Authors Note: Disturbing stuff ahead. Don't read if easily upset. Also.. lots of talking. But answers lie within.. and a battle of a different kind for Leon lies ahead.
Jump to no conclusions.
And as your will is bent and broken
And every vision has been cast into the wind
As your courage crashes down before your eyes
Don't lay down and die
Cause I see in you
More than you'll ever know
And I ask you, Why
You question the strength inside?
And you need to know
How it feels to be alive
- Alter Bridge
The body of Dr Adam Bates hung from the rafters of a derelict church, like something out of a gothic horror movie. The shadow had wanted this one to suffer, as though the rest of it's victims hadn't been put through enough torture. The death was equal parts simple, and barbaric. It had tied the man with chain by his wrists – not his neck – ensuring he wouldn't choke to death before he got to feel every second of his penance. Beneath him, simply a fire. But the fire didn't rise high enough for it to catch him with it's flame. Instead, he began to roast from the heat radiating off of it. Eventually, once skin and fat blistered and melted away enough from his legs and feet, he had begun to burn. It would have taken a while, a few hours. It was terrifying how long somebody could stay alive while on fire, it didn't really bear thinking about. For all the ways to go in the world, fire was perhaps the only one that Leon really feared, because there was nothing quick about it. All you could do was hope you passed out from the pain, everything else was torture.
The shadow had demanded retribution and he'd paid in full.
It left Leon with various chills running the length of his spine. How could this creature be both merciful, and terrible? For those on it's list it had no conscience, just an unstoppable desire for suffering and penance. For those that weren't? It saved. It neutralized. It didn't harm.
Was that how the terrorists he fought saw him? Was he the unstoppable nemesis of those that sought to end the world? It's a thought that makes him pause. Was there any true good in the world? After all, good and evil in the end was all a matter of perspective. Even the most evil of people thought that they were in the right.
Leon crouches down at the edge of the now doused fire, brushing cinders and damp ashes aside with a gloved hand. For a while he'd thought there was no symbol, but he finds it, etched in to the wooden floor underneath the remains of broken chairs used to build the method of this man's demise. He stares at it, unmoving, then lifts his gaze to the body hanging above. There was nothing to salvage from this one, no clues, no evidence, all of it burned away.
It felt futile. Not a feeling he was used to, but with red tape working against them and only one – missing – target left, he had no idea how they were supposed to save this woman. Whatever it was they had created, science had this time outdone itself. An unstoppable, unkillable death machine. Congratulations.
"I hope you found what you were looking for.." he murmurs to the scorched body, rising to his feet. He turns a little to Chief 'Not paid enough for this shit' and gives him a tight nod. "Symbols under the ashes, get forensics to photograph it and have it all sent over."
"Yessir," the Chief sighs, just as tired and worn down by this ordeal as Leon felt. As he goes to move past him, the Chief catches his arm, drawing his attention back. "Have you read the history on this guy?"
Leon frowns, shaking his head. "Not yet, first time I've heard his name."
The Chief looks a little pale. "Not me. We arrested this scumbag years ago."
"What for?" Leon turns a little more toward him.
"Trafficking children, teenage girls. He had a computer full of disgusting shit."
"Then why the hell isn't he in jail?" Leon's scowl deepens.
The Chief simply shrugs. "The best lawyer money could buy. Don't know who funded it. We had his balls nailed to the wall and somehow.." he lifts his hands, like he was at an utter loss. "Some of us think the Judge was bought and paid for too."
Leon flicks his eyes from the Chief back to the hanging corpse, suddenly, he didn't feel as much sympathy. "That makes two of them."
"You think whoever did this could be nothing to do with some Bio Weapon science project at all? But one of their victims?"
Leon returns his attention to the Chief. "Or both."
An understanding nod. "I don't mind telling you, not feeling a whole lot of pity for this one." He thumbs to the dead man.
Leon tenses his jaw, adding a slight shake of his head. "Scum like that deserves to burn." He admits.
For two men of law and justice, it was quite the thing to admit. But when it came to children, and those that preyed upon and took advantage of them – was there ever any justice that was enough, even death?
