Chapter V
Vela's Escape
September 23rd 2002 – New York City – Early Night – 6:00 PM
After hiding aimlessly for hours in the emptiness of the abandoned laboratory, Vela decided it was time to make her move. She had seen first hand the effects of the virus on a normal human being; the person infected turns into a mindless, blood thirsty animal capable only of eating human flesh…a fate worse than death itself. She couldn't…wouldn't…allow herself to become one of those things…it wasn't an option, she wouldn't die that way. But to refer to that as a death doesn't do the infection justice. The carrier still walks as if it were alive, still makes sounds that normal living people make…what could she call it then? If not death, then what? She decided there was no name for the ill fated state of mind that these scientists had fallen victim to. She couldn't think of a term worse than death…
Vela thought back quickly on the life she had before she became a scientist for Umbrella. She had moved to New York City in search of answers to her past…she had been on her own since she was fifteen, and before that she was in an orphanage. It was a hard life, not knowing what your parents look, sound or act like. She couldn't look up to anyone, because every time she had a parental figure that she felt could guide her, they would be violently stripped away as she was moved from home to home. New York City may not have been the smartest place to search for answers, search for hope, or search for security…but it did offer her more opportunities.
She had begun work as a service clerk at the front desk of the Empire State Building in the early months of the year. That was when Umbrella offered her a job opportunity that she felt would prove valuable. The company, as she knew, was a major producer of medicine, pharmaceutical products and machinery. Vela felt if she was working for something that had a purpose, she too would have a purpose. She was deathly wrong though, and she would find this out in a disastrously astonishing way.
Her 'job interview' was conducted under gun point. The man in the black suit held a small pistol to her head as she was vigorously interrogated, question after question. She had stuck with the story that she didn't know who, or what her parents had been. She had no siblings, as she could recall, and no immediate family members. She was on her own, and although now she would become part of a 'family', she still felt lonely. She was given the job of second in command scientist, a position held under the direct supervision of the head scientist, Dr. Brian J. Kennedy and his assistant, Dr. Margaret K. Johnson. Johnson and Kennedy monitored every motion in their laboratory. Nothing went unnoticed by them. They were chief commanders of the second basement floor laboratory. There were three under ground floors, each equipped with a different lab and then one abandoned laboratory that was inhabited by no one. She was assigned to the second basement floor laboratory.
The few months that Vela worked for Umbrella were awkward, strange and pretty much a bore. She did test work, checking the status of certain viral infections and their causes and effects. It was extraneous work, but the pay was excellent and her dormitory was nice. She never got to leave up into the actual city though…they kept her sealed off in the isolation of the lab…it made her mad.
As the months drove on, knowledge of the T Alexia Virus began to pour in. Vela's research was switched from common cold viral experimentation to the devastating T Alexia project. That was when things got really bad, and she got to see what Umbrella was all about.
On September 23rd, the lab was overrun by the test subject and everyone died. She was the only survivor. It was a horrible feeling, to know that she was the lone survivor of a maniacal experiment gone wrong. And as she sat alone, crouched underneath the cover of an overturned lab table, Vela began to sob a little bit. A lot of people had died today. She was the only one who still walked with a purpose other than to eat people. She still had to fill the emptiness that was her heart, and to do that she needed to keep moving. Vela had hidden like a coward for too long. It was time to be a hero, and make her way out of this place to find somewhere safe. Her journey began early that day, but she was choosing to continue it now.
Scrambling to her shaking feet, Vela quickly rushed through the crowded lab and pushed over to the armory. The 'shock' weapon was in cold storage, in the back of the armory. She would stock up on as much ammunition and weapons as she could, keeping the 'shock' strapped around her shoulders in case any of the carriers had mutated further into the R3 stage. The 'shock' weapon was a gun equipped with a series of explosive bullets that released an electric shock into the target causing paralysis and death. It was most effective on the R3 monsters, but its effects on the regular carriers were equally devastating. The nice thing about the 'shock' gun was that it looked like a normal rifle but has the power of an electrical plant, more or less. It was a devastating weapon, and it was hers for the taking.
Equipping double pistols and enough ammunition to last a few days, Vela quickly strapped on the 'shock' and bolted out of the small room. Jetting down through the narrow aisle-ways of the laboratory, she decided her plan of action. The east wall of the laboratory housed an elevator that could ascend up into the actual building above ground, but only as far up as the sewer system. If she could make it there, she could probably find a way from the sewer channel into the bottom level of the Empire State Building. It seemed easy, nevertheless, but still a challenging feat. The virus could have spread up as far as the third or fourth level of the Empire State Building if it had seeped through the sewer tunnels. If it had gotten into the central power core, there was no doubt that it was as high as the hundredth floor.
