'I thought it
ended with Burkitt. I thought my war was over. At last I felt I could look
forward to a new life. How is it possible that the same guy has to go through
the same thing again? It's been ten years since then. Ten whole years.
But
it's different now. Ten years does a lot to you. I love my wife, my sister
(Sherry, who's now 23) and my kids. Steve and Ada are now ten years old, they
go to school. That makes things even more dangerous than before.
They say you should face your fear…well,
I've got to now.
It's started again.'
- LEON S. KENNEDY
A
New beginning
Ten-year old Steven Kennedy stood by the
main entrance of his school, watching the other kids walk out of the doors,
giggling and talking in that way you usually associated with schoolchildren.
He sighed. Dad would be here to pick him up today, but he had to wait for his sister and his cousin first. His cousin, Hannah, was usually picked up by her dad – but he would be late home from work today. Hannah Valentine inherited her mother's fighting spirit and looks, but also her father's charisma – which could be seen as bad or good depending on your personality type. His best friend had gone home, now he was just waiting for Ada and Hannah.
So here he now stood, leaning against
the wall and scanning the crowds of children for the faces he was looking for.
"Hey! Steve!"
He spun around, thinking it might be his
sister – but no. It was Jack Stone, one of his friends.
"Steve! Looks like you need a lift, want
one?"
Steve shook his head.
"Nah. My dad's coming, anyway I'm waiting
for Ada and Hannah"
Jack shrugged, and smiled.
"Okay. I guess we'll meet up over the
Summer holidays at some point"
"Sure! I'll call!"
Jack waved and walked out of the door.
Steve sighed again, twice in as many minutes.
Steve clicked his tongue, and looked around
again. Where were they?
His dad had always
said that if he was ever worried, all he had to do was talk to him. Dad wasn't
here yet, so…
"STEVEY!!"
He recognised those tones. His face split
into a grin as he turned around to see his twin sister, Ada, running towards
him.
Ada was like a much younger version of her
mother, high spirited, gentle and irrepressibly sweet. Steve had always been
told he looked like his dad – but he wasn't sure if this was true or not.
He'd never looked himself up and down the
mirror and thought to look for his father in him.
"Hey, Stevey! Nice of you to wait!" she
said, running up to him and hugging him. He was surprised by that, but maybe it
was because there was nobody else in this echoing hall.
"Hey Ada, what's up?"
"It's just that schools out! Isn't it
great?!" she asked, happily.
"Yeah!" he turned to Hannah "Hey, Han!"
"Hey!" she replied, grinning.
"Is dad outside?" Ada asked, shouldering
her backpack.
Steve shouldered his own, and the trio
walked out into the fresh, warm afternoon air.
"I don't know – I didn't check" he confessed.
Ada scanned the grassy courtyard of the
school, saw the cars waiting outside and laughing girls and boys her own age
and younger climbing into their parents cars.
Then, her face split into a grin.
Leon was leaning against a tree near the
entrance, wearing a button up green shirt and black trousers. He was as young
and handsome as he'd ever been, but there was something mature about him that
people respected.
He turned to them, and smiled.
"Hey!" he shouted, spreading open his arms
and walking towards them.
"DAD!" Steve and Ada yelled, and they
broke into a run before colliding with their father, who caught them in both
his arms, cackling like he was a boy again.
Hannah caught up with them, shaking her
head but grinning nonetheless.
"How's dads little soldiers, huh?"
"We're fine, dad!" Ada replied, grinning.
"Just great!" Steve added.
Leon smiled, hugged them closer and
turned to Hannah.
"Hannah! How're you?"
"Fine Leon!" Hannah replied.
"Hope you're dad's going to be home
tonight in time for dinner – Claire's brewing up something special"
"He will!" Hannah said, cheerfully.
Still grinning, Leon let go of his kids.
"Okay, wanna go home?"
"Don't have to ask me twice!" Steve
laughed.
They climbed into the back of the brand
new 4x4 Leon had bought as a family present. It was red and chrome, and
according to Chris was 'one mutha of a mover'
Leon climbed into the front seat, Steve,
Ada and Hannah climbed into the back seat.
"Buckle up!" Leon cheerfully announced.
They did so, as did he.
