Chapter Six: Enter the Survival Horror… Yet Again
After meeting Kate Birkin, Sherry's aunt, they stayed for a while talking about the death of Sherry's parents, Annette and William. The two were careful not to divulge too much information as to the exact causes of their deaths, for safety's sake. During the chat with Kate, Claire had made a request to be excused and to use the phone. Away from David and Kate, she dialed 411.
"Welcome to Directory Assistance," said the operator. "City and state, please."
"Exeter, Maine," Claire responded to the switchboard.
"One moment, please." A few seconds of muzak could be heard, and somewhere in there, she heard the familiar deep voice of James Earl Jones.
"Thank you for holding," came a female operator. "What listing would you like?"
Claire thought for a sec. She knew of no taxi services in Exeter. So she responded with, "Can I get listings for taxicabs?" She felt a little stupid asking that, and her face began to get a little warm as the blood rushed to her head.
"Sure. Hold on a sec," she said, and the muzak was once again heard, the same message from James Earl Jones heard during her wait. A second or two later, an automated female voice came on the line, spouting out a number for a taxi. Committing it to memory, she hung up and dialed…
On the lonely ride back to David's house in Exeter, the two hardly spoke with each other. There was nothing new to say, for the shock of the events that transpired was beginning to finally sink into their weathered minds. After the two returned, there was some more talk between the group of five before they finally called it a day and headed for bed.
Claire however stayed awake while lying in a sleeping bag on the couch in the den. She looked out the window and saw a multitude of stars filling the dark night sky. In the forests of Maine, there were no city lights, no large cities to pollute the sky with bright light. It was probably the most stars she had ever seen in one time. Back at the university, she never stopped to look at the bright balls of gas and concentrated energy—the rigors, leisure, and pleasures of college life took up that time. Now, however, she marveled at the grandiose splendor at the cosmos, each dot of light that varied in colors ranging all across the visible spectrum. Each one, a Sun many millions of light years away, ranging in degrees of brightness. On the floor near the couch lied a sleeping Leon, his light breathing heard throughout. Looking at a digital clock on a bookshelf near Leon's feet, she saw that it was about 2 A.M., when she decided to make her move.
Her eyes by now had adjusted to the darkness, her pupils wide to absorb any light. She unzipped her sleeping bag, and in the silent night, the sound seemed to have been amplified many times over. Leon began to stir, letting out a soft moan as he shifted position. His back now faced her, which allowed her to move without a possibility of Leon waking and seeing her. Dressed in a white tank top and shorts, she knew she'd have to dress for the cold, cold night. Quickly, but silently she did so, and checked to make sure she had her wallet. She'd need it. Barefoot, she crept slowly across the carpeted floor, stepping over the slumbering Leon. Down the short hallway, she saw the wooden door. On the floor next to the door were her shoes, and above a jacket. Slowly she put them on, trying to be as silent as she could. Ready to go, she turned the doorknob ever so gently, and felt the freezing chill air hit her face. Outside, waiting, was a taxi, the headlights off and the motor low. She looked behind her once more, part of her wanting to stay with them, but a stronger part wanted her to find her brother. She didn't want to be caught up in all of this insanity.
But I am. As soon as I entered the city, I was involved. I don't want to put them in any more danger. It's for the best that I go it alone.
The door was shut. In no time, she got into the taxi, and as the car slowly drove off into the night, she stared ahead into the surrounding darkness.
Did I do the right thing?
She was committed now, and was reasonably certain that she wouldn't see any of them for a long time, if ever. Her mind was spinning with thoughts, and as she tried to put them aside, she never noticed the young rookie cop standing at the window watching the taxi drive away into the night.
Good luck, Claire.
* * *
Date: November 3, 1998.
Leon S. Kennedy sat back at his desk in the small office room of his apartment, high above the bustling streets of New York City, apparently reading a document. About a week after Claire had gone back to wherever, Leon decided to take his leave back to New York. He had plans of his own. As much as he wanted to stay with David, Rebecca, and John, Leon felt as if he needed to go. He wanted to see Umbrella go down to the ground. This feeling may have been a result of his sometimes-present brash attitude, but he wanted revenge. This time it was personal. Umbrella had indirectly caused the death of Ada Wong, a woman whom Leon was beginning to feel attraction for, and she to him. In the last moments before she died, Annette Birkin disclosed that Ada was a spy, out to get the sample of G-Virus. Ada, in her last confrontation, revealed that Annette's words were true. As he sat there, the scene played in his mind, a scene that he wanted so badly to forget, but knew he'd never will.
