Author's Note: I wanted to find a beta reader before I posted an update but that hasn't happened yet so if anyone is interested, message me ASAP. Anyways, on with the story. You will see a new (old) character in this chapter. I don't know if it's predictable or anything. I've been trying to make the dialogues as realistic as possible so sorry if it lacks any descriptive details.

Thanks for sticking with me this far. Hope you like this chapter and if you do, please leave me a review, I'd love to know what you liked or didn't like. Any kind of critique is welcome since it's always constructive. :]

Chapter Three: Cryostasis

"There's absolutely nothing here.", Jill said in a frustrated voice. They had been looking for about an hour and all they found were empty rooms with no signs of life ever being there. It was like everything had been wiped out.

"Don't you find that suspicious?", Chris asked skeptically. "I mean, it all looks too empty. Like they wanted to leave nothing behind."

"You think it was set up?"

"Possibly.", Chris said.

"Let's keep looking.", Jill said as they started going through the building. There was a hallway that was quite dark but as they started walking further in it, there was some light near the end. "Looks like it leads outside.", Jill said.

Elise and Ian were following shortly behind them. "Mr. Redfield, don't you think we should report to headquarters?"

"Drop the Mr., Girard. We're all equals here.", Chris said as he kept walking, gun in hand. "Not just yet. We haven't found anything."

Just then a loud bang came from the end of the hallway. Everyone stopped at their tracks. "What was that?", Jill asked cautiously.

"Looks like we're not alone.", Chris said as he eyed his teammates. He nodded at them and they all assumed fighting positions, their guns at eye lever. "Follow me.", Chris whispered.

They started walking further until they finally reached the place where the light was coming from. It was a set of padded doors, still closed but had a large linear hole right in the middle as if someone had cut through it with a chainsaw. The light was creeping in through the hole but it was too narrow to be able to look inside.

"What the hell?", Chris said under his breath. "Maybe it leads outside?"

"Why would someone go through the trouble to cut through these doors if they only meant to go outside? The backdoor is not far from here.", Jill pointed to the back towards the way they had come from.

Chris tried to examine the door. He traced his fingers over it trying to determine what material it was made from. He tried to push it but it was as sturdy as a stone wall. "There's no way anyone could fit through here."

"You think we can bring it down?", Jill asked.

"Only if we used explosives.", he said as he kept looking at the door trying to think of other alternatives.

"Can you do that?", Miles asked.

"Yeah, but I need permission from headquarters."

"Go ahead then.", Jill said.

Chris nodded. He pressed a button on his headset. "Redfield to headquarters. Do you copy?"

A muffled voice came from the other end. "We copy, Redfield."

"Permission to use explosives."

There was a short delay from the line but the voice came back quickly. "Permission granted, use it wisely. Over."

"Thanks. Redfield over and out.", he said as he clicked the button again. He turned to his team. "We got permission. Prepare the explosives.", he said to Miles and Girard.

"You sure about this, Chris?", Jill asked.

"We don't have any other options and this looks suspicious.", he said pointing to the door. "We can't leave without investigating."

Jill nodded. She walked closer to him just in case the other two would hear her. She leaned in and whispered. "I have a bad feeling about this."

"So do I."

"This place is creepy.", Claire said as she stood in the corridor with Leon. The place was too bright compared to the rest of the building and there was a faint smell of antiseptic still in the air.

"Hope we don't come across any dead bodies.", Leon said. If they did, things would get messy. Claire looked at him with unease. "Don't worry.", he reassured her as soon as she saw the look on her face even though he couldn't be sure himself. He started walking slowly and she followed coming to stand beside him.

The first door was wide open. They took a look inside without going in. It was a small white hospital room, with a bed right in the middle. The sheets were white and seemed almost new. There was a table beside the bed. There were machines against the walls with wires everywhere and a small chair to the right probably intended for visitors. Just a normal hospital room.

