34: Identity Crisis
The torch beam cut through the swathes of darkness that enveloped the room.
"No need for that, Lisa, the light switches are right here," said Dr Harlech, flipping a series of switches by the door.
One light went on. Another light went on for two seconds, before fading inexplicably into darkness again. A third turned on and flickered erratically. A fourth didn't turn on at all, and a fifth exploded in a shower of glass.
"Oh. Well, we've got some light, anyway," said Dr Harlech, recovering from the shock. "Don't know what happened to the lights. They always worked perfectly before."
They were standing in a shadowy room lined with lockers on one side and coat pegs on the other. Hanging on several of the coat pegs were lab coats in varying stages of cleanliness, ranging from "sparkling clean" to "possibly contagious".
"Hey, this is just a locker room," said Renée, sounding disappointed. "Where's the lab?"
"Which one?" said Dr Harlech.
"You mean there's more than one?" said Renée, surprised.
"Well, we've got two main laboratory areas on this level, and then downstairs there are a few smaller labs belonging to the leading researchers," explained Dr Harlech. "Plus storerooms, offices, and so on. Now that I think about it, the word "laboratory" is a bit misleading. It's more like a small research facility."
"Now she tells us," Renée grumbled. "Okay, so where now?"
"We're going to search this whole place from top to bottom," said Lisa. "We're going to find my mom and dad, and when we find them, we're going to get the hell out of here."
"And we're going to get to the bottom of the L-Project, too," said Amber. "If it's part of Umbrella's bioweapons programme, then we have to put a stop to it. This can't be allowed to happen again. Renée, Clarissa, are you with us?"
"Damn right," said Renée instantly. "I don't care if Umbrella does pay my wages, their experiments have screwed up big-time, and I'm fed up of being attacked by the results. They don't pay me nearly enough for this… and now they won't even promote me to Corporal? The hell with that. This company's going down."
"Good for you, soldier. Clarissa, what about you?" said Amber.
"Yes, I'm with you," said Dr Harlech. "Umbrella have already done far too much damage - and I helped them! I helped them do this!"
Amber saw her unlikely ally's blue-grey eyes start to fill with tears again, and she wondered what it was like to have the deaths of innocent people on your conscience.
How must it feel to realise that simply carrying equipment back and forth in a lab all day had helped to kill thousands of people, and you had no idea you were doing anything wrong until it was too late?
She could only imagine the woman's guilt, her grief, her horror and dismay at having unwittingly aided and abetted the forces of evil. She could certainly understand the tears of shame and anger in her eyes.
"Because of this company, I've got blood on my hands which I can never wash off," said Dr Harlech, wiping her eyes on her coat sleeve. "I have to stop them now, or I'll never forgive myself for what I helped them to do."
Amber put a hand on Dr Harlech's shoulder.
"Come on, Clarissa," she said. "Let's get out there and make those bastards pay."
"Get out where? Where we goin'?" said Jack.
"Let's start next door, in Research Lab #1," said Dr Harlech, with a newfound gleam of purpose in her eyes. "That's as good a place as any."
----------
Research Lab #1 was exactly what they'd expected - a vast laboratory of about the same length and breadth as Raccoon City High's basketball court. Computers and paperwork competed with glassware and complex scientific equipment for desk space, although occasional parts of the laboratory were oases of perfect order, with every item laid out neatly and arranged with near-surgical precision.
The blue flame of a lit Bunsen burner from an unknown experiment glowed eerily in the dark until Dr Harlech hit the light switches. This time her luck was better, and only one of the lights failed to turn on. None of them exploded.
Someone was standing still in the middle of the room. The person's back was turned to them, but Lisa noted the lab coat and the short dark hair with growing apprehension. The back of that head looked familiar…
"Dad?" she ventured.
Slowly, like the shifting of continents, the man began to turn around. The groan that emanated from him chilled Lisa's blood.
"Dad…?" she said faintly. "Is that you?"
"Uhhhhh…"
The man was now facing them, but Lisa wished he'd kept his back turned. The bluish-white face was dripping with blood. The one small relief was that the man's face was not her father's, but that of a slightly younger man with a beard and moustache.
"Heads up, we got another zombie," called Jack.
"Headshot should take him out," said Amber, taking aim. "Hit him in the right place, and you'll only need one bullet to kill him."
"Where do you need to shoot, then?" said Dr Harlech.