"Leon!" Ada called, aiming the Beretta at her back. Leon whirled around to see her, her face cold.
"I've been waiting for you," she said, her voice matching her facial expression, steady and cold. While the two stood on the gantry, the female voice announced that the self-destruct sequence had been activated. The sequence could not be aborted. The message announced that all employees must go to the bottom platform. He looked at her, a look of bewilderment, confusion, and surprise played across his face. Here he was, a gun pointed at him by a woman he was sworn to protect.
"Give me the G-Virus," Ada demanded, unwavering.
Leon stood in bewildered amazement. "She was right. You do work for Umbrella," he said, not so much in anger, but in pain.
"No. Who I work for is none of your business, but I…I…I tried!" She wailed, her composure lost. Leon saw a tear roll down one porcelain cheek. "I tried to leave you! But you just had to pick up that G-Virus sample! You couldn't just leave it alone, could you?!" She was sobbing now, the gun still pointed at Leon's uniformed chest. Ada saw the look of pity on Leon's face, and felt the rage pass, sorrow sweeping in to take its place. A few seconds of tense silence passed between the two, until amidst the blaring sirens and female announcer coolly repeating the message.
"Hand it over," she said, trying to keep up a determined look. "Don't make me kill you."
Leon just looked into her eyes. "No," he said simply.
One second went by.
Two.
Three.
Ada began to lower her gun as another tear rolling down her cheek.
Leon blew out his held breath, becoming swamped in an ocean of feelings—pity, sadness, struggle, betrayal. He looked at her saddened expression—
--and her eyes suddenly went wide with surprise as a shot rang out on the bridge, behind Ada. Her mouth fell open, the gun fell to the ground, and as she slumped forward, Leon got a fleeting glimpse of the shooter.
Annette!
Ada's body pitched forward, her body hitting the rail and flipping over.
"Ada, no!!" He dove in an attempt to grab the falling Ada. She caught the rail as he grabbed her wrist, her fragile body dangling over a seemingly bottomless darkness, blood coursing from her afflicted shoulder. "Hold on!"
"William…" she whispered, the deranged woman raising the gun to shoot the uniformed officer attempting to save the bitch, and suddenly she was falling, falling to the ground, the gun heavy and falling. She hit the dark metal, the pain fading away as she slipped into unconsciousness.
"Leon…" Ada said, tired, talking becoming a terrible effort.
"Shut up," Leon said. "I'll save you! Hold on," he said, his grip strong. His voice sounded as strong as her will, but her mind was made up.
"Leon…I can't. You must live. Get out while you can," She said softly, resigned to the fact that she was as good as dead.
"NO! I won't…" Leon cried.
"Leon…goodbye," She said, before letting go of the railing, falling, falling into the deep endless darkness. Leon stared in horror as he saw the fragile figure of Ada Wong fall, fall out of sight, and as she was falling, all he could do was scream her name as an immense torrent of grief hit him like a tidal wave. He fell to his knees, his fists clenched up to his face as he let out a sob. His legs had felt as if they had turned to jelly, the realization hitting him that she was dead.
Ada's dead…
He saw her Beretta lying on the ground next to him, and felt another crash of grief as he picked up the weapon, the gun still warm, noticing that it was light…too light.
It wasn't loaded…she never meant to hurt me at all; she lied this whole time…
Once again, he heard the announcement that the self-destruct sequence was activated. Slowly rising to his feet, he began to get up and walk away, knowing that he had to make it out alive, and remembered. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the small vial containing the purple fluid, the G-Virus—the reason why so many people had died. He didn't give it a second thought as he pulled his arm back and hurled the sample as hard as he could, and it fell, fell into the darkness.
Let the sample burn in hell along with the laboratory.
