Leon stepped out of the elevator into a small, well-lit hallway, which was a nice change from all the dark caves and dim lighting. He waited to make sure Luis and Elleah wouldn't try to sneak another elevator moment – they stepped off promptly, thankfully – and asked, "Any insights on this wing?"
Luis's eyes darted around in a quick scan of memory. "Uhh…never spent much time here. I do know that there's another pool full of del Lagos with another collapsing bridge, so we'll probably have to fight some guys to raise it. One switch on each side. But other than that, I can't say – Salazar kept this area strictly off-limits to almost everyone pending the completion of a major renovation, which was set to be revealed on his birthday this year."
"When is his birthday?" Elleah asked.
"Supposed to be next week," Luis replied, and his voice gained an icy edge as he said, "But I don't see him making it, do you?"
Leon shook his head. This little freakshow had pissed them all off one too many times.
Hell, I was done with this guy when he called me Mr. Scott. Nevermind the rape threats, kidnappings, and assassination attempts.
They emerged from the hallway into an interesting room. It looked to have multiple tiers on both sides, flanking the start of a path that led to a single, small door. The path was, sure enough, surrounded by water.
Elleah was staring at something else. She cocked her head quizzically and asked, "Is that a giant pair of shoes?"
The all looked at the giant pair of shoes standing at this end of the hall…then followed it up.
Leon stared at the larger-than-life-sized statue, shook his head, and said, "That is the ugliest fucking nutcracker I have ever seen."
Elleah clapped her hands to her mouth and giggled. It was a fifty-foot tall statue of Salazar done in nutcracker style, and going by the huge gears and cogs poking through the joints of the thing, it was mechanized to some degree.
Luis surveyed this with nervous disgust. "Eh, let us hope that he has not gotten…whatever this is…up and running yet."
The sound of a heavy switch being thrown echoed through the white-stoned room, and two sections of the path sunk beneath the dark, rippling water. At the same time, heavy bars slid down to seal off the doors across from them, and left hand of the giant Salazar began moving up and down, palm up. Hopes dashed again.
"Ahí están!"
"Ya es hora de aplastar!"
"Sí, quiero matar!"
Leon pulled out his Red and looked around. He saw a door that had previously been hidden depositing a handful of cultists on an upper level across from them. As soon as the cultists were out, a stone panel slid back into place, sealing it off. Unless he was mistaken, at least three cultists had sprung up on every level of the room except for theirs.
A few began climbing down a ladder just behind them, and Leon turned and shot one off, then shot another who was just mounting the ladder. He fell as well, toppling onto his companion.
"Hey, Luis," Leon said as he went over to finish the guys off with his knife. "It feels like I keep hearing a lot of the same phrases from these guys. What's up with that?"
Luis shrugged, popping off on a few more approaching bad guys. "It's believed that the Plaga form a sort of low-grade hivemind, sharing information non-verbally. Because of this, the lingual faculties of those infected with the recessive strain tend to degrade as they become more and more dependent on the hive-mind for survival. So, they just kind of fall into using a handful of fallback phrases whenever the impulse grips them. About half the time, they don't even confer with each other to carry out plans that require cooperation. They simply act."
"So what did those guys say just now?" Elleah asked.
"'There they are,' 'It's time to crush,' and 'Yes, I want to kill.'"
Leon snorted and turned to take out another approaching enemy with his knife. "Charming."
He figured it would be a good idea to just clear the bad guys out quickly before monkeying around with the statue, which seemed to have at least one switch on the outside of it. "Stay with Elleah, I'll take care of them," Leon said, and started up the ladder.
There was one cultist on the second floor, which he quickly dispatched. There was no ladder leading up, though, and he wondered how he was supposed to get to the third floor before noticing the movements of the statue's hand. It kept dropping to this level, pausing, and rising up to the next level. If he'd needed confirmation about what he was supposed to do, it came in the form of another cultist balancing on the palm on the hand's next descent and jumping onto his platform.
