Chapter 7: Deus Ex Machina
0150 hours
"There are six vials here, two for us, four for Trent," Zimmerman pronounced, examining the contents of the case. "Unfortunately for us, we need a syringe or something in order to use it."
I frowned, then searched Anderson's corpse.
"What are you doing?"
"He would have known about the T-Virus' infectiousness, right? He would have taken something to vaccinate himself with."
"How do you know?"
"Instinct."
Opening a pouch, I discovered that it held a small plastic baggie holding a half-dozen disposable plastic syringes. I waved it in front of her eyes.
"See?"
She answered with her silence. I tore the bag open, and selected a pair of syringes at random. Passing one to her, I filled mine with a vial of Daylight. Holding the instrument up to the light, I inspected its contents, tapping out all the air bubbles I could see. Dying of disease after being cured of an incurable illness is one of life's many ironies, one that I did not care to experience.
Curling my right arm, I made a fist. The large vein in my arm bulged out, primed for a needle. Then, I relaxed, remembering something.
"How do you know if it's Daylight?" I asked.
"…We don't. If it isn't, then we either die here, or die later. Either way, it doesn't matter: we'll all die sooner or later."
Fatalism is infectious. Repeating the procedure, I stuck the needle into the vein, and pressed the plunger. The vaccine entered my bloodstream, accompanying the minor pain in my arm. I watched the blue liquid disappear into my body.
I expected to writhe in pain, vomit blood, or perhaps feel something as the biochemical took effect. I was disappointed. Tossing the used syringe aside, I stood up, and faced the elevator. Suddenly, the ground shivered and rumbled, from an explosion somewhere below us.
"What was that?" Zimmerman muttered.
"Hell if I know…" I looked up at the numbers above the elevators, and saw that it was going up…and it was already at the fourth floor.
"Incoming Tangos from the elevator!" I warned, snapping my carbine up, aiming it at the doors. My aching muscles made their agonies known to me, but I ignored them: I had more important things to do. Pain is the only thing that makes one feel alive.
The doors slid open.
The Beast stood in the car, grinning at us.
I took a millisecond to adjust my aim. Zimmerman fired anyway, spraying rounds into its torso, with no real effect. It charged at me, so fast that I scarcely had time to squeeze the trigger before I decided the hell with it and instead raised the carbine and lowered my helmeted head to intercept the Beast's incoming hammer fist—
The monster's brute strength had done what is nearly impossible: damage an actual weapon. Its hands literally broke through the carbine's plastic and metal assembly, destroying the Aimpoint sight, and ripping the M4A1 apart in a spray of metal and plastic shards.
The momentum of the assault pitched me forward, forcing me on my stomach. I rolled to the left, a habit born of countless sparring sessions over so many years. A heavy boot slammed into the ground where I used to be, shaking the ground and ceiling.
I rolled away a few more times, then halted. Suspending my legs in the air, I swept both in a full circle, intending to trip or attack anybody in their way. Feeling nothing, I landed them on the floor, and sprung to my feet. My back and calves and thighs roared, but I stopped caring about it.
Until I tumbled forward. My muscles had grown so weak that I could not support my body weight unconsciously. I stopped myself, then looked up.
Zimmerman had engaged the Beast. She was firing short bursts from her M4A1, using her superior agility to out-maneuver the creature. The bullets were probably only pinpricks to it, but they enraged it enough to provoke the Beast into charging her. She would sidestep at the last moment, and run to another corner.
I drew my right P1 from its tactical leg holster. Holding it in both hands, I watched its built-in laser play out from under its barrel. I shifted the red beam, tracking the Beast as it pursued Zimmerman. For a single, fatal moment, it halted. I placed the laser dot on its head.
I fired a double-tap.
Both .357 SIG rounds slammed into the back of its head, causing it to stumble forward.
But the bullets didn't kill it. Instead, it bellowed and turned around, with no obvious sign of damage. It rushed towards me, heavy footfalls tracking each step as it swung its massive fists.
The headshot it the most effective way to kill a man. Unfortunately, monsters were not men. I took a breath, released it, took another one, and let go half of it. I raised my pistol again, placing the dot between the eyes of the Beast, remembering my Delta training. It was rushing towards me, rushing towards its own death.
My genetic advantage had failed me: a failsafe had been implemented into it, preventing its activation when too much lactic acid was present in my body, produced through the exertion of muscles in strenuous work. That way, I wouldn't literally tear myself apart. All I had left was normal adrenaline, setting up a bubble of calm around me, allowing my to focus my shot.