"Right between the eyes," said Amber, and she fired once. The zombie toppled backwards with a groan, with a neat bullet hole in the exact centre of the forehead.
Under her breath, Amber began slowly counting to thirty.
When, after thirty seconds, the zombie hadn't risen again, Amber risked a closer look. The zombie was very definitely dead; blood was spilling out of the bullet wound in its forehead and forming a puddle on the floor beneath its body.
"It's dead," Amber called out.
"Are you sure?" Dr Harlech called back.
"Very sure," replied Amber. "I learned a few things while I was trapped in the police station, and one of the things I learned was that there are only three ways to kill a zombie - burn it, decapitate it, or blow its brains out. Anything other than that, and it'll come back to life again later, no matter how dead you think it looks."
"Right," said Dr Harlech, looking shaken. "Uh, thanks."
"Was that your dad, Lisa?" asked Renée.
"No, it wasn't," said Lisa. "He's got the same haircut, but that wasn't him."
"That's good," said Renée. "Where there's life there's hope, eh?"
Lisa nodded, but said nothing. The man that Amber had just shot had once been a scientist. Scientists, generally speaking, were intelligent people, as Jack had told her. But intelligence hadn't saved this man from the T-Virus. Had her mother and father fared any better?
"Okay, this guy was Dr Anthony Hodgman, according to his identity card," announced Amber, as she examined the corpse. "Clarissa, do you know him?"
"He's one of the L-Project researchers," said Dr Harlech. "He works - worked - in Research Lab #2, and he's got an office somewhere. I don't know him, though. The lab assistants didn't talk to the researchers much."
"Do you know what he did here?" said Amber.
"No," said Dr Harlech, frowning. "Why do you ask?"
"I'm trying to decide whether I should kick his head off or not," said Amber.
"Well, I didn't notice him dragging screaming colleagues away for torture, or cackling as he ran people over in the parking lot," said Dr Harlech, shrugging. "As far as I could tell, he was pretty normal."
"Nobody who works for Umbrella is normal, Dr H," said Renée. "Take it from me. You're talking about a company that employs Christina, for crying out loud."
In the background, Amber started kicking the late Dr Hodgman repeatedly in the head, as hard as she could. Twelve kicks later, the man's head bounced across the floor.
"What was that for?" said Dr Harlech, aghast.
"General principles," said Amber, scowling down at the headless corpse of the researcher.
"Okay, everyone," she said, looking up again. "Lisa's parents obviously aren't in this room. Clarissa, Renée, you two take Lisa into Research Lab #2 to look for her mom and dad. Jack and I are going to stay here and take a little look around."
"Okay," said Dr Harlech. "They're going to kill me when they find out I've let you snoop around in here, but they're probably going to kill me anyway, so you might as well go ahead and look around. Meet us next door when you're done."
The RPD police officer and the Umbrella scientist exchanged nods of agreement, and parted company, the scientist leaving the room with a worried teenager and a bemused mercenary in tow.
When they were sure that they had the laboratory to themselves, Jack and Amber went to opposite ends of the room and began their search.
"What we be lookin' for, anyway?" said Jack after a while.
"Anything incriminating," said Amber, rooting through a stack of paperwork on somebody's desk. "Documents, photographs, test-tubes labelled "Deadly Zombie Virus Sample #12", that kind of thing."
"Oh. 'kay. You mean like this?"
Amber turned around. Jack was holding up a framed photograph which, judging by the large rectangular gap in the wallpaper of motivational posters, official notices, Umbrella advertisements and neon-coloured Post-It notes, had fallen off the wall at some point and never been put back up.
"What is it?" she called.
"A photo of a bunch of scientists. It say "L-Project Research Team, March 1998"," said Jack.
"Good work, Jack," said Amber. "That's great. Probably the most incriminating thing in here, mind. I think they've either destroyed the important paperwork or got it locked away somewhere safe. All I've found so far are expenses reports, a failed request for sick leave, two reports containing absolutely nothing suspicious, and a lingerie catalogue. Let's have a look at this photo, then."
Jack handed over the photograph. Amber stared at it for a moment, then brought it down sharply on the edge of a desk. Glass splintered, and part of the wooden frame broke off.
Amber pulled the rest of the frame apart, cut out the back of the frame with a fragment of glass, and carefully removed the photograph.
"What you do that for?" said Jack, puzzled.
