Estimated Life Expectancy: Chapter 4
Estimated Life Expectancy: Chapter 4
Summary: Something has happened to Jill that no one expected, and in his desperation to save her Chris might just be pushed into doing the unthinkable.
Rating/Warnings: T/PG-13. Obscenities, mostly.
Disclaimer: Any character not immediately recognizable as belonging to Capcom is probably mine (and being let out for the sole purpose of being a plot device, in all likelihood). Anything you do recognize as Capcom's is completely theirs, and I take no credit for them. I'm not here to make money, just to play in the sandbox
Previous Chapters: Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3
The pale yellow isolation gown he was forced to wear whenever he wanted to see her rustled faintly as he crossed the room. Chris pulled up a chair and set it down by the bed - his movements as quick, careful, and quiet as he could make them. Jill was sleeping and he didn't want to wake her.
According to Dr. Morales, she was doing much better. Her white counts were up - not by a lot, but considering how low they had been any increase was a damn good thing - she'd been eating more (said she had a craving for lo mein and guacamole), sleeping less (though she was out for the count at the moment), and definitely seemed to be throwing off the infection.
Even so, the oncologist warned them that Jill had a long way to go before she was healthy enough to go home, and he couldn't say how much this might have set her back. She might live another four or five months; or she might go even sooner than that.
"We can guess," Dr. Morales had said when Chris asked, "but that's all it really is: a guess. A lot of it depends on her and how much she wants to live."
Fight it, Jill. Cancer is not better than you are.
A stray lock of her soft brown hair had fallen across her face while she slept, and Chris reached out with a gloved hand to push it back behind her ear.
The hair came away in his hand.
Chris stared at it, feeling like he'd just taken a powerful punch to the gut. He knew this was coming - they'd stopped the chemotherapy three weeks ago, now, but the damage had been done. And they had no way of knowing how much more she was going to lose.
All of this, he thought, dropping the clump of hair to the floor and kicking it under the bed with a footie-covered shoe, for nothing. If she hadn't gone on the chemo, she wouldn't have gotten the neutropenia. If she hadn't gotten the neutropenia, she either wouldn't have caught the damn infection or she'd have been able to fight it off. If she hadn't caught the infection, she could be at home with him right now.
Chris gritted his teeth and looked away. His gaze fell on the clear IV tubing that led from her arm to the IV piggyback hanging by the bed, delivering her prescribed mix of fluids, antibiotics for the infection, and white count boosters.
The IV line. If, by some twist of fate, he managed to get a hold of the virus in time, that was how he'd get it into Jill's system. How many times had he watched Camille or Mary or one of the other nurses inject another dose of meds into the line?
Enough that he knew that was the best place to do it.
Her eyebrows twitched and Jill stirred, stretching and opening her eyes. Her gaze darted quickly around the room, taking in her surroundings, and her face lit up when she saw he was sitting there.
"Morning," she said. Her voice was raspy, partly from the infection and partly from disuse. She coughed to clear her throat and asked, "It is still morning, isn't it?"
"Yeah," Chris replied, his voice gentle. "How're you doing?"
"Better. You don't need to ask me that all of the time, you know."
He shook his head. "No can do. Camille told you you'd better get used to it."
Jill snorted softly and shifted, wiggling her way to the edge of the bed. She reached out and touched Chris's arm, tracing her fingers along his forearm to his hand. She tugged his hand free, then intertwined her fingers in his. Her eyes drifted closed again. "I'm glad you're here, Chris."
"Where else would I be?"
"I don't know. Africa, maybe."
"Africa? What would I be doing there?"
Jill shrugged. Her grip on his hand tightened as she spoke. The change wasn't huge; but he felt it, just like he heard the note of fear in her voice. "The Alliance might send you."
He shifted closer to the bed, and started running his thumb along the back of her hand. "I'm on standby, remember? They won't send me anywhere unless they absolutely have to." He paused, glancing out the door as a nurse walked by. It wasn't Camille, and as she kept on going by the room he turned his gaze back to Jill. "I'm not going to leave you, Jill. Not for anything. We're partners."
"Yeah. Partners."
Chris frowned. This wasn't Jill. "Maybe I should bring in Claire," he said, trying to lighten the mood. "She's been getting on my back about being pessimistic all week."
She smiled faintly. "She should. You're not allowed to be pessimistic."
"Neither are you," he retorted. He was going to say something more, but was interrupted by a knock on the glass. Chris looked up. Rebecca was standing outside.
"Look - there's Rebecca. I'm gonna go say hi. I'll be back, okay?"
Jill nodded. "Okay."
Chris gave her hand one last squeeze before letting it go, then quickly crossed the room and ducked out of the door.
"You didn't have to leave," Rebecca said. "I just wanted to let you know I was here. It's still your shift."
