"We've got a message!" The faint glow of the digitized text on the screen revealed itself to the first happy pair of eyes to look that way within the panic room.

"What is it?! Who is it?!" A voice called out within the dim light.

The rapid clicking of a mouse answered those questions, the sound joined only by the faint noise of rapid breathing and the quiet murmurs behind Doctor Kusunagi while he opened the email.

"A rescue…. S.T.A.R.S. There isn't much information but… a radio frequency! Quickly, someone break out the radio!" He whirled around on the seat of the swivel chair and pointed to the supply locker. "Bring me the headset!" His slender grayish skinned hand opened and closed far more rapidly than anyone might have thought possible for a man of his age. The wrinkled fingers opened and closed so quickly that his one hand was clapping impatiently from beyond his outstretched arm.

The sound of clattering metal drowned out the murmurs as the radio set was broken out and put into place with a thunder like clap when it was slammed down on the steel table.

The small black radio set with its abundant dials and switches on top of it, offered no confusion to the old doctor in the white coat. His hands moved over those with the same swiftness his colleagues had watched him use over his test subjects. Clicks and clacks sounded from his frenzied activity, bringing silence to his peers who would not even breath for fear that any single breath of their lungs might create a distraction for the old man.

Finally he took up the dark radio headset, slapped it down over his head and tuned the radio to the frequency they'd been given.

Static hit his ear immediately, bringing to mind the shoddy tech of the television sets from his childhood. He swore under his breath when he winced at the noise. He paused for a breath to let his temper settle, then depressed the talk button. "Callsign Livingston reaching out to rescue agent. Callsign Livingston reaching out to rescue agent. Can you read? Over."

The breath he'd taken to calm his temper was imitated by his peers in relief when Kusunagi let his finger up and an answer came.

"Yes. We read you. This is Callsign Watchman. We have entered the facility. Give us a status update. How many wounded?" The voice on the other end replied.

"No wounded. We killed them." Kusunagi answered abruptly.

Radio silence.

"Understood." The one he heard as 'Watchman' replied. "It was the right call."

"I know. That's why I made it. I always make the right call. It's why I'm alive. Now, when will you get here?" Kusunagi replied sharply.

"As soon as we can. But we arrived with little information about what to expect. What can you tell us? Over." Watchman asked with professional calm.

"Somehow the experiments started getting out, we don't know all the details ourselves, my team and I tried to evacuate when the alarm went off, but the power was cut so we withdrew to the safe room with the mechanical and battery locks, kicked on the generator, and now here we are. As far as the rest? The workers are probably mostly dead, a power repair team went down to fix the problem and never came back, they're either lost or trapped. Over."

After Kusunagi released the talk button, Watchman answered immediately.

"Understood. We encountered a giant snake, drove it off, and some of the eaters… honestly I guess zombies is a better word but… that's a little hard to swallow still. Over." Watchman answered.

The static held between them for a moment, Dr. Kusunagi turned behind him, looking over the faces of his peers and subordinates as he thought his answer over.

"Hello?" The voice of Watchman came in shortly.

"Yes, I'm here." Dr. Kusunagi replied, then went on, "Zombie may be hard to swallow, but it is the right word. The Niobe virus combined with V-shots… first they die, then they reanimate. Now listen, this is important. It isn't just people. The snake was to be part of another experiment, it's a giant anaconda out of South America. We didn't get to begin the experiment we planned to, but if it got out, then that 'somehow' was intentional. Somebody let the experiments out of their holding cells. That means you have an intelligent enemy. Or had, except for the guards and the armory, nobody should be armed, and I don't see anybody surviving out there unarmed. Not for long at least. Now how can I help you help me? Over."

"How can we get to you? Over." Watchman replied. "We got the door leading to the exit open, but what's the safest way in and out of your position? Over."

"First thing, you need to restore power to the building, to do that, you'll need to get down to the lower level, if you're just inside the entrance, head down the hall to the second door on the right, the stairs there go all the way down to the service level, it's a simple common lock and if the team of repair people made it that far, then it should still be open. Turn the power on. If there is no power, the only other option is through the main stairs that require passing across several different floors. Unless 'you' brought an armory, then you have very little chance of surviving that. Over." Dr. Kusunagi lifted his thumb from the talk button and waited.

He didn't wait long. "Acknowledged, as long as you're secure for now, we'll proceed as you suggest, we'll get the power up, and contact you again when we're done. Watchman Out."

