down!"
Overwhelmed by an instant rash of hope and opti-
mism, Steve grinned, turning toward the ladder, the
words music to his ears. "No shit?"
Claire's shapely legs appeared, her voice much clearer,
and he could hear the same excitement in her response as
she quickly descended. "No shit. There was this little merry-go-round up there, and an attic room above that -
- oh, and you gotta check out this dragonfly key..."
An alarm suddenly started blaring, echoing through
the giant house, loud and insistent. Claire jumped off the
bed, holding three proof keys and a slender metal object
in her hand. They locked gazes, exchanging a look of
confused fear, and Steve realized he could hear the alarm
outside, too, with the hollow, metallic sound of an an-
nouncement being made over a cheap sound system. It
sounded like it was being broadcast over the entire island. Before either of them could say a word, a calm voice
began speaking through the bleating sirens, cool and fe-
male, the voice of a recorded loop.
"The self-destruct system has been activated. All per-
sonnel evacuate immediately. The self-destruct system
has been activated. All personnel..."
"That bastard," Claire spat, and Steve was right there with her, silently cursing the pompous little freak, but
only for about two seconds. They had to get to that plane.
"Go," Steve said, scooping up Alfred's rifle and putting his hand on Claire's back, urging her toward the
door. Umbrella's Rockfort Training Facility and Detain-
ment Center - the place where Steve had grieved his
mother and lost his father, where the last descendant of
the Ashford line had quietly gone mad and Umbrella's
enemies had unleashed the beginning of the end - was
about to go bye-bye, and he didn't particularly want to
be around when it did.
Claire didn't need any advice on the matter. Together,
they hustled through the door and ran, leaving the sad
remnants of Alfred's twisted fantasy behind.
After triggering the destruct sequence at the common
mansion, Alfred and Alexia hurried to the main control
room, Alexia taking over to work the complicated con-
sole. All around them, lights flashed and the computer
droned instructions over the sirens. It was all quite the
ado, annoying to her but surely terrifying to the assassins.
Alexia had an escape plan, a key to the underground
room where the VTOL jets were kept, but she had to
know that the peasant children would be left behind.
Until she was certain that they would die, she and Alfred
couldn't leave.
Oh, they'll die, she thought, smiling, hoping that they weren't caught in any of the direct explosions. Better that
they should be wounded by flying debris, that they should
lie in torment as their lives slowly ebbed away... or per-
haps the island's surviving predators would stalk and kill
them, swallowing them down in great bloody chunks.
Alexia pulled up the security system cameras for the
common mansion and grounds, eager to see Claire and
her little knight cowering in fear, or screaming in panic.
She saw neither; the mansion was empty, the lights and
sounds of the imminent disaster carrying on uselessly,
alerting bare corridors and closed rooms.
They might still be in our home, too afraid to leave,
desperately hoping that the destruction will bypass them
there... It wouldn't, of course, there was nowhere on the island that wouldn't be affected...
Alexia saw them then and felt her good humor disap-
pear, her hatred boiling back into rage. The screen
showed them at the submarine dock, the boy spinning the wheel. The sky was starting to lighten, shading from
black to deep blue, the setting moon's pale light defin-
ing their sly and furtive scheming.
No. There was no chance for them. True, the empty
cargo plane was still docked, the bridge raised, but Al-
fred had thrown the proofs into the sea after the air strike.
They couldn't possibly believe that they had a chance...
... except they were in my private rooms.
"No!" Alexia shrieked, pounding her fist on the con- sole, furious. She would not have it, would not! She'd
kill them herself, claw their eyes out, tear them up!
There's the Tyrant, Alfred whispered in her ear. Alexia's rage turned to passion, to exhilaration. Yes!
Yes, there was the Tyrant, still in stasis! And it was in-
telligent enough to follow directions, provided they
were simple, provided one pointed it the right way.
"You won't escape!" Alexia shouted, laughing, twirl- ing around in joy and victory ... and after a moment,
Alfred joined in, unable to deny how deeply, wonder-
fully satisfying it was going to be, as the computer
changed its tune and began the final countdown.
Their run to the plane was a blur - a mad dash out of
the Ashfords' terrible home and down the rain-slick hill,
to the mansion and down stairs, down more stairs to a
tiny dock where Steve called up the submarine. Every
step of the way, the alarms drove them faster, the contin-
uous vocal loop reminding them of the obvious.
Just as they were climbing out of the sub, the bland
female voice stopped repeating itself and began a new
message - and though the words weren't exactly the
same, Claire had a sudden vivid memory of Raccoon, of
standing on a subway platform as another self-destruct
loop had announced that the end was near.
"The self-destruct sequence is now active. There are
five minutes until initial detonation."
"Well, that blows," Steve said, the first thing he'd said since they'd left the private mansion. And in spite of her
fear that they wouldn't make it in time, in spite of her
exhaustion and the horrible memories she knew she'd be
taking away with her, Steve's deadpan utterance struck
her as hilarious.
It does blow, doesn't it?
