Nemesis

Mikhail was sinking, descending into the fevered delirium that would undoubtedly kill him. All Nicholai had been able to get out of the dying man was that Carlos had gone to get equipment to repair the trolley, and that he would be back soon. If there was any more, Nicholai would have to wait—until Mikhail's fever broke or Carlos returned, neither of which seemed

likely. Mikhail was only going to get worse, and the deep, rumbling explosion that had quaked the ground beneath the trolley, that had preceded a lightening of the night sky to the north, suggested that there had been a fire at the gas station—notnecessarily Carlos's fault, but Nicholai suspected that it probably was, and that Carlos Oliveira had burned to a crisp.

Which means I'll have to find a power cable myself if I want a ride to the hospital.

Irritating, but it couldn't be helped. Nicholai had found a box of spare fuses inside the station, as well as a five-gallon container of properly mixed machine oil, more than enough to get the cable car to the hospital— but no power cable, no wiring at all with which to bypass the shorted circuits. Nicholai wondered why Carlos hadn't thought to break into the station's maintenance room, and decided it was probably due to an absence of imagination.

"No ... no, it can't—fire! Fire at will, I think... I think... "

Nicholai looked up from his inspection of the trolley's control panel, curious, but whatever Mikhail thought was

lost as he dropped back into a troubled slumber, the ancient bench creaking beneath his restless movements. Pathetic. He could at least babble out something interesting.

Nicholai stood and stretched, turning toward the door. He'd already added the oil to the engine's rudimentary tank system, but he'd taken the wrong land of fuse. He'd get another one on his way back into town, probably all the way back to that same damned parking garage where he'd tracked Mikhail; he'd noticed some shelves of equipment there. All of the running back and

forth was becoming tiresome, but at least most of the cannibals in the area had already been killed, so it wouldn't take too long—and when he returned, he could reward himself for his efforts by telling Mikhail who was responsible for his impending death.

He stepped out into the train's yard, thinking vaguely about where he might sleep for the night, when he saw two figures stumbling toward the trolley, their forms half hidden in the sparse light from a dying fire in the northwest corner of the yard. They drew closer, and he saw that Carlos had managed to escape death after all and had brought a woman with him, undoubtedly the same woman who'd told him about the trolley. Both were singed, their exposed skin reddened and grimy with ash; perhaps he hadn't been that far off the mark about who had started that fire . ..

...andonce again, let the games begin!

"Carlos! Are you injured? Either of you?" He stepped forward so they could see him clearly, could see the deep concern on his face.

Carlos was obviously glad to see him. "No, I'm— we're both fine, just a little banged up. The gas station caught fire and blew. Jill blacked out for a minute or two, but she's ..."

Carlos abruptly cleared his throat, nodding toward the woman. "Uh, Jill Valentine, this is Sergeant Nicholai Ginovaef, U.B.C.S."

"Nicholai, please," he offered, and she stared at him, her expression unreadable. It seemed that Ms. Valentine wasn't interested in making friends. That pleased him, though he wasn't sure why. She carried a .357 revolver and had what looked like a 9mm tucked into the waistband of an extremely snug skirt.

"We are indebted to you for telling Carlos about the trolley. You're with the police?" Nicholai asked.

Jill's gaze was fixed on his, and there was no mistaking the tone of challenge in her response. "The police are dead. I'm with the S.T.A.R.S., Special Tactics and Rescue Squad."

Well, well, how ironic. I wonder if she's encountered Umbrella's little surprise yet. . .If she had, she probably wouldn't be standing in front of him; unless it was malfunctioning, a Tyrant could break a full-grown man in half without exerting even a quarter of its strength. Someone like Jill Valentine didn't stand a chance against something even more advanced, Umbrella's new toy that had been scheduled to appear.

Nicholai was pleased with the strange coincidence of meeting a S.T.A.R.S. member; it made him feel like everything was in order, that connections in his mind were reflected in the world around him...

"How's Mikhail?"

Nicholai looked away from Jill's unwavering stare to answer Carlos, not wanting to seem combative. "Not very well, I'm afraid. We should leave as soon as possible. Did you find anything useful? Mikhail said you were going to get repair equipment."

"It's all gone, burned up," Carlos said. "I guess we'll have to keep—"

"Did you get your explosives?" Jill interrupted, still watching him carefully. "Where were they?"

Not openly hostile, but very close; not surprising,

considering. The inside line on the S.T.A.R.S. was that they had uncovered information about Umbrella's real research at the Spencer estate lab. They'd been discredited later, of course, but Umbrella had been trying to get rid of them ever since.

If they're all as suspicious as this one, it's no wonder Umbrella hasn 't succeeded.

"There weren't any explosives," he said slowly, abruptly deciding to push her a little, see how forthright she was. "All I found were empty boxes. Ms. Valentine, is something bothering you? You seem... tense."

He deliberately shot a sharp glance at Carlos, as if angry that he'd brought the mistrustful woman along. Carlos flushed and quickly spoke up, trying to redirect the conversation.

"I think we're all on edge, but the important thing right now is Mikhail. We've got to get him out of here."

Nicholai held Jill's gaze a beat longer, then nodded and turned his attention to Carlos. "Agreed. If you can come up with a cable, I'll see what I can do about a fuse—there's a power station not too far from here, I'll look there. Back at the garage where we found Mikhail, I'm sure I saw battery cables, you should try there. Regardless of our success, we meet back here in a half hour."

Carlos nodded. Nicholai made a point of ignoring Jill's response, addressing Carlos instead. "Good. I'll check on Mikhail before I go. Move out."

He turned back toward the cable car as though everything was settled, silently congratulating himself as he

climbed aboard. They would fetch the cable for him, while all he had to do was walk a dozen steps into the trolley station and reach into a box.

Which means I'll have plenty of time left over. I wonder what they'll talk about when I'm not around... Perhaps he'd arrange to meet them on their way back, watch them for a moment or two before revealing his presence.

Nicholai walked to where Mikhail was sleeping and grinned at him, well pleased. Things were getting interesting, finally. Carlos was working for him, Mikhail was at death's door, and the addition of the S.T.A.R.S. woman had thickened the plot, so to speak. He glanced out the trolley window and saw that the two of them had already gone, disappearing back into the dark. Jill Valentine was suspicious of him, but only because of what she knew about Umbrella; he was sure that she would warm to him, given a little time.

"And if she doesn't, I'll kill her along with the rest of you," he said softly.

Mikhail let out a soft sound of distress but slept on, and after a moment, Nicholai quietly left.

FOURTEEN

ALTHOUGH THERE WAS PROBABLY A LOT THEY could talk about, Jill didn't feel like it and neither did Carlos. They had to get a power cable, get back to the trolley, and not get killed in the process—not exactly the time for small talk, evenf the streetsdid seem to be clear. And after the near death experience they'd just shared running from the gas station, Carlos couldn't imagine chatting.

What would we talk about, anyway? The weather?

How many of her friends are dead? How about whether or not that Tyrant-thing is going to pop up and kill her anytime soon, or maybe the top ten reasons she doesn't like Nicholai...

Jill was obviously uncomfortable with Nicholai—al-most certainly because of her feelings about Umbrella—and Carlos thought Nicholai didn't like her much, either, though he wasn't sure why; the squad

leader had been perfectly polite, if a little brisk. Carlos liked that Jill wasn't like that with him, suspicious and challenging, but the animosity between her and Nicholai made him a little nervous. As cliched as it was, they needed to stick together if they meant to survive.

In any case, Jill wasn't volunteering to discuss her feelings on the topic, and Carlos was busy debating himself about whether or not to tell the others about Trent, and they both were watching their asses. They walked in silence from the trolley back into downtown and were almost back to the garage when Carlos saw someone he recognized.

The dead man was propped in the corner of a winding alley, not far from the grotesque bodies of two Umbrella creatures that Carlos had passed twice already in the past couple of hours, like the thing he'd killed by the restaurant; from the look of his corpse, he'd been there awhile—which meant Carlos had passed him by as well, never noticing. It was kind of distressing to realize he didn't even look at their faces

anymore, but he was a little too surprised to hang on to the feeling.

"Hey, I've met this guy," he said, crouching next to him, trying to remember the name—Hennessy? Hennings, that was it. Tall, dark hair, a thin scar that ran from one corner of his mouth to his chin. Single gunshot wound to the head, no obvious signs of decay ...

. ..and what the hell is he doing here?

Jill had been walking a few steps ahead of Carlos.

She turned and walked back, surreptitiously checking her watch.

"I'm sorry about your friend, but we really have to get going," she said gently.

Carlos shook his head and started to pat the body down, searching for extra ammo or some ID. "No, we weren't friends. I met him at the field office right after I was hired, he worked for another U.B.C.S. branch, I think. The guy's a spook, ex-military, and he definitely didn't come to Raccoon with us ...hola, what's this?"

Carlos pulled a small, leather-bound book about the size of a paperback out of Hennings's jacket lining and opened it. A journal. He flipped to the back and saw that the last entry was dated only the day before yesterday.

"This could be important," he said, standing up. "I'm sure Nicholai knew him, he'll want to see this."

Jill frowned. "If it's important, maybe you should look at it now. Maybe it... maybe he mentioned Nicholai or Mikhail."

The last was delivered lightly, but Carlos understood what she was getting at, and he didn't like it much. "Look, Nicholai's kind of standoffish, but you don't know him. He lost his entire squad today, men he's probably known and worked with for years, so why don't you give him a break?"

Jill didn't flinch. "Why don'tyou look through that book while I go get the power cable? You say this man's some kind of agent, that he works for Umbrella and that technically he shouldn't be here. I want to know what he had to say in his final hours, don't you?"

Carlos glared at her for another moment, then nodded reluctantly, letting the tension go. She was right; if there was something definitive in Hennings's notes

about what was happening in Raccoon, it might be of use to them.

"Fine. Just grab every cable you can find and hurry back, okay?"

Jill nodded and was gone a second later, disappearing into the shadows without a sound. Amazing, how quiet she was; that took serious training. Although he didn't know much about them, Carlos had heard of the S.T.A.R.S., heard they were supposed to be good; Jill Valentine certainly proved it.

"Let's see what you have to say for yourself, Hennings," Carlos muttered, flipped open the journal, and started to read the final entry.

I didn't know it was going to be like this. I owe them everything, but I would have turned this down if I had known. It's the screaming, I can't take it anymore and who gives a crap if my cover's blown? Everybody's going to die, it doesn't matter. The streets are filled with screaming and that doesn't matter, either.

When the company saved my ass two years ago, they told me that I was going to be working on the dark side, which was fine by me. I was about to be executed, I would have agreed to ten years of shit shoveling, and what the rep told me didn't sound too bad—me and some other cons were going to be trained as troubleshooters, dealing with illegal aspects of their research. They have their legit organizations already, couple of paramilitary units, the bio-hazard boys, a pretty decent environmental protection crew. Our job was going to be cleaning up messes before too many people noticed, and making sure the people who did notice never got a chance to talk about it.

Six months of intensive training and I was ready for any-;

I

thing. Our first assignment was to get rid of some test subjects who'd gone into hiding. These people wanted to go public about the drug they'd been injected with, it was supposed to slow down the aging process but it gave all of them cancer. It took awhile, but we got all of them. I'm not proud of myself for that, or for anything else I did in the last year and a half, but I learned to live with it.

I was specially selected for Operation Watchdog. They planted a bunch of us here right after the first spill, just in case, but not everyone was chosen to be a Watchdog. They said I was more committed than the others, that I wouldn't crumble watching others die. Hooray for me. I worked in a warehouse for two weeks as an inventoiy specialist, waiting for something to happen, bored out of my goddamn skull—and then everything happened at once, and I haven't slept for three days and everyone keeps screaming until the flesh eaters get to them, and then they either die or they also start to eat.

I tried to get hold of some of the others, the plants, but I can't find anyone. I only know a few of them anyway, four of the people selected as Watchdogs—Terry Foster, Martin, that spooky Russian, the hospital doc with the glasses. Maybe they're dead, maybe they escaped, maybe they have yet to be sent in. I don't care. I haven't made a report since day before yesterday, and Umbrella can blow it out their ass and burn in hell. I'm sure I'll see them there.

I've chosen to pull the trigger myself, a head shot so I won't come back. I wish they'd left me to be executed, I deserved that. Nobody deserves this.

I'm sorry. If anyone finds this, believe that much.

The rest of the pages were blank.

Carlos knelt next to Hennings in a kind of numb

haze and examined his cold right hand for gunshot residue. It was there. Somebody must have taken the gun later—

"Carlos?"

He looked up and saw Jill holding a handful of cables, a look of curious concern on her dirty, pretty face.

"That spooky Russian."How many could there possibly be? Carlos didn't know what a Watchdog was, but he thought that Nicholai had some explaining to do— and that it might be a good idea to get back to Mikhail as soon as possible.

"I think I owe you an apology," Carlos said, his stomach suddenly in knots. Nicholai had found Mikhail just after he'd been shot, allegedly by some random stranger...

"What for?" Jill asked.

Carlos tucked the journal into a vest pocket, taking a last look at Hennings, feeling disgust and pity and a building anger—at Umbrella, at Nicholai, at himself for being so naive.

"I'll explain on the way back," he said, gripping his assault rifle so tightly that his hands started to tremble, the anger continuing to rise in him like a black flood. "Nicholai will be waiting for us."

After installing the new fuse in the trolley's control panel, Nicholai decided to wait inside the station for Carlos and Jill to return. Many of the first-floor windows were broken, and it was dark inside; he'd be able to hear any private, last-minute conversation between them as they entered the yard. Nicholai had no doubt

that Jill would have a few words of warning for Carlos regarding Umbrella, perhaps about Nicholai directly, and the truth was, he just couldn't help himself; he wanted to know what the S.T.A.R.S. woman had to say, what paranoid drivel she'd spout, and how Carlos would react. He'd rejoin them a minute or so after they boarded the trolley, say he was checking the building for supplies or something, and see what developed from there.

Do we take a ride, or will I be traveling alone? Perhaps we'll stay together for the night, foraging for food, taking turns at standing guard. I could kill them in their sleep; I could entice both of them to accompany me to the hospital to engage the Hunters; I could disappear, and allow them to evacuate thinking that their dear friend had been lost.

Nicholai smiled, a cool night draft from a shattered pane breezing across his face. In a very real way, their lives were in his hands. It was a powerful feeling, even intoxicating, to have that kind of control. What had started out as a primarily financial venture had evolved into something new, something he had no words for—a game, but so much more. An understanding of human destiny like nothing he'd ever experienced. He'd always known that he was different, that societal boundaries didn't apply to him in the same way that others understood them; coming to Raccoon was an amplification of that, it was like an alternate reality in whichthey were the strangers, the outsiders, and he was the only one who really knew what was going on. For the first time in his life, he felt free to do as he liked.

Nicholai heard the gate from the alleyway creak

open, slowly, stealthily, and he backed away from the window. A second later, the two young soldiers stepped into view, moving almost as silently as himself. He noted with some surprise that they were sweeping the yard, as if they expected trouble.

Perhaps they met up with the Tyrant-creature.That would certainly spice things up, if Jill was being tracked, although Nicholai meant to let the seeker have her if it showed up. It would kill anyone stupid enough to get in its way; Nicholai would happily step aside.

Jill was slightly ahead of Carlos, and as they cautiously edged forward, Nicholai saw that she carried several cables slung over one shoulder. Maybe he wouldkeep them around awhile, they were proving to be successful at running errands.

"All clear," Carlos whispered, and Nicholai smiled to himself. He could hear them perfectly.

"He has to be back by now, if he didn't run into one of the creatures," Jill whispered.

Nicholai's smile faltered a little. It was impossible, but... were they sweeping forhim?

"I say we approach like we don't know anything," Carlos said, keeping his voice low. "Get on board, get on either side of him, make him give up the rifle. He carries a knife, too."

What is this, what's changed?Nicholai was confused, uncertain. What can they possibly know?

Jill was nodding. "Let me ask the questions. I know more background on Umbrella, I think I have a better chance of convincing him that we know all about this Watchdog mission. If he thinks we already know—"

"—then he won't bother hiding anything," Carlos

finished. "Okay. Let's do it. Keep your weapon ready, just in case he's planning a surprise party."

Jill nodded again, and they both straightened up,

Carlos shouldering his rifle. They started toward the trolley, no longer bothering to keep quiet.

The fury that overtook Nicholai was so passionate, so all encompassing, that for a moment he was literally blinded by it. Flashes of red and black pounded through his brain, thoughtless and violent, and the only thing that kept him from running out into the yard and murdering them both was the distant awareness that they were prepared for his attack. He almost did it anyway, the urge, theneed to hurt them so strong that the consequences seemed unimportant. It took all of his control to stand still, to stand and shake and not scream his rage.

After some indeterminate time, he heard the trolley's engine roar to life, the sound finally getting through to him. His mind began to work again, but he could only think simply, as though his anger was too great for complexity of thought.

They knew he wasn't telling the truth. They knew something about Operation Watchdog, and they knew he was involved, so he was their enemy now. There would be no consummation of the careful groundwork he'd laid, no development of trust for comrade Nicholai. It had all been a waste of his time ... and to add insult to injury, he was now going to have to walk to the hospital.

Nicholai ground his teeth together, drowning, the impotent hatred like a diseased secret that was crushing him from the inside out. They had done this to

him, stolen his sense of control as though they had a right to it.

My plans, my money, my decision. Mine, not theirs, mine— After a moment the mantra started to work, calming him slightly, the words soothing in their truth.

Mine, I decide, me.

Nicholai took several deep breaths and fixated on the only thing that could bring him relief as he heard the trolley slowly rumble away.

He'd find a way to make them sorry. He'd make them beg for mercy, and laugh while they screamed.

FIFTEEN

JILL STOOD NEXT TO CARLOS AT THE TRAIN'S controls, looking out as the dark ruins of Raccoon slowly slipped past. They couldn't see much by the yellowed beam of the single headlight, but there were numerous small fires blazing unchecked and a partial moon shone its cold light down on it all—debris-packed streets, broken, boarded windows, living shadows that swayed and wandered aimlessly.

"Keep it slow," Jill said. "If the tracks are blocked and we're going too fast..."

Carlos shot her an irritated look. "Gee, I hadn't thought about that. Gracias."

His sarcasm invited a reply, but Jill was too tired to banter, and her body felt like a single, massive bruise. "Yeah, okay. Sorry."

The tracks unrolled in front of them as Carlos carefully handled the controls, slowing to a virtual crawl with each curve. Jill wanted to sit, maybe go into the other car with Mikhail and lay down—it was a few miles to the clock tower and a jogger could easily keep up with them—but she knew that Carlos was tired, too; she could at least suffer aching feet along with him for another few minutes.

By some unspoken agreement, they hadn't discussed Nicholai yet, perhaps because speculation on where he was and what he was doing didn't serve any purpose; whatever he was up to, they were getting out of town. Assuming they survived, Jill was more committed than ever to seeing that Umbrella paid for their crimes, and it was Umbrella, not Nicholai, who held responsibility for the death of Raccoon.

