FIVE
THE ALLEGED DOCK WASN'T REALLY A DOCK
at all, much to Steve's disappointment, and there wasn't
a boat in sight. He'd expected a long pier with pilings
and seagulls, all that shit, and a half dozen ships to
choose from, each of them stocked with full pantries and
soft beds. Instead, he'd found a tiny, grungy platform
that sat over an unpleasantly gray lagoonish area, protected
from the ocean by a ridge of jagged rock that he
could barely make out in the dark. There was a pulpit
kind of thing with a ship's steering wheel stuck on it at
the edge of the platform, probably some dumbass "monument
to the sea" or whatever, a decrepit table with some
trash on it, and a ratty, moldy old life jacket heaped in a
corner, the once bright orange stained to a murky mustard
color. Nothing bigger than a canoe was ever going to
dock at this particular pier; in a word, lame.
Great. So how did all those people get off the island,
backstroke? And if there's an air strip, where the hell
is it?
Bad enough that now he had to find another escape,
he'd also told Claire that he'd meet her here. He
couldn't just take off, but he didn't want to stand around
waiting, either.
You could still ditch her.
Steve scowled, irritably kicking at a rusted-out hunk
of random machinery. Maybe she was a little nosy, a little
naive ... but she'd saved his ass, no question, and
her wanting to go back to help some wounded Umbrella
hand just because he'd set her free - that was ... well, it
was nice, it was a nice thing to do. Leaving her behind
didn't seem right.
Not sure what to do next, he walked over to the
mounted steering wheel (wasn't there some kind of
sailor name for it, one of those port-starboard-ahoy
words? He didn't know.) and gave it a spin, surprised at
how smoothly it turned considering how crappy the rest
of the "dock" was...
... and with a low mechanical hum, the platform beneath
his feet abruptly detached from the rest and slid
out over the water, as giant bubbles started to break the
water's surface in front of him.
Christ! Steve held on to the wheel with one hand,
pointed one of the gold Lugers at the rising bubbles with
the other. If it was one of Umbrella's creatures, it was
about to be breathing hot lead...
... and a small submarine rose up out of the water like
a dark, metal fish, the hatch conveniently popping open
directly in front of his feet. A runged ladder led down
into the sub, which appeared to be empty. Unlike the
worn-out surroundings, the little sub looked sturdy and
well-maintained.
Steve stared at it, astounded. What was this shit? It
was like some theme park ride, so weird that he wasn't
sure what to think.
Is it any weirder than anything else I've dealt with
today?
Point taken. The map he'd looked at back at the mansion
had been vague, just a couple of arrows and the
words dock and airstrip ... and apparently you had to
take a submarine ride to get there. Umbrella was one
messed up company.
He stepped down onto the top rung and then hesitated,
his skin still red from the last unknown he'd
stepped into. He didn't want to drown any more than
he'd wanted to get baked alive.
Ah, screw it, won't know 'til you try.
Again, point taken. Steve climbed down the ladder,
and when he stepped off, he triggered a pressure plate in
the floor of the sub. Above him, the hatch closed. He
quickly stepped on it again, and the hatch reopened. It
was good to know he wouldn't suffocate, at least.
The interior of the submarine was very plain, maybe
as big as a large bathroom, bisected by the narrow ladder.
There was a small padded bench on one side, the
rear of the sub, and a simple control console in front.
"Let's see what we got here," Steve muttered, stepping
up to the controls. They were ridiculously simple, a
single lever with two settings - the handle was currently
next to the upper setting, marked "main." The lower setting
was marked "transport," and Steve grinned, amazed
that it could be this easy. Talk about user-friendly.
He tapped the pressure plate again, sealing the hatch,
wondering if Claire would be impressed by his discovery
as he pulled the lever down. He heard a soft metallic
fhunk and then the submarine was moving, descending.
There was a single porthole, but it was too dark to see
anything besides a few rising bubbles.
