4:45 am
In Raccoon City, Chief Irons continued his hushed marshaling of RPD's resources. Baffled officers met with stern Federal agents. While the weight of the situation had not, and would not, truly sink in for several more hours, the events of that summer placed the feds in a context that sat poorly with many of them.
Most of the precinct had known something wasn't right about the stories being pumped out on overdrive about the mansion incident. Brad Vickers, for one, had been left out of the story almost completely. He seemed quietly miserable all the time now, refusing to talk about the incident, but also refusing to speak against his former teammates.
For those who believed Irons, Vickers was ignored as background scenery to the lurid tale. They were horrified at the thought of just how the very best of them could have been driven to a drug-fuelled spiral. It could have happened to any one of them. The unease led to many fighting to dismiss any trace of the incident entirely.
For those who saw the ferocity with which Irons and the mayor's office defended this narrative without actually arresting the survivors, Vickers' silence spoke volumes. The murders spread out over this past summer had been hushed up in the news to avoid a panic, but there were common threads all through both sets of stories.
One by one, they passed Vickers notes, money, and information, to give to the survivors, who still clung to their incredible, horrible story. When all but Valentine left town, Some noted that strange men who'd begun to stake out her apartment.
Umbrella was beginning to turn its focus to making this little problem go away.
One officer, sent to deal with 'perimeter issues', pulled over to the side of the road. He got out of the patrol car, and walked into a phone booth.
Across town, Jill Valentine's phone began to ring.
Two blocks north of the police station, a van bearing the CDC logo slowed to a stop on a quiet city street. A young woman got out of the passenger side, and with a quiet word to the driver, stepped onto the curb. The van pulled away.
The woman stood there under the glow of a street lamp. Shutting her eyes, she seemed to focus on something - a sound only she could hear. After a moment, she opened her eyes again to look around herself, gaze lingering in the direction of the station with a grimace.
Ada Wong watched this play out from her second-story apartment across the street through cracked curtains. Her handler was getting a delivery within the next few hours. The next few days came with a choice: either evacuate or carry out their mission parameters with massive hazard pay.
The wheels were officially coming off, then.
The woman below stilled and looked sharply at the drugstore behind her. Something had caught her attention. She seemed to listen for a moment, then reached a decision. The woman stepped up to the door, trying it, finding it unlocked.
An ominous sign. Given the scourge bubbling up through the cracks of this doomed little city, the odds that the staff had reanimated inside were…high.
From the orders Ada had received, the woman was supposed to wait for Ada to make contact. With a heavy sigh - since when did anything go just as planned? - Ada checked her gun, holstered it, and turned for the door.
At least the store staff would keep the other woman busy enough to stay in one place until she arrived.
The world felt more sterile than Marigold remembered.
The chemical smell of bleach and disinfectant hit her when she stepped through the door, but the smear of bold on the aluminum door frame spoke of a darker truth. The world seemed to be more paved over, more designed to shy away from others. America in particular seemed designed for cars, rather than people, with everyone in their own bubble.
No wonder the sickness was flying under the radar. Even in London, people would have gossiped so hard about the murders it would have been seen as the second coming of Jack the Ripper.
But then again, it could have just been a sign of the times.
The store's lights had been switched off, but the door had not been locked. in the faint light of the street lamp, Marigold's dark-adjusted eyes picked up traces of blood along the floor, along with smears of a strange greasy sheen. The scent of virally-degraded flesh wasn't strong, but it was certainly detectable.
Something wicked this way came, somewhere in the night. It hadn't left. Perhaps the poor clerk had been attacked on the way out, and ran back inside for shelter?
Marigold closed her eyes briefly, to listen with more than just her ears. More than one of them inside. One fully in its sickness, one…on their way.
Bitten. She touched the tender spot on the back of her neck.
Well. The driver had told her that someone would rendezvous with her at that spot. Marigold could still see outside from here. It would be hard to sneak up on her.
She had sensed them as soon as the van had moved away. Looking at the display window, Marigold was confronted once more with her reflection. She'd managed to make herself a little more ordinary.
Marigold hadn't totally stopped aging since 1968, but the process had been slowed to a glacial pace. She might have been 19. She might have been 25. The only obvious difference was the loss of softness in her eyes.
The girl in the reflection had looked…tired. Alone. This was the first time she had been left alone in ages. Months, to her perception. Years, in reality. Marigold had very rarely actually been alone, in spite of self-enforced isolation. Maybe that's why her situation held a twisted thread of familiarity to it. The girl she had once been would have had a hard time commanding authority without drawing unwanted focus.
Having infected at her back was something that rubbed her wrong. The point of coming out here was, in part, to see. Wesker had been actively trying to paint a particular narrative of the situation. She was doing it herself -anyone would. Marigold needed to see for herself what that basement lab out in the forest, the one that had entrapped her, had spawned all these years later. She needed context.
She needed to see what she was to them.
