Recommended BGM
1. Resident Evil (Remake) - Guardhouse II
2. Resident Evil (1996) & Director's Cut (DualShock Ver.) - The Guardhouse Basement
3. Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles - July 24, 1998
Chapter 25
The number on the key ring that Richard had found was the actual code for the keypad next to a locked door inside the gallery room, which led to a tiny pharmaceutical room, filled with a bunch of unknown chemicals that Richard did not know anything about.
Dusty shelves surrounded the entire room. There were tiny glass battles stored ahead and a rusted sink just in the far left corner. If they were lucky, this room would contain everything they need to make that herbicide Rebecca read about from the now-burnt reports all thanks to that giant spider spewing acid all over them.
Hold on Chris… hang in there.
Not a pun he intended to say the least, but they really needed to hurry it up with the herbicide and look for the basement's entrance along the way. They didn't even know where to start looking.
Rebecca quickly walked towards one of the shelves to the right and looked over the glass bottles ahead, mumbling to herself.
"Hyoscyamine, anhydride, dieldrin… one plus three… four plus six…"
She turned back to him, slowly grinning widely. "Yes! We can save Chris! The herbicide, V-Jolt - I can make it here," her grin was quickly snatched away by a sudden sullen expression. "If only we knew where the basement is and the root itself…"
Richard patted her shoulder, giving her a comforting smile. "Leave that to me. I will go check out the other room in the corridor that we haven't been into yet. How much time do you think you'll need to make it?"
"Give or take, seven minutes. Chris may only have a little over ten minutes to live so if we are gonna go through with this, we have to hurry."
"Alright, then you start making that toxin while I'll look for the basement and the plant's roots."
Rebecca had already started pulling down bottles as Richard went back to the door and closed it behind him. Without any further hesitation, he began to jog all the way back to the corridor they had come in from.
As he thought about Chris' dire situation, he began to have terrible flashbacks of the time he was bitten by the giant snake and was on the verge of dying when both Alex and Chris had found him in such a terrible state. He could only imagine what Chris must be going through right now. The feeling of helplessness and loneliness as you are slowly dying as a result of t-Virus infected beings. And with the plant slowly draining his life force out of him…
He had to keep moving. And fast.
Upon reaching the door to Room 302, he fumbled with the key ring as he looked for the key which had a "302" engraving on it, and unlocked the door, somehow knowing deep in his mind that the door would've been locked.
As he entered, he quickly aimed his gun forward, slowly inching closer inside the room in case there was a zombie waiting for him at the corner near the bed in front. Thankfully, no monster was in sight. However, the two bookshelves at the end of the room were moved to the left corner of the back wall, revealing some sort of hatch with a ladder leading down a brightly lit up room.
The basement!
It almost felt easy; almost too easy. Nothing ever came easy. For Richard, it was a sign that something worse was about to happen, and going down inside the basement was only just the beginning. Having no other choice and being on a time crunch, he immediately descended down the ladder and found himself in a giant corridor filled with a bunch of white lights, brightly lighting up the place, unlike many other places he's been so far.
At least they bothered putting up more lights elsewhere. So far, no flood anywhere.
The cooled concrete corridor was long, stretching to one corner and all the way across towards another, about maybe twenty-five meters long. The basement was quite a dramatic change from the plain wooden structure and simple style of the guardhouse above.
At the right wall was a door close to the end. Richard tried turning the knob but it kept refusing to open. He tried the very last weird-looking key he had yet to try and it didn't even fit all the way inside the keyhole. Frustrated, he pressed onwards until he saw water under the small railing leading to a third corner. It looked quite deep, but as he arrived at the last corner, Richard stood at the top of a short ramp that led directly towards the gates of what seemed to be the main basement entrance. He stared down at his own frowning face, being reflected off of the shimmering water.
The basement was definitely flooded all right. It looked cold and almost just as deep as he might've imagined.
He didn't relish the idea of going into flooded water, potentially catching all kinds of unseen diseases or unknown substances since the water had a strong unpleasant chemical smell.