The anticlimactic ride was over in about ten seconds.
The sub seemed to stop moving, and he heard a sharper
metallic sound coming from the hatch, like it was brushing
against something - definitely not an underwater
sound.
Onward and upward. The hatch opened as he started
to climb the ladder, gun firmly in hand ... and he
stepped out onto a metal platform walled in glass or
plexi, surrounded by black water on either side. There
were a few steps leading down to a well-lit hallway,
where only the left-hand wall was made out of water.
Yees. It was like the displays at some aquariums,
where you could go through an underwater tunnel, look
at the fish. He'd never liked those things, finding it way
too easy to imagine the glass breaking just as a shark decided
to cruise by ... or something worse.
Enough of that. Steve stepped down into the hall and
followed it around two bends, deliberately staring
straight ahead. It was the first time since the attack on
the island that he'd felt really nervous - not so much
claustrophobia as a kind of primal fear, that something
would come flashing out of the dark water toward the
glass, an animal or something else - a pale hand, perhaps,
or maybe a dead, white face pressing against the
window, smiling at him...
He couldn't help it. He broke into a run, and when the
corridor met a door that apparently led away from the
water room, he called himself pussy but was vastly relieved,
anyway.
He pushed the door open - and saw two, three...
... four zombies in all, and all of them suddenly quite eager
for his company. Each of them turned and began to limp
or stagger toward him, the rags of their clothing - Umbrella
uniforms, no question - hanging from their outstretched
arms. There was a smell like dead fish.
"Unnnh," one of them moaned, and the others chimed
in, the wails strangely gentle in a way, kind of sad and
lost-sounding. Considering what Umbrella had put him
through, he didn't feel a whole lot of sympathy. None,
in fact.
The room was half-split by a wall, the three zombies
on the left unable to see the lone ranger on the
right ... though maybe they could, he thought, peering
closer. Each of the trio had eyes that seemed to glow, a
strange dark red. They reminded him of a movie he'd
seen once, about a man with super X-ray vision, who
saw all kinds of shit.
Guess we'll never know what they see. Steve took aim
at the nearest, closed one eye, and bam, right through
the ol' frontal lobe, a clean hole appearing in its graygreen
forehead like magic. The creature's red eyes
seemed to fade and go out as it dropped, first to its
knees, then flat down on its face, sploosh. Gross.
The zombie's comrades took no notice, kept coming.
The lone ranger's progress had been stopped by a desk;
he continued to walk anyway, apparently not noticing
that he wasn't going anywhere.
Steve took out the next in line same as the first, a one
shot kill, but for some reason, he didn't feel all that great
about it. Shooting them down like that. It hadn't bothered
him before, back at the prison - then it had felt
good, powerful even; he'd been stuck in that hellhole for
long enough to be pretty righteously pissed, and having
some control again had been like Christmas, like a great,
big, Christmas present that some little kid had been
waiting for all year, like he used to wait...
Shut up. Steve didn't want to think about it, it was
bullshit. So he didn't feel like clapping every time he
wasted another one of them, so what? All it meant was
that he was getting bored.
He hurriedly shot the last two, the shots seeming
louder than before, practically deafening. A quick look
around for anything useful - if paper clips and dirty old
coffee mugs were useful, he was sitting pretty - and he
was ready to move on. There were two doors on the
back wall, one on either side of the room; he picked left
on general principles. He'd read somewhere that when
given a choice, most people picked right.
After checking his ammo, he walked past a big,
empty fish tank that dominated the left side of the room
and cautiously pushed the door open, taking in as much
as he could in a single glance. Dark, cavernous, smells
of salt water and oil, nothing moving. He stepped inside,
sweeping with the Luger...
... and laughed out loud, a rash of pure joy washing
through his system as his laugh echoed back at him. It
was a seaplane hangar, and there was one big-ass seaplane
sitting right in front of him. Big to him, anyway,
he'd mostly flown in a little twin-engine private plane.
