Tie the Noose Chapter 29

How did it all go so wrong? That was all Rebecca could ask herself as she clutched the pistol in both hands, her fingers wrapped tight around the frame as if letting go would somehow be an admission of her giving up, dumb as it may have been. The weight of it felt different, heavier than it should have been, as though the steel itself carried the haunting damnation of her failure. Last night had been a disaster. Everything that could have gone wrong had gone wrong, spiraling out of control in ways she still couldn't fully process, and she didn't even know where to begin trying to make sense of it. Her mind kept circling the same memories, trying to assemble them into something coherent and failing every time.

Nobody could have expected Danny to respond the way he had. Violently. Efficiently. Terrifyingly. It had been horrifying to watch it unfold. Chris was good, one of the best she'd ever seen in a fight, and Jill was better still, a former Delta operator that regularly beat out any three other members of STARS. Barry had decades of experience behind him, strength and a brawler physique that felt like he could tangle with a bear and win. And Danny had taken them apart like they were nothing, like they'd been standing still, with a depth of ability that she'd have called impossible if she hadn't been there herself.

Rebecca still couldn't understand it. Nothing she'd ever seen from him, from his warm smiles and casual posture, his gentle touch and his attentive gaze, none of it prepared her for it. Nothing she could imagine could have explained what she had witnessed yesterday. He had brutalized them with an almost casual disregard. It was like seeing behind the mask for the first time, to see the real him, or at least, a small part of it, and he had terrified her, broken her in a way she hadn't ever been prepared for.

She'd drawn her gun. She'd drawn it against him. Even now the memory made her stomach twist. The motion had been automatic, drilled into her through her training and her instincts. And then she'd shot him. The sound of the gunshot still rang in her ears, haunting her and gripping her soul in it's icy palm. She had been terrified, she reminded herself again and again. He had taken down three of the toughest people she knew, and when he moved toward her she reacted the only way she knew how. Her response had been reasonable, right? It had to be.

But that was a lie, and she knew it.

The truth settled heavy in her chest, impossible to ignore. As the memory returned once more, she could still feel the warmth of his hand against her cheek, the calm and deliberate gentleness of the gesture as he carefully took the gun from her trembling hands. There had been no anger in his touch, no hate, no rage or betrayal or hate directed at her. Just that quiet moment, impossibly gentle in the aftermath of everything that had happened. Remembering it now made her throat tighten as the sob rose up before she could stop it, forcing her to swallow it down before it could escape.

It had taken Chris, Jill, and Barry far too long to get their bearings back, the three of them staggering through the aftermath of the fight like people who had just been caught in a car crash. By the time they managed to push themselves upright again, by the time the shock had faded, Danny was already gone. Captain Wesker had told them afterward that he had tried to intercept him on the parking lot, that he had moved to cut Danny off before he could reach his vehicle, but Danny had surprised him too. Just like he had surprised the others.

According to Wesker, the confrontation had lasted only moments. Danny had closed the distance before the Captain could properly react, striking fast enough that even someone as disciplined and controlled as Wesker hadn't managed to stop him. The bruise that darkened the side of Wesker's face said more than the captain ever would. Rebecca had trained under him long enough to understand what that meant. In all the sparring sessions she'd watched over the months, in every drill and demonstration, she had never once seen Captain Wesker take a clean hit from anyone. Not from Chris or Forest, even when they teamed up. Not from Barry. Not even from Jill when she pushed herself as hard as she could.

And yet Danny had done it.

Danny. A civilian. A man who had never claimed any sort of training, who had never spoken about fighting or combat or anything remotely resembling it. A man who, until yesterday, she would have sworn didn't possess a violent bone in his body... except he had, hadn't he? All those times he'd come back covered in bruises, from the first time, to the last, she knew deep down that he was tangled up in something, something that was hurting him, but she always was too hesitant to ask. Just one more regret, one more bit of cowardice to add to the growing pile.

The thought of him beating Albert Wesker in a straight fight made her stomach twist with a cold, crawling horror she couldn't quite put into words. It recontextualized all of those injuries, all those aches and scars and healing wounds. Because it was clear he'd been trained from the beginning, maybe even before, and it hadn't been the relatively controlled sort that she knew. The only way someone got that good was if they took the training wheels off, and pushed into dangerous territory, or so Jill had told her.

In the end, though, it made little difference. They had failed.

That was the truth of it. They had approached him carefully, calmly, even peacefully, hoping he would just... come with them. They had tried to talk to him, tried to take control of the situation without anyone getting hurt. They had tried to help him. And in return, he had dismantled them, one by one. Efficiently. Brutally.

And still... despite all of that, despite the violence and the chaos and the terrifying reality of what he had done to some of the people she respected more than almost anyone else in the world, Rebecca's mind refused to stay there.

All she could see was the blood. The thin line of red that had run down his face after the round had grazed him. The way it had cut across his cheek where the bullet had torn a shallow divot in the flesh. The way the blood had dripped from his jaw, slow and steady, marking every step he took. How it poured down his face in a river of red, one more mark on his body, somehow so much worse than any he'd ever come home with.

Because she had done that.

She had almost killed him.

The realization sat in her chest like a weight she couldn't lift. She had let her fear take control. She had let panic override everything she had been taught, everything she believed about him, everything she thought she understood about the man she loved. In that moment she hadn't trusted him. She hadn't believed in him. And because of that, she had nearly pulled the trigger on the man she cared about more than anyone else in the world.

That was the truth she couldn't escape, and that, more than anything else that had happened that night, felt like the greatest damnation of all.

In the aftermath, they'd scoured his apartment trying to find something, anything that indicated where he'd went. The notebook was gone, and all they'd found is his pistol. She shuddered to think what would have happened if he'd been armed at the time, but now he had her gun, and she had his. The others had agreed that she should take it, that she should hold on to it. Captain Wesker, to his word, hadn't filed the paperwork, hadn't filled out an incident report or anything else to indicate what had happened. And they all agreed that it was for the best to keep things silent for now.

