Chapter 22
"Thanksgiving Visit"
November 5th 1996
Jay Dallas looked at the slip of paper in his hand, then back at the rather shabby apartment building across the street from him. The address was right, but he had never pictured his friend in a place like this. The end of the street was blocked off because of construction, and the only other way out was through an alley just big enough to allow a person into, or through a warehouse. The few cars around looked as though they hadn't been driven in quiet some time, judging by the flat tires and broken windshields. He also wondered when the last time a street-sweeper had been through there. Newspapers and other trash littered the relatively short street, curbs, and sidewalks.
Looking back at the slip of paper to make sure for the fourth time of the address, Jay walked across the street to the front door of the apartment building and opened it, or at least tried to as the door was locked. He looked to his right and saw the intercom for the apartments. Until now, he had only seen them in the upper-middle class neighborhoods.
"Classy," Jay muttered sarcastically as he pressed the intercom button next to his friend's name.
A few moments later, a voice answered, "Hello?"
Jay was taken aback. That was not his friend's voice, unless his friend had had a sex change operation. He looked back at the tag, and it still read, 'Jackson, B.'
"Uh…is this Brian Jackson's residence?"
"Yes," the woman's voice answered.
He now asked a stupid question, but at the moment, he couldn't think strait, "Is this Brian?"
Jay heard the woman giggle at his question, though she sounded a little old to be giggling, of course, he supposed he needed to get out of the lab more often. He couldn't help but blush at the giggle, even though no one was there to see it.
"Hello?"
Jay sighed in relief at the sound of the familiar voice, "Hey, Brian."
"Jay!" Brian sounded surprised and excited, "Hang on, I'll buzz you up."
Jay smiled and chuckled as the intercom clicked off. A second later the door buzzed long enough to mask the clicking of the lock and Jay entered the building.
Brian opened his apartment door to let his friend inside, "Long time no see."
"Likewise," Jay said with a smile and pulled Brian into a brotherly hug, "I never pictured you in this shit hole. This place seems like where a cop would live."
"Probably because it is," Brian said with a grin.
"Oh," Jay said and tightened his lips together before holding out a brown paper sack, "Brought you this."
Brian took the sack from him, "It's not Jack Daniel's, is it?"
"Not for Thanksgiving, no."
"Jim Beam, then?"
"Very funny."
Brian pulled the bottle from the sack, "Hey, wine."
"Yeah, it a Mar…marl…it's French and I can't pronounce it."
"Must be good then," Brian said with a smile, then stepped aside to allow his friend to enter the living room and look around before returning to the small, enclosed kitchen.
Jay let his eyes wander around the living room for a time, then decided that this must be his friend's first apartment from the décor. The comfortable looking couch was patched with duct-tape and held level with a stack of books, due to the missing leg. The coffee table looked as though it would collapse if anyone was to risk setting a glass of water on it and the wicker rocking chair in the corner was missing an arm. The love seat looked like it was the newest, and most used piece of furniture, though it was missing a cushion, which Jay found on a recliner that was badly in need of reupholstering.
"Like the place?" Brian inquired after having returned from the kitchen and handed Jay a glass of the wine he had brought.
"I'm envious of your decorating skills," Jay said, his voice oozing with good humored sarcasm as he took the offered glass.
"I haven't really had a lot of experience with that sort of thing, but you probably knew that."
Jay nodded, then his eyes fell on an object in the corner, he studied it to be sure of what he was seeing, then turned to Brian, "When did you get a Class 3 license?"
Brian played dumb, "A what?"
Jay was more specific, "A Class 3 Weapons license."
Brian shrugged and grunted to show that he didn't know what Jay was talking about.
Jay risked setting his glass on the coffee table, then went over to the object that suddenly became the topic of conversation and held it up, "I don't think they sell these to every Joe Blow who wants one."
Brian saw Jay holding up the M-16 A1 that he had fitted with the M-203 grenade launcher, the same one he took from the Secondary Armory in Umbrella's facility and he knew he was caught red-handed.
"No…I don't have a Class 3 license," Brian told him, hoping that answer would be enough.
"So, where did you get this?" Jay asked, though he thought he knew already.
Brian took another sip from his glass in the hope of out waiting his friend.
"Funny thing is," Jay said conversationally as he pulled the charging handle enough to check and see if there was a round in the chamber, "We had an M-16 and an M-4 Carbine come up missing on our last weapons check, along with a large amount of ammo."
"Really?" Brian asked, seemingly surprised, though he looked as though he was trying to drown himself in his glass.
