Resident Evil Recall: Necropolis

Chapter Twenty Five: Extraction Point

The last thing that Elza remembered was being in that cold water underneath that bridge in the park, before… before something really painful had happened, and everything went dark. It didn't seem like that much time had passed, maybe a few seconds, but when the young woman was finally able to open her eyes, her slowly focusing new surroundings told her that a lot more time had passed than she thought.

She was handcuffed behind her back to the sturdy guardrails around what looked like some kind of large hatch in the floor, as was Tobias, who was just starting to regain consciousness on the other side. Aside from that, this place looked like a darkened, elaborate control room, like the kind that would be seen in an airport, but right along with the darkened lights, the equipment and machinery looked like it hadn't been used in a long time.

"Confirmed, agent Lupa." A voice crackled through the radio, startling her. "There are still a few days before the Raccoon City experiment is complete, but in light of your achievement, I believe that an early extraction can be arranged."

The Russian woman was standing in front of the radio, listening as the voice on the other end told her to bring her two targets to the landing zone behind the warehouse… wherever that was. Apparently an extraction helicopter would be waiting for them there, meaning that Lupa would have to un-cuff them in order to be moved. However, apparently she had learned from trying to capture them before, and not only had a second pair of cuffs holding both of them to the guardrail so that they didn't have to be freed to be moved, but she also held Tobias's shock baton at them.

"All right, you two, let's move." She continued, kicking the release button to open the hatch. "The landing zone isn't far, but we've got to hurry."

Swinging open with a clang after hitting the wall, the hatch revealed a ladder that went down to the lower levels of wherever it was they were, and there was also the matter of getting down the ladder with their hands cuffed like that. Apparently, for Lupa it was no problem at all, since she kneed Tobias in the stomach before shoving him down the hatch, and grabbed Elza by the hair to toss her down as well a couple seconds later.

"Did either of you die?" The Russian woman called down after Elza landed on Tobias. "I must re-lockdown the facility, will join you shortly."

Thankfully, the hatch had only gone down a single floor, although that didn't stop the Lieutenant from landing hard on the concrete below. Once the young woman rolled off of him, and managed to get up to a kneeling position, she saw that the lower level of this place looked like some kind of dumping ground. There were bodies lying scattered all over the floor, obviously zombies from their discolored skin, but why would they have been…

Suddenly Elza's thoughts were interrupted when Tobias moved, first getting up to a kneeling position like she was, but then lunging forward, diving into one of the infected zombies, and sinking his teeth into the side of its neck. From what had happened at the college, the young woman understood why the Lieutenant was doing that, but this didn't mean in any way that it didn't completely gross her out.

Biting into the infected flesh, and swallowing down the blood of this somehow inactive zombie, Tobias had to stop suddenly when they heard the sound of Lupa's footsteps coming down the ladder. Quickly rubbing his face against the dead zombie's pant leg to clean the blood off his mouth, the Lieutenant managed to return to his original position near Elza by the time that the Russian woman was able to look around the room.

"What a disgusting place, these old facilities." She commented, pulling Elza to her feet, and then Tobias. "They test these people like rats, then toss them down here like garbage to be forgotten."

"Then why do you work for them?" Tobias asked when she urged them forward. "Look at this place, Lupa, look at this town. Raccoon City was once the home for a hundred thousand people, and now Umbrella has reduced it to nothing more than a killing field. There were families here, children, and now instead of growing up, they get to…

Suddenly there was a flash of light, and sparks flew when Lupa struck Elza in the back with the shock baton, making the young woman shriek as she collapsed to the floor. The crackling blue energy traveled up and down her body, making her convulse uncontrollably until it stopped a few seconds later, and the Russian woman mercilessly pulled her up to her feet by the handcuffs.

"I warned you this is the price for not cooperating." Lupa continued, now restraining the young woman by her hair. "I will hurt her more each time you speak or stop moving, now go, through the far door."

Stepping over the bodies as they went, the three of them reached the far door without incident, and when it was opened, Elza got yet another kind of view of this place. The first room looked like an airport control tower, the second was like a dumping basement, and now as they walked through the open air once again, this place looked like a junkyard. There were stacked cars making walls along the path, and there were more bodies lying around, but this time they were not run of the mill.

