Chapter 22: Of Gods and Monsters
Harrison Redfield had been an excellent teacher, and a wonderful father. As a patient man of good stock, the steady hands he used to raise his children, and the absolute devotion to his wife had been a factor bred into him from his father before him.
Since his time working on automobiles for the military, he had worked at the local auto factory for years; rising every day at 4AM to come home at 5PM still full of energy. Somehow, in between the layers of a working man and husband, he found just enough to involve himself in Chris and Claire's activities wholeheartedly. Homework had always been first—"Don't want to work in a factory like me do ya?"—and then came the true moments that lived now in Claire's memory.
When you lose a parent at an early age, let alone both, there are things that you yearn to talk to them about as an adult. Those prickly, vulnerable moments where the world closes in and in desperation you try to dig the answer from yourself without breaking apart; doing taxes, navigating the first heartbreak, or just fighting the desire to tap into the wisdom collected in the village of your family that no longer existed. These were questions Chris couldn't answer when he took over as her guardian at eighteen.
Claire heard her father's memory in the rumble of a four-stroke combustion engine, and in the lyrics of every Rush song that floated from the tiny speakers in her apartment. She saw him in the eyes of hard-working men, and in every decision she made when it came to right and wrong.
Claire had been thinking about him more and more as her grievous actions seemed to mount. A scale had begun tipping, and Claire did not know how to balance it anymore.
The day Claire had climbed onto her first motorcycle and began to figure out the clutch was also the day Harrison had been tying on her guardian bell to the undercarriage; he had been distractedly explaining the lowest point of potential on a motorcycle.
"Like every object, the bike is constantly seeking a place to rest along with gravity. Think of a boulder that has fallen off a cliff and come to rest at the bottom of a valley. Only an earthquake or a flood is going to move that boulder."
Claire had been bouncing with her own form of energy, nodding at her dad as her excitement almost caused the words to be lost.
"If you are lucky, you're going to learn how to always balance between the highest point of potential and the lowest; keep that motorcycle on two wheels and recognize when you need to bow to the explosion of force and the tip that will naturally come. You are the variable with the motorcycle, and it's up to you to understand how that middle will change over time. You keep that motorcycle upright, Claire. The middle ground is the sweet spot. You know, Sisyphus was on track to understand that the journey was the secret to a steady path."
The week following her escape attempt of Wesker came with the realization that he had been truthful in his warning of her womb. That week found her ill, sweating in a sterile room as vicious cramps had seized her around the middle.
Her sobs could be heard from the hall while her body turned on itself and destroyed the precious life within. Claire's hand had gripped the sheets of the bed and she found herself desperately seeking the golden hazel eyes in her mind.
Sebastian had been wrong; she couldn't be Life. Death seemed to follow her everywhere, even from the inside out.
Wesker had come early that morning and the sight of him had caused a reaction so great that the fire in her blood had encompassed her entire body.
The sheets, pillows, and paint along the wall of the bed were caught in the aftermath. Wesker hadn't dared to come closer as Claire's fierce blue eyes shone out from the flames. The hair atop her head, eyebrows, and the rest of her body hair had been decimated by the response. When the female doctor had opened the door hours later, Claire sat in the ruins of the room with light gleaming from the pale skin of her bald head.
The female doctor, Dr. Toussaint, became the one to oversee her care at that point. She was a short woman, shorter than Claire by a few inches. Her intelligent brown eyes seemed to work over Claire in a way that only a doctor could. She was looking at every expression and studying every response that Claire gave. The undertone of her accent had been French, and every time she spoke, Claire was reminded of Sebastian's accent that he had used when she had first met him. Claire could only assume from the doctor's accent and the previous newspaper she saw that she was somewhere in France.
It had taken a few weeks of repetition, and whether it was due to the solitude Claire couldn't say, but she found herself speaking her grief to the doctor as she let her legs hang over the bed. For as long as Claire could remember, she had always wanted to be a mother.
Sherry had been the first blow as her failed role, but to now learn she'd never be able to bear her own children was seen as another type of punishment to Claire. It seemed as if she'd always been running from the existence of Umbrella; the evidence lay in her very blood.
Wesker hadn't stepped back in the room for the last eight months, and for the time being, the experiments beyond blood draws and mysterious shots seemed to stop. What the shots were for was never far from Claire's mind.
In the quiet hours without the doctor, Claire's pending thoughts would uncurl from her, and she would begin to truly obsess over her situation. She would pace in her small room, perform Calisthenics to keep her muscles supple, and when she was too exhausted to keep moving, she would recite conversations of people who meant the most to her to keep her self-hatred at bay.
Her hands had stopped cradling her now empty stomach by the third month, but she couldn't stop having dreams of the dark-haired child with blue eyes. Sebastian's voice continued to become stronger in her thoughts, as if she had known him for years instead of days. A hand constantly outstretched for the safety of the man who promised her a home.
Claire couldn't see a man like Sebastian wanting to be a father. Would he have been disappointed at the loss? Would he have been affected or even cared that a part of him had been created and then destroyed by her body?
