Note: I do not own VALVe or any of its affiliates. Consider this a disclaimer to the characters/themes/what have you presented in this story.

Ten

Zoey paced in her room. They were placed on the uppermost floor of the stadium in the announcer's box. Hardly anyone came up there, and the windows were blacked out so she and Frank couldn't see outside.

They had finally given her her clothes back. They were going to dispose of them because of the tears, but Zoey argued with the nurse until she made sure they were returned to her. They were ripped, they had a few permanent stains on them, but wearing them made her feel better than she had since she arrived at the stadium. What bothered her now, though, was the fact that no-one had been up to see them since they woke up.

Even though their windows were blacked out, she could see sunlight pouring in from the skylights outside their door. She spent about an hour pacing once she knew for sure the nurse was late for them, and she became even more distressed when Frank hunkered down in the corner, rocking back and forth and clutching his head. He needed medicine, they needed food, and there was no way for Zoey to flag down any personnel to help them.

"You doing okay, Frank?" Zoey asked. It was a rhetorical question, and even in his dysfunctional state, Zoey knew he was aware of that.

"Lady," he muttered weakly, still clutching his head. He was starting to sound nasally, like he had a head cold. Zoey scoffed, not at him, but at the seemingly incompetent help they had to take care of him.

"Where is everybody?" Zoey said aloud, standing on her tip toes and peeking out the window. Nobody. Not even a door guard. She let her forehead touch the glass gently, then she sighed angrily.

"I don't feel so good," Frank said, letting go of his head and resting on his hands. He started to rock on all fours, moaning and groaning in his stuffed-up voice. Zoey walked over to him, resting a hand on his back.

"Frank, are you okay?"

Zoey and Frank's nurse was huddled in the small intensive care room that they both used to share, standing amongst almost half the personnel of the stadium around James Ford's bed. His head swayed from side to side gently as he moaned incomprehensibly. They all shot each other nervous looks as Lyson Peters gave the sick man another pointless shot to ease the pain. They all knew what was happening to him, and they all knew the inevitable. But no-one would voice it. The only person of high enough rank to give an order to terminate an infected patient was the man lying on the bed in front of them.

"James," Lyson said thinly, grasping the man's shoulders. He gave a delirious shout of surprise at the touch, then relaxed on the bed again, letting his eyes roll. His skin had taken on a light grey tint already, and his nose began to run profusely, spreading snot all over his lower face and into his mouth. He spluttered on it a bit as Lyson shook him, and he made an obvious effort to look Lyson in the eye.

"Is the virus contained?" James asked, his voice muffled and faraway.

"Yes, James, it was only you who was infected."

"Morning," he whispered back, then moaned loudly and beat his head back against the pillow. One of the women turned from the scene and left the room quietly, bursting with tears.

"James, listen to me," Lyson said, looking around the room before leaning closer and lowering his voice. "You're the only one who can give the order to end... this. I can give it, even if you are incoherent and delirious. If this goes on, the entire stadium could be in jeopardy. Do you hear me?"

James rolled his head back and forth, then said: "I don't want to turn it on."

Lyson closed his eyes and hung his head in defeat. His hands gripped the sidebars of James's bed tightly, and he tried to regain control of his anger. Then James snapped up halfway, held back by his restraints, and looked Lyson in the eyes.

"Has the subject responded yet?"

Lyson didn't reply, perplexed by his sudden outburst.

"Has Mr. Mulner completed the experiment for us?"

As Zoey laid her hand on his back, Frank's body seemed to roll backward from his spine before he wretched onto the floor. Zoey cried out and jumped back, avoiding the spray of vomit that splashed everywhere.

"Frank?" Zoey said carefully, keeping her distance. He shifted on to his knees so he could grip his head with both hands again.

"La—dy," he said, his voice quivering dangerously. "I don't feel... I..."

He looked at her then, his brow glistening with sweat, his face a pale slate grey. He had pale brown hair and matching eye colour that was washed with green, and when he widened his gaze at her, he looked dead.

