The New Haven Incident - Part Thirty-Nine

Phase Three a mechanical voice said from unseen speakers.

“That doesn’t sound good,” Mendez noted. There had been two waves of infected that he and Lilith had faced together, and God knew how many Lilith faced alone before that. Three hidden doors in the white walls opened, and several Infected stumbled out. Their blank eyes were dark, their skin mottled with the dark veins that indicated infection. For a moment, they milled about until one, once a young woman, spotted Mendez. She unhinged her jaw and issued a bone-chilling shriek. All at once, the infected surged forward in a frenzy.

The fight was, thankfully, brief. These Infected, Changelings, as Mendez remembered Dr. Liu calling them, were stage three; mindless and utterly unskilled, the disease had firmly taken hold. They were beyond curing now. They were not as deadly as the Dark Ones, which they would turn into if they lived through this stage of infection. Their greatest strength was the force of their hunger, but Lilith and Mendez both were trained combatants.

Even still, Lilith and Mendez were left exhausted and panting at the end of it.

“This fucking sucks,” Mendez said, doubled over, his hand on his knees.

Phase Four, the feminine mechanical voice announced.

“You have got to be shitting me,” Mendez growled.

Despite herself, Lilith flashed him a wry grin. They both turned to face the new wave Reinhert sent against them.

The doors opened again. It was not Changelings that shuffled out this time, however, but an orderly mix of Dark Ones and blank-eyed men, some of whom Mendez recognised. Team One and…

“Oh shit. Grier.”

Not entirely sure he was headed in the right direction, Sebastian stepped cautiously along the dimly lit hall. He paused at a T-junction, noting the sign pointing the way to security, the floor lobby and a staff break room. Security would be a great place to stock up on ammunition. Knowing he was short on time, Agent Connors picked up his pace.

The security centre was easy to find. Sebastian made short work of the coded lock. Cedarwood desperately needed to update its security software. He slipped into the room and waited for the door to hiss closed before he turned on the lights.

It was like any other security centre from any other Cedarwood laboratory.  A panel of screens covered one wall above a long desk with three consoles inset into it. There was only one chair. On the other side, behind a cage door locked by padlock was a small room in which was stored an enormous selection of weapons and ammunition. Like the Department armoury in the police station, there stood several lockers in the centre of the room. These too, Sebastian noted, were kept shut with little more than padlocks. He shook his head.

“Sloppy,” he noted.

Turning back to the screens and, pulling the chair to the central one, he sat down. Turning on the computer, he tapped his fingers impatiently as each of the screens flickered to life. They combined to demand a password.

Sebastian scoffed. He let his hands hover over the keyboard a moment, flexing his fingers, before diving in. The bypass was simple enough. He’d done it plenty of times with systems more sophisticated than this. He shook his head. Cedarwood Corporation was awfully lax on their cyber security, considering the volumes of incredibly sensitive research they handled. It worked in his favour though. The less time he spent arguing with technology, the better. 

As the system whirred to life, Sebastian turned to the armoury. He broke the lock with a single strike of the butt of his gun and entered. He refilled his ammunition quickly, pausing to consider taking more guns. As tempting as it was, he’d be overburdened. He definitely didn’t need the grenade launcher that rested on its butt in the largest locker. It was incredibly tempting, though. He turned and broke into one of the lockers, just to see what it was they had.

Agent Connors blinked when he opened the locker door. Stacks of C4 sat in neat rows in their shrink wrap. Sebastian raised his brows.

“What the fuck do a bunch of eggheads need with this much C4?” he muttered. Shaking his head, he turned just as the computer beeped, announcing the completion of the system boot-up. He walked back to the console and started typing. Before long, Sebastian had the surveillance up. He stood, taking a step back so he could view all the screens at once.

He found the Cedarwoods researchers quickly. They were in cages, along with two Sigma teams in what used to be the break room. He recognized Captain Sakata and the others. Dr. Joy Lundt was there, too. But there was no sign of Hannah, Lilith, her father or Oliver Mendez. Cursing quietly, Sebastian brought up the map and etched the location in his mind. As he shifted his view, he caught sight of something that made him freeze.

In a large, dimly lit cavernous space sat rows upon rows of enormous cylinders. Sebastian realised with a start that he was seeing incubation chambers. He stepped forward and moved the camera. The rows stretched back into darkness. There must be a thousand of them. Perhaps more.

“What the fuuuuuuuuuck?” Sebastian breathed. He shook his head and panned the camera in the other directions. It revealed yet more rows of incubators stretching back into the gloom. Sebastian took note of the location on the map.

“Well, found a use for all that C4.”

He switched views once more and found Mendez and Lilith. They were both bloody, bent over, panting in an empty white room with an observation window, not unlike the one Sebastian had found himself in when he learnt he had been infected.

“Fuck.”

