Could she do this?

Really?

The thought had been going through her head a lot since they'd gotten back from Ravenscroft. DSO agents securing the location, BSAA called in to figure out what, if anything could be done to clean up the mess. The older, sole living man with that name, Victor Parker had disappeared while the surviving members of the PMC he'd founded were rounded up. Ashley lost little sleep worrying about it, glad that she'd escaped from a nest of vipers that had taken over the institute where she'd been kept for so long. The DSO and Director Simmons had stepped in to support her while liaisons from the BSAA arrived. She'd been worried for a bit that her condition as BOW, Sentient BOW though that might be, would lead to problems but between Leon on the ground with her and the full support of a National Security Advisor she'd ended up with rather little to worry about beside what kind of high price room service she wanted delivered in the hotel they'd put her and her father in.

But that had only been a temporary diversion. The sheer amount of attention that this event had had brought reporters out in a swarm. Her father was busy almost all the time insuring them that he was fine, he'd been checked out by the BSAA already and there was nothing to worry about. It had left Ashley with little to do, government agents waiting on her hand and foot (or foot-claw). She'd been feeling a little stir crazy about it all until she'd gotten a visit from her benefactor out of the blue.

Leon had of course introduced him, Derek C. Simmons, a tall man that looked younger than she'd had expected given his position. But apparently he'd only come into national politics on this level during the end of her father's term as president so perhaps the gray hairs of stress hadn't begun to show.

"I'll be plain Miss Graham," he'd said, meeting her gaze straight on as he spoke. "Looking at the mess Blackquills made up in Ravenscroft, covering this up simply isn't viable. Rumors are already spreading across social media and the news is going to start carrying some of them sooner rather than later."

She nodded, turning her head slightly to look at Leon before facing Simmons once more. "I can see how that would be a problem."

Problem was an understatement, there were over a hundred recently infected people up there, still undergoing treatment to remove the Plagas based on Parker's research.

With… varying levels of success.

"No, focus on this. You did the best you could then Ashley."

"More than just a problem it's an embarrassment. We've let too many cooks in the kitchen as it were, every state legislature tossing up Anti-BOW laws in the wake of Raccoon to try and NIMBY the problem away. Sure we've clamped down on the problems caused by bio-tech companies like Umbrella… but what about the terrorists that created the Plagas in the first place?"

Her antenna twitched slightly at that. She… hadn't considered that. "Weren't Blackquill working with the federal authorities?"

"Under false pretenses and for the purposes of illegal research. Research which I might add took advantage of your care, which was already in a gray area as far as treatment goes. No, I don't think we should mince words. I've already sent the proposal to the President and it will be approved within the week."

"Blackquill and all subsidiary organizations are going to be listed as domestic terrorists," Leon added, a slight smile on his face as he imagined the fallout to come. "Interpol and the BSAA foreign branches will be notified as well for anyone that runs out of the country."

Simmons nodded before he threaded his fingers over his knee and leaned forward just a bit towards Ashley. "Just as they should. We're in the business of stopping terrorists and sadly, it looks like covering up for the Los Iluminados has only allowed some to flourish."

"Covering up?" Ashley cocked her head slightly to the side. Her normal immediate emotional reaction to that cult cut off by the odd way it was being brought up. "What do you mean by that?"

"I thought it was pretty clear that everyone was told about them 'killing' me back then." Ashley was just glad they'd implied a cremation so there wasn't a fake grave with her name on it somewhere. Her life was morbid and weird enough as it was already.

Simmons just shook his head leaning back and gesturing towards her as he spoke. "Ashley, I meant you."

"Me?"

"We allowed the full extent of that foreign terrorist organization's actions to remain in the shadows and by so doing made it easier for surviving elements to spread their work out into the black market and for the most recent incident to occur. Clearly if the American public had been made aware of precisely what Los Iluminados had created we might have been able to take more effective countermeasures or put through a more comprehensive and realistic policy."

"Ashley," Leon spoke up, looking at her as his earlier smile faded. "I've been talking to Simmons and some other people… we've had cases like this before-"

Her heart skipped a beat, thinking about what was implied by that.

"-but nothing this extreme… given that the Los Illuminados aren't even related to Umbrella's research, there's no reason to lie about the extent of what they did."

