Partials

by Dan Wells

  He seemed, Kira thought suddenly, like he was making exactly the same face he’d made in the morning, when he’d agreed to blow into the glove.

  “Kuso,” he said. “That’s not fair.”

  Kira put her hands on her hips. “What just happened?”

  “You’re using my own data against me, and now I—damn it.” He closed his mouth and looked at the ceiling.

  “What data?” asked Kira. “The pheromones? Is that what you call them?” She looked at the glove in her hand, now deflated and floppy. “You just told me something you didn’t want to tell me, didn’t you? You’ve never done that—this was a slip. What did the pheromones do?”

  Samm said nothing, and Kira brought the glove closer to her face, examining it closely. She walked to the center of the room, envisioning the way it had been laid out that morning—the DORD over here, the table over there, and Samm on top of it. She’d asked him to breathe into the glove and they’d shared something, a moment of … of something. Of actual communication. She’d made a joke about his name, he’d made one back, and then he’d agreed to help her collect a breath sample. He’d trusted her.

  And then just now, after she blew it back in his face and asked him a question, he’d trusted her again—not for long, but long enough for his shield of hostile self-control to falter. He’d answered her question.

  The pheromones had re-created the trust he’d felt that morning and forced him to feel it again.

  “It’s like a chemical empathy system,” she said softly, walking back toward Samm. “Whatever you’re feeling, you broadcast with these pheromones, so that other Partials can feel it too. Or, at least know that you’re feeling it.” She sat in the chair next to him. “It’s like the social yawn: You can standardize one person’s emotional state across an entire group.”

  “You can’t use it against me anymore,” said Samm. “I’m not breathing into your gloves.”

  “I’m not trying to use it against you, I’m trying to understand it. What does it feel like?”

  Samm turned to look at her. “What does hearing feel like?”

  “Okay,” said Kira, nodding, “that was a stupid question, you’re right. It’s doesn’t feel like anything, it’s just part of who you are.”

  “I’d forgotten that humans couldn’t link,” said Samm. “All this time I’ve been so confused, trying to figure out why you were all so melodramatic about everything. It’s because you can’t pick up each other’s emotions from the link, so you have to broadcast them through voice inflection and body language. It’s helpful, I’ll admit, but it’s kind of … histrionic.”

  “Histrionic?” Kira asked. It was the single longest speech she’d ever heard him give. Was he talking openly, or was this more of his calculated planning? What did he have to gain by talking? She kept going, trying to draw out the conversation and see if he’d keep talking. “If you depend on chemical triggers to tell people how you’re feeling,” she said, “that explains a lot about you, too. You don’t display nearly enough emotion for human society; if we seem melodramatic to you, you seem downright deadpan to us.”

  “It’s not just emotions,” he said, and Kira leaned forward, terrified that he would stop at any second, his openness popping like a bubble. “It lets us know if someone’s in trouble, or hurt, or excited. It helps us function as a unit, all working together. The link was intended for battlefield use, obviously; if someone’s on watch and sees something, a human would have to shout a warning, and then the other humans would have to wake up and figure out what the watchman was saying, and then they’d have to get ready for combat. If a Partial watchman sees something, the data goes out through the link and the other soldiers know it immediately; their adrenaline spikes, their heart rates speed up, their fight-or-flight reflex kicks in, and suddenly the entire squad is ready for battle, sometimes without even a word.”

  “The data,” said Kira. “Links and data—very technological words.”

  “You called me a biological robot yesterday,” said Samm. “That’s not entirely inaccurate.” He smiled, the first time she’d ever really seen him do that, and she did the same. “I don’t know how you people even function. It’s no wonder you lost the war.”

  The words hung in the air like a poison cloud, killing any hope that the conversation might grow friendly. Kira turned back to the screen, trying not to yell at him. His attitude had changed as well; he was more solemn, somehow. Pensive.

  “I worked in a mine,” he said softly. “You created us to win the Isolation War, and we did, and then we came home and the US government gave us jobs, and mine was in a mine. I wasn’t a slave, everything was legal and proper and ‘humane.’” He said the word as if it tasted bitter. “But I didn’t like it. I tried to get a different job, but no one would hire a Partial. I tried to get an education, to qualify for something nicer, but no schools would accept my application. We couldn’t move out of our government-assigned slum because our wages were barely livable, and nobody would sell to us anyway. Who wants to live next door to the artificial people?”

  “So you rebelled.”

  “We hated you,” he said. “I hated you.” He turned his head to catch her eye. “But I didn’t want genocide. None of us did.”

  “Somebody did,” said Kira. Her voice was thick with held-back tears.

  “And you lost every connection to the past,” said Samm. “I know exactly how you feel.”

  “No, you don’t,” Kira hissed. “You say whatever you want, but don’t you dare say that. We lost our world, we lost our future, we lost our families—”

  “Your parents were taken from you,” said Samm simply. “We killed ours when we killed you. Whatever pain you feel, you don’t have that guilt stacked on top of it.”

  Kira bit her lip, trying to make sense of her own feelings. Samm was the enemy, and yet she felt sorry for him; his words had made her so mad, yet she felt almost guilty for feeling that way. She swallowed, forcing out a response that was part accusation, part desperate plea for understanding. “Is that why you’re telling me all this? Because you feel bad about killing us?”

