Code: Project AURORA 3: Twisted Sister
Title: Code: Project AURORA chapter 3
Author: Judyku A03, DeadlyFriend FFnet/Sunnyjude LJ
Summary: Smart viruses are a helluva thing.
Genre: Drama, horror, romance, smut, and humour.
Pairings: Claire/Leon, Chris/Jill, with implications of others.
Rating: NC21. Explicit sex in later chapters. Bad, bad language. Scenes of explicit violence and gore.
Warnings: Character death. Implied alcohol abuse. Implied child abuse. Cannibalism.
Original Characters: Lakshan Bhandari, a 33-year-old genius who works at Johns Hopkins, a biomedical engineer with a background in virology and Infectious Diseases. Creator of the C-Veronica Zero smart virus. Tyrannos, a T-103 Tyrant programmed to be Claire's bodyguard.
Third instalment of Project AURORA, my Resident Evil fanfiction. Two more chapters to upload and then my LJ will be all caught up with the other places!
He could hear them all out there.
The hushed murmur of a crowd that slowly filled the press room of the BSAA headquarters with reporters and news crews. Then there were the sounds that came from equipment. Lights and cameras waited for action, microphones waited for him to speak.
No, not speak.
Beg.
That’s what he had to do today.
Beg for his sister’s safe return. Plead for his sister to remain unharmed. Say his sister’s return would come with no questions asked.
That last one was a lie, he knew, but it didn’t make a fucking hint’s worth of difference. He had to say it just to placate the kidnappers sense of safety.
Not that kidnappers had taken his sister.
Chris Redfield wasn’t that naive.
No, Claire had been targeted by somebody for some reason. Abducted from her home eleven weeks ago and there was nothing to go on. No fingerprints, the two blood types found belonged to her and a dead man in her garage. The dead man came back free of any criminal record.
Not even so much as a fucking ticket and with the accessibility of cosmetic surgery all over the world, they hadn’t been able to pinpoint him in any yearbook.
That wasn’t some random ass kidnapper.
That was done by a professional. Somebody who watched her day in and day out, monitoring her each and every move as they waited for the right time.
Now she was gone and he had to swallow what was left of his pride, go out there and have millions of people listen as he fucking begged .
A woman with curly blonde hair stood in front of him and Chris stared at her, wordless.
“We have one shot, Mr Redfield.” The blonde’s face wore severity well. “Don’t hold back. Tell them everything about Claire. Use her name as often as you can. It humanises her. Talk about the struggles you had as a young man left to raise a young girl. Talk about how you rescued her from the Gardner’s foster family hell. How you put her through college. Everything, sir. Leave nothing out. The more people we appeal to, the more who identify with you, the better it will be.”
Chris nodded or he thought he nodded.
“Gardner foster family hell? What’s that mean?”
“It was a long time ago, Sherry.”
Jill and Sherry.
Right, yes. They were there with him, and so were Rebecca, Barry and Leon. He could see other faces. Ones that he didn’t recognise, but all wore red and white Ducati team colours.
Claire’s colours.
Those were the faces of Claire’s amateur MotoGP teammates.
His vision swam and the room spun right on its axis, his gaze landed on the frame that held a stunning photo up for all the world to see.
Claire's storm-grey eyes, dad's eyes, sparkled with reflected light as her auburn hair, mom's hair, tumbled down past her shoulders. Her hair was so long, the waves so damned messy, that she always tied up away from her face, but would never get it cut.
That photo could well be the last image taken of his sister, that could be her last fucking smile.
"Oh, Christ..." Vomit ballooned in his gut and Chris just about made it to the closest bin before he let loose.
He couldn’t do this.
Couldn’t go out there and tell the fucking world and beg.
Fucking beg.
I’ve blasted fucking mutants in the face with my fist. Nut punched Wesker. I won’t beg. I will not fucking beg to get my sister back. How could I let this happen? I’m supposed to take care of her. Give her the life I never got to have. And I’m supposed to beg.
Chris wretched on the bitter taste of bile, his hands gripped the desk by the bin until he dry heaved up failure and helplessness.
"Shit, shit." He spat and wiped his mouth, only to find a gunmetal grey flask appear in front of his face.
"You look like you need some of ma's home cookin'." Kennedy looked just as tired, just as worn, as the rest of them and it made Chris want to roundhouse the fucker through a window.
The fuck did Kennedy know about his sister, anyway? Nothing, that's what. Probably less than nothing.
Chris pushed the flask away and snatched one of the free bottles of water provided to them by Ducati who wanted their star money maker back.
"Just trying to help." Leon sighed. "We miss her, too."
Contempt curled Chris' mouth up and he side-eyed the former cop. "You miss my sister. When was the last time you called her just to see how she was doing? Congratulated her on another podium or starting a vaccine drive and getting those wells for the Masai tribe?"
Kennedy closed his dumbass mouth.
"What I thought." Chris turned at the feel of a small hand on his arm.
Rebecca's face greeted him with a forehead wrinkled with a frown. "Jill and Miss Greeley. It's time for the press release. Claire's team manager Martin and her teammates will go after you and Jill, then Barry and I will go on last with Sherry and you, Leon. If you want."
Chris looked away when Kennedy gave Bec a sharp glance. He didn't want to hear the pretty boy pipsqueak squeak one damn word about Claire and how they were the best of fucking friends.
