He'd gotten very good at being a pisshead. Hangovers rarely affected him anymore, because Grayson had learned to exist in a state of perpetual insobriety. Despite having killed a bottle of scotch and whiskey, he woke up early, showered, combed his hair, and shaved, very carefully, with a straight razor, and managed not to cut himself. He brushed his teeth, staring at himself in the antique beveled mirror above the pedestal sink. The bruising on his neck wasn't too obvious, which was good; it meant nobody would ask questions when he went up to the cafeteria for breakfast.

The cafeteria was on the uppermost level of the facility, and there was already a thin crowd of researchers and terminal workers gathered around the tables. An old buddy of his, an older guy by the name of Donald McNally (though he was Don to his friends), grinned when he saw him. Donald was an ex-royal marine—really built for an old codger: all square, hard angles and corded muscle—and served as the facility's maintenance manager. He'd been a fixture in Antarctica for as long as Grayson could remember. He'd grown a beard since he'd last seen him, and Grayson told him it looked good.

"Thought I'd try somethin' new. Awright ya wee bawbag?" Don spoke with a thick Scottish burr, like gravel churning in a blender. He sat down across from Grayson, scratching a freckled arm. "Heard you were back." Don gave him a once-over. His eyes were violently blue. "Gotten big since I last saw you. Nae a wee laddie anymore. Brings you up here? Thought you took your breakfast with the boss."

"I'm great," he lied, and sipped his coffee. "And yeah," he added, finally starting on his breakfast: sausage links, and a short-stack smothered in syrup and butter, "people have a tendency to do that, Don. Get bigger. Haven't been here since—" he licked a dollop of syrup off his lip— "well, you know. As for why I'm up here? I like the view."

They'd taken up at a table by the window overlooking the tundra. The ice and mountains glittered diamonds in the sun, and the sky was a wide, cloudless expanse of blue. It looked, deceptively, like a mild winter day, but last Grayson had checked the thermometer, the temperature was hovering somewhere around negative twenty degrees Celsius—and that was considered pretty mild this far into the continental interior. He felt bad for the guys who had to work out there.

"Ah, I see," said Don, and nodded. He was sipping coffee from a huge metal thermos, cupped in an enormous, paw-like hand. "Heard you were—"

"I was," said Grayson, flatly.

"Must have been shite."

"Understatement of the century," said Grayson, forking the last of his breakfast into his mouth, then washing it down with a swig of coffee. "Given the choice between Raccoon City or hammering a nail through my dick, I'd rather hammer the nail through my dick."

Don snorted. "Ah, Grayson, it's good to have you back, mate." He looked at him, furrowing his brow. "What happened to your neck?"

Grayson said the first thing that came to mind: "Chokeplay gone too rough."

"You only been back for a night, and you're already pumpin' lasses," marveled Don, laughing raucously. Then he said, "Who was it? Ye cannae just say somethin' like that and leave me hangin'."

"Didn't get a name, man."

"Well, it's nae a big place. I'll find out eventually." Don glanced at his watch, then stood up, the legs of his chair scraping the tile. "Aw, shite. Runnin' late for my shift."

Grayson drained the last of his coffee and stood up. "I gotta get Alfred's breakfast ready anyway, before he wakes up."

"I thought that was your Da's job."

"He's retired now."

"So that's why you're back. Guess that makes me the last oldhead," chuckled Don. Then, "Good luck with Alfred, by the by. Bastard's off his trolley. Won't be sad to see him fuck off back to Rockfort." He swaggered off, whistling something that might have been Dylan's "The Times They Are A-Changin'".

"Yep," he said to himself, "the times are definitely changing."

Back at the mansion, Grayson cooked up a Full English and laid it out on the table just as Alfred, right on the dot, came walking into the dining room. He was back to normal, or what passed for normal when it came to Alfred, dressed in a white turtleneck and pleated slacks, and a red tweed blazer. His hair, as always, was impeccably combed. The guy looked like someone who'd walked out of a Brooks Brothers ad. The Walther was, unsurprisingly, holstered on his hip. Alfred treated guns like accessories, and in his opinion, that antique German pistol went with everything, like a Rolex.

