“How many did you save?” I was surprised that Nate would speak up, but probably shouldn’t have been.
“A good twenty million,” Antoine responded, his voice a warm baritone to his brother’s more rumbling bass. “In France. That is a little less than one in three. All over Europe, particularly in the eastern countries, the numbers are closer to one in two point five. The winter was harsh and claimed more lives, but we persevered. Of the seven hundred million people, a good two hundred million are still alive.”
The answering silence was deafening, the lot of us stunned into silence until low murmurs began to break it. I couldn’t help but stare at them, hard-pressed to keep my mouth from gaping open. “How?”
Elle offered a slightly triumphant grin. “We did what we’ve been doing for centuries when faced with foes coming down on us in superior numbers: we went into the mountains. They are easy to defend, and we had time to build shelters and homes in the abandoned bunkers from the World Wars and mines to provide for everyone at first. By autumn, we had many mountain valleys reclaimed and secured, forcing us to only abandon the cities to the dead. We had to give up a lot of luxuries, but in parts we still have electricity and running water, at least until the power lines come down. The reason why you haven’t encountered more of us is because for the winter, everyone has withdrawn to the strongholds. Less active people consume less food.”
Her answer made me want to ask for details—so, so many details!—but I refrained, instead zeroing in on something else Greene had dropped. Turning to Gita, I gave her a blank stare that was enough to make her hunch her shoulders once more. “And what exactly is your part in all this?”
I could tell that her discomfort at getting all that attention wasn’t an act, but the heap of bullshit that Greene had so casually dumped on me—again—made me less than sympathetic for anyone else’s plight. Plus, he had pretty much told me—and thus, her—to spill the beans. Tanner inadvertently took a step closer to his charge, resembling the big, protective brother even more than usual, and I couldn’t help but feel a hint of disdain ghost through my mind when I realized that move made her relax. I raised my brows, urging her on to speak, and with a sigh, Gita did.
“I guess it’s common knowledge that the video was released by the group who we all think is responsible for this?” She didn’t pass up the chance to glance in Nate’s direction rather than mine, but he gave her nothing. None of the soldiers said anything.
Alexandre eventually inclined his head. “We have heard mention that you blame a group of, what did Gabriel Greene call them? Eco terrorists? For contaminating high fructose corn syrup with the virus and releasing it at strategic points all across your country.” I nodded. He looked as doubtful about the story as Hill had professed to be a few days back. That, more than anything else, made me wonder if I’d never doubted it myself simply because it sounded so convenient, and hit very close to home because of Nate’s involvement with that very same group—only that he hadn’t known about their motives. “We never found out what made the outbreak originate, but the theory most people believe is that, all across Europe, around a thousand sick people arrived and started spreading the infection.”
Elle waited for him to fall silent before she interjected. “There have been reports that infection exploded in a few larger cities so it’s possible that the contaminated goods had reached us as well, but there have been virtually no new infections from food registered in the past year. But to be sure, we have switched to consuming our own produce where possible in favor of preserved and processed food originating before the outbreak. We’ve had some issues with starvation at the end of winter, but over the summer we should have managed to upscale production to feed everyone well into spring this year.”
“Then you’re lucky,” I offered, incapable of keeping my mouth from twisting. “We have tons of contaminated food. A candy bar is all you need to turn yourself into a walking bomb.” I’d never forget Bailey biting that bullet to give the rest of us a fighting chance at the factory. Too late I realized that this could turn into a touchy subject, but Hamilton left it at a contemptuous snort. Like he wouldn’t set up a contingency plan like that. I was sure that if I dug into any of the packs of his people, I’d find similar precautions than we’d carried around for most of the year.
“Well, it’s true,” Gita pressed out, her level of unease rising. “And I know because I’ve, ah, kind of been one of them.”
I wasn’t the only one who tensed and went still, staring at her. That explained her unease all right.
“Well, isn’t that just wonderful?” Hamilton drawled, but didn’t make a move. I felt a tad torn between my knee-jerk protective reaction and being a little on guard, but his sneer decided it. I’d have given her the benefit of the doubt, anyway, but now more than ever.
“I’m sure there’s more to this,” I insisted, earning myself a belligerent look from Hamilton.
It wasn’t that much of a surprise that Nate was the one to try to defuse the situation, now that he’d found his voice. “We all make mistakes based on not enough or the wrong kind of information sometimes.”
She shrugged. “They didn’t tell us they were going to kick off the zombie apocalypse. I doubt they’d have found so many volunteers to help.”
“Where did they find those?” I just had to ask, curiosity again overriding common sense.
“Craigslist,” Gita admitted. A few of the soldiers chuffed, and Elle shared a look with Alexandre that spoke volumes. Yup, stupid yanks. So much for good impressions.
“Seriously?”