I fired another double-tap.
The Beast took both shots between the eyes…and kept coming.
FUCK!
Reaching out, it grabbed my collar by its colossal left hand, and raised me up. It squeezed my throat, shutting off blood and oxygen to my brain. As I choked and strangled to death, my right hand decided to left go. My P1 fell from my useless fingers, clattering on the ground. The Beast snarled, expelling a breath of hot, rotten breath from its mouth. It raised its right hand, opening it into a palm.
The centre of its palm separated, forming a hole in the flesh. A purple, bloody, muscular tentacle snaked out of the orifice, waving at me. It was organic, yet hard, solid somehow, as though it was strong enough to drill through rock.
Staring at my imminent death, I remembered that I had two pistols. As my vision blurred and turned to red, I forced my weary left arm to draw. This it did, admirably well. My other P1 was in my left hand and in its face before either of us realized it.
Through my dying vision, I saw that the gun was pointed at its right eye. I fired once, sending a single bullet into that globe. Something exploded into a burst of purple. The Beast howled in pain, but kept its grip on me. Swiveling the pistol on my tired left shoulder, I fired another bullet into its remaining eye.
Blinded, it ululated, releasing me from its grip. I dropped, nearly losing my balance. It covered both its wounds with its hands, staggering away from me. Likewise, I scrabbled away from it, forcing myself to my feet.
My legs refused to hold my weight. My upper brain forced them to. Turning to Zimmerman, I shouted, "Fill a syringe with the Daylight!"
"What?"
I pointed at the monster, all pain on hold. "The Daylight! If it can cure us, it can kill it, too!"
"Okay!" she agreed, then reached for the syringes. Her hands worked dexterously, aided by the adrenaline in her system. The Beast was still staggering about, but was rapidly recovering from its wounds.
"Here!" she cried, throwing me a Daylight-filled syringe. It rotated and somersaulted in the air, cartwheeling as it traveled. I instinctively reached out and snatched it from the air.
The Beast roared, a powerful mixture of pain and fury. Aiming at its groin, I fired a double-tap, not to wound it, but to attract its attention. It turned to face me, not bothering to say a word. I shuffled to forward and to my right, almost too weak to move properly.
Its sense of sight gone, the Beast blew past me, intent on going after its antagonist. It landed haymaker after haymaker on nothing more substantial than air, producing nothing more than violent, short-lived winds.
Its back was exposed to me. Summoning what little reserves of strength I had left, I crouched, and launched myself at the Beast, syringe in my right hand. Reaching out, I placed my filled left hand on its massive left shoulder, and vaulted myself up. I stuck the needle into the base of its skull, and squeezed the plunger with one hand.
The Daylight vaccine vanished into the Beast's body.
The effects were immediate. It roared and howled as the Daylight took effect. I let go, and staggered aside. Remarkably, I didn't fall to my knees. I watched the Beast scream in anger and frustration, its thick arms windmilling. It hammered its own chest, then fell onto its back and rolled left and right, spasming and writhing.
The end took a long time, when you were the observer. To the participant, it was forever. It thrashed and turned, howling and moaning almost simultaneously, its head jerking in all directions. Its muscles started to shrink, exorcised of the T-Virus. Plumes of wet steam emerged from its decaying form, filling the air around it in a thick, purple fog. Slowly, surely, the flesh on it decomposed to little more than a black, dead mass, incapable of supporting life, now and forever.
With a final moan, it went still.
The Beast was dead.
I lay on the ground, gasping for breath. My muscles screeched in my brain, telling me that they had been abused too much, too many times. Normally, the human body ceases to register pain when it crosses a certain threshold, but this one's intensity was just under what was necessary for my brain to do that.
Zimmerman appeared in my face. "Want me to call for extract?"
I mouthed 'Yes'.
"What about Nikolai Ginovaef?"
My facial expression told the tale. There was nothing a man like he would have that was vital to us. He may be a Supervisor, but he wouldn't carry any vital intelligence, either written or in his head. Field people are always kept insulated from the higher command: if captured, they cannot reveal anything, because they don't know anything. I know: Umbrella's mercenary services are run along the same lines as the military.
"…All right…"
She turned away, and whispered some words into her own radio.
But I didn't hear them. All I could hear was the sound of my own labored breathing.