Chapter Text
September 29, 1998 – 17:45pm – Raccoon City Outskirts
Steve covered a yawn with one hand, palming the steering wheel of his rental car with the other to make sure he stayed on the straight and narrow. There was a metaphor there, he thought, but he didn't have the brain capacity to find it right now.
He grabbed for the styrofoam cup of terrible gas station coffee he'd stashed in the centre console and swigged it back. It was about one degree from being cold, which was somehow worse that if it had been, like a tantalising glimpse of what he could have had, an unfulfilled promise. He grimaced, drained the rest of the cup, and turned the radio up. Maybe that'd keep him awake.
The road before him was dark; he was too far out in the sticks for there to be municipal light poles, and it was only the limited range of the car headlights that were keeping him from crashing. If he had been the superstitious type, he'd have thought he was driving along the road to hell or something, oppressive darkness pressing in on all sides.
It had been a long drive. When he'd graduated from the police academy the week before, he'd braced himself not to get the assignment he wanted. He'd hoped, almost prayed, and he'd even had the audacity to ask his supervisors if they had any idea where he'd be assigned. They'd all given him a knowing glance, like they knew exactly where he wanted to go, and where they were sending him, but none of them would reveal if the two were going to match up or not.
It had been a gruelling few months, but Steve had made it through. The physical stuff hadn’t been too hard, he'd always been pretty fit at school. The written, however, was...well, if not for a lot of help from his peers, he might not have managed to squeak a passing grade. With a little teamwork though, almost all of Steve’s class had graduated and now they were heading off to different parts of the country for their first assignments as rookies.
The uniform wasn’t the most comfortable, especially in the stuffy car, but it was much nicer than Steve had anticipated. Dark blue jeans, tight enough to be almost fashionable but loose enough to be practical. The black polo shirt had been a big surprise, since he'd expected to be wearing a dress shirt, or at least something with a stiffer collar.
He'd eschewed the standard issue combat boots in favour of his own deep red Chucks while he was driving, just because he didn't need his feet cramping up on the highway. And he'd draped the bomber jacket that he'd been given across the passenger seat; it was that deep blue people associated with the police, and his last name, Harrington, was piped on the back in stark white letters. Looking at it still made him smile, and probably would for a long time yet. There was a sense of achievement in seeing that jacket, more than in any of the sports trophies he had won at school.
The road curved a little, and Steve leaned into the turn with the car. The rental wasn't great, but he'd get his own once he had a regular pay check coming in. First, he needed to get to where he was going, find the crappy little apartment he'd agreed to share with his best friend using the meagre savings he'd managed to put together before leaving for the police academy, and get a good night's sleep. The last thing he wanted to do was turn up on his first day on the job with bags under his eyes and yawn in his superior officer's face. He knew there'd be hazing, and he wanted to be awake enough to deal with it.
As he rounded a corner, familiar city lights greeted him.
He was at the top of a hill, looking down on a smallish town with a population of about a hundred thousand people. He could see both edges of the city limits, even in the limited light that the few still illuminated buildings gave off. It had been built in the centre of a basin, with gently rising mountains on all four sides, the Arklays. The town nestled down in between them like a bird waiting for its mother to return.
It wasn't particularly impressive, as towns went. Okay, sure, it was his home town, and it was unusual to be assigned somewhere you were familiar with for your first beat, but that wasn’t why Steve had wanted to come back here. Or not only reason, anyway.
On the other side of town directly across from Steve there was a forest, just a black blob against the rock, and beyond that, near the peak, a lightless mansion crouched in wait. The night sky was clear and cloudless at the moment, and Steve caught sight of some flashing lights passing in front of the stars. They were too small and low to the ground to be a plane – a helicopter, maybe.
The realisation made him smile. The only helicopter he knew a town this size had was police issue. And all the best toys for this town's police force went to the big boys – STARS.
