The Gothic Journals

[High Priest Mikhal]

(Excerpt from the journals of Alexander Dreamfire, WilPharma Facility, UT, May 8, 2003)
According to the clocks it's been a little over twenty-four hours since we got the green light to go in. Kyra and I were sent to the facility--all the way out in the middle of the Bonneville Salt Flats--along with three others. From a distance it looked like an ugly, squat building of concrete with no windows or identifying marks. Up close it looked even uglier than before, but now lighting up the sky were several sentry guns now taking shots at us. That kind of offensive hardware is illegal even for WilPharma, but it's a bit too easy to acquire on the black market for them not to have it. I should have expected such from a corporation.

Our chopper had no mounted weapons, so we were reduced to strapping ourselves into safety harnesses and firing back out the sides as the pilot weaved and bobbed. We took out two before the third tore a hole in the fuselage and our fuel literally drained away. Before I knew it we were forced to land, hard. We were still fighting against the third of the sentries, using the chopper for cover. After some exchange we finally took it out and had time to get a read on what had happened. The chopper was still intact and in very good condition despite everything, save that gaping hole that had bled us dry. We had a kit to patch it up, but what good would that do us if we had no fuel?

Attempts to contact the Office by radio and cell phone were met with some sort of jamming. We couldn't get a signal on anything. Then Kyra tried to use message, only to find there was some sort of an antimagic field in place over the whole facility. My psionic powers were unaffected and I'd already sent a message to Baker when things took yet another turn for the worse.

Our pilot saw an unmarked van nearby and ran for it. Before he got more than ten paces he was torn apart by the crossfire of even more sentry guns. We didn't even see them and couldn't draw the line of fire to locate them afterward. Using a mental diagram I figured the guns had the area covered in seventy-five foot radii, with crossover to ensure that one or more was always watching a given area. We couldn't risk going after the remains or we'd be ventilated too. Just as a test I threw a rock into the line of fire and watched it disintegrate amid a burst of gunfire. We'd gotten ourselves hedged in.

Drastic times called for drastic measures and I attempted to teleport us out--only to have my power fail. The entire facility was under some sort of dimensional lock. I was about to suggest we blow a hole in the perimeter wall and take our chances on the Salt Flats when one of the agents spotted something off on the opposite side moving. Through binoculars I saw it was human-shaped and definitely coming toward us. But it was smack in the middle of all the sensors. Why weren't the guns activating?

Before I could even think about it I heard Kyra gasp and turned to see two other figures moving toward us--or at least the pilot's mutilated body. That was when the wind blew our way and that familiar stench of sickly-sweet decay, rotten meat, sour milk, and old gym socks rolled into one hit us. As the others began to retch I felt my blood run ice cold. Another outbreak of the T-Virus? No way was that a coincidence. The Virus can only be passed in fluids, I've found out. It can't survive outside a liquid medium. Back on the Ecliptic Express the Virus was spread by mutated leeches biting folks, and the Spencer Estate had self-contained water that was contaminated. It was also rats and other direct infection that had doomed Raccoon City. No way could a facility this size be "accidentally" infected with this many in as little as twenty-four hours without someone noticing--which could explain the facility's sudden communications blackout. Someone had done this on purpose!

Off in the distance I noticed a door that led inside. Out here the zombies had a good chance of swarming us, but inside we could channel them into narrow halls or block off rooms. I whispered to the others and we hustled, staying behind the chopper, to the door. Thank the goddess it was inside of the sensor dead zone we'd created when we took out the three guns. In the most agonizing thirty seconds I can remember we moved, reaching the door. It was locked, naturally. But that was when the same agent who had spotted the first zombie broke out the lock picks--Kirsten I think her name was. She had the lock popped in seconds and we ran inside, even pushing a set of steel shelves in front of the door. The area was so narrow that even if the shelves were knocked down they'd just hit the opposite wall and jam in place.

We were now inside a plain hall of brick painted over with glossy gray latex and lit by a security sconce. The only other door inside had a window in it. In the darkness I saw overturned chairs and other furniture, papers scattered, and even the odd bloody handprint. But no bodies. The only light was coming from a far wall which I couldn't see clearly at that angle. I soon realized it was a vending machine for food, one of those screw types that rotates food forward as it turns. The room itself was a coffee or break room of some kind that had been hastily abandoned when whatever happened, happened. A fridge with varied foodstuffs and Coca-Cola (yuck!) stood next to a kitchen area with a real stove and microwave. The place was well stocked with food, most of it pretty fresh. Apparently folks lived on-site at all times. We'd apparently stumbled into one of the dorms.

At this point we took a moment to calm down and collect ourselves. What had happened since the chopper was first attacked, the pilot's panicked run for a vehicle and subsequent death by hailstorm of bullets, and then the zombies. Which raised the question again of how they could move and not be attacked? I doubted it was thermal scanners looking for body heat in the range of human norms. Thermal scanners were useless on a hot day in the Salt Flats. Maybe it was some sort of beacon or chip, like an RFID tag? I knew going in blind was a bad idea. But it's not like we had an ounce of information about this place. It's a black lab; legally, it doesn't even exist.

At that point I looked at the food vendor. Someone had ordered a bag of Funyuns that got stuck against the glass. I hate it when that happens, even if I can use telekinesis to dislodge it. So did just that as I realized that I was hungry. We'd been called just before dinner and I hadn't eaten in almost twelve hours. Amazingly the simple act of taking a moment to eat set off Kirsten and her surviving partner. I admit that a snack may have been in bad taste given what we'd just gone through, but this was active duty. Survival was more important than courtesy or emotional sensitivity.

That's when other, minor things began to crop up in my mind. Standard operating procedure was to stay with a vehicle, not abandon it, so why had the pilot bolted like that? And when we were attacked by the sentry guns I had to chastise Kirsten not to use full-auto firing; suppressive fire aside it's a waste of ammo. That was one of the first things they taught in basic training. Now both were freaking out over food!?

On a hunch I ran the two of them through my PDA under the guise of looking up official policy. Not that I could get any outside link, but I did maintain a database of local agents and I'd just had it updated the day before. Given their amateurish behavior I expected the two to show up as new recruits. Instead no one with their names and serial numbers came up. Plus several keys were missing from their numbers. As I looked at the patches on their uniforms I also realized they were fakes as well. Someone had done an excellent job of forging them, but missed a rather important detail: ever since 9/11 the motto "United We Stand" has been mandatory on all "unofficial" OSA patches.

Whoever they were, these two were not OSA agents.

For a few more seconds I played at looking for the sub-paragraph before turning it around to show them. "Agents of the Office will put aside all emotional considerations when on active duty if such conflict with basic survival--i.e., food, shelter, elimination, etc." I underlined the entry on food myself to make it look like I was just being an ass. Both got very indignant about it and huffed off, oblivious to the truth. In Celestial I told Kyra what was going on--and to play along for now. Until we figured out if these two were friends or enemies, it was best to play dumb.
[Error! Transfer Interrupted!]

[High Priest Mikhal]

[Connection Re-established... ... ...file fragment found. Continuing upload]
From the kitchen area we ventured into a hallway of sterile gray walls and unmarked doors. Other than a few blood spatters the area was clear of any real signs of what happened. Standard procedure dictated we secure each room and I was sticking to that. Most were empty, save the remains of whatever people had been doing when the outbreak occurred. A half-full cup of cold coffee, partially eaten food, even computers with programs still running once we touched the computer mice and stopped the screensavers to check. A lot of it was meaningless data like pay records or lists of items used in everyday life. This floor was apparently devoted to the mundane tasks of basic logistics. Nothing we could use.

Our first break came when we stumbled on a survivor--or near-survivor. A chunk of his flesh had been torn out by teeth and he was bleeding out. This man had been laying there, dying, for hours. His attacker lay dead at his side, her brains blown out by a small pistol round. Strange that he had no other wounds from other zombies attacking his unconscious form. They weren't exactly picky eaters and by all rights he should have been dead or a zombie himself by now. Yet when I detected for undeath he was clean; in fact he tested positive for antibodies. He'd been immunized.

Kyra was quick to heal him, hiding her magic under compression bandages and other mundane methods. We knew the two others with us weren't who they said they were; best not let them know what we were truly capable of. Even after healing he remained unconscious. That was a consideration I hadn't really thought of. Survivors would need places to gather to get aid and possibly weapons if they were going to make it out alive. The area we had checked had been all clear. If we barricaded the hallway just beyond this latest area we could establish a relatively safe zone. Getting past that barricade would require we punch a new door that could be secured easily by the survivors themselves.

Our sole survivor was still out of it, but otherwise probably in better health than he'd been before the attack. So while the others began to get desks and other furniture piled to form a corridor, I began knocking on the wall to find the best place to blow a hole without blowing out a support beam. I didn't have to look long before finding one. From a large duffel bag we had carried in I pulled out three iron rods packed with plastique--frame charges--and stuck them to the wall in a door-shaped outline. In such a confined space the explosion was deafening, even with protection. Still we blew a fairly rectangular hole in the wall and even more lucky--no zombies on the other side. The explosion did finally wake our lone survivor and set off an almost comedic chase as he threatened us with a .22 pistol. Each of us had armor; such a tiny round would flatten and fall off without breaking the skin underneath.

Once we did convince him we weren't zombies, though, he calmed down in record time. Given what had happened I'd expect him to be hysterical. The calm could probably be chalked up to emotional shock. Looking at him now upright I took notice of his bad comb over and thick-framed glasses. Even his clothing--a cardigan over a dress shirt with slacks--just screamed that he was a proverbial nerd. He identified himself as Jacob Ralby, one of the computer technicians employed there. What he told us shed a lot of light on the situation.

Up until the time the building cut itself off the day before, things were going as they always did. Some of the employees had been called to Medical to receive shots--a new round of vaccinations, they were told--the day before everything happened. Our friend was one of the ones given the shot nearly a week ago. Folks weren't questioning this; in their line of work it was common to get shots to help prevent accidental infection.

When everything started it was just a network glitch. Outside connections were lost in all departments and on all levels all at once. This was on top of a sudden flu epidemic; not long after the shots those who didn't get one began to fall ill with fever, fatigue, and in some cases open sores. Those in healthy enough condition had to pick up the slack and were swamped. No one even paid attention to the fact that the sick were now quarantined, not allowed to leave their living quarters.

Not long after the network went down the automatic locks on the dorms of the quarantined were released. By then they had died and been brought back to life by the T-Virus. When they came into areas with healthy people it was total chaos. Jacob remembered grabbing a pistol he'd smuggled in for "protection," though he didn't say from what. He's not sure how it happened, but he felt one of the infected trip and grab his waist. She tore a chunk of his side right out even as he pointed the gun and fired point-blank. The pain knocked him out. For hours he drifted in and out of consciousness, sometimes seeing other infected walk by him as if he was nothing. By then it seemed anyone left alive ran away and left him to die. That's when we showed up.