Chris came to mind once again and knowing that time was of the essence, he'd have no other choice but to keep moving and look for the plant's roots around here somewhere.
I'm probably gonna catch a cold and die before Chris ends up getting killed by the plant itself…
Richard gave a deep sigh before finally deciding to step into the extremely cold water, his body quickly starting to shiver. He walked down to the gates as the water began to rise up to his knees and finally stopped just below his waist. Feeling cold and nervous, he slowly pushed one gate open and moved inside.
"What the hell…?" Richard gasped.
The aqua ring in the basement was huge and bigger than he thought. It was dominated by a giant circular glass tank in the center of the room that extended from the first floor, all the way to the second floor from where he was now standing. The entire tank's glass was cracked and only several large pieces remained on the tank itself. Richard wasn't an expert at estimating volume, but judging from the water's depth and how large the entire room was, the tank could've held more than a hundred thousand gallons of water, if not more.
Why would they need so much water here? What were they trying to study? Tidal waves? Aquatic animals?
If so, where were the marine subjects if there were any?
He didn't want to think about it too much as it didn't necessarily matter right now. He was cold, shivering to the core, and he simply wanted to find what he needed to find and get back to dry land as fast as possible. With the water hindering his movement speed, he tried his best to steer to his left and continue down the circular railing, slowly pushing against the push and pull of the flood water's soft lapping waves.
Everything felt like he was inside some sort of reality different from that of the outside world, wading through a well-lit room that looked more like a large swimming pool combined with an underworld of a mad scientist's dream. Though he supposed it wasn't exactly anything new he had ever seen since the Bravo helicopter's wreck.
Right… try nightmarish creatures like a murderous plant, giant spider, giant snake, dead corpses walking around - all that's missing is an alien invasion, maybe even an extinct dinosaur.
He heard water splashing somewhere far behind him and glanced over his shoulder…
…only to see a thick, white triangular fin rise up from the water several meters away and sailed towards him, a dark moving shadow beneath, speeding at an alarming rate.
Richard began to panic and his whole body was now under the influence of pure adrenaline, a panic that instantly vaporized away any rational thought. He tried taking a huge, running step, only to realize that running wasn't even an option as the liquid environment around him did not allow him to do such thing. Seeing no other choice, he jumped over the railing and plunged himself face-first into the cold, chemical-infested water, and rose up gasping for air, accidentally swallowing and inhaling the nasty taste of chemical inside his mouth and nostrils. He hoped to God that Rebecca was right about the virus not being infectious anymore; having already burnt itself out.
He quickly turned his head around, eyes burning, and his injury throwing sharp stings of pain he hadn't felt for a long while, desperately searching for the giant fin he'd seen earlier. It wasn't long before he saw it had come even closer than before. He could clearly see its overall appearance through the lights of the environment just a couple of feet underwater - a shark, its rippling, distorted image of its body underwater, sliding smoothly towards him, maybe over ten feet long. Its thick tail was lashing forward - the dark, soulless eyes fixed above its malicious-looking grin.
He pulled out his gun and started firing. Bullets shot through the water were almost as useless as throwing pebbles at an angry lion.
Richard stumbled back, knowing there was no way to outswimming an animal like that, especially if it was infected with the same virus as any other creature he's encountered over the whole night.
Stroking for the closest railing that was behind him, he swam as fast as he could, ignoring the burning sensation he had in his eyes and the injury on his arm. As soon as he grabbed the railing and leaped over the surface grating below him, the shark was already on top of him…
…and he quickly threw himself to the side, the railing of the underwater, small bridge snapping apart as the animal missed him by mere inches. As he looked back, the shark slid past him towards an area where there was dry land, a set of small staircases leading to a couple of doors.
Seeing this as potential safety, he took a deep breath and plunged into the water once again, swimming near the circular tank as he used the railing to push himself further for an extra boost.
As he rose up to see where the shark went, he looked front and back, only to feel like some sort of underwater earthquake was triggered by something even bigger than the shark that chased after him.
