Kingdom Come

((Interludes will be smaller chapters dealing with non-main characters, but who are necessary to get a grasp of what is going on.))

Interlude the First

The Capital Building was a mess of fires and structural damage, one side slowly beginning to creek inward on itself, the other burning brightly in the evening light.

"Has anyone found the President?" Devin Marson was standing on the front lawn, his black and white Secret Service uniform torn, his face bloody. They'd spent the last two hours trying to clear the horde of...injured people...from the building. He refused to think of them as zombies.

He'd been in the Secret Service for almost ten years now, and as a Presidential guard for four, and he'd never seen anything like this. It was something out of a bad movie.

When no one answered he tapped on his earpiece a few times, frowning. He new the system was working, they'd remote-linked it into a backup truck, but no one was answering. He growled and switched frequencies. "Hazmat two, report."

"Sir, we've found a broken plastic container near the intake valve for the ventilation shaft. It looks as though it was snapped in half by a small explosion. It could be the cause of the incident."

"Roger that. Seal it in something and bring it topside. And be careful, none of my teams are checking in."

He switched back to the first frequency, letting himself pace along the edge of one of the pavements, eyes glued to the building. Even with the destruction around him, he couldn't help but marvel at how bright the building looked. He so rarely saw it without his sunglasses on.

"Front lawn to all teams, check in. Have you found the President?"

There was a sudden burst of static in his ear and he almost pulled the piece out, his hand halfway to his head when a voice managed to cut through the interference.

"..peat...Pinned d....presid...ead...need..lp...too many..."

"Team three," he recognized the voice of his second in command, Brad Erickson. "Team three, what is your situation?" Nothing. "Erickson, report, now."

He counted the seconds, listening to the silence, then cursed. "Damn it. Anyone who can hear me, converge on sector four and then get out of the building." He pulled his gun, dropping the clip and checking it. He'd used half his rounds attempting to get the vice-president out of the building, a futile task as the man had turned into one of those monsters just before they made it to the front door.

He slapped the clip back in and jogged over to the main doors, the solid wooden portals hanging loose on their hinges, the remnants of a grenade embedded in the wood. He and half the Secret Service men had used the grenade to slow down the creatures long enough for them to get outside. But when they had discovered that the President was missing, most of them had volunteered to go back.

He was about to haul the door open when he heard a gunshot and felt the wind of a bullet as it breezed past his ear and embedded itself in the door.

"You don't want to go in there." The voice was accented and female, and Devin spun around to face it, gun raised. An Asian woman was standing there, dressed in a black catsuit with a handgun hanging loose from her left hand.

"Who are you?" Despite the fact that her weapon was lowered, she felt like a thread, and Devin kept his gun trained on her.

"I looked in through one of the windows," the woman pointed with her empty hand to a second story window halfway down the building. "Carriers everywhere, no one was alive. Your president was dead." She sighed, shaking her head. "I'd hoped to warn them, but I was too slow..."

Devin frowned, narrowing his eyes. "What the hell are you talking about? Carriers? And the President can't be dead, he's got two dozen of my men looking for him."

"Well, they're dead too. I didn't see anything but bodies and carriers..." She shrugged. "And carriers are the zombies. They carry a disease that turned them into...what they are. So we always referred to them as carriers."

"We? Who the hell ARE you?" Devin stalked towards her, stopping a foot or so in front, his gun hovering before her eyes. "Answer me now or I'll kill you where you stand."

"The Umbrella Corporation created the virus," the woman half-turned away, ignoring the gun, almost ignoring Devin. She certainly did not seem to consider him a threat. "I used to work for them, until...recently. Once I figured out what was happening, I was going to come here, to warn your President. The U.S. was one of the few countries capable of standing up to Umbrella, and Arnold knew it. He probably had canisters planted in every important building in this city, all over any major branches of your government."

Devin interrupted, waving his gun at her and then letting it fall to his side. "This is a virus? Are...we infected?" The thought of turning into one of those things was almost painful. "And what are you talking about, the Umbrella Corporation? They make medicine. Their company President was here a few weeks ago, talking to some senators..."

