access the information....
He tapped several keys, waited, then typed in his
clearance number. After the briefest of pauses, lines
of glowing green data spilled across the screen. He'd
done it.
Seek, find, locate. . .
He frowned at the information, wondering why the
hell anyone from Umbrella would be searching for the
laboratory and for that matter, why they'd try look-
ing for that information in the mainframe at all. The
system designers weren't idiots, there was nothing
about the layout of the facility in the files. . .
. . . and Umbrella would know it. Which means . . .
Relief coursed through him, cool and pure relief so
great that he laughed out loud. He suddenly felt quite
silly at his childish reaction to the breach. The search-
er wasn't from Umbrella, and that changed every-
thing. Even if they managed to find the lab, an
unlikely proposition at best, considering its location
they wouldn't be able to gain entry without a key card. And Griffith had destroyed all of them ...
... except for Amman's. His was never found.
Griffith froze, then shook his head, a nervous smile
on his face. No, he'd searched practically everywhere
for the missing card, what were the chances that the
interloper would stumble across it?
And what were the chances that they'd make it past
the Trisquads, hmm? And what was Lyle up to during
those hours when you couldn't find him? What if he did
get a message out? You only checked for transmissions
to Umbrella, but what if he contacted someone else?
Even as the dreadful, impossible thought occurred
to him, the computer began to spit out information
on the logic skills tests. The socio-psychological series
tests that Ammon had designed.
Griffith felt his control slipping again. He clenched
his hands into fists, refusing to give in; there was too
much at stake, he couldn't afford to let his emotions
take over, not now, he had to think.
I'm a scientist, not a soldier, I don't even know how
to shoot, to fight! I'd be useless in combat, totally...
Unpredictable. Uncontrollable.
A slow grin spread across his features.
Blood was seeping from his fists, from where his
ragged fingernails had dug into the heels of his hands,
but he felt no pain. His gaze wandered around the
open, silent laboratory, resting briefly on the airlock.
Then to the blank, stupid faces of his doctors. To the
cylinders of compressed air and virus, his miracle.
And finally, to the controls for the mesh gate that led
to the animal enclosure.
Dr. Griffith's smile widened. Blood pattered to the
floor.
Let them come.
NINE
AS STEVE READ ALOUD, REBECCA SAW DAVID
glance between his watch and the door several times.
She didn't think it had been ten minutes, but it had to
be close. John and Karen weren't back yet.
'". . . where each is designed to measure applica-
tion of logic, as combined index projective techniques
with interval precision . . .'"
It was rather dry reading, apparently a facility
report on the analysis of some kind of I.Q. test. It had
obviously been written by a scientist, was, in fact,
the kind of boring double talk that a lot of researchers
tended to fall into when trying to explain anything
more complicated than a chair. Still, it was what had
come up when Steve had asked for information on "blue series." Since the room had yielded little else,
Rebecca forced herself to pay attention, fighting off
- nine -
the nagging, quiet fear that had settled over her
during the fruitless search.
Somebody had cleaned out the room, and done a
very thorough job of it. She'd found books, staplers,
pens and pencils, a ton of rubber bands and paper
clips, but not a single piece of paper with writing on
it, not a scrap of information to work with. Steve's
computer search wasn't much better; no map and
nothing at all on the T-Virus. Whoever had taken over
the facility had apparently wiped out everything they
might've been able to use.
Except for a shitload of dull psycho-babble, which so
far hasn't even mentioned the word blue. How are we
supposed to accomplish anything here?
Steve touched a key, then brightened considerably.
"Here we go ..."
" 'The red series, when looked at on a standardized
scale, is the most basic and simple, applicable up to
an intelligence quotient of 80. The green series ...'"
He broke off, frowning. "The screen just went blank."
Rebecca looked up from the mostly empty desk
she'd been going through as David walked over to join
Steve.
"System crash?" he asked worriedly.
Steve was still frowning, tapping at keys. "More like a program freeze. I don't think - hello, what's this?"
"Rebecca," David said quietly, motioning for her to come look.
She closed a drawer full of blank, unlabeled file
folders and moved over to stand behind Steve, bend-
ing down to read what was on the monitor.
The man who makes it doesn't need it. The man who buys
it doesn't want it. The man who uses it doesn't know it.
"It's a riddle," David said. "Either of you know the answer?"
Before either of them could respond, Karen and
ohn walked back into the room, both of them bol-
stering their weapons. Karen held a sheet of torn
paper in one hand.
"Locked up tight," John said. "Halfa dozen offices, no windows at all and only one other external door,
north end."