He stood up, and she backed away.

"Frank?" she repeated quietly.

"Be nice to lady," Frank said. The soft quiver in his voice made her stomach lurch as she recognized something in his voice she didn't like to consider.

Zoey rushed to the door, partly out of fear from Frank and for her safety. She tried the handle, but it was locked.

Frank ran his hands over his legs, then started towards her.

"Frank, stay there!" she shouted forcefully. She started banging on the window of her door, hoping someone would hear her and come check on them. "God dammit!" she shouted.

Frank kept coming towards her.

"What's going on, you think?" Hugh asked the senior officer, Jim, as they walked down the hall. They were headed to go question two men that were caught in the lower levels of the stadium, apparently attacking Ben, another private. Linda, or Gorwhich, as they usually called her, marched ahead towards the storage closet. She'd been the one to catch them, and she was furious about it.

"I think Doctor Ford isn't holding up," Jim replied, not meeting Hugh's eyes. "Everyone's abandoning their post to see him."

"Oh, shit," Hugh said. "What do you think they'll do to that crazy bastard who broke his mask?"

"Shoot him. Or worse, kick him out," Jim said simply. "We can't have a citizen who puts the safety of everyone else in jeopardy by being violent. He'll have to go, either the way he came in or the way we show him out."

"That's too bad," Hugh muttered.

"Why?"

"Because, he apparently came in with that girl whose file is flagged. You know, the one that Dr Ford wanted to..."

"I guess it makes sense, now—why he attacked the doctor," Jim said as Gorwhich threw open the door and stormed inside the closet to drag the guy out of the closet. "I guess I'll make sure we give him the merciless way out."

"You mean shoot him?"

"That's exactly what I mean."

Gorwhich threw the guy on the floor, then headed further down the hallway to the employee bathroom. The guy on the ground wore black slacks and a dishevelled, white, button-up shirt. His red tie was loose and threatening to fall off—he kind of looked like he'd just stumbled home from the office.

Office Guy looked up at them as he got to his feet, giving a careful look of apprehension and contempt.

As Gorwhich led the second guy in front of them, Hugh stifled a laugh. The big guy, on the other hand, looked like the stereotypical shit-raiser. He wore jeans and a similar vest, and tattoos ran up and down his arms from wrist to shoulder. His head was shaved, and his slightly shaggy beard was a typical handlebar look that a biker would wear. The two of them didn't look like a practical team.

"Weren't these the guys we were supposed to detain in the first place?" Hugh asked quietly to Jim.

"I don't know," he whispered back, then stepped forward to look over the odd pair.

"Well, let me first introduce ourselves as Tweedledee and Tweedledum, and we're here to present your eviction case," Jim said casually.

"Eviction?" the big guy asked. "The fuck?"

"For attacking an official on duty for your safety, we have every right to expel you from this facility."

"Oh, you fucking tards," he bit back. "This place hasn't done much but keep those infected fuckers off our backs. You've screwed us a couple times since we've got here."

"Shut the fuck up!" Gorwhich shrieked, planting her rifle in between his shoulder blades. His eyes widened and he raised his hands.

"A'right, a'right," he said softly, easing her off. Gorwhich kept her gun there. Then Office Guy spoke up.

"You guys don't believe in following policy, do you?" he said. "Our debriefing stated we'd be up against the panel here."

"That's us," Hugh said.

"That doesn't constitute a panel," he retorted, stepping forward. Hugh lifted his gun and cocked it.

Jim glared the two of them down, and they stared back, unmoving. "Now, have I got your attention?" Jim said shortly. "You've been considered a danger to this facility, and you're leaving."

James was breathing in raspy yells now, and a few more personnel had to leave the room out of fright. Lyson was trying to hold him down, afraid that the restraints on his wrists would break any moment.

"James... I'm going to order them to kill you now, do you hear me?" Lyson said. James only yelled back.

