Resident Evil Recall: Operation Arklay

Episode Ten: The Trap Is Sprung

Part Four

Unknown Location, Quarantine, 1:00 AM…

The last thing Liquid remembered was having his own weapon used against him during the fight in the Sherriff's Station, and it must have caused him to pass out, because he was somewhere different when he started to wake up. His shock baton was designed to incapacitate people through the use of a strong electrical current, leaving the whole body sore and temporarily unresponsive, and now he could attest to its effectiveness first-hand. The feeling in his, well, everything was starting to come back as he and Carver were separated from the others, and a little more so when they were taken into a large cargo elevator.

Both of them were dropped onto the floor like sacks once the doors closed, and even with the feeling in his body coming back, there was currently no way for he or Carver to help each other as long as they were handcuffed. Aside from the two black-armored people, there were two others standing in front of the doors, but he was unable to lift his head up high enough to see their faces. The good news was that Carver was starting to come around, but the bad news was that they were joined by two more black-armored people once the elevator stopped and the doors opened.

"Bring them." The man identified as Harland or Doc ordered.

With one of them grabbing each arm, it was a lot easier for them to move the two of them, and it also gave the Lieutenant a chance to look around more. The administrators were already too far ahead for him to see anything beyond the fact that one was a man and the other a woman, but he did notice that this area looked nothing like the floor above. This new hallway looked more like a basement, or maybe maintenance access, the way pipes ran along the ceiling, and the walls and floor were a natural concrete color instead of the sterile white upstairs.

"Keys ready." Harland said as the group stopped. "Swipe in three – two – one."

He and the woman swiped their cards, and the incredibly heavy blast door in front of them slowly swung open, allowing them to move into what looked like a warehouse of some kind. Most of the items that lined the many storage shelves he didn't recognize, but one thing at the center of the room stood out. It was a large liquid storage tank, sort of like an armored version of one that would be found on the back of a semi-truck, and painted across the front was written P-Epsilon/5000 Units.

Obviously there was no time to investigate this, since he was soon dragged through another door at the far end of the warehouse, and after passing through another, just as creepy hallway, they entered what looked like a large laboratory. There were tanks filled with unknown substances, large computers that were constantly monitoring – something – as well as plenty of other things that one would expect to find. There were also several surgical beds, and a knot started to form in Liquid's stomach when they took Carver toward one.

"Hey!" He called weakly. "Hey! What are you doing?!"

His words were ignored as the black-armored people undid Carver's handcuffs before tossing her onto the bed and strapping her down, and while this was going on, the people holding him undid one of his handcuffs as well. However, instead of putting him on a bed, they made him stand up, and shackled him to the ceiling by wrapping the cuff around a pipe before reattaching it to his wrist. Now with more control of his body, he pulled against the pipe for a second, but then stopped when he finally got a good look at the administrators. The man looked vaguely familiar, but there was no mistaking the woman.

"Aunt Yvonne?" He asked with genuine confusion in his voice.

"I'm so sorry, Tobias." She replied. "I told you to leave this alone… but you wouldn't listen."

"Enough of that." Harland interrupted as he stepped forward. "You and me have a score to settle, Tobias."

He was carrying the shock baton in his hand, and there was nothing the Lieutenant could do except cry out in pain as his own weapon was used against him. Sparks flew as the administrator struck him several times, and soon Liquid was hanging limply on the pipe. During all this, Harland continued to insist that something had happened between them, but Liquid couldn't remember what he was talking about. It wasn't like he had any shortage of enemies, but usually he could at least recall their face when confronted by them.

"Who are you?" He managed to say during a break from the hits. "What score?"

"What score?!" Harland demanded. "How dare you forget me, you disrespectful little puke?! You ruined my experiment, and destroyed months of field data when you pushed my truck over that cliff!"

Now the wheels in Liquid's head were turning as Harland said those words, and he did remember him. It was a few months before… on the night that Lillian and Isaac had been killed… there had been a man trying to turn his vehicle around, and his inability to do so had delayed the Lieutenant from getting home. Yes, he had assaulted the driver and destroyed the vehicle, but what choice did he have? If not for Harland, the man who was driving it, he might have been able to save them.

"Oh good, you remember." Harland continued. "I've been paying your Aunt Yvonne a great deal of money to keep people like you from interfering with the T-Virus program, and I had hoped that she would manage to drive you away. Unfortunately, she is a brainless half-wit, and I had to intervene personally, as you were about to discover the truth."

"No, he wasn't." Yvonne argued. "I told you a dozen times, he had nothing. Even after you sent your giant after him, and that whole fiasco in the resort, he and his team didn't even understand what they were up against. They thought they were tracking a group of cannibals, and I managed to destroy all the evidence to the contrary… but now you've gone and told on yourself."

