Free Fragments by Dan Wells Page B

Skousen. He looked gray and frail, like a corpse
     from the side of the road. He paused a moment, swallowed, and sat down with a barely
     controlled thunk .
    “If you’ll excuse me,” said Marcus, and realized that he was standing. He looked at
     the binder in his hands, unsure of what to do with it, then simply closed it and held
     it in front of him, wishing it was armor. He looked at the Senate, wondering if Heron
     was right—if one of them, or one of their aides, was a Partial agent. Did he dare
     to talk? Could he afford not to? “Excuse me,” he said again, starting over, “my name
     is Marcus Valencio—”
    “We know who you are,” said Tovar.
    Marcus nodded nervously. “I think I have more experience in Partial territory than
     anyone in this room—”
    “That’s why we know who you are,” said Tovar, making a rolling motion with his hand.
     “Stop introducing yourself and get to your point.”
    Marcus swallowed, suddenly not sure why he’d stood up—he felt like somebody needed
     to say something, but he didn’t feel at all qualified to say it. He wasn’t even sure
     what it was. He looked around the room, watching the faces of various gathered experts
     and politicians, wondering which of them—if any—was a traitor. He thought about Heron,
     and her search for Nandita, and realized that whatever he was trying to say, he was
     the only one who knew enough to say it. The only one who’d heard Heron’s warning. I just need to figure out how to phrase it without looking like a traitor myself. “I’m just saying,” he said at last, “that the Partials we encountered were conducting
     experiments. They have an expiration date—they’re all going to die—and they’re just
     as invested in curing that as we are in curing RM. More so, maybe, because it’s going
     to kill them sooner.”
    “We know about the expiration date,” said Kessler. “It’s the best news we’ve had in
     twelve years.”
    “Not counting the cure for RM, of course,” said Hobb quickly.
    “It’s not good news at all,” said Marcus. “Their expiration date is like pushing us
     out of the frying pan and into the . . . molten core of the Earth. If they die, we
     die; we need their pheromone to cure ourselves.”
    “That’s why we’re trying to synthesize it,” said Woolf.
    “But we can’t synthesize it,” said Marcus, holding up his binder. “We could spend
     a couple of hours telling you everything we’ve tried, and all the reasons it hasn’t
     worked, and you wouldn’t understand half the science anyway—no offense—but that’s
     beside the point, because it hasn’t worked. ‘Why’ it hasn’t worked doesn’t matter.”
     He dropped the binder on the table behind him and turned back to face the senators.
     Seeing them again, staring at him silently, made Marcus feel suddenly queasy, and
     he smiled to cover it up. “Don’t everybody cheer at once, I have some bad news, too.”
    Tovar pursed his lips. “I don’t know how you’re going to top the first bit, but I’m
     excited to hear it.”
    Marcus felt the attention of the entire room bearing down on him and bit back the
     urge to make another wisecrack; he cracked jokes reflexively when he got too nervous,
     and he was more nervous now than he’d ever been. I shouldn’t be doing this, he thought. I’m a medic, not a public speaker. I’m not a debater, I’m not a leader, I’m not . . .
    . . . I’m not Kira. That’s who should be here.
    “Mr. Valencio?” asked Senator Woolf.
    Marcus nodded, steeling his determination. “Well, you asked for it, so here it is.
     The leader of the Partial faction we ran into, the one who kidnapped Kira, was some
     kind of a doctor or a scientist; they called her Dr. Morgan. That was the reason they
     sent that Partial platoon into Manhattan all those months ago, and they kidnapped
     Kira because Dr. Morgan thinks the secret to curing Partials is somehow related to
     RM, which means it’s