Thoroughly pleased, Steve walked toward the plane,
which sat just below the mesh platform under his feet.
He was an inexperienced pilot, but figured he probably
knew enough not to crash the thing.
First things first, board her and check fuel, general
condition, learn the controls...
He stopped at the edge of the platform and looked
down, frowning. He was at least ten feet above the front
hatch, which looked to be locked down tight.
There was a bank of machinery to his left, a few panels
lit up. Steve walked over and looked at them, smiling
when he saw a control to power up the boarding lift. The
system should also open the plane door, according to the
tiny diagram.
"Presto," he said, flipping the switch. A loud and grating
mechanical noise bellowed through the giant hangar,
making him wince, but it stopped after a few seconds, as
a two-man lift slid to a halt at the platform's edge.
He stepped onto the lift, studied the standing control
panel - and started to curse, every bad word he could
think of, twice. Next to a trio of hexagonally shaped
spaces were the words, "insert proof keys here." No
keys, no power.
They could be anywhere on the whole goddamn island!
And what are the chances that all goddamn three
of them will be goddamn together?
He took a deep breath, made himself calm down a little,
and spent the next few minutes figuring out how the
plane's controls were hooked up to the rest of the system,
looking for a way to bypass the keys. And after a
careful, thoughtful deliberation, he started cursing
again. When he finally got tired of that, he resigned
himself to the inevitable.
Steve turned around and started to search the area,
peering into every dark crevice, formulating theories
about where the proof keys might be as he ran his hands
over the greasy, dust-slimed machinery cabinets - and
he decided that he was definitely going to dance all over
the bones of the next Umbrella employee he gunned
down, just for working at such an unnecessarily complicated
place. Keys and emblems and proofs and submarines;
it was a wonder they ever got shit done.
The virus carrier was wearing a lab coat and its lower
jaw had fallen off somewhere, or been broken off; it gurgled
and spluttered horribly, its wormy tongue flopping
limply across its neck. Claire couldn't tell if it had been
a man or woman, although she supposed it didn't really
matter. As pitiful as it was revolting, she put it out of its
misery with a single shot to the temple and then
searched the area - working laboratory office, small inventory
room - before stepping back into the hall, discouraged
at her overwhelming lack of success.
The entrance she'd walked back to from the mansion
had opened up into a reasonably big courtyard, hard
packed dirt and totally utilitarian - more like the prison
than the palace, although even after searching a few
rooms, she still couldn't figure out where she was, exactly;
some kind of testing facility, maybe, or a training
ground for guards or soldiers.
Maybe just a building designed to destroy hope, she
thought blackly, looking toward the front door. She'd
walked in maybe ten minutes ago, hoping that Rodrigo
wasn't already dead, that Steve had found a boat, that
Mr. Psycho Ashford and his sister weren't planning to
blow up the island - and in just ten minutes, those hopes
had been thoroughly stomped on. All she really wanted
now was a goddamn bottle of medicine, because then
she'd be one step closer to leaving.
She'd tried the upstairs first, undergoing an exciting little
adventure that had shaved a few years off her age. All
she'd found up there was a small, locked lab with a lot of
broken glass on the floor, from what appeared to be ruptured
holding tanks. She'd seen the damage through an
observation window, and had been about to leave when
some poor, bloody guy in an environmental suit threw
himself at the glass. It had been his dying act; the suit obviously
hadn't done him much good, his head had practically
exploded, coating the inside of his helmet with gore.
It hadn't done her heart much good, either, scaring her
half to death, and the whole upstairs experience had been
topped off by an emergency shutter lockdown, apparently
triggered by the suit guy. She'd practically had to hurl
herself down the stairs to avoid being trapped.
Whee.
Nine zombies she'd had to put down so far, three of
them in lab coats or scrubs, and not even a cotton swab
to show for it. Nothing in the locker room - and she'd
looked through practically every damned one of the
lockers, turning up jockstraps and porn, but little else,
nothing in the odd little shower room, zip and zilch.
