In a sense, dying soon was maybe not so bad.
That sentiment was enough to switch my focus back to the people around us, and I couldn’t help but single out the handful of my friends, who’d spent the brief intermission of the three of us tearing into each other in hushed tones having their own, much concerned discussions. It wasn’t that much of a surprise that Martinez looked the most upset. Any single one of us—or maybe that was just me and Burns—in his shoes would have been gloating at least a little, in an “I told you so!” sense. He’d always been adamantly against getting the serum himself, and from what I’d heard, had to fight a battle of wills against Emily Raynor not to be inoculated when she’d done her best to fix his spine injury in trade for us joining the expedition to France. But with very few exceptions, he’d just heard all of his close friends getting a death warrant served, and he was the kind of good guy who wouldn’t just shake that off. Santos and Clark, both in a similar boat with him in that aspect, looked perturbed, but since nobody was insta-converting right that moment and coming for them, they both bottomed out at appearing vaguely disconcerted. No surprise with the Ice Queen and Andrej, either—while he did look ready to ask for a bottle of vodka, nothing could really faze him, and she was her usual collected, hard self. Who was definitely breaking his usual MO was Burns, but then this wasn’t exactly a joking matter. I had a distinct sense that he was mostly vibing off Sonia, who was whisper-shouting at him with increasing agitation, which seemed to upset Martinez even more. I couldn’t hear what she was saying but I could guess. Somehow, this would be my fault, too.
The rest of our group—the former guards from the California settlement, the handful of old contacts Pia had called in, and Marleen—seemed more interested in watching the reactions around them than looked concerned for their own safety. My guess was that none of them had been exposed to either version of the serum. Marleen’s attention did center on the three of us briefly and I didn’t like the cool, calculating quality of her look before she turned it into a small smile. It was likely too much to expect her to be truly upset; she was probably calculating how to stay out of the fray but not miss a moment should we, inevitably, turn and go for each other’s throats.
The scavengers, while alarmed in general since my explanation, took it in stride. A few of them even looked calmer than a few minutes ago. Part of me wanted to feel insulted, but really, I got it—we were all in the same boat in the end, and some might see that as fair.
That left the bunch of army soldiers. I hadn’t expected any of them to show much more emotion than our command huddle, and they didn’t. Richards was maybe a little white in the face, but that could have been due to the withdrawal symptoms. Cole was just whispering something to Hill that made the hulking soldier’s shoulders shake. Neither of them seemed very upset or surprised. Two out of the group whose names I didn’t know were standing a little more at attention than the rest, making me guess they’d been part of the serum project as well, but since their lieutenant was keeping it together, they didn’t seem to have a reason to be nervous.
So it pretty much boiled down to me, Martinez, and Sonia losing our collective shit. I hadn’t expected that, striding into the arena.
Maybe it was my stunned silence. Maybe he’d simply been biding his time, letting Hamilton and me have it out so he could spare himself having to sort through that. Whatever it was, Nate took that moment to whistle loudly, immediately shutting down all conversation, drawing all attention to him. Unlike in the tunnels inside, he no longer looked uncomfortable with that intense focus, but in fact seemed to stand just a little taller for it. No, it was something else, I realized; something that I’d stealthily gotten used to, and never realized it had gone missing when he’d decided to take the backseat.
The man standing beside me was Nate Miller, unquestioned leader of this chaotic assembly, and pity the man or woman stupid enough not to recognize that.
“Whatever the impact on our personal lives, this doesn’t change much, if anything,” he called out, speaking loud enough that the last straggling conversations easily faded into the background. “If you disagree, you are free to leave now, no hard feelings. But we have gathered here to hunt down the people responsible for all the shit that has affected us, and I for one won’t rest until I have their heads on a pike, rotting in the sun.”
No surprise there—the scavengers loved that statement and gobbled it up like… food that instantly upset my stomach all over again, as resilient in that aspect as it usually was. I swallowed hard, instead focusing on the other factions. None of them showed much enthusiasm, but there was grim determination on more faces than I’d expected—just as if he’d said what had been on their minds.