He hadn't wanted to be a cop when he was younger. He hadn't known what he wanted to be. But circumstances had changed and he had come to think of it as the best possible career path for him, and if he was going to do it he wanted to learn from the best, so he could be the best. All so he could show him exactly how wrong he'd been.
And if you wanted to be the best, it didn't get much better than STARS. Special Tactics And Rescue Service, when they were at home, which basically translated to 'we do the jobs the normal police don't'. They were better trained than SWAT, had access to more weaponry and gadgets than your average private security force, and they only let the best of the best join.
If Steve could make it onto that squad, then he'd really stick it to him, he thought.
"Baby steps, Harrington," he said out loud. He coasted to the bottom of the hill, easing towards the town proper. "Apartment. Find Robin. Beat cop. Then Super-Cop. Baby steps."
He smiled as he drove over the town limits, knowing that he was coming home a different person than he’d been when he left. As he did so he passed a familiar sign, one he remembered passing on his way out of town all those months ago. It had been the last piece of home he saw, and he knew the words without even looking.
"Welcome To Raccoon City. Proud home of the Umbrella Corporation."
*****
September 29, 1998 – 17:48pm – The Skies Above Raccoon City
Somehow, the sound of Nancy's pencil scribbling into her notepad was louder than the helicopter blades. Or maybe Jonathan was just so used to the sound that he could pick it out in a crowd with his eyes closed. It was oddly comforting, which was a welcome feeling given that everything else about his current situation was petrifying.
Nancy liked to take notes the old fashioned way. Jonathan knew for a fact that she had a Dictaphone, because he'd bought her one the previous Christmas, but she used that more for her own thoughts than anyone else's. And she wouldn't have been able to record right now anyway, with all the noise around them.
Jonathan looked at her intently, focusing on her to try and help him exclude everything else and pretend it wasn't there. She'd worn flats instead of heels, thankfully, and dark brown pants over her usual skirt. Her blouse was tucked in; the pocket had a small stain at the bottom where one of her pens had leaked, but she'd been too attached to it to throw it away.
It was her lucky blouse, or so she said. It was the blouse she'd been wearing the day they’d gotten their jobs at the Raccoon City Times, and she made sure to wear it whenever she thought they were going to break a big story.
It didn't get any bigger than this, Jonathan thought to himself. At least not in their town.
He didn't have any lucky clothes, except his lucky pair of underwear that didn't actually fit any more and he most certainly was not wearing right now. He'd just gotten out of the shower an hour or so earlier when Nancy called him from the office and told him to meet her at the police station, so he'd thrown on the first things he could get his hands on, a shirt with permanent creases in the sleeves from where he'd rolled them up one too many times, odd socks, his well worn (ratty, as Nancy affectionately called them) sneakers, and a pair of pants he was pretty sure he'd put on backwards but hadn't had the time or the opportunity to take off again.
Jonathan wasn’t sure what you were meant to wear to fly in a helicopter, but no one had said anything to him about it, so he assumed he was doing okay.
He leaned over and stared at the notepad that Nancy was attacking. She wrote in reporter's shorthand, which was difficult enough to read when it wasn't in Nancy's particular scrawl, but he could at least make out the title: Embedded In The STARS, by Nancy Wheeler. Accompanying photographs by Jonathan Byers.
He fought not to roll his eyes at the terrible pun.
Ever since they'd joined the Times Nancy had been bugging the publisher, the editor, the editor-in-chief, and probably even the nice lady who came in to refill the vending machines about how much she wanted to get an exclusive with STARS. Nowhere else in the country had a police force like them, and despite Raccoon City taking pride in them, the police officers themselves were very private about what they shared with the public, and especially the press.
When Nancy had finally received the okay for a ride-along, she'd practically screamed down the phone at Jonathan to come along. He was, technically, a staff photographer, but it was an unofficial rule at the Times that he was Nancy's first and foremost. Not just because they'd been dating for a few years, and not just because they'd gotten their jobs at the same time, but because he was the best they had, and Nancy refused to accept anything but the best.
