Title: Finding Evil: Part nine.

Author: quew

See part one for disclaimer, classification and archiving thingy.

Warnings: Please do not read if easily offended. Contains blood, zombies and gore occasionally. Also swearing. Sometimes.

Rating: Nc-17 overall, though parts vary.

Notes:

#

'Chakotay?!' Lanna and Paris said simultaneously. The dark man nodded and then broke into a grin.

'I'm so glad you're alive,' he said, walking forward and encompassing the three remaining Delta team-members in a hug, 'and I see you've picked up some survivors.' He smiled at them.

'What about…' Lanna's throat constricted and Chakotay's face hardened. 'What about the rest of your team?'

As if on cue, another man backed into the room. 'I think we're…' He said, before turning and catching sight of the others, 'clear.'

'Harry?' Paris said. 'You made it!'

The young man looked as bloody and exhausted as they all felt, but the mood had lifted considerably. Harry came forward and greeted them all individually as Paris threw an arm over the man's shoulders and grinned. 'We're gonna make it, Harry,' he said. 'We're going to get to the helipad.'

The newcomer smiled, happy to be part of something that might get them out of there. 'The others will be looking for us,' he agreed, 'and we have to get them here, but we also have to warn them not land near the house.'

The others nodded and started to talk among themselves as Chakotay pulled Lanna to one side, his face grim.

'I think you should see this,' he said, handing her a battered file. She opened it curiously and her eyes widened.

Inside, neatly filed by date, was a backlog of communication between Umbrella Corporation, a large company that had it's fingers in many pies, and various people…the Mayor of Raccoon City, The Chief of Police…

'My god…' she whispered, the words painting pictures inside her mind. From what she could gather, the facility they were in was some sort of lab run by Umbrella, and Raccoon City had welcomed it. The lab was kept hush-hush with the full co-operation of the Raccoon City officials…was it possible they knew what went on here? What had gone wrong? And if so, why send them out? Why not quarantine the area?

'Read the last one,' Chakotay said, his voice tight.

She flicked through, finding a piece of paper that looked out of place, as if it had just been shoved into the nearest file which had happened to be this one. Where-as the others had all had 'Secret' plastered across the top, this one had it printed diagonally right down the middle in red ink.

'He wouldn't…' Lanna whispered, her eyes begging for her old friend to back her up.

Chakotay wanted to agree with her, but he had to say, 'He did. This is a set-up.' He got closer, his dark eyes brimming with indignation. 'Lanna, Harry and I…we got lost down here…we saw rooms full of, of things, being grown…they were playing God out here!'

'Are you saying they're behind everything? The missing hikers, the attacks?'

'Everything,' Chakotay confirmed. 'It was a trap to get us out here. To see how we measured up to what they…made.'

'They infected their own people?!' Lanna hissed, unbelieving.

'The thought the scientist were…expendable,' Chakotay practically spat the last word, his voice cold. 'Speaking of which…' He threw a pointed glance toward the two stood with the others.

Lanna's shoulders shook with rage as she stormed across the room and threw the file at them. 'Did you know about this? Did you?' She yelled.

'What do you mean?' Kathryn asked as she bent down for the file.

'Don't give me that!' Lanna snarled, advancing. 'You knew what you were growing down here! You knew!'

Nadia put a hand on her sisters shoulder. 'Lanna, please, what's going on?'

'Haven't you wondered what's going on down here?' The soldier snapped, whirling round. 'Why you weren't allowed near the house? What happened to all these people?'

'Of course-'

'They know!' Lanna pointed an accusing finger. 'They infected the rest of you on purpose!'

'What?' Nadia said, her eyes narrowing as she thought of the friends she'd lost.

Annika's eyes were wide with shock as she stared at Lanna. 'What are you talking about?' She asked.

'Annika…' Kathryn said, pulling on the other woman's sleeve as the older woman read the file.

'No!' For the first time, since the nightmare had started, Annika's face was twisted in anger. 'How dare you!' She cried, advancing on Lanna. 'Do you realise what we've been through?! Trapped down here, fighting for our lives! It was accident!' She poked the surprised soldier in the chest, punctuating each word with an angry jab as she yelled, 'How dare you think I could do that!'

'Annika!' Kathryn pulled her back and thrust the last piece of paper into her hands. 'Read it!'

The blonde ripped her eyes away from Lanna and dropped them to the paper. For a few seconds she seemed completely frozen, and then she looked at Kathryn. 'Kathy…' She whispered…'Did you know?'

The redhead didn't answer her colleague, instead addressing the group. 'Annika and I worked in the DNA labs. We weren't allowed full access to the facility, so no, we didn't know what we were growing…or rather, she didn't know. I did. But I swear, I did not know anything about that,' she pointed toward the paper, 'and I would've tried to stop it if I had.'

No-one spoke for a moment, and then Lanna was in Kathryn's face. 'I don't believe you,' she said quietly, her voice quiet and steady. 'But I believe her. Get ready to go.'

#

Five minutes later, the sombre and frightened group were quietly making their way through corridors that all looked the same. The zombies they met were few and far between, and they were managing to traverse the facility more quickly than they had expected.

'Wait!' Kathryn called quietly. The rest of the group paused and looked back. The redhead was standing by a door that, to them, looked like any other, staring at it thoughtfully. Using her keycard, she opened it up and waved Sam forward.

'I remember seeing an emergency schematic for the building once, and this stuck out because it seemed odd at the time. I couldn't figure out why a lab would need an armoury,' she said, and Sam waved the others forward.