From his description my fears seemed confirmed. This was a deliberate infection. Only it seems a select few were given a working vaccine. There are ways of testing a vaccine without such extreme measures. Instead it looked like someone was testing both the T-Virus and the vaccine at once, using folks in the company as human guinea pigs. I admit it's a great way of getting a controlled study, but this would have been callous even for Umbrella, my newest definition of evil. The outbreaks at both mansions and Raccoon City were the result of sabotage and human error. Okay, yes, the company did take advantage once it was clear the city was lost, but they didn't deliberately cause the incidents. At least as far as I know. In this case, though, someone saw fit to condemn an entire facility to death just for the sake of scientific study.

This latest information, coupled with what I already knew, began to fit the pieces of the puzzle into a coherent picture. The reason none of the board knew what was going on was because they really didn't have anything to do with what happened. The isolated outbreak the day before was just one more diversion, likely leaked to WilPharma ahead of time so they wouldn't be ready for this place going silent.

There was a traitor inside the company.

While I doubt one man could pull all this off by himself, I'm sure that this was entirely planned by one person with the aid of others. And our most likely suspect was whoever was in charge of this place. Only no one knew who that was. This was a black facility; the employees were kept just as ignorant as the rest of the world about what was going on unless they were actively involved in the core function. Any and all records would have to be sanitized of anything that could be used to trace them back to WP or the managers of this place.

At this point it didn't matter. Getting out alive was our new objective. That meant searching the facility for some way of communicating with the world outside. And for Jacob it meant something with more firepower than that peashooter of his. Looking back in the duffel I found the Glock nine-mil pistols the two agents should have had on them as backup sidearms (yet another red flag). Aside from recoil the heavier pistol was no different from his and he seemed to know what and what not to do. I wasn't worried about him being a traitor--it didn't even take basic magic or psionics to realize that the guy was little more than an unwitting pawn.

Looking for a way to contact the outside world was our first priority. Jacob and Kyra opted to stay behind while Kirsten, her partner, and I went out in search of anything useful. As the two passed I spied pistols in their side holsters--not the standard issue Glocks but forty-five caliber Colts. Now it clicked why I hadn't noticed before. Whoever these two were they hadn't been well briefed--or were poorly trained. All the tiny details were adding up to something. But what is another matter.

In a hall covered in tacky off-white wallpaper with numerous doors on either side we ran into a lone zombie. That's when Kirsten's partner made a fatal mistake and shot at the creature's heart. Scant heartbeats passed before the doors began to slam open and the legions of the living dead all came pouring out. So I did what I was trained to: I drew and fired.

For this op I was trying out the heaviest gun around--the Israeli Desert Eagle, modified for range and greater velocity. I'd used a casull before, but this thing made even that feel like a BB gun. The raw kick had my arms--still taut--nearly six inches up. The zombie I'd aimed at was now down and its head a gory memory, with two others behind it sporting very large holes in the chest or the left half of the face. All I could think at the time was "holy ****! I love this gun!"

Then a scream came and I was forcibly drawn back to reality. Kirsten's partner had been caught by zombies in lab coats. Even as I squeezed off a round I saw one tear a piece of his neck out right at the carotid. For just a couple of seconds he was still on his feet, but by the time he collapsed he'd already bled out. Kirsten lost it and began firing into the corpses even as they got closer. Her efforts were in vain and I had to drag her as I ran away, clearing a path to a door at the end. Much to my chagrin it was just a janitor's closet. At this point I can't really say how I came up with what I did, but it saved us.

Inside the closet was a power box and some heavy gauge cables plugged into it and an electric cart. So I cut the power, yanked the cables out of the cart, and frayed the ends so the raw wire was bare. Then I threw the cable out the door and using my ring to launch a bolt of fire up at the ceiling sprinkler system. For agonizing seconds I waited until the water got built up before turning the power back on.

A grating buzz was soon followed by the smell of roasted rotten meat and a dimming of the lights in the hall. After a couple of seconds the box blew a circuit and both the noise and dimming stopped. Looking out I saw that the undead had all been fatally electrocuted. It was at this point I began to realize just how many there had actually been. From ten feet away all the way to the other end of the hall, the floor was hidden by a mass of lifeless corpses that reached up to my waist in places. A frantic call from Kyra over the radio didn't even register with me until her second attempt as I stared in morbid fascination at the sheer numbers.

Skip ahead an hour after we picked our way through the dead to get back to our designated base--five minutes, four of them spent underneath the sprinklers before they finally turned off. We were soaked and Kirsten was in total shock. As we'd gone I'd counted the dead--forty-three in all, not counting our own man. And that was just from the janitor's closet to the door we'd entered through. There could have been half again as many as that down the other way. And somewhere deep in my stomach I knew this was just a tiny fraction of the possible numbers that still lurked out there.

Now with two fatalities I was through playing along with the charade. At the end of my gun I held Kirsten against the wall and began interrogating her. She and the other two were spies, agents of the Global Pharmaceutical Consortium. She claimed they'd been given orders to see if the rumors about WilPharma were true or not. Already the corp had been accused of biological warfare research in Madrid, Nice, Cornwall, and Bucharest. And those were just the ones they knew of. This incident was a major aberration, though; unlike the others this one was an honest to gods outbreak. Whatever had happened here hadn't been approved by the people in charge and that tipped off the GPC. With only twenty-four hours to assemble a team and insert them they'd had to rush their efforts and use political ties to get the bare minimum on what would be needed for an infiltrator to pass.

Their plans had been shot to hell along with ours. Once we get out, Kirsten or whatever her name really is will face a military trial and possibly even execution for espionage. Or she can cut a deal and become a double-agent if her GPC handlers haven't left her hanging out to dry. But that's if we get out. Since the hallway incident we haven't had many zombies, but we did find another three survivors at various points and even a security office that had a few spare guns and ammo. Unfortunately the phones were dead. Someone had cut the land lines. The sheer amount of steps to interfere with anyone coming in--both mystical and technological--suggests someone who knew about the OSA--and magic--set this up. Clearly the GPC knows and it's likely WilPharma does too.

With the automated sentry guns outside I can't go out and take down the horde outside, so blowing a hole in the outer wall and hiking the Salt Flats until we can call for help is out. Cutting the power won't work since there's no central power unit; we could spend days searching and never find all of the generators and back-up generators this place has. But we did find the hardware jamming communications. Both radio and cell phone signals had the most tenuous of connections and I'm not sure our message got out. I know my psionic message did, but unless there's something more for the Office to go on they may just assume we're dead and forget sending a rescue.

For now I can't keep this up. I haven't slept in almost thirty-six hours all I had to eat in that time is junk food taken from the vending machines. I'm writing this all down as best I can before I pass out from exhaustion. But I have to put down one last thing: the political fallout of this venture will be felt for years to come. This was a quasi-legal job at an illegal facility. Even if the public never hears about it, the governments and businesses alike will be abuzz all over the world. I just know Kyra and I will be persona non grata in the Office for our part in this. But it's Baker I'm worried about; she put her own career on the line to see this thing happen. Our good intentions led us to a Hell all its own and exposed a nasty secret that will have folks nervous about their own assets and security. At best she'll be given a desk job in a different, inconsequential agency. At worst...

It all sounds like a badly written story. But I can't just stop reading and make it all go away. Fubar doesn't even begin to describe the repercussions still to come.

Considering all that, dying here seems like the better deal.
(End transcript)

[High Priest Mikhal]

(Excerpt from the journals of Alexander Dreamfire, Draper, UT, May 26, 2003)
The worst is over. Or I hope it is. Though the public never heard a word of it, the outcry among the bureaucrats and businessmen was deafening. The lot wanted someone to blame for everything--the illegal experiments, the outbreak, the decision to go in, the deaths of two corporate agents, some sort of scapegoat. The only problem is there can't be just one and they all know it. Backroom deals and political lobbying have begun to show up as a pressure on the politicos to blame someone in the government for the exposure of their dirty deeds even as they themselves begin to search their numbers in an Inquisition-style manner.

I knew it was bad when the rescue chopper came. Baker was on it, kitted in full tactical armor and wielding a heavy assault rifle. You can take her out of the Marines but you can't take the Marine out of her. She'd had over a hundred calls about the op from politicians, executives, even diplomats from three dozen countries. She actually had to see this rescue through in person just to get it done. That's how bad the talking heads were trying to keep this quiet.

If word got out about this it would cause a domino-style effect as others began to dig where government and big business alike didn't want them to. People know the governments are all corrupt on some level; this threatened to tear away the veil of lies and even staple their eyelids open to see how rotten things were. So they did everything they could to contain it. They failed to stop us from being rescued and were foaming mad as a result. Each of us is a loose end and will have to be dealt with in some fashion.

For the past two weeks we've been in high-security, high-secrecy meetings with the representatives of WilPharma, the US government, the GPC, even the French were there. No one even tried to pretend this was anything but a witch hunt. They tried to justify the corruption "because the system is too fragile to withstand this shock. The entire world could be brought to a grinding halt and humanity set back centuries."

What sickens me is they're partially right. Sheeple would riot, the economy would tank, trust in the nations would vanish completely. That last one is the one that really irritates me. Democracy needs the people's trust to live and thrive. Otherwise the whole system implodes and the alternatives are even worse than the situation now.

In the end I "convinced" everyone to put the blame for the op on me. That really only happened after I lost my patience and shot a mind arrow at the GPC envoy, intentionally missing by scant nano-meters. None of the folks present wanted to blame me because no one--and I mean no one--would believe it. Especially their bosses who wanted some nice, neat punching bag to make themselves feel better with. Both Baker and Kyra, who were present for everything, made better targets since both had bad blood over similar issues of corruption and graft. Politicos and execs alike have butted heads with them both in the past and this would have made for sweet revenge. Blaming me not only denied them their petty victory, it would always ring hollow to those in charge because I'm nobody to them.

Ironic, then, that this really is partially my fault. Had I not pushed Baker to send us in this wouldn't have happened.

After nearly ten hours and so many tongue lashings I'm surprised I didn't bleed from the mouth, they agreed. All of the blame would be put on me; Karen Baker would be cleared of any wrongs and allowed to return to her position and Kyra's sterling reputation in the Office would remain intact. As for me, it's just another black mark on my record regarding government and big business. Both of them should realize I am not their friend--with the possible exception of the Pepsi-Cola Company and its affiliates (I just prefer their products. It wasn't a conscious decision, just a matter of taste--literally).

Today I got the news. I've been put on the government's "black list" and lost the right to hold any sort of government-affiliated job. So now it's truly official: I have been banned from the Office of Supernatural Affairs. Yet all manner of suggestions I made to the OSA and even other countries will be observed despite this. As for those the GPC, I am no longer to be allowed entry on any of territory owned by the GPC or its member companies without a national or international pass or warrant.