All of them still believed they could help him. That much had been made clear in the quiet, tense conversations that followed after everything fell apart. They hadn't spoken about it loudly, hadn't argued or raised their voices, but the determination had been there all the same. They just had to find him. Somewhere out there in the sprawl of the city he had to surface again, had to leave some trace behind, some hint of where he had gone after disappearing into the night. He would turn up somewhere, she had to believe. Or at least she desperately hoped that he would.

Chris and Jill hadn't come in today. They had called off their shifts, choosing instead to start combing through the city themselves. Rebecca could picture them doing it even now, moving through neighborhoods and streets with the kind of relentless focus they brought to everything they did, tinged with the guilt of having let Danny vanish into the dark f the evening like they had. Both had taken it incredibly personally, almost as much as Rebecca did, and had dedicated themselves to finding him.

Barry had come in, though, along with Captain Wesker. Someone had to stay behind and manage the fallout, and both of them had taken that burden on without any complaints. Together they had begun assembling a cover story, something solid enough that no one outside the immediate circle would start asking the wrong questions. The official record would say something simple, something forgettable. Nothing that hinted at the truth of what had happened between them.

The rest of it would be done quietly.

They would work in shifts, coordinating between those who stayed at the station and those who searched the city. Every place they had ever seen Danny visit would be checked and checked again. Restaurants he liked. Streets he'd walked. Stores he stopped at. The quiet corners of the city where he might have felt comfortable enough to linger. They would turn over every stone, chase every rumor, dig up every clue and follow every thread until something finally gave them a direction.

They would save him.

This time they wouldn't be unprepared. They wouldn't underestimate him again, wouldn't walk into the situation blind the way they had before. Now they knew what he was capable of, or at least they knew enough to understand how dangerous he could be. Or at least she hoped they did. He'd surprised them once, and they would never catch him unawares again, and none of them believed otherwise.

But turning the gun over in her hands, the polished steel, the markings of a Jericho 941, it felt wrong in her grip. But she would take it. She would keep it until she could give it back to him, one way or another. But until then... Rebecca sighed, frustrated. It wasn't fair. This wasn't supposed to be like this. He was supposed to be... He was so much more, so much more to her than she thinks even he knew.

God, she blamed herself, because it was her fault. She should have known better. She should have... She should have done something more, been there more, swallowed her own feelings and tried to help him, somehow, someway. But in the end, it all meant so very little, and now he was out there, planning God knows what, and all the while, she was stuck here behind a desk in an office. She should be out there with Chris, with Jill, scouring neighborhoods, digging through his favorite restaurants, trying to find any kind of indication of where he could have gone to ground at.

It was heartbreaking to realize she didn't actually know that much about him, in retrospect. She didn't know the names of his parents, didn't know the names of his siblings, if he even had any. Didn't know if he had any friends from work or acquaintances. Didn't know where he liked to go on his walks, only that it was somewhere in the city, and the few clues they did have were vague at best. It was madness, and it was maddening. Trying to spin yarn from seemingly less than nothing.

She'd always told herself that he was just a private person, but how much more had he hidden from her? How much of it was a lie, just a deception, not to hurt her, but to keep her safe, distant, out of his business, out of his plans, to shield her, maybe. To protect her, she had to believe, because she couldn't contemplate the idea that he was using her, that he had been trying to turn her into some kind of asset, some kind of tool to take advantage of.

His last words before he vanished, they still haunted her. They still itched at the inside of her skull. He told her it would be okay, that he had to go away, that it was too late to stop. But he'd also told her that she'd been wrong about what she'd been thinking. And she didn't know if she could believe that now.

Yet at the same time, he'd had the perfect opportunity to hurt her. He had her gun. She just shot him, for God's sake. And yet all he did was caress her cheek and try to calm her down before he hugged her and held her close one last time before he vanished down those stairs, and the most terrifying thing was, she didn't know if that would be the last time she ever saw him. That if the next time she saw him, it would be on a wanted poster, or in connection to a news broadcast talking about some terrible thing that he did.

But she just wanted to believe. She had to believe. Or else, what the hell was even the point?

She just hated how his gun felt so heavy in her hands. His pistol that he loved so much. That he'd put 10,000 rounds through. That he'd trained and learned and practiced on. That he'd used to kill a man to protect her with. Without hesitation or pause or remorse. He had killed someone to protect her. And she turned on him.

No, no, she couldn't think like that. She didn't turn on him. She was trying to help him, and she would keep trying. She would keep trying and trying and trying until he was better, until everything was right again.

No matter what, no matter how long it took or what she had to do. She would console herself to that. She would swear it. Because she was STARS, goddammit. She was Rebecca Chambers, and she may only be a rookie, but she wasn't alone.

And come hell or high water, she would save him.


000


Chris fell heavily into the bar seat, the worn vinyl creaking beneath his weight as he dropped into it. His eyes were bloodshot and tired, his shoulders hunched forward with the dull stiffness of a man who had spent too many hours walking the city streets with too little sleep. Jill slid into the seat beside him without a word, her movements slower than usual. Hidden away in their corner booth, half-shielded by the dim lighting and the low murmur of conversation from the rest of the bar, the mood between them was dour, tired, worn and empty. It had been a long, long few weeks, the kind that seemed to grind a person down one hour at a time.

"This isn't working," Chris said finally, his voice gravelly from exhaustion, his tone angry, but more to himself than anything. "We don't have a clue as to where he is. We haven't been able to pick up any trails. Nobody we spoke to has seen him and that's if they even talk to us. It's like he fell off the face of the earth."

Jill just nodded silently, folding her hands together on the table for a moment as she stared at the untouched beer in front of her. She felt just as worn as he looked. The search had been exhausting in ways that went beyond physical fatigue. They had been combing through the city day after day, block after block, chasing every rumor and every half-remembered sighting anyone thought might be useful. But even a city as small as Raccoon could swallow a man whole if he knew how to disappear, and for someone like Daniel that seemed to be exactly what had happened.

