Prelude Drabbles

[King of Cunts]

Shakahnna Taylor

Shak wasn't sure when it had happened, but she'd picked up a tail.

She'd noticed it some time after leaving the bazaar, and had been halfway to the safe house before she'd turned off her usual route and started on a circuitous jaunt around the town. She was dimly aware that her new direction would eventually take her back to the market, but she'd really just been buying time to think.

Burke would know what to do when she didn't return. Stars had contingencies for situations like this worked out in advance. She and her partner had been coached in surveillance detection before taking on the job. Whoever Jonathan Wesker was, he was important to Stars. They weren't taking any chances with his protection detail.

And she couldn't blame them. She liked John. He was a nice guy, his daughter was pretty cute, and his bodyguard was a lot of fun to have around, even if Burke didn't think so. She wanted to protect them.

Right now, she could best do that by losing the fucker who was following her. And by "lose" she of course meant "kill the shit out of".

She'd been walking at a fairly steady pace, determined not to tip them off until it was absolutely necessary. She wondered if they'd realised that they were being played for a fool yet - that any minute now they'd be stepping back into the bazaar, long after it had closed?

The town centre was dark when she arrived, the lamps shut off to conserve power, the stalls empty and shrouded with tarpaulins to keep the rain off. Rats scurried between booths and pigeons hopped from roof to roof, perching on scaffold pole frames and sheets of corrugated iron. Other than her and her stalker, they were the only things moving.

She weaved through the stands, trying to make it look like she was searching for something she'd dropped. With the best will in the world, she wasn't going to be outrunning anyone. Fortunately, when it came to fight or flight situations, Shak was built for a scrap.

Bring it on, pussy.

She stopped to scoop an imaginary something off the floor and slipped it into the satchel she used for groceries. Her hand closed around the semi-automatic she kept hidden there. She drew it and spun to confront her pursuer in a single, fluid motion. She thumbed back the hammer before she realised that there was no one there.

It hadn't been her imagination. She'd definitely heard someone following her, and glimpsed their outline in glass and steel, even if she'd never gotten a good look at them. So where the hell had they gone.

An arm wrapped around her throat, pulling her against a heavily muscled torso. A hand caught her wrist in an iron grip, holding her gun out where it couldn't help her. She grunted, sank her body weight, then lunged backwards. She felt the back of her head smack against her attacker's chin.

Her heel came down on his - and at this point she knew they were a man's - toes, crunching them through the heavy leather of his boot. Then, she slammed her elbow back into his solar plexus. He didn't flinch, didn't relent for even a moment.

The hold around her neck was like a metal bar locked across her windpipe. Her head started to buzz as oxygen deprivation set in.

She cannoned her elbow back again, this time aiming a little lower, and was rewarded with a grunt as her chambered arm met testicles. His grip loosened and she pulled her head free. She managed to get her gun free too, but then his hand caught the barrel. She pulled the trigger, but it wouldn't fire with his fingers around it.

She let him have it, reaching into her bag for the sawn-off shotgun she kept as a standby. She couldn't see who her attacker was, but he was almost definitely from the Company. That made him fair game. He had the look of a soldier too - a big, brawny body, even if it was just in silhouette.

The shotgun roared, but a snap kick to the side of the barrel screwed up her aim. A hail of buckshot shredded a fruit stall where she'd bought apples earlier that day. She went to fire the second barrel, but this time his hand intercepted it, and his foot hit her full in the stomach.

It was like taking a cannonball to the gut. She crashed backwards into another booth, the wooden frontage collapsing under the impact. The blow stole her breath away for a few moments and she gasped, like she was trying to breathe through a wad of gauze.

She'd expected him to turn the gun on her, but instead she heard it clatter to the ground. He started striding towards her. She heard knuckles crack.

Kinda scary. For a little bitch.

She forced herself to her feet and grabbed the sheet covering the empty wooden counter. When he was close enough, she whipped the tarp around into his face. His right hand bunched in it, ready to tear it off, but she punched him hard in the stomach, then again in the head. Her foot rose between his legs, hammering home in his balls.

Grinning, she grabbed the plastic sheet, pulling it down tighter over his head, using her free hand to rain blows on his crown.

Way too easy.

His left palm shot out, striking her hard enough in the chest to wind her all over again. Her back hit the counter and she toppled over it, crashing to the concrete on the other side.

Then again...

There was a sound of splintering wood, and the stall she'd just fallen over was ripped up by the roots and tossed aside like it was dry grass. The dark figure loomed over her, but suddenly she wasn't sure if this thing should be classified as a "him", or an "it".

She rolled, hugging her arms tight to her chest, passing under half a dozen different stalls. The moment she hit the sixth, she pushed herself up again, shaking off the disorientation.

She ran in a crouch, using the stalls for cover. Part of her hoped she could give him the slip here and now. Better firepower, a better location, backup - she needed something a little more substantial than driftwood and tarps.

She lifted her head to peek over the stalls as she walked and saw her stalker matching pace with her, walking straight-backed and confident. She ducked low, knowing there was no way he could have seen her in the dim light. Even so, if she kept going this way she'd bump right into him eventually. She changed direction, heading back the way she came.

Once she had retraced her steps past another couple of booths, she took a second peek. This time, he was gone. Completely gone.

Where the fuck-?

The powerful arm locked around her neck again, yanking her up to her full height. A cold prickle ran down her spine from the sheer surprise. She let out a choked, disbelieving splutter that sounded strangely like the word "cunt".

With a single arm, he lifted her off her feet, supporting her entire weight in the crook of his elbow. Her face started to burn again, her airways well and truly squeezed off. She flailed, kicking and elbowing furiously in a desperate attempt to escape. She had to fight him off before she started to doze.

She pulled her knees into her chest, yanking up her trouser leg with one hand and pulling free the knife strapped to her calf with the other. She reached back with her free hand and wrapped it around his neck, holding his head in place so that he couldn�t dodge. Then, she thrust the knife back over her head.

A strangled grunt told her that she'd hit her target, but where she couldn't guess. Either way, it didn't matter. She was going to fuck him up. By the time she was finished, his bosses would have to put his face back together like a jigsaw puzzle to identify him.

She stabbed him seven or eight more times before his hold on her began to loosen. That was what she got for bringing such a wimpy blade. Four inches just didn't cut it. It made her feel inadequate carrying a knife that was smaller than her cock. She would rather have brought a real weapon and said fuck it to concealment.

He wrestled her to the ground, his blood trickling down the back of her neck and over her scalp. He should have been gushing. Instead, he was barely dribbling. His hands fumbled for a hold on her neck, tugging at her scarred face. She felt a stitch pop in her cheek and she cried out. A finger snagged on her teeth and she bit down, hard. The end of the digit popped off in her mouth, and she swallowed it on instinct.

The blood turned to ash on her tongue and she began to cough.

She thrust her knife back one last time. This time, she hit him in the throat. He started choking and she threw him off with a jerk of her back. She sucked in sweet oxygen, massaging her bruised throat.

The moment she managed to take a single, decent breath, she turned to check on the corpse lying somewhere behind her. A boot hit her in the side of the head and snapped her back around. Her chin bounced off the floor.

She fell asleep drooling blood, singing herself a nursery rhyme as the world span out of focus.

---

Wesker removed a handkerchief in black silk from the top pocket of his tactical vest and wiped away the blood from his mutilated face and throat. With a simple effort, he had willed his wounds to heal. Now all that remained were the aesthetics. It had been a most exhilarating encounter, but that was no excuse for one to be remiss in their grooming.

Her resistance had been anticipated, but even he had failed to take account of how successful that resistance would prove. It had not been necessary for him to perform such a considerable regeneration in many decades. Indeed, for a moment he had lost consciousness to the emptiness of death. But only for a moment.

Quite some time had passed since he had last been called upon to attend to matters like this personally. With the pieces beginning to fall into place, he had found that, more and more, he enjoyed executing each stage of his plans with his own hands. He had almost forgotten how it felt to take full control of a situation, rather than simply have his orders carried out by others.

The last time he had done so had been the dismantling of the terrorist network founded by his former STARS subordinates. The swell of nostalgia made him wonder why he had waited so long to reprise that role.

"Sir," a voice from his earpiece said, "the other targets are on the move."

In the privacy of the darkened marketplace, Wesker allowed himself a tight-lipped smirk. His brother's other guardian had been alerted by the redhead's absence. Even in its new incarnation, Stars had not lost its competence.

