Hunk awakened to find that the jet-black Chinook chopper had entered the
city limits of Test Town Alpha-4769.Raccoon City. He looked around and saw
his team, all rookies accept for him and #2, gearing up and deciding what
killing machines they wanted at their side. #2 was his second in command;
they had known each other for five years and until three weeks under much
better circumstances. They had met in the Cafeteria of the Hive. She was
a head researcher and was overseeing the conversion of the room to a B.O.W.
holding lab. Hunk's team had overseen transportation of the cold steel
containers.
"Five minutes until drop-off." The pilot came over the intercom, barely audible over the whirring of the chopper's massive twin blades, each half a ton.
"Ok, rookies, lets get the zip-lines ready!" Hunk yelled, clearly heard over the blades.
?????????????????????????????????????????????? Hunk's team had been on the move for three hours and had encountered four zombies and two people. He had seen his men gun down all six of them. After all, his mission was to assess the situation of the infection and smoke the place. Then, there was his counter-mission... Onward the team pushed through the wreckage and tangled masses of half missing police cars and smoking corpses. Finally, after another hour, they reached the relative safety of the hospital. Now for his counter-mission. He was supposed to find a woman... Alice or something like that, and update her on the situation. Then, he was to provide her with equipment and allow her to join the team to get out of the city. Only, the CIA way doesn't always work.
"Sir, the woman isn't here," his second in command interjected through the crackle of the helmet mic. She was the only one on the team Hunk could trust.
"Damn it!!! Did you check in the CDC Quarantine room???"
"Yeah... funny thing is, the room wasn't guarded like you said it would be. And, the door was opened on the insi..."
"Report in now, #2," Hunk barked through the mic.
"...Sorry, I found some of R.P.D and Umbrella's finest. Old fashioned gunfight, apparently. Not to mention, it looks like something ripped them apart and tried to put them together again."
Hunk went through the plan over and over again in his head. Pacing, he noticed a shadow dart from in front of the window. He turned quickly to see a moving bulge in the vent shaft above him and a clicking noise.
"#2, get the hell down here NOW!!!"
Hunk rounded his team up and informed them of the situation.
"Okay, we've got chimeras in the vents. We've stumbled on a nest. Watch each other's backs and kill anything with more than two legs. We'll wait here until #2 gets back and then get the hell outta here."
As soon as he got finished with his orders, #2 came running down the hall from the stairs.
"Four of 'em... on my tail...won't go down..."
Just as she got finished with her "report", two Chimera came barreling around the farthest corner in the hall behind her. Two more burst out of the vents above them. Everyone opened fire, unloading clip after clip into the wall and the floor, occasionally popping some lead into the Chimera's skin. Damn rookies, Hunk thought. Hunk could only watch as the farthest man's head was lobbed off by the expertly aimed slash of the largest one, the alpha male. Hunk's team was now down to five counting him and #2.
"Looks like this mission went down the drain," yelled a mortally wounded teammate whose intestines were sliding out of a huge gash as he took off his anti-contamination helmet and placed his Beretta in his mouth, pulling the trigger.
?????????????????????????????????????????????? "Evac, where the hell are you!!!" Hunk yelled through the small headset mic. He had been trying to raise the chopper for twenty minutes and the only answer he'd got back was a steady low static hiss. The only people left after their four-legged buggy friends were dead were #2 and a rookie named Smith. Smith's shooting almost put him to shame. Almost. It was a good combination; sniper and hacker. He was one of the only technicians that you could leave alone and not worry about them being killed. But even he wouldn't be able to dig them out of this mess. They were stuck in, of all places, a comic book store. They had used a snack machine to barricade the door, but it wouldn't hold out for much longer. While the others checked their gear and secured the building, Hunk took the time to browse through the store. He found a drink machine and shot the lock off the door, taking out a Cola and popping the top. But he thought twice about drinking it. Hunk noticed the label, Umbrella Foods Inc. He pulled out a small syringe and drew some of the liquid out of the aluminum can, which looked incredibly small in his heavily armored hand. Hunk dispensed the liquid on the small pad on his OPSAT and hit the test button. Sure enough, the liquid turned up a positive result. It was 10% T-virus, just enough to infect a human being. But this was a modified strain, the small executable program stated, with bio-signatures that weren't in the CDC database. Closing the applet and putting his scanner away, he threw the can into the trashcan and rigged the first satchel of plastique to the drink machine. With the chopper missing, Hunk was tempted to use his CIA transceiver to issue an extraction for the three of them. But this mission could be salvaged without breaking cover. After all, he was their only "asset" left in Umbrella with the infection of The Hive. Hunk's thoughts were cut short of a resolution as #2 and Smith returned from the back storage room.
