Genesis - Keith R. A. DeCandido [41]
Lieutenant D'Addario had warned her. He said that you have to have a dick to be in S.W.A.T. and you have to be a dick to run it. "And Karl Fischer," D'Addario had said, "he's the biggest dick with the smallest dick, and he won't let you anywhere near S.W.A.T., even if you wear a strap-on."
Rain didn't listen to D'Addario. She tried anyhow. She did everything right.
They still didn't let her on. She was too much of a risk, Fischer said. Young, attractive Latina chick, the guys'd be too busy asking her out and playing Sir Fucking Galahad and not focusing on the job.
Fischer looked her in the eye and said, "Only way you get on S.W.A.T. is if the whole unit gets taken over by queers, and that shit ain't happenin' on my watch."
She went back to her precinct, back to her patrol car. D'Addario made her a training officer, gave her a second stripe, and had her take the rookies under her wing. It was the best he could offer her, and it was jackshit as far as she was concerned.
The only reason she'd even gone to the fucking academy was so that she could join S.W.A.T. She promised herself that she'd be the first woman to make it.
Captain Fischer nailed that dream to the wall.
Unable to face another day getting into that god-damn patrol car with some green-ass rookie, she quit.
Two weeks later, a hot-looking black guy with a deep voice said he wanted to hire her. She'd get to do everything S.W.A.T. did, except she'd get paid about eight billion times what the LAPD would cough up. The only catch was moving to Raccoon City.
What the fuck—she wanted to get out of California anyhow.
Sticking her Colt at the temple of Detective Matthew Addison of the RCPD, she forced him forward. Maybe he was a legit cop. In L.A., she would've pegged his ass for a fake—he looked more like the kind of guy they cast as detectives in crappy action movies—but some of the gold shields in Raccoon looked like this motherfucker, so maybe he was for real.
He still didn't have any business in the mansion. This was Umbrella's turf. The locals usually knew better than to fuck around with the big company.
Kaplan had opened the door that was disguised as a mirror. They filed in, Warner taking point, Vance and J.D. right behind him. Then One and the Abernathy woman, followed by Danilova the medic, then Rain and Addison, with Kaplan bringing up the rear.
They proceeded down the wide concrete staircase even as the mirror doors closed behind them. Within seconds, they arrived at the train station. Piles of trunks, crates, and boxes, most labelled with Umbrella's funky logo, were all over the place, but there was a clear path to the single-car train that went back and forth to the Hive.
When they got to the bottom of the stairs, Alice asked, "What is this place?"
Rain shook her head. Alice had always come across to Rain as a stuck-up bitch. Now she was being a stupid stuck-up bitch.
"It's a train station," J.D. said, as if she was an idiot. "You lose your eyesight as well as your memory?"
Then again, it was hardly the bitch's fault that the stupid-ass computer gassed her. Rain had no idea what the fuck the little-kid computer was thinking. Then again, if they'd known that, One wouldn't have needed to bring the team in in the first place.
Addison stopped walking. Rain shoved him forward. "Move it!"
"Enough, Rambette, I get the picture."
"Real fuckin' original, Detective." Rain got enough stupid Rambo jokes from L.A. cops—and those were the ones who liked her. "Mouth off again and I'll blow your fucking head off."
Before Addison could give her an excuse, Alice spoke up again. She was standing with her arms folded. Rain actually saw a glimmer of the intimidating woman that Rain knew Alice was capable of being, though the effect was pretty much wiped out by that froofy dress she was wearing.
"Somebody tell me what's going on here or we're not taking another step."
One walked up to her and looked her right in the eye. The first time Rain was on the receiving end of that don't-fuck-with-me look was also the last—mainly because, even