As she ran through the courtyard and down the steps to the platform, it finally hit Claire. She knew why Alfred looked so familiar.
"He must have been the kid in the movie. It makes sense. He looked just like him. His personality didn't seem too far off either." Claire made a face as she remembered what had happened to the dragonfly. The last thing she needed was a demented Umbrella executive targeting her with a sniper rifle. She would have to watch herself.
She reached the platform and looked at the pedestal. There was a hole in it. The steering wheel matched it perfectly. She slid it in and spun it. It turn a few times, then stopped abruptly. Nothing happened immediately, but soon the sound to moving water soon hit Claire's ears. A long metal object emerged from the water just in front of her. It looked like a submarine. The platform gave a sudden jolt and moved forward, almost sending Claire on her butt had she not grabbed the pedestal. The submarine hatch opened and the front of the platform lowered, creating a bridge to it.
Curious, Claire decided to enter the submarine. She knew it couldn't be a way off the island, but looking couldn't hurt. First she stuck her head down to look inside. Her brown ponytail hung over, or rather, below her head as she scanned for signs of zombies. The bare metal cockpit resembled the inside of a can, completely devoid of detail, with the exception of a single window, a bench, and a lever. Claire righted herself and climbed down the short ladder. She pulled the lever. The hatch above her banged shut, and the submarine shuddered, then began to sink. Nervous at first, Claire calmed herself. It was probably running on a track, like an elevator, and she just pressed the down switch.
Sitting down on the bench, Claire noticed something that had fallen behind it. It was a military side pack. As the submarine moved through the dark water, Claire worked on sliding the pack through her belt. She would be able to carry more with this than just putting things in her jeans.
Light began to waver through the window. Claire looked outside and saw an underwater facility built into the rock beneath the palace. The submarine began to rise, and then docked with a passageway jutting out from the rock. The hatch opened automatically, and water dripped down the ladder. Claire drew her Beretta and climbed the ladder. She stuck her arm and head out and cleared the path in front of her. Exiting the submarine she walked down the passageway. It had large windows, and Claire was able to see a little further into the water with the aid of the lights emitting from the windows.
"This must be along the outside of the island," she thought. "I can still see the waters surface, so I can't be that far under water."
Claire continued down the path and walked down a flight of stairs. She went through the door at the end of the hall. She was inside what seemed to be a lobby or a waiting room. The room had a desk and a couch, but these items were lost to Claire; she saw three zombies in the room with her. She had a choice: engage two and go through the door on her left, or engage one and try the roll up shutter on her right.
Remembering her luck with shutters, Claire decided to try the door on the left. Two shots apiece from her Beretta dropped the two zombies. One started to get back up. Claire pulled out her knife and pierced it's skull through it's eye. Claire wrenched her knife free and headed through the door.
It turned out that Steve was right. There was an airport on the island, and Claire had just found it. The airport was built into a hollowed out cavern in the side of the island. A large seaplane was floating in the water. Claire herself was standing on the boarding platform. She ran to the lift to enter the plane, but it was stuck halfway. Consulting the control board next to it, she flipped a switch, and power surged into the lift. It clanked back to the boarding platform. Claire hopped on, but was dismayed when she pushed the button. Nothing happened.
"Damn! Looks like there's a set of keys I need," she thought, noticing a set of indentations on the lifts panel. They were three heptagons. "What the hell could they be?"
Claire had no idea. She would have to find them, though. They had a unique shape, so when or if she found them, she would know it. Then she would have to find Steve again. He had mentioned vaguely that he could fly a plane. But, if push came to shove, she could try to wait for Chris.
Bats twittered above her head. Nervously she looked up and saw them hanging in huddled groups. Claire didn't want to find out if they were infected. She left the boarding area and entered the lobby again.
After sending a bullet through the third zombie's head, she hit the switch by the shutter. Thankfully, it rolled open. She stood on a long bridge. To her left was the plane and the boarding area she was previously on. To her right was the gaping entrance to the cave that served as the airport.
"So the submarine entrance must have been placed there for an emergency. I doubt that that is the only way to get down here. It's too inconvenient. I guess I'm not underwater after all. The water and submarine must have been part of a giant fish tank."
She jogged across the bridge and opened another roll-up shutter. She was inside the airport storage room. Large metal containers were stacked all around her, and a large lift was centered in the room. The lift was down, and Claire couldn't see very far into the darkness. The only other door in the room was covered by a thick metal gate, so Claire began to look for a way to call the elevator up. Maybe there was more to explore down below.
Unfortunately for Claire, a container had fallen in front of the elevator call button. She could try to climb over the railing next to it, but she really didn't feel like taking a chance at falling into what looked like a bottomless pit. Claire had a different idea. She spotted the storage room crane and it's control booth. A small platform elevator took her to the booth one floor up.
Thankfully, the controls still had power. Claire fiddled with the lever that operated the arm. It was a little tricky for her to operate, since she had no experience using it. She positioned the crane's arm over the container and lowered it. It took a few missed grabs before she was able to successfully snatch the crate off the floor.
"That was worse than one of those stuffed animal machines," she thought. She allowed herself a small smile. Chris had always told her not waste money on them as a kid. She, of course, never listened.
Claire went over to the elevator panel and called the elevator. She could here it rumbling up. As it reached her floor, a group of four zombies took her by surprise. She hadn't seen or heard them over the elevator. They had casually rode the elevator up. One lunged for her. Claire was able to free herself of it's grasp before it's friends could join it. She ran around the elevator railing, and the zombies shuffled slowly around. As she ran around one of it's corners, she spotted a card on a crate on the elevator. She reached over the railing and grabbed it. It was another key card, with the words "Biohazard" written on it.
The zombies had shuffled around the corner of the lift and were coming closer. Claire didn't feel like wasting ammo on them. With this card, she could probably access some high security areas, and maybe even find the airport keys. She also didn't feel like finding what was hidden in the black abyss that the elevator had emerged from. She turned tail and ran back to the submarine.