Then the hologram futzed out.
“Kaplan?” Alice asked, glaring at him.
Blinking twice, Kaplan said, “The initial charge must have damaged her board.”
“Good,” Spence muttered.
“Ah, there you are.”
Kaplan looked around, then noticed the speaker in one corner of the room. The voice was the same as before, but without the visual of the ten-year-old girl.
All things considered, Kaplan was just as happy with that. He’d met Angie Ashford once, and seeing her as the template for the Red Queen’s AI had always given him the creeps.
“Things, I gather, have gone out of control.”
Rain lunged for Kaplan. “Give me that fucking switch, I’m gonna fry her ass.”
Alice and Matt both grabbed her arms, and pulled her away, for which Kaplan was grateful.
“I did warn you, didn’t I?”
“Tell us what the hell is going on down here,” Rain said, moving away from Alice and Matt, but not menacing Kaplan anymore, either.
“Research and development.”
Kaplan almost smiled. It may have sounded like a little girl, it may have been the best AI since HAL 9000, but it was still a literal-minded computer. Garbage in, garbage out. Ask a direct question, get a direct answer.
“What about the T-virus?” Matt asked.
Now Kaplan shot the cop a look. What the hell was he talking about?
“The T-virus was a major medical breakthrough, although it clearly possessed highly profitable military applications.”
Suddenly, things were starting to make a sick sort of sense. If there was some kind of virus, maybe that was what responsible for the Zombie Jamboree out there. Kaplan wondered what Matt Addison knew about it.
And if he was really a cop.
But that could wait. First, he wanted to know what was happening. So he asked another literal-minded question. “How does it explain those things out there?”
“Even in death, the human body still remains active. Hair and fingernails continue to grow, new cells are produced, and the brain itself holds a small electrical charge that takes months to dissipate. The T-virus provides a massive jolt both to cellular growth and to those trace electrical impulses. Put quite simply, it reanimates the body.”
Rain frowned. “It brings the dead back to life?”
“Not fully. The subjects have the simplest of motor functions. Perhaps a little memory, virtually no intelligence. They are driven by the basest of impulses, the most basic of needs.”
“Which is?” Kaplan asked, even though he suspected what the answer was, and didn’t entirely think that he wanted it confirmed.
“The need to feed.”
“And this was being developed on purpose?” Alice sounded aghast, which indicated to Kaplan that she hadn’t gotten all her memory back. This was pretty much par for Umbrella’s course, though even Kaplan had to admit that this was right on the edge of par . . .
“Originally its function was to combat insufficient cellular growth, as this is what ultimately leads to aging and death.”
Rain was still massaging her wounded hand. “This was all for a fucking wrinkle cream?”
“One application, perhaps. But a far more ambitious goal would be the eradication of cellular-based wasting diseases. As I said, the T-virus was a major medical breakthrough.”
“And also a mass murderer,” Matt said. “Or would that be you?”
“I was trying to keep them isolated, but I’m afraid you’ve changed all that.”
“How do you kill them?” Rain asked.
Kaplan sighed. Rain, as usual, cut to the chase.
“Severing the top of the spinal column or massive trauma to the brain are the most effective methods.”
Now Rain smiled. It wasn’t a particularly pleasant one. “You mean shoot them in the head.”
“We are so fucked,” Spence muttered.
“You said that already,” Kaplan snapped.
“Yeah, well, am I wrong?”
Kaplan couldn’t argue with that.
Matt looked up at the speaker. Kaplan noticed that he looked pained. “Why did you kill everybody down here?”
“The T-virus escaped into the air-conditioning system and an uncontrolled pattern of infection began. The virus is protean, changing from liquid to airborne to blood transmission, depending on its environment. It is almost impossible to kill. I couldn’t allow it to escape from the Hive, so I took steps.”
Shaking his head, Matt repeated the word: “Steps.”
“If I might make a suggestion: you have sufficient ammunition. One bullet apiece to the spinal column should suffice.”
