Wounds - Book 2 Read Free Page B

through all this trouble to save this guy, protect him, keep him isolated so no one messes with him, all so you can cave? So you can kill him?”
    “I was doing my job,” she said, but distractedly. Her mind was going around in circles: The suit proves it; but if I convince him to give up the information willingly…Or maybe I shouldn’t; maybe our only destiny can be what we’ve already made for ourselves…. “I’m still doing my job. You wouldn’t understand.”
    “Yeah? Well, I understand this.” Arin pushed to his feet. “When did we become the monsters?”
    “We’re not monsters,” Kahayn said. She pinched the bridge of her nose between her thumb and forefinger and sighed. “We’re just trying to survive, Arin. This is a war, if not with the Jabari or other Outliers then with our bodies and this dustbin of a planet.” She made a helpless gesture with her hands. “We’re just trying to survive,” she said again.
    “Until when? The military’s swallowed us up and locked us down tight. When was the last time you even heard about cleaning the air or water, or doing something about the soil so radioactivity doesn’t stunt crops or saturate our systems; or even helping people have a normal baby?”
    “Damn you, Arin!” Kahayn brought her artificial fist down on her desk with a sharp bang. “Don’t you understand? Blate said it. The suit can fly! Put it together! We figure out the principle—”
    “From one dinky suit?”
    “Better than a propellant grenade. It’s a start. Besides, every particle of anything this guy’s ever seen could be ours. There’s an excellent chance that he knows much more that he thinks.”
    “That’s not ours to take, Idit.”
    “Says who? You want to stay here? Because this is about getting us the hell off this rock! Maybe not in your lifetime or mine—”
    “Oh, I don’t know about that. Keep switching out parts, and we might last a good long time.”
    “You know we won’t. Eventually, our bodies will outlive our brains. But he could be the key. Just because we can’t see the stars anymore doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try for them.”
    “Nothing justifies murder.”
    “I won’t kill him.” A pause. “He won’t die, I promise.”
    “Why should he be any different than the others?”
    “Because he is, Arin. Have you ever seen a brain like his? Ever? I’m not talking simply structure. I mean, function. His brain is working better, faster, and more efficiently than you or I or the smartest person on this planet could ever hope. He picks things up that would take us triple the time. He’s not just intelligent, Arin. He’s brilliant. And to top it all, he’s antigenically neutral. So maybe he’s the one who could facilitate repair and—”
    “So that justifies a bargain with the devil? With Blate? What, the hell we’re living in right now isn’t good enough for you?”
    “Don’t you lecture me, Arin. Not when I spend my days ripping out organs that don’t work, or hacking out cancers, or reeling out rotten gut.”
    “Idit,” said Arin, but it was a hopeless sound. Like someone who’d used up all of his strength. “Don’t you see? Blate has his reasons for wanting whatever information Bashir’s got, and you have yours, except they really don’t come close to overlapping. Do you really, really think Blate or Nerrit wants what’s best for us?”
    “I don’t know about what’s best. All I know is war, Arin. Fighting the rot, or the planet, or Blate…all I know is how to fight. If you stop fighting, you might as well just walk out of here and into the desert, and keep on until you drop. Or put a bullet in your brain.” She was silent for a moment and then said, a little dreamily, “In the beginning, it all seemed like such a good idea, a way we could stop fighting among ourselves. A way to keep going in these bodies for a near eternity. It can still be a good thing.”
    “Are you trying to convince yourself? Even you must surely see