The air was completely black and was kept precisely at room temperature. Had Ethan been alone and standing completely still: there would have been no sound. The lack of any stimulation to his five senses would have been so disorienting that he would have stumbled and fallen flat on his face. He would have been alone in the dark, paralyzed from the crippling anxiety of inhuman beasts lurking within it, and with only the pain of his broken nose and the sounds of his pathetic whimpering and crying stimulating his senses of touch and hearing preventing him from feeling the torment of sensory-deprivation-induced vertigo.
But Ethan was not alone. His hand was being held tightly by Jill Valentine and she was leading him through a complicated labyrinth of corridors and air vents to an escape from this island of death. Occasionally, she would have to carry him on her back like a baby koala when they were climbing or descending long ladders or leaping across perilous chasms because Ethan was so incapable of seeing in the dark that he could have easily fallen at several points in their slog, had it not been for her X-virus infection allowing her to see in the dark. Although, she promised that she would give him a flashlight if she saw one, so far, they never found one. However, Ethan knew she had other means of illumination at her disposal...
"Hey, Jill, why don't you breathe some fire so I can see where I'm going?"
"I am worried that there could be flammable gases in the air."
Like propane? Why would she have been worried about that? Couldn't she smell it?
"It's not propane that I'm worried about. There could be colorless or odorless gases in the air. Well, I'm not exactly worried about those because they do actually have odors and colors; my X-virus infection allows me to smell butane and see ethylene in a new color that I never would have imagined before I got infected. But, since it's dark in here, I'm not able to see ethylene and I don't want to take any chances."
But couldn't she see the ethylene in this new color since she could see in the dark anyway?
"I can't see the full color spectrum in the dark. I can only perceive this place in shades of cyan and that means I can't see certain vapors or mists, either. I can't even see the mist coming out of a First Aid Spray's nozzle."
Ethan's fears were not soothed. He was worried that there could be monsters crawling out of the woodwork at any minute.
"Don't worry, Ethan, I don't think there's anywhere in this place where BOW's can make an entry. We just have to keep moving and before you know it-"
The lights flashed on.
"Oh, it looks like we won't need to find a flashlight for you, after all." said Jill.
The corridor was a strange sight to behold. The floor was a metallic checkerboard of brown and black tiles while the walls and ceiling were a spaghetti-pile of valves, conduits, and pipes coiled around each other like a rat king's collection of tails that formed a great chaotic serpent of industrial detritus. Looking at this place almost made Ethan wish the lights had never come on. What if there had been something wrong with these things and the facility's bosses had to call a plumber or electrician to fix this stuff?
"You need a doctorate in engineering with at least ten years of experience as a master tradesman in order to work in these tunnels."
Wouldn't workers like that have been old and wracked with arthritis by the time they would qualify to work on Isla del Muerte's maintenance tunnels?
"Not always, but Wesker and his goons make sure to slip some pills into their mashed potatoes which contain a modified strain of X-virus that they call 'M-virus'. It reverses the aging process and rejuvenates the muscles, with all of the health benefits of a deep tissue massage, but it doesn't turn them into zombies, peons, or ganados. Skilled labor is too valuable of an asset to be wasted on a transformation like that of a human turning into a peon."
Ethan would have liked to know more about these tunnels but he was more anxious to check out Carlos' caches.
"Yes, it's not too far away. Come with me, it's this way!"
After one right turn, they found a closet marked, and thus it was written, '¡CARLOS'S VESTIDOR DE PAJA! ¡LARGATE SI NO ERES YO!'
Jill opened the door hastily, but gently. "In here, quickly!" Jill whispered harshly as she yanked Ethan inside and shut the door behind her.
Jill flipped a light on. Her hand withdrew from the string that hung from the bulb dangling from the ceiling. Other than a mop that was resting inside a plastic bucket with rollers on it, the closet was completely empty.
"Cover your eyes: I'm going to break this board down."
Ethan had not noticed a board.
"I mean, this board covering the entrance to Carlos' cache." she patted the wooden wall on the dead center of its Cinnamon Toast Crunch swirl.
Ethan then understood that, when Jill broke down the wall, splinters would be flying from the impact of Jill's strike, and they would surely find a means to embed themselves in his eyes. He turned his back to the board and covered his face with his hands.
PEW!
"Okay, Ethan, you can uncover your eyes, now."
Pew? Ethan had expected a loud crash with chunks of balsa wood clattering on the ground after Jill would have punched it.
"Oh, I wasn't going to punch it. You see, my X-Virus infection allows me to shoot lasers from my eyes that disintegrate wood. I just needed you to cover your eyes because they're thirty times more damaging to the eyes than arc welding."
Wouldn't that have meant she would be blind when she shot them?
"Yes, but only for a few seconds. I'm able to regenerate my eyesight after such trauma. Anyway, I'm going to take a look inside so don't go anywhere, okay, Ethan?"
Jill stepped into the hidden room. No light could be seen. A moment later, Jill had flipped on a halogen work light, revealing a stockpile of olive drab-colored storage chests. Jill went to the largest of them and tried to open its padlock. However, in spite of her Herculean strength, she struggled to open it. She gasped when she inspected it.
