The Goliath Protocol:
Chapter Fifty-Two:
In Ruins
Silver Lake, Montana
Everyone was watching a movie on a rainy day. It was just lazy and content and as boring as anything ever would be when you sat around acting normal.
A shuffle of sound had each face turning toward the hallway.
Leon stood in the doorway looking like someone had hit him in the head with a grizzled ugly stick. He looked exhausted, satisfied, and rumpled, "I found Ada. I know where she fled to."
Rebecca looked at him with her mouth agape. Jill glanced up at him, and he nodded, "Yeah. She went home."
When her blood chilled, he added, "...yeah. She's in Raccoon City."
Somewhere, a clock chimed the hour.
And signaled the beginning of the end.
Raccoon City - Decimated remains - Exterior Outlying Area
The former necropolis rose like rotting fingers from an early grave.
What remained of the once-great city was pathetic. It was third-world destruction. The crater that swallowed what was left was a sunken symbol of loss.
As the helicopter circled and finally settled outside the blast zone, the evidence of destruction was still breathtaking. The United States had made damn sure it didn't spread. They'd turned it into a burning wasteland. Like Tall Oaks, it now stood as a testament to the failure of the world to protect itself from the threat of bioterror.
Leon tracked Ada's signal to the outlying trainyard almost six miles beyond the blast radius.
Clever girl, he mused as he picked his way carefully over brutalized buildings and pathetic ash she'd hidden right out in the open. No one would think to look among the remains of a disaster. She'd come back to her beginnings.
And she'd brought him to his.
Behind him, the women in his company were so quiet. Kevin paced in the rear, silent and lost in memories. Rebecca was packing a powerful sedative if something caused Jill to succumb to what was in her blood due to exposure to emotion. They could halt a buffalo with what the scientist carried.
The tracker signaled they were close. The carcasses of abandoned train cars scattered around them as if tossed by hurried hands and careless children who'd given up a game. Occasionally, a rat scurried by looking for food.
Once, you might have found homeless people in the cars, looking for warmth and survival. Now, they were derelict and forgotten, another reminder of a city long gone. The only thing in Raccoon City still thriving was ghosts.
Raccoon City was what happened when the "greater good" stopped being enough of a reason to pull the trigger on destruction.
Everywhere he looked, he remembered.
A desperate chase. A bloody battle. Kendo and his daughter who'd been dying without hope. A woman in the street just trying to stay alive while the dead devoured her. A man trying like hell to flee with his infant daughter, taken down by dogs to die screaming. Lives lost. Hope decimated. Horror born.
Evil had taken residence in Raccoon City. It permeated like noxious perfume as you walked, feeling each second of the fear you'd left behind when you'd fled. They were the rueful few who'd survived - a handful of hopeful lights in a darkened sky. The apocalypse that had struck had cleaved more than life from the clutching hands of a burning city; it had silenced faith and slaughtered innocence.
And what had risen from the ashes had been more than the Nemesis.
A boy had become a hero. A hero had become a savior. And a savior had become an executioner.
From the womb of its bloody failure, Umbrella had given birth to its own imperiled destruction.
The prodigal son had returned.
He had come home - to smote his vengeance on the ashes of what had made him.
It was time to finish what he'd started in Raccoon City and make peace with what he'd become.
It started with the demon in red who'd spent a lifetime trying to steal his soul.
With his gun ready, Leon eased open the train car door, signaling they'd reached their destination. He cleared inside to find it empty, save for the signs of a life lived in secret.
On the walls, pieces of what had been remained. A replica of his jacket from Spain. A piece of his uniform from Raccoon R.P.D. A gathering of photos of him - from birth to as recently as a week ago. Reports littered the ragtag little desk inside the ugly confines: anything, everything, a complete collection of his history just lying there.
On subsequent walls, evidence she'd tracked them all. Rebecca. Jill. Claire. Kevin. Chris. Yoko Suzuki. Sherry. David King. Anyone. Everyone. A handful of others who'd escaped alive. She'd been watching them all - the eye in the sky aware of each breath they took and each moment they'd faltered.
News clippings, stills of happier times, candid shots of Claire holding a child or laughing in the sunlight.
Behind him, Jill whispered, "...she was there. She was there when Chris was promoted."
Rebecca added, "...is this my brother's wedding!?"
Kevin laughed, "She couldn't get a better shot of me at that bachelor party? She gets the one where I'm fake making out with a blow-up doll."
Leon paused at a single shot of him standing with Benford. They were both laughing. Adam had a hand on his shoulder and was offering him something. It was hard to see it in the picture, but Leon knew what it was. It was the wedding ring Adam's mother had left him. He didn't have a son to pass it down to.
