Читать книгу Partials series 1-3 (Partials; Fragments; Ruins) - Dan Wells - Страница 30

“The Voice,” said Senator Weist. Kira was packed into a hospital conference room with Mkele and the same five senators she’d met at her hearing, and the atmosphere was more tense than she’d ever felt it. “They hit the Senate building. It was the biggest strike team yet—at least forty insurgents, maybe more—and we didn’t take a single one of them alive.”

“What if we’d been there?” demanded Hobb. His wavy hair was limp and sweaty, and his face was pale as he paced restlessly through the room. “We don’t have enough guards for this—”

“The Senate was not their target,” said Mkele. “With no meetings in session, and no senators on site, they attacked during the lightest possible guard rotation. Their purpose was obviously to get inside with as little resistance as possible.”

“So it was a robbery?” asked Delarosa. “It still doesn’t make sense. Everything we store in the Senate building they can get more easily just scavenging the outlands.”

“They were looking for the Partial,” said Mkele. The room went quiet. “Rumors are already going around. That’s why I’ve invited Ms. Walker to join us.”

“One of the soldiers talked,” said Senator Kessler, “or Kira did. We never should have trusted her.”

Kira started to protest, lining up her best and most horrible insults for Kessler’s smug face, but Mkele cut her off.

“If Kira had talked,” he said, “they would have known to attack the hospital. I think it’s more likely that the Voice didn’t know what we had, just that we probably had something; they obviously didn’t know where it was. Even the message they spray-painted on the building was vague: ‘The Senate is lying to you. What are they hiding?’ If they’d known what we were hiding, don’t you think they would have said it?”

“Only if they wanted to start a riot,” said Weist. “News of the Partial would incite nothing less.”

“A riot might be their only plausible goal at this point,” said Delarosa. “The only way for them to create enough unrest to stage a coup.”

“Given how little we actually lost,” said Mkele, “this attack helped us more than it hurt us. The information they apparently had, combined with the information they obviously didn’t have, gives me a valuable estimate of their intelligence network.”

“That’s great now,” Hobb sneered, “but what about before the attack? How did our secret get out? If you’re so brilliant, why didn’t you stop any of this from happening?”

“If you had any delusions that this was going to stay a complete secret in a community this small, you were fooling yourself,” said Mkele. “I advised against the Partial’s presence from the beginning.”

“We made our decision based on your assurances,” said Kessler. “If there’s a leak in the Defense Grid, you need to find it—”

“We knew exactly what we were getting into,” said Delarosa. “If our plan with Ms. Walker carries through, every attack will have been worth it. The potential benefits outweigh the obstacles.”

“If it works,” said Kessler, throwing a sharp glance at Kira, “and if the Voice don’t launch a consummate attack before we’re done. That’s a lot of ifs.”

They’re talking about my work as if they’re the ones doing it, thought Kira. Her first impulse was to protest, but she held back. No. If they think we’re working on this together, that means they’re invested in the outcome. They’re supporting the project. It doesn’t matter who gets the credit as long as somebody finds a cure.

“A lot of ifs,” Hobb continued, “and all it takes is one of them to go wrong and suddenly we’re traitors and war criminals. Weist is right about the riot: If word gets out that we’ve got a Partial in custody, no one’s going to wait for an explanation. They’re going to smash everything in sight until they find it, and then they’re going to destroy the Partial, too.”

“Then we have to move it,” said Skousen. “The attack on the town hall was highly destructive; if they do the same at the hospital, it puts too much at risk—the patients, the facilities, even the structure itself.”

“But we can’t move him,” Kira insisted. “The Nassau hospital is the only facility on the island with the resources we need for the study. Nowhere else even has the equipment.”

“The best scenario is to say nothing at all,” said Mkele. “Senator Weist’s initial reaction was correct, according to my simulations: If word gets out that we’re hiding a Partial in the middle of East Meadow, the public outcry will be passionate and violent. People will riot, or defect to the Voice en masse. I recommend we double the police patrols and triple the guard at the Senate.”

“Why complicate things?” asked Kessler. “We should just execute the thing and be done with it.”

“There’s still a lot we can learn—” said Kira, but froze when Kessler shot her a furious glance. What is that woman’s problem?

“I agree,” said Mkele. “What we need to decide is whether or not the things we stand to learn warrant the risk of this secret getting out. Ms. Walker, can you give us a report of your progress?”

Kira glanced at him, then back at the panel of senators. “We finish the five days,” she said quickly.

