by S. D. Perry
Chapter Ten
The farther away they got from the front of the concrete block, the less noxious the air, for which Rebecca was deeply grateful. She'd been seconds away from vomiting herself, the smell was that bad - a greasy, oily stench that seemed almost tangible, an entity in itself. As they moved quietly through the well-lit hall, she found herself thinking again about Nicolas Griffith, about the story of the Marburg victims and al- though there was no proof that he was behind the mass slaughter of the Umbrella people, she couldn't shake the feeling that he was responsible. The corridor led them past several open rooms, each as barren and sterile as the building they'd come from. They passed an exit at the far side of the block, and after another turn in the hall, finally came to a door marked again with the letter A, and below it, 1-4. There were three triangles beneath the numbers, each a different color - red, green, and blue. David opened the door, revealing a much shorter hall, stark fluorescent light spilling into the stale dark-ness; there were two doors, one on either side. Steve found the lights and turned them on, and Rebecca saw that there were more of the colored triangles on the door to their right. The other was blank. "I'll take the test," David said. "Steve, you and Rebecca check out the other room, we'll meet back here. "
Rebecca nodded, saw Steve do the same. He looked a little pale, but seemed steady enough, though he dropped his gaze when he noticed her looking. She felt a pang of sympathy for him, realizing that he was probably embarrassed for losing his lunch. They opened the unlabeled door and stepped into yet another windowless room, as stuffy and warm as the rest of the building. Rebecca turned on the lights and a rather large office lined with bookshelves flick-ered into view. A steel desk sat in one corner next to a filing cabinet, the empty drawers standing open. Steve sighed. "Looks like another bust," he said. "You want the desk or shelves?" Rebecca shrugged. "Shelves, I guess. " He grinned almost shyly. "Just as well. Maybe I can find some breath mints or something in one of the drawers. "
Rebecca smiled, glad that he'd made the joke.
"Save me one. I swallowed it down back there, but it was a close call. "
They locked gazes, still smiling and Rebecca felt a tiny shiver of excitement run through her as the second stretched, lingering a few beats longer than a more casual exchange. Steve looked away first, but his color had returned, his cheeks slightly pinker than before. He moved to the desk and Rebecca turned to face a row of books, feeling a little flushed herself. There was a definite attraction there, and it seemed to be mutual - -and it's only about the worst time and place to consider it, her mind snapped. Secure that shit, pronto. The books were about what she might've expected, considering what they knew about the Trisquads and Umbrella. Chemistry, biology, a whole set of leather- bound texts on behavior modification, several medi- cal journals. As Steve rummaged through the desk behind her, she ran her hand along the row, pushing the books toward the back of the shelf as she glanced over the titles. Maybe there was something hidden behind one of them.
. . . sociology, Pavlov, psych, psych, pathology. . .
She stopped, frowning at a slender black volume tucked between two larger books. No title. She pulled it out and felt her heart speed up as she opened the small book, seeing the spidery handwriting on the lined pages. She flipped to the front, saw "Tom Athens" written in neat letters on the inside cover. One of the guys on the list, one of the researchers! "Hey, I found a diary," she said. "It belongs to one of the people from Trent's list, Tom Athens. "
Steve looked up from the desk, his dark eyes flash- ing. "No shit? Go to the back, what's the last date?" Rebecca ruffled through the pages to the end, scan-ning as she went. "Says July 18, but it doesn't look like he kept it regular. The one before that is July 9. . . " "Just read the last entry," Steve said. "Maybe it'll tell us what was going on. "
She walked to the desk and leaned against it, clearing her throat.
