I'm not making promises anymore. Chapters will be up when they are up, when the spirit strikes me to write.. I'd like to think I'll write them more often, but honestly, I have no idea if I will. Hope people are still out there. So…yeah. Read and enjoy.
Chapter 7
"It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.
– Charles Darwin
July 22nd, 2:30 PM
Rebecca could feel her hands shaking as she stood in front of the barely noticeable panel-door hidden in the white wall of the bank. Once they had found the keypad, it had only taken a few minutes to find the door itself. But since the door was sealed, it stood to reason it had been sealed for some time. And there was absolutely no telling what was behind it.
"Are you absolutely sure we want to do this?" Carlos was leaning against the wall next to the door, checking the clip on his rifle, but he stopped to look at her as he asked.
"No, not really." Rebecca shook her head slowly and readjusted her grip on her handgun. "I mean, we have to, but do I want to? If we open that door, there's no telling what could come out! I mean, it could be an elevator, or it could be a Tyrant!" She took a breath and tried to relax. "So no. But I'll open it anyway."
Carlos nodded, jamming his clip back into his gun and turned to face the door as Rebecca headed over to the keypad. They'd spent a good hour fiddling with it, but the end result had been simple…breaking it was more efficient than not. So they'd pulled the panel off the wall and gone to work on the wires.
And now, in theory, when Rebecca reconnected the last two settings on the rewired panel, the door would open. "Get ready." She said, her voice barely a whisper in the silence of the building. Carlos leveled his gun at the door, and Rebecca reached in and reconnected the last two wires.
The door dinged twice, soft, peaceful synthetic bell noises, and then the panel slide in half an inch and disappeared into the left section of wall. Carlos tensed, and Rebecca tugged out her handgun, pointing it at the opening as well, waiting for the inevitable rush of animated corpses and monsters.
Except nothing happened.
After a count of thirty, Carlos lowered his gun several inches. "Uhm…maybe there's nothing down there?" He asked, his voice suddenly nervous. The absence of enemy was somehow worse than its presence…at least, when it was there, you knew what was going on.
"I doubt it." Rebecca leaned forward to peer into the hole. A simple, well-lit staircase headed down and disappeared off to the left. "It could be that they were just…out already. The infection had to come from here, so…if they'd gotten gassed and not realized it, maybe…" the young medic trailed off and shrugged. "It doesn't matter."
Carlos nodded, shouldering his rifle long enough to pick up a black and green backpack that had been sitting nearby and hand it to the woman. "We should go now. We have an hour and twenty minutes before everyone else comes in after us."
"Right."
The staircase only went down for about twenty meters before it stopped at a steel-grey double-sided sliding metal door. Through a small window in the right side, the two heroes could see the laboratory. It looked clean, and empty. "Nicer looking than the last Umbrella lab I was in." Rebecca said quietly, before turning her attention to the keypad on the side wall.
"I don't think we can get in there just be shorting out the panel this time." She said, tapping her finger against her chin. "I'll probably have to use the laptop…and…hmm." She trailed off into silence, a puzzled expression settling onto her face.
"What is it?" Carlos was watching the lab through the window, but he turned to look at Rebecca instead.
"I'm…not sure." The medic took a step back from the blinking panel, then reached out and pushed the 'confirm' button. And the doors slid open, causing Carlos to jump backwards in surprise, bringing his rifle to bear on the empty corridor.
"What did you do?"
"Nothing!" Rebecca shook her head quickly, leaning in to peer around the edge of the door. The hallway was empty, clean, and completely silent. No shuffling footsteps, no distant, heart-wrenching and blood-curdling moans. Just…silence. "It was already unlocked."
"Yeah…I don't like that." Carlos finally decided quietly, but then he held his rifle out before him and started into the hallway. His boots echoed on the white and black steel, but other than that, the hallway was dead silent.
"I don't hear anything." Rebecca said as she followed him in, her own pistol held in a comfortable-alert position at her side. "Maybe there really isn't anything here."
"Don't say that, you'll jinx us." Carlos glanced back at her, a grin on his face. "We'll just keep assuming there is something here. It's safer."
"Right."
The hallway ended at a T-junction, with more hallways shooting off in two directions, but the door at the far south was locked, the small readout on the touchpad blinking 'Override Lockdown Secure' over and over. So they went the other way. Rebecca followed Carlos through two more empty, immaculately clean hallways, and then finally into a small security room.
