Apocalypse - Keith R. A. DeCandido [8]
The Golf had to struggle to maintain sixty-five, so the SUVs all passed him. As they went, Jeremy noticed that they all had heavily tinted windows. Which, as far as he knew, was totally illegal.
The amazing thing was that the SUVs were bumper-to-bumper, yet still moving at about seventy. It was like fucking robots were driving them or something.
He sneaked a quick glance up to see the black copter Greg was oohing and aahing over. It was in tight formation with the SUVs.
What the fuck was going on?
The last one went by, which by Jeremy’s count was the fifteenth, and then he saw the license plate. Instead of the usual random set of numbers and letters, it had a vanity registration: UC 15.
Jeremy also noted that the frame of the license plate had the stylized logo of the Umbrella Corporation emblazoned on it.
When they reached the Raccoon City side of the bridge, the SUVs all continued toward the heart of town, still in a perfect straight line.
As he continued across the bridge, Jeremy Bottroff decided he was looking forward even more to today’s job interview.
Four
“Do you have to fucking do that?” Mike Friedberger asked his partner.
“Do what?” Peterson asked, sounding oh-so-fucking-innocent as he navigated the SUV through the streets of Raccoon City.
“Crack your fucking gum. I fucking hate it when you crack your fucking gum.”
Peterson shrugged as he turned a corner onto a nearly empty side street. Mike wished he wouldn’t shrug and drive at the same time, but he held out about as much hope of that happening as him not cracking his fucking gum.
“Tough,” Peterson said. “Maybe if you didn’t curse so much, I wouldn’t crack my gum.”
“Oh, give me a fucking break.”
“Would it kill you to not curse so much?”
“Does it fucking matter? I mean, really, what fucking harm am I doing?”
Peterson smiled one of those goofy-ass smiles of his that made Mike want to punch him repeatedly in the face. “About as much harm as I’m doing cracking my gum.”
“Yeah, but the fucking difference is, you cracking your gum is an annoying fucking sound that drives me up the fucking wall.”
“And you using the word ‘fucking’ as a piece of punctuation is driving me up the wall, but do you hear me complaining?”
“Yeah, actually, I do.”
“We’re there.”
“What?” Mike turned and looked down at the GPS on the dashboard. It transmitted a map of the area from an Umbrella satellite in orbit. A signal from a tiny device in the vehicle’s undercarriage was sent up to the satellite, allowing the satellite’s computer to add a red flashing dot to indicate where their SUV was on the map. A similar transmitter at their destination was also transmitting to the satellite, and it was indicated by a solid blue light.
All in all, the various transmissions and equipment cost upwards of a million dollars, just to do something that Mike could’ve fucking well accomplished by looking out his tinted window and seeing the giant house belonging to Dr. Charles Ashford, at which Peterson was pulling up.
The computer display was kind enough to tell them that Ashford was a Level 6 employee of the Science Division, and that this was a high priority extraction. All of which Mike fucking well knew, since it was why they were driving this fancy-ass SUV through Raccoon City at oh-God-early in the fucking morning.
But Umbrella wasn’t happy unless they were spending a lot of money on stupid shit. That’s what big corporations did.
As long as Mike’s own paycheck cleared, they could overspend all they fucking wanted.
Now, if they could just partner him with someone who wasn’t a fucking prude and didn’t crack his fucking gum all the time.
Peterson pulled into the driveway, neatly placing the SUV smack in the middle and perfectly straight.
Whatever his other flaws, Peterson was a fucking good driver. Handy skill for a wheelman.
“Who is this guy, anyhow?” Peterson asked as he climbed out of the SUV.
“One of the high fucking muckety-mucks in the Science Division.”
“Which means what, exactly?”
“Means he’s a lot smarter than either of us, makes