The room they were in was wide and relatively empty save for a few benches and a monitor that required the chip they needed to access it. They realized now that the room they were in was a viewing room to the monster garden that awaited them.

There was a door on the other side that tried to slide open but seemed to struggle with a loud hiss. Vines had crept across the door, holding it shut, but eventually, they were pried off the more the door slid open.

The hallway was almost dark, and narrow, with very little light peeking between long vines that slithered along the walls. And it reeked. Like the smell from when they first walked into the area, only it was concentrated in a small space.

There were pieces of scientific equipment lining shelves that were a mess as they were entangled in the plants. Shining a flashlight up near the ceiling, there was a body hanging that was being held up by the vines. Only, it didn't look like any normal body that they had ever seen. But really, what body was normal after a day like this?

It looked like a human body fused with the plants. There were vines and leaves sprouting all over it, almost as if consuming the body. The face was like a skull with its hollowed-out eyes, and its mouth seemed to split down the middle with sharp teeth in its wake. It was like the plants had completely taken over.

They passed it quietly, in hopes it wouldn't move and were relieved that it didn't. On a cart, they found some more gunpowder and were about to move on when the sound of a mix of gurgling and clicking reached the survivors' ears.

From the pathway they were about to go through, one of those plant bodies that was lying on the floor began to get up as it noticed their presence. Claire tried hitting the thing with bullets, but nothing seemed to take it down. Not even a headshot.

"What the fuck!?" Veronica hissed.

It was almost like it absorbed them till one had hit one of the many orange bulbs on its body. It popped like a blister and made the girls shiver in disgust.

"Aim for those!" It took a little maneuvering in the cramped room since the thing moved eerily quick, but they were able to knock it down.

However, much to their disappointment, the body was still moving even on the floor. They watched as vines were slithering across the body towards the injured parts. They carefully approached it and watched as it twitched and slithered into itself.

"Is it…is it fixing itself?" Veronica questioned worriedly.

"I-I don't know."

"I'm not about to find out," she said before taking out her grenade launcher and shooting the corpse with a fire grenade.

It hissed and thrashed as the flames consumed its body before flopping down a charred skeleton. Nothing seemed to move anymore, and this seemed to be the winning solution.

"Now I see why there are so many fire grenades lying around," Claire noted. Veronica nodded then remembered the body still hanging behind them.

"Not taking any chances," she explained as she shot the other one down. Again, it thrashed before burning out completely.

"Good idea. You never know when those things will surprise you."

From the hallway, they had made their way to the next room, which looked to be the greenhouse control room. Many of the computers didn't look like they worked, except for a machine with a glowing yellow light at the top and a keypad with symbols on the buttons below a monitor. On the said monitor, there was a map of the greenhouse and there were two areas that were labeled as locked. Meaning that there were two doors they could go through.

Right where they ran in, there was a counter in the middle of the room that had a flash grenade that Veronica took since her partner was still stocked up. Walking up to the machine with the yellow light, they realized it was beeping because whatever it was made for, had an action implemented. It must have been on some sort of timer because it began to do something.

"Dispensing solution now," an automated voice stated over the intercom.

"Wait, what solution?" the older questioned as they watched from the windows the sprinkler systems spray a solution over the greenhouse.

Nothing else seemed to happen with the plants, which probably meant it was helping the monstrous things grow. A few moments later, a cartridge was ejected out of the machine, allowing for the girl to take. It was now empty and could probably hold something else inside.

"Could be handy," Veronica muttered to herself as she put it into her pouch.

"Ok. So now we're in some freaky greenhouse with mutant plants looking for a dark blue chip. If we can avoid getting the dead guys one at least," Claire said aloud as they looked over the map monitor. The greenhouse was like a small labyrinth with multiple paths throughout the room.

On it were two areas that were locked: a drug testing lab that was just around the corner from the control room and a ladder just down the path from that. Two places that could easily have a purple chip hiding in them. It seemed simple enough. But when were things ever simple in Raccoon City?