The experiments had already started. He noted the location on the map then stepped away from the console. He paused for a brief moment, arms folded as he considered the best course of action. Nodding to himself, he turned, gathered all the C4 he could carry, and left the security room.

Sakata scowled as he wiggled the bobby pin in the lock. He thought he had felt the mechanism begin to turn, but that was many attempts ago. He had slipped and lost it. Now he was having no luck at all.

“For fuck’s sake!” he snapped as his hand slipped again. He withdrew the bobby pin and attempted to straighten it for the nth time. Captain Wu watched from his cell, a small, wry smile on his face.

“You’ve been at that for ages,” he remarked.

“What’s your fucking point, Wu?” Sakata growled.

“Nothing,” Wu answered with an easy shrug.

Sakata sighed. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine. We’re all feeling a bit snappish, I think.”

“You seem calm.”

Wu shrugged again. “I’m just tired. Utterly fucking exhausted.”

“Go to sleep, then,” Sakata said, indicating the rest of his team, who had found a place to lie or lean in the cage and shut their eyes.

“Can’t.”

Sakata grunted. He knew that feeling well enough. After all, it was why he was kneeling at the cage door with one of Cheryl’s bobby pins, struggling at the lock.

The door to the room hissed open and Sakata stood up and back quickly, hiding his bobby pin in his hand as he stood to attention, eyes forward.

“Well, you’ve gotten yourselves into a fine mess,” a familiar voice noted. Sakata turned his head and his eyes flew wide.

Cheryl, who had not quite managed to fall to sleep lifted her head at the sound of a man’s voice; the dry tone and deep timbre immediately recogniseable. She sat up, letting her wife’s arms fall from around her and stared.

“Sebastian?” she squeaked. She struggled to her feet, waking Dr. Lundt, and ran to the corner of the cage closest to where Sebastian stood.

“Not possible,” Sakata breathed at length. “Mendez said you were dead.”

“I was,” Sebastian replied, shrugging. “I think.” He walked forward and produced a set of keys from one of the many pockets on his tactical vest. He unlocked Sakata’s cage and then moved to the smaller cage holding Captain Wu and his team.

“Captain Charlie Wu,” the unit commander of Team Four said, extending his hand. Sebastian took it.

“Agent Sebastian Connors.” He turned to Sakata. “This place is rigged to blow. You need to get these people out of here.”

“Rigged to —”

“No time to explain. Your mission objective is to get these researchers to the extraction point. See it done.”

“Yes, Sir,” Sakata said, his lips twisting into a smile. Sebastian ignored the mischief in his voice. He tossed the keys to Sakata. “Your weapons and gear are in the small room down the hall. First door on the right. The fob on the key chain will open it up for you.” He turned to Captain Wu. “I have a favour to ask you.”

Wu raised one eyebrow and waited.

“There are civilians waiting in the basketball court in the university above this lab. I promised them I’d get them to the extraction point.”

“Sigma doesn’t have the means to evacuate them,” Captain Wu noted.

“Sigma doesn’t. The Department does. They will be at your extraction point with transport. Can you escort the civilians?”

Wu grunted. “The what now?”

“The Department,” Sebastian answered, as if it was any kind of answer at all. He looked expectantly at the Sigma captain.

Wu rolled his eyes. “You know, if this was any other kind of situation, I’d tell you it wasn’t in my mission parameters.”

“That’s a yes?”

“That’s a yes. We’ll do what we can.”

“Where are you going?” Sakata asked Sebastian.

“Reinhert has Lilith and Mendez playing gladiators. I’m going to find and rescue them.”

“He has Hannah,” Cheryl said. “Reinhert. He has Hannah.”

Sebastian nodded. “I figured as much. I’ll find her.”

Cheryl nodded then, with no warning, she lunged forward and wrapped Sebastian in a tight hug. “Thank you,” she whispered.

This was new for Sebastian. He had no idea how to react. He patted Cheryl’s back awkwardly. “Okay,” he said as she pulled away. Cheryl smiled at him, stepping back into Dr. Lundt’s arms. They slipped around her waist.

Sebastian looked down at his watch.

“You have a little under an hour,” he said. “We’d better get moving.” He looked up at Captains Sakata and Wu. “Good luck. I’ll see you topside.”

“Good luck, Agent Connors,” Wu said.

“See you topside,” Sakata added.

Sebastian smiled at the men, then vanished from the room, moving quickly.

“It’s like he wasn’t even shot in the chest,” Wu murmured. He scowled and turned to Captain Sakata. “That’s what Mendez said, right? Point blank. To the chest.”

Sakata grunted. He shook his head. He didn’t want to think too much about this mystery. He turned to Captain Wu, whose team had silently gathered behind him.

“Let’s get our stuff back.”

Previous Part                                                                                                                                                                          Next Part