ONE
CLAIRE'S HEAD HURT.
She'd been half-dreaming, remembering things,
until the faraway sound of thunder crowded through the
dark, pulling her closer to wakefulness. She'd dreamed
about the insanity that had become her life over the
past few months, and even though an almost conscious
part of her knew it was reality, it still seemed too incredible
to be true. Flashes of what had happened in
post-viral Raccoon City kept rising up, images of the
inhuman creature that had stalked her and the little girl
through the devastation, memories of the Birkin family,
of meeting Leon, of praying that Chris was all
right.
Thunder again, louder, and she realized that something
was wrong but couldn't seem to wake up, to stop
remembering. Chris. Her brother had gone underground
in Europe, and they had followed, and now she was cold
and her head hurt but she didn't know why.
What happened? She concentrated, but it would only
come in pieces, pictures and thoughts from the weeks
since Raccoon City. She couldn't seem to control the
memories. It was like watching a movie in a dream, and
still, she couldn't wake up.
Images of Trent on the plane, and a desert, finding a
disk of codes that had ultimately proved useless to her
brother's cause. The long flight to London, the hop to
France -
- a telephone call, "Chris is here, he's fine." Barry
Burton's voice, deep and friendly. Laughing, the incredible
relief filling her up, feeling Leon's hand on her
shoulder.
It was a start, and it led her to the next clear recollection
- a meeting had been set up, one of the surveillance
posts for the HQ Admin wing, on Umbrella grounds.
Leon and the others were waiting in the van, checking
my watch, heart pounding with excitement, where is he,
where's Chris?
Claire didn't know she was screwed until the first bullets
ripped past, chasing her onto the spotlight-riddled
grounds, into a building -
- running through the corridors, deafened by the rattle
of automatic weapons and the helicopter outside,
running, bullets chipping by close enough to send sharpened
slivers of floor tile into the meat of her calves...
... and an explosion, armed soldiers writhing in the
blast's fury, and ... and I got caught.
They'd held her for over a week, trying everything
they could to make her talk. She'd talked, too, about
going fishing with Chris, political ideology, her favorite
bands ... When it came down to it, she didn't know
anything vital; she was looking for her brother, that was
all, and she somehow managed to convince them that
she didn't know anything important about Umbrella. It
probably helped that she was nineteen, and looked about
as deadly as a Girl Scout. What little she actually did
know, things about the Umbrella insider, Trent, or the
whereabouts of Sherry Birken, the scientist's daughter,
she buried deep and left there.
When they'd realized she was useless as an informant,
she'd been taken away. Cuffed, scared, two private
planes and a helicopter later, the island. She didn't even
see it, they'd put a hood over her face, the stifling blackness
only adding to her fear. Rockfort Island, wasn't that
what the pilot called it? It was a long way from Paris, but
that was the extent of her knowledge. Thunder, there
was a sound of thunder. She remembered being pushed
through a muddy prison cemetery in the gray morning,
catching a glimpse through her stifling hood of the
graves, marked with elaborate headstones. Down some
stairs, welcome to your new home and BOOM.
The ground was shaking, rumbling. Claire opened her
eyes just in time to see the one overhead light go out, the
thick metal bars of her cell suddenly imprinted in negative
and floating off to her left in the pitch dark. She lay
on her side on a clammy, dirty floor.
Not good, nope, you better get up. Steeling herself
against the pounding of her skull she crawled to her
knees, her muscles stiff and sore. The blackness of the
cold, dank room was very still, except for the sound of
water dripping, a slow and lonely sound; it appeared she
was alone.
Not for long. Oh, man, I'm in it deep now. Umbrella
had her, and considering the havoc she'd created back in
Paris, it was unlikely that they were going to treat her to
ice cream and send her on her way.
The renewed awareness of her situation knotted her
stomach, but she did her best to put the fear aside. She
needed to think straight, to figure out her options, and
she needed to be ready to act. She wouldn't have survived
Raccoon City if she'd given in to panic...
... except you 're on an island run by Umbrella. Even if
you get past the guards, where can you possibly go?
One predicament at a time. First thing, she should
probably try to stand up. Except for the painful lump at
her right temple from the asshole who'd knocked her
out, she didn't think she'd been injured.
There was another rumble, muffled and far away, and a
bit of rock dust drifted down from above, she could feel it
on the back of her neck. She had integrated the rumbling
sounds into her half-conscious dreams as thunder, but it
definitely sounded like heavy artillery had come to Rockfort.
Or Godzilla. What the hell was going on out there?
She crept to her feet, wincing at her rifle-butt headache
as she brushed dust off her bare arms, stretching
chilled muscles. The underground room was making her
wish she'd worn something warmer than jeans and a
cut-off vest for her meeting with Chris.