Shaking the Chief's hand, Leon heads out to find Sherry who had left slightly before him to catch a breather from the stink of burning flesh. He finds her leaning against his car, her arms folded around herself. She was gazing up at the stars.
"You did good in there," he gives her an encouraging smile as he walks toward her and she looks down from the sky. She returns his smile, breathing deep.
"Not sure that's a smell I'll ever get used to." She admits.
"You and everybody else. Like that fear I told you about, you just have to – find somewhere to put it." He gestures.
"One to go."
"By the sounds of things, the only one worth saving." He sighs, she gives him a curious look and he explains what the Chief had just told him about their latest victim. She looks disgusted.
"What if they were all tied to this, we just can't get our hands on the information?" She shrugs.
"Or they were never caught." Leon theorizes, "nobody knew about the last one until he was murdered and it was all over his computer."
"The others played it smarter?"
"Could be." He moves around to the driver side of his car. "I'm gonna get some coffee, head in to the office. See if we can turn up anything." He didn't have high hopes.
"It's 3am.." Sherry frowns.
"And we need to track down Holly – Lizzie's still out there. Sleep isn't on the cards tonight." He tells her.
"Alright, I'll follow you in." Sherry nods, turning and heading for her car. Leon opens the drivers side door of his and when he does, he notices a file sitting on his seat.
He hesitates, glancing around and then leaning in to pick it up. There was a note, handwritten, on the front of it. Accompanied by a red lipstick kiss.
"Leon,
I'm sorry I had to cut our time short. I don't know when I'll see you again, duty calls. But as I promised – here's what I could find on Elizabeth Eve Evans. I hope it helps.
Ada xxx"
He looks up, eyes scanning the surrounding area and it's rooftops. The place had been the victim of a terrorist bombing a handful of years ago. The church and surrounding buildings still in a state of disrepair as rival companies bid on what to do with the land. Sometimes these things stayed in limbo far too long, becoming a grim reminder of the evil in the world. Nowhere amongst it was any flicker of red.
Sighing, he returns his attention to the file and opens it up, finding a photograph pinned to paperwork of a pretty blonde girl, no older than 14 at most, standing with her parents.
As he reads, his heart sinks.
Her father was a scientist at Umbrella before Raccoon City. Henry Evans – his area of expertise? Wouldn't you know it. Neurology and Neuropsychology. He worked with the brain. His last known project was an attempt at unlocking the full potential of the human brain. Leon didn't know entirely what that would entail, but he knew many theorized latent abilities like telekinesis and indeed, psychic power were all unlockable traits within the human brain.
Four years ago, Elizabeth had gone missing. Reported abducted from her home in Oregon in the middle of the night by her Mother. She was never found, no trace, no witnesses, no evidence at the scene. Nothing. Henry Evans – now working for the Government - had committed suicide a single week later. Not the action of a Father desperate to find his child – to Leon, that was the action of a man that felt guilty.
Her Mother was still alive. Alicia Anne Evans. Still waiting for her baby girl to come home in Portland. She still placed missing posters around her town, she still had hope.
He swallows down a dry feeling in his throat. He had to find Lizzie. He had to take her home. If there was one good that could come out of this, please let it be that.
Thankyou, Ada.
A new resolve set inside him, he turns the key in the ignition of his 2011 Dodge Challenger SRT-8 and it's satisfying roar echoes the feeling inside. No Mother should be without her child, not if he could take her home. He pushes the car into gear and sets off.
The DSO Headquarters at night were still a bustling hive of activity. Protecting the country never really slept, and personnel from the other agencies that occupied this building were also on duty. He arrives alongside Sherry and they head to a computer station clutching coffees and a new kind of determination. Leon sets the file Ada had left down for Sherry to read – her reaction is very similar to his. They needed to get this girl back to her Mother, if any good were to come out of any of this.
Leon switches tactics, abandoning looking for a project that was currently being worked on by the named victims and instead, searching out old records for Umbrella. There was a lot on file, and they track down Henry Evans with relative ease. A glowing record. A brain that was unrivalled. They'd been looking in to weaponizing psychic ability – because of course they had. Everything up until Umbrellas dissolution had however, failed. After leaving Umbrella he was swiftly snapped up by branches of the Government to continue his research, that was where the walls started lifting.
