Pandemic: Resident Evil VI

Chapter Twenty Nine: The Great Chris Redfield

Vileyka, Belarus

June 29th, 2013

Ever heard of Vileyka? You know, that town in the Eastern European country of Balarus? No? Good, because that was exactly what Chris Redfield was counting on as he stared into the glass of beer in front of him. The bubbles and head were gone from the drink, as it had gone flat during the time he just sat there looking at the copper colored liquid as if it held the secrets of the universe, but apparently those secrets weren't worth much, since the Captain suddenly picked up the glass and drank its contents down at once.

The Captain… yeah, he was a field Captain in the BSAA… wasn't he? Or had that just been a fantasy that was implanted into his mind? God, Chris felt so confused and disoriented, wracked with mental pain that only seemed to back off a little after his brain had been very thoroughly soaked in alcohol, but even then everything was so hard to remember, even once the throbbing in his mind took a break. He didn't have amnesia, no, that would have been a blessing… stumbling around from place to place with no idea who he was… but that wasn't the Captain's problem… his problem was that he was remembering too much.

Everything from Chris's early life was clear and easy to recall, everything from early childhood all the way up until the winter of 1998, and that was where the pain began. It all began with that woman… Amelia Ashland, or Alexia Ashford, whoever in the hell she actually was… or was all that just more confusion? So many times over the past six months the Captain had tried to put his thoughts in order, but the confusion came from remembering two or three versions of the same events, all happening at the same time, and each set of memories just as real and valid as the rest.

"Hey." Chris said, interrupting his own thoughts when he realized his glass was empty again. "Hey… uh… you? I'm in desperate need of a refill over here… it's a matter of life and death… you'll be a hero."

"I'll give you a little more, but that's all." The rather lovely bartender replied in an accent that he… couldn't identify at the moment. "I think it's about time you went and slept it off, no?"

No? No was right… in fact, hell no was more accurate as he watched her pour enough into his glass for maybe a double if he was being generous. Sure, Chris might have had a few more drinks today than he should have, and maybe he wasn't thinking rationally, but who in the hell was this chick to tell him how much he could have to drink? Last time the Captain looked, he was over the age of twenty one, so if he wanted to have a few to forget his troubles, then… then who in the world was qualified to tell him otherwise? Yeah, that's right… nobody.

"Yeah… that's just not gonna work for me, honey." He said, trying to sit up a little straighter as if he wasn't drunk. "See… your job is to pour drinks, and look sexy while you're doing that, but… you're fucking up half of that right now, right? So, how about you shut up, and smile while you fill my glass?"

The good news was that the Captain ended up receiving the rest of his drink, but instead of being in the glass, all of it was just thrown in his face at once. It took Chris a second to realize what the bartender had done, but by the time he was able to get mad enough to react, she had already said something in another language to the three men who were sitting at another table nearby. Three really stern looking guys who were now getting up and moving toward him. At his best, the Captain could have easily mopped the floor with these guys, but since he was already pretty drunk, it didn't take long before he was being tossed through the door into the alley outside.

Sunlight was not what he needed right now, and the summer heat burned Chris's eyes as soon as he was able to roll over on the dirt road he had landed on… and now those guys in there were going to pay. Struggling to get to his feet, and succeeding once the world around him stopped spinning, the Captain staggered his way back through the door, only to get tossed out on his face once again a few seconds later. Not one to be defeated, he got up and headed for the door a second time, but somehow… somehow must've gone in the wrong direction, because now nothing around him looked familiar… except the familiar feeling in his stomach when he was about to…

Stumbling over toward the other side of the street, Chris walked into a barrier wall and bent over it while losing his lunch, causing the people who were tending their little garden below him to scream in shock as they jumped back. Now they were yelling at him in the same language the bartender was using, throwing sticks and small rocks up at him to drive him away, but the Captain only managed to turn around and go a couple steps before tripping over his own two feet and falling on his face in the dirt. Yeah… maybe this was a good place to sleep it off.

"Disgraceful." A familiar voice said, maybe a couple minutes later. "I wonder if anyone would believe me when I told them that the great Chris Redfield was throwing up all over himself, passed out drunk in an alley."

