At dawn, Alice was leaning her back on the brush guard of the Hummer, watching the sunrise over the horizon. At least some things were left untouched by the apocalypse.
"Penny for your thoughts?" A voice broke her silence, and actually startled her a bit.
She turned her head to see Mikey imitating her pose against the brush guard.
"The V-ACTs and that Tyrant are signs that Umbrella is watching us, and it isn't good. You saw the V-ACTs get back up after being shot, and that Tyrant didn't go down that easily. They're escalating." Alice explained what was on her mind.
"Well, we took them down, all thanks to you and Ben, mate. We probably couldn't have done it without you two. Speaking of which, I haven't seen Ben since you returned with all our supplies and he had that arrow sticking out of his back." Mikey said with a serious expression.
"He's currently in Claire's bad books. He can explain better than me. She sent him to do patrols, alone." Alice explained with a smirk.
"Ouch. What would cause that sort of punishment from Claire?" Mikey asked as he scratched his nose.
"He'll explain. I'm going to go get some more ammo, I'm almost out." Alice said as she walked away.
"Then I'd better go find Ben." Mikey muttered to himself as he walked towards his camera ring.
Ben was just returning to the inside of the cameras when Mikey approached him. He'd smelled him from a good distance away and smiled when he stopped a few feet inside the camera line.
"Apparently you're in trouble." Mikey said with a smile. He watched how Ben ducked under his beloved camera defence and smiled at him.
"Indeed. I took a Kevlar vest from the radio station and have since worn it. That's why I was unaware of the arrow. There are actually three vests, and Alice confiscated them to give to Claire and K-Mart. It's punishment to me since I didn't reveal the one I have." Ben explained as they walked back to the inner camp.
"Doesn't make sense to me, mate. You're in trouble for being shot, and you had armour that saved your life. Weird." Mikey said with a glance at the armour that was just visible through the two inch hole in the back of his shirt.
"Men and women think differently. but so that it makes sense to you, I'm in trouble because I didn't tell them I had the vest in the first place." Ben said as he clicked the safety back up on his AK and slung it onto his back.
"Oh, now I get it." Mikey said as he wandered towards the slowly forming line at the back of Otto's food van. "Basically, you're in trouble for lying, in a way."
"Yes, you could say that." Ben said with a nod. He had just spotted Claire and K-Mart exitting the Hummer over Mikey's head, and a frown flickered over his face for a brief second. They were wearing the armour, and K-Mart was adjusting the shoulder straps to accomodate her holsters.
Claire approached Ben with an unusual air about her. She stopped beside him and stated quite calmly. ""Meet me in the Hummer after breakfast."" Then she walked away, like nothing had just occured.
Ben sighed as he realized he was still in shit with Claire. He quickly decided that he should get it over with and quickly walked towards the Hummer.
When he opened the rear door he saw that his shotgun was sitting on the floor. He climbed in to retrieve it since it was just out of his reach. When he returned outside, he immediately sensed Alice on the other side of the Hummer with Claire.
A quick glance through the tinted glass revealed the pair were locked in a close embrace, passionately making out against the side of the vehicle. He smiled briefly before wandering towards the M35 to restock his ammo supply.
After he returned with his ammo belt resupplied, Ben calmly opened the rear door of the Hummer and awaited Claire's arrival. He was not prepared for this, since employment was always threatened for something like this. It might be his life on the line this time.
Claire opened the driver door a few minutes after Ben had entered and turned down her radio's volume and unsheathed her knife. Ben remained silent, even though he watched her intently. He wondered why she was holding the knife.
After a few minutes of examining the old combat knife, Claire started an old habit of picking underneath her nails with the tip of the blade. ""Where is he?"" She muttered to herself, glancing through the windshield.
"That's quite the knife, Claire." Ben spoke up from the back seat, which didn't help with his prediciment very well.
"FUCK! Ben! Jesus christ! How long have you been in here?" She exclaimed as she dropped the knife onto the floor. She didn't try to catch it, bad idea.
"Ten minutes. You wanted to see me?" Ben replied calmly, now able to relax since she wasn't holding the knife.
"Two reasons. First, your vehicle idea from yesterday." Claire launched into why she wanted to speak with him alone like this. "I have decided to accept the idea, and we will wait outside of a small town while you and Alice get a vehicle. You'll get two hours, then I'll radio you and pick you up, with or without a ride of your own."
"Thank you." Ben dipped his head slightly as he prepared for the second reason. "I assume that the second reason was about last night." Ben wasn't a fool, he was in shit with the leader and didn't waste theit time with a speech. So Claire immediately went into her second reason for the private talk.
"You understand my reasoning?" Claire said five minutes later. Ben had remained completely silent through her rant and simply nodded. "Good. You don't have to do the patrols anymore." They climbed out of the Hummer to get everything ready to get on the road again.
"By the way, did you name your shotgun?" Claire asked with a glance at the unique weapon in his right hand.
"As a matter of fact, I did. I carved the name here. Hydra." Ben said as he pointed to the word that was usually hidden under his fingers.
"Alright, let's get this show on the road." Claire ordered into her radio after returning the volume to the normal level. She located K-Mart walking out of Mikey's news van and they climbed into the Hummer with Ben. Alice was somehow already seated in the back with a smirk as she loaded her M37 with shells.
"We get our own ride later. Claire allowed you and me to go into a town and get a vehicle of our own." Ben explained to her as he confirmed that all five of his firearms were fully loaded and his four blades were sharpened. They were. All of them.
