Partials (41 page)

But why is he hiding from his own people?

“Talk to me, Samm.” The woman stepped forward, keeping the rifle aimed squarely at his back. “We thought you’d been captured.”

Samm lowered his head, nearly collapsing into the dirt.
He won’t hold on much longer
, Kira thought.
Go!
She pelted forward, arms spread wide, shoulder down to nail the Partial in the small of the back.

And then the Partial whirled around.

Kira was already inside the range where the long rifle would be useless as a gun. Instead the Partial brought it down like a club, slamming the heavy stock into the side of Kira’s face just as Kira wrapped her arms around the girl’s waist and knocked her solidly to the ground. Both girls gasped in pain at the impact, but Kira’s head was still ringing from the rifle blow, and the other girl recovered first. She dropped her gun and grappled Kira with cold efficiency, twisting one arm behind her back and kneeing her painfully in the stomach. Kira fought wildly, clawing at the Partial’s face and neck and very nearly escaping from her grip, twisting just enough to keep it from becoming a true submission hold. Suddenly Kira felt the cold metal edge of a knife on her throat, and the girl spoke calmly in her ear.

“Stop moving now.”

Kira froze; there was nothing she could do. If she’d had just two more seconds to work with, maybe, but somehow the Partial had known that Kira was there.

“Let go of her, Heron, she’s with me.”

“She doesn’t link.”

“She’s human.”

Heron’s voice was surprised, but she didn’t loosen her grip. “You captured one? The mission was a success? Where’s the rest of your team?”

You captured one
? thought Kira. She loosened the girl’s grip on her throat and shouted loudly at both of them. “What the hell is going on?”

“They’re dead,” said Samm, stepping closer to Heron, “but it’s not what you think. You can let her go—she’s not a threat. She’s on our side.”

Kira couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “Were you planning this all along?” she asked. “Was this whole thing just a trick to get me back here?”

“It’s more complicated than that,” said Samm quickly. He was in front of her now, the mask ripped off. “Kuso, Heron, let her go, she came willingly!”

“So there was no peace proposal?” Kira demanded. She felt herself grow hot, felt her eyes begin to tear, felt a rush of shame and anger that she had ever trusted this thing. “No truce?”

Heron smiled. “A truce? I’m impressed, Samm; you may have a future in espionage.”

Kira saw a flash in the corner of her eye, the glint of light on a hypodermic needle. She screamed and felt it prick into her neck. The effect was almost instant: Her eyes grew heavy, her mind seemed to warp and bend. The world grew dark and thick, and Kira had time for one last thought before she fell unconscious.

I’m going to die
.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

B
eep. Pssssssssh
.

     
Beep. Pssssssssh
.

Kira was heavy—before she perceived anything else, she could feel her own weight, her body too weak for her muscles to move. She was lying down.

Beep. Pssssssssh
.

There was a noise, rhythmic and soft, somewhere near her head. Near? Yes, she was sure of it. Wherever she was, the noise was nearby. She tried to roll her head, but her neck wouldn’t turn; tried to open her eyes, but her lids were too leaden to move.

Beep. Pssssssssh
.

There was another noise, a white-noise buzz in the background of her perception. She focused on it, tried to parse it, to understand it. Voices. A low murmur.

“… the subject…”

“… burn mark…”

“… tests positive…”

They were talking about her. Where was she?

Beep. Pssssssssh
.

She was in a hospital. She remembered being under the bridge, Samm betraying her, the girl, Heron, injecting her with something. Was she being healed? Or studied?

“… all normal except…”

“… ready to proceed…”

“… preparing first incision…”

Kira moved her hand, a herculean effort, dragging ten tons of flesh and bone across three inches of table. The voices stopped. Her hand hit a barrier, a leather restraint; she could feel one on her other hand as well. She was tied down.

“She moved. Didn’t you sedate her?”

Kira opened one eye, then squinted it shut again at the brutal shock of bright lights. She heard a rustle and a sharp metal crash.

“Get those out of her face, she’s waking up.” Samm’s voice. She opened her mouth, suddenly aware of a plastic tube stretching past her tongue and down her throat. She gagged, coughing, trying not to retch, and the tube slid out like a long, slick snake. She coughed again, swallowed, cracked one eye the tiniest fraction.

