This is book 3 of the Calendula Chronicles. The timeline for the series has been soft-merged with (starting around October 2022); that is to say, this fic is the other side of The Antarctica Incident, from Marigold Ashford's perspective. The two stories are heavily integrated, and I'll start posting notes at the top when timelines/events begin to overlap. Enjoy!
December 25, 1998 - somewhere in the eastern United States
"Should auld acquaintance be forgot…" Alan Green smiled at the radio. For all this country seemed to establish Christmas' dominion the instant Halloween ended, they were always so very ready to rush on to the next thing.
Old acquaintances, indeed. Marigold Ashford, the woman who'd given him his job at Umbrella back in 1969, had looked as fresh as she had twenty years ago. When they'd spoken a few weeks back, it seemed all of that Ashford cunning had been left equally intact.
It was Christmas evening. The corporation was officially on holiday, but no one strayed far from their phones even today. There was too much on the line…and not everyone on the board was happy with some of the choices made for this first mission following the destruction of Raccoon CIty.
Alan and the board may have made the overtures to Wesker to switch sides, but a snake was still a snake. He'd bear close monitoring.
Alan had read the file on Marigold, fascinated. What had happened with Dr. Marcus. The slow progression of her condition, culminating in her 'death' back in 1981. The scant list of people known to have been targeted by Ms. Ashford, and their symptoms - as well as their fates.
Never did it occur to him that he himself had been one of those targets, once upon a time. Why would he? He'd led a charmed life. His cousin had held a childish grudge at Ms. Ashford's success once upon a time, but Maxwell's choices had likely caught up with him.
Something about that thought felt off. Alan shook his head. Nerves, that was all.
Back when they'd worked together, Marigold had always had a knack for making the worst situations seem like a minor inconvenience, back when he had headed up her department at the Umbrella office in London. Finding out what she had been capable of back in October, once her identity had been declassified to the board, had been a shock. Seeing the Raccoon City footage of his old friend stalking out of that car towards half a dozen Hunters had nearly stopped his heart.
Seeing her go on to tear the pack apart like they were wet tissue paper had been another thing entirely…although it explained a few things. The manner in which she had always avoided contact in the past might not have entirely been borne out of physical shyness.
When he had finally met with Marigold on the HCF grounds a mere month earlier, that delicate, nervous little step she had taken away from him at the end had an entirely new context. Fear for the other person; she'd never harbored any fear of them.
That surge of protectiveness he'd felt at how sweetly delicate she had still looked in doing so hadn't changed with time. His cousin's health had taken a turn after a fit of jealousy and an aborted attempt to sully the woman's reputation, leaving Maxwell to depart at the end of 1969 for the fairer weather across the channel, near Paris. Marigold had welcomed him to her team around the same time, treating both himself and his wife as dear, lifelong friends.
Gemma herself had been nigh inconsolable when Marigold's "death" had been announced within the company back in early 1982. There had been a quiet service, and the attempted purge within her department, which had quickly been reversed. Later that year, he had come home to Gemma staring blankly through the front window.
He'd mentioned the purges to her, and shaken his head. "I get the oddest feeling whenever Ms. Ashford is brought up at work. It's like a code of silence is being enforced around mentioning her name at all. The head office just dropped her name from the list of directors there - they made a quite a fuss of it." He'd paused. "It felt like people were watching me to see how I'd react. Why does it feel like a less prominent person would have simply been erased?"
Gemma had turned when he had started speaking, eyes clearing as she contemplated her husband's words. Most Umbrella executives were smart enough to keep the details of their work at work. Gemma, though…there was an unspoken bond of cooperation between them that went beyond the marriage bed. Moreover, Marigold had treated with Gemma as a friend, insofar as Marigold had those. "Because they would have," she said what Alastair, now Alan in 1998, wouldn't yet voice. "Those old families forget nothing and forgive nothing. Something went wrong." She paused in her turn, then, "I keep having the oddest feeling. A Sword of Damocles sort of thing. I wonder if she felt the same thing and tried to shrug it off."
That familiarity had allowed him to read her tension at that 'first' meeting, outside the doors of the compound. According to the file, "Placidia" had been trapped, and later hunted down like an animal by their new operative, kept docile under heavy surveillance and implicit threat.
It was still happening. Be it a cell, or an exotic zoo exhibit, the operative was still holding her like a beast whose will to run was gradually being broken. And the rest of the world had been told she had died long ago. There was a clear tension in her body language, an understanding that she was not free to leave; that failing to acquiesce would have consequences.
Then there was the family. The poor goddamned family. Young Alexia had worked briefly within the Arklay lab with their botanical lab before she had passed away. When he had told Marigold of this fact, she had looked almost physically ill. He had paused before realizing the source of her fear. "There was no way she could have known you were there, dear," he said in a soft voice.
