JILL SLID TO A STOP AT THE CITY HALL GATE, both gems held tightly in one sweaty hand. The area was clear, at least as far as she could see, but the restaurant had been empty, the Nemesis gone, and that meant she needed to hurry; she didn't know how, but it was tracking her, and she wanted to get gone. Her blurred dash through the alleyways behind the restaurant had left her short of breath and not a little frightened. She'd nearly tripped over the body of some unlikely creature, one she'd been unable to see in the deepening blackness - but the dark silhouette of multi-ple claws hanging dead in the shadows had been more than enough to keep her moving. It didn't look like anything she'd seen before; that, and the threat of the Nemesis's inevitable pursuit had her hi a mild panic. She used it to lend speed to her efforts, careful to main-tain tight control. She knew from experience that keep-ing in touch with one's animal instincts was a vital part of surviving; a little fear was a good thing, it kept the adrenaline flowing. The ornamental clock was set into a raised dais next to the gate. She fumbled the blue jewel into place, the diamond-shaped glass setting off a faint electrical hum, a circular chain of lights that bordered the jewels flick-ering on. The green diamond went in just as easily, turning the light chain into a complete circle. There was a heavy grinding sound and the gate's two sets of doors slid open, revealing a shadowy path surrounded by overgrown hedges. It didn't look bad from where she stood. She eased into the silent walk, opening her senses. Cool, dark, a mild breeze promising rain the only thing that moved, rustling the trees, brushing leaves, chilling the sweat on her face and arms. She could hear the soft wailing of a distant virus-zombie drift through the air, and she saw the pale smudges of early moonlight on the path stones. Alert but sensing no immediate danger, she stepped further inside, her thoughts turning to Carlos Oliveira. He was telling the truth about being one of Umbrella's hired hands and probably about not knowing what the company was really up to, but he was also holding something back. He wasn't as good a liar as he thought, and his apparent willingness to lie didn't bode well. On the other hand, he didn't come across as devious in any way - a liar who meant well, perhaps, or at least who didn't mean any harm. He was probably just being careful - doing exactly what she was doing. Whatever the case, she didn't have time to do any major interpret-ing, so she was going with her first impression: he was one of the good guys. Whether or not that would be of any help to her was another story; for the moment, she was willing to settle for any ally who didn't have plans to kill her.
But should I be hooking up with anyone? What hap-pens if he gets in the way of the Nemesis, and...
As if on cue she heard it, a malevolent coincidence that seemed unreal, like some deadly joke. "Sstaarrss..." Speak of the devil, oh, shit, where is it? Jill was al-most at the center of the small park, where three trails intersected, and the sound came from somewhere ahead - or was it behind? The acoustics were strange, the tiny courtyard just in front of her making the low, hissing cry seem to come from everywhere. She spun, searching, but the path behind her and the two that stretched away from the open yard disappeared into shadow. Which way... She stepped lightly into the open space, giving herself greater access to escape and room to maneuver, if it came to that. A solid, heavy footstep. Another. Jill cocked her head and there, ahead and to the left, the path that led to the trolley. A thickening darkness, still just out of clear sight.
Go back, newspaper office or back to the station, no, no way I can outrun it but there's the gas station, it has a metal lock-down shutter and there's a shitload of cars, the better to hide...
Ahead and to the right. A simple plan was better than none, and she'd run out of time to consider her options any further. Jill took off, the light patter of her boots lost beneath a sudden clash of motion, the rising howl and dense tread of semisynthetic feet bearing down on the court-yard. She was deeply conscious of herself, of her mus-cles contracting, of the sounds of her heart and breath as she flew over the stones. In an instant, she was at the small gate that led further north, that would take her down a block packed with abandoned cars, past a gas station/repair shop, toward... She couldn't remember. If the street was clear, she could head through the industrial section of town, hope that she didn't run into any of the zombie packs. If blockades had been put up -
- then I'm screwed, and it's too late anyway.
She let her well-trained body do the rest of her think-ing, nimbly slipping through the gate and into a crouch-ing run, carrying her into the relative safety of a maze of gridlocked cars and trucks. She could feel it coming, and she allowed herself to flow into the shadows, to find in herself some primal understanding of her place in the hunt. She was the prey, she had to be as elusive as the Nemesis was determined; if she did it right, she would survive and the creature would go hungry. If
not...No time, no more thinking. The Nemesis was com-ing. Jill moved.
