Chapter Text
Raccoon City had gone to hell in a hand basket over the course of 12 hours. Ada had lost count of how many citizens-turned-zombies she’d put down since she’d made her way to the city center, trying to find her way to where Umbrella was hiding it’s latest, nastiest secret.
She’d just left Leon in the underground parking garage, hoping that the rookie listened to her and got the hell out of town before it killed him. He probably wouldn’t, he had the kind of bright eyed and bushy tailed energy of someone who was going to die young trying to help someone else, but she hoped he had some self-preservation. When the night ended and the dust settled over whatever was left of Raccoon City, guys like him would be needed to help whoever survived.
But, she reasoned as she reloaded her handgun, that wasn’t her problem at that moment. Her problem was finding a way to where Annette Burkin and her new bioweapon were. As she walked, dodging the infected inhabitants of what she’d been told was a nice town before the apocalypse came calling, she figured she would make her way to the sewers – from what her bosses could tell her, Umbrella had set up an extensive lab under the city and the most probable entry point was somewhere in the expansive sewers.
She was already apologizing to her olfactory senses for what she was going to put them through, but a job’s a job, and this one didn’t look like it was getting done without a trip to the sewers.
Ada ducked around a corner, seeing the street surprisingly empty, and broke into a jog just in time to see a helicopter fly overhead, heading towards the top of the parking garage. She grinned slightly, and had just thought, ‘Good, hopefully the rookie is getting the hell out of dodge’ when she saw a rocket collide with the helicopter, sending it falling to the ground.
She staggered to a stop, listening to the sound of a couple thousand pounds of screeching metal crash into a nearby police station. ‘Well, shit.’, she thought. That relief was short lived, but Ada didn’t have the time to be disappointed.
Onward and upward. She walked hurriedly around the front of the garage, checking her map of Raccoon City.
‘I’m maybe fifteen minutes away from the waste water treatment facility, so if my luck holds, I should be able to get the sample and get the hell out of here before the bombs start falling.’, Ada reasoned, knowing an unmitigated disaster when she saw it, and also knowing that Uncle Sam didn’t tend to let himself be made a fool of when shit went sideways, civilian casualties be damned.
If Raccoon City was even a footnote in history after the cleanup crews got started, she’d have been amazed. It’d be this generation’s version of Pompeii, and she did not want to be around when that volcano went off.
Her thoughts were interrupted by an infected grabbing hold of her ankle as she walked past. She reflexively shot the poor bastard, muttering, ‘nothing personal’ before putting another two bullets into the back of his skull and shaking the filthy hand off of her. Ada hadn’t taken two more steps before the sound of metal hitting concrete exploded in the night air. She whirled around to face the parking garage just in time to see a car turning in mid-air as it fell, landing on the sidewalk with a thunderous crash as glass exploded outward from the car on impact.
“Jesus Christ, what kind of driver’s ed do they have in this town?!”, Ada asked, running to the car when she spotted someone hunched in the driver’s seat. Everything in her was telling her that this was not something she wanted to be a part of, she was on the clock and had a job to do, but she wasn’t the type to leave someone to die if she could help it.
When she approached the car, she could see a woman with short, dark hair pulling herself out of the wreckage, a bloody cut on her forehead and bruises forming on every inch of available skin that Ada could see. Tucking her firearm away, Ada kneeled down next to her.
“Fucking Christ, that hurt…”, the woman groaned quietly, resting her battered forehead on her arm, and Ada let out a startled laugh. The woman’s head shot up in alarm, and Ada held up her hands to show she wasn’t armed.
“Hey, easy, that was a hell of a fall you just had.”, Ada said gently, seeing the look of pain on the woman’s face. “Let’s get you out of there, yeah? We’ll find somewhere safe and make sure you’re okay.”
How the hell she managed to not be dead after not wearing a safety belt and being in a car that took a nosedive off a parking garage was entirely beyond Ada, but she wasn’t one to look a gift horse in the mouth. If the handgun and tac gear the woman wore were any indication, Ada was willing to be convinced that she may not be the only competent woman still breathing in this shitshow of a town.
The woman groaned in pain, nodding as Ada took hold of her arm to help her get to her feet. “This whole town has gone to hell faster than I thought it would.”, she said through gritted teeth, letting Ada put her arm over her shoulders.
“You mean this isn’t a standard Saturday night in this neck of the woods?”, Ada asked, pulling a pained sounding laugh out of the woman.
