P

ROLOGUE

Raccoon Times, July 24, 1998
SPENCER MANSION DESTROYED IN EXPLOSIVE FIRE
RACCOON CITY--At approximately 2 A.M. Thursday morn-
ing, Victory Lake district residents were awakened by an
explosive blast that thundered through northwest Raccoon
Forest, apparently caused by a fire that swept through the
abandoned Spencer mansion and ignited chemicals stored in
the basement. Due to delays from the police barricade set up
at the forest perimeter (in connection with the recent string
of murders in Raccoon City), local firefighters were unable
to salvage any part of the estate's grounds. After a three-
hour battle against the raging fire, the thirty one year old
mansion and adjacent servant's quarters were deemed a
complete loss.
Built by Lord Oswell Spencer, European aristocrat and
one of the founders of the worldwide pharmaceutical com-
pany, Umbrella, Inc., the estate was designed by award-
winning architect George Trevor as a guest house for
Umbrella VIPs and was closed down shortly after completion
for reasons unknown. According to Amanda Whitney,
spokesperson for the Umbrella Corporation, parts of the
estate were still being used to store a number of industrial
cleaning agents and solvents used by Umbrella. Whitney said
in a statement yesterday that the company would take full
responsibility for the unfortunate incident, calling it
"A serious oversight on our part. Those chemicals should have
been cleared out of the Spencer house a long time ago, and
we're just thankful that no one was hurt."
At this point, the cause of the fire is undetermined, but
Whitney went on to say that Umbrella will be bringing in
their own investigators to sift through the ruins in hopes of
determining the fire's point of origin. . .
Raccoon Weekly, July 29, 1998
S.T.A.R.S. TAKEN OFF MURDER INVESTIGATION
RACCOON CITY--In a surprising announcement by city
officials at a press conference yesterday, the Raccoon City
branch of the Special Tactics and Rescue Squad (S.T.A.R.S.)
was officially removed from the investigation into the nine
brutal murders and five disappearances of city residents that
have occurred in the last ten weeks. City council member
Edward Weist delivered the statement, citing gross incompe-
tence as the primary reason for the S.T.A.R.S. removal.
Readers may remember that the S.T.A.R.S.'s first action
upon being assigned the cases last week was to search the
northwest area of the forest for the alleged cannibal killers.
Weist stated that it was because of their "blatantly unprofes-
sional conduct" that their mission ended in disaster, re-
suiting in the crash of a helicopter and the loss of six of

their eleven team members, including the S.T.A.R.S. branch
commander, Captain Albert Wesker.
"After [the S.T.A.R.S.'s] mishandling of the Raccoon
Forest search," said Weist, "we've decided to let the RPD see
this investigation through to its conclusion. We have reason
to believe that the S.T.A.R.S. may have been ingesting drugs
and/or alcohol prior to their search, and have suspended the
use of their services indefinitely."
Weist was joined by Sarah Jacobsen (representing Mayor
Harris) and Police Commissioner J.C. Washington to make
the announcement and answer questions. Neither Police
Chief Brian Irons nor any of the surviving S.T.A.R.S. could
be reached for comment. . .
Cityside, August 3, 1998
SOURCE OF ESTATE FIRE DEEMED ACCIDENTAL
RACCOON CITY--After an exhaustive investigation by fire
officials working with Umbrella, Inc.'s ISD (Industrial
Services Division), the fire that ravaged the company-owned
Spencer estate in Raccoon Forest late last month was
determined to have been caused by carelessness on the part
of person or persons unknown, as was announced in a press
conference yesterday. Said ISD Team Leader David Bischoff,
"It looks like somebody tried to start a campfire in one of
the mansion's rooms and things just got out of control.
We've found nothing to suggest arson or foul play of any
kind." He went on to say that while the destruction of the
property was total, there's no evidence that anyone was
caught in the fire or subsequent explosion.
Chief Brian Irons of the Raccoon City Police Department
was in attendance at the conference, and when asked
whether he believed the fire to be connected to the unsolved
murders and disappearances plaguing the city, Irons stated
that there was no way to be sure. Said Irons, "At this point,
anything I could say would only be speculation--though I
will say that the fact that the murders have stopped since the
night of the fire seems to imply that perhaps the killers were
hiding there. We can only hope that they've now left the area
and will soon be apprehended."
Chief Irons refused to comment on the allegations of
gross misconduct by the S.T.A.R.S. in their brief assignment
to the murder investigation, saying only that he agreed with
the city council's decision and disciplinary actions are being
considered. . .

O

NE

REBECCA CHAMBERS RODE HER MOUNTAIN
bike through the dark, winding streets of the Cider
district, the late summer moon swelling in the warm,
clear night sky overhead. Although it was relatively
early, the suburban streets were deserted, the citywide

curfew still in effect; no one under eighteen was
supposed to be out after dusk until the murderers
were caught and put safely behind bars. It had been a
tense and quiet summer in Raccoon City, at least on
the surface.
She glided past silent houses, the faint glow of
television sets spilling out across well-kept lawns, the
distant drone of crickets and an occasional barking
dog the only sounds in the air that whipped past her.
The uneasy citizens of Raccoon dwelled behind those
locked doors, waiting for the announcement that the
killers had been apprehended and that their city was
safe.
If they only knew...,
For just a moment, Rebecca envied them their
ignorance. She'd come to the rather disheartening
conclusion in the last couple of weeks that knowing
the truth wasn't all it was cracked up to be--particu-
larly when no one believed it.
It had been a long, merciless thirteen days since the
nightmare at the Spencer estate. The surviving
S.T.A.R.S. had escaped treachery and death just to
run up against a massive brick wall of scornful
disbelief when they'd tried to tell their tale. Jill, Chris,
Barry, and herself had been labeled drug addicts and
worse in the local papers, undoubtedly at Umbrella's
urging--and after their suspension, even the RPD
had refused to believe them. Now, with Umbrella
taking over the investigation of the fire, undoubtedly
getting rid of the last of the evidence ... it was as if
everywhere the S.T.A.R.S. turned, Umbrella had been
there first, greasing palms and covering tracks, mak-
ing it impossible to get anyone to listen to their story.
Not that it would have been that simple anyway. One
of the biggest, most respectable med research and
pharmaceutical companies in the world--not to men-
tion the primary source of income in Raccoon--con-
ducting bio-weapons research in a secret lab, creating
experimental monsters-- If I didn't know better, I'd
probably think I was crazy, too.
At least the absolute worst was over. With the lab
destroyed, the attacks on Raccoon had stopped--and
though the people responsible hadn't been held ac-
countable yet, she figured it was only a matter of time.
Umbrella was experimenting with dangerous stuff,
and wouldn't be able to hide it from a S.T.A.R.S.
investigation. She and the others just had to watch
their backs until the home office sent backup.
Speaking of--ouch ...
The pancake holster was poking into her ribcage.
Rebecca adjusted it through the thin cotton of her

shirt, hoping that after tonight she wouldn't have to
carry the weapon anymore--a snub-nosed .38 revolv-
er from Barry's collection. She couldn't speak for the
others, but she hadn't had a decent night's sleep since
they'd escaped the Spencer estate, and walking
around armed all of the time wasn't her idea of safe.
Sighing inwardly, she took a left on Foster and
pedaled through the shadows toward Barry's house,
reminding herself that he'd probably called the meet-
ing because he'd heard from the home office with
orders. He would only say that there had been a
"development" and to show up ASAP--and though
she was trying not to let her imagination run away
with her, she couldn't help the steady pulse of excite-
ment that had knotted her stomach since he'd called.
Maybe they'll fly its to New York to brief the investi-
gation team, or even to Europe for when they storm
Umbrella's headquarters...
Wherever they were sent, it had to be better than
staying in Raccoon. The strain of looking over their
shoulders had been getting to all of them. Chris
seemed to think that Umbrella was waiting until the
public eye was off the S.T.A.R.S. before making their
move, though it was only a theory--and not exactly
the most reassuring thought to fall asleep by. Chicken-
heart Vickers had skipped out of town after only two
days, unable to take the pressure--and although Jill,
Chris, and Barry had condemned Brad's cowardice,
Rebecca was starting to wonder if maybe the Alpha
pilot didn't have the right idea. It wasn't that she
wanted Umbrella to walk, there was no question that
their experiments were morally reprehensible and
certainly illegal--but until the S.T.A.R.S. sent help,
staying in Raccoon City was dangerous.
Not after tonight; just a little bit longer, and this will
all be over. No more guns, no more locked doors--no
more worrying about what Umbrella will do to us for
knowing the truth.
When they'd first made the report, their superiors
in New York had told them to stay put. Assistant
Director Kurtz himself had promised to do some
investigating and get back to them--but it had been
eleven days, and still no word. She had no intention of
running away as Brad had done, but she'd come to
hate the feeling of that holster, the weight of the
deadly steel against her side every waking moment of
every day. She was supposed to be a chemist, for
chrissake...
And once the reinforcements come, maybe they'll
move me to one of the labs, let me study the virus.
Technically I'm still a Bravo; there's no way they'd

want me on the front lines...
There was no question that it would be the best use
of her talents. The others were experienced soldiers,
but Rebecca had only been with the S.T.A.R.S. for
five weeks. Her first mission had been the one to
Raccoon Forest that had wiped out over half the team
and clued the rest of them in to Umbrella's secret.
Since then, she'd spent a lot of time brushing up on
the molecular architecture of viruses, trying to deter-
mine the T-Virus replication strategy. The S.T.A.R.S.
didn't need field medics right now, they needed
scientists ... and if she'd learned anything from the
Spencer estate disaster, it was that she belonged in a
lab. She'd held her own that night, but she also knew
that working with the T-Virus was the greatest contri-
bution she could make toward stopping Umbrella.
And you may as well face it, her mind whispered,
you're fascinated by it. The chance to study an unclas-
sified emerging mutagen, to find out what makes it
tick--that's what makes you tick.
Yeah, well, there was no shame in enjoying her
work. She'd joined the S.T.A.R.S. in hopes of just
such an opportunity--and with any luck, after to-
night's meeting she would be packing a bag and
getting the hell out of Raccoon City, heading into a
new phase of her life as a S.T.A.R.S. biochemist.
She pulled to a stop at the end of the block in front
of a huge, two-story remodeled Victorian painted a
pale yellow, checking all around for anything suspi-
cious before getting off her bike. The Burtons lived
next to a sprawling suburban park, heavy with trees.
Even a few weeks ago, she might have wandered
through the silent park, enjoying the balmy summer
night, looking at the stars; now it was just one more
dark place for someone to hide. Shivering slightly in
spite of the warm, humid air, she hurried up the front
walk.
Dragging her bike onto the porch, she wiped sweat
from the back of her neck and checked her watch.
She'd made excellent time, only twenty minutes since
Barry's call. Rebecca leaned the bicycle against the
railing, praying that he had good news.
Before she could knock, Barry opened the door,
dressed in a T-shirt and jeans, his heavily muscled
body filling the door's frame. Barry lifted weights.
With a vengeance.
He smiled and stood back to let her inside, taking a
quick look out at the quiet street before following her
into the front hall. His Colt Python was tucked into a
hip holster, making him look like an overgrown
cowboy.

"You saw anybody?" he asked lightly.
She shook her head. "No. I took back streets, too."
Barry nodded, and though he was still smiling a
little, she could see the haunted look in his eyes, the
look he'd had ever since their narrow escape. She
wished she could tell him that nobody blamed him,
but knew it wouldn't make a difference; Barry still
held himself responsible for a lot of what had hap-
pened at the estate that night. He looked as though he
was losing weight, too, though she figured that had
more to do with him missing his wife and kids; he'd
sent them out of town immediately following the
incident, terrified for their safety.
Just one more way that Umbrella has damaged our
lives...
He led her through the spacious hallway past the
stairs, the walls decorated with framed drawings in
crayon that his daughters had made. The Burton
house was rambling and spacious, filled with the
scuffed and well-worn furnishings that epitomized
family.
"Chris and Jill should be here any time. You want
some coffee?"
He seemed tense, scruffing nervously at his short
red beard.
"No, thanks. Maybe some water."
"Yeah, sure. Go ahead and introduce yourself, I'll
be back in a minute." He hurried off to the kitchen
before she could ask him if anything was wrong.
Introduce myself? What's going on?
She walked through the hall's arched opening into
the cluttered, comfortable living room and stopped, a
little startled to see a strange man sitting in one of the
recliners. He stood up as she entered the room,
smiling--but she could see by the way his dark gaze
narrowed slightly that he was sizing her up.
Even a few weeks ago, the careful scrutiny would
have made her horribly self-conscious. She was the
youngest S.T.A.R.S. member ever to be accepted for
active duty, and knew that she looked it--but if
anything positive had come from the incident at the
Umbrella lab, it was that she no longer cared much
about things like social embarrassment. Facing down
a house full of monsters tended to put things in
perspective that way. Besides which, being stared at
had gotten pretty routine since then.
She gazed back at him impassively, studying him in
return. Jeans, a nice shirt, running shoes. He also
wore a hip holster with a nine-millimeter Beretta, the
S.T.A.R.S. standard-issue sidearm. He was tall, may-
be a full foot over her five-foot three-inch frame, but

slender, with a physique like a swimmer's. He was
almost movie-star handsome, a high, weathered brow
and finely chiseled features, short, dark hair and a
piercing gaze that sparkled with intelligence.
"You must be Rebecca Chambers," he said. He had
a British accent, his words clipped and somehow
polished. "You're the biochemist, is that right?"
Rebecca nodded. "Working on it. And you are . . ."
He smiled wider, shaking his head. "Forgive my
manners, please. I hadn't expected . . . that is, I..."
He stepped around Barry's low coffee table and
extended his hand, flushing slightly. "I'm David
Trapp, with the S.T.A.R.S. Exeter branch in Maine,"
he said.
Rebecca felt cool relief wash over her, the
S.T.A.R.S. had sent help instead of calling, fine by
her. She shook his hand, stifling a grin, knowing that
her appearance had thrown him. Nobody expected an
eighteen-year-old scientist, and while she'd gotten
used to the surprised looks, she still took a kind of
mischievous pleasure at catching people off guard.
"So, are you like the scout or something?" she
asked.
Mr. Trapp frowned. "Sorry?"
"For the investigation--are there other teams al-
ready here, or did you come to check things out first,
get the dirt on Umbrella . . ."
She trailed off as he shook his head slowly, almost
sadly, his dark eyes glittering with an emotion she
couldn't read.
It came out in his voice, heavy with frustrated
anger--and as the words sank in, Rebecca felt her
knees go watery with a sudden anxious dread.
"I'm sorry to have to tell you this, Ms. Chambers. I
have reason to believe that Umbrella has gotten to key
members of the S.T.A.R.S., either by bribery or
blackmail. There is no investigation--and no one else
is coming."
A look of confused terror passed through the girl's
light brown eyes and just as quickly was gone. She
took a deep breath and blew it out.
"Are you sure? I mean, did Umbrella try to get to
you, or ... are you positive?"
David shook his head. "I'm not absolutely certain,
no--but I wouldn't be here if I wasn't. . . concerned
about it."
It was a bit of an understatement, but David still
wasn't past the shock of seeing how young she was,
and felt an almost instinctive desire not to alarm her
any further. Barry had mentioned that she was some-
thing of a child genius, but he hadn't really expected a

child. The biochemist wore high tops and cut-off
denim shorts rolled at the knee, topped by a shapeless
black T-shirt.
Get past it; this child may be the only scientist we
have left.
The thought rekindled the anger that had been
burning in David's gut for the past few days. The
story that had been unfolding since Barry's call wasn't
a pretty one, filled with treachery and lies--and the
fact that the S.T.A.R.S., his S.T.A.R.S., were in-
volved . . .
Barry walked into the room with a glass of water
and Rebecca took it from him gratefully, swallowing
half of it in one gulp.
Barry shot him a glance and then turned his atten-
tion to Rebecca. "He told you, huh?"
The girl nodded. "Do Jill and Chris know?"
"Not yet. That's why I called," Barry said. "Look,
no point in going through this twice. We should wait
for them to show up before we get into specifics."
"Agreed," David said. He generally found that first
impressions were the most telling, and if they were
going to be working together, he wanted to get a feel
for the girl's character.
The three of them sat, and Barry started to tell
Rebecca how he and David had met back in
S.T.A.R.S. training when they were both much young-
er men. Barry told a good story, even if it was only to
kill time. David listened with half an ear as Barry
related an anecdote about their graduation night,
involving a rather humorless drill sergeant and sever-
al rubber snakes. The girl was relaxing, even enjoying
the story of their childish prank--
--seventeen years ago. She would have been cele-
brating her first birthday.
Still, she had put her questions on hold at Barry's
request, even though David knew she had to be
anxious about what he'd told her. The ability to
retrain one's focus so quickly was an admirable trait,
one that he'd never fully mastered.
He'd been able to think of little else since his own
call to the S.T.A.R.S. AD. David's devotion to the
organization had made the apparent betrayal all the
more bitter, like a bad taste in his mouth that
wouldn't go away. The S.T.A.R.S. had been David's
life for almost twenty years, had given him all the
things he'd lacked growing up--a sense of self-worth,
a sense of purpose and integrity.
And just like that, the lives of dedicated men and
women, my life and life's work simply tossed aside as if
it meant nothing. How much did that cost? How much

did Umbrella have to pay to buy the S.T.A.R.S.'s
honor?
David shook the anger, focusing his attention on
Rebecca. If all he'd learned was true, time was short
and their resources were now severely limited. His
motivations weren't as important right now as hers.
He could tell by the way she held herself that she
wasn't the shy or submissive type, and she was
obviously bright; her eyes fairly sparkled with it.
From what Barry had told him, she'd acted profes-
sionally throughout the Spencer facility operation.
Her file suggested that she was more than qualified to
work with a chemical virus, assuming that she was as
good as the reports said--and assuming she has any desire
to put her life in further danger.
That was going to be the sticking point. She hadn't
been with the S.T.A.R.S. for very long, and knowing
that they'd sold their people out probably wasn't
going to overwhelm her with feelings of confidence for
the job ahead. It would be just as easy for her to step
out of the game now. For that matter, it would be the
intelligent choice for all of them.
There was a knock at the door, presumably the
other two Alphas. David's hand drifted down to the
butt of his nine-millimeter as Barry went to answer.
When he walked back in leading the S.T.A.R.S. team
members, David relaxed, then stood up to be formally
introduced.
"Jill Valentine, Chris Redfield--this is Captain
David Trapp, military strategist for the Maine
S.T.A.R.S. Exeter branch."
Chris was the marksman, if David remembered
correctly, and Jill something of a covert B&E special-
ist. Barry said that the pilot, Brad Vickers, had
skipped town shortly after the Spencer incident. No
great loss, from what he could gather; the man
sounded distinctly unreliable.
He shook hands with both of them and they all sat
down, Barry nodding toward him.
"David's an old comrade of mine. We worked
together on the same team for about two years, right
after boot camp. He showed up on my doorstep about
an hour ago with news, and I didn't think it could
wait. David?"
David cleared his throat, trying to focus on the
significant facts. After a pause, he began at the begin-
ning.
"As you already know, six days ago, Barry placed
several calls to various S.T.A.R.S. branches to see if
any word had come from the home office about the
tragedy that occurred here. I received one of those

calls. It was the first I'd heard about it, and I've since
found out that the New York office hasn't contacted
anyone about your discovery. No warnings or memos.
Nothing has been issued to the S.T.A.R.S. regarding
the Umbrella Corporation."
Chris and Jill exchanged looks of concern.
"Maybe they're not done investigating," Chris said
slowly.
David shook his head. "I spoke to the assistant
director myself the day after Barry called. I didn't tell
him about the contact, only that I'd heard rumor of a
problem in Raccoon, and wanted to know if it had
any merit."
He looked at the assembled group and sighed
inwardly, feeling like he'd already gone over it a
thousand times.
Only in my mind, searching for another answer. . .
and there isn 't one.
"The AD wouldn't tell me anything outright," he
continued, "and he told me that I should remain quiet
about it until official word came down. What he would
say was that there had been a helicopter crash in
Raccoon City--and what he implied was that the
surviving S.T.A.R.S. were trying to lay blame on
Umbrella, angry over some sort of funding dispute."
"But that's not true!" Jill said. "We were investigat-
ing the murders, and found..."
"Yes, Barry told me," David interrupted. "You
found that the murders were the result of a laboratory
accident. The T-Virus that Umbrella was experiment-
ing with was released somehow and it transformed
the researchers into mad killers."
"That's exactly what happened," Chris said. "I
know it sounds nuts, but we were there, we saw
them."
David nodded. "I believe you. I have to admit, I
was skeptical after speaking with Barry. As you say, it
sounds 'nuts'--but my call to New York and what's
happened since has changed all that. I've known
Barry for a long time, and I knew that he wouldn't be
looking to place blame for such an unfortunate inci-
dent unless Umbrella was, in fact, responsible. He
even told me about his own unwilling involvement in
the attempted cover up."
"But if Tom Kurtz told you that there was no
conspiracy . . ." Chris said.
David sighed. "Yes. We have to assume that either
our own organization has been misled--or that, like
your Captain Wesker, members of the S.T.A.R.S. are
now working for Umbrella."
There was a moment of shocked silence as they

absorbed the information, and David could see anger
and confusion play across their faces. He knew how
they felt. It meant that the S.T.A.R.S. directors had
either been manipulated by Umbrella or corrupted by
them--and either way, the survivors of the Raccoon
team had been hung out to dry, left vulnerable to
whatever Umbrella might do.
God, if only I could believe that it was all a mis-
take.
"Three days ago, I picked up a tail on my way in to
work," he said softly. "I wasn't able to make them,
but I'm assuming that they're some of Umbrella's
people and that my call to New York was respon-
sible."
"Have you tried to get hold of Palmieri?" Jill asked.
David nodded. The S.T.A.R.S. national command-
er was the one man he knew was above taking bribes;
Marco Palmieri had been with the S.T.A.R.S. since
the very beginning. "I was informed by his secretary
that he's leading a classified operation in the Middle
East and won't be available for months--and word
has it that arrangements are being made for his
retirement while he's away."
"You think Umbrella's behind it?" Chris asked.
David shrugged. "Umbrella has made substantial
donations to the S.T.A.R.S. over the years, which
means they have the contacts. If they're trying to turn
the S.T.A.R.S. away from investigating them, getting
rid of Dr. Palmieri would be to their advantage."
David glanced around the room, trying to assess
their readiness for the rest of it. Barry's fists were
clenched, and he stared at them as if he'd never seen
them before. Jill and Rebecca both seemed lost in
thought, though he could see that they had accepted
his story as truth. It would save them time, at
least. . .
Chris stood up and started to pace, his youthful
features flushed with anger. "So basically, we've got
no credibility with the locals, no backup coming, and
we've been branded as liars by our own people. The
Umbrella investigation is dead and we're screwed,
does that pretty much sum it up?"
David could see that the anger wasn't directed at
him, just as the anger that he felt wasn't for the young
Alpha. The thought of what Umbrella had done, what
the S.T.A.R.S. were involved in--it made him sick
with rage, with feelings of helplessness that he hadn't
felt since his childhood.
Stop thinking of yourself. Tell them the rest.
David stood up and looked at Chris, though he
addressed all of them. He hadn't even had time to tell

Barry yet.
"Actually, there's more. It seems that there's anoth-
er Umbrella facility on the Maine coast, conducting
experiments with this virus of theirs--and just like
what happened here, they've lost control."
David turned to Rebecca, taking in her wide, horri-
fied gaze as he finished. "I'm taking a team in,
without S.T.A.R.S. authorization--and I want you to
come with us."

T

WO

THEY ALL STARED AT DAVID, CHRIS FEELING
like he'd just been punched in the gut. He was still
reeling from the information about the S.T.A.R.S.,
from the realization that they were on their own
and now another lab?
And he wants to take Rebecca...
David went on, his dark gaze still fixed on the
young Bravo. "I've talked to the people on my team I
believe to be trustworthy, and three of them have
agreed to go. I'm not going to lie to you--it will be
dangerous, and without the S.T.A.R.S. to back us up,
there's no guarantee we'll be able to close the lab
down. We just want to go in, collect some solid
evidence on this T-Virus, and get back out before
anyone even knows we're..."
Before he could stop himself, Chris interrupted.
"I'm going, too."
"We all go," Barry said firmly. Jill nodded, putting
her arm around Rebecca. The teen seemed flustered,
her cheeks red, and looking at her, Chris was once
again reminded of Claire. It was more than just a
physical resemblance; Rebecca had the same wit, the
same spirited blend of courage and thoughtfulness
that Chris's younger sister had. And since the Spencer
estate disaster, Chris had come to feel just as protec-
tive of Rebecca. Too many of his friends had died
already. Joseph, Richard, Kenneth, Forest, and
Enrico--not to mention Billy Rabbitson; his body
had never been found, but Chris had no doubts that
Umbrella had killed him to keep him from talking. It
wasn't that Rebecca couldn't handle herself. . .
... but damn it, she's part of our team. No way she
goes without us.
David shook his head. "Look, this isn't a full-scale
op; five people is already stretching it. Rebecca's got
the background we need to find the data on the virus,
and she already knows what symptoms to look for."
"You've got your team right here," Chris said. "You
can take us instead, let your guys look into the cover up."

David sat back down and looked at Chris, his face
expressionless, "Tell me who's involved in Umbrella's
conspiracy to hide their research," he said.
Chris glanced at the others, then back at David,
determined not to let his confusion show. "We sus-
pect several people locally. Umbrella's office workers,
of course. The police commissioner, Chief Irons, a
couple of his men . . ."
David nodded. "And now that it looks like the
S.T.A.R.S. are in on this, what do you propose to
do?"
Where the hell is he going with this?
Chris sighed. "I don't know. I... we should con-
tact the Feds, maybe an internal affairs division to
look into the S.T.A.R.S. and the RPD."
Barry cut in "...and we'll get in touch with some of
the other S.T.A.R.S. branches. There are still good
people working out there who ain't gonna be too
happy that Umbrella's taking over."
David nodded again. "So you agree that Umbrella
has to be stopped, even though it will be dangerous?"
"Well, no shit," Chris said, scowling angrily. "We
can't just sit around and do nothing, there's no telling
what could happen if the T-Virus gets out again!"
"And what can you tell me about the classification
of the virus?" David asked quietly.
Chris opened his mouth to answer--and then
closed it, staring at David thoughtfully.
He was about to say, "You should ask Rebecca." And
he knows it.
David stood up and looked at all of them in turn as
he spoke, his voice intense and determined. "I agree,
Umbrella has to be stopped--but let's not kid our-
selves. We're talking about breaking from the
S.T.A.R.S. and going up against a multi-billion dollar
establishment on our own. Nowhere is going to be
safe, and our only chance for success is if we each do
what we can, what we're good at, to take Umbrella
down."
He fixed his cool gaze on Chris, as if he realized that
Chris was the one who had to be convinced. "You and
Jill and Barry already know what to look for here, and
you've been with the S.T.A.R.S. longer than Rebecca.
You should stay here, out of sight, see if you can ferret
out the connection between the local police and
Umbrella--and reach out to the S.T.A.R.S. members
that you think would help us."
David turned to Rebecca again. "And if you agree, I
think we should leave for Maine tonight. With the
information I have, it looks as though things have
already gotten out of hand. My team is standing by;

we could go in tomorrow at dusk."
The room was silent for a moment, the only sound
that of the ceiling fan whirring overhead. Chris still
felt angry, but couldn't find a hole in the man's logic;
he was right about their options, and whether Chris
liked it or not, the choice to go to Maine was
Rebecca's to make.
"What information do you have?" Jill asked
thoughtfully. "How did you find out about the lab?"
David reached down to a battered briefcase
propped next to his chair and dug through it, pulling
out a file folder. "An interesting story in itself, if a
strange one. I was hoping that one of you might be
able to decipher some of this..."
He laid out three sheets of paper on the coffee table
as he spoke, what looked like photocopies of newspa-
per clippings, and a simple diagram. "Shortly after I
talked to the home office, I received a visit from a
stranger, a man who claimed to be a friend of the
S.T.A.R.S.... he told me his name was Trent, and
gave me these."
"Trent!" Jill broke in excitedly. She turned to
Chris, her eyes wide, and Chris felt his heart skip a
beat. He'd almost forgotten about their mysterious
benefactor.
The guy who told Jill to watch out for traitors, who
told Brad where to pick us up. . . .
David stared at Jill, his expression puzzled. "You
know him?"
"Just before we went in to rescue the Bravos, a man
named Trent gave me some information about the
Spencer estate, and warned me about Wesker," Jill
said. "He was quite a piece of work, real shady--he
didn't give anything away, you know? But he knew
what was going on with Umbrella, and what he did
tell me all panned out."
Barry nodded. "And Brad Vickers said that Trent
called in the estate's coordinates right after Wesker
activated the triggering system. If he hadn't radioed,
we woulda blown up with the rest of the mansion."
Chris suddenly realized that he had a serious head-
ache brewing as they all gathered around Barry's
coffee table, staring down at the papers. The
S.T.A.R.S. were working for Umbrella, there was
another T-Virus facility operating in Maine--and
now Trent again, popping up like some cryptic fairy
godmother, his motives impossible to guess at. It was
like some kind of a game, the stakes all or nothing as
they struggled to get to the bottom of Umbrella's
conspiracy.
And we have no choice but to play--but whose game

are we playing? And what do we risk losing if we fail?
Chris shot an unhappy glance at Rebecca, thinking
again of his kid sister and wishing, not for the first
time, that they'd never heard of Umbrella.
David watched them study the information that
Trent had given him, somehow not surprised that the
enigmatic stranger had contacted the S.T.A.R.S. be-
fore. The man had been a professional, though at
what, precisely, David couldn't imagine.
Why would he want to help us fight Umbrella?
What's in it for him?

