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.
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 ihe nagging, quiet fear that had settled over her during the fruitless search.
Somebody had cleaned out the room, and done a very thorough j ob 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. “Haifa 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).