Dan Wells - Fragments

“We’ve provoked them too much as it is!” said Woolf. “You’ve read the reports—there are boats off the North Shore, Partial boats patrolling our borders—”

Senator Hobb cut him off, while the audience whispered all the more wildly. “This is not the right venue to discuss those reports,” said Hobb.

Marcus felt like he’d been shot in the gut: The Partials were patrolling the sound. The Partials had kept to themselves for eleven years—a quick recon mission here and there, like Heron had done, but always undercover, so much so that the humans hadn’t even known about it. Now they were openly patrolling the border. He realized his mouth was hanging open, and he closed it tightly.

“The people need to know,” said Woolf. “They’re going to find out anyway—if the boats get too much closer, every farmer on the North Shore’s going to see them. For all we know small groups of them have landed already; our watch along that shore is anything but impenetrable.”

“So our cold war’s heated up,” said Skousen. He looked gray and frail, like a corpse from the side of the road. He paused a moment, swallowed, and sat down with a barely controlled thunk.

“If you’ll excuse me,” said Marcus, and realized that he was standing. He looked at the binder in his hands, unsure of what to do with it, then simply closed it and held it in front of him, wishing it was armor. He looked at the Senate, wondering if Heron was right—if one of them, or one of their aides, was a Partial agent. Did he dare to talk? Could he afford not to? “Excuse me,” he said again, starting over, “my name is Marcus Valencio—”

“We know who you are,” said Tovar.

Marcus nodded nervously. “I think I have more experience in Partial territory than anyone in this room—”

“That’s why we know who you are,” said Tovar, making a rolling motion with his hand. “Stop introducing yourself and get to your point.”

Marcus swallowed, suddenly not sure why he’d stood up—he felt like somebody needed to say something, but he didn’t feel at all qualified to say it. He wasn’t even sure what it was. He looked around the room, watching the faces of various gathered experts and politicians, wondering which of them—if any—was a traitor. He thought about Heron, and her search for Nandita, and realized that whatever he was trying to say, he was the only one who knew enough to say it. The only one who’d heard Heron’s warning. I just need to figure out how to phrase it without looking like a traitor myself. “I’m just saying,” he said at last, “that the Partials we encountered were conducting experiments. They have an expiration date—they’re all going to die—and they’re just as invested in curing that as we are in curing RM. More so, maybe, because it’s going to kill them sooner.”

“We know about the expiration date,” said Kessler. “It’s the best news we’ve had in twelve years.”

“Not counting the cure for RM, of course,” said Hobb quickly.

“It’s not good news at all,” said Marcus. “Their expiration date is like pushing us out of the frying pan and into the . . . molten core of the Earth. If they die, we die; we need their pheromone to cure ourselves.”

“That’s why we’re trying to synthesize it,” said Woolf.

“But we can’t synthesize it,” said Marcus, holding up his binder. “We could spend a couple of hours telling you everything we’ve tried, and all the reasons it hasn’t worked, and you wouldn’t understand half the science anyway—no offense—but that’s beside the point, because it hasn’t worked. ‘Why’ it hasn’t worked doesn’t matter.” He dropped the binder on the table behind him and turned back to face the senators. Seeing them again, staring at him silently, made Marcus feel suddenly queasy, and he smiled to cover it up. “Don’t everybody cheer at once, I have some bad news, too.”

Tovar pursed his lips. “I don’t know how you’re going to top the first bit, but I’m excited to hear it.”

Marcus felt the attention of the entire room bearing down on him and bit back the urge to make another wisecrack; he cracked jokes reflexively when he got too nervous, and he was more nervous now than he’d ever been. I shouldn’t be doing this, he thought. I’m a medic, not a public speaker. I’m not a debater, I’m not a leader, I’m not . . .

. . . I’m not Kira. That’s who should be here.

“Mr. Valencio?” asked Senator Woolf.

Marcus nodded, steeling his determination. “Well, you asked for it, so here it is. The leader of the Partial faction we ran into, the one who kidnapped Kira, was some kind of a doctor or a scientist; they called her Dr. Morgan. That was the reason they sent that Partial platoon into Manhattan all those months ago, and they kidnapped Kira because Dr. Morgan thinks the secret to curing Partials is somehow related to RM, which means it’s related to humans. Apparently they’d experimented on humans before, back during the Partial War, and if they think it will save their lives, they’ll kidnap as many more of us as they need, which might just be Kira again, but for all we know it’s all of us. They’re probably having the same meeting right now, on the other side of the sound, trying to decide how they can grab a few of us to experiment on—or if those reports you mentioned are true, they already had their meeting and might very well be putting their plan into motion.”

“That’s classified information,” said Senator Hobb. “We need—”

“If you’ll permit me to recap,” Marcus interrupted, holding up his hand, “there is a group of super-soldiers”—he put down his first finger—“trained specifically in military conquest”—he put down his second finger—“who outnumber us, like, thirty to one”—third finger—“who are desperate enough to try anything”—fourth finger—“and who believe that ‘anything’ in this case means ‘capturing human beings for invasive experimentation.’” He folded down his last finger and held his fist silently in the air. “Senators, the information might be classified, but it’s a pretty good bet the Partials will be unclassifying it a lot sooner than you think.”

The room was quiet, every eye focused on Marcus. Several long, heavy moments later, Tovar finally spoke.

“So you think we need to defend ourselves.”

“I think I’m scared to death, and I need to learn how to stop talking when everyone is staring at me.”

“Defending ourselves is not a viable option,” said Woolf, and the other senators stiffened in surprise. “The Defense Grid is well trained and as well equipped as a human army can possibly be. We have watches on every coast, we have bombs on every remaining bridge, we have ambush sites already mapped and ready to go at every likely invasion point. And yet no matter how well prepared we are, it will barely be a speed bump if a sizeable faction of Partials initiate an invasion. That’s an inescapable fact that cannot possibly be news to anyone in this room. We patrol this island because it’s all we can do, but if the Partials ever actually decide to invade, we will be conquered within days, if not hours.”

“The only remotely good news,” said Marcus, “is that their society is, if you’ll pardon the comparison, even more fractured than ours. The mainland was practically a war zone when we were over there, which could be the only reason they haven’t attacked us already.”

“So they kill each other and our problem solves itself,” said Kessler.

“Except for the RM,” said Hobb.

“Taking everything Mr. Valencio has said into account,” said Woolf, “we only have one real plan that has any hope of success. Step one, we sneak into that mainland war zone, hope nobody notices us, and grab a couple of Partials for Dr. Skousen to experiment on. Step two, we evacuate the entire island and get as far away as possible.”