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Code: Project AURORA	By : DeadlyFriend Category: +M through R > Resident Evil Views: 2944 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Resident Evil. I do not own the characters and I do not make any money or profit from this story.

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People said words were things that couldn’t hurt.

That sticks and stones were what broke bones, but words were just that. A bunch of letters spoken in a pre-arranged form. That was all they were and what were letters, anyway?
A part of an alphabet. Something every culture owned. Ancient Egyptians used hieroglyphs while the Vikings used the runic Futhark. Like everything, language evolved over centuries to become what it was today, and while each country had its own spelling, the fundamentals of an alphabet remained the same. They all had an A and a B and a C.

But it was a lie.

Words did hurt and words could turn somebody’s life upside. Four words, for example, could throw one little girl and one teenage boy into the unknown.
There’s been an accident.

Four words made up of eleven letters all arranged to deliver a soul-destroying blow in the kindest way possible. Four words used to subtly say your parents are dead and they’re not coming home .
Claire hated those words with every fibre of her being.

There’s been an accident. No, asshole. My parents were killed because of some dickhead who ran a red light at eight at night while driving in icy conditions.
She often wondered if her brother heard those same words, but she never asked and he never told. Not that it mattered. The outcome would still be the same and her seventeen-year-old brother would still drop out of school to join the air force in order for them to have some kind of income.

She had been taken into foster care. That had been some fun and games. The Gardners. What a pair of cocksuckers they turned out to be, but at least they were in jail and in jail they would stay until they died.

The scream of Philip Gardner ran through her head. To hear the husk of a grown man’s voice turn shrill, almost babyish in his agony…

Well.

Claire bit her tongue to keep the laughter at bay and let her head flop onto the passenger seat. She sighed and glanced at the car’s clock to see how long it had been since their escape.

Three hours.

Given the speed at which the doctor drove, she quickly calculated there were roughly two-hundred-and-forty miles between them and that place. Road signs along the way pointed their former location as Colorado, and now they neared Aspen.

And yup.

There they were.

The Colorado Rockies and her mouth fell open as the car drew ever closer, and pushed the mountains higher into the sky. She could see the snow paint the peaks and ledges a pure white, and it wasn’t hard to imagine how it would sparkle under a setting sun.

Naturally. My first time in Aspen and it’s not what I wanted it to be. I’m not here learning how to ski with my partner and kid. I’m fleeing the place where I was held captive, in a getaway car driven by the very doctor who infected me with the fuck knows what, and a Tyrant hidden under a blanket on the back seat.
“Penny for them.”

Claire blinked and the doctor’s face slowly swam into view. “Pardon?”

“Your thoughts.” He tried to smile, but it fell flatter than a racist joke.
“I’ve never been here before. Aspen. It just makes sense that it would be an escape route.”
Her reply appeared to make him awkward enough to scratch his head and cough as a light blush lit up his olive complexion.

“My family.” Lakshan shifted. “We have a cabin here. It’s a good little earner. Especially December through March. I did plan on going elsewhere, but we can go there if you like. We keep spare equipment to hand for those who gain confidence by watching. You know. Ones who have never seen snow except on the telly and who have only seen snowboarding on Youtube. but don’t have any equipment. Snowboards, skis, snowshoes, snowmobile.”

Claire pursed her lips and tried to figure him out. One minute, she could easily take him for a humble beggar, and the next, he held all the air of somebody born with a silver spoon in his mouth. Yet here he was again. Prepared to loan out equipment to the folk who went to resorts with family and friends, but were wary until they saw others participating in the sport.

“I fail to work you out, doctor Bhandari.” She raked her hands through her hair and looked at him with a good amount of measure.

He sighed. “We’ll stop for some food and petrol, nature’s call, and we’ll have at it. I’m sure you have questions…”

“ Questions? ” Disbelief poured off her tongue in a waterfall of what the fuck.

“To put it mildly.” Yet another attempt at outreach fell dismally short of the mark.

Claire shook her head. “Questions don’t begin to cover it. I don’t even know what day it is, let alone what you did to me.”
Shame washed over the man’s face, but he didn’t once take his eyes off the road. “My gods have condemned me for my sins, Miss Redfield. I’m fully reconciled with that. Not that there’s much comfort in it for you.”

“That’s something we certainly agree on.” Food was another, it seemed, and her stomach almost snarled at the mere mention of it. “Food, gas, bathroom, talk. In that order. You lie to me even once? I'll know."
"Understood." Lakshan cleared his throat. "You might want to put your wig on. Just in case."
Claire nodded. "And what about your friend back there? What do we do with him?"
"Tyrannos is good. Aren't you, Tyr?"
A slight movement came from under the blanket and Claire turned her head just in time to see an expressionless face peer out from under it.
The Tyrant looked right at her, those opalescent eyes that were so familiar as to disrupt her sleep on and off throughout the years. Now here she was, eyeballing the same creature who once stalked her throughout an entire city.
She swallowed but tried to offer up some sort of communication with the monster of her dreams. The only word to leave her mouth was the standard "Hello."
Tyrannos blinked once, then hid back under his blanket.

