CHAPTER FOUR

No Turning Back


Leon had to stop partway up the ladder, trying to keep his labored breathing under control. Panting like a dog would only make him even more light-headed, which was the last thing he wanted.

Climbing a ladder with an injured shoulder was not fun. Imagine that.

Which was why he'd insisted that Ada go first. If he lost his grip, she wouldn't be able to break his fall, and he'd have ended up taking both of them down. Not to mention that if there were any unpleasant surprises waiting for them at the top, he wouldn't be able to use his gun until he'd actually climbed all the way out; he couldn't trust his left hand to hold his full weight long enough for him to shoot something. From the thin-lipped look on her face, she had come to the same conclusions, and she'd headed up the ladder without any hesitation.

At least luck seemed to be temporarily on their side. Ada had reached the top, thrown the hatch open, and climbed out without incident, and she'd been out of sight for only a few seconds before she reappeared, looking down through the opening to give him the all clear signal.

Which meant all he needed to do at the moment was keep climbing. Which would go a lot easier if his shoulder would take a hint and stop hurting quite so much. The bite was bad enough. The added deep ache of a bullet-made bruise lower on his shoulder was trying to make his whole back spasm in reaction. Thank goodness the analgesic had kicked in, or this might actually have been impossible…

"Leon?"

Blinking, he looked up to see Ada peering down at him, the faintest hint of a furrow in her brow betraying more worry than he suspected the woman would be comfortable admitting to.

"Just… catching my breath," he replied, forcing a smile that he knew was a little shaky. At least he'd made better time than it had felt like; only about six feet left. The sight gave a welcome surge of added strength to his arms, as he gritted his teeth and forced himself to ignore the sharp pain in his shoulder long enough to cover that last span of distance.

The ladder led to a small room, lit by one plain, bare bulb in the center. The light concealed nearly as much as it revealed, casting the shelves crowded around the edges of the room into shadow, although in one corner Leon could make out the dim blink of lights on some kind of switchboard. This was probably the utility room for the police department, then.

Ada didn't say anything, simply waited patiently as Leon fought to catch his breath and wait for the pain in his shoulder to subside. "Sorry," he said ruefully.

To his surprise, she chuckled, flashing a quick smile that looked remarkably genuine. "You do have a hole in your shoulder. I think that entitles you to take your time."

Leon shook his head ruefully as he slid the hatch back into place – more out of habit than necessity, although on general principles he'd rather not leave an open trapdoor in the floor if for some reason they had to come back to this room. "I think hole is overstating it," he said, before shaking his head. "But all things considered, I think we need to keep moving. I don't want to know what else this place might throw at us…"

A flashing light caught his eye as he straightened. Startled, he looked down at his belt, and then quickly pulled out the radio and flipped it on.

"—eon? Leon, where are you?"

Dammit. There was an edge of real fear in Claire's voice. Leon quickly brought the radio up. "I'm here, Claire. Sorry – I was down in the sewer, that must have blocked the signal."

"Oh, thank God, you're all right!"

There was no mistaking the sheer relief in her voice, and Leon winced. It wasn't hard to imagine what had been going through Claire's mind when he hadn't responded to her transmission – especially since he hadn't checked in with her since going into the sewers.

"I'm still alive, at least," he said, a little wryly. All right was definitely an overstatement, but he was happy to settle for still alive, considering that the alternative was… worse than it normally would be.

For a moment, he considered telling her about Ada's theory, but… no. The only thing worse than no hope at all was having hope only for it to go wrong. And frankly, he wasn't sure he believed the idea. There could be any number of reasons why the infection hadn't taken hold on him yet.

More importantly, Claire wouldn't have taken the risk of contacting him unless it was important – not when a sound or light at the wrong moment could draw the attention of zombies. "What's happened?"

For half a moment, Claire paused – less hesitation and more forcefully reminding herself to focus, if he were to guess. "Irons is dead," she said, voice crisp and level. "But I think we may have found a way out of here. Can you get to Irons's office?"

"That depends. Where is it?" As he spoke, Leon glanced at Ada, whose lips pursed in frustration or calculation for a moment, before she huffed softly and rolled her eyes before waving a hand: fine, whatever.

"Second floor, southern wing," Claire replied. "The hallway with the fancy carpet. If you can make it to the S.T.A.R.S. office, I think we cleared out most of the zombies on our way over."

That would be a very good thing. Leon still had plenty of ammunition, but if Ada had a full clip left, he'd be surprised, and he only had the one gun. The less zombies they had to go through, the better.

"All right. I think we're in the basement, so it might take us a while to get there," he warned.

This time, the half-breath of silence before Claire spoke was definitely hesitation. "Be careful, okay? You were right – there's more out there than just zombies. One of them got Irons. I think I dealt with it, but… keep your eyes open."

It said something about the last few hours that the phrase "just zombies" even made sense. But Leon hadn't forgotten the carnage and destruction in the jail cell, or the corpses in the sewers. "Roger." Now it was Leon's turn to hesitate. "How's Sherry?"

"She's okay. Just a second…"

For a moment, he heard the familiar crackle of a radio passing hands, and then Sherry's voice called brightly, "Leon!"

He couldn't help but grin a bit. "Hey, kiddo. You good?"

"Yeah. We got to blow a monster up!"

Leon blinked. O…kay. "Were you behind cover when stuff went boom?"

"Yeah. It was really scary for a minute, but we were okay, and the monster's gone now."

"Then I hope you had fun."

"Are you okay?" Sherry asked, tone a mix of suspicion and anxiety.

"Still in one piece," Leon assured her. It was the safest answer he could give, anyway. "Hand me back to Claire?"

"'Kay…"

Leon waited until the crackle of motion had passed, and then asked grimly, "Monster?"

"The thing that got Irons. I think we took care of it, but… just, be careful. Bullets barely hurt it at all. I'll explain the rest when we meet up."

Fair enough. Maybe it was paranoia talking, or maybe not, but Leon wasn't sure he liked the idea of saying too much over the airwaves. "Got it. We're setting out now – hold down the fort for us."

"Got it."

Leon turned off the sound on the radio and hooked it back onto his belt – and then looked up, and nearly burst out laughing at the look on Ada's face.

Eyebrows still nearly at her hairline, she echoed, "I hope you had fun? Really?"

Leon shrugged, careful to keep his wounded shoulder still. The ache had faded a bit as he talked to Claire and Sherry; the last thing he wanted was to set it off again. "The way I see it, a nine-year-old kid who's managed to keep herself together during a zombie apocalypse deserves a bit of explosive stress relief," he admitted.

Ada pressed her lips together, but the sparkle in dark eyes and the way the corners of her mouth kept twitching betrayed her amusement. "I can't argue with that," she demurred, and nodded to the doorway. "Shall we?"

Leon quickly checked his gun – utterly unnecessary, but it was turning into something of a habit, and frankly he'd take anything that could help him stay calm at this point.

Truth be told, he'd wondered about trading their weapons. All things considered, it would be better for Ada to carry the weapon with the most ammunition, just in case they got separated. But neither of them had the time or the ammunition to get used to a new weapon.

A glance at the hinges showed that the door was designed to open inwardly, rather than swinging out into the hallway. On the one hand, good – he could crack the door open to peek outside, rather than being forced to throw it open all at once and take his chances. But an inward-swinging door would also be that much easier to break through from the outside. If there were zombies out there, and they noticed the door moving, they could force their way in before Leon could react…

A whisper of movement drew his attention to Ada, who'd shifted her position to stand in the back of the room, gun raised and leveled at the door. Good. If anything came through, she would have a direct line of fire, and some room to maneuver. Once she was in position, Ada glanced at him and nodded subtly – she was ready.

Leon nodded back, and then took a moment to set his ear against the door to listen.

Nothing, except for the low thrum of the power generators, reverberating through the floors and walls and into the heavy wood.

Reaching down, Leon tested the handle.