Her intuition had been good on Nicholai, that he wasn't ignorant of Umbrella's evils, though she hadn't suspected the depth of his deception. From what she'd read in the journal Carlos had found, it appeared that the company had been prepared for Raccoon to be infected and had set up a secret team to make reports on the catastrophe. It was disgusting, but not surprising.

We're dealing with Umbrella, after all. If they can illegally design genetic viruses and breed killing machines to inject said viruses into, why not capitalize on mass murder? Take some notes, document a few fights-

Crash!

Jill stumbled against Carlos as the trolley rocked, the sound of shattering glass coming from the other car. A half second later, they heard Mikhail let out a fevered cry—of fear or pain, Jill couldn't tell.

"Here, take the controls," Carlos said, but she was already halfway across the car, the heavy revolver in hand.

"I got it, keep us going," she shouted back, not wanting to think about what it could be as she dashed toward the door. For the trolley to shake like that—

—it has to be one of their monsters. And Mikhail probably can't even sit up on his own.

She pushed the door open and stepped onto the connecting platform, the heavy clatter of the moving trolley seeming incredibly loud as she opened the second door, Mikhail's helplessness in the forefront of her mind.

Oh, shit.

The elements of the scene were simple, straightforward, and deadly: a broken window, glass everywhere; Mikhail, to her left, his back to the wall as he struggled to get to his feet, using his rifle as a crutch—and the S.T.A.R.S. killer standing in the middle of the car, misshapen head thrown back, its giant lipless mouth opening as it growl-screamed wordlessly. The remaining windows shook from the strength of its insane cry.

Jill opened fire, each shot a deafening explosion, the heavy rounds slamming into its upper torso as it continued to howl. The sheer force of the assault drove it back a few steps, but if there was any effect otherwise, she couldn't see it.

On the sixth round, Mikhail's rifle joined in, the smaller slugs peppering the Nemesis's gigantic legs as Jill went dry. Mikhail was still slumped against the wall and his aim was poor, but Jill would take any help she could get. She grabbed her Beretta—even with a speed

loader the .357 would take too long—and opened up, going for head shots—

—not working—

—and the Nemesis stopped screaming and fixed its attention on her, its slitted white eyes like cataracts, its huge teeth shining and slick. Tentacles snaked around its hairless, lumpy head.

"Get out!" Mikhail shouted, and Jill spared him a glance, not even considering the idea as she fired again—until it registered an instant later that he was holding a grenade, one shaking finger hooked through its ring. She recognized the make without thinking about it—a Czech RG34, Barry had collected antipersonnel grenades—as she sent a round into the Nemesis's stitched brow to no effect. Impact grenade, once the ring was pulled it'd detonate on contact—

—and Mikhail won't make it, it's suicide—

"No, you go, get behind me," she screamed, and the S.T.A.R.S. killer took one massive step forward, almost halving the distance between them.

"Get out! "Mikhail ordered again and popped the ring, an expression of incredible concentration and purpose on his dead-white face. "I'm dead already! Do it, now!"

Her Beretta fired once more and was empty.

Jill spun and ran, leaving Mikhail to face the monster alone.

Carlos heard the yelling amidst the shots as he worked to bring the trolley to a stop, desperate to help Jill and Mikhail, but they were in the middle of a relatively tight curve and the poorly maintained controls

fought his efforts. He was about a second from joining them anyway when the door behind him crashed open.

Carlos whipped around, one-arming his M16 as he instinctively kept his other hand on the throttle, and saw Jill. She practically flew into the car, her expression a mask of expectant terror, his name forming on her lips—

—and a tremendous shock of fire and sound bloomed up behind her, pushing her to dive, a clumsy shoulder roll that was punctuated by the echoingboom-crash from the second car. Tongues of flame burst through the back door's window as the floor tilted wildly. Carlos slammed against the driver's seat, the chair's arm whacking him mid-thigh hard enough to bring tears to his eyes.

Mikhail!

Carlos took one faltering step toward the back—and saw only burning pieces of the obliterated second car dragging behind them, falling away as the trolley picked up speed. There was no chance that Mikhail could have survived, and Carlos started having serious doubts about their own chances as Jill stumbled forward, her face haunted by whatever she'd seen.

The cable car bit another curve, and then it was out of control, tossing back and forth like a ship on stormy seas, except the thunder and lightning were caused by their car smashing mightily into buildings and autos alike, sending up great plumes of sparks. Instead of slowing them down, the trolley seemed to be picking up speed with each impact, hurtling through the dark in a series of fiery metal screams.

Carlos fought gravity to grab the throttle, aware that they'd jumped the tracks, that Mikhail was gone, that

their only hope was the manual brake. If they were very lucky, the wheels would lock. He yanked back as hard as he could—

—and nothing happened, nothing at all. They were screwed.

Jill made it to the front, clutching at chair backs and support poles as the trolley continued to buck and screech. Carlos saw her staring at the useless throttle beneath his fingers, saw despair flash in her eyes, and he knew that they had to jump.

"The brakes!"Jill shouted.

"No good! We have to bail!"

He turned, grabbed his rifle by the barrel, and used the locked stock to break out a side window, a sudden shift of the floor sending the glass shards raining on his chest. He held on to the slick window frame with one hand, reached back to grab Jill—

—and saw her drive her elbow into a small glass panel set low into the console, a look of crazed hope on her face as she pulled a switch he couldn't see—

SKREEEEEEE—

emergency brake

—and incredibly, the trolley was slowing, tipping to the left a final time before settling back, sliding forward in a diminishing spray of bright sparks. Carlos closed his eyes and gripped the useless throttle, tensing, trying to prepare himself for the impact—and a few seconds later, a mild, anticlimacticcrwnch signified their journey's end; the car had come to rest against a pile of broken concrete pieces in the middle of a neatly trimmed lawn, a few shadowy statues and hedges nearby. A final tremor rattled through the car, and it was over.

Silence, except for the tick of cooling metal. He opened his eyes, hardly able to credit their nightmare ride through the city. Next to him, Jill took a shaky breath. It had all happened so fast, it was a miracle that he and Jill were still alive.

"Mikhail?" he asked softly.

Jill shook her head. "It was the Tyrant-thing, the S.T.A.R.S. Nemesis. Mikhail had a grenade, it kept coming at us and he—"

Her voice broke, and she reached into her pack and started to reload her weapons, concentrating on the simple movements. It seemed to calm her. When she spoke again, her voice was firm.

"Mikhail sacrificed himself when he saw that the Nemesis was coming after me."

She looked away, out into the dark as a chill wind drafted through the trolley's shattered windows. Her shoulders slumped. Carlos wasn't sure what to say. He stepped toward her, gently touching one abraded shoulder, and felt her body stiffen beneath his fingers. He quickly dropped his hand, afraid that he'd offended her somehow, and then realized that she was staring out at something, a look of pure amazement on her delicate features.

Carlos followed her gaze, looking out and up to see a giant, three- or four-story tower looming over them, silhouetted against a backdrop of clouded night sky. A glowing white clock face near the top read that it was almost midnight.

"Somebody loves us, Carlos," Jill said, and Carlos could only nod mutely.

They had reached the clock tower.

* * *

Nicholai walked along the moonlit tracks, not bothering to conceal himself as he plodded west. He'd be able to see anything coming and kill it long before it reached him; he was in a foul mood and almost welcomed the opportunity to blow the guts out of something, human or otherwise.

His anger had abated somewhat, giving way to a rather fatalistic state of mind. It no longer seemed feasible for him to track down the dying platoon leader and two young soldiers—basically, there just wasn't enough time. It would take at least an hour for him to make it to the clock tower; assuming they could figure out how to ring the bells, they'd be long gone by the time he got there.

Nicholai scowled, working to remind himself that his plans hadn't changed, that he still had an agenda to fulfill. Four people were unwittingly waiting for him.

After Dr. Aquino, there were the soldiers—Chan and a Sergeant Ken Franklin—and the factory worker, Foster. When they were all out of the way, Nicholai still had to collate their data, arrange a meeting, and 'copter out.

He had plenty to do... yet he couldn't help feeling cheated by the circumstances.

He stopped walking, cocking his head to one side. He heard a crash, an impact of some kind further west, perhaps even a small explosion muffled by distance. A second later he felt the slightest of vibrations coming from the trolley tracks. The tracks ran down the middle of a main street, anything solid could have given them a jolt—

—but it's them, it's Mikhail and Carlos and Jill Valentine. They ran into something, or something went wrong with the engine,or...

Or he didn't know what, but he was suddenly quite sure that they had encountered trouble. It reinforced for him the positive feeling he had thathe was the one with skill; they were forced to rely on luck, and not all luck was good.

Perhaps we will meet again. Anything is possible, especially in a place like this.

Ahead of him and to the left, from in between an office building and a fenced lot, came a gurgling groan, then another. Three infected shambled out into the open, ten meters or so from where he stood. They were too far away to make out clearly in the waxy moonlight, but Nicholai could see that none of them were in good shape; two were missing arms and the third's legs had somehow been cut down, so that it seemed to be walking on its knees, each stumping footstep creating a noise like someone smacking their lips.

"Uhllg," the closest complained, and Nicholai shot it through its disintegrating brains. Two more shots and the other two joined the first, collapsing to the asphalt in wetthumps.

He felt much better. Whether or not he got an opportunity to see his duplicitous comrades again—and he found that he felt strongly that he would—he was the superior man, and he would triumph in the end.

The awareness filled him with a new energy.

Nicholai broke into a trot, eager to meet whatever challenge came next.

SIXTEEN

THE TROLLEY'S DOOR WAS JAMMED, SO JILL and Carlos had to climb out of a window, Carlos looking as drained as Jill felt. It was a frankly weird coincidence that the trolley had ended up exactly where they needed to go, but then the last several hours—hell, weeks—had been weird. Jill thought it would serve her well to stop letting things surprise her.

The clock tower yard seemed empty of life, nothing moving but a thin haze of oily smoke boiling up from the cable car's electrical system. They walked to the unused decorative fountain in front of the main doors, gazing up at the giant clock and the small belfry that topped the tower, Jill's thoughts heavy with images of Mikhail Victor. She'd never even been properly introduced to the man who'd saved her life, but she thought that they'd lost a valuable ally. The strength of character it took to die so that another might live ...heroic was the only word that fit.

Maybe he even killed the Nemesis, it was practically on top of him when the grenade went off... Wishful

"So, I guess we try to find the bell mechanism,"

Carlos said. "Do you think it's safe to split up, or should we—"

Caw!

The harsh cry of a crow cut him off, and Jill felt a fresh surge of adrenaline pump new life into her veins. She grabbed Carlos's hand as a fluttering sound filled the dark from above and around them, the sound of birds' wings pushing air.

The hall of portraits at the mansion, watched from above by dozens of shiny black eyes as they waited to attack. And Forest Speyer, from the Bravo team, Chris said he'd been ripped apart by dozens, perhaps hundreds of them.

"Come on!" She pulled at Carlos, remembering the relentless viciousness of the altered, oversized crows at the Spencer estate. Carlos seemed to know better than to ask questions as a dozen more hoarse cries pierced the air. They ran around the fountain to the front doors of the tower.

Locked.

"Cover me!" Jill shouted, reaching into her pack for her lockpick tools, the wheeling cries closing in on them—

—and Carlos threw himself at the doors, hitting the heavy old wood hard enough that splinters flew. He jogged back a few paces and ran at them again, bam —

—and they crashed inward, Carlos following through to trip and sprawl across the tastefully tiled floor, Jill quickly stepping in behind him. She grabbed the door handles and slammed the doors closed not a second too soon. There were two audible thumps from the other side, joined by a chorus of angry screeching and the brush of dark wings, and then they were retreating, the sounds fading away. Jill sagged against the doors, exhaling heavily.

God, is it ever going to stop? Do we have to face off with every demonic asshole in the city before we 're allowed to leave?

"Zombie birds? Are you kidding me?" Carlos said, pushing himself to his feet as Jill manually bolted the doors. She didn't bother answering him, turning to take in the clock tower's grand lobby instead.

It reminded her of the Spencer mansion's foyer, the low lights and Gothic scrollwork giving it a kind of shabbily elegant atmosphere. A wide marble staircase dominated the large room, leading up to a second-floor landing with stained-glass windows. There were doors on either side of the room, a couple of polished wood tables in front of them, and to their left...

Jill sighed inwardly and felt something inside tighten a little. She hadn'texpected the clock tower to be some kind of untouched sanctuary, even as far out of town as it was, but she realized that she had hoped—a hope lost at the sight of more death.

The scene told a story, a kind of mystery. Five male corpses, all of them dressed in somewhat military garb. Three of them lay next to the tables, apparently victims of a virus carrier; the carrier's bullet-riddled body was

nearby. The victims' flesh had been gnawed, their skulls crushed and empty. The fifth corpse, a young man, had shot himself in the head, presumably after dispatching the zombie. Had he killed himself out of despair at the sight of his half-eaten friends? Had he been responsible somehow? Or had he known the virus carrier well, and taken his life after being forced to kill it?

No way we can ever know. It's just another handful of lives lost in some untold tragedy, one among this city's thousands.

Carlos moved closer to the bodies, frowning. From the grim look on his face, she got the impression that he knew who they were. He crouched down and pulled a blood-streaked duffel bag out from in between two of them, drawing a trail of red across the tile. Jill could hear metal touching metal inside, and it was obviously heavy, Carlos's bicep straining to lift the bag.

"Is that what I think it is?" Jill asked.

Carlos took the bag to one of the tables and eased the contents out. Jill felt a sudden, unexpected burst of glee at what was there; she hurried to the table, hardly able to believe their luck.

A half dozen hand grenades like the one Mikhail had used, RG34s; eight M16 thirty-round magazines, loaded as far as she could tell; and, more than she could have hoped for, a US M79 grenade launcher with a handful of fat 40mm cartridges.

"Weapons at the clock tower," Carlos said thoughtfully. Before Jill could ask what he meant, he picked up one of the rifle grenades and whistled softly.

"Buckshot loads," he said. "One of these would have blasted the living shit out of that Nemesisespantajo. "

Jill raised her eyebrows. " 'Espantajo'?"

"Literally, a scarecrow," Carlos said, "but it's used like weirdo, or freak."

Appropriate. Jill nodded toward the men who had carried the weapons. "Do you recognize these people?"

Carlos shrugged uncomfortably, handing her three of the hand grenades. "They're all U.B.C.S., I've seen them around, but I don't—I didn't know them. They were just dumb grunts, they probably had no idea what they were getting into when they joined Umbrella, or when we were sent here. Like me."

He seemed angry and a little sad, and he abruptly changed the topic, suddenly remembering how close they were to escaping Raccoon City. "Do you want to carry the grenade gun?"

"I thought you'd never ask," Jill said, smiling. She could use a weapon that would, as Carlos so colorfully put it, blast the living shit out of the Nemesis freak. "Now all we have to do is find a button somewhere, push it, and wait for our taxi to arrive."

Carlos smiled faintly in turn, tucking M16 mags into his vest pockets. "And try not to end up dead, like everyone else in this goddamn place."

Jill had no response to that. "Upstairs?"

Carlos nodded. Armed and ready, they started up.

The clock tower's second floor was really only a balcony that overlooked the front room. It ran along three sides of the building, and there was a single door where it ended, which had to lead to another set of staks—to the belfry, if Carlos remembered the term correctly. Where the bells were.

Almost over, this is almost over, almost over... He let the repeating thought drive away almost everything else, too fatigued to consider his feelings of anger and sorrow and fear, aware that his breaking point wasn't all that far off. He could sort through his emotions once they left Raccoon behind.

The balcony itself was as richly adorned as the lobby, blue tiles that matched the blue of the stained-glass windows, an arched overhang supported by white columns. They could see almost all of the fine balcony from the top of the stairs, and it appeared to be clear, not a zombie or monster in sight. Carlos breathed easier and saw that Jill also seemed more at ease. She carried the Colt Python and wore the grenade gun on her back, using Carlos's belt as a sling.

How did Trent know there would be weapons here? Did he know I'd be taking them from dead men?

Carlos realized suddenly that he was overestimating Trent's reach. There had to be another cache of weapons somewhere in the building, that was all, he and Jill had just happened across the duffel bag. The al-ternative—that Trent had somehow known about the dead soldiers—was too bizarre to consider.

They started down the first leg of the balcony side by side, Carlos wondering what Jill would say if he told her about Trent. She'd probably think he was kidding, the whole thing was so spy-novel mysterious—

Something moved. Ahead of them and around the first corner, something on the ceiling, a flash of dark movement. Carlos stepped to the railing and leaned out to look, but, whatever it was, it was either hidden behind one of the hanging arches or something that his exhausted brain had come up with to keep him awake.

"What?" Jill whispered at his shoulder, holding her revolver ready.

Carlos searched a few seconds longer and then shook his head, turning away. "Nothing, I guess, thought I saw something on the ceiling, but—"

"Shit!"

Carlos swung around as Jill jerked her weapon up, pointing at the ceiling just in front of them as a creature the size of a large dog skittered in their direction, a thing with a humped body and multiple legs, its thickly furred feet thumping stickily across the ceiling faster than seemed possible.

Jill unloaded three rounds into it before Carlos could blink, but not before he registered what he was looking at. It was a spider, big enough for Carlos to see his own reflection in its shining eyes as it crashed to the floor. Dark fluids spouted from its back as it thrashed its multicolored legs in the air, ichorous blood pooling beneath it. The wild, silent dance lasted only a second or two before it curled into itself, dead.

"I hate spiders," Jill said, a look of revulsion on her face as she started forward again, scanning the ceiling. "All those legs, that bloated stomach ..yuck. "

"You've seen these before?" Carlos asked, unable to look away from the closed fist of its body.

"Yeah, at the Umbrella lab in the woods. Not alive, though, the ones I saw were dead."

Jill's apparent calm as they skirted the dead spider and continued on reminded Carlos how lucky he was to have hooked up with her. He'd come across a lot of

tough men in his experiences, but he doubted very much that any one of them, put in her position, would be handling themselves as capably as Jill Valentine.

The rest of the balcony was clear, although Carlos uncomfortably noted a shitload of webbing on the ceiling, mounds of the thick white stuff accumulated in every corner; he didn't care much for spiders, either. When they reached the door and swept their way through, Jill going in low, Carlos was relieved to be outside again.

They'd come out on a wide ledge in front of the tower itself, a barren space surrounded by an ancient railing, a couple of defunct spotlights, and a few dead plants. There was a doorlike opening set a story higher up in the tower but no way to get to it. It seemed like a dead end, nowhere to go but back the way they'd come. Carlos sighed; at least the crows,

if that's what they were, had migrated somewhere else.

"So what now?" Carlos asked, looking out over the dark courtyard, at the still smoking wrecked trolley car. When Jill didn't answer, Carlos turned and saw her standing by a copper plaque he hadn't noticed, set into the stone face of the tower. She reached into her bag and produced a wrapped set of lockpicks.