The effort had been titanic, even for someone with Jill's discipline. The city was too spread out, too full of alleyways, basements, side streets, and forgotten corners where someone determined enough could vanish without leaving a trace. Every lead they followed dissolved into nothing by the time they reached the end of it, and with it their hopes of finding Daniel before he was able to finish whatever he was planning, but... but as the days passed it was starting to feel pointless.

What made it worse was the fact that they were doing it blind. They didn't have access to any of the official resources that would normally make an investigation like this possible. They couldn't pull security cameras, couldn't check surveillance feeds from stores, traffic intersections, or businesses, and they couldn't request records or force anyone to cooperate. Everything had to be done the slow way, boots on the ground while asking questions and walking the streets hoping someone had seen something useful.

They were hunting for any sign, any small indicator of where Daniel could have gone after disappearing that night, and so far every attempt had led them right back to the same empty answer. There was nothing, a whole big fat heaping of nothing. Wherever the bearded man had gone, he'd fallen off the radar almost too effectively, and if truth be told both of them were beginning to reach the end of their rope.

Barry had been trying to counsel them, trying to encourage them, but he was just as tied up as the Captain was, putting in the overtime to offset the loss of the two of them. It was a small comfort, but it did little to help them actually get anywhere. It was worse for their rookie, who wasn't used to grueling shifts, but faced them with the same hard determination that made Jill proud, even as young and untested as she was. But for all that Rebecca had the enthusiasm, she didn't have the experience, and out of all of them she was the one being hit hardest by this whole ordeal.

Jill found herself sighing quietly as she leaned back against seat. Being angry about it didn't change the truth, and the truth had been settling in heavier with every passing day. Daniel was far more than any of them could have possibly imagined, and every hour they spent searching the city without results only made that realization sharper. The quiet, mild-mannered man they thought they knew now felt like a carefully constructed mask, and the longer he remained missing the harder it became to believe any of them had ever really understood who he was.

It hurt, even for someone like Jill who had kept a certain distance from him from the start. She had never been as close to Danny as Chris or Rebecca had been, yet even she felt the sting of betrayal and confusion every time she replayed that night in her mind. Watching Rebecca fall apart the way she had been far worse. The rookie had always carried a bright, stubborn optimism, and seeing that confidence crumble under the weight of what had happened had been difficult for all of them. It left a bitter taste that lingered through every long day of searching.

She stayed silent as Chris unraveled beside her, the frustration clearly eating at him as he waved a hand for the bartender and ordered a beer for himself and one for her as well. The glass that appeared in front of her remained untouched, though, the condensation slowly rolled down the side while she watched Chris stew in his own thoughts.

"This is bullshit," he growled. "The guy was a civilian. Everything we know about him said he was a civilian. Enthusiastic, maybe, but Jesus Christ. No one could have suspected how damn good he was. I don't know how I didn't see it."

Jill sighed as Chris started lambasting himself again. He always took things too personally, carrying every failure like it was something he alone should have prevented, and truth be told she couldn't really blame him this time. The fight had shaken all of them. Daniel was a fighter on par with the experts who trained her in Delta, not just a casual practitioner and not just someone who might have picked a few things up in the army. The level of control and precision he had shown wasn't something a hobbyist developed in a gym somewhere. No, this was something else entirely.

Replaying the fight in her mind, she hated to admit it, but he'd taken them all apart effortlessly. Even when she'd managed to go and get her licks in, he'd shifted his body and tilted his face just enough to soften the blows with a kind of instinctive grace that came from years, if not decades, of proficiency. She'd only met a few master instructors in her time in Delta, people who carried a quiet bearing and never needed to broadcast how dangerous they were because you could feel it the moment they stepped into a room, but she'd never picked that vibe up from Danny. In truth he had seemed like a bit of a bumbler, just a little clumsy in his day-to-day life and not someone with the kind of feral, cat-like grace that came from far too many bouts in the ring.

He'd gotten the drop on them perfectly. Hell, she was kicking herself over it even now. All three of them had instinctively fallen back on their police training and boxed him into the center, standing within arm's reach where they were too close to properly grapple him and too close to stop him from driving elbows, fists, and shoulders straight into them. They hadn't bothered to secure his hands, believing, really believing, that he would just... just go with them. God, how had they been so stupid?

It had been over in seconds, and he was gone by the time they managed to put themselves back together. The whole thing was humiliating and embarrassing, and Jill knew that Chris had gone twice as hard ever since, picking fights with Wesker, with Forest, and with anyone he could drag into the sparring ring just to find where he went wrong.

But Jill knew the actual truth. For someone at Danny's skill level they had walked straight into the worst possible setup, even if she hated admitting it to herself. He was beatable, just like anyone else was, but that wasn't really the problem. The problem was that they'd never be able to get the drop on him like that again. He would never allow it. He knew they were looking for him now, and if any one of them ran into him alone he would destroy them just like he did the last time.

Not that they wouldn't try. It didn't change the fact that they had to move as a group just to make sure they had the manpower to put him down, though, had made the search feel impossible. There was just to much ground to cover, but he was too quick and too slippery for them to split up and call the others to them. If they found him they needed to take him then. If, was the the key word there. It was like trying to find a needle in a stack of needles somewhere inside the city.

Jill didn't know what to do, and judging from the look on Chris's face neither did he. So she sat there brooding while he bristled beside her like an angry bear. Eventually both of them would have to look Rebecca in the eye and tell her they still hadn't found him, and watch as her hopes shattered and the bright gleam in her eyes dimmed just a little bit more.

But the reality of it had sunk in, and there was no escaping the weight of it anymore. Weeks of searching had worn away the last of the easy optimism they had started with, leaving behind something colder and far more frustrating. Jill could feel that tension hanging in the air between them, the quiet understanding that they were running out of options while the clock kept moving forward. Every day Daniel remained out there was another day closer to whatever he had been planning, and none of them had any idea how to stop it.

