ResidentEvil-Nemesis [Chapter: 17]

SEVENTEEN

AFTER TRACKING HIM FOR NEARLY HALF AN

hour, Nicholai found Dr. Richard Aquino on the fourth

floor of Raccoon City's largest hospital. Seeing the

Watchdog made Nicholai happy in a way he couldn't explain,

not even to himself. A sense that all was right with

the world, that things were unfolding as they should...

... with me on top, making the decisions. In a moment

there will only be three left, three little doggies for

me to hunt in the land of the walking dead, he thought

dreamily. Does it get any better than this?

Aquino was just locking a door behind him, a look

of sweaty fear on his pallid face as his gaze darted

around nervously. He pocketed his keys and turned toward

the hallway that led back to the elevator, pushing

his smudged glasses to the bridge of his nose. Nicholai

was amused to note that he wasn't even armed.

Nicholai stepped half out of the shadows, planning

to enjoy himself. After Nicholai had spent over an hour

getting to the hospital, jogging most of the way, the

mousy Dr. Aquino had had the nerve to try and hide

from him - although looking at him now, Nicholai

thought it was more likely that the scientist hadn't

even known that he was being hunted and had eluded

Nicholai by pure accident. Aquino looked like the kind

of man who could get lost in his own backyard; even

now, the "watchdog" didn't realize that he wasn't

alone anymore, that Nicholai was only three meters

away.

"Doctor!" Nicholai called loudly, and Aquino

jumped around, gasping, involuntarily waving his

hands in front of him; his surprise was absolute.

Nicholai couldn't help a slight smile.

"Who, who are you?" Aquino stammered. He had

watery blue eyes and a bad haircut.

Nicholai stepped closer, deliberately intimidating the

scientist with his size. "I'm with Umbrella. I came to

see how you were progressing with the vaccine

among other things."

"With Umbrella? I didn't - what vaccine, I don't

know what you're talking about."

No weapon, no physical skills, and he can't tell a lie

without blushing. He must be brilliant.

Nicholai lowered his voice conspiratorially. "Operation

Watchdog sent me, Doctor. You haven't filed a details

report lately. They've been worried about you."

Aquino seemed on the verge of collapsing with relief.

"Oh, if you know about ... I thought you were...

... yes, the vaccine, I've been very busy; my, ah, contact

wanted the initial synthesis broken down into stages, so

there isn't an actual mixed sample cultivated, but I can

assure you that it's only a matter of combining elements,

everything's ready." The doctor practically babbled

in his effort to submit.

Nicholai shook his head in mock wonder, playing his

part. "And you've done this all yourself?"

Aquino smiled weakly. "With help from my assistant,

Douglas, God rest his soul. I'm afraid that I've

been running a bit ragged since his death, day before

yesterday. That's why I've been remiss in my reports..."

He trailed off, then attempted another smile.

"So ... you're the one they sent to pick up the sample

- Franklin, isn't it?"

Nicholai couldn't believe his own luck, or Aquino's

naivete; the man was about to turn over the only

TGViral antidote in existence, and all because Nicholai

had said that Umbrella sent him. And now another one

of his targets would be showing up...

"Yes, that's right," Nicholai said smoothly. "Ken

Franklin. Where is the vaccine, Doctor?"

Aquino rumbled for his keys. "In here. I was just

hiding it - the vaccine base, I mean, we've kept the

medium separate - I hid it in here for safekeeping, until

you arrived. I thought you were supposed to come in

tomorrow night ... no, the night after, you're much

earlier than I expected."

He opened the door and gestured inside. "There's a

refrigerated wall safe behind that rather tacky landscape

- a recent addition by a wealthy patient, an eccentric

as I understand it, not that that's important..."

Nicholai stepped past the driveling doctor, tuning

him out, still feeling dumbfounded that Aquino had

been selected as a Watchdog, when he suddenly realized

that he'd allowed the scientist to get behind him.

It all came together in that instant, a complete scenario

in Nicholai's mind - the stupid, gossiping science

nerd, putting his enemies at ease, capitalizing on their

underestimation of his abilities...

The awareness took only a fraction of a second, and

then Nicholai was moving.

He dropped to his knees and swung his arms around,

grabbing Aquino's calves and following through, literally

sweeping him off his feet.

