A/N: Augh, this heat wave is really messing up my sleep schedule- if things are worse then usual I apologize in advance, I think they look fine but I am also suffering from insomnia.
Update: 02/10/17
Allure and Darkness
Chapter Nine: No Exit
Crash Site 2:50 A.M
Quint fussed over the computer terminal muttered under his breath as he hit a block and kept going, seemingly unaware of the cold that had Keith shivering. The darker skinned man gave his partner a look as he shivered, miserable after the extended period of exposure. No one would be happy to be out in the cold for this long, and yet his otherwise delicate colleague seemed to be entirely unaffected. Mind over matter, he couldn't help but think to himself.
"Well, well, well." Quint mutter under his breath, catching his partner's attention. "Whoa! That's amazing."
This was soon followed by furious typing, and Keith moved to look over his partner's shoulder curiously. As the duo watched the bar seemed to blink, and then suddenly stop. The tech began typing furiously again, cursing under his breath as his fingers flew across the keyboard. A momentary pause occurred, and the man put a hand to his face expression stunned- then the console simply died.
"Shit!"
"Dude, the hell is going on?"
"I have no fucking clue." Quint answered, and Keith took a moment to look at the terminal- but it was clearly dead. Quint rummaged around in his pack and came up with his thermos, pouring himself a cup of coffee. "On the plus side, this whole conspiracy is becoming clearer."
A long moment passed as the men stood there lost in thought- until something occurred to Quint with enough force that he spun, spilling his coffee across the dirty snow.
"We need to get back to the airport- on the double!" He proceeded to haphazardly throw his thermos back together, and dump out his coffee cup before taking off at a surprisingly fast run. His partner attempting to keep up with him in the snow.
"Slow up man! Where's the fire?"
The airport, by the time the BSAA duo managed to get back was deserted, bleak, and definitely creepy- as only a place devoid of humans can be. Empty buildings seeming so much bigger for their lack of contents, and lack of people they were meant to house. The duo walked towards one of the doors near by, as the wind began to pick up.
"Looks like nobodies home." Keith said, rubbing his arms. "Even the other team packed up. So ah, what are we doing here exactly?"
"Looking for clues man." Quint said moving towards a door, it was locked with a card reader and the tech began poking at it as his partner frowned at him.
"Newsflash, without them the place is locked up tight."
"Relax, I set up a backdoor." The tech mumbled pressing a few buttons before a cheerful chime sounded and the door swung open. "I can use any PDA to get in."
"Well why didn't you say that earlier man?" He said as the moved down in through the door that they'd entered previously. The corridor was just as damp and dank as it had been their first time through, so the men didn't bother to wait and look around- rather Quint maintained a healthy lead moving towards the room they'd found the information in. "Dude, you never answered my question. What are we looking for?"
The stepping into the room with the large overhead projector, Quint paused holding a hand up to his partner before answering.
"Look if my theory about Veltro is true- it's just too early to say." He finished clearly cutting himself off.
"Are you kidding me? Come on man!"
"I don't want to jump to conclusions; I need more intel."
"Fine, but how can we get this intel then?"
"There should be a computer somewhere in this base- if I can find it, we can get the intel we need to make an informed decision." Quint said walking on ahead again.
"Alright, let's find this computer then."
"I only hope it has a high powered CPU. That would be tits."
Keith only gave his partner a confused look as the moved towards the door near the end of the room, pausing as a low hiss seemed to echo through the space around them. A chair went flying from an unseen force, and Keith didn't hesitate to pull up his rifle and load the area with lead. If it was solid enough to throw a chair, it was solid enough to take a bullet. This theory was only proven correct as the creature rippled into sight before letting out a scream and falling forward.
"Shit, Quint please tell me that doors unlocked?"
"Yeah, turns out it's an elevator." He said at the thing pinged and the doors slid open. The duo boarded and Keith hit the door closing button several times.
"I don't wanna be here when that things friends show up." He said as the lift began to move down, and Quint's face clearly displayed that he hadn't considered that possibility. The lift itself shook and rattled dangerously as the pair descended, taking enough time to open when it finally stopped to make the men inside a bit nervous.
