Resident Evil 1. The Final Solution

Gionne Supermax Penitentiary was an intercepted apology by the United States—an apology the irate ministries of West Africa quietly rejected at the Gionne family's offer to build a prison to hold a sole occupant: "the world's most nefarious terrorist". The tri level penitentiary housed the aforementioned terrorist in the pits of the earth, built in Alcatraz fashion in the midst of the Pacific, just barely visible from the coastline, shrouded behind the ever present veil of sea born mists. From its rocky and towering cliff side sharply plunging into a bottomless ocean, heavily armed marines were on constant patrol; the supermax prison was surely so failsafe that their only service seemed to allow admission to breach the invisible sea space to well paying seamen. Access on and off the island was limited to air traffic.

Leading scientists on site toiled in silence, producing things of clandestine value, somehow unconditionally backed by certain US statuses with a hand in the stocks. Political and economic conspiracies abound, the facility was brilliantly and dangerously built with enough explosives to level the island, should the sole occupant defy all odds, all manner of architectural design and failsafe technologies and man power and manage to escape. It was not a task too daunting for the occupant. Though there was nothing attractive about the gray, block- like jutting structure, coastline viewfinders raked in a fine penny for a glimpse at the prison name alone adorning the outside wall simply because of whom it housed. And with the name came the nod of thanks to the beneficiaries while an unknown percentage of revenue was donated to rebuild Kijuju in the guise of American charity.

Father Gordon was a slight little man of the cloth in his seventies with misty, contemplative eyes and a long, pale face. While he was stupefied with thought, he seemed anxious to depart and flew through the security gate with inadvertent disregard. A reluctant guard stopped him for a pat down. Though he was compliant enough, it seemed rather sacrilegious to question the piety of a man of cloth by subjecting him to a pat down. To remedy the awkward situation, the guard directed a question at him, snapping him from a thoughtful trance not uncommon of the perceptive priest.

"How did it go?"

His response was unexpected considering the source, but not surprising given the subject.

He replied in a hapless tone that steadily soured. "In all my years of counsel I have never met a more debase and immoral creature. If anything he has reaffirmed my faith; an evil so profound must have an antithesis. It is the balance of nature. I spoke into a void and my words returned to me empty. And never even an utterance of rebuttal! One of comparable nature had been thrust from paradise already. If he has taken a form of all the vices of man that representation sits anticipating his execution to return home to his lake of fire. There is no place for him in paradise, no patience for him in purgatory. It is the humble opinion of this priest that Albert Wesker is a Godless man!"

He ended in a huff, snapping his arms down to his sides again. The guard had no words for him. His silence condoned his opinion. He watched Father Gordon gather his belongings from the security desk before stammering after him as he was halfway out the door,

"Will you be at the execution?" At the moment, it didn't seem likely.

"If the state wills it," He returned. He bristled past Chris Redfield with barely an audible pardon.

Chris couldn't hide his contempt, either. It made little sense for tax payers' money to sustain a _man_—a term he used loosely and always with heavy disdain—that shat in a Plexiglas toilet. The same security guard met him with the handheld metal detector and a crooked smile. Chris didn't even bother to oblige. He had been invited to the island and already he had been through so much security that they had taken the change in his pockets. What were they expecting now? A gun? There weren't any guns, per se, on the island. Brooding vents were ready to discharge mephitic gas, sprinkler systems offered sterilizing agents, flammable, and the only projectiles were needle tipped vials with enough tranquilizers to kill a herd of elephants.

The guard relented and beckoned Chris to follow him through the security gate into Subsector B. So far, Gionne Supermax, or G. SM, was more laboratory than prison. The above ground level was sectored off and more technical personnel wandered about in plain clothes with security cards clipped to their outerwear than did guards and now. The sweeping hallway he was walking through was littered with rotating security cameras, whirring in their efforts to keep pace with him.

The door to the witness room the guard held open for him, and Chris passed the threshold where few state selected individuals would entre to bear witness to the death of a tyrant in the coming days. It was a decent sized room, breaking standards, and crisp with the evidence of either recent construction or lack of habitation. Chris suspected the latter. The room on the other side of the one-way mirror was dark.

Doctor Frazier Lund, the biochemist who arranged to meet with him was sitting alone in one of the chairs, legs lapped at the knee, unkempt and sullen. He had the weight of a burden on his shoulders, and they hung forward under its heaviness. The man before him was aging early in his troubles. He wasn't a day over forty-four, but his graying temples and gathers of worry lines on his forehead catapulted Chris' guess into the early fifties.

When Chris entered he got up stiffly to meet him with an odd greet,

"I'm up for a Nobel Prize in my field." The two shook hands briefly. He offered Chris a seat and sank back into his. "And yet, I need your help."

"I'm not a scientist." Chris returned, crossing his arms. His defiant position didn't discourage his wayward company.

"I'm commissioned by the state and ordered by the US Department of Defense to develop the lethal injection for Albert Wesker. Do you know how hard it is to kill a man who can't seem to die?"

Chris, sardonic, shrugged his shoulders. "I can't imagine."

"You can't shoot him…he's immune to disease…his body composition is foreign to us. We've tried in vain to kill the virus via radiation. A technique that worked for former President Graham's daughter and Leon Kennedy but the contraindications only opened a profitable market in pharmaceuticals—as you may know. It did nothing for the subject at hand." Lund wasn't even looking at Chris. He was staring down between his legs rambling into his gesturing hands. Yes, the resulting sterility of Leon Kennedy had urged the hand of the European government to extract the plagas from the ganados by any means necessary and tame it enough to safely offer the imbecile version to the public as an acceptable form of birth control. The then President's daughter, dubbed a mule by the media, already tormented by her own traumas, met her grave early. Lund continued.

"I haven't done anything spectacular. There is no genius involved in The Final Solution."

Here, Chris interrupted his soliloquy. "What are you referring to?"

Lund looked up at him from over his wire framed glasses. "Oh, sorry. It's what we call the lethal injection we've developed. All it is, Mr. Redfield, is a hyper-concentrated version of the PG67A/W. You can take it to the press and finish me, but if it doesn't work, I'm prepared for a quite ignominious dismissal."

Chris unfolded his arms and started at what Lund had admitted. "You mean you aren't certain if it works?"

"And how can I be? It's not like we can try it out." He turned to Chris desperately, finally asking the question he didn't have the pluck to ask over a monitored telephone line. "I just want to know what to expect. What happened when you injected him the first time?"

Chris' mouth opened but the words died before they left his lips. What happened was an immediate evolution that nearly cost him his life. If The Final Solution was nothing more than ironic, he doubted the failsafe ingenuity of G. SM. He doubted any feeble manner of incapacitating Wesker. The mere thought of failure was enough to shift his mood from dispassionate to high anxiety. Suddenly, he was sharing the fears of the despondent scientist.

Chris never answered him, although his response was anticipated. When some seconds ticked by in silence, Lund didn't push him. Defeated, he had nothing to offer Chris but an opportunity.

"Do you want to see him?"

Chris' yes had him traveling down an elevator with the erratic Lund, taking to raking his hands through his thinning hair in nervous habit and jittering about from the effects of sleeplessness. Did he _really _want to see Albert Wesker? He didn't anticipate the privilege, if one could call it that. He hadn't seen more than a glimpse of him on television, but the same fascination that tempts the moth to the flame coerced Chris to see the monster, prowling about his Plexiglas prison in stalker fashion. He followed Lund through a narrow hallway in the Subterranean Sector where all the guards on the island had been saved for duty, each greeting him with a passing salute. His fame preceded him in most his trespasses. He returned the gesture heartily to hide his trembling hands. At long last, the door to a control room slid open and the pale faces of attending personnel greeted him with surprise. He was an outsider stumbled upon the tribe of never before discovered natives, and they all scrutinized him with the same eerie fascination.

One wall of the large room was made entirely of twelve foot thick tempered glass, providing the only view of the caged Albert Wesker. His cell was spacious, immaculately clean, with the bare essentials; a bed with pristine white sheets; a central desk and chair bolted to the floor by unseen means; a bookshelf pushed up against the wall, and a suspended television with a shattered screen. In his cell also hugging the four corners were security cameras, and the same vents that hung menacingly overhead on every floor. The famed Plexiglas toilet at the foot of the bed was unblemished. The cell was distractingly bright from ceiling lights and the pensive sole occupant sat comfortably in the chair next to the table, dressed in a white uniform, nearly as white as his own skin, blond hair neatly brushed back away from his face and molten red eyes ahead.

Though he was doing nothing, his calm pose and calculating eyes fixed on the glass wall in front of him as though he was aware he was being watched and perhaps intentionally, he unsettled the entire room. His ankle was lapped over his knee, his hands cupped his elbows and he sat as a king on his throne, almost catatonic, with all the patience afforded to Job. If he was aware he was set to die in a few days, he was unaffected. There was no satisfactory remorse or angst about him and Chris found the rest of his body trembling to match his hands. His complexion drained, his heart beat just a little faster, and had not the fear of shame sobered him he would have passed out. Remarkably, understandably, after all these years, Chris was still afraid. Lund, having been well acquainted with Wesker and his antics, seemed the only one unimpressed.

Lund gestured toward him. "There he is in all his glory, sitting mockingly," he muttered.

Chris approached the glass slowly. The cell was on a platform three feet off the ground and separated by machinery designed to monitor or subdue the prisoner with a touch of a button.

"C-can he see me?" Chris stammered.

Lund shook his head. "I would venture to guess no. If seeing you couldn't get a rise out of him, I don't know what could. His holding isn't designed for him to see _us_ anyhow."

It was one thing to be this close to his nemesis, and it unnerved him, but Wesker was a living enigma and from fear Chris set his mind upon one very obvious thing. Lund must have read his mind.

"You're wondering why he hasn't aged? Well, Uroboros is preserving him in the same state the virus was introduced to him. He doesn't thirst or tire. I haven't seen him close his eyes for more than a minute at any time. He doesn't eat anything. We haven't fed him in eight years."

Chris pocketed his hands. It wasn't enough to know that the lethal drug was only presumed, experimental, potential in a vial—but to see the smug Wesker perched in a simple desk chair defying time swung another blow. He was untouched by the years, unblemished, physically faultless and without vulnerability. Chris was biologically older than Wesker.

"What happened to the TV?"

"He broke it."

"How do you get in the room?"

Lund shrugged. "We have to gas him. But the window of opportunity is small. Oh—" He walked over to one of the supercomputers, "And he doesn't respond to anything." He pushed the intercom button and spoke into it, an action that had Chris holding his breath as if the slightest particle of speech would give away his presence. The dreary control room natives joined him in a communal hush.

"Albert? Is there anything you want?" He held down the button for a few moments in wait of a response but all that returned to him was the ominous silence he expected. If Wesker had heard him, he played well a deaf man. Lund released the intercom and looked to Chris.

"I would agree our approach isn't humanitarian but I'm not sure if he is even human anymore. Come his execution, he will either slip away silently, or endure insufferable pain—the latter I hope to avoid in face of the press. Assuming The Final Solution works."

But there was no room for assumption, just absolution. Chris could not tear his eyes away from the living horror; seeing him set his mind back to the day of their last confrontation. Albert Wesker was a volatile substance. The potential behind that glass wall was a sleeping giant. Chris forced himself to look up into the amber eyes of his nemesis, ignoring the shudder that passed through him but he could not bear the torment that he had bullied himself into enduring. He turned away just as Wesker repositioned himself—a simple movement of un-lapping his legs that drummed up more attention from his audience than necessary. Chris had had enough.

"Dr. Lund?"

Lund, rubbing his sleepy red eyes, adjusted his glasses and lit up again with anxious hope of a helpful word. "Yes?"

"Do not fail."


	2. The Contraindications of Success

George Jeffreys Park, with its manicured lawns, intricate flower gardens and mobile food venues within a coastal jogging path and numerous playgrounds, was usually a scene of political protest and heavy debate due to the local university providing hordes of mildly informed but deeply passionate students. Today was no different. The mild weather and cloudless afternoon sun had cast a spotlight of encouragement on the centre of the park where tables and park benches sufficed as platforms for a throng of debating poly-sci students, littered about the bronze statue of the park's namesake. With Albert Wesker's pending execution, the subject of his handling was hot on everyone's lips.

