CORDYCEPS OUTBREAK JOINT BASE SAN ANTONIO
Barracks 3 days before the outbreak 2013
Claire Redfield was on her flip cellphone venting to her brother, Chris. She was in a black tanktop and red jeggings. She had her socks on, but her brown leather boots were neatly tucked in a pocket hanging from the door. She had already hung her military uniform up in the closet as soon as left her work for the day. She had decorated the workdesk beside her bed with mult-colored LED lights. The walls were still mostly bare and off-white.
The bed was made with tightly tucked corners. The top sheet was rough green cotton. The pillow was lumpy and had a little pink unicorn at atop it.
"I am telling you, Chris, they have not been paying me right since I got out of boot camp. I can't understand how they mucked this up for me and no one else. I was talking with another private in my platoon and he's getting paid more than me but we are the same rank. That's not right!"
Her small barracks room was decorated with hand drawn pictures of her with her parents celebrating with other fresh young enlisted. On her nightstand she had a picture of her and her brother right after he had been accepted into the Special Forces. He looked haggard, like he hadn't slept or bathed in weeks. His beard was very long.
"Claire have you brought this up to the leaders in your unit yet?"
"No, I wanted to double check with you since you been in longer."
"Honestly Claire, I don't think you should be worrying about this anymore-the whole base is on lockdown-"
"Uh…no its not. My roommate went without me to eat at that pho place."
"Shit Claire that's not good. That's really fucking bad. Shit. Ok. Claire…you need to tell your Sergeant right fucking now about this-and don't let her back in."
"I'm not sure what-Chris what are you talking about? Don't let her back IN?"
"Your roommate broke protocol. She's a fucking moron. I'm telling you. Go-walk over. Are you walking Claire?"
"Out now? Like right now?"
"Yes Fucking YES. GET THE FUCK UP CLAIRE! Walk out of your barracks and tell the guys on duty protecting your barracks, that …that your roommate is eating off base."
"Nobody wants to eat the MREs Chris, you know? I'm walking out now." The heavy barracks door slammed behind her as she left the room, the lock loudly clicking into place.
"Tough shit Claire. Tough. Shit."
"Oh man I forgot my lip balm hold on." She went back and picked it off the sink.
"Ok I'm seriously out now."
"Claire…the food is poisoned, ok that's why you have to eat MRE's."
"Well the military isn't paying me, so that's why I have to eat MRE's. I'd rather starve Chris. I just miss the waffles at the dining facility so bad. So crunchy and fluffy…"
"How'd your roommate get off base Claire? How could she leave when we've all been briefed to NOT LEAVE THE BASE. What the fuck-she should be court-martialed for pulling shit like that."
"Hey Chris hold on, I'll call you right back."
Two uniformed men sat primly at the first floor of the barracks behind a desk. There was a big television beside them showing each hallway floor of the barracks.
"Hey Redfield!" One of them addressed her politely.
"Hey um," She looked at his nametag on his uniform, "Fuetz. My roommate, private Bolden, went out to eat Pho."
He wrote on his notepad and nodded. The other man started talking on the radio. They gave her a thumbs up and she left.
As she climbed the stairs of her barracks, she looked outside. The other platoon was taking huge packs of MREs out of trucks, and walking towards where she had just been.
She called Chris and he said, "Claire, I need you to get to me tonight. I need you to bring your enlistment contract."
"I mean…they told us to stay at the barracks-not to leave our rooms after work…"
"I don't want to scare you Claire, but I'm gonna get you transferred to our SF unit."
"What but women can't-"
"Well they're gonna make an exception for you Claire, or I'm going to fuck them up."
She opened up her door and pulled up the contract she had just been inspecting.
"Luckily I'm very organized with all these mountains of paperwork they gave me."
She had color coded the tabs of her contract with labels and put them all in a plastic bin within manila folders.
"But I don't have any copies Chris-I can't just give you my only copy."
"Well Claire in this case you can. You have to. Tonight. Come on. Run."
"Ok. I'll just bring all my papers. See you soon."
Claire went out the back of the barracks, and ran down the street. She slowed to a walk and looked guilty when military patrols rushed along the street, and then returned to running.
Since this was a joint base, all the military services were combined and accessible without having to leave the base.
Chris was waiting for her with the guards to their side of the base.
"Oh thank god Claire. Come on, run." He sprinted with her to a nondescript building.
"Chris, I don't understand why you're so…are you scared?"
He turned on the lights of the room and then went to a copier in the room.
"Gimme your contract, I'm gonna make 10 copies."
"Chris could you just like…what else do you know about this food poisoning?"
"It's bad Claire, it's like…I don't know how to say this. Tonight you're gonna be transferred into our unit."
He got on his phone. "Hey I got a combat medic that wants to join our unit. Highly skilled, knows their shit. I've got the contract in my hand Sir."
Claire wasn't a combat medic. She'd only just joined the military. In fact, she'd only just finished training a few months ago. She was a nursing specialist who hoped to never see combat.
"Chris am I not going back to my barracks?!"
"No you're not Claire. Sit tight."
Claire felt very naked without her uniform on. She brought out her lip balm and stared at it while he turned off all the copy machine and thumbed through the paperwork.
"You were the top of your class Claire, you got the coolest head, nothing gets under your skin. Got it?"
She nodded, panicking. Her heart rate was skyrocketing. She started crying as she realized that this poison he spoke about…was everywhere. In everything.