Rain moved closer to the speaker, as if challenging the computer. “What are you saying?”
“Merely that I think suicide would be preferable to what awaits you.”
“You’re a computer,” Kaplan said defensively. “I don’t care if you’re an artificial intelligence, you don’t really think.”
Undaunted, the computer said, “This facility housed five hundred technicians and support staff. Five hundred against five are odds of a hundred to one.”
Alice snapped, “We can do the math.”
“Logic dictates that you won’t leave here alive.”
“Fuck logic.”
Rain spoke for them all.
At least Kaplan hoped she did.
“You must understand—those of you who become infected—I can’t allow you to leave.”
“Whoa,” Spence said, “we’re not infected.”
“Just one bite, one scratch from these creatures is sufficient. After that, it takes from fifteen minutes to several hours, depending on the severity of the infection and the strength of the individual’s immune system, and then you become one of them.”
Kaplan couldn’t help but give Rain a look.
Rain stared right back. “What’re you looking at?”
“A check of my systems indicates my main drive circuit breaker has been disabled. May I ask why?”
“Insurance,” Alice said. “We need a way out of here. If you refuse to help at any time, we flip the switch—understand?”
“Very well. If you insist on this ridiculous course of action, your most likely avenue of escape is through the utility tunnels. There is a trapdoor in the northwest corner. Proceed to Tunnel 3B, then go right at Tunnel 9E. At the end of that tunnel, there will be another trapdoor at the terminus for the train to the mansion.”
Kaplan flipped up his wrist-top and called up the map of the utility tunnels. Then he looked at the others and tried to keep his voice from breaking when he said, “She’s right, that’ll work.”
Alice and Rain were both standing by the northwest corner, and looked down to see the trapdoor in question.
It also had a codepad. Kaplan did a search on his wrist-top for the code for that door.
He found nothing.
“We need the code.”
“One, five, nine, six, eight.”
Rain crouched down and entered those five numbers. A clicking sound indicated the lock releasing, and she opened it, Alice standing next to her.
The door opened to a ladder.
Rain looked at Alice and gave her another one of those scary smiles of hers. “After you.”
Forcing himself to focus, Kaplan climbed down the ladder.
He and Rain were the only ones left now.
Warner would never hustle Kaplan at hearts again. (“Look, we don’t even have to play for money—well, okay, not a lot of money.”)
Drew would never try to fix Kaplan up with his sister. (“Really, Kaplan, she’s a babe. Honest. Don’t pay any attention to what J.D. says.”)
J.D. would never give Kaplan a hard time. (“Man, did girls even talk to you in high school?”)
Olga would never complain to him again. (“What’s taking so long?”)
And One . . .
For all his life, the only person who ever truly took Kaplan’s desire to be a f
ield agent seriously was One. The only person who expressed any kind of confidence in his ability.
The only one who didn’t just dismiss him as another computer geek.
Hilariously enough, he never actually encouraged Kaplan. Hell, in his own way he gave him as much shit as Rain and J.D. did. But he never dismissed Kaplan either, and always took him seriously.
“What the hell is this place?” Spence asked as they entered the tunnels. In stark contrast to the clean, metallic corridors and offices above, this place was dark, dank, and dripping. Puddles collected under their feet, all sorts of things that smelled like a cesspool stained the walls, and liquid streamed from the ceiling.
Kaplan tried to keep his temper reined in. It wasn’t Spence’s fault, after all, but he was a Security Division operative, just like the rest of them—except Matt, anyhow—and he knew the answers to all the stupid questions he was asking. Hell, he should’ve known about the fail-safe and the lack of backup. But that damn nerve gas . . .
“Utility tunnels,” he explained. “They run beneath the Hive for water, gas, power lines.” He smiled. “And, uh, waste.”
“Great.”
They proceeded down 3B. Every once in a while they came across an adjacent tunnel, blocked off by wire mesh that would allow water through, but not people.
