Batman/Resident Evil: The Gotham Protocol

Chapter 12

By: Christopher W. Blaine

e-mail: darth_yoshi@yahoo.com

DISCLAIMER: Resident Evil™ is a registered product of Capcom Inc./Batman™ is a registered product of DC Comics Inc. Neither of these properties is used here with permission. This original story idea is ©2003 by Christopher W. Blaine.

The rest of the lower area was nothing more than several empty rooms and a half-rotted corpse inside a closet. Batman had commented that it was like walking through a crypt; Chris had commented that crypts were generally holy places. There were only two more rooms to look in and they had made their way down a side passage to a large vault door.

"Think it's a safe?" Chris asked.

Batman shook his head. "Corporations like Umbrella don't deal with things like paper money; all of their wealth is tied up in digital accounts. A safe would have no real use, especially here." He touched the door and then removed his gauntlet and tried it again. "It's cold."

Chris looked for any kind of sign for what the door kept them from entering. There was an area of bright paint in a rectangular shape, showing where a placard had once rested. As he carefully looked around the passage, he asked Batman if he had been able to raise anyone. "No; in fact my radio is dead silent. You don't happen to be carrying a radio?"

The younger man didn't turn around. "No; once I saw the underground tunnels, I realized that our standard issue equipment wouldn't be of use. We've run into this several times in the past. Umbrella likes to buy up bunkers and stuff like that." Finally resolved to waiting on the Batman to finish his business, Chris returned.

Batman pulled a small torch out of his utility belt and ignited it. Without a word, he began to cut through the door, which turned out to look more impressive than what it actually was. Chris was surprised to see such thin metal used for the door but it told him many things about what was inside without having to actually look.

"Probably not very valuable," Chris offered.

Batman tuned off the torch and stepped back. Smoke and vapor slowly rose into the air as Batman offered his own theory. "I think it's a refrigeration unit."

Chris took a step back and pushed the safety off of his pistol. "Didn't your buddy Nightwing run into a zombie in a fridge?"

Batman cast a glance at the pistol. "Why would they lock up some zombies and not others? We've experienced enough of those pathetic souls outside this passageway…"

"There are some things we haven't seen yet," Chris said quietly. He took a deep breath. "Zombies are byproducts of biological research into developing true WMD's. Umbrella's aim is to create a weapon that can think, react and adapt, but is also could be controlled. Our investigations have shown that they have some things that make zombies look like girl scouts."

"I see," Batman said as he turned to look at the cooling hole he had made. Had he just allowed warm air into a chamber holding a horror from the pits of hell? Did it really matter? Every door had to be opened, every corner checked if not to find evidence, but to at least try and find some survivors. Batman had started to give up that small bit of hope, though, as he realized that he was facing a corporation that regarded life as a tool, something to be used in furtherance of the great profit margin.

Batman pulled out a small flashlight and shined it into the hole, half-expecting a dead eye to stare back at him. Instead, the light revealed a treasure trove of evidence. "Bingo," Batman said with a smile. Chris moved over and looked inside.

His face brightened. "It looks like you hit the mother load, Mr. Batman. It's the holding area for the viruses!" He could barely contain his joy. "We've never had a chance like this! Make the hole bigger and I'll go in to get it."

Batman shook his head. "That used up all of my fuel; we'll need to either find the way to open this door or get some better tools." He took a final look around and caught the hint of something up in the darkened corner of the ceiling. He shined his light up and saw it was a two-way speaker-microphone. He indicated it to Chris. "I'll bet the door has a voice-print lock. The Riddler has used something like that before. The authorized personnel probably have to give the answer to some complex enigma."

Chris threw a thumb at the door behind them. "I guess that means we go into that final room." He paused for a moment. "We haven't seen any trace of this Man-Bat thing, have we?"

Batman could hear the apprehension in Chris's voice and he could understand it. Chris had never encountered the creature that Kirk Langstrom turned into. Zombies were horrible, but there was the knowledge, as Batman was coming to accept, that the person on the inside was gone, traveled to their final reward; only their corpse continued on until it fell apart. With Man-Bat, you knew that the good, yet misguided, man on the inside was forever trapped in his own personal hell.

Batman did not relish fighting Man-Bat, but if he did, it meant he was still alive. The Caped Crusader's fear was that the tragedy he had witnessed over the past hour or so would be punctuated by his finding the dead body of Kirk Langstrom. The man had a family in Gotham City.

