A warm ocean breeze blew over the S.S. Elizabeth as the ship made anchor about 10 miles south of an island near the Brazilian coastline. A woman sat in a chair, looking out over the seemingly endless ocean and trying to determine where the water started, and the sky began. "Claire!" somebody on deck shouted. The redhead turned around, startled out of her trivial thoughts. "Yes?" she answered.
"Kennedy just checked in, he hasn't left Washington yet," the man on deck responded. Claire rolled her eyes. How very much like Leon Scott Kennedy to be so late, she thought to herself. She glanced over to the helipad. He should have been here yesterday when he was supposed to be. She was growing restless. "Do I have the go ahead to leave yet?"
"Not until the government representative shows up, captain's orders. You aren't going in by yourself."
"If he isn't here by tonight, I'm going," Claire grumbled. They were supposed to have been on the island by yesterday, but that didn't seem to be happening due to Leon's stunning punctuality. There had been rumors about B.O.W. sightings in the surrounding ocean, and Claire Redfield was checking on the validity of the rumors on behalf of TerraSave. She was here to see what was going on, and if the hearsay was true then to make sure that whoever was responsible for it be held liable. While most of these investigations ended up being unfounded, she approached them all with the same sense of seriousness. One incident is all it would take for hundreds or thousands of deaths. Even Umbrella had fail safes upon fail safes, and they had failed to contain their own creations. She did not have faith that every possible outbreak could be contained.
These weren't exactly military-style operations; she would go in, poke around, and engage her superiors to call the appropriate task force if necessary. Leon was supposed to be coming along if as nothing else than as a political pawn to show that the American government wasn't just turning their back on these sorts of things. And judging by the way Leon spoke, it didn't sound like there was any activity going on here that the government knew about. If they had actually thought that there was viral weaponry, they would have tried to send in the military tp keep it under wraps. Keeping things quiet wasn't something that TerraSave was known for. It's sad that you can't trust anybody to keep the public informed nowadays, she thought. But that's why she worked for TerraSave.
Her phone went off in her pocket, and she took it out to see a text message from Chris. "Find anything out?". Claire smiled. She knew her brother was hoping it was just another wild goose chase, and that he'd be pestering her with messages until he was sure that it was. Always playing the role of the overly protective brother, he had all but begged her to just take a desk job at Terrasave. But ever since Raccoon City, she had felt it was her responsibility to see to it that those sorts of incidents didn't happen, to the point where she would have felt guilty just sitting around pushing paper. Not that sitting at a desk all day appealed to her in the least. She replied to his message. "Not yet, still waiting on pretty boy to show up. You busy saving lives?" "Doing my best. Glad we got that cell plan with no roaming charges. We would be royally fucked." Claire chuckled to herself, pocketing her phone for the time being, and headed up the steps to the upper deck. She was going to have a word with the captain.
A man wearing a gas mask and black tactical gear was looking up at at a screen in a room illuminated only by computers. There were several monitors all around it, all mostly portraying the usual exotic foliage, the occasional bird. But this particular screen showed anything larger than a paddleboat within a 30 mile radius of the island. There was a large, oval-shaped blob showing up on the sonar device. The man glanced over his shoulder, where his subordinates were also observing the shape.
"Are we sure the sensors are working right?" one asked nervously.
"Oh yeah," said another. "They're working alright. Somebody's gonna have to let him know, and he's gonna be pissed."
The man in the gas mask was leaning over the ominous screen that bore the foreboding image, both hands on the console. After a moment of silence, HUNK left the room and started down the hallway. His combat boots were muffled by the soft, plush carpet as he headed through the regal mansion-esque building towards one particular door, away from everything else. The one door in the building that scared nearly every employee to the point of preferring the underground labs to the house. HUNK knocked on the hard, oak door. "Come in," drawled a slightly annoyed voice from inside. HUNK opened the door that led to Albert Wesker's personal study.