Just like most teenagers, Carl had often imagined himself being a hero. He imagined himself facing danger with a wide confident smile and take down whatever enemy he was facing with the snap of a finger. He imagined himself saving the world and getting the girl.
But now, as his dream sort of came true, and as he crashed through the window of the mansion, he suddenly realized he just wanted to go home. Screw hero. Screw saving the world. He just wanted to return to his comfortable house and lay in his bed for an eternity.
As he stood up in a pile of broken glass, Carl heard a pained groan. He realized two people were already in the room, and they weren’t exactly welcomed by the Sanitation Team that was ready to shoot any enemy on sight. A man was on the ground, and a mercenary was putting cuffs on him while two other mercenaries were pointing their guns at him. Another woman in a bright red dress stood at the side and stared blankly at the cuffed man and the newly arrived mercenary team.
“I’m a cop!” The man on the ground screamed. A pistol laid on the ground beside him. “You’re breaking my arm!” He struggled futilely. The mercenaries didn’t really care who he was. Even if he was police they probably would’ve cuffed him anyways. In Racoon City, Umbrella was much more influential than the government.
Shade walked to the woman in red dress. “Report.” The woman just stared at Shade blankly. The captain grabbed onto the woman’s arm and held her to the wall. “Report now.”
“What?” This time the woman responded, but she seemed confused.
“I want you report, soldier.” Shade continued.
Jean felt Carl tapping on her shoulder. Suppressing the urge to snap his neck, she turned.
“She’s Alice, right?” Jean silently nodded. The memory they were given before this mission included a few major events that would happen within this dimension. One of them was what would happen in the Hive. Another was a list of important figures. Alice was on the top of the second list. It was hard to imagine this clumsy woman would become one of the most influential people in this dimension.
“Sir, the house’s primary defenses have been activated. She’s probably still suffering the side effects.”
Shade’s expression was hidden under his mask, but he pushed Alice further into the room.
“What about the cop?” He asked.
“Matthew Addison. I’m not getting a match.” The tech guy in the mercenary squad checked the man’s police badge with the city record. The female mercenary guarding Addison immediately pulled her pistol on him. He was a fake cop in the entrance of a facility that Umbrella just lost contact with. It couldn’t be a coincidence. Best case he was a curious civilian. Worst case he killed everyone in the Hive.
“Who are you?” She demanded.
“I have just transferred. They probably don’t even have me on file yet.” Addison struggled but decided that was a bad idea when he felt the ice cold gun barrel on the back of his neck.
“The locals are inefficient. It is possible.” Shade showed no respect toward the local government. He had a reason to. The American government in the Resident Evil dimension might be one of the most ineffective governments. They did next to nothing to stop the undead outbreak. Still, Jean remained silent and observed as the event unfold.
“Should I secure him here?” The female mercenary cocked her gun. By secure she meant execute. If he got out, there was no telling what he might tell the public. This wasn’t the first time the Sanitation Team had to do some dirty work to clean up loose ends, nor was this the first time they had to kill.
Shade looked at Alice for a second before taking off his mask. “No. We take him with us.”
“You can’t do this!” Addison complained as the female mercenary took off her mask, revealing a tough looking brunette.
“Blow me.” She whispered loudly and pushed Addison forward.
“Prepare entry to the Hive.” Shade ordered as a door to several level of stairs snapped open.
The voyagers were standing back as the entire thing happened, completely in awe. The way the mercenaries entered the mansion, flash grenade followed by soldiers themselves, was impressive. Addison took out his pistol and tried to resist, and was down in two seconds. As Shade was talking to Alice, the rest of the team had already secured the room. The chance of being ambushed was as low as possible, and even if there was an ambush the mercenaries could easily fight back. The mercenaries might be ruthless, but their skills were not to be underestimated. Their individual power might be weaker than average voyagers, but their cooperation and experience made them a difficult foe.
The mercenaries were the first to go down the stairs. The voyagers followed. They reached a train that should bring them to the Hive itself. It was their ticket, hopefully not one-way, to what will soon become hell.
The problem was less than half of the expedition team knew what awaited them.
“The power’s down.” One of the mercenaries reported after examining the power source.
“So fix it.” At the command, the mercenaries went through the train, restoring the power. Elite mercenaries like them knew much more than just killing. Sometimes a few talents could save their lives.
The voyagers practically stood by and watched. Looking at the working mercenaries, Carl suddenly felt something was off. He didn’t realize what it was, but it just kept on bugging him. He didn’t even pay much attention to when two mercenaries teased each other and when a man dropped out a door of the train and collapsed onto the ground. The medic went to his side and examined him.
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“He’s fine. Memory loss, just like the other one.” She concluded after asking a few questions. The last one referred to Alice.
“What happened?” The man sat up and asked quietly, but no one, except the voyagers, could answer his question.
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The train moved with a heavy rambling. Mercenaries looked out of the cargo doors. They still thought the environment might be hostile, and as far as they knew their arrival into the Hive might be welcomed by a ground to ground missile. They were ready to jump off the train and get into fighting position whenever necessary.
This gave the voyagers an opportunity to talk in private.
“The lowest level of the Hive contains the original Isaac and Alicia. They basically own the entire Umbrella Corporation. If we can go down there and kill them both in their hibernation…this mission will be over very quickly.” Ivan tried to find a short cut. The idea of jumping on two defenseless, unconscious targets was much more appealing than taking down an entire corporation while fending off endless undead hordes.
