“Just let her talk, Erin,” said Xochi. Ariel had never heard the girl call her mother by anything but her first name.
“So you created the Partials,” said Isolde. “That doesn’t explain why you disappeared.”
“When we created them, we built them to carry the plague,” said Nandita. “Not exactly what came to be known as RM, mind you: The plague that was released was more virulent than even we intended, and for reasons we don’t fully understand. But we also made a cure, carried by all Partials, that could be activated by a second chemical trigger. And then, as you can see, everything went to hell.”
“You’re still not telling us where you’ve been,” said Ariel, her arms folded tightly across her chest. She was so used to hating Nandita that this string of confessions was leaving her deeply confused: On the one hand, it gave her more reasons to hate the woman, and to justify all her suspicions and accusations. On the other hand, though, how could she trust anything Nandita said? Even when it was self-incriminating?
“Have patience,” said Nandita. “I’m getting to that. You need the proper setup first.”
“No, we don’t,” said Ariel. “We need answers.”
“I taught you better manners than that.”
“You taught me to distrust everything you say,” said Ariel. “Stop trying to win us over and just answer our questions, or every woman in this room will gladly turn you over to the Partials.”
Nandita stared at her, fire lighting up her ancient eyes. She looked at Ariel, then at Isolde, then back to Ariel again. “Fine,” she said. “I was gone because I was trying to re-create the chemical trigger to release the cure.”
Xochi frowned. “That actually seems pretty easy to understand.”
“That’s because I gave you the context for it,” said Nandita. “I worked on it for eleven years, as best I could with the facilities I had, using herbs to distill the chemicals I needed. Last year while I was out searching for ingredients I found something I never imagined still existed—a laboratory with operable gene-mod equipment, and enough power to run it. I tried to get back here, to bring you to it and explain the entire thing and solve the problem once and for all, but a civil war and now a Partial invasion have made safe travel very difficult.”
“But why us?” asked Ariel. “Why take us to the lab—why use us for your experiments?”
“That’s the part you don’t yet have the context for,” said Nandita. “The chemical trigger was for you—the cure is in you. Kira, Ariel, and Isolde.”
“What?” asked Madison.
Isolde stared in shock, covering her nine-month swollen belly with her hands as if to protect it from Nandita’s words.
Ariel smiled thinly, her confusion and terror leavened by a victory so long in coming she couldn’t help but revel in it. “So you were experimenting on us.”
“I had to re-create the trigger from scratch,” said Nandita, “which required a lot of trial and error.”
“Back up,” said Xochi. “You said the cure was built into the Partials—why were you trying to get it from these three?”
“You’ve answered your own question,” said Nandita.
“We’re Partials,” said Ariel, keeping her eyes fixed on Nandita. “Your little Partial orphanage.” Her mind reeled at the revelation, but her anger kept her focused—she’d hated Nandita for so long, concocted so many theories about her behavior, that this new shock was all too easy to believe. “How could you do this to us? We treated you like a mother!”
“I can’t be a Partial,” said Isolde, the hurt obvious in her voice. “I’m not, I’m . . . I’m pregnant. Partials are sterile.” She was shaking and laughing and crying all at once. “I’m a human, like everybody else.”
“I’ve watched them grow up,” said Kessler. “Partials don’t grow.”
“These are new models,” said Nandita. “The first generations were created for the war, but everyone knew the war couldn’t last forever. ParaGen was a business, and Partials were a product, and the board of directors was always looking ahead to the next season’s hot new thing. What do you do with BioSynth technology when you don’t need any more soldiers?”
Ariel felt nauseated, feeling suddenly alien in her own skin. “We were children.” She grimaced. “You were selling children?”
“We were creating Partials that people could love,” said Nandita. “Strong, healthy children who could be adopted and raised just as human children—filling a market need, which is how we could convince our bosses to pay for it, while at the same time assimilating Partials, and the thought of Partials, into the ranks of humanity. The children we created were the missing link that would take Partials from an alien horror to a simple part of everyday life. They were as human as we could make them—they could learn and grow, they could age, they could even procreate.” She gestured at Isolde. “On top of that, they had all the benefits of being a Partiaclass="underline" stronger bodies and bones, more efficient muscles and organs, better senses and sharper minds.”
“And a death sentence after twenty years,” said Xochi.
“No,” said Nandita, “no expiration date. Everything about the new models was designed to match or improve on human life; there were no limitations, no hedging our bets with a Failsafe.”
“You weren’t just building children,” said Ariel, “you were rebuilding the human race.”
Nandita said nothing.
“It’s not true,” said Isolde, her voice rising. “None of what you’ve said is true. You’re a crazy old woman and you’re a liar!”
Ariel looked at her adopted sister, her hatred for Nandita slowly giving way to the kind of horror that was destroying Isolde. If they were Partials, they were monsters. They’d destroyed the world—maybe not personally, but they were a part of it. Other people, everyone they’d grown up with, would think they were a part of it. Already Senator Kessler was inching forward, placing herself between Xochi and the Partial freaks that used to be her friends. What did she think they were going to do? Now that Ariel knew she was a Partial, was she suddenly going to start killing people? What would the rest of the island think of her: that she was a traitor? A sleeper agent? A fool or a monster? At least Ariel had no friends to betray, already isolated by years of living on the outside; Isolde had friends, family, a job—a job in the Senate, in the heart of human government. Would they think she was a spy? What would they do to a Partial spy, pregnant or not?
What would the Partials do if they found out? Did they already know? Could Ariel go to them for help, or to help end the occupation? Maybe if they heard it from one of their own . . .
One of their own. A Partial. Ariel’s mind rebelled, and she felt herself get sick, running to the kitchen and vomiting in the sink. A Partial. Everything she’d ever thought about Nandita was true. It was even worse.
No one came to the kitchen to help her.
“What about Isolde’s baby?” asked Xochi. Her voice was uncertain. “Is it a . . . which is it? Human or Partial?”
“I’m not a Partial!” Isolde screamed.
Ariel wiped her face and mouth, staring out the kitchen window into the darkness beyond.
“I assume it’s both,” said Nandita. “A human/Partial hybrid. We assumed this could happen, but . . . I’ll need to do more studies to find out exactly what it means.”