Deciding on the drug testing lab first since it was closest, they walked out into the greenhouse and regretted it immediately. The odor they had smelled from the entirety of the area was even more intense in the room.

Looking up among the giant looming plants, they could see countless dead bodies hanging around, many already turned into plant monsters. That's when they realized what the smell was. It was a combination of the stench of decaying bodies and the mustiness of plants.

"Oh! Talk about extreme plant fertilizer," Veronica muttered in disgust as they carefully walked down the metal steps into the room.

They turned a corner to head towards the way they needed to go and saw one of those plant zombies near where the ladder was. It hadn't spotted them yet, so they quickly ran into the drug testing lab before it could.

Luckily for them, the room was empty and deemed safe once in it. There was only one body inside that was in a yellow hazmat suit, but they presumed it as fully dead. The room was brightly lit and still clean, but their search for an ID chip was futile. It was beginning to look like they were going to have to get it from the man who is being held up by the giant plant.

They did, however, find something interesting that could help them with that. It was an Herbicide Synthesis protocol sheet. Its purpose was to inform people on how to kill the plants in the greenhouse in case of an emergency. Claire picked it up and read over it before handing it to her gal pal to look at.

"Plant 43, huh?" Veronica questioned.

"Looks like that thing you picked up is going to come in handy after all. We can use it to kill the plant and get the chip."

"But it's asking for 'the required amount of UMB No. 21'? Did you happen to understand Chemistry in high school 'cause I sure didn't."

"Well, it's gotta be in here, right? They wouldn't make it hard to safely kill an experiment gone wrong." The girls cringed at the bad wording, but Claire had a point.

She glanced around the room and noticed a machine that was gated up in the corner. There was a red light on at the top and next to it was a combination of symbols that looked like the ones they saw on the keypad in the control room. It must be the code for opening the gate. Only the last two symbols were scratched off leaving them a little helpless.

"That must be it. Maybe we can find the code somewhere around here?"

"This can't be the only place it was written down. They would be idiots if they didn't. We still have to go down the ladder, so we might just get lucky."

Taking one more look over the room, they found a grenade and a large gunpowder can then walked back out into the greenhouse. They carefully peeked around the corner to see what the path looked like to the ladder and found the plant zombie they saw earlier still standing close by.

Veronica decided to take the lead and quickly dispose of it with her grenade launcher. It was almost too easy to kill with this weapon choice. Once it had fallen, the duo ran for the ladder, only to find it shut and locked! There was a code written on the top that had Veronica stumbling for a pen but was interrupted halfway by another zombie crawling up onto its feet from the floor not too far away. Doing her best to crudely write what she saw they booked it back to the control room and to the keypad to unlock the ladder.

The code the girl wrote was messy, but it was the best she could do in a short amount of time. It took a few tries to figure out the last symbol, but eventually, the system okayed the code given and unlocked the ladder.

When they returned to the greenhouse a few more of those things had fallen from the ceiling blocking multiple ways to the ladder. Despite having the ammo for it, there were only so many before they ran out eventually. And who knows how many of those things there were in the lab.

"This way has less. C'mon!" Veronica pulled Claire's arm.

Looping around, they were almost able to make it past the zombies unscathed when one popped out from a hidden corner and grabbed Claire by her arms. What they weren't prepared for was its head to split open down the middle revealing a Venus Flytrap of a mouth full of sharp teeth.

With Claire trying to hold it back from snapping its teeth into her face, Veronica grabbed a knife and stabbed it in its mouth. It shrieked and stumbled back in pain, which gave Claire a chance to shove it back.

It was just a brief moment of relief to give them time to get away. They reached the ladder and quickly climbed into darkness before shutting the hatch above them. The horrible clicking sound they heard heading in their direction just as they were descending down was terrifying. But they both made it down in the nick of time.

At the bottom of the ladder, they found themselves in a small underground pipe room. It was narrow and dark, but clear of any dangers. Peering around the ladder, they found a table sitting at one end of the room. On it was a map of the East Area, which they were in, and a large can of gunpowder.

They decided to use this moment to make more ammo for themselves and to check up on their inventory. While looking over the map, they realized there was a door on the other side of the room that led to more parts of the lab that they didn't see upstairs.