.Chris! Oh, please be safe! In Paris, she'd deliberately
led the Umbrella security team away from Leon
and the others, Rebecca and the two Exeter S.T.A.R.S.;
if Chris hadn't also been caught, Claire figured he'd
have hooked up with the team by now. If she could get
to a computer with an uplink, she should be able to send
a message to Leon...
... yeah, just bend those steel bars, find a couple of machine
guns, and mow down the population of the island.
Oh, then hack into a tightly secured relay system, assuming
you can find an unmanned computer. All so you can
tell Leon that you don't actually know where Rockfort is...
A louder internal voice cut in ... think positive,
damnit, you can be sarcastic later, assuming you survive.
What do you have to work with?
Good question. There was no guard, for one thing. It
was also extremely dark, a bare hint of light coming
from somewhere off to the right, which could be an advantage
if...
Claire patted her pockets suddenly, wildly hoping that
no one had searched her when she'd been unconscious,
sure that someone must have - left inside vest pocket,
there it was!
"Idiots," she whispered, pulling out the old metal
lighter that Chris had given her awhile back, the comforting
weight of it warm in her hand. When they'd patted
her down for weapons, a soldier reeking of tobacco
had taken it out, but given it back to her when she'd said
that she smoked.
Claire put the lighter back in her pocket, not wanting
to blind herself now that her eyes were getting used to
the dark. There was enough ambient light for her to
make out most of the small room - a desk and a couple
of cabinets directly across from her cell, an open door to
the left - the same door she'd entered by - a chair and
some miscellaneous crap stacked off to the right.
Okay, good, you know the environment. What else
you got?
Thankfully, her inner voice was a lot calmer than she
was. She quickly went through her other pockets, turning
up a couple of ponytail elastics and two breath mints
in a crumpled roll. Terrific. Unless she wanted to take on
the enemy with a very small, refreshingly peppermint
slingshot, she was shit out of luck...
Footsteps, in the corridor outside the cell room, coming
closer. Her muscles tensed and her mouth went dry.
She was unarmed and trapped, and the way a few of
those guards had been looking at her on the transport...
... bring it on. I'm unarmed, maybe, but not defenseless.
If someone meant to assault her, sexually or otherwise,
she'd make a point of doing some major damage
in return. If she was going to die anyway, she didn't plan
on going out alone.
Thump. Thump. There was only one person out there,
she decided, and whoever it was, he or she was hurting.
The steps were erratic and slow, shuffling, almost like...
No, no way.
Claire held her breath as a lone male figure stepped
haltingly into the room, his arms out in front of him. He
moved like one of the virus zombies, like a drunk, reeling
and unsteady, and immediately staggered for the
door to her cell. Reflexively, Claire backed away, terrified
at the implications - if there'd been some kind of
viral outbreak on the island, at best she'd end up starving
to death behind bars.
And Jesus, another spill? Thousands had died in Raccoon
City. When would Umbrella learn, that their insane
biological experiments weren't worth the cost?
She had to see. If it was a drunk guard, at least he was
alone, she might be able to take him. And if it was a carrier,
she was safe for the moment. Probably. They
couldn't operate doors, or at least the ones in Raccoon
hadn't been able to. She took out the lighter, flipped the
top and thumbed the wheel.
Claire recognized him instantly and gasped, taking another
step back. Tall and well-built, Hispanic perhaps, a
mustache and dark, merciless eyes. It was the man who'd
caught her back in Paris, who'd escorted her to the island.
Not a zombie, at least there's that. Not much of relief,
but she'd take whatever she could get.
She stood for a moment, frozen, not sure what to expect.
He looked different, and it was more than his dirtsmeared
face or the small bloodstains on his white
T-shirt. It was as though there'd been some fundamental
internal change, the way his expression was set. Before,
he'd looked like a stone killer. Now ... now she wasn't
sure, and when he reached into his pocket and pulled out
a set of keys, she prayed that he'd changed for the better.
Without a word, he pulled the cell door open and
blankly met her gaze before jerking his head to one
side - the universal sign for "get out," if there was such
a thing.
Before she could act, he turned and staggered away,
definitely injured from the way he held his gut with one
shaking hand. There was a chair between the desk and
the far wall; he sat down heavily and picked up a small
bottle from the desktop with bloodstained fingers. He
shook the bottle, about the size of a small spool of
thread, before weakly throwing it across the room, muttering
to himself.
"Perfect..."
The presumably empty bottle clattered across the cement
floor, rolling to a stop just outside the cell. He
glanced in her direction tiredly, his voice thick with exhaustion.
"Go on. Get out of here."
Claire took a step toward the open cell door and hesitated,
wondering if it was some kind of trick - being
shot trying to "escape" crossed her mind, and didn't
seem all that far-fetched, considering who he worked
for. She still clearly remembered the look in his eyes
when he'd shoved that gun in her face, the cold sneer
that had twisted his mouth.
