If that was news to Samm, he didn’t show it. “If we wanted you dead, you would be dead,” said Samm. “That’s not a threat, it’s a fact.”
“Then what do you want from us?” Kira demanded. “Why did you keep us alive? What are you planning? Is this why you were in Manhattan?”
He hesitated for a moment. “You seem like you’d do anything to ensure humanity’s survival. How far are you willing to go?”
“What are you talking about?” she asked. “What are you suggesting?”
He glanced at the corner, to a camera she knew was watching and listening to everything they said. He closed his mouth and looked at the ceiling.
“No,” said Kira, leaning over him, “you can’t just say something like that and then clam up again. Why did you even start talking if you’re not going to finish?”
He didn’t answer; he didn’t even look at her.
“Is this what you were talking about yesterday? That you can’t tell us because you don’t want to die? I’ve got news for you, Samm: You’re going to die anyway. If you’ve got something to say, say it. You were in Manhattan for a reason; are you saying it had something to do with RM?”
She waited there for a full minute, but he stayed silent, and she turned angrily back to the window, slamming the pane with her hand. The sound of the slam echoed back, but distantly. That was weird. She frowned, peering at the window, and hit it again, wondering what had caused the sound. Nothing happened. She leaned in closer, and suddenly a loud string of rapid pops drifted in from the city beyond. She looked out, trying to see what the noise could possibly be, and saw a plume of smoke rise up from somewhere beyond the trees. It couldn’t have been more than a few blocks away. The popping continued, short bursts of rapid, rhythmic noise, but it wasn’t until she saw people running that she realized what it was.
Automatic gunfire. The city was under attack.
“The Voice,” said Senator Weist. Kira was packed into a hospital conference room with Mkele and the same five senators she’d met at her hearing, and the atmosphere was more tense than she’d ever felt it. “They hit the Senate building. It was the biggest strike team yet—at least forty insurgents, maybe more—and we didn’t take a single one of them alive.”
“What if we’d been there?” demanded Hobb. His wavy hair was limp and sweaty, and his face was pale as he paced restlessly through the room. “We don’t have enough guards for this—”
“The Senate was not their target,” said Mkele. “With no meetings in session, and no senators on site, they attacked during the lightest possible guard rotation. Their purpose was obviously to get inside with as little resistance as possible.”
“So it was a robbery?” asked Delarosa. “It still doesn’t make sense. Everything we store in the Senate building they can get more easily just scavenging the outlands.”
“They were looking for the Partial,” said Mkele. The room went quiet. “Rumors are already going around. That’s why I’ve invited Ms. Walker to join us.”
“One of the soldiers talked,” said Senator Kessler, “or Kira did. We never should have trusted her.”
Kira started to protest, lining up her best and most horrible insults for Kessler’s smug face, but Mkele cut her off.
“If Kira had talked,” he said, “they would have known to attack the hospital. I think it’s more likely that the Voice didn’t know what we had, just that we probably had something; they obviously didn’t know where it was. Even the message they spray-painted on the building was vague: ‘The Senate is lying to you. What are they hiding?’ If they’d known what we were hiding, don’t you think they would have said it?”
“Only if they wanted to start a riot,” said Weist. “News of the Partial would incite nothing less.”
“A riot might be their only plausible goal at this point,” said Delarosa. “The only way for them to create enough unrest to stage a coup.”
“Given how little we actually lost,” said Mkele, “this attack helped us more than it hurt us. The information they apparently had, combined with the information they obviously didn’t have, gives me a valuable estimate of their intelligence network.”
“That’s great now,” Hobb sneered, “but what about before the attack? How did our secret get out? If you’re so brilliant, why didn’t you stop any of this from happening?”
“If you had any delusions that this was going to stay a complete secret in a community this small, you were fooling yourself,” said Mkele. “I advised against the Partial’s presence from the beginning.”
“We made our decision based on your assurances,” said Kessler. “If there’s a leak in the Defense Grid, you need to find it—”
“We knew exactly what we were getting into,” said Delarosa. “If our plan with Ms. Walker carries through, every attack will have been worth it. The potential benefits outweigh the obstacles.”
“If it works,” said Kessler, throwing a sharp glance at Kira, “and if the Voice don’t launch a consummate attack before we’re done. That’s a lot of ifs.”
They’re talking about my work as if they’re the ones doing it, thought Kira. Her first impulse was to protest, but she held back. No. If they think we’re working on this together, that means they’re invested in the outcome. They’re supporting the project. It doesn’t matter who gets the credit as long as somebody finds a cure.
“A lot of ifs,” Hobb continued, “and all it takes is one of them to go wrong and suddenly we’re traitors and war criminals. Weist is right about the riot: If word gets out that we’ve got a Partial in custody, no one’s going to wait for an explanation. They’re going to smash everything in sight until they find it, and then they’re going to destroy the Partial, too.”
“Then we have to move it,” said Skousen. “The attack on the town hall was highly destructive; if they do the same at the hospital, it puts too much at risk—the patients, the facilities, even the structure itself.”
“But we can’t move him,” Kira insisted. “The Nassau hospital is the only facility on the island with the resources we need for the study. Nowhere else even has the equipment.”
“The best scenario is to say nothing at all,” said Mkele. “Senator Weist’s initial reaction was correct, according to my simulations: If word gets out that we’re hiding a Partial in the middle of East Meadow, the public outcry will be passionate and violent. People will riot, or defect to the Voice en masse. I recommend we double the police patrols and triple the guard at the Senate.”
“Why complicate things?” asked Kessler. “We should just execute the thing and be done with it.”
“There’s still a lot we can learn—” said Kira, but froze when Kessler shot her a furious glance. What is that woman’s problem?
“I
