Heron. “We don’t know what kind of brain damage he’s sustained from being asleep for thirteen years.”
“You’re not helping,” said Calix.
“I could shoot you again,” said Heron. “Would that help?”
“You’re safe,” said Samm. “We’re your friends. We’re protecting you. We’re healing you.”
“Hole,” said the soldier. “Blood.”
One of the hospital’s few nurses burst into the room. “One of the others is waking up.” She looked over her shoulder, listening to a distant shout, then turned back with a frantic mania. “Two of them.”
Five of the nine were awake before morning, though all but one of them had to be restrained. They seemed insane, mad and squalling like superpowered children; Laura thought their minds had been destroyed by Vale’s enforced coma, while Calix, more charitably, suggested that their minds were simply still asleep, and only their bodies had awoken. Samm thought about it just long enough to decide that he didn’t have enough information to decide, and that his course of action would be the same no matter what was wrong. He helped to hold their thrashing limbs while the nurses tied each Partial down with sturdy leather cords.
He worried, briefly, that the damage to their minds was his own fault, having somehow harmed them when they disconnected the Partials from their life support systems, but he pushed that thought away. There was no turning back now, and nothing he could do. He could only solve so many problems at once, so he would spare no time worrying about things he couldn’t change.
When the sun rose and the next shift of nurses arrived at the hospital, Samm briefed them in full before sending the night shift back to their apartments. He murmured his thanks as they left, but stayed himself; there were still four Partials set to wake up, and while they had been preemptively bound, he still wanted to be there when they woke up.
I don’t want them to wake up and think they’re in prison, he thought. Phan urged him to get some sleep, but Samm was fine—fatigued, yes, but not overly so. He had been designed for far worse physical punishment than a single sleepless night. Emotional punishment, on the other hand …
That was another problem he couldn’t solve, and so he pushed it away. Others could help the Partials as they awoke, whispering and soothing and calming their unfocused agitation, but only with words. He was the only one who could speak to them through the link, and so he stayed. The air itself, thick with the link data of nine traumatic disasters, hung around him like a poison. He sat in the room of Partial Number Three, the next one they expected to rise, and tried to think happy thoughts.
WHY?
The thought rang in his head for nearly a minute before he realized it was not his own. He looked up and saw Heron standing in the corner behind the door, though he was certain she hadn’t been there before. Either he was going crazy, or she was specifically trying to be mysterious. He guessed it was the latter, and wondered what petulance would spark such an odd behavior. Or maybe she simply didn’t want anyone else to see her.
“You’re not a ghost,” said Samm. “I know you didn’t walk through that wall.”
“And you’re not as observant as you think,” said Heron. She stepped out of the darkness and walked toward him, padding across the floor like a cat. Samm imagined her pouncing on him with her teeth bared, tearing the flesh from his face, and realized that he was probably much more exhausted than he realized. Partials were rarely struck by such colorful daydreams. Heron turned the room’s other chair and plopped into it with a distinct lack of grace. She was exhausted as well. “I suppose it’s a wonder you saw me at all, with so much hell in the air.”
“I linked you,” said Samm, then paused, too exhausted to explain himself clearly. “Though I guess there are even more link distractions than visual ones.”
“You don’t have to do this.”
Samm looked around. “I’m just sitting in a room. That’s all I’d be doing if I went home.”
“Home is a few thousand miles away.”
“You know what I mean.”
“No, I don’t,” said Heron. “You think of this place as home? We shouldn’t even be here.”
“You didn’t have to stay.”
“Neither did you.”
“I promised I would,” said Samm. “That means I have to, as surely as if I was chained here.”
“If promises are chains,” said Heron, “you should learn not to make any.”
“You don’t understand,” said Samm. He watched Partial Number Three as he lay in the hospital bed, his eyes blinking rapidly—he was dreaming, and from the intensity of his link data Samm knew it was something terrible. The Partial was running, as fast as he could, blasting the room with his fear.
GET OUT
And underneath it, softer but ever-present, Heron’s unspoken question: WHY?
Samm looked at her, tired of games, and asked her directly, “Why what?”
She narrowed her eyes.
Samm leaned forward. “You really don’t understand why I’m here, do you? That’s what you keep asking about.” He peered into her face, lost in the link and trying to read her eyes, her mouth, her expressions. The way humans did. But it was just a face.
Maybe Heron didn’t have any emotions, on her face or the link. Just questions in an empty shell.
“You stayed too,” he said. “You sold us out to Morgan, but you stayed. Why are you still here?”
“You only have a few months left to live,” said Heron. “Dr. Morgan is looking for a cure, but you can’t get it out here.”
“So you stayed to help me get back?”
“Do you want to go back?”
Yes, thought Samm, but he didn’t say it out loud. It wasn’t that easy anymore. He hesitated, knowing his confusion would be clear to her on the link, but there was no helping that.
GET OUT, linked the soldier, writhing in his restraints, trapped in his own nightmare.
Samm took a slow breath. “I promised to stay.”
“But you don’t want to.”
“It’s my own choice.”
“But why?” Her voice was louder now, and the question hammered into him on the link. “Why are you here? You want to know what I’m asking? I’m asking why you’re here. You want to know why I stayed? Because I want to know why you did. We’ve known each other for almost twenty years now, we fought together in two wars, I followed you through a toxic hell because I trust you, because you’re the closest thing I’ve ever had to a friend, and now you’re going to kill yourself with inaction. That’s not a decision a rational person makes. Your expiration date