"By what route?" he asked.

"Route one-ninety. Clearview Way."

"I will attend to it personally. Have the young woman at my current location taken into custody. I have a function in mind for her."

Wesker slid the knife that she had lodged in his throat into his belt. The finger that she had truncated was intact once more. Only the blood remained to suggest that he had suffered any injuries at all. He would keep the blade as a keepsake. Perhaps, if she was fortunate, he would give her the opportunity to win it back.

He gave her insensate form a curt nod as he strode past. "Until we meet again, my dear."

[Admin]

Ethan Burke

Shak hadn’t come home and that meant one thing. Trouble.

He’d given her a grace period of about thirty minutes, but in the end he’d had no choice. The protocol was clear. If the routine was broken, assume the worst and get to safety.

Wesker wanted to wait for her. In fact, for a while it had seemed like he was going to put his foot down about it. If it had just been the two of them, Burke would have just knocked him out and carried him, but it wasn’t. He already knew the guy’s daughter could be a handful, and he didn’t fancy his chances going toe-to-toe with their pet freak. ‘Malice’ was bigger than he was, and had teeth like a shark. Not a great prospect for a fistfight.

In the end, he’d had to use the rug rat to appeal to his better judgement. If Shak was missing, it meant someone was after him and his family. Here, they were isolated and poorly armed. He couldn’t protect Claudia with the nothing they had. But the precinct was a fortress with an armoury and nearly fifty officers stationed in it.

And the sooner they got there, the sooner he could hit the streets and start looking for her.

He snuck them out through one of the passages he and Shak had prepared, just for this eventuality, then circled around to the garage where the unmarked Transit was waiting.

He took back roads where possible, mixing up his route to confuse any surveillance teams that had their eyes on them. His hands were clammy on the wheel as he turned onto Clearview Way.

The streets were empty at this time of night. Curfew was in effect, but he was law enforcement. Technically, he was exempt. That wouldn’t stop Umbrella’s men from throwing their weight around if they got the chance.

That was why he was armed. A checkpoint squad he could probably outshoot no problem. He couldn’t afford delays, and shooting them would be the easiest way to get them out of the way. Plus, he couldn’t afford to let them find his passengers. If Stars wanted John Wesker alive, that probably meant the Company wanted him dead.

Thoughts of Shak, somewhere in the city, being tracked or chased or shot at by the Company’s thugs, came unbidden into his mind. He wanted to be there with her. Instead, he was stuck here, babysitting.

He should have let Malice drive them to the precinct, while he searched for her. Then again, if there was one sure fire way to get them all killed...

Something stepped out into the road, too late for him to stop.

Ah, fuck.

He braced for the impact, knowing he’d barely feel it. The size and speed of the van would just turn the jaywalker into paste. A second before it happened, he caught a glimpse of the man in black standing in their way, utterly unfazed, and realised that something was very, very wrong.

The front end of the van folded around him. Burke jerked forward in his seat, his belt catching him around the chest and throwing him back against the padding. He felt the vehicle buckling around him, like they’d just run into a concrete overpass pillar. The windshield cracked and popped out of its frame; the bonnet split clean in two; the steering wheel hit him in the ribs at an angle. The pain winded him.

Smoke started rising from the dented bonnet, pouring into the cab. Burke coughed and popped his door. It stuck, the frame warped, and he kicked it open. His belt wouldn’t come away, so he cut it off with his knife. Then, he slipped out of his seat and staggered away from the vehicle, hacking up a lung.

He touched the base of his ribs gingerly and winced as a jolt of pain shot up his right side.

“What the fuck?” he grunted, limping towards the back to the van, propping himself up against the side.

He couldn’t hear any movement from the other three and for a moment he feared the worst. There wasn’t a lot of padding back there, and a crash like that could have easily killed them all, if they’d been just that unlucky. On top of everything else, the collision had popped the fucking tyres. Even if the engine hadn’t been fucked, and he was pretty sure it had been, they wouldn’t have been going anywhere.

He reached for his radio pack and tuned it to the Stars emergency band. “Hello, hello, anyone read me? This is Burke. I’m on Clearview Way in pretty bad shape. Some kind of head-on collision with...”

He froze. What the hell had they collided with? A man? What kind of man wins in a fight with a speeding Transit van?

He turned to look back over his shoulder and someone grabbed the back of his head, slamming him face-first into the side of the vehicle. Stars flashed before his eyes and he dropped the radio, hitting the ground beside it a moment later. He shook his head, trying to push himself up or crawl under the van or get his gun from its holster on his thigh.

But he couldn’t stop the reeling in his brain. He felt like he was spinning and falling and tumbling and soaring all at once. He was concussed. He stayed lucid just long enough to puke, then he passed out.

---

Wesker lifted a hand casually to adjust his shades and found them to be in several pieces, merely waiting for the slightest provocation to fall apart completely. Glass and metal fell to the floor. He ignored it. His subordinates would scrub the crash site clean of any physical evidence, and by morning it would seem as though nothing of any consequence had transpired here.

In comparison with his partner, the man had hardly been worthy of his notice, though it was safe to say that the crash had left him shaken and wounded. He had not been in peak condition for a fight. Even so, his lack of wherewithal left a great deal to be desired. Perhaps he had spoken too soon when he had complimented Stars on retaining its former edge.

“I have apprehended the targets,” he said into his radio mic, “converge on my current location.”

“Affirmative, sir. The female has already been secured.”

He smirked inwardly. These men were efficient and that was gratifying. All the better to ensure that his designs were realised without any unnecessary inconveniences.

A whimper echoed within the confines of the crippled vehicle’s rear compartment. Wesker’s ears twitched, his superhuman senses able to discern the stifled noise without difficulty. A child’s voice - female, pained and frightened.

With a languid, predatory gait, he strode in the direction of the doors.

He gripped a handle in a single, black-gloved hand and wrenched it away from its hinges with a casual pull.

[Admin]

Jonathan Wesker

The study where John awoke was locked. He tried the door, and there were no windows. He didn’t dare to call the power that sometimes manifested at times of stress. The toll it took, and the ever-present danger of losing control, frightened him too much to even attempt it.

He was, for the time being, a prisoner.

He couldn’t remember anything after the crash, though he remembered his body bouncing painfully against the walls, trying desperately to curl himself around Claudia. He also recalled seeing Malice lying on his back, his tongue hanging flaccid between his razor teeth, his neck bent at entirely the wrong angle. He had sustained worse injuries, but he had most definitely been incapacitated.

No wonder they had been taken with such ease.

His body was still wracked with pain from the bruises he had suffered, but he had the feeling that none of them were serious. On top of that, someone had treated his wounds with surgical care. Three stitches in his hairline, that hadn’t been present before, had been taped over to seal a cut on his forehead, and two of the fingers on his left hand, fat with inflammation, had been splinted.

The grandeur of his prison spoke of Albert. He felt no joy at the thought of a reunion with his brother. It wasn’t ashamed to admit that he was afraid. Anyone with any sense would have been when they knew the kind of atrocities he was capable of. Most of all, he feared what he might have done to his loved ones, to Claudia and Malice and Miss Shak and Ethan.

He searched the desk’s drawers for any clue to where he was or what Albert intended for him. Each was as empty as the one before it, save the last, which contained a combat knife. An emblem had been affixed onto the handle, a logo that matched the initials carved into the blade.

S.T.A.R.S.

He turned the weapon over in his hands. He couldn’t use it. He had never been trained to fight that way. But he recognised it. It was the same one he had seen members of the organisation carry in Raccoon City. Specifically, it reminded him of Chris Redfield.

“Nostalgia, Jonathan?” Albert’s voice asked.

He started around, unsure if he’d simply been so engrossed in his memories that he hadn’t heard him enter, or if the entrance had been absolutely silent.

“Your lack of courtesy for my hospitality is most unbecoming,” he chided, holding out his hand, “that does not belong to you.”

John clasped the knife to his chest. “It doesn’t belong to you either.”

He backed away, the edge of the desk jabbing him in the lumbar. Unable to retreat, his brother loomed over him, fully a foot taller than he was. He didn’t know what had happened to him in the time that he had been frozen and sealed way, but he was no longer human. That much was certain.

“Is that so?”

“This is the weapon of a STARS member. You were never with STARS. Not really.”

“So very defensive for one who was never a member of that organisation.”

