Green Fields (Book 9): Exodus

by Lecter, Adrienne

  Realizing—and rationalizing—all that was one thing.

  That didn’t mean I’d have to accept any of it.

  This time when the wave of anger swelled, I didn’t keep it down. Didn’t try to disband it. Didn’t even try to ignore it. At first, it was only simmering like coals left over from last night’s fire. Then embers turned into sparks as new wind gushing in fanned them back into flames; flames that, if left unchecked, would burn down the entire world—

  I belatedly realized that someone had been talking to me—well, at me at least—for a while before I heard a single word, and it was mostly Gita’s pained cough that drew me out of my stupor. She was lying on the floor by the elevators, curled in on herself, crying softly. One might have expected our medic to join her but Parker was plastered to the opposite wall, as far away from her as he could get. Burns and Hill were kneeling by her side, doing what little they could to fix what couldn’t be fixed. It was Richards’s voice that intruded in my thoughts, momentarily giving me something else to focus on.

  “You gave her the serum?” he repeated for what was likely the tenth time. I really didn’t care, but forced myself to nod.

  “We’ll only know if it works in a day or two,” I offered my misinformed opinion. “Her progression is about double what we’re used to from the normal shamblers, but might also be due to her body going to war with itself because of the serum. If she makes it out of here alive, someone should hold watch over her, just to be sure.” That certainly wouldn’t be me, but I didn’t add that.

  Red nodded, as if he’d assumed as much. “You went back for the rest of the doses.” Not a question, so I just stared at him, letting him stew in his obvious guilt. Asshole.

  “I still have two more left,” I said, raising my voice ever so slightly—not that it was necessary. The room was small enough that none of us could breathe without all the others hearing it. My eyes fell on Parker, then Russell, Munez, and all the other injured. “No idea what this shit does, and we’ve seen from Rodriguez, Aimes, and McClintock that the serum might not save any of us. But if you never got it, it’s better than nothing.”

  “Only the old version,” Hamilton offered, the mere sound of his voice enough to make me tense.

  I turned my head to look at him, considering. “What?”

  He had no issues holding my gaze whatsoever, but for once he wasn’t oozing his charm all over me. “I said, only the old version of the serum is susceptible to wearing out. The newer version—the one that I got; that Richards got; that you and Miller both got—is engineered to outlive pretty much anything, including the experimental versions.” He let that sit for a second before going on. “It’s one thing to create biological weapons of mass destruction. But if you could, wouldn’t you make sure that your best ones are virtually impossible to put down?”

  I wasn’t even offended that this was another memo I hadn’t gotten. At this rate, it was impossible to keep up with the bullshit they’d pulled on me.

  “So when we die...?” I let him finish that sentence.

  “We get up, again, and again, and again. Didn’t you test that theory once on a converted one?” Another significant pause. “Didn’t you die three times on that operating table?”

  I continued to stare into his eyes, my mind reeling, but I quickly slammed the lid onto that can of worms before it could more than inch open. Not the time to deal with that—and, if I had my way, that right time would never come.

  “And the others? Who got the serum but not that supercharged version?”

  Hamilton finally broke eye contact with me, speaking to his men at large. “We knew there was a chance this might happen. We have doses of the upgraded serum on the ship. As soon as we get there, you’ll all get your shots. Can’t help you if you get yourself killed before that, but one little prick and you’ll be fine.”

  I could tell that several of them let out breaths they might have been holding for the past hour or so—but not all of them. Parker was the only one looking ready to lose it, but Russell and Munez both had that brave yet knowing dead-man-walking look on their faces.

  Reaching into the pocket of my pants, I pulled out the two remaining vials and syringe, briefly considering. They’d shot me up with way more than that, but then, this shit was likely highly concentrated. Neither of the men was showing signs of infection yet—not to Gita’s extent—so I figured hers really was a reaction to the serum more than anything else. “It’s a chance,” I offered.

