Green Fields (Book 6): Unity

by Adrienne Lecter

  I got a shrug for my effort, the peanut gallery behind us chuckling. So much for fearing they would take my animosity toward Greene the wrong way. I should have thought about that before putting my foot in my mouth.

  “Suit yourself. You will be provided with food and lodgings for five days minimum, but considering that most people here will fall all over themselves to invite you to drinks, I think you can easily sustain yourself for years as you rest on your laurels,” Greene offered. “As I said, we believe in freedom. Freedom of choice to act like a stuck-up bitch included.” I didn’t react, making him snort. “Honestly, your ego, dignity, and pride look mighty intact to me. And you have an uncanny ability to get yourself out of tight spots, it seems. Who would have thought that, last time we met?”

  “A lot has changed since then,” I had to admit, and it wasn’t just me I was talking about. As much as I had a hard time getting used to this new version of Greene, it was obvious that his people saw something in him that hadn’t been there last year. I should likely have dropped the point, but I just couldn’t. “How come that of all the billions of people that died, you survived, and turned up here, no less? I’ve expected to see you again in a lot of places—the cannibals; the asshole preppers who built a reputation of shooting anyone they didn’t like; Aurora; maybe even in Taggard’s damn underground complex. But here? What the fuck? How did you go from licking Bucky Hamilton’s feet to running what might just be one of the last free bastions in the world?”

  Whether it was my doubt, or excessive use of profanity, I didn’t know, but the smile on Greene’s face brightened.

  “You really do have quite the esteemed opinion of me, eh?” he joked, then got serious although his smirk remained. “Tell you what. I’ll answer your question, if you tell me this. If I’d come with you, back on that intersection, would I have made it through the summer?”

  “No,” Nate and I replied in perfect synchronicity, making Greene chuckle. His gaze turned to Nate.

  “You would really have offed me, just so she wouldn’t have gotten her panties in a twist?”

  Nate shook his head. The hint of a smile he offered was satisfyingly dismissive. “Nah. She would have.” At the look of surprise on Greene’s face, he leaned forward, managing to appear intimidating without even giving it much effort. “There was a time last year when Bree wasn’t really in a good place. Before she realized that she can trust the people who have her back and will lay down their lives for her. We got through a few tight spots all right, but I’m ninety percent certain that if we’d had you tagging along, doing your very best to aggravate her, she would have used your face for target practice sooner rather than later.”

  That made me sound a lot more ruthless than I thought warranted, but there was true conviction in Nate’s voice. Although he tried to play it down, I didn’t miss how Greene blanched slightly. Apparently it was one thing to acknowledge that now, more than a year later, I was a force to be reckoned with, but quite another that I’d lost the required inhibitions for that sooner rather than later.

  “Very well,” he stated. “Then it was for the best that I didn’t join you. But I wasn’t very happy with tagging along with the other side. I met some of these fine people,” he nodded toward the guards, “in one of the protected camps. We soon found out that we all weren’t too pleased with how things were developing, so we decided to strike out on our own. Then we ran into Tanner’s group and ended up around here. The rest is history.”

  It was obvious that he was hashing over a lot—and some of that I was hell-bent on finding out at a later date, like how they had managed to build a base smack in the middle of one of the highest populated metropolitan areas of the country—but I had the distinct feeling that getting too nosey now wasn’t the best of ideas. But one more thing I had to ask.

  “Back at the Green Fields Biotech building,” I started, then glanced at Nate. “You knew who he was, didn’t you?”

  Greene looked satisfied rather than surprised at my question. “Of course I did,” he borderline jeered. “Not at first, and it took us playing twenty questions before I realized who he was exactly, but the moment they marched into the building, I knew what they were.” His eyes flitted to the Ice Queen before they strayed back to me. “And let me answer your next question, too, so you don’t have to continue to hedge around like this.” That accusation made me bristle, but he talked right over me when I opened my mouth to tell him where to shove his condescension. “I got the memos earlier that week, although they didn’t convey that we were right at the brink of the end of the world, or I wouldn’t have tried to make a stand. I knew what we kept down in our viral vault, and I would have gladly died to make sure that no one got access to the serum stocks or the derivative versions that were created in our very labs. Only that my hands were tied, and any more aggressive action of mine would have just tipped everyone off.”

  “You mean, more aggressive than slamming my face into the marble floor?” I ventured a guess.

  Greene shrugged, unperturbed by the hostility in my tone. “I had no idea why exactly he was there, or whether he had the training to get to the samples. My guess was that he needed you to get them for him, so scaring the living shit out of you seemed like the best idea to keep you from cooperating.”

  That made me scoff. “You do realize that your stunt had the exact opposite outcome?” I got a shrug in return. “In so many ways, you perfectly played into his hands. He couldn’t have set this up better if he’d tried.”

  Saying that made suspicion rear its ugly head that I’d thought I’d gotten rid of months ago. Glancing at Nate, I raised my brows at him. “Did you?”

  Nate hesitated a moment, making me want to punch him in the throat, but he replied with a jovial smile. “It’s always nice to see that you think me more devious than I am, but no. For once, reality didn’t screw up my plans but actually helped me. I expected that simply talking to you would be enough to make you see reason, but I’ve never passed up an opportunity to let someone else give you some extra incentive to help me.”