The questions were like a lure constantly being cast out by Claire as she metered out her own worth. She yearned to hear Sebastian's voice again, and in its absence, she recited his words the most. The tender promises he had given to her in the quiet moments through Spain. Even now, on the days she found herself sobbing into her hands on her side, the memory of his words would come to soothe.
"I've watched you take down giants. I've watched you stand for the shackled and the small. I've seen you show your strength, and it's more than you know."
"684 Rue du Burnou, Èze, France."
Sebastian had provided her with the address to his home. An address she would repeat a hundred times a day like a song. At first, it was just a way to hold onto herself and not forget purpose under the pressure of needles and the daily examinations. When the dreams would continue, it began to signify that she was still a person—not a monster—and there were people out there who had been searching for her.
"Don't ever stop calling out for me. I will come every time."
The possibility of escape had become real again, and as her hope for more grew, she began to hear the whispers of Lab 38-02 in her dreams. When she had asked Dr. Toussaint about the lab, the tiny woman had shrugged and mentioned that the nursery was not within her division.
Claire had used everything in her power not to react to the information that she didn't have previously. Was Wesker raising children in this facility?
"Saints," Claire said in response to Dr. Toussaint's surname as she sat up slowly one day when the doctor had entered. Her hair had regrown to lay against her jaw line, the auburn color had seemed more vibrant than it ever had. "Your last name literally means of the saints."
Dr. Toussaint nodded as she set her clipboard down on the small table near the entry. She met Claire's eyes as she responded in French. "A typical French last name. Dr. Wesk—he mentioned you were religious."
Dr. Toussaint had begun to speak to Claire in French at her request. The doctor had even started to bring her books for her to preoccupy herself with. Claire had leapt at the idea of learning the language and began pouring over the 6th grade level French textbook; she would need the ability to communicate if she managed to escape.
Dr. Toussaint had also learned that Claire would tense up at Wesker's name in the first few months. An involuntary response on Claire's part, and she hated that she had given him more power over her in that way.
"I wouldn't say I'm religious. I guess I am, but it's not from the belief of one. I always loved the idea that many cultures came to the conclusion there was something higher than themselves. Many of the deities have a similar story to one another. Is it the same entity being interpreted differently, or is it appropriation from one culture to the next?" Claire responded half in French, pausing at times when she didn't know the word or the conjugation. Dr. Toussaint was quick to help supply her with the answer.
"You're getting much better." Dr. Toussaint noted Claire's inflection and attempts at the language. Her eyes flitted away, as if she also decided not to comment on the age-old question of the gods.
"I brought you another book today." Dr. Toussaint said switching back to English.
Claire frowned for a moment, curious about the switch as she glanced at the small book under the doctor's left arm.
"Let's get our examination done, and I'll leave you to it."
Claire stood slowly and removed her gown. She wasn't sure what Wesker's goal had been at this point. His absence had been a blessing, but she was waiting yet again for the other shoe to drop.
The blood draws were obvious, and given her mutation, she was sure he was studying a weaponized project for future use. He had mentioned antibodies previously, and something about virions, but it wasn't something Claire could just look up.
When she had asked Dr. Toussaint about it, the woman had shaken her head, and stared at a certain point in the room behind her.
"Don't worry about that right now, your health is what I'm here for." She replied then.
Claire's eyes fell to Dr. Toussaint's as her fingers brushed the underside of her wrist. The blood filling her veins had remained a steady green, and from the lack of sunlight Claire had been deprived of in the last half-year, the green veins could be easily viewed throughout her entire pale body.
"We're going to have visitors soon." The doctor said so lowly that Claire had almost missed it even with her enhanced hearing.
As the doctor stepped away to mark some notes on her sheet, the injection of the white colored substance in the vial stared up at Claire from the table.
Claire felt a shiver roll through her at the news. Aside from the various other doctors and scientists she could hear pass her door in the hall, she hadn't ever seen anyone that could be titled a visitor.
A tingling in Claire's spine rose as the doctor glanced at the same spot behind her. As if the doctor was viewing a presence that shouldn't be privy to the information. Claire wisely kept quiet but dipped her chin slightly.
Was Dr. Toussaint on her side? Claire was hesitant to see anyone as an ally when they were jamming needles into her skin and locking the door on their way out.
Over the last few months, there had been a warmth in the doctor's eyes as she chuckled at Claire's attempt at the language; something about the native language seemed to work the older woman loose. The conversations had moved from cordial to deep discussions about literature, culture, and ultimately family. All subjects that Claire knew a decent amount about without truly immersing herself in the land itself and could understand the mantle of family.
"Alright, all done. I'll be back tomorrow. Let me know if you like the book. I read it to my children when they were young. I still find them enchanting." Dr. Toussaint said and she slid the book down on the table while rising to her feet.
Without much preamble, the doctor shuffled out of the room, and the click of the lock signified Claire's loneliness once more.
After redressing, Claire stared down at the book before she slightly turned to look out at the room behind her. The room was simple enough in design. From her earlier escape attempt, she had seen that the facility was colored in the sleek white and grey tech of a building that had been raised within the last few years. State of the art security equipment had littered each hall. Many of the joined labs were outfitted with the airtight, heavy, pressured doors Claire had seen at the NEST in Raccoon.