Strangely enough I contacted Chris Redfield and secured a position as one of the BSAA's special agents just this afternoon, so I will soon have the international authority to go on GPC territories anyway and they have to kiss my ass if I do show up. I don't like the idea much but it's not like I have much choice if I want to continue the path I've walked for years. Plus that saying, "Keep your friends close and your enemies closer," is being applied. I'll be sure to keep the GPC quite close from now on.
(End transcript)

[High Priest Mikhal]

(Excerpt from the journals of Alexander Dreamfire, Draper, UT, Sept. 11, 2003)
Two years to the day of one of the worst atrocities I've experienced I get out of the BSAA's basic training program. My drill sergeant was especially hard on me the entire time; I actually overheard him talking to someone on the phone who seemed to be telling him to try and make me wash. So I just thought, "**** it," and stopped pretending. Not by revealing my psionic powers, but instead by showing them I'd take it and then some. If I had been allowed to use my magic items it would have been much easier--hundreds of times easier, really. But I persevered and showed them I was not going to quit. By the time I was done I had earned a commission as a first lieutenant. I admit the mercenary-style ranks don't mean as much as they would in a real army, but it was still a perversely satisfying moment to have my drill sergeant sweat icicles as he explained what he'd been up to when I was training. He just couldn't ignore a superior officer.

Going home wasn't exactly the relief I thought it would be. Three months without and she had a full memory of heal spells ready to make sure I was up for it. The magic mansion could barely keep up with the repairs to the mattress. And even with all those healing spells I'm not entirely sure just what the hell happened during that time. I know it was wiser for her to go back to the Office so I could tap their resources, but if I ever have to leave her alone that long again...goddess! She makes a nymph look like a nun! One never realizes how long seven hours really is until they have to go through something like that.

As I write this she's sleeping the sleep of the utterly contented and I'm regenerating several popped joints and pinched nerves she couldn't heal before falling asleep. This is definitely a reason to put in to be the BSAA's special liaison to the OSA; Kyra and I won't be apart as often and I won't have to go through this again. Plus I'm known in the Office and still trusted despite the incident with those damnable corporations and their politician lackeys.

I learned I'm being deployed to Punjabi, India for my first assignment. Reports of T-Zombie sightings has the BSAA on high alert. Kyra has been assigned to this as well as an intelligence officer for the united OSA. All I have on the incident looks too much like the Spencer Estate. Only private water sources were tainted, not the village well. Someone wants to keep this infection as controlled as possible. Only it never works out that way with bio-weapons. That new vaccine WilPharma is producing had better be all they say it is or we're looking at a global pandemic.
(End transcript)

[High Priest Mikhal]

(Excerpt from the journals of Alexander Dreamfire, Punjabi, India, Oct. 2, 2003)
It's easy to forget the sheer scale of things in places this crowded. There's nine times the population of the States per square mile and it shows in how many people are out and about at any hour. Chris and I were put in charge of administering the T-Virus vaccine teams. The shifts never ended and we went through six million doses in the first day alone, mostly folks near the hot zones. I wish I could do something to alleviate the poverty and despair I see, but my hands are tied. The brass is watching too closely to do anything. The last thing I want is to expose my hand anymore than I have.

By now we've vaccinated nearly a third of India's total population. This is not why we agreed to take this mission. Jabbing needles to prevent another Raccoon City is a noble cause, but I'm a goddamn warrior! Chris is totally with me on this one. We came to put down the infection by taking out the source, not fortifying the base of operations. I'll admit that BSAA teams sent to stop the spread of the T-Virus have done an excellent job. Too good a job, in fact. By destroying the contaminated water sources we couldn't determine if this was a pure strain or a variant. Drawing samples from an infected victim wouldn't work since mutations in the hosts are rampant. What little we did find out is each infected supply was donated by a charity group called the United Humanity Charity. It didn't take much more to realize the UHC was just a shell used by someone; I traced it as far back as WilPharma before I was conspicuously told to halt all further investigations and hand them over to WilPharma's own internal investigations. It seems someone in their ranks is using the company as a whole to conduct illegal experiments and possibly further research. Can't have that knowledge in the hands of a do-gooder. That just wouldn't do. Especially when, one bad apple aside, it looks like WP really is trying to correct Umbrella's mistakes. If word got out they were involved in a biohazard the company would be chum to the other corporate sharks.

For now I'm retiring to an army surplus cot and I'm actually grateful for this rickety, one-size-fits-all piece of crap. Thirty-six hours on my feet and two meals with no breaks. I feel like I'm back in the barracks of the Heretic Wars. At least this time we get decent shelter.

(Excerpt from the journals of Alexander Dreamfire, Punjabi, India, Oct. 3, 2003)
A new wave of refugees has arrived, this time reporting sightings of "the dead turning dark red and rising a second time, only stronger and more evil than before." Their leader, a yogi of some power, told me that the corpses had all been interred in a temple to Kali to await cremation. This temple has a rather bad reputation as a place where demons dwell and foul rites are performed on randomly chosen people. Old, young, adult, child, anyone could be called to the temple at any time for any reason. Why people would agree to use this place to store the dead I don't understand. Surely they knew this was just going to make things worse. Or maybe they hoped the infected bodies would do what they were too afraid to do: kill the cultists inside.

Apparently they got their wish and then some. What survivors made it to an old bus fled the scene after setting their village on fire. Now we need to investigate the scene to see what happened and if there was V-ACT going on, determine why and how. If half the tales are true, the ethereal resonance of that temple is as dirty as a policitian and twice as corrupt. That only supports my own theory that long exposure to negative energies like hatred and malice can cause V-ACT and thus create those ungodly Crimson Heads. When that one in the hall of mirrors in the Spencer Estate attacked it was slamming me into the walls until I blew its head off. When dealing with Crimson Heads I'm packing my hand cannon and at least twelve speed loaders. Maybe a brick or two of ammo besides. I can't use my powers in front of the locals or the other BSAA types. Especially when they're jumpy and in possession of assault weapons.

As to how the villagers escaped--and the entire village was set ablaze--falls to the yogi, a member of the pyrokineticist school. I'll certainly have to talk with him about psionics on Earth when we have time.

At the village we found burned out huts and the charred remains of human beings. Flesh had melted off bone and charred the latter to pitch. Buildings were little more than charcoal skeletons and even a stiff breeze would collapse them. Worst of all was the heat; not the humid heat of India but more an overwhelming wave of dryness that sucked the water right out of your body. It would have been a lot cooler to stand in an oven. With most of the village now rubble it didn't take long to finish a full sweep. The only place anyone--or anything--could still be hiding in was a massive building made of black marble off in the distance.

Just looking at it made me shiver in terror. Not just because of how unclean it made me feel looking at it, but because I knew that was our next stop. Upon getting closer I saw the carved images of Kali with her necklace of fetuses dancing. There was no balance to this place, no image of Shiva to contain the destructive impulses of the goddess. Here the worst aspects of the goddess were called on with nothing to balance the karmic scales. Nothing to contain the darkness. But of more concern was the image of a man carrying a yellow scarf.

Things went wrong fast. Points sent in were heard screaming over the radio before their decapitated heads came rolling out seconds later. The rest of us went in guns blazing and encountered more of those ghastly Crimson Heads--six if I remember right. My Magnum fifty-cal had recoil too strong for me to take out more than two of them while a third fell to concentrated fire from the troops with us. The three remaining undead attacked and maimed three troops and killled another. Chris took out a pair while I missed the last and ended up in its choking grasp. Memories of the Spencer Estate and the terror I felt then filled me and without thinking I kicked the creature's chin with all the power that I could muster. There was a sickening tearing sound as its head flew off its shoulders and smashed like a melon against the floor.

While I pried the now dead taloned hands off my throat the team medic went about taking care of a series of men and women alike who'd had hands and entire arms cut off. I dared think the worst was over when I noticed a Hindu man behind the medic--one that no one else seemed to see. I tried to call out but my larynx had been damaged. Our medic, she was strangled by a yellow scarf no one saw. All they could see was she was choking but not why or how. Even worse were more ghosts of the Thugee coming out of the walls--literally. We had to leave. Chris frantically called in our situation as the others gathered up the parts of their comrades, hoping they could be saved.

We were given helicopter evac and the temple was blown to bits using rockets. It was macabre to sort severed limbs by their owners but they could be reattached, thanks in part to my staving off the putrefication using my powers when no one was looking. That was still scant consolation for those who'd been killed. Out of twenty men and women, only twelve returned alive and half of those were out of commission until their parts had been reattached and healed. It took only an hour for my voice to return, but the others won't heal for months.

Chris and I fought over what happened, screaming and yelling so loud half the camp heard us. But it was pointless besides venting off steam. Neither of us were at fault, nor was anyone in command. It hurts to admit it, but this was largely the fault of everyone. The BSAA clearly hasn't trained the grunts in what they're facing while command underestimated the true dangers of BOWs. We tried to warn the troops taking point, but they were clearly not prepared for the reality.

For now all we can do is try to administer the vaccine to curb the spread. Command has put a total freeze on further military ventures for the duration. Plus we still don't know who spread the T-Virus or why. The Indians blame the Bangalores, the Bangalores blame the Indians, Hindu blames Muslim, Muslim blames Hindu, everyone blames everyone else for it. I don't know what's more of a disgrace. The fact that humans created this threat? Or that, despite a common cause, people won't unite to stop it even if it annihilates both sides?
(End transcript)

[High Priest Mikhal]

(Excerpt from the journals of Alexander Dreamfire, Draper, UT, Oct. 28, 2003)
The BSAA has had me detailing the known abilities and weaknesses of T-Virus related critters from the Spencer Estate to a cruise liner that was infected when it got too close to the Atlantic Research Facility. I think they want me to explain this in mystical terms, but so far I've stuck to hard science. It's bad enough I know how these things work from a purely mundane point of view; if there was evidence I knew full well the supernatural reasons it would be easy for them to do away with me. I just can't trust my superiors when they're being moved like puppets on strings by our corporate sponsors. Sure the BSAA is a great little propoganda machine, and it actually does some good, we're not "on the inside." But as more and more governments pay into our coffers, those ties to the corps will become more and more tenuous until we're too powerful to control. Even if it means a kind of revolution. After all, the fires of chaos forge the strongest bonds of order.

Another point of tension is why the BSAA suddenly tapped me for details on the T-creatures. A dozen others, including Rebecca Chambers, would have jumped at the chance and done it better. If I'm not being paranoid than it's just because I've had the most experience. Few others have been at almost every outbreak or have the firsthand knowledge I do. From Crimson-Heads-in-formation to an odd proto-licker, I've seen **** that even I wouldn't believe had I not seen it myself. In reality I finished a guide to the physiology, biology or necrology, and even psychology of a number of T-creatures long ago. What I submitted was an abridged version that cut out all of the references to magic or the supernatural. Again it could be a trap to see if I know too much as well. After that last fiasco in India I'm hoping this is just so folks will be better prepared for the real things, but better safe than sorry.

