CHAPTER 2: Corruption
"So what do we do now?" Michelle asked Commander Richard; a week ago, during the fiasco with Birkin, the T-virus leaked out of from the sewers into the city from infected rats and they began infecting anyone they bit and so on. During their time away, the entire city began crumbling under the virus.
"To ensure Umbrella's survival," Commander Richard responded, "the story of what happened must never be told; we need to make sure the truth dies along with every scrap of evidence and survivor. Delta Team, commence Operation Raccoon City."
With that, he cut off all transmission.
"What is Operation Raccoon City?" Spectre asked his leader.
"Operation Raccoon City is a precautionary task in case an outbreak of one of Umbrella's viruses happens, we are to 'clean up' by destroying every scrap of evidence and kill every single survivor. However, since this is an outbreak of a virus that makes people eat other people, the government will most likely bomb the city. But, of course they'll send Special Operatives in to collect evidence, so we will likely have to kill them along with most survivors." Michelle explained, wiping the sweat from her forehead before placing the mask back on."So, now we wait for our orders to come in."
"So we're the cleanup crew?" Bertha asked.
"Basically." Michelle said as she sat down in the chair. Her team had just endured one terror and were about to face another. Now, their training would mean the difference between life and death. Their wrist computers beeping drew them from their thoughts. Their directions were in.
Go to City Hall and destroy all evidence
"Alright, City Hall is just up ahead, let's move." Michelle said as her team started running to the desired location, their eye sockets showing them the path.
"Umbrella is making us responsible for this little 'accident.'" Spectre said, annoyance dripping off of his voice.
"Yes, let's hope everything goes according to plan." Bertha said.
"Yeah, Umbrella won't be happy with us until we convince them they aren't connected to this outbreak." Vector said.
"Command, position reached." Michelle said as they reached the end of the hallway, waiting at the door that led out into the cold zone.
"Position confirmed, WOLFPACK, proceed into the "Cold-Zone." Commander Richard said as they opened the door and went into the ghost town once known as Raccoon City. They walked into a hallway and were instantly greeted with a headless body of a woman.
"Seems appropriate." Beltway quipped before they continued up the stairs that led into the next building.
"Heard something." Spectre whispered just as Michelle raised her hand, stopping the team and going ahead.
"Be careful." Four Eyes said as Michelle nodded. She pulled out her Desert Eagle and kicked open the door. To her surprise, there was nothing in the room except for scattered papers.
"Come on, it's safe." Michelle said to her teammates. Upon reaching the other side of the room, she opened the door and a pale woman grabbed her and pulled him towards her. In shock, she instantly dropped her guns, leaving herself unarmed. Once she gained her senses back, Michelle whipped out her knife and stabbed her in the throat, ready to see the bitch drop and die. Instead the woman backed up, but looked back Michelle with a snarl.
That when she got a good look at her: she obviously was a blonde in her past before she got infected and she could see the bites on her shoulder from a human mouth, meaning she was infected by some other poor soul. Her eyes were white and glazed over and her gray skin was riddled with blue spider veins. Michelle quickly sized up herself situation, looking at the zombie and the guns had landed behind the zombie. Quickly deciding to wing it, she quickly ran for the guns, but she bent down to bite her. Michelle quickly twisted her body away from the mouth while also kicking it in jaw. Getting a firm grip on both of her guns and took aim, shooting the zombified woman in the head along with the two other zombies who appeared behind her. With a sigh escaping her mouth, Michelle holstered her Desert Eagles and reclaimed her rifle before looking over at her team.
"You could've stepped in at any time." She said, a chuckle escaping her mouth.
"Well, you handled it." Beltway joked, making Michelle chuckle as they noticed some sounds over to the right. Looking over the railing, the found four zombies eating away at a dead body. Beltway threw a frag into the group and before they could understand there were more living humans, they were blown up.
They entered the next room and cleared all of the zombies out of the room. They finished the job and as soon as Michelle touched the doorknob, it was flung open. In a second, Michelle was on top of a squirming man, knife to throat and pistol to head. When she realized the man was alive, she got off of him.
"Who are you?" Michelle asked putting away her weapons.
"Nicholai Ginovaef, UCBS D-Platoon, B-Squad." He explained, picking up his gun. "You're Umbrella's Security Service? Upper management must be in a panic if they sent you."
