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Knowledge is a mercenary's trade, and Ada found herself short of this resource.
To her, knowledge was power. She had held it closer than anything she had ever managed to retain in her life. For her, knowing things was strength. It gave her leverage; it gave her the power to bargain. Uncovering the unknown was how she found calm.
And yet, she did not know this one thing, and she did not know how she could know.
Ada was perched atop the rooftop of a 7/11. The street below her buzzed with light activity even in the earliest hours of the morning, when the sun had not even begun to show. She had not rested that night; she did not think she could that day.
She absentmindedly felt the engravings on her grappling gun—courtesy of Wesker, who’d thought it would make a fine addition to his most fickle asset—her. Her fingers caressed the ridges and bumps the patterns made under her fingertips. Her legs were clad in leather; the slightly clammy, humid air sticking the fabric to her legs was uncomfortable. She didn’t mind. Discomfort was good; it was familiar. Familiarity was good.
It was September 30th, 1999. Exactly a year since Raccoon City was destroyed and took millions of lives with it. She couldn’t determine if hers not being one of them was a blessing or the worst mistake she had ever made.
Exactly a year since she had slapped Simmons’ clammy hands away from her face when he’d moved to touch her, offering her work for the rest of her life if she’d just “be by his side forever." She had feared the ramifications of this act. He had actual power; she didn’t. As much as she tried cementing her position in the world down under, she was just a pawn, and her survival depended on whether her overlords fancied her for the time being.
Perhaps she should be grateful that Wesker was impressed by her survival in Raccoon City and offered her a chance to work for him, if only she gave him the reins to her life. A worthy price, he’d said, for saving her. On some days, she was just a recovery agent, retrieving some weapon of destruction he wanted that he couldn’t bother to get himself. On others, she was the quiet spy she’d been trained to be, watching and listening for intel he needed.
On all of them, she hated her life and the choices she hadn’t made that had brought her there.
Below her, a group of young people, maybe in their early to mid-twenties, exited the bar across the street. She watched as they laughed at a joke someone made. One of them, a boy, swung his arm over the shoulder of a girl. She jokingly shrugged him off and pushed him with her elbow with a chuckle. He smiled fondly at her. Ada could tell they were in love.
An emotion she had been working hard to suppress this entire time surfaced just then without warning. She was entirely unprepared to deal with it.
She couldn’t believe she missed him.
A sob caught in her throat at her last memory of him—him fighting that gigantic monster she had thought she’d already killed; her throwing him a rocket launcher, even though pain shot through her chest even when she tried to as much as breathe. “We’ll call it even,” is what she’d said to herself as she’d done so.
And yet, she’d remembered his face as she’d let herself fall, helpless as she felt about her fate. She saw the conviction, the desperation in his eyes to save her. Even as she dangled from the bridge by just her wrist in his hand, the memory of the last time she’d seen him properly had etched itself in her mind. “It’s not worth it,” she’d told him. She’d believed in it. She wasn’t worth the trouble. She wasn’t worth the panic and desperation on his face. On anyone’s face. She also knew he didn’t believe her.
She closed her eyes as if to block the memory. Her fingers had never stilled their caress on her grappling gun—they continued seeking comfort where there was none.
Knowledge was her weapon of choice. She was entirely unarmed now.
She didn’t know if Leon had lived through 30th September, 1998. The day everything ended. The day the city ceased to exist and burned an irrecoverable part of her.
It wasn’t for a lack of trying. She had tried looking into government documents, stray emails, survivor lists. Her association with Wesker limited where her skilled hands could go without being traced. Ada was a smart woman; she knew not to get on his wrong side. She hated him, revered him, feared him. She had no choice but to wait until opportunity struck.
She watched more people stumble out of the bar. For a moment, she let herself imagine a life where he had come out of Raccoon City unscathed. He was only twenty-two; he’d probably found a nice college girl by now with whom he was stumbling out of some bar on the other side of the country.
The thought didn’t make her jealous; she only felt relieved. She wished it were true. She wished at least one of them was free.
Without warning, her eyes stung with unshed tears. She looked up to the sky immediately, seeking the light of the moon to subdue her tears. She had never been one to cry, not for a boy at least. Especially not alone on a rooftop.
However, as she turned her eyes upwards, she found no moon. Only the darkness of the night sky stared back at her, offering no mercy, no solace, nor any comfort. She was alone.
The tears fell from her eyes one by one, slowly down her cheek, as if taunting her. You couldn’t save him. You can’t do good, Ada. It’s futile to try.
This is your life.
It was as if a dam had burst. Her chest heaved with every sob she failed to contain; she whimpered with every cry she fought to suppress. She didn’t move to wipe her tears, though. She let them fall. It was her one gift to herself.
By the time she’d found her wits, the sky was beginning to lighten around the edges. Her red tank top had been dampened by the tears trickling down her face. She felt slightly chilly in the early morning air. Exhausted, she stood up; the sound of her heel scraping against the shingles made a satisfying clatter.
As she gathered her weapons to return to her safehouse, she spotted an elderly couple walking ahead, undoubtedly on a morning walk. The man said something to the woman, maybe a joke, to which she responded with a laugh. The coming sun caught both their faces in an almost scenic picture. Ada could tell he’d been handsome in his youth, with blonde strands visible amongst the gray expanse of his hair. The woman was still beautiful; her dark hair was chopped short, grey strands streaked through almost fashionably. They stopped for a moment, and he moved to tighten her scarf around her neck, probably with a remark about catching a cold. She probably thanked him. His skin wrinkled around his blue eyes as he smiled, which she returned with her brown ones.
The picture in front of her was so pure, so free of malice, and so full of love that she felt mesmerized. She was unable to look away. It was as if she had spotted a lone butterfly in a barren land. A mix of emotions swelled within Ada. Envy, sadness, joy… Hope.