Green Fields (Book 3): Escalation (37 page)

I shook my head, realizing that somehow we’d traded places on the moral soapbox. “It’s not, but I’ve always wanted to raise my children in a healthy, strong, loving family. I don’t really see myself living in such an environment any time soon. Besides, that would mean more commitment than just a donation from the prospective father.”

Amy looked surprised, and the way she glanced in Nate’s direction made me wonder what she’d read there; as it was, right now I wasn’t sure what there was, but I didn’t pretend like that wasn’t one hundred percent my fault. And with my thoughts still dark and my heart heavy, I didn’t want to think about it. It didn’t help that he’d extended his giving me some space to the point where we’d barely talked since reaching Aurora.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have presumed…” she started, then caught herself and offered me a small smile. “You know how they say that it takes a village to raise a child? Maybe if you stay here for a while, you’ll come to realize that it’s a two-way street. A village can provide what maybe one single individual can’t.”

I didn’t know what to make of that. “You almost sound like it’s a given that I’ll stay here.”

She shrugged as she got up. “Let’s just say that I’ve been watching you. How your eyes light up when you discussed their results with Megan and Ethan. How you keep startling when you hear something behind you, immediately going for your weapons. I bet that a year ago, when you used to work in a lab yourself, you didn’t have that forlorn, shell-shocked expression on your face all the time. Just look at the people around here. Look into their eyes, and realize what’s different.”

I wondered how she could read me that well in one aspect, but so completely wrong in the other.

“They are my friends. My family. Hell, they’re a lot closer to me than my real family has been for a long, long time.”

Amy’s smile took on a sad tint. “Because you needed them to survive. Now you’re no longer dependent on them. If you consider that, what remains?”

She left me to my own glum thoughts with that. I remained sitting there for another five minutes before I got up and stepped away from the gaiety and noise, wrapping my arms around myself as I slunk into the shadows. Was she right? Was it really just dependency and survival instinct that made it hard for me to consider her offer? I really didn’t want to think about that right now. Or ever. But I realized that I would have to, very soon, at the latest tomorrow morning when the decision whether I would stay or go with the guys was up.

I knew that I wouldn’t be able to sleep—the day had been mentally challenging, a nice change from the usual, but not draining enough to overcome that mental threshold where I could just lie down and sink into a deep sleep rather than toss and turn all night. Might as well do something useful in the meantime. So I went back to the lab, picked up the folders that Ethan had prepared for me, and started reading up on what I figured were easily years of research. Nothing like scientific papers to put a troubled mind to sleep.

Chapter 22

I woke up to the smell of coffee and fresh bread, dragging me from my fitful slumber. I didn’t remember much of the dream, but I could tell from the way my heart was racing that it hadn’t been pleasant—what a surprise.

Opening my eyes, I stupidly blinked up at the harsh white of the neon lights above me. Electricity… right. I must have fallen asleep on the couch at the back of the small office on the first floor of the lab.

“Good morning, Dr. Lewis,” an unfamiliar voice greeted me, taking me a moment to remember the rest. Brandon Stone was crouching next to me, armed with a steaming tumbler and what looked like two croissants glazed with honey. My mouth watered immediately, my sugar-starved brain screaming for the delicacy. I wondered what he tried to accomplish with the bribe, but still accepted it, pacing myself.
 

“Got a moment?” I asked once the last crumbs were gone, just as he said, “I’ve been meaning to talk to you in private.”

Grinning, I motioned for him to proceed, which he did after a moment’s hesitation, taking a seat behind the desk that sat opposite the couch. I must have inadvertently slept in his office.

“I imagine that you must have a score of questions. I’m happy to answer them all to the best of my knowledge,” he offered.

“Did you study law? Because that sounds a lot like what a lawyer would say.”

He allowed himself a small smile. “Pre-law only. I switched to economics instead. But that can’t be the most burning question on your mind.”

I shrugged. “Testing the waters, I guess.” I thought about it for a moment, but it really wasn’t what I wanted to know. “What happened to Gabriel Greene?” Stone had been his assistant, after all—or posing as that. Considering what I’d seen in Aurora, I doubted that he’d been there just to fetch coffee and print emails.

Stone’s smile dipped into ironic registers. “I figured you would inquire about his whereabouts. I’m afraid I can’t really help you there.”

“So much for your offer,” I chuffed.

“On the contrary,” he insisted. “He disappeared somewhere around early fall, and I haven’t heard a thing from him since. A few of the mercenaries disappeared, too. I think he was last seen fighting with them over some detail or other in the cantina.”

I couldn’t help but feel a certain grim satisfaction over what I thought Stone hinted at with that. “Making new friends everywhere, I see.”

Stone shrugged. “What did you expect from a man who tried to kill you although it was plain as day that you were neither involved with what was going on nor particularly incensed to help along. Which brings me to the question of why you are still with the very same people who turned your life into hell, and not quite incidentally were responsible for everything that happened to you that day.”

I wondered if that was just more of the nosing around that Amy had done last night, but decided to simply ignore that.

“If I’ve learned anything about myself over the past months, Mr. Stone, it is that I have a keen interest in my continuing survival.” Burns would have so ribbed me if he’d heard me talk like that, but I found it disconcertingly easy to fall into such patterns again.

“That I’m ready to believe,” Stone said. “Have you thought about my suggestion?”

“Which one?” I asked, not quite deliberately playing dumb.

His smile let me know that he was on to me. “To take over this lab. You’ve now had almost a day to make yourself a picture of how things are here. What we have been doing, and what we might accomplish under the right direction.”

“Wouldn’t that usurp your position?” I asked. “And what about Dr. Lowe? He has actually yet to say a single word to me. Doesn’t strike me as my biggest fan.”