He wanted to take pride in that fact, but all he could feel right now was terror. He wasn't a huge fan of heights, and he definitely wasn't a huge fan of heights in a helicopter with open doors that he could very easily fall out of if he wasn't careful.
His camera bag was pulled tightly against one leg, and the other was pressed against Nancy's, for his reassurance more than hers – when she was writing, she didn't really know what was going on around her.
Seated beside them, the officers of the STARS Alpha Team looked grave. They were all hulking figures in tactical gear with large automatic weapons, even the women, and none of them had made eye contact with Jonathan the entire flight.
He didn't know what he'd say anyway, but his mom had raised him to be polite, and theirs apparently hadn’t. Although, they were probably focused on their mission, whatever it was. He hadn't had a chance to ask.
He leaned over to Nancy and whispered the question in her ear.
She looked up, frowning. "What? It's too loud!"
"Where are we going?" Jonathan tried again, louder this time. Neither he nor Nancy had been given one of the big headset things that the STARS members and the pilot were wearing to communicate with each other.
"Spencer Mansion!" Nancy shouted back, struggling to be heard. "Bravo Team were investigating something, and they haven't reported back in!"
"Is it gonna be dangerous?" Jonathan asked, crossing his fingers beneath his leg so she couldn’t see.
Nancy shook her head. "Routine! There's bad signal up in the Arklays! I'm sure it's all fine!"
Jonathan glanced around at the frankly-far-too-big guns that everyone seemed to be holding but them. They didn't seem to think it was fine.
But then, if it was going to be dangerous, this wouldn't have been the operation that they finally allowed the press to ride-along on, right?
*****
September 29, 1998 – 17:32pm – Ecliptic Express, Passenger Car
Robin tapped her sneaker impatiently, but for some reason that didn't make the train move any faster. She glanced at her watch, which had somehow only moved thirty seconds in the thirty seconds since she had last checked it, and that didn't work either. Next, she sighed deeply. Also not something that had a direct effect on the train's speed.
She tried looking out of the windows, but they were black as pitch at this time of night, and the stars rushed by too quickly to let in much light. For all she knew, she could still have been in the train station at the start of her journey. God, she hoped not.
She was on her way home from visiting her girlfriend, Vickie, who was out of town for a week. She worked for a charity that helped people displaced by natural disasters, and she was giving a speech at a big conference the following day so Robin had snuck up on the train to take her to an early dinner and take her mind off the nerves Robin knew she would be battling.
They were both terrible little balls of anxiety, but somehow, if they vibrated in unison, their worries managed to cancel out and they calmed each other down.
It had been hard to say goodbye, and if she hadn't had to rush back to Raccoon City to meet Steve, Robin probably would have stayed in Vickie's hotel room bed until the following morning.
But Steve was driving in that night, and she wanted to be here for him too. It was his first time back in Raccoon City since he left, and she didn't want him to feel alone if she could help it. He didn’t have many other friends, and it wasn’t like he could go back to his parents’ place.
She and Steve had both lived in Raccoon City their entire lives. They’d become friends in high school, something that seemed to confuse the social cliques immensely because he was a jock and she was a...Robin. But they were practically inseparable, at least until Steve had literally left the city.
It had been around that time that Robin had met Vickie, which had helped keep her mind off the fact that her best friend had abandoned her.
No, that was harsh. It felt like he had abandoned her, but she knew he was just following his heart. He’d had a hard time doing that when they were in school, and she wasn’t about to stand in his way now.
It hadn’t helped much that, as great as spending time with Vickie was, she wasn’t around all that much either. Her job kept her moving a lot, taking her to places where people needed her. That unfortunately didn’t often include Raccoon City, which wasn’t exactly disaster central.
Robin and Steve had been in almost constant contact since he left; she helping him through the trials and tribulations of the police academy, and he helping her through the fact that her girlfriend was almost constantly out of town.
