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“We have to go, now!”
In a hysteric rush, I knocked the coffee mug flying, dark stains blotting the papers haphazardly spread over the desk in the search for certain documents. The clatter of ceramics stirred Birkin—who had a singular aversion to outside disruptions—into snapping around and hollering,
“Would you shut up and let me get my virus, for god’s sake!”
“Whatever, just do it quick!”
I flopped down on the ground. All movable equipment, chairs included, had been piled against the double door, which also had a metal bar slid between its two handles to discourage any unwanted intruders.
What could matter more than life? It seemed an obvious question, but the fact that we were still stuck in this alarm-beeping room was evidence that it was not. Frustrated with Birkin’s absolute stubbornness and infatuation with his non-practical yet vital-to-him G project, which was now bobbing in test tubes that he was furiously shoving into a suitcase, I sighed heavily into my hands.
“Couldn’t you possibly just concoct another G sample once you get out?” I glanced at him sideways and asked dryly.
Apparently, my indifference piqued him, for his movement stopped short, and abruptly he wheeled back and snarled, “You biology moron! Do you have any idea what ingenious creation you’re dealing with?” I gave him a light shrug.
Purple with rage, he shut the suitcase with an unnecessarily loud clank and clicked the two locks with deliberate force.
The corridor still sounded quiet, devoid of any furtive trods from the special unit or stumbling waddles of the wandering zombies. I checked the digital map out of the corner of my eye—all seemed normal so far—so still sticking to the original plan, we could take the back door of the control room and escape through the route that led to the cable car platform in the north area. There’s a chance the line might not be in operation, but if the electric network was still on, at least I would have a shot.
Ground was definitely no option. We would be lucky not to be barraged to beehives as soon as we stepped out of the building.
Birkin had the leisure to dust his coat as he rose from the squatting position on the floor. I collected the pad as well. Finally, time to go.
“This is the new age of virology,” he turned and proclaimed, unaffected smugness curled up his lips. “Imagine what warm welcome I’ll receive when I turn to the government with these beautiful creations of mine.”
“All right, all right, I totally got it.” I interjected and waved the rest of his ramble aside with a dismissive hand. “But let’s save it for after we get ourselves out. Don’t want to put the cart before the horse.”
Birkin, being a vainglorious genius, snorted at my nonchalance with a scowl lined on his face, but after a short spell of reflection, the brilliant biologist eventually let out a resigned moan as reconciliation with my apathy: he possibly thought me too unlearned to understand the greatness of his virology achievement.
Not that this condescending attitude annoyed me, for I was content enough to just have him stop his neurotic splutter. At the same time, unbeknownst to Birkin, I harbored the same contempt for him as he for me, though not for his intelligence but mentality. Truth be told, he was childishly egocentric and mentally vulnerable. When Wesker asked me to “keep an eye on William” during his absence, I had assumed he simply loved the idea of me continuing toiling for him willingly without a life-and-death-entailing contract. What grown-ups needed other people to keep an eye on them? And for a married man with a daughter, shouldn’t he be a responsible and independent breadwinner who could at least take care of himself? I would be flabbergasted if he couldn’t. And after days of observation, it did come as a surprise how fragile William Birkin’s mentality was. Without a better analogy, Wesker was Birkin’s sedative. The man would fully swoop down into his destructive, mad-scientist mode when Wesker was not here to bridle the rein. His petulant, dogged irrationality ranged from pointlessly multi-experimenting his G-virus on vertebrates ranging from lab rats to monkeys to illegally transmitted humans to grope blindly for G’s mutation scope. The results, I should critically note, created more infection troubles to clean up than sending him a step closer to solving the virus conundrum.
Anyway, there was little use to grumble now. I jogged Birkin on the shoulder to nudge him into a quicker run. Although bristling at this callous treatment, he barely uttered a protesting mutter between two wheezy breaths but could only glare, which made me feel weirdly triumphant for getting the upper hand. That’s what physicality you had for sitting in the lab all day.
Standing in the main shaft, we were, literally and metaphorically, at the crossroads of our lives.
“What now?” Birkin said hoarsely when I stopped short in front of him, who narrowly avoided knocking into me. I was too preoccupied with the digital map glistening on the pad to address him.
“This is not good …”
Confounded by my garbled expression, he stepped closer and peeked over my shoulder.
“What do these stand for?” he asked and pointed at five dots moving along the catwalk on the screen. An ominous silence spread over us.
“The Umbrella Corps,” I replied solemnly, and after a pause explained. “I’ve connected to the CCTV in the lab to better monitor their movements.”
“And they are—” His voice trailed off and his face clouded over.
“Right after us.” I finished for him.
Like prisoners condemned to death, we were clouted in the head by the imminence of our enemies that we went into a strange state of stagnation. Even the gleaming hope seemed gone: at this rate, it was only a matter of time before they could get their hands on us before we could make it to the platform.
I contemplated for a few seconds which felt to me like eons, and in a rapid spring, snatched the suitcase from Birkin’s hand before he could mouth any protest, so quick and forceful as if I was afraid I could regret my decision in the next second.
“Hey!” He bleated out but was deterred from interfering. There was something in my movements that emanated a certain determination that was akin to the ardor of a maniac. I retrieved two tubes of G samples and shoved them into his hands.
“Get those and run this way.” I pointed to the right turn. “Run straight and at the end is the cable car platform. Take the car if you can. Otherwise,” I pushed the pad into his chest as well. “Hack its system with this. The software is already in it. I trust you’ll have no trouble figuring it out. Just a few clicks and operations and then you are good to go, genius.”
Birkin blinked dumbfounded.
“What about you?”
“I’ll stay to stall them off. Try to strike up a negotiation.” I waggled the suitcase in front of his surly face. “Sure as hell they are ordered to retrieve the G virus. I don’t know if they are to take you back too or ordered to eliminate all researchers, but let’s just hope a case of G samples would be able to satisfy these greedy mice.”
“All right,” finally he said, “you take care of my precious.” He cast a wistful look at the suitcase containing his life’s work, puckered brows in gloom, then locked his eyes with mine. “And don’t die.”