She'd have thought that a pharmaceutical company
might actually have a few Pharmaceuticals lying
around, but it was looking more doubtful by the moment.
Claire walked back to the long hall that branched off
from the building's first floor, that opened into an outdoor
courtyard. She'd hoped to find something for Rodrigo
without having to leave the building proper, but
there was no help for it.
If I get lost, I can just follow the trail of corpses back,
she thought, walking quickly down the nondescript corridor.
Not funny, but she wasn't feeling all that politically
correct at the moment. She was starting to run low
on ammo, too, which made her even less inclined to a
positive frame of mind.
She stepped from the relative warmth of the hall into
the mist-cloaked courtyard, smells of the ocean permeating
the cold gray night. A small fire burned against
one wall. The whole Rockfort facility was strangely laid
out, she thought, an unlike mix of new and old. Inefficient,
but interesting; the little courtyard was actually
cobblestoned, definitely not a recent addition...
Claire froze. The narrow red beam of a laser scope
sliced through the mist in front of her, swept toward her
from somewhere above. A low balcony to her right, the
stairs for it set against the east wall.
Stairs, cover!
It was all she had time to think before the little red dot
was stuttering across her chest. She threw herself out of
the way as the first shot blasted through the cold air,
burying itself in a miniature fountain of stone chips.
She rolled to her feet and sprinted for the stairs, the
red light jerking back and forth, trying to find her. Bam,
a second shot, it missed but was close enough that she
could actually hear it cutting through the air, a highpitched
buzzing sound. She caught a glimpse of the
shooter just before ducking behind the low stone
balustrade, not surprised at all to see slicked-back blond
hair and a red jacket trimmed in gold.
She was more angry than scared, that after all she'd
been through, she hadn't been more careful - and that
she'd almost been taken out by such a weird little elitist
creep.
That stops right now. Claire raised her handgun over
the stone railing and fired off two rounds in Alfred's
general direction. She was immediately rewarded with a
cry of shocked outrage. Not so much fun when the peasants
fire back, is it?
Ready to capitalize on his surprise, Claire scrambled
up three steps and risked a look over the rail - just in
time to see him run through a door on the west wall,
slamming it behind him.
She leaped up the stairs and took off after him, banging
through the door and down a moonlit hall, shafts of
cool light gently piercing the shadows. It wasn't a conscious
decision to pursue him, she just did it, not wanting
to stumble into any more of his ambushes. She could
see what looked like a soda machine at the end of hall,
could still hear his running footsteps...
... and heard a door slam just before she reached the
corridor's end, a small room with two decrepit vending
machines and two doors to choose between.
Claire hesitated, looking at either door - and then put
her hands on her knees to catch her breath, giving up the
chase. For all she knew, he was standing on the other side
of one of those doors, just waiting for her to walk through.
Score one for the nutcase. Not a big victory, anyway.
With any luck, she'd be off the island soon, Alfred Ashford
just another bad memory.
After a moment she straightened, walking over to
check out the vending machines - one for snacks, the
other, beverages. She suddenly realized she was ravenous,
and incredibly thirsty. When was the last time she ate?
The machines were both broken, but a couple of
good, solid kicks circumvented the problem nicely;
most of it was crap, but there were several bags of
mixed nuts and a few cans of orange juice. Not exactly a
steak dinner, but considering the circumstances, a bountiful
harvest anyway. She ate quickly, stuffing a few unopened
bags in her vest pockets for later, feeling more
focused almost immediately.
So... door number one, or door number two? Eenymeeny-
miney-mo... The gray door, to the right of the
corridor. She doubted that Alfred had the patience to
still be waiting, but edged up to the door carefully just in
case, pushing it open with the barrel of the 9mm.
