Run Like Hell

Run Like Hell

32

Ada retreated as one of Wesker's meat-hook claws scythed past her face threateningly, the gun dropping useless from her grasp. She felt the barrier of the catwalk pressing into her back, and glanced down at the yawning void below. It seemed she had finally run out of space.

"Have you ever felt real pain?" Wesker asked, raising a large scarlet arm bristling with strange pulsating spines. Ada's face was blank, betraying neither fear nor anger, though the shine of sweat springing from her forehead gave it a deathly, feverish sheen. She felt sicker than ever and her legs were shaking again, as if they were yearning both to run and to collapse at once.

I'm going to die. There are only seconds left...

What am I supposed to think about in my last five seconds...?

"Pain," he went on, his voice a gurgling gloat, "is relative. You can learn to endure it. But be assured Ada... there is no pain quite like... this."

She turned and gripped the barrier as if to jump, and in the same moment a huge barbed spike shot suddenly from where the second knuckle of his fist pulled the skin taut, and pierced her chest. It passed right through, detonating an explosion of pain in her lungs, and she went rigid. In her wide eyes the face of Wesker, contorted into a beast's snarl and flecked with slaver, hovered, glistening and pleasured and hateful, a tormentor. Ada gasped and bared her teeth at him, a last defiant gesture in the face of overwhelming agony.

"'Breathtaking', isn't it?" Wesker hissed through clenched teeth. "I felt it once; in the mansion. The difference is, I survived."

Ada felt the life draining from her. The strength, the blood...

And then it happened.

She felt it, like the awakening of something dark and terrible in the depths of a calm and glassy sea.

It gripped her senses, suffusing them with a searing, scalding heat, and a rage unimaginable possessed her limbs. Clawed fingers found the spike, slippery with her own escaping blood, and in a sudden burst of power it was splintered; Wesker reeled away with a roar, and she hit the cold metal. Rising up, pulling the bloodied spike-shaft slowly from her flesh, she stared at the gaping mortal wound and the enormous creeping stain it had made on her thin shirt. She wondered why she was not dead. The pain and smell of blood was choking, maddening; and yet at the same time it provoked within a forbidden hunger - and a fury. A change was coming over her too, skin flushing, strange bristles erupting from it - black, like the hairs on an insect's leg. From her knuckles protruded four sharp stubs, the hidden spikes that had grown in her dormancy and were now ready to break the skin and cleave another's flesh.

Wesker's throaty laugh permeated her pain. Bloodshot eyes settled upon him as he examined his broken hand, already beginning to clot and close. Her thoughts were hazy and distant, but the raw reality beat in her anguish, her predicament. She rushed him, the force of the collision sent him back against the barrier. Leaping high, she drove her own spikes down into his neck, instinctively seeking the jugular, gratified even as they fell together by the splattering of blood that was not her own.

33

"Come in Command, this is First Strike."
A man stood in a black suit, framed in the deserted Umbrella Chicago lobby, painted in shades of night-lit grey.
"Receiving you, First Strike," he answered quietly into the radio. "What's your status?"
"All in position Sir. Awaiting orders."
"Any sign of the renegade?"
"Negative. But there's been some disturbance here."
"Then proceed. Kill the renegade on sight, but I want all other targets alive, you understand? That includes the cop, the girl and the woman. Split up and take the levels from here. Bravo will cover. Over and out."
He clipped the radio back into his belt pouch carefully, then motioned to several shadows in the darkness behind; they seemed to meld together as they crept forward silently, overtaking him, their red night-sights like demons' eyes in the dark.

34

Leon made for the emergency ladder that climbed the vent shaft from memory. He recalled how the one in Raccoon City had been filled with the mass of a gigantic infected plant. This time it was empty, but the shaft was filled with the eerie howling of cold rushing air, drying the congealed cryogenic slime to his face and hair. Sherry was shivering, but she insisted on climbing the ladder alone, which proved somewhat faster than carrying would have. Leon went first, checking often to make sure she was coping, till they reached the ground floor. He wasn't sure how to get out again, since he'd come down by the elevator, but it was too late to start fretting now. He led her down a wide, dark corridor to what looked like a large glass lobby.

...Finally.

"Freeze! Hands in the air, now!"

He noticed the trap a split second too late. Grabbing Sherry, they hit the shadows against the wall, sliding back the way they'd come. Something hollow and metallic rolled along the ground towards them, spewing thick, choking smoke.

"Shit! Tear gas..." he rapped, turning tail with Sherry in tow. They ran back towards the complex, sounds of tumult close behind. Where now? What next? He fought the desire to give himself up, so that he - they - could get the hell out. But his experience and instincts were against it. What if they weren't police, but someone's heavies under orders to accost him again? Or worse, what if they were Umbrella's people?

They'd have your ass for sure. No negotiations...

"How will we get out?" Sherry panted, panic dawning on her once again.

"Next level down," Leon answered as they ran. "Need cover..."

They made for the ladder again. Glancing back, he could see the infra-red glow of their night-sights bobbing along. They're well geared up, he thought. But they don't seem like Umbrella - they're using gas, not shooting -

They want us alive.

"Sherry, get down the ladder," he urged. "Quick!"

She clambered onto it, almost slipping off, thanks to the cryogenic residue still on her hands and shoes. Leon gave her a warning before he aimed the Eagle for the door lock. The deafening shot reverberated through the shaft, and Sherry almost lost her footing again despite her caution. In less than a minute, they had made it to the lower levels, and a familiar layout greeted them. He took a left, winding up in one of the main labs. It was empty and tidy; the surfaces were stacked with glass canisters, the kind used to transport volatile substances. It also had a Perspex ceiling, looking out on a part of the ventilation shaft.