She quickly pushed the call button for the elevator. Clutching the pistols tight, Vela watched the door slide open to reveal one of the most gruesome sights she had ever seen. There were two bodies, those of a bulky male scientist and a slender female scientist. The entire elevator shaft was drenched in dark red blood, and the two occupants were slouched over in the corner…each of them were seemingly hollowed out and devoured, their insides splashed against the walls like paste. Their glazed over stare was looking right up into the ceiling, the massive hole ripped right through the top of the elevator car. Their mouths were stretched apart, like something had been shoved down their throats…a light gurgling sound could be heard from their chests, like something moving inside their hollowed out rib cage. She couldn't help but notice that they both seemed to be moving…
"Oh my God…" Vela screeched, stepping back. She could hear something crawling down from the elevator shaft above, making its way down into the laboratory. The two pistols she had in her hand would prove insufficient if something larger than an R3 were to show its heinous face…
"Rrrrreeeeeeeeirrrrrrrrrssssss!"
Something screamed from the elevator shaft, and suddenly yet another body smashed through the hole in the elevator. It plummeted onto the floor of the compartment and in an instant the actual elevator car was gone, buckling under the weight of the three occupants and something obviously underneath it…
Vela fell back, pushing herself towards the back wall so she could have some distance from whatever was coming. She heard some kind of humming, like a buzz or something. That was when the realization of what happened to the elevator car hit her…
"Shit…the carriers have turned the central power core into a massive nesting area!" Jumping to her feet, Vela quickly raced for the back of the lab where she had crawled in from the bedrock area. She could probably hide back down there until someone came to find her. The buzzing noise became louder, and that was when she looked back for a brief second and saw the millions of flying carrier bugs coming at her in packs. They would nest in her, fly into her mouth and eat her from the inside out. She kicked open the floor panel that she had crawled in through and jumped in, pulling it shut behind her. The shock weapon clanked against the ground as she plummeted about twenty feet until she hit the bedrock floor, instantly falling unconscious. She laid there and slept, her dual pistols laying in the rock beside her. She was tired, and now realized that her chances for escape were becoming more and more limited. But it wasn't time to worry about that now…it was just time to rest…
*
September 23rd – New York City – Night – 9:06
Vela rolled over onto her side, realizing that she had fallen silently asleep down underneath the Empire State Building. The central power core was infested with some kind of mutated bee, and that made her means of escape cut off. Now the only way to get out of here would be to find an alternative way into the sewers.
"Shit, shit, shit…" she muttered to herself, "There is no way in hell I'm going to make it out of here alive."
Pulling her blonde hair back into a pony tail and fixing it with a small hair tie she had in her pocket, Vela stood up and picked her pistols up off the ground. The white lab coat she wore dropped to the ground; she wouldn't need it much anymore. The only thing it was good for was keeping her warm, and the last thing she wanted now was to tease the carriers with the smell of her sweat. So, in her tight fitting black pants and shirt, with the 'shock' weapon strapped across her chest and the two handguns in her small backpack, Vela continued on in hopes of finding an escape route.
Trudging forward in the dark and gloomy sublevels, Vela couldn't help but think of how much distance she had lost by falling asleep down here. How had she slept down here anyways? It was disgusting, and hard to believe that she had actual gone dreamless. After seeing the bodies of three mutilated souls go plummeting into oblivion, she didn't know how she would even shut her eyes again…let alone sleep without nightmares.
Lost in her own thoughts, Vela hadn't bothered to hear the sound of running water above her. Was it the turbines? No…they were right above the laboratory, not the bedrock…it was the sewer system; she was right above the sewer channels!
"Thank the heavens…" Vela shouted out loud, breaking off into a small sprint. She skittered through the pile towers that supported the above building and finally came upon what seemed to be a ladder. There was a manhole directly above it, probably leading to a platform over looking the running water. She quickly ascended and pushed open the circular cover, and breathed her first scent of…
"…rotting flesh and decaying bodies…"
She knew the scent well now, and the sight even better. Vela pushed herself up onto the operating platform, and saw six or seven mutilated corpses of the once proud worker men and women. They had run the sewer system well, and now they were just soulless bodies eaten alive by the carriers she had helped to create…
"Jesus…" she walked over to the flickering monitors, and saw nothing but empty hallways and channels. She glanced over to one of the bodies, "What the hell happened here?"
"Uhngh…ughgh…mmghgmmm…"
The sound of the walking dead echoed throughout the sewer tunnels as the glistening image of a human carrier strutted into view. She withdrew one of the handguns and put a bullet directly through the creatures rotting skull. It fell backwards for a second, but then continued its trek forward. Another bullet directly between its eyes did the trick. In an explosion of blood and gore, the creature died and crumbled to the floor.
"One down…"
Turning around to see the men and women who she had thought to have been dead rise up, extend their arms and show their decaying faces, Vela finished her taunt and blew them to bits…
"…an army to go."
