She was still scrutinizing him, still wearing an expression of warmth and concern, and John realized he was being an idiot. Keeping that shit to oneself was a sure ticket to losing one's mind. "I was in the lab," he said, and Rebecca nodded, it was all he needed to say. She'd been there.

"I had one just a couple of days ago, right after we decided to leave Exeter," she said softly. "A real nasty one. It was kind of a combination, stuff from the Spencer lab and from the cove."

John nodded, thinking about what a remarkable young woman she was. She'd faced down a houseful of Umbrella monsters on her first S.T.A.R.S. mission, and had still decided to come with them to check out the cove when David had asked.

"You kick ass, 'becca. If I were a few years younger, I think it might be love," he said, and was pleased at her blushing, grinning reaction. She was probably smarter than him by half, but she was also a teenage girl – and if he remembered correctly from back in his day, teenage girls weren't adverse to hearing about how cool they were. "Shut up," she said, her tone of voice telling him that he had, in fact, thoroughly embarrassed her and that she didn't mind. A moment of comfortable silence rested between them, the last dregs of the nightmare fading as the cabin pressure fluctuated, the plane on its way down. In a few minutes, they'd be in Utah, of all places. David had already suggested that they get to a hotel and start making plans, that they would go in tomor– row night.

Go in, get the book, and then get the hell out.

Easy… except hadn't that pretty much been the plan

for the cove?

John decided that once they landed, he wanted to do a little more talking with Trent. He was up for the mission, for getting the book and throwing a few wrenches into Umbrella's works in the process -but he still wasn't happy with Trent's rather selective information. Yeah, the man was helping them, but why so weird about it? And why hadn't he told them what their Europe team was doing, or who was running White Umbrella, or how he'd known to put his own pilot on their charter?

Because he's on some power trip, that's why. Control freak.

That didn't seem quite right, but John couldn't think of any other reason that their Mr. Trent was being such a secret agent wannabe spy. Maybe if he got his arm twisted a little, he'd be more forth– coming…

"John, I know you don't like him, but do you

think he's right about this being a snap job? I mean,

what if this Reston won't give it up? Or what if… what

if something else happens?"

She was trying to sound professional, her tone light and easy, but the troubled look deep in her mild brown eyes gave her away.

Something else. Something like a viral spill, some-thing like a crazy scientist, something like biomonsters getting loose. Like the something that always happens around Umbrella… "If I have anything to say about it, the only thing that will go wrong is that Reston will shit himself and the smell will be terrible," he said, and was again rewarded with a grin from the young woman. "You're a dork," she said, and John shrugged, thinking how easy it was to make the girl smile and wondering if it was such a good idea to get her hopes up. A few moments later the small plane touched down easily and for the first time, the pilot used the inter– com system. He told them to remain seated until the plane had stopped and then clicked off, not bothering with the usual crap about how he hoped they'd enjoyed their flight or what the current temperature was; for that, at least, John was grateful. The small craft rolled across the tarmac, finally coming to a gentle stop, the team standing and stretching and putting on their coats. As soon as he heard the outer door pop, John stepped past Rebecca and walked to the front of the cabin, determined not to let Trent get off before they'd had a chance to chat. He pushed through the curtain, a cold wind blowing into the small passage behind the cockpit, and saw that he was too late. The pilot, Evans, was standing in the doorway to the cockpit by himself. Somehow, Trent had managed to slip away in the few seconds it took John to walk through the tiny plane. The metal stairs that had been pushed to the outside of the craft were empty – and even though John took the steps two at a time, hitting the ground in less than a heartbeat, there was still nothing to see in the endless stretch of tarmac, and no one at all except for the man who'd brought the stairs out. When asked about Trent, the airport worker insisted that the first person off the plane had been John himself. "Son of a bitch," John spat, and it didn't matter, because they were in Utah. Trent or no Trent, they had arrived – and because it was after midnight, they had less than a day to get ready.

FIVE

JAY RESTON WAS PLEASED. IN FACT, HE WAS as happy as he'd been in a long time, and if he'd known it would feel so good to be back in the field, he would have done it years ago.

Managing employees, the kind who actually get their hands dirty. Making things happen and seeing the results unfold, being a part of the process. Being more than just a shadow, more than some nameless darkness to be feared…

Thinking these things made him feel strong and vital again; he was barely fifty, he hadn't yet come to see himself as even middle-aged, but working in the trenches again made him realize how much he'd lost over the years. Reston sat in the control room, the pulse of the Planet, his hands behind his head and his attention fixed on the wall of screens in front of him. On one screen, a man in coveralls was working on a series of trees in Phase One, adding another coat of green to a row of faux evergreens. The man was Tom Something– or-other, from construction, but the name wasn't important. What was important was that Tom was painting the trees because Reston had told him to, face-to-face at the morning briefing. On another screen, Kelly McMalus was recalibrat– ing the desert temp control, also at Reston's request. McMalus was the Scorps lead handler, at least until the permanent staff came in; everyone in the Planet was temporary, one of White's newer policies to avoid sabotage. Once everything was up and running, the nine technical people and half-dozen "preliminary" researchers – actually glorified specimen handlers, al– though he'd never call them that directly – would be relocated. The Planet. The facility was actually "B.O.W. Envi– rotest A," but Reston thought that Planet was a much better name. He wasn't sure who had come up with it, just that it had cropped up at one of the morning briefings and stuck. Referring to the test site as the Planet in his updates to the home team made him feel even more a part of the process.

"The video feeds were connected today, although there's some problem with the mikes, so the audio hasn't been hooked up yet; I'll have that taken care of ASAP. The last of the Ma3Ks came in, no damage to any of the specimens. In all, things are going very well, we expect to have the Planet ready days ahead of schedule…" Reston smiled, thinking of his last conversation with Sidney; had he heard just a touch of jealousy in Sidney's voice, a thread of wistfulness? He was part of a "we" now, a we that called Envirotest A by a nickname. After thirty years of delegation, having to oversee the finishing touches on their most innovative and expensive facility to date had been a blessing in disguise. And to think that he'd been irritated when he'd first heard about Lewis's car going off a cliff; the man's accident was probably the best work he'd ever done for Umbrella, because it meant that he would be overseeing the Planet's birth. Another tech was walking across one of the screens, carrying a tool box and a coil of rope. Cole, Henry Cole, the electrician who'd been working on the intercom and video systems; he was in the main corridor that ran between the faculty quarters and the testing area, leading toward the elevator. Reston had noticed the day before that several of the surface cameras were malfunctioning; none of the cameras in the Planet had been wired for sound as of yet, but the screens for the upper compound would intermittently spew static for minutes at a time, and he had asked Cole to see to it -