Free Resident Evil: Underworld by S. D. Perry

path. Rebecca touched it, frowning—and felt the pebbled surface of the dust, the tiny ridges and whorls like sandpaper beneath her fingers. It was painted or sprayed on—that is, fake.
    “Might have something,” she whispered, and touched the window where the smudge was. The window popped open, swinging out—
    —and there was a sparkling metal square behind it, a ten-key set into an extremely undusty-looking panel; the graph paper was also fake, just a part of the glass.
    “Bingo,” John whispered from behind her, and Rebecca stepped back, feeling a flush of excitement as the others gathered around, feeling the tension coming from all of them. The mist of their combined breath made a small cloud in the freezing room, reminding her of how cold she was.
    Too cold… we should go back to the van, back to the hotel for a hot bath… She could hear the desperation in her inner voice. It wasn’t the cold, it was this place.
    “Brilliant,” David said softly, and stepped forward, holding his flashlight up. He’d memorized Trent’s codes, eleven in all, each eight digits long.
    “It’ll be the last one, watch,” John whispered. Rebecca might have laughed if she wasn’t so scared.
    John fell silent as they watched him plug in the first numbers, Rebecca thinking that if they didn’t work she wouldn’t be all that disappointed.
    * * *
    Jackson had called, informing Reston in his cool, cultured tones that two four-man teams were on their way by helicopter from Salt Lake City. “It so happens that our branch office was entertaining a few of the troops,” he’d said. “We have Trent to thank for that; he suggested that we start relocating some of our security in advance of the grand opening, so to speak.”
    Reston had been glad to hear it, but wasn’t so happy about the fact that they were there , three armed men and two women poking around the Planet’s entrance in the middle of the night—
    “They can’t get in, Jay,” he’d interrupted, gently, soothingly. “They don’t have access.”
    Reston had swallowed his knee-jerk response to that, thanking him instead. Jackson Cortlandt was probably the most patronizing and arrogant son of a bitch Reston had ever known, but he was also extremely competent—and extremely savage if need be; the last man who’d crossed Jackson had been mailed to his family in pieces. Saying “No shit” to the senior member was akin to walking off a tall building.
    Jackson had then made it quite clear that while he appreciated the call, it would be best for Jay to handle such matters himself in the future—that if he’d bothered to keep himself apprised of internal shiftings, he would have known about the teams in SLC. There was no explicit wrist-slapping, but Reston got the message all the same; he hung up feeling as though he’d been severely chastised; watching the five interlopers search the entry building only added to his mounting tension.
    No codes, no access, even if they find the controls.
    Twenty minutes. All he had to do was wait for twenty minutes, half an hour at the outside. Reston took a deep breath, blowing it out slowly—
    —and forgot to inhale again as he saw one of them, a girl, push on the window to the keypad. They’d found it, and he still didn’t know who they were or how they knew about the Planet—but the way one of the men stepped forward and started punching keys suggested that twenty minutes could be too long to wait for help.
    He’s guessing, random numbers, it’s not possible —
    Reston watched the tall, dark-haired man continue to tap in numbers and thought about what Trent had said at their last gathering. That White Umbrella might have a leak.
    An information leak, from someone high up. Someone who might know the entry codes .
    He reached for the phone again and then stopped, Jackson’s subtle warning making him break out in a light sweat. He had to handle it, he had to keep them from getting in, but everyone was asleep and there