Every time I write a chapter that only has William and/or Annette in it, I feel like there's something missing. The most sensible explanation is probably the absence of Wesker, but if there actually is a seemingly large chunk of story missing from the following chapter do let me know. I proofread these things, of course, but mistakes do happen. Often.
A horrible thought occurred to William as Annette huddled against him on the floor. He tried to wrestle free of his wife's grip, but she was like a vice around his body. He couldn't wriggle loose. He did, however, manage to get one hand around her elbow, and from there he fought to pry her hand from his mouth.
"Will—" she hissed out, fighting him.
He got her fingers off his mouth. "Annette, honey, we have a problem," he said quickly, before she could silence him again. Sure enough, her hand reasserted itself over his mouth at the first opportunity.
"You think?" she whispered out furiously, before shushing him. They both heard the subject's distinctive footsteps as she ventured further down the hall, drawing ever closer to their position.
Birkin shook his throbbing head viciously and sent the world spinning. Clamping his eyes shut, he peeled Annette's hand away again. "It's not that! It's—"
"Be quiet!" Annette tackled him and mashed his face into the floor, and he got a mouthful of dust. He writhed for about half a second, until a snarl from the vicinity of the lab doorway brought him to a sudden halt.
The subject took a step into the lab.
"Shit," Annette breathed into his ear, so quietly it was nearly inaudible. Chancing William's cooperation, she unwound herself from his crumpled body and reached towards the cabinet under the lab bench's sink. The doors swung open silently, a lucky break. Even more luckily, the space was nearly empty save for a few coils of distensible plastic tubing.
Wrapping a hand in his lab coat, Annette tugged him towards the space. He knew what she wanted, and he didn't fight her. It was rather cramped, though. He flattened the tubing beneath his back and curled up his legs as best he could, but his knees still bumped into the bench above. The curve of the sink's belly only made things even more difficult. He looked over to Annette, his obvious question hanging there silently in the air between them. She advanced.
"Try not to panic," she whispered, folding her body over his. Suddenly the space went from cramped to suffocating, and Birkin felt a flare of panic as she went to shut the doors behind them.
Feeling his body go taut beneath her, she tried to soothe him. "It'll only be for a second, William," she said softly, her lips brushing his ear as she spoke.
That knowledge did not help him. He broke out into a cold sweat as soon as the doors closed, plunging them into total darkness. All he could feel was Annette on top of him, the tubing beneath him, and the walls on every other side.
He was surrounded.
Trapped.
He could feel the space getting smaller, his knees aching as the bench pressed down against them. His arms went numb as they were crushed against his body, and his spine crimped as the space under the sink became too short for it. "Ugh," he moaned thickly, flexing his fingers and trying to get comfortable. He couldn't move an inch, however—there was no extra space—and his heart flew into overdrive.
Annette felt it. "Shhhh," she whispered, running her fingers through his bangs. "You're fine. Just think of nice, big, open spaces," she murmured soothingly.
"That never works," Birkin replied, trying and failing to swallow. Was his throat swelling? It felt like it was swelling. He was pretty sure it was swelling. He tried to lift a hand to reach his imperiled trachea and confirm his suspicions, but Annette's weight kept the limb pinned to the floor and he felt his panic rise another level. Grunting, he tried to shift his weight and knocked his knee against the wall.
Somewhere in the lab, the subject let out another warning growl.
"Okay, okay," Annette whispered quickly, giving his chest a perfunctory pat. "Just close your eyes?"
Despite himself, Birkin felt a flash of annoyance. "If it was that easy—"
"I know, I know," Annette hastily corrected herself. "Shhhh."
Beyond the thin cabinet doors, they could hear the subject shuffling around the lab. She was close.
Birkin wished she would just get on with it and either find them or leave them alone. He couldn't stand the tension, hated waiting and not knowing what was going to happen. He did know, however, that if he didn't get out from under the sink soon he was going to have a fit, and then if the subject was around they really would be dead. He just had to try to contain himself until she passed by. Sucking in a shuddering breath, Birkin closed his eyes slowly and tried to will himself into a more relaxed state.
