Ashes in the Fall Chapter 22: Old World Underground III, a resident evil fanfic

Note: previous events recollected by Marigold in this chapter can be found in the third story of Paper Tigers (Ruined Gifts).

Racoon City suburb, 7:20am

Idyllic. That summed up the rows on rows of picket-fence-enclosed houses they passed en route to their destination. The houses themselves were new-ish builds, no more than fifteen years old. Their designs called back to the nostalgia of the postwar era, something America had dreamed up, packaged, and exported as the manifestation of their great American Dream.

Umbrella's hands. Umbrella's money. At least half of the residents had high-level positions within the company, in some capacity. The other half were relative innocents - those who'd prospered in the wake of Umbrella's growth and influence within Raccoon City. Realtors, business owners, managers, all beholden and dependent upon the company town.

The only people out at this hour were teens going to early football practice. People walking their dogs. People, enjoying their morning coffee, relishing the early school season when their kids are out of the house again, while getting ready for work.

The neighborhood had been getting quiet lately. Plenty of people had taken vacation taken and not returned. Some, like former resident Kate Everett, had simply disappeared with a suitcase one morning and not returned. Umbrella executives and others wearing their logo visited the homes of each of these disappearances. Those passing by would look away quickly, as if witnessing a meltdown in a grocery store.

At home, the neighbors would whisper about it. They'd wonder. Far too slow, the residents of this sleepy little suburb were beginning to wake up to the nightmare. All too many of them still believed with full hearts that if they kept their heads down and avoided getting caught up in the strangeness slowing taking over the town, they could weather the storm.

None of them would survive the days to come.

Dr. Linda Baldwin, a senior Umbrella researcher at the above-ground research and development centre was neither a deserter nor a casualty as of that morning. Linda's work had kept her at the facility on high alert, mostly keeping to the dorms for security's sake.

That was fine with Linda. Her own house here in Raccoon City had come with a truly weird amount of security protocols and paperwork. Something about inheriting it from the Birkins before they moved to be closer to work. It wasn't even useful security that might protect her in an outbreak; only vestigial things that her lease had required her to leave alone once she took possession.

So when a beat-up Honda pulled up in front of her house, no one noticed.

Nikolai backed into the empty driveway with care. The house had a hedge on either side for privacy. It was an odd anachronism in most suburbs. Here, it fit into the character of the place; promising comfort, so long as no one looked too closely.

"It's quiet," his passenger commented, voice subdued. The BOW was on high alert, eyes flicking rapidly around the tidy street as if waiting for someone to come racing out at them. Her ice-blue irises seemed to be flecked with blood (it had gotten worse since she first entered his car), but otherwise, she didn't seem to be the worse for wear. "They really have no idea, do they."

"Eh, people are bad at dealing with change." Nikolai shrugged. "They probably know something's up. They've been hearing about murders all summer. At this point, they'll believe anything that brings some relief. This neighborhood will probably hold out a bit longer than the rest. So many labcoats, lots of protocols."

Marigold's eyes were unfocused, looking off into the middle difference. "Not all of them. It's already here. In the houses. They've already started to turn." She blinked, took a deep breath, and focused back on Nikolai. "Let's just get this over with. I trust you brought equipment?"

Moments later, Marigold was hefting a case the size of a small coffin to balance it on her hip. Nikolai stared at her, then shook his head. "Right," he muttered, reaching in to grab his field kit from the backseat before closing it up. "That thing's easily a good three hundred pounds or so. I'm going to assume you can manage the stairs."

"Wouldn't be the first time." She jerked her chin towards the door. "No one's inside. I'd be able to hear them. If you know the security system, we should probably move before someone wanders by." She rolled her eyes. "Americans do love their questions and idle chatter."

Nikolai, who did hold that information to the exterior systems thanks to his assignment, simply nodded. "That they do. Let's get to work."