Stupid. This is stupid, he thought as he walked calmly over and kicked the guy down to the ground floor to let Luis deal with him.
He jumped onto the palm and spotted a guy across from him raising a crossbow. He was about to shoot, but the sharp report of a rifle from the first floor rendered it unnecessary.
"Thanks!" He called down.
"De nada!" Luis called back up.
The hand took him up to the next level. There was a large lever up here guarded by cultists. He cleared them out and threw the switch. He moved over to the ledge and saw one of the stone platforms that made up the path out of the room rise up from the water. There was another lever on the ground floor opposite him that looked similar to this one. He was pretty sure he knew what it did.
He moved around the platform to carefully scan the statue. He wasn't sure how to get to the other side, since the first floor entrance was sealed, but he suspected it had something to do with the statue.
He spotted two things in his once-over. A switch-lever on the front, around the belt, and a switch lever on the back, where the hair was tied back in a ponytail by a thick band. There was a catwalk leading to this switch, but only on the other side. It was out of reach from this one.
He noticed that this switch was a left-right switch facing in the direction he was standing, at precisely his level. He narrowed his eyes and thumbed his Red.
Worth a try. "I'm gonna try to hit the switch on this statue, but I don't know what it will do!" He called down. "Be careful!"
"Okay!" Elleah called back up. "Go ahead!"
Leon found a good angle, took careful aim, and fired at the handle. The switch jerked about halfway from the force of the bullet. He adjusted his angle and fired again. It went almost all the way, then stopped, and the hand on the statue stopped moving with an ugly grinding sound. That probably wasn't good.
He adjusted his aim and fired one more time, and the switch jerked home.
The statue stopped grinding. The left hand rose completely, stopped, and waited as the right hand also rose to the same position. Then the two hands came together, pinky-to-pinky, stopped, and drifted apart again. They both dropped. Both rose. Came together. Etcetera, etcetera.
Alright, now he had a way over. There were several cultists on the top story over there, but that was easy enough to deal with. Leon waited for them to jump onto the right hand and shot at them one by one as they did, sending them falling forty feet or so to the ground level. Probably a cheap shot, but hey – these guys weren't exactly big on fair play themselves.
Once they were cleared out, he hopped onto the palm, maintained his balance as the hands came together, then hopped onto the right hand and then the platform. Easy-peasy.
There was only one guy on the ground level, and he had ornate crimson robes and a heavy brass face-mask. Leon wasn't sure which was worse. The mask was too heavy for him to shoot through…but cultists in red robes almost always had Plagas in them. Well, only one way to find out.
Or is there?
He hummed, thinking this over for a moment. He'd noticed the huge, dark shapes of those water monsters swimming in the pool around them. If that last switch lifted the bars on the doors…
He slid down the ladder and dodged as the well-dressed Ganado lurched at him, then danced around and threw the switch.
Sure enough, the door rose, as did the last bridge-platform. He got his first real glimpse of a Del Lago as one was caught on the rising stone. It was at least ten feet long with a huge maw and short, stubby legs. Pretty ugly. It wriggled and thrashed on the stone before rolling over and plopping back into the water with a huge splash.
"Hope you're hungry," he said, and turned as the cultist lunged at him again. This time he slipped easily around the guy, grabbed his wrist, twisted it behind his back and got him into a perfect control position. He then forced him down the stairs, over to the edge of the pool – it was a hell of a struggle, the Ganado was strong as sin – and shoved him into the water.
Almost at once, a Del Lago shot over, and most of the cultist's crimson robes vanished in a snout-shaped spot of darkness. Plaga or no, he wouldn't be bothering anyone anymore.
Elleah and Luis came over to him. "That looked like fun," Elleah said perkily.
Leon snorted. "Yeah, ten tons of fun. Come on, let's get—"
They all whirled around as the statue came to life once more. As they watched, the hands stopped moving…and one of the legs rose.
And stepped forward.
Shit.
"Run," Luis said, eyes wide, and they all began sprinting down the platform.
