Code Veronica - By S. D. Perry Page 0,3

but that was the extent of her knowledge. Thunder, there was a sound of thunder. She remembered being pushed through a muddy prison cemetery in the gray morning, catching a glimpse through her stifling hood of the graves, marked with elaborate headstones. Down some stairs, welcome to your new home and BOOM. The ground was shaking, rumbling. Claire opened her eyes just in time to see the one overhead light go out, the thick metal bars of her cell suddenly imprinted in nega - tive and floating off to her left in the pitch dark. She lay on her side on a clammy, dirty floor. Not good, nope, you better get up. Steeling herself against the pounding of her skull she crawled to her knees, her muscles stiff and sore. The blackness of the cold, dank room was very still, except for the sound of water dripping, a slow and lonely sound; it appeared she was alone. Not for long. Oh, man, I'm in it deep now. Umbrella had her, and considering the havoc she'd created back in Paris, it was unlikely that they were going to treat her to ice cream and send her on her way. The renewed awareness of her situation knotted her stomach, but she did her best to put the fear aside. She needed to think straight, to figure out her options, and she needed to be ready to act. She wouldn't have sur - vived Raccoon City if she'd given in to panic...

... except you 're on an island run by Umbrella. Even if you get past the guards, where can you possibly go?

One predicament at a time. First thing, she should probably try to stand up. Except for the painful lump at her right temple from the asshole who'd knocked her out, she didn't think she'd been injured. There was another rumble, muffled and far away, and a bit of rock dust drifted down from above, she could feel it on the back of her neck. She had integrated the rumbling sounds into her half-conscious dreams as thunder, but it definitely sounded like heavy artillery had come to Rock - fort. Or Godzilla. What the hell was going on out there? She crept to her feet, wincing at her rifle-butt head-ache as she brushed dust off her bare arms, stretching chilled muscles. The underground room was making her wish she'd worn something warmer than jeans and a cut-off vest for her meeting with Chris..Chris! Oh, please be safe! In Paris, she'd deliber-ately led the Umbrella security team away from Leon and the others, Rebecca and the two Exeter S.T.A.R.S.; if Chris hadn't also been caught, Claire figured he'd have hooked up with the team by now. If she could get to a computer with an uplink, she should be able to send a message to Leon...... yeah, just bend those steel bars, find a couple of ma-chine guns, and mow down the population of the island. Oh, then hack into a tightly secured relay system, assum-

ing you can find an unmanned computer. All so you can tell Leon that you don't actually know where Rockfort is... A louder internal voice cut in... think positive, damnit, you can be sarcastic later, assuming you sur-vive. What do you have to work with?

Good question. There was no guard, for one thing. It was also extremely dark, a bare hint of light coming from somewhere off to the right, which could be an ad - vantage if... Claire patted her pockets suddenly, wildly hoping that no one had searched her when she'd been unconscious, sure that someone must have - left inside vest pocket, there it was! "Idiots," she whispered, pulling out the old metal lighter that Chris had given her awhile back, the com-forting weight of it warm in her hand. When they'd pat - ted her down for weapons, a soldier reeking of tobacco had taken it out, but given it back to her when she'd said that she smoked. Claire put the lighter back in her pocket, not wanting to blind herself now that her eyes were getting used to the dark. There was enough ambient light for her to make out most of the small room - a desk and a couple of cabinets directly across from her cell, an open door to the left - the same door she'd entered by - a chair and some miscellaneous crap stacked off to the right.

Okay, good, you know the environment.