"I couldn't carry it around like that, could I?" said Amber. "I think there might be names on the back of this photograph, too."
She turned the photograph over, and saw a list of names written neatly in pencil on the back.
"Yes… here we are," she said. "Any of these look familiar to you, Jack?"
Jack went through the list, lips moving silently as he read the names. They were:
Back row (l to r): Dr Margaret Dayton; Dr Dean Forrester; Dr Anthony Hodgman; Dr Theresa Goddard; Dr Belinda Patrick; Dr Stuart James; Dr Adrian Hewlett
Front row (l to r): Dr Archibald Fisher, Chief Researcher; Dr Alistair Morton; Dr Wilfred Hazlitt, Facility Director; Drs Jonathan and Elizabeth Hartley; Dr Linda J Lampeter, Head of Research; Dr Janice Redmond
He turned the photograph back again, matching the names to the bright, smiling faces.
Dr Margaret Dayton was an attractive older woman with dark bobbed hair; her neighbour, Dr Dean Forrester, was the complete opposite - young and blond, with his broad shoulders and muscular build suggesting "former high school quarterback". Third from the left was their old friend Dr Hodgman, looking far more healthy than when they'd last seen him.
Dr Harlech's mentor, Dr Theresa Goddard, turned out to be a severe-looking blonde woman, and the only member of the group who wasn't smiling. That told Jack pretty much all he needed to know about the woman. He silently pitied Dr Harlech for having to work with her.
The other three people looked like they were barely out of high school: Dr Belinda Patrick, a slight, pretty brunette with a bright smile; Dr Stuart James, a studious-looking young man with dark hair and brooding eyes; and at the end of the row was the most youthful of all, Dr Adrian Hewlett - a tall, skinny youth with unruly brown hair, a troubled complexion and a shy, hesitant smile.
In the front row was Dr Archibald Fisher, who was mostly bald and squinting slightly through half-moon spectacles as he smiled feebly for the camera. Next to him was the infamous Dr Wilfred Hazlitt, Director of Umbrella HQ - he was a middle-aged man with salt-and-pepper hair, designer glasses, and the confident smile of a shark who'd just spotted a helpless swimmer floundering a few feet away. Stuck between them and not looking terribly enthusiastic about it was Dr Alistair Morton, Lisa's father's co-worker, who looked like Humphrey Bogart in a lab coat.
In the middle of the front row were Lisa's parents, standing next to a familiar-looking blonde woman with glasses, and right at the end of the row was Dr Janice Redmond, a pretty woman with flame-red hair and a wicked grin.
Wait a minute…
The person to Dr Redmond's left was, according to the list of names, Dr Linda J. Lampeter. But when Amber looked again…
She gripped the photograph tightly.
"Lying bitch," she hissed.
"What?" said Jack.
Amber thrust the photograph in front of his face with a snarl. Jack stared at it in incomprehension.
"What?" he said again. "What be up with you?"
"Look at the woman in the front row, second from the right," growled Amber. "She remind you of anyone?"
Jack looked at the blonde woman with glasses, standing next to Dr Redmond.
"Hey, she kinda looks like… what the hell? What she be doin' there?"
"That's what I want to know," said Amber. "Let's go and find out, shall we?"
Without waiting for an answer, she dragged Jack out of the laboratory by his good arm, while Jack gawped at the photograph in Amber's hand in disbelief. Staring out of it, with a sweet smile on her lips, was the face of Dr Clarissa Harlech.
----------
Dr Harlech was halfway across Research Lab #2 when she heard the scream.
"Yeeeaaaargh!"
Before she knew what was going on, someone had leapt onto her back and brought her crashing face-down onto the floor. She let out a shriek of pain as she felt someone grab her hair and yank it sharply.
"All right, you lying bitch, talk!" she heard Amber hiss.
"Amber? Wh-what's going on?" said Dr Harlech, frightened and bewildered.
"Oh, no, I'm not falling for the innocent routine again," snarled Amber. "Not this time. Now talk!"
"What? What are you talking about?" cried Dr Harlech.
She screamed as Amber grabbed her hair and slammed her face into the floor.
"You and I both know perfectly well you're not Dr Harlech, don't we, Linda?" said Amber.
"What?" shrieked Dr Harlech, but this earned her another facial collision with the floor.
"Amber, stop it! Leave her alone!" cried Lisa, trying unsuccessfully to pull Amber off Dr Harlech.
