Code Veronica - By S. D. Perry Page 0,2

her hands, true, but not on purpose, not like Umbrella. Not like him. She hadn't killed for greed, she hadn't made him disregard his own conscience for all those years... and having watched his elite team turned into spaghetti by honest to God monsters, having spent the afternoon fighting for his life, it had become clear that trying to bring Um - brella to justice was what good guys did. The girl de - served something for that, even if only not to die alone and in the dark. And it just so happened that he had a set of keys taken from the dead warden's belt loop, one of which would surely fit her cell door. Sparks flurried up into the darkening sky from the flaming wreckage, tiny bright insects bursting into noth - ing, occasionally falling on one of the closer zombies and sizzling into their gray flesh before dying out. They didn't care. Rodrigo gritted his teeth and stumbled to his feet, aware that the young Claire probably wouldn't last ten minutes on her own, knowing that he meant to give her the chance. It wasn't the least he could do; it was simply the only thing left.
Chapter One
CLAIRE'S HEAD HURT. She'd been half-dreaming, remembering things, until the faraway sound of thunder crowded through the dark, pulling her closer to wakefulness. She'd dreamed about the insanity that had become her life over the past few months, and even though an almost conscious part of her knew it was reality, it still seemed too in - credible to be true. Flashes of what had happened in post-viral Raccoon City kept rising up, images of the inhuman creature that had stalked her and the little girl through the devastation, memories of the Birkin fam-ily, of meeting Leon, of praying that Chris was all right. Thunder again, louder, and she realized that some - thing was wrong but couldn't seem to wake up, to stop remembering. Chris. Her brother had gone underground in Europe, and they had followed, and now she was cold and her head hurt but she didn't know why. What happened? She concentrated, but it would only come in pieces, pictures and thoughts from the weeks since Raccoon City. She couldn't seem to control the memories. It was like watching a movie in a dream, and still, she couldn't wake up. Images of Trent on the plane, and a desert, finding a disk of codes that had ultimately proved useless to her brother's cause. The long flight to London, the hop to France -

- a telephone call, "Chris is here, he's fine." Barry Burton's voice, deep and friendly. Laughing, the incred-ible relief filling her up, feeling Leon's hand on her shoulder. It was a start, and it led her to the next clear recollec-tion - a meeting had been set up, one of the surveillance posts for the HQ Admin wing, on Umbrella grounds. Leon and the others were waiting in the van, checking my watch, heart pounding with excitement, where is he, where's Chris?

Claire didn't know she was screwed until the first bul - lets ripped past, chasing her onto the spotlight-riddled grounds, into a building -

- running through the corridors, deafened by the rat-tle of automatic weapons and the helicopter outside, running, bullets chipping by close enough to send sharp - ened slivers of floor tile into the meat of her calves...... and an explosion, armed soldiers writhing in the blast's fury, and... and I got caught.

They'd held her for over a week, trying everything they could to make her talk. She'd talked, too, about going fishing with Chris, political ideology, her favorite bands... When it came down to it, she didn't know anything vital; she was looking for her brother, that was all, and she somehow managed to convince them that she didn't know anything important about Umbrella. It probably helped that she was nineteen, and looked about as deadly as a Girl Scout. What little she actually did know, things about the Umbrella insider, Trent, or the whereabouts of Sherry Birken, the scientist's daughter, she buried deep and left there. When they'd realized she was useless as an informant, she'd been taken away. Cuffed, scared, two private planes and a helicopter later, the island. She didn't even see it, they'd put a hood over her face, the stifling black - ness only adding to her fear. Rockfort Island, wasn't that what the pilot called it? It was a long way from Paris,