Chris, with mild disgust, was sprawled about a park bench paying half a mind to the bullshit that was coming out of the pro-life debaters. If they had only turned from themselves and saw him, he would doubtlessly be invited to defend his actions and those of his compatriots in the BSAA that faithful day of capture he did not care to relive.

The woman he had come to meet was circling around the crowd, auburn hair tucked neatly behind her ears and her hands crammed into the pockets of her beige blazer. He could spot her from a mile away and stood to meet her as she approached, greeting her with a kiss that grazed across her forehead.

"Claire," he mumbled, propping his chin atop her head as she came in for a hug. She pushed back from the embrace and looked at him with a withering smile.

"Uh- oh. I don't like the way that came out."

Chris sat back down with a sigh. "Am I that obvious?"

She nodded, resorting not to sit. "Yeah. You are. How did it go?" Then, as if she just realized what the students were debating, she coaxed him to his feet with a gesture. "Walk with me." She didn't care to hear the bullshit, either.

She hooked elbows with her brother as they started off, easing past the joggers and children streaming by with balloon trails. Their usual destination was just up ahead.

"I'm duty bound to remain quiet about most things, but considering this was a private invite, I'll have you know I have zero confidence in the days to come."

She whipped her head to look at him. "You're kidding?"

Chris shook his head. "I wish I was. Don't be surprised if he gets a 'stay of execution.' It'll be a cover for the fact that they still can't figure out how to kill the bastard."

"Wow. That's disappointing."

Chris shrugged. "You know I wish tomorrow was already behind me. This long-winded chapter of my life is finally closing."

Claire nodded. "Here's hoping it all works out. His death will mean a lot to even people the world over. He's about as famous as Christ but for all the wrong reasons. Look at this." She handed him a flyer someone had tucked under her windshield wipers.

"World Liberation Day? A celebration of triumph in the face of tyranny?" Chris scoffed and handed her back the flyer. "That's a nice way of celebrating Wesker's death. Anyway, I hope he kicks in the worst way possible. I'd be a much happier man with this stain gone."

"Would you?" Came the skeptical reply. "I haven't seen you happy in a long time."

Chris unraveled his arm from hers as they approached the ice cream stand. He shoved his hands into the pockets of his black windbreaker. It was his way of distancing himself from the subject. "Whatever, Claire," he mumbled.

She lifted her hands innocently and shrugged. "Just stating the facts."

"Order what you want," he said dryly.

She didn't attend to the dark mood that suddenly took him. By now, she was used to it. She ordered for the both of them and stood by idly with a waffle cone in each hand, watching him sift though his wallet for cash. When he rejoined her, perched atop the railing of a bicycle rack, the conversation only got worse. She handed him the cone. "So, did you accept the job over in Africa?"

A week ago, he had been offered a one year stint at the West African branch to train the BSAA agents there. He had purposefully postponed a response he knew immediately to be a no to feign indecision. Shortly after he walked out of the main office he put the thought out of his mind but not before he had touched on it with Claire. She had apparently not forgotten.

He leaned against the bike railing. "What the hell's in Africa for me, Claire?"

She shrugged again. "Oh, I dunno. Two years salary packed into one. Great benefits, a much needed change of pace and location. An opportunity to come back and start your life over..."

Chris was shaking his head all the while. "I'm not doing it, Claire."

"Why not?"

When he didn't answer, she didn't back down. It wasn't like her to tip-toe around the difficult, especially when it came to Chris. In his silence he had taken to devouring the cone to hurry along their meeting. Claire coolly enjoyed her ice cream despite her brother's agitation. She knew it was not the distance or the change he was afraid of.

"It's just a drug test, Chris."

"Forget it, Claire. Africa isn't me. I've been there. It just isn't me."

At that, with a huff and all her defiant nature, she took hold of his arm and drew up the sleeve to his windbreaker, exposing the dotted red flesh on the inside of his elbow before he could react.

"No, _this_ isn't you!" She expressed at the reveal. Chris drew away from her as though she had struck him and covered his arm again in one swift motion. The cone he had left in his hand toppled onto the ground and he stood glaring at her and she at him, unfazed by his scornful looks. He wanted to reprimand her, to shout at her for judging him without words, to accuse her of not understanding but her eyes dancing with tears forced him to surrender his anger. Claire could subdue with him a glance and she did so now, daring him to break his glare. He did as she expected. Her appetite lost, she threw her cone into the overfilled trashcan nearby and wiped the spilling tears away with the backs of her hands.

She felt the onslaught of a breakdown she didn't want to express rising within her. She could only turn away from him to hide her frailty.

Chris didn't have words to comfort her and she didn't want any. He couldn't have said anything to soothe the way she was feeling now. She wanted to be stern with him but instead, the courage she felt she had to confront him about this problem had abandoned her. She couldn't do this after all. He tried to stop her from turning away but she pushed him off and disappeared in the crowd at a pace too steady for him to match.

* * *

"Well, if it isn't the great Chris Redfield," a mocking voice greeted long before he had even noticed the speaker, leaning against the doorway of a two story Americana with a cigarette in hand. He felt his cheeks reddening.

Jill snapped her fingers and rolled her eyes upward in thought. "What was it that they called you? Chris the Conqueror?"

He nodded to humor her, although he was hardly in the mood. He watched his footing ascending the steps from where his car was parked at the curb. The stone walkway was crumbling and overrun with crab grass. The shutters hung on their last hinges crackling with want of paint and the lawn hid abandoned garden tools and litter. It was hard to believe that he used to live there but lack of residency didn't stop him from detouring off the pathway to scoop up the trash in the yard. Jill watched him carelessly and flicked the embers of her cigarette into the coming dusk.

"The yard looks like shit, I know," she admitted as he approached. It wasn't far removed from the owner. Jill had not aged well, partially because of her habits, partially because of her depression, and partially because of their tempestuous last years. Her eyes were heavy and weak, her unkempt hair was pulled back into a careless pony tail and her abused figure lay hidden under a dirty robe she drew closed as often as possible. Her voice dragged when she spoke, except for now because she was slurring like a drunk.

Chris could not bear to look at what had become of her, so he didn't. He eased past her into the house and into the kitchen to dispose of the trash in his hands. Everything was much of the same. She followed him in and ousted her cigarette on the kitchen table as she sat. He opened his wallet and dropped a wad of cash in front of her. She lifted her brows in surprise and coughed into her hands.

"That's an awful lot of cash."

"That's for the mortgage." He looked about the dark kitchen and vainly flipped the light switch on the wall. "And fix the lights," he added.

"Such a boy scout."

He found himself lingering to watch her light up another cigarette between two frail fingers with aversion. There had once been a time his eyes touched her with adoration. It was long before her debut post Wesker, when at her request he revealed the body beneath the ExoSkin. There was barely a patch of skin that wasn't discolored with the memory of assault. Blue-black bruises fanned across her abdomen, yellowing at the edges. Her back was textured by bloody lesions, trailing down her spine. Prosecuting imprints of her abuser circled her arms in rich purple, pronounced and telling. Every mark held a story of her torture, misshaping her frame with a displaced rib, a jutting collarbone or a dimple where a bone had once offered support. He did not shun her even after she resisted him. The war she raged against herself following her liberty was something he could not live with.

Jill exhaled a great cloud of smoke with a relaxing sigh before fixing her eyes on him. He spoke first.

"Are you going to Wesker's execution?"

Her eyes widened a bit at the mention as though he had said something blasphemous. Mentioning the name of her abuser was one in the same as far as she was concerned. It was taboo, forbidden and worthy of condemnation; a name if innocently uttered in her presence would leave the offender walking on eggs shells after she'd flown off the handle. Chris was half expecting her to curse him, his mother, the day his mother met his father and the day they laid down together. Instead, her head dipped a bit and she pulled the cigarette out from her lips.

She hadn't given much thought to the fact that Wesker would be no more in a couple of days. What difference would it make if he were alive or dead now? Her life was in fragments. His death would do nothing to smooth the flesh on her chest or erase the memory of his torment from her mind. If sitting front and center at his execution would remedy her shattered life, she would have pushed for the day to come sooner. But it wouldn't. She felt the corners of her lips trembling.

Chris scolded himself for forgetting to mind his words. He continued despite the faux par as though he hadn't disrupted her mood, sans apology.

"If you change your mind—"

"I don't care to see him. Dead or alive," she resolved. He nodded acceptingly, tracing her with his eyes. He couldn't stand more than a few minutes with her corpse, as he considered her, and so with a push off from the wall his visit was over. He made a detour to her kitchen counter and with a practiced sweep, casually pilfered a few stray packets of tricodone she had littered among the menagerie of prescription drugs splayed about the counter top.

He breezed past her in a pace hastened by anticipation. He left her, somber, in the kitchen sucking furiously on the cigarette and pulling her robe together as the coming night slid into the kitchen to consume her in a loneliness she would not be aware of.

* * *

Chris's one room apartment was spacious and loaded with potential. Had he the interest in capitalizing on it, the tower of unpacked boxes hugging the corners of his living room, bedroom and hallways would have been gone the first month he moved into the apartment. But that was months ago, and the integrity of the cardboard boxes had buckled under the pressure of the collapsing boxes atop it, offering a glance at its long forgotten contents. It didn't seem necessary to unpack. He would rummage through the box marked "kitchen" for an oven mitt if ever he needed one, or drag out a clean sheet for his bed from the "bedroom" box if the one he had now succumbed to over-washing.

He was sitting on the couch in his living room brooding over the Time magazine depicting his younger image. "The Heroes of Our Time," it read. Chris, in BSAA attire, was posed with an M9 just above his shoulder and Sheva was pressed against his back just emerging from the shadows with a pump action shotgun resting at her side. The message in their image was subtle: He was indexing his gun to signify the lack of necessity in deadly force and her safety was on; the nightmare was over as announced below their image: Albert Wesker Apprehended by BSAA.

He was hailed; he'd met the President; his status elevated. Conversely, the human revolutionists burned his image, his aggrandized heroic status was considered the absurd creation of Republican over imagination and his fame subsided after many years ticked by as the press overshadowed his success with new worries.

Just in time, too.

Kijuju had rendered him helplessly addicted to painkillers. After relying on so many sticks to abate his pain, he was one in the same with the tricodone prescribed to the dissolving Jill Valentine.

The little flat, white plastic vial had two vampyric prongs jutting from the top once he snapped the protective hood from the packet with his teeth. He yanked up his sleeve to expose the clammy forearm begging for the bittersweet relief the tricodone had to offer. His veins seemed to jump forth at the prospect but even in the dark, Chris could find them with the ease and professionalism of an addict. The dual pinprick went into his flesh in a flash, pulsing the painkiller into his veins. The little empty packet fluttered to the floor.

Tiny holes dotted the inside of his elbow like a rash; the only evidence of his drug use. It was easily concealed with the roll of his sleeve. The packet he would flush with revulsion. Shame now, would be the only evidence staining his conscience.

He hunched over his knees a moment more with his fingers knitted, fighting disappointment. There was nothing like betraying your own moral code. His self-pity was born of depression, abhorred by the ego, aborted by a numbing conscience and dead by the time he drove the prongs into his skin. He got up to draw the vertical blinds closed over his balcony door. He didn't want God to see him.


	3. View To A Killing

The witness chamber was buzzing with press scribbling obscure notes on prison issued paper pads. Absurd questions were met with drab responses from the prison superintendent who didn't have the decency to stand up out of his folding chair to address the press. Albert Wesker had not requested a last meal. In fact, he hadn't done anything worth the mention in the past seventeen years far less in the final few hours of his life. He didn't dismiss or welcome the chaplain but had a lengthy shower as usual that morning. The Wesker fanatics—and there were many with an unhealthy fascination for all things Wesker if not just for the sake of pontificating his motives—would read a disappointing press release. Dr. Lund managed to be more pallid and removed than before, trying to phase into the corner of the witness room under heavy press questioning. His stammered responses were detached and vague and soon he was scurrying out of the room with a warden in tow. He barely touched eyes in familiarity with Chris before disappearing into the anteroom. Chris was unmoved and as usual, vehemently resisting interviews. Perhaps it was a bad idea to get there so early, by nearly two hours, but it seemed a better alterative than sitting at home twiddling his thumbs in anxious anticipation

Chris wandered back outside though a side exit that offered stairs up to a large helipad where he had entered not long ago. A small police chopper was whirling in for landing as he ascended the narrow stairwell, already corroding from the sea air. He made it onto the helipad just as it had landed, the figure of a familiar plain clothed man dropping from the hold before the landing skids touched down.

