mistersnx: Much appreciated ;) character interactions are some of my favorites, getting their dynamic right and developing it over a story.
jonathandbeacher: Doubt anyone's going to be thinking about celebrating Halloween in this universe, after the missile flies lol.
Magd305TLC: He didn't fall in love with the Countess back then, she fell for him, coming up with his U.S.S. codename, he only had eyes for Bella. Eventually years later when Bella was out of the way, the Countess finally got her hands on him, after some political maneuvering, when she was older. Much appreciated, glad you are enjoying the story so far ;). That girl from Ace Combat 7 is a bit too cute and young, innocent looking to be Bella. I'd say she looks more like the Countess. Look up Cersei Lannister artwork from the A Song Of Ice And Fire book series. There you go, much closer to what I imagine Bella looks like.
Grizzlie: Many things I'd do in that story. Such as HUNK and Leon vs Nikolai and Krauser. Leon wanting to pay the Merchant for weapons and supplies, HUNK grabbing him by the throat and shaking him down. Crossing paths with Ada, and a certain character I would include as her partner. No shortage of awesome could be had in that story, things I could add and modify, story potential.
I think Leon lacked the stern personality to get Ashley in line, is not an authoritative man. Isn't a leader. If HUNK were in Resident Evil 4 he would get Ashley in line, even teach her to fire a gun, have her wear that suit of knight's armor you can have her wear lol make her more useful and less prone to being captured or slowing things down. I could save Ashley's character, I'm certain, develop her, the story would be similar to this one, with the three main POV's being the driving force of the story.
Rock992: Oh HUNK ain't the useless sort, just learning he can rely on others. And works best beaten down and run through the ringer, pushed to the limits for build up. If he is unaffected by his journey, and operating at his peak all the time, it would make for a shorter, boring story, no challenges for him. HUNK has done many bad things for years, his good deeds in this story don't wash those crimes out, though neither do his crimes wash out the good he has done. Each should have their own reward. He is still an Anti Villain overall, but becoming a self aware one, hasn't quite made the transition to Anti Hero.
Akira-Hayama: Definitely wanted to expand on the Spencer family and Umbrella villains like they weren't in the actual games for sure. That and Umbrella Security Service's leader and founder was never mentioned, like Colonel Vladimir was established as the founder of the U.B.C.S. It was a good opportunity to fill in numerous blanks and expand on the lore/universe, though her. It ain't a healthy relationship what she had with HUNK, but it is an important one to his character development and journey, and gives context to my interpretation of HUNK.
Wanted to have all the Umbrella big shots in one room, or most of them at least, we'll be delving more into that world later, but HUNK as the set of eyes in that world is important, he knows and has seen many things. Isn't in a high position of power, but is elevated by his benefactors to a spot where he can see much. I gave him an Agent 47 suit instead of a James Bond tux for that particular scene though despite temptation lol, though a Bond influence is definitely there with HUNK, and in the story. Had many inspirations that I'll list later when the story is over. The black suit and white shirt to me represents his presence within Umbrella Security Service (like their logo), the red tie for Umbrella's hold on HUNK, a leash, red being a subdued but recurring color of his. I like playing with color themes, like superheroes and supervillains wearing certain colors, or eye colors and such. And yes indeed, most of the time he doesn't brood as much as he does about Bella and the past during his missions, but this has been a particularly grueling mission wearing him down, and he isn't in a right state of mind anymore. Wanted to make him gradually more vulnerable, see the holes in the armor he wears.
Yes indeed, poor Jill, I really put her through the ringer, as I do all of them, to up the stakes and show consequences. She isn't coming out of Raccoon City as intact as she does in the games, none of them will. I wanted there to be a struggle, within and without, for the protagonists. Basically they're playing this run through in Nightmare Mode lol.
Those poor weapons lol, but yes indeed, wanted to scale back and make the heroes more vulnerable a bit... plus not have them all lugging around as many weapons as the Doomguy if I can help it lol trying to be a bit more plausible. That and I just might be cleaning up Jill's inventory a bit for reasons ;) stick around.
Thanks again, glad you're enjoying it all, and that was very much my intent to flesh out Bella, every character I depict, really, give them something of substance, motivation and personality. Especially the mysterious characters and untapped ones that the games never did justice. Wanted to fix a number of things with this story, fulfill character potential.
Arkham Knight: Oh there was already betrayal and killing in 1988 Umbrella, hence Spencer having his old friends and fellow founders Marcus and Edward Ashford whacked, but the shit had not yet hit the fan for the company. The Marcus thing set their downfall in motion, just took awhile. But yes indeed I like depicting the villains and inside Umbrella, and expanding on the Spencer Family was one avenue of that I wish had been done in the games.
Echo Five: I imagine they'd hold Nikolai in about as high in regard as Jill does lol.
Same contempt he has for Umbrella. Nikolai doesn't care for organizations much, Nikolai only cares about Nikolai.
117: I don't think Wesker ever took Leon for a legitimate threat, and there was never anything personal there between them. He was just a rookie agent to Wesker, an inconvenience at best.
Vong: Jill wouldn't have found out, I imagine. If she were there with him for the RED QUEEN, HUNK would not have lowered his guard and spoke to the AI that way. It's a deep, personal matter to HUNK, and he's still figuring out how much, if anything, he'll share with Jill, much as he cares for her. It's all complicated to him, he's being pulled between two world. The red world of Umbrella symbolized through Bella, and the blue, real world symbolized through Jill. Bella and to a lesser extent Comtesse Henri, symbolize HUNK's relationship with Umbrella, as you will find out if you haven't already. Looks good, should feel good, but just isn't healthy. Isn't right, or normal, natural or genuine, the way his relationship with Jill is. More of that to come, in time.
Spartan: As stated below on Nikolai, I'm sure all the S.T.A.R.S. would see Irons the way Jill would, they all have functioning well tuned moral compasses, and already hate Irons anyways, knowing he is an Umbrella goon like Mayor Warren, without knowing he is a serial killer and rapist as well. It would just be a matter of despising him even more.
Alex: His backstory is very important to establishing who I see him as in my portrayal, I wanted to establish him as a fully fledged character over the course of the story, instead of the more straight forward killing machine of the games. He still has the killing machine aspect, but I wanted to explain it, show there's much more going on inside him than the people around him understand. And If HUNK wasn't chosen by Bella he would have died a long time ago, a test subject in an Umbrella Orphanage. So it's a double edged sword, on one hand she saved him, gave him a life and purpose... but on the other look at what that life of his has been. The life of a villain, indoctrinated into Umbrella. One coming to terms with that, realizing, thanks to Jill the outsider showing him what he has become, his world, and the victims of it.
I have HUNK's exact year of birth decided, 1966, but not Bella's. She is definitely older than him though. I'd say she was born in the early to mid 50's. I lean towards early.
Guest: If I did an RE 4 story, it would have to wait until a couple other sequels I've been considering, to give that story more weight and build up, character development. A Code Veronica sequel and an original sequel depicting HUNK's defection from Umbrella. One story at a time though.
Thank you all for the reviews, as ever. Apologies for slowing a bit, have been focusing more on completing the companion piece short story to this one I intend to release after finishing this story. An interquel set at the end of Resident Evil 2 and the end of Raccoon City about a certain pair of worn down survivors meeting and making their own Last Escape ;). I like where it's going, and look forward to publishing it. Nice and simple and straight forward, not an epic like this one lol, easier to write, more tightly focused. Anyways, now that HUNK's origin is mostly out of the way, on with the story:
October 1st, 1998, 4:01AM
Treatment Control Room, Incineration Disposal Plant P-12A, Northern Raccoon City
No. They weren't dead yet. They hadn't come through too much... all this together, become an unlikely team, just to die now. The U.S.S. Agent was right. No matter how pained and tired she was, Jill would not give up until it was over. They were close... so close. She hadn't thought they would make it this far, as one setback after another had slowed them. Had built up. She had sacrificed and risked too much already... just to fail now. It could not have been all for nothing. All the deaths and destruction. She had to escape... had to get out, and bring the truth to light. Fight so that this would never happen again. She owed it to too many... and to herself. Looking back into HUNK's intact and cracked lenses... seeing her pale, bruised face smiling weakly... she wished more than ever she could see his eyes. To see how he looked at her. All the same... she drew that silent stolidness and strength from him again... heartening her. Even after he had been shot several times... she couldn't imagine the pain. Well... then again. Somehow his strength hadn't been broken by the gunshots... the journey, by any of it.
