Hello, readers! Here is Chapter 4 of the story, and a return to the brutal side of "Resident Evil". You have been warned!
To clarify something, I meant the "Lord Ashford" or "Sir Ashford" as ALFRED, not ALEXANDER. That was a mistype on my part, and I apologize for any confusion this has caused.
DISCLAIMER: The "Resident Evil" series of games is owned and published by Capcom. The author, in collaboration with the user "RT86", owns the original character "David Wellington" among other unique elements in this story.
Onward!
[ROCKFORT ISLAND CONCENTRATION CAMP] [THE NEXT MORNING] [1:22]
The words, "Good morning, Lord Ashford," are given by "The Warden" to the blond-haired, blue-eyed heir to the Ashford family legacy as soon as he steps off the jeep that brought him, and a decontamination team wearing biohazard suits, from his private island mansion. Every soldier and scientist not focused on a task in the courtyard bows or nods to him as he moves with a stiff gait, his face sternly observing the activity around him without comment. The open space is bathed in a crescent moon's glow, mounted searchlights providing sharper clarity to the central space of the yard. That space is cleared of prisoners or equipment for this early-morning test, and each guard on the adjacent sentry towers armed with anti-B.O.W. grenade launchers as well as their regular machine guns.
Down on the courtyard itself is T-H90, contained inside a square container with plexiglass walls used to transport Tyrant-sized specimens. Two Umbrella troopers also stand by the container's control panel, bearing the same equipment loadout as the tower guards. Simeon, Millicent, and as many members of the science team as could be spared or were willing to participate all stand in a group beyond the edge of the light, near the entrance gate to the camp. "The Warden" stays by the jeep to have a conversation with the trooper driver. Several other troop convoys, and one truck specially designed to carry bulky loads, all rest parked nearby for when the staff that took them to get here need to go back home.
Alfred quickly spots the large Tyrant in its "cage". He sizes the B.O.W. up for a few seconds before turning to the assembled scientists. They shirk under his direct gaze, whispered rumors becoming more real now that their Lord is here in the flesh. Several of them warily look to the prison walls, feeling the gaze of the convicted on the backs of their necks. How many prisoners are up this early in the morning, watching from behind their barred windows? Are they also afraid for what will happen?
Alfred gives Simeon and Millicent the hardest glares, black rings visible beneath his eyes. "You had better match up what your reports said," he informs them in his heavily accented, haughty manner of speaking. "Interrupting my sleep for anything less is worthy of strict punishment."
"Yes, Sir Ashford." The two leading scientists show unwavering courage in the face of a sleep-deprived Umbrella executive. The bags under their eyes are not as prominent – they can thank steady intakes of coffee for that – but they can tell the goal of satisfying their Lord will be a long and arduous one. They share a worried look as Alfred turns to face the Tyrant again, not knowing what kind of tests their creation will be put through.
"So," Alfred asks the scientists without looking at them, "I just tell the Tyrant what to do, and it will obey me?"
"That's how we have conditioned him, my Lord," Millicent steadily answers. "Do you need anything else prepared before we begin?"
Alfred thinks about this for ten seconds. He then commands, "Bring me two workers, immediately." The orders are quickly passed down to the troopers, two of whom race into the prison and drag what Alfred wants into the courtyard. The "workers" they bring out are two Hispanic men who shout demands in Spanish that Alfred does not respond to. Simeon tightens his jaw at this display of superiority but says nothing while the troopers move the men in front of Alfred. Questioning how much a superior really knows about things is a harsh misdemeanor, after all.
"Open the Tyrant's cage. And," Alfred quickly asks Simeon, "what was this one called again?"
"The Tyrant is classified as T-H90, my Lord."
"Thank you." Alfred turns away as another trooper quickly opens the "cage" with some button pushing. T-H90 steps out almost instantly, moving a bit slower once it feels grass against its feet instead of cold steel. It looks around with slow movements of its head, the searchlights shining on its body and casting sharp shadows against the fence and ground. Almost every human that can see it watches it closely, but only a few minds among the group know its true capabilities.
"T-H90," Alfred shouts to the Tyrant as "The Warden" yells at the grunts, "I am Sir Ashford. I am your master for these tests. You will do exactly what I say!"
The Tyrant stares at him and does not move. The lower-ranked scientists instantly begin muttering amongst themselves; one pulls out a small notepad and pen from their coat pocket to record what happens next. "The Warden", his conversation done, uses his helmet's commlink to send quick orders to the troopers in the towers.
"I command you to… jump!" Alfred's order is met with confused silence, but that does not deter him in the slightest. "Jump as high as you can, right now!"