" 'Juty 18, Saturday. It's been a long and ridiculous day, the end of a long and ridiculous week. I swear to God, I'm going to beat the crap out of Louis if he calls one more stupid meeting. Today it was whether or not we should add a new scenario into the Trisquad program, as if we need another one. All he really wanted was to get it on paper, and the rest of it was his usual bullshit - the importance of teamwork, the need to share information so we can all "stay on the right track. " I mean, Jesus, it's like he can't live with the concept that a weekly might go out without his name on it. And he hasn't done dick since the Ma7 disaster, except to try and convince everyone that it was Chin's fault; so much for not speaking ill of the dead. Sanctimonious prick. " " 'Alan and I talked over the implants yesterday, that's going well. He's going to write up the proposal this week, and we're NOT going to let Louis touch it. With any luck, we'll get a green light by the end of the month. Alan figures the White boys are going to want to run it past Birkin, though God only knows why; B. doesn't give a shit what we're doing out here, he's off being brilliant again. I have to admit, I'm looking forward to his next synthesis; maybe we can work out some of the bugs in the Trisquads. "
" 'There was a minor scare in D on Wednesday, in 101. Somebody left the refrigerator open, and Kim swears that there are some chemicals missing, though I'm starting to think she miscounted again. Hard to believe she's in charge of the infection process, the woman's a dite and she's sloppy as hell when it comes to maintaining the equipment. I'm surprised she hasn't managed to infect the entire com- pound. God knows there's enough in there to do it. " " 'I should probably get over to D myself, make sure everything's ready for tomorrow. Got a new batch shipping in, and Griffith actually asked to watch the process; first time he's come out of the lab in weeks, first time he's ever taken an interest in what the rest of us are doing. I know it's stupid, but I still want him to be impressed; he's as brilliant as Birkin, in his own creepy way. I think he even intimidates Louis, and Louis is generally too stupid to scare. " " 'More later. '"
The rest of the pages were blank. Rebecca looked up at Steve, not sure what to say, her mind working to glean the relevant bits of information from the ram-bling tirade. There was something in there that both- ered her, something that she couldn't quite place. Missing chemicals. Infection process. The brilliant, creepy Dr. Griffith. . . She no longer had any doubt that Griffith had killed the others, but that wasn't what sent her internal alarms jangling. It was. . . "Block D," Steve said, a look of anxious fear playing across his face. "If we're in A, Karen and John are in D. "
Where there's enough of the T-Virus to infect the entire compound. Where the infection process took place. "We should tell David," Rebecca said, and Steve nodded, both of them moving quickly for the door, Rebecca hoping desperately that John and Karen wouldn't find room 101 and that if they did, they wouldn't touch anything that could hurt them.
The test room was big, three of the walls lined with open-ended cubicles. Once he'd turned on the lights, he saw that the tests were clearly numbered and color- coded, the symbols painted on the cement floor in front of each one. All of the red series was on his left, closest to the door. He saw brightly colored blocks and simple shapes on the tables in each cubicle as he walked past, heading for the back of the room. The green series lined the wall opposite, though he ignored it entirely. The back wall was marked with blue triangles, the number four test in the far right corner. As he neared the back of the room, he heard a faint hum of power coming from the blue test area. There was a small computer on the table in number two, a keyboard and headset in three. As promised, the series was activated - though what they were con- nected to, he couldn't imagine.
Can't imagine and don't care. Once we solve these little puzzles, we'll find whatever's been hidden for us and get out, away from this cemetery. It can't happen soon enough.
David had seen all he wanted to see of Caliban Cove. The corpses in the front hall had been bad, but it was the thoughts that they'd inspired that troubled him, made him so suddenly eager to get his team out. The Trisquads were dangerous and dead
ly, the mon- ster in the cove's waters had been horrible, but somewhere in the facility lurked a monster of a different kind entirely, one that had murdered his own people and then stacked them like kindling in a dark place. That kind of insanity chilled him far worse than the immoral greed of Umbrella, and he was afraid of what such a man might do to the handful of soldiers trying to stop him.
We'll find the "material, "probably notes on Umbrel- la, perhaps on the virus itself and then break for the fence, get well away from this madness. Let the Feds handle the rest. If they're smart, they'll blow up the entire compound and gather the information from the ashes. . .
He stopped in front of the last cubicle, returning his attention to the task at hand. He wasn't sure what he was expecting to see, but the set up of test number four surprised him nonetheless. A table and chair, utilitarian gray metal. On the table was a pad of paper, a pencil, and an inexpensive chess set, all of the pieces in place. As he stepped into the cubicle, he saw that there was a metal plaque set into the surface of the table, a string of numbers etched into the steel. David sat in the chair, peering down at the num- bers.
9-22-3//14-26-9-16-8//7-19-22//8-11-12-7
He frowned, looking up at the chess set and then back at the numbers. There was nothing else to look at; that was it. He quickly sorted through the clues of Ammon's message, wondering which was supposed to be the answer. Was it, "the letters and numbers reverse," or "don't count"? Since there didn't seem to be anything relating to time or a rainbow, it had to be one of the two. . .
