Too Much of Heaven
Chapter 2 (Painful revision)
by Andromache
Disclaimer: I do not own the canonical characters of Resident Evil. Capcom does. I own the character of Elizabeth Coronado. I make no money from writing this story.
______________________________________________________________________
The intelligible roar of the monster chilled Chris' blood. He had heard stories of it from Jill and Carlos. It had chased them relentlessly through the streets of Raccoon City shortly before the city was turned into a grease spot on the landscape. Another one was now a few moments away from destroying the former S.T.A.R.S. member and the scientist that had engineered its existence.
The Nemesis roared again, but before it could tear into the elevator, Elizabeth cried out, "No! Stop this! I did not make you for this purpose!"
It recoiled from her, and the telltale sign of weight being lifted from the top of the elevator assured Chris that the monster had left. He asked Elizabeth as he lay stunned on the floor of the elevator, her head resting on his left hip, "How did you do that?"
She, equally shocked, replied, "I do not know."
The elevator, although severely damaged by the Nemesis, arrived at the ground floor of the facility and opend its doors. Chris and Elizabeth hastily got up from the floor and exited the elevator and then the facility after walking through the sparse reception area. After another walk, they arrived at what Elizabeth supposed was the base camp for the enemies of Umbrella. Three men, two Caucasian and one of Latin descent, and two women, one red-haired with Chris' striking blue eyes and the other brunette, were already standing there.
Chris greeted them, and when asked, he casually introduced Elizabeth, "This is Doctor Elizabeth Coronado, the acting head of Umbrella."
Elizabeth quickly glanced at Chris. He did not have to tell them that now. She wanted a small chance to meet these people on good terms. That was all lost now.
The group stared at her, some openly angry. She knew that what she had said would not be taken well although she thought that this kind of information had no possibility of being taken well.
" What did you say?" Claire sputtered. " Are you in charge of this sick, sadistic corporation?" she asked incredulously.
Elizabeth answered her, " No, not technically what with the board of directors disappearing as soon as they had confirmation that you were in the country. I am on the committee for biohazardous experiments, and I came up with the original idea for this perticular strain of the virus. They wanted someone to create a better version of the virus than the Ashfords could and whom they could control. " She was starting to feel nauseous, but she had to continue. " I am responsible for all the pain that you have been through within the past year or so, all the deaths of your friends and teammates and of the citizens of Raccoon City."
Elizabneth shook slightly as her knees weakened. " I'm sorry. I really am. "
Carlos appeared to be about to curse at her, but Chris moved his arm across Carlos' chest, preventing him from saying anything. Barry and Jill stood frozen, not quite believing what she had said.
Leon responded angrily, " Do you really expect us to believe you? You destroyed the lives of the citizens of an entire city, and you say that you're sorry? Umbrella definitely had you guys on some serious hallucinogenic drugs if you want forgiveness from us. "
Elizabeth sat down on a power converter terminal that had fed power to her lab. She put her face in her hands, and she wanted to speak but fainted before she could continue.
When Elizabeth awoke some fifteen minutes later, she was laying on the ground in front of the converter, staring at the sky which was rosy and purple with the sunset. The face of Chris Redfield was looking at her, concerned and relieved at the same time. She hardly expected any kindness from anyone, and so the look on Chris' face was certainly a surprise. He aided her to her feet and stood by her until she no longer felt lightheaded.
The others were concentrating on fixing dinner and contacting the authorities and making them believe the wild story that they were told. Chris walked with Elizabeth in silence until they came to the summit of the hill overlooking the facility. She stopped and swallowed, and asked him the question that had plagued her since she awoke. " Do..do you hate me? "
" I don't know what to think, Miss Coronado."
" I mean, now that you know who started it all, does that change your first impression of me? I would understand if you did. "
He thought and slowly replied, " I'm still processing what you told us. On one hand, I want to believe that you are intrinsically a good person and didn't mean to let it go this far, but on the other, coming up with the virus damn near makes you a monster in the S.T.A.R.S. book."
" I thought so. I think that of myself right now. " Elizabeth murmured. She wanted to believe what he said about her, that she was good, but she knew that would be far from the truth.
He walked beside her for a few more steps and then asked the question that he had been wanting to ask since he found her laying on her bed inside the laboratory facility, " How did this start? "
" It's a long story."
" When I graduated from college with a doctorate in bioengineering, a master's degree in microbiology, and a bachelor's degree in biology, I was immediately snapped up by Umbrella. They told me how honored they were to have me, how I was so lucky to have found them at this stage of development in the company. They hit the patriotic part of me when they said that they were working on government projects which was true at that time. The government hadn't withdrawn their funding yet.