  “I’m telling you this because you have to understand that the cure is not enough. The war was devastating, but the problems started long before that.”

  Kira shook her head, her words coming out harsher than even she expected. “Don’t tell me what I have to understand.” She left his side and went back to work.

  “It’s a communication system,” said Kira. It was early evening, and since she’d skipped lunch she’d decided to join Marcus for an early dinner. He’d brought sushi from a street vendor, and they were eating together in an empty room on the third floor, away from all the bustle and people below. She took a bit of sushi, swallowed it, and kept talking, so eager she could barely keep up with herself. Her conversation with Samm still burned in the back of her mind, glowing banks of hot emotional coals, but she forced herself to ignore them. “A chemical communication system, like with ants, but a zillion times more complicated. Imagine being able to talk to people just by breathing—you wouldn’t have to say a word, you’d just know everything—”

  “I can’t imagine you not saying a word,” said Marcus. “I think you’d go crazy first.”

  “Ha-ha,” said Kira, rolling her eyes.

  “So, how does it work, then?”

  “Well, I don’t know what kinds of things they can say chemically—I catalogued at least twenty separate pheromones, but even at ten times that amount it would be an incredibly small vocabulary—but if, say, one of them was ‘I’m wounded,’ as soon as one soldier got wounded, all the others would instantly know about it, and they’d have a pretty good idea of where to find him. It’s a sense we don’t even have, like a social sense, and to him it’s constant and second nature. Can you imagine what it would be like to be cut off from that? He must feel more alone than…” She thought again about what he had said, calling humanity his parents; what was it like out there, the vast expanse of America l
ying empty and silent? “They’re alone, Marcus. That’s kind of tragic, don’t you think?”

  “Good thing he has you to look out for him, then,” said Marcus. “I’d hate for the poor Partial to feel lonely.”

  “That’s not what I meant,” said Kira. “This is what I love to do, Marcus—you’re a medic too, I thought you’d understand why this is so cool. It’s not about Samm, it’s about—”

  “Ah, so now you guys are on a first name basis, huh?” He tried to play it off like he was joking, but Kira could feel real emotion beneath it. She knew him too well. “I’m kidding, Kira. But seriously, he’s a Partial. Mankind’s greatest enemy, remember?”

  “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. I don’t know that they are anymore.”

  “Is that what it’s trying to tell you?” He looked at Kira the way the Senators had. Like she was an idiot. “He’s alone and he’s chained up and that makes you feel sorry for him, but he tried to kill you—not just in the Break, but last week, in Manhattan, with a gun. He is an enemy soldier, and a prisoner of war, and if he got out of his chains who knows what he’d do, to you and to the entire city.”

  “I know,” said Kira, “I know. But you haven’t talked to him—he doesn’t talk like a monster. He doesn’t … feel like a monster.”

  “Two days ago he was your subject,” said Marcus, “an experiment. Two days before that he was some faceless enemy you were ready to kill and dismember for study. In two more days who knows what he’ll be? A friend?”

  “I’m not saying that.”

  “In three days he’ll be dead. I’ve known you forever, Kira, and I can see exactly where this is going: First you’ll feel sorry for it, and then you’ll get attached to it, and then when he dies it’s going to tear you apart because you think you have to save everybody. It’s like with the newborns—you feel personally responsible for every one that dies. The Partial is just a test subject, made worse because it’s smart enough to tell you exactly what you want to hear. All I’m saying is I just don’t think you should get too attached.”

  “Too attached?” asked Kira. She felt her anger rising again. “How attached do you think we are?”

  “Hold on,” said Marcus. “That is not what I meant at all.”

  “It’s not?” asked Kira hotly. “Because it sure sounded like you were accusing me of something.”

  “I’m not accusing you of anything,” said Marcus. “I’m just warning you—”

  “Warning me?”

  “That came out wrong.”

  “Warning me about what?” demanded Kira. “Warning me not to make any friends you don’t approve of?”

  “I’m warning you about yourself,” said Marcus. “You know you have a tendency to get caught up in these enormous dreams and then be crushed underneath when they fall down on you. You’re not satisfied with helping babies, you want to cure RM; you can’t just study a Partial, you have to, what? Make peace with them? Is that what Samm’s saying?”

  “No, of course not,” said Kira. But even as she said it, she wasn’t sure. “I’m just saying that, whether or not I believe Samm, there’s more to them than anyone around here thinks. They rebelled because humans had oppressed them, so if we play nice with each other maybe … it’ll work this time. I don’t know.” She tried to sort out her thoughts. “I’m not saying we need to drop our defenses and forget everything that’s happened, just that they might not mean us harm anymore. And if they hold the key to curing RM, maybe peace is our only chance.” She looked at Marcus nervously, praying that he understood her.

  “They rebelled and killed us,” Marcus repeated.

  “The American colonies rebelled against England almost three hundred years ago today,” said Kira. “They got over it, and eventually they were best friends.”

  “America didn’t release a virus that destroyed the world.”

