Heya and welcome to another chapter! Like I mentioned last time this is probably going to be another not as fun chapter for those that are sensitive to stress. This one is pretty mild compared to the last one. If you made it through the last chapter you'll probably be fine but I still wanna make sure I have that disclaimer.

Song Suggestion: I Just Know by Jacob Lee - (New Immunity Remix)

Disclaimer: I own nothing~ I'm not affiliated with CapCom or the Resident Evil IP

Chris sat in his apartment with his right leg propped up and wrapped in a brace and his left arm in a sling. It turns out getting thrown through drywall and glass then dangling off the edge of a building wasn't good for you. Who would have thought? He gives a tired sigh as he used the thumb and pinky of his good hand to manipulate a small plastic remote that was sitting in his lap. a small whirling sound was made as the small helicopter flew around the room. he was starting to get pretty decent at piloting this thing... god he was bored... after his week at the BSAA medical ward, he was put on leave for 4 weeks since he wouldn't be able to drive with his leg bound up like this. It has barely been a week and he was already getting stir crazy. He never thought he'd miss doing paperwork yet here he was. He couldn't even go out for a smoke because he was on medications.

"What day is it anyways..." he says with a quiet sigh as he gently landed the tiny helicopter on the coffee table so he could check his phone, September 2nd. 4:42 pm. He put the phone down so he could cover his face with his hand and groan. He wasn't allowed to drive again unless he got a bill of clean health at his next doctor's appointment on the 20th. He eventually stopped grumbling into his hand and went back to trying to fly the tiny helicopter, maybe if he kept at it he'd figure out how to get it to do a loop.

Meanwhile, Emma was sitting at her desk while glaring at her laptop. Where on earth did that file go? She knew she saw the lease for that high rise, she could have sworn she even saved a copy to her desktop. Yet all of a sudden it just didn't exist. she'd spent the last two weeks digging around the different company storage drives and cloud servers trying to find hide or hair of it only to come up empty-handed. Something wasn't right and she was going to get to the bottom of it. She crossed her arms as she leaned back in her chair. There was always a chance that there was a paper copy in the file room but the place was a maze and a half. She thinks on it a moment longer before correcting her posture and trying to get a bit more work done. Even then the missing file was gnawing at the back of her mind. Someone in Research and Development had to be trying to cover this up... Emma drummed her fingers on her desk before looking at the time. 4:57 pm. She wasn't going to be getting anything done. With that thought, she stands up and packs up her bag.

"Oh, Hey Emmy" Veronica says as she walks over.

"Veronica Hey" Emma replies as she freezes like a deer in headlights.

"Are you heading home early again?" She asks with a curious tone.

"Oh, yeah. Sorry about that. I'm just babysitting tonight is all, so I need to get home" Emma explains though she doesn't make any further movement to pack up.

"Wow it must pay well," she says with a bit of a smirk.

"It doesn't... It's just something I do to help out a friend of mine." Emma replies while internally wincing as she recognized the threat well enough. "I'll be logging back in once I get home."

"Good," she says with a nod. "Toodles"

"yeah... see ya," Emma says with a slight frown. it felt like work was just getting worse and worse between the two album releases. Veronica's release wasn't for another 6 months and she just barely finished the songs yet she was chomping at the bit for anything that could be done to be done instantly. The full album for the punk rockers was going to release on Halloween and that was only 8 weeks away. she really needed to be focusing on that but any time she tried it was, Veronica this, Veronica that. She gave a tired sigh as she packed up her laptop. On top of all that she was trying to figure out what was going on with that missing highrise lease.

After another tired sigh, Emma slung her laptop bag over her shoulder and started making her way home, stopping by the grocery store to pick up a few things, then made her way home. "Hey duke," Emma says as she gets her usual excited greeting. she put the groceries on the island counter before leashing the dog up and taking him for a quick walk then feeding him once they got back. With that taken care of she heads over to the oven to start preheating it then digs out the two frozen pizzas from the bag and puts a bottle of soda in the fridge. the girls wouldn't be spending the night since it was a Monday, and she really did not have it in her to cook tonight. so Pizza party it is. Chelsea sorry but you get to deal with the sugar buzzed babies.

