Burn (Pure #3)(43)

“Wait, now,” Partridge says. This is the second time Weed’s pinned the deaths on him. It’s not completely fair. “My father shouldn’t have shoved lies down their throats.”

“So while I was cleaning up the mess, you were busy rationalizing it all away? Is that how you’ve spent your time?”

“No, I told you I went into my father’s secret chamber, and I know that my father knew he’d made a mistake. He knew the end was coming.”

“And that’s where you saw my name, huh?” Weed smooths his hair, rubs his temple. “Yeah, I remember that report. Pretty sobering. So we’re not the superior race after all. Imagine how your father felt when he caught on to that one.” Weed laughs, but there’s no lingering smile.

“I don’t know what made him think we were superior to begin with. I’ll never understand him.”

“Is that what you want from me? A psychoanalysis of your father?”

“I wouldn’t ask that of my worst enemy,” Partridge says. “But I do know that if my father didn’t like a truth, he found a way to change it.” Partridge reaches into his pocket and pulls out the sheet of scientific information that he took from his father’s files. He doesn’t want to show it to Weed, but who else is there? “Explain this to me.”

Weed takes the sheet, glances at it, and hands it back. “It’s a recipe.”

“To make what?”

“People.”

“I don’t get it. People?”

“Why would you? You’re making a person the old-fashioned way, right? Knocking someone up.”

“You know her name. She’s not just someone. Just explain the science, okay?”

Weed smiles, happy to get a rise out of Partridge, and leans back again. “This was his recipe to make them from scratch. A little DNA from Pures, a little from the tougher breed, the wretches. Some cloning, some breeding.”

“Did you give this recipe to him?”

Weed laughs. “That stuff is very advanced. Who knows where he got it? But not from us. No. It’s high art.”

“So he was going to start to build his own super race from scratch.”

“He wasn’t going to start to do it. It’s under way. In fact, I was with you when you saw them.”

“Saw them? Who?”

“Maybe it’s one of the patches that hasn’t yet come clear. Plus, you were a little drugged up. We were taking you in for cleansing.”

“You mean when you almost drowned me?”

“Your father preferred the term baptism.”

“Who did I see? Where?”

“The babies—rows and rows of tiny babies.”

And then Partridge remembers it—clearly. The bank of windows like in a giant maternity ward, but all of the babies were premature, tiny, writhing, some squalling, some placid and still. Babies. He was lying down—no, strapped down—rolling…being rolled on a gurney.

“New Eden deserved its own Adams and Eves,” Weed says. “Willux gave up on the people of the Dome too—we’re weak and vulnerable with delicate lungs and testy hearts. He started to hate us near the end, Partridge. And when you went out and survived, he was proud of you. You didn’t even have any of the things that had been built into your brother’s coding. You were just out there, raw and alone and surviving. You should have heard him talk about you.” Weed looks sickened by the memory. And Partridge finds it hard to believe. His father was always so disappointed in Partridge. But then he thinks of the war room, all of those pictures from his childhood, all of those love letters. Maybe his father hid his love and pride well.

Still, Partridge isn’t sure what to think. His father’s feelings for him are so twisted and impossible to pin down. “He never told me he was proud of me. Not ever.” Except at the end, just before he died—knowing Partridge had poisoned him—he told Partridge, “You are my son. You are mine”—which made Partridge feel like his father, for the first time, saw something in Partridge that was a reflection of himself. When Partridge thinks of it now, it’s as if his father were telling him that he and Partridge were alike, maybe even that Partridge was bound to become his father, which his father would have meant as a great compliment. “He only loved himself.”

“Well, the new Adams and Eves became his people, his hope. They were the future.” Weed stands up. “You should see for yourself.”

“What about little Jarv Hollenback? Did you get him out of suspension? Is he with his parents?”

Weed nods.

“Were the Hollenbacks happy to have him home again?” It’s a stupid question, but Partridge wants one good thing—some positive effect of his being here, even if it’s small.

“Well, Mrs. Hollenback…”

“What?”

“She’s in the hospital.”

“Did she try—”

“Nearly succeeded too.”

He remembers the last time he saw her—in the kitchen, her hands dusted with flour, the panic in her voice. Lucky us, she said. Lucky us. And she wanted so desperately to mean it. Mrs. Hollenback, who taught the History of Domesticity as an Art Form—he remembers her singing about a snowman. How did she try to do it? He doesn’t want to imagine it. She’d gotten Jarv back. Why would she do this now? Where did her resilience go, her will to live? “I want to see Mrs. Hollenback—first, before anything else.” He rubs his hands together, thinking of guilt and blood. “And I want to see the wards. I don’t want any more escalation talk from Foresteed, no more data. I want to see the people.”