37: The Renegades
Tuesday 29th September 1998
There was a moment of grim silence. Then Lisa started to cry and she buried her face in Jack's chest, her small frame shaking with uncontrollable grief.
"Oh no... no, no, no... this can't be happening!" she wailed. "You can't die, Jack! Not now! Not after all we've been through! Jack, you can't be dying, you can't, you just can't! It's not fair! I don't want you to die!"
Renée and Dr Harlech watched with heavy hearts as Lisa sobbed bitterly over her friend's lifeless body. Twenty-four hours ago neither of them had even heard of Jack and Lisa, but their shared quest for survival had brought them all so close together that watching Jack die and Lisa's heart break was almost more than they could bear.
"This is all my fault," said Dr Harlech wretchedly. "I'm so sorry. I never meant to hurt anybody."
"It's all right, Dr H," said Renée, clearing her throat and blinking a few times. "This isn't your fault. None of this is your fault."
She sniffed, and glanced at her standard military issue watch. The glass had broken at some point after her arrival. It had cracked so extensively that it was difficult to see where the hands were on the dial, but she could just about make out the time underneath the shattered glass. It was 1.35 am. It had been tomorrow for over an hour, and none of them had even noticed.
Renée sighed, and stared down at the floor.
They said this mission was going to be short. It's been almost three days now. I should be in bed, not stuck deep underground in some mouldy concrete rat-hole watching one of my friends turning into a monster...
A single tear was trickling down her cheek. Renée wiped it away quickly before the others noticed, and smacked herself in the face.
Get a grip, Renée. Real mercenaries don't cry.
Renée realised that she'd just had a Christina thought. It was exactly what her comrade would have said, were she here. She sighed again, and stared up at the ceiling.
Guess that makes two of us, Jack…
Having comprehensively soaked Jack's shirt in tears, Lisa raised her head and fixed her gaze on Dr Harlech.
"There has to be a cure," she said desperately. "There just has to be!"
"I'm sorry, Lisa," said Dr Harlech. "The report in the notebook says that there's no cure. The L-Virus was specifically designed to be incurable. Janice was wasting her time."
"But there must be something we can do!" said Lisa.
Dr Harlech leaned forward and took Lisa gently by the shoulders.
"The only thing you can do for Jack is to kill him before the virus takes him," she told her. "If you don't, then he'll mutate into another monster, just like the one we pushed out of the window."
"I can't kill him," whispered Lisa, tears still streaming down her face.
"I know you care about him, Lisa, but you have to," said Dr Harlech.
"I can't do it," Lisa repeated. "I can't kill him."
"Do you want me to do it, Lisa?" offered Renée. "I can if you want. One shot in the back of the neck, I guarantee he won't feel a thing - "
"No!" shrieked Lisa, so suddenly that Dr Harlech and Renée jumped. "Don't you dare! If either of you hurt him, I swear I'll - I'll kill you both!"
"But Lisa, he's dying anyway!" protested Renée. "Look, I don't want him to die any more than you do, but Dr Harlech's right - if you don't kill him now, he'll turn into a monster and then he'll kill us all!"
"I don't care what he's turning into! I can't shoot my best friend!" yelled Lisa.
"Remember what happened to Marco - " began Renée.
"What happened to Marco was different! He wanted to be shot rather than turn into a zombie, and Christina made sure he got his wish! I didn't make that choice for him, and I never would have! It's not our place to decide who lives and who dies!"
"L-Lise?"
Lisa jumped at the sound of Jack's voice. She looked down at Jack and saw his eyelids flutter open. He tried to raise his head, but gave up and let his head fall back onto the backpack beneath him.
"Hey, Jack," said Lisa, doing her best to smile.
"Where we be? Did we escape yet?" said Jack, looking around as best he could.
"No. We're in an old bomb shelter underneath the labs," Lisa told him. "We're safe here. Amber's gone to look for a way out."
"We - we still gonna get outta here, right?" said Jack weakly.
"Yes, we are," said Lisa, trying hard not to cry again. "We're going to escape. All of us are going to escape."
"I ain't so sure 'bout that, Lise," said Jack. "I dunt think the vaccine worked on me…"
"No, Jack, the vaccine worked fine. The problem is, you don't have the T-Virus," said Lisa, biting down on her lip. "The monster that infected you was created by the L-Virus. It's the L-Virus that's making you sick. And Dr H says there isn't a cure. She says you're going to die and that I should kill you before you turn into a monster - but I'm not going to!"
"Lise," said Jack hoarsely. "Dunt. Just kill me."
"No!"
"I dunt wanna turn into a monster. I dunt want to end up like that thing."
"You're not going to, Jack!" said Lisa fiercely. "I won't let you! You're going to be all right, you're going to beat this virus, and - and get better, and we're going to find my parents, and w-we'll all escape together, and - and then everything will be okay again!"
"No," said Jack. "I know I gonna die. No point tryin' to tell me otherwise. But Lise, there be somethin' I wanna tell you. I know I shoulda told you a long time ago, an' I be sorry I dint, but b'fore - b'fore I die, I want you to know it."
And suddenly he wasn't scared any more. He knew it was too late to say it now, but nevertheless he felt that it needed to be said.
"I love you, Lise," he said.
Tears poured down Lisa's cheeks. Hearing him saying it had made her realise, at long last, that she felt the same. Only now, when she was about to lose him forever, had she discovered how much she needed him. And it was far too late.
"I love you too, Jack!" she sobbed. "I wish I'd told you before… I'm so sorry…"
"Dunt worry, Lise. I know now. I guess I can die happy," said Jack, managing a weak smile.
Ignoring the excruciating pain in his arm, he raised his hand and moved some hair out of Lisa's eyes.
"You be beautiful, Lise. You know that, dunt you?" he said, stroking her cheek.
Lisa leaned down until her mouth was just level with his, and she was about to kiss him when Dr Harlech grabbed her by the scruff of her neck and pulled her away.
"Don't!" she cried. "Kiss him and you'll catch it too! The viruses can be transferred by saliva - that's why anybody bitten by a zombie gets infected!"
"I don't care!" said Lisa tearfully. "I don't want to live if he dies!"
"Lise, no," protested Jack. "You gotta get outta here! I may be done for but you can still be okay. Dunt die 'cause of me. I want you to live."
"We made a promise, Jack," said Lisa, clutching Jack's hand tightly. "Where you go, I go. You live, I live. You die - I die too. We escape together or not at all."