Huh. Unlocked. Bracing himself, he turned it until he felt more than heard the latch disengage, and eased it open an inch or two, senses alert for the first hint of a creak.

The caution paid off instantly – because there was a zombie right outside, its back to the door as dead eyes stared blankly at a flight of concrete stairs leading up to an open door above them.

Damn… door must only lock from the outside. Poor guy got infected, retreated down the stairs, but couldn't get through. Then his zombie couldn't get back up the stairs.

No way were they going to be able to sneak past this one – and he couldn't see far enough past it to judge just how much trouble he was about to bring down on them.

A silencer would be very handy right now.

But he didn't have one, and there wasn't much point in wishing. Bringing the gun up, he carefully aimed through the small opening he'd made. One shot, and the zombie crumpled, part of its skull missing from the force of the close-range headshot.

Instantly, he heard the all-too familiar moaning of roused zombies. Throwing the door open, he moved onto the small landing at the base of the stairs – interesting, apparently the utility room was the only room on this level, at least in this area, thank you would-be Bloody Stupid Johnson architect – and dropped into a crouch, sighting up the stairs with his gun.

Then he waited.

Drag-thump. Drag-thump. Drag-thump.

The stairway suddenly darkened as three zombies appeared, dark shadows against the light coming through from the door behind them. Empty eyes – literally empty, as if they'd been pecked out of the woman's face – staring blankly ahead, the leader shambled forward… and then suddenly pitched forward as the zombie stepped out onto the empty space of the top step. Unable to correct, she – it – tumbled forward, crashing down face-forward onto the stairs and sliding several steps downward on pure momentum alone. Fighting the reflexive urge to wince, Leon aimed and fired before the zombie could get back up. Luck was with him; the shot landed true, and the corpse gave a full-body spasm before going still except for the slight twitching that Leon had almost taught himself to ignore. A moment later, the other two also fell. Two shots took down the one on the right – but the one on the left was dragging itself downward with its hands and his first shot missed.

A different gun cracked out, and that zombie collapsed inert as well.

"Stairs as a tripwire. Good thinking," Ada commented, her head tilted to the side and eyes narrowed slightly in concentration. After a moment of waiting to let the echoes of gunfire fade from their ears, she added, "I don't hear any more. You?"

"Nothing. I think we're clear for the moment." Leon straightened, lowering his gun to point at the floor while keeping his grip combat-ready, and began to make his way up the stairs, carefully skirting around the still-shuddering limbs of the fallen zombies. The hardest part was the steps right below the top of the stairs, where he had to actually reach out and drag one of the zombies farther down the steps to clear a path.

He took the time to make doubly sure of that one before doing so, however. One bite from an enemy he'd thought was down was more than enough.

Ada ghosted up the steps behind him, her footfalls light and almost silent on the stairs. Like Leon, her gun was readied, but Leon noted that her attention was on watching the zombies as they passed them, leaving the vanguard to him. Apparently, she'd decided to save her remaining bullets to defend against any surprise attacks. Good thinking.

The door at the top of the stairs was broken; from the look of things, someone – likely the unfortunate fellow who'd been caught at the bottom of the stairs – had simply smashed through the lock rather than opening it normally. Which seemed odd, given that only three zombies had come through the door, but…

The station can't have fallen all at once. Maybe someone dealt with the ones that were chasing him?

That… or maybe he hadn't been trapped by accident. It was possible that, when he'd realized what was happening, he'd gone down the stairs deliberately, in order to ensure that his zombie wouldn't be able to get out and hurt anyone.

Leon shook his head slightly, shoving the thought away. Thinking about it wasn't going to help. He'd decided what he'd do the minute the infection started to take hold. And if he couldn't… well. He suspected Ada was more than level-headed enough to handle it for him. Which should have been terrifying, but at the moment it was more a comfort than anything else.

Although if it turns out she really is here just for a boyfriend, it will be a moot point because I will die of shock.

For the time being, however… he'd waited long enough for his eyes to adjust to the light after so long in the dimly lit sewers. Bracing himself, he stepped through the door, scanning his surroundings as he moved to the side to clear the path for Ada.

"Since when does a police station have a library?" he murmured in surprise, blinking.

"I think the operant thinking here was more along the lines of, why not," Ada replied quietly, looking over the rows of shelves with obvious interest. "I suppose it makes sense to keep hard copies of certain files."

True, but those hard copies were usually in a more secure location. Then again… this had been a museum. It was possible that the space had already been there, and they'd simply decided to make use of it.

Shaking his head, Leon started forward, keeping a close eye on the dark spaces between the shelves, as well as the walls set up around desks for privacy and isolation. Someone had carpeted the floor, probably in an attempt to muffle footfalls. Which was a good thing, if one was thinking about not disturbing a researcher's concentration. Less so when you were trying to listen for zombies.

Nothing stirred, although Leon did note several dark stains on the carpet near the door, and one of the desks had been overturned. The double doors themselves, he noted, had been not only closed, but also barricaded, with a long, heavy table pushed up against them. Probably it had once stood in the open area near the entrance, as a place where files or maps could be spread out and studied as a whole, or possibly used for meetings.

Ada studied it thoughtfully for a minute, and then looked up. "Should we take the upper level?"

Following her gaze, Leon saw a mezzanine level running along the inner wall of the room, towards a door that had to open onto the second floor. "Probably a good idea… shit. Won't work." In response to Ada's raised eyebrow, he nodded pointedly at an area right before the open door, where several rails were missing. "See how those are leaning inward? I'm guessing the floor gave out up there for some reason. It's not stable."

For a moment, Ada's lips pursed in a small moue of frustration, before she sighed. "I suppose you're right," she admitted. "Avoiding the ground floor isn't worth the risk of a broken leg." Turning away, she studied the table for a moment. "Well. Think we can manage it?"

Leon studied the table for a moment, glancing at the doors as he did so. Like the door of the utility room, they opened inward. Good for reconnaissance, bad for getting out, since they would have to move the table far enough to let them squeeze through. Still… "I think so. But let's try to be quiet. I'd rather not discover we attracted a swarm thumping around in here."

"Let's worry about moving it, first," Ada quipped, but she obligingly moved to one end of the table, setting her gun on top of it to free up her hands while still having the weapon in easy grabbing range in case something went wrong.

Slipping his own gun into its holster, Leon moved to the other end, reaching down and carefully setting his grip on the old, worn wood that must have been someone's family heirloom at one point or another.

Ironically, in the end staying quiet was the easy part. With the carpet on the floor, there was no way they could simply drag the table, not with just the two of them… but they couldn't lift it more than a millimeter or two, just enough for the two of them to stagger a few steps sideways. When they let go, the table didn't drop so much as simply resettle itself.

Small favor or not, I'll take it, Leon thought, flexing his hands in an attempt to shake feeling back into his fingers.

Stretching out her own arms, Ada moved around the desk to get a closer look at the door, and then pressed her ear against it with a frown. After a moment, she straightened and turned to look at him.

"It's locked, but from this side," she said. "Opening it won't be a problem. But… it sounds like there is something out there. I don't think they heard us, but we'll have to get past them. What are our options, once we go through?"

"Not a clue," Leon admitted. "Going through the sewers got me completely turned around. I didn't even know there was a library in this place."

Ada's lips twitched, just a bit. "So you weren't joking about it being your first day."

"I wish." Leon couldn't help the bit of rueful amusement that bubbled up. "I know it's something of a tradition to have the first day be terrible, but I really think this might be over the top."

"Put it like that, and the universe will find some way to top even this, just to prove it can," Ada said wryly. Lifting her gun, she took a step back to allow Leon to join her. They hadn't been able to move the table enough to actually open the door all the way, which meant that they needed to both be on the same side or the swinging door would block them off.

In fact… "Stand on the table?" Leon suggested.

Ada tilted her head slightly, then nodded. "Good thought," she said, lightly vaulting up onto the polished surface without any hesitation. Once up, she took a step or two – testing the stability and the traction of her flats, Leon guessed – and then dropped down to a kneeling stance, angled so that she would be looking over Leon's shoulder once the door opened.

