A/N: Hello to all my fellow Resident Evil fans out in the world wide web. It's been a long time since I updated this story, and thankfully I've been able to get some of my mojo back to continue on. Sorry for delays with so many of my stories, I have a policy with working on one of my fics at a time so that I don't spread myself too thin and burn out.
And with how things ended when I took time off from this story, it was about time that I picked up the mantle once again. So here we go.
Disclaimer: I don't own Resident Evil.
Chapter 42:
"Resilience is all about being able to overcome the unexpected. Sustainability is about survival. The goal of resilience is to thrive." - Jamais Cascio
Within minutes of the attack, Ethan immediately saw that Cole was in no shape to lead them anywhere. The Umbrella worker was stumbling blind, headed only vaguely in the direction they needed to go.
"Henry, let me take over as guide, you hang back with Leon and keep an eye out for those things, alright?" the traveler glanced back at the other two. John nodded, not looking all that hot himself; he seemed extremely tight, his gaze darting rapidly back and forth, his hands tight on the M-16 in his hands. Leon looking much the same as his eyes kept snapping to the branches crisscrossing above them.
"Yeah, okay, that'd be...okay," Cole nodded, his relief all too apparent. He wiped at his sweaty brown hair and hurried to get behind Leon, John still in back of the group.
Ethan was alert, nervous, but very alert. The birds, Dacs, were dangerous, but it was a relief to find that they went down easily. They were fast and could fly, but that was it, as long as they kept them at a distance and picked them off from affar they shouldn't have any trouble.
Getting a feel of their location and where they needed to go, the traveler angled them the right way and started leading them through the 'forest'. He started to catch glimpses of what might be the far wall about 12 meters ahead.
The setup was disorienting; the trees were not all that close together, but were scattered so that the woods seemed dense when you looked across it; the thick ground cover, some kind of molded plastic, didn't move underfoot, but there were slopes and rises in the material that made it even harder to get a feel for the size of the chamber.
He kept moving, making sure the others were sticking close and trying not to think about what Rebecca and the others might be going through.
Reston had obviously assumed that the rest of the team had been nabbed, but he didn't know. What he did know, however, was how resourceful his lover and Claire both were, and also how brilliant David was as a strategist. They'd all slipped away from Umbrella multiple times before, and there was no reason to think that they wouldn't do it again.
He snapped out of his inner musings when he caught sight of a large clearing less than twenty feet away. He stopped, raising his hand causing the others to stop as he surveyed what was infront of them and how to go about getting to the other side.
'Can't risk going through, those Dacs are probably doing arial recon, we'll be picked off before we got half way...' his mind expanded thinking of the best route.
"Let's back up and go around," John said...and then they heard the beat of wings, and knew it was already too late. In the wilted shadows above the open space, three of the BOWs were diving off perches, soaring down into the rounded clearing.
One of them started to screech and then there were others nearby, overhead, hiding in the unlikely trees, who joined in the song, a deafening, horrendous cacophony of needle-sharp sound. Ethan fell back, John and Leon at his sides aiming their weapons into the open space.
The first flew at the trees, twisting sideways as if to fly between them. It pulled up at the last second, so quickly that they didn't get off a shot. As it soared up Ethan saw two on the ground behind it, dragging their sinewy bodies eagerly forward on folded wings.
The noise reverberating around them was painful, as shrill and terrible as a thousand screaming infants, he could barely make out the sounds of their guns firing at the incoming BOWs. The birds fell silent as the closer of the two took a shot in its curving throat. A ragged hole blew open just above its narrow chest, flaps of gray-brown skin blossoming out like some dark flower. Thin blood gushed from the wound, but the second was already climbing over its spasming body, single-minded in its attack. Ethan took aim and-
"Hey hey! Oh shit-!"
Cole's hysterical cry distracted him, the shot he had lined up jerking right, missing. John opened up on the second Dac, the clatter of automatic fire tearing into the animal. Leon spun and saw Cole stumbling backwards, another of the vicious birds lunging toward him.
Leon aimed, the Dac no more than five feet away from Cole, and even as he pulled the trigger another of the creatures was swooping down from directly overhead. At such close range the nine-millimeter round punctured the bird's chest and blew a fist-sized hole out its low back, the Dac dead before it crumpled to the ground. The newcomer gave one mighty flap, the tips of its huge wings brushing the floor, and flew back up and away.
