David looked relieved. “That’s excellent. John and Karen had another encounter outside of D, managed to get five of them—that means there may only be one team left.”
They pulled chairs away from the small tables that lined the walls, forming them in a loose semi-circle in the middle of the room. David stayed standing, ad-dressing them solemnly.
“I’d like to do a quick recap, to make certain we’re all on the same page before we go any further. In short, this facility was used for T-Virus experimenta-tion and has been taken over by one of the researchers for reasons unknown. The other workers have been killed and the offices purged of incriminating evi-dence. Rebecca believes that the biochemist Nicolas Griffith is responsible, and the fact that the grounds are still being patrolled suggests that he’s alive, some-where in the compound—though I don’t feel we should concern ourselves with trying to find him. We’ve already completed two of the tests given to us by Dr. Ammon, through Trent, and my hope is that the ‘material’ he has hidden for us will be the evi-dence we need to formally charge Umbrella with criminal activity.”
He folded his arms and started to pace slowly as he talked, glancing between them. “Obviously there’s already plenty of proof that illegalities have occurred here; we could leave now and turn the matter over to federal authorities. My concern is that we still don’t have enough hard evidence on Umbrella’s involve-ment—other than the computer system’s software and the journal that Steve and Rebecca found, Um-brella’s name isn’t on anything, and both of those could be explained away. My feeling is that we should continue with the tests and find whatever Dr. Ammon meant for us to have before we evac—but I want to hear from each of you about it first. This isn’t an authorized op, we’re not following orders here, and if you think we should go, we go.”
Rebecca was surprised, could see that the others felt the same by their expressions. David had seemed so certain before, so enthusiastic about their chances. The look on his face now told a different story. He seemed almost apologetic about wanting to continue, and looked as though he wanted for one of them to suggest otherwise.
Why the change? What happened?
John spoke first, glancing at the rest of them before looking at David. “Well, we’ve made it this far. And if there’s only one more group of zombies out there, I say we finish up.”
Rebecca nodded. “Yeah, and we still haven’t found the main lab, we don’t know why Griffith did this—whether he suffered a psychotic break or is actually hiding something. We may not find out, but it’s worth a look. Plus, what if he destroys more evidence after we’ve gone?”
“I agree,” Steve said. “If the S.T.A.R.S. are as deeply involved with Umbrella as it looks, we’re not going to get another chance. This may be our only opportunity to dig up a connection. And we’re al-ready so close, the third test is right here—we do that one, we’re one step away from finishing.” “I’m up for it,” Karen said softly.
At the strained sound of her voice, Rebecca turned to look at her, noticing for the first time that Karen didn’t look so good. Her eyes were bloodshot, her complexion almost a pallor.
“Are you okay?” Rebecca asked.
Karen nodded, sighing. “Yeah. Headache.”
Must be a migraine, she looks like hell. . . . “What is it, David?” John asked abruptly. “What’s eatin’ you? You know something you’re not telling us?”
David stared at them for a moment, then shook his head. “No, nothing like that. I just—I have a bad feeling. Or rather, a feeling that something bad is going to happen.”
“Little late, don’tcha think?” John said, grinning.
“Where were you when we got into the raft?” David half-smiled in response, rubbing the back of his neck. “Thank you, John, I’d almost forgotten. So, it’s decided then. Let’s solve our next puzzle, shall we? Oh, Rebecca, take a look at Karen’s eye while we’re at it, it’s giving her some trouble.” They stood up and moved toward the back of the room, for the table in the northwest corner marked with a blue nine. Steve and Rebecca had already looked when they’d found the room, though there was no clue as to what the test was—a small, blank monitor screen with a ten-key hooked to it sat on the metal table, an enigma.
Rebecca motioned for Karen to sit on the chair in front of test ten, the purpose of which also escaped her—it consisted of a circuit board wired to a plank and what looked like a pair of tweezers connected to it by a black wire. She bent down to take a look, frowning. The woman’s right eye was extremely irri-tated, the pale blue cornea floating in a sea of red. Her eyelid had a bruised, swollen look.
She turned to ask for David’s flashlight—and saw that as he sat down in front of the scheduled test, the screen flickered on, several lines of type appearing in the center of the monitor.
“Some kind of motion sensor—“ Steve started to say, but David held up his hand suddenly, reading aloud what had appeared on the screen in a rapid, anxious voice.