"They set me up here. They gave me whatever I wanted in the way of materials, and in return they asked me to create a biological weapon that was inexpensive to create but multiplied quickly and enabled soldiers to be in as little danger as possible when they moved in afterwards to clean up the area. Someone suggested the idea of a virus much like the chemical weapons of previous wars, like mustard gas, only with the capability to be more discreet and faster to take effect. I guess I had seen too many monster movies the night before I came up with the idea of the NE-T-Virus. I wrote my report on what I believed that I could do. The head of bioweapons then approved the idea, and I was given the go-ahead. I theorized that the virus would be most effective if I could induce certain behaviors in the targets of the virus like the need to congregate with other people soon after infection. The higher-ups were pleased because even the Ashfords could not do what I had done."
Chris interjected, " Too many monster movies? Seriously? "
" No, actually. I have a strange sense of humor that shows up at the oddest times.
" However, to continue, I was naive enough to think that I was in control of my own research, but I found that someone was breaking into my files and reading them, occasionally even correcting my mistakes when I was gone for the night. At some point, I don't know when, I started to decline. I agreed to test on subjects when I had a working form of the virus.
" I injected the first lab animal with the virus and stayed overnight to watch the effects take place. The mouse I used moved noticeably more sluggish the next day and had begun to scratch at itself. When I came in that afternoon, the virus was fully at war with the mouse's immune system, and it had a ravenous appetite. It kept trying to claw through the cage to get to the other cage full of mice. The next night, the mouse had chewed through the metal cage and was then working on the cage of the other mice. Soon after, it had infected the other mice. All in all, it took about three days to completely destroy the mice population of the lab. I had a nightmare that night but thought nothing of it.
" Someone from the board of directors wrote me a letter congratulating me on my success, and I felt esctatic. Here, one of the top men in Umbrella had taken an interest in my work. That's when I started to think that I had become so vitally important to them, and I developed a God complex. Nothing was ever wrong with my work, and I had created the most talked about experiment that the company had ever had. I was feeling good about myself.
" I continued the experiments on larger and larger animals until I tested the virus on a Doberman pinscher. The aggressive aspect of the virus didn't really hit until the dog came extremely close to biting me one day. It had been a gentle dog until that point. It was never used for guard duty or even trained for it. I was lucky that I didn't get bitten. The animal was destroyed that evening of course, but my confidence in my own ability was not shaken in the least. I was still the darling of Umbrella, and I was called the prodigy of the biowarfare field. Nothing fazed me."
Chris, silent until now, wide-eyed with the story she was telling, asked, " Even when that dog had its jaws inches from your body, you never questioned the ethics of what you were doing? And you weren't scared at all? "
Elizabeth shook her head. " Never. Every animal is disposable in a lab including humans at a certain point. They even brought in some homeless men that they had lured with the promise of a meal and a bed to test the virus on humans. Umbrella never cared for anything. I know that now, but I would have never listened to that if I had been told then. "
They walked back to the main campsite where the rest of the group waited. Dinner was now ready, and Elizabeth hesitantly ate the meal, fearing that any moment one of them would execute her. Claire, Chris' sister, engaged him in a heated discussion some distance from where Elizabeth ate, gesturing towards her angrily. Chris appeared to be attempting to reason with her and most likely told her that Elizabeth was valuable to their credibility with the government. She didn't care what he told his sister as long as she got to finish her story at some point.
Carlos looked a bit sheepish and sat down next to Elizabeth. Jill followed with Barry and Leon, and they gathered around her.
" So, what's a intelligent girl like you doing in an evil corporation like Umbrella? " Carlos asked playfully.
Skeptical of the jovial greeting, Elizabeth turned her head away and quietly replied, " You wouldn't like me if I told you. Wait, I don't think you liked me anyways. "
Jill spoke," It wouldn't matter now. Umbrella's gone, and Chris filled us in before Claire dragged him off. Some story you have there. Why did you accept the job with Umbrella? I mean, you were fresh out of college. You could have gone to any research facility. Why them?"
Elizabeth paused. Why did she go to Umbrella? She eventually said, " They offered me a lot. A laboratory, all the funding I wanted, all I had to do was work for them. A scientist's dream..."
______________________________________________________________________
A/N: I am revising each part of this story bit by bit. I admit that I have not paid much attention to it lately...read that as being five months or so. I want to finish the story at some point.