Then again, aside from maintenance personnel, people generally didn’t come down here. Given the smell, Kaplan could understand why.
When they turned at 9E, Spence said, “We’ve been in here before.”
“Keep moving,” Rain said.
“We’re going round in circles!”
Kaplan was seriously getting tired of Spence’s shit. Actually, thinking it over, he was grateful for it. The more Kaplan focused on how pissed off he was at Spence, the less he focused on his own panic and guilt. “No—this is the route the computer gave us. Through the utility tunnels to—”
Spence brushed past Kaplan. “I don’t know why we’re listening to her.”
Rain suddenly whirled around and pushed Spence against one of the wire-mesh-covered passageways. “Enough already!”
She didn’t actually point her pistol at Spence, but its muzzle, Kaplan noticed, was close to his heart.
“We have to keep moving ’cause those things are right behind us. You got that?”
At that moment, Kaplan didn’t care how pissed Rain was at him. Right now, Spence needed to be taken down a peg, and nobody was better at that than Rain Melendez. Kaplan had certainly been on the receiving end enough times in his life.
Before Spence could reply, arms reached through the mesh.
Jumping back in shock, Kaplan watched as Rain, with Matt’s help, pulled the arms off him. That’s when he saw that there were dozens of the damn zombies pushing against the mesh.
It would keep people out, yeah, but not this many . . .
Alice had the same thought. “That mesh isn’t going to hold. Let’s move b—”
She cut herself off. Kaplan followed her gaze.
Oh, fuck.
The panic came back full bore as he saw dozens more zombies shuffling down Tunnel 9B toward them.
Alice was wrong about one thing: the mesh did keep the zombies back. Unfortunately, the frame holding the mesh in place had eroded sufficiently that it could not hold the literally dead weight of dozens of people pushing against it.
All thinking as one, Kaplan as well as Rain, Matt, and Spence grabbed the mesh before it could fall and used it as a battering ram to keep the zombies back.
But it was a temporary measure at best.
The Red Queen’s final words before Kaplan shut her down the first time came back to Kaplan:
“You’re all going to die down here.”
Kaplan glanced over to see why Alice wasn’t helping them.
It turned out she was.
She may not have remembered everything, but her famous moves had apparently risen to the fore. Ass-Kicking Alice knocked one zombie down with a neck-shattering chop. Then she jumped up to the ceiling, grabbed one of the heating pipes that ran parallel to the floor, wrapped her legs around the neck of the next zombie, and then twisted with her thighs, killing it.
A nice move, to be sure, but somehow Kaplan didn’t think she’d be able to do it five hundred more times.
Neither did she, for her next words were: “Up on the pipes—up on the pipes! Quickly, everyone, up on the pipes!”
Kaplan looked up. There was no way in hell those pipes were going to support the weight of five people.
Then the zombies surged against the mesh, and Kaplan realized they weren’t exactly overburdened with choices. Besides, these things weren’t agile—they probably weren’t capable of climbing up after them. Hell, they could barely walk. So far, it was the only real advantage they had.
“It’s a way out!”
“Move it!”
They let go of the mesh. Kaplan unholstered his Beretta and started shooting. Next to him, Rain did likewise with her Colt, while Alice kept up her end with hand-to-hand.
Unbidden, the image of an “Ass-Kicking Alice” action figure in her likeness popped into Kaplan’s head. “With zombie neck-snapping action!”
Focus, Kaplan. He shot another one in the face.
Spence, of course, was the first one to scurry up the pipes.
“Get over here!” Matt cried to Alice. “There’s too many of them!”
“Go, go, go!” Rain cried as Matt helped Alice up, then climbed up himself.
That just left him and Rain to hold off the hordes.
“You’re all going to die down here.”
Fuck you, bitch. He shot another one.
It fell down and then bit him in the leg.
Kaplan screamed.
