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She'd already started typing, absently explaining her– self as her fingers moved across the keys. "… there's a
message board we both use… there, see? 'Contact ASAP, the gang's all here.' He posted the night I was caught."
Steve shrugged, not really interested in the life and times of Claire's pals. "Go back a file, the longitude and latitude of this rock are written down," he said, smiling a little. "Why don't you send your brother directions, let him come save the day?"
He expected another irritated look, but Claire only nodded, her expression dead serious. "Good idea. I'll say there's been a spill at these coordinates. They'll know what I mean." She was pretty, all right, but also pretty naive. "That was a. joke," he said, shaking his head. They were in the middle of nowhere. She was staring at him. "Hilarious. I'll tell it to Chris when he shows up."
Entirely without warning, a fiery rage welled up in– side of him, a tornado of anger and despair and a whole bunch of feelings he couldn't even begin to understand. What he did understand was that little Miss Claire was wrong, she was stupid and snotty and wrong.
"Are you kidding? You actually expect him to show, with what's going on here? And look at the coordi– nates!" The words came out hot and fast and louder than he intended, but he didn't care. "Don't be such an idiot – believe me, you can't depend on people like that, you'll only get hurt in the end, and then you'll have no-body to blame but yourself!"
Now she was looking at him like he'd lost his mind, and on top of his fury came a crushing wave of shame, that he'd freak out for no good reason. He could feel tears threatening, only adding to his humiliation, and there was no way he was going to cry in front of her like some baby, no way. Before she could say anything, he turned and ran, blushing furiously.
"Steve, wait!"
He slammed the office door behind him and kept going, wanting only to get out, to get away, hell with the map, I've got the key, I'll figure something out and I'll kill anything that tries to stop me… Through the long hall, past the dead metal detector and out, his weapon ready, a part of him bitterly disap– pointed as he ran past the ke
Jesus, look at 'em…
They had been rottweilers, but not anymore; they'd been infected, he could see it in their glazed red eyes and dripping muzzles, in the strange new ridges of mus– cle that flexed and bunched beneath their almost slimy-looking coats. And for the first time since the attack, the immensity of Umbrella's craziness – their secret experi– ments, their ridiculous cloak and dagger mentality – re– ally hit home. Steve liked dogs, a hell of a lot more than he liked most people, and what had happened to these two poor animals wasn't fair.
Not fair, wrong place at the wrong time, I didn't de-serve any of this, I didn 't do anything wrong…
He wasn't even aware that the object of his pity had changed, that he was admitting to himself how shitty things really were, how badly he'd been screwed; he didn't have time to notice. It had been less than a second since he'd rolled onto his back, and the dogs were get– ting ready to attack. It was over in another second, the time it took to pull the trigger once, pivot, pull it again. Both animals went down instantly, the first taking it in the head, the second, in the chest. The second dog let out a single yip of pain or fear or surprise before it collapsed in the mud, and Steve's hatred for Umbrella multiplied exponentially with that strangled sound, his mind repeating again and again how unfair it all was as he crawled to his feet and broke into a stumbling run. He had the key to the prison gate; he wasn't going to be their captive anymore. Time for a little payback, he thought grimly, suddenly hoping, praying that he crossed paths with one of them, one of the sick, decision-making asshole bastards who worked for Umbrella. Maybe if he got to hear them beg for death, maybe then he'd feel a little better.
FOUR
CHRIS REDFIELD AND BARRY BURTON WERE reloading rounds in the back room of the Paris safe house, silent and tense, neither of them speaking. It had been a bad ten days, not knowing what had happened to Claire, not knowing if Umbrella still had her alive…
… stop, his i
S.T.A.R.S. a few times in the past, passing along inside in– formation about Umbrella. Although his exact motivations were unknown, his objective seemed clear enough – to destroy the pharmaceutical company's secret bioweapons division. Unfortunately, waiting on Trent was a long shot; he'd only ever contacted them when it suited his needs, and since they had no way of reaching him, the prospect of his assistance was seeming less likely all the time. Click-click. Click-click. The repetitive sound was soothing somehow, a muted mechanical process in the quiet of the rented safe house. They all had specific jobs to do in their pledge to bring Umbrella down, tasks that changed from day to day as the need arose. Chris had been helping Barry out with the weapons for the past week and a half, but he usually ran HQ surveillance. They'd received a message from Jill a few weeks before, she was on her way to Paris, and Chris knew that her misspent youth would come in very handy for internal recon. Leon had turned out to be a half decent hacker, he was in the next room on the computer; he'd hardly slept since Claire's capture, most of his time spent trying to track Umbrella's recent movements. And the trio of