Someone like Taggard would have laughed in my face for delivering such a speech, but Ethan almost caved under the weight of my words. I knew I had him there, for all the good that did me. But if you’re all out of options, you’ll take anything you can get.
Eyes wide, his lower lip trembling, he swallowed repeatedly before he opened his mouth again. “And what would you have me do? What can I do? They’ll kill me if I don’t do what they tell me to! You don’t know how it is—“
“And whose fault is that?” I jeered. “You signed up for this, right? Did anyone force you to come here? Things seemed pretty quiet in Aurora when I was there.”
He gnashed his teeth as he admitted, “I signed up for a promotion.” And another piece of the puzzle clicked into place.
“There’s one thing you can do,” I offered, doing my best to soften my tone. “You can open this door and let me out. That’s all you really need to do. I can take it from there.”
He squinted at me, then shook his head. “I’m already in trouble for talking to you. Besides, you’d never make it out of the complex. There are guards. Combination locks. They don’t even let me out to get some fresh air without a security detail. I’m sorry.”
Well, it had been worth a try. I did my best not to let my disappointment crush me. Looked like I had to do everything myself. But now that he was already here, ready to spill his guts, I might as well try to get the most information possible out of him.
“So what’s up with that latest version of the serum? I’ve seen the effects of the old one on both sides of the grave. Why’s that dude over there just a step above a mindless meat puppet? And why infect the women? There are cases in abundance that prove that the old serum did in fact not render the males infertile, but I’ve yet to hear of a single female who managed to get knocked up.” Which I doubted would happen, or it would have already occurred. It made sense that the guys didn’t know they had possibly fathered legions of offspring, long before the apocalypse. So few of them had had steady relationships to settle down and try to have kids, and if the guy insisted he couldn’t knock you up, did you really suspect him after a one-night stand? “Is it to see if you’ve managed to tweak the serum without ensuring that your cure really sterilizes us all?”
Ethan hesitated again, but shook his head. “We’re not along far enough to get to those finer points—”
“Because complete and utter stop of procreation is a minor point,” I taunted.
“It is if all your subjects turn into mindless meat puppets, whether they die or not,” he snarked back, letting out an exasperated breath. I had that effect on people sometimes. His eyes sought out mine again and held my gaze, the look on his face imploring. “I think they actually select for that trait. I’ve heard Taggard and one of the guards talk. One of their biggest gripes is that they have no way of controlling all the others out there. Like your guys. Before, they had rigid military structures, but that’s all in shambles now. If they had the manpower, they’d hunt down every single one of them to neutralize them.”
“Because kidnapping innocents isn’t enough,” I huffed, but forced myself to drop the point. “Still, why infect the women?”
He shrugged, as if that should have been obvious. “To test if that changes anything about the fetus. The tests have been inconclusive so far.” I felt like adding the acerbic remark that the test conditions maybe had a thing or two to do with that but, again, not the point.
“So this is all about control? And you still insist that your serum is a cure?”
Ethan was silent long enough that it was an answer in and of itself, but in the end he shook his head. “But we still need it,” he pointed out. “We’re utterly defenseless as it is right now. An attack similar to the one that almost wiped us out could come again. Or take the streaks. I’m still amazed that this one town that was under attack made it.”
His answer confused me. By now I’d pretty much assumed that my theory with someone controlling the tagged zombies was right—and originated with the same people who nabbed women now. Or maybe the right hand just didn’t know what the left was up to.
“Yeah, we’d be a lot more united if someone wasn’t out there kidnapping our women and killing off entire trader groups,” I pointed out.
Ethan’s face hardened. “We have to do something, don’t you see?” he complained. “You yourself got infected. How many people have we lost this year alone? Maybe what we do here isn’t pretty, but if the loss of a few can save thousands—“
And that was about where he lost me. “And how exactly do you defend that this bunch of assholes here wanted to gang-rape a fifteen-year-old girl? Explain to me how exactly that helps our society. How that advances our scientific knowledge.”
He had no answer for that, of course, but the defiant glint remained in his eyes. Scrubbing my hands over my face, I tried to hold on to what was left of my composure. Right now that was running through my fingers like so much fine sand.
“It’s partly your fault, too,” he said, making me look at him.
“Come again?” I asked, irritation screaming to take over.
He let out a derisive snort. “If you hadn’t destroyed all the samples from Raleigh Miller’s work, we wouldn’t have to reverse-engineer his progress. So in a sense, all those women’s blood is on your hands as well.”
That made absolutely no sense whatsoever. When I told him that—with the odd expletive added in—Ethan’s humorless grin just grew. “How should this even work?” I wanted to know, taking another step toward the glass pane. “He never got his vaccine working. He damn well died because his body couldn’t build up any immunity when Thecla infected him.”
