First published in hardback in the USA by HarperCollinsPublishers Inc in 2012
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Children’s Books in 2012
HarperCollins Children’s Books is a division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd, 1 London Bridge Street, London SE1 9GF
Copyright © 2012 by HarperCollinsPublishers
Cover art © 2012 by Craig Shields
Photo of girl © 2012 by Howard Huang Cover design by Alison Klapthor
Dan Wells asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this ebook is available from the British Library
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Source ISBN: 9780007465224
Ebook Edition © APRIL 2012 ISBN: 9780007465576
Version: 2017-05-03
This book is dedicated to the rule breakers, the troublemakers, and the revolutionaries. Sometimes the hand that feeds you needs a good bite.
Contents
Dedication
PART 1
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
PART 2 - THREE MONTHS LATER
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
PART 3 - FOUR HOURS LATER
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Acknowledgements
Newborn #485GA18M died on June 30, 2076, at 6:07 in the morning. She was three days old. The average lifespan of a human child, in the time since the Break, was fifty-six hours.
They didn’t even name them anymore.
Kira Walker looked on helplessly while Dr. Skousen examined the tiny body. The nurses—half of them pregnant as well—recorded the details of its life and death, faceless in bodysuits and gas masks. The mother wailed despondently from the hallway, muffled by the glass. Ariel McAdams, barely eighteen years old. The mother of a corpse.
“Core temperature ninety-nine degrees at birth,” said a nurse, scrolling through the thermometer readout. Her voice was tinny through the mask; Kira didn’t know her name. Another nurse carefully transcribed the numbers on a sheet of yellow paper. “Ninety-eight degrees at two days,” the nurse continued. “Ninety-nine at four o’clock this morning. One-oh-nine point five at time of death.” They moved softly through the room, pale green shadows in a land of the dead.
“Just let me hold her,” cried Ariel. Her voice cracked and broke. “Just let me hold her.”
The nurses ignored her. This was the third birth this week, and the third death; it was more important to record the death, to learn from it—to prevent, if not the next one, then the one after that, or the hundredth, or the thousandth. To find a way, somehow, to help a human child survive.
“Heart rate?” asked another nurse.
I can’t do this anymore, thought Kira. I’m here to be a nurse, not an undertaker—
“Heart rate?” asked the nurse again, her voice insistent. It was Nurse Hardy, the head of maternity.
Kira snapped back to attention; monitoring the heart was her job. “Heart rate steady until four this morning, spiking from 107 to 133 beats per minute. Heart rate at five o’clock was 149. Heart rate at six was 154. Heart rate at six-oh-six was . . . 72.”
Ariel wailed again.
“My figures confirm,” said another nurse. Nurse Hardy wrote the numbers down but scowled at Kira.
“You need to stay focused,” she said gruffly. “There are a lot of medical interns