Legal disclaimers: I don't own or lay claim to anything connected to the "Resident Evil" computer games, films or anything directly associated with them. The only things I own in this story are original ideas and characters, so please don't sue me anyone since all I have to give you is a dog I would probably miss. This story is just a work of fiction set in the world of RE.
Disclaimers: This story is a spin-off from "Operation: Falling S.T.A.R.S." by Matt6 detailing four possible future scenarios for the overall outcome of the story at the end of Year 2-and yes, I know that Year 1 isn't finished yet. This is a hypothetical story which can be considered Alternate Universe where it doesn't mesh with what Matt6 comes up with, based solely on what he's written so far and my imagination. Each Chapter will detail a different possible outcome.
APOCALYPSEJUNE 29th 2007-FIVE YEARS LATER
What does it mean when life means nothing?
God is dead.
Fate is forgotten.
Faith is an archaic wisdom preserved by the mad.
Wisdom only tells you what you want to know.
Freedom is an illusion created by pain as a release for the mind.
-Isis, the Jerusalem Chronicles.
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The echoes of a padded beater slapping against a thin drum cover, over and over again, sounded repetitively in the dead silence surrounding them. Once upon a time the hum of electricity, the laughter of people, the rumble of industry and the roar of traffic, even in the deep, dark dead of night like this, would have sounded everywhere. Lights would have shone, animals would have called out. Life would have been lived.
Things change.
Dead. That was the one word he knew that still applied its true meaning in this place. To call it a world or a realm meant acknowledging that you had once lived in this place, loved, cared, wanted more and known something else. He couldn't do that anymore, because the whole world was dead, nothing was true anymore except that.
The day came when the world gave up its dead and they came to take vengeance on the living. It was simply that no one ever believed that anyone who could be considered human would ever even possibly be responsible for it. They were all wrong.
Umbrella. If there was still a dark and terrible place where untold secrets were kept and remembered forever, for future reference as if that meant anything anymore, that name would be at the head of the list.
Stalking through the forest on the outskirts of a small town no one knew the name of, silent as a breath of cold air, watching all corners and angles for creatures you could only hope would kill you before they did worse, Matthew Ryan had seen better days. He didn't think of those anymore, either. Why bother? They were the one thing that terrified him now and that was the one thing he couldn't afford.
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His dark-green fatigue leggings, black t-shirt and boots and dark-brown t-shirt all stank with sweat long ago stained deep into the fabric. His black leather jacket was torn and cut, but the words "Hells Angel" were still visible across the upper back in dark, fiery red. His head was clean-shaven, no hair, beard or moustache of any kind was allowed to intrude, while light-blue eyes flickered from side to side constantly, so quick that anyone who didn't know him would have thought it was fear or nerves. He didn't have those things, hadn't in five years.
He held an M-18 in his hands, a standard 9MM pistol was holstered on his left hip and a bayonet on his right lower leg. Two grenades hung from his belt. He was as heavily armed as anyone out on mission, but that wasn't much.
He was only thirty-four years old, but his six-foot frame was instantly recognisable and everyone there knew him as simply "Leader". Once upon a time he'd been the senior field officer of the Special Operations Command, the SOC, he'd led the fight against Umbrella and its creations with courage, conviction and a skill approaching genius. He'd lost the war, now they were all dead.
Things change.
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On his right his right-hand "man", the woman who'd saved his life five years earlier and left him cursing her and everything she was for doing it ever since. Isis.
She'd dragged him out of the Umbrella Paris Headquarters holding cell after it had all truly begun, when even Headquarters was in uproar and mayhem as the siege brutally ended the only way it could. Starving, dying of thirst, half-dead and emaciated, a wasted wreck held a year for torture, sadistic deprivation and degradation, he'd been dragged out of a hole in the ground to witness sights that no one should see, acts of pure evil that could never be imagined.
The floors and walls had been slick with blood, bits and pieces of parts and people had been scattered and strewn around like casual debris. The screams and echoes of pain had ripped through his mind and made him wish he were in Hell, his eyes had absorbed sights that had taken away his sanity, made him try to claw his own eyes out. He didn't even remember more than flashes and glimpses of anything at all, but he'd never forget one thing.
Melissa. Melissa Jones, his Fiancée, the love of his life, the light that made him better and kept him true no matter what nightmare he knew. She'd been seated in a steel cage, he'd caught a glimpse of her brown hair and almost broken free-then the cage had swung around. He'd seen that her arms and legs were gone, festering stumps all that were left. Her body was scarred by fire, acid and cut. Her eyes had been pulled out, her nose cut off, her ears were gone, her lips sliced away, her mouth was sewn shut and a tube feeding her down her throat was keeping her alive. She was naked, so he could see the dark ill-closed surgical marks and red sores that were all that was left of parts of her body he had once touched lovingly with hands, lips and tongue. Filth of all kinds on the frame of the cage told the rest, even as her chest still slowly rose and fell in a pathetic abomination of life...
He'd screamed, screamed, screamed and screamed after everything-then Isis had broken Melissa's neck before physically carrying him out of there. He never knew what happened next, but he'd woken up with blood in his mouth and throat, then rarely spoken since. He knew that it was irrational, he knew that he'd be dead without her, but he loathed Isis so much that he didn't care. She knew it, but it didn't bother her. He could never betray or kill, or even hurt her, they both knew it. She'd freed Melissa, she'd saved him, they were all that the other really had left. Either one of them would have done anything for the other.
Isis. Better known as Lilith to everyone who'd ever met her, a being who would always defy description and definition.
