He noticed Jill's expression and shrugged, grinning.

"Yeah, I know. It's some kind of computer signal, I don't know how it works. Great news, except to get the trolley running we're going to need a couple of things – a power cable and one of those old-fashioned electrical fuses, to start with. Mikhail told me there was a repair shop over here; he's one of the platoon leaders, he got a good look at a map before we landed…"

Carlos frowned, then nodded to himself as if he'd solved some puzzle. "Nicholai must have seen a map, too, that would explain why he didn't need directions." "Carlos, Mikhail, Nicholai – Umbrella doesn't dis-criminate based on nationality, does it?" Jill made the joke offhandedly, mostly to cover a deepening sense of unease. She thought Carlos was decent at heart, but two more Umbrella soldiers, one of them a platoon leader – what were the odds that all three were stand-up guys who had been misled by their employer? Um-brella was the enemy, she couldn't lose focus of that. Carlos was already walking away, his attention fixed on the raised red car. "If they were doing any electrical checks, there should be… there, that's what I'm look-ing for!"

It seemed that Carlos had seen the cable he wanted in the tangle of cords and wires spilling out from under the hood, some of them hooked to machines Jill didn't recognize, some just trailing on the oily ce-ment. "Careful," Jill said, moving to join him as he reached up and grabbed one of the cables, dark green. She had an instinctive mistrust of electrical equipment and vaguely believed that people who messed around with wires were just asking to be electrocuted. "No problem," Carlos said easily. "Only a real ba-boso would leave any of these hooked up to the…"

Crack! An orange-white spark spat out from one of the trail-ing wires, loud and bright and as explosive as a gun-shot. Before Jill could draw breath, the cement floor was on fire – no gradual build, no sense of expansion, it was just suddenly and completely ablaze, the flames two, three feet high and rising. "This way!" Jill shouted, running toward the open door that led into the office, the oil-fed fire blasting heat against her bare skin, when it hits the car's gas tank it's going to blow, we gotta get out of here…

Carlos was right behind her, and as they ran into the office, Jill felt her blood run cold. Screw the car, the car was nothing compared to what was going to happen when the fire got to the underground tanks in front of the station. A chain pulley hung next to the steel shutter that blocked the front door. Jill ran for it, but Carlos was one step ahead. He snatched the chain and pulled, hand over hand, the shutter inching slowly upward in spite of the frantic rattle of metal links. "Drop and crawl," Carlos said, raising his voice to be heard over the clanking, over the oceanlike rumble of spreading fire in the shop.

"Carlos, the tanks outside…" "I know, now move!"

The bottom of the shutter was a foot and a half from the ground. Jill dropped, flattening herself against the cold floor, shouting up to Carlos before she belly-crawled outside.

"Leave it, it's good enough!"

Then she was through, stumbling to her feet, reaching around to grab Carlos's hand and pulling him up after her. Inside the shop, something ex-ploded, a dull whoomp of sound, maybe a gas can or that cabinet full of machine oil, Jesus I must be cursed doomed something things keep blowing up around me… Carlos grabbed her arm, snapping her out of her wild-eyed freeze. "Come on!" She didn't need to be told twice. With the rising light pouring from the machine shop's windows, illuminat-ing in manic orange the heaped corpses of at least eight virus carriers, she ran, Carlos beside her. The gridlock was bad, the street jammed, no clear path for them to make time. Jill could feel the seconds fly as they struggled through the maze of dead metal and blank, staring glass. The first real explosion and the sound of shattering windows behind them was too close, we're not far enough yet, but all they could do was what they were doing – that and pray that the fire would somehow miss the main tanks.

Maybe we should take cover, maybe we're out of the blast radius and…

Somehow, she didn't hear it – or rather, she heard a sudden, total absence of sound. Too focused on wend-ing through the silent traffic in the dark, the rush of blood in her ears, the passing time, perhaps. All she knew was that she was running, and then there was a mammoth wave of pressure that boosted her from be-hind, lifting her up and forward at once, the side of a beaten panel truck rushing at her and Carlos screaming something – and then there was nothing but blackness, nothing but a distant sun that lapped at the edges of her dark, sending her dreams of angry light.

Mikhail was sinking, descending into the fevered delirium that would undoubtedly kill him. All Nicholai had been able to get out of the dying man was that Car-los had gone to get equipment to repair the trolley, and that he would be back soon. If there was any more, Nicholai would have to wait until Mikhail's fever broke or Carlos returned, neither of which seemed likely. Mikhail was only going to get worse, and the deep, rumbling explosion that had quaked the ground beneath the trolley, that had preceded a lightening of the night sky to the north, suggested that there had been a fire at the gas station – not necessarily Carlos's fault, but Nicholai suspected that it probably was, and that Carlos Oliveira had burned to a crisp.

Which means I'll have to find a power cable myself if I want a ride to the hospital.

Irritating, but it couldn't be helped. Nicholai had found a box of spare fuses inside the station, as well as a five-gallon container of properly mixed machine oil, more than enough to get the cable car to the hospital

– but no power cable, no wiring at all with which to by-pass the shorted circuits. Nicholai wondered why Carlos hadn't thought to break into the station's main-tenance room, and decided it was probably due to an absence of imagination.

"No… no, it can't… fire! Fire at will, I think… I think…"

Nicholai looked up from his inspection of the trolley'scontrol panel, curious, but whatever Mikhail thought waslost as he dropped back into a troubled slumber, the an-cient bench creaking beneath his restless movements. Pa-thetic. He could at least babble out something interesting.Nicholai stood and stretched, turning toward thedoor. He'd already added the oil to the engine's rudi-mentary tank system, but he'd taken the wrong land offuse. He'd get another one on his way back into town,probably all the way back to that same damned parkinggarage where he'd tracked Mikhail; he'd noticed someshelves of equipment there. All of the running back andforth was becoming tiresome, but at least most of thecannibals in the area had already been killed, so itwouldn't take too long – and when he returned, hecould reward himself for his efforts by telling Mikhailwho was responsible for his impending death.He stepped out into the train's yard, thinkingvaguely about where he might sleep for the night,when he saw two figures stumbling toward the trolley,their forms half hidden in the sparse light from adying fire in the northwest corner of the yard. Theydrew closer, and he saw that Carlos had managed toescape death after all and had brought a woman withhim, undoubtedly the same woman who'd told himabout the trolley. Both were singed, their exposed skinreddened and grimy with ash; perhaps he hadn't beenthat far off the mark about who had started thatfire… and once again, let the games begin!"Carlos! Are you injured? Either of you?" Hestepped forward so they could see him clearly, couldsee the deep concern on his face.Carlos was obviously glad to see him. "No, I'm… we're both fine, just a little banged up. The gas stationcaught fire and blew. Jill blacked out for a minute ortwo, but she's…"