From the depths…

A recent rain had left the ground soft and spongy, despite the mountainous terrain. The trees were silent, the chirp of the jungle distant. Staring down from the watchtower built into the mountain's side, Ada longed for the open land. Instead, she sat and struggled against her bonds. Claire sat sullenly next to her, a pervasive fear betraying her calm expression. Three armed men loomed over them.

"Shit, and to think I didn't want to come along at first," leered one of the men.

"I know this bitch from somewhere," said one of the other men, holding Claire's chin and turning her head side to side. "I just know it…"

"Well, boss man hasn't said we couldn't get to know them better, if you know what I mean," said the last one from the corner of the room. He appeared to be the one in charge.

"Hells yeah," said the first man, setting down his rifle. "Which one first?"

"I remember now," said Wachowski. "This one made me miss that shot in London; bitch cost me ten demerits and a week's pay."

"The one who started your bad streak, right," scoffed their leader. "Cut the shit, Wojo, no one believes your bullshit jinx theory."

The sniper turned back quickly to the other man. "Fuck you, Reese."

"So does that mean I get my own little China doll," asked the first one, his eagerness apparent. The two men seemed to ignore him, more intent on goading each other.

"What's the matter, Wojo, pissed that I don't buy your bullshit story about a penny at ten miles," laughed the larger man.

"It was a grape, and two miles, you jealous son of a bitch," shot back Wojo, his fists clenched.

"Whatever," replied Reese. "Haven't seen it since, or heard of you hitting so much as a billboard lately."

"And it's because of this bitch! I'm telling you," yelled Wojo, the veins in his neck bulging. His next words were interrupted by the crackle of his radio coming to life.

"Delta Squad, the major has confirmed undead activity in the facility. Proceed with caution. Over."

Grabbing his radio, Reese spoke into it. "Sir, this is Reese. There should not be activity in this facility, as there is no nearby population to infect. Over."

"Regardless, we've encountered more than a dozen…what appear to be natives, who have been infected by some sort of virus, so keep an eye out. Over."

"Understood. Over and out," replied Reese, returning the walkie-talkie to his belt. "I guess that means we better hurry, boys," he said, grinning as he set his assault rifle aside.

--

The office was much like he remembered it, the style choices similar, but the actual pieces changed. Only a few years had passed, but the photos with important people had grown along with his success and achievements. The man sat behind his mammoth desk, appearing to be busy. Leon knew this was part of his front, pretending he didn't have time to meet with one of his top operatives, one of the remaining few not killed in action or thrown to the press after the scandal had first broken.

"I want to know where Sherry Birkin is, and I want to know now," Leon said, amazing himself with the authoritative tone he heard in his voice. While his confidence had grown over recent weeks, Secretary Graham was still a powerful man, one who could easily end his career or freedom with a single word.

"My, my…haven't had the pleasure of your company in a long while now, Mr. Kennedy," said Graham as he glanced up from his pile of paperwork. He waved his secretary away, an older woman who looked more the part of a librarian than aide to one of the most powerful men in the country.

"Enough talk," replied Leon. "I want answers," he demanded, leaning against the desk with both hands.

"Truth be told, son, I have absolutely no idea where that girl is," answered Graham. "And if I did, I don't see why I should feel obligated to share that information with you…"

"I deserve to know the truth," Leon responded. "Sir, you once told me that my sense of honor was what would keep me moving up in the O.R.E. Well, we know that isn't going to happen now, and I'm probably going to have nothing to show for my time here," he said, shaking his head. "At the very least, you can show me that you meant what you said, that you appreciated the things I've done and sacrificed for this administration."

"Son, I never once made you do something you didn't want to," Graham said, his voice taking on a thick fatherly tone. "And I know you think this government has done you wrong. But it's never quite as simple as it seems."

"What do you mean?"

"That girl…she was moved for her own protection. Umbrella simply doesn't want to die, son. You've seen it firsthand, how out of control things are getting with their desperation. For their straggling survivors, that girl is the key to resurrecting a dead beast. Now I know how important she was to you, and how good you are now, but do you honestly think you could have protected her as you were then? Every hour of the day, every day of her life, for the rest of her life? Ask yourself if we've really done you wrong."

