Pandemic: Resident Evil VI

Chapter Forty: Stealth Operation

Jake had partly expected to be jumped and possibly killed as soon as he entered the east area of the laboratory, but in truth none of the scientists or security guards even gave him a second look thanks to the uniform and body armor he was wearing. This section was a mirror image of the area the young man had been contained in, except there weren't any dead bodies lying around… no, this section was fully staffed, with workers everywhere, making it impossible for him to sneak around anywhere.

Okay, no sneaking, but he still needed to find where Sherry was being held. Sure, if this place was a mirror design, then the containment cells would be in the same place, but Jake would have looked pretty suspicious if he looked into each of the cells manually as if he didn't know what he was looking for. People tasked with these kind of jobs always knew exactly where to go, and what they were retrieving, so if he didn't, then someone was bound to…

"Hey, you." A voice called, making him gasp. "You lost or something? What is it, your first day? What are you doing in this area? Speak up."

"Uh, yeah… it is my first day here." Jake replied, turning around to see one of the scientists standing there. "I actually came down here to get Sh… er, to get Subject G-002… uh, Ada sent me to get her because of someone named… Gillette?"

Honestly, at this point the young man was just stringing together a random sentence filled with names he remembered from that Project E document, as if he were playing a game of Mad-libs, but apparently one of those was the magic word. Jake didn't really understand who this Gillette person was, but the mention of her name caused the scientist's whole attitude to change from 'what are you doing here?' to 'its this way, hurry up!' in less than three seconds. The scientist actually escorted the young man into the holding cells, and even entered the code to open the one… the one where Sherry Birkin was being held.

The blonde was strapped down to a metal table, looking like she was asleep or unconscious, and wearing one of those hospital gowns that didn't have a back. Sherry's hair had gotten a bit longer over the six months, either that or it was just matted down on top of her head… she was lucky as far as that, since the guards just forcibly shaved Jake's head every few weeks and then made him get into a really cold shower… but it still filled him with rage at seeing her all helpless and weak looking like that.

It was tempting… oh God, it was so tempting to simply kill this scumbag the moment they were alone in the cell, but the security camera mounted up in the corner of the wall made him reconsider. Think, Jake, think, he thought to himself… forget this clown, the important thing right now is to get Sherry out of here. Yeah, that cooled the young man down a bit… so instead of beating the scientist's head in, he simply grunted thank you before unlocking the wheels on the metal bed, and wheeling the blonde out of the room.

"Security, we have a Level C priority assignment coming through, you get me?" The scientist said over his radio. "Guy with G-002 coming out of the cages; just let him go wherever he needs to."

"Got it, no obstructions." Whoever was on the radio replied. "I'll just wave him through when he gets to the security office."

Wow, this was even easier than he imagined, but… where was Jake going? It was great that security was just going to wave him through like that, but what happened if the young man wheeled Sherry into someplace that wasn't the exit? So far the bluff about Gillette was working, but would the whole I'm new defense work if he just started wandering through the different areas of the laboratory? At that moment Jake got a really stupid idea, but then again pretending to be a clueless new guy had worked so far, so why not?

"Hey, man, this is embarrassing, but its my first day." The young man said once he got up to the security office. "How do I get back to the main area?"

"It's all right, this place can be confusing at first." The guard replied as if this happened a lot around here. "Just head back through the North Area, and take the lift at the back, you know, past decontamination. But hey… if you're taking her upstairs… hey, does that mean Gillette Liquid's here? Like… here, at the facility?"

All Jake could do at this point was shrug, while telling that guard that he wasn't trying to ask too many questions, to which the guard quickly agreed. With that, the young man wheeled Sherry away from the security office, toward the doors that were labeled North Area, and… hey, they opened for him when he approached… what a nice guy, that guard. The north area was built the same as the others that he had seen, but the difference was that instead of a wide open chamber, it was more of a single, long rectangle.

A row of hospital beds lined each side of the area, following the walls from the entrance all the way to the door at the far end that Jake hoped was decontamination, but although most of the beds were empty… it was the occupied ones that made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. Some of them had bloodshot eyes and discolored skin, pulling at their restraints and growling like the J'avo back in Edonia, and then there were others… there were others who were frozen in place, covered with some kind of semi-transparent brownish… yuck.