“We want a report,” said Delarosa, “not an opinion.”

“The tests have already revealed priceless medical data,” said Kira. “Even the first blood test alone told us more about Partial physiology than we’ve ever known before. He has an advanced platelet system—”

“It,” said Dr. Skousen.

Kira frowned. “I’m sorry?”

“‘It’ has an advanced platelet system,” said Skousen. “You are talking about a machine, Kira, not a person.”

Kira scanned the room, seeing the senators’ eyes filled with a mixture of distrust and anger, all aimed at her because she was speaking on behalf of their enemy. She couldn’t afford that attitude, not while they were deciding how quickly to kill him. When had she started calling it “him” anyway? She nodded obediently and looked at the floor, trying to appear as unthreatening as possible. “Sorry, just a slip of the tongue. It has an advanced platelet system that allows it to heal cuts and other wounds at an exponential rate—several times faster than a healthy human.”

Weist shifted in his seat. “And you think its . . . advanced healing abilities might hold the secret to curing RM?”

“Possibly,” said Kira, though in her mind it seemed unlikely; she had to make this sound as positive as possible. “Even more likely is something I found this morning.” She was exaggerating this part as well, but she needed to buy more time. “The Partial’s breath contains traces of neutralized RM.”

The senators made a chorus of surprised noises; Hobb even smiled. Kira could tell they were happy, and plunged ahead. “I was analyzing the Partial’s breath to see if I could find evidence of the airborne virus, what I’ve labeled the Spore, but instead I found an inert, nonviral form of the blood-borne virus. It literally looks exactly like someone took an RM sample and stripped all the functional viral portions of it away—it can’t reproduce, it can’t spread, it can’t do anything. It’s the surest evidence we’ve seen so far that Partial biology holds some promise of helping us combat RM.”

“I’m impressed,” said Delarosa, nodding. She glanced at Skousen. “Were you aware of this?”

“She found it this morning,” said Skousen. “I haven’t had time to review her records yet.” The old doctor turned heavily toward Kira. “Are you certain this is a neutralized RM, and not an RM waiting to be activated?”

I knew he’d call me on that. “I’m still researching it.”

“It seems premature to present it so definitively when you don’t even know what it is.”

“What little evidence there is points toward a promising conclusion,” said Kira. “If it were a new virus, we’d see signs of it somewhere—new symptoms, new patients, probably an epidemic. He—it—has been in human custody for a few days, and no one’s getting sick. I’ve been around it longer and more consistently than anyone, and I’m fine.”

“What if it’s not a new virus?” asked Skousen. “What if it’s the same old RM, which all of us are immune to, so the sample is remaining dormant?”

“That’s definitely possible,” said Kira, “but my point is that so is the other theory. This could be a good sign, and either way it’s the strongest, most promising lead yet. A more promising lead than I expected to find after just a day and a half, frankly.”

“There might actually be something to this,” said Weist. He leaned forward, looking at the other senators. “What if there really is a cure?”

“We proceed as planned,” said Delarosa, and shot Weist a look that seemed, to Kira, surprisingly harsh. “Ms. Walker, I agree with your assessment: Positive or not, these findings are worth following up on. Learn everything you can, and don’t hesitate to ask for anything you need.”

“I need newborn blood,” said Kira quickly. She grimaced at the gruesome nature of the request, wishing she’d phrased it less grotesquely. “The next time a baby is born, the instant it crowns, I need a blood sample. I’m trying to study the process of infection, so speed is paramount.”

Delarosa looked at Skousen, who sighed and nodded. She looked back at Kira. “We’ll do what we can.”

“But what are we going to do about security?” Skousen demanded. “A Voice attack on the hospital would be devastating.”

Delarosa stared at the same fixed point on the table again, deep in thought. “Mr. Mkele, this is your arena.”

“More soldiers,” said Mkele, “though we need to be careful with the hospital. If the Voice realize we’ve increased security here, they’re sure to make it their next target.”

“So let’s move the Senate here,” said Hobb. “They’ll think the increased security is for us.”

Mkele shook his head. “That only makes the problem worse. The Senate will continue to meet in the town hall—”

“Are you crazy?” said Hobb.