"Oh no!" hopelessness crept into Jill's voice, "I forgot that we needed the Delorean key to open these boxes! We're completely defenseless now!"
"It's okay," said Ethan. "I got it right here!"
He presented it to Jill, holding it between his thumb and forefinger like a boyfriend posing for a photograph by making it look like he was pinching the sun.
Jill gave a primal scream of relief and leapt toward Ethan. She gave him a bear hug, lifting him up in the air as though she were about to suplex him, and popping her foot like she was being passionately kissed.
"OOOOHH! ILOVEYOUILOVEYOUILOVEYOUILOVEYOU I L-O-V-E Y-O-U!" She shouted frantically as she swung Ethan around in a ballroom dance that was as friendly, and rough, as a Texas handshake.
Ethan was surprised at how gentle she was. By all means, she should have been crushing him with her superhuman strength. But he did not feel as though his ribs were being crushed nor did his skull ache from being spun. Actually, he felt like he had just been given a soul and a boundless desire to seize happiness for himself, as though he had just woken up from a restless dream where he was an empty automaton stalked by dark figures, hiding in the background like Bunraku puppeteers that controlled his every movement, that he would soon, and gladly, forget.
Jill delicately placed Ethan on the floor and took the Delorean from him. She skipped to each of the chests and lockers and opened them.
Within each of them was the wet dream of an enthusiastic defender of the 2nd Amendment. The largest chest contained an RPG-7D with ten 40mm HEAT warheads, a Panzerfaust 3 with ten 60mm warheads, a Metal Storm 3GL with 20 40mm grenades, and a Gepard M6 with three magazines, already loaded with 14.5mm cartridges.
The next largest contained an RPK-74, configured as a cost-effective designated marksman rifle, with a PSO-1 telescopic sight, a bipod, and small magazines which only barely exceeded the length of the trigger group to make it more comfortable to shoot from a prone position. Jill explained to Ethan that Carlos had the idea to use, what was normally a squad automatic weapon. as a sniper rifle because it was actually less than satisfactory in its intended role due to it having a habit of overheating too fast. However, what separated it from a regular AK-74 was its longer and heavier barrel and the 5.45x39mm round it was chambered for was just as aerodynamic as a 5.56x45mm round but did more damage through tumble and yaw than its NATO counterpart, thus earning it the nickname of 'the poison bullet'. He specifically wanted to use this 'poison bullet,' rather than the more common 5.56, because it did more damage while still being less lethal than other assault rifle rounds.
"Why would he want a bullet that was less lethal? Isn't the point of a gun to kill people?" asked Ethan.
"I asked him the same question." said Jill. "He told me that it was more damaging to the enemy in the grand scheme of things to injure, rather than kill, a combatant because it costs more to treat his injury than to bury him."
And, the nastier a bullet wound, the more expensive it would be to treat it.
"Precisely," said Jill.
The next chest contained two P90's and four Five-seveN's; logical choices as every Peon in the facility was armed with them.
The chest after that one contained a Heckler and Koch G41, chambered for 5.56 and compatible with the M16's STANAG magazines.
Ethan opened another chest and found a rifle that he thought was an AK-47.
"Actually, that's a Vzor 58 from the former Czechoslovakia." explained Jill, "it's more comfortable to shoot and performs better overall than the Soviet AKM. But, it takes different magazines in spite of being chambered for the same 7.62x39mm caliber."
Why did Carlos think it was necessary to pack different intermediate calibers in these things when 5.56 would do the job just fine?
"He has this obsessive compulsion to keep one gun for every caliber." said Jill. "He rationalizes it by saying it's like having different golf clubs that are ideal for the right situation."
And, true to his mentality, another case contained a CZ-75, a 1911 manufactured by Les Baer, a Smith and Wesson Model 10, a Ruger Redhawk, a Ruger Blackhawk, a Ruger Super Redhawk, a Ruger Super Blackhawk, a Kolibri car pistol, a duck's foot pistol (with eight barrels, a heavily spiked butt, and a little bayonet attached to it), a pepperbox with 32 barrels, and a Desert Eagle (which Ethan threw away because it was a worthless, wrist-cracking range toy for wankers) which were chambered for 9mm parabellum, .45 ACP, .38 Special, .357 magnum (also compatible with .38 Special, making the inclusion of the Model 10 all the more baffling), .41 Magnum, .44 Magnum, .454 Casull, 2.7mm, .36 caliber, .32 caliber, and .50 Action Express, respectively.
"How come this guy doesn't have anything chambered in .40 Smith and Wesson?" asked Ethan.
"He says bringing that round to a gunfight is like bringing a tennis racket to a golf game." said Jill.
Well, it might have worked well enough for Happy Gilmore.
"No, it wouldn't because Happy Gilmore used a hockey stick." said Jill.
Whatever.
The next chest contained an FN Mag 58 chambered for 7.62x51mm and a PKM for 7.62x54mm. General purpose machine guns with comparable performances and too heavy for Ethan to lug around so what was the point?