"Henry, get behind me!" Leon shouted, glancing up, and seeing yet another Dac coming down from a series of perches directly above, tucking its wings in and diving straight for him.
"John! Help Leon, I'll cover you!" Ethan shouted over all the noise as he gunned down a Dac as it attempted to gain more height.
Another diving bird spread its leathery wings only a few feet from the floor and touched down, surprisingly graceful in its landing. It turned toward Leon and lurched forward. Behind him, he heard the spatter of bullets, and heard it stop, heard John cursing, then heard the M-16s aluminum alloy body clatter to the ground.
The Dac in front of Leon opened its long beak and squawked, an angry, hungry sound, sidling forward on its bent wings as fast as Leon could back away. The creature was weaving back and forth and Leon didn't have enough ammo to waste, he had to get a clear shot...
And it jumped, a strange, sudden hop that put it only a foot away. With another shrill screech, it bobbed its head forward, its open beak closing on his ankle. Even through the thick boot leather, he could feel the pegs of its teeth, feel the power in its jaws.
Before he could fire, John was there, he was stamping down on the Dac's snaking neck and pointing his handgun at it.
Bam! The round snapped its spine, a vertebral knob on its sleek back exploding, shards of pale bone and runny blood spraying outward. It let go of his ankle, and though its neck continued to twist its body was still, bleeding and still.
Ethan breathed out when he saw all three of them still standing, turning his attention back toward the clearing-
-A Dac was right in his face, coming in too fast for him to shoot and with very little time to react as it barreled into him. Its snapping beak missing his head by a couple inches, but the large feet grabbed his shoulders, sharp talons biting through his black shirt and into his flesh as he was driven to the ground.
The traveler gritted his teeth, forgetting about the pain in his arms while the arial BOW lunged its head downward, snapping his head to the side as the sharp beak pierced the artifical ground. Bringing his legs up, he twisted his lower half in a way so that he could wrap them around the Dacs neck, keeping it pinned and unable to raise its head back up.
Keeping his legs firmly in place, he applied more pressure as the BOW started to struggle, its hollow bones and thin frame unable to handle the strain on such a sensitive part of its body.
Teeth still clamped together, Ethan pulled down with his lower half with more force, his eyes flashing crimson for just a moment as a sharp 'snap' was heard. The Dacs neck bending at a sharp angle and its body collapsing over him limply.
Breathing in relief, the traveler managed to push the dead BOW off of him and got to his feet when John shouted, "Come on! Get to the door, we have to get to the door!"
Grabbing dropped weapons, the team ran. Throught he clearing with the beating of wings behind them. Another loud shrill crying out into the air as they went back into the treeline on the other side, stumbling over branches and veering around gnarled plastic trunks.
And there was a wall dead ahead, with a double-wide metal hatch with a deadbolt on the right side.
"Look out!", Leon shouted out in surprise. Ethan looked over his shoulder and saw a Dac baring down on him, talons extended ready to grab into him.
Thinking quick, instead of jumping over the next tree trunk, he dropped down allowing the creature to sore over him. John, who had reached the wall with Henry as he worked on the hatch, already had his sidearm in hand and pulled the trigger when the traveler was out of the line of fire.
It had been a deadshot. The Dac's brains turning to liquid and blasting out the back of its head before it fell to the ground like a stone.
None of the rogues took time in their small victory as the maintenance worker got the hatch open, all of them getting to their feet and running for the opening. Out of the cool, dark woods and into blinding heat, John slamming the hatch closed behind them.
They'd entered Phase Two.
X
Rebecca was running, out of breath, exhausted and unable to stop, to rest.
David and Claire were running with her, holding her up, but she still felt that each step was an effort of pure will; her muscles didn't want to cooperate, and she was disoriented, her equilibrium a mess, her ears ringing.
She was hurt, and she didn't know how bad, only that she'd been shot, that she'd hit her head at some point, and that they couldn't stop until they were well away from the compound.
It was dark, too dark to see where the ground was, and cold, each breath was an iced dagger in her throat and lungs. Her thoughts were muddled, but she knew that she'd suffered some brain dysfunction, she wasn't sure what exactly; as she staggered along, the possibilities haunted her. The bullet was easier, she knew by the hot and throbbing pain where it had gone.
It hurt terribly, but she didn't think she had a fracture and it wasn't gushing, she was much more concerned about the loss of coherency.
