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 Hometown,
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.
And the atmosphere. . .
"Spooky," John said quietly, and Leon and Cole
both nodded. Backs against the door, they surveyed
the silent town and found it completely unnerving.
Like a bad dream, one of those where you're lost and
you can't find anyone and everything feels wrong. . .
It wasn't like a ghost town, it didn't have the air of
an abandoned place, a place that had outlived its
usefulness; no one had ever lived there, no one ever
would. No cars had driven down its streets, no
children had played on its corners, no life had called it
home . . . and the blank, unlife feeling was ... spooky.
The hatch had opened up onto a street that ran east
to west, dead-ending just to their left in a wall painted
midnight blue. From where they stood, they could see
all the way down one wide, paved road that went
south, ending in darkness some indeterminate distance
ahead, a grid of intersecting streets along the
way. The soft light from the streetlamps cast long
shadows, just bright enough to see by and too dark to
see clearly.
There was a car just in front of them, parked in
front of a tan two-story structure. John walked across
to it and rapped on its hood. Leon could hear the
hollow link sound beneath his hand; an empty shell.
John walked back, scanning the shadows warily.
"So ... Hunters," he said, and Leon had a sudden
realization that was almost as freaky as the lifeless
blocks stretched out in front of them.
"The nicknames are all descriptive," he said, ejecting
the clip from his semi to count the rounds. Five
left, and only one more full mag, though John still had
a couple - no, he only had one, Cole had the other.
And unless Leon was mistaken, John only had one full
magazine left for the M-16; thirty rounds, and whatever
was still in the rifle.
No more grenades, almost out of ammo...
"So?" Cole asked, and John answered, his gaze
narrowing as he spoke, his expression even more
watchful as he searched the heavy darkness of every
corner, every window.
"Think about it," John said. "Pterodactyls, scorpions,
spitting animals ... Hunters."
"I ... oh." Cole blinked, looking around them with
new fear. "That's not good."
"You say the exit's bolted?" Leon asked.
Cole nodded, and John shook his head at the same
time.
"And like an asshole, I used the last grenade," he
said softly. "No chance at blowing the door."
"If you hadn't, we'd be dead," Leon said. "And it
probably wouldn't have worked anyway, not if it's the
same kind of setup as the entrance."
John sighed heavily, but nodded. "Guess we can
burn that bridge when we come to it."
They were all quiet for a moment, a profoundly
uncomfortable silence that Cole finally broke.
"So ... ears and eyes open and stick close," he said
tentatively, a question more than a statement.
John raised his eyebrows, smirking. "Not bad. Hey,
what are you doing with your life if we make it outta
here? Want to join the cause, stick it to Umbrella?"
Cole grinned nervously. "If we make it out, ask me
again."
As ready as they were going to be, they started
south, walking slowly down the middle of the street,
the dark buildings watching them with blank glass
eyes. Although all of them tried to move quietly, the
empty town seemed to echo back the soft sounds of
their boots on asphalt, even their breathing. None of
the buildings had signs or decorations, and there were
no lights inside as far as Leon could tell. The oppressive,
lifeless feeling gave him an unpleasant flash of
the night he'd driven into Raccoon for his first day on
the RPD, after Umbrella had spilled their virus.
Except the streets there smelled like death and
cannibals roamed through the dark, crows were feeding
on corpses, it was a city in its death throes...
About midway down the block, John held up one
hand, snapping Leon back to the present.
"Just a sec," he said, and jogged over to one of the
"stores" on the left, a glass-fronted construct that
reminded Leon of a pastry shop, the kind that always
had wedding cakes in their windows. John peered in
through the glass, then tried the door. To Leon's
surprise, it opened; John leaned inside for a long
second, then closed it and jogged back.
"No counters or anything, but it's a real room," he
said, his voice low. "There's a back wall and a
ceiling."
"Maybe the Hunters are hiding out in one of
them," Leon said.
Yeah, more scared of us than we are of them,
wouldn't that be nice. We should be so lucky...
"That's it!" Cole said too loudly, then immediately
dropped his voice, flushing. "How we can get out,
maybe. The, uh, animals were all kept in cages or
kennels or something behind the back walls. I don't
know about the other phases, but there's a hall that
runs around Four, I've seen the door to this one's, it's
maybe twenty feet from the southwest corner. It has
to be easier than the exit; I mean, it'd be locked, but
probably not reinforced."