Gita gave a noncommittal grunt at my accusing question. “Not just there, but that was where they started recruiting. It sounded all good and well, too. Stick it to the man, fight against the mega corporations, you know the drill. Their objectives didn’t sound that dangerous, more like guerrilla activism. Hack into a few servers, nix quality control checkpoints so evidence could be fabricated, although they titled that as keeping the corporations from continuing their lies and deceit. I didn’t even really believe in their message about Mother Earth needing a reprieve. Guess I was just bored, and jonesing for a challenge.” She paused, still hedging. “That was, until things suddenly started turning really weird and what had sounded like harmless blathering turned into fanatic creeds. That’s when I decided that, just maybe, I should back off. But it was already too late.”
I really didn’t know what to make of that. “When was that?”
“Weekend before it started up on the East Coast and Seattle,” Gita professed. “I tried to ignore the nagging feeling I had that something really bad was about to go down, but what could I have done, all on my own? And who would have believed me?” She paused. “Believe it or not, if you go to the FBI and say, ‘Hi, I’m a hacker. I may have done some very illegal stuff but those other guys are worse,’ they don’t offer you a plea deal like they do on TV. Monday rolled around and nothing much had happened, and I told myself to relax. Then that video from that guy going crazy after eating ice cream hit the web, and I told myself it was just coincidence.”
“But it wasn’t.”
She nodded at my statement. “No, it wasn’t. On Wednesday morning, I had no internet connection at home anymore, nor at the coffee shops down the street. That’s when I knew that something really, really bad was going on or else they wouldn’t have taken control over the media.” She swallowed uneasily, idly scratching her arm. “I tried calling a few friends, but half of them were too sick to pick up. Same as my roommate. I tried getting her some cough drops from the drugstore but they were already out of them.”
“Where were you?” I asked—a valid question, not just for the timeline.
Gita hesitated. No idea why she suddenly got so evasive. “East coast.”
“So the riots started—”
“On Wednesday evening,” she offered. “I knew there was a local liaison for the group, so I tracked him down. He was stoned out of his gills and very obviously not well anymore, b
ut he let me use his laptop—that miraculously still had a connection—when I feigned interest in checking up on what was going on. That’s when I found their dark web forum where some of them were cheering on the progress—and posted videos they’d made.” The unhappy look on her face was impossible to misinterpret. “I recognized a few of the names and did my best to remember them, but the dude got high-strung when I overstayed my welcome, so I went back home. Made it there just before the looting started.”
She paused, as if to give us a chance to ask questions, but when the uncomfortable silence continued, so did she.
“My roommate and I, we barricaded ourselves in our tiny apartment when we heard the sirens start up outside. Someone tried to break in during the night, but it was obvious that there wouldn’t be anything interesting here so they left us alone after that. On Thursday morning, one of our neighbors knocked, asking how we were doing. My roommate, she was barely breathing by then, her fever so high that not even cold compresses did anything to lower it, and she’d started vomiting blood during the night. I told him to go away, but he returned a few hours later.” This time, her halting had a decidedly painful quality to it. “I didn’t want to go. I was afraid of what was out there. But she… she died at just after three, and staying in the apartment with a dead body wasn’t how I wanted to spend the weekend, you know? So when he dropped by again, I packed up a few things and we left.”
Richards, so far silent, spoke up. “Why would you? With looters out there and everyone getting sick, why leave?”
Gita gave him a look that spoke plainly that she wasn’t that much of a coward. “For one, I needed to know what was going on, and chances were, that guy’s laptop might still be working. And Mark, he said we had to leave, and if a former marine tells you that you should beat it, you leave. He wanted to hightail it right out of the city, but I convinced him that I needed that laptop. So we went to fetch it. Middle of the day, Mark built like a tank, nobody bothered us. Until we came to that guy’s house.” She exhaled forcefully as she made herself go on. “Long story short, we got the laptop, but not only had the dude turned, he came right for Mark as soon as we got the door open, chewed right through his jugular. I was so stunned, I would have been dead if Mark hadn’t gotten a lucky shot in. I know I should have tried to help him, but I just grabbed the laptop and portable modem and ran. I hid on the roof of the house, figuring nobody would go up there by accident, and reception might be better. And it was.”
Forcing herself to slow down to where she didn’t skip over half of the words, she resumed at a somewhat slower pace. “Nobody was active on the forum anymore but I found leads to another. They were coordinating, still busy suppressing media coverage, only letting through what they deemed appropriate. They’d somehow managed to take out part of the electrical grid on the Eastern seaboard.”
I didn’t know why that made me glance at Nate, but the deadpan stare he returned made me want to draw up short. He gave me a warning look when I opened my mouth to inquire, shaking his head ever so slightly. No to the asking, but that was pretty much a confirmation that this was his doing. One of these days I really had to ask him what he’d been doing leading up to his mission. I vaguely remembered that a week from that, he’s shown up covered in bruises and cuts. I hadn’t asked then, and probably shouldn’t ask now—if I ever wanted to sleep again. But talk about regretting your decisions.
Gita, oblivious of our silent exchange, meanwhile droned on about some hacking stuff that sounded to me like what my scientific explanations must sound to the others all the time, until she realized half of us were zoning out. “Anyway, I managed to convince some of the people who were still online that this was a crazy, fucked-up thing that was going on,” she explained. “So we rallied, found whoever else we thought might be able to help, and started systematically tearing into their defenses and whatever we found that led back to them.”