"You think that guys got friends waiting somewhere?"
"Man, I hope not." Keith said as he moved out into the large room beyond, it appeared to be a large storage warehouse, complete with packing crates and a multitude of boxes.
"Is that…" the tech trailed off as he caught sight of something across the room, "A real, in the flesh MB-28? GRINDER it's what I always wanted!"
The overgrown man child said as he all but danced across the room towards the machinery, and Keith moved to follow stopping as the heels of his boots crunched down on broken glass. He swept a quick look around the room, coming across nothing obvious- but the agent still couldn't shake the feeling that they were in enemy territory. The glass it seemed, had come from the windows above- large recesses in the wall of the building that must have been ground level from outside, as the room they were in was underground.
"Shit, nothing's happening." The tech said as he typed at the consol with a frown. "The computer needs more power- the MB-28 can be a real power suck. There should be an ample power supply here somewhere. Do you think you could turn it back on?"
"Alright, alright. You stay here and spend quality time with your girlfriend, I think it's just over here anyways." The man said moving towards something that did resemble a generator, it sat not far away from the elevator, and was rather obvious for the red blinking light that sat on its side.. "Alright I'm gonna flip the switch. Here's hoping this rusty piece of crap works."
He pulled the lever down, and the sound of electricity crackling rewarded him with the knowledge that he'd been correct. The red light switched to a soothing green, and he stood back looking over his shoulder.
"That's good," Came Quints voice, and Keith moved towards him. "But that still isn't enough electricity to fully power this thing. There might be another generator around here somewhere."
The man searched for a bit before finding the second generator on the other side of the room, surrounded by boxes. He pulled the switch on this one as well, and the red light faded to green in the dim room, and he turned to join his partner as the man whooped.
"Alright Grinder, we have full power. Now to just open this bad boy up!"
"You got anything?"
"Nah, I gotta get through the layers of encryption on this thing first." The tech said, amending with "But it should only take a few minutes with this baby."
"Just-" Keith's response was cut off by an otherworldly howl, and he gripped his gun looking around. It had come from outside, but the open windows meant that the two men were sitting ducks. He put his back to Quint, and took his shooting stance. "Might want to go as fast as you can man."
Another howl came and suddenly something large and furry was jumping through the window.
"Real fast."
The Queen Zenobia, Laboratory 3:16 A.M
"That's the virus?" Jill said looking at the red vat in front of her, even from the door it was massive- at least twelve feet tall, it stood out like the alter of a god, set center stage in a room that was so large that she had to wonder how it managed to fit in the ship. The laboratory was rounded, with a catwalk on the outside an area of empty space, and a central raised area where the virus containment unit sat. The duo had to traverse the catwalks on the outside and access several panels to turn off electric fencing to get into a smaller lab that stood through a doorway that led off- out of the central room along with a smallish morgue for containing 'sample' BOW's.
Then a door from the morgue led out into the walkway to the center; Chris approached the over sized thing, as Jill looked over the railing to the space beneath them with no small amount of uncertainty. The water- if it was water was a deep red, the same deep red as what was in the vat and she had to wonder if that was simply water that had already been infected, or a high concentration of the liquid form virus. Logically speaking if it was, then they would already be infected, but the sight of such a thing was still unsettling. A glimpse of something moving beneath the surface made Jill back away from the railing, certain that she would much rather not find out what exactly it was. As distinct memories of over sized sharks trying to eat her came to mind, and she moved to stand next to Chris as he poked at the computer.
"I think this is the lab's control system." He said turning to look at her.
"Does it still work?"
"Yes, but we need a pass code to administer the neutralizing agent."
"Okay, I'll sweep the lab and see what I can find." She said turning to search the smaller lab area, but before she could get too far Chris stopped her touching her shoulder lightly. "Chris?"
"Just…" He said hands dropping, "Be careful okay."
"You know me." She said with a smile.
