Chapter 8
Leon entered the station, looking over at Rebecca and Sheva leaving with Havoc Squad. "Where are they off to?" he asked, pointing a thumb to the disembarking company. Chris answered, sounding somewhat frustrated "Getting something for Walker."
"What happened to him?" Stump asked, worried for his friend.
"He's fine. But he isn't looking the best." Chris told him. Turning his gaze to the new face among them. "You Gaz?"
"Yes, sir." Gaz was smirking at the sight of Chris; clearly knowing him by reputation.
"I'll be debriefing you." Chris told him, before gesturing to him to follow. "This way."
Steve's dreams were not unlike Rabbit's, based on what he was told. Predictably the same, however the inverse: pleasant. The drugs of his shot had a pleasant effect on his mind while snoozing. Always bringing him back either to that moment on the plane ride with Redfield's sister or to the city of Paris.
This time it was Paris. With Celine Allard at his side with her long sandy-blond hair and grey-blue eyes; smiling at him. His dreams were cruel that way. Her smile, the way that Allard looked at him—like he was someone who was worth a damn, as a human being, as someone she loved—would always haunt him.
Steve loved her. It was the benefit to hiding in Paris back then, for the time.
Before the drones came.
"Burnside!" Felix's laughing voice coming through on the comm awoke him.
Rebecca's ride out with the Havoc squad to the general hospital was quiet on their part. She attempted her best to make idle chit-chat with them with mostly failure. They were not that chatty. Thankfully Sheva was there to compensate for that lack of personability.
She was thankfully able to talk Chris into allowing her to go on this quick run. He and Jill were not exactly enthused by the idea of her being at more risk, still treating her as if she was the cliche little sister.
The state she had left Stump and Sheva in regarding their friend had instilled within the professor a desire to do something. Anything. Thankfully the general hospital would be of some help—she hoped.
The fever-fire Rabbit was experiencing was not something she believed he could wrestle his way out of dying from—despite his stubborn nature—and therefore he needed something to give him a fighting chance. His body was holding up better than Tom's had—this could have been the result from one of the experiments Wynn and Black Arrow had put him through…or maybe Rabbit merely possessed a very durable immunity system with the ability to resist viral infections better than others. Rebecca could not be certain, and it was possible neither was true. The injection she gave him during the first interval of the infection was doing little more than prolonging the process of his killing through a virus. No different than her other attempted remedies.
Which is why they had this specific destination.
It was no Alexander Institute of Biotechnology but Rebecca had found Caliban Cove's General Hospital to be ideal for their current predicament. Exceptionally so as it possessed an extra wing which was dedicated to counters to the mutant Progenitor viruses. Being what her fiance, Zack Bell, would call a good option in a bad situation.
Since 2001, when groups such as the Taliban began expressing an interest in acquiring B.O.W.s and viruses for their radical interests—it had been argued that most medical facilities should be outfitted with such capacities. Although being argued against several political figures who tried to argue in political suicide that Raccoon City was a one-off. This was eventually vindicated and made mandatory following the implementation of viruses and B.O.W.s by malcontent mischiefs of factionalism such as II Veltro.
Not all hospitals were as well off as others. Smaller clinics for example have access to small amounts of vaccines, which therefore would not do them or Rabbit much good; but to the boon of their cause, Caliban Cove lacked such impotence.
Thankfully before his leaving of office (as a result of the malignant effort of his political adversaries using his relation to Brian Irons through a cousin's marriage and ammo against him), Mayor Ross (in a move some perceived as a public relations stunt to curry some public favor, and others believed was coming from a genuine place of concern) began making strides to allocate some government and non-government subsidized fund into several hospitals—with some additional funds funneled in with the help of a local entrepreneur, Harold Alfond—and Caliban Cove's own was one of these cases with ideal facilities.
The Caliban Cove General Hospital was hauntingly quiet as the lone, disheveled figure of Shane Capelli passed through. His green eyes glanced out as he stepped slowly in anticipation of a monster to come at him again at any moment.
His brown hair was short, some of his ripped or cut from his encounters with those things out in the streets as well as the manufactured monsters. Dressed in a blue-gray canvas with a buckled chest rig around it. A knife sheathed at the rear of his pants, a top-breaking .44 Magnum holstered on his right side, and a bolt-action hunting rifle in hand.