Without a second thought, he dashed forward as much as he could until he finally reached the staircase. As he quickly climbed up, an even bigger monster of a shark, looking twice as big, appeared out of the water and almost managed to swallow him whole, destroying much of the railing over the grating and tearing what remained of the glass on the tank itself. If he hadn't hurried at the last second, he would've been a complete goner.
He hit the doors as soon as the bigger fish swam back into the deep waters of the basement - and they were locked.
No. No. NO. SHIT!
Richard swiftly put his hand into his soaked side-pack and took out Sarton's keys, fumbling through them as another fin underwater swam closer to his position, the wide, triangular grin opening wide with serrated, sharp teeth. It was a third shark, but one that was just about the same size as the first one.
He jammed the last weird-looking key he hadn't used and slammed his shoulder against the door right after, the third bloodthirsty marine animal preparing itself to launch a propelling attack right above the metal ground.
The door flew open and Richard immediately rushed inside, pushing the door shut frantically afterward as the shark had somehow leaped forward and almost caught him in its mouth, but as a result, it pushed the door violently against its huge body. He held the door tight shut with all his might as he leaned against it, trying to also hear the shark's movements. He then heard a jump back into the water as it swam away. Richard was safe, for now.
He sagged against the door for a moment, trying to brush off the stinging in his eyes, and now beginning to feel more pain in his injured arm than ever before. He had done feats he shouldn't have been doing with his injury but felt little pain when doing so due to adrenaline being pumped into his body. Now it was just wave after wave of stinging pain that he could not control. His bandages were completely soaked, but somehow they were still holding up tight on his arm. Hopefully, his snake bite didn't get infected while swimming in chemical water.
He unholstered his Samurai Edge and checked to see how many bullets he had left as he ejected the dripping magazine. He began to wonder how the hell was he going to head back to the surface now and if the plant's roots were really here, how was Rebecca going to navigate around with those sharks in the way? He got extremely lucky to get across in one piece, but knowing that Rebecca was not a known swimmer, it would be impossible for her to even get from point A to point B in the infested water.
As he stood up, he checked his surroundings and noticed it was some sort of lab - a control room to be exact. A ladder was placed on the right and he proceeded to climb down.
On the bottom floor were a group of controls all around the room, with two big glass frames overlooking the water underneath where the dark shadows of the sharks themselves could be seen swimming about.
Did they intend to have this set up, not just as a precaution against an unexpected flood, but to study these sharks in case of an accidental flood?
The scientists who used to work here were surely insane way before the virus made them lose whatever sanity they had left. There was a red flashing light on the corner of the room and next to it was a set of controls where it housed a lever. A panel showed an error sign on the screen, indicating that something must've gone wrong the last time they might've tried to drain the water of the pool.
At least I could drain the whole water with this, but… that error screen is a bit jarring.
Then again, what other choice did he have now? There was no way in hell he'd go back into the water without running the risk of getting swallowed alive by the damn momma shark, let alone the other two being more aggressive than your typical great white.
Without even a blink, he grabbed the lever and pulled it down.
Just as he hoped, the sound of rushing water began to fill the whole room and so far, nothing bad happened at all.
BUMP!
A crack in the glass in front of him formed due to something slamming it against it. One of the smaller sharks had seen him and as a result, is now trying to get at him for ruining their man-made habitat.
Then the whole room lit up in red, flashing lights as a woman inside a PA system began to narrate his current situation without any form of emotion.
"Emergency. Emergency. Unknown source of pressure detected. Locking all doors to achieve maximum safety. Reaching ten percent of pressure threshold."
Perfect! Just what I needed!
The water refused to drain with the pressure against the breaking glass now forming, threatening to flood the entire room with him trapped inside. If he didn't act fast, the control room would become his underwater tomb.
Seeing that he didn't know where to begin, he searched the table behind him, looking at various documents to see if there were any sort of instructions as to what to do in case of an emergency like this. However, even if he did find any documents referencing his current situation, it would take ages to read through the stack of papers and see how to properly use the controls around him.