She cleared her throat nervously, deciding to probe
for an explanation. "What are you telling me, exactly?"
"You're free," he said, muttering to himself again as
he sank deeper into the chair, chin lowering to his chest.
"I don't know, might have been some kind of special
forces team, troops were all wiped out ... no chance of
escape." He closed his eyes.
Her instincts told her that he really meant to let her
go, but she wasn't going to take any chances. She
stepped out of the cell and picked up the bottle he'd
thrown, moving very slowly, watching him carefully as
she approached. She didn't think his wounded act was a
fake; he looked like hell, an ashy-white pallor over his
dark skin, like a transparent mask. He wasn't breathing
all that evenly, either, and his clothes smelled like sweat
and chemical smoke.
She glanced at the bottle, an empty syringe vial with
an unpronounceable name on the label, catching the
word hemostatic in the fine print. Hemo was
blood ... some kind of bleeding stabilizer?
Maybe an internal injury... She wanted to ask him
why he was releasing her, what the situation was outside,
where she should go, but she could see that he
was on the verge of passing out, his eyelids fluttering.
I can't just walk out, not without trying to help him -
- screw that! Go, go now!
He might die...
You might die! Run for it! The internal dispute was
brief, but her conscience triumphed over reason, as
usual. He obviously hadn't set her loose because of some
personal affinity, but whatever the reason, she was grateful.
He didn't have to let her go, and he'd done it anyway.
"What about you?" She asked, wondering if there
was anything she could do for him. She certainly
couldn't carry him out, and she was no medic.
"Don't worry about me," he said, raising his head to
glare at her for a second, sounding irritated that she'd
even brought it up.
Before she could ask him what had happened outside,
he lost consciousness, his shoulders slumping, his body
growing still. He was breathing, but without a doctor,
she wouldn't want to bet on how long.
The lighter was getting hot, but she endured the heat
long enough to search the small room, starting with the
desk. There was a combat knife thrown casually on the
blotter, a number of loose papers... She saw her own
name on one of them and scanned the document while
fixing the knife sheath to her waistband.
Claire Redfield, prisoner number WKD4496, date of
transfer, blah blah blah ... escorted by Rodrigo Juan
Raval, 3rd Security Unit CO, Umbrella Medical, Paris.
Rodrigo. The man who'd caught her and set her free,
and now appeared to be dying right in front of her. She
couldn't do anything about it, either, not unless she
could find help.
Which I can't do down here, she thought, snapping
the overheated lighter closed after she finished the rest
of her search. Nothing but junk, mostly, a trunk of
musty prisoner uniforms, endless stacks of paperwork
stuffed into the desk. She'd found the pair of fingerless
gloves they'd taken from her, her old riding gloves, and
put them on, grateful for the minor warmth they provided.
All she had to defend herself with was the combat
knife, a deadly weapon in the right hands ... which, unfortunately,
hers weren't.
It's a gift horse, don't complain. Five minutes ago you
were unarmed and locked up, at least now you have a
chance. You should just be happy that Rodrigo didn 't
come down here to put you out of your misery.
Still, she pretty much sucked at knifeplay. After a
brief hesitation, she quickly patted Rodrigo down, but
he wasn't carrying. She did find a set of keys but didn't
take them, not wanting to carry anything that might
draw someone's attention by jangling at the wrong moment.
If she needed them, she could come back.
Time to blow this Popsicle stand, see what there is to
see out there.
"Let's do it," she said softly, as much to get herself
moving as anything else, aware that she was basically
terrified of what she might find ... and also that she
didn't have a choice in the matter. As long as she was on
the island, Umbrella still had her and until she assessed
the circumstances, she couldn't make plans to escape.
Holding the knife tightly, Claire stepped out of the
cellar room, wondering if Umbrella's madness would
ever end.
Alone, Alfred Ashford sat on the wide, sweeping
stairs of his home, half blind with rage. The destruction
had finally ceased raining down from the skies, but his
home had been damaged, their home. It had been built
for his grandfather's great-grandmother - the brilliant
and beautiful Veronica, God rest her soul - on the isolated
oasis that she had named Rockfort, where she had
made a magical life for herself and her progeny over the
generations ... and now, in the blink of an eye, some
horrible fanatic group had dared to try and destroy it.
Most of the second floor architecture had been warped
and twisted, doors crushed shut, only their private
rooms left whole.
Uncouth, uncultured miscreants. They can't even
fathom the measure of their own ignorance.
Alexia was weeping upstairs, her delicate rose of a
heart surely aching with the loss. The mere thought of
his sister's needless pain fueled his rage to greater intensity,
making him want to strike out, but there was no
one to submit to his anger, all the commanding officers
and chief scientists dead, even his own personal staff.
