Genesis (3 page)

In theory, that made their work of critical import to Umbrella's security.

In reality, their work was boring as shit.

Within a day of the picture being taken, mansion duty had begun for Alice and her new partner, whom she learned was named Percival S. Parks. For obvious reasons, he did not go by his first name. The middle initial stood for Spencer, and he said that everyone just called him “Spence.”

Unlike Alice, who had been with the company for five years, following her distinguished but frustrating stint in the Treasury Department, Spence was new to Umbrella.

The two of them would spend the next three months in a facsimile of wedded bliss. They had each been given plain gold wedding bands with the oh-so-romantic inscription
PROPERTY OF UMBRELLA CORPORATION
on the inside. Pictures of the pair of them had been placed at strategic spots throughout the massive expanse of the mansion's interior.

When she explored the library, she found that all the books that had been there when she and Spence took their “wedding photos” had been replaced. She recognized about half the titles as either her favorite books or ones she had intended to read someday, and assumed that the other half were on a similar list of Spence's.

An entire sitting room was given over to an entertainment center that included state-of-the-art CD and DVD players (all from Perrymyk Sounds, a subsidiary of the Umbrella Corporation), shelves full of CDs and DVDs, half of which were of her favorite music and movies, a plasma widescreen television (also from Perrymyk), and two very comfortable chairs.

Next to the sitting room was a corner room with beautiful exposure, full of what looked to Alice like sculpting equipment: a kiln, clay, a small firing oven, and several small tables. She guessed that Spence was an amateur potter in his spare time.

Off the studio were two small rooms with much smaller windows providing the same view as the picture window in the studio. Each room had a desk, computer station, fax machine, phone, PDA (mounted to the computer), and an incredibly comfortable-looking leather chair from which to operate all of that machinery. These would be their offices.

The bathroom was a lavish affair, all marble, with a clawfoot bathtub and a tub-sized shower stall. Her favorite soaps and shampoos were stocked in the cabinet.

The closets were filled with clothes that, Alice assumed, fit her perfectly. Some of them were even aesthetically pleasing. The wardrobe was filled with perfectly pressed underclothes—aside from the bottom drawer, where their emergency cache of weapons was kept under code lock.

They were told only to use the weapons in case of a real threat. That meant no using them on innocent civilians.

(Alice had been sorely tempted to ask where Jehovah's Witnesses fell on the scale. She relished the idea of greeting one of them at the door with a fully-armed MP5K.)

As usual, her bosses had been thorough.

“Looks like we get the fun job,” Spence said,
entering the bedroom and taking a seat in the massive easy chair.

“Fun. Right.”

“What, you don't like lounging around the nicest mansion in the state doing nothing for three months?”

“Not really. I didn't take this job to sit on my ass.”

Spence leaned back. The chair unfolded, the bottom springing upward to prop his feet. “Too bad, it's a nice ass.”

Turning toward him, she gave him a glare.

He grinned. “Sorry, couldn't help but notice. Besides, with any luck, this'll be a stepping stone—maybe working for the big bosses or the commandoes.”

Alice snorted. “The thug squad? No thanks.”

“They're not thugs, Alice.” Spence actually sounded outraged at her characterization.

“Maybe not, but they've got delusions of grandeur. I mean, c'mon, the head thug calls himself ‘One.' This isn't the fucking CIA—we're a private corporation. We don't need to go around with stupid James Bond codenames. Why can't he just use a real name?”

“Shot in the dark here, but—maybe for security?”

“Hardy har har.” She walked over to the makeup table. All her favorite brands were represented. “Then he can call himself ‘Fred' or ‘Bill.' ” She smiled. “Or ‘Percival.' ”

This time he glared at her. “Hardy har har.”

The smile became a full grin. She decided that, if she was stuck with mansion duty, at least it was with someone she was starting to like. Security Division was
well-stocked with assholes—including the self-styled “One”—so she was grateful for this, at least.

