Genesis (15 page)

“Yeah,” Addison muttered, “I bet the pay's a lot better, too.”

Just as Rain was ready to give Addison a good punch, they entered a hallway that was sealed off. There were three or four entryways, all of which were covered by Umbrella-brand PlastiGlas.

Which was a good thing, seeing as how the lab
spaces they were covering were flooded. Water spouted out through some pinholes in one of the labs, but still, it looked like someone sealed the rooms and then activated the sprinkler.

Jesus.

Doing his usual stating-the-fucking-obvious thing, Kaplan said, “This is gonna slow us down.” He showed One the schematic on his wrist-top. “Our route to the Queen takes us straight through these labs.”

“Rain, J.D., see how bad the flooding is. Kaplan, find us an alternate route.”

Grateful for the chance to go off with J.D. and leave the assholes behind, Rain went ahead, stepping through the spouts.

“This is messed up,” she said as they went forward.

J.D. shrugged. “What-the-fuck-ever. Just another job. In, out, beers at Barre's Bar when we're done.”

“Fuck, I'm sick of that place. They got shit tequila.”

Grinning, J.D. said, “You oughta try a real drink some time.”

Rain didn't even look at him. “You drink fuckin' Budweiser, J.D., I ain't takin' no lecture on booze from you.”

J.D. laughed. After a minute, Rain returned it.

Yeah, that was it. In and out, and hope those two assholes get their memory back soon.

KNOWING HER NAME WAS ALICE ABERNATHY should've made her feel better.

It didn't especially.

According to the head of the commando team—who just went by “One” for some odd reason—Alice was head of security for the Hive, which was a neat trick, considering she'd never heard of it, or the Umbrella Corporation. On the other hand, the corridors had an oddly familiar feeling as she walked through them. Maybe it was the truth.

Frustratingly, she had no way of verifying anything. Her memory was still Swiss cheese—she knew, for example, that the World Series was a baseball game, and she remembered who won it last year, but
she could not picture the sport or remember how it was played.

She just hoped this damn nerve gas wore off quickly.

The man she was pretending to be married to was named Spence Parks. The cop, according to his ID, was named Matt Addison. He still hadn't explained why he was here.

Then again, no one had asked him, either.

“What happened here?” Spence asked.

Alice noticed that Matt moved closer, and One gave him a suspicious look.

“Five hours ago, Red Queen went homicidal. Sealed the Hive and killed everyone down here.”

“Jesus.”

“You can't be sure of that,” Matt said. “There must be hundreds of people working here.”

“Five hundred and twenty-three,” One said coldly. He went on: “When we realized what was happening, my team was dispatched to shut her down.”

“Why did she do it?” Alice asked.

“That we don't know. But outside interference is a possibility.” That last sentence was spoken while looking directly at Matt.

Matt was about to say something, but then he suddenly jumped.

“Jesus!”

His sudden movement startled Alice. She stepped back, and saw what Matt saw.

A body.

It was a woman, blond hair from the looks of it,
floating in the water on the other side of the glass. She wore all white, and her skin had gone pale enough to match the outfit.

According to the ID badge still pinned to her lab coat, her name was Anna Bolt.

Spence looked at Alice with concern. “Hey—you okay?”

Alice grunted in reply.

Removing his leather jacket, Spence said, “Here.”

“No, it's okay.” Even as she spoke, though, she realized that she was cold. Her arms had unconsciously folded so she could warm herself, and her exposed flesh—which there was a lot of in this stupid dress—was covered in goosebumps.

“C'mon, it's cold in here.” He held up the jacket.

With a small smile, she gave in and took it.

As her fingers brushed his, she suddenly remembered something . . .

His hands ran gently up and down her naked flesh, his callused fingers playing over her skin, feeling both rough and smooth at the same time.

His lips hungrily attacked hers, as if they were trying to consume each other. Their tongues explored—teasing, tasting, dancing.