Chris sighed heavily, the sound long and tired as though it had been building in his chest for hours. He seemed finished grumbling for the moment, though the frustration was still written plainly across his face. He leaned back slightly in the booth and glanced sideways at her, studying the distant look in her eyes before speaking.

"You're awfully quiet."

"Just thinking," Jill replied. "About a lot of things. Mostly about how this feels like a huge waste of time. Every day that passes just gives him more time to do whatever the hell he was gonna do. And damn it, Chris, I don't know why Wesker's covering for him so hard. It doesn't make any sense. The first few days, maybe, but... it's been weeks. What in the hell is he thinking?"

Chris let out another breath and rubbed a hand across his jaw before answering, the gesture slow and tired. "I don't know... He has his reasons and he hasn't... hasn't steered us wrong yet, but... I'm beginning to get worried that his judgment may be compromised. He was Danny's friend just as much as I was, or you were, or Barry, or Rebecca." He hummed, disconcerted, but had to concede the point. "Still, maybe you're right. It feels like we should have brought something official by now... If Dan was making bombs, if he was planning to blow something up, but he's had ample time to do it at this point. I just don't know, Jill. It just feels like everything's on hold right now. It's driving me insane."

The raw anger in Chris's voice carried a rough edge that came from too many missed nights of sleep and too many long hours pounding the pavement through cold streets and empty leads. His voice had grown hoarse from it, scraped thin by exhaustion and frustration. Jill hated hearing it, hated seeing him wound this tight, but nothing he said was wrong and that was the worst part of it.

Rebecca wanted answers. Barry wanted closure. Captain Wesker wanted something none of them could quite guess at, maybe just a rematch. All Jill really wanted was for this to be over. Chris, on the other hand, wanted to make sure that if something terrible was going to happen he would be there to stop it and there to help his friend, even if helping him meant taking him down hard in the process. They could apologize after he was better.

But none of it mattered until they could find him, and that truth sat heavily between them as the noise of the bar carried on around their booth like nothing in the world was wrong. The low hum of conversation, the clink of glass, and the quiet murmur of a television somewhere behind the counter all felt strangely distant compared to the weight pressing down on the two of them.

They would have to keep trying, because giving up wasn't an option. Not for Rebecca, and not for Daniel. As angry and frustrated as they both were, neither of them was willing to be the one who told their rookie that they had simply run out of patience.

"Fuck." Jill spat out as she lifted her beer and emptied half of it in one long swig, the cold bitterness burning down her throat before she set the glass back down on the table with a dull, solid thump. "We'll get him, Chris. We have to. Because if we don't... Fuck, I don't even wanna think about what that's gonna do to Rebecca."

"Goddamnit," Chris growled. "All of it's bullshit. Who even taught him to fight like that?"

"I know, Chris," Jill said quietly. "I know. We just have to be better prepared. He'll show up again. You just have to believe it. When he does, we'll get him the help he needs. We'll find him, and get him fixed up, and it'll all be okay. I can promise you that."

Chris just grunted, staring into his beer as though the amber liquid might somehow give him the answer they had been searching for. After a moment he ran a hand slowly over his face, dragging it down across tired eyes and rough stubble.

"I hope to God you're right, Jill." Was all he said as the quiet pallor of the night fell on the two STARS, their thoughts tangled up in the dark of the night, long after the last call came.



000


Albert Wesker sat in his office, the chilly evening air drifting through the drafty RPD building and curling faintly around the edges of the room. March was such a cold month in Raccoon City. The mountains saw to that, trapping the chill and letting it settle into the streets long after winter should have begun to loosen its grip. But Albert appreciated the cold. The bite of it kept his mind sharp during the late nights that seemed to stretch longer with every passing week, nights where the rest of the station slept while he continued to work.

In truth, however, he had long since lost interest in the reports scattered across his computer screen. The glow of the monitor reflected off his sunglasses while pages of data and incident logs sat ignored before him. His attention had drifted far from the paperwork hours ago. Instead he sat quietly, fingers resting together as he leaned back in his chair, lost in thought. The past few weeks had been very interesting. Very interesting indeed.

Daniel Carter, his good Friend, had proven to be far more interesting than Albert had ever expected. The man was an enigma, something he could freely admit to himself without hesitation, a tangled mess of contradicting actions and intentions, but one that served a singular purpose. It was true though. Daniel was capable of constructing plans that stretched far beyond what anyone around him seemed capable of recognizing, strategies that unfolded with such perfect timing and precision that the full image was only recognizable when it was far too late to stop. Yet at the same time he acted quickly when the moment demanded it, responding with speed and instinct that bordered on the extraordinary. Still, for all that sudden action, nothing Daniel did was rash, just... necessary.

No. Albert understood the reality of the situation far more clearly than the rest of them. For all their skill and determination, Rebecca, Chris, Jill, and Barry were doomed to fail. They would not find Daniel. It wasn't because they lacked the competence or experience. The simple truth was that Daniel Carter was operating several steps ahead of them. In that regard, he and Albert shared a certain similarity. Like Albert himself, Daniel knew how to guide others without them realizing it, how to make people move exactly where he wanted them to move. He had them dancing neatly in the palm of his hand.

Watching the pieces fall into place had been fascinating. The more Albert observed, the more the larger pattern began to reveal itself. Daniel had been preparing for something for quite some time, that much was now obvious. And the deeper Albert looked into the situation, the clearer it became that Daniel's objectives might not be entirely different from his own.

Daniel was clearly interested in Umbrella, or rather, the ticking time bomb that the company had been. In truth, Albert knew just as well as Daniel did that the days of the megacorp were numbered. There had been too many incidents, too many failures, too many suspicious deaths and lost assets. Too many little things painting a much larger picture. And Daniel was just scooping up what he could.

Albert found himself almost envious of the man's freedom to move, now. Daniel operated without chains, without oversight, without the suffocating bureaucracy that Umbrella wrapped around everything it touched. He moved through the world with a kind of quiet autonomy that Albert had not possessed in years. Without needing to waste time on the trappings of a normal life any more, Daniel existed in a state of flux.

