Notes:- Apologies for the lateness of this chapter! My muse went AWOL and then we moved into a new apartment and had to wait for the internet to be connected. Stupid ISP! Anyway, here's Chapter Five. Thank you for your reviews and your patience!
The Facility Endgame
Chapter Five
Jill was grateful that the small room didn't lead to another testing area. It lead instead to a small office, obviously used to whoever oversaw the experiments conducted in the testing area. Behind a large oak desk that took up almost half of the wall, was a large bank of monitors, half of the screens showing the garden they'd just been through, the other half showing what looked like a desert.
"Another testing area. Splendid" Kevin muttered over her shoulder. He threw himself into the comfortable looking chair and sighed heavily. A brutal looking ring of bruising was already starting to stand out around his neck.
"Maybe we can avoid it" Carlos suggested. He was standing by a water cooler in the far corner, looking at it suspiciously.
"The only way is forward as far as I'm concerned" Kevin replied. "No way in hell am I going back through that garden" He shuddered. "It's enough to put me off gardening for life and trust me, it was never an interest to begin with"
"Do you think this stuff is contaminated"? Carlos nodded towards the water cooler. He eyed the contents.
"I don't know hombre. Why don't you try it"? Kevin said sarcastically. He turned his attentions to Jill who'd been quietly rifling through the desk's drawers. She'd so far managed to pull out a sizeable stack of folders, as well as a pair of glasses and a chocolate bar. As soon as he caught sight of the shiny wrapper, Kevin seized the bar, ripped open the package and bit off a large chunk. Carlos glared at him enviously. Jill shook her head and opened the first of the files.
"Are you going to read all of those"? Carlos asked, pointing at the stack.
"Skim-read" Jill corrected him. When she saw him roll his eyes, she glared at him. "We're on a fact-finding mission here," She reminded him. "Since we haven't come across any survivors, we need to ascertain why. If there's been a spill or some kind then we don't want to be releasing potentially harmful chemicals into the ocean when we blow this place up" She looked back down at the file. "Now if you just let me get on with it, I'll get through them a lot faster. Unless, of course, either of you two are offering to help"?
"Pass one over" Kevin swallowed the last of the chocolate bar and held out his hands. Jill nodded at Carlos triumphantly and handed one over. Carlos shrugged and leant against the water cooler.
"I'll keep watch," He said grudgingly.
Leon had no idea quite how long he'd been out. Everything seemed hazy and muddled. He could taste blood. He must've bitten his tongue at some point. His stomach was rolling over and over, making him want to retch and heave. He'd had worse pain, he knows he's had, back in Raccoon, in Spain, and he wouldn't be sick if he were just allowed to relax. He could no longer see his surroundings. A hasty blindfold, constructed from what felt like more cotton scrubs material, had been tied around his eyes, tightly.
He looked down instinctively as he felt the pants of his scrubs being tugged. He could feel the bullet wound now, feel it bleeding slowly yet steadily and making his head swim. A cold feeling came over him and he could feel his body starting to shake as it went into shock. He tried to focus his mind, to concentrate, to think about anything so that he could fight it. He'd done in Racoon. He could do it now.
A fresh wave of nausea hit him as he felt rough, calloused hands skim across his bare thighs. These touches were nothing like the touches Chris gave him. They were cold and clinical and sickening and all the more intense due to his lack of sight, like sandpaper raking over his pale flesh.
"Fuck"! He felt a horrible, hot rush of pain as a thick finger pressed into the wound. It wriggled around and he was a breath away from begging, from pleading with his captor to stop to torture. It was against his training. Begging never worked. Some sick fucks even liked it. Maybe this guy was one of them…
"Tell me about the other times you were shot" The man demanded.
"Fuck…you…" Leon managed to get his words out despite the spots that were dancing in front of his eyes. He felt the finger withdraw and rode out the fresh wave of agony that hit him. Chris had always said that he was a stubborn idiot and he was proving that now, his will preventing him from giving in to the ever-present darkness that was on the edge of his consciousness.
"I have been underestimated," The man continued, his finger stroking the area around the bullet wound. "I created the greatest asset this company ever needed and yet what happened hmm"?
"I…don't…know…" Leon spoke through gritted teeth. His whole body was tense, waiting for the invading finger. He almost jumped when he felt a cool, damp cloth sweep across his bare thigh, wiping with almost gentle precision.