"Amber, what the hell are you doing?" yelled Renée, from across the room.
"Beating the living snot out of this lying bitch who's been pretending to be Dr Harlech!" Amber yelled back. "She's been lying to us the whole time! This isn't Clarissa Harlech! This is Linda J. Lampeter, the scumbag Head of Research, and she's in this up to her neck!"
The aforementioned neck (plus its associated head) was slammed into the floor once again, and Dr Harlech howled in agony.
"I don't know what the hell you're talking about!" she bawled. "I'm Clarissa Harlech! That's who I am! Me! Myself! Clarissaaaaaargh!"
"Goddamn it, Amber, let her go!" shouted Renée.
Amber released the sobbing scientist, and held out the photograph. The mercenary snatched it roughly, and looked at it.
"Look! In the front row, right next to Janice Redmond!" yelled Amber. "She's there, look! Smiling like the world belongs to her! All this time, she's been playing us for fools! I knew you could never trust an Umbrella scientist!"
Renée and Lisa stared at the photograph.
"That does look like her, doesn't it?" said Lisa, astonished at the resemblance.
"Yeah," said Renée. "But that's not her."
"What?" screeched Amber. "Of course it's her! What are you talking about?"
"How do you know, Renée?" said Lisa. "They look like the same woman to me."
"Lisa, there's a picture on that desk," said Renée evenly. "Go and get it, will you?"
Baffled by the request, Lisa nevertheless went over to the desk Renée had been standing at, and picked up a photograph lying face-down on a pile of papers. She brought it over to Renée.
"Introducing Dr Clarissa S. Harlech and family," said Renée, holding up the photograph triumphantly.
The others craned to look. Sure enough, it was a family picture; a middle-aged man and woman smiling for the camera, a much younger Clarissa Harlech… and another Clarissa Harlech, in a different outfit.
"Oh," said Lisa, as understanding dawned.
"Hey, that be one hell of a family resemblance," remarked Jack. "Look, Clarissa an' her hermana look just like twins."
"That's because we are twins," said Dr Harlech's muffled voice from the floor. "Linda got married a couple of years ago, to a guy in the warehouse business. His name's Peter. Peter Lampeter."
All eyes turned to Amber. Amber's mouth became an O of horror, and her face flushed red.
"Oh my God," she said, appalled. "Oh, God… Clarissa, I'm so sorry… I thought…"
"Yes, I know what you thought," said Dr Harlech, getting to her feet and gingerly feeling her face. "It's what everyone thinks. Shame they don't think before opening their stupid mouths, or launching themselves at me and beating the living daylights out of me."
"I'm sorry," said Amber in a small voice.
"Yes, well - you know what? I helped Umbrella make bioweapons with my ignorance, and you smashed my face into the floor because of your ignorance. Given the circumstances, I think we can probably call it even," said Dr Harlech, rubbing her bruised nose.
"Okay," said Amber. "Sorry, Clarissa."
"Forget it," said Dr Harlech, waving aside the apology. "I probably deserved it anyway. Just give me an advance warning next time you try to kill me, please, and I'll try and find some sort of protective clothing."
She smiled faintly. "Until then, I suppose we might as well be friends again. It's either that, or I'll end up needing reconstructive surgery. And since I'm only prepared to lose face in the strictly metaphorical sense, I think we're better off being nice to each other, don't you?"
"Yeah," said Amber. "Friends? Well, sort of?"
"Friends," agreed Dr Harlech. "Sort of."
The two women shook hands, and Renée shook her head.
"You're both mad," she said. "Both of you. Completely gaga. Are you sure you two aren't mercenaries in disguise? You're certainly crazy enough."
"I may be crazy, but I'm not that crazy," said Amber darkly. "No offence," she added, seeing Renée's expression.
"None taken," said Renée good-naturedly. "Though Christina might beg to differ."
"Well, Christina can kiss my - aaaargh!"
Dr Harlech, paranoid as only a terrorised Umbrella employee could be, had brought her foot down heavily on Amber's.
"Christina can kiss your aaaargh?" said Renée, frowning.
"My foot!" cried Amber, hopping up and down.
"Your foot? Well, I don't know what she'd want to kiss that for, but never mind," said Renée, with a shrug.
"No! Clarissa stepped on my foot!" cried Amber.