Easier said than done. His heart was still hammering wildly in his chest, and it still felt as though he could barely breathe.
Annette licked her lips before leaning even closer, shaping her mouth around his ear to keep her voice from traveling beyond the confines of the cabinet. "Maybe," she suggested slowly, "you could tell me what had you so bothered earlier. Remember? You said we had a problem."
"Wha...?" For a long moment, Birkin had no idea what she was talking about, and he couldn't drag his mind away from their current predicament long enough to think about it. But then, as his eyes strained to see something in the complete darkness of the cabinet, it returned to him in a rush. His body went rigid with a different kind of panic. "Oh. Oh no," he said, voice rising to threatening levels. "Annette, it's the power."
"It's off," she supplied for him, pressing a finger to his lips and urging him to lower his volume.
"Exactly," he sighed, mournful. "They're dying."
"What are?"
Before he could answer, they heard a scuffing noise from right outside the cabinet, and both scientists froze. They listened in tense silence to the rough breaths that left the subject's lips in bursts; for a long while, no one moved. Not them, nor the subject.
Does she know where we are? How well do her ears work?
Birkin had hardly been able to hear Annette, and she'd been speaking directly into his ear. Then again, he might have been a little louder. He tensed, expecting the worst, only to jump slightly when the subject let out a grating growl of frustration and stomped away.
He let out the breath he'd been holding.
Annette hadn't forgotten their aborted conversation. Leaning into him, she asked, "Who's dying?"
"My cultures," he said softly. In the distance, he could hear the subject's footsteps receding into whispers.
Annette pulled away in disbelief, only to lean in close again a minute later. "Your cultures?"
Birkin tried to nod, but his head was rather fixed in place. "Yes," he replied. "Without the power the incubators won't be working. Those cells are going to die if I don't move them soon," he explained.
Annette's fingers twisted in his lab coat. "I think, William," she began, tone sharp despite her volume, "that we have more important things to be concerned about than a few cells."
He couldn't hear the subject at all anymore, so he pushed open the cabinet doors with his arm, breathing a sigh of relief at the intrusion of the soft crimson light. "It isn't just a few cells," Birkin argued, trying to move out of the cabinet. Annette's weight, however, held him in place, and she didn't look like she was ready to move anywhere any time soon. "I'll lose the entire line. This isn't something I can just replace at the drop of a hat," he responded testily. "I developed this neural culture specifically for T and it took me months to do. If they all die out now it might be another year before I can make up for it!"
"At least you'll have a year!" Annette contested. "If you run out there now you're looking at a life expectancy of five minutes!"
"I'm not going to just let them die!"
"There's nothing you can do! And what about Wesker? Weren't you just harping on about helping him out? You've got to make a plan and stick to it, William!"
The mention of Wesker caught Birkin off-guard; he didn't want to think he'd forgotten about his friend's predicament, but he certainly had pushed it to the back of his mind.
"Al? Did you find him?"
Annette shook her head. "No. The elevator definitely fell past the fourth floor, but the stairs don't go any further down. I don't know how to get down to him."
"Okay," Birkin acknowledged, thinking quickly. "Well, if you can't reach him, then the subject probably can't either, right? So he's probably the safest out of all us, so long as he doesn't move out of wherever he is."
"Oh? Are you finally admitting that he doesn't need our help?"
"Given the situation," Birkin prevaricated. "But I need to get back to my lab!"
"What do you expect to do?" Annette challenged. "Lug the entire incubator to the mansion? That's insane."
Birkin glared at her. She clearly didn't understand how much of a setback those cultures would cause if they died. But then again, she'd never appreciated his research enough. If Wesker were there, he would be more understanding.
Maybe. Wesker had convinced him to abandon his lab in the first place, so perhaps neither of them really cared enough. Well, that just meant he would have to save the cultures himself, since no one else was going to. Someone had to make sure the project didn't fall apart.
"Look," Birkin explained, gently pushing Annette off of him. She slid to the side, avoiding the sink, and then helped him out of the cramped cabinet. "There's a little generator in the lab next to mine. The guy there used to use it because the rats kept chewing through his wires last year. I think he still has it, so all we need to do is borrow it."