“Anyhow, I can't stand that kind of pretentious bullshit. I got enough of that crap in Treasury.”

He blinked. “You were in Treasury? Secret Service?”

“No. I should've been, but I was missing a vital qualification.”

“Oh?”

Giving Spence a smirk, she said, “A penis.”

“Come on, in this day and age?”

Alice barked a laugh. “All being in this day and age means is that they need to come up with better excuses to keep us out. I passed every damn test they threw at me, I outfought, outshot, and outsmarted all the men at my level. The women they
did
promote were all less qualified than me, but they also—” She hesitated.

“They also what?” Spence prompted.

Trying not to sound too catty, Alice said, “Well, let's just say you wouldn't be complimenting any of
them
on what a nice ass they had.”

“Ah. Woof woof.”

“Something like that,” Alice said, thinking that men were all crude at heart no matter what. “They kept me investigating counterfeiters while the guys I came up with got to go to the White House.”

“So you came here?”

“Yeah.” She sighed and sat down on the large bed. The mattress was firm, but giving, and felt like one of those fancy Swedish ones that didn't have coil springs
but some kind of foam thing. “The work isn't much of an improvement—especially this little bullshit assignment—but at least I'm paid better.”

“Got that right.” Spence grinned. “Well, for what it's worth, I've heard a lot of good things about you.”

“From who?” Alice asked with a frown.

“Everybody I asked. ‘Ass-Kicking Alice,' they called you.”

She rolled her eyes, having hoped that that particular nickname would have died out by now. It had, after all, been five years since the training exercise when she had put their training officer—One's predecessor, a man named Martinez—in the hospital with a single well-placed kick to the shin. But it seemed they were just limiting themselves to saying it behind her back.

Turning her gaze at her new partner, she asked, “So what's your story?”

“What makes you think I have a story?”

“I've been here five years, Spence.
Everyone
in Security has a story. For one thing, someone who works here but also sculpts
has
to have a story.”

At that, Spence frowned. “Sculpts?”

Alice returned the look. “You don't sculpt?”

“Uh, no.”

“Then who's the kiln for?”

Suddenly, Spence leaned his head back and laughed. “Oh, Jesus. I know what it is. Back when I filled out my application here, they asked me for hobbies. I don't
have
any hobbies—at least not any that aren't work-related. I mean, yeah, I run and work out, but that's all
for the job. So I said I like making pottery. I just pulled it out of my ass.”

Laughing, Alice said, “Too bad; it's a nice ass.”

Spence grinned.

“Fine,” Alice said, “whatever. That still doesn't answer my question.”

“What question?”

“What's your story? The place is littered with ex-law-enforcement types who wound up here because it sucks everywhere else. There's got to be a story there.”

“Actually, that's not the reason I came to Umbrella.”

“Oh?”

Spence re-folded the easy chair, got up, and joined her on the bed. He bounced on it a few times as he sat, like a little kid playing trampoline with his butt. “Nice. Firm.” He was, she noticed, looking at her body rather than her face.

“It's definitely a good mattress.”

“Who says I was talking about the mattress?”

“Slow down, Percival,” she said with a grin.

“Hey, you're the one who said I have a nice ass.”

“You
still
haven't answererd my question.”

“You already answered it for me. I was doing just fine as a cop in Chicago, but Umbrella has one thing that no police department in this country has.”

She gave him a questioning look when he didn't elaborate right away.

“Massive amounts of cash. I'm doing the same work I was doing with the CPD, but for about five times the salary.” He leaned back on the bed,
propping himself on his elbows. “Better pension, too. Not to mention getting to live in a big mansion with a beautiful woman for three months.”

Alice got up from the bed and laughed. “You don't give up, do you?”

“I'm persistent. I don't give up until I get what I want. It's what makes me good at my job.”

“Good thing, 'cause you certainly won't get by on your looks.”

“Hey! What about my nice ass?”