**
Vela's Escape
September 23rd 2002 – New York City – Early Night – 6:00 PM
After hiding aimlessly for hours in the emptiness of the abandoned laboratory, Vela decided it was time to make her move. She had seen first hand the effects of the virus on a normal human being; the person infected turns into a mindless, blood thirsty animal capable only of eating human flesh…a fate worse than death itself. She couldn't…wouldn't…allow herself to become one of those things…it wasn't an option, she wouldn't die that way. But to refer to that as a death doesn't do the infection justice. The carrier still walks as if it were alive, still makes sounds that normal living people make…what could she call it then? If not death, then what? She decided there was no name for the ill fated state of mind that these scientists had fallen victim to. She couldn't think of a term worse than death…
Vela thought back quickly on the life she had before she became a scientist for Umbrella. She had moved to New York City in search of answers to her past…she had been on her own since she was fifteen, and before that she was in an orphanage. It was a hard life, not knowing what your parents look, sound or act like. She couldn't look up to anyone, because every time she had a parental figure that she felt could guide her, they would be violently stripped away as she was moved from home to home. New York City may not have been the smartest place to search for answers, search for hope, or search for security…but it did offer her more opportunities.
She had begun work as a service clerk at the front desk of the Empire State Building in the early months of the year. That was when Umbrella offered her a job opportunity that she felt would prove valuable. The company, as she knew, was a major producer of medicine, pharmaceutical products and machinery. Vela felt if she was working for something that had a purpose, she too would have a purpose. She was deathly wrong though, and she would find this out in a disastrously astonishing way.
Her 'job interview' was conducted under gun point. The man in the black suit held a small pistol to her head as she was vigorously interrogated, question after question. She had stuck with the story that she didn't know who, or what her parents had been. She had no siblings, as she could recall, and no immediate family members. She was on her own, and although now she would become part of a 'family', she still felt lonely. She was given the job of second in command scientist, a position held under the direct supervision of the head scientist, Dr. Brian J. Kennedy and his assistant, Dr. Margaret K. Johnson. Johnson and Kennedy monitored every motion in their laboratory. Nothing went unnoticed by them. They were chief commanders of the second basement floor laboratory. There were three under ground floors, each equipped with a different lab and then one abandoned laboratory that was inhabited by no one. She was assigned to the second basement floor laboratory.
The few months that Vela worked for Umbrella were awkward, strange and pretty much a bore. She did test work, checking the status of certain viral infections and their causes and effects. It was extraneous work, but the pay was excellent and her dormitory was nice. She never got to leave up into the actual city though…they kept her sealed off in the isolation of the lab…it made her mad.
As the months drove on, knowledge of the T Alexia Virus began to pour in. Vela's research was switched from common cold viral experimentation to the devastating T Alexia project. That was when things got really bad, and she got to see what Umbrella was all about.
On September 23rd, the lab was overrun by the test subject and everyone died. She was the only survivor. It was a horrible feeling, to know that she was the lone survivor of a maniacal experiment gone wrong. And as she sat alone, crouched underneath the cover of an overturned lab table, Vela began to sob a little bit. A lot of people had died today. She was the only one who still walked with a purpose other than to eat people. She still had to fill the emptiness that was her heart, and to do that she needed to keep moving. Vela had hidden like a coward for too long. It was time to be a hero, and make her way out of this place to find somewhere safe. Her journey began early that day, but she was choosing to continue it now.
Scrambling to her shaking feet, Vela quickly rushed through the crowded lab and pushed over to the armory. The 'shock' weapon was in cold storage, in the back of the armory. She would stock up on as much ammunition and weapons as she could, keeping the 'shock' strapped around her shoulders in case any of the carriers had mutated further into the R3 stage. The 'shock' weapon was a gun equipped with a series of explosive bullets that released an electric shock into the target causing paralysis and death. It was most effective on the R3 monsters, but its effects on the regular carriers were equally devastating. The nice thing about the 'shock' gun was that it looked like a normal rifle but has the power of an electrical plant, more or less. It was a devastating weapon, and it was hers for the taking.
Equipping double pistols and enough ammunition to last a few days, Vela quickly strapped on the 'shock' and bolted out of the small room. Jetting down through the narrow aisle-ways of the laboratory, she decided her plan of action. The east wall of the laboratory housed an elevator that could ascend up into the actual building above ground, but only as far up as the sewer system. If she could make it there, she could probably find a way from the sewer channel into the bottom level of the Empire State Building. It seemed easy, nevertheless, but still a challenging feat. The virus could have spread up as far as the third or fourth level of the Empire State Building if it had seeped through the sewer tunnels. If it had gotten into the central power core, there was no doubt that it was as high as the hundredth floor.