  That was one way of phrasing it, and while that still made me angry, I didn’t feel like contradicting Nate’s reasoning in front of Greene now. Judging from Greene’s smirk there was no need to.

  “I still don’t get what changed your mind. About us,” I said, indicating Nate and me.

  Greene struck a pensive pose, but cut the crap when I continued to scowl at him. He looked surprisingly serious as he replied. “Given the choice between helping you or anyone else stepping up to the task, I would likely pitch in with the other party,” he admitted. “But as you very well know, there is no one else. Our country is torn between egotistical asshole factions, the entire lot of them happy to hunker down and let someone else tough it out. We here aren’t enough to raise an army, and the fact that Dispatch didn’t just shows you how far Rita’s influence actually ranges. And it’s not like I can give you a deus-ex-machina solution that will let you snap your fingers and all is good and done. All I can do is give you the information you need and access to the people who might help you sway the odds in your favor. It’s still entirely up to you what you make of that.”

  “No strings attached?”

  Greene shook his head. “As your husband so very eloquently pointed out, I’m benefitting from you winning this as much as everyone else. Isn’t that enough?” He paused, considering. “Maybe I’m not that much of an asshole myself as you love to believe.”

  “Nope, I think we can all agree on the fact that we are all in the same boat there,” I offered, doing my best to stop frowning. It all sounded too good to be true still, but maybe I’d just gotten so used to being fed bullshit that handling the truth was something I wasn’t familiar with anymore.

  “Very well,” Greene said as he got up, glancing briefly at the folder that was still in Nate’s hands but didn’t demand it back. “Shall we?” When all he got from me was a confused look, he grinned. “Your address to the nation?”

 
; “What, now?” It had registered that he’d offered that before, but I hadn’t really taken him seriously.

  “Yes, now,” he replied, not trying to keep the belligerence out of his tone. “Or do you need more time to write your speech? Maybe a staff of ten spin doctors who can boil it down to the essentials for you?”

  I shook my head. “No, but shouldn’t I maybe clean up? I look and smell like someone who has been on the road nonstop for weeks.”

  Greene crinkling his nose made it obvious that he’d noticed, but he didn’t seem very perturbed by it. “Don’t you think that anything you say might have more impact when you still have the dust of the road sticking to you rather than after you’ve bathed and gotten pampered? People believe in you exactly because you’ve been out there with barely a day of hiding in a settlement or two. Why waste the opportunity to underline just how well-placed their trust in you is?”

  He had a point there—something I only grudgingly liked to admit—but in the end I inclined my head. “Sure. Lead the way.”

  I hadn’t expected him to do so personally, but when he walked by Tanner and the other guards I got the sense that he wasn’t going to miss this for the world. Turning to Nate, I caught his gaze, silently imploring him to tell me what to do, what to say—but all I got back from him was a neutral look. Perfect.

  Well, how did that saying go? If you want something done right, you better do it yourself—and it looked like that was exactly what I was going to be doing now.

  Chapter 12

  If anything, the large square that we’d passed before was even more packed with people now—or maybe that was just my perception as our gaggle of guards silently crowded us toward the small stage situated underneath where the projectors had beamed the movie onto a white-washed wall before. Punk Girl seemed hyper enough that she would have been useless had anyone actually been guarding us, but after our talk with Greene I doubted they’d had much intention of doing so in the first place. My mind was racing as I tried to come up with what to say, but I still wasn’t quite over the shock of finding Greene of all people here, and in charge no less. That he hadn’t just set all this up for our benefit was obvious from the way everyone treated him—a nod there, a smile here, a few words exchanged with more than one person we passed on our way through the crowds. The air around him remained jovial, but there was no doubting that people respected him. That was something that would require some time for me to get used to. Gabriel Greene, respected member of society.

  If he could pull that off, I could incite a rebellion with my little finger, right?

  Suddenly, facing the sea of zombies outside the city sounded like a more reasonable idea than speaking to the gathered masses here.

  “Did you get that last part?”

  Blinking, I tore myself out of the rising panic that was trying to take over my brain as I turned to Manu, the older guard woman.

  “Sure,” I lied through my teeth.

  Rolling her eyes, she held out a small battery pack and mic to me. “Here, put this on. That way everyone gathered can hear you, and we have a good quality recording that we can patch into the radio feed. No doubt they’ll be trying to block it, but with us and Dispatch pushing it to every connected new transponder, we should get you some decent reach.”

  I accepted the mic from her, snapping the battery pack onto my belt at the small of my back, then let her help me attach the mic to the strap of my tank top. With the heavy defenses around it had seemed weird to wrap myself in all my layers again, but now in just my boots, pants, and tank top I felt terribly exposed. Then again, looking out over the sea of people gathered, I doubted that even hiding in a tank would have changed that.

  Burns stepped up to me, his usual mirth in full swing. “Don’t you wanna do this?” I asked him, making as if to pull the mic off.

  “Oh, no, not for the world,” he barked. When he caught the quizzical look on my face, he clapped my shoulder hard enough that I had to brace myself not to rock forward. “Don’t worry. You got this.”

