Genesis - Keith R. A. DeCandido [42]
"You'll get your briefing, soldier, when I'm ready to give it to you."
To her credit, Alice didn't back down. Rain had to admit, the bitch had balls.
Amazingly, One broke the stare first, turning to the others. "Warner, Vance, load the train. J.D., set the timer. Kaplan, get the engine going."
By this time, everyone had removed their gas masks. If Alice and this Addison asshole were up and about, there was nothing to worry about on that score. Yet. Besides, those things really fucked up your peripheral vision.
J.D. reached into one of the pouches in his uniform and pulled out a metal bar, which he attached to the wall. It gave a digital reading that matched the one on Rain's wrist, and on everyone else's wrist: 2:48:42. A second later, it was 2:48:41.
That was how long they had to find out what the fuck was up in the Hive.
Kaplan ran to the train, which sat parked on the tracks, with no lights coming from it. One went in next, followed by Rain, pushing Addison ahead of her. J.D. and Alice came in behind them. The train was mostly one big space, with two trapdoors in the floor for access to the undercarriage. One of those trapdoors was open. Aside from some metal tubes tied up and hanging from the ceiling in one corner, the train was empty.
The first thing Kaplan did was go to the tiny engineer's alcove up front. He pushed a few buttons, then turned around. "Power's down."
One turned to Rain. "So fix it."
She smiled. "I'm on it."
Rain nodded to J.D., who nodded right back, unholstered his Smith & Wesson pistol, and pointed it at Addison's head.
Only then did Rain holster her own pistol and remove a small flashlight. Placing it between her teeth, she jumped down the open trapdoor. The rails themselves were raised about two feet over the ground, making it a shitload easier to do under-train maintenance.
Removing the flashlight from her teeth, she flicked it on and shone it at the bottom of the train.
It didn't take long to dope out why the power was down. Four of the giant plug junctions were hanging uselessly from the bottom of the train, and the main circuit to the third rail was disconnected.
Rain frowned. Some asshole had deliberately jumped under the train and cut the power. Didn't even bother to shut the trapdoor. Was the train in for maintenance, or did someone want the train out of commission?
However, she didn't give it much thought. That was why she never tried for detective—thinking wasn't her thing, kicking ass and taking names was. Or just kicking ass and let them keep their own fucking names.
Putting the flashlight back in her mouth and shining it on the plugs, she reattached the male plugs to the female plugs.
Then she heard the noise.
At first she thought it was something slithering. Or maybe it was water dripping.
She squatted down so she could see under the rails, shining the flashlight in front of her.
All she saw was a dead end. At that dead end was an old wireframe vent that had what looked like a rat-chewed hole in it.
She shook her head. Multimillion-dollar multinational fucking corporation, but their basements are just as shitty as a housing development in Watts.
The noise was still there, but it was faint. Probably the damn rats. She stood up, not giving it another thought.
"You done yet?"
Rain whirled around, her right hand moving to her gun holster, and almost pulling it out before her brain registered that the voice belonged to J.D., who was hanging upside down from the train.
He hit her with that dumbass grin of his. "Jumpy."
She hit him right back with as close an approximation of One's don't-fuck-with-me look as she could manage.
Then she reattached the train to the third rail, sending sparks out through the undercarriage.
"Whoa!" J.D. cried, and high-tailed it back to the inside of the car.
Rain grinned. She and J.D. came to the company together, but he was a Navy SEAL who'd been doing wet-work