For all disclaimers: See previous Chapters.
Faith
Chapter Six
/January 4th 2001, northern Afghanistan/
Walker and his team were heading towards the site of the explosion at a steady quick-march, Leon Kennedy right beside them, shadowed by Delta's in case they needed backup in a hurry, but Walker still couldn't quite get his head around why on Earth Leon Kennedy would have arrived at the base so soon after the explosion. He didn't like that, not at all.
He didn't know that many of Umbrella's secrets himself, he wasn't fool enough to think that much trust existed between himself and Spencer while he was still nominally SOC field Commander and not working full-time for Umbrella, but... He did know that there were small-scale Umbrella research bases scattered around remote parts of the country, in secure areas provided by the Taleban as a result of Umbrella's providing them with certain...luxuries they had no other way of gaining. The fact that Al'Quaeda had put in a good word for Umbrella hadn't hurt, either.
Terrorists were gold mines for the trial and distribution of Umbrella's biological and chemical weapons, anyone who hadn't realised that simply wasn't smart enough to understand the facts. Fanatics like Al'Quaeda was made up of didn't care if they died themselves as long as they achieved their aim of killing as many people as possible before they could be found and stopped and, true to form, this also meant that they didn't care at all just what kind of weaponry they used to achieve this end.
Walker didn't care himself, he was well aware that the CIA had used a similar strategy when aiding armed resistance movements against Communist Governments or sympathisers during the Cold War. So as far as he was concerned, nobody in the US could tell he with real authority whether what he was doing was "Right" or "Wrong". All he was doing was making himself rich, which was the dream of all Americans in the end, wasn't it?
That was what made Kennedy so dangerous, though. He'd fought his way right through Racoon City as a rookie Cop on his first day after arriving when the Outbreak was already well underway. He'd fought past hordes of Zombies, Mutants and The "Mr. X" Tyrant that had been sent into Racoon to retrieve William Birkin's G-Virus sample. He'd defeated every trap and puzzle thrown at him and even somehow managed to get the better of Ada Wong, a professional Spy and Assassin for hire who remained one of the coldest fish Walker had ever met. That she was also easily one of the most effective Agents in her profession wasn't lost on him. On top of all of that, Leon Kennedy had gone on to not only escape the city but also find a way to destroy the G-Virus mutated Birkin before that monster could escape himself.
Yes, he'd had help from Claire Redfield, Chris Redfield's sister, who'd been dragging around after her Birkin's brat of a daughter, but Walker knew the type and had no doubt that Kennedy would have been first in and last out given any situation which involved risk. The former Cop was the kind of man who'd jump in front of a bus to save a child even if meant his own death-and that made him capable of anything if lives he regarded as innocent were at risk.
Leon Kennedy was a survivor, yes, but he was also a killer of the highest order, nobody incapable of cold-blooded Murder could have survived Racoon. A man like that was a man who you pissed off only if your own life didn't have much meaning to you.
"So why is a White House Agent along for the ride here, Kennedy? Are you supposed to make sure that we don't see anything we shouldn't?" asked Walker, trying to see if he could draw the younger man out and get him talking.
Kennedy just smiled at Walkers comment, a look Walker couldn't identify in his eyes. When he looked up and over directly at Walker, the older man couldn't meet his eyes. Kennedy had eyes which could cut, on top of which he had a thousand yard stare which would have made madmen look away.
"It's what you will see you should be worried about" Kennedy replied, softly. Behind them, Mark Klein and Paul Edwards shared a worried look...
Y
"This glass is shatterproof, the explosion smashed it to pieces and its still in the frame. Do you really think we can get through it despite that?" asked Anna, gently pushing against the glass with the fingers of both hands, clearly suspecting she'd slice her hands open on the shattered glass if she pushed too hard too close.
"We have to get out of here somehow and I think we have a better chance here than running through fire and hoping for the best. The electrical system is shot to Hell in here or I'd have tried the doors first, but we can't guarantee they won't short out and kill one of us then stay shut for good under the circumstances. If you have any ideas of your own, feel free to share" replied Xenia, scraping at the glass with a large, sharp shard of metal she'd recovered from the floor.
"I do. Duck" replied Matt, from behind them both, as they both suddenly realised he was running towards them...
Anna went left, Xenia right, flattening themselves against the wall as Matt charged the entrance door with a jagged edge of metal the size of a spades blade. Despite the short running distance he managed to reach an impressive speed, but at the last moment he snapped the metal shard behind his back and then threw it at the door, edge-first, as hard as he could, dropping to the floor and rolling over and over as he did to burn off his momentum as fast as he could.