Claire relaxed. A small, cozy room, couple of
couches, an antique typewriter on a table, a large, dusty
trunk in one corner. It seemed safe enough; Alfred must
have gone through door number one. She stepped inside
to search it, drawn toward a small heap of miscellaneous
objects on one of the couches - and her breath caught in
her throat, her eyes widening.
Thank you, Alfred!
Someone had dumped the contents of a fanny pack on
the couch, the pack itself crumpled next to the pile, which
included two sterile needles and a syringe, a pack of
waterproof matches, half a box of 9mm rounds - and a
small, half-filled bottle of the same hemostatic stuff
Rodrigo had been out of, exactly what she'd been looking
for. There were a few other odds and ends in the makeshift
survival kit, a pen, a small flat screwdriver, a foil-wrapped
condom ... at the last, she rolled her eyes, grinning. Interesting,
what some people considered absolute necessities.
Her grin faded when she noticed the blood stains on the
pack, but she still felt better than she had in days.
She reloaded the pack and strapped it low around her
hips, transferring a few things over from her own woefully
tight pockets. She could hardly believe her luck.
The medicine was what she'd been most worried about,
but it was also an incredible relief to find more ammo.
Even a single clip's worth was a godsend.
A search of the rest of the room yielded up nothing
more, not that she minded. She felt like the end was in
sight, an end to this terrible and horrific night.
Get back to the prison, give the drugs to Rodrigo,
then see if Steve's had any luck wrangling us a ride
home, she thought happily, stepping out of the room. It
had been a hard ride, but compared to Raccoon, this was
a picnic...
The heavy rattle of the closing shutter whipped her
around, the moment of happiness blown as the corridor,
her exit, was blocked off with a thundering crash.
No! Claire ran to the metal shutter, banged it once with
her fist, already knowing that there was no chance. She
was sealed in, the only possibility of escape now the one
door she hadn't yet tried. The one Alfred had fled through.
"Welcome, Claire," a voice called out, as snotty and
pretentious as she remembered, with the same snide undertone
as before. There was an intercom box above one
of the vending machines, in the upper corner of the room.
Howdy, Alfred, she thought dismally, unwilling to
give him the satisfaction of her anger or fear. The whole
compound was probably wired up for sound, she'd been
stupid not to think of it, and just because she didn't see a
camera, that didn't mean there wasn't one.
"You're about to enter a special playground, of sorts,"
Alfred continued, "and there's a friend of mine I'd like
very much for you to meet; I think you'll play well together."
Fantastic, can't wait.
"Don't die too soon, Claire. I want to enjoy this."
He laughed, that insane, annoying, distinctly unnatural
giggle of his, and then he was gone.
Claire stared blankly at the door she was supposed to
go through, considering her options. It was probably the
best thing Chris had ever taught her, that there were always
options; they might all totally suck, but there was
always a choice, regardless, and thinking over her alternatives
now had a calming effect.
I can hide in the safe room, live on snack food and pop
while I wait for Umbrella to show up. I can sit here and
pray that some friendly party will miraculously come to
my rescue. I can try to get through the steel shutter, or
through one of the walls ... with that screwdriver and
some elbow grease, I can probably break out in about
10,000 years. I can kill myself. Or I can walk through Alfred'splay
ground door, see what there is to see.
There were a number of variations, but she thought
that basically summed things up ... and only one of
them made any sense.
Technically, none of them makes sense! Part of her
howled. I should be in my dorm room, eating cold pizza
and cramming for some test!
Objection noted, she thought dryly, reaching into her
new pack for a full clip, tucking another in her bra for
fast access. Time to see what Alfred and his underlings
had been up to out here, see if Umbrella had finally
come up with a formula for the perfect bio-organic warrior.
Claire stepped up to the door and paused, wondering
if she should go into battle with some profound thought
about her life, or love, wondering if she was ready to
die ... and decided that she could worry about all that
stuff later. If there wasn't a later, she wouldn't have to
worry about it, would she?
"Boy, am I smart," she murmured, and pushed the
door open before she could lose her nerve.
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