CHAPTER FIVE
Dr. Morgan took biopsies of Kira’s uterus, ovaries, lungs, sinuses, heart, spinal fluid, and brain tissue. She built elaborate models of Kira’s DNA, manipulating them on the molecular level through a massive holographic display, running so many simulations she actually slagged one of the hospital’s central computer processors. Every Partial technician who might have known how to replace it had already expired, so they soldiered on with the two remaining processor banks and hoped for the best.
Hope, Kira realized, was quickly becoming their sole remaining asset.
Dr. Vale, for his part, spent his time poring over Morgan’s copious records of Partial genetics, trying to reconstruct as much of his work on the expiration date as possible. When Kira wasn’t on the operating table or in the recovery room, she sat with him, usually attached to a rolling IV, and tried to learn as much as she could.
“This is part of the aging sequence,” said Vale, pointing to a segment of a DNA strand glowing faintly on the screen. He highlighted a series of amino acids with his fingers, and it glowed a different color. “A normal Partial grows to physical maturity in about ten months, all inside of a big glass tube; we called them vats, but they really looked more like those clear capsules you’d use at an express diner.”
Kira shook her head. “I have no idea what that means.”
“Sorry. How about a . . . skinny glass elevator?”
“I was five years old at the Break,” said Kira. “I grew up after the world already ended. You’re going to have to explain this without old-world metaphors.”
“Okay,” said Vale, pressing his fingers to his lips as he thought. “Okay. Imagine a clear cylinder, about seven feet long and two feet in diameter, with a metal cap on each end full of tubes and hoses and such. We had a few of them in the ParaGen building in the Preserve, I should have shown you; the rest were all at the growth and training facilities in Montana and Wyoming, but those were pretty heavily bombed during the Partial War. Anyway: The techs would create the zygotes in a lab and plant them in a nutritive gel Dr. Morgan invented, and by the time they were done growing, they more or less filled the tube; them and all the liquid we pumped in with them. I designed the entire life cycle,” he said, pointing back at the glowing DNA strand on his screen. “They required a remarkable amount of energy to grow at such a rate, most of which they drew from Morgan’s gel, though we had to keep them warm as well—the infant Partials were designed to be so energy-efficient that they lost virtually none of their energy as heat, which helped them grow quickly but kept them unnaturally cold. Once the accelerated aging was finished, the heightened metabolism slowed down, and they live relatively normal lives, but when the twenty years are up, the age accelerator kicks into overdrive—it looks like they’re decomposing, but really they’re aging a hundred years in a matter of weeks.”
“And freezing to death at the same time,” said Kira.
“Well, yes,” said Vale. “The energy has to come from somewhere.” He sighed. “I know you don’t approve, and I assure you that I don’t either. I didn’t like it then and I don’t like it now. But there was no other way.”
“You could have refused.”
“To create the Partials? ParaGen stood to make trillions of dollars—if we hadn’t helped them, they would have found someone else. This way we could control the process.”
“You could have refused to set an expiration date.”
“It was supposed to be a temporary measure to buy us time: The government wanted a kill switch, the Failsafe I thought had been implanted in you, and if we’d gone with that plan, the Partials would all be dead by now, and the humans would have no hope at all. This way we had twenty years to find another solution, but the end of the world precluded that.”
The Failsafe. Kira had crossed the continent looking for information on the Failsafe, only to discover that it was a twisted mess: The government had demanded a plague that could kill Partials if they ever got out of hand, and the Trust had built two versions. The first—the plague the government wanted, the one that would only affect Partials—was never implemented, intended solely as a decoy to make ParaGen think the Trust was following orders. The second, which would only target humans, was what eventually came to be known as RM, though for reasons even the Trust didn’t understand, it had proven to be far more deadly than planned. They had tried to make the humans’ well-being dependent on the Partials, giving them a disease only the Partials could cure. They’d thought it was the only way to keep the Partials safe from genocide. Instead, they’d committed genocide themselves.