Andromache
Chapter 2 (Painful revision)
by Andromache
Disclaimer: I do not own the canonical characters of Resident Evil. Capcom does. I own the character of Elizabeth Coronado. I make no money from writing this story.
______________________________________________________________________
The intelligible roar of the monster chilled Chris' blood. He had heard stories of it from Jill and Carlos. It had chased them relentlessly through the streets of Raccoon City shortly before the city was turned into a grease spot on the landscape. Another one was now a few moments away from destroying the former S.T.A.R.S. member and the scientist that had engineered its existence.
The Nemesis roared again, but before it could tear into the elevator, Elizabeth cried out, "No! Stop this! I did not make you for this purpose!"
It recoiled from her, and the telltale sign of weight being lifted from the top of the elevator assured Chris that the monster had left. He asked Elizabeth as he lay stunned on the floor of the elevator, her head resting on his left hip, "How did you do that?"
She, equally shocked, replied, "I do not know."
The elevator, although severely damaged by the Nemesis, arrived at the ground floor of the facility and opend its doors. Chris and Elizabeth hastily got up from the floor and exited the elevator and then the facility after walking through the sparse reception area. After another walk, they arrived at what Elizabeth supposed was the base camp for the enemies of Umbrella. Three men, two Caucasian and one of Latin descent, and two women, one red-haired with Chris' striking blue eyes and the other brunette, were already standing there.
Chris greeted them, and when asked, he casually introduced Elizabeth, "This is Doctor Elizabeth Coronado, the acting head of Umbrella."
Elizabeth quickly glanced at Chris. He did not have to tell them that now. She wanted a small chance to meet these people on good terms. That was all lost now.
The group stared at her, some openly angry. She knew that what she had said would not be taken well although she thought that this kind of information had no possibility of being taken well.
" What did you say?" Claire sputtered. " Are you in charge of this sick, sadistic corporation?" she asked incredulously.
Elizabeth answered her, " No, not technically what with the board of directors disappearing as soon as they had confirmation that you were in the country. I am on the committee for biohazardous experiments, and I came up with the original idea for this perticular strain of the virus. They wanted someone to create a better version of the virus than the Ashfords could and whom they could control. " She was starting to feel nauseous, but she had to continue. " I am responsible for all the pain that you have been through within the past year or so, all the deaths of your friends and teammates and of the citizens of Raccoon City."
Elizabneth shook slightly as her knees weakened. " I'm sorry. I really am. "
Carlos appeared to be about to curse at her, but Chris moved his arm across Carlos' chest, preventing him from saying anything. Barry and Jill stood frozen, not quite believing what she had said.
Leon responded angrily, " Do you really expect us to believe you? You destroyed the lives of the citizens of an entire city, and you say that you're sorry? Umbrella definitely had you guys on some serious hallucinogenic drugs if you want forgiveness from us. "
Elizabeth sat down on a power converter terminal that had fed power to her lab. She put her face in her hands, and she wanted to speak but fainted before she could continue.
When Elizabeth awoke some fifteen minutes later, she was laying on the ground in front of the converter, staring at the sky which was rosy and purple with the sunset. The face of Chris Redfield was looking at her, concerned and relieved at the same time. She hardly expected any kindness from anyone, and so the look on Chris' face was certainly a surprise. He aided her to her feet and stood by her until she no longer felt lightheaded.
The others were concentrating on fixing dinner and contacting the authorities and making them believe the wild story that they were told. Chris walked with Elizabeth in silence until they came to the summit of the hill overlooking the facility. She stopped and swallowed, and asked him the question that had plagued her since she awoke. " Do..do you hate me? "
" I don't know what to think, Miss Coronado."
" I mean, now that you know who started it all, does that change your first impression of me? I would understand if you did. "
He thought and slowly replied, " I'm still processing what you told us. On one hand, I want to believe that you are intrinsically a good person and didn't mean to let it go this far, but on the other, coming up with the virus damn near makes you a monster in the S.T.A.R.S. book."
" I thought so. I think that of myself right now. " Elizabeth murmured. She wanted to believe what he said about her, that she was good, but she knew that would be far from the truth.
He walked beside her for a few more steps and then asked the question that he had been wanting to ask since he found her laying on her bed inside the laboratory facility, " How did this start? "
" It's a long story."
" When I graduated from college with a doctorate in bioengineering, a master's degree in microbiology, and a bachelor's degree in biology, I was immediately snapped up by Umbrella. They told me how honored they were to have me, how I was so lucky to have found them at this stage of development in the company. They hit the patriotic part of me when they said that they were working on government projects which was true at that time. The government hadn't withdrawn their funding yet.
