Resident Evil - Resident Evil 03 - City Of The Dead # S. D. Perry.rtf

prologue

Raccoon Times, August 26,1998

MAYOR ANNOUNCES 'KEEP CITY SAFE' PLAN

RACCOON CITY—On the front steps of City Hall, Mayor Harris
announced in a press conference yesterday afternoon that the City
Council will be hiring at least ten new police officers to join the
Raccoon police, in response to the continued suspension of the
Special Tactics and Rescue Squad (S.T.A.R.S.), in effect since the
brutal murders that plagued Raccoon earlier this summer. Joined
by Police Chief Brian Irons and all of Raccoon's Council members,
Harris assured the gathered citizens and reporters that Raccoon
City will once again be a safe community in which to live and
work, and that the investigation into the eleven "cannibal"
murders and three fatal wild-animal attacks is far from closed.
"Just because no one else has been attacked in the last month
doesn't mean that the elected officials of this city can relax,"

Harris stated. "The good people of Raccoon deserve to have
confidence in their police force and to be secure in the knowledge
that their political representatives are doing everything possible to
ensure each citizen's safety. As many of you know, the
S.T.A.R.S.'s suspension is likely to become permanent. That unit's
gross mishandling of the murder investigations and its subsequent
disappearance from Raccoon City suggests that they don't care
about this community—but I want to assure you that we care,
that myself, Chief Irons, and the men and women you see here
today want nothing more than to make Raccoon a place in which
our children can grow up without fear."

Harris went on to detail a three-point plan designed to bolster
public confidence and keep Raccoon citizens from falling victim to
violence. Besides hiring between ten and twelve new police
officers, the citywide curfew will remain in place through at least
September, and Chief Irons will personally head a task force of
several officers and detectives to continue searching for the killers
who took the lives of eleven people between May and July of this
year. . . .

Cityside, September 4,1998

RENOVATION OP UMBRELLA COMPLEX PLANNED

RACCOON CITY— The Umbrella chemical plant just south of
downtown Raccoon is due for major construction efforts, slated to
begin next Monday. This will be the third such structural
renovation in the last year for the thriving pharmaceutical
company. According to Umbrella spokesperson Amanda Whitney,
two of the laboratories inside the main plant will be fitted with
several million dollars' worth of new equipment designed for

vaccine synthesis, and the building itself will receive a state-of-
the-art security system. In addition, all of the connected office
buildings will be upgrading computers over the next several
weeks. But will this be a problem for downtown traffic? Said
Whitney, "With the Raccoon police building just finishing up yet
another one of their renovations, we know that local commuters
are getting pretty tired of blocked streets. We're going to do our
best not to get in the way of downtown traffic; most of the
construction is internal, and the rest we'll be doing after business
hours." The courtyard in front of the RPD building, our readers
may remember, was recently repaved and landscaped after several
mysterious cracks appeared in the cement and topsoil; traffic had
to be diverted around two blocks of Oak Street for six days.

When asked why so many "overhauls" as of late, Whitney
replied, "Umbrella has stayed ahead of the competition for as long
as it has by keeping up with current technology. It's going to be a
busy couple of months, but I think it will be well worth the effort
when we're finally through. . . ."

Raccoon Weekly Editorial, September 17, 1998
IRONS TO RUN?

RACCOON CITY— Mayor Harris may be in for a rough race next
spring. Weekly sources inside the RPD are saying that Brian Irons,
chief of police for the last four-and-a-half years, may be running
for the city's top office in the next election, facing off against the
popular and as yet unopposed Devlin Harris, already in office for
three consecutive terms. Although Irons would not confirm his
possible entry into the political arena, the onetime S.T.A.R.S.
member also refused to deny the rumor.

With his approval rating at an all-time high ever since the
cessation of this summer's savage murders (as yet unsolved) and
the planned expansion of the RPD, Chief Irons may indeed be the
man to knock Harris out of City Hall; the question is, will voters
be able to forget Irons's alleged involvement in the 1994 Cider
District land scam? Or his rather expensive tastes in art and
interior design, which have turned parts of the RPD building into
something more like a museum than a working office? Assuming
he means to throw his hat into the ring, this reporter—for one—
will be looking forward to examining Irons's financial
records. . . .

Raccoon Times, September 22,1998

TEENAGER ATTACKED IN CITY PARK

RACCOON CITY—At, approximately 6:30 p.m. last night, fourteen-
year-old Shanna Williamson was accosted by a mysterious stranger
in downtown's Birch Street Park on the way home from softball
practice. The man came out from behind a row of hedges at the
south end of the park and knocked Ms. Williamson off of her
bicycle before attempting to grab her. The teen managed to get
away with only a few scratches, running to the nearby residence of
Tom and Clara Atkins; Mrs. Atkins alerted the authorities, who
conducted a thorough search of the park but found no sign of the
attacker. According to the girl (through a police statement issued
earlier this morning), the man appeared to be a transient; his
clothes and hair were dirty, and she described a bad odor coming
from him, a "smell like rotten fruit." She also said that he seemed
drunk, staggering and falling after her as she ran.

