Partials

by Dan Wells

  “I think it’s contractions.”

  “You’re still two months early,” said Kira. “Your pregnancy has been perfectly healthy so far, there’s no reason for you to be having contractions.”

  “These aren’t just cramps, Kira.” Madison winced again, squeezing her eyes closed and clutching Kira’s arm so tightly Kira had to bite her tongue to keep from screaming. The pain subsided and Madison collapsed back into the chair, panting.

  “Is the pain rhythmic?” asked Kira. Madison shook her head. “Can you point to it?” Madison traced an area across her belly and side, and Kira nodded. “I don’t think that’s your uterus, Mads, that’s your stomach. I’m going to do an ultrasound.”

  “She’s bleeding,” said Haru again. “Aren’t you going to do something about the bleeding?”

  “I’m doing everything I can, Haru, just bring the machine.”

  He dragged the cart over, parking it next to Madison’s chair with a terrified expression. Kira pulled on a pair of sterilized gloves and pulled up Madison’s shirt to expose her belly. “Hold still,” she said, placing the ultrasound probe against Madison’s skin. “Screen up.” The screen flickered on, a black-and-white grid with a wedge-shaped image in the center. The image flashed and moved: a sonographic re-creation of the organs in Madison’s abdomen. Kira had been completely lost the first several times she’d seen an ultrasound, but after weeks of practice the fuzzy pictures seemed crystal clear. “That’s your bladder,” she said, moving the probe with one hand and touching the screen with her other, defining labels and boundaries that the computer then remembered and kept track of in real time. “That’s your stomach, that’s the baby’s foot. There we go, the baby’s body.” She worked quickly, her fingers scurrying over the screen, lighting up measurements and calling up archived statistics from Madison’s previous visits. “Head development good, chest development good, inner organs all look good. Heartbeat strong. Bladder filling and emptying. Spine looks good.”

  Madison grimaced again, gritting her teeth and clutching the arms of her chair. Two nurses rushed in behind them, Sandy and Nurse Hardy. “We’re here, Walker, thanks for getting her started.” Hardy pulled on a pair of gloves and took the probe; Kira gave it up nervously, stepping back as Nurse Hardy’s more practiced hands took over the ultrasound. “Describe the pain,” asked Hardy.

  “Strong but inconsistent,” said Kira, “localized toward the side with the stomach. She’s also bleeding—I think it’s an abruption.”

  “What’s that?” asked Haru. “Is it bad? Is she okay?”

  “We’re doing our best, sir,” said Hardy. “We just need room to work.”

  “What about the baby, is the baby okay?”

  The image on the screen flopped in and out of view as her abdomen flexed, and Kira pointed at the screen.

  “There was a shadow.”

  “I saw it,” said Nurse Hardy, moving the probe farther down to the side and altering the angle. When Madison stopped squirming, the image stabilized on a large black oval, the stomach, and behind it a fuzzy black triangle. The computer identified it almost immediately, marking it in red. “The placenta’s separating from the wall,” said Nurse Hardy. “It’s a partial abruption, just like you said.” She stared closely at the screen, at the deep red slash across the center. “Good work, Walker.”

  Kira felt the wave of tension begin to seep out of her, down through her feet and into the floor, leaving her drained.

  “What does it mean?” asked Madison.

  “It means you’re going to be okay,” said Kira. “It means the placenta is pulling away from the uterus, which isn’t good but isn’t really threatening to you or to the baby if we stay on top of it. They’re going to put you on bed rest, so you can’t move around much, and they’re going to do it here in the hospital so we can keep an eye on you twenty-four-seven.”

  “I can’t stay here,” Madison protested.

  Kira put a hand on her shoulder. “Think of it as a resort vacation. Breakfast in bed, servants ready at all times… Nothing will happen to you or to your baby without us being right here to solve it.”

  “You’re sure it’s not dangerous?” asked Madison. “I mean, if you have to bring me into full-time care—”

  “Twelve years ago I would have sent you home with tampons and Tylenol,” said Nurse Hardy, “but these days we don’t mess around.”

  “Okay,” said Madison, “but bed rest? Like, I can’t get up at all?”

