Resident Evil – Underworld Read online

  S.T.A.R.S. captain.

  "Everyone brace for an impact. John, just past your next turn, bring us to a stop. Hit and run, alright?"

  David brought his knees up, wedging his feet against the van's wall. "They want us so badly, let them have us."

  Claire slid over and pushed her feet against the back of the passenger seat, knees bent and head down. Rebecca moved closer to David, and Leon sidled back so that his head was close to Claire's. They locked gazes and Leon smiled faintly. "This is nothing" he said, and in spite of her fear, Claire found herself smiling back at him. After mak– ing it through the madness of Raccoon City, skirting the murderous Umbrella creatures and crazed hu– mans – not to mention their extremely narrow escape from explosive death when Umbrella's secret facilities blew up – compared to all that, a simple car wreck was like a Sunday picnic. Yeah, just keep telling yourself that, her mind whis– pered, and then she didn't think anything at all, because the van was swerving around a corner and John was pumping the brakes and they were about to get hit by about a ton and a half of fast moving metal and glass. David inhaled and exhaled deeply, relaxing his muscles as best he could, the squeal of brakes coming up fast from behind…… and wham, violent motion, a sense of incredible vibration, a second that seemed to stretch for an endless and silent eternity…… and the noise coming immediately after – break– ing glass and the sound of a tin can being crushed amplified a million times. David was jerked forward and back, heard Rebecca emit a strangled gasp -

  – and it was over, and John was already hitting the gas as David rolled to his knees, raising his Beretta. He shot a look out the back and saw that the sedan was motionless, skewed across the dark street, the front grill and headlamps smashed all to hell. The slumped, shadowy figures behind the spidered glass were as still as the ruined car.

  Not that we fared much better…

  The inexpensive green minivan he'd bought specifi– cally for their ride to the airfield no longer had a bumper, tail lights, a rear license plate – or, he imag– ined, any possible method for opening the back gate; the door was a warped and crunched-up mass of useless metal. No great loss. David Trapp despised minivans, and it wasn't as though they'd planned on taking it to Europe. The important thing was that they were still alive – and that – for the moment at least – they'd managed to avoid the infinitely long arm of Umbrel– la's wrath. As they sped away from the wrecked car, David turned and regarded the others, reflexively putting a hand out to help Rebecca up. Since the ill-fated mission to the Umbrella lab on the coast, he'd grown quite attached to the young woman, as had John. The rest of his team hadn't survived… He shook off the thought before it could take hold, and called up to John that they should circle back toward their original destination, staying away from major streets. A bad break that they'd been spotted just as they were leaving, but not all that surprising, however. Umbrella had staked Exeter out two months earlier, right after they'd returned from Caliban Cove. It had only been a matter of time. "Nice trick, David," Leon said. "I'll have to re– member that next time I get chased by Umbrella goons."

  David nodded uncomfortably. He liked Leon and Claire, but wasn't so sure how he felt about two more people looking to him for leadership. He could under– stand it with John and Rebecca, they'd at least been part of the S.T.A.R.S. before – but Leon was a rookie cop from Raccoon and Claire was a college student who just happened to be Chris Redfield's little sister. When he'd made the decision to break from the

  S.T.A.R.S. after finding out about their connection to Umbrella, he hadn't expected to continue leading, hadn't wanted to -

  –but it wasn't my decision to make, was it… he hadn't asked for their allegiance, or offered himself up as decision maker and it didn't matter, that was just the way things had turned out. In war, one didn't always have the luxury of choice. David glanced around at the others before staring out the back, watching the homes and buildings slip past in the cold dark. Everyone seemed a bit subdued, always the aftermath of an adrenaline rush. Rebecca was unloading clips and repacking the weapons, Leon and Claire sitting close together across from her, not talking. Those two were usually joined at the hip, and were still as tight as they'd been since David, John, and Rebecca had picked them up just outside of Raccoon less than a month earlier, dirty and damaged and reeling from their run-in with Umbrella. David didn't think there was a romantic connection there, at least not yet; it was more likely their shared night– mare. Nearly dying together could be quite a bonding experience. As far as David knew, Leon and Claire were the only survivors of the Raccoon disaster who knew about Umbrella's T-Virus spill. The child they'd had with them had only had the faintest idea, although Claire had been very careful to shield the little girl from the truth. Sherry Birkin didn't need to know that her parents had been responsible for the creation of Umbrella's most powerful bioweapons; better that she remember her mother and father as decent people…

  "David? Anything wrong?"