He had known Josh Stone when they were younger men of thirty-five, seasoned field veterans sealed in a fraternity of tragedy and success, bonded by their experiences and cursed as a result but still, Josh Stone had never been a dour or depressed man and his resilience was made known to Chris from even that distance of fifteen or more yards that impressed upon Josh's dark face was the tranquility of a blessed life. Chris rubbed at his spotted arms beneath this sleeves as if he considered himself the alternative. Josh recognized him immediately and started jogging toward him with a welcoming air. Chris moved to bridge the distance with his hand extended and a crooked grin on his face.

Josh took his hand only to pull him into a crushing hug. Chris was off his feet and floating in his clutches, impressed that he could move him this way. When Josh set him down they joined hands again, shouting their greetings as the chopper blades wound to a stop.

The magnitude of seeing Josh suddenly standing there, a man he held great respect for but only thought of in connection to a certain absentee partner of long ago left him with nothing better to say other than, "Josh Stone…you haven't aged a day."

Josh's handsome dark eyes flashed at the compliment. Despite having not seen him in nearly two decades, the only evidence of the years were at the slight gathers in the corners of his eyes. It made him very endearing and distinguished, suiting the genial and light-hearted Josh. Aside from a few stray gray hairs dotting his stubble, he was more or less the same man he parted ways with all those years ago: the master of a soothing smile, an emotionally disciplined leader and a quietly intelligent man.

"Likewise, Chris. I think you feared better than I did." A few deflated muscles and a peppered head of hair hadn't aged Chris much either. He had a pocket of frown lines in his cheeks where his smile ended but it was otherwise invisible. They bridged the years of separation with conversation that flowed harmoniously between the two men. Chris had never been keen on writing letters; Josh never answered e-mails and whatever became of Sheva, Josh painted in blasé flair in one of their last e-mails:

"Sheva and I are doing great."

Envy, disinterest or whatever the case may be had Chris shut his heart and his correspondence with him. Now, the subject of their last e-mail had exited the helicopter and was making her way toward the two of them with a lackluster saunter that made Chris impatient. The more she took her time the greater his heart raced and already he was irritated with her for not running, leaping, flying or streaming into his arms as he so wished she had the urge to do. In any case, when she approached, he met her with the eagerness she appeared to stifle.

"Sheva? He sucked her into his arms and spun her around while Josh stood off chuckling lightly at his folly. He framed her face in his hands to gaze into the smiling hazel eyes he remembered— only they were brown. He digressed immediately at the realization.

"I'm _not_ Sheva." The girl in his arms was in good humor despite the mix up. Chris' smile faded slightly as the young woman backed out of his embrace. "I'm Nadia."

"This is our daughter," Josh corrected, draping an arm around the retreating girl's shoulders. Chris felt cold cocked with the news. When had they had a daughter? A young woman? By the way Josh had circled the girl in his arms, he was enamored with her and Nadia seemed to relish in all the spoiled, tender affections being daddy's little girl afforded. At a glance, he knew all at once her entire person. He knew she was emotionally driven and often persuaded or misled by relying on those fleeting emotions but her stubborn nature would render her blind to accepting this truth. He knew her surely as if her glance had telepathically implanted her life's depth and breadth in his mind and he_ knew_ this because he was—more or less— staring at a Sheva he had missed knowing by just a few years.

She was petite in frame, though she may have bested Sheva in height a few inches. Her delicate features and fine mouth mimicked the same smile and enchanting accent as her mother and her soft, brown eyes were telling and hypnotically familiar. Had she not shared Josh's eyes, Chris would suspect he hadn't a thing to do with her. Chris was flabbergasted, and when he came back to himself he recognized an attraction. His stomach knotted into a fist.

The subject of his inspection was doing her own evaluation of the near stranger before her; he was attractive to her though not physically, although she did think the older man somewhat handsome, with his large American frame and serious features. It was the manufactured stillness about him that led her to observe a deepness that went beyond the picture the American media and her parents painted of him. The curious way they were examining one another begged for an interruption of sorts to break their observational silence.

"It's nice to finally meet you, Uncle," she offered. If Chris opened his mouth he would have arrested speech. His hands moved from his side to shake the hand she did not offer him but he quickly pocketed them instead and nodded, glad when she was first to move her eyes out of his.

Chris was so staggered by this Nadia that he barely noticed when the real Sheva stood beside him, her arms folded neatly across her chest, smirking at him and patiently awaiting recognition. She cleared her throat. Chris didn't go to her straight away. He had already wasted his enthusiasm on Nadia. He tried to suppress his grin anyhow and with a glance he transferred his affections from daughter to mother.

"Mr. Redfield," she greeted.

Chris dipped his head politely. "Mrs. Stone."

The charade ended with her in his arms. The eyes he remembered stared back into his with genuine adoration, a reflection she met in his own eyes. Sheva had not acknowledged the years. She had always been younger than he and Josh but even still it didn't seem to matter that time had passed. If anything, the spirited young agent then had simply and calmly transitioned into motherhood and the role of a wife with the serenity of glass. She was still delicate, she was still a beauty but the eagerness and ferocity of her youth had been bottled. Sheva was quiet storm. He lifted her hands to his face and surveyed them but he was not interested in their condition. He passed a thumb over the wedding band and smiled at her.

"It suits you," he complimented, feeling a pang of resentment he thought long buried resurfacing. She looked over at his own ring, symbolically linking him to Jill Valentine and nodded.

"You too." If it was contrived, he would never know.

Their lips touched gently, and she buried herself into his chest again, inhaling the long forgotten scent of him. It seemed no time had passed between them at all.

The execution of Albert Wesker started promptly at 10:00am. The chatter in the witness room subsided the moment the lights in the execution chamber came on, revealing to their disappointment a relatively empty room save for the sole green reclining chair where Wesker would be strapped down. Chris had settled in beside Sheva after Josh had claimed his position between the two women; Nadia, who was nonchalantly carrying on with a blithe fascination as though she was at the movies, and Sheva, who aside from Josh, were the only ones besides himself sitting tight-lipped and anxious. No one else could share their sentiments.

There was a muffled noise from the anteroom and then the adjoining door came open and in wheeled Albert Wesker, limp, unconscious, and strapped to a gurney. He was attended by three medical personnel who were hastily unbinding him before he was even fully stopped. Curious witnesses rose from their seats to get a cleaner view of the shockingly ageless villain but when their murmuring grew into exclaim and questioning, it only threw the Superintendent into a composed rage. He demanded pin-drop silence or threatened to escort out any offenders.

Chris tensed in his seat. His heart and his stomach traded places seeing the swift handling of the damned. Lund had told him their window of opportunity was small when it came to handling Wesker and the truth of this matter was evident now in the way they transported him from gurney to chair. He was no sooner strapped in than the button down front of his white uniform top was torn open. A rumble of surprise disturbed the room. Dr. Lund, sitting nearest to the Superintendent was liable to pass out at any moment. His fingers were locked in his hair and his complexion was draining by the second.

The EKG leads were applied with professional speed, and two of the three medical personnel scurried out of the room while the third retreated into the corner near the chaplain who was adhered to his black Bible, eyes large and fixed on the situation before him. From Wesker there came a growl-like groan that could only be recognized as his coming to. His head bent forward onto his chest, ceased to loll and right itself momentarily.

Had he been offered any last words they would have been garbled and insensible, nonetheless the denied opportunity would make headlines. Those anticipating a quote worthy soliloquy from the condemned met crushing disappointment. Dr. Lund and Chris seemed to be sharing a synapse. When Lund lurched forward in his seat with beads of sweat mounting at his temples, so Chris would mirror; the both of them unsettled for different reasons. Yes, Wesker deserved every agonizing last moments but Chris was the only one who could see his entire picture. He had known him when he was a man, a turncoat, a Captain. As a tyrant he detached the yolk of his humanity to play God and it was then that Chris began to loathe him. But hating him didn't make seeing the man-like figure semi-conscious of his fate any easier; capital punishment made just men cruel. Its legal brutality stirred the room as realization hit; and many, in opposition or disgust, gathered themselves and exited before the injection was even given.

Nadia seemed to take this realization hardest; upon seeing Wesker her curiosity was satiated and she immediately turned into Josh to shield her face from the moment. Josh held her against him, his resolve only a little jarred as he forced himself to watch it all to the bitter end. Sheva had her hand clasped with his and while she was erect and facing forward in her chair, her eyes were closed. Her other hand she offered Chris blindly and he accepted its need for solace, embracing her small hand with his clammy own.

Doctor Lund sucked in his bottom lip and chewed it as the Final Solution made its debut. The success of it determined his fate among controversial Nobel recipients, a position he coveted too much to be concerned with ethics, and so his writhing hands and baited breath had all to do with anticipation of success and none to do with the well-being of the humanoid tyrant. He threw himself out of his seat to pace along the wall in errant circles.

Wesker looked like an abandoned marionette with his nest of EKG leads leaping from his parted vest. The IV tubes in his arms ran casually down onto the floor and disappeared into the anteroom. It wasn't long before the little tubes dilated slowly from the wall and crept toward the awaiting Wesker with its venom en route.

All media had ceased to write to balance on the edges of their seats; Chris was crushing Sheva's hand unbeknownst to him, his tension sending her cues of the goings on as her eyes were still closed and Josh may have muttered an oath that sent his daughters face further into the recesses of his trembling arm.

The poison eased into Wesker just as he was coming to. He met his situation with immediate resistance. The chair rattled in opposition at his attempt at lifting his still sedated limbs but his restraints didn't give. The Final Solution's cruel entry darkened his veins. The black trail of its passage went unseen due to cover of his uniform. Minutes ticked by without response. Wesker tried again to lift free of his restraints. He jolted forward with a burst of sudden vigor; it was the will of the dying to resist death and as if freeing himself from the confines of his restraints would cheat his fate he raged against them. The unsettling popping of his wrist and arm straps threw the witness room into a panic. His free hand clawed desperately at the straps on his other arm only to abandon that task and reach down at the belt fastening him about the waist. But the Final Solution acted fast and he settled shortly after he'd started, ejecting his breath in a gust and his body became rigid. In seconds the expired Wesker was frozen in his position, lips parted, expression strained, complexion grey, fingers stapled to the straps about his waist and eyes peeled open staring into the eternal. Like dying embers, the once red glint of Uroboros in his eyes submitted to the darkened matte of death and the doctor pronounced him dead at 10:19am, folded over himself in a grand yet unsettling finish—almost as if, in his final act, he bowed to the crowd.

There was an expected hush that followed, as all present gathered the remains of their humanity nearly stifled out with the witnessing. Sheva relaxed only when Chris eased his grip. In a domino effect Josh signed when she loosened her hand and Nadia sat up and diverted her attention to the ceiling with trails of tears staining her cheeks until the lights closed and made her ignorant to Wesker's presence.

Lund was the only one suddenly ruddy and amiable with the smug superiority of one promised a Nobel Prize as he beckoned to the press to come to him. He gathered them like sheep around he and the unnerved Superintendant while grinning and shy of asking if they had enjoyed the show.

"Come, come. Any questions?"

Chris, nauseated, relieved, satisfied, disturbed— kept swallowing the rise of bile in the back of his throat and blinking away the emotion he threatened to share with Nadia.


	4. Rasputin Phenomenon

OMG i HATE this chapter but see my profile for chapter summaries.

A chaff grenade had gone off in the machinery of Nadia's mind. Perhaps it was worse as an auditory witness; every groan, utterance, and whisper was amplified in her ears and morphed by grim imaginations to fashion an execution far more grotesque than reality offered. In her country Albert Wesker had risen to the infamous ranks of tyrannical overlords before him, and the picture her parents and history had painted of this deceased man was the raw essence of nightmares. She hated the impact he left in her country but her learned disdain couldn't quell her naturally empathetic nature and she found herself feeling deeply distressed and ashamed of her former interest in his execution. A ghostly chill accompanied her troubling thoughts and she rose, unaware to her preoccupied parents entertaining the press to exit the witness room quietly.