"They set me up here. They gave me whatever I wanted in the way of materials, and in return they asked me to create a biological weapon that was inexpensive to create but multiplied quickly and enabled soldiers to be in as little danger as possible when they moved in afterwards to clean up the area. Someone suggested the idea of a virus much like the chemical weapons of previous wars, like mustard gas, only with the capability to be more discreet and faster to take effect. I guess I had seen too many monster movies the night before I came up with the idea of the NE-T-Virus. I wrote my report on what I believed that I could do. The head of bioweapons then approved the idea, and I was given the go-ahead. I theorized that the virus would be most effective if I could induce certain behaviors in the targets of the virus like the need to congregate with other people soon after infection. The higher-ups were pleased because even the Ashfords could not do what I had done."
Chris interjected, " Too many monster movies? Seriously? "
" No, actually. I have a strange sense of humor that shows up at the oddest times.
" However, to continue, I was naive enough to think that I was in control of my own research, but I found that someone was breaking into my files and reading them, occasionally even correcting my mistakes when I was gone for the night. At some point, I don't know when, I started to decline. I agreed to test on subjects when I had a working form of the virus.
" I injected the first lab animal with the virus and stayed overnight to watch the effects take place. The mouse I used moved noticeably more sluggish the next day and had begun to scratch at itself. When I came in that afternoon, the virus was fully at war with the mouse's immune system, and it had a ravenous appetite. It kept trying to claw through the cage to get to the other cage full of mice. The next night, the mouse had chewed through the metal cage and was then working on the cage of the other mice. Soon after, it had infected the other mice. All in all, it took about three days to completely destroy the mice population of the lab. I had a nightmare that night but thought nothing of it.
" Someone from the board of directors wrote me a letter congratulating me on my success, and I felt esctatic. Here, one of the top men in Umbrella had taken an interest in my work. That's when I started to think that I had become so vitally important to them, and I developed a God complex. Nothing was ever wrong with my work, and I had created the most talked about experiment that the company had ever had. I was feeling good about myself.
" I continued the experiments on larger and larger animals until I tested the virus on a Doberman pinscher. The aggressive aspect of the virus didn't really hit until the dog came extremely close to biting me one day. It had been a gentle dog until that point. It was never used for guard duty or even trained for it. I was lucky that I didn't get bitten. The animal was destroyed that evening of course, but my confidence in my own ability was not shaken in the least. I was still the darling of Umbrella, and I was called the prodigy of the biowarfare field. Nothing fazed me."
Chris, silent until now, wide-eyed with the story she was telling, asked, " Even when that dog had its jaws inches from your body, you never questioned the ethics of what you were doing? And you weren't scared at all? "
Elizabeth shook her head. " Never. Every animal is disposable in a lab including humans at a certain point. They even brought in some homeless men that they had lured with the promise of a meal and a bed to test the virus on humans. Umbrella never cared for anything. I know that now, but I would have never listened to that if I had been told then. "
They walked back to the main campsite where the rest of the group waited. Dinner was now ready, and Elizabeth hesitantly ate the meal, fearing that any moment one of them would execute her. Claire, Chris' sister, engaged him in a heated discussion some distance from where Elizabeth ate, gesturing towards her angrily. Chris appeared to be attempting to reason with her and most likely told her that Elizabeth was valuable to their credibility with the government. She didn't care what he told his sister as long as she got to finish her story at some point.
Carlos looked a bit sheepish and sat down next to Elizabeth. Jill followed with Barry and Leon, and they gathered around her.
" So, what's a intelligent girl like you doing in an evil corporation like Umbrella? " Carlos asked playfully.
Skeptical of the jovial greeting, Elizabeth turned her head away and quietly replied, " You wouldn't like me if I told you. Wait, I don't think you liked me anyways. "
Jill spoke," It wouldn't matter now. Umbrella's gone, and Chris filled us in before Claire dragged him off. Some story you have there. Why did you accept the job with Umbrella? I mean, you were fresh out of college. You could have gone to any research facility. Why them?"
Elizabeth paused. Why did she go to Umbrella? She eventually said, " They offered me a lot. A laboratory, all the funding I wanted, all I had to do was work for them. A scientist's dream..."
______________________________________________________________________
A/N: I am revising each part of this story bit by bit. I admit that I have not paid much attention to it lately...read that as being five months or so. I want to finish the story at some point.
Andromache