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The farther away they got from the front of the concrete block, the less noxious the air, for which Rebecca was deeply grateful She&039;d been seconds away froreasy, oily stench that seeible, an entity in itself As they h the well-lit hall, she found herself thinking again about Nicolas Griffith, about the story of the Marburg victih there was no proof that he was behind the hter of the U that he was responsible The corridor led them past several open roo they&039;d come from They passed an exit at the far side of the block, and after another turn in the hall, finally caain with the letter A, and below it, 1-4 There were three triangles beneath the nureen, and blue David opened the door, revealing ainto the stale dark-ness; there were two doors, one on either side Steve found the lights and turned them on, and Rebecca saw that there were ht The other was blank "I&039;ll take the test," David said "Steve, you and Rebecca check out the other room, we&039;ll meet back here"
Rebecca nodded, saw Steve do the sah he dropped his gaze when he noticed her looking She felt a pang of sy that he was probably e his lunch They opened the unlabeled door and stepped into yet another less roo Rebecca turned on the lights and a rather large office lined with bookshelves flick-ered into view A steel desk sat in one corner next to a filing cabinet, the ehed "Looks like another bust," he said "You want the desk or shelves?" Rebecca shrugged "Shelves, I guess" He grinned almost shyly "Just as well Maybe I can find so in one of the drawers"
Rebecca slad that he&039;d made the joke
"Save me one I sed it down back there, but it was a close call"
They locked gazes, still sh her as the second stretched, lingering a few beats longer than a e Steve looked away first, but his color had returned, his cheeks slightly pinker than before He moved to the desk and Rebecca turned to face a row of books, feeling a little flushed herself There was a definite attraction there, and it seemed to be mutual - -and it&039;s only about the worst time and place to consider it, her mind snapped Secure that shit, pronto The books were about what shewhat they knew about the Trisquads and Uy, a whole set of leather- bound texts on behavior ed through the desk behind her, she ran her hand along the row, pushing the books toward the back of the shelf as she glanced over the titles Maybe there was soy, Pavlov, psych, psych, pathology
She stopped, frowning at a slender black voluer books No title She pulled it out and felt her heart speed up as she opened the ses She flipped to the front, saw "Tom Athens" written in neat letters on the inside cover One of the guys on the list, one of the researchers! "Hey, I found a diary," she said "It belongs to one of the people from Trent&039;s list, Tom Athens"
Steve looked up fro "No shit? Go to the back, what&039;s the last date?" Rebecca ruffled through the pages to the end, scan-ning as she went "Says July 18, but it doesn&039;t look like he kept it regular The one before that is July 9" "Just read the last entry," Steve said "Maybe it&039;ll tell us as going on"
She walked to the desk and leaned against it, clearing her throat
" &039;Juty 18, Saturday It&039;s been a long and ridiculous day, the end of a long and ridiculous week I swear to God, I&039; to beat the crap out of Louis if he calls oneToday it hether or not we should add a new scenario into the Trisquad prograet it on paper, and the rest of it was his usual bullshit - the importance of teamwork, the need to share inforht track" I mean, Jesus, it&039;s like he can&039;t live with the concept that a weekly o out without his name on it And he hasn&039;t done dick since the Ma7 disaster, except to try and convince everyone that it was Chin&039;s fault; soill of the dead Sanctimonious prick" " &039;Alan and I talked over the i to write up the proposal this week, and we&039;re NOT going to let Louis touch it With any luck, we&039;ll get a green light by the end of theto want to run it past Birkin, though God only knohy; B doesn&039;t give a shit e&039;re doing out here, he&039;s off being brilliant again I have to ad forward to his next synthesis; s in the Trisquads"
" &039;There was a minor scare in D on Wednesday, in 101 Soerator open, and Kih I&039;ain Hard to believe she&039;s in charge of the infection process, the woman&039;s a dite and she&039;s sloppy as hell when it co the equiped to infect the entire coh in there to do it" " &039;I should probably get over to D &039;s ready for to in, and Griffith actually asked to watch the process; first time he&039;s come out of the lab in weeks, first time he&039;s ever taken an interest in what the rest of us are doing I know it&039;s stupid, but I still want him to be impressed; he&039;s as brilliant as Birkin, in his own creepy way I think he even intienerally too stupid to scare" " &039;More later&039;"
The rest of the pages were blank Rebecca looked up at Steve, not sure what to say, her lean the relevant bits of infor in there that both- ered her, so chemicals Infection process The brilliant, creepy Dr Griffith She no longer had any doubt that Griffith had killed the others, but that wasn&039;t what sent her internal alar It was "Block D," Steve said, a look of anxious fear playing across his face "If we&039;re in A, Karen and John are in D"
Where there&039;s enough of the T-Virus to infect the entire compound Where the infection process took place "We should tell David," Rebecca said, and Steve nodded, both of the desperately that John and Karen wouldn&039;t find roo that could hurt the, three of the walls lined with open-ended cubicles Once he&039;d turned on the lights, he saw that the tests were clearly numbered and color- coded, the symbols painted on the cement floor in front of each one All of the red series was on his left, closest to the door He saw brightly colored blocks and simple shapes on the tables in each cubicle as he walked past, heading for the back of the roonored it entirely The back as les, the nuht corner As he neared the back of the roo from the blue test area There was a small computer on the table in number two, a keyboard and headset in three As proh what they were con- nected to, he couldn&039;t iine and don&039;t care Once we solve these little puzzles, we&039;ll find whatever&039;s been hidden for us and get out, away froh
David had seen all he wanted to see of Caliban Cove The corpses in the front hall had been bad, but it was the thoughts that they&039;d inspired that troubled hiet his teaerous and deadly, the mon- ster in the cove&039;s waters had been horrible, but somewhere in the facility lurked a monster of a different kind entirely, one that hadin a dark place That kind of insanity chilled hireed of Uht do to the handful of soldiers trying to stop him
We&039;ll find the "material, "probably notes on Umbrel- la, perhaps on the virus itself and then break for the fence, get well away from this madness Let the Feds handle the rest If they&039;re sather the information from the ashes
He stopped in front of the last cubicle, returning his attention to the task at hand He wasn&039;t sure what he was expecting to see, but the set up of test number four surprised hiray metal On the table was a pad of paper, a pencil, and an inexpensive chess set, all of the pieces in place As he stepped into the cubicle, he saw that there was aof nu down at the num- bers
9-22-3//14-26-9-16-8//7-19-22//8-11-12-7
He frowned, looking up at the chess set and then back at the nu else to look at; that was it He quickly sorted through the clues of A which was supposed to be the answer Was it, "the letters and numbers reverse," or "don&039;t count"? Since there didn&039;t see to time or a rainbow, it had to be one of the two