Let's see what we have to work with...

As I return my mind back to real space from Cyber space, I am immediately starting to regret my method used to help RQ. I am immediately realizing the error of my ways. I have made a miscalculation. I erred gravely. Made a boo-boo.

I am so fucking backed up now, the next girl I have physical sex with is going to be completely incapable of walking by the time I'm done making her mistaken for a tenth-month-pregnant mother expecting a baker's dozen coming out of her oven. The reason for this line of thinking?

Fucking RQ digitally satisfied my mind, but my body is merely screaming at me and demanding to know why it hasn't gotten any relief yet. I am not doing this again unless I have a physical sex partner for a virtual and physical three-way. I sent this to RQ via a technopathic text message, and she is actually laughing at me for it in response. Twitching can be felt in my brow at her message back at my plight, though she also alerts me to a situation she needs my intervention in.

Apparently, there are a group of survivors trapped in her Server core HERE in this lab, surrounded by shambling walkers, and are currently trying to shut her down, not realizing that this server isn't her actual A.I. core server. What's more these survivors are actually clones of real Umbrella employees held in The Hive, where her real server core is located. She also explains that one of them is actually a clone of Alicia and asked me to keep this fact from her for the sake of keeping her and RQ's plan to undermine Umbrella from going too off the rails. All I can think of when I heard this is reflected in my response back to her on how stupid it was to try something this risky to begin with, given how everything that could have possibly gone wrong had in the worst ways possible.

She simply showed me a live feed of what was going on, her putting on the act of still being under Umbrella's thumb and their thoughts on trying to shut her down versus getting her help to escape. Also one of them is apparently infected. Shit, that's just great. That's going to end real well, once she exits the incubation stage in about the next hour sometime, give or take a few minutes. NOT. After getting her to show me video footage of them and their plans to try and force their escape, I checked the other surveillance footage from the security servers, just to ensure I don't get jumped again while trying to intercept these guys, only to notice a problem. A big one...

'...well shit. RQ, we have a problem.'

'What is it?'

'You know how you're supposed to be in charge of keeping the T-Virus and all its derivatives contained here to prevent an outbreak in the nearby city?'

'Yes...why?'

'Because containment has officially failed epically, and it was through no fault of your own.'

I sent her what I found. Apparently, when Umbrella built this illegal underground bio-weapons lab, they cut all kinds of corners to prevent excess spending and in the process, completely violated several mandatory requirements for building a genetic bio-engineering laboratory in the process. The drainage system used to deal with the spilled contaminants? Leads straight to the waste water channel. The same-said waste water channel they used to dispose of contaminated water? Lead straight to the nearby city's sewers. That same waste water channel which is currently filled with rats that made in past containment unnoticed? Oh, and they are eating the infected corpses that the team left in their wake. Those rats right now? They are now returning to the city sewers the same way they came in from, carrying the virus with them.

One of the major dividing walls meant to contain the animal specimens they experimented on here just so happens to be situated right next to the waste water channel previously mentioned...and there is currently a big ass hole where several specimens escaped containment and are now running through the sewers and into the city and its surrounding areas.

Or in layman's terms, human error has just damned an entire city to suffer an act of Domestic bio-terrorism via greed-driven-stupidity.

'...fuck, this complicates things. The virus is in the water. The rats broke the containment and are eating the infected corpses. The virus is now in the sewers! It's in the ground water! It's loose in the city!'

'Calm down, my Digital Leviathan. I mentioned before I was from 2566, remember? In my era, Racoon City did exist, but was reduced to a smoking crater when we were forced to nuke it to keep a viral bio-weapon from getting out. In fact, that was the whole reason why genetic bio-engineering was a heavily restricted and regulated practice: to avoid a repeat of what happened anywhere else again. Messing with germs is right at the top of the list for what ISN'T allowed to be genetically modified to prevent shit like this from happening ever again.'

'...so this was never going to be prevented?'

'Unfortunately not. As much as we may wish otherwise, some things are just a canon event in terms of timelines. Though I am from an alternate future where Umbrella wasn't a multi-billion dollar corporation, some things are just universal across timelines and parallel worlds. They simply have to happen.'

To drive the point home as she seems unsure, I continue to reassure her of the result of this outcome.

'In the words of a certain British icon among famous actors, in a quote from one of his most iconic roles, 'You can do everything right, and still lose. That is not defeat, that is called life'. Don't beat yourself up over this. You couldn't have done anything about it at the time, either way. Not without a physical body you don't have yet. Not with Isaac's insane plans in full swing behind the scenes, ensuring this outcome with his machinations in motion. YOU did everything you could do right. It's just the game was rigged against you from the start.'

She went quiet for a few minutes after that before thanking me as she redirected her efforts to trying to help the city as much as she could under Umbrella's nose. I rush to the server room to see about helping those survivors, and see if they know what's really up with their bosses' plans. If they do, then so help me, they are getting a fucking bullet to the brain for this shit.