Inside, it was a veritable pick and mix of powerful weaponry, shelves filled with an array of guns and other things. A computer station was set into one wall and a stone chest by another. ' Weird,' Chakotay murmured, tapping it.

'Grenade launchers!' Paris said, looking like a kid in a toyshop. Harry smiled at him and hefted one of the weapons.

'They have different kinds of rounds too,' he said. 'Check it out, acid rounds.'

Paris grinned and they started to fill their pockets. Nadia took a functional looking shotgun, as did Lanna, leaving her rather battered one on a shelf.

No one was paying much attention to the scientists, so when they heard Annika cry, 'Kathryn!' they whirled, surprised.

The smaller woman was working feverishly at the computer station set into the wall, shrugging off Annika's attempts to pull her away.

'What's going on?' Lanna called, running over.

'You were right!' Kathryn said, turning on her suddenly. 'This needs to stop!'

'She's trying to set the self-destruct,' Annika said.

'It's the only way!' Kathryn said. 'You've got fifteen minutes as soon as I set it up, but you have to go now! The helipad is about seven minutes away, and if you run into anything, you'll need that extra time!'

'You can't stay here!' Sam argued.

'I'm staying too,' Annika turned to her colleague.

'No!' Kathryn and Lanna said at the same time.

'Someone has to lead them to the heli-pad!' Kathryn clarified, pushing Annika away. 'Just go!'

Chakotay was the first to leave, nodding once to Kathryn and heading out. Harry, Paris and Sam followed, each acknowledging the slight woman.

Lanna looked like she was going to speak, but she changed her mind, instead grabbing the woman's hand and pumping it furiously. As she left, Nadia pulled her to one side.

Annika was a different story.

'You don't have to do this!' She said, 'There has to be another way!'

'You know there isn't,' Kathryn said. 'The explosion will decimate the area. Without it, one of the zombies could make it to the city and infect someone else, who in turn would infect another, and another. And what if one of the other things escaped?' She shook her head. 'Please, just go. I'll catch you up, I promise. Go.'

Annika's eyes filled with unshed tears, but she did as she was bid, leaving quickly.

'She's right.' A quiet voice said. Nadia was leaning against a shelf full of grenades. 'You don't have to do this…alone.'

Kathryn saw what she was thinking and shook her head. 'No…you can't. You've just found your sister!'

'If it were Annika, I think she'd do the same,' Nadia shrugged. 'But you can't stop me. You see, I think we'll make it. If we set it and run after them, we won't be too far behind.'

'But your foot-'

'Is fine,' Nadia said. 'Besides if you really were planning to follow behind them, you wouldn't want to be alone in a place like this. You'll need someone to watch your back. I'm staying.'

'And Lanna…'

'Already knows,' Nadia said. 'I told her we'd be two minutes behind them, tops. She said she's going to time us, and if we're not, she's coming back to get us. Now, how do we set this thing?'

#

'Pick up the pace, people!' Lanna ordered, running at the back of the pack.

They were already five minutes running time away from the armoury and picking up speed all the time. As unhappy as she was about leaving Nadia - and indeed Kathryn - and as much trouble as she'd had justifying the action to herself…no, bugger that, she was just pissed off that they'd stayed. But, knowing that her sister had her stubbornness, she had always known that there was no way she'd of convinced Nadia otherwise, and the other woman had had a point - this was no place to be alone.

'Right!' Annika called from the front as the reached a junction.

#

'What's the hold-up?' Nadia asked, pacing impatiently behind the redhead.

'Something's wrong…' Kathryn mumbled…'one of the connections isn't firing up…the relays must have blown.'

'And we fix this by…?'

'Manually re-connecting the relays,' Kathryn said.

'Right,' Nadia said, grabbing her shotgun. 'Which way?'

'You can't! Not on your own,' Kathryn said, turning from the console.

'You got a better idea?' Nadia asked.

'You don't know how,' Kathryn bluffed. 'Please…'

'What do you mean 'I don't know how'? It's what I was paid to do on the grounds!' She raised an eyebrow and grinned slightly. 'What you have to do is, the moment you see the connection is fixed, set the destruct.'

#

Three zombies and one and half corridors later, the group stopped to catch its breath. 'Something's wrong,' Annika muttered into Lanna's ear. 'They should have done it by now.'

Lanna felt her heart rise as the chance to go back from them appeared, but she looked at the assembled faces, dirty and frightened, and shook her head. 'No, we keep going. They'll get it done. If she's anything like me, she'll get it done.'

#

'Fuck!' Nadia ducked as the creature swung for her again, elongated toes holding it fast to the grates that made up the ceiling as it used huge claws to try and decapitate the young woman.

She'd found the generator room with no problem, following Kathryn's easy directions, and the first monster had taken her by surprise in the dimly lit room, digging deep into her shoulder with its viciously sharp claws. She'd retaliated, and two shotgun blasts later had found herself surrounded by them, drawn from the dark corners of the room by the noise. She'd tried crawling, but they'd dropped to the floor, running on floor legs like mutated dogs, snapping at her ankles.

The only option was to stay ahead of them, which was going to be a problem when she had to stop and re-wire the relays. Perhaps coming on her own had been a bad idea.

No, she couldn't think like that, she had to keep going. She ran down rows of dark, dripping machinery, trying to loose her hunters. Glancing over her shoulder, she saw them swinging like apes from grate to grate only a few feet away. Wildly firing a few badly aimed shells, she suddenly realised she'd run past the panel she needed to get into. She turned down the next row, taking an inderict route back and gaining a few precious seconds. Dropping to her knees before the relay, her fingers shaking from adrenaline and fear, she began to work.

#