Green Fields (Book 6): Unity

by Adrienne Lecter

  “As I said, it could be any of these three installations—“ he started to say, but Nate cut him off.

  “Colorado.”

  The Ice Queen, peeking over his shoulder, gave a nod of affirmation, as did Burns when he glanced at what was in the folder. I broke my staring match with Greene to give them a curious look, something that of course wasn’t lost to the cretin behind the desk.

  “Oh, you’re still keeping secrets from her? How precious,” Greene jeered.

  “Not secrets,” Nate grated, holding the folder out to me. “I just don’t bore her with all the inconsequential details.” He waited until I caught his gaze to explain. “It makes sense that it’s the facility in Colorado. That’s where I“ —he paused to amend— “we got shot up with the serum back when. If Taggard is as obsessed with getting his hands on it as you say he is, it makes sense that he would have started looking there. I doubt that they had any doses left, even in liquid nitrogen tanks, but the labs there might have documentation on how the serum has been produced. You would love it there. It’s full of little cubbyholes—“

  He stopped there before I could growl at him. It was so like him that, although he knew I was already on edge because of Greene, he just couldn’t pass up a chance to aggravate me. Fighting hard not to let any of them know just how much they got under my skin, I leafed through the folder, but the maps and blueprints didn’t tell me anything. Smacking the folder into Nate’s chest, I turned back to Greene.

  “That’s it? You just give us all that information, no strings attached?”

  Greene allowed himself a jovial smile. “And why not? You’re heroes! The people love you! Wouldn’t it be terribly petty of me to let my own personal misgivings get in the way of the good of the nation?” He paused for a second. “Don’t answer that. People change, as you yourself very well know. Besides, I’ve been waiting for months for someone to rise to the challenge and clean up that sneaking, thieving scum. They keep intimidating our contractors and stealing our inventions, not to mention snatching and grabbing women all over the nation. We found a solution to keep the city secure with the maze of beacons, but I’d personally prefer it if the people who trust me to keep them safe aren’t in constant danger from the undead or the chronically insane.”

  As much as I wanted to laugh in his face, I actually believed him. The vehemence in his words didn’t fit the memory I had of him, but it kind of went along with the image of the man sitting in front of me.

  “You haven’t been supplying them with the tech they use to gather the zombies up into streaks to hurl them at the next non-cooperating village?” A stretch on my part, but it was the theory that made the most sense.

  Greene’s smile grew a little, and I could tell that he was satisfied knowing something I could only take a guess at. “We built the beacons first, else we couldn’t have cleaned up what became our first base here, and started expanding from that. We started producing more when we were sure that shit worked, to supply it to other settlements.” He paused, giving us another thoughtful once-over. “Not unlike your effort to set up your people with weapons and start some kind of trade network, really. For a while, that was working well, but then that organization you hate so very much popped out of the molehill they had dug themselves in, and we put a trade embargo on them. That didn’t keep them from continuing to steal, of course, but on the plus side, that let us send a few moles into their ranks to get information back to us. Same as all the major settlements and other splinter groups, if you’re wondering.”

  “So, you’re what? Spies?”

  He shrugged. “Guess that’s accurate. Dispatch has all the manpower. The Silo has a lot of brainiacs and is well on the way of becoming the central hub for preserving what can be preserved of what we used to call civilization. There are other groups, of course, but I don’t think you know much about them yet. We here, we deal in information. And, guess what? That makes us vital enough that nobody else is daring to fuck with us.”

  “You’re not working with the government then?” I asked, a little surprised. Maybe I shouldn’t have been. His disdain when he’d been talking about their beacons getting stolen had been plain enough.

  Greene gave me a quizzical look that spoke plainly that he didn’t like me fucking with him. “What government?” He scoffed, but when I just kept staring at him, he started to chuckle. “Fuck, this is precious! You really don’t know?” His gaze skipped to Nate, Pia, and Burns, but he only got blank, somewhat hostile stares back. Greene shook his head, laughing under his breath. “Shit, I really didn’t think they’d manage to blindside you.” Turning to me, he leaned back in his chair, fingers drumming on the armrests. “There is no government,” he revealed, very pleased with himself.

  I rolled my eyes at him. “Call it whatever you wish. What’s left of our armed forces. The soldiers, the people most settlements use as guards. The faction that Taggard and his fucked-up mission belong to.”

  Greene kept shaking his head, his mirth increasing by the second. “There is no government,” he insisted. “Those are all just a bunch of scared fuckers who don’t even know what happens a hundred miles away from their base. They’re not even one uniform organization. They were smart enough to band together with the settlements. If you want to call anything a government, it might be that, only they’re all independent. They just realized that they don’t want to leave the security of the walls they built, so they dragged you suckers into that agreement you’re all still somewhat honoring, God knows why. We didn’t expect that to work, and judging from what’s happening out there right now, it won’t survive the winter. Good for you, by the way.”

  It took me a few moments to process that. “Are you serious?”

