plan, explain that he had some concerns - he could
say that the intruders were only in Two, that would
help, he could fix the video times later ... and the
Hunters had been tested before, after a fashion, not
the 3Ks but the 121s. There had been some loosed at
the Spencer estate; from the data recovered, he knew
that the three men would be killed in Four. Even if
they weren't, they wouldn't be able to get out, and
with the backup from the home office, he'd be mostly
in the clear.
Satisfied that it was the right decision, Reston
reached under the console and picked up the phone.
"Umbrella, Special Divisions and..."
... and silence. The smooth female voice at the
other end was cut off in mid-sentence, without even a
hiss of static.
"This is Reston," he said sharply, aware that a cold hand was settling around his heart, squeezing. "Hel- lo? This is Reston!"
Nothing; then he suddenly realized that the quality
of light in the room had changed, brightening. He
turned in his chair, hoping desperately that it wasn't
what it seemed to be...
... and the row of monitors that showed the surface
were all spitting snow. All seven, off-line - and only
seconds later, before Reston could even digest what
had happened, all seven went black.
"Hello?" He whispered into the dead phone, his whiskey breath hot and bitter against the mouthpiece.
Silence.
He was alone.
Andrew "Killer" Berman was goddamn cold, cold
and bored and wondering why the Sarge had even
bothered putting anyone on the van. The bad guys
weren't coming back, they were long gone - and even
if they did decide to come back, they sure as hell
weren't going to try to get to their vehicle. It'd be
suicide.
Either they had a backup car or they're frozen solid
out on the plain somewheres. This is total bullshit.
Andy pulled his scarf up around his ears, then
readjusted his grip on the M41. Fifteen pounds of rifle
didn't sound like much, but he'd been standing for a
long goddamn time. If the Sarge didn't get back soon,
he was going to get into the van for a while, rest his
feet, get out of the cold; they weren't paying him
enough to freeze his balls off in the dark.
He leaned against the back bumper and wondered
again if Rick was okay; he didn't really know the
other guys who'd been cut up by the frag, but Rick
Shannon was his bud, and he'd been all bloody when
they'd loaded him into the 'copter.
Those assholes come back here, I'll show 'em
bloody. . .
Andy sneered a grin, thinking that they didn't call
him Killer for nothing. He was an excellent goddamn
shot, best on his team, the result of a lifetime of deer
hunting.
And also cold, bored, tired, and irritable. Dumbass
duty. If the trio of dickheads showed up, he'd eat his
own hat.
He was still thinking that when he heard the soft,
pleading voice come out of the dark.
"Help me, please - don't shoot, please help me,
I've been shot..."
A breathy, feminine voice. A sexy voice, and Andy
grabbed his flashlight and turned it out into the black, finding the voice's owner not thirty feet away.
A girl, dressed in tight black, stumbling toward
him. She was unarmed and injured, favoring one leg,
her pale face open and vulnerable beneath the bright
light.
"Hey, hold it," Andy said, although not too
harshly. She was young, he was only twenty-three but
she looked even younger, just legal maybe. And a
nicely stacked legal, at that.
Andy lowered the machine gun slightly, thinking
how nice it would be to help out a lady in distress. She
might be with the three criminals, probably was, but
she obviously wasn't a threat to him; he could just hold on to her until the helicopter came back. And
maybe she'd be grateful for the help...
... and hey, playing the hero's a good way to earn points, big time. Nice guys might finish last, but they
certainly get laid an awful lot along the way.
The girl limped up to him and Andy turned the
flashlight away from her face, not wanting to blind
her. Putting just the right note of sincerity into his
voice - chicks dug that shit - he took a step toward
her, holding one hand out.
"What happened? Here, let me help..."
A dark, heavy thing slammed into him from the
side, hard, knocking him to the ground and knocking
the wind right out of him. Before he even knew what
happened, a light was shining in his face, and the M41
was being pried out of his hands as he struggled to
breathe.
"Don't move and I won't shoot," a man said, a Brit, and Andy felt the cold muzzle of a gun against the
side of his neck. He froze, not daring to move a
muscle.
Oh, shit!
Andy looked up, saw the girl holding the rifle, his
rifle, gazing down at him. She didn't look so helpless
anymore.
"Bitch," he snarled, and she smiled a little, shrug- ging.
"Sorry. If it's any consolation, your two friends fell
for it too."
He heard another woman's voice from behind him,
soft and amused. "And hey, you get to warm up. The generator room's nice and toasty."
Killer was not amused, and as they pulled him to
his feet and started marching him toward the com-
pound, he swore to himself that it was the last time
he'd ever underestimate a chick - and while he didn't
have plans to eat his own hat, he was certainly going
to remember this the next time he thought he was bored.