A giant TV lined the far wall, its display divided up into a dozen small images, obviously monitoring the entire lab. An ancient looking rolling office chair sat in front of the TV's, and there was a half-eaten donut on the panel, and a battered looking bed with a pile of dirty laundry resting on top of it.
"Whoever worked in here was obviously not part of the obsessive cleaning department like out there." Carlos said as he made a quick search of the room. Content that nothing else was in there with them, he closed the door to the hallway and dragged the bed over to block it. Just to be safe. "What now?"
"Now…we see what we can see," Rebecca grinned, using the back of her gun to brush the half-eaten donut and the rest of the trash off the security console and into a nearby, half-full trashcan, and then settled down into the chair, her eyes flicking from panel to panel.
A few quick selections and the large screen went from displaying dozens of images to one large image of the room they were in. "They monitor themselves!" Rebecca said, quite surprised. Typically security rooms had awful security. Quickly she began flicking through camera images.
Empty hallway, empty hallway, empty research lab, empty hallway, a massive underground garage, empty hallway… "Oh."
"I found the…people." She said softly, staring up at the monitor. On the screen was what looked like a large white and black conference room. In the center, shambling in a slow circle was a zombie dressed in full police combat armor, a pistol hanging uselessly from his left hand. And around him was a sea of corpses, some in the white coats of lab techs, others in the same full-body armor as the zombie. She had known no one could be alive down here…but seeing it right out in front of her was not the most pleasant thing in the world.
"Are they all dead?" Carlos asked, standing behind her chair. "Shouldn't they be zombies?"
"I don't know…I've seen zombies just…lay there, but never so many in such a small space." Rebecca pressed a few keys on the security terminal. "Maybe if we can see what happened. This system looks fancy enough to back everything up…Damn it."
"What?"
"They do back everything up, but the system automatically copies them to some tape backup system. Which I cannot access from here." Rebecca growled at the keyboard, tapping a few more keys. "Maybe I can find out where it is…"
Carlos nodded, then continued looking up at the monitor as Rebecca searched. The lone zombie was still walking in a slow circle, eyes lifeless and grey, as though it simply didn't know where to go. The rest of the corpses were perfectly still…Carlos suspected they would move, that they were zombies, but…he'd never really seen zombies lay quite that still. There was always some basic movement.
"Found it. It's in room A-14, looks like some sort of data center…which is…Uhm" Rebecca brought a large black and white map up onto the screen. "We're here…so A-14 is…here." She leaned up on her tiptoes and tapped a room about halfway across the compound.
"What room is that zombie in?" Carlos asked, resting his rifle on his shoulder again. "Can we just go around it?"
"The zombie is in room…A-9, so…No. We can't get to that side of the lab without going through A-9. It looks like some sort of commissary…maybe it was a large lounge?"
"Doesn't matter now. Let's go."
July 22nd, 3:15 PM
A single bullet to the temple sent the lone zombie tumbling to the ground, falling at awkward angles onto the closest corpse, like a terrible and unfortunate game of Jenga.
And nothing else in the room stirred.
"I guess they really are dead?" Rebecca said as she lowered her handgun, peering into the room. It had only taken them a few minutes to get to the commissary, as they had not encountered a single carrier or monster…and both intruders felt as though they were walking on pins and needles, waiting for the other proverbial shoe to drop.
"…Maybe," Carlos didn't sound convinced…but he stepped into the room slowly, keeping his rifle trained on the nearest body. Finally, he adjusted his aim and fired a shot into the back of the corpse's leg…and it didn't even twitch. "Alright, that one is dead at least."
"I think they're all dead." Rebecca said. She had stepped inside after him, but her gaze was not on the floor, but on the walls. Blood splatters covered almost every surface of the white, occasionally punctuated by the small, caved-in traces of a bullet. "I think they were killed."
"Oh wow," Carlos eyed the splatter stains for a moment, then crouched down next to the corpse he had just shot. A quick check of the head indicated that it had indeed been shot, once in the temple, and a second time in the heart. "Yeah…this one was shot. Head shot…whoever did it knew how to take a carrier down fast."
"I don't think they were carriers." Rebecca had knelt down next to another body, and was lifting up the head to study the wound. "These people bled pretty…openly. And carriers tend to just congeal." She dropped the head back to the floor with a thud, and winced at the noise. "I'm betting they knew they were infected."
