– but no sense -
Ada let go of the gun suddenly and Annette stum– bled, not prepared for the unexpected move. She crashed against the railing of the bridge and Ada charged, driving her elbow into Annette's lower belly, hitting her beneath her center of balance and Annette half-turned, her mouth an open darkness of surprise, her arms pinwheeling for bal– ance – and she plummeted over the railing, silently, not a sound until the dull thump as her body hit the floor some twenty feet below. "Shit," Ada hissed, stepping to the rail and looking down. She lay there, facedown and motionless, the gun still clenched in one thin white hand.
That's just great. Walk into an ambush, not once but twice for hell's sake, then kill the one crazy bitch who can tell you where the samples are…
A low moan floated up from Annette Birkin's body and she moved, hunching her back, trying to roll onto her side.
Shit shit shit!
Ada turned and ran across the bridge, scooping up the Beretta as she hurried for what looked like a control panel next to the fan shaft ladder. She'd have to lower the bridge, get to Annette before she could crawl away…… except the panel was for the fan, and as another painful moan – a slightly louder moan – echoed up through the chamber, Ada knew she didn't have much time.
The dump, I can go through the dump, circle back around through one of the tunnels…
Even as she thought it, she was jogging for the west ladder, hoping that the pitiful scientist was injured enough to stay down for a minute or two. There was a small balcony at the end of the bridge that looked over the dump, and the metal ladder hung down from an opening at the far right. Ada lowered herself down as quickly as she could, dropping the last several feet onto a cement landing. The dumping area was a large boxy room, the walls heaped with industrial debris – smashed crates, rust– ing pipes, wire-encrusted panels, and rotting card-board. She stepped off the landing and into almost three feet of black sludge, the cold, gooey muck rising up to her thighs. She didn't care, she only wanted to get to the lady Birkin, to bring an end to her time in Raccoon -
– except something moved. Beneath the opaque and stinking liquid, something big moved. Ada saw what might have been a reptilian spine slice through the murk in front of her, saw and heard a stack of boards topple into the water some ten feet away in the same instant.
You gotta be kidding me…
Whatever it was, it was big enough to change her mind about the hurry she was in to get to Annette. Ada backed to the platform and boosted herself up, never taking her gaze from the indeterminate shape as it curled back through the lapping sludge…… and rose up in a sudden, violent spray of dark– ness, coming straight at her. Ada raised the Beretta and started to fire.
There was a tiny elevator platform in one corner of the empty conference room, a square of metal that apparently went down. Claire hurried toward it, fetid water dripping from her clothes, feeling horribly lost and anxious to keep moving, to find Sherry.
Please be alive, baby, please…
She'd found the drainage hole, but no Sherry and after agonizingly long moments of screaming into the rushing water, of trying to squeeze into the tiny hole, she'd forced herself to abandon the effort. Sherry was gone, maybe drowned, maybe not, but unless the flow of water suddenly decided to reverse itself, she wasn't coming back. Claire found the controls for the one-man lift and punched a button. A hidden motor whirred and the lift descended, inching down through the floor, proba-bly taking her to some other empty hall, some other blank and unknown room – or worse, directly into the path of yet another unnatural creature. She clenched her damp hands in frustration as the lift slid slowly down, wishing that it was faster, that there was some way to speed up her search. She felt like she was running blind, taking whatever path was in front of her; from the tunnel where Sherry had been lost, she'd found a dimly lit corridor and then the unadorned and somehow sterile conference room. It was like an endless funhouse – sans fun – and she was feeling pretty shitty for bringing Sherry into it; if the girl was dead, it would be her fault… She shut down the futile thinking before it got any farther, making herself focus. Self-recrimination was a killer, and she couldn't afford it. The elevator was lowering into a hall, and she crouched down, pointing Irons's heavy gun in front of her as her new surround– ings rose into view. The concrete corridor had another lift at the other end, and was intersected by a second hall, maybe forty feet away and next to the junction there was a body propped against one cement wall, what looked like a cop… She felt a mix of shock and distress, her eyes widening as she took in the cop's slack features, the hair color, the build…
… that's… Leon?
Before the lift hit the floor, Claire jumped off and ran toward the crumpled figure. It was Leon, and he wasn't moving, either unconscious or dead, but no, he was breathing, and as she crouched in front of him, his eyes flickered open. His hand was high on his left arm, his fingers wet with blood. "Claire?" His blue eyes seemed clear, tired but aware.
"Leon! What happened, are you okay?"
"I got shot, must've blacked out for a minute…"
He carefully took his hand away, exposing a small ragged hole just above his armpit, oozing red. It looked painful, but at least it wasn't gushing. Wincing, Leon pulled the shredded fabric of his uniform over the hole and put his hand back over it.
"Hurts like all hell, but I think I'll survive – Ada, where's Ada?"
The last was delivered almost frantically, Leon struggling to push himself away from the wall. With a soft groan, he fell back, obviously in no shape to move. "Lie still, just rest for a minute," Claire said. "Who's Ada?" "I met her at the station," he said. "I couldn't find you, and we heard that you can get out of Raccoon through the sewers. The city's not safe, there was some kind of a leak at the Umbrella lab, and Ada wanted to leave right away. Somebody shot at us, and I got hit – Ada went after the shooter, down that hall, she said it was a woman…"
He shook his head as if to clear it, then frowned up at her. "I have to find her. I don't know how long I was out, but not more than a couple of minutes, she can't have gone far…"
He started to sit forward again and Claire stopped him, pushing him back gently. "I'll go. I… I was with this little girl, and she's lost somewhere in the sewers. Maybe I can find both of them."
Leon hesitated – then nodded, resigning himself to his injury. "How's your ammo?" "Uh, seven in this one…" She patted the weapon that she'd taken from the squad car, tucked in her belt. It suddenly seemed like a million years ago, that wild ride. "…and seventeen in this one." She held up Irons's gun, and Leon nodded again, his head rolling back tiredly. "Okay, that's good. I should be able to follow in a few minutes… be careful, alright? And good luck."
Claire stood up, wishing that they had more time. She wanted to tell him about Chris, about Irons and Mr. X and the T-Virus, she wanted to find out what he knew about Umbrella, or if he knew the way out of the sewers, but this Ada might be facing down a sniper right now, and Sherry could be anywhere. Anywhere at all. Leon had closed his eyes. Claire turned and started down the intersecting hall, wondering if any of them had a chance to make it out of this madness alive.
TWENTY-TWO
Annette hurt all over. she sat up slowly, feeling sick from the seeming hundreds of aches and pains that yammered for her attention. Her neck and stomach hurt, she'd jammed her right wrist, both knees felt like they were swelling, but it was the sharp pain in her right side that was the worst, because she thought she might have cracked or even broken a rib.
You horrible, horrible woman…
Annette leaned back, supporting her strained neck with her uninjured hand, but saw only metal and shadow; Ada Wong, the bitch from Umbrella, had apparently run away. She'd pretended not to know anything, but Annette wasn't stupid; Ada was proba– bly already on her way to the lab or coming after her, anxious to finish her off.