Chapter 23: Root of the Problem

Claire was sitting on the toilet and doing her business quickly. Her mind was focused on the amount of time Rick took to get inside the shower and get out. She didn’t have a watch but she was sure it was no more than five minutes.

Of course, she hadn’t joined him but a traitorous part of her had wanted to. To get her hands on those well defined muscles in a different way she had done inside the garage, then his well toned ass and his johnson.

Her mind went back to this part of his anatomy. ‘Freaking big jo—.’

“Hurry up!”

Blinking, Claire was brought back to reality. She was done with her business, wiped herself and pulled back up her panties and pants. The toilet flushed itself, without a need for her input, and she left the bathroom.

‘HOW?!’

Rick was almost completely dressed. He had found clothes in a locker and had put them on without hesitation. Another beater, this time white, and blue jeans. He finished lacing a boot and was almost ready to go.

While he was putting back on his gear, Claire decided to accelerate things. She grabbed his belt with the pouches from the ground and stood in front of him to put it around his waist.

“Thanks.” He said while donning the tactical vest he had looted earlier and grabbing one of his holsters afterward.

Claire said nothing, she just looked at him with an expression he couldn’t discern, all the while buckling his belt. Once done, she helped again with the other holsters. In no time he was ready to go.

“I hope you’re lucky and there isn’t a violent decontamination process.”

A smile appeared at the corner of her mouth. “I’m taking a calculated risk.” She tightened a strap on his thigh.

His eyebrows creased into a frown. “And what calculation—”

“That if something happens to me because of it, you’d still be there.” Her smile widened.

“... Honestly… I don’t know who is the biggest meathead between you and your brother.”

Claire smacked his arm playfully then stepped towards the exit. Rick quickly put knives, and his gun where they belonged and grabbed his shotgun before going after her with a big stride. Not like he would be stuck in the room. He had taken the wristband of the zombie he stole the wallet from. The prospect of making the detour through the kitchen however, didn’t enchant him one bit.

Giving a look to the cafeteria he mumbled something that Claire interpreted as. “I miss eating ass and pussy.”

“WHAT?!” She exclaimed in shock.

“Hm?”

“Are you serious?!”

“Yeah. It’s been months since I fished a bass or made sushi. What about it?”

Claire’s mouth went up and down in silence. She shook her head and resumed walking in front of her confused partner as if everything was alright. Her mind was in turmoil however. ‘Get you mind out of the gutter, girl! Stop imagining things! That's all his fault! Why did he have to show me… ARGH! Stop thinking about it brain! Antiviral! Think of the antiviral for Sherry! Yes, yes! That’s better!’

Leaving the area and getting back to the reception, they quickly checked on Sherry’s whose state had not yet worsened dramatically. It was a relief, they still had time. Claire opened the door for a level 2 bracelet and was baffled by what laid beyond. So was Rick.

An abyss.

In the middle of an abyss was a big platform with an elevator in the middle. Far away on the right and left, inside the wall were entrances. They knew, from the drawn map they had found in the security room, that the layout was like this but the proportions were far from being respected. The gigantism of reality made them feel small and awed.

Claire put her hand on a console and it activated the deployment of a bridge. One with guardrails barely higher than her ankles, if it even reached that high.

“I’m curious about how many people fell to their death.”

Claire thought the same thing, turning her head to see what Rick was doing. He was squatting in front of a dead military guy, and holding some kind of box with curves on it, reminding her of an oscilloscope.

“What did you find?”

Rick took a moment to answer, turning the object around to have a better look. “I think… It’s a very advanced signal modulator.”

“A what?”

“A maintenance tool for anything electronic. I’m not sure how it could be used here.” He handed the box to her and while she put it in her backpack, played a recording from a small tape recorder that had been on the ground too.

“Alpha to Ghost. Target moving to the West Area. Must be going to retrieve the G-Virus and antiviral agent.”

“This is Ghost. Understood. Rendezvous at Point W-3.”

“Roger.”

“This is Alpha. Arrived at destination.”

“Understood. Stand by for target.”

“This is Alpha, I've got eyes on the target. He's going to open the safe.”

“Roger. Awaiting the signal.”

“Got eyes on the G-Virus.”

“We're going in... Doctor Birkin, you'll come along with us quietly.”

Claire looked shocked. “Umbrella betrayed their own employees.”

Rick snorted in amusement. “Not really a surprise. That doesn’t matter much though. The antiviral agent is in the West Area.”

Her eyes lit up in realization. “Then we better hurry.”

Rick nodded then lifted the body over the rail and watched it fall into the abyss below. “Huh… That was oddly satisfying.”