Carlos looked out at the room, considering the other corpses. "They probably realized it, and gathered here to try and figure out what to do. Once they realized they were too far gone…"
"Then they killed themselves. Except that last guy…maybe he was too far gone, didn't manage to stop himself before the change…" Rebecca pushed herself to her feet and shook her head slowly. "How horrible."
"Yeah, except that doesn't explain how the virus got out of the lab. Something must have gotten out and infected the people in the town." Carlos stood as well and started towards the opposite door, keeping his gun trained on each body as he stepped past it.
"I don't know. Maybe the camera's saw what happened. We can check when we get to the data center." Rebecca said as she followed after him. "At least this place is almost safe…I didn't see any trace of Umbrella's normal experiments on those monitors."
"Stop saying stuff like that!" Carlos said with a groan. "You're really going to jinx us."
The last few hallways between the commissary and the data center were in disarray, full of overturned chairs and the occasional piece of discarded clothing. Whatever it was that had kept the beginning of the lab so spotless was obviously not active here.
The data center was as empty of life and unlife as the other rooms, but two of the massive walls were covered with computer terminals and displays, each displaying a rotating Umbrella Logo screensaver. "Alright…give me a minute. I'll probably have to get pass some passwords to get in."
Rebecca slid into a chair in front of the closest terminal and cleared the screen. "Or maybe not…whoever was working here never logged out. That's…well, I guess that's understandable." Finding out you had a terminal zombie-inducing plague probably did not induce feelings of company loyalty and security. "Let me see what I can do."
As she worked, Carlos surveyed the rest of the room. Finally he picked out a small set of lockers most likely used by whoever was stuck in this room for eight hours a day, and pushed them in front of the door. Whether they had come across any of the creatures or not, the former mercenary was not going to take any chances. For all they knew, Umbrella had created invisible hunters by now.
"Alright, I've found the security footage…We know the zombies started appearing a couple days ago, so we should see…let's see…" She pressed several buttons and the large display in the center of the room flicked to life, showing the same set of displays as the first security room had shown. "I'll go back three days, then fast forward."
As they watched, scientists and a number of security guards could be seen working and moving about the compound at super-fast speed. For a while, everything seemed to be fine. And then out of the blue, in the northern lab, one of the researchers suddenly spun around and attacked a second.
"There! That's the first trace of the release." Rebecca paused the images, bringing the attack one up to full size. "But there wasn't any trace of a leak before that…no alarms, no warning, just…one minute fine, the next minute zombie."
"Hmm…look, don't worry about that now." Carlos leaned over and tapped a few keys. "We need to find out how the virus got out of-" the large monitor beeped and went blank. "Hey, what happened?"
"Don't touch!" Rebecca whacked the mercenary on the back of the hand and set about bringing the image back up, setting it back to the multi-screen view and then fast forwarding again. "Anna said her parents never came home from work the day before yesterday. So that would mean that virus had to be out of the compound by at least that morning."
As they watched, the lab tech who had been attacked managed to beat the man who had bitten him backwards, and escaped out of the lab, locking it behind him. In fast forward he was caught by two security guards, and eventually there was a meeting of most of the staff in the commissary. Several of the people on the screen where showing significant signs of infection, and were separated from the rest of the group.
"Look!" Carlos pointed at a small screen in the upper right corner, and Rebecca brought it up to full. The image of the elevator they had arrived in was on the screen, where a young dark haired woman walked in a panicked circle, scratching at a large welt on her arm.
As they watched, the elevator opened and she ran out onto the staircase. Rebecca quickly switched to the last camera, and they watched as walked slowly up the stairs, rubbing at her forehead, and then disappeared out of view. "Well…that's how it got out." Rebecca said softly, staring at the empty footage of the stairwell as it continued to play.
"The poor woman probably panicked…didn't know what to do, so…she ran. There aren't any cameras out in the town, are there?" Some small part of Carlos wanted to see what happened, how far she made it…and the other was revolted by the thought of it.
"No. At least, if there are, I don't see any references to them here." Rebecca shook her head. "Here, you can look at this. I'm going to see what I can do with the computer system." Rebecca slid her chair over to the next terminal, allowing Carlos to settle in watching the security footage. "Oh, you better call topside and tell them we're fine." Rebecca said just before she started typing away.