An inch short of six feet tall, ten stone of physical grace, elegance and a compact, solid muscularity that somehow only added to an almost unnatural allure. With curly dark chestnut hair and deep oak-brown eyes, olive skin and the natural dark looks associated with those of Jewish blood, she was all long, lean and hard muscle, full firm curves and flawless caramel-skinned beauty to die for. She was the kind of beautiful that people didn't try to explain since it would insult perfection, but one thing spoiled it all if you looked too close. Her eyes, her dead cold gaze and a black-hearted abomination that was her Soul hidden behind them not so well that no one could see it. She was insane, everyone knew it, but there was none better at what she did so they all followed her and him anyway.
Despite the cool of night she wore a white sleeveless t-shirt that showed cleavage, battered old black jeans and boots, her long hair down and loose behind her falling to her waist. She carried an MP-5, a Desert Eagle, a 9MM pistol and two Halo Combat knives, each strapped in a sheath to a different upper arm. Black combat webbing strapped across her chest held reloads, explosives and other tools. A former Mossad Agent, she believed in being prepared and ready for absolutely everything-and it showed.
At the age of forty-three she didn't look a second past twenty-five. She had stamina, reflexes and physical skills that shamed people half her age and was, rightly, regarded as one of the two top field agents for Chimera. Matt was the other one, which was why they always worked together. If either of them was lost there was no telling what would happen next...
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They worked their way through the trees to the centre of town, always moving, watching, ready. Things moved silently past them in the night, not even brushing the grass or leaves in passing, but he sensed them more than he did Isis. He glimpsed a humanoid and altered course, Isis so close behind he felt her breath on his neck-then he saw the centre. Supermarket, shops, goods stores, just what they needed. The problem? Ever creatures of habit since they simply didn't have the ability to even suspect any other course of action, the Regulars were everywhere. Groaning, moaning, moving in that jerky way so eerily, sickly familiar, like a new-born child learning to walk, like a cripple taking his first steps in too many years...
Zombies. The dead, come back to life and hunting the living for food, a Doomsday weapon intended Super Soldier created by Umbrella Corporation they'd never got quite right, despite repeated attempts using variants of the Virus that created the things first. Rotted, decaying human corpses whose brains were "reactivated" on the most basic of levels by a jolt of Virus-manufactured "life" which restored enough motor control and consciousness of-a-sort to get a creatures with no vital functions at all upright and moving again, to carry out the most basic of functions: to feed, and breed.
What had made the current situation possible was Umbrella's acquisition of the "Pandora" Virus, harvested from the DNA of the "Source", an individual whose existence SOC analysts had discovered proof of far, far too late. The individual in question had been born "different", although Superhuman was a better word. Casually capable of physical and mental feats that couldn't even be understood with the naked eye or rational mind, a creation so unique that the words to describe her true nature weren't in his vocabulary, she'd been a Heaven-sent gift to Umbrella-or at least they'd thought so.
They should have read the old tales more closely. Reopening "Pandora's Box" had taken away the one thing humanity really had left: hope. The new Virus had tested off of every chart, so human subjects had been approved immediately. Some of them escaped and didn't die, reached others. The Pandora mutated as it spread around the world into any number of strains that could literally do anything, no Vaccine worked, there was no cure, it moved from air to water to any biological form with just skin contact if sustained for long enough. By the time Umbrella came clean in an act of suicidal desperation, less than a week into the "tests", it was too late.
National Militaries disintegrated under the strain, Governments fell, economic collapse so complete that national leaders committed suicide during live addresses followed genocide and catastrophe as the epidemic of living death went global. Society tottered and fell, civilisation ceased to have meaning, safety and security were lost issues that meant nothing in the path of encroaching darkness. Entire peoples went mad, cities committed nuclear suicide and every belief system anyone had was abandoned as not one person on Earth believed any God, Goddess or Deity of any sort would ever watch over this and allow it. Whole continents burned, Hell rose up from the ashes and consumed the survivors until everyone said one thing, one word: "ARMAGEDDON".
The thing was, they didn't all stay dead. Remnant groups who had fought so long just to survive that they'd forgotten how to do anything else fought their way on through fire, flood and Apocalypse to find a way to go on, any way at all, however they had to and could. The Racoon City S.T.A.R.S. had had the idea first, only all of them but one were dead now. The ruined, broken remnants of the SOC had taken up the cause and lasted longer, long enough to found and create Chimera. Now they were almost all gone too, but it had worked. Even in a place where light and life have no meaning any more, where the word "Bad" is merely an excuse to describe survival every day, where destruction and death exist as definitions of existence itself, hope goes on. Word gets out. People come, survive and live on.
Chimera. Sanctuary, safety, a place of violence and survival with reinforced concrete and stone walls thirty feet high, no underground, no windows and steel doors that lock and bar hard shut. The one rule is survival, no matter the price, everyone and everything has its ways-but no one goes out at night unless hunting, no matter what or who. Huge gates that loom in the night made of steel and stone and reinforced concrete shut out everything. Hard, harsh, fatal and final experience taught and informed the builders, lessons they applied to everything they did. All that was left to do was supply it, which was where he came in. They came in.
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"I estimate at least fifty Regulars, no sign of specials or unique. Clockwork. Call it in" whispered Isis. Another thing that bothered him, especially since the Regulars senses were so bad that they missed you with the naked eye six feet away and couldn't tell the difference between the living and the dead through scent.
Why were they all still so scared of these things? Five years of this and they still acted and talked as though the creatures were likely to suddenly turn, sprint right at them and rip their arms and legs off before eating them alive. Regulars couldn't run-how had they ended up calling "normal" Zombies "Regulars", again? Oh, yes, because the Pandora Virus had made description as impossible as categorisation, anything could be anything and might be able to do things you couldn't imagine...
