The man was the easygoing, self-familiar type, and as he led Luo Guang and Jill toward the Central Street Subway Station, he hardly seemed able to stop talking.
He introduced himself as Carlos Oliveira.
Sure enough, he was a soldier of the Umbrella Biohazard Countermeasure Service, responsible in his unit for heavy fire support and rear security.
Carlos had not been in the U.B.C.S.
for very long and still counted as a rookie there, but he himself was no stranger to war.
Having joined the U.B.C.S.
only recently, and then being thrown into a disaster of this scale on his very first operation, he could not help complaining a little to Jill and Luo Guang.
Even so, Carlos remained optimistic, proudly telling them how many civilians he had helped and saved.
The moment Jill learned Carlos belonged to one of Umbrella Corporation’s private military units, distrust toward him sprang up almost instinctively, even though he had just saved both her and Luo Guang.
She glanced again at Luo Guang, whose identity was still unclear.
He did not seem to react much at all to Carlos’s background.
In the end, Jill kept her suspicions to herself, though inwardly she had already become much more cautious.
After all, Wesker—the one who betrayed them back then—had been one of Umbrella’s people too.
When Carlos saw that neither Jill nor Luo Guang had any interest in his boasting, he found it a little boring.
But considering the horrific monster the two of them had just run into, he did not feel right complaining, and instead shifted to talking about matters of survival.
“Our team set up a temporary shelter over at the subway station, and we’re organizing survivors to evacuate through it.
But judging from the current situation, it’s proving a little difficult.” Knowing neither of them wanted to make small talk, Carlos did not bother being coy and continued, “The subway lost power.
There’s still emergency backup power inside, but once the control room went down, the trains stopped being usable.
“According to one of our recon guys, something seems to have gone wrong at the substation.”
“I was assigned to make contact and call for support,” Carlos briefly explained his own situation, then added, “But instead I ran into the two of you getting attacked by that monster.
Since I found you, I figured I’d bring you back somewhere safe.”
Carlos clearly did not recognize Jill.
He really was a U.B.C.S.
rookie, and thought both Jill and Luo Guang were ordinary civilians who had just had the misfortune of running into that monster he himself had only seen for the first time.
“After all, the whole reason the U.B.C.S.
exists is to deal with terrible crises like this.
No matter what, I’m proud of what I’ve done in this disaster.”
Carlos knew nothing about Umbrella Corporation’s real role in all this, so he genuinely took pride in his job.
At the very least, he really had saved fleeing civilians.
But those words seemed to strike directly at Jill’s nerves.
When she heard Carlos say his team was protecting civilians, her brows knit slightly.
And when he spoke of the purpose behind the U.B.C.S.
and the pride he took in it, she finally could not hold it in anymore.
Lowering her voice like a volcano on the verge of eruption, she said angrily, “This—”
“Carlos, do you know how this disaster started?”
Seeing where this was heading, Luo Guang raised his voice slightly and cut Jill off.
He did not want the two of them arguing and then going their separate ways.
He himself wanted to follow Carlos straight to the Central Street Subway Station, but he also did not want to lower Jill’s opinion of him.
Jill was the kind of person who would go through hell for her friends.
In Raccoon City, as a teammate, she was more trustworthy than most.
“Huh?” Even though Jill had not managed to get her accusation out, Carlos had already caught the anger and suspicion on her face.
He looked at her in confusion and was just about to say something when Luo Guang’s question caught him off guard.
After a brief pause, he said, “We don’t know either.
The orders we received were to head into Raccoon City, rescue survivors, and eliminate as many of those monsters as possible.
Our unit even worked together with the R.P.D.
and the military in several extermination operations, but the results were terrible.
We couldn’t stop the zombies from moving south into the city center.”
Carlos wanted to say it out loud—to tell Jill that in those battles, plenty of U.B.C.S.
soldiers had died too.
Whatever their reasons for joining the U.B.C.S., they had died trying to save Raccoon City.
And Jill herself had just been saved by one of those very same U.B.C.S.
soldiers.
But in the end, Carlos’s throat moved slightly, and he still did not say it.
Even though he did not speak, Jill saw the anger in the way Carlos turned his head—the anger of someone who felt that she had insulted both him and his fallen comrades.
Wasn’t that the same look I must have had when I confronted the chief after the Mansion Incident?