"But Lise - "
"But nothing. A promise is a promise. Let's just hope I don't have to keep it," said Lisa, stroking Jack's forehead. His skin was cold and clammy to the touch, and his hair was damp with sweat. "Now get some rest, Jack. And don't give up. Don't let this virus beat you. Keep fighting it. You can beat it, I know you can."
"'kay," said Jack weakly, and closed his eyes again. Moments later, he fell into a troubled sleep.
"Lisa - " began Dr Harlech.
"I don't care what you two say, I am not going to kill him," said Lisa shortly, glaring at the two women as she stroked Jack's forehead. "And I'm not going to sit here and watch him die. We've been through too much together for me to give up on him now."
She sat by Jack's side, listening to his ragged, shallow breaths and the sound of her own heartbeat, and tried to remember everything that she'd learned about the outbreak, the viruses, the monsters and the laboratories. She began to wish that she'd asked to look after Amber's briefcase. If she had, she could have gone through all the paperwork that they'd found, and maybe she could have found a solution to this problem.
Designed to be incurable... no vaccine... Janice...
Wait - Janice!
"Dr Harlech?" said Lisa. "What did you mean when you said Janice was wasting her time?""When I read the section on the L-Virus in this notebook, it said that Janice Redmond was allegedly trying to develop a vaccine for it," said Dr Harlech. "But even if it was true and she was trying to do such a thing, it wouldn't have worked - if the L-Virus was engineered to be incurable, then no vaccine on earth could possibly affect it. Why do you ask?"
She saw the glimmerings of an idea in Lisa's eyes, and instantly she knew what Lisa was thinking.
"Oh, no. No you don't," she warned. "Don't even think about it. You are not going up there all by yourself to look for a nonexistent cure. Absolutely not. You are staying here with us until Amber gets back."
"No, I'm not," said Lisa sharply.
"Oh yes you are, young lady," said Dr Harlech sternly. "You're going to stay right here and do as you're told or - "
She stopped. She didn't really have much experience in dealing with anyone younger than twenty - most of the children and teenagers she had met had been so ill that behavioural problems had not been an issue. She wasn't really sure what to do in situations like these, although some sort of discipline was clearly in order. She tried to think of a threat dire enough to make the girl do as she was told.
"Or I'll tell Amber," she finished. "And then you'll be in big trouble!"
This did not have the desired effect.
"Okay," said Lisa, with a shrug. "Go right ahead. But first you'll have to go down into that dark, creepy tunnel to find her and bring her back here. And since one of you has to stay and look after Jack, there'll be nobody to go after me if I decide to make a run for it while you're gone. Besides, what's Amber going to do about it?"
Dr Harlech grimaced; she knew that Lisa was right. It was embarrassing to be outwitted by someone who was still in high school.
"Look, Dr H, you might as well accept that I am going up there, whether you like it or not," said Lisa. "Now please tell me where I'm supposed to be going and what I'm looking for."
Dr Harlech was about to protest, but then she saw the younger girl's expression, and relented.
"If there was such a thing as a vaccine, or even the beginnings of some vaccine research that we could work with, then they would probably be in Dr Redmond's office and private laboratory, right at the end of the corridor upstairs," she said. "Her rooms are password protected, but they gave the lab to her assistant after the… incident. Her assistant was a friend of mine and he was kind enough to pass on the entry codes to me so I could use her office if I needed a quiet place to write lab reports. I never did, but I still have the codes."
"The - the incident?" said Lisa.
"You don't want to know," said Dr Harlech abruptly. "Really. Now, the door code is 68578. If you need to check her computer, her username is RedJanice and I think her password is still Renegade. I think that's everything you need to know. Can you remember all that?"
Lisa nodded.
"Good. Now you have to work out how you're going to get past those zombies on your own. You can't just rush in and assume everything will work out the way you want it to. You need a plan if you're going to last more than ten minutes on your own," said Renée.
"I know," said Lisa.
"Renée, perhaps you should go with her," Dr Harlech prompted. "It's not safe for Lisa to go on her own."
"No, I can't. I have to stay here and guard you both," said Renée.
"Then I'll go with her," said Dr Harlech.
"No, Dr H, you need to stay here and look after Jack," said Lisa. "He needs you more than I do right now."
"But you can't do this alone, Lisa," said Dr Harlech. "You saw how many zombies were out there, and all you have is a handgun. How are you going to take them on all by yourself?"
Renée thought for a moment.
"Here, take this," she said, shrugging off the strap that suspended her assault rifle from her shoulder. She picked up the rifle and presented it to Lisa, who took it carefully. "You know how to use one of these things?"
Lisa shook her head vigorously.
"Jeez, what do they teach you kids in school these days?" said Renée disapprovingly. "Not survival skills, that's for sure. When I was a kid, everybody in school was taught what to do in case of an emergency, and that wasn't very long ago, either."
"Same here. Personally, I blame it on the lack of nuclear testing," said Dr Harlech. "Not that ducking and covering would have made the slightest bit of difference, mind you. We'd all have been vaporised anyway if someone had really dropped a nuke on us. Thank God for Reagan and the fall of Communism, that's all I can say."
"Nothing like the latter half of the Cold War to put some backbone into America's children," agreed Renée. "Now, Lisa, I'd better teach you how to use this thing."
Lisa nodded.
"Right," said Renée firmly. "This is an AK-47. Nice Russian-made rifle. It's pretty old, and not standard-issue any more; most of our unit uses M4-A1s, but Christina and I were at the back of the queue when they were dishing out the weapons at the start of the mission, and they were a little short on M4-A1s, so we ended up with these. It's no real hardship, though - these are the rifles we first trained with, so we're both used to them. Christina actually prefers these to the newer models, and who are we to argue with a cold-blooded killing-machine… anyway, you put your hands here and here, and then…"
Lisa listened intently as Renée explained how the rifle worked. The mercenary gave the younger girl a quick demonstration, then handed it back to her with a grin.
"Got that?"
Lisa managed a weak smile.
"Excellent. Now remember what I said - keep it on manual, and fire short, sharp bursts to stop the barrel from overheating," said Renée. "Oh, and you'll probably need this, too…"
She took a spare ammunition clip from her utility belt and gave it to Lisa, who stuffed it into her pocket as best she could.
"Thanks, Renée," she said gratefully.
"No problem. Good luck, kiddo," said Renée, ruffling the younger girl's hair affectionately.
Lisa nodded, and turned towards the ladder. She took hold of the rungs and had just started climbing when Dr Harlech called out:
"Lisa? If Jack starts to change while you're gone - ?"
