Uroboros: Resident Evil V

Chapter Twenty Seven: The Fountain

It was a good thing that the plague doctor had made no effort whatsoever to cover her tracks, because as Chris and Sheva continued their exploration of the ancient city, they found dozens of branching pathways and corridors that looked like they led into separate areas of the city entirely. Most of the villagers in the immediate area had been distracted by the incident with the gemstone altar, allowing the two BSAA agents continue moving their way down the corridors, crossing a small bridge over a flowing canal, and then their new target's footprints ending in front of a stone slab.

This slab was bigger than a door, appearing different than the other carved stone around it, since its coloring was slightly off, and although there was no visible way to open it as far as levers or switches, there was another one of those reflective gemstones mounted in the wall next to it. At first the Agent was at a loss as to what they were supposed to do, but then when he was looking around he saw that there was another one of those movable altars on top of a nearby staircase.

"So… do we have to reflect light at the gem?" He asked, looking back and forth between the altar and the slab. "Seems like a pretty dangerous way to open a door."

"Well, I can't see any other way to open it, can you?" The young woman replied. "Here, you keep watch, and I'll focus the beam."

Moving well out of the possible path of the beam, Chris positioned himself just around the corner from the pathway they had used to get there so that he could watch for approaching threats, while Sheva quickly made her way over toward the altar. She had to go down another pathway and around the corner, with the Agent getting nervous for the few seconds he couldn't see her for, until she came back into view as she went up the stairs. All right, so far so good, he thought as she reached the altar, now all she had to do was aim it at the stone in the wall, and they could be on their way.

Like it had done before with the chief, the reflective stone on the pedestal began to glow after she figured out how to aim it properly, and then the temperature in the area rose dramatically when the focused yellow beam was sent into the carved floor. The young woman must have been worried about accidently hitting him, since she aimed the weapon very slowly until it moved up the wall and into the other gem… causing the whole chamber to rumble a bit as the slab slowly started to raise upward.

Incredible, Chris thought as it made its way up inch by inch, the ancient people who built this city must've figured out how to use the sun's light with those gemstones not only as a sacrificial weapon, but also as a primitive form of electricity in order to open the pathway ahead. Of course, the chamber was vibrating pretty loudly as this was happening, and it didn't take long before the Agent's thoughts were interrupted as the voices of angry villagers were heard approaching.

"Sheva!" He tried to yell quietly. "Sheva, they're coming!"

He wasn't sure whether or not the young woman could hear him over the rumbling of the chamber, but when he took another look down the corridor at the approaching threat, Chris couldn't help gasping when he saw that this wasn't just another small patrol. In fact, there were dozens of them running down the pathway, snarling and yelling angrily with spears raised, so the Agent loaded another cartridge into his flare gun and fired a shot right at the infected.

Fwoosh-BOOM! The front most members of the group shrieked in reaction to the bright flash of red light, causing everyone else to run into them when they stopped, and now at least a few seconds had been bought before they could attack again. It was great that the plagas parasites didn't like intense light, but Chris only had three cartridges left, and the hostiles were already recovering. The ones who had tripped were getting up, now even angrier as they stepped over the ones who had been blinded, and they were going to be right on top of him and…

Suddenly there was a brilliant flash of light and heat as the focused yellow beam passed right over his head, making the infected burst into flames as it swept all the way back down the pathway. In less than a second the attacking horde was reduced to burning pieces of human remains, and as soon as the threat was over, Sheva brought the beam back over to the slab so that it could resume opening. This time there were no more attackers, and as soon as the slab was open all the way, the young woman came back down the stairs.

Without her there to aim the beam at the gemstone anymore, the slab very slowly began to lower itself back down, giving the two of them more than enough time to get through before it closed, and then finding themselves at the start of a long tunnel that had a slight incline. Sheva was quiet now, though, holding her spear tightly while looking very tense, and the only thing he could think of to say was that he understood how hard this all was for her, especially being forced to kill her own people during this whole nightmare.