Her room's furniture had been replaced with metal frames to avoid the destruction of her first outburst. Claire could still melt it down, but it was much harder to catch fire.
At the very back of the room sat the single wall sconce with the wire frame that spiraled upwards towards the ceiling. It was the sole source of light in the room and the design was strange. It didn't seem to fit the overall sterile décor of the room and presented like a whimsy afterthought of art and false taste.
Near the door to the room was the table with a single chair that Claire sat at now. She turned back toward the door in her seat and picked up the book Dr. Toussaint had left, keeping her back to the wall sconce; the area Dr. Toussaint always seemed to glance at.
Claire's hands roamed over the blue cover of the book with the gold trimmings around the edges. The book was worn, and the pages were dog-eared within. The title, Peau d'Âne, stared back up at her and she smiled knowing she would need her textbooks to aid her in some of the words. The date within the book showed it had been a story republished in 1697.
The day seemed to pass by quickly as Claire sat at her table looking between the French textbook and the story of Donkey Skin. With a passing thought, Claire had realized that her current situation was representative to the years she had spent in her own home pouring over texts. Except this time, hers was the only chair in the room.
Her hands tightened around the spine of the book, and she imagined Sebastian standing beside her, teasing her in the way that he did. Claire felt the shame as she recognized how unhealthy her mental state had become again. Sebastian's voice came into her mind despite her awareness of how deeply she yearned for that safety.
Claire's hands released their tension and she let the image of the man settle in beside her. Many people used memories as a coping mechanism for trauma, however, they could easily turn the other way soon enough. Better to accept the comfort where she could find it for the moment. She resumed trying to find the current word that was holding her up in the book.
Donkey Skin was the story of the princess to a kingdom who had just lost their queen. Her mother's dying wish had been for the king to find love again only in a woman that could match the queen's beauty and eloquence. The king, who seemed to not be a very imaginative man, had found his answer in his own daughter.
The kingdom known for its wealth and power also housed the legendary donkey whose droppings could produce gold. In the princess' desperation to escape the incestuous relationship with her father, she had sought a fairy godmother with impossible demands. The princess presented heavy hands of the donkey's gold in her fingers and wished to disappear in plain view. To walk among the free without the threat of capture.
The godmother had spun her a dress with the colors of the sun, moon, and sky; a dress so beautiful that the princess wept as she beheld the fabric that seemed to slip through her fingers like the clouds themselves. Last had been the hide of the trusting donkey she had been raised around her entire life. A life for a life had been the last price.
"To conceal you, the donkey's skin will be an admirable disguise, for when you are inside it, no one will believe that anyone so beautiful could be hidden in anything so frightful." The godmother had told the princess as she handed her the clothing.
Once donned, the princess wore the dress with the mantle of the donkey over her head and shoulders. Her steps through the street of the kingdom were met with a wide berth by the villagers. Never had she been shown such disregard by her kingdom; never had she been so free.
Claire paused in her reading as the clacking sound of something began to echo toward the hall connecting to her room. As the steps came closer, they paused just outside Claire's door and the apprehension began to climb her body in a new way as Claire lowered her book.
High heels, Claire realized. The sound of quickened feet in tall heels. Claire wasn't sure why the sound bothered her so much until she took in the memory of every doctor she had seen previously. Most of them had settled on the comfort of nursing clogs as they tittered back and forth across the halls.
The heel clacks began again and Claire followed the sound until they began to fade away from the hall. With the moment broken, Claire closed the fairy tale and stood from the table, the tiny hairs on the back of her neck refusing to go down as she remembered Dr. Toussaint's obvious warning of company.
Claire turned her head back toward the wall sconce and felt the sensation of eyes on her again. If Dr. Toussaint had been warning her, she had been doing it the entire time she had been managing Claire's care.
When the door to the room opened again the next morning, Claire had a smile on her face as she read on about the prince in the Donkey Skin story.
"Good morning, dear heart."
Claire dropped her book to the table and stood abruptly; pages fluttering like the pulse in her neck.
Wesker stood in her doorway, his black outfit stole the rest of the colors in the room as it began to fill her vision with his approaching steps.
"Where is Dr. Toussaint?" Claire asked harshly.
"Day off. Too much work frazzles the mind, wouldn't you agree?" Wesker's smile was sharp as he glanced down at the book that lay open on the table. His hand reached out and gently shut the book closed. "Have you been enjoying your rest? They say French is the language of love, and I'm inclined to believe it with fairy tales being the book of choice lately."
"I don't assume you know much about the value of virtues in a fairy tale." Claire said with a frown, her hand came up unconsciously to grasp her empty stomach.
Wesker seemed to follow the action when his head tilted down slightly, his hand was still on the book as he stood watching her.
"Virtues are much like the stories they tell children to keep them in bed at night and behaving the next day. A blueprint for adulthood under the constant repression of true growth for humanity." Wesker responded easily.
