by S. D. Perry
The tray Carlos touched dipped down, but again, it was the hands on the clock of the present goddess that moved. Apparently, the other two were fixed at mid-night. Jill stepped back from the wall, arms folded, think-ing – and suddenly she had it, she knew how the puzzle worked, if not the exact solution. She turned around, hoping that the missing pieces were nearby, and she smiled when she saw the three statues – ah, the symme-try – and the shining objects they held in their slender stone fingers. "It's a balancing puzzle," Jill said, walking to the statues. At closer inspection, she saw that each held a tray with a single, fist-sized stone. She picked them up, hefting each orb, noting the different weights. "Three balls, three trays," she continued, walking back to the pictures, handing the black stone -made from obsidian or onyx, she wasn't sure to Carlos. An-other was clear crystal, the third a glowing amber.
"And the goal is to make the middle clock hit mid-night," Carlos said, catching on.Jill nodded. "I'm sure there's a motif to the solution,a color match, like black for death, maybe… ormaybe it's mathematical. It doesn't matter, it won'ttake that long to try all of the combinations."
They set to work, trying each ball on one painting at a time, then using them all, Jill carefully studying the present clock's hand movements with each placement. It appeared that the different balls held different values, depending on which tray they were in. Jill was just starting to feel like she could figure it out – it was defi-nitely mathematical – when they lucked across the so-lution. With crystal in the past, obsidian in the present, and amber in the future, the clock in the middle struck mid-night, chiming softly. The minute hand started to move backwards with a clattering sound – and then the face of the clock itself fell from the picture, pushed out by some machinery that Jill couldn't see. In the revealed hollow was the glittering gold cog that had been miss-ing from the tower's bell mechanism.
Sneaky, you pricks, but not sneaky enough.
Carlos was frowning, his expression openly con-fused. "What the hell is all this, anyway? Who would hide the gear at all, and why in such a complicated way?"
Jill plucked the shining gear from its hiding place, remembering her own thoughts on that exact subject only six weeks before, standing in the dark halls of Spencer's mansion. Why, why such elaborate secrecy? The files Trent had given her just before the estate mis-sion had been full of clues to the mansion's puzzles, lucky for her; without those, she might never have got-ten out. Most of the bizarre little mechanisms had been much too intricate to be practical, time-wise or func-tionally. What was the point? After giving it a lot of thought, Jill had finally con-cluded that Umbrella's real board of directors, the ones no one knew about, were paranoid fanatics. They were self-involved children, playing secret agent games and betting with other people's lives, because they could. Because no one had ever explained to them that hiding toys and making treasure maps was something people outgrew.
Because no one has stopped them. Yet.
Suddenly eager to wrap it all up, to place the gear and ring the bell and just leave, Jill phrased it much more simply to Carlos. "They're wacko, that's why. One-hundred-percent grade-A jacked-up batshit. You ready to get out of here, or what?"
Carlos nodded somberly, and after a final look around the room, they headed back out the way they'd come.
EIGHTEEN
CARLOS WATCHED JELL CLIMB THE LADDER once more, trying not to get his hopes up again. If this didn't work, he was going to be deeply – no, majesti-cally pissed.
Hell with it. If this doesn't work, we should just walk out, or see if we can get to that factory and steal our-selves a ride. She's right, these people are andar lurias, lost in space; the sooner we get out of their territory, the better.
He stared blankly out at the dark yard for a few mo-ments, so bone-weary that he wondered how he would do one more thing, take one more step; it seemed im-possible. All that kept him going was his desire to leave, to get away from this holocaust and try to re-cover. When the first massive peal of sound rang out, its deep and hollow tone rolling out from the top of the tower, Carlos realized he couldn't keep a lid on his hope. He tried, telling himself that there was going to be a glitch in the program, telling himself that Um-brella would send assassins, that the pilot would be a zombie; nothing worked. A helicopter was coming for them, he knew it, he believed it; he just hoped the res-cue team wouldn't have any trouble finding a place to land…… spotlights! There were four of them on the ledge and a crusty-looking control box near the door that led back inside; the light would guide the transport in faster. Carlos hurried toward it, glancing up to see if Jill had started down yet. She hadn't…… and when he looked ahead again, he saw that he wasn't alone. As if by magic, the giant, mutilated freak that had been chasing Jill was simply there, close enough for Carlos to smell a burnt meat smell, snarling, its piggy, distorted gaze turned to the top of the ladder. "Carlos, look out!" Jill screamed down, but the Nemesis-monster ignored him completely, taking a mammoth step toward the ladder, the eyeless snakes that were its tentacles whipping around its colossal head. One more step and it would be at the base of the ladder and Jill would be trapped.
