by S. D. Perry
I'm not dead. It's gone, and I'm not dead.
Why, he didn't know, and couldn't begin to guess. Accepting that he was alive was enough and a short time later, maybe no more than a few seconds, his knotted thoughts and senses told him that the trans– port was slowing down, that the shaft was getting lighter, the blackness washing to gray. Leon crawled to his feet and went to check on Ada. Sherry had heard the monster from far away, from somewhere deep in the giant hole, and felt even more scared than she had when the giant – Mr. X, Claire called him – had come into the train station. Claire had said it probably wasn't even the monster, that it was most likely some machine problem, but Sherry wasn't convinced. The sound was so distant and strange that it could have been something else…
… but what if it isn't? What if Claire's wrong?
They stood outside a warehouse in the chill of the dark, stood over the big hole in the ground and waited for the mechanical noises to stop. The almost-full moon was low in the sky, and Sherry could tell by the deep blue light of the horizon that it was very early in the morning; she didn't feel tired, though. She felt scared and anxious, and even with Claire holding her hand she didn't want to go down into the black hole where the monster could be. After what seemed like a long time, the humming noise of the machinery stopped, and Claire stepped back from the hole – “The transport shaft,” she said and turned back toward the warehouse.
"Let's go see if we can recall the… Sherry?"
Sherry hadn't moved to follow her. She stared down into the hole, holding her charm and wishing that she was brave like Claire, but she wasn't, she knew she wasn't, and she didn't want to go down into the dark.
I can't, I can't go down there, I'm NOT like Claire and I don't care if that's where my mom went, I don't care at all…
Sherry felt warmth across her back and looked up, startled, to see that Claire had taken off her vest and was slipping it over her shoulders. "I want you to have this," Claire said, and in spite of her fear, Sherry felt a sudden rush of confused happiness.
"But… why? It's yours, and you'll get cold…"
Claire ignored her for a minute, helping her put it on. It was too big for her and it had some dirt on it, but it was the coolest thing Sherry thought she'd ever worn.
For me. She wants me to have it.
Claire knelt in front of her, now wearing only a thin black T-shirt and shorts. She looked at her very seriously, pulling the vest closed over Sherry's chest.
"I want you to have it because I can tell that you're scared," she said firmly, "and I've had it for a long time, and when I wear it, I feel like I can kick ass. Like nothing can stop me. My brother has a leather jacket with the same design on the back, and he kicks ass, but he got the idea from me."
She smiled suddenly, a tired, warm smile that made Sherry forget about the monster, just for a minute.
"So now it's yours, and every time you wear it, I want you to remember that I think you are the best twelve-year-old who ever walked."
Sherry smiled back, hugging the faded pink denim to her body. "And it's a bribe, huh?" Claire nodded without hesitation. "Yes. And it's a bribe. So what do you say?"
Sighing, Sherry reached for her hand, and they walked back into the warehouse to find the controls for the elevator.
Ada woke up as Leon set her gently on a creaking cot, woke up with a pounding headache and a pain in her side. Her first thought was that she'd been shot, but as she opened her eyes, and Leon's worried, pale face swam into focus, she remembered.
He was going to kiss me, I think… and then… "What happened?"
Leon reached down and brushed her hair off of her forehead, smiling a little. "A monster happened. The same one that got Bertolucci, I think. It put its hand through the wall of the transport and knocked you over. You hit your head, after it clawed you." Virus!
Ada struggled to sit up, to look at the wound, but the headache knocked her back. She reached up and carefully touched the throbbing spot just over her left temple, wincing at the feel of the sticky lump.
"Hey, just stay put," Leon said. "The wound isn't too bad, but you took a pretty serious knock…"
Ada closed her eyes, trying to collect herself. If she'd been infected, there wasn't anything she could do about it now – and really, what an irony that would be – if it was Birkin who'd stabbed her and he was still hot, she'd end up collecting a G-Virus sample in an extremely personal way.
