The Searchers, Chapter 6 by patricia51

(Reunion)

"And Dad said that you never paid attention to those camping and hiking lessons."

Claire sprang to her feet, her eyes opening wide in surprise and her mouth falling open. But she recovered quickly and launched herself across the room and into the wide-spread arms of the smiling man standing in the doorway. A long frantic hug ensued, only to be finally broken when Claire pulled her head back from the shoulder it had been nestled on.

"You, you, YOU!" she exclaimed before smacking him on the chest with an open hand. "Here I've been worried to death about you for years. I leave my nice, safe home in Alaska because I hear that you're a prisoner of Umbrella; sneak through half of LA and then find you free, well-rested, well-fed and in generally great shape. Some brother you are! You could have at least had the decency to be locked up in a rat-infested cell with water seeping through the walls while you lived on moldy bread and scummy water."

"Yes, well, as appealing as all that sounds Claire I'm just as glad I'm here and not in that paradise you just described. Besides," he grew serious for a moment, "I've experienced Umbrella's hospitality. I was fortunate enough to escape and even more fortunate to find these wonderful people."

With one arm around his sister Chris Redfield grinned at the other woman who had also risen from her seat. "Hey partner. It's a long way from the Arkady Mountains isn't it? How have you been? Did you come along with my sister to help find me?"

Jill walked over to her two friends and hugged them both, to share Claire s happiness in finding her brother and her own pleasure in seeing her old friend and fellow officer. She immediately sobered though and shook her head in a negative gesture.

"Claire was kind enough to offer to come with me in my search, although hoping to find you was also part of why she's here."

"Your search?"

"I'm looking for my daughter."

Chris looked stunned. "Your daughter? I didn't know you had ever had a child."

"She's adopted. By our hearts if not in any court of law."

"I didn't know there were any courts of law in existence any more so that's probably pretty unimportant," Chris commented.

"Actually there are up in Alaska where we're from," Claire interjected.

"Alaska?" Chris said in surprise.

Claire and Jill together filled him in on some of their recent adventures and how they had ended up living in the North and how they had then come down to LA to search for Angie. Jill explained how they had been pretty sure of her where-about and how the message they had received from their friends back home had confirmed it.

"We had heard the gunshots and seen the lights from here. So we came here hoping we could find an internet connection so we could download the information that Angie managed to obtain and email."

"And where we find you," Claire said in satisfaction. "Not only are you safe but we can use your help."

Chris looked at the council members and grimaced. "I think we can probably provide you with that access. We still have a Sat uplink. As for help, let's take a bit of a walk."

The two women exchanged looks and nodded. As they fell in behind Chris Jill murmured. "I don't think we're going to like this."

Wordlessly the trio walked down the hall and turned into the same stairs they had passed earlier. Taking them two at a time Chris bounded up three flights with the girls in pursuit until they reached a closed door. Chris pushed it open and sunlight flooded into the concrete box of the stairway along with the warm scent of growing things.

"Wow," said Claire as she looked over the row of plants waving in sun. The entire rooftop was a huge garden.

"This is how they supplement the food supplies that they bring back from foraging expeditions like the one I just returned from running. Perhaps one day we ll be able to live on the food grown here."

"Food and more," Jill said gently as she brushed her fingers over a climbing rose bush that wound its way around the blockhouse that probably once served to house the machinery for the no longer operational elevators.

Chris shrugged. "Like they say, man does not live by bread alone."

"Actually that's from the Bible but I'd say it's accurate."

"So Chris," said Jill as the trio stood in the breeze blowing across the building top, "What are you going to tell us that we don't want to hear?"

"The people here are good people. Hell, they're VERY good people. They live as best as they can among the ruins of this city and the legions of the undead that infest it. They try to carry on some semblance of civilization where none exists. They try to find other survivors and when they do they welcome them into this group. And it really is run by the entire group as a whole. There's no elite caste of people controlling everyone else, no masters and servants crap."

"But..." encouraged Claire.

"But because of what they have here they have developed an unwritten, unspoken agreement with Umbrella; 'I'll leave you alone if you leave me alone'. Oh, they're not stupid, they know that the moment Umbrella thinks they have an advantage they'll try to hit this place, take it over and loot it of everything. But right now things are balanced too even between them so the truce stays in effect."

"When I escaped from Umbrella, and we'll talk about that some other time if and when it's important, I was lucky enough to find my way here. I was in pretty bad shape and it took a lot for them to nurse me back to health. I owe them. As much as I hate and distrust Umbrella I can't go against the wishes of the people here." Agony showed in Chris' face as he explained why he couldn't help his old friend and his sister. "I gave my word I would abide by their decision."

"That's understandable Chris. But I want to make you a proposition," Jill said. "We go find that computer and download what Angie sent me. And then we present some of her findings to the council here. I bet we'll find they have a change of heart about you helping us."

Chris looked back and forth from Jill to Claire, who nodded agreement.

"I don't know whether to be relieved that you have something that will make them reconsider or scared out of my mind."

"Be both," Claire told her brother.