"Just how big is this place? It feels like it never ends," Veronica whispered, unsure of whether something could be waiting in the shadows. They couldn't be too careful.

"It just keeps going and going," Claire sighed tiredly. "Hold on. Can we also talk about the zombie's head opening up like a flytrap to try and eat me!? 'Cause that's a new one."

"Yeah, no kidding! What the actual fuck is going on down here that lets them do that?"

"Fucking plants. I don't think I could have one when we get out of here for a while. I'm too afraid it'll turn me into some ivied out monstrosity."

"I've never really had a green thumb, so I think I can handle that. Though that's what we could call those things. Ivys."

"Not a bad idea," Claire shrugged. "Just so we know what we're talking about." She looked over the map and pointed to the corner. "There. Looks like there's a stairwell just on the other side of this next room. It'll loop us back to the waiting room and then we can head back to the control room without having to go back through the greenhouse again."

"And there's more rooms to search down here too."

"We might just find what we're looking for."

With a game plan in mind, they finished packing everything up and then began making their way to the door on the other side of the room. Claire cracked it open a smidge then walked in first with the elder girl behind her. It was dark, barely lit by emergency lights dotted near the floors. According to the map, this was a lounge, but it was also connected to a server room and low temp lab.

The server room was the first room they encountered, but the door was locked since it was an electronic door, and the electricity was out in this part of the building. They carefully crept towards the lounge and found the bodies of scientists lying dead on the floor.

There was blood splattered everywhere and part of the ceiling looked like it had been torn through. Surveying the long scratch marks on the wall, they could tell it was the work of Lickers. Knowing that, they were put on edge as they continued searching.

Taking any precautions they had, they used knives to destroy the brains of any of the bodies they came across, as well as check their wristbands for the chip they needed. Unfortunately, none of them had it and the option of getting it from the greenhouse was becoming more of a possibility.

Besides finding another green herb and some acid grenade rounds, there didn't seem to be anything of use. That was until they noticed a familiar-looking square space on the wall.

"Oh!" Veronica gasped as she lugged out the modulator she had found earlier. "Looks like the one in the nap room. Let's see what it does!" She turned it on with the twist of a knob and was met with the loud droning sound.

"Geez that's annoying!" Claire said a little louder.

On the screen were wavelengths that didn't seem to correspond much, but after tinkering a bit, she noticed they could match up. Veronica looked at the wall and noticed the word that's encoded was different so with a bit of fine tuning, she got the wavelengths to match. Then she popped the bad boy into the wall and watched as the power around them switched on with a loud hum.

"All right! Way to go!" Claire gave Veronica a high five. The lights overhead flickered on and the food machines next to them began to beep and make noise. "Let's check that room over there first."

The server room was small and like the name said, was full of computer servers. They glowed brightly as they lined the walls of the small square space they were in as well as in a column in the middle of the floor. There were some maintenance carts lying around as well as a table with a typewriter on the other side of the room.

Searching for anything that looked important, they found a knife, more gunpowder, and some fire rounds. At this rate, Veronica was swimming in it. But she wasn't complaining.

Once done they began making their way to the low temp lab which was down the hall. As they approached it, however, the sound of thumping from above them stopped them in their tracks.

Suddenly, a vent on the ceiling broke and fell to the floor with a loud clang, with a Licker sitting on top of it. The pair froze and watched as another Licker crawled out from the hole above them and across the ceiling. Veronica nearly had a heart attack when a hand touched her arm and began pulling her towards the lab door slowly. Each step they took almost seemed to be followed, but the Lickers didn't sniff them out yet.

The door automatically slid open giving them the opportunity to back into the room while still keeping an eye on the monsters listening for them. Adrenaline was pumping in their veins and sweat dripped down their faces. No matter how many times they had encountered Lickers, it never got any less scary.

Once inside and away from the door, it slid close giving them a moment to finally breathe. The room they were in was empty, thankfully, but they still kept quiet just in case. Surrounded by work desks on either side of the room, everything was a mess, and it was dark. The only light source came from a window that looked into the actual cooling lab. Veronica peaked into it to find the room to be covered in frost. It really was a cooling lab.

