Genesis (14 page)

He hit her with that dumbass grin of his. “Jumpy.”

She hit him right back with as close an approximation of One's don't-fuck-with-me look as she could manage.

Then she reattached the train to the third rail, sending sparks out through the undercarriage.

“Whoa!” J.D. cried, and high-tailed it back to the inside of the car.

Rain grinned. She and J.D. came to the company
together, but he was a Navy SEAL who'd been doing wetwork for the CIA when One made him an offer he couldn't refuse. He had pegged her as some kind of charity hire, something to give the team a PC look for the stockholders' benefit.

She disabused him of that crazy-ass idea soon enough. Rain Melendez was no politically correct poster girl, and she put her badass skills against his badass skills any day of the week.

So did One—he assigned them to be partners. J.D. bitched and moaned for a week, but One said it was that or lose the job. He said it with the don't-fuck-with-me look.

J.D. went along. He gave her shit at every opportunity, but he went along. They trained together, and she kept up with his government-trained ass every step of the way.

Eventually, he admitted she had the shit. Within two weeks, they were a lean, mean fighting machine.

But he still gave her shit every chance he got.

As she clambered back up into the car, Warner and Drew were bringing a big-ass trunk on board. Probably that thing Kaplan needed to shut down the little-kid computer. Rain didn't know the details, and didn't give a rat's ass. That geek crap was Kaplan's thing.

Speaking of Kaplan, he stood by a red button. “Stand clear!” he yelled, then pushed it. The trapdoor closed.

One looked at Alice and Addison. “Sit on the floor. Stay out of the way.”

They both hesitated, but eventually sat on the floor.

Kaplan got back into the engineer's cubbyhole. Seconds later, with a mild lurch, the train started moving.

Rain looked around, noticed that there was one other compartment besides the main one and the engineer's space. It was blocked off by a door.

When she tried to open it, it wouldn't budge. It had a handle knob, but the handle seemed to be stuck. She tried to move it several times, but nothing happened.

She stopped for a moment to catch her breath before trying again, only to notice that Addison and Alice were both staring at her. It almost looked like they were accusing her of something. Or maybe they were just fucked in the head.

Correction: Alice
was
fucked in the head, and the jury was out on the other asshole.

“You got a problem?” she asked angrily.

“How's that door?” One asked.

Tearing her gaze away from the pair, she said, “Sealed shut.”

J.D. volunteered himself. “Let me.”

Rain indicated the door with an exaggerated flourish. Let the macho asshole flex his muscle.

He gave her a wink. When they first started training together, she used that wink to goad herself to do better, in the hopes of wiping it off his fucking face. Now, she was pretty much used to it, and chalked it up to part of J.D.'s overall assholiness.

She took great satisfaction out of watching him struggle just as hard as she did with the door.

Then the son of a bitch yanked it open.

His head was down when he did it, so he didn't see the limp body inside the compartment until it fell on him.

“Damn!” J.D. cried as he pushed the form off him and whipped out his Smith & Wesson.

Next to Rain, One pointed his MP5K assault rifle at the man.

For her part, Rain just smiled at J.D. “Jumpy?”

J.D. gave her a fuck-you look. She just kept smiling. Bastard.

Rain recognized the guy after a minute—it was Alice's partner on mansion duty, that new asshole, Parks. Insisted everyone call him “Spence,” since his first name was “Percival.” Spent his first two weeks on the job hitting on Rain, and wouldn't take “fuck you” for an answer. He and Alice had to pretend to be married as part of their cover at the mansion, and she'd heard rumors. Most of them came from Warner, who said they were “maintaining the cover under the covers.”

All Rain could think was, better Alice than her. Spence made her want to throw up.

She looked over at Alice, still sitting on the floor next to the cop. As Rain watched, Alice stared at Spence's left hand, then at her own.

The wedding ring.

