Grayson thought about staying. He thought about putting his shotgun down and waiting for the zombies to come, or for a piece of the laboratory to crush him. He no longer wanted to survive; Annette and Sherry had been his impetus, his incentive to overcome the odds, and now Annette was dead, and Sherry had gone away with a stranger. Sitting there and waiting for death seemed like the best thing to do, and so he did.
He found a bench, and he sat down on it. The alarm blared, threw flashing red lights, and the approximation of a woman's voice announced that there was less than fifteen minutes before NEST was destroyed. Grayson stared at the shotgun across his lap. Maybe he could just put it in his mouth, like they did in the movies, and pull the trigger…. It was better than zombies, but weren't explosions supposed to be painless and quick?
"Harman?"
"Ada," Grayson said, running his fingers along the length of the shotgun. "The falling-off-a-cliff trope is one they use in a lot of movies. An effective cliffhanger that leaves the audience wanting more, and it leaves things open-ended, in case the suits want to churn out a few shitty sequels." He looked at her. "How'd you do it?"
"I have my ways," she said, and limped over to him. She looked pretty bad. Dirtier than before, and, inexplicably, wet. "Look, this place is coming down."
"I don't care anymore."
"You came this far, and you're just gonna sit there and die?"
"Annette's dead. Sherry's gone."
"What about Alexia?"
Grayson scowled. "It's bullshit. You're a fucking liar." He looked past her, at a poster advertising Umbrella's benefits (Contact Human Resources to enroll in our new employee benefits package was printed beneath a smiling stock-photo woman). "You wanted the G-Virus, so you told me what I wanted to hear to make that happen."
"I told you what I knew," Ada said. "Admittedly, it's a rumor. But that's something worth living for, right? Something worthy of pursuit?" She paused. "What if it's the truth?"
"Cryogenics is quack science. Annette told me that once."
"Yet look around you, Grayson. We're in the fucking middle of science fiction."
His attention shifted from the benefits poster, to a laminate sheet tacked beside it reminding all employees to follow proper safety protocol. He didn't want to look at Ada. "Just go, Ada. I don't care what you do anymore."
"Sherry's still out there. She'll need someone familiar."
"She's got that girl. Claire."
"Just like that?" Ada frowned. "Just like that, you're gonna let Sherry go?"
Grayson thought about that, then shook his head.
He found himself following Ada to the cable-car, feeling a strange sense of guilt, of renewed purpose and self-preservation. When they boarded, and they took out the infected USS guy inside, Ada pulled the lever on the dashboard, and the auto-pilot triggered, and the car rumbled up the tunnel, with five minutes to spare until detonation.
Grayson sat down on a bench padded with thin cushions of foam, which did little in the way of comfort, and he stared at the dead USS guy and wondered if he'd been one of the guys who'd killed William. He felt kind of bad for the guy; he'd made it to the shuttle, only to die from the infection.
"You ever retrieve the G-Virus?" Grayson asked. The car hummed along its cables, filling the cabin with an electronic susurrus.
"No," she said. "Right now, I just want to get out in one fucking piece."
"Somehow, I don't believe you," he said.
"Doesn't matter if you don't."
A few moments of uncomfortable silence passed.
"So," he said, and gave her a sidelong look, "why save me?"
"You hoping for some kind of confession?" She smirked, watching him in her periphery. "Something like, 'I saved you because I fell for you', like in the movies? Hate to break it to you, but it's nothing like that. You suck completely and utterly and profoundly with women, Harman. You're too indecisive. If Alexia really is alive, I feel sorry for her." Her smirk widened, showing a sliver of white teeth. "I like them simple, naive, and sensitive. Kennedy is more my type."
"Alexia liked control," Grayson said conversationally. Then, "You taking me to your employers? Because of my 'condition'?"
"No."
"So why save me?"
Ada shrugged, fingering a tear in her dark stockings. The flesh showing through was bruised, purpling. "I told you back in that apartment that I'd help Sherry." She looked out the window, at the lights on the walls of the tunnel, and then she looked at him. "Think we're almost there. And Grayson? I'm sorry about Annette."
Grayson nodded. "So am I."
"You loved her a lot, didn't you?"
"I did. And I don't know how I'll carry on without her."
The cable-car stopped, and Grayson found himself in the sewers again. He followed Ada through the tunnels, and eventually they found themselves in the Raccoon City Police Department, emerging from the tunnel beneath the goddess statue. The lobby was eerily silent, like a tomb, or a breath held in fear.
Marvin still lay on the ground, his corpse stiff and almost unreal, like a movie prop someone had forgotten to put away. Grayson still hadn't forgotten about the picture of his daughter Keira; once he was out of Raccoon City, he'd mail the picture to her or her mother, or perhaps deliver it in person. It gave him something to think about, to distract him from the reality that Annette was dead, and that Sherry was likely far away, beyond his reach, with a college student Grayson didn't know or could even say he trusted, even if Annette had trusted her and would have wanted him to trust her, too.
"This is where we part ways," Ada told him. "And to answer your question? About how you'll carry on without her? You just will."
