Turn The Page
By John Damen
"Please don't cry. I swear I'll try, to be here by your side." – Stephen Lynch
The high-pitched whine of the helicopter's engine wasn't noticeable to most in the United States Army surplus Bell UH-1B, but Brian Jackson noticed it. At first he didn't notice it, then it annoyed him, then he started to hate it, but now, it was comforting. It let him know the engine was working properly.
Brian scanned the cabin yet again, desperate to get his eyes on anything but the pattern of the rivets in the chopper's hull.
Across from him was a scientist, one of three in the helicopter, including himself. He turned to one of the four soldiers in the helicopter with him. This man's name was Jay Dallas. Brian had befriended him while they were waiting for their transport. Brian had called him JD, and Jay seemed to find a source of humor in the nickname.
Jay saw Brian looking at him, "Nervous?"
"Ain't you?" Brian asked.
"Little, but don't worry, you'll be fine."
Brian nodded, "How long you been with Umbrella, JD?"
Jay put the barrel of his Colt M-16 A1 on the helicopter's deck, so if it went off, the bullet wouldn't go through the engine, "What?"
"How long have you been working for Umbrella?"
Jay thought for a second, "Little over 3 years. Why?"
Brian just shrugged, "Just wanted to know."
Jay chuckled, "Bored enough to ask about me, huh?"
Brian grinned and leaned back against the aluminum hull of the chopper and closed his eyes, "Yeah, not much else to do on these flights. The movie really sucks. And those peanuts they gave us are stale!"
Jay let out a laugh at his friend's joke.
Brian looked out of the window in the sliding door on the helicopter and saw that they had started flying over Raccoon City. Brian hoped they would land there. He really had to piss. His hopes were dashed when the city below them disappeared, and was once again replaced by treetops.
Brian knew that they were over the Arklay Forest and would soon reach the Spencer Estate. He knew that the estate was just a façade put up only to hide the vast underground laboratories.
He had known the kind of company Umbrella was. They billed themselves as a pharmaceutical company. He also knew that that was just bullshit public relations. They were feverishly creating biological-weapons in underground labs like the one he and every other person in the helicopter had been assigned to.
Did he care about that? Fuck no. He had other intentions than to help create bio-weapons. The weapons he would be helping to develop didn't concern him at all. It was not coincidence that he had been transferred to the Arklay labs. He had dropped hints, worked hard, forged papers, hacked into computer systems, all over the course of his two years at Umbrella.
It was also not by chance that he had befriended Jay Dallas. Though his friendship with Jay was genuine, it had started because he needed someone like Jay to help him out in the months or years to come.
Brian was a very calculating man. He didn't think of his next move, he thought of the move he would be making three months in the future.
Looking to his right, he saw that Jay had laid his chin on the stock of his M-16 and was snoring softly. Looking to his left, he saw the forest stretched as far as the eye could see, and the mountain ranges reaching into the clouds.
Brian closed his eyes and remembered the floor plan of the estate and subterranean laboratories. If worse came too worse, it would be hard to get out alive. But, he was a man who could bide his time. He would not make his move until he knew the time was right. Maybe that is why he was so good at Chess.
The helicopter went through a small jet-stream and dropped sharply, causing Jay, who's head was carefully perched on the assault rifle stock, to fall off of the cot-like bench and onto the deck, much to the delight of everyone in the aircraft.
As Jay was climbing back into his spot, Brian looked back out of the window, and saw the old mansion sitting amongst the trees. From what he heard, Spencer was a calculating man. But if you were to know both Brian and Spencer, you would know that Brian could always beat Spencer in a game of Chess.