David thought back to the brief encounter he'd had
only five days ago, searching his memory for some
additional clues, something he'd missed. He'd arrived
home late from work, and it had been raining ...
... pouring, a thundering summer storm that beat
at the windows and masked the sound of his gentle
knocking...
The Exeter S.T.A.R.S. had enjoyed an easy sum-
mer, more paperwork than action. The Bravos had
taken off for a criminal profiling seminar in New
Hampshire, and David had been entertaining
thoughts of packing a bag and attending the final
days--until he'd received Barry's call, followed by his
first hint from the home office that something was
wrong.
He'd spent the next day calling a few of his branch
contacts with discreet questions and digging through
files on Umbrella, not making it home until almost
midnight. The driving rain had ushered him into his
cold, dark house, the atmosphere matching his mood
perfectly. He'd poured a scotch and collapsed on the
couch, his head spinning from the implications of
what he'd learned--that either his old friend Barry
was lying or that the AD for the S.T.A.R.S. was.
The rapping at his door was so soft that he missed it
at first, the steady rain hammering on the roof cover-
ing the sound. Then it grew louder.
Frowning, David looked at his watch and walked
slowly to the door, wondering who the hell came
calling in the middle of the night. He lived alone and
had no family; it had to be work, or maybe someone
with car trouble...
He cracked the door open--and saw a man in a
black trench coat standing on his porch, streams of
water running down his lined face.
The stranger smiled, an open, friendly expression,
his eyes glittering bright with humor. "David Trapp?"
David took in the man at a glance. Tall and thin,
maybe a few years past David's age, say forty-two or

forty-three. His dark hair was plastered to his skull by
the rain, and he held a large manila envelope in one
gloved hand.
"Yes?"
The man grinned wider. "My name is Trent, and
this is for you."
He held out the damp envelope and David glanced
at it warily, not sure if he should take it. Mr. Trent
didn't seem dangerous, or at least not threatening,
but he was still a stranger, and David preferred to
know the people he accepted gifts from.
"Do I know you?" David asked.
Trent shook his head, his smile unwavering. "No.
But I know you, Mr. Trapp. And I also know what
you're about to go up against. Believe me, you're
going to need all the help you can get."
"I don't know what you're talking about. Perhaps
you have me confused with someone else."
Trent's smile faded as he extended the envelope, his
dark eyes narrowing slightly. "Mr. Trapp, it's raining.
And this is for you."
Confused and not a little irritated, David opened
the door wider to accept the envelope. As soon as he
grasped it, Trent turned and started to walk away.
"Hold on a moment."
Trent ignored him, disappearing into the rain-
drenched shadows around the side of the house.
David stood in the doorway uncertainly, holding
the damp paper and staring into the pouring darkness
for another minute before going back inside. Once
he'd studied the contents, he wished he'd gone after
Trent, but by then, of course, it was too late.
Too late and only too obvious what he'd meant. He
knew about Umbrella and the S.T.A.R.S., but who
does he work for? And why did he choose to contact
me?

Jill and Rebecca were studying the map while Barry
and Chris worked through the copied newspaper
articles. There were four of them, all recent, all
centered around the tiny coastal town of Caliban
Cove, Maine. Three of them concerned the disappear-
ances of local fishermen, all presumed dead. The
fourth was a rather humorous piece about the
"ghosts" that haunted the cove; it seemed that several
townspeople had heard strange sounds floating across
the waters late at night, described as "the cries of the
damned." The writer of the article had laughingly
suggested that the witnesses to the phenomena should
probably stop drinking their mouthwash before bed.
Funny. Unless you know what we know about Umbrella.

The map was of the stretch of coast just south of the
small town, an aerial sketch of the cove itself. David
had uncovered a few facts about the area on a visit to
Exeter's library, uncomfortable using the S.T.A.R.S.
computer after Barry's call. The rather isolated
stretch had been privately owned for several years,
bought up by an anonymous group. There was a
defunct lighthouse on the northern rim of the inlet,
sitting atop a cliff that was supposedly riddled with
sea caves.
Trent's map showed several structures behind and
below the lighthouse, leading down to a small pier on
the southern tip of the open crescent. There was a
notched border that ran the length of the cove on the
inland side, presumably a fence. CALIBAN COVE was
written across the top in bold letters. In smaller type
just beneath were the words UMB. RESEARCH AND
TESTING.
The third piece of paper that Trent had given him
was the one that David didn't understand; there was a
short list of names at the top, seven in all:
LYLE AMMON, ALAN KINNESON, TOM ATHENS, LOUIS
THURMAN, NICOLAS GRIFFITH, WILLIAM BIRKIN, TIFFANY
CHIN.
Just under it was a somewhat poetic list of sorts, set
into the center of the page in curling font.
Jill had picked it up again and was reading it
carefully. She looked up at David, a half-smile on her
face.
"No question that we've got the same Trent here.
The guy's into riddles."
"Any idea what it means?" David asked.
Jill sighed heavily. "Well, one of the names here
was in the material that Trent gave me--William
Birkin. We figured out that at least some of the others
were researchers at the Spencer facility, so I'm willing
to bet these people also work for Umbrella. Birkin
may not have been at the estate when it was de-
stroyed. I don't recognize any of the others."
David nodded. "I checked all of them with the
S.T.A.R.S. database and came up blank. The rest,
though . . . Is it a riddle of some sort?"
Jill glanced back at the paper, frowning as she read
it to herself again:
Ammon's message received/blue series/enter answer for
key/letters and numbers reverse/time rainbow/don't count/
blue to access.
Rebecca took the paper from her as Jill looked back
at David thoughtfully. "A lot of what Trent gave me
seemed like pretty random stuff, but some of it related
to the Spencer mansion's secrets; the whole place was

rigged with puzzle locks and traps. Maybe this is the
same deal. It relates to something you'll find."
"Oh, shit."
They all turned to Rebecca who was staring at the
top of the page, her face drained of color. She looked
at David with an expression of anxious despair.
"Nicolas Griffith is on this list."
David nodded. "You know who he is?"
She looked around at all of them, her young face
openly distressed. "Yeah, except I thought he was
dead. He was one of the greats, one of the most
brilliant men ever to work in the biosciences."
She turned back to David, her gaze heavy with
dread. "If he's with Umbrella, we've got a lot more to
worry about than the T-Virus getting out. He's a
genius in the field of molecular virology and if the
stories are true, he's also totally insane."
Rebecca looked back at the list, her stomach a
leaden knot.
Dr. Griffith, still alive . . . and involved with Umbrel-
la. Could today possibly get any worse?
"What can you tell us about him?" David asked.
Rebecca's mouth felt dry. She reached for her glass
of water and drained it before looking at David.
"How much do you know about the study of
viruses?" she asked.
He smiled a little. "Nothing. That's why I'm here."
Rebecca nodded, trying to think of where to start.
"Okay. Viruses are classified by their replication
strategy and by the type of nucleic acid in the
virion--that's the specialized element in a virus that
allows it to transfer its genome to another living cell.
A genome is a single, simple set of chromosomes.
According to the Baltimore Classification, there are
seven distinct types of viruses, and each group infects
certain organisms in a certain way.
In the early sixties, a young scientist at a private
university in California challenged the theory, insist-
ing that there was an eighth group--one based loosely
on dsDNA and ssDNA viruses--that could infect
everything it contacted. It was Dr. Griffith. He pub-
lished several papers, and while it turned out that he
was wrong, his reasoning was brilliant. I know, I read
them. The scientific community scoffed at his theory,
but his research on virus-specified inclusion bodies in
the cytoplasm without a linear genome ..."
Rebecca trailed off, noticing the blank expressions
on their faces. "Sorry. Anyway, Griffith stopped try-
ing to prove the theory, but a lot of people were
interested to see what he'd come up with next."
Jill interrupted, frowning. "Where did you learn all

this?"
"In school. One of my professors was kind of a
science-history buff. His specialty was defunct theo-
ries .. . and scandals."
"So what happened?" David asked.
"The next time anyone heard from Griffith, it was
because he'd gotten kicked out of the university. Dr.
Vachss--that was my prof--told us that Griffith was
officially fired for using drugs, methamphetamines,
but the rumor was that he'd been experimenting with
drug-induced behavior modification on a couple of
his students. Neither of them would talk, but one of
them ended up in an asylum and the other eventually
committed suicide. Nothing was ever proved, but
after that, no one would hire him and as far as the
facts go, that's the last anyone heard of Nicolas
Griffith."
"But there's more to the story?" David asked.
Rebecca nodded slowly. "In the mid-eighties, a
private lab in Washington was broken into by cops
and the bodies of three men were found, all dead of a
filovirus infection--it was Marburg, one of the most
lethal viruses there is. They'd been dead for weeks;
neighbors had complained because of the smell. The
papers the police found in the lab suggested that all
three men were research assistants to a Dr. Nicolas
Dunne, and that they had allowed themselves to be
deliberately infected with what they understood to be
a harmless cold virus. Dr. Dunne was going to see if
he could cure it."
She stood up, crossing her arms tightly. The agony
those men must have endured; she'd seen pictures of
Marburg victims.
From the initial headache to extreme amplification
in a matter of days. Fever, clotting, shock, brain
damage, massive hemorrhaging from every orifice,
they would've died in pools of their own blood.
"And your professor thought it was Griffith?" Jill
asked softly.
Rebecca forced the images away and turned to Jill,
finishing the story the way Dr. Vachss had. "Griffith's
mother--her maiden name was Dunne."
Barry let out a low whistle, as Jill and Chris
exchanged a worried look. David was studying her
intently, his gaze cool and unreadable. All the same,
she thought she knew what was going through his
mind.
He's wondering if this changes things. If I'll go with
him to see this Caliban Cove facility, now that I know
it's being run by people like Griffith.
Rebecca looked away from David's intense scrutiny

and saw that the rest of her team was watching her,
their faces tight with concern. Since that terrible night
at the Spencer estate, they'd become like a family to
her. She didn't want to leave, to risk never seeing
them again. . .
. . . but David's right. Without the support of the
S. T.A.R.S., nowhere will be safe for any of us. And this
would be my chance to contribute, to do what I'm good
at . . .
She wanted to believe that it was the only reason,
that she'd be going to fight the good fight, but she
couldn't help the tiny shiver of excitement that ran
through her at the thought of getting her hands on the
T-Virus. It would be a golden opportunity to study
the mutagen before anyone else, to categorize the
effects and pick apart the virion right down to its
smallest capsid.
Rebecca took a deep breath and blew it out, her
decision made.
"I'll do it," she said. "When do we go?"

T

HREE

JILL FELT HER HEART QUICKEN AT REBEC-
ca's words, a feeling that things were happening too
fast and that they weren't prepared. Her decision
seemed sudden, even though Jill really hadn't
doubted that she'd volunteer; Rebecca was a lot
stronger than she looked.
She glanced around Barry's wide, open living room,
discreetly noting the reactions of her teammates.
Chris's face was strained, his mouth drawn as he
stared absently at the map of Caliban Cove, while
Barry walked across to one of the living room win-
dows, staring out past the curtain and scowling at
nothing in particular.
They're worried about her, and maybe they should
be; Griffith sounds like a serious psycho . . . but would
any of us have hesitated if we'd been asked to go?
It just proved that Rebecca was as committed as
they were, also no great surprise. Getting to know the
young Bravo had been one of the only bright spots in
the frustrating days since the mansion had burned.
The girl had been unfailingly optimistic about their
chances against Umbrella even after their suspension,
and had worked tirelessly to keep all of their spirits
up. She was brilliant, too and yet she never flaunted
it, or came across as condescending when she was
attempting to discuss aspects of the T-Virus with
them.
Rebecca looked a bit distraught herself, glancing

around at the three men in the room. Even David
Trapp seemed vaguely uncomfortable with her deci-
sion, probably because of Rebecca's youth.
Men. She's young, she's cute, and she's undoubtedly
smarter than all of us put together, but the young and
cute part tends to make them overlook the rest.
Jill caught her eye and smiled encouragingly. At
Rebecca's age, Jill had been a professional thief, and a
good one. She was worried about Rebecca, too, but
only because she'd grown to care about her. The fact
that she was a young woman wasn't a reason to
underestimate her talents.
Rebecca smiled back, and walked over to sit by her
as David nodded hesitantly at his newest teammate.
"All right, then. Good. There's a plane leaving for
Bangor at twenty-three hundred hours, with a con-
necting flight to a field just outside of Exeter. I
thought we could all go over a bit of strategy here, and
then drop by your place on the way to the airfield so
you can pack a few things."
Rebecca nodded, and after cracking a window
open, Barry moved back to join them, leaning against
one arm of the couch. He folded his arms across his
massive chest and jerked his chin toward David.
"You're the strategist," he said, not unkindly.
"Why don't you start us off?"
The respect between the two men was obvious,
making Jill like David all the more. In spite of Barry's
screw ups in the Spencer fiasco, Jill had grown to trust
him, something she didn't do easily and he seemed
confident in David Trapp's skills.
"I don't mean to take over," David said, "but I
have a few thoughts on how we might approach this
situation. I've known about the S.T.A.R.S.'s betrayal
for several days now ... though I thought we all
might spend a few moments considering our course of
action. I realize that this must come as quite a shock."
Jill picked up on the same thread of bitterness she'd
noticed earlier, on the word "betrayal." The fact that
the S.T.A.R.S. were in bed with Umbrella obviously
wasn't sitting too well with Mr. Trapp ...
. . . probably not with Chris or Barry, either. Both of
them have more time invested with the S. T.A.R.S. than
me or Becca . . .
Jill was disappointed and angry that the S.T.A.R.S.
had sold out, but it wasn't going to be a factor in her
decision to work at bringing Umbrella down. Her
path had been determined on the day that the McGee
sisters had been brutally murdered. The two little
girls were the first innocent victims of the T-Virus
spill at the Spencer estate and they had been her friends.

She pushed the thoughts away, focusing on the
matter at hand. Without the S.T.A.R.S., their job was
going to be a lot tougher. Not impossible, but she had
to admit to herself that their chance of success had
just dropped to somewhere near zero. It was a good
thing she didn't mind being the underdog.
It doesn't matter anyway. Umbrella's going to pay
for what they've done, one way or another. . .
Barry's gruff voice broke the quiet in the room, his
gaze thoughtful. "Maybe we should go to the press.
Not local, but someone big, national."
David sighed, shaking his head. "I thought of that.
It's a good idea, but right now we don't have the proof
to make anything stick."
"Yeah, but at least Umbrella wouldn't move on us
with everyone watching."
"We couldn't count on that," Jill said. "If they got
to the S.T.A.R.S., they could get to anyone. And
without evidence . . . well, you gotta admit, the
story's the kind of thing even the tabloids wouldn't
buy."
There was a moment of sullen silence, as if her
words reminded them all of how insane it sounded,
how insane it would sound to anyone who hadn't
experienced what they'd been through.
A virus that accidentally turns people into zombies,
being used to create unspeakable monsters as living
weapons... invented and then covered up by a major
corporation that hires mad scientists to experiment on
human beings. All it needs is a Nazi war criminal with
an atomic weapon, we'd have a best-seller on our
hands...
"Well, what we were talking about before orga-
nizing some of the other S.T.A.R.S.," Chris said.
"I've got a few people in mind, some of the guys I
trained with. And I know Barry's got a lot of con-
tacts."
David nodded agreement. "Yes, I think that should
be a priority. My concern is how to get in touch with
them. The branch offices may already be tapped, and
we want to keep Umbrella from learning about our
plans for as long as possible. Unfortunately, we won't
have use of the S.T.A.R.S.'s resources for much
longer."
"Maybe we should look for a go-between," Jill said
slowly. "Someone who doesn't have ties to the
S.T.A.R.S"
Chris grinned suddenly. "I know a guy from back in
the Air Force who works for Jack Hamilton now, one
of the section heads for the FBI--I don't know much
about Hamilton, but Pete's about as honest as they

come. And he owes me a favor."
"Brilliant," David said. "Perhaps you could ask
him to help you look into the local police as well.
Once we have solid evidence from the Maine facility,
we can go to your friend, instigate a federal investiga-
tion."
It sounded good, but Jill found herself feeling
frustrated by the talk. She wanted to act. Waiting for
the S.T.A.R.S. to contact them had been bad enough;
knowing that Rebecca was going to be risking her life
while they waited idly by would be excruciating.
"You said you had some thoughts about what else
we could do," she said.
David nodded. "Yes, though once we involve the
government, it may not come to anything quite so
daring. I had been formulating a plan to infiltrate
Umbrella headquarters, a risky proposition at best. It
seems wisest to work on a smaller scale for now, but
I do believe the three of you should drop out of sight,
as soon as possible. I also think it would be prudent
for you to see what you can uncover on Mr. Trent,
though I have the distinct feeling that you won't come
up with much, if anything."
He smiled a little, and having met Trent, Jill
understood his doubts perfectly. Their strange bene-
factor had struck her as a very careful man.
"I get the impression that we'll only find what he
wants us to find," David continued, "but it is worth a
look. And we'll need to arrange for a rendezvous site
after we've..."
His soft, musical voice broke off suddenly as he
tilted his head to one side, listening intently. Jill heard
it in the same instant and felt her heart freeze in her
chest.
A rustling in the bushes outside the window that
Barry had opened.
Umbrella!!!
"Get down!" Jill shouted, and rolled off the couch,
pulling Rebecca with her as the window shattered, the
curtains blown aside in an explosive burst from an
automatic rifle.
David dove for the floor as bullets riddled the chair
he'd been in, already grabbing for his weapon. Tufts of
padding floated past his wide eyes as a smoking trail
of holes tore across the wall, plaster and wood flying.
Bloody hell...
There was a split-second break in the onslaught,
just long enough for them to hear the crash of glass
breaking from the back of the house.
"Barry, lights!" he shouted, but Barry was way
ahead of him, the thunder of his Colt revolver drown-

ing out the intermittent spray of the machine gun.
Boom! Boom!
The room went dark as Barry's rounds found their
mark, glass raining down from above. Light still
streamed into the darkness from the hall, and there
was another hail of bullets from outside.
Chris scrabbled on elbows and knees for the hall-
way and in one smooth movement rolled onto his side
and took out the additional lights. The living room
was now completely black, and the bursts of automat-
ic fire stopped.
Over the ringing in his ears, David heard boots
crunching on glass from back in the kitchen. The
heavy steps paused, the intruder probably waiting for
the window shooter to catch up and there will be more than two,
covering the exits. Kitchen door, front porch, someone watching the
windows. . .
Another set of steps entered the kitchen, these
hurried and shuffling, but they also stopped. The pair
was waiting, either for more of their team or for the
assembled S.T.A.R.S. to make a move. David's
thoughts raced independently of him, reflexively con-
sidering and rejecting theories and options at light-
ning speed.
We get upstairs, pick them off one at a time--
--unless they mean to torch the house--
--so we run straight through them, out the back--
--except they've got the firepower advantage, maybe
spook eyes and we'd be moving targets, no contest. . .
All he knew for certain was that they couldn't stay
where they were. There was no cover for when the
thugs got tired of waiting.
There was shuffling movement from the right as
Barry's hulking shadow crouched toward him. Da-
vid's eyes had adjusted enough to see Jill and Rebecca
on the other side of the coffee table, both of them
crouched and holding handguns. He couldn't make
Chris out, but he was probably still by the hall.
Barry's house was the last on the block, a wooded
park just past. If they could slip out, get into the
trees. . .
The thought stuck; even a bad plan was better than
none at all, and they didn't have time to work out
alternatives.
"Basement door?" David whispered.
Barry's gruff voice was soft and strained. "Yeah."
No good, it would be posted. They'd have to get out
through the second floor.
"We go through the park," he whispered quickly.
"Jill, get to Chris and prepare to lay cover on my
signal. Barry, Rebecca, as soon as we start, hit the

stairs fast to an east window, softest jump. We'll
follow. Ready? Go."
Jill was already moving around the couch, disap-
pearing silently into the thick shadows, Barry and
Rebecca right behind. David paused just long enough
to scoop up the papers that Trent had given him. He
stuffed them inside his shirt, the crinkling pages cool
against his sweaty skin. Nothing else in his briefcase
would be damaging.
He crept toward the yawning blackness of the
opening to the hall, edging to where Jill and Chris
were crouched. The entry faced the side of the stairs.
To the left was the front door and the foot of the steps.
To the right, the quiet kitchen at the end of the long
hall where the two Umbrella operatives waited.
They go right, I'll take left, when the shooting begins
the rest of the strike force should rush the front
door. . .
David hoped. If the timing wasn't perfect, they
were dead. Away from the faint light from the win-
dows, it was too dark for hand signals. He leaned
close between Jill and Chris, pitching his voice as low
as possible.
"Both right, Jill low and outside," he whispered.
They wouldn't be aiming for the floor, and Chris
could use the wall of the entry as a shield. "I've got
the front door. Keep it up for six seconds exactly,
no more. On zero, you need to be on the stairs, out of
the corridor. On my mark ... now!"
The three of them sprang into position, Chris and
Jill firing toward the kitchen, David whirling to the
left. He ran for the front door in a low crouch, the
count ticking.
... five... four...
Behind him, Barry and Rebecca lunged for the
stairs through the crash of bullets. David trained the
Beretta on the darkness in front of him and was
only a foot away from the door when someone kicked
it open.
Bam!
His shoulder connected with the heavy wood and
he threw himself into it, slamming it closed. He
dropped to the floor and jammed his heel against the
base.
...two ...
He fired into the door at an upward angle, five shots
as fast as he could pull the trigger. There was a
strangled scream, the sound of something heavy hit-
ting the porch, and he fired three more before rolling
to his feet, into the alcove at the foot of the stairs and
out of the line of fire. Their time was up.

David spun, saw Jill and Chris already on their way
Up and as his feet hit the first riser, there was a
sound like an explosion behind him. The front door
was suddenly a mass of flying splinters, heavy rounds
tearing through the wood as the Umbrella team
sought to end the battle. If the two Alphas hadn't
killed the men in the kitchen, they were surely dead
by now.
Halfway up the staircase, David turned and fired
twice more through the rapidly disintegrating door,
hoping he'd bought the S.T.A.R.S. enough time to
escape.
Ten, maybe twenty seconds before they realize we're
gone.
It was going to be close.
Rebecca stood on the dark landing, her heart
pounding almost as loudly as the booming shots that
chased Jill and Chris up the stairs.
Come on, come on. . .
Barry was to her right at the end of the landing's
hall, barely visible by the moonlight that streamed
through the open window. Jill was the first to reach
the top. Rebecca steered her toward Barry with a
touch, Chris following close behind.
Bam! Bam!
The muzzle on David's nine-millimeter flashed
brightly in the darkness on the stairs, and then he was
in front of her, materializing out of the gloom like a
sweaty ghost.
"This way. . ."
Rebecca turned and ran for the window, David at
her side. Jill had already gone and Chris was halfway
out, Barry gripping one of his hands as he struggled to
balance himself.
Please God, let there be a mattress, a pile of leaves. . .
BOOM!
The crash of the front door flying open was fol-
lowed by heavy footsteps and muffled male voices,
angry and commanding. Chris disappeared through
the window and then Barry was reaching for her, his
mouth a grim line. She jammed her pistol back in its
holster and stepped to the window.
Barry's warm hand on her back, Rebecca crawled
onto the sill and looked down. There were hedges
against the side of the house, lush and thick and
impossibly far below. She caught a glimpse of Jill,
standing on the lawn, aiming her weapon toward the
front of the house and Chris looking up at them, his
face tight with strain:
--don't think just do it--
Rebecca slid out the window, Barry's strong fingers

finding her hand. Her shoulder groaned as gravity did
its work, Barry leaning out to give her less of a drop,
her body suspended in mid-air.
He let go and before she could feel real terror, she
hit the bushes. There was small pain, twigs and
branches scratching at her bare legs, and then Chris
was pulling her out, lifting her easily from the twining
hedges.
"Take the back," he breathed, his attention already
fixed back on the window.
Rebecca snatched the revolver out as she stepped
onto the lawn, turning to face the shadows that made
up the backyard. To her left, a dark stand of trees
stood maybe twenty meters away, silent and still.
Hurry, hurry. . .
There was a thundering rattle of bullets inside the
house and a thrashing thump in the bushes to her
right, but she didn't turn, intent on her assigned task.
A movement, by the corner of the house. Rebecca
didn't hesitate, sending two shots into the thickening
of shadow, Barry's .38 jerking in her hands. The
figure crumpled, falling forward just enough for her to
see that she'd hit a man clutching a rifle and that he
wasn't going to get up again.
--never shot anybody before--
"Move!" Chris shouted, and Rebecca jerked her
head around, saw Barry climb out of the bushes and
stumble toward them. There was a shout from the
window, followed by a burst from an automatic rifle.
Rebecca actually felt the bullets hit the ground near
her feet, tearing up chunks of overgrown lawn. Dirt
pelted her legs.
Shit!
David and Jill fired back as they ran for the trees,
Chris leading the way. The shooter either ducked or
was shot; the dull clatter of the rifle fell silent. As they
reached the first of the wooded shadows, Rebecca
heard the wail of approaching sirens--followed
closely by shouts and running steps across Barry's
front porch. Seconds later, there was a squeal of tires.
Rebecca stumbled through the brushy copse, dodg-
ing between narrow, gnarled trunks, trying to keep the
others in sight. The revolver felt too heavy in her slick
grasp and her entire body seemed to be pounding, her
legs shaking, her breathing sharp and shallow. Every-
thing had happened so fast. She'd known they were in
danger, that Umbrella wanted them out of the way,
but knowing something wasn't the same as really
believing it, as believing that violent strangers would
break into Barry's home and try to take their
lives. . .

. . . and I may have taken one of theirs instead.
The thought that she might have killed some-
one . . . she forced it away before it could take hold,
concentrating on the pale shape of Chris's T-shirt
ahead. Her conscience would have to wait until she
had time to think it through.
Ahead of them, the thick woods opened into
a clearing, playground equipment gleaming dully in the
pallid light. Chris slowed to a jog and then stopped
where the line of trees ended, turning back to search
the shadows for the rest of them.
Rebecca caught up to him, Barry and Jill just
behind her, all of them breathing heavily and looking
as stunned and sober as Rebecca felt.
"David, where's David?" Chris gasped, and as they
all turned, straining to see past the dark, reaching
branches, Rebecca saw one of the shadows to their left
move. A stealthy, sliding movement.
"Look out!"
She dropped to the ground even as she yelled, fresh
terror surging through her system. . .
. . . and the shadow fired at them, twice, the shots
muted compared to the explosive thunder at the
house. There was a third shot, louder, closer, and the
shadow stumbled and fell, crashing against a tree
before collapsing silently to the dirt. Except for the
rising moan of sirens, the park was again still.
Rebecca slowly raised her head, craning to look
over her shoulder and saw David, standing, still
pointing his Beretta at the fallen shooter. Jill and
Chris were crouched next to her, both of them holding
their weapons out, staring around them with wide,
searching gazes . . .
. . . and on her other side, Barry was sprawled on the
ground, his face pressed to the blanket of dried pine
needles and long dead leaves.
He wasn't moving.

F

OUR

THERE WAS DARKNESS FOR AN INDETERMI-
nate time, silent and complete and then there were
voices, drawing him up through the black depths of
his limbo, voices that his floating mind couldn't
identify at first. From somewhere far away, he heard
sirens.
he's been hit
oh my God
see if it's clear
wait I can 't find the wound help me--Barry? Barry,
can

