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Best of Intentions: Spooky Scary Skeletons (ch. 10)
🕑 Added 2024-09-16 15:01:04 +0000 UTCI had no idea who this lady was, I thought as Dakka took point with Jill behind her and me bringing up the rear. But that didn't necessarily mean anything. We were here days earlier than Jill and Carlos arrived in the game. So, it was entirely possible that there were a few survivors that had been holding out before then. I'd call it probable, even. Umbrella was filled with mouth breathing lobotomites, but some had to have recognized the danger of what they were creating.
It obviously wasn't enough to convince them to not make whatever genetic horror they were commissioned to create, but to take precautions in case there was an outbreak? Or, if not precautions, then a game plan to hold out until rescue?
Yeah, I could see that pretty easily.
“You need to proceed slowly,” the woman who had yet to introduce herself said, speaking through the intercom. “To avoid leading them to you, I'm having to broadcast across the Hive. It has… agitated some of the infected.” She admitted as we made our way through the dark halls of the Hive.
Jill glanced over her shoulder at me, and I offered a small shrug.
“Furthermore, if you have any hope of surviving what's down here, you must follow my instructions,” she continued, her tone demanding and severe. Jill held up a hand when we reached a corner, sending Dakka out first. My Eldritch Cannon took stock of the situation for only a moment before opening fire, telling me that something not friendly was around the corner.
A split second later, a creature lunged forward, jumping over Dakka and slamming into the wall in front of Jill. I recognized what it was instantly-- a flayed body devoid of any flesh, revealing only muscle and sinew, with an exposed brain and a long tongue dangling out of its mouth. A Licker.
No eyes to speak of. They relied on echolocation to find prey, I recalled as that was consistent across the movies and game.
Jill fired, washing it in dragonsbreath and making the infected ignite. The dark hallways immediately became illuminated, revealing the bloodbath that had happened in all of its horrible glory while filling the air with a putrid burnt stench. The licker screeched, clawing at its own body before falling off the wall in a heap. I finished it off with a slug to the head, popping its top and killing it.
Dakka acted as an early warning system. Though, when I heard primal screeches echoing through the hall, I could guess that we had company. Jill made a gesture to fall back, so we did. Making our way down the hall, we waited for the lickers to arrive and I took the chance to get Jill's attention. Talking was a bit of a risk, so instead I waved a hand in front of my eyes and shook my head, then I pointed to my ears.
She nodded, and I got the impression that she already knew that. Had there been lickers at that mansion she mentioned?
I didn't get a chance to ponder that because a second later, two more arrived. Dakka kept perfectly still while they crawled on the walls, knowing that we were nearby but unable to tell where exactly. My heart really started to pound when one started crawling right towards me, blessed with dumb luck. Or maybe my own bad luck was taking its chance to shine. Almost silently, Jill started to shift her position, lining a shot up for the other one.
“Once-” the intercom spoke up, but whatever the woman had to say, I didn't hear it as I pulled the trigger when the licker before me suddenly stirred. The first shot killed it, probably, but I fired again, reducing the head and torso into bloody chunks. In that same second, the second licker lunged for me. Dakka saved my life, hitting the licker in the side mid jump and sending it flying away. Jill was quick to follow it up with by planting a handful of shots into the monster until it went still.
To get rid of the smell, I used Prestidigitation, replacing the scent of blood and burnt meat with a pleasant floral scent. Jill seemed vaguely thankful and let out a sigh, “She just about got us killed.”
I nodded, glancing around, “I don't see a camera here, so she probably didn't know.”
“I can't say I like the idea of doing Umbrella's bidding, survivor or not,” Jill said, checking her ammo while we had the chance.
“I'd be more inclined if we actually needed the help,” I agreed. “The Hive has a couple of entrances and exits. I know one of them is at the general hospital, which is probably a problem in itself. But, there could be others.” As far as I could tell, that railway was something of a main entrance. The receptionist area was a give away. As for the entrance at the hospital, given that it took the form of a massive platform, I'm guessing that's how they brought down industrial amounts of supplies down here.
So, it could just be the two. But I was holding out hope that we wouldn't have to leave through what was probably going to be an overrun hospital.
“Works for me. First order of business is stealing their data, right? Is there a faster way beyond cracking open desktops and stealing files?” She questioned as we began to move up once more.