  “As little as possible,” said Nurse Hardy. “Placental abruption is rare, but in a case like yours, it’s almost certainly caused by overexertion. We need to stop that immediately.”

  “No more housecleaning,” said Kira. “I’ll talk to Xochi, we’ll figure out how to take care of it for you.”

  Madison smiled guiltily, sucking in a breath. “I shouldn’t have walked here.”

  “And I’m going to beat Haru with a bike chain because of it,” said Kira. She shot him a dark look. “But for now, just relax.”

  “We need to do a blood test,” said Nurse Hardy, “and then we’ll give you some painkillers, and then you can take a nap.”

  Kira squeezed Madison’s hand and stepped back as the other nurses pressed in to take care of her. The adrenaline rush was still wearing off, and Kira walked into the hall and collapsed into a chair. That was too close. She blew out a long, slow breath, thinking about all the things it could have been—all the ways it could have been worse. I can’t bear to see Madison like Ariel, pounding helplessly on a window just for the chance to hold her dead baby.

  But I still don’t know how to save it.

  She stared at the floor, too tired to think.

  “Hey.”

  Kira looked up to see Xochi standing beside her. Her face was drawn and tired.

  “Hey,” said Kira. “You heard about Madison?”

  “Yeah,” she said, “but that’s not why I’m here.”

  Kira frowned. Please, no more disasters. She sat up straight, forcing herself upright. “What is it?” Her voice sounded stronger than she felt.

  “Isolde just got back from the Senate,” said Xochi. “They’re going to make an announcement tomorrow. The Hope Act has been amended. The age is sixteen now, Kira.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  “It’s official,” said Isolde. She was lying down on their couch, holding a bottle of some kind of liquor. It was half-empty. “It passed this afternoon. Or yesterday afternoon, I guess—it’s past midnight, isn’t it?”

  “I can’t believe this,” said Xochi. She stared at the floor. “I can’t believe this.”

  Isolde took a swig. “It doesn’t matter if you believe it or not. Your government just gave you two months to get knocked up.” She held up the bottle, her face dull and red. “Cheers.”

  “You better get your fill of the booze now, then,” said Xochi. “You’ll be drinking for two pretty soon.”

  Kira sat on the couch in silence, watching the other girls complain and thinking about the Senate’s motives. On the surface, this was likely due to the Voice’s ultimatums. Anything less would be seen as a concession, and they were making a statement in direct opposition to them. But in her heart, she knew it had to be because of Samm. The “contingency plans” Hobb had hinted at. She had warned them to ease up, but instead they were tightening their grip, exerting more control. For the people who believed in the Hope Act, sure, this might be seen as a sign of strength and solidarity, but to everyone else? It was practically a declaration of war.

  The worst part was keeping the secret. She knew that Mkele was right—if the truth about Samm got out now, with tensions so high, the riot would be terrifying, and she’d be right in the middle of it. She didn’t dare say any more about Samm, or the tests, or anything else. Better to work as hard as she could, and cure the virus before anyone else had to die.

  And yet even after two full days, she wasn’t any closer. She knew how Samm thought, how he communicated, how he breathed and ate and m
oved, but she still didn’t know how his immunity worked. She was confused. And because she couldn’t tell anyone, she was confused alone.

  She felt like she was drowning.

  Isolde took a swig from her bottle. “Drinking while pregnant is punishable by incarceration and full-time monitoring,” she said. “I have to enjoy this now.”

  “Your baby is more important than your rights,” said Xochi. “As far as the Senate is concerned, you’re just a uterus with legs.”

  “Grow up,” said Kira sullenly. As soon as she said it, she felt guilty—she agreed with Xochi, so why was she attacking her? The Hope Act wasn’t working, and the Senate was strengthening it for the wrong reasons. Maybe it was the way she said it, the focus on personal rights over everything else. Kira had believed that too, but things were different now. She’d seen the Senate debate this—she’d seen the fear in their eyes. This was about extinction, like Delarosa had said. The other girls turned to her, and their surprised looks only made her angrier. “Did it ever occur to you that maybe something is more important than your rights? That maybe the survival of your entire species is more important than your right to whine about it?”