"I do." he said giving her a look that said he also knew about her ability to get into trouble.
Jill moved away, into the morgue searching high and low- starting with of course the desk, which sadly held nothing of use, some documentation that she would keep until later but not much else. There was also a strange smallish case, but she set it aside- it was locked with a fingerprint scanner, and wasn't linked to the system. The lab had nothing, and Jill turned around going back out to look around the vat some more. There was a ladder down one side of the central area, and into the red murky below- but Jill ignored that in favor of the elevator that stood on the other side of the walkway. The door was locked, but with some help from Chris it opened, and she stepped into the lift pressing the button for the only floor available.
The descent was quick and the door opened to reveal a room with several laser fences in place, and a door off to one side, behind another fence. For a moment Jill was at a loss- how was she suppose to know which ones were on and off? Where would she go from here? And that was when it occurred to her- the Genesis could detect them, in fact it was specifically designed to do a number of things, and detecting something like this was technically the least of its abilities. Looking through the scope she followed the flow of the lasers, eventually reaching a button she thought would turn them off, but she just wasn't that lucky- not tonight at least and it only seemed to switch the laser flow. But it did allow her access to the doorway that she had been blocked off from before, and using the genesis she wove her way around the fences and to the door with ease, she spared a look of pity for the body of a poor scientist that appeared to have been trapped behind the fences before moving on.
Jill took a moment to look out at the red liquid beyond the widow that was set in the wall with a grimace, searching for- well what exactly she wasn't sure. But there was something out there, she was sure of that. She moved towards the door, jumping as something impacted on the glass she'd just walked away from. A spider's web of fine cracks lined the window now, and she decided that this was as good a time as any to head through to the next room. The red metal door bore a prominent bio-hazard symbol on it, and the woman frowned as she pushed her way through.
Only to find something on the other side of the door that she wasn't expecting, yet another shield wielding BOW- and Jill made a quick move to toss a grenade at the thing before stepping back through the door, closing it against the resounding explosion. The creature roared from the other side, injured but not subdued and Jill had a brilliant idea. Throwing the door open, Jill ran back through the laser fencing to stand on the other side, waiting as the thing moved through the door. Predictably it attempted to run at her, but came in contact with the fences and was repelled with a jolt. But it didn't stop trying, instead it kept throwing itself at the fences until it finally collapsed, and Jill took the chance to put it out of its misery with a direct blast from her shotgun.
Then she moved back into the next room, which appeared to be some sort of observation room beneath the virus 'water line' as one side of it was completely lined with windows, and for a moment she stared out them morbidly before looking around. There was only one more door in this room, and when she opened the door the resulting room seemed somewhat of a let down. It was a cramped round room that looked to be some sort of security area, with a single door that led to another small room. This one at least was a lab, and appeared to contain a number of different computers, as well as the standard lab equipment- complete with a desk on one side, and another set of switches. Jill pressed it, and watched on the small monitor provided as the beams of the laser fences once more changed. Data on the virus was posted to screens on the wall, x rays of an infected person's brain cavity sat next to what looked to vaccine trial results, a computer at the back of the room seemed to have the ability to give her the information she needed, but she didn't have and employee access code to log on with, and Jill searched each of the items in the room before moving to leave.
Back out through the observation room and into the room with the excessive amount of fences, Jill stopped briefly by the corpse picking up a journal that seemed to have been left by the man. A vial of green fluid caught her attention, and she grabbed it as well giving it a searching look before she flipped through the journal. The information she read there made her pause, and it felt like a sudden inconsequential things that she'd notice but set aside for consideration later made themselves known. The director of the FBC was responsible for all of this. Jill gripped the prototype vaccine, and pressed the button on her radio.
"Jill?"
"Chris, you are not going to believe what I just learned. Morgan Lansdale of the FBC was behind the attacks on Terragrigia."
"So that is what Raymond was talking about."
"Seems like it." She said moving towards the door. "All I have right now is circumstantial, nothing to nail him for it yet."
