A/N: I want to make a couple of things most clear before we continue. This is a prologue, so the entire story arc won't be concluded in this particular story (There will be a sequel) and although I haven't had much luck with Sequels (Shoves Twilight under the carpet and continues plodding away at chapter 13) this one's basically been written in my head for quite some time.

Many people may be wondering about the plight of Chris. As we will see, he will be resolved-and he will return to his happy, good guy self after just a bit of downtime.

The Issue of September 11 has been raised in this story. My original intent was to create a story that could easily function in (our) universe. That's my intent with almost all of my stuff, from Fan fiction to original stuff. A lot of the character's motivations center upon the possibility of Terrorists getting a hold of the T-virus and such. I do not support or condone terrorism (Actually I think that everybody associated with terrorism deserves a death so painful and horrible that I don't want to describe it) it makes a good story however, which is why it is mentioned forthwith.

Enough chitchat, ON WITH THE SHOW!

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"They break up my own little tedium, its better then television."

-Chuck Palahniuk "Survivor"

An interlude; dealing with the history of Wolf's Bluff.

People who aren't really that important founded the town in a year that you'll automatically forget. Who gives a flying fart who founded a town or city anyway? Their names are going to fade with the test of time; they're importance-their entire life will be reduced to a few random facts that various school children will remember for an hour, for a quiz-and then automatically forget.

Let the reader examine the population of Wolf's Bluff.

In the year 2001, there were 40,000 people in the city. A quiet little retreat for those who lived in Dayton-the kind of place you would take your children when you couldn't think of anything else to do, and they were driving you insane with their FUCKING questions.

Ahem. In 2007 that population had tripled. Why? As always, a corporation had taken interest in that part of the world, and merrily decided to set up a happy home base for itself and its employees.

That corporation was Umbrella.

In 2002 they had set up a research and development faculty on the outskirts of the city-Chris Redfield had yet to make an appearance-so they figured themselves relatively safe. The base had all the comforts typical of such things, bio-weapon defense system, full stocked armory-convenient weapons and documents set in inconspicuous places...

It was in this base that Albert Wesker was working.

"NO-"

The scream broke off as a bullet gave the employee a kiss he wouldn't forget. Wesker twisted the weapon around ignoring the screaming issuing from the vents and pegged the live security feed to the home base in New York.

Shit.

They knew he was here.

"Well why wouldn't they?" The licker's presence had certainly alerted them. The few employees at the faculty were quickly being slaughtered.

He sighed, in his day; they had fought back at least...

That wasn't important. What was important was to find the personnel files for the 23 people that had been murdered that morning. Wesker may have been big, bad, and a Biological Tyrant himself-but he wasn't stupid. Although whoever sent those damn snipers must have been-I mean come on? What better way to draw attention to you?

"Aha! The game is afoot Watson." His eyes came to rest on a rust-colored file cabinet. He grinned to himself and stepped over.

"PLEASE! NO-NOOOOOOOO!"

"JA-"

He ignored the drama in the room next to his and rifled through the files.

James K. Marianne Ashton, Laura Kutcher, Jessica Steed, William Morrison, Michael Storm, Naomi Watts-

He pulled up his bag and began to shove papers in. There had to be a reason why whoever sent those snipers was after those 23 people. Once he took those files back to the hotel room then he could examine them closer and discover it. You never knew-it might be of some use to HCF...

Unless David sent the snipers...why would he do that however?

Something in the bowels of the Umbrella Faculty roared.

"Time to go." Thankfully the Licker didn't create zombies that had to be taken care of right away, but the police were going to have a hell of a time figuring out why there were at least 200 headless corpses lying strewn about.

Wesker laughed, his voice echoing around the area. This set his mind back in the right place-making him forget about Claire Redfield in the graveyard-and his conversation with a ghost that afternoon.

He sighed and turned away from the carnage and out into the cool mountain night.

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Wolf's Bluff

Hospital

"And I thought she would come to you." Jack said, his voice heavy, "So I came to see you first Miss Redfield-but now that you tell me she hasn't even contacted you-I'm starting to get concerned."

Claire nodded, biting her lip, "This couldn't have come at a worse time."

"I'm sorry," Jack, snapped, "Are the problems of my family inconvenient for you?" he sneered at her, "I thought you would want to help since you professed to care about Sherry so much."