"Oohhhhkay..." Claire blew out a breath and looked at the doctor. "Do I even want to know why you have a Tyrant buddy?"
"He, uh, he isn't my Tyrant, Miss Redfield. He's yours."

xxx
They pulled up to a Kum and Go, and the moment Claire opened her door was the moment the smell of food punched her straight in the face.

She could make them all out, too. From the crispy chicken tenders to the corn dogs and fresh pizza, from the cookies to the egg rolls and the Angus bacon cheeseburger. They were all there and whirled around her in a soft breeze of total temptation.

The entrance to heaven was almost there at her fingertips and saliva flooded her mouth in preparation for a feast of goodness.

Warm fingers slid down to grip the back of her collar and a hefty tug propelled her backwards. Away from the door. Away from the food. Away from everything that was good and right in the world.

“Wha… Hey, you skeezy little asshole!” Claire secured the wrist behind her and twisted just enough to make him let go.

“Ow…” The doctor stared at her, surprised. “I was just going to give you some money! Since, you know, Shoplifting is frowned upon in civilised society.”

Money?

She sucked her lips inwards and thought about apologising, but why should she? Instead, she held out her hand expectantly, pleased to see a hundred bucks cover her palm.

“I’ll get a full tank of petrol.” Lakshan gave her an odd look. “You get enough food for us both to eat.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Whatever. Like she would let people starve or something.

Claire rolled her eyes and passed through the front door without incident this time, where she took a moment to inhale everything on the menu. It was as though a chorus of angels surrounded her very soul and threw food while she stood there with her mouth open.

Thankfully there were only a handful of people in line, and that her the time necessary to check where the security cameras were in order to pass by each one in order to show her face from every angle. If she knew her brother, he would be on the hunt for her, and the more traces she left, the better her chances would be.

Camera in the top left-hand corner checked. Bottom right corner checked. Then came the one right above the front door, and finally the one by the cashier. She paused and looked directly into it as she made a point to confirm her identity with a smile.

Chris would know even if others wouldn’t.

Now it was on to purchase food.