'Shot through left gluteal, lodged in ischium, lucky, lucky, lucky...shock or concussion? Concussion or shock?' she tried to think, but it was hard, muddled, nothing was clear.
She needed to stop, take a temporal pulse, check her ears for blood...or for CSF, which was something she didn't even want to think about. Even in her confused state, she knew that bleeding cerebrospinal fluid was about the worst outcome for a blow to the head.
After what seemed like a very long time, and more twists and changes in direction than she could count, David slowed, telling Claire to slow down, and that they were going to sit Rebecca on the ground.
"On my side," Rebecca panted, "Bullet's on the left."
Carefully, David and Claire lowered her down to the cold flat earth, gasping, catching their breath, and Rebecca thought she'd never been more glad to lie down. She caught just a glimpse of the black sky as David rolled her over: the stars were amazing, clear and ice against the deep black sea…
"Flashlight," she said, realizing again how strange her thoughts had become. "Gotta check."
"Are we far enough?" Claire asked, and it took Rebecca a moment to understand that she was talking to David.
'Oh, crap this is not good...'
"Should be. And we'll see them coming." David said shortly, and he turned on his flashlight, the beam hitting the ground a few inches in front of Rebecca's face.
"Rebecca, what can we do?" he asked, and she heard the worry in his voice and felt comforted by it. They were like family now, had been ever since the cove, he was a good friend and a good man...
"Rebecca?" This time, he sounded afraid.
"Yeah, sorry," she said, wondering how to explain what she was feeling, what was happening. She decided it would be best to just start talking and let them figure it out.
"Look at my ear," she said. "Look for blood or clear fluid, I think I've had a concussion. I can't seem to gather my thoughts. Other ear, too. I was shot and I think the bullet lodged in my ischium. Pelvis. Lucky, lucky. Shouldn't be bleeding much, I can disinfect it, wrap it if you'll hand me my pack. There's gauze and that's good, though, the bullet could've snapped my spine or gone low, chewed through my femoral artery. Lot of blood, that's bad, and me the only medic, being hurt..."
As she spoke, David shone the light across her face, then gently lifted and checked the other side before resting her head in his lap. His legs were warm, the muscles twitching from exertion.
"A little blood in your left ear," he said. "Claire, take off Rebecca's pack, if you would. Rebecca, you don't have to speak anymore, we'll fix you right up; try to rest, if you can."
'No CSF, thank God.' she thought in relief.
She wanted to close her eyes, to sleep, but she needed to finish telling them everything. "Concussion sounds minor, explains displacement, tinnitus, lack of equilibrium...may only be a couple hours, maybe weeks. Shouldn't be too bad, shouldn't move though. Bed rest. Find my temporal pulse, side of my forehead. If you can't, I could be in shock...warmth, elevation..."
She took a breath, and realized that the darkness wasn't just outside anymore. She was tired, very, very tired, and a kind of hazy blackness was encroaching on her vision.
'That's everything, told them everything...' images of the others appeared in her jumbled thoughts...John...Leon...Ethan...
Her dazed eyes snapped open, "Ethan, the others," she said, horrified that she'd forgotten for even a moment, struggling to sit up. The realization was like a slap in the face. "I can walk, I'm okay, we have to go back-"
David barely touched her and somehow, her head was in his lap again. Then Claire was lifting the back of her shirt, dabbing at her hip, sending fresh waves of pain coursing through her. She squeezed her eyes closed, trying to breathe deeply, trying to breathe at all.
"We will go back," David said, and his voice seemed to be coming from far away, from the top of a well that she was falling down. "But we have to wait for the helicopter to leave, assuming that it will, and you'll need time to recover."
If he said anything else, Rebecca didn't hear it. Instead, she slept, and dreamed that she was a child, playing in the cold, cold snow.
X
Desert. That was all any of them could see in any direction that wasn't obstructed by the walls sealing off the large chamber.
There weren't any animals in sight, they had to be on the other side of the dune, but Cole thought he knew which ones belonged to Phase Two. Before John, Ethan or Leon could get even a step away, before Cole's ears had stopped ringing from the Dacs' terrible cries, he started babbling at them.
"Desert, Phase Two is a desert so it must be the Scorps, scorpions, see?"
John was pulling a curved magazine from his hip pack, scowling into the artificial sunlight that beat down from above. It had to be at least a hundred degrees in the room, and between the white walls and glaring light it felt a lot hotter.
