Resident Evil: Exodus - The Tale of Elza Walker

Chapter 14 - Revenge

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Elza's plan was fairly straightforward. She would jump across the West Tank via the now-in-place crate to the platform on the other side, and then go through the door to the Sewers tunnel that lay just beyond. It ran parallel to the North Canal but was a full level higher, and had a side door that opened onto the northern of the two high platforms in the Central Hub. That is how Elza would get back into the Central Hub. Once there, she would be in a position to go across to the other platform and thereby gain access to the Sewers Control Room, provided the Central Hub's spinning bridge was raised first. At the same time that Elza would be making her way there, Linda and Sherry would backtrack down the ladder shaft to the L-tunnel. From there they could return to the lower level of the Central Hub. They would be bringing the handwheel with them, and they could use it to raise the spinning bridge for Elza. She could then cross it and get into the Control Room. If their luck held, there would be controls in there for her to lower the spinning bridge, let Linda and Sherry get on it, and then raise it again so they too would be brought up and be able to get to the Control Room with Elza. It sounded simple enough, and as far as Elza was concerned the only real problem on her part was how many zombies or other creatures she would have to fight in the access tunnel in order to reach the upper Central Hub door located there. There was only one fly in the ointment, to borrow the popular expression, but it was a very large gadfly who once started kept right on buzzing and never stopped. That gadfly was Linda.

As far as Linda was concerned, Elza had literally shoved her plan down her throat without so much as a by-your-leave or any consideration for what Linda might have felt or wanted to say on the matter. She had practically dragged the woman out of the alcove to tell her That's the way it's going to be, as Linda thought of it, gave Linda her marching orders, then dashed off down the catwalk. She had ran to the end, turned as she ran, was still running when she hit the crate and jumped, and therefore made a clean and graceful landing on the far platform with plenty of room to spare. "Get your ass in gear, Linda, or I'll beat you there," Elza had called at her, before she opened the door and passed through. After that, there had been nothing save the occasional muffled burst of automatic weapons fire. Linda had looked down at the heavy handwheel and then at Sherry, but Sherry had simply shrugged her shoulders. "I'm just a little girl," she said, as if reading Linda's mind. "I can barely pick that up, and I can't carry it far."

Grumbling and cursing under her breath, half-carrying and half-dragging the damn thing, Linda staggered over to the ladder shaft. Here she had to pause and think for a moment. She wanted very badly to just shove the thing off the edge and let it fall, but she knew it would probably get damaged when it hit bottom. Elza would be hopping mad if that happened. To avoid that unpleasant scenario, Linda would have to carry the damn thing down a full floor's worth of height, balanced on a narrow metal ladder with only one hand free to grip the side rail and the other being constantly weighed down by ... no, wait a minute. There was a way, provided her strength held. She managed to get the thing over to the edge of the ladder shaft and set it down. Sherry trotted up, a worried look on her face. "How are we going to get that down there?" Sherry asked.

"We?" Linda said, half-laughing the word. She was being sarcastic and she knew it. "You go on down, Sherry. I'll follow shortly with the handwheel."

"Yes ma'am."

Again Linda cursed under her breath. Being called madam, even in abbreviated form, made her feel so old. She waited until Sherry was already down the ladder, and then she too got on it. She let herself down until her right shoulder was even with the handwheel, then very carefully threaded her right arm through it between the wheel and two of its four spokes. Fortunately, it was a good-sized handwheel, but even so it was a snug fit on her shoulder. Very carefully, she lifted up a bit on the ladder and pulled back, letting her shoulder take the full weight of the handwheel, then began easing herself down the ladder. It felt like someone had tied a sack of bricks directly above her right arm and was pulling down hard even as she tried to climb down. She couldn't remember either one of her shoulders hurting that much in all of her life. She managed to get down the ladder shaft and then had to stop. Sherry gave her a questioning look. "Are you all right, Miss Linda?"