Chapter 67: Groundwork

Rick survived the end of the flight. How? He simply knocked himself out with a punch. He did that thrice. Jill called him nuts for it and was both bewildered, worried and low key amused.

The eleven hour trip made them arrive at 10:00 pm. Washington DC time. Italian time? It was 4:00 am.

As such O’Brian paid for a cheap hotel room near Catania’s airport, on the BSAA’s dime thankfully, and let everyone rest to recuperate from the jet lag. The only one who didn’t have much of a need was Rick and Jill nearly punched his smug face for it. His idea in the plane may have been stupid but now he would be up and ready without his body feeling any discomfort with the time difference.

Rick spent the whole morning visiting the city and enjoying Italian delicacies. Something that he had never been able to do the two times he had been in the country. The first he hasn’t been there long enough, the second he was fighting for his life and could only eat military ration.

The Sicilian breakfasts had been quite the treats. So much so that he bought a whole lot more pastries than he intended to bring back to Jill and O’Brian’s. The airport being only fifteen minutes away from the city, Rick was back by noon. Just after both his companions had woken up.

They appreciated both the pastries and the gesture. At least that’s what Rick understood from Jill’s mumbling and scowl. Apparently she was still pissed that he had one upped her. She already had a bad attitude in the morning on the regular, this day was even worse.

O’Brian, took it like a champion however and said nothing save for ‘thank you’ for the local food. When he was done, he gave them orders. He had some people to meet and some calls to make so Rick and Jill would have to go to the building lent to the BSAA and currently occupied to properly equip themselves and then wait.

“Are you saying you ran the whole way?” Jill was dumbfounded by what Rick had just said.

He nodded as they waited on the pavement for a taxi to come and hail it. “Yeah, it was a good jog. The city is only fifteen minutes away. It’s not far.”

Her expression was flat. “By car.”

“Jugs… I’m awesome,” Rick shrugged. “It’s time for you to realize it.”

“It’s amazing your head can still go through doors.” Her face didn’t change one bit.

That made him frown. “Now that’s uncalled for. A fact is a fact. Do you know many people that can run six kilometers in fifteen minutes? I wasn’t even trying and it’s not some superhuman bullshit. Professional athletes can run that distance in ten more or less.”

She tilted her head to the side as she raised her hand to catch the attention of a taxi. “You’re well informed regarding what pro athletes can do.”

Rick shrugged again. “I spent five years having my physical abilities and limits tested and comparisons were needed.”

A black fiat, he didn’t recognize the model, stopped right in front of them. He opened the door for Jill who naturally went in first and got on. She told the address their boss had given them to the Taxi driver in a heavily accented Italian then turned to Rick to continue the conversation.

“So? What’s your score? I mean… How much do you lift, as fast you run…. It never crossed my mind before.” She was eager to know more about what he could do.

Rick was looking outside the window at the passing landscape. His tone indicated he didn’t really want to talk about this. “My last check up was before my last mission. I could deadlift one tone five.”

Jill’s eyes nearly popped out of their orbits when she heard that. “No wonder you could punch a fight hand to hand with a G.”

“It’s probably more now. My strength increased as I finished growing then increased further each time I underwent a mutation. Now—”

“Wait! Wait! Wait!” Jill interrupted, waving her hands to stop him. “Mutations? What mutations? You never talked about any mutations before!”

Rick blinked and realized it was true. “Oh. Well… After careful examination it was revealed that I can’t increase my muscle mass and get stronger by exercising. Yet I got stronger, so it was theorized that my body… More or less answers my will in a dire situation and triggers a mutation. Not outward but inward. Muscle composition changes, nerves, blood vessels, bones. They just…get better?”

Jill looked at him as if she was seeing him for the first time. It was… a pleasant look. Different from Doctor Hunt who saw him as a puzzle to be completed and unraveled. Different from Major Hunt and Captain Walker who looked at him with approval because he had become even more deadly and efficient in the field. Different from Rachel’s awe and the calculating look about how much more stamina it meant for sex.

Different from the look Claire gave him. She didn’t know about the mutations but the way she looked at him as if he was a monster always came to his mind in those moments.

Jill? She looked at him with worry. It felt nice.

He took her hand to reassure her. “I’m not turning ugly any time soon if that’s what you’re thinking. My last mutation was three days ago after fighting G and you didn’t notice any difference with me, didn’t you?”

“Well… No, but—”

“It’s psychological, Jugs. My will to survive, my desire to live is what triggers it and in those moments? I usually think ‘I need more strength’ or ‘I need to be faster’ and not…” I need to be ten feet tall with tentacles sprouting out of my ass’.”

That didn’t make her snort despite being funny in his opinion. It was alright. To him it was proof that her worry for him was genuine.

“It’s… insane that you can… That your body responds to your thoughts like that.”

Rick nodded. “I agree. So does Doctor Hunt. She’s still searching why that is. The only idea she has so far is the mind over matter theory. The more I mutate and the reasons why the more it’s confirmed.”

“Is it only physical? Or does… I mean your fire resistance…” She was making a good point and he had no clear answer to give.

“I don’t know. Alexia Ashford could ignite her blood in contact with oxygen, control it and more importantly not be affected by it. All thanks to the T-Veronica. Did my body take that information from the virus and integrated it to my DNA making me fire resistant all along or did my body activate the gene in my time of need? I have no answer. The only way to know would have been to do some tests and it’s a hard pass for me.”

