Chapter 13: Utilization

"Gathered, grown, slipped from the shell of seamlessness, she burst from her cocoon. And the sea of doubt rushed her farther toward destruction."

New York, April

Sitting in the chair alone in the cold room, Carlos Oliveira couldn't remember a time when he'd been more nervous.

Maybe the first time he'd touched a girl.

Maybe the first time he'd fucked one.

Maybe the first time he'd realized he was fucked. When he'd come down the stairs to find Jill Valentine dying. When he'd raced against time to save her.

When she'd left him in the dust to return to Chris Redfield.

And now...maybe now...when he was pretty sure Chris Redfield's butt boy was about to expose him for a traitor.

The bad news? He was a traitor.

The good news? He was pretty sure he'd be dead before either side could torture him...too much.

Why had he turned?

The answer was simple, ageless, and predictable: Hell Hath No Fury like a Former Mercenary Scorned.

He'd been burned once by Valentine. And twice by Redfield passing him over for the BSAA. The smug faced Chris Redfield and his stupid company. He'd stood there and said, "Sorry Carlos. You're not qualified."

Not qualified!? He'd survived Raccoon City. He'd turned on Umbrella for them. What did it take to "qualify"!?

When the tech job adjacent to the BSAA had come up, he'd snatched it up...and spent three years laying groundwork to bury the BSAA and the former STARS with it.

The ravaged face of Piers Nivans appeared in the door as it opened.

Carlos shifted in his chair, "You should have bound me if you planned to torture me."

"Who said I planned to torture you?"

They held eyes.

Carlos answered, quietly, "Then what do you want?"

"Answers. What you give me determines whether you walk out of here, or you get carted out in pieces. Doesn't matter to me which way you choose. You're gonna tell me where Claire is."

Carlos shifted again, "I'm sorry about Claire. I am. She's just fall out. It's not her they want. Not really. It's Redfield."

Piers tapped one boot, watching him, "Who's "they"?"

"... The Podzemlje."

Piers waiting, brow lifted.

"It's Croatian. They're a splinter cell really...left over from the revolt in the Eastern Slav Republic. When the ESR collapsed, the remaining few behind the revolt splintered out. They got backing from what's left of Umbrella. The Connections - they call themselves - the company that bought out the pieces of the dead Umbrella and the sold off chunks of Tricell's and WilPharma's legacy. The Connections and the Podzemlje which is really just the Croatian word for Underground."

Carlos shifted again, sighing a little.

"They offered me asylum. They offered me freedom. They started out with wooing me like a fat kid with candy...wouldn't I like to get revenge on those who'd betrayed me? If I worked for them, I could finally put the last of Umbrella's UBCS fuckers in the ground. I could be instated as the head of the antibioterrorism world...with Redfield out of the way...they'd take control of the BSAA. They'd make me the boss. Recognition in a world that had spent years ignoring me."

Piers' was looking at him like he was a cockroach. Or a slug. Or a bug.

It was ok. People had always looked at him like that. Carlos was used to it.

Piers said, "You betrayed good people for personal glory?"

"What's more American than that right? Can you blame me? Really? I saved Jill Valentine. I fought Umbrella. I kicked asses and helped. And Redfield got all the fucking glory...well...him and that stupid Leon Kennedy. What an asshat, that guy, I have great hair and killer lady skills too. But does that matter? Nope. Fucking Kennedy and Redfield. Poster boys for heroes. What can I say? I'm a man. I have pride. And the Underground bought right into it. They dangled the bait and I took it." Carlos sighed again, "I am fucking sorry as hell about Claire though. They'll rape and torture her just to hurt him."

Piers went very still.

"She's a good girl. Deserves better. I hope they kill her quick at least so she doesn't suffer too much."

Carlos met his eyes. "I can give you an access code that allows me to upload things to their server. But that's all I have. I don't have any way of making contact. I just dump data. It's all I know."

Piers shifted toward him, "You sold Claire to these people just to soothe your wounded pride?"

Carlos shrugged, "I didn't know they'd take her. But it doesn't matter. What's done is done? She's Redfield's sister. She was doomed from the start anyway. She's always been a bit of a weirdo anyway. Maybe she'll like the rape. She likes it rou-"

The fist smashed him in the mouth. The chair tottered and went down on its back. And Carlos skidded across the floor on his back holding his shattered nose.

He spit blood and gasped, trying to relearn how to breathe.

Above him, Piers loomed menacingly, "You better fucking hope she's untouched when I find her. You better PRAY she's perfect and safe. Because if they've touched a hair on her head, I'm going to make you wish you'd died in Raccoon City."

From the floor, covered in his own coward's blood, looking at the vengeance on that ruined face, Carlos believed him.

