She woke to pain, stabbing through the numbness. The mansion and the horrors of conjured memories departed into the distant past. While her eyes opened, the black orbs shifted from side to side as she refocused. Muffled sounds, voices perhaps, surrounded her, but beneath the painful pounding of her heart they seemed distant and removed. She winced, teeth bared and body twisting as needle knife force moved through her chest.

And was yanked out.

"-glad I brought-...-adrenaline shot-"

"Just be-...-still human-...-brought her out-"

"S-stop talking so much," Jill muttered out, turning over and crawling to her hands and knees. The cold metal floor of the kitchen stinging through her hands as sensation returned and the world burst into colors, sights, sounds…

And scents.

Something acrid, metallic, and familiar hung in the air. She sniffed again, nostrils expanding into dark triangles at the tip of her snout as memory tried to place it. When she'd last encountered this her senses had been muted and dull by comparison. The memories were more focused on what she'd been doing, the panic and fear in that cramped ship full of infected then on the specific details she could discern now. But the mere fact that all of that was rushing back again, burying the bizarre recollections of the Arklay Mountains was already bad enough.

"What happened?"

"This… this dodl went and shot you! We almost had them before-"

"You were tossed through a banquet table and had at least a 100 kilos of SBOW about to unscrew your head Agent," a blur of white and gray said, stabbing an injector into the side of her neck as she pushed the rest of the pack towards the center of the table. "Luckily I still have three more inhibitors, though how good they'll do against this is a coin toss."

"And whose fault is that! You're the one that sold it to them!"

Jill followed the accusing finger towards the woman from before, her eyes adjusting enough at last to clearly tell who it was. And suddenly rising, feet unsteady but tail providing support as it slapped against the shelves. Her body tensed, hood pulling tight and lower towards her eyes as the tooth bared snarl almost escaped her throat in place of words. "Jessica."

"Jill. You're looking… different now."

"No thanks to you," Jill said, a step forward, hand unable to choose between a fist or outstretched claws, though violence was the intent regardless. "Because of you I ended up like this!"

Jessica's face was shocked for a moment, before she dropped the spent injector and, seemingly without fear for how Jill loomed over her, came to stand right in front of her, meeting her glare with her own. "Listen Valentine, there's plenty of things I've done for you to be mad about. For monsters you've met and those you haven't, but don't blame me for the insanity that Excella got up to when she let Albert Wesker of all men lead her around like an insipid fangirl."

"You're the one that chose to work for her."

The other three BSAA agents shared an awkward look between them as they traded the small box of viral inhibitors. Taking one out at a time and injecting them as Jessica had when she'd been untied and pulled them from where she'd had the cache hidden in her coat.

"I worked for a paycheck, a rather large one to be fair. Not because I had a crush on some gene-engineered indoctrinated psychopath with delusions of grandeur."

"Then why are you working for Grady," Jill growled out, so close she could smell the slight floral scent of whatever Jessica had put in her hair that morning.

"I'm not."

"It seems like you do… or did," Anita said, wincing at the string of the injector as it shot the stabilizing antiviral drug into her system.

"No Ms… Koprowska," Jessica said, turning to read the name tag on her jacket. "We both worked for Caelen Reynolds, the owner of Leviathan."

"The petro company?" Cascos asked as he stood. "Why would they be involved in BOWs and bioweapons?"

"Because Mr. Reynolds is dying and desperate men make bad decisions."

"You'll have to explain that to me."

"Does this have something to do with the funding and bribes he's been giving to the BSAA?"

Jessica's lips curved into a slight smile before she said, "Even like this you still manage to ferret out information Valentine. I'd be curious how much you know already and how you learned, but we're on a time table so it's best to cut to the chase."

"But wait, you cured us?"

"Cured… wait, what DID I smell?" Jill looked around, gauging their expressions. Hers might be almost unreadable, but the worry and way glances at each other and even themselves told enough. "What happened?"

"One of the things Mr. Reynolds purchased when he started buying up leftovers from Tricell were samples of the T-Abyss they had in storage. I suspect the plan , if you want to call it that, was to infect us, have us mutate and infect or kill anyone else on board and hope that your presence would be rationalized as the source of it once the BSAA cleaned up the mess."

"Well that won't happen now."

Jill turned to look at the shorter man, the thin mustache damp from moisture from his noise and his eyes wide and glancing about the room. Hoping for some confirmation… and finding none.