  “At least someone has faith in me.”

  “Lots,” he enthused.

  “I still don’t know what to tell them,” I admitted. “This kind of hit me out of the left field.”

  “Not just giving a speech, methinks.” Under different circumstances I would have been happy to recount how things had gone down with Greene, but right now I had something else entirely to concentrate on. Burns caught on to that soon enough, but still snickered at the face I must have been making. “Just do it like you did it in Harristown. Tell them the truth. Doesn’t matter if it’s two people, or two thousand.”

  That count sounded about accurate, and made everything that much more scary.

  “What if they boo me out? Or go right on to lynching me?” Not that I expected that to happen, not after the guards—and Greene himself—had been civil enough. Unless, of course, this all proved to be an elaborate ruse hinged on my need for acceptance, and the trap I’d been dreading for days was about to spring—

  “Stop the hamster wheels spinning in your head,” Nate remarked as he stepped up to my other side, ignoring my borderline hostile glare.

  “Easier said than done,” I harped. “Besides, could you for once in your life not sabotage me every step of the way?”

  As expected, he brushed my accusation right off. “You do your best ranting when you’re angry. And seeing as finding Greene here didn’t quite do the trick…”

  “Thanks for your vote of confidence.”

  Nate chuckled low under his breath. “Always.” Mirth drained from his voice as he leaned in and continued, barely loud enough that I caught the words. “Tanner was right. As much as my skills have helped us survive last year, they make me too fucking predictable. Just look where that got us. If we continue like this, we’ll all be dead before winter. Our best chance lies in breaking patterns, and you are much more qualified in that field than I am.” He paused, then added, “You know that I’ll always have your back. I won’t leave you alone with this mess. But maybe it’s time to rely on me only for strategy for the actual fighting, and leave the recruiting up to the heart.”

  I would have loved to spend some quality time debating that slew, but Greene took that moment to step up onto the stage, signaling me to join him. Nate’s slap on my back was as much a shove forward as a thumbs up. Gritting my teeth, I resigned myself to my fate, taking the couple of steps up onto the podium with ease… until my gaze fell on the sea of people before me, making cold sweat break out all over my body.

  Crap. I’d never really been a people person. And it wasn’t like anything hinged on my performance now.

  Greene didn’t have a hint of hesitation in his tone—or body language—as he called for order. It still puzzled me that people didn’t just ignore, but actually turned their attention to him. He gave me a curt nod to begin, the look on his face carefully neutral. I couldn’t shake the feeling that this simply couldn’t be this easy. Nothing ever was.

  Exhaling forcefully, I straightened my back, doing my very best to shove a wall between my mind and the rampant anxiety that was trying its very best to choke me.

  “People of New Angeles,” I started, jerking slightly at the tinny, amplified sound of my voice booming out over the square thanks to the microphone. “And everyone else out there who’s listening tonight. I stand here before you because I need your help.”

  I was met with silence, for the most part, as people shut up and hushed their friends, the anticipation in the air making me jittery. I had a certain feeling that this wasn’t going to be one of the great speeches of human history, but so far at least no one was booing me out. Or shooting me on sight. That thought made me feel twice as exposed as before, and it took another deep breath for me to go on.

  “If you don’t know me, I am—“ Dr. Brianna Lewis; the woman from the video, who warned you all about not eating anything possibly contaminated with sugar. One of the last people in this world who had first-hand knowledge of the virus
that killed billions; who might have a shot at finding a cure. That was the introduction that I would have offered months ago, but that wasn’t me anymore. Just as I’d told Sam, that woman had died the day the world ended. And even more so, that wasn’t the woman standing there, asking for help.

  “—Bree Lewis, co-leader of the Lucky Thirteen,” I settled on saying instead, glancing to the side where I could see Nate, Burns, and Pia. A few cheers went up from the crowd, making my head snap back forward, trying to pick out the individuals beyond the glare of the floodlights, but it was impossible. “Or what’s left of us. Sorry if I’m not the most accomplished speaker, but I just spent a hell of a lot of time on the road, locked in my own head.” Anxiety made me chuckle, and words spewed forth before my brain’s filter could kick in. “We should probably have switched up our driving order, because if it had been Burns with me in the car, there would have been a lot more talking and joking going on. Making us the fun car, compared to the staring broodily at dust and rocks car.”

  I paused, feeling a little better at the moderate wave of soft laughter that floated back to me. I considered how much to tell them, but there wasn’t really a need to be circumspect about anything. I was sure that half the country knew what had happened up in Minnesota—twice. The mere thought of the defeat that we’d suffered left a stale taste in my mouth. I could picture the triumphant grin on Taggard’s face, the knowledge that he’d bested me. That thought, like few things else, made defiance roar to life deep inside of me, and my voice got harder as I continued.

  “All of us, we have one thing in common. We survived the apocalypse. We beat the odds—some of us once or twice, others again and again. What matters is that we all are still here!” I did my best to swallow around the lump in my throat, remembering the faces of those that weren’t anymore. More cheers went up, defiant and triumphant both, before silence spread over the sea of people, making my skin itch with more tension.