finally released him from the rage – that, and the slow, helpless blink of the wretched thing at his feet.
It didn't know what it was. It didn't know who they
were. Once it had been a man, and now it was rotting
garbage with a gun and a mission it couldn't possibly
understand.
They took his soul…
'John?'
A warm hand on his back, Karen's voice low and easy next to him. Steve and David stepped into view, staring down at the gaping, blinking shell of humanity in the shaded moonlight, the last remnant of an experiment in madness. 'Yeah,' he whispered. 'Yeah, I'm here.' David trained his Beretta on the monster's skull and spoke softly. 'Stand back.' John turned away, started walking back for their last destination with Karen at his side, Rebecca's slight form in front of him. The shot was incredibly loud, a booming crack that seemed to shake the ground beneath their feet.
Not Karen, oh please not one of us. That's no way to go out, no way to die…
Then David and Steve were with them and without speaking, they broke into a jog for block E, moving quickly through the emptiness that had claimed the night. The Trisquads were no more, but the disease that made them might even now be coursing through Karen's body, turning her into a creature with no mind, no soul, doomed to a fate worse than death. John picked up speed, silently swearing to himself that if they found this Dr. Griffith, he was going to be awfully goddamned sorry that they did.
THIRTEEN
The e block was no different than the first four they'd encountered, as bland and industrial and stale as the rest of them, a study in concrete efficiency. They moved quickly through the stuffy halls, turning on lights as they went, searching for the room that held the final clue to Dr. Ammon's secret. It didn't take long; almost half of the structure was taken up by an indoor shooting range, where David had found boxes of loaded M-16 mags, but no rifles to go with them. John had asked if he should retrieve the Trisquad's weapons, which Rebecca promptly vetoed. The rifles were hot, probably crawling with virus. Like Karen's blood by now, streams of replicating virions bursting from cells, searching for new cells to attach to and use and destroy… 'Here!' Steve called from farther down the wind– ing corridor, and Rebecca hurried toward him, Karen and John not far behind. David was already standing with Steve by the closed door, the red, green, and blue triangles a sign that they'd hit on the right room. Steve's gaze seemed to seek her out, but was blank of all emotion except worry. She didn't mind, noted it only absently. Karen's infection, John's insane run at the Trisquad – there wasn't room in her for anything but the need to find the lab, to find help for Karen. Steve opened the door and they filed inside, Rebecca continuing to watch Karen closely for signs that the virus had progressed and wondering what she should do with the information she'd picked up so far about the amplification time. She didn't really have any doubts that Karen had been exposed, and knew that no one else did, either, but what should she say?
Do I tell her that it might only take hours? Do I pull David aside? If there's a cure, she has to get it before the damage is too great, before it starts to fry her brain – before it dumps so much dopamine into her that she stops being Karen Driver and becomes… something else.
Rebecca didn't know how to handle it. They were already doing all that they could, as fast as they could, and she didn't know enough about the T-Virus to assume anything. She also didn't want to see Karen any more terrified than she was already. The woman was doing her best to control it, but it was obvious that she was on the edge of a breakdown, from the desperation in her bloodred eyes to the growing tremor of her hands. And the Trisquads had almost certainly been injected with much larger amounts than Karen had been exposed to; maybe she had days…
…first symptoms in less than an hour?Don't kid yourself. You have to tell her, to warn her and everyone else of what could happen. Soon.
She pushed the thought aside almost frantically, looking around at the room they'd entered. It was smaller than the test chambers they'd come across, and emptier. There was a long meeting table pushed to the back, a half dozen chairs behind it. In the front of the room was a small shelf coming off the wall, only a few feet long and a foot deep. There were three large buttons on the flat surface, red, green, and blue. The wall behind the shelf was tiled in large, smooth gray tiles made from some kind of industrial plastic. 'That's it,' Steve said. 'Blue to access.' With barely a second's hesitation, David walked to the counter and pushed the blue button. A woman's voice spoke coolly from a hidden speaker above, startling them. It was a recording, the bland tone eerily reminding Rebecca of the final moments at the Spencer estate, the triggering system tape.