"You give up way too easy," Jill said, selecting a few pieces from the bundle. "Watch for crows, and I'll see what I can do about getting us a ladder."

Carlos covered her, vaguely wondering if there was anything she couldn't do, smelling rain on the cold wind that blew across the ledge. A moment later there was a series of clicks followed by a low hum of hidden

machinery, and a narrow metal ladder descended from just beneath the opening above.

"How do you feel about standing guard for another few minutes?" Jill asked, smiling.

Carlos grinned, feeling her excitement; it really was almost over. "You got it."

Jill quickly scaled the ladder and disappeared through the open door above. She called down an all-clear a second later, and for the next several minutes, Carlos paced the ledge, thinking about what he was going to do after they were rescued. He wanted to talk to Trent again, about what needed to be done to stop Umbrella; whatever it took, he was there.

/bet he'd be interested in talking to Jill, too. When the 'copters come, we play stupid until they let us go, then plan out our next step —after a good meal and a shower and about twenty-four hours of sleep, of course...

He was so fixated on their deliverance from Raccoon that he didn't notice Jill's expression at first as she descended the ladder, didn't really think about the fact that there weren't any bells tolling. He smiled at her... and then felt his heart sink, understanding that their trial wasn't over yet.

"There's a gear missing from the bell mechanism," she said, "and we have to have it to make them ring.

The good news is, I'm willing to bet that it's somewhere in the building."

Carlos arched an eyebrow. "How do you figure?"

"I found this next to one of the other gears," Jill said and handed him a tattered postcard.

The picture on the front was of three paintings hung

in a row, each piece incorporating a clock. Carlos flipped the card over and saw "St. Michael Clock Tower, Raccoon City" in fine print on the upper left corner. Below that was a printed line of verse, which Jill said out loud.

" 'Give your soul to the goddess. Put your hands together to pray before her.' "

Carlos stared at her. "Are you suggesting that we prayfor the missing gear?"

"Ha ha. I'm suggesting that the gear is wherever these clocks are."

Carlos handed the card back. "You said that was the good news—what's the bad?"

Jill smiled sourly, an entirely humorless expression.

"I doubt that the gear is going to be laying out in plain sight. It's some kind of puzzle, like the ones I ran across at the Spencer estate—and a few of those almost got me killed."

Carlos didn't ask. For the moment, at least, he didn't want to know.

SEVENTEEN

AFTER TRACKING HIM FOR NEARLY HALF AN hour, Nicholai found Dr. Richard Aquino on the fourth floor of Raccoon City's largest hospital. Seeing the Watchdog made Nicholai happy in a way he couldn't explain, not even to himself. A sense that all was right with the world, that things were unfolding as they should ...

...with me on top, making the decisions. In a moment there will only be three left, three little doggies for me to hunt in the land of the walking dead, he thought dreamily Does it get any better than this?

Aquino was just locking a door behind him, a look of sweaty fear on his pallid face as his gaze darted around nervously. He pocketed his keys and turned toward the hallway that led back to the elevator, pushing his smudged glasses to the bridge of his nose. Nicholai was amused to note that he wasn't even armed.

Nicholai stepped half out of the shadows, planning to enjoy himself. After Nicholai had spent over an hour getting to the hospital, jogging most of the way, the mousy Dr. Aquino had had the nerve to try and hide from him—although looking at him now, Nicholai thought it was more likely that the scientist hadn't even known that he was being hunted and had eluded Nicholai by pure accident. Aquino looked like the kind of man who could get lost in his own backyard; even now, the "watchdog" didn't realize that he wasn't alone anymore, that Nicholai was only three meters away.

"Doctor! "Nicholai called loudly, and Aquino jumped around, gasping, involuntarily waving his hands in front of him; his surprise was absolute.

Nicholai couldn't help a slight smile.

"Who, who are you?" Aquino stammered. He had watery blue eyes and a bad haircut.

Nicholai stepped closer, deliberately intimidating the scientist with his size. "I'm with Umbrella. I came to see how you were progressing with the vaccine... among other things."

"With Umbrella? I didn't—what vaccine, I don't know what you're talking about."

No weapon, no physical skills, and he can't tell a lie without blushing. Hemustbe brilliant.

Nicholai lowered his voice conspiratorially. "Operation Watchdog sent me, Doctor. You haven't filed a details report lately. They've been worried about you."

Aquino seemed on the verge of collapsing with relief. "Oh, if you know about—I thought you were— yes, the vaccine, I've been very busy; my, ah, contact

wanted the initial synthesis broken down into stages, so there isn't an actual mixed sample cultivated—but I can assure you that it's only a matter of combining elements, everything's ready." The doctor practically bab-

Nicholai shook his head in mock wonder, playing his part. "And you've done this all yourself?"

Aquino smiled weakly. "With help from my assistant, Douglas, God rest his soul. I'm afraid that I've been running a bit ragged since his death, day before yesterday. That's why I've been remiss in my reports ... "

He trailed off, then attempted another smile.

"So ... you're the one they sent to pick up the sam-ple—Franklin, isn't it?"

Nicholai couldn't believe his own luck, or Aquino's naivete; the man was about to turn over the only TGViral antidote in existence, and all because Nicholai had said that Umbrella sent him. And now another one of his targets would be showing up—

"Yes, that's right," Nicholai said smoothly. "Ken Franklin. Where is the vaccine, Doctor?"

Aquino rumbled for his keys. "In here. I was just hiding it—the vaccine base, I mean, we've kept the medium separate—I hid it in here for safekeeping, until you arrived. I thought you were supposed to come in tomorrow night... no, the night after, you're much earlier than I expected."

He opened the door and gestured inside. "There's a refrigerated wall safe behind that rather tacky land-scape—a recent addition by a wealthy patient, an eccentric as I understand it, not that that's important..."

Nicholai stepped past the driveling doctor, tuning him out, still feeling dumbfounded that Aquino had been selected as a Watchdog, when he suddenly realized that he'd allowed the scientist to get behind him.

It all came together in that instant, a complete scenario in Nicholai's mind—the stupid, gossiping science nerd, putting his enemies at ease, capitalizing on their underestimation of his abilities—

The awareness took only a fraction of a second, and then Nicholai was moving.

He dropped to his knees and swung his arms around, grabbing Aquino's calves and following through, liter-

Aquino yelped and collapsed on top of Nicholai. A syringe clattered to the floor and Aquino lunged after it, but Nicholai still held his bony legs. The doctor had no muscle to speak of. In fact, Nicholai found it quite easy to hold the flailing doctor with one arm while reaching for the knife sheathed in his boot with his other.

Nicholai sat up, jerked Aquino closer, and stabbed him in the throat.

Aquino put his hands to his neck as Nicholai withdrew the blade, staring at his killer with wide, shocked eyes, blood pouring over his fingers as his heart continued its work.

Nicholai stared back at him, grinning and pitiless.

Aquino had been slated to die, anyway, and that he'd attacked Nicholai only made his death a pleasure, in addition to its being a necessity.

The scientist finally fell over, still clutching his bubbling throat, and lost consciousness. He died quickly after that, a final spasm and he was gone.

"Better you than me," Nicholai said. He searched the cooling body and found several more syringes and a four-digit code on a slip of paper—undoubtedly the wall safe's combination. Aquino obviously hadn't expected Nicholai to be around to steal the vaccine.

Nicholai stood and walked to the safe, revising his plans as he always tried to do after any unexpected occurrence. Aquino had been expecting Ken Franklin to pick up the sample, which meant that Franklin would be putting in an appearance, unless the doctor had been lying. Nicholai didn't think so. Aquino had been so convincingbecause he had been telling the truth, an excellent technique to distract one's opponent...

...so I synthesize the vaccine, maybe enjoy some hunting while I wait for Sergeant Franklin to show up, get rid of him —and then destroy the hospital, Aquino's research along with it. If Umbrella's watching, they'll think everything is going according to plan. After that, there's only Chan and the factory worker, Terence Foster...

To hell with Mikhail and the other two, they weren't important anymore. As the soon-to-be only surviving

Watchdog with information to sell, Nicholai would be worth millions. But with the TG vaccine in hand, there was no limit to what Umbrella might pay.

By the time they reached the building's back rooms,

Jill was almost ready to admit defeat. They'd been everywhere, picking locks, slogging through each tastefully furnished room, stepping over corpses and creating a few new ones. A broken picture window outside the tower's chapel had allowed several carriers to get

in, and they'd come across another viral spider in the hallway just past the library.

Along the way, she told Carlos a little about the mansion and grounds of the Spencer estate, history that she had dug up after the S.T.A.R.S.'s disastrous mission. Old man Spencer, one of Umbrella's founders, had been a fanatic for secret hiding places and hidden passages and had hired George Trevor, an architect renowned for his creativity, to design the mansion and to help renovate a few of the town's historical landmarks, tying parts of Raccoon to Spencer's spy fantasies.

"This was all thirty years ago," Jill said, "and the old man was completely crazy by then, so the story goes.

As soon as everything was finished, he boarded up the mansion and moved Umbrella's headquarters to Europe."

"What happened to George Trevor?" Carlos asked. They stopped outside yet another door, what had to be one of the last rooms.

"Oh, that's the best part," Jill said. "He disappeared just before Spencer skipped town. No one ever saw him again."

Carlos shook his head slowly. "This is one nut job of a place to live, you know that?"

Jill nodded, pushing open the door and stepping back, revolver up. "Yeah, I've been thinking that myself."

Nothing was moving. Stacks of chairs to the right.

Three statues, busts of women, straight in front of them. There were two corpses huddled together to the left of the door, a couple, holding each other, making

Jill wince and look away—and there, hanging on the southern wall in heavy gold frames, were the three clock paintings.

They walked into the room, Jill nervously studying their surroundings. Itseemed normal...

...but so did that room in the mansion that turned out to be a giant trash compactor. On impulse, Jill stepped back and used one of the chairs to prop the door open before going to take a closer look at the paintings.

Well, kind of paintings. She supposed technically they'd be called mixed media. The three pieces were of women, one on each canvas, but each also contained an octagonal clock—the first and last set at midnight, the one in the middle at five o'clock. A small, bowl-like tray protruded from the bottom of each frame. They were labeled as the goddesses of the past, present, and future, from left to right.

"On the postcard, it said something about putting your hands together," Carlos said. "That's like the clock hands, right?"

Jill nodded. "Yeah, makes sense. It's just obscure enough to be annoying."

She reached forward and lightly touched the tray on the middle frame, a dancing woman. There was a tiny click and the tray dipped like a scale, the weight of her hand pushing it down. At the same time, the hands of the clock started to spin.

Jill jerked her hand back, afraid that she'd set something off, and the clock hands quickly spun back to their previous settings. Nothing else happened.

"Hands together...," she murmured. "Do you think

they mean that all of the clocks have to be set for the same time? Or do they mean literally, the hands aligned?"

Carlos shrugged and reached out to touch the tray of the future goddess, definitely the creepiest of the paintings. The past was a young girl sitting on a hill, the present a dancing woman ... and the goddess of the future was the figure of a woman in a slinky cocktail dress, her body enticingly posed—but with the bald,

grinning face of a skeleton.

Jill suppressed a shudder and didn't let any thoughts get started on the theme of imminent death,like I don't have enough of that already.

The tray Carlos touched dipped down, but again, it was the hands on the clock of the present goddess that moved. Apparently, the other two were fixed at midnight.

Jill stepped back from the wall, arms folded, think-ing—and suddenly she had it, she knew how the puzzle t worked, if not the exact solution. She turned around, hoping that the missing pieces were nearby, and she smiled when she saw the three statues—ah, the symme-try—and the shining objects they held in their slender stone fingers.

"It's a balancing puzzle," Jill said, walking to the statues. At closer inspection, she saw that each held a tray with a single, fist-sized stone. She picked them up, hefting each orb, noting the different weights.

"Three balls, three trays," she continued, walking back to the pictures, handing the black stone—made from obsidian or onyx, she wasn't sure—to Carlos. Another was clear crystal, the third a glowing amber.

"And the goal is to make the middle clock hit midnight," Carlos said, catching on.

Jill nodded. "I'm sure there's a motif to the solution, a color match, like black for death, maybe... or maybe it's mathematical. It doesn't matter, it won't take that long to try all of the combinations."

They set to work, trying each ball on one painting at a time, then using them all, Jill carefully studying the present clock's hand movements with each placement.

It appeared that the different balls held different values, depending on which tray they were in. Jill was just starting to feel like she could figure it out—it was definitely mathematical—when they lucked across the solution.

With crystal in the past, obsidian in the present, and amber in the future, the clock in the middle struck midnight, chiming softly. The minute hand started to move backwards with a clattering sound—and then the face of the clock itself fell from the picture, pushed out by

some machinery that Jill couldn't see. In the revealed hollow was the glittering gold cog that had been missing from the tower's bell mechanism.

Sneaky, you pricks, but not sneaky enough.

Carlos was frowning, his expression openly confused. "What the hell is all this, anyway? Who would hide the gear at all, and why in such a complicated way?"

Jill plucked the shining gear from its hiding place, remembering her own thoughts on that exact subject only six weeks before, standing in the dark halls of Spencer's mansion. Why, why such elaborate secrecy? The files Trent had given her just before the estate mission had been full of clues to the mansion's puzzles, lucky for her; without those, she might never have gotten out. Most of the bizarre little mechanisms had been much too intricate to be practical, time-wise or functionally. What was the point?

After giving it a lot of thought, Jill had finally concluded that Umbrella'sreal board of directors, the ones no one knew about, were paranoid fanatics. They were self-involved children, playing secret agent games and betting with other people's lives, because they could. Because no one had ever explained to them that hiding toys and making treasure maps was something people outgrew.

Because no one has stopped them. Yet.

Suddenly eager to wrap it all up, to place the gear and ring the bell and justleave, Jill phrased it much more simply to Carlos. "They're wacko, that's why. One-hundred-percent grade-A jacked-upbatshit. You ready to get out of here, or what?"

Carlos nodded somberly, and after a final look around the room, they headed back out the way they'd come.

EIGHTEEN

CARLOS WATCHED JELL CLIMB THE LADDER once more, trying not to get his hopes up again. If this didn't work, he was going to be deeply—no,majesti-cally pissed.

Hell with it. If this doesn't work, we should just walk out, or see if we can get to that factory and steal ourselves a ride. She's right, these people areandar lurias, lost in space; the sooner we get out of their territory, the better.

He stared blankly out at the dark yard for a few moments, so bone-weary that he wondered how he would do one more thing, take one more step; it seemed impossible. All that kept him going was his desire to leave, to get away from this holocaust and try to recover.

When the first massive peal of sound rang out, its

deep and hollow tone rolling out from the top of the tower, Carlos realized he couldn't keep a lid on his hope. He tried, telling himself that there was going to be a glitch in the program, telling himself that Umbrella would send assassins, that the pilot would be a zombie; nothing worked. A helicopter was coming for them, he knew it, hebelieved it; he just hoped the rescue team wouldn't have any trouble finding a place to land—

—spotlights!There were four of them on the ledge and a crusty-looking control box near the door that led back inside; the light would guide the transport in faster. Carlos hurried toward it, glancing up to see if Jill had started down yet. She hadn't—

—and when he looked ahead again, he saw that he wasn't alone. As if by magic, the giant, mutilated freak that had been chasing Jill was simplythere, close enough for Carlos to smell a burnt meat smell, snarling, its piggy, distorted gaze turned to the top of the ladder.

"Carlos, look out! "Jill screamed down, but the Nemesis-monster ignored him completely, taking a mammoth step toward the ladder, the eyeless snakes that were its tentacles whipping around its colossal head. One more step and it would be at the base of the ladder—and Jill would be trapped.

—she said bullets don't hurt it—

Desperate to do something, Carlos saw the large green power switch on the spotlights' control panel and lunged for it, not sure what he expected. To distract it, if they were lucky— —and all four lights snapped on at once, blinding, instantly heating the air around them and illuminating

the tower, probably for miles to see. One of the beams was full-on blocked by the freak's hideous face. The light actually forced the thing to stumble backwards, giant hands covering its mutant eyes, and Carlos acted.

He ran at the blinded Nemesis, M16 held high, and slammed the rifle against its chest, pushing as hard as he could. Off balance, it stumbled backwards, its legs slapping the ancient railing—

—and with a brittle snap, a wide section of the railing gave way, falling into the darkness, the Nemesis plummeting after it. Carlos heard a sicklythump from the ground below at the same instant that the overheated spotlights shut down, making glowing dark shapes float in Carlos's eyes for a moment.

The huge, mellow sound of the bells continued to fill the air as Jill scrambled down the ladder and unslung the grenade launcher, joining Carlos at the broken railing.

"I... thanks," Jill said, looking into his eyes, her own gaze sincere and unwavering. "If you hadn't hit the lights, I would have been dead. Thank you."

Carlos was impressed and a little flustered by her candor. "De nada, " he said, suddenly very aware of how attractive she was—not just physically—and how little experience he actually had with women. He was a self-educated twenty-one-year-old mere, and he hadn't exactly had a whole lot of time or opportunity to date.

She can't be much older, twenty-five at the outside, and maybe she—

Jill snapped her fingers in front of him, bringing him back to reality and reminding him of how tired he really was. He'd totally spaced out.

"You still with me?"

Carlos nodded, clearing his throat. "Yeah, sorry. Did you say something?"

"I said we need to move. If it's still that feisty after a grenade in the face, I doubt a two-story drop will kill it."

"Right," Carlos said. "We should circle around front, anyway. They'll probably drop a harness if they can't set down."

Jill nodded. "Let's do it."

Ushered inside by the deep voice of hollowed metal, Carlos suddenly wondered if Nicholai was still alive— and if he was, what he would do when he heard the tolling bells.

Nicholai heard the bells on his walk back into town and scoffed irritably, refusing to be baited. He hadn't expected the barely skilled trio to make it, but so what if they had? Davis Chan had filed another report, from a woman's boutique of all places, and Nicholai meant to track him down.

And why should I care if they limp away with their miserable lives, with what I've got?

Nicholai pulled the slender metal case out of his pocket for the third time since leaving the hospital, unable to resist. Inside was a glass vial of purplish fluid that he'd synthesized himself, with a little help from an instruction sheet that Aquino's assistant had thoughtfully left behind.

Nicholai knew it would be safest to store the sample someplace, but the small container represented his authority over the other Watchdogs and a newly elevated status with Umbrella; he was a leader, a supervisor of

lesser men, and he found that carrying the vaccine with him and occasionally holding it made him feel powerful. Grounded, in a way.

Smiling, Nicholai slipped the container back into his pocket, within easy reach, and started walking again, deliberately ignoring the bells. Things were going very well—he had the vaccine; he knew where Chan was and where Franklin was going to be in just under forty-eight hours; he'd already rigged the hospital to blow; and he would push the button as soon as his meeting with Franklin was over. Nicholai thought he might duck over to the factory and get rid of Terence Foster while he waited on Franklin, there was plenty of time—

—just like there was plenty of time to track Mikhail, to play at being a noble team member, to decide who

would die first among them . . .