They looked at two other rooms that seemed almost identical. On their way to the fourth room, they noticed the door was closed compared to the other ones. Claire turned the knob but the door wouldn't budge. "It's locked.", she said turning to Leon.

"Do you have a hair pin?", he asked Claire. She nodded and proceeded to take one out of her hair. She gave it to Leon as he kneeled in front of the door and he started fumbling with the lock.

Claire looked around ready to cover Leon just in case anything happened. About a minute later a faint clicking sound was heard.

"It's open.", Leon said to Claire. She came and stood right behind him, their bodies almost touching as he slowly opened the door. He raised his gun and pointed it at nothing in particular just in case.

This room was different. It was dark and dirty. There was a musty smell in the air. The bed was messed and the sheets had tiny spots of a reddish substance on it. "Blood?", Claire whispered evidently shocked.

Leon's muscles tensed and he gripped the gun tightly. He pointed it around but there was no one there. He took small steps towards the bed and examined the sheets. The stains were old and stale. But the metallic smell of blood could not be missed. "Definitely blood.", he said as he looked to Claire. She was pointing with eyes wide to the bed. Leon looked down and noticed a small pool of blood coming from under the bed. He gulped and staggered back. He exchanged glances with Claire. Her gun was already pointing at the bed. Leon slowly kneeled down and tried to look under the bed. Tentatively, he grabbed the sheet of the bed and lifted it so he could look. Much to his surprise there was nothing underneath except for the large pool of blood. No bodies whatsoever.

"Leon?", Claire asked still tense.

"There's nothing here."

"What?"

"Just…", he said as he looked one last time at the blood. "A lot of blood."

"Someone died in here?"

"Definitely. It's too much blood.", he said as he stood up.

"Why is it under the bed?", Claire asked. It was rhetorical question. None of them could know why. But the situation just got more complicated.

"We need to report this.", Leon said. Claire nodded. Leon pressed the button on his headset but it wasn't working. He pressed it a few more times but there was still no response. "That's weird.", he said. "Try yours."

Claire tried with hers but she had no luck. "Mine's not working, either."

Just then a loud sound like an explosion was heard from somewhere inside the building. Claire and Leon eyed each other and communicated with their eyes. They went out of the room and started walking through the corridor with small steps, ready for anything at all.

Jill, Chris and the other two members shielded themselves from the explosion. As soon as the smoke cleared they looked to the now ruined door with a large whole right in the middle. It allowed more light to creep through and the hallway was immediately more illuminated.

Chris's body was hovering over Jill's in a protective manner. He was a lot bulkier than her. "You okay?", he said as he stood to his feet.

"Yeah, I'm fine.", she dusted herself off. "But there goes our cover. If anyone is here, they know we're here, too."

"Let's waste no time then.", he said as he motioned the other two to follow him. They slowly entered the large room. They were standing on a round platform. Their boots made clicking sounds as they walked on the steel floors.

"Oh, God…", Jill mouthed as she looked all around.

It was a large facility with what seemed like thousands of capsules on every wall. They towered so far up to the ceiling that there seemed to be no end to it. Jill knew what this place was the moment she saw it. She had been in one of those capsules herself before she was extracted and had become a lab rat.

"This is just like…", Chris said without finishing his sentence.

"Yeah.", Jill only nodded.

The two other members stared at Chris and Jill with confusion painted all over their faces.

"What is this place?", Grimes asked.

"It's a cryostasis lab.", Chris explained. "This is where the test subjects are kept after they've had the virus injected in their bodies. They cultivate people."

"No.", Jill interrupted him. "They cultivate monsters.", she said with detest showing in her voice. "They wait for the virus to adapt to the body and extract the subjects to test if it accepts the virus."

"What happens if it doesn't?", Girard asked.

"They are disposed of."

"Disposed of? Like garbage?"

Jill nodded. "More or less."