Lyson stared into his lost, distant eyes as they flickered around rapidly, feeling something akin to pity for a brief moment. Then he let go of James, and turned around to give the order.

James shrieked horribly, ripping the restraints from the bed and leaping up onto Lyson's back. The other man shouted, falling forward towards the guard, who pulled his pistol and staggered backward, firing his shots rapidly in succession. He only managed to hit Lyson, whose screams were silenced abruptly. James's feral eyes scoured the remaining personnel, and some screamed and fled out the door. The second man tried to draw his pistol while the other reloaded, but the infected had already pounced out the door after the retreating researchers, swinging his claws. The two soldiers cursed, then ran after him.

"Frank, you stay back, goddamn you!" Zoey directed, pointing an accusing finger at the deranged man. He paused, confused, his eyes pointing off to the corner of the room. But she knew he was studying her intently.

Zoey backed up a few paces, then charged the door with her shoulder. She smacked into it hard, and the door did not yield an inch. She tried again to no avail.

She looked at Frank again, who still stood where she told him to obediently, but his gaze was unnerving to the point she felt like screaming.

Zoey approached the bed and grasped the side rail, tugging and yanking every which way, trying to detach it and use it as a weapon. When it did not budge, she resorted to kicking at it. The bed slid on the floor under each strike, and eventually a piece of the railing broke from the top. It was the length of a baton and as thick as a pipe bomb, and it was plenty enough to break in the window. Zoey turned on her heel, howling as she came down hard on the window. Her weapon bounced off, no sign on damage whatsoever, and she stumbled. Regaining her footing, she held the handle bar like a bat and swung it at the window.

She stood so that she could keep her eye on Frank. He didn't move the entire time, but stood watching her with his eyes pointed at nothing. She wondered if he had made the connection that Lady could hurt him with the handle bar, or that what he was feeling was bad and he shouldn't approach Lady, or if he was just calculating his options. Zoey felt as if she were in a pot of boiling hot water, and each moment spent in the room with Frank brought more unbearable heat.

The window finally cracked and splintered. Her strikes became more fervent, and she growled with each smack on the window. She roared once more before pummelling the glass with all her might, then shattered the glass. She then held the handle bar like a pick as she punched out the remaining shards of glass. When the window was clean, she rushed forward and sought the door handle. It was locked from the outside as well.

It must be bolted, she thought to herself. Knowing there was no way of opening the door on her own, she stuck both arms through the window and hopped upwards, resting on her upper belly as she began to clamber through.

"Lady!" Frank called, rushing forward to her. He grabbed at her ankle that was dangling in mid air, and she instinctively kicked out, landing a kick thickly on his chest. He scrambled backward, and Zoey heard the thud as he fell to the floor. She gripped the door handle and used her other hand to push herself forward, her every muscle burning as she tried to climb out the window—

She fell forward suddenly, and she braced herself at the last second, landing on her forearms. Her feet toppled over her head, and she landed heavily onto her back, causing the wind to be forced from her lungs momentarily. "Lady! LADY!" she heard Frank scream horrifically behind her. "Don't leave me Lady!"

Zoey got to her feet and caught sight of Frank crawling up through the window after her. He reached out for her, but the door kept him at bay; he seemed unable to climb out the window as easily as she had. Zoey watched him with a mix of disgust and alarm before rushing down the hall to find help.

"LADY!"

"Hello?" Zoey called. She found the stairs and started climbing down, leaving Frank's anguished screams behind. When she descended the steps, however, she heard more heated shouts from below. She froze on the stairs, listening. A few gun shots rang in the hallways, and Zoey felt a shock run through her as she saw a team of researchers running through the hall below her, chased by James in a patient's smock. He was squealing like an infected.

"Lady!" Frank called, his voice echoing not far behind her. He had managed to climb through the window.