John was nodding, and Leon thought it sounded a
hell of a lot more plausible than trying to get through
a hatch bolted from the outside.
"Good," John said, "good call. Let's see if we
can..."
Something moved. Something in the shadows of a
tan two-story building on the right, something that
shut John up and had all of them aiming into the
darkness, tense and alert. Ten seconds passed, then
twenty - and whatever it was seemed to be holding
perfectly still. Or...
... or, we didn't see anything at all.
"Nothing there," Cole whispered, and Leon started
to lower the nine-millimeter uncertainly, thinking
that it had looked as though something was moving
and then the something they couldn't see
screamed, a shrill and terrible shriek like some kind
of terrible bird, like a feral beast in a blind rage
and the darkness itself moved - Leon still
couldn't see it clearly, it was like a shadow, a part of a
building that was in motion, but he saw the tiny,
shining eyes, light-colored and at least seven feet off
the ground, and the dark and ragged talons that nearly
touched the asphalt, and he realized that it was a
chameleon as it sprang toward them, still screaming.
Reston hurried back toward the control room, the
weight of the sidearm against his hip making him feel
a little better. He'd feel better still if he made it back
in time to watch the Hunters slaughter the three men,
although he'd settle for just seeing the dead bodies.
That would be perfectly fine, no problem so long as
they die.
Reston wanted a drink, he wanted to get back to
control, lock himself in and wait for Hawkinson to
come back. He'd felt a moment of near-hysteria when
he'd realized that communications had gone down,
but nothing had changed, not really. The elevator was
still locked off and the incompetent sergeant would be
back with the helicopter in no time at all; if it was the
surface trio who'd cut the outside lines - which he
had no doubts about, not really - Hawkinson would
handle them. If by some small chance it was actually a
technical problem, a new electrician would be
brought in as soon as he missed his morning report.
Not being able to contact his colleagues had been
the distressing part, but he'd decided that it could
work to his advantage; who wouldn't be impressed,
that in such nerve-wracking circumstances he'd still
managed to handle things? All things considered,
trapping the invaders in the test program was his only
recourse. No one would blame him, or at least not
overly much.
Retrieving the .38 revolver from his room had
eased his mind even more; he'd brought it to the
Planet mostly because it had been a gift from Jackson,
and though he knew very little about guns, he knew
that all he had to do with the .38 was pull the trigger.
The heavy handgun practically shot itself, there
wasn't even a safety switch to fuss with...
Reston was halfway back to control when it occurred
to him that he should have let the workmen
out of the cafeteria; he'd walked right past the locked
door, twice, and hadn't thought of it. Too much
brandy perhaps. He considered going back for about
one heartbeat, deciding that they could damn well
wait; making certain that the 3Ks were acting as they
should was much more important. Besides, he meant
to fire the whole worthless lot as soon as he'd reestablished
contact with the home office; not one of them
had even tried to protect the Planet or their employer.
Control, ahead on the right. Reston broke into a
jog, rounding the corner to the offshoot and hurrying
through the door. There was movement on one of the
screens, and he ran to the chair, both excited and
anxious to see the men fall. It was nothing to be
ashamed of, they were in the wrong, after all -
- and they weren't dead, not one of them, but
Reston saw that now it was only a matter of moments.
All three men were shooting at one of the Hunters,
and as he watched, a second loped on to the scene,
still as black as the car it must have been standing by.
Red spun to his right, shooting at the new threat,
but the 3K wasn't to be put off by a few puny bullets;
with a single massive leap, the Hunter closed the gap
between them, twenty feet with one powerful thrust.
They could do almost thirty, Reston knew from the
preliminary data -
- and now Cole was firing at it, too, as John
continued to blast at the first, already the deep gray of
the asphalt. The first had taken a lot, fire from all
three men; as Reston watched, it turned and sprang
off of the screen, out of sight.
The second was still a deep shining black, perfectly
defined as it raised one muscular arm to swat at the
bullets hammering its body. Huge, a naked, sexless
humanoid shape, the towering beast with the sloping,
reptilian skull and three-inch talons threw back its
head and howled. Reston knew the sound, his mind
filling it in for the silently screaming creature as it
started to disappear into the street, the match near
perfect, as it swung its arm again and Red was
knocked sprawling.
