AN: ...yeah. This chapter is REALLY late. Sorry about that. This chapter was really dull to write; not a lot of excitement this time. I'm partially to blame by letting myself develop a massive Steam habit. Life and college also dumped a lot of work, drama, and family stuff on me since I last posted. By the time this is posted, I will be on winter break and about to start second semester! I gotta my butt back into gear and write!
After this story is done, I think I'll stick to writing one-shots and short stories while I'm at college. Maybe write for a fandom other than Resident Evil. A huge project like this is hard to keep up with!
As of Nov. 22nd, it has been one year since I've started posting to this site! Happy new year! And if you've stuck around this long, thanks for being patient!
Disclaimer: I do not own Resident Evil or its characters. I take responsibility for non-canon characters, but JediSpartan217 (my co-writer) came up with Delfredi and Veronica.
"It doesn't look like there will be lasting damage. Just a bruise," Kate confirmed as she stood over Carlos' face, "Better keep this on it, just in case."
"Ay!" the ex-mercenary groaned in exaggerated pain as the agent pressed the bundle of ice closer to his face. "Your friend there hits hard chica," Carlos added, sending a wayward glance towards Stevie.
The dark-haired agent looked over and gave a shrug from the far side of the room. "Sorry man, but I don't like unfamiliar people in my face," she apologized, "Don't take it personal."
After Carlos introduced himself, Kate had taken a huge step backwards away from the cells. Mattie turned away too, which left Stevie standing closest to the former mercenary trying to figure out what in the sam-hill her friends were doing. She didn't notice Carlos approach, and turned back around to find the ex-mercenary uncomfortably close to her face. Needless to say, Stevie let her fist do the talking.
After the little debacle, the group retreated into what used to be a break room for guards. Surprisingly enough, the room still had electricity and a small mini fridge. A quick improvisation turned a couple of ice cubes and unused napkins into a makeshift ice pack.
Carlos chuckled, ignoring the pain in his jaw. "That's okay. I can take a hint," he replied, "I still get attention either way."
Kate's face flushed light pink as she realized that she was still leaning over the ex-mercenary. "Don't get used to it!" she admonished him in mild embarrassment.
Billy snickered in the corner, on the same side of the room Carlos sat. "You have no idea how long I have waited for someone to smack this idiot," the ex-convict remarked.
"You're welcome," Stevie replied as Kate ceased her ministrations and moved to stand next to her.
"Now If you don't mind, we'd like to ask you some questions," the older girl added, staring at the two men across the room.
Carlos shrugged. "Eh, fire away."
"What, Is this an interrogation now?" Billy scoffed.
"It's not an interrogation," Kate assured him, speaking a tone she reserved for business, "We just want to see if you know anything that we don't."
"My partner and I have been stumbling around like blind soldiers since we entered, and Delfredi's giving complicated directions," Stevie added, "We could use all the help we could get."
Billy's posture relaxed a little, as if relenting to the explanation. "Okay then, what do you want to know?" he asked.
Kate opened her mouth to ask about Delfredi, but Mattie beat her to the punch. "How long have you guys been stuck here?" she asked, squinting at them through blurred vision.
Billy shrugged. "Can't remember anymore. I was on my own for a long time, then I found an abandoned Umbrella base. Next thing I remember is waking up here."
Mattie nodded, then turned to the ex-Umbrella mercenary. "What about you, Carlos?"
"I came to Europe for some mercenary work," Carlos stated. "I was fighting some weirdos from some organization. They killed my entire team, but I was just knocked out. After that, I woke up in the cell next to him," he added, pointing his thumb back at Billy for emphasis.
Stevie nodded; that information wasn't exactly what they were hoping for, but it was something. "Okay.." she tried, "What happened while you were stuck in here?"
"Some blonde woman would come around every so often and bring us out for 'Playtime'," Billy spoke. He gestured to the leather ring around his neck. "If we attempted to disobey, these little collars would give us a shock."
