Genesis - Keith R. A. DeCandido [43]
She disabused him of that crazy-ass idea soon enough. Rain Melendez was no politically correct poster girl, and she put her badass skills against his badass skills any day of the week.
So did One—he assigned them to be partners. J.D. bitched and moaned for a week, but One said it was that or lose the job. He said it with the don't-fuck-with-me look.
J.D. went along. He gave her shit at every opportunity, but he went along. They trained together, and she kept up with his government-trained ass every step of the way.
Eventually, he admitted she had the shit. Within two weeks, they were a lean, mean fighting machine.
But he still gave her shit every chance he got.
As she clambered back up into the car, Warner and Drew were bringing a big-ass trunk on board. Probably that thing Kaplan needed to shut down the little-kid computer. Rain didn't know the details, and didn't give a rat's ass. That geek crap was Kaplan's thing.
Speaking of Kaplan, he stood by a red button. "Stand clear!" he yelled, then pushed it. The trapdoor closed.
One looked at Alice and Addison. "Sit on the floor. Stay out of the way."
They both hesitated, but eventually sat on the floor.
Kaplan got back into the engineer's cubbyhole. Seconds later, with a mild lurch, the train started moving.
Rain looked around, noticed that there was one other compartment besides the main one and the engineer's space. It was blocked off by a door.
When she tried to open it, it wouldn't budge. It had a handle knob, but the handle seemed to be stuck. She tried to move it several times, but nothing happened.
She stopped for a moment to catch her breath before trying again, only to notice that Addison and Alice were both staring at her. It almost looked like they were accusing her of something. Or maybe they were just rucked in the head.
Correction: Alice was fucked in the head, and the jury was out on the other asshole.
"You got a problem?" she asked angrily.
"How's that door?" One asked.
Tearing her gaze away from the pair, she said, "Sealed shut."
J.D. volunteered himself. "Let me."
Rain indicated the door with an exaggerated flourish. Let the macho asshole flex his muscle.
He gave her a wink. When they first started training together, she used that wink to goad herself to do better, in the hopes of wiping it off his fucking face. Now, she was pretty much used to it, and chalked it up to part of J.D.'s overall assholiness.
She took great satisfaction out of watching him struggle just as hard as she did with the door.
Then the son of a bitch yanked it open.
His head was down when he did it, so he didn't see the limp body inside the compartment until it fell on him.
"Damn!" J.D. cried as he pushed the form off him and whipped out his Smith & Wesson.
Next to Rain, One pointed his MP5K assault rifle at the man.
For her part, Rain just smiled at J.D. "Jumpy?"
J.D. gave her a fuck-you look. She just kept smiling. Bastard.
Rain recognized the guy after a minute—it was Alice's partner on mansion duty, that new asshole, Parks. Insisted everyone call him "Spence," since his first name was "Percival." Spent his first two weeks on the job hitting on Rain, and wouldn't take "fuck you" for an answer. He and Alice had to pretend to be married as part of their cover at the mansion, and she'd heard rumors. Most of them came from Warner, who said they were "maintaining the cover under the covers."
All Rain could think was, better Alice than her. Spence made her want to throw up.
She looked over at Alice, still sitting on the floor next to the cop. As Rain watched, Alice stared at Spence's left hand, then at her own.
The wedding ring.
Rain chuckled to herself as Alice took the ring off and read the inscription. If Rain remembered right, it said property of umbrella corporation inside the ring. Real fucking romantic. If Alice was still memory-loss-girl, reading that was gonna be a comedown.