Burn (Pure #3)(22)

Partridge’s father circled the word Wretch and wrote in the margin two words: Superior Race.

Partridge lifts the sheet of paper and studies his father’s letters. “My father created a superior race after all, but it happened to be the wrong one.” That’s the irony. His father knew it before he died. He said that he could see the end and that he was trying to save Partridge from it.

“Did he think we’d have to live here forever?” Lyda asks. “We can’t. The resources are limited. Was he just going to let the Pures die out?”

“I don’t know.” Partridge flips to the back of the report. The final page is just a bunch of scientific equations—nothing he could ever sort out. “What the hell is this?”

She says sarcastically, “Like the academy would think it was worthwhile to teach girls science. Keep it,” Lyda tells him. “It could be important.” He folds it and puts it in his pocket.

Partridge thumbs through a few more folders and then his back goes rigid.

He pulls out a folder. It’s labeled PROTOCOL FOR ANNIHILATION.

“What’s that mean?” Lyda asks. “He’s already annihilated everything.”

“Not everything.” Partridge opens the folder.

There is a list of instructions explaining how to engage a voice-activated process. A sketch of the room points to a small metal square on one of the walls. They both look up, and there it is, unassuming, the size of a wall socket. With a set of commands, the metal will retract, revealing a button. If pressed, it will “release an odorless gas outside of the Dome.” The gas is “carbon monoxide based,” but more potent. It will “induce sleep” and then compromise the lungs and cause silent mass death. The gas would kill all living creatures within a one-hundred-mile radius. Willux has written that the voice activation knows his own voice only, but then this has been scratched out and Partridge’s name added.

“He taught the computer to respond to my voice? To kill all living creatures in a one-hundred-mile radius?”

“But they’re the super race,” Lyda says. “Why would he want to kill them?”

“Maybe it was my father’s plan B.” Partridge shoves the folder into the drawer and slams it shut.

Lyda turns and stares at the photographs on the floor. “You and your father are different people,” she says. “You’re not him. You never will be.”

“I had to do it,” he whispers. “I had to kill him.” He hunches forward, rocking a little. He rubs his eyes.

“Come back home with me,” Lyda says. “I have a surprise for you.” Is this her way of telling him that she’s not afraid of him anymore, that he hasn’t really changed, that she won’t turn her back on him? She turns to him and wraps her arms around him. They hold each other tight, and he wants to freeze this moment. Right here, now.

There’s a knock at the door that startles both of them.

Beckley says, “Sir, the situation’s gotten worse.”

Partridge doesn’t let go of Lyda. “Worse how?”

“We need you, sir.”

Partridge doesn’t feel like a leader. His father’s still calling the shots from the grave. “I don’t know that there’s anything I can do.”

“There’s a death toll,” Beckley says. “It’s rising.”

Partridge lets go of Lyda, rushes to the door, and opens it. There’s Beckley. He’s a little out of breath; his eyes dart between Lyda and Partridge. “People are killing each other?”

“No, sir.”

“Then what?”

“They aren’t killing each other. They’re killing themselves.”





PRESSIA





DUTY




Fedelma leads Pressia down a long hall with a stone floor. Each door they pass has a small window. Pressia glimpses labs, people curled to delicate scientific work—test tubes, machinery. “What are they doing?” she asks.

Fedelma stops and looks at her. “You know what they’re doing, Pressia.”

“No,” she says, “I don’t.” But some part of her wonders if she just doesn’t want to know, if the truth is too chilling, and so she’s shutting out the obvious.

“Surely you can imagine our greatest challenge and how we might overcome it. You’ve seen the children. You know what we can do with mere vines. You’ve seen the boars in the fields, right? Haven’t you?” She seems angry suddenly. “And me. You know my lot.”

Pressia glances at Fedelma’s stomach and now she understands: Fedelma hasn’t chosen to be pregnant. It’s her duty. How many children has she had? How long will this go on? “I didn’t go to school,” Pressia tells her. “All I know is what my grandfather told me. He was a flesh-tailor, a mortician. How would I know what’s going on in labs?”

“You came here for a formula. You had one of the most potent vials of bionanotechnology known to man. Do you expect me to believe you don’t understand what we’re doing here? This is child’s play compared to what you dug up.” She starts marching down the hall again.

Pressia reaches out and grabs Fedelma’s arm. “I don’t know. I swear.”