  He shook himself out of his mental wanderings and nodded at Claire. "I'm sorry. Yes, I'm fine. Actually, I was thinking about Sherry; how is she?"

  Claire smiled, and David was struck again by how she brightened when Sherry's name came up. "She's good, she's settling in. Kate is nothing like her sister, a definite plus. And Sherry likes her."

  David nodded again. Sherry's aunt had seemed nice, but beyond that, she'd be able to protect Sherry if Umbrella decided to track the girl down; Kate Boyd was a fiercely competent criminal lawyer, one of the best in California. Umbrella would do well to stay away from the Birkins' only child.

  Too bad the same doesn't apply to us; wouldn't that make things quite a lot easier…

  Rebecca had finished reorganizing their rather im– pressive cache of weapons. She scooted over to sit next to him, brushing a loose strand of hair off her forehead. Her eyes much older than the rest of her face; barely nineteen, she'd already lived through two Umbrella incidents. Technically, she had more expe– rience than any of them as far as the pharmaceutical company went. Rebecca didn't speak for a moment, staring out at the passing streets. When she finally spoke, she kept her voice low, her sharp gaze studying him intently.

  "Do you think they're still alive?"

  He wouldn't bother feeding her a sunny picture; young as she was, the girl had a knack for seeing through people. "I don't know," he said, careful not to let the others overhear. Claire wanted desperately to reunite with her brother. "I doubt it. We should have heard from

  them. Either they're afraid of being traced, or…"

  Rebecca sighed. Not surprised, but not happy.

  "Yeah. Even if they couldn't get through to us – Texas still has the scrambler up, don't they?"

  David nodded. Texas, Oregon, Montana – all open channels with S.T.A.R.S. members who could still be trusted, and they hadn't gotten a call in over a month. The last message had been from Jill; David knew it by heart. In fact, it had been haunting him daily for weeks.

  "Safe and sound in Austria. Barry and Chris track-ing lead at UHQ, looks promising. Get ready."

  Ready to join them, to call in the few waiting troops that he and John had managed to network. Ready to storm Umbrella's real headquarters, the power be– hind it all. Ready to strike against the evil at its source. Jill and Barry and Chris had gone to Europe to find out where the true leaders of Umbrella's hidden purpose were secreted, starting at internation-al HQ in Austria – and had promptly disappeared. "Heads up, kids," John called from the front, and David looked away from Rebecca's unsmiling face, looked out to see they were already at the airfield. Whatever had happened to their friends, they'd find out soon enough.

  TWO

  REBECCA STRAPPED HERSELF INTO THE TINY seat of the tiny plane and looked out the window, wishing that David had chartered a jet. A giant, solid, can't-possibly-be-unsafe-'cause-it's-so-damned-big jet. From where she sat, she could see the propellers on the wing of the aircraft – propellers, like on a kid's toy.

  Bet this puppy wi
ll sink like a rock, though, once it falls out of the sky at a few hundred miles an hour and slams into the ocean… "Just so you know, this is the kind of plane that's always killing rock stars and the like. Just as they make it off the ground, a big gust of wind knocks them right back down."

  Rebecca looked up to see John's grinning face; he was hanging over the seats in front of her, his massive arms folded across the headrests. He probably needed two seats to himself; John wasn't just big, he was body-builder huge, two hundred forty pounds of mus– cle packed into his six-foot-six frame.

  "We'll be lucky to get off at all, dragging your fat ass up there," Rebecca shot back, and was rewarded with a flash of concern in John's dark eyes. He'd broken a couple of ribs and punctured a lung on his last mission, less than three months before, and still wasn't up to pumping iron. For as burly and macho as John was, she knew he was vain about his looks, and had absolutely hated not being able to work out. John grinned wider, the deep brown of his skin crinkling. "Yeah, you're probably right; a few hun-dred feet off the ground and wham, that's all she wrote."