  “Deadly serious,” he agreed. “Wouldn’t you think that if we had anyone left who was a senator, governor, or even a fucking secretary to someone in charge that they would have come forward and claimed the title of president already? No one was stupid enough to want that responsibility, so crafty, deceiving jerks all over have banded together to hold onto what little power they think they can wield. It all works on the trusting backs of the scavengers. Because people like you thought you could make a difference, and that’s why you should do it.”

  I couldn’t help but glance at Tanner. He had the same marks as us, so that must have included him at some time. He caught my gaze, shrugging slightly but not looking too happy. “We all wanted to believe in a better world,” he pointed out. “No one’s gonna fault you for being idealistic. And unlike the assholes who dreamed up this fucking agreement, it’s still people like us who actually make sure that we don’t go extinct.”

  I didn’t know if that should have made me feel stupid. It certainly made me feel numb. Not that it all wasn’t something that I hadn’t contemplated a time or ten. But getting confirmation now felt like another dragging weight around my neck.

  “That’s why you never joined their trade network,” I stated, turning back to Greene. He inclined his head. “Let me guess. Both the people in charge at the Silo and Dispatch know about this?”

  His slight smile turned into a smirk. “Sure they do. Or why do you think Rita has made it her goal in life to bind as many scavengers to her as she possibly can? She never had a choice about this, same as your lovely companions. You did. She knew very well that not everyone’s as hell-bent on sticking their heads where they don’t belong as you are, so she agreed to cooperate, but only on her own terms. No one expected her to turn Dispatch from a huddle of tents into the biggest hub out there with thousands of loyal foot soldiers. Don’t hold it against her, I’m sure she’s choking every day on the fact that she can’t be honest and upfront about what she had to do. You still need her.”

  “Is that so?”

  Another nod from him. “As much as I wish I could give you everything you need—“ Greene paused, that smirk turning into a leer. “All I can offer you is information. I can’t give you the army you want. The people here aren’t mine to command. But I
can give you the free, open radio network so you can hail every single scavenger and free man and woman out there, and let them decide for themselves if they want to follow you on your crusade, or not.” His eyes briefly skipped to the guards still lingering behind us. “Most people who came here have settled. Built a life for themselves. Plus, we need a few hundred to keep our perimeters up. But I’m sure that if you call on the citizens of this city to flock to your banner, you will get a good couple people willing to fight alongside you. That very concept is still hard for me to grasp, but for every fucker out there who wants to see you dead or dissect you, alive or not, there are just as many who think you’re a hero. Their salvation.”

  “What, me?” I asked, incredulous.

  Greene nodded. “Your entire group, but since you’ve made yourself the pretty face of insurgence, you personally, too. Everyone knows the grand story of the feisty virologist who tried to warn the world about the impending doom.” I was certain that now his mirth came from the fact that he knew how that had actually all come to be. “Who, later, chose freedom over comfort. Who took it upon herself to rid the country of cannibals, came to the rescue of besieged towns, risked it all to get antibiotics for the sick, started a civil war against the new rising oppression, yada, yada, yada.” He made an offhand gesture. “You know the drill. You do something for entirely selfish reasons but someone else picks it up and turns it into heroism, and months later you realize you can’t exactly set anyone straight anymore because no one would fucking believe you that you just happen to have a lot of bad luck.”

  I wasn’t sure if that last bit was about him or me, but I got the message he was trying to get across. I wasn’t stupid enough to tell the people here that part of his recounts were a damn long shot from reality, but I was ready to run with the embellishment if it got me what I needed.

  Guess that made me just as much of a scumbag as he was. How things change.

  With my mind reeling from all the new information, I had a hard time feeling bad about that.

  “Okay,” was all I finally said.

  Greene’s brows shot up. “That’s it? Just like that, you accept the hand I’m offering you? My, how things change.”

  That made me snort, but I wisely held my tongue what I thought about the things that, in fact, remained the same. The somewhat weird looks we’d gotten from the guards before made a lot more sense now. It hadn’t been paranoia, or general resentment, no—it was a display of something coming very close to hero worship. They’d been disappointed that all they’d found was a single razor blade. Us being tense and silent must have appeared like determination to them, judging from their much more relaxed state behind us now. I had no idea what Greene had told them about how we’d parted ways, but judging from Punk Girl’s question whether I’d wiped the floor with him, she’d expected an affirmative answer from me.

  I wondered if I’d cracked my head on guard duty last night and this was all a very whacky, completely delusional dream.

  My contemplative silence must have gone on for too long, Greene getting bored. “Oh, come on. I can’t even get a rise out of you with that? Since when do you have a diplomatic bone in your body?”

  “She doesn’t,” Nate helpfully supplied. I shot him a nasty glare, not exactly thrilled that all he had to contribute to this conversation was to undermine me. Knowing him, he likely thought that was supportive. In a way, it was, his borderline dismissiveness underlining one thing: he had no reason to coddle me—because in his eyes, I was in charge.

  That realization made me gulp for a moment, my mind needing a few seconds to catch up with the implications. So much for asking myself whether anyone thought that Greene’s assessment of me—and how people perceived me—was something Nate believed, or was at least happy to run with.

  “Believe it or not, but I can at least pretend to be civil sometimes,” I offered, much to Greene’s amusement. “But you’re trying hard to light my fuse, just saying.”