A clearance required that was far higher than Leon's – and Leon's was pretty damn high. He sits back in his seat, gritting his teeth and twiddling a pen between his fingers.
"Who did he work with?" Sherry asks.
"At Umbrella?" Leon responds, sitting forward again and backtracking the search. He narrows his eyes, going through a list of project names from confiscated records. So many biblical references, scientists sure did like to think they were playing God. After sifting through a handful, they fall upon a file named 'Project Abaddon'. The name meant absolutely nothing to Leon, but as he browses the information provided, Sherry looks it up.
"Abaddon was a fallen angel, his name meant 'To destroy'.. He was a demon prince of destruction." She reads out quietly.
Leon pulls a face, chewing on the inside of his lip. "That sounds like an Umbrella project to me."
The project had been an attempt enhance a sector of the brain believed to be responsible for – you guessed it – telekinetic ability. The end goal being to create a Bio Weapon capable of effecting objects and indeed targets, with nothing but it's mind. They wanted to create a destroyer that wouldn't have to lift a finger to wipe out its enemies. If you stood across the battlefield from such a thing, you wouldn't stand a chance. Had they succeeded, things would have gone very differently for the Umbrella Corporation and likely the world. Fortunately, they hadn't. The project was deemed a complete failure, resulting in the deaths of four of its test subjects and never making it beyond an awful sounding surgical phase.
There's a photograph of the team. Six men.
Leon sits back in his seat and simply stares, as Sherry lifts the files on all five of the Shadows victims.
"It's them.." He murmurs, "they changed their fuckin' names after Umbrella dissolved. That's why we can't find shit."
"How? How do you wipe out your past and keep your qualifications in tact?" Sherry asks, placing photos of the five dead scientists down in front of him to verify what they were seeing.
"I don't know. I guess you have to know some people.." he lifts his eyes to her.
"Like Government people." She says quietly.
He sighs, checking each photo. Without a doubt, it was their victims.
Stephen Jackson
Kenneth Miller
Marcus White
Timothy Kendall
Adam Bates
Alongside Lizzie's Father and head of the project, Henry Evans.
"But no Holly.." Leon taps his pen on the desk, looking up at Sherry again thoughtfully.
Everything about it made Leon's skin crawl. You reaped what you sowed, and these scientists had paid their price in blood and pain. It didn't make the idea that the Government was attempting to create goddamn psychic soldiers any better, if such a thing were even possible. You crossed that line, there'd be one last World War and it would be a very, very short one. If what they had seen from this Shadow was anything to go by. Leon gets up from his seat and grabs his coat, pulling it back on.
"Where are we going?" Sherry asks.
"Holly's house. I'm not leaving until we have some clue as to where she is." He says flatly.
"That's breaking and entering.." Sherry reminds as she hurries to catch up with him.
He settles his jacket on his shoulders and looks to her. "Then they can arrest me, or bill me."
Pulling up outside Holly's home some time around 7am, Leon isn't interested in being subtle. He pounds on the door with his fist three times, before pulling out his gun. He takes hold of the barrel and uses the handle to smash out a glass panel, holstering it again he reaches through and undoes the lock, heading inside.
"Find her computer, look for plane tickets, train tickets, anything.." He tells Sherry, who hurries off while he flicks on lights and begins ransacking the woman's living room. Looking for the same but in paper form. A receipt, a letter, any clue as to where she might have taken off to to try and escape her fate. He moves through the dining room and discovers a pile of files, all on her co-workers. She'd drawn big red X's over the faces of the ones she knew to be dead, only her own and the latest, Adam Bates were left uncrossed.
He leafs through them, then puts them aside, going to her filing cabinet which sat next to the computer Sherry was working on. The top two drawers were full of nothing but reports on children she worked with. Psychological profiles and the like, nothing of interest. The third drawer is locked. Leon heads to the kitchen, grabbing a large, sturdy looking knife he brings it back to the file drawer, jams it into the small gap and wrenches. The lock comes away easily and he chucks the knife down, pulling it out. He grabs every folder in there and dumps them onto the dining table. They fall in a disorganized pile, and something instantly catches his eye.
"Shit." He hisses. Sherry turns in her seat and looks up to him.