Chris led them back down the stairs to a floor they had passed on the way up. They went down the corridor and turned into a room that had the remnants of the name of some insurance company peeking out from under a taped sign that said "Computer Room". A pleasant young man who reminded both women of Mikey looked up from his position on the floor on his back where he had been frowning at a tangle of wires.

"Hi Chris," he greeted the man in the lead and then eyed the pair with him with unabashed interest and more than a hint of admiration.

"Hi Dominic. This is my sister Claire and my ex-STARS partner Jill Valentine. They need access to the web and specifically to an email."

"An email," Jill fished a notebook from an inside pocket and opened the cover. She went through the pages to the one she was looking for and handed it to Dominic, "with this address or it should now posted to a webpage with this URL."

Dominic glanced at the paper as he levered himself up from the floor and dropped into the rolling chair in front of a keyboard. He typed rapidly, clicked the mouse several times and grunted with satisfaction.

"Here it is."

Jill looked over his shoulder. "Would you print three copies of this," she indicated one section. "That's the layout of the base. And this page right here," she pointed, "we need enough copies to give one to each council member plus three left over. And finally that last one needs just one copy for me." She looked up. "It's personal from Angie."

Once that was done they walked quickly back down the remaining stairs to what Jill thought of as the "Council Chamber". The members had already scattered but Chris had made an announcement from the computer room and they were reassembling as the trio came in.

Stuart lifted an eyebrow but other than that everyone waited expectantly. Jill took the lead.

"Thank you for coming back so quickly. I was aware of this information but until I had hard copies of it rather than relayed radio messages I was reluctant to offer this to you. Now I will."

"Chris has told us of your 'trust but verify' arrangement with the local Umbrella base. It's understandable. The remnants of humanity can't go feuding with each other if we are going to survive as a species on this planet. But this information smuggled out via computer link by my daughter inside the base will, I think, change your minds when it opens your eyes to the idiocy of the Umbrella researchers and their plans."

Clair passed a copy of the message to each council member and Jill continued.

"Shakespeare said 'the evil that men do oft lives on after them'. This is certainty true in this case. The Umbrella scientists have seized on the idea of the late..."

"And certainly unlamented..." added Claire.

"Doctor Sam Isaacs," finished Jill. "He had proposed, and concentrated on, producing a serum that would restore some limited intelligence, self-awareness and control to the zombies. The idea was to 'create a docile work force'."

"What this work force was supposed to accomplish is not really spelled out. The idea could have been to make factory workers who could restart Umbrella's production of goods and services that led them to be the dominant corporation in the world. Of course the problem with that would be who would there be to BUY these goods and services?"

"Another aim could have been to create a servant class of beings that could be directed to serve whatever whim the Umbrella personnel, especially the board members and other higher-ups, could come up with. A permanent slave culture. This seems the most likely end result. Umbrella always at the top and the rest of humanity to serve it."

"But," Claire took over, "there is a problem with that aim. Umbrella scientists had found, as most of us have noticed lately, that Isaacs was wrong in one respect. There zombies are not going to remain active for decades. They are beginning to fall apart now and perhaps in less that a year or two they will at last be dead instead of undead and their bodies will return to the earth."

"This leaves a serious problem for Umbrella. First and foremost, Chairman Albert Wesker has personally signed off on this project. Even more so then before the collapse we understand that failing to meet Chairman Wesker's expectations results in very, VERY serious consequences for those responsible or who can at least be blamed. Most are immediately ejected from the underground habits the corporation is sitting in, which is the same as a death sentence of course."

"So what are they going to do? Well, they have to have new zombies. So the scientists thrust has been to up-grade the T-virus for deliberate dispersal over the world. In effect they are going to make an all-out attempt to turn the rest of humanity into zombies."

A stunned silence was the result of the women's earth-shaking revelations.

Sara managed to rally first. "I'm not disputing what you re telling us. But I do have a question or perhaps an objection. Umbrella is world-wide. What can we do here to stop this?"

"That's the beauty of it. Rotten choice of descriptive phrases I know but it fits. The only place they can proceed with this experiment is here in LA. Because only here do they have access to someone who's body has successfully bonded with the T-virus."

"Your daughter," stated William.

"Exactly. Angie's birth father was Doctor Charles Ashford, the creator of the T-virus. On his behalf, by the way, I'd like to point out his aim was noble. He was trying to come up with a way to reignite dead or damaged nerves and other body parts that would allow them to function as normally as possible again. And it works in its original form. Angie is able to walk although by now the same disease that crippled her father should have put her in a wheelchair long ago."

"Chairman Wesker has been trying everything to get Angie moved to the main Umbrella labs under the ruins of Tokyo so he can personally supervise the research performed using her. So far they have been unable to come up with a safe way to move her. There aren't planes any more that can fly across the Pacific and a sea voyage has been deemed to risky. But that might change. That's why we've got to hit them and stop then now."

"What do you want from us," asked Martin.

"Just Chris. Too large a force would just draw attention. But the three of us can slip in, rescue Angie and blow the lab without getting picked up by the Umbrella security force, who won't be expecting us anyway."

The council members exchanged glances and nodded. Stuart looked at the trio.

"Go with God. We'll be awaiting your return."

(To be continued)