After getting out at Spencer Memorial Hospital, Huo Xiu found conditions far better than expected.
The hospital had received a vaccine from the beginning, and because police casualties were much lower than in the original course of events, the R.P.D.
could spare officers specifically to protect the facility.
As a result, the hospital remained one of the primary refuges for survivors and had built a respectable defensive force.
Huo Xiu wondered how many doses they had managed to produce from the Daylight formula.
Starting with an existing vaccine should have accelerated their research dramatically.
The only real nuisance was the leeches.
Huo Xiu had no idea why the sewers near Raccoon City’s hospital contained so many of the annoying things in the first place, but they kept emerging through the pipes.
Small creatures like these were extraordinarily difficult for ordinary people to guard against.
Fortunately, leeches were considerably more fragile than zombies.
One punch into a Leech Man sent the creatures composing its body bursting in every direction.
I guess they really do deserve to be one of the foundations behind the T-Virus.
Leeches displayed terrifying compatibility with infection.
Stranger still, despite nobody deliberately guiding the population in Raccoon City, the infected leeches seemed to have undergone a kind of convergent behavioral evolution.
Huo Xiu couldn’t fully explain it.
From what he remembered, T-Virus-infected leeches differed from most other infected organisms.
Many experienced little change in overall body size, yet developed a degree of animal-like intelligence.
They could distinguish powerful creatures from weak ones.
Faced with Huo Xiu, their instinctive response was therefore to avoid him.
Unfortunately for them, he couldn’t allow them to leave.
To ordinary humans, the creatures might be lethal.
To Huo Xiu, they were still just leeches.
Mouthparts capable of biting into reinforced material couldn’t even tear through his coat, much less his skin.
Their regenerative ability was impressive, but regeneration became irrelevant when a single hit reduced the entire organism to pulp.
Although the details had never been shown directly, Huo Xiu had a theory.
The leeches might not share any close biological relationship, yet they could establish a crude hierarchy based on strength—effectively forming a primitive social structure.
And if one asked which creature was strongest among the leeches around the hospital, the answer was obvious: the giant leech in the sewer beneath it.
Infected leeches were far less likely than many T-Virus hosts to undergo dramatic gigantism, but “less likely” was not the same as impossible.
Once the smaller leeches recognized that they could not defeat the giant specimen, they appeared to accept it as a dominant leader and act under its influence.
The giant leech clearly possessed some degree of intelligence.
It coordinated collective hunting behavior among the smaller specimens.
The Queen Leech had done something similar on a much higher level.
Early infected leeches attacked one another and hunted independently, but after suffering losses during predation they began learning to hunt in groups, and cannibalism among them gradually declined.
The giant specimen had probably encouraged that development deliberately.
Collective behavior was one of the key factors allowing swarms to assemble into Leech Men in the first place.
Of course, the intelligence of a naturally evolved giant leech could hardly compare with the Queen Leech Marcus had cultivated so carefully.
Huo Xiu didn’t need fire or salt.
If anything, the black, writhing leeches were less disgusting to him than the mutated fleas he’d already dealt with.
Whether they swarmed together into a Leech Man or invaded a zombie corpse and manipulated it as a host, the outcome was the same: he smashed them apart.
Now he intended to follow the ventilation route the leeches used and eliminate their “king.” Conveniently, that path also ran close to the underground laboratory.
Huo Xiu could deal with the infestation and see what Umbrella had been developing beneath the hospital in one trip.
Sure enough, the giant leech soon appeared.
It hadn’t come alone.
A swarm of smaller mutated leeches surrounded it, apparently under the impression that numbers gave them a chance.
To Huo Xiu, this thing looked far easier to kill than the giant alligator.
At least it wasn’t covered in sewer garbage.
The hospital’s wastewater system really was cleaner than the one beneath the police district.
Figures.
If anywhere in Raccoon City keeps its drains clean, it’d better be the hospital.
Huo Xiu extended his claws and decided to put them to use properly.
Most of the time he either punched with them or used them for thrusting attacks.
He couldn’t remember ever testing a genuine slashing motion.
The giant leech’s smooth body looked like a suitable target.
The result was satisfyingly clean.
One slash split it apart.
Huo Xiu followed with several more until the creature had been reduced to pieces, stopping only after confirming that every detectable sign of life had vanished.
The smaller leeches were even simpler; he crushed them almost casually.
