I head toward the pipe in silence, simply yanking off the obstructing fan. Crawling between the blades would be awkward, and with one careless move I'd tear it off anyway—so why bother suffering?
The passage is fairly short, about three meters long. At a copy of the previous propeller, I bend two blades outward, creating a gap wide enough to crawl through. Which I do, ending up in a tunnel with water up to my knees.
"Oh, familiar territory. This is where we smashed the spiders—and look, their carcasses are still there," Yamata said, landing beside me.
"Then lead the way." I let Four Eyes go ahead. She turns left and passes a side passage with a high floor (and therefore dry), explaining that it leads back to the station. A brief stretch through a corridor with no branches—but plenty of sharp turns—takes us past spider corpses indeed only slightly smaller than miniature horses. Then we descend a sloped ramp without steps, going a bit lower. Accordingly, the water level rises to our waists. Straight ahead to a grate on the left—and onward, since the grate had clearly been forced open long ago, apparently during Claire's first pass through here.
Moving forward, we reach a small dry landing and a door directly opposite us. We climb up and find ourselves in a corridor buried deep in the earth, reinforced with iron braces.
"Now we switch," Yamata suddenly says.
"Why?" I don't catch on right away.
"Because earlier this area was blocked by a high-pressure water flow. Any attempt to get here would've turned whoever stood on that threshold into an amorphous heap with shattered bones. That's why we haven't been here yet—though we did see two figures, one of them definitely male, somewhere on the other side." Four Eyes explains briefly. Two figures? Leon and Ada Wong? Quite possible—but how, if they didn't shut off the fountain? Or is there a bypass? Whatever. Not important right now.
"Fine. I'll take point." Fully understanding why they're letting me go first, I agree. Why not? I'm sturdier than the girls, so it makes sense for me to take the brunt as the one up front.
We move again, now in a new formation, and enter a room with a train platform… minus the train itself. Are we supposed to walk the rails now? Well, logically, yes. Supposedly Leon and Ada ran into Birkin on the train (I hope the first two made it out alive), while Claire and Sherry rode through without incident. But if the first ones here really were the cop and the secret agent, then it's entirely possible that we're not the first to go on foot—and that somewhere ahead, Sherry and Claire are already trudging along.
"Should we call the train from the control panel?" Kate asked. Right—the panel!
"In my opinion, it's easier to go along the ceiling at speed. We won't draw attention, and there might still be someone on the other side guarding the transport," Yamata offered.
"You're right, Four Eyes. Looks like we'll have to rely on our own legs," I sighed, realizing that stealth would have to trump comfort.
"And where does this tunnel lead?" Kate asked a couple of minutes later, when we were already racing through it. The tunnel gradually slopes upward and clearly exits the city limits—we'd already crossed most of Raccoon City underground by now, and there was still no end in sight.
"To one of the entrances to Umbrella's laboratory," Four Eyes shouted back as she sped along on my other side.
"Not directly into the lab, just to the entrance?" Kate pressed.
"Yeah. We'll still have to do some running outside. That's why the (former) brass deemed this route a failure." Yamata grimaced, having clearly studied a couple of maps before the mission. Well right—this was the role meant for her and Spectre. They even had radar; Vector only reviewed the specs of potential opponents and checked the guard posts on the general plan, while some hadn't even bothered to familiarize themselves with the escape routes. But now, none of that matters.
Reaching the platform quickly, we found no one there. Probably for the best—though we could've called the train after all. Although what's the point of sighing now? Standing upright on the platform, I noticed several red lights glowing faintly through the thickness of the wall in the distance.
"Are we catching up, or are we lagging behind again?" the Four Eyes asked, nodding toward the figures.
"Better to get on their tail right away, if you ask me. Any objections?" I voiced my opinion.
Negative nods answered me. No objections, then. Excellent.
We cross the room swiftly and enter a narrow corridor—so tight that two people would struggle to pass each other—rectangular in shape and made entirely of steel. Like running inside a shipping container. Ugh, what a comparison. But the feeling only intensified when we had to wind through the tight passages for a couple of minutes (and that was with acceleration), trying not to slip on zombie corpses that had been thoroughly finished off either by Leon (and Ada—she's no ordinary girl either) or by Claire. After some time, we emerged into an empty control room, already stripped of anything useful. There's a downside to bringing up the rear.
Climbing the spiral staircase upward, we finally stepped out onto an open platform.
(End of Chapter)
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