"What is happening is none of your concern, why are you here?" Michelle asked the man.
"My team was sent to save citizens, but there's is no time for that." Nicholai explained. "City Hall is a mess. I'm trying to find a safe zone."
"There is no safe zone. What's going on in there?" Michelle asked, curious to know what they were walking into.
"City Hall is crawling with infected and some unidentified military personnel. They're looking for something... Why? What are you doing-"
"No information that you're classified to know." Michelle cut him off.
"I say we silence him." Spectre suggested as the others nodded in agreement. Nicholai, visibly afraid, looking into the glowing eye sockets of Michelle's mask.
"Nah, he would be a waste of our ammo and time." Bertha said, shaking the mercenary's shoulder.
"Plus he's UCBS, he'll get himself killed." Beltway added.
"We've got our orders, let's move out and you, stay out of our way." Michelle warned before she and WOLFPACK continued to City Hall.
"All the best in your mission." Nicholai said before he walked in the other direction.
"The City Hall has been locked down. Assess the security room and override it." Commander Richard told them as they continued walking.
"Yes sir." Michelle said as she grabbed the right ammo from the ammo box next to the stairs. They walked up the stairs and opened up the double doors to a dark room filled with zombies. In the middle was a tree and a large hole in the roof. They were just outside of City Hall.
"Attack!" Michelle shouted as they started expertly shooting each infected in the head. Not before long, the entire area was clear.
"Let's move in." Michelle said they opened the doors to City Hall and were greeted by a flash of light, but their masks stopped them from being blinded.
"Spec Ops!" Michelle shouted as she and Bertha took cover behind a overturned desk. "Kill them all!"
The firefight lasted a total of five minutes after WOLFPACK took out both the waves of soldiers. They moved through the room to next one and too out all the Spec Ops in there easily. After investigating the room, they entered through double doors into the security room. Michelle took out the few Spec Ops in the room before Spectre went to the desk and started to override the security lockdown.
"Good, now you can access the server room and destroy all of the city's records." Commander Richard said.
"That monitor there." Spectre told them. "That is the security feed from earlier today."
They walked to the monitor as Spectre pressed the play button. It was a hallway and a figure appeared to be walking down the area. It was Nicholai! He turned around and fired a shot into his team member's knee, knocking him down as he closed the door. Two other members appeared; one ran over the wounded one and banged on the door while the other shot at something. Zombies appeared and attacked the one shooting at them as the one at the door ran and tried to climb up a pole but was pulled down by the undead horde.
"That was Nicholai and his team." Michelle said.
"Isn't that against company policy?" Spectre asked, chuckling.
"Nobody cares about dead UCBS until they attack us." Michelle said, making the rest of the team chuckle.
"Come on, let's get this over with."
Then, the double doors nearby swung open as zombies poured in. WOLFPACK took out the horde of zombies and as they ascended up the stairs, illuminated by the soda machines, they heard gunfire.
"I guess they are more Spec Ops." Beltway said as they quietly opened door. Two Spec Ops with their backs turned to the team. Michelle, along with Bertha, snuck up behind the men. Michelle wrapped her hand around the man's mouth as she stabbed a knife in his carotid artery while Bertha shot the man in the back of his head. As they walked down the hallway to their right, zombies burst through the door and nearly bit Michelle, who quickly moved her arm, grabbed her knife and jammed it into into its head. Vector shot the other one down that was stumbling up behind Michelle, shocking her at first before she noticed the dead zombie on the ground.
"Thanks." Michelle said.
"No problem." Vector said as they continued down the hall, wary of every small sound. They opened the double doors, and then descended down another zombie-infested corridor. As they continued killing the undead infected, they found more Spec Ops.
"Alright, I'm growing sick of you guys." Michelle said as she fired her Militia Rifle, taking out as many as she could. However, one snuck behind him and knocked the gun from her hand. Michelle quickly spun around and grabbed the barrel of the gun and flung it upward, avoiding the gunfire.
She ripped it from the man's hands and hit him in the head with the butt before firing rounds into the man's chest, killing him. Michelle used the man's Assault Rifle to kill off the remaining remaining Spec Ops.
