Primal Shift: Episode 2 Read Online Free PDF Page A

he slid behind his back.
    “I’m not gonna hurt you.”
    The noises emanating from the back of her throat were guttural and reminded Finn of how the man in the white lab jacket had behaved when the two came face to face in that narrow underground corridor.
    “Do you know your name?”
    She glared at him without blinking.
    “Did you work here?”
    Her eyes darted around the room, like a rat, searching frantically for a way out of a steel cage.
    “You were trying to be quiet weren’t you?” Finn said. “Listen, I need to ask you some things.”
    Then that little internal voice again: You’re wasting your time, Finn. Right now she’s got less sense than the lid of a garbage can.
    Without thinking, he used the hand holding the pipe to roll back the sleeve of his coverall to show her the tattoo. He was going to ask her if she knew what the numbers meant, but the moment her eyes saw the lead pipe she charged and ploughed right into him.
    Finn stumbled backwards.
    But tearing him to pieces wasn’t what the woman in the skirt and blouse was after. She was simply trying to get away, like any feral creature that felt trapped and threatened.
    She burst through the front door. It swung wide, smacking the metal cage that covered the outside windows and then slowed on its way back as the hydraulic door closer eased it shut.
    That was when Finn saw the piece of paper that was taped against the inside of the door, flapping in the soft breeze as it closed. A note he had missed in his excitement to get the answers he so desperately needed.
    He snatched it off the door and read it.
    Heading for survivor rallying point Uintah, North of Salt Lake City. Get the hell out of Las Vegas as soon as you can.
    The name Bob was scrawled below it. Bob had probably written the note so that his fellow co-workers would know where to go once they snapped out of whatever was wrong with them. Clearly that hadn’t happened. But Bob worked for Tevatron and that meant he might have answers. Finn folded the paper and slid it into his pocket, wondering where in the hell Uintah was anyway. More importantly, he was wondering how long it would take him to get there.

Dana Hatfield
    San Francisco
    A marina next to Pier 42 offered a safe place for Dana to dock the MLB while she headed inland to find her father. Even as she sped through the bay, it was hard not to stare at the black smoke that hung over the city like a death shroud. One more sobering piece of evidence that first responders and perhaps even the National Guard were nowhere to be found.
    The AT&T ballpark sat empty at the end of the pier. In the distance, the slight rise of Bernal Heights was barely visible through the smoke.
    The straps from the pack she was carrying cut into her shoulders. The weight from the SIG on her hip wasn’t helping either, but both items weren’t luxuries, at least if the chaos she had seen already was anything to go by. Dana double timed it up the boardwalk.
    It was only when she reached King Street that the full extent of the damage became apparent. Many of the buildings had sandwiched during the earthquake, compressing what had once been three floors into one. Some of the steel structure of the AT&T stadium had collapsed and crushed a handful of people and vehicles unlucky enough to be passing beneath it when the shit had hit the fan. Corpses lay scattered in every direction and Dana felt her hand cover her mouth, more in an act of shock than a need to block out the smell of death. The toll of human life in the city was staggering and the realization opened a stark window into her greatest fear. Her father was all she had left now. If she lost him, she would truly be alone. Tears streaked down her cheeks and she wiped them away.
    Keep it together, Hatfield. This time it was Keiths’ voice she heard.
    Once you find your dad, then you can deal with that low life Alvarez.
    Roger that.
    Something else she hadn’t quite counted on was the number of derelict cars. The