"Oh shit..." she cursed out loud, as she came to the realization that somehow he'd had contact with THAT virus.

"What?!" Lance snapped, glaring at her.

"What's wrong?" Leon asked, frowning at her suddenly shocked expression.

"The fever, vomiting, it all matches..."

"Matches what?!" Lance snapped again.

"The virus in the report.." Rachel answered shakily "I don't know how, Colonel, but what you're showing is the same as what the kids had...abnormally high temperature, nausea, I'm betting dizziness as well..."

Leon stared, confused. How had this guy gotten the virus so fast?

Rachel shook her head., how had this happened? Even the kids that had first gotten infected hadn't displayed the symptoms THIS fast, nor with such strength. Something was wrong here.

Lance closed his eyes, struggling not to vomit again. This had to be a joke. First he'd fainted then he'd been sick earlier, and he'd had to make another bathroom dash just now. Add the fact he felt dizzy just sitting there, and you had a problem.

"Is there nothing we can give him that'll ease it a little?" Leon asked.

Rachel thought for a moment "Antibiotics maybe, but those only lessen it a little..."

"Well we need to try something." Leon stated, getting to his feet. "Rach, you check the rest of the rooms that use this key, we'll try with the other key."

Rachel nodded, and got to her feet. She cast one more worried glance at her partner, he really didn't look good, would he be OK?

Lance looked up at that moment, and seen her giving him that worried look. He glared irritably, knowing if she started worrying, her focus would go out the window. "Move your ass Lieutenant, go!"

This at last got her moving, and with a final reassurance to Leon she'd be OK, she disappeared off down the corridor.

Leon sighed and turned back to the other officer. Great, he was stuck looking after monsieur snarky-pants here. It was obvious Rachel worried about him a great deal, but it seemed to him that Lance did nothing but snap at her.

After several minutes, the colonel finally managed to stand and the two set off to try to find something to ease the fever.

Another figure strode the corridors, high heels tapping out a pattern on the cold, sterile flooring. A red dress hugged her slim figure perfectly; raven black hair shining slightly in the harsh overhead lighting. She ducked behind a pillar seconds later as she heard footsteps headed towards the corridor she was in.

The footsteps rounded the corner, and then stopped, as whoever it was took a breather.

Cautiously she peered round the pillar. And felt a shock run through her. Standing there, catching her breath was a girl in a bullet-proof red jack, marked by a raven symbol.

--No way...how is she here? The one with the red jacket...--

The two guys stumbled along in relative silence. Leon was concentrating on finding a door that matched the key Lance had found, (an "S" was marked on it), and Lance himself was trying not to be sick or pass out again.

At last, they came to door that matched, with not a word spoken between them. The room was a large one, and it was full with a dozen weapons lockers on one wall. While Leon went to investigate, Lance meandered over to the door in the left corner. He entered cautiously, and almost threw up. For inside the room was a dead, disgusting THING. It looked grey, and slimy, with spikes protruding from its body. And the stench was stomach churning.

He stood there a moment, half-expecting it to rise and attack. But it didn't move, so he carefully stepped over it, noting yet another door in the room, which on inspection after unlocking it, led into another corridor.

He turned back to the room with the dead thing in, and began going through all the cabinets in the dingy room. Most were empty, but in one he found something he thought looked useful.

Supervisors Instructions:

Two more bodies today, they are to be disposed off in the incinerator on B1F. Make sure all bodies are thoroughly disposed off, burn clothes in separate unit.

Lance stared. Clothes? So far all the things he'd seen running about were as bare-ass naked as they knew how, so it couldn't be talking about those creatures. Was it talking about...human bodies?

As he stood there staring in feverish befuddlement at the paper, he heard a shuffling noise behind him. Not wanting to see but knowing he had to look, he turned round. The thing he'd presumed dead earlier was on its feet, staring balefully at him. It opened its mouth and made a strange, gurgled cry.

"hhhgh...hurggkh..."

It began stumbling towards him. He backed up, his mind screaming at him to shoot the damn thing, but he couldn't get his body to respond. As he fumbled for the weapon, the thing came up close and swung its heavy spiked arm at him. The resulting blow knocked him against the door, which clicked open and dumped him onto the cold hallway outside.

