directly overhead as it shone its beam down on the
other side of the first building, the thunder of its
engine and billowing clouds of dust and making
Rebecca feel as though Death were approaching; not
death, but Death, some fabled beast of merciless
power and relentless intention...
David turned and grabbed her and Claire both,
pushing them firmly toward the open door. As soon as
they were through, he motioned for them to stop and
to wait. David pulled his handgun and jogged across
the open space, standing close to the second build-
ing's door, angling his body and...
...BAM, the nine-millimeter round, louder than the rifle's .223s but still almost lost, as the helicopter
started its sweep up their row and the door blasted
inward and David leapt through the opening, just as
the blinding light illuminated the ground between
them. A half-second later and he would have been
caught in the light. The spent casings from David's
weapons were thankfully lost in the furor, spinning
clouds of dust whipping up and over them and
making it hard to breathe. She turned, saw that Claire
had tucked her face down into her black sweatshirt,
and followed suit. The cold, thick air was filtered
through the fleece, and in spite of the deafening noise,
Rebecca could hear her heartbeat in her ears, rapid
and afraid.
A second later, the light was past; a second after
that the dust seemed to be settling, it was hard to tell
in the black; the sudden absence of light meant their
eyes would have to readjust.
"Are you alright?"
Rebecca jumped as David practically screamed in
her face, just a shadow in front of her. Claire let out a
little shriek.
"Sorry!" David called. "Come on! Other building!" Barely able to see, Rebecca stumbled outside,
Claire right next to her. David came up behind them,
touching their backs, guiding them toward the second
building. The 'copter was still moving away from
them, north to south, but it would run out of things to look at very soon - and then they'd land and come
looking. That the helicopter was from Umbrella was a
given; the only question was how many had come,
and whether or not they were to be captured first or
just killed outright.
As they fell through the door to the second build-
ing, it dawned on Rebecca what David had done. The
Umbrella thugs would see the first bullet-blasted door
and assume that their quarry was hiding there.
And he only shot through the keyhole of this one.
They'll see it eventually, but it buys us a little more
time. . .
She hoped. The darkness was almost as cold as
outside and smelled like dust. A low light flickered on,
David hooding his flashlight with one hand, just
enough for them to see that they were surrounded by
boxes. Big ones, small ones, cardboard and wood,
stacked on shelves and on the floor all the way up to
the slanted ceiling. In the brief second that David
shone the light across the mammoth room, they saw
that there had to be thousands of them.
"I'm going to see what I can do about the door and
cut the lights," David said. "Find us a place to hide. It's our best option until we know how many there
are, what scenario they're employing. They might
have spook eyes, the floor's no good - somewhere
high up and in a corner. Shelves would be best. Got
it?"
They both nodded and the light went out, leaving
them in a complete darkness; before, she could at
least make out shapes and shadows. Now, Rebecca
couldn't see her hand in front of her face.
"Which corner?" Claire whispered, as if the chill black nothing they stood in demanded silence.
Rebecca reached out and found Claire's hand,
placing it against her back. "Left. We go left until we run into something."
She heard a whisper of movement behind them, as
David went about his preparations. Taking a deep
breath, Rebecca put her hands out in front of her and
started to edge forward.
Every door off of the lengthy corridor was locked,
with the exception of a utility closet past the elevator;
there, they found absolutely nothing of interest, un-
less shelves of paper towels and styrene coffee cups
were interesting. They'd tried the elevator again, with
no luck, and there didn't seem to be a fuse box or
override switch anywhere near it. Not surprising, but
Leon still felt a pang of distress. The other three were
probably really worried . . .
. . . and you're not? What if something went wrong up there? Maybe the "test" part of this place is above-
ground. And maybe Reston unleashed some of Umbrel-
la's warrior specimens up there, and right now Claire
is . . .
"What say if we run across one more locked door,
we use up our grenades? I've got two of 'em," John said, looking irritated. They'd just tried the ninth
door in the silent hall, and were almost to the north-
ernmost curve. For all they knew, they'd already
passed Reston, or the passage that would lead them to
him.
"Let's at least see what's around the corner before
we start blowing things up," Leon said, though he was also losing patience. It wasn't that he'd mind damag-
ing some Umbrella property, but that just wasn't the
priority - reuniting the team was. They'd already
decided that if they didn't find him soon, they'd go
back to the cafeteria and try to get one of the workers
to fix the elevator, and to hell with Reston; the
mission would be a bust, but at least they'd all be alive
to fight another day.
Assuming we're all still alive now...
They reached the corner and paused, John raising
the M-16 and lowering his voice. "I'll cover."