As little as she knew about the man behind the mask... she knew him to be a man incapable of giving up. How he was even still on his feet, she would never understand. The way he could flip a switch, become the machine she knew he really wasn't. That, along with the sight of the worn out Carlos still giving his best efforts, gave her a standard to follow. Could she do any less than them? She pondered what HUNK had been murmuring... through his mask, after the bullet had stunned him. The name he'd been uttering... among other things. Not understanding... but knowing it must have been something important. Deeply personal. She willed herself not to ask about it... knowing it wasn't the time. Likely never would be. She had already known him to be a man of mystery and secrets... but it seemed the more she found out, the more she realized she didn't know about him. And the more she wanted to. Carlos went ahead into the Treatment Control Room, and Jill and HUNK helped each other through the door after him. The smell of chemicals was worse now, wafting up from the chasm below... though perhaps filtered slightly thanks to the broken nose. As small a comfort as that was. She wished she had a mask, like HUNK. Its effect on Carlos was more overt... but he powered through it, moving down the walkway towards the elevator. Along the way after him, Jill bumped against the railing, looking down into the pit far below again. The various bodies in it, along with those around the platform down there.
Rotting corpses of infected and mutations everywhere. The halls choked with bodies. The nickname to the plant that the citizens of Raccoon City had given it had proven more apt than they had ever imagined it would. It would follow her to her nightmares, that much she knew... but in her fucked up world, a facility with immobile corpses was welcome, compared to how they could have been right now. They had barely explored any of the facility, she knew and was grateful for. She didn't want to think about how many more infected and other monsters dwell below, deeper in the facility, underground as well. Or the horde just outside in the streets of Northern Raccoon City. This place had been an outbreak waiting to be unleashed all along. Even without the outbreak at NEST. She held on to HUNK tighter, and he responded in kind, passing together beyond the rotting, foul bodies and railing... down towards the elevator and past it, as Carlos stepped around it and paused in front of the door to the Treatment Room passageway. Sure enough, looking to the door... the light that had been red the last time they'd checked it, before going down to the drainage canal to find HUNK... now glowed a beckoning, reassuring green.
She sighed with relief when she saw it, stopping them a bit away from the door to catch their breath. HUNK had come through for them yet again... if he hadn't unsealed it for them... she was sure they wouldn't have survived another trip down to the drainage canal. Monsters had a way of returning to areas they left behind, and there were too many doors and areas they hadn't explored down there. Merely cleared a path between HUNK's position and the elevator. The Corporal, despite his exhaustion, did not barge through the unlocked metal door. Their brush with death in the last corridor would not go forgotten, he took every precaution now. Carlos took up a crouched position beside the door instead, raising his rifle and reaching over to slowly open it. Peeking through very slightly for a long moment. Carlos's voice spoke to them, then, a quiet, startled whisper, looking back over to them where he crouched by the door, his head pulled back to cover, looking utterly bewildered.
"Uh... guys? You might want to come over here and take a look at this."
HUNK and Jill traded a puzzled look, before looking back to Carlos. Together, moving carefully, limping, they joined him over by the door, standing over him. Together, at their respective positions, the three of them peeked as one around the corner of the door and into the Treatment Room passageway. It was cluttered with cables and broken equipment... and bullet ridden infected corpses, blood and shell casings. There were a number of open grates and vents, ducts along the long stretch of the ceiling... a single corridor, leading to the access terminal... though the door to the Treatment Room was hidden to the far right on the end. But it wasn't to all these things they looked together at... it was just another corridor little different from the rest of the facility. Save one difference. A single human figure, standing with its back turned... and its head slumped down. As though he were sleep walking. It was a man... wearing an olive green uniform and black body armor, a camouflaged ballistics helmet... and holding an M4 Assault Rifle similar to Carlos's down at his side. Beside her, HUNK produced a pair of binoculars, taking a look for himself in silence... before retracting from them, and passing them off to Jill. She took them gratefully, leaning out and raising them to her eyes, observing the figure and zooming in, as Carlos whispered nearby again.
"Not a U.B.C.S. uniform or armor. Who the fuck is he?"
"He's with the army.", Jill recognized the blood and grime stained uniform at once, lowering the binoculars and passing them back off to HUNK, who tucked them away. She looked back at herself in his lenses. "But I don't see any insignia. Looks like it's been ripped off. A blank uniform. Black ops, maybe?"
"United States Army? What the hell is he doing here? Thought all the troops stayed at the Quarantine Zone."
"He must be a survivor... from the military detachment sent here. Remember?"
Jill suggested as she considered it, glancing back at the two men again. The agent had gone silent and still. Carlos looked back up at them, and then around the corner again, accented tone speaking up again.
"Well... whoever the hell he is... he's in the way. And I'm sure as shit not marching down there while he's armed, on the chance he ain't a zombie. I'll get his attention first. Better safe than sorry."
"Good idea."
Carlos studied the figure down the passageway for a moment, disheveled features looking hesitant. Getting his bearings. Swallowing, clearing his throat, at last he called down to the uniformed, armored figure, remaining in cover.
"Hey, buddy! You a zombie or fell asleep standing up?"
At the accented voice calling down to him, the figure reacted in an instant. Jumping on the spot, whirling around with his rifle risen, revealing a black balaclava mask covering his face. HUNK grabbed her by the arm and Carlos by the collar of his uniform, pulling them both backwards as the roar of gunfire raced down at them. The rounds struck the door frame and the wall opposite the door, sending sparks flying all over, dents and impact marks embedded all over the metal. Jill's heart raced in her chest at the brush with death, pressing back against HUNK while the Corporal pressed into the wall, keeping low. Raising his head only when the gunfire had abated, as the soldier reloaded, shouting down at him with sudden fury.
"STOP FIRING YOU FUCKING CRAZY ASSHOLE! WE'RE SURVIVORS TOO!"
"YOU'RE UMBRELLA! THEY SENT A TEAM TO FINISH US OFF! U.B.C.S. OR U.S.S. IT DOESN'T MATTER! BETTER SAFE THAN SORRY! YOU AND YOUR MONSTERS AREN'T GETTING ME TOO! I'LL KILL YOU ALL! I'LL BURN THIS WHOLE FUCKING PLANT TO THE GROUND! BETTER SAFE THAN SORRY! EAT THIS YOU FREAKS!"
The soldier screamed and swore at them while he reloaded... and within moments, as he opened fire again. Jill winced as the rounds struck the wall and floor close by, denting the metal and sending more sparks flying. She pressed her head into HUNK's bullet ridden chest armor, and she felt his arm encircle her protectively. Making her feel safe, even under the hail of bullets headed their way. She listened to the soldier down the passageway. Babbling incoherently... talking to himself. Out of his mind with fear. Broken down by whatever horrors he had endured here at the facility in the past days. Somehow, even as she felt fear herself, she felt sympathy, pity. What he must have survived, trapped in these corridors.
"He's gone batshit.", Carlos observed tiredly when the next barrage of gunfire ceased, dark eyes flickering back up at the two of them. He sighed heavily, grip tightening on his rifle. Disheveled features never having looked more exhausted than they did in that moment. "I'm open to solutions, Alpha Team. Have one myself."
"There is only one. He is an armed hostile standing between us and our escape... and won't be moved voluntarily.", The U.S.S. Agent's low voice spoke up at last at her side, raising her Samurai Edge in a gloved hand, assessing the situation coolly. The laser sight he had added flashing brightly, the sleek silencer glinting. Her eyes moved from it and back to his mask again as he rendered his judgement. "He dies. Unfortunate, but necessary."
"You a mind reader or something?", Carlos nodded in agreement at once before Jill could speak... with a grim grin flashing, raising his rifle again as well. He tilted his neck from side to side, popping the muscles in it audibly, releasing a low, resolved breath. Preparing himself visibly. "Let's put the crazy bastard out of our misery. We draw his fire again, make him waste rounds. When he's reloading I'll sweep over to cover on the other side of the door. We hit him from both sides. You aim high, I'll aim low."
"Sound strategy, Corporal."
"Got my moments. On three then, man?"
"Yes."
"One... two...-"
"No!", Jill heard her steady voice interrupt loudly the two men at once. Even as her heart beat quicker, she was unable to help herself, taking charge of the situation, intervening. It could not be permitted... not if there was another way. "You're not just doing this!"