Interrupted by Luo Guang like that, then hearing Carlos speak in such obvious ignorance, Jill finally let out a deep breath and forced the anger swelling in her chest back down.
Even so, her tone remained edged with thorns.
“I didn’t mean to insult you or your fallen teammates.
But those things are bioweapons created by Umbrella Corporation.”
“What?” Carlos was stunned by Jill’s words.
Then he looked at her in disbelief and said, “Miss, you can’t just throw around accusations like that.
Do you have any proof?”
Now that Jill had said it outright, Carlos could understand why she had reacted with anger and suspicion the moment she learned he was U.B.C.S., even though he had just saved her. Visit novelping dot com for the full chapter.
“I…” Jill instantly fell silent.
She had been secretly gathering evidence of Umbrella’s crimes, but the evidence she had already collected had been burned up back at the apartment.
And Jill did not believe that a rookie like Carlos knew anything about the Mansion Incident.
Seeing the look on Jill’s face, Carlos immediately understood she had no proof.
But her expression did not look fake either, so he still chose to speak more tactfully.
“It looks like you and our company have a lot of bad blood, Jill.
But without evidence, it’s hard for anyone to believe that Umbrella Corporation would personally destroy Raccoon City—the very city it invested so much in building.”
“…Sigh.” Jill understood that Carlos was offering her a graceful way to step back.
But when she thought of Brad’s death, she simply could not swallow that bitterness.
And seeing how sincerely Carlos wanted to save survivors, she could not bear the thought of him being used by Umbrella while remaining completely ignorant of it.
“The disaster has already happened.
Whether Umbrella caused it or not, our goal right now is the same.”
Seeing that both of them had calmed down somewhat, Luo Guang stepped in to smooth things over.
“Exactly.” Carlos seemed a little grateful to Luo Guang for stepping in.
As soon as Luo Guang spoke, Carlos quickly voiced his agreement.
Then he turned to Jill with a serious look and said, “Jill, what kind of unit the U.B.C.S.
really is—you can judge that with your own eyes.”
“And as for what you said about our company, I’ll confirm it for myself.”
“For now, if we want to survive in this hell, let’s put this argument aside.”
“All right.” Jill sounded resigned, but she agreed with Luo Guang and Carlos in the end and gave a small nod.
The place where Luo Guang and Jill had run into each other was actually already very close to the Central Street Subway Station.
By the time they finished talking, Carlos had brought the three of them to the entrance.
With Luo Guang and Jill covering him, he pulled open the iron shutter.
Carlos went in first, then braced the shutter up with both arms so Luo Guang and Jill could hurry inside.
Luo Guang had no intention of pretending to be gentlemanly about it.
The shutter was wide enough for two people to pass through side by side anyway.
After Luo Guang and Jill went in—one from the left, one from the right—Carlos quickly pulled the shutter back down.
He listened to the sounds outside for a moment, and only after confirming it was safe did he lead the two of them toward the subway train where his captain was stationed.
As they headed down the stairs, Carlos even turned back to specifically warn Jill, “About what we were talking about earlier—don’t mention it to my boss.
He’s got a terrible temper.”
Jill did not answer.
She simply nodded in silence.
“Captain Viktor, I brought back two survivors I ran into on the way.
As for the rescue contact mission, I found a functioning radio set, but without a power supply it’s useless.
We still have to solve the problem at the substation first.”
Carlos spoke first the moment they entered, conveniently also revealing his captain’s name.
There was only one person sitting inside the carriage, so that had to be the captain Carlos was referring to.
Captain Viktor looked fairly old, with a full head of white hair and wrinkles lining his face.
Even so, Luo Guang could still tell that beneath the uniform was a body packed with strength.
When Luo Guang and the others entered, Captain Viktor seemed to have just finished changing the dressing on a wound.
A pile of blood-stained bandages lay nearby.
The injury appeared to be on his lower right abdomen, judging from the way he held that part of his body.
As for what had caused it, Luo Guang could not tell.
But Captain Viktor did not respond to Carlos first.
Instead, he looked straight at Jill.
“Oh?
Isn’t this former S.T.A.R.S.
elite Jill Valentine, trained by Delta Force?”
Carlos had some familiarity with the name S.T.A.R.S.
too, but since he had only joined the U.B.C.S.
shortly before being deployed to Raccoon City, there were still important details he did not know.
