SEVENTEEN

Ada ran into the cell block only a step behind Leon, just in time to see the reporter stumble out of his cage and fall to the floor. "Help him!" Leon shouted, and ran past Bertolucci to check out the cell. Ada stopped in front of the gasping reporter but ignored the command, waiting to see if whatever had gotten to him was going to spring out of the open cell…

… he was behind bars, how did this happen.

She waited, weapon pointed after Leon as he leapt in front of the open cell, her heart pounding – and saw the bewilderment on his youthful face, the open surprise. The way his gaze searched the cell told her that it was empty. Unless the attacker was invis– ible…

Not a chance. Don't even start thinking like that, don't let it get to you.

Ada knelt next to the reporter, taking in immedi– ately that he was in a bad way – dying bad. He'd crumpled into a half-sitting position, his head against the bars of the cell adjacent to his. He was still breathing, but it wouldn't be long before he stopped. Ada had seen the look before, the far-seeing gaze and the trembling, the pallor, but what she didn't see was how, and that scared her. There were no wounds. It had to be a heart attack, maybe a stroke -

– but that scream.

"Ben? Ben, what happened?"

His flickering gaze fixed on her face, and she saw that the corners of his mouth were cracked and bleeding. He opened his mouth to speak, but all that came out was a rasping, unintelligible croak. Leon crouched down next to them, looking as confused as she felt. He shook his head at her, an unspoken answer to her unasked question; there was apparently no sign of what had happened. Ada looked down at Bertolucci and tried again.

"What was it, Ben? Can you tell us what happened?"

The reporter's shaking hands crawled up his body, resting across his chest. With a visible effort, he managed to whisper a single word.

"… window…"

Ada wasn't reassured. The cell's "window" was hardly a foot across, maybe six inches wide, and set eight feet off the floor – nothing more than a ventila– tion hole that opened into the parking garage. Noth-ing could have gotten through – at least nothing that she'd heard of or read about, and that meant that there were dangers she wasn't prepared against. Bertolucci was still trying to speak. Both Ada and Leon leaned closer, straining to catch his painful whispers.

"… chest. Burns, it… burns…"

Ada relaxed just a bit. He'd seen or heard some– thing outside of the cell, something that had kicked off a massive coronary; that, she could accept. A pisser for the journalist, but it would save her the trouble of killing him herself… He reached out suddenly and grasped her forearm, staring up at her with an intensity that surprised her. His grip was weak, but there was desperation in his wet eyes – desperation and some frustrated sorrow that inspired not a little guilt for what she'd been thinking. "I never told… about Irons," he breathed, obvi-ously struggling to hang on to life, to get it all out.

"He's… working for Umbrella… all this time. The zombies… are Umbrella, research… and he covered up the murders but I couldn't… prove it all, yet… was going to be my… exclusive."

Bertolucci closed his braised-looking eyelids, breath– ing shallowly as his fingers fell away from her arm, and she felt a surge of pity for him in spite of herself.

The poor dumb jerk; his big secret was that Umbrella was into bioweapons and that Irons was on the take. It would have been a big scoop, too, but apparently he hadn't even been able to get any hard evidence. He doesn't know dick about the G-Virus, he never did – and he's going to die regardless. Talk about a shit deal. "Jesus," Leon said softly. "Chief Irons…" Ada had all but forgotten how clueless the young cop was. He was obviously new, but a couple of times he'd seemed so perceptive that she'd been taken aback; the kid wasn't just a testosterone case, there was definitely something going on upstairs…

… knock it off already, he's not much younger than you. The reporter's about to kick and you need to be on your way, not worrying about Officer Friendly…

Bertolucci spasmed suddenly, his hands clutching at his chest as he moaned, a sharp, tortured cry of agony. His back arched, his fingers hooked into claws…… and the moan went liquid as blood started to stream from his mouth in a burbling gout. Choking and shaking, Bertolucci's limbs convulsed violently, droplets of crimson spraying out with each racking cough…… and Ada saw red blossom across his rumpled white shirt beneath his scrabbling hands and heard the thick, wet crack of breaking bone. She leapt back as Leon grabbed for the reporter's hands, not sure what was happening but absolutely positive that it was not a heart attack…

… holy Christ what IS this?

All at once, Bertolucci went limp, his eyes rolled back and fixed, sightless. Blood still oozed from his cracked lips and there was a sound, a horrible sound of meat being torn, and under the stained fabric of his shirt, something moved. "Get back!" Ada shouted, pointing her Beretta at the dead reporter, and in the split-second it took her to aim, a thing erupted from Bertolucci's bloody chest. A thing the size of a big man's fist, a gore– drenched thing that opened a tiny black hole of a mouth and squealed shrilly, revealing nubs of sharp red teeth. It wriggled out of the corpse with a whip-ping manta's tail, splashing the cold cement with shreds of wet tissue and gut. Lashing against the cooling flesh of the reporter, it poured from the body in a gush of blood and onto the floor – and took off like a shot for the open gate back into the hall, propelling itself with its snaking tail and legs that Ada couldn't see, smearing a red path be– hind it. It was out the door before she even remembered that she was holding a gun; for the first time since she'd come to Raccoon, since ever, she had been so completely shocked that she hadn't thought to react. A chest-bursting parasitic creature, straight out of a sci-fi movie… "Was that… did you see…" Leon fumbled breath– lessly. "I saw it," Ada said softly, cutting him off. She turned and looked down at Bertolucci, at his face, frozen in a bloody contortion of anguish, and at the gaping wet cavity just below his sternum.

His mouth, cracked at the corners…

He'd been implanted with the creature, by what, she didn't know, and she didn't want to know. What she wanted was to get the mission wrapped, as quickly as possible, and then get as far away from Raccoon City as she could. In fact, she thought that she'd never wanted anything quite so badly. When she'd first realized that there had been a T-Virus incident, she'd expected to have to deal with some unpleasant organ– isms. But the thought of having one of them forced or forcing its way down her throat, nestling inside of her body like some slick, aberrant fetus before eating its way out… if that wasn't the most horrible thing she could think of, it ran a close second. She looked at Leon, giving up any pretense of trying to be reasonable. She was going to the lab, and it wasn't open to discussion. "I'm getting out of here," she said, and without waiting for a response, she turned and walked briskly toward the gate, careful not to step on the glistening trail of blood that the tiny monster had created.

"Wait! Look, I think… Ada? Hey…"

She stepped into the corridor, weapon raised, but the creature was gone. The blood trail petered out less than halfway down the hall, but she saw that they'd left the door to the kennel open…

… and the manhole cover's off. Terrific.

Leon caught up to her before she'd gone more than a few steps. He stood in front of her, blocking her path, and for just a moment, Ada thought he was going to try to physically stop her.

Don't do it. I don't want to hurt you, but I will if I have to. "Ada, please don't go," Leon said, not a command but a plea. "I… when I got to Raccoon, I met this girl, and I think she's in the station somewhere. If you could help me find her, the three of us could leave together. We'd stand a much better chance…" "Sorry, Leon, but it's a free goddamn country. You do what you have to, and good luck, but I'm not staying. I've had enough. If – when I get out, I'll send help."