“No,” she lied.
Boldt didn’t confront her about it. “What about this world you find yourself in now? From your testimonies earlier, I’d say you and your companions haven’t found much peace in Deathlands, as you call it.”
“Not much,” Mildred replied. “I’ve killed more folks than I’ve made friends with.”
Boldt pushed himself out of his chair with ease and walked over to the computers built into the sides of the fibrous tunnels that made up his fortress. “I’ve got the power to remake the world.”
“By destroying the one that exists now.”
“Yes.” Boldt didn’t flinch from the declaration.
Mildred turned the situation around in her mind. There were two ways to play it. If she went along with Boldt, he might tell her more about how he was going to do it. But she had the feeling he’d know she was feigning support. “That’s not the answer.”
“But it is. When my father prepared the beginnings of Wildroot, he wasn’t sure anyone would survive. He had computers set up to handle everything. Nothing was supposed to be left. The human race would start over. However, I was already born.”
“So he made sure to make a place for you.”
“Yes. You’re thinking that was selfish?”
Mildred settled back in her chair, thinking. She chose another tack, letting her tactics form in her mind. “Where’s your mother?”
There was a brief hesitation. Boldt turned away from her, putting his hands together behind his back, still holding on to the curiously shaped staff. “She died.”
“How?”
“She was killed.”
“By whom?”
“It no longer matters.”
Mildred scented blood and went for it. “Who killed her?”
“I said it doesn’t matter.”
“How did your father feel about her dying?”
“He wassaddened.”
“I’d imagine so,” Mildred said. “Here’s this great scientific mind, about to reinvent the world in the image he’s chosen, which is pretty damn perfect by his account, and he can’t even keep his own wife safe. Sounds like pretty sloppy work already to me.”
“My father was a great man!” Boldt roared. “Don’t you ever suggest that he wasn’t!” His face darkened with rage.
“Would a great man allow his wife to be killed?” Mildred asked, knowing she was putting the man to the wall and risking death herself.
Boldt crossed the room, getting within arm’s reach of her. “You bitch!”
Mildred stood, aware of the guards shifting behind her, coming out of the shadows where they’d been. “He was careless.”
“She was a whore!” Boldt screamed. “She was cheating on my father, having affairs behind his back. She didn’t believe in his dreams, didn’t think anything of the sacrifices he was making by challenging so many of the department heads.”
“What happened to your mother?” Mildred asked. “She deserved to die.”
“So he killed her? Your father killed her?” The creative jump in logic felt right to Mildred, and she went with it.
“Yes.”
Mildred paused, keeping her features composed, showing nothing of the fear and anger she felt.
“I saw him do it,” Boldt said. “She made him so angry, so furious. When he told her he’d managed to get the funding from America and that Wildroot was becoming a reality, she threatened to go to the prime minister himself.”
“England didn’t support your father’s ideas.”
“No. They wanted his research, his engineering of the plant life he’d worked on, but they didn’t see that the world had become unredeemable.”
“Your father had the plague ready before the nuke-storm, didn’t he?” Mildred asked, cold with the realization. “He was prepared to use it.”
“Yes.” Trembling with emotion, Boldt backed away. “The computer systems were ready to go. There were only a few things that remained to be done.”
“What?”
“My father had friends he wished to bring with him to this new world. But he had to do it quietly. He hadn’t brought all of them into his confidence. A few of them had turned him into the corporation he was working for when he did so much of the developmental research. They never got the opportunity to learn the full extent of what he was planning. Instead of being recognized as a hero, he was fired. He’d never felt so betrayed.”