Isolation. Part 3

Heron c.o.c.ked her head to the side. "You said 'most.'"

McGuire smiled. "Thetas are designed with no conscience at all. A soldier is different from an a.s.sa.s.sin-when you kill, you must feel nothing for your target."

"Then our existence is a crime," said Heron. "My life is against the law."

"Some laws are made to be broken."

The words echoed in Heron's mind as she stared at Huan Do. I must feel nothing for my target. She stepped forward, as silent as a shadow, and got to work.

ZUOQUAN CITY, SHANXI PROVINCE, CHINA.

June 9, 2060.

Heron's mind raced through the possibilities: Would NADI really destroy their own Partials? Of course they would-they considered the Partials animals at best, and tools at worst. Ten thousand soldiers were a lot to lose, but they could always make more. It fit with the loss of the factory, too, because no army meant no need for bullets. That's why my handler seemed so odd about my orders: He didn't care if I captured the generals, because it genuinely doesn't matter. Destroy the antiair guns at all costs, enable the air strike, and everything after was a fireball. Confirm?

A nanosecond pa.s.sed, and she turned next to her options, thinking first of how she could survive. She could hijack a Rotor and fly clear-it was 2240; there was still plenty of time to escape before the air strike landed. She could even take the satbox with her, as a sign of good faith to her handler for going beyond her orders. She had no great urge to show them good faith, since they had shown none to her, but where else was she to go? She could blend in anywhere she went, especially in China, but . . . did she truly wish to spend her life as a nameless citizen in a conquered country? She was a Partial. She was not built for that.

But was she built to die?

She thought then about the rest of the Partials. Every devil in the army, as Wu put it; nearly ten thousand men and women, and in twenty minutes they would all be dead. Heron knew that this should bother her, and it did-on a personal level. She had been betrayed; she had been discarded. But it was more than that. Even as she a.n.a.lyzed the situation, she turned that a.n.a.lysis on herself and saw that she was losing her . . . what? Not her innocence, for she was an engineered a.s.sa.s.sin; she'd had no innocence to lose since the moment her genome was swirled together in a vat. But she was losing something else: her own illusions about herself, and about the way her mind worked. Ten thousand of her brothers and sisters were being sent blindly to their deaths, and here she sat without an ounce of sadness for them. She had been built to feel nothing, and trained to feel even less. They had made her incomplete, and her reaction to this ma.s.sive betrayal proved just how deeply that incompleteness ran. She was a broken doll, dancing on the end of their strings.

She had to save the Partials, not because she loved them, but because she hated their creators.

Another nanosecond pa.s.sed, and she began to form her plan. How could she save the other Partials? If she warned the Partial army, then the bait would be lost and the air strike would be canceled. The situation would stay the same, except that she would be known as a traitor and forced out of the loop, completely unable to prevent the same sacrifice when they tried it again in the future. If she called off the Chinese forces, the results would be similar, but with the added threat that the air strike might still happen, so close to the wire that they couldn't call it off in time. The Partials would be destroyed for nothing. If she was going to change this attack, she had to make sure that the outcome still favored the NADI forces. She would hand them a victory, but not the one they'd wanted; she would shove it in their faces. She had very few resources at hand-not even a gun-but what she did have were the tools of her trade. Information. Intelligence. Deception. She could do this.

She saw the plan like a diagram in her mind, timed to the second. It was 2241; she had nineteen minutes. She activated the GPS mapper in her phone, dropped it into the satbox, and snapped the box shut. The generals looked at her in surprise, and Wu started to protest, but Heron stood and silenced them with the full weight of her genetically perfect charisma.

"I'm afraid I have bad news," she said. "I'm a spy for the Partial army, and my people are going to destroy this entire complex in nineteen minutes."