"I know." He tossed the gown, gloves, shoe covers, facemask, and hair net into the biohazardous waste container by the door. Camille and the other nurses had set it up specifically for Chris and the others, since they came and went so often.
"How's she doing?" Rebecca asked.
"Better," Chris said. He stopped suddenly, realizing his phone was ringing. He held up a finger to let Rebecca know he'd finish that thought in about thirty seconds, then reached down and pulled out his phone.
Does this thing ever stop ringing? He wondered, flipping it open.
"Redfield."
It was Rodriguez. His voice was curt as he said, "I got it. You still want it?"
Casting a glance at Rebecca, Chris quickly rounded the corner and moved down the hall. Keeping his voice low, he replied, "That didn't take you long."
"I got lucky. Well? You want it or not?"
"Yeah. I still want it." If nothing else, he told himself, his thoughts firm, you can give it to Rebecca. Unused. It's still a sample, and it's one we don't have.
"I can't come to you," Rodriguez said, in a tone that said he was not willing to compromise on this point. "You gotta come to me."
"I know."
"How soon?"
Chris looked at his watch, scrunching up his face in thought. Rodriguez liked to camp out in a series of places up and down the Mexican coast. If he left now, there was a good he could get there, pick up the virus, and get back within a day. He could spare a day." I can be down there in about six hours. Probably less."
Six hours from now would put the time around six PM - five in the evening where Rodriguez was.
If Rodriguez picked up on Chris's slight emphasis on the fact that he was coming, and not Colonel Graves, the Marine-cum-B.S.A.A. agent the dealer usually dealt with, he didn't show any signs of it. "That's fine. I'll be at the Luna Bar in Mercado Negro."
"I'll be there." Chris hung up his cell phone, putting it back into his pocket. He turned back down the hall, heading back to Jill's room.
Rebecca was still standing outside, watching her through the glass.
"Hey," he said to her, lightly touching her shoulder to get her attention. "I've got to go. Stay with Jill for me, okay?"
"What?" Rebecca turned away from the glass. "Where are you going? It's still your - "
Chris shook his head. Rebecca - least of all, Rebecca - did not need to know where he was going. "I'll be back as soon as I can. I promise."
"But…wait! Chris! It's still your shift! Where are…What am I supposed to tell Jill?"
"Just tell her I'll be back!" He called over his shoulder as he rounded the corner and jogged for the elevator.
Jill, he thought as he hastily dialed up the airport so he could try and book a flight out to Cancún within the next two hours, I will be back. I just have to try this one thing, okay? He hoped to God that she understood that he'd be back. He wasn't going to abandon her - not now, not ever.
Even if it seemed like he was.
The Mercado Negro - literally, the Black Market, a name that Chris couldn't help but laugh at - was a small, backwater town on the Yucatán Peninsula, located some two hundred miles out of the nearest major city and sixty miles from the nearest paved road. It was framed on three sides by creeping tropical jungle while the fourth side was farmland irrigated by a nearby river.
Though it looked like an idyllic little rural village, it was not a welcoming place. Buyers eyed him nervously as he walked by while the merchants glared at him from behind their stalls. More than half of the men he saw - buyers and merchants alike - were armed. Chris saw quite a few with assault rifles slung over their backs, and several more with smaller automatics and some semi-automatics.
Maybe I should have brought my gun, he thought, suddenly feeling very naked without it. Never know when I'm going to need it, anymore.
He hadn't brought it with him because it would have taken too long to check it when he was rushing just to make the flight, and he didn't want to use his status with the Alliance to take it on board with him. Chris looked around again, feeling at least a dozen eyes on him.
The hand came out of nowhere, clapping him hard on his sweat-drenched back. A rough voice said in his ear, "This way, Agent Redfield."
Chris turned, and a man he assumed was Rodriguez flashed him a grin. "You're making people nervous," Rodriguez explained, motioning for Chris to follow him to the open-air bar - the Luna Bar, actually - on the corner. "And these guys…well, they're trigger happy on the best of days."
"And on the worst?" Chris asked as he followed Rodriguez's lead to small, round, wooden table next to a leafy potted plant.
"You don't want to know. Here. Take a seat." Rodriguez dropped into one of the chairs around the table, reaching for his glass as he did. "Make yourself at home. Get you a drink?"
"No, thanks," Chris said, settling into the surprisingly comfortable wicker chair across from the dealer. "I've been told not to drink the water down here."
"The liquor's still good."
Chris shook his head. He'd already had a hard enough time getting out to this place, between the long drive and the dirt road and the fact that he'd been forced to ditch his car a good five miles out of town. He didn't see the point in making it even harder to get back out again.