He twisted the key in the ignition, and in
one single purr the engine roared into life. Leon whistled as he reversed the
car slightly, put it into gear and drove off down the road. He had a every
reason to be cheerful. His life, as he felt it was, was wonderful. He had a
wife, two kids and two sisters. He also had a job – Captain Leon Kennedy – That
sounded good to him. With a medal of valour to put on his mantelpiece, he had a
lot to be proud of. He flexed his hands – One with five fingers, and one with
only four. He'd got used to only having four fingers on his left hand, it'd
taken a while for him to get his aim back with a weapon, but since he was right
handed anyway it hadn't become an enormous problem.
He'd been asked hundreds of times how
he'd lost the finger. He'd had to conjure up some lie about being wounded in
the line of duty. The more times he told it, the more it became second nature
to say so, and he was almost prepared to believe it – despite knowing the
horrible truth. But he'd put that behind him now. Thankfully, it was just
another unpleasant memory, which he could quite easily forget. Despite the
scars burned onto him more than ten years ago, he'd immersed himself in his new
life to prevent himself thinking further about groaning zombies and mutant T
Virus monsters – Which worked. To an extent. He was so used to doing his job,
household chores and playing with his kids that memories of the T-Virus were lost
on him.
He steered the car down the road, and
took it carefully around the corner. He hadn't lost any of his roguish spirit
though, Claire hadn't either- Something they were both glad about. Even with
the constraints of family life, he had barely changed, personality wise. Older,
wiser and possibly more mature – but Claire and him were permanently like
flirting boyfriend and girlfriend, something which embarrassed Steve and Ada no
end, but kept the zest in their love life.
He couldn't help but let slip a thin
smile. He looked in the mirror, saw his two children and Hannah sitting there
chatting – Steve was growing to look like him, even acting like him.
His daughter, he could see was
beginning to look like her mother – beautiful and strong spirited. However, she
did have a certain 'him' in her blood, something that wasn't obvious, but it
was there on those nights he tucked her into bed. He was wondering if they were
embarrassed he did that…but he shrugged. He'd stop when they told him to stop.
Ada however was very much her mother's
daughter.
He drove the car down the leafy avenue,
enjoying the feeling of the sun on his face as he drove down the road.
Ah, life was good.
Claire pulled open the front door, and
stepped in, putting the keys in her pocket. Her working day was over again at
last. The editor of the paper had let her go early today, usually she wasn't
home for another two hours. Leon had said that he was having his week break, so
that would mean some time together.
She looked in the mirror, smiling at
herself mischievously. Claire was still as beautiful as she'd ever been, hardly
the working-mother she was nowadays.
She thought of Sherry, and her smile
faded slightly. She had slight misgivings about Sherry. Not that they were any
less friends, but Sherry didn't have a job and neither was she doing very much
when she was at home. Sherry had gone through University with flying colours,
it had taken a while to get her back on her educational track but Sherry had
worked surprisingly hard at it. For some reason lately, Sherry seemed somewhat
apathetic about getting a job – Sherry was an attractive young woman, and she
needed to be doing something to at least be earning her keep. Claire was
surprised that Sherry didn't have a boyfriend or any intention to move.
It wasn't as if she wanted Sherry out of
the house as soon as possible, but she could at least contribute to the fact
that Leon and herself were supporting two children and their own lifestyle, and
it was extra difficulty looking after Sherry too. Damn, she loved the girl,
but…
She shook her head in bemusement. It was
as if she'd never been a gun-toting freedom fighter.
She went straight to the lounge, and
dropped her stuff there, before removing her work jacket and placing it on a
chair in the kitchen. It was a nice house, immaculate, luxurious enough for
them yet simplistic.
She sighed happily, and went into the
lounge to flop down in the couch. She stared up at the white ceiling, and thought
happily of her kids.
They were all very careful about not
mentioning Umbrella at the table in front of the kids, because that would just
lead them to asking questions, which would lead them to asking about what dad
had done before, Uncle Chris and their dad's four fingered hand – not to
mention Jills'. Claire was surprised they hadn't put two and two together yet,
but people frequently put two and two together to make five.
