disheveled, his eyes bright and lips trembling. He
wasn't holding any kind of weapon, though Rebecca
kept hers raised.
"Oh, thank God, thank God! You have to help me!
Dr. Thurman, he's gone mad, we have to get out of
here!"
He staggered out of the tunnel and nearly ran into
David, apparently oblivious to the pistols trained on
him as he babbled on.
"We have to go, there's a boat we can use, we have
to get out before he kills us all..."
David shot a glance back, saw that Rebecca and
John still had him covered. He tucked the Beretta into
his side holster and stepped forward, taking the man's
arm.
"Easy, calm down. Who are you, do you work here?"
"Alan Kinneson," the man gasped. "Thurman kept me locked up in the lab but he heard you coming and I
managed to get away. But he's crazy. You have to help
me get to the boat! There's a radio, we can call for
help!"
The lab!
"Which way is the laboratory?" David asked
quickly.
Kinneson didn't seem to hear him, too panicked by
whatever he thought Thurman might do to them.
"The radio's on the boat, we can call for help and
then get away!"
"The laboratory," David repeated. "Listen to me did you just come from there?"
Kinneson turned and pointed to the tunnel that was
next to the one he'd come from, the one in the middle.
"The lab is that way..."
He pointed back the way he'd come. "...and the boat's down there. These caves are like a maze."
Though he seemed to have calmed slightly as he
pointed to the tunnels, when he turned back to face
them, he looked as hysterical as he had before. He
seemed to be in his mid-thirties at first glance, but
David noticed he had deep lines etched at the comers
of his eyes and mouth and realized he had to be much
older. Whoever he was and however old he was, he
was caught in the grip of an almost mindless panic.
"The radio's on the boat, we can call for help and
then get away!"
David's thoughts raced in time with his pounding
heart. This was it, this was their chance -
- we get to the lab, make this Thurman give us the
cure and then get out of this place, before anyone else
gets hurt.
He turned to look at the others and saw the same
hopeful looks that he knew he wore, John and Steve
both nodding sharply. Rebecca didn't look as en-
thused. She jerked her head back, motioning for
David to move out of Kinneson's earshot.
"Excuse us a moment," David said, forcing a
politeness that he didn't feel. Kinneson was one of the
researchers from Trent's list.
"We have to hurry!" The man babbled, but he
didn't follow as David stepped back toward the
others, the four of them leaning together to talk,
Karen resting against Steve's arm.
Rebecca's voice was hushed and worried. "David, we can't take Karen to the lab if Griffith - if Thurman
is there; what if we have to fight?"
John nodded, shooting a glance at the wild-eyed researcher. "And I don't think we should leave this guy alone, he's likely to take off with our ride home."
David frowned, thinking. Steve was a better shot,
but John was stronger. If they had to force Thurman
to give them the T-Virus cure, John could probably
intimidate him more easily.
"We split up. Steve, you take Karen to the boat,
keep an eye on Kinneson. We'll go to the lab, get what
we need and then meet you there. Agreed?"
Tight nods, and then David turned, addressing
Kinneson.
"We need to get to the laboratory, but our friend
Karen isn't well. We'd like for you to take her and an
escort to the boat, and wait for us."
Kinneson's eyes seemed to blank out for just a
second, the strange, vacant look there and gone so
quickly that David wasn't even sure he'd seen it.
"We have to hurry," he said quickly, then turned and started back down the passage he'd appeared
from, walking at a brisk pace.
David felt a sudden worry, staring at Kinneson's
rapidly receding back, his dirty lab coat floating out
behind him.
He didn't even ask who we are,...
As Steve and Karen started to enter the tunnel,
David touched Steve's arm, speaking softly. "Watch him carefully, Steve. We'll be there as soon as we
can."
Steve nodded and moved off after the strange Dr.
Kinneson, Karen stumbling along next to him.
John and Rebecca were already standing in front of
the middle passageway, weapons still in hand. The
chamber shook as outside, a muffled thunder roared.
Without speaking, the three of them started down
the gloomy tunnel in a tired but determined jog, ready
to face the human monster behind the many tragedies
of Caliban Cove.
They turned the first corner, Karen hanging onto
his shoulder with a cold and sweating hand and the
researcher was just rounding a bend farther ahead, a
good hundred meters away. Steve caught a glimpse of
fluttering white and the heel of a black loafer, and
then he was out of sight, clattering footsteps moving
away.
Great. Lost in a goddamn sea cave labyrinth because
Dr. Strangelove has a schedule to keep...