Stevie stepped forwards and peered at the collars, noticing that the same model was wrapped around Carlos' neck too. There was no visible method of removal, and slicing the collars off with a knife could lead to either of the men getting their jugular veins sliced open. A small black box was positioned at the back of the collar; it was probably the mechanism that controlled the shocks. "Huh," she noted, observing the collar on Carlos, before stepping back. "What exactly do you mean by 'Playtime'?" she asked. "Kate and I have been through our share of that, and let me tell you: it is not fun."
"Most of the time its survival challenges," Carlos explained, leaning forward in his seat, "Strength testing. Making us fight BOWs with only a knife. Sometimes it was just taking blood from us. Kinda odd, now that you think about it.
"Uh-huh," Stevie responded, taking in the information. "What about Delfredi? Know anything about him?"
"Only that he runs this place and has a sick sense of humor," Billy replied, "Never actually seen him. The blonde bitch answers to him, if that helps. Is that enough?"
Stevie nodded. "Yeah...The blonde lady is Veronica, Delfredi's assistant. She's been bothering me and Kate for a while," she added. "Only reason she probably hasn't killed us yet is because Kate's been mildly infected with some weird gas. And If Mattie got caught in the same stuff, then that's probably the reason she's still alive as well."
Mattie looked up from peeking under the bandage on her arm. "Oh, that's nice. Real comforting," she scowled, drawing her friends' attention as she spoke, "As if this whole situation wasn't messed up enough to begin with. That goes double for you, Alfred!"
Kate looked back over to the two confused men on the other side of the room. "Anyway, Stevie and I found a note that said there was Cryo-stasis equipment down here. Do you know anything about that?" she asked.
Carlos shrugged. "Not really, but it probably explains why is it so cold down here sometimes," he said.
"I've heard Delfredi's flunky muttering about something they were keeping in cold storage," Billy answered, "Couldn't hear exactly what."
Kate looked over to her comrades. "Sounds like a logical place to look for clues, then," she concluded.
Stevie nodded. "Alright. We'll go there next."
The two women made for the door. Mattie jumped in between them. "Hold on; what about the guys?" she questioned, grabbing their shoulders for balance, "Should we bring them along as well?"
The girls formed a huddle, leaning forwards so Billy and Carlos couldn't hear. "I dunno. Extra eyes would help, but big group would make it more difficult to move quietly..." Stevie considered.
"True," Kate added, glancing back to Carlos and Billy. "But something about them is making me uneasy, unless I'm wrong and it could just be anxiety."
Stevie cocked her head. "What's on your mind?"
"Thing is," Kate spoke, "even though we know them from the games, I'm not ruling out the possibility that something could have happened in the last several years to make them turn traitor."
` "What?!" Mattie interjected, loud enough to cause Carlos and Billy to look up at them. "But they're on our side!" she whispered.
"Think about it!" Kate pushed, "Nobody's heard from them in years! And the shocks they've been getting- Who knows if it's messed with their heads?!"
"Says the girl whose been hallucinating half the night," Stevie added in an undertone.
"Well, what do you propose we do about them, then?" Mattie asked.
Kate thought for a moment, peeking up at Billy and Carlos to gauge their mindsets. "Keep trying to get information out of them, but be subtle, I think Billy is getting defensive," she ordered. "I'll see if I can find the Cryostasis equipment the note was talking about. There might be something important in there."
"You want some back-up?" Stevie asked.
Kate shook her head. "I don't want to leave any one of us outnumbered by these guys if something DOES happen. You two should stay. Mattie still can't see, and Stevie's already proven herself against Carlos, at any rate." The youngest cadet gave a small chuckle.
"Okay, but what if you run into trouble?" Mattie continued.
"I've got my handgun and knife," Kate assured. "Oh, if you hear any screaming, it's probably me," she added as an afterthought.
Mattie sighed in defeat. "Alright. Be careful, okay?"