"One thing down. another 20 to go" Emma says quietly as she rests her forehead against the fridge, takes a deep breath, and leaves the apartment to head over to Chris's door and knocks.

"It's open" she hears in response from the other side of the door.

Emma walks in to see Chris resting his head on the back of the couch looking up at the tiny helicopter as he was having it fly around above him. Seeing this caused her to crack a smile as she takes out her phone to take a picture. taking one without saying anything first to make sure she at least had that. with that taken care of, she pressed and held the button to record. "Hey, Can you give me a thumbs up?" she asks with a smile causing Chris to look over with a raised eyebrow. he attempts to give a thumbs up only to realize that he only had one good hand and he just took it off the controller. a panicked expression replaced the bored one as he quickly moved to go back to controlling the tiny copter that was inches away from crashing. Emma laughs a bit as she realized that she had accidentally been kinda mean.

"I'm sorry, I forgot," She admits while trying not to smile but failing horribly. Chris grumbles in response as he lands the little copter. Emma walks over to give him a peck. "How was your day?" she asks as she walks back to the kitchen to start tapping at her phone.

[Emma] Chris update: Resting but bored.

[Emma] -Video file-

[Claire] is that a toy helicopter?

[Emma] Long story

[Claire] LOL kk, thanks for the update.

.

"Well, I counted dots on the ceiling. again." Chris replies grumpily.

"Oh? how many were there this time?" She asks as she smiles at the phone before shaking her head and putting the device away.

"347"

"50 more than last time," Emma says shaking her head as she starts digging through the fridge for something to make for him. "I can't stick around for long tonight, I'm watching the girls." She adds which causes Chris to frown as he leans over to grab his crutch and get up and hobble over to join Emma in the kitchen.

"Okay... so bring them over here then" He offers sincerely.

"You're joking," She says amused as she closes the fridge and looks over at him.

"I'm really bored. Please. A conversation with a 7-year-old is better than staring at the wall for another 5 hours."

"Did Mrs. Russo not stop by?" Emma asks surprised, last she heard Mrs. Russo was stopping by around noon to make sure Chris didn't need anything and was talking his ear off.

"Nah, Last she mentioned to me there were some complications with Marco's surgery because of the power outage and he's been in a home since,"

"Why is this the first I'm hearing of this" Emma asks concerned. The poor thing!

"Because you are already stressed as it is," Chris says with a frown. "You can't look after everyone."

"You could have at least told me," Emma says with a slight frown.

"If I did you'd be worrying and trying to bring meals over" Chris counters

"What's wrong with that?" Emma asks with a slight pout.

"The bags under your eyes are getting worse. You're going to run yourself into the ground if you take on any more." Chris rebuttals concerned. "Let me handle this one."

"... Fine." Emma relents. "I'll go get dinner and bring it over. If you're okay with watching the girls, I need to get some work done..."

"Alright, I can do that." Chris agrees as a smile starts to return.

"I'll be right back," Emma says and walks over to her apartment, turns off the oven, and gets the pizza and soda to bring it back.

"Pizza for dinner, and soda, you really were looking for brownie points with the girls huh," Chris says shaking his head as he moves to sit back down.

"Hey if they're busy running around and entertaining themselves then they're hopefully staying out of trouble," Emma says as she starts up the Oven. "If anything you're probably going to get the credit too since it's your place."

[Emma] Hey so I'm babysitting Chris too, do you mind dropping the girls off at his place for the night?

[Chelsea] Right he messed up his leg. Sure if he's okay with it. I can't guarantee they'll leave him alone.

[Emma] and I quote "A conversation with a 7-year-old is better than staring at the wall for another 5 hours" he was warned.

[Chelsea] His funeral then. good luck.

Emma chuckles at that. by the time she puts the Pizza's into the oven and threw out the boxes, there was a knock at the door.

"Door's open" Chris calls and the door opens. Summer, Maurie, and Annie run in. That causes Emma to do a double-take. That's right Annie was 2 years old now.

"Oh my gosh she's running," Emma says stunned, when. How had it been 2 years? her shock grew as the child climbed onto the couch on her own to sit with Summer, Maurie, and Chris. Oh gosh, she was getting old! Noooo. Cue the internal panic.