Chris, who had been first to scribble his barely legible signature on the witness sheet, was tired of holding up the wall. He had become invisible amidst the squabbling press, questioning the now pompous Lund and new arrivals Josh and Sheva. He did see Nadia leave, as his eyes had been stapled to every subtle movement the girl had made since the conclusion of events. Perhaps it was concern that had him follow her out. When he found her on the helipad, arms folded atop the railing, gazing out at the watery landscape with a distraught expression, he hardly had the courage to approach her. But he drew to her unwillingly as the mesmerized tend to obey the allure of the charmer.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing…" Came her unconvincing reply. "I guess I just underestimated how I would feel. It was the right thing to do. Right?" She turned to her company for assurance.

Chris lifted his shoulders and let them fall. "If you're asking me if I believe in necessary evils, the answer is yes. But that's a moral discussion for your parents."

She accepted his answer with a nod though it was not good enough to deter her conclusion that it was murder despite the rumors that the deceased hadn't been human for some time. Despite it, no one had twisted her arm to attend, and though she had just squeaked by the legal age limit to witness, it was an opportunity to exercise the freedom her age permitted.

"So…I heard you got accepted into college." It was not a conversation Chris had hoped to have nor one he was interested in having. He only sought to distract Nadia's mindset.

Again, she nodded.

"Where did you apply?"

She rattled off a list of schools with a rather blasé flair. "SA-U, Cape Town University, Stellenbosch. Some US schools like Brown, Dartmouth—and Emery Riddle Aeronautical for shits. Baba didn't think it was very funny."

"_Baba?_" Chris echoed amidst a stifled chortle.

"Daddy," Nadia corrected to suit him. The tension in her face lightened a bit.

Chris was impressed with her selection. "Yeah? Did you get in?"

She wafted a hand at him as if the question was ludicrous. "Of course. I got into them all."

For all she was worth, the little thing exuded confidence to a cocky extent. It reminded Chris much of himself as a regular Air Force insubordinate but with less intellectual challenge to offer his superiors. It humored him. Their conversation fell flat in his reflection.

The inquisitive Nadia had the observational qualities of a detective. Chris was a despondent man despite the front he attempted. It was evident in the eyes he kept averting from her. At first she thought she made him uncomfortable and indeed she did, but his eyes drifted away to stare into nothingness. He may not have been aware, but only when she spoke did he pull them back to her.

"What's the matter?" She tried boldly. Her mother would have chided her for being forward.

He turned to her, an appreciative half smile flitting across his face. It was not right to burden this young girl with the tethers of his life; his anxiety was a well. Her attempt to either counsel or comfort him was not unappreciated though he met it with false apathy, derailing her question altogether with an observation.

"You remind me so much of your mother." She did.

To this, her almond brown eyes met his only a moment before rolling slightly in mild contempt. It couldn't have been any more obvious that he was avoiding the question, but she allowed it to deter her for his sake. From there, she branched off his statement into a conversation about his dramatized past— which he seemed to have a knack for disenchanting—and the clarity of her parent's own embellished heroics which Chris insisted was true. Their banter flowed easily as their conversation progressed into Nadia's mindful giggles from his persistent teasing. She leaned toward him when she laughed, hid her smile behind her hand often and nudged him playfully when he teased her. Chris did not return her playful nips although he felt he could have without consequence. Chris' own smile was very becoming —a genuine expression that faded the moment Josh's impatient voice intersected their conversation all too soon.

"Please, let us go. I have had enough of the American press." He was making a brisk beeline for the helicopter with Sheva in toe. He reached a hand toward Nadia and in a blink she had left Chris's side and joined her father and mother in haste. Sheva had beckoned to him with a gesture but it was Nadia's invitation that peeled him from the railing.

* * *

Chris leaned back in his wrought iron chair outside a curbside eatery, nursing a beer and a smile of feigned patience. He and his company were at the end of a long stretch of street of charming restaurants and inviting sports bars serenading passers-by with wafts of music from live bands. Their conversation had come to an immediate stand still amidst a sudden rush of communal celebration. Wesker's death had just been made public and every passing car honked in celebration to join the cheering bar goers, now whistling and dancing with strangers met huddled around venues with television sets. Someone rode by their table on a bike and showered them with confetti. Nadia was the only one of her company delighted while her parents accepted it all with mild amusement and Chris, her new novelty, only shared a genuine smile with her when he caught her gaze and softened his hard features for her sake. The commotion piqued her interest, and upon hearing of World Liberation Day, she excused herself from the table and went off with cab fare to the park, escaping the hum drum adult conversation her parents were without doubt going to have with Chris. The honking horns died out a few moments after she'd left.

Josh sat back watchfully the entire time, an unobtrusive spectator, balancing childishly on one leg of his chair. He had lost his wife to Chris. As the evening progressed, Sheva's chair gradually turned toward Chris' and soon, he was nesting his elbows on his knees to lean into her and progressively lower their voices as if their conversation was of clandestine nature. If they were willingly excluding him, it was successful. The overtone of dismay had been dominant until recently, when it seemed Chris and Sheva rekindled an interest in one another that time had not made extinct. He would have known jealously if he did not know better. Despite the mere tinge of desire to be a part of their subtle and unconscious caresses—gestures that came thoughtlessly— and inside jokes, his mind was too busy wrestling with the horror of witnessing the passing of Albert Wesker. A horror he wondered if he shared with his daughter as she had seemed unusually thoughtful and dreary until he resigned to let her go off to a park that celebrated his execution. A celebration he considered barbaric and antiquated to this type of society-though not uncommon in parts of the world where _he _was from, the whole thing had echoes of gladiatorial bloodlust of Roman times.

He fished a bent cigarette from his pant pocket and struck the stray match head against the pavement with professionalism. It earned a cutting glance from the corner of Sheva's eyes. His habit disrupted the flow of conversation she had with Chris immediately.

"Give me a break," he moaned upon sensing her disgust.

"Nadia will kill you." She reminded.

"Keep this secret for me?" He pleaded. "Chris, if I had another one I would offer it to you."

Chris sat back from Sheva finally and turned his chair toward the table again. "I don't smoke." But he did other things. His mind immediately went to the ache in the bend of his elbows. It had been hours since he last submitted to the tricodone and the thought alone stirred up the desire.

In an effort to include Josh and distract himself from the want of his addiction, Chris touched on a conversation he had had with Sheva earlier. "Josh, I can't help but feel you retired too early."

Josh gave Sheva a knowing glance. She would tell his life story to anyone with an ear. "Only from the Delta Team," He corrected. "Once our story went public, Tricell was scandalized. Of course they withdrew their funding to BSAA. The new beneficiaries were pushy and too involved. They wanted me out on the field all the time. I had a wife and child. What was I to do?"

Sheva made a failed attempt for the cigarette. He lifted his hand out of the way, playfully countered her and wrapped his arm around her shoulders. She settled contently against him much to Chris' chagrin. He diverted his eyes as if the moment would pass when he looked back at them.

"Listen, by the time the incident in Kijuju washed over, I had killed so many of my brethren it made me _sick_."

At this, he paused having grown somber in his recollection. He retreated into himself as the past played out behind his glassy eyes. He could not speak of his past without a degree of hurt that would engulf him. Josh had fought enough. Really, he had killed enough. A respectful silence Chris could emphasize with settled over them like a blanket. The embers of his cigarette dropped of their own accord before he spoke again.

"It is hard when you know the faces of the majini you have to kill." He took one last drag on the cigarette and flicked it into the wind. He unraveled his arm from around Sheva and excused himself. Chris watched him walk into the restaurant.

"I'm sorry I brought it up," He said sheepishly when Josh was out of earshot.

Sheva's hand found his and reassured him with a squeeze. "Don't be. Josh is remarkably resilient."

Chris nodded. He wanted to change the subject. "How long are you guys in town?"

"A few days more. Nadia's never been on American soil."

At the mention of his little love, Chris brightened considerably. "Amazing girl you got there. I think I have a crush on her," He admitted. They shared a chuckle.

"So does Josh," Sheva added, beaming with a sense of pride. "Maybe we will see Jill?"

Chris tensed at the mention. "I wouldn't," he said quietly, after a pause. It was less of a suggestion and more of a casual deterrent. Just as quickly as it opened, the subject closed. She did not press him out of respect but settled compliantly.

"Ok." She hadn't noticed it but her chair was facing his again.

She had always been captivated with her partner. When she could not sit still, he was solidly in place. When she dreamt, he experienced. When her expectations went beyond reason, he could humble her with a realism that was borderline pessimistic. But when she stumbled, doubted, or failed, Chris could make her spirit soar. In retrospect, now that she sat staring at the aged man before her she could only see him as he was, even now as he sat with his gentle eyes averted. In his point- collar poplin shirt, his streamlined muscles offered a glimpse of his physical caliber. His distracted gaze expressed his suppressed frailty. She had lost contact with him long ago because she had intentionally stifled the importance of his role in her life. But he had insisted, long ago, that she could tell him anything.

She started with a sigh to raise his attention. When she had it, she felt less courageous despite the encouraging smile he offered her. "Chris…"

Josh appeared, reenergized, and absently destructed her thought by offering his hand to help her rise.

"Ready?"

She accepted his hand, changing her demeanor to match his tired but buoyant nature as she rose. Chris, with equal grace, accepted the intrusion and offered to walk them to their car. The awkward trio took to the street with Sheva nestled between the two men, arm in arm, in arm, smiling weakly at the irony in the symbolism of their arrangement.

* * *

Uroboros, jolted with an overwhelming dose of its catalytic ingredient had reanimated its host hours ago. The Final Solution fell by the wayside due to his mithridatic introduction of its lesser self in years past. He had been abandoned by the medical examiner in the morgue of . He had been discarded by the learned confidence of the profession. The dead did not rise and so, tomorrow and tomorrow again, the tyrant's body would be there for their misuse. But it would not.

He had learned patience in solitary confinement above all things, so he was contented to lie until his hypersensitive abilities picked up the infrasonic frequency of dying electronics. ran because he was alive. Presumed dead, there was no need for the prison to function at full scale. And just a moment ago, the security cameras went dead with rest after years of unyielding service. Albert Wesker took his first breath again.

The thin white sheet covering his face rose gently and settled against him. Then he sat up. At his feet rested the crisp white uniform of his imprisonment, folded neatly as if it was waiting for him. He dressed. He rounded his shoulders and stretched his neck. He sat back down on the gurney in contemplative silence. There he was in the morgue, Ozymandias undeterred.

His wrists were still indented from the restraints, as was the reddened flesh across his waist. At this moment it was his bare hands and feet that troubled him most. He hated the connectivity of touch.

So many wasted years with only his hate keeping him company,he was too sagacious to taste madness or at least admit to it—and far too evolved to succumb to feelings of gratefulness, freedom and redemption. While his body was captive his mind had fashioned a map of from traces of exposure from snippets of conversation. The many times the weary voice of Frazier Lund stabbed though his silence via intercom only for him to catch pieces of background conversation was enough to educate him on the functionality of . Further, the ignorant moments the priest Gordon had left the intercom depressed in hopeful wait of his response to his religious diatribes educated him from mere sound: scientists retreated to their "sectors," Dr. Lund to his "upper-quarters" and maintenance men were directed when lost. These isolated hints were like pieces of a puzzle; to the erudite mind of Wesker it was like giving a match to an arsonist. He got down from the gurney and started for the double doors with a purpose. After so many years he was no less confident in his walk, no less a juggernaut in motion and no less absorbed in appearances. He swept his hair back from his eyes and started for the exit.

Dr. Frazier Lund was inebriated. Not from the newly opened bottle of Merlot that sat atop his desk, but from the giddy pride that came with newfound fame. He was an accomplished scientist and future Nobel Prize recipient-a title that came with the stigma of being associated with Albert Wesker and the Death Penalty-the latter which he hadn't come too easy to the usually liberal doctor. But in his excitement, he had busied himself in his office preparing an acceptance speech to address his contributors, beneficiaries and colleagues at the not too far off award ceremony. He twirled about his office gesturing and making audience of his desk chairs and potted plants, glorifying his name when he took a quick seat in his desk chair to pour himself a second glass of Merlot.