Karen nodded. "There were file cabinets in most of the rooms, but they were empty, except I found this
in one of the drawers, stuck in a crack. It must have
ripped off when the place was being cleaned out."
She handed the piece of paper to David. He scanned a few lines, his dark gaze taking on a sudden
intensity.
He turned back to Karen. "This is all there was?" Karen nodded. "Yeah. But it's enough, don't you think?"
David held up the torn sheet and started to read it
out loud.
" 'The teams continue to work independently, but have
shown a marked improvement since the modification of
aural synapses."
" 'In Scenario Two, when more than one Trisquad is
present, the second team (B) will no longer engage when the
first (A) concludes (when target ceases to move or make
sound)."
" 'If the target continues to provide stimuli and A has
discontinued the attack (lack of ammunition/disabling
injury to all units), B will engage. If within range, additional
patrols will be drawn to the attack and will engage in
succession."
" 'At this time, we have not successfully managed to
expand sensory ability to trigger desired behavior; the visual
stimuli of Scenarios Four and Seven continue to be unpro-
ductive, although we'll be infecting a new group of units
tomorrow and expect correlating results by the end of the
week. It is our recommendation that we continue to further
develop aural capabilities before considering heat-detection
implantation ...'"
"That's where it's torn off," David said, looking up. Karen nodded. "It explains a lot, though. Why the team at the back door of the boathouse didn't do
anything; the team out front was still firing. It wasn't
until you and Steve took them out that the second
group moved in."
Rebecca frowned, not liking the implications of the
report for more than just the obvious; Umbrella's
continued experimentation on humans. From what
she'd seen in Raccoon, the T-Virus took seven or
eight days to fully amplify in a host, the host then
falling to pieces within a month.
So what's this about infecting a new group and
getting data in a week? Or for that matter, implanta-
tion and sensory modification with the hosts they
already have? There shouldn't be time for all that, the
"units" should be disintegrating, way beyond learning
new behavior. . .
She bit her lip nervously, suddenly wondering what
the researchers at Caliban Cove might have done with
the virus. If they'd found a way to speed up the
infective, perhaps tampered with the virion's fusion
membrane, made it more cohesive ...
... or somehow multiplied the indusionary, allow- ing it to replicate exponentially... we could be look-
ing at a strain that works in hours, not days.
It was a nasty thought, and one that she didn't want
to consider until she had more information to go on.
Besides, it wouldn't make a difference in their current
situation; the Trisquads were just as deadly either
way.
"The sign on the north door says we're in block C,
whatever that means," John said, moving to the computer. "Did you find a map?"
Steve sighed. "No, but take a look. I asked for
information on the blue series, and it started to give
us a report on these I.Q. tests, coded by color, then
this. I can't get anything else."
John peered at the screen, mumbling, ". . . man who makes it doesn't need it, buys it, doesn't want it,
uses it, doesn't know it . . ."
Karen, who had been rereading the Trisquad mate-
rial, looked up with sudden sharp interest. "Wait, I know that one. It's a casket."
Somehow, Rebecca wasn't surprised that Karen
knew the riddle; the woman struck her as someone
who thrived on puzzles. They all gathered around as
Steve quickly typed in "casket." The screen remained
unchanged.
"Try 'coffin,'" Rebecca suggested.
Steve's fingers flew across the keys. As soon as he hit
"enter," the riddle disappeared, replaced by:
BIDE SERIES ACTIVATED.
Then followed:
TESTS FOUR (BLOCK A), SEVEN (BLOCK D), AND NINE (BLOCK B)/ BLUE TO ACCESS DATA (BLOCK E).
"Blue to ... Ammon's message," Karen said quickly. "That's it - the message received related to the blue
series, then said, 'enter answer for key.' The answer
was 'coffin'..."
"... and the test numbers are the key," David said. "There are three more lines in the message, then 'blue
to access.' The lines must be the answers to the
tests, the letters and numbers reverse, time rainbow,
and don't count. Jill was right, it's all about some-
thing we're supposed to find."
Rebecca felt a rush of excitement as David grabbed
a pen off the desk and turned over the scrap of the
Trisquad report. The information they had finally
made sense - Dr. Ammon's message actually meant
something.
We can do this, we've got something solid now . . .
David drew five boxes in two lines, the same as on
Trent's map, marking the southernmost box with the
letter C. After a pause, he tentatively labeled the others, starting at the top left with A and going right
to left, marking the test numbers next to each letter.
"Assuming that this is right side up," he said, "and that we need to complete the tests in order, we'll be
moving in a stagger, a zig-zag between the buildings."
"And assuming the Trisquads don't have a problem
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