The question was left hanging in the air. Lisa looked at the two women's anxious, expectant faces, and sighed.
"Then do what you have to," she said. "But only if you have to."
They nodded in agreement.
"Please take care of Jack for me."
"We will, Lisa," Dr Harlech assured her.
"Right," said Lisa, and her expression suddenly changed from one of hopeless despair to one of grim determination. "Here we go…"
She climbed up the ladder, feeling Renée's assault rifle bouncing gently against her hip as she moved. Her heart was filled once more with a flicker of hope. Somewhere up there was a vaccine, and she intended to find it.
Renée and Dr Harlech watched her climb up, privately wondering all the while if this would be the last time they saw Lisa alive. They saw her push open the metal hatch with a certain degree of difficulty, and then she crawled up through the opening and out of their line of sight. The hatch slammed back down again with the terrible finality of a gunshot, and then she was gone.
xxxxxxxxxx
So they'd made it this far. Interesting. Of course, they wouldn't get much further.
The boy was dying. The girl would probably be dead soon; she was the type of person who relied on other people to look after them because they were too weak to look after themselves. Once he was dead, the odds that she would want to join him were high. Her parents couldn't possibly have survived the outbreak, and with her beloved friend gone, she would have no reason to carry on living.
The cop was feeble and cowardly, and would probably die too. There were giant spiders around, so she would almost certainly go to pieces and abandon the group as soon as she ran into them. And the scientist was truly pathetic; she was even less able to take care of herself than the cop. It was a marvel that she had survived for even this long.
And then there was the young mercenary - the blithe, irreverent and absurdly juvenile soldier of fortune who owed her good fortune entirely to her colleagues and the fact that she had an assault rifle. Had she been equipped solely with a handgun and a survival knife at the start of her mission, she would be dead by now.
However, she alone among the group would survive to tell her tale. The others were as good as dead; it was barely worth keeping an eye on them. It was quite evident that none of them were going to make it out of here, alive or otherwise.
xxxxxxxxxx
Alone for the first time since her birthday party, Lisa looked around. Her head turned in sharp, quick movements as she checked the corridor, her eyes constantly darting from side to side.
The zombies were nowhere in sight. This wasn't reassuring. It just meant that they'd moved off again, possibly looking for a new source of food now that their old quarry had vanished beneath the floor. They were still around somewhere; she knew it wasn't a case of if she ran into them again but when.
Somehow the corridor seemed far more oppressive than when she and the others had been surrounded by the undead. There was a palpable sense of menace in the air – she'd noticed it before, but she'd been in a group and this had provided some reassurance. Now, however, there was nobody to look out for her. She was on her own.
She was out of her mind.
But she couldn't back out now. Jack was clinging onto his life by his fingertips and she was his only hope for survival. If she failed, he would die. It was as simple as that. He needed her, now more than ever, and she couldn't let him down. And if that meant going into these dark, zombie-filled corridors alone in search of a cure that might not even exist, then that was what she had to do.
Lisa took a very deep breath, stepped forward - and was suddenly seized by panic.
Zombies!
She could see four of them, heading her way; stumbling, moaning, grisly specimens of what had once been humanity, dressed in blood-spattered lab coats, their pale and rotting faces smeared with scarlet.
"Oh, God, oh, God… I can't do this," she whimpered. "Not on my own!"
And then she remembered the words that Jack had told her at the beginning of their quest to escape Raccoon City alive:
You keep thinkin' like that, Lise, you never gonna survive. You wanna get outta town alive? You gotta be more ruthless. You be a real sweet girl, but you gotta learn how to be cold-hearted so you can escape.
The words seemed to have been spoken a lifetime ago, but they had lost none of their impact. Remembering them made Lisa suddenly feel a little stronger, and more determined than ever to succeed in her mission.
What am I talking about? Of course I can do this, she thought. I can survive on my own. I smacked a zombie in the head with a table-leg so hard, I took its head clean off. If I can take out a zombie with a table-leg, then I can take out four with an assault rifle. I can do this...
She looked down at the rifle she was carrying. It may have been old, but she'd seen it in action and she knew that in expert hands, it was utterly lethal; back in the cemetery it had cut down whole packs of zombies in a few seconds flat. It was certainly more than capable of taking out four zombies at a fair distance.
But as she prepared to aim at the incoming zombies, a tiny flicker of doubt made itself known once again. These people had once been human. Did any spark of humanity still reside somewhere inside those putrefying corpses? If so, would killing these things make her a murderer?
They're murderers anyway. They made these viruses and they didn't care who died. They killed Beatrice Wrigley. They killed my classmates. They killed Charlotte. They killed Aunt Rosa. They killed Marco, and Alena, and the Street Rats. And now they're even taking Jack away from me.
There was no humanity in them. There probably never had been. And now there was nothing left of the people they had once been except bodies that refused to admit they were dead.
Anger surged through her body and exploded outwards in a scream and a volley of lead. The bullets tore through decomposing flesh, cutting the creatures to ribbons. Congealed gore sprayed across the walls and floor like paint thrown from a distance.
You took my home, you destroyed my town, you killed my friends, you ruined my LIFE!
The last of the zombies fell to the ground in a crumpled, bloody heap. Lisa let go of the trigger, and the bullets abruptly stopped flowing from the barrel of the gun.
Panting, she lowered the assault rifle and examined her work. All four zombies lay twitching on the ground as blood pooled beneath them. They weren't getting up again, that was for sure.
Five seconds. That was all it had taken her to utterly annihilate the zombie quartet. Five seconds of noise, chaos and bullets. Seeing once-living human beings shredded by bullets in the cemetery had been traumatic, but this time it was different; she felt oddly exhilarated.
Now I know why Renée and Christina like being mercenaries. I feel like I could take on the whole world with one of these things, thought Lisa.
She shook herself. Enough self-congratulation for now. She may have triumphed on this occasion, but this was a mere skirmish in the long, hard fight for survival. There would almost certainly be much worse to come.
xxxxxxxxxx
"I spy… with my little eye… something beginning with M."
"Mould," said Dr Harlech, without much enthusiasm.
"Yep. Your turn," said Renée.
"Okay. I spy… with my little eye… something beginning with W," said the scientist, looking around. It was all for show, of course. There was very little to look around at down here in this near-featureless bunker.
"Wall," said Renée, rolling her eyes. "Like there's anything else beginning with W."
