City Of The Dead
Chapter Seventeen

Ada ran into the cell block only a step behind Leon, just in time to see the reporter stumble out of his cage and fall to the floor. "Help him!" Leon shouted, and ran past Bertolucci to check out the cell. Ada stopped in front of the gasping reporter but ignored the command, waiting to see if whatever had gotten to him was going to spring out of the open cell...
... he was behind bars, how did this happen.
She waited, weapon pointed after Leon as he leapt in front of the open cell, her heart pounding - and saw the bewilderment on his youthful face, the open surprise. The way his gaze searched the cell told her that it was empty. Unless the attacker was invis- ible...
Not a chance. Don't even start thinking like that, don't let it get to you.
Ada knelt next to the reporter, taking in immedi- ately that he was in a bad way - dying bad. He'd crumpled into a half-sitting position, his head against the bars of the cell adjacent to his. He was still breathing, but it wouldn't be long before he stopped. Ada had seen the look before, the far-seeing gaze and the trembling, the pallor, but what she didn't see was how, and that scared her. There were no wounds. It had to be a heart attack, maybe a stroke -
- but that scream.
"Ben? Ben, what happened?"
His flickering gaze fixed on her face, and she saw that the corners of his mouth were cracked and bleeding. He opened his mouth to speak, but all that came out was a rasping, unintelligible croak. Leon crouched down next to them, looking as confused as she felt. He shook his head at her, an unspoken answer to her unasked question; there was apparently no sign of what had happened. Ada looked down at Bertolucci and tried again.
"What was it, Ben? Can you tell us what happened?"
The reporter's shaking hands crawled up his body, resting across his chest. With a visible effort, he managed to whisper a single word.
"... window..."
Ada wasn't reassured. The cell's "window" was hardly a foot across, maybe six inches wide, and set eight feet off the floor - nothing more than a ventila- tion hole that opened into the parking garage. Noth-ing could have gotten through - at least nothing that she'd heard of or read about, and that meant that there were dangers she wasn't prepared against. Bertolucci was still trying to speak. Both Ada and Leon leaned closer, straining to catch his painful whispers.
"... chest. Burns, it... burns..."
Ada relaxed just a bit. He'd seen or heard some- thing outside of the cell, something that had kicked off a massive coronary; that, she could accept. A pisser for the journalist, but it would save her the trouble of killing him herself... He reached out suddenly and grasped her forearm, staring up at her with an intensity that surprised her. His grip was weak, but there was desperation in his wet eyes - desperation and some frustrated sorrow that inspired not a little guilt for what she'd been thinking. "I never told... about Irons," he breathed, obvi-ously struggling to hang on to life, to get it all out.
"He's... working for Umbrella... all this time. The zombies... are Umbrella, research... and he covered up the murders but I couldn't... prove it all, yet... was going to be my... exclusive."
Bertolucci closed his braised-looking eyelids, breath- ing shallowly as his fingers fell away from her arm, and she felt a surge of pity for him in spite of herself.
The poor dumb jerk; his big secret was that Umbrella was into bioweapons and that Irons was on the take. It would have been a big scoop, too, but apparently he hadn't even been able to get any hard evidence. He doesn't know dick about the G-Virus, he never did - and he's going to die regardless. Talk about a shit deal. "Jesus," Leon said softly. "Chief Irons..." Ada had all but forgotten how clueless the young cop was. He was obviously new, but a couple of times he'd seemed so perceptive that she'd been taken aback; the kid wasn't just a testosterone case, there was definitely something going on upstairs...
... knock it off already, he's not much younger than you. The reporter's about to kick and you need to be on your way, not worrying about Officer Friendly...
Bertolucci spasmed suddenly, his hands clutching at his chest as he moaned, a sharp, tortured cry of agony. His back arched, his fingers hooked into claws...... and the moan went liquid as blood started to stream from his mouth in a burbling gout. Choking and shaking, Bertolucci's limbs convulsed violently, droplets of crimson spraying out with each racking cough...... and Ada saw red blossom across his rumpled white shirt beneath his scrabbling hands and heard the thick, wet crack of breaking bone. She leapt back as Leon grabbed for the reporter's hands, not sure what was happening but absolutely positive that it was not a heart attack...