He lay there, half dazed, his mind not computing what was going on. He heard the things footsteps, and closed his eyes.

--Shit, nothing in all of my training has come even close to this...-- he thought. And expected the final blow to come. But it never did. There were several gunshots, and a popping noise, followed by the sound of something splattering the floor.

Before he passed out completely, he caught a glimpse of high heels, and a red dress...

Then everything went black.

The woman in the red dress, her name being Ada Wong, was surprised when the door just a few feet ahead of her was flung open, and even more startled when someone fell out of it. Whoever it was looked in pretty bad shape and she soon saw why. A Regenerator. One of the disgusting THINGS she'd seen on the island, came stumbling out after him.

Wasting no time she emptied a full clip into the monster, watching with disgust as its upper body exploded all over the place. She knelt down by the now out cold figure. He didn't look much older then 21, with pale blonde air. And she stared at the insignia on his uniform. It was the same as red-jackets.

--So, he's from that strange army too...but why are they here? -- she wondered. But she was startled out of her revere seconds later, by a familiar voice.

"Ada?"

Leon had been in the process of emptying the weapons lockers when he'd heard a crash, followed by gunshots, then an all-too familiar POP. He dashed through the corner-door, and through the one in there. And seen someone kneeling over the Colonel's prone body. A woman he knew so well.

She looked up as he spoke her name, and something like a smile appeared on her face.

"Well well, looks like we meet again, eh Leon?" She smiled at how he seemed dumbstruck at seeing her. She indicated the unconscious Colonel, "I assume he was with you. He's from that same army as the other girl..."

Leon quickly knelt by Lance's side, and checked his temperature. It had gotten worse, he looked in pretty bad shape.

"Yeah, He and Rachel were sent here to investigate, along with me.."

Ada raised an eyebrow "Rachel? So that's her name..." she shrugged slightly, then looked at Schneider again, "so what's the matter with him?"

Leon shrugged "we're not sure, but whatever it is, it's pretty bad, its done this much damage in barely a couple of hours..."

Ada frowned, she'd been sent there by the organization, to recover a potential viral threat. Could this be the virus she had to recover? From the looks of it, it was eating this guy alive from inside…

She took advantage of Leon's preoccupation with waking Lance up to vanish off down the corridor, so when Leon looked up next, she was gone.

Another door the key unlocked led into a big room with a massive flat screen taking up all of one wall. A desk was seated opposite it, and a few filing cabinets lined one wall. other than these things, there was nothing else. She was about to leave when she noticed something on the desk. At first glance it just looked like a statue of a chimera, but on closer inspection, she saw it had four rectangular slots on the front.

She took the piece of metal from her pocket and slotted it, after some thinking, into one of the slots. But nothing happened, for there were three more slots still empty. She sighed, but at least she'd found something, it was a start.

She heard the door lock behind her and she froze. Not again. The air vent above her head rattled, then the cover fell open with a bang. She leapt back, gun ready, and felt her stomach churn at what dropped down.

It had a decidedly weird appearance. It had but one arm, and that was large and bulked up. Green, pulsing veins covered the appendage, and its head, partly sunken into its massive shoulder, turned to look at her. Then its arm lashed out and missed her by inches as she ducked just seconds later.

It let out an angry roar, and swung the arm at her again. This time it succeeded in knocking the wind out of her. The gun skittered from her grip as she hit the floor, lodging itself under the radiator. She cursed, looking up to see the thing lumbering over to her.

There was only one way to settle this. With a pissed yell she sprang from the floor, and began hitting the living crap out of it. It stumbled back, roaring angrily at each punch and kick to its body. She knew if she let up for a second she was dead meat, so she rained blow after blow down on its fleshy body. A further kick to its face sent it reeling back towards the desk, and she took the momentary lapse to search for something to hit it with.

She spotted an umbrella in a stand in the corner. She dove for it, pulling it from the rack, and slamming the sharp metal point at its end straight into the things skull.

It was force enough to puncture its brain, causing instant hemorrhage. It flailed about wildly, and then slumped to the floor, an umbrella poking out of its head.

Rachel massaged her aching knuckles and sighed. Then she spent a few minutes retrieving the gun from where it had gotten lodged. Weapon retrieved she remembered the filing cabinets.