Aquino yelped and collapsed on top of Nicholai. A

syringe clattered to the floor and Aquino lunged after it,

but Nicholai still held his bony legs. The doctor had no

muscle to speak of. In fact, Nicholai found it quite easy

to hold the flailing doctor with one arm while reaching

for the knife sheathed in his boot with his other.

Nicholai sat up, jerked Aquino closer, and stabbed

him in the throat.

Aquino put his hands to his neck as Nicholai withdrew

the blade, staring at his killer with wide, shocked

eyes, blood pouring over his fingers as his heart continued

its work.

Nicholai stared back at him, grinning and pitiless.

Aquino had been slated to die, anyway, and that he'd

attacked Nicholai only made his death a pleasure, in

addition to its being a necessity.

The scientist finally fell over, still clutching his bubbling

throat, and lost consciousness. He died quickly

after that, a final spasm and he was gone.

"Better you than me," Nicholai said. He searched the

cooling body and found several more syringes and a

four-digit code on a slip of paper - undoubtedly the

wall safe's combination. Aquino obviously hadn't expected

Nicholai to be around to steal the vaccine.

Nicholai stood and walked to the safe, revising his

plans as he always tried to do after any unexpected occurrence.

Aquino had been expecting Ken Franklin to

pick up the sample, which meant that Franklin would

be putting in an appearance, unless the doctor had been

lying. Nicholai didn't think so. Aquino had been so

convincing because he had been telling the truth, an excellent

technique to distract one's opponent...

... so I synthesize the vaccine, maybe enjoy some

hunting while I wait for Sergeant Franklin to show up,

get rid of him - and then destroy the hospital, Aquino's

research along with it. If Umbrella's watching, they'll

think everything is going according to plan. After that,

there's only Chan and the factory worker, Terence Foster...

To hell with Mikhail and the other two, they weren't

important anymore. As the soon-to-be only surviving

Watchdog with information to sell, Nicholai would be

worth millions. But with the TG vaccine in hand, there

was no limit to what Umbrella might pay.

By the time they reached the building's back rooms,

Jill was almost ready to admit defeat. They'd been

everywhere, picking locks, slogging through each tastefully

furnished room, stepping over corpses and creating

a few new ones. A broken picture window outside

the tower's chapel had allowed several carriers to get

in, and they'd come across another viral spider in the

hallway just past the library.

Along the way, she told Carlos a little about the

mansion and grounds of the Spencer estate, history that

she had dug up after the S.T.A.R.S.'s disastrous mission.

Old man Spencer, one of Umbrella's founders,

had been a fanatic for secret hiding places and hidden

passages and had hired George Trevor, an architect

renowned for his creativity, to design the mansion and

to help renovate a few of the town's historical landmarks,

tying parts of Raccoon to Spencer's spy fantasies.

"This was all thirty years ago," Jill said, "and the old

man was completely crazy by then, so the story goes.

As soon as everything was finished, he boarded up the

mansion and moved Umbrella's headquarters to Europe."

"What happened to George Trevor?" Carlos asked.

They stopped outside yet another door, what had to be

one of the last rooms.

"Oh, that's the best part," Jill said. "He disappeared

just before Spencer skipped town. No one ever saw him

again."

Carlos shook his head slowly. "This is one nut job of

a place to live, you know that?"

Jill nodded, pushing open the door and stepping

back, revolver up. "Yeah, I've been thinking that myself."

Nothing was moving. Stacks of chairs to the right.

Three statues, busts of women, straight in front of

them. There were two corpses huddled together to the

left of the door, a couple, holding each other, making

Jill wince and look away - and there, hanging on the

southern wall in heavy gold frames, were the three

clock paintings.

They walked into the room, Jill nervously studying

their surroundings. It seemed normal...

... but so did that room in the mansion that turned

out to be a giant trash compactor. On impulse, Jill

stepped back and used one of the chairs to prop the

door open before going to take a closer look at the

paintings.

Well, kind of paintings. She supposed technically

they'd be called mixed media. The three pieces were of

women, one on each canvas, but each also contained an

octagonal clock - the first and last set at midnight, the

one in the middle at five o'clock. A small, bowl-like

tray protruded from the bottom of each frame. They

were labeled as the goddesses of the past, present, and

future, from left to right.

