He felt a creeping amazement take the place of the whirling, terrible thoughts, the confusion ebbing, the waters of his mind becoming clear again. "That's not funny," he said. After a beat, they both started to laugh.

The farther away they got from the front of the concrete block, the less noxious the air, for which Rebecca was deeply grateful. She'd been seconds away from vomiting herself, the smell was that bad – a greasy, oily stench that seemed almost tangible, an entity in itself. As they moved quietly through the well-lit hall, she found herself thinking again about Nicolas Griffith, about the story of the Marburg victims and al– though there was no proof that he was behind the mass slaughter of the Umbrella people, she couldn't shake the feeling that he was responsible. The corridor led them past several open rooms, each as barren and sterile as the building they'd come from. They passed an exit at the far side of the block, and after another turn in the hall, finally came to a door marked again with the letter A, and below it, 1-4. There were three triangles beneath the numbers, each a different color – red, green, and blue. David opened the door, revealing a much shorter hall, stark fluorescent light spilling into the stale dark-ness; there were two doors, one on either side. Steve found the lights and turned them on, and Rebecca saw that there were more of the colored triangles on the door to their right. The other was blank. "I'll take the test," David said. "Steve, you and Rebecca check out the other room, we'll meet back here."

Rebecca nodded, saw Steve do the same. He looked a little pale, but seemed steady enough, though he dropped his gaze when he noticed her looking. She felt a pang of sympathy for him, realizing that he was probably embarrassed for losing his lunch. They opened the unlabeled door and stepped into yet another windowless room, as stuffy and warm as the rest of the building. Rebecca turned on the lights and a rather large office lined with bookshelves flick-ered into view. A steel desk sat in one corner next to a filing cabinet, the empty drawers standing open. Steve sighed. "Looks like another bust," he said. "You want the desk or shelves?" Rebecca shrugged. "Shelves, I guess." He grinned almost shyly. "Just as well. Maybe I can find some breath mints or something in one of the drawers."

Rebecca smiled, glad that he'd made the joke.

"Save me one. I swallowed it down back there, but it was a close call."

They locked gazes, still smiling and Rebecca felt a tiny shiver of excitement run through her as the second stretched, lingering a few beats longer than a more casual exchange. Steve looked away first, but his color had returned, his cheeks slightly pinker than before. He moved to the desk and Rebecca turned to face a row of books, feeling a little flushed herself. There was a definite attraction there, and it seemed to be mutual -

–and it's only about the worst time and place to

consider it, her mind snapped. Secure that shit, pronto. The books were about what she might've expected, considering what they knew about the Trisquads and Umbrella. Chemistry, biology, a whole set of leather– bound texts on behavior modification, several medi– cal journals. As Steve rummaged through the desk behind her, she ran her hand along the row, pushing the books toward the back of the shelf as she glanced over the titles. Maybe there was something hidden behind one of them.

… sociology, Pavlov, psych, psych, pathology…

She stopped, frowning at a slender black volume tucked between two larger books. No title. She pulled it out and felt her heart speed up as she opened the small book, seeing the spidery handwriting on the lined pages. She flipped to the front, saw "Tom Athens" written in neat letters on the inside cover. One of the guys on the list, one of the researchers! "Hey, I found a diary," she said. "It belongs to one of the people from Trent's list, Tom Athens."

Steve looked up from the desk, his dark eyes flash– ing. "No shit? Go to the back, what's the last date?" Rebecca ruffled through the pages to the end, scan-ning as she went. "Says July 18, but it doesn't look like he kept it regular. The one before that is July 9…" "Just read the last entry," Steve said. "Maybe it'll tell us what was going on."

She walked to the desk and leaned against it, clearing her throat.

" 'Juty 18, Saturday. It's been a long and ridiculous day, the end of a long and ridiculous week. I swear to God, I'm going to beat the crap out of Louis if he calls one more stupid meeting. Today it was whether or not we should add a new scenario into the Trisquad program, as if we need another one. All he really wanted was to get it on paper, and the rest of it was his usual bullshit – the importance of teamwork, the need to share information so we can all "stay on the right track." I mean, Jesus, it's like he can't live with the concept that a weekly might go out without his name on it. And he hasn't done dick since the Ma7 disaster, except to try and convince everyone that it was Chin's fault; so much for not speaking ill of the dead. Sanctimonious prick." " 'Alan and I talked over the implants yesterday, that's going well. He's going to write up the proposal this week, and we're NOT going to let Louis touch it. With any luck, we'll get a green light by the end of the month. Alan figures the White boys are going to want to run it past Birkin, though God only knows why; B. doesn't give a shit what we're doing out here, he's off being brilliant again. I have to admit, I'm looking forward to his next synthesis; maybe we can work out some of the bugs in the Trisquads."

" 'There was a minor scare in D on Wednesday, in 101. Somebody left the refrigerator open, and Kim swears that there are some chemicals missing, though I'm starting to think she miscounted again. Hard to believe she's in charge of the infection process, the woman's a dite and she's sloppy as hell when it comes to maintaining the equipment. I'm surprised she hasn't managed to infect the entire com– pound. God knows there's enough in there to do it." " 'I should probably get over to D myself, make sure everything's ready for tomorrow. Got a new batch shipping in, and Griffith actually asked to watch the process; first time he's come out of the lab in weeks, first time he's ever taken an interest in what the rest of us are doing. I know it's stupid, but I still want him to be impressed; he's as brilliant as Birkin, in his own creepy way. I think he even intimidates Louis, and Louis is generally too stupid to scare." " 'More later.'"

The rest of the pages were blank. Rebecca looked up at Steve, not sure what to say, her mind working to glean the relevant bits of information from the ram-bling tirade. There was something in there that both– ered her, something that she couldn't quite place. Missing chemicals. Infection process. The brilliant, creepy Dr. Griffith… She no longer had any doubt that Griffith had killed the others, but that wasn't what sent her internal alarms jangling. It was… "Block D," Steve said, a look of anxious fear playing across his face. "If we're in A, Karen and John are in D."

Where there's enough of the T-Virus to infect the entire compound. Where the infection process took place. "We should tell David," Rebecca said, and Steve nodded, both of them moving quickly for the door, Rebecca hoping desperately that John and Karen wouldn't find room 101 and that if they did, they wouldn't touch anything that could hurt them.

The test room was big, three of the walls lined with open-ended cubicles. Once he'd turned on the lights, he saw that the tests were clearly numbered and color– coded, the symbols painted on the cement floor in front of each one. All of the red series was on his left, closest to the door. He saw brightly colored blocks and simple shapes on the tables in each cubicle as he walked past, heading for the back of the room. The green series lined the wall opposite, though he ignored it entirely. The back wall was marked with blue triangles, the number four test in the far right corner. As he neared the back of the room, he heard a faint hum of power coming from the blue test area. There was a small computer on the table in number two, a keyboard and headset in three. As promised, the series was activated – though what they were con– nected to, he couldn't imagine.