Pandemic: Resident Evil VI

Chapter Thirty Three: Worst Case Scenario

After asking around, only to find out that no one on Alpha Team knew what a Stenographer was, Chris finally asked the woman herself, only to be disappointed with the job description. He had expected such a big word to mean something more important than just being the person who recorded everything that happened during official meetings and local court trials, but Ada's Id itself seemed valid… not that there was currently a way to do any more thorough of a check than just looking at it.

"When the terrorists broke in, I hid under the Mayor's desk." The woman explained when asked how she was just wandering around free. "They took the Mayor, and then split up the rest of the staff into two groups; they marched most of the women off to… somewhere… but everyone else was taken to the basement, I think."

The Captain wanted to get Ada out of there as soon as possible, but then again, she knew the building, and it would be a lot easier to find the way to the basement if the woman showed them the way… which she surprisingly volunteered to do so. Most civilians in her situation would have done anything they could to get somewhere safe, but apparently Steno, uh… Steiner, uh… apparently girls who wrote everything down were made of stronger stuff. Still, the woman needed to be looked after, so Chris smirked a little when he handed her over to Finn, causing a few snickers around the room when he told the kid to take good care of her.

"Yeah, Finn." One of the others added, thrusting his hips in the air. "You take real good care of her."

Piers told them to cut the horseshit, which only made the poor kid blush more as the snickering continued, but Ada wasn't paying any attention to the group, simply stating that the way to the basement was through the door to the right. The Captain took point again, reminding the woman to stay toward the back with Finn, and this time calling the Lieutenant to join him toward the front, since according to Ada, there was no other way out of the basement. If the mercenaries still had some hostages, the basement was definitely going to be their last stand, so this was officially the most dangerous part of the mission.

With all the damage the building had taken during the battle for the city, the power was out, leaving the basement stairwell in complete darkness beyond the first few steps that were still reachable by daylight. Night vision goggles hadn't been issued for this operation, so Chris and the others were forced to activate the small tactical flashlights mounted on the bottom of their rifles, and yes this would give their position away. Then again, at this point the mercenaries would have had to be retarded to not already be expecting the BSAA.

The Captain expected for the shooting to start as soon as he reached the bottom of the stairs, as dozens of battle hardened mercenaries fought for their lives in a blaze of gunfire and grenades… however, just like the upstairs of the building, the basement was quiet. Quiet and dark, with not a flicker of light or movement to be seen as Alpha Team swept their flashlights around the corridors. There was evidence of people being down there recently; a watch lying on the concrete floor, and a random whiff of a woman's perfume, but as for people… no, if the hostages had been down there at some point, they were long gone now.

"Oh, I almost forgot." Ada's voice suddenly spoke up from the back. "Your name is Finn, right? This is for you, Finn."

She handed him something, but the kid needed to turn back toward the others in order to see what the small object was… making the Captain gasp when it entered his flashlight beam, and he saw that it was a grenade. Pop! Instead of a big explosion, the object emitted only a small flash of light as it flew apart into a million pieces like one of those Hornet Swarm Grenades used in prisons, but instead of simply striking Finn, a drop of blood was produced when one of the fragments stabbed him in the throat.

No, not stabbed, it was more like… it was more like a tiny injector that simply stuck into the kid, and in less than a second this happened to the rest of Alpha Team as the fragments were shot out away from him in a cone shape pattern. Since Chris and Piers were at the opposite end from the blast point, most of the fragments struck the other soldiers, with only one injector embedding itself into the wall next to the Captain's head. This same protection was probably given to Ada since about ten fragments had struck Finn, and… and all of this happened in less than a second, leaving Chris to only just now realize that they had been setup.

But why? It didn't make any sense. Was Ada involved with the mercenaries? But if she was, Alpha Team would have had no way to know that, and simply evacuated her like any other hostage… unless she had other places she needed to be… holy fuck… was that woman the one behind it all? It wouldn't be the first time that some evil mastermind had managed to trick him, but right now there was no time to think about any of that because… because something strange was happening to his men.