I'm also left questioning whether or not I should follow Chris in going solo on these missions. It'd be a lot easier for me if there weren't people around to ask uncomfortable questions or spread the news around and make me a target for other paranormals out there. For the last few years I've always had a partner to watch my back; to go it alone again would be a major change. There are certain things a lot more easily accomplished with two people than with one. Certainly if Kyra could join me that would be ideal. But her position in the Office is just a little more important. Had she not been there I might have missed the latest fiasco in Silent Hill. Alessa, reincarnated seventeen years ago, was found by the Order. Details are sparse, but apparently Harry is dead and the God in Alyssa's womb has been destroyed--along with much of the Order's power. As far as I'm concerned that's the end of it. I'm more concerned about some of the reports coming out of Spain; weird creatures spotted, not a few of the locals acting even more bizarre than usual, and a name: Saddler. I know of an Osmund Saddler, a known adept and anti-USA terrorist; he's been on the Office's Most Wanted list for ten years now. If this is the same guy then there's definitely something to be worried about. But that's not my concern since it's technically not a biohazard.

For now, as athletes would say, I've been benched. After India I need some rest, but it better not go too long or I'll go nuts out of boredom.

(Excerpt from the journals of Alexander Dreamfire, Draper, UT, Dec. 2, 2003)
Apparently the guide is a big hit with the brass and the grunts alike. There have been rumbles that I should be given some sort of medal for saving countless lives when responding to known T-Virus outbreaks. Most of these have been in places like Africa, the Middle East, the poorest regions of Asia and South America. Of course no one hears about them because that would rile the herd. And especially we don't want to panic them this close to the holidays. Debriefing reports paint them as nothing compared to the disasters my friends and I went through in Raccoon City, but still worrying and able to stir the sheeple.

My bitterness stems not from a lack of action so much as being sent in far too often to the same damn place. Southern Spain and the islands off its coast have become the latest hotspot for the OSA, CIA, NSA, FBI, and the BSAA as well as a dozen more agencies from all over the world. Whatever is going on has the magic types creeped out, even Kyra. She describes the feeling as "worms wriggling under my skin." Her description fits with some old legends from the islands of Las Plagas (the Plagues). Some five centuries ago the castellan of the area supposedly fought and won a war against these Plagas, ordering them sealed in mines. Recently the latest of the castellans has ordered the mines opened again. This man, Edmund Salazar, suffers from a Napoleon Complex as far as I can tell; he's literally only four foot seven inches tall. He's also been seen in the company of Saddler.

Each trip I make I've done so under the ruse that I need a translator. I've found people are much more open when they think you can't understand what they're saying. From numerous interviews, crumbling archives, and a single trip to the islands I can say that something weird is going on. Even for a people this isolated the locals were xenophobic and hostile. Plus the area's ethereal resonance is...well, weird is the only way to put it. At times I see flashes of bloody sacrifices by the townspeople, other times I get the feeling of screams in my head and a creepy-crawly sensation like Kyra has described. Only it's more than just that. It feels like something is in my head and tugging at my mind at the same time, then the tugging turns to pulling, tearing, lashing. The last time I tried to take even a glance at the ethereal resonance I was coupled over in pain and bleeding from my eyes and nose alike even as I saw a tentacled, elongated creature flash before my psychic eye. I think that's what a Plaga looks like.

My last trip was two weeks ago. All I know for sure is the psychic scars are too fresh. Something is happening down there right now and we can't do a thing about it. If Salazar and Saddler are using this Las Plagas, we can't find any proof that people would believe. For now it's on the back burner until we find something more concrete. Plus I'm sick and tired of being told to find something that just isn't there! I hear Pres. Graham himself has ordered the last two missions, concerned about a threat against his family and using every asset at his disposal. Maybe one of the other groups will find something useful, but it's just wasting the time and money of our group. We handle bioterrorism; let's just pray all this isn't leading up to that.
(End transcript)

[High Priest Mikhal]

(Excerpt from the journals of Alexander Dreamfire, Boston, MA, Jan. 15, 2004)
It's been less than a year since I was banned from government work in the US, but here I am back to working for the Office as a liaison to the BSAA. At least for this one case. Politicos involved in the WilPharma incident are not happy, but the BSAA doesn't answer to them. I enjoy the sight of sold-out, morally-bankrupt "legal officials" whining like spoiled little children who can't get what they want. At this point I've lost all respect for the United States government and its agencies, save the OSA and certain individuals from the municipal cops up to the presidency who haven't been tainted by the graft and corruption running rampant on all levels. Not that society is any better. Looking back on the history before I came here and what's happened since, I'd actually have to say that nothing has changed. Government budgets haven't trimmed the fat so much as eviscerated the meat that is the welfare of the public, the infrastructure, and basics like education, housing, and food for those in need while spending money on bloated "entertainment budgets" for elected officials, international PR for the country which isn't working, and starting another war no one wanted (Graham, what the hell were you thinking going into Iraq!?). Heh. I can still remember that Bloom County Sunday strip from '83. Over twenty years later it still sums up the failings of the American government. The names may have changed, but the underlying situation hasn't. At least it isn't the Utah state government ordering this; I go to renew my driver's license and just because I don't have a birth certificate I officially don't exist and can't get it renewed. A full and legal social security card, my old license, none of that matters if I can't prove I was born with a piece of paper; I ended up going to Idaho and renewing things there. I feel like I'm back in Falkovnia. "Ze papers! Vere are ze papers!?" The legitimacy of American, and particularly Utah state, government and law is becoming increasingly tenuous in my eyes.

Even the BSAA is showing signs of corruption and graft at the top. But with the majority of officers participating side-by-side with the grunts in the hot zones, they'll understand the real situation. And they're the ones with the numbers, the ordnance, and the balls needed for a purge--which I can only pray never happens.

My constant gripes aside, this case ranks up there as one of the most bizarre I've ever encountered. A Dr. Herbert West (an ironic name) has been up to some very strange things lately in a part of northern Mississippi, near the U of MA where he works as a professor in their psychology department. If not for his tenure the heads of the University would have tossed him out decades ago for his teaching of non-accepted curriculum, particularly parapsychology and extra-dimensional theory. To the lay person those are superstitious bunk at best. But to me, Kyra, and the OSA, it's a path to the Red Death and powers he likely has no idea how to control. To the BSAA there have been reports of "mutants" in the forests surrounding his private manor and even in the Sardis River. Dogs with decaying flesh, fish of no recognizable species with razor-sharp teeth and spines, and reports of massive amounts of medical equipment being shipped to his manor via the black market. Particularly incubation vats and numerous chemicals used in genetic engineering, xenografting, and other red-flag items.

For now we've been doing some research into West and the manor. Before the whites ever came to the New World the local Algonquian tribes on reservations spoke of the land as being "cursed." Legends of the dead rising from the grave in the area had been told since the Stone Age, while reports of "dark spirits" that sound suspiciously like demons from the Abyss go back almost as far. Shamans since ancient times battled both the dead and demonic back until about four and a half millennia ago when the demons suddenly stopped appearing save once in a generation or so. But the dead began to rise with even more frequency. Perhaps the only good news was that they couldn't leave the area. Kyra figures this to be about ten miles in an oblong radius extending more into the forest than into the river, with the West Manor at the very heart of it all. Whites likewise tried to avoid the area, claiming it was "bad land, cursed by Satan." Save for the very localized plants and animals, which are reportedly twisted in their own right, anything living that gets too close is slowly drained of life until they die and return as one of the undead.

From all this it sounds like the area is a planar conduit of some kind to the Abyss, and I have a good idea of which layer. But there's a major flaw in my theory about the timeline. Even then it can be argued that the flow of time in this world compared to the rest of the multiverse is as consistent as raw Limbo. Perhaps more than ever since the Red Death insinuated its very essence into the fabric of reality. But without actually going there for a hands-on investigation none of this can be tested. West has proven to be most resistant to the idea of federal and international authorities going to his manor. We could easily petition a search warrant and have it within a few seconds, but after meeting Dr. West himself we've decided to hold off on that until we can investigate him on a more personal level. When I noted a cut on his hand he made a show of covering it with his hand until it stopped bleeding. In reality Kyra noticed he was actually casting a spell to heal himself.

Our major concern is that it wasn't a healing spell at all. It was an inflict spell.

[High Priest Mikhal]

(Excerpt from the journals of Alexander Dreamfire, Boston, MA, Jan. 16, 2004)
Getting any solid information on the actual Dr. Herbert West is like pulling teeth and twice as painful. Oddly Kyra has never read the original Re-Animator by H.P. Lovecraft; she didn't even know the story was made into a trilogy of movies. So her vast store of knowledge was useless there. In having the BSAA and the Office run checks, we got nothing beyond tons of pointless trivia, theories, and other crap about the story and/or movies. I did find something in the city records and Miskatonic University's own employee files. Granted it's not much, but it's all we have to go on for the time being.

Dr. West is the latest in a family line filled with truly bizarre people. The first West to migrate to America in the Seventeenth Century, his name all but lost to time, was apparently a missionary who discovered the land. He knew "devil's work" was at play and vowed to cleanse the area, building a modest cabin and even a chapel. Despite his best efforts, he couldn't seem to achieve his goal. The other white settlers avoided the area and it wasn't until this first West moved to the fledgling Miskatonic that he was able to find a wife, marry, and have a family. Ever since then the family has tried--and failed--to cleanse the land. Some, though, seemed to find it appealing and began to build over the remains of both the cabin and chapel. The latter had endured thanks to its stone construction, but the former had turned to dust. These aberrant Wests invariably split from the rest of the family, but did seem to honestly work towards cleansing the Abyssal taint. They were even largely successful--until 1901. Something happened that year that undid nearly three centuries of hard work and caused the Wests living on the land to degenerate rapidly until they were killed by a mob in 1905. The estate remained uninhabited for the next fifty years.

In 1955, Herbert West appeared out of nowhere and earned his tenure at the University. He'd heard the family stories about the old estate and its bizarre nature, but still moved in and rebuilt it. For another three decades things seemed fine. But in 1985, Dr. West began to act strangely, according to his peers. He would take extended leaves of absence, travel to remote locations throughout the world, and even began to push for the psychology department to extend into parapsychology. Family clout made it possible and he became head of the new department. His lectures were bizarre even by the standards of a scientific discipline not fully accepted by academia; he often asserted that Earth was but one of countless other worlds in the collective universe, that there really was a Heaven and Hell, or more precisely several versions of each, and that entropy was more of a cosmic force than an effect of time. In particular, that massive amounts of this "entropic force" could alter life itself into new forms. Not once has he mentioned the idea of his entropic force--negative energy as far as I can tell--could raise the dead. He's either not mentioning it, or else has no idea that it can do that. I tend to believe it's the former, since his lectures ring true on so many other points that it's hard to think he wouldn't have discovered negative energy's effects on the dead.