Good. If they ran into trouble, Leon could retreat without crashing into her, and Ada would have the protection of high ground. Bracing himself, Leon unlocked the door slowly, so that there would be no betraying clunk as the deadbolt disengaged, and then eased it open.

Wait. This hallway…

"It's all right," he said, feeling some of the tension easing from his shoulders as he pulled the door open the rest of the way. Although the hallway did look a bit different, there was no mistaking the railed staircase paralleling it, or the barricaded window at the far end. "I know where we are now. This isn't far from the S.T.A.R.S. office."

He thought he heard a soft sigh of relief before the soft thmp as Ada hopped off the table again and followed him through the door. "You've been through here before?"

"Twice." After he'd left Sherry with Claire in the S.T.A.R.S. office, he'd backtracked the way he had come, planning to double-check the ground floor areas he'd skipped because there were too many zombies in the area or they were out of the way earlier. Now that he'd been reminded, he recalled briefly checking on the double-doors under the stairs, only to ignore them because they'd been locked; he hadn't had time to go hunting for a key. Which meant the rest of their path should be clear…

"What's wrong?" Ada asked sharply as Leon abruptly hesitated for a moment. Her eyes flicked back and forth from his face to the boarded-up window at the end of the hallway, clearly on edge from the groaning of the horde outside, and the erratic shuddering of the barricade.

"There were a few zombies in here; I cleared them out earlier." He hadn't had much choice, with the way they'd bunched up at the foot of the stairs. Luckily, he'd had plenty of time to pick them off from above, although one had actually managed to progress part of the way up the stairs by shambling over the fallen body of another.

A body that wasn't there anymore. The area around the base of the stairs was empty, save for blood soaking into wood… and a long smear that ran up the stairs.

Ada eyed the track of blood uneasily. "…Perhaps even headshots don't put them down permanently?" she suggested, her tone that of someone raising a possibility more for the sake of form than out of actual hope that she was right.

"Zombies don't climb stairs," Leon said reluctantly. And didn't it say something about the whole situation that he was wishing she was right about the zombies getting back up. At this point, he could handle needing to kill them again. Better that than wondering what new horror was about to be thrown at them-

CRASH!

Wood splintered under the weight of who knew how many bodies, the broken boards of the breached barricade clattering to the ground – along with the first of the zombies, pitching head-first through the now-open window. It didn't even get a chance to get back to its feet before it was followed by another, and two more, the smell of blood and worse things filling the air as the zombies dragged themselves right over the shards of glass still embedded in the window frame without a moment's pause.

"Up the stairs!" Leon yelled – unnecessarily, as he and Ada were both bolting for the staircase even as the words left his mouth.

Needing to re-kill a few zombies, they could handle. There was no way they could manage an endless horde of them.

For once, better the devil we don't know, than the one that we know will kill us!

At the top of the stairs, Leon quickly glanced around. The blood trail led to the window where Sherry had thought she'd seen something, earlier. At some point between when he'd gone downstairs and now, something had smashed its way through the glass – and then, by the look of things, gone out the same way, carrying the bodies of the zombies, and he really didn't want to think about that.

Not with the hallway below them quickly filling up with groaning zombies. Unlike most of the ones he'd seen in the station, these were all types, dressed in all styles of clothes – old, men and women, and Leon made himself look away before he noted more than that a few of the zombies weren't tall enough to be adults.

No point even trying to thin that crowd, not with more coming through the window every second. And with that many numbers…

"Keep moving," he said grimly, starting down the hallway. Eventually, pure crowd pressure would be enough for some of the zombies to make it up to the top of the stairs.

Hope Claire was right about the emergency exit.

Gritting his teeth, Leon set off down the hallway. Despite the crawling on the back of his neck and the adrenaline spiking his heart rate with the urge to run, run, run, he forced himself to go no faster than a brisk walk. They couldn't afford to exhaust themselves, and they should still have some time before the zombies were able to follow them up.

Assuming that's the only barricade that failed.

It should have been. There was no reason for the other barricades to have failed all at the same time. This wasn't like a video game where the difficulty level went up if you stayed into a certain area for too long, or triggered an event.

He picked up his pace a little more, regardless. Ada's footsteps sped up as well, as if they'd both been thinking the same thing.

No time to stop by the S.T.A.R.S. office again the way he'd hoped, either. Whatever information Claire had gotten out of it would have to be enough.

Several zombie corpses were lying on the carpet at the end of the hallway. Picking his way past them, Leon grabbed the door handle and pulled it open.

Boom.

"Raaaaaaaauuuuuuugh…"

The sound was muffled, and far too close for comfort. And also hair-raisingly familiar. For a moment, Leon and Ada both looked at each other, eyes wide.

"I have a feeling that was Ben's… friend," Ada said, her attempt at dry humor betrayed by the way her face had paled, and the white-knuckled grip of her hands on her small gun.

"I guess he didn't have very good taste in company," Leon managed, and flat and morbid as the joke was, it at least accomplished what he'd needed, shaking them both out of that animal urge to cower and hide, and they set off around the mezzanine, both of them walking as fast as they could without actually breaking into a run.

Two doors, Leon noted, as they rounded the back of the atrium and came around to the far side. Which one leads to Irons's office…?

BOOM!

The door they'd come through just a minute earlier didn't so much open as it exploded, shattered wood flying out to clatter down on the floor below amidst a hail of broken plaster and bricks.

The thing that emerged from the remnants of the doorway was… almost human. Or at least the left side and the legs were human; the left arm still wore what looked like the tattered remains of a white lab coat.

The right arm…

A mass of red and pink muscle, bulging in all the wrong places, so long that the tentacle-like tip dragged slightly on the floor, in spite of the fact that the human half of the body was bent over almost sideways in an attempt to compensate for the sheer mass of it. The arm had practically absorbed the upper half of the man's torso to anchor its mass… including the right side of the head, which seemed welded onto the side of the thing.

Worse… the man's eyes were awake, and aware.

And immediately fixed on the two of them – as did the massive, staring red eye, easily a foot across, set in the approximate area of that warped arm's bicep.

"Raaaauuuugh!"

The force of that roar – still vaguely recognizable as human, which was a nightmare all of its own – forced the creature to lean back, unable to move its head independently of that massive arm. But it was going to recover soon. Which meant…

"Run?" Leon breathed.

"Run," Ada managed.

They both hit the nearest door at a dead run, all thoughts of pacing thrown aside, and nearly fell down onto the carpeted floor as it gave way. The moment he'd mostly regained his balance, Leon whirled and slammed the door shut behind them. He didn't bother looking for a lock; based on what they'd just seen, it wouldn't be enough to stop the thing, just slow it for a moment. Then they were running again, and vaguely in the back of his mind Leon threw out a desperate thanks – carpeted floor meant VIP area, meaning the Chief's office was likely to be nearby…

When they rounded the next corner, Claire was standing in an open doorway, face pale. She didn't bother asking what was happening, just waved. "In here!"

She slammed the door behind them as they stumbled through. Leon nearly crashed into a chair before he could stop himself. Grabbing the back of it, he leaned against its support as he struggled to catch his breath. Under normal circumstances, a short run like that shouldn't have fatigued him so much. But it was late, he'd been on his feet for hours, he could feel the ache in his shoulder spiking up again despite the painkillers, and between the cold shock of pure adrenaline and running at a full sprint, he was getting near his limit.

Claire was looking back and forth between him and Ada, although her eyes kept flickering uneasily towards the door. "Leon, what…?"

His limit would just have adjust itself. Gritting his teeth, Leon forced himself to straighten, ignoring the spots dancing in his vision and nearly blocking out the room around them. "No time," he said breathlessly. "Where…"

Far too close at hand, there was another boom, and a spine-chilling roar.

