SIXTEEN
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 information,
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 equipment,
desks piled incredibly high with stacks of
paper, but it was the open hatch across from them
that first commanded her attention, her gaze immediately
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 passage
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. Kinneson
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 disbelief
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 happened.
"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 slender,
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 Nicolas
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 madness
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 something
new, this is something that Umbrella doesn't
even know about. It's a mutagen with an instantaneous
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 dangerously
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.
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