Claire rolled her eyes skyward and stepped onto the bridge. Once on the other side she checked on the console right next to the door of the elevator. It needed a level 4 chip.

“What’s above senior staff?” She asked while looking at Rick by her side.

He had no idea and shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know. Manager? Director?”

Letting it go, Claire led the way to the right. With ‘West Area’ written in huge bold letters above the entrance on the wall, she couldn’t mistake the way. Unfortunately, the console to deploy the bridge allowing them to go there, necessitated a level 3 accreditation.

A sigh of resignation escaped her lips. “We’re going to go to the East Area to find a level 3 chip, aren’t we? I just know it.”

“The other console needs a level 2 access so it’s more than likely, even.”

Shoulders slumped, Claire turned around and went to the other console. The bridge linking to the other side took but a few seconds to be walkable. After going through the entrance of the area, they stepped inside what could be described as a lobby. There were couches, a television, some lab apparatus and a reception desk with tables and chairs behind it.

After having a look around and finding nothing beyond a locked door on the right, the pair went through the open door opposite to the entrance.

Claire was the first to speak. “What the fuck?” Although Rick thought the exact same thing.

Right in front of them were huge bay windows giving a wide view of what looked like a greenhouse. Of course with the place belonging to Umbrella and a potent virus starting mutations on the loose, the sight wasn’t one of a beautiful and well ordered space.

Against the middle window was a body in a hazmat suit crushed by a gigantic plant or vine.

“Good thing you have incendiary rounds.” Rick let out while looking at the carnage.

Claire’s eyes were focused on the same thing. “I would need a hundred more to set everything on fire. Have you seen the size of that greenhouse? That plant alone…”

Rick replied without shame in a bored tone. “Yeah, I was joking,” And he got smacked on the arm for it. “Okay, let’s think… They knew what they were working on here. They knew what were the effects of whatever virus they studied on whatever it was given.”

“You think they had a way to deal with… This,” She waved her hands holding her grenade launcher at the huge plant. “In case it all turned to hell?”

“I think it’s a possibility.” Rick nodded. “It would make sense. And while I wouldn’t put any credit in guys working for Umbrella having common sense, they do have an antiviral against the… G virus. So…”

Claire finished his line of thought. “It’s worth a shot.”

“It’s not like we have much of a choice.” He pointed at the wrist of the body.

She blinked and walked closer to have a better look. The wristband had a Senior staff chip. Exactly what they were looking for. She glanced silently at Rick.

Noticing it, he glanced back. “Yes?”

“Your senses were really enhanced. I have 10/10 for each eye and I couldn’t make out what chip it was.”

Rick had nothing to say to that so he kept silent. Moving left, he checked on a console at the corner of a room. Unfortunately a Level 3 credential was needed, so he focused on the door on the left wall instead. When Claire used her wristband the door struggled to open. It was quickly revealed it was because of vines having grown over it.

Without exchanging a look they stepped inside a jungle. Vines everywhere. On the wall, on the ceiling. Most were hanging. As they turned a corner, Claire noticed a small plastic container on a lab tray. Wanting to check it out she walked to it. She didn’t go farther than a few steps, held by Rick grabbing her shoulder. Immediately, she raised her grenade launcher, ready to fire and her eyes darted everywhere. When she saw nothing, she turned around to look at him with a confused look.

He raised his hand and pointed at what she thought was a thick mass of vines hanging from the ceiling. Upon further inspection, her eyes widened in horror. Entangled in the vines was a humanoid shape with huge, rosy, burgeons pulsing all over the body. The head looked skeletal and was vertically split in two from top to bottom. It looked like a mouth with lots of teeths. Like the carnivorous plants that closed their mouths to trap their prey.

“What is that?” She whispered, her weapon ready to be used once again.

Rick whispered an answer. “I think it was a researcher. Look at the left wrist.”

She did and squinted her eyes very hard to see a familiar blue light. The one identical to the one on her own bracelet. “My god…”

“I don't like this.” Rick muttered in her ear.

Then he did something she hadn’t understood at first. She opened the back and rummaged through it to pick the black beater he had kept. From one of his pouches, he took the bottle of gunpowder he had found in the corridor behind the clock tower, and poured a bit of it onto the cloth. From a side pocket of the backpack he took out a disposable lighter.

“What are you going to do?” She asked out of curiosity.

He walked slowly and tried to make a flame with the lighter. There wasn’t much gas in it anymore. “I’m trying to see what that thing can do and how to kill it.”

“Why? It’s tied up.”

“Because it’s the first we encountered and we can fall back to a secured room, if something goes wrong. We may not have the same opportunity to learn when we’re deeper in the area.”