  Russell and Munez looked at each other, then back to me, neither of them hesitating. Fumbling with the vials for a second—but more relaxed now that the knowledge that none of that shit, whatever it was, could kill me, had sunk in—I pulled the contents into the syringe.

  “Make that three doses,” Cole told me as he cracked his knuckles. I was still confused when he jumped into action, grabbing Parker in a headlock, subduing him within moments. Well, looked like it had been a good idea to grab that entire blister of hypodermic needles.

  “You can’t fucking do this!” Parker pressed out. Any further words he might have hurled at me ended in a muddled whine when Cole tightened his grip on him. None of the others moved a muscle to step in, making me wonder exactly how tired of Parker’s antics around anyone previously inoculated with the serum they must have been. It was kind of sad that I didn’t feel the least bit of satisfaction as I pushed the plunger on the syringe, sending a third of the dose into Parker’s veins. Russell and Munez didn’t even flinch. Good boys.

  I looked at Gita for a moment, hesitating, but then went over to my pack where I’d left it, got my last three spare magazines out, crammed them into my jacket and pants, and pulled my gas mask back on. Burns was still standing by the door, right where he’d taken position the moment I’d shaken myself out of my stupor at Red’s questioning. I held his gaze evenly, as much as the slightly foggy visor would let me. “You’re not going to hold me back,” I told him evenly, not making it a question or a threat.

  “Was afraid you’d say that,” he offered, still relaxed. “But I can’t let you go in there alone.”

  That sentence—mostly the phrasing of it—made me want to crack a smile, not that anyone would have seen it.

  “What the what?” Cole offered his opinion from where he finally let go of Parker, unperturbed by the medic’s venomous looks at his back. “We got out alive. End of story.”

  Now I couldn’t hold back a smile. “Fuck your story. I’m writing my own.”

  Cole gave me a look that explained what he thought of my sanity—or obvious lack thereof. “Going back in there is suicide.” No protest from me. “Hell, woman, he sacrificed himself so you could live! They both did!”

  “I’m not going to explain this to you,” I said, biting down on my grand example of lone wolves and what they might do once their mate bit it. “I’m not asking you to come with me. Frankly, I don’t give a shit. I’m not going to let him die, alone, in there. I get it, someone needed to be the bait. Someone strong enough to put up a fight to draw as many of them away so that the rest could get out. Doesn’t mean I have to accept that.”

  “You are one crazy bitch,” Cole muttered—but rather than hold me back, or walk away, he pulled on his own mask. “Then let’s do it.”

  And he wasn’t the only one, I realized. Burns wasn’t really a surprise, and neither was Murdock—he had been one of Nate’s people, just like Davis, who had been with Nate before throwing their lot in with Bucky. Hill wasn’t shy to explain why—“I’m not doing this for that fucker. I’m doing this because you got balls”—but the real surprise was Richards.

  He was also the one I had a beef with. “What, suddenly you find it in you not to abandon me?” I jeered as I watched him get ready.

  He still had a hard time meeting my gaze, but there was steel to his spine when he did. “I had my orders, and they were quite explicit. It was my sole purpose in being along to make sure the samples made it out of the lab.” He pointedly looked at the elevators. “T
hat’s outside of the complex, wouldn’t you agree?” I might not agree on principle, but we’d need every single one along, so I forced myself to swallow my ire.

  Trust it to Hamilton not to pass up a single chance to act like an asshole. “And there she goes again, killing good people for her own misguided idealism,” he offered, still leaning, relaxed as hell, against the wall at the far end of the room. He also looked ready to keep Parker from bolting or doing anything equally stupid or suicidal, but that didn’t keep him from dropping that gem.