Leon's heart jumped into his throat as the statue started tromping down the hall towards them, the path just wide enough to accommodate it. It started out slow, but it was quickly gaining momentum, and if there was anything to stop them from getting out of here—
"Leon! Door's chained!" Luis pointed out.
Leon pulled out his magnum, took running aim at the padlock on the door, and fired twice. The lock was blasted to pieces with the first shot, and the chain shattered with the second.
The statue was gaining on them. Elleah, thank God, was far faster on her feet than the average teenage girl, and was keeping pace with them alright. Leon put on a burst of speed to get the door for them.
The entire building was shaking from the force of the giant's stomping flight, and pillars were starting to fall left and right. They were keeping ahead of it all, but just barely. He reached the door and kicked it open, sending the remains of the chain whipping around and cracking against the stone and wood. Outside was a bridge, on the other side of which stood a tall tower.
Please tell me the wall will stop him. We cannot make that bridge.
"Go, go, GO!" Leon shouted, ushering Luis and Elleah through before taking off again himself. They shot through the doorway and he was hot on their trail.
The wall didn't stop it. Huge chunks of stone flew out and scattered about them as it crumbled, and it was dumb luck that they weren't hit by anything but small pebbles – and those hurt enough as it was. The statue burst out of its hall, and Leon felt the bridge start to give way beneath them as it joined them on it.
We can make it, he thought desperately, the thought more prayer than surety as the shadow of the statue fell over them.
He glanced up to see it toppling. It was falling right on top of them.
We aren't gonna make it.
But they did. Luis leapt nimbly over crumbling stones and vaulted over a huge crack, emerging from the thing's shadow and staggering on to safety. Leon put on one last burst of speed and propelled himself off a falling ledge, emerging into the light as well, adrenaline fueling his last few desperate moves.
Elleah, lacking both Luis's agility and Leon's brute lower body strength, did neither. She stumbled, and barely made it out of the statue's shadow before the thing crashed down, shattering the rest of the bridge beneath her and sending her crashing onto the already falling stones.
"NO!" Leon roared, putting on the brakes. No use, though. Elleah slid down behind a huge chunk of stone that was slowly detaching from the bridge.
But, just as it seemed she'd fallen, the stone tilted a bit more and she scrambled up it just before it fell away, flinging herself onto the ledge as the statue hit the bottom of the chasm with a deafening clap.
Leon's mind went briefly blank with relief, and went back to help her up. But as soon as he stepped on the massive flagstone she was struggling to climb, his weight caused it to break off from its mooring.
He felt Luis's hand grab onto the back of his shirt and jerk him back just as the stone fell, not slowly like the last one had, but quickly and smoothly. She once again scrambled up and kicked off, but this time she did not manage to grab onto the next stone.
She fell.
Ada stood on the windowsill of one of the massive stained-glass windows of the cathedral. She'd just arrived, having grabbed a few charges, and broken one of the panes so she could see what was going on inside. Colored glass was hard to see through.
It took her a moment to process it. It seemed to be a giant, mechanized, fifty-foot tall statue of the midget, Salazar.
Heavens, young man – compensating for something?
She was about to move along to start planting the charges, which she'd set down on the sill beside her after securing one to the wall, but then she saw Leon start monkeying around on the statue and decided she could wait a minute or two.
She watched as he began fiddling with the thing, changing its movements and using the hands to cross to the other side. The scene was simply absurd, and verily entertaining. It was a testament to Leon's grace and ability that he actually managed to maintain an air of dignity during the whole thing.
He vanished from her line of sight, and at that precise moment, her radio vibrated. Wesker.
She picked up and, as she was more interested in the scene before her than anything he might have to say, did as he was so fond of doing and cut to the chase. "Saddler still has the Sample, Leon and group are closing on Salazar, and I've just started planting the charges on the third castle wing."
"Hmm. You sound a bit distracted. Not having any trouble, I hope?"