The upstairs security system seemed oddly extensive, but Nikolai seemed to have no problem working around it. Apparently destroying troves of evidence was his specialty. A red light lit up in the interface, and Nikolai glanced her way. "You're quite sure that you took care of the police chief's end of this, yes? From what I know, he's in much too deep for money to turn his head easily."

Marigold's lip curled in distaste. "Even if he's awake - and I doubt that, I really do - he won't pass anything to USS for the next several hours." She noted Nikolai's skeptical look and shrugged. "No, really. I made sure of it." Leaving it at that, **she hefted the case up for a better grip. "Are we good to head downstairs, or is there some sort of deadly laser grid to shut down? This is a bit awkward to carry."

Nikolai chuckled. "That would be a dead giveaway in a residential home. Besides, the smartest bear and the dumbest intern overlap too much for a system like that to be useful." The system beeped, and the light turned green. He grinned and stepped away. "A bit awkward. That thing usually takes two men in fighting shape to move at any decent speed, you realize."

Marigold shrugged again. "It's fine. I don't have the skillset for the lighter work here. Better to get the rest of it inside quickly." She turned and looked around. Whoever owned this place - the mail dropped on the table by the door suggested it was one Dr. Linda Baldwin of Umbrella - had eschewed living room furniture for running hookups for a washer and dryer into that room from the kitchen. Something about it was…odd. Doctor Baldwin seemed to be living as if in a much smaller space than she was. Marigold quickly identified the door to the basement stairs and started to move.

The basement itself was unfinished. A single wall had been drywalled over, with the rest of the large room left as cold concrete. A dusty washer and dryer were set up by the bottom of the stairs next to some boxes labeled OLD CLOTHES, but very little else.

The owner didn't like to come down here, then. That explained the cramped setup upstairs. It also suggested that there was a good chance the owner wouldn't see the damage they were about to inflict on her basement when - if - she made it back here later.

She set the case down and looked to Nikolai. "I don't particularly care if they see the damage once I'm out of the city. Are there cameras in here? Do you have cover to maintain?"

Nikolai laughed, amused. "No. They wouldn't want the paper trail for something this secret. I can break into the system because they contracted the same people to install them at the mid-level facilities around the city." He stepped forward and popped the tabs open on the case.

Inside was a trove. Jackhammer. Several sledgehammers which looked like they would be more appropriate on a medieval battlefield. A few devices looked like they might be explosives. And other things that looked like a safecracker's wet dream. Marigold's brows shot up. "This can't possibly all be for here."

"Can't be too prepared," Nikolai said, observing as Marigold selected a set of work gloves and a sledgehammer with a thick, reinforced handle. He considered, then bent to pluck a bright yellow stud finder from the case. Turning it on, he moved towards the wall, and began moving it along the drywall. every six feet, it beeped.

Then, one at four feet. "There's your door," He muttered and stepped back. Marigold stepped forward and began to swing.

The drywall itself crumpled like wet paper. The concrete behind it took a few more hits, but only because the surface area of the hammer itself was small. The iron safe door behind it, however, gave a loud CLANG that echoed around the room at the hammer made impact. A sizeable dent had been created where she had struck it. Nikolai stilled his mask of casual contempt freezing at the sight. Marigold glanced back at him. The man had virtual dollar signs flashing in his eyes, from the way he was looking at her.

Wesker had briefly explained the purpose of the Monitor program. She clearly hadn't been the last to slip secrets out the door. She turned her back to him now, pulling away the rest of the crumbling concrete to reveal the door. It was styled like a vault, with a four-digit dial lock sitting above a heavy vault door handle, set into the door itself to keep a flat profile. "Ugh. Dramatic, as always. He could have put this in Switzerland, like a normal person."

Nikolai continued to prod. "You seem awfully confident I won't sedate you and turn you in."