"Thanks, Ada."
"I'll bill you later," she joked, and then she was gone.
Alone, Grayson went on, and emerged in heavy rain, finding himself on the streets of Raccoon City again, under the glow of neon advertising dead businesses, and billboards advertising Umbrella's lies. Flyers and newspapers crunched under his shoes. Zombies wailed and shuffled under the streetlights.
He was walking down Fisson Street when his radio suddenly crackled, and Carlos's voice fuzzed over the wave. "Anyone out there?" he asked. "My name is Carlos Oliveira, and I've got an injured woman with me who needs urgent medical attention. I know where to get it, but I need help. If anyone can hear me, respond. Please."
Grayson pressed the button on his radio. "Carlos?" he said. "This is Grayson Harman. I can hear you. Can you hear me?"
"Harman? Holy shit, we thought you were dead. It's Jill, man. She's been infected with the T-Virus."
"What?" Grayson's chest tightened; it felt like someone was squeezing his heart in their fist. Then a sense of guilt washed over him, intense and sudden, and slowly sublimated into resolve, a need to make things right. "I'll come," he said. "Where are you, Oliveira, and what do you need?"
"We're at St. Michael's Clocktower," Carlos said. "Was supposed to evac, but that fucking S.T.A.R.S monster shot our chopper down. Then Jill got sick, and we've been stuck here. I need to get to Raccoon General. I remember something about a vaccine being worked on there, when shit started hitting the fan and people were getting sick. But it was never finished, far as I know. Figured I could give it a crack. It's better than sitting on my ass and waiting for Jill to die."
"Do you have that kind of knowledge?" Grayson asked. "To make a vaccine, I mean."
"Yeah, sort of," Carlos said. "It's our best shot. You gotta help me, Harman. You're the first person to fucking respond to me."
"What happened to Nikolai and Mikhail?"
"Mikhail's dead, and Nikolai's gone."
"I'll be there as soon as possible," Grayson said. "Just keep Jill alive, Oliveira."
"I'll do what I can," Carlos said, and he cut the line.
Grayson ran, and as long as he kept running and took all the shortcuts he knew, he could reach St. Michael's in less than an hour.
The cable-car had smashed through the wall around St. Michael's, and looked like a piece of origami worked in dense 1960s steel. Some component groaned and shifted within its frame, settling, and the air stank of gasoline and smoke. Shards of shattered glass glittered like diamonds in the grass. A scree of bricks lay across the courtyard.
"I'm here, Oliveira," he radioed, and waited for a reply.
"Opened the door," Carlos replied. "Hurry up inside, Harman."
Grayson went inside, and it occurred to him that this was the first time he'd ever set foot in St. Michael's. The lobby glittered like something out of a 1920s movie palace, and it smelled of dried flowers and varnish. Carlos was waiting for him, and he looked like he wanted badly to sleep.
"You look like absolute shit," Carlos remarked. "And you fucking stink like shit, too. Where the fuck were you?"
"It's a long story," Grayson said.
"Yeah, well, we don't got time for long stories. Some other time, maybe."
"How's Jill?"
"Out cold," Carlos said, frowning. "She's been like that for a while. Some kinda coma, I think. Not responsive, but she's gotta pulse, so that's good." He gestured to a door across the room. "She's in the chapel."
"They do weddings here," Grayson remarked absently.
Carlos gave him an odd look.
"That's why they have a chapel in a clocktower," Grayson said, and shook his head. He rubbed his face. "Sorry," he added quickly. "I've been through a lot, and I'm tired. Let's get to the hospital."
"I'd say you should get some rest, but Jill's not gonna get any better," Carlos said. "So let's go."
They went. They were crossing the courtyard when Grayson asked, "Where's the S.T.A.R.S monster?"
"Dunno," Carlos said, walking ahead of him. Grayson stared at the UBCS emblem on the back of his tactical vest—the Umbrella logo with two crossed swords and a shield inside it—and thought about Annette, because anything even tangentially related to Umbrella made him think of Annette, and maybe that was his way of grieving, to self-flagellate. "Jill and I kicked its ass, and it went somewhere, probably to lick its wounds. But it'll be back. Jill's not dead yet. Got her buddy Brad, though."
"He was an asshole," Grayson said matter-of-factly.
"Jill thinks so, too. But she still felt bad about it."
"Oliveira, you ever lose anyone?" he asked suddenly.
Carlos looked over his shoulder. "Lost my team," he said. "Some of them were friends."
"How about loved ones? Like girlfriends, or family?"
"Sure," Carlos said.
"How'd you work through it?"
"You okay, Harman? Jill's not dead, man. Relax. She'll be fucking pissed at you, though, when she wakes up. So good luck, amigo. Women, man. They can be mean."
"I deserve it."
"Yeah, you do," Carlos agreed. "You left Jill without saying anything. Just up and abandoned her. I'd be pissed too, if I was her." He shrugged. "But me? I'm sure you had your reasons to leave, Harman. You've clearly been through some shit."
"Yeah," he said.