Chevy Chase Village, Maryland

March 10, 2014

Leon couldn't find the right key on his ring. He placed his briefcase down, had to stuff the stack of his mail in his mouth to free both hands to work the door, fingers fumbling and clumsy in his exhaustion. The lock clicked and he shouldered the door open, casting a slice of misty spring light along the floor into the still blackness. He limped inside.

Leon hit the light switch and a floor lamp across the room blinked to life. A red light winked for his attention atop the island in his kitchen. Leon took a shuffling step forward, hit the "play" button on his voicemail caster, and leaned against the counter, winching against a deep pinch in his right shoulder. He picked up the first letter on the stack and tore it open.

A playful, high-definition jingle twinkled over the speakers. "The time is… three… fifty five… AM. Good morning!"

The first letter reminded Leon to pay his car insurance. Leon threw it onto the counter and picked up another envelope, tore it open and pulled the letter out.

"You have… two… unheard messages. First message sent, March third at… six… oh eight, PM, from..." The machine rattled off a local area code and number.

"Heee-ey! It's Lori." A familiar female voice. Leon looked up at the machine. "Hope you've been well, um… I… I've been okay, just wondering how you are!"

The voice sighed.

"Here we go," Leon mumbled.

"Look, I – I've been trying to text you for weeks. I sent you an email and I even went by your place and you weren't there. I really wanted to do this in person, but… look, Leon, you're a great guy, and..."

It was at this point Leon tuned out. He read a letter about an increase in Home Owner's Association fees.

"...you said you'd be gone for work a lot… I didn't think you meant you'd be gone, you know? I just… I'm sorry. This isn't going to work out. I really didn't want to do it this way. Please take care of yourself." An awkward half-word, like she wasn't sure if she should say anything else, and decided against it. Then, "Bye, Leon."

Click.

Leon's fatigue blunted any real sort of slight to his pride he would have felt about being dumped via voicemail in 2014. A break-up text may have carried more esteem.

Beeeeep.

"End of message. To replay this message-"

"Delete," Leon said.

"Message deleted. Next message, sent March… eighth… at four... twenty one... PM. From..." The number was one Leon didn't recognize, and wasn't from an area code he could recall.

"Leon! It's Claire. Claire Redfield! Hi!" She always introduced herself with her full name, even though they'd known each other for almost two decades. She had a very faint Southern drawl. Hi came out like ha. "Looks like I caught you at a bad time, but, I got some big news and I'll be in town until the end of the week. Uh… let's meet up and… get a beer, okay? Hit me back when you got time, Hero. See you around!"

Beeeeep. "To replay this message-"

"Save that one," Leon said.

"Message will be saved for... fourteen... days. End of messages."

The house was silent again. Leon tried to finish the letter about donating money to the local animal shelter, but his eyes were starting to cross, the letters dancing together in a fuzzy lateral conga line. He rubbed his eyes with his thumb and his forefinger.

The remaining sheaf of mail in his hand was thick and foreboding. It might as well have been a 500-page thesis paper. It could wait until he woke up. His bed was calling his name, seductive and alluring. His knees were burning and throbbing, upset that he wasn't lying prone on something soft already.

Leon dropped the rest of his mail on the counter, kicked off his shoes, and landed face-down on his bed, where he stayed for the next 12 hours.

Washington, D.C.

March 12, 2014

Claire was sitting by herself in a booth. She spotted Leon and waved him over, with a huge, sunny grin on her face. She stood and spread her arms, closing and opening her hands, gesturing for him to bring it in for a hug. She threw her arms around his neck and squeezed, rocking back and forth, as if she hadn't seen him for years and years.

"Ugh, you look amazing," Claire said, "how are you doing?!"

Leon laughed, patting her on the back. He wasn't a great hugger; he was never sure what to do or how long they were supposed to last. This one was lasting a little long. "Well as I can," he said, "it's good to see you."

"Here, sit, sit," Claire said, "we have lots to talk about. You still working for Uncle Sam?"

Leon slid into the booth across from her. "Sure am. Twenty years in 2019. I guess I'm a lifer now."

The waitress, an older woman in a pink-and-white smock, drifted over with a pen and notepad in hand. Claire ordered a strawberry milkshake, and Leon a cheeseburger. He figured Claire would eat his fries for him. This wasn't his first go round trying to eat around a woman.