“You’re right, I wasn’t. But I embraced what it stood for. You were trying to destroy them from the inside.”

“Indeed. That was my duty. A duty I have since carried out. The group that you have chosen to ally yourself with bears little resemblance to the STARS of old.”

“The corruption you’ve sown has seeped into everything, it seems.”

Albert didn’t exactly smile, but his stern features softened with what John could only describe as pride. He was sickened by the expression.

“What did you do to them, Albert?”

“To whom do you refer?”

John glanced down at the knife in his hands. He had been thinking of Chris and his allies. He had never learned what had become of them. But it occurred to him that he still did not know what fate had befallen his family and friends.

He felt a stab of shame that their well-being had not been foremost on his mind, but he couldn’t afford to let that show. His brother would use it against him like a weapon. Like the knife.

“I had intended for Arklay to be their grave,” Albert began, turning his hidden eyes to the dull landscapes adorning the walls, as though they reminded him of the past he was recounting, “their survival was unanticipated. Such an auspicious beginning to what would ultimately prove to be an anticlimactic end.”

John felt his stomach churn at the words. How had it ended? How many of the STARS and their allies had died due to his brother’s actions? How many had perished at his own hands?

“Or rather, what I had believed to be the end.”

His eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?”

“You must understand, Jonathan, that no matter what transpires beyond this point, the extent of their failure can be seen in the prevailing order of this world. Remember, when you renew old acquaintances, that this game was lost long before it began. I hope that you will not bear false witness, regardless of the pain the truth may cause.”

“Albert, what are you-?”

Black surged before his eyes. His brother closed the distance between them in the blink of an eye and he flinched. The knife edge sliced the palm of his hand as he gripped it instinctively.

He didn’t feel the blow fall, unconscious before the pain even began.

---

Wesker stooped to retrieve the blade in his brother’s hand. The cutting edge was slick with blood from his palm. He removed a handkerchief from his suit jacket’s inner pocket and wiped away the crimson stain. He was not prone to sentimentality. The weapon had a purpose yet to serve, and he could not afford to have it sullied.

In truth, he had hoped that Jonathan might attempt to defend himself, to inflict some form of grievous injury in order to secure his own escape. No wound he could exact would cause permanent damage, and it would have been gratifying to see him recant on his peaceful vows.

“Still so passive. Has this new world taught you nothing of your folly?”

Perhaps it was simply the result of his company - the BOW he had taken in, the two Stars officers that had been assigned to him - all capable fighters. He had long frowned upon his brother’s tendency to form emotional attachments. It was his inference that, without their protection, Jonathan would resort to savagery the same as any other man.

All the better to ensure that his reunion with Mister Redfield proved an entertaining spectacle. He wondered how Christopher would react upon realising the extent of his failure - a world rife with meaningless warfare and absolute injustice, those he considered ‘heroes’ hunted like the BOW’s they detested, peaceful men turned to violence by the oppressive nature of the world he had helped to build.

Ah, dear Christopher. Perpetually absent when you were needed most, and now it is too late. My brother will attest to that fact, upon your reacquaintance.

Wesker permitted himself a dry chuckle as he departed the study.

This game would prove most entertaining indeed.

[King of Cunts]

Jezebel

Jezebel wasn’t sure what she had found working under Horace. It wasn’t happiness, or any definition of it she had ever read about. She never smiled, and never felt that glow of contentment she’d heard struck someone whenever things were just so. Laughter was alien to her basement sanctuary. In fact, she spent her days thundering around her laboratory with a headache growling perpetually behind her eyes.

No, there was no happiness to be found there.

It was probably more accurate to say that she had found a tolerable arrangement. Horace was uniquely impotent and inoffensive for one of Umbrella’s top brass. He never laid a hand on her, cowed by a peculiar mix of reverence and fear. He didn’t even raise his voice.

Since he had thawed her out, he had provided her with everything she desired - equipment, chemicals, subjects. She had been tempted to ask for her freedom, only she couldn’t think of anything positive she would do with it. Better to stay where she was comfortable and had all the apparatus she needed for her experiments.

She assumed that the Company’s hiring standards had dipped dramatically since she had been packed away in her frozen casket like yet another corporate asset. She would hardly complain, given where it had landed her.

Of course, she still couldn’t tolerate him being in her workspace. The moment she heard the hiss of the automatic doors that led into her personal chambers, she felt the familiar pinch of a migraine taking hold behind her eyes.

“I said I didn’t want to be disturbed,” she snapped, without looking up from her microscope.

“I came to say goodbye,” Horace said. That caught her attention.

She rounded on him. “Why? Where are you going?”

He recoiled as he so often did, and she wondered how someone so spineless had managed to rise through the ranks within an organisation of ruthless cutthroats like Umbrella. Maybe his power was inherited. From what she understood, it had certainly been long enough for genetic entropy to emerge from the legacy of the original Board of Directors.

He was a slight, diminutive man - though she was admittedly quite tall for a woman - with dry, sallow skin and bloodshot eyes. He was a junkie, addicted to opiates that she had created in her attempts to find a suitable pain reliever for her own agonising condition. Pathetic was probably a charitable description for him.

“I’m not going anywhere, Jezebel. You’re the one who’s leaving.”

“I beg your pardon?” she snapped. He flinched a second time.

“I’m afraid I don’t have any say in the matter. If it were up to me, you would stay here indefinitely. I’ve always loved having you here, you know that.”

She sneered at him. She did know that. He fawned over her constantly, always anticipating the new, more powerful high she would provide for him. His parties in the mansion above ground were the talk of his social group, she was sure. Every weekend, he and his friends spent two days in a blissful, drug-induced haze, absolutely pain-free.

The feeble medication may as well have been put to use as a designer narcotic, for all she cared. It was worthless when pitted against her own abominable nervous system.

“I remember when I first laid eyes on you, at that auction,” he said. His eyes were turning misty and distant with pleasant nostalgia. She felt like she was about to puke. “I could tell that you were a treasure right away. That was why I bid so highly on you. At first, I thought I was getting a ... a bodyguard of some description.”

Of course you did. Pervert.

“But our relationship has been so much more rewarding than that. You were an asset because of your mind, not just your body.”

“I’ve never been an asset because of my body, you buffoon. I’m a failed experiment. I spend all my time researching medication to stop my own neural degeneration from killing me.”

“Yes,” Horace said wistfully, licking his flaking lips, “and you’ve made such excellent progress.”

His face fell. For the first time, Jezebel realised that her feeble little patron might have actually cared about her, even if it was just for what she could provide him with. She wasn’t used to it. Whatever had forced his hand, it had to have been pretty big to break through his usual drug-addled stupor.

She was starting to wonder what it was.

“I’ll miss you greatly, Jezebel,” he said, almost managing to be endearing, before he failed to resist the urge to open his big mouth again, “might I trouble you for something to tide me over in your absence?”

She sighed and slid a sample case laden with morphine derivatives of insufficient strength from a refrigerator bolted to the wall. He hugged it to his stomach, eyes fluttering closed in anticipation of future highs. She gave him a week before he was back, licking the test tubes in desperate search of an analgesic to beat back his withdrawal symptoms.

“You are dismissed, Mister Prince,” a voice from behind him said.

Jezebel was only given a moment to reflect on the fact that she hadn’t known Horace’s last name was Prince before he scurried off. She assumed that left her with her new ‘owner’.

Another pervert/idiot/dope fiend like the last one? Ah well. Best get this over with.

“And you are?” she asked.

“Albert Wesker, at your service,” he said, bowing his head slightly.

He didn’t look like a pervert, though the sunglasses certainly made him look sinister. He didn’t look like an idiot either; he was too well-spoken, his posture too rigid. As for being a dope fiend, well, you couldn’t maintain a physique like that if you were an addict and his skin was pristine, almost porcelain white. He looked like one of the healthiest people she’d ever met.

“Alright, Albert.” She folded her arms across her chest, suitably wary. “Make my day.”

---

A game of this kind would require confounding elements. It simply would not do for the players he had assembled to go unchallenged. And while there were an ample number of creatures at his disposal to test them physically, it would be the conflicting interests of other survivors that would provide the true measure of their mental and emotional mettle.

Of course, it would not be sporting to simply leave an ordinary member of the Corporation’s personnel in their hands, particular those with Stars. Any potential foil would need to have an edge. Viral augmentation was the most obvious choice.