Samm was standing over her.

“You,” she coughed, “bloody bastard.”

“We have to begin,” said a voice.

“Stop,” said Samm. “She’s awake!”

“Then we sedate her again. With a bigger dose this time.”

“You bloody”—she coughed again—“bastard.”

She could see better now, her eyes adjusting to the light. She was surrounded by women in hospital robes and surgical masks. She was in some kind of operating room, but it wasn’t like any operating room she’d ever seen. Metal arms hung from the ceiling like the limbs of a giant insect, scalpels and syringes and a dozen other instruments poised mere inches from Kira’s face. The walls were glowing with a muted, multicolored light—computer screens, the walls were computer screens, alive with graphs and charts and scrolling numbers. She saw her heartbeat, the thin line spiking in perfect unison with the pounding in her chest; she saw her temperature, her blood oxygen level, her height and weight in precise thousandths of a measurement. She turned her head again and saw her own face, scrubbed and topped with a plastic hat, her body stripped and bare, strapped down to the flat metal table. Her eyes were wide with terror. She gasped and the image gasped with her, the wall-size face twisting into a rictus of fear, a live camera feed of her dying moments filling the room like a horror show. She panicked; her breathing accelerated; her heart pumped; the graphs scrawled mad, thumping lines three feet high across the walls.

“I’m sorry,” said Samm. “I tried to tell them you came willingly—”

“You were not asked to bring a volunteer,” said a stern voice. A woman stepped forward. Her blue mask hid her face, but her eyes were the color of polished gunmetal, cold and unfeeling. “You have succeeded where your entire squadron failed. Do not risk your commendation now by interfering.”

Samm turned back to Kira. “They’ve asked me to be here, to talk to you, so you’d have someone you trusted—”

“I don’t trust you!” she shouted. Her voice echoed through the operating room, raw and ragged. “I helped you! I rescued you! I believed everything you said! Every word about surviving together or not surviving at all—and it was all a lie?”

“I was telling the truth,” said Samm. “When we reached the mainland, I was trying to keep you away from them until I could explain things—that you’d come to try to help us.”

“Then let me go!” Kira sobbed. The face on the wall sobbed with her, a mockery of her despair. She moved her legs, struggling against the restraints; she pulled on her arms, vainly trying to cover her chest and groin. She felt exposed and vulnerable and helpless. “Get me out of here.”

“I…” Samm’s face went rigid again, the same concentration he’d shown before—she could almost see his body seize up as the link took hold, forcing him to obey his superior officers. “I can’t.” He let out a breath, the tension gone, his muscles relaxing. “I can’t,” he repeated. “I obey my orders.” His expression darkened.

“Very good,” said the woman. She stepped forward, and one of the metal arms swung around with her, shining a light in Kira’s face, blinding her again. “Samm says you came willingly?”

“I did,” said Kira. “I came to help you.”

“And you think your dark-age technology is of any value to us? You barely understand how your own genetics work, let alone ours.”

“It doesn’t matter anymore, it was all lies.”

“Some of it was,” the woman agreed, “some of it was not. I am surprised Samm told you about our plight, our ‘expiration date,’ but that much, at least, was true. That’s why you’re here.”

“I’m a medic,” said Kira. “I’ve focused my studies on pathology and reproduction, trying to find a cure for RM. I can use that knowledge to help you.”

“Your human studies are worthless,” said the woman. “I assure you our needs lie in a completely different area.”

“I’ve studied Samm, too,” said Kira, “not like this—” She paused suddenly, thinking how much of Samm’s experience
had
been like this. How much of it had been worse. “My people did not treat him well,” she said slowly, “and I’m sorry for that, but I helped him. I studied him noninvasively. I was humane.”

The woman smirked. “Humane? Even the word is an insult.”

“You have a genetic deficiency that we don’t,” said Kira. “You’re immune to RM and our babies are not.” She pleaded with the woman. “We need each other.”

“The last time Partials and humans tried to work together, it didn’t work out so well,” said the woman. “I think we’ll take our chances on our own.”

Another metal arm swung into place, a bright hypodermic needle gleaming at its tip. Kira started to protest, but the needle darted forward like the tail of a scorpion.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

T
he needle pierced Kira’s chest, a sharp sting almost instantly dulled by the slow, spreading numbness of a topical anesthetic.

