Claire sighed, shaking her head. “I don’t know where she went. She was—scared of me, Sherry. I think she thought I was someone else, someone bad or crazy. She ran away from me—but I’m pretty sure she came this way, and I was trying to find her again when I heard you calling.”
Sherry nodded slowly, struggling to accept the idea that her mother had been acting weird—weird enough for Claire to try and sugar-coat it. “And you think she came in here?” Sherry asked finally.
“I can’t be positive. I also ran into this cop, Leon, before I saw your mother; I met him when I first got to the city, and he was in one of the tunnels I went through after you disappeared. He was hurt, he couldn’t come with me to look for you—so after your mom took off, I went back to get him, but he was gone.”
“Dead?”
Claire shook her head. “Nope. Just gone—so I backtracked, and as far as I can tell, this is the only way your mom could have gone. But like I said, I’m not sure. . . ”
She hesitated, frowning, gazing at Sherry thought-fully. “Did your mom ever tell you about something called the G-Virus?”
“G-Virus? I don’t think so.”
“Did she ever give you anything to hold onto, like a little glass container, something like that?” Sherry frowned back at her. “No, nothing. Why?” Claire stood up, putting her hand on Sherry’s shoulder and shrugging at the same time. “It’s not really important.”
Sherry narrowed her eyes, and Claire smiled again. “Really. Come on, let’s see if we can figure out where your mom went. I bet she’s looking for you.” Sherry let Claire lead the way, wondering why she was suddenly sure—almost certain, in fact—that Claire didn’t believe what she was saying. . . and
wondering why she couldn’t find it in herself to ask any more questions about it.
The factory machine lift, like the tram, was exactly where Annette had left it. The margin had surely tightened, but she was still ahead of the spies, of Ada Wong and her ragged little friend .. .
... lies, telling me lies like they all tell lies, as if losing William, suffering such pain and loss isn’t enough to shame them....
She fumbled the control key out of her torn lab coat pocket, leaning heavily against the mounted controls as she inserted the key and turned it. Her shaking fingers touched the activation switch and a trail of lights appeared on the console, too bright even in the moon-filled darkness. Cool autumn air brushed over her aching body, a friendly, secret wind that smelled like fire and disease ...
... like Halloween, like bonfires in the dark when they brought out their dead, burning the pestilent flesh of the plague-riddled bodies...
Four squealing, blaring honks sounded into the night sky, the massive elevator room telling her that it was time to go. Annette staggered up the gray and yellow steps, unable to remember what she’d been thinking about before. It was time to go, and she was so, so tired. How long had it been since she’d slept? She couldn’t remember that, either.
Hit my head, yes? Or just sleepy, may haps. .. . She’d been exhausted before, but the relentless pain of her injuries had sent her to some delirious place that she’d never imagined could exist. Her thoughts came in spiraling, uneasy bursts of feeling that she couldn’t seem to sort through, at least not to her satisfaction; she knew what had to be done—the triggering system, the subway gate opening, the hiding in the shadows and waiting to heal—but the rest had become some strange, disjointed grouping of free association, as if she’d taken some drug that had overloaded her senses, and would only let her think a bit at a time.
It was almost over. That was something she could hold on to, one of the only constants in her muddled mind. A positive and somehow magical phrase that she could still see, no matter how blind she became. On her way through the factory, she’d coughed and coughed and then vomited from the pain a thin and acidic string of bile that had made dark bubbles burst in front of her eyes, the darkness staying for so long that she thought she might actually lose her sight—
• it’s almost over.
Clutching the thought like a lost love, she found the latch to the metal room and went inside. The controls, pushed. The movement and sound of movement engulfing her as she lay across one soft metal bench and closed her eyes. A few moments of rest, and it was almost over.. ..
Annette sank into the dark, the humming motors lulling her into a deep and instant sleep. She was going down, her muscles relaxing, her aches and miseries loosening their hold—and for some endless reach of time, she found a silence—
• until a howling, terrible scream knifed into her darkness, a shriek of such fury and pain that it spoke for her heart, and she jerked back to life, panting and afraid—
• and then realized what had snapped her out of her dreamless sleep, and her thoughts came together, giving her one more clear and constant thing to hold on to.
It was William. William had come home, he had followed her—and Umbrella would have nothing, because the thing that had been her husband had come back into the blast radius.
The scream sounded again, this time echoing away into one of the lab’s many secret places as the lift went down and down.
Annette closed her eyes again, the new thought joining her lost love from before, the two of them together making her happy at last.
William has come home. It’s almost over.
The third followed naturally, added as she slipped back into the silence, knowing that she had to get up too soon, to begin the final journey. When the lift stopped, she’d wake up and be ready.
Umbrella will suffer for what they’ve done—and everybody dies at the very end.
She smiled, and fell asleep, dreaming of William.
LEON FINALLY STARTED TO FEEL LIKE HIMself again, sitting in the control room where Ada had left him. She’d found a medkit in one of the dust-covered cabinets, along with a bottle of water; she’d only been gone for about ten minutes, but the aspirin was starting to kick in, and the water had worked wonders.
He sat in front of a switch-covered console, trying to piece together what had happened after the explo-sion in the sewers; the last thing he really remembered clearly was seeing the headless crocodile collapse, and then being overwhelmed by a light-headed weakness. Ada had bandaged him up and then led him through tunnels—
• and a subway, we were on a subway for a minute or two—
• and finally to this room, where she’d told him to rest while she went to check on something. Leon had protested, reminding her that it wasn’t safe, but had still been too fuzzy to do much more than sit where she’d put him. He’d never felt so helpless, or so totally dependent on another person. Once he’d gulped about half of the gallon jug of water, though, he’d started to snap out of it. Apparently, blood loss tended to dehydrate ...
... so she gave me the water and then went to check on what, exactly? And how did she know to come this way?
He’d barely been able to walk, let alone ask any questions—but even in his delirium, he’d noticed how certain she was, how she’d chosen their path with unwavering precision. How could she know? She was an art buyer from New York, how could she know anything about the sewer system of Raccoon City? And where is she? Why hasn’t she come back? She’d helped him, she’d most probably saved his life—but he just couldn’t keep believing that she was who she said she was. He wanted to know what she was doing, and he wanted to know now, and not just because she’d been keeping secrets; Claire was still somewhere in the sewers, and if Ada knew the way out of the city, Leon owed it to her to try and find out. Leon stood up slowly, holding onto the back of the chair, and took a deep breath. Still weak, but no dizziness, and his arm didn’t hurt as badly, either—the aspirin, perhaps. He drew his Magnum and walked to the door of the small, dusty room, promis-ing himself that he wasn’t going to accept any more vague answers or smiling brush-offs.