"In case you'd forgotten, Christina's up there in the air ducts right now," hissed Dr Harlech. "She's probably listening to every word you say and noting it for future reference so she'll have an excuse to kill you! And from what I've seen of her, I don't think she needs much of an excuse to kill you! In case you hadn't noticed, Amber, she hates you!"
"The feeling's mutual, believe me," muttered Amber. "Stupid, arrogant, vicious c-ow! That hurt!"
While this exchange was going on, Jack and Lisa had drifted away and started to search the room for evidence. It was clear that Lisa's parents were as absent from this room as they had been from Research Lab #1, but they were determined to find something here.
Lisa and Jack searched each stack of papers with care and an attention to detail that might have impressed even Christina, though it was doubtful whether anything would have truly impressed Christina. In the background, Amber yelped as her feet got trodden on again.
"There must be something here," said Lisa, exasperated by the lack of any documents bearing the words "Classified: Our Master Plan For World Domination", though doubtless some of the complicated documents might have provided one or two hints - if the reader happened to be a scientific genius of Einsteinian proportions.
And then Lisa came across a document that made her jaw drop.
CLASSIFIED MATERIAL - PROPERTY OF LABORATORY NO. 7UC-1F-3R (LEVEL B5)
The contents of this fax are classified and intended for the named addressee only. Any duplication or disclosure of the contents to a third party is strictly prohibited by the sender and by the Umbrella Pharmaceuticals Incorporated security guidelines (Section 5b, page 12, paragraph (iv))
This fax must be destroyed immediately after use, by order of the sender.
From: Dr Annette Birkin, G-Project Laboratory Manager
FAO Dr Jonathan Hartley
Re: Virus Samples
Dear Jonathan,
Many thanks for your continued support of my husband's research. I know that you and William were friends during your time at the Umbrella Management Training Facility, and we both greatly appreciate your interest in William's work.
As you are probably aware, my husband is very protective of his research. Very few people are aware of the G-Virus Project's existence, even among our own laboratory staff. However, William has always regarded you as a close friend and was insistent that you be privy to the details of his research.
I'm sure you will be pleased to hear that the G-Virus is rapidly nearing completion, with only a few minor adjustments still to be made. The virus' regenerative abilities are quite astonishing, although at the time of writing it works only erratically, with the regrettable side-effect of some loss of intelligence in the test subject. William is optimistic, however, and is convinced that these drawbacks can easily be overcome with some slight modifications in the molecular structure of the virus.
My husband was very excited to hear about the development of the L-Virus, and he has asked me to congratulate you on the success of your research. He sends his warmest regards to you and Elizabeth, and regrets the fact that his own project is taking up so much of his time; were it not for the importance of his research and its rapid completion, he would be only too eager to visit the L-Project laboratory and see your work for himself.
As a token of our goodwill, we have sent three samples of the G-Virus in its early stages of development for you to study, in the hope that they might somehow aid you in your research. We regret that these are not as up-to-date as we would have liked, but unfortunately there are many enemies of ours in the company who would like nothing better than to acquire samples of the G-Virus and use them for their own ends.
William and I request that you take the greatest possible care of these samples. On no account must anyone else know of their existence, let alone their presence in your laboratory. When you have finished with the virus samples, we would be obliged if you could return them to us so that they may be properly disposed of. Failing that, please dispose of them yourself in accordance with the company's Hazardous Materials Disposal Guidelines, and provide us with written and photographic proof of the samples' destruction.
We wish you both the very best of luck in your research.
Yours sincerely,
Annette Birkin
"What are you reading, Lisa?"
The heels of Amber's boots clicked on the floor as she crossed the room. She snatched the paper from Lisa's hand and scanned it quickly, her eyes flicking from line to line, down and then further down the page.
"Good God," she breathed at last. "So it really does exist…"
"What?" said Lisa. "What is it?"
"The G-Virus," said Amber. Her eyes were flashing with excitement. "Chris said it existed, but he could never find any proof! Even the FBI couldn't find a trace of evidence to support the rumour! But this - oh, this is perfect. This is Umbrella's big project - this is what we've been looking for! Oh, just wait till I get this to Chris! Maybe we can really get somewhere this time!"
She folded the document up and put it in her pocket, along with the other evidence she'd been collecting on her travels through the Umbrella building.
"Now where, Clarissa?" she said.