The former Brooklynite was not undernourished yet. He had thankfully been able to secure some meals here and there, and the nightmare was still only a few days old—so he had a ways to go before he was to look like an Ethiopian boy.
Bringing himself into the food storage room, which the fools had not completely left void of nourishing resources, he grabbed a snack before walking through the hospital. Still waiting to see if anyone was coming to the rescue—BSAA or Marines, he did not really care which. As long as they were not those trigger-happy bastards who gunned down his fellow survivors he would be satisfied.
The rattling alarmed him to the front of the hospital.
Raising his batteried bolt-action, Capelli looked out the nearby window to see a weird sight. A small squad of soldiers approached with two women—one a dark-skinned, more athletically built woman, and the other a frailer looking one (who he did not take that good of a look at)—dispatching a small group of zombies. They were not the black op wannabes he had fled from, they looked more professional. Then he saw the logo on them: the umbrella.
Umbrella…?
Were they not supposed to be dead? The Umbrella corporation itself was said to be gone. Their founders were six feet under. Guess some survived. And Capelli decided he would reunite them with their coevals.
Please, God, don't his rifle aim be shitty this time. His pride couldn't take another hit.
Roach was loading a new mag into his WCX when a sudden gunshot rang out and he was knocked to the ground.
Bain ran over.
His battle-brothers were on quick alert, as were their temporary friends. Ghost fired in the direction the shot came from—the window with recently shattered glass—with his own WCX rifles, as did Cross.
"Son of a bitch." Roach grumbled. "I'm fine, I'm fine. Just a graze."
Bain and he looked in the same direction the shot was believed to have originated from. Seeing no one. But that was not saying much, as they could have moved to a new position by then.
"Alomar, we're going to advance."
"Copy."
Sheva and Rebecca followed behind Havoc Squad. Stepping cautiously into the hospital when the scope of a rifle emerged from one of the upper levels. That's to their reflexes they were able to run for cover just as the gun went off.
"Don't know what you umbrella bastards want but you're daydreaming if you thought I'd be going down without a fight!" they heard in the company of the pull back on the bolt of their attacker's rifle. "If you're gonna work for Umbrella, at least try to hide it!"
"That voice…" Ghost heard Rebecca whisper as he glanced in the direction of the shooter. Glancing over to her, he asked "You know him?"
She nodded. "His name's Shane Capelli." Then she looked upward and said "Capelli, it's me!"
It took a few repeats and to raise her voice for it to register at last. "Huh?" The shooting stopped. "Chambers?"
"Yeah! It's me, Shane!" Rebecca answered back. Ghost hollering "We're stepping out. Try resisting the urge to shoot, jackass!"
"No promises." they heard back.
Ghost and Roach stepped out with their rifles raised as insurance to deter more gunfire—hoping self-preservation would be enough motivation for this Capelli to not fire upon them needlessly.
Rebecca stuck her head out to show her face with a waving hand. "Um…hi, mister Capelli."
"Huh." The man confirmed to be Capelli lowered his rifle, tilting. "Okay…" then he looked at the squad she was in the fellowship of. "Who are they? Better question: why are you in the company of shitheads with an Umbrella logo on them."
"We're Blue Umbrella, ass whipe! BLUE! B.L.U.E. .R.E.L.L.A. Check your damn sight more clearly next time!" Bain told him, holding up the logo on his arm for a closer look. "Key word: blue."
Capelli's sour expression sustained. The disgust he felt toward them was plain to see. Just as the case was with everyone else.
It was not that Blue Umbrella was that well known to the public. There was an awareness of them and their activities, but there was no reason for people to know them when there were multiple anti-bioterrorism organizations in the world—it would have been like expecting someone to know the CBI when the FBI and DEA and ATF have vastly more notoriety. The only thing consistent about their receivement is the scorn.
Like everyone else, Bain thought bitterly.
"I needed to use the bio-virus wing." Rebecca told him. "Please, Capelli, it's urgent."
Felix, torn away from the switchboard, was laughing as Steve had been brought before Talon's "glorious" leader, Denz Sinclair. He was no more happy with Steve than Steve was to be there. Nor were the other leaders in Talon's circles. Briggs and Caid being among them.