Taking a deep breath through her nose, Marigold willed calm through herself, and outwards. Her trek through the woods, weeks ago, had been undertaken in a state of semi-delirium and confusion. This time, she could take…well, not time, not much, not on this schedule. But this time around she could spare just a bit of focus, to observe.
And really, when else was she going to get the time to run an errand or two of her own?
Ada crossed the street quickly, following the trail of the woman who had arrived just moments earlier. She tried the door, finding it unlocked. She hesitated, then drew her gun and held it low, pointing at the ground. Something had drawn the other woman in here. Perhaps it was trivial.
Perhaps not.
A shuffling sound came from the back, at the pharmacy counter. A moan answered. Ada froze. T-virus really was ramping up in the civilian population.
Not good.
"Oh, shut up," a crisp British voice muttered. She sounded distracted, and not at all concerned about the creature that had just announced its intention to sink its teeth into something warm.
Another moan, from one aisle to Ada's left. It sounded softer, somewhat muffled. Ada froze, eyes darting around. Ahead of her, a pair of eyes flicked toward her, a greenish glare reflecting the faint light coming in from outside.
Do not engage. The order she had skirted earlier this summer flashed through her mind. Well, the damage was done. Ada thumbed the safety on her weapon and pitched her voice low. "You seem awfully relaxed for someone in a room full of zombies."
The…woman?…behind the counter gave a short, surprised laugh. "Zombies? Bless pop culture, having a ready name for everything." The zombie ahead moaned and began to scramble forward over the counter. Ada, her eyes adjusting to the dark, saw then: A young woman reaching out and hauling the creature back, slamming it into the wall behind. "Ah, it's seen you. It was much calmer a moment ago."
"You again." Ada stepped forward. "They aren't interested in you?" The creature seemed to recover, step forward - then freeze. The young woman had turned her attention to it. Over in the next aisle, something in the Sanitary section clattered to the floor as something fought to find its footing.
The woman behind the counter looked up - she had heard it too. Something in her hand flashed bright - a knife. Her arm snapped out, and the knife made a solid thunk into whatever had risen in the next aisle. It fell with a heavy thud.
The zombie who had frozen in its tracks seemed to sag on its feet. The woman sighed, and drew another knife. "Me again. Interest is a strong word for what their minds are able to manage. But no." Stepping up behind the remaining creature, the woman drew her arm back like a striking snake and drove the knife up into the base of its head. The creature dropped like a sack of wet cement. "I'm not prey. Not to them, anyhow." She reached down and pulled her knife out with a hard yank, reaching for a rag under the counter to wipe it clean. "Small mercies. I don't think anyone imagine these when the founders told everyone they'd found a way to reverse lysis."
Ada remained where she was. "Is that all of them?"
The woman - Callie, the one she had escorted out of Raccoon City - *hmmm'*ed in affirmation. "In here, anyhow. There's more and worse all over the city already." She sheathed the knife back into its hiding place under her jacket. "I wanted to run an errand or two, anyhow. I really never got a decent look at them last time I got the chance. They didn't get aggressive until you came in." She turned back to the inventory out behind the pharmacy counter, hands moving through various boxes. On the counter, Ada could see other packages scattered about.
Ada drifted toward the counter to investigate. Various cosmetics had been deposited across the surface. The other woman glanced over her shoulder. "Oh. I didn't have anything of my own…there. It feels unnatural to be going out without. I'll have to work that out when I get back." She kept sorting through boxes with her back turned to Ada.
Ada shrugged. "I supposed when you stop aging, it takes some work to look like you're trying too hard to hide it." The Simmons family had told her enough to put it together - who the woman who had introduced herself as Callie back in July really was. Pulling out a pen light, Ada leaned a little further over the counter and clicked it on, directing the beam towards the shelves being rifled through.
The woman hissed in irritation. "Sorry," Ada said in a light voice. "I think the morning after pills are a bit further to your left." Ada shifted her pen light down the shelves to indicate where the woman's presumed prize was. "Although now I have entirely different questions. Should I still even be calling you Callie? Daniel's son had quite a bit to say about you."
The woman's hand froze briefly- just for a second, enough for Ada to see that her words had hit home. She then moved towards the place Ada had pointed her to. "Thanks," she replied, voice subdued. "It's hormonal control. This isn't as strong as what I used to take, but it might take the edge of some side effects."
"Mhm." Ada said, voice dry. "In that case, I think I see a few boxes of pregnancy tests next to it. You know. For side effects."
Ada could practically feel the woman scowl at her, but she - Callie, any of the other names she held were still actively being hunted by all accounts - still collected up several slim boxes, stuffing them into a messenger bag at her hip. She rose out of her crouch, turning. "I believe we have an appointment to make?"
Ada smiled. On her face, it had a hardening effect. "If you need two minutes to put your face on, then fine. But…yes." Her smile tightened. "I think we'll both benefit from this little visit."