"You go first," Batman said. Chris didn't argue and took the lead. They got to the door and Chris reached for the knob. He quickly looked at Batman, who nodded it was okay to proceed and Chris slowly opened the door. The first thing he noted was that there was suddenly sound.

"Fire alarm," Chris whispered. Then the smell hit him. "God! It's like a zoo!"

Batman started to reply when Chris fell back, his pistol clattering across the passageway. His hands were on his ears and he was screaming, screaming as if his head were ready to explode.

Vandross handed three quick punches to Batgirl's chest, but her return strike was just as savage. She smiled behind her mask when she heard a rib crack on her opponent. Vandross grunted and stepped away, moving just as some flaming debris drifted down from above. "You have set your employer's building afire, sir," Batgirl said. Inside her costume, she was drenched in sweat and it was very uncomfortable. She also assumed that she might be feeling the first effects of the change, for she was sure that she was now turning into a zombie.

"They are insured," Vandross smiled as he pulled off trench coat and tossed it away. Underneath he wore a sleeveless shirt that allowed Batgirl to view his large, powerful arms. She wanted to try and avoid them for as long as she could for though she was fast and deadly, there were times that brute force could overwhelm even the greatest of skill. "You aren't like the others, especially that whining Nightwing." He smiled like a predatory cat. "You've killed before."

"How do you know Nightwing has not?" she asked in reply. It was hard to keep her voice steady as a new burning sensation slowly worked its way from her leg to the rest of her body. She didn't have time to check her watch, but she hoped that she had given Rebecca and Jill enough time to get Green Arrow away and to safety.

A fire alarm suddenly sounded and she expected the sprinklers to turn on, but they didn't. Since Umbrella was planning on blowing everything up, they most likely turned off the water. "You know, when I was a younger man, I actually would have found this erotic," he joked with her as he stripped off his gun belt.

"I hope that since you are older, you will find this painful," she said. At the same time, they took off running at each other. She jumped first, leg extended to deliver a crushing kick to Vandross, most likely in the jaw. The mercenary dodged the attack, slipped past Batgirl and grabbed a handful of cape. He yanked back and she reacted by reaching up and unclasping it.

With a bit of flair, he twirled the now-loose cape and cowl and threw them into the corner. Batgirl stopped and pivoted. "Asian, eh? A bit cliché, don't you think?"

Her thigh muscle began to tremble. "Shut up and fight!"

He straightened up and she watched the membranes fall over his eyes, much like a shark's as it gets ready to attack. It was disgusting to watch. She expected heat vision and tried to will herself away, but something was blocking her will from becoming action.

The base of her spine started to burn as Vandross's eyes returned to normal. "My X-ray vision shows you're infected with Type Alpha T-Virus; a pity. All of this running around has pushed it through your system. It was originally designed to react with adrenaline."

Batgirl couldn't respond; the burning was now climbing up her spine like a spider up a wall. Each vertebra seemed to start to ache and she couldn't help but arch her back. She would have cried out, but she wanted to maintain the impression strength. Every second was another few feet away her friends got.

Self-sacrifice did not come easily to her; like anyone else she was afraid of dying. She felt the cold chills on the back of her neck whenever she saw a zombie for it reminded her of her own mortality. She was deadly, it was true, but it was only so she could protect life. Though she had lived a hard life, she wasn't hard, but was instead a vulnerable young woman.

Her legs finally gave out and she dropped to her knees. "Kill me," she croaked out. She started to fall over and managed to stop herself by throwing an arm out. "Kill me!" she screamed.

"Normally, I would say no," Vandross said as he came over. A large section of the ceiling crashed down, starting a larger fire. He paid it no heed. "But you've given me a good workout, and I appreciate a woman who can make me sweat." He drew a long black knife from the small of his back. "Believe me when I say I'm sparing you a very painful death."

Just as he got within arms reach, she lashed out with a hard uppercut to his groin. The knife dropped as he doubled-over. She then did a quick foot sweep and brought him down to floor level. She was shocked to see him smiling. "That was a good move, but it doesn't matter, you crazy bird. You're infected; the virus is lethal in all known cases!"

She grabbed his shirt and head-butted him. "What about you? You lived!"

He punched her in the temple and sent her sprawling across the floor. "Different virus. Mine was a Kryptonian mixture made up with some DNA left over from the project that created Superboy. I'm something of a screwed-up individual you might say."

