Penumbra:

Shadows Collide

Prologue

Penumbra - the shadow cast by two objects colliding - as in during an eclipse.

Fall - 2014

Off the coast of Alcatraz Island

The beach overlooked what was left of Alcatraz Island.

The dilapidated tower of the former prison stood like a testament to the devastation that had occurred there.

Bodies gathered on the shore. They rerouted containment efforts. They spilled three deep to collect survivors and treat the wounded.

There wasn't a face that wasn't bloody or wounded or scared. Children without parents. Parents without partners. People without arms. People without hope.

The burning buildings tumbling into the teeming ocean were a backdrop of horror, flickering and licking the night sky with angry tongues of flame. Transfixed, those who'd survived the panic stood in awe, watching the world burn – as Rome once had – and the fall of a place that had once housed criminals and the wrong accused alike. With its resources turned against it, Alcatraz had fallen as Troy had, with a Trojan Horse slipped into its bosom to watch it rot from the inside out.

Rebecca had tears on her face, shivering in the cool ocean air. "How did it all go so wrong? How did this happen?"

Leon had no answer for her.

There was none. There hadn't been in Raccoon City either. Or in Tall Oaks. Or Tatchi. Or New York. Just destruction, desolation, and utter ruin. Rebecca put her hands to her face and covered the first soft sound of her weeping.

The little girl in Leon's arms watched the fire, quiet, clinging.

She didn't let go. She didn't cry.

He moved to have her examined by medics. He moved to have her cleaned up and bandaged. She had a three-inch bleeding wound on her back. She whispered only a single word through it all.

"Demon."

The thick Ukrainian accent didn't obscure the word in fractured English. Apparently, evil was the same in any language.

She clung to him as he fielded questions and helped with the wounded. She clung while he helped Claire and Rebecca separate survivors for evacuation. She wouldn't let go.

Claire touched his arm as he was finishing a debriefing with Hunnigan. "Things aren't going well for Hartwell."

Leon licked his teeth, fuming, "Good. I hope they crucify him."

Claire rubbed his arm lightly, "What happened?"

"He rejected assistance from any of the external branches of bioterror assistance. He kept claiming it was under control. And then he pulled the trigger on sanitation." Leon shook his head, shifting the now sleeping little girl in his arms, "He's dirty."

Surprised, Claire looked at his face, "You can't know that. Maybe he just panicked."

Leon turned his eyes to her face. Claire – always looking for the good in people. She was known for it. It was a thing ingrained in her bones. She believed in the kindness of strangers. She believed deep down; people were redeemable.

It was a wonderful part of her.

It would probably get her killed.

"Oh, he panicked. No kidding about that. But not because of the fear of losing his people. Hell, if we'd opened the door to USSOCOM and the rest of the world fast enough, we'd have beat them back and saved most of those fucking people on that island. He kept them out. He cock blocked the help. Why?"

Claire whispered, "Because he's hiding something."

"Oh, yeah. You bet your sweet ass he's hiding something. What? What could possibly be worth protecting at the cost of thousands of lives?"

Claire shook her head, eyes jewellike in the flickering fire. Claire – constantly feeling the loss of it. She took each death like a punch in the face. It hurt her and made her stronger somehow.

She breathed, "If he is if we can prove it, help me destroy him."

"….with pleasure." Leon shifted again, "Do you have a place I can lay her down? She's so tired. I don't want you to take her with the rest of the survivors. She seems to only trust me."

"I noticed." Claire patted his arm, "There's a tent over there with cots. Lay her down. I'll have her kept an eye on if she wakes, and we'll find you."

"Thank you." He stopped. They stood together for a moment. They closed their eyes, breathing together. And he added, "I mean it. Thank you, Claire. For today. For everything."

She laughed a little wetly, "Maybe we can meet somewhere sometime where we aren't trying to stay alive."

"Hah." He laughed sadly, "Not our story, dollface. Two steps from death? The story of my life."

"You ain't kidding, Kennedy."

He laid the little girl down. She snuggled the pillow put in her arms and sighed. Leon brushed her filthy hair back from her face.

A baby, he thought, a baby in a nightmare. What would become of her? Another nameless, faceless number in a system somewhere. A kid without a family. Foreign, no less. What would she become with no one to love her?

He rose and went back into the flaming night because he wanted to sit there all night and just hide from it. Because part of him wanted to curl up beside that little girl and hold on, just for a minute, until it all faded to a dull roar in the back of his pounding skull.

