Gaiden: Resident Evil SIV

Chapter Twenty One: Deductive Reasoning

Gillette was starting to get frustrated, her and her husband having gone over the entire ship three times since the massive infection during her concert, with absolutely no luck. Container R-002 was nowhere to be found, nor was that small computer thing that the Umbrella people were carrying, and now even Leon Kennedy had vanished without a trace. She had ordered the passengers and crew, one by one, to come to her and tell who they were and what they were doing there, but it seemed that all of the hidden agents, save for Leon, had been killed, which was why he was needed.

Now that all of the passengers had degraded into mindless zombies, it was up to her and Tobias to do the searching, which was a lot less fun than just staying in their cabin and having sex while the enthralled people did all the actual work. Her husband did his best to keep her spirits up, but the brunette knew that they weren't going to find anything different this time than they had the last… that, and walking around for several hours in high heels wasn't exactly pleasant as far as her feet were concerned.

Her frustration had come to its peak while going inside of a women's restroom to check around for hidden compartments, even though nothing had been found the last time, or the time before, resulting in her getting so angry that she shattered all of the tiles covering a wall with one punch. Gillette didn't like the rare moments when she got angry, since things usually got destroyed, or in one instance in Canada after getting of Sheena Island, about twenty five people got ripped apart with her bare hands. She especially had to be careful around Tobias when that happened, because although he was far stronger than any other human, she could easily overpower him if necessary, and she didn't want to hurt him.

Instead, the brunette actually preferred to be submissive with him, probably due to how the Umbrella scientists had programmed her generation with the desire to be taken care of by a man. This programmed instinct was a trap for them, of course, meant for nothing more than getting close to targets for infection, but Tobias was immune, and didn't degrade like the others. Honestly, she had fallen for him almost instantly, and when the scientists put them in containment together in the hopes that they would fight to gain more of their precious combat data, Gillette had allowed him to pin her against the wall… and then the two of them had to be gassed in order to pry them apart.

"Something's wrong here." Her husband said, interrupting her thoughts as he stopped walking. "Something's… different."

Suddenly excited by what he was saying, the brunette started looking around, but then became disappointed again when she didn't see anything different about this part of the ship at all. It was just the same corridors and stairs, with zombies standing around the empty reserved game rooms as they tried to complete the last thing they were doing before they degraded. Tobias, however, was convinced that something had changed, and the next thing Gillette knew, she was running up and down sets of stairs trying to keep up with him as he went all over to examine… what looked like nothing to her.

He would check all around some collapsed zombies, pick up random things from the floor as if he had found a lost treasure, and then where was a couple times when she didn't even know what he was focusing on. However, after going all the way to the first level of this interior section, as far as going outside in the rain for a moment, and then all the way to the top near the elevator, before back down to that same bathroom again, the brunette had finally had enough… as had her feet.

"Tobias, wait." She said, leaning on the sink counter to adjust her heels, while he checked around in the stalls. "Could you at least tell me what you're doing?"

He was silent for a bit while finishing his search inside the toilet stalls, but then her husband had a big smile on his face when he finally walked back over to her. Without saying a word, he put his hands on her hips to pick her up, making Gillette gasp as she suddenly found herself sitting on the sink counter, now eye-level with him, and when he kissed her, his yellow eyes started glowing a little brighter from absorbing the spores in her saliva.

"My love, I've got news that is going to make you so happy." Tobias began, holding out the random things he had collected in his hand. "There's someone new onboard the Starlight, and that means they probably know where we can find the container."

Again, the brunette was confused, looking at the things that he had picked up, such as a bullet casing and a black substance on a piece of paper towel, and trying to see any meaning to them but coming up with nothing… to which her husband was more than happy to explain. His first clue had been no longer hearing the soft ding of the elevator again and again, leading him to discover that some of the degraded zombies had been killed, which was proof enough that someone had been there, but not so far as who.