Leon scanned the shining sands in front of them, then turned to Cole, looking as though he'd just eaten something sour. "Wonderful, that's just great. 'Scorps'? Scorps and Dacs, what are the other ones, Henry, do you remember?"
For a single second, Cole's mind went blank. He nodded, wracking his brain, all of the sweat on his body already evaporated in the bone dry heat. "Uh, they're, they're nicknames, Dacs, Scorps...Hunters! Hunters and Spitters, the handlers all had these nicknames."
"Cute. Like Fluffy, or Sweet Pea," John interrupted, wiping his brow with the back of one hand.
"Me and the others have fought two of them." said Ethan, garnering the attention of the other three men. "Back in the Arklay Mountains, on the train Becs and I found and rode to the training facility, I encounted a scorpion the size of a pickup truck. It was tough, but not invincible."
"And the other one?" asked Leon, curious and still very alert to their surroundings.
The traveler turned from the dunes ahead of them and regarded the ex-cop. "Hunters. Think crocodile men with claws sharper than any knife that can leap short distances and about as strong as John here."
He looked back out across the man-made desert. "This is the perfect environment for scorpion-BOWs." glancing down at his feet, boots sinking partway into the sand, "And they'll have an advantage. The sand will slow us down, so be ready."
All four of them looked across Phase Two, at the massive sand dune that towered in the middle of the room, glittering beneath the giant grid of sunlamps overhead. Twenty-five, thirty feet high, it blocked their view of the southern wall, including the door in the far right corner. There was nothing else to see.
Cole shook his head, but he wasn't telling them anything; the Scorps were elsewhere, and they'd have to cross the bright and burning sand dune to get to the exit.
"What were the other phases, mountain and city? Have you seen them?" Ethan asked.
"Three is like a, whadayacallit, a chasm, on a peak. Like a mountain gorge, kind of, real rocky. And Four is a city, a few square blocks of one, anyway. I had to check the video feeds in all of the phases when I first got here."
John looked up and around, squinting against the harsh light. "That's right...video, do you remember where they are? The cameras?"
Why would he want to know that? Cole pointed left, at the small glass eye embedded in the white wall some ten feet up. "There are five in here; that's the closest."
With a huge grin, John held up both hands and extended his middle fingers to the lens. "Bite it, Reston," he said loudly, and Cole decided that he liked John, a lot. Leon and Ethan too, for that matter, and not just because they were the only ticket out.
Whatever their motivations, they were obviously on the right side of things, and the fact that they could still joke at a time like this.
"So, we got a plan?" Leon asked, still looking at the wall of yellow-white sand looming in front of them.
"Exit's that way," Ethan said pointing through the dune. "We'll head that way," he added, pointing right instead, "Keep the wall at our backs so nothing gets behind us and then climb. If we see something, shoot it."
"Brilliant." John said grinning, "You should write these down. You know, make a playbook on how to escape horrible situations and kill freaks of-" he broke off suddenly, then they all heard it.
A chattering sound. A sound like nails being tapped on hollow wood, the sound Ethan knew very well as he pressed his rifle to his shoulder and looked in the direction the noise was coming from. The sound of claws, opening and closing. And mandibles, clicking against one another.
"Aren't scorpions supposed to be nocturnal?" asked John, his own weapon trained at the dune ahead of them.
"This is Umbrella, remember?" Leon said. "You have two grenades, Ethan and I've got one."
John nodded, then said, "You know how to work a semiautomatic?"
The big soldier was watching the dune, so it took Cole a second to realize he was talking to him.
"Oh. Yeah. I haven't ever used one, but I went target shooting a couple of times with my brother, six or seven years ago." He kept his voice low as they did, listening for that strange sound.
John looked directly at him, as if sizing him up, then nodded, and pulled a heavy-looking handgun out of his hip holster. He handed it to Cole, butt first.
"It's a nine-millimeter, holds eighteen. I got more clips if you run out. You know all the gun safety rules? Don't point it at anyone unless you mean to kill, don't shoot me, Ethan or Leon, all that stuff?"
Cole nodded, taking the gun, and it was heavy, and although he was still more scared than he'd ever been in all his thirty-four years, the solid weight of it in his hand was an incredible relief. Remembering what his little brother had told him about safety, he fumbled through checking to see if it was loaded before looking at John again.