"The public needs to know what exactly the threats of foreign bio-terrorists are capable of… and what they've already done."

She couldn't help it. Her mandibles opened and her antenna shot straight up. She composed herself after a bit, but even then she felt agitated as she scooted back in the chair she was sitting in, her wings shifting as she moved.

"You can't be talking about what I think you are."

They both nodded, Simmons first and then Leon.

"We think it's time the world learned that Ashley Graham didn't die like they were told."

Her father had been dead set against it. Almost angry it seemed at Leon and the new DSO director for going behind his back to talk to her about this. But Ashley couldn't get the idea out of her head. Not what Simmons had kept going on about informing people of the dangers of foreign BOW research, which frankly even she felt he seemed a tad obsessed with.

Though it was his job she supposed, so it made sense.

But what Leon had mentioned towards the end. That for the last decade, since Raccoon City, there hadn't been any legal research in counter BOW medical technology. Recovery, treatment, with her own cloistered and secretive care, nothing had been done. Years of potential progress squandered out of fear of another Raccoon.

He hadn't said it out loud, but she'd read it in his expressions, the way his eyes lingered on her wings and tail for a moment as they stood.

"How much better might my treatment have been if we hadn't stopped studying mutagenic viruses out of fear of another Raccoon City?" Would she… be human? More so? Would she still have hair and five fingers instead of claws she filed down to make them safer for other people? Would she still have these extra eyes (and all the things they could see) or these wings (which she'd only gotten to fly with during panic, but even then…).

Her stomach felt unsettled, guilt gnawing at her as she worked this imagined possibility over and over. She… she did like who she'd been. Part of her would always want to be a pretty, normal, young woman with a very average and uneventful life laid out ahead of her. But that hadn't been the truth for a long time, and there were parts of this she'd found that weren't as bad as she'd thought. But then she thought over what Simmons had mentioned, something he hadn't elaborated on further. Claiming it was classified and she really didn't need to know the details.

But of course she should have realized, hell, she'd read papers on it for her online classes. Though they'd only been guessing about the legal framework of the hypothetical 'intelligent BOW' she knew that if they applied these viruses to enough people eventually some would come out the other end still themselves.

Perhaps even more now that things had been refined in some cases…

Still, what about them? She had an opportunity to change the narrative, to make a case for no longer hiding their heads in the sand and pretending that the world could be turned back to before the first outbreak in the Arklay Mountains if people just wished enough.

But wishing wasn't going to save lives or stop the next outbreak, and it wasn't going to treat the victims in the future that might have better chances to come.

In the end, she'd been adamant. And her father had relented, his only passing advice as he looked at her with a mix of both regret and respect in equal measure for the choice she had made was that "From now on, it will be a very different fight for you."

She didn't know if she was ready.

But she knew it didn't matter anyway.

And bedsides…

It was just like flying wasn't it? She wouldn't know she could till she tried.

River Monroe had been on this assignment for almost a week and a half now. The reporter on the scene for first the outbreak, then the BOW lockdown, and then a multi-state manhunt for something that they were still being cagey about. Frankly she was getting tired of asking secretaries and MiB looking suits questions that were never answered and waiting for those rare times when Graham showed up and clarified something while still being infuriatingly noncommittal about important facts.

"Who kidnapped you?"

"A rogue NGO with connections to bio-terrorism. Next question."

"What was the nature of the outbreak?"

"I'm sadly not at liberty to say. And even if I was, I'm no BSAA agent. Just be certain that the proper authorities are handling it."

"Why were you targeted?"

"My staunch aggression against these madmen and the inhuman monsters they created. Next question."

Again and again and again.

She might as well not even bother showing up, no new info was being presented and soon enough the news cycle would leave this behind. There were still the lingering questions of what happened up North that had the BSAA and the DSO quarantining an area, but compared to some of the minor outbreaks of the last few years this wasn't even that notable beyond the celebrity of those involved.

"God, that's messed up that a zombie outbreak is considered a minor incident." Still, she had to admit it was the truth. They covered the domestic cases, but she'd honestly lost count of how many times there'd been news of BOWs involved in foreign war theater only for it to never be confirmed one way or another. Overactive imaginations, or just one more sign that Umbrella might be dead but their legacy was living on quite well in the blood-soaked battlefields of several different continents.

