Nemesis: Resident Evil III
Chapter Thirty: Ring the Bell
Jill could hardly believe what she was seeing as she and Carlos worked together to remove the ridiculously heavy top layer of weapons off the large crate, revealing the things that the UBCS soldiers must not have had time to find, themselves. Firstly, there was a lot of surveillance equipment and other highly technical things that were more suited toward setting up a base camp, instead of escaping a city… too heavy to be moved practically, as well. The item that grabbed the young woman's attention, however, was the item sitting next to it.
"Is that a fucking grenade launcher?" Carlos asked as she opened the single-shot chamber. "What did your friend need that for?"
Tobias Liquid was by no means Jill's friend, but yes, the weapon that she was now holding was an M-79 Grenade Launcher, but after having spent time at the Spencer Estate, the young woman knew that its purpose was for shooting things that were normally pretty difficult to handle. Boy, this would have been nice to have when the Pursuer was after her in the police station… maybe she could have saved both Brad and Mikhail.
Next to the launcher, tucked next to a compact computer of some kind, was a large belt of some kind, too big to go around the young woman's slender waist, but maybe it could go over her shoulder, especially since there seemed to be grenade shells for the launcher inside. Probably just the standard explosive rounds, Jill thought opening one of the pouches after putting the belt over her shoulder, but then she saw the blue colored cap on the end when she took out the first shell, and nearly dropped it when she saw that the letter N was engraved into the casing.
"What's wrong?" The young man asked as she went around the belt, checking the other shells. "Is everything okay?"
"Carlos, do you have any idea what this is?" The young woman asked excitedly while showing him one of them. "Carlos, these are Nitrogen Grenades! They explode like normal shells, but instead of blowing things up, they freeze everything in the blast radius solid. How in the hell did Tobias actually get approval for… this is Umbrella R&D stuff."
Regardless of how the approval had come, Jill now had a grenade launcher, as well as a dozen of the freezing rounds, eleven left on the belt after she loaded one into the chamber. Obviously, this weapon was only to be used in emergencies, unlike the ammo and spare clips that she and the young man were taking for their other weapons. The instructions that Carlos had received from Mikhail said that all they had to do was ring the clock tower's bell, and the extraction helicopter would come flying in, but… off the top of her head, the young woman didn't know how to do that.
"How hard can it be to ring a campana estu'pida?" He asked after this concern was brought up. "The controls are probably upstairs, so let's go figure it out, and get out of… oh, wow, look at that over there."
Sitting over in a corner, partially hidden by one of the support pillars of the storage room, was a very large metal case that neither of them had noticed before. The lid was open, and inside was a very large rocket launcher, bigger than any that Jill had seen, even during her time in the Army. Now, that would have taught the Pursuer a lesson, she thought while trying to pick it up… nope, too heavy for her to lift by herself. Even with Carlos's help, they could only lift the long, tubular rocket launcher a couple feet before needing to rest, like the thing was supposed to be mounted on a tank or something… forget it, they had to ring those bells.
Leaving the rocket launcher and the rest of the supplies where they sat inside the storage room, the young man led the way as they headed back through the library, with Jill watching their backs. An echoing sound was produced by each of their steps as they moved up the carpeted, stone staircase, and even more so once they reached the marble surface of the second floor walkway. It was partially enclosed with a thick guard wall and decorative crown molding, providing lots of shadowy cover for… no reason at all… there was nothing on the walkway but some smaller stained glass windows, only a long path and a heavy wooden door at the end.
When she turned the latch and pulled the door open, it produced a stone scraping sound, and now the young woman couldn't help but shiver when the significantly colder wind blew into the building. This was to be expected, being that it was the end of September, with only colder temperatures to be expected as Raccoon City moved toward the winter months, and the wind was definitely picking up when she and Carlos stepped out onto the large stone balcony. Decorative searchlights were pointed at the clock at the top of the tower, which extended upward several stories, but as they looked around, there was no stairway or elevator… only an old metal service ladder that was bolted to the wall in front.
"I was hoping the controls would be down here, but I guess you and me aren't that lucky." The young man commented, swallowing hard when he saw just how high up the clock was. "So… do you wanna go up and work on the clock, and I'll, uh… keep our exit covered?"