Then there's his very subtle use of magic--genuine magic, like the mystics I've met before. In particular his use of an inflict spell to heal one of his wounds. So today I sat in on a lecture, using stygian discernment on him. What I detected was muddled and hard to fully explain. He's alive, at least clinically, but his life is "fueled" by negative energy--a "grave-touched" being, but then even that's not completely accurate. I've seen an extremely similar process in dread necromancers as they grow in power to the point of becoming liches. Yet Dr. West's state "feels" entirely different from even that. It's horribly confusing for me and has raised dozens more questions.

That's what motivated me to stay after the class let out and talk with him. I acted like a fellow parapsychologist and presented just enough new bits of information and "theories" of my own to whet his appetite for more. He invited me and my "partner in research," Kyra, to his estate tomorrow. As it will be the weekend, he's invited us to stay. I didn't pick up any ulterior motives for his invitation--he genuinely seems interested in knowledge and nothing more--but I'm not taking any chances. He'll pick us up on his own boat since the roads to his estate are nothing more than trails that haven't been used in years and take hours to traverse even in a vehicle. I verified that personally. Still, being "trapped" at West Manor for the duration of our stay raises too many red flags for me.

If I'm right and the land is connected to the Demon Prince of the Undead's layer of the Abyss, the doctor could be the least of our worries.
(End transcript)

[High Priest Mikhal]

(Excerpt from the journals of Alexander Dreamfire, Arkham, MA, Jan. 17, 2004)
The boat ride here was pure misery for me, as it always is when I travel on the water. No drug, spell, or power seems able to cure me of the worst seasickness anyone has ever seen. I was so busy hanging over the side I couldn't concentrate on watching the surroundings. But if I hadn't been like that I would have missed the first real clue in this mystery. After getting sick for the umpteenth time, I noticed the "fish" that congregated near the West Manor. They appeared to be translucent things, their bones visible as if they had no skin, with unnaturally long and sharp teeth. Then there were other things only barely visible beneath the deep water. Things that looked like unshaped mounds with arms moving on two legs. It was too far down for me to see exactly, but I think they were some sort of zombie!

Reaching the dock didn't help me at all. Kyra likewise began to feel quite ill when we disembarked. West Manor and its grounds are utterly saturated by negative energy, a minor-negative dominant area as planar scholars would say. Despite Kyra not having a death ward active, she was not affected by it and neither was I, though that could have been my amulet at work. It's hard to say for sure. That Dr. West didn't seem perturbed by our being unaffected says he must have some sort of control over the power. I can't really doubt that at this point. But that wasn't the only thing; on the Near Ethereal I could plainly see the Manor as a pulsing, living mass of rotten flesh, bloody muscle, shattered bone, and gristle that moaned ever so quietly in pain. As we got closer I noticed faces embedded in the walls as if pressing through that rot, screaming silently. Hiding my reaction proved difficult, but I did--barely.

All the rest of the grounds were filled with dead plants and trees. Being the middle of winter it wasn't too out of place. But the rest of the state was still fairly green and alive, as was the forest surrounding West Manor according to Kyra. It was only when we got close that things started to look abnormal. Trees with no leaves or else with twisted branches and leaves as black as pitch. Once in a while there would appear to be something hanging from the tallest branches of some of those trees, but she couldn't see that far out.

The inside was odd on the Ethereal because of what wasn't there. As in anything from the outside. It all appeared...normal, albeit vivid and solid as the material. There was also an oppressive feeling even Kyra could sense. One of morbid fascination, terror, rage, and hopelessness mixed in one. It was the ethereal resonance. One far stronger than most I'd felt in a full seven centuries. The only times I'd felt something that powerful was in...well, I've no evidence to suggest such yet. So I'd best drop it before I start freaking myself out even more.

As West showed us to our rooms, we both began to realize what this all too familiar sensation was. It was the taint of the Abyss, of Thanatos and a bloated demon lord called Orcus. That faint chill that hung in the air wasn't from winter or a drafty manor, but the cold and lifeless energies of undeath itself. This we couldn't hide our reactions to and it made West a bit giddy to see. He didn't seem bothered by it at all; in fact, it seemed to energize him. Even after we'd settled in and joined him in his study to talk about all things paranormal, he seemed to be more awake and aware than he had been at the University.

In talking with him we soon realized he was quite knowledgeable about the Negative Energy Plane and its fell energies, the nature of undeath, and the Abyss. In particular he went on about the "biology" of demons and of the undead at length. His knowledge was too accurate, too detailed not to be from firsthand experience. When I was about to ask him how he knew all that, though, a light on his phone began to blink. He excused himself, saying there was something in his lab he had to attend to. But he did give us permission to wander around and look freely. His openness was a little strange. Surely he had things to hide. That he didn't offer to let us go with him to his lab must mean that's where the real secrets lie.

It was only when I felt the chill dissipate that I realized Kyra had suppressed her aura of consecration. Normally she doesn't bother as few are aware of its existence; my own aura of holy light, though, is a different story and I rarely let it loose in this world. The Manor didn't take kindly to it if the fain groan, something like the house settling but with a human-like tone to it, was any indication. I was tempted to call my staff into hand, but thought better of it. The presence of two consecrations and a hallow could have led to severe reaction from this unholy place. Certainly the influence of the Abyss would have reacted to it, but if the Sinkhole of Evil here has indeed spawned a phantasmagorum, it would have a malign intelligence as well that wouldn't hesitate to react. Frankly I wasn't terribly interested in testing this place or our host just yet.

We explored separately, not really finding anything too out of sorts. Only a chapel on the grounds was truly noteworthy, a place where the lingering of holy energies clashed with the waxing power of evil. Clearly the place had once been one of good, but that was slowly being perverted. Even a cross on the wall was inverted. That was enough to get me to leave.

Our host, once he returned from his lab, continued our conversation well into the night. Not once did he offer us anything to eat or drink, and I got the feeling he simply forgot. Not because he was so focused on his work that he didn't bother to eat, but that he didn't need to eat at all.
(End transcript)

[High Priest Mikhal]

(Excerpt from the journals of Alexander Dreamfire, Boston, MA, Jan. 18, 2004)
Dr. West got called to the University early this morning and had to leave in spite of all his protests over the phone. He apologized profusely for having to "so rudely leave my guests." Oddly he seemed genuinely chagrin at this lack of respect. His only real admonishment was to not go into his lab else we contaminate his controlled experiments. Naturally once he was gone the lab was exactly where we went. Getting to it, though, meant getting past some magical wards without setting them off and potentially alerting our host. Kyra commented that the wards were "strangely weak for a man who was trafficking with the Abyss." After observing them myself I came to the same conclusion. The magical security was fairly weak, especially if Dr. West had direct contact with Abyssal powers. But the mundane security more than made up for it. Using my PDA I had to hack into one of the most sophisticated systems I've run up against and more than once I nearly set off an alarm. In the end, though, I was able to get into the core of the system and effectively rewrite the logs to make it appear that nothing had happened. That was on top of looping surveillance and sensor feeds long enough for us to get in and look around--and not much else.

Inside the lab was a scene out of a nightmare. Glass incubation tubes twice the size of a grown man held...things neither of us had seen in all of our years combined. Animated corpses playing host to the most bizarre grafts--taloned hands connected to oversized arms with tumors for shoulders, elongated skulls like cerebeliths' stitched to their heads, demon faces pressing through necrotic skin. Then there were the actual demons in jars that had undead-like features: globs of flesh with ghostly heads, spindly little humanoids with third arms like those of ghouls coming out of their chests, gargoyle-like things that phased from solid to shadow without any sort of pattern.

Then there was a...man? It looked like a humanoid, except its head was covered by a burlap sack with eye holes cut out and its body appeared to be exposed, raw muscle ending in stubby fingers. Outside its cage was a pair of oversized chain saws that no human could possibly lift. But they were just the right size for this thing to wield. It either didn't see us or just didn't care. All it could do was moan like a thousand dead men trapped in between life and death. The clipboard next to the chain saws held notes on it and a name, Biggy Man. Dr. West must not be the most creative person.

Kyra began taking photos of everything as I looked through the scattered notes with gloved hands, carefully putting everything back exactly as I had found it. Dr. West had actually captured each of these creatures, driven by a formless voice that had taught him the secrets to dark mysticism and of flesh grafting. The transition from the Abyss to Earth had left the demons addled while the undead had been subdued using his newfound powers. He had begun experimenting on them, trying to combine the features of both into all new horrors. So far his attempts had largely failed, save his first real success, Biggy Man--half-fiend, half-undead, and pure evil. At first the creature had no real intelligence, but West had noted that over a decade it had begun to show signs of both sentience and human-like cunning. Only it hated Dr. West, lashing out at him several times. For now it was just to be locked up and studied.

As I looked up at it I saw it looking right at me. When I pointed to it, ran a finger across my throat, and pointed back to the notes, it got a twinkle in its eyes. It knew we were there, it cared in as much as we were going to cause trouble for the mad doctor, and it was not going to tell him a thing. It was just biding its time until it could repay West in kind for its tortured existence.

We left after making copies of the doctor's notes, carefully making sure all was as it had been before leaving. Looking back at Biggy Man I winked, and it chuckled in that voice of the damned, turning into a more coherent and singular sound toward the end. Dr. West has dug his own grave with this being. It also seems to know that it will die, if not by our hands then by someone's. I think it actually wants to die. Were I in its shoes...er, feet, I know I'd want to die.

For much of the rest of the day we carefully gathered plant and soil samples to be analyzed at the Office's and BSAA's labs. Dr. West returned in a huff over something at the University, rather curtly telling us to gather our things so we could leave in his anger. As we left I was once more over the side, only slightly less sick once we were far away from that place. For now Kyra and I have holed up in a motel, too tired physically, psychologically, and metaphysically to do much more than rest. First thing after we check out we're teleporting back to Draper. This case is clearly up the Office's alley, but I'm not so sure about the BSAA. We're not equipped to handle such blatantly supernatural things like this. I'm not even sure if this is technically a "biohazard." West is experimenting with things that are not native to this world or aren't native to it anymore. Indeed, I'm taking all this straight to my immediate superior, a field man like myself who has become aware that there is more to this world than humanity wants to believe. Neither of us trust the bureaucrats in charge; most of the agents and lab workers don't trust them, in fact. The gulf between management and labor, so to speak, is already vast and this will only widen the gap. If we give it to the folks upstairs, chances are it will be written off as fake or else "lost" and "forgotten about." But if we don't give them the real articles and submit false reports, we can disseminate it among those who see what it's really like out there. This will merely hasten the purge I've come to fear or keep honest people in the dark about a very real threat. What do I do?
(End transcript)

[High Priest Mikhal]

(Excerpt from the journals of Alexander Dreamfire, Draper, UT, Jan. 21, 2004)
It's been three days since Kyra and I left Miskatonic and Dr. West behind, but the unclean feelings of being so close to both negative and infernal energies still lingers. Thankfully the mansion is both consecrated and hallowed, clearing away the awful taint. Or as Kyra put it, "Scrubbing that yuck away." Succint, even if her terminology is a little immature.