The oldest cadet nodded. "You got it," she said.
Kate turned to the door. "Wait!" Stevie interrupted, drawing her comrades' attention, "It's dangerous to go alone! Take this!" She took a piece of white chalk sitting on a nearby blackboard and shoved it towards her quiet friend.
The oldest agent took the offering. "Okay . . . Why do I need chalk?" she asked.
"To mark your way so you don't get lost," Stevie explained, "Oh, and if Excella starts making you miserable again, remind her how she puked up a giant octopus-creature off the coast of Africa. She'll love it."
The older agent nodded. "Good plan," she agreed, "I'll be back as soon as I can. I promise." With that said, Kate slipped out the door, closing it behind her as she went off in search of the lab. The two remaining cadets turned back to Billy and Carlos, wracking their brains for questions to ask.
"So . . . . penguins."
Jill fell to the floor, ignoring stabs of pain in her ribs every time she gasped for agent looked up at the path in front of her, then turned back. She had lost her pursuers. After a straight-out sprint full of rapid turns that could be likened to the world's jauntiest bumper car ride, she finally allowed herself to stop and rest. The agent's lungs burned from running, but what choice did she have? If she gave up, she'd be murdered at the teeth of Delfredi's pets. And hesitation to pull the trigger could mean her death.
"Damn him!" she cursed under her breath. First it had been Forrest, and now Delfredi had resurrected more old friends. The very thought of their marred appearances made the BSAA agent see red. How many more memories would the madman force her to relive?
Forcing her thoughts aside, Jill ejected the empty clip from her gun. "One full mag left," she thought as she pulled her spare clip from her belt, "I gotta be careful."
Only minutes ago, Jill had stumbled into another warehouse, similar to the first. She received no warning before the 'Playtime' started. The door locked behind her, and more of the zombie doppelgänger appeared, now bearing the faces of Richard Aiken, who had been a dead man walking with Yawn's poison in his veins, and Brad Vickers, whose last seconds were taken by Nemesis itself.
At first sight of the doubles Jill pulled out her handgun and fired at both copies. After a few non-lethal hits, the handgun clicked repeatedly, spewing air as opposed to bullets. Jill hadn't bothered to count her shots. Biting her cheek as the zombies approached her, Jill dove away into the maze of shipping crates. She needed to build a plan, one that would allow her to conserve her bullets. The maze would buy her some time and a decent hiding place.
After three minutes of twisting and turning, Jill found safety among the crates and took stock of her situation. If her bullets ran out and her gun failed her, then she'd have to resort to her knife. "But if Delfredi's made changes to these after what I did to 'Forrest'," she thought bitterly, "How can I be certain my knife will work on these two?"
"I'll just have to make these rounds count," she answered herself, slamming her last clip into the gun.
She head a groan nearby; the copies had found her. Jill waited until the zombies were close, then slipped into a narrow space between two adjacent shipping crates, just wide enough for a group to walk single file. The two zombies tried to enter at the same time, only to end up stuck in place like sheep. This was the opportunity Jill was hoping for. With a cold heart and stony glare, she raised her handgun and fired two perfectly placed shots, felling the zombies in their place.
Jill released a breath that had been held in anticipation; the worst was over. The agent stepped towards the zombies and shoved the corpses out of the way, letting them fall to the floor as she exited the narrow passage.
Jill tentatively kneeled downwards, wary that Delfredi may have programmed the copies to come back to life for 'Round Two'. She turned down the collars of the flak jackets. Sure enough, the same bar code pattern was tattooed on the zombie's necks, the only difference being the codes '00019982' and '00019983' underneath the bar code.
The intercom buzzed on, reminding the female agent that she was being watched. "Well done, Agent Valentine," Delfredi spoke as Jill stood to her feet, "You're coming to terms with the truth far quicker than I anticipated."
