Chapter 10: The Path Not Taken

The cawing grabbed Rebecca's attention.

Not a minute after their first encounter with the snakes, a second bunch had attacked. That time, however, there were only two of them. After a brief sprint, they had reached a gate and rushed through it. That seemed as far as the snakes were willing to go because they weren't to be found anymore. The three of them stood in a courtyard now. Her eyes briefly scanned before she heard the cawing.

Her eyes latched onto the small murder of crows dotted around the place. She sucked in a deep breath as her mind flashed back to the training facility.

Jessica frowned as she glanced behind her. "No snakes, but those," she continued as she pointed at the crows, "Can fly."

Richard was confused for a moment before his brain caught up with the implications. "They're also infected?"

"Yeah," Rebecca said quietly.

"Git your shotgun out," Jessica murmured before lifting both of her handguns. "We can get the first shot in, but I'm countin' four of them."

"Five," Rebecca corrected as she glance at the stone wall to her right. Another one of the birds sat above the stone, staring right at them.

Jessica steadied her aim. "I'm ready. Richard, got the shotgun?"

"Is it really necessary?" He glanced at Rebecca. "We're supposed to be saving ammo."

Rebecca nodded, her own handgun locked onto a third crow. "We are, but Jessica is right." Her face scrunched up as she said those words. "They can be extremely dangerous, and they'll be really hard to hit once they start flying. We might end up wasting a lot of ammo if we don't use your shotgun."

Frowning yet satisfied, Richard holstered his handgun before pulling out his gleaming assault shotgun. He pumped it once and said, "Ready."

"On three," Jessica declared. "One…two… three!"

The handguns popped, and crows squawked. Three of the murder fell dead as the last two took to the air. "They're yours, Richard!" Rebecca shouted as she shifted behind him.

Both of them flew straight at their little team. Not once did Richard twitch as he lined up his shot. The two crows screamed as they dive-bombed towards him. The shotgun boomed. Buckshot shredded the birds. Their remains twisted and fell from the air.

"Clear," Richard declared.

Rebecca released a small sigh of relief.

Jessica also relaxed. "Well, that was easy."

Rebecca rolled her eyes at the subtle disappointment in Jessica's voice. Now she took a good look at their surroundings.

In another time, this place might have been beautiful. A fountain filled the place with the lively tune of spraying water. Marble tiles lined the ground as their boots clacked against them. Crafted columns stood sentinel as they traced a path from the fountain to an open gate. Around the archway of the gate, two ponds quietly bubbled as a thin sheen of water slid past the gate into their small waters. Pottery and statues dotted the courtyard with echoes of dignity and the ancients.

Decay poisoned it all. Vines ran rampant over the walls and choked the columns. Moss and grass surrounded the individual tiles, laying siege to them. Dirt and grime blanketed all of it and ruined the splendor of both architecture and decoration. Two trees had once offered shade, but only their sharp corpses lingered.

Honestly, Rebecca was surprised to see the lone light worked at all.

"Where do y'all think that goes to?" Jessica asked, drifting toward the gate.

Rebecca frowned as she glanced the opposite way. To where the mansion was. "The wrong direction."

Jessica shot her a sour look. "We're gonna have to explore this sooner or later."

"Later," Richard calmly answered as he looked over the place. "When we're with the rest of the team. I see two elevators. One next to the gate, the other behind the fountain. Which one do we try first?"

Rebecca studied them from the courtyard's center. Both of them were more old-fashioned than she expected. The curved metal frame reminded her of a human-sized bird cage. A sorry looking bird cage as rust spots freckled the original bronze. Of the two, she admitted the one ahead of her looked the most inviting. Mostly because a strong lantern casted a warm glove over that one, while the second elevator hung in a dark corner.

"That one," Jessica and Rebecca said simultaneously as they pointed at opposite elevators.

The two sparred with frustrating glances before Richard stepped in. He pointed at Rebecca's elevator. "That looks like a direct route to the mansion. We'll go that way."

Whatever small triumph Rebecca may have felt over Jessica abruptly vanished when they discovered the elevator was out of power.

"Well, ain't that just a darn shame," Jessica said with a not-so-hidden smirk.

Richard didn't wait for Rebecca's retort as he marched back across the courtyard. "We need to keep moving."

Rebecca released a silent sigh before she followed in his wake, Jessica a step ahead of her. They stopped outside the elevator and noted its small size. "We could probably fit two of us if we squeezed," Jessica suggested, her eyes on Richard.

He frowned, his focus on the elevator. "Not a lot of room to react if anything attacks us while we're in it."

"We can just hit the down button if that happens."

Richard didn't look convinced as he turned his attention on his companions. "If we do that, I'll go first with Rebecca. This area is already secure, and we're trained for this."

Jessica harrumphed. Rebecca waited for the typical argument, but it never came. "Might want to get your shotgun out. Just in case."

Richard nodded. "Good suggestion," he replied as he switched weapons.

A frown slid onto Rebecca's face as she glanced between the other two. Why does she never give him a hard time? Is it because he's a guy? She tossed that theory out without another second of consideration. Although Jessica had been more than willing to take direction from Richard and Daniel the night before, it never seemed to be a gender issue. After all, Jessica had refused any and all attempts to coddle her or any suspected coddling. Even now, she may have yielded to Richard's plan, but not out of any sense of lack of confidence.