Unfortunately I didn't have the time for such a cleansing before my superiors in the BSAA called for my final report and the samples. Fortunately it did get sent through my own immediate superior, a field man who knows--or has an idea of--what the hell is really out there! The talking heads are mere puppets on strings for the corporations that finance this coalition, so any true hint of the paranormal would either "disappear" in the paperwork, or they'd make us do so. Or even both. Rumors from too many reliable sources, often too similar to just reject, about the exact same subjects have been cropping up among us "grunts" about agents who were suddenly killed in action, assigned to suicide missions, or else forced into Section Eights when they saw an instance of something truly supernatural. At least back in the Land of Mists the leaders were, sometimes, willing to accept the idea of magical or supernatural forces and beings. Here the same skepticism that has led to a loss of fear of bogeymen like vampires, lycanthropes, ghosts, and whatnot has been just as much a pain as a help. No one even suspects that a witness that perjured himself was compelled to do so by a psionic zone of truth, but at the same time it gives supernatural beings another masque to hide behind. So when that masque is breached, they know exactly who to go after.

In the end, Lt. Col. Yomubo Imbawe was forced to submit a report that said those words that get under the skins of scientists and supernaturals alike, "The facts are inconclusive." The report said that verbatim. We're both taking flak over it, but when the samples and evidence was "lost in transit" the puppets had nothing to go on. I never did care for this cloak-and-dagger bull, but in a world so bureaucratic it's a necessity until you've twisted those same forces back in your favor. In reality everything of import was sent to a growing underground made up of folks who see that our leaders are strung up and are working to create a negation of forces at the top by securing so many competing patrons that whenever something bureaucratic needs to be done, it gets done one way or the other. So when Would-be Puppeteer A vetoes something, Would-be Puppeteer B, or C, or D, or so on, makes sure it happens anyway. That we have to be so deep in politics just to do our jobs makes me sick. But in this world independence is independence. Take what you can get and all that.

With nothing else to do my time was my own. Yesterday, while watching Little Nicky (either that or Pres. Graham's first State of the Union Address of the year), we were watching the scene where Nicky plays a Chicago record backwards and it reveals a backmasked Satanic message that is quite clear. I couldn't help but remark how it was so much bull**** the Parents Music Resource Center of the Eighties had hyped and many real life bands had parodied. That was when Kyra said the whole Satanic backmasking phenomenon was real, but it wasn't heavy metal or black metal bands that did it and still do it. Rather it was a technique used and still in use by the last groups the sheeple would expect: Christian music bands, popular artists like Barry Manilow or Celine Dion, and others. Granted a lot of it is done without the artist ever knowing by either someone/thing in the producing studio, or even the entire studio in some cases. Others knew full well what they were doing and used the "legitimacy" of the genre to spread messages either overtly or covertly. More overt messages included mantras of intolerance and bigotry (a lot of which spews out of Jerry Falwell's mouth on a daily basis). Covert messages were either done in languages no native of Earth speaks--Abyssal, Infernal, once what sounded like Dark Speech--or else buried in ways that only those who knew what and where to look could find them. The Office used to track down those who did this, but it was as effective as the "War On Drugs" and had about the same cost-result ratio. Then digital downloads came around and it became impossible to track down those responsible. Sometimes I wonder if groups clamoring over the legality of such are truly upset over money or if they know what's really going on and trying to nip this in the bud.

That rather sobering fact shouldn't surprise me. I've smuggled messages through various media myself, especially while managing the Shining Force in the Realms of Dread. Yet it still bothers me because hypocritical moralists like Tipper Gore were actually onto something! Quasi-right facts, wrong conclusion. In fact, it turns out some recordings were magical subliminal messages and the whole fiasco around the Parents Music Resource Center was a twisted rope a dope as much as a genuine "moral outrage" at a time when America was undergoing the (hopefully) last Red Scare, famous televangelists were being arrested for defrauding those who dared believe in them, and the seperation of church and state was growing paper-thin. And as history, especially Earth history, has shown, trends cycle every thirty years like clockwork. What does that mean for the years following 2010? Hopefully a return of glam rock and heavy metal, in hindsight the few good things about my early years here. But more likely the world will have to endure more of the same. Humanity--humanoids in general, all too often--fail to learn from history. And yet as the changes in the world and technology made it impossible to reclaim the Fifties in the Eighties, what will the trend be like in a world when information (really, too much information) is at the hands of anyone with a computer? Will folks act like intelligent persons and sort fact from bias? Or go the quick-and-easy way of sheeple and just take whatever pundits and leaders say at face value?

I'm an optimistic pessimist here. I hope for the former, but fully expect the latter. Humanity prove me wrong for once.

(Excerpt from the journals of Alexander Dreamfire, Draper, UT, May 18, 2004)
I'm writing once again not because there's anything going on, but because of the exact opposite. There is nothing to write about. This isn't like previous times of long inactivity. As the saying goes, "It's too quiet." Except for a few incidents where the BSAA had to step in to stop an outbreak of something minor--or minor compared to the T- and G-Viruses--there hasn't been all that much going on in either my world or Kyra's. The calm before a storm, so to speak. Perhaps my unease is due to threats against the President and his family by nationalists in the southern islands of Spain, Los Illuminados if I had to venture a guess. The BSAA, the Office, and the Secret Service have taken these threats only as seriously as policy dictates. Which for the former two, is very serious indeed. While the Office is being very open about what its interest in this is, bizarre orders from the talking heads in the BSAA have come down about it as well and it's all "top secret." So far both groups have kept their people--even the talking heads--in the dark as much as possible. I can't help but feel like there's a third group involved here trying to play the BSAA and the Office against each other. What little evidence I could turn up is that this unknown third party is inside the Biohazard Security Assessment Alliance. Maybe I'm just being paranoid. Regardless, a joint BSAA-Office team will be sending in one agent each--I wonder who they will be?--to investigate Los Illuminados personally. Unless something comes along to cut through the Gordian knot of bureaucratic red tape, though, the whole thing will take at least a year to happen, maybe longer.

It looks like I'll be "in meetings with my Office partner to hammer out the details" of this little alliance on my end until it happens. In other words Kyra and I both will be waiting for our bosses to rubber stamp this venture while being off active duty in the meantime. Time enough to get my contacts in this government and the one up north to get me and Kyra both Canadian citizenship post haste. Eddy Izzard may have been using it in standup, but having a Canadian passport really does help when dealing with folks in Europe. The "ugly American" stereotype is becoming more pervasive and negative every day. If you can prove you're from Canada, though, an otherwise hostile reaction becomes cordially neutral.
(End transcript)

[High Priest Mikhal]

(Excerpt from the journals of Alexander Dreamfire, Unknown Island, Spain, Sept. 24, 2004)
Our call came in just a little after one in the morning. We'd spent the previous five days at the Black Kitty Cat Club, unwinding with Peg who was only too happy to help. Months of being on the level of alert we were had taken their toll and we needed nothing so much as a chance to simply let loose and be ourselves. In the most honest sense. With others who wouldn't judge and shared our interests. Were it not for my allergy to alcohol I might have gotten just as tanked as Kyra; as it is I had to simulate the sensation of ecstasy--in the literal sense of voluntarily losing control--through forms of trance meditation. The good news is I'm not nursing a hangover right now. But the bad news is neither of us has had time to really "recharge" our supernatural batteries after using all manner of spells and powers to reach new highs...and, admittedly, lows.

In fact it was as we were sleeping off our latest bout of debauchery that my PDA rang. I was all tangled with both Kyra and Peg and had to free myself just to reach my coat on the other side of the room. I was feeling pretty grumpy and was ready to bite someone's head off until I saw the caller ID. It was Baker on her own cell phone. To be calling at that hour could only mean that we were going back to work.

Pres. Graham's daughter, Ashley, had been kidnapped and traced back to some islands south of Spain. The Secret Service had already dispatched an agent and we were to meet with a second force on a command ship out in the Mediterranean. Okay, a flight to Spain would give us time to sleep and recover our powers, I thought. Only that wasn't the case. We had been ordered to get there right ****ing now! No flights, no pretending we were limited by mundane means of travel, just get over there immediately even if it meant alerting supernatural enemies. Apparently whatever was going on was enough to scare the Main Office into throwing caution to the wind. It didn't even matter that we weren't at full strength. That in itself was a major red flag; that they were telling us to meet on the water was another. The Office knows full well I get too seasick to even take in a briefing when I'm out on the water! This whole op had FUBAR written all over it before it even began.

So we used our rods to teleport to the location we'd been given a picture of via e-mail. The sailors there certainly weren't prepared for us to appear out of nowhere. But the captain was; he had forgotten to tell them about us and it took nearly half an hour of being held at gunpoint until he finally got around to seeing us and clearing up the mess. A military officer taking that long to get to a situation as dire as potential enemy infiltration? And the damn sailors didn't even let me hang over the side as I puked my guts out. At least once it was all over with those same sailors got stuck swabbing the deck. And here I thought sailors were trained to actually think, not just blindly follow standing orders like other soldiers. Not being able to think on your feet in open water is just asking to get killed when things go bad. I guess I shouldn't be surprised; militaries don't want warriors who know when to follow orders and when to take the initiative, they want soldiers--drones who have such capability drilled out of them. After all, the former is expensive and can turn on you, but the latter is cheaper and more easily kept in line so long as they're kept busy.

It was only after we were taken ashore that I finally learned a damn thing. Our orders were to go in and find out what the hell was going on. If there was any kind of biological agent involved, I was to try and gather a sample. If it was supernatural, Kyra was to find out everything she could and report back. There was no mention of meeting with the Secret Service agent, no word on the President's daughter or how we should proceed if we found her, and no real guidelines on how to interact with the locals other than "shoot to kill." This went against the protocols of both the BSAA and the Office. Things were beginning to add up and I didn't like the resulting answer.

Local time must have been ten in the morning at that point, closer to two AM back home. Still we called in to our respective superiors using specially encrypted channels to clarify that this was even sanctioned. Lt. Col. Imbawe had gotten the orders, but according to him we were to have met on an entirely different ship--and not for another twenty-four hours. Baker wasn't even aware we'd been called in. Someone had intercepted our orders and sent us to the wrong place and the wrong people. Even so, that could be played in our favor. So far as whoever it was knew, we were doing exactly what they wanted. If we played along we could find out more than they wanted us to. And, if we played our cards right, we could make sure that these infiltrators never made it back to their masters with whatever it was they really wanted.