TWENTY-TWO
THE ONLY GOOD THING TO RAIN ABOUT HOW much the utility tunnels stank was that they knocked out how bad the zombies smelled.
Their breath was especially bad—which was weird, ’cause they didn’t seem to be breathing, but damn if they didn’t all have halitosis fucking overload.
She turned around when Kaplan screamed, saw the thing biting him, then shot it.
Kaplan, the fucking wuss, kept screaming.
Addison reached down and yelled, “Grab my hand!”
That shook Kaplan out of it. He grabbed Addison’s hand and let himself be pulled up.
That just left Rain.
Another zombie jumped her, and she dropped her Colt into the piss-wet gunk on the floor.
She grabbed the zombie by the head, twisted, then dropped the zombie to the floor. Bending over, she picked up her Colt, and pointed it right at the next zombie.
Just as she prepared to pull the trigger, she realized who it was standing in front of her.
“J.D.?”
His face was covered in blood. Scars lined his face. His shirt had been ripped open, and there were cuts and dried blood on his chest.
The first day Rain and J.D. went to the firing range, J.D. couldn’t stop talking shit about what a crack shot he was. That was why the CIA stole him from the SEALs, because they valued his skills as a sniper.
“You know why I think Oswald acted alone?” he had asked then. “ ’Cause one guy could make the shot from the book depository window—if he’s got the shit. Me, I got the shit.”
To prove it, he put on his goggles and earmuffs, grabbed the six-shot revolver the firing range had provided, and fired it into the target, which was thirty feet away.
When he pulled it in, all six shots were to the head.
Kaplan had been impressed. Warner’s eyes had gone wide. Drew kept saying, “Fuck me,” over and over again.
But Rain just said, “Not bad.”
That drove J.D. nuts. “Not bad? Not fucking bad? What, chica, you can match that?”
“No, I can’t match that.” Then she grinned. “Unless I fire left-handed or something. Otherwise, no, I couldn’t shoot that badly.”
Warner laughed. “I think she’s calling you out, my friend
.”
“Fuck you, Warner. And fuck you too, Melendez. Put your money where your foot is.”
Rain took the space next to J.D., put on the goggles and earmuffs, moved her target back fifty feet, and grabbed another revolver. “Only place my foot’s going is up your ass, J.D.”
She threw all six shots, then pulled it in.
J.D. laughed when it came back with only one hole in it. That one hole was between the eyes.
“One lucky shot. Big fuckin’ deal.”
“Look again, asshole,” Rain said.
When J.D. didn’t get it, Drew said, “The hole’s too big for one bullet.”
It wasn’t until Kaplan played back the video log, slowed down, that J.D. believed it.
All six of Rain’s shots were to the exact same between-the-eyes spot.
After watching the video log, he turned to Rain with his mouth hanging open.
Rain just grinned. “Oswald was a fucking wuss.”
J.D. didn’t speak for the rest of the day.
But after that day, he finally started taking her seriously.
Now he was dead. She had resigned herself to that the minute those zomboid motherfuckers went all Dawn of the Dead on him.
But she should’ve known that wasn’t the end of it. Not the way this day had been going.
She stood there, holding the gun on him, but unable to pull the trigger.
He was already dead; she shouldn’t have to do this again!
Then his mouth fell open like it was some kind of fucking dump truck and he bit her on the neck.
“Aaaaahhh!” She grabbed J.D.’s head and yanked him off, his blackening teeth tearing out big chunks of skin off her shoulder.
Fuck this. J.D. was already dead. This was just some fucking nightmare.
She raised the Colt and shot J.D. right between the eyes.
Just like the target.
“Guess I still got the shit,” she muttered.
J.D. fell back on two more zombies, and that gave Rain the chance to climb up the pipe. It was only when she almost lost her grip that she realized that her hands were now covered in her own blood.
The five of them were now up on the pipe while the zombies shuffled around. She held out her hand to check it out. A drop of blood fell from her thumb, and three of the zombies lunged after it.
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