"This is Leader, town is full of Regulars as far as can be seen, centre is strong. Light it up" he said into his hand-held radio. High technology available in the late twentieth and early twenty-first century was history now, just like human history. The War was over, they'd lost, now they hid, ran away and survived. It was all they had left.
"Copy that" came a voice over the radio, from the twenty-strong squad of "Specials" in two jeeps, a truck and a unique vehicle Matt rather appreciated hidden away on the outskirts of town. Seconds later, a sharp hiss sounded as the rocket climbed high and fast-then exploded with a roar of sound and an immensely bright flash of light, followed by sparks of light falling slowly out of the sky back to Earth as they died. The crack of sudden sound distracted the Regulars, the bright flash startled them, leaving them in a dull stupor for maybe five minutes every time. More time than the Specials needed.
He and Isis stepped out into the open, back to back, picked their targets and started shooting. Their accuracy was flawless after almost five solid years of working as a team to carry out the task, bullets flashing through the air to carve through rotten meat and bone into brain. Regulars fell left and right, half of them were down before the jeeps and truck even arrived to help, the jeeps twin side-mounted M-60 machine guns letting rip with brief volleys of hot, hard lead. They had the town centre cleared in three minutes, with that done the ten men in the back of the dark truck leapt out and broke up into two teams, one with Matt, the other with Isis.
He took the superstore, she took the goods store, orders were unnecessary with everyone there a Veteran. Two soldiers produced a Crowbar each and wrenched the doors, heaving back and forth until the seals breached, the lock broke and they got inside as steel buckled, glass breaking around it. Every man spread out and searched, looking only for tinned food or ration packs, water if good and manageable, the rare luxury if they had time. Matt idly noticed a sudden sharp double pop, as someone shot a Regular in the head with a double tap using a Silenced pistol. Everyone knew the drill, Regulars in the buildings weren't affected by what happened outside so you watched for them first of all. Thankfully, given that this place was all locked up before they broke in, it wouldn't be a problem more likely than not.
The goods store door wasn't secured, nor was the store as spacious or as open as the superstore, too many shadows to hide in, Isis knew. It suited her better, but didn't make her any safer. She and her team were after anything useful, particularly construction tools and gear, medical gear of any kind and any chemicals or medicine that might be useful. She tensed when she spotted blood leading out to the back door, but relaxed a little when she spotted the owner dead on the floor, one leg still sticking through the door, a baseball bat with a six-inch nail in it through his head. The bat was covered in blood, the man she suspected to be the owner had gone down fighting like Hell if the dismembered, half-eaten corpse that smelled too bad to imagine sitting in a corner was him, shell jackets being everywhere from a Shotgun still held in the mangled, severed arms of the corpse. The last shell looked to have taken the top of his head off...
Glass crunched underfoot as she stepped forwards, moving with the same liquid, unnatural grace she'd had her whole life and showed no signs of loosing even with her advancing years. Another rocket exploded outside, distracting the Regulars yet again-the light lit up things which made her smile. A variety of vicious looking tools, which were intended for use carving up soil and stone but which would be equally good with flesh and bone. Several First Aid kits, sealed and still intact. More than that, much more. They were in business.
Something seemed to brush past her, barely disturbing her hair... She grabbed a pickaxe, span and slashed around fast and hard as she could where her instincts told her to. The impact on the creature's head drove the sharp tip right through and into the floor. Its camouflage rippled as it started to shriek and whine, ten feet of long lizard-like body on four legs with the head of a T-Rex shimmering in and out of sight as it wrenched around, trying to free itself.
She drew her Halo knives, rammed them into its throat up to the hilt and wrenched them all the way around with an awful burn of strain-caused pain in her shoulders and arms as sharp steel sliced slowly through thick, scaly hide. Nearly decapitated, half the blood in its body suddenly seemed to hit the floor, just before it collapsed limply, dead. She stamped its brain to a pulp, just in case. You could never tell with these things.
Wiping the blood off with a rag she kept just in case, she breathed in deeply-and frowned. That smell, even against the long-dead corpse stench in here with her. That sulphuric, rotten half-eaten and regurgitated meat stink... More Shadows? No. Then what?
Her eyes shot open as she made the connection. Even among the dead there were things you didn't discuss.
Hades.
There was a Hades Breed here, she'd only ever seen one before and that had been directly responsible for wrecking half of Umbrella's Paris Headquarters. All by itself. Small-arms fire had meant less than nothing to it, they might as well have chucked rocks at that leathery rhino-hide obscenity.
ShitShitShit...
Matt and his squad had cleared the supermarket, selected what they needed and were loading up the truck by the time Isis came out to find him. The operation was scheduled for thirty minutes flat and no one was going to be late. Isis, though, had other ideas.
"Matt, a word in private, now" she snapped, grabbing his shoulder and practically dragging him away as he helped load the truck. He followed her for twenty yards, then pulled free as she turned back to face him.
"What?" he snapped, unhappy with the abrupt removal from his team of his presence. Cool, smooth and efficient organisation was the key to a successful mission, this was simple fact. More to the point, he had to be present at all times to ensure it. She knew this, so what was she up to?
"Hades is here, at least one, maybe more. We have to go, right this second" snapped Isis, glancing around them sharply as she scanned for any possible threats. Matt didn't even try to argue, he'd been at Umbrella headquarters at the same time even if he'd seen less than she had. Hades was a truly sick obscenity created by the Pandora Virus that could conceivably eat a small car and use human femurs to clean between its teeth. Worse than that, nothing short of a rocket launcher would crack its hide. He'd seen one cut a Tyrant in half in Paris by just backhanding it while everything from knives to Combat Shotgun blasts scattered off of its hide like raindrops. If that was here...
