Ruins

by Dan Wells

  Green looked shocked. “You mean you can . . .” His mouth hung open, and he covered his mouth and nose with his hands, almost like he was protecting his breath. “You mean you can link me but I can’t link you? You can feel everything I do, without giving anything back?”

  “Not all of it,” said Kira, though she was definitely linking him now: a confused mixture of shock and disgust. She realized that as naked as she felt knowing Green knew her secret, he must have felt even worse knowing that she could shamelessly, imperceptibly, unstoppably eavesdrop on his every emotion. The Partials were accustomed to sharing everything with one another, living in a permanently communal emotional state, but to have that state invaded by an outsider—one who didn’t share her own emotions in return—must feel like a violation.

  “I’m sorry,” said Kira. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I should have.”

  “Just . . . run,” said Green, breaking back into a jog as he ran past her up the road. “We need to get out of here before anyone notices we’re gone.”

  Kira followed him but kept a respectful distance where she couldn’t link him. Even so, running in his wake, she caught the occasional whiff of confusion or sadness or fear.

  Samm never reacted like this, she thought, but he had time to get used to it. We practically lived together for weeks before we found out I was a Partial. And Heron . . . who knows what Heron thinks about anything? She used to deal with humans all the time, so maybe it’s not a big deal for her.

  But it is a big deal. To Green, and likely to others.

  They reached the causeway a few minutes later, and Kira practically shook with relief to see it still intact. They kept to the center as they crossed, staying as far from the water as they could. As a gesture of goodwill, Kira deferred the next decision to Green.

  “Where to now?”

  Green grunted softly as they jogged past a boathouse with an open parking lot. “If we cut south, we’ll have miles to run before we’re clear of the lake,” he said. “Obviously they can come up on land just fine, but I figure the more we can avoid water, the better.” Sure enough, the road curved more and more to the left, before finally just turning sharply and leading them straight south. The road appeared to be the edge of the little lake community, with nothing but forest on the far side, and the two of them plunged into the trees to cut across and leave the lake behind.

  “Watch out for border markers,” said Kira. “I found them on my way in—they used link data, concentrated like in the house, to set up a perimeter and warn people away. If you start to get freaked out for no reason, that’s the reason.”

  Green said nothing but nodded in acknowledgment.

  They picked their way silently through the thick forest, and it wasn’t long before they reached another road, but soon this, too, turned south, and they set back off into the woods. They crossed two more hills and a narrow stream before the sun began to come up, and when the next road turned out to be a wider, two-lane highway, they decided to risk a little southward travel. Almost immediately, though, the road cut back east toward the lake, as if the land itself was determined to twist them around and lead them back to danger. They struck out into the trees once more, but Kira was exhausted and starving and cold. Finally she stopped them in the backyard of an abandoned house.

  “We need to figure out where we are.”

  Green nodded toward the house. “Think they have a map?”

  “You check the bookshelves, I’ll check for a den or an office.”

  Green shook his head. “You never look in a house for a map, you look in the cars.” He led her around to the front, where two cars sat in the driveway. Kira started toward them, but he shook his head. “Too nice—all the rich humans had maps on computers, especially in their cars, and a lot of the middle-class ones, too. You want to find a paper map, find the oldest, nastiest car you can see.”

  Kira thought the plan was ridiculous, but Green was talking to her again, and she didn’t want to ruin it. She followed dutifully down the wooded residential road, him on one side and her on the other. The houses in this neighborhood were all large, and set back from the road, which made the cars harder to see; it also made Kira despair of finding an older-looking car, but she persevered. The road turned south, as all of them seemed to, but they were miles from the lake, and they were making better time here than in the trees. Finally she spotted one—no more rusty than the other cars, but with a notably different shape; longer lines and squarer corners. She caught Green’s attention and the two trotted over.

  “I’ve been scavenging old-world ruins for as long as I can remember,” said Kira, “but I’ve never bothered with cars.”

  “Humans practically lived in their cars,” said Green.

  Kira nodded. “Sure, but we were always looking for food and medicine. Sometimes you get lucky and find a survivalist who died halfway home with a trunk-load of canned food, but it was rarely ever worth our time.”

  “Watch and learn.” Green walked to the passenger side and leaned in the window, pressing a button on the dashboard to pop open a small box. “This is called a glove compartment,” he said, rifling through it. “Aha.” He pulled himself back out and held up a folded Connecticut road map, in better condition than Kira had ever seen. “The compartment has a watertight seal, so the items were protected from the weather. Let’s figure out where we are.”

  “Rita Drive,” said Kira, reading a weathered road sign. “A little horseshoe street off a larger road.”

  Green spread the map on the hood of the car, and after some searching finally found it. Kira’s heart sank when she tapped the spot.

  “We’re surrounded by lakes.”

  “They’re all over this area,” said Green. He traced a winding path. “I think our best bet is to cut across this field, then follow this road, this road, and . . . this road. We might have to jump some fences, but we’ll be clear of the lakes without getting close to any of them.”