"I know," Chelsea replies understanding the shock. "She's been walking for a while now but lately it's all running all the time."

"They grow up so fast," Emma says still internally screaming.

"Yeah, thanks again for watching them so we could go out, you two are the best," Chelsea says with a sheepish smile

"It's fine, we got this" Chris says making a shooing motion with his free hand.

"Eee gattis," Annie babbles in an attempt to repeat what Chris said.

"We'll be back by 10," Chelsea says before giving Emma a hug and hurrying out. While the kids are busy sitting on the couch Emma takes out her laptop and sits at the island to get started on work. she was already behind schedule...

Summer sits next to Chris while swinging her legs off the end of the couch and eventually looks at his leg. "Uncle Chris? Did you hurt your leg?" she asks curiously and he nods.

"yep," he replies.

"Oh..." she says and stares at it a bit longer before looking at his face. "Can we play a game?"

"I don't have any." He admits unless the kid wanted to try messing with a Rubix cube from 10 years ago that he never used.

"That's okay, I know a game" She insists with a nod. "We can play super spies!"

What the he- "And how do you play that," Chris asks concerned.

"You give us missions and then we sneak around and do them" Summer replies with a nod.

... that was a game? "Okay... um... Well practice sneaking around then" he says very unsure about this. at the least, he was hoping he'd get an idea of what exactly they meant.

"Okay," Summer says as she gets off the couch and hurries over to a pile of blankets and puts it over her, and starts briskly walking around the apartment with her sisters following behind her.

"Summer what are you doing?" Emma asks as she sees the trio scurry through the kitchen.

"I'm being sneaky, shhh" She replies and continues leading the tiny brigade.

"Okay," Emma says shaking her head and going back to work.

Eventually, summer walks back over to look over the side of the couch causing the other two to bump into her as she stops. "Okay, ready for a mission," she says determinedly.

"you're sure?" Chris asks and summer nods enthusiastically "There's a bottle of soda in the fridge. get that and a cup and come back." having a tiny task force could have its perks if this works.

Emma tried to keep a neutral expression. Dang it all, she really was babysitting him too. The soda was way too high up for the girls to reach. She stops what she's doing to get a cup from the cabinet and walks over to the fridge, moving the soda to a lower shelf and placing the cup next to it.

before long the Trio 'sneakily' made their way to the fridge. Summer got the bottle of soda and Maurie grabbed the cup before heading back.

"We did it~" Summer and Maurie say at the same time.

"Good job, now to test it for poison" He replies and accepts the bottle and leans forward to put it down on the coffee table after getting it open. He takes the cup after that, places it on the table, and pours a little bit into the cup before closing the bottle.

"I wanna try," Summer says and Chris shakes his head.

"Let's see if it's poison first," he says and drinks the bit of soda he poured before laying limp.

Summer gasps "He's dead!"

"No, he isn't," Emma says calmly from the kitchen.

"yeah-huh," Summer argues back as she nudges him, only for him to stick out his tongue "see he's dead."

"Hmm. Well, that's a shame, because dead people can't eat pizza," Emma says without looking over whiles she continues reading over documents for work.

"I'm up," Chris says after, he did not want to lose dinner over this.

Seeing the sudden change causes the girls to laugh and squeal before running off. He chuckles a bit at this. They were cute. The night went on in a similar fashion. Summer, Maurie, and Annie would run around being 'sneaky' while Emma worked at the island with a small break in the middle for Pizza.

Emma smiles as she quickly snapped a picture of the three girls trying to hound Chris for his slice, and him laughing while trying to keep it away from them then send it to Claire and Chelsea in their respective chats.

'*'*'*'*'

The next day Emma was back to the grind at the same desk as always this time drumming a pen between her fingers. Another day of working and digging between meetings and still nothing. she was running out of places to look. Again her mind drifted to looking for a physical copy in the file room. If she went during her lunch break no one would notice...

As her lunch break grew closer her stomach became more and more knotted from nervousness. What if she didn't find anything... What if she did? What if someone walked in while she was digging around, how was she going to explain that one...

