Donald wasn't much for words, and when the Scotsman did speak, it was under his breath and mostly to himself. From what Wesker gleaned, Donald—Don, the man had insisted Wesker should call him—seemed to be puzzling something out. And sometimes his mumblings simply sounded like raving: a lunatic rambling portends to himself.
"How long have you been at this post?" asked Wesker, as they walked down a corridor blanketed in more of that slick, black organic material he'd seen in other areas of the facility. But Don seemed to know how to circumvent the stuff without touching it, and Wesker, very carefully, emulated his choreography.
"Years," said Don, stopping for a moment. The Scotsman looked a bit green around the gills, but Albert attributed the man's lethargy to a lack of sleep more than anything else. "Spencer wanted me to keep an eye on the Ashfords. So that's what I did." Don stopped, leaned on a handrail overlooking neat rows of bioreactors. He wiped at his face and blinked, hard. "Alexia was working on some shite independent of Spencer. Misappropriating funds."
"The hibernaculum?"
"That was part of it," said Don, with a nod. He straightened up, still looking a bit drained and wilted. Then, "T-Veronica."
"It came up in my intel," said Wesker. "That's why I'm looking for her. Among other things." He didn't want to mention her. The thought of her and the trouncing she'd given him on Rockfort rankled him, but Wesker smoothed the anger away under a veneer of professional aloofness. Besides, Spencer didn't need to know about her, and Don was the sort of man who would let word slip to the old bastard the moment he saw a more lucrative opportunity present itself.
"Don't trust I've got the data?" said Don, grinning.
"I need Alexia to interpret that data."
"You're boss looking to recruit?"
"Perhaps," said Wesker. "If we can get Alexia to play ball."
Don snorted. "Fat chance. Alexia's Umbrella through-and-through."
"Umbrella won't be around much longer," said Wesker. "It's a sinking ship."
The Scotsman nodded. "Aye. Suppose she won't have a bloody choice, then."
"Not if she wants to live and continue her research," said Wesker. "Research costs money—a resource that's running rather thin on her end, thanks to her brother's feckless spending. And without us, there's no escape from Antarctica and the inevitable end of this facility. Alexia will die here." Hopefully the same can't be said for the other one…
"True, but dinnae kid yourself, Wesker," said Don. "The Ashfords got coffers deep as the fucking sea."
Wesker shrugged. "But the sea doesn't go down forever, Don. There's a bottom. Eventually."
Don chewed on his lip for a moment, fiddling with his beard. Then, "Ashford will be in her mansion. I can show you the way." He dug something out of his pocket, flashed a metal keycard: Alexia's name was embossed on it. "We'll need this to reach the mansion. There's only one way in." And Don pressed it into his hand, adding, "I've got to do something else. Hold on tight to this. I'll find you on the cameras."
Jill told them to gather as many bottles of isopropyl alcohol and other flammables they could find, and to start tearing the bed-sheets into strips and soaking them in the stuff. They'd agreed shooting the queens would be a waste of time and ammunition, so instead they'd turned to the bane of anthills everywhere: fire. Claire had made her fair share of molotov cocktails during Raccoon City, but Steve seemed scarily well-versed in the art of improvised combustibles as he assembled one cocktail after another with the sort of ease and enthusiasm Claire imagined only a serial arsonist was capable of.
"Do I even wanna know why a seventeen-year-old is so well-acquainted with improvised explosives?" asked Jill, finishing with another cocktail and setting it aside. They'd collected glass bottles and beakers and whatever else they could find from the cabinets in the infirmary to assemble their cocktails, and they were just about finished.
"Sometimes we'd put storm matches on them in the colder months, or add a ballast," said Steve as if he hadn't heard Jill, and at the looks Jill and Chris gave him, he said, "Relax, piggies—me and my friends weren't chuckin' them at people. Just throwing 'em out in the woods, at this old, rusty car we found."
Jill rolled her eyes, then looked at Chris. "You got your lighter on you?"
"Never go anywhere without it."
"I also gotta lighter," said Steve. "Stole it off a guard on Rockfort, since those assholes confiscated mine."
"Perfect," said Jill. "Come on, let's get these bottles into the hallway."
Being locked inside the mansion was beginning to make Grayson go a little stir-crazy. Alexia had gone off to do something , and he'd been left to entertain himself with his Mockingbird. After strumming out a few off-the-cuff songs, he moved on to a Star Wars-themed chess-board the twins had bought him for his fourteenth birthday, but since he knew nothing of chess, quickly gave up and packed the game away before heading out into the foyer, to stretch his legs.
He wondered if Steve and Claire were any closer to escaping. If they were, Grayson envied them. He'd often griped about civilization, but living in a place where the closest approximation to civilization was a handful of research stations, it really made him appreciate laws and people, and all of the other things that made a society—and realize that the only people who ever complained about civilization, who wanted to go back to simpler times , were those who had never gone without excess. If he ever heard some soul-patched, plaid-shirted counter-revolutionary complain about the overindulgence of society again, he'd shove the fucker into a box and ship him off to Antarctica. How do you like simplicity now, you Che Guevara-loving, frappuccino-sipping asshole? It's cold, isn't it? It sucks, doesn't it? Now eat your fucking freeze-dried eggs and shut the fuck up.