Deep breath, keep it together. You're not in the transport anymore, what does that tell you? "Where are we?" she asked, opening her eyes. Leon shook his head. "I'm not sure. Like you said, it's an underground lab or factory of some kind. The transport is just outside. I brought you to the closest room."
Ada turned her aching head enough to see the small windows, over a cluttered counter, looking out into the transport bay.
Gotta be fourth level, where the lift stops…
The main synthesis lab was on the fifth level. Leon was staring down at her so sincerely, his bright blue gaze so achingly tender, that for just a few seconds, Ada thought about aborting the mission. They could go down to the escape tunnel together, they could hop on the train and get out of the city. They could run away, run far, far away…
… and then what? Call Trent and tell him that you'll offer a refund? Sure. Then maybe you can meet Leon's parents, get a ring, buy a little white house with a picket fence, have a couple of kids… you could take up crochet, and rub his feet when he comes home from a hard day busting drunks and making traffic stops. Happily ever after…
Ada closed her eyes again, unable to look at him as she spoke.
"My head hurts pretty bad, Leon, and the tunnel I saw, on that map – I don't know where it is, ex-actly." "I'll find it," he said softly. "I'll find it, and then I'll come back for you. Don't worry about anything, okay?" "Be careful," she whispered, and then felt his soft lips graze her forehead, heard him stand up and move toward the door. "Just stay here, I'll be back soon," he said, and the door opened and closed, and she was alone.
He'll be okay. He'll get lost trying to find the tunnel, he'll come back, he'll see that I'm gone and take the lift back to the surface… I can find the sample and escape, and it will be over.
Ada counted a minute and then sat up slowly, grimacing at the pounding in her skull. A bad knock indeed, but not a debilitating one; she could function. There was a noise outside, and Ada stood up, walking to one of the small windows. She knew the sound even before she looked, and felt her heart sink a little; the transport was heading up, probably recalled to the factory by an Umbrella team…
… which means I don't have a lot of time. And if they find him…
No, Leon would be okay. He was a fighter, he had the sense to run from danger, he was strong and decent – and he didn't need to have someone like her in his life. She'd been crazy to consider it, even for a moment. It was time to wrap things up, to do what she'd come to do, to remember who she was – a freelance agent, a woman with no qualms about stealing or killing to complete a job, a cool and efficient thief who could take pride in a career with no misses. Ada Wong always walked away with the goods, and it would take more than a few hours with one blue-eyed cop to make her forget it. Ada pulled the key cards and master from her pouch and opened the door, telling herself that she was doing the right thing and hopeful that in time she'd come to believe it.
TWENTY-SIX
Annette had run into some trouble. The trip down to the cargo room hadn't been bad; she'd only run across one carrier, one of the first– stagers, and had blown a hole into its ashy, withered skull with the first shot. She'd passed under a sleeping Re3, but it hadn't stirred from its ceiling bed, and it seemed that the other creatures still lurking in the facility shadows hadn't yet figured out that they were free. Either that, or more of them had disintegrated into mush than she'd imagined… in any case, she'd be gone before she had to worry about it either way. In all, she made it to the cargo room hall in under three minutes, and had punched in the key
code with a sense of grand accomplishment; the high from the shot was wearing off, but she was still feeling good…… until the hatch to the cargo room refused to open. Annette had tapped the simple code in a second time, more carefully – and nothing. It was one of the only doors in all the facility that didn't open automat– ically on fail-safe triggering, but it shouldn't have been a problem – there was a verification disk in the slot beneath the controls, the disk that was always there in spite of Umbrella's insistence that only the section heads were supposed to have access…… and of course, upon checking, she'd seen that it wasn't there, that it wasn't where it was supposed to be. Someone had taken it. Annette stood in front of the locked hatch in the empty hall and felt the first bright tendrils of panic reach into her mind, a hysteria that she couldn't allow to take hold.
The lab's going to blow up, and I've wasted four,
almost five minutes now and where's the goddamn
disk?