"Armando… inhibitors only slow a Progenitor Virus," Joanna said, putting away the medical kit she'd pulled that adrenaline shot from earlier. "We've received a base level t-vaccine, but the T-Abyss was a different variant and…"

"It was much more aggressive than others. You've got three… maybe four hours. More if you take off your winter gear."

They looked at Jill, doomed expressions spread around the room as the proclamation of their ensuing deaths sunk into them. Or so it seemed.

"Plenty of time then," Jessica said, slipping off her jacket as she moved towards the door. Pausing at the door to look back at the quartet of infected, current and past, standing behind her. "Well, I'm not going to be able to get the vaccine on my own."

"So, he thought Umbrella had a cure for cancer?"

"Among other things. Honestly, you should've heard the rumors back in the day. You'd think these rich power brokers and officials would be immune to that but instead they bought into everything. Reynolds was convinced that he could buy a way out of death."

"Well did they?" Armando asked, shivering as he checked the equipment in the helicopter. Without their jackets the bitter cold was quickly embracing them as they worked, painful now but likely to be followed by more worrying numbness if allowed to continue. And still preferable to what a warmer environment would do to them faster at this point.

Even still he was pulling out a low temperature drysuit and slipping it on as they talked. Jessica doing the same on the same bench beside him.

She paused in pulling it up her legs to add to what had just been said. "Jill could tell you that. Umbrella had plenty of medicines, but instead of trying to save the world when they found the Progenitor Viruses they had… other plans."

"A new world order of eugenically perfected masters."

Joanna and Anita shared a look from the cockpit of the helicopter. "That sounds like… well…"

"It is. Probably the only reason Umbrella didn't steal from the brain trust in Operation Paperclip was because most of those Germans weren't competent enough. In any event, Umbrella didn't bother trying to find a way to make anyone live forever, not that Reynolds would believe you. He was desperate."

"What did he do?"

"He begged, that's what he did. He must have offered Excella close to half his fortune only for her to turn him down. By that point she'd already been taken in by Wesker's mad dream and anyone with sense," Jessica said, motioning towards herself, "was on the way out. But when Tricell went down and Reynolds found me through the contacts he'd secured in the BSAA I decided I'd take the easy money she'd turned down. I just didn't know he'd found another supplier before me."

The engines spun up, the helicopter slowly lifting off from the deck of the ship as they turned towards the north. Following the oil tanker back to its home. One of many platforms built around the arctic circle, this one notable for the lack of workers by comparison.

"So all this stuff they have, he bought it for them?"

"He's not a scientist, just a rich man dying slowly. Anything Grady said was needed he'd sign off on, same for those mercenaries he had doing security work out East. Before they went a little wild with BOWs and got spotted by NATO. Of course Russia bungled taking them down and they choose to… electively change their biology to continue working and avoid getting hung at the Hague."

"Seems a little extreme," Joanna said. "Turning into a BOW- I mean a SBOW, just to avoid jail."

"Execution, not jail. And it's probably the best identity change you could ask for. No dental records to match, same for fingerprints, even DNA is all messed up," Jill said, counting on her fingers and grimacing as she ran out on one hand and had to move to the other. "And I only sound the same because I think I should."

"Oh, yes, try not to get stressed out. The viruses have a mental component and might react badly to heightened emotions."

No one said anything for a moment, shared glances between shivering and cold humans. While from time to time they looked at Jill's form on one side of the helicopter, slightly hunched down and her tail pressed all the way to the other side of the cramped vehicle. A portent of doom… or the best they might be able to hope for.

"That still doesn't explain the fish."

"The fish?"

"Yes, the mutated fish. We came out here for that," Jill said, rocking to the side as the wind picked up and the climbed slightly in elevation. "I found the source of that, or something on Heimfest. But the Soviets had secured it underground decades ago."

"Right… the Draugs was what the locals called it. Sometimes miners and oil men would get sick and die… but not all the way. They didn't know why, only that it only seemed to happen during the winter."

"It reacts to ultraviolet light."

"Violently. But more importantly, it's another one that sometimes achieves cooperative synthesis in a host body. Probably not without side effects, but enough that it was pretty notable when one of his drillers got sprayed with hydrocarbon sludge and suddenly had the lungs of a man twenty years younger."

"Impressive."

"I suppose. He got vivisected so I doubt he got to enjoy them for long. I found out about this later when they started really digging for experts and resources, anything on what the Soviets found or what Tricell might know about retroviral engineering."

"I see it, we're coming up on the ship now," Anita said from the front of the helicopter.