Leon stood silently, his eyes examining Graham intently, looking for a lie. So far, he could find none.

"Son, it's a matter of national security. As much as I trust you, you are just one man," Graham said, holding up his index finger to illustrate his point. "Although a very well trained and skilled man, still alone. With everything getting so heavy, and with consequences so dire, you'll have to understand my faith resting in the proven, the many. You get me, son?"

"And then what happened," Leon asked quietly. "What happened to her," he repeated.

"We don't know," replied Graham, shaking his head. "Either Umbrella or another party attacked the facility, murdering everyone and their mother, and sprung the girl. Or, as some of our science team is telling me, Sherry herself mutated and killed everyone. Either way, it's not a pretty picture."

"Sherry…mutated? Tha-that can't be!"

"You saw the wreckage yourself, son. You tell me what you thought hit that building."

Images of that broken down shell of a building flashed before his eyes, memories of burnt bodies coming back to him, the smell of rotting flesh in the air. It was so much like then, so much like Raccoon City.

"I…don't know," he finally replied.

Graham seemed to think something over, watching Leon quietly accept the facts as they came to him. An idea occurred to him.

"Leon, I've been thinking…you are right, I do owe you the chance for closure on this matter," he said, tossing before Leon a thick file with the word "Confidential" emblazoned in thick, red letters across the front and back.

"What's this?"

"It's Sherry's entire file," answered Graham. "There is an operation being put together to track and…eliminate her. I don't like it either," he said, shaking his head. "But this is coming from the man upstairs. Only the best of the best are being brought in, and a large delegation of the O.R.E. core has been included at my request," he added, pausing. "And Leon, I'd like for you to lead one of these teams."

--

Ada and Claire exchanged a worried look as the men continued to bicker over dibs and the chain of command. Her hands bound behind her, Ada stealthily slid open a partition on the bottom of her shoe, revealing two small canisters. Taking one into each hand, she immediately opened one and tossed it lightly behind her. A thin wisp of white smoke leaked out before vanishing completely. If that was her smoke bomb, then they were in serious trouble, Claire thought with dismay.

"What the hell is this thing for, anyways," said the first man, tearing off the device strapped to Ada's shoulder. "It looks like a camera or something," he added, peering into the lens.

"Maybe she wants to remember this, you know, like a Kodak moment," laughed Reese, undoing his pants. The other men roared with laughter.

"Christ, what's that smell," asked Wachowski, pinching his nose. "Did one of these bitches shit themselves or something?"

"I never smelt something like this come out of a woman," said the first man, cringing.

"You never smelt a woman besides your mama, I bet," jeered Reese. Wojo joined in on the joke.

"Yeah, you stupid fucking rookie," he said, reaching for his belt's buckle. Seeing Claire's nervous expression, he leaned in closer, his bad breath hot on her face. "You better worry, you fucking whore…ruining my perfect streak. I'm gonna make sure it hurts when I give it to you. It's just too bad your boyfriend isn't here."

Claire turned away from his rancid breath, and caught a glance of Ada furtively spraying the second canister about her backside. When their eyes met, Ada, gave her a subtle wink, shaking her head as if not to worry.

"Why's that, because you'd want to 'give it to him' too," asked Ada defiantly. Wojo's face reddened as the other men laughed.

"Bitch, you're going to get yours too," he spat, foam caking his angry lips. "It ain't a matter of wantin', but a matter of doin'," he sneered, brandishing a large knife in his hand. Ada stared unflinchingly at him, almost daring him to use the weapon.

