drew his handgun as he approached, staring in shock at the thing before him. It was man-shaped, at least vaguely—two arms, two legs, a torso and a head—but it was at least eight feet tall, with a broad, solid chest and thick, powerful arms. Its skin was dark, a kind of purplish black, and plated like the hide of a rhinoceros. Its fingers and toes were clawed, and its thickset head was the most inhuman part of all—hairless, noseless, with a jagged mouth and two dark pits for eyes, which watched them all silently. Shon drew even with the soldiers in the semicircle, his gun level, his mind barely comprehending what he was seeing.
“What the hell is that?”
“No idea, sir,” the soldier next to him breathed. “It’s … waiting for you.”
“It talks?”
“If you want to call it that.”
Shon looked over his shoulder, seeing Mattson there with his own gun drawn. Shon looked back at the creature and swallowed, stepping forward. The thing watched him, never moving.
Shon took another step and spoke. “Who are you?”
“I am here to speak to your general.” The thing’s voice was deep, rumbling through Shon’s chest like an earthquake and reverberating in his mind with shocking clarity. It didn’t seem to have used its mouth at all.
Shon reeled in shock. “How are you using the link?”
“I am here to speak to your general.”
“I am the general.” Shon stepped forward again, lowering his gun slightly to display his uniform. “You can speak to me.”
Wide holes opened on the thing’s neck, sniffing like nostrils, or a blowhole. “You are not a general.”
“Battlefield promotion,” said Shon. “All our generals are dead.”
Shon felt a wave of confusion so crippling he nearly dropped his gun, and saw in his peripheral vision that the other soldiers were staggering under the same effect. He righted himself, trying again to project as much strength and confidence as he could.
“What do you want to say to us?”
“I am here to tell you that the Earth is changing,” the thing rumbled. It shifted its weight from one massive leg to the other, and still its mouth never opened as it spoke. “You must prepare yourselves.”
“For what?”
“For the snow.”
The giant turned and walked away.
“For snow?” Shon took a step to follow it, confused at the strange pronouncement, and even more so by the sudden departure. “Wait, what do you mean? Winter? What are you talking about? What are you?”
“Prepare yourselves,” said the thing, and Shon saw the slits over its collarbones flare open again, and suddenly he was staggering from fatigue, his body going numb, his eyes struggling just to stay open. He tried to speak, but the world grew dark, and all around him the soldiers were sinking to their knees, collapsing in the dirt.
Shon managed one more “Wait” before the crippling need for sleep overpowered him, and his eyes forced themselves shut. His last view was the monster’s back as it plodded slowly away.
“You’re useless,” said Dr. Morgan. She was staring at the wall screens, filled to overflowing with data on Kira’s biology, Kira’s immune system, Kira’s DNA, Kira’s everything. They had spent weeks studying her from every possible angle, Morgan and Vale and Kira together, and they had found nothing. There was nothing in her genes that could stop or reverse or even slow expiration, no way to save the Partials from dying. For Kira it was a devastating loss, and she lay on the operating table with no energy left—not physically, not mentally, and certainly not emotionally. She felt like a raw nerve, exposed and despairing, every bit as useless as Morgan said she was. She looked across at her face on the wall screen, sideways to her perspective, gaunt and gray and checkered with scars and bandages from a dozen different invasive surgeries. Her face was a doppelgänger that had betrayed her—her own body an unsolvable riddle, and an implacable enemy.
For Morgan, the realization hit like a tidal wave. She screamed in frustration, finally giving up, and in a sudden fit of rage pulled out her sidearm and shot the screen, fracturing it into a jagged web of bright, vicious fangs. The image remained, split in serrated shards, and Kira saw her face abruptly cracked and refracted—an eye on this piece, a strand of hair on that one, the corner of a mouth made large and separate and meaningless.
“Useless!” Morgan screamed again. She stood up, spinning around with the gun extended, and Vale jumped in front of Kira, desperately trying to calm the raging scientist. Kira, for her part, was too despondent to move.
“Be reasonable, McKenna.”
“How much time did I waste on her?” Morgan demanded. “How many Partials have expired while I was in here wasting my time on a dead end!”
“That’s not her fault,” said Vale. “Put down the gun.”
“Then whose fault is it?” Morgan seethed, thrusting the gun in Vale’s face, then turning back to the damaged screen and firing three more rounds into it: bam bam bam, a therapy of destruction shattering the remnants of Kira’s projected face. “It’s our fault, if it’s anyone’s,” she said, more softly this time, though every bit as furious. “Even mine, though I only knew half the plan at the time. Armin’s fault, maybe, because he seems like the only one who knew the whole thing, but he’s gone.” She snarled and threw the gun on the floor. “I can’t shoot him.” She gripped the edge of a small rolling table, and Kira braced herself, waiting for the woman to throw it aside, scattering scalpels and syringes across the white tile floor, but Morgan’s rage seemed to be subsiding. Instead of throwing it, she was gripping it for support. “It doesn’t matter whose fault it is,” said Morgan. “All we can do now is look for another lead.” She stared at her computers, or through them to something else beyond, but there was no hope in her eyes.
Kira clutched the thin operating blanket tighter around her shoulders, rolling sideways on the table and curling into a ball. She watched Vale, his mouth open, preparing to speak but holding back, looking at Morgan as if trying to build up the nerve. His hesitance made Kira angry—far more than the action merited, she knew, but her nerves were worn raw. She sneered and croaked at him.
“Just say it.”
He looked at her. “What?”
“Whatever you keep trying to say. You’ve been on the verge of it all morning, just get it out.”
He took a deep breath. “It’s just that …” He grimaced, still staring at the back of Morgan’s head. “Look, I don’t want this to sound wrong; I’m not trying to say ‘I told you so’—”
“Don’t even start,” said Morgan.
“But I do think we need to consider the possibility that we’ve backed the wrong horse, so to speak,” said Vale, pushing forward despite her warning. “Both species are dying, and we know the cure