Liquid was about to ask them what the hell they were talking about, but the moment he uttered a syllable, Harland began striking him with the baton again. He hit him three more times, seeming to grow more angry each time the Lieutenant screamed, and then he made another strike; this time not at Liquid, but at Yvonne. The older woman screamed in surprise and agony as a shower of sparks accompanied her collapse to the floor, and then Harland snapped his fingers, causing the black-armored people to pick her up.

"It's your fault, Aunt Yvonne, not mine!" He screamed. "All of this could've been avoided if you had just done your damn job, but you failed, and now I have to clean up the mess! Strap her to that bed!"

Yvonne struggled weakly as the black-armored people put her in the same position as the confused Carver, and while this was going on, Harland prepared a large syringe of a blue liquid. There was an equally large needle on the end, and floating within the blue substance was a dark colored mass of some kind. Yvonne was clearly terrified of this as he brought it closer, and Liquid continued to try and pull himself free, but nothing worked.

"No!" Yvonne screamed as he got closer. "Harland, no! We can still fix this! We can still keep Umbrella from being discovered! Just let me go and we'll fix this, I swear! Harland, please, I'm begging you!"

Carver was also pulling at her straps to try and free herself, but all of them were stuck as the administrator jammed the needle into Yvonne's jugular and pressed down the plunger. The blue substance and darkened mass flowed easily into her, causing the older woman to gasp as her whole body stiffened. Then she started to shake, just a little at first, but increasingly more intense as if she were having a seizure. This whole situation was insane, and Liquid struggled to understand it, even though it was completely beyond him. All he knew was that he had to save Yvonne and Carver, but he just couldn't break free.

"What are you doing to her?" The wide-eyed Carver asked.

"Something very special, my dear." Harland explained as he discarded the syringe. "You see, not only does the company want the T-Virus completed, but they want more powerful versions ready in case a countermeasure is ever developed. That's why I created a prototype parasite which will react with the host to give them all the benefits of the virus, but with a little extra kick. The process should take about an hour, which gives me plenty of time to kiss Tobias."

Ignoring Carver and the convulsing Yvonne completely, Harland set the shock baton on a nearby shelf before walking up to Liquid and squeezing his throat with both hands. Weakened from the shock baton, the Lieutenant could barely keep standing as the administrator tightened the grip on his neck to the point where he couldn't breathe. Now something was happening in the background that caused Carver to scream, and even the black-armored people were backing away from Yvonne's bed, but Harland was in the way. There was pure rage in the administrator's eyes as he strangled the Lieutenant, and more screams were heard as he started to get tunnel vision.

Suddenly Liquid's feet slipped out from under him, and the combination of his own weight plus Harland pushing down on him was finally enough to break the pipe. The Lieutenant slid off and fell to the floor as a stream of white gas was shot in Harland's face, but then nothing else mattered as he saw what everyone else in the room had been reacting to. Yvonne was no longer convulsing, nor were the straps on the bed able to hold her down as she ripped her way to her feet. Her body had changed to a strange purplish-red color, and her eyes had become yellow, not to mention that she had gotten over a foot taller.

As he coughed to catch his breath, his mind tried to process what he was seeing, but there was just no way. Yvonne was now a lot stockier too, and her left arm was changing dramatically; her hand now forming into a mass of interviewed tendrils that almost looked like some kind of claw. This was then confirmed when Harland, who was still stumbling backwards from the gas, gasp as her claw was rammed into his back. His heart was launched from his chest as the claw burst all the way through, and Liquid found himself just sitting there as the parts made a scissor motion, ripping the administrator in half.

"Kill it!" One of the black-armored people yelled. "Shoot the damn thing!"

The sound of their combined gunfire brought the Lieutenant back into reality, and as the four of them attacked, Liquid knew that he had to save Carver. From the beating he had taken, it was a struggle to get back to his feet, but he somehow found the strength. Now all he had to do was find a way to get to her without getting shot or impaled, but every possible path was blocked either by gunfire or by the creature that was once Yvonne. There was a bit of good news as the gunfire was slowly driving the abomination back, but then all goodness faded when the monster turned around and stabbed its claw through Carver's chest.

"Janet!" Liquid screamed as what remained of his world fell apart. "No! Janet! No!"

As with Harland, the abomination scissored her body in half before throwing both pieces as well as the bed at the black-armored people. They stopped shooting in order to avoid these projectiles, but that distraction was all the Yvonne-creature needed to grab the first person and decapitate her in the same way. The others resumed shooting, but it was no longer enough to drive the abomination back, and once by one they met the same gruesome fate. Now there was no gunfire, and the Lieutenant was alone.

The abomination was standing between him and all possible firearms, so his only option was to grab the shock baton from the shelf where Harland had set it. Activating the weapon and holding it up defensively as best as he could while still in handcuffs, the abomination just glared at him through Yvonne's eyes as her body continued to change. She was still getting bigger, and her claw-arm was getting longer until it resembled a mass of swords more than a claw. This was it: He was alone with this abomination of twisted science, and when it let out an inhuman roar, Liquid did the only thing he could:

He ran for his life.