As he stepped forward, the closed door behind the three men suddenly burst open, a hungry horde of undead stumbling in upon a nauseating wave of rotten flesh. Cursing, Reese immediately leapt for his gun, tripping over the unbuckled pants around his ankles. Two zombies fell instantly upon him, chewing through his back and neck as he screamed for help. Wachowski went to stab one of the creatures when his arm was grabbed by another zombie which bit cleanly into his wrist, the tendons crunching loudly. He howled in pain as another grabbed his leg, tearing his pants to get to the warm meat beneath it. His inner thigh burst in a spray of blood as another zombie feasted on the flesh, blanketing an entire section of the wall with wet gore. The last man froze in terror, tears streaming down his horrified face, as ravenous, decayed fingers clawed apart his belly and spilled out greasy entrails for others to eagerly gnaw upon.

Witnessing the slaughter before her, Claire pushed back blindly with panicked legs, trying to back up but with nowhere to go. Beside her, she caught a glimpse of Ada, who wore a grimly satisfied smile on her face, and Claire realized what she had done, and what those canisters were. The first one, which Ada was now kicking down a shaft for the zombies to mindlessly follow, released a chemical made to attract the undead, and the second, dreadful smelling one was meant to mask her own presence from the zombies.

"Thank god you had enough of that awful perfume for both of us," Claire said gratefully after the zombies were gone.

"What do you mean, enough? I only sprayed myself," Ada replied.

"But then how…?"

"Just be thankful I knocked that first canister down that grating, or you'd be an entrée right now."

"Well, at least I know who'd be my first course," Claire grumbled through clenched teeth, flashing an irate look towards the woman beside her.

"Oh my, you're sweet enough for dessert," Ada said as she slipped nonchalantly out of her bonds.

--

"Eliminate…? Sherry?" Leon didn't seem to hear the rest of Graham's words, the esteemed invitation to take his place as a team leader ignored.

"I think sometimes, when something has to be done for the good of the many, it should be performed by those most…familiar with the problem. Sherry deserves to be…put down by someone who cares about her."

Leon could hold it in no longer. "She's not a wild dog, damn it! This only happened because I trusted you!"

"Mind your tongue, boy," Graham demanded harshly as he rose angrily from his chair. "Remember just whom it is you're talking to!"

Leon glared at the man, his furious blue eyes like shimmering ice. Words and accusations churned in his head, but he said nothing. Despite his internal rage, he knew now was not the time.

"Like I said," continued Graham as he returned calmly to his chair. "I never wanted to make you do something you didn't want to. This is strictly voluntary, but I thought with your…vested interest, you would appreciate the gesture. Would you rather she die at the uncaring hand of a complete stranger, hunted like an animal?"

The young man stood silently, holding the file in his shaking hands. "I'll do it," he whispered, storming out of the office.

After he was gone and the dust settled, Graham's thin assistant slinked in from a side entrance, the wiry man that was his most trusted advisor.

"Sir, are you certain this is a good idea? The Kennedy…boy already knows so much," he said.

"You don't honestly believe he'll survive this mission, do you, Monten," retorted Graham, opening another file with a gusty chuckle. "That girl's wiped out dozens of our best soldiers, and we have no idea how."

"He did survive the Raccoon City disaster," Monten reminded him. "What if he surpasses the odds again?"

"All men have a weakness," said Graham gravely. "And I just happen to know Mr. Kennedy's," he added, returning to the contents of his folder.

--

"So, how did you find this place, anyways," Ada asked Claire as she worked at her cuffs.

"I was following up on the missing person's from a lab incident where…someone I know was held, and found the name Linda Perkins under a flight manifest out here from several months ago. I tracked down a few locals in the know, and found out about this old facility. From there, it was just putting two and two together."

"Well aren't you the cutest little detective ever," cooed Ada. Claire shot her another nasty look, but kept her mouth shut as Ada slid the handcuffs from her wrists. "And how did you get all the way out here on your lonesome?"

"Bought an ATV quad, and rode it in from the coast. It's only about thirty miles each way if you come in by boat," answered Claire, rubbing her sore wrists gingerly.

"You certainly are determined…"

"It's in the genes," replied Claire, regarding Ada suspiciously. "Look…not that I don't appreciate it, but why are you helping me? I can see before; we were both in it pretty deep. But now…there's no reason for you to free me."

"What, I can't do my good deed for the day without an ulterior motive?"

"Not if you're working with Wesker," countered Claire.