"Yeah, it was about three days after you left," Jay told him, shouldering the rifle and peering down the sights, "The soldier in charge of the armory miscounted on his first check, and the second soldier slacked off, sticking to the previous count instead of really checking."
Brian still had the glass raised as though he was still sipping, even though his lips were pressed too tight to allow the liquid into his mouth.
Jay pulled the trigger and heard the quiet tack as the firing pin struck air, "The twenty four hundred magazine check turned up the missing ordinance and the soldier who slacked off was suspended with pay until the investigation was completed. Don't worry, they won't connect it to you. I made sure that they found out the missing weapons were shot out and needed to be replaced, and that the ammunition was used at the firing range."
"Why?" Brain asked once he found his voice.
"I had a feeling it was you who took the stuff. I knew you never owned those soft-shelled cases before then, and you're blue duffel bag was deformed like it was being weighed down."
Brian nodded, but didn't say anything.
"So, why did you take it?" Jay asked, slipping his thumb around the forward loop on the carrying handle and wrapping his remaining fingers around the uppermost part of the magazine so he could hold the rifle comfortably at his side.
Brian went and sat in the recliner, "The thing about any biological laboratory is that, no matter what the precautions, something will go wrong. I know someone will fuck up down there, and the very nature of the T-Virus dictates that it will infect anything. And anything infected by it will spread to other non-infected things. Plants, animals, and humans alike," he paused, letting his words float in the air, then continued, "When that happens, the T-Virus will filter back here. The first warning signs will appear, but they will be largely ignored if they point at Umbrella. After all, most of this city was built on donations from Umbrella. The officials and newspapers won't want to do anything that would jeopardize their future generous contributions.
"The day that that happens will be a horrific day. The things that will overrun this city won't take no for an answer. They won't take pity on their victims, they won't sleep, and they won't stop. The only thing that will slow them down will be a bullet."
It was a long time before either of them said anything. Brian had put into words what both of them had been fearing.
Brian sat in the recliner, staring into his glass, and Jay stood by the coffee table, clutching the
Colt M-203 as though his life depended on it, as it just might one day.
A woman's head appeared around the doorframe so she could see them, "Dinner's ready, you two."
"Okay," Brian told her, then saw the look on his friend's face and said, "Will you come here for a moment? There's someone I want you to meet."
The woman obliged, and went into the living room, walking as though she hadn't done it in a good many years. She was of average height, thin, with long sandy blond hair.
Jay was looking at the woman as though he was trying to remember something extremely difficult.
"Yes?" she asked curiously after she stepped over to them.
"Uh, this is my good friend, Jay Dallas," Brian introduced and waited until after they shook hands, then said, "Jay, this is my sister, Lisa Trevor."
Jay's hand froze mid-shake as he looked calmly at her. When she gave no inclination that they had ever met before, he smiled and stepped back, seemingly enrapt with the M-203 in his hand.
"Well don't be to long, you two," She said, turning to go back into the dining room, "Don't want the turkey to get cold, now do you?"
"Give us a minute," Brian told her just as she turned the corner, then turned to Jay.
"I thought she…" Jay began in a hushed voice, but Brian cut him off.
Brian cut him off by gesturing towards the front door. Once they were outside, they were free to talk.
"She's not dead," Brian started.
"Obviously," Jay said, his voice oozing with sarcasm, "What happened?"
Brian pulled a vial from his pocket, XNB-1 printed on the label and handed it to Jay.
Jay turned the vial over in his hands, then looked at Brian, "This is what you injected her with just before they got to her with the curare, right?"
Brian just nodded.
"What is it?"
"What do you know about nano-robotics?"
Jay cast his mind back, "Robots smaller than the human eye can see. They're supposed to be useful in medicine. I thought they were just experimental right now."
Brian looked at him in disbelief.
"I live in a lab, you think I'm not gonna pick something up?"
"Right, well. I found out Umbrella had some fully operational nano-robots. That's what I injected her with."
"Still though, the curare…"
"Curare paralyzes the nervous system, including the diaphragm. Without the diaphragm, you can't breath. Your lungs can't take in a sufficient amount of air. And what is blood used for? One thing it's used for is transporting oxygen to the major organs," Brian shrugged, "Nano-bots can do that. And their silent. So the doctors with the stethoscopes thought her heart wasn't beating."
"Which it wasn't," Jay said slowly.
"Right again. The heart pumps the blood through the body. But for those three days, the nano-bots were moving her blood. They were taking oxygen and nutrients to her organs and brain while keeping her unconscious. They thought she was dead. After four days, the nano-bots shocked her heart to get it started again, then deactivated. They will eventually be passed through her system."