Claire paled. "This way," she whispered, hands tight around her gun as she led the way past the massive shadow of an old-fashioned work desk, ignoring the stare of glassy eyes from the gloomy walls as she led them to…

Leon blinked as they stepped out of the classically furnished office into a narrow stairwell. "A secret door?" he asked, unable to keep the incredulous tone out of his voice. "Seriously?"

Claire's smile was tight and strained in the shadows. "That was my reaction," she admitted, before nodding towards the landing where the stairs turned, dimly lit from below. "Sherry's down there-"

"Wait," Ada hissed, glancing uneasily out into the office. "Is there a way to close this?"

Claire hesitated. "I don't know."

"Secret doors aren't much good if you have to leave them wide open," Leon suggested, turning. A careful look at the wall revealed a series of levers and pulleys, but it looked as if they were attached to some kind of latches on the outside – probably the mechanism used to open the door. Which meant…

Leon stepped back and away from the wall. If the latch to release it was here, and it looked like the door slid open that way… "Ada, the lever there!"

Ada didn't hesitate, grabbing the latch set across a wide slot in the wall and pulling it up. As soon as she did so, a panel slid out of the opening, the levers and pulleys shifting as it settled back into place with a clack that seemed as loud as a gunshot as they were plunged into darkness.

For a long moment, none of them moved.

Finally, though, Claire shifted, the whisper of fabric startlingly loud in the quiet. "Downstairs," she breathed, barely more than a slightly fainter shadow by his side even after Leon's eyes had adjusted to the darkness; the office hadn't exactly been brightly lit, but now all they had was that faint gleam at the foot of the stairs.

They all descended carefully, easing their weight onto each step before committing to it in an effort to muffle any footsteps; none of them wanted to lead trouble to their hiding place. Luckily, the stairs were solid – concrete or stone, Leon wasn't sure, but either way, they absorbed each step with barely more than a soft thmp. Even so, Leon could feel his ears straining at every sound, trying to pick out the sound of unbalanced footsteps or moaning above.

By the time they'd reached the bottom, though, some of the tension had started to ease from Leon's shoulders. Going by the lag between the first crash and when that monster had come out on the mezzanine… by now, it should have reached the door to Irons's office. Either it couldn't figure out where they'd gone, or it had lost interest once they were out of sight. With luck, the delay would give them enough time to regroup and get out of here.

Not that luck's been much help lately, he thought wryly, pushing the door open.

"Claire, you're… Leon!"

Sherry moved in a blur, lunging forward to slam into his leg. "You're okay!" she cried, grabbing on tight with both arms and tentacles.

Almost in spite of himself, Leon had to smile, reaching down to ruffle her hair. At some point, she'd lost the worse of the dirt and clumps, and now he could make out the bright flaxen blonde hidden underneath the mess. "Hey, kiddo. Sorry to worry you."

A sharp inhale behind him. "Leon, who…?"

Ah. Right. Between the barricades breaking and the monster, he'd never actually gotten around to warning her, had he.

Nothing to do but brazen it out now. "Right." Leon shifted slightly, so that he could see the other two. Ada was hesitating in the doorway, her face not so much hesitant as completely, dangerously blank.

But not shooting and not panicking. I'll take it.

"Ada, this is Claire," he said, tilting his head at the redhead watching Ada warily, her gun lowered to point at the floor but a tension in her arms silently promising that she would change that very quickly if she had to. "And the pixie here is Sherry."

Sherry looked up in surprise at her name, and Leon knew the exact moment that she suddenly realized there was a stranger in the room. With a startled sound, she was suddenly hiding behind Leon, peeking out from behind his leg to study the newcomer warily. "…Hi," she said, after a long moment.

"Hello," Ada said. "You're rather different."

Leon somehow wasn't even surprised that she'd gone straight for the throat of the matter.

What did surprise him, though, was that Sherry didn't flinch. Instead, her jaw set mulishly as she actually leaned out a little farther so that she could give the woman a proper glower. "I'm not a monster," she declared. "Not unless I try to eat people. Leon said so. I wouldn't want to eat people anyway. That's gross. And Claire says that you never know where people have been, so it's stupid, too!"

Ada blinked, the blank expression shifting to nonplussed for just a moment. Then…

"…pfft…"

Sherry's mouth dropped open. "Hey!" she cried, letting go of Leon entirely. "You're laughing at me!"

Ada brought her free hand up to cover her mouth, although it didn't exactly do much to hide the little hitch in her shoulders as she… yes, that really was a giggle. "I'm not," she assured the girl, laughter clear in her voice. "I'm laughing because I would have told you the same thing."

"Oh." Sherry frowned slightly, and then relaxed. "Okay."

Leon let out a silent breath, feeling his shoulders relax a bit. That was one crisis averted, at least.

But now that it was past, the rest of their situation pressed in on him. "Claire. You said you'd found a way out?"

The young woman had been watching Ada with wary, narrowed eyes; at Leon's question, she started slightly, shaking her head slightly as she reoriented her thoughts.

"Over there," she said, nodding towards the back of the room. In the shadow of the heavy table that took up most of the center of the room – and Leon had seen enough morgues to know that he didn't really want to look too closely at the shape underneath that heavy stained tarp – a trapdoor had been set into the floor. "That goes down into the sewer area – but there's a shuttle down there. I don't know where it goes, but Irons was trying to get out that way."

"What happened to him?" Ada asked. She was taking advantage of the pause to check her gun over and reload, but her attention was clearly on the conversation.

Claire shivered. "He… didn't make it."

"Zombies?" Leon asked, although that didn't quite seem to fit. How would zombies get into a secret passage that no one was supposed to know about?

Claire shook her head, hand tightening on the strap of the satchel she'd slung over her shoulder. "No, this was… something else. It looked… well, almost human. Except for the arm…"

Leon felt his eyes widen as he traded a worried glance with Ada. "The right arm? Swollen, oversized, like the muscles outgrew the skin?" he asked uneasily. "With a massive red eye in it?"

Claire's own eye had widened to the point where Leon could see the whites all around the iris. "Wait. You saw it?" she demanded. "When? Where?"

Leon nodded pointedly towards the door of the lab and the secret staircase leading. "It was right behind us."

Claire's mouth slowly closed, opened again, closed – and then she exploded. "You've got to be kidding me – I put a grenade down that thing's throat! How is it still alive?"

Wait. Something that had taken a point blank grenade and walked away? Oh, this was not good…

Soft laughter suddenly broke the tension.

"Sorry," Ada said ruefully, eyes dancing. "It's just… who'd have thought that a zombie apocalypse would bring out all the interesting people?"

Claire blinked at her, and then suddenly began giggling herself. Leon leaned against the wall, biting down a snicker of his own – and then failed when he glanced at Sherry, who was looking back and forth between them with an unmistakable look on her face: grown-ups are weird.

The laughter quickly passed, but Leon had to admit that he felt better for it. They'd needed that.

But they weren't out of the woods yet. "Claire? You said there's a shuttle?"

Breathing deeply to help calm herself, Claire nodded. "An intra-city transport one, it looked like. There was an Umbrella logo on it."

Umbrella, huh? Leon glanced at Ada, who nodded.

"That must lead to the lab," she agreed, dark eyes sharp with interest.

Claire hesitated. "Lab?" she asked warily.

"I came to the city looking for my boyfriend," Ada explained, and her shoulders slumped slightly. "Although I'm not holding out much hope for him at this point…" Shaking her head, she went on. "John worked for Umbrella's research department. And… He didn't talk about it directly – I'm fairly certain it was supposed to be a company secret – but from what I gathered, Umbrella has an auxiliary lab somewhere underneath the city, where they conduct the more dangerous experiments." She huffed. "Somehow, I doubt the zoning commission would be pleased to hear about that."

Claire started to bite her lip before visibly catching herself. "Then… that might not be a good idea after all," she said slowly, grip tightening on her satchel strap. "The city is bad enough. That monster had a lab coat on – it might have come from there. What if there are more?"