They made small talk, discussed her flight, talked about sports. Sooner rather than later, Claire got right to the meat of the conversation: gossip.

"You're still single?" Claire said, in disbelief.

Leon shrugged. "The dating pool here in D.C. needs a bit more chlorine, putting it lightly. Everyone knows everyone."

Claire wrinkled her nose. "Ew. It's like fucking everyone you see by six degrees of separation. You get to feeling like community property."

Leon paused. "That was my twenties."

Claire threw her balled-up napkin at him. "You're gross."

Leon made a sound that was half-laugh and half-scoff. "Whatever you say." He flicked the wrapper of his straw off the table and hit her smack on the forehead with it.

"Son of a bitch!" Claire swiped at her forehead, laughing.

Their food was delivered, distracting her and saving Leon from further escalation. Claire spied his plate.

"That looks good. Can I have a fry?"

Leon leaned back, an elbow over the back of the booth, and pushed his plate to her. Sometimes being so good with the ladies was a curse.

"So how's… uh… Ben?"

"Brian," Claire corrected him. "He's great. But-"

Here it went. Leon listened.

"He's like – too great? Like he treats me really well, but it's like… too well. Does that make sense?"

"No," Leon said through a bite of cheeseburger.

"I don't know how to explain it." Claire said.

"You want my advice?" Leon said. Claire nodded. "You see that thing you're doing right now? Stop doing that."

"Oh! Speaking of relationships! I forgot." Claire stuffed a handful of fries into her mouth and then rifled through her briefcase. She produced what looked like a greeting card in a green envelope. "Short notice, but -" she swallowed, "from my charming brother. He didn't know if you'd want to come, considering the fact that you always end up kicking him in the head when you see each other. So I suppose I'm the bearer of bad news if you say no."

Leon put down his cheeseburger, wiped his hands on his napkin, took the envelope, and opened it. Claire shimmied in her seat, excited to see his reaction.

Together with their families,

Christopher Samuel Redfield and Jillian Andrea Valentine hereby

request the honor of your presence at their marriage, Sunday, March 18, 2014

at seven pm.

Reception to follow.

Leon quirked an eyebrow at Claire. "Is this for real?"

Claire's smile fell; her shimmies drew to a stop. "Well, yeah."

"Chris and Jill? Aren't they partners?"

"Pff. Partners." Claire made air quotes with her fingers. "They've been partners forever," she said, "but he's always been in love with her. The whole bullshit that guys do to protect their egos, always pining, never trying. It was pathetic."

Leon made a noise of surprise, huh.

"They've been a thing on the low for a bit. Didn't want it to interfere with work, although I think everyone knew. He took the whole… 2008 thing really hard."

Kijuju, where Jill had fallen to her supposed death and then popped up later, working for Wesker. It was too close to his own experience – Leon had no comment on it that wouldn't be about him, so he took a bite of his cheeseburger and made a thoughtful noise.

"I was worried about him for a while, you know… hurting himself." Claire's expression went dark and she stirred her milkshake. "I think he sees this as his second chance."

"It's one not a lot of people get. It's a lot to go through." Leon agreed. "Well, that's great. I think it'll be good for him."

"She proposed, you know," Claire said. "It was really cute."

"And Chris wants me there?" Leon laughed.

"Believe it or not, he likes you. Chris doesn't really have a lot of friends. He's... intense."

"I'll say. He punched me in the face."

"But people he can trust stay on his good list whether or not he's punched you. He's punched basically everyone. Even Jill, and he's marrying her." Claire paused. "Wait, that sounds bad."

"Well… I'll see what the schedule says, but I wouldn't mind going. Sounds nice. They deserve some peace and happiness."

Claire smiled. "I think that will make him happy. Thanks, Leon."

Sacramento, California

March 14, 2014

Juliette kept tabs on e-mails. She was the e-mail lady. It seemed pretty exciting at first – getting to read through people's personal thoughts, your fingers rifling through their brain, running over their most private dirty laundry, plucking out the pieces you wanted with nobody the wiser. It just turned into an extravaganza of gross nudes between fat Mafiosos and their equally gross mistresses, and personality quizzes. What member of the FRIENDS cast are you? Click to find out!

They loved personality quizzes. And coupons.

