Finally, a signal.
HUNK had spent two days hiding in the sewers since regaining consciousness, doing everything possible to keep that monster from finding him.
Communications had failed somewhere along the line, leaving him unable to contact headquarters or report what had happened.
The G-Virus recovery mission still had to be completed.
Just as HUNK began considering how much longer he would need before risking another attempt to enter the laboratory, the situation changed.
The number of adult G-creatures had dropped noticeably.
HUNK had encountered organisms bearing unmistakable G characteristics while still differing from Birkin himself.
Some began barely larger than small dogs—or even lizards and geckos—but developed with astonishing speed after emerging, eventually becoming deformed creatures one or two meters tall.
Their vitality resembled G’s, but they didn’t appear capable of continued evolution, and HUNK suspected their lifespan was extremely short.
He had seen them throughout the sewers at first.
Two days later, the underground passages were almost silent.
These weren’t docile organisms.
Nothing except death would have stopped them from moving.
With the G-creatures disappearing and no new specimens emerging, perhaps the monster that had driven the U.S.S.
unit to the brink—an organism with absurd regenerative ability—was finally dead.
HUNK decided to take a calculated risk.
He would return to the laboratory and confirm it himself.
All he found was blood.
HUNK couldn’t tell whether it belonged to zombies, Hunters, or the creature that had attacked his team.
More importantly, a single G-Virus sample still lay on the floor.
At least the mission wouldn’t end empty-handed.
Another intact sample?
Did Annette leave it behind while evacuating?
HUNK doubted it.
A scientist as sharp as Annette Birkin was unlikely to make that kind of careless mistake at a moment like this.
Still, whether someone had deliberately helped him or some fleeing researcher had simply been killed before escaping, the result was the same.
The sample was his now.
In reality, Monica had carried more than one G-Virus sample.
She had loaded every remaining sample she could find into her briefcase before attempting to leave.
G originally intended to destroy them, but the battle with Huo Xiu forced that task to be postponed indefinitely—until G no longer existed to finish it.
After Monica died from the G-embryo, Huo Xiu took only one sample.
During the chaos, another tube had fallen from the case and ended up on the laboratory floor, where HUNK eventually found it.
“Command, this is HUNK, U.S.S.
Alpha Team.” This time the connection finally went through.
Thank God.
Headquarters had probably assumed the entire unit was dead by now.
HUNK wasn’t sure whether to call himself lucky or cursed.
Maybe some of the others were only unconscious.
It was a faint hope with almost no chance of coming true—but what if it did?
Headquarters answered quickly.
“Well, that’s a pleasant surprise.
We assumed your whole team had been wiped out.” So command really had been waiting for a response.
They had probably spent the last two days repeatedly trying to raise the team, with the sewer interference preventing HUNK from receiving anything.
As for his teammates…
even if their radios had worked, they were in no condition to answer.
The only consolation was that the mission had ultimately succeeded.
“G-Virus sample recovered.
Give me an extraction point.” With the objective secured, HUNK had no reason to remain in Raccoon City.
He never lingered at mission sites without cause.
He had trained on Rockfort Island and had even destroyed the T-078, a weakened relative of the T-103 line, but G was clearly nothing like any zombie or Tyrant he’d fought before.
Its appearance had not been part of the mission parameters at all.
There had been no order to kill William Birkin, so Alpha Team entered on a rapid recovery mission without heavy anti-B.O.W.
weapons.
If he’d been equipped appropriately from the beginning, HUNK remained confident they could have killed G.
“Understood, Mr.
Grim Reaper.
Extraction is at the main entrance of the police station.
We’ll pick you up there.
The helicopter has room for another passenger too—you might even get the chance to say hello to the Colonel.” That surprised HUNK.
Sergei was here personally?
There were very few things in Raccoon City valuable enough to justify his presence.
U.M.F.-013 was the obvious answer.
If Umbrella was already extracting even its core supercomputer, HUNK needed to move.
The company was probably preparing to deploy B.O.W.s for live testing inside the city.
HUNK had survived plenty of impossible operations, but he had no intention of testing his luck against multiple uncontrolled biological weapons alone.
People called him the Grim Reaper.
He understood perfectly well that it was a nickname—not a statement of divinity.
