Genesis - Keith R. A. DeCandido [32]
"Allowed, no, but it's usually the only time you do call me. Besides, ever since you quit the marshals you've been penny-pinching. You wouldn't make a long-distance call unless it was an emergency."
"Well, it's not a long-distance call, actually, I'm in Raccoon."
Lisa blinked in mock-surprise. "What brings you out here?"
"Oh, just a visit. Got restless in San Francisco, so I thought I'd come up and visit my favorite sister."
"I'm your only sister, Matt."
"Okay, so it was easy to rank you first. Doesn't change the fact that I came up to see you. Can you get away? I can be there in two hours."
That was the important part. She had arranged to meet with Alice this morning in the mansion. Matt just informed her that he, too, could be at the mansion this morning—specifically two hours from now. That was perfect.
However, she still had a role to play. After all, she'd taken her leave for the month when she and Alice had lunch. "Damn, I can't today. I'd have to run it by my boss. Maybe tomorrow?"
"Maybe? Geez, Lisa, what're you doing down there, the Manhattan Project Part 2?"
Lisa swallowed. In a way, Mart's joke hit closer to home than she was entirely comfortable with. The T-virus was as deadly as the atomic bomb. Maybe deadlier.
Before she could reply to that, a high-pitched buzzing started.
"What's that noise?" Matt asked suddenly.
Sighing, Lisa said, "It's nothing. Fire drill."
"You're in a hole in the ground; what do they need with fire drills?"
"So we don't die a horrible death when something catches fire here in our hole in the ground. Look, call me back tomorrow morning, okay? I've got to go do the drill."
"Yeah, fine. Bye, sis."
Hanging up, Lisa got up and grabbed her gray suit jacket off the back of her chair. In some ways, this worked in her favor. The mild chaos of a fire drill would make it that much easier for her to sneak off and meet with Alice.
Along with everyone else, she headed toward the fire exit. The space that held her desk had two ways out, one toward the elevator bay, with fire stairs between the elevators and the fake windows; the other in the back leading to another set of stairs. The one by the elevator bay was wider and better lit, so everyone headed there.
Before she got to the bay, however, she saw a crowd congregating in the hall. Why weren't they moving forward?
"What's the problem?" she asked as she put on her jacket, flipping her dirty-blond hair out from under the jacket's collar.
"The doors won't open."
Lisa blinked. She peered through the crowd to see that the PlastiGlas doors had shut, blocking access to the elevator bay. That wasn't supposed to happen until after the room was evacuated, unless there was an actual fire that necessitated sealing the room to prevent a spread.
"What about the ones at the back?" Lisa asked.
One of the new Technical Support guys said, "Locked as well."
This was going in a direction Lisa didn't like in the least. She was as familiar with the fire-suppression systems as anyone, and she ran through it in her head: the room was evacuated, sealed, and then flooded with halon gas until the fire went out. The halon would suck the oxygen out of the room, thus starving the fire.
The problem, of course, was that the gas would also starve any animal life of oxygen, which was why the system was designed not to seal the room until after the evacuation was complete. The sole exception to this was if the fire was so out of control that the lives of anyone inside would be just as forfeit if they weren't sealed in the room.
But there was no fire. And Lisa knew for a fact that the systems were working just fine.
Something was horribly wrong.
Several nightmare scenarios went through Lisa's head at once.
One was that they had traced her, and had sealed off this section, not because of a fire drill, but in order to make sure she herself didn't go anywhere.
Another was that the Red Queen was malfunctioning in some way, which would be even more of a problem, since