BOW’s with sentience were difficult to come across, however. Tyrant models - and derivatives thereof - possessed a limited artificial intelligence. They could act on orders, but they were not strictly in control of their actions. They could not behave duplicitously. They lacked the unpredictability that he sought.

Umbrella had long since ceased its attempts at creating self-aware bio-weapons. They were seen as unpredictable. It was far more cost-effective to create a tool that could be programmed, than a soldier that could potentially develop rogue tendencies. The projects that had attempted to create thinking specimens had been disbanded long ago, the fruits of their labours either destroyed or sold to private buyers.

Wesker had gone to considerable expense to acquire the remnants of those projects - Golgotha, Trine, Nemian Lion.

Unlike those misplaced entities, the young lady, Jezebel, he had most recently purchased was not a synthetic life form. She was a human BOW much like himself. The perfect candidate for the role, it seemed.

As his private chartered helicopter bore them towards the site of the game, he heard her stir within her shipping container prison suspended below, even over the roar of the aircraft’s engine.

“All in good time, my dear,” he said, listening as she screamed in the grip of yet another agonising paroxysm, “your pain will end all in good time.”

[King of Cunts]

Trevor Grant

Grant ran like he’d never run before, taking the steps two, sometimes three, at a time. He kept the sample case clamped against his flank with one arm and clutched his pistol in his other hand. They were his life - both of them. Without the gun, he couldn’t defend himself, and without the case, he wouldn’t be boarding any extraction chopper.

Down below, he could hear assault rifles firing on full-auto, the voices of his unit calling after him, and the shrieking of the Lickers as they filled up the stairwell. Bronson was already down, squealing like a pig as the BOW’s took their time tearing him apart. Grant hadn’t even known a human being could make noises like that.

He kept on running, muttering breathless thanks to his team for dying on his behalf, even if it was completely unintentional. He knew that, if they’d been the ones carrying the case, and if they’d had the same opportunity, they’d have left him behind in a heartbeat. There’s wasn’t some gallant last stand. That wasn’t how the UBCS operated.

Something burst through a doorway above, the sound of splintering wood causing his heart to skip a beat. He didn’t slow for a moment, knowing he’d have to meet whatever was waiting for him head on if he was going to stand any chance of making it out of this alive.

There was a ghoul lying in a limp heap at the foot of the next flight, her head bashed in by the concrete. He put a bullet through the back of her skull, just to be sure, then started up. There were more carriers milling on the landing above, the door to the eleventh floor thrown open.

He powered up towards them, legs churning, lungs burning, and threw his weight into the first. He hit it in the back and crushed it into the wall, its body cushioning him against the impact. He pushed himself upright and shot another through the face. A third tried to turn towards him and he kicked it in the flank. It hit the rail and toppled over, smashing itself to pieces on every ledge on the way down to the ground.

More were emerging, but his path was clear. He kept running. Bronson had gone silent. He could hear Moore screaming now instead.

The door to the roof was unblocked. He threw his back into the bar, closing his eyes in silent prayer to whoever was listening that it wasn’t locked from the outside. It flew open and he almost collapsed onto his back, keeping his feet under him by sheer force of will.

The chopper was waiting, rotors spinning, the wind bringing tears to his eyes and almost completely obscuring what had to be the most beautiful sight he’d ever seen.

He broke into a sprint, his aching legs screaming complaints even with the homestretch in view. He threw the sample case into the open compartment and tried to drag himself inside, only for a gasmask-shrouded face to block his way. A gloved hand grabbed his shoulder roughly.

“Did you retrieve the sample?” the masked man demanded, “answer me, Private.”

“The case,” he gasped, “it’s in the case.”

The stranger glanced back over his shoulder, where another figure in the same uniform was opening it. He looked over the contents and gave a curt nod.

“What about your team?”

Grant hesitated. The truth was, he didn’t know. If they waited a few more minutes, there was every chance at least one of them might make it. And there was also every chance one of the BOW’s would make it instead. He’d come too far to die now.

He shook his head. “Didn’t make it.”

The stranger nodded, then hauled him into the compartment by a fistful of his jacket. He collapsed onto the floor, feeling the sudden tug of gravity as the chopper took off.

A smile found his lips when he realised that he’d made it. He was alive. He was going home. When he thought about that, nothing else mattered.

“Yo, Sarge,” a voice said, breaking him from his reverie.

Grant looked over at the other man. He wasn’t someone he recognised. None of them were. That was one of the benefits of working with the UBCS on missions like this: never the same crew twice. No one left alive to bear testimonial to the things you would do when circumstances forced your hand.

“You okay? Looked like you were zoning out for a minute there.”

“I’m okay. Just stay focused.”

Of course, it wasn’t strictly true to say that he was okay. When you’d been working for the Company long enough you tended to get a feeling for the bad jobs. Anything involving sample recovery, combat data gathering, or civil disturbance suppression was usually just a meat grinder waiting to happen.

And then there was anything you were employed to do by Albert Wesker, the man standing on the helipad as they came in to land.

Grant was getting a bad feeling about today already.

---

The UBCS was one of Umbrella’s most expendable human resources. Mercenaries and thugs to a man, they were easily disposed of and easily replaced. Ordinarily, they were used only for the most menial of tasks. Using them to bring an end to an outbreak was much like breaking a spider’s web by having insects fly through it. What they lacked in competence, they made up for in sheer numbers.

There were some notable exceptions to that rule, of course. Wesker had worked with several UBCS mercenaries, who had proven markedly more capable than their comrades. When these men were not promoted internally to the Umbrella Security Service, he usually found positions for them within his own operations.

It was entirely likely that Sergeant Grant would prove to be one of those individuals, on the provision that he would survive the current festivities.

“Welcome, Sergeant,” he greeted, nodding to the other man as he disembarked from the helicopter, “allow me to show you to the operations room while your subordinates make their preparations.”

Grant nodded and followed as Wesker led the way into the facility. The moment they passed into the interior, the other man spoke.

“My usual fee,” he said, “in the usual account. I don’t know what you’re doing or why you needed such an elaborate setup, but I want to see my money before I do anything else.”

“As you wish.”

His demand had not been entirely unanticipated. Men like Trevor Grant were predictable in a way that suited Wesker’s need for efficiency. Ultimately, his only motivator was material gain. So long as Wesker held his purse strings, and made sure to reimburse him handsomely for his time and effort, Sergeant Grant would do whatever was requested of him.

He found himself wondering, idly, if the Sergeant would live to spend a single dollar.

[King of Cunts]

Chris Redfield

“So what’s the first thing you’re going to do when you get back?” Jill asked

Chris smiled softly, wondering if he’d get away with saying something corny like “kiss you”. She usually didn’t mind when he came out with stuff like that. One of the major problems with talking over the radio was that he couldn’t tell who else was there. The last thing he wanted was for Claire to hear it. He’d never live that down.

“Shower, shave, eat and sleep. Probably in that order.”

“Just that?”

He’d never heard anyone with a voice as expressive as hers. It probably came from singing the Blues all the time. He could usually tell what was on her face when she spoke.

Just then, she’d been pouting.

“You have any ideas?” he asked.

A sly smile this time. “A couple.”

“Care to share?”

Silence for a moment. What sounded like a door opening in the background. Typical.

“Hi, Claire,” he heard Jill say.

She had the same rueful note in her voice that he was feeling. An intimate moment that they’d both needed, interrupted, but neither of them would hold it against his sister.

A yawn. “Jeez, Jill, have you slept?”

“Someone has to bring our lost soldier home. Don’t want him falling asleep at the wheel.”

“Not much chance of that,” he told her, “couldn’t sleep if I wanted to. It’s freezing.”

That was probably what he got for taking a shortcut across the Arctic Circle. Still, it was the fastest way home from Russia’s northernmost wastes. If he went the long way, he’d probably wind up setting down in Eastern Europe somewhere, trying to get back to civilisation using commercial means. Too much chance of being apprehended by the authorities. He was still a wanted ‘terrorist’ after all.

Good thing Umbrella’s jets were built to stand the weather.

He knew he’d been flying for awhile, but all night? He’d assumed the others had gone to do something useful, rather than just make small talk with him over the radio while he flew. He hadn’t known they’d turned in. That meant Jill had stayed with him, all that time.

“You don’t have any heat in that junker?” Claire asked, almost accusingly.

“I’m conserving power. Don’t wanna ditch before I reach Canada.”