Robin wouldn’t use the word lonely to describe herself. That didn’t mean it wasn’t true, but she wouldn’t use it.
It wasn’t like she begrudged Vickie, either – her work was important, and she was good at it. Robin would never try and pull her away. It'd just have been...nice, if there was room in Vickie’s life for her job and her girlfriend at the same time. When they were together, things were great. But they were apart more often than not. Robin didn't know if they’d work long-term, but she was willing to at least give it a try.
It had been Robin’s idea that she and Steve share an apartment when he came back to town. Vickie was away so often and their relationship was so new that Robin had felt guilty about asking to share with her, so she'd been living on her own. It wasn’t the nicest, and the rent was a little high, but Steve didn’t have anywhere lined up to go, and splitting the costs would make things easier on them both. It would be nice to know that there’d always be someone waiting for her when she got home, too.
Robin found that that thought made her feel happier than she had in months, even after leaving Vickie behind.
She would have been happier though, if this damn train would move a little faster!
It was early in the evening, but only a few of the train’s carriages seemed to be in operation. Robin had been alone for most of the ride, but a few stops after she got on a pair of plain clothes police officers had joined her, flanking their prisoner.
He was a young man, probably the same age as Robin, maybe a year older. He wasn't really appropriately dressed for the time of year, just blue jeans with what looked like cowboy boots poking out of the bottoms, and a plain white vest, tight against his body, leaving his arms bare.
Robin was a lesbian, but even she could tell that the guy was objectively good looking. His arms bulged pleasantly, and his dirty blonde hair was swept off his shoulders, surprisingly well-kept given that he had probably spent most of his time recently either on the run or in prison. He looked...almost sad, she thought, when she glanced up and caught a look at his face. Resigned, almost, rather than angry. She'd have been angry if she was in handcuffs on a cold train in nothing but a vest. She'd bundled up in a big puffy jacket, and she wanted to go over and offer it to the guy.
"Nothing to see, ma'am'," said one of the police officers. He had a kind face, but his hand was always near his hip, near the handgun that sat there. "Just transporting this prisoner to a local facility for processing."
The prisoner looked up at her, his eyes widening. Robin felt her heart go out to him, but his sad expression suddenly morphed into one of disdain, like the very idea of her pitying him made him angry.
"Eyes down, Hargrove," said the other police officer. He wrenched the prisoner's arm roughly sideways, and received a look of hatred in return.
Robin, not really sure what else to do, went back to her foot tapping. She looked down at her watch. God, if she was late, Steve was going to kill her.
*****
September 29, 1998 – 17:01pm – Kendo’s Gun Store
"This is the last time I volunteer to do late night inventory," Eddie said to no one, shaking his head and making sure that he’d flipped the sign on the door of Kendo's Gun Store to Closed. "I mean yeah, the overtime pay is nice, but I'd rather be at home with some microwave pizza or something right now instead of stuck in the same place I've been for the last eight hours."
He turned away from the closed door, ignoring the darkened streets of Raccoon City beyond. It wasn't that late, in the grand scheme of things, but it was late enough that the streets were fairly quiet. There were only a few people wandering by, and none of them were paying him any notice either. Story of his life.
Eddie sighed and headed past the ammo bins in the centre of the showroom to the counter. It had a glass top, and displayed all sorts of firearms and weaponry beneath it. None of them were loaded, of course, but that didn't stop them looking intimidating nonetheless.
Since barely managing to graduate high school a few years ago, Eddie had floated around town doing odd jobs here and there. Kendo's was just the next in a long line of gigs that kept the lights on, none of which called to him as a passion project or anything like that. He knew some people found a career and stuck with it for life – he just needed a steady stream of income, and didn't much care where it came from. Maybe one day he'd find something that he felt good about doing forever, but for now...this would have to do.
He grabbed a clipboard from beneath the register and a pen from behind his ear, sliding it out of the tangles of his unruly brown hair without getting it caught. He poked out his tongue, and began to count stock.