Rain chuckled to herself as Alice took the ring off and read the inscription. If Rain remembered right, it said
PROPERTY OF UMBRELLA CORPORATION
inside the
ring. Real fucking romantic. If Alice was still memory-loss-girl, reading that was gonna be a comedown.

Danilova walked over and knelt down next to Spence. She snapped a vial under his nose, which revived him pretty damn quick.

“Wha—?”

“Lie still,” the medic said.

Spence started squirming, like he was having a bad dream or something.

“Lie
still.”
The Russian woman held Spence down with one hand while taking out a penlight with the other. First she pried his eyes open and shined the light in each eye. The pupils dilated, as expected. Then she moved the light around. “Watch this light. Follow it.”

Spence stopped squirming and did so.

The medic held up three fingers. “How many fingers am I holding up?”

“Three.”

“Good. Now tell me your name.”

“I—” Spence hesitated, then looked confused. “I don't know.”

Danilova looked up at One. “He's fine.” She spoke in a no-nonsense tone. “Memory loss, just like the other one.”

One nodded, as if he expected that answer. And who knew, maybe he did?

Spence, meanwhile, sat up, holding his head as if it hurt.

He stared at Alice, who was staring right back.

Again, Rain chuckled to herself. The two of them
had been living together in that mansion for months, and neither of them had the first fucking clue who the other one was. Pathetic.

The noise of the train started to drop. One turned to address the entire train. “Everyone ready to move out.”

Rain moved to one of the many open entryways to the train as it pulled into the Hive end of the station. As the train rumbled in, lights went on in succession, illuminating the platform. Like the one on the mansion side, it was full of crates labeled with Umbrella's logo.

From here on in, it was routine. Rain had these maneuvers down when she was doing her own private training for S.W.A.T., and she fell into it easily here. She, J.D., and Warner took point, rotating cover, each with their rifles out and ready. Both clips in her MP5K were fully loaded, laser sight ready to go.

That was the other nice thing about working for Umbrella. They had all the latest and finest toys. LAPD probably wouldn't have had assault rifles this hot even for S.W.A.T., and if they did, they sure as shit wouldn't have the double clip. No way that'd be in the budget.

The private sector, Rain had learned, didn't skimp on the important shit.

Soon, they arrived at another big concrete staircase, not having seen a single sign of life.

Rain was in the lead when they hit the bottom of the staircase. She put up a fist, signalling a temporary stop.

Behind her, both J.D. and Warner came to a halt.
Behind them, One did likewise, passing on the halt signal to the others.

The door was shut. And, from the looks of it, sealed.

Fuck.

She signalled a go-ahead.

One put down his rifle. “Let's get that door.”

Rain nodded. She moved up the stairs with J.D. and Warner alongside. Kaplan and Drew followed a minute later, bearing their trunk full of stuff. Besides the toys Kaplan needed to deal with the computer, they also had a laser drill that would get the door open.

At least, that was the plan.

Drew opened the trunk and tossed the welder's helmet at Rain. “You'll need this.”

She smiled as she unerringly caught the dark helmet. “It's even in my color.”

“Yeah, it's how she likes her coffee and her men.” J.D. gave her his wink as he said it.

Warner chuckled. “Don't let the boss hear you say that.”

“Please.” Rain shook her head. Yeah, if you just went by the face, One was a fucking attractive dude, but she viewed him as pretty much asexual. She'd no more consider fucking him than fucking a stone wall. Shit, she'd sooner do
Kaplan.

“Listen to me.”

Rain glanced down the staircase at the voice. It was Alice, standing next to One.

“I want to know who you people are, and I want to know what's going on here.”

For his part, One didn't even spare her a glance. He was looking around, taking in his surroundings. Rain had no doubt that he was coming up with about seventy-six different ways to secure the area.

“Now.”

That got One's attention—and Rain's as well. Even without her memory, it looked like the bitch still had the same brass
cojones.
There weren't too many people with the balls to talk to One in that tone of voice—at least not twice.

But then, just because she didn't have her memory didn't mean she wasn't her, and they didn't make just any old asshole the head of security for the Hive.