Leon grimaced. "Unfortunately, we don't really have a choice," he admitted.

"But – it didn't follow you down here. If we wait for it to leave the area…"

"Still won't help," he told her. "The zombies have broken through the barricade on the first floor. There's no way we're fighting our way out through that."

Claire paled. But a moment later, she squared her shoulders and nodded briskly. "Right." Glancing at her satchel, she asked, "What's your ammunition supply like? I picked up as much as I could when we left the S.T.A.R.S. office. And there are two grenades left. Apparently they don't put the big guy down for good, but they'll at least buy time."

"I'm good," Leon said, and glanced at Ada.

She made a face. "I have one full round left," she said, holding up her small, snub-nosed derringer. "But that's it. And your bullets won't work in this."

Leon grimaced. "Now I wish I'd picked up a backup when I went through the armory," he muttered. At the time, he'd mostly been focused on picking out the useable ammunition. There hadn't exactly been many guns left, anyway – from the look of it, they'd handed out nearly everything while trying to scramble a response to the zombies.

"Um…" A slight tug on the bottom of his vest made him blink, looking down to see Sherry peering up at him. She was still attached to his side, although her grip had eased a bit as her head turned this way and that to follow the conversation.

"What about that?" she asked, pointing to the shelves.

Following her pointing finger, Leon blinked. And then grinned. "Good pickup," he told her, making his way past the table and its suspicious shroud to lift the shotgun down. It was a recent model, clean and well-oiled; Irons had taken good care of it.

Guess that isn't a surprise. Taxidermy lab. Guy must have loved hunting.

A glance in the box next to it showed maybe two dozen shells, set into a neatly coiled belt. Not much, but a damn sight better than six small handgun bullets.

"Here," he said, passing the belt to Ada and waiting for her to set the rig in place before he handed over the gun itself. Irons must have been a pretty heavy guy; rather than try to shorten the straps and deal with the dangling ends, Ada extended them and simply wrapped them around her waist twice, adjusting it slightly so that the weight was evenly distributed. "Not sure how accurate that'll be at a distance – but up close, I wouldn't be surprised if you could take two down with one shot, if you aimed it right."

Ada's teeth flashed white in a sly smile. "My. Do I get flowers and chocolates next?"

Um.

And Claire was snickering now, darn it. "Okay," she said, starting for the trapdoor in the back. "In that case… let's get moving."

~RESIDENTPROJECT~

"Oof!" Stumbling back an unintentional step – thankfully, not towards the broken railing, although she could feel Leon hovering at her shoulder just in case – Claire lowered Sherry down to the grating just a little bit faster than she'd really intended to. "You're heavier than you look."

Sherry's lips pursed, obviously trying to decide if she should take offense to that or not, and Claire chuckled, ruffling the girl's hair. "It's a good thing," she reassured her. "Just means you're tough!"

And in hindsight… Claire wasn't sure if those tentacles were built like a tail, with bone underneath, or like real tentacles, which were just layers of muscle over muscle… but either way, they had to be pretty dense, especially given the way Sherry used them to anchor herself sometimes. No wonder she was heavier than she looked – a lot of her weight was tied up in a part of her that didn't really look like part of her natural body mass.

Balancing all that has to be a pain. We should keep an eye on that, just in case.

"All clear?" Ada asked quietly, still waiting up above.

"Just a second." Claire gently urged Sherry to move around her and join Leon, who had moved a little farther down the catwalk once he was sure Claire's footing was stable. He was mostly keeping watch on the far end of the catwalk now, although Claire honestly wasn't sure what any of them would do if something like that monster showed up again. At least Leon had taken one of the grenades, even if he'd insisted that Claire hang on to the second.

"In this situation, we're unlikely to need more than one at a time," he'd told her. "Better to spread them out, just in case."

Shaking her head slightly, Claire looked back up. "Clear," she called back. "Do you want any help?"

"Take this?" Ada lowered the shotgun by its strap.

Nodding, Claire reached up, catching the weapon when Ada dropped it the last few inches. Then she stepped back, clearing the space underneath the catwalk as Ada carefully set her grip on the edge of the opening and lowered herself down. The woman waited until her arms were fully extended, legs dangling – and then let go, landing surprisingly softly on the catwalk with a grace that Claire couldn't help feeling more than a little jealous of.

"Are you an acrobat or something?" she… okay, yes, that was a grumble, as she held out the shotgun.

Ada's lips twitched as she accepted it back, pulling the strap over her shoulder as she checked to make certain that her ammo rig hadn't slipped out of place. "I do take classes," she admitted. "I like to stay in shape."

"Everyone good?" Leon asked quietly.

Claire retrieved her handgun from the satchel, re-releasing the safety once it was in her hands again. Which went against all the rules of gun safety she'd learned – you never released the safety until you were ready to shoot! – but hard experience had taught her that if a zombie caught them by surprise, that extra step was one more complication that she might not be able to afford. "We're ready."

Nodding, Leon started off down the walkway, moving slowly and steadily but not particularly trying to muffle his footsteps – with the four of them, trying to be stealthy on the rattling catwalk would have been a lost cause, anyway. He'd insisted on taking point, noting that he had training in moving into a potentially hostile area, and Claire had to grant that point.

It didn't change the fact that she was fairly certain that the real reason he wanted to be in front was because if he succumbed to the infection without warning, he wanted to be in front of them, where they could see it and shoot him before he attacked any of them.

Don't let that happen. Please. It's been… I'm not even sure anymore, but it has to have been over an hour! And if this is a lab, maybe we'll find something that can help him…

Claire and Sherry were in the center, keeping watch on either side. Ada was the rearguard, mostly because she was the shortest on usable ammunition. Claire wasn't sure she liked the woman – something about Ada was too sharp, just a little too controlled after all the chaos they'd been through, like she was always calculating something. But she was competent, and right now, Claire could forgive a lot for that.

Nothing stirred as they crossed the catwalk and made their way down the stairs – although Leon hesitated for a moment at the top of the stairs, studying the blood splattered all over the top third of the staircase, so fresh that it still gleamed bright and wet in the places where it had pooled.

It's only been maybe half an hour, if that, Claire admitted to herself, picking her way down the stairs carefully. And if she made a point of avoiding the blood as much as possible… well, she wasn't the only one doing that.

It wasn't until they were past the worst of the gore-streaked stairs that an uneasy thought tapped Claire on the shoulder. So what happened to the body?

Granted, part of it had probably fallen over the edge, down into the darkness below. But she'd heard something hit the grating, before. And it wasn't there now.

Not much I can do about that. Other than maybe be a little bit grateful. Sherry was holding up well, even after her minor breakdown earlier, but she was just as glad to spare the kid the experience of seeing the dismembered pieces of someone Sherry knew. Bad Man or not.

There wasn't much to the platform at the base of the stairs. An open, octagonal space, industrial steel plates dull under the stark glare of a bright, bare white light overhead and adding the tang of raw steel to the scent of cold and damp already filling her nose, although there didn't seem to be a lot of moisture up in this area. On five sides, bare, minimalist guard rails were all that stood between the edge of the platform and complete darkness – and this had to have started as a natural cave, because Claire could think of absolutely no logical reason why anyone would hollow out this much space under the city without using it for something.

Particularly given that the other three sides were set into solid stone – with the central section a gaping black maw of a tunnel, leading who-knew-where. A single guiderail ran out of the tunnel to meet the single shuttle-car resting in the center of the platform, about half the length of the standard city mass-transit shuttle, currently docked into a large block that looked like equipment of some kind. A simple stair led to a small platform on the end of the shuttle facing the tunnel and a half-open door leading inside.

Which is odd. This type of shuttle usually opens on the sides, for easier access.

Ada passed Claire as she hesitated at the edge of the light, the dark-haired woman making straight for the machinery. Leon's eyebrows rose slightly in surprise, but he followed her, a few steps back as his eyes kept a constant scan on their surroundings.