“Perhaps, but think about it.” This was the longest sentence Xia had said ever since Jean met her. “This time we are facing Umbrella. They’re evil and powerful, but at least they are human. Bullets can kill them. Plus, this mission has an opportunity for us to earn a lot, and I do mean a lot, of reward.” She tapped her watch, reminding Ivan and Jean of their mission, especially their second mission. “If we miss this chance, so what if we complete this mission? Basic reward is not going to be enough to make us strong enough to matter. We’ll be going back to the Hub and continue to be nobody.” She looked at Ivan and to Jean and then back to Ivan again. “I am not going to lie. I have ambitions, and I will not accept the fate of being just another low level voyager when I can become something so much better.”
Ivan frowned. He had an opportunity to a quick salvation: Find a chance to get away from the Sanitation Team, get down to the deepest end of the Hive, and use the lack of defenses to take out the two leaders of Umbrella Corporation. The Red Queen was powerful, but Ivan was confident that with enough caution he could survive whatever trick the AI had. Kill the two owners of Umbrella, and his mission would technically be done. Likely he would be teleported back to the Hub, where he could live another two months in complete safety.
But then what? Like the Asian girl said, a quick end meant he would fail to get a potentially mind blowing reward. He would continue living off his life as a voyager near the bottom of the food chain, always afraid of being killed in the next mission. He didn’t want that. It was simple. He wanted to live. But staying here meant more risk. The reward wouldn’t help if he was straight up killed in this mission.
Jean noticed Ivan’s hesitation. Turning to Xia, she wondered what the girl would say next as a final push.
The girl didn’t disappoint her. “One of the products in the Merchandise Division is Grace.” She stared at the struggling man. “Angelic grace.”
Both Jean and Ivan stared at Xia in shock.
“This means…” Jean trailed off as Ivan held his fist tight.
“This means there will be supernatural missions in which neither bullets nor physical strength can keep you safe.” Xia voiced what Jean was thinking. “You will need new upgrades, which means you will need more crystals.”
“F**k it! Let’s do this!” Ivan slammed his fists together heavily, causing the mercenaries to jump a little. Ignoring Shade’s angry gaze, Ivan seemed like a cornered beast. He had no choice but to accept Xia’s proposal and take his chances with the undead. It bothered him slightly, but everything the girl said was completely true.
“I understood every word you said, but I don’t recognize them as a sentence.” Beside the three voyagers, recruit Carl interrupted. Unlike Aidan, he didn’t enjoy being left out and completely in the dark.
Ivan ignored him and instead he focused on Xia and Jean. Tapping his watch, he opened the Team Making tab and sent a team request to both girls.
Jean sighed as her watch buzzed and turned to a confused and, frankly speaking, slightly pissed Carl. “We get crystals as rewards after each mission. Crystals can buy almost anything, including all kinds of powers.”
Carl nodded but quickly realized a hole in Jean’s explanation. His mind turning quickly now that he had basically recovered from the shock of the new environment. “The amount of reward depends on a certain factor, right? Because if it’s the same across the board then we wouldn’t be having this conversation. What is it based on? It can’t be based on how quickly the mission is completed. Is it based on secondary missions? How much you stick to the original history? It’s interesting I didn’t receive any information about this extra reward. This seems to be a voyager thing.”
This time Jean was seriously impressed. This teenager was able to guess ninety percent of their situation just based on two sentences she told him. He had some potential. Yet Jean didn’t answer. She had some concerns, and apparently Xia didn’t share her concerns.
“It is based on the amount of undead we kill.” Xia said quietly as she looked down on her watch.
“Oh…” Carl took a few seconds to truly understand what Xia meant. “You will not be putting down the t-virus outbreak. If anything you’ll be helping to spread it.” He looked at Jean in disbelief. “You want to allow t-virus to spread so you have more undead to kill and so called crystals to earn.”
“Millions will die.” He said hollowly.
“Around 7 billion people will die.” Xia counted coldly, not showing a single sign of guilt. “That means 7 billion undead to kill. I don’t know what is the rate of exchange between undead and red crystals, but the numbers are there. Even if we only kill one out of every ten thousand undead, we will return to the Hub as victors.”
“You can’t be serious.” Carl exclaimed, discreetly gesturing for the mercenaries. “Those are living, breathing people out there!”
“Those are NPCs. Their sole purpose in life is to die and become an undead.” Xia retaliated with a cold look. “I am not going to argue with you, but us three have joined a team.” She tapped her watch with her short fingernails.
What was on her watch was something Carl couldn’t see, but when he looked at Jean, the blonde gave her a silent nod.
“You haven’t been to the Hub before, Carl, which means you don’t know how valuable crystals are. I don’t enjoy this, but I will not allow it to impair my judgement.” She explained apologizingly.
“If you want, you can try to stop us, and you will die.” Unlike Jean, Xia didn’t bother playing nice with the completely unupgraded one hundred percent organic Carl. She could kill him in two seconds. If she didn’t have a tiny bit of respect toward life, life of real human beings, not NPC, left within her she would’ve killed Carl and the other recruit, what was his name again, right here right now to make sure nothing out of her control would happen. They couldn’t help her, which meant the only thing they could bring was trouble. Neither Jean nor Ivan would be angry at her if she really killed them. Neither voyagers would risk losing another important fighter.
Ivan stretched his arms threateningly and was about to come up with another threat to back Xia up. He didn’t really consider the natives as NPCs, but that didn’t stop him from valuing his own life above that of the locals. That was when the train came to a screeching halt. The mercenaries were the first to jump off the train. Xia and Ivan left without a word. Jean looked at Carl before tapping his shoulder apologizingly and then left.
Under the dim light, Carl had a struggling look.