"Is Bolden dead? Am I gonna be eating MREs for the rest of my life?" she sobbed quietly.
"You can lift boulders Claire, that's how strong you are. Ok? You are superwoman. This unit is doomed without you."
He hugged her tightly, "I'm gonna talk you up, and you've got to hold it together while my captain talks to you."
Then he grabbed her plastic container from her and knocked on the a door with a nameplate CPT Burton.
"Enter."
He exited about ten minutes later and then told her, "Don't worry about decorum here Claire. Just walk in and stand."
She entered the captain's office and saw him signing paperwork. He looked Russian. He had a grissled beard
"Who the FUCK ARE YOU?"
He yelled at her. She waited a moment, so that she wouldn't stutter.
"Private Redfield Sir, accomplished combat medic. Sir."
"You're his fucking sister aren't you? He didn't say that."
"Well I"
"Hey moron, I asked you a question."
"U-" She nodded.
"Say it. You can't speak? You retarded? I don't have time for this bullSHIT!" He was roaring now.
"I'm his sister Sir."
"Ok. Can you lift 80 pounds?"
"I can lift boulders sir."
He didn't laugh. "Aaah you think you're funny. Are you willing to do whatever it takes, no matter the cost, for the future of this country?"
"Sir yes sir." She shouted.
"Whatever it takes?"
"Yes sir."
"Because if you're joining now, you're not gonna sleep more than four hours a night-I can guaran-fucking tee you that. I don't remember the last time I slept."
"Understood Sir."
"We are the B.S.A. Special Forces unit; Bioterrorism Security Assessment. We work with our medical contractor Umbrella to neutralize biohazardous threats. Right now we are looking at the collapse of our nation as an imminent event. Tomorrow. So our task is to secure medical and military equipment to key areas on the base."
Claire lost her breath and slumped.
"Straighten the fuck up. We don't have time for sentimentalism-people's lives are depending on us."
She jolted. "Yes Sir sorry sir."
She concentrated with all her might on not crying, holding her breath as her eyes stung.
"So…private…" He got up and went around the desk, staring down at her menacingly.
"Do you have what it takes?"
"Sir." She managed to say firmly.
She was forced to stand as he went back and started making call after call, getting her transferred to the unit and giving orders to his troops. Her mind was pure static. An hour later, she left the room.
Chris looked at her pained face questioningly and gave her a thumbs up.
"Well?"
She shook her head. "Chris this is too much for me I need-"she started hyperventilating. What did she need? She didn't know but she needed whatever the fuck.
"Put on a brave face Claire, your life depends on it."
She gulped, and squeezed her hands.
The Captain opened the door again and called them both inside.
"You need to get to the supply building and pack up all these items for both of you. A truck is coming by in 20 minutes to escort you, and then you'll be taken to the bunkers. Help the platoon set up there."
30 minutes later…
The roads were jammed with tanks and Humvees along the military base and Claire wished that she was capable of sleep because she so badly needed to escape somehow.
"Good thing our parents are dead, huh?" She tried to strike up conversation. She never thought she'd say that with so much relief. Now the only person that she really had to worry about was Chris. And as she looked at him, she was jealous.
Chris didn't want to talk at all, and was sleeping soundly-even though Claire desperately needed someone to spill her fears to. The smooth paved road changed and they started jostling around in the big cargotruck.
They passed many makeshift barriers and checkpoints off the road, deep into the desert of Texas on the base. Far away from the housing and the units. It was 1am now.
Claire and Chris unloaded all of their military gear from the vehicle and walked into a busy area of white tents with an umbrella logo on them.
Claire and Chris entered the nearest tent. An old man in a wheelchair greeted them warmly.
"You are a welcome sight!" He said. Chris nodded impatiently and signed his name onto a paper on the desk.
"Hi! I'm Claire, who are you sir?" Claire said frantically, as she slowly signed her name on the paper.
"I am Oswell Spencer the creator of Umbrella Corp. I have been working with the government to secure our most precious medical knowledge. I don't know what to do with myself out here."
"You're still employed?" Claire asked. He looked like he was 90 years old.
Chris pulled Claire through the tent as she waved goodbye to the old man.
Claire screamed as she saw a large monstrous man crouching and pulling out a military tent. His arm and back was bulging muscle. Even in the dark she could tell how grossly misshapen and muscular his arm was. The flashlights going by him showed her that his skin was actually bloodred and then mayonnaise colored.
Everyone was rushing around with their flashlights attached to their uniforms, moving materials from tent to tent. The powerful lights scattering around them in the dark.
"That's a bio-organic weapon Claire, calm down. That's our Umbrella counterpart."
Other special forces soldiers went a bit out of their way to ask if Claire was alright, and she assured them she was fine.
Chris got the men to put up a small military tent for Claire, because there were no other women around.
Claire got into her winter sleeping bag and stay still on the ground. All of her gear was filling the tent, so that there was hardly any room for her to take more than a few steps around. She couldn't sleep on the hard dessert dirt. She got up and grabbed her sleeping bag. She went just outside her tent entrance and bundled back up inside the sleeping bag, watching the commotion. She saw trucks pulling up into the bunkers. These trucks weren't military, they were not rugged like that. They were white with a red and white symbol on the side. She couldn't see what they were unloading into the bunkers, only that it took a line of men to take all the mysterious contents out.