Umbrella was a forbidden subject –
which they were fine with. All they wanted was just to live their life. Which
they were doing well. Even the white and red logo of Umbrella had faded after
ten years.
Oh, the company was still around –
pharmaceuticals were in the shops all the time, but nothing unusual ever occurred.
Life was good.
"Now we move onto subject 2A" Dr. Samuel
Blackman said casually, walking down the corridor alongside the large glass
window that separated him and the younger lab scientists, probably about early
twenties, from the thing inside 'The Tank' as they called it at Umbrella's
primary bio-weapons institute in Montana. Blackman himself was balding and wore
glasses, and his rock steady hands and conscience in view of the subject in
front of him was quite remarkable.
"Within a day of the introduction of the
old style T-Virus, the subject looked like this" he pressed a button in a metal
controller he had concealed in his palm, and on a screen to their left, a
monochrome photo flashed up.
There was an audible gasp from the young
men and women he was currently leading.
"As you can see the facial tissues of the
subject have already deteriorated, and its epidermal layers are gradually
breaking away, and a state of braindead-ness was reported as coming into being
at this point"
"Uh…sir?"
Blackman turned irritably.
"Yes?"
The question came from a young, edgy man
with slicked black hair and glasses.
"I know this is hardly the time and place
sir, but isn't it…I mean, aren't the effects somewhat…useless to our needs?
Decomposition of the epidermal layers surely can't be a good thing"
"Which is precisely the point I'm making"
Blackman snapped, annoyed at the question that he was about to explain "That
was the problem with the T-Virus – It was overwhelming for the human body, it's
results on a human form merely decomposed the flesh, introduced a flesh-eating
hunger and they were uncontrollable"
The young scientists, all with notebooks,
nodded in unison.
Like schoolchildren Blackman
reflected they hang on my every word.
"So…Why is the G-Virus also
inappropriate?" a young woman, whose name Blackman vaguely recalled to be Alice
asked him, raising her hand.
"The G-Virus, if you have read your
paperwork properly, was dreamed up by Dr. William Birkin in early 1996, but he
didn't get a fully synthesised strain of G-Virus until sometime in September
1998. It had taken him years and years worth of research for him to begin work
on it soon after he'd finished the T-Virus, but it had several base flaws. It
was an immensely powerful virus, and its effects on a human were startling –
But since the only human infected with it was Birkin himself, there were no
further experiments, except on Angel Island which was destroyed in the summer
of 1999. Its main flaws were that it was, in effect, almost too powerful. It is
believed that Birkin killed well over one hundred people as a G-Monster, and
fifty of those were Umbrella employees. It was uncontrollable, and it is
probably just as well it was destroyed"
"So…what are doing right now?" the
young man asked again. Blackman was starting to lose his patience with the
young man.
"Learning from our mistakes" Blackman
said, simply "I believe we can create a modified, controllable version of the
T-Virus with rigorous experimentation – This project has been going on for
about six months, but little progress has been made. With your contribution,
maybe that can change"
The gaggle of young scientists looked
at each other hopefully. They'd been waiting for this. For this break.
"So if you follow me – we can finish
this little tour of mine, and we can get down to, shall we say, the
'nitty-gritty'?"
He strode on as confidently as if he was
winning a war, and his subordinates followed him as if he was the parent and
they were the adoring young.
Which, to an extent, they were.
Leon gently took Claire in his arms, and
kissed her passionately on the mouth literally moments after stepping in
through the door.
"Hey there gorgeous" Leon said, softly
"Miss me?"
"I was counting the seconds" Claire
replied, grinning as she kissed Leon's upper lip.
They squeezed each other again, and Claire
looked over Leon's shoulder, and let go of him.
"Hi sweeties!" she said brightly, her
children hugging her hard and kissing them "Had a nice day?"
"Pretty good, mom!" Steve replied.
"You too, Ady?"
Ady was the affectionate name given to Ada
by Claire, and it had caught on, apart from Steve and Hannah who thought it was
quite funny, and teased Ada about it.
"Yeah mom!" she was a little embarrassed
that she'd said it in front of Hannah, whose face split into a grin.
"So Han? Hanging around here for a while,
huh?" Claire asked her brothers only daughter.
"I think so – If it's okay with you?"