The clamorous bells pounded at him, seeking to remind him of his failure, but he refused to be distracted by the escape of three incompetents. He was getting closer to town, he could see the combined glow of hundreds of small and not so small fires encasing the dark city; even if he wanted to, he wouldn't make it back to the clock tower before the first helicopter came. And he didn'twant to, he'd had the opportunity after killing Aquino and had decided that it wasn't worth his time. It was the right decision ... and the strange doubts that curled up inside of him at the sound of the bells were to be disregarded; it meant nothing, that they had survived, it didn't mean that they were as good as him.

Besides, he still had a few dogs to put down to ensure his monopoly on information. He thought that

Chan might choose to bunk down at the store he'd reported from, as late as it was. Nicholai would kill him, take his data, and retire for the evening somewhere in the city. At the Watchdog briefing he'd heard that food was scarce, but he was certain that he could manage— raid a few pantries for canned goods, perhaps. In the morning he would file his own report, to keep up his cover, and spend the day hunting up information of his own before heading west again.

Everything was fine, and as he gradually crossed over from the suburbs into the city, the sound of the approaching helicopter didn't bother him a bit. Let those spineless, shit-eating bastards run, he felt great, in con-trol,better than great. He only had a headache because of those damned bells.

They retraced much of their winding path through the clock tower, Jill wanting to make sure the Nemesis either got confused or had plenty of time to wander away before they went out to meet the 'copter. As they walked, they hammered out a story to tell whoever was running the evac—Jill was Kimberly Sampsel (the name of Jill's best friend from fifth grade), she'd worked at a local art gallery, no family, and she'd only moved to Raccoon recently. Carlos had found her just after his platoon leader, the only other U.B.C.S. member to have survived, had been killed by zombies. Together, they'd made it to the clock tower, end of story.

They decided not to mention Nicholai, the Nemesis,

or any unidentifiable creatures they'd seen running around; the idea was to appear as ignorant of the facts

as possible. Neither of them wanted to take any chances on the allegiance of the rescue team, and Jill had no doubt that there would be someone on the transport waiting to debrief them, so the simpler the story, the better. They'd just have to pray that no one had her pic on hand. They could worry about how to slip away once they got out of the city.

At the front doors of the clock tower they paused for a moment, readying themselves, Jill feeling a strange mixture of happiness and anxiety. Rescue was coming, but they were so close to getting out now that she was afraid something would go wrong.

Maybe that's just because Umbrella is doing the rescuing, God knows they don't have a very good track record for keeping their shit together...

"Jill? Before we leave, I want to tell you something," Carlos said, and for a few seconds, Jill thought her anxiety was about to be confirmed, that he was going to tell her some terrible secret he'd been holding back— but then she saw his careful, thoughtful expression and thought different.

"Okay, shoot," she said neutrally, thinking about the way he'd looked at her out on the balcony. She'd seen that look before, from other men—and she wasn't sure how she felt about it from Carlos. Before he'd left for Europe, Chris Redfield and she had been getting pretty close...

"Before I came here, I was approached by this guy about Raccoon, about what was going on here," Carlos started, and Jill had just enough time to feel stupid about her assumption before-his words sank in.

Trent!

"He told me that we were in for a rough time, and offered to help me out. I thought he was crazy at first—"

"—but then you got here and found out he wasn't." Carlos stared at her. "You know him or something?" "Probably as well as you do. It was the same with

me, just before the estate mission, he gave me information about the mansion—and told me to be careful who I trusted. Trent, right?"

Carlos nodded, and although they both opened their mouths to speak, neither of them said a word. It was the sound of the approaching helicopter that cut them off, that made both of them grin and exchange looks of joy and relief.

"Let's talk about him later," Carlos said, pushing open the front doors, the chop of the 'copter's blades filling the tower's lobby as they both stepped out into the yard.

Jill only saw one transport helicopter but didn't care, there obviously wasn't anyone else to evacuate, and as it swung over the crashed trolley, she and Carlos both started to wave their arms and shout.

"Over here! We're over here! "Jill screamed, and she actually saw the clean-shaven face of the pilot, his smile glowing by the lights in the cockpit as he flew closer—

—close enough that she could see the smile disappear hi the same instant that she heard the weapon discharge to their right, a look of horror dawning on that youthful face.

Shhhh—

A line of colored smoke, streaking toward the hovering ship from someone on the roof of the tower's adjunct buildings,,surface to air, bazooka or rocket launcher —

—BOOM!

"No," Jill whispered, but the sound was lost as the missile slammed into the 'copter and exploded, Jill numbly thinking that it had to be a HEAT rocket to do the damage it was doing as the airship spun toward them, listing badly to one side, fire spouting from the shattered cockpit.

Carlos grabbed her arm and yanked, almost jerking her off her feet, pulling her out into the yard as a high, climbing, whining noise blew over them, the burning helicopter stuttering forward as they huddled behind

—and then it crashed into the clock tower. Flaming chunks of metal and stone and wood showered down upon them as the transport plunged through the roof of the lobby, and like the voice of destruction, Jill heard the Nemesis's triumphant scream rising above it all.

NINETEEN

CARLOS HEARD THE MONSTER'S SCREAMING howl and started to get up, still holding Jill's arm. They had to get away before it saw her—

—and the front of the building cracked open as though it were made of balsa wood, wreckage from the helicopter spewing out in a burst of smoking debris.

Before Carlos could get down, a large piece of blackened rock from the building's outer wall smacked into his left side. He heard and felt a rib give way as he fell, the pain instant and intense.

"Carlos!"

Jill leaned over him, her gaze darting back and forth between him and part of the tower he couldn't see, the grenade launcher still clutched in her hands. The Nemesis had stopped roaring; between that and the sudden, brutal silencing of the bells, Carlos could hear

something thumping heavily to the ground, followed by the crumble of powdering rock in a slow, even rhythm. Crunch. Crunch.

It's coming, it jumped off the roof and it's coming—

"Run,"Carlos said, and he saw that she understood, a second before she took off, that she had no other choice. Boots kicking the ground away, she left him alone as fast as she could.

Carlos turned his head as he sat up, willing himself not to feel pain, and saw the creature standing in a pile of broken concrete and burning wood, unaware that the hem of its leathery coat was on fire as its aberrant gaze tracked Jill. As before, it didn't seem to see him.

As long as I don't get in its way,Carlos thought,

propping himself against the cool stone of the fountain, lifting his riflelt doesn 't hurt, it doesn 't, doesn 't.

In a single, powerful motion the Nemesis lifted a rocket launcher to its giant shoulder and took aim, as Carlos started firing.

Each chattering round from the Ml6 sent a fresh pulse of muffled agony through his bones, but his aim was good in spite of the pain. Tiny black holes appeared on the creature's face, and Carlos could hear the pingof ricochet off the battered launcher. The fleshy tentacles that rose up from beneath the monster's long jacket whipped around its upper body as if outraged, coiling and uncoiling with incredible speed.

Carlos saw that it was swinging the bazooka toward him, but he kept firing, knowing that he couldn't get up in time to run.Get away, Jill, go!

It sighted Carlos and fired, and Carlos saw a burst of light and motion coming at him, felt the heat of the

high-explosive anti-tank missile radiating against his skin—

—and somehow, he wasn't dead, but something not far behind him blew up. The force of the blast lifted and threw him roughly against the side of the fountain; the pain was spectacular but he raggedly held on to consciousness, determined to buy Jill a few more seconds.

Half laying across the lip of the fountain, Carlos started firing again, shooting for its face, rounds going everywhere as he struggled to control the weapon.

Die, just die already.. .But it wasn't dying, it wasn't even flinching, and Carlos knew he only had a half second left before he was blown into a greasy stain on the lawn.

The rocket launcher was pointed directly at Carlos's face when it happened, a one in a million shot—

/Carajo!

—as one of the metallicpings turned into an explosion, a sudden white-hot light show. The monster pitched backwards as its weapon disintegrated, drop-

Carlos's rifle went dry. He reached for a new magazine, and there was new pain. He lost track of the light, darkness pulling him down.

Jill saw Carlos collapse and made herself stay where she was, standing between the trolley and a hedge row. She'd seen the Nemesis go down, thrown into the burning rubble by the misfire that had obliterated its bazooka, but its confirmed ability to avoid death kept

her from going to Carlos. If it was still corning, she wanted to keep it focused on her alone.

The grenade launcher felt light in her hands, high adrenaline giving her a second wind with a ven-geance—and when the Nemesis rose up, one shoulder burning, blistering black and red flesh visible beneath its ruined clothing, Jill fired.

The buckshot-loaded "grenade," like a super shotgun shell, sent a concentrated blast of thousands of pellets across the yard—but she missed the howling Nemesis entirely, the shot tearing new holes in what was left of the tower's front wall.

The Nemesis stopped screaming even though its chest was still burning, the skin crackling and black now. It squared its body toward Jill as she broke open the grenade launcher and snatched another load out of her bag, praying that it was more seriously injured by Carlos's lucky shot than it appeared.

It lowered its head and ran at her, its gigantic stride carrying it toward her incredibly quickly. In a second it was across the yard, its snaking appendages spread out as if to grab her up.

Jill leaped to her left and took off at a dead run, still holding the grenade, in between the row of hedges and the undamaged west wall of the tower. She could hear it enter the row behind her as she reached the end; it still almost had her, its speed extraordinary, putting it an arm's length away as she rounded the end of the row—

—and something struck her right shoulder as she tore around the hedge, something solid and slick, burrowing into her flesh like a giant, boneless finger. It stung, a thousand hornets at once flooding her system with poison, and she understood that one of the searching tentacles had pierced her.

Oshitoshitoshit,she couldn't think about it, there wasn't time, but the Nemesis stopped suddenly, threw its head back and bellowed its victory to the cold stars above, and Jill stumbled to a halt, shoved the load into the gun and snapped the breech closed—

—and fired as it lunged toward her again. The shot clipped the howling Nemesis just below its right hip and tore into the meat of its upper thigh, bits of skin and muscle flying out behind it—

—and it crashed, a few more momentum strides and it went down in a spray of ravaged tissue, monstrous and silent and suddenly still.

In a fever to reload, Jill dropped the second to last buckshot grenade, and it rolled away. She managed to get a firm grip on the fifth and was just snapping the gun closed when the Nemesis sat up, facing away from her.

Jill aimed for its lower back and fired, the thunder of the weapon just another dull sound beneath the ringing in her ears. The Nemesis was moving, standing up when it was hit, and the pellets hit low and left, what would be a lethal kidney shot for a human. Apparently not for the S.T.A.R.S. killer. It stumbled, then stood up and started to limp away, one giant hand clapped over its new wound.

Leaving, it's leaving—

Her thoughts were slow and heavy. It took her a moment to understand that its departure wasn't good news. She couldn't let it get away, let it repair itself and come back—she had to try and kill it while it was weak.

Jill drew the Python and tried to take aim, but her vision doubled suddenly and she couldn't focus on the receding figure as it dragged itself through the fiery wreckage. She felt light-headed and flushed and thought it very likely that she'd been infected by the T-virus.

She didn't have to see the shoulder wound to know it was bad, she could feel hot blood coursing down her side, soaking into the waistband of her skirt. She wished she could believe that the virus was being washed out of her system, but she couldn't kid herself, even so direly injured.

For a few seconds she considered the loaded .357 she still held—and then thought of Carlos and knew she had to wait. She had to help him if she could, she owed him that much.

Summoning the last of her rapidly draining strength,

Jill started toward Carlos. He lay by the fountain, groaning and half conscious, hurt, but at least she couldn't see any blood,maybe he's okay...

It was her last thought before she felt her body betray her by giving up, dropping her to the ground and putting her into a very deep sleep.

Dark, elsewhere ringing and escape, fire and dark and bullets, can't hear, Jill running from the fire and the thing firing, high-explosive missile aimed—

aimed at my—

face.

Carlos came to in a rush, confused and hurting and looking for the fight, for the Nemesis and Jill. She was in trouble if that thing got hold of her...

It was a quiet, still night, and low fires burned all around, providing a dancing orange light and enough heat to make him sweat. Carlos forced himself to move, crawling to his feet and holding his ribs tightly, jaw clenched from the pain. Fractured or broken, maybe two of them, but he had to think about Jill now, had to shake off the effects of the multiple blasts and—

"Oh, no," he said, forgetting about his aching exhaustion as he hurried toward her. Jill was lying on a patch of burnt grass, perfectly still except for the steady ooze of blood from her right shoulder. Still alive, but maybe not for much longer.

Carlos swallowed his pain and picked her up, the dead weight of her body making him want to scream in anger, at the insanity that had unfolded and grown in Raccoon, that had imposed its merciless grasp on Jill and on himself. Umbrella, monsters, spies, even Trent—all of it was crazy, it was a nightmare fairy tale ... but the blood was real enough.

He held her close, turning, searching. He had to get her inside, safe, somewhere he could dress her wounds, where they could both rest for a little while. There was the chapel in the mostly undamaged west wing; there were no windows and good locks on the door.

"Don't die, Jill," he said, and hoped she was listening as he carried her across the burning yard.

TWENTY

TIME PASSING. DARK AND DARK, AND FRAGments of a thousand dreams, spinning into focus for a brief glimpse before spinning away. She was a child at the beach with her father, the taste of salt on the wind. She was a gawky teenager, in love for the first time; a thief, stealing from wealthy strangers as her father had taught her to do; a student, training for the S.T.A.R. S., learning to apply her skills to help people.

Darker. The day her father went to prison for grand larceny. Lovers she had betrayed, or who had betrayed her. Feelings of loneliness. And her life in Raccoon City, the very death of light.

Becky and Priscilla McGee, ages seven and nine, the first victims. Eviscerated, parts of them eaten. Finding the crashed Bravo team helicopter outside of the mansion; the smell inside, of dust and rot. Learning about

Umbrella's conspiracy and the corruption and collaboration of at least a few S.T.A.R.S. members. The death of the traitorous team leader, Albert Wesker, and the Nemesis's final attack.

Several times, half awake, she swallowed cool water and then slept again, more recent memories taking over. The lost survivors, the people she'd tried to save, the faces of the children, mostly. All of them, gone.

Brad Vickers's brutal death. Carlos. Nicholai's flat, emotionless gaze, and Mikhail's sacrifice. And reigning over it all like the demonic epitome of evil, the beyond-Tyrant monster, the Nemesis, its terrible voice calling for her, its terrible eyes seeking her wherever she went, whatever she did.

The most troubling thing, though, was that there was something happening to her—a distant feeling, because it was happening to her body and she was very much asleep, but no less unpleasant for that. It felt like her veins were heating up and expanding. Like her every

cell was becoming thick and heavy with strange spices, sticking to the cells around it, all of them boiling gently. Like her whole body was a vessel filled with moving wet heat.

Finally, the gentle sound of falling rain lapped at the edges of her awareness and she yearned to see it, feel its coolness on her skin, but it was a long, tiring struggle to leave the dark behind. Her body didn't want to, protesting louder the closer she got to the surface of gray, the twilight between the dreams and the rain—but determined, she won out.

After deciding that she was alive, Jill opened her eyes. TWENTY-ONE

CARLOS WAS SITTING WITH HIS BACK TO THE door eating fruit cocktail out of a can when he heard Jill stir, the regular, consistent sound of her deep breathing becoming lighter. She turned her head from side to side, still asleep, but the movement was the most deliberate action he'd seen in forty-eight hours.

He stood as quickly as he could, forced to be careful by the pinch of his tightly taped ribs, and hurried to the raised altar where she lay.

He picked up the bottle of water at the base of the dais, and when he stood up again, she opened her eyes.

"Jill? I'm going to give you some water now. Try and help me out, okay?"

She nodded, and Carlos felt sappy with relief, holding her head up while she drank a few swallows from the bottle. It was the first time she had responded

clearly to anything, and her color looked good. For two days she had drunk when he'd pushed it on her, swallowing at least but white as a ghost and completely out of it otherwise.

"Where ... are we?" Jill asked weakly, closing her eyes as she lay her head back down on the makeshift pillow, a piece of rolled-up carpet. Her blanket was made from unburned drapes he'd salvaged from the foyer.

"The chapel of the clock tower," he said softly, still smiling. "We've been here since—since the helicopter crashed."

Jill opened her eyes again, obviously aware and reasonably focused. Shewasn't infected, he'd been so afraid for a while, but she was okay, she had to be.

"How long?"

Talking seemed to be tiring for her, so Carlos tried to summarize everything that had happened, to save her the questions. "The Nemesis shot down the helicopter, and you and I were both wounded. Your shoulder was ... injured, but I've been changing the dressings and it doesn't seem to be infected. We've been here two days, recuperating, you've been sleeping mostly. It's October first, I think, the sun set an hour ago and it's been raining off and on since last night..."

He trailed off, not sure what else he could tell her but not wanting her to fall asleep again, not right away.

He'd been stuck with his own thoughts for long enough.

"Oh, I found a case of fruit cocktail, of all things, in the trunk in that one sitting room—the one with the chessboard, remember? Water, too, someone was

hoarding, I guess, lucky for us. I didn't want to leave you alone, I've been, ah, taking care of you." He didn't add that he'd been cleaning her up, changing the drapes she lay upon when it was necessary; he didn't want her to feel embarrassed.

"You're hurt?" she asked, frowning, blinking slowly.

"Couple of fractured ribs, no big deal. Well, maybe when I have to pull the tape off,that's gonna hurt like a son of a bitch. All I could find was duct tape."

She smiled faintly, and Carlos softened his tone, almost afraid to ask. "How are you doin'?"

"Two days? No more helicopters?" she asked, looking away, and he felt himself tense slightly. She hadn't answered his question.

"No more helicopters," he said and noticed for the first time that the color in her cheeks was overly red.

He touched the side of her neck, and his tension grew; fever, not too bad, but she hadn't had it the last time he'd checked, an hour before. "Jill, how do you feel?"

"Not bad. Not bad at all, hardly any pain." Her voice was flat, inflectionless.

Carlos smiled crookedly. "Bien, si? That's good news, that means we can pack up and get out of here soon... "

"I'm infected with the virus," she said, and Carlos froze, his smile fading.

No. No, she's wrong, it's not possible.

"It's been two days, you can't be," he said firmly, telling her what he'd been telling himself since he first woke up. "I saw one of the other soldiers turn into a zombie, couldn't have been more than twohours from

the time Randy was bit until he changed. If you have it, something would have happened by now."

Jill carefully rolled onto her side, wincing a little, closing her eyes again. She sounded incredibly tired. "I'm not going to argue with you, Carlos. Maybe it's a different mutation because it came from the Nemesis, or maybe I picked up some kind of immunity, from being at the Spencer estate. I don't know, but I have it." Her voice shook. "Ican feel it, I can feel myself getting worse!"