"Suit yourself." Rodriguez raised the glass that he'd left sitting on the table and took a drink, giving Chris a few seconds to look him over properly.
They'd never met before this point, though they had talked. Colonel Rainier Graves - a Marine who occasionally moonlighted for the B.S.A.A. - was one of the few men in the Alliance who had ever seen Rodriguez in person.
Now, Chris could see that Rodriguez was broad and sturdily built, with powerful shoulders and arms. He was clean-shaven, and though his dark hair was on the longer side it was obviously taken care of. A pair of sunglasses rested on the top of his head. Really, he didn't look that much different than some of the other guys around here.
Except, unlike everyone else, he was wearing long sleeves.
How the hell can he wear long sleeves in this? Chris wondered. It was easily over ninety degrees, even in the shade. He was covered in sweat, and with the jungle's natural humidity keeping that sweat from doing its job, it felt even hotter.
"How did you know who I was?" Chris asked suddenly. "We've never met."
Rodriguez raised an eyebrow and retorted, "How did you know who I was? We've never met." He shrugged. "You stand out. Besides, I do my research."
He finished his drink, clapped the glass and some money down on the table, and waved at the bartender before motioning for Chris to follow him out of the bar.
The crowds did not thin out any as they made their way down the busy streets. Rodriguez dodged and wove easily through the throng, though it really wasn't necessary - the villagers all moved out of his way as he walked by.
Too bad they didn't do the same for Chris.
"They really don't like me, do they?" he commented dryly when one of the men on the street - buyer or seller, he couldn't tell - glanced off his shoulder and then made a show of pulling his gun out of his belt.
"You're an American," Rodriguez replied. "Nobody likes the Americans any more."
Chris frowned. The B.S.A.A.'s dossier labeled Rodriguez as American born, though, admittedly, they didn't have much on him past that. The Alliance had only started looking at him a couple of years ago, after the ATF sent them one of their own files. They knew Rodriguez as Hernando Garcia, and under that alias he mostly bought and sold weapons for the Colombian drug cartels. But as the ATF continued to track that alias they'd found he had a half dozen more names and seemed to be developing a stockpile of the T-virus.
At first, the B.S.A.A. only wanted to keep an eye on him. If he became a threat, they could neutralize him. That had been the plan, anyway. To this day, Chris wasn't sure what tipped Rodriguez off. But somehow, about a year and a half ago now, he'd figured out that he was being followed. Turned out that he also had friends in the Marines, and he used them to get into contact with the Alliance.
Though he was tempted, Chris chose not to ask about the dealer's heritage. He was here for his virus, and nothing more. You can worry about him later.
Rodriguez led him to a low slung, concrete building at the far end of the village. It was much closer to the jungle than the other buildings and nearly hidden by the vines already - a few more months, and it was quite possible the brush would eat the building whole. Chris waited, keeping an eye on the village they hadn't quite left behind, as Rodriguez unlocked the door and let them inside.
"Keep an eye out," Rodriguez said as he crossed the room.
"For what?" As Chris looked on, Rodriguez eased a heavy mahogany coffee table from the rug in the small living room.
"I don't think anyone followed us back, but you never know." He jerked his head towards the window. "There's a gun in that planter if you need it. Should still work fine. I just cleaned it yesterday."
"Where are you going?"
"What, you think I keep the T-virus just lying around? That shit's volatile." Rodriguez carefully rolled up part of the rug, revealing a trapdoor in the floor.
"That seems like a pretty obvious place to look for a hiding spot."
"They can find it, sure. But they can't get into it." Rodriguez climbed to his feet and disappeared into the kitchen. He came back a few seconds later with a black messenger bag, which he set on the coffee table he'd moved. He pulled out a dark laptop and set it on the table next to the bag, then a cable he ran from the laptop to a port in the floor. "No one's coming, right?"
Chris turned back to the window. "No."
This part of the village was practically empty, and the few people he could see walking by were heading towards the market, not away from it.
"Good." Rodriguez had apparently left the computer on while it was in the bag, because he didn't seem to have to wait for it to boot up. Instead he hastily typed something on the keyboard, and Chris heard the trapdoor unlock with a clunk.
"That is…actually kinda cool."
"You do enough dirty work for people and they're okay with doing some dirty work for you," Rodriguez said, striding back to the door and lifting it open. "This whole get up - the basement, the door, the tripwires and flash boxes I've got wired up on the roof - was part of my payment for a run a couple years back." He smiled darkly as he started down the ladder.
Tripwires on the roof? Chris thought, casting a glance towards the ceiling. He'd never heard of that one before. Never tried that one. Doesn't seem like a bad idea.
He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, glancing at his watch before turning his attention out the window again. It was almost six, now, and the hot tropical sun was starting to sink below the trees. Though he'd managed to get out to this place on time, it was going to take him a little longer than he had planned to get back to D.C., as the next flight to Dulles didn't leave until early the following morning.
