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After he&039;d instructed athens and sent hies and decided on a place to hide There was nothing left for his of confidence, he was nervous now, pacing through the lab restlessly What if Athens had forgotten how to load a rifle? What if the enclosure release didn&039;t work, or the intruders had the firepower to stop the Ma7s?
He&039;d tried to prepare for every possibility, each plan unfolding into a backup, but what if everything failed, if all of thele the what must be done They can&039;t - not after all I&039;ve accoet to where I am
For the second time that day, he flashed back to the takeover of the coht and sunny day less than a hts as he&039;d done before, he let the the when the need arose He abruptly stopped pacing andhis eyes
A bright and sunny day
Once he&039;d realized what had to be done, he&039;d planned it for over teeks, working over each detail tirelessly until he&039;d been satisfied that every variable had been addressed He&039;d spent tih thethe routine of the facility He&039;d watched the habits of his colleagues, learned their schedules until he could have recited them backward He&039;d stared for hours at the sketches he&039;d h them in his mind a thousand times After careful consideration, he chose a date and several days before, he&039;d slipped into the Trisquad processing room and stolen several small vials of extremely powerful medication Kylosynthesine, Mamesidine, Tralphenide - animal tranquilizers and a synthesized narcotic, some of Um- brella&039;s finest work It had only taken hiet the mix the way he&039;d wanted it, just as he&039;d hoped Then he&039;d waited,now The day before his plan was to unfold, he&039;d watched a Trisquad processing and then asked Tom Athens to cohts he&039;d had on intensifying the suggestibility factor Athens had been only too happy to accept, had listened eagerly to Griffith&039;s description of the strain he&039;d already created - couched in hypothetical terms, of course - and after a nice, hot cup of laced coffee, Athens had become the first to experience Griffith&039;s lorious moments, the very first -and truly the most impor- tant test of the strain&039;s effectiveness He&039;d told Athens that the only voice he could hear was that of Nicolas Griffith, that all others would be estion had taken as easy as that In the early hours of that fateful , he&039;d played a tape of one of Athens&039;s own lectures for the coibberish If it had failed, Griffith would have aborted the takeover, no one the wiser He&039;d had an unfortunate accident in mind if the strain hadn&039;t worked the way it was supposed to; Athens&039;s body would have been found the next day, washed up on the rocky beach But the incredible success of his creation had proved beyond doubt that it was meant to be, that he really had no choice but to continue and so, the kitchen The drops of sedative in the coffee cups, on the pas tries, injected oh so carefully into the fruit and dissolved into the milk, the juices Of the nineteen men and woularly skipped breakfast and didn&039;t drink coffee, Ki woman orked with the T-Virus; Griffith had sent Athens to slit her throat as she lay sleeping, before the sun caht and sunny day, cloudless and clear as they gobbled their breakfasts and sed their coffee, walking out into the coolit out of the cafeteria before they stu out that they &039;d been poisoned as the words failed the to remember what had happened next He&039;d selected Thurood doctor what he&039;d created Then Alan Kinneson, although he hadn&039;t given the gift to Alan until later, keeping him sedated He knew the facts: Thurman and Athens had dis- posed of the workers and piled theed to keep himself hidden for a ti Griffith had eaten a late supper and gone to bed, waking up early to s that he knew, but for some reason, the reality had blurred and he couldn&039;t actually remember what he had seen, what had transpired for hihts, concentrat-ing, but could only find the sa the sleeping bodies in red The screa to the hot wind A coppery smell of dirt and, and
blood on littered wet and sharp and plunged into soft, yielding flesh of faces and bellies and eyes and later, the thundering crash of waves in the dark and the spool of fishing line and Ahtmare was over Shaken, Griffith looked around at the cool, soft light of the laboratory He must have dozed off for a moment, must have Yes, that was it He&039;d fallen asleep and had a terrible dream He looked at the clock, saw that only a few mo- ments had passed since he&039;d sent the two doctors out He felt a rush of relief, realizing that he hadn&039;t been asleep for very long, but as the relief ebbed, he felt the nervousness slip back into his body, jittering and pulsing anxiety about the intruders that had come to his facility
They won&039;t stop me It&039;s mine
Griffith stood up and started to pace restlessly, back and forth, waiting
The "tier to complete than test number four, what David had started to think of as the "chess test"
John and Karen had shown hi behind hihted the colored tiles and laid them out Beneath the heap of nine rainbow-shaded pieces was an elongated in-dentation, perhaps a foot long and two inches across; it was clear that just seven of the tiles would fit
Seven colors in the rainbow, seven tiles Simple So why are there nine of the them in a row beneath the indentation Each bore a different letter on the top, inked in black Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and three violet tiles with three different letters "Is it supposed to spell soht, the first six tiles read, J F M A M J "Not in English," Karen said hed "It&039;s one of those where you have to figure out the next in the series," he said "Apparently relating to tihts?"
John and Karen both stared down at the puzzle, studying the letters; he wondered if they were as tired as he was starting to feel John seemed distinctly less chipper than usual, and Karen looked fairly wiped out, her skin pale and gaze somewhat distant
Of course they&039;re tired, but at least they&039;rean attempt
David looked back at the colored pieces and tried to focus, but couldn&039;t seele coherent idea It had been an awfully long day, periods of intense concentration interspersed with violent rushes of adrenaline He&039;d run through fear, self-doubt, deter- ain, plus a handful of less clear-cut e to see ould coht in his eyes "The letters stand for the months - January, February, March, April, May, June - July It&039;s J, the last letter is J" "Brilliant," David said He started to place the tiles in the indentation as John nudged Karen with his elbow, still grinning "And you thought all I was good for was easy sex"
As usual, Karen didn&039;t bother answering Relieved to be through the second test, David pushed the last piece into place There was a faint click and the rainboered very slightly, perhaps a entle chime sounded from a speaker, this one hidden by a fluorescent bar "That all I get?" John quipped "No parade?"
David stood up, s tiredly "I felt the sa, see how Steve and Rebecca areit, David," John said, chuckling "Nice one" It took David a h Karen rolled her eyes almost immediately, then scratched at theht eye was extreh not as badly She noticed his scrutiny and s "I irritated it somehow It itches, but it&039;s fine" "Don&039;t rub it, you&039;lltheet across"