"My gas was pioneering" His captor explained as he dragged the cloth against his skin. The other hand gripped the underside of his thigh tightly, almost possessively. "And they didn't understand. No. Not even a modicum of understanding. That's why they would never know that using my own invention against me would make me more powerful"
A pain, a horrible hot, almost blinding pain. Leon bit back a scream as he felt the tip of a blade sink into his wound. He could hear the man muttering but couldn't make out any of the words as the cold blade dug around his searing hot flesh looking, he figured, for the bullet.
"F-U-C-K"! He moaned as he felt the knife go deeper. He could feel fresh blood welling up out of the wound and dribbling down his thigh in thick rivulets.
"They looked so pretty…" The man chuckled. "Blood and brains splattered everywhere…" He twisted the knife a little and Leon screamed, a high-pitched scream mingling pain and terror. It felt like the blade was scraping away inside of him and through the haze of pain he knew what damage the knife could do to him. Tearing, muscle damage, catastrophic blood loss…
Suddenly, he felt something ease out of the hole along with the knife. It dropped to the floor with a little metallic plink. Leon felt fresh blood dribble down his leg and another wave of dizziness assaulted his senses. He felt bile hurtle to his throat and he swallowed it, the acidic taste sour in his mouth.
"Stop…it…" It wasn't so much a plea but a half-baked request.
"Nearly there" The man replied. "Nearly there…" Leon could feel his captor's hot breath on his thigh. He was obviously inspecting his handiwork. "Hmm…symmetry. Yes. So pretty" He heard the click of a lighter. He'd heard Chris' enough to recognise the sound. His head was swimming now. Perhaps if he just gave in then it would be for the best. Let the sick bastard finish his dirty work whilst he was unconscious.
His head snapped back suddenly as something was thrust into his mouth. A wad of soft material, probably from the same butchered scrub top that had served as his blindfold. He didn't have much opportunity to think about why before a brutal, burning pain hit his thigh. It was hot, pure burning heat. Leon knew enough about makeshift field first aid to know that the freak was now cauterising his wound. He screamed into the material, grateful that it was there or else he probably would've bitten straight through his tongue.
Chris leant against the vault door, his gun in his hands. The small room was silent. Ginny was standing in the middle, seemingly frozen to the spot, listening carefully. She was staring intently at a battered looking pink wristwatch. Brad was by his side, his own gun ready, just in case.
"Y'know…" Chris muttered out of the corner of his mouth. "I don't hear anything. I think this girl might be a bit…well…mental" He shook his head. "And you got us stuck in a vault with her…"
"He's gone," Ginny said breathlessly. Acting like there was no one else in the room, she hurried over to a small cot and reached underneath the flat white pillow. She fished out a small, pink hardback book and opened it from the back.
"Yep. She's mental" Chris said, forgetting to keep his voice down. Ginny didn't look up and instead started to scribble something down on the inside back cover of the book.
"I'm not mad," She said eventually. She closed the book with a snap. "The Beast is real" She said it levelly, almost conversational, as if she might've been talking about the weather. Not some cruel Umbrella leftover that could be capable of tearing you limb from limb.
For the first time, Chris looked around the small vault. Any vault-like fittings had been removed and aside from the small cot, there was a shelf crafted from a plank of wood balanced on two old oil drums which housed a portable DVD player and a couple of DVDs. Chris noticed that one of them was a worn looking copy of 'Top Gun'. On the wall above the cot was a collection of drawings on various scraps of paper that had obviously been salvaged. They depicted mainly marine life that the artist had obviously seen through the glass of the corridors, but some were also of landscapes. They were painstakingly coloured but very unrealistic. It reminded Chris of the sort of drawings Claire used to do when they were little. Bright blue skies with fluffy, candyfloss like clouds. Bright green grass studded with vibrant flowers, friendly people with huge smiles on their faces…they were the drawings of someone innocent, like a child who had not yet learnt how evil the world could really be.
"What's this beast then"? He asked, to cover up his feelings of guilt at his earlier comment. She was just a naïve young kid.