Chris drew a hand down his sweat-covered face. He'd leave here, drive back to the airport, spend the night there, then fly home with the virus as soon as he could. Barring any delays with the plane, he figured he could get back to Jill before noon, virus in hand.
The realization that he was actually here, retrieving a sample of the T-Veronica virus, hit him right about then. It wasn't just a chance any more, or some loose semblance of a plan - he was going to have the virus in his possession. He was going to have the means of keeping her alive with him.
"This," Rodriguez said, climbing back up the ladder and sealing the floor back up again, "was not easy for me to get a hold of." He set a tiny vial down on the table by his laptop. Chris caught a glimpse of a black streak on his arm, just peeking out from underneath one of his sleeves, as he pulled his hand away. "Cost me quite a bit."
The vial was half filled with a dark, thin liquid. It sloshed against the vial's glass walls as it tried to settle, leaving a faintly blue-purple stain behind wherever it touched. Chris did not reach for it, though. Not yet. He said, "You'll be reimbursed." Even if I have to do it myself.
"That's not what I meant." Rodriguez looked at him, his eyes narrowing. "Someone else was trying to buy it, same as I was."
"Who?"
"I don't know."
"Any ideas?"
Rodriguez shook his head. "I've run into competition before. Terrorist cells in Afghanistan want this shit to use on their enemies. Political radicals in South Africa would love to turn their opponents into zombies - keeps 'em from running in the elections. Extremists from all around the world can't wait to try it out. Hell, I once heard of a guy wanting to buy a sample to use on his wife - but those guys? They don't have the money I do. This guy, whoever he was? He had more cash to blow on this little vial than I've ever seen in my life. It's hard to say no to that much money."
"So how did you get a hold of this thing, then?"
"Shot a man in Reno," Rodriguez said with a grin. "I called in an old favor. The guys out here; they aren't as bad as everyone thinks." He paused. "Not all of them, anyway."
Chris reached out and lightly touched the little vial, then wrapped his hand around it. The glass was cool to the touch, at least compared to the sweltering heat of this place. "It is T-Veronica."
"Yes. That's what you wanted, that's what I got."
Chris looked at glass vial once more. He'd held samples like this one before. Eight years since the incident at Rockfort. Eight years since he had first found out that Wesker survived the Spencer Mansion. Eight years since his sister had held Steve as he died. Eight years, and here he was, holding a sample of that virus in his hand.
It's gonna save Jill, he reminded himself. You need it to save her.
"You all right there, Redfield?"
Chris started. "What? Yeah, sorry."
"Doesn't look like much, does it? I've eaten food that looked more dangerous than that."
"Can't judge it by how it looks," Chris replied. "Just what it can do."
"I know. Personal experience." Rodriguez drummed his hands lightly on the table before saying, "Come on. I'll take you back to your car. Can't imagine you want to walk back there in the dark."
Even at seven in the morning, the Cancún airport bustled and nearly throbbed with the sounds of couples and families arriving for and departing from their tropical vacations. Throughout the terminal Chris could hear mothers shouting for their children, the roaring hiss of massive coffee makers and milk steamers, and the painful scraping sounds of security gates as they were raised.
And here I thought tourism was always one of the first markets to suffer in a recession, Chris thought, downing the last of his coffee in a single gulp. His eyes were bloodshot, red-rimmed, and heavily shadowed from his night spent sprawled across the curved plastic chairs in the terminal. He had napped but never really slept, and the virus had never once left his side. Hell, he hadn't even taken his hand off the damn thing - if something were to happen to him, the cops dispatched to deal with his body would literally have to pry it out of his cold, dead hands.
His plane would be boarding soon, at least. The flight back would only take about four hours, giving him - hopefully - enough time to grab a quick shower and something to eat at his apartment before he got his ass back to the hospital.
The hospital.
Chris winced. Ideally, this trip would have been over and done with almost five hours ago, and he'd be back at the hospital by now. Actually, in an ideal world he wouldn't have had to fly out here and pick up the virus at all - Rodriguez would have come to him with it. Then he could have simply ducked out of the hospital for two, maybe three hours, not twelve.
Three hours was a lot easier to lie about, after all. He could probably bullshit his way through a three-hour disappearance without much difficulty, but this?
This wasn't going to be easy.
Chris rubbed at a sore muscle in the back of his neck. Barry and Claire are going to kill me for this. And Rebecca will probably help.
Doesn't matter. I got what I came for.
He looked down at the small, steel case Rodriguez had given him to carry the T-Veronica sample in, but didn't open it. He just let it sit on his lap as he ran his fingers over the dimpled silver sides.