"I can hold them akimbo. I know that they're both chambered for different rounds but I don't plan on reloading them anyway." Jill said in a reassuring voice.
Ethan guessed that she was able to dual wield them like Chow Yun Fat because her X-virus infection gave her the strength necessary to-
"How did you know?" asked Jill, genuinely surprised.
The next chest contained grenades: green for fragmentation, blue for flashbang, and red for incendiary. Enough for everybody in the facility by virtue of the fact that peons would leave behind grenades for Ethan and Jill to loot off of.
Ethan pulled out another chest that contained a wide variety of 19th-century plinking guns chambered for obsolete conical ball cap rimfire ammunition like 6mm Flobert, novelty rifles chambered in overpowered calibers like .577 Tyrannosaur and .950 JDJ, Japanese small arms from the Pacific Theater of World War II, another 2.7mm Kolibri car pistol, another duck's foot pistol with only four barrels, and another pepperbox with 58 barrels that Carlos must have made himself because there was no historical evidence of pepperboxes being made with this many barrels.
The last chest contained shotguns: two SPAS-12's with folding stocks and butt hooks to allow for dual-wielding and a SPAS-15 with magazines for 12-gauge slugs and a variety of specialty ammo like Dragon's Breath, Bean Bag, and Capsicum rounds and a particularly exotic weapon called a KS-23. A rifled shotgun chambered for 23x75mmR cartridges that was made from a barrel rejected for use in an Anti-Aircraft gun but repurposed for this weapon. It came with Zvesda (flashbang), Siren-7 (tear gas with CS agent), Barricade (meant to destroy engine blocks in cars), and Shrapnel-25 (buckshot with a 25-meter effective range) cartridges.
"I doubt we will need all of this," said Jill, "but it is nice of Carlos to keep this stuff here. He has caches like this throughout the facility."
With all of this ordinance at their disposal: there would no longer be any pussy-footing around. They could walk straight to the helipad and escape from this residence of evil.
"Ethan," her voice was assertive, militant, ready to scorch the earth, "I know what you're thinking, but we can't leave this place. Not until Wesker, Lucas, your ex-wife Olivia, and… And…" she swallowed hard, finding it almost physically impossible to utter his name, "Chris... Not until they all pay for the damage they have done to this world. And we must see to it that this facility gets destroyed in a cathartic explosion." her use of a pretentious word like 'cathartic' almost made her sound like Wesker.
"Jill, hold on," Ethan touched her shoulder, "I'm thinking, maybe, we shouldn't blow this place up."
Jill firmly placed her hand on his, "Ethan, why would you not want to see this place destroyed? Nothing but evil can come of this island."
Ethan stacked his other hand on top of hers, "Jill, you're a product of this island, as well, and you're not evil. We can take the Umbrella's tools for ourselves and use it to benefit the world."
Jill seemed to be about to say something. But, instead, she exhaled and relaxed her muscles. Her gaze lost its fiery fervor and her voice softened.
"I don't know, Ethan," she said, casting her gaze off to the side, away from Ethan, "these experiments Wesker subjected me to may have made me a super human but they certainly haven't done wonders for my psyche. It's just not right; humanity was never meant to toy with nature like this."
"I won't argue that mankind has the potential to abuse science the way Wesker has," Ethan squeezed his hands a little firmer and Jill looked back into his eyes, "but I believe God gave us the ability to manipulate nature to our liking to see if we would use it, virtuously, to lift each other up; knowing, full well, that He also risked seeing us use it to bring each other down."
Jill stared back intensely. She kept her face blank, so she wouldn't betray any of her feelings about Ethan's opinions, and he could sense that she didn't want him to be discouraged from talking.
Ethan continued, "And, sure, so far Wesker has abused God's gift to us for his own selfish desires but I believe we can redeem ourselves, use Wesker's research to clean up after him and save more lives than he has taken, and prove ourselves to be worthy of God's trust with this technology so that we may be ready to advance ourselves further into a better world."
Jill cast her eyes down again, "Well, I don't believe in a God, myself. But, I've been through enough experiences to know that nature was meant to be respected and not manipulated for anyone's benefit. Too often, mankind's greed and hubris overrides his virtue and good intentions. If we're ever ready for the technology Umbrella has created: it won't be within our lifetimes. Perhaps, we can prove that we are worthy of God's trust but can we prove that we are worthy of the trust of our fellow man?"
Ethan could not be sure if Jill was going to be steadfast in her desire to destroy the Isla Del Muerte facility. judging by her body language, however, this was probably something she would need to think about.
Unfortunately, she wouldn't have time to think about it at that moment because the room was rumbling as though there was an earthquake of biblical proportions tearing the room apart.
"Hey, what's going on!" Jill yelled.
The floor was rendered asunder and great cracks appeared in the floor, swallowing chests and weapons into their ever-widening maws.
"Ethan! Grab onto me, quick! My X-virus infection will allow me to land on my feet like a cat!"
Ethan wasted no time in embracing her and Jill jumped ten feet into the air as the floor below her opened up. She allowed herself to fall into the void and prepared to stick the landing wherever the hole would lead her.