Eddie didn't like guns, as a general rule. Not only were they dangerous, they were really fucking loud, and he hated loud noises that he wasn't making himself. The difference between gunshots and the metal music he made in his spare time was night and day, although it had given him an idea for a backing track made entirely of bullet casings hitting the floor. Maybe Kendo would let him record the next time someone used the practise range out back.
That was if Kendo didn't fire Eddie the next time he saw him. Eddie was, not to put too fine a point on it, a bad employee. Not because he was Eddie, but because of the fact that he didn't think half of the clientele that came into the store could be trusted with guns. No one needed an assault rifle or a machine gun in the middle of a suburban town like Raccoon City. A handgun? Yeah, okay, if you absolutely have to. But there was no need for some of the weapons of mass destruction that Kendo stocked in here to be in anyone's hands.
So maybe Eddie made the background checks take a little longer than necessary. Maybe he came up with some additional forms of his own that asked for information that the rednecks of Raccoon couldn't ever find for themselves. And maybe he just told some of them no flat out. It made him bad for business, sure. But it kept the streets of Raccoon City safer, didn't it? And that was what counted most.
Well, maybe to Eddie. But not to Kendo, who had noticed Eddie's little scam more than once. He hadn't managed to prove it just yet, but it wouldn't be long now. Eddie was already sizing up the next job on his list – they were hiring at the gas station just outside of town. He'd have plenty of time to write music and think, and he wouldn't have to deal with anyone waving a gun in his face, loaded or otherwise. Maybe that'd be best for everyone.
A loud noise broke Eddie from his thoughts. He put the clipboard back down on the counter and headed for the back alley behind the store. "Damn raccoons in the trash again," he hissed under his breath. "Just because it's Raccoon City doesn't mean you get free rein, buddy. And besides, there's that nice pizza joint across the street, you'll find better stuff in their trash than you ever will in ours."
The alleyway was narrow, barely wide enough for Eddie to stand side-by-side with the dumpster they kept out there. He propped the back door open – he'd locked himself out more than once, which was embarrassing – and grabbed a broom from beside the door.
He liked raccoons. They always looked like they were up to something, and he could appreciate that. But he was under no illusions that Kendo would shoot any of the furry critters if he found them in the trash, so it was Eddie's duty to discourage them in a non-lethal way so that they got the message before something decidedly non-non-lethal was employed to convince them.
"C'mon buddy," Eddie said, pulling the lid of the dumpster up. "Come on out, I've got stuff to do, and you can't eat empty bullet casings. Well, I guess you can, but I wouldn't recommend it. High on iron, sure, but probably bad for your little teeth."
He rummaged around for a second, but the dumpster was fairly empty – there was no sign of a raccoon, or anything else alive. He shut the lid, confused.
"I hope I'm not hearing things," Eddie muttered to himself. "I'm too pretty to be going insane."
A low growl from the end of the alleyway made him snap around quickly, fingers wrapping around the broom handle and raising it like a sword almost on reflex.
On the street beyond, standing in the shadows just out of the range of a light pole, was a dog. It was leaning low to the ground, teeth bared, eyes locked on Eddie and glaring at him.
Eddie was usually good with dogs too, especially the strays. They must have felt a kind of kinship with him, or something. But this one looked...it looked hungry, and it looked mad.
"Nice doggy," Eddie said, lowering the broom carefully. "You don't wanna eat me, I'm all skin and bones."
The dog took a step forward, its claws clicking on the asphalt in a way that sounded more menacing than any noise Eddie had ever heard a dog make before. It gnashed its jaws together, and Eddie took a step back. Raccoons in the trash were one thing, but Kendo didn't pay him enough to deal with angry dogs. He definitely hadn’t given Eddie any medical insurance to cover a rabies shot, either.
"Okay," Eddie said, stepping back again. "Okay, I'm just gonna...go back inside, and-"
The dog bolted. It pelted down the alleyway impossibly fast, legs tucking almost completely under itself as it moved towards him.