"Thank you," he said, and meant it. He'd lured these guys into a trap, and they were giving him a gun; giving him a chance.
"Forget it. Means we won't have to worry about covering your ass on top of ours," John said, but he wore a slight smile. "Come on, let's move out."
John in the lead and Ethan behind him, they started east, walking slowly through the changeless environment. The sand shifted underfoot, and with the blasting heat, it made for a real workout.
They'd only gone a short distance when Leon called for a halt.
"Thermal underwear," he muttered, holstering his handgun before pulling off his black sweatshirt and tying it around his waist. He wore a thick, textured white shirt underneath. "I didn't realize we'd be hitting the Sahara-"
They all heard it, only a second before they saw it...before they saw them, three of them, lining up at the top of the dune.
Tiny rivers of sand trickled down from beneath their multiple legs, each as thick and stocky as a sawed-off baseball bat. They had claws, giant pincing claws that were narrow and black, serrated on the inside, and long, segmented bodies that dwindled to tails, curling up and over their backs and tipped with stingers. Wicked, dripping stingers at least a foot long.
The trio of sand-colored creatures, each five or six feet long, maybe three feet high, started to chatter, the slender, pointed, tusk-like projections beneath the rounded arachnid eyes tapped against one another, beating out the strange tattoo of clicks that they'd heard before...
And then all three of the creatures, the monsters, were sliding down toward them, perfectly balanced, scuttling through the moving sands with ease. At the top of the dune three appeared in their place.
"Shit," John breathed, not even aware that he'd spoken as he raised the M-16 and opened up.
bambambambam!
The first of the scorpion-things let out a strange, dry, hissing sound, like air being let out of a giant tire, as the bullets hammered into its curled body. A thick white fluid burst from the wounds that had opened in its insectile face, a face of drooling tusks and spider's eyes, a face with a black shapeless hole for a mouth. Writhing, claws raised, it fell on its side and twisted wildly, digging its own shallow grave in the hot sand.
Ethan had already started shooting another of the BOWs. They weren't as large as the last oversized scorpion that he had fought, but they were bigger than they were and there was more of them. And with the disadvantage they had with the environment around them they needed to think of something and fast.
Leon and Cole were both shooting, the thunder of the nine-millimeter drowning out any more hissing, producing even more of the pus-like blood in the third Scorp. The white liquid spewed out in glurts, like puke, but there were still three more of the creatures coming down...
And the first two, the ones that John and Ethan had drilled full of holes, were getting up. Getting up unsteadily, but getting up all the same.
The openings were oozing with that viscous white goo, and even as it took its first step toward them, the traveler saw that the liquid was hardening. Plugging the wounds as efficiently as plaster filled a hole in a wall.
"...Okay, that's fucking new." he said while pumping more rounds into his target as it took a step forward.
"Go go go!" John shouted as the other creature taken down by Leon and Cole started to move, wounds already scabbing over. The second threesome was halfway down the dune and closing fast.
They had to get out. There were still two more 'environments', and they'd already blown at least a third of their ammo; this ran through Ethan's mind in the split-second it took him to spray the Scorps with a hail of bullets, as they all started to run east.
He didn't even try to take any of the six down, he knew it wouldn't make a difference. The line of explosive rounds was to hold them back until they were clear, his mind grasping for a solution as the impossible animals waved their jagged claws, scrabbling against the shifting sands and spurting more of their bizarre epoxy.
The closest of the Scorps was perhaps a dozen feet in front of him when he turned and ran, moving as fast as he could through the blazing heat, his adrenaline up and raging. Leon and Cole were fifty meters ahead, stumbling through the sand, Leon running sideways, watching front and back, sweeping with his semi.
He risked a glance back and saw John a step or two behind him, and also saw that the scorpion creatures were still coming. Slower than before but not faltering, their waspish bodies dripping white, their bizarre elongated claws raised and snapping. They were gaining speed, too, faster with each skittering step, a pack of undead bugs looking for lunch.
John looked back as well, seeing the BOWs grouped together Something seeming to cross the large man's mind as he looked back at the traveler. "I gotta idea!" he shouted, dropping his rifle, the sling hanging awkwardly around his neck, and jammed one hand into his pack, still managing a decent run.
He came up with one of the grenades, jerked the pin free, and turned, backing up in a shambling jog. Obviously gauging the timer on the explosive and the distance to the Scorps sixty, seventy feet behind.
