Sorry for the late update! As always, life just seems to get the better of me. I somehow got another fic idea already lined up after this one too, which messed up my groove a little. Anyway, please accept this offering!
Chapter 9 - The Professional Faces the Rain
With its blinds drawn and most of its exterior lights decommissioned, the recreation center looks deceptively unassuming in the rainy darkness. The two-story brick construction betrays no evidence of activity as the armored vehicle pulls up beside it. A pack of soldiers stand guard behind the door. They, along with the barricades blocking the walkways, are the only indication that anything out of the ordinary is taking place here.
It isn't until Leon steps past the men that Hunnigan's comment on the chaos within ring true. At first, he's convinced the storm thrashing at the windows had somehow blasted its way through the inside of the building too. Muddy boot prints streak the floor; gear is strewn everywhere; chairs are overturned, their legs jutting in the air. Occasionally, one snags a passer-by hard enough to send them reeling. None of the soldiers bustling back and forth bother to right them, too caught up in their own tasks to afford the effort. Upstairs in a hastily repurposed activity room, the BSAA's makeshift command center is a veritable disaster zone as the field team's top operatives work frantically to restore order to the situation.
"Did someone set a bomb off in here or something?" Leon remarks, sidestepping a tangle of loose cables as he enters the room.
The captain glances up upon hearing his approach. He's poring over a map of the town, on which several locations have been marked out. "At this rate, I'd rather it have been a bomb," he sighs. "We lost contact with Bravo Team. I've got Echo out looking for them, but our radio's been on the fritz all evening, so we're scrambling to fix that before they end up going silent too. I just sent half of Charlie out to secure the hospital—you would've seen them there when you were picked up, I presume. And then Delta has their hands full with the survivors all evening, and probably will for the rest of the night… It's just been non-stop problems ever since we set up base here."
"Is this where Bravo Team were?" Leon points at a highlighted spot on the map.
"Yes. That's where they last reported in nearly an hour ago. They were supposed to regroup with the rest of us here. It's too dangerous to be patrolling the streets anymore. Everything seemed normal up until they just stopped responding."
His gaze shifts a block over to a building labeled FIRE HALL. "Think they could've taken shelter nearby when their comms went out?"
"We can only hope. Echo are on their way over as we speak. Anyway, let's set that aside for now. I believe your colleague is waiting for us?"
While Leon rings Hunnigan, the captain directs his second-in-command to take his place leading the search effort. "Leon, I'm patching you through to Sherry," Hunnigan informs him once they've exchanged updates. Her transmission is interspersed with static; whatever disruption is plaguing the BSAA's radio system hasn't entirely spared their communications, either. "Sherry will tell you about our lab findings. In the meantime, I'm tracking down information on the ship that released the B.O.W.s. We'll reconvene once I have something. Hunnigan out."
The video switches to the blonde. "Hi, Leon, Captain," Sherry greets, nodding at each of the men in turn. "I've reviewed the data the BSAA sent us. It's more or less consistent with our own results: the B.O.W.s' abnormal physiology suggests they underwent extreme morphological changes—they most likely started out as human test subjects, despite their outward appearance. This was later confirmed by our blood test results as well. We're currently sequencing the DNA of the B.O.W.s, which might give us clues as to how they were transformed."
"Someone out there's awfully keen on turning people into salamanders," Leon mutters.
"We also found an unknown pathogen in their systems, identical to the one described by the BSAA," she continues. "It looks like the BSAA couldn't find a match for it in their database. Unfortunately, we didn't either. This is something neither of our organizations have seen before."
"You said 'pathogen'," notes the captain. "What is it exactly? A virus?"
"Well, I think it'd have to be a virus, to be able to alter the physical and genetic structure so thoroughly, but there are certain characteristics about it that just don't seem to fit. It could be a virus using another infectious unit as a vector—a bacterium or a parasite, for example. But here's where it gets worse: it's definitely contagious. The blood from the survivor in the ICU contained traces of the same pathogen. We're not sure yet what the methods of transmission are, or how the infection affects a person, but for the time being I'd strongly recommend using the utmost caution around any B.O.W.s or things they may have contacted."
"What about the rest of the samples? The ones from us and the kids?" asks Leon.
"Those were clean. But keep in mind they were taken only a short time after exposure, whereas the other guy had been that way for hours when I took his sample. There may be a latency period before the pathogen can be detected. Do you have a microscope on hand?"
"There should be one in our field testing kit," the captain answers. "It's around here somewhere…"
"You can use that to check your blood for signs of infection. Look for these little shapes like the ones in the data files."
"We can start in the infirmary. I've got some men there who were injured by B.O.W.s," says the captain.
"How are they? Any physical symptoms or unusual behavior?" Sherry questions.
"None that I've noticed so far. But—hold on." His brow knits. "The ICU survivor… at the hospital?"
Realization twists sharp and painful in Leon's gut. "Shit," he breathes.
From the way Sherry's mouth falls open, she too has cottoned on to the problem. "You don't think…?"
Tilda, Leon screams inwardly, suddenly stricken by an image of her sound asleep in her hospital bed, her and Tulling and her classmates too, all blissfully unaware of the potential danger festering only the next wing over…
"Evans!" the captain calls to the man at the radio. "What's the status of Charlie Team?"
"They've secured the exterior and are stationed at the entrances, sir," comes the reply.
"Have someone surveil the coma patient upstairs," he instructs him. "Tell them to round up any civilians still in the building. We're on our way to evac all of them and our man Tulling. ETA to follow."
"Yes, sir."