  Xochi raised her eyebrows. “Someone’s feeling bitchy.”

  “I’m just sick of hearing about everyone’s civil rights and everyone’s privacy and everyone’s inviolable power of choice. We either solve our problems or we go extinct—there is nothing in between. And if we’re going to go extinct, I don’t want it to be because Xochi Kessler was too worried about her rights to pitch in and save us.”

  Xochi bristled. “We’re not talking about pitching in,” she said, “we’re talking about institutionalized rape. We’re talking about the government taking full control over your body—what it’s for, what you do with it, and what other people can do to it. I’m not letting some horny old dude screw me just because the law says I have to.”

  “Then pick a horny young dude,” said Kira, “or get inseminated artificially—those are all options, and you know it. This isn’t about sex, it’s about survival.”

  “Mass pregnancy is the worst possible solution to that problem,” said Xochi.

  “Okay now,” said Isolde, her voice slurring, “let’s all calm down for a minute. Nobody’s happy about this—”

  “Sounds like Kira is,” said Xochi. “Of course she’s the one with a boyfriend, so I guess that makes sense—she’s probably doing him anyway—”

  Kira jumped across the room with a scream, blind with fury, clawing for Xochi’s neck, but Isolde leaped up to block her, tripping drunkenly over her own feet. She lost her balance, but clung to Kira so strongly Kira couldn’t get past her to Xochi; Kira tried to fight past her, shoving Isolde away, gouging her forehead with her fingernail. Isolde yelped in pain, and Kira’s struggling devolved into tears.

  “Damn,” gasped Xochi.

  “Just sit down,” said Isolde, easing Kira onto the sofa beside her. Kira sobbed, and Isolde held her gently. She shot Xochi a cold glance. “That was over the line.”

  “I’m sorry.” Xochi settled herself back into her seat. “I’m sorry, Kira, you know I didn’t mean it. I’m just going crazy—this whole damn thing is over the line.”

  “What’s done is done,” said Isolde. “The law is passed. Now we can complain about it, or we can get drunk enough to not care.”

  “You’ve had too much of that as it is,” said Xochi, standing up and ripping the bottle from Isolde’s hands. Isolde’s grip was loose, her strength used up in the struggle with Kira, and Xochi took it easily, opening the window and throwing the bottle outside.

  “Hey, Xochi!” It was a voice from the street, one of the local boys—Kira didn’t recognize it exactly. “Crazy stuff with the Hope Act, right? You guys wanna talk? Can we come in?”

  “Go to hell,” said Xochi, and slammed the window closed.

  “That was my bottle,” said Isolde, her voice slurring. Nobody paid her attention.

  “I’m sorry, Xochi,” said Kira, sitting up straighter. She rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand. “I’m not mad at you, I’m mad at … pretty much everything else in the world. But the world doesn’t have a face, so I was going to take it out on yours.”

  Xochi smirked, but her expression fell again just as quickly. “I’m not ready,” she said softly. “None of us are ready.”

  Isolde traced a pattern on the couch with her finger. “Haru was right, you know. What he said in the Senate hearing. We don’t have any children left, just adults who don’t know what they’re doing.”

  The girls sat quietly, lost in their thoughts. Kira thought about Marcus—she’d rejected his advances, and now the government had changed everything. A two-month grace period to get things going, and then she could get arrested just for not being something she’d never been before. If she had to have children, she wanted them to be Marcus’s, she guessed; she’d never thought about anyone else, not seriously. But if she told him now, he’d know it was for the law, and not for him. She couldn’t do that to him. And yet she couldn’t go to anyone else without hurting him even worse.

  Besides, she didn’t want to be pregnant. Not like this. If she was going to create a new life, she wanted to do it because it meant something, not because she’d been forced to.

  And yet she’d just yelled at Xochi for proposing the same idea. She didn’t even know what to think anymore.

  For just a second—just the briefest fraction of a moment—she thought about Samm, and wondered if a half-Partial child would be immune.

  “Do any of you remember your mother?” asked Isolde. “Not your new one, Xochi, your old one. Your real mother from before the Release.”