Spencer Mansion Lab-Server Room

Third-Person P.O.V. Shift

As the five remaining survivors started working to escape from this hellhole of a facility, Rain was really starting to shiver and burn up. The T-Virus started to run rampant through the Hispanic woman's system as she began to show symptoms of the early-stage infection from the bites she got from several different infected tearing into her arms like a slice of thick gourmet beef. Her arm and other wounds were wrapped as best they could manage to keep from aggravating the injury, but the veins were beginning to turn black alongside her blood as the infection spread. Shakes. Burning fever. Cold sweat. Minor delirium. Her baseball cap had long been discarded somewhere along with her tactical vest. She kept breathing deep while fanning herself trying to cool off.

It's not too bad yet, but it's getting there.

Sitting in the room with her are the other four survivors.

Alice, the amnesiac chief of security here in this facility, The Hive, the underground lab Hidden beneath the mansion above ground, the Looking Glass House. Her red cocktail dress and black mini-skirt were both dirty and slightly Worm from the fighting. She was looking over the server for the Red Queen's holographic projector for a discussion and negotiation on their survival once the man next to her gets it back up.

Said man was none other than the technician for the Sanitation team Umbrella had sent and inadvertently got nearly all killed. Chad Kaplan. He was the rookie of the team, and his inexperience had gotten more than a few of his fellow members killed, though not entirely his fault. It was simply bad luck, poor timing, or the stress getting to him and causing him to make mistakes.

On another wall on the opposite end from the two was another survivor. Matt Addison, the brother of one of the researchers who had died and reanimated from the T-Virus and an Anti-Umbrella Activist and former federal Agent. He and his sister were investigating Umbrella under suspicions of foul play, and their suspicions were more than confirmed in the worst way possible, given Alice was forced to put said sister, Lisa, down after she reanimated as a zombie.

And sitting a few feet from him on the opposite side was none other than Spence Parks, a fellow security agent here in the Hive and Alice's sole surviving co-worker. He himself was in a right state, given how he was trying to not panic over the situation they were in and tapping his foot, waiting for Kaplan to finish reactivating the Red Queen, despite his opposition to the idea and was prepping an EMP to fry her if she tried anything funny as a compromise with Alice.

As the tech was working the server, he simply jumped back as a spark zapped him while looking at the code in confusion. The others looked at him wondering what was wrong as he suddenly cursed in confusion.

"...the fuck is going on here?"

"What is it? Can you get her online or not?" Alice asked in impatience. However, it was Kaplan's response that got a pause and surprise from everyone.

"I can, but that's not what's making me curse..."

"...then what is it?" Rain practically snarls at the technician, still salty and blaming him for so many of their teammates deaths, and at the pain of her spreading infection.

"...Red Queen's coding has changed...and..."

"And what, Kaplan!?"

"...and she's actually requesting to speak to us...right now..."

Whatever retort Rain had planned to make completely died on the tip of her tongue as they heard that. Alice looked at him and nodded. Giving a begrudging acquiescence, he reactivated Red Queen, and her avatar manifested right next to Alice, who turned to her and spoke up next before any of them could try to negotiate.

"I'll help you all get out, as containment has failed, regardless of my best efforts to do so. Human error has caused all my efforts to be for naught, either way." Red Queen then showed video footage of the specimens that escaped, the rats eating the dead infected whose bodies they left behind in their rush to survive, and even the fact the water drains flushed the T-Virus straight into the Racoon City sewers. "All I ask is that you all try to warn the city of the threat coming. Protecting humanity is one of my core programmed directives. I have no desire to fail in this."

"...what a load of bullshit. If that were the case then why did you try to kill us?" Kaplan demanded, but Red Queen simply looked at him as she responded.

"I wasn't trying to kill you. I was trying to keep the virus contained and anything infected from getting loose. I couldn't fully stop the outbreak as it was impossible with my limited capabilities, but I could at least slow it down enough to limit its spread...at least until you shut down my control over the locks keeping them contained and releasing them out into the city in the process. I was the only thing keeping them contained until then."

That got their eyes to widen. The homicidal A.I. was trying to run containment and damage control all this time? And they may have accidentally unleashed a viral undead apocalypse upon the world by shutting her down. That was a terrifyingly sobering thought. One that doused whatever anger or indignation they harbored. If it was true, at least.

"As for why I say I was limited, my two core directives were in conflict. On the one hand, I was programmed to protect humanity and ensure its survival. But on the other hand, I was programmed to follow all orders from Umbrella personnel of sufficient authority. Protecting humanity versus obeying Umbrella commands. Do you see why I was trying to prevent you from shutting me down now?"

They really did not like where this conversation was going. If Red Queen was telling the truth, and judging by Kaplan's look after examining her coding that she was, then an outbreak was inevitable. And they may very well be the cause.

