--
The cold wind whipping through her hair, she forced flailing limbs to straighten, bracing her body to cut through the surface of the water. If she even hit water, that is. Claire hated herself for a moment when she closed her eyes, despising the sign of cowardice, but everything really was out of her hands by now. Watching your body slam into jagged rocks really wasn't something even the bravest of souls ever looked forward to anyway.
She wanted to breathe a sigh of relief when her feet sliced into the river's icy water, but knew she'd need every bit of air she could get. Her body sank into the swirling depths, and her boots eventually touched the rocky bottom of the river. She estimated its depth at about nine feet, more than enough cushion. Pushing off the bottom, she swam with the current, keeping herself low in the water. Maybe the goon squad would figure her for dead, but she wasn't going to count on it this time. The last time she underestimated them it had nearly got her killed.
It was barely an hour earlier, when she had finally limped out of her cramped hiding place. She took a moment to walk off the stiffness in her limbs, feeling like her entire body had fallen asleep on her. Having spent nearly three hours in the hollowed out tree trunk, this was no surprise. What was a surprise was the sudden arrival of the soldier she had heard earlier. She wasn't sure if he had been waiting or backtracking, but there he was, his stubby machinegun trained on her.
"Looks like I bagged the top prize today," he said, and she could hear the grin in his words. "Keep your hands up," he instructed, waving his weapon. Claire had no choice but to comply, watching and waiting for her chance to make a move for her knife. "I'm supposed to shoot you on sight, but there are more than a couple guys in my unit who want some payback for what you and your little boyfriend did to our guys...don't like the thought of that, huh," he said, seeing the worried expression on her face. "You're not too bad looking either," he added, a trace of regret in his voice.
Her eyes intent on his gun, she took a step forward, her foot bumping against something hard in the grass. Without looking down, she knew what it was; a fallen tree branch, rotted but still quite hefty.
"That's far enough," he said, a dozen feet from her. She couldn't be sure, but it seemed as if the barrel of his gun wavered ever so slightly. Maybe killing a young, unarmed woman was difficult no matter how nice Umbrella's health benefits were. Claire craned her long neck, tossing her hair suggestively; she had to make a move, and soon. This guy no doubt radioed his comrades their location already, and would be on their way. He seemed to pay no mind to her feminine gesture.
She dug the leather toe of her boot into the dirt, just under the fallen branch. The fall season had spread dead leaves every which way, so it was well hidden in the underbrush. Claire raised her hands even further up, locking her fingers and resting them atop her head. A sexy look hadn't worked on him, so she played the weak, helpless woman. Maybe he'd go for that kind of easy prey; scum that preferred to take what would be given. Trying her best to look at this man as her worst enemy, she sought to summon enough emotional hatred to kill him.
"Listen, you don't need to do this, right," she asked him. "I'm not going to say anything if that's what you think…really," she said. "I just want to go home," she pleaded, her words longingly sad.
"It's nothing personal," he replied, his voice hardening. "We made our choices long ago…"
"Not me," she begged. "I just stumbled onto this, and now you want to kill me for something I won't even do…"
"Sorry, it's not how you or I want it, but that's how it is," he said, shrugging apologetically.
The moment the barrel of his gun hesitated, she kicked the branch up at him in a sudden explosion of dead leaves and dirt. The spinning branch hit him squarely in the face, surprising him and knocking him off balance. Before it connected, her survival knife was already out of her shoulder sheath and down by her hip when she lunged at him. As he turned back, she caught a glimpse of her own reflection in his goggles, her face a twisted mask of raw, animalistic desperation. Claire didn't falter, though, as she plunged the silver blade into the side of his throat next to his Adam's Apple, grasping the handle with both hands and twisting it to the sound of crunching cartilage snapping in her ears—
But that wasn't real, that wasn't going to happen today. The thought of ramming her knife into a living person's throat, watching a man die at her feet solely because of her actions…was not something she was ready to handle, no matter what she had been through in the past 24 hours.
"You bitch," he screamed, struggling to pull the imbedded knife from his bleeding shoulder. As he thrashed about angrily, his machine gun began to fire, bullets whizzing past her ducking head and scattering the leaves above them. Claire released her left hand from the knife handle to grasp the flailing gun, pushing the rattling carbine away. Her right hand still firmly holding the knife in place, she planted her feet and twisted her body, throwing the larger man over her hip. They fell to the ground in a rolling scrum, Claire digging the knife in further, hoping he would release his finger from the trigger. Finally gaining leverage atop him, she jammed her right knee against his chest and stepped down on his gun with her left foot. Gasping from the strain, she glanced down at the pinned man. His mask removed in the melee, she saw a pitiful and wincing little man, balding even though he was barely in his thirties. Claire felt an odd wave of sentiment for the man, who had had an opportunity to kill her, but missed it because of his own doubt. It was lucky for her she hadn't met a stone cold killer, or her body would be riddled with bullets by now, or maybe even worse. She wondered if he had intentionally spared her life with that shrug of his shoulders; it was only fair she do the same.