Evans has just picked up the transceiver when the lights flicker once and go out, plunging the room into near-darkness.
A collective cry of surprise ripples through the building. Saved from total blackness by the bluish glow emanating from their battery-fed electronics, the soldiers around the command center immediately set about inspecting their downed equipment for damage. There's a crash down the hall as someone trips over something big and clanky. Downstairs in the gym, the survivors babble frenziedly among themselves, many of them jolted into full alarm by the blackout. Lightning flashes. Then the emergency lights kick in, bathing the hallways in an eerie yellow overtone. The whole chain of events spans only a few seconds, but in the confusion it seems to stretch on forever.
"Is everything okay over there?" Sherry squeaks.
"That depends on what you mean by 'okay'," says Leon grimly. "I'll have to call you back, Sherry."
"Sir," Evans pipes up, "I think we lost our amp. It was plugged into the wall outlet."
A string of choice words slip out under the captain's breath. "Can we make do without it?"
"We can try, but with the signal already weak enough as it was…"
"What's the extent of the outage?"
Evans consults a map on his laptop. "Looks like a local transformer got taken out. The whole central part of town's been affected." He points at the blacked out streets on his screen.
Leon turns to the captain. The man's face is rigid, his eyes shadowed with defeat.
"Well," the captain finally spits, as the patter at the window shifts in time with the wind, "when it rains, it pours."
Leon claps his shoulder in sympathy. He couldn't have said it better himself.
Thunder.
The sound fills Crawford's ears to the brim, fills up his entire being, like a swell submerging him from head to toe. In an instant, he's transported to the beach, to that fateful day when his younger self took on the boundless sea and was brutally punished for his arrogance. Just as they've always done, the waves jostle him, surround him, and eventually fold him under their salty depths. His mouth is wide open, but nothing comes out. Somewhere inside him, a frightened child's voice is begging for Grandpa Floyd to save him like he'd saved him all those years ago. And even though his grandfather's long since dead, Crawford knows that if he just holds on for long enough, he'll surely feel the old man's wiry arms pulling him back to the surface. Grandpa Floyd is always there when Crawford needs him.
But this time, Grandpa Floyd never comes. This time, Crawford is left to face his demons alone. And when he inevitably loses the fight and his head goes under for the last time, the water is filled with countless tiny teeth, white and jagged like a shark's, churning around him with the current, closing in from every angle to sink into his flesh…
He awakes, yanked out of his dream by a second clap of thunder. The prison of water is gone, replaced by a peculiar sensation of tightness over his entire body. His skin tingles. Some sort of disturbance has pulsed through his body and summoned his consciousness back here.
There's a steady beeping somewhere nearby. The noise is vaguely familiar, but somehow the part of Crawford's brain that can put a name to it is muffled beyond comprehension, like he's listening to it speak from the other side of a thick wall. There's a rhythmic hissing, too. This he identifies as his own breathing.
Crawford cracks open his eyes. At first, he thinks he's gone blind: the space before him is filled only with endless blackness. Then, slowly, the lights come into focus, and he comes to understand that he was staring at an empty part of the ceiling. Glancing around, he notices the faintly glowing auras surrounding some weird gadgets in the room. It is one of these that's making that relentless noise, and as soon as he can figure out which, he'll be sure to silence it for good.
He sits up, feeling the tightness bend and shift around him. Looking down, he sees that his limbs and his middle are wrapped in some sort of firm binding. His own body is shining like a light, something the part of his brain behind the wall seems to find very upsetting—but for some reason Crawford can't be bothered feeling anything about it at all.
He hears a creak and whirls around, his mouth hanging open like the sight of his teeth will scare off any danger. There's a figure at the door. It, too, is all lit up, just like him. The figure says something in a low voice. The clever part of Crawford's brain seems to recognize the sounds, but by now it may as well be far off in outer space with how little it's getting through to him. Instead, he just sits and listens blankly until stops.
Crawford tries to ask where he is and what happened to him, but all he can do is gape stupidly at the figure. A few scattered pictures cobble together in his mind. There's a big floating platform in the middle of endless water, and then there's cold and dark and wet everywhere, and then there's teeth—lots of teeth—too many teeth—
He blinks. Were those his memories from before he ended up here? He scratches at himself. He's tingling very badly. The feeling seems to be coming from some sticky pads pasted on his skin. Each one has a string coming out of it. He pulls them off, grimacing a little as the pads detach from him one by one.
Suddenly, the figure is right beside him, still using that low, unintelligible voice. It takes the strings out of Crawford's hands. Crawford instantly becomes aware of two things. One, the figure doesn't want him to take off the strings. And two, in such close proximity, the figure smells really good, downright amazing. It awakens a piece of Crawford he never even knew was there.
Before he knows it, he's tackled the figure to the floor. A shrill sound comes out that bites at his ears, so Crawford breaks its throat, where the sound is made. He buries his face into the figure, indulging in its heavenly scent that fills up his insides so deliciously. When the figure grows cold and its light goes dim, he gets up from its remains. The smell is gone. The figure doesn't move anymore. Somewhere light-years into the depths of his mind, that clever part of Crawford is feeling something bad. Is it sadness? Anger? Crawford doesn't know. Crawford doesn't care.
Crawford doesn't know which gadget makes the noise. He breaks them all. Now everything is quiet. Crawford likes quiet.
Crawford goes outside the room. Crawford smells the air.
There are more smells here. Very good smells.
So Crawford goes.
Crawford follow nose.
Good smell. Find.
Crawford hungry.
