Warren Vidic didn't know what would happen next, after two hours of collecting everything from the safe house and keeping Miles down, Rikkin had told him to return, another team would pick up whatever bodies were left behind. The boss hadn't sounded exactly happy to hear some of his men were killed, especially Richard; the story recounted about what happened probably sounded incredulous to him. They managed to return to Abstergo and send anyone wounded to the hospital pavilion they kept as well as the loot to it's proper place right before CEDA arrived, Desmond had been put into another room,which was kept locked at all times. It was obvious Rikkin didn't believe his story, despite Vidic's insistence to speak with his team. "Just go down and meet with these men," was the last thing the boss said, in a tone that meant the conversation was over.
Vidic went down to the reception area to greet any workers but was only met with other Abstergo employees and the brunette who was filling in for Diane, the receptionist, due to illness. "If you're looking for those government people, they're all mostly in the parking lot doing God knows what." Vidic nodded a thanks and took the stairs rather than the elevator to the garage section.
As Vidic walked down into the large parking lot, he was surprised to see the flurry of activity and lack of cars there. They had moved the majority of the employee's cars, including his own, to some unknown location without their permission! Various mini separators were put up as if there would be three different lines for people in total, several tents with what looked like doctors, most seemed to be in biohazard suits too, were also set up in several places. There were also many large trailers parked at several areas of the lot.
"Ah, Warren there you are! Rikkin asked me to help you help them." Jane's curly auburn hair bounced as she approached him.
"I'm sure he did," Vidic said flatly as Jane paced beside him farther into the lot. Vidic walked up to one of the men in a biohazard suits, "excuse me, I'm an employee from Abstergo who's been sent to assist in any way possible. Do you know where the leader of this center is?"
"Oh yes, his name is Jim Campbell, he's in that trailer over there by the pillar with the 'E' on it. I really appreciate you guys helping us, we need as much help as possible with this shit."
"Thank you for the help,"Jane replied as they walked to the yellow trailer with biohazard and warning posters on it. He hesitated to go in, not sure if it was safe in there or not, however, he didn't need to make up his mind, a tall curly haired man walked out of the trailer.
"Can I help you?" The burly man inquired.
"Ah, yes, are you Jim Campball? My name is Warren Vidic and this is Jane Birkam and we've been sent to assist you on anything you need."
The man smiled as he opened the door to the trailer once more, "we can use any help we can get, especially Abstergo's. Come on in, I'll explain what's been going on."
Vidic went after Jane walked into the trailer and immediately noted how many maps, graphs, charts, and photographs there were. He walked over to one map in particular that had large red Xs on several parts of the East Coast, save for a few near Georgia, Louisiana, and the northern states.
"All the Xs were evacuation centers, the Xs mean they were overrun." Jim went over to a small table and sat down .
Jane looked up at him with a shocked expression, "my God, overrun? By what?"
"The infection, we tried quarantining them first but when that obviously didn't work, we moved on to evacuation."
"Infection? This isn't the flu is it?" Vidic asked.
Jim shook his head, "no it's not, we named it that to keep the masses from panicking. We're not exactly sure what it is, I think it's a new strain of rabies, one that particularly affects humans but remains fatal to animals. Tests performed on infected cows show it affects the brain. Not to mention it's very contagious, it can pass through bites, open wounds, and saliva."
Vidic's face paled as he thought of subject seventeen, "so you think it's some kind of super rabies?"
"Quite possibly, I've seen several cases of it, it somehow shuts down the part of the brain that deals with higher thinking levels and essentially makes them into animals, animals that feel nothing but rage" Jim paused for a moment then pulled a photo out of a man who looked overweight and who was covered with massive boils. "There have been reports of it causing massive mutation in some infected. Giving them grisly appearances and even unusual abilities." Jim shook his head, "the only confirmation of this- this special infected is extreme bloating in some individuals. The bloating is so intense a slight rupture to it causes to explode. The bile within it's stomach seems to attract other infected to it. Boils, or maybe even tumors start to grow on various parts of the body as well."
Vidic sat there in silence as he soaked in all this information, he didn't know what to say, what could Abstergo do? On the pharmaceutical front, they dealt with bacteria more than viruses. His thoughts drifted to that of Lucy, is that what happened to her? The virus caused her to have horrible mutations? How did she even get it? Warren shook his head, "the mutations, could they be caused by a variation of the strain?"
Jim leaned forward on his seat, "it's a possibility, we really don't know. It could be that, or maybe there's a genetic defect in some people that causes massive change in their bodies when they get the virus or maybe even a combination of both, we don't know at this point."
"What about incubation period?" Jane piped up.
"We're not sure about that either, we've seen people turn but we don't know when they got the virus. We herd people say everything from a week to a day to even five minutes! It's possible it also varies between how healthy and stable a person is and what strain they have, but that's all we know."
"So basically, pardon my words, but you know jack shit about the virus," Vidic said.
Jim sighed as he rubbed his forehead, "yes, you could say that."
Vidic sat down in a chair, this wasn't good, what would it matter if they managed to launch the satellite if half of what was known was true. Would the artifacts even work on those infected? If the virus was truly as contagious as it was accused of being, how long before this epidemic turned into a pandemic? For the first time in some thirty years, Warren Vidic felt terror. Vidic glanced at Jane, who wore that same horrified look on her face, and wondered how they were supposed to stop something like this?
"What about carriers? What about those who are immune?" Jane asked but before Jim could reply, Vidic's cell phone rang.
"Oh, I'm sorry," He pulled out his cell phone, "Hello? What? I'll be right there," Vidic stood up as he put his phone away, it had been one of the nurses from the medical pavilion, something was happening over there. "I'm sorry, I have to go for now but Jane can fill me in on what I missed later on, she can also negotiate what Abstergo can do for CEDA while I'm gone."