Claire mentally admitted it made sense and was far more prudent. Under her very eyes, she saw him struggling to light a flame and was able to offer her help when instead of lighting the edge of the beater, simply raised the lighter next to the gunpowder and turned the stop to make a spark. The gunpowder immediately caught on fire and burned slowly. The flames quickly spread through the cotton however and Rick tossed the improvised torch onto the plant-zombie’s head.

The effect wasn’t immediate but the moment the fire began bigger and spread to the monster, it began gesticulating. More than that the flames spread even faster in contact with it. The vines turned to ash and the thing fell to the ground, screaming in pain. Soon enough it stopped moving.

Claire looked at it with disinterest. “Well…Fire is their weakness as ex— What the fuck?”

Right under her eyes, the plant-zombie began to regenerate at a very fast pace.

“You were say—”

Not waiting for Rick to finish his sentence, Claire shot an incendiary round right onto the thing. It screamed in pain again, jerking around as if trying to put out the fire. This time it burned for longer and after a while a burst of flame erupted all over the body and quickly disappeared leaving behind only charcoal.

For good measure, Claire reloaded and waited for a potential third round but nothing seemed to happen. Rick got closer and kicked a foot. It broke into dust.

“So we can kill them. Good.” She nodded firmly.

Rick was pondering from her side. “Yeah but do we have enough ammunition for that?”

“We’ll just have to dodge them. I’m sure if you shoot them in the leg, they will take a while before getting up. I mean… this one took a few seconds to start regenerating but it didn’t get up right away.”

“Hm... True.”

They encountered two more specimens before they reached the end of the room. The first was on the ground. Rick poured all the gunpowder he had left all over the body and drew a line on the ground with the last dregs to start the fire.

The result was the same. Claire had to shoot at it. The next one was another one hanging from the ceiling through vines. This time it took a direct incendiary round to the chest from the get go and had to take another to be properly killed.

“This is annoying.” Claire was frowning as she reloaded. From her calculation she only had sixteen rounds left.

“I guess the outside layer is protecting the inner layer from the fire somehow. That’s why we need to burn it again.” Rick sighed. “Let’s hope there is something to kill them all in one go.”

“Yeah. A good herbicide would be nice.”

Passing through the door at the end of the area, they arrived at what looked like a control room. On the left was a door leading to the greenhouse, on the right was a giant screen displaying a map of the area with annotation, 3D models schematics and a console with weird symbols before it. Finally in the middle was something neither could make off.

Claire went to activate it out of curiosity and the same voice that welcomed them to NEST spoke through speakers along with an alert.

“Dispensing solution now.”

From beyond the window they saw a liquid being sprayed over the flora for a few seconds from sprinklers before stopping. A cartridge popped right in front of Claire from inside the machine.

“I guess you were right on the money about the herbicide.” Rick said from her side, hooking a flashbang to his belt that he had found on a near table.

“Yeah but we need more.” She showed him the cartridge. It was empty. “The question is where?”

“I might have an answer. Look.” He walked to the console on the side and pointed at the map. “See the locks? I think that area up top is where we’re going to find the compound.”

Claire read the name of the room. “Drug testing area. That sounds like it but if the lock symbol is any indication it’s closed.” She looked down at the console with a display asking for entering a four symbol code. “And we need to find…” She sighed. “Why can’t things be simple for once?”

“Oh but it is.” Rick chuckled.

She gave him a look. “I swear if you’re joking…”

He didn’t let her finish her threat and pulled out the small white bottle that Claire had seen earlier and which he took. It contained another type of gunpowder which, if the label was telling the truth, was for submachine gun and machine gun ammo. Most importantly it was thinner. Way thinner.

Claire looked at the bottle he was waving in front of his face then looked up into his eyes. The message was clear, he better explain soon or else.

“It’s a code of four symbols among ten.”

“That’s…” Claire began to calculate the probabilities but that wasn’t the kind of maths she was good at.

“Ten thousand possibilities. But it’s always the same symbols that are used. At worst, we’re dealing only with… You know what? Nevermind.”

Rick began to pour the whole content of the bottle over the buttons. With his hand he fanned them and most of the powder was blown away by the displacement of air. Only five out of ten showed fingerprints.

“That’s smart but we still are left with five thousand possibilities.” The disappointed look he gave her made her flinch. “I’m not good at probabilities! Sue me!”

“625.” Rick faced the console and began searching for the proper code.

“That’s much better but how long—”

Rick interrupted her firmly. “Shh. I don’t want to get lost in the sequences.”

Claire observed in silence, thinking it was a waste of time and that maybe the codes were outside. At first one of her feet began tapping on the ground, then after a while she began to shift her weight from one leg to the other. She wanted to ask what number he was at of the 625 but restrained herself to not make hilm lose focus.