Russia, April

The fog covered everything. It was a blanket of smoke and sin. It obscured the eyes, obstructed the mind. Seeing through it was like trying to see beneath a boiling black sea. His hands were sweaty on the pistol they held and his nerves were all but destroyed.

He could hear movement in the fog, hear the moans, and taste the fear on the back of his tongue as he crept. Zombies didn't scare him. They hadn't scared him a long time. But this…this inability to see, to plan, to execute with the upper hand…this scared him. Because it leveled the playing field with the undead. It gave them the upper hand. They could smell him.

Without his eyes, he was more than blind…he was crippled.

He could hear the distant rush of water and the toll of a buoy somewhere out at sea. The water was so close he could smell the salt and taste the sea. He craved it but it also scared him. Because he was fairly certain they were on an island somewhere. Of course they were. There was never a lab that WASN'T on an island.

The fog started to part and he entertained the idea, for just a moment, that the weather was clearing. But then the rain started and a peel of thunder split the sky far away. His bare toes kicked something hard and he stifled, barely, the yelp of pain.

His eyes tracked to what he'd kicked. She'd been pretty when she'd been alive. And young. And she'd worked the phones in cubicle six on the third floor of the BSAA. Her name had been Marnie, Marnie Lewis, and she'd been a first level accountant.

And now she was dead.

His throat clenched, hard. And guilt reared up to sink he nasty fangs into his chest and hold on.

Marnie. He would avenge her.

He froze as the sound of running came close, closer. The fog split a moment before she ran into him. He grunted, caught her and shoved her behind him, as the fog showed the wolf that was right on her heels.

It was hairy and bloody and dead. It's rotted jaws were split wide open and the smell that spilled from it was that of rotting meat and fart. Why was it that old blood always smelled like fart? It leapt, growling. Chris braced and ducked just as it arced toward him, he pushed up in a smooth motion, catching it around the belly. The momentum carried it up and out, tossed like a toy from a careless hand. The wolf yelped, and flipped off into the fog.

He didn't wait for it to return, he grabbed her hand and ran.

Blind, they raced, Chris doing his best to lead her away from the sound of moaning, the scuttle of feet, the shuffle of the dead. He grabbed her as they came to the side of a rock wall and tossed her, without straining so much as a hair on his head, he picked her up and tossed her to the rocky out cropping on the cliff wall. She caught, grabbed, and climbed.

He was right behind her, grabbing a jutting portion of rock and pulling himself up to ascend the damp, slimy stone. He could hear the dead shuffling toward them, moaning, hungering.

And just like that they were trapped on a ledge about ten feet above the dead. The horde gathered beneath, raising their arms and singing their haunting, horrible song.

She huddled back against the wall, shaking.

Her name was Anna. She was about nineteen and had been an intern in the P.R. department. Her fashionably cut hair was limp, dirty, and matted with dried blood. The partially shaved, partially steeped style had been very chic. Now it just looked as defeated as the rest of her.

She was wearing a tank and sweats in emerald green.

"Anna…are you alright?"

She turned her gaze to him, did a double take. "Mr. Redfield? Is that you?"

"It's me. Are you bit Anna? Or hurt?"

She was covered in blood but didn't appear to be wounded. "No. This is…this was Jenna. And Sue. And Greg. They were..we were…I had to leave them .I had to! There were so many. Jenna went down first and they…her arms. They ripped her arms off. Oh god! They ripped her arms off!"

He scooted toward her, trying to quiet her. The screaming would bring any number of things to find them.

"Shhhh. Shhhhh. Anna, shhhh. It's ok now. It's ok."

"Mr. Redfield why are we here? What's happening? I don't understand any of this. This voice told me…it called me number eight. What does that mean?" She showed him her arm, and tattooed on the inside of her left arm was the number 8.

He glanced down to find his own emblazoned with the number 13.

"It's probably the number of us that are loose here, Anna. It's a game. A horrid, terrible, awful game. They gathered us all up from the office and brought us here."

"Why!?"

" I wish I knew the answer to that."

There was a sharp whistle from up the side of the cliff. He turned his eyes to find Leon Kennedy peering at him from the top of the cliff.

"I should have known I'd find you alive and here, Chris."

"I have never, ever been happier to see your pretty face, Kennedy."

Leon leaned down over the side and extended his hand. Chris boosted Anna up first and then grabbed that outstretched hand and used it to pull himself up as well. At the top of the cliff, he studied Leon. He was wearing the tank and sweats in blue.

"Got you too, huh?"

Leon shrugged, studying the terrain where they stood. "Woke up here. Can't remember a damn thing in between."

There was the outline of a building in the distance. Chris wasn't sure but it looked like a lighthouse.

"Anna," She met his eyes, wringing her hands, "Anna you had a gun at one point. Do you still have it?"