In a swift swirl, he turned and dashed away along the passage. The flickering redness of alarm lights and the encroaching darkness swallowed his shrinking figure. Birkin never stopped halfway to look back, which was good. The last thing I needed now was more pity or concern that was going to turn me against my spunk. And despite the implication of his last farewell, I had a feeling that it would be the last time we saw each other.
I huddled up to the transformer box in the main shaft, hid in its shadow, and braced my back against the metal plate. Among this eerie quietness, the footsteps crunched louder and louder. I planted a hand flat on the floor, feeling the vibration of the vinyl surface announcing the same fate.
Left sleeve rolled up above the crook of my arm, I clicked the suitcase open, took out a tube, and held the sloshing content above my eyes. Funny it was, I tilted my head and observed under the luminescent light, how normal it looked without a microscope, just another shot of medicine, maybe the vaccine for chickenpox, or antibiotics for the flu. Who would think it to be the acme of Project G. I could smuggle it in my pocket to Canada if I wanted.
With teeth, I uncapped the syringe and laid the point of the needle against my skin, blue veins visible underneath and pulsating with my quickened heartbeat. My hand was trembling uncontrollably that I worried I might not hit the right spot. But didn’t the virus work once it got into the system no matter where? Honestly, I couldn’t recall what Birkin had informed me earlier.
Maybe it was the scary imminence of death, a desperation to confess hit me, an imperative urge to spill out my last thoughts and desires. It must be what many others, in the face of their ends, had felt. Only when you were going to lose it did you cherish the rarity and pricelessness of thoughts, of the ability to materialize one’s feelings and express them in concrete words.
I had lied to Birkin. There were going to be attempts to talk, but that wasn’t the main plan. My secret weapon, the reason why I had the confidence to stall enough time for him to get out, was the G virus. Once infected with it, even if the negotiation fell apart and they decided to put a bullet through my skull, I could come back a zombie or something nastier than that. This unmanly strength could stop them from advancing, or even eliminate them all, if the virus was happy enough to establish the bond and mutate me into some eight-foot-tall monster with limbs thick and brawny as trunks. No doubt the process would be lengthy, feverish, and gnawing. For the next few hours, I would feel like being ripped up from the inside and my intestines churned into a paste of meat. Meanwhile, the once sober consciousness would diminish in its tussle with the virus, and at last, inevitably swallowed up by the mere beastly instinct of survival and reproduction.
So why? Why did I put myself into this? This torment, self-inflicting misery? I banged my temple against the concrete wall and crouched into a ball like a scared little thing. Moisture welled up in my eyes and I wiped it away with my trouser leg, then rubbed my eye socket on the hard kneecaps.
Because I promised Wesker.
I couldn’t help but force a smile at the preposterousness of it. A promise to a fucking dead man. Only fools intended to keep promises like that. Now I was going to die for two megalomaniacs, and the worst thing was I had gone so far that there was no point of return. Either I died a bullet-punctured, ragged corpse, or I existed as a mutant monster wandering and maiming pathetic escapees.
Cut it off, it wasn’t that bad. Between two breaths I shut my eyes and, with what's left of my willpower, concentrated on the darkness before. It was an easy task. I told myself and fixed my thumb on the piston. The plastic barrel felt slippery from the perspiration I smeared on, and the shaft of the needle was a cold line on my hot skin. Overwrought with stress and fatigue, vertigo split my head and the incessant twitches were like teeth tearing tendons from bones, excruciating as being eaten alive. Their bad habits must have rubbed off on me, that suicidal inclination and headlong hankering for ethereal ambitions. Hundreds of times I yearned for possessing of the similar resolve, but never once did I imagine to accomplish it in such an altruistic fashion.
I tried a second time to steady my hand and gazed at the spot. With a gentle thrust, the metal pierced the skin, the wound was small so no blood came out. I shut my eyes again, eyelids twitching from strain, and spots shifted before against the dark background. Vision was unneeded, the feeling of coolness flowing in was terrifying alone.
I pushed on the piston.
It didn’t move.
Before I exerted pressure on it again, in a blurry motion the syringe was wrenched from my grip and thrown into the corner. The collision between plastics rang in the empty corridor.
“If I had known you love the virus so much, I would have injected you with the real strain,” Wesker said.
Cornered against the case and wall, I perked up and goggled at his looming figure. Wesker had seen better days. Covered in blood and mud, the shabby tactical suit was barely dressed but rather hung on his body. Frayed rims circled out three overlapping holes that extended into the shirt underneath, parts of his bare skin visible through the seedy fabric, as if a gigantic claw had penetrated his torso but miraculously left the flesh unharmed. His usual well-combed hair was disheveled. A few loose locks straggled on his forehead and sides, stuck together by deep red clots contrasting with the shiny blonde of its own color. Panting a little, he adjusted the shades on his nose bridge, whose immaculate state stood out strikingly. I took the hand he offered and got up on my knees.
“What were you doing?” he asked, looking at the discarded syringe, then turned back to me. A grave tone conveyed his disapproval well. Despite how I harbored perfectly good intentions, I gulped nervously like a scolded child.
“Trying to shelter Birkin’s escape.” I blinked and pointed at the suitcase containing what was left of the G virus. “With these.”
“I see,” he sized me up, “but what’s that folly of injecting yourself with a G sample?”
Acknowledgment nor gratitude never motivated me in the first place. But the thought that my determination was belittled to a trivial act of foolishness sent indignation flaring across my face.
“I am not—”
“Save that for later.” he silenced me with a hand positioned between us and went off at a tangent. I glared at him with much grievance. “Birkin is safe and is heading out of the city. Could you sabotage the surveillance in the facility? We’re meeting him on the outskirts of Raccoon City.”
So there was an advantage of having chosen the transformer case as the hiding spot. “I could cut out the power to shut down the system." I proposed meditatively. "It can give us about fifteen minutes or so before the backup power comes in.”
“Good, get on that now,” he instructed me with the stern tone adopted from police work and then, with a malicious smirk, added in an air of unwarranted confidence. “Leave the U.S.S. to me.” He said.
I picked the pad from the ground, clanked the door open, selected out the transmission line, and jabbed the head in the jack. The exigency of the situation had me clacking faster than ever.
“Hey,” he suddenly called up and I frowned at the disruption. “Quit the tears. You are being annoying.” He mumbled rather uncomfortably.
