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Karen driver was a tall, lanky woman in her early thirties, with short blond hair and a serious, businesslike demeanor Her small home was spotlessly kept and almost antiseptically clean The clothes she&039;d picked out for Rebecca were utilitarian and perfectly folded: a dark green T-shirt and crisppants, black cotton socks and underwear Even her bathroom seemed to reflect her personality; the white walls were lined with shelves, each neatly organized according to purpose
Scratch a forensics scientist, find an obsessive-co it Karen had been welcoh, even friendly in a brusque way Maybe she just hated clutter Rebecca sat on the edge of the toilet and cuffed the overlong pants around her ankles, relieved to be out of her old clothes and feeling surprisingly clear- headed after a night of broken sleep David had rented a car at the airport, and in the early hours of the ered into their separate rooms, Rebecca too ex- hausted to dointo bed She woke just before ten, took a shower and had been waiting nervously when David knocked at her door Rebecca heard the front door open and close, new voices floating through the living rooh tops and laced the her anxiety level jump a notch The tea in, and though she&039;d thought of little else since waking up, the realization continued to come as a kind of shock Umbrella&039;s surprise attack on Barry&039;s house already seeh it had been only hours agoand hours froonna happen in between that worries me David and his teas, the snakes, those unnatural creatures in the tunnels or Tyrant
Rebecca shook the i her dirty clothes off the floor and stufling the that she&039;d carried on the plane There was no reason to assume that the Cali- ban Cove facility would be the sa She paused in front of thewoman she saw there, and then walked to the door She headed for the living roo kitchen and around a corner in the hall She heard David&039;s lilting voice, apparently suht before
" said he&039;d ring so Another of the teao-between and to initiate an investi-gation e have proof They&039;ll be waiting to hear from us e&039;ve completed today&039;s operation"
He broke off as Rebecca walked into the room, and all eyes turned to her Karen had pulled a few extra chairs into the roolass topped coffee table There were twoon the couch, across froot up, stepping forward to be introduced
"Rebecca, this is Steve Lopez Steve is our resident corinned, an aw-shucks smile that suited his boyish features perfectly as he shook her hand, his teeth white against his natural deep-tan coloring He had dark, quick eyes and black hair, and was only a few inches taller than her
Not much older, either
His gaze was friendly and direct, and in spite of the circu that she&039;d at least run a brush through her hair before co out of the bathroom Simply put, he was hot
" and this is John Andrews, our communications specialist and field scout"
John&039;s skin was a deep any brown and he didn&039;t have a beard, but he reminded her of Barry nonetheless He was htly packedwhite
"This is Rebecca Chambers, biochemist and field o of her hand, still s "Bioche the glint of huhed, a deep, throaty chuckle as he sat back down He glanced at Steve, then back at her "You better watch out for Lopez, then," he said, then dropped his voice to a le" "Knock it off," Steve growled, his cheeks flushing He looked at her, shaking his head
"You&039;ll have to excuse John He thinks he&039;s got a sense of humor and nobody can talk him out of it" "Your mother thinks I&039;m funny," John shot back, and before Steve could respond, David held up a hand "That&039;s enough," he said anize if we et started, shall we?"
Steve and John&039;s banter had been a welco her feel like one of the tealad to see the serious, intent looks on all of their faces as they turned their attention to David, watching him pull out Trent&039;s inforood to know that they were prosbut will it matter? her mind whispered softly The STARS in Raccoon were professionals, too And even knowing the kind of research U, will it make any difference at all? What if the viruswith Tyrants or so worse?
Rebecca had no answer for the insistent little whis-per She focused on David instead, silently telling herself that her anxieties wouldn&039;t get in the way of her doing her job And that her second mission wouldn&039;t be her last For Rebecca&039;s sake, David started the briefing as he would have with an entirely new teaht as she was, and with her previous experience at an Umbrella facility, he didn&039;t want her to hold back for fear of speaking out of turn
"Our objective is to get into the coet out again with as little trouble as possible I&039;ll go over every step thoroughly, and if any of you have ques-tions or ideas about how to proceed, no , I want to hear them Understood?"