“I can’t say as I’d know, but I imagine not. I don’t get out much these days.”, she answered tiredly. She carefully stood up straight, and Ada was willing to bet good money that she had at least two broken ribs hiding under that surprisingly resilient tank top, but she wasn’t mentioning it and Ada wasn’t going to pry. The woman looked at Ada and smiled tiredly. “I didn’t get your name. I’m Jill.”
“I didn’t offer it, but to be fair, I was more worried you’d been squashed in that tin can. Nice to meet you, Jill, my name is Ada.”, Ada answered, offering a smile and not mentioning how neither of them were in a hurry to give their full name.
“Wish it could have been in better –“, Jill started to say before the sound of creaking metal behind them reached their ears.
Ada glanced behind Jill, noting that her skin had gone very pale, and saw a figure unfold itself to a height that was, if not impossible, highly improbable for a human. Ada had a moment to think, ‘oh, so that’s what killed Ben’ before Jill turned, lifted her handgun and shot four rounds into the person’s head. She grabbed Ada’s hand, said, ‘we’ll talk later, but we’ve gotta go, now’ before she took off running.
Ada kept pace with her, dodging the – well, tentacles was the only word for the things that that creature was throwing at them, and Ada wasn’t even going to begin to contemplate that just then.
They’d managed to round a corner and gain some distance from the man – who was apparently wrapped up in garbage bags, and honestly, Ada couldn’t even be surprised considering what she knew about who made him.
The two women reached a broken-down pharmacy and ducked inside, finishing off the poor souls wandering around. Jill looked out into the street while Ada made sure they’d gotten all of them, and after dragging the glass doors closed, Jill said, “I think we lost him, for now.”
“A friend of yours?”, Ada asked. She knew what that thing was – her bosses had warned her that a bioweapon, code named Nemesis and specifically programmed to hunt the remaining members of S.T.A.R.S, had been released in Raccoon City. It was a variant of the one that had decimated S.T.A.R.S in the Arklay facility, and rumor had it, there was more than one.
“With friends like him, I certainly wouldn’t need any enemies.”, Jill laughed, an arm wrapped around her midsection as she winced in pain. “He attacked me in my apartment. Burst through the wall like the fucking Kool-Aid man, threw me through a couple doors, burned down my apartment so I’m probably not getting my deposit back even if my landlord is still alive, and then chased me into the parking garage. I chucked half a dozen grenades at him, then hit him with a Mercedes and drove him off the top of the garage.”
“He is a determined sort, isn’t he? I hate those.”, Ada commiserated.
“I can’t say it was my favorite way to end a night. I had a pizza ready for dinner and everything.”, Jill grumbled. She looked at Ada, glancing at her attire, and then said, “I didn’t ask, but I’ve never seen you in RC before. I was a cop so I’m pretty familiar with everybody in town. What brings you to our little slice of hell, Ada?”
Calling a member of S.T.A.R.S a cop seemed like a gross understatement, but Ada wasn’t in the habit of playing her hand early. She pulled out her FBI license and handed it over, knowing that it was a perfectly serviceable forgery in a town with no phone lines or internet connection to verify it.
“A journalist in town, Ben Bertolucci, was an informant for a case I’m working, regarding Umbrella and their less than savory experiments.”, Ada explained, which technically wasn’t a lie. Ben had been an informant – not of her’s, and not since Clinton was in office, but he had historically been an FBI informant. She’d been there to make sure that whatever he knew was solely on Umbrella, and that none of it connected back to her employers.
In a way, Umbrella had done her a favor by silencing him in that jail cell. It’d saved her the aggravation of the act itself, and of explaining it to Leon later.
Jill held the ID in her hands, and looked at Ada with something uncomfortably close to hope in those dark blue eyes.
“You’re FBI? I thought – I’ve been tracking Umbrella’s corruption for months, since … well, for months. I knew Irons was dirty as hell, he always has been, but after everything I’ve seen, I was afraid it went higher than him.”, Jill asked without actually asking. And, oh, the things Ada could tell her about just how far up the chain that rot went.
“I’ve heard some not-great things about Chief Irons, but he’s slippery.” He was also a major pain in her employer’s respective asses, especially with the whole, ‘kidnapping and mutilation’ thing he got up to in his spare time. He was getting away with it because of the frankly baffling amount of money he put into the pockets of the local politicians. It always amazed her that the IRS managed to ding single moms for tips, but could happily look the other way while elected officials took bribes to ignore human trafficking.
