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Chapters (58)
  1. DEDICATION
  2. PART 1
  3. CHAPTER ONE
  4. CHAPTER TWO
  5. CHAPTER THREE
  6. CHAPTER FOUR
  7. CHAPTER FIVE
  8. CHAPTER SIX
  9. CHAPTER SEVEN
  10. CHAPTER EIGHT
  11. CHAPTER NINE
  12. CHAPTER TEN
  13. CHAPTER ELEVEN
  14. CHAPTER TWELVE
  15. CHAPTER THIRTEEN
  16. PART 2
  17. CHAPTER FOURTEEN
  18. CHAPTER FIFTEEN
  19. CHAPTER SIXTEEN
  20. CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
  21. CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
  22. CHAPTER NINETEEN
  23. CHAPTER TWENTY
  24. CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
  25. CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
  26. CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
  27. CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
  28. CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
  29. CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
  30. CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
  31. CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
  32. CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
  33. CHAPTER THIRTY
  34. PART 3
  35. CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
  36. CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
  37. CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
  38. CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
  39. CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
  40. CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
  41. CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
  42. PART 4
  43. CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
  44. CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
  45. CHAPTER FORTY
  46. CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
  47. CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
  48. CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
  49. CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
  50. CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
  51. CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
  52. CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
  53. CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
  54. CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
  55. CHAPTER FIFTY
  56. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
  57. ABOUT THE AUTHOR
  58. ABOUT THE PUBLISHER

“The Trust is why we’re here,” said Kira. “I . . .” She paused, not sure if she should reveal everything. She decided to play it safe and keep everything as vague as she could. “I knew a woman named Nandita Merchant. She told me to find the Trust, with the implication that they’d have the answers we need to save both species. She disappeared before I could ever ask her about it directly.”

“Nandita Merchant,” said Vale, and this time Kira had no problem reading his emotions—he was struck with a deep sadness. “I’m afraid she’ll never be able to recover from what she did with the Failsafe. She is as guilty as the rest of us.”

It was Kira’s turn to stop in surprise. “Wait,” she said. “The Trust did this? The Failsafe was a virus, we learned that in Chicago, but you’re saying . . . you’re saying that Nandita, that all of you, built it to target humans? On purpose?”

“I didn’t build it at all,” said Vale, still walking. “I built the Partial life cycle, their growth and development, the way they accelerate to an ideal age and stay forever—until, of course, they reach the expiration date. Sheer poetry, I assure you, one of the most sophisticated bits of biotech in the entire project.”

Kira’s mouth fell open. “You created the expiration date?”

“It was a kindness, I assure you,” said Vale. “When the government requested a Failsafe, I posited the expiration date as a more humane alternative—”

“What’s humane about killing them?”

“It’s not humane, it’s ‘more humane.’ Humans, of course, have an ‘expiration date’ as well, when we’ll die of old age. It’s the same principle. And expiration doesn’t put any humans in danger, which a Failsafe might have—and eventually did. But my arguments about the Failsafe and the expiration date were all in the beginning, before we could see the entire picture. Graeme and Nandita, who were tasked with creating the Failsafe, saw it long before the rest of us did. They were the ones who built RM.”

“I knew Nandita,” said Kira. “I . . .” She hesitated again, but decided there was nothing wrong with a little more information. “I lived with her for years—she ran a kind of orphanage, and I was one of the kids she helped. She’s not a mass murderer.”

“No more than any other human in her position,” said Vale, cryptically. “But by any measure imaginable, she, and the rest of us, are indeed mass murderers.”