Free Genesis by Keith R. A. DeCandido Page A

okay. At least he had a job . . .
    The residence they provided for him in the Hive was actually nicer than his apartment in downtown Raccoon City had been, and the cafeteria was well stocked. Mark could barely boil water, and the idea of living somewhere where the food was provided appealed to him greatly.
    On this, his first morning at the new job, he had only a cup of coffee. Never much of a breakfast eater, Mark really only needed his morning caffeine to get himself started, and that did him until he took lunch at around one or so. The cafeteria had a nice French roast, and he had served himself a cup with some milk and Equal.He didn’t bother with a lid—he preferred his coffee lukewarm, and leaving the top exposed cooled it down faster.
    He headed toward the elevator that would take him from the cafeteria level to his office in Pharmaceuticals, coffee securely in his right hand, the gray jacket of his brand-new suit slung over his right arm.
    Someone collided with his back, sending him stumbling forward, and jostling his right arm.
    A sharp stab of heat seeped into his chest right over his heart where the still-hot coffee spilled on his new white shirt, and a great deal of the liquid splattered onto the jacket he had over his right arm as well.
    Mark looked up to see the retreating form of the person who had bumped him, moving purposefully down the hall, not having even broken stride after the collision.
    â€œThank you!” Mark cried out in annoyance, but whoever it was didn’t even turn around.
    Finishing his approach to the elevator bank, Mark inspected the damage. His ID badge, clipped to his shirt pocket, was dripping coffee, and the stain had gone through both his white shirt and his undershirt. He’d paid hundreds of dollars for this suit.
    Next time, Mark promised himself, he was going to grab a lid.
    A pretty young woman with curly hair looked at Mark with sympathy.
    â€œSome people,” she said sympathetically.
    â€œYeah,” Mark muttered. He looked up from hisstained clothing to see that the woman had big, beautiful eyes. He ventured a smile. “It’s a brand-new shirt.”
    â€œNew suit too?” she asked.
    Mark wondered if his first-day jitters were that obvious. “Yeah. First day.”
    The woman nodded. “Men don’t usually get that worked up over a stain like that unless the suit’s new.”
    Chuckling, Mark said, “Yeah, well, I’ve hardly gotten to use it.”
    He looked down at her ID badge, which gave her name as Ella Fontaine. Mark wondered idly if she was single. Not that there was good reason to wonder this, since he knew damn well that he’d never work up the courage to actually ask her out if she was. The only dates he’d gone on since college were those train-wreck blind dates Jack and Eleanor had set him up with over the last couple of years which, if anything, made his fear of talking to women even more pronounced.
    With a low chime, the elevator announced its arrival. A man in a gray suit exited, and Mark, Ella, a woman in the white shirt, pants, and coat indicating someone who worked in one of the labs, and a few others got on. A wretched Muzak rendition of Simon & Garfunkel’s “Sound of Silence” wafted over the speakers
    About two seconds after the elevator started moving, it lurched to a halt again. The display had just flipped from 11 to 10. A shrill tone sounded, catching Mark off guard.
    â€œWhat is that?”
    â€œFire drill,” Ella said matter-of-factly. “Looks like we’ll be taking the stairs.”
    â€œTaking them where?” Mark asked. “We’re underground.”
    â€œUp.” She spoke with the tone of someone who had been through the process dozens of times. “There’s a section on the top level that has another staircase that leads to the main office in downtown Raccoon. We usually don’t have to go that far, though, just to the