"Okay, okay, shhh," Carlos said, deciding that he would leave immediately. He'd take Jill's revolver in addition to the assault rifle, and definitely a couple of hand grenades.

The hospital was close, and there was at least one vaccine sample there, that's what Trent had said. Carlos had wanted to find the hospital earlier, for supplies, but he'd been too exhausted and hurt to go looking, at first—and then he hadn't wanted to risk leaving Jill alone and unconscious, dangerous for several reasons.

I'll go out front and head west, see if I can find a sign or something... Trent had also said something about the hospital not being there for much longer; Carlos hoped he wasn't too late.

"Try and get back to sleep," Carlos said. "I'm going to take off for a while, to try and find something that might help you. I won't be gone long."

Jill already seemed to be half asleep, but she raised her head and made an effort to be clear, enunciating carefully. "If you come back and I'm—sicker, I want you to help me. I'm asking you now, I may not be able to ask you later. Do you understand?"

Carlos wanted to protest but knew that he'd want the same thing if he had the disease. Being dead sucked, but Raccoon was proof that there were worse things.

Like having to shoot someone you care about.

"I understand," he said. "You rest now. I'll be back soon."

Jill slept, and Carlos started to load up. Just before he left, he gazed into her sleeping face for a long moment, silently praying that she'd still be Jill when he got back.

The hospital turned out to be much closer than he thought, less than two blocks away.

Nicholai waited for Ken Franklin eagerly, knowing that the Watchdog's death would mark the beginning of the end game. Nicholai's growing frustration was about to come to an end.

If the bastard ever shows up...But no, he was coming, and then Nicholai would be on track again. He checked the corner window of the office he'd chosen, overlooking the dark, empty street—also his escape route, if the sergeant turned out to be troublesome—frame tenth time in half as many minutes, willing the errant Watchdog to hurry.

Nothing had gone as he'd planned, and although he'd made the best of it, Nicholai was losing his patience.

The search for Davis Chan had been spectacularly unsuccessful; Nicholai hadn't even caught a glimpse of him during the two days he'd stayed in the city—and twice more the elusive soldier had managed to avoid a confrontation after filing his reports, sending Nicholai running all over town.

Nicholai had also been planning to head to Umbrella's "water treatment" facility to get rid of Terence Foster earlier in the day, but he'd been further sidetracked in a wild-goose chase—he'd seen an uninfected woman near the RPD building, a tall, Asian-American woman wearing a tight, sleeveless red dress and holding a gun like she knew what to do with it. She'd slipped into the building and was gone. Nicholai had searched for nearly four hours but hadn't seen the mystery woman again.

So, all three of his targets, still alive. He'd been able to collect some Watchdog information, at least, uncovering a couple of private lab reports on the strength of the average zombie—but he'd had enough, enough eating cold beans out of cans, enough sleeping with one eye open, enough playing big game hunter. By his count, he'd killed four Beta Hunters, three giant spiders, and three brain suckers. And dozens of zombies, of course, although he didn't really count those as worthy of note, not anymore. They just kept getting slower and stickier; Raccoon already smelled like a giant cesspool, and it was only going to get worse as the virus carriers continued to decay, turning into great sludgy piles of malodorous stew.

I'llbe gone by then. After all, Franklin will be here any minute.

After two days of unmet objectives, Nicholai had come to see Franklin's appointment at the hospital as something solid, something he could hold on to—a sure kill. And as he'd passed long, solitary hours immersed in the growing chaos of uncertainty, the death of Ken Franklin had become extremely important.

Once he was dead, Nicholai could blow up the hospital; once the hospital was destroyed, Nicholai could hunt down Chan and Foster, and then he could leave. Everything would fall into place as soon as he killed Franklin.

Even as Nicholai embraced that thought, he heard footsteps out in the hall. Heart swelling with pleasure, Nicholai took his position by the window and waited for Franklin to find him. The cluttered office/supply room was on the fourth floor, not far from where he'd killed and hidden Dr. Aquino.

Come along, Sergeant...

When the Watchdog opened the door, Nicholai was leaning casually in the corner, arms folded. Franklin was carrying top of the line, a 9mm VP70, and he had it trained on Nicholai's face in the blink of an eye.

Nicholai didn't move.

"You're not supposed to be here," Franklin said coolly, his voice deep and deadly. He stepped further into the room, not taking his gaze—or the semiautomatic—off of Nicholai.

Time for him to find out who's smarter.Anyone could stage an ambush, but it took a certain amount of intelligence and skill to make one's opponent willingly walk into one. Nicholai feigned a mildly surly nervousness.

"You're right, I'm not. Aquino should be here—but he stopped filing reports yesterday. They thought he was too busy, working on the antiviral, but I've been looking since last night and can't find him." Nicholai had actually filed several status reports with Dr. Aquino's name on them since killing him, to keep up appearances.

"Who are you?" Franklin asked. He was tall and well muscled, with very dark skin and rather delicate-look-ing wire rimmed glasses. There was nothing delicate in the way he looked at Nicholai, however.

Nicholai uncrossed his arms and lowered them very slowly. "Nicholai Ginovaef, U.B.C.S_and Watchdog. I was tapped to check things out when the doctor went AWOL. You're Franklin, right? Have you had any contact with Aquino since your arrival? Did he talk to you about where he was going to secure the sample, or give you a combination, or a key?"

Franklin didn't lower his weapon, but he was obviously confused. "Nobody told me about any change in plans. Who did you say sent you?"

This part was a risk. Nicholai knew the names of four men important enough to have made changes to Umbrella's agenda, and chances were good that one of them was Franklin's contact and would already have informed Franklin.

"I didn't say," Nicholai said. "But I guess it's okay to tell you ... Trent called me in on this."

He'd chosen the man he knew least about, even after all of his careful research, in the hope that Franklin wouldn't know anything about him, either. Trent was an enigma, skulking around the other top brass like some cryptic shadow. Nicholai didn't even know his first name.

It worked for the sergeant. Franklin lowered his weapon, still wary but obviously willing to believe.

"So, you couldn't find Aquino? What about the vaccine?"

Nicholai sighed, shaking his head and then deliberately looking to his left, a space hidden from Franklin's view by an overstaffed shelf. "No sign of the doc ... but this was his office, and there's a wall safe back here. Do you know anything about getting one of these things open?"

Nicholai knew that Franklin did—on his personnel file, safecracking was listed among his skills.

Nicholai didn't give a shit whether or not Franklin could open the safe; what mattered was that to get to the safe, the sergeant would have to turn his back on Nicholai.

I'm better, better at this than Aquino or Chan or this fool, and this will prove it. I'd never turn my back on anyone, ever.Yes, that would be unworthy of him ...

Franklin nodded, bolstering the VP70 and walking toward the corner where Nicholai stood. "Yeah, I know a little. I can take a look at it, anyway."

Nicholai nodded briskly. "Good. I was starting to think that I was going to be stuck here for a while."

"Maybe that's for the best," Franklin said, stepping past Nicholai to a small safe inset behind the shelf.

"With the way things are going out there, I've been thinking about holing up someplace for a while, waiting until things die down a little."

Nicholai took a silent step closer to Franklin, eyeing the VP70's unsnapped holster. "Not a bad idea."

Franklin nodded, frowning at the keypad. "Chan is doing it, he says the info will still be there tomorrow so why not, right?"

Davis Chan!

Nicholai held very still, deciding—and then he darted forward and snatched up the 9mm, not willing to

dance for what he wanted. He shoved Franklin at the same time, pushing him off balance, using the split sec-

ond of his recovery time to sight the heavy handgun.

"Chan—tell me where he is, and you live,"

Nicholai barked. With his free hand, he reached into his pocket and touched the vaccine case, for luck. It had become something of a talisman for him, a reminder of how good he was—and itwas lucky, he knew it.

Franklin and now Chan, the only two Watchdogs with no assigned filing locale. Incredible.

Franklin backed up a step, hands up. "Hey, take it easy—"

"Where is he?"

Franklin was sweating. "At the radio setup, okay? At the cemetery. Look, I don't know you, and I don't care what you're doing—"

"Terrific," Nicholai said, and shot Franklin in the abdomen, twice.

"Uuh!"Franklin grunted heavily as blood splattered the wall behind him. The sergeant fell backwards and landed on his butt, arms still outspread, an expression of surprise on his dark features. Nicholai was a little surprised himself; he'd expected better from one of the soldier dogs.

Nicholai raised the weapon, aiming it at Franklin's forehead—

—when he heard the door open, boot steps jogging into the room. Handgun still pointed at the dying Franklin, Nicholai ducked down and peered through an opening in the shelf—

—and saw Carlos Oliveira standing there, staring

around wildly and hefting a .357 revolver, obviously trying to figure out where the shots had come from.

It was a gift from the fates. Nicholai stepped into view, Carlos's stupid face targeted before the soldier even realized that there was somebody else in the room.

"Gotcha," Nicholai whispered.

TWENTY-TWO

NICHOLAI HAD HIM, DEAD TO RIGHTS. CARlos dropped the revolver and raised his hands. He had to buy some time.

Talk to him, get his attention. Jill needs you to come back, with or without the vaccine.

"Hola,dickhead," Carlos said lightly. "I wondered if I was going to see you again, after our ride out of town got blown to shit. A monster did it, believe it or not. So, what's your story? Kill anything interesting lately?"

From behind the tall shelf unit jutting out from one wall, somebody groaned in pain. Nicholai didn't look away, and Carlos could see that he'd taken the right tact. Nicholai was smug, irritated ... and intrigued.

"I'm about to kill you—so no, nothing interesting.

Tell me, has Mikhail died yet? And how is your bitch friend, Ms. Valentine?"

Carlos glared at him. "Both dead. Mikhail died on the trolley, and Jill contracted the virus. I... I had to put her down just a few hours ago." He probably wasn't going to walk away from this, and he didn't want Nicholai going after Jill; he quickly changed the subject. "You shot Mikhail, didn't you?"

"I did." Nicholai's eyes sparkled. He reached into his front pocket as he spoke, pulling out what looked like a metal cigar holder. "And as luck would have it, this is the cure to what killed your other friend. If only you'd come sooner ... in a way, I suppose you could say I'm at least partly responsible in both deaths, couldn't you?"

The sample. The only thing that could save Jill now, and Carlos was being held at gunpoint by the madman who had it.

Think! Think of something!

There was another gruff wail of pain from behind the shelf. Carlos tilted his head and could see a man slumped in the back corner of the room, just visible between two stacks of files. Carlos couldn't see his face, but the man's lower half was drenched with blood.

"And that guy makes three," Carlos said, desperately

trying to keep the conversation going, trying not to stare at the silver case that Nicholai held up. "Aren't you a go-getter? Tell me, is this a means to an end, or do youlike killing people?"

"I enjoy killing people who are as useless as you," Nicholai said, slipping the vaccine into an open pocket. "Can you think of one reason you deserve to live?"

Another moan came from the dying man behind the shelf. Carlos glanced between the stacks again and saw

an impact grenade clenched in shaking hands, the ring already pulled; Carlos realized that the man must have groaned to cover the sound, and some part of him admired the clear thinking, all in the instant before he started to back up, hands still raised. The grenade was an RG34, the same kind that Carlos had tucked in his vest, and he wanted as much distance as he could get.

Make it look good...

"I'm an excellent shot, I have a generous nature, and I floss every day," Carlos said, backing up another step, trying to appear that he was deeply afraid and covering it up with bravado.

"Such a waste this will be," Nicholai said, smiling, extending his arm.

Throw the goddamn thing!

"Why?" Carlos asked quickly. "Why are you doing this?"

Nicholai's smile stretched into a grin, the same predatorial grin that Carlos had seen him wearing on the transport, what felt like a million years before.

"I possess leadership qualities," Nicholai said, and for the first time, Carlos could see the insanity in his murky eyes. "That's all you need to know—"

"Die!"the bleeding man screamed. Carlos caught a flicker of motion behind the shelf, and then Carlos was diving sideways, trying to get behind a table as a window broke and—

—BOOM,folders and books were airborne and exploded materials rained down, wood and paper and chips of metal, the heavy shelf tipping over with a thundering creak. It slammed to the floor with a tremendous crash, and then everything was quiet, and shit was everywhere.

Carlos sat up, one arm wrapped around his throbbing rib cage, tears of pain in his eyes. He blinked them away and got to his feet, grabbing the revolver he'd dropped as he stood up.

Nicholai was gone. Carlos kicked his way through the debris to the corner, remembering that a window had shatteredbefore the grenade exploded. Although it was dark and rainy outside, Carlos could see the roof of an adjacent building one floor below.

Bam! Bam!

Carlos jumped back as two rounds hit the outer wall, hardly a hand's width from his face. He silently berated himself for sticking his head out the window, like some half-wittedbaboso. He backed away from the window and turned, only to find himself staring at the burnt, bloody remains of the grenade thrower.

"Gracias,"Carlos said quietly. He wished he could think of something else to say, but then he decided it would only be useless symbolism; the guy was dead, he wasn't hearing shit.

Carlos walked back across the room, thinking, wondering how he was going to catch up with Nicholai. It wasn't going to be easy, but there was no other choice—

—and he saw the glint of metal from the corner of his eye, and stopped. He blinked, feeling a kind of awe as he realized what he was looking at—and then scooped it up, a giant weight lifting from his shoulders and from around his heart.

He was going to be able to save Jill. The crazypen-dejo had dropped the vaccine.

* * *

Nicholai moved quickly through the rain toward the front of the hospital. Everything is fine, he's dead at the push of a button and I control it, I can shut down the power and trap him —

He laughed out loud suddenly, thinking about the containment tubes in the basement where the Hunter Gammas were stored, each floating in its own see-through womb. Shut down the power and there was automatic drainage so they wouldn't drown in the unaerated fluid.

Die, or fight and die, Carlos.Nicholai had been smart, he'd thought ahead and now all he had to do was hit a few switches and Carlos would be in the dark and the amphibious Hunters would be squelching toward him, and maybe Carlos would actually be dead before the hospital was blown apart, but he was dead no matter what

Jill was sleeping again, and she was sick. Hot and achy, and her dreams were gone, pulsing, squirming shadows in their place. Shadows with textures, rough and wet. Nausea warred with an unfulfilled emptiness, with a dying thirst and a growing heat.

She rolled to one side and then the other, trying to find relief from the crawling itch that had embedded itself in every part of her, that made the ugly shadows get bigger as she slept on.

Carlos found needles, syringes, and a half bottle of Betadine in a doctor's office on the third floor. He also found a cabinet full of drug company samples and was trying to decipher the labels, looking for a mild painkiller, when the lights when out.

"Shit." He put down the sample, trying to get his bearings in the sudden dark. It took him about a second and a half to decide it was Nicholai, and a second longer to decide he needed to get out, and get out fast. Nicholai probably hadn't shut down the power just to make him stub his toe in the dark. Whatever Nicholai was planning, Carlos thought he'd take a rain check.

He edged out of the room and into the hall, moving slowly, his hands out in front of him. Just as he reached the stairwell, the hospital's emergency backup lights hummed into soft red life. The effect was otherworldly, the light just bright enough to see by, casting everything in murky shadow.

Carlos started down the stairs, taking them two at a time, thumb on the hammer of the Python. He ignored his aching side, deciding that he'd collapse later, when he wasn't in such a hurry. He only knew of two options for getting out of the hospital—the window Nicholai had jumped from and the front door. There were certainly more, but he didn't want to waste time trying to

find them; in his experience, most hospitals were mazes.

The front door was his best bet. Nicholai probably didn't think Carlos had the nerve to charge straight out of the most obvious exit, or so Carlos hoped.

He'd reached the landing between the first and second floors when he heard a door crash open somewhere far below, echoing up the stairwell, making him freeze. The sound that followed—the furious, piglike battle cry of some distinctly mutant creature—got him moving again. His feet hardly touched the steps, but he still

wasn't fast enough; just as he was bounding down the last flight, a monstrous figure leaped in front of the exit to the ground floor.

It was giant, humanoid, tall and wide and dripping slime. Its body was a dark blue-green, almost black in the dim red light. With its webbed oversized hands and feet and its huge rounded head and mouth, it resembled nothing so much as a mammoth, hideously squashed frog.

Its powerful lower jaw dropped open, and another piercing, squealing screech filled the stairwell, rebounding throughout. Carlos heard at least three more answer the first, a fierce and freakish chorus erupting from somewhere down below.

Carlos opened fire, the first round hitting the metal door and creating a deafening tornado of sound. Before he could squeeze the trigger again, the amphibious creature was springing, squealing as it leaped toward Carlos, stretching its muscular arms wide.

Carlos reflexively dropped, firing as he slid down several steps, rolling to his uninjured side so he could follow the creature's descent. Three, four rounds plugged into the shrieking frog-thing's slimy body as it flew overhead—

—and it was dead by the time it landed, dark gouts of watery, brackish fluid spuming from its spasming body.

Carlos was on his feet running and halfway through the door even as the creature's siblings began their feral, earsplitting lament. Not too hard to kill,

maybe, but he didn't want to consider his chances

if there were three or more of them all leaping at once.

Into the lobby and he slammed the door, saw that it required a key to lock, and he turned to look for something he could use to block it—

—and instead he saw a tiny, blinking white light from across the room, its brightness drawing his gaze from the midst of a shady red ocean of trashed furniture and dead bodies.

A blinking white light on a small box, the box affixed to a pillar. A timer light for a detonating compound.

Carlos tried to think of something else it might be and came up blank, knowing only that it hadn't been there when he'd arrived; it was a bomb, Nicholai had put it there, and suddenly the frog monsters were a much smaller deal.

His mind was curiously blank as he pounded through the lobby, a thoughtless, wordless panic overtaking him, pushing him to run fast and far, to not waste time thinking. He tripped over a shredded couch and didn't notice whether or not he fell or felt pain, he was moving too fast, the glass doors at the front of the building all he could see.

Bam,through the doors, shining black asphalt splashing under his feet, rain misting on his sweaty face. Rows of smashed and abandoned cars, shining like wet jewels beneath a streetlight. The drum of his shuddering heart—

—and the explosion was so massive that his hearing couldn't encompass it all, a kind ofka-WHAMM that was as much motion as it was sound. His body was

thrown, a leaf in a hot and violent hurricane, the ground and sky becoming connected, interchangeable.

He was skidding across wet pavement, tumbling to a gritty stop against a fire hydrant, feeling the enormity of pain in his side and tasting salt from a nosebleed.

Barely a block away, the hospital had been reduced

to a smoking ruin, smaller pieces of it still coming down, cracking against the ground like deadly hail.

Parts were on fire, but a lot of it had just disintegrated, matter blown to dust, the dust settling and turning to mud as the skies continued to dump water on everything.

Jill.

Carlos pulled himself up and started to limp back to the clock tower.

Nicholai realized he'd lost the vaccine sample as he was running away from the hospital, when there was one minute left before all of it went sky high. When it was already too late.