Finally when she began to pass around she heard a beep. Her head snapped to the display on the wall and the lock symbol at the bottom was now opened. Waiting thirty seconds more and she heard another beep.

“Those idiots.” He shook his head and picked back up his shotgun he had laid against the console.

“What did they do?" Claire asked in curiosity as she walked to wear the door leading to the greenhouse.

Rick followed behind her. “The codes were 2067 and 2079. They didn’t even bother to make them complicated.”

Claire wanted to ask how he got numbers when there were only symbols on the panel but refrained from doing so. It was almost a certainty in her mind that Rick would give her a lengthy explanation and she wasn’t in the mood for it, not after being a basket case for the past six minutes.

They went to the Drug Testing Area, killing a plant-zombie on the way and were stumped by what they found. Filling the cartridge with the compound wasn’t enough, it needed to be cooled down almost at freezing temperature.

At the sight of the machine delivering the compound, Claire sighed. They needed to play a metaphorical game of traversing vases to get the right amount to pour into the cartridge. Too little or too much and the machine wouldn’t fill it.

She gave him a look that said ‘that’s your thing you’re on your own’. His answer was an amused expression and he got punched lightly on the back for it.

“College is going to be so easy.” He got punched again but a bit harder for the comment.

In the end, Claire didn’t have to wait nearly as long however. Within thirty seconds they had what they needed.

“Good job, big brain.” Since time, she was the one amused while putting the cartridge in the back. They quickly swept the whole place and found a grenade but nothing more. Rick didn’t leave before knifing the dead researcher in a hazmat suit for good measure.

Exiting the area they went to the only other path they had to find a cooling room for the compound. After killing two more special zombies they reached the second thing that had been locked. It turned out to be a trapdoor with a ladder going down. They arrived in an area in a L shape and found not only a map but more incendiary right for Claire who was now back at sixteen after using six to clear the way.

Turning around and walking towards the other end of the corridor they stepped through a door. The area was extremely wide. They found a server room in a recess on the left but by going forward they arrived at a community area. Small tables and chairs everywhere, vending and coffee machines. The usual space for taking a break.

What was unusual was the lack of light, the five dead bodies on the ground and blood everywhere. All aggregated toward a removed panel on the wall. Without thinking twice, Rick threw the grenade they found earlier in the middle of the pile and the pair watched in amusement as they were all blown to pieces.

“This one is still alive.” Claire pointed out and drew her knife to go and kill it.

Rick simply threw his cleaver and landed a headshot. “Too slow.”

He hadn’t spoken smugly or anything. Rick had just stated a fact yet Claire huffed in annoyance.

“Hey!” She called out to him and pointed at what was in the wall instead of the panel. “Doesn’t that empty space look like…” She removed her backpack from her shoulders and looked inside to pull the signal modulator they had looted from a soldier's corpse. She immediately put it in the designated emplacement and it was a perfect fit. “Nothing is ha— Wait.”

She took back the tool and turned it on. From the word written above the slot, she made it match with the one on the modulator. Then she turned left and right to match the curves. Once done, she inserted it back into its designated position and the lights on the ceiling turned on. Not only that but the vending and coffee machines were working again.

“Good job.” Rick congratulated her as she tucked the modulator in the back and he took an intact Level 2 chip from one of the dismembered bodies after recovering his cleaver.

Now that they could see. The horror of the place was ten times worse but after the night they had it didn’t bother them one bit. Especially Rick who was now used to such a scene after his sejour in Umbrella secret training facility and Spencer manor.

With only forward as the way to go, they walked side by side in alert. It may have saved their lives.

From the ceiling a vent cover fell down and along with it a Licker. Before the bio-weapon could hit the ground, Rick shot once and blew its brain off mid-air.

“Holy—”

Rick threw his left hand just in front of her face to grab the tongue of a second Licker which had chosen to crawl up the ceiling. The appendage nearly pierced Claire’s skull and was moving up and down a couple of inches in front of her.

With a powerful pull of its tongue, the Licker was propelled forward down at a very fast speed. Rick dropped his shotgun and with his now free hand in a claw pushed the head of the Licker against the wall squashing it to paste.

While he was shaking his hand to get rid of the grime, Claire was looking at him with eyes as big as saucers. Not only did he save her life in a total badass way but the way he killed the second Licker left her completely in awe.

‘Holy shit! Holy shit! Holy shit! That was… I need new pa—’

“You alright?" Rick asked her while picking up his shotgun from the ground, his eyes never leaving her.

Her only answer was a numb nod of the head.