Kira watched Vale in silence as he pored over the DNA images, reading them the way an archaeologist would read an ancient language—organic hieroglyphics that he studied with a low, intense mutter. After a moment Kira spoke again.
“What was your plan for those twenty years?”
“Excuse me?”
“You said you had twenty years to deal with the expiration date before it kicked in, and that you were going to try to deal with it before it became an issue. What was your plan?”
“It was Armin’s plan,” he said softly, still staring intently at the DNA. “We all had our jobs, and we worked in secret. That’s why Morgan didn’t know about the expiration date.”
At the mention of his name, Kira was lost in another dark reverie. It was Armin who had formed the Trust, he who had suggested the rash plan to save their million Partial “children” from death. If he had a plan to overcome expiration, what was it? Was he just relying on the same genetic equipment Morgan was? Before the Break, with access to the full resources of ParaGen, gene-modding a million people might have been a feasible plan, diving into their DNA and carving out the expiration code like a patch of rot in an apple. What Armin would have done, she could only guess. She’d lived with the man for five years, give or take—she had no idea how long she’d gestated in a growth vat before popping out to be taken care of. Armin had raised her as his own, so fully she’d never even suspected she wasn’t human, that she wasn’t really his daughter. She didn’t even know what her purpose was. Would she ever meet him? Would she ever get the chance to ask him?
Did knowing the truth about who he was, and what she was, make him less of a father? She remembered him with love—was that relationship any less meaningful now? She hadn’t decided yet. She wasn’t sure if she could. You didn’t need a biological connection to be a family; all of the family relationships post-Break were ones of adoption, and the love they felt was real. But none of those adoptive parents had lied to their children about the fundamental aspects of those children’s existence and species. None of those adoptive parents had synthetically engineered their children and grown them in a clear glass cylinder.
None of those adoptive parents had ended the world.
Well, except Nandita. I have all the luck with parents.
“Do you know where Armin is?” she asked softly.
“You asked about him before,” said Vale, pausing to turn and look at her. “What’s your interest in him?”
Kira wasn’t sure she wanted to share that part of her life with Vale or Morgan—at least not yet. “He’s the only one we can’t account for.”
“We don’t know much about Jerry Ryssdal, either.”
“But Jerry Ryssdal wasn’t the one who created the Trust.”
Vale shook his head helplessly. “Well, given the circumstances, I would assume Armin is dead.”
Kira swallowed, trying not to let her feelings show, even as she was unsure of what those feelings were. “But the Trust are all immune to RM. You gene-modded yourselves for protection.”
“There are plenty of ways to die that aren’t related to RM,” said Vale. “When things fell apart . . . he could have died in a looting scuffle, during a Partial bombing—”
“I thought the Partials didn’t attack civilians.”
“ParaGen was hardly a civilian target in that particular war,” said Vale. “Many of our facilities were attacked, and he may have been in or near one at the wrong time.”
“But you survived.”
“Why are you interrogating me?”
Kira took a deep breath, shaking her head tiredly. “You’re trying to work, and I’m . . . preoccupied. I’m sorry. You’re in here practically twenty hours a day trying to cure this thing, and I should be helping you, not—”
Now it was Vale’s turn to shake his head, refusing to meet Kira’s eyes. “You’re helping more than anyone.” There was more anger in his voice than Kira had expected. “You’re a sixteen-year-old girl and I’m letting Morgan treat you like a cell culture.”
“I volunteered.”
“That doesn’t make it right.”
“It’s the only right choice there is.”
“That doesn’t mean I like it.”
They sat in silence for a moment, and Kira smiled sadly. “I’m seventeen, actually. Almost eighteen.”
Vale smiled back, though the smile seemed just as sad and forced as Kira’s. “When’s your birthday?”
“I have no idea. Sometime in January. I always just celebrate it on New Year’s.”
Vale nodded, as if that meant something profound. “A snow baby.”
“Snow?”