"Easy, take it easy, you're okay, it's okay…"
A gentle echo, a whisper of reason in the shining hall. She'd simply have to take the elevator from a different level; she had the master key, she had a weapon, she had time. Not as much, but enough. Breathing deeply, Annette started back toward the hall that led to the stairs, reminding herself that all was well and that it didn't really matter, that Umbrel– la was going to pay whether or not she made it out alive. She didn't want to die, she wasn't going to die, but the gleaming, blood-splattered corridors and once-sterile labs were going to burn either way, so there was no need to panic…… and as she turned right and moved quickly down the connecting hall, her footsteps loud and hollow in the silence, a ceiling panel crashed down in front of her…… and an Re3, a licker, dropped to the floor and screamed for her blood.
No!
Annette fired, but only hit its scrabbling shoulder as it darted forward, reaching out with one deformed claw to swipe at her. She felt a sharp red pain in her forearm, and fired again, shocked and disbelieving…… and the second one caught it in the throat, and it screamed, blood spraying from its torn neck, its trumpeting shriek a garbled and spitting cry as it lunged at her again. The third shot blew into the gray jelly of its brain, and it flopped to a spasming stop just inches from her trembling legs. Gasping as she realized how close she'd been, Annette looked down at her bleeding arm, at the thick scratches that had torn through her lab coat…… and something gave. Something in her mind. Her racing mind, her pounding heart, the blood and the licker, William's licker, dead on the floor in front of her – all these things whirled and danced, spinning into a circle that came together and focused into a single, stunningly simple thought. A thought that made sense of it all.
It isn't theirs.
It was so clear, so crystal clear. She couldn't run from pain, because pain would find her wherever she ran; she had proof, dripping down her arm. William had understood, but had lost himself before he could explain, before he could tell her what she really needed to do. She had to confront her attackers, and make sure they understood that the G-Virus wasn't theirs, because it didn't belong to them.
But will they understand? Can they?
Maybe, maybe not. But she was so overwhelmed by the profound simplicity of the truth, she knew that she had to try, to make them see. The work was William's. It was his legacy, and now it was hers; she'd known that before, but now she knew it, a ray of light in her mind that made everything else trivial.
Not theirs. Mine.
She'd have to find them, tell them, and once they accepted the truth of it, they would have to leave her alone and then, if there was still time, she could go her own way. But first, she needed another shot. Smiling, her eyes wide and starry, Annette stepped over the licker and started for the stairs.
Leon thought he heard shots. He was in some kind of a surgical bay, the first room at the end of the first passage that he'd taken after leaving Ada, and he looked up from the pile of crumpled papers he'd found, listening, but the dis– tant cracks didn't repeat, so he went back to his search. He rifled quickly through the pages, desperate to find anything besides the endless lists of numbers and letters beneath the Umbrella letterhead. Come on, there must be something useful in all this… He wanted out, he wanted to get Ada and get the hell out. The disemboweled corpse slumped in the corner was reason enough, but it was more than that – the very air of the room, of the hall outside the room, and, he was willing to bet, of every room in the facility, was just wrong. It stank like death, but worse, there was an atmosphere of something darker, some– thing amoral. Evil.
They performed experiments here, they ran tests and God knows what else here – and they'd created a zombie plague, they'd created the monstrous demon that attacked Ada, they'd murdered an entire city. Whatever they meant to do, they were practicing evil. Evil on a grand scale; the transport had taken
them into a secret Umbrella facility, and it was a big one. From the numbers on the walls, he knew he was on the fourth floor, whatever that meant and the catwalk he'd taken to get to the strange operating room, only one of three choices, had stretched over what had to be sixty or seventy feet of open space, the bottom to it lost in shadow. He didn't know how deep he and Ada had come, and he didn't really care; what he wanted was a map like the one she'd found in the sewers, a clear and simple diagram with an arrow pointing to out.
