2. A familiar face

The snow softly fluttered down on us as we were standing there like frozen. But it was not the cold that was congealing us, but the shock. One ought to think that we were doing that out of solidarity with our fallen soldier who was lying motionlessly on a barrow and would never move again. It was too late for help, the medics could not do anything for him anymore.

He was still quite young. So were we all. And now he was dead. A crude reminder of what was at stake – not only the lives of our unit, but possibly that of every single person on the planet. We had been sent to Edonia, an East European state which had suffered a bioterrorism attack. Chris and I were part of the team and our field scientists had not yet learned what kind of virus it was, but that couldn't stop us from interfering. A large group of enemies of the government, most of them mercenaries, had been transformed into what I'm about to become now – mindless zombies whose only reason to exist was to cause trouble. And they were armed.

It was my first mission of such great importance and thus I'd been very nervous before we'd set out. Fortunately Chris knew what to do to calm me to a degree; one quick blowjob in the shower was enough to literally blow my sorrows away.

And there he came. Surrounded by Ben, Carl, Finn, and Andy, the other members of our team, I stood in the cold, staring into the dead eyes of a soldier who had lost his life trying to act the hero all alone. I felt a bit warmer when Chris stopped next to me, his gaze focused on the dead comrade, and I briefly explained to him what had happened. He took his role as our captain very seriously.

"Listen up, everyone!" he told the others while the dead body was being carried away by the medics. "The BSAA's job is to free the world of bioterrorism. We can only achieve that by working together."

It didn't sound like he was giving us a sermon, just a reminder. I liked it when he talked like that.

"No one is expendable," I added.

"Exactly." Chris nodded at me, a soft smile on his beautiful features. I hardly managed to suppress a smile myself and had to force myself to get my gaze off him before the others started to wonder. Even in a situation like this it was difficult for me to hide my affection, but that was just what I had to do if we wanted to survive this mission.

He went on with his speech, making it clear that he appreciated every teammate's willingness to die for our cause, but that as our captain, it was his duty to make sure we all survived. He meant those words just the way he said them. At all times, Chris was very concerned about the well-being of every single person on his team, and that was yet another trait I loved about him.

I don't know if it was the aftermath of this speech or still the sadness about the loss of a man, but Chris had barely finished when I heard someone sob beside me.

"Suck it up, Finn!" I told my neighbor whose eyes had filled with tears. I couldn't blame him, though. He was our rookie. Edonia was the first big mission for me, but it was the first mission at all for him.

Finn tried to pull himself together when he told the unit about the newest insights concerning our enemies. While we still didn't know which virus we owed that new pest, the Serbian branch of the BSAA had at least come up with a name for it: J'avo, derived from the Serbo-Croatian term for the devil. The bad thing about them was that they reacted with mutations to physical trauma.

When we split in teams, I stayed with Chris. Finn, apparently still shocked, didn't stir from the spot.

"You're the rookie, right?" Chris asked softly.

"Yes, Sir!" Finn hesitated, his voice trembling a little. "Finn Macauley, Sir."

I looked at Chris when he laid a hand on Finn's shoulder to reassure him. "I know you're nervous, Finn, but the team has got your back, okay?"

"Yes, Sir. I'll do my best." His voice sounded firmer now.

Chris smiled, patted his shoulder once again and then left to go ahead. I was looking at Finn now. I hoped he was going to keep his promise and not collapse out of excitement at one time or another.

"Is he always this awesome?" Finn was talking to me, but gazing after Chris.

My eyes went wide, I almost burst into laughter. Then I shook my head and followed Chris. Finn had no idea... But he proved himself ambitious by following us quickly without another invitation. He was now a part of our team and helped us several times with his expert knowledge of explosives. The mission was tougher than we had expected, but Finn did remarkably well, didn't back away from the hideous J'avo creatures which constantly grew new monstrous limbs whenever one of their arms or legs got shot off. The residential area was crawling with them; the civilians had fled the district long ago.

Everything took an unexpected turn when two new faces showed up that neither belonged to the BSAA nor to our enemies' party: A moon face with short blond hair who introduced herself as Sherry Birkin suddenly appeared out of nowhere and showed around her badge identifying her as an agent for some national security organization. Accompanying her was a younger man with hair no longer than a few millimeters and a distinctive scar on his face which I noticed immediately.

Chris knew the moon face through Claire, who had saved the then twelve-year-old Sherry's life in Raccoon City. The names of her parents weren't unknown to me either: In their days, William and Annette Birkin had worked as researchers for the Umbrella Corporation and were responsible for the creation of one of the viruses that had painted the town red. The fact that they had fallen victims to their own work in the end must have been irony of fate. Their daughter had survived and I didn't trust her although she seemed to break out in an entirely different direction than her parents.

But I was even more distrustful toward the man she was with. His clothing betrayed that he belonged to the insurgent mercenaries we were fighting, even though unlike his comrades he did not convey the impression of having received a dose of the unknown virus. I couldn't stand him right from the beginning while I didn't even know about his true identity yet.