You won't have to die now, Jill. I can save you.
I will save you.
Summary: Something has happened to Jill that no one expected, and in his desperation to save her Chris might just be pushed into doing the unthinkable.
Rating/Warnings: T/PG-13. Obscenities, mostly.
Disclaimer: Any character not immediately recognizable as belonging to Capcom is probably mine (and being let out for the sole purpose of being a plot device, in all likelihood). Anything you do recognize as Capcom's is completely theirs, and I take no credit for them. I'm not here to make money, just to play in the sandbox
Previous Chapters: Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3
The pale yellow isolation gown he was forced to wear whenever he wanted to see her rustled faintly as he crossed the room. Chris pulled up a chair and set it down by the bed - his movements as quick, careful, and quiet as he could make them. Jill was sleeping and he didn't want to wake her.
According to Dr. Morales, she was doing much better. Her white counts were up - not by a lot, but considering how low they had been any increase was a damn good thing - she'd been eating more (said she had a craving for lo mein and guacamole), sleeping less (though she was out for the count at the moment), and definitely seemed to be throwing off the infection.
Even so, the oncologist warned them that Jill had a long way to go before she was healthy enough to go home, and he couldn't say how much this might have set her back. She might live another four or five months; or she might go even sooner than that.
"We can guess," Dr. Morales had said when Chris asked, "but that's all it really is: a guess. A lot of it depends on her and how much she wants to live."
Fight it, Jill. Cancer is not better than you are.
A stray lock of her soft brown hair had fallen across her face while she slept, and Chris reached out with a gloved hand to push it back behind her ear.
The hair came away in his hand.
Chris stared at it, feeling like he'd just taken a powerful punch to the gut. He knew this was coming - they'd stopped the chemotherapy three weeks ago, now, but the damage had been done. And they had no way of knowing how much more she was going to lose.
All of this, he thought, dropping the clump of hair to the floor and kicking it under the bed with a footie-covered shoe, for nothing. If she hadn't gone on the chemo, she wouldn't have gotten the neutropenia. If she hadn't gotten the neutropenia, she either wouldn't have caught the damn infection or she'd have been able to fight it off. If she hadn't caught the infection, she could be at home with him right now.
Chris gritted his teeth and looked away. His gaze fell on the clear IV tubing that led from her arm to the IV piggyback hanging by the bed, delivering her prescribed mix of fluids, antibiotics for the infection, and white count boosters.
The IV line. If, by some twist of fate, he managed to get a hold of the virus in time, that was how he'd get it into Jill's system. How many times had he watched Camille or Mary or one of the other nurses inject another dose of meds into the line?
Enough that he knew that was the best place to do it.
Her eyebrows twitched and Jill stirred, stretching and opening her eyes. Her gaze darted quickly around the room, taking in her surroundings, and her face lit up when she saw he was sitting there.
"Morning," she said. Her voice was raspy, partly from the infection and partly from disuse. She coughed to clear her throat and asked, "It is still morning, isn't it?"
"Yeah," Chris replied, his voice gentle. "How're you doing?"
"Better. You don't need to ask me that all of the time, you know."
He shook his head. "No can do. Camille told you you'd better get used to it."
Jill snorted softly and shifted, wiggling her way to the edge of the bed. She reached out and touched Chris's arm, tracing her fingers along his forearm to his hand. She tugged his hand free, then intertwined her fingers in his. Her eyes drifted closed again. "I'm glad you're here, Chris."
"Where else would I be?"
"I don't know. Africa, maybe."
"Africa? What would I be doing there?"
Jill shrugged. Her grip on his hand tightened as she spoke. The change wasn't huge; but he felt it, just like he heard the note of fear in her voice. "The Alliance might send you."
He shifted closer to the bed, and started running his thumb along the back of her hand. "I'm on standby, remember? They won't send me anywhere unless they absolutely have to." He paused, glancing out the door as a nurse walked by. It wasn't Camille, and as she kept on going by the room he turned his gaze back to Jill. "I'm not going to leave you, Jill. Not for anything. We're partners."
"Yeah. Partners."
Chris frowned. This wasn't Jill. "Maybe I should bring in Claire," he said, trying to lighten the mood. "She's been getting on my back about being pessimistic all week."
She smiled faintly. "She should. You're not allowed to be pessimistic."
"Neither are you," he retorted. He was going to say something more, but was interrupted by a knock on the glass. Chris looked up. Rebecca was standing outside.
"Look - there's Rebecca. I'm gonna go say hi. I'll be back, okay?"
Jill nodded. "Okay."
Chris gave her hand one last squeeze before letting it go, then quickly crossed the room and ducked out of the door.
"You didn't have to leave," Rebecca said. "I just wanted to let you know I was here. It's still your shift."
