“La Défense, right?” he reaffirmed what Greene had said.
Richards inclined his head. “Tour Coeur Défense, on the north side of the plaza.”
Gee, not even getting a destination helped clear anything up. All that my mind had snagged on was what sounded like an endless labyrinth several levels underneath the ground floor to me. “If the first thing we encounter down there is the computer projection of a little girl telling us that we’re all going to die down there, I’m out,” I grumbled as I watched Raphael spread out the maps all across the table, pretty much covering the entire top of it. Burns laughed. He was the only one.
Antoine watched the scout with a similar expression of doubt that I felt well up inside of me when Raphael put his finger down on a spot that was way too far inside the Paris metropolitan area than I felt comfortable with. “It’s a suicide mission,” Alexandre’s brother drawled. “Ajou is the closest base we have been able to hold since the outbreak, and that’s over a hundred and twenty kilometers out.”
Hamilton gave him a cool look. “We’re not amateurs, and we will find a way. We’ve come this far without losing anyone.”
Antoine didn’t seem impressed, yet before he could retort anything, Red spoke up. “We appreciate your warnings. We have encountered more of the undead than we anticipated, certainly more than we are used to from back home. You said you still have a population of over twenty million alive? As many undead as we saw out there, that’s hard to believe.”
Elle had an answer for that. “From what Gabriel Greene has told us in our previous conversations, a lot of your initial infected died and stayed dead?” Richards nodded. “Ours didn’t. We had a conversion rate of well over ninety-five percent.”
I couldn’t help but whistle through my teeth. “That’s… a lot.”
Elle nodded. “It’s what cost most people their lives—the inability to cut off a loved one’s head just as they expired. People are smarter now. That’s why we had less than ten percent losses from infections since four months after the outbreak. A lot more have died from accidents and diseases since then. We’ve managed to keep the dead out of the mountains, but our cities are still overrun, and a lot of the flat land as well.”
Richards looked less than happy. “So of the over two million inhabitants that Paris had—”
“Most of them are still there,” Raphael finished for him.
Didn’t that sound great? Considering what a few thousand zombies had done in Caspar in the spring—and twenty times that in Sioux Falls—that sounded like a shitload of trouble.
“There might be a way,” Elle proposed as she looked at the maps. “It’s been unseasonably warm this week. The Seine’s not completely covered in ice. We could use the boats. La Défense is very close to the river.”
“Boats?” I echoed. “I presume you don’t mean to row upriver?”
“The noise will be an issue,” Elle acknowledged. “It only works if the ice has receded far enough that the undead cannot jump onto the boats. But if you go by day and far enough up the river, then let yourself drift back, they might have quieted down enough so you don’t get eaten right at the riverbank.”
“It’s a good start,” Hamilton said before anyone else could protest. “Maybe we will come up with an easier solution, but I’ve heard worse. Let’s sleep on this first, and I’d appreciate fresh intel from you tomorrow morning. That should give us plenty of time to work on something solid.”
He and Red started discussing in hushed tones then. I didn’t even try to listen in. Boats on a partly frozen river, surrounded by very cold water, the ice around teeming with shamblers—what was not to love? Compared to dwelling on that, I downright welcomed Gita sidling up to me.
“You’re not mad at me?” she asked, sounding small enough that whatever residual misgivings her reveal had left in me—most of which resonating with my usual misgivings toward Greene, I had to admit—quickly dissipated into thin air.
“We all have our secrets,” I offered—and wasn’t that true. Just because most of mine had gotten freshly aired over the past weeks didn’t mean I didn’t know a thing or two about regrets and guilt. “And you didn’t have to try to help. You didn’t have to risk your life, and that of your friends.” Whoever that Mark fellow had been, he must have meant more to her than just a random neighbor, and I remembered from our past conversations that her roommate hadn’t just been an acquaintance, either.
