And he was sorry.
"Don't worry, I got it this time," she said, determined not to cry. "You get the next one, okay?"
Steve nodded, sitting back on his heels to look at her.
"I will," he said, so vehemently that she had to smile. "Cool," she said, and crawled to her feet, reaching down to help him up. "That'll save me some work. Now let's go catch a 'cat, yes?"
Supporting each other and staying close for warmth,
they made their way to the stairs, neither of them willing
to let go.
TWELVE
ALEXIA ASHFORD WATCHED HER TWIN DIE AT
her feet, bleeding and in great pain, reaching out to touch
the stasis tank with adoration in his dying eyes. He'd never
been particularly bright or competent, but she had loved
him, very much. His death was a great sadness ... but also
the sign she'd been waiting for. It was time to come out.
She'd known for some months that the end would be
soon - or rather the beginning, the emergence of a new
life on Earth. Her stasis had remained stable for most of
the fifteen years she'd needed, her mind and body un-
aware of life - unaware that she was suspended in freez-
ing amniotic fluid, her cells slowly changing and
adapting to T-Veronica.
In the past year, however, that had changed. She had
hypothesized that given enough time, T-Veronica would
raise consciousness to new levels, expanding areas of
the mind that would surpass simplistic human senses,
and she had been correct. For the last ten months, she
had begun experiencing herself in spite of stasis, testing
her awareness ... and she had been able to see through
her human eyes, when she wished.
Alexia reached out with her mind and turned off the
support machines. The tank began to drain, and she
stared out at her dear brother, most unhappy that he had
died. She could choose not to employ her emotions, but
she had been human with him; it seemed appropriate.
When the tank was empty, Alexia opened it, stepping
out into her new world. There was power everywhere,
hers for the taking, but now she sat down in front of the
tank and laid Alfred's bloody head in her lap, experienc-
ing the sadness.
She began to sing, a child's song that her brother had
liked, stroking his hair back from his drawn face. There
was sadness in the lines around his eyes and mouth, and
she wondered what his life had been like. She wondered
if he'd stayed at Rockfort, stayed at Veronica's home,
the home of their ancestors.
Still singing, Alexia reached out to her father - and
was surprised to find him missing, either dead or beyond
her range of perception. She had touched his mind only
recently, studying what was left of it. In a way, he was re-
sponsible for what she had become; the T-Veronica had
turned his mind to sludge, had driven him insane ... as it
would have to her, if she hadn't tested it on him, first.
She stretched her awareness, finding sickness and death in the upper levels of the terminal. A pity. She had
been looking forward to beginning her experiments
again, immediately; without test subjects, she had no
reason to stay.
She found two people not far from the Umbrella facil-
ity and decided to flex her control over substance, to see
how much effort it took - and found that it was hardly
an effort at all. She concentrated for just a few seconds,
saw a male and female inside of a snow machine, and
wished for them to be brought back to the facility.
Instantly, lines of organic matter tore through the ice,
ripping toward the vehicle. Amused, Alexia watched
with her senses as a giant tentacle of new-formed sub-
stance rose up and curled around the machine, lifting it
effortlessly into the air - and then threw it back at the
facility. The machine tumbled end over end, its engine
bursting into flame, and came to rest against one of the
Umbrella buildings.
Both were still alive, she thought, and was well
pleased. She could use one of them in an experiment
she'd been thinking about for weeks, and would surely
find a good use for the other in due time.
Alexia continued to sing to her dead brother, in-
trigued by the changes she could see coming, looking
forward to gaining a fuller mastery of her new powers.
She stroked his hair, dreaming.
THIRTEEN
THINGS FELL TO SHIT PRETTY FAST WHEN HE
finally reached the island.
Chris stood at the top of the cliff in the early night,
catching his breath and soundly cursing himself. Every-
thing had been in that bag - weapons and ammo, rap-
pelling equipment so they could get back down to the
boat, flashlight, a basic first-aid kit, everything.
Not everything. You 've still got three grenades on your
belt, his mind told him brightly. Terrific. Halfway up the cliff he loses his grip and drops the bag into the deep
blue sea, but it appeared he still had his sense of humor.
Yeah, that'll go a long way toward saving Claire's
life. Barry was right. I should have brought backup.
Well. He could stand around all goddamn day wish-
ing things were different, or he could get moving; he
picked moving.
Chris hunched over and stepped into the low cave en-
trance he'd chosen to start at, an isolated area but defi-
nitely connected to the rest of the compound - there was
a radio antenna on the ledge outside, and when he
straightened up a few steps later, he was inside a large,
open room, the walls and ceiling organic but the floor carefully leveled.
There was light somewhere ahead, and Chris started
for it, keeping his fingers crossed that he wasn't about to
walk into an Umbrella Military dinner. He doubted it.
From what he'd seen of the island, the attack Claire had
mentioned had been excessively brutal.