"Humph, looks like the Army got further than expected." Lupa remarked, looking down at the uniformed men on the ground. "Good thing we were there to make sure their other units failed as well."

Looking at how their bodies had been discarded, and left lying in unnatural positions like all the others she had seen in the past couple days, Elza almost wished that the afternoon sun wasn't shining down so brightly, so that she couldn't see everything as well. How could anyone do this? She wondered as they continued through the junkyard. Even someone who was completely driven by greed, or whatever was the start of all this… how could they look at Raccoon City, and not see how horrible it all was?

"Don't worry, is just through here." The Russian woman said, opening the warehouse door. "Soon you will be at comfortable Umbrella facility… Rockfort Island, most likely… then I can get paid, and we never have to see each other again. See, we all win."

There were more bodies in this place, which was apparently the warehouse that had been mentioned earlier, judging by all of the stored equipment that lined the shelves as tall as in Home Depot. More uniformed soldiers, as well as standard zombies that she had seen, and even some of the bigger monsters, like that tongue creature that had chased them around the hospital, were there. The good news was that all of them were dead, as if a really intense battle happened in this place… but why? Why make a stand there, of all places?

This answer was revealed after rounding the next corner, and seeing what looked like a massive kind of canon, but the likes of which Elza had never seen, positioned in the corner of the room, and hooked to different terminals via wires, as if it were going to be set up there for operation. This didn't make much sense, due to the fact that the canon was aimed at nothing but rows and rows of storage shelves, but apparently Lupa didn't plan on giving her any time to examine it.

"Do you hear that?" The Russian woman asked as the sound of approaching rotors was heard. "Just one last door to go, and then you'll be on your way to your new home."

The final door she had mentioned was at the end of the last aisle between the storage shelves, and there was a green indicator light above it, meaning most likely that it was unlocked. However, just as they were stepping up to it, there was a sharp beep, followed by a click after the indicator light turned red. An instant later, there was another locking sound from behind, most likely from the door they had used to come in, but why would the doors lock like that?

"Command, what is going on?" Lupa asked into her radio. "I can hear the extraction chopper, but the doors have locked."

"Unfortunately, we require validity of Dr. Lo's experiments on your target." The voice crackled through the speaker. "Good luck, agent Lupa."

This message confused Elza as the helicopter rotors were now heard right above the warehouse. What could they possibly mean by validation of experiments? Crash! An answer to this question appeared a few moments later, in the form of something busting right through the ceiling; raining metal and concrete debris down onto the shelves and floor, before the huge object destroyed all of the shelves that were right underneath on its way down.

Diving for cover, all three of them hit the floor just before the object did, and when the dust cleared, standing there in the beam of sunlight that could now enter the warehouse, was a huge figure. At first Elza thought it was that S.T.A.R.S. hunter that had been after Vickers, but it looked different… slightly better constructed, with brown skin, and a long green overcoat. There was no expression at all on this thing's surprisingly human looking face, but the young woman had been in Raccoon City long enough to know that this thing was anything but human.

"You." Tobias said, almost in a whisper as his eyes widened.

"Command, this is ridiculous!" Lupa yelled into her radio as the figure started to move. "We need to extract the target, and we can't do that if your monster…

Suddenly the green-coat wearing monster turned toward the Russian woman, giving her just enough time to duck out of the way when it reached for her. None of them had any bullets left, nor any firearms with which to use them, so the only thing Lupa could do was swing the shock baton. Unfortunately, the monster grabbed her arm, squeezing it hard enough to make her cry out and drop the weapon as she was lifted off her feet.

"Negative, agent Lupa." The voice crackled while she struggled to get away. "Combat verification on target's potential must be obtained, and this T-002 has been programmed to do just that… by trying its best to kill all of you."

The Russian woman was unable to break free of the monster's grip, so she was reaching for a knife in her boot, when the monster tossed her up into the air. Now grabbing her by the ankles instead, the green-coat wearing abomination swung her around so that Lupa's face struck one of the nearby storage racks with a 'wham!' that shattered her facemask, along with a wet 'snap!' that could have only been her neck breaking.

Discarding the Russian woman's body by tossing her aside, Elza could only watch as the monster now slowly walked toward her and Tobias.