Yes!
John stepped in front of his fallen comrade and
blasted at the fading monster, as Cole pulled Red to
his feet, the two men backing away. There was some
vocal interchange -
- and the two ran off the screen, headed south . . .
had the creature been hurt? John stopped firing and
there was blood pouring from somewhere, covering
the 3K's face, its chest -
- eyes, must have hit its eyes. Dammit! It reeled
and fell, not a fatal wound but one that would
incapacitate it for a while.
John turned and ran after his companions, no other
Hunters in sight - at least Reston didn't think so. Not
that it mattered, they were as good as dead; there was
no way they could get through the city without being
attacked, nowhere they could hide - though just to be
on the safe side, Reston tapped the doorlock for the
connecting door back to Three.
No retreat, gentlemen. . .
They hadn't appeared on the screen that showed
the street just south of the first camera angle; frowning,
Reston switched cameras, using one from a
building front -
- and saw a door close, the men seeking sanctuary
inside one of the stores. Reston shook his head. That
would probably shield them for five minutes, certainly
no longer, the 3Ks had the strength to tear
down the city, if they so chose, and hunted primarily
by sense of smell. They'd track the cowering men,
track them and finally put an end to their troublemaking,
useless lives.
There wasn't a camera in the building they'd entered;
he'd have to wait for them to reappear, or for
the Hunters to drag them out. Reston grinned, his
teeth grinding together, impatient, wondering why the
3Ks were taking so goddamn long. It was time for the
test to end, time for the Planet to be restored.
The Hunters wouldn't fail him. He just had to wait
a few more minutes.
They found the way in at the back of the middle
building, past the generator room, where they'd put
the three snarling guards. It was a total fluke, as they'd
only been looking for the controls to unlock the
service elevator back in the entry building.
There were four of them, a bank of elevators in a
carpeted alcove against the far west wall. They
weren't operational, but there was a two-man lift in
the first shaft they opened up, David and Claire
prying the doors open with no small effort. Though
tired and unwell, the sight of the tiny platform hooked
to its own pulley system made Rebecca want to laugh
out loud.
They'll never suspect that we're coming, we'll slip in
like shadows.
"Looks as though someone forgot to lock the back
door," David said, a look of triumph on his weary
face.
Claire looked at the small square of metal doubtfully.
"Will we all fit?"
David didn't answer right away, turning to look at
Rebecca. She knew what he was going to suggest and
started digging for a decent argument before he even
opened his mouth.
The helicopter could come back, probably will, if
they're injured you'll need me, what if the guards
manage to get out...
"Rebecca ... I need an honest assessment of your
condition," he said, his features carefully neutral.
"I'm tired, I have a headache and a limp - and you
need me down there, David, I'm not a hundred
percent but I'm not on the verge of collapse, either,
and you said yourself that another team is probably
on the way."
David was smiling, holding up his hands. "All right,
we all go. It will be a tight fit, but the weight shouldn't
be a problem, you're both small..."
He stepped inside, pulling his flashlight and shining
it across the hanging cables, then on the simple
control box attached to the lift's half-railing. "... I
think we can manage well enough. Shall we?"
Rebecca and then Claire stepped into the elevator
shaft, the makeshift service platform only filling a
quarter of the dark space. Cold, open air was above
and below, and the rail was only on one side. Claire
squirmed uncomfortably against the metal bar; the
three of them were pressed tightly together.
"Wish I had a breath mint," Claire muttered.
"I wish you had breath mint," Rebecca said, and
Claire snickered. Rebecca could feel the movement of
Claire's rib cage against her arm; they were packed in
tight.
"Here we go," David said, and pushed the controls.
The lift started to descend with a huge, buzzing
rumble that was so loud Rebecca began having second
thoughts about their sneak attack. It was slow, too,
inching down at less than half the speed of a normal
elevator.
God, this could take forever...
Just the thought made Rebecca feel incredibly
weary, the noise of the roaring motor compounding
her headache. Standing still made her realize just how
sick she really felt, and as the bright square of the
open doors slid up, shrinking away as they descended
into the dark, Rebecca was suddenly glad that they
were huddled together; it gave her an excuse to lean
heavily against David, her eyes closed, trying to keep
herself together for just a little longer.
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