Nate, picking up on that very fact, went on. “We have few clues and even fewer names, but that won’t hold us back. We know that Cortez’s Chemist has been the driving force behind the experiments going on here, and he’s the first we will track down. Depending on what we find and what he will tell us, we’ll start working up that list, one by one.”
The male scavenger who was convinced my survival solely depended on my performance in the sack spoke up, looking quite enthusiastic about potentially sticking people’s heads on pikes, but less convinced about the details. “How are we going to find one guy in a huge country?” His gaze flitted to Hamilton, his eyes narrowing. Maybe he and I would become friends after all, judging from the dislike on his expression. My standards were pretty low these days. “And, correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m getting the sense that more than one individual is a turncoat here.”
Hamilton didn’t look fazed, but neither did Nate. “You could say the same for me, actually,” Nate pointed out. “Only that I switched sides before the shit hit the fan. Others may have needed a little longer to see the light.” He got a smirk from Hamilton for that, but no answer. Apparently, I was the only one who got steamrolled with those. Nate even went as far as to look at the gathered soldiers and marines before he went on. “What I’m calling for isn’t all-out war on any faction. I’d very much like for everyone who survives to be free to return to their people, or do whatever else they want to do after we’re done. This is not going to be an operation like the crusade that my wife kicked off three years ago. This will be a series of near surgical strikes—a few people only, doing what must be done.”
Harris took it upon himself to ask the pertinent question. “And that is?”
“Kill a man who goes by the name of Decker, who we believe is responsible for everything,” Nate explained.
A few people reacted, but mostly with confusion. The army and marines groups gave us little, making me guess that the name either didn’t ring a bell, or was something not talked about by those in the know. Not for the first time I marveled at how anyone could build such a reputation, and no less by mostly flying under the radar.
Suspect-Blowjob Guy voiced what most of the others must have been thinking. “Who the fuck is that guy?”
“A phantom, mostly,” Nate said, his voice hard. “He was working under the cover of recruiter for the army, but he’s been heavily involved with PSYOPS and most black-ops jobs none of you will believe our military has been conducting for the past decades. The serum project was his baby, and considering the events since I dropped out from under his patronage, I strongly believe that he’s one of the powers that is responsible for the apocalypse.”
That made even me do a double-take. Nate ignored my imploring gaze, instead glancing at Hamilton, who, if not outright agreed, had a neutral look on his face that could mean anything. The crowd succumbed to speculations for a few moments, but hushed immediately as Nate spoke up once more.
“I’m not saying that turning the world into a free-for-all for his creations was beyond him, but I’ve talked to several of the people who have had dealings with us, and all of them have agreed that it’s a possibility. Look at the evidence—the serum that is so close to the zombie virus. The fact that whenever one faction tries to thrive for stab
ility, things end up going terribly awry. And don’t even get me started on the operation that Cortez has been running here. It all makes sense.”
Maybe to him. To me, it still didn’t, and I wasn’t afraid to voice that. “How can one single man be that powerful in a world where getting from one town to the next is a gamble? And you did hear about the part where none of us is as invincible as we’d like to be?”
Hamilton responded rather than Nate, making me wonder if they’d discussed this between themselves. “Easy. He’s not controlling anyone’s actions directly. That seldom was his MO in the past. He set it all up, and then he kicked the game into motion. We’re all pawns, inadvertently doing his bidding because it’s often the only chance we got.”
“That’s—” Ludicrous, I was going to say, but Pia, very uncustomary for her, interrupted me.
“That makes more sense than a lot of other theories,” she offered, her voice drawing equal attention to Nate’s. “We have tracked down the traces of his plans and machinations all over the place. We found the scientist who developed the weaponized version of the virus. We found—or, mostly, heard about—the people who distributed the contaminated food. There’s evidence aplenty that someone meticulously took out the handful of people who could have worked against the plan, or even now possess the knowledge to do something about it.” Not incidentally, she looked at me for that. “And we’ve had dealings with the rogue faction who has been working on the mind-killing version of the serum—Taggard and his people, who kidnapped you, and now this operation here. It all depends on relatively small command groups working independently—and presumably, unknowingly—of each other, each following orders that they must have had for months, years, maybe even a decade ahead of time. The outbreak of the virus is the only part about it that could have happened spontaneously if humanity had been absolutely fucking unlucky. The rest? Splinter cells working off their task lists, one by one.”