BAM!
Another shark rammed itself against the other glass that was intact, which now created even more pressure to deal with and the woman behind the speakers began to voice his dire situation once again.
"Reaching thirty percent of pressure threshold."
What the hell am I supposed to do!?
Panic was now setting in once again, blinding him from seeing any rational thought that would try to pop into his mind.
Groaning in frustration and driven by fear itself, he began to fumble around the controls, trying to see if he could figure out any of their uses. Looking at the control panel in front of the glass that was recently cracked, he saw that the controls were for a pair of shutters that can mitigate the pressure being received towards the breaking glass frames and quickly turned them on.
C'mon… this has got to be it.
Two metal shutters were now sliding from above to the bottom, slowly covering both windows as Richard finally began to calm his panic down, seeing it could all be over soon enough and be able to save Chris in time.
Creak!
The shutters stopped halfway.
Are you serious right now?!
The slamming from the sharks continued, rocking the entire place down as he tried grabbing something to hold his balance. Nothing could ever come easy for him.
"Reaching fifty percent of pressure threshold. Activate the emergency drainage system, immediately."
"WHAT DO YOU THINK I'M DOING, LADY!?" He shouted angrily at the voice around him.
He quickly pressed the buttons again for the shutters, but they refused to do anything in response. The shutters were stuck. None of them raised or dropped at all and now he had to look for another way to mitigate the pressure somehow.
He then checked back to see the documents once again, but knowing he was now running out of time, he threw all the papers and documents to the ground in a blind haze of rage and panic, almost on the verge of giving up.
But he couldn't.
He survived a giant snake attack, all thanks to Rebecca, Alex, and Chris and if he were going to repay them by giving up so easily, it would be an insult to all three of them, his girlfriend back home, and his dead sister. Not to mention if he doesn't do something about it right now, Chris may die from that carnivorous plant above him.
"Reaching seventy percent of pressure threshold."
The lady in the speaker had just reminded him that he needed to hurry or else he can say goodbye to Chris and himself.
As he looked down at the documents, there was one in particular that caught his eye. Looking at it closely, he saw a diagram of both shutters with a valve that controls its oil pressure, pointing at a position defined as "#3".
How couldn't he figure that out before?
Looking back at the controls, however, there was no valve anywhere that would resemble that of an oil pressure adjuster. Frowning, he looked around inside the small corridor he hadn't been in. To his right was a door that led deep underwater, which was an obvious no-go. However, on the other side was a valve that had several positions labeled as one, two, and three.
Checkmate!
He hurried towards the valve and saw it was pointed between two and three. He slowly turned the valve to the left, putting all his might on it as he yelled out in pain, his left arm's injury burning him endlessly. As the valve hit three, the shutters were heard moving back to their former positions as the lady told him once again about his situation, the place jerking again by the sudden slamming from the relentless attacking sharks.
"Reaching ninety percent of pressure threshold."
Got to hurry!
With a renewed determination to put down the shutters, he went back to the controls and pushed the buttons again…
…only for them not to deliver a single response at all.
"WHAT?! C'MON NOW!"
With no answers to go from, he looked around in circles, trying to see what could he possibly have missed. There was no time to look through the documents again and he double-checked to see if the valve was on the number it was supposed to be. It was definitely on three, exactly where that diagram showed it needed to be in case of oil pressure failure.
So what the hell does he need to do now?
"Reaching ninety-five percent of pressure threshold. All personnel, prepare for impact."
To hell with preparing for impact!
He looked everywhere. The shutter controls, the drainage system controls, the—
Locking mechanism controls?
Somehow, the locking mechanism activated and a screen he hadn't bothered checking closely behind him told him that he needed to deactivate it with a single confirmation button. Those damn scientists really love making everything so complex.