"I'm not home." The Captain mumbled, feebly waving him off by twitching his hand. "Come back during business hours."

But the owner of the voice did not go away, instead Chris became aware that he was being dragged across the dirt by his ankles, rolled over onto his back so that he was looking right up into a faucet of some kind… a faucet that let out a powerful stream of very cold water when it was turned on. The shock of this was enough to make the Captain sit up out of reflex, partially sobered from both the water and his earlier vomiting, causing him to rub his eyes and look up at… at Piers Nivans standing over him.

And now the chewing out started, with the Lieutenant demanding answers to cliché questions like 'what do you have to say for yourself?' and guilt inspiring statements like 'if the men could see you now.' but honestly Chris wasn't listening. The cold water and vomiting might have sobered him up a little, but the urge to lay back down and go to sleep was still pretty strong, so he did just that… until sitting up again after Piers turned the faucet back on. Okay, he was a little more awake now, coughing out the water that had gone up his nose, and yeah… Piers was still there standing over him.

"Do you know we spent six months looking for you after your little vanishing act?" The Lieutenant asked, turning off the faucet. "You're lucky your wife has so much pull with the BSAA, or else they might have listed you as…

"She's not my wife!" Chris yelled, probably a lot louder than he meant to. "I mean, she is, but she's… she not who she's pretending not to be… I mean… I don't know what I mean."

It was almost impossible to explain how the Captain could remember dozens of conflicting versions of events he lived through, each of them involving the woman he thought he was in love with, and stretching back for more than a decade. Even as recently as the Uroboros threat in Kijuju, when Albert Wesker had revealed to him the possibility that Amelia could have been Alexia all along, once that asshole had been permanently dealt with, Chris had gone home to confront her. He clearly remembered her admitting to him who she really was, but he also remembered realizing that Wesker was lying and that it wasn't true.

After all, the Captain clearly remembered using some kind of experimental weapon to blast Alexia Ashford into a million pieces back in Antarctica… but at the same time he remembered not being able to stop her from getting away. What if all these sets of memories were real? What if none of them were? What if Chris had never joined the BSAA at all, and he was going crazy? What if Terragrigia and Kijuju never happened? What if he didn't really know Piers Nivans at all?

"Look, Captain, what happened in Edonia was bad… real bad." The Lieutenant continued, kneeling down with him. "But throwing away your family and friends to come… here and get trashed every day isn't going to help you… Chris, you need to stop running away, and come back to the team."

The Captain wished that he could make Piers understand that it wasn't just what happened six months ago that made him run away from the hospital and vanish like a thief in the night, even though it was probably what everyone thought. But had it really happened, or was it just another set of false memories? The more he tried to remember events clearly, the more conflicting versions of those same events ran through his mind, but everyone would just think that it was PTSD. After all, Chris had survived the Spencer Estate, Antarctica, Terragrigia, and Kijuju, so what else besides severe mental trauma could make him crack like that?

If only there was some way to get proof of what really happened, then maybe his mind could start putting things back together again starting with a concrete version of one conflicted event… but how was the Captain supposed to go back to his team when he didn't know if the trauma was real, or if there really even was a team? On one hand, if everything really was in his head, then some good old fashioned exposure therapy would be just the thing, but what if none of the remembered versions were right, and…

"Captain, you are my superior, and I respect you." The Lieutenant said, interrupting those thoughts. "But I'm gonna give you two choices: You can either get up and come with me, and we'll get some coffee on the way to the helicopter… or I can kick your ass, and then roll you to the extraction point on a wheel barrel. I'm sure those people you puked on over there would let me borrow one."

There didn't seem to be any convincing Piers to just leave him alone, but part of Chris, the small part that was actually thinking clearly, knew that he was right. The Captain was in no condition to fight at the moment, a lesson he had learned back at the bar, and a cup of coffee was starting to sound really good, since apparently he wasn't going to get to sleep any time soon. So he agreed to go with the Lieutenant, on the condition that he help him up, since Chris was still pretty drunk and stumbling a little.

Fortunately for him, there would be plenty of time to sleep it off and sober up on the helicopter, since when Piers said he was going back into the field, he meant right away… apparently they were headed for China, where once again some kind of situation involving bioterrorists was taking place.