The admiration in the madman's voice made the agent want to scream at him at the top of her lungs, but restraint left Jill to glare icily up at the camera. "This is going too far Delfredi," she spat. "What are you up to? What are you planning to do with the Gx-A virus?!"
Delfredi chuckled, making the BSAA agent deepen her scowl. "You've completed your third 'Playtime', so I guess it's fair. I want to rebuild the world, just like he wanted."
Jill's eyes widened. "No... You don't mean like-?!"
"Yes," Delfredi answered, "But the world will be impossible to rebuild unless you destroy it first. That's what Gx-A is for. Humankind's current path to self-destruction is too slow for my liking. I created Gx-A to . . . speed things up a little."
"You'll never succeed, Delfredi," she swore, more to assure her own mind than threaten.
Delfredi chuckled. "Will I?" he taunted over the intercom, "You'll have to find me first."
Guided by her wits and the light of her flashlight, Kate traversed the tunnels of the prison level, marking turns with the piece of chalk as she built a mental map of the floor's layout; the place was practically a maze, and the last thing she wanted was to get lost. Chills began to set in the quiet agent's limbs as the overhead lights began to flicker. "Stay calm," she tried to reassure herself, "You've been through spots like this before; vendor's hall, remember? And you've still got a flashlight with you." But the flickering lights did little to ease her mind. The only difference in the atmosphere was the lack of goo-leaking corpses scattered on the floor. "Wow," she continued, letting sarcasm take the wheel for a bit, "This must be how déjà vu feels, although this time I don't have to worry about creepy-ass villains popping up around the corner either."
"I beg your pardon?!"
Kate jolted upwards and turned about quickly to search for the intruder, finding no one. The voice had come from her mind again. "Oh, it's just you," she whispered to the obnoxious businesswoman, secretly grateful for another soul to talk to, even if said company was a hallucination. "What sort of psychological blackmail are you going to try on me this time, Excella?"
The disembodied executive chuckled. "Nothing on my part. This one's all on you."
Kate stopped walking. "What do you mean?" the cadet asked sharply; there must have been some detail she had overlooked. "And aren't you supposed to be dead?"
Excella ignored the second question and gave another short laugh. "Look behind you," the executive taunted, "The nightmares come out in the dark."
A monstrous roar echoed up the hallway, drawing Kate's attention to the other end of the hall. She warily turned and scanned the darkness, but even with a flashlight, she was far enough up the hallway that she could see nothing beyond the shadows. The thought made her nervous. As if on command, her mind began completing in the blanks, filling the darkness with figments of the agent's imagination.
As part of their training, Ada had Stevie and Kate play first-person horror games to desensitize them to sudden scares and test their nerves. The training worked well with Stevie, but the monsters from the games lingered in parts of Kate's imagination, even after the training was over. The older girl eventually adopted the mantra "What would Ada do?", repeating it when she found herself in a tough spot.
But the mantra would be of no help now, not when her instincts were screaming at her to run away. "Stop it brain, it's just my imagination..." Kate reminded herself, backing away slowly from the shadows and into the light, unable to look away. She wasn't afraid of the dark itself; what scared her more was-
The light above her blinked out. Kate was suddenly blind, immersed in inky blackness and totally vulnerable until her eyes could adjust. Her breaths became hitched. Shaky fingers fumbled for her flashlight and her handgun. She didn't dare to move; her feet may as well have been frozen to the floor, waiting, anticipating the next scare.
"Better run," Excella coaxed.
Kate didn't need telling twice; her legs kicked into action and she bolted up the other end of the hallway, uncaring her lungs' and muscles' protest at the sudden sprint or the rush of air that whipped and stung her face. She took turns at a skid, not bothering to keep track of where she was going with the chalk. The agent ran until seconds blended together, erasing her sense of time. She only stopped when she hit a wall dead-on, stopping her in her tracks.
