Nemesis: Resident Evil III
Chapter Thirty Four: Data Room Reunion
"I can't just give you the data, none of us can." The female voice said as Carlos crept further into the room. "Our orders said that you, me, and all the other Supervisors had to report in together once the tests are complete."
The Data Room of the hospital's fourth floor was exactly as the young man expected it to be; sterile white walls and unpolished tile floor that was covered with scratch marks, while the majority of the large open room was dominated by several rows of shelves like the kind that would be found at a library, only with file folders and recording cassettes filling the shelves instead of books. Each row was significantly taller than the young man, but there was enough space between the folders and the bottom of the next shelf to let him see through all to the other side of the room… where Nikolai's face could be clearly seen.
"Yes, the Supervisors who survive until then." The Lieutenant replied, grabbing her by the hair hard enough to make her cry out. "I have already dealt with one brunette with bad attitude today… so be good girl, da? Give me data you collected for Umbrella and I kill you quick, or… I beat you senseless, and take you like Saint Petersburg street walker, before shooting you in stomach and letting you bleed out."
Nikolai looked pretty good for a dead man, especially since according to Jill, he had been attacked by her stalker, but… that monster didn't seem like the type to take prisoners, so how had he survived. When he pulled the woman forward by her hair, Carlos had been able to see that she was a doctor, or at least she looked like one; white lab coat, glasses, and not bad looking, either, even though these days the young man was starting to prefer women with shorter hair compared to the doctor's longer style.
"I ask you one more time, sweetheart." The Lieutenant warned, pressing the barrel of his pistol up into her jaw. "If you do not hand over data by time I finish speaking, then I start to pretend your name is Jill, and things get ugly for you. Fine, I prove it."
Bang! Lowering the pistol and pulling its trigger, the doctor gasped when the bullet slammed right into her leg, losing her balance and then crying out in agony when red blood started to drip out onto her pant leg. Nikolai was still holding her hair, meaning that she didn't fall right away… at least not until he re-aimed the pistol and shot her in the shoulder, before letting go of her hair and bringing the weapon across her face with a loud whack.
Carlos couldn't believe what he was seeing or hearing, since he knew that their mission had been to rescue civilians, not… pistol-whip some poor doctora. The lenses shattered as the glasses flew from her face, with a spray of blood flying from the woman's mouth as she fell onto the desk next to them on her back, and she tried to sit up again, only to cry out again when the Lieutenant pressed the still hot barrel of the weapon up under her jaw once again… advising her not to move, while he started undoing her belt.
"Nikolai, stop!" The young man found himself yelling. "What the hell are you doing?! Get off her!"
He had done this without really thinking it through first, the only thoughts surging through Carlos's mind being images of the injuries Jill had sustained after crawling back to the cable car, specifically the fact that her belt had been undone… and the next thing the young man knew, he was coming around the corner with rifle aimed at his Lieutenant. From the young woman's unwillingness to talk about what had happened, and the way he saw Nikolai brutalizing this doctor… well, shit, what was he going to do now that the element of surprise was lost.
"Olivera?" The Lieutenant asked, not moving his pistol away from her. "Hard to believe you manage to survive this long… where is Mikhail… and your girlfriend?"
"All right, look, I don't know what's going on here, okay?" Carlos replied, keeping the rifle aimed right at him. "So just… just take your pistol out of her neck, and we can all talk about this, right? Nobody has to get hurt."
Nikolai was motionless for several seconds, giving the young man hope that everyone was going to get out of this alive, but then the Lieutenant simply said something that sounded like nyet, before pulling the trigger. Bang! Bang! When the first shot went off, making the doctor's whole body jump when the bullet tore out through the top of her head, the young man was so stunned by this that he wasn't able to move until the second shot was fired… right at his face.
There was a flash of pain when he felt the bullet lightly graze his cheek, but it also broke his paralysis, allowing Carlos to take cover behind the rows of storage shelves before Nikolai could shoot any more. Once the line of sight between them was broken, the young man got ready to fight back, aiming his rifle through the opening between the folders and the next shelf, but then becoming even more nervous when he couldn't find a target. Only an instant before, the Lieutenant had been right there in front of him, but now he was just gone… probably hiding behind the storage racks as well.
