Apocalypse - Keith R. A. DeCandido [2]
Crying? What the hell had happened down there to make a professional like Abernathy cry?
The camera had an audio feed, and Cain turned it up. Abernathy’s voice sounded tinny on the PDA’s small speaker. “I failed. All of them. I failed them.”
Cain shook his head. It looked like everyone was dead.
One of the security people asked, “Should we move in, sir?”
Holding up a hand, Cain said, “Not just yet.”
“Listen,” the wounded man said, “there was nothing you could have done. The corporation is to blame here, not you.” He indicated the case that Abernathy had dropped. “And we finally have the proof. That means Umbrella can’t get awa—”
He cut himself off, wincing in pain.
Cain smiled. From the sounds of it, this guy was some kind of crusader. How the hell he’d managed to infiltrate the Hive was something Cain would worry about later. From the looks of things, this asshole was about to find out just what those wounds really meant.
The jackass kept talking. “—get away with this. We can—”
Again, he cut himself off.
“What is it?” Abernathy asked.
The man screamed, and fell onto his back.
“You’re infected. You’ll be okay—I’m not losing you.”
Cain had seen enough. “Let’s move in.”
Two members of the security detail opened the door and proceeded inside.
Abernathy shielded her eyes from the blinding light that suddenly poured into the vestibule. “What’s happening? What’re you doing?”
One guard reached for her, while the other, along with one of the medics, knelt beside the crusading moron, who was now convulsing on the floor.
“Stop!” she yelled.
Cain sighed as she fought off the guard with a few well-placed punches. Something obviously had happened to her down there that had a profound effect on her personality—but it didn’t have the least effect on her fighting ability. She was still the best.
Even as the wounded man was loaded onto one of the gurneys, three more of the guards tried to grab Abernathy. It took her maybe five seconds to subdue them.
Damn, she was good.
“Matt!”
So that was the guy’s name. Cain looked to see that this Matt person was growing tentacles out of the three wounds in his shoulder.
Definitely the licker. And this might turn out to be just what they were looking for.
“He’s mutating. I want him in the Nemesis Program,” Cain said.
Maybe they could salvage something out of this fuckup.
It took about twice as long as it should have, but the guards, with some help from a well-placed syringe full of sedatives, finally managed to put Abernathy down. She kept screaming Matt’s name.
Again, Cain wondered what the fuck had gone on down there.
He checked the case Abernathy had been carrying. It had room for all fourteen vials of the T-virus and the antivirus, but several of the vials were missing. That didn’t bode well at all.
“I want her quarantined. Close observation, and a full series of blood tests. Let’s see if she’s infected. Take her to the Raccoon City facility, then assemble a team. We’re reopening the Hive. I want to know what went on down there.”
One of the medics, a pissant little twerp whose name Cain didn’t give enough of a shit about to learn, said, “Sir, we don’t know what kind of—”
Cain didn’t have time for this. He needed information, and the only way to get that was to go into the Hive. “Just do it.”
Abernathy and this Matt person were loaded onto the helicopter. The head of this security detail, a former Marine named Ward, gathered up his people.
“Ready when you are, sir,” Ward said, sounding singularly unenthusiastic.
“Something bothering you, soldier?”
“I’m not even supposed to be here today.” Ward’s face was hidden behind the mirrored faceplate of the Hazmat suit, but Cain could hear the smirk in his voice.
“Tough shit. One’s down there somewhere; it’s up to you to find out what happened to him.”
“Due respect, sir—if they took One out, we ain’t got a snowball’s chance in hell. Moving in, sir,” he added quickly.
Only those last three words saved the ex-jarhead from a tongue-lashing.