Claire could feel her temper flare behind her eyes when he emphasized the word children, but her skin remained cool around her. She took the first step in months toward the tyrant and lifted a finger at him.
"You seem to forget what the foundation of civilizations has been built upon. Even the doctors in your employ swore oaths to the treatment of their patients. Asking them to break it will be the mark you bare when their loyalty waivers around the trampling of basic decency."
"Hmm, I'm inclined to agree." Wesker drawled as he glanced down at the book again.
Claire tried to hide her fear as she once again noted Dr. Toussaint's absence. The wall sconce at her back felt like a finger dragging against her spine.
"Threatened by stories of princes saving the damsel, Albert?" Claire tried out her own teasing drawl to gain his attention again.
Wesker snapped his gaze back up to hers, he was advancing toward her, away from the book.
"Is that what you want to be, Ms. Redfield? Is that what you're waiting for? A damsel waiting to be saved by some prince?"
"No." The word ripped from Claire's lips before she could stop it. For every step he took, she retreated further back toward the wall.
"I didn't think so."
Claire's back hit the wall and her mind went to the times Sebastian had cornered her in the same way. Not wanting to associate any behaviors with the cruel man before her, she took a hasty step forward again and bumped into Wesker's front.
A gloved hand reached out and touched the red strands of her hair laying against her cheek. Claire flinched and turned her eyes away when the hand curved around her jaw.
"Does that mean you would like a place in this world that doesn't depend on the conditions of others?"
Claire blinked at the question and turned her confused gaze up toward him. Wesker had to be somewhere in his late forties, or even early fifties. His face held soft lines that would suggest his age, but his skin and overall disposition spoke to man not held to the same standards of the rest. She begrudgingly noted how classically beautiful he was. His entire form was designed for power and to draw the eye. To distract. To command.
"Take those glasses off." She found herself speaking without thought once again.
Wesker stared down at her and the grip on her jaw seemed to tighten a fraction. Claire clenched her teeth and reached up on her own to pull them from his face. She was surprised when he allowed it, his vision never wavering as she discovered his red cat-like eyes boring down into hers.
"That's not an option you make to a captive, is it?" She asked.
"Your virtues are the things that truly shackle you here, not me. Why return to a world that would sooner hunt you than bow to what you hold now?"
Claire dropped the glasses to the floor, and she watched his eyes narrow at the action. She lifted her bare foot and smashed the expensive apparel beneath her heel.
"Because someone like you is the lowest point of potential." She said as she lifted her chin within his grasp. "An unmovable force that sits waiting to manipulate the laws of nature around it. Your fancy research and schemes hide your motives much like these glasses to your eyes, but it's not hard to tell how much you despise the humanity that still reflects within you."
The flash of Harrison Redfield's proud smile flickered in Claire's mind.
Wesker's mouth was pulling into a snarl as he shoved her back toward the wall.
"Has it never occurred to you that this planet is overpopulated, Claire? Everywhere you go, nothing but loathsome, careless humans. Only a handful of humans really matter. So now I have to separate this chaff from the wheat." The glimmer of humanity was peeking out through the anger on Wesker's face as he spoke.
His other gloved hand had moved to curl into her gown and the tension in the fabric was causing Claire's upper body to bow upwards to him. With the sconce to their deep left, an odd angle of darkness covered their forms, and Claire found herself staring more in curiosity than fear as his eyes were like two splotches of red on black sails.
"Beneath your anger is fear, isn't it? Are you afraid that beneath this," She leaned closer to him and her palm came up to touch the spot where his heart would be. "Is nothing more than the ordinary form you were born with? What more have you done to covet a godhood that does not exist?"
Wesker caught her wrist, and his lips were pulling back to reveal perfect teeth in a fearsome smile.
The clacking of familiar heels sounded down the hall and both she and Wesker seemed to shift toward it in mirrored irritation.
The door to her room opened again and Claire was met with the most ridiculous sight she had seen in a while.
The woman who entered was beautiful in looks, but the sneer on her face seemed to transform her into something else entirely. Ample cleavage poked out from a black skin tight dress that was held together by a large snake shaped, golden, clasp at her shoulder. Four-inch heels came to rest as she sank into her hip and regarded the pair with a look of discomfort.
Claire could spot jealousy a mile away. Wesker seemed to have been busy in the last eight months.
"Albert, we need to get moving. We're on a tight schedule; bring your little pet along, I have what we need." Her voice was a throaty purr of Italian roots, and it grated against Claire's senses as she took in the polished woman further.
After a few beats of silence, Claire was first to turn her gaze from the woman. She looked up at the side of Wesker's face who was still glaring back at the interruption.
"I spent my months reading between the lines, but it seems you spent it falling between them." She snarked quietly, knowing his hearing would pick it up easily.
The woman in the doorway was none the wiser.
Wesker cut his eyes toward Claire's with a smirk before he said, "Shut the door, Excella. Ms. Redfield and I will be along shortly."
The woman, Excella, let out a scoff and turned with a flourish of hips and heels back to the door. When the door closed again, Claire watched Wesker turn toward her fully.