“But I did nothing until it was too late!” she insisted with vehemence that I was also all too familiar with. “If I’d said or done anything a week earlier—”
“They likely would have killed you,” I finished the sentence for her. “These people had no qualms killing billions. Even though some of that was accidental, they knew there would be a hell of a lot of collateral damage even if they just hit the super soldiers and made them insta-convert. You’ve seen what damage we can do when we still try to act human. Without that? You’ve seen enough of that as well.” After what I’d done in that ravine today I felt like I’d earned the right to consider myself part of that faction, whether I liked it or not.
She nodded but hung her head. I hesitated, but rather than just patting her on the shoulder, I gave her a quick hug. Part of me needed that as much as she did. Damn fucking Raynor, signing my death warrant—and I hadn’t even been aware of it…
Hamilton’s voice grating across my conscience brought me back to the here and now. “Oh, she’s big on forgiveness. Don’t forget, she married the reject that not only betrayed every single value he ever stood for, but also used her life like any other poker chip in the game.”
Letting go of Gita, I did my best to hold on to that residual glimmer of warmth inside of me, trying hard not to let the anger seeping back consume it all at once. “Well, I haven’t killed you yet although I had a good three chances. I must be really big about forgiveness of late.”
Hamilton snorted but didn’t add anything that made me want to hurl myself across the table at him. He left it at that—which made me instantly suspicious—and instead bent down to get something from below the table… only to resurface with a stack of manila folders, dropping what looked like a few hundred pages in three neat piles in front of me. “The documentation of the project that you left on your bunk. All the update notes that Raynor had of the lab before it went dark, dating up to two days before that. And a list of the viral strains she thinks might be the most interesting. If your new friends here have a working printer, we can add the decrypted files we got from the conservatory; else, Cole will hook you up with a laptop so you can review them digitally. That is, if you find the time between screwing your brains out. After all, we have you along to be our scientific advisor.”
My first impulse was to shy away from the stacks of paper as if they were poisonous snakes, but my curiosity won, making me pick up the folder in the middle—presumably the notes from the lab—after a moment’s hesitation. I refused to react to Hamilton’s barb, even less so as I still felt mellow enough that it was more of a glancing blow than a direct hit. “How much time do I have for this?” I asked absentmindedly, already soaking up what felt as close to the Holy Grail as anything I’d ever come across in my life. I sure as hell wasn’t going to look that gift horse in the mouth, not after weeks of going insane from not knowing what was going on.
“Depends on how long we’re welcome to stay,” Hamilton said, his gaze skipping to someone—presumably Elle or Alexandre—behind me. “Two days, maybe three. We need to recuperate before the next leg of our journey, and if it gives us an edge, we have a day or two to spare.”
“So Greene’s assessment was right. You are running out of fuel,” I surmised, momentarily looking up from the data.
Hamilton didn’t answer, but that was saying a lot in and of itself. I suddenly felt a little stupid with my constant resentment clouding my judgment; I absolutely didn’t put it past him to annoy me for the heck of it, but it made a lot more sense that he’d been closed-mouthed because d
esperation wasn’t always the best motivation, particularly when getting stranded in a foreign country was suddenly also a very real possibility. It sure explained why he’d been pushing onward as if we had flames licking on our very heels.
As if he’d read my mind—a truly disconcerting idea—Hamilton offered, “Before yesterday, you hardly seemed up to reading two consecutive sentences, let alone understanding anything that’s in there. No one’s expecting miracles from you, but it will make our job a hell of a lot easier if you can point at things or rattle off numbers rather than spend hours searching. This is not a computer game where you just have to run up to the blinking quest icon on the map. We have no idea what’s waiting for us in that lab. The sooner we’re done, the better.”
My, didn’t that sound nicely cryptic? “I presume you know a thing or two about what might be lurking in there?” Greene’s hint was enough to make my blood run cold, but human experiments were one thing; juiced-up super zombies quite another.
