Chapter VI: Sidetracked

The halls of the cell block echoed the footsteps of a tall blond man in a dark police uniform followed by two armed guards as they walked on ground floor of the two-story complex. The halls were wrought with fetor and decay, the cement stained with unsanitary water at points. The cells were not empty, however, but held the bodies of deceased prisoners who had died due to infection of the T-Virus - their foul, pungent smell of their decomposing flesh hanging in the air. The midday sun poured in from the barred windows on the opposite wall.

Only one cell contained a living occupant, which was located in one of the center cells. The two armed soldiers moved ahead and stood guard in front of it on either side. The blond man stopped in front of the cell and peered through the bars inside. In the far corner of the cell was a young woman with brown hair and her old S.T.A.R.S. uniform, sitting in a curled position, her hands around her knees and her head down. She didn't look up to acknowledge him.

"Well well, you seem to be doing just fine, Miss Chambers. I see you haven't left the cell, even though I told you it was never locked. I take it you enjoy our accommodations?"

She didn't answer.

The man spoke louder, "That's the beauty of it, isn't it Miss Chambers! You know you aren't being forced to stay, and yet outside is a city of the monsters you've been so afraid of ever since the Spencer Mansion. Tell me, do the nightmares still bother you?"

She hugged herself tighter, turning her head away to face the wall.

The blond man smiled, looking at her through his dark sunglasses. "I see. We haven't fed you in days, you must be starving by now. The choice remains with you. You can die of starvation here or die at the hands of the monsters. There's no need to hurry; I enjoy watching you suffer. To think, this is a bonus for me while I carry out my mission. Because of you, that fool Burton will send his best Hunters to try and rescue you, only to fall into my trap: an entire city full of my T-Virus wonders! They'll serve as true tests for the old and new B.O.W.'s. In fact, their first agents are probably dead already."

Rebecca began to feel her eyes well with tears, she couldn't stand listening to this.

Another soldier ran down the hall, an anxious look on his face. His running caused several of the zombies inside the cells to begin moaning and awaken, reaching through the bars. He slowed to a stop before reaching the man.

He spoke urgently, "Captain Wesker, we have reports of the Agent the Viral Hunters sent."

At this, Rebecca listened intently without moving from her position.

Wesker spoke in his same cold voice as he looked down at the soldier. "Well?"

"Sir, we've been roughly tracking the movements of the First V-Hunter; he has passed the residential area and is now in the commercial district where several B.O.W.'s have been previously destroyed. He's advancing at much faster rate than we have anticipated."

Wesker clenched his fist while maintaining his imposing stare on the man. "Barry sent his best after all, I had hoped that worthless Jeremiah could have gotten him to send a few weaker ones first with the incomplete information he was supposed to give them."

"What shall we do about the Hunter, sir?"

"We'll have to release our more powerful B.O.W.'s sooner than expected. Send the King Tyrant and a few other Bio Organic Weapons to intercept that V-Hunter. Now, what about the second Hunter we detected?"

"The second V-Hunter is moving much more swiftly than the first, but is not causing as much damage to the Virals in the area and hasn't advanced as far due to its more spread out movements. That Hunter seems to have a separate objective."

Wesker put his hand to his chin, "I see. I think I have an idea what the other's mission is. I'll be checking the route the other took, give me a map of its path. We must be certain the Viral Hunters fail in their mission."

The soldier saluted and ran off to get the information needed. Wesker signaled to the two guards to follow him as he walked back as well.

Rebecca began to cry, her tears falling onto her knees. Her sobs echoed in the empty hallway. "They're going to die because of me. It's hopeless" She felt so scared, for her life and those risking their own for her.

-

"It had to have been Wesker, no one else who looks like that could be devious and convincing enough to pull this off. It's exactly the same thing he pulled on my home town in Arizona seven years ago!"

Axl had been walking for the past ten minutes after running as far as he could from the burning house. A few of the remaining lickers outside managed to follow him, but he taught them again the power of a good shotgun. On his way, he passed a number of cars and trucks, but the story the woman told him was correct, none of them had enough gasoline, if any, in their tanks. He had reached a more commercial district of the town, but it still had apartments on either side of the street in irregular intervals between the stores. With everything quiet again, he needed to figure things out. His weapons and gear were back in their proper places, fully loaded for the next fight.