I could have done without that explanation—and by someone other than the Ice Queen. It suddenly sounded way too plausible for the paranoia raging anew in my mind.
“Still doesn’t explain our failing immunity,” I pointed out, feeling stupid when both she and Nate—and Hamilton, with a second’s lag—looked at me flatly.
“Collateral damage,” Pia drawled. “Hamilton is right when he says that we are pawns. We are. Some of us highly skilled, and in motion for a long time, but still. All of us are dispensable. And a lot of us must have overstayed our welcome by a lot, considering how the forces in motion have been gunning for us.”
“You think he’d just throw thousands of lives away like this?” I couldn’t help the incredulity in my voice.
Nate shrugged off my argument. “He couldn’t have known that we’d eventually succumb to the virus. Now he’s just running with it. He still got over a decade of good use out of us; two, in some cases. That’s more than any of us thought we’d survive when we signed up for the serum project.”
It wasn’t the first time that I’d heard any of them say something like this, but maybe it was now that I was in the same boat with them that the real impact of that conviction hit home. I’d come to accept a lot over the course of the past years since the shit hit the fan—like that, not exactly altruistic as I usually was, I could see the worth in dying for others or even just a principle. But this was pushing it. Then again, working with the hand you’re dealt and rolling with the punches? That I was all too familiar with.
“Why not go for Decker first?” I asked what I felt was the obvious next question. “If we are convinced he’s behind it, why not chop off the head of the snake and be done with it?”
I knew I’d served myself up on a silver platter when I caught the gleeful expression on Hamilton’s face. “That cognitive decline really is a bitch, huh?” he goaded me on, giving Nate a sidelong glance. “Still don’t see how you can continue to praise her intelligence.” Nate didn’t react—which left me conflicted in so many ways—which prompted Hamilton to, finally, answer my question. “We would, if we had the first clue where the spider is hiding. I have been his top attack dog from the first month of the apocalypse until I got discarded here, and I don’t have a clue in which state he’s in, let alone the exact location. I doubt I stand a chance to weasel the information out of the people I have gotten my orders from, so hunting down one of his other enforcers is our best bet.”
“The Chemist,” I interjected before he could steal even more of my thunder. See? Not stupid at all.
“Exactly,” Hamilton replied, condescending as hell.
I was about to take that small victory for what it was, until his actual words caught up with me. “Wait,” I started, narrowing my eyes at him. “What do you mean by, ‘from the first month’ on? In the past, you told us that it was only during the spring of the year after—the year we started to clash—that Decker was back. Trouble keeping your lies straight?”
Two could play the squinting game, but for once, Hamilton sounded neutral rather than nasty as he responded. “I got my orders from somewhere, right? And while Morris thinks he did a great job pretending to be in charge, it’s easy to look back and see who actually pulled the strings. When we had that conversation in the middle of nowhere in France, I thought it was a more recent development. I’ve since come to change my mind. Nobody—not even a conniving fuck like Decker—can overhaul an institution like the US Army in a few weeks only. It all goes right back to the splinter cell model. A few people in key positions were all that was needed to keep the show going.”
That made a lot of sense. More sense than what he’d told us in the past, actually. It didn’t help the paranoia roaring in the back of my mind one bit. That, in turn, made me wonder how I was still alive—but the answer to that seemed obvious. Hamilton’s orders to make sure I didn’t survive had been a trap, likely to see if his connection to his former friend was still strong enough to circumvent taking the one thing away from him that he would never forgive Hamilton for taking. It fit right into what Hamilton himself has said about Decker’s motives—that my death would leave Nate vulnerable to be pulled back into the fold. That we agreed on that not being the case rankled, but I wasn’t beyond valuing my survival over my ego. We could agree on one single thing. Well, two, if one counted killing Decker was a necessity now more than ever.