"Maybe I'm not working with Wesker," Ada said, tilting her head playfully.

"So who's funding you then," asked Claire, poking through Ada's elaborate equipment. "This is some pretty fancy field gear you got here…"

Ada snatched the device from Claire's hand, clipping it to her belt. She tossed Claire one of the blood covered rifles.

"Their buddies are going to be here any second," warned Ada. "If they're still alive. I'd suggest wiping the blood from that piece too, or the zombies will smell you from a mile away."

But Claire was already rubbing the gun's stock against one of the dead guards' unsullied jackets, and retrieving her own weapons and gear from the pile. Picking up another of the rifles, Ada calmly fired a burst of rounds through each of the dead men's foreheads, tearing their skulls in two.

"Christ!" yelled Claire, startled by Ada's sudden action, but more disturbed by her coldly methodical demeanor.

"Just giving them the mercy they weren't going to spare us," said Ada, tossing the empty rifle aside.

"Yeah, you're a real saint," Claire muttered, turning away. Still, with what horrors they had intended to inflict upon her, the faces of those men would soon join the countless others that haunted her nightmares each night, dead or alive.

--

Heat. It clung and rose from every pore of the lower level in wavy, distorted lines, water turning to steam almost instantly. She could sense this all, of course, through her sight, but through another part of her that seemed to know anything and everything about her. It was an awareness that crystallized over time, a recognition of her inner darkness, prompting a better understanding of all the madness that swirled about her. What had once been obscured by her human half was pulled away like a curtain, seeing the other half of the light. For where there was light, there was also darkness.

Girls her age were getting their licenses, arguing with their parents over the car, gossiping about the captain of the basketball team. Ordinary. It amazed her how great one word could sound. She said it aloud, the echo of the sound hollow, her voice alien even to her own ears. Even had she not changed, her life would still not be ordinary. She would've been placed in special schools, isolated, burdened with expectations. As a young child, she had taken to sometimes talking to herself, and her father had chastised her for it. Then came the imaginary friends, and her mother caught onto that. It was ironic that they wanted for her to fit in with what they considered 'normal', yet did everything to keep her separate, telling her she was "special" or "gifted". Such was life in the Birkin household.

"They never understood," she whispered. Again, she found herself talking aloud. Linda stared at her blankly, until Sherry realized she had to make Linda's eyes react. With but a thought, their softness returned. Entertained by an audience, something inside Sherry began to ramble, the words taking their own form, her advanced brain not fully understanding the words pouring out of her mouth. It was as if an infant could speak, but with the vocabulary of an educated adult.

"Sherry," Linda interrupted, in a voice eerily reminiscent of the young girl's mother. "There's someone here."

The girl sighed, a sigh much like a young girl's, but possessing a much heavier weight to it. It was the same sigh that had escaped her lips when she implanted the natives, turning them into her worker bees. They were good workers, but most died from heat exhaustion in the first few days. And so Sherry infected them with the old base virus, reanimating their corpses. While slower and stiffer, these puppets were easier to control, and they never tired. The smell took some getting used to, however.

"I know," she said. "It doesn't really matter," she added with a casual wave of her hand. The skin was moist again; the first month after her transformation, she had found her skin calcifying, hardening due to some genetic anomaly she had been unable to pinpoint. Thus, a trip to the humid jungle facility was her only option, the knowledge of its existence pulled from an Umbrella lapdog that was working as a lobbyist in Washington DC. Sherry remembered him well, the sheer terror shuddering through his body as she impregnated him with one of her leech seeds, the satisfaction as his chest burst open, his still-beating heart falling to the carpeted floor with a muffled thud.

Waiting for Linda to reply, Sherry again realized her puppet dangled on empty strings. There had been one time, four months ago, when Linda seemed to almost return to herself. She had moved on her own, and something had flickered in her eyes, an emotion Sherry had never once wished for her dolls to have: fear. The curious side of Sherry had jumped at the development, but she had seen nothing like it since. It was almost as if the host had made one last desperate attempt at freedom before finally giving up. A sullen Sherry stared at her puppet, resentful of Linda's purely physical presence. It was like that time her parents had bought her an expensive dollhouse, full of lifeless accessories and figures. Having all the fun stem from her own imagination was boring, especially since her parents never once nurtured that creativity. And so the toys merely sat there, waiting on her for interaction.