As he walked, he heard a low growl close by. It didn't take an expert to know what that sound was.

"Oh great, I knew I forgot something." He sighed, "For some reason, I never eat breakfast before a mission" He leaned against a wall a few feet by the opening of an alley, set down his Kalashnikov and took out a Butterfinger candy bar. He took a generous bite from it, knowing that, to be at his best, he'd need all the energy he could get.

He continued to talk to himself as he ate, "The story the woman told me had to have been true, everything matches up well enough. Besides," He checked the medal in his pocket, "she had no reason to lie."

He wiped his brow with his sleeve. "But then, it was just a test of the virus. Now, I have no clue as to why he'd do this, short of him being a psycho! Well, I might as well see how much further I have to go."

He took another large bite of his Butterfinger and took a sip from one of his canteens. Placing them back in their pouches, he took out his map of the town and confirmed his location.

"Ok, good. If I keep at this rate I can reach the prison by nightfall. My problem is getting out of here alive with Rebecca - if she's alive, that is - and seeing as there's no helicopter and there is supposed to be a strict radio silence, base doesn't know my current situation. I'll have to find my own way out, but I'll figure that out later. If only I could find a vehicle with some fuel to burn, then everything would go by so much faster and I could avoid danger much more easily." He stuffed the map back into the pocket and put his assault rifle's strap back over on. "Hell, today just isn't my day."

While he looked down to check himself, making sure he had everything, he heard a loud crashing noise behind him in the alley.

He turned to look, and out ran a boy of about the age of twelve, carrying a blue backpack. He wore khaki shorts and a large, blue long-sleeve shirt he had buttoned down but wasn't tucked in; there was a large claw mark torn into the back. Axl glanced at the boy as he moved into the street. He turned back to the alley and pressed against the wall beside the entrance, ready to catch whatever he was running from by surprise.

Out followed an infected Doberman, missing huge pieces of skin and tissue. It stopped a few feet in front of Axl, but hadn't noticed him, only looking for the boy. Axl could see its eyes were glazed over as it snarled ferociously, spotting the preteen. The boy ran across the street and went up against a wall as he turned to face the dog, his eyes filled with terror. The dog burst into a sprint, but just as the dog jumped to attack, Axl drew his .357 magnum and shot the dog in mid-air before it reached the kid.

"Don't worry," said Axl, spinning his revolver and placing it back in his shoulder holster. "You're safe, kid."

The boy ran up to him and grabbed his hand, tugging it, "Come on! We have to keep running!" he shouted.

Axl walked quickly with the boy as he pulled him, but stopped and took his hand from the kid's grip. "Hey, there's nothing to worry about! I got rid of the dog!"

The kid turned to him, holding the straps of his backpack, "No! Not all of them!"

Axl turned around and looked at the alley. Dobermans began to emerge, one after the other, until twenty or so were standing together. All of them showed signs of severe T-Virus infection and each of them looked very hungry.

"You have got to be kidding meOh, this really isn't my day" Axl whispered as he stared at the pack of Cerberus, slowly going to one knee. They were a good distance away, no closer than twenty-five feet. He kept staring, keeping eye contact with the head dog, not showing any sign of fear. The Cerberus kept growling, standing ready to run forward for the kill, but remained at bay.

"You may be infected, and you may be rabid, but you're still just dogs"

It was just a matter of will power and showing no sign of weakness to keep the dogs from attacking. He didn't know how much time it would buy, but he could only hope it would be enough for him to get ready to counter. Axl easily unshouldered his AK-47 as fast as he dared and held it against his right side, keeping it aimed forward at them.

He spoke with a firm, commanding voice so both the boy and the Cerberus could hear, "All right kid, get behind me and don't move until I get us out of this." He heard the footsteps stop behind him and he breathed for a second, never breaking his stare on the pack.

Suddenly, the lead dog barked and they began to dash forward, their open mouths baring their sharp teeth while they growled mindlessly for warm flesh. Axl also bared his teeth as he gritted them, pulling the trigger of his assault rifle. He spraying the group of dogs with powerful 7.62 mm rounds, sweeping them two or three times with fire. The yelps and sounds of the bullets boring through them was overpowered by the sound of the rifle. Most of them were dead in seconds.

