Nemesis - By S. D. Perry Page 0,1

weeds, seeming acres of run-down storage facilities. The U.B.C.S. office was actually a renovated warehouse on an Umbrella-owned lot, sur-rounded by a fairly modern shipping complex complete with helipad and loading docks - a nice setup, although Carlos wondered again why they'd decided to build in such a crummy area. They could obviously afford much better. Carlos checked his watch as he headed up Everett Street and started to walk a little faster. He wasn't going to be late, but he still wanted to get there before the briefing, see what the other guys were saying. Hi-rami had said they were calling in everyone - four pla-toons, three squads of ten in each platoon, 120 people all total. Carlos was a corporal in squad A of platoon D; ridiculous, how these things were set up, but he sup-posed it was necessary to keep track of everyone. Somebody had to know something... He took a right where Everett met 374th, his thoughts wandering, vaguely curious about where they were being sent...... when a man stepped out of an alley only a few meters in front of him, a well-dressed stranger wearing a wide smile. He stood there, hands jammed into the pockets of an expensive trench coat, apparently waiting for Carlos to reach him. Carlos kept his expression carefully neutral, studying the man warily. Tall, thin, dark hair and eyes but defi-nitely Caucasian, early to mid-40s - and grinning as though he meant to share an exceptionally funny joke. Carlos prepared to walk past him, reminding himself of how many crazies lived in any decent-sized city, an unavoidable hazard of urban life.

He probably wants to tell me about the aliens moni-toring his brain waves, maybe babble some conspiracy theory... "Carlos Oliveira?" the man asked, but it was more of a statement than a question. Carlos stopped in his tracks, his whole body tensing, instinctively letting his right hand drop to where he wore a gun - except he wasn't carrying, hadn't since crossing the border, carajo... As if sensing the upset he'd caused, the stranger took a step back, holding his hands up in the air. He seemed amused, but not especially threatening. "Who's asking?" Carlos snapped. "And how the hell did you know my name?" "My name is Trent, Mr. Oliveira," he said, his dark gaze glittering with barely suppressed mirth. "And I have some information for you."
Chapter One
IN THE DREAM, JILL DIDN'T RUN FAST ENOUGH. It was the same dream she'd suffered every few days since the mission that had nearly killed them all that terrible, endless night in July. Back when only a few Raccoon citizens had been hurt by Umbrella's secret and the S.T.A.R.S. administration wasn't completely corrupt, back when she was still stupid enough to think that people would believe their story.

In the dream, she and the other survivors - Chris, Barry, and Rebecca - waited anxiously for rescue at the hidden laboratory's helipad, all of them exhausted, wounded, and very aware that the buildings around and beneath them were about to self-destruct. It was dawn, cool light coming in shafts through the trees that sur-rounded the Spencer estate, the stillness broken only by the welcome sound of the approaching 'copter. Six members of the Special Tactics and Rescue Squad were dead, lost to the human and inhuman creatures that roamed the estate, and if Brad didn't set down quick, there wouldn't be any survivors. The lab was going to blow, destroying the proof of Umbrella's T-virus spill and killing them all. Chris and Barry waved their arms, motioning for Brad to hurry. Jill checked her watch, dazed, her mind still trying to grasp all that had happened, to sort it all out. Umbrella Pharmaceutical, the single biggest con-tributor to Raccoon City's prosperity and a major force in the corporate world, had secretly created monsters in the name of bioweapons research and in playing with fire had managed to burn themselves very badly. That didn't matter now, all that mattered was getting the hell away -

- and we 've got maybe three minutes, four max

CRASH! Jill whirled around, saw chunks of concrete and tar fly into the air and rain down over the northwest cor-ner of the landing pad. A giant claw stretched up from the hole, fell across the jagged lip -

- and the pale, hulking monster, the one she and Barry had tried to kill in the lab, the Tyrant, leaped out onto the heliport. It rose smoothly