Disclaimer: I do not own Resident Evil, or it's characters...but Capcom is the bomb.
Back in Egypt, Chris and Jill had finally decided how they were going to handle the situation. There was a BSAA team that had been assigned to locate Wesker and Claire, but Chris had been ordered to continue on the mission that they'd already started. He understood the executive decision that'd been made. They had managed to track somebody that was supposedly one of the heads of Neo Umbrella, and it was believed that the man had his own small militia group tasked with gathering information on various viral weaponry, both new and old. This spelled bad news.
However, understanding a decision and agreeing with it are oftentimes two different things. Chris was going after his sister, and nobody could tell him differently. But the BSAA had been right about the importance of the task that they had on hand here in Egypt, so it couldn't be completely abandoned. Jill had offered to continue on by herself to see it through, but there was no way that she could be allowed to investigate this potentially volatile situation on her own.
This is why they were currently on their way to the Egyptian BSAA base of operations that was conveniently located just outside of the city. Chris was driving the Jeep Wrangler that they had chosen due to the fact that it drove well on sand, which was a necessary feature for this region. Air conditioning was another necessary feature, however it appeared that it had stopped working somewhere along the line. Despite the fact that the windows were rolled down, sweat dripped down their faces. Jill would have given almost anything for a cup of ice right about now. Chris had his left hand clutching the steering wheel, and with his other hand he was nervously using his forefinger to pick away the cuticle of his thumb. He had tried to call Claire's phone multiple times in vain, but it went straight to voice mail each time.
It wasn't difficult to see that he was in distress, his hand clenching the steering wheel so tightly that his knuckles were white. Jill snaked her hand over and held his, giving it comforting squeeze. Chris glanced over in her direction and gave her a slight smile, but it was difficult to focus on anything other than the fact that his sister was most likely in danger.
They pull up to the rectangular shaped sandstone building and Chris pocketed the keys as they exited the vehicle. His eyes scanned the surrounding area as they made their way to the wrought iron door. There was no indication as to what this building actually was, other than the small lettering above the doorway that said "B.S.A.A."
Jill was first through the door and was grateful for the complete change of temperature as they walked into the base of operations. The cool air caused them to pause momentarily to appreciate the lack of scalding heat. They were greeted in slightly broken English by an Egyptian woman behind the front desk. Her hijab, covering her head and neck, framed a very pretty face. Jill imagined having to wear one of those out in the Egyptian weather, and the thought of being any hotter than she had been on the ride over made her shudder. "Hello!" the Egyptian woman beamed. "What can I help you for today?"
"We are agents from the North American branch," Chris explained. "We need an operative to assist us." The receptionist nodded, picking up the receiver of an outdated phone that sat on her desk and dialing a 3 digit number. She said something in Arabic and listened for a moment before looking up at them. "Names?"
"Valentine and Redfield," Jill replied. The woman repeated the names, nodded, and replaced the phone in it's cradle.
"You may come through," she said, standing up and opening the simple-looking wooden door set into the wall behind her. They proceeded further into the building and walked past several cubicles where people in headsets were monitoring and providing information for various other agents. The place smelled like the yellowed pages of an old book.
Having been here once before, Jill guided Chris to a wall lined with offices bearing plated names on each door. The first two doors stood ajar, revealing empty desks. She stopped at the third that bore the name "R. Holder" and knocked 3 times.
"Come in," said a tired sounding voice. Jill stepped in, and her companion followed. Sitting at the desk was a middle aged man with a protruding gut and a terrible comb-over.
"Well if it isn't ol' Dick Holder!" Jill exclaimed, and the man behind the desk shook his head and sighed.
"For the last time, it's Richard. Richard Holder. What do you want?" the man asked exasperatedly.
"Well, Richard, I need a new partner for this objective. Chris," she pointed in his direction, "Has been called away to...a different mission."
"Your friend is awfully quiet. Is he mute?" Holder gibed. Chris walked over and placed both hands on the desk so that he was looking directly down at the older man sitting in the chair, causing the man to audibly inhale in surprise.
"Listen here, Dick," Chris retorted, emphasizing the name. "I need you to assign an operative and meeting location to Jill here, and I need you to do it now." A vein on his forehead was starting to stick out, and his partner knew the sign that he was about to lose his cool. Fortunately Mr. Holder was easily scared. He gave Jill a look that said, "Save me." She just shook her head.
The older man picked his phone up off of his desk and started dialing out. Within minutes he had a location for Jill to meet up with her new partner. The location was coincidentally at the same bazaar they had been at when they received that dreadful call.
The few people that were milling about the hall all moved out of Wesker's way as he made his way down to his own private lab. H.U.N.K. was standing outside of the door to his control room, and as the tyrant passed, the man in the gas mask bravely joined him in his walk.
