Jojo10: It's the reviews that are keeping me going strong. I hope to continue receiving your support!

E-Z-B: That's so cool I was able to inspire you. I've read the first chapter of your new fic, and I've already reviewed it. So my question to you now is, when the hell are you going to update?!

Yue Michiru Naragisawa Miko: Wesker isn't really a cyborg, I don't think. I'm just going from what I saw when playing Resident Evil: Code Veronica. He looked like a cyborg, or a robot of some kind.

Jano What, do you think Kenny would lose so easily to Wesker? I don't think so! ;)

Lost Survivor: Um … I think when Wesker got impaled by the Tyrant in RE1, he was supposed to have DIED, not made stronger by the virus. I dunno if this contains any spoilers or if my facts are straight, even, but according to the Wesker Reports, documents released with the GameCube versions of the RE games, it was Ada that saved him from certain death. So it's safe to say that even outside of this fanfic, Ada and Wesker are cahoots. Actually, I got the idea to make them partners from the Wesker reports.

CHAPTER 16: Entering Deep Freeze

Wesker's iron grip tightened mercilessly around my neck, rapidly cutting off the oxygen that fueled my body to fight back. The bastard sure knew what he was doing, holding me off the ground with one arm, my feet dangling just under a foot above the cement. Being in this situation was the least of my worries, however. The display of anger he'd shown just moments earlier, anger that had erupted after I decided to fight him and knock away his expensive Gucci sunglasses, gave me the impression that he was going to do far more damage than cut off my air supply. Then again, I suppose that in itself was a pretty deadly act.

But somehow I could tell that from beyond that cocky smirk that had embedded itself onto his face, beyond that typical Wesker demeanor that his body once again settled into, killing me wasn't part of his plan, as much as he wanted to. We both knew it. I was valuable to him as long as there was breath in my body – because my survival assured that of the Shadow Technology within my body, the other prize Wesker hoped to obtain besides a sample of the T-Veronica Virus.

I managed a cocky smile myself, reflecting what I saw in his face. "Why don't you go ahead and kill me, you insolent fuck?"

That snide comment earned me nothing but a brutal face plant into the cement wall. My nose started gushing blood again. Wesker brought my face to meet his once again, until our noses were almost touching, my own blood spurting just millimeters from his. "What was that you said?" he seethed through tight lips.

Then I bit his nose. I opened my mouth wide, tilted my head and clamped down with my jaws as hard as I could. He's given me a bleeding nose twice that night. Let's see how the fucker likes a taste of his own medicine. Wesker howled in pain. I tugged my head back and forth, twisting and pulling, hoping to further open the wound and draw more blood. That was when he let me go. Perhaps that was an understatement. He flung my body with his super-human strength and I went sailing through the air like a rag doll. He didn't even look to see where I had landed, too occupied with the fresh wound I gouged in his face with my teeth.

To my misfortune, I flew off the loading platform and landed on the steps of the seaplane, a set of steps that unfolded out from the craft's side. The force of the impact sent ripples of energy through my body, probably fracturing a rib or two. I didn't know what exactly it did to me – all I knew was that it hurt like a bitch. Hot tears stung my eyes as I placed a hand on my back, crying and cursing in pain. It's safe to say there were no longer any pairs of virgin ears that night.

"Hey, are you alright?" somebody asked. I looked up through my watery vision and saw a worker at the Rockfort Facility – a survivor – looking at me with a genuine expression of concern in his eyes. He was about in his late thirties with a wrinkled face. From under a baseball cap, dark locks of brown hair spilled out, past his forehead and into his eyes. Judging from the gray jumpsuit with bright fluorescent yellow lining, I could tell he worked at the airport. He was probably going to be the pilot for our trip out of here.

"We've gotta get off this plane," I said, ignoring my pain. "That guy's organizing our escape." I pointed to Wesker, still cradling his face up on the boarding platform.

The worker lifted an eyebrow, looking at me funny. "That's … a bad thing?"

"You don't know him!" I cried. "You saw what he just did to me."

The worker shrugged. "I thought you were just being a little shit, not wanting to get on the plane cause you didn't like him. In this kind of situation, we can't pick and choose …"

"Get out of here!" Wesker cried, from the platform. What was this guy thinking? Why was he trying to act like the good guy all of a sudden? He could've fooled the airport worker but he definitely wasn't going to fool me.

"What about you?!" the worker asked, shouting across the gap between the plane and the platform.

"I've got to stay behind and find any other survivors!" Wesker replied. "Now go!"

"I'm on it!"

"NO!" I shouted, grabbing the guy by the elbow. "We can't listen to him. He's got something planned, I know it!"

He yanked his arm back, out of my grip. "Look, all I know is that I want off this island, and so do the four others on board this flight. I don't want any trouble. Now get into the cargo hold and join the others while I take this baby up into the air. If not, then you can get off."

