The night was hot as hell, and in one of the many casinos in Las Vegas, rattling dice in one hand, balancing a beer in the other, Chris Redfield stood nervous. It was the seventh day of the seventh month, of the seventh year in the new millennium. His lucky number, his lucky day, and he was ready to win his fortune on the tables. "Come on seven, c'mon!"

All bets were in, and the dice cast, tumbling in the air and bouncing as they struck the table, rolling, flipping, and hitting the edge on the other side. Out of habit, the older Redfield closed his eyes, his fist shaking in anticipation of the winning call.

“Snake-eyes, you lose, sir.”

“Damnit! Damn you, Wesker… Damn you.” He mumbled, sighing and sipping at his beer, before he felt a poke in his side.

“Do you plan on blaming everything on Wesker?” Spoke the humoured voice of his younger sister Claire, who by the looks of it was having a silent chuckle at his expense.

“Till the day I die, sis. Till the day I die.” He replied with a sheepish grin on his face, and wrapped his arm around her shoulders, as the pair walked towards the piano bar, where their friends Leon Kennedy and Jill Valentine sat in wait at a table, a hearty meal in front of them, and two other plates of food in the empty seats where Chris and Claire would be sitting. Barry Burton, the muscle man of their group had told them to take the night off, and enjoy themselves, guilt made them decide on a simple dinner at one of the casinos.

When the Redfield siblings arrived, they sat and the small group was about to start eating, when the familiar beep of a cell phone went off, Jill couldn’t help but blush, and answer the phone, letting the loud speaker take over, which in turn let the rest of the group listen in, since it was Barry on the other line.

“Go ahead Barry.”

”Sorry to interrupt guys, we got some news. Might wanna finish what yer doin’ and head back over’ere.”

“No problemo, Barr.” Chris replied, and when the line was cut, the group ate, each of them contemplating what the rest of the group could have found in the hour they were gone. It’d been six months since they found anything at all on Umbrella or the other mystery company, known to them only as HCF. There were ties to a pharmaceutical company called ‘S’, but given that the company was still young and hadn’t made it as big as Umbrella, it was hard to find out if they were selling an expired brand of medicine, let alone if the company was dealing with bio-weapons.


* * *

Tack… tack tack… tack… Tack tack…. Tack tack… tack tack tack…. Beep.

“Son of a bitch, don’t crash on me again… Y’give me a blue screen of death and I’ll peg you out the god damn window.”  Barry Burton hated technology; he hated it more than he hated Umbrella. He hated writing up reports on the typewriters in the STARS office, before they were replaced with computers, and then he really hated writing reports.

“What’s the problem?” Spoke a voice behind him, and the hulk of a man turned around scratching his head, glancing at Syrus Cooper, their computer nerd and hacker, their online information gatherer. He was a young man of twenty-three, and he came to Barry’s side with a cup of extra strength coffee, running a hand through his hair as he watched the ex-STARS member try to work the desktop computer.

“Piece of crap’s restarted on me.”

He quirked a brow, glancing over Barry’s shoulder, and when he saw what the brute did, he gave a chuckle. “Control-alt-delete, dude. You manually restarted the computer.”

The older male gave a growl, waving his hands and standing up, moving over. He hated technology; weapons were his forte, not computers. How he missed his cannon, that beauty of a magnum that had to crap itself right when he and the others were facing that thing that made a donut of that bastard, Wesker.

“Daydreaming again, Barry?” Called Jill, as the small group entered the place they called home. A small house near Las Vegas, a small house they were lucky enough to get at a good price, which surprisingly wasn’t spotted by Umbrella. Barry gave a chuckle, and shook his head, scratching the back of his neck.

“Y’know me too damn well, Valentine.”

“So what’s the news?”

Syrus turned around, raising his hands in victory. “We got some dirt on Umbrella, AND Wesker!”

“You’re shitting me,” Chris said, stepping forward to the computer, “Six months and nothing, how the hell did you manage this?”

“I’m not a hacker for nothin’, Redfield.” Syrus replied, winking slightly, and turning back to the screen and bringing up the file he’d found while blatantly shifting through Umbrella’s mainframe, using one of the security personnel’s identification numbers, a lucky guess, really. But he’d never admit it to the older male; he was still proving his worth, after all.

“Alright, so what do we have?”

Click click, tack tack click.