There was no choice but to keep running, and he did, and when the hospital exploded, Nicholai paced back and forth in the street three blocks away, lost in anger. So lost that he didn't realize that the agonized moaning, whining noise he heard was coming from him, or that he'd clenched his jaw hard enough to crack two teeth.

After a long time, he remembered that he still had to kill two more people, and he started to calm down. Being able to express his anger would be constructive; it wasn't healthy to keep feelings bottled up.

The Watchdog operation was his interest. The vaccine had been an extra, a gift—so in a way, he hadn't reallylost anything.

Nicholai told himself that several times on his way to get Davis Chan; it made him feel better, though not as good as when he remembered that he'd had his hunting knife sharpened just before he'd come to Raccoon. He was sure Chan would appreciate it.

TWENTY-THREE

WHEN JILL WOKE UP, IT WAS STILL RAINING outside, and she felt like herself again. Weak, thirsty, and hungry, definitely in pain from her shoulder wound and about a thousand lesser aches—but herself. The sickness was gone.

Disoriented and a little confused, she sat up slowly and looked around, trying to piece together what had happened. She was still in the clock tower chapel, and

Carlos was crashed out on one of the front pews. She remembered telling him that she had the virus, and him saying that he was going to get something ...

... but I was sick, I had the disease... and I don't just feel better now, I absolutely don't have it anymore. How could—

"Oh my God," she whispered, seeing the syringe and empty vial on the organ bench next to the altar, suddenly understanding what had happened, if not how. Carlos had found an antidote.

Jill sat for a moment, slightly overwhelmed by the mix of emotions that hit her—shock, gratitude, a reluctance to believe she was actually okay. Her happiness at being alive and reasonably well was tempered by guilt, that she should have been cured when so many others had died. She wondered whether or not there was more of the antidote but found she couldn't consider that too carefully; the thought that there might be gallons of it lying around somewhere when tens of thousands had died was simply obscene.

Finally, she eased herself off her sickbed and stood, carefully stretching, checking herself over. Considering all that had happened, she was surprised at how well-off she was. Except for her right shoulder, she had no serious injuries, and after drinking some water, she actually felt awake and able to move around without any trouble.

Over the next couple of hours, Jill ate three cans of fruit cocktail, drank a half gallon of water, and reloaded and wiped down all of the weapons. She also cleaned herself up, as much as she could, with bottled water and a dirty sweatshirt. Carlos didn't stir once, deeply asleep—and from the way he was curled up and holding his left side, she thought that his trip to the hospital had probably been rough.

Jill also gave a great deal of thought to what they would do next. They couldn't stay. They didn't have the supplies or ammo to keep themselves alive indefinitely, and they had no way of knowing when—or even if, she didn't want to take it for granted anymore—rescue was

coming. As hard as it was to believe, it seemed that Umbrella had managed to keep a lid on what had happened, and if they could do it for this long, it might be

several more days before the story broke. To add to the pressure, she also couldn't convince herself that the Nemesis was dead; once it had recuperated, it would be coming back. They were incredibly lucky that it hadn't attacked already.

Before she'd hooked up with Carlos, she had tentatively planned to head for the abandoned Umbrella-owned plant north of the city. She'd come to believe that there was no such thing as a deserted Umbrella fa-cility—they loved their secret operations too much— and thought that they might have kept the roads clear around the plant so their employees could get out. It was still worth a shot, and it was also the best she could come up with. Besides, the fastest way out of town from their current position was straight past the facility.

Carlos continued to sleep, perfectly still except for the rise and fall of his chest, his face slack from exhaustion ... and once Jill had decided on a course of action, she watched him for a little while and realized that she had to leave him behind. It was a much harder decision to make, but only because she didn't want to be alone, a selfish reason at best. The truth of it was, he was hurting because he'd gotten in between her and the Nemesis, and she couldn't put him in that position again.

/'//go check out the plant, maybe find a radio and call for help. If things look good, safe, I can come back for him. If they look shitty... well, I guess I'll just come back if I can. The facility was barely a mile away if she remembered right, she could get there by cutting

through Memorial Park, just behind the clock tower, a very short trip. It was just after two in the morning, she'd be able to get there and back well before dawn.

With any luck, Carlos would still be asleep when she returned, perhaps bearing good news.

She decided to leave him a note in case something happened to her so he'd know the route, at least. She couldn't find a pen or pencil, but she uncovered an ancient manual typewriter, of all things, beneath a stack of hymnbooks. She used the back of a fruit cocktail label for paper. The soft clack of keys was as soothing to her as the rain that continued to patter down on the roof, sounds that made her very glad to be alive.

She took the grenade gun even though there was only one round left—Carlos must have found the one she'd dropped in the yard—remembering the damage it had in-

flicted on the S.T.A.R.S. killer. She also took the Beretta, but she left the revolver for Carlos so that he'd have something a little heavier than the assault rifle. Just in case.

Jill left the note on the altar, where Carlos would see it as soon as he woke up, and she crouched next to him, reaching out to touch his cool brow. He was definitely out, not even a twitch as she brushed his duty hair off his forehead, wondering how she could ever thank him for all he'd done.

"Sleep well," she whispered, and before she could change her mind, she stood up and turned away, hurrying to the door and not looking back.

There was a cabin behind the small cemetery in Memorial Park, ostensibly used for tool storage. It had been taken over as one of several Umbrella receiver

stations for the duration of the Raccoon outbreak— kind of a rest stop for operatives, each in a private place where they could organize files without being seen and get general updates from Umbrella, if they didn't have immediate access to a computer.

Nicholai had not planned to stop by any of the receiver stations; he thought they were an unnecessary risk on Umbrella's part, even as well hidden as they were—the setup at the cemetery cabin was behind a false wall. Umbrella didn't want anyone tracking signals coming out of the city, so the stations were set to receive only, another precaution, but Nicholai still thought they were dangerous. If he wanted to trap an agent, he'd stake out one of the receiver stations.

Or if I wanted to kill one. Although in this case, I only have to walkin...or wait for a little while.

He stood in the shadows of a large monument a few meters from the false room, thinking of how fine it was going to be to kill Captain Chan. Nicholai had considered just barging through the concealed door and shooting him, but he needed to relax, to get into a better frame of mind. Chan would come out for a bathroom break or a smoke sooner or later, and by allowing his anticipation to build, Nicholai was able to let go of some of his more unpleasant emotions. He didn't do it often; he wasn't crazy or anything, and he generally preferred to keep things moving along—but sometimes, savoring the suspense before an intimate killing was just the thing to lift him out of a depression.

Nicholai watched the door—actually a hinged corner of the building—enjoying the cool rain in spite of how miserable he knew he'd be later, running around in wet

clothes. He was going to take someone's life. Things had been a little out of control for a few moments, when he'd realized he'd lost the vaccine, but who was in control now? Davis Chan was about to die and Nicholai was the only one who knew it, because he had decided Chan's fate.

And Carlos is dead, I caused that. And Mikhail, and three Watchdogs so far.He couldn't really make a claim on Jill Valentine, but Nicholai^aJ enjoyed the stricken look on Carlos's face when he'd suggested it. What counted, though, the only thing that had ever really mattered, was that his enemies were dead and he was still walking.

When Davis Chan stepped out into the rain a few moments later, Nicholai had released most of his negative feelings of self-pity and undirected frustration. And by the tune his knife had finished with Chan, fifteen minutes later, he was his old self again. Chan, of course, no longer resembled anything human, but Nicholai sincerely thanked the remains for getting him back on track.

0250 hours October 2

Carlos:

I've gone to the water treatment facility directly northeast from the clock tower, a mile give or take. Umbrella owns it, there may be resources there that we can use. I'll be back as soon as I take a look around. Wait here for me, for at least a few hours. If I'm not back by morning, you should probably try to get out on your own.

I'm grateful to you, for a lot of things. Stay here and get some rest, please. I shouldn't be long.

Jill

Carlos read the curled paper twice more, then grabbed his vest and stood up, checking his watch.

She'd been gone less than a half hour. He could still catch up with her.

Staying wasn't an option. She'd left him behind either because he was injured or because she didn't want

to put him in further danger... neither of which was acceptable to him. And he'd never had a chance to tell her what Trent had said, about there being helicopters at an Umbrella facility northwest of town, but northeast from where they were now, after the trolley ride. Obviously the same place.

"You may kick ass all over Umbrella's monsters, but can you pilot a helicopter?" Carlos mumbled, locking a new mag to the Ml6. If only she'd waked him up ...

He headed for the door, as ready as he was going to be, trying not to breathe too deeply. It hurt, but he'd manage. He'd been in worse pain and still gotten things done; once, he'd walked six klicks on a fractured ankle, and it didn't get a whole lot worse than that.

Carlos didn't waste time trying to convince himself that wanting to share Trent's info was why he was going after her. He couldn't stand by and do nothing, that was all. She was trying to protect him, he could appreciate the sentiment, but he just couldn't stay there and—

Nicholai. He's out there and she doesn 't know.

He suddenly felt sick thanking of that mad glimmer in Nicholai's eyes. Carlos hurried out of the chapel and into the moonlit rain. He had to find her.

TWENTY-FOUR

THE RAIN HAD TURNED INTO A DRIZZLE, BUT Nicholai didn't notice, walking beneath the thick canopy of autumn leaves back through the cemetery. Another fifty or sixty meters and he could cut east, parallel the trail that ran straight to the water treatment facility's back entrance. He never used paths in public places when he could avoid them, not liking the sense of exposure.

On last check, Terence Foster was still alive and well and filing environmental status reports from the treatment plant, perfectly unaware that, as the last surviving Watchdog, his hours were numbered. Nicholai had already decided to just kill the man outright, to hell with talking. He'd found Chan's Watchdog data easily enough, sitting on the small table in the receiver station; he'd find Foster's, too. A quick encryption on the

combined files—a little health insurance—then he'd radio for pickup and go take a meeting with the deci-

Nicholai had just reached the copse of pines behind the fence of one of the park's reflecting pools when he saw Jill Valentine, walking casually past the water's edge beneath a row of wrought-iron lamps and headed in the direction he wanted to go. The low lights reflected off the water at her, giving her a ghostly appearance, but she was definitely alive.

He supposed he shouldn't be surprised, but he was.

The look of pain on Carlos's face when he'd talked about her... Nicholai had been sure it was real, he hadn't doubted for a second that she was dead.

Ah, well, it was the last lie he ever told. Very noble of him, to try and protect the girl from who he believes to be the dastardly villain.. . as if I would waste my time.

No time wasted if he killed her now. Nicholai raised the assault rifle, carefully took aim at the back of her head—and hesitated, curious in spite of his resolve to finish his business in Raccoon. How had she managed to evade the S.T.A.R.S. seeker all this time? Where had she been when her Latin lover had so idiotically wandered into Nicholas's path at the hospital? And where, exactly, did she think she was going?

He decided to follow her, at least until an easy opportunity presented itself for him to get the answers to his questions. As it was, with her on the main trail through the park and him behind a waist-high railing, he couldn't maneuver very well; telling her to freeze, drop her weapons, and then hold still while he climbed the fence wasn't the most desirable option.

Nicholai sank back into the shadows and counted slowly to twenty, letting her get far enough ahead that she shouldn't be able to hear him moving through the trees. He would trail her until the main path became the bridge over the park's large duck pond, confronting her once she was halfway across, out in the open with nowhere to run.

Satisfied with his plan, Nicholai started walking, moving as quietly as he could. He'd lost sight of her on his count, but unless she was jogging, he'd catch up with her just before—

"Freeze." Her voice was calm and clear, the semiautomatic's muzzle hard against the side of his head. "Oh,

Nicholai did as he was told, shocked into it, unsling-ing his rifle and letting it fall. How had she spotted him? How had she managed to circle back so quietly, without his notice?

And how much does she really know about me?

"Please don't shoot," he said, his voice cracking.

"Jill, it's me, Nicholai."

The gun stayed where it was. "I know who you are. And I know you're working for Umbrella, not just as a soldier. What's Operation Watchdog, Nicholai?"

She already knew something about it. If he lied, he lost any credibility he might still have with her.

Say and do whatever it takes."Umbrella sent me and several others in to gather information about the virus carriers," he said. "But I didn't know it was going to be like this, I swear, I never would have agreed to it if I had known. I just want to get out with my life, that's all I care about anymore."

Still the muzzle stayed pressed to his temple. She was careful, he had to give her that much.

"What do you know about the water treatment plant near here?" she asked.

"Nothing. I mean, I know Umbrella owns it, but that's it. Please, you must believe me, I just want to—"

"What about the vaccine for the virus, what you know about that?"

Nicholai's gut knotted at the very mention, but he stayed in character. "Vaccine? There's no vaccine."

"Bullshit, or I'd be dead. Prove to me that you want to cooperate here, and maybe we can work something out. What have you heard about a T-virus vaccine?"

Carlos. The look on his face when he talked about her... and when he saw the sample case.

Nicholai didn't trust himself to speak, the depth of his sudden and complete inner turmoil like a physical

force, pushing him to act—but he couldn't, and he had to convince her that he was just another Umbrella pawn or she was going to shoot him. He opened his mouth, not sure what was going to come out—

—and he was saved by the very ground beneath them. There was a deep rumble and the earth shook, pitching both of them into a drunken stumble, leaves and sticks jumping around their feet. The gun swung away from his head as Jill struggled for balance.

Even as disorienting as it was to try and stay upright, Nicholai didn't think it was a real earthquake. It was localized around them; for one thing, he could see that the water in the pool was barely moving. The tremor went on and on, seeming to increase in magnitude, and

Nicholai knew he wasn't going to get a better opportunity to get away.

Feigning panic, Nicholai threw up his arms and shouted, carefully noting where his rifle lay on the shaking ground. "It's one of the mutants! Run!"

It was as likely to be some viral monster as it was anything else, and telling her to run would work for him—she'd think twice about shooting someone trying to help her.

The quake was intensifying as Nicholai ran away from Jill, one arm still waving frantically. He yelled again for her to run as he snatched up the rifle and sprinted away, not looking back, hoping she'd bought his performance. If not, he'd feel the bullet soon enough—

—and within twenty meters, the ground thathe was on was practically still, although he could still feel and hear the rumbling earth behind him.

Far enough, find cover and shoot her—

There was a big oak tree straight ahead. Still running, Nicholai reached out with his right arm and veered left, grabbing the tree and letting his own weight swing him around. As soon as he was safely behind the gnarled trunk, he darted a look back, readying the M16 as he spotted her, weaving slowly away from the quake in the opposite direction.

Now you die, you billion dollar bitch—

—and the rumbling was suddenly a roar, and a huge fountain of muddy white spewed up from the ground, blocking his shot, trees crashing all around. A strange and horrible bellowing erupted from the fountain, a hissing bass note, and as the pale column twisted five

meters into the air and then curved down suddenly, Nicholai realized it was an animal, one that had surely never existed before—the gnashing circle of pointed tusks and teeth that tipped the massive white worm-body were proof enough.

It bellowed again, arching, a titan hybrid of maggot and lamprey eel, of waxworm and snake, as big around as a man was tall—and it dove away from Nicholai.

Toward Jill Valentine.

Nicholai turned and ran away, giggling, cursing Jill and Carlos as he dodged trees in the dark, heading for the plant, laughing as he damned them to everlasting hell.

Jill was running, skirting the water's edge, and didn't know it was coming until it crashed to the ground only a few meters behind her. A wash of foul air blew over her, a smell of dirt and wet meat coming from the mouth of the carnivorous worm.

Holy crap!

She ran faster, wanting to get some distance before she dared to look back,one grenade load's not enough, have to run for it —

Ahead, the rounded reflecting pool curved, a few benches at the comer, a stand of trees behind them. The ground was rumbling again, but Jill was almost there; if she could get around the corner she should be clear— the man-made pool was lined with cement, the thing would knock itself out if she was lucky—

—and the benches and trees in front of her suddenly blew up into the air, raised up on a wave of dirt, the

blind, probing worm vomiting soil from its toothed maw as it swept its head toward her.

Jesus, it's fast!Jill raised the Beretta she still held

tightly and buried two rounds in its bloated underbelly, the worm screaming again, deep and hissing like the roar of an attacking crocodile.

Jill spun and took off, heart pounding, already hearing and feeling the start of another quake as she grabbed her Beretta. It would get in front of her again, she knew it, she'd never make it around either end of the long pool. Going across would slow her down too much.Think, if you can't run what can you use to stop it, dirt, water, trees, lamps —

Lamps. Several were leaning wildly from the underground movements of the mammoth grub, like uprooted saplings about to fall. Into the pool.

No time to plan, she had to get it into the water, she'd have to bait it out. She took a last running step and paused long enough to pivot ninety degrees right, dashing toward the pool. It was damaged, rivulets of scummy water draining from the concrete lip.

It rises up then crashes down, takes it a second or two to raise itself again—A second or two, that's how long she'd have to get out of the water. Assuming she could knock a lamp over with bullets first, and that the monstrous worm would obligingly dive into the pool.

Calculating the odds meant she'd have to think, and the ground was already trembling, shaking hard enough to send her to her knees. She fell and slid through a thick layer of grass and mud, and then she was trying to get to her feet and keep the gun dry—

—and it was bursting up through the edge of the pool not ten feet to her right, blotting out the cloudy sky in a blast of mud and stone, concrete and water. There was a single lamp between her and the monster, already almost touching the water.

Move!

Jill scrambled backwards, moving faster than she would have thought possible, stopping as she saw that the creature had peaked and was starting to bend over, sheets of water pouring from its swollen form.

She opened fire as she rolled up onto her feet, the first shots wild, the third and fourth clanging off the metal post. The worm was coming down, creating a

tidal wave of mud as the fifth shot blew out the light. It was going to crush her if she didn't move,close, gonna be close —

Bam! Bam!

It was the seventh shot that did it, and the results were spectacular. There was a giant, buzzingpop as Jill threw herself backwards and to the side, the lamp immersed in the rapidly draining pool. The semi-gelatinous flesh of the screaming worm shivered and shook as it raised itself up, twisting in agony. Its pallid skin began to blacken and crisp as an oily, noxious smoke poured out of its throat, the hidden length of its body thrashing up giant sprays of dirt and rock. It bellowed once more, the unearthly sound becoming choked, gurgling—

—and then it collapsed, dead before it hit the ground, before its outer layer of skin began to curl away, revealing the cooking meat of its innards.

Jill staggered to her feet, left hand pressed to her

throbbing shoulder as she backed away from the frying worm, the smell of it making her gag repeatedly. She'd actually done it, she'd killed the goddamn thing! A warm swell of triumphant victory surged through her as she breathed in another wave of roasting worm smell, 7 did it, and then she bent over and vomited her guts out.

When there was nothing left to purge, Jill shakily stood up and started walking east again, thinking about her confrontation with Nicholai. He wasn't as good a liar as he thought, and if she'd had only suspicions before, she was now certain that he was extremely bad news.

Her plans hadn't changed, but she was going to have to be very careful when she got to the water treatment plant. Nicholai was going to be there, she had no doubt... and if he saw her first, she'd be dead before she knew what hit her.