Two snorts come from the scientists as T-H90 shows no response. They then stop talking as the Tyrant squats down and tenses its legs, its eyes never leaving Alfred's. An audible "Whoosh!" of air is heard as it springs upward, faster than the searchlights can track it. It soon impacts the ground with thundering force, putting the full force of its impact on its legs. Those limbs buckle and nearly crumple from bearing the full weight of the upper body, but they do not break. The attentive in the crowd, while covering their eyes and faces from bits and clumps of dirt knocked skyward from the landing, notice T-H90's legs suddenly expand out, muscles bulging out to contain the explosive force without actually exploding.
Alfred hums in satisfaction, brushing the dirt off his uniform as T-H90 stands back upright. It steps out of the small crater caused by its landing as the searchlights realign themselves on its body. The echoes of the impact ring in the open air, a distant flock of birds cawing and screeching as they fly out of their resting spaces. Everyone stares in stunned silence until Alfred loudly clears his throat.
"Release the peons," Alfred orders the troopers restraining the darker-skinned men in place. "Let's see how 'precise' T-H90 really is." The troopers let go of their quarry, but the two men don't try to run. The searchlights block them from seeing a good escape route, and they also fear the guns and grenades of all the troopers around them. One shot can kill them, and no one here will really care.
Alfred gestures towards the workers with one hand. "T-H90, you are to kill the man on your left. Then, you are to beat the other man with the first one's corpse until I stay otherwise."
The leftmost worker shouts, "Que diablos?!" when he hears this, backing up several steps as his test companion scampers away from him. T-H90 looks at both men, crouches forward slightly, and then charges like a bull towards the ordered target. The man spins around to run away, but T-H90 catches up to him and grabs him with its enlarged left hand. It raises that hand up and slams the man into the ground, his scream cut off as his face meets the dirt. He is brought up, and thrust back down, again and again, his cries of pain continuing as his body is further and further broken.
The second worker shouts, "No, por favor, no!" as the courtyard fills with the sounds of a beatdown. Petrified with fear, his entire body shaking as he barely manages to stand, he cannot force his eyes away from the scene. The first worker falls silent a few seconds before T-H90 stops pounding him into pulp. It then looks at the corpse, unseen hands moving the searchlights to where the Tyrant now stands. The high-intensity beams clearly show how broken the man's body is, all the limbs twisted to unnatural angles and the face caving inward. Blood drips down to the grass as the stench of death slowly spreads over the courtyard.
"Ayudame!" The second worker loses it at this point, screaming in his native tongue as he falls to his knees. "No queiro mirror! Ayudame!"
Desperate for salvation, the man leaps towards Lord Ashford with outstretched hands as tears stream from his face. Alfred glowers at his approach, but the Tyrant gets between him and the approaching peasant. Holding its improvised weapon in its right hand, T-H90 picks up the living worker with its left and throws him into the searchlight's view. He rolls for a few moments before stopping, his moan changing into a terrified screech when he sees the Tyrant right above him.
The scientist holding the notepad stops writing down notes, not willing to look away from this second beating for a millisecond. Blood flies every which way, half-formed cries for help coming between each whack of two bodies being forced together. Just like before, these cries are not answered by any soldier or scientist in the courtyard. The prisoners certainly don't speak up; they might be the next victims of Lord Ashford's insanity.
When the only sounds heard are the thocks of bones hitting bones and various squelch-like noises as ligaments and muscles are torn loose, Alfred calls out, "Stop!" to T-H90. The Tyrant dutifully stops, its hands coated red by fresh blood. No trooper or scientist watching breaks their composure as T-H90 drops the bodies by each other on the ground, but discomfort shows itself on almost every visible face. Alfred, in a sign of great delight or insanity, gives a pleased smile.
"Brutal and effective." Simeon and Millicent perk up a bit at this comment from Alfred. "That's a start, I suppose. But I want to see more."
Simeon pulls out a small walkie-talkie and says, "Cleanup crew, move in," into it. This brings out the biohazard suit-wearing crew, each member of the four-man team carrying washer decontaminators connected to tanks strapped to their backs. Two of them slide large black bags over the corpses after the other two spray the bodies with the chemical mixture. They then spray the bags, and the ground around the bodies, with the mixture to really erase any risk of contamination.
Millicent and Simeon watch them work with practiced motions, even though they are just a few feet away from a B.O.W. Millicent imagines they are shitting their pants right now, silently urging each other to work faster and get out of sight. T-H90 just watches them with slow breaths, recovering from the exertion of killing two men with its bare hands.
As the crew pick up the bags, two men for each, and scamper into the shadows to dispose of the corpses, Alfred's eyes look around the courtyard again. He stops at two of the troopers standing near the scientists. "You two," he orders, "step into the light!" The soldiers glance at each other, freeze up, and then quickly dart to where Alfred wants them before he decides to kill them for insubordination.