Her eye twitched just slightly in annoyance. She really needed to keep better watch over herself. She slid her gaze briefly to the screen and replied, "Just data gathering from a distance. Oh, what's that…?"
She'd seen something out of the corner of her eye, and quickly brought up her mini-cam to snag a few pictures. Leon had brought the second section of the bridge up. As it rose, a large, dark salamander-like creature got stuck on the platform and flopped around for a moment before falling back into the water. She managed to snap a few frames of it before it fell. Must have been one of those Del Lagos Krauser had mentioned.
Wesker continued, ignoring the interruption. "Well, I'm inclined to let you know, Krauser just phoned in an important piece of information. At the top of the tower across from you dwells the Queen Plaga. I'm tasking you with gathering a sample from that as well, as well as any information—"
Her attention was thoroughly ripped away from Wesker as a monstrous noise started up inside the cathedral, and a quick peek in showed her what the matter was. The statue had come to life and was now tromping after Leon and party.
She beheld the chase's start with some apprehension. Leon and Luis would make it for sure…but would the girl?
She was faster than Ada would have suspected, but it would still be a very near thing. She decided to move along to get a better view of where the chase would end up. She clipped her radio to her neckline so she would be able to speak on the move, and pulled out her hookshot.
"One moment," was all she offered by way of pausing the conversation before launching herself off the balcony.
She heard a slight huff of annoyance from Wesker, but nothing more as she zipped around the outside of the building. She landed on a rocky outcropping to the side of the bridge that led to the tower. She'd be highly visible here, but she didn't much care if Leon spotted her. Though for that matter, she suspected his attention would be elsewhere for the next few minutes.
Just as she landed, she saw the trio emerge from the building…followed by the statue, which burst through the back wall.
Honestly, such wanton destruction of such a beautiful building, all for the sake of ego. She'd been planning to blow it all up, of course, but still – they didn't know that. It seemed like such a waste to her.
She aimed the radio at the giant Salazar statue so Wesker could get a better idea of what was going on. All he said was, "That seems a bit garish. Oh, the girl isn't going to make it."
He sounded barely interested and perhaps slightly amused, but the passing comment sharpened Ada's attention. Was the girl truly about to…?
The statue's shadow fell over the trio as it began to topple towards them, its weight causing the bridge to crumble beneath it. Luis managed to get out of the shadow, so did Leon a moment later…and, in contradiction to Wesker's prediction, so did Aurelleah.
"My, she's faster than she—oh, nevermind."
The girl slipped up, and Wesker chuckled. As the stone beneath her feet gave way, Ada, on impulse, drew her hookshot and stepped to the edge. She was about to deploy when the girl scrambled off the stone and onto the ledge…only to fall once more as Leon, in a reckless attempt to help her up, sent the rock toppling under the weight of his step.
That was it. Ada leapt from the cliff, deployed her hookshot, gauged the distance, and hit the rarely-used hardlock trigger. This was something used to lock down the reeling mechanism when it was at risk of being damaged – as when Ada knew it would shortly be holding more than its maximum weight limit of seventy kilograms.
She'd been using the hookshot for so long by then that she was able to measure arcs, speed, and distances with pinpoint accuracy at a single glance. She did so now, anchoring on the remains of the bridge and swinging down with her locked-in hookshot to intercept the girl in her fall. She crashed bodily into her in mid-air, wrapping an arm around her, and promptly felt the girl's arms clamp around her waist in a death-grip. That was good. Ada couldn't hold her up by herself.
They swung forward a bit more, then began to rock back towards the cliff. Ada hit the lock-release as they reached the return apex of their swing, detached the hook from the bridge, and reeled it back in. She turned them expertly around in mid-air as they dropped a few feet to the small ledge beneath the one she'd launched from, and the girl let out a short, breathy scream before Ada redeployed the hookshot at a higher point on the lip of the chasm. As they landed and wavered for balance, she re-locked the shot to once more prevent damage. With it anchoring them, they were steadied.