“I’m sure he knows what he’s doing, Claire. He’s only been flying since he was still in his teens.”

He smiled to himself. She was wearing that teasing smirk she got sometimes whenever she caught one of them taking themselves too seriously. He didn’t have to hear Claire’s voice to know that she was probably glowing with embarrassment and indignation.

It would be good to be home.

The jet shook. His hands quested across the dials and switches, trying to stabilise, but the vibrations weren’t easing off. A red light began to blink, and an alarm blared before he could switch it off.

“Chris, what the hell was that?” Claire asked, her tone suddenly grave.

“Nothing,” he replied on instinct, “just a warning light. Nothing serious.”

The shaking wouldn’t stop, no matter what he did. He looked out over the wing. Dark smoke was pluming from the engine. There was some kind of ochre residue crusted onto the intake. He had a sudden memory of the giant cockroaches he’d seen crawling around the latest of Umbrella’s shitholes.

Had one of those things gotten into his engine? Caused it to malfunction?

Almost in answer to his question, the engine burst into flames with a ‘bang’. He hissed out a curse before he could stop himself.

“What’s going on, Chris?” Jill asked.

She was frowning now, all business. Just then, he’d have given anything to hear the sly smile or the teasing smirk or even the pout again. Anything that could make this situation less grim.

“One of the engines blew out,” he said, wrestling with the stick as it started to buck in his hands.

He cut the power to the second engine, knowing it would just throw him into a spin if he didn’t. He could glide for awhile, but he was going down. No way around it. And if he ejected, he’d be lost in the middle of the Arctic tundra. He’d freeze to death in minutes.

“What?!” Claire yelled, from intolerably close to the microphone.

“I’m going down. Nothing I can do.”

“No! You have to come back! You promised! Don’t you dare do this, Chris. Don’t you dare!”

“Claire, please...”

He heard her sobbing, getting further away from the mic. Leon called her name and he heard her screaming at him, trying to fight him off as he restrained her, hugged her close. Chris shut his eyes, forcing himself not to tear up at the mental image.

“He’s going down,” Jill explained, her voice sad, but level, “nothing he can do.”

“Take care of my sister, Leon,” he said.

“Yes, sir.”

More cries of “you promised” and “don’t you dare”, and then she was gone, running away to cry and scream and rail against the unfairness of it all. Alone if she could, with Leon holding her tight if he wouldn’t let her.

“Jill, I need you to tell everyone. Tell them...”

He trailed off. How did you turn a lifetime of hopes and regrets and emotions into a couple of sentences? When you had so much left you wanted to do and say, what did you prioritise when years suddenly became minutes?

“Tell them I’m sorry. And tell them it’s been an honour. Make sure they all know I wish I could be there to finish this fight with them.”

“I will,” she said, and for once, he couldn’t picture her expression.

“Are you crying?”

She sniffed. “Yeah.”

“I have to tell you something.”

“Chris, there has to be some way you can...”

“No, Jill. Don’t interrupt me. I have to say this. You have to hear this, before it’s too late.”

He swallowed hard. His left hand found the simple, metal band resting in his pocket. All the BOW’s he’d faced down, all the times he’d come face-to-face with people who wanted him dead, and he’d never flinched. Not once. And he hadn’t been able to just slip that ring on her finger. Why had it never been that easy?

He clamped his eyes shut. Silence, like she was holding her breath. He wondered if she knew what he was about to say.

“I love you, Jill Valentine.”

And...

Nothing.

The radio was dead.

He bowed his head, blinking the tears out of his eyes.

“Shit,” he breathed.

He looked out at the white expanse before him. He was going to come down right in the middle of the snowfield. His jet would shake itself to pieces. He’d probably die instantly.

Only this Harrier wasn’t like the ones he was used to flying. It had a whole bank of switches he’d never seen before. He scanned them, keeping his hope dampened until he was sure they were something, and not just even more redundant dials telling him how screwed he was.

This jet was an Executive model. It was supposed to be an evacuation method for the base’s high-ranking administrators. It had countermeasures installed, just in case the plane ditched.

Chris’s heart leapt into his throat. The controls were for some kind of cryogenic preservation system. In the event of a crash, the pilot and his passenger would be frozen into the cockpit, which was sealed off from the outside world, and a beacon would be activated to summon Umbrella’s nearest available personnel.

He ignored the button for the beacon and thumbed the switch for the cryo.

Find me, guys. Find me.

He took a deep breath and froze solid, his lungs filling with ice.

The plane came down at high speed. Its nose snagged, sending it into a tumble that literally shook it to pieces. The other engine detonated and left a streak of black across the snow. Debris fell like rain for miles.

The cockpit settled in a drift, its parachutes detaching and floating away on the wind.

---

“An unusual find, Captain,” Wesker observed, examining the object that had been placed at the centre of the hangar.

“That’s putting it lightly,” the other man replied, “a salvage team located it in the Arctic Circle, near some ancient debris. I wasn’t sure if it would be your bag, but you said you wanted me to contact you if we turned up anything from that era. It’s definitely Company property, but... It’s a little before my time, I’ve got to say. It looks like the cockpit section of an Executive model Harrier V-TOL jet.”

“You are quite correct. I have used this particular version of the aircraft myself on several occasions.”

“Sir? That would make you more than a hundred years old.”

“Recommissioned models, Captain. I have an appreciation for classical technology.”

“Well, they don’t make ‘em like this anymore, that’s for damn sure. Nowadays, the Company seems more inclined to let its top brass crash and burn.”

Wesker nodded. He was aware of that trend, primarily because he had encouraged it himself.

“And the occupants?”

“Just the one. The pilot. Early-forties, it looks like. Obvious soldier. Wearing insignia for some organisation I’ve never heard of. BIO, or something like that. Everything all right, sir?”

Wesker’s body had snapped rigid so suddenly that the Captain had taken notice.

“Show me,” he demanded, with rather more impatience than he usually demonstrated.

The other man shrugged, producing a sheaf of papers and leafing through them in search of a particular photograph that had been taken of his find. He passed it to Wesker, who eyed its content critically. Dark hair, stubble. Even with its eyes closed tight shut and its mouth open in a frozen inhalation, this was the face of a man that Albert Wesker knew all too well.

“You are dismissed.”

“Sir?”

Wesker looked up at him, a momentary lack of control causing his eyes to flare red behind his shades. He felt it even as the slip occurred. The Captain would pay dearly for that mistake.

For now, he simply departed the room, leaving Wesker alone with the salvaged machine.

He laughed softly to himself, beginning a slow, measured pace around it. This was a most unexpected development. It was events like these - ones that he could never have predicted, despite all his resources and capabilities - that leavened the tedium of his immortality.

“Congratulations, Mister Redfield. Welcome back to the land of the living.”

He laughed again, this time several degrees louder, as the barest notion of an idea - vague and undeveloped - began to form in his mind.

[King of Cunts]

Cayden Redfield

“Get out of here, Cayden,” she’d said, as he’d pulled his fist out of the wall, “go for a walk. Blow off some steam. Something. Anything. And don’t come back until you’ve lost the attitude.”

It had been a dumb idea, splitting them up like that, taking a stroll in a city where people were probably looking for them. People were always looking for them. It’d been a long time since they’d had to run, to fight, for their lives, maybe she’d lost sight of that. Maybe he’d lost sight of it too.

But Aunty knew best. And she’d been right. He did need to blow off some steam. He was getting irritable and impulsive and he’d been treating her like crap.

He’d gone to the park, empty in the dead of night, uprooted a few trees, broken a few rocks, done a few laps. Half an hour later, he was ready to head back, confident he wouldn’t be punching through anymore walls, for a while at least.

He was still a block from the apartment, head down, hood up, hands stuffed in pockets, when he saw it explode.

He saw the flames erupt from their seventh-storey squat like a flower bursting into bloom, its petals writhing, smoky tendrils crawling up the side of the building. The sight of it froze him mid-stride.

“Claire...”

He broke into a sprint, clearing the distance in a heartbeat. Even before he arrived, he saw the soldiers filing through the main entrance, the two troop trucks parked outside. The hard line of his mouth split into a snarl.

One of the UBCS grunts dropped down from his perch atop the roof of one of the truck cabs. He was carrying the smoking barrel of a rocket launcher. Cayden targeted him.