"Finish UP! Mount and ride, gun check and ready!" shouted Matt, moving at a near-run back towards the truck and front jeep. He was just too late regardless.
A man by the truck suddenly vomited blood in appalling quantity, then screamed a gargling death-howl as his rib cage exploded outwards from the back through to the front as something hit him in the back, punching right through him before lifting him off of the floor. The rear of one of the jeeps left the floor by a full foot before slamming back down hard, sending the shouting crew tumbling out as doors sprang open. A man was kicked so hard that he flew thirty foot before landing upside down on his head, every bone in his body broken long before he landed from the initial force.
A Special called Slade, a twenty-nine year old woman whose Italian-American beauty had drawn almost as much attention as her fighting skills since she became a soldier once Isis recruited her after meeting her as a young Hooker, hurled two throwing knives so fast Matt couldn't track her movements. Both hit something that wasn't there in the darkness, but she barely dived aside in time as the ruined corpse of the soldier came flying at her, Matt catching a glimpse of the tattoo that covered her upper back as she moved. SINcere it read, "Live in Sin, but keep your promises" was her motto.
Isis opened fire, emptying her entire magazine into the thing to no evident effect before she went for a grenade. Other Specials leapt into vehicles or dived for cover before turning and shooting, professional skill not dulled by loss. Nothing had any effect, another soldier dying as his head literally exploded before the remains were almost torn off of his neck-then Isis pulled out her grenade.
Matt recognised it, but hadn't been aware she had one. A Nitrogen grenade, French Special Forces choice of heavy weapon, one of very few things that might actually damage a Hades if it made contact. Isis being Isis, she pulled her 9MM and started shooting to establish its position before charging in, throwing the grenade, dropping, rolling and shifting her momentum fast from where he was sure was far too close-the grenade went off and missed her, but not it. Typical Isis again, she always knew better than everyone else, always did better, fought better, everything...
The Hades lurched backwards, parts of its massively, impossibly humanoid head becoming visible despite the natural camouflage that could hide it in plain sight anywhere perfectly, the obscene proportions of its face, eyes and skull almost bulging into view. Liquid Nitrogen froze half of its face off and penetrated right down into its skull, an awful howling moan that didn't belong in the mouth of anything from Earth. Moans and half-howls sounded everywhere in sudden response, Regulars across the entire town reacting to the cry.
Matt had no time to consider the ramifications of the Hades evidently possessing some control over the Regulars, he was a soldier and his first task was to kill the abomination in front of him. He aimed and fired an entire clip into the reeling Hades wounded area, shredding weakened hide, flesh and muscle-before one of its green eyes popped as a bullet tore through its eye socket and on into its brain. Isis reloaded and added her fire, quickly joined by the rest of the Specials. Purple blood erupted into the air, dense fragments of white bone skittered away as the hail of bullets punched and tore deeper and deeper into it-it staggered one more time, then, as its entire head collapsed inwards, it simply fell to the ground with a very final "thud". He didn't need to check to make sure it was dead, he'd been a soldier far too long for that, especially since he started fighting Umbrella...
Regulars stumbled into view at one end of the street leading away from the supermarket in two directions. Matt and Isis glanced at each other, then ran to help with the packing of the truck even as another rocket erupted in the sky, slowing down the Regulars again. The Hades call had had enough power to override whatever passed for consciousness in the Regulars dead minds and call them together, all in one place. There had to be hundreds in the town alone, that kind of weight of numbers they couldn't hope to handle.
"Move move move MOVE!" shouted Matt, even as two gunshots sounded, Specials making sure their fallen comrades were truly dead. You didn't leave anything to chance in this world and life, it would literally kill you to do it. Specials ran around in fast order like a hive of stirred Bees, practically throwing in supplies and gear before jumping in after them to secure the cache. More Regulars were stumbling in every second, they didn't have half the time they should have had.
"Leader, were done!" called one of the Specials, a brown haired middle-aged man called Dragon who'd started fighting in Vietnam and never stopped. One of the best men Matt had ever met with any weapon you could name, his age was only a handicap over long distances-there was nothing wrong with his stamina, he simply didn't move as fast as he used to, even though his accuracy was better than expert every time. He built ammunition and guns, even customised them if necessary. He was also the most reliable Special Matt knew, so he came along on every mission run that Matt could organise to include him, just in case.
"Heard and understood, Dragon. Ares, this is Matt Ryan, we have a problem with passage. Come in and clean up, will you?" called Matt into his radio. An affirmative came back in seconds even as the Specials moved to position. That said and done, Matt climbed into the lead jeep while Isis took the rear and waited.
The Ares was a modified, specially built Half-Track with steering tyres that couldn't be punctured and a massive variety of heavy weapons attached everywhere, ranging from Chainsaws to heavy machine guns to grenade launchers and even heavy rockets originally designed for use in Demolition from ship to sea. Its armour was five inches of steel with only a single exit door that couldn't be opened from the outside and an emergency hatch on the roof in case of catastrophe.
With working targeting computers, built-in GPS locator and enough stored ammunition and explosives combined to fight a small war the Ares, at the size and length of a big trailer truck, was destruction defined by nature of its mere existence. Bigger, faster and more powerful than any tank ever built it could roll right over, literally, anything left that could be used against it these days and be parked on top of its opponent. Painted jet-black with a Pentagram inscribed on its roof in the crews attempt at gallows humour, it had once belonged to the Umbrella Corporation.