"I know." He tossed the gown, gloves, shoe covers, facemask, and hair net into the biohazardous waste container by the door. Camille and the other nurses had set it up specifically for Chris and the others, since they came and went so often.
"How's she doing?" Rebecca asked.
"Better," Chris said. He stopped suddenly, realizing his phone was ringing. He held up a finger to let Rebecca know he'd finish that thought in about thirty seconds, then reached down and pulled out his phone.
Does this thing ever stop ringing? He wondered, flipping it open.
"Redfield."
It was Rodriguez. His voice was curt as he said, "I got it. You still want it?"
Casting a glance at Rebecca, Chris quickly rounded the corner and moved down the hall. Keeping his voice low, he replied, "That didn't take you long."
"I got lucky. Well? You want it or not?"
"Yeah. I still want it." If nothing else, he told himself, his thoughts firm, you can give it to Rebecca. Unused. It's still a sample, and it's one we don't have.
"I can't come to you," Rodriguez said, in a tone that said he was not willing to compromise on this point. "You gotta come to me."
"I know."
"How soon?"
Chris looked at his watch, scrunching up his face in thought. Rodriguez liked to camp out in a series of places up and down the Mexican coast. If he left now, there was a good he could get there, pick up the virus, and get back within a day. He could spare a day." I can be down there in about six hours. Probably less."
Six hours from now would put the time around six PM - five in the evening where Rodriguez was.
If Rodriguez picked up on Chris's slight emphasis on the fact that he was coming, and not Colonel Graves, the Marine-cum-B.S.A.A. agent the dealer usually dealt with, he didn't show any signs of it. "That's fine. I'll be at the Luna Bar in Mercado Negro."
"I'll be there." Chris hung up his cell phone, putting it back into his pocket. He turned back down the hall, heading back to Jill's room.
Rebecca was still standing outside, watching her through the glass.
"Hey," he said to her, lightly touching her shoulder to get her attention. "I've got to go. Stay with Jill for me, okay?"
"What?" Rebecca turned away from the glass. "Where are you going? It's still your - "
Chris shook his head. Rebecca - least of all, Rebecca - did not need to know where he was going. "I'll be back as soon as I can. I promise."
"But…wait! Chris! It's still your shift! Where are…What am I supposed to tell Jill?"
"Just tell her I'll be back!" He called over his shoulder as he rounded the corner and jogged for the elevator.
Jill, he thought as he hastily dialed up the airport so he could try and book a flight out to Cancún within the next two hours, I will be back. I just have to try this one thing, okay? He hoped to God that she understood that he'd be back. He wasn't going to abandon her - not now, not ever.
Even if it seemed like he was.
The Mercado Negro - literally, the Black Market, a name that Chris couldn't help but laugh at - was a small, backwater town on the Yucatán Peninsula, located some two hundred miles out of the nearest major city and sixty miles from the nearest paved road. It was framed on three sides by creeping tropical jungle while the fourth side was farmland irrigated by a nearby river.
Though it looked like an idyllic little rural village, it was not a welcoming place. Buyers eyed him nervously as he walked by while the merchants glared at him from behind their stalls. More than half of the men he saw - buyers and merchants alike - were armed. Chris saw quite a few with assault rifles slung over their backs, and several more with smaller automatics and some semi-automatics.
Maybe I should have brought my gun, he thought, suddenly feeling very naked without it. Never know when I'm going to need it, anymore.
He hadn't brought it with him because it would have taken too long to check it when he was rushing just to make the flight, and he didn't want to use his status with the Alliance to take it on board with him. Chris looked around again, feeling at least a dozen eyes on him.
The hand came out of nowhere, clapping him hard on his sweat-drenched back. A rough voice said in his ear, "This way, Agent Redfield."
Chris turned, and a man he assumed was Rodriguez flashed him a grin. "You're making people nervous," Rodriguez explained, motioning for Chris to follow him to the open-air bar - the Luna Bar, actually - on the corner. "And these guys…well, they're trigger happy on the best of days."
"And on the worst?" Chris asked as he followed Rodriguez's lead to small, round, wooden table next to a leafy potted plant.
"You don't want to know. Here. Take a seat." Rodriguez dropped into one of the chairs around the table, reaching for his glass as he did. "Make yourself at home. Get you a drink?"
"No, thanks," Chris said, settling into the surprisingly comfortable wicker chair across from the dealer. "I've been told not to drink the water down here."
"The liquor's still good."
Chris shook his head. He'd already had a hard enough time getting out to this place, between the long drive and the dirt road and the fact that he'd been forced to ditch his car a good five miles out of town. He didn't see the point in making it even harder to get back out again.
"Suit yourself." Rodriguez raised the glass that he'd left sitting on the table and took a drink, giving Chris a few seconds to look him over properly.