Hadn’t noticed before he pointed it out, I touched a hand below my eyes and felt wet. A few drops had dripped on the screen and refracted iridescent streaks within. I wiped them off with my sleeve.
“Nothing, just stressed out.” If my crackling voice ever bought him, he didn’t ask any further, and I resumed back to work, dipping my head down to let the hair fall on the sides, blocking any prying eyes. Because I read the report and thought you dead was what I screamed inside. The screen fuzzed out, I bit on my lower lip to stop tears from flowing. Besides clacks on glass and responsive beeps from the machine, the beat of my own heart was thunderous to hear.
Meanwhile, Wesker was checking his gun beside me. He slid out the cartridge clip and replenished it with bullets stored in one of the combat vest's pouches. Those round metals tinkled against one another on their way rolling in. Ten, eleven, twelve … unconsciously I counted along and from this methodological rhythm regained a sense of peace. Finishing up, he clicked the clip back in place and pulled back at the safe. A whole set of movements swift and adroit.
At last, the white lights ticked off in unison. Corridors were temporarily wrapped in spooky darkness before the red emergency lights flared on.
This obscurity enhanced one’s hearing, and I shuddered at how the marching steps now sounded distinctly between the strident alarms.
“Stay there before I clear things up.” With a push on the shoulder, he shoved me back behind the case. Despite my dissent with his stubbornness to fight alone, there was little I could help with without adding more trouble, so I curled up behind the shelter in compliance.
A radio buzzed nearby, someone clicked the button, and talked into his earpiece,
“This is alpha 2. The lights went off. No sign of the target or sample yet … Copy that, going down the catwalk into the main shift, heading towards the cable car platform as planned.”
Petrified to absolute stillness, I held my breath. The footsteps closed in slowly and covertly, like wolves approaching its prey from the rear. It was the only sound resonating in my head until it was brought to an abrupt end by a squishy crunch and half-uttered squeal which died in disgorging chokes.
Then something hard ruptured. And chunks of something soft plopped on the ground after a splatter of what sounded like liquid. Feeling relatively safe with the absence of crossfire, I peeked out from the edge of the case despite myself.
A person in a U.S.S. tactical suit was hanging on Wesker’s right arm. His hand went straight through the agent’s stomach and stuck out from the back, black redness dripped along his fingertips and accumulated into a small puddle on the floor. Like a rag doll in some gory horror movie, the man’s head slumped down lifelessly, his last expression of horror mixed with confusion fixed on his wan face. And his helmet which resembled the head of a red-eye fly, along with the glinting radio which he had been speaking to just minutes before, was ripped off and crushed under Wesker’s boot, busted wires and shreds scattered across the floor.
In a graceful arc, he tossed the body aside with little effort, which bounced against the wall and left a trail of gruesome streaks before flopping down to a crumpled mess. Wesker’s front shirt was drenched in thick blood and dripping red. The perpetrator of this grisly violence swiveled around, stamping ripples in the puddle around his boots. There was satisfaction in his blood-splotched smirk.
“I didn’t say come out, did I?”
At the suddenness of his voice, a whine escaped me, and involuntarily I recoiled back on all fours, head colliding into the wall. My eyes must be playing tricks on me, otherwise, there was no explaining it: behind those shades, his eyes were glowing, fucking glowing. Blocked by the sunglasses, I hadn’t noticed before the lights went off, but now his bright eyes contrasted with the surrounding dimness so much that blaze leaked dully from behind the dark lenses.
With the leisure of one in control, he bent down and took off the glasses, taking his time to fold the holders attentively before clipping them to his collar. When he turned back to me, he said with the inquisitive interest of a scientist, radiance billowy in his unearthly eyes,
“Are you being afraid, Wright?”
He stared at me intently, searching for any telltale signs of fear or hesitation. Those dark slit pupils surrounded by smoldering flames narrowed when he watched me shivering on the ground as if the air had suddenly become too cold to bear. Having just bathed in blood, the metallic stench on his clothes goaded my stomach into churning. Throwing up now would be a very bad move. I clamped a hand to my mouth and swallowed back the acid taste threatening to overflow. What Wesker interpreted it as I could not know, but he assessed me with increased interest and curled up his lips in a sneer.
“If you ever change your mind, you can always turn to the U.S.S. for help. I’m sure they’ll be willing to take you along with the samples.”
Did he really come all the way just to tell me I could turn my back on him over a pair of glowing eyes? Before I got to vent my stoked fume, a barrage of potshots interrupted our private time.
More footsteps stomped down the hallway. Clearly, they had got suspicious over the deadly silence from Alpha 2 (no pun intended), and after espying what was left of the wretched man, decided to first secure their safety against their unknown attackers through fire suppression.
In a blur of movement, Wesker hauled me up by the collar and flung me out of the line of fire. The impact of his strength sent me skidding feet across the floor. Granted, my back burned from abrasion, but it boosted my launch far enough to make around the corner before another round of shots blasted ricocheting in the corridor where I had just been.
This time, I ducked my shivering head between my knees, huddled up in a ball and waited in the agonizing cacophony, breathing hitched whizzes, until the exploding ammunition subsided to empty clicks and was took over by howls of pain and bangs against hard concrete. When the corridor quieted down again, I was left alone except for a sole pair of steps, which I knew belonged to Wesker without checking.
Despite my best effort to remain a picture of calm, the moment he went around the corner I winced in distaste. The state he was in could be best described as … unpresentable. The amount of blood coating him in was enough to let him win any horror prize on Halloween parties. More bullet holes had punctuated the tactical vest into a beehive. A few strings of nylon left struggled to keep the suit’s stripes to its front, no doubt he had ripped the fabric off in dramatic movements. I didn’t bother to ask whether he was well enough to proceed, which would win myself either an overweening smirk or a miffed glare, neither I would like to deal with. His several wounds were already closing up at a perceptible rate. Pinkish skin regenerated and covered the soggy flesh.
“Shall we proceed? Or would you rather join those poor souls there?” He offered me a hand, black leather covered in clammy red. In any other case I would really not want to get that on myself, but it was Wesker, and my legs still faltered.
“Let’s move. The platform is just ahead.” His skin was exceptionally hot even under a layer of glove. My head whirled with all conjectures as I followed and observed him from behind.