"Come Ms. Redfield, I wouldn't want you to get the wrong idea about your role." He was releasing her wrist and gown, moving away from her then. His previous outburst was forgotten.
"No," she said, folding her arms across her chest as anxiety began to tighten her limbs. "I'm not going anywhere with her."
"Is that jealousy I detect?"
Claire's laugh was one of hate and spite. "I'd have to want what she clearly does, and we both know neither one of us could stomach that."
"Oh, I'm not so sure." Wesker breathed as he reached for her again when she refused to move from the wall. Claire's shrieks were met with laughter as the man before seemed to radiate pleasure from her hatred.
"Your honesty might be your most attractive attribute, Claire. Second to your rage, of course. Your disobedience, however, can be engineered out of the equation." Wesker rumbled as he wrestled her form into submission and yanked her out into the hall.
Flames began to ripple around her arms and Claire began to feel the rage he admired so much.
"You do that, and I'll slaughter Dr. Toussaint in the worst way you could imagine." Wesker said softly in French.
The fire died out and Wesker's eyes traced the path of the tears that fell on her cheek before he pulled her further down the hall.
The cold tile bit into Claire's knees as she was shoved down into a large room with multiple beeping machines. The clacking of shoes rang out in the room before Claire was greeted with the sight of shiny Jimmy Choos in front of her face.
"Are you sure this is going to work, Albert?" The snide voice above her quipped as one ankle crossed over the back of the other in front of Claire. "I was taught that cattle stayed in their pens."
Claire was lifting her head slowly up toward the woman, her hair falling from her face to reveal the bared expression of someone who was slowly running out of things to lose.
"I told you to wait in the antechamber and monitor her." Wesker's voice held an edge of irritation.
Claire found herself wishing Wesker would do them both a favor and remove her from the room. What did this pampered woman have to do with the facility?
"I like to preview what I buy." Excella said as she raised a sharp shoulder in a half shrug, and she swung around toward a doorway that connected to a small room with a glass pane.
Monitors were flashing behind the glass of the small room.
Wesker approached the table near where Claire sat on the floor. Syringes lay in a tight row on the metal tray that caught on the lights above, highlighting Wesker's tightened brow.
"Stand."
"No," Claire hissed as she never took her eyes from Excella's sashaying form. "Not until you tell me what she's buying."
"Ever heard of Tricell, dear heart?" Wesker walked in a tight circle around her, running his finger along the table.
Claire was shaking her head softly as she turned her focus on him.
"The disgrace of Umbrella affected more than just the sister corporations I'm afraid. The Federation of Pharmaceutical Companies held many within their counsel, especially when the Raccoon City Trials ended. Those who had provided Umbrella with resources were quickly added to a blacklisting in the FPC. Many of them are still struggling today; Tricell included."
Claire found herself rising to her feet slowly as Wesker circled around her back, his voice carrying the vow of a man who was positioning himself for the strike.
"The FPC decided to restore its image by founding and funding the Bioterrorism Security Assessment Alliance along with your dear brother's help. Tricell, with the aid of inside information, decided to be a major funding factor."
"Inside information?" Claire was wrapping her arms around herself as she followed his form with wary eyes.
"Recently, the archives of the Umbrella stronghold were infiltrated…" Wesker trailed off as his fingers ran up to grip Claire's shoulder.
"What did you promise them, Wesker?" Claire breathed as his grip tightened on her.
"A few things." Wesker's smirk was lifting his face as he yanked her up onto the table. Screens around her began to light up as her body activated multiple sensors of the high-tech equipment. "Lucky for me, I have the perfect samples of the T-Virus and the T-Veronica Virus to work with."
Claire was screaming under the crushing grip of as he began to bind her with the straps connected to the table.
"But you add a new variable that I didn't think was possible." Wesker called as she saw the syringe in his hands.
Fire exploded around Claire, and as she began to yank the burning bindings, she felt the needle slide into the skin of her neck. The muscles in her body began to seize all at once and Claire screamed again as her body began to jerk.
The flames ceased immediately.
"Normally, a virus and parasite have harsh effects on the human body when they are both existing in the same host. A parasite will activate the immunoreceptors, and while the body is busy fighting, a dormant virus can and will tell the cells to replicate. In your case, instead of further mutation, your current level of the T-Veronica Virus thrived as it tore through the growing parasite. You do not require the same incubation period required for the Veronica strain. Your organs are healthier than ever. The interesting part is the strength you managed to further along." Wesker's voice was circling above her.
Tears were running down the sides of Claire's face as she felt the muscles in her shoulders begin to tear from her contorting form. Her screams began to quiet down and a silence was starting to cloud her ability to react to the stimuli.
"Do you know what happens when you use the strength of the Plaga with an active host of a T-Veronica Virus patient, Claire?" Wesker was whispering softly to her when she felt her limbs begin to relax.
"Polyclonal antibody production involves the repeated immunization of an animal with desired antibodies. They can also be very specific and high concentrations can be purified to relatively small amounts of serum." Wesker was studying her eyes from above.
"When you metabolize the Plaga along with it, it creates discipline, obedience, and unity." Laughter from a joke she didn't understand floated up around her from the blonde man.