He pulled her slim athletic form tight against his muscular body.

It seemed their marriage wasn't quite the sham One thought it was.

She decided to venture a question. “Are you—do you remember anything? Before—this?”

Spence shook his head. “No—no. Nothing before the train. You?”

“No,” she lied. “Nothing.”

Why did she lie?

For some reason, with the memory flash came a feeling.

Don't trust Spence.

No, it was more general than that. It was not wanting to trust
anyone.

Dammit, what the hell was going on with her head?

“Got it.”

Alice looked up to see the computer geek—what was his name? Kaplan?—showing One something on that wrist-top computer of his. “We double back, cut through Dining Hall B, then we're back on track.”

Even as he spoke, the other two—whom One had identified as Rain Melendez and J.D. Hawkins—returned.

“Sir—no go,” Rain said. “The whole level's flooded.”

“All right, we're behind schedule,” One said, “so let's move it!”

Another of the commandoes—Alfonso Warner—walked up to Spence and Alice and gave them a “move-it” head nod. Without waiting for any kind of acknowledgment, he went ahead.

Alice looked at Spence. They each solemnly mimicked Warner's head-nod.

Then they both laughed.

Maybe she should trust him.

“Come on,” Spence said.

As they started walking behind Warner and the others, Alice said, “Strange that over five hundred people work in this place. So far, we've only seen one.”

“You think they're lying?”

“I don't know.” She shook her head. “Seems like a lot of firepower just to shut down a computer.”

Spence shrugged. “Maybe whoever briefed them didn't tell them the whole truth. Or maybe they didn't tell us the whole truth yet.”

Behind them, Rain took a quick look at the body of Anna Bolt.

“Poor bastards.”

Alice couldn't argue with the sentiment.

After a few minutes, they got to another sealed entrance. Kaplan entered a code into the pad, and it slid open.

Warner, J.D., and Vance Drew went in first, in a standard rotating cover flank.

How the hell did she know that was standard?

That question was superseded by another one: what the hell kind of dining hall was this?

The space they entered was huge. It was also dark and dank and filled with boxes that were about eight feet tall with large tubes leading in and out of them.

No sign of any of the accoutrements one would expect in a dining hall.

Or much of anywhere else, if it came right down to it.

“Kaplan?” One asked.

“Dining Hall B.” Kaplan shrugged helplessly. “It's what it says on the map.”

One walked over to take a look at Kaplan's display. “Maybe you're reading it wrong.”

Matt gave One a hard look. “Maybe the corporation's keeping a few secrets down here. Something you're not supposed to see.”

Kaplan actually looked worried about that, but One remained unaffected. “J.D., you and Rain keep the prisoner here and secure the exit.”

The medic took another air sample.

“Sir, halon levels are
nonexistent
in this room. Could be the system malfunctioned.”

Alice wondered what that meant, exactly. Then again, there was no reason for anything to start making sense now.

One studied the medic's readout, then looked up.

“All right, listen up. There may be survivors, so give me a search line—but keep it
tight.”

Rain shoved Matt toward one of the smaller crates for him to sit on.

“Move it.”

They moved out in different directions. Alice and Spence were left alone, with only Rain and J.D. staying back to guard Matt. Apparently, amnesia notwithstanding, they were well placed enough not to need babysitters.

So she wandered around the room. If she was supposed to be the head of security for this place, she probably knew what this room was really for. Maybe walking around would give her some kind of clue as to who she really was.

As she navigated among the crates, she noticed that they all had two readouts. On top was some kind of pattern that looked like a stereo sound system oscillation. It was steady, but she had no clue what it was actually measuring, since there was no bass beat to be heard.

On the bottom were one of two words lit up:
STABLE
and
UNSTABLE.

To her relief,
STABLE
was the one lit on all the crates she could see.

She approached one of them. Each of the crates had a small window in it.

Peering inside, she saw—something. It was living, that was for sure, though it didn't look like anything she recognized.