Grayson exhaled a meditative breath, feeling the rage drain from his cheeks. Then he started downstairs.
He decided to clean the foyer, so he grabbed the mop and the other supplies he'd need to do that, then rolled up his sleeves and got to work.
Halfway through wiping down the doll showcases, Alexia's reflection brooded at him in the glass. Grayson turned to her. She furrowed her brow, looked as if she was trying to process something. It was the sort of face Grayson imagined someone would put on when they were trying to figure out how a magician did their trick. "What's up, Lex?"
"Alfred was talking to himself," she said, after a long pause.
"Is that where you went?"
She nodded. "He's been acting strange. I went to check on him."
"Nothing new," said Grayson, but he felt a distinct, familiar prickle of dread on his nape. "Alfred always acts weird."
"He was talking like me," said Alexia. "In my voice."
Fuck. "I was really hoping," said Grayson, stuffing his dust-cloth into the back-pocket of his pants, "we wouldn't have to have this discussion yet." Then, to himself, "Goddamn it, Alfred, why couldn't this wait until after we got outta here?"
"Grayson, what's going with my brother?"
Grayson inhaled sharply, then explained everything. When he finished, he said, "The loneliness got him bad. Dad did what he could, and I—well, I ran away to Raccoon City." He sighed, rubbed the back of his neck. "Maybe I should've stuck around? Ma would've been pissed, I think. That I ran away." He paused, surprised at himself. He hadn't spoken about her in years. Alexia looked just as surprised, regarding him with an unreadable look.
"You remember her?" she asked, finally.
"How could I not?" he said, and stopped for a beat, then said, "Though memory's a bit fuzzy, it's been so long." Shaking his head, Grayson said, "But let's focus on Alfred for now. Lemme talk to him."
Alexia nodded, and they both walked upstairs to Alfred's room. Slumped in the rococo wingback chair in the corner of his bedroom, Alfred seemed to be arguing with himself, switching between his and Alexia's voice. He looked paler than usual, a thin sheen of sweat on his forehead. As they entered the room, the argument died away, and Alfred looked up and glared at him. Then he said, in his own voice, "What do you want, Grayson?"
"You okay, Alfred?" asked Grayson, manicuring his tone to be as inoffensive as possible. When Alfred was in the throes of a psychotic episode, approaching him had to be treated with the same caution and gravity as approaching a very pissed-off, very hungry lion. Or a Hunter (he had it on good authority that Hunters were the worst BOW to deal with) you weren't sure was completely tranqed yet.
"I'm fine, " snapped Alfred.
"Brother."
Alfred looked at Alexia, then looked away.
"I'm speaking to you," said Alexia, icily.
"I want to talk to Callie."
Grayson blinked, then said, "She died, Alfred."
Alfred said nothing. He rose, stumbled slightly. Gripped his leg. Grayson guided Alfred back down into the chair, then said, "Lemme look at that. At your wound."
Alfred wrinkled his nose, saying nothing.
Grayson carefully rolled up Alfred's pant-leg. The gauze taped over his wound was blotted red, and a faint nutty, sweet smell wafted up from it. "Shit," said Grayson, and he gently peeled off the medical tape and the gauze, and it came away like something that had been glued to Alfred's leg. The wound had puckered around the edges, and it glowed an angry red, oozing thick, yellowish-green pus. "Fuck," said Grayson, "it's infected."
Alexia peered at the wound. "He'll need antibiotics," she said, calmly.
"I'll get them," said Grayson, and he stood up. "The infirmary's gotta still have some."
"Grayson."
"Alexia," he said, before she could say anything else, "I got this, okay?" He looked at Alfred, and said, "He needs you right now. Clearly, I didn't do a good enough job patching him up."
"This is hardly your fault, Grayson," said Alexia, frowning.
"If Grayson had actually ever bothered to learn his job correctly," seethed Alfred, "he would've done this right. But he was too bloody busy playing ne'er-do-well in Raccoon City. If Scott was—"
"Scott isn't here, brother, " interrupted Alexia, sharply.
Alfred pressed his mouth into a hard, thin line, and winced.
"I'll get the antibiotics. Lex, what am I looking for?"
"Amoxicillin, or doxycycline if you can't find the former," said Alexia. "We'll start him at two hundred and fifty milligrams, and see how that goes." She looked at Alfred, and added, "I'll try to clean up the wound as best as I can while you're doing that."
Grayson nodded. "I'll be back."
Steve must have slipped off while they'd been clearing out the ant-zombies. Claire hadn't even noticed until Jill said, "Your little pyro buddy's gone off somewhere."
The smell of burnt things and chemicals hung thick in the air. Claire looked down the hallway, frowning. She knew where Steve had gone, and she told them: "He's going after Ashford."
"The guy from Rockfort?" asked Chris.
"Yeah," said Claire.
"You think he's even still alive?" asked Jill. "You said Steve shot him."
"Bullet got him in the leg. I dunno if it hit his femoral or not," said Claire. "He thinks I did it. Shot him, I mean. But I prefer it that way. Rather Alfred focuses on me than Steve."
"Where would he have gone?" asked Chris. "Not many places to run."
"But plenty to hide in," said Claire.
"Right now," said Jill, "we need to find Steve. Before he finds Ashford."