Claire started laughing, and though she tried to put an
immediate stop to it, she couldn't quite manage. It
seemed that even imminent death couldn't stop the gig-gles. That, or hysteria had turned out to be a lot funnier
than she would have expected ... and the look on
Steve's face wasn't helping.
Hysterical or not, she knew they had to move. "Go," she choked, motioning him forward.
Still looking at her as though she'd lost her mind, Steve grabbed her arm and pulled her along with him. After a
few stumbling steps - and the realization that her laugh-
ing fit might kill them both - Claire got hold of herself.
"I'm okay," she said, breathing deep, and Steve let her go, a look of relief crossing his pale face.
They ran down some stairs and through a kind of un-
derwater tunnel, and as they reached the door at its end,
the computer informed them that another minute had
passed, that they had only four left. If there'd been any
chance that she might start laughing again, that killed it.
Steve pushed the door open and jogged left, both of
them leap-frogging over a trio of dead bodies, all virus
carriers, all in Umbrella uniforms. Claire thought of
Rodrigo suddenly, and her heart twisted. She hoped that
he'd be safe where he was, or that he was well enough
to get away from the compound ... but she couldn't kid
herself about his chances. She silently wished him luck
and then let it go, following Steve through another door.
Their journey had ended in a huge, dark, metal-lined
cavern, a hanger for seaplanes, and their hope of escape
was sitting right in front of them - a smallish cargo
plane floating just beneath the grid platform they were
on. Not far to the right, blue predawn light defined the
giant gateway that opened into the sea.
"Over here," Steve said, and hurried toward a small lift at the edge of the platform, one with a standing con-
trol board. Claire joined him, fumbling the three em-
blem proofs out of her pack.
"The self-destruct sequence is now active. There are
three minutes until initial detonation."
The control board had a panel on top with three inset
hexagonal spaces. Steve grabbed two of the proofs and
together, they pressed all three of them home.
Oh, man, please please please...
There was an audible click and the panel's switches
lit up, a deep hum coming from the body of the standing
machinery. Steve laughed, and Claire realized she'd
been holding her breath when she was suddenly able to
breathe again.
"Hang on," Steve said, and swiped his hand over the panel, flipping them all over.
With a small jerk, the lift began to lower at an angle,
as the plane's rounded side door opened, folding down
to create a stepladder. Claire felt like it was all happen-
ing in slow motion, a kind of unreality to it as the lift met
the base of the steps, jerking again to a stop; it was hard
to believe that it was finally happening, that they were
actually going to make it off Umbrella's cursed island.
To hell with believing it, just go!
They boarded the plane, Steve running forward to get
it flight ready while Claire quickly checked out the rest of it - a large, mostly empty cargo area constituted the
bulk of the plane, sealed off from the cockpit by a
soundproof metal hatch. There weren't any creature
comforts beyond a closet with a port-o-john behind the
pilot's seat, but there was a footlocker at the rear of the
cockpit that contained two plastic gallon jugs of water,
much to Claire's relief.
Though muffled, they could still hear the recording
resonating through the hanger as Steve found the controls
for the door, the hatch lifting and sealing as the count-
down went to two minutes. Claire hurried to his side, her
heart really starting to pound; two minutes was nothing.
She wanted to help, to ask what she could do, but
Steve's full concentration was on the instrument panel.
She remembered what he'd said about "iffy" flying
skills, but since she didn't have any at all, she wasn't
complaining. The seconds ticked past and she had to
force herself not to start babbling nervously, not to do
anything that might distract him.
The plane's engines had been rumbling, the sound
getting steadily louder and higher-pitched, Claire's
nerves tightening to match - and when the dreaded
computer female spoke up again, Claire found herself
gripping the back of Steve's chair, her knuckles white.
"There is now one minute until initial detonation.
59 ... 58 ... 57 ..."
What if it's too complicated, what if he can't do it?
Claire thought, fairly certain she was about to explode.
"44... 43..."
Steve straightened abruptly, grabbing a gear shift-look-
ing thing to his right and nudging it forward before plac-
ing his hands on the yoke. The engine sounds got much
louder, and slowly, very slowly, the plane started to move.
"You ready yet?" he asked, a grin in his voice, and Claire nearly collapsed with relief, her knees weak
with it.
"30 ... 29 ... 28 ..."
The plane edged forward beneath a low metal bridge,
close enough to the door now that she could see small
waves breaking against the metal siding. There was a loud
thump overhead, as though the bridge had scraped the top
of the plane, but they kept moving, slow and steady.
"17 ... 16..."
As Steve steered into the open water, the countdown
reached ten ... and then was too far away to be heard,
as the engines got impossibly louder and they picked up
speed, the smooth ride turning bumpy as they started to
run over the waves. There was just enough light in the
sky now for Claire to see the island's shore off to their
right, rocky and treacherous. There were low cliffs bor-
dering much of Rockfort, rising up out of the water like rough fortress walls.
Right before Steve started to pull back on die yoke, to
lift the speeding plane up and away, Claire saw the first
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