Anna shook her head. "I lost it. Lost it when they started to swarm us. I'm sorry."

It sucked but he'd expected she was unarmed. Hope would always spring eternal though it seemed. He moved with Leon toward the building, with Anna between them now.

"Any idea of where we are?"

Leon sighed a little. "Found some literature in one of the lab areas. It was Russian. So we're in Soviet territory somewhere. Moonrise is obscured by the fog and the clouds but the one glimpse put it in the western portion of the sky. My guess is a few hours outside Murmansk somewhere near the Barents Sea."

There was one thing you could say for Leon Kennedy. Whatever black ops training he'd received had created one hell of a guy to have with you in bad situations. He was somewhere between MaGuyver, Tonto, Watson, and possibly Chuck Norris. Basically, he was good at just about everything.

"What are you thinking? Escape?"

Leon shook his head. "Escape is impossible. Touch the back of your neck."

Chris lifted a hand, felt carefully and found the lump that was there. "Implant."

"Yep. My guess is self detonating. Get too far outside the designated area…boom."

Anna started to cry. She bent double at the waist and started to sob, thick, loud, and awful. Chris put a comforting hand on her back, Leon kept walking, scanning the area. Apparently comfort was left to Chris.

"Anna, I know you're scared. I know this is as bad as it can get. But we have to keep moving. We're out in the open here. Anything can find us or see us. We need to move."

"I don't want to move. I just want to let them get me. I saw my friends…I've got a bomb in my neck?! What the hell is happening here!?"

Chris lifted her to standing. He took her arms and shook her, just a little. "Anna there isn't time to fall apart. We might die here. Yes. There's always that chance. But if you stand here, if you do nothing, then you WILL die. And that way the bad guys win. I don't let the bad guys win. It's not my style. So you can walk, which is the smarter and safer option. Or I can carry you, which means we're down one good shooting arm and I can't run as fast carrying you. The choice is yours."

Anna started walking. He watched her make a valiant attempt to pull it together. For normal people, this would be a nightmare. And he felt sorry that she couldn't take a moment to grieve. But if she broke, she'd never get back up. And he couldn't let her die out here.

The light house was old, red and white, classic. He expected Edgar Allan Poe to be waiting inside. But the wood rotted door opened into a dusty, musty, damp room with nothing more than a desk and an old chair. Leon and Chris scouted the immediate area and it was empty.

"All clear."

Chris nodded and moved to look up the long, long, spiral stair case. "What are the odds this light house still has functioning parts?"

"About as good as a finding a working submarine or helicopter to get us out of here."

Chris snorted out a little laugh. These kinda places always had something like that lying around. He was betting they'd find something soon enough. Not that they could flee. They had to finish. Which meant finding the Mad Scientist who was poking them with sticks to get them to play the game.

"Wait here with Anna."

He started up the rickety stair well. It creaked and swayed beneath his weight as he moved. The spiral rose and rose, taking him to the very top of the very tall building.

At the top a console sat below the silent and still warning light. He moved toward it, pressing buttons and pushing levers. It was dead as a doornail. It would need power restored before it could be used to make an attempt to signal for help.

He came back down the stairs and told Leon the good news.

"So it would be a hail mary."

"Essentially. We have no idea if the damn thing would even work even IF we get the power back on."

Chris turned to Anna. "I want you to go up there. Go up to the console and wait. If it lights up, follow the instructions on how to light the beacon. You know enough to try to raise the locals on the CB up there?"

"I can do it. My dad was an air traffic controller. He showed me a lot of things. Can't be much harder then that."

Chris nodded. "Lock the door when you're up there, stay back from windows and the door. Huddle down, wait. If we don't come back and the console doesn't light up, you may have to decide if you want to wait it out or start moving again."

"Shouldn't I just come with you?"

"It's safer for you here then out there. You're unarmed, untrained. And scared. Plus we need somebody up in that booth. If we can get some local law enforcement out here, we may have a shot of containing this thing. We need this light house activated."

Anna nodded and started up the stairs.

Leon touched her arm and pointed to the window. "See the light of the moon on the grass there?"

"Yes."

"When that light has moved off that patch of grass, it will have been about two hours. If we aren't back by then, it will be time to make your choice."

"Ok…thank you."

They waited until they heard the door click shut up the stairs and the lock go down.

Chris turned to Leon. "There should be some kind of fuse box on the back side of the light house. We can start there. If it's just the building, it will fire right up. But if it's the whole grid, we'll need the main reactor."

They slipped out of the building, moving quietly around it toward the far side. The fuse box in question was open, the fuses already flipped.

"Someone's been here…recently."

"Yep." Leon turned and scanned the area. "Tracks lead this way."

"Should we follow them?"