General Wu recoiled like he'd seen a snake; Bao froze, too shocked to react. The soldiers froze as well, stunned by the confession, until Wu managed to stammer out "Stop her!" and they surged forward, rifles raised, in perfect formation for a three-man capture like this-two soldiers with guns and one with a pair of handcuffs. Heron saw it all as if in slow motion: the looks on their faces, the slow, predictable movements as the handcuffs were raised. She could avoid them easily, but she put up only a token resistance, fighting just enough to look determined without becoming enough of a threat to warrant them shooting her. The man with the handcuffs pulled her arms roughly behind her back, slapping the first cuff on her wrist, but as he came in for the second one she twisted her arms and grabbed his finger, snapping it like a twig; he screamed, and the second cuff came down imperfectly on her tangle of arms and wrists. She ended up with both cuffs on the same wrist, her other arm twisted through the chain to create the illusion that she was fully restrained. The soldier behind her staggered away, too distracted by the pain in his finger to notice. Heron kept her gaze level and fixed the generals with her iciest expression.

"Why?" demanded General Bao, and Heron could hear the undercurrent of personal betrayal in his voice. "Why did you deceive us?" Why are you not the girl I wanted you to be?

"She deceived us because she is a devil," said Wu, braver now that she was contained. "The question is, why did you reveal yourself?"

"Because I do not wish to die," she said simply.

Wu was furious. "You think we will help you to escape?"

"I think you'll help me call it off," she said. This part of the story was a lie, carefully crafted to evoke the required response. "I have the access codes, but not the access. They've cut off my communications, but with your computer network I could uplink to the jets themselves and abort the mission."

"She lies," said Bao, his voice thick and bitter. "She thinks to trick us into calling off the counterattack, but we will not fall for her wiles."

"We must still be cautious, though," said Wu. "She might have guessed that we would guess that she . . . bah! Schemes within schemes. We must cut through to the heart of the matter and deal with it the simplest way possible." He picked up the satbox and clutched it protectively under one arm. "I will carry this to safety-with invasions and air strikes and spies it is too dangerous to leave it here, troop morale be d.a.m.ned."

"We will never abandon our position!" cried Bao, but turned away and spoke more softly, anger turning to sour acceptance. "But you are right. If we cannot know the truth, we must hedge our bets. You will flee, and I will lead the defense of the complex."

"To arms, then," said Wu, and shook Bao's hand solemnly. "If you die, I will tell them you died a hero."

"And if I live," said Bao, "I will have you and your army to thank for it."

Wu turned without another word, gesturing for one of the soldiers to follow him, and stormed out of the room with the satbox. A moment later Heron heard the low hum of a Rotor preparing for launch.

"I cannot trust you to use our computers," said Bao. "You realize this."

Heron answered calmly. "You think I would expose myself so fully if my life were not in just as much danger as yours?"

"I will use the computer," he said, holding up his phone. He tapped in a pa.s.sword, accessing the satellite network, and looked up at Heron. "What is the pa.s.sword to uplink to the jets?"

"I can't give you access to our system," said Heron.

"And I can't give you access to mine," said Bao. "I remind you that you are about to die: Either give me the code or lose your life."

Heron smiled. "Or you could just give me the phone, like I asked." He started to respond, but Heron was already moving: She had a soldier on each side, and with her hands unexpectedly free she caught them completely unaware, elbowing the first in the solar plexus and wrenching the rifle from the second one's hands. He fought, pulling on it, but she used his own force against him and pushed back suddenly in the same direction he was pulling in, slamming him in the face with a sickening crunch. He lost his grip and staggered back, and she turned the rifle on the first soldier just as he was recovering from his. .h.i.t. She shot him squarely in the chest, then turned on the second man and shot him, too. Bao was too shocked to move. She plucked his phone from his hands and typed with her thumb, keeping the rifle aimed squarely at his heart. After a series of beeps, Heron entered a ten-digit security code and lifted the phone to speak.

"New orders," she said, careful not to use any specific jargon or protocol. "The enemy is entrenched in the complex, and we must act quickly." She lowered the rifle slowly as she talked, watching Bao from the corner of her eye; this was not what she'd told him she would do, and the look of betrayal grew even harsher on his face. He would attack her, and she used a portion of her awareness to help gauge the precise moment at which he would try it. As she spoke she feigned preoccupation, letting her guard appear to drop further and further. "Bring your army into Building Five, on the south end of the complex, and engage the enemy with extreme force." She ended the call and looked to the window.