One spoke in a mostly straight-up tone of voice. “You and I have the same employer—we all work for the Umbrella Corporation. The mansion is an entrance to the Hive. You are security operatives placed there to protect that entrance.”

Alice removed her wedding ring. “What about this?”

One came as close to a smile as Rain had ever seen. “Your marriage is a fake. Just part of your cover to protect the secrecy of the Hive.”

“And what is the Hive?” Spence asked.

One looked at Kaplan. “Show them.”

Rain turned to see that Drew and J.D. had set up the laser cutter. Rain put the helmet on, fired up the cutter, and went to work. Her best bet was trying to slice out the panel in the middle of the door—that would cut the circuit as well as provide a handy little hole in the door.

The cutter was loud enough to drown out Kaplan
and One explaining the Hive to the two people responsible for its security.

No, this wasn't a totally fucked-up scenario. The computer going all run-silent-run-deep, the security unconscious and losing their memory, some cop wandering around, and they still didn't know jackshit about what was going on.

When she'd sliced out a rectangle, it fell to the floor with a satisfying clang. Rain switched the cutter off and raised the helmet.

From down the stairs, she could hear Spence asking, “Why can't I remember anything?”

“The Hive has its own defense mechanisms,” One was explaining, “all computer controlled. A nerve gas was released into the house. Primary effect of the gas is complete unconsciousness, lasting anywhere up to four hours. Secondary effects are varied, but can include acute memory loss.”

“For how long?” Spence asked.

“Subjective. An hour—day—week.”

Addison chose this moment to speak up. “So you're saying this place was attacked?”

“I'm afraid things are a little more—complicated than that.”

Before One could explain, Rain said, “Sir—we've breached the Hive.”

One nodded, and the rest of them fell into formation.

Rain was half-convinced that one of the three newbies was gonna shoot their mouth off, but they didn't. Maybe they'd asked their share of questions.

Kaplan got the door open, then stepped back. Rain, Warner, and Drew covered One and J.D. as they took point. J.D. had put his night-vision gear on his head.

One simply said, “J.D.”

Nodding, J.D. put the night-vision cylinder over his eye. He looked like some kinda fucking Borg. He entered the dark room.

Rain held her MP5K at the ready and waited.

Suddenly, the lights went on. Not just that, but there was noise—sounded like street noise. The room was an elevator bay, but the windows showed some kind of cityscape.

One gave the signal and they moved in, keeping in formation, covering each other.

Except Olga, anyhow. She had that doodad of hers out and was looking at it. Then she looked up. “Halon content has dissipated.”

Rain thought it was a damn good thing they took off the fucking gas masks.

Alice and the Addison guy walked over to the window, looked at the “view.”

“Makes it easier to work underground,” Addison said, “thinking that there's a view.”

Rain gave him a suspicious look.

Then a noise got her attention. She turned, but it was just One, J.D., and Warner prying the elevator door open—but there wasn't a car on the other side.

J.D. tossed a flare down the shaft.

Rain walked up behind him and peered over his shoulder. The green light of the flare lit up the shaft,
and a lot of loose cables, scraps of metal, and pieces of plastic.

Somebody had taken the express to the basement.

J.D. looked at One. “Looks like we're taking the stairs.”

One nodded, and gave a signal to move out.

Rain, J.D., and Warner did rotating cover at point as they headed down the metal staircase. It took them to the working levels. The plan was to take them to the Red Queen's chamber and shut her down.

One looked at Kaplan as they headed down right behind the three leading the way. “Status.”

“Red Queen has locked onto us. She knows that we're here.”

Alice frowned. “Who's the Red Queen?”

“State-of-the-art artificial intelligence,” One said. “She's the computer that controls the Hive.”

Rain wondered when the stupid bitch was gonna get her memory back. She was tired of listening to people who should know better having to have their hands held.

“So this isn't a military base,” Alice said.

One almost smiled. “Umbrella could buy and sell the military twice over.”