"Steve." Denz said, repressing his displeasure. "What would you say to being dispatched to the field?"
"I would rather go back to pleasing Gonne's whims." Steve sighed. Then asked with a smile which was as spiteful as his tone. "The champions give your people that much grief. What a shame, and here I thought things were planned out so well."
"Watch it, Burnside." Caid said. Briggs added "Wouldn't want to tempt us to dispatch Mr. Stone."
That brought Steve to heel.
"Felix." Sinclair said.
"Yes, sir." he was waiting for the order.
"Show him the feed."
"Of course." Felix said before bringing up an image on the nearby screen. More soon joined it in spades. The images were from some of the various hidden cameras stached in Caliban Cove's General Hospital.
In the pictures he saw the STARS member turned professor Rebecca Chambers. She was walking with one of Wesker's slayers through the halls of the medical facility. Based on the layout he would have to guess it was one of the newer wings.
"I was wondering if you know why these two are visiting the hospital."
Steve knew. It was obvious why. It had only been a day since the Creeper put that operator out of commission.
"Maybe they want some backup medicine to reinforce their operations in Caliban's Cove." Steve bluffed. "Could be anything. How should I know? Until I was forced onto this little scheme of yours, I haven't concerned myself with the BSAA for a while."
"Seems like they're trying to help your Chris Hemsworth look-alike friend."
"What friend?" Steve still played coy. "He's just some guy I was in the same Umbrella prison with."
The inquisition was only to have begun.
Rebecca found the counter Progenitor virus wing just as she left it. It seemed the chaos of that horror-inducing moment demanded such an immedient, no-time-to-grab-anything and evacuate-at-all-cost reaction that nothing was disturbed.
Only Tom's carcass was missing, with only a smidge of bloodstains.
"So where do we begin?" Sheva asked.
Rabecca's sweet face conveyed that the situation was not as grim as she had anticipated. "Just leave it to me, Sheva. I have all I should need." Walking over to the table she had been using before—pulling out the older sample from Tom as well as the new source she had drawn from Rabbit's body before departing. "If there's a way to help your friend, I should be able to find it with this. If I'm lucky."
Bishop was in the midst of uploading Gaz's account of the events to follow the first entry team's arrival—which was not too awe inspiring.
Their advent had been greeted with bullets. He and Sergeant Ramirez were riding in their humvee through king street when a sniper's bullet lodged itself into his friend's skull, causing their ride to crash. Gaz had survived the ambush as they scrambled out of the wreckage because private McCord had shielded him from a shot, costing him his life. Captin Walden and he managed to escape into the nearby buildings, while corporal Sandler was shot following behind them. The captin only to be later killed by rocket fire as they moved further through the city, leaving a bloody mess; they had attempted to put some distance between themselves and the sniper, resulting in only Gaz's survival.
It seemed the task ahead was not to be as simple as they had been hoping.
Rebecca tinkered with the samples, working as diligently as she was able; not desiring to botch this. The operative to help her and Claire get to safety was at stake afterall. The only downside was she had a short window of opportunity.
Capelli watched the dark-sinned woman pull a drink out of the vending machine. Sheva, he had heard Chambers referred to her as—so her name was obviously Sheva. She was pretty, athletically built; but very pretty. Shame she looked like she had someone on her mind.
Concerned, too.
"Do you need something?" Sheva asked.
It was only then that Shane realized he was staring. "Huh?"
"You were gawking my way. I assumed you wanted something."
"No." Capelli lied. He was quick to cover his screw up, glancing to the room Rebecca went into had not come back out. "Just, uh, what's Chamber's doing in there?"
"A friend of mine is in bad condition." she told him.
"That thing got him, didn't it?"
"Thing?"
"Dressed in a duster, looking like it came from the mind of that pedo, Victor Silva." Shane elucidated. "Looks like a scarecrow-esqu cowboy, maybe."
"Yes." Sheva nodded. "That's a weird description, but yes. You've dealt with it before?"
"Yeah. Back when we were originally using this hospital before the eater horde came this way, a friend of mine named Tom saved Chamers from it by bludgeoning it in the head with his Winchester. The result was him dying slowly." Motioning his head to the law Rebecca was in briefly. "Your friends in there seemed to believe she was close to a cure, but she was forced to run with her friends and I was forced to bury my friend—after I put him out of his misery."