"The BSAA is mobilizing," he informed Wesker. "They must have picked up a signal from the ship off the coast. But our mole says that Chris Redfield won't be with them." The blonde man clenched his teeth at the sound of his enemies name.
"He will come."
"How can you be so sure?" H.U.N.K challenged. Wesker shot him a sidelong look, but kept walking.
"He always has to play hero. It never fails."
"Are you sure we can hold them off? If the BSAA knows where we are, others are sure to follow."
"Let me worry about that. See to it that your delegates are prepared," Wesker ordered. H.U.N.K. nodded and went his own way. Now, to anybody else it would have looked like Wesker was just apathetic towards everything. H.U.N.K. knew better.
That was the most he had spoken in months to anybody that he knew of, and without causing anybody harm nonetheless. Hell, he had even let his subordinate question him on the matter of the BSAA. Albert Wesker was in a good mood. Mr. Death couldn't wrap his mind around how that could have happened; he was never in a good mood. Was it the idea that his nemesis might/would be coming to the island into what was probably going to be a well-thought out trap? Or...was it wherever he had just come from? Or maybe he knows and he's trying to hide it until...until what?
No. He couldn't, that wasn't possible. H.U.N.K.'s name had never made it to any official records other than the paper trail from his training days at the Rockfort facility. No. Wesker couldn't know what he had done.
Regardless, H.U.N.K. had things to accomplish. The first thing was to check in with the two that were left to monitor Kennedy's movements. As long as he wasn't in danger of finding the facility in the immediate future, he could move on to preparing his troops for whatever it was Wesker had planned.
Entering one of the observation rooms, H.U.N.K. found the two that were tasked with watching Kennedy. They were sitting in front of a very large screen that was separated into many smaller screens, each showing a particular spot in the jungle. Only one of the men was actually watching the screens, the other was lounging around polishing his boots. Mr. Death cleared his throat, and they both just about jumped out of their skins. He walked over to the screen and addressed the soldier that was following the order he had been given. "Report?"
"He's made his way to the north side of the island without getting eaten somehow. I'm not sure if luck played a part in that though, he took out quite a few of our...guards." Here he was referring to the undead. " But unless he randomly starts heading southwest, we should be fine."
"What are these black screens?" his superior asked from behind his gas mask, pointing at one of the black squares he was referring to.
"Those? I'm not sure, could be a mechanical malfunction..." Taking a closer look at the screen Leon was currently occupying, he could be seen looking all around. He was searching through the bushes and scanning the tree lines. In his search, he looked directly at the camera. It almost felt as if he could see them standing there watching him. He couldn't, of course, but he knew he was being watched. They saw him cock his arm back, and the next thing they knew, that screen went black, too. He had thrown something at it.
"That's what those black screens are all about," Mr. Death confirmed. "Gather Shepherd, Brown, and Reyes and then head out. We aren't going to be able to keep an eye on him if he's going to take them out. He wrote his own death certificate by following our TerraSave girl here. Now he's signed it."
The other two men started to leave, but their superior abruptly turned and pointed at the one that had just been shining his boots. "You. Mancini. Stay." Mancini was a black-haired Italian in his 40's, and had the faintest trace of a mustache starting on his upper lip.
When it was just the two of them in the room, H.U.N.K. walked over and placed his hand on the man's shoulder, gripping it tightly enough for it to be uncomfortable. The other man tried to peer into the gas mask, but couldn't see anything other than the surveillance screens reflecting off of the eye pieces. Somehow he knew that he was being looked directly in the eyes, though. It was the man behind the gas mask that broke the silence first.
"Your daughter is in the research halls, is she not?" Mancini's face flushed of all color.
"Y-yes," he stammered. "Why?"
"When you are directed to do something, you do what you are told to do," H.U.N.K. said condescendingly, as if scolding a child for eating spoonfuls of sugar. "You don't stop to do some menial task like polishing your boots. It wouldn't be difficult at all to move your daughter from one list to another."
"No, you can't do that!" Macini cried. "I've been a faithful employee for over a year now, and god only knows Silvana wouldn't still be alive right now if it weren't for the company. But you can't do that, you can't move her to the other list! Who knows what kind of risky treatments she would get, the ones she are getting right now are working fi-" H.U.N.K. gripped his shoulder even tighter, so that it became painful, and leaned in slightly. Mancini stopped talking.
"Then perhaps next time you are given an order, you will see to it that you fulfill it to the best of your abilities." With that, he left the room, leaving the Italian alone in the surveillance room to gather himself. Mr. Death wouldn't be bothering Wesker with such trivialities, but he would take it upon himself to follow through with his threats should the soldier act in such a careless manner again. But having been given the proper motivation, he highly doubted that Mancini would slip again.