"Pardon, Valentine?"
"What?"
"Let me handle this."
"I don't think he's in a negotiating mood, Supercop. This ain't a hostage situation. We should take him out now. Time's a ticking, last I checked."
"Won't know that until I've tried. Think about what he must have been through, by now, in this plant. We are not going to murder him. There's time, and his life is worth taking a bit of it."
"When did self defense become murder?"
"Right around the time we don't even offer him a way out. We're trying it my way first. End of discussion."
HUNK and Carlos traded a bewildered look at that, and looked back at her. Before either man could raise their obvious objections, she did what she had to. Raising her voice and calling down to the soldier, as Carlos had done.
"Soldier! My name is Jill Valentine! I'm a police officer with the R.P.D's S.T.A.R.S. unit! I'm not here to hurt you, I'm here to help!"
She braced herself for the response of his rifle, drawing a low breath. A silence greeted her in return though, instead of gunfire. He stopped babbling as well entirely. A good sign, at least... it was one that encouraged her to keep going. This wasn't her forte... but she had to keep trying. Before the others went through with their... alternative, whether she liked it or not.
"I'll holster my weapon and step out into the open! My two companions will remain back here, and we can talk! Just you and me! I am no danger to you!"
At this, both HUNK and Carlos's gazes snapped back in her direction again as one. Carlos equal parts bewildered and outraged by her suggestion, on the verge of speaking. She held up a hand to halt them and forced herself not to pay more attention to them just now. Listening to the silence, and waiting for the response. After a long moment... the soldier's voice drifted down to them again. Hesitant, uncertain... but not crazed. And a little closer than it had been, his boots tapping on the floor, echoing down towards them and coming to a stop. The muffled voice emanating down to them again, echoing.
"You're... you're really a cop?!"
"Yes. I am. I'm here to help you. I can get you out of the city. We've cleared a path to escape through the monsters. I just need to talk to you. Will you let me come out and do that?"
"No... no tricks?!"
"No tricks! You have my word as a police officer!"
There was another pause at that. She could almost hear him thinking it over. All the while she felt HUNK and Carlos's stares, remaining silent in spite of their likely temptation. Finally, the soldier's voice called back down towards her.
"Alright... alright! Just you though! Come down here... and don't try anything!"
"I won't! Just need a minute to talk to my companions first!"
"Make it quick before I change my mind! Tell them to keep their weapons down and stay put! If I see them aimed at me, I'll cut you down like I did these freaks!"
"Understood!"
"You will do no such damn thing, Valentine.", HUNK finally spoke coldly and clearly, any hint of his pain or exhaustion receded. Visibly incensed in his posture, grip tightening on the Samurai Edge. He kept his voice low for the two of them alone to hear. "This is a fruitless waste of time and effort. Unnecessary risk. His life is expendable. Forfeit for firing upon us. Yours is not."
"Goddamn right, man! Fuck that shit!", Carlos burst out furiously, his own tiredness evaporated. Gripping his rifle tighter as well, visibly longing to whirl around the corner and return the gunfire that had been sent their way. "We didn't go through all that shit to cure you of that virus... just to let some lunatic asshole gun you down the second you're unarmed! I try to be a decent Catholic, but honestly... let's kill this motherfucker already! Him or us!"
"Precisely."
"Guys... trust me. Please.", Jill murmured to them, her eyes looking from Carlos's outraged brown pair, and to the red reflective lenses on HUNK's mask. Looking at two reflections of herself pleading in them. Her bruised, swollen features... how run down she was. "Both of you. What you did for me... I'll never forget. But too many people have suffered and died already. We can't just kill him. He's a human being, scared out of his wits, not like Nikolai. He deserves a chance. Like I gave to both of you... and you gave to me. We're a team... and I need your trust on this one."
Jill holstered Matilda and set her hand on the Umbrella Agent's shoulder gently. Looking back at herself again... wishing even more that she could see his eyes. The man beneath it all. She looked between him and Carlos... despite the young man's outrage, he would follow HUNK's lead... it would come down to the agent. He stared at her in silence for a time... his grip around her tightening unconsciously... but when he spoke, his muffled tone was defeated. Irritated. Acquiescing. Probably seeing how set on her course she was.
"Very well. Keep your radio's communicator activated... so we can hear your conversation from cover.", HUNK commanded her irritably, grip tightening on her Samurai Edge, body remaining tense against her. Nodding his battle scarred helmet reluctantly. "Stay clear of my line of fire. If he makes one wrong move, I'm taking him down. Negotiations over."
"We both will, man.", Carlos added at once, looking thoroughly discontented with the entire thing. He shook his head, trying to keep his irritation in check, and failing. "You're playing with fire here, Jill. This ain't a 'slap the cuffs on him' or hug the criminal situation. The guy is fucking nuts. For all we know he could snap at any second if you say the wrong thing."
"I know the risk... but I have to try. I'm a cop, this is what I do. I help people. Regardless of the risk. Wouldn't be me otherwise. Umbrella stole everything else from me... I can't let them steal who I am too."
She thought of Mr Rosso... wondering yet again if she might have said or done something differently. Might have been able to convince him to trust her somehow. He had been close to believing her, coming with her... but he hadn't. Maybe... this panicked soldier was her opportunity to set right her possible mistake. If there was a chance she could resolve this without bloodshed... she had to take it. She had no wish to add to the death surrounding them, of late. And there would be room on the helicopter anyways. It wouldn't be easy, she knew... but things that were right rarely were. Finally, finding her voice, she spoke up again to him, looking over in the direction of the open doorway.
"Alright! I'm coming out slowly with my hands raised! Hold your fire!"
"Fine! Come out then! Show yourself!"
Jill looked back at HUNK... and she slowly, reluctantly withdrew her touch from his shoulder. The agent did the same at once, arm leaving her waist. Lowering back to his side, gloved hand tightening into a fist. He said nothing, merely watched her, breathing slowly and painfully through the mask, but managing to support himself, remain standing. Even injured as he was, the strength was still there somehow. It heartened her, even now. Encouraged her. She wouldn't let anything else happen to him if she could help it. She looked between him and Carlos again, before raising a hand and turning on her radio's receiver, as the agent had instructed. Then back to HUNK one more time. He looked as though he wanted to say something more... but to her disappointment, he stopped himself from saying whatever it was, and remained silent, turning his gaze away from her. Staring ahead back at the bullet ridden elevator determinedly, not meeting her eyes again.
Carlos watched them both, but said nothing, sighing wearily. Merely nodded at Jill, already looking tired again, giving her a thumbs up. Returning the gesture, she rose both her hands over her head and drew a deep breath, feeling her heart racing. Very slowly she stepped over to the open doorway, looking down the Treatment Room passageway. He no longer stood at the and of it by the control panel... rather he had moved about halfway down the long corridor. Standing near some of the rotting bodies of the creatures he had killed in there already. Passing some more automated security cameras along the way that tracked her. He aimed his assault rifle down at her... but the finger remained off the trigger. Keeping his own word... so far. Time would tell if she was making a mistake or not... she was taking her own life into her hands... but then... how many other times had she already done so to this point? All the same... it never got any easier. Being so close to death, so often. Slowly, keeping her cool, she began to pace down the corridor towards him. Boots passing over spent brass shell casings, tracking through blood and stepping over corpses and power cables running across the metal floor.
Over the doorway was a green neon light indicating the unlocked status of the door, as it was outside. A red biohazard symbol was painted on the wall to her immediate right with a direction arrow beneath it, pointing down the corridor to the Treatment Room. Smashed, sparking equipment was everywhere along the walls... a good deal of their advanced tech was in this corridor, from what she could figure. A visible cold mist flowed from a broken pipe connected to a large refrigeration device against the wall, giving her goosebumps as she passed it on the way up to him. At last, drawing closer, she came to a stop directly in front of him and the assault rifle... looking between it, and him. Making sure she was close enough for the receiver to pick anything up.
She couldn't see much of his features in the slit of the balaclava... just his startled, wide blue eyes within the eye holes there. His body armor was heavily battered... covered in grime stains... blood, and his uniform was no less tattered. Whatever he had been through and seen, it was clear he'd only barely walked through that hell. That he was close to the breaking point. He had numerous pouches on his armor, and wore a backpack... his uniform not altogether dissimilar from the U.B.C.S. one... but with some marked differences in design. A design she was more familiar with than HUNK's or Carlos's, from her time in the U.S. Army. He was around Carlos's height and build... and was a young man like him... at least based on his voice, and his manner... but she guessed he was older than Carlos.