“The Voice have already searched the town hall,” said Mkele, drowning him out, “and they didn’t find what they were looking for. They won’t attack there again. Our goal now is to confuse them with too many targets, not to lead them to the next obvious choice. We’ll increase guard patrols around the city, we’ll pull soldiers from LaGuardia, and we’ll add armed, visible police presence to every major landmark in East Meadow. Nothing we do will give them any hints about what we’re hiding or where, and they’ll have to rely on their own, obviously poor, intelligence gatherers. It will buy us time, if nothing else.”

“How much time?” asked Senator Weist.

Mkele looked at Kira. “All we need is three and a half more days, right? Then we destroy it and be done.”

Hobb shook his head. “It’s not enough to just destroy it, like we’ve said before. Word will get out, and we need to appear blameless. It’s the only way to maintain control.”

“Control?” asked Kira. She remembered the way she’d snapped at Isolde for using that word. Was that really how the Senate thought of them?

Delarosa turned to face her, her eyes cold and penetrating. “Yes, control. Perhaps you’re aware of the growing unrest on this island?”

“Well of course, but—”

“The Voice?” she continued. “The terrorist attacks on innocent people? The very real possibility of a civil war tearing the tattered remnants of humanity to pieces? What do you propose we do with this situation if not wrest it back under control?”

“That’s not what I’m saying,” said Kira.

“But it’s what you’re implying,” said Delarosa. “You are implying that control is bad, and that people, left to their own devices, will sort this problem out on their own without any help from us. You can’t look at the state of the world and honestly suggest that it could sort itself out.”

Kira saw Kessler leer in the corner of her eye, but pressed forward anyway. “What I am saying is that maybe you’re squeezing too hard. The Voice’s main complaint is the Hope Act—they think you’re exerting too much control over common human rights.”

“And what is our alternative?” asked Delarosa. “To back down? To give up on our goals for successful, immune childbirth? The future of the human race is, as you so frequently remind us, the vital heart of everything we do. We established the Hope Act to maximize our chances for reproduction—it’s the simplest and best method of doing so, and yes, a lot of people complained, but there comes a point in the life of a species when complaints and civil rights take a backseat to pure, unmitigated survival.” She put her pencil down and clasped her hands. “Do you know what I did before the Break, Ms. Walker?”

Kira shook her head.

“I was a zoologist. I worked to save endangered species. At one point I was in charge of the world’s entire population of white rhinos—all ten of them. Two males. Do you have any idea what happened to them when the world collapsed around them?”

“No, ma’am.”

“I opened the gates and let them go free. I relinquished control.” She paused. “One of them was attacked by a mountain lion the same night. I passed its corpse the next morning on my way to the nearest shelter.”

“So that’s it, huh,” said Kira, trying to ignore the chill that swept over her. “We’re just another endangered species in your zoo.”

“Do you deny it?” asked Delarosa.

Kira clenched her jaw, struggling to think of any response that didn’t play right into the senator’s hand. “There’s more than ten of us.”

“Thank God.”

Kira looked at the row of senators, at Mkele standing stoically behind them. She couldn’t think of anything to say.

“The world is in shambles,” said Hobb. “We know this. What you need to understand is that we are trying to save it the best way we know how. Look around this room: Skousen is the top medical mind in the world, Delarosa is the best long-term administrator I’ve ever met, and Kessler is the reason you have fresh food to eat—she literally created our farm and market program. They work night and day to solve the problems you’re just beginning to understand, and they’ve been doing it since before you knew how to read. There are plans and contingency plans you couldn’t even guess at. Please trust us.”

Kira nodded slowly, parsing their arguments. “You’re right,” she said. “I said the same thing when we planned our mission to Manhattan: Nothing is more important than making sure we have a future. I was willing to sacrifice anything.”

“Exactly,” said Delarosa.

“So then . . .” Kira paused. “So your plan for the future is the Hope Act, and your plan for control is to kill the Partial, like Senator Hobb said, in a way that makes you look good.”

“In a way that maintains order,” said Hobb.

Kessler huffed. “You don’t need to spell everything out for her.”

“Then what about my work?” asked Kira. “What about everything I’m doing to find a cure—how does that fit in?” She frowned. “Is it even a priority?”

“Plans within plans,” said Hobb. “If you can find something, we’ll jump on it, but if you can’t . . . we have to be ready.”

“Just remember,” said Delarosa. “Absolutely no one can know of this. We brought you into our confidence first because you forced our hand, and again because you’ve proven yourself intelligent and capable. But you must have known this the moment you set foot back on this island: If anyone finds out about what we’re doing, we won’t just have a riot. We’ll have a revolution.”