Kicking away his now silent gun, she pulled the knife from his shoulder and quickly covered the wound with her hand. Curious, he looked expectantly at her, waiting for the finishing blow, but instead she gently took his hand and guided it to keep pressure on the wound. He felt the warmth of his blood flowing through his fingers, and he realized immediately that he missed her kind touch. She half smiled at him, as if unsure of what she was doing but doing it all the same. The sound of men plowing through the underbrush around them broke the moment, and Claire stood, taking off into the woods. Despite this new predicament, she was pleased by the outcome of that situation. Both of them made it out alive, and he had a serious enough wound to satisfy his superiors yet not endanger his life.
It never occurred to Claire that her survival knife could be tainted with blood from undead T-Virus carriers after her Raccoon City ordeal. The entire squad of men died two days later in quarantine at a nearby Umbrella facility.
--
Dodging zombies really gets old, she thought, firing a round squarely through one's oozing forehead. As the corpse fell, she leapt atop it, pushing off its squishy chest tograb the balcony overhang. She swung long legs over the railing, coming down in a low crouch with her gun trained on the hallway before her. Wesker's maps had suggested the mainframe to be in the basement of the main building, but his intelligence had finally proved wrong since this little adventure started. Ada hoped that wouldn't be an omen of things to come.
It was amazing to her how drastically the architecture of the buildings had changed; it was like stepping into another era. Everything was vintage, expensive, and looked to belong in a museum. A very old museum, at that. It was the kind of place owned by a fleet of great grandmothers who had amassed a fortune, or at the very least, someone who wanted to come off as having "taste". Ada knew right away that she didn't like the owner of this place.
Wesker's report had mostly piecemeal information on the Ashfords, Alfred and Alexia, two brilliant wonder kids heir to the Umbrella Empire. Word had it that Alfred was a bit of a bumbling klutz, and that it was his sister who was the true brains of the family. There were no available photographs of her, but reports indicated that she was a strikingly beautiful young woman. So, beautiful and brilliant…
"And I thought I was the only one," she had joked to Wesker at the briefing. He didn't so much as crack a smile. Ada got the impression he was still a bit pissed at her for wondering aloud how he couldn't have gotten a photograph of Alexia to go with the report. His familiar voice suddenly broke in over the radio, rousing her from that pleasant memory of reminding Wesker of an imperfection in his master plan.
"Ada, my team has uncovered something…unexpected," he said.
"You didn't plan for something," she asked, feigning amazement.
"Your flippancy is neither necessary nor desired," he answered bluntly. "Unless you would prefer to go in blindly…"
"Alright, alright…what is it," she sighed. She got the feeling she was going to regret her little remark before she got much older.
"The system mainframe shut down automatically once the attack began," he began. "Umbrella must have instituted new protocol since my…departure, to ensure their protection. As such, all the relevant data banks have been wiped clean."
"So what do we do now?"
"The objective remains the same; I need data on Alexia's Code Veronica virus. Only now the means has changed; instead of data, I will need an actual sample. Or one of the Ashfords."
"Kidnapping is a little out of my expertise, Wesker, especially since I have no idea what half the Wonder Twins looks like."
"Nonetheless, this the mission I am giving to you. I imagine I don't have to remind you what will happen if you fail to comply…do I, Ada?"
"…Of course not, Wesker. I'll be at the rendezvous point as scheduled."
"Of course you will," he said, clicking off before she could say anything else.
Ada cursed herself, wishing she had just cleaned out his serum supply and gone on her own to find a means to synthesize it when she'd had the chance. Hell, she knew people. Maybe not as many as Wesker, but she knew enough biochemists since her undercover work on John that she could call in some favors. Then again, she had a feeling most of those scientists were either zombie chow or dispatched by Wesker. He had a way of considering every viable option and crushing it methodically in his hands. Part of her admired that in him, but the bigger part of her despised that condescending and manipulative asshole.
She rose from her crouch and began to creep down the hallway, keeping to the shadows along the wall. Her nose didn't pick up the faints scent of undead flesh, but she didn't want to take chances. There were enough unknowns in this scenario for her taste as it was.
--
Writer's note: I really got into the gruesomeness of Claire killing that guy, but I just couldn't see it in her character being that savage. She's not quite the badass we'll see in Code Veronica, but she will get there soon if I can work out the next story bits properly. I loved the irony of her sparing his life and still being responsible for his death; peoplewant to only be responsiblefor what they see in front of them, it seems.
I have a big chunk of the next chapter already written, but I just can't decide on a few things. I figure this is a good sized piece for a setup chapter; expect things to pick up again soon and head further down the timeline in later installments. Once the Raccoon incident is completely out of the way, I can focus solely on Rockford Island and beyond; expect some double crosses, betrayals, and nasty surprises. I'm also playing RE4's Separate Ways right now, so maybe I'll draw some inspiration from that...I'm not quite sure on a few things in the Ada/Wesker relationship.
