CHAPTER 40

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Eight hours had crawled by since the sun abandoned Raccoon City to its nightmare.

In the sterile tomb of the Umbrella laboratory, Ward Morey made his final adjustments. The miniature Arc Reactor hummed with barely contained power, but his microbot armor was a hungry beast—one that had nearly left him defenseless before. He wouldn't make that mistake again. With the security guard and delivery boy now feeding the city's growing horde, the facility had become his private sanctuary of steel and silence.

He was about to leave when a low, wet growl drifted from the lobby.

Through the reinforced glass, a zombie dog prowled—what had once been a proud Doberman now reduced to a shambling horror. Its pelt hung in ribbons, revealing the rot beneath, bone gleaming white through patches of putrid flesh. The scent of life had drawn it here, a predator following the last traces of warmth in a cold, dead world.

As Ward's armor flowed over his skin like liquid mercury, his phone shattered the silence.

The caller ID made him pause.

"Hello?"

"Morey! Thank God, it's really you!" Dr. Ashford's voice crackled through the speaker, desperation bleeding through every word.

"You still remember me, Doctor." Ward's tone carried the weight of old wounds. "How touching."

"I'm sorry, Morey. Christ, I'm so sorry. But my daughter—she never made it out. She's still in there, and I've been going insane trying to find a way to reach her."

"And what," Ward said, watching the zombie dog paw at the glass with decomposing claws, "do you want from me?"

"I saw the surveillance feeds. What you did to those... things." Ashford's voice broke. "I need you to save my daughter, Ward. I'll give you anything—research, funding, clearance codes. My life's work. Just... please."

Ward studied the security monitor, watching the undead Doberman circle like a shark sensing blood. Perfect. "I intercepted a team of survivors, Doctor. U.B.C.S. operatives heading her way. But you're right—it's not enough." He paused, savoring the moment. "Your daughter Angela is at Raccoon City Junior High, isn't she?"

"Yes! Yes, that's exactly where she is!"

The silence stretched between them like a taut wire. Ward let it hang, let the desperation ferment. "Alright, Doctor. I accept your offer. But when I said 'anything,' I meant it. We'll discuss the price when I have her safely in hand."

The line went dead.

Ward turned toward the zombie dog, now scratching frantically at the reinforced glass. "You know what? You're a very brave dog."

A cobalt arrow materialized from his belt, moving like frozen lightning. It punched through the glass with a crystalline crack, entering the creature's skull with a wet, decisive thunk. The beast collapsed without ceremony.

Ward stepped over the cooling corpse as his visor displayed a tactical map of the city. The school's coordinates locked in place, and the Archangel wings unfurled from his back like metallic feathers. With a burst of white-hot thrust, he launched into the blood-red sky.

High above on a street lamp, a single Umbrella camera swiveled, tracking the blazing dot as it disappeared into the darkness.

From the air, Raccoon City was a vision of hell made manifest.

Fires bloomed like deadly flowers across the urban landscape, their orange glow revealing scenes that would haunt angels. Massive herds of the undead moved through the streets in slow, inexorable waves, occasionally surging forward like a tide of decay when some desperate survivor broke cover. The air itself seemed to scream—a symphony of gunfire, breaking glass, and the endless moans of the damned.

Ward switched from his thrusters to the silent glider configuration, his cloak reforming into gossamer-black wings. He was a phantom against the hellish sky, but he knew eyes were watching. The entire city was Umbrella's terrarium, and their surveillance network missed nothing.

Let them watch, he thought, adjusting his flight path. They won't see a threat—not yet. They'll see an asset to be catalogued, a variable to be acquired. As long as Ashford remained valuable to them, and he remained valuable to Ashford, he was protected. His path to Alicia Marcus was still clear.

He touched down on the junior high's roof without a sound.

Inside, the school felt like a mausoleum. Pale moonlight filtered through grimy windows, painting everything in silver and shadow. Bloodstains decorated the walls like abstract art, and overturned desks told stories of panic and flight. The silence was thick enough to choke on.

Then a woman's scream shattered the quiet.

Jill Valentine moved through the corridors with the fluid grace of a predator, her weapon ready, senses sharp. She followed the echo of terror to its source: an empty classroom where a small backpack lay abandoned like a memorial to normalcy.

Behind an overturned desk, she found her: Angela Ashford, eleven years old and trying to be brave in a world gone mad.

Before either could speak, a zombie dog burst through the doorway like a nightmare given form. These weren't ordinary undead—Umbrella's hellhounds moved with unnatural speed and hunger that burned brighter than death itself.

Jill raised her pistol, her face a mask of controlled fear. The creature roared and lunged—

The classroom window exploded inward in a shower of diamond fragments.

A black shadow descended from the night sky, landing with the force of a falling star directly on the zombie dog. The creature simply... ceased. One moment it was a snarling engine of destruction, the next it was paste beneath armored feet.

The figure straightened, and his visor flowed away like liquid obsidian, revealing Ward's calm, almost gentle face.

"Hello, Angela," he said with a comfortable wave. "Did you miss your uncle?"

"Uncle Morey?" Her eyes went wide with recognition and relief.

"That's right. Your father sent me to collect you." He kicked the dog's remains aside with casual disdain, then glanced at Jill. His gaze lingered on her tactical vest and exposed shoulders. "Excellent conditioning," he observed with clinical detachment.

"He's my dad's assistant," Angela explained quickly to the tense policewoman. "He came to rescue me."

"Look out!" Jill suddenly shouted.

Another hellhound materialized from the shadows, its fangs aimed at Ward's throat with surgical precision. But Ward turned not with panic, but with the weary annoyance of someone swatting a particularly persistent fly.

He caught the creature's head in one gauntleted hand, its jaws snapping inches from his face. His visor flowed back into place, lenses blazing scarlet in the darkness.

"Why," he said, his voice now a metallic rasp, "is it always dogs today?"

With a single, contemptuous motion, he hurled the struggling beast across the room. A blue streak of light followed its arc—his arrow dancing through the air like a deadly hummingbird. The dog's head parted from its shoulders before it even hit the floor.

The arrow didn't stop there. It wove through the classroom in a blur of elegant destruction, putting down the remaining zombies with surgical precision before returning to his belt with the loyalty of a trained falcon.

His visor retracted, revealing Ward's human face once more. "Come on," he said, squatting down and offering Angela his hand. "Let's go find your father."

As Angela took his hand, the classroom door burst open. An Umbrella security officer stood frozen in the doorway, a single drop of sweat rolling down his forehead as a blue arrow hovered inches from his face.

"Whoa, whoa! No hostile intent!" The man behind him—Carlos Oliveira—raised his hands, his cocky grin intact despite the circumstances. "We're here for the same reason. Rescuing the doctor's daughter."

Seeing no threat, Ward recalled his arrow. The U.B.C.S. team filed in, their eyes wide with professional admiration for Ward's equipment.

"Dude," L.J. said, his voice filled with genuine awe, "your gear is seriously next-level. I don't remember Umbrella issuing anything that advanced."

"I made it myself," Ward replied, helping Angela to her feet.

"Looks like quite the party in here."

The voice was calm, controlled—a woman's voice that cut through the chaos like a blade through silk. She stepped into the room, taking in the assembled group with sharp, analytical eyes.

When her gaze found Ward, she froze.

It was Alice.

In that instant, a silent conversation passed between them. She, with her nascent T-Virus abilities, could sense that the man in the strange armor was something... other. And he, with his advanced sensors and intimate knowledge of this world's blood-soaked future, recognized her immediately as the key to everything.

The real game had just found its second player.

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