"Grenade!" Ethan screamed just as John threw the round canister up, praying that he'd judged it right as he turned and lunged, the grenade still ascending as they both dove into the side of the sand dune.
He swam into it, pushing into it with all his strength and burrowing into the hot grit blind and breathless. The sand was cooler underneath, waves of the unpacked stuff pouring across his face, trying to force its way into his nose and mouth, but he could only think to pull his legs in...and what the blast-projected slivers of metal could do to human flesh if he wasn't completely covered in time.
One final, desperate kick and-
BOOM!
There was a huge shift all around him, an incredible pressure slamming into him and into the moving wall he was embedded in. He felt the weight on top of him press down, forcing the air out of him, and it took all he had to force one hand up to his face, to cup it over his mouth. Breathing shallowly, he started worming his way back out, wriggling and kicking.
Leon, John, Henry, did they get down in time, did John's plan work?
He fought against the still sliding currents of polished granules, taking one more breath before using both hands to swipe at the heavy sands. In a few seconds he was out, rivulets of grit streaming off of him, his irritated eyes watering. He wiped at them one handed, raising the G36, looking first at the threat...
But there wasn't a threat anymore. The grenade must have landed right in front of them; of the six mutant scorpions that had been pursuing them, four were in pieces. He saw a still-twitching claw lying across the sand in a puddle of white, a tail with stinger still attached sticking out of the side of the dune, a leg, another leg; the rest was unrecognizable, great hunks of wet mush splattered in a rough semi-circle.
The two Scorps at the rear of the pack were still whole, but were definitely not going to get up again; the bodies were intact, but the faces were gone. The eyes and mouth, the strange mandibles nothing more than mulched carapace and shrapnel
Ethan turned to see John had finished digging himself out of his own little sand pit a couple feet away, brushing the stray grains off his shoulders before surveying his handywork.
"Wow...that worked out better than I thought it would." he said, nodding to himself. Though the traveler could see an inflated ego and overflowing pride.
"Yeah," Ethan agreed, "Don't buy Raid, just call John Andrews. He'll kill 'em dead." John chuckled.
"Yuck it up, Mercer." both men turned to find Leon and Cole striding back toward him, expressions of amazement on both their faces. By the time they reached him, everything had changed back to a tense calm, thinking about their situation was enough.
They were in a psycho testing ground being put through their paces by an Umbrella madman, their team was split up, they had limited ammo, and there was no clear way out of it.
Still, seeing the faint hope on the other men's flushed and sweating faces...hope could be misguided in many ways, but it was rarely a bad thing given what they were dealing with.
"There could still be more of them," John said, wiping sand off of the M-16. "Let's get out of here before-"
clickclickclick
That sound. All of them froze, staring at each other. It wasn't close, but somewhere over the dune, there was at least one more Scorp lurking around.
X
David had spotted a moving light, maybe a quarter mile southwest of their position, but it hadn't come any closer.
If it wasn't for the cold, Claire thought she might feel relieved. The chances of anyone finding them in the endless miles of dark were somewhere near zero, the Umbrella guys had blown it. Even with the helicopter's searchlight, which they apparently weren't going to use, it'd be pure luck if they ran across the three of them.
'Although maybe it'd be lucky for us.' she thought from her place on the cold, desert ground. 'Maybe they'd have blankets and coffee, hot chocolate, spiced cider...'
"How are you, Claire?" asked the man beside her.
She made an effort to keep her teeth from chattering, but it failed. It had been at least an hour, probably more. "Pretty goddamn cold, David, and yourself?"
"Same. Good thing we dressed warm, eh?"
If it was a joke, she wasn't laughing. Claire snuggled closer to Rebecca, wondering when she'd lose all feeling in her limbs; as it was, her hands were numb and her face felt like it was freezing into a mask, in spite of near-constant changes of position. David was on Rebecca's other side, the three of them huddled together as tightly as was humanly possible, spoon fashion.
Rebecca hadn't woke up, but her breathing was slow and even; she was resting comfortably, at least.
'At least that's one of us...'
"Shouldn't be much longer," David said. "Twenty, perhaps twenty-five minutes. They'll post a man or two, then go."
"Yeah, so you said," Claire said. "How do you figure the time, though?" Her lips felt like popsicles.