In the parking garage's office, Carlos found a halfcase of bottled water, some duct tape, and a men'sdress shirt still in its package - as close to sterile sup-plies as they were going to get. He immediately set todoing what he could for Mikhail while Nicholai keptwatch, staring out at the broken automobiles in thedark, rifle in hand. The courtyard was silent except forMikhail's harsh breathing and the lonely cry of a dis-tant crow.Carlos didn't know much beyond simple triage, buthe thought the wound wasn't too bad; the bullet hadgone clean through Mikhail's side, not far above hisleft hip bone; an inch or two closer in and hewould've been toast, a shot to the liver or kidneys hisdeath warrant. As it was, his lower intestine hadprobably been pierced; it would kill him eventually,but with prompt medical attention, he should be okayfor now.Carlos cleaned and dressed the wound, taping com-presses on, wrapping strips of the shirt aroundMikhail's torso to keep the pressure up. The platoonleader seemed to be managing the pain well enough,though he was nauseous and dizzy from loss of blood.Out of the corner of his eye, Carlos noticed thatNicholai was moving. He finished layering tape overthe bandages and looked up, saw that the squad leaderhad taken a laptop computer out of his shoulder bagand was tapping at keys, his face a study in concentra-tion. He'd slung his rifle and was crouched next to asmashed pickup truck."Sir - ah, Nicholai, I'm done here," Carlos said,standing. Mikhail had insisted that they drop the for-malities of rank, pointing out that their situation de-manded flexibility. Carlos had agreed, though he hadn'tgotten the impression that Nicholai liked it much; heseemed to be a by-the-book type.Mikhail, pale and bleary-eyed, pushed himself up onhis elbows. "Any way you can use that thing to call forevac?" His voice was weak.Nicholai shook his head, sighing. He closed the lap-top and returned it to his bag. "I found it at the policestation and thought it might be of some use - lists ofblockades, perhaps, or more information about this.disaster."No luck?" Mikhail asked.Nicholai moved toward them, his expression re-signed. "No. I think our best option is to try and make
it to the clock tower."
Carlos frowned. Trent had told him there was sup-posed to be a supply of weapons at a clock tower, and that he should head north from there; between Jill's westbound cable car and this new information, he was starting to feel plagued by coincidences. "Why the clock tower?" Mikhail answered, speaking softly. "Evacuation. It's where we were supposed to take the civilians and signal the transports to come in. The clock tower bells are scheduled to toll by computer, a system that emits a beacon signal when the program is being used. We ring the bells, the 'copters come. Cute, huh?"
Carlos wondered why no one had bothered to in-clude that little nugget of information in their briefing but decided not to ask. It didn't really matter at this point; they had to get to the trolley. He didn't know Nicholai well, but Mikhail Victor was no threat, not in his condition, and he needed to get to a hospital. Trent had said there was one not far from the clock tower.
But Umbrella's eyes and ears...
No. Their stories were the same as his; they'd fought and watched their teammates die, gotten lost, looked for a way out and ended up here. It just felt weird, sud-denly having two more people involved. Trent had him questioning everyone's motives now, wondering who might be involved in the alleged Umbrella conspiracy, worrying about what he could and couldn't say.
Besides, Umbrella screwed them over, too. Why would they want to help the bastards who landed us in this shit? Trent may be telling the truth, but he's not here. They are, and I need them. We need them. Jill couldn't possibly object to having a few soldiers on her side.
"There's a cable car we can use to get out there," Carlos said. "Right to the clock tower, I think. It's close, it runs west... and with all those things out there looking for fresh meat..." "We could use a ride out of town," Nicholai broke in, nodding. "Assuming the tracks are clear. Wonderful. Are you sure it's in operating condition?" Carlos hesitated, then shrugged. "I haven't actually seen it. I ran into a... cop, I guess, a woman, she told me about it. She was on her way there, to see, she said she'd wait for me. I wanted to see if I could find any-one before we left." He felt almost guilty telling them about her, and abruptly he realized that he was letting all of Trent's crazy spy crap get to him. Why keep Jill a secret? Who cared? Mikhail and Nicholai exchanged a look and then both nodded. Carlos was glad. At last, a real plan, a course of action. The only thing worse than being in deep shit was being in deep shit with no direction. "Let's go," Nicholai said. "Mikhail, are you ready?" Mikhail nodded, and together, Carlos and Nicholai lifted him, supporting his weight as evenly as they could. They edged into the parking garage and had al-most made it back to the office when Nicholai let out a mild curse and stopped. "What?" Mikhail closed his eyes, breathing deeply. "The explosives," Nicholai said. "I can't believe I forgot why I even came back this way. After I found Mikhail, I just..." "Explosives?" Carlos asked. "Yes. Just after the zombies attacked, and my squad" - Nicholai swallowed, obviously struggling to maintain his composure -"after the zombies at-tacked, I ended up near a construction site, back in the industrial area. A building was being torn down, I think, and I saw a few discarded boxes with high ex-plosive warnings. There was a locked trailer, I was going to break in but another wave of them came after me." He met Carlos's gaze squarely. "They'd think twice about attacking in groups if we had a few RDX dyna-mite mixes to throw at them. Do you think you can make it to the trolley without me? I can meet you there." "I don't think we should split up," Mikhail said. "We stand a better chance if..." "If we have a way to keep them from getting too close," Nicholai interjected. "We can't afford to run out of ammo, not without something else to back us up. And there are the others to consider, the creatures..."
