It seemed Marvin had run into something urgent and was temporarily away from the computer controls, so he told Luo Guang to wait a moment while he went to open the door himself.
“What happened outside?” It was less than a minute later that Luo Guang returned to the main hall.
Seeing Marvin’s police uniform damp with rain, he asked.
“Nothing much.
Just went to say goodbye to an old friend.” Marvin shook his head and did not elaborate.
“All right.
How are things on Officer Elliot’s side?” Seeing that Marvin did not want to talk about it, and that his mood seemed heavy, Luo Guang changed the subject.
“Not good.
They’ve searched through a lot of files, but still haven’t found anything like architectural blueprints.
So for now, we still have no leads.”
Although Marvin said that, now that Luo Guang had fixed the antenna, if Marvin could contact a helicopter for evacuation, then whether Elliot and David found a hidden route out of the R.P.D.
and away from the city center would no longer be nearly as important.
“Should we have them fall back first?” Luo Guang asked.
“No.
Let’s wait until we establish contact with a rescue helicopter.” Officer Marvin shook his head.
To be safe, Marvin still intended to pursue both options at once.
That also gave Luo Guang a chance to rest a little.
“Hey, Marvin.
This is for you.” Luo Guang nodded, then handed over the two bloodstained police IDs.
When Luo Guang had picked them up, he had happened to be standing with his back to the surveillance angle covering the East Office, so Marvin had not known that Luo Guang had taken the IDs from those two bodies.
“Ah…” Seeing what Luo Guang had handed him, Officer Marvin froze.
Then tears slowly welled up in his eyes.
“They’re at peace now, right?” Marvin had seen on the monitors how Luo Guang dealt with the two men after they turned into zombies.
But he wanted to hear Luo Guang answer it himself.
“Yes.” Luo Guang nodded.
“I’m going to sort out my gear first.
I used a lot of ammo.”
As he said that, Luo Guang got up and walked toward the military supply crates, leaving Marvin some space.
…
“Not much ammo left.”
Looking into the military crate, Luo Guang saw that there were only a little over two boxes of 9mm handgun ammo left, half a box of .45 rounds, and one box of 12-gauge shells.
At the moment, Luo Guang carried a total of ten 15-round 9mm magazines that matched his Beretta M92F: six on his belt, three inside his black jacket, and one in the pistol itself.
As for the Glock 17, he still had only the one seventeen-round magazine, which he had already topped off, and it had not been used during the rooftop trip.
While checking the contents of his backpack, Luo Guang realized he had forgotten to show Marvin the documents he had found in the chief’s office.
Caught completely off guard by the police IDs Luo Guang had handed him, Marvin had momentarily forgotten all about Luo Guang kicking in the chief’s door.
Still, whether I show them to him now or not doesn’t really matter anymore.
No matter what kind of man Chief Brian Irons was, it would not make much difference to the present situation now, Luo Guang thought.
Later I should ask Officer Marvin where I can find a weapon with more stopping power.
The little pistol is fine for ordinary zombies, but not to mention Tyrants—even dealing with something fast like a Licker would be a pain.
After finishing his equipment check, that was what Luo Guang was thinking.
“Luo!”
Marvin was a strong man.
By the time Luo Guang had finished organizing his gear, he had already recovered himself.
He simply had not wanted to disturb Luo Guang while he was focused.
Hearing Marvin call his name, Luo Guang turned and asked, “What is it?”
There was something in Marvin’s voice that made Luo Guang immediately feel the situation was serious.
Luo Guang slid the Beretta M92F back into the holster on his belt, walked over to Marvin, and looked at the monitor.
“…”
Just as he had been thinking about it, there it was.
A Licker.
Even with the low resolution of the camera feed, Luo Guang recognized it instantly—the flesh-colored creature crawling on all fours, the kind famously known as a rookie-killer.
And there was more than one of them.
Their position happened to be in the corridor outside the Records Room.
He had not found a shotgun first.
Instead, the Lickers had shown up first.
Luo Guang’s face darkened, and Marvin noticed immediately.
That was not the expression of someone seeing the creature for the first time.
“Luo…
you’ve seen this kind of monster before too?” Marvin asked.
“Yeah.
Ran into one before.
Barely managed to kill it.” Luo Guang pointed at the pistol on his belt.
“Even one of them is hard to deal with.
And there are quite a few here.”
After saying that, he pointed again at the screen.
Luo Guang deliberately wanted to tell Marvin some of the Licker’s habits and weaknesses, so he intentionally said he had killed one before.
Although Elliot and David were safe for the moment, being trapped there indefinitely was not an option.
