i need your discipline - Sacrifice: Part XV - Evaporating

***Edited 5-4-09***
I thought I was gonna cut the hell out of this. I added two words.

Title: "Evaporating" (3951 words, of 48,427 so far)

Summary: The epic hotel battle!

Warnings: Langstiolence as always!

Pairing: Poooooor Silver.

Author's Note: The so far climactic chapter is better than I first thought. It is also obviously the longest... I tried to cut it but it really couldn't afford it. Honestly I'm surprised it only cleared the cutoff by like. 800. I thought it would be. A million. I did the best I could! Enjoy, and be ready for cenote lab times! iknowi'mnot


    The loud beeping from the timer wedged itself between them, and they paused to process the sound, breathing shallowly through parted lips that had yet to meet.

    Leon turned first, spotting the green light that meant their imprisonment was over. Though he found himself content to stay locked up if for just another minute, he reminded himself of the task at hand. Apologetic, he removed one of his hands from her back and tried the door's handle. It moved easily.

    She nodded an understanding, and the face that was so upset just moments before was now determined and exuded readiness. He admired her ability to focus, and he ran his fingernails on the remaining hand down her back gently as he removed it. Brushing against the shotgun, he was reminded to re-arm himself, and he pulled his handgun from its holster at his thigh. He was unsure when he had put it there to begin with, and he gripped it tightly as he threw open the door.

    A paper fluttered in, apparently stuck in the door, and settled haphazardly at Sabrina's feet. She bent to pick it up once they were satisfied the outer area was quiet, if only for now.

Thank you for your honest correspondence, Phillips. And, be as quiet about your identity as you like -- there is no doubt in my mind that it's you giving me all these "tips" and "warnings." I'm sure you think you're a lovely, martyred bellwether.

Why is it, I wonder, that people assume I have been trampled underfoot by the corporate machine? That I was swept along like a child, as if I am a moth who cannot resist the flame? Of course as soon as I write I know. I find that happens to me frequently. My body and mind have never agreed with each other. It is as though they fight.

Yes, I see the marks on the page, I watch myself in the mirror. I am not ignorant to what causes other people to call me what they will -- weirdo, freak, more recently engendro. It has always happened and is a part of me. I admire your ability to look past this, Phillips, as you always did at the estate. Perhaps this kindness is what advanced you from drudgery to "science."

But I must take my chance to warn you this time, my old friend. If you believe kindness ever advanced anyone in this corporation, you have been working for the wrong people. 8 years of doing exactly what one is told has gotten me this vital task. I was never kind. But yours, they will see as a betrayal. And I trust it's only a matter of time before they sniff you out and end your life.

I thank you for your consideration, and will always remember our time in the kitchens fondly. But you have outstayed your welcome in the company's eyes, I'm sure, and you are the last thing they need in their revitalization.
    It was an obvious reply to the earlier warning. Though the details didn't make much sense to her, she could sense Leon stiffening at what he read upside-down. Valco had just told him something very important, as inadvertent as it may have been.

    "You wanted to know how he was involved," he growled, "and it looks like you just got that."

    "Tell me." She swallowed.

    "The estate. That has to be the Spencer mansion." If there were any lingering doubts whatsoever that this was an Umbrella issue, something he never thought he'd see again, they were quashed now. Though he had no first-hand experience, he knew plenty from those that had. This windbag was nothing more than a years-long kitchen grunt. That didn't explain how this had happened, not specifically, and he was determined to find out as soon as possible. In his silence, she looked confused, but the time to explain things had ended, and she still looked like the picture of preparation otherwise.

    "I think there's more wrong with him than we realize," she said quietly, having to clear her throat in the middle for her voice's unevenness. He only watched her, more sadly than he intended, for another moment. She refused to let there be any long, longing silence between them. "After you."

    A feeling told him something was about to happen, spurred on by the almost tangible silence coming from the darkened, cavernous and deserted lobby stretching out before them. He nodded towards it for Sabrina's benefit, and went through without another word. He was ready for whatever lay ahead.

    And after one inconsequential turn of the corner, that was the revolving front door. He ran towards it, blinded by the sudden renewed need to get her out, keep her safe from this hellish building. But the closer they got, the softer her footfall became behind him. They both noticed that it was covered by another metal shutter, just like those in the stairwell, and their royal flush had already been played. There were four red lights instead of one, and he felt nothing but anger engulfing his panic.

    Taped on the shutter was another sheet of paper, and with a loud, echoing profanity, Leon tore it from its place. But it wasn't the intended taunt he expected -- it was a reward of some kind, a sick 'atta-boy for someone else.