To that, I mulled the question over. When I originally decided to come down here, the plan was to bring a full squad equipped with Bags of Holding. We could take our time and do exactly what she said -- crack open every computer for the hard drive and empty the filing cabinets. We could be thorough so it didn't matter if we didn't know exactly what we were looking for.
But with two people and one Bag of Holding? “We need to find the server room. This place isn't going to be hooked up to the internet, and keeping the servers in another location is a point of weakness when you already have a fuck-off sized secret base,” I reasoned. That's why major companies always had a server room on site. I'm guessing that went double when you were performing hella illegal human experiments in a secret bunker. “Though, I doubt the good doctor will just let us be.”
“She has access to the security cameras and intercom. It could be a pain in the ass if she locked us out of somewhere important,” Jill agreed.
“Play along until we get what we want?” I ventured and Jill seemed to debate with herself for a moment.
Then she sighed, visibly unhappy with her decision. “Umbrella or not, I'm not going to leave someone to die.” She admitted and… yeah, I could understand that a little too well. “Not to mention, she could be useful as a witness. I'm not sure what is going to happen after this, but I don't want Umbrella to weasel out of justice because they could dismiss whatever digital evidence we gathered.”
That was a good point. In the movies, the world ended so it never really came up. I was rather curious as to what would happen to a company that caused one of the single worst man-made disasters since Chernobyl. I'd like to say that the US government would take them apart, but the genre savy part of me knew that at best, a few scapegoats would be hung out to dry while the real perpetrators would get off scot free. Or, worse, find themselves working under Uncle Sam's thumb.
I didn't voice my thoughts, simply nodding in agreement as we reached a doorway. The wristband activated it and the door slid open to reveal-
“What the fuuu…?” I trailed off, momentarily stunned when we entered a massive chamber that was about a hundred yards wide in diameter. It was almost entirely comprised of empty space with a very long drop. There was a walkway connecting to a central pillar, and there were two other walkways that were currently pulled up, connected to two doors. The central pillar, interestingly, looked like some kind of elevator.
“Looks like an anti-contamination measure,” Jill noted, far less baffled than I was. Despite myself, I looked down to see that the chamber went on for so long, I couldn't see the bottom. Looking up, I did see a ceiling that the elevator was connected to-
I narrowed my eyes ever so slightly, recalling the map of the city. My enhanced intelligence wasn't something I really felt before, but I felt it now because I knew there was absolutely no chance in hell that I would have been able to figure this out before. But, with my perfect memory of the map, a few guesstimations about how long we had fallen and how fast, along with an estimation of the incline of the railway…
“That leads up to the orphanage. Or the police station,” I said, pointing up at the elevator with a thin grimace. That was… all kinds of screwed up, but experimenting on orphans would fit the bill for Umbrella. They really were doing their damndest to tick every box of the comically evil organization list.
Jill seemed more baffled by my deduction then she did about the massive vacuum chamber that we crossed. “How'd you figure that?”
“Math,” I answered with a shrug.
She shook her head before glancing up at the elevator. “It could be our way out, so let's keep the option open. Though, I'm more curious how exactly the outbreak happened. This place looks like it's in lockdown.” She noted, gesturing to the pulled back bridges.
“That,” the woman's voice rang out, “is because of me.” My gaze went up to a security camera and intercom, realizing that she could overhear us now. “When the initial outbreak happened, there was an attempt to evacuate. Some managed to leave through the railing that you used before I shut it down. Since then, I've been… containing the more dangerous projects.”
Huh. “And you are?”
“Unimportant,” the woman dismissed. “What is important is that you follow my instructions to the letter. I had hoped for a retrieval team, but the two of you seem capable. Across the bridge, you will find a lab marked B-13. Inside that lab, you will find a viral agent labeled GV-566. You will deliver it here, to the elevator, before returning to the lobby area before awaiting further instructions.”
“Okay -- let's make one thing clear. We don't work for you,” I said, throwing up my arms and making a big X. “And we're here for our own goals. The vaccine for the T-Virus you muppets released into the water system along with industrial amounts of the chemical compounds to make more of it.” I could tell Jill had questions about what I was doing, but she seemed to guess my aims.
Simply put, it would be far more suspicious if we meekly obeyed her.