"Yes, well, we've had B for bunker, D for door, G for grenade, H for hatch, L for ladder, N - and "nothing" is cheating - R - and you can't use your own name - S for "stuff", which is dubious at best, T for "two people bored out of their skulls", U for "you suggested this game so stop complaining", and Y for "why the hell are we playing this stupid game anyway"," said Dr Harlech, a touch irritably. "We're running out of letters, not to mention stuff to look at. Not that that's terribly difficult down here."
She sighed.
"Anyway, it's your turn," she said wearily.
Renée nodded.
"Uh… I spy… with my little eye… something beginning with F."
"Floor."
"How'd you guess?"
"Secret voodoo mind powers."
"Really?"
"No."
"Oh. Your turn."
"I spy… with my little eye… something beginning with C."
"Concrete."
"Nope."
"At last, some semblance of challenge. Cement?"
"Nope."
"Ceiling?"
"Nope."
"Corpse?"
They glanced guiltily at Jack, who was still sleeping the light and troubled sleep of the mortally wounded.
"Close enough," said Dr Harlech.
"That's not funny."
"Who's laughing? Besides, you said it first."
"Good point."
They stared glumly at the opposite wall.
"I hope she comes back soon," said Dr Harlech.
"Who, Amber or Lisa?" said Renée.
"Definitely Lisa. If Amber comes back and finds out we've let Lisa go up there all alone, she's not going to be terribly happy, is she? Blast the girl… why do I always have to be the one who gets it in the neck for what other people do?"
"I guess it's your role in life."
"Thanks. That makes me feel a lot better."
A gap opened up in the conversation. Not wishing to prolong the feeling of awkwardness, Renée tried to think of something to say.
"I hope she comes back soon too," was all she could come up with. "Jack's not holding up well. If she doesn't come up with something fast, then he's done for."
"He's done for anyway, Renée," said Dr Harlech flatly. "She won't find anything up there. There's nothing to find. There isn't any way of curing the L-Virus. It said so right there in those notes."
"Well, whatever she does, she doesn't have much time to do it in," said Renée. "She'd better get her running shoes on and hope to hell she finds something up there."
Dr Harlech nodded, and they let the conversation come to its natural end. They stared at the opposite wall for a while, and then allowed their gazes to be drawn to Jack.
The colour in his cheeks seemed to be fading even as they watched him. His breathing was laboured, and from the look on his face he was in a great deal of pain. A light touch on the forehead confirmed that his skin was still cold and moist with sweat. His pulse took some finding; it was so weak as to be almost undetectable.
"He's fading fast," said Dr Harlech. "I don't think he has long left."
Renée looked even more downcast than before.
"Poor kid. He doesn't deserve to go like this," she said.
"I know," said Dr Harlech. "He's a good kid, and if I thought there was anything I could do to save him, then I'd run right up there and help Lisa look for a cure. But there's nothing."
"There's still hope," said Renée. "There's always hope."
"Then let's hope I'm wrong," said Dr Harlech. "Let's hope she finds something."
She turned her face up towards the ceiling and closed her eyes.
"Hurry, Lisa," she murmured. "You don't have much time…"
xxxxxxxxxx
Still breathing heavily from the zombie incident, Lisa progressed at a sort of brisk trot, taking care to stay away from the walls and any dark shadows.
Wielding an assault rifle had chased away her nerves for a little while, but underneath the thin veneer of newfound confidence, she was still terrified. The rifle was pretty much the only thing that was keeping her fear in check.
Deadly weapon or not, she was still on her own. She could still fail. She could still die.
Propelled by barely-controlled panic and the fear of failure, Lisa hurried onwards at her in-between pace - too scared to linger too long in any one spot, but too scared to break into a dead run for fear of what she might run into.
She wanted to scream to let out all this choked-up dread, but she didn't dare make a sound. She knew all too well now that the silence, horrifying though it was, was her friend. She didn't want to attract any unwanted attention by making too much noise.
Nevertheless, she had to do something to release the nervous tension or she'd explode.
Every now and then, a thought or memory completely unrelated to what she was doing would pop into her head. Sometimes it was a nice thought, but more often than not it was something she would really rather not have remembered.
In this case, it was her parents' record collection - a cringe-making assortment of karaoke favourites from decades past. It included "Killing Me Softly", "How Deep Is Your Love", "Stand By Your Man", "It's Not Unusual" and "Dancing Queen". She'd hated every single one, with the possible exception of Tom Jones, but now Abba and the BeeGees seemed like heavenly choirs compared to this awful, awful silence.
She tried very not to hard to think about "Killing Me Softly". It had been bad enough hearing her parents singing along to it late one night after one too many bottles of wine, but in the context of a creepy lab complex full of zombies and other unknown horrors, any song entitled "Killing Me Softly" did not even bear thinking about.
And then, of course… hah. How ironic that she should think of that one.
Her mouth turned up at the corners. It had been her mother's favourite, and its endless repetition during Lisa's childhood had etched it deeply into her brain. She knew every word, every note off by heart. Though she didn't particularly like it, and never had, her mouth and brain automatically sought refuge in the familiar song.
She started humming "I Will Survive" as she half-walked, half-ran, but the notes suddenly died in her throat as she saw what was waiting for her at the far end of the corridor.
It was crouching over something that looked rather like a dead zombie. Every couple of seconds there was an unpleasant squelch and a crunching sound that turned Lisa's stomach. Its back was turned, but she didn't need to be facing it to know what it was.
Click. Click. Click. Hisssss...
It turned round to face her, and her suspicions were confirmed - it was the same kind of creature that had been in the sewers, and in the room where Almond and her mercenary friend had died. Same quadrupedal body that was all sinew and bones. Same head, with part of the skull missing and a greyish, wrinkled brain in plain sight. Same glazed white eyes, same sharp little teeth -
The same impossibly long tongue shooting out of its mouth -
Lisa tried to pull the trigger but it was already too late; the rifle was wrenched out of her grasp and thrown aside. She saw it sailing through the air like a black shiny bird and watched it for a moment, until she finally came to her senses and dived after it.
But even as she reached out to catch the assault rifle, she felt the monster's whip-like tongue lash out and wrap around her leg, pulling her back down. She cried out in pain as her head struck the corridor wall, and then again as she hit the floor face-first, and yelled a third time in horror and dismay as she saw the rifle clatter to the floor, just inches from her fingertips.
"No!"