"I hope that's the end of them." Beltway said before they continued and slaughtered the other Spec Ops around him. Michelle sighed as she shot the men.
How many Spec Ops are left in this building? She mentally groaned.
After finishing off the remaining opposing team, WOLFPACK entered a room where the servers were held. On the ground were the mutilated bodies of Nicholai's team.
"This must be Nicholai's team." Four Eyes said as she walked through the room.
"Something is seriously wrong with that man if he fed his own team to those things." Vector said.
"But we can't forget why we're here, take out those servers." Michelle said.
Beltway took the clip off a frag grenade as they walked out. Beltway pulled the pin from the grenade and threw it over his shoulder as he walked out. The unusually large explosion from such a small frag blasted the servers and destroyed them, leaving nothing left.
"New type of frag Umbrella's been working on." He explained to his teammates. "Nice work."
"Good job." Michelle said as they walked through the room into the next one.
"Proceed to the record's rooms and finish the job." Commander Richard said.
"Gotcha." Michelle said as they entered a blood plastered hallway. They walked down the hallway until they reached a corridor. Michelle quickly dispatched of a Spec Op standing watch. They continued down until they reached the stairs, which they quickly and quietly ascended. The stair split into two sections heard gunfire coming from both of them. Michelle sent Vector, Beltway, and Spectre to one side while she, Four Eyes, and Bertha went up the other. The ladies effortlessly wiped out the others, while the others annihilated the rest.
The two hallways converged into one room, in which many Spec Ops waited. However, they were no match for the ambush from both sides and were quickly dealt with. WOLFPACK continued their search for the record's room and when they entered the double doors in front of the Spec Ops location and finally found the record room.
"Records room found, let's get this over with so we can get out of this hellhole." Michelle said as she turned on the night vision on her mask.
"Now find that evidence and get rid of it." Commander Richard said as they quickly found a large pile of scrolls.
"I guess this is it." Michelle said as she pressed a button on her wrist, sprouting flames that instantly burned the scrolls to ashes. They continued forward until Beltway stopped them. He sprayed something from a small container on his side, revealing a red laser leading to a proximity mine.
"Apparently, the Spec Ops got here first." Spectre said as Michelle shot the mine. The found two more pile of scrolls when they cut off again by laser-trip mines, which Beltway deactivated and kept for possible later use. After that, they easily found the last two piles and had succeeded.
"Command, the evidence is gone." Michelle said as she and her team started descending the down the stairs out of the office.
"Let's get out of here before those things escapes." Four Eyes said.
They descended to find a Spec Ops weapons stash. They quickly reloaded their weapons and entered the next room. As they were walking down the stairs, they stepped onto what appeared to be a stage, they saw a figure in the light.
"Shit!" Beltway said as they recognized it as Nicholai.
"What the hell is wrong with you? Why would you sacrifice your team, you bastard?!" Michelle shouted before Nicholai let out a long hearty laugh.
"They served their purpose most excellently." Nicholai said. "Just as you will!" He shouted as he fired at Michelle, who dodged it.
"Damn it Nicholai, get back here now!" Beltway said as Nicholai ran away. Before the agents could purse him, a inhuman mixture between roar and hiss boomed through the area before out of an open vent crawled what looked like a inside-out human with claws and an extended brain crawled out from a the ceiling vent.
"Oh no, those are experimental tyrants, they unstable and very resistant to damage!" Four Eyes shouted as she and her group opened fire. In the academy, they were called "Lickers" for their tongues. One lashed it tongue at Michelle who grabbed it and quickly twisted, pulling the creature towards her before she slammed it into the ground and jammed her knife into its brain. It howled in pain before it stopped moving.
"Let's hurry out of here!" Michelle shouted as they jumped down and ran to the door as the room started to catch on fire, which was locked.
"Shit!" Michelle shouted as she kicked against the door, but it wouldn't budge. "Beltway!"
"On it!" Beltway said as he placed charges against the hinges of the door and pressed a detonator. The charges detonated, destroying the hinges and allowing Michelle to kick the door in. The door went flying in as they ran into the room.
They walked up the stairs to find themselves in the room where they entered City Hall. They quickly ran out, avoiding the entire zombie horde, and kneeled down in the safety of another building.
"I swear, after this, I need a long vacation." Michelle panted out, earning nods from her teammates.