"I don't know exactly" Ginny replied. She idly stroked her fingers along the spine of her book. "I've only ever seen it once but it was dark. I know it's huge, taller than any man. It's almost as wide as these corridors. I try to stay away from it," She explained. "I've been keeping a log of its appearances" She nodded at the book in her lap. "I have to plan carefully when I go out"
It was then that Chris noticed the small stack of food in the corner of the vault. Most of it consisted of her spoils from the vending machines they'd seen. Cans of soda, bottles of water, chocolate…Chris' stomach rumbled. Breakfast seemed like hours ago…
He turned his attentions back to Ginny who didn't seem to really be paying that much attention to him. She appeared to be looking at Brad. Chris stared at her in confusion as she started to smile at his former S.T.A.R.S colleague. Chris recognised that smile. It was the type of smile that women usually gave him, not Brad. Brad didn't look too comfortable with it. Well why should he be? Chris inwardly snorted. Brad was definitely nothing special to look at. Not like him. Obviously this girl had some kind of warped view of what was hot, being stuck under the sea for so long.
"Maybe we should introduce ourselves" Brad said uncomfortably, giving Chris a strange look as he noticed the older man staring at him appraisingly. "I'm Brad and this is Chris"
"What are you doing down here"? She asked, not taking her eyes off Brad. It was starting to annoy Chris now. Hadn't she seen his muscles? He stared at Brad, looking for something that he could possibly use to demerit his looks. Unfortunately, rather than let himself go over the years, Brad had, very annoyingly and totally selfishly decided to stay in shape.
"We're working with a group called the BSAA" Brad explained, standing there with his stupid square shoulders and silly toned arms. "We've come down here to try and-"
"Oh Bradley's just the pilot" Chris butted in, waving his hand dismissively. "I started the BSAA y'know…"
"Co-founded" Brad put in with a teasing smirk. Chris shot daggers at his idiotic face with its lack of double chin and wrinkles.
"Let's not clutch at straws shall we Bradley"? Chris pretended to sniff the air with a triumphant smile. "Hmm…smells a bit like chicken in here…" Brad rolled his eyes and shook his head.
"Y'see, the thing about Bradley" Chris continue, loving it now. "Is that he's alright whilst he's piloting his silly little helicopters but when he actually has to go down, on the front lines, be a man and kick some ass…well…always been a problem for you hasn't it Bradley"?
"You're a pilot"? Ginny's eyes widened with delight and looked at Brad with what could only be described as pure worship. The way, Chris figured, was the way she should be looking at him, not Brad. He sighed heavily. She obviously didn't realise.
"Yeah" Brad replied modestly. "I trained in the Air Force"
"Ha"! Chris said so loudly it made Ginny jump. "You weren't in the Air Force! I was in the Air Force! Look"! He pointed proudly to his USAF tattoo. Ginny glanced at it.
"What's USAP"? She asked. Then, without waiting for an answer, turned her attentions back to Brad. "Planes look so cool" She said in a dreamy voice. "I've always wanted to fly ever since I saw Top Gun for the first time. They used to show it on movie nights down here. I wasn't supposed to come down here but nobody noticed" She continued with a slight hint of bitterness. "I love Maverick, he's just so cool. Can I call you Maverick"? She asked hopefully.
"More like Goose…" Chris muttered. "And we all know what happens to him…"
"Sure you can" Brad replied with a shrug. It was Chris' turn to roll his eyes. He was beginning to tire of this silly little girl and her obvious mental defect that made her attracted to Brad. They needed to keep moving if they were going to find Leon.
"We need to get moving" He said gruffly. He really wished that he had a cigarette right now. Leon had asked him to give up smoking shortly after they'd got together and he'd managed it apart from the odd craving. He only really wanted to smoke when he was stressed, like now. He'd been quite happy to distract himself from his frankly frightening thoughts but he knew that the longer they took to find Leon, the more chance there was that something might've happened to him.
"You're right" Brad nodded. "Is there anything you want to take with you"? He asked Ginny who was still watching him with pure adoration.
"What"? Chris snorted. "She's not coming, she'll only slow us down"
"She's done alright so far" Brad replied. "And anyway, she knows her way around the place. If anything, that's going to speed us up" he pointed out.
"I know some short-cuts" Ginny added helpfully. "And I'd like to get out of here, probably more than you do" She said significantly.
"Fine, fine" Chris shrugged. Ginny smiled and started throwing a few things into a maroon backpack. "She's your responsibility though Goose"
"Have you guys found anything yet"? Carlos asked with a heavy sigh. He was getting bored of watching the doors. Since they'd entered the small office, nothing had come along to attack them and judging by the silence, nothing was about to either. No-one had spoken for the last fifteen minutes. Jill was too absorbed in the file that she was reading and he and Kevin didn't really make a habit of making conversation. It wasn't like he hated the other man, they just didn't really see eye to eye.