  The rage building inside of me devoured every syllable of that, the flames getting fanned even more from the condescension in Bucky’s tone. I didn’t move a mental finger to stop them—right now, I definitely was in the mood to watch the world burn. Turning to Hamilton, I stared at him, letting him see all the derision and hatred I felt for him—and now that I had no reason whatsoever to hold back, I didn’t. I hadn’t expected him to blanch or some shit, but the humor drained from his eyes when they met mine. Oh, he knew what was going on inside of me—and for the first time he must have been considering that, just maybe, he should have kept his trap shut.

  “Are you going to try to stop me?” I jeered. Without rational thought, I felt my body kick into overdrive, gearing up for a fight that I really, really wanted to hurl myself into.

  Hamilton’s lips twisted into a smirk. “Don’t need to. It’s not like you can get in there, anyway. Security reset means that your account was deactivated. All our equipment to hack back in is on the other side of, how many were there? Three security doors. Didn’t consider that, did you?”

  He had a point; I hadn’t considered that. But the satisfaction crossing his face made it impossible for me to back down—not that I had any intention to.

  “Are you happy now that you finally managed to kill the one guy who might, deep down, still consider you his friend? And you don’t even have enough honor left to see if, maybe, you can still save him?”

  Bucky shrugged that accusation off like droplets of water. “I got orders, too. And they explicitly state that for no reason whatsoever am I allowed to jeopardize the positive outcome of the mission. That means no going back.” His gaze dropped from me to his men, those gathered around me. “I shouldn’t even allow you deadbeat assholes to try and help her.”

  The masks obscured all emotion on their faces, but I didn’t miss how Cole tensed beside me. Ah, so he really hadn’t drunk too much of the Kool-Aid yet. But none of them said anything. Guess that was my role.

  “You have a choice, you know?” I said, stepping closer to him. “You can keep antagonizing me. Riling me up. Don’t think I don’t get what you’re doing—besides being an asshole. But I’m done eating all that anger up. This time, it’s going to explode. It’s your choice whether that’s in your face, or down that corridor as I tear apart every piece of undead ass I find. You know that’s not an empty threat. You made sure that I’ve spent the entire time since we got to your base with my back against the wall. You took everything away from me that might have given me a reason to hold back—and now the last thing I had a reason to live for is dying in there. So either I die killing you, or I die trying to get to him. Your choice.”

  Deep down, I was aware that it must have been the booster screwing with my mind that made me believe those words with more conviction than was healthy—even for less suicidal notions. It definitely exacerbated my tendency to see the world in black and white only with nothing in between. My way, or no way. But that didn’t mean that I wasn’t right—and he had taken pretty much everything I cared about from me. My people were alienated by their propaganda that I was working with Bucky and his people; Sadie wouldn’t forgive me for leaving her alone to have the baby, and now that I’d gotten Nate killed, she’d probably shoot me on sight. I couldn’t join Raynor in the lab, and anyway, I couldn’t risk hanging around so that Decker guy could either kill me or twist me into the perverse opposite of everything I had been fighting for. None of that had really gotten to me so far because I’d had Nate—and spending the rest of our lives together, as outcasts, in the middle of nowhere, hadn’t sounded so bad.

  But now that he was gone, what did I have left?

  I wouldn’t have called it admiration that I saw in Hamilton’s eyes—we were both too stubborn to feel that for each other—but there was definitely recognition lurking there.

  He held my gaze for another moment before he shrugged and turned around, his dismissal almost enough to make me go off in his face for good—until I saw what he pulled out of his pack. It was the severed head of one of those freak shamblers—and it was still alive, if one might have called it that, eyes rolling, teeth snapping, never mind that there was nothing below its second or third vertebra remaining.

  “What the—”

  “You’ll be needing this,” he said, thrusting the zombie head in my face by what remained of its hair.

  Keeping my irritation in check wasn’t easy. “I repeat, what the fuck?”

  Hamilton’s smile was bordering on gleeful. “Didn’t notice that the doors don’t seem to be a real hindrance for them? That’s because they aren’t. Their iris scans are in the system, even after the security reset. Grab one of your own once you’re through that door.”

