member, a competition marksman and a serious thorn in Umbrella's side. No way he would have admitted it out loud, but Steve was kind of impressed.
'You might want to tell him that Umbrella's got him under surveillance,' he said, stepping back so she could read what was on the screen. Apparently Redfield was in Paris, though Umbrella hadn't managed to locate his exact whereabouts. Steve was glad that he'd run across a file that meant something to her; a little gratitude from a pretty girl was always a good thing. Claire scanned the info and then tapped a few keys, glancing back at him with a look of relief. 'Thank God for private satellites. I can get through to Leon, he's a friend, he should have hooked up with Chris by now…'
She'd already started typing, absently explaining herself as her fingers moved across the keys. '… there's a
message board we both use … there, see? 'Contact ASAP, the gang's all here.' He posted the night I was caught.'
Steve shrugged, not really interested in the life and times of Claire's pals. 'Go back a file, the longitude and latitude of this rock are written down,' he said, smiling a little. 'Why don't you send your brother directions, let him come save the day?'
He expected another irritated look, but Claire only nodded, her expression dead serious. 'Good idea. I'll say there's been a spill at these coordinates. They'll know what I mean.' She was pretty, all right, but also pretty naive. 'That was a. joke,' he said, shaking his head. They were in the middle of nowhere. She was staring at him. 'Hilarious. I'll tell it to Chris when he shows up.'
Entirely without warning, a fiery rage welled up inside of him, a tornado of anger and despair and a whole bunch of feelings he couldn't even begin to understand. What he did understand was that little Miss Claire was wrong, she was stupid and snotty and wrong.
'Are you kidding? You actually expect him to show, with what's going on here? And look at the coordinates!' The words came out hot and fast and louder than he intended, but he didn't care. 'Don't be such an idiot believe me, you can't depend on people like that, you'll only get hurt in the end, and then you'll have nobody to blame but yourself!'
Now she was looking at him like he'd lost his mind, and on top of his fury came a crushing wave of shame, that he'd freak out for no good reason. He could feel tears threatening, only adding to his humiliation, and there was no way he was going to cry in front of her like some baby, no way. Before she could say anything, he turned and ran, blushing furiously.
'Steve, wait!'
He slammed the office door behind him and kept going, wanting only to get out, to get away, hell with the map, I've got the key, I'll figure something out and I'll kill anything that tries to stop me… Through the long hall, past the dead metal detector and out, his weapon ready, a part of him bitterly disappointed as he ran past the kennel, twice nearly tripping over wet and smoldering body parts there was nothing to shoot, no one to blast into oblivion, to make him stop feeling whatever it was he was feeling. He barreled through the door that came out behind the bunkhouse and started around the long building, sweating, his heart pounding, his thick hair sticking to his scalp in spite of the cold air and he was so focused on
his own strange madness, his need to run, that he didn't see or hear anything coming until it was almost too late. Wham, something hit him from behind, knocking him sprawling. Steve immediately rolled onto his back, a sudden mortal terror blocking out everything else and there were two of them, two of the prison's guard dogs, one of them circling back from having jumped on him, the other growling deep in its throat, its legs stiff and head down as it slowly approached.
Jesus, look at 'em…
They had been rottweilers, but not anymore; they'd been infected, he could see it in their glazed red eyes and dripping muzzles, in the strange new ridges of muscle that flexed and bunched beneath their almost slimylooking coats. And for the first time since the attack, the immensity of Umbrella's craziness their secret experiments, their ridiculous cloak and dagger mentality really hit home. Steve liked dogs, a hell of a lot more than he liked most people, and what had happened to these two poor animals wasn't fair.
Not fair, wrong place at the wrong time, I didn't deserve any of this, I didn 't do anything wrong…
He wasn't even aware that the object of his pity had changed, that he was admitting to himself how shitty things really were, how badly he'd been screwed; he didn't have time to notice. It had been less than a second since he'd rolled onto his back, and the dogs were getting ready to attack. It was over in another second, the time it took to pull the trigger once, pivot, pull it again. Both animals went down instantly, the first taking it in the head, the second, in the chest. The second dog let out a single yip of pain or fear or surprise before it collapsed in the mud, and Steve's hatred for Umbrella multiplied exponentially with that strangled sound, his mind repeating again and again how unfair it all was as he crawled to his feet and broke into a stumbling run. He had the key to the prison gate; he wasn't going to be their captive anymore. Time for a little payback, he thought grimly, suddenly hoping, praying that he crossed paths with one of them, one of the sick, decision-making asshole bastards who worked for Umbrella. Maybe if he got to hear them beg for death, maybe then he'd feel a little better.
FOUR
Chris Redfield AND Barry Burton were reloading rounds in the back room of the Paris safe house, silent and tense, neither of them speaking. It had been a bad ten days, not knowing what had happened to Claire, not knowing if Umbrella still had her alive…
… stop, his inner voice said firmly. She's alive, she has to be. To even entertain the alternative was unthinkable. He'd been telling himself that for ten days, and it was wearing thin. It had been bad enough hearing that she'd been in Raccoon City for the final meltdown, and that she'd gone there looking for him. Leon Kennedy, her young cop friend, had filled him in on the details at their first meeting. She'd survived Raccoon only to be hijacked by Trent on the way to Europe, she and Leon and the three renegade S.T.A.R.S.; they'd ended up facing off with yet another group of Umbrella monsters, at a facility in Utah. Chris hadn't known about any of it, had ignorantly assumed that she was still safely studying away at the University. Hearing that she'd gotten tangled up in the fight against Umbrella was bad, all right but knowing that Umbrella had captured her, that his little sister might already be dead … it was killing him, eating him up inside. It was all he could do not to barge into Umbrella's headquarters with a couple of machine guns and start demanding answers, even knowing that it would be suicide. Barry pumped the shell loader while Chris scooped up the fresh rounds and boxed them, the acrid, familiar scent of gunpowder suffusing the air. He was relieved that his old friend seemed to understand his need for silence, the steady click- click of the loader the only sound in the small room. It was also a relief to have something to do after a full week of sitting still and praying, hoping that Trent might contact them with news, or to offer help. Chris had never met Trent, but the mysterious stranger had aided the
S.T.A.R.S. a few times in the past, passing along inside information about Umbrella. Although his exact motivations were unknown, his objective seemed clear enough to destroy the pharmaceutical company's secret bioweapons division. Unfortunately, waiting on Trent was a long shot; he'd only ever contacted them when it suited his needs, and since they had no way of reaching him, the prospect of his assistance was seeming less likely all the time. Click-click. Click-click. The repetitive sound was soothing somehow, a muted mechanical process in the quiet of the rented safe house. They all had specific jobs to do in their pledge to bring Umbrella down, tasks that changed from day to day as the need arose. Chris had been helping Barry out with the weapons for the past week and a half, but he usually ran HQ surveillance. They'd received a message from Jill a few weeks before, she was on her way to Paris, and Chris knew that her misspent youth would come in very handy for internal recon. Leon had turned out to be a half decent hacker, he was in the next room on the computer; he'd hardly slept since Claire's capture, most of his time spent trying to track Umbrella's recent movements. And the trio of
S.T.A.R.S. who'd come with Claire and Leon to Europe Rebecca, from the disbanded Raccoon squad, and the two S.T.A.R.S. from Maine, David and John, were currently off in London, meeting with an arms dealer. After all they'd been through together, the three of them worked well as a team. There aren't many of us, but we've got the skills and the determination. Claire, though…
With both their parents dead, he and Claire had developed a close relationship, and he thought he knew her