"What the hell would you know about it?" Claire cried, "If you had seen what your brother had done then you'd understand. Dark labs and monsters-horrific monsters that still walk through my nightmares-all poised to be released on an unsuspecting world!"

"You think that qualifies you to-"Jack shook his head, "I'm sorry-"He shook his head and took a few steps away from her, "I read the papers, I'm sorry about your brother's wife."

Claire bit her lip, "Thank you."

"I'm just-worried about her."

Claire nodded, "Its nice of you to care so much..." she tried to smile, "Sherry-she's been a good kid?"

Jack nodded. Claire saw that the shades of a five o'clock shadow were growing on his face. He looked beat-worn inside and outside.

"Look. We'll go to the station. How long has she been missing?"

"Two days."

"Then its official, we'll have her declared a missing person." Claire nodded to herself, satisfied, "Alright?"

"Sure." Jack reached into the pocket of his brown coat and pulled out a cell-phone, "I'm going to call my wife to tell her that we're looking for her okay?"

Claire disliked the "We're" but she accepted it. The legal implications of Chris's actions this morning would occupy his time-and all that she had to keep her company until she went back to college a week from now was Rebecca. At least if they found Sherry, a small part of her nagging mind would be put at ease.

Jack turned away from her, whispering onto his cell-phone. The first floor corridor of the hospital was practically silent-the sounds of various patrons going about their business along with the doctors the only noise.

"What is that?" the ambient sound had been interrupted by a slight underscore of muffled cries and screamed orders from confused employees. Jack clicked his cell-phone shut and frowned-looking in the same direction.

"I'll go see what's going on..." Jack turned to Claire, "Not that it's any of our business."

"Let me check with my brother. Just make sure he's okay." She watched Jack jog down the hallway and opened the doorway a crack, to make sure that Chris was okay.

Father and daughter lay asleep on the hospital bed-Rebecca's head lay on Chris's chest-her body rising and falling in motion with his. She smiled, staring fondly at them before closing the door behind her and looking down the hallway in the direction of the noises from before.

Jack.

Jack stood in the hallway, his body frozen-joints locked. He looked like a brown tin-man against the blue carpet. Claire frowned and walked foreword quickly, night beginning to pass outside the windows. The silhouettes of trees edged with the gold of sunlight appeared outside in a straight line.

"Mr. Birkin?" Claire approached cautiously, Birkin's ice blue eyes were wide-like he had seen a ghost, "Jack?"

Jack turned away from her and vomited.

He pulled a trashcan close to his body and ignored her presence for almost five whole minutes.

"B...B-B-bodies."

Claire frowned, "What?"

Jack looked up at her, his eyes wide with fear, pain, and a cocktail of emotions.

"Bodies-they had bodies-from a-faculty-an Umbrella faculty-no head. They had no head!" his eyes watered, "What kind of horrible monster tears the heads off of bodies? They had great big open sores-and-and-"

Claire was angry, angry at the sudden return of things that she had forgotten and tried to forget, "The Lickers did that. William made them." She said coldly, "That's what Leon and I gathered from the data we retrieved in Raccoon."

She regretted that response quickly as Jack Birkin sat down on the floor and burst into furious tears.

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Las Vegas Nevada

Sherry had been counting the tiles on the catwalk. Her mind was abuzz with what "Chief supervisor Swanson" had said.

A human Biological Weapon? Mr. Wesker? What does he have to do with it? She vaguely remembered Mr. Wesker as a friend of her father and mother-someone who worked with them in Raccoon. He must not have died when...

She rubbed her elbow and pushed the bad thoughts out of her mind. Earlier a clean-up crew had come and taken care of the tiger's body. The younger man had remained behind staring at the reddened gray tiles like it would bring the cat back to life. Sherry had been cruel then-taunting him by calling him a spoiled little boy who had lost his cat.

He was still there.

He had something in his hands and was furiously working at it with a mechanical pencil. At first she had considered the possibility of the experience driving him insane-then she realized that it was a sketchbook.

He was drawing.

After a while she had stopped watching him and pounded on the door screaming and crying. From there her night was divided into shifts. At about seven they delivered food-in the form of mashed potatoes and some sort of green. She ate without complaining and returned to her routine.