Lisa felt herself being dragged slowly backwards, and it brought to mind the time that the leech zombie had tried to do exactly the same thing. On that occasion, Jack and Amber had come to her rescue, but this time there was nobody to help her. If she didn't find a way out of this predicament herself, then this would be the end of Lisa Angela Hartley, aged sixteen, formerly of this parish.
And she wasn't about to let that happen. Not when her assailant was a monster much stupider than she was.
"No, you don't!" she snarled, and with a near-superhuman effort she twisted her whole body round so that she was lying on her back and could see the creature. Its tongue, she could see now, was wrapped very tightly around her calf. It wasn't about to let go any time soon.
That suited her just fine.
Lisa moved the leg that the "Licker" - as she'd come to think of the monster - had ensnared, and forced it towards the wall, pressing her foot against the shiny metallic surface. The Licker, determined not to let go, inched forward slightly so that she couldn't escape from its grasp…
Wham!
Lisa's other foot slammed into the wall, pinning the Licker's tongue to it, and the Licker shrieked in pain. Its concentration was broken and its grip loosened slightly, just enough for her to pull her foot free.
She took advantage of the situation by kicking the Licker in the head, which bought her just enough time to reach for her gun. Armed once more, she shot the creature twice between the eyes.
As the Licker reeled backwards, screeching and clawing desperately at its tongue as it tried to free itself, Lisa swapped her gun from her right hand to her left. With her right arm, she reached out for the rifle behind her. Every muscle strained as she tried to grab hold of it, but it was still just out of her reach.
Breathing slowly, Lisa let her foot come away from the wall, releasing the Licker's tongue. At the same instant, she shot it once more, using up her last bullet. It screamed again, stumbling backwards -
And she threw herself in the direction of the rifle, grabbed it, and fired it at her tormentor.
When the thunder of gunfire and its echoes had finally died away, Lisa chanced a look at the Licker. It was, very definitely, dead. What remained of its bullet-ridden body was twitching violently, and blood was spilling out onto the floor to form a grisly puddle underneath it.
Lisa cautiously felt her face, not fully believing what had just happened to her. She couldn't really have survived that, could she? But yes, she was alive and well and in one piece, and she laughed out loud with the sheer relief of having survived.
"I don't believe it! I'm still alive…!"
And this time nobody else had saved her. The assault rifle hadn't saved her life, either. She'd saved herself. She felt strangely proud of that.
"Thanks again, God," she said aloud, clasping her hands and raising her eyes to the ceiling. "I owe you another one, even though you still owe me big time for getting me into this mess in the first place. But if you can get us out of here alive and well, I'm more than happy to call it quits, and I'll be a really, really good person for the rest of my life."
She stopped, and shook her head.
"No, no, wait, what am I saying? You don't owe me anything. I don't even go to church. But God, if you can save me and Jack and the others, then I promise I'll start going. It's the least I can do. I'm really sorry for anything I've done to deserve being chased by monsters; I didn't know I'd been that bad. I'm sorry, I really am. Please forgive me, and please, please let me find a way to save Jack…"
There was no answer, of course; she hadn't been expecting one. Nevertheless, she felt a little different inside, and she hoped that this meant that God had heard her prayer. Well, it was more of a petition than a prayer, really, but she hoped God had heard it anyway.
"Thank you," she added hastily. "Amen."
Discovering that you were in a town full of things that wanted to eat you had two effects on the half-heartedly religious. It either made you lose whatever faith you might have had, or it made you realise that you'd never placed enough importance on religion and that now was a good time to start.
In Lisa's case, it had been the latter. Though she'd always believed in God, she hadn't been particularly religious and had only gone to church for christenings, marriages and the occasional funeral. She'd always felt a vague sense of guilt about this, but had never put aside any time to do anything about it. Sometime after seeing her first zombie, though, she'd wondered why she'd ever put homework higher on her list of priorities than fervent religious belief.
But that was going to change, she told herself. She'd never sideline faith again, because if you didn't have faith in something, then what was the point of even being alive?
Wait, wait, wait. What was she doing? She didn't have time for philosophy! Jack was dying and he needed her help, and she was standing here trying to find religion? Heaven could wait a little while longer. And if its occupants could help her out until then, she thought, so much the better.
Beyond the Licker's convulsing corpse was one final door, right at the very end of the corridor. Her heart began to beat faster. Could this be it?
Lisa rushed towards it and she silently rejoiced as she read the nameplate by the door:
DR JANICE REDMOND & Dr Adrian Hewlett (Asst.)
As promised, there was a keypad beside the door, just below the nameplate. Lisa raised her hand slowly as she tried to recall the entry code.
"Oh yeah… 68578..."
Her fingers darted across the keypad, punching in the numbers that Dr Harlech had told her. She was rewarded with a click, and the door opened before her to reveal an office shrouded in darkness. But when she stepped inside, the lights turned on automatically and the curtain of blackness was lifted.
"Unnngh…"
She really wished that the curtain of blackness had stayed right where it was. Sitting at the desk was a zombie. In life he had been a very young man, perhaps not much older than her. He'd been gangly and rather awkward-looking, with messy brown hair, spectacles that were now broken, and a face that had been scarred by the ravages of teenage acne. Now, of course, acne was the least of his troubles. He certainly wouldn't be worrying about it any more.
He got up clumsily, knocking over the chair, and started to lurch towards her. Lisa was ready for this, and she aimed the rifle carefully at the zombie's chest.
"Ah," she said, through gritted teeth. "You must be Dr Hewlett…"
She pulled the trigger and held it down until the zombie keeled over with a very final groan and a head and torso full of bullets. When she was satisfied that the zombie really was dead, she lowered the rifle.
"Sorry about that," she said to the late Dr Hewlett. "It's nothing personal. But a fish has to swim, and a girl has to avoid getting eaten by zombies. And when it comes down to it, you are already dead."
And that was that. Lisa looked around the room for the first time, wondering where the vaccine research would be kept.
The office was frighteningly tidy. Dr Redmond and her assistant had obviously not been fans of the age-old filing method of "put it somewhere and hope you can still find it in two weeks' time", and had stored their paperwork carefully in the appropriate places.
Damn. It would have been so much easier if they'd left things lying around. She had no idea where they could have filed this stuff; if it even existed at all, that is. It would be so much easier just to give up and -
And leave Jack to die in a concrete tomb miles underground.
That thought alone spurred Lisa into action once again. She grabbed the handles of a filing cabinet and pulled the drawers open, snatching handfuls of paper from the bottom drawer and sorting through them with ever-increasing haste and desperation.
"Please be here, please be here, please be here," she muttered.