Dr Harlech took down a map that had been pinned to the laboratory wall. Showing it to Amber and beginning to trace a possible route with her finger, she said:
"Well if we go out through this door and down the corridor, there's a flight of stairs leading down to the next level. If we go down the stairs, we'll come to some smaller labs which belong to the researchers. Perhaps we'll have better luck there."
Amber nodded.
"Okay. Good plan. Let's do it."
"Yep," said Renée cheerfully.
Through the haze of another oncoming headache, Jack watched the others leave. He'd hoped that his symptoms could have been easily explained by lack of food and sleep, and a bandage that chafed against his skin. But no, they couldn't be explained away any more.
His head was a throbbing mass of excruciating pain, though that was nothing compared to what was happening to his arm. Swollen, insufferably itchy, still oozing and, on closer examination, now covered in purplish bruises, his arm hurt so much that Jack half-hoped that amputation would be an option available in the near future.
His blood felt like it was boiling in his veins, but his skin felt cold and clammy to the touch. The dizziness was coming back, too.Oh no…
Jack staggered, and leaned against a desk, fighting to get his breath back. He hoped fervently that none of the others had seen him like this; he knew that Lisa was already concerned about his health. He remembered that worried look she'd given him, back outside in the corridor leading to the laboratory entrance.
"No!"
Jack clenched his teeth until he thought they'd crack, and felt the terrible hunger and the thirst for blood subside. But he knew deep down that it would soon be back.
Now he knew for sure what was wrong with him. He'd been infected when that giant zombie's tentacle cut open his arm. Now he was going to die and come back as a zombie, and there was nothing he could do about it.
Except…
There were only three ways to kill a zombie, Amber had said. Burn it, decapitate it, or blow its brains out.
Well, there was no cure for the T-Virus. And he was going to die anyway…
Jack's hand trembled as he raised his gun to his head and pressed it to his temple. It hurt to think that this, the feel of cold metal pressing firmly against his skin, would be the last sensation he'd ever experience, and that he would never see Lisa again.
Struggling against the pain in his arm, he took a picture out of his shirt's breast pocket. It was a Polaroid photograph, identical to the one that Lisa had kept hidden behind the mirror of her dressing-table.
"Adios, Lise," he murmured, curling his finger around the trigger.
One last memory of Lisa passed through his mind.
"… if you don't make it out alive, then I won't either…"
And Jack hesitated.
"We leave together, or not at all…"
If he killed himself, then so would Lisa. They'd made a promise to survive or die together.
Jack sighed, and lowered the gun again. He'd just have to live to fight another day, and hope that the others would have the good sense to kill him when the time came.
The photograph went back in Jack's pocket, and Jack left the laboratory in search of Lisa. He hurried down a darkened corridor after the others, as fast as his aching legs could carry him.
Along the way he passed a series of storage cupboards, but didn't pay much attention to them. If he had bothered to stop and look, he would noticed the grille set high in the wall above one of the doors. He might even have noticed how one of the screws holding the grille in place appeared to be unscrewing itself…
It was some minutes before Jack finally caught up with the group. They'd already reached the end of the corridor and were just about to go down a flight of stairs when he came into view.
"Oh, you're still with us, then," said Dr Harlech, on seeing him. "That's good."
"Where have you been, Jack?" said Lisa. "We thought we'd lost you."
No, but you gonna lose me soon, Lise… and I dunt wanna die 'cause then you gonna die too, thought Jack. You dunt deserve to die just 'cause of me.
"Right, are we all here now? Yes? Good," said Renée. "Let's go downstairs."
Lisa turned on the torch again, and the beam of light probed the darkness below as they went downstairs. Their footsteps echoed and clanged on the metal steps, but the sound faded gradually as the group descended.
Somewhere behind them, a shadow hidden amongst other shadows smiled to itself. So they were heading downstairs? Interesting. Five people go down the steps… it would be very interesting indeed to see how many came back up them again.
But there was no time to stand around and play waiting games. There was work to be done…
----------
Amber thought that Dr Harlech was looking unnaturally excited about being in a dark, creepy corridor and, characteristically, said so.
"I'm sorry, you'll have to excuse me," said Dr Harlech, smiling nervously. "It's just that I've heard some incredible rumours about the technology they're using in these labs. To tell you the truth, I can't wait to see it for myself. It's meant to be state-of-the-art."
"You've never been to this part of the complex before, then?" said Renée.
Dr Harlech shook her head.