"He'll let you do that?" Annette was skeptical. "Umbrella employees aren't exactly keen on sharing."
"He's probably dead, so I doubt he'll offer much resistance," Birkin replied casually, glancing over the top of the bench towards the doorway. No subject in sight. "But we have to hurry. Those cells are getting colder every second that we waste."
"This is crazy, William," Annette sighed, batting her hands against her blood-soaked clothes in a futile effort to shake off the dust she'd accumulated.
"If we get into trouble we can just use the guns," he replied, nodding towards the weapons still sitting on the bench.
Annette gave him an incredulous look. "You know those don't work against her!"
"They work well enough," he contested. "I just—I can't just run away and leave those cells to die, Annette. Not when they're finally starting to show some promise."
She still clearly had reservations about the whole idea as she slowly hefted up the rifle. Holding the firearm, she sighted down along its length before shaking her head in exasperation. "I can't condone this lunacy," she murmured. "They're still just cells, no matter how you look at them."
"They aren't just any old cells," Birkin retorted sharply. "They're important. I need to save them if I can." He edged towards the door, but Annette snagged his arm before he could pass through it.
"And the subject? What are you going to do about her? She's on the hunt right now. How do you expect to get past her to the stairs?"
"Sneak around?" Birkin replied, annoyed. "I don't know. I'll figure that out once I see where she is."
"You know, I actually wish Wesker were here right now," Annette said. "I'm pretty sure he'd agree with me, for once, and he'd never let you get away with this."
"We'll be fine if we just watch out for each other," he responded. "We've made it through worse."
She gave him a flat stare. "No. No we haven't."
He flashed her a crooked smile. "Well, then, this'll be a great story to tell Sherry some day."
Annette's brows rose. "If you want to give her nightmares."
"When she's older. Like, thirty, maybe."
"At this point I'm thinking we'll be lucky to see her next birthday." She leaned over next to him, sweeping the hall for any sign of the subject. The corridor, however, was empty. "Any idea on which lab she might've ducked into?"
Birkin checked the floor for footprints, but whatever blood the subject might've been tracking around had dried. There wasn't so much as a splatter to be seen by their door. "Well, she probably wouldn't head back towards the stairwell yet," he guessed. "So one of those." He gestured towards the two labs flanking the elevator shaft. His supposition was supported by a small metallic crash from within the lab across the hall.
"Let's go." Dragging him forward, Annette raced up the hall to the adjacent lab. The door was already ripped open, and she threw them both inside, motioning for silence as she listened for any signs of the monster.
There were no screams of rage, however, so Birkin assumed that the creature hadn't detected their departure. "Does this mean you're willing to help me out?" he asked, distractedly pressing a hand to the back of his head. It was really starting to ache again.
"Well, it'll at least get us off this floor," Annette agreed reluctantly. "It's still a stupid idea, though."
Birkin glanced back out into the hall again; the way remained clear. "Think we can make it to the next one before she comes out?"
"How the hell should I know? But it's probably better to run for it than sit around too long waiting."
They traversed the hallway in that fashion, jumping from lab to lab as they waited for the subject to show herself. They made it almost all the way to the corner, however, before that finally happened.
Annette noticed it first. Sucking in a breath, she threw out her arm to block Birkin from stepping out into the corridor. Leaning over her arm, he managed to score a glance down the hall. At the far end he saw the hulking form of the subject lurch out of her lab of refuge. She didn't notice the two Birkins in the doorway, but they did have the advantage of distance in that regard. Instead of crossing the hall to the other lab as they expected, however, she huddled down near the lip of the elevator shaft.
And then she sat there, frozen, with no apparent intention of moving on.
"Okay. That's great. Just perfect. What do we do now?" Annette muttered. "I can't tell if she's looking up the hall or down the shaft from here."
Birkin's grip on the sub-machine gun tightened. He could practically feel those cells slowly dying. They couldn't just sit there and wait for the subject to do something; they could very well end up waiting forever.