"The zombie on the first level had been killed near the directory map." Tobias said, pulling her closer to the edge of the sink counter so they were closer. "She was also killed at close range with a 9mm pistol round to the head, but there were also several impact marks to her face, indicating a violent struggle."

From this clue, her husband was able to determine that this person was new to the ship, which was the only reason for needing a directory map, and that they hadn't known about everyone being infected. If they had been aware of the zombies, then this one couldn't have surprised the intruder enough for there to be a struggle involving kicks to the face, and since there was no blood splatter on the wall, both of them must have been on the ground.

"Most likely they were dropped in by helicopter, but not from Umbrella." Tobias continued, now undoing the strap on Gillette's high heels so that they fell to the floor. "Umbrella's people like to come in with heavy weapons, not a 9mm pistol like the one that ejected this bullet casing. They also made no effort to hide their presence, so I'm guessing a government agent, but more a soldier than a spy… until his strategy changed completely."

From what he saw between the first level and the upper ones, her husband deduced that the intruder's methods at some point switched to a more stealthy approach, shown by his decision to dispatch zombies that got in his way with a blade, such as the one by the elevator, and blunt force trauma, like the other one with its brains splattered all over the floor. What he hadn't been able to figure out, though, what at what point this decision was made… until returning to the women's restroom, that is.

"The black substance on this paper is rubber residue." He explained, taking one of the straps of her dress down off of her shoulder. "It gets left when someone wearing boots turns too fast or slides across a hard surface, like this floor, and the mark I found in the last stall was pretty big, so either the passenger list includes Chyna from the WWF, or…

"Or there was a man in here recently." Gillette finished, now understanding everything he was saying. "And his strategy changed to be sneakier… when he saw the two of us in here a couple minutes ago. So, do you think that Leon was able to call for backup after all?"

The brunette absolutely loved it when her husband did the whole detective thing, and she really wished that she could have been able to see him solving real crimes in Raccoon City, but that was all before they met. He had been right, though, this was great news, since anyone that had been contacted by Leon was sure to know all the same secrets that the Agent did, so… so it was time to make it a little more difficult for this unknown intruder to move throughout the ship.

"Hear me, my loving family." She whispered, closing her eyes and focusing all of her energy on the spores that had been used to infect the crew. "I know that you are degraded and brainless, but it is time to follow your instincts… seek out all humans onboard the Starlight, and use them as a vector to spread your infection."

Everyone that had been infected the other night was now too far gone to obey specific commands, but their instincts were still intact, at least enough for them to resume activity that was more… stereotypical of deranged cannibals. The point of this was not to kill the intruder, but to force him to reveal himself through the use of firearms in self-defense. A smile formed on her face, now that there was more hope once again to find container R-002, once the intruder was infected and forced to tell them everything he knew about it.

"He's probably heading for the security room… pointless, we've already checked it." Tobias said, lowering her other strap, before taking out the bobby pins so that her hair fell around her shoulders. "And as for you, my darling Gillette…

Creak… the sound of the restroom door slowly opening interrupted his words, and both of them turned to see that one of the degraded zombies was now walking in. It had to lean heavily on the door, groaning almost pitifully as it followed the brunette's orders to seek out humans, and some of its discolored, blotchy skin peeled right off to the muscle below when it got caught on the door's latch.

"It must still sense me as a human." Tobias said, slowly reaching for his revolver. "So, let's give it a human response."

"No, wait, don't shoot it." Gillette replied, stopping him by grabbing his wrist. "I want to watch you consume it."

Leaning in and giving her a kiss on the forehead, her husband turned toward the zombie, and walked right up to it, grabbing the monster's arm when it tried to grab him, and making the brunette gasp with excitement when he broke the zombie's arm with a wet snap. Now Tobias grabbed it by the other arm with one hand, and its hair by the other, wrenching its head to the side, and sinking his teeth into its infected neck… swallowing its blood in order to consume more viral cells, while Gillette leaned back on the counter… eagerly watching the whole spectacle.