“So, you met Birkin on the way.”
“Indeed. He was in a stolen car.”
“Ah, turns out that genius could hurry up. Sometimes I thought he dawdled deliberately just to annoy me.”
“Speaking of which,” he wheeled around to me and inquired with an air of curiosity, “why didn’t you go with him?”
“I thought I told you, I wanted to cover his back. The U.S.S. wasn’t that far behind us.”
“Huh—”
These implicit hums were like sentences purposely half spoken, which particularly vexed me for inexplicable reasons.
“What’s that about?”
“What?”
“That ‘huh’ of yours.” I said. “You have an awful habit of being secretive. Couldn’t you just lay it on the line?”
“Care to hear my thoughts?”
“Words can’t harm.” I shrugged with a pout.
“Very well.” Bullheaded as he sometimes was, this time Wesker gave in more easily than I had assumed. “I think you stayed on purpose,” he said curtly and waited for my reaction.
“Huh, really.” Now it was my turn to make the noncommittal hum.
“As I’ve said, you could have gone with Birkin. The U.S.S. hadn’t caught up with you till I arrived, and it was a quarter before I bumped into Birkin midway. Don’t tell me you didn’t have the strength to run any further. We both know how’s your physique compared to my sedentary partner.”
“Don’t know much about that. Maybe I miscalculated. People make irrational decisions in exigent times, don’t they?”
“If you insist. That so Birkin’s impetuousness must have rubbed off on you.”
“Then the blame lies on you to have asked me to look after him.”
“Ah," he signed in a small voice, "but I didn’t think you would try that hard.”
“Pardon?”
“Nothing.” He waved our chat aside and turned back to comb his tousled hair. The task posed a gloomy prospect: it would definitely take some efforts to untangle those obstinate blood clots.
“Wesker,” after some time I called him from behind. Since the start of our walk, he had been edging closer and closer to the side of the corridor, hand sometimes propped himself against the wall before taking another stride, and now he shambled from one side to another like he had too much alcohol. “You sure you don’t need to stop for a second?”
Without a word, he glared at me like I’d said something extremely offensive, the glowing redness dully visible even behind the shades, but the palpable stagger in his steps rendered him much less aggressive than he wanted to appear.
Unperturbed, I insisted he gave a proper response. His thin lips parted to pour out some snide remarks, but before any of them made it out, his eyes rolled up and he stumbled forth like a robot switched off. I rushed over to catch him, his heavy, muscular body collapsed into my arms like a rolling boulder, all but knocking me off.
Really. It was a good idea to flaunt your strength.
We hid in the cafeteria for the moment to wait for Wesker’s recovery.
Hauling him all the way into the cafeteria was the worst experience today I’d have so far, which was an extreme measurement considering all I’d endured, including but not limited to being stuck in crossfire, chased by a unit of top ace agents, and nearly mutating into an eight feet lumpy, gnarled B.O.W.
Despite my disinclination to outright expression of appreciations, I had to admit that Wesker’s built was, if not enthralling, at least a pleasant sight in the humdrum lab among the mostly lanky researchers. Though, as all coins had two sides, then it became not so pleasant when I had to drag this brawny man along more than half the corridor’s length while constantly keeping an alert eye on possible pursuers. In the end, the toil had fagged me out both physically and mentally that eventually when I flopped down beside the comatose Wesker, I was reduced to a puddle of human jelly.
It was quiet, sitting in the cafeteria like this, in a place that existed in my mind as the embodiment of clatter and uproar. Before I had no idea how boisterous people could be even with their mouths stuffed full of macaroni and lettuce. It was an unsaid rule that during dining time, whatever abstruse problems that stumped researchers would be put aside, it being a moment for scientists to wind their time back to being rowdy boys and assistants to gossipy girls. Shadows of such casualness still loomed between the empty chairs and round tables, between the sink and empty counters.
Having settled Wesker down behind a counter across from the entrance, I also had my own needs to tend to. My stomach groaned and twitched from the trudge and demanded refreshments. I recalled having stashed a few snacks in the cafeteria’s refrigerator, and so accordingly went to salvage what was left on the racks (for sometimes amoral coworkers eat up your food on a whim of hunger). Fortunately, I was able to get my hands on a slice of cheesecake that I bought days ago. I took out the plastic plate, peeled off the name note that I stuck to warn off unwanted eaters, then crumpled it into a wad and chucked the ball into the rubbish bin. Clean forks were stashed in the cutlery tray, and I was in the mood to borrow one utensil instead of finishing the cake by hand like a starved savage. Though time had compromised the cake’s taste to some extent, it was not beyond edible. Following the routine, the chocolate decor on top I finished off with one mouthful devour before I start vivisecting the cake itself with digging stabs. The biscuit bottom dampened its stay in the humid compartment which it shared with other fruits, and the cheese tasted a little too thick from desiccation, but all things considered, I was content enough with anything oily or creamy and was not raw.
The intake of delectable nutrition left my mind a bit groggy and fuzzy. Having nothing else to do but to wait, I seized the opportunity and put my hands to clean up Wesker’s frowzy state given the available tissue and first aid kit in the cafeteria.
Blood on fabric was hard to get rid of even with detergents and washboards, so from the perspective of expediency, I set to make do with scissoring off the hanging rags without minding much about the remaining pieces.
From the cupboard, I grabbed someone’s mug and filled it up under the faucet, dipping napkins in the water before rubbing it on Wesker’s face to wipe off the congealed bloodstain.
In case I might accidentally knock it off, his sunglasses I removed, folded, and placed carefully on the countertop. Wesker was handsome, and this fact appealed to me more than ever now that I was studying him close up. With his ever-present lenses off and his eyes closed in slumber, Wesker’s usual edginess was now replaced by a gentle aura that contained a hint of fragile delicacy. Across a layer of wet tissue, I traced his carved jawline up to his high cheekbone, swiping just below the soft pouch under his eyes. A faint shadow loomed there, the upshot of taking three strenuous works simultaneously while trying to plot a coup against a mega-conglomerate. His eyelashes, whose length would make women jealous, fluttered under the slightest breeze like butterflies about to take off. The dull artificial light cast his blond hair an almost silver hue but left the lower half of his face in the darkness, resulting in a contrast that rendered his features a sculptural grace. I leaned in and touched my forehead to his, though despite his feverish skin, I couldn’t tell apart our temperature.