Eddie dropped the broom entirely and ran. He kicked the doorstop out from beneath the door and wrenched it shut behind him, just in time to hear the creature slam into the metal with a wet thud. He almost felt sorry for it, but then it started to bark, harsh and furious, from just on the other side, and he decided that trying to eat him kind of excluded it from any pity he might want to send its way.
Eddie sat there, back against the door, for a good five minutes until the dog stopped barking. He heard the sound of its claws clicking back up the alleyway, and when he poked his head outside again, it was gone.
He pulled the door shut and locked it. He definitely wasn't paid enough for this.
He went back to the showroom and picked up his clipboard. His hands were shaking as he grabbed his pen, and the next few tally marks he made were wobbly.
"Get a grip, Munson. It was just a dog."
He grabbed his walkman from his work bag and shoved the headphones down over his ears. The dulcet screams of Metallica would calm him down, he thought.
They couldn't banish the images though, as much as Eddie tried to rid himself of them. That dog had been in bad shape, he'd thought as he shut the door just in time to avoid its teeth closing over his wrist and biting his hand clean off. The skin seemed to have been hanging from its bones, the white of its skull visible, its legs little more than dark sinew.
Eddie shook himself and returned to the task at hand. He'd call animal control in the morning. They'd know what to do about it.
*****
September 29, 1998 – 14:17pm – Location Unknown
The man moved down the sterile white corridors at a leisurely pace. All around him was chaos; flashing red alarm lights, scientists and security officers rushing off to their pressing engagements. But the man had his own mission, and it wouldn't do to let everyone around him know that he was just as worried as they were.
It was one of the reasons he wore thick sunglasses, even inside. If no one could see his eyes, then they couldn't know exactly what he was thinking. It was usually something along the lines of I don't have time for this or This person is an idiot, and he definitely didn't need anyone knowing that. Easier to catch flies with honey, as they said.
He turned a corner, his destination in sight. His thick black combat boots echoed on the floor, announcing his arrival. For a brief moment, he caught a glimpse of himself in the plastic door that retracted up into the ceiling when it acknowledged his presence. Black cargo pants, a tight black sweater, the black sunglasses. The only colour on him was his slicked back blonde hair. The man was very particular about how he presented himself to the outside world. If people thought they knew who you were, then they were much more likely to let their guard down around you.
The room inside was cluttered with test tubes, microscopes, and all manner of scientific equipment that the man didn’t know anything about. He didn't need to – that was what he paid other people for.
At a desk in the centre of the mess was a silver-haired man, probably in his late fifties, though the blonde man had never cared enough to ask specifically. His tie was askew, his collar open, his shirt untucked at the back. This man didn't take as much care with his appearance, not when he was in the throes of his work. Usually, he was much more put together.
"Doctor Brenner," said the man, clearing his throat from the doorway. "We have to go."
Brenner looked up in surprise; he hadn't heard the man approach, too lost in his own thoughts. "Go? Go where?"
"Somewhere safe," the man told him. "It's out."
Brenner's eyes grew wider, and he stumbled as he stood, catching himself on the edge of one of the desks. "Out? But...that's not possible, surely. If it's out, then-"
"Then it's time we made our move," the man said firmly. "We can't stay here. Not any more."
"The others?" Brenner asked. "My daughter?" He was adjusting his tie, tucking in his shirt, his way of taking back control. The man approved.
"There's no time. I'm sorry." The man wasn't. But he knew he was supposed to say it.
Brenner opened his mouth like he was going to argue, then closed it again. When he spoke next, his voice was level. "I understand. Of course. Lead on, Mister Carver."
"Jason's fine, you know that," replied the man. "Now, let's see if there's anything we can salvage from this mess."
Brenner inclined his head. "Quite. There's only so much you can learn in a laboratory, after all. Sometimes, the best thing for progress is a good old fashioned field test."