There were nods all around David continued, comfortable that his point was made
"We&039;ve already discussed a few of the possibilities as to what may have happened, and you&039;ve all read the articles I subain with some kind of accident U up the problem in Raccoon City, and while we could assu fishermen who&039;ve wandered across their territory, it seems unlikely that they&039;d want to draw that kind of attention to themselves" "Why hasn&039;t Umbrella sent anyone in to clean it up?" John asked David shook his head "Who&039;s to say they haven&039;t? We may find that they&039;ve already cleared the site of evidence - in which case, we group together with the Raccoon people and our own contacts and start over"
Again, everyone nodded He didn&039;t bother stating the obvious, that the virus could still be contagious They all knew that it was a possibility, though he planned to have Rebecca address the h David looked down at theon to the next point "Point of entry," he said "If this were an open assault, we could go in by helicopter or just hop the fence But if there are still people there and we trigger an alarm, it&039;s over before we even start Since we don&039;t want to risk discovery, our best option is to go in by boat We can use one of the rafts fro slightly
"Wouldn&039;t they have an alarer just below the notched line of the fence, south of the co the pier at all If we go in here, go past the pier" He traced upward, running the length of the cove " we can get a look at the layout of the entire cohthouse According to what I read, there&039;s a natural path frohthouse itself If the path has been blocked, we&039;ll backtrack and come up with an alternative route" "Won&039;t the raft attract attention if anyone&039;s outside watching?" Rebecca asked David shook his head The Exeter STARS had used the rafts the previous summer to approach an oil tanker that had been hijacked by terrorists who had threatened to spill the cargo unless their deht operation
"It&039;s black, and has an underwater o in just past dusk, we should be invisible The other benefit to this approach is that if the facility looks unhealthy, we can abort until a later ti to rush theood soldiers, his teanment If any one of them had serious doubts, it was better to address theaze fell across Rebecca&039;s youthful face, taking in the steady willingness of a good STARS opera- tive in the quick brown eyes, the thoughtful consider- ation of his plan He was beginning to like her, for more than just her usefulness to the mission There was a kind of matter-of-fact openness about her that appealed to him, particularly with all of his recent turmoil over emotional aardness She seehts aside, suddenly realiz- ing how much stress he&039;d been under, how tired he continued to be; his focus was suffering for it Keep it together, man This isn&039;t the tiet inside, weto shadows John will take point with Karen at his back, scouting the area for the lab and looking for some idea as to what&039;s happened Steve and Rebecca will follow, and I&039;ll bring up the rear When we find the lab, we go in together Rebecca will knohat to look for in terms of , Steve can get into the files The rest of us will provide cover Once we retrieve the inforet back out the e ca it with his other hand "One of Rebecca&039;s teas with Mr Trent She thinks that this ht be relevant to e need to find, so I want all of you to take another look before we go in It may be important" "So we can trust him?" Karen asked "This Trent&039;s okay?" David frowned, not sure how to answer "It seems that for whatever reason, he&039;s on our side in all of this, yes," he said slowly "And Rebecca recognized one of the names on the list as a man who has worked with viruses before The inforht answer, but it would have to do
"Any idea on what the chances are that we&039;ll contract the virus?" Steve asked quietly David tilted his head toward Rebecca "If you could give us soround"
She nodded, turning toward the rest of the tea with When our teaot kicked off the case, I lost access to the tissue and saliva sa at the effects, it&039;s pretty obvious that the T-Virus is athe host&039;s chromosome structure on a cellular level It&039;s an interspecies infective, capable of a in plants, mammals, birds, reptiles, you narowth; in all of them, violent behavior From some of the reports we came across at the estate, I can tell you that it affects brain che like a schizophrenic psychosis through extreh levels of D2 receptors It also inhibits pain The huunshot wounds, and though they were decaying physically, they didn&039;t see che She suddenly looked much older than her years "The spill at the estate looked like an airborne, but I don&039;t think that&039;s its designed or preferred for it in conjunction with genetic experimentation And since none of us contracted it and it didn&039;t spread, I don&039;t think we have to worry about breathing it in " "What we do have to watch for is contact with a host, and Iis incredibly virulent once it enters the bloodstreale drop of blood from a host could hold hundreds of millions of virus particles We&039;d need a fully equipped hot suite and a trained biohazard virologist to pin down its replication strategy for certain, but direct contact of any kind should be avoided at all costs With any luck, they&039;ll have died by now or at least deterio-rated past mobility The humans, anyway"
There was a moment of strained silence as they all considered the implications of what she&039;d told them David could see that they were shaken, and felt a bit shaken hi that the virus was toxic wasn&039;t the sa the specifics
My God, ere those people thinking? How could they live with the like that?