The streets swarmed with infected people, all looking more than half dead, swaying and lurching, moaning and screaming. It was the mansion all over again, a thousand times over. The alleyways were less congested than the streets, but the tight quarters made even a small number harder to get around; Jill and Rebecca needed their pistols more, and the infected had a knack for pinpointing the source of gunfire. They were pressed hard the moment they got a block away from the station, and would have run out of ammo and been devoured had Jill not suddenly remembered the St. Michael Clock Tower was nearby. It was under renovation and the fence to keep thieves out might give them some breathing room.

The tower shined gold in the smokey night, the lights powered by generators someone must have switched on during the chaos. Maybe they came on automatically, Jill didn't know and didn't care as she boosted Rebecca to the top a portable toilet. The moment the medic turned around to pull Jill up she screamed and fired her pistol. The bullets flew over Jill's head, hitting the infected that had come up behind her. The toilet was only a few feet from the chain-link fence. Jill leaned against it, walked up the fence as the intense smell of rot flooded her nose.

Rebecca pulled her onto the hard plastic roof as dozens of infected drew near. The fence was four feet away and a foot higher than the roof of the toilet; the barbed wire over the top brown with rust.

"I'll go first," said Jill, feeling somewhat responsible for them being in this position.

"Be careful," said Rebecca.

Jill was fit, but she wasn't athletic. Even so, she knew that you couldn't think your way through any kind of athletic feat, you had to let your body do the thinking. She leaped for the fence, meaning to land on the edge with her right foot and bring her left over the wire. She'd land hard on the other side, but she'd be over.

That she was still high as hell became apparent when she sailed over the fence in one go, coming down hard on her right leg and toppling over. She cursed. She'd scraped her arm and shoulder on some hard packed reclaimed concrete but hadn't snapped her ankle or leg, thank god.

"Jill! Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," said Jill, feeling a sharp pain in her hip. "It's closer than it looks."

Rebecca jumped just as the infected started banging on the portable toilet's walls. Her right foot touched the top of the fence and she performed a perfect forward somersault, landing firmly on both feet.

Jill wasn't surprised, the memory of how light and strong the girl's body could be was still fresh in her mind. She shook her head, she had to focus. She kept forgetting that she'd eaten all those herb brownies at once. They had to get inside the clock tower; the infected were piling up against the chain link fence.

"Are you hurt?" said Rebecca as they went into the tower through a heavy wooden side door. They closed it behind them, took stock of the tight, cluttered storage room they were in.

"Just a bump and some scrapes," said Jill. "Come on, let's get to the top. We might be able to see a way out of town."

"Or see how screwed we are," said Rebecca.

"Hey, I'm the gloomy realist here. You're supposed to be the perky optimist, remember?"

Rebecca's eyes narrowed at her. Neither knew for how long they stared at each other in the storage room, only that at some point they both noticed a strange sound coming from inside the tower. Some kind of motor, and what sounded like moaning. Guns drawn, with no idea what to expect, they followed the noise to into the tower's foyer. There, strapped naked to a medical gurney, was a beautiful Latina woman. Her skin glistened with a thin sheen of sweat, her shoulder-length brown hair fell loose around her shoulders and over her face. Between her legs was a dildo, thrusting steadily in and out of her by way of some mechanical contraption on the floor. Connected to that device were several ominous wires and hoses leading to half a dozen red, fifty-five gallon drums.

The woman's eyes were closed, her face scrunched up. She was biting her lower lip to keep from cumming. How long she'd been strapped to the device, neither Jill nor Rebecca could guess, but she looked to be near getting off and something told them that when that happened she'd be going with a bang.

The set-up was elaborate, but crude, or so Jill hoped as she and Rebecca rushed to disconnect the wires and hoses from the barrels. When they didn't explode, Jill went to turn off the lewd machine. The woman's eyes fluttered open.

"Dios mío," she breathed, her body shaking. "Who are you two? Angels?"

Jill and Rebecca exchanged glances. "No," said Jill. "We're with STARS. At least we were. Who are you?"

"Who did this to you?" said Rebecca.

"My name is Carlita," said the woman, as Jill and Rebecca released the leather straps holding her to the gurney. "My commanding officer... my former commanding officer, set me up like this. She's gone insane. She's been hunting me, putting me into situations like this one. I wasn't sure I was going to escape this time. I thank you both."

Her accent was slight, Jill couldn't narrow it any further than somewhere from South America. She had the body of an athlete, or a model, but up close Jill saw scars and tattoos, denoting someone who'd lived a life harder than what her beauty implied. Her complete lack of self-consciousness while standing nude before a pair of strangers was also a habit formed in a barracks.

"You're welcome. I'm Jill, this is Rebecca. You said your commanding officer did this to you?"

"Sí. Nikita, that crazy bitch. We're both with the Umbrella Biohazard Countermeasure Service, sent here to help the civilians, but it was all a set-up. I found out we were sent here to be slaughtered by these monsters. Nikita, she was one of the ones that was in on it. She got my entire team killed, then she started playing her little games."

Carlita tossed her hair back with a flip of her head and strolled across the room as if she weren't completely naked , her round hips swaying with each long stride. She was looking for something and seemed flustered, though not as much as she should have been considering her recent predicament.

"You work for Umbrella?" said Jill.

"I may be handing in my two-week notice after this, but yes," Carlita said. "Look around for my clothes, can you? That crazy puta usually leaves them nearby... ah ha!" She found her clothes: brown khakis, combat boots and a tactical vest. Nikita had also apparently left Carlita her assault rifle, which after getting her clothes on, she examined. "I have to stop letting her get the drop on me. One of these times, I won't be so lucky."

Jill and Rebecca exchanged glances, each wondering how much of this was due to the herb-laced brownies they'd eaten.

"What was Umbrella's plan for extracting you?" Jill said.

Carlita laughed. "Plan? I'd say that's all gone out the window. Before my team was slaughtered and Nikita showed her true colors we were planning on using the commuter rail to reach the hospital. There's supposed to be an LZ, with a beacon, on the roof. That's where I'm heading. Are you in?"

Though Jill had the strong impression that Carlita was going to lead them into more trouble, all she could do was nod.

"Good," said Carlita, her eyes taking on a sultry sheen as she looked her two new comrades over. "Maybe we can get to know each other a little better first? You, ah, unplugged everything before the big finale."

Jill looked at Rebecca, who still seemed to be seeing Carlita with her clothes off. They were both about to agree when they heard it.

"Sssstars."

"What the hell was that?" said Carlita.

A moment later the entrance to the tower foyer was blown in. The creature from the police station, its leather coverings burned and tattered, stood in the doorway. "STARS!" it bellowed, shouldering a rocket launcher of all things.

"Incoming!" shouted Jill as the rocket whooshed. The three women dove for cover as the rocket exploding amidst the red barrels, setting off the bomb that had been set to blow whenever Carlita came.

All Jill knew when she rolled to a stop on the tiled floor was that she was alive and that the foyer was on fire.