"It's fine with us!" Claire said, nodding
to Leon, who nodded back, smiling.
"We're going upstairs now!" Steve said,
Hannah and Ada hammering up the stairs with him. Claire and Leon watched them
go.
Claire shook her head, smiling.
"They grow up so fast, huh?"
Leon nodded.
"Doesn't seem that long ago since we were
still cradling them in their baby clothes"
Claire laughed, softly.
"They've got a lot of independent spirit"
Leon
put his arms around his wife.
"They probably get it from their mother"
he said, smiling.
"What about their father? When I try to
get them to eat their greens, I get a petulant look I could only get from you –
Stevey's turning into his dad"
Leon rolled his eyes, and took his wife into the lounge, where they
flopped down together.
"Do you think…" she then cut off her own
speech, not saying anything more.
"Think what?"
"Uh…nothing"
Leon looked Claire in her crystal clear eyes.
"What's bothering you, my love?"
"It's just…" Claire seemed a little
uncomfortable "…Jill's clone, could she…"
"Claire, Jill's clone will not be coming
back in a hurry. It's been ten years, either she's dead or been caught by the
government or something"
"You sure?"
"Ever doubted me before?"
"Uh…" Claire said, comically.
Leon playfully punched her on the
shoulder.
"Hey! Don't doubt me" Leon said, facing
splitting into a grin.
"You sir, are very easy to doubt
sometimes" she replied, grinning.
He pushed her onto her back on the
sofa, and fell on top of her, kissing her on the lips as he went down on her.
"Steve…just a question"
Steve was sitting in his room, where they
were all sitting and chatting.
The question had been posed from Hannah.
"Huh?"
"A question – about your dad"
Steve frowned a little.
"Fire away" he said.
"Have you ever wondered…why your dad has
only four fingers on his left hand?"
Steve shook his head, a little disappointed
at how tame the question was.
"Oh…He lost it when he was in a shootout
with some thugs during a bank raid - Kinda cool, huh?"
"Well…" Hannah was being delicate, even
hesitant "…My mom only has four fingers on her left hand too"
Ada leapt in front of Hannah, scaring the
life out of her.
"Really? That's way weird!"
"No kidding!" Steve said "I mean, how can
they have that same problem? It's too weird for words!"
"Right!" Hannah replied.
Steve leaned back. He was curious about that
fact, he had actually found the story his dad had told him a little intangible,
but the fact that Jill had exactly the same problem with her hand, and they
were quite close anyway…that was kind of hard to swallow.
The door creaked, and they turned around.
"Hey guys, what are you up to?"
Framed in the doorway was the slender and
very pretty figure of Sherry. Sherry had grown into a woman perfectly,
everything about her screamed 'Beauty'. Everybody was surprised she didn't have
a boyfriend – Somehow, Leon had reckoned and had told the three kids on several
occasions, that her non-boyfriend stance in her teenage years had something to
do with it.
"Nothing – Just talking, Sherry!"
She was supposedly their aunt, but she was
so young and they were so used to her being in the same house they regarded her
as more of a sister.
"Just talking…"
She smiled in a teasing sort of way, and
nudged Ada.
"Oh? Boys already?"
"Shuddup!" Ada replied.
"Excuse me!" Steve said.
"…And Steve? How about you? Girls?"
He wrinkled his nose.
"Nah"
"Thought not"
"That's rich – Coming from somebody who
never goes out with boys!" Hannah pointed out, still grinning.
"Well excuse me!" Sherry said, with mock
annoyance.
Sherry shook her head in bemusement. To
think she'd once been like this.
I see a bad moon rising
It was raining in Washington. It was also
quite cold. At least that's how Private Will Allmond felt it, wearing only his
combat fatigues and a rain-slick. He could feel the raindrops pitter-patter
down on his slick, the rhythmic drumming giving him something approaching a
headache. He looked out across the grassy hills, and over the long tarmac road
that seemed to stretch into infinity. He didn't enjoy the view. In fact, he despised
it now. But when you were on watch outside the inner gates, and most of the
guards were either by the outer gates or inside as they should be, you kind of
got fed up with the view after a while since you had little else to look out.
But he was outside.
He sniffed, and grunted. He hated the cold
air, especially when it was raining.