"Barry, can you hear me?"
Rebecca. Barry opened his eyes and then closed
them immediately, wincing as the throbbing pain
wrapped around his skull. There was another pain in
his left arm, sharp and insistent but not as complete
as the ache in his head. He'd had acquaintance with
both kinds of pain before.
Got shot, met up with a tree... or some asshole
with a baseball bat.
He tried opening his eyes again as small hands
moved across his chest, lightly searching. It took him
a second to focus on the worried faces looming over
him, Jill and Chris and a frightened-looking Rebecca,
her fingers probing his shirt for the wound. The sirens
had fallen mercifully silent, though he could hear the
cop cars pulling up his street, their powerfully revving
engines echoing through the wooded park.
"Left bicep," he mumbled, and started to sit up.
The dark woods wavered unsteadily, and then
Rebecca was gently pushing him back down.
"Don't move," she said firmly. "Just lay there a
second, okay? Chris, give me your shirt."
"But Umbrella..." Barry started.
"It's clear," David said, kneeling next to the others.
"Be still."
Rebecca lifted his arm carefully, looking at both
sides. Barry flexed his arm slightly and scowled at the
burst of pain, but could tell it wasn't bad; the bone
was still intact.
"Right out the deltoid," Rebecca said. "Looks like
you're gonna have to lay off the weights for awhile."
Her tone was light, but he could see the concern in
her gaze as she studied his face. She started wrapping
Chris's T-shirt tightly around his arm, watching him
intently.
"You've got a nasty bump on your temple," she
said. "How do you feel?"
Though his head was still pounding, the pain had
subsided to ache status. He felt light-headed and a
little nauseous, but he still knew his own name and
what day of the week it was; if it was a concussion, he
wasn't impressed.
I've had worse hangovers...
"Pretty much like shit," he said, "but I'm okay. I
must've hit a tree on the way down."
As she finished the makeshift bandage, he sat up
again, this time with better results. They had to get
moving before the cops decided to search the
woods, but where could they go? It seemed unlikely
that Umbrella would attack twice in one night, but it
wasn't a theory worth testing. None of their homes

would be safe. At least his family was out of harm's
way visiting Kathy's parents in Florida. The thought
that they could have just as easily been at home, his
girls playing in their rooms when the shooting had
started.
He staggered unsteadily to his feet, finding strength
in the rage that he'd lived with since that night at the
estate. Wesker had threatened Kathy and the girls to
force Barry's cooperation in Umbrella's coverup,
using him to get to the underground laboratories.
Barry's guilt had blossomed into fury in the days
since, an anger that transcended any he'd ever known.
"Bastards," Barry snarled. "Goddamn Umbrella
bastards."
The others stood up with him, Chris's bare chest
pale in the faint light, all of them seeming relieved
that he wasn't badly hurt, except for David, who
looked as unhappy as Barry had ever seen him. His
shoulders sagged from some unknown burden and
when he spoke, he wouldn't meet Barry's gaze.
"The man who shot you," David said. He held up a
nine-millimeter with a suppressor attached, blood
spattered across the barrel. "I killed him. I ... Barry,
it's Jay Shannon."
Barry stared at him. He heard the words, but was
unable to accept them. It wasn't possible.
"No. You didn't get a good look, it's too dark ..."
David turned and walked through the trees, leading
them to the body of the shooter. Barry stumbled after
him, his head suddenly aching from more than just
smacking it on a tree trunk.
It can't be Shannon, there's no way, David's rattled
from the attack, that's all, he made a mistake...
... except David didn't rattle under fire, he never
had, and he didn't make mistakes that easily. Barry
grit his teeth against the pain and followed, for once
hoping that his friend was wrong.
The man had collapsed on his back or David had
rolled him over. Either way, he stared up at them with
lifeless eyes, a random pine needle stuck to one of the
glazed orbs. The semi-jacketed round from David's
Beretta had punched a hole directly over his heart; it
had been a lucky shot. Looking down at the shooter's
ashen face, Barry felt his own heart turn to stone.
Jesus, Shannon, why? Why this?
"Who is he?" Jill asked softly.
Barry stared down at the dead man, Unable to
answer. David's reply seemed hollow, toneless.
"Captain Jay Shannon of the Oklahoma City
S.T.A.R.S. Barry and I trained with him."
Barry found his voice, still looking at Jay's still

face. "I called him last week, when I called David. He
was worried about us, said he'd keep an eye out for
Umbrella..."
... and we shot the shit for another couple of
minutes, catching up, telling old stories. I told him I'd
send pictures of the kids, and he said that he had to get
off the phone, that he wanted to talk but he had a
meeting ...
Umbrella must have already got to him, and the
realization was cold and brutal and suddenly, horri-
bly complete. Umbrella may have been behind the
attack, but the S.T.A.R.S. had carried it out. Barry's
home had been blown to hell by people they knew,
and he'd been shot by a man he'd thought was a
friend.
The solemn quiet was broken by the barking of
dogs, faint through the shadowy trees. From the
number and location, it sounded like the RPD K-9
unit had just reached his house. Barry looked away
from the corpse, his thoughts returning to the imme-
diate situation. They had to move.
"Where can we go?" David asked quickly. "Is there
somewhere Umbrella wouldn't think to look, a cabin,
an empty building ... someplace we can get to on
foot?"
Brad!
"Chickenheart's lease isn't up for a couple of
months," Barry said. "His place is empty. And it's
less than a mile from here."
David nodded briskly. "Let's go."
Barry turned toward the park's playground, leading
the others across the moonlit clearing. There was a
small trail that let out two blocks away, hopefully far
enough away from the action that the cops wouldn't
follow. Barry had walked through the park a million
times, his wife at his side, his children dancing at their
feet.
... my home. This is my home, and it won't ever be
the same again.
As they ran through the warm, peaceful night,
Barry felt the hole in his arm start to bleed again. He
clapped his right hand over the sticky dressing with-
out slowing, letting the pain fuel his determination as
they tore through the scrubby trees and headed for
Brad's house.
No more. No more of this. My girls aren't going to
grow up in a world where this can happen, not if I have
any say in it.
So much had already happened, and this was only
the beginning of their fight. There were still people
working with the S.T.A.R.S. he trusted, that they

could count on, and he wasn't going to be caught off
his guard twice. The next time Umbrella came knock-
ing, maybe they wouldn't have to run. And if Rebecca
and David could pull off the Maine operation, they'd
have what they needed to take the company down,
once and for all.
Umbrella had messed with the wrong people. Barry
planned on being there when they figured that out.
Jill picked the lock expertly, using a bent safety pin
and one of Rebecca's earrings to open the door to the
small cottage. Rebecca had swept Barry off to the
medicine cabinet, while Chris went searching for a
shirt. David and Jill checked the small house thor-
oughly, David's satisfaction growing with each pass-
ing moment.
He couldn't have imagined a better hideout, and it
was comforting to know that Barry and the two
Alphas would have a safe spot to work from. The two-
bedroom home shared a backyard with a security-
conscious family; bright lights snapped on when Da-
vid opened the back door, flooding the small lawn
brilliantly and from the sight of the neighbor's side,
they definitely had a rather large dog somewhere on
the premises. There were houses close on either side
of the rental, and the front window looked out on an
open schoolyard just across the street. There would be
no cover for an approaching team.
The house was furnished simply, if untidily; it was
obvious that the occupant had fled in a panic. Person-
al items and books were strewn randomly across the
rooms, as if Vickers had been unable to decide what
to take in his hurry to flee Raccoon City.
With what happened tonight, I can't say I blame
him for running ...
Mr. Vickers had obviously been in the wrong line of
work, but that didn't necessarily make him a coward.
Risking one's life on a day-to-day basis wasn't for
Everyone and considering the recent developments,
it was wisest for someone like Vickers to remove
himself from the situation. They could have used the
help, but from what little Barry had told him, the
Alpha pilot wasn't someone they wanted to work
with. Even if he didn't get himself killed, he'd lost the
trust of his teammates, and nothing could be worse
when it came to crisis situations.
David sat in the dark, cramped living room on a
rather hideous green couch, collecting his exhausted
thoughts as Jill dug through the kitchen. He'd found a
blank pad of paper and a pen, and had already
scribbled down the names and home numbers of his
team and various contacts, as well as Brad's phone

number to take with him. He gazed blankly around
the shadowed room, fighting off the adrenaline slump
that so often followed battle. He didn't want to forget
anything important, any detail that needed to be
discussed before he and Rebecca left. If they wanted
to make their plane, Barry, Jill, and Chris would have
to deal with the aftermath of the attack on their own.
The S.T.A.R.S., Trent's poem, objectives and contacts.
It was hard to focus after such a draining experi-
ence, and it didn't help matters that he'd been tired to
begin with. He hadn't slept well in days, and thinking
of all that lay ahead of them only made concentration
harder. Rebecca's information about Dr. Griffith was
disconcerting, to say the least, and though he was no
less determined to carry out the Caliban Cove opera-
tion, it was just one more concern to add to a
seemingly endless list.
Chris walked into the room wearing a faded blue
sweatshirt with the sleeves cut off and fell into a chair
across from David, his face hidden in shadow. After a
moment, he leaned forward, enough light filtering
through the closed blinds so that David could see his
expression. The younger man's gaze was tired,
thoughtful and apologetic.
"Look, David . . . the last couple of weeks have
been rough on all of us, you know? Waiting to see
what Umbrella was gonna do, the suspension, feeling
like our friends died for nothing ..." Chris stopped
himself, then started again. "I just wanted to say I'm
sorry if we got off on the wrong foot earlier, and I'm
glad you're on our side. I shouldn't have been such an
asshole about it."
David was surprised and impressed by the sincerity
behind the words; when he was in his twenties, he
would've rather had his fingernails pulled out than
display any emotion, except anger of course. He'd
had no trouble expressing anger.
Yet another legacy from dear old Dad. . .
"I don't think you have anything to be sorry for,"
David said softly. "Your concerns are more than
justified. I--I've been under a bit of strain myself,
and I didn't mean to come across as domineering.
The S.T.A.R.S. are, that is, they mean a lot to me,
and I want us ... I want for them to be whole
again ..."
Jill walked in from the kitchen, saving David from
continuing with his fumbling speech. Much to his
relief, Chris seemed to understand; he met David's
gaze evenly, nodding, as if to say that the air had been
cleared between them. David sighed inwardly, won-
dering if he'd ever be able to overcome his awkward-

ness with expressing emotions.
He'd done a lot of thinking since Barry had first
called, about himself and his almost obsessive anger
over the S.T.A.R.S. betrayal and had come to the
unsettling realization that he wasn't happy with the
way his life was turning out. He'd thrown himself into
his career in an effort to avoid dealing with a dysfunc-
tional childhood, something he'd always known, but
now, facing Umbrella and the treachery of an organi-
zation that he considered his family, he'd been forced
to really think about the implications of his choice. It
had made him an excellent soldier, but he didn't have
any close friends or attachments ... and having his
"family" taken away had come as a cruel wake up to
the fact that he had based his life on running from
human contact.
Brilliant for me to have figured it out this late in the
game. I suppose I should thank Umbrella for that
much; if they don't kill me, they'll at least have
managed to send me into therapy.
Jill had brought out a pitcher of water and several
mismatched glasses which she passed around as Barry
and Rebecca joined them. Barry wore a clean bandage
on his arm and seemed pale in the dim light, certainly
shaken by their discovery of Captain Shannon. David
felt bad about killing Shannon, though he'd recon-
ciled himself long ago to the realities of combat; in a
war, people died. The captain had made his choice,
and it had been the wrong one.
They drank in silence, the four Raccoon S.T.A.R.S.
(ex-S.T.A.R.S., he reminded himself) pensive and
somber, perhaps aware of the ticking clock. He and
Rebecca would have to leave in a few moments. There
was a convenience store a block away where they
could telephone for a cab. David wished he could
think of something encouraging to say, but the truth
was the truth: they were going on a dangerous mis-
sion, and there were no guarantees that any of them
would survive to meet again.
"Have you thought about what you'll tell the local
police?" David asked finally.
Barry shrugged. "We won't have to lie much, any-
way. The three of us were at my place, a buncha guys
broke in and tried to shoot us. We ran."
"Irons will probably try to play it off as a botched
burglary," Chris sneered. "If he's in this as deep as I
think he is, he won't want to call attention to anything
Umbrella's doing."
"Just be careful not to mention actually seeing any
bodies," David said. "They may have had time to
clean up. And you should say that you were chased

into the park. It would explain your leaving the scene,
as well as Captain Shannon's body ..."
Barry smiled tiredly. "We'll handle it. And I'm
going to make some calls first thing tomorrow, get us
some backup. You just worry about your end, okay?"
David nodded and stood up, as did Chris. David
shook hands all around and then turned to Rebecca,
uncomfortably aware that he was taking her from her
teammates and trusted friends. The girl looked at the
others in turn with a thoughtful expression and
then grinned suddenly, an unaffected and purely
wicked smile.
"Sure you guys can hold down the fort for a couple
of days? I hate to think of you flailing around all
directionless while me and David go clean up this
Umbrella thing."
"We'll try to limp along without you," Chris shot
back, smiling. "Won't be easy, what with you having
the brain and all..."
Rebecca punched him lightly on the shoulder. "I'll
send you a postcard with instructions."
She nodded at Barry. "Take care of your arm. Keep
it clean and dry, and if you spike a fever or get dizzy,
get to a doctor ASAP."
Barry smiled. "Yes, ma'am."
Jill embraced her lightly. "Give 'em hell, Becca."
Rebecca nodded. "You, too. Good luck with Irons."
She turned to David, still smiling. "Shall we?"
They walked to the front door together, David
wondering at the girl's easy demeanor. They'd just
barely survived a serious attack, carried out by people
who'd probably trained her, and she was leaving with
a man she hardly knew to embark on a life-
threatening mission. She was either putting on an act
or was amazingly optimistic and if she was faking
the casual bravado, she deserved an award.
He watched her carefully as they stepped out into
the small, unkempt yard of Brad Vickers's house, and
saw her smile fade, quickly replaced by a look of
vague sadness and beyond that, the same kind of
focused intensity that she'd had when she'd told them
about Dr. Griffith and his research. Whatever she was
thinking, he could see in that look that she was
perfectly aware of the risks, but that she refused to be
cowed by them.
The perfect definition of bravery... David was
satisfied with his decision to enlist Rebecca Chambers
for the operation. She was smart, professional, and
committed, as superior in her field of study as the rest
of his team members were in theirs.
He could only hope that their combined skills

would be enough to get them in and out of Caliban
Cove in one piece, bringing with them proof of
Umbrella's experiments, an objective that would
lead to the ruin of the company that had corrupted
the S.T.A.R.S., and perhaps let him sleep peacefully
again.
David nodded, and the two of them set off to make
the call.

After rereading the information on Caliban Cove,
Rebecca folded the papers and carefully tucked them
into the overnight bag under David's seat. He'd
bought three bags at the airport, one for the weapons,
currently in cargo, the others to carry on so they
wouldn't attract attention. Rebecca wished they'd
thought to buy some snacks while they were at it. She
hadn't eaten since lunch, and the packet of nuts she'd
swallowed after takeoff wasn't cutting it.
She reached up to switch off the reading light and
then settled back in her seat, trying to let the smooth
hum of the 747 engines lull her into a doze. Most of
the other passengers on the half-full plane were
asleep; the dim "night" lights and the steady drone of
the engines had already worked for David. But even
as drained as she felt by the evening's events, she gave
up the effort after a minute or two. There was too
much to think about, and she knew that she wouldn't
be able to sleep without at least sorting through some
of it.
I feel like I'm dreaming already anyway; this is just
another weird tangent, a subplot that came out of left
field ...
In the past three months, she'd graduated college,
gone through S.T.A.R.S. Bravo training, and moved
to her first apartment in a new city--only to end up
one of the five survivors of a man-made disaster
involving biological weapons and a corporate con-
spiracy. In the past three hours, her life had taken yet
another totally unexpected turn. She thought about
what she'd wished for earlier, a chance to get out of
Raccoon City and study the T-Virus; the irony of the
situation wasn't lost on her, but she wasn't so sure she
liked the circumstances.
She rolled her head to the side and looked at David,
crashed out in the window seat, dark circles of ex-
haustion beneath his closed lids. After briefly filling
her in on a few details about the cove and outlining
their schedule for the next day, he'd told her to try
and take a nap ("have a lie down" had been his exact
words) and then promptly taken his own advice--not
falling asleep so much as lapsing into an instant coma.

He even sleeps efficiently, no tossing or turning...
Like he willed himself to get as much rest as possible in
the time allowed.
He struck her as an extremely competent and
intelligent man, if something of a loner, for as cool as
he was under pressure, he seemed to freeze with small
talk, leading her to wonder what kind of life he'd had.
She was impressed with how quickly he'd come up
with a plan to get them out of Barry's house, and was
glad that he was leading the operation to Caliban
Cove--though it was hard to think of him as a
captain. He didn't really project authority, and didn't
seem to want to, practically insisting that she call him
David. Even when he'd stepped into a leadership role
during the attack, it hadn't felt like he was giving
them orders so much as offering instruction.
Maybe it's just the accent. Everything he says sounds
polite...
He frowned in his sleep, his eyes flickering through
uneasy dreams. After a few seconds, he let out a soft,
child-like moan of distress. Rebecca briefly consid-
ered waking him up, but already he seemed to have
got past whatever troubled him, his brow smoothing.
Suddenly feeling like she was invading his privacy,
Rebecca looked away.
Dreaming about the attack, maybe. About having to
kill someone he knew...
She wondered if she'd be haunted by the image of
the man she'd shot, the shadowy figure that had
crumpled to the ground next to Barry's house. She
was still waiting for the guilt to hit her and thinking
about it, she was surprised to find that her mind
wasn't racing to rationalize the matter. She'd shot
somebody, he could very well be dead and all she
felt was relief that she'd stopped him from killing her
or anyone else on the team.
Rebecca closed her eyes, taking a deep breath of the
cool, pressurized air hissing through the cabin. She
could smell the musky odor of dried sweat on her
skin, and decided that taking a shower was first
priority when they hit the hotel. David didn't want to
risk going back to his house on the off chance that
someone on the strike force had recognized him, so
they were going to grab a couple of rooms near the
airport somewhere after they changed planes. The
operation briefing was set for noon at the home of one
of the other three team members, an Alpha forensics
expert named Karen Driver. David had mentioned
that Karen could probably lend her some clean
clothes, though he'd actually blushed while saying it.
He was a quirky one, all right. . .

. . . and after the briefing, we get our equipment and
go in, just like that.
The thought knotted her stomach and sent a chill
through her, telling her the real reason she wasn't able
to sleep. Only two weeks after the Umbrella night-
mare in Raccoon City, she was facing the same
nightmare again. At least this time, she had some idea
of what they'd be getting themselves into, and the
plan was to get out of the facility without ever facing
the T-Virus creatures, but the memory of Umbrel-
la's Tyrant monster was still fresh in her mind, the
massive, patchwork body and killing claw of the thing
they'd seen on the estate. And the thought of what
someone like Nicolas Griffith might have come up
with using the virus ...
Rebecca decided that she'd thought enough, she
had to get some sleep. She cleared her mind as best
she could and focused on her breathing, slowing it
down, counting backward in her mind from one
hundred. The meditation technique had never failed
her before, though she didn't think it would work this
time...
... ninety-nine, ninety-eight, Dr. Griffith, David,
S.T.A.R.S., Caliban ...
Before she reached ninety, she was deeply asleep,
dreaming of moving shadows that no light had cast.

F

IVE

AS HE DID MOST MORNINGS SINCE BEGIN-
ning the experiment, Nicolas Griffith sat on the open
platform at the top of the lighthouse and watched the
sun rise over the sea. It was an awesome spectacle,
from beginning to end. First the black waves shading
to gray as the sky lightened, the craggy rocks that
lined his cove slowly taking form in the misty winds
that swept off the water. As the radiant star peered
over the side of the world, its first hesitant rays
stained the ocean a deep azure blue, painting the
pastel horizon with promises of renewal and a gentle,
nurturing acceptance of all that it touched.
It was a lie, of course. Within hours, the molten
giant would beat mercilessly against the shore, against
this half of the planet. Its early mildness was a
deception, a pretended ignorance of the seeping radi-
ation and withering heat that would follow...
... but no less spectacular for the lying. It can't be
blamed for a lack of self-awareness, after all; it is what
it is.
Griffith always watched until the sun cleared the
curving horizon before getting on with his day. Al-

though he appreciated the beauty of each glimmering
dawn, it was the routine that appealed to him, not
his, but that of the cosmos. Each sunrise was a
statement of fact, speaking to an inevitable progres-
sion of time ... and a reminder that the world spun
eternally through its galactic paces, oblivious to the
dreams of the self-important beings that scurried
across its surface.
Beings such as myself, but for one very crucial
difference: I know just how much my dreams are
worth...
As the swollen orb lifted itself from the sea, Griffith
stood up and leaned against the platform railing, his
thoughts turning to the day ahead. Having finally
finished the blood work on the Leviathan series, he
was ready to work more extensively with the doctors.
All three had responded well to the change, and the
rate of cellular deterioration had fallen considerably
since he'd started with the enzyme injections. It was
time to concentrate on their situational behavior, the
final stage of the experiment. Within the week, he'd
be ready to expand beyond the confines of the facility.
Expansion. A cleansing.
A crisp, saline wind ruffled his gray hair, the hungry
cries of coasting gulls finally spurring him to action.
The Trisquads had to be brought in before the scav-
enging birds moved inland. Several of the units had
already been horribly scarred, and he didn't want to
risk any more of them until he was finished. Once
they lost their eyes, they were useless on patrol.
Still, it's been so long... no one's coming. If Dr. Ammon
had succeeded, they'd have sent someone by
now. Too bad, really; he's probably still waiting...
The thought was an uncomfortable one, conjuring
hazy images of redness and heat, of prone bodies in
the manic summer sun and later, the thunder of waves
in the dark. He promptly buried the visions, remind-
ing himself that it was in the past. Besides, he'd only
done what was necessary.
Griffith walked back inside, smoothing his wind-
blown hair as he moved down the spiral staircase. His
shoes clattered against the metal steps, creating a
pleasant echo effect in the tall chamber. Having the
facility to himself made everything pleasant, and he'd
come to enjoy the little things--eating what he
wanted, when he wanted, working his own hours, his
mornings atop the lighthouse. Before, he'd been
crowded, forced to adhere to schedules that seemed
designed to undercut creativity. Meal times, work
times, sleep times ... how could a man breathe,
think, flourish in such conditions? He'd suffered for

so long, sat through endless meetings listening to the
small-minded drivel of his "colleagues" as they'd
raved over Birkin's T-Virus. They'd slaved to come
up with the Trisquads for Umbrella and had been
deliriously happy with the results, apparently forget-
ting their failure with the Ma7s. They were unable to
see past their own arrogance to a bigger picture.
As if the Trisquads are anything more than bodies
with guns. Useful as guards, but hardly brilliant.
Hardly important.
Although he'd worked not to let it go to his head,
Griffith allowed himself a single moment of pride as
he reached the bottom of the stairs and started for the
exit. He'd seen the T-Virus for what it really was--a
crude but effective platform for something far greater.
He'd isolated the proteins, reorganized the nucleocap-
sid's envelope to allow for variables in infective
capacity, and created an answer, the answer to the
blight that the human race had become. A solution
without violence or suffering.
Smiling, he stepped through the door into the cool
shadow of the lighthouse, the crash of breaking waves
at his back as he walked toward the dormitory build-
ing. He'd already synthesized an airborne, and had
enough of it to infect most of North America. As the
virus spread, evolution would take its rightful place,
the weak of spirit falling beneath those of truer
instincts. And when it was over, the sun would rise
over a very different world, inhabited by peaceful
people of character and will.
Take away a man's ability to choose, his mind
becomes free, a blank, clean slate. With training, he
becomes a pet; without, he becomes an animal, as
harmless and serenely simple as a mouse. Cover the
world with such animals, and only the strong sur-
vive. . .
He stepped into the dorm's rec room and turned on
the lights, still smiling. His doctors were right where
he'd left them, sitting at the meeting table, eyes
closed. Ideally, he'd run through the tests with un-
trained subjects, but the three men would have to
suffice. They'd been infected with the strain he would
release, and were closest to what the world would
become in a few days.
My pets. My children.
Besides the research laboratory, the cove facility
was designed to train bio-weapons like the Trisquads
or Ma7s--but also to measure use of logic in the
humanoid subjects. In the bunkers there were a num-
ber of items he could use, from the simplest of peg
tests to complex puzzles for those subjects capable of

higher functioning. He doubted his doctors would be
able to manage even the red series, but watching their
reactions would provide valuable insight, particularly
the tests where there was a pressure factor.
They think, but can't make decisions. They function,
but not without input. How will they fare, without my
guiding hand?
As he approached the table, Dr. Athens opened his
eyes, perhaps to see if there was a threat coming. Of
the three, Tom Athens was the strongest, the most
likely to survive on his own; he'd been one of the be-
havior specialists. In fact, he'd come up with the
three-unit team idea, the Trisquad, insisting that the
infected units would work more efficiently in small
groups. He'd been right.
Doctors Thurman and Kinneson remained still
and Griffith noticed a foul smell coming from one of
them. Scowling, he looked down, his suspicion con-
firmed by the wetness on Dr. Thurman's pants.
He shit himself. Again.
Griffith felt a sudden, almost overwhelming pity for
Thurman, but it was quickly replaced by irritated
disgust. Thurman had been an idiot before, a decent
enough biologist but as ridiculously narrow-minded
as the rest of them. He'd grown most of the Ma7s
himself, and when they turned out to be uncontrolla-
ble, he laid blame on everyone but himself. If anyone
deserved to wallow in his own filth, it was Louis
Thurman. It was just too bad that the good doctor
wasn't capable of understanding how repulsively pa-
thetic he'd become.
Without me, he wouldn't have lasted a day.
Griffith sighed, stepping back from the table.
"Good morning, gentlemen," he said.
In unison, the three men turned their heads to look
at him, their eyes as blank as their faces. As different
as they were physically, the slackness of their features
and slow, vapid gazes made them look like brothers.
"It seems that Dr. Thurman has evacuated his
bowels," Griffith said. "He's sitting in feces. That's
funny."
All three of them grinned widely. Dr. Kinneson
actually chuckled. He'd been the last to be infected, so
had suffered the least tissue deterioration. Given the
proper instructions, Alan could probably still pass for
human.
Griffith pulled the police whistle out of his pocket
and put it on the table in front of Athens.
"Dr. Athens, recall the Trisquads from duty. Tend to their
physical needs and send them to the cold room. When
you've finished, go to the cafeteria and wait."

Athens picked up the whistle as he stood, then
walked out of the room, down the hall toward the
dormitory's other entrance. The whistle would deacti-
vate the teams and call them in. There were four
Trisquads, twelve soldiers in all. They'd be roaming
the woods along the fence, or moving stealthily
around the bunkers, having been trained to stay away
from the northeast area of the compound, the light-
house, and dorm. Griffith had to admit, they were
quite effective at their purpose. Umbrella had wanted
soldiers that would kill without mercy, and fight until
they were literally blown to pieces. The T-Virus had
been good for that much, and since they'd sped up the
amplification time, they'd been able to turn out
subjects in hours, rather than days. Once trained with
weapons, the Trisquads had become killing ma-
chines, although with the recent heat wave, he didn't
know how much longer they'd be viable...
Griffith turned his attention to Dr. Thurman, still
grinning and stinking like some bloated infant. He
even looked like a baby, pudgy and bald, his smile as
innocent and guileless as a child's.
"Dr. Thurman, go to your room and remove your
clothes. Shower and dress in clean clothes, then go to
the caves and feed the Ma7s. When you've finished,
go to the cafeteria and wait."
Thurman stood up, and Griffith saw that the pad-
ded chair was wet and stained.
Christ.
"Take the chair with you," Griffith said, sighing.
"Leave it in your room."
After he'd gone, Griffith sat down across from Alan,
suddenly feeling tired. The anticipatory pride he'd
felt only moments before was gone, leaving a cold
emptiness in its place.
My children. My creation. . .
The virus was so beautiful, so perfectly engineered
that the first time he'd seen it, he'd wept. Months of
private research, of picking apart the T-Virus and
isolating effect, culminating in that first micro-
graph .. . while the others had been gloating over
their war toys, he'd found the true path to a new
beginning.
And do they appreciate what I've done? Do any of
them know how crucial this is? Crapping himself like a
disgusting child, like a monkey, disgracing my work,
my life. . .
Griffith looked at Alan Kinneson, studying his
handsome features, his expressionless eyes. Dr. Kin-
neson stared back, waiting to be told what to do. He'd
been a neurologist once. There were pictures in his

room of his wife and baby, a little boy with a bright,
beautiful smile. . .
Griffith's sanity shuddered suddenly, a terrible,
rending twist that made him dizzy, a thousand voices
screaming unintelligibly through the cracks of reality.
For just a second, he felt as if he was losing his mind.
How many will just starve to death, sitting in
puddles of filth, waiting? Millions? Billions?
"What if I'm wrong?" Griffith whispered. "Alan,
tell me I'm not wrong, that I'm doing this for the right
reasons ..."
"You're not wrong," Dr. Kinneson said calmly.
"You're doing this for the right reasons."
Griffith stared at him. "Tell me your wife's a
whore."
"My wife's a whore," Dr. Kinneson said. No pause.
No doubt.
Griffith smiled, and the fear melted away.
Look what I've accomplished. It's a gift, my cre-
ation, a gift to the world. A chance for man to become
strong again, a peaceful death for all the Louis Thur-
mans in existence, better than they deserve. . .
He'd been working too hard, tiring himself, and the
strain was getting to him. He was only human, after
all... but he couldn't afford to let the stress of his
body affect his mind again. There would be no more
tests. He'd spend the day getting ready instead, pre-
paring himself for the cleansing.
Tomorrow at sunrise Dr. Griffith would give his gift
to the wind.

S

IX

KAREN DRIVER WAS A TALL, LANKY WOMAN
in her early thirties, with short blond hair and a
serious, businesslike demeanor. Her small home was
spotlessly kept and almost antiseptically clean. The
clothes she'd picked out for Rebecca were utilitarian
and perfectly folded: a dark green T-shirt and crisp
matching pants, black cotton socks and underwear.
Even her bathroom seemed to reflect her personality;
the white walls were lined with shelves, each neatly
organized according to purpose.
Scratch a forensics scientist, find an obsessive-
compulsive ..
Rebecca immediately felt guilty for thinking it.
Karen had been welcoming enough, even friendly in a
brusque way. Maybe she just hated clutter.
Rebecca sat on the edge of the toilet and cuffed the
overlong pants around her ankles, relieved to be out
of her old clothes and feeling surprisingly clear-

headed after a night of broken sleep. David had
rented a car at the airport, and in the early hours of
the morning, they'd found a cheap motel and stag-
gered into their separate rooms, Rebecca too ex-
hausted to do more than take off her shoes before
crawling into bed. She woke just before ten, took a
shower and had been waiting nervously when David
knocked at her door.
Rebecca heard the front door open and close, new
voices floating through the living room. She slipped
on her high tops and laced them quickly, feeling her
anxiety level jump a notch. The team was assembled.
They were that much closer to going in, and though
she'd thought of little else since waking up, the
realization continued to come as a kind of shock.
Umbrella's surprise attack on Barry's house already
seemed like it had happened in another lifetime,
though it had been only hours ago...
... and hours from now, this will all be over. It's
what's gonna happen in between that worries me.
David and his team weren't there, they didn't see the
dogs, the snakes, those unnatural creatures in the
tunnels... or Tyrant.
Rebecca shook the images away as she stood up,
scooping her dirty clothes off the floor and stufling
them into the empty bag that she'd carried on the
plane. There was no reason to assume that the Cali-
ban Cove facility would be the same, and worrying
about it wouldn't change anything. She paused in
front of the mirror, studying the tense features of the
young woman she saw there, and then walked to the
door.
She headed for the living room, past the sparkling
kitchen and around a corner in the hall. She heard
David's lilting voice, apparently summing up the
events of the night before.
"... said he'd ring some of the others first thing
this morning. Another of the team has a contact in the
FBI to use as a go-between and to initiate an investi-
gation when we have proof. They'll be waiting to hear
from us when we've completed today's operation ..."
He broke off as Rebecca walked into the room, and
all eyes turned to her. Karen had pulled a few extra
chairs into the room and sat in one of them next to a
low, glass topped coffee table. There were two men
sitting on the couch, across from where David stood.
David smiled at her as both men got up, stepping
forward to be introduced.
"Rebecca, this is Steve Lopez. Steve is our resident
computer genius and our best marksman ..."
Steve grinned, an aw-shucks smile that suited his

boyish features perfectly as he shook her hand, his
teeth white against his natural deep-tan coloring. He
had dark, quick eyes and black hair, and was only a
few inches taller than her.
Not much older, either...
His gaze was friendly and direct, and in spite of the
circumstances, Rebecca found herself wishing that
she'd at least run a brush through her hair before
coming out of the bathroom. Simply put, he was hot.
"... and this is John Andrews, our communications
specialist and field scout."
John's skin was a deep mahogany brown and he
didn't have a beard, but he reminded her of Barry
nonetheless. He was massively built, his six-foot
frame bulging with tightly packed muscle. He grinned
brightly at her, his smile dazzling white.
"This is Rebecca Chambers, biochemist and field
medic for the Raccoon City S.T.A.R.S.," David said.
John let go of her hand, still smiling. "Biochemist?
Damn, how old are you?"
Rebecca smiled back, catching the glint of humor in
his eyes. "Eighteen. And three-quarters."
John laughed, a deep, throaty chuckle as he sat back
down. He glanced at Steve, then back at her.
"You better watch out for Lopez, then," he said,
then dropped his voice to a mock whisper. "He just
turned twenty-two. And he's single."
"Knock it off," Steve growled, his cheeks flushing.
He looked at her, shaking his head.
"You'll have to excuse John. He thinks he's got a
sense of humor and nobody can talk him out of it."
"Your mother thinks I'm funny," John shot back,
and before Steve could respond, David held up a
hand.
"That's enough," he said mildly. "We only have a
few hours to organize if we mean to do this today.
Let's get started, shall we?"
Steve and John's banter had been a welcome break
from her tension, making her feel like one of the team
almost instantly, but she was also glad to see the
serious, intent looks on all of their faces as they
turned their attention to David, watching him pull
out Trent's information and lay it on the table. It was
good to know that they were pros . . .
. . . but will it matter? her mind whispered softly.
The S.T.A.R.S. in Raccoon were professionals, too.
And even knowing the kind of research Umbrella's
been doing, will it make any difference at all? What if
the virus mutated and is still infectious? What if the
place is crawling with Tyrants . . . or something worse?
Rebecca had no answer for the insistent little whis-