The Company kept quiet tabs on known terrorists, federal witnesses, cops, politicians – everyone who was everyone had a paper trail, and they watched it. It was illegal but also effective, and with the appearance of anonymity, tongues were let loose in a way that she couldn't believe on a medium where every character was committed to archive, forever. Coordinates of their houses, plans to knock off people they knew, chummy, knowing jokes about very illegal insider trading. Human stupidity knew no bounds when given the appearance of invincibility.

The scrawls of code streamed across the screen at a pace that appeared slow, but in reality was just fast enough that you could skim it and and be onto the next piece with no break in the flow. Juliette took off her glasses and blinked, hard, then put them back on. It was just in time to catch two pieces of text.

Redfield

Fed

She hit an F key, stopped the scrawl, and rewound it back. There were false starts like this all the time; you might see something you thought was suspect, but it turned out to be your mind either splicing words together into some kind of portmanteau that didn't mean anything, or it was two unrelated statements close enough together that your brain put context there that didn't exist.

This, however, was neither. An email string unfolded and slowly crawled up her screen.

Our source tells us there's a big to-do going to be happening down in Austin on 3-18 with quite a few Raccoon survivors in attendance. A few lower-profile members of the group might be convinced to crack the location of a "package" or two, given enough pressure. We had someone tail one of the Redfields and they got it all on camera.

Risky. The BSAA is going to be there if the Reds are involved.

Risky yeah but think, if enough people are there our fed buddy is probably gonna show up. This could be a good chance to finally get that dealt with. Plus wherever the BSAA is, packages aren't far away.

What sort of package would a Raccoon City survivor know the location of that was so important? What "Fed buddy"?

To her mind, there was one federal contact the Redfields had, and even that was tenuous – Leon Scott Kennedy. Who else could it be? He was the biggest fish in that whole motley crew. Along with Ashley Graham, he'd been in the news and all over the tabloids at every grocery store checkout aisle in 2004. They were domestic heroes for about a news cycle, and then it was business as usual – football stars beating their wives, senators found in torrid affairs with boys half their age, a starlet or two being locked up for snorting half their weight in coke and then wrapping their Lexus around a light pole. Aside from maybe Albert Wesker himself, Leon was the most notable federal presence she could think of. But Albert Wesker was dead, as dead as anyone in this business stayed. Persona non grata for reasons of revenge such as these – he'd already had his face revenged in by Chris Redfield, after almost 12 years of jousting.

"Fed Buddy".

Of course, it could have been someone else. But what was the likelihood? And what could be big enough that would draw them all to Texas, of all places? Raccoon Survivors were adult orphans, they were reformed cat burglars with no families, they were all transplants with one thing in common: very few had anyone that would miss them, and that was by design. When you were testing how fast someone could die at the hands of your biological warfare, you didn't want people whose relatives or spouses would come knocking, wondering what had happened.

They had to mean bioweapons, or at least something related to biological agents – there was nothing else the BSAA and Raccoon City survivors had in common, other than PTSD and a tendency towards uncontrolled alcoholism.

Juliette pulled her notepad over and wrote as fast as she could, trying to jot down the details before she forgot them.

"You got something good?" Brad Hodgkins asked, drifting over to her desk. Juliette shushed him without looking up.

"Guess so." He said, offended, and disappeared.

Juliette pulled up a chat window, and typed in the name of one of her coworkers – Natalie Cormer. Natalie was in Deep Intel; she was the woman you didn't ever want to piss off, because she knew everything about you, or could find it if she wanted to. Good thing she was a sweet lady who could pass as your standard issue California valley girl with all the trimmings and hobbies to match, with no interest in life ruining that Juliette could sense.

Natalie, hey, I need a favor. Can you run a travel record for me on a few SSNs?

Natalie was probably on break, because it took her a few minutes to respond.

I can do that. Ur buying the margaritas on Thursday though.

Juliette laughed.

You're the best

I know. SSN?

I've got 3. Here.

It was a simple task, judging by how fast Natalie was able to copy and paste screenshots of flight itineraries into their chat window.

Chris Redfield was the least mobile of the three. He hadn't traveled anywhere in about eight months, at least by plane. He was scheduled to fly into Austin from New York via Fort Lauderdale on March 16.