They'd never met before this point, though they had talked. Colonel Rainier Graves - a Marine who occasionally moonlighted for the B.S.A.A. - was one of the few men in the Alliance who had ever seen Rodriguez in person.
Now, Chris could see that Rodriguez was broad and sturdily built, with powerful shoulders and arms. He was clean-shaven, and though his dark hair was on the longer side it was obviously taken care of. A pair of sunglasses rested on the top of his head. Really, he didn't look that much different than some of the other guys around here.
Except, unlike everyone else, he was wearing long sleeves.
How the hell can he wear long sleeves in this? Chris wondered. It was easily over ninety degrees, even in the shade. He was covered in sweat, and with the jungle's natural humidity keeping that sweat from doing its job, it felt even hotter.
"How did you know who I was?" Chris asked suddenly. "We've never met."
Rodriguez raised an eyebrow and retorted, "How did you know who I was? We've never met." He shrugged. "You stand out. Besides, I do my research."
He finished his drink, clapped the glass and some money down on the table, and waved at the bartender before motioning for Chris to follow him out of the bar.
The crowds did not thin out any as they made their way down the busy streets. Rodriguez dodged and wove easily through the throng, though it really wasn't necessary - the villagers all moved out of his way as he walked by.
Too bad they didn't do the same for Chris.
"They really don't like me, do they?" he commented dryly when one of the men on the street - buyer or seller, he couldn't tell - glanced off his shoulder and then made a show of pulling his gun out of his belt.
"You're an American," Rodriguez replied. "Nobody likes the Americans any more."
Chris frowned. The B.S.A.A.'s dossier labeled Rodriguez as American born, though, admittedly, they didn't have much on him past that. The Alliance had only started looking at him a couple of years ago, after the ATF sent them one of their own files. They knew Rodriguez as Hernando Garcia, and under that alias he mostly bought and sold weapons for the Colombian drug cartels. But as the ATF continued to track that alias they'd found he had a half dozen more names and seemed to be developing a stockpile of the T-virus.
At first, the B.S.A.A. only wanted to keep an eye on him. If he became a threat, they could neutralize him. That had been the plan, anyway. To this day, Chris wasn't sure what tipped Rodriguez off. But somehow, about a year and a half ago now, he'd figured out that he was being followed. Turned out that he also had friends in the Marines, and he used them to get into contact with the Alliance.
Though he was tempted, Chris chose not to ask about the dealer's heritage. He was here for his virus, and nothing more. You can worry about him later.
Rodriguez led him to a low slung, concrete building at the far end of the village. It was much closer to the jungle than the other buildings and nearly hidden by the vines already - a few more months, and it was quite possible the brush would eat the building whole. Chris waited, keeping an eye on the village they hadn't quite left behind, as Rodriguez unlocked the door and let them inside.
"Keep an eye out," Rodriguez said as he crossed the room.
"For what?" As Chris looked on, Rodriguez eased a heavy mahogany coffee table from the rug in the small living room.
"I don't think anyone followed us back, but you never know." He jerked his head towards the window. "There's a gun in that planter if you need it. Should still work fine. I just cleaned it yesterday."
"Where are you going?"
"What, you think I keep the T-virus just lying around? That shit's volatile." Rodriguez carefully rolled up part of the rug, revealing a trapdoor in the floor.
"That seems like a pretty obvious place to look for a hiding spot."
"They can find it, sure. But they can't get into it." Rodriguez climbed to his feet and disappeared into the kitchen. He came back a few seconds later with a black messenger bag, which he set on the coffee table he'd moved. He pulled out a dark laptop and set it on the table next to the bag, then a cable he ran from the laptop to a port in the floor. "No one's coming, right?"
Chris turned back to the window. "No."
This part of the village was practically empty, and the few people he could see walking by were heading towards the market, not away from it.
"Good." Rodriguez had apparently left the computer on while it was in the bag, because he didn't seem to have to wait for it to boot up. Instead he hastily typed something on the keyboard, and Chris heard the trapdoor unlock with a clunk.
"That is…actually kinda cool."
"You do enough dirty work for people and they're okay with doing some dirty work for you," Rodriguez said, striding back to the door and lifting it open. "This whole get up - the basement, the door, the tripwires and flash boxes I've got wired up on the roof - was part of my payment for a run a couple years back." He smiled darkly as he started down the ladder.
Tripwires on the roof? Chris thought, casting a glance towards the ceiling. He'd never heard of that one before. Never tried that one. Doesn't seem like a bad idea.
He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, glancing at his watch before turning his attention out the window again. It was almost six, now, and the hot tropical sun was starting to sink below the trees. Though he'd managed to get out to this place on time, it was going to take him a little longer than he had planned to get back to D.C., as the next flight to Dulles didn't leave until early the following morning.