He shook his head, trying to shake the tragic scene from his mind. He tried to focus on his matter at hand. In these last couple of days, with the help of one of his friends, they managed to pick up some snippets of Umbrella's doings. Apparently, they found a prison facility/lab located on Sheena Island, located off the eastern coast of Canada, near Newfoundland, that area. His friend, Ark Thompson, was the only other person there who was involved with the Resistance (as it would come to be called) against Umbrella. Technically, they were part of the underground resistance: the last surviving S.T.A.R.S. members who managed to dodge everything the evil corporation threw at them. Leon had decided to go underground because of personal reasons, to avenge the death of Ada Wong. Ark was the only one who knew, and after hearing and following the situation since it happened, decided to assist Leon. Ark and Leon had been friends for a very long time, even before their rookie days in training.
Ark had managed (through some wonderful hacking and speculation) to "procure" some pertinent info that something was happening at this unknown, Sheena Island. According to the document Ark gave him, it described an incident, a mass suicide by twenty prisoners. Apparently, rumor had gotten around among the prisoners about the T-Virus incident in Raccoon City. Rumors had been passed around that there was T-Virus located on the island itself. Panic stricken, the twenty prisoners performed a mass suicide so they wouldn't be infected. Both Ark and Leon had reasonable doubts about this document. It was a letter from the Sheena Island Prison Facility to Umbrella H.Q. Luckily, Ark had managed to pick up the reply from Umbrella regarding the mass suicide. Umbrella seemingly did not have any doubts about the Prison's report, but made mention of sending more "guinea pigs." Ark and Leon had the same suspicion about what these guinea pigs, almost a certainty.
"What do you make of it?" Ark Thompson asked, his sudden appearance in the doorway startling Leon.
"Honestly? I think the Prison report is bullshit," Leon said casually. "Since when twenty soldiers kill themselves in a mass suicide?"
"I don't know," Ark said. "Maybe they were infected by the T-Virus."
"If they did, then we would have heard about it by now," Leon responded.
"Not necessarily," Ark replied, stepping into Leon's office. "If they had an outbreak of the T-Virus, I would think they would try their best to cover it up."
Leon looked thoughtfully at Ark. "Good point…but my suspicion? Rumors about the Raccoon City incident did in fact filter their way to Sheena Island. With the incident a major blow to Umbrella, the employees would be visibly shaken. This would lead to intrigue by the prisoners. Rumors would start. It's human nature. Rumors would circulate about their possibly having T-virus on the island itself. Having a modicum of intelligence, the inmates probably knew enough to know what the pathogen does. They probably attempted to escape to avoid a fate similar to Raccoon City, and were gunned down. Probably thinking that Umbrella wouldn't like the fact that twenty of their research specimens, they made up a false report, writing off the incident as a mass suicide. Besides, Sheena Island is located out in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, a remote location perfect for Umbrella to conduct its illegal research."
Ark looked at the grinning face of Leon, and looked satisfied. "I must say, I'm impressed. Not everyone can spin such a theory like that. What is your basis for that argument?"
Leon looked back up at Ark. "This is Umbrella we're talking about," he said simply. "This is a deranged corporation—its employees, supervisors, top officials, all of them certifiable wackos."
Ark, to say the least, was floored. "That's your basis? What kind of a firm footing is that?"
Ark's cockiness in that last statement triggered a nerve in Leon, for he glared angrily at the prideful man. "You were not there," Leon said angrily. "You have no idea what this company did, no idea what I was up against, no fucking clue what happened! You weren't there to see the heartbreak and bitter resentment as people died all around you, no idea about how fucking depraved they really are!" He pounded his fist angrily on the desk. A look of shock crossed Ark's face. He made a gesture to calm down, but it was no avail. Leon rose to his feet, his facial expression tightened in a semi-controlled rage, his brow furrowed. "Who the hell do you think you are, telling me I have no firm footing? You have no room to speak!" In his rant, his mind suddenly flashed the image, the image of her falling, falling to certain death, into eternal slumber.
Ada…
His feelings of anger at Ark suddenly gave way to sadness as his unforgiving mind replayed that final scene, the last seconds. He bowed his head down, in an attempt to cover up the tear rolling down the side of his face. He hated to be seen like this, crying. It made him feel weak, vulnerable, embarrassed. His face grew red from embarrassment, making him feel regret for that onset of brashness. He forgot about the law of gravity, his tear falling off his cheek onto the document below, the tear mixing with the ink and swirling it. Slowly, Leon raised his head, his bloodshot eyes staring at Ark's.