Then she saw that the drawer she was searching was marked as "Bacterial/Viral Replication Studies (1991-1994)". No good searching there. She shoved the mass of papers roughly back into the drawer and pushed it shut, before moving down to the next drawer.
This one was marked "Epidemic Case Studies (1992-1997)". Lisa didn't expect to find anything, but looked anyway, just in case. As she'd anticipated, there was nothing there but reports on past epidemics.
The drawer below it was labelled "Vaccine Development Reports (1996-1997)", which initially looked promising until she discovered that these were concerned with vaccines for ordinary illnesses.
The final drawer was called "Research Archive - Medical Journals (1995-present)". There was nothing inside but stacks of old medical journals and some photocopies from other medical journals.
There was another filing cabinet, but as Lisa wrenched open the drawers in her frantic hunt for answers, she discovered that it was almost entirely empty.
"Damn it!" she yelled, and slammed the drawer shut in frustration. "Where is it?"
She checked the desk drawers as fast as she could, painfully aware of how the seconds were slipping away, aware that every wasted second brought Jack closer to death. She redoubled her efforts - if that was even possible - and burrowed through neat stacks of research papers about viruses and genetic engineering.
Nothing. Now flustered, furious and not a little frightened, Lisa practically threw herself into the chair, pulled it up to the desk and placed her hands on the keyboard of the slightly dusty computer sitting on one side of the desk.
She extended one finger to turn the computer and the monitor on, and fidgeted nervously as the machine whirred into life and went through its start-up procedures. Her eyes narrowed at the sight of the Umbrella logo flashing across the screen, but this was soon forgotten when the login screen appeared.
PLEASE ENTER USERNAME AND PASSWORD
Lisa thought for a moment, then began to type.
Username: RedJanice
Password: --------
Renegade. It was an oddly appropriate password for someone who was making a vaccine for the very thing that she'd helped to create. Lisa wondered why she'd done it. Professional curiosity? Compassion? Or because somebody didn't want her to?
The computer desktop appeared, and Lisa was startled to see how empty it looked. There were a few program icons and two folders, one named "Janice's Folder Of Doom" and the other "Adrian's Folder Of No Return".
Had she not been so intent on completing a mercy mission of the utmost urgency, Lisa would probably have smiled at this. She didn't smile. Instead she clicked on "Adrian's Folder Of No Return" and waited for it to open.
There was nothing there; at least, nothing that was of any use to her. Aside from a few minor lab reports, Dr Hewlett apparently hadn't used the computer much, except for downloading pictures of bikini girls and several abortive attempts to write a best-selling novel. Lisa tried "Janice's Folder Of Doom".
There were twenty different text files in this folder. Lisa checked each one, her frown deepening every time she came up with no information on vaccines or cures for the L-Virus. When the twentieth file proved useless, Lisa put her head in her hands. The glare from the computer screen was hurting her eyes, she had a headache, she was exhausted from running, fighting, crying and trying to stay awake long after her usual bedtime - the clock on the computer taskbar was showing 2.11 am - and on top of all that, the friend she hadn't known she loved was dying and there was nothing she could do about it.
The words on the screen were still there when she looked up, burning pathways into her brain. It all related to the L-Project in some way. Amber would have been delighted to find stuff like this, although it was no use to her.
Something beeped on the computer, shaking Lisa out of her torpor.
Janice has 1 new e-mail message!
Read now? Y/N
Lisa hastily clicked "Yes", hoping that it might be something useful, and this brought up an e-mail program. It had apparently been made by Umbrella as part of the company's operating system; the colour scheme was grey, black, red and white, and the Umbrella logo was emblazoned on the top left corner of the window.The inbox icon was flashing, indicating that there were unread messages inside. Lisa clicked on it, and saw a vast sea of e-mails; these were obviously from Janice's colleagues, as they all had the suffix attached to their e-mail addresses.
All except the latest one. This was a different address, with a suffix that made Lisa's eyes open wide. It appeared to be from some sort of government agency. Curiosity may have killed the cat, but it couldn't stop Lisa from opening the e-mail.Sender: "Ellison K. White" (agentwhite(a)scib. com)
Recipient: "Dr Janice Redmond" (redjanice(a)umbrellamail. com); "Dr Adrian Hewlett" (adeymoi(a)umbrellamail. com)
The department is investigating your earlier claims but we need more evidence so that a further investigation can be conducted. It is vital that you contact us as soon as possible. Furthermore, your latest report was due in three days ago but we haven't heard from either of you since the 11th. Please report to us immediately.
Agent Ellison K. White,
Special Criminal Investigations Bureau
"That's odd," said Lisa, frowning again. "Why are Umbrella scientists talking to government agents?"
One of the buttons displayed above the e-mail caught her eye, and Lisa smiled to herself. What a wonderful idea. Amber would probably have a field day over something like this, if only she could examine it at leisure. She didn't know Amber's e-mail address, true, but that wasn't necessarily a problem…
Lisa clicked "Forward" and typed in an e-mail address:
uptowngirl(a)raccoonmail. com
However, she hesitated before she could click "Send". Why stop there? Why not forward all of these messages to herself, so she could show them to Amber if they ever got out of here alive?
Lisa closed the e-mail window, went back to the inbox and selected all of the e-mails with one click of the mouse button, then forwarded every single one to her own address. After a few thoughtful seconds, she composed a new e-mail and carefully attached every single one of the text files in Janice's folder, before sending it to herself.
Brilliant. More evidence for the good guys. But she still hadn't found what she was looking for.
Scowling darkly, she logged out of Janice's account and shut down the computer. She was so angry. Why the hell hadn't they been thoughtful enough to put that research somewhere where she could find it? It was no use to her if she couldn't find it. Now Jack was going to die, and all because the key to his salvation had been carefully stashed away by a pair of neat freaks.
With a scream of rage, Lisa hurled herself at the bookcase on the other side of the office and yanked the weighty medical books and scientific manuals off the shelves, hurling them across the room.
"You inconsiderate bastards!"
A particularly hefty tome hit one of the filing cabinets, leaving a massive dent in the side.
"You stupid obsessive neat freaks!"
Another book, the size of a telephone directory and twice as boring, hit the computer screen and knocked the whole thing off the desk in a shower of sparks.
"I'm going to - "
Lisa's hand closed over a book much, much smaller than any of the others. It was such a surprise to find a tiny book amongst all these huge volumes that she stopped mid-yell, and opened it up. The title page was handwritten very neatly in a pleasant, slightly italicised script:
Janice Redmond - Diary 1998
Stunned, Lisa turned the pages. In the back of her mind was the vague hope that perhaps the little leather-bound book might hold some kind of clue as to where the vaccine research was.