Claire was a little slower to follow. Something about this place had all the hair on her body prickling uneasily, although she wasn't entirely certain why. But Sherry seemed to feel it too. As soon as they stepped into the light, the little girl latched onto Claire's side and stayed there, pressed so close that Claire could feel the faint trembling shaking her small body. Which might have been nerves, or the cold air wafting up from the darkness below, or just the sheer weight of the stillness and the silence.

Or something else entirely. One thing, Claire was sure of: something wasn't right here. She just didn't know if it was the kind of not right that was going to jump out and kill them… or the inherent not right-ness of the entire setup in the first place.

Ada made a thoughtful sound as she stepped back from the mechanism. "A control station, I think," she said. "It looks like it takes a key card of some kind to activate, and a passcode to release the shuttle to its destination." She nodded the dark tunnel.

Claire blinked. "You mean, someone outside the car has to operate it?" she asked, startled. Everything she'd seen here – everything – said that this was some sort of secret operation. She couldn't picture Irons bringing a compatriot in.

"I imagine it can be launched from the inside as well," Ada said, shrugging slightly. "But it's definitely designed to be controlled by an outside operator if necessary."

"Makes sense," Leon said thoughtfully.

Claire found herself exchanging startled glances with Ada. "How?" she demanded.

Leon shrugged. "If Irons was just trading information with Umbrella, he wouldn't need a set-up like this. Even if he didn't trust remote communications… chief of police is as much a political job as it is law enforcement, and Umbrella basically runs the city. It would be easy to come up with reasons for him to drop by their main office. It would be more suspicious if he didn't." He tilted his head towards the shuttle. "That's too big for just one person to ride. Which means this whole thing is set up for Irons to transport something, likely on at least a semi-regular basis."

"Like what?" Ada said, frowning.

"No idea. And I'm kind of scared to wonder," Leon admitted. "Although right now, I'm more worried about how we're going to get it to work."

Ada hesitated, ever so slightly – and then seemed to come to a decision. "I can get us past the passcode," she said, quietly confident.

Claire's eyes widened. Yes, most systems were hackable, given time and assuming you didn't get caught or locked out in the process. But to be that confident she could hack a system she didn't know…

There were really only two types of people who could pull something like that off. And if Ada were a government agent, surely she would have said something.

Leon's eyebrows had shot up – but after a moment, he slowly nodded. "This is me officially Not Asking," he said, the faintest touch of wry amusement in his voice. "Can you get past the key as well?"

"That depends," Ada said, brisk and professional now. "If it's an electronic key, then yes. But if the key is required to physically complete the circuits… that would require equipment I don't have here. I might still be able to, but it would take hours, at least." A tiny, rueful smile tugged at her lips. "This is really not how I planned on spending my evening."

Which raised the question of what she had been planning on, but… "Oh no," Claire breathed. "Irons… he must have been carrying the key. But…" Almost unwillingly, she glanced back at the bloody, bodyless stairs.

Leon followed her gaze and grimaced. "All right," he said at last, visibly bracing himself. "Ada… go ahead and see what you can do with what we have. We'll search the area. Maybe luck was with us for once and Irons dropped it out here before he died."

"And if it's not?" Claire asked, trying not to sound too skeptical. Luck was the last thing she wanted to count on right now.

Leon looked out over the edge of the platform, into the darkness. "Then either we try our hands at spelunking… or we settle in for what could be a very long walk." He nodded towards the tunnel.

There was a heavy metallic clunk – when Claire turned to look, Ada had opened up a hatch in the base of the equipment. "Go ahead," she said, voice slightly distracted as her eyes narrowed in concentration. "I'll do what I can out here for now. The systems are linked at this stage, so I should at least be able to manage the first part from here."

Sighing, Claire nodded, and then turned, starting for the stairs at the head of the shuttle. If Irons had been trying to escape this way, that was the farthest he would have gone. Maybe they'd be really lucky and the key would already be inside the shuttle – the door was open, after all…

A sharp tug on her jacket brought her up short in surprise.

"Sherry?" Frowning, she glanced back over her shoulder. "What's wrong?"

Wide blue eyes were sweeping the platform, and the darkness beyond. "Something's here," Sherry whispered, huddling close, as if she wanted to hide behind Claire but didn't dare stop her search. Her tentacles were twitching, the fuzz on them rippling ever so slightly as though testing the air, while stray strands of bright blond were curling this way and that. "Something bad."

Leon had paused, Sherry's whisper just loud enough for him to catch it. "What do you mean?" he asked, voice dropping as well.

"I don't know!" The tone and tension in Sherry's voice was practically a wail – but the volume never rose above a whisper. "But it's hungry, and it's waiting, and it's… just wrong."

Ice running down her spine, Claire jerked her head up, scanning their surroundings again.

There weren't exactly many places to hide down here, unless it was in the dark, empty space beyond the circle of too-bright light that was the platform. The platform itself was almost bare, nothing casting a shadow on the plain metal flooring except for the four of them, the docking equipment where Ada stood, and the shuttle…

The open shuttle. The shuttle that was also cutting off their view of anything that might be on the other side.

Leon's eyes were narrowed and dangerous when they glanced at each other again – he'd figured it out, too. Drawing in a careful, slow breath, Claire hefted her gun and gestured to herself before tilting her head slightly, looking pointedly at the far end of the shuttle, with its staircase and the door looking out into the tunnel. For a moment, it looked like Leon was going to argue, but finally he grimaced and nodded ever so slightly, indicating the end of the shuttle locked into the dock with a quick glance of his own.

Bracing herself, Claire started moving towards the far end of the shuttle. This time, Sherry moved with her, a whisper-quiet presence that radiated focused intent so strongly that Claire almost could feel it like a physical pressure against her skin. Claire did her best to stay equally quiet as she moved; at least the solid steel plates of the platform didn't rattle the way the catwalk had, but her boots were designed for hard walking and protection if her jetbike crashed for some reason, not stealth.

After a moment's consideration, Claire swung wide as she walked, keeping a significant distance from the shuttle and that open door. Better to clear the outside before risking the close quarters of the shuttle itself.

But the far side of the platform looked clear. Which left…

Gun leveled and ready, Claire took a few more steps sideways, until she'd come around and was looking down the far side of the shuttle.

…Nothing. Just the empty platform, the shuttle, the dock – and a flicker of movement that resolved into Leon, as he cleared the other end as well.

Whatever this is… it's hiding.

Even if a zombie had been in the shuttle itself… they'd been talking right outside. The door was open. She'd have been visible through it.

Nothing they'd seen so far seemed to understand the concept of ambush. Not even the monster.

So what is it?

Nodding to her, Leon began to pace forward along the length of the shuttle, eyes intent on the dark shadow underneath it. For her part, Claire began advancing slowly towards the stairs.

Wait. Something's under them!

Her gun was leveled and ready almost before her conscious mind even realized she'd seen something. But it didn't move… and one step closer, and she suddenly realized what she'd seen.

So that's what happened to Irons.

Not that the pitiful mess really looked like a person at all, arms and legs disjointed and in pieces. It was almost like looking at a dismembered doll… if not for the reek of blood and more unpleasant things that seemed to hit her all at once, as if they'd just been waiting for her to realize what they actually were.

Although there were clearly pieces missing. Including the head. Claire didn't know if that was a kindness, or if it just made things worse.

Breathe. Breathe. We need to figure out what happened. You can do this.

Still… she gently waved for Sherry to step back as Leon came up to join them before bracing herself and stepping forward, breathing through her mouth as much as she could and trying desperately not to retch. Not just from the smell. Dead bodies, she'd almost gotten used to, but this…

It looks like he was sliced up like a piece of meat. She was guiltily grateful for the stark shadows cast by the light. She didn't have to look too closely-

In the shadows, something gleamed.

Starting, Claire narrowed her eyes, daring a step closer.

Poking halfway out of what probably had been the man's back pocket was a metallic rectangle, the face edged with fine lines that could almost pass for a miniaturized city map in their density and complexity.