Whether it was that he wanted to appear diplomatic now that our French friends were listening in, or he’d gotten tired of being an obtuse ass to me all the time, Bucky surprised me by giving an answer. “Know? No, and I doubt they would have marked these things in their update notes. But if I was head of security in a super secret lab that suddenly found itself shut down because of a security breach of some kind, I would unleash hell on whoever caused that incident. If that meant shooting up a kennel of test subjects with the latest version of whatever fucked-up shit that had been part of the ongoing research, I would do it in a heartbeat. Or if someone was about to kill us all by unleashing a deadly gas or other agent, I’d make sure something was set free to avenge us.” He paused, offering me a humorless grin. “I’m sure your husband told you a few of the old wives’ tales the men like to tell about the serum project headquarter that Raynor has taken over? Most of that’s just stories. Because where they actually originated, that’s where we’re headed.”
This was getting better and better. I was almost happy when he shut up, clearly done with the question-and-answer session. Picking up the folders, I briefly inclined my head. “I’ll see what I can find in this.”
Hamilton acknowledged that with a nod and without the usual verbal abuse, already turning back to the maps. I hesitated, wondering if I should stick around for planning, but I was the first to admit that I knew next to nothing about how to best find a way to infiltrate a zombie-overrun city. So I left, Gita the only one trailing behind me as I made for our new living quarters.
Chapter 5
I briefly considered claiming one of the two smaller rooms that the French had set aside as our quarters, but then ended up joining the others in the much larger room that sat in between—partly because one room had already been allocated for the contents of our packs and weapon maintenance, and the other was claustrophobically small, barely wide enough to fit two mattresses next to each other. Burns would have had trouble stretching out lengthwise across them. It also felt weird to be closeted away from the others, a fact I only grudgingly admitted. The entire last week I had been happy for every single moment away from them, but there was safety in numbers, even if the French hadn’t given us even a hint to be concerned about anything.
Or maybe it was that, given the news Bucky had sprung on us, I really didn’t want to be alone right now.
I ended up parking my tired ass in the corner by the door that had, so far, not been occupied. All along the walls of the room lay mattresses dressed with fresh sheets, and haphazard stacks of pillows and blankets in between—in short, luxury I hadn’t expected to ever find again anywhere on the road but so very appreciated. Gita moved a little farther into the room down the left wall, leaving me the corner including two mattresses that quickly got covered in stacks of papers as I started going through the files Hamilton had so graciously handed over. Cole came in shortly thereafter—probably an hour or two later—and stopped short at the other side of my paper fort, another stack of papers, smelling tantalizingly like fresh printer toner, in his hands.
“Just drop that somewhere,” I told him, not bothering to look up from the table I was perusing.
He gave a short laugh. “Don’t tell me there’s a system behind this mess.”
“Sure is.” Focusing on him, I was ready to tell him to stop screwing around, but then realized that I’d managed to cover my entire vicinity with paper, leaving nothing but the very end of the mattress to my right free, precariously close to the door and prone for anyone walking by to accidentally kick things over. “Gimme,” I said instead.
Bemused, Cole idly pushed papers aside with the tip of his boot until he could reach me, dropping another three hundred odd pages into my lap. And a sandwich—well, baguette, to be precise—filled with what looked like roast beef and brie, wrapped in a threadbare cloth. “Miller says you should eat this, unless you want him to stuff you like a goose. I was considering not telling you because that spectacle would sure be entertaining.”
Glaring at the food first, then Cole, I nevertheless unwrapped it and started digging in, not bothering to close my mouth as I chewed. “I’ve seen at least seven women since we came in here, and that was without visiting any of the common areas deeper inside the base yet. Don’t you have anyone else you can annoy? Or, you know, do more entertaining things with?”
Except for Davis, still nursing his hurt leg, and McClintock, who seemed to have pulled an extra long shift last night, the rest had fled the sleeping quarters quickly enough. Even Gita had abandoned me after she realized I meant business with the files.
