by Dan Wells
Calix looked at the floor, avoiding his eyes, and he realized something else. Calix had wanted him once, back when he’d first arrived. He’d told her he was in love with Kira, but now Kira was gone. What was to stop Samm and Calix from being together now? Had she been waiting this entire time, too polite to exploit Kira’s absence, but counting the days until Samm came to the same realization? He’d promised to stay here forever. What was he waiting for? What was he holding out for? If this was really his home—not just the place where he lived, but a real home, with a new family—why was he still acting like a visitor?
Calix was kind, she was smart, she was funny, and even with a bullet wound in her leg she’d been more than capable of contributing to the Preserve. They’d been spending more and more time together over the last few weeks, until Samm had come to think of her as one of his best friends. And he had to admit she was beautiful. Calix wasn’t Kira, but Kira wasn’t Calix, either.
And Kira wasn’t here.
Calix looked up, as if sensing his gaze. He looked at her, studying her face, her eyes, remembering their kiss. Was it really so wrong? He was staying here anyway—was it really so bad if he stayed here with her?
“Samm.” Her voice was hesitant, probing.
“Calix,” he said.
“I’m sorry—”
“Don’t be,” he said quickly. “You’ve made me realize something.”
She bit her lip again. “What?”
He took another long look at her, then shook his head. “I’ve promised to stay,” said Samm. “The other Partials haven’t.” He sighed and stood up. “I can’t expect them to make the same choice, or to stay here forever. I need to ask them what they want.”
Calix nodded. “And then?”
“Then we give it to them.”
“And then?” asked Calix. She stood carefully, favoring her bad leg. “What’s the next big crisis you can put your life on hold for?”
Samm put his hand on her shoulder. “You’re the best friend I have.”
“I bet you say that to all the girls.”
“I’ve never said it to anyone.”
Samm walked through the halls to the recovery wing, which the nine healing Partials called home. The air linked a mixture of hope and restlessness; it was a typical morning. Gorman was sitting up in his bed, holding the respirator cannula in his hand.
“That works better if you actually put the air tubes in your nose,” said Samm.
“And beds work best when you lie down in them,” said Gorman. “It’s not the equipment I want to work right, it’s my body.”
“Keep practicing, then,” said Samm. “I heard you went walking last night.”
“They tell you about the dump, too? If they’re going to tell the whole Preserve what I do at night, they’d better not leave out the real excitement.”
“You can give me the details later,” said Samm, looking around the room. Only three Partials were there, Gorman in his bed and two others sitting in chairs by the open windows, soaking up the sunlight. “Where’s everybody else?”
“Dwain’s still in bed,” said Gorman. “I think he’s got the hots for the nurse, so he’s milking his convalescence for a lot more than it’s worth.”
“Calix or Tiffany?”
“Tiffany.”
“Wrong tree,” said Samm. He paused. “Not that I want him chasing after Calix, either.”
Gorman eyed him. “Are you and she . . . ?”
“No,” said Samm. “How about the others?”
Gorman ignored the deflection. “What about Heron?”
“How many girls do you think I’m hooking up with?”
“Not as many as you could, if I’m interpreting the signs right.” He took a breath of air from the cannula. “Calix follows you around like a puppy, and Heron . . . Well, I guess it sounds wrong to say she follows you around like a snake, but you get my meaning.”
“Heron is an old friend,” said Samm. “We fought together in the Isolation War.”
“And now?”
“Now we . . .” Samm didn’t know how to describe their relationship. Over the last week or so he’d barely seen Heron at all, but he knew she was nearby. Just like before, she’d been making it obvious that she was watching him. Apparently Gorman had noticed it too. “Heron’s a good friend,” he said again. “That doesn’t mean I have any idea what she wants. She’s an espionage model; she’s hardwired for secrecy and misdirection.”
“Trained in seduction, though,” said Gorman, pointing at him with the cannula. “That’s got to count for something.”
“If a woman trained in seduction were into me, I think I’d know it by now,” said Samm. He turned the conversation back to Gorman and his squad mates, gesturing at the mostly empty room. “Where are the others?”
“Outside walking,” said Gorman. “Ritter’s as healthy as you are; he has no business being in a hospital anymore. Aaron and Bradley, too.”
“That’s what I wanted to talk about,” said Samm, pulling a chair next to the soldier’s bed. “You’re getting better now, minor setbacks notwithstanding.” He gestured at the cannula, and Gorman rolled his eyes. “It’s time to move past recovery and into real life. You can’t stay in the hospital forever.”
“Knock on wood,” said Gorman. He pursed his lips, thinking for a moment. “What about the Preserve?”
“You’re certainly welcome to stay,” said Samm, “but no one’s keeping you here.”
“They could get a lot more of that pheromone with all nine of us pitching in to help you. They could stock up before we expire, assuming we ever do, and last for another few years.”
Samm nodded. “They’re good people,” he said. “I don’t exactly want to leave them without a source of the cure, but they feel the same way I do: If they have to enslave you again to get it, it’s not worth getting.”
“That sounds an awful lot like a guilt trip.”
“That’s not my intention,” said Samm. “Sooner or later they’re going to run out anyway, whether it’s my death next year or your death . . . whenever. Don’t feel obligated.”
“So it’s too much of a lost cause for me to bother with,” said Gorman, “but you’re still giving your life for it.”