One surviving dog ran to the left and attempted to attack Axl's right while he fired.

"Watch out!!" shouted the kid as he pointed at the impending danger.

The dog jumped at them, coming within feet of Axl. Axl's brown eyes burned with cold fire as they moved to look to the side under the shade of his hat.

"Pathetic." In a fluid motion he trained the rifle on the dog in a heartbeat, gunning it down as three of the AK's bullets tore it to pieces in mid-air. Axl didn't dwell on the one fallen Cerberus for long, quickly turning his rifle back on the main pack.

Of the original twenty or so Cerberus, only two remained able to run away after suffering severe wounds. Axl raised the rifle to eye level and began to squeeze the trigger, but realized with those wounds they'd bleed to death anyway. He stood back up and removed the almost empty clip.

"What a waste of ammo, I used my best weapon to kill a bunch of dogs." grumbled Axl, putting in a new magazine. He locked it into place and put the gun back over his shoulder.

The kid stood there, looking at the destroyed pack and back to Axl. "ThatAWESOME! My name's Rick, what's yours?"

Axl looked down at Rick, still grim. He sighed and began to resume walking, "Axl. Come with me, you'll be safer."

He nodded, running up to catch up to Axl, "Yeah, thanks. Hey, how'd you know to act all calm like that?"

"Standard operating procedure against Cerberus packs." Axl tipped his hat up with his thumb to better look at the kid he'd saved, "Usually you're supposed to run or evade, seeing as a bullet is better placed into a larger or more dangerous Viral, but I wasn't the only one in danger, now was I?" He flashed a smile, to make sure the kid didn't feel bad about having to be protected. "Can you tell me what a kid like you is doing outside with all these monsters around?"

Rick lifted the straps of his backpack a bit on his back and set it down. "I was getting some supplies for my family."

Axl glanced at the kid again, still facing forward. "Family? There's more of you?"

"Yeah! We're getting ready to leave, I had to pick up ammunition for when we bust out of here!"

He stopped as Rick took off his backpack and watched him open it to reveal two boxes of shotgun shells and a couple of handgun magazines.

Axl's eyes widened with disbelief, jumping back slightly, "Wah! That's a lot of artillery for a kid!"

"Yeah, but I don't think we'll need it. We have a huge car ready and my dad found a crashed gas truck a few days ago after the all monsters showed up! We've been hiding in our apartment and blasting any of those zombies if they try to get in. We've got all the stuff we need now."

"Wow, can I have some shellsWait, what kind of car?"

"Oh, I think it's called a Humvee' or something"

Axl nodded as he whispered to himself, "A working car would be extremely useful" This kid might be able to get him a mode of transportation; his mission time could be cut down significantly!

After a moment of thought, he quickly weighed the options and their likely ends and faced back down to the kid, tightening his lips, thinking, "No, nothey'd need it way more than I would. HellI hate being so selfless" He shook his head and started to walk again, leaving Rick behind.

He yelled back while watching the road, "Get back to your family and get out of here." He spoke a bit louder as he was getting farther away, "And good luck!" He adjusted his hat with his right hand and rose it for a curt farewell.

"Hey, Mr. Axl, wait!" Rick yelled, keeping an innocent tone of voice. Axl stopped and turned again. He looked up; he knew what was coming. Rick ran up to him, "With you helping us, we'd be sure to make it out of herePlease help us out."

Axl stood there and closed his eyes as he thought. He realized the consequences of this too, took a deep breath and opened his eyes.

He looked back briefly and turned to face the road. "Sure, kid. I'll help you guys out." This was going to delay his main objective even more, but he couldn't leave this little kid and his family to fend for themselves, even if they did have a vehicle. With the kinds of powerful creatures that might be out there, an expert V-Hunter'd be the best bet for getting out alive. He wasn't going to be responsible for another innocent's death.

Rick laughed with excitement, putting his backpack back on. "Great! Come on, I'll take you to my apartment. You can meet my family! We'll all escape together!"

The kid grabbed Axl's hand again, tugging it harder than he had before. Axl ran to keep up, thinking to himself, "I hope this isn't a mistake."