Black gloved fingers glided over the keypad next to the hermetically sealed door, punching in a twenty character numerical code that had no particular pattern. Having been accustomed to using random access codes for most of his life, such a thing hardly slowed him down. The door hissed as it opened on the first try. It always did. As the door moved, a glaringly bright, spotless laboratory was revealed. This was Wesker's domain.
This was where everything had a logical, scientific reason behind it, with no bothersome Redfields to befoul his thoughts. He inhaled the calming scent of disinfectant in the air as he cracked his knuckles, heading over to his computer. Files would have to be backed up, samples be sent out, and people be evacuated. There was much to do with a small window of time to accomplish them. But this was the calm before the storm.
The thought of punishing his enemies, the thought of Chris Redfield finally perishing...this excited him. This island had proved to be fruitful, but it was now time to move on. After leaving, there would be no coming back. He would have to lay low for a while, but the payout would be well worth the initial cost.
Raccoon City, Rockfort Island, Harvardville airport...Claire was lying on her back in the room she'd been shut away in, making a mental checklist of things that she had survived that were much worse than this situation. It made her feel better realizing that this wasn't even in the top three of the hardest things she had been through in her adult life. At least she hoped it wasn't.
She'd been through an undead city and a labyrinth of B.O.W.'s (more than once) , and then had the whole place blow up. She made it through that. She'd been caught invading Umbrella's Paris facility and sent to a glorified internment camp. She made it through that as well, even though it was said that nobody ever left the prison island. And just a few months ago, she had survived a plane full of infected crashing into the airport terminal she was in(what are the chances of that even happening?), and made it through another self destruct sequence at Wilpharma.
"Here I am, life. I'm still here," Claire said to herself. "If I can make it through all of that, I can make it out of this with no problem." Even though you had help with all of the above? her mind jeered back. She wouldn't have made it out of Raccoon without Leon. Chris wouldn't have come to her rescue in Antarctica had Leon not relayed the mayday email he had received. And he definitely saved her ass more than once at Harvardville.
However, had Leon been on time she wouldn't be in this situation. Or maybe it was her fault after all. She did leave for the island by herself. Maybe if he had been there they would have both been captured. Maybe he was out there now? Claire was still forcing her mind to replace the negative thoughts with more optimistic ones. It was no easy task.
The ship might still be out in the water. If Leon had showed up on board after she went to the island, surely he would have followed her. What if the infected got the jump on him? But, like herself, he had seen more than any normal person should see in their lifetime. It was hard to imagine him being dispatched by something as weak as a zombie. Well. There's your hope.
- - -
The air smelled of decaying fruits and vegetables mingling with the aroma of manure from various different types of animals. Chris and his partner had been wandering around the market for about half an hour now, with no sign of whoever was going to be aiding Jill. Chris was becoming more and more irritable by the minute; he just wanted to go after his sister.
So when a man wearing cargo pants and a denim vest over a white tank top held out a piece of fruit to the two BSAA agents, Chris knocked it out of his hands. The red pomegranate hit the ground with a muffled thud, and the throngs of buyers and sellers just parted around the three, like a river flowing around a protruding boulder.
"For the last time, we don't want any!" Chris hollered at the man. "Fuck off, and aloha fuckin snackbar!" The one that had offered the fruit ran his hand through his jaw-length, greasy brown hair and chuckled.
"Somebody is cranky," he said with a European accent. "And mildly racist. Is that any way to treat a fellow BSAA operative that's just trying to offer you some nutrition?" Chris looked the man's scraggly attire up and down.
"You're BSAA?" Chris said incredulously. Jill elbowed him in the ribs. He could be an ass sometimes.
"Parker Luciani, at your service. Today was my day off, what do you want from me," he shrugged casually.
"Well, we appreciate you coming out," Jill said, sparing Chris a glance. "Or at least I do."
"Anything for una donna" Parker said, then looked at Chris. "Even an ugly one such as yourself."
"That's it, I'm out," Chris growled, turning to leave. Jill lightly touched his shoulder, and he turned back around. She gave him a smile that just about melted his heart.
"Be safe out there," she said. "Come back in one piece. Don't do anything rash, but give that bastard the what for." Chris nodded. He wanted to scoop her up in his arms and kiss her, but he wasn't one for public displays of affection. Instead he settled for a one-armed hug.
"You do the same," he said, turning away.
"It was nice to meet you!" Parker called out. Chris didn't reply, but flipped him the bird over his shoulder. He had much bigger problems to worry about.
A/N: I know you guys were hoping for more Wesker X Claire, and I promise your patience will pay off. Thank you so much to the people that did take the time to review, you da real MVP's. The next chapter won't be nearly as stagnant.
What could HUNK be worried Wesker knows? If you think real hard (but not too hard) I think anybody that's played the games can take a guess and hit the nail right on the head.
I made sure to clear up the timeline in which this is happening. So, after Harvardville, but before Wesker kills Spencer.
Anyways, please remember to R&R. The next chapter is going to be a long one ;)