“You're in the wrong place if you're looking for the cure to the T-Virus,” the woman replied, her tone curt. Clearly unhappy.
That was a flat out weird way to deflect and obvious bullshit. “Uh, no? Unless you're telling me that Umbrella has another fuck off massive secret underground base under Raccoon City?” I ventured, knowing that it was here. I saw it in the game. Maybe I would be inclined to have more doubts if I hadn't already confirmed the vial of vaccine in Dr. Bards’ office.
However, there was a very telling pause on the other end and I felt like I got punched in the gut.
“Wait. Hold up. You-...! You're telling me that Umbrella has two secret bases under Raccoon City? What the fuck? How much money does this company make!?” I blurted, caught thoroughly off guard as I felt the ground shifting underfoot once more. That, I hadn't expected. It was so damn dumb that I couldn't anticipate it. I had fully believed that we were in a different part of the Hive than what Jill had descended into. I just figured that it was one massive base.
Because building two was so absurdly wasteful and pointless that I just…
“Hive One focused on the development of biohazards ranging in use from domestic products, medicine, to bioweapons. Hive Two is a separate facility that was focused on providing… solutions to what we developed in Hive One. Vaccines, anti-virals, weapons. So both the problem and solution could be sold together. Or individually to competing markets,” the woman elaborated and I was dragging my hands down my face.
Meaning that I had to get to Hive Two if I wanted to get my railgun and establish a pipeline for the vaccine. Frustrating. Very frustrating.
“Ignoring all of that -- what do you need this viral agent for?” Jill asked while I recovered from the physical pain that I was in. Umbrella really was the worst. I mean that in every sense of the word -- comically over the top evil and so stupid that it made my brain hurt. “So far, Umbrella doesn't have a great track record and I'm not going to help you unleash some other monster on the city. We're already dealing with enough of them as it is.”
There was another worrying pause from the woman. “It's a weapon to be used on one of the infected,” she answered tersely. “The T-Virus wasn't the only outbreak. The G-Virus happened first, which facilitated the outbreak of the T-Virus.”
I feel a migraine coming on. “Uh Huh,” I said, rubbing my temples. “And this G-Virus is an ongoing problem, is it?”
“It is unlike the T-Virus. It acts less like a disease and more of a parasitic infection. The… patient zero is currently within the W-02 West Wing. By eliminating him- it there, we can prevent further outbreaks of the G-Virus.” The woman said and I paused at the emotion that leaked into her voice. She strangled it back down, but it was clear that this was a personal matter to her. I wasn't sure if that was a good thing or not.
Then I looked across the bridge at one of the doors marked with W-02 above it. The same place that we had to go for this viral agent. She really was sending us into the belly of the beast, huh?
Sharing a look with Jill, I could only shrug and she made a decision. “We’ll retrieve the viral agent and deal with the patient zero. On two conditions,” Jill said, looking up at the security camera. “You get us into the second Hive. And when the time comes, you'll testify on what happened here.”
“You really believe that Umbrella is going to have its day in court?” The woman asked, sounding utterly dismissive. Jill might have overplayed her hand with that.
“Either that, or we’ll cut the head off the snake,” I replied evenly.
There was another small pause of consideration before the woman spoke. “The former, I can arrange easily. Both Hives are connected by an emergency railcar. While both Hives are isolated, I can safely trigger an evacuation without activating the self-destruct sequence.” The what now? “As for the latter… provided that you can prove to me I wouldn't be throwing my life away for nothing, I will agree. Tentatively.” She decided.
That was about as good as we were going to get, I figured. But Jill wanted a little more, “Your name, then? I'm Jill Valentine. STARS. Or, at least I was before the team got disbanded.”
“Rudeus Rain. Professional menace to society and Umbrella in particular,” I offered.
“...Annette Birkin,” Annette replied with some reluctance. “All of this is moot unless we can destroy the G-Virus. I'm opening the passage now.” She informed before the bridge began to shift forward, two halves of the walkway meeting in the middle. “I've also granted your access token senior staff privileges.”
That was convenient, I decided, taking a step on the now connected walkway and approached the door. The information that we’d learned swirled in the back of my mind, fitting itself in the restructuring game plan. We had to get rid of the G-Virus. Things were bad enough without throwing another viral spanner in the works. So, we killed it, gathered up what data that we could here, then we went to Hive Two which actually had the stuff that we wanted.