"Chris, these aren't my people anymore, I understand that." The young woman replied sadly. "Viruses and plagas, they don't care what color your skin is, and… and I'm sure you had to kill a lot of infected white people back in Raccoon City."

Yeah… that was true, most of the zombies he had encountered back at the Spencer Estate had… probably been white, it was hard to tell with the decaying flesh and all that. But she was right, if an outbreak occurred in Norway, most of the infected would be white, if one occurred in China, the infected would be Asian, or they would be mostly Hispanic in Mexico, and so on. What really got Chris mad was how Irving had chosen Africa for these experiments because he believed no one cared about the people there, but at the end of the day one human life was just as valuable as any other... except for bioterrorists like Irving… fuck them.

This pathway was getting darker and darker the farther they moved from the main chamber, but then it started to get bright again around the next turn, and the two of them saw that there was literally a light at the end of the tunnel. Was it sunlight? Were they about to reach the surface? If so, then it was going to be a lot harder to track down the plague doctor, unless the ground out there was soft enough for her to leave footprints, but once the two of them reached the end of the tunnel, they found that this was not the case.

The tunnel opened up into a small, rounded chamber that was dominated mostly by a decorative fountain carved from stone, set on top of a small natural spring. Sunlight poured in from a large hole in the chamber's ceiling, shining down onto hundreds of large pink and yellow flowers that filled up the sections on the fountains multiple levels. At first the Agent wondered how flowers or any plants at all could survive way down there, but he guessed that with the light from the sun and the water from the spring that it was enough to keep them going.

Elaborate symbols were carved all over the fountain as if this place were of some great significance at one time, and stairs allowed the whole thing to be accessed without disturbing the plants, but that wasn't what caught Chris's attention. Sure, these were probably pretty special flowers to be given all this attention by the ancient people, but that was nothing compared to what he saw on the ground near the side of the fountain. It was a metal rubbish bin, partially rusted and left tilted on its side for all of the detreated waste products to spill out, but when the Agent rubbed the dirt off the front of the container, he couldn't help gasp in shock.

"Umbrella?!" He exclaimed, looking at the old company's red and white emblem. "What the hell was Umbrella doing here?!"

Thankfully, Chris had not seen that logo in almost ten years, even since the pharmaceutical giant cornered the market on bioterror went belly up back in 2001, but there it was… just sitting there like discovering an old photograph of your ex-girlfriend. Seriously though, what the hell was Umbrella doing in the middle of an ancient underground African city? They couldn't have been involved in the plagas trials, since the parasites hadn't even been discovered until after the company was long gone, but… but of course there was more… there was always more to it.

Now that he had gotten halfway around the fountain, the Agent was able to see what was on the other side, and the other half of the small chamber was not what he expected. For one thing, there were electric lights hung up on the wall, like… really old ones with rounded covers on top to protect the single bulb underneath… and they were turned on. A few worn out looking green tents were along the wall next to a set of double doors that were definitely not of ancient African construction, being that thy were metal and had glass windows built in... but the tents had the Tricell logo on them.

"What would Tricell be doing down here?" Sheva asked, examining the old tents. "If this place was an old Umbrella site, then it should have been reported to the BSAA so that a team could go through and clear out any hazards. Chris, half the world should know about this place by now?"

"Unless Tricell didn't want anyone to know." He replied, looking back over at the metal bin. "These tents look pretty old, do you think… do you think that at one time Tricell and Umbrella were working together. Do you remember when Umbrella's whole board of directors vanished right before the company started collapsing? Do you think… that they just moved their offices to Tricell?"

It was a frightening thought, especially since Tricell had made a name for itself by trying to undo all the damage done by their biggest competitor, or at least that was the claim. But if they were just as crooked as Umbrella, then why would they give so much extra funding to the BSAA, without expecting someone to find out about all this eventually? It seemed like every time they got an answer during this mission, it just brought up more questions… and now the only way forward was through a set of really old looking metal doors, into a place that was once used by Umbrella.