It's fine, you're fine. Everything will be fine. you work here it's not that weird to go to the file room. Emma thought trying to calm her nerves she eventually gets up and heads down two flights of steps from the top floor to the 3rd floor. Okay, she could do this. Emma walks over to the File room and enters her ID code to get the room to open and walks inside. it was a pretty nice setup, a maze of metal filing cabinets filled the room. Each drawer was outfitted with a Keypad requiring ID access.

Emma starts wandering around to try and figure out what the system was for filing, reading different labels, and mentally cataloging them to find a pattern. okay, it's by department then by year. Where was R&D... after 30 minutes of wandering and checking cabinet labels she eventually smiled. There it was, now to just find 2019 and. "Got it," Emma says with a smile. she entered the code for the drawer and it gave a soft chime and a click as it unlocked and partially slide open. the woman gave a sigh of relief. that worked, thank heaven that would have been heartbreaking to get this far and not have clearance... another 10 minutes of looking through File tabs and Emma eventually found what she was looking for. Leases. yes okay um. she pulled out the folder and sure enough there was the original copy of the lease. I knew it! I knew I wasn't crazy. Ace Avenue and Bravo Bulevard, floors 13, 14, and 15. the least started back in February. She needed to make a copy of this and get it to Chris. He would know what to do.

"Well then, I was wondering how long it would take for someone to show up." Says a calm yet elegant voice. Emma yelps from surprise as she turns to face it and hides the file behind her back. Walking towards her was a woman with dark hair, styled in a short bob wearing a red button-down and a black skirt that Emma did not recognize. Upon realizing this probably wasn't an employee Emma quickly shuts the file cabinet.

"No need to be a hero. We're on the same side," the woman says maintaining her even and calm tone with a cheeky smile "Now just open the cabinet and we'll both be on our way." She says while tapping at a small piece of metal on her hip.

Oh gosh, a gun again. Nope. Nope, nope. Yeah, she did not want to die on this hill, If the company was up to something, and they were on the same team then... Emma nods and turns back to the cabinet, entering her pin which causes it to unlock.

"Glad we could reach an understanding," The woman digs through the files opening and closing folders as she stacked up a few and put others back. she picked up her stack of folders before looking back at the cabinet and picking up another and offering it to Emma. "You're going to want this one. Don't open it until you get home."

Emma hesitantly accepted the offered file labeled Invoices. Weird, but okay. She already had the files she was looking for... All the same, she accepted the offered envelope. she didn't plan on keeping these, just scanning them to get a copy and put them back, but after meeting this person. maybe she should keep them...

"See you around," The woman says before closing the cabinet and walking away. Emma waits a moment and walks around the corner to find the woman was gone. She didn't open the door... where did she go. Emma shakes her head, she didn't have time for this. She hurries back to her desk and puts the files into her laptop bag. the next 4 hours passed slowly as she was anxious that someone might stop by and catch the files in her bag.

Relax, no one saw you. Emma thought quietly as she managed to stay until 6:30 pm to avoid leaving 'early' again and drawing attention to herself. Since when was on time early... Emma packed up her laptop and walked out of the building to her car feeling a bit stiff. she looked at the bag after getting seated but remembered what the woman told her. wait until you get home to open the files...

Emma eventually makes her way into the apartment building and looks at her door for a second before heading straight to Chris's place and knocking on the door.

"Come in" Replies the ever bored tone of the couch-ridden Chris.

Emma walks in closing the door behind her and heads over to Chris to give him a peck on the cheek then goes to the dining room table to put down her bag and dig out the files.

"How was your day?" Chris asks as he goes back to reading.

"Fine" Emma says as she digs out the two folders. she already knew what was in the Lease folder so she put that down in favor of opening the invoices folder. Lots of Receipts for equipment, desks, basic office supplies. Nothing really too interesting until she got about 5 pages in.

Memorial Morgue and Funeral Home

April 10th, 2018

Sale of 25 Cadavers as follows

Jane Doe, F, 42

Mark Daniels, M, 23

Karen Fletcher, F, 35

Emma read down the list mortified stopping as one name caught her eye in particular

Tanner Pennmark, M, 41

The names keep going as she got to the bottom of the page she started shaking.