"What is it?"
He lifts a file from the middle of the pile. On the cover, printed in an ink stamp of black and around the size of a coffee mug rim, the seal of Lilith. Sherry gets to her feet, moving beside him as he takes a breath and opens up the folder. Inside, profiles on six children. Psychological report notes, hand written. He leafs through, and notices that on every one of them, they were listed as 'Deceased'. Until the last. Lizzie's.
He feels his stomach clench in to a knot as he looks at the pretty girls photo at the top of her report. She's described as above average intelligence, extremely self aware, excelling at math and able to solve complex puzzles faster than her fellow 'Test subjects'. As the dates go by, the reports begin to deteriorate, much like they had on the reports of the other children all carried out around the same time. She was described as becoming erratic, lethargic, confrontational. Emotional, withdrawn.
"Elizabeth Eve has begun to display violent tendencies in our sessions," he reads quietly, "gone is the bright, enthusiastic girl I met at the start of this project. Her thought processes have become dark and disturbing. She complains of constant nightmares and being unable to sleep. I have brought this up with the Doctors in charge of the project, they are dismissing it as a side effect. If it is a side effect to what they are doing, this project needs to be brought to an end. This was meant to heal, not harm."
He swipes his tongue over his lower lip, chewing on it as he moves to another page, another date. "Doctor Bates insists Elizabeth is excelling in the program, all I see is a broken down teenager that cannot sleep and has begun to self harm. This is not progress, it is torture."
"Oh my God." Sherry says sadly to his side. Leon clears his throat, continuing.
"This is her final entry.." he murmurs, "I cannot be a part of this any more. They lied to me. Elizabeth Eve is a broken child, and I helped break her. God forgive me." He stares at the hand written words on the page, feeling a cold creep through his gut to his heart. The files told the story of a woman that thought she was stepping in to a project to help children, and had ended up with the lives of five on her hands, and a broken Lizzie. "What did they do to them?" He says quietly.
Sherry wraps her arms around herself, perhaps reliving her own memories of what had been done to her. Leon draws in a deep breath, closing the file and placing it down, he runs a comforting hand over Sherry's back.
"We still have a job to do." He mutters, "gather all this up, we're taking it."
She nods, beginning to pull together the files into an organized pile as he continues to search through the house.
As he sifts through the kitchen drawers, the house phone suddenly rings, making both of them look at one another. Leon considers the options for a few moments, then heads over to it, lifting it from the wall and answering. Prepared to interrogate anyone looking for Holly as to where she might be.
"Hello?"
"Who is this?" A female voice asks.
"Who is this?" He counters. A pause stretches out.
"What are you doing in my house?" She asks quietly.
Leon quickly turns, looking to Sherry and snapping his fingers to get her attention. "Is this Holly Davis?" He again throws the question back.
"It is, you're breaking and entering, you better have a damn good..."
"I'm Leon Kennedy, with the Division of Security Operations, a branch of the Gover..."
"I know what that is, I'm not an idiot." Holly snaps, "why are you in my home?"
"I'm looking for you. I was assigned to investigate the case of a group of scientists, murdered by an unknown entity. I believe you know an Elizabeth Eve Evans, she says you're last on the list. I want to help you."
The silence stretches, then becomes a laugh. "It's a nice thought, Mr Kennedy. But you can't help me."
"Well I'd like to try, I'm kinda good at it." He argues.
"You can't protect anybody from what's coming for me. Go home, have a drink, it'll all be over soon."
"With all due respect, it's my job. And.. even if you can't help yourself, maybe you can still help Elizabeth. She's just a child."
More of that silence, it hangs there, a dead weight in the air.
"Holly, I saw the file. I know you were involved in something you didn't want to be. Help me, help her." He says it gently, "we found her Mother. We'd really like to reunite them."
Leon hears a slight sob on the other end of the phone and he braces a hand against the wall, bowing his head. "I don't think we have much time." He adds.
"Would you enter in the code 65704 to my alarm system? So my phone stops alerting me you're there." She sighs eventually.
"Once you agree to meet me somewhere," he bargains. "Don't let a bad decision be the worst decision. Let me help."
