Chapter 30

At the same time, in a panic, Rodney, Amelia, and Hannah raised their weapons, but Alice stepped in front of them.

"Drop your weapons. I don't think it's looking for a fight, unless we give them one," she said.

Rodney smirked, aiming his machine gun around Alice. "Then let's give it one."

"You don't understand," Jill said. "It has two primary weapons: a rocket launcher and a gatling gun."

Almost immediatly, Rodney returned his gun to his side. He dropped it on the ground. Hannah and Amelia followed.

"We'd better drop ours, too," Carlos said. Because their weapons had a better chance of backfire, they lowered them, instead. Had the weapons discharged when dropped, Nemesis might have found it a threat.

Nemesis ventured closer to them. It's threat rate dropped as the six of them lowered their weapons, but still, it's eyes was fixed on Alice and Amelia, who still seemed a threat, but compared to himself, it was only minimal. The others were microminiscule.

It detected, for the most part, heat. It's sensors were only infared. It's objection changed: retrieve subjects to a low contamination level.

The six of them watched Nemesis and tried to calculate it's next move. They jumped when it raised it's arm, and pointed at them, a long muzzled weapon.

"A Tazer weapon," Alice whispered. "When it fires, don't run. Remain where you are. Don't rebel, and it won't harm you. It won't be able to change objectives right after, so once it's out of sight, run."

Rodney looked to her, and noticed she had concentrated her voice to him. "Why are you telling me this?" he asked.

Nemesis fired, and, as expected, Amelia and Alice fell to the ground when the electrolye needles pierced their skin, but before losing conciousness, Amelia saw Hannah hit the ground at her side. Why? she asked.

"Amelia!" Rodney shouted. Carlos held him back. It took both Jill and Carlos to hold him back from running to her. They cupped his mouth as well.

Nemesis slowly made his way over to the three fallen bodies, and heaved Hannah and Alice over either shoulder, but he seemed the most interested in Amelia. He picked her up and held her in both arms like a small child, and looked to Rodney before turning, and snarled when he saw the anger in Rodney's eyes. He then turned on them, and fled into the darkness and fog, out of sight.

After a few moments when he could no longer be seen, Jill and Carlos had loosened their grip on Rodney, and he pryed himself from them, running in a full sprint down the stretch of sidewalk. "Amelia!" he shouted as loud as he could. When he tried to again, he fell to his knees as his voice cracked, and felt tears running down his cheeks.

mwmwmw

"Why did it take Hannah?" Jill asked. "Was she some part of an experiment, too, that we don't know about?"

"Who knows?" Carlos replied. They had returned to Bravo Headquarters, and restrained locks on the shutters over every door and window. They heard the five zombies that still lurked around pounding on the shutters a little distance from where they sat; in the lobby. "Do you think a shotgun blast would blow their heads off? They can't bite us without heads," Carlos laughed.

"We'll have to get rid of them," Jill explained. "They'll feed on other people of the city if we don't."

"Nemesis will probably be back and get rid of them. If it's objective changes again, then it will probably be to take out any STARS members, as from before."

"But that means Rodney will still be safe," Jill said, looking to Rodney.

Rodney didn't say anything. He was looking down at the floor. That's why Alice was talking to me, he thought, because she knew I would panic. I could've gotten us killed. He jumped when Jill touched his shoulder.

"You okay?" she asked, concerned.

"I'm fine," he said, holding his head in his hands. "We just... gotta get her back."

"We have to get them all back. Alice can be dangerous under Umbrella's authority, but Amelia will be especially because she's more advanced. I'm still not sure why they took Hannah, though."

"Since she was in on the leak against Umbrella, maybe Nemesis was sent to retrieve her, as well," Carlos explained.

"But Amelia said that it can't hold two objectives at a time."

"Maybe... if it was asked to retrieve anyone with low contamination, they retrieved her for that reason."

"But she wasn't contaminated!"

"Remember when she came into contact with that zombie?" Carlos asked. "She said it didn't bite her, but what if it really did?"

"Damn, we've been walking around with a zombie!" Jill exclaimed.

"What do you mean?" Rodney questioned.

"You didn't know that if you get bitten by one of those things, you become infected as well? One of them?"

"We... would have to kill her?" Rodney said quietly.

"She must've hidden it," Jill said. "I'm guessing she got bit on the stomach or arm, and was hiding it under her jacket."

"We've got to get them back," Rodney repeated.

They returned to the garage, and Carlos started up the SUV. They pulled away from the STARS Headquarters, and followed the streets onto the interstate. In the dark of the night, they sped back to Asheville.