"On the postcard, it said something about putting

your hands together," Carlos said. "That's like the clock

hands, right?"

Jill nodded. "Yeah, makes sense. It's just obscure

enough to be annoying."

She reached forward and lightly touched the tray on

the middle frame, a dancing woman. There was a tiny

click and the tray dipped like a scale, the weight of her

hand pushing it down. At the same time, the hands of

the clock started to spin.

Jill jerked her hand back, afraid that she'd set something

off, and the clock hands quickly spun back to

their previous settings. Nothing else happened.

"Hands together...," she murmured. "Do you think

they mean that all of the clocks have to be set for the

same time? Or do they mean literally, the hands

aligned?"

Carlos shrugged and reached out to touch the tray of

the future goddess, definitely the creepiest of the paintings.

The past was a young girl sitting on a hill, the

present a dancing woman ... and the goddess of the future

was the figure of a woman in a slinky cocktail

dress, her body enticingly posed, but with the bald,

grinning face of a skeleton.

Jill suppressed a shudder and didn't let any thoughts

get started on the theme of imminent death, like I don't

have enough of that already.

The tray Carlos touched dipped down, but again, it

was the hands on the clock of the present goddess that

moved. Apparently, the other two were fixed at midnight.

Jill stepped back from the wall, arms folded, thinking

- and suddenly she had it, she knew how the puzzle

worked, if not the exact solution. She turned around,

hoping that the missing pieces were nearby, and she

smiled when she saw the three statues - ah, the symmetry

- and the shining objects they held in their slender

stone fingers.

"It's a balancing puzzle," Jill said, walking to the

statues. At closer inspection, she saw that each held a

tray with a single, fist-sized stone. She picked them up,

hefting each orb, noting the different weights.

"Three balls, three trays," she continued, walking

back to the pictures, handing the black stone - made

from obsidian or onyx, she wasn't sure to Carlos. Another

was clear crystal, the third a glowing amber.

"And the goal is to make the middle clock hit midnight,"

Carlos said, catching on.

Jill nodded. "I'm sure there's a motif to the solution,

a color match, like black for death, maybe ... or

maybe it's mathematical. It doesn't matter, it won't

take that long to try all of the combinations."

They set to work, trying each ball on one painting at

a time, then using them all, Jill carefully studying the

present clock's hand movements with each placement.

It appeared that the different balls held different values,

depending on which tray they were in. Jill was just

starting to feel like she could figure it out - it was definitely

mathematical - when they lucked across the solution.

With crystal in the past, obsidian in the present, and

amber in the future, the clock in the middle struck midnight,

chiming softly. The minute hand started to move

backwards with a clattering sound - and then the face

of the clock itself fell from the picture, pushed out by

some machinery that Jill couldn't see. In the revealed

hollow was the glittering gold cog that had been missing

from the tower's bell mechanism.

Sneaky, you pricks, but not sneaky enough.

Carlos was frowning, his expression openly confused.

"What the hell is all this, anyway? Who would

hide the gear at all, and why in such a complicated

way?"

Jill plucked the shining gear from its hiding place,

remembering her own thoughts on that exact subject

only six weeks before, standing in the dark halls of

Spencer's mansion. Why, why such elaborate secrecy?

The files Trent had given her just before the estate mission

had been full of clues to the mansion's puzzles,

lucky for her; without those, she might never have gotten

out. Most of the bizarre little mechanisms had been

much too intricate to be practical, time-wise or functionally.

What was the point?

After giving it a lot of thought, Jill had finally concluded

that Umbrella's real board of directors, the ones

no one knew about, were paranoid fanatics. They were

self-involved children, playing secret agent games and

betting with other people's lives, because they could.

Because no one had ever explained to them that hiding

toys and making treasure maps was something people

outgrew.

Because no one has stopped them. Yet.

Suddenly eager to wrap it all up, to place the gear

and ring the bell and just leave, Jill phrased it much

more simply to Carlos. "They're wacko, that's why.

One-hundred-percent grade-A jacked-up batshit. You

ready to get out of here, or what?"

Carlos nodded somberly, and after a final look

around the room, they headed back out the way they'd

come.