She sighs heavily down the phone. "I suppose I'm going to die anyway, someone should know the truth."
They pull up outside the Washington Biotech Institute around 4pm. It was the earliest Holly could make it back in to the city from where she'd been hiding out, and it was neutral ground. Not only that, but a mind like Rebecca's inserted in to this situation could prove to be invaluable. It was the weekend, for the most part the building was shut down, but as he and Sherry arrive at the double front doors, Rebecca waves at them from the inside, coming down to enter a code and let them in. Leon holds the door for Sherry to pass through, clutching the pile of files recovered from Holly's house. He'd patched up the panel in the woman's door before they'd left her home, and entered in the code to re-set the alarm. He intended on her being able to go home to it.
"I thought you were bringing a guest?" Rebecca asks as they come inside.
"She's on her way," Leon nods, looking back out to the parking lot, "at least I hope she is." He turns back to face Rebecca, "thanks for doing this."
"Hey, anything to help. What have you got?" Becca shrugs.
"Mostly hand written profiles on Elizabeth and the other children involved in the experiment. It's.. pretty sad." Sherry hands her the files.
"Oh man, kids?"
"Teenagers, but yeah. All of them." Leon gestures to the files. They'd had a chance to read through every one since leaving Holly's house. "Seems like the program lasted a few years, with the real nose dive happening in the last year. All of them went downhill suddenly, turning violent, erratic. Depressed."
"Does it say what the project actually was?" Rebecca asks, leafing through.
Leon shakes his head. "What we're hoping Holly will have the answers to."
As he says it, a cab pulls up in the parking lot and the attention of all three turns to it. Watching. Waiting. After a few moments and dark haired lady in a blouse and pants gets out. As smartly dressed as she was, she also looked tired and pale. Drained, as she walks up to the doors. Rebecca moves to punch in the entry code and Leon goes to meet her at the door, holding out his hand to her. She takes it and shakes it.
"So, you're the man that owes me a new door?" Holly asks him. He gives her a small smile.
"I patched it up, and I'll pay for the repair." He agrees.
"Well, after tonight you probably won't have to." Holly shrugs, looking around at the others. They introduce themselves, more handshakes, like a formal business meeting. Rebecca ushers them through to her lab, out of sight of the outside world. There were few lights on in the building with barely anybody around, but Rebecca's lab is brightly lit and a welcome escape from the hallways full of shadows.
"Elizabeth, how is she?" Holly asks in a weary tone as she takes a seat at a table.
"Honestly, I don't know." Leon answers, "last time I saw her was yesterday, she was asleep on my couch after freaking out when I tried to take her in to work. She screamed, she broke glass." He quirks an eyebrow, looking for a sign of recognition.
Holly smiles sadly, giving a small nod.
"You got any idea why she'd be terrified of the Benford Memorial Building?" He presses.
"Aside from it all being part of the same cruel machine?" Holly produces a cigarette from her purse and under the circumstances, Rebecca doesn't object to her lighting it. "No. No idea."
"But you don't sound too shocked that she broke glass." Leon folds his arms, leaning against the wall near the door and gazing at her.
Holly taps her lighter against the table, exhaling a cloud of smoke. "She would panic, things would break. It was all part of the 'program'." She makes air quotation marks with her fingers. Then pockets her lighter, rolling her eyes and taking another drag on her cigarette. "They told me it was an independent project for intelligent children that had degenerative brain diseases. I was meant to keep track of them, their psychological progress, their mental well-being. I don't know what the treatments were, I just know..."
She trails off and swallows, like the words were thick in her mouth.
"It was all a lie. They weren't trying to cure sick children at all. I wasn't supposed to know and for the first year or so things seemed normal, but I became suspicious something else was happening I wasn't being told about. Instead of seeing progress I started to see the degeneration of these kids, they spiraled down fast over the last year. I was told it was side effects of the new medications they were being administered but it wasn't that. It was more." She taps the ash at the end of her cigarette in to her own palm. Rebecca finds her a dish for it.
As Leon lifts his hand to his mouth and begins to chew his thumb nail, she continues. "They were torturing these kids. Mentally.. physically. Trying to break them. Trying to.. fracture them. Pick apart their minds. Awaken something." She lets out a small laugh, shaking her head. "They woke something alright."