No sooner than he had sat down than a pair of heavy hands settled solidly against the frame of his shoulders. He startled, knocked the bottle off the desk as he turned to face the intruder. Wesker caught the bottle as though he had predicted it's fall set it atop the desk again. Dr. Lund felt the colour drain from his face in an instant and stared with some disbelief at the specter before him. He was in a limbo of senses, where he couldn't accept the reality of the situation so instead, he wrestled with believing he was mad which he knew otherwise, or accepting that he believed in ghosts, which he did not. But the heavy hands settled against his shoulders a second time and with little effort, Wesker turned him away again to face the desk.

He was already likely to faint away before the specter behind him spoke but when the words came after so many years of having forgotten the voice, the eerie calm of the delivery and the sudden stillness of the world made his bladder release upon hearing simply, "Mr. Lund."

Wesker did not respect his position enough to address him as doctor or accept him as a scientist. The man trembled beneath the weight of his hands alone. When he noticed the urine rolling from the sides of Lund's leather desk chair, he took a half step back to avoid contact with the liquid on his bare feet as it pooled onto the floor.

Lund began to stammer like an invalid. "Oh my…oh m-my G-G-Go-d." A sadistic smirk appeared on Wesker's face before it reset to his nihilistic expression typical of a sociopath. Lund began to sob as he resigned to his fate. His hands, bone white, were stapled to the armrests of his chair and in his fear of uncertainty, began to drag his fingernails against it as he clenched and unclenched his hands.

"What will happen when I exit the facility?" The second hearing of his voice struck Lund like the waves of a tempest beating a lost vessel at sea. It was not a question that the lofty Wesker didn't know the answer to. But he wanted to remind Lund of what to expect. When he got no response other than the sobs of the scientist addressing a God that was not him, he spun him around slowly. Trails of tears rolled from beneath his wire framed glasses and thick, clear liquid ran from his nose, making his face shine brightly in the light of his desk lamp. Wesker bent and started to remove Lund's shoes, dragging out the laces and letting the ends fly. He glanced at the faded number inside the heels of the leather Stacy Adams when he had finished. Lund was adhered to the chair, staring at him lace the shoes for himself. He stood, adjusted the laces then walked casually to a square, frame-less mirror on the wall.

Wesker had only seen himself in dim reflections and he was interested to see if he in fact bared any resemblance to the monstrosity that Lund reacted to. But when he got to the mirror he was as he remembered, except for the pulsing of grayish veins beneath his skin, reacting to the vigor of Uroboros, and the newly alighted amber eyes that forced him to look away. He had never embraced that change. Behind him, Dr. Lund found the courage to speak at last.

"P-please. There are over t-two hundred s-scientists on this island. They won't make it off in time."

The mention was ineffectual to Wesker. Staring down the barrel of mortality had a man who developed a _near_ lethal injection drum up a sudden appreciation for life. He had already established what his ethics were.

"They are welcomed to try." Wesker responded dryly. As if seized by madness or desperation, Lund lurched up from the desk chair so quickly that it toppled over in his rising. He would run—he would run toward the alarm and pull the panic lever on the wall across the hall from his office. If he missed that one there was one every fifteen feet mounted on the wall. Surely he could get to the one he had partially hidden behind an overstuffed filing cabinet in his arrogance at a time when he was certain that there was no hope of escape for the man in the mirror before him now. He had thought it, considered it and rose to attempt it in seconds but in those moments wasted in formulating a plan doomed to fail, it had already failed, as Albert Wesker was incomprehensibly far away from him nearing the crust of , and he was left alone to count the seconds until he disintegrated into a memory.


	5. World Liberation Day

World Liberation Day

George Jeffreys Park was celebrating a death and by so doing, it celebrated life. Confetti cannons shot brightly coloured pieces of glittering foil swirling across the park. A marching band provided a patriotic ambiance to the parade winding through the park throwing handfuls of candy and plastic whistles. Discarded flyers announcing the day were scattered across the yawning lawns full of lounging citizens. People wore bright yellow T-shirts with HELP KIJUJU sprawled across an image of West Africa. Others sold shirts of Wesker with a Hitler mustache and FUEHRER encircled with a slash running through it. Dogs were wearing flag bandanas and chasing Frisbees. Nadia, bathed in confetti and engulfed in contagious pride, wanted to buy a shirt, sample the food and march in the parade all at once. She bought a green "World Liberation Day" shirt with the date under the lettering and slipped it on over her white wrap tee.

For a quarter, she could join the throngs at the viewfinders staring a far off at G. SM in the distance but they seemed more intrigued with the gray building than necessary but considering she had left there some hours ago the very idea disinterested her. Despite that, the line to take a turn was too long for such an attraction.

She contented to stand amidst the crowd in the centre of the park where a projector played tribute to the valance of American and foreign forces in the capture of Albert Wesker. The boring interviews didn't hold her attention, but the images of destruction struck her because she had only seen Kijuju through her parent's eyes. She had never seen a "zombie" or knew desolation or abandonment. Her parents shielded her from misfortune. The images of Raccoon City being leveled lightened a dark place in her ignorance. A few sobs were heard but it did not threaten her composure.

While Raccoon City remained a desolate, uninhabitable and painful memorial, Kijuju built over the stain of Wesker's influence and was dubbed "The Phoenix of the West" for its significant strides. By the time Nadia came up, Kijuju had changed. Office buildings towered, streets flowed with traffic and billboards advertised the most fashionable thing at the moment. There were no stinking herds of the infected, no government restrictions. She never knew Kijuju any other way. The remaining link of terrorism seemed engraved in a generation of survivors thoroughly against any forms it.

The video took a positive turn and up went an image of her mother and father with Chris Redfield and Jill Valentine. The crowd erupted in cheers, whistling and trumpeting air horns. Several hands in the crowd leapt up waving conjoined flags of West Africa and North America with the BSAA Emblem molding the countries together.

Barely any one took notice when a few people at the viewfinders sped off. Only a handful of people even heard the siren wailing over the thudding drums and clashing cymbals of the marching band. Almost everyone heard the explosion. But everyone saw splattering about the Pacific with smoldering debris littering the sky.

* * *

Sheva Alomar found her husband's hand across the centre console of the car and linked fingers with his. He brought her hand up to his face and kissed the back of her hand lovingly. The graze of his whiskers against her hand was a familiar comfort, his kiss, always full of meaning and delicately planted, could reach her heart wherever he placed it.

"She will be fine," he insisted. He may have been over protective but Sheva was the worrier. His words were meant to soothe but he wished someone would offer him solace. The unsettling feeling he shared with Sheva didn't come long after they'd parted from Chris. It had little to do with the sudden stand still he was trying to weave through, or the incessant wail of ambulance sirens parting the traffic and disrupting the order of things. People tried to cut back into the lanes and met resistance. Josh had pulled over already only to make it back into the lane just in time to make way for another police car.

"What do you suppose is going on?" Sheva asked, lighting the face of her cell phone for the time. She could have looked to the dash for that information but she was hoping she had missed a call from Nadia since last she checked all but four minutes ago.

Josh shrugged, watching a few unmarked police cars whiz by him in a blur. A dark car pulled up beside him in the emergency lane and stopped. The blue lights came on but the driver didn't activate the siren.

"That's odd," he observed. A tap on Sheva's window startled her. An agent in a suit was standing outside their car flashing his FBI license. He tugged on the door but found it locked.

Josh's side flew open and another agent appeared with badge in hand.

"What the hell?" Josh insisted, lifting his hand from the steering wheel peacefully. He was about to introduce himself when the agent by him spoke first.

"Agents Stone, Alomar? We need you to step out of the vehicle and come with us."

Sheva and Josh didn't hesitate to unbuckle their seat belts and join the agents out in to road, much to the bewilderment of onlookers.

Josh addressed the agent holding open the Beaucar for him and Sheva to enter.

"What is going on?" He insisted, accepting the ID Sheva handed to him to show the agent.

A quick scan of the cards verified their identities. "We have instructions to put you into protective custody concerning the safety of you and select agents involved in the Kijuju incident." They spoke matter of fact and moved quickly. One of them had already gotten into their rental car and merged back into traffic.

Everything was happening too fast to make sense of anything and answers weren't coming complete enough. The agent holding open the door urged them into the backseat with a wave of his hand.

"Where is your third party, Nadia Stone?"

Josh and Sheva exchanged glances. Josh wanted to throw up. Sheva was legitimately frightened. Neither of them knew why.

* * *

G. SM crackled like thunder in the distance. Waves of fire licked out into the sunset and poured massive clouds of black smoke into the sky. Shards of the building hit the water and stirred it up like a tempest. George Jeffreys Park was so quiet the splashes could be heard from the shore. Overhead a flock of news and police helicopters raced to the site. Nadia pushed her way through the crowd to the area with the viewfinders. People were digging in their pockets for change to get a clean view. Cameras were going off all around her. A frightened mummer carried through the crowd. Some people started to leave the park. She should have followed suit but she couldn't take her eyes away from the blaze at sea. A moment ago, jutted out like an eye sore from the rocky Cliff side. Now it barely stood as rubble, and there were again nine wonders.

There was a spark of water in the sea streaming toward shore with the speed of a missile. The object in motion was too far to be in focus but the helicopters above seemed to curiously circle it with the same uncertainty and fascination as those on shore. One of the choppers opened fire on the object, stunning the audience. Whatever it was dipped below the surface after a few turns of the turret and disappeared. As if in synchrony, both choppers did an about face and raced toward the shore.

A voice from the sky stole the attention of the crowd as a blinding light from an overhead chopper swept over them.

"Please exit the park by order of the San Pierro Police. It is for your safety to hastily comply." It took off to another section of the park to repeat the announcement. People started fanning out into the street. A police cruiser was already redirecting traffic to allow park attendees to detour through the street. Another police chopper whirred overhead.

"Please exit the park by order of the San Pierro Police."

Nadia turned to oblige, bunched up next to strangers who were crammed into her, mumbling, asking questions to directing policemen who were too busy receiving orders from walkie-talkies to answer. She tried to jam a hand into her shorts to fish out her cell phone but she could barely bend an elbow without running it into someone next to her.

The turrets came on again briefly, closer to shore, sending a jolt of panic through those on land. An order to cease fire interrupted the instructions from the sky. Everyone looked toward shore where a low flying shopper swooped over the crowd. It pulled up narrowly missing the bronze statue of George Jeffreys but sent the flagging projector screen crashing onto the ground.

Then, bursting from the water came the dragon(this sentence is so effed up). With a tail of water trailing behind him, he launched himself onto the mossy precipice below the railing of the viewfinders, caught the edge and popped up over the guardrail with no trouble. He was soaking wet and heaving with exhaustion. Uroboros defied gravity. It redefined physics. It stupefied science. It stumped logic, it mocked fate, and it defied God. And it let Albert Wesker run across water because he so willed to do it. Parts of his white uniform had been scorched away from his skin, half revealing the beast beneath. The flesh appeared human but the eyes spat fire. People leapt away from him though he did not give chase.

He had barely taken a step when the rage from the sky rained down onto him. Bullets thudded into his chest and rippled across his body in vain. In seconds there was a pile smoldering at his feet. The next time he moved the eye couldn't fathom his path. The image of his passing still remained long after he'd left; he dodged the bullets effortlessly, streamed toward the chopper before leaping perfectly up and through the blades. Immediately, the blades struck him and came to a stop on impact, forcing the motor to grind against the resistance. Wesker shot out over and onto the other side long before the struggling chopper dropped thrashing from the sky, striking the ground violently again and again as it toppled across the park in a dangerous whirlwind, churning up the ground beneath it. The pop of stray gun fire cracked all around, scattering the screaming crowd. A few connected with him, sending a dull pain into his head, back and legs but all fell by the wayside. The sensation was new, but not concerning. He had to find an exit.

* * *

Chris was at the cusp of the Endicott Tunnel, drumming his fingers anxiously against the steering wheel of his black Ranger. The air was up on full blast but beads of sweat still drizzled down his face in rivulets. At the rate the traffic was moving—or _wasn't_, he would pass out long before he'd gotten out of the tunnel. His head was throbbing with a headache that only the tricodone could abate.

"Come on, Chris," he encouraged, downing the last bit of water he had in an Avian bottle in his cup holder. He threw it carelessly into the backseat and put the car in park, slumping in his seat. He had to concentrate too much on keeping his foot mashed down onto the brake. An action that before required no thought mentally exhausted him. He unclasped his seat belt and absently scratched at the inside of his elbow. A crust of blood was forming under his fingernails.