Then was it experience? Was it because Rebecca wasn't a soldier like Daniel or a veteran cop like Richard? This theory was more plausible. As much as she hate to admit it, Rebecca wasn't in the same category as Richard. Daniel, though, she wasn't sure either. She realized she had never asked the soldier if he had been deployed before. In hindsight, he didn't seem like a grizzled veteran. So, maybe experience wasn't the full answer.

Then again, Daniel's ability to know the future before it happened was a powerful substitute.

Yet, a third theory sauntered in. Does Jessica have a crush on Richard? Before Rebecca could think anymore on it, Richard was entering the elevator. She dutifully followed as she tried to subtly look at Jessica.

The cowgirl's eyes were on Richard for a moment longer. Then she twisted around as her eyes swept the area.

This theory was going to need additional weighing. Although, Rebecca, despite how much she disliked Jessica, hoped this theory didn't have any real bearing on the situation. She may never have met her, but Rebecca knew Richard had a girlfriend. She didn't know how serious it was. Yet, a man of Richard's integrity would never contemplate leaving her for another without good reason.

Metal creaked as the elevator ascended. The medic winced as the sound blared across the entire area. "No hope of stealth," she mumbled to herself.

"Hey," Richard said as he flashed her a soft smile. "It's going to be fine. Just watch my back, and I'll watch yours."

She couldn't stop herself from returning the smile. Richard always did have that way of making her feel better. The elevator came to a loud stop. She hid her grimace as she glanced behind them.

Richard stepped forward first, shotgun sweeping the area. She tried her best to be tactical, and failed as she glanced around. They were closer to the mansion, but not as much as she hoped they would be. The place was dominated by one piece of terrain that drew out the grimace she had been fighting. "Oh great."

Many unexpected things had happened to Daniel in the past twenty-four hours.

Fighting a giant leech monster, becoming infected by a zombie virus, and being torn from his own dimensions was quite the combination. One would have thought after those three, nothing else could have surprised him.

Yet, here he was, facing a challenge he had never expected.

The temptation to commit murder.

Boots crunched through dirt, leaf, and twig as Alpha Team approached the mansion that started the famous survival horror series in Daniel's own universe. He had done as he had been ordered. He marched side by side by a monster in human form. One that couldn't fall back on the excuse of a virus to explain away his evil.

It took more effort than Daniel liked to admit to not glance at Wesker. In the span of thirty minutes, Daniel had already provoked hostility between the two of them. That wasn't the reason he was thinking about murdering this man. It was what was going to happen that pushed at Daniel's darker instincts.

So much pain. So much suffering. So much that could be avoided with a few quick bullets.

The method wasn't really part of the debate. Given his exhaustion, Daniel's only viable choice was to shoot the STARS captain. Preferably a lot. To be sure.

No, the biggest practical implication he had to consider was what would happen to him after he shot Wesker. Would the other STARS members shoot him in return? Would they just tackle him and render him unconscious? Would they stop at demanding an explanation and hauling him back to the chopper?

Knowing the rest of STARS was composed of heroic people didn't offer a clear conclusion toward their reactions. Ideally, he would drop his rifle after the murder and surrender to their judgment, and they would be forced to take him to the mansion anyway since they were so close.

No guarantees either way. However, Daniel was not unfamiliar with self-sacrifice as his injuries attested to.

No, the real barrier was the moral. Daniel was not a judge. He had never shown interest in the legal field whatsoever. Therefore, he could not say in good conscience he had carte blanche to be Wesker's executioner.

Still, the utilitarian argument was deeply alluring. One life, maybe two, to save several thousand. Maybe more. As of Resident Evil 4, no one had managed to bring Wesker down. Daniel knew Wesker was going to be in Resident Evil 5, but not what would happen to him. The game hadn't released yet, so he was stuck with rumors. Would Wesker's on-going body count stop there or continue onward to hit the millions?

Was a million enough to justify one murder?

Then there was the temporal element. As of right now, Wesker had only arranged one murder: Dr. Marcus. Daniel supposed he could also add Edward and Kevin to that count and maybe Kenneth and Forest if Alpha Team arrived too late once again. Just keeping it to the two made the situation quite murky. Daniel didn't know who had been the impetus to kill Marcus, and Marcus had his own skeletons to undermine the utilitarian argument.

Edward and Kevin weren't killed by Wesker. At least not directly. In fact, since it was probably inevitable STARS was going to investigate the forest eventually, their deaths might have been unavoidable.

That doesn't mean they had to die, a different part of Daniel hissed vehemently against the voice of reason.

He twitched as the powerful emotions rolled over him again.

If he was being really honest to himself, a big reason he was considering murder was just how guilty and miserable he felt. The necessity of survival was forcing him to keep his emotional weakness contained, but it hungered for any kind of outlet.

Saving thousands of people from a sociopath could be considered healthy with the right perspective.

Daniel twitched as he realized his thumb was playing with the safety switch.

He grimaced. I'm losing this fight.

He did glance at Wesker this time. The blond officer swept his gaze back and forth as befitting a true professional. Daniel glanced away before Wesker could turn in his direction.

He could feel his insides churning and tightening as he considered the decision again and again.

Then, it struck him. It was the baby Hitler question. Something broke inside him, and he sighed inwardly. He remembered how he had answered that question.

With deliberate choice, Daniel pulled his thumb away from the safety.

He stepped around another tree and looked forward. The mansion's front doors were now in sight.