My skepticism didn’t faze him in the least. “If I were you, I wouldn’t worry about Greg. Once he gets over the disappointment of getting kicked off a position he never had a right to in the first place, he will be happy dedicating his life to what he has actual experience with. He has been tantamount in our efforts to start breeding crops that will both withstand the weather and yield the maximum food for our requirements. And you don’t need to worry about me. So far what I’ve been doing is coordinating the efforts here and making sure that the people who actually know what to do think that it was their idea all along.”

I’d figured that he’d gotten his orders from somewhere higher up.

“And your directions come from where?”

“You know where,” he replied evenly, his eyes never straying from my face. “What’s left of the CDC and USAMRIID, and the few scientists who have been recruited before the incident and managed to make it to safety. A lot less than any of our contingency plans entailed, even our worst-case scenarios.” He paused, laughing humorlessly. “In fact, you have a lot of leverage on your end. We need you. Desperately. I’ve never figured you for a woman who would extort anyone, but if you set your mind to it, you likely could go a long way. Heading this lab here is only a first step.”

If he thought he could appeal to my megalomania, he was betting on the wrong horse.

“That’s all well and good, but—“

Stone interrupted me there. “Let’s be frank here. If not for that conniving, malicious bitch, you and Raleigh Miller would have been working on this project for years together.” He must mean Thecla Soudekis with that—the woman who’d been my supervisor while I’d worked down in the hot labs, and who’d killed Nate’s brother for reasons still unknown to this day. Or at least unknown to me.

“Raleigh’s vaccine was next to useless,” I pointed out.

“That was only months into the development,” Stone interjected. “The reason why you were recruited was because he felt like you possessed both the knowledge and intellect to complement his own. We have been watching your progress since grad school, and your thesis confirmed that you were the right woman for the job. Have you never felt resentment for the woman who practically rid you of the purpose you were meant to fulfill? Now you get a second chance. A chance that humanity needs you to take, if we all want to survive. From your accounts it seems like you kept mostly to the stretches of the country that were always sparsely inhabited. Do you have any idea how bad it was in the population centers? And while the first wave of this plague has run its course, we’re by far not yet on the other side, and as it looks now, not likely to come out on top.”

I couldn’t help but scoff. “I probably know better than you just how bad it’s out there.”

Stone made a face, but eventually inclined his head. “I can see where you think you know. I’m not just talking about the zombies. I’m talking about the people who still get infected, either through contaminated food or minor injuries they would have otherwise survived. We have rough estimations that of every hundred thousand that survived, only twenty thousand made it through the winter, and only a part of them were actually killed or eaten. If we let this continue, we will have watched as our species goes extinct. Is that really what you want?”

The numbers were scary, but not outside of what I’d expected. Then again, I hadn’t thought that there were even that many people left to start with.

“And you think a vaccine is the way to throw evolution a curveball?” I asked.

He nodded. “We need it, and we need it as quickly as possible. And to have a chance at accomplishing that, we need you. What do you say?”

Presented like that, it was hard to say no, particularly as it would immediately paint me in the worst light—and I wasn’t sure that Stone would simply let me walk out like this if he really was as desperate as he sounded. Again with the paranoia.

As if he’d read my thoughts, he offered me a wry smile. “Don’t worry, I’m not trying to coerce you into anything. Your cooperation is only of value if you mean it. A lot of pressure and responsibility will end up on your shoulders. I wouldn’t want that to happen to a woman who can’t handle it.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked, realizing that I felt offended for real.

Stone stapled his fingers in front of his chest. “My assumptions are based on Raleigh Miller’s assessment of your capabilities. You probably don’t know it, but after your little problem in the BSL-4 lab back when, Thecla Soudekis campaigned to have you fired immediately, calling you a hack and completely unfit for the job. The company didn’t know about her betrayal yet, and it was a very close vote to let you be part of the low-key projects instead. Even now that I know that she was most likely trying to sabotage what was left of our covert research branch, it begs the question if she wasn’t right in that one aspect. Your work records have always been meticulous, but none of your coworkers or supervisors have ever noted that you’d shown signs of genius level intelligence and skills.”

That was harsh, even though it wasn’t exactly news to me. I hated feeling that old wave of doubt swell inside of me, seemingly long forgotten after the tribulations of the last year.

“Not the best sales pitch,” I offered when I felt like my voice was steady enough again.

“But is it the truth?” Stone asked. “I’m happy to give you the keys to the kingdom, but you have to make something out of virtually nothing to deserve that. I could understand if the very prospect is daunting to you. It takes courage to tackle a project like that.”

“You think I’m afraid of accepting responsibility?”

He didn’t give me an answer, but that in itself already said tons. I couldn’t help it—even knowing that he was manipulating me, I had to admit that his strategy was working.
 

“Here, take a look at this. Maybe it will help sway your mind,” he said, pushing a folder at me.

Picking it up, I started leafing through it, immediately realizing what this was. “Just how long does this go back?”

He shrugged, although I was sure he knew the dates exactly. “Mid-eighties. And I would appreciate it if you’d keep this under wraps. Not even Dr. Lowe knows this file exists. It’s need-to-know only.”

“And you think I do? Need to know, I mean?”

He nodded. “If you consider taking on this project, you should be aware of its entire history. There are also the original research results included. I have all the files, if you want to review them. I wasn’t joking when I told you that you’ll get unlimited access to our data.”

“You didn’t tell me that yet,” I pointed out.

“You know now,” he replied. “I’m giving you this as a sign of good faith, because I think that Thecla was wrong. I think you are not just qualified, but ready for the job. It is, without a doubt, the biggest challenge there is in this century. Are you ready to take it on?”