Tracking Lost

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The bloodied tentacle lifted the impaled soldier high and flung him away.

A seam opened along the back of the black exoskeleton. White vapor hissed out. A mass of tentacles forced its way through, whipping and tearing the split wider. Under the soldiers' stunned gazes, a figure rose from inside like something breaking out of a cocoon.

Nemesis was still massive, but without the heavy exoskeleton it was no longer bulky. Metal plates protected its chest and flanks, strapped together by black restraints. Tentacles extended from its back, withdrawing into its body and bursting out again in a constant, unsettling rhythm.

"Fire. Fire!" the officer shouted in terror.

The unarmored Nemesis crossed the battlefield with impossible speed, rushing the nearby armored vehicle. A tentacle snapped out and punched through the officer's head as he leaned from the hatch. Bullets struck Nemesis, tearing holes through its flesh. Heavy machine gun fire severed several tentacles, which fell to the ground and writhed. The monster ignored them.

It turned and charged the tank as the crew tried to rotate the turret. Nemesis seized the barrel with both hands. Dozens of tentacles lashed from its back and wrapped around its arms. With a roar, it bent the tank's barrel by brute force.

RPGs and grenade launchers fired. Nemesis calmly braided its tentacles into a shield to absorb the grenades, then reached out and caught an incoming rocket. It hurled the rocket toward the building where the snipers had set up as if throwing a grenade.

The explosion turned the upper floor into a fireball. Falling rubble buried the soldiers and machine gunners below before they could escape.

With Nemesis's strength, it could have killed every enemy there. But its tracking system reported that during this delay, the target had already moved farther away. The highest-priority objective remained the recovery of the T-Lilith research sample.

It would not waste more time here.

Ignoring the bullets from conventional weapons, it walked straight back to the ruined exoskeleton. Tentacles blocked incoming grenades and RPGs as it reached the armor, detached the minigun from the ruined frame, locked it onto its right arm, and slung the enormous ammunition pack over its back.

"T-Lilith!"

With a roar, Nemesis leaped out of the local forces' fire zone and pursued her.

"Unbelievable," Chris said as he ran behind Adrian. "That monster has abilities like that too? Are these damned things impossible to kill?"

"Honestly, the fact that you find this unbelievable is unbelievable to me. Don't you deal with this stuff every day?"

"How could I? I've never seen a Nemesis-type B.O.W. this heavily armed." Chris's jaw tightened. "The fact that Jill survived being hunted by one at all is hard to believe."

"You mean Jill?" Adrian asked.

"You know her too?"

"Chris Redfield and Jill Valentine, the BSAA's most famous partnership. Of course I know." Adrian kept running. "But don't be too shocked. The Nemesis that hunted S.T.A.R.S. in Raccoon City wasn't this ridiculous. Seven years have passed since then. Of course the smaller organizations making B.O.W.s have found new tricks."

Chris was surprised again. Adrian knew Jill and even details of the Raccoon City incident. Then again, this mercenary had known about Wesker, so perhaps that was not the strangest thing anymore.

Who was he?

A former Umbrella employee? Impossible. He looked twenty at most, which would make him a teenager seven years ago. Umbrella had produced prodigies, sure, but Adrian was clearly no researcher. The BSAA file described him as a mercenary with a dramatic personal history. Was the file false? Did he secretly belong to another organization? If so, why reveal so much to Chris without hesitation?

Chris's thoughts spiraled into increasingly elaborate theories.

Adrian had no idea what Chris was thinking. He was busy running for his life. Nemesis had shed its bulky armor. Alleys no longer worked as barriers. There were almost no options left.

They were cornered.

Just as Adrian thought that, someone darted out from the alley ahead.

Adrian focused and nearly cursed. Norman.

He raised his gun by reflex, but Norman showed no sign of shooting. Instead, the bald man waved at them, looking furtive and anxious. Before Adrian could make sense of that, someone else emerged behind Norman and waved urgently.