Without much else to do we began hiking inland. Not far from the rocky beach we found a fisher's hut. The man inside, a local with no real ties to "those crazy villagers up north," agreed to drive us part of the way once we'd calmed him down. In exchange for two-hundred American dollars. It hurt to pay that because it was all the money Kyra and I had on us; we had no more liquid cash. If we needed money, we'd have to find it, one way or the other. Fortunately the fisher did show us some semi-precious stones that littered the island; one a pink ovoid-shape, the other a blue-violet tri-pointed formation. He further mentioned "those ungodly cultists" had been seen with precious stones, ornate jewelry, and items that incorporated jewels that looked like pieces of art. Now the precious stones I wouldn't mind parting with, but I've always had a weakness for gems and jewelry. And Kyra was always keen on acquiring loose gems to be used in her own art, as valuable as it was erotic--and, sometimes, outright pornographic. Even her greed falls short of her libido.

The fisher dropped us off near a road--really a worn trail--and told us to leave if we were smart. The man was clearly terrified of something, but of what he wouldn't say. By this time it must have been a little after noon and already ground mist was rolling in. The air was also chilly, too chilly for that part of the world at that time of the year. Off in the distance I saw smoke from a chimney. It was still a ways off, but not too far to walk. Especially given how the cold was only getting worse the further we moved towards the center of the island.

When we got within sight of the smoke--a chimney connected to a modest two-level house--I felt a sensation like worms crawling under my skin. Kyra must have felt it, too, since she was now scratching herself all over. I didn't dare raise my voice above a harsh whisper when I tried to snap her out of it. Finally I had to slap her just to get her attention. That seemed to work. But then the sensation got worse rather suddenly and it took all of my will not to start scratching as well. Someone had come from inside the house to chop wood. At a hundred yards I couldn't see much beyond that and had to fish out some binoculars I'd built using schematics for a model of state-of-the-art ones I'd gotten from the BSAA. Only I'd made some "changes" to the materials used and the precision of the electronics. Although there was no real call for the low-light functions, the thermographics did reveal something odd.

Human bodies--living ones, anyway--tend to register in the bright red to dark yellow range, depending on the degree of contrast set. Yet this man was a cool violet color everywhere save a yellow-white outline where his lungs were that extended tendrils upward into the brain, which was also rather bright. In the normal spectrum there were other odd details: no rise and fall of his chest, no subtle facial movements, not even a blink. Indeed, his face seemed to be trapped in a state of rigor mortis. Likewise I could see around his eye sockets the faintest traces of dark rot. My immediate thought was that this was some sort of a zombie, albeit one I'd never seen or heard of. Most zombies have no body heat whatsoever, yet this guy was clearly putting off an obscene amount of heat in key places. A parasite?

I lined up my arm with the binoculars, using them as an impromptu targeting scope and launched a mind arrow, intending to pin him in place. Only the augmentation of intense light I used caused him to howl in pain and I watched with perverse fascination as the skin on his face blackened and even his arm falling off and out from his shirt where I'd pinned him, the appendage oozing a black ichor before literally disintegrating into more of the same in scant seconds. When I looked back up his head was turning black as well and then exploded violently, his corpse going limp and likewise turning into so much ooze in seconds. Had I not already voided my stomach earlier I'd have been wretching right then and there. As it was I could only cough and heave at the image burned into my mind.

Yet with his death the crawling sensation just stopped cold. Clearly whatever was at the core of these...things was the same source of the psychic feedback. The things also seemed to be very vulnerable to bright light, although I doubted sunlight would cause them more than irritation. The light had to be much more intense and focused. They were also unstable on a cellular level if the body disintegrated so rapidly after death. Was whatever had turned him into that Las Plagas? If so, was Las Plagas something more than a microscopic pathogen?

For the time the answers would have to wait. Kyra had scratched herself raw and bloody and had no healing spells prepared. My own reserves of psionic power were enough to heal the worst of it and stop the bleeding, but I ran dry in the process. We would have to take shelter inside the house for the time being. Plus we still had to act the part of loyal-but-duped agents and give the imposters a report on what had happened. Gauging their reactions would give us a chance to see at least part of what was going on. Namely whether they knew what was up or if they were wholly in the dark about the reality.
Error! File Transfer Interrupted!

[High Priest Mikhal]

Connection Reestablished...Resuming File Download......
I called in via burst transmission and told them what had happened, though leaving out certain details like my mind arrows, the psychic feedback, and the results of bright light. Their response was to tell us that "whatever parasite is infecting the people is sensitive to light when exposed and to use flash grenades if we encounter one that has outgrown its host." Now that was odd; it seemed that these impostors were better informed than they ought to be. After I relayed that to the real BSAA team, they told me to put in a false report to the impostors that we'd been pinned down and needed assistance. If a team was sent in, we would have the chance to interrogate them for information; if not, we should put in a later report falsifying our demise.

As it turns out we didn't need to put in a false report. There were other villagers actually closing in on us! We had no choice but to bolt for the house and hopefully find a way to barricade any of the entries until the respective teams arrived. A dozen or so we could probably take down with no problem; a few hundred was another story entirely. With those numbers we would be unable to hold them off forever even if we barricaded ourselves in. And since we were both low on our respective supernatural resources, that left us little choice. I could fire mind arrows indefinitely, but that wouldn't mean much if I couldn't take them down fast enough.

Inside we found a dresser and a set of drawers that would block the windows and door, respectively. But sooner or later those would fail. Kyra had found an old shotgun upstairs, still loaded, that would "sweep" the area. But if these people were infected, would a shotgun do any good? Normal people tend to go down when sprayed with buckshot; people with some sort of a supernatural parasite in their bodies? Experience told me that wouldn't be the case. Our rods of teleportation could get us out of there if things got too hot, but that was always a risky idea in this world. Besides, I wanted these impostors to have a show--if they showed up.

Unnaturally strong hands and arms broke through the upper half of the door as though it was just a piece of balsa wood. Kyra was quick with the shotgun, peppering dozens of blank-eyed, moaning freaks. Some went down, but many didn't. Even those with serious head wounds were still after us. This clearly wasn't any T-variant; it had to be Las Plagas. That meant the rules of engagement as I knew them were out the door. What we did know was that my mind arrows had a very hard impact on them and I was firing off numerous ones in rapidly aimed shots. Yet for each one that went down, another seemed to take its place. And then the dresser fell away and a whole new wave was coming after us from a different direction.

We were barely keeping them off before. Now they were flooding into the room. Kyra's shotgun also ran dry at that point and we had to advance upstairs, funneling them into a tight stream. It worked to slow them down as I laid them low with mind arrows and Kyra unloaded her own piece--a .45 Colt semi-auto. Not my first choice for dealing with freaks of (super)nature, but it did an excellent job if aimed right at the head. For a few seconds it looked like we might actually get out of this.

Then the rev of a rusty chainsaw rang out.

One of the villagers, dressed in a leather apron spattered with blood and wearing a burlap sack on its head--like a bad ripoff of Leatherface--pushed its way through. Kyra's gun didn't even so much as cause it to hesitate; without even thinking I pulled out my Magnum and double-tapped the creature's head. One round staggered it, but it took the second to kill it, and as it fell before disintegrating it took several of the others down. Without even thinking I grabbed Kyra and leapt out of the second level window. Staying there was suicide.

It turned out to be a fortuitous move. Men in black armor with SMGs arrived and began mowing down the remaining villagers. Their gear wasn't SI for either the BSAA or the Office; this had to be the team the impostors had sent. They must not have seen us since they began moving in to investigate. What to do next was answered for us when the BSAA team began firing off a newly developed weapon--a dual-grenade that contained both a localized electromagnetic pulse and a knockout gas that penetrated anything save a fully-sealed hazmat suit. If the impostors had monitoring equipment on their troops, and I'd bet anything they did, the results would appear back at monitoring that they had been cut off suddenly even as the troops themselves took an extended, involuntary nap.

Kyra and I were far enough away--just--to avoid the pulse even as the winds blew the gas away from us. Kyra was the one to send a final transmission to whoever had sent us in. She's a ham at acting, but it was believable enough, especially when her transmission was "suddenly cut off." As far as they knew, we'd been killed in action or taken hostage even as the rest of their troops were just plain gone.

BSAA troops filed in, stripping the unconscious of weapons and communications. Imbawe himself had led this assault and I was glad to see him. Maybe now we could find out just who had set us up, how they'd infiltrated our network, and maybe suss out a mole.

From my PDA the BSAA has been able to tap into the line being used. Once they had the codes I was able to purge the tap on my own gear. Even as I write this Kyra is passed out on a cot at a landing base setup on the other side of the island. By now the gas should have worn off and the ugly task of finding out who, what, and why has surely begun. From what little I've overheard the impostors aren't sure if this is a real loss or merely a compromised operation. Judging by their actions they genuinely don't know what's going on anymore. Folks over there are antsy, though. Either way they keep lamenting that "W" will have their heads. Then there's another issue that I find disturbing. After this failure a new agent, one that knows what side they're on, is being sent in. They just call her "the Asian in the red dress."

An Asian industrial spy and infiltration expert in a red dress...why does that sound so familiar?
(End Transcript)

[High Priest Mikhal]

(Excerpt from the journals of Alexander Dreamfire, Unknown Island, Spain, Sept. 25, 2004)

Whoever, or whatever, is controlling the creatures that the locals have become must have been aware of our presence. We were attacked and had to bug out. Kyra had time to rest fully and refresh her spells, but I'd barely had time to catch an hour of sleep before everything went all to hell. Now the BSAA forces have been driven off while Kyra and I carry out our mission as was planned before those others interfered.

Attempts at interrogating the prisoners were pointless. They were European mercenaries, all paid anonymously and given instructions utterly devoid of details regarding their employers. That kind of practice is hardly unique, though. Anyone with an ounce of sense does everything to keep "hired help" in the dark about what's really going on. What we did find out doesn't add up to much. Their gear is all Umbrella-made, but the black market has been flooded with the stuff in the years since the corporation went bankrupt. They also had no clue who "W" is, not even a theory. I have one, but the thought makes my blood run cold. What would he want with an ancient parasite like this? Aren't the T- and G-Viruses good enough? Or was this yet another move on behalf of his new master, the Red Death?

At that point I didn't have enough information. But judging by the fact that the island had more than enough equipment imported to setup a fully functioning genetics lab, maybe Las Plagas was a potential new bio-weapon? It certainly made people tougher, stronger, and nearly suicidal in how well they obeyed orders--however that was done. The problems of being sensitive to bright light certainly presented a limitation that a mutagenic virus could probably solve. But why go to all this trouble to grab a sample? Had one side gone rogue from the Red Death? These people--or "demilords" as some of the qabals I know have dubbed them--get it in their heads that they're above serving some faceless entity. Only to find out that by pursuing evil, they were doing its bidding all along. It's rather depressing to think about; once a slave, always a slave.