Ah. Capitalism. It was a hell of a drug.
“He is. I’m glad someone is looking into him though, I think it’ll help a lot of people. And you’re here to bring Umbrella down?”
“If I can.”, Ada agreed. She looked at the carnage happening on the other side of the glass doors and said, “Hadn’t planned on coming into town in the middle of Armageddon, but what can you do?”
Jill laughed. It was a nice sound, Ada thought. She had the idea, from the dark circles under her eyes, and the way she held herself, like she was constantly ready for a fight, that Jill – Jill Valentine, second in command of S.T.A.R.S' Alpha Team and current black sheep of their broken little family due to trying to find out just how rotten the Raccoon City bureaucracy was – hadn’t laughed in far too long, and hadn’t relaxed in even longer.
“Yeah. It’s a shame too, we have the best donut shop around here. Great food after a long day.”
“Nothing like empty calories and sugar to make a bad day bearable.”, Ada joked, pulling another laugh out of Jill. It was quickly becoming her new favorite sound, which was something Ada was determinedly not thinking about.
“Oh my God, I’d kill for one of their eclairs right now. I hope the owner got out before this disaster happened.”, Jill agreed, a frown on her face. There was nothing Ada could say to that – they were both very much aware of how little chance the average civilian had of surviving this. The two of them were in deep trouble, and combined they could probably carve a bloody swath on their way out of the city.
The two exchanged tired looks, and before Ada could say anything in reply, the glass doors of the pharmacy shattered beside them. Jill let out a yelp and was yanked down to the floor, then dragged out the broken door into the street.
Ada swore, because honestly, this asshole was riding her last good nerve, then booked it out the door and down the road after her, following the sound of gunfire. Jill was flat on her back, her still surprisingly intact tank top showing the wear of being dragged over broken glass and pavement, her legs bound together by an oily-looking, black tentacle, and firing round after round into the man’s head, making him stagger even as he stood over her.
While he was distracted, Ada approached and pulled out a combat knife she’d stashed in an inside pocket of her coat. She made quick work of the tentacle that was wrapped around Jill’s legs, then hauled her to her feet before putting down a stun mine and pulling Jill away. Jill’s eyebrows arched but she said nothing, the two running while the man tried to get back up, and both beyond grateful to hear the stun mine go off and the roar that followed.
Jill led them to a dark building lit with a sign advertising donuts, and the two hurried inside. Jill made a comment about how he probably wouldn’t be able to find them in there as the two barricaded the door. She didn’t sound convinced, and Ada wasn’t in a hurry to tell her that since the man could track by scent, he’d probably find them – Jill herself, to be frank – sooner than either of them hoped for.
The two sat in the back storage room, taking a moment to rest and bandage up the case of road rash Jill had on her back and shoulders. They made small talk, and Jill laughed quietly, saying, “Y’know, when I said I’d kill for an éclair, this isn’t what I meant.”
“You know what they about being careful what you wish for.”, Ada grinned, finishing her bandage job. She touched Jill’s arm and said, “I think that’s all she wrote, that should keep you going at least until this ends.”
“Thanks, Ada. I’m sorry you got pulled into this mess. I bet you’re wishing you’d left me in that car.”, Jill apologized, and Ada could not stop the smile on her face if she tried. She put her hand on Jill’s.
“Never. And honestly, Jill, I found my way into this mess all on my own. I’m just glad for the company.”, Ada promised, pulling a smile from Jill and calling it a win.
“Me too. But, we can’t stay here. I want to put as much space between us and that thing as possible. Any ideas? Because I am open to suggestions.”
“Well, before I saw this girl drive a car off the roof of a parking garage, I was heading to the waste water treatment plant. I have intel that says there’s an entrance into an Umbrella lab through the sewers.”, Ada explained. “I don’t know what it’ll come to, but this whole thing has Umbrella’s prints all over it and if they do have a hidden lab, I imagine it’d be pretty interesting.”
“That sounds like a plan to me. If it helps bring Umbrella down, I’m in.”, Jill agreed, grinning at the teasing. “That sounds like one hell of an introduction to that girl. I hope she’s worth it.”
“So far, she has been. I’ll let you know if it stays that way.”, Ada replied, then stood up. “Come on, let’s go make some trouble.”