Zoey whipped around only briefly before racing down the steps. She couldn't be sure what Frank would do when he reached her, but she also knew that he was significantly bigger than she, and any confrontation would probably end in her losing. When she got to the bottom, she looked down the hall to the right where the researchers and James had disappeared, when she was knocked off her feet from the left.

She landed heavily with a grunt, and she quickly tried to get back to her feet to fend herself off from whoever—or whatever—it was. She stood up to find herself face to face with a soldier. He readjusted his face mask while glaring her down.

"Get back to your room!" the soldier screamed at her. "The building's under lock down!"

"What's going on?" Zoey asked, but the soldier ran past her. They were in disarray. Suddenly, she was struck with an idea.

She heard Frank's steps on the stairs above her, and without looking back, she rushed for the weapons closet.

Bill looked up from where he sat to the window by the door. He was in a colourful kids' room, with toys scattered everywhere and a large plush-toy like castle in the far corner. He'd been bouncing a ball up against the far wall for the past few hours, and nothing had happened until he heard a distant shriek and a few rounds of a rifle go off.

He stood slowly from his spot, creeping towards the window to look outside. Nobody was around, but he could still hear the distant wails. It was an infected.

"Oh, fuck," Bill growled. He reached for the door handle, jiggling it to test the lock. Then he backed up, readied himself, then took a kick at the door. It jarred under his boot, and he regained his balance, kicking it again.

"God—dammit, open—up!" he growled with each kick. After the eighth try, the door swung open, and Bill staggered into the empty hallway. There was shrill screaming in the distance, coming from the front. Bill grimaced and started to run towards it—that's where the weapons closet was, and that's where he was going to go, dammit.

He knew he'd find only soldiers there—he'd even more likely come face to face with the infected first—but that was where the weapons closet was. Even if he couldn't break into the room to get his trusted weapon back, Bill considered himself a tough son of a bitch. He'd seen enough blood getting here, and he'd see more going out, that was for damn sure.

Bill rushed around the curve of the hallway to the front, then stopped abruptly.

The fire alarm sounded. It rang in the hallways, and a long, drawn-out wail emitted from the speakers all around the field, both outside and inside the halls. The two guards (Tweedledee and Tweedledum) looked up towards the ceiling, listening to the blare of the fire alarm from the basement. Francis and Louis looked to each other, and both of them shared glances that expressed surprise of their genuine luck and their unfortunate circumstances.

"What is that?" Tweedledum asked.

"Let's get up stairs," Tweedledee said, rushing back while Tweedledum followed. The last soldier stayed, leading Louis back to the closet.

"I don't want any trouble out of you two while they're gone," she said gruffly, shoving him in. Louis landed back on the floor where he'd settled before, crashing into some mops and buckets. As she turned around to lead Francis back to the washroom, he came up behind her suddenly and grabbed her gun, pulling it out of her grasp and throwing her to the side with a shove. She cried out in surprise, stumbling back over her feet.

"Sorry, lady," Francis said, pointing the rifle at her. "I don't usually roughhouse women, but you make a changed man out of me."

"You bastard!" she said vehemently, glaring up at him from the floor. "We're in a crisis, don't you understand?"

"Well, yeah, people act out in crises," Francis said, motioning for Louis to come out of the closet. "That's why I'm holding you at gunpoint. On your feet."

The woman got up slowly, glaring daggers at Francis. "If you've got any other arms, I suggest you give them to my pal here, for safe keeping."

The woman pulled her pistol from its holster, then held it upside down for Louis to take. He grabbed at it tentatively, then checked the clip. "Got any extra rounds?"

"One," she replied angrily, detaching it from her belt and handing it to him. Louis took it and stuffed it in his own pocket, then nodded to Francis.

"All right, if you've got a knife on you or somethin', I suggest you pull it out," Francis said, motioning her forward. "I expect we're gonna have a lot of company in a couple minutes."

"What are you talking about?" she snapped.

He let the sound of the fire alarm blaring surround them for a moment. "It's party time."