HUNK moved through the sewer network, occasionally encountering isolated zombies and Cerberus.
His remaining equipment was more than sufficient for threats at that level.
Thermal imaging and the biohazard analyzer in his helmet exposed their positions even when they hid in darkness, allowing him to eliminate them with little difficulty.
To avoid unnecessary attention, HUNK planned to exit near the rear of the R.P.D.
and circle around to the front.
The police station was probably still occupied.
Wearing full U.S.S.
tactical gear, he would look exactly like the special-operations soldier he was, and explaining himself to police officers would be an avoidable complication.
Eliminating them wasn’t part of his assignment.
Better not to create a problem that didn’t need to exist.
What bothered him was the number of Lickers in the sewers.
How did this many zombies manage to develop that far?
The transformation itself wasn’t mysterious.
Zombies that consumed enough nutrients could mutate into Lickers.
In a sense, it was a secondary evolution.
Umbrella hadn’t deliberately created the organism, but its characteristics gave it obvious B.O.W.
potential.
With controlled breeding and further modification, Lickers might even become a cheap product line capable of competing with Hunters.
The problem was energy.
Humans and other prey didn’t simply surrender themselves to be eaten, and T-Virus hosts burned through enormous amounts of energy.
Under normal conditions, very few zombies should obtain enough nutrition to complete the transformation.
Yet there were Lickers everywhere.
What had fed them so well?
HUNK found the answer when he saw the gigantic alligator corpse.
Its head had been annihilated by overwhelming force, but the rest of the body contained more than enough biomass to feed a large population of zombies through secondary mutation.
HUNK had no idea who killed it.
He also couldn’t decide whether the unknown fighter had improved his luck or ruined it.
On one hand, facing something that massive himself would have been a problem.
His firearms might have been almost meaningless against its bulk, forcing him to exploit the environment to kill it.
Whoever destroyed the animal had removed a serious obstacle.
On the other hand, the corpse had apparently fed enough zombies to produce an entire collection of Lickers.
So the same person had created a different obstacle in its place.
Enough speculation.
Overthinking unknown variables wasn’t useful in the field.
With the advantage provided by his equipment, even Lickers hiding in difficult angles couldn’t surprise him.
HUNK’s sidearm also possessed far more stopping power than the pistol Katherine Warren had taken from Irons.
Against a Licker, two or three well-placed shots were usually enough.
Light appeared ahead.
The police station was close.
HUNK also heard rotor blades overhead and soon saw Sergei standing beside a helicopter with both Ivan bodyguards.
Sergei was idly turning a knife in one hand.
“Congratulations on completing your mission, Comrade HUNK.” Sergei offered the operative genuine praise when he approached.
A soldier who completed his mission deserved respect.
The deaths of the rest of the team were another matter.
On a battlefield, death and separation were ordinary facts.
Coming back alive after completing the objective was already extraordinary luck.
Sergei understood that better than most.
Even staying behind the lines was never truly safe; his old ‘brothers’ had come into being under circumstances like those.
“Colonel.
G-Virus recovered successfully.” Sergei accepted the sample and handed it to the man in the helicopter’s copilot seat.
The two Ivan Tyrants then secured a cargo container beneath the aircraft, checking the suspension lines against the load.
The container had been reinforced and sealed in multiple layers.
U.M.F.-013’s mainframe was bulky rather than exceptionally dense, so the helicopter remained within its lifting capacity.
“Comrade HUNK, take the helicopter out.
I still have a new recruit to wait for.
France is an excellent place to recuperate, don’t you think?
Enjoy a short French holiday while you can.” HUNK boarded.
The helicopter carried him and U.M.F.-013 toward the Loire research facility in France.
He would spend a short recuperative stay in Loire Village, near the facility, before inevitably being assigned another mission.
U.M.F.-013, meanwhile, was destined for Umbrella’s Caucasus facility, which Sergei was still developing into the corporation’s final stronghold.
Umbrella’s most important accumulated data would eventually be consolidated there.
As long as that fortress survived, the company would retain the possibility of rebuilding from catastrophe.
Sergei sincerely hoped that contingency would never become necessary.
“Judging by the time…
the second group of survivors should be leaving soon.”