The roadblock was a massive pileup of cars that had actually been stacked three and four high, stretched between several buildings at the end of a block in a rough semicircle. Carlos could still see the crisscross of greasy treadmarks from whatever piece of heavy machinery had managed the feat, just as he'd spotted them on the last three streets he'd tried. Umbrella and the RPD hadn't

He stood in front of the stacked, partly crushed metal wall, experiencing an almost desperate indecision. Go back, try heading north first, then east—or try climbing over one of the precarious barricades, which seemed to have been specifically set up to deter him from finding Jill.

That's what it feels like, anyway.All that was north of the clock tower was a big park, but maybe thatwas the only way to get to the Umbrella facility; he couldn't imagine Jill scaling a wall of cars with a bad shoulder, and crawling through them was too dangerous ...

...but you're assuming she even made it this far, a nagging little voice whisperedMaybe she's already dead, maybe the Nemesis came for her, orNicholai, or —

Carlos cocked his head to one side, frowning, his thoughts disturbed by a distant sound. Shots? Possibly, but the light mist that was falling was having a dampening effect, distorting and muffling noises. He couldn't even be sure from which direction the sound had come ... but he was suddenly even more frantic to find Jill than before.

"After all I went through to get that vaccine, you better not get yourself killed," he murmured lightly, but it was too close to the truth to be funny. He had to do something, now.

Carlos stared at the wall of cars for another moment, picking what appeared to be the most stable route, over a minivan and two compact cars. He took as deep a breath as he was able to manage, mentally crossed his fingers, and started to climb.

TWENTY-FIVE

"NO, LISTEN, YOU GOTTA LISTEN—I DON'T know anything, you don't want to do this. They've had me doing reports on water and soil samples, that's it,

I'm no threat to you! I swear!"

Foster was working himself into a froth, and Nicholai decided that making a man wait for his death, particularly such a sad little man, was cruel. The researcher was already cowering in the corner, pressed against the door in the northeast comer of his office, his pinched, ratty features flushed and sweaty. It had taken Nicholai less than

five minutes to find him once he'd reached the facility.

"... and I'll just leave, okay?" Foster was still babbling. "I'll be gone and you'll never hear from me again, swear to God, why do you want to killme, I'm nobody. Tell me what you want and I'll do it, whatever it is, talk to me, man, okay? Let's just talk, okay?"

Nicholai suddenly realized that he was just staring at Foster, as if he'd been lulled into a trance by the rise and fall of the man's hysteria. It had been an endless day in a series of them... but as much as he wanted to get out, to be done with the entire operation, Nicholai felt oddly compelled to say something.

"There's nothing personal in this, I'm sure you understand," Nicholai said. "It's about money... or it was at the beginning, but things are different now."

Foster nodded quickly, eyes wide. "Yeah, sure they are, different."

Now that he'd started, Nicholai found he couldn't stop. It suddenly seemed important for someone else to understand what he'd gone through, what he was still up against—even if it was only someone like Foster.

"The money is still most of it, of course. But after I got here, after Wersbowski, I started to feel like I had come to a very special place. I felt... I felt that things were finally becoming the way they were supposed to be. The way my life should have been all along. Extreme circumstances, you see?"

Foster bobbed his head again but wisely said nothing.

"But then Carlos tricked me; he couldn't have died in the explosion, because Jill received the antidote. And I'm starting to think thatshe's the cause, that things changed because of her." As he spoke, he sensed the truth of it, as though a light was dawning in his mind's eye. It was true, talking helped.

"Even at the beginning, she ruined the setup I had with Carlos and Mikhail. Manipulative, controlling woman, there are a lot of them like that. She probably slept with both of them, too. Seduced them."

"Bitches, all of 'em," Foster sincerely agreed.

"Then she got sick and sent Carlos to steal the vac-

cine. I'm not excusing his part in all of this, not at all, but there's something about her... it's like her presence alters things, makes everything wrong somehow. I don't even think she's dead now. If a seeker can't kill her, a mutant certainly can't."

Nicholai stood silently, lost in thought for a moment.

He'd never been a superstitious man, but things really were different. Jill Valentine was—

—a woman, she's just a woman and you 're not thinking clearly, haven't been for days—

Nicholai blinked, and the thought was gone, and Foster was still in the corner, watching him with an expression of cautious terror. As though he thought Nicholai was crazy. Nicholai felt a rush of hatred for the little man, for trying to trick him, telling him to talk and then judging him for it. He deserved to die, as much as any of them.

"I'm not crazy," Nicholai shouted angrily, "and I'm done talking about this! You're the last one, after you it's over and that's just the way things are, sobe a man and accept it! "

Three rounds, a burst oftat tat tat through one of Terence Foster's pleading green eyes, and the researcher's head snapped back, blood splashing the door he leaned against, his body collapsing lifeless to the cold floor.

Nicholai felt nothing. The last Watchdog, dead, and there was no sense of accomplishment, no feeling of conquest. Just another corpse on the floor in front of him and a deeply felt desire to get out of Raccoon, where things had gone so sour.

Nicholai shook his head, his heart heavy, and started to search the office for Foster's data.

Jill stood in front of the narrow bridge that connected Memorial Park's back gate to the second floor of the Umbrella facility, suspended over what had to be a marsh or swamp, from the gassy-mud smell. It was too dark to tell by looking, but the odor was unmistakable—and so were the fresh bootprints that led from where she stood to the door on the opposite side. As she'd expected, Nicholai was here.

Wonderful. What a treat.

Nicholai aside, she was glad to have found the bridge; she'd been concerned that the park would turn out to be a dead end and that she'd have to backtrack. The bridge also conveniently led to the second floor; it made sense that the offices and control rooms—hope-fully at least one of them would have a transmitter system—would be on the second floor of the two-story building, the first floor being where the water treatment took place. Assuming Umbrella had bothered with a sensible layout, she should be able to get in and out easily enough. If there was no radio, she'd circle around to the front of the building's first floor and see about the roads.

She carefully edged out onto the wood-and-metal span, breathing deeply, focusing herself as she reached for the low wood railing to steady herself. Dealing with Umbrella's creatures, bred or created, took skill and concentration, but facing a human adversary took more than that; people were much less predictable than animals, and if she meant to keep away from Nicholai, she

had to be as fully alert as possible, her intuition and awareness jacked up to feel an oncoming attack—

—like now—

Jill froze halfway across the bridge, feeling for the Beretta's safety with her thumb, something was very wrong but she couldn't tell—

Ka thud!Behind her.

Jill spun, heart racing, and saw the Nemesis standing twenty feet away, its freakish body hideously transformed by fire and buckshot. Its chest and arms were bare, giving her a clear look at how the waving tentacles were attached, sprouting from its upper back and shoulders. Much of its skin had burned off, revealing fibrous red muscle tissue in patches of ashy black.

"Starsss," it rumbled, limping forward a step, and she saw that much of its lower right side was mangled from where she'd hit it with the grenade gun. The flesh from the bottom of its rib cage to about midthigh looked like burned spaghetti, smashed and shredded— but she doubted very much that it felt pain, and she had few illusions about its strength being overly affected.

In an instant, her adrenaline-pumped mind flashed

through a hundred options and latched on to her best bet. The ledge at the clock tower. Carlos had pushed it right off, but it had been blinded, distracted—

—distract this, freak!

She opened fire, aiming at the most obvious part of its deformed face, its improbably white teeth—and saw at least two shots shatter through the eerie grin, pale splinters exploding out in a spray.

The S.T.A.R.S. killer howled, its flesh tentacles

spreading like a cape behind it, framing the beast in a coiling, quivering sunburst.

—not in pain, maybe, but it feels something—

—GO NOW!

Jill continued to fire as she ran for it, her instincts screaming at her to run the other way, her logic reminding her that she couldn't possibly run fast enough.

The Nemesis was still howling when Jill smashed into it, pushing up and out to smack into its chest the way Carlos had, inwardly cringing at the feel of its skin against her palms, wet, gritty, cold—

—and it staggered backwards, landing heavily at the very edge of the bridge, inches from empty space. Its weight and mass worked for Jill as she'd prayed it would, she could hear the explosive crack of the weathered board beneath its heels, the side rail crunching as the giant fell against the slats—

—but two, three of the twisting tentacles were grabbing at the undamaged railing on the other side, the reeling Nemesis putting its hands out, struggling to regain its balance.

Jill jumped, twisting, knowing that she couldn't let it stand up again, and landed both feet against its ravaged abdomen, kicking off from the monster's body with all of her strength.

She fell solidly to the wood planking, involuntarily crying out in pain as her wounded shoulder absorbed much of the impact—but the sight of those fleshy ropes, flailing at air as the Nemesis lost its grip and plunged over the side, did her a world of good ... as

did the murky, thunderous splash she heard a beat later.

She stumbled to her feet and across the rest of the

bridge, silently cheering as the door that led into the facility swung open, unlocked. Inside, a short hall turned left fifteen feet ahead, all utilitarian metal grate floors and concrete walls. She quickly deadbolted the door behind her and sagged against it, pointing her weapon at the blind corner while she caught her breath.

No footsteps outside or in, nothing but a faint mechanical hum coming from somewhere deeper in the facility. When she could breathe almost normally again, she moved forward, anxious to get out before the Nemesis returned. She had to get out a call for help, or just get out; the Nemesis wasn't going to give up, and she couldn't hope to elude it forever.

She edged further down the hall and saw that a metal shutter stood at the right end, facing the corridor she couldn't see. Another step forward, and she darted a look around the corner. Clear, another short hall that turned right. She stepped back and took a closer look at the metal shutter, the kind that opened with a key card.

The room's name was just above the door, in black stencil:communications. Jill felt a rush of hope, then saw that there was no manual lock. The key card reader to the right of the shutter was the only way in.

Frustrated, Jill turned away. Running into the Nemesis had changed things. She could leave, get far away from it and Nicholai and try to come up with something new, or she could continue on, search for the card and keep looking for other possibilities.

Jill smiled wearily. Both options sounded terrible, actually, but the latter seemed to suck a little less. At least her clothes would have a chance to dry.

Shivering, Jill started down the adjoining corridor,

feeling vaguely envious of Carlos, warm and sleeping back at the chapel.

The Umbrella facility was a series of small singlelevel buildings and one large two-story one, set among several open areas that had been stacked high with crap—piles of lumber, old cars, and scrap metal being the main competitors for space. If there were heli-

copters on the site, Carlos thought they'd be behind one of the warehouses—nearly impossible to get around, of course, unless he wanted to scale another stack of cars.

Not unless I have to, thank you very much.His earlier climb had been enough to last him the rest of his life. He'd banged the hell out of both his knees when he'd come down hard on the cab of a flatbed truck, and he'd limped most of the rest of the way to the facility.

He stood in a small and crowded yard, which he'd hopped a fence to get to, memorizing the compound's sprawling layout as best he could before moving toward the main building. He wanted to make sure Jill was okay before he went hunting for a 'copter. As soon as he reached the building, Carlos broke the first window he could reach with the M16's stock and boosted himself up.

He sat on the frame, looking into a long, narrow, bunkerlike room, dimly lit and littered with bodies. To the right was a set of doors with an exit sign overhead, probably leading out to the main warehouse; he'd have to try the doors when he went for the helicopters. To his left, though, was a metal ladder that went straight

up to a hatch in the ceiling. He couldn't have asked for more.

Well, an elevator, maybe,he thought as he pulled himself through the window, his taped ribs protesting. Although as long as I'm wishing, suddenly waking up and finding out this has all been a bad dream would be pretty nice, too.

The room smelled like blood and rot, a smell that he had gotten used to, he realized. It smelled like Raccoon, and as he slowly climbed the ladder, he thought that he would die a happy man if he could just do it breathing fresh, untainted air.

The square metal hatch at the top lifted easily, swinging up and back on hinges to lean against a threesided railing. Carlos ascended carefully into another dim room with a bunker feel, lined with consoles and cabinets, no bodies—

"Caramba,"he breathed, stepping away from the ladder to the desk console against the front wall, set

beneath large windows that looked out over the mostly dark yard. It was an old communications relay system, and even as he reached out to pick up the headset, a crackle of static hissed from a small speaker set into a side panel, followed by a woman's cool, clear voice.

"Attention. The Raccoon City project has been abandoned. Political maneuvering to delay federal plans has failed. All personnel must evacuate immediately to outside of the ten-mile blast radius. Missiles will be launched at daybreak. This message is being broadcast on all available channels, and will repeat in five minutes."

Stunned, Carlos looked at his watch and felt his stomach knot. It was half past four in the morning, which left them an hour, maybe a little more.

He snatched up the headset and started pushing buttons. "Hello? Does anybody read me, I'm still in the city, hello?"

Nothing. Carlos ran for the door at the back of the room, his thoughts repeating in an endless loop,day-break, Jill, helicopter, daybreak, Jill —

—and the door, a metal shutter, was firmly locked.

No keyhole, no nothing. He couldn't get into the building.

And I don't even know if she's here, maybe she started back already, maybe...

Maybe a lot of things, and as much as he wanted to find her, if he didn't secure a way for them to escape the city, they weren't going to make it.

He turned away from the door, not wanting to leave, knowing he didn't have a choice. He had to find one of those helicopters that Trent had told him about and make sure it was fueled up and working. Maybe he could buzz the facility, get her attention from outside, or find her on her way back to the clock tower.

And if I can't...He didn't finish the thought, well aware of Jill's fate if he failed.

Hardly noticing the pain in his side, Carlos ran for the ladder, his heart pounding and filled with dread.

TWENTY-SIX

WHEN NICHOLAI SAW JILL STEP HESITANTLY through the door into treatment operations, he immediately slipped back out of view, through the security side door and into a large, empty corridor that led to the chemical tank room. A fierce joy took hold of him as he eased the door closed, feelings of vindication and self-affirmation lifting his spirits high.

After he'd found Foster's data disk, he'd set up his laptop to combine files. That's when he'd seen the warning from H.Q. Not much of a surprise, it had been one of several possible outcomes projected, but it had further depressed him. A part of him had still wanted to get closure with Jill and Carlos, for what they had done to him, and he'd even been considering a final look around before calling for pickup. There was no time for

that with missiles coming, and he'd been on his way to place the call when he'd heard footsteps.

She's here, I was right about her and now she's here!

He had to be right, or whatever fates were working in Raccoon wouldn't have sent her. He could see now that everything that had happened since he'd arrived in Raccoon had been predestined. Fate, testing him, sending him gifts and then pulling them away, to see what he would do. It all made perfect sense, and now there was a ticking clock, he had to get out, and here she was.

/won't fail. I've succeeded so far, and that's why this synchronicity has occurred. So that I can reestablish the control I command before I return to civilization. He could ask her about Carlos and Mikhail, he could question her thoroughly ... and if there was time, he could dominate her in a more pleasurable fashion, a farewell that he could reflect back upon for years to come.

Nicholai quickly moved behind the door, his bootsteps echoing in the roomwide corridor, rifle ready.

He'd earned this, and he was going to get exactly what he deserved.

Jill walked into some kind of operations room, her senses on high alert as she looked across the open space, decorated in classic Umbrella laboratory style— blank, cold, cement walls, metal railings that separated the bi-level room in an absolutely functional way, nothing bright or colorful in sight.

Unless blood counts...Dried splashes of it stained the floor all around the low worktable that dominated

the room. Probably not Nicholai's work, unlike the corpse she'd found in the office next to the room with the broken steam pipes. A short man in his mid-30s, shot in the face, his body still warm. She had no doubt that Nicholai was close, and she found herself almost hoping she'd run into him soon, just so she could stand down, not have to look over her shoulder with every step.

She didn't see anything resembling a key card or a radio in the room, so she decided to move on—she could head through the side door in the nook to her left or go down. Side door, she decided, on the off chance that Nicholai had headed that way; so far, she'd been through every room she could get into on the second floor and didn't want to go downstairs and risk letting him get behind her.

She walked to the door, wondering again what had been done with the bodies of those who had died in the facility. She'd seen plenty of blood and fluid stains, but only a handful of corpses.

Maybe they were dumped downstairs...,she thought, pulling the security door open and sweeping left to right with the Beretta. A corridor as big as a room, with a small offshoot at the back wall that headed right. Totally

empty. She stepped inside-----or Umbrella ordered

everything cleaned up so their employees didn't have to spend the crisis stepping over their dead coworkers—

"Freeze, bitch," Nicholai said from behind her, roughly jamming the barrel of his rifle into her lower back. "But drop your weapon firsts/you wouldn't mind."

A sarcastic rephrasing of what she'd said to him in the park, and she couldn't miss the thread of almost

hysterical glee in his voice. She'd been careless, and she was going to die for it.

"Okay, okay," she said, letting the 9mm slip from her fingers and clatter to the floor. She still had the grenade gun on her back, but it was useless—in the time it would take her to unstrap the thing, he could empty a mag into her and have a chance to reload.

'Turn around slowly and back away, hands clasped in front of you. Like you're praying."

Jill did what he wanted, backing across the room until her back touched the wall, more afraid than she wanted to admit when she saw the constantly twitching smile, and the way his eyes rolled from side to side.

He's gone over. Whatever was wrong with him to start, being in Raccoon sparked it into a full-blown psychosis.The way he looked her up and down filled her with a different kind of fear. She knew of several effective ways to stop a rapist's attack—but that was assuming she was still able-bodied enough to fight, and she doubted very much that Nicholai would approach her without firing a few well-placed shots first.

She glanced to her left, down a narrow hall that dead ended at a closed door. Won't make it, try to talk to him.

"I thought you just wanted to get out of the city," she said neutrally, not sure what tack to use. She'd always heard that crazy people should be humored, but she couldn't see that it was going to make much of a difference; Nicholai meant to kill her, period.

He casually walked toward her, smiling his trembling smile. Thunder rumbled overhead, a distant sound. "I want to get outnow, now that I have all the information. I killed all of the others for theirs, the

Watchdogs. Umbrella is going to have to deal with me, and only me, and I'm going to be extremely wealthy.

It's all balanced out, and now that you're here, my success is assured."

In spite of herself, Jill was curious. "Why me?"

Nicholai moved closer but stayed a safe distance away. "Because you took the antidote," he said in a matter-of-fact tone. "Carlos stole it at your bidding, don't try to deny it. Tell me, are you working on your own initiative, or were you sent to interfere with my plans? How much do Carlos and Mikhail know?"

Christ, what do I say to that?Again thunder mut-

tered overhead, and Jill found herself distracted by it, too confused by Nicholai's bizarre reasoning to answer him right away. Strange, that they could hear it through the heavily insulated ceiling ...

...not as strange as thinking about the weather at a time like this. She had to say something, to at least try and prolong her life; as long as she was breathing, there was a chance.

"Why should I tell you anything? You're going to kill me anyway," she said, as though there was something to tell.

Nicholai's smile faltered, and then he brightened again, nodding. "You're right, I am." He aimed the rifle at her left knee and licked his lips. "But not before we get to know each other a little better, I think we have enough time—"

Crash!