"This man is one of the insurgents!" I warned Chris, looking at the mercenary who folded his arms and leaned against a car a few meters away as if it all didn't concern him in the slightest. He didn't even look at us.

"Yes, he's a mercenary, but right now he's under protection of the US government," Moonface explained. "He's no threat to the BSAA."

At least the fellow understood our language. It became obvious following Sherry's statement, when he mumbled something that sounded like: "Unless someone pays me to be."

My eyebrows pulled together. "What was that?" I asked with a step in his direction. Instead of answering, he just darted a glance at me that couldn't have been more indifferent, and moved on to Chris a second later. An unpleasant silence arose.

I didn't like the way that creep stared at Chris. I turned to my captain and hoped he would do something... until I noticed him staring back. Chris and the unknown guy couldn't take their eyes off each other, as if they knew each other, but didn't know from where. Chris, at least, gave me that impression. The air was filled with tension.

The mercenary seemed annoyed. He straightened himself, took a step in Chris's direction and asked: "What?"

I didn't like him, but I had to agree with him in that respect. I, too, wanted to know what was going on there. Chris looked as though he wanted to say something, but didn't get around to do so when the ground started shaking. A hostile chopper flew over the area; it had just dropped a giant ugly monster that was even taller than the two-storied apartment buildings.

There was no more time left for discussions. Moonface and her unlikeable friend were just as keen on surviving as we all were, so we worked together to defeat the hulk.

Several times while we were fighting, I heard Sherry call a name that didn't belong to anyone of our unit, so I figured that Jake was the mercenary's name. The name meant nothing to me. I had a cousin with the same name, but fortunately he was not that guy. So I couldn't know him from anywhere. But how did Chris know him? This question bothered me just like it bothered him. I didn't miss how he looked at Jake now and then, and I could see his brain trying to figure it out behind his forehead.

A friendly chopper landed when the monster was defeated. It was supposed to get Moonface and Scarface – that's what I called Jake in my mind – out of the war zone. How convenient – this way we wouldn't have to deal with them anymore. But for reasons I couldn't comprehend, Chris didn't seem to feel the urge to get that man behind bars even though he obviously belonged with the insurgents. No matter what Sherry said – even a symbol on the sleeve of his jacket showed it.

"Thank you so much for your help!" Moonface said looking at Chris, but speaking to everyone of our unit, before turning around and catching up with Scarface who was already on his way to the chopper.

On the one hand, I had a bad feeling about letting the two of them go, but on the other hand it was okay with me because it meant less confusion. But before they could get on the chopper, Chris suddenly called them back. Scarface turned around and shot him a venomous look.

"Have we met before?" Chris asked.

His voice sounded calm and objective, so I got even more enraged by the grimace Jake made at him.

"You know, pal, you war clowns all look the same to me. Hell if I know!" he said, turning away.

That was too much for me. How could he dare talk to my Chris like that?

"You must have a screw loose!" I hissed and ran off, determined to shut him up for that remark.

But Chris put out his arm to hold me back. I didn't oppose him. "Sorry, my mistake!" he said to Scarface and left it at that. The prick and his Moonface girlfriend got on the chopper without anyone hindering them and flew off.

I shook Chris's arm off when it was still holding me back. "Captain!" I said, not calling him by his first name, anxious not to raise suspicion around the others that I might have a closer relationship to our captain than they had. "Mercenaries like this Jake have killed many of our men. How can we just let him go?"

Chris looked into my eyes seriously and spoke slowly as if he didn't want me to get any of his words wrong. "He's not our problem. We have to keep our real goals in mind."

Then he went off and left me standing there until Finn came over to me. "To fight bioterrorism, Sir!" he reminded me as if I didn't know.

"I know what we're here for, rookie!" I hissed and caught up with Chris.

Our next goal was city hall near the border of the residential area where we split up again to search the building thoroughly.

I made sure Finn teamed up with Andy so that Chris and I could finally be among ourselves. I had a feeling it was time to talk about Scarface.

"Do you know him from somewhere?" I demanded to know, sounding jealous in my own ears. The thought was ridiculous and I knew that, but I had to exclude the possibility that Chris and the mercenary had some kind of past together.

Chris shook his head, but it was not exactly a negation. He didn't know it himself. "That face... it seems so familiar. And not only that, also the way he moves, the way he speaks..."

"That doesn't surprise me. We've all been to a ghetto at some point," I said, and to Chris's confused look I replied: "Well, the way he speaks! That's how only wannabe gangsters and other jerks in the ghetto speak."

"Piers!"

I positioned myself straight as a pole and looked at him. "Yes, Captain?" A reflexive reaction to the tone of his voice. We were alone, but it was only at work that he said my name that way.

"Let it be," he said. No, it was an order. "As I said: Jake is not our problem. We have work to do here."

I nodded, trying to forget the topic. He was right, after all. And we would probably never see Jake again anyway... or so I thought.