Jill Valentine had been to Seattle, Paris, and London in the last month and a half. Not surprising – she'd been benched from operative duty to take an officer role within the BSAA, hung up the guns and hobnobbed for a living, using her name to curry clout within the emerging international bioweapons resistance. No doubt those were for business and not for pleasure – each flight returned back to New York within two days of departure, with nothing declared upon arrival. She had a flight booked on March 16 as well, which after cross-referencing, was the same flight as Redfield's, their seats together.

Leon Kennedy was without question the roving target. In the last six months he'd traveled to Belmopan, Belize; Nairobi, Kenya; back and forth to Quantico, Virginia three times; a city in Iceland that Juliette couldn't pronounce if she tried, for a single night; Queensland, Australia; Fort Campbell for less than a day; and Buenos Aires, Argentina. Argentina was a 5-day long trip.

He also had a flight booked for March 17 to Austin, nonstop, and then back to DC the next day.

It was true. The intel was solid.

Thanks, lady. You're a lifesaver.

;)

Juliette locked her computer, stood from her desk, and excused herself to the ladies' room. She walked down the hallway in the dim light, her reflection following her on a slant in every direction in the thick tinted glass that lined the hallways.

Collecting the information was the easy part. Deciding what to do with it would be the real challenge. She stared at herself for a long time in the mirror, and decided with a heavy heart that it was someone else's problem. It had to be.

Sacramento, California

March 15, 2014

That night, Juliette lay in bed. She was naked, alone, and awake, two hours past her normal bed time. The weather was warm for Spring, the window beside her bed open. The large box fan mounted in the window frame threw spinning slants of light and shadow over her.

On one hand, if there was ever a party that was ill-advised to attack without the help of a small army – it was the Redfield Wedding. The NRA probably had about 75% of its national union dues coming from that event alone. There was absolutely no chance of anyone being taken out without a fight and a couple of murder charges.

But was that enough? Would that guarantee anyone's safety?

What if they didn't have the same information she did? Did anyone even know that something was about to happen?

The most important question burst through all her impotent questioning like an intrusive thought - was she willing to gamble Leon's safety on that?

She wasn't.

It still meant something, still banged around in her brain, something in the sentimental core of her mind was nagging, pleading, justifying. That nagging included memories, long buried, but inescapable.

They'd made the mistake of trying to cross the city to get to the police station, where Ada was sure she'd find her answers, and realized with dread that the situation was much worse in a matter of hours than they could have imagined.

They came for her and her legs froze, bonded to the street at the soles of her feet. She'd never seen so many, not so close; she could smell them, the wind carrying the scent of rotten fruit, gasoline, and burning wood. They reached for her with outstretched begging fingers, stumbling towards her one limping step at a time. Their moans were a chorus: some angry, some pleading, some a loud, mindless drone. They blended together into a wall of sound that became louder still.

She couldn't move, couldn't scream, couldn't remember who she was. Her heart hammered in her chest, as if begging her to run, trying to remind her she was still alive.

That was when he grabbed her, his hand around her wrist, and pulled.

"I've got you, come on." Leon said, taking off at a sprint, dragging her behind him. She'd stumbled, falling and skinning her knee on the wet concrete and broken glass, but he didn't leave her behind. It would have been easier for him to, but each time he stopped and doubled back for her, ushering her forward, his own safety forgotten.

They ran an endless marathon in those days. Vaulting over signs that yelled at them in bright orange and black stripes "STREET CLOSED", ducking under fallen light poles, squeezing through the spaces between abandoned vehicles. It took Ada precisely one curious glance into a derelict Ford Focus and what it contained in the infant-sized carseat behind the driver to learn that she should keep her eyes ahead.

Sometimes they would get lucky and find a balcony system on the side of an apartment building. Sometimes they would get unlucky and find nothing, sprinting full-tilt from locked store shutter to ransacked grocery store to burning barricade, and spend hours just surviving. Not even surviving – just "not dying", until luck, finite and fickle, had its fill of them and turned her back.

They were countless, pressing in front of them, fifty feet away. Leon paused, wheeling back, turned and pulled Ada down a nearby alleyway. Ada looked back, their pursuers losing ground but making up for it in hellish persistence. She and Leon would tire long before they would.