"Trooper on the left," Alfred says as T-H90 turns its look to the new arrivals in the light, "you will be Trooper 1; you on the right will be Trooper 2. Both of you draw your sidearms now; T-H90, stay put until I give you an order."
The troopers pull out automatic pistols and hold them in both hands. They keep their eyes on the Tyrant but do not raise their guns at it. They don't want to risk sudden death by aggravating it. Alfred smiles again at the trooper's visible fear; even with helmets covering their faces, the soldiers know a monster when they see one. He gives his next order: "Troopers, fire one shot each at T-H90."
Millicent's throat locks up as two other scientists both whisper "The fuck?!" at the same time. The soldiers reluctantly do their duty, firing two bullets into the Tyrant's chest. The bullets sink into the skin but don't knock it back or spill any blood.
"Turn to face me, T-H90." The Tyrant does so, the searchlight bathing its skin in artificial radiance. The bullet holes are tiny, but still visible. Alfred nods to himself and motions to the soldiers while looking at the bullet holes. "Trooper 1, give your pistol to T-H90."
"Lord Ashford, we haven't-" Simeon starts before Alfred whirls on him. "This is my test!" he nearly shouts at him. "My test, my rules. I decide what we do here!" Simeon yields to Alfred's demand with a sour expression. The two men turn back as the named trooper, walking slowly towards the Tyrant, holds the front end of his pistol out to be taken. T-H90 looks between the soldier and his weapon several times, the tension in the air joining the lingering stench of decontamination spray.
The tension breaks when T-H90 grabs the pistol with a rough yank. The trooper jumps back, clutching his hand and muttering curses through his helmet as he races back to his colleague. T-H90 turns its focus on the gun in its hand, moving its fingers along the sides like a baby touches a new toy. A transmitted order from "The Warden" brings several troopers previously watching from the sidelines up and in front of Sir Ashford and the scientists. They draw their own guns and aim them at the Tyrant, waiting for the almost inevitable moment when everything goes ploin-shaped.
Simeon and Millicent each almost have a heart attack when the see their creation slowly use its fingers to turn the pistol the right way around. "He knows how to hold it?" Simeon says for them both. "We didn't teach him that!"
"Good, good!" Alfred's happiness is purely his own as the troopers arm their weapons with audible clicks. The warning is obvious, but Alfred doesn't seem to care or mind. His eyes are locked on the Tyrant holding an armed weapon like a person does, something never accomplished before by the B.O.W.'s. "Now shoot Trooper 1 in the head."
The Tyrant moves the gun almost too quickly to see. The gun goes off before the soldier can move, the helmet's visor shattering as the bullet travels clean through the skull. The man falls on his back, hands flying to cover his face. "My eye!" he screams in an Chicago accent, amazingly alive after the shot. "Agh, my fucking eye!"
"Bradley!" The second trooper rages by dropping his pistol in place of his machine gun. He screams, "You fucking monster!" as he unloads the loaded magazine at the eight foot-tall monster in front of him. Each bullet slams into T-H90's skin, and a few shots hit its face. The combined effect knocks it back a step. Bradley's own final cries of pain before he collapses are swamped up in the noise.
A few troopers in front of Ashford tense up and prepare to fire; Alfred's cry of, "Do not fire, idiots!" are ignored. T-H90 grunts once as it raises its left hand to shield its face, an impromptu defense all the scientists observe with wide eyes. This means the Tyrant's right hand goes unobserved until it fires two more shots at the still-screaming trooper. The man's war cry becomes a choked gurgle as the bullets puncture his face and neck. He collapses while clutching his throat, dropping his gun and unable to stop the blood from flowing down his uniform.
"Drop the gun, T-H90! Now!" Alfred's commanding voice has the redeeming quality of making even a Tyrant obey it. The weapon is left on the ground, too close to try and get for anyone not having a death wish.
Millicent looks at Simeon's face, now pale as a ghost, and feels pretty much the same way. The older scientist quickly says, "Cleanup crew, move in," into his walkie-talkie without breaking his tone or voice. The crew quickly pick up Bradley's unconscious body and stuff it in a bag, while the unidentified trooper's corpse is sprayed like the other two. The killer watches them as its body slowly regenerates like all Tyrants do, removing all traces of the bullet's marks.
"The Doctor can have Bradley's body for himself," Alfred declares as the crew head back to the jeep. No one is pleased by this. Alfred then turns back to face Simeon and Millicent with a cold smile. "I've seen what I wanted. When can T-H90 be ready for deployment?"