Sherry was starting to move around a bit now; slowly rolling her head back and forth while moaning softly… great, that meant she was going to be okay, and… and Jake needed to get her out of there before she woke up the rest of the way and recognized him. The blonde would have no idea what was happening if she woke up now, and might say his name or something, and… and well, if the whole place was put on alert then the two of them were in a lot of trouble. Thankfully, the guards inside this section must have gotten the same radio call, because they waved him through, and the scientists ignored him completely… okay, almost at the door.

For a second the young man was worried when the door marked Decontamination didn't open as he approached, but then there was a loud buzzing noise when the red indicator light above the exit turned green. The guard at this area's security station waved to him when he looked back, and Jake waved back with a fake smile, before shoving the metal double doors open and passing through into the decontamination chamber. Hiss! Sherry woke up with a start as the rooms sprinklers came on, soaking them completely, and the blonde was so startled and confused that she screamed in fright when it went from spraying them down, to blasting them with high-pressure air jets to dry them off.

Another loud buzzer went off as the indicator light above the next door turned green, but Sherry wasn't making it any easier for him to keep wheeling her table through, since she had now become hysterical. Confused at first after being woken up by the chemical and air sprays, the blonde started to thrash around, screaming and pulling at her restraints, and causing the table to rock back and forth. Clearly she hadn't noticed who the guard was that was pushing the table, meaning that Sherry must have thought she was on her way to another experiment… and judging by all of the large needle marks going up and down her arms and legs… her time there hadn't been any more pleasant than his.

"What's wrong, new guy? Having trouble with the ladies?" A voice on the intercom laughed as the table fell over onto its side. "Maybe she just needs another treatment to calm her down."

An alarm sounded in the decontamination chamber for a second as the sequence started up again, and now the floor was all slippery, making it hard for Jake to keep his balance while moving over to where Sherry had fallen. After the table crashed onto its side, the blonde somehow managed to get out of one of her wrist restraints, and… no, damn it… if she got free and managed to run through the next door unrestrained, then the whole laboratory would be put on high alert.

"No!" The blonde screamed when he grabbed her. "No, the tests were done! They said the tests were done! Don't do this to me! Please, don't! I can't take it again, don't!"

Slipping and sliding on the floor, the voice on the intercom laughed at the situation while the young man tried to restrain Sherry, but this was… actually pretty difficult. She was all wet and slippery now, so the resulting struggle left them falling all over themselves until Jake finally managed to pick her up over his shoulder, and then the jerk watching them finally turned the air jets back on… asshole. At least the floor was dry now, making it a little easier to carry the blonde through the next door into some kind of locker room, probably for the guards to have fresh equipment if theirs was contaminated… God damn it, Sherry was still fighting.

"Sherry, relax… God damn it, relax!" The young man ordered while setting her down. "Sherry it's me, you're safe now… Sherry, it's Jake!"

She still pulled and struggled to get away for a few seconds, but then slowly stopped after finally being able to take a look at his face. The blonde looked confused for a minute as she looked around the room, but then Jake gasped when she suddenly hugged him. Of course it was only then that he noticed how badly her hospital gown had become torn during the struggle, allowing him to see… well… enough of her exposed body that Sherry slapped him as soon as she realized the same thing.

"Ow!" The young man cried out in surprise as she ducked around behind an open locker door. "You're welcome for getting you out of there… Jesus."

"I saw what you were looking at… pervert." She replied accusingly. "You wanna use your eyes for something, then help me find some clothes, and… uh… thank you. How did you get out of your cell?"

Sherry sounded just as surprised as Jake had been when he told her how Tobias killed everyone in that area of the lab and just let him out. However, the blonde's attitude became evasive when the young man asked her if she had ever heard of Albert Wesker before. At first she acted like she didn't know, but cracked when Jake told her that Tobias said their dads were friends. Then her strategy switched to insisting that they didn't have time right now, but couldn't argue anymore after the young man said the search for something for her to wear might take a while so they might as well talk.

Yes, it was possible that another guard could come in and discover them at any moment, but Jake knew next to nothing about his father, not even his name until recently. So far the only one who had been willing to talk about his father was Tobias, and Jake refused to believe anything that bastard said… but Sherry didn't seem like the type to lie, so he listened intently as she began to talk.