Carlos was feeling hopeful as they staggered into the
station yard lit by an expanse of merrily burning debris
to one side - no zombies, no monsters, and Mikhail
didn't seem to be getting any worse. The City Hall gate
had been open, a dozen jewels set into a kind of clock
on a nearby pedestal, which meant Jill had already
gone through. Carlos had expected her to make it, but it
was still a relief.
"There it is," Mikhail said, and Carlos nodded, squinting as a gust of foul-smelling smoke washed over
them. To their right was a grand old building, either the trolley station or the alleged City Hall. In front of them,
past a stack of crates that blocked their path, was an
old-fashioned trolley car, its red paint slightly faded. As
they got closer, Carlos could see that a second car was
attached, most of it hidden in the shadow of a building
overhang.
Jill was probably waiting in one of them. Carlos
shoved a few of the crates aside with one hip, Mikhail
steadying himself against the station wall.
"Almost there," Carlos said.
Mikhail smiled weakly. "Bet you'll be glad to dump my ass into a seat."
"Be gladder to sit my own ass down. One-way ticket
outta here."
Mikhail actually managed a laugh. "I heard that." They moved beneath the overhang, Carlos searching
the windows of both cars for movement. He didn't see
anything; worse, he didn't feel anything. The place
seemed totally deserted, still and lifeless.
Hope you 're taking a nap in there, Jill Valentine.
The sliding side door of the first car they reached
was locked; to their mutual relief, the second wasn't.
After giving the car a once-over to be certain it was
empty, Carlos helped Mikhail aboard, getting him set-
tled into a window bench seat. As soon as the platoon
leader was lying down, he seemed to fall into a half
swoon.
"I'm going to check out the second car, then see
what I can do to get a few lights on in here," Carlos said. Mikhail grunted in response.
Not surprisingly, Jill wasn't in the other car, either,
but Carlos did find the electrical controls next to the
driver's seat. At the touch of a button, a row of over-
head lights switched on, illuminating an aging wood
floor and red vinyl padded seats lining both walls.
"Where are you, Jill?" Carlos muttered, feeling real worry for her. If something had happened, he was
going to feel at least partly responsible for not accom-
panying her back to the restaurant.
Mikhail was barely conscious when Carlos checked
on him, but it was more like sleep than coma. Until a
doctor looked at the wound, rest was probably the best
thing for him.
There was an open control panel at the back of the
car, which Carlos knelt to examine. His heart dropped
when he saw that it was part of the primary power setup
and that a few parts had been removed. He didn't know
anything about cable cars, but it didn't take a genius to
understand that you couldn't run a machine when the
wires had been pulled, particularly on such an ancient system. It looked like there was a missing fuse, too.
"Hijo de la chingada," he whispered and heard a feeble laugh behind him.
"I know just enough Spanish to know you shouldn't
kiss your mother with that mouth," Mikhail said. "What's wrong?"
"There's a fuse missing," Carlos said. "And these cir-cuits have got to be shorted out. We'll have to bypass
them if we want to get this thing moving."
"Just northeast of here...," Mikhail started, but he had to pause for a few breaths before going on.
"There's a gas station. Repair shop. It was one of the
landmarks on the city map, it's suburbs past that.
Probably have equipment there."
Carlos thought about it. He didn't want to leave
Mikhail alone, and Jill or Nicholai could show up any
minute...
... but we ain 't going no place without a power cable and a high amp fuse, and Mikhail's on a downhill
slide; what choice have I got?
"Yeah, okay," Carlos said lightly, walking over to Mikhail. He gazed down at him, concerned about the
high color of his cheeks, the waxy pallor of his brow.
"Guess I'll go check that out - wanna come with?"
"Ha ha," Mikhail whispered. "Be careful."
Carlos nodded. "Try to get some sleep. If anyone shows up, tell them I'll be right back."
Mikhail was already slipping back into a doze.
"Sure," he mumbled.
Carlos checked Mikhail's rifle to make sure it was
loaded, and he placed it next to the padded bench,
within easy reach. He hunted around for something else
to say, some words of reassurance, and finally just
turned and walked to the exit. Mikhail wasn't stupid, he
knew what the stakes were.
His life, among other things.
Carlos took a deep breath and opened the door, pray-
ing that the gas station wasn't too far away.
Chan was gone, and not only was there no way to
tell where he was headed but Nicholai had missed him
by bare minutes. The computer he'd apparently made
his report from was still warm, the glass of the monitor
crackling with static electricity. Nicholai impulsively
scooped up the monitor and threw it across the room,
but wasn't satisfied with its mundane explosion of
cheap plastic casing and glass. He wanted blood. If
Chan came back to the office, Nicholai would beat him
severely before ending his life.
He paced the small, heavily littered office, fuming.
He teases me with his ignorance. He is so stupid, so
oblivious, how can he be so inferior and still be alive?