"Sit up." Wesker ordered as his grin grew.
Claire felt hazy as her body immediately followed the command.
"Stand."
Claire tried to open her mouth to shout at her own body, but nothing came out as a puppet with strings rose in her place
"Approach me."
Claire's body took two large steps to bring her chest a foot from his.
"Kneel, lift your right hand, and ignite your right palm."
Claire did as commanded while she watched from behind her own eyes.
Wesker's laugh was an echo of all the men in history who ever held their foot to the throats of women. He held himself as a god who punished a queen.
"The Trastuzumab is still at low flow rates." Excella said over the intercom.
"Run the rates again." Wesker said as he began to approach Claire's kneeling form.
"I told you—"
"Now." Wesker interrupted her.
Wesker stopped a few feet in front of Claire.
"I attended a funeral yesterday." Wesker said simply. "Quite a nice ceremony. A shame about the body though."
Claire's heart rate was starting to pick up as her attention zeroed in on the man.
"A few members of the agency even dared to show up."
The monitor next to Claire gave a few beeps before it was silenced. From the corner of her eye, Claire could see Excella peering over at them from behind the glass panel.
"I thought for sure that your brother would show up, but no one has seen him in quite some time." Wesker continued. A twitch appeared under Claire's left eye.
"They buried you yesterday, well, they buried the idea of you. As of June 12th, 2005, you have been considered dead by the United States agency. Your death will remain classified to the public, but the files show you as MIA on your mission to Spain. Seems the mercenary didn't get very far, did he?"
A tear slipped from Claire's eye and with a small wobble of her lips her face went back to the neutral expression as she tried desperately to command her immobile body.
"I wouldn't worry too much about HUNK though. He seems to have fallen back in line after only a few months. I've been told he's making real headway with the training of our divisions. Sometimes, all a man needs is just a taste."
The whispers began again. The soft tones that seemed drift in from under the doors of Claire's thoughts and right down into her chest. The whispers of children.
"Did you think he would really risk the years of survival that has made him one of the most well-paid mercenaries? Sebastian Smith loves money, Ms. Redfield and I've made sure he's paid very well."
Claire's eyes flared and her hand twitched at her side. Wesker watched the action, a triumphant smile growing on his face.
Claire was smiling on the inside as well. He had said Smith.
"My name is Sebastian Engel Salvati. My mother never gave her name when she left me, so it was the practice of my synagogue to name the orphans like they used to after the second world war. Salvati means 'the saved'. I made sure that name died in that synagogue."
"Liar." Claire managed to speak out to Wesker as the whispers in her head began to grow.
Wesker was frowning as he looked over at the monitors.
"Albert, she's metabolizing the serum." Excella called.
"There's that rage." Wesker said as he reached for the second syringe.
The voices were beginning to come in all at once and further into clarity. Her fingers were slowly curling into a fist.
"Albert!" Excella's voice called over an intercom.
Claire's lips were pulling back from her teeth as she fought the lax muscles of submission.
Wesker turned back toward Claire and tilted his head as she began to rise. A muted crash sounded from somewhere far off and alarms began to sound overhead.
"Knock her out! Albert—Are you listening?!—Knock her out right now!"
Wesker seemed to be studying her with a look of curiosity as her shaking form began to rise to its full height. The eyes of Veronica Ashford beheld Wesker again, like the first time they had on the stairs of her ancestral home.
Claire lunged and her hands knocked him away with power that made him stumble in surprise. She was slipping her hands into the hard material of Wesker's jacket, fingers burning down to the warm skin over his heart. His hand wrapped around her wrist and the smell of burning skin rose between them. The wrath of a queen that could burn a God.
Fluctuating cerulean eyes wavered like living flame before the red and yellow of Wesker's irises and Claire could see the deep appraisal in his vision.
"You can see it too, can't you?" Wesker breathed into her face.
"See what?" A high voice answered back.
"Your place after it all. What do you think is out there for you now, Claire? There's a part of you that will always be dissatisfied with the meager, weak offerings of the ordinary. The evidence lies in your very eyes. You will always want more."
"You're right," she tossed Wesker back and he crashed back into a locked shelf with various equipment. "but it won't be you who I find it in."
"Albert!"
Claire was whipping her furious gaze toward the glass paneled room.
The pale face of Excella was illuminated by the screens she was leaning over, her frantic eyes stared up at her from behind the glass as her hands paused over a flipped panel with a button beneath.
"Don't!" Wesker was behind Claire, shouting at Excella while he rose to his feet.
"The laboratory in the west wing is being attacked! Put her down now, or I will!" Excella screamed as she slammed her palms on the desk around her. "We can't afford to lose all of the research; I am this close to gaining control!"
Wesker was a blur coming toward her once again, but this time Claire kept him her sights and side stepped his next grab. When he moved in, she stepped around him, the red of her hair trailing like the ion of a falling star.
Wesker paused in a hunch, his hands flared out at his sides as he huffed.
Claire laughed.
The blonde tyrant stood with Excella at his back now. He was taking a menacing step forward before something exploded through the wall to their right.
