A bruiser with a rocket launcher and tentacles is trying to catch up with a cute girl who is desperately trying to escape from a scary guy. In another life, I saw a feature film with similar motifs and genre. Seriously, the scene of Jill Valentine's escape is capable of making you laugh. Not as much as the hordes of zombies trying to break through the barricades into this area of the city, one of the few that hasn't fallen yet.
The dead comically hung on the chain-link fences, trying to knock them down with an ever-increasing mass. Stupid, imperfect specimens, when will you learn to make lifts out of human bodies? "World War Z" already proved that against a mountain of zombies, any fencing without a roof will be useless. The creatures will simply climb over the bodies of their comrades until they can finally get over the barricade. Unfortunately, the T-virus at the current stage doesn't make zombies very smart, but rather resilient and strong. And it's always fun to laugh at the stupidity of such specimens.
But what you can't laugh at is the masterpiece of the Tyrant project's development — Nemesis, a specimen using an extremely dangerous parasite. It is dangerous for a simple reason: in fact, any creature with intelligence poses a threat to the inhabitants of this world. If this creature also has a bazooka, the danger increases exponentially.
— Surprisingly, nothing even needs to be manipulated. Jill is perfectly driving herself into a trap, — I nodded, watching her escape from a distance, constantly changing my location. A rescue ticket even fell on her head, though of very dubious quality. It's like a birthday present of a box of peanuts for an allergic person who has an intolerance to any nuts. And the name of this allergy: another one of the surviving members of S.T.A.R.S. — Cowardly Brad.
What other nicknames did Brad Vickers have? Wet Pants, Ostrich Head, Bicycle Pedals, and so on. He served as the pilot of the special forces unit, was a member of my "Alpha" team, and was supposed to be fearless and strong under my command. True, his ears tactfully failed to grasp the obligations. A hunchback can only be fixed with a shotgun blast at point-blank range, well, or with a new Umbrella development. The latter is a less sparing option than a firearm.
But to hell with that black cat and that company, what to do with a cowardly rat who trembled with fear during dangerous operations? Who ran away at the first sign of danger? The one who unexpectedly… came out of the building with a bite in the shoulder area. He tried to stick his head out of the sand for the first time, for which he immediately paid, and in the most radical way. Poor Brad. In an hour, maybe a few hours, he'll be a Zombified Brad.
— A real meeting of old friends, — I greeted my former subordinate, maintaining the signature smile on my face, worthy of becoming a standard for Hollywood stars.
— Wesker… — the colleague in a yellow rescue vest said, frightened, still holding the bitten area with his hand. — You damn traitor… How did you survive? Chris said you died… As did… — he stammered in fear, trying to squeeze out some courage, which was evidenced by his choppy breathing and chaotic retreat. He came out of the bar's back exit; the main entrance was blocked by zombies, Jill went the other way. Bad, as many as three entrances and exits, a real nightmare for any fire inspection. A corrupt one, of course; a regular one would have just put this building on the board of honor. — A… disgusting rat…
— How many amusing comparisons rats have. The very first ones to run from a ship in fear for their lives. They spread plague and epidemics. Dirty rodents are the totem animals for the concepts of "traitor," "snitch," "scoundrel," — I shook my head, holding my hand out. A hand holding a loaded pistol, my palm gripping it, and my finger ready to press the trigger at any moment. — Brad, you see, I can help you. There is an option to make an antidote or get it, but you might die from the side effects if they haven't been weakened. But there is such an option, hope, so as not to become a vile creature devouring your own kind.
— Ha… antidote! Is that a shot to the head? Well, yes… there is a side effect. A hole in the damn head! — swallowing his saliva, he assessed the back alley with a frightened look, trying to find a way to escape. A person surprisingly clings to their own life, trying to fight it off from the clutches of death. Even being on the threshold, no, standing in front of a tunnel with light in the distance… we continue to cling to our own existence.
— Not quite, — I shrugged. — But in a way, you're right. A bullet in the head is not much different from a cure. Goodbye, Brad.
I pulled the trigger, instantly piercing the head of the weakest fighter in my squad. It was high time to do this, but my partners interfered, standing up for our pilot. And, it should be noted, he was an excellent pilot. That alone saved him, including his life and a spot in the special forces unit.
I don't really favor useless garbage; it should be taken to an incinerator or, for humanitarian reasons, thrown into a trash can. Certainly not kept close to you. Sometimes even a pilot needs to stand up for himself, stand next to a partner and hold the defense. It was like that even in ancient times, where a shield was needed not only by the shield-bearer, but more by his comrades. With a shield, they covered their friend-in-arms, standing on their left side.
They only got rid of those who fled the battlefield, who could let the team down due to fear, an uncontrolled instinct of self-preservation, or stupidity. You have to get rid of the weak links. It's a pity that I couldn't do it earlier. There was no one to replace Brad. And they also said that there are no irreplaceable people.
— The rehearsal was successful, but a different approach is needed with Jill, — I nodded at this suggestion, heading to look for her.
She couldn't have gone far in this chaos. I need to adjust the route and… make a super-fast jump to the opposite side of the street, faster than human eyes can perceive.
A shot is a bad idea; it attracted the attention of some mercenary with a multi-shot rocket launcher. Nemesis would like such a thing; the little puppet is capable of sending several deadly charges at an opponent in a couple of seconds. And this mercenary ran to the side of the noise, but he will only find a corpse. Hmm, I should check the next street.
On it, I discovered something amazing.