Her heart was positively hammering from that little maneuver. She'd used the hookshot to great effect in the past, but snatching someone right out of the air like that? That had been a first.
Aurelleah was shaking. She looked down at the drop and spasmed with fear, then wrenched her eyes away and looked up at her rescuer.
Then her eyes dropped to the radio on Ada's neckline, which was still broadcasting to Wesker.
She peered at the face on the screen curiously, still stiff with tension at their precarious position, and said, "H-hello."
"Hello there," Wesker replied. He no longer sounded disinterested.
Ada paled a bit. Not only had she just done something very out-of-character in saving the girl's life, which she'd had no orders to do and would likely not be able to justify, she'd allowed a face-to-face confrontation to take place between the two. This simply wasn't good. These two things combined not only placed Ada in a difficult situation, they also risked putting the girl on Wesker's radar, however trivially. People who ended up on Wesker's radar – however trivially – tended to have an expiration date.
She sincerely hoped that wouldn't be the case. A long fall was a significantly less painful way to die than at the hands of Albert Wesker.
Ada reached for the radio to switch it off, but before she could, Wesker spoke again. He now sounded thoroughly amused, and she could not hang up on him since he was showing an active interest in continuing the conversation. "My, quite an adventure you're having, young lady. Lucky for you my friend was there to offer her assistance."
While talking to Wesker always put her on edge to a certain degree, Aurelleah had no idea of the danger inherent in the man she was now speaking to. She only heard his cultured, pleasant tones, and relaxed into the conversation. "Yeah, really lucky. Um…my name's Aurelleah; who are you?"
She was smiling now, clearly fascinated with the man on the screen, and another parable came to Ada's mind: The Young Mouse, the Cock, and the Cat. Like the cat, Wesker's demeanor was so pleasing that the poor girl hadn't the slightest idea that she was speaking to a predator of the highest caliber.
Let us hope my chanticleer makes his appearance soon, she thought, jaw clenched.
Wesker chuckled, and Ada closed her eyes. Nothing good would come of this. "Aurelleah? What a beautiful name. A pleasure to make your acquaintance. As for me, I am no one you need to concern yourself with. Tell me, have you run into Ada before?"
She opened her eyes to see Aurelleah looking up at her questioningly, and Ada remembered the request she'd made upon their first meeting.
Don't tell anyone about meeting me. I'd get in a lot of trouble with my boss if he found out that I didn't turn you in, and he has eyes and ears everywhere.
But there was no point in having her lie to Wesker. He was a living lie-detector. Even she had difficulty deceiving the man, and she was one of the best. He'd know Aurelleah was fibbing instantly, and that would make him even more suspicious.
So, she nodded her permission. Aurelleah relaxed and returned her gaze to the screen. "Yeah, I ran into her a little while ago, when I was separated from my friends. She gave me an energy bar. She's pretty cool."
"Indeed? How kind of her. And the soldier who kidnapped you – have you seen him running around?"
"Oh, that guy? Ick! Yeah, I was able to get away from him a couple of days ago. He found me again, yesterday, but when he did, he was in this truck…"
She started chattering about her little game of chicken with Krauser, and as she did, Ada thought over how she'd replied to Wesker. The statement had come out easily enough, and of course that was because it wasn't strictly a lie. Yet it was highly vague, and even hinted at their meeting having taken place since she'd come in contact with Leon and Luis. This presented her with a certain opportunity for misdirection.
"My, my, what a bold little thing you are, though you hardly look it. This adventure must be demanding quite a lot of you."
Aurelleah nodded. "Yeah, it's been pretty wild. You know this place is swarming with people who are infected with this crazy parasite? Las Plagas? It's like they're not even human anymore."
"Heavens," Wesker said in mock surprise. "People who look human, but aren't? You don't say." Ada recognized the underlying laughter in his voice.
She looked away from the conversation to see Leon and Luis were both skirting the tower in an attempt to make their way over to the ledge they were on. As she watched, Luis hopped over the railing, carefully balanced himself on a narrow stone ledge, and began making his way around to where he could hop off and approach them.