  “A little,” said Xochi. “She was tall.”

  “That’s it?”

  “Like seriously tall,” said Xochi. “In every image I have of her, she’s towering over me, and not just because I was little—she towered over everyone. Six-four, maybe six-six.” Her voice softened, and Kira could tell she was drifting into memory: Her eyes were wet and unfocused, staring blindly into space. She grabbed a lock of her coal-black hair. “She had black hair, like mine, and she was always wearing jewelry. Silver, I think. She had a big fat ring on her hand like a flower, and I used to play with it. We lived in Philadelphia—I used to think that was the name of the state, but it’s a city. Philadelphia. Someday I want to go back and find that ring.” She rolled her eyes. “You know. Someday.”

  “My mom sold airplanes,” said Isolde. “I don’t know how, or to who, but I remember that’s what she told me, and I thought it was so amazing, and now I look back and I think: We don’t even have airplanes anymore. We don’t have gas to put in them, I don’t know if we even have anyone left who could fly them if we did, but my mom used to sell them like they were nothing, like they were fish rolls in the market.”

  “I don’t think I had a mother,” said Kira. “I mean, obviously I had one at some point, but I don’t remember her, just my dad. I don’t even remember him talking about her, but I’m sure he did. I guess they were divorced, or she was dead. Probably divorced: We didn’t have any pictures of her.”

  “So imagine something awesome,” said Xochi. “If you don’t remember your mom, that means she can be anyone you want—she can be an actress, or a model, or the president of some giant company, or … anything you want.”

  “If you can’t know the truth,” said Isolde, “live the most awesome lie you can think of.”

  “All right then,” said Kira. “She was a doctor, like me—a brilliant scientist renowned for her work with children. She invented … gene sequencing. And nanosurgery.” Kira smiled. “And normal surgery, and penicillin, and she cured cancer.”

  “That is a pretty awesome dream,” said Xochi.

  “Yeah,” said Kira. “I guess awesome dreams are all we have left.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  “Stay alert today,” said Shaylon.

  Kira eyed the young soldier warily, her eyes still red from tear
s and fatigue. “More so than normal? What’s going on?”

  “Mr. Mkele thinks someone’s planning an attack,” he said, gripping his rifle more tightly. “The Voice hiding in town, still looking for whatever they didn’t find at the town hall. The new amendment to the Hope Act probably didn’t help matters, either. He’s sending more patrols outside, but he told us to be careful here anyway, just in case.”

  Kira nodded. “I’ll keep my eyes open.” She pushed her way through the door into the decontamination tunnel, rubbing her face with her palms as the air blasted around her. I should be using Shaylon a lot more than I am. If I can find a way to talk to him alone, maybe after hours, I can probably learn a lot more about what the Grid is doing.

  Kira sighed. Like I have time for another project.

  She set down her stack of notebooks and crouched by Samm’s table, checking his face and arm—a ritual that had become standard now.

  “They beat you again.”

  Samm, of course, said nothing.

  Kira watched him a moment, then glanced nervously into the corners. “They shouldn’t be doing this to you. It’s inhumane.”

  “I’m not sure that statement has any bearing on me.”

  “It doesn’t matter if you’re human or not,” said Kira, probing the Partial’s shins through the fabric of his pants, searching for more wounds. “They’re human, and that means they need to act like it.” She pulled up his pant legs. “You’ve got a few new cuts on here, but they’re not bleeding, obviously, and you should be okay.” She rolled them back down. “None of these wounds has ever gotten infected.” She wondered if Samm’s body produced some kind of natural antiseptic or antibiotic, and made a mental note to check it out later—through some means other than just stabbing him with a dirty knife. “You should be fine,” she said, and walked to the computer.

  Kira noticed immediately that the files had been read: her DORD images, her preliminary notes on the pheromones, even her handwritten notes in her notebook. Someone had moved them, sorted them, paged through them. Is Skousen checking my work? she wondered. Is he duplicating it? Some of the files were new; he’d done studies of his own while she was away. She didn’t know if she should be grateful someone was watching, or indignant that they didn’t trust her results. She was nearly too tired to care.