Partials series 1-3 (Partials; Fragments; Ruins)

“But both messages knew our code words,” said Kira. “There’s got to be some way that both scouts are still safe. Maybe they just didn’t see the same thing—maybe they were looking at two different buildings.”

“No.” Haru shook his head. “They’ve worked together too long—they wouldn’t accuse each other that plainly if they weren’t completely sure. If the first call was real, the second can’t be, and if the second call was real, obviously we have to believe that the first was lying.”

“They couldn’t have tortured anyone that fast,” said Jayden, standing slowly. “There’s no way they could have gotten the code words unless . . .” He paused. “What about . . . It couldn’t be, that’s insane.”

“What are you talking about?” asked Haru.

“It’s nothing,” said Jayden. “I’m just being paranoid.”

“That’s a pretty healthy thing to be right now,” said Kira.

Jayden swallowed, glanced at Haru, then looked back at Kira. “What if one of the scouts is a Partial?”

“That’s not even—” said Kira, but stopped midsentence. She was about to say it wasn’t possible, but what if it was?

“That’s ridiculous,” said Haru. “I’ve known both Nick and Steve for years.”

“Since before the Break?” asked Jayden.

“Well, no,” said Haru, “but still. There’s no way.”

“They look exactly like us,” said Jayden. “Who’s to say some of them haven’t been living among us this whole time?”

Kira leaned back against the wall, her legs weak, feeling the sudden need for support. The ramifications were terrifying, but the logic . . . didn’t hold up. “Why now?” she asked. “If they wanted us dead, they could have done it at any time—what do they gain by betraying us here, in the middle of nowhere?”

“I don’t know,” said Jayden harshly. “I’m just thinking out loud.”

“Everybody calm down,” said Haru. “They’re not Partials.”

“Voice, then,” said Jayden. “They could be using a traitor in our own ranks to sabotage the mission.”

“I vouched for both of them!” whispered Haru.

“That’s exactly what I’m saying,” said Jayden, and Kira saw that his hand was creeping near his pistol. She pressed herself back against the counter, caught between the two soldiers. Out in the hallway, Gabe turned to watch the exchange with a look of angry shock.

Haru saw the position of Jayden’s hand, caught the tone of his voice, and stiffened immediately. “You bastard—”

“Wait,” said Kira, “we don’t have time for this—if one of us were a traitor, he could have betrayed everyone a lot more effectively a long time ago.” She took a deep breath and stepped forward, blocking the line of fire between them. “There is a real enemy out there, whatever they end up being, and they know where we are. If one of the scouts was compromised, through torture or whatever else, he may have already told them we’re in one of these apartment buildings—the only thing he didn’t know was which one. That means they’re closer than we think—”

Kira stopped and turned toward the hallway. Was that . . . ? She thought she’d heard something, but it was gone now. She made a move toward her gun.

A loud shot echoed through the hallway, and Gabe dropped like a side of beef. Kira yelped, staring at Gabe’s fallen body in shock. Haru ran toward the door, stopping a few feet back to examine the body. He turned back and mimed with his hands: a explosion pointing one way, a gun, and then a strong point back in the other direction. The blood sprayed toward the left, Kira translated, which means the shooter was standing to the right. He pulled a grenade from his belt, pulled the pin, and tossed it toward the right. The building shook when it exploded, knocking dust from the walls.

“That’ll buy us some time,” he grunted, and picked up his rifle.

Kira fought to regain her composure, trying to force herself to react, and finally ran forward. Haru tried to pull her back, but she strained against him.

“I have to help him.”

“He’s dead.”

Kira struggled to pull away. “I’m a medic, I can help him!”

“He’s dead, Kira,” said Haru fiercely. He whispered sharply in her ear, keeping his voice low while his hands held her back like iron bands. “Gabe’s been shot and killed, and whoever shot him is still in that hallway, and the next person to stick her head out there is going to die with him.”

“You have to let me help him!”

“There’s nothing you can do for him,” said Jayden softly. “Right now we’ve got to figure out how to survive the next five minutes.”