March 6th, 1998
We've been working undercover here at Umbrella's Raccoon City branch headquarters for nearly ten years now, and we still don't have any concrete evidence of any wrongdoings, aside from some rumours and a couple of strange coincidences. The Bureau didn't send us here just to come back with unsubstantiated rumours - they need hard evidence. Fortunately for us both, we're being assigned to something called the L-Project. I'm hoping that this time, Adrian and I will finally get to the heart of Umbrella's alleged bioweapons programme…
Lisa kept turning pages, gripped by what she was reading.
June 16th, 1998
The L-Virus project is being stepped up, and some of my fellow researchers have been discussing the prospect of obtaining live human subjects for their experiments. I can't believe that they see nothing wrong with doing this. Are they insane?
June 21st, 1998
Adrian just came running in and told me that he overheard Liz Hartley yelling at some of the other researchers. Apparently they've hauled in a whole bunch of unfortunate people who stumbled into another Umbrella facility by accident over the past month, and among them was Liz Hartley's daughter's best friend - and the poor girl's parents too. Liz ordered them to let the family go, but they refused on the grounds that they've already been infected with experimental viruses and can't be released. Now Liz is hopping mad and in an absolutely foul mood. I think I'd better avoid her for a little while, at least until she's stopped throwing things.
June 27th, 1998
The workload on this project is crazy. I'm just really lucky to have Adrian as my assistant. The other researchers have been clamouring for assistants of their own lately, and it looks like Hazlitt and Lampeter are finally giving in. Assistants are being assigned to the project tomorrow. I'm quite relieved; at least I won't stand out so much any more. The others were furious because I had an assistant and they didn't, and things were getting pretty awkward.
June 28th, 1998
The new assistants started today. None of them seem to have any idea what they're really doing. They're very fortunate. I wish I didn't know what I was doing. This project is obscene and if I wasn't doing this for the Bureau's benefit, I would have left long ago. It's quite terrifying to watch all those young men and women becoming part of something evil without even realising it. I feel especially sorry for one of them. I'm not sure of her name, but I think it's Melissa or Clarissa or something like that. She's a sweet girl, a little naïve but very hard-working; Adrian certainly seems rather fond of her. It's such a shame to see a bright young thing like that wasting her talents here, fetching Petri dishes for that ghastly Goddard woman. If only she and the others knew the truth…
July 5th, 1998
Some real success at last! Liz Hartley confided in me today that she tried to resign from the project, but was threatened with dire consequences if she did. She told me that she's frightened for herself and her family, but she knows she has to carry on working no matter what. I got the whole conversation on tape and I got Adrian to send it to our contact in the Bureau after work today. Nice to finally have some hard evidence to show for all these years working undercover here.
July 26th, 1998
The "mansion incident" has made things a lot harder for us lately - we're really getting badgered by the Bureau for this. We've passed them onto the RPD's STARS unit so they can get evidence straight from the survivors. As far as Adrian and I are concerned, it's their problem now.
July 30th, 1998
God, I hate working here. I hate knowing that I helped to make something vile and evil that could destroy the whole of humanity if it leaked out. I'm just glad they've finished the L-Virus so I don't have to work on it any more. Now I can get on with putting my scientific skills to the benefit of humanity by working on a vaccine for the damn thing. We were ordered at the start of the project to make sure the L-Virus was incurable, but nothing's incurable. There has to be some way of creating a vaccine, or an antidote of some sort.
August 16th, 1998
Oh my God. It's horrible. I can't believe what I've just seen… They've tested the completed virus on some poor soul's body, and it's turned him into something indescribably grotesque. I feel sick just thinking about it. Hazlitt and Lampeter are delighted, naturally, and they're already talking about observing the thing in action, even training it. This has made me even more determined to create a vaccine. This project has to be stopped before it's too late!
September 15th, 1998
Liz Hartley's husband was one of the L-Virus' creators and I know she's unhappy about working here. I'm trying to persuade her to help me make a vaccine, but she seems reluctant to cooperate with me. Of course, it's all right for me because I don't have a family to worry about. Liz is terrified that something bad will happen to her husband and daughter if she disobeys the company. I tried to call her at home yesterday but I guess I must have dialled a wrong number. Some girl answered the phone and I thought it was Liz, so I tried to warn her about the virus. Naturally this kid didn't know what the hell I was talking about and she said -
"Oh, not another prank caller. Don't you people have lives?" murmured Lisa, shocked as she recognised her own words on paper.
That had been Dr Redmond on the other end of the phone line that day, trying to warn her about the L-Virus and the impending disaster, and she'd just dismissed her as some crazed nuisance caller with nothing better to do than annoy people. If only she'd listened to her…
September 16th, 1998
At last, we've completed the vaccine! We'll have to hide it in case somebody else stumbles across it, but at least it's here if we need it. It's reassuring to know that at least this virus can be stopped if it gets out. I've tested it on a pair of infected experimental hamsters that I rescued from Research Lab #2 and incredibly, they returned to full health within minutes of having administered the vaccine. I personally hate animal testing, but unfortunately there was no other alternative, especially after Adrian said no. The vaccine does appear to be slightly painful when first administered, but this soon passes. The hamsters are not suffering from any side-effects, although their brainpower and physical activity do seem to have improved as a result of the initial L-Virus infection. They are now in perfect health and eating well, bless them. In fact, they seem even healthier than they were before. I've kept some vaccine samples hidden in a safe place in my lab, and I keep a dose on my person at all times.
"But where is it?" cried Lisa, shaking the book. "Where did you put it, Janice? Where the hell did you put it?"
September 22nd, 1998
Oh no. I think they're onto us. I don't know how they found out about our subterfuge, because we've been so careful, but I know that we can't stay here much longer. When I get home tomorrow I'm e-mailing HQ and telling them that we have to abort our mission immediately…
After that entry, the style of handwriting changed completely, becoming a spidery, almost illegible scrawl. Someone else had obviously continued the diary.
September 24th
Janice is dead. I found her dead in the lab last night and I know they killed her. She was slumped over a table with her head in a big glass tub full of toxic chemicals. I tried to revive her but she was already long gone. When I went to fetch help they said that the ventilation system had malfunctioned and she must have been overcome by the fumes, but I know that can't be true - I checked the ventilation system myself that morning after Janice complained of an odd smell in the air ducts and there was nothing wrong with it. They murdered her. I know they did. If only I could prove it… but that's the least of our problems right now.