They were starting to groan as if in pain, dropping their rifles and scratching violently at the places where the injectors had gotten them, and then a kind of fog was produced as their bodies began to smolder from underneath their armor. One of the soldiers fell to his knees, crying out in agony while digging his fingers so hard into the injection site that it was drawing blood, and then his body burst into flames that illuminated the basement around them. The others were burning as well, screaming as their bodies were engulfed, but the fire only lasted for a second before going out, and… and then…

In all his years of dealing with viral outbreaks and BOW attacks, the Captain had never in his life seen anything as horrifying as when a gelatinous, brown colored substance started to flow out of his team's mouths, turning their screams into bubbling gurgles as the substance spread out across their bodies. More of it was dripping out from under their gloves and from up their pantlegs, completely covering the soldiers in a matter of seconds, and slowing down their movements until they were completely frozen in place like one of those ancient mosquitoes on Jurassic Park.

"Cap… tain!" Finn gurgled, struggling to reach for him as his body was covered as well. "H… help!"

But then it was over; with the exception of himself and Piers, all of Alpha Team was frozen with their faces just barely visible underneath the brownish covering, leaving the basement just as quiet as it had been before. There was no sign of Ada now, but Chris wasn't paying attention, in fact he was just… he was just staring at the crystalized remains of Finn while his mind tried to process what just happened… but then a tear ran down the Captain's cheek when instead of trying to process and move on, his mind suddenly became obsessed with remembering all of the people he had ever lost on missions like this one.

Part of him knew that Ada had to be captured before she got away, but Chris just kept staring into the kid's barely visible eyes while remembering nothing but the deaths of people he cared about. Members of STARS Alpha and Bravo Teams during the Spencer Estate, Rodrigo on Rockfort Island, Alexia Ashford in Antarctica, the BSAA teams in Kijuju, and… and now this… Finn was just a kid, and… and Chris had just stood there while… he had just stood there while…

Now there was a ringing in the Captain's ears while the basement seemed to get brighter, leaving Chris only dimly aware of Piers yelling at him… the Lieutenant was pointing at something, his words muffled as he yelled at the top of his lungs… and then the Captain turned back the way his finger was pointing just in time to see the back of Finn's cocoon split open. No, not just the cocoon, but the kid's back as well, leaving him completely transparent as something crawled out of the cocoon… something big.

Something similar was happening to the bodies of the other soldiers, but there was no time to see that, since as soon as the large, mutated creature pulled itself free of the crystal substance, it attacked. Chris was still in shock over everything he saw, leaving him unable to react as the monster ran forward and swung one of its big arms, lifting the Captain off his feet as he was sent flying backwards across the room. Gunfire? Everything was muffled still, and the ringing was painful, so Chris wasn't really sure what was going on, even after his body began moving across the floor.

Moving? Or was he being dragged? Did that monster have him?! After a while of being dragged, there was intense light all around, making the Captain believe for a moment that he was dead, if not for the cold. Even with his ears muffled and ringing, and his vision distorted, Chris was able to feel the cold Edonian wind as it blew right through his clothes, and part of him wanted to get up, but… but he couldn't. Every time the Captain tried to move or speak, his mind would assault him with images of the people who had been lost, showing him just how powerless he had been each time, and now… now there was a helicopter.

Someone was there… was that Piers? The Lieutenant was saying something to him as he was loaded into the aircraft, but to Chris the words were nothing but gibberish, so he closed his eyes for only a moment, trying to shut out the memories, and it seemed to work. Suddenly everything was dark and quiet; Piers and the helicopter were gone, as was the cold, snowy weather, and… and where the hell was he? Instead of lying across the seats of an aircraft, Chris now found himself lying in a small bed inside a dimly lit room… the moon was visible through the nearby window… but wasn't it just daytime?

The Captain's ears were no longer ringing, and his vision had cleared up, allowing him to see that he was in a hospital room, wearing one of those flimsy gowns with no back, and a slowly beeping machine next to the bed that was keeping an eye on his vitals. Slowly growing accustomed to the lower light, the next thing Chris saw was one of those large calendars that showed the date one day at a time, and there in large print was the number thirty one, with December and 2012 in slightly smaller letters above and below. Hey, wait a second… wasn't it Christmas Eve?"

"Chris?" A familiar voice asked, interrupting his thoughts. "Oh Chris, my darlin', you're awake!"

If he had been able to turn his head toward the other side of the room, the Captain would have seen that there was someone else in the room with him, and he sighed with relief when he saw that it was his wife, Amelia. She rushed over to the bed and hugged him tightly, momentarily making him forget all the painful memories as they kissed and held each other, but… but then the image of Finn's final moments flashed through Chris's mind, starting the pain all over again as the ringing returned to his ears.