"I've always thought of you like a son, Leon. Your grandfather and I never saw eye to eye; you know that. But your father...he was a good man. A righteous man. I couldn't have a son...but maybe we don't always see what's right in front of us. Maybe...I already did."
Leon felt a roll of grief and regret that nearly shook his resolve. He turned away from the memory and eased through the small door into the back of the train car. A little office, nothing really, a hole in the wall with a gathering of equipment.
He studied the hatch beneath his boots and knew - he knew- her hidey-hole was beneath this car.
There was a rustling noise outside the car. Leon jerked his head, "Wait here."
He stepped out of the train car to find himself face to face with the demon.
There were a handful of moments where you saw Ada Wong without her armor. Exposed. Unprepared. This was one. This was it. She stood there with her gun on him and a naked rage on her face he'd never seen.
She spat, "You son of a bitch. You tracked me!?"
Leon felt his lips split in a wolfish grin. "Bingo, kiddo. You wasted time trying to coo at me, Ada. I told you in Italy I was done with you. I was finished. Did you think you could bat your lashes and lure me back?"
Ada shivered a little in the warm wind. "You think I don't have this place rigged with fail-safes? Who do you think I am?"
"I know who you are." He kept his gun on her and the train car at his back, a shield between her and those inside. "I've always known. But you tipped your hand; you dipped your fingers in too far. This isn't about survival. What you're doing here? It's about destruction. Did you think I'd stand by while you played god?"
Ada laughed now, eyes flashing beneath her perfect hair. "I'm not playing god, you fool. I'm leveling the playing field. That girl you're trying to save? She was done the moment Wesker knew what she could do. I'm sending her home. I gave you what you need to stop her. It's her blood. It's her kid. I gave him to you so you could fight back."
Leon tilted his head, "No business left if the war ends, right? Keep playing both sides to keep the battle raging, and you're guaranteed a paycheck."
Ada shrugged a shoulder, "Why not? The world isn't good or evil, Leon; it's both. It's always been both. And between the two, I exist - making my way toward a future where I don't need either."
"...no matter what it takes, right? A dead city. An orphaned kid. A bloody wake without consequences for you."
"You think anyone cared about what happened to me? You think anyone, anywhere, stopped and looked twice? Just another girl in a communist regime. Unwanted. Unloved. I didn't need them!" She shouted now, the mask finally down, the face of rage and regret evident. "I took what I wanted. I made my world exactly as it should be. Where I'm important. Where I'm the best. Where I matter!"
Leon laughed scornfully as he shook his head, "You don't matter, Ada; you never did. You made damn sure of that. You had a choice. You could have made a difference, but you never cared about the people you destroyed in the process."
"Why should I? They're nothing to me. Ghosts. Hosts. Shells. Like I was. And swore I never would be again. Don't you get it? I don't care what happens to them!" She laughed darkly, "I get what I need to keep playing. I use who I want to make that happen. Like I used you. Like I used that boy. Like I used Simmons. I don't care about sniveling children and crying women. I know who I am!"
She shouted it, and a bird took flight with a screech of anger at being disturbed.
Leon tilted his mouth again in that half-smile, "So do I, you bitch. So finish it. Go ahead...I dare you."
She shouted and shot. He let the bullet pass an inch from his face as he rolled his shoulders, and he drilled her in the hand as she tried to shoot off her grapple gun. She screamed, blood flew, and spun backward, scrambling over the ground.
Ada rose with a roar of rage. She rushed him with a knife dropped into her good hand.
She didn't make it. Jill exploded out of the train car to his left with an answering roar of battle.
He shouted, "No!"
But she didn't listen. She tackled Ada in mid-air. It was a good leap. It was pretty impressive.
They slid along the ground, slinging punches and screaming.
Jill saw it. She saw her death on that face. Ada wore death like a red dress - clear, concise, beautiful, and suiting. Ada felt nothing about killing her. It wouldn't mean a thing to her. She'd been pacing Leon toward the dark for so long, but she'd lost the battle. She was in it. Covered. Lost. She was sane, but she was finished. There was no more hope for her to be saved. No more chances to come back. And she would do what she'd set out to do and crush those beneath her to do it.
She was Jill...if Jill ever stopped fighting.
If it meant turning into Ada Wong, Jill knew she'd fight until there was nothing left of her but bones and memories.
Ada slung her back and just came at her. A flurry of fight and movement. She was, as Leon had claimed, incredible. She drove Jill back without breaking a sweat. She was poetry with a blade.
Jill spent a handful of moments just trying to avoid being gutted.