"Perimeter search, perhaps a quarter-mile round, assuming they have six or less men still able-bodied, I'm estimating four."
"Why?"
David's voice shook with the cold. "Three sent to the back door of the building, two men down inside, and from the sounds, I'd say there were three to seven at the front. Eight or twelve men; any more, and they wouldn't have all fit in the helicopter. Any less, they wouldn't have been able to cover both entrances."
Claire was impressed. "So, why twenty to twenty-five minutes?"
"As I said, they'll cover a certain distance all the way around the compound before they give us up. The size of the compound, tack on a quarter to a halfmile, and how long it takes an average man to walk a fourth of that distance. We saw that light perhaps an hour ago, and since they most likely would have each taken a direction and searched that single segment...well, twenty to twenty-five minutes. That's including the time it would take to look through the van, as well. That's my guess, for what it's worth."
Claire felt her frozen lips attempting a smile. "You're bullshitting, aren't you? Making it up."
David sounded shocked. "I am not. I've gone over it several times and I think-"
"I'm kidding," Claire said, cutting him off. "Really."
A short silence, and then David chuckled, the low sound carrying easily through the cold dark. "Of course you are. Sorry. I think the temperature has affected my sense of humor."
Claire alternated her hands, slipping the right one out from beneath Rebecca's hip and sliding the left one under. "No, I'm sorry. Shouldn't have interrupted. Go on, this is really interesting."
"Not much else to say," David said, and she heard the soft, rapid chatter of his teeth. "They'll want to get medical attention for their wounded, and I doubt Umbrella wants one of their helicopters to be seen flying around the salt flats by the light of day; they'll leave a guard behind and go."
She heard him shifting, felt Rebecca's body move as he altered his own position. "Anyway, that's when we'll move. Back to the compound first, a bit of sabotage, and then we'll just see what turns up..."
The way his voice trailed off, the forced good humor in his tone that barely covered the desperation,both told her exactly what he was thinking.
'What we've both been thinking.' Claire thought, moving closer to the young woman between them.
"And Rebecca?" she asked gently. They couldn't leave her, she'd freeze, and trying to infiltrate the compound again, trying to take out a couple of armed men while carrying an unconscious woman…
"I don't know," David said. "Before she...she said that she might recover within hours, given rest."
Claire didn't respond. Stating the obvious wouldn't help anything.
They fell silent, Claire listening to Rebecca's soft breathing, thinking about Chris. David's affection for Rebecca was like the love between a father and daughter. Or brother and sister. Thinking about him was one way to pass the time, anyway.
'What are you doing right now, Chris? Trent said you were safe, but for how long? God, I wish you'd never been assigned to that Spencer place. Or Raccoon, for that matter. Fighting for truth and justice pretty much eats it, big brother...'
"Not falling asleep, are you?" David asked. He'd asked her that every time they stopped talking for more than a minute.
"No, thinking about Chris," she said. Forming the words was a chore, but she figured it was better than letting her mouth freeze shut. "And I bet you're starting to wish we'd gone to Europe after all."
"I do," Rebecca suddenly said weakly. "Hate this weather..."
Rebecca!
Claire grinned, not really able to feel it and not caring. She hugged the girl as David sat up, digging for the flashlight, and though she was freezing, though they were cut off from their friends, cut off from escape and facing uncertain odds, Claire felt like things were definitely starting to look up.
X
The call came just after John blew up six of the Ar12s.
Reston had been wishing for popcorn up until then; the Scorps' defense systems were working just as the projected numbers had suggested, the exo damage repairing even faster than they'd hoped. What they hadn't counted on was how very fragile the connective tissue between the arachnid segments actually was.
'One grenade. One goddamn grenade.'
The desire for popcorn was as dead as the Ar12s. There were still two left, scuttling around in the southwest corner, but Reston no longer had much faith in the 12s, and although that was important information, he wasn't so certain that Jackson would be pleased with him for obtaining it.
'He'll want to know why I didn't take away their explosives first. Why I released all of the specimens. Why I didn't call Sidney, at least, for counsel. And no answer I give will be sufficient.' he thought with his anger mounting.
When the cell phone rang, Reston jumped in his chair, suddenly certain that it was Jackson. That ridiculous notion was gone by the time he picked up the phone, but it had given him pause, and made him quite glad that his test subjects wouldn't survive Three.
"Reston."