Leon, meanwhile, was watching her.
Well, this was as good an excuse as any to cut the chat, which had slipped on to the Verdugo, short.
"That fast? Impressive. How were your friends possibly able to kill it?"
Aurelleah seemed to have completely forgotten that she had almost died, so enthralled she was with her conversation with Wesker. Ada could not fault her – he was an enthralling man, and could be as charming as a fox when the fancy struck him. "Well, the thing was vulnerable to cold, and there were tanks of liquid nitrogen down there—"
"I hate to interrupt," Ada said, in truth only too relieved, "But we're about to have company."
"A shame," Wesker said, sincerely enough to fool at least the naïve girl who had fallen so unfortunately into his sights. "I was enjoying our little chat. Aurelleah, would you be a dear, and do something for me?"
"Sure," she said easily.
"Do refrain from mentioning our meeting to anyone. I'd prefer my involvement in this affair not to be widely known. It could cause…problems for me."
A little late for that, Wesker. Leon is already well aware of your involvement, thanks to yours truly.
Aurelleah pursed her lips, but then smiled. "Yeah, okay, no problem."
Liar.
Ada caught the untruth, and if she did, then Wesker certainly did. But all he said was, "Thank you. Now, I'll leave you to your friends…Ada included. Goodbye, Aurelleah."
"Bye," she said, and seemed truly disappointed to end the conversation. "It was nice meeting you."
"…Likewise," he said, then hung up.
Ada slipped the radio off her neckline and back into its case. As soon as it was offline, she said, "Never mention that man to anyone. He's more dangerous than you could imagine, and if you break your word to him, he will learn about it."
Her voice came out as cold as the driving wind, and Aurelleah looked up at her, startled. "He seemed really nice," she said uncertainly. "Was…that your boss?"
"Yes. So believe me when I say I know what I'm talking about. Do not mention your conversation with him to anyone."
She wanted to be sure that the girl would keep her silence. If she did, it increased the chance that Wesker would dismiss her as a person of interest. Hopefully he would be content with the information he'd mined from her and leave it at that.
She looked worried. "Are you going to get in trouble because of that?"
"Aurelleah! Are you alright?"
The doctor had arrived. Good. This conversation needed to end. "Don't worry about me. I'll be just fine. Now, let's get you back to your friends, hm?"
She didn't look convinced. "I'm sorry," she said.
Ada just sighed and began picking out a path up to the cliff ledge. It looked like it would be a tricky climb. Then a shadow appeared just above them, and a rope with a foothold tied into the bottom dropped beside them.
Aurelleah looked up. "Hey, Luis!"
The doctor was holding onto the rope, one hand on his hip. "Mi cadenza, my life will be much less stressful when we have you home and well out of the way of all these terrible dangers." Then his gaze shifted to Ada's, and his lip twitched up at the corner. "And my eternal thanks to you, my most mysterious friend. That was quite a catch. Even Leon was impressed."
All she said in reply was, "Take better care of your charge, doctor. And tell Leon to do the same. I'm not really interested in babysitting."
Luis laughed. He shifted the rope over to Aurelleah. "Think you'll be able to make it up, baby?"
Aurelleah rolled her eyes and took hold of the rope with one hand. She was about to start climbing – it wouldn't be too hard with both a steady handhold and Luis pulling her up – but before she did, she paused.
Though the girl had been clinging to her waist for the last five minutes, she could feel the change when the grip shifted from a steadying position to a hug.
Ada wasn't a huggy kind of person, but she wasn't exactly in a position to disallow it, so she just waited. "Thank you so much," Aurelleah said earnestly. "I hope your…I mean," she said, glancing up at Luis. "I hope everything works out for you."
Ada breathed a sigh of relief at the meaningful look Aurelleah gave her. She couldn't be sure, but she thought the girl would refrain from telling her Leon and Luis about Wesker.
