Free Partials by Dan Wells Page A

point?”
    “This is the point, Ms. Walker. The Partials may indeed be gone, but they hardly need stage an outright attack on the island if tensions between the settlement and the Voice progress any further. RM is performing a more insidious function than even the Partials devised: our inability to produce healthy children and the measures we’ve subsequently taken to try to deal with it—”
    “You mean the Hope Act.”
    “Among other things, yes … they are tearing the island apart. I have a hard time believing that what happened to your team yesterday didn’t have something to do with this, and unless there is overwhelming evidence to the contrary, I’m going to assume that it was part of a plan to destabilize the human civilization and thus to hasten our extinction.”
    “You are an incredibly paranoid person.”
    Mkele tilted his head to the side. “I’ve been charged, as I said, with the safety of the human race. It’s my job to be paranoid.”
    Kira’s patience was wearing thin.
    “Fine, then—let’s get this over with. What do you want to know?”
    “Tell me about the veterinary clinic.”
    “What?”
    “The clinic you and Marcus Valencio were assigned to salvage—tell me what you saw there.”
    “I thought you wanted to know about the bomb.”
    “I have already spoken to other witnesses who were present both before and during the explosion, and their information trumps yours in that area. The clinic, on the other hand, you experienced directly. Tell me about it.”
    “It was a clinic,” said Kira, searching for something interesting to say. “It was the same as every clinic we salvage—old, smelly, falling apart. There was a pack of dogs living in it, and, um … what else do you want to know?”
    “Did you see any dogs when you were there?”
    “No, why? Is that important?”
    “I have no idea,” said Mkele, “though it does seem odd that a pack of wild dogs would fail to defend their home against a group of invaders.”
    “I guess so,” said Kira. “Maybe the salvage group that went through a few days earlier scared them all off.”
    “It’s possible.”
    “Um, what else…,” said Kira. “We started on the meds, and then the bomb went off after just a few minutes, so we didn’t get a chance to test the X-ray machine.”
    “So you saw the front exterior, the foyer, and the medicine storage.”
    Kira nodded. “Yeah.”
    “Did you see anything out of the ordinary?”
    “Nothing comes to mind. Except…” She paused, remembering the marks in the dust. “Now that you mention it, the pill bottles had all been messed with before we got there.”
    “Messed with?”
    “Moved,” said Kira, “like someone had gone through them or something. Like they were looking for something.”
    “How recently?”
    “Not very long. There were smudges and tracks and marks all through the dust, both up in the cupboard and down on the counter.”
    “It could have been, as you suggested with the dogs, the grunt salvage crew that went through before you.”
    “I guess,” said Kira, “but I’ve never seen any of the grunt crews go through the meds like that.”
    Mr. Mkele pursed his lips, thinking. “Do any of the drugs you found there have recreational uses?”
    “You think one of the grunts was trying to get high?”
    “It is one of many possibilities, yes.”
    Kira closed her eyes, racking her brain to remember the names of the medicines. “I’m not sure—it’s all kind of rote at this point, you know? You know which ones last and which ones don’t, and you toss them in the piles without really thinking about it. But these vet clinics always have painkillers, stuff like Rimadyl, and a big enough dose of almost any painkiller will get you high. It might also kill you, though, unless you use the military nanoparticle stuff that obviously wouldn’t be in a veterinary clinic. Aside from that, though…” She paused, thinking. If she were a Voice, living in the wilderness and