Bao struck then, leaping at her and grabbing the rifle, grappling with her at close range where the long weapon would do no good. Heron dropped it and fought back-carefully, like before, putting up just enough resistance to make it look good. He landed a blow to her head and she dropped instantly, feigning unconsciousness.

This was the moment of truth-would he shoot her first, or would he send new orders to his men? Everything she knew of him said he would send the orders; he was too n.o.ble, and still too trapped by his former feelings for her, to shoot an unconscious woman, even if she was a devil. His emotions, his human empathy, were tools to be exploited. She waited, a motionless heap on the floor, to see if she had used them well.

"Commander Fung," he said, speaking into his phone. His ground commander, thought Heron. I was right. "The devil army is headed toward Building Five. They have at least one traitor in the compound, and may have more. Entrench in Building Three and engage with deadly force."

Heron smiled, and when she heard the phone beep to signal that the call was closed, she sat up. General Bao stepped back, raising his rifle in fear.

"Thank you," she said, rising to her feet. "I had General Wu's security codes, but not yours. It was kind of you to make that call yourself."

Bao opened his mouth to protest, but the sudden shock of realization in his eyes told Heron he'd figured it out. He checked the call history in the phone and confirmed it: She hadn't called the Partials at all; she'd called Wu's ground commander, Shu Yeoh. Bao had just ordered his army to attack Wu's, and Wu's had been ordered to fire back; both would remain hidden in their buildings, unseen by the enemy and firing blind, trusting their commanders' orders. The two armies would kill each other, with the Partials on the eastern flank to mop up the survivors. Bao tried to call back, desperate to warn them of the deception, but Heron stepped in almost casually, dodging Bao's first, wide rifle shot and then yanking the weapon from his hands, knocking the phone away on the backswing. Bao leapt in to grapple her again, overconfident after his last attempt, but this time Heron had no reason to lose, and dropped him with a solid blow to the skull. He fell like a stone to the floor.

And then, because she wasn't burdened by the same sentimentality that had undone him, she shot him in the back of the head.

Heron glanced at her watch: 2255. The air strike would come at any minute. She retrieved the fallen phone and opened the browser, connecting to the cloud network and, through there, to the NADI computer system. She didn't have a lot of security access-she couldn't reach the jets in the air, or even the air force in general, and even if she could, she didn't have the authority to convince anyone to call off the air strike. Her network privileges were limited to two things: contacting her handler, and managing her data uploads. She accessed her online memory, purged the GPS files, and requested a refresh from the current position of the mapping device.

After all, anyone drawing on that information would need the latest, up-to-the-minute coordinates for anything they might be planning.

CHINESE AIRs.p.a.cE, SHANXI PROVINCE, CHINA.

June 9, 2060.

"General Wu," said the pilot, "there's something on radar. It looks like the devil jets are launching an air strike."

"She was telling the truth!" cried Wu. "Blast all devils to h.e.l.l, and devil women to the deepest part of it." He glanced over his shoulder, but the planes were still too far to be seen with the naked eye. "Make sure we're far away from the blast radius-we can't let this satbox be lost."

"I-" The pilot stopped talking, and Wu felt himself being pressed fiercely into his seat by a sudden acceleration.

"What's going on?" he demanded.

"The smart bombs flew past the factory complex," said the pilot. "They're coming for us."

"Go faster!" said Wu. "Dodge them, go around them-they can't follow us everywhere."

"That's exactly what they're doing, General," said the pilot, swerving madly through the air. "They seem to be homing in on us!"

"But . . ." The general's eyes went wide. "No." He opened the satbox, and there inside, clattering across the screen, was Mei Hao's cell phone. Its screen was lit and seemed to be running some kind of GPS program. He opened his mouth to curse the devil wh.o.r.e, but the bombs struck, and he and everything around him evaporated in the heat of the explosion.

ZUOQUAN CITY, SHANXI PROVINCE, CHINA.

June 10, 2060.

SECURE CONNECTION ESTABLISHED, read the phone. Heron had procured a new one from the Partial ground troops after the fighting was over. The factory complex was intact, and it was theirs, and the defending armies had both been routed. Heron spoke calmly. "Agent Six reporting."