To get back to the elevator, she would have to change the laser fences again- and as she entered the room with the button she decided that the best way to ensure the survival of the vaccine, was to give it a living being inhabit- so to speak, vaccinating herself would mean that she would carry trace amounts of it in her bloodstream, and if the tube shattered then it would be the only way for them to rebuild it. The vaccine administering machine made quick work of it, and despite her hate of needles she barely felt the prick of the machine as it administered the prototype.
Pulling her arm free, she was relieved to see that only a pin prick in her skin remained, so she took a moment to apply a small band aid from her pack before retrieving what was left of the anti-virus, turning to the computer to access the information she needed. The sound of something being crushed in the next room made her jump, and she turn towards the door as the information she requested from the computer completed downloading on the thumb drive she'd appropriated. She slid it into a waterproof sleeve in her pack before turning to go- there was no way it would survive without that.
Now she just needed to get back to Chris. The groaning sound of something giving way under pressure echoed in Jill's ears, and she turned to look at direction of it, before grimacing at the fact that it had indeed come from near the door; taking a few steps her fears were validated as the door began to leak the heavy red substance and before she could do anything more the door gave way under pressure, unleashing a torrent or red into the room. Sweeping her off her feet- literally it spun her around before knocking her into the wall as she fought to right herself in the liquid slew.
"Jill! Jill come in, answer me damn it!" Came Chris' voice across the radio, and Jill began to swim frantically for the next room. There were no air pockets here, and if she didn't find somewhere to breath soon she would drown. "This is an emergency, get back here now!"
She swam through the observation room, to the door over the electric fences, the elevator wouldn't work- but the window on the other side had been shattered. She swam frantically through the window with her chest feeling tight as she struggled to the surface, sputtering and coughing as she reached it.
"Jill!" She heard from above her and the woman looked up to see Chris leaning on the railing, fear marring his handsome features. "Get out of there! BEHIND YOU!"
She spun catching sight of something dark beneath the surface, and without a second thought swam for the ladder that suddenly seemed much too far away. Throwing a look over her shoulder made her swim faster, and as her hand grasped the first rung of the ladder she felt something grab her ankle. Her second hand moved to grab the ladder as whatever is was pulled on her leg hard, and she missed. The sound of gunfire from above seemed to reverberate in the otherwise quiet room, and the thing shrieked, letting go of her leg for the moment at least. Jill didn't care to find out if it would come back for more, and a grabbed hold of the ladder with both hands, hauling her ass out of the slurry and up the ladder as fast as she could.
Slumping to the floor of the platform with a heaving chest, and bone deep weariness.
"Jill!" Chris said moving to grab her and she had to hold her hand up to stop him.
"No! Don't touch me, I'm covered in that shit. If its the virus I can't risk infecting you."
"But…" Chris said, hands clenching before he punched the ground. "Shit."
"I think there's an emergency shower in the lab, come on." She said pushing herself to her feet. There was indeed an emergency shower in one of the corners, and Jill took the chance to completely douse herself. It was cold, but it did the job and she was clean- that was what mattered. The second she stepped out of the shower she was pulled into a hug by Chris, and despite the fact that she was obviously getting his front wet she didn't step away- the truth was that she needed it, that had been too close.
"Jill if you're infected I..." He said uncertainly and she immediately cottoned on to what he was getting at.
"I'm not." She said, and he gave her a searching look.
"You were swimming around in that mess."
"I found a vaccine while I was down there, I figured that the best way to get it out of here was to give myself a shot. I should be fine." The frown on his face didn't lighten up, but she could see him accepting this- for now. After a few minutes the duo was walking back towards the computer, and with the pass code it only took a few seconds to trigger the virus neutralization protocol.
"Authorization confirmed initialing neutralization program." Echoed from the computer's speakers, and the duo watched as injectors lowered to the top of the vat locking in place before the neutralization agent was injected. Then the computer screen mounted on the edge of the vat suddenly switched from the black background to a familiar face.
"Well done, BSAA. Your activities have been… eye opening."
"Morgan Lansdale…"