"That's fine, I guess" Jim retorted.
Vidic leaned over and whispered into his old friend's ear, "there's some sort of incident going on at the medical pavilion," Jane gave him a small nod as he turned back around and exited the trailer.
As Vidic crossed the parking lot, he could feel his heart thumping in his chest, he already knew what was going on up there. As he entered the elevator once more he pulled out his cell phone to call one of the nurses but after the fourth ring he hung up, he knew at that point not to go up himself. he pressed one to go back to the reception area, he was going to need as many guards as he could get up there. "CEDA, those morons," he muttered to himself. He'd seen the posters that discouraged people from keeping firearms, he couldn't even find any military personnel when he was watching them set up, 'they'll be the death of us,' he thought bitterly.
Ten minutes later, Vidic was at the medical center with around seven guards, he wished he could have gathered more but unfortunately, that wasn't possible at this point. He let a few enter the place to make sure no one attacked them before entering himself.
"Where are they?" One of the men asked, Vidic didn't answer, he didn't want to know where they were. The place was a mess, glass was broken, chairs were on the floor, it looked like someone had trashed the place, there was even blood in several areas, on the white sheets of the beds, on the walls, the floors, everywhere! But there were no people, dead or alive, they were all gone.
Vidic turned and looked at one of the guards, "why didn't security come up when, this, happened!?" He motioned the to mess, "I shouldn't have had to call all of you mysel-" there was a loud crash from down the hall, near the elevator, he didn't need to see them to know, he could hear them screeching and hissing as they ran. Vidic backed away as he saw the infected rush his group. "SHOOT TO KILL!" He yelled as he desperately searched for a way out, there were more of them now, not just the soldiers or the doctors, they had found their way down to the other levels too. Vidic made a mad dash down the hall from where the infected had entered from, hoping to get to the elevators while they were busy tearing the guards apart. Vidic looked back and realized he was being pursued by three of the infected, he knew he'd never make it to the elevator so he ran to the stairs leading to the other floors. As he ran to them, he saw that they had torn the doors off their hinges. 'They don't know how to close doors, good!' Instead of running down, he ran up since the doors one level down were broken, or at least he hoped they were, as they came into view, he was relieved to see they were intact, he pulled open the metal door and slammed it shut behind him.
The Templar leaned against the door as he gasped for breath, he could hear them beating on the door, screaming for blood. Vidic jumped a little as his cell wrung, "Jane?"
"Oh thank God you answered Vidic! I don't know how this outbreak happened! I came to your office to see if you were there, you weren't, I was about to leave but then I herd them outside, so I hid in here until they left. Please Warren, you're the only person I can actually trust around here! Please come get me!"
Warren bit his lip, should he risk his life to save her? He walked over to the elevator, at least he could use it now, she really was his only true friend in this place, if an employee was asked to kill you, they'd do it without a second's thought, even if you had dinner with them! Jane and him started working at Abstergo at the same time, he knew he could trust her.
Five minutes later and Vidic had reached his office, as he walked around in the large room, it was obvious no one was here. "Jane? Are you here?" A shuffle came from the bedroom used to house his prisoners, Vidic slowly walked towards the room, "Jane?" Vidic stopped dead when he saw the person who came out, the room's former occupant, Desmond himself. "Oh, shit," Desmond growled at him, looking as bloody and pissed as ever. Vidic stumbled back as Desmond slowly walked towards him, hissing and snarling, he looked like a bird about to take his prey.
"Oh good, you actually came, you have no idea how hard it was to get Miles up here!" Vidic's head snapped towards the large glass separating his office from the conference room.
"Jane? What the hell are you doing?" Vidic stepped back as Desmond took a rather large step towards him, Vidic saw Jane smile a sweet smile at him.
"Ending this," she took her right hand up to her chest and pulled back her ring finger.
"No! You've worked here as long as I have, you can't be an assassin!"
"Oh I was one of you, but as I got older, I realized what you people were doing was wrong! So, I became a spy for them. I only stayed until this very second because we thought you might know what the hell's going on, you didn't but we knew it was only a matter of time, you see one of our safe houses was to become an evac center too but it was overrun before that happened so I stayed-"Desmond screeched at Vidic as he got on all fours, ready to pounce him like a cat to a mouse. "-stayed until we found out what was happening, and now we do," she pulled down the sleeve to her right arm and showed a faint, healing, bite mark, "luckily, I'm immune." Vidic stared at Desmond as he slowly crawled towards him growling. "Now to go find Rikkin, probably on the roof getting ready to leave." She turned her back to the window and walked to the large doors.
"Jane, Jane! Please don't leave me here!" Vidic cried as Desmond screamed once more and jumped at him.
FIN
Okay so here's the final chapter, I didn't really change much since no one reviewed the last chapter, whether they like the change in POV or not. :/ I guess not since there's no more Desmond/Lucy action going on haha. Anyways, I hope you guys enjoyed and didn't feel too cheated that it ended up being a "rage virus" of sorts ala 28 Days Later, though I did make a few references to the movie haha.
Also the whole "special infected" idea goes to VALVe, you could say it's a slight crossover with their Left4Dead series, yell at me for this if you must, I purposely left it out of the summary because I wanted the infection to be a surprise. I'm sure that if you even only herd of the game, you'd go "oh that zombie game" and there'd probably be no mystery as to what was happening to them. So again, if you're disappointed, feel free to voice your opinion on it! Also, yes I know I left the fates of various characters unknown, I did that on purpose, I'll let you use your imagination as to whether Vidic survived or not, where Lucy is...etc
So anyways, all the Assassin's Creed characters belong to Ubisoft & the "special infected" belong to VALVe.
Please read & review, guys! I want to see what you guys thought!