A cluster of them appeared at the opposite entrance to the alleyway, turning towards the noise of Ada and Leon's footsteps. Beset on all sides, Leon looked around desperately for some kind of out, and spotted a small building across the street. A gas station, long since abandoned: the windows boarded, curling graffiti on every available surface, a space for rent sign outside in red and white.

He yanked on Ada's arm again and picked up speed, barely juking past the pairs of outstretched, groping hands as the group descended on the mouth of the alleyway. Ada felt one caress her face, skin cold and spongy, and wanted to vomit.

"We'll hole up there," Leon said, pointing to the building. "Come on, not too much further."

They ran as fast as they could, and she had to work double-time to keep up with him. He was tall – six foot two if she had to guess – and his strides were so much longer than hers that it felt like she was weighing him down.

Leon stopped himself in a skid in front of the door, tried it to open it and was met with firm resistance. Locked. He shoved his shotgun into her hands. "Cover me while I open this. Can you use it?"

Ada debated on whether to lie, but only for a second. There were at least thirty now, shuffling in concert, calling to them. She checked to make sure a shell was chambered, and leveled the gun, braced it against her shoulder. "Got it. Hurry."

Leon stepped back, kicked the door beside the knob. It shuddered in its casing, a crunch of rotten wood deep in its layers. It took one more kick to swing it open, and Ada passed his gun back. He swept the inside of the room, then pushed her inside first, turning and aiming the business end at the horde, stepping backwards until he was sure they were both safely inside. Leon slammed the door, and they searched for something to barricade it with – they ran to a nearby vending machine, dead and caked with dust, shouldered it over with a massive, deafening crash, and pushed it in front of the door.

They had a moment to breathe, but only a moment. It felt like they'd been running for hours.

An assembly of angry hands slammed on the door, meeting hard resistance. The noise outside was muffled and incessant, a crowd begging for answers, disappointed, starving, and bewildered. It stood true against the blows, quivering by degrees, but the machine was strong enough to withhold the force, for now. The windows were barred from the inside. Luck may not have totally abandoned them.

A figure, previously concealed by shadows and attracted by the noise, turned slowly to face them. She lunged, hands outstretched, for Ada, and Leon stepped between them, slamming the stock of his gun into the woman's temple. Something crunched and she spun to the floor, twitching. They both stared at her body, in shock. Ada thought she saw Leon's hands shaking.

"It looks like there's a maintenance closet back there," he said, "That's where they lock away caustic chemicals, so it probably has a reinforced door. Let's hole up until they leave. This doesn't feel secure."

"You know a lot about gas stations," Ada said, laughing.

"I wasn't always the man you see today," he said, eyes scanning as they crept through the store, Ada huddled behind him. He touched the door to the closet and pushed it open, gestured for her to be quiet. He banged his fist against it.

There was no response. Leon waved her in, and Ada sidled around him, turned on the light, dim and greasy and flickering.

"That should slow them down, at least." Leon said, following her in and locking the door behind him. He bent over and put his hands on his knees, puffing for breath, put his gun down. It clattered against the cement floor. He wiped his face of sweat with the sleeve of his shirt.

"We make a pretty good team." Ada said, and gave him a smile.

Leon returned it; his was equal parts insecure and hopeful. "Y-yeah. I think so too."

The silence between them hummed.

"You know," Ada said, drawing closer until her arm brushed against his, "I've never seen you do that before. With the door."

Leon looked down at where their arms were touching with sudden, thoughtful discomfort, and took a deep breath.

Ada laughed. "What's that look for?"

Leon reached for her, suddenly, and pulled her into a kiss, a hand on the side of her neck. Ada's eyes opened wide, and then she relaxed, letting out a breath she didn't know she was holding.

"Sorry," he said, pulling away, his eyes cast down. "I shouldn't have done that."

Ada grabbed him by the sides of his face and pulled him back to her, and he came willingly.

He was good at it, had no doubt been trained well by the girls before her. The first time was romantic, but survival instinct and adrenaline melted it down in short time to something hungry and intense. She tried to assert herself, but he'd ended up pinning her against the wall, his face in her throat and her dress pushed up around her waist, fucked her like he hated her. She'd had to put her hand over her mouth to keep from making noise that would attract unwanted attention.

When they were finished, Leon stumbled away from her and leaned against the worktable, trying to catch his breath. He tucked his shirt back in and cinched up his belt, and his silence felt a lot like shame.