Kira looked up and saw both Jayden and Yoon down on one knee, tucked into the corners of the room, rifles trained on the doorway. Of course, she thought, slowly regaining her composure, the Partials took out Gabe because they’re coming for us next. She stopped pushing toward the door, and Haru slowly released her and raised his rifle, falling back into the cover of the hallway. She followed him, keeping her rifle up and her eyes trained on the open door.

“How much time do we have?”

“No idea,” said Jayden, crossing to their hallway while Kira and Haru covered the door. Yoon followed. “Haru got that grenade out there pretty quick; they’re going to be a little reticent to charge in.”

“Which is the only reason we’re still alive,” said Yoon. “If this turns into a straight-up fight, we lose.”

“There are no other exits,” said Haru. “This is going to turn into a straight-up fight sooner or later.”

“We could go out the window,” said Yoon, “maybe get behind them.”

“That’s too exposed,” said Jayden, “not to mention five floors up.”

Kira cocked her head, listening. “They’re coming again. Do you have any more grenades?”

Jayden frowned. “You can hear them?”

“You can’t?”

Jayden shook his head, primed a grenade, and tossed it out the doorway blindly, past Gabe’s motionless body and off to the right toward the Partials. The building shook, and Kira put a hand on the wall for stability.

“Couple more of those and there won’t even be a floor for them to walk on,” said Haru.

Jayden grinned and pulled out another grenade. “Not a bad idea.”

“Wait,” said Kira quickly, grabbing his arm. “Take out the hallway and all you do is postpone the attack.”

“I know,” said Jayden. “That’s kind of the point.”

She lowered her voice to the softest whisper she could make. “Do you have any other explosives?”

Jayden looked at her quizzically, and Haru stepped closer to listen. Yoon kept her gun on the doorway.

“Do you have any other explosives?” Kira repeated, as softly as she could.

Haru patted his backpack and whispered back. “C4.”

Kira nodded. “If we take out the hallway, we’ll still get attacked, but we won’t know when or where it’ll come from. But if we take out this living room, while the Partials are in it and we’re not, we neutralize the threat.”

“That could work,” said Haru, “and honestly it might be our only chance against them, but this old building might not take it—it’s mostly unreinforced masonry. Anything big enough to take out a team of Partials could take the whole building with them, or at least a few floors.”

“A hole in the floor is a viable escape route,” said Kira, “if we survive. It’s that or a firefight, and I don’t think the odds are in our favor.”

Jayden nodded. “Let’s do it.”

The Partials were being cautious; by the time Kira heard them, they were already at the front door. A footstep, maybe, or a loud breath—she couldn’t be sure what she’d heard, but she’d heard it. She waited, the silence stretching out to an eternity, then abruptly something clattered across the rubble in the doorway, followed by a loud bang like a gunshot. A flashbang grenade. The four of them stiffened, staying as silent as possible in the back room as heavy, booted feet ran into the kitchen beyond.

Jayden was lying on the floor by the closed doorway, holding one of Kira’s medical tools: a small viewer with a narrow, flexible handle. It was designed for looking at noses and throats, but it worked just as well as a sort of tiny periscope—he’d curled it under the door and around the corner, giving him a perfect view of the rigged living room.

Kira heard a low mutter from the living room, and listened more closely. She couldn’t be sure, but it sounded like Which group is this? There was no response.

Jayden raised his hand, preparing to give the signal, and Haru hovered his finger over the detonator. Kira stopped him, trying desperately to mime the phrase, There’s one more in the hallway. She could hear its footsteps. Haru seemed to understand and nodded.

Jayden gave the signal and curled up behind the mattresses they’d piled against the wall. When nothing exploded, he turned in alarm; when he saw Haru waiting, he mouthed obscenities and gave the signal again.

Kira pointed at the hallway, miming as best she could, There’s one more. She held up three fingers, stabbing the air emphatically. Jayden slowly, silently moved back to his looking device, then leaped up in surprise the instant he looked through it, lunging for Haru with wide, terrified eyes. The doorknob turned—one of the Partials was coming in—and Kira slammed her hand down on the detonator button.

The world roared.

The explosion shook the building, knocking frames from the walls and plaster from the ceiling. The wall shattered and flew toward them, and even with the mattresses it felt like being hit in the head with a hammer. In the same instant the entire room started sliding downward, the floor giving way with a sickening sense of vertigo. Kira clung to the empty bed frame, though it was sliding along with everything else. She heard another massive roar, saw an avalanche of wood and plaster thundering toward her, and let go of the bed to cover her head with both hands.