Isis had "borrowed" it in her rescue of Matt, the other surviving SOC soldiers and the surviving S.T.A.R.S. from Umbrella Headquarters to ensure their escape from a city rapidly being overrun by abominations that were tearing apart trucks and swallowing people whole, with the reasoning that "Shooting first is simpler" and the Ares had the biggest guns. After a scenic trip through the ninth Circle of Hell, she'd been proved right. It was that same vehicle which had kept them all alive as Hell itself came right up out of the ground when they watched the writhing, dying Paris burn while fighting Regulars in hand-to-hand combat after being caught outside when they stopped to treat their wounded. Fast, accurate guns had that effect...
The Ares came into view and opened fire with a sound like every Soul in Hell screaming at once as an almost unimaginable firestorm of steel death lashed and crashed out from every side at every angle, even as the Half-Track kept going, simply squashing the dead under its massive wheels. Regulars literally exploded as though they'd trodden on a mine even as chunks of bodies and limb fragments sprayed everywhere like a sudden hailstorm, giving Matt more cause to be glad that the dead didn't bleed. It took one minute for the Ares to clear the way, then the Specials started up their engines and took off past it on the road home, the Ares swinging around to follow them, still taking pot shots at staggering Regulars as it did.
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As they raced clear, Isis caught sight of a fat old man, or rather a badly rotted Regular, who was the source of the slow, unsteady beat that had been irritating her. He, it was still trying to play a ruined, torn old drum slung around its neck on rotten rope with a broken drumstick sticking out of, and through, its hand. She took the top of its head off with a snapped shot and a smile. That was better...
It was an hours hard drive back to Chimera, the dark purpose-built fortified small "city" the corrupt Government of last-ever President Evan's of the USA had started in 2002 in an attempt to create a totally secure Safe House for the entire Cabinet, Military Chiefs and their families should looming disaster strike in the USA. The increasingly demented Andrew Spencer, finally free of the interference and attacks of the defeated SOC, S.T.A.R.S. and even the decimated, routed Alliance troops-troops forced to flee by on-going and increasing losses out in places Earth had no understanding of-was clearly going out of his mind as Umbrella conducted more and more dangerous experiments, Spencer's Viral stranglehold over Evan's making him powerless to do anything at all. By the time Evan's realised that Spencer had completely lost both his mind and any control over Umbrella's freak new creations, it was too late. Chimera had been abandoned half-built, the workers being killed or fleeing, the Military guards being ravaged by beasts beyond description which later moved on to the major cities in search of prey.
A year later, the S.T.A.R.S. remnants had found the place and realised what it could be. They'd managed to complete the walls, clear the inner area of Regulars and occupy safely the completed buildings. Despite ongoing global catastrophe the shattered remains of the SOC, trying hopelessly to regroup, had gained news of what had been discovered from a S.T.A.R.S. officer who had passed through the city while fleeing New York for anywhere else. A former Undercover Agent for Umbrella, he'd stated that he wasn't fit to call himself human if he served people who could do this and was on his way into the wilderness to die, he'd passed them his map and never been seen again.
The SOC had made it, to discover almost all of the S.T.A.R.S. dead as the city lay under siege by mutated birds and creatures capable of scaling sheer stone walls. The heavier firepower of the SOC troops had removed the threat quickly, after which they'd joined in in securing the place, aided by survivors who somehow found it or who were recovered by supply runs to towns, villages and cities wherever possible. With a population of 1,625 at last count, Isis, who was very reliable with such facts it had been discovered long ago, stated that she had no doubt at all that Chimera was the greatest concentration of human beings left on the planet. In fact, they were quite possibly the only group left that could get anywhere near calling itself a population centre, even the fact that the population was really an army not changing the fact that people had families, lived, ate, drank, slept and made all kinds of decisions, right or wrong, behind those massive walls.
They drove in through the massive gate fast, it was shut hard, barred and double locked behind them. Inside was a selection of warehouses, houses, military centres, recreation buildings and science complexes, all simple black stone and reinforced concrete in structure, not one window anywhere, even doors being capable of taking machine-gun fire without breaking down. That was the way it had to be, simple fact of life these days Matt knew with cold, dark and hard logic and extensive experience backing him up all the way.
The buildings were closely packed together, but there were no shadows. Everything was laid out with mathematical precision for greatest efficiency, solid strength and ease of access, the engineers who had designed and partially built the place having done a superb job everyone had been very glad to discover.
Inside the buildings anything and everything was for sale, from water to alcohol, from cereal to the weird, soft variant of meat called "Brand", even people. It was possible to literally buy human beings in Chimera, those people who never had anything and could do nothing more useful than be there when called, anyone who couldn't or wouldn't pick up a gun or even fight, who wasn't willing to do whatever it took to succeed and survive here. Matt had never bought anything more than the favours of certain women in special curtained-off areas in the place, one of the recreation halls, but he would always remember the screaming, shouting and howling, bright electric lights-all hardwired with thick, heavy cable of course-and sheer madness, the life the place exuded every time he went into it.
It was one of very few places he felt comfortable any longer, so it was always where he went first to relax after a mission. He checked his main weapons at the Military HQ complex, but no one went around Chimera unarmed, ever, so it had always been a minor miracle that no massive shoot-outs had ever killed large numbers of people in the place given some of the arguments that had been known to erupt into full-scale brawls. He suspected the reason was that everyone here was, in reality, far too glad to be alive to be so stupid as to kill someone over just an argument in this place and time-he'd been tempted a few times himself, but he'd always been stopped by that thought...
He was intercepted before he got to it this time, however, even with Isis by his side. The kind of interruption neither of them could ignore.