"What's a... cop doing here?", The soldier finally demanded, speaking up first, breaking the relative silence of the corridor. He swallowed, trying to find more of his voice, perhaps, tone growing incredulous. "I see cuffs... but where's your... uniform? Badge? Don't look like one. And you're more... fucked up than I am. How the hell did you survive this long? Get this far... from the city? Still standing?"
"It's all... a long, complicated story.", She admitted with a slight, pained smile, repressing a laugh she knew would hurt too much. And the urge to shrug, which would be as painful. "Still not entirely sure how. But I couldn't have alone. I almost died many times."
"I can tell. Your friends back there... didn't get a good look at them... but saw a mask on one... and a uniform on one. Who are they?"
"Another long story. Forget about my stories for now. You're the interesting one here. Talk to me, soldier... tell me something... anything. Are you alone? Are there any other survivors in your unit? What happened here? We came here too late."
He stared back at her... uncertainty flickering in the features she could see. She thought he would argue, or evade the topic, push for questions of his own... but he didn't. He relented... almost gratefully. He swallowed, looking away from her for a moment... gathering himself. Finally... he spoke, as though unable to stop himself. A cork pulled from the bottom of his soul. Desperation to let it out. What he had endured. She listened carefully to every word.
"We... found the place full of these long time infected workers. It's been like this for weeks, nearest we could figure... maybe longer. But they weren't even the worst of it. There were mutated... things, as well. We brought a... powerful weapon with us. A railgun... just in case there were... B.O.W's. Set it up in the generator room, down close to the scrapyard... better safe than sorry. But we... never even got to use it. They hit us too fast, just before we could plug in the power cores. Faster than we thought they would. They were... dropped in, by helicopter. Three of them in the generator room... two of them outside it in the scrapyard."
"Who dropped them? And what were they?"
"Umbrella... their Tyrant program. Giant genetically engineered fuckers... bio organic weapons... super soldiers. Like goddamn Terminators. Worse. And you don't even know what the fuck I'm talking about, do you? I must sound crazy. All of this is insane... I have gone crazy... I must have... this should all be a bad dream... but I can't wake up..."
"I know more than you think. Go on. Please. I want to hear it."
"There was a... battle. One of them... mutated. Became something even worse. With claws. Went berserk. We got the fucking bastards down there eventually... with explosives... but they got... all of us. Everyone... except me. I don't know how... but I made it. I had to run from the infected after... saw my own... friends turning into those... things, too. I came here, through the ventilation shafts. My radio is broken... I couldn't get through to anyone... couldn't call for an evacuation. Doubt they'd send anything anyways... we failed our mission... I'm expendable. I've been here for... lost track of the time. A long time. Too fucking long. Going vent to vent... trying to find a safe way out. There were too many of them in the corridors... zombies and mutated freaks. There were freaks with long tongues in the vents now and again. The monsters are on all the levels. And most areas were locked down. Some containment procedure. I couldn't find an escape route... and didn't have the weaponry to handle them all... so I ran and hid. Came here... cleared it out. It's been safe and secure... until you all turned up..."
"But why were you and your unit sent here in the first place?"
"Our mission was to... find a sample of some bioweapon called the Golgotha Virus... developed by Umbrella's NEST facility... which is connected to this plant. Even a... subterranean access tunnel nearby... between here and there. A transit system to transfer personnel... but it's been sealed for a long time. Abandoned by NEST. This place... dumps all their organic material for processing. Doctor Birkin developed the G-Virus... made a deal with the government to sell it. We were supposed to infiltrate NEST and extract him, his wife and daughter. Didn't quite work out. Umbrella got to him first... and got to us, now. Someone didn't want us recovering it, clearly. It all went to hell. The whole city has. It's a fucking nightmare out there. We never stood a chance. I never... never imagined anything like this. Even after the briefing. It was Umbrella... plain and simple. They murdered all my friends... I won't let them get away with this... I'll kill them all..."
Jill was silent and still... knowing HUNK had heard it... that Carlos had. She could imagine them staring at one another. Carlos bitterly. She closed her eyes for a long moment wearily. All this... over the damn G-Virus... the virus sample she'd held in her hand... and put back in his pouch. All of it over this lunatic named Birkin. Sherry's father infecting himself with his own bioweapon. It was almost enough to make her laugh, that she should find another special forces operative, like HUNK, intent on recovering it... though it was clear this man no longer cared about fulfilling his orders. Hadn't for some time. This man was strong normally, but now he was broken... as HUNK had not been by the horrors of the city. So... an enigmatic, deadly U.S.S. Agent she had powerful, guilty feelings for with a hand in the outbreak and potentially future ones... a good hearted rookie U.B.C.S. mercenary in the wrong company at the wrong time... a sociopathic Umbrella Monitor making everything worse for them at every opportunity... and now a U.S. Government special forces operative with an understandable murderous desire against all Umbrella employees. Had lost many of those close to him thanks to the company, as she had. She sympathized.
Meanwhile, there was her... a former cat burglar turned S.T.A.R.S. Officer pretending to still be the latter in the middle of it all, driven to her limits while juggling all these dangerous factors like hand grenades... trying to keep them from exploding. Yeah... life was good alright. She didn't know how she was going to convince HUNK not to kill him now. She didn't know what his orders were concerning the military and government... but had an inkling from how prepared he had been to remove the threat. His reluctance in relenting, giving her a chance to try to talk the soldier down. But still... with her in front of the assault rifle... the red laser sight did not touch the man's forehead, as it would have otherwise. He would not endanger her life. And she didn't know how they would keep HUNK's status as an Umbrella Agent from this man... especially with Carlos present, and wearing an Umbrella logo on his back. She prayed his backpack was enough to cover it. Would it matter? Would he recognize the uniform, armor and mask of a U.S.S. Agent? This was too much, and she'd put it all on herself. She might have been a cop... but she wasn't the force's negotiator. It was a miracle she'd managed to negotiate what she had to this point. Still... she would have to keep going. The clock was ticking to oblivion. She needed to work to defuse this. She had made her decision. There was no other choice. This soldier's life was no less important than theirs. She had a duty... and difficult as it was, it was also clear. Finally she opened her eyes again, looking back at his eyes within the balaclava and speaking once more.
"Who are you, soldier? What's your name? Rank? Branch?"
In a flash, he grew instantly and visibly uncomfortable at the questions. Evasive. For a second she feared she had blown it... asked the wrong things... that she'd have to duck out of the way for HUNK's laser sight. But his rifle did not raise higher. Instead, looking away from her, he closed his eyes and tried to recover himself from his outpouring. Once he had, he spoke again, looking at her... voice more controlled and careful than before, remembering his own duty, it seemed. Or an aspect of it.
"That's... that I'm not going to tell you. Sorry. Already told you far too much. We were even ordered not to wear our usual insignia. No dog tags either. Covert operation from someone high up. Fucker wanted the G-Virus bad... for his own bioweapons program. Enough to arrange the multi million dollar railgun... enough to throw us all away on the slim chance we could get it. Wasn't just Umbrella... the government sent us in, knowing what was waiting for us. And abandoned us... abandoned me. Doesn't matter who we were. We were just grunts, following orders... from some asshole. They're going to fry the city as well... not long now... my reward for my service..."
"I understand. Relatively. I served in the army as well.", She informed him tiredly, reaching carefully for and holding up her dog tags on the necklace a bit. His eyes within the mask studying them carefully. "I even spent some time with Delta Force."
"Women can't join Delta Force.", The man suddenly snapped, grip tightening on his rifle threateningly. Eyes narrowing coldly within the balaclava. "Don't you try that GI Jane shit on me, Valentine."
"G.I Jill, to be more accurate. Never said I joined, was an operator. I was allowed access to some specialized training with them, though. An experimental program. Bomb disposal and the like. It was an honor."
The soldier looked back at her suspiciously... suddenly weary... looking at her dog tags as well again, as though trying to determine if they were real. He looked over her shoulder back down to the doorway HUNK and Carlos remained behind, out of sight. Finally, the soldier uttered a low, annoyed breath, meeting her eyes again with evident annoyance.