The big metal shard slashed through the air for less than five seconds before it crashed, hard, into the already shattered glass door. Already almost destroyed, the shattered glass plates of the door couldn't withstand the massive impact and the glass exploded into the room beyond like a hail of destroyed mirrors. Oddly, though, there was little in the way of impact sound, as though something soft was cushioning the impact.
"Well, that works. Good work, Matt" said Anna, walking over to him and almost lifting him back to his feet one-handed as he took her hand and abruptly came to his feet.
"Don't speak too soon about this being a good idea, Anna. Not until you've seen this" replied Xenia, looking straight through the shattered door into the room beyond.
It was an office area of sorts, Xenia supposed, with cubicles separated by grey steel walls, a computer, desk and filing cabinet being in each cubicle. The roof was a light cream colour, relaxing to the eyes in the long-term presumably, with the remnants of fluorescent lights still illuminating the scene somewhat, illuminating a slim carpet of an earthy brown colour. That, though, was where any appearance of normality ended.
Twenty people had been in the room when whatever had happened had-and not one of them had left alive. She knew this for a fact because not one of them had left their seats, some of them leaning forwards as though asleep, some with heads thrown back with grotesque expressions of enquiry still on their faces, as though they hadn't understood what was going on. Some were even lying down on the ground, as though they'd just decided to lie down and take a nap.
Only one seemed odd, a young man who had seemingly bent forwards so suddenly that his face had smashed through his computers screen and gotten stuck there, blood still dripping down what was left of his face and off of his chin onto his computer and then onto his desk. Although "odd" was relative in a situation like this, she couldn't help but think.
After all, she didn't need to be a Medic to be well aware that none of the people were breathing. She didn't even need to take a second look to be sure that not one of them had died as a result of violent assault, that this had been done by something much worse.
"Gas, it has to be, nothing else could kill so many people so quickly without making them at least try to fight it. Are we safe even standing here?" asked Matt, standing at the very edge of the doorway.
"To do this I'd guess at heavy-dosage Knockout gas which literally put these people to sleep for good. If there was enough of it left to affect us at dosages that could do this, we'd be unconscious or dead already. We're safe, what worries me is who the Hell goes to this much trouble to prevent hostages being taken. These people were gassed, the Security guards fought to the death or committed Suicide. Is anyone else seeing a pattern here?" asked Xenia, pointedly.
"Just the kind where the only Plan is "No-one here gets out alive" I suspect. If everyone's dead, though, why aren't we finding bodies in the corridors? Did the people who attacked this place police the dead?" asked Anna.
"That we can worry about when were not soaking wet, half naked and unarmed in an unknown facility which is clearly hostile. Lets get in here" said Xenia, reaching through the shattered glass to find and release the Emergency bolt lock that shut when, clearly, a Lockdown was sounded. The door hissed open and she stepped inside.
"Alright, find your sizes and take what you need. Anything useful, take that to" said Xenia, heading straight for a middle-aged woman who, while evidently shorter than her own six foot, had a physique similar enough that she was sure the clothes would at least be a close fit.
"Hold on, these people are dead. We can't just-" began Matt, but Anna cut him off.
"Matt, get this through your head. These people are dead and gone, they no longer own possessions, care about their dignity nor about any secrets they may have had. They are going to rot away down here because nobody cares and we can't carry them out ourselves, if they aren't incinerated when whatever was supposed to destroy this place finally clears whatever malfunction it's suffered and finishes the job. If you have a problem wearing the clothes of the dead you should stop wearing clothes, anyway, or don't you know how many animals die each week just so that we can wear comfortable shoes, let alone the rest of it? Get over yourself, Matt" Anna snapped, before following Xenia's lead.
"It's not right..." Matt muttered, before forcing himself to move forwards and start taking the clothes off of a man who looked the right size. He felt revolted as he did so, but he knew he had no choice.
Xenia ended up with a sky-blue tight shirt, black trousers and a pair of dark-brown heavy shoes which looked designed to inflict pain and cause loud noises. Anna found a white t-shirt and dark-blue jeans, added to a grey pair of trainers. Xenia and Matt made a point of not staring at the t-shirt, which read "I'm laughing because they haven't found the bodies yet" in large bold print, just in case. Matt found himself a pair of black shoes with steel toe caps, but ended up dressed like an Undertaker because the black suit and white shirt of the man who had evidently been the office manager was the only well-fitting set of clothes he could find.
