not from one so far beneath her. Claire nodded slowly, still looking into her eyes boldly, impertinently. 'Alexia … where's your brother?' Alexia turned to look at Alfred and startled, because he was nowhere in the room. He'd left her to confront these people by herself. No, it can't be, he'd never desert me like this… Movement to her right, but she realized as she
turned to look that it was only the mirror, and… and… Alfred was looking back at her. It was her face, lips painted and lashes curled, but his hair, his jacket. She raised her right hand to her mouth, shocked, and Alfred did the same, watching her. Feeling her astonishment. As if they were one. Alexia screamed, dropping the rifle, forgetting all about the two trespassers as she pushed past them, not caring if they shot her or not. She ran for the door that connected her room to Alfred's, screaming again as she spotted the long, blond wig on the floor, the beautiful gown crumpled next to it. Weeping, she pushed through the door, a revolving panel, fleeing across Alfred's room –
my room
– not sure where she was going as she stumbled through the corridor, running for the stairs. It was over, it was all over, everything ruined, everything a lie. Alexia had gone away and never come back, and he had … she was… The twins suddenly knew what had to be done, the answer shining through the spinning blackness of their mind, showing them the way. They reached the stairs and headed down with plans forming, understanding that it was time, that they truly would be together now because it was finally time. But first, they'd destroy it all. 'Holy shit,' Steve said, and when he couldn't think of anything else to say, he repeated it. 'So Alexia was never here,' Claire said, wearing the same dumbfounded expression that he suspected was on his own face. She walked over and picked up the wig, shaking her head. 'Do you think she ever existed at all?' 'Maybe as a kid,' Steve said. 'There was this older guard at the prison who said he'd seen her once, like twenty years ago. Back when Alexander Ashford ran things.' For a few seconds, they just stared around the room, Steve thinking about how Alfred had looked when he'd seen himself in the mirror. It had been so pathetic, he'd almost felt bad for the guy.
Thinking all this time that his sister lived here probably the only person in the world who didn't think he was a total prick and it turns out he doesn 't even have that…
Claire shook herself like she'd had a sudden chill and got them back on track. 'We'd better look for those keys before one of the twins comes back.'
She nodded toward the narrow ladder at the head of the bed. It led up to an open square in the ceiling. 'I'm
going to look up there, you check around here.'
Steve nodded, and as Claire disappeared through the opening in the ceiling, he started to open drawers and rifle through them. 'You wouldn't believe what's up here,' Claire called down, just as Steve discovered a drawer full of silky lingerie, panties and bras and a bunch of other stuff he couldn't begin to guess at. 'Ditto,' he called back, wondering what lengths Alfred had gone to in order to play Alexia. He decided he didn't really want to know. He heard Claire thumping around overhead as he went to the dressing table and started to dig. A lot of makeup and perfume and jewelry, but no proofs or emblems, not even a house key.
'Nothing yet, but … hey, there's another ladder!'
Claire shouted. Good thing, Steve thought, finding a box of stationery with little white flowers on the paper. He was getting more nervous about Alfred coming back, and wanted to get out of his freaky room of sister psychosis as soon as possible. There was a tiny white card on top of the stationery envelopes. Steve picked it up, noting the strong, feminine hand.
Dearest Alfred you are the brave, brilliant soldier, ever fighting to reinstate the Ashford name to its former glory. My thoughts are with you always, beloved. Alexia.
Ick. Steve dropped the card, making a face. Was it just him, or had Alfred created a seriously unnatural relationship with his imagined sister?
Yeah, but it wasn't real, it wasn't like they could do anything … physical. Double ick. Again, Steve decided he'd rather not know…
'Steve! Steve, I think I found them! I'm coming down!'
Overwhelmed by an instant rash of hope and optimism, 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 announcement 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 female, the voice of a recorded loop.
'The self-destruct system has been activated. All personnel 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 Detainment 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 console. 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 perhaps 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 disappear, 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 defining their sly and furtive scheming. No. There was no chance for them. True, the empty cargo plane was still docked, the bridge raised, but Alfred 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 console, 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 intelligent enough to follow directions, provided they were simple, provided one pointed it the right way. 'You won't escape!' Alexia shouted, laughing, twirling around in joy and victory … and after a moment, Alfred joined in, unable to deny how deeply, wonderfully 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 continuous 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.