Cadavers to be cut into segments at the joints for transport and future use.

The next page showed piles of chopped-up and mangled bodies. Emma dropped the file onto the table and ran to the bathroom as she had finally hit her limit from the stress and lost what was left of her lunch to the porcelain gods.

"Emma?" Chris says confused and concerned as he tries looking around from his place on the couch and ultimately reaches over for his crutch to get up and check on her. He gets to the table when he noticed the scattered papers. A sinking feeling came over him as he changed his path to head over to the table and look at what was dropped.

He dug through the pages of a lease for the building on Ace and Bavo that covered the 13th, 14th, and 15th floors. Purchase Receipts including one for cadavers... oh no. He looks to Emma as she walks back into the room with a mix of fear and concern. "Where did you get these?" She wasn't supposed to get involved.

"I found them..." She replies quietly.

"Why were you looking for them?" He asks as he was starting to get upset.

"I was trying to help," Emma replies a bit stunned.

"I don't need you to help, I need you to not get involved in this! You're not a mole, you're out of your depths and you're going to get hurt!" Chris counter as he becomes more and more aggravated"This is why I didn't want to tell you."

"This isn't just about what YOU want anymore!" Emma shouts cutting him off as built-up frustration finally gets to her. "You keep saying don't do this, don't do that. You're not supposed to be involved. Well, guess what. whether either of us likes it, I am." She says with a laugh as her body tried to process the stress. "Because even if you didn't tell me, I still knew something was wrong! I knew we rented those floors. I made the frickin ads the company used to hire whoever it was in that stupid building that made the THING on the tv. I would have gone looking anyways." She counters which cause his already frustrated frown to deepen. "The company I work for is doing this. I work there Chris. I HELPED these people and they used my friend for SCRAPS."

Chris remained silent.

Emma's frustrated rage calmed and her voice grew quiet. "you want me, to sit here and smile and pretend none of this is happening so you can feel like you're protecting me, but I can't do that... If I do, I'm no better than the ones causing this. because I'd be letting it happen..."

Chris gives a quiet sigh leaving his crutch to rest against the table and slowly hobbles over to use his good arm to hold her. as much as he hated it. She made a decent argument. Damn it. "Okay... I'll bring it what you found once I'm allowed to go back. but this is enough... no more okay?" He requests as he leans forward in an attempt to give her a kiss.

"I promise," Emma replies with a nod as she returned the hug and kiss.

'*'*'*'*'

Veronica sat alone on a beach chair by a well-lit indoor pool, staring at her phone which she occasionally tapped in the same place. the buzz of an intercom interrupted her silence. "Enter" She calls as a door opens and her bodyguards lead a scientist over to her place by the pool. "So?" She asks as nothing was said.

"We're making progress. We moved on from testing on parts to live subjects, but what you're asking for is. difficult." he admits. "While the product seems to work on the cadavers, The test samples that we've sent out have all resulted in minor outbreaks..."

"You already have what you need you just need to mutate it so it doesn't make people brain dead and bite the shit out of anything near them after. How hard can that be?" She asks with a frown.

"Sending out samples to civilians is getting dangerous if we could just go back to testing on parts." the scientist requests and she rolls her eyes.

"Fine," she says with an incredulous tone "fine just use what we have left from the Lab corpses," she says with a frown.

"I'll find you more bodies." She says with a tired sigh as she tapped at her phone again replaying a clip of security footage from the File room. Emma opening a drawer for an unknown person and the two taking files from it."

"Charles, James, Escort Harold out please. and while you're at it, call Oliver and have him do an audit of the file room. keep it on the down-low though... I want to see what our little rat got into first."

She watches the clip once more as they leave."Actually, Harold while you're at it have the lab make me a sample please," Veronica says before closing the footage. "Strike two." She was going to have a bit of fun.

Dun dun duuuun. The plot thickens~ next chapter is gonna be fun x'D for me. Not them. Lmao.

Review Responses:

Guest 1995 - the cat is 100% out of the bag and refuses to go back in the bag lmao X'D

StarRat - Glad you like the story U hope you enjoyed the latest update too.