per. She focused on David instead, silently telling
herself that her anxieties wouldn't get in the way of
her doing her job. And that her second mission
wouldn't be her last.
For Rebecca's sake, David started the briefing as he
would have with an entirely new team. As bright as
she was, and with her previous experience at an
Umbrella facility, he didn't want her to hold back for
fear of speaking out of turn.
"Our objective is to get into the compound, collect
evidence on Umbrella and their research, and get out
again with as little trouble as possible. I'll go over
every step thoroughly, and if any of you have ques-
tions or ideas about how to proceed, no matter how
trifling, I want to hear them. Understood?"
There were nods all around. David continued,
comfortable that his point was made.
"We've already discussed a few of the possibilities
as to what may have happened, and you've all read
the articles. I submit that we're dealing once again
with some kind of accident. Umbrella's put a lot of
effort into covering up the problem in Raccoon City,
and while we could assume that they've been abduct-
ing or killing fishermen who've wandered across their
territory, it seems unlikely that they'd want to draw
that kind of attention to themselves."
"Why hasn't Umbrella sent anyone in to clean it
up?" John asked.
David shook his head. "Who's to say they haven't?
We may find that they've already cleared the site of
evidence - in which case, we group together with the
Raccoon people and our own contacts and start
over."
Again, everyone nodded. He didn't bother stating
the obvious, that the virus could still be contagious.
They all knew that it was a possibility, though he
planned to have Rebecca address the matter before
the briefing was through.
David looked down at the map and sighed inwardly
before moving on to the next point.
"Point of entry," he said. "If this were an open
assault, we could go in by helicopter or just hop the
fence. But if there are still people there and we trigger
an alarm, it's over before we even start. Since we
don't want to risk discovery, our best option is to go
in by boat. We can use one of the rafts from the tanker
operation last year."
Karen piped up, frowning slightly.
"Wouldn't they have an alarm for the pier?"
David touched the map, putting his finger just
below the notched line of the fence, south of the

compound. "Actually, I don't recommend using the
pier at all. If we go in here, go past the pier ..." He
traced upward, running the length of the cove. "... we
can get a look at the layout of the entire compound,
and hide the raft in one of the caves beneath the
lighthouse. According to what I read, there's a natural
path from the base of the cliff to the lighthouse itself.
If the path has been blocked, we'll backtrack and
come up with an alternative route."
"Won't the raft attract attention if anyone's outside
watching?" Rebecca asked.
David shook his head. The Exeter S.T.A.R.S. had
used the rafts the previous summer to approach an oil
tanker that had been hijacked by terrorists who had
threatened to spill the cargo unless their demands
were met. It had been a night operation.
"It's black, and has an underwater motor. If we go
in just past dusk, we should be invisible. The other
benefit to this approach is that if the facility looks
unhealthy, we can abort until a later time."
He waited as they thought it over, not wanting to
rush them. They were good soldiers, his team, but this
was a volunteer assignment. If any one of them had
serious doubts, it was better to address them now.
Besides which, he was open to other suggestions.
His gaze fell across Rebecca's youthful face, taking
in the steady willingness of a good S.T.A.R.S. opera-
tive in the quick brown eyes, the thoughtful consider-
ation of his plan. He was beginning to like her, for
more than just her usefulness to the mission. There
was a kind of matter-of-fact openness about her that
appealed to him, particularly with all of his recent
turmoil over emotional awkwardness. She seemed
quite comfortable with herself ...
David pushed the thoughts aside, suddenly realiz-
ing how much stress he'd been under, how tired he
continued to be; his focus was suffering for it.
Keep it together, man. This isn't the time to wander.
"On to specifics," he said. "Once we get inside, we
move in a staggered line through the compound,
sticking to shadows. John will take point with Karen
at his back, scouting the area for the lab and looking
for some idea as to what's happened. Steve and
Rebecca will follow, and I'll bring up the rear. When
we find the lab, we go in together. Rebecca will know
what to look for in terms of materials, and if they have
a computer system still running, Steve can get into the
files. The rest of us will provide cover. Once we
retrieve the information, we get back out the way we
came."
He picked up the poem that Trent had given him,

tapping it with his other hand. "One of Rebecca's
teammates has already had dealings with Mr. Trent.
She thinks that this might be relevant to what we need
to find, so I want all of you to take another look before
we go in. It may be important."
"So we can trust him?" Karen asked. "This Trent's
okay?"
David frowned, not sure how to answer. "It seems
that for whatever reason, he's on our side in all of this,
yes," he said slowly. "And Rebecca recognized one of
the names on the list as a man who has worked with
viruses before. The information looks solid." It
wasn't a straight answer, but it would have to do.
"Any idea on what the chances are that we'll
contract the virus?" Steve asked quietly.
David tilted his head toward Rebecca. "If you
could give us some insight about what we may see,
perhaps a bit of background ..."
She nodded, turning toward the rest of the team.
"I can't tell you exactly what we're dealing with. When
our team got kicked off the case, I lost access to the
tissue and saliva samples, so I didn't get to run any
tests. But from looking at the effects, it's pretty
obvious that the T-Virus is a mutagen, altering the
host's chromosome structure on a cellular level. It's
an interspecies infective, capable of amplifying in
plants, mammals, birds, reptiles, you name it. In
some creatures, it promotes incredible growth; in all
of them, violent behavior. From some of the reports
we came across at the estate, I can tell you that it
affects brain chemistry, at least in humans--inducing
something like a schizophrenic psychosis through
extremely high levels of D2 receptors. It also inhibits
pain. The human victims we came across hardly
reacted to gunshot wounds, and though they were
decaying physically, they didn't seem to feel it ..."
The young chemist paused, perhaps remembering.
She suddenly looked much older than her years. "The
spill at the estate looked like an airborne, but I don't
think that's its designed or preferred form. The scien-
tists were almost certainly injecting it in conjunction
with genetic experimentation. And since none of us
contracted it and it didn't spread, I don't think we
have to worry about breathing it in. "
"What we do have to watch for is contact with a
host, and I mean any contact, I can't stress that
enough, this thing is incredibly virulent once it
enters the bloodstream, and even a single drop of
blood from a host could hold hundreds of millions of
virus particles. We'd need a fully equipped hot suite
and a trained biohazard virologist to pin down its

replication strategy for certain, but direct contact of
any kind should be avoided at all costs. With any
luck, they'll have died by now ... or at least deterio-
rated past mobility. The humans, anyway."
There was a moment of strained silence as they all
considered the implications of what she'd told them.
David could see that they were shaken, and felt a bit
shaken himself. Knowing that the virus was toxic
wasn't the same thing as actually hearing the specifics.
My God, what were those people thinking? How
could they live with themselves, deliberately infecting
anything with something like that?
On the tail of that thought, another occurred to
him: how would he live with himself if one of his team
contracted the virus? He'd led missions before in
which people under his command had been hurt
and twice, before he made captain, he'd been on
operations in which S.T.A.R.S. had been killed. But
taking a team into an area on his own initiative,
where a silent, terrible disease could infect them,
where they could die at the claws of some inhuman
monster...
... it would be on my head. This isn't an authorized
mission, the responsibility stops with me. Can I truly
ask them to do this?
"Well, it pretty much sounds like a shit job," John
said finally. "And if we wanna get there on time, we
better head out soon." He smiled at David, an un-
characteristically subdued one but a smile all the
same. "You know me, I love a good fight. And
somebody's gotta stop these assholes from spreading
this stuff around, right?"
Steve and Karen were both nodding, their faces as
set and determined as John's, and even knowing what
they would encounter, Rebecca had made her deci-
sion back in Raccoon. David felt a sudden rush of
emotion for all of them, a strange, uncomfortable mix
of pride and fear and warmth that he wasn't sure what
to do with.
After a few seconds of uncertain silence, he nodded
briskly, glancing at his watch. It would take them a
few hours to get to the launch site.
"Right," he said. "We'd best get to storage and load
up. We can go through the rest of it on our way."
As they stood to leave, David reminded himself
that they were doing this because it was necessary,
that each of them had made up their own mind to
participate in the dangerous operation. They knew
the risks. And he also knew that if anything went
wrong, that knowledge would be cold comfort indeed.
Karen sat in the back of the van and loaded clips,

the words of the mysterious message repeating
through her thoughts as she thumbed the nine-
millimeter rounds into each magazine.
. . . Ammon's message received/blue series/enter answer
for key/letters and numbers reverse/time rainbow/don't
count/blue to access.

She finished another clip and set it aside with the
others, absently wiping her oily fingers on the leg of
her pants before picking up the next. A welcome
breeze whispered through the muggy van, smelling of
salt and summer-warmed sea. They'd pulled off the
road south of the cove, finding a clear patch to set up
not a quarter mile from the water's edge. Outside, the
sun was setting, casting long shadows across the dusty
ground. The not-so-distant sound of soft waves
against the shore was soothing, a white noise back-
ground to the low voices of the others as they worked.
Steve and David were propping the raft, while John
checked out the motor. Rebecca was assembling a
medical kit from the supplies they'd "borrowed" out
of the S.T.A.R.S. equipment warehouse.
... the letters and numbers... a code? Does it
relate to time? Does counting relate to the sum of the
lines, or to something else?
Her mind worked the riddle relentlessly, gnawing at
the words the way a dog worries a bone. What did it
mean? Were the lines connected to a single concept,
or did each represent a separate aspect of a bigger
puzzle? Had Ammon sent the message, and if he
worked for Umbrella, why?
She finished the last clip and reached for a water-
proof carryall, refocusing herself to the task at hand.
She knew that her thoughts would return to the
strange little poem as soon as she'd completed her
assigned detail. It was the way her mind worked; she
just couldn't relax when presented with an ambiguity.
There was always an answer, always, and finding it
was just a matter of concentration, of taking the right
steps in the right order.
The semi-automatics were cleaned and ready, lay-
ing in a neat line next to the checked radio gear on the
floor of the van. They weren't taking any weapons
besides the S.T.A.R.S.-issued Berettas, David insist-
ing that they needed to travel light. Although Karen
agreed, she was sorry they wouldn't be bringing in the
assault rifles, which were equipped with night scopes.
After hearing more of the details about the zombie-
like creatures on their ride, she didn't know how
comfortable she felt with just a handgun and a
halogen flashlight.

Admit it. You're worried about this one, and have
been since David broke the news. The facts are all out
of order, the pieces don't fit the way they're supposed
to.
It was ironic that the reasons compelling her to
crack this mystery were the same ones that made her
so uneasy: Trent, the S.T.A.R.S.'s apparent collusion
with Umbrella, the possibility of a biohazardous
incident in her home state. Who had been bribed?
What had happened at Caliban Cove? What would
they uncover? What did the poem mean?
Not enough data. Not yet.
She'd always prided herself on her lack of imagina-
tion, on her ability to find the truth based on empiri-
cal evidence rather than wild, unsubstantiated intu-
ition. It was the key to success in her field, and though
she was aware that she sometimes came across as
overly clinica - even cold - she accepted who she
was, embracing the kind of peace that was found in
knowing all of the facts. Whether it was examining
blood spray patterns or measuring angles on an entry
wound, there was a deep satisfaction for her in solving
puzzles, in finding out not only why, but how. The
unanswered questions about Caliban Cove were an
affront to her careful thought processes. They went
against her grain, smudging her very ordered sense of
reality - and she knew that she wouldn't find relief
until those questions were put to rest.
She was finished with the weapons. She should
check the utility belts again, make sure everything was
locked down and ready, and then see if David had
anything else for her to do...
Karen hesitated, feeling a trickle of warm sweat
slide down her back. No one was within sight of the
open back door, and she'd already double-checked
every flap and pocket on every belt. With a sudden
rush of something like guilt, she reached into her vest
pocket and pulled out her secret, comforted by the
familiar weight of it in her hand.
God, if the guys knew, I'd never hear the end of it.
It had been given to her by her father, a remnant
from his service in WWII and one of the few items she
had to remember him by--an ancient anti-personnel
shrapnel grenade, called a pineapple because of its
crosshatched exterior. Carrying it was one of her few
unpractical idiosyncrasies, one that made her feel a
little silly. She'd worked hard to present herself as a
thoroughly rational, intelligent woman, not prone to
emotional sentimentality and in most respects, that
was true. But the grenade was her rabbit's foot, and
she never went on a mission without it. Besides, she

had half convinced herself that it might come in
handy one day. . .
Yeah, keep telling yourself that. The S.T.A.R.S. have
digitized anti-personnel grenades with timers, even
flash-bangs with computer chips. The pin on this relic
probably couldn't be wrenched out with pliers ...
"Karen, do you need any help?"
Startled, Karen looked up and into Rebecca's ear-
nest young features, the girl leaning into the back of
the van. Her quick gaze fell to the grenade, her eyes
lighting up with sudden curiosity.
"I thought we weren't taking any explosives . . . hey,
is that a pineapple grenade? I've never actually
seen one. Is it live?"
Karen quickly looked around, afraid that one of the
team had overheard, then grinned sheepishly at the
young biochemist, embarrassed by her own embar-
rassment.
It's not like I got caught masturbating, for chrissake;
she doesn 't know me, why the hell would she care if I'm
superstitious?
"Shh! They'll hear us. Come here a sec," she said,
and Rebecca obediently crawled into the van, a con-
spiratorial half-smile blooming on her face. In spite of
herself, Karen was absurdly pleased by the young
biochemist's discovery. In the seven years she'd been
with the S.T.A.R.S., no one had ever found out. And
she'd taken an instant liking to the girl.
"It is a pineapple, and we're not taking explosives
in. You can't tell anyone, okay? I carry it for good
luck."
Rebecca raised her eyebrows. "You carry a live
grenade around for luck?"
Karen nodded, looking at her seriously. "Yes, and if
John or Steve found out, they'd ride me ragged. I
know it's dumb, but it's kind of a secret."
"I don't think it's dumb. My friend Jill has a lucky
hat. . ." Rebecca reached up and touched her head-
band, a tied red bandana beneath mousy bangs.
". . . and I've been wearing this for a couple of weeks
practically. I was wearing it when we went into the
Spencer facility."
Her young face clouded slightly, and then she was
smiling again, her light brown gaze direct and sincere.
"I won't say a word."
Karen decided that she definitely liked her. She
tucked the grenade back in her vest, nodding at the
girl. "I appreciate that. So, are we ready out there?"
Tiny lines of nervous strain appeared on Rebecca's
face. "Yeah, pretty much. John wants to run another
check with the headsets, but other than that, every-

thing's done."
Karen nodded again, wishing she could say some-
thing to ease the girl's fear. There wasn't anything to
say. Rebecca had dealt with Umbrella before, and any
words that Karen might mouth would be hollow ones,
might even seem patronizing. She felt some anxiety
herself, she'd be a fool not to, but fear wasn't a state
that she wore often or well. As with most missions,
the overriding feeling she experienced was anticipa-
tion, a kind of cerebral hunger for the truth.
"Go ahead and hand out the weapons, I'll get the
rest," Karen said finally. She could at least give her
something to do.
Rebecca helped her unload the equipment as the
sun dipped lower in the heavy summer sky. The winds
off the water grew cooler and the first pale stars
shimmered into view over the Atlantic.
As twilight crept in, they moved down to the water
in an uneasy silence, loading their weapons, stretch-
ing, staring out at the black waters that eddied and
swirled with secrets of their own.
When the last of the daylight melted off the hori-
zon, they were as ready as they were going to get. As
John and David slipped the raft into the lapping
darkness, Karen slipped on a black watchcap and
patted the heavy lump inside her vest for luck, telling
herself that she wouldn't need it.
The truth was waiting. It was time to find out what
was really going on.

S

EVEN

STEVE AND DAVID CLIMBED IN, EDGING TO
the front of the six-man raft as Karen and Rebecca
followed. John hopped in last, and at David's signal,
started the motor with the push of a button; it was as
silent as David had promised, only a faint hum that
was almost lost in the sound of gently moving water.
"Let's move," David said quietly. Rebecca took a
deep breath and let it out slowly as they started north,
heading for the cove.
Nobody spoke as the shore slid by to their left,
shadowy, jagged shapes in the pallid light of the rising
moon, an immense and whispering void to their right.
Port and starboard, her mind noted randomly. Bow
and stern.
She searched the blackness for a sign that marked
the beginning of the private territory, but couldn't
make out much. It was a lot darker than she'd
expected, and colder. The chill she felt was com-
pounded by the knowledge that beneath them lay an

infinite and alien world, teeming with cold-blooded
life.
Rebecca saw a flash of soft light as David raised a
pair of NV binoculars to watch for movement on the
shore. The infrared illuminator's glow spilled across
his face for an instant before he adjusted their posi-
tion, making his features strange and craggy.
Now that they were actually doing it, actually on
their way, she felt better than she had all day. Not
relaxed, by any means--the dread was still there, the
fear of the unknown and for what they might encount-
er--but the feelings of helplessness, the mind-
numbing anxiety she'd lived with since the incident in
Raccoon, had eased, giving way to hope.
We're doing something, taking the offensive instead
of waiting for them to get to us ...
"I see the fence," David said softly, his face a pale
smudge in the bobbing dark.
We'll pass the dock next, maybe see the buildings as
the land slopes up to the lighthouse, to the caves ...
Water slopped at the raft, the sound of muted waves
growing as the small craft rocked and shuddered.
Rebecca felt her heart speed up. While she liked
looking at the ocean, she wasn't all that thrilled to be
out in it; as a kid, she'd seen Jaws one time too many.
She kept her focus on the shore, trying to judge how
close they were, and felt as much as saw the land open
up as the tiny raft slipped through the lapping waves.
Maybe twenty meters away, the towering shadows of
trees gave way to a clearing. She could hear water
dashing lightly against the rocky shore, sense flat,
open space on both sides of them now. They had
reached the compound.
"There's the dock," David said. "John, veer star-
board, two o'clock."
Rebecca could just make out the faint, man-made
shape of the pier ahead of them, a dark line shifting
on the water. There was the hollow, lonely squeak of
metal rubbing wood, the small dock raised and strain-
ing at its pilings. There were no boats that she could
see.
As the pier slipped past, Rebecca squinted into the
darkness beyond. She could just make out the blocky
outline of a structure behind the floating wood, what
had to be the boathouse or marina for the facility. She
couldn't see any of the other buildings from Trent's
map. There were six more besides the lighthouse, five
of them spaced evenly along the cove, set into two
lines that paralleled the shore - three in front, two
behind. The sixth structure was directly in back of the
lighthouse, and they were all hoping that it was the

lab; they'd be able to get what they needed without
going through the whole compound ...
"Boathouse is wood, the others look like con-
crete. I don't ... wait," David's whisper became ur-
gent. "Somebody - two, three people, they just went
behind one of the buildings."
Rebecca felt a strange relief flood through her, relief
and disappointment and a sudden confusion. If there
were people, maybe the T-Virus hadn't been un-
leashed. But that meant that the buildings would be
occupied, the grounds patrolled, making a covert
operation impossible.
Then why is it so dark? And why does it feel so dead
here, so empty?
"Do we abort?" Karen whispered, and before Da-
vid could respond, Steve gasped, a sharp intake of air
that froze Rebecca's blood, her thoughts fluttering
wildly in a spasm of primal fear.
"Three o'clock, big, oh Jesus it's huge ..."
BAM!
The raft was hit, heaved up and over in a fountain
of churning blackness. Rebecca saw a flash of sky,
smelled cold and rotting slime--and was plunged,
splashing, into the turbulent dark waters of the sea.
Water enveloped him, the icy, stinging salt burning
David's eyes and nose as he flailed desperately, lost
and breathless.
--where is it--
He'd seen it, an immense and pebbled plain of flesh
surging up from the black at the second of impact.
The surface pulled at him and he kicked against the
dragging depths, terrified. His head broke through to
air and an ominous quiet.
-- where's the team--
David whirled around, gasping, heard a spluttering
cough to his left.
"Get to shore," he panted, turning in a circle, trying
to find their position, to find the creature's, cursing
himself for a fool.
Missing fishermen, haunted waters, stupid, stupid.
The raft was ten meters behind him, upside down,
disturbed water splashing at its sides. The force of the
attack had thrown them clear, actually knocking them
closer to land. He saw two bobbing shapes, faces
between him and the shore, heard more splashing as
another joined them. He couldn't see the unnatural
thing that had hit the raft but expected to feel the bite
any second, the cold puncture of dagger teeth tearing
him to pieces.
"Get to shore," he called again, his heart thunder-
ing, his legs heavy and vulnerable, kicking, obvious.

Can't go in, three, where's four?
"David ..."
John's terrified shout, from beyond the floating raft.
"Here! John, this way, come this way, follow my
voice!"
John started toward him as David tread water,
propelling himself backward toward the rocky beach
and shouting all the while. He saw the top of John's
head appear, saw his arms pumping frantically
through the murky water.
"... follow me, I'm over here, we have to get ..."
A giant, pale shadow rose up smoothly behind the
soldier, at least three meters across, rounded and
dripping and impossible. Time jerked to a crawl, the
events unfolding in front of him in a slow motion
dream. David saw thick, tapering tentacles on either
side near the top of the rising shadow, saw a rounded
slash in the corpse-colored slickness -
- not tentacles, feelers -
- and realized that he was seeing the underbelly of
a monstrous animal that couldn't possibly exist, a
bottom feeder as big as a house. The black slash of its
mouth hissed open, revealing clusters of peg-like,
grinding teeth, each the size of a man's fist.
When it came down, John would be swallowed up
by the massive jaws. Or crushed. Or plowed into the
icy deep, a drowning meal for the creature.
In the instant it took him to absorb the facts, he was
already screaming.
"Dive! Dive!"
Time skipped forward and the beast was falling
forward, arching over, its long, thick serpent's body
dwarfing the raft, its shadow enveloping the frantic
swimmer. David caught a glimpse of bulbous, rolling
eyes the size of beach balls -
- and it crashed down, sending explosive plumes
of water high into the air, blotting out the stars in
sheets of foaming spray. Before David could draw
breath, a tremendous wave knocked into him, driving
him violently backward through the bubbling dark-
ness.
There was rushing movement, a sense of helpless
speed as he struggled against the force that tore at his
limbs, struggled to find air in the sweeping torrent.
Kicking wildly, he surged upward through the liquid
veil, felt cold air slap at his skin and warm, human
hands yanking at his shoulders. He inhaled convul-
sively as his boots scraped against rock and Karen's
ragged voice spoke behind him.
"Got him ..."
Staggering against the slimy rocks, David let him-

self be dragged backward until he found his balance
and could turn around. Wet figures were reaching out,
Steve and Rebecca. . .
Oh my God, John . . .
"I'm okay," David gasped, stumbling forward, his
knees cracking numbly against larger rocks that his
blurred gaze denied him from seeing. "John, does
anyone see him?"
Nobody answered. He blinked away salt, reeling
around to face the splashing darkness, the settling
waves slapping at their feet.
"John ..." he called, as loud as he dared, searching,
seeing nothing at all. His heart was as cold as his
body, as heavy as the sodden weight of his Kevlar
vest.
--no life jackets, would've seen him by now--
He called again, hope dwindling. "John!"
A choking, strangled voice from the rocks to their
left. "What?"
David sagged in relief, taking a deep breath as
John's dripping figure staggered out of the shadows.
Steve lunged forward, grabbing the taller man's arm
and helping him lean against the rocks.
"I dove," John rasped out.
David turned and looked up, past the sliver of
pebbled, boulder-strewn beach to the darkness of the
compound. They were at the bottom of a short,
angled drop, in plain sight. The shock of the mon-
strous fish - if it could be called that - was suddenly
unimportant in the light of that realization. They
were out of the water now.
Have they heard us? Seen? Won't make the caves
now, can't stay here ...
"The marina," he breathed, turning south,
"quickly!"
The team stumbled past him, Karen taking the
lead, the others following close. No one seemed
seriously injured, a miracle all its own. David jogged
after John, assessing the situation as his aching legs
carried him through the rocky dark.
Get to cover, bar the door, regroup, get to the fence.
The ground rose steeply in front of them, the pier
looming into view ahead. As they clambered up over
rocks, David heard a muffled clatter of metal, saw
Rebecca hugging the black, dripping shape of the
ammo pack to her chest. He felt a wisp of new hope
for their chances; if they could just make it inside,
somewhere safe . . .
The building was ahead on their right, silent and
dark, a closed door facing the wooden dock. There
was no way to know if it was empty, and though

barely ten meters away, the distance was open and
flat, weathered planking, not even a pebble to block
them from view.
No choice.
"Stay low," he whispered, and then they were
crouching their way to the structure, Karen reaching
the door first, pushing it open. No light spilled out, no
alarm sounded. Steve and Rebecca piled in behind
her, then John, then David, stumbling into the dark,
closing the wooden door after him with a wet, cold
shoulder.
"Stop where you are," he said softly, fumbling for
the halogen torch on his belt. Besides the gulping
breaths of his team, the room was still, but there was
a horrid smell in the close air, a fading stench of
something long dead. . .
The thin beam of light cut through the black,
revealing a large and mostly empty windowless room.
Ropes and life preservers hung from wooden pegs, a
workbench ran the length of one wall, a few saw
horses, cluttered shelves.
--my God--
The light froze on the room's other door, directly
across from the one they'd entered. The narrow beam
played across the source of the smell, highlighting
bare bone and a tattered, oily-stained lab coat. Dried
strings of muscle dripped in streamers from a grin-
ning face.
A corpse had been nailed to the door, one hand
fixed in a welcoming wave. From the look, it had been
dead for weeks.
Steve felt his gorge rise into his throat. He swal-
lowed it down, looking away, but the grotesque image
was already fixed in his mind - the eyeless face and
peeling tissue, the carefully splayed fingers pinned
into place...
Jesus, is that some kind of a joke? Steve felt dizzy,
still out of breath from the nightmarish swim, the
sloshing climb over the rocks, the horror of the
Umbrella sea monster. The dried, sour smell of rot
wasn't helping.
For a few seconds, nobody spoke. Then David
cupped one hand over the light and started talking,
his voice low but amazingly even.
"Check your belts and drop your clips. I want
status, now, injuries then equipment. Take a deep
breath, everyone. John?"
John's solemn voice rumbled through the shadows
to Steve's left, accompanied by sounds of wet, fum-
bling movement. Karen and Rebecca were to his
right, David still by the door.

"I got fish slime on me, but I'm okay. I've got my
weapon but my light's gone. So are the radios."
"Rebecca?"
Her voice was wavering but quick. "I'm fine - uh,
my weapon's here, and the flashlight, the med kit...
oh, and I've got the ammo."
Steve checked himself out as she spoke, unholster-
ing his Beretta and ejecting the wet mag, slipping it
into a pocket. There was an empty spot on his belt
where his light should have been.
"Steve?"
"Yeah, no injuries. Weapon but no light."
"Karen?"
"Same."
David's fingers shifted over the muted beam, allow-
ing a shallow glow to spill into the room. "No one's
hurt and we're still armed; things could be a lot worse.
Rebecca, pass out the clips, please. The fence can't be
more than fifty meters south from here, and there are
enough trees for cover, provided no one has seen us
yet. This operation is called, we're getting out of
here."
Steve accepted three loaded magazines from
Rebecca, nodding his thanks. He slapped one into the
semi, chambering a round automatically.
Great, fine, let's blow. That insane creature nearly
eating us, now Mr. Death dropping a casual wave, like
he was put there to say hello...
Steve wasn't easily frightened, but he knew a bad
situation when he saw it. He admired the S.T.A.R.S.
deeply, had wanted to go in on the operation to help
make things right, but with their boat gone and the
initial plan shot to shit, nailing Umbrella could wait.
David stepped closer to the decomposed figure, a
look of disgust curling his features in the shadowy
orange glow of the light. "Karen, Rebecca, come take
a look at this. John, take Rebecca's torch, you and
Steve see if you can find anything useful."
Rebecca handed her flashlight to John, who nodded
at Steve. The two men walked to one end of the long
workbench, the soft voices of the others carrying
across the still air.
"The T-Virus didn't do this," Rebecca said. "Pat-
tern of decay's all wrong..."
Silence, then Karen spoke. "See that? David, give
me the light for a sec..."
John hooded their flashlight with one large hand,
playing the beam across the dirty planks of the
counter. A broken coffee mug. A pile of greasy nuts
and bolts on top of a laminated tide chart. An electric
screwdriver, dusty and dented, a couple of bits on a

stained rag.
Nothing, there's nothing here. We should get out
before someone comes looking...
John opened a drawer and rummaged through it
while Steve tried to make out what was on an over-
head shelf. Behind them, Karen spoke again.
"He wasn't dead when they nailed him up, though
I'd say he was close. Definitely unconscious. There's
no smearing, suggesting he didn't struggle ... and
there are slide marks, here and here; I'd say he was
shot by the back door and dragged over."
John had finished digging through the drawer and
they moved on, boots squelching against the wood
floor. A set of socket wrenches. A cheap radio. A
crumpled paper bag next to a pencil nub.
Something snagged at Steve's thoughts and he
stopped, looking at the paper bag. The pencil...
He picked up the crunched ball, smoothing out the
wrinkles and turning it over. There were several lines
written near the bottom, scrawled and jerky.
"Hey, we found something," John called quietly,
shining the light on the writing as the others hurried
over. Steve read it aloud, squinting at the faintly
penciled words under the wobbling beam. There was
no punctuation; he did his best to work out the pauses
as he went.
". . . 'July 20. Food was drugged, I'm sick, I hid the
material for you, sent data. Boats are sunk and he let
the. . ."
Steve frowned, unable to make out the word.
Tris . . . tri-squads?
" 'Boats are sunk and he let the Trisquads out - dark
now, they'll come, I think he killed the rest -stop him -
God knows what he means to do. Destroy the lab - find
Krista, tell her I'm sorry, Lyle is sorry. I wish . . .'"
There was nothing more.
"Ammon's message," Karen said softly. "Lyle
Ammon."
It didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out who
was hanging on the door. The sagging, seeping Mr.
Death had an identity now, for what it was worth.
And the message that Trent had given David was so
weird because the poor guy had apparently been
doped up when he sent it.
"Nice to put a face to the name, huh?" John
cracked, but not even he smiled. The desperate little
note had an ominous ring to it, with or without the
brutal murder to back it up.
What's a Trisquad? Who's "he"?
"Maybe we should look around a little more."
Rebecca began hesitantly, but David was shaking his

head.
"I think it's best if we leave this for now. We'll..."
He broke off as heavy, plodding footsteps sounded
across the wood deck, just outside the door they'd
come through. Everyone froze, listening. More than
one set, and whoever they were, they were making no
effort to hide their approach. They stopped at the
door and stayed there, no rattling knob, no crashing
kick, no other sound. Waiting.
David circled one finger in the air, pointed to Karen
and then to the other door, hung with the grisly
remains of Lyle Ammon. The signal to move out,
Karen first.
They edged toward the grinning corpse, Steve winc-
ing at every shifting creak they created, breathing
through his mouth to avoid inhaling the stench
and as Karen pushed the door open, the silence
was shattered by the rattle of automatic fire, coming
from in front of them, to the left, coming from the
direction of their escape.