And that realization was the true crux of it. The painting had already been revealed, Albert thought to himself, the grand composition slowly coming into focus as more pieces settled into place. Yet the revelation itself meant very little in the end. Knowing the picture did not change the outcome that was already unfolding.

He knew that Spencer was abandoning ship. The old man was a rat fleeing a sinking hulk that was already taking on water from too many cracks to patch. The damage had been building for years, and now the weight of Umbrella's own excesses threatened to drag the entire structure beneath the waves. Spencer, of course, would not go down with it. He would take whatever wealth, secrets, and leverage he could salvage and disappear into whatever dark corner of the world he had prepared for himself.

But that was acceptable. In many ways it was preferable. Albert had his own plans, his own ambitions, and he had long ago stopped tying those ambitions to the survival of the corporation itself. With the final illusions stripped away, perhaps the time had finally come to bring Daniel into the fold. After all, it was the least he could do, the smallest gesture of professional respect one could offer to a fellow chessmaster.

The fact that Daniel had been subtly moving Albert's own pieces across the board this entire time was something the blonde man found deeply impressive. Immensely so, in fact. Very few people had ever managed such a feat without Albert noticing. Daniel Carter was a master manipulator in his own right, a man who understood how to construct layers of misdirection, so much so that even he himself had been caught blindsided when it all came to a head. Even the breadcrumbs that had led to his supposed downfall had been positioned with almost artistic precision.

The other S.T.A.R.S. members had no idea what they were looking at. They had no idea what Daniel truly was, no idea what kind of mind they were dealing with, and certainly no idea what they would be facing if they ever cornered him again.

But Albert knew.

In fact, he was counting on it.

He had not been disappointed. Daniel had taken Jill, Chris, and Barry apart, and he was glad that he'd had the feed from that hallway camera rerouted to his own personal storage media. He was able to catch it all in high definition, a video that he could watch and enjoy time and time again. The man was fearless. Brilliant. A worthy rival. Or perhaps a powerful ally, if Wesker could make the right Connections.

Of course, Daniel would need to be receptive to the idea, but Albert considered that little more than a minor hurdle. Daniel Carter was a practical man. He understood power, leverage, and the value of the right tools placed in the right hands. Albert possessed all three. He had resources, a network of contacts that stretched far beyond Raccoon City, and access to equipment and information that Daniel could only benefit from. In time, Albert was confident the man would recognize the opportunity being presented to him.

And in return, Daniel offered something far more valuable than simple loyalty. He possessed skill, talent, and a sharp strategic mind that few people Albert had ever met could rival. Daniel thought several moves ahead, both tactically and intellectually. That kind of mind would make him an ideal agent when the time finally came for Albert Wesker to shed the final limitations of his mortality and step into something greater.

Yes, the thought pleased him immensely. That arrangement would do very nicely.

If anyone could truly understand the scope of what Albert was attempting to accomplish, it would be someone like Daniel. The man was a kindred spirit in many ways. A brother Albert had never truly had, not in the way people imagined family. His own siblings were distant figures buried somewhere in the past, little more than names and fading memories. Daniel, however, was something different. An equal. A mind that could keep pace. It would be refreshing to finally have another such individual standing beside him, joining the small circle that currently consisted of only he and William.

And that naturally led to the other issue that weighed on Albert's thoughts. William Birkin, one of his oldest friends and perhaps the only person who had ever come close to matching his intellectual drive.

William was beginning to chafe under the new restrictions Umbrella had started placing on him. The constant demands for reports, samples, data, and progress updates had become suffocating. The European branches had begun circling like vultures, looking for ways to hollow out the American research teams and seize control of the most valuable discoveries for themselves. William was not blind to this maneuvering. In fact, he resented it deeply.

Because of their interference, the timetable was accelerating whether Albert preferred it or not.

Fortunately, adapting to shifting circumstances was hardly a new experience for Albert Wesker. He had long ago accepted that plans rarely survived contact with reality. Adjusting variables, moving pieces earlier than intended, and preparing contingency paths were simply part of the process. While he disliked rushing anything of importance, he also understood that chaos created opportunities that careful planners could exploit.

And if there was one thing Albert Wesker excelled at above all others, it was recognizing and exploiting opportunities the moment they appeared.

Soon things would begin to move in earnest. The preparations he had spent years quietly assembling in the shadows would finally begin to unfold in the open. Every careful conversation, every quiet manipulation, every seed planted across so many different places and people would begin to bear fruit. Plans that had existed only as ideas and contingencies would at last move into motion.

Yet even as the thought formed in his mind, Albert could feel the faint irritation beneath it. The patience that had served him so well for so long was beginning to wear thin. He had spent years waiting, years maneuvering pieces across the board while others remained blissfully unaware that they were even part of the game.

Soon was still not soon enough.

The thought drew a low laugh from him, a cold and hollow chuckle that lingered in the quiet office. It was a small indulgence in the privacy of the late hour, a moment where no one else in the building could hear him. The rest of the station sat fallow while Albert sat alone, patiently weaving the strands of his web tighter and tighter around the people who would soon find themselves trapped within it.

Daniel. Rebecca. William. The rest of the S.T.A.R.S. team. The Raccoon City Police Department itself. Even Umbrella, the mighty corporation that believed itself untouchable. All of them were threads in the same design, whether they realized it or not.

Because it was coming. The moment he had been preparing for was drawing closer with every passing day. The time would come, and when it did the world would finally see what Albert Wesker had been building toward all along.

His time. His ascendance.

And there was nothing left in this world capable of stopping him now.


000


Oswald Spencer sat in a dark room, watching the feeds from the mine with a passive expression resting across his lined face. The light from the monitors flickered across the walls and across the lenses of his glasses as the camera angles shifted from corridor to corridor below the mountain. It was exactly as she had described it. The Mold reanimated them, controlled them, guided them through the dark tunnels like puppets on invisible strings. Yet the result was flawed. The fungus perverted its hosts as much as it controlled them.