A vexatious story.
"I'm sorry to hear that."
"Yeah. Me too."
There was a breakthrough in Rebecca's efforts. The serum she had developed on the seventh attempt seemed to be the strongest. It was repelling against the virus strand with the most strength.
Shame it cost the strongest herbs.
Roach was keeping watch by the entrance to the hospital when a sight caught his attention: incoming talon soldiers.
Pressing on his comm, he said "Chambers, you might want to grease the wheels."
"Why?" Sheva asked in reply.
Roach answered in response, "Talon incoming."
"Hopefully this works." Rebecca whispered to herself. Packing away the finished serum, doing everything she could make it so there was no chance of it breaking in the journey back.
Ghost joined Roach's side. "Do they know we're here?"
Roach shook his head. "It's hard to say. I don't think they know we're here. We haven't heard—"
"Hello, do-gooders!"
"Never mind." Roach sighed.
Hearing Joker on the comm feed, Bain was caused to sigh in frustration as well. "God shits in our dinner once again." adding "I'm really looking forward to taking him out."
Capelli did not have a radio on him, but he heard through Sheva's. He didn't like those Blue Umbrella guys, but his own instincts were screaming that the other guy he just heard on the radio who sounded like none of them was even worse.
"Hope you didn't miss me too badly ladies and what I can only assume are gentlemen. Time to resume our fun."
Pointing to her radio, Capelli said "I'm just going to assume this means me and you guys have a problem."
"Affirmative." Rebecca said, emerging from the virus wing. Unintentionally having her old STARS-self briefly come through vocally. "We need to go." She looked at Capelli. "Is the adjoining parking lot full of zombies? We need to get back to the station."
"I don't think so, actually I've had a getaway ride in there ready in case things went more south than they already have—which, I'm surprised it could." Capelli informed her. "If we make tracks now—"
Then the shooting started.
Roach returned fire to the Talon good who knocked Ghost on his ass with a blow to the shoulder. Dropping one with a wound and another with a fatal blow.
"Son of a bitch." Ghost cursed, grabbing one of his frags. "Right back at you, ass holes!"
"Ghost, Roach! All of you! Up here now!" Sheva yelled down to them.
Nodding, Roach responded "Right away!"
"Since when do we take orders from her?" Ghost asked.
"You wanna deal with them? Be my guest."
"Fair point."
Once they were through the door, Capelli rested his rifle against the wall and began the process of locking the door. There were others which the gunmen could enter from, but inconveniencing them was a good enough consolation prize.
It did not please him to leave behind the hospital, but he had dealt with those gun-toting fools enough times to be aware they would not simply leave him be. So he was stuck with this new company.
He heard one of the Blue Umbrellas ask "Which one are we taking?"
"That one." Capelli pointed to a heavily modified van that looked like a real bruiser.
It looked nearly as tough as the humvees their forces rode into Caliban Cove in.
Capelli seated himself in the driver's chair, Rebecca got in the passenger, and Sheva joined Havoc Squad in the back of the van.
Chris was busy with coordinating the next stage of the operation, scouting the city for areas where survivors could be hiding out as well as points of interest where the Talon operatives could be hiding out, when a call through the comms.
"Chris!"
It was Rebecca.
"What's wrong?"
"I think I have something to help Damien, but we've got Talon chasing us. Turned out they had a vehicle of their own. We're coming back in a black van and theiy're following close behind us."
"We'll handle it."
Archer was looking through the scope of his PSG1 when he noticed the abrupt movement through the streets.
A black van with a second, more mlitary-style hot on its heels.
Without hesitation, Archer readied his shot. Taking out the front left tire—presuming that the window in front of the driver's side was bullet proof—and with it down a tire so suddenly the operator lost control.
The black van kept driving for the station whilst the Talonites emerged from the vehicle only to be zombie nutriment. A win-win for all involved…except Talon.
Once they parked in front of the police station Rebecca rushed out of the van.
Capelli was pulled aside for a check up by the medics, while Havoc squad was joining the defense in anticipation of a possible zombie horde to come their way.
Once the medicine was administered she told them now they really had no other alternative. And so they played the waiting game once again—they would wait and see.