Kelly.

The two of them gestured wildly at Adrian from the alley mouth, and he had no idea what sort of absurd pairing he was looking at.

There was no time to think. Adrian kept his weapon aimed at Norman. Norman raised both hands and slowly backed up with Kelly. Adrian led the group into the alley after them.

"What are you two doing here?" Adrian demanded the moment they entered.

"The mission failed twice in a row. I can't return to the organization," Norman said with complete seriousness. "I know too much. If I go back, they'll kill me. So I defected. I would like to join the BSAA. If that fails, I can survive as a mercenary in Loplers."

Adrian stared at him.

What was wrong with this man?

Then he turned to Kelly, his expression hostile.

"You sold T-Lilith and me out completely. Now we're being chased by a monster your organization released. It takes nerve to come back. How could you betray her trust like that? You'd better give me a good reason not to put a bullet through your head."

"Don't say that." Kelly looked at T-Lilith's disappointed eyes and rushed to explain. "Yes, I gave information about her to the BSAA, but I did it for her sake. As for how the organization tracked my device, my equipment was hacked. They took T-Lilith's tracking program from it. I only found out after I met Norman."

"You're our informant?" Chris asked in surprise.

"Informant or not, I don't believe a word of your excuses," Adrian said.

"I knew I wouldn't be able to explain once things reached this point," Kelly said. "But that doesn't matter. Listen to me. I'm here to remove the tracker from her."

"Where is it?" Adrian asked.

"Chest."

"Damn it." Adrian swore. "There are no proper medical facilities here. You want to do surgery on T-Lilith in an alley?"

"It isn't complicated," Norman said from the side. "Make an incision and remove it. T-Lilith is not fragile. A wound like that will heal quickly even without sutures."

Adrian was about to argue, but T-Lilith caught his hand and shook her head. Then she looked at Kelly.

"Do it. We don't have time to waste."

Kelly began the procedure. Adrian watched as Kelly made a careful incision in T-Lilith's chest. Several times he tried to move forward, and each time Chris held him back.

"Trust her," Chris said.

Soon, Kelly used small tweezers to remove a bloodied tracker from T-Lilith's chest. It was only the size of a fingernail, yet that tiny thing had dragged all of them into Nemesis's path.

Norman took the tracker from Kelly and crushed it between his fingers. It broke with a soft snap.

"If the monster suddenly loses its target, it should stop in place and wait for new orders. We're safe for the moment." Kelly wiped sweat from her forehead. "I knew the organization possessed a B.O.W. like that, but my research team never developed anything similar. I don't know where they got it."

"That thing is a Nemesis-type B.O.W., a Tyrant host implanted with an NE-Alpha parasite. Umbrella's European Sixth Laboratory developed the project before Raccoon City. I don't know how this organization got hold of one."

Finally able to breathe, Adrian sat against the wall and lit a cigarette.

Norman looked at Adrian more closely.

"What exactly are you?" Chris asked the question for everyone. "Don't tell me you know this because of work. You understand details of Umbrella research projects. If you weren't too young, I would think you were former Umbrella."

"The short-lived boss at my office used to work for Umbrella," Adrian said. "He served in the U.B.C.S. When he got drunk, he told me stories from the old days."

Chris studied him for a long moment. In the end, he said nothing.

Norman, however, said coldly, "Bullshit."

On the night of the convoy attack, Adrian's reaction when the Tyrants came out of the containers had been strange. At the time, Norman assumed he was merely shocked. Now it seemed obvious. He had recognized them.

Adrian finished his cigarette, stood, and looked at Chris.

"Tracker's gone. What do we do now?"

"That B.O.W. is too dangerous." Chris's eyes were steady. "We have to kill it. And the organization behind it."

Adrian smiled and raised his gun. Kelly had finished treating T-Lilith's wound. Norman, his face grim and unwilling, loaded another grenade into his launcher.

The counterattack was about to begin.

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