??????????????????????????????????????????
"What have we got," the old, weathered face said to his young, enthusiastic aide.
"Well, sir, we lost contact with our SF squad in Raccoon about an hour ago. Our moles in Umbrella used their transceivers about an hour ago. We've already dispatched a platoon of Special Forces and NBC soldiers awaiting us at the bunker five miles out."
"What about containment teams? Do we still have containment?" The worried face demanded.
"Sir, we lost contact with containment team #1, but visual reports from our Recon 'hawks showed they were all right. Just a little dazed."
"I want a full division sent in for containment; we can't let this out of there. What about our moles' counter-mission? Anything yet?"
The aide stared at the floor. "Nothing yet sir."
"So why are we going into an unsecured area, when we have no idea of the team's condition or of their success or failure? What happened to the containment contingency? The radius is 10 miles; do you want the leaders of the free world to be in the direct blast radius of a nuclear explosion?"
"Well, Mr. President, the transceiver signals were accompanied with a phone call to one of our dead-drop numbers. A message was left encoded that had been encoded with a CIA-issued OPSAT. Our techs are working on decoding and analysis as we speak," the aide said pulling out his cell phone. "I'll get in touch and check on the status right now."
The aide left the president's side, and went to a secure room to make the call. In the main conference room, the president began to reflect on just what might happen if his men had failed.
"Hopefully they got her out; she's the only one who knows who took the vaccine. If not. they may god have mercy on mankind, because this is going to get rough."
??????????????????????????????????????????????
Hunk's team had been moving slowly towards the evac point. He had yet to receive word from his superiors. Had the damned him; left him for dead in a city of Hell? His OPSAT began to ring, hopefully his superiors.
"Alpha zeta Lambda," he quickly recited his auth code, as he answered the glowing PDA/phone. He heard the hiss as his phone and the other line synced up, verifying his code with a CIA server hundreds of miles away.
"Situational report, #1," his CO barked.
"Insertion success, CSAR failure. She wasn't there, sir. It went FUBAR from there. Three members left, all up-to-speed on counter-mission. We're headed to the bunker now, have the containment teams open up for us."
"We have a problem, you're not leaving yet. We have one last task for your team before you pull out of there."
Hunk hesitated; his team had had enough. They had been through more in a single night than most vets had been through in entire tours of duty. Why were they yet again being sent into the cross fire.
"Are you there? Repeat, are you there? We need your help in stopping the spread of infection. We need to ensure that the virus can't escape the city."
"What did you have in mind, sir," Hunk said, hoping that it would end with the destruction of this place.
"The local energy co-op is powered by a nuclear fission reactor. The reactor is located two miles outside of town, to the south. We need your team to get in and cause a meltdown. Tech branch will be uploading information on how to do so to your OPSAT. When you complete your mission, a chopper will be waiting to bring you back to the bunker on the other side of the city. We'll update you on the way."
??????????????????????????????????????????????
They had made it with ease. No opposition in reaching the reactor. The gates were even locked, a very good sign of no infection. But he never once let his guard down; as soon as he did he risked himself and his team. Breaching the front gate, he entered the small guard shack to see a steaming half-cup of coffee and muddy footprints. It had only begun to rain the previous hour; someone else was in the complex. Quickly computing this in his mind, he turned to the wall of camera monitors. In one was the control room, where two technicians sat, apparently unaware that their little piece of the world was going all to hell. Other monitors showed the various corridors and storage rooms scattered about the complex. There was one that had been shot out, with the label removed from its casing.
"Smith get in here and earn your transport out of here," hunk said, turning to the PC behind him. He was bothered by the blown-out screen. It placed an empty hole in his plans. He didn't like empty holes in plans, especially ones involving Nuclear Reactors and Chemical weapons.
"Roger that. By the way, we have some company on the way; two Umbrella vans just entering the premises. About 3 miles out, by the look of the headlights, sir"
More friends, Hunk thought. He needed to get into that control room and to those techs before whoever was in the complex with them did. Shouldering his P90 and pulling his Desert Eagle out from its leg holster, he made a quick check of the cameras before setting out to the control room.