"You're not eating breakfast?" asked Alfred, and sat down at the head of the table, carefully unfolding a linen napkin and placing it in his lap. Alfred was a man who loved pointless etiquette, because it was one more thing that differentiated him from the plebs, a mark of status.

"Ate in the cafeteria," said Grayson. "Gonna start cleaning, if you don't need me in here for anything else."

Alfred gestured for him to sit beside him. Grayson suppressed a sigh, and sat down. "Keep me company, at the very least," said Alfred, watching him over the rim of a hand-painted porcelain cup. "And Grayson, when you're standing, please take care to straighten up. You look like a slob."

"I am a slob," he pointed out. "You know I can't do that hoity-toity shit."

Alfred heaved a long-suffering sigh. "All right, you're not a slob. You're lazy."

"Who's cleaning the entire mansion again, buddy? Not you."

"That's your bloody job !"

"So lemme do it how I want. Shit still gets done, right?"

"I could fire you, you know."

"But we both know you won't, Alfred."

Alfred pursed his lips. "No," he admitted, after a moment, "I won't."

"Who else can handle your anal retentiveness, Alfred? That crazy doctor back on Rockfort?" Grayson chuckled, then said, "I mean, I'd love to see Dr. Mengele scrubbing the grout between tiles, but c'mon. Who else we got? Robert Dorson, your assistant? The guy practically shits himself when he's in the room with you."

"He does, doesn't he?" mused Alfred, cutting his black pudding into thin slices and forking them into his mouth. He chewed, thoughtfully. "This is quite good, Grayson. Seems you've at least got Scott's knack for cooking."

"I'd hope so. I spent most of my formative years slaving over a stove for you Ashfords."

"That's your lot in life, Grayson."

"Guess so," he said, and shrugged.

"You should feel honored," said Alfred, piling grilled tomatoes onto a slab of fried bread, then slicing it into bite-sized pieces. "You're privy to the world of England's finest family. No one from your station can boast the same."

"'My station '? What the fuck is this, Alfred. 1870?"

"Whinge all you want, but it is what it is, Grayson. You're a commoner." He wrinkled his nose, then added with slight distaste, "And a bloody Yank."

"Ass still hurting from the pounding we gave it in 1776, Alfred?"

Alfred grinned evilly. "Oh, don't threaten me with a good time, Grayson."

"We both know you're a pitcher, not a catcher. And I ain't a catcher."

"So you're a pitcher."

"Only for the ladies, man."

One of those weird instances of silences descended on the room, and Grayson remembered something his father had said, how moments like that meant an angel had passed. Un Ange Passe. Alfred spoke, a dangerous quaver to his voice. "Did you and Alexia…?"

"No," he said, automatically. "No. We never did. We were just kids, Alfred. Jesus."

"But you did kiss her," said Alfred, his hand tightening around his fork.

Before the fork could stick him in the face, Grayson sprang out of his chair and side-stepped, one hand locking Alfred's elbow, the other seizing his wrist and twisting. The fork clattered to the floor. Alfred drove the heel of his oxford into his knee, and when Grayson buckled and his hold broke, he swung his fist into his head. Grayson saw blotches of light, and felt pain.

He expected the Walther to come out of its holster, but it didn't. Alfred backed off, and Grayson said, "I'm not sorry about it. You're not gonna beat an apology outta me."

"I know," said Alfred. "And I'm not sorry about that either."

"I know," said Grayson, climbing unsteadily to his feet. His head throbbed. "Some hook you got. Shit."

"Have you forgotten about my hobbies, Grayson?"

"No," he said, "I haven't. Instead of jacking off to porn magazines like a normal guy, you jack off to Vom Kriege and Truppenführung ." Then Grayson swung on Alfred, catching him on the jaw. Alfred stumbled back, and almost went over the table, ass-over-head. "Now we're even."

Alfred straightened up, chuckling. He licked a drop of blood from his lip. "A suckerpunch, Grayson?" he said, and if Grayson didn't know Alfred to be the freak that he was, the fact he found the whole situation funny would have unnerved him. "Really? Go clean before I really get mad."

"Aw, here I thought we were gonna have an old-fashioned round of fisticuffs," said Grayson, clearing the plates and silverware from the table. He went to grab the coffee carafe, but Alfred told him to leave it.

"I don't see what she ever saw in you," said Alfred.

Grayson managed to duck out of the way just as Alfred slung the carafe at him, splattering hot coffee on the wall behind him. Steam curled off the wallpaper. "Thanks," said Grayson, "now I gotta clean fucking coffee stains outta the wallpaper."

"Alexia was mine to love!" howled Alfred, his eyes flashing.

"She's your fucking sister , Banjo Billy."

"Precisely why she's better suited for me than you!"

"Alfred," said Grayson, picking up the empty, dented carafe, " get help . Alexia never wanted to fuck you."

"I'll prove to her that I'm worthier of her attention than you are, Grayson."

"She's dead , Alfred."

Alfred shouldered past him, then paused in the doorway and pointed at the stain on the wall. "Clean this up immediately," he commanded, and stormed off.

"Yeah, well, fuck you too, buddy," he muttered, and got to work.

It took him two hours to get the stain out, which put him behind schedule on everything else he needed to get done. After dusting and vacuuming, Grayson got to work on collecting and sorting the laundry, then hauling it across the mansion to the laundry room. And when that was done, it was back to the kitchen to fix Alfred's lunch, and then, a few hours later, his tea, and then dinner by 8pm.

By the time he'd finished, the grandfather clock in the dining room read a quarter-past 10 o'clock at night. Once he'd washed the dishes, it was approaching 11 o'clock at night, and he met up with Don for drinks at the bar.

The bar was a nice little amenity Umbrella had provided for its employees, and it was where, other than the rec-rooms, where most of the personnel hung out. It wasn't much of a bar, though. Just a concrete room with some foldout tables and chairs, and barstools upholstered in duct-taped pleather. A slab of chipped laminate served as the counter, and ran the length of the wall. Umbrella propaganda covered the walls like a papery fungus. Someone had tried to spruce the place up with strings of old Christmas lights, but they didn't do much to lend to the atmosphere.

The bartender, who wasn't really a bartender but someone from the transport facility who'd volunteered to do drinks to escape the brutal drudgery of the warehouse, poured Don and him some Jim Beam, and slapped the charges onto their employee tabs. Don looked beat, but so did everyone else.

"Eighteen hours today," groused Don, rubbing his bloodshot eyes with the point of his knuckle. "After I get blootered, I'm turning in. I cannae keep doing this, Grayson. Alfred, that wee banger, has been working us like plowhorses."

"Maybe retire?" he suggested, and knocked back his bourbon.

"Nae auld enough for that yet, but I'm getting there." Don scratched his fingers through his beard, then said, "Alexia were nae the nicest lass, but she ran a tighter ship than her brother."

"Technically, it was Alexander running the ship," he pointed out.

"Aye, but we all knew who the real captain was, mate. Who knew such a wee bonnie lass could run the show better than her auld man." Don squinted at him with glazed blue eyes, almost suspicious, and said, "You get into a fight or somethin'? That's a proper nasty bruise."

"Rough sex got a little too rough," said Grayson, casually.

"Aw, mate, you goin' to tell me who you've been pumpin'?"

"Dunno her name either."

"You're a low-down dog, Grayson Harman," said Don, laughing.

"Hey, Don."

"Aye?"

"Can you tell me anything about that guy you lost down in Alexia's old level?"

"Peter? Nae much, I'm afraid," said Don. "Went down, dinnae come back up. I don't have access to that level of the facility. Peter only got down there because he had permission from the bossman."

"You heard any weird stories about that level?" he probed.

"Ah dinnae ken if it's her level, but some people have been bletherin' about weird noises comin' from somewhere below. Moanin' and the like, and nae the sexy kind."

"Like a monster?"

"Some wee banger over in transport started callin' it Nosferatu, whatever's makin' those noises." Don snorted, then said, "What an arsehole. Nosferatu was a character in a silent fuckin' movie, so why would you name somethin' makes noises Nosferatu ?"

"And you haven't heard anything else? C'mon, Don, you've been with the company since the fucking 70s."

"What are you hopin' to find down there, Grayson?"

"I dunno," he said, honestly. "Just feels important to me."

"You miss her," observed Don, with an almost fatherly tone. A fatherly tone slurred by too much booze.

Grayson nodded, already working through his third glass of Jim Beam. "I loved her," he said, and meant it. He was already beginning to feel a comfortable buzz.

Don whistled. "You were makin' eyes at the Ashford lass? Your lucky Alexander dinnae take your balls for a bowtie, mate." He finished his bourbon, and the bartender came over to top him off. "Besides," he said, "you were just a wee laddie at the time, Grayson. What you felt was puppy-love."

"It wasn't," asserted Grayson.

"You were fifteen-years-old, mate. To fifteen-year-olds, love's just a synonym for horny."

"I loved her, Don."

Don must have seen something in his face, because the old Scotsman just nodded his head with a grunt. "Well, take this with a grain of salt, mate, because it's just blether. But there's talk Alfred's gone down there from time to time." He shrugged his huge shoulders. "Nae clue what he's doin', if it's true."

It was a little after midnight when Grayson found himself stumbling back into the mansion. He was just about to his room when Alfred appeared around the corner, dressed in his Alexia-drag: long blonde wig, and a dress cut from violet silk that looked like something Alfred's Edwardian great-grandmother would have worn to the Queen Charlotte's Ball. But despite looking pretty good as a woman, Alfred still couldn't quite hide the fact he was a man: his shoulders were too broad, his chest too flat, his hips too narrow and mannish. Alfred smiled beatifically, and said, in his Alexia voice, "Grayson, you're sloshed. Again."

Shit . "Just had a couple of drinks," he said, smiling, scanning for an escape, a way around Alfred. But the hallways were pretty narrow, cluttered with boxes, antiques, and stacks of books that his father had been in the process of sorting and putting away, but had never gotten around to finishing.

"More than a couple," tutted Alfred-Alexia, his gaze sweeping from his feet to his face, then down to his feet and to his face again. He considered him for a moment as if calculating something in his head, then said, "Go to my room. I prefer to have my way with you when you're pliable."

"I am too drunk to consent," he said, and nodded sagely.

"As if I care about that," said Alfred-Alexia, impatiently.

Then, his desperation fueled by the poor, libidinous decision-making that came with too much booze, Grayson did the only thing that he could think of: he kissed Alfred, and there might have been tongues involved, but Grayson was too drunk to be sure or to even care. Then he said, to a stunned and probably very priapic Alfred, "We'll fuck later. Promise. But right now, I got whiskey-dick, honey." He stroked Alfred's cheeks, then slipped past him, stumbling over books and boxes.

"I didn't dismiss you yet!"

"Whiskey-dick!" he called back before ducking into his room and locking the door. His lips tasted like brandy and mint humbugs. He stuck a hand down his pants to squeeze his flaccid cock, just to be sure, and said, "Definitely still prefer women."

Although there were times he certainly entertained the idea of fucking Alfred-Alexia, because loneliness, alcohol, and an overactive libido did crazy shit to a person's head, there was never a point that Grayson had actually tried. He didn't want Alfred or Alfred's Alexia. He wanted Alexia, the real Alexia, and not a convincing simulacrum. He wanted her to be alive and to be a woman. He wanted Annette Birkin, but she was dead.

He laid down, ignoring the knocks on his door. It was a pretty lonely existence, where Grayson found himself now. Had surviving Raccoon City and losing everything he'd had there—his friends, his apartment, the only other woman he'd ever loved—really been worth it? Sometimes, usually after he'd worked through enough booze to render Charles Bukowski blind and catatonic, he wished he hadn't gotten out, that Marvin Branagh had left him in the drunk tank to die. His father often said that things happened for a reason, and Grayson held on, tightly, to the hope that there was a reason waiting for him at the end of all this ache.

He closed his eyes, and slept.