 He got up and saw that she was grabbing her stomach and moaning. He recognized it as the final stage of the change, something he had watched too many times for even his own taste. Killing people was his job, it was what mercenaries did. Oh, some people tried to paint it as something more romantic, but the simple truth was he was a hired soldier and soldiers, by definition, killed people to earn their coin. He considered sparing her the indignity of the death she was about to experience, but he remembered her punch to his groin.

He walked over and picked up his gun belt, but left his coat. It was getting warm in this building. He glanced at his watch and realized he had no time to pursue Jill. He wanted to get her and try to explain why he did what he did, that it had been Umbrella that had saved his life after Deathstroke had tried to take it. She wouldn't listen and he knew it. They had chosen their respective paths years before.

Batgirl screamed and then vomited, a black foamy liquid that looked like used motor oil. With a final glance and a sideways hop away from a falling hunk of burning drywall, he made his way to an exit.

She knew she was dying.

Batgirl tried to pray but the idea of words seemed so silly to her. The more she tried to put together coherent thoughts, the more she realized that she was hungry. It was a stupid idea, of course, especially since she was throwing up everything in her stomach.

The burning was giving way to severe cold and numbness and it was ironic that she was afraid of messing herself in her costume. She wanted some dignity in her death but then she remembered the fire. The flames would purify her and hopefully destroy her animated corpse before it could hurt anyone.

She tried to get a hold of Oracle but after three tried she remembered that her cowl was somewhere else, but the direction it was laying in was lost to her. She couldn't even remember what the word direction meant and her train of thought drifted form here to there as she slipped into a dreamless sleep. Her mind's voice attempted to call out to a God she hardly knew, but the words soon blurred into emotions of despair and loneliness. Where is the bright light at the end of the tunnel? It was the last question she was sure she would ever ask as the advancing cold made its way to her neck.

And then there was nothing.

Jill turned back to look at the burning office building. "A fat lot of good that did," she said as she watched another floor start to burn. It was official now; they had screwed up.

"I guess I shouldn't have used that explosive arrow," Green Arrow said. Jill turned to see Rebecca putting her medical kit back together. Under his little green hat, Green Arrow was sporting a bandage. "Sorry."

Jill blew out to relieve the frustration she felt. They had gotten no records or any type of useful evidence because the Democratic Party's personal archer decided to take the fight to the "Man". Mentally, she counted to ten, realizing that it was unfair to put the blame on Green Arrow. His macho-antics may have taken out the computer room, but it was Vandross and his heat vision that had set the building on fire.

Rebecca was at her side. "Do you think she got out?"

Jill didn't know, but she saw no purpose in upsetting her. "You know that reputation of these Bat-types; they fight super-villains, space aliens…stuff like that. She'll be fine."

"I want to go back in and help her," Rebecca pleaded. Jill forbade it and when Rebecca tried to argue, Jill had to pull rank. Though they were no longer members of the S.T.A.R.s, Jill was the more experienced. Green Arrow used their debate to raise Oracle.

"I'm not getting anything from either Batman or Batgirl," Oracle told him. "And someone from Umbrella Corporate had contacted GCFD and told them that the on-site fire department will handle the blaze." Green Arrow said there was no fire department.

"I'll try to get a message through to my dad, but I wouldn't expect anything. Umbrella has deep pockets and their influence seems to extend far here in Gotham City." Green Arrow asked what the chances were of getting some back up. "Not good. Roy is stuck in the cave and Nightwing is out of action for awhile; he wanted to check on the Huntress." She went on to explain how the Huntress had gotten wounded and that Black canary had successfully retrieved her. "I'm trying to raise some of the League reserves but they aren't answering."

Green Arrow signed off and moved over to where Rebecca and Jill were comparing notes on what they had learned. "And," Rebecca was explaining, "I have no idea if we've deactivated the entire bomb chain or just a few of them."

"And there are zombies locked up in those barracks?" Jill asked.

"This place is nothing but a biological junkyard for Umbrella; they've got everything here. Maybe Batman has some answers," Rebecca replied, her eyes inevitably drifting back to the burning building. There was still no sign of Batgirl.

"Look, kid," Green Arrow said. "If Batgirl did get out, she's gonna head for wherever Bats is at because she'll think that's where we would go." He pushed his hat back and planted his bow in the dirt so he could lean on it. "I say we go find him and let him know about the bombs. Knowing him like I do, he'll probably have us hightail it out of here and then he'll sneak back in later to fix everything."

That seemed to reassure her slightly. "Okay…let's go." She started to lead the way and Jill nodded a silent thank you to Green Arrow. He accepted it with his typical arrogant smile.