"Four days?" Jay asked, bewildered, "How could it last that long?"
Brian shrugged his shoulders, "I have no clue, but I'm not going to look a gift horse in the mouth."
Jay nodded then asked, "Why didn't she remember me? There were times in the lab that she was pretty lucid."
Brian sighed, "I don't know why she doesn't remember. But I took the opportunity to convince her that she has been in a coma since she was fourteen, and that our parents died shortly after that in a car crash."
"But, what if she remembers?"
"Then it'll mean that she is ready to deal with it, and I'll be there to help her. I think she can't remember right now because her conscious has blocked it out. Too traumatic."
"Seems like you thought this through," Jay said, looking at the vial in his hands, "But what about the disposal facility? Wouldn't they notice if they didn't receive a body?"
"I had a friend of mine who has a helicopter help me with that. He broke into the morgue, took a body marked Jane Doe and injected it with the T-virus. After that, he took the body, and flew to intercept the helicopter I was flying," Brian was positively beaming with pride, "Earlier that day I had forged some papers for me to fly the female subject to the facility. We dropped below radar coverage in a deserted part of town then at a prearranged intersection and switched courses, he took my heading, and I took his. We then activated two devices we had installed in the helicopters, they confused the air-traffic controllers into thinking nothing happened."
Jay's head was swimming from his friend's ingenuity, "Damn…well what happened with your friend?"
Brian shrugged, "Think he's with the police now."
"Ah ha!" Jay said so suddenly Brian jumped, "What about Kate? Why ain't they after her?"
Brian's old lopsided smile returned, "She and Faith were so new that they hadn't even been processed by the time I sent them out. I listed them as Dead On Arrival and put some phony names next to their identification numbers."
"So…how did they get setup as well as they are?"
Brian grinned, "I forged papers so Umbrella would think they were new employees."
Jay bowed his head in defeat at not being able to poke a hole in his friend's grand plan.
Down the hall a door opened and a young woman in her early twenty's stepped into the corridor.
"Hey, Jill," Brian called to her, "Having a nice Thanksgiving?"
The woman sighed and ran her fingers through her hair, tucking it behind her left ear, "Could be better. How about you, Brian?"
"Pretty damned good. Chris going to stop by?"
Jill rolled her eyes at the ceiling, "No, he's going to see his sister at her college."
"Still thinks you just want to be friends, huh?" Brian laughed, "I thought that batting your eyes and blushing while you asked him over for Thanksgiving dinner would've told him otherwise."
Jill nodded, a very disappointed look in her eyes.
Lisa opened the front door after overhearing Brian and Jill's conversation and poked her head into the hall, "Want to have dinner with us?"
"Yeah, come on," Brian invited her with a smile, "You shouldn't be alone on Thanksgiving."
Jill lowered her head and shuffled her feet like a little girl being told she was cute, "I don't want to impose."
"Not at all. When we cook, our eyes are bigger than our stomachs," Brian said with a gentle smile, "Where were you going, anyway?"
Jill slowly clasped her hands together behind her back and muttered something, keeping her head angled towards the carpet as though it was something embarrassing to admit.
"What was that?" Lisa asked from the doorway.
"I was…going to the store…to pick up…a…turkey TV dinner," She said the last part so quick it was almost one word.
Lisa's mouth dropped open as though she had seen the most grotesque thing imaginable. She was at Jill's side quicker than Jay thought was possible and was pulling her into their apartment, talking quickly about Thanksgiving tradition and how it was a time of family, friends, and togetherness.
Jill didn't put up much of a fight as she was led into the warm apartment.
As Brian was turning to follow, he caught sight of the amused look on his friend's face, "What?"
"You want her," Jay said with a grin.
Brian's mouth popped open several time, each time sounding like someone was flicking a puddle of water before he was able to hiss, "That's not the point!"
Jay's grin widened, "Not denying it, are you?"
Brian set his jaw, his cheeks glowing like stoplights, "She's in love with Chris. She looks at me like a father, and even though she is sexy, I am still old enough to really be her father. I'm starting to think of her as a surrogate daughter anyway. The same goes for Lisa."
Jay's grin was almost toothy, "Might just add a little something to the relationship."
Brian compressed his lips into a thin line and quiet snorting sounds came from his throat in an attempt to keep from screaming in embarrassment and anger at his friend, and finally settled on a loud, "Shut up!"
He stomped into the apartment with Jay, whom was laughing heartily, at his heels. The rest of the night was spent with the laughter and love that can only be shared by family and close friends as they ate and toasted all they had to be thankful for.
Completed on October 31, 2003