She quickly pushed the call button for the elevator. Clutching the pistols tight, Vela watched the door slide open to reveal one of the most gruesome sights she had ever seen. There were two bodies, those of a bulky male scientist and a slender female scientist. The entire elevator shaft was drenched in dark red blood, and the two occupants were slouched over in the corner…each of them were seemingly hollowed out and devoured, their insides splashed against the walls like paste. Their glazed over stare was looking right up into the ceiling, the massive hole ripped right through the top of the elevator car. Their mouths were stretched apart, like something had been shoved down their throats…a light gurgling sound could be heard from their chests, like something moving inside their hollowed out rib cage. She couldn't help but notice that they both seemed to be moving…
"Oh my God…" Vela screeched, stepping back. She could hear something crawling down from the elevator shaft above, making its way down into the laboratory. The two pistols she had in her hand would prove insufficient if something larger than an R3 were to show its heinous face…
"Rrrrreeeeeeeeirrrrrrrrrssssss!"
Something screamed from the elevator shaft, and suddenly yet another body smashed through the hole in the elevator. It plummeted onto the floor of the compartment and in an instant the actual elevator car was gone, buckling under the weight of the three occupants and something obviously underneath it…
Vela fell back, pushing herself towards the back wall so she could have some distance from whatever was coming. She heard some kind of humming, like a buzz or something. That was when the realization of what happened to the elevator car hit her…
"Shit…the carriers have turned the central power core into a massive nesting area!" Jumping to her feet, Vela quickly raced for the back of the lab where she had crawled in from the bedrock area. She could probably hide back down there until someone came to find her. The buzzing noise became louder, and that was when she looked back for a brief second and saw the millions of flying carrier bugs coming at her in packs. They would nest in her, fly into her mouth and eat her from the inside out. She kicked open the floor panel that she had crawled in through and jumped in, pulling it shut behind her. The shock weapon clanked against the ground as she plummeted about twenty feet until she hit the bedrock floor, instantly falling unconscious. She laid there and slept, her dual pistols laying in the rock beside her. She was tired, and now realized that her chances for escape were becoming more and more limited. But it wasn't time to worry about that now…it was just time to rest…
*
September 23rd – New York City – Night – 9:06
Vela rolled over onto her side, realizing that she had fallen silently asleep down underneath the Empire State Building. The central power core was infested with some kind of mutated bee, and that made her means of escape cut off. Now the only way to get out of here would be to find an alternative way into the sewers.
"Shit, shit, shit…" she muttered to herself, "There is no way in hell I'm going to make it out of here alive."
Pulling her blonde hair back into a pony tail and fixing it with a small hair tie she had in her pocket, Vela stood up and picked her pistols up off the ground. The white lab coat she wore dropped to the ground; she wouldn't need it much anymore. The only thing it was good for was keeping her warm, and the last thing she wanted now was to tease the carriers with the smell of her sweat. So, in her tight fitting black pants and shirt, with the 'shock' weapon strapped across her chest and the two handguns in her small backpack, Vela continued on in hopes of finding an escape route.
Trudging forward in the dark and gloomy sublevels, Vela couldn't help but think of how much distance she had lost by falling asleep down here. How had she slept down here anyways? It was disgusting, and hard to believe that she had actual gone dreamless. After seeing the bodies of three mutilated souls go plummeting into oblivion, she didn't know how she would even shut her eyes again…let alone sleep without nightmares.
Lost in her own thoughts, Vela hadn't bothered to hear the sound of running water above her. Was it the turbines? No…they were right above the laboratory, not the bedrock…it was the sewer system; she was right above the sewer channels!
"Thank the heavens…" Vela shouted out loud, breaking off into a small sprint. She skittered through the pile towers that supported the above building and finally came upon what seemed to be a ladder. There was a manhole directly above it, probably leading to a platform over looking the running water. She quickly ascended and pushed open the circular cover, and breathed her first scent of…
"…rotting flesh and decaying bodies…"
She knew the scent well now, and the sight even better. Vela pushed herself up onto the operating platform, and saw six or seven mutilated corpses of the once proud worker men and women. They had run the sewer system well, and now they were just soulless bodies eaten alive by the carriers she had helped to create…
"Jesus…" she walked over to the flickering monitors, and saw nothing but empty hallways and channels. She glanced over to one of the bodies, "What the hell happened here?"
"Uhngh…ughgh…mmghgmmm…"
The sound of the walking dead echoed throughout the sewer tunnels as the glistening image of a human carrier strutted into view. She withdrew one of the handguns and put a bullet directly through the creatures rotting skull. It fell backwards for a second, but then continued its trek forward. Another bullet directly between its eyes did the trick. In an explosion of blood and gore, the creature died and crumbled to the floor.
"One down…"
Turning around to see the men and women who she had thought to have been dead rise up, extend their arms and show their decaying faces, Vela finished her taunt and blew them to bits…
"…an army to go."
**