So one of the two was likely rogue. That fact was largely academic; neither side would mind if an accident were to befall us. But it did shed some light on the situation. The islanders were clearly no fan of outsiders, especially now. And if this Saddler character was behind it--his dossier had a list a mile long on his anti-American activities--then we were dealing with terrorists in possession of a potentially supernatural biological agent that could enslave anyone infected with it. That in itself explained why the BSAA and OSA had nearly passed stones when Ashley Graham was first kidnapped. But why send in just one agent? Covert ops usually involve small teams of specialists. One man against an army of mindless freaks? It sounded too much like Raccoon City!

That's when a Policia van drove up to us and stopped; two Spanish officers came out with as much attitude as anything else, but the passenger in the back was the real surprise. Secret Service Agent Leon S. Kennedy. I hadn't seen him in years! We didn't have time to catch up on a lot, save to introduce Kyra and explain what we knew. He knew about the same as us, though he did have a little more on Saddler and the situation in the White House. Pres. Graham was having kittens over his daughter's kidnapping; he'd instigated a massive investigation into every level of administration and have nine out of every ten Secret Service agents under arrest for potentially being involved in the kidnapping. Leon was the only one with the training and experience in very similar situations to handle this job--and who had cleared the stringent security checks. He was, in a very literal sense, the only one left to search for Ashley. Our involvement was incidental as the Office had informed the President only after he sent Leon out.

I deliberately left out the parts about the impostors and the Asian spy; seeing Leon jogged that memory. Ada Wong, the spy who had attempted to steal the G-Virus when Raccoon was going to hell. If he knew...well, there's no telling what he'd do. I knew he still had unrequited feelings for her. Frankly that was the last thing he needed right now. Finding Ashley--just surviving what was going on--would take all the mental focus he could muster. Who knew how far Las Plagas had spread through the populace? Was everyone infected? Were there any normal people left? It was a question we'd soon find an answer to.

After several tense minutes of driving the officers tried to engage small talk, asking if any of us had a cigarette. Leon responded by saying he didn't smoke, but he had gum. The officers just chuckled and remarked how America would send so few after the First Daughter. Their lack of all confidence in our abilities was not reassuring. Aside from a brief pit stop for one of the officers, the rest of the way was silent. Finally we came to a house just on the outskirts of a village. Leon went on ahead inside; not a moment later Kyra told she had to answer nature's call and was too frightened to go alone out in those "creepy woods." Not that I blamed her. This whole place had a palpable aura of...wrongness. That creeping, crawling sensation was now a constant low-level buzz in our heads that we'd all but tuned out. Not that that was a good thing; if one of the freaks came after us, we might not even notice anymore.

Both officers showed a distinct interest in following. Without even thinking about it I withdrew my Sun Gun from my pack. To them it looked like someone had put a three-and-a-half foot blade under the barrel of a high-powered sniper rifle, all made of gold or similar warm colors. Frankly the thing had better range than my mind arrows and almost the same punch. Definitely more punch if I fired a round when the blade struck a target. I dislike using it because I find it so unwieldy next to my own mind blade, and it attracts attention. But out here, especially if our enemies didn't know the true extent of my abilities, it would be wise to use it. If they disarmed me, they'd be in for a rude surprise. Plus it made both officers think twice about following us.

While she lead me deep into the brush for as much privacy as possible, I kept a look out for any signs of trouble. It wasn't easy to stay focused in all honesty. An hour of sleep was not enough. I was going on pure adrenaline at that point and remaining still was an invitation for drowsiness to put me out. In fact I had planted the blade of the Sun Gun down and was leaning on the grip for support, slowly dozing off, when I heard the screams of the officers. Over a dozen freaks had managed to grab one out of the van while the other was dragged off. Then they pushed the van over the side of a cliff. At this point Kyra must have finished because she was at my side, watching helplessly as they dragged the other officer off. That's when I noticed more of them around the house Leon had entered. From my vantage point I had clear shots and took down all but three before Leon jumped out of the second-level window to escape more inside.

Together we were able to put them all down and once more witness the rapid cellular decomposition. Apparently Las Plagas had a destabilizing effect on the genetic structure of its host. Once dead the host literally liquefied in seconds. In particular the rounds from the Sun Gun had a very similar effect to my mind arrows; perhaps because both were charged with light. This was certainly evidence of my suspicions that Las Plagas somehow drew on darkness or shadow energies. Did that mean Saddler was some sort of umbral mage? Or was his power drawn from Las Plagas entirely?

Regardless, we had to push on. Sighting the village at first seemed reassuring. Folks looked like they were going about their regular business. But in the distance we saw a community pyre with the body of the policeman burned at the stake. Through my binoculars I could see that each of the villagers was cold save that hot spot in the spinal column and brain. Everyone was infected. Further I could see signs of decomposition in their faces. Pallid skin, flesh pulling away from eyes and mouth with the black of rot, some even had their heads covered in bandages save holes for their eyes, mouth, and nose. Worst of all were the mouths; gums turned black and teeth falling out everywhere. Las Plagas killed its host, but kept the body functioning--even higher functions of the brain. They could wield weapons, coordinate attacks, even run.

Worse still, the only way was through this village. We'd no choice but to advance. And as if to top it all off, Leon didn't have a weapon besides his nine-mil and a combat knife. This was to be an OSA--On-Site Acquisition--mission. I doubted we'd be able to find much. Shotguns, maybe an old rifle or two, but that was it. Leon had heard reports of black marketeers skulking around, drawn by the promise he'd pay them with whatever valuables and local currency he found. If we did find one, what assurance was there we'd find anything of value? Even money? These people were largely subsistence farmers.

All of our questions had to be put aside as one of the villagers noticed us. Suddenly the fight, or rather the protracted urban battle, was on. To keep them as distracted as possible, all three of us split up to draw what we could away and pick them off--
Error! File Transfer Interrupted!

[High Priest Mikhal]

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--one by one, if necessary. It was really all we could do. For each one we put down it seemed a new villager took their place. I took a wrong turn down a blind alley and ended up disemboweling at least a dozen or so in a whirlwind attack. The one thing that didn't change was the rapid rate of decomposition, regardless of how they were killed.

Finally, after it seemed we'd be overrun, a church bell rang out. I heard one of the villagers say, "Lord Saddler," before they all filed out and just...left. That they spoke English was a bit of a confusing factor. But after fighting off seemingly endless hordes it was something I didn't try to analyze. A search of the village turned up some extra nine-mil ammo and shotgun shells, as well as grenades. Someone had been stockpiling weapons here. Emphasis on "had." Clearly the goods were not coming in so steadily anymore. Something had changed. I'd bet money it was Las Plagas that had shifted the emphasis away from guns. And it didn't take much to connect this to Saddler. How long had he been trying to create his own little army using the villagers? It also helped explain why there were black marketeers around that Leon could tap into; they'd supplied the villagers and Saddler, but now that source of revenue was gone and here was an American agent who needed gear. A little quid pro quo.

Our search also turned up some bear traps set out in the open. In the chaos it would be easy to get caught in one, but otherwise it didn't take much to trip and disable them.

Once outside the village and free to move about more easily, Leon went about his mission as we went on about ours. More traps, including tripwire dynamite, was found inside of houses or among trees. Again it didn't take much to disable them; the dynamite in particular proved to be a godsend when we could lure the villagers into tripping them, or failing that, Kyra cut the wire and used them as thrown bombs. Clearly the villagers had numbers, but they seemed to be lacking in brains as of late. Maybe Las Plagas turned its victims into mindless zombies that answered to whomever had control. Now that was an interesting thought. T- and G-Virus creatures couldn't be controlled magically; their quasi-scientific nature made them immune. But these things weren't so fortunate. Maybe that was why "he" wanted Las Plagas.

We must have wandered the island for hours. Churches had been desecrated with a stylized, geometric symbol of sorts. Cultists wearing red and black robes with that same symbol went about their business unless we alerted them to our presence. More than that, though, we found documents that put the rediscovery of Las Plagas back only a few months. Further records were disturbing in their details of experiments with Las Plagas on human and animal subjects. The once-villagers were literally called Los Ganados--the cattle. They had been exposed to some sort of microscopic parasite that had gone into hibernation by literally fossilizing itself. There it waited until new hosts arrived. Some of these things had been captured and grown in petri dishes so the scientists brought in could genetically alter them, resulting in some victims growing to truly gigantic proportions--Gigantos'. Others created strange, asexual beings that could regenerate any wound inflicted--Regenerators. A few specimens even had the ability to sprout spikes. Their only real weakness was a hit to the Plagas in their bodies, easily spotted by how hot they ran in comparison to the largely dead hosts through a thermal scope or camera.

Then, as suddenly as the scientific reports start, they just seem to stop. Apparently once they'd perfected Las Plagas as far as Saddler was concerned, the scientists wound up as test subjects themselves. No witnesses, no one who could talk and knew what was going on, and no records of what happened. Or so the planning seemed to go; they hadn't been too thorough on cleaning up the files, nor had they completely destroyed the ones they did find.

What truly scared me was the report of what Las Plagas did when they reached maturity in their hosts. Those not yet able to survive on their own could still sprout from the neck if the head was destroyed and lash out with scalpel-sharp bone razors. Those that could survive could abandon a dying host and move about on their own. The one weak point was light; sunlight or intense light like a flash-bang could kill them if they were exposed. No wonder my mind arrows had caused the one to melt--and, gruesomely enough, those shot or cut with the Sun Gun. It was like that scene at the end of Crusaders of the Lost Ark where the Nazis melted, only this time the bones also melted and it was all black. That ranks among the top five most disgusting things I've seen. And I've seen a lot.

We ran across Leon once, after he'd escaped from captivity alongside one of the scientists who had escaped liquidation and was researching an antidote. By then the scientist was long gone and Leon was headed towards a lake. We related what we could, but our reunion was interrupted by more Ganados. More and more we were running into ones with heads swaddled in bandages, some of them wielding chainsaws like the bigger ones!

They chased us into a cave complex with only one exit. There they sealed us in by rolling a large boulder in place. By this time I was on pure adrenaline and ready to collapse. In fact that's what I did once I knew we wouldn't be attacked.

Some time later I woke up, Kyra standing guard. I hadn't gotten the best rest of my life, but it was enough that I could replenish my psionic powers. I didn't even need that to get the boulder out of our way. One my rings turned it into a giant ball of mud that quickly melted in the night rains. As I write this we're staring out the cave entrance, looking on in the distance as lights--torches, maybe--flicker just outside what looks to be an old castle not too far away. Earlier we saw some sort of bright flash and then the sound of an explosion moments later. It seems Leon is still at it. Few others I know could cause such collateral damage. Maybe he even took out that freaky giant of a village chief he described, a man a good eight feet tall and dressed in an overcoat with the strength to throw Leon clear through a wall. He's almost assuredly been long infected and who knows what other mutations he's gone under?

I've uploaded this to the BSAA and OSA alike in hopes that, if we don't survive, maybe it will be of some use to others. As Kyra and I look out over the landscape, I can't help but wonder if this time truly is it?
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