((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((
Hunk quickly discovered that, in the event of an accident, the complex would be screwed, as the internals were a maze of halls, dead-ends, and assorted storage rooms. The maps on the walls were of no help, and seemed to date from the 1970's. New wings had been added, old ones demolished, locks installed on doors to mundane-titled rooms, odd features added to the architecture that hinted to a more sinister purpose than just power.
Gripping the radio near his shoulder, he issued a "report in" command. He waited. No reply. Where had they gone to now? Repeating the command, Smith answered instantly. He had found the control room. Using his radio signal for guidance, Hunk navigated the maze, finally making it to the control room. Stepping in, he saw Smith tending to a large gash on #2's arm. Walking over, he saw what had caused the damage; an engineer sat huddled in the corner, a fire axe at his feet.
"So, I guess were clean in here," he said, motioning over to the obviously alive, and obviously un-infected tech.
"Appears so, sir" #2 squeezed out, winching in pain as her wound was cleaned.
Moving over to the panel he saw a light flashing red with a corresponding meter displayed on one of the large Plasma Displays hanging on the wall. It had a single word for its title, one word that stood out, blinking over and over again. Meltdown. #2 seemed to read his concern and pointed across the room to a clock, spinning backwards, five minutes to twelve. Mustering up the engineer and helping Smith and #2, he began to frantically search for the exit, knowing in the back of his mind that five minutes wasn't enough time to make it out. The engineer seemed to want to linger by many of the locked doors, attempting to pull away from the group. Eventually, Hunk let him, watching as he pounded a code onto the pad and rushing into the darkened room, only to come out in screams, followed by a dark figure in fatigues matching Hunk's team. Taking aim, hunk squeezed the trigger, letting loose the .5 caliber round, knocking the target down and leaving nothing above the neck. Securing the small room, Hunk discovered a device resembling a manhole. Pulling off his glove, he pushed his thumb onto the accompanying pad. Hearing a hydraulic hiss, he stared down the laddered hole, seeing the a well light hallway below, they quickly climbed down the mile of ladder, the engineer closing the door with a click, locking them in. Looking around, Hunk saw more posters from the 70's, only this time they warned of the "red threat," and many had had instructions on the classic "desk hide." They had found it, one of the last remaining nuclear fallout shelters in Raccoon City. Thankfully they were all connected, albeit patrolled by more of his "Umbrella Friends," guards tasked with ensuring no one stumbled on their illegal works. Hunks thoughts were shattered by a large concussion above him, loosing plaster from the walls and ceiling. The infection was contained, but something told Hunk and his team that this was only the beginning of a long and hellish night.
"Five minutes until drop-off." The pilot came over the intercom, barely audible over the whirring of the chopper's massive twin blades, each half a ton.
"Ok, rookies, lets get the zip-lines ready!" Hunk yelled, clearly heard over the blades.
?????????????????????????????????????????????? Hunk's team had been on the move for three hours and had encountered four zombies and two people. He had seen his men gun down all six of them. After all, his mission was to assess the situation of the infection and smoke the place. Then, there was his counter-mission... Onward the team pushed through the wreckage and tangled masses of half missing police cars and smoking corpses. Finally, after another hour, they reached the relative safety of the hospital. Now for his counter-mission. He was supposed to find a woman... Alice or something like that, and update her on the situation. Then, he was to provide her with equipment and allow her to join the team to get out of the city. Only, the CIA way doesn't always work.
"Sir, the woman isn't here," his second in command interjected through the crackle of the helmet mic. She was the only one on the team Hunk could trust.
"Damn it!!! Did you check in the CDC Quarantine room???"
"Yeah... funny thing is, the room wasn't guarded like you said it would be. And, the door was opened on the insi..."
"Report in now, #2," Hunk barked through the mic.
"...Sorry, I found some of R.P.D and Umbrella's finest. Old fashioned gunfight, apparently. Not to mention, it looks like something ripped them apart and tried to put them together again."
Hunk went through the plan over and over again in his head. Pacing, he noticed a shadow dart from in front of the window. He turned quickly to see a moving bulge in the vent shaft above him and a clicking noise.
"#2, get the hell down here NOW!!!"
Hunk rounded his team up and informed them of the situation.
"Okay, we've got chimeras in the vents. We've stumbled on a nest. Watch each other's backs and kill anything with more than two legs. We'll wait here until #2 gets back and then get the hell outta here."
As soon as he got finished with his orders, #2 came running down the hall from the stairs.
"Four of 'em... on my tail...won't go down..."
