THE STEEL SHUTTER THAT PROTECTED THE front of the machine shop was down and locked, but Jill managed to get in through the garage, picking her way past a side door. The shop was sturdy enough, well protected from the average thief and certainly any zom-bie, but Jill had no doubt that if the Nemesis wanted to get in, it probably could. She'd just have to hope that it hadn't tracked her this far...

... however it does that, exactly. Jill had no idea. Did it smell her? That didn't seem likely, considering her careful, breathless walk to the gas station; she'd dodged from shadow to shadow, hearing the Nemesis's thundering but clumsy progress as it searched for her amongst the crowd of abandoned cars. If it tracked her by scent, it would have caught her... though how did it know who she was, specifi-cally? If another woman her size stumbled across its path, would it mistake that woman for Jill? Jill walked through the well-lit garage, her boots making soft wet noises against the oil-sticky floor, her thoughts wandering as she took in the layout and checked doors. She didn't know how the Nemesis had been programmed to find and kill S.T.A.R.S. or why it seemed to break off its pursuit from time to time, ei-ther; with Brad dead, she was the only S.T.A.R.S. member still in Raccoon.

Unless... Police Chief Irons had been a B team member, some twenty years back, and he was probably still in town...

Jill shook her head. Ridiculous. Chris had dug up enough information on Irons to make it a near certainty that he was working for Umbrella, just as they sus-pected their mysterious Mr. Trent was  - the difference being that Trent seemed to want to help them, while Irons was a money-grubbing creep who didn't give a shit about anyone but himself. If Irons was on the Nemesis's hit list, Jill was pretty much okay with that. From the garage, she stepped into a kind of combina-tion office-break room  - a soda machine, a small table with a couple of chairs, a cluttered desk. Jill tried the telephone on general principles, receiving the dead air she expected. "Now I wait, I guess," she said to no one in particu-lar, leaning against the counter. If the Nemesis didn't show up after a few moments, she'd slip out again, head back to the trolley. She wondered if Carlos was there yet, and if he'd found any survivors from his pla-toon  - what was it? Umbrella Biohazard something. Probably one of their semilegitimate branches; it would be good PR, once the news got out about Raccoon. Umbrella's admin would be able to point to their spe-cial task force, tell the media how quickly and deci-sively they'd acted when they'd realized there'd been an accident.

Except they won't call it an accident, because that could mean negligence on their part; no doubt they've already got a scapegoat lined up and ready to hang, some unlucky yes-man they can frame for the murder of thousands...

Not if she could help it, not if her friends could; one way or another, the truth was going to come out. It had to. Jill noticed a few tools lying around  - a set of socket wrenches, a couple of crowbars and it occurred to her that it might be handy to pack a few things for the trol-ley. It'd suck to get there and end up needing a screw-driver or the like, something they'd have to come back for. She was a mechanical illiterate herself, but maybe Carlos had some experience... Thump! Thump! Thump! Jill dropped into a crouch behind the counter as soon as she heard the slow, heavy knocks at the garage's side door, insistent and steady. Nemesis? No, the rappings were loud but not power-ful, it was either a human or... "Uuhh." The gently hungry cry filtered through the door, joined by another, then a third, then a chorus. Virus carriers, and it sounded like a large group of them. Any relief she felt upon realizing that it wasn't the Nemesis quickly faded; a dozen zombies hammer-ing on the door was the equivalent of a flashing neon sign that read GOOD EATS.

And how exactly am I going to sneak out of here now?

Her simple plan, to hide until the Nemesis went away, had pretty much crapped out. She needed a new plan, preferably one she had more than a few seconds to map out.

So come up with something already. Unless you mean to go charging out there and start kicking ass.

Jill sighed, the low gnaw of dread in her stomach so constant that she no longer noticed it. Outside, the de-caying carriers continued to shuffle and cry, beating helplessly against the door. Might as well run through her options; she had a few minutes to kill.

They made it to the trolley without any trouble. Carlos was feeling hopeful as they staggered into the station yard lit by an expanse of merrily burning debris to one side  - no zombies, no monsters, and Mikhail didn't seem to be getting any worse. The City Hall gate had been open, a dozen jewels set into a kind of clock on a nearby pedestal, which meant Jill had already gone through. Carlos had expected her to make it, but it was still a relief. "There it is," Mikhail said, and Carlos nodded, squinting as a gust of foul-smelling smoke washed over them. To their right was a grand old building, either the trolley station or the alleged City Hall. In front of them, past a stack of crates that blocked their path, was an old-fashioned trolley car, its red paint slightly faded. As they got closer, Carlos could see that a second car was attached, most of it hidden in the shadow of a building overhang. Jill was probably waiting in one of them. Carlos shoved a few of the crates aside with one hip, Mikhail steadying himself against the station wall. "Almost there," Carlos said. Mikhail smiled weakly. "Bet you'll be glad to dump my ass into a seat." "Be gladder to sit my own ass down. One-way ticket outta here." Mikhail actually managed a laugh. "I heard that." They moved beneath the overhang, Carlos searching the windows of both cars for movement. He didn't see anything; worse, he didn't feel anything. The place seemed totally deserted, still and lifeless.

Hope you 're taking a nap in there, Jill Valentine.

The sliding side door of the first car they reached was locked; to their mutual relief, the second wasn't. After giving the car a once-over to be certain it was empty, Carlos helped Mikhail aboard, getting him set-tled into a window bench seat. As soon as the platoon leader was lying down, he seemed to fall into a half swoon.