"Hey, Will?"
He turned, to see his counterpart and
friend, Private Sam Leighton walking up, digging his hand in his pocket. He
then pulled out a small oblong box.
"You want a cigarette?"
"Sure"
Allmond nodded, accepting one of his
friend's cigarettes. He pushed it between his lips, and leaned over as Leighton
lit the cigarette for him. He drew deeply, the glowing end flaring as he did
so, and then he blew out a plume of smoke into the cold night air, the smoke
immediately disappearing in the dark sky.
"It's frigging cold" Allmond muttered,
smoke still filtering from his lips.
"No kidding, man" Leighton replied,
squinting up into the darkened sky.
For a while there was nothing but the
pitter-patter of rain on a concrete surface. There was the deep bass rumble of
impatient thunderclouds, growling their annoyance at the earth.
Almond felt pissed off with the weather,
it was like everything was aimed at him, as if the fury of god was always
seething over his head. He wasn't dazzled by the beauty of lightning flashes,
he saw them as huge electrical disturbances which were nothing but a damned
nuisance.
There was a rustle from the shadows
cast by the walls of the inner compound. A strange hiss of air…his ears pricked
up.
He looked at Leighton, and made a hand
gesture which said 'Possible suspect nearby – Investigate'
But Leighton didn't react. Instead, he
stared straight ahead at Allmond.
"Sam?" Allmond whispered.
Leighton's body fell on him heavily,
Allmond catching his form as the body knocked him off balance. As Allmond
looked, he could see a small, barbed dart sticking in his friend's neck.
Leighton was rapidly turning blue, Allmond could feel the first symptoms of
panic perforate his body.
How the f…?
Then, a foot cracked heavily into his jaw,
and as screamed out at the dizzying pain he now felt, he looked up at his
assailant. He felt the cold metal of a gun barrel pressed to his forehead…and
then nothing more, as Will Allmond's brain took the full onslaught of the
bullet from a Beretta 92F.
The resulting mess was mixed with the
rain, the sickening concoction sliding across the tarmac road, forced on by the
wind whipping the rain across the landscape.
Within five minutes, the killer was
inside. The killer was easily able to override the inner-lab security systems;
who, after all, couldn't hack a US government security job?
An unfortunate young man named Dr.
Jeremy Bentley was enjoying a quiet evening in the main staff room, sipping a
cup of amiably warm coffee and listening to Berlioz's Te Deum on the classical
radio channel, when the head of security stormed into the room to ask what the
hell was happening.
"Some asshole's broken inside the
inner lab" he growled "And you're just sitting there?"
"I'm moving, god-damnit!" Bentley
snapped, standing up and kicking his chair away.
Both of them walked out in the corridor, but
quickly.
"When did this occur?" Bentley asked.
"About ten minutes ago" the head of
security explained "The first patrol found the bodies of Privates Allmond and
Leighton and informed me directly"
There was a flurry of activity, and in the
next few seconds Bentley suddenly found himself on the floor, pinned down by a
solid boot. The security chief pulled out his Beretta, but the killer reacted
first.
The Security chief sank onto the floor,
clutching his chest, where a hunting knife was now buried up to the hilt, blood
dripping onto the floor.
Bentley gasped, and nearly screamed as
he saw the blood. He was slightly squeamish.
"Right" the killer said "If you want to
stay alive, then take me to your inner lab. There's a piece of equipment I
want"
Bentley nodded. As well as he could
with a pistol ready to blow the inside of his head out between his teeth. The
voice was quite a smooth female one, quite sexy he would have thought was he
not so terrified of the fact that this woman had a gun barrel pushed firmly
into his mouth.
The woman hauled him up by the hair,
and with her gun placed firmly to his temple now, dragged him down the
corridor.
"Holy shit!"
The three security guards in charge of the
main lab doors witnessed the spectacle of black clad figure dragging the esteemed Dr. Bentley down the corridor
practically by his ear.
One of the guards turned to one of his
compatriots.
"Uh…what do we do?"
"I dunno!" the man replied, shaking his
head, unable to take his eyes off the pair.
The figure came up close, so close that
they could work the figure out to be female.