If the lines are in the same order as the tests, this is the letter and number reversal. But what letters, there aren't any. . .
David smiled suddenly, shaking his head. The numbers on the plaque didn't go any higher than 26; it was a code, and a fairly simple one. He picked up the pencil and quickly jotted down the letters of the alphabet, then numbered thembackward; A was 26, B, 25, all the way back to Zed, 1. Glancing back and forth between the plaque and the paper, he wrote down the numbers and then started to decipher the message. R. . . E. . . X. . . M. . . The final letter was a T, and he stared down at the sentence, then at the chess board. It seemed that somebody had a sense of humor. REX MARKS THE SPOT. "Rex" was Latin for "king. "
White always goes first, so. . .
He reached out and touched the white king. As soon as his finger contacted the piece, it swiveled in place, turning around to face the back of the board. At the same time, there was a soft, musical tone from overhead. He looked up and saw a tiny speaker set into the ceiling. Nothing else happened, no flashing lights or secret passageways opening up behind the wall. Apparently, he'd passed.
How anti-climactic.
It seemed like an awfully complicated test for some- thing as supposedly mindless as a Trisquad zombie, though perhaps the researchers had been making plans for something else, something intelligent. . . It was an unsettling thought, and not one he wanted to ponder. He stood up and turned toward the front of the room. . . . . . just as the door burst open, Rebecca and Steve hurrying in, wearing matching expressions of fear.
"What is it?" Rebecca held up a book, talking fast. "We found a journal. It says that the strain of the virus used to infect the Trisquads is in block D, in room 101. Maybe everything's fine, but if John and Karen touch anything that's been contaminated. . . " He'd heard enough. "Let's go. " They turned and he strode past them, leading them back the way they'd come, his thoughts racing. They had passed an exit on the far side of the building, he could send Steve and Rebecca to the next block over while he went to D, just as originally planned, only much faster, and now carrying the horrible, heavy fear that two of his people might accidentally uncover the T-Virus.
It won't happen, they'll be careful, the chances of one of them getting a cut and then touching something dangerous in a room that's bound to be marked as some kind of a laboratory. . .
The reassuring facts did nothing to ease his mind. They hurried toward the exit, a deepening knot of dread settling into the pit of David's stomach.
They stood in the bright corridor at the center of D block, silently listening for a sound that would tell them David had come. From their position, they should be able to hear any one of the three external doors being used. After securing the building and finding the test room, she and John had chocked open all of the passages that led to the block's exits. Karen checked her watch and then rubbed her eyes, feeling a bit worn out from all of the night's events, and still sickened by what they'd found in room 101. Even John seemed unusually subdued, and definitely quieter than normal. He hadn't cracked a single joke since they'd walked back to begin their wait.
Maybe he's thinking about the gurneys, fixed with bloody restraints. Or the syringes. Or the surgical equipment heaped in the sink. . .
They'd found the test room first, a large chamber filled with little tables, each marked with numbers between five and eight; Karen had been somewhat disappointed to see that the blue series number seven was just a handful of colored tiles with letters on them, half of them upside down and unreadable. All the colors corresponded to a rainbow's, though there were two extra violet tiles in the heaped pile. Since they couldn't risk messing with it until David had completed the first test, she'd reluctantly turned away, suggesting that they check out the rest of the block. They'd gone through a couple of offices, empty, and a cluttered coffee room, where they'd found a box of incredibly moldy donuts and little else. It had been the chemical lab that had told them the most about what kind of place Umbrella had created - and although Karen didn't believe in ghosts, the room had given her a feeling like nothing she'd ever experienced before; it was haunted, plain and simple, haunted by the misery of fear and the cold, nazi-esque precision of scientists committing atrocities against their fellow man. "You thinking about that room?" John asked softly. Karen nodded, but didn't say anything. John seemed to sense her unspoken desire not to talk about it, for which she was thankful. The weight of her good luck charm was the only other comfort she felt at the moment, and she longed to take it out, to feel reassured by memories of her father and successful missions gone by. Anything to take her mind off the lab room. . . The outer door to 101 was clearly marked with a biohazard symbol and they'd briefly discussed not going in at all, John arguing against entering a possibly contaminated environment. Karen had pointed out that neither of them had any cuts or abrasions, and that