(Emergency)
"No!" screamed Sam as Claire's face turn blank and her hands slip from the grip of Alice and Carlos. The pair would have reacted better but both were forced to duck as the single shot was followed by a storm of incoming fire. Alice snatched out both machine pistols to return fire but had to settle for just spraying in the general direction of the Umbrella troops and mercs who had taken refuge in several of the guard towers. Carlos had dragged down K-Mart to protect her and once again Chris covered Jill and Angie.
Sam turned the chopper and let fly with one of the missile pods mounted on the stubby wings of the helo. A half-dozen rockets turned the tower he thought the sniper might have fired from into scrap but a heavy machine-gun opened up from yet another one and the chopper began to spin. Smoke came from the tail section. Fighting the controls with all he could muster Sam looked frantically for a landing place. He did take the opportunity to empty the magazine of the mini-gun when the gyrating craft spun its nose across the two remaining towers, hopefully silencing them for good.
"There, over there," yelled Alice, pointing to the falling down walls of what looked to be a sports arena; a football or baseball field in the middle. Sam guiding the stalling helo that way, the engine quitting just as they hovered over the open area. Automatically he auto-rotated, yanking hard at the collective at the last second to make a reasonably soft landing.
The instant the helicopter had come to rest Sam clambered out of his seat. Tossing his helmet on the ground he looked back towards the building they had just come from and started that way. Carlos caught him by the arm.
"What?" all but snarled the former Umbrella pilot.
"What," replied Alice, coming up beside her husband, "is that you need to stay here and see if you can repair the helo. It's a long walk back to Alaska from here. Carlos and I will go after Claire."
"She's right Sam," confirmed Jill. "You've got to be pretty darned good but you're no match in a fight for them. They can get there a lot faster than you." She didn't add that Carlos and Alice were much more likely to get there than the over-wrought man was.
For a moment the tension was palatable. Then Sam's shoulders slumped and he nodded.
"Don't worry," Alice said softly. "We'll bring her back."
There was a brief discussion as to whether or not anyone else should go. Chris argued he knew the city better than anyone. K-Mart was determined not to let her parents out of her sight. But both were convinced to stay behind; Chris to help Jill look after Angie and guard the site and K-Mart to help Sam work on the helo.
"It's no secret, to us anyway, that Sam has been teaching you to fly," Alice grinned at her daughter. "So now you help him fix this thing." With that parting shot she and Carlos slipped out of sight, having paused only to restock their ammo supply and make sure the headset radios were working.
K-Mart rolled her eyes. How come her parents were so smart? She turned as Sam unlatched the inspection doors and began to poke around inside the helo. Chris and Jill took up guard positions on either side of the downed craft. And the other teenaged girl in the group slipped over to stand beside her.
"They'll be alright you know," she said. "I've known them a long time although I haven't seen them in years."
"They have talked about you a lot since I first met them. They had wondered how you were, if you were alright. When they found Jill, your mom, they were happy that you had been with her but scared that you had been taken. As soon as we got the news up in Alaska that you were here in LA and Jill and Claire took off down here they, my parents, started making plans to come too." The teen grinned. "But this time I was able to come along too." She sobered. "It's scary out here but not near as scary as seeing them go off without me. I don't want that to happen again."
"I bet. I'm Angie by the way."
"I'm K-Mart."
"Really?"
"I have a legal first name, the name I was given at birth. But Mom and Dad promised me when they got married and did the whole formal adoption thing that I wouldn't have to use it. I never liked it. When Claire and Carlos and the rest of the convoy found me it was in the back room of a K-Mart store scavenging and trying to stay alive. As I told my mom when I met her it seemed time for a change."
The two teens began the business of becoming fast friends as K-Mart headed over to help Sam inspect the helicopter and Angie came along. The pair of them was now talking ninety miles an hour as Angie helped K-Mart start rooting through the tool box as they exchanged stories of how they happened to meet their adoptive parents.
While Carlos and Alice made their way through the ruined streets back to the building where Claire had been and the rest of the team worked on the helo or stood guard, Claire's eyes opened. She blinked.
She had been shot she knew and had fallen back on the roof. Before she had passed out she had seen the helo staggering from multiple gunfire hits. So no surprise that she was still on the roof. But that she wasn't alone WAS a surprise, especially since the two faces looking down at her belonged to no one she could recall ever meeting.
Or had she? A third face bent over her, one that was upside down instead of sideways. Claire decided that must mean the owner of that face was the one holding her head in her lap. That was nice of her. Much softer than the gravel topping of the roof. And that woman did look very vaguely familiar. Her voice didn't though. Claire listened to what she was saying to the other two.
"MaryBeth, tear up something to make a bandage. Eliza, see if you can find some water but do it after we turn her on her side. I'm worried that the bullet may have pierced a lung so we need to get the good one up so she can breathe. And let's make sure that the door to the stairs is closed and barred. We don't want any zombies smelling their way up here."
The hands were gentle on her body. Claire thought of Sam. Was he okay? And everyone else? If so she knew someone would come for her. She tried to tell the face she knew she had seen before that someone would come for her but her mouth was too dry and her eyes were too heavy to speak.
"Shhhh, it's alright. We'll take care of you," reassured the voice.
Claire believed it. Darkness swam around her and she passed out again.
Carlos and Alice darted through the streets, moving swiftly. The pair of seasoned adventurers had fit together well the first time they met in Raccoon City. Now after separation and reuniting and falling in love the two of them moved as one. Neither needed to tell the other what they were doing, it was already known. The rest time they had in their new home in Alaska had only sharpened their skills.