"Where the hell did that come from?" She'd asked, her hair puffed up like some species of awkward bird. Leon just shrugged, and suggested they get some rest while they were able to.

They sat against the wall, and Leon sunk into sleep by degrees, his head drifting down to rest against Ada's. She considered it a long time and then put her head on his shoulder, his soft half-snores and the warmth of his body her baseline for the next few hours. When she was sure he was asleep, she looped one of her fingers with his, and closed her eyes.

Frustrated with herself, she threw off her bedsheets and got to her feet, walked to her closet, flung the door open.

She stared into its contents, the fan's breeze toying with the feathery, sharp layers of jet black hair around her face. A large black leather tote bag, zipped at the very top, and a simple black leather briefcase sat together on the top shelf of her closet. They were relics of a life she was trying very hard to leave behind, one always seemed to chase her even in what she thought were moments of respite. You could squirrel away and hide, but her past had a nose like a bloodhound, her scent seemingly amplified by peace and happiness. It scared her out of every hole she tried to rest in, kept her running, ears always to the wind for the next sound of danger, ready to bolt at a moment's notice.

It was, and had always been, hard to leave Ada Wong behind for long. She was like all great and inconvenient love affairs: she started as something casual and easy to discard, and then grew into an uncomfortably important part of Juliette's life. Eventually, it was hard to decipher where Juliette stopped and Ada began. Juliette had become the alter-ego, even though she'd been present for roughly 23 years longer than Ada had. It wasn't useful anymore, it wasn't necessary anymore, and it wasn't fun anymore. It hadn't been fun for a long time.

But she had her uses, as inconvenient of a truth as that was.

Juliette sighed through her nose. Her chest was tight, her throat dry. She wished she'd never seen that report, that its scrawling text had caught someone else's eye. Plausible deniability would be all it took, then it really would have been someone else's problem.

She was never so lucky.

She took her phone off of her desk and tried to dial Charlie. The call was immediately sent to voicemail, which she supposed she should have expected.

"Charlie, look, I know you're probably still mad at me, but I have to leave on a business trip for a few days," Juliette lied, "last minute. I'll be back soon. I promise." She paused. "I love you." She hung up the phone.

One last dance with an old friend, she supposed, for a good cause. Then her conscience would be clean, these tools would go into some river somewhere, and her affair with Ada Wong would be finished forever.

Juliette grabbed her bag, an outfit, and left for the bathroom.

Wheeling, West Virginia

March 15, 2014

"Hey, h-hey, Chamberlain?"

Chamberlain was busy smoking a cigarette with his one remaining hand. A bottle of whiskey was open on his desk, and he was watching a movie with his boots kicked up, his face a network of sunken lines and deep creases. In the half-light of his office, he looked like a statue, stony and pockmarked with age.

"What?" Chamberlain said, in a demanding yell. He was a bear of a man with the voice to match. It bounced off the walls and Ivan shrunk down by inches.

"I uh-" Ivan said, "The guys you hired, they left you a message. But it didn't make any sense."

Chamberlain took a long, quiet drag of his smoke. Then, "I've a question for you, Ivan."

"Yes sir?"

"Do you reckon you're smarter than I am?"

"What? No. No. 'Course not. Never."

"Right. You're not. So why'dyou figure you're fit to tell me what'll make sense to me, and what won't?" He leaned forward onto the desk. A coil of smoke snaked past his face.

"I didn't mean that sir! No. No respect mean. I'm sorry sir, I just-"

"Ivan."

Meekly, "Yes, sir?"

"Just tell me what the fuckin' message said."

"Th-they uh, they said'at someone 'stuck their hand in the honeypot'." Ivan made a face.

Chamberlain was prepared to yell again, but he puffed the breath out through his nose, smiling, peaceful. The expression looked alien and somehow even more threatening. "S'at so?"

"Uh… y-yeah. They wanted me to tell you."

"Hm." Chamberlain leaned back, and smiled at the ceiling. "Well isn't that just it?"

"Um… d'you want me to-"

"Send Larissa in here when you see her." Chamberlain cut him off. "You can go now."

Ivan didn't need to be told twice: he retreated as fast as he was given permission to, the door squeaking shut behind him.

Hugo Chamberlain chuckled, folded his one remaining hand over his belly, and fantasized about which one of Ada's arms he'd chop off first.