But there was no rest for the weary here. No rest.

And hell to pay for those who'd overplayed their hand. Clearly, they didn't know who they were dealing with. He was a dog with a bone; he just never let go.

The night dragged on. The fight went on against Hartwell. He was taking fire from all sides now. Jill was ruthless. She threw it down, shouting so loud it should have shaken the heavens. Speaking of dogs with bones, Leon thought, watching her; the woman was as relentless as Chris Redfield.

As if he'd cued up the soundtrack to Rocky, the man in question came through the firelight from the stairs. Always big, Redfield had taken a turn into massive. He was all muscle, from tits to toes. He was in full gear and apparently feral.

His face looked like a mask of rage in the orange glow.

He joined the fight with Jill.

And his rage was palpable.

Claire could be seen from where Leon stood, throwing her hands on her brother's chest to shove him back. Redfield was in the face of the other man shouting, throwing his arm back to point at the burning prison. Hartwell offered the stacks of files in his hands, and Redfield slapped them away.

The three goons with Hartwell surged forward as only muscle could.

One put a hand on Jill's arm, and she slung it away. She was filthy, bloody, and wounded and still looked like a warrior waiting for battle. She drilled a finger into the goon's chest, and he laughed. He laughed and puffed his chest against a woman half his size.

A real tough guy, he shoved a palm into her chest to shove her back from him.

Leon rolled his matchstick and moved over the rocky ground.

That was the thing with it. Maybe you didn't always agree with how someone handled it; Redfield was hotheaded and quick-tempered; he exploded like a grenade all over those who got in his way. But you got a brother's back in moments like this. And you never, ever put your hands on a woman like this goon. Jill could handle herself, no lie, but he'd be damned if he just let some guy manhandle her and did nothing.

Chris surged forward.

Claire kept shouting and shoving as if she'd stop him with her tiny ineffectual fists. She was trying to stop both Chris and Jill. She wasn't enough. Not even close.

Jill? Didn't bother. She was shouting too. It was going to get ugly fast.

A big guy was standing to one side, trying to soothe the mood in a crisp Italian accent and wearing a big F.B.I. vest. He was careful not to put his hand on Chris Redfield. He was quietly trying to urge Jill for all the good it did.

As Leon got close enough, he heard the words finally.

"—MURDERER! You mother fucking COWARD!" Chris roared it, and it echoed over the twisting ocean, "I had a thousand men on these shores looking to move in! I couldn't get the fucking boats passed your guard! You got all those people killed! Don't stand here and spout protocol and procedure and life-to-infection ratios at me! It's not SCIENCE! It's SURVIVAL! We could have SAVED THAT ISLAND!"

Claire saw Leon coming. Her face was half horror, half fear. She knew how this ended- with Hartwell on his ass and Chris in custody. Jill wasn't helping. She kept interjecting, "You think you can stand there and make excuses for what it cost these people!? I'm going to feed you that ugly fucking tie you're wearing!"

Hartwell, surprisingly, wasn't backing down.

"I did what needed to be done! I did what had to be done! That prison was done! You were there! You saw! There was nothing left to save!"

Chris surged against his sister's desperate restraint, "You bureaucratic piece of shit! There were people that needed saved! Lives! Husbands, wives, daughters, and sons...it wasn't your call!"

The man beside them grabbed Claire in the nick of time. Because the goons with Deputy Director Hartwell finally figured Chris was close enough.

The first one swung, the guy tugged Claire out of the way and spilled her against him to back up, and the table was the first casualty. Chris ducked the swing, caught the wrist to pull the arm over, and drove two solid uppercuts into the exposed side of the attacker.

The other guy took that moment to make his move and grab for Jill while Chris pummeled his opponent. The goon caught her arms, and she went in for a head butt.

Leon, rolling his matchstick, kicked the table from underneath it. Casually, almost, like kicking a ball back to a playful kid.

It went up, smacked into the second suit's face, and sent him staggering. Before it fell, Leon hip-kicked it again and smashed it like a weapon into his stumbling form. It sent him over to his back in the sand. Jill put her opponent on his ass with a swift kick to the knee and an elbow to the face.

The second one came in with a nice hook. Leon feinted left, hooked ankles with him, jerked his leg, and sent the man stumbling. As he tried to come back again, Leon kicked him in the ass, hooked arms with him like they'd square dance, and hip-checked him to throw him out into the sand.