July 22nd, 4:30 PM
An hour later, Rebecca was alone in the computer room, her eyes slightly bloodshot from staring at the screen. Carlos had left earlier, to meet a group of the people they were with who had insisted on coming down into the lab. Rebecca was sure it was safe, they had checked every room on the cameras, and while there were some rooms they couldn't get into, those rooms were empty, so it wasn't a concern. And the people had a right to be curious about what had caused this reaction.
So, while the others were exploring, Rebecca had set about finding her way into the data files on the system. From the looks of the tape, no one had thought to erase the hard drives before they had died. Which was understandable…I wouldn't want to leave no trace why I had died either, she thought to herself.
It had taken the better part of the full hour to get through the security system, using a combination of tricks she'd picked up at school and blind luck at password guessing. (The security guy had a picture on his desk of his daughter. Name on the back was Samantha, with her birthday. Sammy1219 had gotten Rebecca into the whole system.)
And now Rebecca was staring at what she suspected was an almost complete research table of Umbrella. It was all there. The T, the G, something she had never heard of called the T-Veronica, the Progenitor, and a complete biological spectrum on something called the Nemesis organism, which she didn't think was a virus. Spectrum runs on all their creatures…everything. It was like going into a room to find your glasses and stumbling across a barrel of gold.
She rolled her chair back and grabbed at the backpack of supplies they'd dragged in her, nearly falling off her chair as she bent over and went digging through it. They'd never really let themselves hope that they might stumble across something like this…but just in case, just on the desperate off chance that they did, their was a portable hard drive in each of their bags.
The grey-black box was yanked out of the bag, and Rebecca turned back to the panel and stopped. Beneath the place where she had been sitting was a second, small panel, with two blinking red lights, a button and a sticker. A yellow and black sticker read 'Security Override' just beneath the two lights.
She had to resist the urge to just reach out and press the button, forcing herself to plug the hard-drive into the system. Years of experience had taught her that pressing buttons tended to make horrible things happen. So, before she did it (And of course she was going to) she had to make sure she copied everything off these computers.
Five minutes later, the hard-drive was back in the bag, filled to capacity with every bit of Umbrella research and data that she could cram into it. She would have to sift through it all later, since she wasn't even sure what half of it was. But it was safe, which meant she could turn her attention to the button.
Some small part of her knew she probably shouldn't press it. That doing so would unleash something almost certainly bad. Of course, there was always the chance that pressing the button would reveal the answers to all of their problems. Perhaps a cure lurked behind that button, or some special anti-zombie weapon. Or even a vaccine! The possible (if rationalize) benefits surely outweighed the apparent risks.
So, she finally reached out in one blurred motion, and pushed the button. And as she watched, the small security camera images stretched out across the center monitor shrunk and moved upwards, and at the bottom of the screen five more camera images appeared, each showing a room that had been absent a moment before.
Four the screens were quickly identified on the map…they were apparently rooms that were located behind several of the doors that Carlos had been unable to open earlier. The fifth, on the other hand, did not appear on the map. In fact, it took Rebecca several minutes of desperate searching to figure out exactly where it was accessible from. The room she was in!
She enlarged the image, studying it for a moment. It was a large lab, far more clutter than the other labs but almost exactly like them, except for the wall opposite the camera. Rebecca carefully studied that wall, her eyes getting wider and wider, and then picked up her walkie-talkie. "Carlos?"
There was a pause, and a crackle of static, before the other responded. "Yeah?"
"Get everyone out of the complex."
"What?"
"Get everyone out! Now! And then meet me back here."
"Uh…right. See you in a few."
Rebecca set the walkie-talkie down, and then tapped several keys on the panel. The screen split, leaving the hidden room image taking up a fourth, while the others spread themselves out over the available space. Rebecca watched Carlos herding everyone back out to the elevator, then finally let herself look at the laboratory again.
Against the back wall sat a massive clear tube, and floating inside the tube, in a blue-green stasis solution Rebecca had hoped she'd never see again, was a Tyrant.
July 22nd, 4:50 PM
It took Rebecca several minutes to find the doorway into the tyrant lab. It was a featureless grey panel hidden behind one of the security displays, and she'd had to override the access panel to get it to open. But now she was through, leaving the door open behind her as she stepped into the laboratory and looked around.
In contrast to the other immaculate, orderly labs, this one was cluttered with brief-cases, file-folders and laptops, each left as though the person last using was going to come back and start working again. Maybe they thought they were?