Just as she got finished with her "report", two Chimera came barreling around the farthest corner in the hall behind her. Two more burst out of the vents above them. Everyone opened fire, unloading clip after clip into the wall and the floor, occasionally popping some lead into the Chimera's skin. Damn rookies, Hunk thought. Hunk could only watch as the farthest man's head was lobbed off by the expertly aimed slash of the largest one, the alpha male. Hunk's team was now down to five counting him and #2.
"Looks like this mission went down the drain," yelled a mortally wounded teammate whose intestines were sliding out of a huge gash as he took off his anti-contamination helmet and placed his Beretta in his mouth, pulling the trigger.
?????????????????????????????????????????????? "Evac, where the hell are you!!!" Hunk yelled through the small headset mic. He had been trying to raise the chopper for twenty minutes and the only answer he'd got back was a steady low static hiss. The only people left after their four-legged buggy friends were dead were #2 and a rookie named Smith. Smith's shooting almost put him to shame. Almost. It was a good combination; sniper and hacker. He was one of the only technicians that you could leave alone and not worry about them being killed. But even he wouldn't be able to dig them out of this mess. They were stuck in, of all places, a comic book store. They had used a snack machine to barricade the door, but it wouldn't hold out for much longer. While the others checked their gear and secured the building, Hunk took the time to browse through the store. He found a drink machine and shot the lock off the door, taking out a Cola and popping the top. But he thought twice about drinking it. Hunk noticed the label, Umbrella Foods Inc. He pulled out a small syringe and drew some of the liquid out of the aluminum can, which looked incredibly small in his heavily armored hand. Hunk dispensed the liquid on the small pad on his OPSAT and hit the test button. Sure enough, the liquid turned up a positive result. It was 10% T-virus, just enough to infect a human being. But this was a modified strain, the small executable program stated, with bio-signatures that weren't in the CDC database. Closing the applet and putting his scanner away, he threw the can into the trashcan and rigged the first satchel of plastique to the drink machine. With the chopper missing, Hunk was tempted to use his CIA transceiver to issue an extraction for the three of them. But this mission could be salvaged without breaking cover. After all, he was their only "asset" left in Umbrella with the infection of The Hive. Hunk's thoughts were cut short of a resolution as #2 and Smith returned from the back storage room.
??????????????????????????????????????????
"What have we got," the old, weathered face said to his young, enthusiastic aide.
"Well, sir, we lost contact with our SF squad in Raccoon about an hour ago. Our moles in Umbrella used their transceivers about an hour ago. We've already dispatched a platoon of Special Forces and NBC soldiers awaiting us at the bunker five miles out."
"What about containment teams? Do we still have containment?" The worried face demanded.
"Sir, we lost contact with containment team #1, but visual reports from our Recon 'hawks showed they were all right. Just a little dazed."
"I want a full division sent in for containment; we can't let this out of there. What about our moles' counter-mission? Anything yet?"
The aide stared at the floor. "Nothing yet sir."
"So why are we going into an unsecured area, when we have no idea of the team's condition or of their success or failure? What happened to the containment contingency? The radius is 10 miles; do you want the leaders of the free world to be in the direct blast radius of a nuclear explosion?"
"Well, Mr. President, the transceiver signals were accompanied with a phone call to one of our dead-drop numbers. A message was left encoded that had been encoded with a CIA-issued OPSAT. Our techs are working on decoding and analysis as we speak," the aide said pulling out his cell phone. "I'll get in touch and check on the status right now."
The aide left the president's side, and went to a secure room to make the call. In the main conference room, the president began to reflect on just what might happen if his men had failed.
"Hopefully they got her out; she's the only one who knows who took the vaccine. If not. they may god have mercy on mankind, because this is going to get rough."
??????????????????????????????????????????????
Hunk's team had been moving slowly towards the evac point. He had yet to receive word from his superiors. Had the damned him; left him for dead in a city of Hell? His OPSAT began to ring, hopefully his superiors.
"Alpha zeta Lambda," he quickly recited his auth code, as he answered the glowing PDA/phone. He heard the hiss as his phone and the other line synced up, verifying his code with a CIA server hundreds of miles away.
"Situational report, #1," his CO barked.
"Insertion success, CSAR failure. She wasn't there, sir. It went FUBAR from there. Three members left, all up-to-speed on counter-mission. We're headed to the bunker now, have the containment teams open up for us."
"We have a problem, you're not leaving yet. We have one last task for your team before you pull out of there."