Nate waited to see if either of us was going to add to that conversation, but when we both remained silent, he addressed the assembly at large. “Now, if anyone here has any clue where the Chemist and his people went, or where they could be found, that would be great.”
Murmurs rose, particularly among the scavengers—I figured most of them had been here days longer than us, and might have noticed a train of vehicles leaving—but nobody came forth with any information. Mike’s untimely demise rankled all over again, but I doubted he would have known much since they left him behind. Frustration mounted, and for a few seconds I had to fight for control, the urge to scream—or attack someone physically—overwhelming. I managed, leaving my body open for another round of shivers. Fucking drugs! Maybe I should look into what exactly that Glimmer shit was that Harris and his people were so fond of? Going cold turkey seemed to be more problematic than a tapering-off approach, maybe…
It would have been easy to blame the withdrawal symptoms for my momentary forgetfulness, but it was only when I looked around to where Richards was lounging that I remembered that we actually had found something in that warehouse. Fishing around in my pants for the strips of cardboard I’d torn off those boxes, I squinted at the addresses printed there before holding it out to where Hamilton could read it.
“That maybe ring a bell?”
His usual smirk was already in place, ready to blow whatever suggestion I had solely on the grounds of it coming from me, but as soon as his eyes skimmed over the print on the second, it dissolved into a slight frown. “That’s one of our black site labs,” he offered gruffly, clearly annoyed I had brought up something useful. “Where did you get that fr
om?”
I couldn’t help but bark a harsh laugh. “Seriously? You go to the length of having black site labs, but you send supplies to that very address? That’s just fucking stupid!”
Hamilton snorted. “You’d know, since it was people like you who must have ordered said supplies. That’s from something you found here?”
I nodded, my momentary excitement surpassing the need to keep my glare game on par. “Yeah, in one of the warehouses, where they produced the drugs large-scale. They could have grabbed that shit from any lab or supplier’s warehouse, but I figured, if you ferry new serum versions around, you may get lenient and just grab what’s already in stock to send along with the next guinea pig trial.”
Hamilton didn’t give me the satisfaction of telling me that I’d done a good job, but Nate’s nod was all I needed. “That’s as good a starting point as any,” he declared. “Let’s see if we have any means of verifying that, but it makes sense.” He did a brief calculation in his mind. “That would also be close enough to keep samples refrigerated, I presume? One way must be around eight hundred miles, and doable in just a few days.”
I nodded. “In a small liquid nitrogen tank, no problem.”
Nate turned to Hamilton. “Would be great if you could give us a list of all the other black site labs you know of. And generally, all the installations that could harbor our possible fugitive.”
Hamilton’s mirthless smile in return was a thing of beauty. “Are you seriously asking me to betray my people?”
Nate scoffed, rather amused. “We’re your people now. Get that into that thick skull of yours. The only way that you get to survive is if you help us—all in. No more bullshit about keeping anything back. There’s a good chance that before this ends, we will be with our backs against the wall with an execution squad in front of us, and you never know which small tidbit might be the one that makes a difference.” He waited for Hamilton to nod his agreement—which he didn’t, but his stoic staring seemed to do the trick—before he turned to the other factions. “The same goes for you, although I won’t ask you to give up your fall-back bunkers and hiding spaces. If you know anything you can reveal to us, please do so. It can be confidential between you and me and my wife only, and I promise you, we won’t turn you into betrayers of your people’s trust unless we are absolutely convinced that it’s necessary. I can’t stress this enough. Contrary to what propaganda will have you believe, it was never my intention to go toe-to-toe with the army or anyone else. All we ever did was retaliate, and try to ensure the safety of our people. If I can, I will minimize the fallout to as few people as possible. All we want is Decker’s head, and to cauterize that hydra for good so that more heads don’t keep popping up.”
Retribution: Green Fields #11 Page 8