Vale sighed again. “I forget you kids don’t know about snow. When was the last time . . . ? I can’t remember. . . . Even I must’ve been a kid the last time it snowed. Anyway: a New Year’s baby, then.” He turned back to his monitor. “That’s good luck. We’re going to need it.”
Kira looked at the glowing DNA strand, trying to read it like he did, but it meant virtually nothing to her. She’d trained as a medic, so she knew the terminology, but genetics were not her specialty. She traced the tape holding the IV tube to her arm. “Are you sure there’s nothing more I can do to help?”
“Find Armin,” he muttered, staring at the screen, “and ask him what the hell we’re supposed to do now.”
Kira felt a surge of excitement at the suggestion, but she knew it was a hopeless plan—there was too little time left, and no idea even where to begin. And when it came right down to it, she wasn’t even sure she wanted to find her father. What would she say to him? She didn’t even know if she’d be angry or glad. “I’ve tried looking for the Trust already,” she said at last. “I can do more good here, helping you and Morgan with your research.”
“That’s what you keep saying.”
“I know you’re just trying to help me,” said Kira, “and I appreciate that, but I’m serious about this.” She felt a flutter of fear, as she always did thinking about her situation, but forced it down. She thought about Samm, and steeled her resolve. “I don’t go back on my promises.”
“Even if they have no purpose?”
Kira frowned. “You don’t think Morgan will find anything?”
“I think she’s looking in the wrong place. All she’s going to find in you is a basic Partial template, an example of a Partial genome with no expiration triggers.”
“Which is exactly what she’s looking for,” said Kira.
He dismissed that notion with a wave. “It’s a solution she can’t implement. Even if she finds the right genes, what then? We don’t have the time or the means to disseminate the cure to more than a handful of Partials, let alone every Partial in the world. I’ve talked to her about it, but she’s determined.”
Kira started to speak but trailed off, uncertain and terrified. “But if I’m not . . .” It was a fear she hadn’t even realized she had, but which sprang up in her mind like a nightmare, shaking her to the core.
I’m not a cure for RM, and I don’t have any special powers or abilities that anyone can find. I’m not even the Partial Failsafe, according to every test they’ve been able to run. I thought I was created for a purpose, but I’ve tried everything else, and curing expiration is the only purpose left.
But if I’m not the cure for expiration, what good am I to anyone?
She tried to control her tears, but they burst out in a flood. Vale looked up in surprise, his face a mask of confusion; he looked like he wanted to help but had no idea what to do or say, and Kira stood up quickly, grabbing her rolling IV stand and walking away before he could try to comfort her. She was still sobbing, so much she could hardly see, but she knew that a single word from anyone, even a kind one, would wreck her completely. She staggered out of the room, closing the door behind her, and sagged against the wall in a torrent of tears.
I thought the Trust had a plan to save everyone, and the more I looked the more it kept coming back to my father, to me, to the questions that no one could answer. Why did he make me? Why would anyone hide a Partial among the humans? What was I intended to do or be or accomplish? What was I . . . She sobbed, completely unable to even articulate the thought anymore, even to herself. She’d dared to believe that she was the plan—that her father had created her for this time, for this purpose, to cure both species and save the world. To lose that dream was hard enough, but the sheer arrogance of having that dream in the first place broke her in half.
Dr. Morgan found her twenty minutes later, curled on the floor and shivering in her hospital gown.
“The spinal fluid was another dead end. I want brain tissue.”
Kira didn’t bother to ask why, or what her methods were, or how much brain tissue Morgan needed. She dragged herself to her feet, clutching the IV stand like a cane, and shuffled toward the operating room. The biopsies were invasive and painful, more like torture than a medical procedure, but Kira set her face grimly and lay down under the spider. The hospital was so empty, they hadn’t passed a single other person in the halls. Too many of the Partials were dead.
The needles gleamed, piercing her like daggers, but Kira embraced the pain. It was all she had left.