Equipment, plaster, and machines were toppled in an outward arc of force. A burst of green was rising through the sea of the rumbling mess.
Claire was still when a vine like appendage the size of a mighty tree trunk began to slither along the ground around the rubble. It was curling around Claire before it paused to rest the tip of itself along her bare foot.
Mother…The voices whispering in Claire's head seemed to take shape and her mind deduced it down to the simplest form.
"Not a human nursery,... but a plant nursery." Claire's eyes were narrowing as Sebastian's words came back to her.
"I've read about it, the Ashford virus. That particular virus was an artificial RNA virus created using the base template of Progenitor as raw material and combined with the ancient retrovirus extracted from the genome of a Queen Ant. Supposed to also contain genes from a plant."
The facility had been experimenting with the virus in plants using her blood. Claire thought then to the large, slithering appendage that had wrapped around her form when Steve had transformed and chased her with the ax in the Antarctic. Alexia had been able to have the same control over the plant. Had she heard them in the same way?
Claire lifted a hand, and the plant vine began to rise, reaching out to wrap the smaller vines among it to clasp her hand. The hold was gentle as the vines explored the skin of her fingers and up her wrist. The quake of the great flora was a murmur she could feel deep within her chest.
"Interesting." She heard Wesker say as she glanced over to him.
Claire could hear gunfire begin in the hall outside. Flames ignited in Claire's other hand as she stared out at her captors.
"It's over, Wesker." She said softly as the panicked shouts of the staff were rising among the screams outside.
"For a time, perhaps."
The great plant uncurled from around Claire and moved quickly to strike for Wesker. Claire was spinning on her heel for the door as Excella began to yell something behind her. Claire didn't pause to see the fate of the duo as she crashed into the bright hall.
Blood littered the hall as scientists lay scattered. One of the overhead lights had been smashed apart by a great blow, and half of the electrical unit hung off by a few wires. The light swung back and forth, pendulating the hall into the chaos before her. The sight was enough to snap Claire back into her senses.
The sound of gunfire was dying out, but she could still see the few scientists left charging through the area from the open connecting halls. The whispers of the plants were becoming screams in her head and she could distantly hear the screeching sound of something she was all too familiar with from somewhere far off.
With each door she whipped past, Claire looked down to see plants of all different sizes begin to follow; zigzagging beside her as she neared the point with two men firing into a room where the last of the screams were beginning to fade.
When the men turned and saw her, their guns were pulling up toward her chest. The green snake-like creatures rose beside her and were wrapping around their arms, pushing into their mouths, eyes, and ears. There was no time for them to fire as other vines were wrapping around their legs; the sounds of bones snapping filled the hall as Claire watched on with shock.
The smallest vine was inching up Claire's leg, making her glance down. Tilting her head in curiosity, she lifted her hand and grabbed it up to bring up to her arm. She watched with wide eyes as the plant curled around her bicep and nestled into the warmth of her skin. The bodies of the two men were suddenly still before her.
Claire stepped forward and grabbed the simple Beretta from one of the men's hands and stood up straight. The blaring of the alarms overhead seemed to come into focus again when she heard the screech of something vicious catch her attention ahead.
Someone, or something—Claire's eyes cut down to the vines at her side—had released some of the other experiments in the facility.
Knowing time was short, Claire made her way through the long halls. Between fire and plant, Claire was a blur of motion and flame. Any man or woman who raised a weapon toward her was quickly dispatched while Claire began to breathe harder and harder. She couldn't afford to be captured again; fighting Wesker at this point wasn't an option given the setting. The best she would be able to do was deliver the information to someone as a warning.
Double doors exploded open in the beige hall she had found herself in and the contorting form of a licker skittered across the ground. Claire backed up a step, Beretta raised in the right hand and the left cupping the flames of her ire. Her foot shifted a fallen clipboard on the ground and the creature screeched and lunged forward. Claire braced for the attack but the creature stopped suddenly and dropped its mouth open in another scream. It took a step back.
Keeping her gun raised, Claire narrowed her eyes and stepped forward. The creature skittered backwards again. Claire cut her eyes to a door on the left and began a slow walk to the side as she made away from the licker. It didn't move from its position for a moment, but a sound down the hall drew its attention and it skittered off beyond the next hallway. Claire heard a scream follow.
Claire's thoughts were spinning as she moved through the next area. She started a prayer for the lives lost yet again, but she paused and stopped altogether.
These people had taken her against her will. They had created plants using the T-Veronica Virus, but what else had they crafted? The serum Wesker had injected her with for control had been unlike anything Claire had ever heard of. With further research, he could create—
"An army." She breathed when she shoved through a door into a large atrium. The prayers dying on the last hill of her mercy.
The barrel of a gun was pointed directly in her face as Claire pushed through the door. A head tilted out to reveal the stern face of the woman Claire had seen when she had first escaped the glass tank. The researcher who had watched as Wesker dragged her away and pocketed the Hamsa necklace.
"You." Claire rasped as she held her hands out. The vines had disappeared somewhere between consuming the many bodies that Claire had left in her wake. Leaving her alone to face whatever came next.
