He was through the door and gone before she could
say anything. Dumbfounded and thoroughly annoyed,
she watched the door settle closed, wondering how
he had survived so far. His attitude suggested that he
thought this was just one big video game, where he
couldn't possibly get hurt or killed. It appeared that
sheer bravado counted for something ... the one thing
teenaged boys seemed to have in abundance.
That and testosterone.
If being perceived as cool was his main concern, he
wasn't going to make it very far. She had to go after
him, she couldn't leave him to die...
Arroooooooo...
The terrible, lonely, ferocious sound that suddenly
shattered the still night was one she'd heard before, in
Raccoon City, and it was coming from behind the door
that Steve had just gone through. There was no mistak-
ing it for anything else. A dog, infected by the T-virus,
turned from a domestic animal into a ruthless killer.
After a fast search of the dead guards in the court-
yard, she had two more full clips and part of a third. As
ready as she was going to get, Claire took a few deep
breaths and then slowly pushed the door open with the
9mm's barrel, hoping that Steve Burnside would stay
lucky until she found him ... and that by meeting him,
her own luck hadn't just taken a serious turn for the
worse.
THREE
AS TERRIBLE AND DISHEARTENING AS THE DE-
struction to Rockfort, Alfred couldn't deny that he en-
joyed putting down a few of his subordinates on the way
to the training facility's main control room. He'd had no
idea how gratifying it could be to see them sick and
dying, reaching for him in hunger - the same men who'd
sneered at him behind his back, who'd called him abnor-
mal, who had pretended allegiance with their fingers
crossed - and then expiring by his hand. There were lis-
tening devices and hidden cameras throughout the com-
pound, installed by his own paranoid father, a hidden
monitor room in the private residence; Alfred had known
all along that he wasn't liked, that the Umbrella employ-
ees feared but didn't respect him as he deserved.
And now...
Now it didn't matter, he thought, smiling, stepping out of the elevator to see John Barton at the other end of
the hall, staggering toward him with outstretched arms.
Barton had been responsible for training Umbrella's
growing militia in small arms, at least at the Rockfort
compound, and had been a loud, vulgar barbarian
swaggering around with his cheap cigars, flexing his
ridiculously bloated muscles, always sweating, always
laughing. The pale, blood-drenched creature stumbling
toward him bore little resemblance, but was undoubt-
edly the same man.
"You're not laughing anymore, Mr. Barton," Alfred said rightly, raising his .22 rifle, using the sight to put a
tiny red dot over the trainer's bloodshot left eye. The
drooling, moaning Barton didn't notice...
Bam!
... although he surely would have appreciated Al-
fred's excellent aim and choice of ammunition. The .22
was loaded with safety slugs, rounds designed to spread
out on impact - designated "safe" because the bullet
wouldn't go through the target and injure anyone else.
Alfred's shot obliterated Barton's eye and certainly a
goodly part of his brain, rendering him harmless and
quite dead. The large man crumpled to the floor, a pud-
dle of blood spreading out beneath him.
Some of the BOWs were unnerving to him, and he
was relieved that most had either been locked down in
various parts of the training facility or had been killed
outright - he certainly wouldn't be wandering around if
there were more than a few on the loose, but he didn't
find the virus carriers to be particularly frightening. Al-
fred had seen many men - and a number of women, as
Well - turned into these zombie-like creatures by way of
the T-virus, experiments that he'd witnessed throughout
his childhood, that he'd directed himself as an adult. In
fact, there were never more than fifty or sixty prisoners
living at Rockfort at a time; between Dr. Stoker, the
anatomist and researcher who'd worked at the "infir-
mary," and the constant need for training targets and
spare parts, no one incarcerated at the compound en-
joyed Umbrella's hospitality for more than six months.
And where will we all be six months from now, I
wonder?
Alfred stepped over Barton's swollen corpse, walking
toward the control room to call his Umbrella HQ con-
tacts. Would Umbrella choose to rebuild at Rockfort?
Would he agree to it? He and Alexia had been perfectly
safe from the virus during its "hot" stage, both pathways
between the rest of the facility and their private home
locked down throughout most of the air attack, but
knowing that Umbrella's nameless enemy was willing
to resort to such extreme measures, did he really want to risk refitting a laboratory so near their home? The Ash-
fords feared nothing, but neither were they reckless.
Alexia would never agree to closing the facility, not
now, not when she's so close to her goal...
Alfred stopped in his tracks, staring at the banks of
radio and video equipment, at the blank computer screens
that stared back at him with wide dead eyes. He stared
but didn't see, a strange emptiness opening up inside of
him, confusing him. Where was Alexia? What goal?
Gone. She's gone
It was true, he could feel it in his bones - but how
could she leave him, how could she when she knew that
she was his heart, that he would die without her?