"How about you surprise me." Alice purred as she adjusted the quiver on her leg. "I'll stay with the convoy, you pick a vehicle for us."
Ben was surprised for a second about them being seperated, but he realized that it was for the convoy's benefit that at least one of them remained. Besides, it was his idea after all.
"Okay, I'll go in alone." Ben finally agreed as they began to drive away.
After driving for about an hour and a half, K-Mart asked Ben about his life before he worked for Umbrella. She was curious about Alice as well, but Alice was resting her head against the glass with her eyes closed. She'd ask later... Maybe.
"I was a gunsmith before I joined Umbrella. I worked with a local gunstore in Raccoon City, Kendo's Gun Shop. I was the apprentice there right after I graduated from high school." Ben began his story with his hands resting on the stock of his downward pointed AK between his knees and his Hydra on his lap.
"I remember that place. I actually scavenged some ammo and guns from there during my escape from the city. I was there when Robert Kendo was killed." Claire said as she drove towards a small town marked on the Garmin GPS.
"Damn." K-Mart said as Ben nodded his head at the mention of his former employer's death.
"I worked there for three years, then Umbrella initially hired me after I customized the Samurai Edge sidearms for the RPD S.T.A.R.S teams. They were impressed with my knowledge, so I became a weapons technician until I was offered a job in security." Ben continued, which seemed funny to Alice. She smiled as she raised her head.
"Then he met me." She smirked at him as she opened her eyes.
"How exactly...?" Claire began, but Ben and Alice both spoke at the same time with identical smirks.
"That damn pistol." They laughed at the memory of the event.
"How about an update?" K-Mart asked after they stopped laughing.
"You remember my P99, right Dahlia?" Ben asked as he reached behind his back with his right hand.
"Yes, 'that old thing'. I remember it." K-Mart said as he produced the silver and black pistol, mostly for Claire's benefit. Upon closer inspection, K-Mart noticed that it was heavily modified with several parts, including a silencer mount on the barrel.
"Well, Alice and I were at an opposition about the newly issued SIG P226's. I wanted to keep my good old P99, while she wanted uniformity." Ben explain while Alice had a reminiscent smile on her face.
"Then what?" K-Mart motioned for him to keep talking.
"She tried to take my P99 from my holster, but she accidently knocked me over and landed on top of me." Ben said with a smile over at Alice, who was quietly laughing at the memory.
"And let me guess, the rest is history?" Claire asked as she checked their progress towards the small town on the GPS. They were nearly there.
"Almost. We were later assigned to protect the entrance to the Hive, which was a mansion on the outskirts of Raccoon City. We're there for six months, then... The Hive Incident occured." Alice said with a blank, expressionless face. She didn't need to go into further details. Claire and K-Mart would understand.
"Oh." Was all that Claire and K-Mart said as Claire pulled the Hummer to a stop at the side of the road. A few undead were visible about a hundred yards away.
As Ben hopped out of the Hummer, the radio channel was filled with confused voices and Claire quickly explain to them.
"Ben is looking for a vehicle for him and Alice. We're taking a three hour rest. I'll go retrieve him in two hours, then we can outfit his ride, if necessary, for the remaining hour. Mikey, find a spot for us to stop at." She said into the radio as Ben strapped his AK onto his back and hung his Hydra on a clip attached to a strap he'd made to hang from his shoulder. He stopped beside her door and awaited any pending orders.
"Ben, get something that the convoy can profit from, like another pickup, or maybe a Jeep. Luxury is overridden by utility." Claire said as she rolled down the window. As he turned to leave, she grasped his arm and said in a hushed voice. "I'm sorry for last night. If you want to have this damn vest, I won't stop you. And Ben... Be careful."
Ben was surprised by the apology and the plea to be careful rang in his ears as she released her grasp on his arm. He just got back from being in her bad books to being on her good side. He didn't plan on pissing her off again.
"Claire, don't worry about him. The undead think that we're one of them, so we can just walk up to them and not be attacked." Alice explained as Mikey's voice hailed over the radio, directing the convoy to a small forest about a ten minute drive from where they had dropped Ben off.
After the camp was set up, K-Mart decided to go help Otto prepare lunch and left Claire and Alice in the Hummer. They had been quietly talking since Ben had walked past the undead that were on the road, without them even glancing at him. She couldn't hear them very well anyway, so she just decided to leave.
"So you're saying we go towards Los Angeles to try to find your brother, Chris?" Alice asked with interest at the idea, instead of wandering the states, they seemed to finally have a destination.
"I need to know if he's still alive. Ben said that the transmissions changed from Chris to someone else over a week ago. He might still be alive." Claire argued as she began to feel the sting of tears in her eyes.
Alice wrapped her arm around Claire's shoulders and tried to calm the tensed leader down. She was tighter than her crossbow's string.
"Hey, relax. Even if the convoy doesn't want to go to LA, I know that K-Mart and the two of us will go with you." Alice whispered, and she meant it wholeheartedly. She would follow Claire from coast to coast, up and down mountains, and across the ocean. With, or without the apocalypse being relevant in the equation.
"He's the only family I've had for most of my life, I have to be certain." Claire managed to say before the tears started to fall. She put her head against Alice's warm shoulder, it reminded her of her mother... Before she was murdered in cold blood.
"Shhh, it's alright. I am certain that he's still alive. We'll find him, I promise." Alice whispered into Claire's ear. She was positive that Chris Redfield was still alive and not infected with the T-Virus.
Claire just had to believe it herself.
