“We’re not going to Denver,” said Heron. “We gave this a shot and it didn’t pan out, now it’s time to be reasonable and go back home.”

“There’s nothing for us back home,” said Kira.

“There’s life!” said Heron. “There’s salvation, there’s rational thought. We talked about this before—”

“And we decided to go to Denver,” said Kira. “That was our plan from the beginning. We thought we could get what we needed out of this place, but we couldn’t—we tried and we couldn’t. Now we have to keep going.”

“My leg is broken,” said Afa.

“I know.”

“The bullet hit the shinbone—”

“I know,” said Kira. “I know, and I’m sorry. What else can we do? Just turn around and give up because the long shot didn’t pan out?”

“Denver was the long shot,” said Heron. “Chicago was the only sensible part of the plan.”

“We came out here to find the Trust,” said Kira. “To find ParaGen, to find their plans, to find their formulas, all so we could cure these diseases—”

“We can cure them by going back,” said Heron.

“No, we can’t,” said Kira. “We can delay them, we can work around them; maybe if Dr. Morgan gets really lucky studying me, there’ll be something she can do about the expiration date. But RM will still be there, and babies will still die, and there is still nothing we can do about it.”

Heron’s voice was as cold as ice. “So if you can’t save both, you’re going to let both die.”

“I can save both,” said Kira. “We can save both, together, by going to Denver and finding their files.”

Heron shook her head. “And if they’re not there?”

“They’re there.”

“Where next?” asked Heron. “All the way to the coast? Across the ocean?”

“They’re there,” Kira said again.

“But what if they’re not?”

“Then we keep going!” Kira shouted. “Because they’re out there somewhere, I know it.”

“You don’t know anything! It’s just what your desperate, messed-up psyche wants to believe.”

“It’s the only explanation that connects everything we’ve found so far. I’m not giving up and I’m not turning back.”

The room was silent. Kira and Heron stared at each other, fierce as lions.

“I don’t want to go to hell,” said Afa.

“You’re going to get us killed,” said Heron.

“You don’t have to come.”

“Then you’ll still get yourself killed,” said Heron, “and if you’re the key to correcting the expiration date, that amounts to the same thing.”