Carlos didn't think splitting up was such a good idea, either, but remembering that clawed thing from outside the restaurant
- and what about that big feon inside the restau-rant? Jill said it would be coming after her again... "Yeah, okay," Carlos said. "We'll wait for you at the cable car." "Good. I won't be long." Without another word, Nicholai turned and quickly walked away, out of the garage and into the night. Carlos and the pale Mikhail struggled on in silence. They'd gone back through the office and out into the street before Carlos realized that Nicholai hadn't both-ered asking for directions to the trolley. Nicholai had to resist a powerful urge to check the computer again as soon as he was out of sight; he had wasted enough time playing the upstanding squad leader to the two idiot soldiers. It had already been nineteen minutes since Captain Davis Chan had filed a Watchdog status report from the Umbrella medical sales office - about two blocks from the parking garage - and if Nicholai was very lucky, he might catch Chan still in the act, checking updated memos or trying to get through to one of the administrators. Nicholai jogged down a narrow alley plastered with flyers, hopping over several corpses strewn throughout, careful to avoid their upper bodies in case they weren't dead. Sure enough, one of the blasted-looking things near the end of the alley tried to reach around and grab his left boot. Nicholai jumped it with no trouble, smil-ing a little at its frustrated moan. Almost as pathetic as Mikhail. Carlos Oliveira, though. Tougher than he looked, and definitely brighter - no match for him, of course, but Nicholai would want to get rid of him sooner rather than later...... or not. I could bypass that charade entirely. Nicholai pushed through a metal door to his right, into another alley littered with human remains, con-sidering his options as he hurried along. He didn't need to go to the clock tower for any reason, just the hospital - and he didn't have to take the trolley. Toy-ing with Mikhail and now Carlos was enjoyable, but not a necessity. He could even let them live, if he chose... He grinned, turning a corner in the winding alley-way. What fun would that be? No, he was looking for-ward to watching the trust in their eyes crumble, seeing them realize how stupid they'd been... Tic tic tic. Nicholai froze, understanding the sound instantly. Claws on rock, ahead of him, the almost gentle clatter coming from the shadows above and to the left. The only available light was behind him in the walkway's comer, one of those buzzing fluorescent security lamps that barely had the power to show itself; he backed to-ward it, the tics coming faster and closer, the creature still unseen. "Show yourself, then," he growled, frustrated with yet another instance of bad timing. He had to get to the sales office before Chan disappeared, he didn't have time to battle one of Umbrella's freaks, much as he wanted to. Tic tic tic. Two of them! He could hear claws scratching cement to his right, where he'd just been, even as an unholy shriek sounded from the dark in front of him, a sound like madness, like souls being ripped apart...
... and there it was, screaming, leaping from the dark as the other joined in its monstrous song, moving black hell in stereo. Nicholai saw the raised hook claws of the one in front of him, the snapping, dripping mandibles, the gleaming insectile eyes, and knew the other was only a second behind its sibling, preparing to jump even as the first landed. Nicholai opened up, the rattle of automatic fire lost beneath the twin howls, the rounds finding their mark on the first, its scream changing as it shuddered to a stop barely three meters away - and, still firing, Nicholai crouched and fell backwards, rolling up on his right side in a single fluid motion. The second charging animal was less than two meters away when he hit it, bloody divots appearing in its shining black exoskele-ton like flowers in explosive bloom. Like the first, it twitched and spasmed to a halt before collapsing, its shrill cry becoming a gurgle, becoming silence. Nicholai got to his feet, unnerved, not sure of the species - either brain sucker or the more amphibious deimos, another multi-legged breed. He'd expected the viciousness and the attack method, but hadn't under-stood how fast they were.
If I'd been even a second later...
No time to consider it, he was in a hurry. He edged forward, quickly stepping over the dark, oozing sprawl of limbs, breaking into a run as soon as he was past. With each step away from the dead creatures he felt his composure returning, felt a flush of accomplish-ment warm him from the inside out. They were fast, but he was faster - and with such monsters loose in the city, he wouldn't have to worry about Mikhail or Carlos or anyone escaping what they were due. If he didn't get to enjoy the pleasure himself, he could revel in the knowledge that his comrades would certainly fall prey to any one of a dozen horrors, their inadequate reflexes failing them, their lack of skills ensuring their doom. Nicholai tightened his grip on the M16, a rush of ela-tion adding spring to each agile step. Raccoon was no place for the weak. He had nothing to fear.