"So he wasn't lying," Jill said, lightly shaking her head as she leaned back.

"Come again?"

"It's not important… so it only helps a small percentage of people, and this man hoped he could find a way to make it work for him?"

Jessica nodded as she continued. "Problem is I suppose his safety standards were lax and the stuff he was pumping up to get at this weird bacteria was leaking it all over the water. Nobody noticed while the sun was out, but now that the season changed it's a different story."

"The whole arctic is gradually getting infected," Armando said, shouting over the engine as they swung low and slow over the waters. "Even if it will burn away in a couple months we still need to shut off the source."

"It's just a few klicks more. Reynolds put his headquarters on that platform and angled the pipes down not to get oil but this tainted crude teaming with infectious bacteria. Purer and easier to get to than whatever they found in the mines of Heimfest. I think the plan was to blame the fish on the old soviet base, but I understand you tore through it while they were still setting things up."

Jill nodded as she looked past the pilots towards the oil tanker coming up. Asking, "And the labs were built on the oil tanker?"

"Plenty of space since it never carries anything else. The vaccine sample I had should still be on board. We just need to get it."

"And then we just have to make sure this stops here and now," Jill thought, her teeth bared as she looked down from the helicopter to the frothing waters a scant few meters below. Looking back towards the impromptu team of rookies and former ally she still wasn't sure she didn't want to throw out of the helicopter right then and there. "No, I don't have time for some personal vendetta. They've got only a few hours at best and we'll never get back to the coast in time."

"You secure that landing pad on the oil platform for us when we arrive, if what Jessica said was true," Jill said with a very pointed look that even her shark-like face communicated clearly, "it shouldn't be too hard to do so."

"You still want us to plant explosives when we get there? It's going to be a mess."

"Better it all burn then keep leaking this stuff into the water."

"What about Grady? Will you be able to handle him?"

Jill attempted a smile, all teeth though it was. Looking from Agent Cascos to Jessica as she did. "What about him? I think we're prepared for their tricks now."

And with that she fell back into the water, swimming towards the side of the ship and rapidly beginning her ascent up the metal side ladder. Followed by Cascos and Jessica, who climbed as quickly as they could from the almost freezing seawater around them. While the helicopter slipped away, rising slowly and speeding up to beat the ship to its destination.

The ship was oddly silent as they approached the door leading down. What would normally have been a mere maintenance entrance had been converted into a long set of stairways that led all the way to the bottom of the ship, where the research labs Jessica had seen earlier yet remained.

"Hopefully they didn't change the passcode yet, though I doubt they'd even think it necessary." Armando stood behind her, looking in every direction while the storm brewing above them continued to grow. Slowly rocking the ship with greater ferocity. The door opened with a soft click and they slipped inside. Jill quickly moved to the front while Armando remained at the rear.

"There doesn't seem to be much security."

"There really isn't," she said to Jill. "The few researchers that weren't picked up or in prison from Tricell made up most of them and the rest were basically rent-a-cops paid not to ask questions. The ship basically ran on a skeleton crew since they picked up most of the equipment at old ports along the Barents Sea."

"Strange that they converted an oil tanker into a mobile research base."

"I thought the same thing, till I saw this."

Jessica cautiously opened the door at the bottom of the stairwell, a low red light illuminating the area before she opened it up. Strangely stuffy heated air flowed out as she shined a flashlight ahead of them. Jill's eyes adjusted quickly, seeing massive tanks welded together into the area where the crude oil was normally stored. Tubes ran from them towards a white and plastic construction that spread out across the massive open area before them.

Viscous black tar dripped from valves and fell to the bottom of the ship. Looking down, Armando shined his flashlight, a muffled cry of alarm coming out at what he saw.

"Gottesmutter!"

Jill peered over the side as well, a scent of the odor rising up to meet her. Rancid flesh and blood, while below she saw the corpses of rats and insects burst apart, writhing in mat of moving meat at the very bottom of the ship where the bacteria rich sludge had leaked down.

"Thank god it doesn't seem to be airborne. I think they were supposed to sweep down there with an ultraviolet sanitizing device."

"I see what you mean by leaking pipes."

"Trust a modern oil baron to cause an environmental disaster."

Jill decided not to comment on that, instead lightly grabbing Armando by the shoulder and guiding him into the lab. The door ahead had a palm reader, but Jessica found it just as willing to respond to her as the code above had been. Opening into the cooler, sterile environment of the lab. White plastic sheets rising up and holding back the metallic gloom while harsh lights beat down upon rows of equipment. Microscopes and test tubes fill tables and shelves, but more exotic and expensive devices towards the center.