"I'm going to check out the second car, then see what I can do to get a few lights on in here," Carlos said. Mikhail grunted in response. Not surprisingly, Jill wasn't in the other car, either, but Carlos did find the electrical controls next to the driver's seat. At the touch of a button, a row of over-head lights switched on, illuminating an aging wood floor and red vinyl padded seats lining both walls. "Where are you, Jill?" Carlos muttered, feeling real worry for her. If something had happened, he was going to feel at least partly responsible for not accom-panying her back to the restaurant. Mikhail was barely conscious when Carlos checked on him, but it was more like sleep than coma. Until a doctor looked at the wound, rest was probably the best thing for him. There was an open control panel at the back of the car, which Carlos knelt to examine. His heart dropped when he saw that it was part of the primary power setup and that a few parts had been removed. He didn't know anything about cable cars, but it didn't take a genius to understand that you couldn't run a machine when the wires had been pulled, particularly on such an ancient system. It looked like there was a missing fuse, too. "Hijo de la chingada," he whispered and heard a feeble laugh behind him.

"I know just enough Spanish to know you shouldn'tkiss your mother with that mouth," Mikhail said."What's wrong?"There's a fuse missing," Carlos said. "And these cir-cuits have got to be shorted out. We'll have to bypassthem if we want to get this thing moving."Just northeast of here...," Mikhail started, but hehad to pause for a few breaths before going on.

"There's a gas station. Repair shop. It was one of thelandmarks on the city map, it's suburbs past that.Probably have equipment there."

Carlos thought about it. He didn't want to leave Mikhail alone, and Jill or Nicholai could show up any minute...... but we ain 't going no place without a power cable and a high amp fuse, and Mikhail's on a downhill slide; what choice have I got? "Yeah, okay," Carlos said lightly, walking over to Mikhail. He gazed down at him, concerned about the high color of his cheeks, the waxy pallor of his brow.

"Guess I'll go check that out  - wanna come with?"Ha ha," Mikhail whispered. "Be careful."Carlos nodded. "Try to get some sleep. If anyoneshows up, tell them I'll be right back."

Mikhail was already slipping back into a doze."Sure," he mumbled.Carlos checked Mikhail's rifle to make sure it wasloaded, and he placed it next to the padded bench,within easy reach. He hunted around for something elseto say, some words of reassurance, and finally justturned and walked to the exit. Mikhail wasn't stupid, heknew what the stakes were.

His life, among other things.

Carlos took a deep breath and opened the door, pray-ing that the gas station wasn't too far away.

Chan was gone, and not only was there no way to tell where he was headed but Nicholai had missed him by bare minutes. The computer he'd apparently made his report from was still warm, the glass of the monitor crackling with static electricity. Nicholai impulsively scooped up the monitor and threw it across the room, but wasn't satisfied with its mundane explosion of cheap plastic casing and glass. He wanted blood. If Chan came back to the office, Nicholai would beat him severely before ending his life. He paced the small, heavily littered office, fuming.

He teases me with his ignorance. He is so stupid, so oblivious, how can he be so inferior and still be alive?

Nicholai knew that the thought wasn't strictly rational, but he was furious with Chan. Davis Chan didn't de-serve to be a Watchdog, he didn't deserve to live. Gradually, Nicholai took hold of himself, breathing deeply, forcing himself to count to a hundred by twos. It was still early in the game. Besides, Nicholai's plan de-pended on having information that Umbrella wanted and if he meant to steal that information, he had to allow some time for the other Watchdogs to collect it. The daily field reports were a bare summary of condi-tions and body count, used as much as a check-in as anything else; the real stuff was being stored on disk, transcribed from found documents or picked out of someone else's files, only downloaded by cell if the Watchdog considered it of critical importance.

And... while I'm waiting, I can check in with my comrades at the trolley.

Nicholai stopped pacing, struck by the realization that he had truly enjoyed his deception of Carlos and Mikhail. Somehow, that there were two of them had turned it into a more exciting game. Would they suspect him? What were they saying about his sudden depar-ture? What did they think of him?

And what would it be like to witness Mikhail's slow, excruciating loss of life, watch him lose his capacity for reason as the young protagonist Carlos vainly strug-gles to beat the odds? Nicholai could disable the bell mechanism once they reached the clock tower... per-haps bravely volunteer to seek out the hospital, to bring back supplies... Nicholai laughed suddenly, a harsh barking sound in the stillness of the room. He had to kill Dr. Aquino the scientist who was supposed to report in from the hospital, the one working with the vaccine anyway, and he knew that Aquino had been ordered to see to the hospital's destruction before leaving Raccoon, to elimi-nate trace evidence from his research. And there was also a specific species of organic stored at the hospital that Umbrella had decided to abandon, the Hunter Gamma series, so blowing up the hospital meant two objectives met for the price of one. It seemed that the HGs weren't cost effective, al-though there had been serious disagreement within the administration about whether or not to destroy the pro-totypes. If Nicholai could lure Carlos into combat with one of them, he would have some valuable information of his own to sell... and he, too, would be meeting more than one objective with a single action. It all came together, there was a kind of symmetry to it all. He'd drop me entire scheme if anything went wrong, of course, or if he found it wouldn't mesh with his plans. He wasn't an idiot, but having a project to fill his downtime would keep him from becoming overly frustrated. Nicholai turned and started for the door, amused by his own indulgence. Raccoon City was like some haunted kingdom where he was ruler, able to do as he wished  - anything he wished. Lie, murder, bathe in the glory of another man's defeat. It was all his for the tak-ing, and with a payoff at the end. He felt like himself again. It was time to play.

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