Just to make a point, he didn't include the black tie as part of his outfit. But he actually found himself blushing when he noticed both Xenia and Anna taking care to get a good look.
"Isn't that illegal, Xenia? A man who looks just as tasty dressed up as undressed?" asked Anna.
"Oh, there are always exceptions to the rule, niet?" replied Xenia, well aware Matt was refusing to meet the eyes of either of them. She also noticed that his blush was slowly but surely turning his face crimson-was the boy really that naïve? No, she suspected not. He struck her as a man uncomfortable with compliments from other women when he was committed to one in particular. He was embarrassed, not flattered. A shame, in her opinion. The fun they could have had together...
A search for weapons didn't turn up much. Xenia found a Swiss Army knife with razor-sharp blades while Matt discovered hairspray and a lighter, which he backed up with a silver letter-opener forged in the shape of a short-sword. Anna took a more direct approach, shattered one of the few wooden chairs in the room and tore loose two legs to use as Nunchunkas. Xenia had seen Anna fight, she didn't need to imagine the kind of devastation the woman could do even with only a pair of wooden sticks in her hands if she had to.
"Right then, where do we go next..." Anna began, but her voice trailed off as a humming noise that had been barely audible before suddenly increased in volume. Anna's long hair immediately started to shift as though it was being pushed and pulled around by drafts of wind-and, a second later, she realised that was exactly what was happening.
"The Air Conditioning is back up to speed. Someone must be in the control room for this place playing around" said Xenia, softly, before a dull thump sounded from the direction of the corridor.
"Was that the electronic locks all releasing at once, do you think?" asked Anna, just as quietly. Xenia just nodded as Matt glanced around at the room, clearly wondering what was going to happen next.
"I just hope that it's a good thing" Anna added, a second before a sound echoed from somewhere nearby, the kind of sound that made grown men weep. The awful screech of tearing metal and human agony combined, before a sickening clang combined with a crunch of what could only be snapping bone and pulverised flesh followed a second later.
"It's not" said Matt, pointedly. "Unless you consider horrific death as a good way to go if I'm any judge" he added, staring straight at the door, hairspray and lighter in hand and ready as he faced the doorway head on.
"Might I just say thank you for that contribution, Matt? More to the point, this gets worse" replied Xenia, gesturing him and Anna over to where she was seated by a computer. In answer to their questioning looks, she just pointed at the screen. "This one's still working" she added...
Matt and Anna saw the screensaver symbol at the same time, but Matt blinked where Anna's eyes narrowed sharply. Red and white, twelve-sided, flat, spinning around and around on a computer screen? It was the symbol of Umbrella Corporation, they all knew it.
"What the Hell-?!" Matt began, but the expression on Xenia's face stopped him from saying anything else. Then Anna deactivated the screensaver and he realised why.
WARNINGSystem interruptWARNING
CORE BREACH DETECTED. Safety systems protocols COMPROMISED, estimate 40 percent efficiency. Time to total systems failure/Core destruction:
30:09:07
All staff EVACUATE. Self-Destruct INITIATED.
PATRIARCH program running.
"I knew we hadn't had enough fun yet... This says there's a nuclear reactor hidden under this facility, do you realise that? Even if we get outside in less than half an hour we'd need a jet to get far enough away in time when it goes up" said Anna, with a sigh of something between frustration and worry.
"Patriarch...? Isn't that the new AI program designed to manage data flow and maintain electronic records?" asked Xenia, aloud.
"Yes, which makes me think that whatever was being worked on here, Umbrella Corporation-if that's who built and ran this place-didn't care about the people but does care about the data. Bet you that's why all of the people in this room died so quickly" replied Anna.
"I think I'm going to throw up..." muttered Matt, just loud enough for the others to hear him. They both turned and glared at him, but at least he'd managed to stop them from discussing Doomsday situations for the moment while they were in the middle of the nightmare...
Y
After several reroutes, a work-around applied to the circuits controlling the door and a little luck added to a lot of skill, Ada Wong had finally managed to get the control room door open. Now what she had to do was twofold and simple: she had to finish her teams data-grab mission before the Patriarch program finished downloading all of the data from the complex computers and went on to complete the job by blowing every system in the complex. Also, she had to stop a nuclear reactor from blowing up when its safeties finally failed.
Thinking that, she started to run. She didn't have any time to waste.
/End of Part Six. All Reviews welcomed/.