"Open the door" she said darkly "Or Dr…"
she checked his tag "…Jeremy here will be wearing a new fashion accessory – his
brains, on the outside"
"I can open the outer door" one of the
guards spat "But you can't open the inner door, only one of the senior
scientists can open that one"
The woman cocked her head.
"Really? And are you saying that Jeremy
here isn't? Huh?"
The third security guard sweated. They all
knew that Dr. Bentley was head of their division, and therefore counted as a
senior scientist.
The first guard made a move for his gun.
The woman shot him in the leg.
"Now…" she hissed, the gasping guard
sagging onto his bleeding leg "I think you're well aware of what I'll do if you
even think of touching the barrel of your sidearm. And just to be safe, take
them out and give them to me"
They obeyed, for some reason.
"Face the wall" she said "I would kill
you, but to tell the truth, I've got a migraine and when I've got a migraine
gun shots really kill my head…so think yourselves lucky, boys"
They faced the wall.
"Apart from you" she indicated guard number
two "You open the door, and I'll drag Jeremy here through to the inner chamber,
where we'll unlock it. Touch the alarm? I will kill you. Try to shut me in? I
wouldn't bother, since I've still got good old Jeremy here to kill too"
The guards could tell from her voice that
she was insane, but in an icy cold way, an icy, calm madness that was not in
the mood for bluffing.
The outer door opened with a hiss, and
the whimpering Bentley was dragged into the bitterly cold anti-chamber.
"Open it" she said, pulling out a Desert
Eagle .50 which she pointed out at the door, the Beretta pressed into Bentley's
back.
Retinal Scan, ID code… Bentley
thought in a panic, going through the procedure he knew so well.
"Ah, well done Jeremy, you've added an
extra minute to your life"
The woman dragged him into the chamber. It
was sterile and white, but somehow she knew what she was looking for. He looked
at her as she pulled him across to a closed glass cabinet, which she shattered
with her elbow.
"At last…" she muttered "I've got it"
He looked up with frightened eyes, and
saw her handle what he termed Prototype 5B. What the hell did she want with
that?
Within moments, she'd grabbed him by the
ear, and was dragging him out of the chamber again. In the corridor, she pulled
him in front of her, face to face with her.
"Now I'm going to leave you here…well
done"
He exhaled in relief.
"I'm not going to kill you" she said
sweetly "So feel lucky"
He felt his body relax a little. She
traced her Beretta down his body.
"Instead" she said, pulling the trigger
"I'll cripple you for life"
The bullet was expertly shot. It severed
the most important nerve in his leg completely. Never again would he be able to
use it. Bentley screamed in agony as she dropped him unceremoniously on the
floor, walking away as if he was a piece of garbage she'd dumped.
He looked at her, through a lens of
pain…before he passed out.
Half an hour later, the woman stood on the
outskirts of the base, hidden behind a tree. She sighed happily, grasping the
cloth of her balaclava, and tugging it up over her soft feminine features.
It was Jill Valentine.
Except it wasn't.
She looked at the device she'd filched from
the lab with a minimum of fuss. It had been easier than she'd thought.
Government security was so lax these days. She examined its stainless steel
exterior. At last, the final component she needed. Jill II smiled, coldly as
she thought about what it would be part of when she got back.
It had been…ten years? Yes, something like
that. She was itching to see her lover again…her dear brother, Leon II. Whose
child she had carried for nine months, and then had brought the child kicking
and screaming into the world.
She'd looked after her son. He'd grown
quickly. Their genetic makeup had forced him to the age of eighteen within ten
years, his mind developing at an impressive rate. His body had since slowed
down…but their collective hatred for the original Leon and his wife, and Chris
Redfield and her own original had been kindled to fury.
Itching for revenge…
She smiled strangely, looking over the
dark, rain savaged countryside.
Look who's
back in town, boys and girls…
END OF PART 1
Authors note: It's
BACK!! I said the sequel would come, and here it is! I'll be working on this as
well as Scorched Earth, Savage Skies…so watch out!!
PS If you don't
understand the 'Leon II' and 'Jill II' thing, read 'The Umbrella Chronicles' if
you haven't read it already, and make note of the events of 'Apocalypse Rising'
Read those, and understand this.
See you all!