“Why do you think I was looking at your ass instead of your face?”

Spence mimicked being wounded in the chest. “Ouch! Shot to the heart.”

“Don't worry, Spence—if I ever
really
shoot you, it'll be between the eyes.”

“That isn't very romantic.”

Her voice grew serious. “This job isn't romantic. It's mostly boring, mindless, and irritating, right up until they need you to perform, at which point it's exciting, nerve-racking, and requires you to be either absolutely perfect or really really dead.” She looked away. “Romance doesn't enter into it.”

Even as she spoke the words, she thought about living with Spence for three months, babysitting the secret door in the mirror, checking people as they came in and out, filling out daily reports that she could, after five years, do in her sleep, and otherwise just sitting around going through the books in that library or the DVDs in the sitting room.

A breeting sound echoed through the high-ceilinged mansion. Alice tensed, then realized that it was the cordless phone on the nightstand next to the bed.

She walked over, picked it up, and hit the
TALK
button. “Yes?”

“Janus,” said the voice on the other side.

That, Alice knew, was the code word indicating that this was a security call. She immediately hung up the phone and moved into the living room. Spence got up and followed her.

Next to the Louis XIV couch—which Alice had been afraid to sit in when she first arrived for fear that a museum guard would yell at her not to touch the exhibits—sat a beautiful wooden end table that looked to be as much an antique as the couch. It doubled as a cabinet, probably originally intended to store drinks or table linens or some such. This one housed a red phone that was attached to a phone line installed under the end table via a hole drilled into the bottom that probably cut the piece's value by eighty percent. The receiver was attached to the hook via a good old-fashioned spiral phone cord. As good as telephonic security could be, a hardwired line was infinitely easier to secure and harder to penetrate.

Alice picked up the red phone. “Prospero.”

The voice on the other side was the same androgynous voice that had called on the main phone. “Verify position.”

At that, Alice let out a breath she hadn't realized she had been holding. It was just a simple check-in call,
making sure that she and Spence were safely ensconced. “We're in the house. All's well.”

“Verified. Out.”

The line went dead.

“And you have a nice evening, too.” She sighed, hung up the phone, and closed the end table cabinet door.

Spence smiled. He had, she decided, a charming smile. And he really did have a nice ass.

“So, ten o'clock and all's well?”

“Something like that,” she said. “So, want to show me how to make an ashtray?”

He laughed. She liked his laugh, too.

Maybe this assignment wouldn't be quite so boring after all . . .

OVER THE LAST TWO MONTHS, LISA BROWARD had learned to well and truly despise the Hive's computer system.

Since it first came into existence, Umbrella had always had state-of-the-art computer technology, always first with the newest innovations in both hardware and software.

What they put on the market was usually about five years behind what they had for themselves. The head programmer for the most recent upgrade to the Hive was a British man named Dr. Simon Barr.

Lisa had first encountered Barr at MIT when she was an undergraduate, and he was teaching a class in applied artificial intelligence. He opened the semester with a variation on Lewis Carroll that had fooled most
of the students, including Lisa, into thinking he would be one of those charming, daffy old Brits.

“The time has come, the walrus said, to speak of many things,” he had said. “Of bits and bytes and decision trees, of compilers and fMRIs, and if the software's well designed, and whether they're truly living machines.”

After lulling the students into a false sense of security, he dropped the bombshell: nobody in the class would receive any higher than a B, and most would receive a C or D grade. His theories, he explained, were
far
too sophisticated for any undergraduate to possibly
begin
to comprehend. He only taught the class because the powers-that-be had convinced him that he might find one or two great programmers there, and it behooved him—and those potential great students—to benefit from Barr's own vast stores of knowledge.

However, he had said, ninety-nine-point-nine percent of his students would not be great programmers, and probably that last point-one percent wouldn't be either, and this was truly an appalling waste of his time, but he supposed they had better get on with it and get it over with.