Unlike the elegant purity of his own work, the invasive organism burrowed into the minds of its victims and hollowed them out, treating them as little more than seedbeds for its own growth. It was an unpleasant hybrid of the early viral prototypes and the strange plant-based infection discovered years earlier. The difference, however, was that these creatures were not truly resurrected. Their bodies were not revived in any meaningful sense. Instead they were simply worn like suits by something else.

Spencer sighed quietly to himself as he watched the things that had once been human shamble through the mine shafts and laboratory corridors. Another failed experiment perhaps, though not without its uses. Failure, after all, was rarely absolute. He had already secured the samples he required, and even now his people were maintaining control of the underground laboratory complex for as long as it remained useful.

Behind him he heard the soft tinkle of glass resting against ceramic as the Survivalist set his drink down on a small plate. The man stood just behind Spencer's chair, leaning slightly forward as he watched the same monitors, nursing another slow sip of bourbon.

"Seems a right mess you got down there, Partner." The words carried a note of mild amusement. They were neither warm nor cold, simply neutral in that easy way the Survivalist always seemed to possess. He had been standing in the room with Spencer for some time now, occasionally offering a piece of homespun commentary or a quiet observation while the two of them watched the endless stream of footage. On the screens, the infected wandered through the dim hallways below the mountain, stripped of their humanity and reduced to little more than moving extensions of a larger fungal colony.

"I don't expect you to understand," Oswell's cultured voice rang out. "This is just one more phase of the project. And a promising one, even though it turned out like this. I can't help but feel disappointment, but they were unworthy, unable to accept the gift, to grow with it. No. Ultimately, this is a dead end. But even in dead ends, knowledge can be gained. There's value in failure, after all. And for all the pageantry, this cost me very little."

"Whatever you say, Partner," the Survivalist snorted, rolling the bourbon across his tongue before swallowing. "Still, you think he's ready for something like this? Awful lot going on down there. This ain't just the one building, either. You're looking at three, four full facilities plus the mine. It's might much for one man to handle, don't you think?" He gestured lazily toward the monitors with the rim of his glass, the amber liquid catching the light from the screens as the images shifted. The mine tunnels themselves stretched out like the veins of some enormous corpse beneath the mountain. It was a sprawling operation even by Umbrella standards, and the Survivalist watched it with his own brand o casual skepticism.

Oswell turned to look at the Survivalist before slowly shaking his head, the motion measured and deliberate as if the question itself had already been considered and dismissed long ago. "No, he will sink or swim based on his own ability. If he succeeds, it is evidence that he is ready for what may come. If he fails, he was never worthy to begin with... Still, the project is moving apace. There's a reward for his exceptional service. We will move on to the next stage of his evolution. His development has been monumental for our research, and it is time to add a few controlled variables. Leaving him on his own for as long as we did, that may have been a mistake. But there's no crying over spilled milk."

Spencer returned his attention to the screens as if the matter had already been settled. The footage continued to cycle across the monitors, showing empty corridors that lined the complex, and the slow wandering shapes of the infected deeper within the mine shafts.

"I want you to go ahead and get him moving. After all, that is what his original purpose was. And if he fails to handle it, well, the combat data might be valuable anyway."

The Survivalist sighed and tipped the glass back again, finishing what remained of the bourbon before setting it down beside the plate with a soft clink. "If that's what you want, partner. I'm just the purveyor. Who am I to tell you which way from Sunday?"

He spoke easily enough, though the faint narrowing of his eyes toward the monitors suggested the gears behind that casual tone were still turning. The situation below the mountain was anything but simple, and even he could see the scale of what Spencer intended to drop on his other Partner's shoulders.

The Survivalist leaned slightly forward, resting his weight on the back of Spencer's chair. "But that still don't answer the question of how you're planning to actually get him into position to take his medicine."

At that, Spencer laughed. It was a dry, parched sound that echoed faintly in the dim room before fading away into the quiet hum of electronics. He slowly turned his chair to face the Survivalist. "Oh, getting the Subject under control is not so monumental a task. You just have to have the right help," he said, almost dismissively.

Glancing down the length of the table, Spencer fixed his attention on the man seated at the far end. Pale eyes and blond hair caught the dim glow of the monitors, reflecting faintly in the darkened room. The man sat almost motionless, his posture relaxed in a way that suggested indifference. In front of him rested a helmet fitted with a crimson eyed gas mask, the lenses gleaming in the flickering light from the surveillance feeds. To an outside observer he might have appeared disengaged, perhaps even bored, yet both Spencer and the Survivalist knew better. The stillness was deliberate. The man was preparing himself the same way he always did before accepting a task he found distasteful.

"It's the reason I reactivated you, Mr. Death," Spencer said. "You have your mission orders. You are to fight him, assess him, and then take him down. You can do that for me, can't you?"

For a moment the man did not answer. His attention remained on his hands as he slowly flexed his fingers, watching the tendons shift beneath the skin. The room was quiet except for the low hum of electronics and the distant sound of the monitors cycling through their feeds. Finally he shifted slightly in his chair and released a long breath.

"I understand the job, but what a fucking waste."

The words came out flat and unimpressed. He rose to his feet without another comment, reaching forward to collect the helmet and the mask from the table as if the assignment had already been accepted the moment it was given.

Before he could leave the room, Oswell decided to add one last reminder.

"Don't forget, Mr. Death, he is of paramount importance. He must not be harmed for the sake of the experiment. Don't forget who holds your leash, or who your master is. Do your job, and you can go back to that miserable little shithole we pulled you out of. Do you understand?"

The threat hung in the air, sharp and deliberate. If the arrogance or the condescension behind the words bothered him in the slightest, the man gave no outward indication. His shoulders did not tense, his expression did not change, and his voice remained perfectly calm when he finally responded.

"I understand," were the two words he uttered before vanishing from the room.

