I'm not calling him a rookie anymore.John shrugged. "Think I broke a nail, but I'll live."He saw that Cole was still beaming at them, his
body shaking with the adrenaline aftermath; he seemed at a loss for words, and John had a sudden clear memory of how he'd felt after his first battle, the first in which he'd acted bravely. How helplessly elated he'd been. How incredibly alive. "Henry, you're a funny guy," John said, clap-ping his hand on the smaller man's shoulder and smiling. The electrician grinned uncertainly, and the three of them started for Four, leaving the furious squeals of the dying animals behind. When the dust cleared and the three men were still alive, Reston slammed his fist against the console in anger and rising dread, his stomach lurching, his eyes wide with disbelief.
"No, no, no, you stupid shits, you're dead!"
His voice was a little slurred, but he was too shocked to give it much notice, too upset. They wouldn't survive the Hunters, he knew that -
– but they weren't going to survive the Ca6s, either.
Reston couldn't believe that they'd made it this far; he couldn't believe that of the twenty-four specimens they'd encountered, all but one Dac had been left either dead or dying. Most of all, he couldn't believe that he'd let it continue, that his pride and ambition had kept him from doing what he should have done in the first place. It wasn't that he was out of his league, he was in the inner circle, he was past that kind of insecurity, but he should have talked to Sidney, at least, or even Duvall; not for advice, but to cover all of his bases. After all, he couldn't be held totally responsible if he'd had counsel from one of the other, older members… It wasn't too late. He'd put a call in, explain his plan, explain that he had some concerns – he could say that the intruders were only in Two, that would help, he could fix the video times later… and the Hunters had been tested before, after a fashion, not the 3Ks but the 121s. There had been some loosed at the Spencer estate; from the data recovered, he knew that the three men would be killed in Four. Even if they weren't, they wouldn't be able to get out, and with the backup from the home office, he'd be mostly in the clear. Satisfied that it was the right decision, Reston reached under the console and picked up the phone. "Umbrella, Special Divisions and…"… and silence. The smooth female voice at the other end was cut off in mid-sentence, without even a hiss of static. "This is Reston," he said sharply, aware that a cold hand was settling around his heart, squeezing. "Hel-lo? This is Reston!"
Nothing; then he suddenly realized that the quality of light in the room had changed, brightening. He turned in his chair, hoping desperately that it wasn't what it seemed to be…… and the row of monitors that showed the surface were all spitting snow. All seven, off-line – and only seconds later, before Reston could even digest what had happened, all seven went black. "Hello?" He whispered into the dead phone, his whiskey breath hot and bitter against the mouthpiece. Silence. He was alone.
Andrew "Killer" Berman was goddamn cold, cold and bored and wondering why the Sarge had even bothered putting anyone on the van. The bad guys weren't coming back, they were long gone – and even if they did decide to come back, they sure as hell weren't going to try to get to their vehicle. It'd be suicide.
Either they had a backup car or they're frozen solid out on the plain somewheres. This is total bullshit.
Andy pulled his scarf up around his ears, then readjusted his grip on the M41. Fifteen pounds of rifle didn't sound like much, but he'd been standing for a long goddamn time. If the Sarge didn't get back soon, he was going to get into the van for a while, rest his feet, get out of the cold; they weren't paying him enough to freeze his balls off in the dark. He leaned against the back bumper and wondered again if Rick was okay; he didn't really know the other guys who'd been cut up by the frag, but Rick Shannon was his bud, and he'd been all bloody when they'd loaded him into the 'copter.
Those assholes come back here, I'll show 'em bloody…
Andy sneered a grin, thinking that they didn't call him Killer for nothing. He was an excellent goddamnshot, best on his team, the result of a lifetime of deer hunting. And also cold, bored, tired, and irritable. Dumbass duty. If the trio of dickheads showed up, he'd eat his own hat. He was still thinking that when he heard the soft, pleading voice come out of the dark. "Help me, please – don't shoot, please help me, I've been shot…" A breathy, feminine voice. A sexy voice, and Andygrabbed his flashlight and turned it out into the black,
finding the voice's owner not thirty feet away. A girl, dressed in tight black, stumbling toward him. She was unarmed and injured, favoring one leg, her pale face open and vulnerable beneath the bright light. "Hey, hold it," Andy said, although not too harshly. She was young, he was only twenty-three but she looked even younger, just legal maybe. And a nicely stacked legal, at that. Andy lowered the machine gun slightly, thinking how nice it would be to help out a lady in distress. She might be with the three criminals, probably was, but she obviously wasn't a threat to him; he could just hold on to her until the helicopter came back. And maybe she'd be grateful for the help…… and hey, playing the hero's a good way to earn points, big time. Nice guys might finish last, but they certainly get laid an awful lot along the way.
The girl limped up to him and Andy turned the flashlight away from her face, not wanting to blind her. Putting just the right note of sincerity into his voice – chicks dug that shit – he took a step toward her, holding one hand out.
"What happened? Here, let me help…"
A dark, heavy thing slammed into him from the side, hard, knocking him to the ground and knocking the wind right out of him. Before he even knew what happened, a light was shining in his face, and the M41 was being pried out of his hands as he struggled to breathe. "Don't move and I won't shoot," a man said, a Brit, and Andy felt the cold muzzle of a gun against the side of his neck. He froze, not daring to move a muscle.
Oh, shit!
Andy looked up, saw the girl holding the rifle, his rifle, gazing down at him. She didn't look so helpless anymore. "Bitch," he snarled, and she smiled a little, shrug– ging.
"Sorry. If it's any consolation, your two friends fell for it too."
He heard another woman's voice from behind him, soft and amused. "And hey, you get to warm up. The generator room's nice and toasty."
Killer was not amused, and as they pulled him to his feet and started marching him toward the com-pound, he swore to himself that it was the last time he'd ever underestimate a chick – and while he didn't have plans to eat his own hat, he was certainly going to remember this the next time he thought he was bored.
SEVENTEEN
PHASE FOUR WAS INDEED A CITY, AND LEON decided that it was the weirdest thing he'd seen so far, hands down. The first three phases had been bizarre, unreal, but they'd also been obviously fake – the sterile woods, the white walls of the desert, the sculpted mountain. At no point had he forgotten that the environments were manufactured.
This, though… it's not some counterfeit organic habitat; this is how it's supposed to look. Four was several square blocks of a city at night. A town, really, none of the buildings over three stories, but it was a town – streetlights, curbs, stores and apartment houses, parked cars and asphalt streets. They'd stepped off of a mountain and into Home– town, U.S.A. There were only two things wrong with it, at least at first glance – the colors and the atmosphere. The buildings were all either brick red or a kind of dusky tan color; they looked unfinished, and the few parked cars that Leon could see all seemed to be black; it was hard to tell in the thick shadows.