“Damn.”
I was about to slot the shades back where they belonged when Wesker’s eyes snapped open from the coma, widening in wariness at the proximity of another person's presence. His beastly pupils narrowed to a warning slit, jaw clenched, and teeth bared out in a performance of menace.
I threw up both hands and quickly cooed in a comforting voice. “It’s all right. I brought us here. We are in the cafeteria now.”
By degrees, his taut muscles relaxed when I backed discreetly out of his space. Those serpent eyes rolled around in their sockets, taking a cursory glance at our surroundings before finally arresting on me, or to be more specific, on his sunglasses held up in my right hand, whose holders I carefully nipped between fingers instead of touching the lenses and smearing fingerprints on them.
“I was about to return it to you,” I retorted, half coerced into offering an explanation by his formidable glare. “Until you scared the hell out of me. Do you always have that morning temperament?”
Under his intense and seething gaze, any of my left thoughts of mischief flattened like a busted balloon. I gingerly placed the sunglasses back on his nose, leaning forward to tuck strands of loose hair behind the temples. He angled his head aside and puffed out an obstinate snort. For all the coldness he put on show, he seemed to be content with my minute care and decide to magnanimously assoil my previous transgression of fiddling with his precious glasses.
“You know,” cheeks puffed, I said, gesturing towards the lenses. “I even wiped them clean for you, and did not fuzz the plastic up. At least a small ‘thank you’ would be appreciated.”
“Really? I could not thank you enough,” he replied blandly with a deadpan face.
Disgruntled as I was, rationality got the best of me. Poking a wounded Wesker who was sulking and simmering on the ground was decidedly not the best option in a trapped situation. I had not hauled him here and gone through all the effort of cleaning him up just to irritate the man into giving me the same hole in the stomach like what those poor bastards had endured. The top one imperative had been, and always was, survival. Right. Survival. I reinforced it in my mind.
I didn’t ask bluntly whether he had recovered and was ready to go, in case it might jab at his sensitive ego. Instead, I maneuvered a little and broached the other topic that had been nagging at my curiosity for a while.
“Wanted to ask some time ago, where did you get those laser eyes?”
“They aren’t laser eyes,” he groaned. “The traits come from infection.”
“So you aren’t a descendant of some superhumans or aliens.”
An awkward silence fell around us. He rolled his eyes and scowled at me like I was an idiot. I simpered at my bad attempt at humor and continued unscrupulously.
“Power up infection, huh. So much about lecturing me not to inject dangerous virus.” I sneered innocuously, hand fiddling with the vial of G sample resting in the coat pocket. Of course, the cap I had placed back securely. Some ridiculous tragedy it would be if I accidentally infect myself in this most unwanted scenario.
“It’s not the same. The G-virus is not designed for you.” Suppressing the impatience towards my ignorance, he tried to explain in a calm manner. Recently I seemed to get on his nerves more and more with my quips and bad jokes; maybe I had come to love seeing his face exhibit any emotion except for the tough poker one. “I, on the other hand, was in possession of a strain of T-virus that William Birkin had specially designed for me. The mutation that it brings will grant me power and at the same time let me maintain my intelligence. However, sadly for you, G can only turn you into a mindless monster gorging on flesh. Unless you’re willing to test whether you are one of the rare ones who had immunity to it. The chance is worse than throwing all your savings in Las Vegas in hope of making a fortune.”
“That is … a very vivid analogy.”
Inwardly I shuddered at his brusque remarks about the scanty chance of my survival. It was one thing to ponder over it in my amateur mind, and another thing to have a virology expert spell it right out to me what hazard I had narrowly escaped from.
As I dwelled on the realization and compunction of what impetuosity had driven me crazy into a suicidal savior kink, a gruff gasp of pain snapped me back from introspection.
Something went wrong. A damp sheen of sweat covered his forehead, beads dripped down along his edgy features as another stifled moan escaped between his pressed lips. Wesker slumped down and reflexively brought his knees to his chest under the impact of the ache. Lacking the fringe to cover his expression, he buried his face into the crook of his arms with an effort to preserve what was left of his dignity, the trouser fabric fisted into a ball under his firm yet shaking grip. Damned the man’s ego.
I slid my hands forward in an attempt to help, though what exactly to do was not on my mind. Usually treating a sick patient in agony involved some kind of comfort akin to patting on the back or massaging the lesion. However, the source of his pain was beyond my knowledge, and the fact that he was now a mutant superhuman added nothing helpful. So in the end, my hands merely hovered awkwardly above him, hesitating and not knowing what to do, fearing my crass movements might only worsen things up. My inability to alleviate his symptoms was galling. Kneeling beside, I was left to watch and worry in vain. Convulsing with spasms of pain, his back arched back like a cooked shrimp, the other hand clutching at the fabric near his flank, damped by the blood oozing out from beneath. My brows crinkled in perplexity, for as I understood, all his scrapes or wounds should have healed up by now.
Wesker hissed like a cornered animal when I pried away his hand and lifted the cloth, but had too little strength to fight back. A bloody hole—not large, about the size of a bullet, but deep—was drilled into his side. At the end of the hole, a flickering glint, the bullet was still lodged in. I looked up from the injury, then locked eyes with him with a stern face that demanded an account.
After an intense spell of mutual staring, he succumbed and heaved wanly. “I didn’t think they would use bullets designed for B.O.W.s. The chemical on their head is stopping my healing.”
“Then we must get the bullets out immediately,” I said, “you can’t proceed in this state.”
Turning his head away, he ground out a low curse but made no further resistance.
When I reached down to touch his wound, trying to see if I could get this done with my bare hands, Wesker seized my hand and swiped it away.
“Have some common sense and get yourself a pair of tweezers,” he rasped irritably. “This is only going to enlarge the wound. I would think you want me dead if you weren’t so eager to help.”
I pulled a long face, heat rising up to my hairline.