She had thought life sized dolls would prove far more entertaining, but they hadn't. Nothing had satisfied her newfound curiosity. That is, until a month ago, when she found the incredibly rare prototype some fool had left in the facility, nearly dead. Only two such drastic experiments had ever resulted in success, and the fools had squandered one of them right here in this facility. Perhaps this was a chance to play with her new toy. She smiled, a curve of pursed red lips, much like any other child's innocent smile. But behind that smile lay something sinister, something that remained unknown even to her.

--

"Since I've answered your questions, how about returning the favor," asked Claire, when both were ready to move out.

"Sure…but I can't promise anything," Ada said, buckling the last strap of the shoulder monitor into place. She hadn't turned it back on yet.

"Those men in the facility…the U.C.B.S.? How is Umbrella still bankrolling death squads?"

"If you ask me, they're more likely O.R.E…"

"No way were those guys O.R.E.," Claire replied. "I know them; they're not degenerate scum like that. I'm certain they were U.C.B.S., especially if he was that sniper in London…"

"Well, the team being sent in by the President is mostly O.R.E., but a lot of…'undesirables' are also being brought in. It's not like Umbrella didn't have a surplus of trained killers, either. It's probably a combination of both."

"That can't be…he'd have told me," muttered Claire.

"Oh, and who might that be," Ada asked with a bemused sparkle in her eyes.

Claire regarded Ada's question suspiciously. "Just someone I know in the O.R.E.…"

"Is that someone tall, blonde, and handsome?"

"How is it you know so much?"

Ada shrugged. "This is a detail-oriented industry. We get paid a lot to know a lot."

"Is that why you do it, for the money?"

"I'm really more of a people-person when it comes down to it. But I'd be lying if I said the money wasn't nice…"

"Does Leon know you're alive?"

"Shouldn't I be asking you that?"

"I'm not your messenger. Tell him yourself."

"By my count, you owe me far more favors than I owe you…"

"…Why are those men here?"

"Same reason you are, I'd guess."

"They're looking for…Sherry," Claire asked, realizing there was no point to hiding her young friend's name. Ada probably knew all that and more.

"In a way," Ada replied. "But it'd be more accurate to say they're looking for Sherry so that they can kill her."

"Wait, I thought you said the President sent those men in," Claire asked, her stomach sinking at Ada's revelation.

"I did…what of it?"

"Since when does the President send whole platoons to murder teenagers?"

"Since they're infected with the last working sample of the G-Virus…"

"And…Leon knew about all of this?" Claire couldn't believe what she was hearing.

"Knew about it? You're way behind the game, girl. He's leading them."


Note: This chapter was kind of long, but it gave me the chance to work more with Claire and Ada, who are probably my favorite pair to work with so far. Graham's assistant/assassin Monten was just something random I stuck in, sort of a trusted confidant of his. Originally I had planned to use Nicolai, but seriously, who can see ol' Nick serving someone, much less pour tea? He has no real importance other than as a dialogue device for Graham, so pay him no heed. Hell, I didn't even give him a name until his second or third scene…! Some fans might recognize the name 'Monten' from Inuyasha, the Thunder Brother with the hair envy issues. There's no significance to the name; I just liked the sound of it.

This was probably the darkest chapter I've written yet, with the whole near-rape sequence and all. Rather than attempt to write Sherry's psychotic monologue, I decided to leave it unsaid. Sometimes it's better left to your imagination; also, wanted it to be serious, and gibberish often comes off as humorous instead. I had originally intended that Graham's sweet-talking of Leon to be bookends for this chapter (which ties into the title), but I found it jarring to open and close that way. My favorite part was writing the death of the three soldier/mercenaries, it was short but rather satisfying. The image of a guy tripping over his pants and dying as a result just strikes me as absolutely hilarious.