Chris drew a hand down his sweat-covered face. He'd leave here, drive back to the airport, spend the night there, then fly home with the virus as soon as he could. Barring any delays with the plane, he figured he could get back to Jill before noon, virus in hand.
The realization that he was actually here, retrieving a sample of the T-Veronica virus, hit him right about then. It wasn't just a chance any more, or some loose semblance of a plan - he was going to have the virus in his possession. He was going to have the means of keeping her alive with him.
"This," Rodriguez said, climbing back up the ladder and sealing the floor back up again, "was not easy for me to get a hold of." He set a tiny vial down on the table by his laptop. Chris caught a glimpse of a black streak on his arm, just peeking out from underneath one of his sleeves, as he pulled his hand away. "Cost me quite a bit."
The vial was half filled with a dark, thin liquid. It sloshed against the vial's glass walls as it tried to settle, leaving a faintly blue-purple stain behind wherever it touched. Chris did not reach for it, though. Not yet. He said, "You'll be reimbursed." Even if I have to do it myself.
"That's not what I meant." Rodriguez looked at him, his eyes narrowing. "Someone else was trying to buy it, same as I was."
"Who?"
"I don't know."
"Any ideas?"
Rodriguez shook his head. "I've run into competition before. Terrorist cells in Afghanistan want this shit to use on their enemies. Political radicals in South Africa would love to turn their opponents into zombies - keeps 'em from running in the elections. Extremists from all around the world can't wait to try it out. Hell, I once heard of a guy wanting to buy a sample to use on his wife - but those guys? They don't have the money I do. This guy, whoever he was? He had more cash to blow on this little vial than I've ever seen in my life. It's hard to say no to that much money."
"So how did you get a hold of this thing, then?"
"Shot a man in Reno," Rodriguez said with a grin. "I called in an old favor. The guys out here; they aren't as bad as everyone thinks." He paused. "Not all of them, anyway."
Chris reached out and lightly touched the little vial, then wrapped his hand around it. The glass was cool to the touch, at least compared to the sweltering heat of this place. "It is T-Veronica."
"Yes. That's what you wanted, that's what I got."
Chris looked at glass vial once more. He'd held samples like this one before. Eight years since the incident at Rockfort. Eight years since he had first found out that Wesker survived the Spencer Mansion. Eight years since his sister had held Steve as he died. Eight years, and here he was, holding a sample of that virus in his hand.
It's gonna save Jill, he reminded himself. You need it to save her.
"You all right there, Redfield?"
Chris started. "What? Yeah, sorry."
"Doesn't look like much, does it? I've eaten food that looked more dangerous than that."
"Can't judge it by how it looks," Chris replied. "Just what it can do."
"I know. Personal experience." Rodriguez drummed his hands lightly on the table before saying, "Come on. I'll take you back to your car. Can't imagine you want to walk back there in the dark."
Even at seven in the morning, the Cancún airport bustled and nearly throbbed with the sounds of couples and families arriving for and departing from their tropical vacations. Throughout the terminal Chris could hear mothers shouting for their children, the roaring hiss of massive coffee makers and milk steamers, and the painful scraping sounds of security gates as they were raised.
And here I thought tourism was always one of the first markets to suffer in a recession, Chris thought, downing the last of his coffee in a single gulp. His eyes were bloodshot, red-rimmed, and heavily shadowed from his night spent sprawled across the curved plastic chairs in the terminal. He had napped but never really slept, and the virus had never once left his side. Hell, he hadn't even taken his hand off the damn thing - if something were to happen to him, the cops dispatched to deal with his body would literally have to pry it out of his cold, dead hands.
His plane would be boarding soon, at least. The flight back would only take about four hours, giving him - hopefully - enough time to grab a quick shower and something to eat at his apartment before he got his ass back to the hospital.
The hospital.
Chris winced. Ideally, this trip would have been over and done with almost five hours ago, and he'd be back at the hospital by now. Actually, in an ideal world he wouldn't have had to fly out here and pick up the virus at all - Rodriguez would have come to him with it. Then he could have simply ducked out of the hospital for two, maybe three hours, not twelve.
Three hours was a lot easier to lie about, after all. He could probably bullshit his way through a three-hour disappearance without much difficulty, but this?
This wasn't going to be easy.
Chris rubbed at a sore muscle in the back of his neck. Barry and Claire are going to kill me for this. And Rebecca will probably help.
Doesn't matter. I got what I came for.
He looked down at the small, steel case Rodriguez had given him to carry the T-Veronica sample in, but didn't open it. He just let it sit on his lap as he ran his fingers over the dimpled silver sides.
You won't have to die now, Jill. I can save you.
I will save you.