"In the field?" Millicent swallows a lump in her throat and forces herself to maintain eye contact. "A week, minimum."
Alfred frowns at that. "I suppose that will have to do," he begrudgingly agrees. "Send me the reports you've made in the meantime and put the Tyrant in cryogenic storage. Good night."
And just like that, Sir Alfred Ashford takes his leave. No final wave of his hand, no formal dismissal, just a "Good night" and the lack of his presence on the courtyard. The scientist holding the notepad records something with frantic speed before shoving both it and the pen back into their coat pocket. A few troopers and scientists look to the prison once Alfred's red uniform is swallowed up by the darkness, the searchlights still trained on T-H90 as it also watches Alfred go.
What do the inmates think about all this, the assembled Umbrella staff wonder. They never heard them speak up or object…
"Fucking madman," one of the troopers near Millicent grunts, his raw voice loud enough to get through his helmet. "Those guys weren't enemies to the corporation." At the same time, Simeon hears, "Crazy prick!" directed at Alfred from a young Chinese neurologist. The two don't comment on the audible discontent among fellow members of Umbrella, a discontent they feel burning in their hearts against a man they dare not offend.
After a moment's respite while the private jeep begins its journey back to the mansion, everyone's minds shifts back to the tasks at hand. "The Warden" directs his troops while Simeon and Millicent direct the science team, and the courtyard quickly becomes alive with activity. T-H90 is led back into its thankfully undamaged container, several troopers walking around it as it is loaded onto the bulky transport truck and strapped in place. The science team get on their convoy and try to not look at each other's faces. The few times they do, they just see the same worry and fear in their own expressions.
The prison remains silent as a tomb as the troopers in the watchtowers resume their normal sentry duties under the moon's icy gaze. The forest's nighttime creatures do not add their song to a slow breeze that whispers in their ears.
[22:15] [CRYOGENIC STORAGE FACILITY, CHAMBER 3-A]
Millicent knows she shouldn't be doing this. She also knows she may not get another chance. The thrill of doing something alone, with the hopes of being unseen, is a pleasure she rarely indulges in as part of a team. She enters in the code for the chamber door, glancing in either direction for anything following her. Seeing nothing, she pulls open the reinforced door and moves inside, mostly closing it behind her.
The chamber is placed on the lowest level of the Rockfort facility, far below the actual mansion where Lord Ashford resides. It contains the darkest of the island's secrets in subzero clutches; extremely mutated specimens of proto-Tyrants in Umbrella's continuous goal of perfecting human evolution. Now, an actual Tyrant rests among them.
Millicent shivers from the cold, but she does not plan to be long. Just one glance, one look, that's all. She quickly approaches the chamber's largest object, a stasis tube connected to a forest of wires and pipes that transmit various things to and from the frozen subject. She briefly glances at the control panel that can open the tube back up on command. Unfortunately, that command has not come just yet. But it will come, she is sure.
She walks right up to the tube, taking careful steps forward until she gets as close as she dares. Even frozen he towers over her, more than eight feet of mutated body mass to her comparatively simplistic human size. This meekness digs into a repressed desire of Millicent's, locked beneath scientific inquiry and creativity. These past ten days have let her see every corner of T-H90's body. He is her sculpture – in a metaphorical sense, of course – and she basks in the personal pride Simeon had spoken against.
Damn it, she tells herself once again, is attached to this Tyrant, but she can control it! She knows her place, and she won't break the rules to satiate her aching hormones.
Even though he looks so nice…
She slowly tilts her head down from his face to his chest, especially his prominent eight-pack, then his thin waist, her body growing hotter each second. She reaches his crotch and notices the lack of a penis. When she thinks back on this quirk, she realizes she hasn't seen him aroused at any point during the tests. She chastises herself for even thinking that is possible: The Tyrants aren't human, so they don't have human feelings. They just obey orders.
A fantasy bubbles in her gut, what little morals she has left unconsumed by logic forming a depraved scenario. What if I gave it the order to…?
The fantasy breaks at the sound of something clinking in the chamber. Millicent snaps away from the tube, breathing hard. She feels warm inside despite the room's colder temperature. Something runs down her pants leg, causing her to blush tomato-red. What am I thinking?!
She repeats that question in her head as she looks back up to T-H90's face. Paranoia makes her stare in disbelief at the red eyes that look back at her, somehow frozen open. She leaves the chamber and shuts the door with that image burned into her mind.
Inside the stasis tube, something twitches. A new, instinctual urge starts to form.
Alright, that's all for now.
It seems T-H90 is changing in unexpected ways. How will this be dealt with, for better or worse? That will come in later parts.
As always, and feedback/reviews will be great to see for me and "RT86" to see.
Draconos is taking off!