The Asian sighed and looked up at the building. "Look, I don't have time to explain it all. You're not infected, neither am I. So we need to go."

Devin took a breath, turning slowly to look back at the Capital Building. As he watched, a chunk of the roof caught fire and then slowly gave into the building. "The President is dead?" His voice was barely a whisper.

"Yes...I'm sorry."

He didn't respond, staring up at the building still. His radio hadn't even made static in several minutes, no voices, no cries for help, nothing. He should go back, should...

He felt a weight on his shoulder as the woman placed her hand there. "Look, my name is Ada, and as cliché as it sounds, you need to come with me if you want to live."

Devin nodded slowly, twisting away from the building, his gaze locking onto hers. "Hold on," he tapped his earpiece again. "Hazmat 2, what's your status?" Static. "Hazmat 2, report." After a count of ten he dropped his hand away again and looked at Aya, who just shook her head sadly.

"I will come with you, but I can't leave the city yet. I need to see who I can find. Someone in the command structure has to still be alive. We need to find them."

Ada frowned, her gaze flicking away for a moment. "The odds of anyone..."

"I don't care. It's my job to look out for these people."

The Asian woman actually smiled, for just a second. "You know...you're not the first person to tell me that." She took a breath and nodded. "I didn't help him...but I perhaps...I can help you. There is a plane waiting just outside the city. We will look until morning, and then we are leaving."

"Deal."

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Several Days Ago

"No!"

Chris Redfield hurled himself towards Sirius, fists held out in front of him like a battering ram. "Don't!"

BANG.

He felt a blinding pain in his left leg, and his feet stopped listening, sending him sprawling against the front of Sirus's desk and onto the floor. Barry and the others yanked out their weapons again, but Sirus's assistant turned his gun on them again, shaking his head.

"Ah, my dear Mr. Redfield...that was a foolish thing to do." Sirius walked around his desk slowly, shaking his head at the fallen man, tossing the small remote from hand to hand again. "Very well. I do hope your friends will help you out of here." The man smirked and turned away, walking towards a door in the far wall, opposite the way they came in.

As Thomas walked through, keeping the weapon turned on all of them, Sirus flicked open the door, showing a well-lit elevator.

"This will take you down to the first floor. You'll have," Sirius glanced at his watch and frowned, then shrugged. "Ten minutes or so. I do hope you enjoyed your stay."

"Bastard!" Chris was trying to push himself back to his feet, but before he could make it, the doors in the elevator swished shut, carrying the two men away.

Chris slumped back down, slamming his fist into the floor. "Damn it! Damn...damn..." Everything was beginning to spin...He could see the outline of Barry, his giant of a friend, coming towards him quickly...and then everything slipped into blackness.

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Captain Smith stared out at the port, watching in muted shock as another of the massive storage buildings caught fire. It didn't make any sense. He'd known some of the people who had gone mad, become...well...zombies. There didn't seem to be a cause for it!

He and the Constellation, a state of the art United States Navy Air Craft Carrier, had been on rotations in the Mediterranean when they'd started to receive the radio distress calls. Hundreds of them, on military and civilian frequencies, as if the whole of the world had gone mad.

They had decided to head into Marseille, as it had been the closest port, but when they had got there the docks were already a mass of the creatures, with only a handful of survivors in small boats bobbing around the bay. They had picked up a few of the survivors, some worse than others. After the first few obviously injured people had become...strange...and had to be shot, the captain had stopped picking up anyone off the boats.

It didn't matter, anyway. The boats were few and far between. And most of the people on them were as lifeless as the ones on the docks.

Two of his officers had been killed and he had ordered their bodies pushed off the boat as some childhood memory of a zombie movie flashed back into his brain. Luckily, no one else had been injured. He wasn't quite sure what happened when people were injured by zombies.

"Sir, we've got helicopters coming in." His comm. Officer came running out onto the deck, his portable link to the communications board in his hands, headphones still on. "They are asking if we are infected."