The agent stood in place, stunned for several seconds until the initial shock faded. A dull throbbing bloomed in her skull; there would surely be a bruise there later from the impact. Glancing behind her, she allowed her mind to relax upon realizing that the lights had come back on. The surface she had slammed into was freezing cold and solid; metal judging from the texture, and when she tried to pull away her skin stuck to the surface. If the temperature was any indication, the agent had a good idea what was inside. "Looks like I found the Cryo-stasis room," Kate thought, wincing as she pried her face off the cold metal of the door. Once she was free, she took a minute to pull her senses together, not bothering to fix a few locks of hair near her face that had come undone from her ponytail and now framed both sides of her face.
A quick test of the handle proved that it was locked, a glance found the electronic keypad next to it. Kate hooked up her hacking kit, and the door unlocked with a series of clicks as the proper numbers rolled into place. She slipped inside, propping the door open with her foot at the last second; she didn't want this door locking behind her. A quick glance around the room revealed a spare pipe close to Kate's free foot, which she rolled towards her,picked up, and shoved it between the door and its frame. The older agent removed her foot; the door stayed put.
With the door securely propped open, the lone agent began examining the chamber. The entire room was stark white, made shiny by sheets of ice that had formed on the walls. Cold air was being pumped into the room through a metal vent in the ceiling. A single stasis chamber, similar to what she and Stevie had encountered during the first 'Playtime' sat near the back of the small room, surface frozen over with ice crystals. The older agent violently shivered as the cold air hit her skin and raised goosebumps. This was the right place.
Kate rubbed the glass tube with her sleeve, clearing enough of the ice to see the head of the figure inside. "Why hello, Mr. Burnside," she thought, somewhat surprised as she put the familiar face and pumpkin orange hair together, "How in the world did you get all the way down here?"
No sooner as she thought that , the monitors on the equipment next to the chamber lit up. Steam rose from the bottom of the chamber as Steve thawed out. The door slid open as the capsule finished its defrosting sequence. He gave a short moan, then tipped forward.
"Whoa!" Kate reacted as she caught the young man in her arms and guided him to lie on the floor; the guy was just about stiff enough to be a statue, not to mention freezing cold to the touch. "Are you alright?" she asked him. No response. "Of course he wouldn't right away," the cadet thought to herself, "he's still frozen. But he's not moving; this probably isn't good..."
Steve's eyes flickered open as parts of his body began to move. "What the-! where-?" he panicked, interrupting Kate's mental rambling.
"Don't panic," Kate reassured him, "I just released you from cryogenic stasis. I'm not an enemy. You're safe." She paused to catch her breath as Steve began to visibly calm down. "Thank goodness you woke up...I thought I was gonna have to do CPR-"
"You saved me. . . ." Steve spoke wearily, albeit shocked from coming out of deep freeze. He looked back up into the face of his savior. "Claire..."
Kate stopped her rambling. "Huh? I'm not-" she started.
"Some knight in shining armor I am. . . ." Steve muttered. The agent sat stock still and listened. "Claire . . . . I don't think I got to say this earlier...I-" The agent's eyes widened in fear; she knew what was coming next and she didn't deserve it either.
Interrupting his confession, she pulled Steve upwards, slinging one of his arms around her shoulders for support. "No time to talk," she said tersely, "Our friends are waiting."
Steve fell silent. His body gave a quick quiver. "It's so cold . . ." he spoke.
Kate's eyes turned to Steve, finally taking notice that he was bare-chested and swallowed her embarrassment at the realization that the only article of clothing he wore was a pair of shorts. Apparently whoever had placed him down here hadn't bothered to give him proper clothes before freezing him."... Maybe we should find you some clothes, first," she added, trying not to think too long about the fact that his good looks were still intact after years of being frozen.
Now she was glad that she had propped the door open; pushing the heavy door with one free arm would have been difficult if the portal was fully closed. With some difficulty, she shoved the door open far enough for her and Steve to get through, kicking the mock doorstop away when both of their bodies were clear. The door shut behind them, undisturbed.