"Look. What the hell do you want, Valentine? Why did you and your 'deputies' back there try to barge in here for? If you're trying to escape... this sure as shit isn't the way out of the facility."
"We need access to the Control and Communications Tower... but it's locked down. We need into the Treatment Room to check the senior staff bodies for a keycard. It's the only way to the Control and Communications Tower. To the central elevator. The helipad. To escape. There's an Umbrella helicopter still remaining up there that we were planning to commandeer. You can come with us. It's not too late. You can survive this... we all can."
"The Treatment Room is locked down too... I have a system disc for it... found it... used it to lock down the passageway after I got in here. Then that door got overridden earlier. You guys, I expect. Should still work on the Treatment Room, at least..."
The soldier muttered, as much to himself as to her, shaking his helmeted head. A gloved hand reached down to one of his pouches, flipping it open and retrieving what was within. The light illuminating the dark System Disc. It looked like a combination of a floppy disk and an ordinary one, semi transparent within the dark case. He held it down at his side carefully, considering her again for a long moment... before hesitantly finding his voice again. She heard the vulnerability through it... the man's guard slipping... and knew she was close to defusing this aspect of the situation.
"It's yours, only if you're... really serious about getting me out of here. Before the missile flies. I have a family... waiting for me. So many things left to do... things I never said..."
"I am serious. You will see your family again. Tell them what you need to. You have my word on that."
"No bullshit?"
"No bullshit. But we need to hurry, soldier. Someone else breached this facility and is trying to get to that chopper before us. He's not too likely to give us a ride out... to put it mildly."
The soldier stared at her in silence at that information for a long moment... and there was something else in there to it other than fear or suspicion. Something that might have been hope... daring to believe her. Like a man waking up from a long nightmare... realizing there was still a chance left. Feeling hope, again, after having forgotten what it felt like. Relief touching his eyes at last. Finally, his posture relaxed, and at last he lowered the assault rifle away from her, down to the floor. Acquiescing. Jill released a low breath she wasn't aware she'd even been holding, and lowered her hands back down to her sides again. Slowly, reluctantly, he held out the dark disk to her, meeting her eyes again.
"Here... then. Take it. Before I change my mind. There are... some things I fear even more than death. One of them is just sitting here doing nothing while waiting to die. No better than any of these corpses. I'll come with you, Valentine. I just want to live. Want to take my chances."
Jill looked silently between the disc and him, listening to his words carefully... nodding in understanding, she took it at once carefully. Turning it over under the light, examining it and looking back up to the soldier. Smiling to him gratefully.
"Thank you.", She murmured quietly, meaning it, feeling herself smiling deeper. He merely nodded his helmeted head and shrugged, looking away from her again, visibly trying to gather himself. When he had, she turned off her radio, turned on the spot and called down to the others in cover. "You guys can come out of there now! We've come to an arrangement! He's coming with us! Hold your fire!"
The soldier followed her gaze down to the open metal electronic door she had come from, and the two of them waited in silence. HUNK's familiar dark, armored figure appeared in the doorway first, her modified Samurai Edge risen in one hand at first, surveying the area... before lowering down at his side, his serrated combat knife drawn and held tightly in the other hand... red lenses glinting in the lights. Carlos followed after him, his own assault rifle down at his side, looking particularly uneasy... though the two remained silent, save their boot steps echoing up the corridor. The U.S.S. Agent limping down the corridor and over the rotting corpses with effort. Even as much as she was coming to know him, what she felt for him... he could not have looked more menacing and imposing if he tried. Frightened her a little... as he had when they had first met. The way he moved like a machine even through the visible agony. As the intimidating figure approached the middle area of the corridor where they stood, the U.S.S. Agent moved to her side at once protectively and stared silently at the soldier, and him back at HUNK... eyes narrowing in the balaclava. Hand tightening on his rifle at his side. Carlos's eyes flickered between the two of them as well, no less tense in the silence that passed over the group. Something told Jill the agent was considering putting his knife through the soldier... and breaking his neck for good measure. Using some of his C.Q.B.Z. Only barely resisting the temptation. Something also told her the soldier recognized the U.S.S. Agent for what he was. Jill hastily stepped between the agent and soldier and spoke up before either of them could say or do anything to the other, taking charge of the potential hostile situation to defuse it. Not wanting it to escalate... so not yet bothering to make introductions. That could wait for the awkward helicopter ride... or never perhaps. Maybe it was better they not be introduced.
Here she was... playing peace keeper once more. If only Chris, Barry and Rebecca could see her now, wherever they were. Her father, Dick, from the Arklay County Maximum Security Penitentiary, for that matter. How ridiculous she would have looked to them all, she was certain. She'd never been good at this... but she had to try. Her duty was not yet accomplished... but she still had a chance.
"Now that we have that straightened out... let's get the hell out of here, people. There's a helicopter with our name on it. Escape. Time to focus on that. We need you to help us in the Treatment Room. We're going to need to work together and find that card, before-..."
There was a sudden, audible thumping somewhere overhead in the ventilation shafts, then. It sounded close and far away at the same time. Creaking of metal. Groaning. All four of their heads snapped up towards it. Movement... echoing through the corridor. Carlos's rifle snapped up, aiming among the metal grates and pipes intersecting up there... a maze of a ceiling. The laser sight on her Samurai Edge did as well, the agent looking over the roof for any movement. Jill tore her eyes away from the ceiling and back down to the government Delta Force operator. He had to be an operator, based on his reaction before over Delta Force. How long he had survived. Among the best.
"Was there anyone else with you? Anyone else alive in this facility?"
"No. Couldn't be another survivor... none of my team made it. Couldn't find any surviving staff either...", The soldier muttered back to her, looking back down from the ceiling and to her, eyes uneasy. Forgetting his hostility towards HUNK and vice versa. At least for a moment, mercifully. "There were no zombies in the vents... not when I traveled through them. I cleared out a monster or two up there, but there's been nothing since... don't think the vents here are connected to the lower levels. You mentioned someone trying to steal the chopper... is it him? Or was there anyone else pursuing you?"
The vents appeared large, spacious... compared to the ones running through the R.P.D. station. It made sense, given the size of the facility, above ground and under... how many maintenance workers there had been. She couldn't hear any moans... or the hissing of the other creatures. They were incapable of hiding what they were, their hunger. And weren't smart enough to be trying to sneak around through a ventilation shaft. Their shrieks would give them away. No... it was not a zombie or one of the mutations. But something else... infinitely far worse, the operator's question ringing in her ears. The horror of it crashed down on her in an instant of realization and she looked back around into HUNK's intact and cracked lenses to see her stricken, frightened faces looking back at herself.
"It's here!"
Before any of them could react, in an instant, something long and slimy burst down from somewhere above, amid all the metal, coiling itself rapidly around the soldier's midsection like an anaconda. A living rope of biomass constricting as a noose would, its purple, veiny flesh pulsating like thick, unbreakable muscle. Jill heard the muffled cracking of breaking ribs as the soldier's screams filled the air, and he was lifted from his feet and towards the ceiling. As he gagged, his rose his rifle up there and it went off, spraying above him before dropping from his broken grip, the rifle lost among the pipes and vents up there. She heard shouting and cursing from Carlos and more gunfire roaring painfully in her ears beside her, sparks, steam and shell casings flying as rounds hit the maze of metal pipes, grating and vents. Trying to hit the source... but unable to see it where they were, flashlights sweeping over the area. Heart seizing in her chest, she instinctively leap forward, grabbing the soldier's dangling free hand and holding on tight.
She felt HUNK wrap his arm around her waist, helping her try to pull the figure back down... but another tendril descended, enveloping around the soldier's arm and constricting with inhuman strength. Splitting flesh, severing muscle and snapping bone as though it were nothing, intense pressure. The arm came off in Jill's hand, blood flying everywhere, and she screamed, dropping it to the floor in horror, as more blood began to pour from above like a warm, scarlet rain, soaking her. And his own agonized screams... she knew they would follow her to her nightmares. To the grave. And the image of him up there, pulled out of their reach. He tried to struggle and resist, but he screamed as Brad had. It was an irresistible force that had him, reducing a full grown man to the strength of a child by comparison. Something up there grabbed him... a shadow stirring along the ceiling and walls, pulling him towards a vent while tangling him up among the pipes. Half of his body disappeared into the vent, his screams echoing. Soon... but not soon enough, his screams fell silent... replaced by the terrible sounds of the one that had cut them off.