Good evening,
I hope this debriefing finds you well. As well as can be expected. If you have reached the point of receiving this letter, then the experiment has been successful on some level or another. If you have recorded your findings properly, then I will surely glean everything I need to from your work.

It is now time to proceed to my current location. As I hope you have deduced, this path begins at the Ventana Sagrada. I believe the respect of the land will be with us as you traverse this sacred water to receive further, more detailed instructions. Your BAK, #4, will be waiting in its agreed-upon location.

Please forgive the brief nature of this notice, but as I'm sure you understand, you are not the only one I must thank for their service in this challenging time. Yet, I would like to commend you on your professionalism in correspondence. If I may flatter myself to think you have modeled your writing after my own, I believe I will.

Regards,
    The signature was little more than a circle and a series of lazy swishes that could scarcely be made out. Leon stared at it, as if it should hold some recognition for him, but it was too sloppy and shaky to dare looking at any longer than he already had. The last paragraph was handwritten, as well as the single digit. Otherwise it was traceless. He fought the urge to crumple it and handed it back to Sabrina, who read through it in a sleepy silence and shoved it in the bag with the crinkling others.

    "Don't lose hope," he practically demanded of her, worn. He needed more than ever to keep his promises to her. He looked down the way to his left, eyes pausing on the bar they had been in a thousand years ago without a care in the world.

    She was looking too, but then settled for his face again. "As long as you're with me, I'm not going to."

    He didn't let himself feel everything he should have when she said that. He was inspecting the restaurant glass, almost impossible to see in the heavy darkness, but from what he could tell the glass had fully broken through. That left the question of where all the zombies inside had gone, and he was on his guard till he could figure that out.

    "Good. We start with the restaurant, and we're not splitting up this time, you got it?" He barely waited for her to nod her recognition of the command before making a stealthy run, handgun held low and even, for the tables. "This isn't the worst date I've been on," he assured her over his shoulder as they passed the bar. He thought he heard her laugh lightly behind him, but he knew he heard her boot soles stop crunching the broken glass littering the floor. Knowing right away something was wrong, he whipped around, arms and gun outstretched.

    She was backing up, slowly, from something unseen in front of them. It was the true source of the laughter.

    "Isn't it?" came a nervous voice. "Well, then -- I suppose it's about to be."

    "Time's up, Valco," Leon barked immediately, ushering Sabrina behind him with one arm. "We've tracked your involvement pretty clearly. Thanks for making it so easy." Annoyed already that he wasn't being heeded instantly, he slid a finger against the trigger and tightened his grip. "Get where I can see you." Nothing. "Now!"

    "Violence. Death threats." He was advancing, finally, but too slowly to be seen yet. "How expected. From what I glean, you're quite the commanding operator. How many people, or should I give you the benefit of the doubt and say 'once-people,' do you suppose you've single-handedly murdered?" He was obviously facing Sabrina as he spoke, clearly trying to convey the information to her. "My research brings me to quite an astounding figure. It scrapes into the thousand mark, wouldn't you say?"

    He could feel her energy change behind him, and that made him even angrier. "I'm in defense, you bastard," he growled. "You can't make an omelet without breaking eggs. At least my line of work is to protect people. Yours is mindless terrorism."

    "I answer to a higher power than the puppet master of America, my boy." He was visible now, and the beginnings of his marked twitch were starting to flicker across his cheek. "Wealth and the wealth of knowledge. The experiment has been an undoubted success, and my master will be more than thrilled with my findings."

    "You're no scientist," he taunted back, suddenly wanting to subject him to the same prodding treatment he had been running them around with all night. "You're a damned cook. You're a dishwasher. Anybody can stick a sample in a steak, Valco. And you will pay for what you've done."

    His tic strengthened at the words, and his eyes were growing dusky in their green. "Do you think this is everything? This is the last you will see? I would expect you of all people to fathom the cyclic nature of the corporation. It is as the phoenix!"

    "Would you shut up with your Webster's dictionary, you freak?" The trigger was itching for release.

    Valco tried to gloss right over that dig, but his face told another tale -- he was distinctly bothered by Leon's words. "You will see. You will. You will come to understand the power, the yin and the yang, and you will face the dire consequences of crossing it. This experiment is so large-scale, so many years, years, in the making."

    His patience had been exhausted. "Then it'll be just as easy to find your 'master' and take him down, with the kind of trail that has to have left. Give up, Valco, you're defenseless and useless."

    "He trusted me to perform this function. This function. It was my duty from the start. He appreciates my loyalty more than any other's. He told me this."

    Unexpected and almost too small to be heard, Sabrina piped up, "But in that fax, he didn't mention you by name."