"I'm sorry, man," Ark said quietly. "I didn't know—"
Leon raised a hand to cut him off. "I should be the one sorry," he said, sniffling. "I didn't mean to burst out like that. I—I—it's just, you know. If you were just there, in that death trap—it—it—"
"It's okay. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have done that. Should have held my tongue," Ark reassured. Leon chuckled in response, his sadness fading.
"Yeah, you should have," Leon chuckled. Wiping his face, he sat back down.
"So what do we do about this?" Ark asked, pointing to the document.
Leon looked once again at the Umbrella document on his desk. He sighed, and looked at Ark, a serious expression now on his face.
"I'd like for you to go to Sheena Island."
A few seconds of silence passed before the realization hit. Ark was once again shocked. "Me?"
Leon nodded.
"I want you to find out what exactly is going on with Sheena Island. My suspicion gnaws at me."
"Then why don't you go?" Ark asked, a little irritated.
"Agency's orders," Leon said simply.
* * *
The helicopter flew quickly over the destruction, its silhouette clear against the moonlit, starry sky. Fire broke out in sporadic patches everywhere. Zombies were running amok all throughout the once prosperous island.
"You're not going to get away!" screamed a man. He was dressed in white, latching on to the bottom of the chopper, struggling to climb on and kill him. Out of pure intent to kill, he aims his gun and a shot rings out. Suddenly the cockpit of the chopper is rocked in an explosion, the force of it knocking the white figure off the foot of the chopper. He fell toward the abyss, letting out an ear-piercing scream as he plummeted, accelerating at thirty feet per second per second toward the chaos. Panicked, he sat there helpless as the helicopter spun out of control, falling also toward the same chaos as the white clothed man. He saw the ground looming up at him quickly, and in seconds, the falling chopper hit the ground with a deafening crash. Metal quickly crushed as the bird became nothing more than a rumpled pile of sheet metal, an aluminum can. Glass shards flew everywhere as the dead chopper kept drilling into the ground, seemingly not satisfied with gravity's dominion. All things must stop. An object in motion stays in motion unless acted upon by an unbalanced force.
The pilot rolled out of the ruined aircraft, onto the ground below, his face bleeding from an open gash on his forehead. He sees nothing but chaos and disarray all around him. Shaken, he climbs to his feet, but as he does, his vision becomes blurred. The blurriness gives way to an increasing blackness, and suddenly the ground looms up once again, and he is falling, falling with it until consciousness fades away.
A short time later, the pilot wakes. He feels himself to check if he is still alive. As he lies there, he tries to remember what happened. The only thing he knows right now is his enormous headache.
My head hurts…I don't want to believe I have lost my memory…
He slowly rose to his feet.
My past is buried somewhere at the back of my mind. Trying to recall any of it is like trying to grab hold of fog…
He looked at his surroundings. Not too far away from him, he saw the billowing black smoke as it rose from the crashed helicopter. Tongues of orange flame lapped at the sides of the rumpled chopper. Looking around, he saw fire scattered throughout, and in his vision, he thought he saw people moving, but from his vantage point, they looked like they were heavily drugged, or maybe it was because the pilot wasn't all there yet.
What has happened here? Something is not quite right. My instinct tells me there is trouble ahead. I have to get out of here.
He slowly began to walk forward, toward the disarray.
Who am I? What is destined to happen to me? Am I doing the right thing? Nothing makes sense. But wait…one thing is for sure. The only thing I can trust is this gun. My gun will show me the way. I will survive.
I'm going to prove that I can survive…
A/N: I think with the way this story has been guiding me, the next few chapters are going to be ending up a brief (or not so brief) novelization of Resident Evil: Survivor, since I introduced the character Ark Thompson. In the actual RE timeline, this takes place in during the three month span from the end of RE2 to the beginning of RE: CV, placing it in November 1998. In this time, Claire is at university (if we're going by S.D. Perry's idea, which makes sense to me, since Claire doesn't come back into the picture until December of 1998 when she goes to Europe to find her brother. What is Claire actually doing? We don't know, but since she's of college age, S.D. Perry's idea of her in college conforms to logic.). Rather than try to write a hard chapter about what she is doing in university, I jump to Leon's underground movement against Umbrella. Now the story shifts to Ark. Chapter Seven will be posted soon. Once again, as always, send me feedback. Write me a review!