The door closed quietly behind him, leaving the dark office to the glow of the monitors once more. Oswell slowly turned his attention back toward the Survivalist, repeating the order as though the matter had already been settled.

"Make the call. I'm tired of waiting."

And while Oswell could not see the man's face from where he stood, he had the distinct impression that the Survivalist was smiling to himself. "Whatever you want, partner. Whatever you want."


000


Daniel Carter leaned back in the chair of his hideout at his desk, one hand resting against his jaw as his face throbbed beneath the bandage that was barely large enough to cover the gash Rebecca's bullet had torn through his cheek. The wound burned and stung with every pulse of his heartbeat, a constant, unavoidable reminder that everything that could have gone wrong had done exactly that. It was an unmitigated disaster.

Last night had been terrible and terrifying all at the same time, the kind of night that rewrote everything that came after it. He never could have imagined Rebecca would think what she had thought about him, that she could look at him and see a terrorist, that she could believe he needed to be locked away, institutionalized, restrained before he hurt someone, that he needed help.

The thought twisted in his chest like a knife. It broke his heart every time he turned it over in his mind, and the pain of that realization hurt far worse than the bullet ever had. He had expected anger. He had expected suspicion once things started unraveling. But that look of fear in her eyes when she had raised the gun at him was something he never could have prepared himself for. That had cut him deep, and he hated to admit it.

It wasn't right. None of it had been. That Rebecca had somehow come to the conclusion that he was going to do something to apparently kill a bunch of people was so far beyond the pale that he didn't even know how she got to that point. The fact that she'd been so willing to believe the worst of him had been like acid in his veins.

He had sacrificed so much to get this far. He had bled and fought and suffered and nearly died more times than he could even remember. There were scars on his body that told the story better than his memory ever could. Bruises that had faded. Bones that had cracked and healed. A sickness that had nearly killed him as an afterthought. Nightmares that seemed to haunt him even in his waking hours now, hiding in the corners of his vision, and the slow, steady ache of the crushing stress that he could never seem to do enough.

And for what? The question gnawed at him now in the quiet of the hideout. How could it have all gone so wrong? How could everything he had tried to hold together fall apart so completely in a single night?

He closed his eyes and the memory came back immediately. Going down those stairs with Rebecca's pistol in his hand. He had never wanted to take it. The weight of it still felt strange, foreign in a way his own sidearm never had. But he had left his own pistol back in the apartment and there had been no going back for it now, not with everything collapsing around him the way it had. So he had taken hers.

He would keep it, a small and bitter reminder of what could have been. A memory of who Rebecca was to him and what he had lost in that moment. Proof of how badly he had misjudged everything, how thoroughly he had let it all slip out of his control. Proof of how badly he had failed her.

But still the memories haunted him. He could remember every second of it with painful clarity. Going down those stairs with Rebecca's pistol still clutched in his hand, the echo of the fight still ringing in his ears. The stairwell had been dim and stale, the hum of the overhead lights buzzing faintly above him as he descended one slow step at a time, every muscle tight with the expectation that someone else might try to stop him.

When he stepped out into the parking lot the night air had hit him like a shock, cold and sharp against his skin. The place had been nearly empty, the flickering sodium lamps throwing long, broken shadows across the cracked asphalt. And then he heard it, the soft, unmistakable click of a pistol being cocked right behind him.

Daniel stopped immediately and slowly, carefully, turned his head to look over his shoulder. Albert Wesker stood a few yards away, perfectly composed as always. His shades gleamed faintly in the darkness, catching the sickly yellow glow of the overhead lamps. The pistol in his hand was already raised, aimed straight at Daniel's chest, the man himself deathly calm, even a bit amused.

"Going somewhere, Mr. Carter?" He'd said in that smooth, suave tone of his, as if it were the most casual question in the world. As if he didn't have a gun zeroed in on his chest.

Daniel had frozen in place. Even with Rebecca's gun already in his hand, he knew the truth of the situation instantly. He would never be fast enough to turn it on Wesker before the man pulled the trigger, not like this and not at that distance. So instead he stayed perfectly still, watching Wesker like a hawk, studying every shift of the man's posture and every subtle movement of the weapon.

"I'm going, Albert. Are you going to try to stop me?" The question hung in the air between them while Wesker regarded him with a faint smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth, as if he were quietly amused by the entire situation. Then, almost lazily, he lowered the pistol to his side. The barrel still pointed toward Daniel, but the posture was casual and relaxed, as though the weapon were little more than an afterthought.

"Oh, don't mind me, Mr. Carter. I don't intend to even try." Wesker's voice was smooth and unhurried, almost conversational, as if the pistol in his hand and the tension hanging between them were little more than minor inconveniences. He shifted his weight slightly beneath the flickering lamp, the faint smirk still resting on his lips. "I just want to say my piece before you go." His tone carried a strange note of amusement, like a man observing an experiment that had turned out more interesting than expected. 

"Because, you see, I think that Rebecca and the others are quite wrong about you." Wesker tilted his head a fraction as he studied Daniel through those ever-present shades, the gesture almost thoughtful. "You're not looking to do something as droll as blow up a building. No, I think you have far greater ambitions than that." The words lingered in the air between them like a hangman's noose. "And I admit, I find myself rather curious as to what they might be."

Daniel stared at him as the words sank in slowly before disbelief crept across his expression. "You really don't think I'm going tell you, do you? Speeches aren't my thing." The words were cold, annoyed, but not unhurried despite Daniel's rush to get out of there. "So I'm sorry to disappoint you if you were hoping for a monologue. I'm not some kind of movie villain, and if you're not going to stop me, I have places to be."

Wesker laughed then, the sound rich and easy, the kind of charming, confident laugh that seemed utterly out of place given the tension hanging in the air. "No, Mr. Carter, I didn't suspect so, and even if you were so inclined to talk, this isn't really the time. But as I said before, we can help one another. So I'd like to give you this."