Five foot six and maybe a hundred and twenty pounds of preternatural lethality got in their way. Jet-black shoulder-length hair, jade-green unbelievable eyes and a forged, hard body that carried no excess weight of any sort, clothed in a dark sea-green sheath dress. Beautiful in the same way death was, with a lithe, compact physique that was all steely muscle and sharp, hard edges, Song Ma Han, better known as "Dragonfly", the lethal Japanese beauty who was second only to Isis herself in terms of skill, talent and ruthlessness coupled with ability that beggared the imagination, could have made the Devil take a step backwards with her stare. Isis's eyes were cold, empty and a gate into something people should never see. Song's eyes were simply empty, as though there was nothing behind them beyond a direct route to the Pit. Nobody could, or would, lock eyes with either woman for any longer than seconds at a time. The twin Samurai swords Song always wore sheathed, one to each hip, didn't hurt in keeping people away either.
"Its time" she said simply, her English flawless but carrying a distinctive accent that marked her as a native of Japan to anyone who could pick out such things. He didn't know why she hadn't lost it after over four years in Chimera, she was the only Japanese native in the city so she no longer had any reason to use her native language, but she hadn't. "His time, more appropriately" she continued, without the slightest trace of expression in any form to suggest that she was doing any more than discussing a change in the weather.
"You mean he can't hold on any longer, Song" replied Isis, her reply not a question. She was the only person Matt had ever met Song paid any attention too or actually attempted to socialise with at all, neither woman would explain why and Isis had warned him off pressing the former Assassin for an answer. Isis knew that she wasn't completely sane, but what Song could be defined as was something better left always undefined. There had been more than one person who had questioned her very humanity before now, not without reason.
"Yes. Come" replied Song, before turning and heading off towards one of the smaller houses without looking back, moving with unnatural grace in a way which seemed to make her flow rather stride over the ground. Isis and Matt didn't bother asking more, they just followed her. Anyone in their small circle knew exactly who she was talking about.
As he walked in, he picked out the surviving members of the very elite circle he had somehow become part of over the years here. He had to reflect that if he'd met any one of the people in the group at any point before Armageddon, he as likely have been dead ten seconds later as not, everyone there was easily that lethal.
Things changed.
The first was one of two men. Vladimir Ustinov, better known as simply "Devil", forty-seven year old former Spetsnaz officer and Veteran of the USSR's war with the people of Afghanistan. His hair was sheer silver, which was held in a short ponytail at his neck, his eyes were the impossible blue of a cold, clear Siberian sky. Six foot three tall and 168 pounds heavy, all hard muscle and sinew, he was the toughest man and most formidable professional soldier Matt had ever met. With the kind of presence that made everyone snap to attention or start sweating if he didn't like you, even in grey shirt, trousers and black boots he almost dominated the small room and the dying figure in the bed at the centre. He hadn't laughed or smiled in five years.
The second was the bizarre woman called only Giselle, better known as "Delphi" to most, a former intelligence Agent. Standing 5,9 tall and weighing 137 pounds, she was whip-quick solid, hard muscle on a frame so perfectly controlled by focus of mind and self-discipline barely the right side of madness that just to see her move was almost an attempt to solve an equation. Thirty-seven years old, with jet-black shoulder length hair and cloud-grey eyes, she had pale skin with black tattoo's running down from her eyes like tears which covered thirty-year-old scars, her upper left arm being surrounded by a barbed wire tattoo of the same colour. A cool beauty that an odd detachment from everything and everyone around her somehow stopped people from truly appreciating made her eye-catching, but what held the gaze were her eyes, bright eyes filled with such incredible intelligence it almost swallowed you whole. Even in a light-blue t-shirt that barely fitted, ragged old dark-blue jeans and white trainers she caught the eye easily.
She'd been so quiet and thoughtful before Armageddon it almost seemed as though she hadn't changed at all since it. Only Matt, who she'd conducted occasional intimate interludes with, and very few others knew just how much pain she was hiding away in her tortured Psyche. She only ever opened up when she was absolutely relaxed and sure of someone, which only really happened with pillow talk or Vladimir-or the other woman, he supposed.
She and Vladimir were all that was left of the Mercenary team called the Forsaken, once one of the most deadly, ruthless, committed and reliable teams of its kind ever to be had on the planet. They'd once worked for Umbrella, too.
Beside them stood Jaiana, better known as "Tsarina", the definition of the impossible and the complexity of the paradox idea. Thirty-six years old, she weighed in at 119 pounds and stood five foot nine inches tall with jet-black hair falling to her waist in a tight ponytail. That was where anything normal and her parted company.
Her eyes were utterly white, totally devoid of colour, while her skin was a pale silver-grey that was always cool to the touch and never felt like human-grown tissue. Her clothes were a simple black "suit" that literally moulded to her skin, leaving only her hands and head free, while a sharp beauty was muted by a totally dispassionate expression that never changed. A variety of jewellery hung all over and about her in the form of rings, earrings and wristlets of all shapes and designs, but none of it was decorative.
What she was, who she was, what she was supposed to be, what he believed she represented? He could not, would not and never would consider any of that, madness was the least of his worries if he actually tried to accept any of that.
She'd lost more than any of them could even possibly imagine if they somehow survived this world though, if they lived on into another and got to start over again from the point of original possibility. She was also the one being on the planet he was utterly sure nothing on it he'd ever heard of, possibly short of a Nuke, could kill. She didn't exist, she couldn't exist, but he'd seen what she could do and never wanted her angry at anyone he knew, especially him. Nobody could guess at what went through her head when she thought about whatever she did, she didn't talk to anyone about it in any case.