I let Dakka take point once more as the door slid open, revealing dark hallways with the emergency lights covered in blood, dying the little light available a dark red. I resisted the urge to turn on my headlamp as I followed Jill inside the new part of the Hive. There was a lot of blood on the floor and walls, and in the heavy silence, I could hear distant shuffling around. It was as we passed an elevator that I started to understand what exactly we agreed to.
Halfway inside the elevator was a ravaged corpse, leaving the doors forcibly open. On the back panel was a poster. A ‘you are here’ sign, essentially.
It marked this as the top floor of twenty five floors in this portion of the Hive. It was almost a half circle, going down hundreds of feet with a large degree of separation between this side of the labs. Then on the other side was the half for senior lab members. That massively opened up the scope of what we were dealing with. I half figured we had already killed most of the scientists that had been in the Hive.
But, based on sheer size… there had to be more. Hundreds more.
The tension swelled to to the point you couldn't even cut it with a knife. It had to be smashed with a sledge hammer. I got Jill's attention, pointing at the elevator and she saw where our targets were. The viral agent was on the twentieth floor. The server room, likely just for this half of the Hive, was all the way down on the twenty-fifth. Meaning that we had a very long way to go.
Jill frowned, her lips thinning. Then she made a gesture. ‘Fast or slow?’ She seemed to be asking, and I considered the question for just a moment.
I was tapped out for spells unless I leveled up. Part of me wanted to post up in a secure position and start grinding away until I hit Level 7. Another part of me knew that was reckless. So, it really was a question of what was safer? What was better? Not just for us, but for everyone?
I knew the answer, even if I didn't like it.
‘Faster,’ I confirmed, inclining my head to the elevator next to the one filled with gore. Jill knew exactly what I was thinking and she seemed to hate the idea as much as I did. All the same, she nodded in agreement, knowing that it was the right call. We needed to get out of here and off to the second Hive as fast as possible.
Jill took up a covering position while I went to work. Dakka first fired a shot at the seam between the elevator doors, revealing that the elevator itself was on a different floor. The metal bent inwards enough that I could fit the car jack that I pulled out of my Bag of Holding. There was a muttering from the undead on the floor, followed by a squeezing of metal as I began to expand the elevator door. They were heavy things, I noticed, even with the car jack.
But, it only took a short minute for me to wedge it open enough for us to slip through. Dakka crawled up my back, settling in the pack while she went into shoulder mounted mode. Jill glanced my way, satisfied that we had a way down. “Let's secure our way back out,” she said, and I nodded. Wanting to conserve some ammo, I switched to my Arcane Weapon and took up a position across from Jill so we had a decent crossfire.
Slowly, the sounds of shambling and moaning drew closer before the first of them appeared down the hall. I pulled the trigger, picking him off, and the rotting flesh around his head ignited in flames. The shadows danced as the first undead collapsed, its brain flash burned, but it was swiftly followed by more. All of them were wearing bloodied lab coats, their faces and bodies noticeably more decayed than the ones above in the city.
Dakka and I started firing, thinning them out as they mindlessly shambled forward. Only when they got close enough did Jill start firing. One by one, the bodies dropped and there were an alarming number of them. They paid no mind as they climbed over the corpses of those that were killed before them and I realized odds were most of the scientists in this wing had been crowded around the only exit. An exit that Annette had sealed off.
Soon enough, the corpses started to act as a physical barrier for the undead. They had to crawl forward, their poor coordination making it a challenge for them. It was a full fifteen minutes later before the horde seemed to thin out. I wasn't really counting how many we had killed, but it had to be around fifty. Yet, even then, I got the feeling that wasn't all of them.
But, the area was clear enough. Though Jill and I still grabbed a vending machine and maneuvered it in front of the elevator. Just in case.
With the prep work done, I peeked past the elevator to see that it was somewhere near the halfway point in the elevator shaft. More importantly, there was a readily available service ladder that would take us right past it. I was up first with Dakka still on my back and I began to shuffle down. Jill joined me a moment later and the sounds of us making our way down echoed out in the elevator shaft.