As it turned out, you could find nearly every type of utensils in a cafeteria, even tweezers, which one usually associated with operating rooms most. He opposed vehemently when I brought him a pair of tweezers in a pickle jar from the seasoning table. But it was the best I could manage—its body long enough to dive into the hole and its tips thin enough to extract the bullet without hurting the flesh. Eventually, being a sensible logical person, he conceded but not without reluctance, under the condition that I would sterilize it head to toe with an alcoholic cotton ball, which I complied with more grudge against his demanding attitude than the actual request itself (after all, no one wanted their wounds to rankle because of pickle juice).
Lamentingly, I was a bad ad hoc surgeon. So much that I reckoned it fortunate that I had never considered entering the field of medicine nor practiced anything similar to that ever before. My clumsy hands and inadvertence! If I were a doctor, it would be a wonder if I didn’t blunder on the table and accidentally cut open the patient's immaculate entrails instead of the flawed ones or bungle the stitches in the end.
Slouching back against the counter, Wesker’s cheeks were alternatively wan and strained. Strong guilt gnawed at my chest when I inadvertently scraped the wall of his wound with the tweezer tips, eliciting a half-squeezed yelp from Wesker’s throat. His one hand fisted tightly into a ball, gripping the rim of his shirt into a rumpled wad, the other pressed flat on the floor, fingernails crawling at the linoleum surface. His moist panting brushed past my ears and neck, the watery sound of his gulps ringing next to me as if we were close as one. A sharp inhalation escaped him when I accidentally twisted in the wrong direction. Those serpent eyes glared at me above the rim of his shades. They were somehow dimmer than before, perhaps the antigen was indeed weakening the virus inside him.
The last small cylindrical object dropped down on the marble countertop and clinked, cracking the smothering heaviness. I pulled down his shirt and wiped my sticky red hands on my trousers, dragging down two muzzy handprints, too overwrought to bother with tissues.
“Don’t,” he rejected sternly when I volunteered to bandage his wounds. “You’ll just swathe me like a mummy. Encumber my moves. Once the chemical is out, I will heal up in no time.” With that he waved me aside and closed his tired eyes, head leaning into the counter board. A cozy moment of doze.
He deserved a good rest, so I didn’t wake him up when I heard footsteps thunking outside in the corridor. The door of the security room, which was opposite to the cafeteria, creaked open and clicked shut. Juggling with whirling thoughts I contemplated all possible options—a myriad set of them with unpredictable consequences. Eventually, making up my mind, I sneaked up to Wesker’s belt and slid out the combat knife sheathed in his leather pouch. He stirred ever so little.
Now, there was a catch. The security room had no window, so I had no way of knowing the position of the Umbrella agent. He might be bent over the monitors, or leaning against the door, in which case I would bump into death if I crashed in.
Anxiety did me no good, nor did hesitation. After a deep inhalation, I pushed tentatively. The door was not locked, so I peeked through a slit. A figure stopped over the control desk, his fingers drumming on the table, chin resting on the other free hand. Rows of monitor screens lined up from the desktop to just below the ceiling, casting frigid lights on the attentive man, dragging behind him an elongated shadow which bent at where the floor met the locker and stretched upward. A few screens had snowflakes flashing dizzily. They must have been shot down during the crossfire.
I creaked the slit big enough for me to enter. The sibilant buzzing of the running machine effectively covered the swing of the hinge and the click of my sole. The agent was too preoccupied with a certain monitor to notice what was going on behind him. He took off his helmet, inclined forward, and his brows met together with a furrow, as if boggled at what he saw, so concentrated that he didn’t notice my shadow crawling up onto the desktop beside his hand.
Now or never.
I gripped the hilt in both hands, held it high, and then thrust it at the side of his neck. At that particular moment, my reflection appeared on the screen and he jerked around with a start, and I also glimpsed what had arrested him so much—the devices connected to the surveillance camera in the cafeteria—he saw Wesker.
Due to his sudden movement, I missed slightly on the left and the blade went behind his clavicle instead of right for the throat. He yelped from the assault, then promptly elbowed me right in the chest to put distance between us. The knife lodged in his shoulder and blood gurgled down, he backed to the wall to grab the machine gun he had left leaning there. I sprinted and plowed into him fully, knocking him off balance with the weight of my body. The gun toppled over in the scuffle, and with a kick, I sent it skidding to the other end of the room, out of our reach—the gunshot would attract unwanted attention.
A forceful clout socked me square in the face, warm fluid trickled down my nose. I lost balance and landed on the control desk. A rustling busied behind me as he tried to get back on his feet. I used whatever was handy, grabbed the helmet he left on the desk, and, wheeling around, swung it right into his head. With a loud clunky thump, he collapsed on his back and was stunned by the hard landing on the solid floor. I took the window to climb atop and sat astride his torso. The knife twisted in my hand, producing a watery crush, then slashed more flesh apart as I yanked it out. Blood spewed out like red geysers, splattering a radiating pattern on the floor, like a macabre bloom burgeoning from his shoulder. Aiming right at the pulsating skin, I sank down the knife again, but this time he caught the blade between his gloved hands, holding it back from his throat.
“You maniac imbecile …” He gritted out, voice taut from the exertion of force. “You have no idea what you have done.”
“It looks plain simple to me. Life and death. I choose to live.” I said, pushing down the hilt. It didn’t budge, he was still fighting.
“Living? By protecting that monster?” He twisted a crooked smile and bared out two rows of blood-clad teeth. I could see dark red surging at the back of his throat as he went on. “You are choosing to protect a snake that will only bite back at you, you silly fuck.” He coughed convulsively as he cursed in a crackling rage, specks of his spit sputtered on my face.
“You don’t know a thing about him.” I groaned, jabbing my knee into his rib: digging, sinking, violently venting the inarticulable rage. He let out a shuddering breath under the pressure, his face bleached from blood loss. What was left of his strength seeped out from the open wound, rivulets converged into an enlarging puddle reeking of metallic pungency.
“And you know?” He sneered at me as if I had said a hilarious joke. His smile cracked into a taunting laugh stretching from ear to ear, like someone had cut a slash on his face. Blood dripped out from his mouth corner.
