Underworld

by S. D. Perry

Chapter 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.

  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 dis- tance 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, eject-ing 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 what- ever 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, scorpi-ons, 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 oppres-sive, 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 hand
gun practically shot itself, there wasn't even a safety switch to fuss with. . . Reston was halfway back to control when it oc- curred 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 reestab- lished 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; frown- ing, 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, cer- tainly 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 trouble- making, useless lives. There wasn't a camera in the building they'd en- tered; 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 doubt- fully. "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.