E

IGHT

KAREN JUMPED BACK AS BULLETS CRACKED
into the door. Chunks of rotten flesh spattered up from
Ammon's body; the corpse danced and waved in a
shuddering, jerking rhythm of macabre motion.
David snatched at the coat of the dead man and
yanked, but the door was pinned open by the clatter-
ing fire and whoever was shooting was coming
closer, the explosive shots louder, the splinters of flesh
and wood pelting them with greater force. They were
trapped, both exits blocked.
Rebecca clutched her Beretta in one shaking hand,
watching for a signal from David. He pointed roughly
northwest, into the compound, shouting to be heard
over the whining, spitting clatter of the automatic fire.
"Rebecca, other door! John, Karen, next building,
secure! Steve, we cover! Go!"
As one, Steve and David leaped out and started to
fire, the booming rounds punctuating the lighter hail
of deadly ammo.
John and Karen charged out at a full run, were
instantly swallowed up by the shadows. Rebecca spun
and trained her weapon on the back door, her heart
pounding in her throat. The walls trembled and
shook.
"Die, Jesus, why won't they die?" Steve screamed
behind her, a strain of disbelief and terror in his voice
that made her blood run cold.
. . . zombies?

Without looking away from the rectangle of dark
wood, Rebecca shouted as loud as she could, her voice
cracking over the relentless spray of the automatics.
"Head shots! Aim for the head!"
There was no way to know if they'd heard her, the
rifle or rifles kept pounding, approaching. Her
thoughts raced to understand, images of the T-Virus
victims flitting through her mind. They'd been mind-
less, slow, inhuman and accidental, not on purpose -not with
purpose.
"Rebecca, let's go!"
There was still the sound of an automatic rifle
firing, but the boathouse no longer shook from the
impact of its force. She shot a glance back, saw Steve
still shooting at something, saw David motioning at
her to move.
She sidled for the open door, catching a sickening,
up-close look at the bullet-riddled corpse still hanging
there. The head had caved in like a rotting pumpkin,
teeth shattered, gummy flecks of tissue radiating out
from behind the skull. The waving hand was no longer
connected to the rotting arm, the radius and ulna
blown away. It dangled there like some obscene
decoration, beckoning...
Steve fired once more and the auto's clatter ceased.
He raised the weapon, his eyes wide and shocked as
he opened his mouth to say something ...
... and the back door crashed open, bullets flying
through the dark in a blaze of orange fire. David
pushed her roughly through the front and she ran, the
responding crack of nine-millimeter rounds resonat-
ing behind her.
- get to the building, get to cover -
She sprinted through the shadows, her wet shoes
thumping across packed, rocky dirt, her searching
gaze finding the outline of a massive, concrete block
and the spindly trees that surrounded it in the dark-
ness ahead.
"Here."
She veered toward the call, saw John's muscular
form silhouetted by pale starlight at the corner of the
building. As she neared him, she saw the open door,
Karen standing in the entry with her weapon trained
back toward the boathouse. Bullets still sang through
the shadows.
"Get in!" Karen shouted, stepping out of the way,
and Rebecca ran past her, not slowing until she was
inside. She fell into a table in the pitch black, cracking
one hip painfully against the edge.
Turning, she saw Karen firing, heard John yelling,
"Come on, come on..."

... and Steve pounded through the door, gasping.
He pulled to a stop before crashing into her, one hand
clutching his chest.
Rebecca moved to the door and grasped the cool
thickness, her mind absently registering that the ma-
terial was steel as David hurtled through, shouting.
"Karen, John!"
Karen backed into the darkness, weapon still
raised. There were three more sharp reports from a
Beretta and then John slipped inside, his jaw
clenched, his nostrils flaring.
Rebecca slammed the door, her fingers finding a
deadbolt switch. The soft snick of the lock was barely
audible against the ringing in her ears. Outside, the
bullets stopped. There were no shouts between the
attackers, no alarms, no barking of dogs or screaming
of wounded. The sudden silence was total, broken
only by the deep, shuddering breathing in the warm
and muggy darkness.
A halogen beam flickered on, revealing the shocked
faces of the team as David shone it around their
retreat. A midsize room, crowded with desks and
computer equipment. There were no windows.
"Did you see that?" Steve gasped, addressing no
one in particular. "God, they wouldn't go down, did
you see that?"
Nobody answered, and though they were out of
immediate danger, Rebecca didn't feel her adrenaline
slowing, didn't feel her heart settling back to anything
approaching normal; it seemed that Umbrella had
found a new application for the T-Virus. And like it or
not, we're going to have to deal with the consequences.
They were trapped in Caliban Cove. And in this
facility, the creatures had guns.
David took a final deep breath and exhaled it
heavily, flashing the torch's light toward the door.
"I'd say we've been spotted," he said, hoping that
he didn't sound as despairing as he felt. "Might as
well see what we've gotten into. Rebecca, would you
turn on the lights?"
She flipped the wall switch and the room snapped
into blinding brilliance, overhead fluorescents pulsing
to life. Blinking against the sudden glare, David
surveyed the team, saw that Steve had one hand
pressed to his chest.
"Are you hit?"
"Vest stopped it," he said, but he seemed more out
of breath than the others, his face paler than it should
have been.
Rebecca glanced at David with a questioning gaze.
He nodded at her.

Doesn 't appear that we have anywhere else to go...
"Check him out. Anyone else?"
Nobody answered as Rebecca stepped up to Steve,
motioning for him to take off the vest. David turned
and looked around the room, measuring it against the
memory of Trent's map and what little he'd seen from
outside. There were a half dozen cheap metal desks,
each with a computer and bits of clutter on top. The
cement walls were undecorated and plain. There was
another door on the west wall that had to lead deeper
into the building.
"Karen, secure that," he said. They could check out
the rest of the site once they'd decided what to do.
Once you've decided, Captain; perhaps you'd like to
send them out for a swim? It can't be any worse than
what you've already managed. . .
David ignored the inner voice, perfectly aware of
how badly he'd underestimated the situation. The
team didn't need to see him wallow in self-doubt, it
wouldn't help anything. The question was, what now?
"Let's talk," he said. "It doesn't look like we're
facing an accident after all. What did the note say?
The food was drugged, and something about a 'he'
killing the others ... is it possible that we're not
looking at a T-Virus spill?"
Rebecca looked up from her examination of Steve's
chest, the computer expert sitting on one of the desks
in front of her. Steve winced as Rebecca's fingers
circled the darkening bruise on his right pectoral. She
smiled guiltily at him, shaking her head.
"You're okay. Nothing's broken."
She turned back to David, the smile falling away.
"Yeah. If there'd been a release, that guy on the door,
Ammon, would've been affected. But the Trisquads -
- if they're the result of experiments with the T-Virus,
they'd have rotted away by now. It's been over three
weeks since he wrote that note, we should be looking
at piles of mush. Either it's a different virus, or
someone's been taking care of them. Enzyme upkeep,
maybe some kind of refrigeration..."
David nodded slowly, following her reasoning.
"And if that 'someone' had gone mad and killed
everyone, why bother?"
"That corpse, waving at us," Karen said thought-
fully. "And the creature or creatures in the cove. It's
like he expected people to come..."
"...but didn't mean for us to get very far," John
finished.
The line from the note ran through David's mind,
the words following the plea to stop "him."
'God knows what he means to do.'...

Steve had slipped his shirt back on, shivering from
the damp cloth. "So what do we do now?"
David didn't answer him, not sure what to say. He
felt so drained, so exhausted and uncertain...
"I ... our options are to get out or go deeper," he
said softly. "Considering what's happened so far, I
don't feel comfortable making that call. What do you
want to do?"
David looked warily from face to face, expecting to
see anger and disdain; he'd let them down, led them
into a perilous situation without a contingency plan,
all because he couldn't stand to see the S.T.A.R.S.
tarnished. And now that they were trapped, he didn't
know what to do.
The expressions they wore, as a group, were thought-
ful and intent. He was surprised to see Karen actually
smile, and when she spoke, her tone was brightly
eager.
"Since you're asking, I want to figure this out. I
want to know what happened here."
Rebecca was nodding. "Yeah, me, too. And I still
want to get a look at the T-Virus."
"I wanna pick off a few more of those Tri-boys,"
John said, grinning. "Man, zombies with M-16s,
night of the living death squad."
Steve sighed, pushing his wet bangs off his fore-
head. "Might as well keep looking; going back out
isn't exactly safe. It's not the way I would've liked, but
getting dirt on Umbrella was the original plan . . .
yeah, I want to nail these bastards."
David smiled, feeling properly embarrassed at him-
self. He hadn't just underestimated the situation, he'd
sorely underestimated his team.
"What do you want?" Rebecca asked suddenly.
"Really?"
The question surprised him anew - not because
she'd asked, but because suddenly, he didn't have an
answer. He thought about the S.T.A.R.S., about his
obsession with his career and what it had already cost
them. All he'd wanted for days was to feel as though
his life's work had been meaningful, that it hadn't
been wasted and he'd convinced himself that un-
covering the treachery within the job would lay his
mind at rest, as if rooting out the corruption would
somehow prove that he wasn't worthless.
I've worshipped at the altar of the organization for so
long ... but isn't this the reason why, the real purpose?
Here, in this room, on these faces?
He studied her curious, sharp gaze, felt the rest of
them watching him, waiting.
"I want for us to survive," he said finally, truth-

fully. "I want for us to make it out of here."
"Amen to that," John muttered.
David remembered what he'd told the Raccoon
team, about each of them doing what they did best if
they meant to succeed against Umbrella. He'd said it
to get Chris's approval of his operation, but it was a
truth that applied to all of them.
Get to it, Captain...
"John, you and Karen take a look around the
building, check the doors, be back in ten. Steve, boot
up one of those computers, see if you can find a
detailed layout of the grounds. Rebecca, we'll go
through the desks. We want maps, data on Trisquads,
T-Virus, anything personal about the researchers that
might tell us who's behind all this."
David nodded at them, realizing that he felt clearer
and more balanced than he had in a long, long time.
"Let's do it," he said. To hell with the S.T.A.R.S.
They were going to take Umbrella down.

Dr. Griffith might not have even noticed the securi-
ty breach if it hadn't been for the Ma7s; it seemed that
they were useful after all, though not in the way they'd
been intended.
He'd spent most of the day in the lab, dreamily
pondering the pressurized canisters standing by the
entrance, the shining steel glittering seductively in the
soft light. Once he'd made the decision to let the virus
go, he'd realized that there was really nothing else he
needed to do. The hours had flown by; each glance at
the clock had been a surprise, though not an unpleas-
ant one. He'd be the first, after all, the first convert to
the new way of the world. With that in front of him,
the only task with which he needed to concern himself
was getting the canisters up to the lighthouse and
with the doctors waiting silently, patiently by, even
that was taken care of. Just before dawn, he'd give
them their final instructions and then proudly lead
the human species into the light, into the miracle of
peace.
It had been the thought of the Ma7s that had finally
drawn him out into the caves, the only concern he
hadn't already dismissed as trivial. He'd already
made a mistake with the Leviathans; once he'd taken
over the facility, he'd lowered the cove gates on
impulse, wanting them to be as free as he'd felt. It
wasn't until the next day that he'd realized Umbrella
might find out and come looking, effectively putting
an end to his plans. He'd continued to send in weekly
reports to keep up appearances, but there was no good
explanation for the "escape" of the four creatures. It

had been sheer luck that the Leviathans had returned
on their own.
The Ma7s were a different matter entirely, of
course. They were too violent, too unpredictable to be
let out. But letting them starve to death in their cage
didn't seem right, particularly not when they, too,
would enjoy the effects of his gift; it wasn't their
choice to exist as creatures of destruction, even to
exist at all. And since he'd played a small role in their
creation, he felt a responsibility to do something for
them...
He'd stood in front of the outer gate for quite some
time, considering the problem as all five of the ani-
mals hurled themselves repeatedly at the heavy steel
mesh, their strange, mournful howls echoing through
the damp and winding caves. There was a manual
lock release near the enclosure, another in the lab,
but there was no way to loose them from the light-
house, and he certainly couldn't let them out before
he got to safety. He could send one of the doctors to
do it, but the 7s had a much slower metabolism than a
human's, and there was a risk that they would get to
him before they made the change. A month before his
takeover of the compound, Dr. Chin and two of her
vet techs had made the mistake of trying to tend to
one of the sick ones; it was a bad way to die, and
although he'd be oblivious to the pain once he'd made
the transition, he meant to stay with the new world for
as long as possible.
Griffith had finally decided that euthanasia was the
only reasonable choice. It was a reluctant decision,
but he could see no alternative. Although the lab was
well stocked, poisons weren't his forte, so he'd de-
cided to look up the information on the mainframe
and there, in the cold comfort of the sealed laborato-
ry, he'd discovered that his sanctuary had been in-
vaded.
He sat in front of the computer in a kind of shock,
staring at the blinking cursor that indicated system
use in one of the bunkers. There was no chance that it
was a mistake. Except for the lab terminals, the rest of
the compound had been powered down weeks ago.
Umbrella had come.
The first emotion to break through his stunned
astonishment was rage, a sweeping, red-hot fury that
tore away all reason, descending over him like a
blinding fire. For a few moments, he was lost, his body
taken over by the primal force, grasping and rending,
tearing at the useless, meaningless things that fell
beneath his burning fingers.
--they will NOT will NOT stop me will NOT--

When his hands touched the cool metal of the
canisters, the fire turned to ash. The smooth, silver
tanks were like a splash of reason, bringing him back
to himself. His control returned as abruptly as it had
gone, leaving him breathless and sweating.
My creation. My work.
Blinking, gasping, he found himself standing in a
sea of ripped papers, broken glass, and torn circuitry.
He'd managed to destroy the computer, the bearer of
bad news, in pieces on the cold floor. On another day,
he might have been ashamed at the hysterical tan-
trum, but on this, his eve of greatness, he allowed that
the rage had been justified.
Justified, perhaps, but pointless. How will you keep
them from stopping you? You can't release the strain
here, and you can't risk taking it outside, not now...
what are their plans? How much do they know?
He could find out easily enough. There were still
two other terminals in the lab and he walked quickly
to one of them, glancing at the mute doctors, sitting
quietly by the airlock. If they'd even noticed his
rampage, they gave no sign. He felt a small rush of
hatred for them, for creating the useless Trisquads;
the "unstoppable" guards had failed him now that he
needed them most.
He sat down and turned on the monitor, impa-
tiently waiting for the spinning umbrella of the com-
pany logo to disappear. The security network for the
compound's system was based in the lab; he'd be able
to see what the intruders were seeking without alert-
ing them to his presence, if he could remember how to
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.

N

INE

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
John 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
with that," John said softly.
Rebecca felt her excitement dwindle, could see the
same mixed emotions in the suddenly somber expres-
sions they all wore, staring down at the boxes. She'd
known that they were going to have to leave eventu-
ally, but had somehow managed to avoid thinking
about it, putting it off until it was in front of them.
It was in front of them now. And the Trisquads
would be waiting.

They stood at the north door in a dark and stuffy
hallway, tightening bootlaces, adjusting belts, putting
fresh clips into their Berettas. When David was ready,
he turned to John and nodded.
"Give it back to me."
"You, Steve, and Rebecca will take the one on the
left, northwest from here. Once we hear you get clear,
Karen and I go straight across. If your guess is right,
we'll be in block D; if you're upside down, block B.
Either way, we secure the building, find the test
number, and then wait for you to show up and give us
the go-ahead."
"And if I don't..."
Karen took up the recital. "If we don't hear from
you in half an hour, we come back here and wait for
Steve and Rebecca. We complete the tests if it's
feasible..."
John grinned, a white flash in the gloom. "... and
then get our asses over the fence."
"Right," David said. "Good."
They were ready. There were infinite variables in
the equation, any number of things that could go
wrong with the simple plan, but that was always the
case. There was no way to prepare for everything that
could happen, not at this point, and the decision to
split up was their best chance to avoid detection by
the Trisquads. "Any questions before we go?"
Rebecca spoke up, her youthful voice tight with
concern. "I'd like to remind everybody again to be
extremely careful about what you touch, or what
touches you. The Trisquads are carriers, so try to
avoid getting close to them, particularly if they're
wounded."
David shuddered internally, remembering what
she'd told them before - that one drop of infected

blood could hold millions, hundreds of millions of
virus particles. Not a pleasant thought, consider-
ing. A nine-millimeter round could inflict a lot of
damage. . .
. . . and they don't lie down when they're hit. The
three by the boathouse just kept coming, walking and
firing and bleeding. . .
They were waiting for his signal. David shook the
thoughts off and thumbed the safety on his weapon,
putting his other hand on the door latch.
"Ready? Quietly, now, on three - one . . . two . . .
three."
He pushed the door open and slipped outside into
the cool night air and the whisper of ocean waves. It
was much brighter than before, the almost-full moon
having risen high, bathing the compound in silvery
blue light. Nothing moved.
Straight in front of him about twenty meters away
was John and Karen's destination, and he was re-
lieved to see a door set into the concrete wall facing
block C; they wouldn't have to go around to get
inside.
David edged away from the door to his left, hugging
the narrow shadow of the wall. He could just make
out the front of the building he hoped was A, tall,
wind-bent pines to the left and behind it. There was a
darker shadow midway along its length, a door, and
no cover in the thirty-plus meters that spanned the
distance. Once they stepped away from C, they'd be
totally vulnerable.
If there's a team between the two lines of build-
ings . . .
He shot a glance back, saw Rebecca and Steve
tensed and waiting behind him. If they were going to
walk into a corridor of fire, at least he'd be in front;
Steve and Rebecca should have time to get back to
cover.
He took a deep breath, held it...
...and broke away from the wall, running in a low
crouch for the dark square of the block's entry.
Shapes of pallid light and shadow blurred past. His
entire being was waiting for the flash of an automatic,
the crack of fire, the sharp and piercing pain that
would take him down, but it was silent and still, the
only sound the violent stammer of his heart, the rush
of blood through his veins. Seconds stretched an
eternity as the door loomed closer, larger . . .
Then the latch was under his fingers and he was
pushing, bursting into a stifling blackness, spinning
around to see Rebecca and then Steve come lunging in
after him.

David closed the door quickly but quietly, sensing
the emptiness of the dark room, the lack of life and
then the smell hit him. Either Steve or Rebecca
gagged, a dry bark of involuntary revulsion as David
snatched for the torch, already dreading what he
knew they would see.
It was the same terrible stink that they'd come
across in the boathouse but a hundred times more
powerful. Even without the recent reference, David
knew the odor. He'd experienced it in a jungle of
South America and in a cultist's camp in Idaho, and
once, in the basement of a serial killer's house. The
smell of rotting, multiple death was unforgettable, a
rancid bile like sour milk and flyblown meat.
How many, how many will there be?
The beam snapped on and as it found the tottering,
reeking pile that took up one corner of the large
storage room, David saw that there was no way to be
certain; the bodies had started to melt into one
another, the blackened, shriveling flesh of the stacked
corpses blending and pooling from the humid heat.
Maybe fifteen, maybe twenty. . .
Retching, Steve stumbled away and threw up, a
harsh and helpless sound in the otherwise quiet room.
David quickly took in the rest of the chamber, finding
a door against the back wall, the letter A blocked
across it in black.
Without another look at the terrible mound, he
hustled Rebecca toward the far door, grabbing Steve
as they passed. Once they were through, the smell
faded to barely tolerable.
They were in a windowless corridor, and though
there was a light switch next to the door, David
ignored it for the moment, catching his breath, letting
the two young team members collect themselves.
Apparently, they'd found the Umbrella workers of
Caliban Cove; all but at least one of them, anyway
and David decided that if they ran across him, he'd
shoot first and not bother with any questions at all.

Karen and John stood at the door for a full minute
after the others had gone, cracked open just wide
enough for them to listen. Cool air filtered through
the opening, the far away hiss of waves, but no shots,
no screams.
Karen let the door close and looked at John, her
pale features masked in the dim light. Her voice was
low, even, and terribly serious. "They're in by now.
You want to take lead, or would you prefer if I went
first?"
John couldn't help himself. "My women always go

first," he whispered. "Though I prefer it when we go
together, if you know what I mean."
Karen sighed heavily, a sound of pure exasperation.
John grinned, thinking about how easy she was. He
knew he shouldn't devil her, but it was hard to resist.
Karen Driver kicked ass with a weapon and she was
sharp as a tack in the brains department, but she was
also one of the most humorless people he'd ever
known.
It's my duty to help her lighten up. If we're gonna
die, might as well be laughing as crying ... A simple
philosophy, but one he held dear; it had gotten him
through many an unpleasant situation in the past.
"John, just answer the goddamn question ..."
"I'll go," he said mildly. "Wait till I get through,
then follow."
She nodded briskly, stepping back to let him by. He
briefly considered telling her that he'd greet her at the
door wearing nothing but a smile, but decided against
it. They'd worked together for almost five years, and
he knew from experience that he could only go so far
before she got pissy. Besides, it was a good line, and
he didn't want to waste it.
As soon as his hand closed over the latch, he took a
deep breath, letting his sparkling wit take a back seat
to what he thought of as his "soldier mind." There
was humor, and then there was conquering the
enemy - and while he enjoyed both immensely, he'd
learned long ago to keep them separate.
Gonna be a ghost now, gonna slide through the dark
like a shadow ...
He gently pushed the door open. No sound, no
movement. Holding his Beretta loosely, he stepped
away from the building and moved quickly through
the silvery dark, fixing on the door that was scarcely
twenty steps away. His soldier mind fed him the facts,
the cool wind, the soft tread of boots against dirt, the
smell and taste of the ocean, but his heart told him
that he was a ghost, floating like an invisible shadow
through the night.
He reached the door, touching the clammy metal
bar with steady fingers and it wouldn't move. The
entrance was locked.
No panic, no worry, he was a shade that no one
could see; he'd find another way in. John held up a
hand, telling Karen to wait, and edged smoothly to his
right.
Silent and easy, shadow without form ...
He reached the corner and slid around, letting his
heightened senses continue to feed him information.
No movement in the whispering night, the rough feel

of concrete against his left shoulder and hip, the steady
pump of exhilaration and fluidity in his muscles. There
was another door, facing the broad, glimmering open-
ness of the sea, cool light matte against metal.
Rat-atat-atat-atat!
Bullets hit the dirt at his feet. John spun and leaped
backward, flattening himself against the wall as he
grabbed for the latch. Walking from the direction of
the boathouse, a line of three . . .
. . . and John tore the door open and jumped behind
it, heard the clatter of .22 rounds smash into the
metal, stopped inches from his body by the explosive
ping-ping-ping that rattled the door.
He held the door open with his foot, took a split-
second look around the edge and targeted the flash of
light, squeezing the trigger as chips of concrete and
dust flew from the wall. The nine-millimeter jumped,
a part of his hand, and he was an animal now, at one
with the thundering rounds, the pull of his breath, the
awareness of himself both as a man and a bringer of
death.
Another look and the line was closer now, the three
dark figures taking shape. John got off another shot,
ducked behind the open door ... and when he looked
again, there were only two standing.
Snap.
Behind him.
John whirled around and saw them, two of them,
ten feet away at the northeast corner of the building.
Both held automatic rifles.
But made no move to fire.
He felt panic then, a screaming, whining beast in
his gut that threatened to devour him from the inside
out -
- holy shit.
The fusillade of the M-16s was still approaching,
but he could see only the creatures that stood there,
watching him with blank and rubbery eyes, wobbling
on unsteady legs. The one on the left had only half a
face; from the nose down was a liquid, pulpy mass of
tissue, chunks of dark wetness hanging from strings of
elastic flesh. The one on the right looked intact at first,
if deathly white and dirty ... until he saw the ex-
ploded mass of its belly, the limp, dripping snake of
intestine flopped out against his bloody shirt.
- won't engage until team A finishes -
John stepped backward into the warm dark of the
building, using one distant arm to hold the door open
against the pair that still fired. He leaned out and
aimed as carefully as he could manage, squashing the
panic as best he could. Neither of the creatures moved

to defend themselves, only stood there, teetering on
rotting legs, watching him.
Bam! Bam!
Two clean head shots, explosively loud over the
continuing rattle of the M-16s. Before they'd even hit
the ground, John heard another nine-millimeter thun-
dering through the darkness, drowning the automatic
fire.
Karen...
He shot another glance around the door and saw
the crumpling figures of the engaged team a hundred
feet away, one of them still firing as it fell, its rattling
rifle aimed uselessly at the sky. Karen crouched out
from between the buildings, handgun still pointed at
the spasming shooter, her back to John.
- teams won't engage -
"Don't shoot him! Over here, leave him!"
She turned, a lithe and graceful spin, sprinting to
meet him. As soon as she was through, he pulled the
door closed, the crack of the automatic muted to a
dull popping sound.
John sagged against the door as Karen fumbled for
the lock, his brain still screaming at him that he'd
seen the impossible, that he'd just killed two dead
men, that there was nowhere he could put that
information that wouldn't drive him insane -
- can't be, didn't believe, didn't believe it before,
didn 't know and they were DEAD they were ROTTING
and they were -
Karen's ragged whisper broke the warm dark, broke
through the cycling chain of his spinning, dizzying
thoughts.
"Hey, John, was it good for you?"
He blinked, the words registering slowly.
"Going first, I mean," she added. "Was it every-
thing you hoped it would be?"
He felt a creeping amazement take the place of the
whirling, terrible thoughts, the confusion ebbing, the
waters of his mind becoming clear again.
"That's not funny," he said.
After a beat, they both started to laugh.

T

EN

THE FARTHER AWAY THEY GOT FROM THE
front of the concrete block, the less noxious the air,
for which Rebecca was deeply grateful. She'd been
seconds away from vomiting herself, the smell was
that bad - a greasy, oily stench that seemed almost
tangible, an entity in itself.
As they moved quietly through the well-lit hall, she

found herself thinking again about Nicolas Griffith,
about the story of the Marburg victims and al-
though there was no proof that he was behind the
mass slaughter of the Umbrella people, she couldn't
shake the feeling that he was responsible.
The corridor led them past several open rooms,
each as barren and sterile as the building they'd come
from. They passed an exit at the far side of the block,
and after another turn in the hall, finally came to a
door marked again with the letter A, and below it,
1-4. There were three triangles beneath the numbers,
each a different color - red, green, and blue.
David opened the door, revealing a much shorter
hall, stark fluorescent light spilling into the stale dark-
ness; there were two doors, one on either side. Steve
found the lights and turned them on, and Rebecca saw
that there were more of the colored triangles on the
door to their right. The other was blank.
"I'll take the test," David said. "Steve, you and
Rebecca check out the other room, we'll meet back
here."
Rebecca nodded, saw Steve do the same. He looked
a little pale, but seemed steady enough, though he
dropped his gaze when he noticed her looking. She
felt a pang of sympathy for him, realizing that he was
probably embarrassed for losing his lunch.
They opened the unlabeled door and stepped into
yet another windowless room, as stuffy and warm as
the rest of the building. Rebecca turned on the lights
and a rather large office lined with bookshelves flick-
ered into view. A steel desk sat in one corner next to a
filing cabinet, the empty drawers standing open.
Steve sighed. "Looks like another bust," he said.
"You want the desk or shelves?"
Rebecca shrugged. "Shelves, I guess."
He grinned almost shyly. "Just as well. Maybe I can
find some breath mints or something in one of the
drawers."
Rebecca smiled, glad that he'd made the joke.
"Save me one. I swallowed it down back there, but it
was a close call."
They locked gazes, still smiling and Rebecca felt
a tiny shiver of excitement run through her as the
second stretched, lingering a few beats longer than a
more casual exchange.
Steve looked away first, but his color had returned,
his cheeks slightly pinker than before. He moved to
the desk and Rebecca turned to face a row of books,
feeling a little flushed herself. There was a definite
attraction there, and it seemed to be mutual -
- and it's only about the worst time and place to

consider it, her mind snapped. Secure that shit, pronto.
The books were about what she might've expected,
considering what they knew about the Trisquads and
Umbrella. Chemistry, biology, a whole set of leather-
bound texts on behavior modification, several medi-
cal journals. As Steve rummaged through the desk
behind her, she ran her hand along the row, pushing
the books toward the back of the shelf as she glanced
over the titles. Maybe there was something hidden
behind one of them.
... sociology, Pavlov, psych, psych, pathology ...
She stopped, frowning at a slender black volume
tucked between two larger books. No title. She pulled it
out and felt her heart speed up as she opened the small
book, seeing the spidery handwriting on the lined pages.
She flipped to the front, saw "Tom Athens" written
in neat letters on the inside cover.
One of the guys on the list, one of the researchers!
"Hey, I found a diary," she said. "It belongs to one
of the people from Trent's list, Tom Athens."
Steve looked up from the desk, his dark eyes flash-
ing. "No shit? Go to the back, what's the last date?"
Rebecca ruffled through the pages to the end, scan-
ning as she went. "Says July 18, but it doesn't look like
he kept it regular. The one before that is July 9 ..."
"Just read the last entry," Steve said. "Maybe it'll
tell us what was going on."
She walked to the desk and leaned against it,
clearing her throat.
" 'Juty 18, Saturday. It's been a long and ridiculous day,
the end of a long and ridiculous week. I swear to God, I'm
going to beat the crap out of Louis if he calls one more stupid
meeting. Today it was whether or not we should add a new
scenario into the Trisquad program, as if we need another
one. All he really wanted was to get it on paper, and the rest
of it was his usual bullshit - the importance of teamwork, the
need to share information so we can all "stay on the right
track." I mean, Jesus, it's like he can't live with the concept
that a weekly might go out without his name on it. And he
hasn't done dick since the Ma7 disaster, except to try and
convince everyone that it was Chin's fault; so much for not
speaking ill of the dead. Sanctimonious prick."
" 'Alan and I talked over the implants yesterday, that's
going well. He's going to write up the proposal this week,
and we're NOT going to let Louis touch it. With any luck,
we'll get a green light by the end of the month. Alan figures
the White boys are going to want to run it past Birkin,
though God only knows why; B. doesn't give a shit what
we're doing out here, he's off being brilliant again. I have to
admit, I'm looking forward to his next synthesis; maybe we
can work out some of the bugs in the Trisquads."

" 'There was a minor scare in D on Wednesday, in 101.
Somebody left the refrigerator open, and Kim swears that
there are some chemicals missing, though I'm starting to
think she miscounted again. Hard to believe she's in charge
of the infection process, the woman's a dite and she's sloppy
as hell when it comes to maintaining the equipment. I'm
surprised she hasn't managed to infect the entire com-
pound. God knows there's enough in there to do it."
" 'I should probably get over to D myself, make sure
everything's ready for tomorrow. Got a new batch shipping
in, and Griffith actually asked to watch the process; first
time he's come out of the lab in weeks, first time he's ever
taken an interest in what the rest of us are doing. I know it's
stupid, but I still want him to be impressed; he's as brilliant
as Birkin, in his own creepy way. I think he even intimidates
Louis, and Louis is generally too stupid to scare."
" 'More later.'"
The rest of the pages were blank. Rebecca looked up
at Steve, not sure what to say, her mind working to
glean the relevant bits of information from the ram-
bling tirade. There was something in there that both-
ered her, something that she couldn't quite place.
Missing chemicals. Infection process. The brilliant,
creepy Dr. Griffith. . .
She no longer had any doubt that Griffith had killed
the others, but that wasn't what sent her internal
alarms jangling. It was. . .
"Block D," Steve said, a look of anxious fear
playing across his face. "If we're in A, Karen and John
are in D."
Where there's enough of the T-Virus to infect the entire
compound. Where the infection process took place.
"We should tell David," Rebecca said, and Steve
nodded, both of them moving quickly for the door,
Rebecca hoping desperately that John and Karen
wouldn't find room 101 and that if they did, they
wouldn't touch anything that could hurt them.