“Albert Wesker is a treacherous fuck! And a damned mutant lunatic! You want to side with him? All right, let’s hope he won’t turn you into one of those mindless zombies. He does experiments on everything. Haven’t they told you? That Lisa. Oh, poor girl she was! Getting injections and being cut open every day. It’s lucky she turned into a gnarled, nasty, crawling monster in the end. Wonder if she’d go crazy if she went through all those with her human mind? I’ll tell you, that Wesker, and his fucking friend Birkin, they are psychotics. They cared about no one! I could have saved you, I could have helped you out of this mess if you asked, I—”
The soft blast of flesh punctured. I sank the knife into his throat, the rest of his gibberish died midway as he drowned in his own blood, sputtering futilely and disgorging unintelligible grunts mixed with viscous crimson. His widened eyes riveted on my face, like metal pulled by magnets. Staring at the instrument of his death with unswerving determination, his pupils glared with hatred and unspoken fears, till they slowly dilated, unfocused, and dulled, becoming glazed over. The eager glimmer and the burning wrath petering out like the rivulets running out of his body, his face a deathly pallor under the monitors’ flickering lights. And finally, all set back into a numb tranquility.
His hands were still clutching at the blade of the knife, as if making up for what he had failed to do. I pried them off and stood up from his body, legs shaky from the crouch. I didn’t notice my hands were trembling until the hilt slipped from my grip and dropped on the floor. A clear jingling resonated in the small chamber, like his ghost was still lingering and whining. Rapidly I picked it up, it was a borrowed knife, after all, and I had to return it to Wesker. The radio blipped lonely inside the agent’s side pocket. Not online but still operating. I left it where it was.
The control desk seemed all the same as it had been ten minutes before except for a trace of red beads splattered across the keyboard, droplets rolled and slid into the crannies between square keys. I have a quick look at the screens. No visible anomalies. Other Umbrella agents were spread sparsely in the testing labs, greenhouse, and bioreactor room, endeavoring to wipe out the evidence of the biohazard in the interest of the conglomerate. And the cafeteria—I uncontrollably thumped on the desktop—Wesker was out of sight. There was nothing hinting at his existence except for the trails of blood smeared on the side of the counter, where he had just been reclining moments before.
I bolted out of the security room before any rational thoughts could surface.
“What’s the hurry?”
But there he was, when I kicked the double doors open and barged in, standing right behind the counter, one hand working with his neckline and eyeing me as if I was in some frantic fever, unruffled as he always was.
“Where were you?” I asked with a tinge of accusation. Either the surveillance had fooled me, or he had the nerve to venture out just after his recent recovery. And his new clothes boggled me, a black linen suit with a waistcoat on, just needed a jacket to finish the three-piece. I blew out my cheeks and then deflated them slowly. He couldn’t possibly have the leisure to change his outfit while I was tussling in blood in the next room, could he?
“There are spare clothes in the staff closet back of the kitchen,” he said. “I won’t go out in those rags.”
Strutting in his new suit, he came out from behind the counter and stretched out a hand to me. “May I have it back?” He asked out of nowhere, but I soon grasped the undertone.
So he did notice the missing combat knife. I fished it from my coat pocket and handed it to him by the hilt. The knife was sheathed back in its pouch. Bloodstains still clung to its edges, I didn’t have the time to wipe them off.
Wesker didn’t ask about the whereabouts of these stains. He must have a good guess at the identity of the poor victim and didn’t care which specific one he was. I was relieved not to have to experience the awkward interrogation, but I had also a scrape of regret that he wouldn’t openly acknowledge my deed. After all, the whole business was for him. Otherwise, I could slink away while he was sprawling out in a coma. Would they have found him then? Could bullets, even with antigens, really kill him? The answers to these I would never know.
“It is a nice shirt,” at last I said.
“Indeed it is.” A satisfied smile tugged at Wesker’s lips as he flattened the creases on the fabric. Then he looked me up and down, and frowned disapprovingly. “Do you also want a change? We have a few minutes to spare if you need to.” He pointed toward the door that led to the staff office and added, “The backup power seemed to be offline, too. The facility was in worse condition than we thought. No doubt the zombies would swarm out soon.”
“I think not. The new coat will only be stained either way. I might as well stick to this one.” I rolled up the cuff that had been soaked by the agent’s blood, like I’d dipped it into a bowl of tomato sauce. Droplets seeped onto the floor as I wrung it dry.
“Very well.” He looked at my bloody sleeves, then back at me. This man was sure to have an obsession with cleanliness. “Shall we proceed then?”
“You don’t have to hasten me on that.” I flashed a cheeky smile and followed him out through the back door.
Wesker’s new clothes were nice, I thought heartily again as I watched the back of his shirt flap with each step. The fabric was flat against his torso and curved his slim waistline well, even though it wasn’t customized for him, possibly just a set snatched from someone of a similar size to his. Anyway, Wesker should definitely wear that more often.
We escaped the lab through the cable car. It was fortunate that the vehicle we rode was the last one pulled off at the lab station, so to save us the worry of having to deal with potential pursuits.
Raccoon City was still the image of peace and harmony. We exited the car midway and took the emergency exit in the tunnel, so to avert the crowd we would have run into if we had gotten off at the next stop. Running on the streets with blood-drenched clothes was certainly no feasible option. Even though Wesker was in the police department (which I was not sure of now, since he was dead according to the official records), the blood and unauthorized weapon carrying would be enough for an interrogation.
The underground sewage reeked an awful sour stench of fermenting feces and a fishy pungency of rampant moss. Literally, I had to nip my nose tight the whole way through. I wonder if the virus had enhanced Wesker’s olfactory sense as well. Because he clamped a hand forcibly over his lower face, strong enough to embed a ring of weal, leaving not the slightest gap along the conjunction rim (which made me wonder how he could breathe), and his grimaced expression was eloquent of extreme repulsion. Or, on second thought, maybe he just loved hygiene.
On the outskirts of Raccoon City, sparse lamps interspersed the roads stretching out. The night was nearly over, and the faint halo of sun had peeked its top over the endless horizon. Warm glow was strewed over the gravelly track, which crunched and shifted as I scuffed my tired feet along the gritty surface.
Birkin, who was prostrating on a black van’s hood, jerked up as two pairs of grating footsteps approached. His blond hair, which resembled Wesker’s, radiated under the sun’s reflection.
“I was thinking you were about to come,” he said, voice weary and flat from the lack of both sleep and caffeine. “Everything all right?”