There was the snapping of bone... a repugnant slurping sound up there... gnashing... wetness... and a low, guttural sound that might have been a grunt of satisfaction, or a laugh... echoed through the passageway. The soldier's legs and boots twitched and shook, convulsing, blood flowing down and dripping off his boots as his mind caught up with his body, realizing he was dead. Gradually going still... or nearly... his form shaking in the grip of the thing that had him up there. In one of the open vents... her flashlight caught the image of its giant, leering, blood stained, dead, burnt face grinning back down at them from the shadows and steam... at her. Yellow eye gleaming in a bit of the light. All of its razor teeth in its maw grown back. The purple, blood coated, taut tendrils snapped off his corpse, slithering back into the vent. And then it was gone, vanished into the mist emanating from the bullet ridden hissing steam pipes, taking the soldier's head with it in a clawed, giant hand... amid the groaning and banging of metal... fading off somewhere in the distance of the plant. Leaving the headless corpse behind. But one more, familiar sound emanated back to them before it vanished. Dead air escaping dead lungs. A word reserved for her alone in the entire city. Not roared... but a threat... a promise all the same.
"S.T.A.R.S."
The Nemesis's malicious murmur died away, as though it had never been present, hadn't spoken. The only sounds in the passageway were the faint hissing of the nearby refrigerator... and the steady patter of blood dropping from what remained of his mangled, savaged, headless corpse up there among the pipes, striking the metal floor in front of them, adding to the pool already there below. His arm lying in the center of it. Finally, Carlos, eyes boggling up at the soldier's remains, found his voice and broke the silence for them. His shout echoing through the passageway. Delayed reaction or not, Jill couldn't disagree with his rather concise assessment.
"Fuck!"
Jill watched the blood dripping down into the thick puddle on the floor... looking up to the soldier's corpse. His body was broken... spine and remaining limps snapped at a sickening angle. His remaining arm dangling downward from the pipes he was stuck on. Body armor torn up... it was then she notices his entrails hanging from his midsection. The tendril must had slashed through it like paper... or those claws. The nausea hit her all at once... feeling his blood running down her hair and face, shoulders and chest, staining her top crimson. She watched the blood still dripping like rain from the coated pipes and vents for a moment... the half of the corpse visible up there... until she couldn't any longer. Moving away from them, from the hole in the ceiling and pile of blood and gore... Jill moved to the side unsteadily, a wave of nausea hitting her, and she promptly leaned over and threw up... retching and gagging until nothing else came up. Tears of exertion joining the blood staining her. She felt his warm, strong gloved hand settle on her back, then... and it brought her back slowly from the horror and despair. Turning back to face him, she saw how bloodied her face was in his eye pieces... how sickly, pale and bruised... she was a walking dead woman... disheveled. A zombie.
Then his other hand tucked her Samurai Edge back into its holster, as he had the combat knife, and moved over into his medical pouch, withdrawing some gauze and raising it to her face. Slowly, gently beginning to wipe it off as a makeshift rag. He did the same with his canteen, wetting the material to help clean it away, pouring a bit of it on her face. Jill closed her eyes throughout as he worked... and soon his hands withdrew, tucking away the canteen and throwing aside the spent gauze. Her eyes opened again, and her face was relatively clean... but her hair was still a damp, sticky mess. At once she wrapped her arms around him and burred her face into his bullet ridden chest armor. She felt his hand on her back again... she thought she would have to fight more tears... but they didn't come. She felt only a numb hollowness... cold, empty despair... with only his warm embrace reminding her there was anything good left in the world. Carlos stood off to the side near the severed arm, looking between it and the corpse above, hanging his head and looking ashamed... regretful. As much as she regretted... she had made the soldier a promise, and in an instant had failed it. Broken it. Had gotten him killed instead after all the time he had managed to survive here... by leading it to him. One more thing she was guilty of. Jill remained in the agent's arms, but drew back enough to look up into his lenses. It was then, in a lull of calm, in HUNK's arms, that she came to a cold realization, hollow, tired voice speaking up again.
"He wasn't infected."
"Hm? What do you mean?"
"The soldier. He wasn't infected. That... thing... consumes organic material infected with the T-Virus. Helps heal it. Make it stronger. Might even be what's mutating it so much. He wasn't infected. It can't tell the difference anymore... or it did that deliberately... to fuck with us. With me. It was up there... listening to me... waiting for me to resolve this peacefully. And then it struck. Made what I was doing all for nothing..."
HUNK and Carlos were silent for a moment. And even though she couldn't see his eyes, she knew they had an understanding of what she was getting at. HUNK nodded his helmeted head almost imperceptibly.
"It can't be that smart... can it?", Carlos shook his own head at last... looking deeply troubled by the thought, though. He looked between her and HUNK, and back up to the blood stained vents. It was clear enough he believed her, but was trying to wrap his head around it, make some sense of it. "We've hurt it badly... it can't be thinking straight enough for that... if it was ever that intelligent in the first place."
"We'll probably never know for sure." Jill murmured, shaking her head with a low breath. "But I believe it."
"Its power limiting coat is gone. Inhibitors. Failsafe. Umbrella puts one on every Tyrant for a reason.", HUNK spoke up, informing her quietly as her eyes moved from Carlos to his lenses again. "And the Nemesis Alpha Parasite is sentient. Frankl's work. Its mental conditioning remains, though."
"Or maybe it grew beyond the conditioning. Now it genuinely hates me and wants to kill us of its own free will, now."
"Well... whatever the case... on the bright side... at least those five Tyrants are dead." Carlos added quietly after a pause in the wake of her words. He wore something like relief on his face at the thought, despite what had just happened. "If what he said about his team was true..."
"Yeah. But that thing is still out there. Still following us... to the end. I led it to him. Got him killed. His family will never see him again. Didn't even get his name... will never be able to tell them the truth. That Tyrant has been in my life so long now... I'm afraid I won't remember anything else anymore..."
"Yes. You will. What you tried to do... was not for nothing. You tried. That is more than most do. You are not responsible for its actions. Any more than you are for it existing. Umbrella bears the guilt.", HUNK spoke to her assuredly, his gaze forcing her to look back at him again with ease. His tone was calming... just as much as the words he spoke were reassuring, even now. Welcome... and needed more than ever. "It's not over, Jill. Not yet. It is weakened. Desperate. Or it would have stayed and faced us. It tried to frighten you, and fled instead. It knows... in spite of everything it has attempted... you are not broken."
"No... I'm not. Just feel like I am. I'm afraid, is what I am. Sick and tired."
Her quiet voice agreed after a long moment to consider it. Managing to smile thinly again, somehow. She felt his grip tighten on her... and her own did the same on him. The pained throbbing in her burned hands worth it every time, with him. The pain giving her clarity. Understanding of what she must do now. They had been delayed long enough... as much as she wished to remain here holding him. Her arms reluctantly withdrew from him and she stepped back, him doing the same. At last, she drew Matilda again, down at her side... other hand gripping the System Disc. The key to escape. Or one of them. There was always one more obstacle to hurtle. It was time they resumed leaping them, before it was too late. Before it was all for nothing. Finally, she looked between the two men, and breathed.
"It's done. There's nothing more we can do here. Come on. Time to get this over with."
Turning silently, she forced herself not to look at the soldier's remains again, and began to move down the remainder of the corridor to the panel at the end with the glowing red light on it. All the same... all she saw in her mind's eye were his mutilated remains... heard his screams still. She felt and heard the others following her, their boots tapping... their presence... and drew strength from it. The knowledge she wasn't alone. Reaching the panel, she paused, glancing over to the Treatment Room's automated containment door. It was made of thick titanium, visible rivets attached to it and locking mechanisms in place all over it. One hundred percent sealed and contained. She doubted even that... thing, could get through it. Not that she wanted to test it. It had a small patch of window on it as well... Plexiglas of sorts... or a harder material. Looking back to the panel, she looked over the System Disc one more time, and rose it, inserting it into the panel. It slid all the way into the slot, and the machine beeped in recognition, the red light flashing green. The great containment door's locks began to retract in a series of loud noises... before the automated door finally opened to the Treatment Room beyond. Carlos moved over to the open door first, peeking his head inside and aiming his rifle, sweeping the interior for a time, before looking back and giving a thumbs up that it was all clear of hostiles. But it wasn't to the room she looked just yet despite temptation, but back to HUNK who remained closely at her side. Speaking up to him again.
"HUNK... you should stay out here. You've done more than enough already. You're injured, and need to take it easy."
"And you aren't? I'll manage. Had... worse."
"You always say that. I've no doubt in your experience... but have you really had worse than this? Worse than Raccoon City?"
She asked the questions of him seriously... but he was silent in return at them. His silence told her more than enough, though. Her hand squeezed his shoulder again reassuringly, as his low, muffled tone spoke up again. She wasn't sure she had ever heard him more tired than he was then. It showed in his voice, posture and manner. Still he held on... had unimaginable strength kept in reserve. Somehow, he just kept going... and didn't even want to rest when she was offering it.
"We need that keycard. I can still move. I should help."
"And you will. I need you to guard this passageway... warn us if that... thing comes back. We'll find the card. But you need to recover, not exert yourself more than you have to. Please. If not for yourself, then for me?"
The U.S.S. Agent stared at her in silence, visibly grappling with something within. Wanting to argue with her, most likely... but knowing there wasn't time. He was a logical man, and understood the situation. The stakes. Then he spoke again. Tone as reluctant as he was tired.
"Fine. If it comes back this way, I'll let you know. Just be careful in there... and hurry. Don't make me come in there after you."
"I will. You as well. I'm not losing you too."
She rose her free hand to his mask and touched it fondly, fingers trailing along it slowly. Before at last withdrawing, leaving him standing there by the control panel. Reluctantly, she turned back to face the open Treatment Room and Carlos waiting in front of it. The Corporal nodded and went through first, keeping his rifle risen just in case. She stepped in after him, and then away from the door... boots tapping on metal, and coming to a pause. Taking in the alarming surroundings of spacious chamber of the Treatment Room on all sides. It struck her the moment she stepped in... even with her broken nose. The smell of rot... death, worse than the corridors. Corpses of former, rotting employees were piled up in separate sections around the chamber... all of them former facility personnel. Infected. But there were corpses of some of the mutations as well... both varieties of the mutated fleas with green blood... even some Lickers and Crimson Head infected. None of the Pale Things... but more than enough to make up for their absence. All of them, at least, were well and truly dead.
Nothing stirred or twitched from what she could see around the great chamber. But organic material wasn't the only material they had been trying to dispose. There was an amount of debris, broken concrete, garbage... scrap metal... including a number of paint cans and tall metal tanks that had held oxygen, or whatever other gasses they were discarding. It made sense, she supposed... metal could be broken down as easily as organic material, with the right chemicals. Piles of debris and corpses were mixed together instead of kept separate... it was a hastily done job, she remembered, from the diary. Until it had just become too much, too many personnel infected to dispose of. On the western wall, perfectly separated apart the length of it, were five large, thick steel pipes running down from the ceiling along the wall, each with a red switch and nozzle on them, and a glowing red light.
There was a small clear section on each pipe, revealing a green, bubbling fluid within each. Pipes and hoses for acids, most likely... there was probably an initial spraying phase of all the material that went through here, to weaken it, before it was dropped into the pool far below. She looked along the high ceiling as well... to the ventilation shafts running over different sections of the chamber. Over to the north up on the ceiling she saw another security camera activated, its green light glowing... remaining in a fixed position that oversaw the entire room from somewhere. She looked down along the cluttered floor. Spotting the great yellow painted seal with black stripes like a warning sign resided all the way down the middle of the room. The entire steel diamond patterned metal plate floor was a great dividing hatch for the treatment pool far below the facility... where they had come from, all those floors down into the pit of acids. She remembered the view of the closed hatch from below.
The prospect of staying in the room, dangling over that pit, any longer than she had to was not a welcome one. Looking back over to Carlos, the young man wearing a grimace at the unpleasantness of their task and surroundings, she nodded, and watched him move towards the closest corpse on his side of the room, to the east. At that prompting, she did the same, starting for the nearest corpse pile, a scientist's body, in a blood stained lab coat, the flies hovering around her corpse, maggots in the long decaying flesh. Her boots took no more than a few pattering steps, echoing through the chamber... when she heard the containment door slamming shut behind them. Her heart spasmed, and her and Carlos looked back just in time to watch the numerous automated locks resealing the door... and the green light over top of it beeping and flashing red, sealing them away within. Carlos swore in alarm, and together they raced back to the door, all thought of the keycard gone. Carlos banged on the door the moment they reached it, tried to pull at it.
It was stuck fast... and while he kept on trying, she turned her attention to the door control panel just next to it... displaying its locked down status. She could find no button on it to unlock the chamber door... nor switch... only a display for a keycard remained active on it. Withdrawing from the panel, Carlos took her place in front of it, and she went back to the door, looking through the Plexiglas window. HUNK stood directly on the other side, also tugging at the door, examining and testing the locks and seals, attempting to force it open... and moving back to the control panel on his side, attempting to unlock it, looking over the buttons on it. She watched him put a hand to his helmet, and heard his voice blare to life over Mikhail's radio clipped to her, as well as Carlos's at her side, as his helmeted head looked up and back to them at the door. Moving over closer to it and looking back at her on the other side.
"What the hell happened? Did either of you touch something in there?"
"No! It just closed up on its own!"
Jill answered frantically into the radio, looking up at him in the window, breathing faster and harder. All pain and exhaustion had left her, as the adrenaline surged. The dread and panic coiling like a snake in her stomach at the idea of being sealed away in the chamber of corpses, overlooking a deadly chemical pool. The sudden helplessness. It was the trap room at the mansion all over again, slowly drawing closer to her death, with her unable to do anything about it. HUNK was on the other side of the door now instead of Barry... and this time it was not a door that could be as easily breached. She looked over to Carlos who was banging his fist on the panel, stringing together an array of colorful curses. In English and Brazilian Portuguese alike.
"The damn thing won't open on this end or yours! What the hell are we going to do?!"
"Stay calm... Valentine. Breath. You need a clear head. We're going to get you out of there."
"Promise?"
She rose her gloved hand and pressed it against the Plexiglas window. Looking back through it and at his mask, trying to relax her breathing as he instructed. Gather her head. He was still as a statue on the other side for a moment... before slowly raising his own and pressing it to the glass as well. She silently cursed the layers dividing their touch... the window and gloves alike... but in that moment, his solid, resolved voice was enough. The voice that had first spoken to her at the precinct. Resolved... unbreakable. In control.
"Promise. I know a way.", HUNK's voice returned assuredly, before he turned to the nearby control panel, activating a button on it. Speaking into the audio channel firmly and clearly. "RED QUEEN. This is Special Agent HUNK. Employee Identification #9906753-02. Override Treatment Room door control. Now."
"I so hate interrupting these touching, romantic moments... but I'm afraid I can't do that, Death.", Another deep voice spoke then with malice... not on their radios, but over on the panel beside the door. Emanating from an intercom connected to it. Echoing through the entire Treatment Room. Jill and Carlos looked over to it at once, as the familiar, accented, coldly amused voice continued speaking through it. "The artificial imitation of your first red whore is quite unavailable to take your calls, just now. Consider me the Silver King of this Dead Factory, in her stead. This is my den, now, and you are the vermin trapped in my maze. Now that I have your attention... I think you two love birds might wish to hear what I have to say."
"Nikolai!"
"You were expecting another? I trust you can hear me on your panel as well, Mr Death? No need to remain silent. How are you feeling? I am amazed you are awake... much less moving about. I knew QUARTERMASTER's design would protect you... but I underestimated how much. You are resilient as ever. Though you have seen far better days."
"Yeah. I hear you loud and clear. I'm going to kill you. Whatever you have planned here."
"We shall see, won't we? For now, I want to thank you, Officer Valentine, for convincing your beloved assassin down there to remain out in that passageway. He will be forced to watch what becomes of you, helpless to save you again, to intervene. I had not expected such an opportunity... but they often present themselves, don't they?"
"Go to hell, you son of a bitch!"
"We are all in hell right now, we four. This city. This Dead Factory. There is nowhere better for such as we. We merely dwell on different circles of it. From where I'm standing... I might as well be God, looking upon insects just now. I could crush you beneath my thumb... as the Nemesis did that coward you failed to save... though it would not be nearly as pleasing. I have... more creative ideas in mind."
