She walked back to the sample vials she’d brought with her—blood samples she’d taken from Marcus. Relics of her first attempt at studying RM, before Manhattan and the Partial and everything else. Before Marcus didn’t come. She still had all the notes she’d taken from the blood, full descriptions of platelet counts and white cell counts and glucose and electrolytes and calcium levels and the vast, terrifying mass of viral structures. Every human being was a carrier, poisoning their own children long after the Partials had disappeared. Were the Partials carriers as well? Was this whole catastrophe useless?

She breathed deeply, wiped her face, and turned to look at the Partial—not a faceless thing in a black visor but a man, a boy barely older than she was, tied to a table and stripped almost to nothing. With his shirt off, she could see his body was toned and muscular, not bulging like a bodybuilder but simply fit: strong and lean and capable. Genetic perfection, as Isolde had put it. Kira tried to summon her zeal from the fight in Manhattan, tried to imagine herself cutting off its hand for study. It had brown eyes, like hers. It looked back calmly.

Dr. Skousen had said that they’d washed the Partial, but Kira looked again and saw there were flecks of something around its face and head. She stepped closer, trying to get a better look, then closer again, peering at its face. It was flecks of blood, dried and black, ringing its mouth and eye and dotting its ear on the other side. She reached out to brush away its hair, paused with her hand halfway, and dropped it back to her side.

“I take it they beat you?”

The Partial said nothing, simply watching her through dark eyes. She could feel its anger like the heat from an iron stove, radiating out in waves. She steeled herself and reached out again, and this time the Partial turned on her suddenly, jerking its head and straining at its bonds. Kira jumped back involuntarily, her heart racing, and reached for her gun. She didn’t pull it out, merely felt it, solid and reassuring in her hand. She forced herself to calm down and stepped forward again, standing straight. After a moment she pulled out the gun anyway and held it up for the Partial to see.

“I was part of the group that captured you,” she said. “I’m not trying to threaten you, I’m just telling you how serious I am. We’ve got five days together, and if you want to spend them fighting, I am more than ready.”

It watched her, eyes cold and hard, as if studying her for any break it could use, any hole in her defenses it could slip through—