His head went toward the wheel. He had to have a tricodone packet somewhere in his car. He went to his wallet first only to sift through a few sales receipts. He pulled down his visor, opened the ashtray and flopped down the glove compartment in vain. Used packets fluttered onto the flooring.

"Shit…" he muttered, raking his hands through his hair. His phone went off in the dash mount. It was Josh, a welcomed distraction. The blue tooth went on and his voice resonated out from his speakers after a button touch.

"Josh. What's up?" He tried not to sound affected but if the caller was paying him any mind it wouldn't have worked. He was surprised to hear Sheva's voice answer him back.

"Chris…I don't know where Nadia is."

Chris furrowed his brows but didn't concern himself immediately. "What do you mean? Isn't she at the park?"

"We're in protective custody…we can't get to her. She won't answer—" There was a break in her voice then a shuffle. He tried to call her back to the phone. The mere fact that Sheva had lost composure was enough to sober him. And alarm him.

"What's going on? Why are you guys in protective custody? Are you guys alright?"

This time Josh answered him. Either she had handed him the phone or he had taken it from her. "Please do not go home. The police will be waiting for you there. Please, do not go home without Nadia." Josh was eerily calm. It took everything he had to compose himself but he couldn't hide the frustration, the fear, the helplessness he felt from his voice. He was pleading with Chris. If Chris hadn't spoken when he had, Josh would have submitted to begging.

"Josh, tell me _something._"

"Wesker is at the park."

Chris felt his pupils small. He froze for a segment of time, felt the car shift and when he came back to himself he was grinding down on the brake until he remembered the car was in park. How could Wesker be at the park? How could he be anywhere if he was _dead?_ He was too stunned to speak. He started to stammer, paused, arranged his thoughts and tried again.

"I'm going. I'll be in touch. Pull some rank and get to my place."

A relieved sigh amplified in his speakers. "Bring her home. Please." Chris put the car in drive and rolled forward to bridge the gap his idling had caused between him and the car in front. He sat back up and buckled his seat belt again. He would nose his way onto the shoulder and ride the emergency lane through the tunnel.

The shuffling came again and ragged breath now resonated in the car with him. This wasn't Josh crying on the phone with him, it was Sheva again. "Sheva?"

She didn't answer.

"I know you can hear me. I'll be in touch, ok?" Again, she didn't answer. He didn't want to hang up on her but he would have to. He raised his finger to end the call when her very small voice whispered something barely audible to him. It may not have even been English.

"What?" He insisted.

Another ragged breath. She repeated herself, louder this time. "She's your daughter."

Chris snatched the phone off the mount and pressed it to his ear for clarification. What did she just say?  
"Sheva, what?" He pressed, feeling his world take another leap forward. This time, there was no one on the end of the line.

* * *

Nadia was running with the crowd. She had stumbled, someone had helped her to her feet, and she threw herself behind a food cart and buried her head between her knees with her hands stapled to her ears. A formation of SWAT charged by her behind shields with heavy artillery aimed at Wesker. A few bodies lay flush on the ground around her with their arms folded over their heads protectively. She dared to look over the cart at the scene. A sniper bullet struck the dragon in the head, staggering him. He had barely righted himself when another flurry of bullets rained onto him. Soon he was lost behind a cloud of gun smoke. On her hands and knees she crawled forward and glanced around desperately trying to find a better shelter than a hot dog cart. It wasn't long before two more people joined her only for a moment before they took off and left her behind. She couldn't stay where she was. She had to pick a spot and stay there. Her father would come for her.

She couldn't comprehend what she was seeing. One man had downed a chopper and disarmed several officers in the three minutes since he climbed over the rail. He was far more terrifying than credited. She very nearly pitied him. Streams of hot tears rolled down her face. She had never known fear like this. She wanted to get up and run for the street, to be lost in the numbers but she felt so grounded in place by a pair of legs too weak and trembling to oblige. There was a public bathroom up ahead. It was possibly the safest place in the park.

When she popped up she was surprised to see the smoldering eyes of the devil staring pointedly through the gun smoke at her. Maybe she imagined it. He might not have been looking at her at all. But he was looking in her direction and moving forward as if he had no intention of slowing down. She took off toward the bathroom in a panic. The faster she ran the further it seemed to be. She pushed through the bushes in her way ignoring the scrapes against her legs and the pulling on her clothes. When she finally made it to the bathroom door, to her horror, it was locked.

Inside, she could hear frightened gasps and shuffling feet scurrying away from the door. She tugged on the handle again. It didn't budge.

"Let me in! Please!"

She started rattling the door as if she had the might to pull it from the hinges. When she turned around, a military jeep was tearing over the sidewalk with a number of soldiers tumbling about in the bed. One of them had a rocket launcher perched on his shoulder. Another one was trying to load it over the unsteady terrain. The vehicle had barely come to a stop when they leapt out, taking aim at Wesker. She dropped down onto her haunches and slapped her hands over her ears again. She mashed her eyes shut. Another pair of hands settled gently over her own. She felt the stranger draping themselves over top of her protectively.

Chris saw the rocket launcher fire nearly point blank. Wesker caught the rocket in his hand and guided it upward. It barely cleared his head before it exploded. The military didn't waste any time closing the gap. An order to cease fire was issued. When the smoke cleared Wesker was laying flat on his back, sprawled. Chris took the moment to gently pry Nadia's hands from her ears. He knew the moment wouldn't last.

"Nadia, let's go."

She seemed startled to hear her name. When she whipped her head up to meet the stranger, she was more than a little relieved to see Chris staring down at her. Neither of them had words for one another. Words didn't matter. No sooner than he put a finger to his lips to silence her, she threw her arms around him and sobbed. He didn't know how to comfort her. He didn't know how to do anything, suddenly. If what Sheva said to him was true, the fragile young girl clasped in his arms meant more to him now simply because she was an extension of self and unfortunately, a link to the man who seemed to conquer death. Even in his arms she would never be safe.


	6. Confrontation

"Lund! You piece of shit! Answer the goddamned phone! You'd better find a way to fix this! This is _your_ mistake!" Chris hung up the phone from leaving a message for a dead man. Chris' angry tirade would be lost in a full voicemail box.

He settled when he noticed Nadia shriveled up on his sofa with her arms wound around her body and an empty stare fixed toward the wall. She had slipped off the World Liberation Day shirt and left it crumbled at her feet. It didn't mean anything now. She hadn't taken any notice to the state of things in his apartment. The moment she walked in through the door she made a beeline for the couch and sat there weeping silently. Any other day she may have wondered why he lived like a minimalist.

He made his way around the sofa and settled down next to her searching for words. What could he say to her?

"Are you afraid?" He asked softly, leaning forward over his knees. He got a vague nod from her.

He stared fervently at Nadia. He studied the delicate curl in her hair now tangled and untamed; the set of her mouth most assuredly her mother's; the way her brows furrowed in her concern and the odd little isms that she probably never attributed to a foreign inheritance. Possibility softened his features. Did she share his rolling tongue? His unyielding focus? A passionate temper?

Maybe he was noticing things that weren't there. She looked so much like Sheva that it was hard to find anything of his in her. He was just looking for a connection. If Nadia was his daughter, Sheva had subtracted from his life. The prospect made him tremble. The room warped a touch and threatened to spin on him but he shook his head clear. The tricodone was still calling. It nagged at him in the form of a headache. It nipped at his resistance constantly but it would have to wait.

She turned to him from over her shoulder as though his stare was tactile. She dared to offer him a smile he could not return. In her eyes, glinting from the residual of tears, he saw his own reflection. Her brown eyes didn't belong to Josh. They were his. It was no wonder he had been so drawn to her. Nadia was his daughter. The realization blew him away. He felt so light headed and so simultaneously sick that he had to turn away from her. Nadia, misinterpreting his actions, withdrew her smile. It seemed suddenly there was no genuine offering of hers moving enough to coax her uncle from this dark mood, slumped over his knees with his fingers entangled.

The front door behind them leapt open and Sheva and Josh rushed in with an agent in tow. There had been one stationed outside his door and others dotted throughout the complex much to the discomfort and inconvenience of the other tenants. Chris waved him off before he could take another step.

"Baba! Mum!" Nadia flew up and into their arms. Josh was trying to do the once over while Sheva smoothed her hair and kept asking if she was alright. Chris turned away from the reunion. He hadn't left his post at the couch until Josh made his way over to him and shook his hand firmly. Chris stood up reluctantly to meet him.

"You will want for nothing," Josh promised, squeezing his hand thankfully. He glanced over at Sheva who casually averted her eyes. He hoped his stare was burning holes in her skull.

"Uncle?"

Chris cut his eyes at Nadia. He didn't like that titular affection anymore. He deserved more. "What?"

"Could I lay down for a bit?"

He nodded and pointed down the hall to his bedroom. She started off with Sheva in tow but Chris gripped her wrist as she walked by to prohibit her from passing.

Sheva sighed, defeated, and gestured for Josh to go with her instead. In the present state of things he didn't consider he was being dismissed, although the wrist lock Chris had on Sheva did not go beyond his notice. He nodded and trailed his daughter up the hall. Sheva didn't look at Chris again until he was out of the room. His cutting glare made the grip around her wrist that much tighter. He was waiting for an explanation she didn't want to give him. When she tried to coax him off he pulled away and bullied her further into the living room for their fight to ensue.

"What did you say to me earlier, Sheva? About Nadia? You want to explain that to me?"

Sheva pleaded with her eyes for him to speak softly. She was desperate for the conversation not to escape the invisible confines of his open ended living room. "I swear I wish that came about differently but I can't say it any other way to make it more or less true."

Chris felt like she had just slapped him in the face. "Jesus Christ, Sheva, tell me you're joking! Tell me you didn't mean what you said!"

"She is your daughter. She is." The words crumbled from her trembling lips. It was as hard to admit as it was to accept. Her words melted him into the sofa. His legs felt like rubber. Those few words had drained him. He felt so weak he could barely fix his mouth to form the barrage of curses threw at her. Somehow, he managed.

The next time he opened his mouth his words were nasty and condemning. A cutting, insulting, belittling, hurtful, uncouth, unapologetic, vile stream of word vomit. Only his emotions were speaking. Every crass word sent her retreating further into herself. It was ok for Chris to hate her. Maybe she deserved it. It hurt her more than anything to see him break character just to express his sudden disdain for her and what she'd done. The character assassination threatened to topple her but she forgave every lashing word the moment it left his lips.

When he finally settled again, he was immediately remorseful. Sheva had stood there with her hands clasped, graciously weathering his lambasting with tearful eyes. He felt horrible. He was writhing in the pit of his stomach but he wouldn't apologize.

In a small voice, all she said was, "I deserved that."

Her willingness to accept his chastisement threw him into another fury. "You deserve all I hell I can give you!" He snapped.

Sheva darted her tear laden eyes to the hall to see if either of them had heard him. Chris looked over his shoulder as well. "Nadia doesn't know, does she? Does _Josh?_"

She shook her head. In a defeated sigh she admitted, "No."

"You know how _different_ my life would have been if I knew I had a daughter?"

Years of suppressed guilt gushed out of her eyes. Suddenly she was impassioned to defend herself. "I _tried _to tell you Chris! I tried! You know how many times I picked up the phone to tell you over the years? How many times I hung up before the call would connect?"

He shot up from the couch and gripped her by the arms. "You had her whole life to tell me!"

She broke out of his grip and shoved him away. This time she didn't mind her own voice. "Because I was afraid! Afraid of how you would react. Afraid that you wouldn't want the responsibility."

Chris stiffened at the affront. "What kind of man do you think I am?" He hissed.

"A man who lives a world apart from me! I was young. I was _pregnant_. What hope could I have to ask you to leave your world behind and come find me? What hope could I have to leave Africa to pursue you? You're _thirteen_ years older than I am!"

"That age difference is of little consequence to you and Josh, isn't it?" He barked, gesturing up the hall. "Your justifications are weak. None of that bullshit mattered when we got together. Stop trying to let it comfort you now. It didn't matter _where_ in the world you were, Sheva, if you told me you were pregnant I would have gone into hell."