"If we attack now," he said, his mouth going dry at the thought, "we might be able to knock her back into the shaft."
"Absolutely not. I saw her climb up the shaft. That really won't stop her at all."
"Make a run for it?"
"That's suicide," Annette pointed out. "Even if she isn't looking this way she might notice the movement."
Birkin retreated back into the lab, his eyes rapidly scanning the benches for something, anything that might be of use. Most of the lab space was devoted to analytical devices, though, each of which was far too large to be moved. There was a series of lockers off to the side, however, that the subject had previously trashed. Two of them were accessible to Birkin; the first he checked was empty, but the second contained a duffel bag filled with gym clothes and, more importantly, a basketball.
"A distraction?" Annette guessed when he carried it back to the doorway where she was standing. She took one look at his trembling limbs and swaying body and confiscated the ball before Birkin could protest. "Allow me. I think I've got more coordination than you right now."
Birkin couldn't argue that—the world still seemed to be rocking gently around him, though he'd more or less adjusted to the sensation a while ago.
Annette wound up and then chucked the ball down the hall, withdrawing into the lab the minute it left her fingers. Birkin crouched down beside her, and they both waited for the ball's first bounce.
When it came, the subject let out an unholy scream. There was the thunderous pounding of footsteps, alarmingly fast, as the beast closed in on her prey, which just as suddenly stopped when she captured it. Both scientists flinched when they heard the ball rupture. For a minute all the subject did was growl, but when that began to taper off, Birkin chanced a peek into the hall.
The subject, her face to the floor like a dog on a scent, stalked into one of the labs in the middle of the corridor. A little close for comfort, but at least they'd gotten her out of the hall.
"Come on," he said to Annette before making a dash for the corner. His wife followed on his heels as they rounded it, and they made a beeline for the stairwell together. It was dark, but the open doorway gave them enough light to find the first steps by. The rest were easy enough to manage, even for Birkin.
They reached the next landing without incident, and Birkin immediately set a course for his lab. Annette had to help him slide open the door, since it was rather inclined to stay closed without any electrical power, and it slammed shut behind them once they'd entered.
"That's going to be annoying," Annette observed while Birkin went straight to his cultures. He didn't dare open the incubator and let out whatever residual warmth might be lingering inside, but the inner glass door wasn't as warm as he would have wanted it to be. The cultures were already colder than he expected.
"We don't have much time," he declared worriedly, turning around to find Annette poking at a smear of blood on one of his lab benches.
"The subject was here?" she asked, looking perplexed. "She certainly didn't do much damage."
"No, that was...ah, that was from Al."
"From when the subject got him?"
"Something like that," Birkin responded evasively.
"He's lucky to have gotten away from her by himself," Annette mused.
"Uh, yeah. Um," Birkin shook his head, trying to focus. He'd rather not be reminded of his little accident...Wesker was already going to make his life hell enough for that, Birkin was certain. "We've got to get the generator now," Birkin reminded her, pulling at the lab door. "The cultures aren't doing too well."
They returned to the first floor hall and quickly made their way over to the lab neighboring Birkin's. The door to it was just as difficult to open.
"You know, I don't think the subject came up to this floor," Annette puffed out as she struggled with the door.
"Luckily enough," Birkin responded, just as short of breath.
"Well, I'm thinking that if she didn't, that might mean," Annette started, pausing as they let the door shut behind them with a bang, "that the people up here—"
"HEY! GET OUT OF MY LAB!"
"Might still be alive," she finished, just as a pudgy man with short black hair and rounded spectacles popped up from behind one of the lab benches.
"You aren't supposed to be in here!" he shouted, indignant. A harsh beam of white light swung around and blinded them both as he brandished a flashlight in their direction. "Dammit, Birkin, I knew it would be you!"
"Calm down," Annette growled, wincing at the man's bellowing voice. The flashlight centered on her, and she had to squint against the glare.
"What the hell happened to you?" he asked, alarmed, as he retreated back a few steps.
Annette shared a look with William. "Keep your voice down," she said instead. "We've got a situation going on right now. There's no time to explain."