... holy Christ what IS this?
All at once, Bertolucci went limp, his eyes rolled back and fixed, sightless. Blood still oozed from his cracked lips and there was a sound, a horrible sound of meat being torn, and under the stained fabric of his shirt, something moved. "Get back!" Ada shouted, pointing her Beretta at the dead reporter, and in the split-second it took her to aim, a thing erupted from Bertolucci's bloody chest. A thing the size of a big man's fist, a gore- drenched thing that opened a tiny black hole of a mouth and squealed shrilly, revealing nubs of sharp red teeth. It wriggled out of the corpse with a whip-ping manta's tail, splashing the cold cement with shreds of wet tissue and gut. Lashing against the cooling flesh of the reporter, it poured from the body in a gush of blood and onto the floor - and took off like a shot for the open gate back into the hall, propelling itself with its snaking tail and legs that Ada couldn't see, smearing a red path be- hind it. It was out the door before she even remembered that she was holding a gun; for the first time since she'd come to Raccoon, since ever, she had been so completely shocked that she hadn't thought to react. A chest-bursting parasitic creature, straight out of a sci-fi movie... "Was that... did you see..." Leon fumbled breath- lessly. "I saw it," Ada said softly, cutting him off. She turned and looked down at Bertolucci, at his face, frozen in a bloody contortion of anguish, and at the gaping wet cavity just below his sternum.
His mouth, cracked at the corners...
He'd been implanted with the creature, by what, she didn't know, and she didn't want to know. What she wanted was to get the mission wrapped, as quickly as possible, and then get as far away from Raccoon City as she could. In fact, she thought that she'd never wanted anything quite so badly. When she'd first realized that there had been a T-Virus incident, she'd expected to have to deal with some unpleasant organ- isms. But the thought of having one of them forced or forcing its way down her throat, nestling inside of her body like some slick, aberrant fetus before eating its way out... if that wasn't the most horrible thing she could think of, it ran a close second. She looked at Leon, giving up any pretense of trying to be reasonable. She was going to the lab, and it wasn't open to discussion. "I'm getting out of here," she said, and without waiting for a response, she turned and walked briskly toward the gate, careful not to step on the glistening trail of blood that the tiny monster had created.
"Wait! Look, I think... Ada? Hey..."
She stepped into the corridor, weapon raised, but the creature was gone. The blood trail petered out less than halfway down the hall, but she saw that they'd left the door to the kennel open...
... and the manhole cover's off. Terrific.
Leon caught up to her before she'd gone more than a few steps. He stood in front of her, blocking her path, and for just a moment, Ada thought he was going to try to physically stop her.
Don't do it. I don't want to hurt you, but I will if I have to. "Ada, please don't go," Leon said, not a command but a plea. "I... when I got to Raccoon, I met this girl, and I think she's in the station somewhere. If you could help me find her, the three of us could leave together. We'd stand a much better chance..." "Sorry, Leon, but it's a free goddamn country. You do what you have to, and good luck, but I'm not staying. I've had enough. If - when I get out, I'll send help."
She started to push past him, hoping it wouldn't come to violence and wishing that she could tell him not to get in her way - how dangerous it would be for him to try - when Leon surprised her yet again. "Then I'm coming with you," he said. He met her gaze evenly, his own unflinching and resolute - and scared. "I'm not going to let you do it alone. I don't want anyone else - I don't want you to get hurt."
Ada stared at him, not sure what to say. Now that Bertolucci was dead, she didn't want to have to ditch Leon in the sewers; it wouldn't be hard, considering how extensive the system was... but he was just so goddamn nice, so determined to be helpful, that she was starting to - to not want to have to do anything bad to him. Things would be a lot easier if he was just some asshole on a machismo kick...
Okay, so blow your cover. Tell him you're a private agent working to steal the G-Virus, and you don't want company; tell him about the relief you felt when you realized the reporter was about to die, or how you don't have a problem with killing, if it's for a good cause like getting paid. See how nice and helpful he is after that.