Huo Xiu climbed back onto dry ground and opened the nearest access door.
Perfect—it led directly toward NEST 2 beneath the hospital.
No research staff were visible, suggesting most Umbrella personnel had evacuated the moment they received the outbreak warning.
Doctors, however, were everywhere.
Through the adjoining areas Huo Xiu could see medical teams moving constantly, preparing materials and manufacturing vaccine doses.
NEST 2 was unusual by Umbrella standards.
Rather than focusing exclusively on developing B.O.W.s, much of its work centered on anti-B.O.W.
weapons and vaccines against Umbrella’s own viral agents.
One condition of military investment in the company had been the development of weapons capable of countering biological threats.
To demonstrate its commitment, Spencer established NEST 2 beneath Raccoon City’s hospital, with Colonel Garner from the military serving as one of its principal developers.
Its main project was a next-generation infantry railgun.
Its official name was the Sword of Paracelsus, but for convenience it was given the codename “FINGeR.” FINGeR looked absurdly heavy, but considering Jill could lift and operate the weapon herself, infantry deployment wasn’t completely unthinkable.
What impressed Huo Xiu most was simply how far ahead Umbrella’s technology remained.
The twentieth century wasn’t even over, and these people were building hardware that would still look outrageous decades later.
Nobody questioned his presence.
The Umbrella insignia on his hat was explanation enough.
This was an Umbrella facility, after all.
Whether Huo Xiu had been sent down from management or simply worked in another section, seeing company personnel here was perfectly normal.
One man did specifically seek him out.
He was middle-aged, wore a white medical coat, and carried a sealed container holding a dose of Daylight.
“You’re Huo Xiu, right?
Carlos mentioned you.
It’s a pleasure—Nathaniel Bard.
Call me Bard.
We’ve successfully reproduced the vaccine, but production is too slow.
Injured civilians and survivors arrive every day.
Even with every physician in the hospital working at capacity, we can only manufacture enough for our staff and the people sheltering here.
The waiting area is packed almost around the clock, and some patients progress too far before we can reach them.
Thank God the treatment can still eliminate advanced infection, or this place would already have collapsed.” The vaccine existed.
The problem was scale.
Spencer Memorial was exhausting nearly all of its capacity simply treating the people who reached the hospital.
Extending protection across the rest of Raccoon City remained far beyond what the doctors could accomplish alone.
“Is there anything I can do to help?” Huo Xiu knew nothing about medicine, but he wanted to contribute somehow.
At this stage, however, the only forces capable of helping on the necessary scale were Umbrella and the military.
“Take this vaccine.
There’s a U.S.
military position outside Raccoon City.
They established a quarantine and evacuation zone as soon as the outbreak started.
Deliver the sample and request an unmanned aircraft.
If they can aerosolize the vaccine and disperse it over the city, we may be able to treat infected people across an enormous area at once.” The idea itself made sense.
Whether the U.S.
military would cooperate was another question.
Simmons was out there somewhere with his own interests in Raccoon City, and even a bureaucratic delay could be disastrous.
Still, political maneuvering wasn’t Huo Xiu’s problem.
His job was to act.
“Understood.” One more assignment.
In addition to evacuating survivors, Huo Xiu now had to carry a vaccine sample to the military quarantine outside the city and explain the proposal.
He had already decided on one rule: deliver the vaccine, pass on Bard’s request, and leave immediately.
No matter what anyone said, he was not staying for “questions.” He knew what powerful politicians were like.
The last thing he needed was to attract the wrong person’s attention.
Keep his head down, finish the request, finish his mission, and move on.
This damned city is huge.
He was going all the way back to the outskirts again.
Fortunately, after the Ennerdale Street demolition, the northern zombie population had been devastated.
The scattered infected in the south were no longer numerous enough to sustain explosive transmission by themselves, while the hospital continued operating at full capacity.
In barely two days, the outbreak had already been pushed much closer to containment and casualties were dramatically lower than they should have been.
A citywide vaccine deployment might be the final step.
“All right.
This is almost over.” Once that was done, Huo Xiu could start wrapping things up—and the familiar protagonists would finally begin taking the stage.
Jill was probably only now working on reports at home.
This time, though, Leon might actually get to show up for his first shift like a normal rookie.
Huo Xiu then headed for the military position outside Raccoon City.
With a little luck, he might even be there to see the second group of survivors off.