As soon as he clicked the confirmation button, he immediately dashed to the other side of the room and pressed the shutter controls once more - this time, now slowly dropping down completely without stopping mid-way. Another violent jolt was felt inside the control room, the sound of glass breaking on the other side of the shutters, making Richard feel immediate relief that had he not figured out what to do in time, he would've either drowned or become shark food, or both.
With the water pressure seemingly under control now, he went back to the drainage control system and pulled the lever down once again.
The sound of water rushing down the drains was heard all over, so fast in fact that it felt like a waterfall formed nearby, the same sound as the waterfall from the open sluice in the courtyard. After a whole minute, the sound stopped and the control panel in front of him was now lit in green with the words "Drain Complete" showing up soon after.
Yes! Finally!
A rush of relief swept over him, grinning widely as he turned to the corridor and headed back to the door that blocked the water from rushing inside. He took a peek at the small circular window and saw that the whole basement was now drained and no longer flooded. Within a minute after opening the door, he heard the frantic loud thumping of a large fish trying to swim through a waterless environment. Everything around him was soaked to the core. Water had consumed just about everything that was stored in the lower levels of the basement floor.
Opening the double doors across what seemed to be a storage room, he was now inside the first floor near the large tank that enveloped the entire room of the basement in the aqua ring.
Walking through the wet environment, he saw various pieces of furniture dropped on the ground, all of which were now useless thanks to the water itself. Through the debris, he began to grin again, thinking that he should probably feel pity for one of the now helpless creatures in front of him, struggling to survive out of the water. Instead, he hoped it died a long, agonizing death, along with the rest of the other sharks that may have landed elsewhere in the drained aqua ring.
"Bite me," he whispered.
Alex was forced to do much of the work himself, from sliding the hexagonal crank onto the complex stone mechanism to killing those green alien-looking creatures and the mother of all spiders.
He could do with any monster, but a spider the size of cattle? Even he couldn't contain his arachnophobia in front of Woods when it came to stuff like normal black widows. The thick layers of white webbing that covered the room, floor to ceiling, it couldn't have been anything but.
After having dealt with it and calling to Wesker that it was safe, he wished he could've somehow pulled Wesker inside and fed him to the giant spider. Then all their problems would be over, right?
No. He would've been sorely mistaken.
If what Wesker said is true about their families being held hostages, he would run the risk of having his son killed, along with Barry's entire family. He couldn't have that on his already stained conscience.
He kept forcing himself to look at the dead abomination that was once a normal spider. The noxious green ooze was still seeping on its fresh wounds, the spider curled into a stiff ball with its hairy legs frozen in place. Even dead, it still sent him chills, frightening him ever since he first got here and Wesker warned him about an escaped subject known as "Black Tiger".
He thought about it being an infected tiger at first, but boy was he extremely wrong the moment he stepped foot inside the gross webbed chamber.
"Clear," said Wesker as he finished up cutting most of the webbing that covered a couple of hidden doors on the other side of the sticky chamber. "After you."
Hearing his voice was almost as jarring as hearing Kravchenko or Dragovich's voice. It pained him to even work with someone, knowing they are responsible for the miseries they have been enduring for the whole night.
If only he had him as spider food to throw at the now-dead spider or simply shoot him from behind…
…of course, it's not that simple. Nothing in his life has ever been simple.
Boiling in a blinding haze of red rage and resentment, he followed after him and walked past him and the dead spider, the whispering streams of the sticky webbing clinging to his boots, making him struggle to even move anywhere.
Another corridor was set up in a similar fashion to the previous one they were in, except this one only had one other door to their right. No boulder to use for brute-forcing their way through at least. He almost got crushed by the last boulder, all thanks to Wesker telling him that it was firmly set in place, only for it to slide towards his direction as the jolt they did with the mechanism managed to loosen up the boulder more than Wesker had expected.
Alex didn't know why he was even following his instructions if everything that he kept telling him to do had already gotten him closer to death more times than he'd like. But as long as he had a mental picture of the safety of their families close to his mind, he knew it was necessary to do so.