Though now they were stained with blood, the bodies of unknown researchers, still clad in cleanroom outfits strewn about the floor where they'd been torn apart.

"What the hell… when did they do this?"

"It wasn't like this when you were here?"

"No! I- I mean I spent most of my time on the oil platform, being asked by Reynolds what else there was that Tricell might have had buried somewhere. But last time I was down here to verify the viruses and vaccines they'd acquired they were still alive. This morning!"

Armando placed hand near one of their necks, frowning at what he felt. "Still a little warm and not that stiff-scheiße!"

They rose up, Armando kicking back and tripping over a rolling chair as it happened. The torn gashes in their chests peeled open, writing masses of pinkish worms reaching out as the flesh tried and failed to knit back together. Armando pulled out his sidearm and fired three rounds, two in the chest and the last straight through the translucent plastic. Blood exploded from the back while the face plate dripped with red ichor and the zombie fell to the side.

Though the others began to move as well, each rising in the same stiff and awkward motion.

Jill's jaw tightened, the armored hood slipping past her eyes as she charged forward, grabbing one by the arm and swinging it down. Her grip tightened, feeling the bone twist and then break as she threw the body into its nearest neighbor. With her tail she lashed out, knocking the legs out from another and then slamming her feet claws through the throat and neck, very nearly decapitating them in one swift motion.

Yet the first had already begun to rise again, the body moving forward, the mass of tendrils reaching out for new, warm and living meat to add to its own mass or to convert into more of itself.

She'd dealt with this type before, but mostly by running. But she was done running.

Suddenly a deep purple glow illuminated the walking corpse, the tendrils smoking and pulling away as it stumbled back. Unworking lungs rasping out moans that were almost painful to hear.

"Jill! You gut them, I'll fry them."

She didn't bother to turn to Jessica, only running forward to tear open the chest and clean room suit of another, tossing it to the floor where the UV light could be directed at the body as it tried to stand again. By her side Armando ran out of ammunition and grabbed of all things a mop out of a nearby bucket. Tripping one zombie as it tried to stand again and then pinning it down so it could be hit with the light as well.

It only took a little while, but soon the mass of walking corpses were down, bodies too damaged for the moment to rise again. Leaving the three of them panting as the adrenaline slowed and the lab returned to the eerie silence it had started with. Only now with the groan of the ship more audible and intermixed with the dripping of blood from the corpses arrayed on the floor.

"Did they have an outbreak?" Armando asked, whipping his brow for the third time as stepped over one of the bodies.

"I'm… I'm not sure." Jessica moved over to one of the more expensive devices, the metal floor creaking even more as she did. Looking into the binocular display she moved a rolling mouse back and forth.

"I wasn't aware you practiced biochem too. Trying to find new careers after the BSAA didn't work out."

"Had to do something before I realized how crazy my boss had gotten I-wait, this can't be right." Jessica stepped back, turning to a nearby laptop and wiping the blood from the screen. Bringing up the most recent tests. Her eyes widening at whatever she read. "They figured it out? According to this they-aaAAH!"

Something grabbed her by the back of her head and slammed it down into the laptop. A cry of pain and stream of blood from her face as she fell backwards onto the floor. Armando lifted his gun towards the indistinct figure that had snuck up behind them, only for a knife to go flying from its hands and stabbing straight through his right as he tried to aim. He stepped backwards, gasping in pain and shock as Jill watched the half-visible assassin run towards her. The first strike of claws almost ripped out her throat again, but she moved back, avoiding tripping over the bodies thanks to her tail. The next went low, and somehow she knew it even as she kept looking forward. Grabbing the limb before it could stab into her stomach.

Two more came towards her head but she let the hood slip down and rammed her own face into whatever was in front of her, earning high pitched hiss and feeling it step back.

"Damn it… you can see me somehow can't you?" she said, the indistinct humanoid figure coming into detail as Jill saw without eyes, saw without sight.

"Maybe," Jill said, keeping the hood down, her voice a little deeper and harsher when it came out. "How about you come closer and find out."

