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.A low light flickered on,David hooding his flashlight with one hand, justenough for them to see that they were surrounded byboxes.Big ones, small ones, cardboard and wood,stacked on shelves and on the floor all the way up tothe slanted ceiling.In the brief second that Davidshone the light across the mammoth room, they sawthat there had to be thousands of them."I'm going to see what I can do about the door andcut the lights," David said."Find us a place to hide.It's our best option until we know how many thereare, what scenario they're employing.They mighthave spook eyes, the floor's no good - somewherehigh up and in a corner.Shelves would be best.Gotit?"They both nodded and the light went out, leavingthem in a complete darkness; before, she could atleast make out shapes and shadows.Now, Rebeccacouldn't see her hand in front of her face."Which corner?" Claire whispered, as if the chillblack nothing they stood in demanded silence.Rebecca reached out and found Claire's hand,placing it against her back."Left.We go left until werun into something."She heard a whisper of movement behind them, asDavid went about his preparations.Taking a deepbreath, Rebecca put her hands out in front of her andstarted to edge forward.Every door off of the lengthy corridor was locked,with the exception of a utility closet past the elevator;there, they found absolutely nothing of interest, un-less shelves of paper towels and styrene coffee cupswere interesting.They'd tried the elevator again, withno luck, and there didn't seem to be a fuse box oroverride switch anywhere near it.Not surprising, butLeon still felt a pang of distress.The other three wereprobably really worried. .and you're not? What if something went wrongup there? Maybe the "test" part of this place is above-ground.And maybe Reston unleashed some of Umbrel-la's warrior specimens up there, and right now Claireis."What say if we run across one more locked door,we use up our grenades? I've got two of 'em," Johnsaid, looking irritated.They'd just tried the ninthdoor in the silent hall, and were almost to the north-ernmost curve.For all they knew, they'd alreadypassed Reston, or the passage that would lead them tohim."Let's at least see what's around the corner beforewe start blowing things up," Leon said, though he wasalso losing patience.It wasn't that he'd mind damag-ing some Umbrella property, but that just wasn't thepriority - reuniting the team was.They'd alreadydecided that if they didn't find him soon, they'd goback to the cafeteria and try to get one of the workersto fix the elevator, and to hell with Reston; themission would be a bust, but at least they'd all be aliveto fight another day.Assuming we're all still alive now.They reached the corner and paused, John raisingthe M-16 and lowering his voice."I'll cover."Leon nodded, moving closer to the inner wall."Onthree.One.two.three."He took a running step away from the wall, drop-ping into a crouch and pointing his semi down thewest leg of the corridor as John whipped the riflearound the corner.The hall was a lot shorter, no morethan sixty feet, dead-ending in an open, doorlessroom.There was a door on the left.and somebody moved across the opening at theend of the hall, the darting shape of a man.Reston.Leon saw him, a thin guy, not too tall, wearing jeansand a blue work shirt.Mr.Blue, just like theysaid."Hold it!" John shouted, and Reston turned,startled and weaponless.He saw the M-16 andjumped away from the double-wide opening, maybeheading for an exit -- and Leon ran, pumping his arms for speed, Johnquickly passing him in a full-on sprint.They wereinside the room in a flash and there was Reston,pushing desperately at a door on the right.He threw aterrified glance over his shoulder as they barreled intothe room, his eyes wide with panic."It won't open!" He screamed, his voice on theedge of hysteria."Open the door!" Who's he talking to?"Give it up, Reston," John growled -- and behind them, a metal sheet crashed downover the opening, shutting them into the room with abrutal, heavy dang.Leon looked down, saw that thefloor was plate steel and felt the first stab of unease.Reston spun around, his hands in the air, hisnarrow features contorted with fear."I'm not him,not Reston," he babbled, his pale face slick withsweat -- and behind them, a face appeared at the windowin the metal door, distorted by the thick plexiglass butobviously grinning.An older man, dressed in a darkblue suit.Oh, no.The man looked away for a moment, one handreaching up to touch something Leon couldn't seeand a smooth, cultured voice floated into the roomfrom a speaker in the ceiling."Sorry, Henry," the man said, his moving facewarped by the glass."And allow me to introducemyself.I'm Jay Reston.And whoever you are, I'mvery glad to meet you.Welcome to the Planet's testprogram."Leon looked at John, who was still pointing his rifleat the near hysterical Henry.John looked back at him,and Leon could see the awareness dawning in his darkeyes, even as it dawned on him.They were in extremely deep shit.Yes!Reston laughed giddily.The gunmen were trapped,and the three on the surface were probably alreadybeing picked up by the teams - he'd handled hissituation, and handled it brilliantly.Of course it's no fun if there's no one around toappreciate it.but then, I have a captive audience,don't I?"We're not scheduled to go on line for anothertwenty-three days," Reston said, smiling widely, al-ready imagining the look on Sidney's bloated face."At which time, I was going to host the initial run ofour carefully designed program for a group of ex-tremely important people.It was going to be speci-men only, we hadn't planned on putting humansthrough the phases for a while yet, let alone soldiers.But now, thanks to you, I'll be able to show my littleparty actual footage of what our specimens werecreated for.By now, your friends on the surface willhave been taken, sad to say - but the three of you willsuffice, I think.Yes, you'll do quite nicely."Reston laughed again, unable to contain it."You may want to kill Henry before you start, though, he'llonly drag you down - and he did lure you in, didn'the?""You bastard!"Henry Cole pushed away from the wall and flew atthe door, pounding on it with his fists.The two-inchmetal didn't even rattle in the frame
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