– she said bullets don't hurt it
Desperate to do something, Carlos saw the large green power switch on the spotlights' control panel and lunged for it, not sure what he expected. To distract it, if they were lucky…… and all four lights snapped on at once, blinding, instantly heating the air around them and illuminating the tower, probably for miles to see. One of the beams was full-on blocked by the freak's hideous face. The light actually forced the thing to stumble backwards, giant hands covering its mutant eyes, and Carlos acted. He ran at the blinded Nemesis, M16 held high, and slammed the rifle against its chest, pushing as hard as he could. Off balance, it stumbled backwards, its legs slapping the ancient railing…… and with a brittle snap, a wide section of the rail-ing gave way, falling into the darkness, the Nemesis plummeting after it. Carlos heard a sickly thump from the ground below at the same instant that the over-heated spotlights shut down, making glowing dark shapes float in Carlos's eyes for a moment. The huge, mellow sound of the bells continued to fill the air as Jill scrambled down the ladder and un-slung the grenade launcher, joining Carlos at the bro-ken railing. "I… thanks," Jill said, looking into his eyes, her own gaze sincere and unwavering. "If you hadn't hit the lights, I would have been dead. Thank you."
Carlos was impressed and a little flustered by her candor. "De nada," he said, suddenly very aware of how attractive she was – not just physically – and how little experience he actually had with women. He was a self-educated twenty-one-year-old mere, and he hadn't exactly had a whole lot of time or opportunity to date.
She can't be much older, twenty-five at the outside, and maybe she…
Jill snapped her fingers in front of him, bringing him back to reality and reminding him of how tired he re-ally was. He'd totally spaced out.
"You still with me?"Carlos nodded, clearing his throat. "Yeah, sorry. Didyou say something?"I said we need to move. If it's still that feisty after a
grenade in the face, I doubt a two-story drop will kill it."Right," Carlos said. "We should circle around front,anyway. They'll probably drop a harness if they can'tset down."Jill nodded. "Let's do it."Ushered inside by the deep voice of hollowed metal,Carlos suddenly wondered if Nicholai was still alive -
– and if he was, what he would do when he heard the tolling bells. Nicholai heard the bells on his walk back into town and scoffed irritably, refusing to be baited. He hadn't expected the barely skilled trio to make it, but so what if they had? Davis Chan had filed another report, from a woman's boutique of all places, and Nicholai meant to track him down.
And why should I care if they limp away with their miserable lives, with what I've got?
Nicholai pulled the slender metal case out of his pocket for the third time since leaving the hospital, un-able to resist. Inside was a glass vial of purplish fluid that he'd synthesized himself, with a little help from an
instruction sheet that Aquino's assistant had thought-fully left behind. Nicholai knew it would be safest to store the sample someplace, but the small container represented his au-thority over the other Watchdogs and a newly elevated status with Umbrella; he was a leader, a supervisor of lesser men, and he found that carrying the vaccine with him and occasionally holding it made him feel power-ful. Grounded, in a way. Smiling, Nicholai slipped the container back into his pocket, within easy reach, and started walking again, deliberately ignoring the bells. Things were going very well – he had the vaccine; he knew where Chan was and where Franklin was going to be in just under forty-eight hours; he'd already rigged the hospital to blow; and he would push the button as soon as his meeting with Franklin was over. Nicholai thought he might duck over to the factory and get rid of Terence Foster while he waited on Franklin, there was plenty of time -
– just like there was plenty of time to track Mikhail, to play at being a noble team member, to decide who would die first among them…
The clamorous bells pounded at him, seeking to re-mind him of his failure, but he refused to be distracted by the escape of three incompetents. He was getting closer to town, he could see the combined glow of hun-dreds of small and not so small fires encasing the dark city; even if he wanted to, he wouldn't make it back to the clock tower before the first helicopter came. And he didn't want to, he'd had the opportunity after killing Aquino and had decided that it wasn't worth his time. It was the right decision… and the strange doubts that curled up inside of him at the sound of the bells were to be disregarded; it meant nothing, that they had sur-vived, it didn't mean that they were as good as him. Besides, he still had a few dogs to put down to en-sure his monopoly on information. He thought that Chan might choose to bunk down at the store he'd re-ported from, as late as it was. Nicholai would kill him, take his data, and retire for the evening somewhere in the city. At the Watchdog briefing he'd heard that food was scarce, but he was certain that he could manage raid a few pantries for canned goods, perhaps. In the morning he would file his own report, to keep up his cover, and spend the day hunting up information of his own before heading west again. Everything was fine, and as he gradually crossed over from the suburbs into the city, the sound of the ap-proaching helicopter didn't bother him a bit. Let those spineless, shit-eating bastards run, he felt great, in con-trol, better than great. He only had a headache because of those damned bells.