"Probably. Odds are it's someone else with the same plan."

"Could be a trap too."

"Naturally."

But they followed the tracks. They were bare foot tracks, dainty almost. Someone female clearly with small feminine insoles. The tracks lead up and over the rise of the next hill. It showed the maintenance shed in the distance. The shed sat nestled like a sore thumb amongst the rushing water around it. The island was clearly powered by the dam here.

The shed door opened and both guns came up, pointed at the small red head that emerged.

"Claire!"

"Chris ?"

They hugged, quickly. She was wearing sweats and a tank in purple. She looked dirty but unharmed.

"Jesus Christ it's good to see you."

Claire smiled a little. "You too. Leon!" They embraced, briefly. "Anyone want to tell me where we are?"

Leon gave her his best guess.

"I figured as much. The intel coming in was clear it was out here right before this all happened. You know about the light house?"

"Yep."

"Then you know I'm trying to get it working."

"Us as well."

Claire dusted her hands off. "I think I reconnected a couple of wires. I found the maintenance manual in the shed here and figured out that after it's been reconnected, it needs the water turned back on to charge the generator, and we should be able to give power back to the island."

Chris looked out over the dam. The generator was located at the base of the falls. It was slightly obscured by the water rushing around it.

"Ok. I'll head down there and try to fire it up."

Claire touched his arm.

"No offense, Lone Ranger, but you might want to put on a pair of the boots in the shed here."

He glanced down at his bare feet. He noticed she was wearing shoes. And even Kennedy was wearing boots.

"Why didn't I get a pair of shoes?"

"I stole mine." Claire said, smiling.

Leon nodded. "Same."

Well now Chris just felt like the dumb guy in the group. Of course he had other attributes but clearly basic gear was not one of them. A little embarrassed, he moved into the shed to find some shoes.

Claire turned to Leon. "You found anyone else?"

"No." Leon glanced out through the fog. "You?"

"No. Came across a few dead bodies of people I knew. From the BSAA. But so far you guys are the only living ones."

"Chris found a girl. She's hiding in the light house. Anna?"

"Names not familiar. But good. If she's alive maybe there's more."

Leon was quiet for a few moments. "What were you doing when they took you?"

Claire shifted a little. "Honestly? I was getting ready for bed. They broke into my bathroom and jerked me out of the tub. Nothing like being kidnapped butt naked. You?"

The silence went own again for a long moment.. She waited, eyeing him. "Leon?"

"I wasn't alone." He met her eyes, held them. "Claire, I was with Sherry."

"Oh? At the ranch? Was anyone else hurt?"

"I don't know. We were alone." Leon sighed, considered sweetening things and just went with his gut. "We were naked too."

"Well I hope she's o-" She stopped and realized what he'd said. She froze, stared, forgot to breathe and choked on her own spit. And then she hit him. She hit hard in the chest.

"You dirty old man!"

He laughed a little, he couldn't help it. "It's not how it sounds."

"Oh yeah? I think you're saying you were fucking that little girl."

"She's not a little girl. She's twenty five years old. And she came on to me."

"Shut up!" Claire rolled her eyes. "You took advantage of her!"

"I didn't! I swear to god! She took off all her clothes and seduced me. I'm not made out of stone, Claire. Last time I checked, I still have a pulse."

Claire watched him, studying his face. "Oh my. My my my."

"What?"

"You have feelings for her." She said it with wonder. "You do."

Leon shrugged, uncomfortable, as always, with emotional conversations. "I've always had feelings for her. I basically helped raise her. It's so fucking complicated."

"It is." Claire smiled a little. "And it isn't. Tell me you didn't know she's always loved you."

He said nothing and Chris emerged from the shed.

"God damn it's good to wear shoes. I think shoes need their own birthday. Forget Facebook, shoes are the best thing that ever happened to the world besides the invention of the gun."

They started toward the edge of the falls. There was a rusty maintenance ladder that lead down to the ledge where the generator waited.

"So the twenty four thousand dollar question," Claire looked down the long distance to the bottom. "Will it hold a person's weight anymore?"

Chris looked at her. "You go."

"Why me?"

"You're thin and light. If it will hold anyone, it will hold you."

"And if it snaps?"

"The fall won't really hurt you. But it will be a pain in the ass to get back up."

Claire sighed and started down the ladder. It creaked, groaned, but held up as she climbed down the rusty rungs. At the bottom, she moved toward the generator. It was almost impossible to hear anything this close to the roar of the rushing water.

She started working on the generator. It had fuel in it and had crude directions drawn on the side in old black magic marker. She followed them and it sputtered, stuttered, and came to life with a coughing, hacking roar.

Proud of herself, she turned to give them a thumbs up.

And so she saw the beast as it dropped down, down, down and landed atop her brother.