The man hit his face, scooped sand with his mouth like a shovel, and skidded to a stop.

Tonelessly, Leon called, "Stay down. Don't be stupid."

Sometimes goons weren't completely stupid, as he stayed down.

The guy in the vest shoved Claire behind him out of harm's way as she shouted, "Don't! GOD! Stop!"

The guy coming for Jill landed a solid punch to her stomach. She oofed and hunched forward.

Rebecca surged into the fight, and Leon hooked an arm around her slender waist, spun her around, and set her back down to inform, "Don't. Stay here. Trust me."

What was she going to do? All ninety pounds of her? He appreciated the bravado, though. It was touching.

The guy in the vest blocking Claire started blocking Rebecca too.

That move alone saved him a fist to the face.

The goon on Jill moved to incapacitate her, and Leon caught his head from behind, shoved, and smashed his face into the pole beside him. The crunch of his nose was loud as he collapsed to his hands and knees in the sand. He bypassed her with a simple upper arm lift to pull her back to her feet. And he kept moving towards Chris.

Chris rolled the struggling attacker in his arms and kicked him in the back of the knee to put him down, kneeling in the sand. His hands shifted like he'd -what? Break the dude's neck?

What was that?

But Leon knew what it was—ingrained survival. You killed your attacker. It's how you stayed alive. The fight was on the other man like a beast from the confines of his flesh to overcome him. Like a werewolf in the full moon. The fight made you a monster. It sucked away your soul and left you a shell bent on killing.

Redfield was a rage-filled angel bent on vengeance for the dead. He'd kill anyone in his path to do it. Personal feelings aside, that conviction for avenging the lost was something they shared between them in blood.

Claire begged, "No! No!"

Even Jill cried out, "Chris! Don't!"

Their softer voice didn't register. It was hard to hear when the blood in your ears pounded like a survival drum.

Leon shouted, "Redfield! Stop!"

It was so loud it made Jill jump. Her hand slapped and held at his forearm as he commanded the other man. But it worked.

Because Chris hesitated, changed whatever game plan he'd had, and instead kicked the man to his face on the ground.

But he advanced on Hartwell, and everyone knew how that ended.

Claire made a sound, and Leon stepped between them with Jill slightly to the side, ready to assist.

They bumped chests. Chris was all stamping bull and flaming fury.

Leon quietly and earnestly said, "This isn't how you do it. You know that. Ease back. Ease back."

Jill urged, "Don't. He wins if we do this. You know that. He wins. He'll throw us both in jail. Stop."

Chris eyed him. Leon laid a hand on his shoulder, squeezing. "Ease back. He's just the mouthpiece. You know that too. These people here are scared; they've had the worst three days of their lives. They don't need to see this, feel it, smell it – leave it for now. And help the ones we can."

Chris was shaking. Leon understood the rage, maybe better than anyone. It boiled in his blood like poison. It infected like the T-Virus, wiping away your need to be reasonable and leaving the unquenchable question of atonement behind. It was a voracious predator; it devoured you until there was nothing but a promise of a reckoning that kept you alive.

He repeated it softly, "Now we help the ones we can. Later? We avenge the ones we lost. That's how we do this. Help me do that. He stopped you from helping on that island. But now? Now you can help."

Jill laid a hand on Chris's vest. "He's right. You know he's right. Not now, Chris. Not here."

Chris nodded one sharp jerk of his head. Leon patted his shoulder and backed off. Claire mouthed her thanks at him. As Chris backed off, Jill looked at Leon and added, "Thank god you were here. When he gets like that..."

Leon eyed her quietly, "I know. I get it. Redfield's shoot first and ask questions later."

Softly, Jill admitted, "I do too. If that guy hadn't got a sucker punch on me, I might have done the same."

"I'd have stopped you."

Surprised, she glanced at his face. "You'd have tried," she challenged and made him smile.

The man before Claire admitted gently, "I understand the need to fight. It's still in me too. I think…if I'd just killed more of them, maybe I'd be able to sleep tonight without choking on regret for the ones we left behind. Ghosts of fucking Terragrigia tonight. Everywhere." The badge on his chest said: Luciani.

Leon intoned softly, "You're working for the wrong side, Luciani."

"It's Parker." They held eyes. And he added, "And I think you're right about that."

Leon nodded, feeling the teeth of pain in his gut that tried to rip a hole and have him drowning in his own guilt. He turned and left the tent.