He wasn't giving me much of a choice. I didn't want to remain on Rockfort. But I knew I was only escaping from a disaster area into Wesker's grasp. I would've rather taken my chances with the zombies. But then, I heard Claire's words in my mind, reminding me of what I had to do. I had to leave the island and send help for her and Steve. And I'd have better chances of getting help by escaping the island, even into whatever Wesker had planned for me, than remaining on the cursed piece of rock. I may not be safe, but at least I can help Claire out. I nodded in response to the annoyed airport worker and stood up – not without some difficulty from the damage my back surely suffered.

"Do you need help getting back there?" he asked.

"I'll be fine," I insisted, as I sauntered my way towards the back of the plane where a door was set, which could've only led to the cargo hold."

Twenty minutes later …

I closed my eyes, letting the hum of the plane's engines put me to sleep. I wanted to get a look outside, take in my new found freedom, let my eyes feast on the ocean below and the stars up above, but there were no windows back here – just piles of crates, some empty, some full. The hold was dim, lighted by a single bulb hanging from the center of the ceiling, inconsistently bathing us in its pool of light as it swung back and forth as the plane rode with wind currents.

Including myself, there were five of us in that hold. The others included a balding middle aged man with a gray goatee, a perky blond teenage boy not much older than me with a squeaky voice and a crutch, a rather sick looking man in his mid twenties, a young woman that oddly reminded me of Claire, except that she held a cigarette between her fingers … oh man, it's been a few stressful hours since my last one. I approached her meekly.

"Excuse me, ma'am," I said, nodding my head to her, "do you think I could bum one off you?"

"Sure," she replied, reaching into her pocket, pulling out a half-full pack of smokes. "I still have a few left."

"I won't be needing too much," I assured, slipping one out of the package.

"We escape the virus with a bunch of smokers," he middle aged man scoffed. "If the damn virus won't kill us, that second hand smoke will."

I shot him an angry glance. "Good, so I can enjoy this and kill you at the same time!" I held up my cigarette.

"You've got attitude," he spat. "Your parents should've spanked you hella harder."

"With that ugly face, it's too bad you weren't mistaken for a zombie and SHOT!!"

"Why you little …" He got up and rolled a sleeve up his arm.

"Hey, hey, guys, there's no need for this!" the perky teenage boy said, hobbling between us on his crutch. "We all escaped the island successfully and we should be thankful to be alive … AAGGGHHH!!!"

He suddenly cried out loud in pain, having a gray, decaying human corpse rise from its place hidden behind one of the crates in the darkness, and bite hard into his shoulder. It was a zombie … that man who looked sick … I thought he merely sustained injuries! I felt so stupid that I didn't even consider the fact that he could have caught the virus from his wound. The smoker lady, the middle aged man and I suddenly backed into a corner, all of our eyes wide with fear as we saw the poor teen get mangled and mauled by the zombie, hearing his crutch drop with a loud, hollow clang.

It was the smoker lady that came to her senses first. She ran at the zombie and kicked up her foot, embedding the sharp tip of her stilettos into its chest. The force pushed the zombie off the teen, letting him crash to the floor in a bloody heap. The woman's foot came back down, without the shoe, still stuck in the zombie's chest.

"I still can't believe these fucking things exist," she cried, stumbling backwards. She kicked up her other foot and caught her other shoe in her palm, thrusting it at the zombie. Her shoe bounced harmlessly off the creatures head. She joined me and the middle aged man back in the corner. "There's nothing else I can do."

I wanted to use my magnum on the zombie, but I realized I had to conserve my ammunition. I still had the box of bullets that Alfred gave me in my pocket, threatening to pull my pajama pants down with its combined weight with the gun. But who knew how many I would need in my upcoming confrontation with Wesker. And I knew I would be seeing him again, and I wanted to get prepared early. "Maybe if we can try and find some weapons we can use against the zombie … melee weapons, and knock its head off or something."

The middle aged man ran straight for the crutch, picked it up, and took a powerful swing at the zombie. It hit the zombie's shoulder, making it lose its balance and stumble back for a moment. He continued poking the zombie with the bottom end of the crutch, hoping to poke holes in its decaying body. He looked over his shoulder and shouted at us.

"Quickly, find some weapons!"

"Right!" the smoker lady said. She bent down and started scouring the floor for something to fight with – a fatal mistake. We were too filled with adrenaline to realize that the teen who lay in a puddle of his own blood on the floor of the cargo hold was transforming into one of the undead himself. I'd experienced zombies in Raccoon City before, and I knew they used to be people, but I never actually saw a person turn into one of the undead.