SEVENTEEN
PHASE FOUR WAS INDEED A CITY, AND LEON
decided that it was the weirdest thing he'd seen so far,
hands down. The first three phases had been bizarre,
unreal, but they'd also been obviously fake - the
sterile woods, the white walls of the desert, the
sculpted mountain. At no point had he forgotten that
the environments were manufactured.
This, though . . . it's not some counterfeit organic
habitat; this is how it's supposed to look.
Four was several square blocks of a city at night. A
town, really, none of the buildings over three stories,
but it was a town - streetlights, curbs, stores and apartment houses, parked cars and asphalt streets.
They'd stepped off of a mountain and into Home-
town, U.S.A.
There were only two things wrong with it, at least at
first glance - the colors and the atmosphere. The
buildings were all either brick red or a kind of dusky
tan color; they looked unfinished, and the few parked
cars that Leon could see all seemed to be black; it was
hard to tell in the thick shadows.
And the atmosphere. . .
"Spooky," John said quietly, and Leon and Cole both nodded. Backs against the door, they surveyed
the silent town and found it completely unnerving.
Like a bad dream, one of those where you're lost and
you can't find anyone and everything feels wrong. . .
It wasn't like a ghost town, it didn't have the air of
an abandoned place, a place that had outlived its
usefulness; no one had ever lived there, no one ever
would. No cars had driven down its streets, no
children had played on its corners, no life had called it
home . . . and the blank, unlife feeling was ... spooky.
The hatch had opened up onto a street that ran east
to west, dead-ending just to their left in a wall painted
midnight blue. From where they stood, they could see
all the way down one wide, paved road that went
south, ending in darkness some indeterminate dis-
tance ahead, a grid of intersecting streets along the
way. The soft light from the streetlamps cast long
shadows, just bright enough to see by and too dark to
see clearly.
There was a car just in front of them, parked in
front of a tan two-story structure. John walked across
to it and rapped on its hood. Leon could hear the
hollow link sound beneath his hand; an empty shell.
John walked back, scanning the shadows warily.
"So ... Hunters," he said, and Leon had a sudden realization that was almost as freaky as the lifeless
blocks stretched out in front of them.
"The nicknames are all descriptive," he said, eject- ing the clip from his semi to count the rounds. Five
left, and only one more full mag, though John still had
a couple - no, he only had one, Cole had the other.
And unless Leon was mistaken, John only had one full
magazine left for the M-16; thirty rounds, and what-
ever was still in the rifle.
No more grenades, almost out of ammo...
"So?" Cole asked, and John answered, his gaze narrowing as he spoke, his expression even more
watchful as he searched the heavy darkness of every
corner, every window.
"Think about it," John said. "Pterodactyls, scorpi- ons, spitting animals ... Hunters."
"I ... oh." Cole blinked, looking around them with new fear. "That's not good."
"You say the exit's bolted?" Leon asked.
Cole nodded, and John shook his head at the same
time.
"And like an asshole, I used the last grenade," he said softly. "No chance at blowing the door."
"If you hadn't, we'd be dead," Leon said. "And it probably wouldn't have worked anyway, not if it's the
same kind of setup as the entrance."
John sighed heavily, but nodded. "Guess we can burn that bridge when we come to it."
They were all quiet for a moment, a profoundly
uncomfortable silence that Cole finally broke.
"So ... ears and eyes open and stick close," he said tentatively, a question more than a statement.
John raised his eyebrows, smirking. "Not bad. Hey, what are you doing with your life if we make it outta
here? Want to join the cause, stick it to Umbrella?"
Cole grinned nervously. "If we make it out, ask me again."
As ready as they were going to be, they started
south, walking slowly down the middle of the street,
the dark buildings watching them with blank glass
eyes. Although all of them tried to move quietly, the
empty town seemed to echo back the soft sounds of
their boots on asphalt, even their breathing. None of
the buildings had signs or decorations, and there were
no lights inside as far as Leon could tell. The oppres-
sive, lifeless feeling gave him an unpleasant flash of
the night he'd driven into Raccoon for his first day on
the RPD, after Umbrella had spilled their virus.
Except the streets there smelled like death and
cannibals roamed through the dark, crows were feeding
on corpses, it was a city in its death throes...
About midway down the block, John held up one
hand, snapping Leon back to the present.
"Just a sec," he said, and jogged over to one of the "stores" on the left, a glass-fronted construct that
reminded Leon of a pastry shop, the kind that always
had wedding cakes in their windows. John peered in
through the glass, then tried the door. To Leon's
surprise, it opened; John leaned inside for a long
second, then closed it and jogged back.
"No counters or anything, but it's a real room," he said, his voice low. "There's a back wall and a ceiling."
"Maybe the Hunters are hiding out in one of
them," Leon said.
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