Ruins

Heron fell silent, but her eyes never left Samm’s, and his mind swam. He didn’t know how to respond or where to start, or even what he felt about Kira or Heron or anyone else.

“Kissing isn’t love,” he finally mumbled.

“Crossing the wasteland is?”

“Maybe,” said Samm. “Heron, love isn’t a weapon.”

“Everything’s a weapon.”

“Everything can be used as a weapon,” said Samm, “but that’s not the same thing. Love is when you have the opportunity of turning someone’s feelings or trust or vulnerability against them, but you don’t. You make promises you don’t want to keep, but you keep them because they’re right; you help people who can’t help you back.” He turned up his palms, trying to describe something he could only barely define for himself. “You . . . call it the Badlands instead of the wasteland.”

“You kill yourself,” said Heron.

“You lose yourself,” said Samm. “Love is when you find something so great, so . . . necessary, that it becomes more important to you than your own goals, than your own life—not because your life has no meaning without it, but because it gives your life a meaning it never had before.”

“Life is its own meaning,” said Heron. “We live because otherwise we die. There is no meaning in death, no hollow gestures, no glorious sacrifices. Love ruins your ability to make those decisions properly.”

Samm shook his head. “Do you realize I used to envy you? I used to think how great it would be if nothing ever got to me, and I never got sad and I never lost anything I loved, and my heart never broke over any of the stupid, meaningless tragedies that have defined our entire existence. Did you know ParaGen built us to love? To empathize? They gave us emotions specifically to make us value human life, to love them. All it did was make it hurt that much more when we finally realized they didn’t love us back. And you . . . you never let that or anything else ever bother you. I used to think that was something to strive for. But you’ve pushed your emotions so deep inside that I can’t even feel them on the link. Tactical data, health data, location and combat, that’s all there, but your emotions are gone. You’re like a black hole, Heron, and that’s not good. That’s not healthy.”

“The espionage models were built differently,” said Heron. “You don’t feel my emotions because I don’t feel them either. And you’re right about me—I’m a black hole. I’m a hollow shell. You think I’m being mysterious but I’m just . . . confused. I thought that maybe if I kissed you, if I felt what Kira felt, or Calix, then maybe . . .” She turned away. “It didn’t work.”

Samm stood in shock, trying to process what she’d said. “Why would anyone do that?” he asked. “Why make a person, and then take away everything that makes them a person?”

Heron’s link data was as empty as always. “Because it helps us survive.”

CHAPTER THIRTY

Some of the Partials Kira met by the seaside were from Morgan’s faction, out on patrol; by the time Jerry Ryssdal died and the first great snowflakes fell, they were all deserters like Green, too shocked by what they’d seen and felt to ever go back again. The world had changed, pivoting too far, and at too violent a velocity, to ever be the same again. Some of them fled east, trying to find old friends from other divisions who’d already joined the outlying factions. Three others joined Kira, swayed by her promise of a cure for expiration. She was open with them, and with Green, telling them that no matter how certain she was, there was still a chance that her plan wouldn’t work. The leader of the squad, a soldier named Falin, simply scratched his head and looked out across the sound.

“If it doesn’t work, and we die, at least we tried.” He looked at Kira. “I don’t know that we can expect any better than that. Not now, not ever.”

“Not everyone’s going to be so open-minded,” said Kira. “The humans are just as likely to resist this as the other Partials.”

“The sooner the better, then,” said Falin. “I’m only one batch away.”

One batch away, thought Kira. Green will die in a month, and Falin the month after.

How much longer does Samm have? Will I ever even see him again?