"Oh, goodness, no," she said. "I've been here before, but only to take paperwork down to Dr Goddard's office. I've never been inside the laboratories before. I was only allowed to work in Research Labs #1 and #2."
"How come?" said Renée.
"The lab assistants weren't allowed to work in these laboratories without the researchers' permission," said Dr Harlech. "The only time we were allowed to work there was if one of the researchers ordered us to go there and help them with something."
"Presumably you were never invited," said Amber dryly.
"No. Dr Goddard preferred to work alone when she wasn't in Research Lab #1 or #2. She'd leave me some work to get on with and disappear for the rest of the day."
"And I bet she never mentioned what she was doing in there," said Amber.
"She never told me, and I never asked," said Dr Harlech. "Though with the benefit of hindsight, I doubt it was anything good."
"No kidding," said Amber tartly. "So, what's behind Door Number One?"
They stopped outside the first door they came to; no laboratory door, this, but an unassuming little brown plywood door with only a plastic plate to indicate what lay inside:Dr A. Morton.
"Ah, the elusive Dr Morton," said Amber, grasping the door handle and pulling the door open. "So we meet at last - oh…"
Dr Alistair Morton - correction, the late Dr Alistair Morton - was slumped at his desk, blood trickling from a hole in the side of his head. A gun was resting on the desk, a few inches away from the dead man's fingers, as if it had just slipped from his hand.
"He's been dead at least two days," announced Amber, recovering from the shock. "Suicide, by the looks of things."
"Did he leave a note?" said Lisa.
"What, like "Please excuse Dr Morton from work on account of being dead?", you mean?" said Renée.
"No, no, a suicide note - like a letter explaining why he killed himself," explained Lisa.
"Sort of like "Help, help, the zombies are coming and I don't want to join them, so I'm going to blow my brains out instead of just shooting them all and running away", then," said Renée.
"Uh… sort of," said Lisa diplomatically.
"There's something there, just underneath his head," said Dr Harlech, pointing. "If someone could lift his head up a little - thank you, Amber - then I can find out what was on his mind."
Amber, shuddering with disgust, lifted the man's head up by his hair. Dr Harlech snatched an open book from underneath his forehead.
"What have we here?" she said to herself, and examined it carefully.
The book was a very nice leather-bound journal; quite expensive, by the look of it. Its former owner would probably have been quite upset to have seen the spray of blood droplets across the pages, had he not been considerably past caring.
"Hmm. The last entry was two days ago," said Dr Harlech, turning back a page or two. "Looks like you were right, Amber."
There was a slight squelch as Amber let the late Dr Morton's head drop back onto the desk. Jack, looking profoundly unwell, mumbled something and left the room at speed.
"What did he say?" said Renée.
""Adios, breakfast", I think," said Dr Harlech, as she read through the final journal entry. "He doesn't look well, does he?"
"I'm not surprised," said Renée. "All that rushing around, too much violence and not enough food or sleep. It's enough to make anyone sick. So what did the good doctor say, Dr H?"
Dr Harlech cleared her throat, and began to read the journal entry aloud.
"September 26th. They're everywhere, and it's far too late to run. We were told to stay here because it was safer than being outside, but by following their orders we condemned ourselves to death. Most of the employees have been infected by now. Those who aren't dead are dying, save for a few of us who managed to escape unscathed. I count myself among those fortunate few, although I'm beginning to wonder how fortunate I really am."
Lisa looked at the corpse of Dr Morton. Putting a bullet through your own brain seemed about as unfortunate as it was possible to get.
"Most of the survivors, including myself, tried to fight our way out of the building a few hours ago," Dr Harlech continued. "I don't know why we bothered, or where we thought we were going to run to. Most of the city has been infected by now, with only parts of uptown Raccoon City left untouched. Doubtless that those living there will soon succumb to the T-Virus as well."
Lisa thought briefly, regretfully, of Beatrice, Paul and the nightmare that had been her sixteenth birthday party."Our escape attempt was a disaster. I should have stayed and hidden in the old bomb shelter, like one of the lab assistants was said to have done. Perhaps then I wouldn't have had to see the others being slaughtered by zombies. I can still hear their screams…"
"One of the lab assistants - that's you, right, Dr H?" said Renée.
"That's right, Renée. Where was I? Oh, yes…"
Dr Harlech found her place in the text, and started reading again.
