Li Yexing: …
Why did I bother running around for keys in Resident Evil? Should've just shot the lock off.
Grimacing, Li Yexing and Lilith returned to their room. He quickly equipped their hidden MP5s. Lilith tore her dress into a short skirt, strapped on a tactical belt, holstered a pistol on her thigh, and kept her heels—a modern Valkyrie.
As Li Yexing admired her, Ada's voice crackled through the earpiece.
"Li Yexing, you there? The ship's lost power."
"I know," he replied. "Problem?"
"My exit's cut off. Gates are sealed. I can't get back up," Ada said.
"What do you need?" he asked.
"Go to the engine room, restore power, then grab the magnetic card from the captain or Parker to open the gate behind me," Ada said. "Hurry. The lower hold's gates opened automatically, and I'm trapped with the ship's security and those black-clad guys."
"Got it. We're on it."
He cut the comms and turned to Lilith. "Heard that?"
She nodded silently.
"Let's move. Control room and captain's quarters are near the engine room. We'll find Parker or the captain, get the card, then hit the engine room."
Patting her shoulder, they left. Most people were in the banquet hall, with only three exits—one upstairs, two down. A panicked crowd could cause a stampede, turning the hall into an infected buffet. Their job: get the card, restore power, and extract Ada before the infected spread.
Like a game with clear objectives.
The Orianna was now a hellscape. No infected yet, but faint screams echoed. From what he'd seen, these creatures resembled Resident Evil: Revelations' Oozes—T-Abyss virus mutants. Slow, with weakened bones, they dehydrated fast, needing to siphon fluids from others. In the game, they used vents, making them unpredictable.
They reached the control room. Li Yexing kicked the door open, gun raised. The room was a mess—sparking consoles, blood and white slime everywhere. Four infected crouched over a guard's corpse, sucking greedily. Their hair was gone, black-red veins bulging under pale skin. Mutated arms sprouted jagged bone spikes like branches. Hearing the door, they turned, their faces nearly featureless—sunken eyeballs dangling, upper jaws flipped outward, teeth replaced by uneven bone spikes, and a bloody tongue-like tendril writhing from their throats.
"Disgusting!" Li Yexing grimaced. He and Lilith aimed at the rising monsters and fired.
Bullets tore through, red blood spraying, but the creatures charged at near-human speed.
"What the hell?!" Li Yexing kicked one lunging at him. Lilith, quick, shot another's head, dropping it after several rounds. Li Yexing regrouped, gunning down the remaining two. Approaching the struggling infected he'd kicked, he stomped its head, splattering red and white goo.
The twitching, melting-like corpse made him frown.
'Too fast.'
He hadn't expected them to move at human sprinting speed, catching him off guard. Their bone spikes, unlike the Ooze's uniform ones, were gnarled and chaotic. 'Not T-Abyss. A variant?'
"Yexing," Lilith said, rising from checking the bodies. "The captain's not here."
"Not in the control room?" Li Yexing frowned, eyeing the bloody, slimy vent. "Did he turn and crawl off? That's trouble."
He turned to Lilith. "Let's try the captain's quarters. He might've left the card there."
Approaching the drained guard's corpse, he fired two shots into its head to prevent reanimation, then searched it, finding an empty pistol and a full magazine.
Loading the guard's gun, he said to Lilith, "Let's check the captain's quarters."
---
"Why's the control room not answering?!" Guard A snapped, trapped in the lower hold.
"Something's off…" Guard B lit a cigarette, scanning warily. "Notice those black-clad guys? They're antsy."
"Anyone'd be antsy stuck here," Guard A grumbled.
"No, it's different," Guard B said. A former BW engineer who fought in Iraq, he sensed unease. "These guys are trained, well-equipped, outsiders. They shouldn't worry about being stuck, but look at them. They're scared. Of what?"
Guard A's nerves frayed, his grip tightening on his pistol.
Guard B stayed quiet, watching a black-clad man on a radio, sounding agitated. Moving closer, he caught fragments—"can't reach command," "missed evacuation window."
"Evacuation? Why evacuate?" Guard B muttered, turning to Guard A. Then he froze.
A blood-soaked guard, half-emerging from a vent behind Guard A, reached with mangled, inhuman hands.
"Danger!" Guard B yelled, yanking Guard A's collar.
Guard A stumbled, ready to snap, but saw Guard B's horror and turned.
"What the hell?!"
The figure missed, falling from the vent with a wet thud, blood and white slime splattering. Guard A swore he heard bones snap.
Guard B reacted faster, drawing his gun. "Don't move! Hands behind you!" The thing writhed, ignoring him, making guttural swallowing sounds. Slowly, it stood.
Guard B froze, his cigarette falling.
The creature was melting, its face featureless, veins crisscrossing pale skin, jaw gone, a fleshy tendril dangling.
"What's this?!" A black-clad leader shoved Guard B aside, saw the monster, and cursed. "Damn it!" He fired his HK-416, shredding it. The creature fell, twitching in a pool of red and white.
"What is that thing?!" Guard B demanded. "You know what it is, don't you?"
"None of your business," the leader snapped, turning to his team. "You saw it. We've been abandoned."
His men exchanged looks. One kicked a wall. "Our lives mean nothing?!"
"Tell Team B we're ditched. We're getting off this damn ship ourselves," the leader said. He eyed the shaken guards. "Know how to get out of the lower hold?"
"Restore power, open the gates with a clearance card," Guard B said.
"I know that. Any other way?"
"There is," Guard B said. "Cross the lower hold to the other side, activate the emergency protocol. Only used if the ship's sinking, but it still needs a lower security card."
"Where do we get that?"