Cole made a face. “Hamilton warned us not to antagonize the natives. So unless a buxom French mademoiselle is going to plunk her ass in my lap, I’d better keep my hands to myself.”
I couldn’t help but snort. I was sure that the warning looks Elle had taxed the lot of them with had done more to scare them straight. “So in the meantime you’ve set your sights on annoying me? Get lost. Unlike you, I have actual work to do.” Cole inclined his head, still grinning, but paused when I held him back. “Thanks for dropping that hint on the trek over,” I offered, meaning it. “It sure helped not to sound like I was bumbling in the dark with the powers that be—or rather, wannabe—all knowing.”
Cole hesitated but then relented. “You’re welcome. And it was quite funny to see both Greene and Hamilton fed up that you’d pretty much figured out everything by yourself already.”
“Helps to have friends sometimes.” I knew it was a cryptic statement and I didn’t even know myself what exactly I wanted to say with it, but Cole took it as the olive branch that it was.
“Sometimes it does.” He left me to my baguette and notes, looking as bewildered as I felt.
Dropping the section I had been perusing before, I quickly leafed through the file Cole had brought me, now a little less at a loss of what I was reading than when the files had still been encrypted, and I hadn’t had the full documentation spread out all around me. A lot of it was the same information as in the notes—weekly update reports for the most part, and a monthly summary of each project, from what I could tell—but there were a few nuggets of gold strewn in between endless tables of experimental conditions and raw data. As much as my curiosity still burned bright, what I’d read so far had done a few things to make sure I wouldn’t be able to sleep well going forward. They’d been doing experiments on human subjects all right, and while they’d used assigned numbers rather than names, it was impossible not to cringe at what was evident if one simply read between the lines. Twenty-three numbers had been mentioned so far, five of which had expired. Considering that one of them had been assigned dates more than twenty consecutive months, I wasn’t sure if those five hadn’t been the winners.
Another hour passed, and while I would have loved to be able to taste the food I devoured, I didn’t mind not losing the appetite I didn’t have anymore to what I kept finding in the files. Yet it wasn’t the superficial dread of compassion for the victims of the trials that mad
e me uncomfortable, no. It was the almost certain knowledge that if Thecla and her maniacs hadn’t killed Raleigh Miller when they did, I would have sooner or later ended up connected, on some level or other, with the research that had been going on at that lab—and very likely managed to justify it, somehow. I really didn’t want to contemplate what that would have done to me. From that point of view, Raynor’s utter lack of compassion and empathy looked more like a survival trait than a trade secret.
And there I’d thought Hamilton would be the worst thing I’d have to deal with on this trip.
Burns dropping by to claim one of the remaining mattresses—next to the ever-spreading piles of papers—was as good an excuse as I’d get to drag myself back to the here and now, and I was more than happy to let him physically pull me up and along toward where dinner had been set up in one of the larger rooms of the complex that I hadn’t visited yet. I still took one of the reports with me, but mostly so Hamilton wouldn’t have any ammunition against me and my purported lack of interest in helping with the mission.
The room—or hall, as it turned out—was about five times as large as the communication center, or war room, that we’d been in before, housing two long lines of tables and benches, haphazardly cobbled together to form some kind of a banquet setup. Both tables were covered in more food than I’d seen in one place for a very long time, and buzzing with people dropping in and switching places to grab a bite but mostly to shout on top of each other in good-natured conversation. I stopped right inside the door, the general level of noise making me draw up short. Burns, as usual, grinned at my obvious moment of overwhelm before he pushed me on toward the right of the tables where I saw Elle and Alexandre talking animatedly with—or rather, at—Nate and Red among a lot of unfamiliar faces. Bucky sat farther down the same table, stuffing his face while Aimes, Russell, and Parker were bickering among themselves. I ignored them in favor of squeezing in next to my dear husband, not quite sure what to make of the fact that both Hill and Cole dropped down on the bench opposite us when a few of the French vacated the premises.
Green Fields (Book 9): Exodus Page 7