xxxx

So there he sat like a fuckin' outcast in a family room at D.C's Medstar teaching hospital. The soft weight of little Sherry Birkin tucked up safe and sound under his right arm, while Moira held his left hand even as she leaned against her pa to give and receive comfort.
Jill kept herself with only the occasional movement to remind him she was still in the room. Barry was a damn reflection. All of them made silent by two people who meant something different to each one of them.
It wouldn't be a stretch to imagine a sign above the door that read Here Be Miserable Fucks With No Life. Enter At Your Own Risk.
To say the shit hit the fan today was a freaking understatement, to say the least, and he had to give Redfield credit where it was due. If a man had to have a full-scale panic attack, then live television was the time and place to do it.
And do it Chris really had.
The scene had been replayed over and over as it steadily gained more traction and attention from other news outlets. Last he heard, the man's whack job made it all the way to Youtube.
I'll volunteer if Ellen calls. Make our operation look good at least.
Fuck, but his head throbbed from sleep deprivation and stress, and he was tempted to ask for some acetaminophen. Or Valium. Or straight up Ativan. Hell, he'd bong up an ounce of Kush right now. Anything to liberate him from this fucking shit show. Anything to stop that damn picture at the press conference that flashed in his brain every twenty seconds.
Sherry shifted beside him, her voice a soft whisper. "You okay, Jill?"
Leon evened out his breathing and kept perfectly still, relaxed. Uneventful. If there was talk to be had here, then he sure as hell wanted in on it, and he knew from recent experience his appearance made them all clam tighter than a hooker's pussy at the sight of ten bucks.
"Mostly. It's been on the cards a while. Chris is like a brick wall most of the time, but his sister? She's a big fuckin' crack, you know? For me, too."
Claire was gone. Taken right out of her fucking home. No leads. No fingerprints. Just a body's worth of blood all over her garage. The spatter pattern dictated it came from some serious blunt force trauma to a skull. No weapon found that held the same blood type and nothing came up on record as a DNA match.
I'll blow Wesker myself before they leave me outta this. Claire’s my friend. We went through shit together.
"Have any good stories? From when you knew Chris and Claire before." Sherry whispered.
It was too damn easy to imagine little Claire Redfield as a scrawny kid who was always up to no good. A little firecracker who gave her big bro the runaround.
"Well, shit. There was that weird ass time when they were big on mud wrestling."
Fuckin' mud wrestling? Leon forced his eyebrows to stay still. She never told him about that.
"Mud wrestling?" He felt Sherry's eyes turn saucer-wide as her voice increased in pitch. "Chris and his sister . Mud wrestling."
"Oh yeah, kid. They used to sell tickets billed as Raccoon versus Pittsburgh. The whole station lapped it up."
He could see the elder Redfield pulling off that racket, but Claire ? Firecracker or no, she was the sweet Redfield. The nice one who liked to help. The one who was the epitome of human decency and Christmas candy canes or something.
She'd look hot as a candy striper. I got a couple of pillows she can fluff.
"It's all true." Barry's gruff voice held a tone that didn't quite fit with the truth. "Hell, even Wesker would lay down a couple o' hundred bucks on Raccoon."
"But who was Raccoon?" Moira asked.
"Chris," Jill replied just a tad too quickly for any of it to be even halfway true.
Bastards know I'm awake. They know I'm listening. They won't say shit.
And that just pissed him off to no end. Made him feel like they didn't trust him too much, and that was just a kick in the nuts.
"But..." Sherry began. "I thought Wesker hated Chris? I mean, he's always trying to kill him, right? Right?"
"There's a fine line, kid." Barry fielded that one like a god damn pro.
"He kept a pair of Chris' tighty whities in the bottom drawer, you know. Unwashed."
Okay, now they'd gone just too damn far. That was the grossest shit Valentine ever said and somebody had to put an end to this fucked up game of ick.
"Bullshit." Leon set his gaze on Jill, who simply smirked in his direction.
"I knew it!" Moira accused her dad. "I knew you were lying!"
Barry raised his hands. "Worth it just to see you two get moon-eyed over a star-struck love story."
"And it's still better than Twilight." Sherry flopped back against him but kept her gaze on Jill. "You're really okay, though? I know you've known them for a long time."
Leon could have thrown a wad of cash at his former charge. That was some well-timed commentary for sure. Especially as it seemed they touched Jill enough to make her eyes overly bright.
"I really am, kid. We'll find her. Just you watch."
Barry grunted. "She's probably still in her kidnapper's place putting everything he owns on eBay to buy another donorcycle."
"And replace that fuckin' Harley?" Leon shook his head. "How much she spent on that thing now? Ten, fifteen thou?"
Confused washed over Valentine's face. "She's been fixing it up herself."
It wasn't often Leon found himself taken by surprise. "Claire told me she just did custom paint jobs and minor modifications. She never told me she flips motorcycles." That kinda stung. Okay, not kinda. It stung. A lot.

It stung a helluva lot, but why should it? It was just a thing she did, right? And he didn’t tell her every detail of his hobbies, so it made sense that she would hold something back. Not that Claire would be interested in the minutia of how much he paid the occasional hooker for a blow job once in a while just to take the edge off.
"A mechanic," Jill said. "She buys poor condition, spends an age fixing 'em up, and sells 'em on for a profit. Not that it's uncommon."
"Course not." Leon gave a smile that readily accepted the explanation for what it was. A way to distract him from Claire's more personal life.
Just like the Gardner's. He had to Google those fuckers. He thought they were friends, and friends talked, right? Really talked about serious shit that went down, but apparently not.
When was Claire supposed to tell you, dickhead? When you call her after Ada left the hotel room in the middle of the night? Cos that woulda gone down real well. 'Yo', babe. So I've just fisted the spy who sells these fucked up viruses to the highest bidder. I'm runnin' on empty, so tell me something deep and meaningful so I don't feel like a sack of shit.'
"Remember when she brought that first one home?" Jill's voice came with a pickaxe that hacked away at his patience.
Mutley came out of Barry's mouth. "I didn't envy that girl one bit."
"Sounds like there are some good stories." Moira grinned in a manner that it was just such a Claire thing to do.

A nosy neb, Claire once said.