    "By what?" Valco demanded, voice sharp and unexpectedly high. It reminded Leon of something indistinct.

    "By name," she repeated unevenly. "Nowhere in it does he mention you... by name. If this is as big an experiment as you say..." She was losing her nerve and Leon knew it, but he made no motions to stop her. "It's a form fax. He sent out others like it. You're not the only one he trusts." She didn't know who she was specifically referring to, but she had the distinct feeling Leon wasn't a hundred percent certain either. She would have to ask him for the short list.

    With that, he exploded. His whole face pulled itself into continual grimaces, and he appeared to be holding himself back from diving at the both of them. "Favorite! Favorite! Always. Have always been." His whole side was crunching up systematically, and with that dangerous outburst, Leon fully understood what he was seeing.

    "You're both of them," he murmured to himself. The repetitive, babbling partner and the cool-headed hotel worker were one person, and it was becoming clearer and clearer what was meant by all the cries of "freak" and "disease." Either way, he was done messing around. "Forget it. I'm going to the cenote, and I'm getting to the bottom of this."

    "Difficult. That will be difficult with the door locked, locked as it is." He looked as though he was barely hanging onto himself.

    He let out an unimpressed sound. "Gee. Could it possibly be that you have that last key?"

    From an interior pocket, the physically struggling Valco pulled two small, different items. First was exactly what Leon had predicted -- instead of a spade, this had the appearance of the back side of a card, blue and ornate. And sitting in his palm was a small capsule. Sabrina, watching with wide and horrified eyes over Leon's shoulder, saw a tiny slip of paper flutter to the floor, apparently dislodged from the same pocket.

    "Cyanide isn't the best idea, Valco," Leon taunted. "Either way I'm getting that key."

    Enraged, he could hardly speak for the convulsions. He had lost reality completely, and his face was contorting around the words he tried to say. He stalled around the one that finally escaped. "Mistaken."


    In a brief series of moments, Valco used his good arm to pop the pill into his mouth. It sounded as though he were choking on it, but in fractions of a second, he drew a blade from a concealed area on the opposite side of the jacket. Piercing his own skin, he let out a terrible cry, and Sabrina shielded her eyes with Leon's back. No sooner had it all begun, his skin fell off in telltale strips and the inner remains of him were headed for them both.

    "Get out of here, Sabrina!" he cried over his shoulder, turning and pushing her forcefully away from the scene. If his feeling about this was right, this was going to be the most dangerous imago they had yet to face, and he was determined to face it alone, just in case.

    In his fervor, he had pushed a little too hard, and set her body into a stumbling un-balance. She fell forward against her hands and caught her momentum with her knees. Wincing at the unpadded pain, she was met eye-to-eye with the tiny slip that Valco had left behind. Scooping it up without thought, she scrambled for the next available safe haven -- the door into the kitchen.

    It was blissfully empty, though its abandoned quiet and metallic darkness were punctuated in creepiness by the occasional gunshot from the dining room. She scoped the room out as best she could for safety, then lay in wait. But it didn't take long -- she couldn't stand this anymore. She had helped him with the last imago. She was going to do the same now.

    When she regripped the Remington, she felt the paper slip crumple in her hand. Distracted, she took it up and smoothed it out. It was in Valco's disturbing chicken scratch, distinctive and overly verbose.

June 19th, 2005
All plans must have a back-up. I have secured my escape route by programming all three security locks with my own four-digit codes. These locks release the first three quarters of the front door (the other part will be more cleverly hidden, how yet, I have not decided), should I require a fast break. Naturally, I will be the only one who knows them.

Of course, by some bizarre chance that they could be deduced, I have scattered the inspirational material across the Nochestrella. I did find, however, that with twelve necessary numbers, I am missing 1.

Not anymore, I suppose.
    Everything clicked in an instant, and with a slight widening of her eyes, she dug through her cumbersome bag for every scrap of paper they had picked up along the way. To her surprise, each had a single numeric digit outside of the date. One, and only one. She put them in the best order she could remember and ran back out the door and into the chaotic dining room.

    The first thing she caught was Leon kicking over a large, round table, ducking and rolling behind it to take refuge from Valco's whiplike, black veins. He was seeking a pattern, firing off a shot with his revolver when he could. The second thing was a small box on the wall nearest her, complete with a yellow light. She ran for it, papers in hand, and flipped it open to reveal a rotary dialer -- for some reason, she had been expecting a number pad. She only let her surprise last for a moment before spinning in her best guess.

    7. 1. 3. 2.

    The rotary clicked down into place, immobile, and the light shone green.

