“The Trust.” His voice was different now, not the halting mush of confusion or the clear window of intelligence, but a distant, almost haunted whisper, as if the old world itself was speaking through him. “Dhurvasula and Ryssdal and Trimble and everyone: They knew they were building a new world, and they knew they were destroying the old one to do it. They did it on purpose.”

“But why?” Kira pressed. “Why kill everyone? Why put the only cure in the Partials? Why link humans to the Partials at all? Why leave us with so many questions?”

“I don’t know,” he said softly. “I tried to know, but I don’t.”

“Then let’s figure it out,” she said, “together. But first we have to help them.” She paused, remembering the words of Mr. Mkele, words that seemed so unconscionable when he said them. She repeated them now to Afa, bewildered to find how her situation had turned. “Humanity needs a future, and we need to fight for it, but we can’t do that unless we save it in the present.” She put a hand on his arm. “Help me find a microphone, so we can make sure there’s somebody left to give all these answers to.”

Afa watched her anxiously, seeming small and childlike in the dark.

“Are you a human?” he asked.

Kira felt her voice catch in her throat, her heart jumping in her chest. What did he need to hear? Would he help her if she said she was human? Would anything else terrify him back into his shell?

She shook her head. What he needed to hear was the truth. She paused, breathing deep, clenching her fist to build up the courage. She’d never said it out loud before, not even to herself. She forced herself to speak.

“I’m a Partial.” The words felt right and wrong and true and forbidden and terrible and wonderful at once. To speak a truth, to get it off her chest, brought a thrill of liberation, but the nature of the truth made her shiver uncomfortably. She felt wrong to say it, and immediately she felt guilty for feeling wrong about her own true nature. She didn’t. “But I have given my entire life, I have given everything, to save the human race.” Her lips parted in a thin smile, and she almost laughed. “You and I are the best hope they have right now.”

Afa set down his can of beans, picked it up, then set it down again. He took a step, stopped, and nodded. “Okay. Follow me.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN