Chapter Twenty: UAT-17
You really screwed the pooch on this one didn't you, Salinas? J.D. thought inspecting his neck in the reflection of one of the lab's many cylindrical tanks. The wound puckered and turned a deep purple with ugly tendrils reaching out from the injection site. His neck throbbed like a heartbeat, and the itchiness nearly made him want to scratch until there was no skin left. It took every inch of his willpower not to touch it.
"You find anything yet?" Rain asked from across the room.
J.D. jumped, quickly pulling his collar up to hide the wound. He took a moment to ensure he was still hidden behind a line of tanks to his right before answering.
"No," he replied, hoping his voice didn't sound too shaky. His gut twisted again, lying to her like that.
There is only one cure for an infected comrade.
I'm not infected, J.D. kept telling himself. Though, looking at the wound and his pallid complexion, he wasn't too sure.
There's only one winner in this line of work. Only one. And it sure as Hell isn't us. One's words sent a chill through him.
"J.D." Rain said.
"Yeah?" J.D. said, having to cough to suppress his voice from cracking. "What is it?"
He glanced around the line of tanks, though their ethereal blue glow made J.D. blink a couple of times before his eyes focused in the darkness. Rain stood hunched over by a computer terminal by the northern side of the room. Beside it sat a cooler with hydraulic glass doors. Several glass tubes sat within, the letters printed on the side too small to make out.
"I think I found it."
J.D. walked toward her and glanced over Rain's shoulder. In the search bar, she had typed UAT-17. Another menu appeared beneath it: Would you like to retrieve UAT-17? Rain typed "Y" into the response prompt and pressed "enter." A mechanical claw came to life within the cooler and reached for one of the class tubes on the top shelf. It collapsed the sample within its rubber-tipped pincers, plucked it from its place, and lowered it into a circular indentation in the base of the cooler. The glass sample disappeared into the machine's base with a grinding mechanical sound. When it re-emerged, a metal casing appeared with a clear "UAT-17" sticker on the side. The hydraulic doors opened, a chilled fog spilling out. Rain snatched the capsule.
"Damn," J.D. muttered. "All this trouble for that little thing."
Rain gave a half-smile in response, rolling it between her fingers.
"They better give us a fortune for this," J.D. mused.
"Enough to retire someplace warm," Rain replied, a laugh at the edge of her voice.
"Let's do it," J.D. said as though to himself. Rain rounded on him, her brow furrowing.
"Do what?" she asked.
"Let's retire after this," J.D. said, the thought grew more appealing the more he thought about it. He could see himself and Rain somewhere in Mexico by the beach, sipping afternoon margaritas and feeling the spray of the Atlantic against his skin. "With the money from this, we'll be set. We have the ultimate bargaining chip. With the trouble Umbrella went through to get this tonight, they'll pay any amount we want. Then we could go wherever we wanted."
"So what?" Rain replied, chortling. "You and me go arm in arm to some remote island to live happily ever after?"
"Please," J.D. replied, rolling his eyes. "Nothing like that. I could still see other women. You could see other women."
Rain chuckled and punched him lightly in the shoulder. The shock of Rain's punch made J.D.'s neck pulse violently as though it were saying, "Haven't forgotten about me, have you?"
"My point is," J.D. said. "You either go into exile or you die in this profession. I don't know about you, but I rather live out the rest of my life with you on some island than dead in a place like this."
Rain nodded, gazing into the chrome case's surface as she thought. Why are you even doing this, he thought to himself. When there is a chance he was infected. When there's a chance he won't even survive the night. For her sake. For her to get out of this work, have a life that doesn't revolve around killing. Where her life wasn't constantly controlled by corporate sociopaths.
"I'll think about it," Rain replied. J.D. grinned. It wasn't 'no.' It was a start. "First we have to complete our mission."
Now it was time for J.D.'s forehead to scrunch in confusion. He glanced at the capsule in Rain's hand, as though the answer to Rain's meaning lay etched on its surface. She turned back to the computer, typing "control center" into the search bar. Seconds later. A map entitled 'Lab. 1' appeared on the screen. The whole facility appeared as a square where two corridors branched from the elevator room at the bottom, where they met again at a large room at the north end. A corridor ran between the elevator lobby and the northern room, but as they had discovered earlier, that route was blocked off. The computer zoomed into a smaller room within the north chamber, where a little red dot appeared. "We're the clean-up crew, remember? So, let's blow this place sky high and finish the job."