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Chapters (51)
  1. Cover
  2. Title Page
  3. Dedication
  4. Contents
  5. Part 1
  6. Chapter One
  7. Chapter Two
  8. Chapter Three
  9. Chapter Four
  10. Chapter Five
  11. Chapter Six
  12. Chapter Seven
  13. Chapter Eight
  14. Chapter Nine
  15. Chapter Ten
  16. Chapter Eleven
  17. Chapter Twelve
  18. Part 2: Three Months Later
  19. Chapter Thirteen
  20. Chapter Fourteen
  21. Chapter Fifteen
  22. Chapter Sixteen
  23. Chapter Seventeen
  24. Chapter Eighteen
  25. Chapter Nineteen
  26. Chapter Twenty
  27. Chapter Twenty-One
  28. Chapter Twenty-Two
  29. Chapter Twenty-Three
  30. Chapter Twenty-Four
  31. Chapter Twenty-Five
  32. Chapter Twenty-Six
  33. Chapter Twenty-Seven
  34. Chapter Twenty-Eight
  35. Part 3: Four Hours Later
  36. Chapter Twenty-Nine
  37. Chapter Thirty
  38. Chapter Thirty-One
  39. Chapter Thirty-Two
  40. Chapter Thirty-Three
  41. Chapter Thirty-Four
  42. Chapter Thirty-Five
  43. Chapter Thirty-Six
  44. Chapter Thirty-Seven
  45. Chapter Thirty-Eight
  46. Chapter Thirty-Nine
  47. Acknowledgments
  48. About the Author
  49. Credits
  50. Copyright
  51. About the Publisher

Kira spluttered, still trying to process the information. “You mean I’m not arrested or … you’re giving me the body? You’re going to let me do my tests?”

“Not just the body,” said Dr. Skousen. “You can conduct better tests if it’s alive.”

Chapter Eighteen

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

“It doesn’t make sense,” said Xochi. “My mother hates Partials—she would have killed that thing with her bare hands if they’d let her get close to it. Why do they want it alive?”

“Keep it down,” said Kira. She glanced out the window again, peering through a small gap in the shades. “If anyone hears you—if anyone even finds out that we told you—there’s going to be some serious hell to pay.”

“Mkele probably wants to try to interrogate it,” said Jayden. He and Haru started their sentences in hard labor the next morning, but the Senate had given them the night to gather their things. Haru was at home with Madison, but Jayden had come to Nandita’s place. Nandita was gone, off on another herb-collecting trip; Kira shuddered to think of the explaining she’d have to do when Nandita got back. She could take insults from people she hated, but it was the disappointment from someone she loved that always broke her down. She started tearing up just thinking about it and forced herself to think of something else.

“I think you may be forgetting a key fact here,” said Isolde. “Apparently Partials are smoking hot. If you’d have told me that before you left, I would have gone to Manhattan with you.”

“Come on, Isolde, that’s gross.” Kira grimaced.

“You saw it, same as I did,” said Isolde. “That thing is an Adonis. Do something for me: When you get to spend your five days alone with that genetic perfection, try to find time for a close physical examination. Just for me.”

“It’s not even human,” said Jayden.

“In what sense?” asked Isolde, continuing to bait him. “It’s got all the right parts in all the right places. If this is what Para-Gen was going for when they started making artificial people, now I’m even sadder that it went nuts and tried to kill us.”

“The questions in this hearing were nothing,” said Jayden, finally deciding to ignore her. “All slow-pitch softball. Tonight they’re going to put it in a subbasement somewhere, torture it, and learn everything they can. A night with some Grid soldiers in a soundproof room will take the fight right out of it.”

“Now you’re really turning me on,” said Isolde.

“Shut up,” said Jayden, and Xochi laughed.

“But why do they want me in charge?” asked Kira. “There are researchers with more experience than me, there are more skilled lab techs, there are—”

“I know,” said Xochi. “Anybody in that hospital would be better for this than you. No offense.”