“A report on a completed assassination, target was Ada Wong. Former Umbrella operative, she was working for Wesker.” The room continued to stay quiet, while the hacker continued bringing up the files. Leon, who heard the news, didn’t know what to think. He didn’t exactly like the woman, but he didn’t hate her either. In truth he wasn’t sure how he’d felt about her, now that she was dead, he wasn’t sure whether to mourn her or be thankful that she wasn’t going to play her games with him anymore.

“Operative five-five-two-one-six-ex completed the task with no hindrance from Wesker or his men, exhibited first stage transformation when the target shot her and ran. Report says that she took a bullet to the gut and turned up fine within five minutes…” His attention was diverted when he saw a blinking icon in the corner of the screen. It was the group’s mailbox icon. They had mail for possibly the first time, ever.

“Hang on, got mail.”

Click, click click, tack tack tack tack. The message was opened, and Syrus continued reading out loud for everyone to hear.

“Name’s aren’t important. What is important is the information I am giving you. Download the file, run a scan if you feel the need, and thank me when the time comes for us to meet face to face. Yours, X… Okay… So we have a deep throat.”

* * *

      BLAM!

   BLAM!

BLAM!

The echoed shots of the .50 caliber semi-automatic rifle ripped through the marks on the paper targets, and Xylas breathed calm, reloading the rifle with a fresh magazine once the previous one was spent, she sat up on her knees, hitting a button next to her which brought the target to the front for her to examine. Each mark was on vital parts of the target. One at the heart, one at the head, one larger one in the torso and two for the lungs, however she decided to stray from the second lung mark, and went for the neck.

By the time the target reached her, the large tear in the neck area made the weight of the thick paper fall from the rest of the target, leaving only the head section clipped to the hanger. She smirked, and hopped over the railing, picking up the section that had fallen, and crumpled it up, tossing it lazily into the rubbish bin at the door. She hit another button, and a thicker target popped out, one made of cardboard. She removed her handgun, and began to fire.

* * *

Chris fell into the chair next to Syrus, shock written all over his face. He wasn’t sure he believed the words read out to him, so he read over the file himself. The others meanwhile, had mixed reactions. Some were cheering, some disputing, and some simply silent, unsure what to think.

“You’re telling me Umbrella’s sending out this Xylas person to bump off Wesker?”

“Not only that… It’s a counter assassination. Whatever organization Wesker’s workin’ for wants her on their payroll, or dead. It says the former is their preferred outcome.”

Claire crossed her arms, thinking on those words. “If Wesker gets a hold of her, they can come after us and we’d be royally screwed.”

“Claire, they haven’t even looked for us since Leon came back from Spain three years ago. If they haven’t found us by now, I doubt they care any more. But you have a point. Syrus, did deep throat happen to mention if she’s a normal human or some sort of experiment?”

Syrus read through the other file which had been attached to the one Chris was reading, silvering eyes skimming over the report and then he found what Jill wanted to know.

“Says she’s a virus enhanced humanoid… Something about TG-cells. There’s a mug shot of her here too. She’s cute. Weird eyes, though.”

“She’s like Wesker, probably.” Chris mumbled. Just their luck, two killing machines, and one organization wanted them both, while the other wanted one dead. He figured to eliminate the competition, or maybe to settle an old score… It was hard to guess. He’d have them both put down for the simple fact that they work for similar companies. He suddenly remembered something, and stood up, looking towards Claire.

“Remember when we got back from dealing with Rockfort and Antarctica? You wanted to go in guns a blazing for Steve’s body and Sherry?”

“Yeah. What about it?”

“I think it’s time we found out what happened to Sherry, and to see if they did anything to Steve. All the shit with the press has blown over, we’re off their radars. It’s the perfect time.” Syrus, who had been listening and reading, cocked his head, coughing on his sip of coffee.

“Are you fucking retarded? We find out that all hells about to break loose and you wanna charge in after someone who could be dead by now?!”

SLAP!

Claire had taken all of three seconds to move next to the man, and plant a nice slap across his cheek, she didn’t want to hear that kind of talk about Sherry. Claire had risked her life to get the then twelve-year-old out of the hell that was Raccoon City, she loved the girl as if she were her younger sister, and she wasn’t about to let the new guy talk bad about her. Not after she learned that Wesker managed to get a hold of her, Claire was so careful; she made sure no one but the group knew where Sherry was… She had to make sure Sherry was safe and back with her, before it was beyond too late.

“Alright alright! I get the picture. How do you propose we go about finding her?” The look Claire had given him said it all. He had all these computers, he had the knowledge only a hacker could have, it was up to him to find Sherry. He gave a half defeated sigh, and swung back around.

“I’ll let you know if I find anything. But don’t get your hopes up.”