The T-Virus is spreading through the city and they've declared martial law. Nobody can get out. The company told us to stay here and await rescue from the UBCS, whatever that is. They're shipping out the executives by helicopter even as I write this. The others are still living in hope of rescue, but I know that we've been left for dead. There won't be a rescue. We're all going to die. I've told my superiors that the mission is pretty useless now - the T-Virus outbreak is living proof of what Umbrella's been up to.
On the plus side, they said that Janice's office and lab are now for my own personal use. Well, they were anyway because I worked with her, but now it's all mine. I've told Clarissa she can come here and write reports if she needs somewhere quiet to work while she waits to be rescued. She still believes that she can get out alive, and who am I to tell her no? Besides, at least she'll have somewhere safe to stay. She's my friend and I don't want her to get hurt or turn into a zombie.
I may as well end this diary here. It was Janice's, so I probably shouldn't be writing in it anyway.
And true to his word, Adrian had ended the diary there.
So, he and Dr Redmond had been spying on Umbrella for a government agency, trying to dig up dirt on the company and prove that they'd been committing criminal acts. They obviously hadn't been the only ones. Still, their work was being completed by people like Amber and the surviving STARS members. At least their deaths hadn't been in vain. And the vaccine did exist - but where was it?
The lab, presumably. Or possibly on Janice's body, but that would probably be a lot harder to find. Did this lab complex have a morgue? If not, then she had probably been taken away already; in that case, she could be anywhere. Easier to start searching in the laboratory.
Lisa looked up and for the first time she noticed the other door, with a little keypad beside it like the one at the front door of the office. She mentally kicked herself. Of course vaccine research would be kept in the laboratory. Why hadn't she thought of that earlier?
She tapped the door code into the keypad, and stepped back as the door swung aside. Her nostrils twitched at the smell that wafted out of the doorway.
"Yuck!" she cried, coughing.
The dark room on the other side of the door smelled strongly of chemicals and cleaning products, but there was an odd smell in the room that even disinfectant couldn't seem to cover up. She didn't want to go in, but she knew she had to. Steeling herself, she closed her eyes and walked in.
Lisa blinked as the lights came on, illuminating a laboratory with the most advanced technology that she'd ever seen. She hadn't seen much in the way of laboratory equipment except in science class, admittedly, but it certainly looked futuristic - years ahead of its time.
This room, unlike the office, was not neat at all. Machines and flat-screen computers jostled for space with glassware, standard lab equipment and stacks of computer printouts. There were bookshelves and sinks, both crammed full, and several workbenches. On one workbench were some jars of chemicals, and a big glass container full of something bile-coloured and acrid-smelling.
In the exact centre of the room was a table. Resting on top of it was something long and distressingly human-shaped, covered in a clean white sheet. Lisa kept well away from the table, edging around the side of the room and watching the body warily for any sign of movement.
It was probably Dr Redmond's body, if she'd died in this room. She didn't really want to check, though, in case she suddenly saw the sheet rising up towards her as the body beneath sat up with a snarl.
Lisa flinched at the mere thought of it. No, she wouldn't be touching that sheet. No way. Absolutely no way. Definitely not.
Nevertheless, her curiosity got the better of her, and despite her brain screaming at the rest of her to stop, she found herself stepping forward, lifting the sheet and drawing it back over the body to reveal -
Lisa sucked in her breath sharply as she saw what was underneath the makeshift shroud.
"Oh my God…"
xxxxxxxxxx
Renée and Dr Harlech sat and stared at the wall.
"I'm a bit worried about Lisa," said Dr Harlech after several long and completely silent minutes had passed. "She's been gone for quite a while. It must be at least half an hour since she left. Surely she ought to be back by now? It's not that far to walk to Janice's office."
Renée said absolutely nothing.
"And then there was all that gunfire, and that scream - I hope she's all right," said Dr Harlech.
Renée's fixed expression didn't change.
"Maybe we should go and look for her," said Dr Harlech. "She might be in trouble, and if Amber comes back and she finds Lisa gone, I really don't want to have to be the one to explain that we let Lisa go upstairs alone. If she finds out that we didn't even bother to go after Lisa when we heard her screaming, she's going to get prehistoric on our asses. That's kind of like getting medieval on our asses, only with less subtlety and more primitive, mindless violence."
Renée slowly doubled up, clutching her stomach. Her face was contorting with pain as she let out a long groan of agony.
"Renée? Are you all right?" said Dr Harlech.
"My stomach hurts…"
"That's odd; the morphine shouldn't be wearing off already," said Dr Harlech, frowning. "Perhaps I'd better take a look at you."
She shuffled along the floor on her knees and stopped directly in front of Renée. But before she could even lay hands on the mercenary, there was a blur of sudden movement.
Dr Harlech blinked. Something cold and hard was being pressed against her forehead. She had a nasty feeling that she knew what it was.
"Don't move," said Renée coldly.
"Renée?" said Dr Harlech, with a nervous laugh. "What's going on?"
"You know perfectly well what's going on," said Renée, with the same chilly voice and expression that Christina was so fond of using.
Dr Harlech was too shocked to speak. Moments ago she had been playing guessing games with a good-natured, happy-go-lucky young woman who cracked jokes and was curious about everything, but suddenly there was no longer any trace of the warm and friendly person that had been Renée. Now there was just Private Lavelle, a cold-hearted and pitiless mercenary, holding a gun to her head.
Perhaps Renée Lavelle had never been that warm, friendly person - and it had all been an elaborate act. Perhaps this was the real person inside, this cold, cruel young woman with less human kindness than even her colleague.
Icy knowledge seeped into her brain. She knew what this was all about now. Oh, yes. There was no question of it being about anything else.
"But I - I don't understand," she blurted out, a slight whimper creeping into her voice involuntarily. "W-why are you doing this? I thought you were my friend - I thought you didn't want to be part of Umbrella any more!"
Renée's mouth formed into a slight smile that had nothing to do with real amusement.
"I lied. I don't care about money, or promotion. Those things don't matter to me."
"You weren't sent here to find survivors, were you?" said Dr Harlech quietly.
Renée shook her head, still smiling.
"Then why were you sent here?" said Dr Harlech, as loud as she dared. "To steal our research? To capture live specimens for another sick experiment?"
Once again, Renée shook her head.
"No, Dr Harlech. I was sent here to kill you."