There was a large panel in the middle of the room with a lot of displays attached to it. They both walked to it and examined it.

"Chris, you think we can access the security system from here?", Jill turned to Chris.

"Maybe but we'd have to break through their firewall."

"Sir, I have a computer programming degree.", Miles said. "Maybe I can do something."

"Go ahead, Miles.", Chris said as he made room for Miles to go to the panel. He started pressing a few buttons here and there and analyzing what he saw on the screen.

Jill looked around the lab and wondered what would have happened to her if her body hadn't had remnants of the Nemesis virus that had infected her in Racoon city. She would have been another one of these test subjects. Wesker only kept her alive because of the antibodies in her body that he used to perfect the Uroboros virus. She felt sickened by the fact that she had somehow contributed even though not willingly, in the creation of such a devastating virus.

Chris put a hand on her shoulder. "You okay, Jill?"

Jill brushed her thoughts away. "Yeah, I'm fine."

"I would have come for you either way.", Chris whispered to her as if he had read her mind and knew what she was thinking.

She briefly smiled but was cut of by a banging sound coming from inside the room. It sounded like the one they heard before they blew the door up. "Someone's here.", Jill said going for her gun.

Bang, bang, bang. The sound repeated.

Jill looked at Chris confused. Then as soon as she realized where the sound was coming from her eyes grew wide. "It's coming from one of the capsules!"

Miles had stopped pressing buttons but he hadn't moved from his position. Girard was standing close to him.

"That's not possible; they're supposed to be in cryostasis.", Chris noted.

Jill was walking around following the platforms circular shape. She examined each capsule carefully.

"What are y-", Chris tried to speak but Jill interrupted him by pressing a finger on his lips to keep him from talking. Chris silently followed her as they searched for the capsule. The sound was becoming clearer and clearer until it was finally unmistakably right beside them.

"It's coming from that one over there!", Jill said pointing at one of the capsules. It looked like all the other ones, nothing abnormal about them.

"How are we supposed to get there?", Chris said as he looked at the capsule. It was about 20 feet above them. Impossible to reach.

"Can you make out the capsule's serial number?", Jill said to Chris.

Chris took a step back and tried to focus on the small letters that were engraved at the bottom of the capsule. "I think so.", he said.

"Miles, enter the number on the computer!", Jill yelled to Miles who was ready to type.

"3A…", Chris starting reading the numbers. "…6700F9-45YX78."

Miles entered the numbers on the computer and waited as it accessed the file. "I got it!", he yelled. "Test subject: 918SV90. Name: Sherry Birkin."

Jill and Chris immediately turned to look at each other shocked at the sound of the name. "Did… did he just say Sherry Birkin?", Jill said not even believing it herself.

Chris nodded quickly. "Miles, quick! Open the capsule!", he yelled as Miles pressed a few more buttons.

There was a sound of steam released into the air and the capsule started moving towards them. Chris and Jill just stared at the capsule at a loss for words, not sure about what they were about to see.

Sherry Birkin was a survivor at the Racoon city incident. She was found by Claire and Leon and was infected with the G-virus. Her parents were scientists working with the virus. Her father had become one of the monsters who later killed her mother but not before she was able to help Leon and Claire get the antidote for Sherry. After being rescued, she was taken by the government and had been missing ever since. If she really was in one of Wesker's facilities that would mean the government had been working with Umbrella all along.

The capsule hovered over the platform for a few seconds before it was released. The lid slowly started descending and a figure could be seen through the thick glass. It was moving. How could it be moving? As soon as the whole lid was retracted, a female naked figure could be seen through the glass in a greenish opaque liquid with a breathing mask attached to her face and needles with wires on her body. Her eyes were wide open and she was pounding on the glass with whatever strength she seemed to have left.

"No way.", Chris only said. "Miles, open it!"

"Oh, God, Chris.", Jill mouthed as she looked at him. They both couldn't believe their own eyes. "Call Claire."