His fist broke the man’s jaw and sent him pinwheeling head over heels into the side of the second truck, leaving the launcher and a streak of his brain matter on the asphalt behind him.

The others didn’t have time to realise he was there before he’d punched clean through one man’s back and kicked another so hard he was dead as his limp body crashed into three others and knocked them down.

He shook his arm, dislodging the corpse like he was tossing aside a piece of trash. Same difference.

A soldier leapt from the back of the first truck toting what looked like a flamethrower. Someone had done their homework. But they should have invested in better men.

His fingers clenched on the weapon’s barrel, buckling it, crushing the nozzle closed. The trooper pumped the trigger, then started swearing and trembling. He obviously thought he’d been handed the ace in the hole. Cayden strangled him with one hand, and kept squeezing until his head popped off like a champagne cork.

He had to get inside. He had to find Claire.

He met one of the grunts at the entrance and kicked him under the chin hard enough to fracture his jaw. He went down hard on the back of his head and only had a second to realise what was happening before Cayden’s boot came down on his face, flattening his skull.

Someone shot at him, a three-round burst at chest height. He was in a crouch before the bullets left the barrel, the sound of a trigger pull alerting him to the danger. He pushed off with his front foot and grabbed the shooter by the face, forcing him to the ground. His knife came around in his free hand and sliced a bloody smile across his throat.

Another trigger pull, this time at head-height. He jerked his body backwards, his arm snapping out and tossing the knife. It slipped between ribs, through a lung, through the heart. He was on his feet, across the lobby and withdrawing the blade before his victim had the chance to fall.

The elevator was going up. He pulled the doors aside, crumpling them like tin foil. He grabbed the ascending cable and the motors made a grinding noise, straining against his grip. Smoke rose from between his fingers. He jerked it down and the car shot back towards him, crashing into the well below ground level like a grenade. Lots of dust and shrapnel. No survivors. None of it mattered to him.

There’d be more soldiers on the stairs, going after Claire. The quickest way up was the elevator. He could probably clear the shaft in less than a minute.

Only he could hear something, something that was nagging at him. A rhythmic thumping so fast it sounded almost like a hum. It was...

A helicopter?

Outside, something crashed to earth, and the ground shook beneath his feet. He turned back and cocked his head, wondering what the hell had just happened. It sounded like a car had fallen outside.

The doorway filled with something he couldn’t make out, then a bald head ducked under the frame. The creature’s shoulders were so broad they buckled the doorway on either side of them. At its full height, there was barely enough room for it inside the lobby.

The Tyrant balled fists. Cayden sneered. The opening act was done. Time for the main event.

It lumbered towards him, iron-shod feet pulverising the concrete beneath them. He met it halfway, slamming a fist into its stomach. He felt virally-enhanced muscle warp and crumple under the blow. Then, a massive hand slammed down on his head driving him to his knees.

His teeth ground. He threw his arms up just as the monster swung its own down in a clubbing blow. He caught its wrists, stopping it before it could smash him. He kicked it in the stomach, its feet skidding backwards along the floor.

It broke from the stalemate, and he lunged forward, locking his arms around its waist. It was easily two feet taller than he was, and much heavier. He lifted it like it was a tackling dummy and carried it forward, bulldozing through the wall beside the door.

He slammed its bulk down on the hood of the first truck. The rear wheels came off the ground, and the vehicle shook itself to pieces as he rained blow after blow down on it, hammering its torso.

It punched him hard enough to make him bite his tongue and he staggered away, spitting blood. The Tyrant stood and the truck crashed back down to earth. Cayden heard it approaching and brought his leg around in a back heel kick to its jaw, snapping the thing’s head skyward.

Its moment of hesitation was all he needed. He punched it hard in the stomach, his fist landing right at the soft spot he’d been pummelling since the fight started. His knuckles sank deeper, bursting the skin and opening its torso beneath the ribcage. From anyone else, it would have taken a shotgun blast at point-blank to do that much damage.

Dark, almost black, blood soaked the front of its limiter coat. Its right hand clamped to its ripped gut and it sank to one knee, switching to damage limitation mode.

He vaulted over it, landing on its back with easy agility. He straightened his hand and, with one swift, brutal movement, rammed it through the thing’s spinal column at the base of its neck.

It was silent as it collapsed onto its face. He rode it to the floor, leaping into a smooth roll as it crashed down.

He stood, moved his hand to his jaw and popped it back into place. He was going to have a headache for awhile, and his ears were ringing. Nothing he could do about that.

If the Tyrant hadn’t messed him up with those blows to the head, he’d probably have heard the bullet coming before it hit him. Instead, the first sign of it he got was when it stung him in the arm. The burning feeling hit him a second later. Some kind of toxin attacking his T-cells. Probably deadly to a lesser creature, only mildly debilitating for him.

He swore, scrabbling in the wound for the slug, but it was already gone, broken into a dozen fragments and bleeding poison into his veins. He swung around, looking for the mystery assailant.

Assailants. Because the next second, the air was full of those same rounds. He took two to the chest, another to the thigh, and three in the back. All directions. No matter how many he dodged, they still tagged him a half dozen times. And they burned. The pain was so intense it felt like dying all over again.

“Shit,” he grunted, his head swimming, his eyes rolling in and out of focus.

Another soldier emerged, this one wearing all-black. Not UBCS. It strode towards him, shoulders hunched, rifle at the ready. He egged it on, keeping his feet despite the sudden appeal of total collapse, and despite the bucking ground’s best attempts at unseating him.

He was already passing out when the gun’s stock smashed into his face and put him down for the count.

---

When Wesker arrived, Cayden was still unconscious at the centre of a ring of USS operatives. They held their bodies tense, rifles close at hand, ready to utilise the specially formulated cartridges should the need arise.

He did not believe it would be necessary. Even with his considerable power, the younger man had taken more than a handful of the rounds, and would not be rising for the foreseeable future. An astute armourer had included a stable liquid accelerant into the ammunition’s design and the incendiary rounds had proven to be the advantage the unit required to subdue him.

It had transformed the ordinary bullets into a literal fire in the younger man’s blood - the perfect weapon against his viral enhancements.

Wesker had expected his interference to be necessary. Instead, he found himself able to remain in the shadows for a short while longer. He would commend the architect upon his ingenuity at a later date.

“Remove him,” Wesker ordered, and the USS soldiers moved to comply.

Both Cayden and his beloved ‘aunt’ were wanted by the Umbrella Corporation, officially and unofficially. They were guilty of perpetrating acts of terrorism against the organisation, and they were desired for their mutations. Of course, Wesker would hardly allow his ‘progeny’ to fall into the hands of individuals who might attempt to turn their genetic similarities into a weapon against him. He was far too cautious for that.

And he had far more intriguing things in mind for them both than to see their innards splayed across a laboratory’s surgical table.

His radio crackled. “Sir. We’re experiencing difficulties in apprehending the second subject.”

Wesker smirked. Perhaps his interference would be necessary after all.

Removing his shades, he strode through the damaged entrance and into the foyer of the building, bound for the roof.

[King of Cunts]

Claire Redfield

She sighed and traced another thick, black vein from her temple down, over her cheek and jaw until it vanished under the neckline of her tee. They stood out, stark, against the ashen pallor of her skin. Her finger tugged at her eyelid, revealing the colourless flesh beneath. Her lips, pale and thin, opened onto a dark tunnel.

There wasn’t a scrap of healthy, normal tissue left on her body anymore. The virus had stolen all of the colour from her. She was monochrome now. Even her hair was almost black.

Torturing herself. That was what Leon had always called it, whenever he came into the bathroom to find her peering at herself in the mirror. She’d look back at him to see him leaning against the doorframe, a sad expression on his face. Somehow, he’d always manage to coax her out. They’d eat together, sleep together, do something that made her feel normal, even if it never made her forget.

“Torturing yourself again, huh? Didn’t anyone ever tell you it’s what’s inside that counts?”

Of course, that had always been easy for him to say. He hadn’t had the blood of a monster inside him. When he’d died, he’d died a human. And she’d lived on, because she wasn’t.

She would have given anything to hear his voice, to turn and see him standing in the doorway. But she was alone. And she’d still be alone, even when Cayden came back.

It wasn’t that he was a bad guy. Far from it. Chris had raised him well - as well as you could raise someone who came from such bad stock. But Claire could barely look him in the eye sometimes. Her brother’s words, coming from his arch-nemesis’s mouth. It was too much for her.