Part of him couldn't believe that Nikolai had just… he had just executed that woman in, like, the coldest way possible, and that if the Lieutenant's aim had been just a tiny bit over to the left… better not to think about that. Okay, Carlos, he thought while looking around for any sign of movement, stay calm… the woman's dead, the vaccine's clearly not in this room, and Nikolai is a psychopath who has a couple decades more experience with this shit that you do… yeah, it was definitely time to go.
Keeping his aim toward the last place that he had seen the Lieutenant, the young man started backing up toward the door, the tension building as he reached the end of the row without incident… only to feel his stomach drop when he suddenly felt something metal touching against the back of his head, forcing him to stop. He didn't have to turn around to know that it was the barrel of Nikolai's pistol that he was feeling, and this it was verified when the Lieutenant used his free hand to take both Carlos's rifle and his pistol, tossing them well out of reach.
"Very sloppy, Olivera." Nikolai said, laughing a little. "A good soldier always watches area around himself… now start walking."
With no choice but to do as he said, the young man kept his hands where they could be seen, as he moved back down the row of patient records, back toward the open area where the woman doctor had been killed… and then Carlos finally discovered the owner of the third voice that he had heard through the door, when he saw another UBCS soldier slumped on the floor right next to them... bullet wounds in his chest like all the others. Once at the wall, the young man was ordered to put his hands there with legs apart so that he could be searched.
"So, what brings you to hospital, Olivera?" Nikolai asked while searching him. "You look well, for man all alone in Raccoon City."
"Jill and Mikhail are dead." He replied, wanting to make sure that the Lieutenant didn't go after her even if he didn't make it, himself. "When I got to the clock tower, the team from here hadn't reported back, so… I came to retrieve the vaccine… for the reward."
This cover story was kind of weak, but it was all that the young man could think of at the time, but it seemed to fit with how Nikolai had said that he and the other, uh… Supervisors were supposed to gather together or something. He expected at any moment to feel a sharp pain as a bullet went into his back, but instead of shooting him, the Lieutenant started to laugh, even patting him on the shoulder.
"So, you are company man after all, Olivera." He commented, still laughing a little. "Vaccine is stored in basement lab, but trust me, is best not to go… very dangerous, da? Would advise you, instead, simply claim reward for Jill Valentine's death… boy your age could do much with quarter of a million American dollars, I think."
Wait a second, Carlos thought, there was a quarter of a million dollar price on Jill's head?! Who the hell did she piss off? Someone at Umbrella, probably, which would have explained why that monster had been sent after STARS members. Nikolai then added that perhaps he had spoken too soon about the reward, not that the young man was going to be alive long enough to claim it, but not to worry, because the Lieutenant was going to claim it for himself… a little retirement bonus.
"Okay, so what brings you to the hospital, Nikolai?" Carlos asked, figuring he was going to die anyway. "You look pretty good for someone who got attacked by Jill's stalker."
"I do, don't I?" Nikolai asked, laughing again. "There I was, about to make pretty Jill my bitch, when ugly step-brother of Frankenstein kicks down door and tosses me out third story window… landed on Buick with worst sounding alarm in world. But as for why I'm here… I am one of dozen Supervisors for this operation, soon to be only Supervisor when last loose ends are tied up… and that's all you need to know… goodbye, Olivera."
Click... the sudden metallic sound reached their ears at the same time, and once Carlos realized that it wasn't the sound of Nikolai's weapon clicking empty, the two of them both looked down to see that the UBCS man slumped on the floor was moving. He wasn't a zombie, though… after all, an infected person could have never groaned a series of colorful curses at the Lieutenant's mother, before taking a grenade off his vest… and pulling the pin. Letting go of him and fleeing for his life as the spoon flew off the explosive, starting the countdown, Nikolai took the nearest avenue of escape, which was to dive right through the closed window with a loud crash… probably not the best idea since they were on the fourth floor.
As for the young man, he turned around and ran back down the aisle of storage shelves while the Lieutenant's startled scream could be heard getting fainter as he fell, and then Carlos dove for cover after sprinting a few steps just as the grenade went off. BOOM! Like what had happened with the cable car, everything shook as the room was lit up by a powerful flash of light and noise, shattering the remaining windows, shredding the nearby walls, and making a mountain of file folders and patient records rain down on top of the young man while he remained ducked down in a fetal position, waiting for his ears to stop ringing.