"There's another testing area through there" Kevin answered without looking up from the report he was skimming through. He nodded towards the opposite door. "A desert, judging by this report"
"Sounds great" Carlos muttered sarcastically. It seemed that they were suddenly stuck between a rock and a hard place. They could either go back to the garden and face the giant plant again, or they could go forwards and deal with whatever creatures might be waiting for them in the desert. Almost as if he'd read his mind, Kevin spoke again.
"I've already said. I'm not going back" He repeated firmly. He threw aside the report and stretched. He looked as if he was about to say something else but was abruptly cut off by a horrified gasp from Jill. She dropped the file she'd been reading and sank back into the desk chair, a shocked look on her face.
"There was a child here…" She said quietly, disbelieving.
"Huh"? Carlos said, confused. Children in an Umbrella facility? A sick feeling of realisation knotted his stomach. Children in an Umbrella facility…
"Were they… a test subject"? Kevin voiced the words that had become lost in Carlos' throat. He looked sickened to his core. Carlos felt a stab of sympathy. It would be something that Kevin would find particularly hard to bare given that he was due to become a father himself soon.
"They…" Jill tried to explain but her words faltered almost immediately. She shook her head and was obviously forcing herself to continue. "They started off using death row prisoners…but the researchers were concerned they were going to eventually need to find an alternative source so they…" She took a deep breath. "They decided to start making test tube babies to prepare for that eventuality. They used an egg and sperm from a couple of the researchers…they only ever created one child, a girl"
"Jesus…" Kevin shook his head.
"They didn't even give her a name" Jill continued. "Just a code, G1N1E"
"What happened to her"? Carlos asked. He felt repulsed that he ever trusted Umbrella. Most of the time he could forget that he'd once been part of their staff but moments like this, where the company's twisted truth was revealed, he always remembered how he'd voluntarily become one of them. A happy grunt on their payroll working for a company who could create children merely for testing purposes…
"It doesn't say" Jill replied. She took Carlos' hand and gave it a quick squeeze. "I don't think I want to know…" She cleared her throat. "We need to move on. We need to get out of here and destroy this place"
"I'm more than ready to get out of this hell hole" Kevin said in agreement. He nodded at the opposite door. "We're going forward right"?
"Into the desert" Jill nodded her confirmation. She checked her weapons and straightened her cap. "Are you both ready"?
Kevin stared grimly at the door ahead of them. Jill looked nervous, distracted and it was worrying. He hadn't been on many missions with Jill but he knew that she was always the very pinnacle of professionalism. It had been claimed that she hadn't been the same since Wesker had taken her captive in Africa. Kevin sighed heavily. He wasn't in the slightest bit ready but he needed to be. The sooner they got this shitty job done, the sooner he could be back with Claire and the baby.
Leon opened his eyes, shocked that he actually could. He'd obviously lost consciousness during the cauterisation. A shudder ran through his body as his mind recalled the pain. It had felt like his skin was melting. The evil bastard hadn't let up for a second, muttering away about his quest for perfection. Leon shook his head to clear the fuzziness. The dull, persistent ache that throbbed in his thigh was making it hard to concentrate.
He looked around. He was still tied to the chair but it seemed that the crazed stranger had removed his blindfold and done a disappearing act. He was nowhere to be seen in the small examination room. He shivered, suddenly aware of how cold the room was. He looked down and saw why. The man had removed his scrub top, cut it away and carelessly discarded it on the grubby floor. As his brain woke up and became more aware, an unpleasant sharp stinging edged into his awareness. He looked down and, once again, he received his reason. Tiny little knife cuts were etched into his side, matching the design of the tattoo on his opposite side.
He fought down the wave of nausea that threatened to attack and shook his head once more. He needed to start thinking. He had to escape. God knows what the fucked up psycho would do to him when he returned. He struggled with the thick ropes that were binding him to the chair. It was obvious that they weren't going to loosen any time soon. He looked around again and almost giggled with crazy relief when he saw that the knife that had been used to torture him was laying on the unused gurney, still stained crimson with his blood.
Stupid bastard. Leon muttered. Rule number one of holding someone hostage, don't give them an easy way out. The gurney wasn't too far away. If he put his mind to it, he could slowly move the chair over to it and get the knife. He looked down at his wounded thigh, which had been expertly dressed with a thick white bandage. The juddering, jerky motion of moving the chair was going to hurt like hell. Luckily, he still had the gag stuffed into his mouth. If he needed to scream, he could scream, without alerting his kidnapper should he still be around.
