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First things first, board her and check fuel, general condition, learn the controls…
He stopped at the edge of the platform and looked down, frowning. He was at least ten feet above the front hatch, which looked to be locked down tight. There was a bank of machinery to his left, a few pan– els lit up. Steve walked over and looked at them, smiling when he saw a control to power up the boarding lift. The system should also open the plane door, according to the tiny diagram. "Presto," he said, flipping the switch. A loud and grat-ing mechanical noise bellowed through the giant hangar, making him wince, but it stopped after a few seconds, as a two-man lift slid to a halt at the platform's edge. He stepped onto the lift, studied the standing control panel – and started to curse, every bad word he could think of, twice. Next to a trio of hexagonally shaped spaces were the words, "insert proof keys here." No keys, no power.
They could be anywhere on the whole goddamn is-land! And what are the chances that all goddamn three of them will be goddamn together?
He took a deep breath, made himself calm down a lit– tle, and spent the next few minutes figuring out how the plane's controls were hooked up to the rest of the sys– tem, looking for a way to bypass the keys. And after a careful, thoughtful deliberation, he started cursing again. When he finally got tired of that, he resigned himself to the inevitable. Steve turned around and started to search the area, peering into every dark crevice, formulating theories about where the proof keys might be as he ran his hands over the greasy, dust-slimed machinery cabinets – and he decided that he was definitely going to dance all over the bones of the next Umbrella employee he gu
The virus carrier was wearing a lab coat and its lower jaw had fallen off somewhere, or been broken off; it gur– gled and spluttered horribly, its wormy tongue flopping limply across its neck. Claire couldn't tell if it had been a man or woman, although she supposed it didn't really matter. As pitiful as it was revolting, she put it out of its misery with a single shot to the temple and then searched the area – working laboratory office, small in– ventory room – before stepping back into the hall, dis– couraged at her overwhelming lack of success. The entrance she'd walked back to from the mansion had opened up into a reasonably big courtyard, hard packed dirt and totally utilitarian – more like the prison than the palace, although even after searching a few rooms, she still couldn't figure out where she was, ex– actly; some kind of testing facility, maybe, or a training ground for guards or soldiers. Maybe just a building designed to destroy hope, she thought blackly, looking toward the front door. She'd walked in maybe ten minutes ago, hoping that Rodrigo wasn't already dead, that Steve had found a boat, that Mr. Psycho Ashford and his sister weren't pla
Whee.
Nine zombies she'd had to put down so far, three of them in lab coats or scrubs, and not even a cotton swab to show for it. Nothing in the locker room – and she'd looked through practically every damned one of the lockers, turning up jockstraps and porn, but little else, nothing in the odd little shower room, zip and zilch. She'd have thought that a pharmaceutical company might actually have a few Pharmaceuticals lying around, but it was looking more doubtful by the mo– ment. Claire walked back to the long hall that branched off from the building's first floor, that opened into an out– door courtyard. She'd hoped to find something for Rod– rigo without having to leave the building proper, but there was no help for it.
If I get lost, I can just follow the trail of corpses back,
she thought, walking quickly down the nondescript cor– ridor. Not fu
Stairs, cover!
It was all she had time to think before the little red dot was stuttering across her chest. She threw herself out of the way as the first shot blasted through the cold air, burying itself in a miniature fountain of stone chips. She rolled to her feet and sprinted for the stairs, the red light jerking back and forth, trying to find her. Bam, a second shot, it missed but was close enough that she could actually hear it cutting through the air, a high– pitched buzzing sound. She caught a glimpse of the shooter just before ducking behind the low stone balustrade, not surprised at all to see slicked-back blond hair and a red jacket trimmed in gold. She was more angry than scared, that after all she'd been through, she hadn't been more careful – and that she'd almost been taken out by such a weird little elitist creep. That stops right now. Claire raised her handgun over the stone railing and fired off two rounds in Alfred's general direction. She was immediately rewarded with a cry of shocked outrage. Not so much fun when the peas-ants fire back, is it?
Ready to capitalize on his surprise, Claire scrambled up three steps and risked a look over the rail – just in time to see him run through a door on the west wall, slamming it behind him. She leaped up the stairs and took off after him, bang– ing through the door and down a moonlit hall, shafts of cool light gently piercing the shadows. It wasn't a con– scious decision to pursue him, she just did it, not want– ing to stumble into any more of his ambushes. She could see what looked like a soda machine at the end of hall, could still hear his ru