So Luo Guang’s answer would directly affect how they might save the two of them.
Yes—the area where the Lickers were in the feed was exactly the western side of the station, where Elliot and David were.
The two of them were inside the Records Room searching through files.
Their radio was off, so they had no way of knowing that a deadly new threat had appeared outside.
“No—actually, with your marksmanship, I suppose it makes sense that you could kill something like that.” Before Luo Guang could answer, Marvin half-answered his own question, then said with irritation, “We already managed to lure them out of the station earlier.
How the hell did they come back?”
“Officer Marvin, calm down first.
Officers Elliot and David are still in a safe position for now.” Luo Guang first tried to settle the visibly shaken Marvin.
Marvin was normally a steady man.
It was only because he had just relived the pain of his fallen comrades, and now had to face the return of the very creatures that had inflicted such heavy casualties on the station, that he had temporarily lost his composure.
“Luo, you don’t understand.
It was because of those monsters that the west wing defense line collapsed.
And from the moment they appeared to the moment the line broke, it took less than an instant.”
Marvin had been responsible for the defense on the main entrance side, so he had not personally faced those monsters head-on.
But every survivor from the western line spoke of the Lickers with fear.
“I even watched on the cameras afterward how they tore our line apart…” Marvin seemed to be replaying the scene in his head.
“In less than three seconds, while Officers Colan and Ruiz were firing like mad…
some long thing—a tentacle, or maybe a tongue—shot out from the Licker’s mouth…
and then both of them were just…”
The reason Umbrella’s researchers had named them Lickers was exactly that.
Against enemies with ranged weapons, they rarely used the long claws on their limbs right away.
Instead, they relied on that fast, retractable, piercing tongue to strike.
“So, Luo…
how did you kill one of those things?” Marvin turned a hopeful gaze toward him.
Luo Guang acted as if he were recalling the experience, then took a moment to organize his words before answering.
“These things don’t have eyesight.
But their hearing becomes extremely sharp.
The problem is, because their hearing is so sensitive, they prefer quiet places as nests.
“So the best way to deal with them is either with flashbangs, or by staying quiet and killing them in one strike.
Their brains are exposed—without a skull protecting them, if your aim is good enough, you can kill them pretty fast.”
The moment Marvin heard that, he understood why the creatures had suddenly returned to the quiet R.P.D.
after having previously been lured away by noise.
These monsters hunted by sound, and because of that, they also liked quiet places where they could wait for prey.
Just as Marvin was thinking that, the radio crackled twice.
Marvin pressed the transmit button twice in return while keeping his eyes on the monitor.
It was Elliot, preparing to contact him, while David was waving both arms in front of the camera.
“This is Marvin, over,” Marvin said first.
“Marvin, the zombies suddenly stopped pounding on the door.
Did something happen?”
Elliot’s response made Marvin pause.
He had thought Elliot was calling because they had finished searching and wanted Marvin to check the corridor through the cameras to confirm it was safe to come back.
“Elliot, yes—something happened.
But listen carefully and stay calm.
Those long-tongued monsters are back.”
Because the conversation was over the radio, Luo Guang could only watch Elliot and David’s reactions on the monitor.
Officer Elliot stayed relatively calm after hearing Marvin, but Officer David jumped up in agitation, snatched the radio, and said, “Damn it, weren’t they lured away by you, Marvin?”
Marvin repeated what Luo Guang had told him and said, “You’re safe for the moment.
Just don’t make a big racket like you were doing earlier.”
That one sentence from Marvin immediately shut David down.
Elliot muttered a quiet reprimand, took the radio back, and said, “If those Lickers like quiet, then if we use the PA system to make this place noisy, wouldn’t those monsters leave?”
Marvin turned to look at Luo Guang.
Luo Guang shook his head and said, “Those monsters will destroy the speakers immediately.
Any slight noise can trigger an attack from them.
And if the west side turns noisy again, it’ll also bring in a whole new wave of zombies.”
Marvin nodded and agreed.
He relayed Luo Guang’s words to Elliot, then pressed the radio button again and continued, “Elliot, you and David stay in the Records Room for now.
We’ll figure out a way to get you out.”
“Received.” Elliot did not have any better ideas either, so he answered directly and tucked the radio away before the visibly nervous David could snatch it again.
It was one wave before the next with no rest in between.
“Actually, we could look at the problem from another angle.” Ever since his intelligence increase, Luo Guang genuinely felt that he had become quite a bit smarter.
“What?” Luo Guang had just said Elliot’s idea would not work, and now he had another plan already?