Sheva bit down on her bottom lip and folded her arms across her chest. Her tears were falling faster than she could catch them. Chris looked away from her.

"Do you even love Josh? Or was he just convenient?"

Shamefully, the answer was a little of both. Yes, she loved Josh. He adhered to her all the more at the revelation of her pregnancy. It was Josh's voice Nadia heard in her womb. It was his touch that moved her. It was Josh that shielded them, led them, loved them and committed to a daughter he believed was his. Her feelings for Josh were not contrived or insincere but she didn't have to explain her relationship to Chris.

"I'm telling them," he said decisively, turning toward the hall.

Panicked, Sheva gripped his arm to stop him. "No!"

He shrugged out of her grip. "You don't get to tell me 'No'! You give me back all the opportunities you took away from me, the right you denied me, the privileges you revoked and give me back the daughter I lost and maybe you get to tell me 'No'!"

Josh appeared from up the hall, startling the both of them. "What the hell are you two carrying on about?"

Sheva immediately turned away from him and quickly swept up any evidence of tears. Chris felt his face reddening. He didn't have the confidence he projected to tell Josh anything. He set his hand on his hip and pinched between his eyes to soothe the headache in his skull that was slowly turning migraine. It was then that he noticed his hands were shaking.

"Nothing," he mumbled, jamming them into his pants pockets.

Josh, unconvinced, didn't press the issue with Chris nonetheless. He nodded off at Sheva. "Nadia is asking for you."

Reluctant, Sheva dared to look at Chris to see if she could read his motives but he wouldn't even so much as pull his eyes from the floor. Her dread for leaving the two of them alone had her hesitate.

"What is wrong?" Josh insisted. This time Chris looked up at her daringly. Sheva dismissed his question with a wave and started pass him up the hall with his eyes trailing behind her. When she left the room, it was Chris who was stranded with Josh's confronting glare.

* * *

Wesker popping open his eyes sent the closing team of military personnel backing up with a start. Rising to his feet sent them scattering. Yes, the dulling sensation radiating across his body was not new. It was numbing, tingling, lashing and familiar. He had not felt nearly close to being human in over a decade but something inside of him recalled, vaguely, that pain would humble him. He didn't wait for the feeling to worsen. With blurring speed he was lost to the cover of darkness, evading the eyes in the sky and those on land as if they were standing still. Indeed they appeared that way in his eyes. As their faces morphed into confusion, he saw every shaping muscle contouring and gathering to form their expressions, every subtle effort to depress their fingers into the triggers only to shoot futilely where he once appeared. Wesker was an image, then a memory, leaving them to wonder if his presence had been conjured by their collective imaginations.

He blurred out across the street and disappeared between two buildings just as the searchlight from a helicopter whisked by. He nearly toppled himself trying to stop. His body was moving far faster than he could comprehend.

He dropped to knees, heaving, exhausted, deafened by the thudding of his heart in his ears. Some struggling part of him was remembering to be human and thusly vulnerable. He would not submit to this. As he attempted to rise, a large body threw itself at him, gnashing its teeth. The piercing jaw of a police dog had clamped down on the side of his face almost tearing his ear off. The dog he threw off easily. It thudded into the adjacent wall with a fierce whine and collapsed in a heap.

Mildly startled, Wesker touched the side of his face where a stream of dark blood trickled from his wound. The injury was still painless but he could feel the warmth of his own essence rolling down his neck. Concern met him there in the alley, until his company stirred.

The dog remained unconscious but its body contoured, writhing and struggling until the germ that infected it set the dog on its feet gingerly. Dark strands of Uroboros flooded from the dog's mouth. When it regained consciousness, it was very obvious that the loyalty and valiance to the dog's noble occupation had submitted to the infection and Wesker had his first minion. The rolling eyes of the beast glowed amber and it staggered out, twitching and snarling, ignoring a very pleased Wesker courageously rising from the ground.

As it turned out, he was noxious. The revelation enlightened him; he could infect the entire city and subsequently the nation simply by pissing in the water. But he wasn't quite so crass. He had links in the city he must destroy first.

* * *

Josh set his jaw firm. He was an astute man. If Sheva was upset, Chris was the catalyst but he wouldn't press his wife and he wouldn't question his friend. Their squabble was permissible but he fought hard to ignore Sheva's discomfort. The more he looked at Chris, silent and troubled, deliberately losing himself in the shadows of his living room, the more he retreated. Chris, on the other however, was far from intimidated. He had the power to destroy an entire family with an admission that threatened to reveal itself on its own accord. He buttoned down on his own lips, afraid that an inner voice would speak despite him. He didn't want to crush Josh or hurt Nadia. He hated this power Sheva had just given him. He wrestled with hating Sheva.

His discarded cell phone hummed furiously in the kitchen but he didn't go to it. Josh spoke first.

"I have to take Sheva and Nadia out of the city tonight," he admitted, fishing in his pockets for his own cell phone. Chris thought the notion was laughable and didn't hide his lack of faith in Josh's ill considered idea. It was coming from a simple place.

"Good luck with that," Chris scoffed. "Do you really think there's a way out of San Pierro now?"

Josh was steadfast with his decision, despite reasoning. "I have to try." Chris's cell phone went off again, disrupting the tension in the apartment. Frustrated, Chris raked his hands through his hair and started past Josh to the phone. He already knew who it was.

"Come with us," Josh pleaded.

Chris made a disbelieving face. Josh was being gracious but he couldn't appreciate it. He was in a fetid mood and Sheva was only half to blame. The longer he went without the tricodone, the more irritable he found himself. Josh's invitation came across solely as absurd.

"I can't. I have a responsibility." He snatched up his phone and glared at his missed calls. As expected, BSAA was calling him to the front lines. He continued despite already defeating Josh with his short and dismissing responses.

"It was a responsibility you _used_ to share with me. I can't just leave when things get heated."

Josh burned with insult. Chris' words stung. It implied cowardice. Josh Stone was akin to heavy opposition. Conflict plagued his life. He was no coward. "I am still BSAA," he said firmly. "I still have responsibilities and _two _of them are in your bedroom with their eyes turned to _me_ for guidance."

"If Wesker isn't stopped you can't drive far enough; you can't hide long enough. There isn't a damn place you can go to keep your family safe. I started BSAA to fight for the peace you can't give them by running away."

"I do not need you to fight for my family," Josh growled. He didn't want to fight with Chris. A moment ago he was eternally grateful for going after Nadia. Now it seemed that Chris was coaxing out a demon in him. The way Chris was stalking around in the kitchen with a subdued ferocity offered a glimpse at a demon of his own. Whatever he was struggling with lurked just beneath the surface and there was a legion of enmity antagonizing him.

The phone Josh forgot he had clenched in his hand went off just as Chris' started to hum for the third time. Josh was stunned to see the letters BSAA on his face screen. In his hand he held opportunity. He had played hero once already but that was before he was a husband and a father. He had been fighting his whole life. He fought for his family in vain when the rebels massacred his village as a child. He fought to survive as a boy soldier until he ran away from them in 1990. He fought _against _them when he joined the Sudanese People's Liberation Army two years later. He fought for the BSAA when the opportunity arose and by the time the incident in Kijuju washed over, he had killed so many of his brethren it made him _sick_. Conversely, at the time he had nothing to protect but now his priorities had shifted. Suddenly he had a reason to fight now more than ever and he wanted nothing to do with the calling. He sank down on the armrest of the couch to wrestle with indecision.

Chris now, didn't bother to look at the caller. He was so numb he felt bulletproof and he answered to blindly accept the invitation to don the uniform.

"I accept."

way she was living this hell again.


	7. Suiting Up

Nadia, who had never remembered ever seeing her father leave to embark on a calling so dangerous, had become unruly and inconsolable. She ordered him not to go, she begged her mother to dissuade him and seethed through so many shades of emotion that her tantrum was the most erratic that Chris had ever been witness to. When he saw the way Nadia was so enveloped in Josh he felt a pit forming in his stomach. He could never hope to inject himself into her life now.

He sulked into his room to change out of his dinner clothes. It was a messy and emotional ordeal. In his aggravation he could not steady his shaking hands to undo the buttons on his shirt. He ripped it off carelessly and tossed it aside. The pants he kicked out of after slinging his shoes into the far wall. Dressing was equally vexing. His cargo pants kept catching his shirt tail in the zipper and he couldn't find any Under Armor that was long enough to cover up his raw forearms.

While he was in the confines of his bedroom struggling to dress himself, another man was with his daughter, trying to settle her. If Nadia was anything like him she would never quell. He took a moment to steady himself against his closet door. He smashed his eyes shut, forcing his shallow breaths to come slow and steady, deliberate, before trying to dress himself again. There was a timid knock at his bedroom door. He uttered a curse but accepted the intrusion.

"Come in," he called over his shoulder, fishing out a pair of socks from his boots. The door opened slowly and Nadia stood at the threshold with swollen eyes. He barely studied her at all before retiring to the end of his bed to put on his shoes.

"Uncle, I can't convince Baba to stay with us. I know you're leaving too…" Her voice lacked the dynamic vigor of before. The lively, spirited young woman he had shared a laugh with was gone. It was difficult to see her flame doused; perhaps it was what tethered Josh to her. If she reacted like this every time he put on his uniform it made sense why he stalled.

"Isn't there anything else you can call me? Besides Uncle?" In the last few hours he had developed a strong aversion to his pet name.

Nadia, a little embarrassed, stammered an apology. "S-sorry. I could call you Chris?"

"No."

She tried again. "Or Mr. Redfield?"

He crinkled his nose and stood up to latch the tactical vest over his Under Armor. "No."

"What do you want me to call you?"

He shrugged. It would have been a stretch to try on dad. "Nadia, I dunno. Try it in another language. If I really was your uncle, what would you call me?"

"Fofo?"

"Oh, God," he started with a mild cringe. "Uncle will do."

She settled when he surrendered to his old title. She was soaking in how he had casually gone from the gentle yet dominant figure in plain clothes to the titan before her, intimidating and imposing in his field gear. She imagined her own father would be similarly suited and her heart dropped again.

"Must you go too?"

He nodded. "You don't want me to go, either?"

She didn't answer. Her dipped head spoke volumes. The distance between Nadia at the door and his position at the foot of the bed seemed significant. There was a chasm that existed between them. Nadia was his daughter and simultaneously a stranger. They didn't know a thing about one another that didn't go beyond face value. It put Chris into a frenzy to think that he could lose her permanently and he would mean no more to her than an adopted uncle. Sheva had derailed his entire life. Nadia, none the wiser would never know how the despondent man perched at the edge of his bed subdued his urge to rise, to join her in his arms and discover himself in her. His own creation, lost to him, ignorant to the faint traces of her maker in her own expression, her own manner and her own desires. She carried him with her every day, unbeknownst to her that every furrowed brow, every dismissing glance and proud display reflected in the mirror were from a father she never knew. Did she see Josh? Did she look for him?

He couldn't spare another moment, far less another word. He got up from the bed and slipped by her to make his way back into the living room where Sheva and Josh were locked in an embrace. He diverted his eyes and stood by idly waiting for Josh, who met Sheva's lips softly one last time. They touched foreheads, exchanged a few words that had no meaning to Chris and finally, he gathered the shards of his valor and made a decisive move toward the door. He wouldn't look back. Chris on the other hand cut his eyes over his shoulder where Sheva and Nadia stood abreast in his living room, their faces pensive. He followed Josh out into the hall, his emotions tearing him apart.

* * *

The Bravo team captain paced impatiently from wall to wall in the University union lounge. Due to the school's proximity to the park, it had become a holding and refuge to the citizens of San Pierro. The military had occupied certain sectors of the campus, shutting down the auditoriums and forcing a mandatory lockdown on dormitories. Wesker had fled the area a while ago, but the evidence of his influence was running rampant in the city. The four legged perpetrator had been subdued not long ago but it had already bitten several people. The infection was for the moment containable.

Chris and Josh had been escorted to the campus in a heavily guarded military jeep. While Josh faced forward unaffected, as if the fog of tear gas and blockades were part of the everyday scenery, Chris was turning about in his seat to witness his city falling apart. It was the first time the fight was so close to home.

They were greeted with a crisp and simultaneous salute from the Bravo captain and his team the moment they walked into the Mach Auditorium. The captain broke formality and shook their hands.

