samm rubbed at the acid scars on his arm. “No, you wouldn’t.”

“I’m serious about this,” said Gorman, leaning forward. “I can’t leave. The doctor said my lungs might never fully heal, and it’s not like I can take one of these oxygen tanks on a trip through unforgiving terrain. Even when I can walk again, even when I can run, I’ll be sleeping in this building with this cheap plastic noose around my neck for the rest of my life.” He shook the cannula for emphasis. “There’s nothing I’d like more in the world than to find that bastard Vale and kick him in the nads, over and over and over, but these people aren’t him, and they’ve given everything to help me. I want to help them.” He paused. “Let me stay here, in your place, donating Particle two-twenty-whatever-the-hell-it-is, and you go back home. Go to East Meadow and save the humans. Go to White Plains and slap some people around. And sure, if you see Dr. Vale, feel free to castrate him with a steel-toed boot, but first things first.”

“You’d really do this?” asked Samm.

“What else am I going to do?”

Someone banged loudly on the door, and Samm barely had time to look up before Calix threw it open, barging in breathlessly. “You gotta see this.”

Samm leaped to his feet. “What’s wrong?”

“There’s nothing wrong,” said Calix, grabbing his hand and heaving him toward the door. “It’s Monica’s baby, the one that was born last night.”

“You gave her the shot?” asked Samm.

“She doesn’t need it,” said Calix. “She’s not sick.”

Samm stopped in his tracks, staring at her, glancing back at Gorman. “She’s not sick?”

“She never got feverish,” said Calix. “They’ve been watching her all night, waiting for your extraction this morning, but she never got sick.”

Samm broke into a run, hurtling down the hall so fast he left Calix hobbling anxiously in his wake. He reached the maternity ward in less than a minute and pushed his way through the babbling crowd of nurses and onlookers surrounding the nurse’s station. Heron was already there, standing apart in a corner.

“Where is she?” asked Samm.

“Right in there,” said Laura, pointing to a mother staring in awe at her sleeping baby in a private room off the hallway. “Strong as an ox.”

Samm stared as well, not comprehending what was happening. Why hadn’t the baby gotten sick? Was she born immune? Surely RM was still in the air—all these people were carriers. So why wasn’t she sick?

A doctor rushed up to them, holding a small glass data screen in Laura’s face. “The blood test just finished: She already has the pheromone in her system.”

“Who gave it to her?” asked Laura.

“Nobody,” said the doctor.

Samm looked at the data screen, reading the results as best he could. “One of the other Partials, maybe?”

“She’s been under constant observation,” said the doctor. “We don’t leave their side for a second in the days after birth, and we record everything that happens. Nobody’s given her anything—just general antibiotics and some milk from her mother.”

“It’s airborne,” said Heron.