Things had been tense. They’d been fighting a lot. He’d gotten burned, and she still had his handprint on her wrist from where he’d grabbed her a little too hard. It always got difficult to control their powers when they were that overwrought. She’d sent him away, not just for his sake, but for her own too. She’d needed time to just get her thoughts in order. To stop being angry with him for things that weren’t his fault.

Cayden wasn’t the one hounding them up and down the country. He hadn’t played any part in the death of her husband. And he wasn’t the reason Chris had never come home. Right now, he was all she had left. She couldn’t afford to be angry with him.

Even on the seventh floor, she could hear the voices in the street below. She’d cracked the window to let a breeze in, and the shouts drifted up to her clearly through it. She’d been listening to them absently for the past couple of minutes. Suddenly, it dawned on her what it was she was listening to.

Someone barking orders. Others hurrying to comply.

She bolted for the door, calling for Cayden. The room exploded behind her, the concussive force tossing her into the living room like a ragdoll. She landed hard on the couch, bounced off and smashed the coffee table beneath her weight. Swearing, she pushed herself up and glanced back at the bathroom.

It was gone. In its place was nothing but fire and debris. Smoke was bleeding through the ruined doorway, filling the air. She kept low, used to dealing with the unwanted side effects of flame. The wall of the apartment was gone, nothing but empty space beyond.

A rocket. That was the only thing it could have been.

She crawled for the door, smothering her mouth and nose with a piece of cloth torn from the couch. Her arm was cut, ripped open along the side of the bicep by the broken table. She was bleeding, and that blood was sparking up, searing the carpet away from the floorboards. Pretty soon, the entire room - the entire building - would be burning.

She grabbed her pistol - an old Browning HiPower she’d stolen to replace the one she’d used in Raccoon City and lost in Europe - from a cavity behind the dresser by the door and let herself out. The fire alarm was blaring, one of the few things that seemed to still work, but there was barely anyone living there. It was a squat, probably due for demolition as soon as someone in the area gave enough of a crap about urban renewal to go through with it.

Most of the folks who lived there were gathered on the lower floors. Claire had never seen anyone else above the fifth.

The wound in her arm had crusted over with dried blood already, stemming the flow of her liquid fire. That was good. The last thing she needed was to make it even more obvious how not-human she was.

She kicked open the door to the stairs and leaned over the rail. Voices echoed up from below as those fleeing the fire clashed with others, coming up. Heavy, rapid footfall told her that soldiers were coming, and they were coming for her. She ran up the stairs, towards the roof, wondering if she could find a fire escape or a second staircase that would let her bypass them - whoever they were - completely.

She reached the top, but knew they would be right behind her. She’d need some way to waylay them. And the obvious choice was coursing through her veins.

“Shit,” she grunted, “shit, I hate this.”

Her blood wouldn’t burn for long on bare concrete. She needed fuel. And there was a table on the landing, long-abandoned. She grabbed it and threw it down the stairs. It tumbled, losing a couple of legs, then lodged in the stair rail. It was almost the perfect position. At least one thing had gone right.

She dug her fingers into the wound on her arm, gritting her teeth against the sudden stab of pain, and withdrew them slick with blood. With a flick of her fingers, crimson droplets sprayed out before her. They caught the broken table and ignited, blocking the way up behind her. Then, she ducked through the door and out onto the roof.

Smoke was coiling up from below. The fire had spread, to the point where its miasmal vapours were obscuring her view of the whole horizon. It felt like she was trapped and, as she looked for some other way out, she realised that feeling was right on the money.

“God damn it,” she groaned, when she saw that she’d backed herself into a corner.

She heard helicopter rotors, and turned to see the smoke parting around the downdraft as the aircraft blew through the wall of grey. There was an Umbrella logo emblazoned on its side. Her heart sank.

A spotlight hit her full in the face. She lifted her hand, trying to shield her eyes from the light. There was a shot, barely audible over the sound of the chopper’s engine, and then she was on the floor, screaming at the burning pain in her palm. A bullet had punched clean through her hand and it was excruciating.

Her fingers were shattered, her flesh torn, and there was blood everywhere. Blood that was going to ignite. She struggled to push herself away from the spreading puddle.

She heard boots touching down, men disembarking from the helicopter now that she was down. She clenched her teeth, trying to cut through the anguish with rage. She’d done it before, many times.

Someone grabbed her under the arm roughly. She spun, slapping her gore-streaked palm against the side of his head. He shook her, trying to force her compliance. Then, he was staggering away, clutching at his smoking cranium as it finally happened.

The bloody puddle beside her burst into flames like gasoline, starting blue and then rising into roaring yellow. Fire wreathed her fingers, singing her skin. No matter how resilient her body became, it always seemed that she would be one step behind the fierceness of the fire itself. One day, she knew it would consume her, if she ever lived that long.

The first man collapsed, screaming, as his gas mask melted onto his face and suffocated him. She swung her hand at the second and a strip of cloth and flesh vanished from his chest as she cut a swathe through him.

The third, obviously unprepared for what she could do, started backing away from her. She ran after him, the pain in her arm and her hatred of that logo pushing out any thoughts of mercy. He turned to flee and her hand ate through his back, burning a hole down to his ribcage and cooking his organs.

The helicopter wheeled overhead and she whipped her hand out at it. She felt a flicker of satisfaction as flame danced over its bodywork, before it veered away, leaving her alone within the circle of smoke.

She smothered her burning hand with one of the dead man’s jackets and examined the wound. It was bad, but with any luck it would heal without seriously damaging her hand. She wasn’t quite the superhuman that Cayden was, but she had her tricks. For now, she settled for an Aid spray stolen from the dead man’s pack, and a strip of cloth for a bandage.

She turned a slow circle, searching for her way out. Nothing. She was still trapped, until they could come up with something new to try to subdue her. Or until they decided just to bring the building down and kill her. If she couldn’t escape, she knew she could only fight for so long before they considered live capture too costly.

“Out of luck,” she muttered, picking up her Browning in her good hand.

Smoke was starting to encroach on the rooftop, obscuring the shed that led back into the stairwell. She had to go back. Fire or not, soldiers or not, it was her only way out.

There was a crashing noise, and the door tumbled end over end out of the smoke and straight past her. She followed it with her eyes, watching it disappear, then turned her head back, slowly, a thousand possibilities for what had caused that racing through her mind.

And she would rather it had been any of them than what it actually was.

It appeared as a shape, a silhouette behind the veil, and resolved into the form of a man, six and a half feet tall, if not taller. Its eyes blazed red before they even became visible, and that sight was enough to bring back a memory. A memory that made her blood curdle.

“No...” she breathed, “no. There’s no way.”

Albert Wesker stepped out of the smoke, and hope left her.

---

It had been over half a century since he had last been face-to-face with a Redfield, and now the last remaining members of that particular line were in his custody. Cayden was subdued, and Ms Claire Redfield’s capture had been a foregone conclusion even before he had stepped in to handle matters personally. He could not help but feel a degree of anticipation at the idea of finally resolving this long-standing loose end.

“I see that your abilities are as potent as your forerunner, Ms Redfield,” he said, surveying the corpses that littered the rooftop, “ah, if only your brother could bear witness to this sight. His dear sister, less and less human with each passing day, until she more resembles the abominations he dedicated more than half of his life to eradicating.”

“Go to hell,” she snarled.

He smiled. Yes, it had been quite some time since he had clashed with such spirited individuals. He had fought the most skilled soldiers in pursuit of his ends, and yet they were simply incapable of satiating his desire for a true challenge. It was not enough to crush someone physically. It took an individual of singular will to truly entertain him.

Her grip tightened around her sidearm, her eyes narrowing. It was almost as though she were defying him, daring him to attack.

“Do you flatter yourself that this will be a reckoning between us, my dear? Do you intend to punish me for my misdeeds?”

“I wasn’t going to punish you,” she said, “I was just going to kill you.”

He sensed her finger bracing on the trigger, her body snapping rigid in anticipation of the recoil. Her first shot missed as he stepped aside, the second seeming to pass straight through him as he strode towards her, moving ever so slightly aside to let it pass. The third and fourth were equally a simple matter to avoid. Her insistence on relying on such crude weaponry would ultimately be her downfall.

He came to stand before her, the pistol pressed against his solid abdomen. She jerked back, surprised by his sudden proximity. He stepped forward casually, keeping the gun flush to his torso. She hesitated for a single second, before pulling the trigger.