There was a pause, and Heron could hear her handler's breathing on the other end. He was not happy. "Good evening, Heron. Congratulations on a successful mission."

Heron raised an eyebrow. "So you consider it a success?"

"The objective is ours, the defenders are on the run, and our casualties were minimal. Why wouldn't that be a success?"

"Because you didn't plan any of it," said Heron. "You tried to kill your own army, and worse than that, you tried to kill me. I do not take kindly to people who try to kill me."

"We thought you might have had something to do with-"

"I'm not finished," said Heron. "I was designed to be a killer. You engineered me, from the genetic level, to be a heartless, a.n.a.lytical machine, ready to kill or sacrifice anyone to get the job done. I was made this way: What's your excuse?"

"We are at war," said the voice, "a war we must win at all costs; you know that-"

"What I want you to do," said Heron softly, "is think long and hard about this. You made us to kill and conquer, and we are doing it better than you ever antic.i.p.ated. Far better than you could ever do yourselves. You are no match for us. Do not make us your enemy." She stared into the darkness, and a wicked smile crept into the corners of her lips. "Confirm."

There was no answer but a m.u.f.fled click, and the line went dead.

TURN THE PAGE TO READ THE FIRST CHAPTER OF.

FRAGMENTS.

BOOK TWO IN THE PARTIALS SEQUENCE.

CHAPTER 1.

"Raise a gla.s.s," said Hector, "to the best officer in New America."

The room filled with the clink of gla.s.ses and the roar of a hundred voices. "Cornwell! Cornwell!" The men tipped their mugs and bottles and drained them in gurgling unison, then slammed them down or even threw them at the floor when the booze within was gone. Samm watched in silence, adjusting his spotting scope almost imperceptibly. The window was murky, but he could still see the soldiers grin and grimace as they slapped one another on the back, laughed at ribald jokes, and tried not to look at the colonel. The link would be telling them everything about him anyway.

Hidden in the trees on the far side of the valley, well outside the effective range of the link, Samm had no such luxury.

He twisted the k.n.o.b on his tripod, swiveling the microphone barely a fraction of a millimeter to the left. At this distance even a small change of angle swept the sound across a vast portion of the room. Voices blurred through his earbuds, s.n.a.t.c.hes of words and conversations in a quick aural smear, and then he was listening to another voice, just as familiar as Hector's-it was Adrian, Samm's old sergeant.

". . . never knew what hit them," Adrian was saying. "The enemy line shattered, exactly as planned, but for the first few minutes that made it all the more dangerous. The enemy became disoriented, firing in all directions at once, and we were pinned down too fiercely to reinforce him. Cornwell held the corner through the whole thing, never flinching, and all the time the Watchdog was howling and howling; it nearly deafened us. All the Watchdogs were loyal, but not like that one. It was like he worshipped Cornwell. That was the last major battle we saw in Wuhan, and a couple of days later the city was ours."

Samm remembered that battle. Wuhan was taken almost sixteen years ago to the day, in March 2061, one of the last cities to fall in the Isolation War. But it had been Samm's first enemy engagement; even now he could remember the sounds, the smells, the taste of the gunpowder sharp in the air. His head buzzed with the memory, and phantom link data coursed through his brain, just enough to stir his adrenaline. Instincts and training surfaced almost immediately, heightening Samm's awareness as he crouched on the darkened hillside, prepping him for a battle that existed only in his mind. This was followed by an opposite reaction-a calming wave of familiarity. He hadn't linked to anyone in days, and the sudden feeling, real or not, was almost painfully comfortable. He closed his eyes and held on to it, concentrating on the memories, willing himself to feel them again, stronger, but after a few fleeting moments they slipped away. He was alone. He opened his eyes and looked back through the scope.

The men had brought out the food now, wide metal trays heaped high with steaming pork. Herds of wild pigs were common enough in Connecticut, but mostly in the deep forest away from Partial settlements. They must have hunted pretty far afield for a feast like this. Samm's stomach rumbled at the sight of it, but he didn't move.