When Jill hit the edge of a drop and stumbled, Ada came in for the killing blow.
A gun went off, and she was spun to the side to land in a heap.
Ada rolled back to her feet with a gun in her hand. She aimed it back at him.
Jill huddled in the grumble of rain and just looked at him.
He was The Executioner. It was in his bones, in his blood. A rancher he might be but never entirely. He couldn't put down the sword, ever. It was how he lived. Fully, no stopping, no time to think. He was guns blazing and arms thrown down to catch you and love. He was all of those things. And he'd been operating with only half of himself, trying just to be one or the other.
Jill called, "Don't kill her! Leon...we need her alive."
The story of his life. He'd been sparing her life from the moment he met her.
His tone was ice cold and stern with command, "Get on the ground, Ada. Don't test me."
The wind blew gently around them.
She sighed, "You don't really think I'll come quietly, do you? You know...I'm a moaner."
He laughed angrily, "Hard to do that with a bullet between the eyes. You're done. Make this easy, and lay down."
Ada sighed again, "...I always did the best I could for you, Leon. You know that. I always played fair."
And he had to know. He had to. "Why?"
Ada studied him and gave him the truth, "I cared. I watched you for years and grew to love you. In the only way, I could. It was curiosity and something worse. Of course, I tried to find ways to use you, but I enjoyed you. I kept you dangling, knowing you'd dance for me. But I wanted you for myself. Not the way you wanted. It would have never been enough. For either of us. But we had each other once, you and I, and it was something."
He shook his head and agreed, "It was something."
"You were so dark and getting darker. So deep and moody and lost. I wanted to see how deep your darkness ran. Would it echo mine? If it had, I'd have kept you."
His jaw flexed, "I'm a hard man to keep."
"So they say. And you kept running back to the light. You chose it over me that day. That last day. I knew I'd lost. I'd done what your woman there keeps telling me; I'd overplayed my hand. I should have killed you; instead, I just wanted to help you. Always. Did you ever care for me, I wonder? Or was it the chase?"
He could feel Jill watching him. He could feel it. He wanted this, this, this to finally be honest, here in the bones of what had been. This was where it would all play out. "I did. Once. Like a boy. Like a fool. You played me. And I let you. I coveted you. And you liked it. We were always something, you and I. And never enough. So I let you go."
Ada watched his face and saw nothing of the boy who'd loved her. But she could only hope that this game would end the way it always should have. She knew he'd go inside; she knew he'd find her secrets. She hoped he brought the world down and finally, finally, got his absolution…and hers.
There was so much she wanted to tell him. So much she had to say. But the eyes...the eyes...the eyes...they were everywhere.
She laid gingerly on the ground and said, "I tried to love you. Maybe it wasn't what you wanted…but it's all I had."
"Your games nearly cost me everything, Ada. It means nothing to me to know it. Once, maybe, I would have loved you back…but your love is poison. And it would have killed us both."
"It always had to be you, Leon. Always."
"It wasn't you, Ada. Never. It was just finding myself through you."
He grabbed her shoulder to cuff her, and she rolled. Jill shouted his name. Ada rolled into him. Thunder rumbled loud and close. The knife in her hand sunk into his vest and lodged there. She would have gotten him right in the heart…but he beat her to it. His knife was buried in her chest.
It was like slow motion. It was just like…that. Done.
He grabbed her by the front of her vest. She grabbed his in return. She blinked, and the blood bubbled out of her mouth. He ground the knife into her. He made some sound in his throat.
Ada gasped and jerked...and then she smiled and whispered hoarsely. "It had to be you…."
The wind rustled his hair above her. The face was older; the eyes were…something... But it was the boy who'd held her, the boy who'd kissed her. The boy who'd saved her here once, in this godforsaken city. He dragged her up by the back of the neck and kept his hand on the knife between them.
She drew him down and kissed him. Like she'd kissed him once so long ago. She'd died then. But not really. She was ready now. She was ready.
He put his lips to her ear and answered, "Yeah…it had to be me." There was something hot and wet swirling inside of him. What was it? It was something real and painful. Was it Ada? Was it justice? Was it grief? He didn't know. She'd been his obsession once; he'd thought he'd loved her. But it wasn't love. Love saved you; it redeemed you. She'd nearly taken everything he cared about to own him. That wasn't love. It was possession. And it was cruel.
The blood spilled down the corners of her mouth, red…red. Her signature color. She caught his face and held on. She jerked and took a long slow breath. "Go inside…please. Go inside. Leon…Leon…" She pressed her bloody mouth against his and gasped…just once more…free; she thought, finally free..."Stop him…"
She died looking at his face. He watched the moment the light left her eyes.
