Chapter 116: Nicholai Appears
The ward door was pushed open gently, and Chloe walked in first, covered in a bit of dust but completely unharmed.
Jill, who was leaning against the wall and moving her shoulders, immediately stopped, strode over, and reached out to support her arm. Her voice was filled with unconcealed worry: "Chloe, it's so good that you're okay!"
"I'm fine, Sister Jill." Chloe smiled and patted the back of Jill's hand. "Just a few ordinary zombies, they can't hurt me."
Carlos sauntered in behind her, deliberately and exaggeratedly patting the dust off himself, pouting as he complained, "Hey, hey, hey, why doesn't anyone care about me? When we blew up those pillars earlier, I almost got hit in the head by falling rocks!"
Jill was amused by him. She turned around and gave Carlos a sincere bow, then took hold of his wrist, her tone earnest: "Carlos, thank you. Thank you for everything you've done for me. If it weren't for you, I might not have held on this long."
The warm touch from his wrist caused Carlos to freeze instantly, his cheeks flushing slightly.
He looked into Jill's earnest eyes, and his mind went blank. He forgot all about the complaints he was just making, his heart filled with nothing but overwhelming joy.
He even began to fantasize about finding a quiet little town to settle down in with Jill after escaping Raccoon City, getting a dog, and living a peaceful life.
"Ahem!"
An unceremonious cough interrupted Carlos's daydream. Tyrone leaned back in his chair, arms crossed: "Alright, now is not the time for flirting. In less than a few hours, missiles will blow this city into a pile of rubble. We need to leave, fast."
Jill snapped back to her senses and quickly let go of Carlos's hand, a flash of embarrassment crossing her face.
But a second later, her expression turned solemn: "No, we can't just leave. There are still many citizens trapped in the city who don't know about the missiles! We have to coordinate with the R.P.D. I need to tell Chief Marvin this news; he'll definitely have a way to organize an evacuation."
The air in the ward suddenly went silent.
Chloe lowered her eyes, her fingers tightening slightly, her voice carrying a trace of imperceptible raspiness: "I'm sorry, Jill. Uncle Marvin... he sacrificed himself."
Jill's body jolted, the color draining from her face instantly. She looked at Chloe in disbelief: "What did you say? How could that be? How could Marvin..."
"Brother Leon told me." Chloe looked up at Jill's pale face, feeling a pang of pain in her heart. "The Police Department was overrun by the horde. Uncle Marvin stayed behind to cover the survivors' retreat. He... turned into a zombie, and Leon buried him in the backyard by the station's side entrance."
"How could this happen..." Jill stumbled back a step, leaning against the wall, her eyes instantly reddening.
An uncontrollable rage surged from her heart. Jill clenched her fists, her voice trembling with hatred: "Umbrella! I will make them pay!"
"Wait!" Carlos's eyes suddenly lit up, and he slapped his thigh hard. "We have the vaccine! Tyrone, can you contact the government? Tell them we've secured the T-Virus prototype vaccine and have them cancel the missile launch, or at least delay it a bit so we can save more people!"
Jill looked up instantly, the light of hope reigniting in her eyes: "Right! With the vaccine, everyone can be treated! We can stop this tragedy! As long as we can delay it for a few days, we can get all the survivors out!"
Chloe stood to the side, watching the two of them in their excitement. Her lips moved, but in the end, she said nothing.
She knew all too well that the government didn't care about any vaccine, nor did they care about the lives of the survivors. They only wanted to destroy Raccoon City as quickly as possible to cover up Umbrella's crimes. The missiles would definitely fall on schedule.
But she couldn't bear to crush Jill's hope, couldn't bear to let her fall into total despair after enduring so much pain.
"Come on, let's go to the basement to find the vaccine!" Carlos said excitedly. "Once we have enough vaccine, we can prove it to the government!"
Chloe looked up, met Jill's expectant gaze, and nodded slightly: "Okay, I'll go with you."
Tyrone looked at the three determined people before him and shrugged helplessly: "Fine, I'll try to contact the Pentagon. But I'm telling you now, I can only say I'll try; don't get your hopes up. You'll have to move fast, we don't have much time left."
"Understood!"
Chloe returned the assault rifle to Tyrone and pulled out the handgun Leon had given her from behind her waist. Tyrone took a look, pulled two boxes of ammunition from his tactical pouch, and threw them to her: "Take these, use them sparingly."
"Thanks." Chloe caught the ammunition and skillfully loaded the magazine.