And it ain't here…
Frustrated, Leon pushed the useless papers aside and saw there was a computer disk lying on the steel table that had been hidden beneath the stack of chemical readouts. He picked it up, frowning "For Cargo Room Verification" was printed on the label in smudged block letters. Sighing, Leon slipped it into his pocket and rubbed at his aching eyes with his right hand, his left arm basically useless again after carrying Ada from the lift. He didn't want to look for a computer to see what was on the disk, he didn't want to go wandering from room to room looking for the exit, seeing what atrocities Umbrella had played with before they'd shut themselves down. He was tired and in pain and worried about Ada… and he decided, as he walked back to the door, that he should go back and talk to her. He'd wanted to ease her mind, saying that he would find the way out, but the place was just too goddamn huge; if she even knew the direction, or could remember the floor number… Leon opened the door, stepped into the hall…… and a woman with a gun was standing in front of him, a nine-millimeter pointed at his chest. She was bleeding, thin streams of crimson pouring from one arm and dripping down her dirty white lab coat and the look on her face, the strange, wide-eyed glassy look that played across her features, told him that making any sudden moves would be a very bad idea.
Oh, Jesus, what is this? "You murdered my husband," she said, "you and your partner and the girl, too – all of you, you wanted to dance on his grave but I have news for you!"
She was high on something, he could hear it in her high, trembling voice and see it by the way her skin twitched and ticked. He kept his hands at his sides, kept his voice low and calm.
"Ma'am, I'm a police officer, and I'm here to help, okay? I don't want to hurt you, I just…"
The woman dipped her bloody hand into her pock– et and held up something, a glass tube full of some purple fluid. She grinned wildly, raising it over her head, the gun still trained on his chest.
"Here it is! It's what you want, isn't it? Listen to me, do you hear me? It isn 't yours! Do you understand what I'm saying? William made it, and I helped him, and it doesn't belong to you!" Leon nodded, speaking slowly. "It doesn't belong to me, you're right. It's yours, absolutely…"The woman wasn't even listening. "You think you can take it, but I'll stop you, I'll keep you from taking it – there's plenty of time, time for me to kill you and Ada and anyone else who tries to take it!" Ada… "What do you know about Ada?" Leon barked, taking a half-step toward the madwoman, no longer feeling so calm. "Did you hurt her? Tell me!"The woman laughed, a humorless, insane cackle.
"Umbrella sent her, you stupid shit! Ada Wong, Miss Love-em-and-leave-em herself! She s
educed John to get the G-Virus but it's not hers, either! It's not, it's NOT YOURS IT'S MINE!”
A massive shock rocked the floor, pitching Leon to the ground, a rumbling vibration that shook the walls…… and crash, pipes and plaster rained from the ceiling, a thick beam striking the woman down with a dull thump. Leon covered his head as bits of concrete and white chunks of drywall slapped at him…… and it was over. Leon sat up, staring at the woman in shock, not sure what had happened. She wasn't moving. The metal beam that had struck her still hanging from the ceiling, one of her arms pinned beneath it…… and a cool, clear voice suddenly blared from hidden speakers somewhere in the walls – female, calm, and punctuated by the rhythmic bleat of a honking alarm.
"The self-destruct sequence has been activated. This auto-destruct sequence cannot be aborted. All personnel should evacuate immediately. The self-destruct sequence has been activated. This program cannot be aborted. All personnel should evacuate immediately…"
Leon scrambled to his feet, took one running step toward the fallen woman – then reached down and plucked the glass cylinder from her outstretched hand, shoving it into his utility pack. He didn't know who she was, but she was too crazy to be holding anything in a test tube. Ada – he had to get to Ada and they had to get out.
The throbbing, screeching alarms blasted through the echoing halls, chasing him through the door to the catwalk along with the indifferent-sounding female's repeating message of imminent destruction. The recorded voice didn't say how long they had, but Leon felt quite certain he didn't want to be around when the clock ran out.
TWENTY-SEVEN
The cool, dark ride down through the elevator shaft ended in a squeal of hydraulic brakes and then silence, as the engines shut down and trapped them somewhere in the seemingly endless tunnel.
"Claire? What…"
Claire held a finger to her lips, hushing Sherry and heard what sounded like an alarm from some– where outside, a repeating, muffled bleat of honking noise. There seemed to be talking, too, but Claire could only make out the faintest mumble.
