Floor C was a lab, far more intact than the upper stories. Whatever the Partials had done to this place, the destruction hadn’t penetrated this deep. Kira walked past offices and conference rooms, past laboratories and showers, past clean white rooms full of equipment she didn’t even recognize. Was this where Vale was making his cure? That would make sense; ParaGen would undoubtedly have the best genetic engineering equipment in the Preserve. Was this equipment the reason he said it wasn’t “portable”? Maybe it was Vale she could hear down here. Kira quickened her pace.

She heard the footsteps again, and as she drew closer she heard a voice, murmuring and indistinct, someone talking softly. Kira walked as quietly as she could, still wary of who she might find, or what he or she might be doing. Would they attack an intruder? Would they take her presence as a threat? What equipment were they using, and how were they using it? Would they kill her to protect their secret?

It doesn’t matter. I’ve come this far. I need to know.

She rounded the final corner, stepping into a vast room, and gasped. Before her in two long lines were ten metal tables, each bearing an emaciated, almost skeletal man. Snaking up from each was a cluster of tubes and cords and cables, some dripping nutrients into the bodies while others bore away what looked like waste or recirculated blood. Their faces were uncovered, but a small tube sprouted up from the neck of each figure, punching straight through the skin and curling up into the tangle of tubes that hung above them. In any other situation she would think they were dead, but she could see a frail rise and fall of their chests, see their hearts thumping slowly inside their fragile ribs. They were living corpses, unconscious and lost to the world. They looked like they’d been there for years.

“What’s going on?” she whispered.

“They’re Partials,” said Dr. Vale. Kira looked up to see him on the far side of the room; her pistol rose up almost involuntarily to point at him, and he raised his hands. “You wanted to know how I synthesize the cure,” said Vale. “I don’t—I harvest it directly.” He motioned toward the tables. “Behold: the cure for RM.”

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

Kira stared in shock. “What is this?”

“This is salvation,” said Vale. “Everyone you’ve met here, every child you’ve seen, what you’ve called a miracle . . . It’s here because of these ten Partials.”

“This is . . .” She stopped, stepped forward, and shook her head, still struggling to process what she was seeing. “Are they asleep?”

“Sedated,” said Vale. “They can’t hear or see you, though I suppose our voices might drift through the back of their dreams.”

“They dream?”