Realization coursed through her again, and slowly she turned. Looking up to the top of the chamber's ceiling. Carlos and HUNK behind the window followed her gaze, to where the automated camera hung, observing them all. In her mind's eye, she saw the silver haired bastard's cold, calculating smile, eyes made of ice watching them. Getting a sick thrill from what was unfolding. Having them where he wanted them.
"You're watching from the Control and Communications Tower.", She spoke at last, her jaw tightening... not taking her eyes off the camera. "Accessed the facility's primary computer system and locked us in here."
"A detective to the last. There are many cameras in this facility... many eyes... all mine now. The company saw to that. Always internal security... always records and spying. Isn't that right, Death?"
"What do you want now?"
"We'll discuss that in due time. You, at least, will survive this. You always do. We both will. I have the helicopter, and am in no hurry to make my departure just yet. In the meantime, the morning is still young, there is still so much to be done before the missile arrives. "
"Like what, you fucking psycho?", Carlos snapped loudly at last, staring up at the camera with visible rage. "There's no time for this! Open the goddamn door!"
"Now now, Corporal. You are speaking to a superior officer. There is no time better than now. You three have beat near impossible odds so far... we all have... and I am a Monitor, am I not? A Supervisor. I am here to observe you. Your performance here will be added to my report. It would have been much easier if you had come with me to my employer willingly, Officer Valentine... but circumstance insisted otherwise."
"I did. Not circumstance."
"Indeed. And that rather rude stabbing attempt back at the cabin. I remain impressed. Not a move I would expect from such a moral, hero cop... the move of a criminal. But then... with your family's record you concealed from your friends... I suppose it's like father, like daughter. In the blood. Or is it because you have been spending too much time in Death's company?"
"No, that was a soldier's move. And still kinder than you deserve.", Jill returned coldly, ignoring the implications of what the lunatic knew about her. The research he had done. Or him speaking of it gloatingly in front of the others. It didn't matter now, her past... all that mattered was surviving. "I did it to stop a bomb strapped madman. Wish I'd succeeded."
"Understandable, respectable even. How is your nose feeling? And everything else, for that matter? The wear and tear of the past days have certainly added up, from what I can see."
"Come down here from your hiding place and find out."
"Tempting... truly... but no. You three are mistaken about me, though... I wish to set that straight. I am many things, but I am not unreasonable. You will have a chance. The keycard down there somewhere among the corpses will release you from that chamber and bring you closer to me... if you can find it in time, of course. A... four minute pre activation countdown should be sufficient. You are welcome for my generosity. At least make your final moments entertaining ones for me."
"You won't get to enjoy it, asshole."
Removing her finger from her radio's comm button, Jill aimed Matilda up at the security camera overlooking the Treatment Room. Taking aim, she squeezed the trigger, and the heavy machine pistol roared, the armor piercing round striking true and exploding the camera in a shower of sparks and metal, falling down to the chamber. Jill lowered the powerful modified sidearm to her side again... hoping it was the only camera in the room. In response she heard his mocking laughter over the intercoms, deepening her fury... shaking with it by now. She looked around Treatment Room for any of the other security cameras hidden among the pipes, the ceiling, the vents and other sections... many places others could hide... but before she could determine if that was so, it began. A different voice spoke up then, a male automated voice spoke over a loudspeaker somewhere. Thundering throughout the facility's Treatment Room.
"WARNING! PROCEEDING WITH OPERATION IN TREATMENT ROOM. PLEASE EVACUATE IMMEDIATELY!"
It was then the count down timer of four minutes appeared and activated on the screen, and the blaring of shrill warning sirens with it, pounding in her temple. Warning lights flashed on along the walls, yellow rotating lights tied to the sirens. HUNK's voice blasted over the radio, bringing them both back and out of their shock.
"Valentine! Oliveira! Find that keycard! Now!"
Jill looked back at him in the window once more, and obeyed at once... Carlos beating her to it, slinging his rifle as he burst into movement. He raced to the eastern side of the chamber and began to search frantically, rummaging through the pockets of the corpses. Pushing and turning some over to get at their pant pockets, checking their coats and everywhere he could before moving on to the next one, cursing frantically all the while. But the muffled, powerful banging of metal joined the ringing of the warning sirens... somewhere high overhead. Jill looked away from one of the corpses she had been about to check and up to the ceiling, to find one of the larger vent shafts creaking and groaning, moving... the groaning of metal worsening with each moment beneath the weight.
Then it broke apart in half, metal twisting and bending, and separated, coming loose from the ceiling and collapsing over towards the western side of the room with a mighty, thunderous crash. From among the twisted metal and debris, a towering figure emerged... great living mass of tendrils flickering around its body. It rose in all its terrible might, moving to and stepping up on top of one of the piles of rotting corpses... a melted boot crushing one of the infected corpse's heads... its coat entirely burned away and the pants section ragged and torn. A great section torn off one of the legs where one of her Mine Thrower darts had detonated, that wound partially healed over with thick scar tissue and burns. Its burnt, rotted form still powerful, resilient, in spite of all the injuries that had accumulated, many of them not healed. Worse than that, it was taller and bigger than it had been the last time she saw it. Had it grown from the damage, or mutated from something it had consumed during in its absence? The purple slime and blood stained tendrils stirred around it like living entities of their own... more of them had mutated from its body than before. They enveloped its entire bulky right arm by now, and protruded from its back in a concentrated mass... whipping and snapping around it.
Its husk of a face and mouth remained stained in the soldier's blood from its feeding... the leftovers of its meal down in its left, great hand, dripping all over the floor. The staples remained visible down the front of its big head... and they ran down its massive chest as well. It released a bellowing roar that overtook the sirens for a moment... and then it threw the remains of the soldier's broken open skull towards her... rolling to and stopping against the tip of her boot, leaving a trail of blood. She looked down to the victim she couldn't save... his wide, horrified eyes within the soaked, torn balaclava... to all the massive bites taken out of it. She saw Brad's face on the soldier's unrecognizable one... Mr Rosso's, Captain Viktor... even Sherry Birkin... she must have been dead by now, Jill realized sadly. She saw everyone she had failed... and she saw it. That yellow eye glinting at her with rage and malevolence. More of it every time they met. Hatred she shared for it. Hatred she was coming to feel worse than it did for her. Then it raised a bloody clawed hand in her direction. Pointing her out, as it had so many times before... seeing only her... even now. After everything. To her... there was only it... and to it, there was only her. Only one of them could survive, in the end. Leave this chamber. Escape the city. And if that couldn't be her... she intended to take it down into the chemical pit with her.
"S.T.A.R.S.!"
But not yet.
"Oh God no! Not this motherfucker too! Why now?! Can this shit get any worse?!"
"Just find that goddamn keycard, Carlos!", Jill ordered the young man over the sirens, shooting him a quick, hardened look. "Leave this thing to me!"
Somehow, Carlos stopped himself from reaching for his rifle and opening up on the Tyrant. Instead he forced himself to obey her, scrambling over the bodies and turning them over. Searching pockets desperately in a blind panic. Wincing from the shrillness of the sirens, the yellow lights flashing over his face. Sweat pouring from his brow... eyes darting over to the Nemesis throughout as it began to move form the pile of corpses and debris it stood on. Slowly and methodically... the countdown of no account to it. Lumbering her way. For Jill's part, she looked across the chamber to the approaching, hulking thing. Despite the terror in her heart... the prospect of the Nemesis, and the pit of chemicals, acids waiting below them... what she did, had to do... came naturally to her. She looked over to the western wall beyond it... to the acid filled pipes running down the wall with the valves... and an idea occurred to her. Fear was replaced by rage... and she seized on to it as tightly as she could. But not an unthinking rage. First she aimed Matilda at the towering, tentacled abomination with both hands, peering down the sights, and she squeezed the trigger, introducing them once more as the roar of the weapon matched its own roars.
Meeting the Tyrant's inexorable advance with fury, defiance, and leaden death.
Dun dun dun! ;). I liked that bit with Nikolai's non canon death in the original RE 3, Nemesis killing him from the vents and basically usurping the villain role, and wanted to include something like it it with someone else, while expanding the story. It was a great moment in the game (and done in the S.D Perry novelization) I decided to repurpose. Couldn't happen to Nikolai of course in this story, because he ain't getting off the hook that quickly and easily. Stick around.