With a single smooth motion, Wesker reached into his coat with his free hand. Daniel tensed instinctively, ready for anything, but instead of another weapon the man produced something small and rectangular and tossed it toward him. Daniel caught it out of reflex and realized it was a cell phone, not the same model he carried himself, something cheaper and older, but still a solid piece of equipment.

"What do you want me to do with this?" Daniel asked, already knowing the answer. Wesker's smile widened slightly.

"Just keep it close. I will be in touch. After all, I suspect there are a great many things you and I have to discuss, especially with these, shall we say, revelations. You're an interesting man, Daniel Carter, and I'm very much looking forward to getting to know you better, now that we don't have to keep pretending." Daniel turned the phone over once in his hand, eyeing it with open suspicion before sliding it into his pocket.

"Fine. We can talk later, Albert." He hesitated a moment longer, studying the man standing beneath the flickering light. "What are you going to tell the others?"

Wesker merely shrugged. "Oh, I'm sure I can spin up a yarn. For all that they're gifted police officers, they trust me. They'll believe what I tell them. But if it bothers you that much?"

Without the slightest warning Albert raised the pistol and smashed the butt of it straight into his own face. The crack of the impact echoed across the empty lot. Daniel blinked in stunned disbelief as Wesker lowered the weapon again, already seeing a bruise beginning to darken the side of the man's face where the blow had landed. Wesker, however, seemed utterly unaffected by the pain and simply adjusted his stance before looking back toward Daniel.

"Congratulations, Mr. Carter. You're one of the few who can say they beat me in a straight fight. Now off you go. You'll be hearing from me before too long."

There was a moment of calculation that flashed through Daniel's mind as he watched Wesker turn and slink back to his vehicle. It would be so easy, so simple, to just... close out this chapter right there. To shoot the prick in the back, cut off his little games at the root, before he could ever set them in motion, but... Daniel slowly slid Rebecca's pistol back into his universal holster, the motion stiff and awkward. No, he couldn't. Not now and not without proof of what Wesker was really involved in. Killing him there would have accomplished nothing except turning every member of S.T.A.R.S. against him. It would have galvanized them, sent them hunting him down, and this time there would have been no restraint, no hesitation, no kid gloves.

"Dammit!" Daniel spat the word under his breath as he cast one last glance at the man vanishng beneath the flickering light, the gleaming shades, the faint bruise forming on his cheek, and that infuriating, satisfied smirk that never seemed to leave his face mocking him as he went. "I'll be waiting," was all he said, more to himself than anything, before turning and vanishing down the alleyway.

He still took a circuitous path back to the hideout, wary of any watchers or cameras Albert might have had in place. He didn't trust Wesker as far as he could throw him, and the fact that the man had been waiting there was enough to send a shiver down his spine. The bastard had always been far too good at getting under people's skin, especially his. What was he even doing there? Had he been watching? Daniel doubted Rebecca would brig the man in on something like that, but then, if not that, then how had he come to be in just the right place at the right time?

The questions would bother him, he knew, as much as the lack of answers. Still, what was done was done. He took care with the cell phone, popping the battery out immediately to prevent any chance of it tracking back to his hideout, and then dug out the medkit he kept stashed there. He swallowed down a mixture of herbs and bandaged the wound, which had bled stubbornly throughout the night. Even with the combination of red and green running through his system he could still feel the injury when morning came.

It was rather ironic when he thought about it, a final scar cutting across his face to mark his duplicity. His lies to his friends, to the woman he loved, to the people he cared about most, all in pursuit of a nebulous goal to try and save the world, or maybe just the city. It was far too much for one man, and yet he had to do it because nobody else would even be able to try. That was the real curse. That was the last thought he had before finally laying down that night.

After that things became monotonous. He didn't dare risk any of his usual routines. The only thing he kept was his training with John, and even that schedule he altered constantly, much to the older man's annoyance. He had to stay unpredictable. Anything regular could be tracked, and he couldn't afford that comfort anymore.

Instead he hid.

He stocked up on food, kept his small refrigerator filled, even added a microwave to make the long hours easier to endure. The meals were nothing like the rich dinners he had shared with Rebecca, but they were enough to keep him going.

He trained constantly, running weapon drills and the brutal martial exercises John had hammered into his body and mind. He practiced integrating his knife and combat hatchet, learning how to move faster and more efficiently under the armor that seemed to grow lighter every day as his body adapted. He had lost his weights back at the apartment and had to buy new ones. He also withdrew as much cash from his account as he could manage. The accounts weren't frozen yet, which told him Rebecca and the others hadn't made this an official investigation, at least not yet. But that would change eventually, and he had to be ready for it.
The Survivalist had been frustratingly silent and nearly impossible to contact. The man seemed to exist in a constant state of motion, drifting from place to place like the ghost he was, and it drove Daniel half mad trying to track him down some days.

That was how the next two weeks passed, trapped in a strange limbo of training, resting, eating, and sleeping. Outside of that he lived like a drifter, taking showers at the YMCA and spending endless hours inside the concrete box of the hideout waiting for a call that might never come.

Eventually it did.

On a Wednesday in the third week of March the survivalist left him a message about a new target hidden deep in the Arklay Mountains. It was a quarry or a mine, something along those lines. Daniel didn't know the difference and the Survivalist hadn't bothered explaining, but the information packet was solid enough.

So he would go, and this time there was nothing stopping him from leaving immediately. He packed his crates, his weapons, his armor, and every round of ammunition he could reasonably carry. He loaded the explosives as well. If nothing else the mission would give him a chance to test the breaching charges and thermite in a real environment.

If anything tried to stop him this time there would be no hesitation. No pauses. No second chances. This was all he had left and he would not fail again.

Maybe if he found the right files, the right documents, the right videos or photographs, he could return to Rebecca and the others and finally show them the truth. He could apologize for what he had done and prove that everything he had said, everything he had believed, was real. The truth he knew had to exist, because he had lived it, and when he proved it, Umbrella would pay for what they had done. There would be a reckoning when he finally burned them to the ground.