The test room was big, three of the walls lined with
open-ended cubicles. Once he'd turned on the lights,
he saw that the tests were clearly numbered and color-
coded, the symbols painted on the cement floor in
front of each one.
All of the red series was on his left, closest to the
door. He saw brightly colored blocks and simple
shapes on the tables in each cubicle as he walked past,
heading for the back of the room. The green series
lined the wall opposite, though he ignored it entirely.
The back wall was marked with blue triangles, the
number four test in the far right corner.
As he neared the back of the room, he heard a faint

hum of power coming from the blue test area. There
was a small computer on the table in number two, a
keyboard and headset in three. As promised, the
series was activated - though what they were con-
nected to, he couldn't imagine.
Can't imagine and don't care. Once we solve these
little puzzles, we'll find whatever's been hidden for us
and get out, away from this cemetery. It can't happen
soon enough.
David had seen all he wanted to see of Caliban
Cove. The corpses in the front hall had been bad, but
it was the thoughts that they'd inspired that troubled
him, made him so suddenly eager to get his team out.
The Trisquads were dangerous and deadly, the mon-
ster in the cove's waters had been horrible, but
somewhere in the facility lurked a monster of a
different kind entirely, one that had murdered his
own people and then stacked them like kindling in a
dark place. That kind of insanity chilled him far
worse than the immoral greed of Umbrella, and he
was afraid of what such a man might do to the
handful of soldiers trying to stop him.
We'll find the "material, "probably notes on Umbrel-
la, perhaps on the virus itself and then break for the
fence, get well away from this madness. Let the Feds
handle the rest. If they're smart, they'll blow up the
entire compound and gather the information from the
ashes...
He stopped in front of the last cubicle, returning his
attention to the task at hand. He wasn't sure what he
was expecting to see, but the set up of test number
four surprised him nonetheless. A table and chair,
utilitarian gray metal. On the table was a pad of
paper, a pencil, and an inexpensive chess set, all of the
pieces in place. As he stepped into the cubicle, he saw
that there was a metal plaque set into the surface of
the table, a string of numbers etched into the steel.
David sat in the chair, peering down at the num-
bers.
9-22-3//14-26-9-16-8//7-19-22//8-11-12-7
He frowned, looking up at the chess set and then
back at the numbers. There was nothing else to look
at; that was it. He quickly sorted through the clues of
Ammon's message, wondering which was supposed to
be the answer. Was it, "the letters and numbers
reverse," or "don't count"? Since there didn't seem to
be anything relating to time or a rainbow, it had to be
one of the two...
If the lines are in the same order as the tests, this is
the letter and number reversal. But what letters, there
aren't any ...

David smiled suddenly, shaking his head. The
numbers on the plaque didn't go any higher than 26;
it was a code, and a fairly simple one.
He picked up the pencil and quickly jotted down
the letters of the alphabet, then numbered them
backward; A was 26, B, 25, all the way back to Zed, 1.
Glancing back and forth between the plaque and the
paper, he wrote down the numbers and then started to
decipher the message.
R ... E ... X ... M ...
The final letter was a T, and he stared down at the
sentence, then at the chess board. It seemed that
somebody had a sense of humor.
REX MARKS THE SPOT.
"Rex" was Latin for "king."
White always goes first, so . . .
He reached out and touched the white king. As
soon as his finger contacted the piece, it swiveled in
place, turning around to face the back of the board. At
the same time, there was a soft, musical tone from
overhead. He looked up and saw a tiny speaker set
into the ceiling.
Nothing else happened, no flashing lights or secret
passageways opening up behind the wall. Apparently,
he'd passed.
How anti-climactic.
It seemed like an awfully complicated test for some-
thing as supposedly mindless as a Trisquad zombie,
though perhaps the researchers had been making plans
for something else, something intelligent. . .
It was an unsettling thought, and not one he wanted
to ponder. He stood up and turned toward the front of
the room ...
... just as the door burst open, Rebecca and Steve
hurrying in, wearing matching expressions of fear.
"What is it?"
Rebecca held up a book, talking fast. "We found a
journal. It says that the strain of the virus used to
infect the Trisquads is in block D, in room 101.
Maybe everything's fine, but if John and Karen touch
anything that's been contaminated..."
He'd heard enough. "Let's go."
They turned and he strode past them, leading them
back the way they'd come, his thoughts racing. They
had passed an exit on the far side of the building, he
could send Steve and Rebecca to the next block over
while he went to D, just as originally planned, only
much faster, and now carrying the horrible, heavy
fear that two of his people might accidentally uncover
the T-Virus.
It won't happen, they'll be careful, the chances of one

of them getting a cut and then touching something
dangerous in a room that's bound to be marked as
some kind of a laboratory...
The reassuring facts did nothing to ease his mind.
They hurried toward the exit, a deepening knot of
dread settling into the pit of David's stomach.

They stood in the bright corridor at the center of D
block, silently listening for a sound that would tell
them David had come. From their position, they
should be able to hear any one of the three external
doors being used. After securing the building and
finding the test room, she and John had chocked open
all of the passages that led to the block's exits.
Karen checked her watch and then rubbed her eyes,
feeling a bit worn out from all of the night's events,
and still sickened by what they'd found in room 101.
Even John seemed unusually subdued, and definitely
quieter than normal. He hadn't cracked a single joke
since they'd walked back to begin their wait.
Maybe he's thinking about the gurneys, fixed with
bloody restraints. Or the syringes. Or the surgical
equipment heaped in the sink ...
They'd found the test room first, a large chamber
filled with little tables, each marked with numbers
between five and eight; Karen had been somewhat
disappointed to see that the blue series number seven
was just a handful of colored tiles with letters on
them, half of them upside down and unreadable. All
the colors corresponded to a rainbow's, though there
were two extra violet tiles in the heaped pile. Since
they couldn't risk messing with it until David had
completed the first test, she'd reluctantly turned away,
suggesting that they check out the rest of the block.
They'd gone through a couple of offices, empty, and
a cluttered coffee room, where they'd found a box of
incredibly moldy donuts and little else. It had been the
chemical lab that had told them the most about what
kind of place Umbrella had created - and although
Karen didn't believe in ghosts, the room had given her
a feeling like nothing she'd ever experienced before; it
was haunted, plain and simple, haunted by the misery
of fear and the cold, nazi-esque precision of scientists
committing atrocities against their fellow man.
"You thinking about that room?" John asked softly.
Karen nodded, but didn't say anything. John seemed
to sense her unspoken desire not to talk about it, for
which she was thankful. The weight of her good luck
charm was the only other comfort she felt at the
moment, and she longed to take it out, to feel reassured
by memories of her father and successful missions gone

by. Anything to take her mind off the lab room...
The outer door to 101 was clearly marked with a
biohazard symbol and they'd briefly discussed not going
in at all, John arguing against entering a possibly
contaminated environment. Karen had pointed out that
neither of them had any cuts or abrasions, and that they
might find something about the T-Virus to take with
them. The truth was, she couldn't stand to let such an
opportunity pass; she wanted to see what was behind
the closed door, because it was there. Because leaving it
unopened would get under her skin.
John had finally agreed and they'd gone in, stepping
into a small entryway that was draped with sheets of
heavy plastic. There were shower nozzles overhead
and a drain set into the floor; a decon area. A smaller
second door had opened up into the room itself,
leading them into a mad scientist's dream.
Glass, crunching underfoot. A tired smell of anxious
sweat beneath the acrid odor of bleach.
John found the lights and even before the large
room snapped into view, Karen felt her heart start to
pound. There was a dark tension that filled the air, a
sense of foreboding that radiated from the very walls.
It looked like a dozen other lab facilities she'd worked
in; counters and shelves, a couple of metal sinks, a
large, stainless steel refrigeration unit in one corner
with a lock on the handle. And somehow, that was the
worst, that the environment was so familiar, a place
she'd always felt at home.
The few differences were dramatic ones. The room
was dominated by a stainless autopsy table, fitted with
velcro restraints and there were two additional hos-
pital gurneys next to it, likewise fitted. As she walked
over to look at one of them, she saw the dark, dried
stains at either end; the thin pad was soaked with
blood from where a man's ankles and wrists would be.
In the back of the room was a cage the size of a large
walk-in closet, heavy bars surrounding an unpadded
bench. Next to the cage, several slender poles leaned
against the wall, each a meter or so in length and
tipped with hypodermic needles. They were the kinds
of instruments used to drug wild animals, allowing
the person operating them not to get within reach.
Karen looked down at the gurney, lightly touching
the long-dried stain, wondering what kind of person
could have willingly participated in such an experi-
ment. The crust of blood was old, powdery, and filled
her with thoughts of what the victims must have
endured, waiting in the cage, perhaps watching as
some gloved madman injected a toxic, mutating virus
into a helpless human being...

It was a bad place, a place of evil deeds. They'd
both felt it, both been affected by the realization of
what had gone on there.
Karen's right eye itched, distracting her from the
terrible remembrance, drawing her back to the pres-
ent. She rubbed at it, then looked at her watch again.
It had been only twenty minutes since the team had
split, though it felt longer.
There was a sound of a door opening, followed by
David's excited shout through the corridor. He'd
come in through the west entrance.
"Karen, John!"
John grinned at her, and she felt a wave of relief;
David was okay.
"Here! Keep walking!" John called back. "Take a
right at the tee!"
His footsteps pounded through the hall. In a few
seconds, he appeared at the comer and jogged toward
them, his face tight with concern.
"Is everything. . ." Karen started to ask, but David
cut her off.
"Did you find the laboratory room? Room 101?"
John frowned, his smile fading. "Yeah, it's back the
way you came."
"Did either of you touch anything? Do you have
any cuts, any small wounds that might have come in
contact with anything?"
Their confusion must have shown. David spoke
quickly, looking back and forth between them. "We
found a journal, naming it as the room where they
were infecting the Trisquads."
John smiled again. "Well, no shit. We figured that
much out in about two seconds."
Karen held out her hands, turning them over for
David to see. "Not a scratch."
David exhaled sharply, his shoulders sagging. "Oh,
thank God. I had the worst feeling all the way over that
something had happened. We found the researchers in
block A; Ammon was right, he killed them and our
'he' has a name now. Rebecca seems certain that it's
Nicolas Griffith. He was the one she recognized from
Trent's list, and he has a rather sordid history, she can
fill you in when we regroup. . ." He shook his head, a
wavering smile on his lips. "I just ... I suppose I let my
imagination run wild for a moment."
John smiled wider. "Jeez, David, I had no idea you
cared. Or that you thought we'd be stupid enough to
stick ourselves with dirty needles in a place like
this."
David laughed, a soft, shaky sound. "Please accept
my sincerest apologies."

"Where are Steve and Rebecca?" Karen asked.
"Probably in the next test area by now. I saw them
safely off to block B before I came here ... did you
find test seven?"
"This way," John said, and as they started down the
hall, he began to recount their run-in with the Tri-
squads.
Karen followed, rubbing at the maddening, elusive
itch in her right eye. She must have irritated it with all
of the rubbing, it seemed to be getting worse. And to
top things off, she felt a headache coming on.
She wiped at her eye, sighing inwardly at the timing.
She never got headaches unless she was coming down
with something. The swim in the ocean must have set
her up nicely for a cold and from the building throb
in her head, it was going to be a nasty one.

E

LEVEN

AFTER HE'D INSTRUCTED ATHENS AND SENT
him on his way, he'd prepared the syringes and
decided on a place to hide. There was nothing left for
him to do but wait. In spite of his earlier feelings of
confidence, he was nervous now, pacing through the
lab restlessly. What if Athens had forgotten how to
load a rifle? What if the enclosure release didn't work,
or the intruders had the firepower to stop the Ma7s?
He'd tried to prepare for every possibility, each plan
unfolding into a backup, but what if everything
failed, if all of them fell through?
I'll kill them myself, I'll strangle them with my bare
hands! They will not stop me from doing what must be
done. They can't - not after all I've accomplished, not
after everything I've been through to get to where I
am . . .
For the second time that day, he flashed back to the
takeover of the compound ... the strange, vivid im-
ages of that bright and sunny day less than a month
ago. Instead of blocking the thoughts as he'd done
before, he let them come, inviting them in to re-
mind him of what he was capable of doing when the
need arose. He abruptly stopped pacing and moved to
a chair, collapsing into it and closing his eyes.
A bright and sunny day...
Once he'd realized what had to be done, he'd
planned it for over two weeks, working over each
detail tirelessly until he'd been satisfied that every
variable had been addressed. He'd spent time reading
about the Trisquads and going through the master
logs, memorizing the routine of the facility. He'd
watched the habits of his colleagues, learned their

schedules until he could have recited them backward.
He'd stared for hours at the sketches he'd made of
each building, walking through them in his mind a
thousand times. After careful consideration, he chose
a date and several days before, he'd slipped into the
Trisquad processing room and stolen several small
vials of extremely powerful medication.
Kylosynthesine, Mamesidine, Tralphenide - animal
tranquilizers and a synthesized narcotic, some of Um-
brella's finest work. . .
It had only taken him an afternoon to get the mix
the way he'd wanted it, just as he'd hoped. Then he'd
waited, much as he was waiting now. . .
The day before his plan was to unfold, he'd watched
a Trisquad processing and then asked Tom Athens to
come to the lab after dinner to privately discuss some
thoughts he'd had on intensifying the suggestibility
factor. Athens had been only too happy to accept, had
listened eagerly to Griffith's description of the strain
he'd already created - couched in hypothetical terms,
of course - and after a nice, hot cup of laced coffee,
Athens had become the first to experience Griffith's
miracle.
Griffith smiled, remembering those initial glorious
moments, the very first -and truly the most impor-
tant test of the strain's effectiveness. He'd told
Athens that the only voice he could hear was that of
Nicolas Griffith, that all others would be meaningless
Babble and the suggestion had taken as easy as that.
In the early hours of that fateful morning, he'd played
a tape of one of Athens's own lectures for the compli-
ant doctor and the doctor had heard nothing but gibberish.
If it had failed, Griffith would have aborted the
takeover, no one the wiser. He'd had an unfortunate
accident in mind if the strain hadn't worked the way
it was supposed to; Athens's body would have been
found the next day, washed up on the rocky beach.
But the incredible success of his creation had proved
beyond doubt that it was meant to be, that he really
had no choice but to continue. . .
. .. and so, the kitchen. The drops of sedative in the
coffee cups, on the pas tries, injected oh so carefully into
the fruit and dissolved into the milk, the juices . . .
Of the nineteen men and women who lived and
worked in Caliban Cove, only one regularly skipped
breakfast and didn't drink coffee, Kim D'Santo, the
ridiculous young woman who worked with the
T-Virus; Griffith had sent Athens to slit her throat as
she lay sleeping, before the sun came up. . .
. . . and it was a bright and sunny day, cloudless and
clear as they gobbled their breakfasts and swallowed

their coffee, walking out into the cool morning air,
collapsing to the ground, many of them not making it
out of the cafeteria before they stumbled and fell, a few
crying out that they 'd been poisoned as the words failed
them and the drugs sent them to sleep.
Griffith frowned, trying to remember what had
happened next. He'd selected Thurman, unable to
resist the petty pleasure of showing the good doctor
what he'd created. Then Alan Kinneson, although he
hadn't given the gift to Alan until later, keeping him
sedated...
He knew the facts: Thurman and Athens had dis-
posed of the workers and piled them in block A. Lyle
Ammon had managed to keep himself hidden for a
time, but had been found by the Trisquads later that
evening. Griffith had eaten a late supper and gone to
bed, waking up early to move papers and software to
the lab. These were facts, things that he knew, but
for some reason, the reality had blurred and he
couldn't actually remember what he had seen, what
had transpired for him the rest of that day.
Griffith searched through his thoughts, concentrat-
ing, but could only find the same hazy and uncertain
images: a blinding mid-day sun, bathing the sleeping
bodies in red. The scream of a gull over the cove,
relentless and wild, calling to the hot wind. A coppery
smell of dirt and, and...
...blood on my hands, on the scalpel that glittered
wet and sharp and plunged into soft, yielding flesh of
faces and bellies and eyes and later, the thundering
crash of waves in the dark and the spool of fishing line
and Amman, Amman, waving...
His eyes snapped open and the nightmare was over.
Shaken, Griffith looked around at the cool, soft light of
the laboratory. He must have dozed off for a moment,
must have. Yes, that was it. He'd fallen asleep and had
a terrible dream.
He looked at the clock, saw that only a few mo-
ments had passed since he'd sent the two doctors out.
He felt a rush of relief, realizing that he hadn't been
asleep for very long, but as the relief ebbed, he felt
the nervousness slip back into his body, jittering and
pulsing anxiety about the intruders that had come to
his facility.
They won't stop me. It's mine.
Griffith stood up and started to pace restlessly, back
and forth, waiting.

The "time rainbow" test, number seven, took only
a moment longer to complete than test number four,
what David had started to think of as the "chess test."

John and Karen had shown him to the small table in
the big room, standing behind him as he'd uprighted
the colored tiles and laid them out. Beneath the heap
of nine rainbow-shaded pieces was an elongated in-
dentation, perhaps a foot long and two inches across;
it was clear that just seven of the tiles would fit.
Seven colors in the rainbow, seven tiles. Simple. So
why are there nine of them?
David ordered the pieces by their colors, placing
them in a row beneath the indentation. Each bore a
different letter on the top, inked in black. Red, orange,
yellow, green, blue, indigo and three violet tiles
with three different letters.
"Is it supposed to spell something?" John asked.
Going from left to right, the first six tiles read, J F M
A M J.
"Not in English," Karen said mildly.
The three violet pieces were J, M and P.
David sighed. "It's one of those where you have to
figure out the next in the series," he said. "Apparently
relating to time. Any thoughts?"
John and Karen both stared down at the puzzle,
studying the letters; he wondered if they were as tired
as he was starting to feel. John seemed distinctly less
chipper than usual, and Karen looked fairly wiped
out, her skin pale and gaze somewhat distant.
Of course they're tired, but at least they're making
an attempt. . .
David looked back at the colored pieces and tried to
focus, but couldn't seem to manage a single coherent
idea. It had been an awfully long day, periods of
intense concentration interspersed with violent rushes
of adrenaline. He'd run through fear, self-doubt, deter-
mination and then fear again, plus a handful of less
clear-cut emotions. Now he just felt frazzled, waiting
to see what would come next...
John grinned suddenly, a triumphant light in his
eyes. "The letters stand for the months - January,
February, March, April, May, June - July. It's J, the
last letter is J."
"Brilliant," David said. He started to place the tiles
in the indentation as John nudged Karen with his
elbow, still grinning. "And you thought all I was good
for was easy sex."
As usual, Karen didn't bother answering. Relieved
to be through the second test, David pushed the last
piece into place. There was a faint click and the
rainbow lowered very slightly, perhaps a millimeter.
From above them, a gentle chime sounded from a
speaker, this one hidden by a fluorescent bar.
"That all I get?" John quipped. "No parade?"

David stood up, smiling tiredly. "I felt the same
way with the other one. We should get moving, see
how Steve and Rebecca are making out."
"Interesting way of putting it, David," John said,
chuckling. "Nice one."
It took David a moment to get it, though Karen
rolled her eyes almost immediately, then scratched
at them. When she took her hand away, David saw
that her right eye was extremely bloodshot. The left
was also slightly discolored, though not as badly.
She noticed his scrutiny and smiled at him, shrug-
ging. "I irritated it somehow. It itches, but it's fine."
"Don't rub it, you'll make it worse," David said,
leading them toward the door. "And have Rebecca
take a look when we get across."
They walked back into a connecting corridor and
started for the back exit, David steeling himself for
another dash across the compound. By his count,
they'd managed to take down three of the Trisquads
in full; three men outside of the boathouse and a
fourth on the run to the first building, then John and
Karen's five between blocks C and D.
Useful information, if you happen to know how
many of the squads there were to begin with.
He ignored the inner sarcasm as they reached the
metal door, Karen leaning back to turn off the over-
head light. They pulled out weapons and took deep
breaths, preparing and David felt a familiar sensa-
tion wash over him, one that he'd experienced before
in tight situations but had never been able to name. It
wasn't a feeling so much as a state of existence and
although not a religious man, it was the closest thing
he'd found to a belief in fate, a sense that there were
patterns at play beyond the realm of human influence.
Whatever was going to happen, whatever was al-
ready happening even as they readied themselves to
step back outside - all of the deciding factors were
now firmly in place, interlocking like pieces of a
puzzle. He felt it with a certainty that denied reason.
It was as though a great wheel of chance that deter-
mined outcome, that would show them life or death,
success or failure, had been set into motion and was
now spinning toward its inevitable conclusion - only
instead of slowing down, the wheel would turn stead-
ily faster, speeding up as it revealed to them what the
cosmos had planned.
In the past, he'd often found comfort in the sudden
awareness of that spinning wheel, the undefinable
sense that the outcome had been decided and all
anyone could do was watch it unfold. When he'd been
a child and his father had been on one of his drunken,

abusive rampages, the belief in a bigger picture had
sometimes been the only thing that saved him from
total despair. This time, though ... this time, it felt
like a terrible thing, a dark and whirling carnival ride
that they had boarded by mistake, not realizing the
truth until it was too late, that they couldn't go back,
and there was no avoiding whatever lay ahead.
We hang on, then. We do what we can.
David stepped to the door, flicking the Beretta's
safety off. Whether or not they had any control over
what was to come, Rebecca and Steve were waiting.

The test room was quiet except for the soft hum
from the machines marked with blue numbers, nine
through twelve, and the occasional rustle of a turning
page as Rebecca went through Athens's journal. Steve
sat on the edge of a table and watched her read, his
thoughts restless and uneasy as they waited for the
others to show up. His chest ached mildly, both from
the small caliber round he'd taken earlier and the
anxious build of worry for John and Karen.
After a quick look at the other rooms in the
building, they'd both agreed that the test room was
the place to wait. It seemed that block B of the
Umbrella facility was mostly devoted to surgical
aspects of the bio-weapons research, the rooms all
white and steel, ominously stark and unpleasant.
Although the building was as stuffy and warm as the
others they'd been in, Steve had felt a physical chill as
they'd passed the empty operating rooms - as if the
chambers themselves had taken on the characteristics
of the T-Virus creatures. Cold and lifeless and some-
how mindlessly black with purpose. . .
Rebecca looked up, her eyes flashing with excite-
ment. "Listen to this:
'"They're still waiting for our feedback on expansion
ever since Griffith revved up the amp time. 'We've got the
space for up to twenty units, but I'm going to hold strong on
a max of twelve; we wouldn't be able to concentrate on
training more than four squads at a time. Ammon said he'll
back me up if there's any hassle.'"
Steve nodded, half dismayed and half relieved by
the information. They'd already knocked one of the
Trisquads out of the running, plus seriously wounded
or killed a couple of the individuals on another team;
that was good. On the other hand, it meant that there
were still a couple of the squads roaming around out
there - unless they're currently "engaged" with David
and the others. . .
He scowled inwardly, grasping for something else
to think about.

"Do you know what that means, 'revved up the
amp time'?"
Rebecca nodded slowly, worry creasing her brow.
"I'm pretty sure he means that Griffith sped up the
amplification process. Amplification is the term for a
virus's spread through a host."
That didn't sound like something he wanted to
think about either. By some unspoken agreement,
they hadn't talked about the possibility of John or
Karen being infected since David had left.
"Great. You find anything else in there?"
She shook her head. "Not really. He mentions the
Ma7s a couple of times, but nothing more specific
than that they're a T-Virus experiment that didn't
work. And he's definitely kind of an asshole."
"Kind of?"
Rebecca smiled briefly. "Okay, that's an under-
statement. He's a money-hungry, amoral bastard."
Steve nodded, thinking about the partial report
they'd found on the Trisquads and for that matter,
the very existence of the facility. Calling the T-Virus
victims "units," setting up operating rooms and apti-
tude tests to run them through like rats in a maze -
- it's like they can't acknowledge that they're per-
forming their experiments on human beings, on real
people...
"How could they do this?" he asked softly, as much
to himself as to Rebecca. "How did they sleep at
night?"
Rebecca gazed at him solemnly, as if she had an
answer but wasn't sure how to say it. Finally, she
sighed. "When you specialize in one field, particularly
when it's a field that demands linear thinking and a
very defined focus on only one tiny element of some-
thing - it's kind of hard to explain, but it's frighten-
ingly easy to get lost in that single element, to forget
there's a world outside of that element. When you
spend your days looking into a microscope, sur-
rounded by numbers and letters and processes...
some people get lost. And if they were unstable to
begin with, the ambition to pursue that element can
take over, making everything else unimportant."
Steve saw what she was getting at and was im-
pressed anew with how thoughtful she was, how
clearly she communicated herself...
... all that and a smile that lights up a room; if -
- when we get out of this, I'm moving to Raccoon City.
Or I'll at least find out if she's seeing anyone...
There was a sound from somewhere in the building,
footsteps. Steve pushed himself off the table and
walked quickly to the door.

He leaned out into the corridor and heard David's
voice calling through the empty block.
"In the back!" Steve shouted, then waited, anx-
iously watching the corner in the hall for David to
walk into view, John and Karen both healthy and
smiling beside him. Rebecca moved to stand next to
Steve, and he saw the same concern and hope written
across her delicate features.
Instinctively, he groped for her hand, feeling a
tingling jolt as their fingers touched, half expecting
her to pull away, but she didn't, leaning against him
instead as she held his hand gently, her skin soft and
warm on his.
John's booming voice preceded him down the cor-
ridor, loud and full of bright good humor. "Get your
clothes on, kids, you've got company!"
She dropped his hand quickly, but the look that she
flashed him more than made up for it - a sweet and
wistful expression that made his heart skip a beat,
but there was a maturity there, too, a realization of
the circumstances they were in, an acknowledgment
of priorities.
No more until we're out of here.
He nodded slightly, and they turned to wait for the
others.

T

WELVE

REBECCA COULD STILL FEEL THE LINGER-
ing warmth of Steve's hand in hers as David, John,
and Karen walked around the corner, John grinning
broadly.
"Sorry to crash, but we figured you guys could use a
little chaperoning," he said. "Nothing like young love,
though, am I right?"
As the three stepped into the room, Rebecca strug-
gled to quash the blush she felt creeping up on her,
suddenly feeling horribly unprofessional. All they'd
done was hold hands, and only for a second, but
they were in the middle of an operation, in hostile
territory where even a moment's lapse of concentra-
tion could get them killed.
John must have picked up on her embarrassment.
"Ah, don't mind me," he said, his grin fading. "I'm
just giving Steve-o a hard time, I didn't mean any-
thing by it."
David interrupted, shooting John a pointed glance.
"I think we have more important things to discuss,"
he said evenly. "We need to update, and I have a few
things I'd like to go over."
He nodded toward the journal she still held. "They

found the room, but didn't touch anything. Did you
find anything else useful?"
She nodded, relieved by the news and glad for the
change of subject. "It looks like there are only four
Trisquads, though the entry that mentioned it is six
months old."
David looked relieved. "That's excellent. John and
Karen had another encounter outside of D, managed
to get five of them - that means there may only be one
team left."
They pulled chairs away from the small tables that
lined the walls, forming them in a loose semi-circle in
the middle of the room. David stayed standing, ad-
dressing them solemnly.
"I'd like to do a quick recap, to make certain we're
all on the same page before we go any further. In
short, this facility was used for T-Virus experimenta-
tion and has been taken over by one of the researchers
for reasons unknown. The other workers have been
killed and the offices purged of incriminating evi-
dence. Rebecca believes that the biochemist Nicolas
Griffith is responsible, and the fact that the grounds
are still being patrolled suggests that he's alive, some-
where in the compound - though I don't feel we
should concern ourselves with trying to find him.
We've already completed two of the tests given to us
by Dr. Ammon, through Trent, and my hope is that
the 'material' he has hidden for us will be the evi-
dence we need to formally charge Umbrella with
criminal activity."
He folded his arms and started to pace slowly as he
talked, glancing between them. "Obviously there's
already plenty of proof that illegalities have occurred
here; we could leave now and turn the matter over to
federal authorities. My concern is that we still don't
have enough hard evidence on Umbrella's involve-
ment other than the computer system's software
and the journal that Steve and Rebecca found, Um-
brella's name isn't on anything, and both of those
could be explained away. My feeling is that we should
continue with the tests and find whatever Dr. Ammon
meant for us to have before we evac, but I want to
hear from each of you about it first. This isn't an
authorized op, we're not following orders here, and if
you think we should go, we go."
Rebecca was surprised, could see that the others felt
the same by their expressions. David had seemed so
certain before, so enthusiastic about their chances.
The look on his face now told a different story. He
seemed almost apologetic about wanting to continue,
and looked as though he wanted for one of them to

suggest otherwise.
Why the change? What happened?
John spoke first, glancing at the rest of them before
looking at David. "Well, we've made it this far. And if
there's only one more group of zombies out there, I
say we finish up."
Rebecca nodded. "Yeah, and we still haven't found
the main lab, we don't know why Griffith did this -
- whether he suffered a psychotic break or is actually
hiding something. We may not find out, but it's worth
a look. Plus, what if he destroys more evidence after
we've gone?"
"I agree," Steve said. "If the S.T.A.R.S. are as
deeply involved with Umbrella as it looks, we're not
going to get another chance. This may be our only
opportunity to dig up a connection. And we're al-
ready so close, the third test is right here - we do that
one, we're one step away from finishing."
"I'm up for it," Karen said softly.
At the strained sound of her voice, Rebecca turned
to look at her, noticing for the first time that Karen
didn't look so good. Her eyes were bloodshot, her
complexion almost a pallor.
"Are you okay?" Rebecca asked.
Karen nodded, sighing. "Yeah. Headache."
Must be a migraine, she looks like hell. . .
"What is it, David?" John asked abruptly. "What's
eatin' you? You know something you're not telling
us?"
David stared at them for a moment, then shook his
head. "No, nothing like that. I just - I have a bad
feeling. Or rather, a feeling that something bad is
going to happen."
"Little late, don'tcha think?" John said, grinning.
"Where were you when we got into the raft?"
David half-smiled in response, rubbing the back of
his neck. "Thank you, John, I'd almost forgotten. So,
it's decided then. Let's solve our next puzzle, shall
we? Oh, Rebecca, take a look at Karen's eye while
we're at it, it's giving her some trouble."
They stood up and moved toward the back of the
room, for the table in the northwest corner marked
with a blue nine. Steve and Rebecca had already
looked when they'd found the room, though there was
no clue as to what the test was - a small, blank
monitor screen with a ten-key hooked to it sat on the
metal table, an enigma.
Rebecca motioned for Karen to sit on the chair in
front of test ten, the purpose of which also escaped
her - it consisted of a circuit board wired to a plank
and what looked like a pair of tweezers connected to it

by a black wire. She bent down to take a look,
frowning. The woman's right eye was extremely irri-
tated, the pale blue cornea floating in a sea of red. Her
eyelid had a bruised, swollen look.
She turned to ask for David's flashlight and saw
that as he sat down in front of the scheduled test, the
screen flickered on, several lines of type appearing in
the center of the monitor.
"Some kind of motion sensor..." Steve started to
say, but David held up his hand suddenly, reading
aloud what had appeared on the screen in a rapid,
anxious voice.
" 'As I was going to Saint Ives, I met a man with seven
wives, the seven wives had seven sacks, the seven sacks
held seven cats, the seven cats had seven kits; kits, cats,
sacks, wives, how many were going to Saint Ives?'"
There was a digital readout on the screen, showing
00:49 and counting down. In the time it had taken
David to read the question, eleven seconds had al-
ready ticked off the clock.
David stared at the screen, his thoughts racing
furiously as the team leaned in behind him. Tension
radiated from them, and David felt a sudden prickle
of sweat break out across his forehead.
Don't count, that was the clue. But what does it
mean?
"Twenty-eight," John said quickly. "No, wait,
twenty-nine, including the man..."
Steve cut him off, talking just as fast. "But if they
had seven kittens each, that would be forty-nine plus
twenty-one, seventy, seventy-one with the man."
"But the message said don't count," Karen said. "If
you're not supposed to count - does that mean don't
add, or ... wait, there's the man with the wives and the
speaker, that's another one..."
Thirty-two seconds had elapsed. David's hand hov-
ered over the key pad.
Think! Don't count, don't count, don't...
"One," Rebecca said quickly. " 'As I was going to
Saint Ives' - it doesn't say where the man with the
wives was going. That's what it means, the clue -
- don't count anyone except the one who was going to
Saint Ives!"
Yes, it makes sense, a trick question...
They had twenty seconds left.
"Anyone disagree?" David asked sharply.
No answer. David hit the key, entered it...
... and the countdown stopped, sixteen seconds to
spare. The screen turned itself off. From somewhere
overhead, the now familiar chime sounded.
David exhaled, leaning back in the chair.