They retraced much of their winding path through the clock tower, Jill wanting to make sure the Neme-sis either got confused or had plenty of time to wan-der away before they went out to meet the 'copter. As they walked, they hammered out a story to tell who-ever was running the evac – Jill was Kimberly Sampsel (the name of Jill's best friend from fifth grade), she'd worked at a local art gallery, no family, and she'd only moved to Raccoon recently. Carlos had found her just after his platoon leader, the only other
U.B.C.S. member to have survived, had been killed by zombies. Together, they'd made it to the clock tower, end of story. They decided not to mention Nicholai, the Nemesis, or any unidentifiable creatures they'd seen running around; the idea was to appear as ignorant of the facts as possible. Neither of them wanted to take any chances on the allegiance of the rescue team, and Jill had no doubt that there would be someone on the trans-port waiting to debrief them, so the simpler the story, the better. They'd just have to pray that no one had her pic on hand. They could worry about how to slip away once they got out of the city. At the front doors of the clock tower they paused for a moment, readying themselves, Jill feeling a strange mixture of happiness and anxiety. Rescue was coming, but they were so close to getting out now that she was afraid something would go wrong.
Maybe that's just because Umbrella is doing the res-cuing, God knows they don't have a very good trackrecord for keeping their shit together…"Jill? Before we leave, I want to tell you something,"
Carlos said, and for a few seconds, Jill thought her anx-iety was about to be confirmed, that he was going to tell her some terrible secret he'd been holding back, but then she saw his careful, thoughtful expression and thought different. "Okay, shoot," she said neutrally, thinking about the way he'd looked at her out on the balcony. She'd seen that look before, from other men – and she wasn't sure how she felt about it from Carlos. Before he'd left for Europe, Chris Redfield and she had been getting pretty close…
"Before I came here, I was approached by this guy about Raccoon, about what was going on here," Carlos started, and Jill had just enough time to feel stupid about her assumption before-his words sank in.
Trent!"He told me that we were in for a rough time, andoffered to help me out. I thought he was crazy atfirst…"… but then you got here and found out he wasn't."Carlos stared at her. "You know him or something?"Probably as well as you do. It was the same withme, just before the estate mission, he gave me informa-tion about the mansion and told me to be careful whoI trusted. Trent, right?"
Carlos nodded, and although they both opened their mouths to speak, neither of them said a word. It was the sound of the approaching helicopter that cut them off, that made both of them grin and exchange looks of joy and relief. "Let's talk about him later," Carlos said, pushing open the front doors, the chop of the 'copter's blades filling the tower's lobby as they both stepped out into the yard. Jill only saw one transport helicopter but didn't care, there obviously wasn't anyone else to evacuate, and as it swung over the crashed trolley, she and Carlos both started to wave their arms and shout. "Over here! We're over here!" Jill screamed, and she actually saw the clean-shaven face of the pilot, his smile glowing by the lights in the cockpit as he flew closer -
– close enough that she could see the smile disap-pear hi the same instant that she heard the weapon dis-charge to their right, a look of horror dawning on that youthful face.
Shhhh…
A line of colored smoke, streaking toward the hover-ing ship from someone on the roof of the tower's ad-junct buildings, surface to air, bazooka or rocket launcher……BOOM! "No," Jill whispered, but the sound was lost as the missile slammed into the 'copter and exploded, Jill numbly thinking that it had to be a HEAT rocket to do the damage it was doing as the airship spun toward them, listing badly to one side, fire spouting from the shattered cockpit. Carlos grabbed her arm and yanked, almost jerking her off her feet, pulling her out into the yard as a high, climbing, whining noise blew over them, the burning helicopter stuttering forward as they huddled behind the fountain…… and then it crashed into the clock tower. Flaming chunks of metal and stone and wood showered down upon them as the transport plunged through the roof of the lobby, and like the voice of destruction, Jill heard the Nemesis's triumphant scream rising above it all.
NINETEEN
CARLOS HEARD THE MONSTER'S SCREAMING howl and started to get up, still holding Jill's arm. They had to get away before it saw her…… and the front of the building cracked open as though it were made of balsa wood, wreckage from the helicopter spewing out in a burst of smoking debris. Before Carlos could get down, a large piece of blackened rock from the building's outer wall smacked into his left side. He heard and felt a rib give way as he fell, the pain instant and intense.
"Carlos!"
Jill leaned over him, her gaze darting back and forth between him and part of the tower he couldn't see, the grenade launcher still clutched in her hands. The Nemesis had stopped roaring; between that and the sudden, brutal silencing of the bells, Carlos could hear something thumping heavily to the ground, followed by the crumble of powdering rock in a slow, even rhythm. Crunch. Crunch. It's coming, it jumped off the roof and it's coming… "Run," Carlos said, and he saw that she understood, a second before she took off, that she had no other choice. Boots kicking the ground away, she left him alone as fast as she could.