The weathermen lied about the weather in Raccoon City. It's better to keep quiet about the cloudless weather, like a dirty dream. From the sky, or more precisely from a multi-story parking garage, a huge bruiser fell. But not alone; a car with some passenger joined him a second later. I just can't imagine who it could be. Oh, so many options that I could be ironic until morning. Only something like that won't save Jill, who is trying to crawl out of the car that fell from a height. Crawling out… Jill is worthy of my admiration as a model of an ideal "Alpha" team soldier. She doesn't give up until the very end.
If I remember correctly, in the early 90s, she became famous in the U.S. Army; she was even contacted by recruiters from the counter-terrorism unit — "Delta." The entry criteria did not imply the selection of female candidates. Exclusively men, as a rule, came from the 75th Ranger Regiment. In addition, besides professional skills, two years of service and an age of 21 or older are required. Jill was born in 1974, and in 1996, she already joined the "Alpha" team.
Questions, many questions, about how exactly she got there and went through a year and a half of training in bomb disposal and lockpicking. At the same time, she had two years in the army. Such difficult timings that I, in my time, was skeptical about accepting such a candidate, even tried to dig up a lot of compromising evidence on her. But no, just a lucky, in some ways talented, woman with a capital letter. A woman? "Fighter" suits her more, and a fighter has no gender.
An epic moment, the car explosion — right after Jill leaves it. What are such explosive cars made of, seriously, they just don't explode from a fall. Hmm, looking more closely, I understood the reason. Fire crept up from a burning building, and the gas tank was punctured. This explains a lot; I even nodded at this hypothesis. At the same time, picking the best moment to intervene.
What's available so far? A bruiser who, without his weapon, is walking towards Jill, obviously having forgotten about the existence of tentacles. I disapprove: a beauty trying to crawl away from him, take her, don't want her. Nemesis just walks like a robot. Getting closer, closer… My entrance.
Pulling a second pistol from its holster, I fire two shots at a single point. Shooting with two pistols is difficult, something on the level of badly filmed movies. Doing it with sunglasses in the dark is even more difficult, but experience compensated for this. So that my experience wouldn't fail, I shot sequentially, not simultaneously. It was necessary to concentrate all the shots strictly at one point near his eye, the stitched one, that hides the parasite.
The first shots already attracted his attention, stopping his attempt to crush Jill with his foot. The subsequent ones forced him to turn his head towards the source of the series of shots. Nemesis quickly realized that he had unsuccessfully said goodbye to me, forgetting to finish me off, for which he is now paying. The bullets pierced his flesh, damaging his brain, sequentially and evenly. Just two magazines minus one bullet were enough for him, in an attempt to get closer, to decide to get on his knees and rest a little. The regeneration mode has started; we have a couple of minutes.
I can touch him now; he's defenseless.
However, such an opinion is guaranteed to kill me, as it would anyone who trusts him. Knowledge is power; this statement did not come out of nowhere. If too much damage is done to this creature, it will not just lie down to rest. No, the situation will turn for the worse for the attacking side — mutation. It's scary to imagine what Nemesis can mutate into, what kind of killing machine it will become if you shoot a rocket at it once. Well, or forty times; who knows an uncontrolled process.
— W-Wesker? — before Jill, who was trying to get to her feet, rushed to run, I calmly proceeded to reload. I should probably catch up with that mercenary and ask him to adopt the ideology of "communism."
"Your rocket launcher?"
"Oh, how wrong you've been until now! Our rocket launcher!"
I need to find something to replace the pistols; the automatic weapons and shotgun I left in a hurry will do.
— There's anarchy in the city. Even the dead have started to rise, — I made a pun, smiling at my own joke. A deadly one, in a way. After all, most of the world, with the exception of Umbrella's management, considers me dead, and how conveniently it turned out that the recently dead have learned to come back to life. The only difference is that my diet is slightly different from "brains" and "human flesh." — But, seriously, we should run.
— You're a traitor… — Jill gave me a sense of déjà vu, almost quoting a dead S.T.A.R.S. pilot by intonation. The only difference was that her tone didn't tremble, and her hands had already aimed the pistol at me. I can disappoint her; such a weapon is useless against me. I'm much faster than a bullet, at least a single one; a volley from two automatic weapons can seriously affect my control over the mutation.
— Remind me, how did our meeting end? I was trying to steal some data, you went down to Spencer's lab, then we had a nice chat… And I was pierced through by the clawed paw of a Tyrant that woke up from hibernation. It even managed to kill me. The only difference is that it killed my past. Death makes you rethink a lot, for example, life goals and the importance of partners, — mixing truth with lies, I tried to convince Jill with cheap drama.
— Yeah, as if I'd believe that… — she frowned, gripping the pistol tighter.
— What reason do you think I have to save a former subordinate? If I'm not mistaken, currently unemployed and without any connections. Believe me, in these two months I've spent in the city… I had a hundred and one ways to kill you. But instead, when a crisis came, I decided to save you. What is that, if not good intentions? — I winked at her, forgetting that I was wearing sunglasses.
— Convenient, don't you think? — A very smart girl, it's not for nothing that she survived the incident with the mansion.
— Half an hour ago, this guy dropped in on me, — I gestured with my head to Nemesis. — And I didn't kill him. Neither then, nor now. That creature will fully heal its injuries any minute now. So, I suggest we go to a cafe-restaurant and discuss everything over a cup of hot coffee. How does that sound?
— Are you mocking me?! — she asked emotionally, but still put the pistol away.
— I'll be mocking you when a nuclear warhead flies at us. So I'm sure we have something to discuss, — I stretched my face into a sly smile.