Frankly this had been looking like one such case, at least till she'd been pulled aside for a… special conference. The G-men had asked her a lot of odd questions. Political affiliation, if she had a heart problem or anxiety. And then the blonde with a thousand yard stare and five o'clock shadow had looked her dead on and said, "Listen, Miss Monroe… do you want to cover the biggest story of your career?"

She had no idea what the hell was going on, but she was in a smaller crowd, the cameras behind her rolling but currently operated by the government staff and not the news agency. Odd, but a requirement.

Graham had come on first, looking way less composed than normal. He'd started off like he normally did, when giving a speech for some of his supporters. About the dangers of mutagenic research, of what it had done to his family-

Huh. That's odd. He normally said "What it had cost him" but he phrased it differently this time. Weird.

He paused for a long time, looking to the side for some signal.

"I think I've said enough. You see I haven't been entirely honest… about a lot of things, but especially about how I was rescued and why they targeted me. In the end, it all came down to my daughter."

"What? Why would-"

She'd been half standing, about to ask a question when… it… she appeared. Walking carefully onto the stage, a slightly odd sound of those clawed feet stepping on the wood while she looked over the small crowd. Wings like dragonfly twitched along her back while moderately long tail moved slightly with her steps. An almost knee length reddish skirt covered her legs, and she was wearing a dark brown vest under a red jacket. That everything fit her body only made it more disconcerting, as she could see where cuts had been made, modifications for wings and chitinous plating.

But not as much as how her head looked at them, antenna swaying, moving on their own as she came to stand next to Graham.

"Hello."

She spoke.

God, she sounded… normal? A slight and almost imperceptible warbling hiss just at the edge of her voice. Though even that faded as she continued to talk, apparently getting into the swing of it.

Easy to do, as the whole crowd was frozen and speechless.

"My name is Ashley Graham… and I'd like to tell you the truth about what happened to me."

MutantSightings Board

Topic: BREAKING: President Graham's Press Conference

Boards ► National News

Page 21 of 145

►Romero (Moderator)

… Well that just happened.

►VirusSpotter420

I told you guys.

See? It all happened exactly like I said.

►RememberRaccoon

You said she was an alien secret agent sent down to retrieve a crashed UFO of mutagenic DNA.

She's President Graham's fucking daughter man. How'd you get convinced of all that nonsense?

►VirusSpotter420

I mean, it's not like she exactly told us she wasn't an alien.

►Sandwich-Man

Translation: She decided to humor my crazy conspiracy because she had to go all Bug-Rambo and save her dad.

►RememberRaccoon

For real. If half the stuff you told us is true about her, being a BOW must have really toughened her up.

Man, just add virus, instant badass.

►Umbrella-Watcher

Are you ignoring that she looks like a talking bug woman?

►RememberRaccoon

Some people are into that.

Oh god, some corners of the internet are going to have a field day over this.

►Romero (Moderator)

Please don't imply things about the President's Daughter.

Even if she is a BOW… or an Intelligent BOW, forum rules still stand.

More seriously, you might be onto something. It's been speculated for some time that Umbrella and other groups were trying to produce next-generation genetically modified soldiers. The problem being that almost all of the BOWs are too dumb to be effective for much more than terror campaigns or weapons of indiscriminate extermination.

Ashley Graham certainly stands out from those.

►Umbrella-Watcher

Again, assuming you ignore the talking bug woman thing.

Like, yeah, I guess she's smart and has the abilities of a BOW. I still don't think there'd be a lot of folks signing up to look like that for a paycheck.

►VirusSpotter420

Dude, you haven't seen my student loans. Besides, Ashley looks a lot less weird when you've been around her for a bit.

►RememberRaccoon

Yeah. While there might not be that many would would agree for something as severe as what Miss Graham has, if Umbrella or the other biotech companies that produced these viruses had been able to guarantee more control in the outcome they'd almost certainly have had at least some volunteers for a paycheck and probably promise of lifelong medical care.

Or because they're into bugs maybe.

►Umbrella-Watcher

Seriously, you Americans have got to do something about your health care system. How is 'Growing wings and antenna' considered a good trade off for getting dental coverage on that side of the pond?