Wesker concisely assured him with a small nod.
As if the piling stress was finally lifted, Birkin ran down like an overwound clock: his shoulders slumped downward, his strained face went slack, and his quivering lips puffed out a long sigh that drifted off with the morning breeze.
“Finally,” Birkin exclaimed, then he cleared his throat and said, “We should get going. The U.S.S. wouldn’t stick around for long.”
“Where did you get the car?” I asked out of sheer curiosity.
“Oh, the van? I found it in a parking garage. The driver was smoking beside the vehicle. I thought it perfect for long traveling, and a metal bar came in handy, so I knocked him out from behind and swiped the car key from his pocket.” He waggled the key ring in front of our faces, the plastic end swinging on the metal hoop.
Birkin plucked open the door and mounted in two brisk leaps. The engine rumbled like an awakening lion after he thrust the key in and turned it with a clink. Black smoke streamed from the exhaust.
“Well, you getting on or not?” An impatient shout came from within.
Wesker advanced before me, strutting, almost, taking two strides at a time. My legs refused to dart any further but to be dragged on like dead limbs. Grayish clouds swam across the sun, blocking out the radiant rays. My vision was temporarily covered up by an extra filter of bleakness. The wind gusted freezing in the morning hours.
Wesker slammed the front door close behind him. Hunching down, Birkin was working something over the panel. His fringe fell forth, and he flicked it out of his eyes with a careless wave. I pulled at the backseat door’s handle. It budged twice in place, but didn’t open. I irritably tugged again before moving to the driver’s door.
“The back door is locked,” I informed Wesker.
Instead of fumbling with something on the panel to unlock the door, he simply turned to me and uselessly repeated the already-known fact. “It is,” he said.
“Aren’t you going to do something?” I gestured towards the back door, pulling at the unmoving handle vainly for emphasis. “The unlock switch is right there. Could you flick it on?”
“I can,” Wesker said, and peered at me under the rim of the sunglasses. “But you aren’t coming with us.” His eyes squinted into a thin line, glowing red tumbled inside.
I was dumbfounded to silence for a minute, then I snarled at his unreadable face, hands gripping at the two sides of the window frame. “What do you mean by that? I didn’t come all the way so you could just dump me in the middle of the road!”
“I changed my mind.” He put it as casually as one would talk about choosing the color for a carpet. “This is where we part ways. Your service is no longer needed.”
“My service! I built you that damn containment unit—”
“Which never came into use, due to some—contingencies—in my plan.”
“And your plan sucks!” My knuckles whitened on the frame edge, lines of red welts etched into my skin. “You blundered it up. I didn’t do anything wrong!”
His lips twitched in exasperation, and glaring light filtered through the dark plastic, the only sign of outrage that betrayed his imperturbable facade. I knew I hit his sore point, and for the moment enjoyed the triumphant smugness of gaining the upper hand. But reason never came into place in quarrels, and less it did when you were arguing with a determined Wesker.
“You aren’t cut out for it.” He rasped out between grinding teeth, jaw flexed in agitation. “Consider it lucky that I even bothered fetching you out.”
Taken over by a sweep of indignation, blood pounding in my feverish brain so loud that I could barely hear myself bawling, I shoved my head into the frame and yelled at his straight face. “I wouldn’t even be there if you hadn’t asked me to ‘keep an eye’ on your dear friend! I risked my life to keep his ass safe and this is what I get in return, huh? A real eye-opener!”
Behind Wesker, Birkin wriggled uncomfortably in his small seat. Looking around unnervingly, he ventured a quick glance in my direction, but reeled back when I shot back an incensed glare. Shrinking behind Wesker’s frame, he murmured something indistinct to himself and gnawed at his fingernails before worming back to gaze down at the boring wheel. His hands rubbed the rubber curve back and forth like a nervous child wedged between two adults’ wrangle. For a moment I almost took pity on him, but this commiseration soon lapsed, and I reverted back into the boiling rage.
I could hardly keep my teeth from rattling, as if the shaking could help me give away the pent-up fury. Whatever skimmed over the surface of my brain was spurted out in the most tart tone. It was such an act of impulse that when later I tried to recall my line of reasoning, the words had all been a blurry picture, like an old fizzling radio that you could only guess its content by the intonation of the speaker.
At last, Wesker’s patience had worn off, leaving the harried tyrant nothing but the desire for a moment of peace, that he decided to roll up the car window, physically cutting out my flimflam.
The transparent barrier screeched up in a halting manner while he kept one finger pressing steadily on the window button. I had to withdraw my hands so as not to be caught up in the chugging pane. For a moment I lost my grip and staggered down to the ground, but then lunged back with a bounce and pasted myself on the glass. I banged it with a clenched fist. The glass quaked but didn’t move. My feverish huffing diffused a layer of moisture on the cool surface, his edgy features became fuzzy behind the tiny water beads.
Before turning around to address something to the moping Birkin, Wesker darted me an indecipherable smile. The window muffled up their voices. They exchanged a few words, then Birkin leaned back into the seatback, stretched his leg, and slammed on the gas pedal. The rapid momentum nearly tore me from the middle. The gravel dragged at my shoes while my upper body sped away with the van. This discrepancy flung me face down on the grainy track. A dark plume of exhaust trailing the speeding van spurred me into a fit of fierce cough as I struggled to my feet. When the convulsive heaving in my chest finally subsided, I wiped my eyes clean of the tingling fumes. The van had already wheeled beyond my reach.
A hopeless realization worked its way into my slogging heart. It was yet too early to hear the morning chirp, and in a downbeat trance, I wallowed in the desuetude of loneliness, watching their car hurtling away till it became a black spot beaded on the stretching horizon, then submerged into the sandy ground.
The wind kicked up a cloud of dust. A tickle started in my nostril. I brought up a hand to rub it off and smeared across something warm and wet, trickling down beyond my control.
Behind me, Raccoon City was still in its sound slumber, unaware of the evil infesting under its very nose. But by the time when the real biohazard would break out and turn this prospering residence into a living hell, I would be long gone. After all, this was but an episode in my life—a whim of adventure—in the end I would always revert back to the placid normalcy, willingly or not, as every perpetual survivor did.