The monstrosity, screaming and blind, a failure and it
was cold, so cold, the queen ant naked, suspended in the
sea and he couldn 't touch her, could only feel the cold
unyielding glass beneath his longing fingers...
Alfred gasped, the nightmare imagery so real, so hor-
rid that he didn't know where he was, didn't know what
he was doing. Distantly, he felt his hands clenching
tighter and tighter around something, the muscles of his
arms shaking...
... and there was a burst of static from the console in
front of him, loud and crackling, and Alfred realized
that somebody was speaking.
"... please, if anyone can hear me - this is Doctor
Mario Tica, in the second floor lab," the voice was say- ing, breaking with fear. "I'm locked in, and all the tanks have gone down, they're waking up ... please, you have
to help me, I'm not infected, I'm in a suit, swear to God,
you gotta get me out of here..."
Dr. Tica, locked in the embryo tank room. Tica, who
had long been sending private reports to Umbrella about
his progress with the Albinoid project, secret reports that
were different than the ones he showed Alfred. Alexia had
suggested that Tica be sent to Dr. Stoker some months
ago ... wouldn't she be amused, to hear him now?
Alfred reached over and turned off Tica's babbling
plea, suddenly feeling much better. Alexia had warned
him time and again about his peculiar episodes, the
flashes of intense loneliness and confusion - stress, she
insisted, telling him that he was not to take them seri-
ously, that she would never leave him voluntarily. She
loved him too much for that.
Thinking of her, thinking of all the trouble and pain
that Umbrella's incompetent defenses had brought about
for them both, Alfred abruptly decided not to place his
uplink call. HQ had certainly heard about the attack by
now, and would be sending a cleanup crew soon enough;
really, there was no need to speak with them ... and be-
sides, they didn't deserve to hear his observations of the situation, to have foreknowledge of the dangers they'd
be facing. He was no employee, no ignorant lackey who
had to report to his superiors. The Ashfords had created
Umbrella; they should be reporting to him.
And I did speak to Jackson only a week ago, about the
Redfield girl...
Alfred felt his eyes widen, his mind working madly.
Claire Redfield, sister to Chris Redfield, he of the meddle-
some S.T.A.R.S. holdouts, had arrived mere hours before
the attack. She had been caught in Paris, inside Umbrella's
HQ Administration building, claiming to be searching for
her brother - and they'd sent her to him, to keep her
locked up while they decided what to do with her.
But ... what if the plan had been to lure her brother
out into the open, to crush his ridiculous insurrection
once and for all, a plan they'd conveniently forgotten to
tell him? And what if she'd been followed to Rockfort
by Redfield and his comrades, her very presence a sig-
nal for them to attack...
... or perhaps even allowed herself to be captured in the first place?
It was as if a puzzle was falling into place. Of course,
of course she had. Clever girl, she'd played her part
well. Whether or not Umbrella had unwittingly encour-
aged the attack didn't matter, not now, he would deal
with them later; what mattered was that the Redfield
witch had brought the enemy to Rockfort, and she might
still be alive, stealing information, spying, perhaps even
planning to, to hurt his Alexia...
"No," he breathed, the fear immediately transforming into fury. Obviously that had been her plan all along, to
do as much damage to Umbrella as possible and Alexia
was undoubtedly the brightest scientific mind working in
bioweapons research, perhaps the brightest in any field.
Claire wouldn't get away with it. He'd find her ... or,
better yet, wait for her to come to him, as she surely
would. He could watch for her, lay in wait like a hunter,
the girl his prey.
And why kill her immediately, when you could have
so much fun with her first? It was Alexia's voice in his thoughts, reminding him of their childhood games, the
pleasure they'd shared in their own experiments, creat-
ing environments of pain, watching things suffer and
die. It had forged the bond between them in steel, to
share such intimate things...
... I can keep her alive, let Alexia play with
her ... or better, I could invent a maze for her, see how
she fares against some of our pets... There were many possibilities. With few exceptions, Alfred could unlock
all the doors on the island by computer; he could easily
lead her wherever he wanted, and kill her at his discre- tion.
Claire Redfield had underestimated him, they all had,
but no more ... and if things worked out the way Alfred
was starting to hope, the day would end on a much hap-
pier note than the dismal discord which had marked its
beginning.
If there were infected dogs roaming the grounds, they
were hiding. The open yard Claire stepped into was lit-
tered with corpses, their flesh a sickly gray beneath the
pale moonlight except for where the countless splashes
of blood had fallen; no dogs, nothing moving except the
low clouds scudding across the thickening night sky.
Claire stood for a moment, watching the shadows, want-
ing to make sure of her surroundings before leaving the
exit behind.
"Steve," she whispered harshly, afraid to shout for fear of what might be lurking. Unfortunately, Steve
Burnside was as scarce as the howling dog she'd heard;
he hadn't just wandered away, it seemed, he'd taken off
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