Karen let out a low moan of soft distress and Steve
felt the cold, hard knot in his stomach clench tighter,
his fear of getting lost nothing next to fear he felt for
Karen. She was leaning on him more heavily, her feet dragging against the dank limestone floor.
David, John, Rebecca, please hurry, please don't let
Karen get any worse...
He pulled her along as quickly as he could, con-
cerned about catching up to Kinneson, worried about
the others putting themselves in danger, afraid for the
desperately sick woman who clung to his side. Except
for meeting Rebecca, it had to be the worst day of his
life. He'd only been with the S.T.A.R.S. for a year and
a half, and while he'd been in threatening situations
before, they didn't come close to what he'd experi-
enced in the few short hours since they'd been
knocked out of the raft.
Sea monsters, zombies with guns and now Karen.
Smart, serious Karen, losing her mind, maybe turning
into one of those things. We're so close to getting out of
here and it may still be too late...
As they reached the turn in the tunnel, Steve
realized that he couldn't hear Kinneson's footsteps
anymore. He staggered around the corner, thinking
that he should call for him to wait up, not to get too
far ahead and he stopped cold, his gut plummeting to
somewhere around his knees. Kinneson stood two
meters away, holding a .25 semi-automatic, his face
and eyes as strangely blank and lifeless as a manne-
quin's. He stepped forward and pressed the small
bore into Steve's stomach, hard, jerking the Beretta
out of his holster and then stepping back. The flat-
eyed doctor moved to one side, now holding both
weapons on them as he motioned for Steve to move in
front of him.
"Watch him carefully, Steve..."
Steve held on to Karen's side, fumbling through his
thoughts for ways to stall, to reason with Kinneson,
his body tensing to spring even as his brain screamed
at him to go along, not to get shot -
- what would happen to Karen?
"You will come to the lab," Kinneson said tone- lessly, "or I'll kill you."
It was the inflectionless voice of a computer, com-
ing from the blankly merciless face of a man who
suddenly didn't seem human, not at all.
"We know what you did here," Steve spat. "We know all about your goddamn Trisquads, we know
about the T-Virus, and if you want to get out of this
without..."
"You will come to the lab or I'll kill you."
Steve felt a helpless shudder run through his body.
Kinneson's tone hadn't altered at all, his gaze as fixed
and emotionless as his voice. Steve noticed the lines
then, the deep, spidering lines that swept away from his cold brown eyes, sat at the corners of his slack and
expressionless lips.
Oh my God...
"You will come to the lab or I'll kill you," he
repeated, and this time, he raised both weapons
holding them inches away from Karen's sagging head.
Steve knew she was dying, knew that there was a
good chance she'd lose against the virus and become
a violent, insane creature before the night was
through - but I have to protect her for as long as I can. If I sacrificed her to save myself and there was even a
chance that she could've been cured. . .
Steve wouldn't, couldn't do it. Even if it meant his
own life.
Holding Karen tightly, he stepped ahead of the
thing and started to walk.
Enough time had passed. If the intruders had done
what they were supposed to do, they would have split
up, some of them heading mistakenly for the pen,
some accompanying the good doctor back to the lab.
If Alan had failed, he'd at least have stalled the
intruders long enough to keep them out in the open.
Either way, it was time.
Griffith tapped the control panel for the Ma7 enclo-
sure, thinking wistfully how much fun it would be to
see the looks on their faces. The red light flashed to
green, signifying that the gate was fully open.
No matter, he supposed. So long as they died.
FIFTEEN
THE WINDING TUNNEL SEEMED TO GO ON
forever. Every time they rounded a turn, Rebecca
expected to see a sealed door, a slot set next to it for
the key card that David carried. As the corners
continued, the hanging lights going on for another
stretch of tunnel, each as empty and featureless as the
stretch before, she stopped wishing for the door. A
sign would suffice, an arrow painted on the wall, a
chalk mark - anything that would put to rest her
growing suspicion that they'd been misled.
Lied to by an Umbrella scientist? Perish the
thought. . .
Tired sarcasm aside, Kinneson had been weird, but
had definitely seemed frightened to the point of
hysteria. Could he have been confused in his panic,
pointed to the wrong passage? Or was the lab just
better hidden than they thought?
Or did he send us off on a snipe hunt, some dead-end
cave - or even a trap, something dangerous, meant to
keep us out of the way while he...
...while he did something to Steve and Karen. The thought frightened her even more than the concept of
walking into a trap. Karen was desperately ill, she
wouldn't be able to defend herself, and Steve...