The company's plan to break Umbrella's paramilitary spine rest upon going after the one surviving relative the poor woman had left alive. When he'd gone to meet her - couching it in careful, reticent terms, always for the sake of the company - he'd gone in looking for anything, anything at all, to keep her away from the worst of it.
But she'd also had that look in her eye at their meeting. Marigold had always favoured a soft touch. That didn't make her passive. She relied on being underestimated. That footage underlined just how much everyone had done so in the past.
And really, there was no way that Umbrella would remain blind to her survival for long. People had seen her during the evacuation. Most of those people were well versed in Umbrella's code of silence, which benefited them now. Still…
When Marigold became that accommodating, with that look in her eye, it was always best to quietly back her, while staying the hell out of her way. So long as their objective was met, doing anything else would become a problem. The woman had always been frighteningly patient, after all.
The phone on his desk rang, and Alan sighed. Gema had gone the bed early, her spirits bright and cheery as they had been in the old days. No avoiding it, he thought, and plucked the receiver From its cradle. "Hello, Mark." There had been a few holdovers in the HCF division board of directors when it came to their more…potent acquisitions from the Raccoon City Incident. Mark Oliver was the one corresponding directly with the recent acquisition and operative, Spencer's traitorous whelp.
Mark was also the only one whose ambition outweighed his trepidation from the outset. The idea of hitting the heart of Umbrella's enforcement arm when they were at their weakest had been a wet dream come true. HCF had been Mark's pet project, but it had really begun to come alive once Wesker had accepted his overtures. Even without the trove of data, Alan had to admit that Wesker's presence was already paying dividends.
At least, so long as the mysterious secret BOW Wesker had allegedly co-opted to their side - now identified as Marigold Ashford, of all people- could be aligned in the same direction. Mark had only known the woman by reputation, and Umbrella had done it's work in slowly scrubbing her presence from its annals. Most who knew anything only knew that the disgraced Alexander had had a sister, and that their relationship had been distant at best.
Albert Wesker, the operative, had reported over the last several weeks that he'd determined, then refined, a means of using the woman to flush out their primary prey, rather than a direct means of attack. The logic was akin to that of a fox hunt, using her to trace the pathways in and flush out prey at once. The woman had been told that they were hitting the shipping terminal in Buenos Aires, so she'd be relatively calm until arriving on Rockfort Island; Wesker's report had also suggested that he'd found a means to keep her pliable within manageable parameters.
The haunted look in her eye, coupled with the marks on her throat and the rumours swirling around the facility made it clear how he was getting pliability from Miss Ashford. Alan's hand tightened on the receiver at the thought, but his voice remained cool. "Did you get confirmation on the team's arrival at the staging grounds?"
Mark cleared his throat. "Yes, they got in last night, although the men are a bit disconcerted by the effect…the extra asset…has." He sounded unhappy. "I've heard the security argument, and it's not wrong. Keeping her on the grounds virtually unguarded would be unwise. But to send her there, of all places? Alfred Ashford fights dirty, Alan, and he won't take prisoners."
Alan laughed. "I've heard. That's why this move is going to work. The team can soften the defenses nicely, and the boy's tightly wound enough that just showing her face could break him. Everyone knows he's unwell. And," he added for emphasis, "there's quite a family resemblance, I imagine."
Mark huffed laughter on the other side of the line. "If I didn't know what a sadistic bastard he was, I'd feel sorry for the lad."
"Umbrella does nurture those traits when they can get them young," Alan agreed.
Mark paused. "I was honestly a little surprised you went along with this, when the vote came down. You seemed a little soft on the asset, and this mission will come down on her hard when it starts in earnest."
"It's amazing how cooperative the asset can be when you address her by name. You realize she practically built the corporate framework Umbrella exists within? The plan is solid, if a bit…risky." Alan let his voice grow cold. "Like you've said, the operative felt leaving her in place would be too great a security risk for Umbrella to pass up, and if anything could convince that madman to stand down, she could."
Mark began to argue. " Do you have any idea the kind of ruthless psychopaths Umbrella is run by? If they recover Placidia-"
Alan smiled. " I may have the ghost of an idea. You realize the asset you so prize was one of them. Families should be kept together, don't you agree? Your operative has been uncovering some fascinating intel to that effect." He tucked the receiver into the crook of his neck. "Besides, it's already underway. The operative left with her in containment three days ago."
Mark sighed. "I don't suppose I can drink myself into oblivion and wake up in three days to celebrate a glorious victory."
"Afraid not," Alan replied. "The Host Control Force project is live, and the corporation has hung its hat on this mission succeeding- or else, the division's funding will be in question for next year. It's all hands on deck for as long as the liaison takes. This is what you wanted. So do what I'm about to do: hang up, have a stiff drink with a nice cigar, and be ready for the next few days." Alan reached for a cigar on his desk. The answering machine in the corner blinked with three missed calls. Across the pond, Poppy Higgins knew something was up. It was regrettable to leave the woman in the dark like this, but the pieces were in play now.