Once Steve and Kate were long gone, another person approached the room. This person punched the number code in the door and unlocked the room, only to make a grab for her radio as soon as she had a full view of the room. "Sir! We have a problem," she announced.
"What is it, Veronica?" the voice of Delfredi replied.
"The power's come back on in the prison level, but Experiment 00019986-TV his out of his Cryo-Freeze chamber!" the blonde woman replied.
"I noticed," the madman responded. "It looks like one of our guests found him earlier. . . This could be good for our plan."
"Sir?" Veronica replied, wondering how in the world an escaped experiment could be good.
"This 'Playtime' is about to get very interesting. . ."
"... And that's why I decided to grow this mustache!" Carlos finished his story, much to Stevie and Mattie's entertainment, whereas Billy rolled his eyes, annoyed by his fellow prisoner's behavior. Ever since the quiet girl had left, Carlos and the taller of the two women had talked nearly nonstop about the most mindless things. Thankfully, the other girl, the one who had unlocked his cell door, was fairly serious and stuck to a chair across from the door, despite muttering angry words to the air every four minutes. Aside from that, nothing else had happened, and the ex-convict had never liked waiting.
"Okay, back to business," Stevie concluded, drawing everyone else's attention, "How have you guys managed to stay down here so long without going insane? I'd go stir-crazy in minutes."
"Discipline," Billy answered coldly. "Once you've survived certain horrors once, you know how to deal with them when they come back to haunt you."
Carlos shrugged his shoulders. "I try to absorb the useful things, then forget about everything else, tell myself it's just a bad dream. Just another nightmare."
"And who says we're still sane?" the former marine added.
The blue-eyed agent blinked and raised an eyebrow. "What do you mean?" she probed, growing even more curious about the mens' time in their prison cells.
"After the first few shocks, I haven't exactly felt like myself," the tattooed survivor explained, "I've been hearing and seeing things in my cell . . . as if they've found a way out of my nightmares and into reality. Get the picture?"
"What do you see?" Mattie asked calmly.
Billy looked down at the floor. "I assume you've heard about everything that happened with Umbrella." The women nodded. "I keep seeing things from that night;" he explained, "the leeches crawl in, and I hear monsters outside the cell. And I'm powerless to stop them. Until eventually it becomes too much and they just disappear. I hate it."
Stevie and Mattie took in the information. "What about you, Carlos?" the half-blind agent asked, "What do you hear?"
The former Umbrella mercenary shook his head, all cheer gone from his demeanor. "It's nothing important. Just some memories I'd like of get rid of."
"Memories of Raccoon City?"
"No. Long before Raccoon." Stevie and Mattie stared at the ex-mercenary expectantly. "Let's just say that my childhood wasn't very peaceful, okay chicas?" he added, "I'd rather not lay all my cards on the table right now."
Stevie nodded. "We can accept that," she said. Then her face became more serious, "Wait a second." She stepped forward. "Your eyes. How long have they been-?"
"What about our eyes?" Billy asked, stepping forward until he stood directly in front of Stevie. "Tell us now," he ordered.
The agent looked closer. Sure enough, Billy and Carlos' eyes were much, much different from how she and her friends remembered them from the games. The irises had turned gold and the pupil had morphed into narrow slits. "They're yellow," she spoke, " and your pupils have changed. Like a cat's."
"Show me," he commanded.
Stevie searched herself for a reflective surface, coming up with a small rectangular mirror that she used to peek around corners. She gave the glass to Billy. The ex-marine took the mirror and stared into it. The muscles in his face became tense, and his eyebrows slowly furrowed. The longer he stared, the angrier he became, until he finally tore his gaze away and leaned against the room's single table.
"Billy?" Mattie asked, nervously.
The ex-marine responded with a roar, adjusted his grip, and pitched the table at the opposite wall. The unfortunate piece of furniture landed upside down with a violent crash, startling the two women, whereas Carlos sat unfazed.