  “One problem,” said Kira, and tapped her finger on a portion of his proposed route. “I came in through this gap here, trying to avoid the major roads, and that’s where I ran into the very first border marker.”

  “That puts the border a lot farther from the lake than I expected,” said Green.

  Now that they were out of combat, Kira’s link sense was dulling again, and she couldn’t tell how he felt about their situation—frustrated? Scared? His voice was impassive. “I wondered why we hadn’t run across any yet.”

  “Be grateful that we haven’t.”

  “Maybe this way,” said Green, “off the edge of the map. We can find a New York map when we cross the border.”

  “That’s no good,” said Kira, thinking back to the map she’d had before. “West of here is just more lakes—there are hundreds of them. I don’t know if the Ivies patrol them, but I want to avoid them just in case. Our best bet is south.”

  “South to where?” asked Green. “We may as well have this conversation now, if we’re planning our travel. I’m a deserter, so I can’t go near Morgan’s territory, and after the Ivies I’m a little leery of trying to meet up with any of the other factions.”

  “I know how you feel,” said Kira. “My plan was to visit as many of the smaller factions as I could, but now . . .” She hoped the others weren’t as violent as the Ivies, and hoped even more that none of them had anything as creepy as a “Blood Man,” but how could she be sure? Should she risk it? If even one more faction captures me for some kind of . . . ritual sacrifice . . . is it worth it?

  I’m trying to save the world, she thought. That’s worth anything.

  She looked at Green. “I’ve never told you why I came here.”

  “I was wondering about that.”

  “Dr. Morgan is dangerous,” said Kira. “I assume I don’t have to tell you that, seeing as how you ran away from her.”

  Green said nothing, and Kira continued. It was the first time she would propose her plan to anyone, and she was grateful it was just one
person instead of a big group. She didn’t know how to present it. She already felt weird about starting with Morgan, and backtracked a bit.

  “The humans are dying of RM,” she said, “and the Partials are dying of expiration. What I discovered while studying Morgan’s files is that the cure for one is the same as the cure for the other: Partials produce the cure for RM, and humans in turn are able to produce a particle that inhibits expiration in Partials. Both of the cures were engineered this way. So the only way to save both species is to live together. In peace, preferably.”

  Green’s silence betrayed his skepticism. Kira went on.

  “I mean we have to coexist, closely. Live in the same area, work together . . . basically just act like we’re one species instead of two.”

  “That doesn’t make sense.”

  “I’m trying to explain it,” said Kira. “The transmission of the particles would be almost impossible to replicate in a lab, not on the scale we’re talking about—tens of thousands of humans and hundreds of thousands of Partials. The two species can cure each other, but they’d have to be constantly breathing the same air. They’d have to live together without fighting.”

  Green said nothing, thinking. After a moment he looked at her again. “And Dr. Morgan?”

  “What about her?”

  “You started this by saying she’s dangerous.”

  “Right,” said Kira. “When I figured this out I left, because I didn’t trust her. She’s more likely to enslave humans than work with them.”

  “So you didn’t trust Morgan, and you came out to try to find other groups of Partials who’d be more amenable to the idea of coexistence.”

  “Exactly.”

  Green paused for a long moment. “You’re sure that this process you’re describing works? That it’s really all this simple?”

  “I crossed the entire continent looking for the people who built RM—the same ones who built the Partials—and the only thing I learned for sure is that everything they did was part of a plan. That plan has gone horribly, terribly wrong, and the people who made it have all gone crazy or just . . . given up. But the plan is still there, written on our DNA. And it’s all we’ve got.”

  “So Partials cure humans and humans cure Partials.” He looked at her. “Where does that leave you?”

  Kira took a breath, feeling a shadow of the same despair she’d felt in Morgan’s operating room, convinced that she was useless. “I can’t cure anything,” she said softly. “And I don’t think I expire. I don’t know where that leaves me.”

  Green looked up at the sky, the blue growing lighter as the sun rose. “We need to rest, but I don’t want to stop before we get out of Ivie territory.”

  “That’s probably wise.”

  “We’ll go west, like I said before—maybe there are lakes over there, but if the Ivies have marked a border around this lake, I’m hopeful that means the others are safe.”

  Kira felt leery of the idea, but she had to admit that cutting straight west was the fastest route away from their captors. “Maybe west for now,” she said, “but as soon as we’re out of danger, I have to get back to this mission. With or without you.”

  He folded up the map, not saying anything. “Do you know where you’re going next?”

  “As much as I want to talk to the other factions, I lost everything in that lake,” said Kira, “all my maps, all my notes, everything. I don’t know where any of the other factions are, and even if I did, I don’t know if I can spare the time to walk to where they are. Some of them are weeks away.”

  “That’s not an answer to my question,” said Green.

  “What I’m saying is that I have to go back to Long Island,” said Kira. “I don’t trust Morgan, but her soldiers might listen to reason. The ones in the occupation have already been living with humans for months now—perhaps they’re even seeing the effects of the process I just told you about. If I can convince anyone, it’s them.”