'Blue series completed. Access reward.'
One of the tiles behind the shelf slid away, revealing a dark recess set into the concrete. As David reached into the hidden space, Rebecca felt a surge of frus-trated anger and disgust for Umbrella, for what she realized they had done. It was despicable. All those tests, all that work – set up to dole out treats to T-Virus victims. Get through the red series, good dog, here's your bone… and what was their reward, for making it through the tests? A piece of meat? Drugs, to ease their hunger? Maybe a brand new weapon for them to train with? Jesus, did they even understand what they'd been doing? She saw the same curled sneers of horror and disgust on the faces of the others and saw the same growing dismay as they watched David pull a single tiny item from the recess, what looked like a credit card with a slip of paper stuck to one side. They gathered around him as he held the item up, his dark gaze heavy with an almost manic disappoint– ment. It was a light green key card, the kind used to open electronic doors, blank except for a magnetic strip and the scrawled words on the small square of paper said only: LIGHTHOUSE-ACCESS 135-SOUTHWEST/EAST.
'Handwriting's the same as on Ammon's note,' Steve said hopefully. 'Maybe the lab is in the light-house…' 'One way to find out,' John said. 'Let's go.'He seemed angry, the same look he wore since their discovery of Karen's exposure to the virus. After watching him charge the Trisquad outside, Rebecca almost hoped that they'd come across Dr. Griffith; John would tear him apart. David nodded, slipping the card into his vest. The fear and guilt that he felt were obvious, playing across his features in a constant, twitching mask. 'Right. Karen…?'
She nodded, and Rebecca saw that her already pale skin had taken on a waxy tone, as if the top layers were becoming translucent. Even as she watched, Karen started to scratch absently at her arms. 'Yeah, I'm good,' she said quietly. She has to know. She deserves to know.
Rebecca knew it couldn't wait any longer. Choosing her words carefully, aware of their limited time, she turned to Karen and spoke as calmly as she could.
'Look, I don't know what they've done with the T-Virus here, but there's a chance that you could start to experience more advanced symptoms in a relatively short amount of time. It's important that you tell me, tell all of us how you're doing, physically and psycho-logically. Any changes at all, we need to know, okay?'
Karen smiled weakly, still scratching at her arms.
'I'm scared shitless, how's that? And I'm starting to itch all over…'
She turned her red eyes to David, then to Steve and John before looking back at Rebecca. 'If… if I start to act… irrationally, you'll do something, won't you?
You won't let me… hurt anyone?'
A single tear slid down one pale cheek, but she didn't look away, her wet, crimson gaze as firm and strong as it had ever been. Rebecca swallowed, struggling to sound confident and reassuring, awed by the bravery she saw in Karen's eyes – and wondering how much longer that bravery would hold up beneath the roar of the T-Virus running through her veins.
'We're going to find the cure before it comes to that,' she said, and hoped that she wasn't telling Karen a lie. 'Move out,' David said tightly. They moved out. The grounds of the facility were on a definite gentle slant, rising to the north, but as they left the E block and started for the towering black structure that perched over the cove, the curving slope became much steeper. The rocky soil angled up sharply, maybe as much as a thirty-degree incline, making the half kick walk into a hike. David ignored the strain in his back and legs; he was too worried about Karen and too busy tearing away at his own incompetence to bother with physical discomfort. They were closer to the shimmering waters of the cove than they had been since climbing out of them, and the cool, whispering breeze off the moonlit sur– face would have been pleasant on some other night, in some other place. The swaying ripples of soft light and the soothing murmur of waves were almost a mockery of their desperate situation, such a sharp contrast to the chaos inside of him that he found himself almost wishing that there were still Trisquads roaming