She felt herself buffeted from all directions, then enveloped by something rough and massive. The movement slowed, stopped, and as she slowly uncovered her head she saw other parts of the building still shifting—a shower of dirt and rubble, a falling refrigerator, a rug slipping slowly into a hole. The building’s rooms and floors had become meaningless, smashed together in a three-dimensional chaos. Kira tried to move; she was buried to her waist in rubble. Her legs felt pinned by something huge and heavy.

She heard a cry from somewhere in the distance and shouted back, her throat dusty and her voice raw.

“Hello! Jayden!”

A hand rose up from the rubble in front of her, clad in the dark gray uniform and body armor she recognized from countless war-era photographs. It was a Partial.

Kira strained at her legs, unable to move, then looked for her rifle. It was nowhere—even her medkit was gone. The arm in the rubble moved slowly, tenaciously, searching by touch for something to hold. It found a jutting piece of rebar and gripped it tightly, straining at its own weight, and Kira saw the rubble begin to shift. The Partial was rising to the surface—

—and then a rat fell from the sky.

Kira flinched back in shock, her mind taking a second to process the object. The rat hit the ground, twisted to right itself, and hissed. Kira grabbed a piece of plaster from the pile that held her trapped and threw it at the rat, shooing it away. She heard more chittering above her and looked up to see a slanted ledge two feet above her head, the whole surface boiling with rats.

“No.”

A couch behind the rats shifted suddenly, plunging six inches ahead. Two more rats fell toward her, one landing in her hair; she knocked it away and dug furiously at the rubble around her. The Partial arm still strained, the debris slid and shifted, and slowly a helmet came into view. The thing’s face was covered with a black visor, but she could hear it growl, low and guttural. Kira dug wildly, pulling in vain against the weight that pinned her legs. The couch above screeched harshly against the floor, bringing another shower of rats—three, five, she didn’t bother to count them. The Partial lunged upward, and suddenly both arms were free. It shook itself to dislodge more rubble, knocking away broken bricks and shards of plaster.

Kira didn’t have time to think—she reached up, grabbed the ledge, and pulled it down with all her strength. The rats tumbled down in a shower, covering her in fur and claws and writhing, wormlike tails. The Partial lunged forward, its hands like claws, and in that moment the couch gave way, plunging forward like a boulder, catching the Partial in the face and slamming it backward to the floor. Kira screamed as the couch ground the skin from her knuckles, screamed as she batted away the frantic swarm of rats. There were answering shouts in the distance, but she couldn’t make them out. She strained again at her legs and felt them move, ever so slightly; the falling couch must have shifted whatever was pinning her. She pulled as hard as she could, then changed her focus and started pushing, flexing against the weight to push it even farther away. If the couch had dislodged it, she might be able to move it farther.

The couch moved again. The Partial underneath was still alive.

Kira grunted with effort, clenching her teeth and heaving against the rubble with all her strength. It shifted again, gravel running past her legs, and with a loud groan the entire floor beneath her seemed to disappear, sucking her down with a cry of terror. She fell ten or fifteen feet and landed in a coal-black pit, scrambling for footing as more debris rained down from above.

She heard an urgent whisper.

“Hello?”

“Yoon, is that you?”

“Kira! Help me move this dresser.”

Kira’s eyes adjusted slowly, and the pitch-black nothing became a dark gray outline of shapes and angles. The windows must have all been covered by rubble. She followed Yoon’s voice, slipping and sliding across the rubble, and found her pinned beneath a heavy wooden dresser. She had a better angle of leverage than Yoon, and together the two girls shoved it aside. A loud thud sounded behind them, and Kira turned to see that the Partial from above had jumped down the hole after her. It landed easily, like a cat, and immediately stood. Kira ducked back, hoping its eyes would take longer to adjust than hers had, but it lunged forward with perfect accuracy and tackled her to the floor. She kicked and scratched, screaming for help, but the Partial had arms like iron; she felt its weight like a cage, its arms as solid as bars, and then suddenly it stiffened, its back arched. Yoon ripped her knife from the Partial’s back, spun, and slashed again at its upraised throat. It fell to the side with a hissing gurgle and a spray of hot blood.