"Dude...you wanna settle down?" Stevie tried, one hand going for her gun in case the situation got ugly.
"They turned me into a monster..." the former marine growled. The lights flickered briefly, then he stalked off into the darkest corner of the room.
"...Well, that escalated quickly. Best leave him alone for a while chicas," Carlos commented, "Where's your other partner? Shouldn't she be back soon?"
"Yeah... Kate's been gone for a while now. I'm getting nervous," Mattie added. She winced sharply as a pain shot up her bandaged arm; her eyes darted to the nearest corner. "Maybe she isn't coming back at all," she whispered to the air.
Stevie stepped towards her semi-blinded friend, despite feeling a little uneasy herself. "She'll be back," the younger agent reassured. "Kate isn't the kind of person who makes promises she can't keep."
"Alfred doesn't think so." the blind cadet added.
"And are you going to believe that dress-wearing sociopath?" Stevie countered. Mattie fell silent and turned her gaze to the ground. "Let me talk to him. I'll sort this out." The younger agent turned towards the empty corner. "Alright Alfred," Stevie started, "I've had it up to here with you messing with my friend's head, so would you kindly buzz off and haunt someone else already?! You don't scare anyone." She paused to catch her breath.
"...Stevie."
"What is it?"
"You just ranted at a wall," Mattie replied before pointing at the corner closest to the door, "He's over there, smirking at you."
Stevie gave up and rolled her eyes at the ceiling. "Great," she muttered to herself, "turns out I'm the sanest person in this whole group. We might as well be circling a black hole made of trouble."
Everyone fell silent afterwards. Time passed, then a few short, quick taps sounded at the door, signaling Kate's return. Mattie and Stevie rushed to the door, throwing it open for their friend. Their eyes widened when they saw who accompanied her.
"Is that-!?" Mattie started, squinting at her friend's new companion.
Kate nodded. "Yes, help me get him into a chair," she ordered, hefting Steve higher into her shoulder, "He's heavier than he looks." Stevie took the semi-conscious man's other arm, guiding him and his crutch to a nearby chair. Kate did manage to find him a spare prison uniform, so he wasn't shivering as much as he was earlier. Once they set him in, the questions started again.
"What's up with him?" Carlos started, peering over at the new arrival, "He is not lookin' well, amigos"
"I found him in Cryo-stasis," Kate explained. "Good news, he seems willing to cooperate. Bad news, he's a little addled from being frozen."
"How addled are we talking?" Stevie asked.
Kate pulled Stevie and Mattie into another huddle. "He doesn't remember anything since Antarctica!" the older girl whispered, "He thinks I'm Claire!"
"Good!" Stevie whispered back, "We can use that to keep him on our side!"
"Can he walk?" Billy suddenly spoke. The agents turned their heads to see the convict appear out of the corner, having regrouped himself after his little episode with the table.
Kate quickly checked Steve's condition. The younger man was still loopy, but his strength was beginning to return. "I think so," she answered, "I had to support him on the way back here, but I think he can make it by himself."
"Good. I want to get out of here, NOW," Billy declared, "I wouldn't be surprised if the rest of us were thinking the same thing."
"Slight problem with that, man," Stevie added, stepping forward, "You never said exactly how we could get out."
"There's some stairs around here that take us out of this level," Carlos explained, "Billy and I know where they are."
"It's the route the blonde bitch took us when we were brought out for 'Playtime'," Billy added.
Stevie glanced around the room, taking stock of the travel party. Finding a way out would be a nightmare without Billy and Carlos' route, not to mention it would be difficult to get Steve and Mattie up the stairs she and Kate had taken, and on top of that the door that led into the 2nd 'Playtime' was sealed shut. The dark-haired agent turned to her partner, looking for her opinion. Kate gave a short nod in agreement. "Well, we can't exactly go back the way we came," the blue-eyed agent decided aloud. "We'll take your way."
AN: Don't forget to review!