“You can’t put me under again,” Kira insisted, trying to sound stronger than she felt. The steel-eyed doctor shook her head.

“We’re not putting you under, girl, we’re prepping you for this.” She held up a syringe in her white-gloved hand, much bigger than the other, with a thick needle nearly four inches long. Kira shuddered at the sight of it, inching away as far as she could in her restraints. “Don’t worry,” said the doctor, though her voice carried no hint of compassion. “That anesthetic is excellent; you won’t feel a thing. It’s important that you be awake for this test so we can observe your responses—we were going to wait, and perform a different experiment first, but since you’ve woken up early, we may as well get started.” The doctor turned away, and another arm of the spiderlike medical robot swung down and pricked Kira’s thigh, drawing a vial of blood into a clear glass syringe.

Kira’s heart was racing. “What was that?”

The doctor spoke idly over her shoulder as she studied one of the wall screens. “Since you’ve proven somewhat resistant to our sedatives, we’re going to analyze your blood and mix one custom. We need you awake for now, but it wouldn’t be good for anyone if you wake up during the next test.”

Kira fought against her tears, irrationally determined not to let these monsters see her cry.
I am stronger than my trials
. She saw movement from the corner of her eye and cringed as a sudden fluid shape blotted out the light. She bit back a scream, but the shadow moved past her face and settled over her body; it was Samm, spreading a blanket to cover her.

“We need her chest exposed for the injection,” the doctor snapped.

“Then you can move it,” said Samm. “If she’s going to be awake, at least give her some dignity.”

The doctor paused, studying Samm with narrowed eyes, then nodded. “Fine.”

Samm leaned in close to Kira’s face. “I tried the captain on a radio, but Dr. Morgan is outside the command structure—she’s on special assignment from the Trust. She’ll be hard to stop.”

“Go to hell,” said Kira.

Samm looked down, no longer meeting her eyes, and walked away silently.

Kira could hear the other doctors discussing in low tones, manipulating one of the wall panels with their fingertips.

“… other subjects … pheromone… RM.…”

Kira’s ears snapped to attention, all her energy focused on trying to hear exactly what the doctors were saying. She couldn’t see past them to the image they were looking at, but as she concentrated, their words became clearer.

“… so we’ll inject her, and see how she reacts. We’re looking for the time it takes the particle to be absorbed, the range and coverage it achieves, and any hint of necrotic activity.”

It’s their last-minute prep
, thought Kira.

But what are they going to inject me with?

Dr. Morgan hefted the big syringe and turned toward Kira; the others moved with her, spreading out around the table. The medical spider spun into place, grippers and pincers and lights and scalpels all hovering above her like a spiky metal nightmare. As the doctors left the wall panel, Kira saw the images they’d been looking at—recognized them immediately from her own study of Samm: a magnified picture of the Predator, the stage of RM that appeared in the newborn’s blood, and beside it the Lurker, the one she’d found in Samm that shared so much of the Predator’s structure.

Dr. Morgan pulled back the sheet, exposing the top of Kira’s chest. “We have reason to believe that this is going to make you very sick, very quickly.” She held the syringe over Kira’s heart. “We’ll be monitoring your vital signs, of course, but we need you to tell us anything else you may experience: pain in your joints, shortness of breath, loss of vision or hearing. Sensory details our instruments can’t detect or interpret.”

“You’re injecting me with the Lurker,” said Kira, already feeling her body starting to panic, and struggling to keep her breathing even and calm. “The particle you produce, the inert version of RM. What are you expecting it to do?”

“A version of RM? I told you your knowledge was useless to us.” She plunged the needle into Kira’s chest—she could feel it sliding in, pain and pressure and a horrifying sense of invasion.
The anesthetic isn’t working!
Dr. Morgan pressed down on the plunger, and Kira gasped at the sudden flood of fire in her chest, pumping directly to her heart and from there to the rest of her body, filling her in seconds. Her breath caught; her hands grasped involuntarily at the edge of the table, scrabbling for anything solid to hold on to. The injection seemed to take ages, and when Dr. Morgan finally pulled out the needle, Kira whimpered, imagining she could still feel the fluid as it coursed through her.