Yoon panted. “You are damn lucky he didn’t know I was there.”

“There’s at least two more we haven’t accounted for,” said Kira, crawling to her feet. “We’ve got to find Jayden and Haru.”

The building was more solid down here, two levels below the explosion, and they were able to move more easily. The first door they found was blocked by rubble, but they pried it open and explored quietly, listening for sounds. They found Jayden coming the other direction down the long central hallway; he still had both of his pistols, and gave one to Yoon.

“There doesn’t seem to be much damage below,” he said, “though the structure’s getting weak on the west end. If Haru’s still alive, he’s above us.”

Kira nodded, and they worked their way to a stairwell on the eastern, more stable half of the building. Two floors up they heard a faint voice and followed it all the way back to the far side. Light was shining through a wide hole where the outer wall had been blown away, and Haru was clinging to an exposed pipe, his elbow wrapped around it; his other hand clung to the backpack strap of a dangling, unconscious Partial.

“It’s alive,” said Haru through clenched teeth, obviously straining not to lose it. “I caught it just as the wall gave way.”

“Then drop it,” said Jayden, frowning as he struggled to identify a safe path toward Haru around the gaping hole in the floor. “We’ll save you and get its arm or something down on the ground.”

“Not a chance,” said Haru. He grunted and adjusted his grip on the strap. “I want this thing alive, so I can beat the hell out of it back at home.”

Kira shook her head. “We’re not taking it home, we just need blood and tissue to study.”

“We’re taking it, and we’re interrogating it. Our people don’t even know where we are, and somehow the Partials were here, waiting for us? I want to know why they’re here, I want to know what they’re doing, and I want to know if our scouts are Partial agents.”

“He’s got a point,” said Yoon. “Nick and Steve set half the traps in Brooklyn—if one of them’s a Partial, our entire defense perimeter could be useless. And if the Partials are planning something, like an attack . . .” She trailed off.

Jayden frowned. “Kira, you still have your medkit?”

She shook her head. “Just the belt pouch; the main kit got lost in the rubble.”

“Sedatives?”

Kira checked and nodded. “A painkiller that will do the same job, if we give it enough.” She looked at the body swinging from Haru’s arm. “And if its biology works the same as ours.”

“I don’t mean to be a burden,” Haru grunted, “but this thing’s a lot heavier than it looks.” Jayden slowly picked his way around the periphery of the room to reach him. Kira studied the destruction, found a solid wall, and carefully climbed down to the next level. Yoon followed her, and together they grabbed the swinging Partial through the window and pulled it in. Jayden retrieved Haru, his arm hanging uselessly at his side.

Kira and Yoon laid the Partial down on a stable bit of floor. Kira pulled off the Partial’s helmet and stopped, staring. She had expected them to look human—of course they looked human, that was the whole point—but even so, seeing one for the first time was . . . She couldn’t put it into words.

A human face. A human mouth and nose. Human eyes staring blankly at the ceiling. A young man, handsome, with short, dark-brown hair and the beginning of a bruise on its jaw. The greatest enemy mankind had ever faced, the vicious monster that had ended the world.

It couldn’t have been more than nineteen years old.

“It’s weird, isn’t it?” said Yoon. “All this talk about how they look like us, and then they just . . . look like us.”

Kira nodded. “I don’t know if that makes it less scary, or more.”

Yoon drew the semiautomatic she got off Jayden and pointed it at the Partial. “Whatever you’re going to do, do it fast.”

Kira pulled out a bottle of Nalox.

“Best-case scenario, this keeps it down,” she said, glancing at Yoon.

“Worst case it dies?”

“Worst case, it wakes up.” Kira prepped the shot and held it over its neck. “We have no idea how these nanoparticles will react to its physiology. As far as I’m concerned, its death is very close to the ‘best case’ end of the scale.”

She stabbed the needle into its neck, pushed in the plunger, and stowed the syringe. “It’s done,” she called out. Jayden was helping Haru climb down into the room. “But there’re still one Partial we haven’t accounted for.”

