Genesis - Keith R. A. DeCandido [23]
Before departing the lab, the figure tossed the vial toward the center of the room, then turned, exited, and closed and locked the door.
The vial tumbled end over end through the air in a graceful arc until it collided with the edge of one of the metal desks.
Glass shattered. Interior tubing broke. Shards splayed out onto the cold metal floor, blue liquid pooling around it.
A miasma emitted from the blue liquid into the air.
It headed toward the air-conditioning vents.
Maintaining as complex an underground system as the Hive required tremendous feats of engineering. It also required a beyond-top-of-the-line air-conditioning system that regulated the constant flow of oxygen and carbon dioxide in proper amounts to keep the five hundred people living and working there alive and comfortable—not to mention the assorted lab animals and guard dogs.
It was an efficient system—it had to be, or the Hive would not be viable.
So it didn't take long at all for the T-virus to make its deadly way through the complex.
The Red Queen, still literal-minded, had not blinked when the figure removed all the samples of the deadliest virus ever created by the human race, because the figure had entered all the right security codes.
But when that same virus was detected in the air of the Hive, there was only one thing she could do.
Evacuating the Hive would not be practical. It was physically impossible to remove all five hundred and twenty-three human beings from the underground complex without risking the virus spreading.
Which meant that the those human beings were as good as dead, as was any other living creature within the Hive that breathed the air provided by the beyond-top-of-the-line air-conditioning system.
The Red Queen's first directive was self-preservation, which meant preservation of the Hive.
She began the process of sealing off the Hive. That would take about fifteen minutes.
Then she'd do the rest.
Seven
MARK TORVALDSEN LOVED HIS JOB.
He'd just started working for the Umbrella Corporation, and today was his first day in the Hive, Umbrella's state-of-the-art underground facility. True, he had to live in a big hole in the ground. On the other hand, he had a five-year guaranteed contract and was working in his dream job. The research and development he'd be doing in Pharmaceuticals put him on the cutting edge of his field.
The best part, though, was the five-year contract.
Through high school and college, Mark had formed several close friendships, primary among them being Vince Markinson, Jack Annichiarico, and Eleanor Wu. The "awesome foursome" they called themselves, and they'd been inseparable throughout their teen years, attended each others' major life events—including Vince's wedding to his on-again-off-again girlfriend, and Jack's and Eleanor's wedding to each other—and still got together once a month for their Bad Movie Night.
Unfortunately, Bad Movie Night had been getting to be somewhat depressing of late. After making big bucks during the dot-com boom doing Quality Assurance for companies who thought that acquiring a cool-sounding URL was the ticket to fame and fortune, Vince soon lost first his job, then his wife. Two years later, he was struggling to find freelance work, and seriously considering taking a job driving a cab. Jack, after moving from computer programming to management, found himself out of work, and his programming skills too out of date to make him employable in a depressed economy. Just last week, Eleanor was downsized when the accounting firm she worked for decided to cut costs.
Meanwhile, Mark was living in fear of his own employment prospects by the growing instability of his own company. Profits were down, and it looked very likely that the company was going to go under.
Instead, the company was bought by its primary competitor: the Umbrella Corporation.
Shortly thereafter, they dissolved the company and laid off all of the employees. But some were offered new positions within Umbrella.