"Me? Like I said, things always work out just fine for me," she said as the girl gave Luis an all-clear sign and began working her way up the cliff. The man was really putting his back into minimizing the effort required from Aurelleah, and in a minute she'd reached the top.
Ada turned back to the bridge to see Leon watching her again, this time with his binoculars. As her eyes met his specs, he lowered them, and nodded deeply. She could guess what he meant by that.
She didn't dignify it with a response. Her little act of compassion had just heaped a great deal of trouble into her lap, and she needed to deal with it. Without another word she retracted her hookshot, scouted out a new anchor point, and a moment later was sailing away.
Wesker would be expecting a call back promptly so they could confer. She had until she found a place to land to work up several explanations – why she'd saved the girl's life, where and in what context they'd met each other before this, and why she didn't think the girl would tattle about their little conference, if she could work that last in without sounding too protective of her.
It was a good thing she was a fast thinker. By the time she'd returned to the ledge containing her explosives she'd already come up with at least a few passable explanations…and a backup in case they failed.
She pulled out her radio and called Wesker.
He picked up. All he needed to say was, "Explain."
She did. "Leon's mission is to escort the girl to safety. So long as she's alive and in his custody, he'll behave predictably. If she'd died, I couldn't have been sure how he'd react."
"I would have assumed he would react by moving on and endeavoring to save the oldest Graham, who, as I've recently been made aware, is of higher priority to him than the younger one. Try again."
His tone was difficult to place. He could be angry, suspicious, curious, still amused…or any combination of the above. Wesker was not an easy man to read. "You know I like my pawns to behave predictably," she continued, sticking to her guns. If she changed tact that easily, she'd definitely sound insincere. "And as long as he's hampered by her, he'll keep—"
Wesker cut her off in a furious hiss, and even went so far as to tilt his sunglasses down, revealing his eyes…which were glowing red, the veins in them dilated and pumping crimson through his normally golden, serpentine irises. "Do you really think you can lie to me? I will not ask again. Explain."
Ada narrowed her eyes and held his draconic gaze, unperturbed. Wesker was a beast of a man, and as with most beasts, it didn't do to be cowed by them. When the intensity in his eyes did not diminish, she relented…seemingly. "Fine, then. If you must know, it was an emotional impulse. She reminded me of someone I used to know a long time ago."
"Who?"
"Me."
Silence. The glow of Wesker's eyes began to fade, at last returning to a comparatively mellow semi-molten iron color. "Very well. Where did you two meet prior to this, and why did you fail to mention it when we last touched bases?"
She answered without hesitation. "We hadn't encountered each other yet when I last talked to you. We met when Leon and Luis were forced to leave her and her sister behind to deal with a roomful of defective Plaga. The younger one thought she might look around, see if she could find anything useful. Knowing that her getting captured would delay Leon's pursuit of Saddler and Salazar, and not knowing where Krauser was at the time, I urged her to return to her hiding place. And yes, she was hungry, so I gave her an energy bar. Any questions?"
Krauser likely couldn't contradict this story, as doing so would involve him informing Wesker that he'd passed up an opportunity to abduct the girl, and she suspected he had no better reason for this than she had for her act of mercy.
Wesker stared her down for another moment, then tilted his glasses back up. "I suppose I can see why you'd be so taken with the girl. She is rather endearing, isn't she?"
Ada did not reply.
Wesker continued in her silence. "Finish planting the charges, get the Queen Plaga sample, and keep me updated on Leon's movements."
Ada relaxed minutely. It sounded like he'd already moved on. She was about to hang up when he said, with the air of an afterthought, "Oh, and Ada?"
He's going to tell me to kill the girl, she thought. Or inform me that he intends Krauser to do it.
"Yes?" Was all she said.
"Be a dear and gather some hands-on information on those Del Lagos for me, as well as a sample? I think I might want a few for my pond."
Beep!
She stared at the black screen for another moment, the replaced the radio in its case. She really hated working with that man sometimes.
OoO
I like Wesker. He's a great character.
See you all in a few days :)