She could understand why. The test would involve burning him. Not very pleasant.

The conversation stopped there, Jill taking her time to digest what she had just learned and to deal with the multiple questions popping into her mind. Soon enough they arrived at their destination, and she paid the driver with good old US Dollars. Rick chuckled when the man looked at her with a ‘are you kidding me, look?’, then pulled out his wallet and paid with the euros he had exchanged in the morning.

Jill acted as if nothing happened but there was a blush of embarrassment on her face. Rick had to try hard to keep his face stoic but the amusement in his eyes couldn’t be mistaken. Once out of the car, she grabbed his head, pulled him down to her level and got him in a head lock.

He simply wrapped his arm around her waist and lifted her on the ground to carry her inside the temporary BSAA building. Recognizing a loss for what it was, Jill let him go and as a result was set down on the tiled floor of the entrance hall. She still kicked him in the calf for good measure. Her way to have the last word.

They presented themselves at the reception desk to get clearance. Rick’s lack of badge had been a small issue but he had his passport so the receptionist checked the BSAA’s database and confirmed his identity. He received a temporary badge and was allowed to go deeper into the building.

The first thing they did when they arrived at the office floor was to read every report or note made about the surrounding areas regarding bio-incident from available computers. Most were about Terragrigia, some were about weird sightings which didn’t turn out to be anything or were unverifiable.

It was grueling work but not for Rick. The more he read, the more he cross referenced the parsed information and could determine a pattern if there was one. In a way it was about piecing pieces together to get a full picture and that was what he liked the most about investigating, right after actually investigating on the field.

“Found anything?”

Jill’s question and hand on Rick’s shoulder broke his focus. He stretched in his seat and yawned politely, hand in front of his mouth.

“Beside the F.B.C. 's containment being tight-lid and secretive? No. You?”

She gave him a shake of her head. “Difformed corpses coming ashore… Everything in Terragrigia was turned to nothing… No bio-agent could have survived this, so they’re not from there.”

Rick agreed with that statement. The sight of the aquapolis being destroyed would never leave his mind for the rest of his life. There was no way anything could have survived sublimation. “So either someone is dropping those corpses off the coasts to get our attention, because let’s be honest only an idiot would drop bodies over a boat at sea and not think about the current bringing everything to land… Or those corpses escaped their containment on a boat, a submarine or an underwater base.”

“Said like this it sounds—”

Jill was interrupted by her phone ringing, she picked it up and looked at the caller. Mouthing ‘O’Brian’ to Rick she answered. It was a very short conversation, maybe less than fifteen seconds.

“O’Brian wants us to join him at… Syracuse?”

Rick smiled with amusement at her confusion. “I don’t think he’s asking us to go back to the US. I’ll ask around for a map of Sicily and where it is.”

“He also asked me to take the Genesis.” Jill added, already walking away, Rick following her.

“It’s operational?” His surprise was genuine. He had been aware of the new piece of technology created by a tech wiz in the BSAA which allowed to uncover and track down biological signals but he thought it was still in the prototype phase.

“Apparently.”

They greeted the few agents on their way to the armory where they armed themselves. Rick took his weapon of choice: a .45 and three spare magazines, the holter that went with both and a tomahawk. He was glad that O’Brian had listened to him about the viability of the weapon and thought of including the spike modification on the butt of the blade.

“Really?” He said in disappointment, handing the last form to the armorer and looking at Jill fiddling with her Beretta 92.

“It’s a great gun!” Jill released the slide and put the firearm in the holster at her hip. “No Kendo modified good but it does the job really well.”

He stepped aside, hooking his axe on the loop on his belt, to let her hand her own forms. “It’s a 9mmm, Jugs. A pea shooter for what we’re dealing with on a regular basis.”

“Still does the job.” She wouldn’t budge on this.

Once ready for the field, they went to pick up the Genesis in the R&D corner. It looked like a handheld device with a rectangular, tablet-like form factor and an integrated pistol-grip handle for single-handed use. Its interface was centered around a large, primary display screen used to show scan results and data. The key feature was a distinct cylindrical scanning emitter protruding from the top of the unit.

“This looks… so impractical.” Rick commented as Jill hung it at her belt thanks to a hook on the device.

“Yeah, well…” She didn’t want to say it but it was clear she agreed. “That's all we have.”

Rick took the lead as they left the room. “Jesus, I’m on a mind to dust my old engineering books to make something less cumbersome.”

“That makes me think… You always wanted to go into tech. Programming primarily. It was a toss up with medicine, why did you end up choosing the latter?”

“Because tech is constantly evolving and needs… serious dedication. I was stuck in the army, gone away for months at a time sometimes… I wouldn’t have been able to keep up. It was also for the money but after all the shit… It wasn’t worth it. I realize I could have a secure and comfortable life without being rich. In the end I chose medicine… Well… chemistry and bio-engineering because… I wanted to understand what I am and one day create an all purpose vaccine from my blood, fucking over all those pharmaceuticals companies like Umbrella.”

Jill said nothing but she smiled brightly. Rick had always been vindictive to the extreme but that was only when you succeeded in pissing him off which, with his ‘roll with it’ mentality, pragmatism and patience was a very difficult thing to do. She could understand why after the numbers of Outbreaks he had experienced and survived.

She just knew that one day, the bio-terrorists and B.O.W. makers will curse the day Umbrella made an enemy out of one street kid.