Walking further in and towards it, there was a small section that had an observation desk with a computer on it. The screen was the same color as their chip, and it made them curious to see what was on it. There was also a body on the ground that they knifed just in case it wasn't fully dead. As they approached the computer, the automated voice called out to them.

"Welcome back, Dr. Li. You have [5] new messages." Claire hummed curiously as she clicked on the computer.

It opened to Dr. Li's inbox and revealed the messages sent by coworkers. They talked about a Dr. Cartwright who seemed to be hiding things, and one email even had the clue about the trophy they had found. Then it ended with his coworkers freaking out after the outbreak. It seemed like the higher officials clearly left behind everyone. No one was safe.

"They really didn't care whether their scientist lived or died. That supremely sucks," Claire sighed.

"No kidding. And I thought my high school job working at the mall sucked."

"Tell me about it. I'll never complain about working in retail ever again after this."

Passing through a small room with hazmat suits in it, they walked into the lab and started shivering immediately. There was frost everywhere and the air fogged every time they breathed out. It was super cold, and the source came from one of the refrigerator doors that was left open, chilled air spilling out into the room. Veronica hadn't felt this cold since when she first arrived at the R.P.D., it was enough to cause her teeth to chatter.

"Damn," Claire shivered. "Shoulda packed my parka."

"Oh hell no. I'm not staying in here." They both backed out quickly and walked back out into the office part. "Ok so, so far no blue chip…which means…"

"Which means getting the right solution to kill the plants is our only choice," Claire answered back in return.

"Fuck."

"I know. But we can figure this out. We just have to find the code to that machine, right?"

"Right, but we've looked everywhere."

"Well," Claire looked around at the room, "This is like the only other lab here, so let's take a look at any of these documents."

"Oh man, that's gonna take forever!"

"But we gotta try!"

Veronica groaned then both girls began searching every paper they could find. It took a solid ten minutes of nothing before Veronica felt like giving up.

"Claire, this isn't working."

"We gotta keep looking."

"I mean, what if we just try a bunch of random codes? One of the combinations has gotta be-," she was cut off as she sat on a desk and accidentally knocked a trophy in the shape of a DNA helix to the ground.

The loud thump scared both girls into silence as they listened for any sound of the Lickers. There was some hissing outside the door then nothing as it skittered away. They sighed in relief and Claire gave her an annoyed face.

"Sorry," the brunette whispered as she got off and picked the trophy up off of the floor.

As she picked it up, however, she noticed something weird at the bottom of it. There on the bottom, was a familiar set of symbols. It was the code!

"Huh? Guess my clumsiness came in handy after all," she said as she showed her companion her findings. Claire sighed out in relief as she set the pile of paperwork down.

"We might actually be able to do this!" As Veronica wrote the code down to remember, Claire set out the map and the protocol sheet. "Ok. So, like I said before, we go up these stairs and we get back to the control room. We input the code, go back to that machine, and get the solution. Easy peasy."

"Then we have to freeze it, which now we know where to do that," Veronica added while looking at the protocol sheet.

"Then we shoot back up, kill the plants, get the chip…"

"Then baddabing, baddaboom, we get the antiviral agent!"

"We so got this!" Claire lightly grasped Veronica's hand to shake excitedly.

The girls got their pouches fixed up before finally exiting the lab. Luckily for them, the Lickers had moved on to snack on the dead bodies near the snack machines, so they were able to quickly and quietly pass by and through the exit door.

On the other side they merely walked through a short hallway to another door that opened to the stairwell that they saw on the map. At least the lights were on so that they could see what was around the corner.

Just as they entered the room, a growl from the corner caught them by surprise as they watched a zombie trying to get onto its feet. Veronica quickly took it out before it could fight them on the stairs. After the many encounters on staircases, they've come to realize how annoying they really were.