  “That’s just my winning personality,” Greene enthused. “But enough of that. You want your army? How about you address the people of this fine city so you can get the ball rolling. Scuttlebutt has it that there’s a lot of traffic on the thoroughfares right now, and if you wait too long, even mobilizing every single scavenger out there might not be enough for you to have a fighting chance.”

  “What, right now?”

  Greene nodded. “The movie viewing’s going to end in a few minutes, leaving the stage all set for you. Friday night always has the crowds out.”

  I had to admit, I had no fucking clue what day it was. Not even quite what month. It should still have been August, but could very well have been the first week of September already. The very idea of talking in front of a crowd made my stomach lurch, but after the insane grind of getting here, I was too numb to really care.

  “Why?”

  Greene eyed me askance. “Why what?”

  “Why help us?” I questioned. “Even if I could believe that you’ve grown enough as a human being to be above petty squabbles—which, for the record, I don’t—why risk doing this? You must know that the other side is spying on you as much as you are on them. You’re risking your own people here, not just those that might come with us.”

  He considered that briefly, idly swiveling his chair a little to the side and back. “Likely for the same reason why you’re ready to go on a crusade, even after losing almost half of your people.” He paused, his eyes briefly skimming to the guard woman before skipping back to me. “It might interest you to know that all of your injured people are still alive. Romanoff is being a pest, trying to walk when he really cannot yet. Martinez has kicked the onsetting infection but is still lamenting the loss of his legs, apparently loudly enough so that chances are he will still be doing so decades from now. Taylor’s burns got infected, but he’s hanging on. The rest are getting bored with sitting around idly, but I have a feeling that none of them will remain in Minnesota to spend the winter there.” When he saw me frown, he barked out a short laugh. “Everyone knows your names, sweetheart. Told you, you’re famous. And for once that fame might get you support, not just being locked in a tiled cell.”

  My fingers twitched before I could get them under control, hating to give him even the slightest indication that he could get a rise out of me yet. I forced myself to unclench my teeth as I replied. “Thank you for the update. But you still haven’t answered my question. Why help us?”

  I was surprised when it was Nate, instead, who replied. “Because Taggard and his army of assholes is as much a menace for him as they are to us. The zombies and beacons are a nice idea, but it only takes a couple of assassins, and everyone here is toast. It’s very convenient for him that we turned up here now rather than after the winter, when the other side has had another two seasons to recruit.”

  Greene didn’t protest, but didn’t look concerned, either. “You say that like it’s a bad thing,” he offered, his eyes skipping between Nate and me. “Look, I get it. I can’t convince either of you that I’m an upstanding citizen and leader. I wouldn’t attempt it, either. I frankly don’t give a shit about what you think of me, which is mutual if I had to hazard a guess.”

  “It is,” I agreed.

  “I have nothing to lose if I support you, but a lot to gain,” he went on explaining. “But yes, if those assholes come after us, we’ll have a hard time defending our city because we won’t see them coming with the influx of people that will start once it gets colder up north. Believe it or not, I am convinced that letting people fight for their freedom is the way to go. That’s the spirit that has driven us since we established this city. That’s why we don’t segregate between where people came from or what they did before they got here. All we require is their will to help keep this city free. I don’t presume any of you fine specimens would consider staying with us once you’re done kicking ass out there? Didn’t think so.”

  “Actually—“ the Ice Queen said, the conflicted look on her face sending up red
flags all over my mind. She glanced away when Nate’s gaze cut into her, but she ignored him, focusing on Greene instead. “After this is all settled and done, I think I would like to stay here. If you need someone who wants to work with children?”

  Greene’s eyes were close to bugging out of his head for a second, but he was quick to catch himself. “Always. We have a couple of teachers here, but I’m sure a lot of parents would rest easier when they’re on duty knowing that someone is watching over their kids who can get them out of any tight spot safely. And likely teach them a thing or two about self-defense.”

  She inclined her head, finally meeting Nate’s imploring gaze. “You know that I will always go to hell and back with you, but I think it’s time for me to find a new purpose in life. Watching you both self-destruct because of what happened made me realize that I want to move on from doing that to myself. Almost losing Andrej showed me that I don’t want to throw my life away. I need a purpose I can return to, that I can hold on to, once we get through this. You have her—and knowing you both, you will always find a new cause to rail against. You can always count on me if you need help, but in the meantime I would like to enjoy life.”

  I hadn’t expected guilt to be Nate’s first reaction, but he reined it in quickly enough when Pia’s eyebrows shot up. “I’m sure the kids will love that,” he professed.

  “Anyone else?” Greene asked, way too chipper for his own good.

  Burns cleared his throat. “You need a cook? I make a mean chili.”

  “Always,” Greene answered. “Just ask Manu here to show you around, once you’re back.” He nodded toward the older female guard, who eyed Burns rather critically but not without appreciation, earning herself a bright grin in return.

  Greene’s gaze came back to Nate and me, and I shook my head before he could get any weird ideas. “No way I’m staying here, in your city. No offense, but I’d rather gouge out my own eyes. I may have had to throw my dignity and pride under the bus, as you keep stressing, but I haven’t sunk that low.”