My suspicions that we hadn't killed all of the undead in this part of the Hive were confirmed. The sounds of gunfire had echoed down the elevator shaft, alerting whatever undead were down below. Now they beat their hands against the doors, moaning and groaning as they tried to get through. I swallowed my nerves each time I crawled by an elevator door, hearing what sounded like dozens of them trying to get through.
But they had no chance to. Even with undead strength, they weren't going to get through solid steel.
So, I continued on with no worries, making my way past the elevator that rocked gently from the undead scrambling inside of it. That was a little more concerning, but was still a non-issue.
I had almost started getting comfortable with the tension. Right up until we were near the twenty-third floor, almost at the end, when we suddenly heard the awful sound of metal screeching. My heart jumped to my throat as I looked up past Jill just in time to see the elevator shake violently as something heavy landed on it.
My lungs went still, refusing to breathe in as I froze in place. Jill wasn't much better, pausing mid step down the next rung. We both watched as the elevator shifted, the steel cables groaning under an unseen weight. From my position, I couldn't see much, but I did see the top of the elevator getting peeled open like it was a soda can shortly before the thing that had dropped down on it entered it. That was then followed by the sound of more screeching metal as the elevator doors were ripped open.
Then there was silence except for the groaning undead that continued to beat at the elevator doors.
My mouth was dry and it felt like I swallowed sand when I swallowed thickly.
Whatever that was, it sounded big. And I was already topped up on massive zombie monsters, thank you very much. We waited in silence for another sign of whatever that creature was, but it seemed to have moved on. After a few minutes, Jill looked down at me and gestured for me to keep going.
Taking a bracing breath, I continued to shuffle down to the final floor, careful to be as soundless as I possibly could. And, just like how it was when you were trying to be quiet at two in the morning, every sound that I made felt impossibly loud. None more so than when we reached the 25th floor and we had to knock in the elevator doors.
The first hole that Dakka punched in revealed that there was no undead waiting for us. Which made sense since it was as far away from the exit as you could get. Fitting in the carjack, I began to open up the doors wide enough that we could slip through and with every spin, a horrible screeching sound echoed out. A low squeal of metal resisted and it was absolutely deafening.
Soon the sequel of the elevator doors was joined when the elevator above us shifted once more. Jill and I both froze, looking directly up to see the elevator shaking. There was a loud thump inside of it. I had no clue what exactly was going inside of it, but I knew I didn't like it one bit.
That was before there was a strained pop that echoed out a split second before the elevator lurched down a half foot. I felt Jill's hand grip my shoulder, her fingers digging in. “Rude-!” She cut herself off and I abandoned all attempts of the slow and steady route, spinning the carjack as fast as it would go. The low groan became a screech of metal on metal and that seemed to agitate whatever was above us.
There was another pop up above that was followed by the sound of more metal screaming. Acting on instinct, I threw myself forward, forcing my way through the gap that I had made as I dragged Jill in behind me.
Not a second later the elevator hit the ground with a powerful impact, but not an explosive one. Jill and I skidded across the floor a few feet, feeling a strong shockwave run through us while a cloud of dust was kicked up from the impact. I half expected that to be the prelude of our next problem, but as we scrambled to our feet no horrible monster erupted from the fallen elevator. The warped insides were filled with gore, blood covering the walls and floor, but only pieces of bodies were inside.
“There goes our exit,” Jill muttered under her breath and I saw the busted remains of my carjack.
To make sure we weren't dealing with a clever monster, I had Dakka crawl forward towards the elevator. When she didn't shoot, I was convinced that it wasn't lying in ambush in the elevator shaft above. For that reason, I shuffled forward, entering the elevator to see that the top had been completely removed. Peeled upward like it was a tin can.
It was because I was looking up that I saw a zombie falling down the elevator shaft and I stepped back just in time to avoid getting crushed. It hit the elevator with a meaty smack, falling around a hundred feet. It wasn't killed on impact, but it was a mess of broken bones.
“I'm leaving Dakka on overwatch,” I decided. And, as if to agree, there was another thump as another zombie fell from whatever hole that monster had made. “She should let us know if something follows us.”
“She?” Jill echoed, examining the hallway that we were in. It was dark and, unlike the others, it wasn't covered in gore. Seemed like the people at the bottom managed to escape up top, only to encounter a problem there.