“Rookie, don’t tell me you thought you brought back some helpless weakling?” Before Jill could even respond, the captain turned to Carlos and shot him down.
“She’s no ordinary survivor.
She’s a survivor of the Mansion Incident.”
Carlos did not know much about the Mansion Incident and asked in confusion, “But wasn’t that case reported as having no survivors at all?
Ah…”
Only then did Carlos remember why the name S.T.A.R.S.
had sounded familiar to him.
Before deployment, he had been given a last-minute crash course, but the information he had read was not any of the truly classified core material.
Then, realizing how offensive what he had just said must sound to an actual survivor, Carlos was about to explain himself to Jill when Captain Viktor deliberately cut in. Follow the newest chapters on novelping . com.
“The initial investigation report said no survivors had been found.
Later, we discovered there were survivors, so the investigators filed a revised report.
Carlos, you didn’t actually finish reading the Mansion Incident file, did you?”
“No, sir.
There wasn’t enough time.”
Although Carlos had not been in the U.B.C.S.
for long, Captain Viktor clearly knew him well enough.
He understood that with Carlos’s personality, he would only skim over that kind of information before departure.
After all, Viktor held the rank of captain.
Compared to Carlos, he knew more of the details and truths surrounding the Mansion Incident.
But he had no obligation to explain them to Carlos.
After glancing at the watch fastened to the inside of his left wrist, Captain Viktor said, “We don’t have time to waste.
Since the plan to request reinforcement from headquarters has failed, and most of our people are already MIA…
then we stick to the plan and evacuate Raccoon City by subway.”
“Understood.
And the guys sent to restore power…
have they come back yet?” The teammate responsible for restoring electricity had left far earlier than Carlos, but now Carlos had returned while that teammate still had not.
The power had not come back on either.
It was hard for Carlos to ask.
But for Mikhail Viktor, a man with long military experience, he was already used to situations like this.
Viktor’s face remained firm, showing no outward grief, but his voice dropped a little.
“Their mission most likely failed.
We’ll have to leave that matter to Miss Jill Valentine here.”
“What?” Carlos looked baffled.
But a moment later his face filled with surprise.
The captain was actually pushing that job onto a civilian.
Jill immediately understood what “that matter” meant, but she did not hesitate even once.
She only glanced at the civilians moving about in the next carriage, then accepted it without pause.
“All right.
What exactly do I need to do?”
“Captain, I object.
We can’t send a civilian to do something that dangerous.” Even though Jill herself had already agreed, Carlos did not approve.
“Carlos, she comes from an elite unit, and she survived the Mansion Incident.
She has far more experience than you do when it comes to surviving in the current state of Raccoon City.”
The moment Viktor saw Jill, he had already decided to have her handle the power-restoration mission.
The reason he brought up her background the instant they met was to make that fool Carlos understand that Jill was not some decorative burden.
Standing to the side as the “invisible man” listening to the three of them talk, Luo Guang found the whole thing rather strange.
One was bold enough to make such a blunt request, and the other bold enough to accept it without a second thought.
Viktor continued explaining, “Besides, our U.B.C.S.
manpower is already critically short.
There are civilians here who still need protection.
Any useful combat strength we have, we need to make use of.”
“Carlos, this isn’t the time to be precious about that.
As a member of S.T.A.R.S., protecting civilians is my responsibility too.” Jill spoke with absolute seriousness.
Although she disliked the fact that the U.B.C.S.
was pushing the task onto her, she had seen the civilians still aboard the train.
For their sake, she had to take the job—and complete it.
Seeing how firm Jill was, and hearing the trust his captain clearly had in her abilities, Carlos finally relented.
“Be careful.
And take this.”
Carlos pulled out a handheld radio from behind him, adjusted the channel, and handed it to Jill.
“Head to the substation first and get the power flowing again.
After that, go to the subway office and set the route.
If anything happens, use this to contact us.
Also, use Exit B from the station.”
“Got it.” Jill committed Carlos’s instructions to memory, clipped the radio onto the belt at her waist, nodded once, and then left the train without looking back, decisive as ever.
“Hah…” Watching Jill disappear into the distance, Captain Viktor let out a slight breath of relief.
Then he turned to Luo Guang, who had been standing quietly to the side listening to the entire conversation.
“Luo, I didn’t expect you to still be here.”
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