He was less than a dozen steps into the shadowy
chamber when a small tremor shook the cave, spilling
rock dust and pebbles over his head - and closing the
cave entrance he'd just walked through, collapsing rock
having a fairly distinctive sound. It seemed the island at-
tack had made things a bit unstable.
"Oh, wonderful," he muttered, but was suddenly a bit happier about the grenades. Not that they would help
much here. Even if he could blow the mouth without
bringing all of it down, it was still too high to jump, and
the rope had been in the bag; unless she'd been taking
lessons, Claire wasn't a good enough rock climber to go
down unassisted...
"What?" someone rasped, and Chris dropped into a defensive crouch, searching the shadows...
... and saw a man on the cave floor, slumped against
the wall. He wore a tattered white T-shirt with blood on
it, his pants and boots military - he was one of Um-
brella's, and not in very good shape. Nevertheless, Chris
stepped quickly to his side, ready to kick the shit out of
him if he so much as sneezed.
"I didn't know anyone was still around," the man said weakly, and coughed a little. "Thought I was the last one ... after the self-destruct."
He coughed again, obviously not far away from
death. His words sank in, creating a lead ball in Chris's
stomach. Self-destruct?
He crouched down, trying to keep his voice level.
"I'm here looking for a girl, her name is Claire Redfield.
Do you know where she is?"
At the sound of Claire's name, the man smiled, though
not at Chris. "An angel. She's gone, escaped. I helped her ... let her go. She tried to save me, but it was too late."
Hope bloomed anew. "Are you sure she got away?" The dying man nodded. "Heard the planes leave. Saw a jet come out of the basement, under the..." a cough, "... the tank. You should go, too. Nothing left here."
Chris could feel some of his stress and fear ebbing
away, tensions in his neck and back releasing. If she was
gone, she was safe.
"Thank you for helping her," he said sincerely. "What's your name?"
"Raval. Rodrigo Raval."
"I'm Claire's brother, Chris," he said. "Let me help you, Rodrigo, it's the least I can do and..."
Eeaaaaaaa!
A deafening animal cry filled the cave, and at the same
instant, another tremor struck, a bad one, the ground
shaking so hard that Chris was thrown off his feet...
... and earth erupted, what Chris thought was an explo-
sion at first, a fountain of dirt and rock spraying upward,
but it kept rising, and Chris could see thick, filth-coated
slime beneath it, could smell sulfur and decay, saw a huge
cylinder made of rubber still climbing -
- and then it shrieked again, the top of the cylinder
twisting around, wormy tentacles peeling back from a
yawning, howling throat, and Chris scrambled to his
feet, grabbing a grenade from his belt...
... and the giant, shrieking snake-worm came crash-
ing down, mouth open...
... and swallowed Rodrigo whole before slamming
into the sandy soil where he'd been sitting. It dove into
the ground like a swimmer into water, its impossibly
long body arching over, following through.
Jesus!
Chris stumbled away as the ground continued to
quake, the burrowing creature kicking up rock and dirt
and sand all around him, and he realized that he had to
kill it or get away fast, that it could easily come up be-
neath him for another quick snack.
He ran to the outer wall of the cave, making a split
second plan as the snake-worm burst up through the
ground behind him, its insane mouth peeling open as it
hesitated at the top of its arch, ready to plunge down
over him, rocks falling all around -
- and Chris pulled the safety ring off the grenade,
stripping the tape and pin away, and ran, straight for the
creature's lower body where it emerged from the ground.
Crazy, this is crazy...
He ducked just before hitting the filthy, muscular
body and set the grenade on the ground in front of it, on
the run, as careful as he could be not to set it off - and
then dived for cover behind the snake-worm's twisting
body, tucking into a shoulder roll, covering his head as
the animal started downward, shrieking...
... and BOOM, the explosion shook the ground even
harder than the animal had, the shriek cut off, the
grenade blast muffled by a half ton of worm guts that
shot out in all directions, stinking and warm, painting
the walls of the cave hi viscous bucket loads.
Chris rolled on his back, drenched, watched the front
half of the animal convulse and writhe, already dead - and
as its muscles and reflexes clenched and released for the
last time, the snake-worm expelled a gush of stomach acid
and rock from its gaping maw, vomiting out its last meal.
Rodrigo!
Before the massive corpse had completely settled to
the ground, Chris was at Rodrigo's side, horrified and
helpless, the man seizing in shock and pain. He was
coated in yellow bile, and Chris could see places where
it had already burned through his skin.
Rodrigo let out a soft cry, too weak to scream in what
had to be incredible pain, and Chris tore his own jacket
off, wiping his face clean of the sticky, acidic fluid.
"You're going to be okay, just relax, don't try to talk,"
Chris said, fully aware that Rodrigo would be dead in
minutes, perhaps seconds. He kept talking, kept his tone
soothing in spite of his own dismay.
Rodrigo opened his eyes, and though they were full
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