He took a deep breath and started to move backwards towards the gurney. He shuffled the chair along in a clumsy hopping motion. Each movement caused his stomach muscles to tense and his thigh to erupt into a torrent of pain. He could feel the sweat building on his forehead and he bit down hard on the material in his mouth, screaming into it. He pushed himself to keep moving, inching closer to freedom. His senses seemed to be on high alert. He could feel each of the cuts on his side opening up as he moved.
It felt unending but finally, he reached his destination. He stopped, breathing heavily into the cloth. Sweat dripped off his forehead and into his eyes, stinging them. The wound on his thigh ached abominably. He fought back his memories of Raccoon, aching and sweating in the disgusting sewers.
When he felt able, he blindly reached out for the knife, his back to the gurney. He kept his eyes on the door, waiting for the psycho to return. A wave of relief washed over him when his bound hands closed around the solid grip of the knife. He twisted it awkwardly, feeling for the ropes with the blade. He was hit with a new memory, not of Raccoon, but of his training for the Secret Service. He and three other recruits had been tied to chairs in a similar fashion and, just like now, had been provided with a knife just beyond their reach. Their goal was to free themselves in the shortest amount of time. Leon had been the quickest. Afterwards, he and Krauser had joked about the stupidity of it all. How if someone was clever enough to kidnap them, it would be highly unlikely they'd be as dumb as to leave a method of escape within their grasp. If only he'd known then that it actually would come in handy. If only he'd known a lot of things back then…
With a few swift and accurate cuts, the thick ropes that bound his wrists fell to the floor. His hands now free, he set about releasing the ropes around his waist and around his ankles. He gingerly stood up, a jolt of pain shot through his leg and he almost collapsed back into the chair. He gritted his teeth and took a step forward. It hurt like hell but he knew he was going to have to play through the pain if he was going to make it out of the room alive.
He looked down at the bloodied knife in his hand and almost dropped it in shock. The black grip, the dragon etched at the base…it was his knife! The knife he'd dropped back in the lab when the shark attacked him. He shuddered involuntarily. Whoever this psycho was, he knew his way around the place and had obviously been wandering around it at will. It meant that there was a possibility he could've attacked the others, could've attacked Chris…
Through the cloud of pain that seemed to surround him, he could feel a cold, steely determination start to break through. He was going to get out of this room and he was going to find the man who'd done this to him. If he'd hurt any of his friends or dared to lay a hand on his Chris, he was going to personally see to it that he never harmed anyone again.
Chris trudged moodily up the corridor that seemed identical to the hundreds of other corridors they'd trekked down in the past god knows how long. If he didn't know better he'd hazard a guess that they were going around in circles. And the thing is, he didn't know better. Not at all. Hell, they probably WERE going around in circles. He glared at Brad and Ginny who were walking ahead of him. Ginny had packed a few of what she had called essentials into a small backpack and they'd set off on their search for Leon. Ever since then he'd felt a distinct lack of being in charge of the situation. He was the one who should've been leading them not Stupid-Chicken-Goose-Security-Guard-Brad. He looked through narrowed eyes at his old friend. Since Ginny had shown interest in him, he'd acted like a changed man. He was walking straighter and talking more, becoming almost animated when they'd swapped favourite action movies. Pah! As if Brad knew what a decent action movie was!
"What do you think Chris"? Brad suddenly turned around. Ginny looked back too, but only briefly, before her eyes turned back to Brad. God, teenagers were so stupid. They'd fall for anyone who was older even if a hotter, manlier and just generally all round awesomer guy was merely metres away.
"What"? Chris said with a heavy sigh as though Brad was a simple annoyance, which, in essence, he was. Ginny had barely been with them half an hour and Chris already longed for the days when Brad was just his hapless sidekick and he was the macho hero with a body to rival Sylvester Stallone circa Rocky IV.
"Ginny says this room has some vending machines in it that aren't empty" Brad explained, nodding towards a closed door. "We could stop and load up on supplies. Plus she says this is where we need to go to get back up to the next level"
"Great" Chris replied sarcastically. Not that Brad or Ginny noticed the sarcasm. Well, that was hapless sidekicks and precocious wenches for you. Although food did sound pretty good…but since it was her idea, he wasn't about to let her know.
As a matter of course, he and Brad readied their weapons, Brad gently moving to Ginny to one side as they got into a breaching position either side of the doorframe. On Chris' nod, the pair kicked the door open, guns held out, Ginny shielded behind.
At least thirty zombies stared back at them.