He'd watched it happen from the safety of the private
mansion's secret monitor room, each tiny screen telling
a different story of brutal suffering and pathetic incompetence.
Almost everyone had died, and the rest had run
like frightened rabbits; most of the island's planes were
already gone. His personal cook had been the only survivor
in the common receiving mansion, but she'd
screamed so much that he himself had been forced to
shoot her.
We're still here, though, safe from the unwashed
hands of the world. The Ashfords will survive and prosper,
to dance on the graves of our adversaries, to drink
champagne from the skulls of their children.
He imagined dancing with Alexia, holding her close,
waltzing to the dynamic music of their enemies' tortured
screams... It would be nothing short of bliss, his
twin's gaze locked to his, sharing the awareness of their
superiority over the common man, over the stupidity of
those who sought to destroy them.
The question was, who had been responsible for the
attack? Umbrella had many enemies, from legitimate
rival pharmaceutical companies to private shareholders
- the loss of Raccoon City had been disastrous for
the market - to the few closet competitors of White Umbrella,
their covert bioweapons research department.
Umbrella Pharmaceutical, the brainchild of Lord Oswell
Spencer and Alfred's own grandfather, Edward
Ashford, was extremely lucrative, an industrial empire
... but the real power lay with Umbrella's clandestine
activities, the operations of which had become too
vast to remain entirely unnoticed. And there were spies
everywhere.
Alfred clenched his fists, frustrated, his entire body a
live wire of furious tension and was suddenly aware of
Alexia's presence behind him, a trace of gardenia in the
air. He'd been so intent on his emotional chaos that he
hadn't even heard her approach.
"You mustn't let yourself despair, my brother," she
said gently, and stepped down to sit beside him. "We
will prevail; we always have."
She knew him so well. When she'd been away from
Rockfort all those years ago, he'd been so lonely, so
afraid that they might lose some of their special connection
... but if anything, they were closer now than ever
before. They never spoke about their separation, about
the things that had happened after the experiments at the
Antarctic facility, both of them just so happy to be together
that they would say nothing to spoil it. She felt
the same way, he was certain.
He gazed at her for long seconds, soothed by her
graceful presence, astounded as always by the depths of
her beauty. If he hadn't heard her weeping in her bedroom,
he wouldn't have known that she'd shed a tear.
Her porcelain skin was radiant, her sky-blue eyes clear
and shining. Even today, this darkest of days, the very
sight of her gave him such pleasure...
"What would I do without you?" Alfred asked softly,
knowing that the answer was too painful to consider.
He'd gone half-mad with loneliness when she'd been
away, and sometimes still had strange episodes, nightmares
that he was alone, that Alexia had left him. It was
one of the reasons he encouraged her never to leave their
heavily secured private residence, located behind the
visitor mansion. She didn't mind; she had her studies,
and was aware that she was too important, too exquisite
to be admired by just anyone, quite content to be sustained
by her brother's affections, trusting him to be her
sole contact with the outside world.
If only I could stay with her all the time, just the two of
us, hidden away... But no, he was an Ashford, responsible
for the Ashford's stake in Umbrella, accountable for
the entire Rockfort compound. When their basically incompetent
father, Alexander Ashford, had gone missing
some fifteen years before, the young Alfred had stepped
up to take his place. The key players behind Umbrella's
bioweapons research had tried to keep him out of the loop,
but only because he intimidated them, cowed them by the
natural supremacy of his family name. Now they sent him
regular reports, respectfully explaining the decisions they
made on his behalf, making it clear that they would get in
touch with him immediately if the need arose.
I suppose I should contact them, tell them what's happened...
He'd always left those matters to his personal
secretary, Robert Dorson, but Robert had left his service
some weeks before to join the other prisoners, after expressing
a bit too much curiosity about Alexia.
She was smiling at him now, her face glowing with
understanding and adoration. Yes, she was so much better
to him since her return to Rockfort, truly as devoted
to him as he'd always been to her.
"You'll protect me, won't you," she said, not a question.
"You'll find out who did this to us, and then show
them what one gets for trying to destroy a legacy as
powerful as ours."
Overcome with love, Alfred reached out to touch her
but stopped short, all too aware that she didn't like physical
contact. He nodded instead, some of his rage returning
as he thought of someone trying to harm his beloved
Alexia. Never, not as long as he lived, would he allow
that to happen.
"Yes, Alexia," he said passionately. "I'll make them
suffer, I swear it."
He could see in her eyes that she believed in him, and
his heart filled with pride, just as his thoughts turned to
the discovery of their enemy. An absolute hatred for
Rockfort's assailants was growing inside of him, for the
stain of weakness they had tried to paint on the Ashford
name.
I'll teach them regret, Alexia, and they'll never forget
the lesson.
His sister relied on him. Alfred would die before letting
her down.
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