That's got to be the key! Smiling in relief, Claire reached out.

Plip.

Blinking, she froze, looking at the droplet that had just splashed down on her hand. As she watched, it began to ooze down the back of her palm, moving just a little too slowly, white bubbles of air caught in viscous liquid.

That's… not water.

Feeling like she was moving in slow motion, Claire looked up.

Death grinned with a thousand needle-sharp teeth. And dropped.

"Ceiling-!"

Sudden impact threw Claire sideways – Sherry had tackled her, sending both of them tumbling across the steel floor, as something landed where she'd just been standing.

Idiot, idiot, you knew there was something out there that could climb-!

Claire gritted her teeth, pushing herself halfway to her feet – and then diving for the gun she'd reflexively dropped when she fell, because never drop your weapon was all well and good, but trying to hang on to a loaded and live weapon when she was tumbling head over heels was begging for an ugly accident.

Crack! Crack! Crack!

"Shit that thing's fast!" Leon snarled, twisting in his shooter's crouch as he tried to keep a bead on…

Claire honestly wasn't sure what it was. She hadn't really made out more than teeth and falling straight at me before. And now…

It moved in sharp, quick spurts, like a four-legged wolf spider, skittering fast and erratic across the steel flooring as it circled around them, making short, threatening darts in and out, as if testing their response. Claire couldn't seem to make sense of what it looked like – just a blue of blood-red and fleshy pink and an odd, almost translucent hint of white-

And the long, bone-white talons that bit gouges into solid steel as the thing cornered sharply, lunging in at them and then diving away when Leon fired, dodging the bullet by no more than a hair.

"What is that thing?" she gasped.

"No idea," Leon replied, "but…"

More gunfire. On the other side of the shuttle.

There's more than one! "Go!" Claire snapped, already on the move, feeling Sherry keeping pace in her shadow. "We have to regroup!" Ada couldn't afford to lose many more bullets, and she was the only one who knew how to hack the security on this thing, they couldn't afford to lose her.

Leon fired almost as soon as he rounded the corner of the shuttle, and Claire saw another skitter of pink and red darting away – good, they had breathing room-

Sudden weight on her shoulders slammed Claire onto the flooring. Gritting her teeth, she twisted – just enough to see a needle-filled mouth open, and a tongue come out, out, out – that thing had to be at least two feet long, what the hell! – and heard an odd wheezing, as if the thing's lungs were attached to the outside of its body…

A piercing shriek, and the world faded.

~RESIDENTPROJECT~

Leon staggered. That scream wasn't just sound – it was :fury, denial, death to those that threaten!:, hammering through his mind with actual, physical force that shook his bones as though he was standing in the center of the climax of one of the old traditional drum performances-

The air rippled, like a heat wave made visible. On the far side of the platform, railing bent, one post actually breaking free of the platform with a scream of metal – a scream joined by a higher, shriller shriek as the creature that had attacked Ada crashed to the ground, flung by the edge of that strange wave of force. And for one moment, it wasn't dodging.

Got you!

Sighting down his gun, Leon snapped off six more shots, focusing on the center of mass – what there was of it, with this strange, spindly thing. Only four hit, only enough to slow it… which was just enough for him to move closer, aim, and put one last shot through its head.

The thing exploded into motion – but this was spasmodic, uncontrolled, like the death throes of an insect that had met with the wrong chemical. Leon jumped back, out of the reach of those slashing claws, but it quickly became clear that the thing was no longer an active threat.

He turned, quickly taking in the rest of the group. Ada was leaning heavily against the machinery, her face as drawn and haggard as any student dealing with the aftermath of a three-night bender, but still on her feet. Claire was pushing herself back up to her feet, eyes wide. And Sherry…

Leon whistled.

Sherry slowly extracted herself from the eviscerated remnants of another creature, blue eyes glittering silver-bright and all but snapping electrical sparks of fury as her tentacles pulled back, showing barb-filled tips for just a moment before they furled closed again, bloody hands twitching with a gleam of – yes, those were definitely claws at her fingertips.

Who'd have thought. The kid's the most heavily armed out of all of us. Pun intended.

Only, now that the adrenaline rush was past, Sherry was blinking, desperate rage fading into confusion and exhaustion, as though she couldn't wrap her mind around what she'd just done.

But alive.

Letting out a slow breath, Leon turned to take a closer look at the creature he'd killed; the one Sherry had gone after was in a few too many pieces.

It was roughly human-sized, maybe a little smaller. Proportioned like a human, as well – although Leon had seen the way it moved, there was no way its hips were hinged like a human's. The skin was a mottled, red-veined pink – almost as though someone had stripped away the skin, or converted it to a transparent seal that showed every detail of muscle and arteries underneath.

The head was the part that had all the hairs on the back of Leon's neck shivering. The jaw was bad enough – a gaping maw that would have gone from ear to ear, if the thing had any ears, an insanely long tongue lolling out between far too many needles of teeth. But above that…

No eyes. Just a mass of corrugated, white tissue with the odd almost-translucence of fat, that looked unsettlingly like brain matter. As if the whole creature had been turned inside out. And between the brain, and the almost-human size and limbs…

The zombies were human. The monster we saw on the mezzanine must have started human. Was this…?

Distracted, he didn't hear the whisper of talons on steel until Ada shouted, "Leon, behind you!" He whirled, taking in gaping jaws spraying spittle, talons gleaming-

The first one, we forgot about it…!

Thwok.

Leon dove to the side, already knowing that the thing was still dangerous until its death throes ended. Although how it kept twitching with a knife driven through the place where the spine connected to the head and up into where the brain should be… well, he didn't want to think too much about that.

He did, however, plant a boot on its back long enough to pull the knife free. It was a bit of a risk, but… it belonged to Claire's brother. She'd want it back.

Not to mention, that made this the second time she'd saved his neck with the thing. He was getting a little attached to her having it, himself.

Something clanged, a low hum vibrating through the platform, and Ada stepped back from the equipment. "The passcode's in," she called. "We just need the key!"

Wait. She'd been hacking all this time? Leon wasn't sure if he was terrified or impressed. Then again, no reason it couldn't be both.

"I think I've got it," Claire called back, ducking down behind the stairs again. She came up with something that gleamed flat and metallic in her hand. "Let's get out of this place!"

"Wait!" Leon said sharply. "We don't know that there aren't more in there."

The run to the shuttle gave him enough momentum that he didn't need to bother with the stairs – he just jumped straight onto the small step in front of the door. At this point, stealth was a lost cause anyway; he went through the half-open door the way he'd been trained, going down into a roll that would carry him past any attempt to ambush him at the entrance and coming up facing the opening, gun raised and trained on the shadows of the ceiling.

Nothing moved. And more than that… it felt empty, even as he swept his gun around in a full pan of the darkened shuttle, looking closely at the shadows of some sort of poles – handholds? Guiderails for equipment?

After a full ten seconds – he made himself count them out silently, not trusting his hammering heart to keep time – without anything leaping down at him or lunging out of the shadows, he allowed himself a sigh of relief. "Clear," he said, relaxing slightly as he rose back to his feet.

Claire and Sherry came through, the girl still obviously dazed. Ada followed behind them, dark eyes intently scanning the platform until she'd stepped inside, at which point she quickly looked over the interior.

"Here," she said, pointing at a small terminal next to the door. "The key should go in that slot."

The moment Claire slotted the odd card into place, the lights came on, a single row running down the center of the shuttle. Momentarily dazzled, Leon heard rather than saw the door of the car automatically swing closed, and then felt the subtle vibration under his feet that meant the shuttle was moving. His vision cleared a second or two later – just in time to see the small windows on the side go dark as they entered the tunnel.

For a long moment, all of them just waited. Then, almost as one, they sighed, slowly relaxing as the tension began to drain away at last.

"Well," Ada said, after a careful pause. "That's done, then."