  “And maybe the Partials didn’t either,” said Kira. “Maybe there are a lot of things about the war we don’t know. All we talk about is what they did to us, but it can’t be that simple. If Samm’s telling the truth—”

  “It all comes back to Samm, doesn’t it?” asked Marcus, shaking his head.

  “What is this about, Marcus?” She turned to face him directly. “Are you jealous? I love you.” She held him with her eyes. “Please, try to understand what I’m saying.”

  “You really love me?”

  “Of course I do.”

  “Then marry me.”

  Kira’s eyes went wide. It was the last thing she expected him to say, now, here, in this situation. “I…”

  “We’re young,” he said, “but not too young. You can live with me. I found that big house for you. For us. We can grow old there, and when you cure RM we can have a family there. But we don’t have to wait. We can be together right now.”

  Kira looked at him, imagining his face beside her—in the evening when she went to sleep, in the morning when she woke up, always with her through anything and everything. It was what she had always wanted, ever since she and Marcus were children together watching stars on the roof of the school.

  But it wasn’t that simple anymore.

  She shook her head slowly, so slowly she could barely feel it, hoping maybe if it was slow enough Marcus wouldn’t see her saying no. “I’m sorry, Marcus. I can’t.”

  Marcus kept his face straight, hiding his emotions almost, but not quite, perfectly. “Not now, or not ever?”

  She thought about the newborns, and RM, and the war and the Partials and her work in the lab and everything Samm had told her. Curing RM wasn’t enough, he’d said. Was peace the next step? Was it even a possibility? There were too many questions, too many shadows for her to see clearly. She shook her head. “Not now. I won’t know about ever until I get there.”

  “Okay.” He paused, nodded, and shrugged. “Okay.” He was taking it too well, like he’d been expecting it.

  That was the hardest part of all.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Kira was only two-thirds of the way through the DORD images when they all started bleeding together. She wanted to know how the pheromone system worked, but she was starting to realize that she wasn’t going to make any progress on RM there. When she hit the point where she could barely keep her eyes open, she decided it was best to call it quits for the night. I don’t want to walk home, she thought. I need a mattress here I can crash on. She needed more help—there was no way one person could parse all the data it would take to study Samm’s biology and find what she needed to find. Samm was still awake—she wasn’t certain he ever slept at all—but since she returned from dinner he had been silent. She wanted to say something to him, but didn’t know what.

  The nighttime guards looked rougher than the day shift; Shaylon and his companion were gone, replaced by a pair of older soldiers, weathered and grim. She paused as she passed them, wondering if they were going to “interrogate” Samm again tonight, beat him or stab him or whatever sick tortures they could think of. She wanted to tell them not to, but what good would it do? The thought made her sad, and she shot one last glance at the soldiers, before hanging her head and walking away down the hall.

  On the street outside she paused, taking a slow, deep breath of the night air. It was warmer than before. She started to walk and saw a movement in the moonlight; she froze, fearing the worst—a Voice attack, storming the hospital to find Samm—but then she heard a voice, Haru’s voice, slicing desperately through the darkness.

  “It’s okay,” he was saying. “We’re almost there, it’s okay.”

  Kira jogged forward a few steps, straining her ears to hear it more surely. Was it Haru? The shadow grew larger, and the voice clearer: It was Haru, and Madison was with him, breathing in short, painful bursts.

  Kira’s heart sank, just for a moment, and she exploded into action. “Mads!”

  Madison gritted her teeth in pain, clutching Haru’s hand in a white-knuckled death grip. He urged her forward gently but firmly, almost in
the hospital parking lot by the time Kira reached them.

  “She’s bleeding,” he said quickly, “and the pain is like nothing she’s felt before.”

  Kira looked back at the hospital, taking Madison’s other arm and helping her forward as gingerly as she could. “You shouldn’t have brought her here,” she said tersely. “You should have had her driven, or come for a wheelchair and an EMT so we could pick her up ourselves.”

  “I’m not going to leave her home alone!”

  “She shouldn’t have walked here, no matter how close you live.”

  “Just…” He hesitated. “Just help her.”

  “Come with me,” said Kira. “There’s always a full staff in maternity, even at night.” She prayed silently as they brought Madison in through the doors, begging anyone who was listening to please, please spare Madison’s baby. It was too early; it might die of poor development or breathing before it even had a chance to die of RM. She helped Madison around the corner toward maternity and stopped short, nearly colliding with a nurse running desperately down the hall.

  “Sandy!” shouted Kira, recognizing the woman from her time as an intern. “She needs attention!”

  “The Barnes baby is flatlining,” said Sandy, shouting over her shoulder as she ran. “Tell her to hang on!”

  “They’re not going to help?” asked Haru.

  “Everyone’s busy,” said Kira. “Come with me.” She led them to an open door and flicked on the light, helping Madison settle into a large, soft chair.

  “There goes another one,” said Madison, clenching her jaw and whistling. “Oh please no.”

  Kira pointed Haru at a medicomp cart in the corner of the room. “Fire up the ultrasound machine,” she said. “The outlets marked in red have power.” She crouched down by Madison’s side, brushing her hair from her face. “Hey, Mads, you want to tell me what’s going on?”