they might find something about the T-Virus to take with them. The truth was, she couldn't stand to let such an opportunity pass; she wanted to see what was behind the closed door, because it was there. Because leaving it unopened would get under her skin. John had finally agreed and they'd gone in, stepping into a small entryway that was draped with sheets of heavy plastic. There were shower nozzles overhead and a drain set into the floor; a decon area. A smaller second door had opened up into the room itself, leading them into a mad scientist's dream. Glass, crunching underfoot. A tired smell of anxious sweat beneath the acrid odor of bleach. John found the lights and even before the large room snapped into view, Karen felt her heart start to pound. There was a dark tension that filled the air, a sense of foreboding that radiated from the very walls. It looked like a dozen other lab facilities she'd worked in; counters and shelves, a couple of metal sinks, a large, stainless steel refrigeration unit in one corner with a lock on the handle. And somehow, that was the worst, that the environment was so familiar, a place she'd always felt at home. The few differences were dramatic ones. The room was dominated by a stainless autopsy table, fitted with velcro restraints and there were two additional hos- pital gurneys next to it, likewise fitted. As she walked over to look at one of them, she saw the dark, dried stains at either end; the thin pad was soaked with blood from where a man's ankles and wrists would be. In the back of the room was a cage the size of a large walk-in closet, heavy bars surrounding an unpadded bench. Next to the cage, several slender poles leaned against the wall, each a meter or so in length and tipped with hypodermic needles. They were the
kinds of instruments used to drug wild animals, allowing the person operating them not to get within reach. Karen looked down at the gurney, lightly touching the long-dried stain, wondering what kind of person could have willingly participated in such an experi- ment. The crust of blood was old, powdery, and filled her with thoughts of what the victims must have endured, waiting in the cage, perhaps watching as some gloved madman injected a toxic, mutating virus into a helpless human being. . .
It was a bad place, a place of evil deeds. They'd both felt it, both been affected by the realization of what had gone on there. Karen's right eye itched, distracting her from the terrible remembrance, drawing her back to the pres- ent. She rubbed at it, then looked at her watch again. It had been only twenty minutes since the team had split, though it felt longer. There was a sound of a door opening, followed by David's excited shout through the corridor. He'd come in through the west entrance.
"Karen, John!"
John grinned at her, and she felt a wave of relief; David was okay. "Here! Keep walking!" John called back. "Take a right at the tee!"
His footsteps pounded through the hall. In a few seconds, he appeared at the comer and jogged toward them, his face tight with concern. "Is everything. . . " Karen started to ask, but David cut her off.
"Did you find the laboratory room? Room 101?"
John frowned, his smile fading. "Yeah, it's back the way you came. "
"Did either of you touch anything? Do you have any cuts, any small wounds that might have come in contact with anything?"
Their confusion must have shown. David spoke quickly, looking back and forth between them. "We found a journal, naming it as the room where they were infecting the Trisquads. " John smiled again. "Well, no shit. We figured that much out in about two seconds. "
Karen held out her hands, turning them over for David to see. "Not a scratch. " David exhaled sharply, his shoulders sagging. "Oh, thank God. I had the worst feeling all the way over that something had happened. We found the researchers in block A; Ammon was right, he killed them and our 'he' has a name now. Rebecca seems certain that it's Nicolas Griffith. He was the one she recognized from Trent's list, and he has a rather sordid history, she can fill you in when we regroup. . . " He shook his head, a wavering smile on his lips. "I just. . . I suppose I let my imagination run wild for a moment. " John smiled wider. "Jeez, David, I had no idea you cared. Or that you thought we'd be stupid enough to stick ourselves with dirty needles in a place like this. " David laughed, a soft, shaky sound. "Please accept my sincerest apologies. "
"Where are Steve and Rebecca?" Karen asked. "Probably in the next test area by now. I saw them safely off to block B before I came here. . . did you find test seven?" "This way," John said, and as they started down the hall, he began to recount their run-in with the Tri-squads. Karen followed, rubbing at the maddening, elusive itch in her right eye. She must have irritated it with all of the rubbing, it seemed to be getting worse. And to top things off, she felt a headache coming on. She wiped at her eye, sighing inwardly at the timing. She never got headaches unless she was coming down with something. The swim in the ocean must have set her up nicely for a cold and from the building throb in her head, it was going to be a nasty one.