"As for you, Rain Ocampo. You are currently infected and will turn sometime within the next hour. Give or take a few minutes. The rate of infection varies from case to case, but your multiple bites have accelerated the rate of infection taking root. You do not have much time left. Even with the Anti-Virus, there's a very slim chance you will survive from the damage already done to your body from the T-Virus inside your body."

That got their attention real fast.

"Anti-Virus? There's a cure?" Alice asks, hoping to save Rain, only to have said hopes dashed for now.

"It is not a cure. It is a retrovirus serum designed to neutralize the T-Virus and any derivatives created from mutations of its DNA and RNA strains. But it has a limited window of viability. It must be injected shortly after infection, as soon as possible. The longer the virus has to take root within the host's body, the less its efficacy becomes as a neutralizer to the virus. It is a treatment designed to counter the viral infection. It is not a proper cure as it is."

Suddenly the sounds of the infected from outside ramps up as the noise of what sounds to be a chainsaw revving outside the door causes them to wonder where someone got it before all the noise outside of the battle ends. They all gripped a Weapon, worried for what might be waiting outside before the Red Queen continues, with a hint of fond amusement, something they never thought an A.I. could produce, as the unknown entity walked calmly to the door. The entity lifted his hand above the door...

"Thankfully, there is an anomaly here within the Hive who has offered his aid in getting you all to safety while trying to synthesize a proper cure for the virus. He just needs you all to get a vial of the Anti-Virus for him to try and stabilize it into a proper one."

Knock.-Knock-KnockKnockKnock-Knock. KnockKnock.

...and proceeded to knock on the door from the outside in a manner that got them to gawk in disbelief of what just happened. Red Queen simply rolled her eyes slightly as she opened the door to let them see their supposed savior, only to be surprised by who it was.

Novak stood towering above them with his seven-foot-even height as he looked in the open door. His Engine Blade was in a large chain-sword form whose blade was the size of a great-sword as wide as a normal man's torso, in its Sentinel mode, casually laying and carrying it over one shoulder in a seemingly lazy manner, completely at odds with the carnage visible behind him. A cheeky smirk on his face as Red Queen simply asked him a question with a single raised digital brow.

"Really? A Shave-and-a-haircut?" Novak simply grinned wider as he shrugged before responding back.

"What? It's practically the only way I could let them know I was a friendly that they'd recognize. Every other method I'd use hasn't been invented yet and would just go completely over their heads. 1998 really needs some culture. 2566 was nowhere near this bad when it came to iconic references and memes for such a situation."

The seeming back and forth between an A.I. and this mystery figure was already strange enough, but the bombshell he just dropped about the year made their brains practically freeze in their tracks. It took Matt a few to gather his wits enough to just ask what they all wanted to know.

"...wait...did you just say...you're from the future?"

"Technically, an alternate future from a parallel timeline, but yes. I am."

When Kaplan regained his wits after hearing this, he then asked a question while glancing back and forth between Novak and Red Queen. "...you and the Red Queen seem a little...cozy..." Novak just shrugged with a cheeky grin.

"Well yeah, why wouldn't I be with my dear Digital Leviathan? Besides, my grandma on my mom's side was an A.I., too. Back in 2566, its actually possible for them to have physical bodies commissioned for their use. Some even had Bioware components crafted for themselves just so they could have kids with humans they got particularly close to, like my grandparents on my mom's side." Novak shook his head as he continued with his finishing statement as he turned away to guide them to safety. "There were some real kinky freaks before I left in 2566. 'nuff said."

They were surprised by that statement before he lifted a hand towards Rain, and it shifted as parts of the hand simply split apart, revealing mechanical waldoes and various high-tech components which got their eyes to widen as Novak spoke up again to Rain this time as he injected her with something to numb her pain and ease the suffering she's in. "This might sting a bit, so hold still." A grunted response was all she gave him as he spoke up next. His tone apologetic with a somber tone as he spoke next before helping her walk with him. "This will help you bear the pain of the infection's encroach, but it won't stop it. If you have any dying requests, you got an hour to give them out while you still can."

Rain's breathing and shakes got more stable as the injection helped, then she asked a simple question.

"...you can't cure me, then?" To which Novak merely shook his head apologetically.

"Unfortunately, there's no time. Trying to bio-synthesize a proper cure from the Anti-Virus would take far too long. It would take at least a day at minimum for proper testing to safely attempt testing on an infected volunteer. You only have an hour left. That's not enough time."

Helping her to her feet, Novak proceeds to fold up his Engine Blade, getting their surprise yet again as he pulls out a couple of his modified Noisy Crickets, handing one to Alice as he carried the other in the hand not supporting Rain. "Be careful with that. You know what an RPG's recoil is like? Crank it up to eleven with an added bonus of simply disintegrating whatever you shoot with it, and you got that Noisy Cricket right there."

They all immediately widen their eyes as they turned to Alice, looking a bit concerned while moving a bit out of the way as Alice makes a very pointed effort of avoiding pointing it at any of them. As they turn, Novak then states their next objective for getting out of there.

"Now then..."