After they reached the door to the end, Wesker ordered Mason to open the door for them. Begrudgingly, he creaked the door open and stepped inside, feeling the sudden change in the air immediately.
No monsters or spiders nearby.
The tunnel he had entered split in two different directions; one to the right and another to the left. To his right was another passage that led to a corridor further inside the old mine. However, to his left was a small elevator shaft, much like the one he had seen in the courtyard. The fresh warm breeze swept over him, the sweet air like a forgotten dream.
"This way," Wesker pointed at the elevator to the left. "The labs should be close."
About fucking time!
As impatient as he was to get this over with, knowing the lab was close was a sign that everything was going to be over soon enough, but something in the back of his mind kept telling him that it was far from over. A sudden dread of intuition immediately came to him as soon as the breeze from the outside world grew the moment both of them took the elevator.
It was as though a hidden voice inside his head was telling him about something, but couldn't pinpoint exactly whose voice was it. Was it Reznov? Woods? …Dave?
No. A woman's voice…
Nothing seemed to make sense. This feeling of dread washing over him was anything, but good. The unrecognizable voice didn't stop. He could only make out a few words of what the voice was telling him.
"Backstabber. Liar. Deceiver."
Nothing he didn't know that he already was.
But the voice only grew louder and that's when it hit him.
Grace…
It was none other than his late wife.
Woods and Hudson had told him "some nut" had apparently killed her in a drunk driving accident, and he had been so busy in the military, that he never had the chance to visit his own wife's funeral. The harsh resentment from David only grew from there, blaming him for abandoning him since. Alex knew David had every right to blame him for that terrible mistake he could never run away from.
The loud whisperers were driving him insane; reminding him of the betrayal he was committing. Though he couldn't let it control him. He had to continue - for the sake of his son and Barry's family.
"We're here," said Wesker stoically as he slowly grinned and walked out of the elevator. "Take out the battery. I don't want any potential followers to catch up with us."
Resentfully, he did as he was told. The battery for the elevator was easy to take out, at least physically. Mentally, it was torture and his arms shook as soon as he dropped it to the ground, almost as if his own limbs were telling him how much of a backstabbing bastard he had already become.
Not trying to delve too much into it, he inched closer to Wesker's location as he saw him taking out one of the missing pieces of medals he didn't bother telling them about earlier; the Wolf and Eagle medals.
Apparently, Wesker had found the Wolf medal earlier when the Alpha team had just arrived at the mansion. The Eagle medal, on the other hand, it was all thanks to him that Wesker didn't have to go through the trouble looking for it when the boulder smashed through the secret entrance to the giant spider's nest. It was hidden just behind the boulder. How anyone could've somehow hidden the medal there was still a mystery to him. Let alone access an area that was completely blocked off by a stone wall.
After Wesker placed the Eagle and Wolf medals in place, the whole pool of water inside the giant well began to drop like two separate waterfalls as a secret mechanism beneath began to slowly open, revealing what looked like a short, spiral staircase leading down to a caged lift.
Both of the STARS members descended further inside and got into the elevator as Wesker pressed the controls to lead them down to a completely new area.
Alex lost himself in thought once again. He could just kill Wesker now, look for a radio or communication device, get in contact with Hudson, send some backup to David and Barry's family's places, and get help for the STARS to get the hell out of there.
It sounded like a great plan, but he didn't know how much time they had left before Wesker's men would go through their execution. Plus, he didn't know where would any communication device be if this was indeed the Arklay Lab they were going in.
To hell with it…
Mason took out his gun and held Wesker at gunpoint, pressing it hard against the back of his head and started to whisper in the most intimidating way possible.
"You will tell me where in this fuckin' lab of yours is the comms area or so help me God I won't blow your brains off right here," he cocked the gun almost fiercely, "right now!"
As the elevator stopped at its destination and opened its doors for them, Wesker did not utter a word for a small moment. Instead, he quickly ducked and turned around, dodging the gunfire that Mason pulled through, and injected him with something in his neck, making Alex stumble to the ground helplessly as he started convulsing, yelling out in pain.