Not an option; neither was trying to talk him out of coming along, it wouldn't make sense. And there was some part of her, some part that she didn't want to admit to, that wanted very much not to be alone. Seeing that thing that had popped out of Bertolucci had shaken her, it had left her feeling that she wasn't as invulnerable as she liked to think.
So let him come, get to the lab and find a safe place to leave him there. No harm, no foul.
Leon was watching her closely, studying her - wait- ing for her approval. "Let's go," she said, and the grin he gave her, though winning, made her feel even more uncomfort- able. Without another word, they walked toward the kennel, Ada wondering what the hell she was doing and whether or not she was still capable of doing whatever it took to get the job done. Claire stood in front of a medieval door at the very end of the dark, dungeon-like hallway that the eleva- tor had taken her to. The station had been chilly, but the icy damp of this stone hall made the station seem like summer; it was like she'd descended into some ancient, haunted castle straight out of the Middle Ages. She took a deep breath, trying to decide how to go in; she was pretty sure that Irons wouldn't appreciate a surprise visit, but the idea of knocking seemed ludicrous - not to mention dangerous. There were torches burning in sconces on either side of the heavy wood door, the door itself belted with strips of rusting metal and if she'd had any doubt before that Irons was crazy, the sight of the twin sputtering torches and the feel of cold, quiet dread that suffused the corridor itself had wiped her uncertainty out.
A secret tunnel, a hidden room complete with mood-lighting... what sane person would want to hang out down here? It wasn't the disaster that did it - Irons must have been nuts way before the Umbrella acci- dent...
Another certainty, although she didn't have any proof - but when Sherry had told her about what her parents did for a living, and what had happened just prior to her coming to the station, something had clicked. Umbrella worked with diseases, and the population of Raccoon had definitely come down with a bad case of something. There must have been some kind of an accident, a spill that had released the strange zombie plague...
Quit stalling.
Claire bit at her lip, not sure what she should do. She didn't doubt that Irons was down here some- where, and she did not want to run into him again; maybe she should go back up, get Sherry, and try to find another way out. Just because the area was secret didn't mean that it was some kind of an escape route.
Still stalling, and Sherry is up there by herself. And you've got a gun, remember?
A gun with very little ammo. If this was Irons's hidden lair, maybe he kept weapons inside... or maybe it was just another corridor, one that led even deeper into the bowels of the station. Either way, wondering about it was telling her exactly jack shit. Claire put her hand on the latch, took another deep breath, and pushed it open, the heavy door swinging in slowly on well-oiled hinges. She stepped back, pointing the handgun...
Jesus.
An empty room, as dank and unwelcoming as the corridor, but with furnishings and a decor that made her skin crawl. A single naked bulb hung down from the ceiling, illuminating the creepiest chamber she'd ever seen. There was a table in the middle of the room, stained and battered, a hacksaw and other cutting utensils scattered on top; a dented metal bucket and a mop, slopped against one water-stained wall, next to a portable basin with dried red patches inside; shelves, laden with dusty bottles - and what looked like human bones, polished and pale, set out like macabre trophies. That, and the smell - a thick chemical reek, sharp and acidic, that only just cov- ered a darker smell. A smell like insanity. Even looking into the room made her want to be sick; "nuts" was maybe the understatement of the year for the police chief, but there was nobody home, and that meant that there could be another secret passage somewhere inside. At the very least, she had to check for weapons. Swallowing, Claire stepped into the room, glad that she hadn't brought Sherry with her; looking at the private little torture chamber was going to give her nightmares, it was nothing to expose a child to...
"Freeze, little girl, or I'll shoot you where you stand."
Claire froze. Every muscle in her body froze as Irons started to laugh from behind her, from behind the door where she hadn't thought to look.
Oh my God, oh, God, oh, Sherry I'm so sorry...
Irons's deep chuckle rose into the hearty, gleeful laughter of a madman, and Claire understood that she was going to die.