Then there was her. Jianna Torres, better known as "Fallen Angel", five foot eleven and 129 pounds of full curves, unearthly beauty and a nature, a presence that spoke to everyone of the things that only happened in the dark, that you never saw, ever. With dark amber eyes and curling jet-black hair that spilled easily loose down to her waist, preternatural grace and beauty that would make anyone kill for her, physical and mental skills that didn't belong on Earth and deep, dark skin that belonged to another race and time, to call her merely both unique and breathtaking, even added to stunning, failed to express the truth-even considering her forty years on Earth. She could do impossible things because she herself was impossible, a being literally forged and created from the ground up by a process humanity and evolution had almost nothing to do with. A black shirt, leggings and boots almost totally failed to conceal her powerful frame.
Jianna Torres, the "Fallen Angel", was also the source of the Pandora Virus that had caused Armageddon with Umbrella's insane approach to "research and development". Everyone knew it, which was why no one saw her at all any more unless she wanted them to. She'd been held in Umbrella's Paris headquarters just like Matt had, she'd managed to free herself amidst the chaos and joined the survivors on their way out-too little, too late, despite everything she'd done since. Her mind was trapped looking straight into the Abyss, she'd barely spoken a single word let alone made even the slightest sound since Armageddon had begun.
No one fought harder against Umbrella's creations, no one had done more damage, saved more lives, but it wasn't enough, it could never be enough. Matt had no doubt at all that she'd have committed Suicide if she could, but even a bullet in the brain wouldn't have finished her off-he'd seen her survive and recover from a point-blank shotgun blast to the head in minutes. Her only reason for staying in Chimera was to help the survivors however she could until something capable of killing her finally did the job. Her combat skills, which Matt could only describe as Godly, made such a possibility much further away than simply remote. She was so simply dangerous she was possibly even more lethal than Jaiana.
The last but one was the supposedly dead Ada Wong, better known as "Asia", kneeling beside the occupant of the bed in the centre of the room now, begging him to live on her knees. Five-eight tall, 120-odd pounds with shoulder length jet-black hair and light-brown eyes set around a softly beautiful Eurasian face and firm, curvy figure, in her dark-red sheath dress and grey shoes little was left to the imagination.
However, caught on the edge of the Nuclear blast that had vaporised Racoon city in 1998, left with Amnesia for three years after spending the first six months in a deep Coma, large patches of her body were still an almost raw red, as though burnt by fire just yesterday, while her hands were so badly scarred from more recent fire injury that they barely functioned at all. Left with a loss of stamina that had taken years to correct, massive psychological and physical trauma she'd never fully recovered from and permanent, terrible pain, only Jaiana and Jianna Torres had lost anything like as much as she had to Umbrella.
It didn't matter in the end, though, her eventual partial recovery had been much too little, much too late. It hadn't stopped her developing a deep, bitter hatred for anything and anyone associated with Umbrella, though, despite the fact she'd once willingly worked for them. It was one of the reasons she and Giselle, once almost literally inseparable and joined at the hip, rarely even talked any longer.
The last person in the room was the only link left for all of them to the "bad old days", as they liked to refer to the pre-Armageddon times. Ada's memories were fractured, so she was never much help and would never remember exactly what happened in Racoon, that they all knew.
Leon Kennedy, on the other hand, had always had perfect recall and, with every other member of the Racoon City "original" S.T.A.R.S. long dead, he had been and was the only one left who could still make them care about back then somehow. Racoon City, nuked by Umbrella in late 1998 after an accidental release of both T and G-virus's had turned almost nine out of ten of the city population of 100,000 into the forgotten dead. That was where it had all started. "All roads lead to Rome" as the saying went, or rather Racoon...
Leon lay on a rough bed paralysed, left a cripple since the escape from the Paris Headquarters of Umbrella in 2003. Back then he'd been young, handsome with dark-brown hair and blue eyes, a smooth face and powerful, lean 5,8 frame. His natural competence and easy skill had caught the eyes of the Police department early on when he'd first joined, his first posting to Racoon City as a rookie beat Cop had been seen as the beginning of a truly golden, glittering career. He'd never known it, but Umbrella had been looking at him for their elite UBCS teams with a command position in mind.
Then Racoon City had literally gone to Hell and he'd spent four years fighting a guerrilla war against a multibillion dollar multinational corporation that could have bought and sold the entire S.T.A.R.S. organisation a thousand times over. Joining fellow rebel S.T.A.R.S. who were willing to draw a line in the sand against an organisation which literally practised acts of evil, obscenity, insanity and megalomaniac arrogance in defying every law of nature and man every single day of its existence, he'd done whatever he could to help and to win the war. He'd later joined up with the SOC and other rebels when simply "bad" went to much worse, willing to sacrifice anything, do almost anything to succeed, but by the time of the capture of the surviving opponents of Umbrella by that companies Special Forces teams it had been far too late.
The final siege of the Umbrella Paris headquarters had been delivered by the very creations of the company itself, long beyond any possibility of control. With the entire building burning, collapsing and in some cases even rotting around them as they ran, limped or rolled to hoped, impossible safety, not everyone had made it out amidst the chaos of the rescue. Leon had heard the warning cracks amidst the chaotic bedlam of massive destruction and awful, subhuman screams of agony and suffering echoing everywhere far, far too late. The roof of the building had fallen three floors and dropped half a ton of burning masonry on him, which had carried him another three floors down on into the basement amidst carnage and hellfire touched by the sick stink of cooking human flesh.