Wesker merely laughed it off and threw his dropped weapon further away from him, his grin widening almost bigger than ever as he crouched down on a struggling Alex, holding onto his head and neck.
"You selfish old fool," he said lowly. "I knew you were gonna pull off something like this. I only waited for the right moment and now, you will be under my command, whether you like it or not."
Mason opened his eyes, his face filled with seething rage that only made Wesker hungry to know what was about to come.
"You…" he groaned as he struggled to take some air. The wretched numbers that haunted his dreams were now once again all over the place, even carved in blood onto his own skin. He knew it wasn't real, but the pain inside his head was throbbing so violently, that he couldn't stop shaking his whole body. The pain was too much to bear but gave the last of his energy to demand answers from the man that was enjoying watching him drown in a state of brutal agony. "Wh– what did you - what did YOU DO TO ME?!"
"You still haven't figured it out, have you?" Wesker childishly teased him as Alex kept yelling out in pain like a powerless dog. "Umbrella was given the Soviet brainwashing program that your dear old friend Kravchenko had kept close to him at all times. With the injection I've given to you, it's a small thing of my making that only affects those who are former sleeper agents. All of you have the program marked inside that little brain of yours, permanently. All I had to do is to reactivate the programming and now it's time for me to say the numbers as I please."
Mason tried his best to control his throbbing pain as he looked at his attacker in a feral fury. "Y–-You won't get away with this! Y—you w—will PAY FOR THIS YOU MOTHERFU— AGGH!"
The pain was becoming too much for him to manage as it began to spread all across every part of his whole body. He could do nothing but scream and writhe in a terrible, agonizing wave of extreme pain on the ground, seeing the numbers flashing relentlessly even while having his eyes closed shut.
With one final laugh from Wesker, he wasted no time and started brainwashing him to do his bidding, taking out a piece of paper as he then began to read, while occasionally looking at a vulnerable Alex Mason, maliciously.
"Biohazard 12-13-23-25-1-10-14-4-9-3-11-1-6-21-9-14-6-15-3-13-19-7-21-4-21-22-10-19-9-4 "
Author's Note: Hehehe... this was an interesting chapter!
First off, I wanna say that Alex's late wife is unnamed in the original Black Ops lore so I decided to take it upon myself to name her, Grace Mason. Kinda feel like it's a perfect name for her, IMO. If at any time Activision or Treyarch ever decide to give her an official name, I will gladly go back to this story and change it to whatever name they may end up giving her in the future.
Second, the numbers at the end aren't just a set of fancy random numbers. They're actually functional by using the original cryptography that Activision/Treyarch used for Black Ops itself! And it also contributes to the actual story as well, rewarding you with some foreknowledge about what will happen next in the final upcoming chapters. You can go ahead and try to decode it if you dare to face the challenge... ;) The first one who gets it right will have a shoutout by the time I upload a new chapter for this story or for the following sequel (if it hasn't been solved by then). I'm actually very curious as to who will be able to solve it first...
Below will be a hint in order to help you solve the puzzle so if you don't want any hints; STOP READING HERE!
One hint I will give out to make things a lot easier is that the encryption key is located inside the first edition of S.D. Perry's novel, Resident Evil: The Umbrella Conspiracy, between pages 70-80. It's your job to locate the exact excerpt used in between these pages and figure out how to decode the numbers using the said encryption key. For those who don't have access to the novel or the first edition whatsoever, I'm sorry to say that solving the puzzle would be an impossible task for you unless you get yourself a copy of the book.
If you are willing to spend some money to do so (please don't waste anything higher than $15 US, $20 CA, £12 GBP), make sure it is the one that was published by Pocket Books in 1998 (the one that has the anime-looking characters of Chris, Jill, and Barry with the mansion backdrop in the forest on the cover. NOT the one published by Titan Books in 2012 that has the GameCube remake iterations of Chris and Jill). Trust me, even if you are only buying it just for figuring this out, you can still have a good reading experience with the novel. It's just that good!