Now it was Ethan who looked confused, but when realization hit, he let out a low chuckle. “Christ, you still don’t get it, do you?” He waited for my response, but when I just kept staring, he allowed himself a small, real smile. “Raleigh Miller didn’t die because of the serum, or the virus that it was based on. Sure, both kill when your body won’t adapt quickly enough to it, but that’s the end of it.” His smile grew. “But he turned, get it? The vaccine would only have protected him against the old strain, but what he was infected with, that was the pure, first-iteration zombie strain.”
My thoughts ground to a halt, my mind taking a momentary break to process this.
Raleigh had died over eighteen months before the outbreak.
But if what Ethan had just told me was right, he’d been the first ever zombie on record, independent of what the last phase of the serum did to those that had received it.
The ramifications of that weren’t something I ever wanted to consider.
They’d known. People in key positions—at the CDC, at USAMRIID, at the very biotech firm that was already working on the project—had known that there was a strain of a virus in existence that could, indiscriminately, wipe us right off the earth. The only thing needed had been a way to distribute it.
And someone, somewhere, had made damn sure to send one of their top operatives who they knew would finish the job to wipe out any and all evidence. For the first time since I’d learned that Thecla had been responsible for murdering Nate’s brother, I had a motive for the deed that made a hell of a lot more sense than misplaced professional jealousy.
Of all the times and places where I could have learned of this, now was, without a doubt, the most inconvenient of them all.
I could tell from the way Ethan jeered at me that he knew I’d come to these conclusions. That what I had become part of hadn’t been a rescue mission, or a somewhat shady attempt to put things right. It had been a cover-up. And by sending Bucky Hamilton in after Nate, whoever had set this in motion had likely counted on the fact that their personal animosities would ensure that no one walked away who could tell the tale. Only that the apocalypse had gotten in the way, and probably for the first and only time in their lives they’d managed to put their differences aside and bail, preserving all those lives that should have ended that day. Bucky had
likely counted on the zombies doing the dirty work for him, seeing as Nate had been gravely injured and most of his people had abandoned him.
Now the setup at the factory made so much more sense. We, Nate and I, were still around. We both knew what had been going on at Green Fields Biotech—or at least had thought we’d known—so that made us extra inconvenient.
Shit.
No, more than that, but my mind was lacking the ability to express just how much this tiny tidbit of news really shook me up. But Ethan knew because I’d never been able to properly school my face.
Ethan had to die. Preferably before he could tell anyone else.
But I was still locked up in this fucking cell, and not exactly in the position to take anyone down.
I had to think, and fast. Somehow I got the sense that Ethan hadn’t wanted to reveal quite that much, but if anyone listened in to our conversation, or reviewed it at a later time, they might very well come to the conclusion that he’d inadvertently told me too much. It was too late to pretend that he hadn’t just turned my world upside down, but maybe I could still steer the conversation in a direction that made my epiphany seem like a small, insignificant one.
“But you have Raleigh Miller’s research data,” I said, swallowing hard to get the lump out of my throat that still threatened to choke me. “That should be enough to follow along his steps, right?” I put just enough conviction into my tone to turn it into a half-taunt. A scientist like me could do that, but was Ethan quite there yet?
Ire sparked in his eyes, making me want to cheer. He’d swallowed the bait.
“It’s not quite that simple,” he grunted. “Particularly as you didn’t get his entire research, just the notes he’d compiled along the way. He had years to get there, and one of the best-stocked laboratories in the country at his beck and call.”
“But you have a new version of the serum.”
He nodded, not without a hint of pride. My guess was that he had been involved in that somehow. “We do. We’re reverse-engineered it from the virus.”
I wasn’t surprised that they still had some stocks frozen somewhere of the original strain—until my eyes fell on the soldier, still going at the floor that had long since lost even a hint of a bloody patina I was sure. I felt my pulse speed up while my stomach did a few weird things.
“You reverse-engineered the zombie virus? Not just modified the serum, but completely rebuilt it from the zombie virus? Are you insane?” Then again, considering what else was going on here, I should have expected it.
Ethan’s contempt for me grew once more. “It’s not a perfect solution, but it’s working. Of course there are setbacks, but that’s not unusual. We have been making great progress over the past month.” He grimaced, and it took me a moment to realize that he we was trying hard not to smile—never a good sign. “Actually, that one’s on you, too. It was only after the stunt you did as you left that I got the idea to propose that a buffering system might be key to success.”
“Buffering system?” I asked, already convinced that I didn’t want the answer to that.
“The virus itself is too deadly to be of any use to us,” he said, stating the obvious. “But as concluded from your blood test, women exposed second-hand to the initial serum accumulate massive amounts of antibodies that help stave off the progress somewhat. It’s not a perfect system as we’ve seen from our in situ tests, but in about thirty percent, the rate of infection is slowed down to less than fifty percent of the original speed.” I could vouch for that. It had taken me much longer than most to die—or close enough to count—from those bites than anyone had expected.
“But that still wasn’t enough,” Ethan went on, oblivious to where my thoughts had skipped. “We were able to harvest some antibodies that way, but they weren’t potent enough yet. So we had to fine-tune our approach.”
And that’s when I realized just how far their insanity went.