"Damn!" Leon said. "I thought there'd be another way - this is the same as -"

"Daddy's factory," Sherry suggested. "He didn't work at the chemical plant at all, did he? He was making monsters. The monster-man told me. That's why everyone died, because of him!"

Leon looked at her.

"And they want me too, don't they?" she added, tearfully. "They got him and now they want me!"

"Come on," he said gently. "We need to find a way out of this place first. I'm not gonna let them get you. Okay?"

He froze. Something large and crimson fell suddenly from above, from the open shaft outside, crushing the Perspex and landing with a loud slap of flesh on the metal floor. Sherry screamed; Leon tensed as a sudden and dreadful recognition washed over him.

Tyrant -

But it wasn't a single Tyrant. It suddenly broke apart into two separate entities, one larger, streaming blood from a dozen gaping wounds, while the smaller of the two crouched, the razor-sharp spines on its hands now shorn to bloodied stumps. But they weren't exactly like Tyrants; they were more human - and they were wearing clothes.

The smaller of the two creatures hissed, readied for a spring once more.

"Ada?" Leon gasped in surprise, and abhorrent shock. The creature whirled around, fixed him with bloodshot eyes. For a moment its colour seemed to fade, and it was Ada again, crouched, wild-eyed, smeared with blood and gashes, like a survivor of some horrible accident. She seemed to recognise him.

"Leon, get back," she warned. But then a huge red-clawed hand wrapped itself around her neck, and hoisted her into the air. She struggled, and Wesker cackled in his alien voice.

"Well what have we got here? The Wonder Rookie himself!"

Leon swallowed hard. Wesker was quite a sight, at least when transformed into this red hulking thing, such that even with his Magnum shooter to hand, Leon felt quite suddenly weak and helpless. He knew - just knew - Magnum rounds alone wouldn't stop this thing.

"Bet you're feeling pretty lousy right now," Wesker laughed. "Not only have you just discovered your girlfriend's a freak, but that she's about to become a dead one at that."

"Let her go," Leon ordered as calm as he could, levelling the Eagle's muzzle with Wesker's head.

"I would," he answered dryly, "but she's intent upon screwing up my entire plan. Which, I'm afraid, I cannot allow to happen."

"Leon," Ada shouted hoarsely, "forget it, just go!"

"One last question, Ada," Wesker said, his arm seeming to relax its hold a little round her throat. "Was he better than me?"

"Fuck you, Albert!" she snarled, but her cursing dissolved into a sickening popping and crunching of bone as Wesker squeezed hard. At the same moment shots rang out, the Eagle barking its violent reproach; Wesker flinching as the shots peppered his torso and bellowing his rage. Suddenly, Leon hit the deck, aware of danger approaching, and the assassins burst into the lab.

"The renegade! Open fire!"

Wesker was hit with a barrage of angry bullets, tearing into his limbs and chest; dropping Ada's form like a rag-doll, he retreated, howling like a beast, while Leon sheltered Sherry from the spray of glass and chips of metal. For a minute or so the onslaught went on, before Wesker lunged. He took several of the benches in a single leap and there were screams from among the shooters. A bloodied gas mask landed next to Leon's foot.

High time we got the hell out...

His eyes fell on Ada close by, battered form bleeding from every pore, but otherwise still alive. He crawled across to her; the red colour had all but left her face now, and she was human again, though the damage seemed irrevocably fatal. Her neck was crushed.

"I said get the hell out," she rasped. "You promised, goddammit."

"I'm not leaving you!"

"Stay here, and we'll all be finished."

"No!"

"Then shoot me. It's over Leon. I'm sorry I brought you to this."

More gunfire erupted close by. The sound of heavy boots.

"Go! NOW!" she yelled brokenly.

Leon closed his eyes. Sherry. He had to protect Sherry.

"Alright," he said.

35

Clambering up the last stretch of the ladder after Sherry, he was suddenly confronted with the muzzle of a Colt M16.

"Nice to see you again Mr. Kennedy," a calm and familiar voice said from above. "I was hoping you would keep yourself out of trouble... but as it turns out, it seems you really are in need of Government protection."

"Walker," Leon sighed, hanging his head in fatigue and frustration. "Don't you guys ever quit?" He slid the Desert Eagle away from himself; it was picked up by one of the S.W.A.T. team who examined it carelessly from beyond his fathomless mask.

"You weren't the one I was after," Walker smiled, dusting off his suit. "I knew where you were and what you were doing, but my surprise visit paid off in the end, I see. We have the girl - at last - and Ada Wong, it seems, has been laid off duty. It's all cleared up."

"What about Wesker?" Leon muttered despondently.

"He's downed five of my men, but he'll be found. The man is a lunatic, but a lunatic with an obvious plan."

"And... what'll you do with Sherry?" Leon asked sharply, checking himself at the gun, and the crowd of S.W.A.T. operatives with their weapons cocked.

"She's in safe hands. Come now, Mr. Kennedy, our ride is waiting."

Leon was led away. Walker lingered awhile, staring down at the smooth sides of the shaft. After a few moments the radio crackled and he answered.

"Report?"

"Sir, the spy. Her body's gone. We did a sweep and found nothing."

"Acknowledged," Walker sighed, tiredly. "Wesker must have taken the body. Stay sharp, Bravo. Over and out."