The medic reached out and picked up one of the manila folders as she walked towards the Tyrant, flipping it open and glancing down at it. It looked like standard inter-office paperwork, a simple note about…about…Hmm…
To Dr. Weston, RE: Developments
We are pleased to hear of your progress, and have received the currently updated research as it was sent. Current development of vaccination goes as planned.
As per previous instructions, continue your research into UBC development of biologics. Maintain cover but ensure survival of information for Mother. We will monitor developments from BR central to determine course of action.
- Black Raven, 7/03
To Black Raven, RE: Developments
Cover maintained despite inspection from UBC headquarters. Further development of T-subject unnecessary, subject is being placed in quarantine within Lab B-14. T-Subject is clean. No programming, no mind. Request immediate removal of subject to pre-ordained location.
Inform Mother that we are suspicious of something major happening within UBC. Several contacts have gone missing, several projects have disappeared.
Id: Cleansweep?
Note: Dr's Fernando Called to UBC headquarters 7/17 to report on progress of stabilization virus. Will report more when information is received.
- Weston, 7/5
To Weston, RE: Removal
Team dispatched to remove T subject on 7/21. Expect arrival at 0300 at northern entrance. Subject will be moved to A51 per previous arrangements. Inform security detail of change.
Be careful of UBC involvement. NSA detected specific movements in company towards satellite labs. Strange incident at UBC. Uncertain cause…Ensure no discovery!
- Black Raven, 7/9
To Black Raven, RE: Infection
Illness spreading! Uncertain release, fear involvement with virus…no alarm, no alert. Send no assistance, all already infected…fear worst. T-subject put into internal stasis. Acquire when situation allows. T-Subject will sleep. No Hope. We are sorry. Stop them.
- Weston, 7/17
So the government knew! Rebecca stared at the last line of the memo. From the few obvious words, she was certain this must have been a government memo…which meant the US, or at least the NSA, knew what was going on with Umbrella. They were either trying to find a way to exploit it, or to find the evidence to stop it, when the virus was released. Knowing the government, it was probably exploiting…but none of it mattered now.
"Rebecca, what's going on? How did you get this…woah." Carlos had come jogging into the room behind her, but stopped dead when he saw the massive, sleeping tyrant, bringing his weapon to bear on the beast. "Where the hell did that come from?"
"I guess they made it. Don't worry, it's asleep." Rebecca said quietly, turning to study the creature again. It was far more advanced than the Tyrant's she had seen during the first outbreak. Its skin was a deep blue, its organs were all on the inside, and it looked…neater. Like all the little imperfections had been swept away, leaving only the…essence. The Tyrant.
"So what if it wakes up?" Carlos didn't seem any relieved, and kept his weapon pointed at the tube.
"I don't think it will. The government scientists put it to sleep before they killed themselves. Someone was supposed to come get it, but I guess they're dead too." Rebecca frowned, and then held the folder out to Carlos. "Here, look."
The Hispanic mercenary looked over at her for a moment, then back at the tyrant, before lowering his rifle and reaching out to take the folder, laying it out on a panel and flipping through the papers inside.
As he read, Rebecca turned away and walked in a slow circuit around the table, glancing through the readily available memos and notes. Most were related to the research, or occasionally inter-office politics, but when she reached the fax machine she found another sheet similar to those inside the folder.
To Weston, RE: Infection
Viral release everywhere! Uncertain outcome, hope someone alive. Respond if possible. T-subject will remain. Closing off A51 until further determination can be made. Lost contact with NSA headquarters. Lost contact with BR outposts. Lost contact with foreign contacts. Fear absolute worst.
A51 uncompromised. If alive, contact.
- Black Raven, 7/20
"What does it mean, exactly?" Carlos had come up behind her, reading over her shoulder. "The government knew about all this?"
"I think so." Rebecca walked past Carlos, over to the tyrant, peering up at it. "I don't know what their intentions were…but it's good news." She couldn't resist the urge to smile.
"How so?"
"It means there is at least one safe government complex." She held up the last fax she'd been reading, waving it towards him. "A51 almost has to mean Area 51. If it does, then those people are still alive. It means that there might be a workable vaccine, if we can get there." She shifted a bit, and peered up at the tyrant. "But most importantly…" She trailed off, and reached out to place her hand on the side of the tube.
"What?" Carlos prompted.
"It means we now possess a clean tyrant. The memo said it had no mind, no programming. It's…empty. And it's ours."
To Be Continued!
((Next time, back to Leon, Claire and the others...if they're still alive, of course. Mwa ha ha!))