“Don’t worry your pretty little head.” Chris rinsed his mouth and spat into the bin. "My sister's got plenty of people to speak up on her behalf. No need to put yourself out."
The Agent's jaw flexed. "I didn't mean..."
"Whatever." He dropped the water back onto the table and made his way to where Jill stood, with Claire's red leather jacket clutched under one arm and that dumbass spleen stuffed teddy bear.
Chris hated those damn toy organs Claire collected. Spleen, that fucking worm appendix, pancreas... He'd shred every last one if he could, but the look on his partner's face...
Shit.
It felt like a kick to the nuts. A sister forward slash mom whose kid had been taken right out from under her nose.
And those eyes of hers were locked onto that big, full HD photo of Claire who stared silently back at her.
He saw it before it even happened. How Jill’s cheeks puffed out and how her lower lip pooched out mere seconds before stomach jolted.
The scream that came from her mouth was like nothing he’d ever heard. Grief and trauma all mixed in with that uncontrollable rage that left the throat raw and pulled the ribs so tight around the heart, it made a person want to rip it open with their bare hands.
“Chris… Oh. Oh god , Chris…”
And he was there with her, pushing his partner’s face into his chest to muffle the torment. Claire’s scent washed up from the jacket and that damn stuffty, and smacked him in the face with everything it had.
Chris leaned his forehead onto hers. He should never have let Jill go into Claire’s house first. She would never have seen…
He swallowed, but had no time to comfort her when Lucy Greeley discretely got his attention from the other side of the stage.
The woman pointed to her watch and he nodded.
It was time to go do some begging.
Xxxx
The room was packed to where news crews stood like sardines at the back near the wooden double doors, while the first three rows were occupied by NBC4 Washington DC, WJLA ABC 7, and WUSA.
Chris felt their eyes on him, knew the camera lenses were honed right in on his face so they could capture every fucking minute of his personal hell. His teeth itched and his patience began to stretch just a bit too thin as he kept his gaze low and away from the ghouls watching from the comfort of their own homes.
“I first met Claire when Chris walked into Raccoon City police department.” Jill’s dulcet voice rang out and the coarse rasp to her throat could be heard, and what fucking more did they want, huh?
Blood? Cos there was plenty to be had in his sister’s garage.
His partner smiled as she played the perfect heartbroken soldier by smiling up at that hated photograph. She turned back to the vultures. “There they were. Little Claire Redfield with these big grey eyes and scrawny arms. Claire had a suitcase. It was this ugly thing too big for Claire to carry, but she wouldn’t let go of it anything. Claire didn’t tell me for years what was in that thing. Only that it was the only man she would ever marry.”
Chris squeezed his thigh hard enough to hurt.
Jill cracked just as she was supposed to crack. “I had all the usual suspects lined up. Johnny Depp, Keanu, Keifer, and I’ll never forget the moment she opened that damn suitcase. Claire open her suitcase and there was this tiny picture of a, and I’ll never forget, 1979 Harley Davidson Electra Glide FLH-80.”
Chris concentrated on his breathing.
In and out. In and out. Nice and slow.
“Then when I asked Claire about boys…” His partner gave a low whistle. “That was the moment I realised Chris and Claire were special, you know? Chris froze and Claire just looked confused. Claire needed an older woman in her life and nobody could walk away from that. I’ve been half in love with that little girl ever since. So, please. If you know anything, anything at all, then please…”
Yeah, Chris was about done with this bullshit.
“No.” He raised his head. “I won’t sit here and beg and plead for my sister’s safe return. My sister has been gone for ten weeks and we all know kidnapped victims die within the first twenty-four hours. So no. I won’t sit here. I won’t spill my fucking guts while some bastard gets off on it.”
“Chris…” Jill stared, mouth wide open.
He shrugged off her hand and stood, his gaze roamed every single shocked face in their audience. “No, Jill. I won’t do it. I won’t beg and plead. I’m not a fuckin’ dog. I won’t sit here while my sister is-is… I’m done with this shit. I’ll find her myself.”
“Chris!” She said again, louder this time and the desperation that laced her tone brought his entire world screech to a halt.
Claire.
His heart fucking exploded against his ribcage and ever move he made felt slow, almost heavy, as though he was wading through glue. He turned, ready to have his sister in front of him, that damn cocksure smile of hers in its place as she arched an eyebrow up at him.
“Seriously, bro? Ten weeks?” She would say and he would open his arms and there she would be, alive and not a scratch to be seen.
“Sir? We need to speak with you, sir.” The stern face of Lucy Greeley was there with what appeared to be concern written into those lines on her face and Chris opened his mouth, but nothing came out.
His chest hurt. Oh, fuck did his chest fucking hurt and it was getting hard to breathe and his heart just kept getting faster and faster. He couldn’t hear anything over the sound of his own blood flow and he tried to move, to shake it off just like always, but he couldn’t.
“Sir… Medical assistance. We need medical assistance here now...”
Chris reached out, delirious, but there was nothing and his hands kissed the air. This was it. This was how he died, and of a fucking heart attack of all things. Talk about anti-climatic bullshit.
It was some consolation, he supposed, to die on television. The ratings would go up and more people would the shit out of this and Claire would be found…
Shit.