The three of them checked their gear, pushed open the ward door, and headed down the fire escape toward the basement. The stairwell was pitch black, with only the emergency lights emitting a faint red glow to illuminate the path under their feet. Occasional zombie growls echoed from a distance, sounding particularly eerie in the empty stairwell.
Passing through a storage room filled with piles of discarded medical equipment, the three reached the innermost freight elevator platform. The elevator slowly descended deep underground.
The moment the elevator doors opened, a smell mixed with engine oil, dust, and disinfectant hit them.
What greeted their eyes was an enormous supply storage area. The ceiling was incredibly high, and a dozen explosion-proof lights emitted a stark white light, illuminating the entire space.
Over a dozen freight trucks bearing the Umbrella logo were parked neatly in the clearing, beside mountains of shipping containers marked with various hazardous chemical symbols.
Jill sucked in a breath, looking at everything before her in disbelief: "How is this possible? How could the people at the hospital not notice such a huge space underneath?"
"What's so strange about that?" Chloe sneered. "The underground of Raccoon City has almost been hollowed out by Umbrella. There's The Ark under The Orphanage, the Nest under the Police Department, and Nest 2 under the hospital. To them, the entirety of Raccoon City is just one giant testing ground."
Just then, the sound of clapping suddenly came from the second floor, echoing through the empty warehouse and sounding particularly jarring.
"Simply wonderful, everyone is gathered together. Saves me the trouble of looking for you one by one."
The three of them snapped their heads up toward the sound. They saw Nicholai standing before the observation window of the second-floor control room, hands in his pockets, wearing his trademark cold smile. He looked down at them like a Hunter watching his prey fall into a trap.
"Nicholai!" Carlos said in confusion, "What are you doing here?"
Nicholai shook his head, his tone full of mockery: "It seems some people still haven't figured out the situation."
"You son of a bitch! Umbrella's lapdog!" Jill cursed through gritted teeth, her eyes practically spitting fire. She would never forget that this was the man who had taken advantage of her vulnerability at the Clock Tower to kidnap Chloe, leaving her behind while she was gravely injured to fend for herself.
"You're mistaken, Miss Valentine," Nicholai said slowly. "I don't work for anyone; I only work for money. Umbrella gives me money, so I do their work. Now, someone is offering a higher price for the goods in my hands."
He paused, his gaze landing on Chloe, his eyes as greedy as a starving wolf's: "And right beside you stands a treasure worth a hundred million dollars."
Carlos and Jill both looked at Chloe. Carlos raised an eyebrow and deliberately lowered his voice to tease, "Not bad, kid. Turns out you're worth that much. If I'd known, I would've sold you myself; I wouldn't have had to worry for the rest of my life."
Jill glared at him fiercely, then stepped forward to shield Chloe, aiming her gun at Nicholai: "In your dreams! I won't let you take her!"
Chloe didn't say a word. She directly raised her handgun and pulled the trigger toward the observation window.
"Bang! Bang! Bang!"
Three bullets hit the glass precisely, but they only left three shallow white marks; not even a single crack appeared.
"Don't waste your energy," Nicholai sneered. "This is Level 3 bulletproof glass. You couldn't punch through it even with a rocket launcher."
He reached out and pressed a switch on the control console.
With a "clack," all the lights in the supply storage area went out instantly, plunging it into a darkness where one couldn't even see their own hand. Only the emergency indicator lights emitted a faint green glow, illuminating small patches of the surrounding area.
Nicholai's voice came over the intercom with a trace of cruel amusement: "It's time for a reckoning between us. The game is about to end. Good luck to you all."
"You think you get to decide that!" Jill shouted into the darkness.
Before her voice could fade, a jarring sound of metal scraping suddenly came from all around. The doors of a dozen containers swung open simultaneously with heavy thuds.
Following that, countless raspy growls surged out of the darkness. Hordes of zombies staggered out of the containers; sensing the scent of the living, they lunged frantically toward the three of them.
Even more terrifyingly, the hissing of crawling Lickers and the low roars of Hunters echoed from the darkness.
"Damn it! He's turned this place into a breeding pit!" Carlos cursed, raising his gun to blow the head off the foremost zombie.
Jill switched on her tactical flashlight, the beam sweeping through the darkness and illuminating one hideous face after another. She took a deep breath and shouted to Chloe and Carlos: "Back to back! Don't separate!"
The three of them immediately stood back-to-back in a triangle, aiming their guns in different directions.
A cold light flashed in Chloe's eyes. She watched the approaching horde with a gaze as icy as it was fearless.
In the darkness, countless pairs of crimson eyes lit up, slowly closing in on them.
A fierce battle was inevitable.
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