Smith frowned, graying eyebrows narrowing as he considered this. "Infected? No...signal back saying the ship is...clean...and give them permission to land."

"Sir?" The man hesitated. "Are you sure?"

"Yes..." The captain nodded quickly. Any other commanding officer might have been angry at being questioned, but Smith had trained his crew to think of themselves. "Infected is a technical term, Lieutenant. It means they have some idea what the hell is going on. But call up a squad to circle the helicopters before they land."

"Yes sir," the Lieutenant headed back into the bowls of the ship and a few minutes later a pair of large attack helicopters burst into view from the smoke and clouds over the land. They circled the skip once before descending down to land on the deck.

Smith's men circled the helicopters, guns ready, as a the large passenger doors on the sides slid open and people began climbing out. The first was a young woman dressed in blue combat fatigues, with a rather out-of-fashion baret on her head. She had a pistol in her hand and she eyed the men circling her warily before tucking it into her belt, holding her hands up carefully. "I need to see your captain."

"Let her through," Smith called out to his men, who made a space to allow the woman through. Behind her, a large man was carefully lifting out another injured man from the helicopter, holding him as he eyed the surrounding guards.

The woman came up to the Captain at a jog and saluted. "Sir, Jill Valentine, STARS officer." She let out a breath as her hand dropped down. "God, we were happy to see you sir...we didn't think we were going to get off the continent."

STARS...Captain Smith mulled the name for a moment. He'd heard about the STARS, the Special Tactics and Rescue Squads that had been scattered all over the country until a year back, when they had suddenly been dismantled. He'd received a report from one of his agents indicating that they had discovered...something. He'd been suspicious, when such a well-spoken of group was dismantled in a manner of days. He didn't like suspicious things.

Like this woman. "Well, Miss Valentine," He stressed the title, not willing to call her an Officer until he knew what was going on. "Can you tell me what the hell is going on here? And why I shouldn't have you thrown right back off the ship?"

"Well, for one thing sir, we don't have anywhere else to go," the woman twisted around and watched the helicopters for a moment. From her helicopter a young blonde woman had gotten out, and was helping a pair of younger girls down onto the deck. "And for another, we know exactly what is going on here. But you need to get out of the bay." She shook her head. "There isn't anybody alive out there. Not anyone you can help, anyway."

Smith shifted away, peering out at the city again. "You mentioned an infection. None of the people in your helicopters are infected, correct?" He had a hunch...There had been rumors, the year before.

"No sir. We would not be that foolish...sir. Chr...One of my people was shot, but otherwise..." The STARS woman seemed to be getting annoyed with the formalities. "Look, we need to get out of here, or we are all going to die. We can tell you what is going on, but you have to take us with you. Now."

A half a dozen extremely armed looking people had climbed out of the second helicopter, Smith saw as he turned back. They were holding up their weapons, trying to appear non-hostile, but they were the type of people that always looked hostile. Mercenaries, Smith would have wagered.

"You and your...friends...will need to be disarmed," she nodded and spun away, jogging back through the circle of armed men to her own people, ordering them to drop their weapons.

Smith watcher her for a moment, eyes distant. Reports he had received always indicated the STARS were the best. They'd take people from any past and train them into...well, into heroes. And then they had suddenly been dismantled, and most of them had gone underground.

And here was at least one, obviously having survived something...horrendous...four thousand miles from the States. From home. "Lieutenant," he waved over his messenger, a thin man who had been standing silent the entire time. Watching. Smith had trained him to watch. It was a useful skill. "Go inside and order us out of the bay. Make for open waters."

"Yessir," the man was gone in an instant, and Captain Smith turned around to watch the docks drifting away, as the flames leapt from the buildings to the people. Half of them went up like treated kindling, the rest tumbled into the bay and floundered around or disappeared into the smoke. A ghastly, inhuman scream seemed to echo around them.

It was like a painting out of Dante's Inferno. Part of him was wrenched with pity that he could not help them, and the rest...was glad it wasn't him.