Moira was a nosy neb as she hinted and cajoled for the juicy details. The good stories full of thrills and spills that only came from tales told about people a person knew, and fuck, but it hurt to see.
Leon looked away from the girl just as Jill went for her purse, probably for her cigarettes.
"You know you're in a hospital, right?" Sherry gave her the side eye like nobody's business.
"Shut up, kid." The older woman pulled her hand away.
The door opened and cut off any word she was about to speak.
"Miss Valentine?"
They all rose to greet Lucy Greeley, publicist to Umbrella, but Leon jumped in. Had to get in there before he was pushed out of the loop again. "Anything?"
"Yes, as a matter of fact."
The first time he ever met a woman so capable of speech without the need to move her lips.
"Well? What have you got?" Sherry was right there. "You've found her, right? Claire?"
"You've found Claire?" Moira clasped her hands under her chin, ever hopeful.
"We know her location." Greeley glanced between them all. "Mr Redfield's unfortunate incident earlier made the late afternoon in several states. Miss Redfield was recognised in a Kum and Go just outside of Aspen, Colorado."
"Colorado?" Leon's jaw dropped. What the hell was she doing in Colorado? Not once in all these years had he ever heard of an Umbrella facility in Colorado.
Had they missed one? Had he missed one? The implication that even one of those places was off the radar turned his blood to stone.
"Exactly." Greeley addressed the man. "The previous staff of Umbrella Pharmaceuticals never recorded any facility in or near Colorado."
Jill snarled. "Because they were so trustworthy."
"Exactly." Greeley's steely eyes turned to her. "I.T have incorporated a programme that can help us locate any laboratories within the tri-state area. They have used energy consumption as a key. It's a slow process, unfortunately. We have to rule out IVF clinics, walk-in centres, research facilities, sperm donation clinics, hospi..."
"We understand." Leon quickly cut the woman off. "You said Claire was recognised? By whom?"
Greeley flipped through the information she had. "Two cashiers by the names of Linda Turner and a Victor Crossling, plus several witnesses that were in store. Miss Redfield left to get more cash from a man at the filling station, then returned to the store to purchase, and I quote, half the entire menu and a tank of gas."

“Half the entire menu?”

Leon could have kissed Sherry. Or bought her a Ferrari.

“I have the list here. Four signature crispy chicken sandwiches, one large chicken and bacon ranch pizza, four hotdogs, four corndogs, a salad, and a Baby Ruth bar. The second order was for one large meat feast pizza.”

His eyes got wider as the list went on, each item built an image of one incredible pile of food that left him speechless. The others shared his sentiments if their expressions were anything to go by, only Moira found it in her to speak it.

“Holy shit.” The young woman breathed. “There must be, like, five people with her.”

Lucy Greeley didn’t bat an eye. “Just the one, Miss Burton. Nobody got an exact look at his face, so the description is vague at best. Mrs Emlee is arranging for a sketch artist to be brought in on loan from the police department.”
"These witnesses. They're sure it was her?" Barry urged.
"She sported a blonde wig, but yes, Mr Burton. They're sure. Miss Redfield made sure to stop in front of every surveillance camera in the store."
Claire remembered. If there was one thing he could ever hope she would remember from the conversations they used to have, it was to leave the best trail possible. Be seen on any camera available, leave blood and hair and tissue. Drop the fucking breadcrumbs at every opportunity, and she did.

That's my girl. That's my good girl.

It made his heart sing.
"That's our girl. I'll go..." Leon was halfway to the family room door, deadset and focused on his destination of Aspen, Colorado. He'd swipe a government plane no problem and could be there inside of four hours.
He would find her and she'd be okay, and he would go and bring her home. Where she was supposed to be and move his shit into her guest room. If she even had a guest room, that was.
Fuck it. I'll crash on the sofa.
"Whoa there, sailor." The pressure of Jill's hand on his chest stopped him in his tracks. "Barry and I will go, Rebecca..."
"Is helping our I.T. department." Lucy's lips moved half a millimetre. "Mr Hawthorn is readying his private plane. There are ten seats. Four will be taken up by two field medics and two paramedics, so that leaves six seats. Mr Hawthorn will also provide refreshments and anything you may well need."
Two field medics and two paramedics. There was the expectation that Claire may not be in the best shape when she was found. That she might be in a worse position than mere injury.
Leon's world narrowed just enough to focus on Lucy Greeley and Lucy Greeley alone. "What do you know that you aren't telling us? Why the need for two field medics and two paramedics?"
Greeley's face gave nothing away. "It's merely a precaution, Agent Kennedy. Given the proclivities of Umbrella's former staff..."
"Don't." He hissed. "Don't play me, lady. If she's hurt. If she's... If she's injured, then you need to be upfront about it."
Or he'd beat it out of her and it was just that simple.
"Leon." Barry's much larger, much stronger, and much less agile hand replaced Jill's. "We'll go get her. We'll go bring her home"
Leon fixed his gaze on the man now in front of him. "No. I'll go. You can stay here with the girls and Chris..."
"Is going to get his sister."
The gruff voice was a little distant and wholly exhausted, but there he was in the hall, paler than Casper with use of total sunblock. He also had his damn jacked tugged on and a bandaid over where his cannula had been.
Chris cracked his neck, then his knuckles. "You're coming with, Kennedy. You've got a good shot. Lousy taste in women, but a good shot. That's enough for me. Sherry, Moira. Lucy will take you to Rebecca. She's got enough cash. Go out, get some stuff. You both know what. Everyone else? Get your shit together. We leave in ten."
A smirk tugged Leon's lips wide across his face as he looked Jill square in the eye. "Hear that, Valentine? I'm a good shot. I get to go with."
Whoever had taken Claire should just do themselves a favour and die because Leon Kennedy was now on the case.
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Code: Project AURORA