But then, would she recognize it, even if it was something commonplace? It was fifteen minutes before she remembered what a bathrobe was, for Christ's sake.

Then again, this thing couldn't have been normal. It didn't have any eyes, for one thing, its skin was all scaly, and it had tubes running all in and out of its body.

Even if it was normal, it was pretty damn gross.

Then she remembered something else.

As the new password was entered into her monitor remotely by Lisa Broward, the Licker came onscreen. Alice knew that for a split second, it could be seen on Lisa's monitor, too, before the Red Queen shut her out.

One then scared the shit out of her by appearing next to her. She hadn't heard him approach—one moment he was just
there.

He was peering into the window. “I said, keep it tight.” He didn't even look at her.

“Sorry. I'm not sure I want to remember what went on down here.”

Now he did look at her. In a softer voice than he'd used all day, he said, “I don't blame you.”

It was the closest One had come to being human since she met him.

Or, she supposed, re-met him.

Whatever.

As she and One went back to the center of the room, not having found anyone or anything save the crates, Alice overheard J.D. and Rain talking, staring at one of the crates while they guarded Matt.

“What the hell do they keep in these things?” J.D. asked.

Rain shot him a look. “How do I know?”

Warner, Kaplan, Drew, Spence, and the medic all rejoined them in the room's center. “Anything?” One asked.

“No, sir,” Kaplan said. The others just shook their heads.

“All right, we're proceeding to the Red Queen's chamber. Rain, J.D., stay here with the prisoner. Let's move.”

Alice was grateful. Soon they'd be at the computer core, then they could shut her down and get the hell out of this madhouse.

Soon, it'd all be over . . .

ALICE WAS A LITTLE DISAPPOINTED—THE RED Queen's chamber was just another metal, sterile room. That seemed to be all they had in the Hive—metal, sterile rooms. No decorations, no color variations, just metallic sterility.

The room had one table in the center with three computer workstations, three huge metal doors, and little else.

Everyone seemed focused on the door in front of the workstations. Unlike the other two doors, this one had a window right at Alice's eye level. For lack of anything better to do, she wandered up to the door and stared in.

She saw another sterile corridor, but this one appeared to have glass walls. It was a narrow space that led to—surprise!—a big metal door.

Alice woke up in a house that was almost entirely well-polished old wood. Then she took a train that took her to a place that was almost entirely metal, glass, and plastic. Did Umbrella only work in extremes?

Meanwhile, Kaplan sat at the workstations, jumping back and forth from keyboard to keyboard like some kind of piano virtuoso.

That immediately rang an alarm bell in Alice's head. Piano virtuoso. She knew what that was.

So what the hell was a piano?

She stared through the window some more. The corridor was just as boring.

“What's taking so long?”

Alice turned around to see the medic standing over Kaplan, looking impatient.

“Red Queen's defenses are in place. She's making it difficult.”

The medic looked cranky. Kaplan ignored her, and kept his virtuoso thing going.

At the sound of cloth rustling, Alice turned again, this time to look at Spence. He had decided to take advantage of this little bit of downtime to rummage through his pockets.

He found a gum wrapper, an ID card with his picture on it, and some loose change.

Everything else went back in his pocket, but he kept out a quarter. Alice was proud of the fact that she not only recognized the kind of coin, but that it was worth twenty-five cents and was one of the new state ones.

Then he started twirling the quarter in his fingers, flipping the coin with one knuckle over the adjacent finger, then repeating it across his hand and back again.

Alice was impressed.

Based on the look on his face, so was Spence.

He smiled. “Didn't know I had it in me.”

Then the big door opened up. Alice looked over to see a self-satisfied look on Kaplan's face.

One nodded. “Let's pack it up.”

Warner and Drew pulled a huge metal cylinder out of the trunk and put it in a duffel bag.

Alice looked at One, then turned to Kaplan. “He's a cool customer.”