Ada had ruined her hands in the basement fighting her way through to him, tearing her way through rubble and debris with hands masses of blood, fingernails gone, hair, dress and even her skin on fire. Jianna Torres had gone through the solid ton of masonry and steel with as much trouble as most displayed pushing open a door in seconds, pulled him clear, put him out and rolled him and Ada into the Ares before they all took off, Ada screaming hysterically at him as he smouldered. It was now a running joke that his continued survival proved that not even Umbrella could kill him, but he had finally come to the conclusion that nature still could.
His skin was twisted, drawn, pale and misshapen all over his body, he had no body hair at all. Broken arms, legs and a variety of other bones had been roughly set and had never healed properly, even now his body was simply a misshapen nightmare that defied every breath he took to prove that he was still alive. Even his lips were cracked, twisted unnaturally and a pale, sickly white, the only thing normal about him were his eyes, bright eyes that had never lost that same spirit he'd always had despite everything.
He couldn't move or care for himself at all, spoke only with massive effort and was left exhausted after less than an hour of any real effort on his best days, which left him hacking and coughing with fire and smoke ruined lungs, occasionally coughing up blood from terrible internal injuries and twitching uncontrollably for hours in obvious agony as his scorched heart laboured terribly to keep him alive.
Heading towards five years later, his broken body was finally giving up. One mans will, no matter who's or why, could only carry anyone so far. It shouldn't have mattered with almost six billion Undead monstrosities everywhere around the Earth hunting down the living, all unleashed by one of the most basic of human desires- greed, aided by arrogance and insanity in no small measure-but it did. He'd kept them all alive somehow, kept them sane. His death would finally break Ada Wong, they all knew that, but what else would it do? In maybe an hour, Matt could tell from just looking at the man, they were going to find out.
"How long?" asked Isis, never the kind of person to let feelings or regrets get in the way of cold, hard reality. Matt sometimes thought that she was so focused that the only thing really capable of killing her was herself, she could and would shut everything out to get the job done. He knew, from very hard experience, that would get you itself in the end.
"Maybe an hour, maybe less. He's becoming increasingly tired and non-responsive, in just a little time he won't wake up at all. I just wish he'd be left at peace then. If anyone says I said that..." replied Song, letting her voice trail off with the kind of menace suggested that only a killer born could ever manage. Everyone knew that was precisely what she was.
"Song, for your own sake shut up. He deserves our respect, not your contempt of human frailty, no matter what you think or believe. Let him die in peace" snapped Jianna, her voice strong and firm, commanding and dominating even with the hint of depth that suggested extraordinary vocal talent behind it. Song took the hint, no one spoke up when Jianna Torres warned them.
"Grow up, everybody dies and everything truly means nothing, this is indisputable fact on which I am the truest authority. What you mean to say is that you'll miss him. We all will, Jianna, so just say so for once" snapped Jaiana, which earned her a glare from Jianna. However, Jiana's amber eyes turned away first.
Leon's eyes suddenly blinked open, he blinked again, then glanced around. They could see the smile in his eyes, one or two even shifted, slightly uncomfortable for some reason.
"Hey...hey...hey...the gangs all here..." he managed, the words hard to make out with a whisper-quiet voice and immobile lips. They all managed, though.
"What's the...occasion? Oh...yes...I'm going to die, damn. So I suppose that this is the part where...I...say kind...things about you all? Well, tough, I'm honest so...httt...I'll go with mean, but fair. For a start, Ada, when I die I'll come back just to terrorise...you if you let my...death rule you. You know what I mean. Forget about me. Go there" said Leon, before having to pause to catch his breath.
"Vladimir, Giselle...you're the best at what you do, everyone knows it. If there is a Promised Land, you're the...guides. Lead them...home" Leon continued. His eyes tracked on to Song.
"Song, if anyone can, you can kill...death. Like it or...not, you just might...be...the...cure. I know what your looking for...I hope you find...it. Good luck" Leon said, before his eyes tracked on to Jaiana.
They locked eyes, but he didn't say anything to her. A bitter smile crossed her face as that happened, even a man like this couldn't find the words to make anything have meaning to her. She simply existed, that was it.
Then his eyes tracked onto Jianna Torres and simply stopped. He blinked again, then looked her straight in the eyes. They didn't break eye contact for over a minute, then he spoke very slowly. "Good luck" was all he said. What else could he have said or done? Nobody and nothing could make her feel any worse or useless than she already did.
He looked at Matt, winked and managed another smile with his eyes. "Its your turn now, Matt...you'll do well, I know" he said, so softly that Matt barely heard him.
"I wish you all the best, good luck, good hunting and remember...SURVIVE" said Leon, raising his voice so that everyone could definitely hear him at the last. That said, he whispered something into the kneeling, weeping Ada's ear that only she ever heard, then settled back one last time.
The screams that erupted moments later from the tormented Ada told him everything there was left he needed to know. Leon Kennedy was dead, an era was finally, truly, terribly over. There was only one thing left to do-and it wasn't his place to do it. Instead, to distract himself, he looked around at the inscriptions covering every inner surface of the building, reading them all even though he'd long ago committed all of it to memory.
Life has no meaning if there is no choice.S.T.A.R.S. believe.
Chris Redfield
Jill Valentine
Barry Burton
Rebecca Chambers
Freedom is justice, life is service.
For a better world.
Ian Williams
Mark Klein
Paul Williams
Sam Johnston
Adam Jennings
Zander Scotts
Gregory Tomlin
Kenny Bailey
Daniel Anderson
Melissa Jones
I have meaning.
Only the lost need to believe.
Serena Baccarin.
Choices.
What are they?
Xenia Omerova.
SURVIVE.
That's all it takes to win.
Anna NeagleyTHE END?