  She never should have told him that this was only the second flight she'd ever been on (the first was when she accompanied David to Exeter for the mis– sion to Caliban Cove). It was exactly the kind of thing on which John got off cracking jokes… The plane started to rumble all around them, the engine whining up into a deep hum that made Rebecca grit her teeth. Damned if she was going to let John see how nervous she was; she looked back out the window and saw Leon and Claire walking toward the metal steps. Apparently, the weapons were all loaded up. "Where's David?" Rebecca asked, and John shrugged.

  "Talking to the pilot. We've only got the one, you know, some friend of a friend of some guy in Arkan– sas. Not many pilots willing to smuggle people into Europe, I guess…"

  John leaned closer, dropping his voice to a fake whisper, his grin fading. "I hear he drinks. We got him cheap 'cause he crashed some soccer team into the side of a mountain." Rebecca laughed, shaking her head. "You win. I'm terrified, okay?" "Okay. That's all I wanted," John said mildly, and turned around as Leon and Claire walked into the small cabin. They moved back to the middle of the plane, taking the two seats across the aisle from where Rebecca was sitting. David had mentioned that the area over the wings was the most stable, although it wasn't like there was that much of a choice – there were only twenty seats. "Ever flown before?" Claire asked, leaning out into the aisle, looking a little nervous herself. Rebecca shrugged. "Once. You?" "Couple of times, but always on big airliners, DC 747s or -27s, I forgot. I don't even know what this thing is." "It's a DHC 8 Turbo," Leon said. "I think. David mentioned it at some point…" "It's a killer, is what it is." John's deep voice floated over the seats. "A rock with wings." "John, sweetie… shut up," Claire said amiably.

  John cackled, obviously pleased to have somebody new to play with. David appeared at the front of the cabin, stepping through the curtained area that led to the cockpit, and John broke off, their collective attention turning to-ward him. "It seems that we're ready to go," David said. "Our pilot, Captain Evans, has assured me that all systems are fully functional and we'll be taking off in just a moment. He's asked that we remain seated until he's given us leave to do otherwise. Um – the restroom is just back of the cockpit, and there's a small refrigera– tor at the rear of the plane with sandwiches and drinks…"

  His voice trailed off, and he looked as if there was something else he wanted to say but wasn't sure what it was. It was a look that Rebecca had seen often enough in the past few weeks, a kind of uneasy uncertainty. Since the day that Raccoon had been blown to shit, she supposed they'd all had that look at one time or another…… because they shouldn't have been able to do it. That should have been the end, and it wasn 't, and now we're all more freaked out than any of us wants to admit.

  When news of the disaster first hit the papers, they had all been so certain that this time Umbrella wouldn't be able to cover its tracks. The spill at the Spencer estate had been small, easy enough to write off after fire gutted the mansion and surrounding buildings; the facility at Caliban Cove had been on private land and was too isolated for anyone to know about – again, Umbrella had swept up the broken pieces and kept it quiet. Raccoon City, though. Thousands of people dead and Umbrella had walked away from it smell– ing like a rose, after planting false evidence and getting their scientists to lie for them. It should have been impossible; it had disheartened them all. What chance did a handful of fugitives have against a multi billion-dollar conglomerate that could kill an entire city and get away with it? David had decided not to say anything at all. He nodded briskly and then walked back to join them, pausing next to Rebecca's seat.

  "Do you need some company?"

  She could see that he was trying to be supportive and she could also see that he was tired. He'd been up late the night before, doublechecking every detail of their trip. "Nah, I'm okay," she said, smiling up at him, "and

  I've always got John to talk me through it." "You know it, baby," John called loudly, and David nodded, giving her shoulder a light squeeze before moving to the seats behind her. He needs the rest. We all do, and it's a long flight -

  –so why do I have the feeling that we're not going to get any?