Thank you, Rebecca!
He turned around to tell her as much, but she was
already bending to examine Karen's eye, fixated on
her patient.
"I need a flashlight," she said, barely glancing
around as John handed his to her. She turned it on,
shining it into Karen's eye as the rest of them looked
on silently, watching them. Karen didn't look well;
there were dark circles under her eyes, and her skin
had gone from pale to almost sickly.
"It's pretty inflamed ... look up. Down. Left and
right? Does it feel like there's something rubbing it, or
is it more like a burn?"
"Actually, more like an itch," Karen said. "Like a
mosquito bite times ten. I've been scratching it,
though, that might be why it's so red."
Rebecca turned off the torch, frowning. "I don't see
anything. The other one looks irritated, too ... did it
just start itching all of a sudden, or did you touch it,
first?"
Karen shook her head. "I don't remember. It just
started itching, I guess."
A look of sharp, almost violent intensity flashed
across Rebecca's face. "Before or after you were in
room 101?"
David felt a cold hand clutch at his heart.
Karen suddenly looked worried. "After."
"Did you touch anything while you were in there,
anything at all?"
"I don't. . ."
Karen's red eyes widened in sudden horror, and
when she spoke, it was a breathless, quivering whis-
per. "The gurney. There was a bloodstain on the
gurney and I was thinking about ...I touched it. Oh,
Jesus, I didn't even think about it, it was dry and I, my
hand wasn't cut and oh my God, I got a headache right
after my eye started itching."
Rebecca put her hands on Karen's shoulders,
squeezing them tightly. "Karen, take a deep breath.
Deep breath, okay? It may be that your eye just itches
and you have a headache, so don't jump to conclu-
sions here, we don't know anything for sure."
Her voice was low and soothing, her manner direct.
Karen blew out a shaky breath and nodded.
"If her hand wasn't cut..." John started ner-
vously.
Karen answered him, her pale features composed
but her voice trembling slightly. "Viruses can get into
the body through mucous membranes. Nose, ears ...
eyes. I knew that. I knew that but I didn't think about
it, I... wasn't thinking about it."

She looked up at Rebecca, and David could see that
she was struggling to maintain her composure. "If I
am infected, how long? How long before
I become ... incapacitated?"
Rebecca shook her head. "I don't know," she said
softly.
David felt as though a raging blackness had envel-
oped him, a cloud of fear and worry and guilt so vast
that it threatened to overwhelm his ability to move,
even to think.
My fault. My responsibility.
"There's a vaccine, right?" John asked, his dark
gaze darting between Karen and Rebecca. "There's a
cure, wouldn't they have a shot or something here if
someone got it by accident? They'd have to, wouldn't
they?"
David felt a sudden surge of desperate hope. "Is it
possible?" he asked Rebecca quickly.
The young biochemist nodded, slowly at first but
then eagerly. "Yeah, it's possible. It's probable, they
created it."
She looked at David seriously, urgently. "We have
to find the main lab, where they synthesized the virus,
and quickly. If they developed a cure, that's where the
information would be ..."
Rebecca trailed off, and David could see what she'd
left unspoken in her troubled gaze; if there was a cure.
If Dr. Griffith hadn't taken the information there, too.
If they could find it in time.
"Ammon's message," Steve said. "In that note, he
said we should destroy the lab, maybe he left us a
map, or directions."
David stood up, his hope building. "Karen, are you
feeling well enough to ..."
"... Yes," she said, cutting him off, standing up.
"Yes, let's go."
Her red eyes were bright with fervent intensity, a
mix of despair and wild hope that made David's heart
ache to see.
God, Karen, I'm so, so sorry!
"Double time," he said, already turning for the
door. "Let's move."
They quickly jogged for the front of the building,
John's jaw clenched, his thoughts a grimly determined
loop of angry intention.
No way some goddamn bug is taking Karen down,
no chance, and if I find the bastard who set this
nightmare up he's Dead, capital D, Dead meat. Not
Karen, no way in hell...
They reached the front door and silently drew
weapons, checking them, tensely impatient for David

to give the signal. Karen, always so cool and collected
in times of stress, had a shocked vagueness about her,
like she'd just been kicked in the gut and hadn't yet
managed to take a breath. It was the same look that
John had seen time and again on the faces of disaster
Survivors - the haunted disbelief in the eyes, the slack
and terrible blankness of expression that spoke of a
yawning emptiness deep inside. It hurt him to see her
like that, hurt him and made him even angrier. Karen
Driver wasn't supposed to look like that.
"I lead, John in back, straight line," David said
softly.
John saw that he looked almost as freaked as Karen,
though in a different way. It was guilt gnawing at their
captain, he could see it in his reluctant gaze, the tight
set of his mouth. John wished he could tell him that
blaming himself was wrong, but there wasn't time and
he didn't have the right words for it. David would
have to take care of himself, just as they all would.
"Ready? Go."
David pushed the door open and then they were
slipping through, back into the gentle hiss of waves
and the pale blue light of the moon. David, then
Karen, Steve, Rebecca, and finally John, crouched
and running across the packed dirt of the open
compound.
There was darkness and the scent of pine, of salt,
but John's soldier mind wasn't telling him anything
he didn't already know as they pounded through the
shadows. There was only anger, and fear for Karen...
...making the sudden blast of M-16 fire a total surprise.
Shit!
John dove for the ground as the thundering rattle
opened up to their right, saw that they were just over
halfway to block E as he rolled and started to fire.
Then the air was filled with the blast of nine-millime-
ter rounds, crashing over the steady pulse of automat-
ic rifles.
Can't see, can't target. . .
He found the muzzle flashes at three o'clock and
jerked the Beretta around, squeezing the trigger six,
seven, eight times. The stutter of orange-white light
blocked the shooters from view but he saw one of the
flashes disappear, heard the clatter decrease
and a rage overtook him, not the "soldier mind"
but a blinding, screaming fury at the diseased attack-
ers that far exceeded any he'd ever known. They
wanted Karen to die, those numb, brainless night-
mares wanted to stop them from saving her.
Not Karen. NOT KAREN.
A strange, feral howl beat at his ears as he pushed

away from the dusty earth and then he was standing,
running, firing. Only when he heard the shouts of the
others, the Berettas except for his holding fire, did he
realize that the howl was coming from him.
John ran forward, screaming as he fired again and
again at the things that meant to slow them up, to kill
them, to claim Karen as one of their own. His
thoughts were no longer words, just an endless, form-
less negative - a denial of their existence and what
had created them.
He charged ahead, not seeing that they had stopped
firing, that they were falling, that the shadows had
fallen silent except for the thunder of his semi and the
scream that poured from his shaking body. Then he
was standing over them and the Beretta had stopped
crashing and jumping, even though he still pulled the
trigger.
Three of them, white where there was no red,
decayed flesh bursts covering their pitiful, wasted
forms.
Click. Click. Click.
One of them had a face that was a mass of puckered
scar tissue, twisting white risers of gnarled skin except
for where a fresh, bloody hole had punched through
its forehead. Another, one eye spattered against its
withered cheek, pooling viscous fluid in the rotting
cup of its ear.
Click. Click.
The third was still alive. Half of its throat was gone,
tattered to pulp, and its mouth opened and closed
soundlessly, opened and closed, its filmed dark eyes
blinking slowly up at him.
Click.
He was dry-firing, the scream dying away in his
ragged throat. It was the sound of the hammer falling
uselessly against hot metal that 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.

T

HIRTEEN

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 around.
At least then this would feel like the nightmare it is.
And I could do something, I could fight back, defend
them against something tangible...
Ahead of them, the rising land curled around to the
east, dropping away to a foaming sea far below. The
cove itself was fairly calm, but the sound of waves
smashing against the cliffs grew louder as they hurried
on, approaching where the ocean met towering, cave-
riddled rock walls. John had taken the lead, Karen
next and then the two younger team members. David
brought up the rear, dividing his attention between
the compound to their left and behind and the dark
structures ahead.
Directly in back of the lighthouse was what had to
be the dormitory, a long, flat building almost twice
the size of the concrete blocks they'd left behind.
They hadn't come across quarters for the Umbrella

workers anywhere else, and it had the look of a
bunkhouse - designed for sleeping and eating, no
thought given to aesthetic appeal. They probably
should check it out, but David didn't want to waste a
moment in their search for the lab.
The thought brought on another wave of guilt and
angst that he tried unsuccessfully to block out. He
needed to be effective, to get them to the laboratory as
quickly as possible without floundering in his doubts
and emotions, but all he kept thinking, kept wishing
was that he'd been infected instead.
But you're not, some tiny part of him whispered,
Karen's got it and wishing is pointless. It won't cure her
and it will cloud your ability to lead.
David ignored the small voice, thinking instead of
how badly he'd screwed them all. Who was he, to lead
a fight against Umbrella, to clean up the S.T.A.R.S.
and bring honor back to the job? He couldn't even
keep his people safe, couldn't plan a simple covert
op, couldn't even battle the demons of self-doubt
and horrified guilt that raged inside of him.
They neared the lifeless dorm building, John slow-
ing to let the rest of them catch up. David saw that his
team was tired, but at least Karen didn't look any
worse. In the gentle light of the swollen moon, she
seemed pale and somehow fragile. The deathly pallor
she'd worn beneath the fluorescents had translated
into a soft, porcelain cast, the redness of her gaze
turning to shadow. If he hadn't known better . . .
Ah, but you do. How long now, before that milky
skin starts to peel, to flake away? How long before she
can't be trusted with a weapon, before you have to
restrain her from...
Stop it!
He let them catch their breath, turning to get a
better look at the lighthouse less than twenty meters
away and felt his stomach clench, his heart shudder
suddenly for no reason that he could have explained.
It was an old lighthouse, a tall, cylindrical outdated
building, weathered and dark and as seemingly de-
serted as the rest of the compound. Looking at it, he
experienced the feeling he'd had earlier of impending
doom, of options closing down behind them and the
spinning wheel of darkness ahead.
"Come on," John said briskly, but David stopped
him with a hand on his arm, shaking his head slowly.
Not safe. That tiny voice again, familiar yet strange.
He stared at the looming tower, feeling lost, feeling
uncertain and out of control as the wind swept over
them, the waves pounding the cliff. They were wait-
ing. It wasn't safe, but they had to go in, they couldn't

just stand there and it hit him suddenly, a clear realization of
what it was that had gone wrong in his mind. What
was really wrong. It wasn't his competence, it wasn't
his ability to think or plan or fight. It was something
far worse, something he might have noticed much
earlier if he hadn't let himself get so wrapped up with
guilt.
I stopped trusting my instincts. Without the security
of the S.T.A.R.S. behind me, I forgot to listen to that
voice - so terrified of making a mistake that I lost my
ability to hear, to know what to do. Every time the fear
hit me, I pushed through it, I ignored it and I made it
that much stronger.
Even as he thought it, as he believed it, he felt the
blackness of doubt lift from his exhausted thoughts.
The guilt eased back, allowing a kind of clarity to
filter through and with it, the tiny voice inside took
on a power that he'd almost forgotten it could have.
It's not safe, so hit the door fast, two in low, the rest
high and covered outside. . .
All of this flashed through his mind in seconds. He
turned to look at his team, watching him, waiting for
him to lead. And for the first time in what felt like an
eternity, he knew that he could.
"I think it's a trap," he said. "John, you and I go in
low, I'll take west - Rebecca, I want you and Steve to
stand on either side of the door and fire at anything
standing; keep firing until we call clear. Sorry, Karen,
you'll sit this one out."
They nodded all around and started for the deep
shadows that surrounded the ominous tower, David
in front, finally feeling as though he was doing some-
thing useful. Maybe that spinning destiny was too
vast, moving too quickly for them to deny, but he
wasn't going to let it run them over without at least
putting up a fight.
Karen deserved that much. They all did.
Karen hung back as they moved into position,
leaning against the back wall of the large building
behind the lighthouse to watch. She felt winded by the
climb up the hill, winded and strange and there was a
buzzing in her brain that wouldn't go away, wouldn't
let her fully concentrate...
... getting sick. Getting sicker, fast.
It scared her, but somehow it wasn't as bad as it had
been. In fact, it wasn't really that scary at all. The
initial terror had gone, leaving her with only a memo-
ry of the adrenaline rush, like a whiff of a bad dream.
The itch was distracting, but not exactly an itch
anymore. What had felt like a million bug bites on her
skin, each separate and distinct and screaming for

relief, had connected. It was the only way she could
think to describe the sensation. They had connected,
had become a thick blanket over her body that
crawled and squirmed, as if her skin had come to life
and was scratching itself. It was weird, but not exactly
unpleasant...
"Now!"
At the sound of David's voice, Karen focused on
the sudden action in front of her, the buzzing hum in
her head making it all seem strange, speeded up
somehow. The door to the lighthouse crashing open,
David and John leaping into the blackness, bullets
flashing and booming. The high, whining rattle of an
M-16 inside. Steve and Rebecca, ducking and firing,
out and in and out again, their bodies blurred by
speed, their Berettas dancing like black metal birds.
It was happening so fast that it seemed to take a
long, long time for it to stop. Karen frowned, wonder-
ing how that could be...
...and then saw David and John step back out into
the blue light of the moon, and realized that she was
happy to see them. Even with their strange and
distorted faces, their long bodies that moved too
quickly. . .
. . . what's happening to me. ..
Karen shook her head but the buzzing only seemed
to get louder and she was afraid again, afraid that
David and John and Steve and Rebecca would leave
her behind. They'd leave her behind and she wouldn't
have anyone to ... to ease her mind. That was bad.
David was in front of her, staring at her with eyes
like wet, dark cherries. "Karen, are you okay?"
At the look on his round and pointed face and the
sound of softness in his voice, Karen felt happy again,
and knew that she had to tell him the truth. With a
tremendous effort, she found the strength to say what
had to be said, her voice coming out of the crawling
body and the buzzing, sounding as strange to her as
the wind.
"It's getting worse now," she said. "I don't think
right, David. Don't leave me."
John and Rebecca, their hot, hot hands touching
her, leading her away and to the darkness of the open
door. Her body worked, but her mind was clouded by
the trembling buzzing hum. There were things she
wanted to tell them, things that drifted through the
cloud like flashes of pretty pictures, but the building
they moved her to was dark and hot, and there was a
body on the floor holding a rifle. His face, she could
see. His face wasn't strange; it was white, white and
curling, textured like the buzzing and the crawling. It

was a face that made sense.
"I got the door," Steve said, looking up and grin-
ning, white, white teeth. "One-three-five." There was
a keypad next to an open hole, stairs leading down,
and Steve's teeth disappeared, his flat face wrinkling.
"Karen..."
"We have to hurry."
"Hang on baby, hang on, we'll be there soon."
Karen let them help her, wondering why their faces
looked so strange, wondering why they smelled so hot
and good.

F

OURTEEN

ATHENS HAD FAILED.
Dr. Griffith stared at the blinking white light by the
door, cursing Athens, cursing Lyle Ammon, cursing
his luck. He hadn't told Athens how to get back
inside, which could only mean that the intruders had
made it past him. Ammon had left them a message or
sent them one, it didn't matter - all that mattered
was that they were coming and he had to assume that
they had the key. He'd torn down the markers weeks
ago, but perhaps they had directions, perhaps they'd
find him and...
Don't panic, no need for panic. You prepared for this,
simply move on, next plan. Division first, twofold
effect - less firepower, bait for later. . . and a chance
to see how well Alan can perform.
Griffith turned to Dr. Kinneson and spoke quickly,
keeping the instructions clear and simple, the route as
easy as possible. Griffith had already worked out the
questions they'd probably ask, though he knew there
was a chance they'd try for more information. He
gave Alan several random phrases to respond with,
then gave him the small semi-automatic pistol from
Dr. Chin's desk drawer, watching as Alan tucked it
beneath his lab coat to make sure it was hidden. The
bullet carrier was empty, but he didn't think it was
possible to tell, not if the hammer was pulled back.
He also gave Alan his key; a risk, but then the entire
scenario was a risk. With the fate of the world resting
in his hands, he'd take any chance necessary.
After Alan had gone, Griffith sat down in a chair to
wait for a reasonable amount of time, his gaze wan-
dering to the six stainless canisters in restless antici-
pation. His plans wouldn't fail; the righteousness of
his work would see him through this invasion. If Alan
was caught out, there were still the Ma7s, there was
still Louis, there were still the syringes and his hiding
place, the airlock controls in easy reach.

Past all of that, there was still the sunrise, waiting.
Dr. Griffith smiled dreamily.

Karen could still walk, still seemed to understand
at least part of what they were saying to her, but the
few words she could manage didn't seem to relate to
anything. As they'd gone down the stairs from the
lighthouse, she'd said "hot" twice. As they'd walked
into the wide, dank tunnel at the base of the steps,
she'd said, "I don't want," an expression of fear on
her deathly pale, searching face. Rebecca was terrified
that even if they found a way to reverse the viral load,
it would be too late.
It had all happened so suddenly, so fast that she
could still hardly comprehend it. There'd been a man
waiting for them in the darkness of the lighthouse, a
trap just as David had intuited. As soon as they'd
gone in, he'd opened fire with an automatic rifle,
strafing the door from the shadows beneath the wind-
ing metal stairs. Thanks to David's plan, it had been
over in seconds and as Steve had discovered the
access door and punched in the code, Rebecca and
John had looked over their waiting attacker, had seen
in the narrow beam of John's flashlight that the man
had been infected his paper-white skin was flaking
and creased with strange, peeling etched lines. He'd
looked somehow different than the Trisquad victims
she'd seen, less decayed, his open, staring eyes some-
how more human . . . but then David had gone to get
Karen and Rebecca's interest had been suddenly and
cruelly diverted.
It had been the walk up the hill, she'd decided.
Even though it shouldn't have made a difference, she
couldn't imagine what else might have brought on the
amplification so quickly. Somehow, the T-Virus must
have responded to the physiological changes of Ka-
ren's increased heart rate and circulation, but as
they'd led the confused and stumbling woman into
the lighthouse, Rebecca had found that she'd stopped
caring about how; all she wanted was to get to the lab,
to try and salvage what was left of Karen Driver's
sanity.
The tunnel beneath the lighthouse seemed to lead
back toward the compound in a curving, twisting
trail, and was carved from the heavy limestone of the
cliff. Mining lights were strung along the walls, casting
strange shadows as they moved forward, silent and
grimly afraid, John and Steve half-pulling Karen
between them. Rebecca was last, again feeling a
horrible sense of deja vu as they stumbled along,
remembering the tunnels beneath the Spencer estate.

The same cold damp emanated from the stone, and
she felt the same terrible feelings of moving toward
unknown danger, exhausted and afraid of screwing
up - of not being able to prevent a disaster.
The disaster has already happened, she thought
helplessly, watching Karen struggle to keep walking.
We're losing her. In another hour, probably less, she'll
be too far gone to ever come back.
As it was, John and Steve shouldn't be touching her.
In a single, easy movement she could get at either one
of them, biting before they had a chance to let go.
Even that concept made her sick with sorrow and an
aching, heavy feeling of loss.
The tunnel veered to the left, and Rebecca realized
they had to be incredibly close to the ocean; the walls
seemed to tremble and shake from a muted thunder
beyond, and the tunnel was thick with a damp and
fishy smell. Parts of the floor seemed too smooth to
have been created by human hands, and Rebecca
wondered vaguely if the tunnel opened up ahead
somewhere, perhaps had once been flooded by the
sea...
"Bloody hell," David whispered angrily. "Shit."
Rebecca looked up. When she saw what was ahead,
she felt her last flicker of hope for Karen die.
We'll never find it in time.
The tunnel did open up, a few hundred meters
ahead of where David had stopped. It widened con-
siderably, in fact and was connected by five smaller
tunnels, each branching off in a slightly different
direction.
"Which way is southwest?" John asked anxiously.
Karen leaned against him, her head rolling forward.
David's voice was still angry, frustration raising his
words to an echo that bounced through the five stone
corridors, circling back to fill the cavern.
"I don't know, I thought we were already headed
southwest and yet none of these is in direct align-
ment, and none head directly east, either."
They moved into the rough-hewn cavern, staring
helplessly at the smooth tunnels, each of them strung
with lights that disappeared around turns and bends.
They had obviously been carved by water, perhaps
had once been connected to the sea caves that David
had originally meant for them to find. The tunnels
weren't as wide as the one they stood in, but were
wide enough to accommodate human passage com-
fortably enough, and at least three meters high. There
was no way to guess which one was used to get to the
lab - or if any of them lead to the lab, we don't even
know for certain that it's down here. . .

"If none of them goes east, then we have to pick the
one that looks the most likely to go southwest," Steve
said quietly. "Besides, east of here is water."
Karen mumbled something unintelligible, and
Rebecca stepped forward worriedly to see how she
was. Though John and Steve still steadied her, she
seemed to have no trouble standing on her own.
Rebecca touched her clammy, sweating forehead
and Karen's rolling eyes fixed on her, glassy and red,
the pupils dilated.
"Karen, how are you doing?" she asked softly.
Karen blinked slowly. "Thirsty," she whispered,
her voice bubbling and liquid sounding.
Still responsive, thank God. . .
Rebecca touched her throat lightly, feeling the
rapid, thready pulse beneath her fingers. It was defi-
nitely quicker than before, up in the lighthouse.
Whatever the virus was doing to her, it wouldn't be
much longer before Karen's body gave out.
Rebecca turned, feeling desperate and angry, want-
ing to scream for somebody to do something
and heard the pounding footsteps, echoing up
through one of the tunnels. She grabbed for her
Beretta, saw John and David do the same as Steve
held onto Karen.
Which one, where's it coming from? Griffith? Is it
Griffith?
The sound seemed to circle, coming from every-
where at once and then Rebecca saw him, appearing
from around a comer in the passage second from the
right. A stumbling figure, a flapping, dusty lab coat
and then he saw them, and even from fifteen
meters away, Rebecca could see the stunned and
almost hysterical joy that swept across his face. The
man ran for them, his short brown hair wild and
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.

F

IFTEEN

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...
...no, Steve's okay. He'd be able to take Kinneson in a
heartbeat...
Except that Karen was with him. A very sick Karen,
struggling just to stay upright.
Their jog had slowed to a shag, David and John
both breathing heavily, frowns deepening across their
exhausted faces. David held up a hand, stopping
them.
"I don't think it's this way," he panted. "We should
have seen something by now. And the piece of paper
with the key card said southwest, east - I'm not sure,
but I think after that last turn, we're heading west."
John bobbed his head, his short, tight hair glisten-
ing with sweat. "I don't know which way we're going,
but I know I think Kinneson's full of shit. The guy
works for Umbrella, for chrissake."
"I agree," Rebecca said, breathing deeply. "I think
we should go back. We have to get to the lab, soon. I
don't think..."
Clank!
They froze, staring at each other. From somewhere
farther down the endless tunnel, something made of
heavy metal had just been moved.
"The lab?" Rebecca said hopefully. "Could it..."
A low, strange sound cut her off, the words dying in
her throat as the noise picked up strength. It was like
nothing she'd ever heard before - a dog howling,
combined with an off-key whistling whine and the
sound of a newborn baby's desperate cry. It was a
lonely, terrible sound, rising and falling through the
tunnel, finally building to a warbling, mournful
shriek - then it was joined by several others.
She was suddenly absolutely certain that she didn't
want to see what was making that sound, even as
David started backing up, his face pale and eyes wide.
"Run," he said, training his Beretta on the empty
passage ahead of them, waiting until they had stum-
bled past before turning to follow.
Rebecca felt a burst of incredible energy as adrena-
line gushed into her body, sent her sprinting through
the shadowy tunnel to escape the rising shrieks of
whatever was behind them. John was just in front of
her, his muscled arms and legs pumping madly, and
she could hear the clattering steps of David on her
heels.
The howls were getting louder, and Rebecca could
feel the stone vibrate beneath her flying feet, the

heavy, galloping steps of the shrieking beasts thunder-
ing after them.
- not gonna make it -
Even as she realized that they'd be overtaken, she
heard David gasp out, "Next turn..."
...and as they reached the end of the empty stretch
where the tunnel curved again, Rebecca whirled
around, raising the Beretta in her sweating, shaking
hand, training it back on the last turn they'd taken.
John and David flanked her, gasping, nine-milli-
meters aimed alongside hers. Twenty meters of blank
passage, filled with the now deafening cries of their
unseen pursuers.
As the first of them tore into view, all three of them
fired, slugs ripping into the creature that at first
Rebecca thought was a lioness - then a giant lizard -
- then a dog. She caught only a mad, patchwork vision
of the impossible thing, seeing parts of it that her
mind fit into a whole - the slitted, cat-like pupils. The
giant snake head, a gaping, slavering jaw filled with
bladed teeth. The squat and powerful barrel-chested
body, sand-colored, thick legs bowing in front, mus-
cular, springing haunches propelling it toward them
at an incredible speed...
...and even as the bullets found its strange, reptili-
an flesh, there was another behind it...
...and the first explosive rounds that smacked into
the thick body of the closest creature knocked it off of
its clawed feet, staggered it backward as blooms of
watery blood spattered the tunnel walls...
...and, shaking its head, screaming in ferocious
sorrow, it launched itself at them again.
- oh shit -
Rebecca squeezed the trigger again, four, five, six,
her mind screaming as loudly as the two monstrous
animals that ran at them, eight, nine, ten...
...and the first went down, stayed down, but there
was still the second and now a third, tearing down the
tunnel, and the Beretta only held fifteen rounds.
We're gonna die...
David jumped back, behind the line of thundering
fire. An empty clip skittered across the floor, and then
he was next to her again, aiming and squeezing, the
Beretta jerking smoothly in his practiced hand.
Rebecca counted her last round and stumbled back-
ward, praying that she could do it as fast as David
and saw that the third animal was stumbling
back, its wide chest gushing thin streamers of red. It
collapsed into the puddle of watery fluid it created
and stayed there.
Nothing in the tunnel moved, but there were at

least two more around the corner. Their wailing cries
continued to wax and wane through the tunnel, but
they stayed back, out of sight - as if they knew what
had happened to their siblings, and were too smart to
charge into waiting death.
"Fall back," David said hoarsely, and still aiming at
the blind corner, they started to edge backward, the
shrieks of the hybrid creatures rolling over them in
lonely, terrible waves.
Griifith moved quickly away from the door when he
heard the key in the lock, not wanting to be too close
to whomever Alan had brought along. He had Thur-
man already standing ready, just in case there were
any sudden moves, but when he saw the young man
and his passive partner step into the lab, he doubted
he'd have any trouble.
What's this? A few too many drinks, perhaps? An
unseen mortal wound?
Griffith smiled, waiting for him to speak or for the
woman to move, his heart full and warm with good
humor. It had been so long since he'd talked to
someone who could respond without prompting, and
the fact that his fine plan had worked made him all
the merrier. Behind him, Alan sealed the door and
stood blankly, holding two weapons on the unlikely
pair.
The young man gazed wide-eyed around the labora-
tory, his dark gaze settling on the wide airlock win-
dow in something like awe. The woman's head was
down, rolling across her chest.
He had the deep, natural tan of a Hispanic, or
perhaps someone from India. Not too tall, but sturdy
enough. Yes, he'd do quite nicely . . . and since this
might even have been the one to destroy Athens, there
was a certain poetic justice being served.
The youth's darting gaze finally rested on Griffith,
curious and not altogether as frightened as Griffith
would have liked.
We'll see about that. . .
"Where are we?" the young man asked quietly.
"You are in a chemical research laboratory, approx-
imately twenty meters below the surface of Caliban
Cove," Griffith said. "Interesting, yes? Those clever
designers even built it inside of a shipwreck, or they
built the shipwreck around the lab, I forget ex..."
"Are you Thurman?"
Such manners!
Griffith smiled again, shaking his head. "No. That
fat, hopeless creature standing to your left is Dr.
Thurman. I am Nicolas Griffith. And you might
be...?"