“ ‘As I was going to Saint Ives, I met a man with seven wives—the seven wives had seven sacks, the seven sacks held seven cats—the seven cats had seven kits; kits, cats, sacks, wives, how many were going to Saint Ives?’” There was a digital readout on the screen, showing 00:49 and counting down. In the time it had taken David to read the question, eleven seconds had al-ready ticked off the clock.
David stared at the screen, his thoughts racing furiously as the team leaned in behind him. Tension radiated from them, and David felt a sudden prickle of sweat break out across his forehead. Don’t count, that was the clue. But what does it mean?
“Twenty-eight,” John said quickly. “No, wait, twenty-nine, including the man—“ Steve cut him off, talking just as fast. “But if they had seven kittens each, that would be forty-nine plus twenty-one, seventy, seventy-one with the man.” “But the message said don’t count,” Karen said. “If you’re not supposed to count—does that mean don’t add, or—wait, there’s the man with the wives and the speaker, that’s another one—“ Thirty-two seconds had elapsed. David’s hand hov-ered over the key pad.
Think! Don’t count, don’t count, don’t—
“One,” Rebecca said quickly. “ ‘As / was going to Saint Ives’—it doesn’t say where the man with the wives was going. That’s what it means, the clue—don’t count anyone except the one who was going to Saint Ives!”
Yes, it makes sense, a trick question—
They had twenty seconds left.
“Anyone disagree?” David asked sharply.
No answer. David hit the key, entered it—
• and the countdown stopped, sixteen seconds to spare. The screen turned itself off. From somewhere overhead, the now familiar chime sounded. David exhaled, leaning back in the chair. Thank you, Rebecca!
He turned around to tell her as much, but she was already bending to examine Karen’s eye, fixated on her patient.
“I need a flashlight,” she said, barely glancing around as John handed his to her. She turned it on, shining it into Karen’s eye as the rest of them looked on silently, watching them. Karen didn’t look well; there were dark circles under her eyes, and her skin had gone from pale to almost sickly.
“It’s pretty inflamed ... look up. Down. Left and right? Does it feel like there’s something rubbing it, or is it more like a burn?”
“Actually, more like an itch,” Karen said. “Like a mosquito bite times ten. I’ve been scratching it, though, that might be why it’s so red.” Rebecca turned off the torch, frowning. “I don’t see anything. The other one looks irritated, too . .. did it just start itching all of a sudden, or did you touch it, first?”
Karen shook her head. “I don’t remember. It just started itching, I guess.”
A look of sharp, almost violent intensity flashed across Rebecca’s face. “Before or after you were in room 101?”
David felt a cold hand clutch at his heart.
Karen suddenly looked worried. “After.” “Did you touch anything while you were in there, anything at all?”
“I don’t—“
Karen’s red eyes widened in sudden horror, and when she spoke, it was a breathless, quivering whis-per. “The gurney. There was a bloodstain on the gurney and I was thinking about—I touched it.
Oh, Jesus, I didn’t even think about it, it was dry and I, my hand wasn’t cut and oh my God, I got a headache right after my eye started itching—“ Rebecca put her hands on Karen’s shoulders, squeezing them tightly. “Karen, take a deep breath. Deep breath, okay? It may be that your eye just itches and you have a headache, so don’t jump to conclu-sions here, we don’t know anything for sure.” Her voice was low and soothing, her manner direct.
Karen blew out a shaky breath and nodded. “If her hand wasn’t cut...” John started ner-vously.
Karen answered him, her pale features composed but her voice trembling slightly. “Viruses can get into the body through mucous membranes. Nose, ears ... eyes. I knew that. I knew that but I didn’t think about it, I—wasn’t thinking about it.”
She looked up at Rebecca, and David could see that she was struggling to maintain her composure. “If I am infected, how long? How long before I become . .. incapacitated?”
Rebecca shook her head. “I don’t know,” she said softly.
David felt as though a raging blackness had envel-oped him, a cloud of fear and worry and guilt so vast that it threatened to overwhelm his ability to move, even to think.
My fault. My responsibility.
“There’s a vaccine, right?” John asked, his dark gaze darting between Karen and Rebecca. “There’s a cure, wouldn’t they have a shot or something here if someone got it by accident? They’d have to, wouldn’t they?”
David felt a sudden surge of desperate hope. “Is it possible?” he asked Rebecca quickly.
The young biochemist nodded, slowly at first but then eagerly. “Yeah, it’s possible. It’s probable, they created it—“ She looked at David seriously, urgently. “We have to find the main lab, where they synthesized the virus, and quickly. If they developed a cure, that’s where the information would be. ...”