After a few flights, they were just about halfway to the top when a body suddenly plunged down from above them, hitting the floor with a loud thud. Veronica yelped in surprise and watched as Claire shot it in the head before it could get up. Once she was done, they noticed at the top of that specific flight were vines hanging in the corners of the walls. They didn't see any bodies hanging around, but they remained cautious just in case.

Finally, after one more flight, they reached the top of the stairs where there awaited an open door. The room looked like a storage room and there was another door on the other side that would lead back to the waiting room.

Just as they walked in, they could hear another growl from behind a box near the other door. A zombie lady stood up and began stumbling over to them, so Claire began shooting at it. It took a few shots, but she went down eventually as well.

The room was a mess. Clearly people were already looting it for medical supplies to fight off the virus. Only nothing worked by the state of things in the lab. They were able to find some more gunpowder, a box of handgun ammo, and an electric box like the one down in the the power was already working so there was no need to use it.

They were about to leave when Claire noticed a piece of paper sitting on a chair. She picked it up and held it up for the both of them to see. It was scrawled messily by someone who was clearly in a rush.

"'Everybody's turned...vegefied...They keep coming back, again and again. Burn them all. Burn them until their whole body is black as ash. There's no other way,'" she read. "Looks like you were right in using fire rounds."

"Then it was fixing itself. That sucks! A zombie that can heal itself?"

"Just when you think it can't get any worse."

"Why in the world would you say that?!" Veronica groaned at the possible jinx.

"Sorry, sorry," Claire sheepishly held her hands up.

Things seemed the same as they made their way towards the control room. No new monsters had appeared, the machine was still locked on the monitor. With the new code in hand, it was unlocked in a snap and was easy to get to as the Ivys were all just standing around with no notice to them.

The machine's gate had lifted and the light at the top had turned green. Veronica put the empty cartridge into a slot and watched as the machine began to move things around. There were three tubes inside it, each a different size and there was green liquid in two of them.

"Manual mode engaged. Adjust amount of solution to match cartridge capacity," an automated voice said from the machine.

A red line appeared on the first tube showing how much liquid was needed to fit in it. There were three buttons beneath the tubes that had symbols showing them which ones rotated and how to fill them.

"Ok. This shouldn't be too difficult, right?" the young girl said as she reached for the buttons.

It turned out to be more difficult than they thought. They each kept pushing buttons hoping for it to work, but they always missed the mark by just a bit over or under.

"You've gotta be fucking joking!" Claire cried out in anger.

"This is ridiculous! Did they want their employees to do any work or am I crazy?!"

"For the love of God, I swear if this thing doesn't give me the solution now, I'm gonna smash a hole into it!"

"Ok, what we're not going to do, is that. Let's take a deep breath," Veronica tried getting them both to calm down.

She pulled Claire away to face her and held onto the side of her arms. Their eyes locked with one another's, and Veronica had to try not to get lost in them.

"With me." Both girls inhaled deeply then exhaled at the same time. "One more." Again. "Good. Ok. Let's just try again. I think we might be close."

"I hope so. I don't know how much more of this I can take before I lose it completely."

"Well, we certainly don't want that. I'd prefer it if you were mostly sane. I would hate to lose you to a machine of all things."

Claire's frown couldn't help but melt into a small smile. Veronica really knew how to calm her down and make her feel better. She couldn't have asked for a better 'gal pal'.

"Of course it wouldn't be the monsters that kill me. It would be the damn machines," she giggled. Veronica squeezed Claire's arms gently as she joined in.

"Don't even think about it. Think we can try again?"

"Yeah. I think I have a better head on my shoulders now."

"Good. Let's keep it that way," she grinned.

Turning back to the machine, it took them a few more infuriating tries before finally getting it right. The girls whooped in success before leaning into each other in relief, arms hooking around the other girls' waist to hold close. The machine began to beep as the liquid was presumably filling the cartridge. Once it was empty, out popped the cartridge full of the solution and was put into one of Veronica's pouches.

"Ok, back to the cooling lab."

"I say we go back the way we came instead of the ladder. We can avoid Ivys and Lickers that way." Claire nodded in agreement then led the way all the way back to the lab.