The Goliath Protocol
One:
Frankenstein's Monster
The Not So Distant Future
The long-dead swell of sound had turned into a lullaby.
Lying in a pool of his own blood, he was trying to remember what the shaman in Cheyenne had told him about the end of his life. It wasn't the same old story about the light at the end of the tunnel, it wasn't anything like that at all. It was the promise that your body would die, probably painfully, but your spirit? It was eternal; deathless.
He was hoping he came back as something wise and noble like an owl. His luck? He'd reincarnate as a woman; a beautiful one, and he'd spend the rest of his life fighting off amorous suitors. Karma had a way of repaying you for your ills.
The face that lingered above him took away his hopes of a peaceful end as it smiled, "...this is not the end of your life, Mr. Kennedy. Not today. Today, it would seem, you become something else entirely."
His hand spasmed, grabbing for the gun that was long gone.
Smiling, the face above him widened into a grin, "Even still you struggle. Truly a specimen worth turning. When you wake up, you'll thank me...I promise you...you see, there's no rest for the weary in our world. Especially when you're the hero. Don't worry...I'll keep your pretty face."
If there was any mercy left in the world, he would die before he came back. He prayed, and he hadn't prayed in years, even as the world went red and ragged and dark.
The hum of machinery, the casual chatter of conversation.
He rose from the darkness.
One eye slid open, temporarily blurry from the liquid that encased his body.
A smiling face, dark glasses.
A jumble of images, confusion.
He tried to move his arms and they were trapped, trapped, trapped.
It was hard to think…he was so hungry.
And then that voice, so hard, so cold. "Good morning. Good to see you're lucid this morning."
His skin burned. Burned.
He tried to speak, and his mouth wouldn't form the words.
There was a horrible monster in the tube across from him. It was deformed with long clawed arms, legs bulging with naked muscle, a face more scar than skin, and one bleary, bloodshot eye that watched him even as he stared back.
"How are you feeling today? Sore? Stiff?"
That voice. That face. Why couldn't he remember?
"Well, I must say you're looking smashing today."
A woman was standing close to the man. She was glassy-eyed, her gaze empty. He wanted to say dead, but she was standing there so she couldn't be dead.
She was familiar…so familiar.
"Oh yes, I can see the mind returning. Well, that's interesting. Shall I tell you a story?" The man sat on the edge of the tube and crossed his ankles. "Jill, my darling, say hello."
"Hello." Empty voice, empty stare.
He knew her.
"Jill's quite popular around here. Aren't you darling? We're old friends. I lost her once, you see. And I warned her, if I ever found her again, I'd make her into the lying whore she'd tried so hard to be. I warned her not to betray me, you understand. But she was always so...resistant." The woman remained still, blank. "Smile pretty now."
She did.
"She tends to make the nights a little warmer at least." The man skimmed a hand over her hair as if she were a dog or a doll. "I thought it was a fitting punishment for her."
He swiveled his head, looked up. "But for you…well…you put up quite a fight. Took out nearly ten men single-handedly. That deserved respect."
When? He couldn't remember!
"Oh, come now. Don't disappoint me. After all, the other cop was pathetically easy to break. A few alterations to his lover and he was agreeing to participate in whatever we needed." He called out. "Say hello Leon."
"Hello, Leon."
Another man, as dead-eyed as the woman, but he was more decayed, his skin ashen, rotting.
"You remember now. Don't you?" The man stood, put an arm around the woman at his side. "Tell him, would you sweetheart?"
Her voice was monotone. "Leon Scott Kennedy, born in Boston, Massachusetts, September third nineteen-seventy-seven. Height five foot ten inches, weight one-hundred-seventy-six pounds. Hair blonde, eyes blue."
"Thank you, darling. Please continue."
"Subject submitted for testing fourth-July at 1600 hours. The subject responded well to the resuscitation treatments and was resurrected on fifth-July-0900. Entered into Goliath project at 1310. Currently only surviving specimen."
The man patted her head. "Good girl. Now, could you run along? I think Leon is lonely."
The woman turned and walked to the decaying man.
"Smile darling and give him a kiss."
The woman smiled and kissed the rotting man.
"Thank you." The man looked up again. "Remembering a little better?"
He was blank. Empty.
"That's a shame. Jill?"
The woman turned.
"Could you please tell him about yourself?"
"Jillian Amie Valentine born in Cheyenne, Wyoming, August twenty-fourth nineteen-seventy-four. Height five-feet-four-inches, weight one-hundred-sixteen pounds. Hair blonde, eyes blue."
"A little more please."
"Subject entered into the breeding program on fourth July nineteen-ninety-six. Conception proved impossible regarding subjects' previous early termination of a previously conceived fetus with specimen Kennedy, Leon S."
And he remembered…HE REMEMBERED!
Wesker saw the moment he realized it. Saw the moment that he realized his pain wasn't over, that it would never end, that everything had been for nothing. He was a machine now, a weapon. He'd retain his conscious thought and begin, gradually to remember that he'd been a man, but the cerebral markers on his brain would give him no control over his body.
He was no longer a man. He was a monster.
The thing that had been Leon Kennedy threw back its head and roared.
Present Day
He gasped, sitting straight up in bed on the tail end of a nightmare.
Across from the bed, Ada Wong stood in the sibilant shadows, silently watching him like she should be the hissing thing that haunted his waking mind.
Annoyed, Leon grunted, "If you're gonna stalk me, at least buy me dinner first, Ada."
Amused, Ada tossed the flask from the nightstand onto the bed. He lifted it, taking a deep pull of the firey whiskey inside. He hissed as it burned and soothed like a hug in his guts. "What do you want, Ada?"
She tilted her head, "Bad dreams?"