With the plague of cannibalistic murders from May to July still
unsolved, the RPD is taking Ms. Williamson's encounter very

seriously; the assailant bears a striking resemblance to eyewitness
reports of the "gang" members spotted in Victory Park last June.
Mayor Harris has called a press conference for later today, and
Police Chief Brian Irons has stated already that with the first of
the newly hired police officers expected next week, regular patrols
will extend their routes to include the downtown park blocks. . . .

one

SEPTEMBER 26, 1998

WITH THE GUYS WAITING OUTSIDE IN BAR-
ry's truck, Jill did her best to hurry. It wasn't easy; the
house had been tossed since the last time she'd been
there, the floors were strewn with books and papers,
and it was too dark to navigate around the debris
easily. That her small home had been violated was
upsetting, though not much of a surprise. She figured
she should just be thankful that she wasn't really the
sentimental type—and that the intruders hadn't
managed to find her passport.

She grabbed random handfuls of clean socks and
underwear in the cramped darkness of the bedroom
and stuffed them deep into her weathered backpack,
wishing she could turn on the lights. Packing a bag in
the dark was harder than it sounded, would be even if
one's house hadn't been trashed; but she knew they
couldn't afford to take any chances. It was unlikely

that Umbrella still had all of their houses staked out,
but if there was anyone watching, a light in the
window could draw fire.

At least you're getting out. No more hiding.

There was that much. They were headed for foreign
soil, to storm enemy headquarters and very likely get
killed in the process, but at least she wouldn't have to
hang out in Raccoon anymore. And from what she'd
read in the papers lately, maybe that was for the best.
Two attacks in the last week . . . Chris and Barry were
skeptical about the danger, even knowing what the T-
Virus did to people—Barry thought it was some kind
of a PR stunt, that Umbrella would "rescue" Raccoon
before anyone got hurt. Chris agreed, insisting that
Umbrella wouldn't crap in their own back yard, so to
speak, what with the Spencer estate disaster so recent.
But Jill wasn't prepared to assume anything; Umbrel-
la had already proven that they couldn't contain their
research. And with what Rebecca and David Trapp's
team had faced in Maine . . .

Now wasn't the time to think about that—they had
a plane to catch. Jill scooped the flashlight off the
dresser and was about to head for the living room
when she remembered that she only had one bra with
her. Scowling, she turned back to the open drawers
and started to dig. She had enough clothing already,
chosen from what Brad had left behind when he'd fled
Raccoon; she and the guys had been holed up in his
vacant house for several weeks, ever since Umbrella
had hit Barry's house, and although none of Brad's
stuff fit Chris's tall frame or Barry's massive one,

she'd been able to make do. Lingerie, however, wasn't
something the S.T.A.R.S. pilot had stocked up on.
She didn't particularly want to hop off the plane in
Austria and have to go bra shopping.

"Vanity, thy name is underwire," she muttered
softly, pawing through the rumpled heap. She found
the elusive article only after she'd gone through the
drawer twice, and crammed it into the bag as she
jogged toward the small front room of the rented
house. It was only the second time she'd been there
since they'd gone into hiding; she had the feeling she
might not be coming back for a while. There was a
picture of her father on one of the bookshelves that
she wanted to take.

Stepping nimbly through the dark clutter, she
hooded the flashlight with one hand and trained the
narrow beam at the corner where the shelf had been.
The Umbrella team had knocked the whole thing over
but apparently hadn't bothered to go through the
books themselves. God only knew what they'd been
looking for in the first place. Clues as to where the
renegade S.T.A.R.S. were hiding, probably; after the
attack at Barry's house and the disastrous mission at
Caliban Cove, she no longer had any illusions about
Umbrella simply ignoring them.

Jill spotted the book she wanted, a rather lurid-
looking paperback entitled Prison Life; her father
would have laughed. She picked it up and rifled
through the pages, stopping when the light fell across
Dick Valentine's crooked grin. He'd sent the picture
along with one of his more recent letters, and she'd

tucked it into the book so that she wouldn't lose it.
Hiding important things was a habit she'd gotten into
young, one that had just paid off yet again.

She let the book drop, the need to hurry suddenly
forgotten as she gazed down at the photo. A faint
smile played across her lips. He was probably the only
man she knew of who looked good in the bright
orange jumpsuit of a maximum security pen. For just
a moment, she wondered what he'd think of her
current predicament; in a roundabout way, he was
responsible, at least for her getting involved with the
S.T.A.R.S. in the first place. After he'd been sent up,
he'd urged her to get out of the business, even saying
that he'd been wrong to train her as a thief . . .

. . . so I take a legit job, actually working for society
instead of against it—and people in Raccoon start
dying. The S.T.A.R.S. uncover a conspiracy to create
bioweapons with a virus that turns living things into
monsters. Obviously nobody believes us, the S.T.A.R.S.
that can't be bought by Umbrella are either discredited
or eliminated. So we go underground, try to dig up
proof and come up empty-handed as Umbrella contin-
ues to screw around with their dangerous research and
more good people are killed. Now we're off on what will
probably be a suicide mission to Europe to see if we can
infiltrate the headquarters of a multibillion-dollar cor-
poration and stop them from destroying the goddamn
planet. What would you think, I wonder? Assuming
you'd even believe such a fantastic tale, what would
you think?

"You'd be proud of me, Dick," she whispered,
scarcely aware that she'd spoken aloud—and not at

all sure if it was the truth. Her father wanted to see
her in a less perilous line of work, and compared to
what she and the other ex-S.T.A.R.S. were currently
up against, burglary was about as dangerous as ac-
counting.

After a long moment, she carefully placed the photo
...