Marigold actually chuckled at that before smothering the sound with the back of her hand. "The fact that you're saying that out loud tells me you're not going to do it," she said, actually stopping to turn back to look at him. It was almost cute, how he seemed to think she'd never met a mercenary before. "Did you actually bring any? Sedative, I mean. I can almost guarantee that you didn't bring enough." Her hands twisted on the handle of the sledgehammer, and Nikolai could hear the faint protest of the wood beginning to crack under her grip. "A lot of people have found that out over the years. If you turn me in - even if it were that easy - Umbrella would know I was in your orbit. They'd never trust your hands again."

She smiled then, the professional mask of the vice president she's been once. "Besides. This is really more of an interview with a bonus for participation. Do you really think the money will dry up once we're through here? It's not like Umbrella's going to survive much longer. Not the way things are going."

She let the mask drop, sudden enough to make Nikolai blink. "I do appreciate getting the threats out of the way early. This should be mutually beneficial for both sides." She looked back at the door, idly giving the hammer a one-handed spin as if wielding a baton. "I'm going to end up breaking your equipment if I try to smash through, and it would take too long."

Nikolai snorted, reassuming his affect. Her little speech had given him pause, but he also hadn't been making a serious threat. The only time his heart rate had really spiked was when he had recognized her back in the car. The waters had been tested to his satisfaction. "What good is coming here then? Do we need to use the jackhammer? The neighbors would hear that, if they haven't already heard that last blow."

"No need," Marigold said. "The clients gave us the first layer of the code without even realizing it." She sneered a little, feeling the expression rise and letting it through for once. "Oswell Spencer always did love his riddles."

She set the hammer to lean against the undamaged section of the wall and drew a piece of paper from her jacket pocket. Her memory might have been impeccable, but she hadn't been in the clearest state of mind before leaving the warehouse. For once, she'd written down her work in order to check it over.

number code

WISDOM ⇒ adds to 83

GIFTS ⇒ adds to 61

wisdom IN gifts 6831

- too simple. context...

MIRANDA ⇒ adds to 60

CADOU ⇒ adds to 44

4604

"Smug old bastard," Derek had said over the telephone. "Blathers on about the 'wisdom in gifts' they'd shared over the years with the world."

She made a face. Everything came back to Miranda. To Romania. Back to that horrid day in the mountains, north of Brasov. Spencer would have gotten everything he'd ever wanted had he not sent her on that awful little errand with the expectation that she be neatly removed from the board altogether. Whatever the Mold was, Spencer was terrified enough - or indebted enough - of Miranda's capabilities that he'd left her to her own devices for almost a decade following the incident.

She had used the word in passing while they had warily settled back down to the table, aware of each other's natures. Something about it being a shame Marigold was maid poisonous by the virus, else she might have sent her back with a 'lovely' cadou of her own. The malice in Miranda's voice had alerted Marigold to the fact that that was not something she would have welcomed.

Spencer had clearly feared the woman, but he seemed to hold her -and her gifts -in high regard. Very few outside the original inner circle - the old families - would have put together the first part, and possibly only Spencer himself might have known the second part without help. She'd been just the right balance of trusted and uninformed to be given access to such a secret, from his perspective.

Reaching out, she dialed the in code: 4-6-0-4. Something clicked. Taking hold of the vault door handle, she spun it hard.

It swung open. Behind her, Nikolai barked a disgusted laugh. "That's it?"

Inside lay a small chest, the size of a banker's box. Marigold stooped and flipped the lid open. Bonds, contracts, seals of ownership. Exactly what the Family was terrified of Umbrella using against them. All the leverage Spencer could ever want to bend the government to their will, should money stop being enough to do the job.

And tucked into one side, three small, leather-bound notebooks, each no larger than the size of her hand. Diaries. Marigold swallowed, and plucked the diaries out, slipping them into her bag.

Marigold picked up the banker's box and tucked it under one arm. "It's enough to burn it all down." She replied. She looked back to the case. "I can take the back end if you like. We need to get moving."