Chris took his finger off the button and killed the power to his radio. "I always make the right call. Pfft, what a jackass." Chris spat as he hooked the radio back onto his belt with a sharp and contemptuous yank downard. "Alright, we're going to check on the power first, there may be other survivors down there."

There was a moment then in which faces became serious, drawn, with unblinking eyes going from one to the other and then down the hall before them. "And what about Wesker?" Rebecca asked, briefly glaring back down the way they'd come.

"Fuck Wesker. Anyone who survives, we get them out." Jill insisted without hesitation. "Right, Chris?"

Chris's answer was to pick up an unspent stray shell from the floor which Jill had missed and toss it to her while saying only, "You'll need every round." She snatched it out of the air and thumbed it into her newly acquired bandoleer. That was reply enough.

They made their way down the hall with steady, slow steps with firearms at the rady. Chris's mind was the only thing out racing his pulsing, pounding heart.

He felt his eyes twitch faintly as the low moan reached them from far down below. Chris froze briefly and slid one foot closer to the rail of the twisting staircase. He leaned over the edge and looked down. The green view of his night vision goggles were undaunted by the almost total darkness and through them he saw one of the walking dead.

Jill felt his hand come back and touch her arm. She glanced his way in the dark and watched his green outline move from her arm, to the shotgun, to point to the front position.

A silent nod and deep breaths, the sound of faint footfalls was like thunder to their ears as Jill followed his direction and took the front position. Her short brown hair swayed back and forth to caress the back of her neck. The hairs on her skin stood up to greet the slow caress and her fingers tensed as she raised the weapon up to her chest.

When she was in front, they fell back in a V shape behind her, Chris at the rail and Rebecca at the wall, they closed in on the shape of movement from which the moan came. They reached the third landing down when the walking abomination noticed them. It raised its head and moaned like it wanted to speak, its arms outstretched to reach for the trio. The stairs made it slow, and Jill turned her shotgun down toward it, instinctively aiming for center mass. Only Chris's hand on her shoulder stopped her.

'Damn it!' She cursed in her own mind and raised the barrel of the shotgun up so that the barrel was aimed at the head of the walking dead. A trigger squeeze, and the sound of the shotgun blast was joined only by the sound of splatter. Red blood and brain matter flew out over the wall where skull fragments and shotgun pellets struck and fell to the floor.

The echo of the blast was brief, and the body toppled backward, the lower half of the head, along with the body, landing hard on its back with a loud, heavy thud.

Chris tapped her shoulder and she raised the weapon skyward while moving aside to let him past. The smell of blood and gunpowder, as familiar and well known to them all as they were to one another, hung in the air far longer than usual in the small, confined space.

Chris raised his NVGs and turned on his flashlight to get a better look at the body. The ray of light shot out in an instant and illuminated the twice dead man. "Well this tells us what likely happened to all the workers." He said with a shake of his head and a sigh. "That's an electrician's utility belt around his waist, and that," he pointed from the tan leather belt with a multitude of tools to the single piece uniform, "and that is a standard maintenance worker's clothing. It looks like the workers got hit, but we're…" He looked over the rail," only two floors up from the bottom. Since there's no blood up here, he was the only one to make it this far, he had a nasty injury though, I guess he didn't 'die' right away." He moved his flashlight over the ground and let light bathe the red droplets from where the worker now lay, all the way back down his path of movement, the flow got heavier as it went back the direction from which the deceased had come.

"I don't have to tell you the obvious, do I?" He asked without looking behind him.

"No," Rebecca frowned, "if he's the only one who made it, then the rest of his team are still down there." She instinctively looked over the rail herself, down to where the heavy door waited for them.

"Radio Wesker." Jill suggested while popping another shotgun shell in to replace it's spent companion.

Chris reached to pull the radio out as quickly as he'd shoved it away earlier.

"Zoroaster, this is Watchman, do you read? Over." Chris said and lifted his hand from the talk button.

"I read. Over." Wesker answered.

"We're about to face heavy opposition, E.T.A. on inbound Bravo company? Over." Chris snapped out in a clipped voice.

"They arrived already. I dispatched them to secure the armory. Over." Wesker replied.

"The armory? Why do we need to secure the armory? Over." Chris asked, he felt the catch in his throat as understanding hit that he was not going to be reinforced. 'Wesker never changes his mind.' He thought with a clench of his jaw.