Leon nodded, scanning the interior of the shuttle now that he could see it properly. Oddly bare, even for the most basic transit shuttle – which hopefully was a sign that they wouldn't be in here for long. "We should get some rest, though," he cautioned. "Somehow, I suspect things are going to be interesting once we reach…"

He would have finished the sentence… except that he'd turned, and looked at what was in the back of the shuttle.

~RESIDENTPROJECT~

When Leon's words abruptly cut short, Ada stiffened, turning quickly to look at him. They'd thought the shuttle was cleared, but if they'd been wrong…

There… wasn't really a word to describe the look on Leon's face. But given what he was looking at… that didn't surprise her.

"I think I know what Irons was shipping to Umbrella," Leon said. His tone was light. Almost casual.

But if this were a special effects film, his eyes would likely have been sparkling black lightning, as he studied the array of small cells.

Claire gasped faintly. "That's… but… how?" she demanded. "You can't just – make people vanish and not get noticed!"

Normally, Ada rather enjoyed the way her mind was always one step ahead. Not at the moment. Because now that she had the pieces, she could see it all come together. "Oh, but he could. There are always people who are on the edges of the system, one way or another. Homeless. Drifters. Runaway. Petty criminals, even. And it would be so easy for him to arrange. He picks someone in the jail for the night. Has them brought to his office for a little talk. And then… just wait for the shift to change, and tell anyone who asks that he let them leave with a warning." She shook her head slightly. "Even if someone noticed that they vanished after that… people would just assume they'd skipped town. Irons did have a reputation, after all."

Claire went white, then her cheeks flushed red with fury. "Instead of being sent to Umbrella as… what, research materials? That doesn't make sense! Not to mention that it's illegal – we're not the freaking Satrapy!"

"The Satrapy has codes about what human-based research is acceptable," Ada said sharply. Even the idiots in Minus Wave were careful to toe the line – if only because the kami had opinions about what was and was not to be tolerated. "It's the Confederacy that likes to make monsters."

"And Umbrella, as a company, has a reputation to maintain," Leon said quietly. "But that's the scary thing about companies as entities. They tend to behave like psychopaths. So long as they don't get caught…"

A soft, shuddering inhale cut through the conversation with a force completely disproportionate to its volume. Startled, Ada turned to see Sherry staring at them, her eyes glassy and far too bright.

"I'm…" she started, only for her wavering voice to fail her as a tear slipped out, making a watery line through the blood-spatter on her face. "I'm… still not a monster. Right…?"

"Oh, honey." The rage vanished from Claire's face as the young woman picked the girl up, not hesitating in the slightest at the blood or the tentacles. "You're not a monster. You saved me back there. Twice. You were awesome."

The girl hiccupped a little, leaning heavily against Claire's shoulder. The redhead blinked, eyes suddenly lighting up, before she began patting at the pockets of her vest. "And I'll bet you're worn out after all that. I should have… here." She snapped one of the pockets open and pulled out a bar of chocolate.

Leon's eyebrows rose. "Huh. That's right. Psychokinesis." He shook his head. "Hang on a second – let's get that mess cleaned off a bit before you eat anything."

Claire winced. "Oof, good point. But I hate to use up our drinking water…"

"Use these." Ada opened up the first aid kit – she'd taken it from Leon, since his bad shoulder didn't need the added weight – and fished out a set of sterilizing wipes.

Getting the blood off of Sherry's face and hands took a minute, but soon she was munching her way through a bar of dark chocolate with a speed that was remarkable even for a stressed young girl, let alone one who'd just killed something. And not the slightest reaction to what a child would consider an unpleasantly bitter taste. Interesting.

"Claire's right, you know," Leon said, in a light, cheery tone that had Ada raising her eyebrows, because that tone promised mischief. "You're not a monster. You're a badass."

The look on Sherry's face as her jaw dropped and she turned to stare at the man in shocked disbelief very nearly put Ada on the floor laughing. "…That's a bad word," Sherry said, eyes huge.

Claire was visibly biting back giggles as she wiped down her own hands. "No, it isn't. It's an awesome word," she said mischievously.

"Besides," Leon added with a shrug. "I'm pretty sure all of us have earned the right to use at least a few bad words, in this mess."

Sherry blinked. "You can earn bad words?" she asked, clearly fascinated.

Leon's smile turned a little wry, mischief shifting to something more rueful. "In a way. You've heard of magic words, right? You say them, and something helpful happens?"

Sherry's lips pursed. "That's kid story stuff."

"Yeah. But the thing is… if something really bad is happening? Bad words can do that," Leon told her, and Ada blinked, because the man's tone was completely serious. "They can make you just a little bit stronger, a little bit faster, a little bit tougher. But." He raised a warning finger. "The trick is: if you use them too much, if you even get used to hearing them too much… then they lose their power. Which is why you should never say them, unless something really bad is happening."

"Really?" Claire asked curiously.

Leon nodded. "Last I heard, no one was one hundred percent sure how it works. But it does," he said.

"Focus," Ada mused. "Swearing is rather like gathering a great deal of tension and frustration, and then letting it go in one breath. I can see how that would be helpful, under stress." She sighed, still listening with half an ear to the hum of the shuttle. It had yet to change in pitch, and between that and the stark darkness outside the small windows… there was a part of her that was convinced they weren't actually going anywhere.

Come to think of it… "I was actually joking about the flowers and chocolates, but… do you have any more of that?" she asked Claire.

The redhead blinked, before patting at her vest again. "I think… yeah." Pulling out another bar, she said, "I try to keep a couple on me, just in case." Ripping the wrapper open, she looked at Leon.

He shook his head. "Not really hungry."

Scowling, Claire broke the bar into three pieces, tossing one of them to Ada before stubbornly holding out another for Leon. "Tough. It's been a long day for all of us, we need to eat something."

"And you more than us," Ada added pointedly. "You're the one who's injured."

Sighing, Leon gave in and accepted the offered piece of chocolate. And for all his reluctance, it vanished remarkably quickly. Claire had already gulped hers down with a speed that really didn't do any justice at all to what turned out to be quite good chocolate.

Ada had meant to savor her own piece – as a way to get her taste buds to convince her stomach that yes, it was getting something, just be patient – but the minute the flavor hit her tongue, she gave up on trying to maintain that level of self-control. She was tired, and it was far from over yet.

Just as well. The last of the chocolate vanished just as a slight shift in the hum, and the faint sense of falling forward, told them that the shuttle was decelerating.

A few seconds later, the interior of the shuttle suddenly brightened as the windows went from dark to light again. Then the shuttle slowed even more, before settling in with a clank that made the floor shiver.

~RESIDENTPROJECT~

AN: The game treats Leon's injury as effectively cosmetic – shock puts him down briefly (realistic, that; the human body does not like having holes suddenly punched into it), and after that the character model changes… and there are no lingering effects. Pragmatically, however, even the relatively minor form of the injury that I gave him is in fact a seriously limiting injury. Our arms require our shoulders for mobility and support – any sort of weight-bearing effort will put strain on it. And that is going to hurt like hell.

Claire's knack with knife throwing is a reference to the way that she and Leon met in one of the remakes of RE2.

Cool tidbit? Yes, Sherry would normally find dark chocolate too bitter. Children's tastebuds are highly sensitive to bitterness (part of why getting children to eat veggies is hard!); there's a reason dark chocolate is considered "adult" chocolate, and not just because it's a mild aphrodisiac.

As for Leon's comment about the powers of swearing? There's actual evidence that this works – cursing has pain-numbing, muscle-strengthening, mind-focusing effects when under stress. But only if you don't swear normally. If you're dropping F-bombs and four-letter words on a regular basis, swearing under stress has no beneficial effects whatsoever.

(And if you're wondering why Sherry didn't call him on swearing when the Lickers dropped in – super-fast creepy monsters radiating psychic wrongness, gunfire, and one heck of an adrenaline rush. She probably didn't hear a word of it!)