To Mark, he said, "We've played the long game this far. We can be patient a little longer."
They said their goodbyes and hung up. Leaning back in his shape, he lit the cigar. He wondered, with a smirk, if Albert Wesker sensed the sword hanging by a thread above his own head.
Dec 26, 1998 - a private airfield and base near Puntas Arena, Chile
"Sir, we have reports from the first wave on Rockfort," the mercenary whose job was to run the comms said in a subdued voice as he approached the commander. "Ashford is confirmed on the island."
Rockfort was never going to be a soft target. Years of working in various outfits for money, slowly building up a core of experienced grunts, had taught him that. Rockfort was the dismal jewel supplying Umbrella's paramilitary.
But Umbrella had lost a lot at Raccoon City. All those assets, labs, and a huge chunk of soldiers. Most of the remainder were stretched thin over the rest of their assets, desperately closing anything not absolutely necessary. Or, they had seen where the wind was blowing, and were getting ahead of the competition to the softest parts of the underbelly, ready to tear open.
The man he was reporting to, Albert Wesker, was in the second camp. It would have been perfect…if Alfred fucking Ashford hadn't been present, processing new inmates when the first attack had landed.
Alfred Ashford was the sort of man who had a dozen wild and deeply contradictory rumours linked to his name. A legacy trust fund baby who happened to have a genius for military administration. A man who was barely holding on to his sanity over his dead twin sister, with a deeply sadistic streak aimed at anyone who crossed him. A skinny twig of a man who could absolutely eviscerate any marine crazy enough to take a shot at him.
The commander was calm, centered. "He survived the first volley then. War games are his element, unfortunately. He's holding his ground?"
The mercenary blinked. This Wesker had known the madman? "Yes, sir. We've deployed the T-Virus, and it's leveled the local training and prison populations He's gotten… creative." The mercenary offered the report he had just takes from the captain of that team. A full third of the first-wave team was already dead or injured.
Wesker took the report, scanned it, and nodded to the mercenary. "We're still on track. Team two will draw him out; The first wave is simply softening their defenses, and evaluating weak points. There was always a chance he would be present. Looks like the rumours of his mental decline haven't affected his ability to strategize…although his grasp on reality is about as poor as ever."
Long experience had taught the mercenary captain not to bite back with his thoughts on a bad op, but her couldn't help the face he made at the situation. The commander noticed and smirked. He continued to scan the document and paused. "We have a trigger to draw him out in the second phase, but I want to know who the new prisoners are. Between the black market and the attack in Paris, they could prove useful distractions. Until we're in place, anyhow."
Ah, yes. The trigger. The dossier for the mission had included a photo of Alfred Ashford, and a brief description of the man- including a twin who'd been lost young, which had set off the man's spiral into instability in the first place. The woman the commander had brought…well, there was certainly a resemblance in colouring and facial structure. And the woman was…strange. She had worn tinted glasses in the first few hours she'd been on the site. She had also seemed almost drugged, following the commander closely.
The men had even odds as to whether the commander was fucking her. When a soldier had strayed too close though, she'd seemed to sharpen, directing a predatory silent focus on the person. The men had started to become uncomfortable, so she'd been moved into an empty dormitory at the edge of the camp. Later, one of the men who had strayed into her orbit and shuddered, describing her affect "like a Hunter in human skin."
The mercenary said none of this. He only nodded with an easing of his posture. "Sir," he said, and left the room to resume his posting.
He wasn't sure whether to feel grateful that the second wave would be so much better equipped and prepared. But, this was the job. The commander clearly had some idea of how to break Ashford.
And it looked like their odds of success were about to go way up.
Wesker watched the captain leave, noting his look of distaste when he mentioned the trigger. Wesker had begun Marigold on a regimen of hormone patches three weeks earlier, ramping up the dosage over the last few days so as not to give her system time to adjust. It had the desired effect in maintaining a somewhat glazed compliance without significantly affecting her physical state. However, it made her more dangerous to the men around her on the base. That optimal primal state inhibited her self-control, and while she could be managed, she was never left alone with any of them.
Not when she was free to move around, and there were no other targets to be had.
The way her scent had risen during those near-incidents suggested that the patches were working in other ways as well.
Alfred's presence on Rockfort wasn't a surprise. It would be better to pin him down at the beginning of the venture anyhow. Wesker's sources had shared rumors of a strange woman in a purple dress occasionally being seen around the island earlier that year. If Alexia was truly dead then, who was haunting the halls of the Rockfort palace?
He had a number of theories. They would hold until he could examine the situation for himself.
Tomorrow they would mobilize for the second wave. But for tonight, he would attend to his secret weapon.