"What do you mean, torturing them?" Leon rumbles.
"I mean torturing them." Holly looks back up at him. "Like they were testing the endurance of the human mind before it just snapped like a twig."
"Why?" Sherry murmurs, horrified.
"They were trying to make a weapon. I saw things on whiteboards. I stole notes here and there. They tried to keep me in the dark about it but.. I knew more was going on than they let on. They were all homeless girls for a reason. No roots, nobody to run home to, and girls are generally believed to be more susceptible to this kind of thing. They called the project 'Lilith'. A demon Goddess." She snorts.
"They tortured those poor fucking children in the name of science. To break their minds, to wake up some latent part of the brain. Apparently, some Neuropsychologist back in the days of Umbrella had a theory that you could wake up dormant parts of the brain through a mixture of drug therapy and trauma. Like brain activity that changes if you're brought back from the dead. It changes too, if you go through something traumatic. So many with near death, horrendous experiences have reported changes in thought process, even intelligence."
"I've heard of that," Rebecca says quietly, folding her arms around herself.
Holly takes another long drag on her cigarette. "Apparently, if there's a chance it could win a war in some foreign country some day, anything goes."
Leon felt sick to his stomach. "They were trying to create something that would end war completely. Because you can't fight a thing that can just switch you out like a light."
"They quickly discovered they couldn't control it, either." Holly laughs bitterly.
"They succeeded." Leon says flatly.
"It's not the end result they were looking for, obviously. But.. yes, here we are." Holly flicks her ash.
"Jesus.." He shakes his head, leaning it back against the wall and gazing up at the ceiling. "We got NSA chiefs taking out Presidents and Government paid scientists torturing children to make weapons."
"What's that saying? All's fair in love and war?" Holly asks him, dripping with sarcasm. "The project is listed as privately funded at any rate, I doubt you'll find a single document tying it to the Government. They would only have taken credit if it had worked out as intended, and even then they wouldn't lay claim to the method. Just a bunch of Government employed scientists working on a private project in their spare time."
Leon grits his teeth.
"So what is it, pure harnessed negative energy?" Rebecca queries.
Holly looks at her steadily. "The children stopped being able to sleep, something in the drug they gave them. It brought something dormant to the surface. Most of the children died after a few weeks."
Leon feels a cold hand grip his heart, everything suddenly falling in to place. He closes his eyes.
"It's Lizzie, isn't it." He says quietly.
Holly regards him intently, giving him his answer in a small nod. "They fractured her mind, created something really.. really angry. And woke up a dormant part of her brain by removing her ability to sleep. They essentially gave life to a second personality, one they tortured in to her." She stubs out her cigarette, blowing out her last breath.
"But I've seen her sleep.." Leon frowns.
"You've seen her rest her eyes, Mr Kennedy." Holly corrects him. "She slips in to a kind of comatose state for brief periods, but it's not normal, healthy sleep."
Leon bows his head, rubbing his hand over his stubble covered chin. "And the shadow turned up while she was out."
"She has no control over it, it's not her doing this." Holly continues, "it's the thing they created inside her. If anything it influences her more than she influences it. The last time I spoke to her, four months ago, she was terrified of it. Spoke of it as a demon within."
"But it's just her, in the end. Her pain, her suffering.. the part of her they broke." He reasons.
"Well, hopefully her suffering ends.. along with this thing.. once I'm dead." Holly fishes out another cigarette.
Leon grits his teeth, staring at the other woman for a time. "There has to be something we can do. There has to be."
"What if we could give her her sleep back?" Rebecca speaks up. "Sleep deprivation is ongoing torture in itself. If we could give her that back, somehow.."
"And let her know she's not fucking alone, that she doesn't have to be scared anymore, give her a reason to fight it." Leon nods, looking to Holly. "Let her know we found her Mom."
Holly simply shrugs. "Maybe."
Leon pushes away from the wall. "Maybe is better than No. I don't know how to give up on people." He looks to Rebecca. "Whatever you can do, Bec."
"How will we find her?" Sherry asks as Rebecca moves around to her computer.
"We won't need to." Leon looks at Holly. "In a few hours, she'll come right to us."