The talking was quiet now. The beast quelled. The rage reduced to embers, waiting to ignite when the time was right.

But it burned now like the island beyond the swirling sea. It burned as Raccoon did. Always. In the back of his mind, like a ghost, he could exorcise. Like a nightmare, he'd never purge—one more reason to sleep with the lights on.

One more horror to add to his bevy of endless reasons he couldn't sleep.

One more reason to remember why he kept picking up the gun when he'd rather put it down forever.

The sand shifted, and Jill came to stand beside him. "You asked me about Wesker. When we were in the lab, you asked about what it was like when I was under the control of the drug."

Their eyes stayed riveted on the burning shore beyond. She confessed to the sobbing-filled night, "It felt like that fire. But it never stops. It just...destroys everything until there's nothing left. I keep losing...I don't know if I ever really stopped."

Leon said nothing. He kept on watching the world burn. And he wondered how they'd gotten here.

A few days before, the world had made more sense. A few days back, there'd been hope. They'd pushed. They'd battled.

They'd lost.

And he didn't know how to make sense of where they'd gone wrong.

So, he stood on that shore with Jill Valentine and let the loss wash over them both.

Five Days Prior

Washington D.C.

"I think I got a shadow on here."

The nose ring through her left nostril flickered as the woman looked at her coworker. "Someone bypassed the firewall."

Rebecca Chambers glanced over from looking at her monitors. "What?"

"Yeah..someone broke into the firewall. That's gotta be it, right?"

Rebecca rolled her chair over. It squeaked as she glanced at the screen. The data output rate was too high. Minuscule, almost unnoticeable, but there. Rebecca tilted her head, "Any chance it's someone uploading to the WHO?"

Franny, the other woman in question, shook her head, "Can't be. We did that Monday."

"Then who-"

Rebecca studied the leak. She tapped a painted nail against her lips. "What's leaking?"

"So far? Biophysical data. Obscure shit, really. Old medical reports. Some clearance stuff. Who would want profiles?"

Rebecca arched a brow. "Any particular profiles?"

Franny clicked on her keys. She studied the data scrolling by. "Hard to say. You know someone named Jill Valentine?"

Rebecca froze. "What did you say?"

"Someone wants data on Jill Valentine," Franny clicked more keys, "and Leon Kennedy. Wow. The Executioner? What do they have to do with each other?"

"Nothing that I'm aware of," Rebecca murmured, "shut down the leak."

"I'm trying, but Bec? It's really subtle. I'd have thought Quint did it if I wasn't watching a goddamn cat farting video on Youtube when I noticed the lag. That's how subtle it is. Someone is really, really good."

Rebecca rolled back to her computer and started digging. Something was wrong. If you wanted data on Jill Valentine, you had to go layers deep in the Justice Department even to find a whiff of it. And Leon? He was buried under security clearance, which even Rebecca didn't have.

Why try to get their profiles and medical reports?

What was the point?

Rebecca watched her simulation run with a sample of the A-Virus. After Arias had gone down, she'd taken what she could back to her lab and worked tirelessly on concocting a vaccine that would work preexposure. But the process to get it approved for distribution was long and arduous.

It would make more sense to discover someone was trying to get info on the vaccine creation than what limited intel they kept here on agents and operatives.

What could possibly interest someone enough to go after useless medical data? And why not hack the Justice Department?

Rebecca was still contemplating it as Franny mused, "Huh. They got some on Chris Redfield and his sister...and you."

Rebecca froze. She rolled in her chair. "What?"

"Oh, yeah. Someone wanted all of you. Why?"

Softly, Rebecca whispered, "...because we all survived Raccoon City."

Franny tilted her head. "Why does that matter?"

Because they'd all been exposed in one way or another to parasites and viruses, they all had things from latent exposure. Chris, maybe, had escaped without any fundamental changes...but maybe the person stealing the data didn't know that.

Maybe they were after them all because they suspected they were all carrying something in their blood worth having.

Rebecca grabbed for her phone. She exited the lab and kept going. She went through the security doors and out into the sunlight. The second the warmth touched her skin, she inhaled and waited to feel it.

She didn't know what they wanted. She didn't understand going through the backdoor to nowhere to get what they were after. But someone was digging.

It was time to rally the affected and circle the wagons. She shivered as a cloud slipped over the light, removing the heat she sought. Trouble was coming like a shadow on the sun.

And her hands were as cold as her fear as she dialed.