"They're all dead now, and I almost envy them their deaths. Better to die than live and wait in fear, with only one bullet left in my gun and no means of escape. The T-Virus may not be running through my veins, but I know I'm going to die anyway. There are zombies down here too, and they'll find me eventually. It's only a matter of time. The way I see it, I may as well hasten my demise by firing the very last bullet in my gun, and find peace in death."
"Poor guy," said Renée. "But I guess he was lucky he died before his guts got ripped out.""I wouldn't call killing yourself lucky," said Amber. "And I bet Christina would probably call it lack of ambition. Is that it, Clarissa?"
"Yes, that's it," said Dr Harlech. "Though he wrote something in tomorrow's "Things To Do Today" section."
"What does he intend doing tomorrow, then?" said Renée.
"Decompose," read Dr Harlech.
Oh. Says it all, really," said Renée. "Well, this guy's dead and Lisa's parents obviously aren't here. What now?"
"We take this journal with us, and move on," said Amber. She took the journal from Dr Harlech's hands, closed it, and slipped it into the pocket of her pants. At least, that was the idea - the journal was too big and wouldn't fit.
Amber swore under her breath.
"I think you should find something to carry all those documents in," said Lisa. "Like a bag or something. Your pockets are going to split at the seams at this rate."
"Good idea, Lisa," said Amber. "Um…"
She looked around the room, and spotted a briefcase beneath Dr Morton's desk.
That'll do nicely," she said, picking it up and opening it. The briefcase contained nothing more than an empty sandwich box; Amber discarded this. Removing a crumpled mass of documents from her pockets, she smoothed out the papers and put them carefully into the briefcase. Dr Morton's journal was placed on top of them.
"Oh, can you look after these?" said Lisa, handing Amber the piece of paper she'd found about the L-Project lab security protocols. After a moment's reflection, she took Almond's diary from her backpack and gave it to Amber, deciding that it was probably safer in a briefcase than a backpack.
"Sure," said Amber, putting both items into the briefcase. She shut it tightly. "There. Now we've got the important stuff safe, let's go."
They opened the office door just in time to hear Jack scream. Panicking, Lisa pushed past the other women and stumbled out into the corridor.
At the end of the corridor was a group of eight zombies; a bunch of former scientists in various stages of decay. They were lurching towards Jack, who was standing in the middle of the floor, rooted to the spot with terror.
"Jack!" cried Lisa. "You've got a gun! Shoot them!"
Jack said nothing; he just stood there, trembling from head to toe. He knew he could shoot them, but the paralysis of fear meant that he couldn't move a muscle.
What was more, he wasn't even sure if he wanted to live any more. If he died, he'd end up as a zombie… but how was that so different from what would happen if he lived? He was infected and he was going to die anyway.
Might as well get it over with, thought the part of him that wanted to give up his struggle for survival.
"Jack!" yelled Renée, as she and Amber emerged from the office. "Shoot them!"
At last, Jack's survival instinct cut in again. He tightened his hold on his handgun and aimed it at the closest zombie, now just a few feet away from him.
But then something unexpected happened - the zombies came to a sudden halt, their stance making them look almost uncertain about something. After staring vacantly at Jack for a moment, they turned and began to shuffle back the way that they'd come.
When they had staggered out of sight again, Amber marched forward and grabbed him by the shoulder.
"What the hell just happened?" she demanded to know.
Jack turned round and stared at the others, open-mouthed.
"I - I dunt know," he said, looking perplexed. "I dunt understand… why they just leave like that?"
"Maybe it's because you were pointing a gun at them," said Renée. "Perhaps they got the message and decided not to tangle with you."
"Don't be absurd," said Dr Harlech crisply. "Those things don't feel fear. They don't feel anything except hunger. Their intelligence has long gone. They're not going to avoid people just because they have guns."
"I know they don't have any feelings any more," said Lisa, timidly offering her opinion to Jack. "But back there they looked almost… scared. Like they were afraid of you."
"Why would they be 'fraid of me?" said Jack blankly.
"I don't know," said Lisa. "I don't understand it either. But those things were definitely avoiding you for some reason. I wish I knew why."
I wish I know why too, thought Jack unhappily. I know I be infected an' all that, but why the other zombies be scared to go near me? What be happ'nin' to me?
The thought still circled around in his head as he and the others moved on down the corridor in a close group and an uncomfortable silence.
What I be turnin' into? A zombie? A corpse? Or somethin' else? Oh, God, help me…!