He reached out for the woman's calf and sunk his viral teeth into it, ripping out chunks of flesh and spilling blood. The woman's scream pierced the air and our ears, but the zombies were not receptive to it. The middle aged man took a second to cover his own ears, but that was all the time the original zombie needed to bite into the man's skull. The teen crawled onto the woman and began devouring her leg while she screamed and pleaded for me to help her. On the opposite end of the cargo hold, the middle aged man was getting his skull cracked open from in between the zombie's powerful jaws, spilling bloody matter all over the floor. I took the magnum out of my pocket and aimed it at the woman's forehead.

"Please … do it …" she begged, as the tears streamed out from her eyes. "I don't want to become …"

I nodded, closed my eyes … and tried to pull the trigger. I was shocked at my own reaction. The woman's gaze still met my own. She was crying even harder now, pleading with me through violent sobs to end her suffering. I tried and tried to pull the trigger, but at the last moment, my fingers refused to move, no matter how hard I tried to make them.

I don't know if it was the frustration from feeling so helpless, or the sadness from seeing somebody die right in front of me, but I began to cry myself. The feeling of hot tears stinging my cheeks was comforting. I had gone through three months of training at the Rockfort facility and whizzed through all the drills. But never in my life did I ever imagine facing one of the situations we drilled for in real life. After all, I was never serious about becoming a soldier. My main purpose was to deter Wesker's and Ada's attentions away from Chris and the others, onto Umbrella. But now I found myself facing a moment where my training was needed – the psychological training to be able to kill quickly and efficiently without even a second thought. Had this woman been an enemy, I would have given her ample time to turn the tables and kill me.

It wasn't until the teen turned zombie looked up from its meal when the realization of what was happening hit me. The woman was about to join him in a few minutes. I looked back at her, realizing that she'd never taken her eyes away from me. "Do it … kill me …" she mouthed. Once again, I pointed the magnum at her. I closed my eyes and I don't even remember pulling the trigger when I felt a spray of blood fall onto my pants. When I dared to look, she was dead … completely lifeless on the ground, her large empty eyes staring off into nothing in particular.

And then I also noticed the teen zombie about to grab and bite me. I quickly shifted my aim at him, this time without even a second thought, put a hole his head. It made me ill that I was getting the hang of it. But hey, it was necessary to survive, right?

Realizing that I was the only left in that cargo hold with any chance of getting out alive, I dashed for the door, past the first zombie that was already dining on the corpse of the middle aged man and into the door that lead into the rest of the plane, and the cockpit. I slammed the door shut and collapsed against it, hoping my weight would keep it closed.

The pilot looked at me. His eyes shot open wide with concern. "What the hell happened back there?!" he asked.

"We had a renegade zombie …" I replied weakly.

"Are you bitten?"

I shook my head.

"Did you get any blood in you, through oral, nasal or wound intake?"

I shook my head again. "I'm fine," I insisted. "Open the cargo hatch and deposit our rotten luggage."

"I can't risk polluting the ocean with them," he said, regretfully. "If fish were to dine on the viral flesh, they might catch it too. If it's this contagious among humans, it can most likely spread to other life forms as well."

He was right. We had to keep that stinking cargo of rotting, walking corpses until we could safely set this plane on fire and burn any remaining traces of the virus … including my blood splattered clothes. Shit, what'll I wear?!

"What the hell?" the pilot suddenly cried, more from surprise than anything else.

"Huh?" I asked, heading over to the cockpit. "What's going on?"

"I've lost control of the plane," he said. "It seems to be flying on autopilot."

"Sorry for interrupting you folks," a girly voice said over the intercom. "But as a precaution against the spreading of the T-Virus, I cannot allow you to escape back to civilization, tee hee hee!"

I smashed my fists onto the dashboard. "Admiral Ashford, you can't do this to us! We've escaped from the island uninfected!"

"Your aircraft will now be diverted to another Umbrella location so that you are treated, and the problem may be corrected accordingly." Apparently, there was no way for us to respond because Admiral Ashford didn't seem acknowledge anything I was saying. "The co-ordinates of your destination are being uploaded onto the plane's computer …"

The pilot spun in his chair, over to the navigation system … or were we already at the navigation system? Ah fuck it, I had no idea how to fly a plane!

"You've gotta be kidding me!" the pilot exclaimed, slapping his hand to his forehead.

"Why?!"

"You won't believe where he's sending this plane … to the Antarctica."

"WHAT?!?! You've gotta be kidding me …"

"No way, I'm dead serious," he said pointing to the glowing red dot on the navigation map. "See that peninsula on the corner of the map? That's actually the southern tip of South America."

"He's not planning on treating us," I whispered in horror, "Alfred's planning on covering up Umbrella's illegal viral experiments by destroying any traces of the virus, and killing the survivors of the disaster … killing … us …"