Far away the soldiers stiffened, only slightly but all in unison, warned by the link about something Samm could only guess at. The colonel, he thought, and twisted his scope to look at Cornwell: He was as bad as ever, cadaverous and rotten, but his chest still rose and fell, and there didn't seem to be anything immediately wrong. A twinge of pain, perhaps. The men in the room were ignoring it, and Samm chose to do the same. It wasn't time yet, it seemed, and the party continued. He listened in on another conversation, more reminiscing about the old days in the Isolation War, and here and there a story about the Revolution, but nothing that fired Samm's memory as profoundly as the sergeant's story had. Eventually the sight of the pork ribs and the sound of chewing became too much, and Samm carefully dug a plastic bag of beef jerky from his pack. It was a pale imitation of the juicy ribs his former comrades were enjoying, but it was something. He turned his eyes back to the scope and found Major Wallace right as he stood up to speak.

"Lieutenant Colonel Richard Cornwell is unable to speak to you today, but I'm honored to say a few words on his behalf." Wallace moved slowly, not just his walk but his gestures, his speech-every motion was measured and deliberate. He looked as young as Samm, like an eighteen-year-old human, but in real time he was nearing twenty-the expiration date. In another few months, maybe only a few weeks, he'd start to decay just like Cornwell. Samm felt cold and pulled his jacket tighter around his shoulders.

The party grew as quiet as Samm, and Wallace's voice carried powerfully through the hall, echoing tinnily in Samm's earbuds. "I've had the honor of serving with the colonel my entire life; he pulled me out of the growth tank himself, and he put me through boot camp. He's a better man than most I've met, and a good leader to all of his men. We don't have fathers, but I'd like to think that if we did, mine would be something like Richard Cornwell."

He paused, and Samm shook his head. Cornwell was their father, in every sense but the strictly biological. He had taught them, led them, protected them, done everything a father was supposed to do. Everything Samm would never do. He tweaked the zoom on the spotting scope, pushing in as close on the major's face as he could. There were no tears, but his eyes were gaunt and tired.

"We were made to die," said the major. "To kill and then to die. Our lives have but two purposes, and we finished the first one sixteen years ago. Sometimes I think the cruelest part wasn't the expiration date, but the sixteen years we had to wait to find out about it. The youngest of you have it worst, because you'll be the last to go. We were born in war, and we earned our glory, and now we sit in a fading room and watch each other die."

The roomful of Partials stiffened again, harder this time, some jumping to their feet. Samm swung his scope wildly, looking for the colonel, but the tight zoom on the major's face made him lose his bearings and he searched helplessly for a few panicked seconds, listening to shouts of "The colonel!" and "It's time!" Finally Samm pulled back, reset the scope, and zoomed in again from nearly a full mile away. He found the colonel's bed, in a place of honor at the front of the room, and watched as the old man shook and coughed, flecks of black blood dribbling from the corners of his mouth. He looked like a corpse already, his cells degenerating, his body rotting away almost visibly as Samm and the other soldiers watched. He sputtered, grimaced, hacked, and lay still. The room was silent.

Samm watched, stone faced, as the soldiers prepared the final death rite: Without speaking a word the windows were thrown open, the curtains cleared, the fans turned on. Humans met death with crying, with speeches, with wailing and gnashing of teeth. The Partials met it as only Partials could: through the link. Their bodies were designed for the battlefield: When they died they released a burst of data to warn their fellow soldiers of danger, and when they felt it those soldiers would release more data of their own to spread the word. The fans churned at the air, blowing that data out into that world so that everyone would link it and know that a great man had died.

Samm waited, tense, feeling the breezes blow back and forth across his face. He wanted it, and he didn't; it was both connection and pain, community and sadness. It was depressing how often those two came together these days. He watched the leaves flutter on the trees below him in the valley, watched the branches sway gently as the wind brushed past them. The data never came.

He was too far away.

Samm packed up his scope and the directional microphone, stowing them in his pack with their small solar battery. He searched the site twice, making sure he'd left nothing behind-the plastic bag of food was back in his satchel, the earbuds were stowed in his pack, his rifle was slung over his shoulder. Even the marks of the tripod in the dirt he kicked smooth with his boot. There was no evidence he had ever been here.