"Yeah, I noticed that the power's off. When are they going to fix it, huh? I can't get anything done like this," the scientist snapped. He couldn't seem to take his eyes off Annette's lab coat. "That's blood, isn't it? Was there some sort of outbreak? Are you infected?" And then, to their alarm, he ripped open a drawer and leveled a revolver her way.
"Hey!" Birkin shouted, raising his sub-machine gun. "Take the gun off of her!"
The man jumped and spun, aiming the weapon at Birkin. Annette brought her own rifle up to bear. "You're outgunned," she informed him coldly. "Put the gun down and sit in the corner."
"No! Get the fuck out of here!" he snapped, swinging the gun nervously from Annette to Birkin and back to Annette again.
"Put it down!" Birkin warned, advancing on the panicked man.
The man fixed his firearm on Birkin, clearly intending to use it, and the young scientist wisely halted in his tracks, though he was slow to muster any other, more protective, reactions. Annette picked up his slack, firing her own weapon. The fat man screamed, dropping his gun and throwing up his hands defensively as her warning shots buried themselves in the ceiling.
"You crazy bitch!" he cried out tremulously, glaring at Annette from between his splayed fingers. "Are you trying to fucking kill me?"
"You'd be dead if I were," she growled. "Now sit down and shut up."
"What do you want from me?" he warbled out, backing away as Birkin retrieved the revolver from the floor.
"Your generator," Birkin replied, aiming both guns in the man's direction. He couldn't really hold them steady, but the other scientist didn't seem to notice.
"My...?" The man's wide-eyed expression collapsed into a frown. "No, no way pal. You can't have it. I need it."
"You aren't even using it!" Birkin snapped, swinging an arm out towards the silent interior of the lab. None of the machinery was running.
"It's mine!" the man stubbornly asserted.
Birkin lunged towards the scientist, who toppled backwards with a yelp. He tried to scramble away, but Birkin was faster. Placing the muzzle of the revolver against the man's temple, Birkin leaned forward and ground the gun into the man's flesh. "Tell me where it is," he said, voice dropping as he imitated Wesker's own intimidating drawl.
"Jesus! Don't fucking shoot!"
"Tell me where the generator is," Birkin repeated, a cold sweat breaking out over his forehead. For every minute they were wasting there, those cultures were…
"It's—Jesus—it's over there," he replied shakily, an arm lifting to point towards a pile of machinery near Annette. "Under the tarp."
Birkin kept his gun trained on the trembling scientist while Annette located the tarp and ripped it from the object it was covering. When Birkin recognized the small gasoline-powered generator, he stood up and gave the man some room. He didn't take the gun off of him, though. "Does it still have fuel in it?"
"Gah—I don't know. I haven't used it in months. It should, I think," the man babbled. "Just take it and get out of here!"
It was too heavy for either of them to lift alone, so he and Annette had to work together to carry it to the door. During that time they had to take their guns off the other man, but he made no attempt to hinder their efforts, save for sending an occasional curse their way.
It was even harder to deal with the generator and the doors at the same time, but at that point Birkin was willing to put up with all manner of inconvenience just to keep his cultures alive. Eventually they got the generator back to his lab, and he set it up on the lab bench next to the incubator. Between him and Annette they manage to get it hooked up, and then they shared another look as Birkin's finger hovered uncertainly over the power switch.
"This had better work," Annette said, her brittle composure about three seconds away from snapping explosively into a million pieces of pure, unadulterated rage.
Not particularly wanting to face her wrath or lose his cultures, Birkin was rather fervently hoping for the same thing. He nervously flicked the switch, and for a few seconds nothing happened. Then the machine let out a rough cough before kicking into gear and filling the lab with the guttural sounds of its running motor. The indicator light on the incubator flashed on, and Birkin broke out into a smile as he felt the machine hum with life.
"It's working," he announced gleefully, a ponderous weight lifting itself from his shoulders and leaving nothing but relief in its wake.
"Good," Annette responded, straightening back up. "Now it's time to get going."
Birkin paused, hesitant. "Well..."
Annette frowned. "What now?"
Things are going to get weird(er?) from here on out.