"Agents Stone, Redfield. Captain Mark Lucas." He didn't waste any time debriefing them. "I'm afraid we're not fighting intelligently. Half our teams were deployed to the streets to take care of this unprecedented infection. We have no goddammed clue how it's spreading so fast with the host dog down. We have only two objectives: Secure Jill Valentine and take her into protective custody. She is rumored to carry antibodies to the Uroboros strain and we have to believe that Wesker is intelligent enough to know that. The main objective is of course to stop Albert Wesker at all costs."

"Roger."

"Excellent. Agent Redfield, we would like you to rendezvous with the Alpha team downtown in pursuit of Wesker. Assume leadership." He turned and gestured for two of his men to come forward. "Gear him up."

He turned to Josh with a salute. "Captain Stone, at your command."

Puzzled, Josh folded his arms and shook his head dismissively. "I am no longer a captain. I can follow as well as I lead."

Lucas didn't break his salute. "In all honesty, I can only lead these men into hell. You know how to navigate the terrain." He didn't give him another opportunity to protest. A uniform was thrust into his arms with a CIRAS vest atop the pile. When Josh looked up from the pile in his arms, the rest of the room was on their feet waiting for his return salute. The notion was flattering and encouraging. Most of these men save for Captain Lucas were nearly half his age and masking their apprehensions behind a thin front of courage. The hands tilted near their eyes were trembling. Josh forced a reluctant smile and returned the gesture.

Josh felt Chris' heavy hand patting him on the back. He turned to look at him.

"Take care of Jill. I'll be in touch." He said softly, tapping his ear piece to signal he'd be in reach if anything. He turned abruptly to shield his decaying features from him.

"Roger," Josh responded, watching Chris start out of the room with two escorts in tow. He could barely keep his head up.

* * *

When Josh stepped out of the olive green humvee, the street light above his head had just sizzled and gone out. The major streets leading to this residential area had been secured but the closer they got to their destination, the only evidence of military occupancy were the abandoned blockades and the scattered bodies of nearby personnel riddled with bullet holes glistening the dark asphalt with blood.

"What the hell?" He mused, indexing the assault rifle he had slung over his shoulder. He eased through the opening between the blockade and jogged toward the solider sprawled in the middle of the street. When he took his shoulder and turned him over, a dark tentacle pulsed between his teeth before retreating into the mouth to die. Something had turned him.

A quick glance up the main road confirmed that there had been a confrontation. A few homes had their doors gaping open. The bodies of citizens and soldiers lay intertwined on lawns and sidewalks, thinning out into the street. A line of abandoned cars paved the road ahead of them. Josh signaled for his team to fall in. He heard their approaching footsteps trotting toward him a moment later.

"Selective targeting on hostiles only. Stay focused. Do not touch anyone, understand? We are to proceed on foot."

He got a chorus of mixed affirmations. Jill was in a two story blue and white American foursquare; 2401. They were at a cross section a block away. He stood up and slipped his finger back into the trigger guard, leading the way through the myriad of abandoned vehicles and littered bodies. They proceeded quickly, keeping aim on every still body on the road until they passed. Their lights swept over vehicles in quick investigations. In his ear piece he could hear gasps and muffled swears as members of his team came upon the gruesome and unfamiliar, things his eyes touched with indifference.

He closed in a passenger door blocking his path between two cars and made a quick left at the next intersection, guiding his light along the street ahead. Nothing stirred. If people were in the houses he would never know. The whispered conversations he heard in his ear piece were familiar.

"This doesn't make any sense. This isn't _real._"

"How did they all get infected? I thought the outbreak was contained?"

He caught a glimpse of panic in their transmissions. "Stay focused," he encouraged. "Coming up on the destination on the left."

The house in question was like many on the block; engulfed in darkness with the front door ajar. The obvious neglect had the house shining like a beacon in the midst of the manicured lawns and shingled roofs of the middle class suburbia. The mailbox sloping toward the curb confirmed the house number. Josh led the team up the steps from the street and trampled across the dying grass and crumbling stepping stones to the front door.

"Enter and clear," he commanded, leading the formation into the gaping swallows of the house. He popped in and swept the entryway, assuming quick position to the left of the door. The second man in guarded right while two more hurried in and led the remaining few to span out the bottom floor.

"Clear!" Rang out from the kitchen. Two more from the living room and dining rooms. Closet and bathroom doors were flung open. The steady beat of Josh's heart settled at the assurances. He led the reassembled team up the stairs, bounding his flashlight about the walls and flooring. The first door he came to at the end of the hall was locked.

"Clear the other rooms," he instructed, rattling the knob. They dispersed in a flash. "Jill? Are you in there?" He tried, pressing his ear against the door. "Jill?"

From the other side he could hear muffled footsteps. He stepped back away from the door to make room for him to kick it in. The first attempt splintered the frame by the lock and split across from the knob, offering him a glimpse of the contents in the room; a spare, and mostly empty, save for the silent occupant. The second kick set the door sprawling open violently, slamming against the wall and rebounding—a blessed divider between Josh and the occupant who immediately hurled themselves at him.

"Shit!" He hollered when the hostile met the door head on without slowing. He quickly gathered himself and set off a few rounds into the body which dropped at his feet, gurgling black foam and writhing with the suffering tentacles dying beneath the flesh. He went to his ear piece immediately.

"Hostile down. I am ok."

The only response he got was the unison of screaming commands blasting into his ears. He turned and bolted up the hall to rejoin the team in the master bedroom where they had their rifles pointing at a seated woman who didn't seem to mind the intrusion or honor their commands. Josh brazenly broke through the semi circle of assault rifles, shoving away the nozzles.

"Jill?" He tried. The woman shielding her eyes with her hands parted her fingers slightly to peek at the stranger addressing her. She could barely make out Josh there in the dark but his voice was too familiar.

"Josh Stone?"

Josh nodded. "Yes," then he added with some amusement, "You are a brunette."

The corners of Jill's mouth went up in a smile but she hid her expression behind her hands as if she was embarrassed of what he would think of her now after all these years, as he stood before her with the command of an elite team at his back and she, unkempt and barely dressed in a T- shirt and seemingly unabashed about it, nursing a cigarette.

Josh gestured for his team to turn down their lights to spare her, though he had already been taken aback at how disassembled she was.

"This is Jill Valentine," he introduced to a disenchanted team from over his shoulder with some degree of disbelief in his voice. His heart went out to her but he had to remain formal, professional. He eased the cigarette out from between her fingers and stamped it out on the floorboards.

"Jill, what happened here?" Someone started to cough and muffle it behind the bend of their arm.

She allowed him to coax her hands down from her face. Immediately she diverted her gaze and tucked the shambles of her fraying hair behind her ears. "I don't know. It's like Raccoon City all over again."

Josh sighed and dropped to a knee to level with her. "Wesker has something to do with this but we do not know how the infection is spreading so fast."

She dared to lock eyes with him. "_Wesker?" _There was a warble in her whisper.

Josh nodded then turned to look for the coughing team member. He didn't even know any of their names. He shone his light to the pocket of the utility shirt of the offender so he could address them properly.

He nodded off to the adjoining bathroom. "Take care of that, Louganis." He heard him stomping off into the bathroom. Shortly after the faucet came on.

"We have to go." He turned to his radio for a mission update. "Captain Stone, Bravo team. We have located Jill Valentine but the area has been compromised. Requesting light back up." He remained a moment listening to the crackling radio static without a response. He tried again.

"Stone to Command, come in." When he still got no response, he didn't let the lack of communication deter him. He stood up from Jill ready to lead. "The objective still stands. Get Louganis out of the bathroom."

Someone complied and went over to the door and pounded a fist on it. The door opened swiftly and Louganis bounded out, toting his assault rifle and choking unintelligible words through the tangle of tentacles oozing from his mouth.

Josh took Jill by the hand and pulled her toward him to distance her from the newly converted Louganis. His team turned on him immediately, all with a reluctance to fire first and anxiously awaiting a command of consent or prohibition.

"Open fire!"

His hesitant team caught the first spray of bullets before anyone returned fire. Josh took Jill down onto the floor with him and covered her instinctively, trying to regain control from over the deafening blasts. Unchecked gun fire dotted the walls above their heads from the unfazed Louganis, barely flinching from the ire of gunfire raining in through his armored vest. Three dropped beside them. Josh rolled onto his back and took aim at his face, dropping the hostile in a blink.

When he stood up, his small team remained at his feet, much to his horror.

"Shit!" He screamed, turning about to look for life. "Shit!" He kicked away the assault rifle from out of the loosened fingers of the attacker and bent over a gurgling team member, propped against the wall with a mouth full of blood bursting from his lips. Josh put a hand over the exit hole in his neck, trying to slow the loss but the blood seeped through his fingers and spilled out onto the floor. It wasn't any use.

"Shit!"

Behind him, Jill was making her own grim discoveries. The entire unit, save for Josh, had been eliminated. She turned to him, empathy abound. "I'm so sorry, Josh…"

"Are you alright?" He returned quickly, dismissing her compassion.

"Yeah."

He stood up and unhooked the handgun from the holster at his hip. She looked too frail to absorb the rebound of an assault rifle. He forced it into her as he passed to exit the bedroom. "I will wait outside. Get dressed."

Jill stapled the gun to her chest to keep from dropping it. He may have seemed indifferent but the look on his face was tight with emotion behind the sprinkles of drywall and blotches of blood. Under the uniform, he was just a man.

When Jill came out of the bedroom, Josh was at the head of the stairs with his sights aimed down at the sprawled open front door where shadows moved swiftly past it. The gunfire had drawn unwanted attention, much to his displeasure. He signaled for Jill to stay close without taking his eyes from the front and slowly began his descent down the stairs, minding every moaning floorboard beneath his feet. He was pleased to see Jill following suit having not forgotten her expertise, a hairsbreadth away. A figure entered the house, freezing them there on the steps. It darted toward the kitchen.

"Go."

Together they raced down the stairs and bolted out the door. Josh exited first and quickly scanned the front for any infected. Jill kept pace behind him crossing the walkway and down the steps to the curb. They ducked low using the abandoned cars as cover to make their way up the street assessing threats and avoiding confrontations. They moved swiftly and silently, transmitting direction and instruction through gesture and subtle touches until the humvee Josh arrived in was in sight behind the abandoned barricade. They sprinted toward it and slipped into the cabin, relieved and trying to catch their breath. Josh pressed his head up against the steering column and Jill leaned against the door with her fingers knotted in her sweaty hair. Through the windshield the path they had taken lay before them illuminated by a scattering of streetlights, blanketing the grisly scene with mocking light.

The two traded a glance before falling into one another's arms.

"It's so good to see you," Jill mumbled, muffled by the confines of his arms. "I'm sorry I'm not what you remember."

Josh pulled away to wink at her. He wasn't going to address her present state. "We have to go.

She nodded. "Where?"

"I have orders to take you into protective custody at the CDC." No sooner than he had thrown the vehicle into reverse than he felt the wheel jam between his hands. He looked back at the steering wheel to see Jill resisting it. She was shaking her head slowly.

"I've done all I can for the CDC."

"You are in my custody. I have to take you."

"So now I'm your prisoner?" There was a hint of panic in her escalating voice. The prospect of going to the CDC seemed more horrifying than shutting herself in her home from the infected. Josh blinked in surprise. He never expected this type of resistance and least of all, from Jill.

"Jill, please let go of the steering wheel."

"No, Josh! I'm not going! I'd rather jump out this vehicle right now."

At the very mention the automatic doors unlocked to oblige her. It was a bold move on Josh's part to call her bluff. The Jill Valentine he knew made firm resolutions. He hoped she was not in the car with him.

"Then go."

He watched her stare at him, dubious, and as if to mount the tension she went for the door release. Josh took his eyes away to stare at the road ahead. Jill hated how Josh did not resist her. If they had fought, if he insisted or tried to restrain her she would gladly have braved the streets and walk back home. But he didn't. He sat defeated in the driver's seat allowing his mission to fail for her sake. It was an empathetic move she would have made had the roles been reversed. Despite it all, she felt safer with him.

"Just drive," she grumbled, slouching against the door with a hand knotted in her hair. Josh sighed beside her and started to back up the humvee.

On the other side of the city somewhere, Chris was experiencing his own resistance in the worse way possible.


End file.