  Nerves, that was all. The engine sound got louder, higher, and with a stuttering jerk, the plane started to move forward. Rebecca clutched the arm rests on either side and closed her eyes, thinking that if she had the guts to go up against Umbrella, she could certainly survive a plane ride. Even if she couldn't, it was too late to change her mind; they were on their way, no turning back. They'd been in the air for only twenty minutes, and already Claire was nodding off, half-leaning against Leon's shoulder. Leon was tired, too, but knew he wasn't going to get to sleep so easily. He was hungry, for one thing – and then there was the fact that he still wasn't sure if he was doing the right thing.

  Great time to think about it, now that you're pretty much committed, his mind whispered sarcastically. Maybe you could just ask them to drop you off in London or something, you could hang out in a pub until they're all finished… or dead. Leon told himself to shut up, sighing a little. He was committed; what Umbrella had been doing wasn't just criminal, it was evil – or at least as close to evil as some money-grubbing corporate dickheads could get. They'd murdered thousands, created bioweapons ca– pable of murdering billions, wiped out his carefully planned future and been responsible for the death of Ada Wong, a woman he'd respected and liked. They'd helped each other through some rough spots on that terrible night in Raccoon; without her, he never would have gotten out alive. He believed in what David and his people were doing, and it wasn't that he was afraid, that wasn't it at all… Leon sighed again. He'd given the matter a hell of a lot of thought since he and Claire and Sherry had stumbled away from the burning city, and the only real reason he could come up with was so stupid that he didn't want to credit it. Standing against Umbrella was the right thing to do – it was that he didn't feel qualified to be there.

  Yep, that's pretty stupid.

  Maybe it was, but it was holding him back, mak– ing him feel uncertain, and he needed to examine it.

  David Trapp had made a career of the S.T.A.R.S., only to watch the organization fall under the control of Umbrella; he'd lost two close friends on a mission to infiltrate a bioweapons testing facility, as had John Andrews. Rebecca Chambers had just been starting out in the S.T.A.R.S., but she was some kind of scientific child prodigy with a deep interest in Um– brella's work; that and the fact that she'd been through more than anyone else made her continued dedication understandable. Claire wanted to find her brother, the only family she had; their parents were dead, and the two of them were close. Chris, Jill, and Barry he'd never met, but he was sure they had compelling reasons of their own; he knew Barry Burton's wife and children had been threatened, Rebecca had mentioned it… And what about Leon Kennedy? He'd stumbled into the fight without a clue, a cop fresh out of the academy on his way to
his first day at work – which just happened to be with the Raccoon PD. There was Ada, true – but he'd known her less than half a day, and she had been killed just after admitting to him that she was some kind of an agent, sent to steal a sample of an Umbrella virus.

  So I lost a job, and a possible relationship with a woman I barely knew and couldn't trust. Of course Umbrella should be stopped… but do I belong here?

  He'd decided to become a cop because he wanted to help people, but he'd always figured that meant keeping the peace – busting drunk drivers, breaking up bar fights, catching crooks. Never in his wild-est dreams would he have figured on being caught up in an international conspiracy, cloak-and-dagger infiltration-type stuff against a giant company that made war monsters. It was crime on a much bigger scale than he felt he was ready for…… and is that the real reason, Officer Kennedy? At exactly that moment, Claire mumbled some– thing from her light doze, nuzzling her head against his arm before falling silent and still again – and making Leon uncomfortably aware of another facet to his involvement with the ex-S.T.A.R.S. Claire. Claire was… she was an incredible woman. In the days after their escape from Raccoon City, they'd talked a lot about what had happened, the experiences they'd had both separately and together. At the time, it had felt like an exchange of information, filling in blanks – she'd told him about her run-in with Chief Irons and the creature she'd called Mr. X, and he'd told her all about Ada and the terrible thing that had once been William Birkin. Between them, they'd been able to come up with a continuous story, with infor– mation that was important to the fugitive team. In retrospect, though, he could see that those long, rambling conversations had been essential for an– other reason entirely – they'd been a way to leach out the poison of what had happened to them, like talking out a bad dream. If he'd had to keep it all inside, he thought, he might have gone crazy. In any case, the feelings he had for her now were convoluted ones – warmth, connection, dependence, respect, others that he had no name for. And that scared him, because he'd never felt so strongly about anyone before and because he wasn't sure how much of it was real and how much was just some kind of a post-traumatic stress thing.