Haru raised an eyebrow. “Not two?”

“Yoon killed one,” said Kira, and Haru’s eyes went wide. Kira laughed dryly. “I’m totally serious. Practically took its head off. Of course, that was after it got buried alive twice, caught a couch with its face, chased me through two stories of rubble, and almost killed me.”

Jayden nodded. “And the explosion got the other one—I found enough pieces of it when I was upstairs that there’s no way it’s still a threat. Must have been right on top of the bomb when it blew. So we should be good.”

They hefted the unconscious Partial between them and carried it carefully out of the building, through the multistory crater and down the stairs to the outer doors. Jayden stopped them.

“Wait—I spoke too soon,” he said, scanning the overgrown apartment grounds. “There is at least one enemy unaccounted for: One or both of our scouts are still out there, and we still don’t know whose side they’re on. Plus, there could be more of these things that didn’t assault the apartment.”

Kira watched the grounds, saw the saplings waving in the breeze; they’d provide some cover, but it was essentially open ground. “We’ll have to run for those buildings,” she said, “but we can’t move very fast with this deadweight between us.”

Haru rubbed his left arm, the one he’d been hanging from, trying to force some feeling back into it. “Nothing to do but do it.”

Jayden lifted the Partial, taking the full weight across his shoulders. “Sorry, ladies, I’m going to be selfish and keep the meat shield for myself. Now run!”

They dashed out through the vines and saplings, running full tilt for the next building. They reached it, rounded the corner, and kept running, between the cars and across the street to another building beyond. Just as Kira thought they were safe, a bullet ricocheted off the car beside her, inches from her head, and she ducked for cover.

“Don’t stop running, Kira, move!” Jayden ran past with his load, and Kira took a deep breath and jumped back to her feet, expecting at any moment that a bullet would slam into her spine. Another bullet whipped past, several feet to the side. They reached the next road, a wide thoroughfare lined with high trees and battered storefronts. Yoon cut left and the group followed, using the cover to charge across the street and take shelter in a crumbling delicatessen.

“It’s single shots, spaced out,” said Jayden, gasping for breath. “That probably means it’s not a group, just one sniper.”

“Skinny or Scruffy,” said Kira, “whichever one’s the traitor. Nice going, Haru.”

“We don’t know if it’s one of them,” Haru snarled, but Kira could tell he had the same fears she did. Yoon was watching by the front windows, all but invisible behind a screen of overturned tables.

“We can’t stay,” said Kira.

“We’ll head out the side window and down this little street,” said Jayden. “We need to cut back and forth between the streets—the sniper’s not as dangerous without a straight path and the time to line up a shot.”

“The park you saw before is just a few blocks west,” said Haru. “We can follow it most of the way back, and we won’t lose time running back and forth.”

“Agreed,” said Jayden. “Let’s go.”

They slipped out the side, moving the captured Partial carefully over the broken glass. Yoon ran to catch up.

“I still don’t see anything.”

“What about the scout who didn’t turn on us?” asked Kira, struggling to catch her breath as they ran. “Shouldn’t we wait for him? Or try to find him?”

Haru shook his head. “If we can’t trust one of them, we can’t trust either of them.”

“But we know one’s innocent.”

“And we don’t know which,” said Haru. “That makes them both suspects. There’s the park; sprint to the trees and head left.”

Another shot zipped by as they crossed to the thick forest, and Kira swore under her breath as she ducked behind a car. The others ran past her and she steeled her courage again, racing for the trees. The park turned out to be riddled with fences, keeping them out of the dense cover in the center, but the outskirts were still better than nothing, and they ran from tree to tree, always keeping something at their backs. Every few blocks a wide street cut through the trees, but the park kept going.

Jayden stopped by a cluster of taxis and lowered the Partial prisoner to the ground, wincing.

“Keep going,” said Haru fiercely. “You can rest when you’re dead.” Jayden nodded and reached for the Partial, but Kira saw a drop of blood fall from his arm.

“Jayden, you’re bleeding!”

“Keep going!” repeated Haru.

“He’s been shot in the arm,” said Kira, looking at Jayden’s wound. “How long ago did this happen?”

“Just a few blocks.” Jayden reached for the Partial.