Jill fell backwards, sure she'd been hit,but he didn't fire, it was thunder —

—and the ceiling was falling, part of it, chunks of drywall and concrete raining down as Nicholai screamed, firing wildly—

—and disappeared.

Nicholai had her within his control, she was going to bleed and cry and he would be victorious, he had won—

—and then the ceiling gave way, debris crashing over him and something giant and cold and hard wrapped around the back of his neck. Nicholai fired, screaming,^ witch, she's —

—and he was yanked up into the dark by the massive, icy thing, a hand, Jill's shocked face the last thing he saw before the fingers tightened, before a cold and living rope coiled around his waist. The hand and rope pulled in opposite directions, and Nicholai felt his bones crack, skin and muscle stretching as blood filled his mouth, screaming—

—this is wrong I control stop—

—and he was torn in half, and he knew no more.

Jill could only see part of what happened, but it was enough. As a river of blood poured over the hole's ragged edge, splashing to the floor, she heard the rumbling growl of the Nemesis and saw a tentacle snake down through the steaming red gush, searching—

She didn't dare run beneath it. She turned and ran down the offshoot, scrabbling for the grenade gun, her only weapon—

—bam,she hit the heavy door and was through, into a dark and echoing abyss, a wave of stench hitting her like a slap. She slammed the door closed and reached

for the only light she could see, a glowing red square in a panel next to the entrance.

It was a light switch, and as rows of fluorescent bars fluttered on, she saw and understood two things simultaneously. The dead Umbrella workers had been dumped here in a huge pile, the source of the incredible odor— and there were no other doors. She was trapped and had a single load of buckshot with which to defend herself.

Oh man, think, think—

Outside, she heard the Nemesis howl the only word it knew, the terrible cry encouraging her to move, to do something. She ran for the tremendous mound of corpses, the only thing in the giant U-shaped chamber that wasn't bolted to the floor. Maybe one of them had a weapon.

The segmented metal floor rang hollowly beneath her feet, telling her where she was—some kind of garbage dumping room, the floor obviously capable of opening up to drop waste into some unknown below, vats of chemicals, a Dumpster, the sewers. Didn't matter, because she had no idea how to operate such a system; all she cared about at the moment was finding something she could use against the Nemesis.

The dead people were all in advanced stages of decay, thick, hot, gaseous waves of stink radiating from the darkening, bloated bodies, the pile almost as high as her chin. Jill couldn't afford to be particular; she dropped the grenade gun and immediately started to paw at the corpses, lifting sticky lab coats, jamming her hands into pockets that squished beneath her flying fingers. Pens and pencils, soggy packs of cigarettes, loose change—a key card, probably the very one she'd been looking for,Wonderful, isn't that just—

BOOM! BOOM!

Giant fists hammered at the door, echoing in the large chamber. The door was going to give in seconds, she'd have to go with what she had. No way she could kill it, but she could try to get around it.

Tucking the key card into the top of her left boot, she grabbed the gun and ran back toward the door, thinking that Nicholai had at least left her with a good idea,least he could do, the crazy bastard —

Jill took a position next to the door, close to where it would swing back upon opening. She didn't stand directly behind it, the plan kind of fell to shit if she ended up crushed.

BOOM,and the door flew open, slamming into the wall inches from where she stood, the Nemesis storming in, arms and tentacles spread wide as it howled for blood.

It's changing, getting bigger—

Jill aimed at its already mangled lower back and fired, the load tearing into its flesh from less than ten feet away.

Screaming, the creature stumbled forward, and before it could stand up straight again, Jill was through the door and gone, praying that she'd have time to call for help and get away before it found her again. She pounded through the corridor, snatched up the Beretta, and sped into the next room, out into the hallway.

At least time to call; she may not survive to meet rescue, but Carlos still could, God willing.

There was only one helicopter, but it was in excellent shape, fueled and ready to fly. If he could find Jill, Carlos thought they might make it after all.

He sat in the pilot's seat, looking over the controls, running over the basics as best he could remember.

He'd been taught by another mere with no formal training, and it had been a while, but he was pretty sure he could pull it off. The 'copter was an older two seater with a hover ceiling of about 4,000 feet, range, maybe 200 miles. He still didn't know what some of the switches and buttons did on the control panels, but he didn't need to, to get the thing airborne. The cyclic control stick moved the bird forward, back, and sideways. The collective control altered the thrust, controlling height.

Carlos checked his watch and was unhappily startled to see mat twenty minutes had passed since he'd heard the announcement about the missiles. He'd spent a few minutes checking the helicopter, and there'd been a couple of zombies roaming around in the yard he'd had to shoot...

Didn't matter. They now had between twenty and forty minutes, tops. The facility compound was too big, he'd never be able to cover it all in time—

—so use the goddamn radio, dumbass!

Carlos reached for the headset, amazed that he hadn't thought of it, promising himself that he would smack himself silly for the oversight later, when he had time. Assuming there was a later.

"Hello, this is Carlos Oliveira with Umbrella, I am in Raccoon City, copy? There are still people alive here. If you can hear me, you have to stop the missile launch. Hello? Copy?"

No way to know if someone was getting his signal. Umbrella probably had a block on all outgoing transmissions, he'd just have to try and—

"Carlos? Is that you, over?"

Jill!

He felt weak with relief as her voice crackled into his ear, perhaps the sweetest sound he'd ever heard.

"Yes! Jill, I found a helicopter, we have to get out of here, now! Where are you, over?"

"In a radio room, at the Umbrella facility—what did you say about a missile launch, over?"

She was so close! Carlos laughed,We're outta here, it's over! "The feds are gonna blow up the city in like half an hour, at dawn, but it's okay, we're ready to fly—do you see that ladder in the middle of the room? Over."

"Yeah, it's—they're going to blow up Raccoon, are you sure?" She sounded totally bewildered and forgot to use radio protocol.

"Jill, I'm positive. Listen to me—go down the ladder and start running, you'll end up where I am, there's nowhere else to go. Through a cement room to the exit sign, then outside, then through this huge warehouse— there's some kind of a power generator in there, you'll have to run around some equipment. The back door will be at about... eleven o'clock from the front, got it? I'll be on the other side. And you better bust ass to get here, no dicking around."

There was the slightest pause, and Carlos could hear the tight smile in her voice when she responded. "Dicking around youwish. On my way, over and out."

Grinning, Carlos powered up the 'copter as the deep, navy blue sky began to lighten, preparing for dawn.

TWENTY-SEVEN

JILL SLID DOWN THE LADDER AND STARTED running, her mind reeling with the news about Raccoon. She couldn't imagine what had been going on outside of the city in past days that the conclusion had been reached to blast a quarantine site out of existence.

Of course it has to be blown up, they would have wanted that once they'd collected their data, to make sure all the evidence is destroyed—

Jill leaped over a sprawled body, then another, and was at the doors with the exit sign overhead, just as Carlos had said. She barreled through and was greeted by wonderfully fresh, cool air, heavy with dew.

Dawn, he said they were launching at dawn.Half an hour was a generous estimate. Jill ran faster, through a winding corridor of stacked cars and junk metal, and there was the warehouse, straight ahead. It was big,

low, and wide, and she was already thinking in hours when she hit the heavy, steel-reinforced front doors.

Eleven o'clock...She couldn't see the back door for the giant wall of unidentifiable machinery in the way, all thick pipes and metal shielding, but Carlos had said she'd have to run around some equipment. She veered right—

—and stopped in her tracks, staring at the monstrous apparatus that Carlos had mistaken for a generator. It was some kind of a laser cannon, huge, cylindrical, she'd seen them before but not even half the size—it was at least ten feet high and twenty long, and as big around as a table for six. Dozens of cables led from various outlets to the wall of machinery she stood next to, and it was aimed approximately at the front door, making her wonder what the hell they'd tested it on...

The back door slammed open. Jill reflexively pointed the Beretta and saw Carlos standing there, the whining sound of a revving helicopter outside.

"Jill, come on!"

He was obviously glad to see her, but she could read the urgency in his face, a reminder of what was coming as the door closed behind him.

She jogged toward him in the sudden silence, shaking her head. "Sorry, I was surprised is all, that's a laser cannon, biggest I ever—"

Ka-rash!

Near the ceiling by the front door, a giant mass exploded out of the wall, disappearing from their sight as it fell to the floor behind the wall of machinery. Jill had just an impression of a swollen, bulbous body surrounded by claws and tentacles, and she knew that she'd been right about the Nemesis. It was evolving.

A beat later there was another crash. Sparks crackled and flew from a tall panel next to the entrance, and a gurgling, warped howl erupted into the room, the cry of the Nemesis, but horribly mutated, deeper, rougher—

"Come on!" Carlos shouted, and Jill ran to him as he jerked at the handle on the back door—

—and it didn't open, and Jill noticed the small blinking lights on the panel next to it and understood that the Nemesis had shorted out the locking mechanisms.

They were locked in the warehouse with the thing that had been the S.T.A.R.S. killer, and it was screaming for blood.

TWENTY-EIGHT

CARLOS HEARD THE THING HOWL AND KNEW what it was. He'd only caught a glimpse of the monster on its way down, but it was big and badass, and he suspected that they were screwed.

Jill raised her voice to a shout, and Carlos could only barely hear her over the Nemesis's seemingly endless scream.

"Where's the .357?"

Carlos shook his head. He had the M16, but he'd stowed the heavy revolver and the rest of the rifle's magazines on the helicopter.

"Grenade gun?" he shouted back, and it was Jill's turn to shake her head.

A 9mm and maybe twenty rounds left for the rifle.

We'll have to blow open the door, it's our only chance—

Carlos knew better even as he thought it. The front

and back doors were heavy-duty, they'd have better luck blowing a hole in the wall—

—and the answer hit him, and he saw that Jill already had it from the way she was staring at him, eyes wide and blinking.

The Nemesis-monster's howl was winding down, but a horrible, wet slurping noise had begun, the sound of something vast and sticky moving slowly and steadily across concrete.

It's coming for her.

"Can you operate it?" Carlos asked, already steeling himself for a confrontation with whatever the Nemesis had become.

"Maybe, but—"

Carlos cut her off. "I'm going to distract it—get that thing running and let me know when to duck."

Before Jill could protest, Carlos hurried past her, determined to do whatever he could to keep it from getting to her,at least it's slower than it was, if I can just

slow it down a little more —

He reached the end of the wall of equipment, took a deep breath, stepped around the corner—and cried out in involuntary disgust at the oozing, undulating mass that crept and crawled toward him, pulling itself along with clawed, shapeless appendages the color of blisters. Fleshy lumps rose and fell like bubbles in a pot of stew along its twisted back, thin, black fluid trickling from dozens of tiny slits on its body, wetting the floor, lubricating its meaty passage.

Carlos picked a slightly raised lump on top of the giant, pulsing creature and opened fire, the rounds

splashing into the fleshy surface like pebbles into a stream,tat tat tat —

—and lightning fast, one of the tentacles at the front of the body lashed out, slapping Carlos's legs hard enough to knock him down.

Carlos scrambled backwards through the pain in his side, awed by its incredible speed and not a little afraid. The bulk of it moved slowly, but its reflexes were insanely fast, and it had reached across three meters of open space to knock him down, seemingly without strain.

"Puta madre,"he breathed, the worst curse he could think of as he rolled to his feet and backed away. It was already to the corner of the metal wall, ten meters or less from the cannon where Jill was wildly slapping at switches. He'd distracted it about as effectively as a fly distracted an airplane.#ow much time do we have left before daybreak —

Suddenly, it howled again, a chorus of sound, each small, leaking slit on its body gaping open, a thousand mouths screaming, creating a trumpeting, deafening roar.

It wasn't going to stop. Carlos backed further away and opened fire again, a waste of bullets, but there was nothing else he could do—

—and then he heard the powerful, rising hum of a mighty turbine spinning fast and faster, and Jill was screaming for him to move, and Carlos moved.

She hadn't been able to find the power main, no buttons or cords to connect, and she didn't know enough about machines to figure it out. She'd seen Carlos fall

and her heart had stopped, but she'd forced herself to keep trying, knowing it was all they had.

After a second frantic, desperate search she'd found the power switches on its base, and the machine had thrummed to beautiful, wonderful life.

"Move!"Jill shouted, pushing the levers that slowly and precisely raised the cannon, its movements spelled out digitally on a small screen next to the base. She could feel the energy building, the ah" around her heating up, and as Carlos got out of the way and the Neme-sis-entity slithered out into the open, she found herself positively thrilled, almost overcome with an intense and violent sense of self-satisfaction.

It had killed Brad Vickers and tracked her mercilessly through the city. It had murdered the rescue team and stranded them in Raccoon, it had infected her with disease, it had terrorized her and wounded Carlos—and that it had been programmed to do these things didn't matter; she hated it with everything inside of her, despised it more than anything she'd ever despised.

The mutated, aberrant thing inched forward on a wave of slime as the cannon's hum reached an explosive crescendo, the sound drowning out everything.

Jill's words went unheard, even by her.

"You want S.T.A.R.S., I'll give you S.T.A.R.S., you piece of shit,"she said, and slammed her hand down on the activation switch.

TWENTY-NINE

A BRILLIANT LIGHT, WHITE BUT SHADED with electrically searing orange and blue, burst from the end of the laser cannon in a beam of concentrated fury. Arcs of heat and light stormed over the body of the cannon like miniature bolts of lightning, and the laser found the once-Nemesis's writhing, pulsating body and began to eat.

The creature that had once been the pride of Umbrella's development section whined and thrashed, flailing its multiple limbs in a frenzy of agonized confusion. The tight beam of light bored into its

flesh, as-relentless as it had proved, melting layers of tissue and soldering harder materials—bone and cartilage and pliable metal—into fused and useless lumps.

The creature began to smolder, then smoke, and

as the brain stem inside of it withered and cooked, the Nemesis ceased to exist, its program wiped, its improbable heart finally bursting silently, deep inside.

A few seconds later, the cannon overheated and shut itself down.

THIRTY

THE HELICOPTER LIFTED UP AND AWAY, A little jerky at first, but Carlos quickly found his balance. The first streaks of real light were swelling into the eastern sky as the doomed city fell behind them. It seemed so strange to finally be on their way, after days of wanting it so badly, of working toward nothing else.

"Nicholai's dead," Jill said, her voice cool and clear over the headset. It was the first thing she'd said since they'd taken off. "The Nemesis got him."

"No great loss," Carlos replied and meant it.

They fell into silence again, Carlos content to just fly for the moment, give himself a chance to be still. He was dog-tired and wanted only to get as far away from Raccoon as possible before the missiles hit.

After a moment, Jill reached across and placed her hand over his, and that was okay, too.

Jill held Carlos's hand as the sun inched slowly up over the horizon, turning the sky magnificent shades of pink and gray and lemon yellow. It was lovely, and Jill found that, as hard as she tried, she couldn't feel sorry that Raccoon was about to be dusted. It had been her home for a while, but it had become pain and death for thousands of people, and she thought that blasting it to hell and gone was probably the best thing that could happen to it.

Neither of them spoke as the sun continued to rise, as the miles flew beneath them, forests and farms and empty roads appearing fresh and bright in the gently warming light.

When the sky flashed white and the sound wave hit them a moment later, Jill didn't look back.

EPILOGUE

TRENT HAD HIS HANDS FULL FOR MOST OF the day, listening in on the spindoc meetings, arranging for media sympathy with a few of their bought networks, and explaining the difference between HARMs—the air to surface missiles that the army had used on Raccoon—and SRAMs to the three heads of White Umbrella. Jackson, in particular, was unhappy that the larger tactical missiles hadn't been used; he didn't seem to understand that a deliberate nuclear incident within the United States had to be kept as small and contained as possible. Ironic, that a man with so much wealth and power could be so oblivious to the reality he had helped create.

Trent finally had a few moments to himself in the early evening, after a final review of the Watchdog reports. He took a cup of coffee out onto the balcony of

the rooms he used when he was at the DC offices. The brisk twilight was refreshing after a day of recycled air and fluorescent lights.

From twenty stories up, the city below seemed unreal, sounds distant and features blurred. Gazing out at nothing in particular, Trent sipped his coffee and thought about all he'd witnessed in the past few days from the shielded privacy of his home. Umbrella's few dozen stationary remotes in Raccoon had had nothing on the satellite pirate that piped information to his private screening room; he'd been able to follow several dramas that had unfolded in the last hours of the city.

There had been the rookie policeman, Kennedy, and Chris Redfield's sister—the two of them had barely escaped the lab explosion, managing to save Sherry Birkin, the young daughter of one of Umbrella's top research scientists, of all people. Trent hadn't had contact with any of them, but he knew that Leon Kennedy and Claire Redfield had become part of the fight. They were young, determined, and filled with a hatred for Umbrella; he couldn't have asked for better.

Trent's high hopes for Carlos Oliveira had been well met, and that he had joined forces with Jill Valentine ... Trent had been utterly transfixed by their escape, pleased that two of his unwitting soldiers had worked so well together, surviving in spite of Jill's infection, the lunatic Russian, and the S.T.A.R.S. seeker. Use of the experimental Tyrant-like units was still in question by many of the White Umbrella researchers; for as deadly efficient as they usually were, they were also very expensive, and Trent knew that the debates

would go on, fueled by the loss of two units in the destruction of the city.

Ada Wong, though...

Trent sighed, wishing that she had survived. The tall, beautiful, Asian-American agent he had sent in had been as brilliant as she was competent. He hadn't actually seen her die, but the chances that she had escaped both the lab explosion and the complete obliteration of Raccoon were slim to none. Unfortunate, to say the least.

Overall, though, Trent was satisfied with how things were progressing. As far as he could tell, no one in the company had the slightest inkling of who he really was or what he was doing. The three most powerful men in Umbrella relied on him more and more every day, completely unaware of his agenda—to destroy the organization, from without and within, to devastate its leaders' lives and deliver them to justice; to organize an elite army of men and women committed to Umbrella's downfall, and to guide them as much as he was able in their quest.

If his methods were complicated, the reason was simple: to avenge the death of his parents, both scientists, murdered when he was a child so that Umbrella could profit from their research.

Trent smiled to himself, taking another sip from his mug. It sounded so melodramatic, so grandiose. It had been almost thirty years since his parents had been burned alive in the alleged laboratory accident. He'd left the pain behind long ago—his resolve, however, had never faltered. He'd changed his name, his background, given up any hope of ever having a normal

life—and regretted nothing, even now that he shared responsibility for the deaths of so many.

It was getting dark. Far below, streetlights were flickering on, sending up a soft glow that would radiate out into the night sky like a halo above the city. In its own way, it was quite beautiful.

Trent finished his coffee and absently traced the Umbrella logo on the side of the cup with his fingers, thinking about darkness and light, good and evil, and the shades of gray that existed in between everything. He needed to be very careful, and not just to avoid being discovered; it was those shades of gray that worried him.

After a few moments, Trent turned his back on the gathering dark and went inside. He still had a lot to do before he could go home.