"Mr. Reston, this is Sergeant Hawkinson, White Ground Team One-Seven-Oh-"
"Yes, yes," Reston sighed, watching Cole and the three STARS regrouping. "What's happening up there?"
"We..." Hawkinson took a deep breath. "Sir, I'm sorry to report that there was an altercation with the intruders and they've escaped the premises." He said it all in a rush, obviously uncomfortable.
"What?" Reston stood up, nearly tipping his chair over. "How? How did this happen?"
"Sir, we had them trapped in the storage building, but there was an explosion, two of my men were shot and three more were critically-"
"I don't want to hear it!" Reston was furious, unable to believe that he had such incompetents working for him. "What I want to hear is that you did not just fail miserably, you did not just let three people slip past your 'crack' teams, and that you did not call to tell me that you can't find them!"
There was a moment of silence at the other end, and Reston just dared this screw-up to mouth off, to give him any more reason to make his life a living hell.
Instead, Hawkinson sounded properly contrite. "Of course, sir. I'm sorry, sir. I'm going to fly the helicopter back to SLC and bring back some of our new recruits to extend our search parameters. I'm leaving my last three men to stand watch, two at the compound's east and west, the third at the escape vehicle. I'll be back within ninety minutes, sir, and we will find them. Sir."
Reston's lips curled. "See that you do, Sergeant. If you don't, it's your worthless ass."
He flipped the talk switch and tossed the phone back on the console, at least feeling as though he'd done something to facilitate the process. A good ball-squeeze worked wonders; Hawkinson would crawl over broken glass to get results, which was exactly how it should be.
Reston sat down again, looking at the test subjects as they slogged their way over the sand dune. Cole had a gun now, and was leading them toward the connecting door. Reston wondered if John, Ethan or Red had any idea how useless Cole was. Probably not, if they'd given him a weapon.
When they hit the top of the dune and started down the other side, the two Scorps finally moved in. In spite of his earlier resolve, Reston watched closely, holding on to a shred of hope that it would end there, that the men would be stopped. It wasn't that he had any doubt about the Ca6s in Three, they certainly wouldn't survive those.
'But what if they do, hmm? What if they do, and they make it to Four, and they find a way out? What will you tell Jackson, what will you tell your guided tour when there aren't any specimens left to observe? Then it will be your ass, won't it?'
Reston ignored the whispery little voice, concentrating on the screen instead. Both Scorps were going in fast, claws and stingers up, their lithe, insectile bodies set to attack-
-and all four men were firing, a silent battle, the 12s dodging and feinting, then falling beneath the stream of bullets. Reston's hands were in fists, though he didn't notice, his attention was entirely on the two downed Scorps, waiting to see if they'd be ready to attack again before the men reached the door...
Except John and Ethan were moving toward the animals, pointing their weapons and shooting out the eyes. They did it quickly and efficiently, and although both Scorps were moving again as they headed for the door, the blind creatures could only flail about in the sand. One of them managed to find a target; with a limber curl, it drove its extraordinarily toxic sting into the other's back. The poisoned 12 whipped around and stabbed the first through the abdomen with one jagged claw, impaling it; it writhed weakly, alive but unable to move or see as it was bound and dying with its dead brother.
Reston shook his head slowly, disgusted at the wasted time and money, at the millions of dollars and the man-hours that had gone into developing the inhabitants of phases One and Two.
'And Jackson will want that information. Once the test subjects are dead and their friends caught, I'll be able to put the right spin on things; with some of our backers coming in, such a poor performance from our "prize" specimens could be costly. Better to know now.' he thought while looking at all possible angles.
Yes, he'd be able to pull it off. Now Red was unlocking the connecting door that would lead them into Three, unless they had a case of grenades, they would be dead in minutes.
Reston took a deep breath, remembering who was in control, who was calling the shots here. Hawkinson would handle the surface situation, Jackson would be pleased, the rogues were about to be blinded, trampled, and eaten. There was nothing to worry about.
Reston exhaled heavily, managing a somewhat uneasy grin and forcing himself to relax into his chair, dialing up the screens that would show him the Ca6 habitat.
"Say goodbye," he said, and poured himself another brandy.
A/N: Despite the gravity of everything, the team is holding together as best they can. Though their mission isn't over yet, and Reston is getting more and more desperate by the minute. Though Ethan and the others are in no mood to give up now.
I'll try to get the next update up and running as soon as I can folks.