“You’re infecting the fetus,” I uttered, my voice so lifeless it came out as barely more than a whisper.
“It’s the perfect setup,” Ethan enthused, getting even more excited. “It only works if the father has already gotten inoculated before conception, or else infection would spread rapidly. There are still setbacks, of course. One in four of the mothers succumbs to the virus within the first week, but we’ve made great progress on fine-tuning our system. The natural stress-response helps steady the conditions.”
The implication of that made me sick. The fact that he could explain it with such an even voice got me considering in earnest just how long it would take me to bash my way through that glass pane.
“So, essentially what you’re saying is that you starve them, and rape them, so that their bodies remain in a state of constant crisis, to, what? Establish the perfect incubation criteria?”
“Essentially, yes. Of course we are constantly monitoring the parameters and tweaking our settings according to each individual subject,” he explained, his voice just a tad strained, but getting steadier as he went on. “Eventually, it’s impossible to retain constant conditions, and that’s when we terminate the experiment to harvest what we can. We’ve tried with the placenta first, but that proved not to be potent enough, as you can see with Banks here. But we have come a long way since then.”
He waited for a response from me, but when none came he gave a satisfied nod—as if his reasoning was so flawless that there was no room for objections from me—before he turned around and left. On the way out he tapped the solider on the shoulder and told him to follow. The remaining heap of suds was the only thing that was left behind.
Chapter 25
No more patrols followed, and rather than the nurses, the guys in their hazmat gear dropped by to monitor Erica’s “progress.” Deterioration was more like it. So far the women in the other cells had been mostly quiet, but whenever she started coughing, agitated grunts and shouts rose up, creating a wonderfully cozy atmosphere all around. But maybe that was only my nerves, laid bare as they were.
Even so, Taggard returning wasn’t something that brightened my day. I was once more in my spot, and seeing him zero in on my cell made me want to hunch my shoulders and scoot back as far as possible. It took all my strength to stay where I was, but there was no faking any ease or relaxation.
He studied me for a moment, but there was none of his usual gloating going on. I didn’t let that fool me—that guy was as much a master manipulator as a psychopath. And it wasn’t like I needed much of a prompt to ignite right now. Fear lay on my mind like a blanket that was simply too heavy to lift, leaving a cloying, bad taste in my mouth. With nothing else to do I just stared at him, waiting.
Taggard seemed to be waiting, too, and when nothing came from me, he stepped back and engaged the door panel. “Let’s finish this up,” he told someone behind him as he made room.
I knew that I should have been conserving my energy, but I was on my feet and kicking at the first soldier who made it into my cell. Not that it did me much good—one kick and two swings was all I got in before they had me plastered against the wall, my face mashed into the cool tiles. Once they got a good grip on me, they hauled me out of the cell and into the middle of the room, right into that ghastly chair. Panic spiked, giving me some extra strength, but still not enough to get more than one leg free. Someone hit my temple hard enough that my body went slack for a second, and that was all the time they needed to get the thick leather restraints in place. The only thing I could still move was my head, as much good as that did me with my wrists pinned down above it. I wasn’t even worried anymore how struggling had made that damn hospital gown ride up, although the hard, cold steel under my back and parts of my ass wasn’t my idea of comfortable. Taggard was back to studying me like an insect—which, considering my position, was preferable to him leering down at me. Not quite satisfied with what he saw, he reached for a lever at the side of the contraption, and the resulting yank forced my already spread legs further apart, hard enough that for a moment I tho
ught he’d dislocated my left hip. A pained gasp left me, but I was determined that this was going to be the only thing he got out of me.
“Really? You big boys are so afraid of me that you have to tie me down first?” I pressed out once I trusted my voice again.
Cocking his head to the side, Taggard kept letting his gaze roam over me, now with a hint of casual interest. If not for my inclined position I would have tried spitting at him. He poked at a bruise above my knee, hard enough to make me tense but not quite wince.
“That’s not for our benefit,” he told me, increasing the pressure before he let go. Two of the zombies were pounding on the glass, agitated with so much fresh meat so tantalizingly close. The other two—Gussy one of them—remained more docile. Concentrating on them was much easier than on anything else. That was until two soldiers entered the room, dragging a third one on two of those dog catcher poles behind them. The display at the very edge of my vision was distracting enough that it took me a few moments to realize that the others were backing away to make room. The soldier jerked, snapping at one of the others that still stood too close, and that was about when I realized two things. One, it was the guy who’d tried scrubbing the very concrete off in the middle of the room. And two, he was decidedly on the last leg of his journey to zombie town, or maybe already there.
That couldn’t be good.
As soon as the zombie became aware of the many people crowded into the room, it started hissing and growling, forcing its handlers to keep a good grip on the leashes. A third poked it with a cattle prod, but if the zombie felt that, it didn’t aversely react to it. It was acting kind of slow and groggy, compared to some of those I’d encountered out there, but that was the least of my concerns.
Resurgence: Green Fields book 5 Page 28