He wasn't sure what he felt, looking at her face. He wasn't sure what was in him. He closed her eyes with his other hand and laid her gently on the ground. She hadn't fought him. She hadn't tried at all. It wasn't like her. And it scared him.
He rose, pulling his knife free.
He looked over at Jill, who stood with her hand over her bleeding shoulder.
The rain gave up playing nice. It spilled wet and warm around them. He wiped Ada's blood on his vest. Swish. Swish.
And done.
He crouched and picked up Ada's grapple gun. He rolled it in his free hand. The only thing she'd ever given him that was actually worth a damn.
Jill whispered, "...we needed her alive."
He shook his head, "No. She knew. When she stood there facing me, she knew this was it for her. What we need is inside."
They held eyes until he put his gloved palm out to her - red with Ada's blood.
Jill put her own in his -red with her own.
He pulled her back inside Ada's kingdom of lies.
In the hidey-hole beneath Ada's train car, they found the motherload.
Rebecca stood for a moment with her eyes wide and shocked. "...she kept everything."
And she had. Not just photos and memories, she'd kept samples. She'd kept data. She'd replicated and constructed and rebuilt. She'd been brilliant and twisted and wise.
Kevin muttered, "There's enough here to blackmail the whole fucking US government."
Rebecca squeaked and shouted, "Here! Here!"
She hit keys, and a gust of released compressed air signaled a compartment opening. A panel slid out, and a sample sat in chilly air. She clutched it, "...Wesker. It's his blood."
She lifted it high like an ugly trophy. "...jackpot!"
Leon was flipping through Ada's data. Wesker had planned to have Jill locate his offspring clearly, and raise it in his image. But where was the boy? Miracella and Hunk were still out there. Did they have him?
Were they waiting for Jill to arrive and complete the circle?
They'd go on waiting. He was going to make it his mission to ensure Jill never joined them. He'd reunite them with their creator soon enough.
Leon pinpointed a castle in the Black Forest on her data. He tapped a finger on the desk. What was it with bad guys and castles? Mansions and castles and anywhere they felt like they could exude power.
A real villain kept their shit in a train car beside an abandoned city.
Clearly.
Schloss Wiedergeburt.
He didn't realize he was just sitting there staring until Rebecca mused, "Rebirth? Castle Rebirth?"
Of course. Too obvious. Way too obvious. But was it? Bad guys loved the obvious.
He rose and made room for the team coming to gather up the data. Rebecca directed her lab geeks. Kevin kept watch over the extraction team. Leon sat beside Jill on the hood of a burnt-out Buick.
"I've played this game too many times," He speculated quietly, "If I storm that castle, I lose. If I don't..."
He trailed off. Jill shifted where she sat and said quietly, "...send Chris."
His brows winged up. She shrugged a shoulder. "Coordinate with the B.S.A.A. They have jurisdiction in European affairs. It's the smart move. You can get clearance for an airstrike that way. You could just..." She whistled and signaled dropping a bomb.
He shook his head. "That's his way, not mine. There could be workers in that castle and families living in surrounding areas. No."
Jill mused, "What about the greater good?"
Leon snorted and rose, "Fuck the greater good. That's Redfield's game. Mine is trying like hell to save as many lives as I can."
Jill smiled softly. "...I'm sorry."
He glanced at her with his brow furrowed. "...for?"
"For...Ada." She shifted where she sat, "I know-I'm aware she mattered."
He took Jill's chin and turned her face up to him. "Not enough. Not ever. She used me."
"...I did too. At first."
And now he laughed. "Honey, that was mutual. You think I cared about you when you climbed on top of me? I didn't. I cared about getting my rocks off. I didn't care about what came next. I haven't...in a long time."
She tilted her head, "And now?"
"Now I have something to care about." He volleyed his gaze over her face and smiled a little sadly. "It's not what I wanted. But it's done, Jill. For better or worse."
Her eyes flickered a little. "...careful. You'll get on one knee soon you keep talking like that."
He laughed. His arm looped over her shoulders. "I've lost my will to fight against you, Jill, not my mind."
She smacked his chest and leaned against his shoulder. "...shit."
"Shit about covers it."
"So...we storm the castle."
He shook his head, and a murder of crows took flight across the salty sky above them. They swirled, they cawed, they dipped and taunted. Crows marked the line of death - no, he mused as the thought flitted into his head; no, they didn't.
But butterflies did.
His eyes settled on Ada's body draped in a tarp.
There wasn't a single butterfly in sight for her.
But the crows had come to say goodbye.
It was a fitting end.
And it was time to finish what she'd started.