Carlos turned his head as he sat up, willing himself not to feel pain, and saw the creature standing in a pile of broken concrete and burning wood, unaware that the hem of its leathery coat was on fire as its aberrant gaze
tracked Jill. As before, it didn't seem to see him. As long as I don't get in its way, Carlos thought, propping himself against the cool stone of the fountain, lifting his rifle. It doesn 't hurt, it doesn 't, doesn 't. In a single, powerful motion the Nemesis lifted a rocket launcher to its giant shoulder and took aim, as Carlos started firing. Each chattering round from the Ml6 sent a fresh pulse of muffled agony through his bones, but his aim was good in spite of the pain. Tiny black holes ap-peared on the creature's face, and Carlos could hear the ping of ricochet off the battered launcher. The fleshy tentacles that rose up from beneath the monster's long jacket whipped around its upper body as if outraged, coiling and uncoiling with incredible speed. Carlos saw that it was swinging the bazooka toward him, but he kept firing, knowing that he couldn't get up in time to run. Get away, Jill, go! It sighted Carlos and fired, and Carlos saw a burst of light and motion coming at him, felt the heat of the high-explosive anti-tank missile radiating against his skin…… and somehow, he wasn't dead, but something not far behind him blew up. The force of the blast lifted and threw him roughly against the side of the fountain; the pain was spectacular but he raggedly held on to consciousness, determined to buy Jill a few more sec-onds. Half laying across the lip of the fountain, Carlos started firing again, shooting for its face, rounds going everywhere as he struggled to control the weapon. Die, just die already… But it wasn't dying, it wasn't even flinching, and Carlos knew he only had a half second left before he was blown into a greasy stain on the lawn. The rocket launcher was pointed directly at Carlos's face when it happened, a one in a million shot -
Carajo!
– as one of the metallic pings turned into an explo-sion, a sudden white-hot light show. The monster pitched backwards as its weapon disintegrated, drop-ping out of sight. Carlos's rifle went dry. He reached for a new maga-zine, and there was new pain. He lost track of the light, darkness pulling him down. Jill saw Carlos collapse and made herself stay where she was, standing between the trolley and a hedge row. She'd seen the Nemesis go down, thrown into the burn-ing rubble by the misfire that had obliterated its bazooka, but its confirmed ability to avoid death kept her from going to Carlos. If it was still coming, she wanted to keep it focused on her alone. The grenade launcher felt light in her hands, high adrenaline giving her a second wind with a ven-geance and when the Nemesis rose up, one shoulder burning, blistering black and red flesh visible beneath its ruined clothing, Jill fired. The buckshot-loaded "grenade," like a super shotgun shell, sent a concentrated blast of thousands of pellets across the yard, but she missed the howling Nemesis entirely, the shot tearing new holes in what was left of the tower's front wall. The Nemesis stopped screaming even though its chest was still burning, the skin crackling and black now. It squared its body toward Jill as she broke open the grenade launcher and snatched another load out of her bag, praying that it was more seriously injured by Carlos's lucky shot than it appeared. It lowered its head and ran at her, its gigantic stride carrying it toward her incredibly quickly. In a second it was across the yard, its snaking appendages spread out as if to grab her up. Jill leaped to her left and took off at a dead run, still holding the grenade, in between the row of hedges and the undamaged west wall of the tower. She could hear it enter the row behind her as she reached the end; it still almost had her, its speed extraordinary, putting it an arm's length away as she rounded the end of the row…… and something struck her right shoulder as she tore around the hedge, something solid and slick, bur-rowing into her flesh like a giant, boneless finger. It stung, a thousand hornets at once flooding her system with poison, and she understood that one of the search-ing tentacles had pierced her. Oshitoshitoshit, she couldn't think about it, there wasn't time, but the Nemesis stopped suddenly, threw its head back and bellowed its victory to the cold stars above, and Jill stumbled to a halt, shoved the load into the gun and snapped the breech closed…… and fired as it lunged toward her again. The shot clipped the howling Nemesis just below its right hip and tore into the meat of its upper thigh, bits of skin and muscle flying out behind it…… and it crashed, a few more momentum strides and it went down in a spray of ravaged tissue, monstrous and silent and suddenly still. In a fever to reload, Jill dropped the second to last buckshot grenade, and it rolled away. She managed to get a firm grip on the fifth and was just snapping the gun closed when the Nemesis sat up, facing away from her. Jill aimed for its lower back and fired, the thunder of the weapon just another dull sound beneath the ringing in her ears. The Nemesis was moving, standing up when it was hit, and the pellets hit low and left, what would be a lethal kidney shot for a human. Apparently not for the S.T.A.R.S. killer. It stumbled, then stood up and started to limp away, one giant hand clapped over its new wound.