"Are there any other kind?"
"Who this time?"
It was a curious thing to dream about Jill Valentine. He hadn't seen her in years. Not since a chance run-in outside of Harvardville when she'd shown up to help with the clean-up. Shortly after, she'd gone off the radar and "died" in the Spencer Estate.
He knew she was back, but she was carefully guarded as she underwent deprogramming.
The dreams he was having weren't just nightmares. Nightmares were things he'd survived, things he'd overcome...these were premonitions or something. He was seeing the future. He'd bet his life on it.
His mind flashed on the lab and the face of Albert Wesker watching him in the tank.
The robotic face of Jill Valentine had mentioned a pregnancy. Theirs- it would seem. Were they romantically involved? Why? They'd never spent more than a handful of moments together. He barely knew her.
Why was his mind telling him they were together?
Why was he seeing any of it?
And how much could he trust of a dream brought on by too much whiskey?
Another shot of hair of the dog had his jittery hands relaxing. His body was having withdrawals from the lack of alcohol in it. Ignoring the painful truth of his addiction and making peace with the fact that it kept him good at his job, Leon rose naked from the bed and moved to light a cigarette.
It really didn't matter that Ada was there. She'd seen the show. Hell, she'd been on the other end of it more than once. It was an easy lay for both when the mood suited after all. And had nothing to do with their work.
Ignoring her question, Leon waited until she purred, "I need to know where to find Jill Valentine."
Surprised, he turned to face her. Had she been snooping in his head? What was the likelihood they were searching for the same girl here?
"Why?"
Ada shrugged, winking at him. "Does it matter? I could have found your phone while you were sleeping, but I decided to play nice instead."
He answered her shrug with his own and tossed his phone on the bed. "Go ahead. Help yourself. I don't know where she is."
Ada sighed. "The rumors say she's immune."
He nodded, inhaling sharply. The acrid stench of tobacco soothed his ragged nerves. "The rumors say you're a soulless cunt." He glanced at her, hesitated, and finally added, "...some rumors are true, I suppose."
She did a kissy face at him and flipped him the bird, swinging her long legs where she was perched on the dresser. "Help a girl out, Leon. Don't make me hurt you."
He rolled his eyes, watching his tired face in the mirror surrounded by hazy smoke. He texted Hunnigan: Locate Jill Valentine. Discern anything regarding a GOLIATH PROTOCOL. "Please...you love hurting me. It's your favorite pastime besides screwing me over."
She laughed, softly, and winked again. "Guilty. Good to know your ass survived your last mission. How was the ESR when you left it?"
He turned to roll his eyes at her again, "You should know, as you left me there."
Ada sighed, shifting in her snug-fitting red dress. "Sorry. You know how this job works. Like with Saddler, I knew you'd get out alright. Did you want me to rescue you again, Leon?"
He inhaled again, flicking ashes into the tray beside his bare hip. "Enough shit, Ada. Just threaten me already so I can go back to sleep."
Agreeable, infuriating, Ada leaped off his dresser, "Fair enough. I'll give you twenty-four hours to turn up a lead on Valentine for me. Or I'll come back. And I'll bring enough sodium pentothal to break down that carefully acquired resistance you've built."
"Please," He stubbed out the smoke and moved back to his bed, "It didn't work in Spain. It won't work now. But give it your best shot, doll face, maybe I can at least get a hand job for the time you'll waste trying."
She winked, slinking toward the door. "We'll see, handsome. But I did just get a manicure, so I'd hate to mess that up."
"We both know you're more likely to yank it off than ruin your nails, Ada."
She laughed, shooting a coy look over her shoulder. "See you soon, Leon."
He sighed as she left and poured himself between his sheets again, staring up at the shadows on his ceiling. Banter and flirting and threats - it was their bread and butter. He glanced down at himself, and the absence of a boner spoke volumes. Without a doubt, she could have gotten him up and enjoyed a good pounding...but the thought bored him almost as much as the effort.
At some point, he'd gone dead inside fighting the good fight. Getting wood simply didn't happen at the sight of a beautiful woman like it used to. Sometimes he figured he'd drink himself to death before he really gave a shit about anything with any real passion again.
But his dreams gave him pause. At least there, those, they were interesting. They were telling him something.
The question was what?
Jill Valentine was the answer. It turned out he was going to find her anyway, but he'd be damned if he gave her over to Ada in the process. The bitch in red could grab all his parts and start pulling anything she wanted, she wasn't going to get anything out of him.
Following a lady's lead had just never been his style.
His phone beeped an incoming message. Hunnigan already getting back to him on his request for data. On it. But does it relate to the case!?
It went on to admonish him in her motherly way. No answers yet. And didn't he know he was on duty? Why was he not focusing on that?
He shook his head, picturing the dull eyes of Jill Valentine rattling off data. One woman threatening him, one woman lecturing him, and one woman hiding from him - any one of them could hold the keys to his death. His job was never finished it seemed. The story of his life.
And if he didn't find the answers, it was going to become the story of his death - and mutation.
He shook his head and said mournfully, "Why do I bother to get involved with any of it? I should have been a janitor."
His phone beeped. A message from Ada: Can't wait to see how you bleed again, baby. Tick-tock handsome.
With a great sigh, he tossed his phone and muttered, "...women."
Post Note: Apparently, I'm not dead. I might be undead; this is currently unclear. This is the bones of the first real story I ever wrote for Mr. Kennedy, redone, revamped, and repurposed to include my favorite ship of the moment – Jilleon. What does this mean for my other works? Who knows, I'm just happy my hundred years of writer's block got a break at about 3 a.m. Of course, as with any inspiration, I have no way of knowing how long this will last. Best to just enjoy it while I can.