"Come," The woman said, lowering the gun. Her blonde graying hair was pulled back in a severe bun atop her head. "We don't have much time."
"If you think I'm just going to trust you—" Claire started with malice.
The woman was pulling something from her pocket, the Hamsa hand swung back and forth as she gripped it tightly by the chain.
"I wasn't going to get involved. I had done enough. To blow my cover is worth much more than what we traded. Until I saw this." She jerked the chain harshly in the air. "For as much as he claimed to have forgotten his heritage and his faith, I watched him protect this chain more than anything else in his possession. In fact, his ranking at sixteen can be derived from this simple chain. He killed our top enforcer at the training grounds for taking it. He had somehow managed to remove the footage from the security systems, covered his tracks, and if were not from the look I saw in his eyes, we wouldn't have known who had done it."
Claire had paused and lowered her hands as she listened to the woman speak of Sebastian.
"He gave it to you." The woman went on, an emotion crossing her features before she took a step forward and thrusted it toward Claire.
Claire's shaking hands were grasping the chain when she whispered, "Who are you?"
The woman smiled ruefully as she turned and walked towards a door that led to the side hall. Claire was glancing at the sunlight that was pouring from what appeared to be the front doors to an exit. She followed the woman to the side hall.
"A fool." The woman said softly as she swiped a card and the door opened before them.
"You're the executive, aren't you?" Claire breathed then. "The only one left that Sebastian didn't kill from the original corporation."
"…Yes." She said with disdain lining her voice. Whether the distain was aimed at Sebastian or Wesker, Claire couldn't be sure.
"Why are you doing this?" Claire said catching up to walk beside the woman. Her voice raised slightly as the system's alarm was blaring louder in the hall.
The previous Umbrella executive was shoving another door open to their right. Without entering the room fully, she reached down and snagged a duffle bag from the ground. She turned and seemed to glare at Claire for a moment as she considered something.
"I'm just securing my place at the finish line, Ms. Redfield. That's all." She held the duffle bag out to Claire.
Claire caught an emotion wavering in the older woman's tone that suggested more, but she made no further comment as she took the bag.
The woman refused to speak again until they were pushing out into the back end of what appeared to be a parking lot and a landing pad. A Jeep sat running near a large gate that was already bowed open. The bodies of the security personnel lay scattered on the grounds; the bullet holes through their foreheads marked the sabotage.
"You released the plants." Claire said, eyeing the silent woman.
"I did more than that." She finally spoke again. "I can't take you further than this without compromising my security. I've made sure that Wesker and the Tricell whore will be preoccupied for the time being. Get out of here."
"Where is Sebastian?" Claire said as her hands wrung the strap of the duffle bag.
"Blue Umbrella is monitoring his communications, but I think you should still know how you can find him." The woman said as she began to turn away.
"Wait," Claire said as she glanced down at her blood splattered feet. The woman paused and looked over at her.
"Where am I?" Claire decided to ask instead of the burning questions the woman seemed to avoid.
"Artemare, France. We're not too far from the commune. Blue Umbrella purchased this part of the land." The woman nodded to the bag. "When you get to the outskirts of La Tour-du-Pin, clean yourself up and look at your map. Sebastian mentioned you'd know where home would be."
"Thank you." Claire said softly before she gave the woman one last searching look. The older woman turned her eyes from Claire's.
"You were the only mother he ever had." Claire watched as pain stretched across the woman's features before she pushed it back behind walls Claire would never understand.
Claire was walking toward the jeep with a frown, her bare feet warmed by the sunbaked asphalt. Without looking back, she tossed the bag in the passenger side seat and put the Jeep into gear. Her nerves had her hands gripping the steering wheel tightly while she pulled out of the facility lot and further into the country of France.
A sensation at Claire's arm made her jerk, and she looked down to see the small vine still clinging to her arm. With the virus running through her green streaked veins, and the whispers dulling in her mind the further she drove, Claire wondered then for the first time if it would have been better to have died in the facility.
"A monstrous being simply put, only wolves are uglier than she is." Claire found herself quoting the book of Donkey Skin in her mind.
Gold eyes flashed in her memory again and Claire found her foot pressing down harder on the gas as she breathed hope deeply into her chest. Reading the signs for Route D69, Claire pointed the Jeep towards the one man who she knew hadn't baulked once when it came to monsters.
Still standing near the door with her hand on the knob, Christine Henry watched the taillights of the Jeep disappear around the bend of the mountain and let out a soft sigh.
"Favors are costly indeed." The woman whispered to herself before she pushed back into the facility to run damage control. The security feeds had been wiped, but she had no doubt Wesker would be looking further into the database. Christine was thankful he had never seen her face in their days of Umbrella, but she wasn't confident he wouldn't find out soon enough.
Christina's phone began to buzz in her pocket, and she looked down at Senator Ron Davis' number staring back up at her. Christine slid the phone back into her pocket and found herself hoping that Claire Redfield would take her freedom seriously.
The world had been made aware of bioweapons since 1998, however, the interest and production in them was only just beginning.