The bullet burned a hole through his tactical vest and uniform shirt, before coming to a stop against his skin.

He shook his head, a slow, dangerous admonition. Then, he snatched her pistol and kicked her in the flank with whiplash-inducing force. Her body slammed heavily to the floor, her skull rattling against the concrete. It was almost disappointing how easily even the inhuman could be overcome.

He approached as she tried to force herself up, pressing his boot down on her collar bone as she fought to rise.

“I trust you find this situation suitably familiar. Surely even a century has not dulled the memory of our first meeting. A pity that, even with your enhancements, you fall just as easily now as you did in the past.”

She spat, and a gobbet of bloody saliva stuck to his trouser leg. She was glaring at him, attempting to slay him with a look where bullets had failed.

“Go. To. Hell.”

Her arm snapped up, blood flying from an open wound in her palm and splashing across his face. He felt his skin blistering beneath it, and then his features erupted in a flash of white hot pain. His eyes fused shut, even as he kicked her under the chin and knocked her unconscious.

He staggered, smothering the flames in the crook of his arm. His skin began to knit back together the very moment they had been extinguished. When he lifted his head, he was smirking.

Therein lay the rub. Her abilities, her powers, mattered little. What concerned him was the defiance in her glare, her refusal to be cowed, even as he dominated her physically.

This had merely been a taste of things to come. A taste that had reawakened old appetites.

[King of Cunts]

The summons from White Umbrella was usually phrased like it was non-negotiable. Odd, given that Kyle Hardin was a private contractor these days, and negotiating was the only way to get him to go anywhere. He was done taking orders from the Company, done tidying up the mess they’d made of the country.

Nowadays, if they wanted his attention, they had to make it worth his while. And given that he would rather have worked for just about anyone else, that wasn’t easy, even for the richest conglomerate left standing in modern America.

He’d long since lost any interest in working with the UBCS, especially because the last time he’d consulted with them they’d ignored his advice and sent a platoon of mercs into a zombie meat grinder to be needlessly slaughtered. It had all reminded him a little too much of his time as a grunt in the World’s Worst Outfit.

Still, it was usually worth stopping in to hear what W.U. had to say. They weren’t quite so eager to waste lives and resources as their UBCS counterparts. Sometimes, it even felt like he was making a difference while he was getting paid.

His “invitation” came with an updated authorisation card, yet another indicator that he wasn’t being given a choice in his attendance. Luckily, he didn’t have anything scheduled for the day of the meet anyway. Morbid curiosity made him wonder what happened if you didn’t attend when White sent for you, but he wasn’t nearly curious enough to actually find out.

From the outside, W.U. was a regular office complex. It had nightshift security guards, falling asleep at their posts. It had overly cheerful reception staff whose faces were masks of cosmetics. It had sloppy janitors that left coffee rings on the front desk. It was only when you stepped in the elevator, and you knew what you were doing, that you realised the scale of the operation you were embroiled in.

He pulled the “emergency stop” toggle somewhere between the first and fifth floor and slid the authorisation card into the slot below the control panel. He punched in the code on the card using the floor numbers like a keypad.

“Shall we get on with it?” he asked the camera affixed to the corner of the metal box. Its lens shrank, focusing on his face, almost like it was glaring at him. He flipped it off.

The elevator car changed direction with a lurch, then shot straight down, past the first floor and beyond.

It slowed its descent rapidly, leaving him with the uncomfortable feeling of spinal compression. He shrugged it off and stepped out.

He’d witnessed the change so many times now it wasn’t really surprising anymore. The charcoal grey stone and smog-dulled glass gave way to pristine white tiles. The muggy air became fresh and crystal clear, air-conditioned to a winter chill. The security guards here were soldiers, upright and unblinking, hands clasped tight around their assault rifles, uniforms crisp and clean.

The front desk was a perfectly smooth, black monolith at the heart of the entrance hall. Behind it was the Umbrella Corporation’s name and logo, realised in polished steel, and looking a damn sight more professional than the haphazard mosaic emblazoned across the floor upstairs.

“Mister Hardin?” asked the blonde sitting at the desk.

She was a world apart too - little more than basic foundation on her face, hair its natural colour, the kind of pantsuit that denoted a professional, rather than a wage slave. She probably wasn’t just the receptionist. Chances were, she ran the place, to an extent.

“Please sign in,” she said, indicating a leather-bound book resting on the desk, “a representative will be with you shortly.”

He leaned against the desk, affecting the easiest smile he could manage. “I’m in no rush. You are...?”

“You don’t have time for small talk, Mister Hardin.”

“Small talk?” He shook his head, still smiling. “You misunderstand. I’m hitting on you.”

She cocked her head, sizing him up. He sat down on the desk, holding her gaze. He felt something other than the desk under his left buttock but couldn’t stop his already descending weight before it squashed the item in question flat with a dull crunch. He winced and she looked down as he stood back up.

“Oh,” she said, her nose wrinkling as she took in the shattered remains of the sunglasses that had been resting on the desk, “those belong to...”

He shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. Whether they’re working or visiting here, odds are good they can afford a new pair. If they’re sore about it, give them my card. I’d be more than happy to buy a pair for them.”

He pulled the bundle out of his jacket and flicked one to her across the desk. The business cards made him feel a little like a sell out, but the old logistics officer he hired as a P.A. had ordered them for him. He was a professional now, in business for himself, and it paid to act like one, or so he said.

There was one unforeseen advantage to carrying a piece of card with your name and number on it though.

“Why not keep one for yourself. Maybe you and I can find something more interesting to talk about than sunglasses.”

She slipped the first card into an open ring binder on the table in front of her. The other she slid into her jacket’s inside pocket.

“Isabelle,” she told him. He nodded, smiled and committed it to memory.

He scribbled his name in the visitor’s book and took her directions to the meeting room.

She called him the next day. He never heard from the owner of the sunglasses.

---

The game was now a foregone conclusion. The pieces had already begun to take their places. Agents had identified the location of both his brother and his errant progeny. Before long, the opportunity would present itself to apprehend them both. The presence of Ms Redfield had been an unexpected, but not entirely unpleasant, boon. Her reunion with her brother was already promising to be a high point of the affair.

But Wesker was far from satisfied with a simple game. Confounding elements were necessary - wild cards and rogues. He was currently reviewing the personnel files for several of the Corporation’s most skilled operatives, in order to identify a worthy contender for the endeavour. His pursuit of Umbrella’s lost projects had brought him into contact with several BOW’s that had also earned his interest. Indeed, it seemed he had an ample number of possible subjects.

It was a little known fact that Albert Wesker was capable of forgetting. He allowed his apparent infallibility to be common knowledge, but the fact was that his empire was simply too large to manage without prioritisation.

Certain events, certain individuals, would always remain ingrained in his subconscious, a testament to the role they had played in shaping his current existence - Lord Spencer, James Marcus, William Birkin, Chris Redfield. But the fact was that, if it did not require his immediate attention, he was able to simply set aside entire schemas until it was necessary to recall them.

To supplement this mental categorisation, he had created a database of physical and digital evidence, which he held within an immense vault on his estate. His entire life was represented in the objects contained there, though they would be of little to no consequence to an outsider.

There was nothing of any material worth within the vault, but the information alone was priceless, if it could be used effectively. And he had gone to great lengths to ensure that only he would ever benefit from its use.

In a division of the vault that he had mentally designated as “Unresolved Personal Offences”, he stood, perusing the boxes. Behind the metal panels, each one merely thirty by fifteen centimetres, lay items varying from surveillance photographs to flash drives brimming with data to empty specimen tubes. Each and every executive, mercenary and former employee that had slighted him was remembered in excruciating detail.

He scanned the drawers, and settled on one at random - the eighth box from the wall in the ninth row. He applied pressure to its corner in the correct manner and keyed in its release code, recalling the information based on the cue of the box’s position.

Inside was a personnel file for a private military contractor whom Wesker had entertained no professional relationship with himself, though the individual had worked for White Umbrella on several occasions. For a brief moment, Wesker was at a loss for what the man could have done to earn his ire.

Then, his eyes settled upon the plastic wallet lying at the bottom of the draw, packed neatly into a frame of foam. It contained the shattered remains of a pair of sunglasses. His sunglasses.

His jaw tightened. Kyle Hardin had just become an unwitting contestant in Wesker’s game.