At about Eleven-she had lifted her head and realized that the young man was still there-where he'd been for most of the evening-sketchbook clutched in his hand-his eyes closed.

He looks cute when he's asleep.

She pounded on the glass with an open palm and he shot awake-his eyes angry.

"What the-Fuck is going on!" he shook his head, "Jeez!"

"Language Dr. Lancaster..." Sherry raised a finger and shook it, mockingly, "Language."

"Fuck you." He growled, "fuck me, fuck the whole fucking world-nothing makes any sense anymore." He sighed and groaned as he put out a hand to steady himself so he could stand.

"Wait!" if he left they might turn off the lights. She would be left alone with the creatures around her, and the things they said lived in the basement...

HCF...they must have samples-samples of the zombies and everything in Raccoon-she looked at Dr. Lancaster and felt a stab of pity, for him suddenly loosing his innocence in the world.

Kevin stepped across the catwalk and sat across from her-against the bear's cage. The great black behemoth opened a sleepy eye and closed it again-his presence ignored.

"Hi." Sherry sat back,"Why are you still here?"

Kevin stretched and yawned. He curled his legs beneath him and looked at her-his eyes searching her face-her body-

She frowned, "I asked you a question."

"I know." His response was slightly muffled, "There are a few reasons. Why I'm still here. I'm trying to wrap my mind around how seriously warped you Americans are for one."

Sherry felt a burst of indignation, "What's wrong with us?"

"Do you know what I saw in the basement?"

Things with exposed brains, gigantic monsters with long claws-the undead-the monsters-the monsters that lived in the human subconscious and were brought to life by a group of people who should have belonged in an insane asylum.

In therapy-she had accepted that her parents had to have been insane. That was the only way she could rationalize why they could have wanted to do what they did-

And Claire had told her what happened to her father-which made it even more true.

"Yeah."

"How..." he looked at her, "How can you just-accept something like that?"

She shrugged, not wanting to go into her past history.

"And they say that you're like that." He shook his head, "An outright fabrication."

Sherry snorted, "Why do you say that?"

"You're too pretty to-"

They both blushed-stunned by the awkward situation.

"Umm..." Kevin yawned, "Now that I'm quite sure that everybody is gone I'll continue with my original objective of freeing you-"he stepped closer and grinned at her, genuine warmth in his tone, "If you promise not to attack me again."

Sherry chuckled, "Hey-if you get me out here-"

Sherry was an objective individual. As Kevin Lancaster exited the scene (presumably to complete his objective) She realized the power she held over him.

And the power he held over her-he was genuinely attractive. Boys at school had attempted to win her affections-and she had given in only to fulfill her needs. Here there was genuine attraction-and she could use that to her advantage.

But so could he...

"Hello again..."

The door to her cage opened and Kevin stepped in. He grinned at the girl keeping his body tensed in case she decided to attack. His old cricket skills were beginning to come back to him.

She studied him, "Now, you're going to get me out of here?"

"Under pretense of an experiment."

She frowned, "What do you mean?"

"I'll smuggle you out as an experiment." He said, "You pretend to be...well slightly crazy-and I walk you out the front door."

"And then?"

"I take you to my house-"

"Where you can lock me in your basement and do awful things to me-thanks a lot but no thanks Dr. Frankenstein." She shook her head, "I'll find my own way out."

Sherry turned away from him and looked out the glass at the slotted lights. It might be day out there-and day meant freedom-and escape.

"And from there you'll face six levels. Each level is patrolled by a control and captures team-codenamed for each of the floors. Despite the-basement projects-we're also doing some pretty heavy viral research on the third floor involving smallpox and influenza-a CDC control and containment team patrols that floor along with the Capture force. Plus," Kevin smiled, "I can almost guarantee that each employee is going to do everything that they can to stop you."

"Hey." Sherry growled, "Least I can make a good try of it."

"And then die-and where's the fun in that?"

Sherry thought about this. She went over all the people that she had met in her life and tried to discern what they would have done in this particular situation.

"I have no other choice..." Unless I can find a way out and get away later, "Lead the way Dr. Lancaster."

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A/N: And there's Chapter Six! Once again another short chapter, and I apologize for that. I love Jack's reaction to the bodies-he and Claire is going to have a lot in common. Also, many people are probably wondering where the Ashfords are. Yes, they will be making an appearance-but not in the way most people would think. Bai for now!