"Huh. Well no use in trying the stealth approach," she said, stepping back, becoming more indistinct as she did. Jill risked looking again, and beheld her opponent fully for the first time. Four arms, each covered in a chitinous exoskeleton moved from side to side, the three fingered talons tapping upon one another as four insectile eyes gazed back at her. Short, sharply pointed antennas shifted down as another strangely animalistic hiss came from her throat. Her chest resembled a woman's in part, but the contours had become sharper and armored over in chiton, narrowed down and covered in a mauve-gray color, slight splotches of an almost black green about her sides and flowing down her back. A short tail came out from her backside, a pincer-like extension snapping angrily as she moved about one of the tables, keeping her distance from Jill as she looked at her with hatred so clear that even with their vastly dissimilar features and mutations it was readily apparent.

"Are you just going to look at me, or do you have a plan?"

"Just trying to decide how Eric would have liked you to go. Stuffed and mounted or maybe I should try a fish filet."

"I think your eyes are bigger than your mouth."

"Or maybe not," Jill thought, those mandibles stretching scarily wide as the hiss turned into a high pitched shriek that had Armando covering his head with his good hand as Jessica fell to the floor once more.

"You fucking killed him. We were going to get out of this together, take all the money this job paid and get set up stateside with new identities."

Jill cocked her head to one side as she stepped closer and the other SBOW stepped back, keeping the distance about the same. "Really? Looking like that?"

"Fuck you! With the money we have saved away it would have been a regular American dream. White picket fence and a house in the country… hell, maybe I would have squeezed out two and a half kids or maggots or however the hell it works now."

"Yeah, one big happy family of war criminals and bioterrorists."

She leaped forward, her wings coming out and buzzing loudly as she soared towards Jill, voice shrill hiss screamed at the top of her lungs. Legs first, then arms, and finally the pincer tail all trying to find purchase. Jill rolled back, over bodies as glass and lap equipment fell around them. The mandibles snapped towards her face, instinct told her to bite back too.

But once again she fought it down. Instead letting the hood slip down, and none too soon, as a spray of acid came from the other SBOW's throat. She dodged most of it, but some would have gone into her eyes otherwise. They rolled across the floor, grappling like wild beasts more than trained soldiers, the extra limbs of one struggling against the greater strength of the other. The armored exoskeleton kept her claws from finding many places to pierce and her limbs moved with uncanny precision and speed.

"Damn it. I need a way to get her off me and slow her-wait." Jill's head was slammed against a pipe, but that barely hurt. Instead she heard the movement of something slow and loud flowing through it. Letting the claws reach down and grip at her throat she instead reached up, grabbing onto a valve just above them.

"Going to rip you open… gonna taste your fucking blood and-aaAAAH WHAT THE-"

She yanked down with all her strength, the metal buckling and snapping. A spray of black sludge coating the mutated woman on top of her. Jill's legs wrapped around her opponents as she grabbed onto one pair of arms. The other tried to stop the spray, but failed. When she started to feel the burning, stinging pain of the bacteria eating at her flesh and gills Jill let go, rolling to the side. Her hood pulled back as she saw Jessica standing over on one side.

"Here catch," she called out, her voice distorted from the broken noise, as she tossed one of the ultraviolet flashlights to Jill. She caught it and turned it on, shining it on the SBOW. Who began to writhe about in smoke and flames as the black sludge which had been trying to take over her body ignited. She screamed out, dropping and rolling, wings on fire and coming up to stand slowly, supporting her weight on one of the tables.

Only for Armando to unload half his clip into her body before she fell at last, twitching on the ground.

"Sorry it took so long," he said, panting from the pain as he stepped over, knife still impaled through his hand, "I've never reloaded a gun one handed before.'

"No problem Agent Cascos," Jill said. "Thanks for the… assist?"

His right hand looked strange, the veins bulging out, flesh no longer pink and tanned but turning an off-gray color as one could see the muscles and tendons flex and pull beneath his skin.

"Shit," Jessica said, reaching up and feeling her nose. The sensitive cartilage had rapidly rebuilt and expanded, pushing her nostrils out and lower as she snorted and coughed, bits of blood and other fluids leaking from her mouth. "It's too… too hot in here."

She struggled to pull her drysuit down, before simply cutting into it, peeling parts off to leave her arms uncovered. By the looks of it she was about to take even more off before Jill walked over and grabbed her by the shoulders.

"Jessica… you need to focus. We just need to find the vaccine and then we can dose you both and get out of here."

The panic fled her eyes after a moment and she nodded, moving back and running over to a refrigerated cabinet in one corner. Cursing as she found it locked, before Jill came over and with a bit of extra strength (that at least for the moment only she had) snapped the handle off and the door opened.

Revealing several very empty shelves.'

"Where… where is it?!"

"Where is what?"

"The vaccine!"