Before the young man could speak, the woman
rolled her head up, a wobbling white face looking
around in fixed, helpless hunger.
An infected one!
"Thurman, take the woman and hold her," Griffith
said quickly. He couldn't have her damaging the fine
specimen Alan had managed to catch
but as Thurman grabbed for the female, the
young man resisted, pushing at Louis with fast, angry
hands, a sneer of bravado on his face.
Griffith felt a pulse of distress. "Alan, hit him!"
Dr. Kinneson brought his hand up quickly, crack-
ing the struggling youth a smart blow across the back
of his skull; he stopped fighting just long enough for
Thurman to pull the woman away.
"She's gone," Griffith said forcefully, wondering
why on earth anyone would want to hang on to one of
those. "Look at her, can't you see she's not human
anymore? She's one of Birkin's puppets, one of the
pathetically altered hungry. A zombie. A Trisquad
unit without training."
Even as Griffith spoke, a fascinating turn of events
took place. The woman squirmed around in Thur-
man's grasp and with one quick movement, darted
forward and bit into Louis's face. She pulled back
with a thick, bloody mouthful of his cheek and started
to chew enthusiastically.
"Karen, oh my God, no..."
For as upset as he sounded, the young man didn't
move to do anything about it. For that matter, neither
did Louis. The doctor stood calmly, blood pouring
down his face, watching the T-Virus drone lustily
swallow the piece of tender flesh. Griffith was trans-
fixed.
"Look at that," he said softly. "Not a grimace ot
pain, not a flutter of emotion ... smile, Louis!"
Thurman grinned even as the woman lunged for-
ward again, managing to snag his protruding lower
lip. With a wet, tearing sound, the lip ripped away,
exposing an even wider grin. Blood gushed. The
woman chewed.
Amazing. Absolutely breathtaking.
The young man was quivering, his deep tan under-
shot with a sickly pallor. He didn't seem to appreciate
what he was seeing, and Griffith realized that he
probably wouldn't; the woman must have been a
friend.
Too bad. Pearls before swine . . .
"Alan, take hold of our young man, and hold him
tightly."
The youth didn't struggle, too absorbed in the

apparent horror that he was experiencing. The female
got another piece of cheek, and Louis's smile wa-
vered, probably from muscle trauma.
As much as Griffith wanted to continue watching,
there was work to be done. The young man's other
friends might manage to put down the Ma7s and if
they succeeded with that, they might come looking for
their bright young man.
But by then, he'll be my bright young man...
Griffith walked to a counter and picked up a
measured syringe, tapping the side of it with one
finger. He turned to the silent guest, wondering if he
should reveal his brilliant scheme for catching his
friends. Wasn't that what "villains" always did in
movies? He considered it only briefly, then decided
against it; he'd always considered it a foolish plot
point. And he was far from villainous. It was they who
had invaded his sanctuary, threatened his plans for
creating worldwide peace. There was no question who
the evildoers were in this story.
The young Hispanic was still watching the bizarre
luncheon, his mouth literally hanging open in dismay;
Karen was swallowing Thurman's nose, and making
quite a mess. He'd have to dispose of her before
Louis's arms gave out, though that gave him plenty of
time.
Stepping forward quickly, Griffith jabbed the nee-
dle into the youth's burly arm and depressed the
plunger.
Only then did he struggle, his shocked gaze turning
to Griffith, his body twisting and flailing. One of
Alan's arms seemed to give a little, but he had a good,
tight hold on the fighting Hispanic.
Griffith smiled into his face, shaking his head.
"Relax," he said soothingly. "In just a few moments,
you won't feel a thing."

Slowly, too slowly, they backed toward the chamber
they'd started in, the lizard-creatures following, care-
ful not to step into view, screaming their terrible song.
John kept thinking of Karen and Steve, led off to God
knew where by the Umbrella doc, and wished desper-
ately that the monsters would just charge. He felt the
moments slipping by, moments that may have already
cost Karen her only chance, moments in which Steve
might be fighting for his life...
Come on, you stupid shits! We're right here, free
lunch! Come on!
They'd tried yelling, tried firing and stamping their
feet, but the creatures wouldn't take the bait. Once,
David had tried to fake them out, the three of them

slipping back around a corner and when the big
lizards had skulked through the tunnel after them,
they'd jumped back around and started blasting. John
got a single round into one of them, and they'd seen
that there were only two of the beasts left, but both
had gotten to cover before any serious damage had
been done, and hadn't fallen for the ploy again.
"Sly bastards," John snarled for about the twenti-
eth time, backing up as quickly as he could. "What
the hell are they waiting for?"
Neither Rebecca nor David answered, since they'd
already discussed it, talking over the creeping shrieks
of the stalking monsters. They were waiting for the
three of them to turn around.
After what felt like an eternity of slow motion, of
backing through the empty tunnel one sliding step at a
time, they heard the distant, familiar sound of the
cavernous chamber they'd left - muffled waves and
thundering vibrations as background to the echoing
howls.
Thank God, thank God, how long? Fifteen, twenty
minutes?
"When we get into the open, flank the tunnel,"
David said tightly. "I'm going to turn and run, draw
them out..."
Rebecca shook her head, her young features
pinched with worry. "You're a better shot than I am,
and I can run faster. I should do it."
They had almost reached the chamber. John shot a
glance at David, could see him struggling with the
decision and finally he nodded, sighing.
"Right. Run as fast as you can, back for the stairs to
the lighthouse. We'll pick them off as soon as they're
too far along to turn around."
Rebecca blew out sharply. "Got it. Just say when."
John could feel the change in the air just behind
him, the drafts that swirled around the underground
chamber fluttering against the back of his neck. An-
other step and they were surrounded by open space.
John quickly side-stepped, standing between the
tunnel they'd just backed out of and the one next to it.
He saw David get into position, Rebecca standing
perfectly still in the mouth of the passage...
"Go!"
Rebecca spun and ran, sprinting away, and John
tensed, Beretta held close to his face, listening for the
rising shrieks, the pound of feet...
"Now!" David shouted, and they both swung into
the passage, firing.
Crack-crack-crack-crack!
The howling monsters were less than six meters

away and the heavy rounds smashed into them, great,
bloody holes exploding through their rubbery skin,
bone and watery red splattering wildly.
The shrieks died beneath the thundering bullets,
neither of the reptilian things making it as far as the
opening. Two strange bodies fell still, crumpling to
the stone floor in ragged heaps.
As soon as they stopped firing, Rebecca came
jogging back into the chamber, her cheeks flushed, her
eyes flashing with urgency.
"Let's go," David said, and then the three of them
were running into the passage that Kinneson had
disappeared into, the lost time lending a desperation
to their flight.
John finally let the fear slip inside, giving up the
angry frustration he'd suffered through their back-
ward crawl.
Karen, be okay. Please, don't let anything have
happened to her, Lopez...
The tunnel turned, angled down, the three of them
curving with it, terror for their friends and teammates
driving them faster. John swore to himself that if they
were all right, if there was still time for Karen, if they
could all make it out of this alive, he'd give anything.
My car, my house, my money, I won't screw anyone
else till I get married, I'll clean up my act and walk the
straight and narrow...
It wasn't enough, and he didn't know why anyone
would want it, but he'd sacrifice anything, do what-
ever it took.
The passage swerved again, still sliding down and
they tore around the corner...
...and there was a wide open set of doors, a tiny
passage between the outer and inner, a giant and
dimly lit room behind it. Steve leaned against the
frame, holding his Beretta, his face pale and blank.
"Steve! What happened, what..." David started,
but the look on Steve's face as he turned to watch
them approach, the terrible emptiness there, made
them all stop in their tracks. Even as his mind
searched to deny it, John's heart filled with a horrible,
aching loss.
"Karen's dead," Steve said softly, then turned and
walked into the room.

S

IXTEEN

OH, NO...
Rebecca felt a welling rush of sadness inside as she
stared after Steve, John and David both grim and
silent beside her. The blank shock on Steve's face

before he'd turned away told them what must have
happened.
Poor Karen. And Steve, what must it have been
like...
They'd found the lab too late. She glanced down at
the key card slot next to the door as she stepped into
the double seal, feeling a horrible sense of futility at
the pointlessness of it all. They'd come to find infor-
mation, only to find tests, only for Karen to get
infected and then to turn against Steve even as
they'd reached the one chance they might have had to
cure her . . .
... but Kinneson. Thurman ...
She stepped through the second door, frowning.
The laboratory was huge, counters lined with equip-
ment, desks piled incredibly high with stacks of
paper, but it was the open hatch across from them
that first commanded her attention, her gaze immedi-
ately drawn to the thick sheet of plexi or reinforced
glass set into the thick door.
It was an airlock, the inner door standing open.
And behind the second sealed door, past a mesh grate,
the dark waters of the ocean swirled past, bubbles
spinning by. The laboratory was underwater.
The second thing she noticed was the blood, a thick
trail of crimson leading across the concrete floor in
splatters and pools, but ending in a sliding smear.
Steve must have moved a body -
- so much! God, not Karen's...
Steve had walked to the airlock and turned, seemed
to be waiting for them to cross the room. Rebecca
started toward him, her throat tight with sympathy
and swelling tears. John and David were right behind
her, quiet, looking around the vast room -
- when behind them, the door back into the pas-
sage slammed shut.
They spun around, saw Kinneson standing there,
holding a tiny semi-automatic, a .25, pointing it at
them with no expression on his face.
"Drop your weapons."
The low, quiet voice was Steve's.
Rebecca turned again, confused and saw Steve
pointing his Beretta at them, his face as blank as
Kinneson's. Now that she was close enough to the
airlock, she saw the body on the grated floor. It was
Karen, her white face streaked with blood, a gaping
blackness where her left eye had been.
Oh, my God, what's going on...
David stepped toward him, holding his Beretta
loosely, confusion and disbelief in his voice. "Steve,
what are you doing? What's happened?"

"Drop your weapons," Steve said again. His voice
had no emotion at all.
"What did you do to him?!"
John screamed, turned and fired at Kinneson, the
round punching neatly through his left temple. Kin-
neson crumpled, sagging...
Boom!
The second shot came from Steve's Beretta, hitting
John in the lower back. Blood gushed from the hole
and as he staggered halfway around, Rebecca saw the
dark fluid trickling from his mouth, the dazed disbe-
lief in his eyes...
...and John crashed to the cement, spasming once
before he lay motionless. It had all happened in the
space of a few seconds.
"Drop your weapons," Steve said calmly. He
pointed his semi at Rebecca.
For a moment, Rebecca could do nothing at all. She
stared at Steve in horror, felt tears slipping down her
frozen cheeks, unable to comprehend what had hap-
pened.
"Disarm," David said quietly, letting his slip from
his fingers and clatter to the floor.
Rebecca dropped the Beretta, the heavy weapon
falling from her equally heavy fingers.
"Back up," Steve said, still aiming at her chest.
"Do as he says," David said, his voice trembling
just slightly.
They stepped back slowly, Rebecca unable to take
her eyes from Steve's face, the handsome, boyish face
she'd grown to care about. Now it was only a mask,
worn by a ...
... by a zombie.
They backed into a desk and stopped, watching
dully as Steve moved to pick up their weapons,
Rebecca's mind whirling with more than just horror
and loss. A zombie that could walk and talk like a
man. Like Kinneson. Like Steve.
How? When did this happen?
As Steve stepped away, a pleasant male voice came
out of the corner of the room, from behind a desk.
"All finished, then? My God, what a Greek
tragedy. . ."
The voice was followed by an appearance. A slen-
der, gray-haired man stood up and walked around the
desk, moving almost casually to stand by Steve. He
was in his mid-fifties, his hair long enough to brush at
the collar of his lab coat, his lined face sporting a
beaming smile.
"I'll repeat my instructions for the benefit of our
guests," the man said happily. "If either of them

makes any sudden moves, shoot them."
Rebecca knew who he was immediately, knew that
she hadn't been wrong after all.
"Dr. Griffith," she said quietly.
Griffith arched an eyebrow, seeming amused. "My
reputation precedes me! How did you know?"
"I've heard about you," she said coldly. "Or Nic-
olas Dunne, anyway."
His smile froze, then widened again. "All in the
past," he said dismissively, waving one hand in the
air. "And you'll never have a chance to tell anyone
about the pleasure of our acquaintance, I'm afraid."
Griffith's smile faded, his dark blue gaze turning
icy. "You people have held me up long enough. I'm
tired of this game, so I believe that I'm going to have
your nice young man kill you. . ."
He brightened suddenly, and Rebecca saw the mad-
ness flashing in those eyes, the complete break from
sanity.
"Now that I think of it, why create even more of a
mess? Steve, tell our friends to get into the airlock, if
you would be so kind."
Steve kept his weapon trained on her heart.
"Get into the airlock," he said calmly.
Before David could take a step, Rebecca started
talking, fast and deadly serious.
"Was it the T-Virus? Did you use that as a platform
for whatever this is? I know you were responsible for
the increase in amplification time, but this is some-
thing new, this is something that Umbrella doesn't
even know about. It's a mutagen with an instantane-
ous membrane fusion, isn't it?"
Griffith's eyes widened. "Steve, wait. . . what do
you know about membrane fusion, little girl?"
"I know that you've perfected it. I know that you've
managed to create a rapid fuse virion that apparently
infects the brain tissue in under an hour..."
"In under ten minutes," Griffith said, his whole
demeanor changing from that of a smiling old man to
that of a fanatic, his gaze narrowing with a danger-
ously brilliant intensity, his lips drawing tight over
clenched teeth.
"These stupid, stupid animals with their ridiculous
T-Virus! Birkin may have a mind, but the rest of them
&K fools, playing with war games while I've created a
miracle!"
He turned, gesturing at a row of shining oxygen
tanks next to the lab's entrance. "Do you know what
that is, do you know what I've managed to synthesize?
Peace! Peace and the freedom from choice for all of
mankind!"

David felt his heart start to pound viciously, his
entire body breaking out in a cold sweat. Griffith was
pacing in front of them now, his eyes burning with
mad genius.
"There's enough of my strain, of my creation in
those tanks to infect a billion people in less than
twenty-four hours! I've managed to find the answer,
the answer to the pitiful, selfish, and self-important
breed that the human race has become - when I give
my gift to the wind, the world will become free again,
it will be reborn, a simple and beautiful place for
every creature, great and small, surviving on instinct
alone!"
"You're insane," David breathed, knowing that
Griffith could kill them, was going to kill them, but
unable to stop himself from saying it. "You're out of
your bloody mind!"
This is why my team is dead, why all those people
are dead. He wants to turn the world into things like
Kinneson. Like Steve.
Griffith snarled at him, flecks of spittle flying from
his lips. "And you're dead. You're not going to be here
when my miracle graces this earth, I, I deprive you
of my gift, both of you! When the sun comes up
tomorrow, there will be peace, and neither of you will
ever know a second of it!"
He whirled around, pointing at Steve. "Put them in
the airlock, now!"
Steve raised the Beretta again, motioning toward
the opened hatch, where Karen's lifeless body lay
slumped and bloody on the floor.
He's out of reach, can't grab the weapon in time...
"Steve, now! Kill them if they won't go!"
David and Rebecca stepped into the lock, David's
body cold, tensed, he had to do something or the
world would be infected by this maniac's psychotic
dream...
Steve slammed the lock closed.
They were trapped.

S

EVENTEEN

GRIFFITH WAS FURIOUS, SHAKING WITH AN-
ger as the airlock door slammed closed. Didn't they
see, didn't they understand anything but their own
petty, stupid lives?
He stared at the young Steve, the rage spilling out,
threatening to drive him insane, to make him vomit,
to kill...
"Put that gun in your ugly face and pull the trigger,
die, die, just die!"

Steve raised the weapon.
Rebecca screamed, beating her fists helplessly
against the thick metal door.
No no no no no
BOOM!
The thunder of the shot cut her screams off. Steve
fell against the base of the hatch, mercifully out of
sight.
Already dead, he was already dead, it wasn't Steve
anymore...
"Jesus..." David whispered, and Rebecca looked
up, looked straight into Griffith's wildly petulant gaze
through the window and Griffith smiled suddenly,
a beaming, triumphant grin of accomplishment
and malicious spite. The raging loss
and terror she felt were transformed by the
sight of that smile. Rebecca stared into those raving blue
eyes and realized that she'd never truly felt hate before.
Oh you miserable bastard...
He'd told them of his plan, but at that second, the
thought was too big for her to fathom, too vast and
insane a tragedy for her to fit her mind around. All she
could think of was that he'd killed Karen and John,
he'd killed Steve and she wanted nothing more than
to destroy him, to see him lose, to see him suffer and
feel pain and...
...and if we don't do something his madness will be
fully realized and we have to stop it, to stop him from
dancing on the grave of the world.
Griffith moved to a control panel next to the door and
started to press buttons, still smiling. There was a heavy
clanking from the grated floor and water started to
gurgle in, drawn from the icy black waters of the cove
that pressed against the outer hatch. The airlock was
just big enough for her and David not to have to stand
on Karen's bloody, twisted body, and already the water
was turning red, foaming up from an unseen vent and
lapping at their feet, covering Karen's white fingers.
A minute, maybe less...
In the lab, Griffith was leaning against a desk across
from them, arms folded smugly, watching. Behind him,
a backdrop of death - Kinneson, John, and the gleam-
ing steel cylinders filled with Griffith's evil genius.
We have to do something!
Rebecca turned desperately to David, praying that
he had some brilliant plan and saw only resignation
and sorrow in his eyes as he stared down at Karen's
corpse, his shoulders slumped with defeat.
"David..."
He looked up at her bleakly, hopelessly. "I'm
sorry," he whispered. "All my fault..."

Karen's hands were already floating, tendrils of
short blond hair haloing around her pitiful face.
Rebecca grabbed at the latch of the door uselessly, felt
its unmoving strength, sealed by Griffith's controls.
Cold water seeped through the canvas of her shoes,
over her ankles, the rising smells of salt and darkness
and blood frightening her as badly as David's hope-
less whispering drone.
"If I hadn't been so selfish ... Rebecca, I'm so
sorry, you have to believe that I never meant..."
Terrified, on the edge of hysteria, she grabbed his
shoulders roughly, shouting. "Okay, fine, you're an
asshole, but if Griffith releases that virus, millions of
people are gonna die!"
For a second, she didn't think he'd heard her and
she felt the water rising, inching up her calves, her
heart pounding wildly and then his dark eyes sharp-
ened, losing their glassy sheen. He looked quickly
around the tight compartment, and she could see his
mind working, see the sharp gaze taking in all of the
details. Steel, watertight hatches; a mesh enclosure
over the outer door, like a thin shark cage, two feet
deep; cold water bubbling, over her knees now, Ka-
ren's arms and head lifting, floating...
"Doors are steel, the window's two inches of
plexi, once the outer hatch pops, there's the cage..."
He looked into her eyes, his own filled with frustrated
anger, with shock and apology and shook his head.
She dropped her hands, her body starting to shiver
from the cold, her thoughts delving into black despair.
David sloshed closer and put his arms around her.
"Just your luck to meet me," he said softly, rubbing
her upper arms as her teeth started to chatter, as the
water swirled up around her hips, as Karen's lifeless
hand brushed her leg...
Luck. Karen.
Rebecca's heart seemed to stop in mid-beat.
David held her tightly, wishing a million things,
knowing that it was too late for any of them. He glanced
into the lab and saw that Griffith was still watching
them, still smiling. He looked away, filled with a useless,
dismal hatred as the icy water slopped against his hips.
Murdering bloody bastard...
Rebecca tensed against his chest suddenly. She
pushed away from him and grabbed at Karen's body,
her fingers searching frantically through the dead wom-
an's vest. She laughed, a bright, hysterical snap of joy -
- she's gone mad -
- and jerked a dark, round object from one of
Karen's pockets. David saw what it was and felt pure
amazement sweep through him.

"She carried it for luck," Rebecca chattered out
quickly. "It's live."
David took the grenade and held it behind his back,
his thoughts racing again, assessing, the water to his
waist and almost to Rebecca's heaving chest.
- outer door pops, pull the pin and get in the cage,
hold the hatch closed -
They'd probably still die. But if they could pull it
off, they wouldn't go out alone.
Griffith watched the water rise, watched the two
run through a stereotypical melodrama almost
absently - his thoughts had already turned to the
coming dawn, and the problem of getting the heavy
canisters upstairs. He supposed it served him right,
losing his temper that way...
The pair were putting on quite a show. The girl, angry
at the Brit's apathy; the quick, desperate look for a way
out of then- predicament. The final embrace, then the
panic - the girl clutching at the T-Virus drone, the Brit
talking at her, frowning, worried for her sanity even as
the dark water rose over her young bosom.
Sad, so sad. They should never have come, never
have tried to, to get at me...
Now the man was holding her up, pathetically
working to postpone the inevitable as the water spun
up across the glass. Once they were dead, he'd pop the
cage, give the Leviathans a treat before setting them
free again, free to swim in unmanned seas and live out
their days in peace.
Ocean and land as one, his mind murmured dream-
ily. Mirrors of simplicity, instinct...
The drone body fluttered lazily past the window,
and he saw that the two invaders had propped them-
selves between the hatches, struggling to hold on to
the last bit of air. A determined pair, if thick-headed.
It occurred to him suddenly that he'd never bothered
to find out who they were, who had sent them ...
... and it doesn't matter now, does it?
The lock had filled. The light on the control panel
indicated that the outer door had unlatched. It was
over -
- except they were scrambling to get out, kicking
through into the cage, and something small dropped
past the window as they pushed the door closed
behind them -
Griffith frowned and...
BOOM!
He just had time to register disbelief before the
hatch slammed into his body and the screaming
torrent of liquid ice took his breath away.

E

IGHTEEN

WHEN THE GRENDADE EXPLODED, EVERY-
thing happened too fast for Rebecca to think about.
There were only sensations, terror reigning over all.
Brilliant light and explosive movement as the door
blew outward, hardness against her back that gave
way in an instant, lungs screaming, a billion bubbles
like bullets, and incredible, impossible pressure that
seemed to go on and on in shades of cold and black.
Faster than fast, movement and muffled, strange
sound.
Dark shapes moved over her feeling mind, blotting
out everything in growing flickers of dizziness and
her chest was imploding, her lungs eating them-
selves. She kicked and kicked and kicked and as her
legs started to weaken, the dark flickers swallowing
her up - air, sweet, wonderful air slapped across her dying
face. She drank convulsively, gasping in great, heav-
ing gulps of the stuff, still not thinking at all. Her body
thought instead, greedily swallowing life, the spray
and sting of salt, the warmer, rocking waves, a high,
reedy buzz...
CRASH!
A massive wave of pressure pushed her forward,
driving water up her nose as buckets of it suddenly
rained down on top of her.
Rebecca gasped air, spinning, her mind connected
to her body again.
David! What's...
"Rebecca!" A choked cry, from somewhere in the
buzzing dark. The buzz was clearer now, it was...
CRASH!
Another surging wave, another torrent pouring over
her, seeking to drown her as Griffith had been unable
to do, and as the rain fell away, she saw light - thick
beams of it piercing the dark, wild surface of the cove.
A boat. An engine's powerful, deepening thrum as
it sped toward her over the thrashing sea.
"Rebecca!" David's desperate call, from her left.
"I'm here..."
CRASH!
She could see the explosion this time, see the giant
column of water silhouetted against the searching
beams of light before the debris-encrusted wave
knocked her back, blinding her with a vicious slap of
foam. She managed to take a quick gulp of air before
the column came down, crashing over her, spattering
loudly against the choppy surface.
Depth charges, they're firing depth charges...

Umbrella?
The boat was less than thirty meters away when the
engine suddenly cut out, the lights playing across the
water in front of her. There was a splashing move-
ment nearby and the lights moved, one of the blindingly
bright beams finding David's exhausted, dripping face
a short distance away.
A man's voice, coming from the boat now moving
slowly toward them. "This is Captain Blake of the
Philadelphia S.T.A.R.S.! Identify yourself!"
S.T.A.R.S.?
Blake went on, his shout louder as the boat came
closer. "The water's not safe! We're coming to get you
out!"
David called back, his voice clogged and crack-
ing. "Trapp, David Trapp, Exeters, and Rebecca
Chambers..."
When Blake shouted again, he said the most won-
derful, most beautiful words that Rebecca had ever
heard.
"Burton sent us to find you! Hang on!"
Barry. Oh, thank God, Barry!
As drained as she was, as spiritually wasted, torn by
loss and fear from the long, terrible night, Rebecca
had just enough strength to smile.
That's when she heard the choking groan behind
her.

There was darkness, tinged with red and an echo of
pain. In that darkness, there was no self and no peace;
he was alone and engaged in battle, a furious struggle
to find the end to that absence of light. He knew that
finding the end quickly was important, but a maze of
strange and somehow frightening images blocked his
way, insisting that he didn't need to hurry. A ghost, a
soldier, a rage. The ringing laugh of a woman he had
known who was no more and the terrible dead eyes
that had taken away the light in an explosion of fire
and sound. Eyes that he knew but was afraid to
remember...
The maze beckoned him, called to him to explore
deeper and give up his search for the end of
darkness - that the path would only lead to greater
pain - and he'd almost decided to stop fighting, to let
the shadows take over when the light found him in an
explosive blast of deafening thunder.
Then he was being shot through ice and liquid
black, pounded to consciousness by pain - and it was
the pain that he focused on in that screaming, terrible
ride, the pain that drove him to fight the darkness. His
awareness spun away as the air curdled in his lungs

and the raging cold numbed the pain, but then he
could breathe, and the jagged piece of bobbing wood
beneath his clawed fingers told him that there was, in
fact, light. He wasn't dead, although he almost wished
he were, he could still hardly breathe, and the pain
in his back was exquisite and then he heard the
sound of David's voice amidst the sloshing cold and
felt that life might be worth living, after all.
He tried to call out, but all that emerged was an
exhausted moan. There was a stab of sharp and
blinding light and then darkness again, but there
was a flicker of awareness this time that allowed him
to understand what was happening. Pain and move-
ment, a feeling of weightless suspension and then
hardness against his cheek. Chill and more move-
ment, the sound of cloth ripping and paper tearing.
Excited voices calling orders, and again, the shriek of
torn flesh. When he came around again, he saw a
shadow in a S.T.A.R.S. vest bending over him with an
IV bag in one hand and a needle in the other.
Hope that's morphine, he tried to say, but again, he
only groaned.
A split second later, he saw two pale blurs hovering
over him as the S.T.A.R.S. shadow continued to work
over him with warm and gentle hands. The blurs were
David and Rebecca, eyes circled with dark, hair
dripping, faces tired and lost.
"You're going to be okay, John," David said softly.
"Just rest now. It's all over."
A spreading warmth started to flush through his
body, a delicious, sleepy warmth that banished the
roar of pain to a distant and faraway land. Just as a
friendly darkness came to claim him, he looked into
David's eyes and managed to rasp out what he sud-
denly wanted to say more than anything. It took great
effort, but it had to be said.
"You two look like somethin' a coyote ate and shit
off a cliff," he mumbled. "Seriously . . ."
John was followed into the healing blackness by the
sweet sound of laughter.
The middle-aged S.T.A.R.S. medic had taken John
inside the small cabin on the thirty-foot boat, coming
out only once to tell them that everything looked all
right. Two broken ribs, some deep tissue trauma and a
punctured lung, but they'd managed to patch him up
well enough to call him stable and he was resting
comfortably. A medevac helicopter had already been
radioed for and would be arriving soon, and the
medic seemed confident that John would manage a
full recovery. David had wept a little at the news, and
not been a bit ashamed.

They sat in the back of the boat, huddled under a
scratchy wool blanket as Blake and his team contin-
ued to set charges, powering easily back and forth
across the cove. The Pennsylvania team had already
brought up four of the giant creatures before they'd
seen the explosive burst of air and debris that had
come up from the lab, and it was starting to look as
though there weren't any more.
David had one arm around Rebecca, the girl lean-
ing against his chest as the black sky gradually started
to shade to a deep, ethereal blue. Neither of them
spoke, too tired to do more than watch the team work,
dropping charges and searching the results, back and
forth and back again. Blake had promised to send
divers down for Griffith's tanks as soon as the cove
was clear and John had been picked up. There were
two wetsuits already laid out on the bow's deck, a
young Alpha, whose name David had forgotten, prep-
ping them with studied intensity. He reminded David
of Steve a little bit...
Somehow, the thought of Steve didn't bring the
kind of pain that David expected it would. It hurt, it
hurt like hell - Karen and Steve, gone, but when he
thought of what they had managed to stop, what they
had been a part of...
... it wasn't all for nothing. We stopped Griffith's
insanity, stopped him from effectively killing millions
of innocent people. God, they would have been so
proud ...
The pain was bad, but the guilt wasn't as devastat-
ing as he'd feared it would be. His responsibility in
their deaths was something he knew he'd have to
ponder for a long time to come, but he thought that
there was a good chance that he'd be able to find a way
to come to terms with it eventually. He wasn't sure
how, but the tears he'd been able to shed over John
had struck him as a step in the right direction.
David's tired thoughts turned to Umbrella, to what
role they'd played in Griffith's madness. While they
surely hadn't meant for their researcher to go mad,
they had created the circumstances that allowed it to
happen; their complete disregard for human life could
only have been encouragement for someone like Grif-
fith. And without Umbrella, the scientist would never
have had access to the T-Virus. . .
Someday soon, they'll be held accountable for what
they've done. Not today or tomorrow, but soon . . .
Perhaps Trent would help them again. Perhaps
Barry and Jill and Chris would uncover more in
Raccoon. Perhaps. . .
Rebecca curled closer against him, her breath warm

and even against his drying clothes, and David let the
thoughts go for the time being, content to simply sit
and not think at all. He was very, very tired.
As the first rays of the sun slipped over the horizon,
Blake pronounced the waters clean, though neither
David nor Rebecca heard him; both had fallen into a
deep and dreamless sleep beneath the twilight of the
coming day.

E

PILOGUE

THE MEETING ROOM WAS A STUDY IN QUIET
but unpretentious elegance. Three men sat at the stately
oak table, a fourth standing by the window and staring
out thoughtfully at the hazy morning sky. The man at
the window could see the others reflected in the glass,
though doubted that they noticed his careful scrutiny;
for as sharp as they were politically, they tended to be
fairly dull about watching what went on around them.
After the phone conference, the man who always
wore blue spoke first, directly addressing the elderly
man with the groomed mustache.
"Do we need to discuss the ramifications of this?"
Blue asked.
Mustache sighed. "I believe the report covered
them," he said airily.
The tea drinker broke in, setting his cup down with a
rattle. Steaming liquid slopped over the sides, distorting
the tiny umbrella design that adorned the side.
"I don't think it's a wise idea to underestimate the
magnitude of this . . . difficulty," Tea said. "Particu-
larly not with the current instability factor in develop-
ment. . ."
Blue nodded. "I agree. Things like this have a way
of getting out of hand. First the secondary in Rac-
coon, now the Cove. . ."
Mustache cut him off with a sharp glance. Blue,
properly abashed, cleared his throat, his face red as he
struggled to recover.
"That is to say, I believe there should be a more
thorough investigation into these matters. Don't you
think so, Mr. Trent?"
The man at the window turned around, wondering
how these people had ever managed to get where they
were. He didn't smile, knowing how much it bothered
them when he didn't smile.
"I'm afraid I'll have to get back to you on that,"
Trent said coolly.
Blue nodded quickly. "Of course, take all the time
you need. No hurry, gentlemen, am I right?"
Without another word, Trent turned and walked out

of the room, outwardly as intimidating and precise as
they expected him to be, as they wanted him to be.
Inside, he wondered how much longer the game
could go on.

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