"Come on, Carlos, it's just a ladder… a really, uh… high ladder." Jill replied, only just now seeing for herself how high it was. "We're safer if we stay together, and besides… aren't you supposed to be my gran he'roe valiente?"
The look on his face when she said that, told her that the young man was going to be right behind her when she started climbing, even though as she got higher and higher off the ground, the young woman had wished that he had volunteered to just go up himself. Wow, this was high up, she thought, gripping the sides of the ladder so hard that her knuckles were turning white… oh, great, and now the wind was blowing just hard enough to make her feel like she was going to fall with every step upward.
"How you doing down there, Carlos?" She called down, stopping herself after almost looking down as well. "You all right?"
"Oh, I'm just doing wonderful down here." He called back up, sounding more nervous that she did. "But you know… the view from down here is perfect."
Jill knew damn well that he was talking about her ass, and that would have offended her coming from most men, but when Carlos said it, the comment actually… made her smile a little as the climb continued. Now higher up than the tallest buildings of Raccoon City, the young woman could now see the distant searchlights of the RPD off in the distance, as well as the Raccoon City Hospital that was less than a block away from the tower, itself, just before the ladder ended at a trapdoor that went up into the clock.
Thankfully, the trapdoor was unlocked, and after climbing up into what looked like a wooden shack, Jill reached down and helped Carlos the rest of the way up. He looked even more grateful than she was to get off that damn ladder, and now at least they were out of the wind… still without the slightest idea of how to ring the bell, though. This small area behind the massive clock face was more like a machinist's workshop than anything else, with the majority of the space occupied by the gears and mechanisms that kept the hands moving steadily, but nothing that was simply labeled bell control.
"Jesus, look at this mess." The young woman commented, looking around. "This place is even worse than the clock on the third floor of the police station."
"Well, there's gotta be some way to get the bells to ring again." Carlos replied, carefully inspecting every piece of machinery that he came across. "There has to be a control panel, or some pull-chains, or… hey, Jill… Jill, come look at this."
She had to duck underneath some of the spinning gears in order to reach the part of the workshop that the young man had been investigating, and when Jill finally got there and saw what he was pointing at, she couldn't help but laugh a little. Right in front of them, there was a piece of wood jammed into the place where three different gears intersected, and down below where the connections ran for that large gearbox… a very large bell was just barely visible through the cracks in the wooden floor.
"Is… is that all there is?" The young woman asked. "Is this piece of wood really how your team got the bell to stop until they were ready for extraction?"
"Well, they probably didn't know any more about how the clock works than we do." Carlos answered, grabbing onto the piece of wood with both hands. "And I'm not gonna complain if pulling this one stick out of these gears is what gets me out of this city… santa mierda… dame una mano."
Jill joined him in grabbing onto the piece of wood, bracing her leg against the metal frame of the gear box while both of them pulled on the thing as hard as they could… but it just wouldn't budge. The young man put his leg on the gearbox as well, with both of them leaning back, pulling on the wood piece, and straining with all their might… until the piece was dislodged, sending the two of them falling to the floor while the wood itself was sent flying across the room.
BONG! The gears and chains below began turning the moment the obstruction was clear, and a second later the whole workshop shook as the bell underneath them was struck. BONG! They had done it; this was the signal for evacuation, and now any minute there was going to be a helicopter coming specifically to set both of them free from this nightmare. Carlos let out a victory cheer, stopping for a second after Jill gave him a kiss on the cheek, and then cheering even louder as the bell continued to ring.
"Come on!" The young woman yelled over the ringing while getting to her feet. "The helicopter will be here any minute; we've got to get to the courtyard!"
"I'm right behind you!" The young man yelled back, having to cover his ears as the bells seemed to get louder. "God damn it, we gotta go down this ladder again."
BONG! As much as she hated being up this high, Jill didn't mind climbing back down the ladder as the peels of the bell were now echoing all across Raccoon City, but now as she made her way back down toward the tower's stone balcony, the almost unbearable ringing was starting to sound like the most beautiful thing she had ever heard. BONG! Soon the UBCS helicopter would come, and then it would fly her out of this nightmare. Whump! Dropping down the last couple rungs onto the balcony, and then running toward the door back into the tower, she heard Carlos running right behind her as the distant sound of helicopter rotors started to be heard in between the peels.
BONG… BONG… BONG… BONG!