“I gave my word,” said Samm. “You’re welcome to stay as long as you want, and you’re welcome to contribute the cure pheromone if you want, but those choices are yours to make.” Samm rubbed his nose, still numb from the extraction. “As jobs go, though, an hour a week in a lab chair is a pretty lightweight one.” He smiled. “And frankly, all you might be able to handle right now.”
Gorman held the cannula to his nose, taking a deep breath, then dropped his hands heavily back to his lap. “I do want to give something back,” he said. “I was suspicious in the beginning, but they’ve been good to us. They deserve whatever we can do to help them.”
“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.
Calix finally arrived, gritting her teeth as she hopped toward them. “What’s airborne?”
Samm looked at Heron, slowly realizing what she meant. “Nine Partials have been living in the hospital for a month,” he said. “Ten, since I’m here more often than not. We’ve been injecting the pheromone directly to the bloodstream because that’s the way Vale did it, but it’s a pheromone—it’s designed to be transmitted through the air. Now that you’re living with us twenty-four hours a day, you’re breathing it in, and it’s just . . . everywhere.”
Calix looked at the data screen, then the baby, then back at Samm. “How many of us are going?”
“Going where?”
“To East Meadow,” said Calix. “This is the answer; we have to tell them.”
“We need Samm if we’re going to keep this whole pheromone incubator working,” said Laura.
“Gorman will stay,” said Calix, “and others. Most of them still can’t make the journey.”
“None of you can,” said Heron. “The Badlands will kill you.”
“It’s worth the risk,” said Calix.
Samm shook his head. “It’s too dangerous—”
“You’ll get to see Kira again,” said Calix.
Samm fell silent.
Calix’s eyes were hard. “If this system can work, if Partials and humans can live together, side by side, we can save the other humans, and who knows—maybe the Partials too. Gorman and his team are still alive, even if we don’t know why.” She looked down, just for a moment. “And we can save Kira, too. This is what she came here for.”
Samm breathed deep, trying to think of something to say. He looked at Laura. “She’s right.”
“I know she is,” said Laura. “If there really are more humans out there, we have to do what we can for them.”
“I don’t know if I’ll be able to come back,” said Samm.
“We,” said Calix fiercely. “I’m going with you.”
“Not with that leg,” said Samm.
“You’ll have to shoot me again to stop me.”
Heron fingered the butt of her semiautomatic. “Same leg, or the other one this time?”
“I’m the best wilderness explorer in the Preserve,” said Calix hotly, “even with a bad leg. Frankly, I don’t think you can make it without me.”
Samm thought about the Badlands: the swirling pools of poison water, the endless miles of bone-white trees. He and Heron were more resilient than any human, but neither of them were scouts; someone with targeted survival training would be useful. He rubbed his acid scars and frowned. “Shooting you might be kinder.” Calix started to protest, but Samm stopped her with a gesture. “We leave tomorrow morning. If you’re prepared to die for this, be ready to go at dawn.”
PART 2
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
“General.”
Shon looked up from his maps, trying to plan the next wave of their hunt for the human terrorists. The resistance had ramped up their attacks over the last few weeks, striking harder and in more places than ever before, only to fade away like ghosts into the forests and ruins. They were getting bolder, too: His camp had spent the night and morning pinned down by sniper fire. He looked at the messenger with weary eyes. “What news?”
“We found the sniper’s nest, but no one was there—just a rifle rigged up to an alarm clock.”
Shon raised his eyebrow. “You’re kidding.”
The messenger’s link was completely sincere, blended with disbelief. “I saw it myself, sir. The trigger had been removed and connected to the gears of an alarm clock—one of the old wind-up ones, sir, completely handmade. We think it was set to fire into the camp at regular intervals, and the tripod was loosened just enough that the recoil adjusted the aim with each shot, so it wasn’t hitting the same spot over and over. The scouts think no on
e’s been up there since the first shot last night.”
Shon clenched his fist, linking his rage so fiercely that the messenger staggered back.
“That explains why no one was actually hit, sir,” said the messenger. “We thought it was just because humans are bad shots, but . . . now we know, I guess. It wasn’t even aiming, just firing every half hour or so. Maybe they just set it up and hoped they got lucky.”
“All they were hoping to do was slow us down,” said Shon, “which they’ve done brilliantly. Just when I thought we’d figured out these White Rhinos’ tactics, they switch them up completely.”
“That’s the other thing, sir,” said the messenger. “We don’t think this was the Rhinos—or if it was, it was some kind of splinter group. There was a note.” He stepped forward and handed it to the general.
Shon frowned, taking the wrinkled piece of paper. “They’ve never left a note before.”
“Exactly, sir. Everything about this strike is different from what we’ve seen before.”
Shon read the note: “‘Sorry we couldn’t wait around. We have some more surprises to set up. Love and kisses, Owen Tovar.’ What on earth?”
“We don’t know who Owen Tovar is yet,” said the messenger, “but we’re working on it.”
“He was one of the senators,” said Shon. “We thought they’d all gone into hiding. But why . . .” He stared at the note, turning it over in the halfhearted hope of finding another clue on the back. There was nothing. “Why identify himself? Is it just a taunt, or is there a deeper message to it?”
“Maybe he’s trying to rile us up?” asked the messenger. “After all those sniper shots into the camp, the soldiers are ready to burn the forest down to find them.”
Shon sighed and rubbed his eyes, feeling the strain of the long day more keenly than ever. “What’s your name, soldier?”
The messenger straightened to attention. “Thom, sir.”
“Thom, I want you to follow the scouts trying to track whoever set up that rifle. Report to me immediately when you find who’s responsible. You have a radio?”