“Cars, boats, and robots are always a she,” I said, patting Dakka on the chassis before moving on. I trusted her with my back. And, if nothing else, I knew she would go down swinging. “Let's find this server room and another way out. I don't suppose this place has a set of stairs?”
“It's a safe bet. Secret base or not, elevators malfunction and that could leave entire floors cut off otherwise. When you're making multimillion dollar bioweapons, that's going to be an unnecessary risk.” She reasoned and it made sense to me.
“Still can't believe these troglodytes built two secret bases under the same city. The bioweapon business has to be booming. This place alone has to cost billions,” I reasoned, giving Dakka one last lingering look before we continued onward. The server room should be nearby.
“Thinking of signing on?” Jill asked, sounding amused with my disbelief.
“As if. More worried,” I corrected, earning a look. “You don't make this kind of money unless someone really wants your product. Umbrella feels like it might be in the territory of ‘too big to fail.’ If not because of the sheer amount of cash they're apparently raking in, then because people in powerful positions won't want them too.” Like the military.
Jill was silent for a moment as we pressed on. I scanned the placards above each door as we slowly explored the floor. “What could we do about that, realistically?” She questioned… and that was the golden question.
“No idea. Yet,” I admitted before pointing out the door marked with Server Room. “But we have time to figure that out. If nothing else, we could give away some of their least dangerous patents. That'd tweak their nose,” I reason, taking out a crowbar and wedging it into the doors. With a heave, Jill managed to get her foot inside and give us some leverage to slide the doors open.
The server room wasn't particularly large, I saw. There were six server racks in total, three on each wall. “They're still on. Good,” I said, looking around the room before I spotted a laptop. It was, however, in the hands of a corpse.
The IT guy, I figured. He was in a desk seat with the wall covered in blood and brain matter from where he killed himself. A bloodstain on his leg revealed the reason for his suicide. Taking his laptop, I saw that it required a fingerprint scan, so I helped myself. With that, I saw a farewell note that he wrote in a word document -- minimizing that, I pulled up his access to the server diagnostics.
“What exactly is the plan here?” Jill questioned as I started typing. “I doubt all of this would fit on a thumb drive.”
“No such luck there, but we did get lucky,” I said, gesturing to the laptop. It vastly simplified things. “I can tap into server maintenance programs that'll compile the data onto other servers. It's a shortcut to avoid down time for the whole base. I'll probably have to trim some fat, but I can probably put just about everything on a single server. Then we take out the memory storage and toss it all into a Bag of Holding.”
Jill, rather than being impressed, looked thoroughly amused. “I was right. You are a D&D nerd,” she remarked, and I realized that was the first time I had called it a Bag of Holding out loud.
“You were,” I admitted, and she was more right than she realized. “But still, hurtful.”
“You'll get over it, I'm sure,” Jill said, still amused. “So, we grab the server, head up to the twentieth floor, grab the viral agent, kill the patient zero for the G-Virus… then we go to the other Hive to pick up the T-Virus vaccine. That about sum it up?”
“You're forgetting about any shenanigans that we’ll stumble across between those steps, but yeah, more or less,” I replied. And, speaking of shenanigans, I got a message from the security team.
‘What are you two doing in the server room?’ I'm guessing that was Annette rather than the Jacob Smith, the security guy whose ID she was using.
I debated on answering while glancing around for a security camera. I didn't see one. So, it was either well hidden, or we had tripped some flag. ‘Told you, we’re here for our own goals. The servers are loaded up with evidence. Or, failing that, it's one hell of a bargaining chip to use against your corporate overlord.’ I typed back and sent the message as I began flagging servers as needed for maintenance.
Had to disable a few safety checks, but I was able to offload the data and tasks onto a single server. It was as the data was being transferred over that I got another message from Annette.
‘You have more pressing issues: Link.’
Clicking the link, I saw it was security footage from the entrance of the Hive. I froze when I watched the short clip, my blood draining from my face. Something that Jill didn't fail to notice.
“What happened?” She asked and in response, I spun the laptop around and pressed replay.
The video showed the Alligator corpse bulging and writhing a split second before Mr. X tore his way out of the body. He seemed injured, covered in gore and bile, but otherwise unaffected before he began to march towards the entrance with a slow and steady gait.
“Things just got a little more complicated.”
Comments
Vengeful Astartes
Bloody X
Eldar Zecore
X gonna give it to you!