The first letter she pulled out had a large "S" emblazoned on it. But no other identifying words. But it was what was written on the paper that interested her.

Obtain battle data.

Lure the combatants into the area, and have the supervisor obtain actual battle data against the B.O.W.s.

She frowned. Could this have ANYTHING to do with the fact they'd ended up here? No way, right? But she was beginning to suspect something was up. First that weird locking mechanism at the warehouse, then the underground tunnel to here, and now Lance was sick. It was all too convenient.

---That virus is spread by blood infection, but Lance hadn't a scratch on him. So how did he get infected, and how can we stop it..?--

The rest of the papers were pretty much useless. None mentioned the location of an anti-virus, or even a pharmacy lab on this place. She took the ones that interested her, and walked out the door, which of course, had unlocked itself as soon as she'd killed that thing, whatever-it-was...

---Maybe if we find the last of those rectangles, they'll lead to something useful...-- she hoped as she walked off.

Wesker raised an eyebrow as he watched the girl fight. Shed lost her gun not 5 seconds into the fight with the "Bandersnatch", yet she hadn't given up. She'd started an all-out assault on the creature, ending with an umbrella to the head.

"Not bad little girl, you have more talent then you first showed...pity its not you I'm interested in.."

Fuzzy images of a room, of a needle, and someone's laughter. All these fuzzy images and more raced through Lance's mind as he struggled to fight with the virus. Something was trying to make itself known to him, but what?

--Who?-- he thought fuzzily. A brief image showed itself in his addled mind. Eyes hidden by dark glasses, pale skin, a flash of slicked back blonde hair...then nothing.

He heard a crash nearby and was quickly jerked out of his nightmare. Propping himself up on one arm he looked to where the noise had come from.

Leon had been poking through the glass doored cabinets when he'd accidentally knocked a container over with his hand. It crashed to the floor, and the out cold figure he'd dumped on the couch woke up with a start.

He looked over, and seen Lance giving him a "WTF" look. The guy looked more out of it then before, if that was possible.

"Don't mind me, just wrecking the place." Leon said jokingly, as he continued his search for anything that might be a clue to the infection the colonel was suffering from.

Lance opened his mouth to give the American a sarcastic response, but was interrupted instead by a coughing fit. It was over in less then a few seconds, but when he moved his hands away from his mouth, he noted dizzily that there was blood on them.

"Oh shit.." he muttered, sitting up quickly, though the movement made his head spin. He stared at his blood stained hands and felt about to be sick. What the hell was wrong with him??

Leon heard the officer swearing and looked over to ask what the matter was. And found he didn't need to. The other was sitting up, staring at his hands, which were covered in blood splatters.

Leon swore, Rachel had mentioned this as part of the symptoms, how quickly was this virus eating away at the guy?

He heard footsteps outside the door, and quickly aimed his gun at the doorway. It slowly inched open, and he prepped the weapon to fire. And lowered it a second later as Rach came in. The two stared at each other, and then sighed in relief.

"Leon, I found something useful.." she quickly told him about the statue and the rectangles.

Leon took this in, and realized it may be their only lead. Together they helped the unsteady Colonel to his feet and set off to continue their search together.

"We're not the only ones here, Rach." Leon said quietly, as they walked "Ada's here too."

Red started at him "Ada? But why..." she shook her head slightly. "what could she be after?"

Leon shrugged, he didn't know.

Red sighed, and then remembered something from that very morning.

"That reminds me, I seen someone else, maybe they're to do with this?"

"Seen who? And where?" Leon asked.

Red blinked "Outside the main RRA building. He looked kind of weird. He had blonde hair, and he wore these shades over his eyes. He was dressed all in black too…"

Leon stared at her. Only one person he'd ever heard of matched that description. The one he had heard Ada was working for, Albert Wesker. He'd seen some info on the guy, enough to know he was bad news.

Here Lance managed a moment of lucidity; he blinked and mumbled something that made both of them freeze mid-walk.

"-freaky glasses? 'think I mi'tve seen 'im.." he hiccupped "can't remember what for though...think I passed out..."

Leon and Rachel stared at each other, Lance must've seen Wesker, and if Wesker made himself known, Leon knew, then it usually meant trouble. Did Lance + Wesker equal "Virus injected into body"?