Hunk hesitated; his team had had enough. They had been through more in a single night than most vets had been through in entire tours of duty. Why were they yet again being sent into the cross fire.
"Are you there? Repeat, are you there? We need your help in stopping the spread of infection. We need to ensure that the virus can't escape the city."
"What did you have in mind, sir," Hunk said, hoping that it would end with the destruction of this place.
"The local energy co-op is powered by a nuclear fission reactor. The reactor is located two miles outside of town, to the south. We need your team to get in and cause a meltdown. Tech branch will be uploading information on how to do so to your OPSAT. When you complete your mission, a chopper will be waiting to bring you back to the bunker on the other side of the city. We'll update you on the way."
??????????????????????????????????????????????
They had made it with ease. No opposition in reaching the reactor. The gates were even locked, a very good sign of no infection. But he never once let his guard down; as soon as he did he risked himself and his team. Breaching the front gate, he entered the small guard shack to see a steaming half-cup of coffee and muddy footprints. It had only begun to rain the previous hour; someone else was in the complex. Quickly computing this in his mind, he turned to the wall of camera monitors. In one was the control room, where two technicians sat, apparently unaware that their little piece of the world was going all to hell. Other monitors showed the various corridors and storage rooms scattered about the complex. There was one that had been shot out, with the label removed from its casing.
"Smith get in here and earn your transport out of here," hunk said, turning to the PC behind him. He was bothered by the blown-out screen. It placed an empty hole in his plans. He didn't like empty holes in plans, especially ones involving Nuclear Reactors and Chemical weapons.
"Roger that. By the way, we have some company on the way; two Umbrella vans just entering the premises. About 3 miles out, by the look of the headlights, sir"
More friends, Hunk thought. He needed to get into that control room and to those techs before whoever was in the complex with them did. Shouldering his P90 and pulling his Desert Eagle out from its leg holster, he made a quick check of the cameras before setting out to the control room.
((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((
Hunk quickly discovered that, in the event of an accident, the complex would be screwed, as the internals were a maze of halls, dead-ends, and assorted storage rooms. The maps on the walls were of no help, and seemed to date from the 1970's. New wings had been added, old ones demolished, locks installed on doors to mundane-titled rooms, odd features added to the architecture that hinted to a more sinister purpose than just power.
Gripping the radio near his shoulder, he issued a "report in" command. He waited. No reply. Where had they gone to now? Repeating the command, Smith answered instantly. He had found the control room. Using his radio signal for guidance, Hunk navigated the maze, finally making it to the control room. Stepping in, he saw Smith tending to a large gash on #2's arm. Walking over, he saw what had caused the damage; an engineer sat huddled in the corner, a fire axe at his feet.
"So, I guess were clean in here," he said, motioning over to the obviously alive, and obviously un-infected tech.
"Appears so, sir" #2 squeezed out, winching in pain as her wound was cleaned.
Moving over to the panel he saw a light flashing red with a corresponding meter displayed on one of the large Plasma Displays hanging on the wall. It had a single word for its title, one word that stood out, blinking over and over again. Meltdown. #2 seemed to read his concern and pointed across the room to a clock, spinning backwards, five minutes to twelve. Mustering up the engineer and helping Smith and #2, he began to frantically search for the exit, knowing in the back of his mind that five minutes wasn't enough time to make it out. The engineer seemed to want to linger by many of the locked doors, attempting to pull away from the group. Eventually, Hunk let him, watching as he pounded a code onto the pad and rushing into the darkened room, only to come out in screams, followed by a dark figure in fatigues matching Hunk's team. Taking aim, hunk squeezed the trigger, letting loose the .5 caliber round, knocking the target down and leaving nothing above the neck. Securing the small room, Hunk discovered a device resembling a manhole. Pulling off his glove, he pushed his thumb onto the accompanying pad. Hearing a hydraulic hiss, he stared down the laddered hole, seeing the a well light hallway below, they quickly climbed down the mile of ladder, the engineer closing the door with a click, locking them in. Looking around, Hunk saw more posters from the 70's, only this time they warned of the "red threat," and many had had instructions on the classic "desk hide." They had found it, one of the last remaining nuclear fallout shelters in Raccoon City. Thankfully they were all connected, albeit patrolled by more of his "Umbrella Friends," guards tasked with ensuring no one stumbled on their illegal works. Hunks thoughts were shattered by a large concussion above him, loosing plaster from the walls and ceiling. The infection was contained, but something told Hunk and his team that this was only the beginning of a long and hellish night.