Nicholai knew that the thought wasn't strictly rational,
but he was furious with Chan. Davis Chan didn't de-
serve to be a Watchdog, he didn't deserve to live.
Gradually, Nicholai took hold of himself, breathing
deeply, forcing himself to count to a hundred by twos. It
was still early in the game. Besides, Nicholai's plan de-
pended on having information that Umbrella wanted
and if he meant to steal that information, he had to
allow some time for the other Watchdogs to collect it.
The daily field reports were a bare summary of condi-
tions and body count, used as much as a check-in as
anything else; the real stuff was being stored on disk,
transcribed from found documents or picked out of
someone else's files, only downloaded by cell if the
Watchdog considered it of critical importance.
And ... while I'm waiting, I can check in with my
comrades at the trolley.
Nicholai stopped pacing, struck by the realization
that he had truly enjoyed his deception of Carlos and
Mikhail. Somehow, that there were two of them had
turned it into a more exciting game. Would they suspect
him? What were they saying about his sudden depar-
ture? What did they think of him?
And what would it be like to witness Mikhail's slow,
excruciating loss of life, watch him lose his capacity for
reason as the young protagonist Carlos vainly strug-
gles to beat the odds? Nicholai could disable the bell mechanism once they reached the clock tower ... per-
haps bravely volunteer to seek out the hospital, to bring
back supplies...
Nicholai laughed suddenly, a harsh barking sound in
the stillness of the room. He had to kill Dr. Aquino
the scientist who was supposed to report in from the
hospital, the one working with the vaccine anyway,
and he knew that Aquino had been ordered to see to the
hospital's destruction before leaving Raccoon, to elimi-
nate trace evidence from his research. And there was
also a specific species of organic stored at the hospital
that Umbrella had decided to abandon, the Hunter
Gamma series, so blowing up the hospital meant two
objectives met for the price of one.
It seemed that the HGs weren't cost effective, al-
though there had been serious disagreement within the
administration about whether or not to destroy the pro-
totypes. If Nicholai could lure Carlos into combat with
one of them, he would have some valuable information
of his own to sell ... and he, too, would be meeting
more than one objective with a single action.
It all came together, there was a kind of symmetry to it all. He'd drop me entire scheme if anything went
wrong, of course, or if he found it wouldn't mesh with
his plans. He wasn't an idiot, but having a project to
fill his downtime would keep him from becoming
overly frustrated.
Nicholai turned and started for the door, amused by
his own indulgence. Raccoon City was like some
haunted kingdom where he was ruler, able to do as he
wished - anything he wished. Lie, murder, bathe in the
glory of another man's defeat. It was all his for the tak-
ing, and with a payoff at the end.
He felt like himself again. It was time to play.
THIRTEEN
JILL HAD FINALLY DECIDED TO OPEN THE
metal shutter and make a break for it when she heard
shots outside, the high-pitched chatter of an assault
rifle. To say she was relieved was an understatement;
the relentless thumping of the mostly dead outside had
been eating at her nerves, almost tempting her to shoot
herself, just so she wouldn't have to hear it anymore -
- and now, in a matter of seconds, it was quiet once
again.
She moved quickly to the side door in the garage,
ducking beneath a disemboweled red compact on a lift
and pressing her ear to the cold metal. All was silent,
the virus carriers surely dead...
Bam-bam-bam!
Jill jerked back as someone hammered on the door,
her heart keeping time.
"Hey, is somebody in there? The zombies are dead,
you can open up now!"
No mistaking the accent; it was Carlos Oliveira. Re-
lieved, Jill turned the lock, announcing herself as she
threw the door open.
"Carlos, it's Jill Valentine."
She was happy to see him, but the look on his face
was so sincerely elated that she felt almost shy sud-
denly. She moved back from the door so he could step
inside.
"I'm so glad you're okay, when you weren't at the
trolley, I thought..." Carlos trailed off, his "thought" obvious enough. "Anyway, it's really good to see you again."
His apparently serious concern for her was a sur-
prise, and she was uncertain how to respond - irrita-
tion, that she was being patronized? She didn't feel
irritated. Having someone interested in her well-being,
particularly considering the kind of chaos they were in,
was - well, kind of nice.
The fact that that someone is tall, dark, and hand-
some isn't such a terrible thing, either, hmm? Jill in-stantly clamped down on the thought, cutting it short.
True or not, they were in a survival situation; they
could make eyes at each other later, if they made it out
alive.
Carlos didn't seem to notice her slight discomfort.
"So, what are you doing here?"
Jill gave him a half smile. "I got sidetracked. Don't suppose you saw Frankenstein's monster wandering
around out there?"
Carlos frowned. "You saw him again?"
"Not him, it. It's called a Tyrant, if it's what I think it
is - or some variation, anyway. Bio-synthetic, ex-
tremely strong, and very hard to kill. And it appears
Umbrella figured out how to program it for a specific
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