“What Elliot suggested can work—if we change the target from the Lickers to the ordinary zombies.” Luo Guang explained, “Throw something noisy into the zombies that are blocking their door.”
“And then let those long-tongued freaks kill the zombies for us?!” Officer Marvin instantly grasped the goal of Luo Guang’s plan. This chapter is updated first at g.com.
Luo Guang nodded.
“That’s step one.
I was looking at the camera feed just now.
Up here on the west side, there’s a PA speaker.”
Marvin was already completely keeping up with Luo Guang’s thinking and picked up right where he left off: “First, clear out the zombies blocking Elliot and David.
Then lure those monsters away, and Elliot and David escape while the coast is clear!”
“Exactly.
But let’s tell Elliot and David the plan first and see if they have anything to add.”
Three cobblers are worth one Zhuge Liang.
Luo Guang did not think his improvised idea was perfect, so he wanted more minds on it.
Marvin did exactly that.
Elliot and David needed to discuss it between themselves first, trying to refine the plan as much as possible.
While the two of them were discussing it, Marvin finally asked the question he had been wanting to ask all along.
“Luo, I’m not saying I doubt you.
I just want to know why you know so much about those monsters.
“And the way you face zombies—it’s too calm.
Even we, after fighting them for days, can’t stay completely calm around them.”
Marvin carefully chose his words, but in the end he still came straight out with it.
“It was a former Umbrella researcher named Yoko Suzuki who told me.” Luo Guang pretended to think for a moment before continuing.
“I saved her life, and only then did she tell me some things about Umbrella.
As for the monsters you call long-tongued freaks, the researchers inside Umbrella apparently call them Lickers.”
In truth, Yoko Suzuki was not the kind of person who would open up and reveal a great deal about Umbrella just out of gratitude.
She had even pretended to have amnesia to conceal her identity.
She was no harmless little thing.
“What?
That black-haired, dark-eyed woman—like you—was an Umbrella researcher?” Marvin did not care whether they were called Lickers or long-tongued freaks.
What interested him more was this woman named Yoko.
Marvin actually did remember someone by that name.
But she had already left on a rescue truck together with R.P.D.
officer Kevin Ryman.
“She did have black hair and dark eyes.
She’s Japanese,” Luo Guang said.
“Marvin, take a look at these.”
Because he was lying, Luo Guang did not want Marvin digging any deeper into questions about Yoko, so he shifted the subject.
The transition was a little abrupt, but Luo Guang was confident that what he was holding would be enough to redirect Marvin’s attention.
What Luo Guang handed him were the documents he had found in the chief’s office.
Marvin accepted the papers with a puzzled look.
But after only reading a few lines, his face changed to one of shock.
“I thought it was just incompetence and bureaucratic rot from the chief.
I never imagined he’d let all of us die for his own selfish interests.”
Marvin spoke through clenched teeth.
The papers in his hand were crumpling under the force of his grip.
“Who is this W.B.?” Marvin asked, staring at the signature line.
“I don’t know.” Luo Guang kept his tone uncertain, because he had no proof.
“But Yoko mentioned that the director of Umbrella’s research facility in Raccoon City seemed to be named William Birkin.
That matches the initials.”
It was possible that it could be another person with the same initials.
But after reading the contents of the letter—and the things this W.B.
had asked Chief Brian Irons to do—Marvin found Luo Guang’s guess very likely to be correct.
“Those goddamn Umbrella bastards,” Marvin muttered.
After successfully directing another wave of hatred toward Umbrella, Luo Guang pressed the point while the iron was hot and concluded, “So, because of Yoko, I understand things about zombies and Lickers.
“As for why I’m not afraid—Marvin, once you know these monsters are man-made, and that the people who destroyed Raccoon City are Umbrella’s researchers, do you still feel fear?”
In truth, Luo Guang’s story had holes all over it.
But he had successfully focused Marvin’s attention so completely on Umbrella that Marvin selectively overlooked the problems in Luo Guang’s explanation.
“Yeah…
these zombies didn’t crawl out of hell.
They were made by some lunatic scientists.
Thinking about it that way, I guess they really are less frightening.”
Marvin accepted Luo Guang’s explanation.
Though rage toward Umbrella was burning in him, Marvin understood that not being afraid did not mean he could avenge the brothers he had lost against Umbrella.
In the end, all Marvin could do was sigh.
He was just about to turn the topic back to rescuing Elliot and David when the radio crackled to life.
(The Yoko mentioned here is the character from Resident Evil Outbreak 1 and 2)
It’s not really mandatory—I’ll eventually upload all the chapters here—but it helps a lot in supporting me and allows me to dedicate more time to it.