    She didn't have time to relax or be proud. Leon swore loudly behind her, and she turned to find him struggling to reload the magnum. His table shield had been destroyed somewhere along the way, and he looked to be using the last of his needed ammo. The second box was gleaming yellow behind him, and the path to it was far from clear with the half-skeletal Valco in the way. Before she could hesitate any more, she dug her hand into the purse and broke into a run.

    He saw her with eyes in the back of his head and was far from pleased. "Sabrina! What the hell are you doing!" She had dropped a full, black-and-red box of ammo beside him, and Valco lashed out with another flurry of bulging veins. Rolling sideways to escape it as he picked up the box, he locked his eyes on her activities. It didn't take long to figure out what she was up to, even if he didn't know the specifics.

    9. 2. 3. 6.

    She shot a look at the front door and could see half of the lights changed to green to match her progress. Nearby, tearing her from her reverie, was a gurgling, wet sound from the approaching Valco. But reloaded and ready, Leon fired a distracting bullet that flew straight through what was left of a limb. He turned away, and she was free to find the final rotary box.

    It took a fair amount of looking, but she finally discovered it near some vending machines in the lobby proper. She had enough distance from the brawl to focus, and she got her hands to stop shaking.

    5. 8. 4. 1.

    With a final click, she had done her part. From what she could tell, Leon needed whatever assistance was available. Making sure she was fully prepared with the gun, she made to rejoin the fray, but saw he had tempted Valco into the bar by running around the last of the tables and the broken doors.

    "Come and get me, beautiful," he said, eyes sharp and ready, and the haggard remains of Valco rose to the challenge. As the beast strode towards him with inhuman intensity, he raised the revolver, lining it up as close as he dared, and let loose with the last bullet in the chambers. It directly pierced the revealed area of his beating, rotting heart, and with unbearable squelching and screeching, Valco began melting into the dark red nothingness the others had already become.

    Sabrina watched his demise from a distance, and felt a strange, permeating relief. Meanwhile, Leon was picking through the huge puddle, and he held up the retrieved card for her to see. Then, in the continued silence, he took a closer look at it. She saw rage light in his eyes before he spoke.

    "No way," he sputtered darkly. "These are poker rules." Furious, he crumpled the plain playing card in his fist and threw it hard against the floor. The soft sound of the connection against the carpet was amplified by the echo in the long space between them. She looked at him, still and concerned, without knowing what to say. There had to be a way out.

    It began as a quiet shuffling in the space behind her, near the front desk area. When she turned, her stomach turned with her. The groaning of an approaching zombie accompanied the scraping footsteps. Shotgun still at the ready, she squared her shoulders and prepared for an attempted headshot, once it was close enough.

    Advancing till it was more illuminated in the blue track lighting, it eyed her with its dull, milky gaze. She glared in concentration, already aimed, until it was feet from her. Then everything, every thought and preparation, faded away. Her limbs went numb.

    She would know that thin mop of hair, those battered, age-old jeans, anywhere. Here was her living and undead proof that Tony hadn't made it alive from his protection of her. Staggering backwards, she began to tremble.

    "What's going on over there?" Leon was demanding around the bend, but he sounded so far away, and she couldn't bring herself to look away from Tony. She knew that this was no longer her friend and colleague, well enough to refrain from speaking to him or begging he stop what he was doing. But the shock of the sight was too much to do anything at all.

    Growing concerned, Leon began to jog over to her, tired from the fight but never too tired to do his self-appointed job of protecting her. He didn't get very far before she was acting on her own. The zombie made a quick lunge for her, and she snapped back the butt of the Remington to aim directly up at its head. It exploded with the shot, leaving her shirt with more specks than it had before. It sank to its knees and was defeated before her. He knew that she hadn't seen him, now as he was lingering next to the stools they had vacated at the bar, but they both caught sight of the same thing at the same time. Something was catching the scarce light, clutched in the zombie's hand.

    Shaking and in a hazy fog, Sabrina reached down for it and produced another card. However, this one was stiff, and red in its pattern, and the other side held a black magnetic strip rather than poker rules.

    She turned to him, feeling like her world was still in slow motion. She tried to focus on him, but he looked blurry and remote. "Leon!" she called out, sounding choked and much too loud. He looked as though he were miles away, and evaporating more and more all the while. With a motion she couldn't feel, she lifted the red key high over her head.

    The blood, and the understanding, were finally beginning to return to her.

    "I... I got it," she cried helplessly.

    The world came tumbling down on her shoulders, and she fell to the floor with it, finally ready to be exhausted and grieve.

Wait: Part XIV - Ghosts
Follow Me: Part XVI - Surreal