Ruins Read Free Page A

There’s got to be a way.”
    “Hobb’s plan uses the explosion as a distraction,” said Mkele. “But what if we distracted them another way?”
    “If we could create a distraction big enough to overthrow the Partials, we’d have done it already,” said Hobb. “The nuke is all we have.”
    Mkele shook his head. “We don’t need to overthrow them, just pull their attention. Delarosa’s guerrillas have been doing that already, more or less, but if we went all out—”
    “We’d die,” said Tovar. “It’s like Hobb said, if we could do it safely, we’d have done it already.”
    “So we don’t do it safely,” said Mkele.
    The other men went quiet.
    “This is as final and as deadly as any situation can be,” said Mkele. “We’re talking about a nuclear explosion forty miles from the last group of human beings on the planet. Even our best-case scenario, where somebody finds Delarosa and stops her in time, leaves us trapped in the hands of an occupying species that treats us like lab rats. An all-out attack on the Partials is going to kill every human soldier who tries it—none of us hold any illusions about that—but if there’s a chance that the rest of the humans could escape, then how can we possibly argue that it’s not worth it?”
    Haru thought about his family: his wife, Madison, and his baby girl. He couldn’t bear to think of leaving Arwen without a father, but Mkele was right—when the only alternative is extinction, an awful lot of horrors become acceptable. “We’re going to die anyway,” he said. “At least this way our deaths will mean something.”
    “Don’t go volunteering just yet,” said Tovar. “This is a two-part plan: One group provides the distraction, and the other gets everyone as far south as humanly possible. No pun intended.”
    “Then we run,” said Mkele. His voice was somber. “Away from our only source of the cure. Or did we all forget?”
    The room fell quiet again. Haru felt a numbness creeping up his legs and back—no matter how far they ran, they still had RM. Arwen was alive because Kira had found a cure in the Partials’ pheromonal system, but so far the humans had been unable to replicate it in a lab. They’d have to start over in a new medical facility, and it could take years just to find one and get it working again—and there was no guarantee that they’d ever be successful. If the Partials died, the cure would almost certainly die with them.
    Haru could tell from their faces that the others were thinking of the same insurmountable problem. His throat was dry, and his voice sounded weak when he broke the silence. “Our best-case scenario keeps sliding closer and closer to our worst.”
    “The Partials are our greatest enemy, but they’re also our only hope for the future,” said Mkele. He steepled his fingers and pressed them to his forehead a moment before continuing. “Maybe we should take some with us.”
    “You say that like it’s easy,” said Haru.
    “What do you want to do?” asked Tovar. “Just keep a few in cages and pull out the pheromone when you need it? Doesn’t that seem kind of evil to any of you?”
    “My job is to protect the human race,” said Mkele. “If it means the difference between life and extinction, then yes, I will keep Partials in cages.”
    Tovar’s face was grim. “I keep forgetting you had this same job under Delarosa.”
    “Delarosa was trying to save the human race,” said Mkele. “Her only crime was that she was willing to go too far in order to do it. We decided, briefly, that we didn’t want to go along with her, but look at us: We’re hiding in a basement, letting Delarosa fight our battles, seriously considering letting her deploy a nuclear bomb. We are long past the point where we can pick and choose our morality. We either save our species or we don’t.”
    “Yes,” said Tovar, “but I’d prefer it if we were still worth saving by the end of it.”
    “We either save our species