  Nobody remained standing in Hamilton’s way as he made for the door, the blindly snapping head held out like a macabre lantern in front of him. And, true enough, the panel not only lit up as the thing got close enough for the scanner to activate—the LED switched to green.

  I didn’t let doubt get in my way—or common sense for that matter—so I pushed the door open as soon as the automatic lock disengaged.

  Chapter 18

  The lights were off but the decontamination system was still on, pelting us with more corrosive liquids for the first few yards of the corridor. Then they shut off, coincidentally in sync with Hamilton pulling the door shut behind us, killing the last remaining source of light. I hadn’t considered switching my M16 for someone else’s so I still had no working light on it, which didn’t matter as five strobes were enough. I saw Murdock reach up to pull off his mask but I stopped him. “They likely have a multi-step system,” I remarked. “Hear that low hiss? That’s likely either chlorine dioxide gas, or ionized hydrogen peroxide. Wouldn’t recommend inhaling either until the complex has been aired well for a few hours.” Nobody tried taking their masks off after that.

  The corridor looked eerily like it had at our first entry—if one was to ignore the bodies on the floor. Both the spray paint and blood were gone, and already the last of the liquid was either seeping into drains or starting to dry in the light draft I felt coming down the hallway as the ventilation system switched to a different setting. Burns checked on the first downed shambler, and it only took him a few swings with one of my tomahawks to get us our own door opener. Nobody was laughing as we left the still-twitching body behind.

  The entire facility was quiet once more, the sounds we were making the only I could pick up. It was easy for me not to freak out as I was safely ensconced in my bubble of rage. Why none of the freaks tried to come after us was a mystery until we reached the point where Davis’s twisted, torn body lay underneath a heap of them. Just to be sure, Hill smashed in his head—a last token of respect, but also a good idea since we had to come back this way again. Still none of the shamblers were moving, but as I glanced at one in passing, I noticed that the skin around the bullet holes in its forehead looked weird. Signaling Cole to shine his light there, I took a closer look. Yup, it was healing, the effect even more noticeable at the much larger exit wound. Still no real explanation how they kept on after getting their brains scrambled, but then it didn’t take much for basic motor functions—even primitive amoebae could orient themselves along chemical trails. I vaguely remembered that one of the other doctors I’d checked up on—Dr. Nakamuri, I thought—had done research in growth factors and cell regeneration. The sick part of my mind briefly wondered how many test subjects he’d accidentally given cancer
before turning them into freak zombies. The world was better off not knowing, and so was I.

  On we went, Richards and I taking point as we neared the common area. Still nothing moving in sight, but as we got to where the corridor opened up, I saw something scurrying away at the very edge of the cones of light we cast ahead. We stepped over the last puddle on the floor as we left the corridor, only to be greeted by much stronger gusts of air, except in the corner where the ceiling panel was still dislodged. The blood splatter had probably remained on the wall because none of the decontamination measures could reach it.

  But we didn’t turn in that direction, along the trail of bodies we’d left in our push for the exit. We went down the other hallway that was looking pristine, particularly in comparison to the other one—but only until the first corner. My heart sank further as my gaze fell on several pieces of gear scattered all across the intersection between the bioreactor wing and the labs—a boot, two guns, several empty magazines, fabric that looked like a piece of torn-off sleeve. Still no blood or drag marks, but then they would have been washed away.

  Then we reached the labs, and I had to squeeze my eyes shut as soon as that security door opened, low ultraviolet light piercing them somewhat fiercely. It wasn’t the same wavelength as what the French had used to check on our status, but the usual UV lights used in laboratories all over the world for the most basic level of decontamination—where usually the last one out switched off the lights, we also turned on the UV lamps. The glare wasn’t bad for the others—besides potentially giving them sunburn if they stayed in there for too long—but it sure was for me. That explained why the shamblers had left the labs alone—just not a good hideout if you could lurk more comfortably in the dark maintenance spaces.