Leon nodded, moving closer to the inner wall. "On three. One ... two ... three..."
He took a running step away from the wall, drop-
ping into a crouch and pointing his semi down the
west leg of the corridor as John whipped the rifle
around the corner. The hall was a lot shorter, no more
than sixty feet, dead-ending in an open, doorless
room. There was a door on the left...
... and somebody moved across the opening at the
end of the hall, the darting shape of a man.
Reston.
Leon saw him, a thin guy, not too tall, wearing jeans
and a blue work shirt. Mr. Blue, just like they
said. . .
"Hold it!" John shouted, and Reston turned,
startled and weaponless. He saw the M-16 and
jumped away from the double-wide opening, maybe
heading for an exit -
- and Leon ran, pumping his arms for speed, John
quickly passing him in a full-on sprint. They were
inside the room in a flash and there was Reston,
pushing desperately at a door on the right. He threw a
terrified glance over his shoulder as they barreled into
the room, his eyes wide with panic.
"It won't open!" He screamed, his voice on the edge of hysteria. "Open the door!"
Who's he talking to?
"Give it up, Reston," John growled -
- and behind them, a metal sheet crashed down
over the opening, shutting them into the room with a
brutal, heavy dang. Leon looked down, saw that the floor was plate steel and felt the first stab of unease.
Reston spun around, his hands in the air, his
narrow features contorted with fear. "I'm not him, not Reston," he babbled, his pale face slick with sweat -
- and behind them, a face appeared at the window
in the metal door, distorted by the thick plexiglass but
obviously grinning. An older man, dressed in a dark
blue suit.
Oh, no...
The man looked away for a moment, one hand
reaching up to touch something Leon couldn't see
and a smooth, cultured voice floated into the room
from a speaker in the ceiling.
"Sorry, Henry," the man said, his moving face warped by the glass. "And allow me to introduce myself. I'm Jay Reston. And whoever you are, I'm
very glad to meet you. Welcome to the Planet's test
program."
Leon looked at John, who was still pointing his rifle
at the near hysterical Henry. John looked back at him,
and Leon could see the awareness dawning in his dark
eyes, even as it dawned on him.
They were in extremely deep shit.
Yes!
Reston laughed giddily. The gunmen were trapped,
and the three on the surface were probably already
being picked up by the teams - he'd handled his
situation, and handled it brilliantly.
Of course it's no fun if there's no one around to
appreciate it ... but then, I have a captive audience,
don't I?
"We're not scheduled to go on line for another
twenty-three days," Reston said, smiling widely, al- ready imagining the look on Sidney's bloated face.
"At which time, I was going to host the initial run of
our carefully designed program for a group of ex-
tremely important people. It was going to be speci-
men only, we hadn't planned on putting humans
through the phases for a while yet, let alone soldiers.
But now, thanks to you, I'll be able to show my little
party actual footage of what our specimens were
created for. By now, your friends on the surface will
have been taken, sad to say - but the three of you will
suffice, I think. Yes, you'll do quite nicely."
Reston laughed again, unable to contain it. "You may want to kill Henry before you start, though, he'll
only drag you down - and he did lure you in, didn't
he?"
"You bastard!"
Henry Cole pushed away from the wall and flew at
the door, pounding on it with his fists. The two-inch
metal didn't even rattle in the frame.
Reston shook his head, still grinning. "I am sorry, Henry; we'll miss you terribly. You never did finish
with the intercom system, did you? Or the audio . . .
at least you hooked up this one, for which I can't
thank you enough. Is it clear enough in there? Getting
any static?"
Whatever demon had possessed the electrician fled,
the man collapsing against the door, breathing rag-
gedly. The bigger of the two armed men, the burly
dark-skinned one with the rifle, stepped toward the
window with a menacing expression.
"You're not gonna get us to go through any tests for
you," he said, his deep voice quivering with rage. "Go ahead and kill us, 'cause we're not alone - and Um-
brella's going down, whether or not we're around to
see it happen."
Reston sighed. "Well, you're right about not being around. But as to the rest ... you're some of those
S.T.A.R.S. people, aren't you? You and your grass-
roots campaign are nothing to us; you're mosquitoes,
an annoyance. And you will participate..."
"Participate this," he spat, grabbing his crotch. Even through the thick plexi, the gesture was unmis-
takable.
Vulgar. Young people today, no respect for their
betters...
"John, why don't you break out one of those frag
grenades?" The other one said coolly, at which point Reston sighed again.
"The walls are plaster-coated steel, and the door
will withstand a lot more than you could possibly
have. You'd only succeed in blowing yourselves up. It
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