  “And the humans?”

  “They’ll be just as hard to convince,” said Kira, nodding. “But either way, they’re on Long Island. I have to go there.”

  “You realize this isn’t taking us out of danger,” said Green. “We’ll have to go through Morgan’s territory, and into a war zone. We won’t even be getting away from the Ivies, because they’re headed in the same direction. The Blood Man said he was going after humans next.”

  “Then I’ll stop him too,” said Kira, but paused. “Wait. Did you say ‘we’?”

  “You’re talking about saving the world,” he said simply. “Of course I’m coming.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Owen Tovar ran through the streets of Huntington, heedless of making noise, trying only to get as far from the coffee shop as he could. His bad foot made him lope along unevenly, and he pushed himself to go faster. The Partials had hunted most of his group to nothing; he’d sent Mkele east with what soldiers they had left, and stayed behind to draw the Partials away. It was a strategy that had worked well so far, but it wouldn’t work much longer. They had no men, no time, and no explosives.

  Technically I have a ton of explosives, he thought, pelting between the cars. Partial soldiers had seen him now, and a few bullets whipped past him. But that’s all going to change in three, two, one—

  The coffee shop behind him exploded, the force of the shock wave so great that it threw him to the ground, even a block and a half away. The Partials behind him were shredded by the blast, and Tovar rolled onto his stomach, covering his head with his hands as shrapnel rained down around him. His ears rang, leaving him temporarily deaf; he gambled that the Partials couldn’t hear either, and scrambled to the nearest side street before standing up and bolting off again. The soldiers would be too preoccupied to chase him for another few minutes at least; he needed to use that time to get as far away as he could.

  Even as he ran, though, he knew he didn’t have any options. Delarosa’s forces had survived against the Partials through guerrilla tactics—harassing their flanks, hitting their supply lines, and then fading away into the wilderness. Tovar had needed to do more to get their attention, to draw them away from the human refugees fleeing south, and thus he had been more aggressive. And now they’d chased him all the way to the North Shore for it. He was surrounded on three sides by water, and on the fourth by Partials. He had nowhere left to run.

  If I can make it to the water, I might have a chance, he told himself. Maybe I can find a boat, or a piece of driftwood big enough to keep my head above water. Maybe I can just hide somewhere, and stay there for a week or whatever it takes. He chanced a look back over his shoulder and was encouraged to find that he was still alone. They would find him eventually, but finding him would hold their attention. That was the goal. Anything that keeps them here, on me, so the others can get out of East Meadow and off the island.

  I knew I was going to die when I signed up for this, he thought. Dad always told me never to volunteer for anything—you’d think I’d learn to listen—

  A light flared in front of him, bright and white and blinding. He stumbled on his bad foot, turning to flee, but something slapped into his back, sharp and painful like a sting from a giant bee. He dropped instantly, his body convulsing as a jolt of electric current ran through it. When his mind cleared he was lying on the ground, his face in a grassy gutter, his limbs twisted like a rag doll and completely immobile. He tried to talk, but his mouth felt like lead.

  The Partials don’t use stun guns, he thought. Who has the electricity to spare for a stun gun?

  A pair of hands, surprisingly gentle, turned him over. The man standing over him was a dark silhouette, framed by the bright lights behind, and Tovar couldn’t discern any features. “I want you to know that this is not an attack,” said the man. His voice was soft, with a nuance of expression that marked the speaker as human. Tovar tried to answer, but his jaw moved feebly, and no sound came out. “This will hurt you,” said the man, “but it will save you, in the larger sense. ‘Yo
u’ as a people. The human race.”

  The man set a plastic case on the ground next to him, opening it with a click. Tovar couldn’t see what was inside, but the shadowy man pulled out a glass jar and unsealed the lid. “Everyone is going to die. I assume that’s not a surprise.” He set the open jar on the ground and reached back into the case to pull out a long, sharp knife. Tovar tried to move, but he was still paralyzed. “I say that to let you know that you dying right here, right now, is an honor. You were going to die anyway, but it would have been meaningless in any other circumstance. This way you can be a part of the new beginning. The new life that will replace the old. Little sting here.” The man placed the knife on Tovar’s hand and pressed down, chopping off his longest finger. Tovar screamed in his mind, the pain burning through him like a fire, but no sound came out. The man dropped the finger into the jar, and went to work on another one. “There was a plan, you realize, for everyone to survive.” Chop. “Not just survive but prosper—human and Partial, everyone together. It wouldn’t have been hard. But that plan’s gone now, and I’ve had to adapt.” Chop. His voice remained calm the entire time, as if he were simply talking to a toaster while methodically taking it apart. “Now, this is the part that’s going to hurt the most. Speaking biologically, I mean—I don’t know if it will cause more pain than the fingers, but it will certainly cause more damage. This is the part you won’t live through, is what I mean to say.” He held up the jar and shook it gently, rattling the three fingers at the bottom. “I need to fill the rest of this with blood.”

  Tovar’s voice returned just in time for him to scream.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN