Resident Evil: The Recurring Nightmare of Hope
Chapter Eight: Slow Sprint
"Why didn't you tell me!?" Leon slams a fist down on the table, jarring the two from their conversation.
"About what, Leon?" Chris crosses his arms and meets Leon's pissed-off gaze with one of his own that is just as fierce.
Leon grits his teeth before replying, "There was a third BSAA Agent in the Hospital, wasn't there?"
"Reed was the Agent in Charge as Jill and I handled tactical inside. Why?" Jill's voice is quieter than the two men she is in company with.
Fingers clench and muscles tighten as Leon tries to find the words, to fit the pieces together, "The report states seven different types of ammunition were used in the assault. Four of them were ruled out as security, secret service, and first responders. One was a shotgun, one was nine millimeter handgun rounds, and the final was a forty caliber round."
"Get to the point, Kennedy," Leon can't believe this might be the actual reason Chris has such a bitter attitude about the incident.
"Why was Reed in the Hospital? What reason did he have to go into the hospital?" the next words from Chris Redfield's mouth shock the younger agent.
"Apparently he received word that Secretary of Defense Adam Benford's daughter was also inside. She was admitted earlier that morning with complications from her inhaler. He ordered us to continue our search for Patient Zero while he began a sweep for Risa," Chris's eyes flash with rage as he obviously fights with a bad memory.
"Did he shoot her?"
Chris remains silent, face contorting from the severity of the memory, "Chris, did he shoot Risa Benford?"
"We arrived in the East Wing and began our check, room-by-room for infected and survivors. All survivors were escorted to the main lobby to be examined and all infected were shot on sight since we had no information on the viral strain. It was around three seventeen when we approached room three-oh-five and announced our presence," Jill wraps an arm around Chris's waist as he finishes what she started.
"From behind the door we heard a female voice begging for her life. There was some kind of crunching sound, like bone tearing through skin before several gunshots were fired. This all took place as we were opening the door, but by the time we got a clear view of the situation Reed was reloading his handgun. There was nothing left of her face, like he shot her point blank, or she was running at him," Chris took a seat about halfway through, now slowly rolling a pencil back and forth on the table.
"Infected?" this is a lot more than he expected.
"Don't know. We never got to examine her and Reed sealed her file at the request of Adam Benford. Hell I doubt Adam knows who really shot his daughter… For all I know he blames me, Jill, the Secret Service…" Chris sighs heavily as a ping fills the terminal and a female voice calls out the boarding call for their flight.
"That's us, come on," Leon picks up the two carry-on bags they have and ushers his friends toward the loading tunnel.
Tickets are scanned, bags are place in overhead compartments, apologies are spread around as passengers cram into the plane, and Chris fights with Leon over who gets what seat, "Finally… How long is our flight?"
Jill sighs at her predicament, resting between two very large men, "The worst two hours of my life…."
11
"So, what all happened to you?" Claire struggles against a metal brace, trying to cut the cable holding her hands together.
Sherry draws circles on the floor as she sighs, "Woke up some time later in a helicopter. After a bit of a struggle I was then tied to a seat while one of them nursed an injury. Thrown into some dungeon-like room, complete with wall-shackles and stonework. They started out asking me about the G-Virus but when I gave them nothing more than that it was my father's creation and it killed him, they became angry, violent."
"What did they do to you?"
"Me? Nothing. They became violent at each other… Even after being with them all this time I've never seen them do that more than a couple times. You know," Sherry slaps a hand on the metal flooring as her eyes light up, "if I remember right, they only did it when I couldn't give them answer to their questions. It wasn't until that soldier appeared that they started to calm down and find some of the answers. That was when they started taking blood samples every couple hours. It started small, few drops here or there, and then a year ago they started taking vials of it every seven hours. Know what they said to me once they got their answer?"
Claire shakes her head as something causes their transport to rock back and forth, "They told me to thank you if I ever got to see you again. That if you didn't put my life before your own I would be dead, not kidnapped and helping to take the biological war to a bloody new level… They've tried hard over the past year to get me to turn on you, constantly reminding me that you left after Raccoon City, abandoned me."
"I did, in a way," Claire looks away from Sherry's piercing blue eyes as they quickly rise up to meet her.
"No, you didn't. I was relatively safe at that point… Your brother was still out there fighting more of those monsters, battling the shadows of nightmares. You did what you needed to do. Though," her voice is lowered as a small smile goes unnoticed, "they did get me to believe one thing…"
"That is?" Claire doesn't like the look of Sherry's face.
"Politicians are evil. The arguments they would have over trying to decide even the simplest of things were works of art," the two women share a small laugh before a loud knock at the door snatches their attention and their gazes.
"Time to talk, starting with why he hired us…" the doctor is back, but something is off about him.
Claire slides back to buy more time to examine the frail man, finding his skin pale, eyes bloodshot, blood crusted around his fingernails, "What happened to you?"
"We are believers and our faith is being tested… The master demands it…" Claire's blue eyes widen as something moves under his skin.
"Get away!" Sherry rolls along the floor, taking the doctor off his feet, something cracking from his form as Claire and Sherry make their way to a far corner of the room.
"What the hell is that, Sherry!?" Claire twists her wrists, trying to work the rest of the cable loose as Sherry keeps an eye on the still body.
"We're close… His hold is increasing over them… I'm sorry Claire, so sorry to drag you into this…"
11
"We don't really have any information to go on, you know," Leon turns in the passenger seat of the taxi and continues his talk with Jill and Chris in the back.
"Information comes from knowledge of who we're dealing with, information evolves and changes, Leon," Chris thumbs through more of the files they brought with them as Jill plays interviews and such through the laptop, headphones resting comfortably on her ears.
"I know that, Chris. I'm just saying, we have a location based off of data from nine years ago. This place might not even exist. What is the back-up plan?" Leon sighs at the feeling he has that Chris isn't acting rationally; finally deciding he will need to use Jill to get through to him at a later point.
"Our only other option is to go after Reed, see if he knows something we don't about President Benford's daughter. If we do that, we won't be allowed to leave headquarters. The only thing we can do is follow what we know. Any luck identifying that emblem, Jill?"
"Going off of the few military records we have access to I've gotten our options down to two squads of soldiers. Only a handful are still alive though, most have been killed overseas," she turns the laptop so Chris can see the names, one standing out among the rest.
"You don't think he could still be alive, do you?"
Leon leans back to take a peek at the list, "Who is it?"
"Jack Krauser," Chris's voice has a dark tone to it as everyone's thoughts immediately turn to the captured Redfield and where ever she might be.
11
"Glad to see you two are still alive, a fighting instinct like that will serve you well here…" it's the soldier from before, making his appearance known by clapping his hands slowly as his eyes rest on the dead body of the doctor.
Claire stands up slowly, her hands now free from the cable, her mind ready to act, and her body willing to carry out the actions, "Where is 'here'? What are you planning to do with us?"
"That's not quite my place to say, but rest assured you'll be well taken care of…" the laugh that follows as the large soldier walks out does absolutely nothing to put her at ease.
Sherry walks over from the far side of the room where she has procured a large pipe, "What are we going to do, Claire?"
"I'm working on that, you got anything else?" her eyes sparkle as Sherry also reveals a handful of bolts.
"I don't want to know what piece of machinery those came from… Follow me," Claire takes the pipe in her right hand and the bolts in her left before making her way to the door, which she finds barely open enough to see into the hallway outside.
It looks clear, but looks are always deceiving, so Claire takes one of the bolts and launches it at the hanging light just a bit down the hall. With a loud ping it bounces off the light and rolls around on the ground before coming to a stop in the middle of the floor. A few tense seconds pass by before shuffling footsteps sound off from the other end of the hall, causing Claire to press against the door in order to see who is going to check out her bait. At first all seems normal, albeit the guard might have a little seasickness or something, but that dies as soon as he reaches for the bolt and his sleeves ride up over his arms, revealing the gray skin underneath.
"Crap," Claire quickly rolls around the corner and pushes Sherry over to their usual sitting spot as the door is pushed open.
The man pulls the door open and peers in, his eyes coated in dried blood as something squirms underneath his skin around the jawbones. Those crimson orbs finally rest on the two women sitting down and he stares at them before groaning something and backing out of the room before slamming the door shut and turning the locking bar to seal the door shut. Claire scrambles after it, but her hands grasp onto a solidly locked door, their only chance at escape wasted in an epic fashion.
"Oh, Kennedy if only you could see me now…" Claire sighs and slides down the door, her head locked back and her gaze fixated on the light fixture.
A small laugh leaves her lips as a plan begins to form, "Claire?"
11
"I think I burned my last bridge with Hunnigan, but I finally got us some useful intel. The castle Krauser mentioned in his last transmission is located here…" Jill's left index finger taps a spot on the map.
"That's just water. There's no castle there," Leon points out the obvious, but misses the point again, as usual.
Chris smacks the back of Leon's head before answering, "The castle sank? What would cause it to do that?"
"Any number of things, a lot of the world seems to be prone to earthquakes, could be some kind of self-destruct mechanism since they are apparently handling biohazards. Could've been some kind of internal sabotage or Krauser actually attempting to complete his task, but we'll never know unless we check. Is that okay with you, Kennedy?"
Leon looks up at Jill before nodding slowly, a deadpan look on his face, "We have nothing else to go on at this point, so…. Yeah, I'm okay with that."
Before any new plans can be made, Leon's phone rings with a familiar ringtone to them all. As the device is raised to eye level, green eyes lower onto the name and instantly a rage so deep burns up into his body that he imagines throwing the phone out the window and shooting it to pieces. Instead though, Leon finds himself slowly lowering his finger down to the answer button, not quite sure what he is going to say to the voice on the other end or even if the voice will let him speak.
With a deep sigh, Leon pulls the phone to his ear and replies, "Reed."
"You are under direct orders from the BSAA to return here with Chris Redfield and Jill Valentine," Cranston's voice is a lot calmer than he expected, but Leon knows that the calmest people are always the most dangerous.
Negotiation training was a requirement at the academy for anyone getting on the fast track to Lieutenant, which was further amplified by the required training scenarios by the BSAA in dealing with people who are ready and willing to use biohazard materials. Leon remembers one cardinal rule of negotiating that they never teach you: Calm subjects are the hardest to negotiate with because they are impossible to read. What might seem like calm compliance might just be a silent acceptance that they are going to die and will do what they need to be okay with that decision. Cranston's calm reads of a deeper knowledge than he is letting on, like he is leading a chess game while being four moves ahead of his challenger.
Leon smiles as he realizes the only way to get what he needs from Cranston is to push a button or two, "Would love to, but someone seems to have placed red flags on our passports. So I think we'll just stay in Spain until we are ready to come home, thanks."
A deep dark growl flows from the phone, "Kennedy, you are disobeying a direct order from the head of the Bioterrorism Security Assessment Alliance. You know what that means right?"
"A slap on the wrist and a reduced bed time?" Jill tries to hide a chuckle at that comment.
"I have already alerted the Spanish Government to the arrival of three unstable agents on a mission of revenge. They will be looking for you. I tried this the easy way, Leon…" the phone is cut off as Leon smirks and leans back in the passenger seat of the taxi.
"So, where to?" the cab driver speaks in a softly broken English as they approach the on ramp to a highway.
"We want to see the castle that sank," Jill drops a small wad of cash into the driver's lap before adding, "discreetly…"
"Understood," the taxi curves onto the highway and mingles with the other cars as the sun reaches the midday peak.
11
Cranston drops the phone down, takes a deep breath, and then pushes his desk over with a scream of rage, "Son of a bitch! They're going to ruin everything!"
As fists clench deep into the leather back of his desk chair, Cranston finds himself actually worried about this situation. He was originally against telling Claire and Leon about the picture of Sherry, but he knew then that they wouldn't have spent enough time there for Claire to be taken if they didn't have a reason to search beyond the bioweapon sale. Cranston had hoped that Chris would've been too involved with Wesker to go after Claire, finding himself unable to act after he finds out that she was taken by the same people responsible for him shooting Ashley Graham, but again, Reed has underestimated Chris Redfield's strength.
Ringing fills the air as Cranston dials a number on his personal cell phone, "Adam, we need to talk with our mutual friend…"
I can't believe it has come to this point so quick…
11
"Tell me, why do you do this? Why fight against the natural order of the world?" the soldier circles Claire again, his knife gleaming in the light as she remains motionless while hanging from her wrists from the ceiling.
Blue eyes flash as she replies easily, "The natural order of the world doesn't need help from human hands, or the unnatural things they create."
"That's a rather bold statement to make, woman. You fight using unnatural weapons yourself, yet claim that the ways of others are crimes?" the blade is brought down between Claire's feet, holding her still before a hand is brought back and driven across her face hard.
Ever since Claire first had the idea for a potential escape she has been aching for a chance to implement it. Hours went by before he returned and started to carry out his torture to get what he wants from her, and finally, finally he has given her the tools she needs to get free. It took her trying every move in her repertoire to piss him off enough by moving from his punches, turning to avoid his kicks, to even bringing her feet up to his chest to stop a knife swing. Now though, Claire clasps her feet around the knife as his punch connects, the force knocking her back enough to free the blade from the floor and give her the momentum needed to bring the blade over his head and into the light fixture over his head.
Come on! the blade digs into the fixture and breaks the bulb, raining hot glass down onto her torturer.
While he is distracted for a little while, Claire swings back and then rockets forward, using her feet to bring the light down and expose the wiring inside. The cables fall onto the man and he screams in pain as sparks fly from his body and arc through the air. This second swing also snapped the rope holding her to the ceiling and she drops down to her feet a few steps past him, her eyes already scanning for Sherry.
"Come on, Sherry, let's go!" Claire releases the bonds from her feet and reaches for the pipe they acquired a few hours earlier, the two of them soon making their way through what she starts to immediately recognize as a large ship, possibly a container ship.
Exit… Where is the exit? Claire rounds one more corner, finding herself behind an unaware member of the crew.
She raises the pipe above her head and brings it down quickly, dropping him like a sack of potatoes to the metal flooring below, "One down!"
END