Elle had followed the story with interest, but that made her perk up. “While you were still sitting on that roof?”
“Pretty much.” Gita nodded. “I had a power cord with me, and there was electricity, at least for minutes at a time, until Friday afternoon. By then we’d rallied over two hundred people, most of them sitting in the midwest and south where the virus was spreading at a slower rate. I knew the closest of the others was a good twenty miles away from me, and with the city full of screams and gunshots, I didn’t really want to chance it. But then the electricity died, and three hours later the modem as well, so I had to chance it. Still don’t know how I made it out there but I got to his house just after sunrise on Saturday morning.” Which was just about the time I grew some balls, destroyed the viral stocks from the vault in the hot lab, and thought the worst that would happen to me that day was either dying from a possible infection, or Nate’s wrath from having gotten locked in the decontamination shower. Fun times.
“Was your friend still alive?” Elle asked, having taken over from me to urge Gita on.
“He was, but he was sick. By then we had a good idea of what might happen so he made me promise to, at the very least, lock him inside his bedroom once things got bad. He gave me a brief update what they’d done during the night, and we jumped right back in, just in time to help take down their main server that they’d used for the media blockade. They only wanted to share the files and videos they’d compiled for their own archive, but we threw it all out there to see for everyone who still could.” Her gaze flitted over to me. “That included that video where you explained what the virus was and what it was doing. For most people in our corner of the world it was too late, but turns out, overseas they still had a chance to use that knowledge.”
That all sounded nice—and very edited down. “So what aren’t you telling us?”
She shrugged, although now that the cat was out of the bag and nobody had broken her neck yet, Gita seemed a little more relaxed. “We’re hackers. Of course we tried to hack into anything we could get our grubby little hands on. When someone managed to blast into one of the military networks, we found out that someone had started powering down the nuclear reactors, which at first we thought was sabotage because it killed the grid state by state. But then we realized that loss of electricity might not be the worst that could happen, well, compared to nuclear fallout, so we checked what reactors were still online and hacked into the controls of those. We also might have taken half of South America off the grid. And someone may or may not have published what he claimed was the President’s browser history on Reddit.”
I couldn’t help but snort, even though the rest wasn’t exactly funny. “Well, God bless your priorities.”
Another shrug. “It is what it is. By Sunday evening, my buddy was too weak to help, and on Monday morning the last battery pack ran out. Last thing I read on the ‘net was someone going bonkers about the sugar thing after your warning on the radio. That was the last connective bit that I’d still been missing. I’d found their distribution network info and shit, but not what they’d been spreading exactly, and how, or we could have warned people days earlier.”
“Do those files still exist?” I figured it was a valid question.
Gita hesitated, but then answered. “Greene has them. And I’m sure they do, too.” She cast a sidelong glance at Hamilton, who, of course, didn’t confirm or deny anything.
I turned to Elle. “And that’s how you got the information? At least about the virus?”
She inclined her head. “That, and warnings about what we were about to face. We could have saved more if we’d listened better, but it made more of a difference than any of our own contingency plans could have done, taken together. Whether you want the fame or not—and I can tell that, at best, you’re a reluctant hero—you’ve earned it.” Her gaze dropped down to my fingers, still splayed across my hips. “A lot might have happened since then, and a lot more that we can only speculate about, but know that you have our gratitude. We will support you on your quest however we can. Should you decide you want to stay
, you will always be welcome here, as is everyone else who wants to stay with you.”
I’d never thought I could be that conflicted about anyone offering their—seemingly—unconditional support. Maybe I simply wasn’t used to it.
“I’m honored by your offer. Thank you,” I assured her. “As for what we need…” I turned enough so I could cast a brief look at Hamilton, who caught and held it easily. “As I already told you, I’m just the technical advisor. Far be it from me to want to lead this mission.”
Hamilton let out a low chuckle under his breath as he took over from me. “We need maps, and any intel on how we can reach our destination, if you have it. Food and shelter for three days. We likely won’t bother you again on the way back but move right on to our pickup point at the coast.”
Alexandre gave a small nod, at which the diminutive woman who’d shown us the way in the corridor outside stepped up, drawing attention to herself. “We have three empty rooms just across the hall that you can use for quarters, if you don’t mind sleeping on mattresses on the ground. There should be enough bedding for all of you to get comfortable in. You can grab whatever food or drink you need from the kitchen or pantries. We have enough to feed ten times your numbers. If you need anything else, please let me know. You can go outside to your gear anytime you want. You’re all cleared with the guards.”
With everyone in uncustomary hygienic condition after the hot showers, a few of the soldiers were only too happy to tramp off to go foraging for food or catch some sleep, although my guess was that most would try to add some socializing as well. Cole, Aimes, and Hill remained yet grouped together where they were keeping to the wall by the door. That left Hamilton and Richards, plus the five of us. Raphael disappeared only to return with an armload of maps, half of them hand-drawn.
Green Fields (Book 9): Exodus Page 6