They were cautious but quick. Speed was the keyword. They depended on Alice's special senses and abilities to keep them safe where other people might have failed. Zombies that were encountered along the way were handled quickly. All of them. No matter how urgent the need was to get to their fallen friend the pair had not survived by leaving foes behind them capable of harming them. So nearby ones fell to Alice's knives and one farther away were picked off by Carlos' sharpshooting.
There weren't very many of the undead, giving additional evidence to the theory that the zombies and perhaps the T-virus too were succumbing to time. Those that were still mobile were falling apart. It still didn't pay to take chances with any of them. The pair's immediate mission was to get to their friend but as always the long-term one was to get back to their daughter safe and sound.
It didn't take long though to reach their objective. Keeping the bulk of the building between them and the still exploding and burning ruins of the Umbrella base. Staying right up against the wall they reached the door. Alice put her mouth to Carlos' ear.
"This door should be closed. Someone's been here recently."
Pointing at a scrap f cloth caught on a projection and two different sized footprints in the dust blown into the entrance over the years Carlos nodded his agreement and lifted two fingers.
"At least," agreed Alice.
Weapons at the ready, the pair took the stairs in a hurry. At the top a gentle, questioning push showed that the door was barred. Knowing Claire had not had time to do that since they had seen her come out on to the roof as they swung in to pick her up that meant there was someone else there. Not zombies obviously, especially since the murmur of low pitched voices, and female voices to boot, could be heard.
"Break it down?" signaled Carlos silently.
Alice was about to agree when a slightly louder voice made itself heard understandably.
"The bullet went right through. I think we have the bleeding stopped."
With that Alice shook her head sideways. She dashed down a flight of stairs and found the hall window, long ago broken out. Craning her neck she spotted an ornate carving right over her head. She balanced on the window sill and jumped up.
For any ordinary person it would have been dangerous. For Alice, her virus bonded reflexes and strength allowed her to grasp the carving and execute a complete flip over it. She landed feet first on the roof. Three startled faces looked at her.
"So, what exactly are you doing with my friend?"
"She's... she's been shot," blurted out one of the two who were kneeling beside Claire.
"I'm aware of that. I saw it happen. My question is who exactly are you and why are you up here."
The one sponging Claire's face with a dampened cloth that Alice saw was a torn up woman's top, as was the bandage circling Claire's body, replied.
"Who we are are three employees of Umbrella Corporation that you and your friends have just knocked out of a job. Not that I can blame you. What we're doing here is that when the complex was falling down around us we made a break for it. We have been living underground for years now and our survival skills are non-existent. The very first group of zombies we encountered just outside here were about to make a meal out of us when they went down, thanks to your friend here. She saved our lives although she had no reason to do so that I can think of off the top of my head."
"She threw me a holstered pistol with extra ammo. We were trying to decide where we could go when we saw the helo come back. We also saw it, you, try to pick up our rescuer and saw her get shot. When you were unable to land we decided we had no choice. We would have to come up here and see if she was still alive and if so do the best we could to keep her that way."
Alice nodded. "Thanks. Her name is Claire Redfield by the way. I'm Alice."
"Not 'Project Alice'?" blurted out the third woman in awe.
"Could be. But we don't have time to discuss that right now. We need to get Claire to a doctor."
"Do you know where one is?" asked the woman who seemed to be the leader. "I'm a Para-medic and I've done the best I can but I'm no doctor."
"I do and assuming that none of you are Umbrella supporters and can demonstrate it there might be a place of refuge for you."
"I don't know how any of us could prove it, short of hypnotic interrogation or something like that but all three of us have been desperate to get away from Umbrella." The woman went on to quickly introduce the trio; the medic was named Helena, MaryBeth was a systems analyst and Eliza was a lab technician.
"We're the only three surviving women," Helena went on bitterly. "The others were all ejected as times got tough or in one of the periodic purges. We knew any day any one of us could follow our friends. Umbrella is pretty male-dominated. Women are considered expendable, especially lately."
Alice nodded. She was well aware of the ruthlessness of the corporation and its lack of concern for its employees, especially the rank and file and lower management. She studied the trio. They all met her eyes without flinching. She came to a decision.
"I believe you." She indicated Claire. "Can she be moved?"
"If it means getting her to a doctor than the answer is definitely yes," Helena said decisively. "I think we can rig a stretcher with the stuff at hand here."
A knock on the door leading down reminded Alice that Carlos was still waiting. She opened it. Seeing how all three women reacted to his appearance she was careful to immediately introduce him, casually mentioning that he was her husband. Not that Alice had the slightest worry that all three of the women, attractive though they were, combined could turn her man's head for an instant it simply was an easy way to get them to stop making puppy dog eyes and get their attention back on Claire and getting to safety.
In short order two metal poles had been produced and slid through the arms of the women's jackets. Claire had been carefully slipped onto the stretcher. With Alice in the lead they had negotiated the stairs. Once they were safely in the street they took off as quickly as they could. Alice noted the women had apparently stayed in good physical shape as MaryBeth and Eliza carried the semi-conscious woman without too much difficulty. Helena, armed with the pistol that Claire had tossed to her, kept a careful watch on their rear while Carlos ranged ahead.
Alice and Helena had checked Claire again as they had started off. Although badly wounded her injuries did not seem to be immediately life-threatening. Alice sighed in relief. They had eliminated all the zombies on the route in so there should be little opposition returning to the helo. Things were going just fine.
Of course Alice could only think that because she couldn't see the scene at the field where the helicopter had landed and their friends were waiting...
(To Be Continued)