"Communication has been established with the lead scientists, you'll need the armory. Information will be provided on a need to know basis only. Just do your job, let them do theirs, and don't die. You were… expensive. Zoroaster OUT." Wesker's voice dripped like poisoned honey through the radio static before abruptly cutting off.

Chris shoved the radio back into place. "Scumbag." Chris spat, "We'll just have to manage…" He trailed off and continued the slow descent to the bottom of the staircase. When they reached the final square landing, they could hear the noise behind the door. A low moan… and scratch… scratch… scratch on the interior.

They reached the last landing and looked down the length of the final eight steps before a short four paces of floor ended at a heavy looking door. The scratches were louder, more insistent.

"They know we're here." Chris said before sweeping his eyes over the bare space open to them.

They each unconsciously shifted their grips on their weapons, tensing while their breathing pace picked up and their hearts thudded like loud drums within their chests.

"I'm going down, you two stay here, there's a window…" Chris pointed to the small vertical rectangle a short span above the door handle, "I'll put down a few that way, that should buy some time. When I open the door, I'm running back up, you two open fire as soon as I'm clear. We fight and retreat back up these stairs until they stop moving, cover each other, and keep communication high. Understood?" Chris asked, glancing from one to the other in the cloak of darkness. The green light the goggles gave him didn't reveal their expressions, but their sharp nods were clear enough.

"OK, and… try not to shoot me, alright?" Chris asked while cracking a smile they couldn't see.

"That was your fault, last time." Rebecca said snarkily, drawing a grim and low chuckle from Chris, who descended the steps like he was trying to avoid stepping on rattlesnakes. He reached the door and raised his rifle up, then triggered by some hidden signal known only to himself, he jammed the barrel of his rifle through the glass. It shattered easily against the impact of the metal and his finger immediately began to curl and open. The crack of his rifle was matched by the recoil that battered lightly against the pocket of his shoulder. The moans and groans grew louder, like the dead were angry about his attack. They clawed at his rifle barrel, and still he fired as much as he could into the dark. Green outlines fell or staggered at the impact of his rounds, their limbs flopping against the hard floor.

Few however, stayed down, the small window limited his field of fire, but it was enough to buy a precious foot or two before he darted his hand down toward the handle. He withdrew his rifle at that moment, turned the handle, then spun on his heel and ran away.

His feet pounded on the floor and then the stairs, taking two or three at a time, he ran between Jill and Rebecca. Behind him the groans became even louder, and the door flew open at his back, allowing the dead to walk after him.

Gunfire rang out, the blast of a shotgun, the sick sound of a crunching skull and falling blood and gray matter in the dark were all too evident at the base of the stairs.

Bodies toppled, slowing down the dead who tripped over their own.

"Position!" He shouted, the slapping sound of their feet on the stairs echoed up the many stories they'd come down, and Chris switched his selector level from safe, to semi. Again his fingers squeezed the trigger, the height of his position on the stairs made aiming easy, and the force of the rounds spun some of the dead back into their own. Either the dead died twice, or slowed down those who still walked, or both. But so it went.

"Position!" Jill shouted as she and Rebecca whirled from the landing above Chris. The bodies of the dead began to litter the stairs, headshots toppled them backwards, causing others to fall back into heaps. The shotgun blast at close range took out two at a time, and the precision pistol shots were nearly as effective. Finally, after retreating five stories, the last of them was crawling to its feet in a slow, shaky way. Inexorably it rose to all fours, and slowly unfolded at the middle to stand erect, walking with low moans of desperate hunger toward its desired prey.

Rebecca cocked her pistol after sharply slapping another magazine into place. Secure in the knowledge that it was the last, she approached with her arm extended, so that it was walking blithely toward the barrel. "Gives a new meaning to the phrase, 'dead man walking,' doesn't it?" She asked, then squeezed the trigger of her pistol, the brief flash of light in the dark appeared, and the round pierced its brain from an inch away, and blew out the back of its skull. The dead man fell backwards and slid until it came to a stop at the landing below them where it lay unmoving at last.

"Come on." Chris said, turning on his flashlight to inspect the carnage, "Let's go get that power turned back on."

He didn't wait for them to follow, and didn't need to, as they were behind him before his first step forward could land on the back of the corpse in front of them.