Biohazard Files

Happy birthday to @bioterrorfiles <3

Alyssa put both hands on her hips, resting her weight back on her taller heels to perpetuate the teasing just a little longer. She had worries, and filed that privately, something horrible happened to her friend. Looking at the film might put perspective into the situation. She didn't want scraps of this lost in the process. The kind of people missing from the police records were the kind of people that got swept up, and discarded all the time. It was the kind of person that made her a chicken kebab once in her apartment because she was "too skinny", and gave her a spare pair of pajamas.

People like that get lost all the time. Kindness isn't permanent unless it's a personal memory.

"You can hand me the stuff right then," she said, "Sound good?"

Still, Alyssa took out a little flip notepad from her pocket, and clicked a fountain pen to press the nib against the paper. She scrawled her number, alongside "A. Ashcroft". Raccoon City area code. Beside it, a note: "i before e, except in weird."

She ripped the paper from the coil and forked it over anyways. Even if he said no, he'd have a number to call and a name to remember that had a little memory attached.

Kurt reached back behind his head to squeeze at his neck where the weight of the camera had hung for the entire night. He contemplated the arrangement while the woman rocked back on her heels.

"You're more than welcome over," he says, "But are you alright with that? It takes a while to make a photo."

She'd never seen a 'shutterbug' work before.

"I mean, the whole process of actually making the film into a photo takes me three hours, and it's already kinda late," he informed, taking the torn paper in hand.

He snorted at the little note, and folded it neatly to tuck into his breast pocket.

"If you got no problem with the time, I got no problem hosting you. I dunno what your schedule's like..."

He held his tongue a little awkwardly.

"Wait 'til we're home?! You nuts?!" she laughed, and plucked a grape from a serving tray like nothing happened. The minute he passed into arm's reach she lightly pushed his shoulder, making him sway a little.

"When'd we get married cause' I don't recall all that being part of your job offer."

Alyssa popped another grape, resolving to dip after a quick handshake with the mayor. This function was for flaunting, and she already had what she came for. Her heels clicked with purpose on her cutting path through people, expecting him to trail behind her- they were in cahoots now.

"You're lucky I'm drop dead gorgeous on top of being a wicked writer," she drawled, "otherwise you really woulda got caught with your pants down."

Another laugh, and she cut through a line of prospective greeters to a gentleman in a suit with russet brown hair and a crinkling face. Alyssa extended her hand towards him with a commanding, "Mayor Warren!"

The man turned to her with a start, and his eyes lit up.

"Oh! The weather girl! Hmm... Audrey?"

"Alyssa Ashcroft. Nice to be part of your party. Just wanted to introduce myself. I'll let you get back to it."

"Oh haha! This just in-"

"I'm outta here-" they said in unison, to the delight of all bystanders who laughed in good nature while she sunk back to rejoin a still ruffled Kurt.

He didn't protest any further, however, because Alyssa was right. Had he been alone? No way in hell it was going to end pretty.

Well. It wouldn't have been pretty if either of them were alone, to be fair.

Alyssa broke off to go greet the Mayor. Kurt raised the viewfinder to his eye, and caught the moment where the two said the weather lady's catch phrase, and the smiles of the surrounding people.

She backed away, slinking to rejoin Kurt.

"You gonna get that film to me?"

"Yup! You betcha," Kurt replied, "I got a home lab set up in my apartment. I can have them done tonight."

He tilted his head, "Uh, how do you want me to give you your pics? You got a phone number, or address to mail them to, or...?"

Which proved to be a stupid fucking idea, because the minute she stopped her heel caught the corner of the shelf, which tripped her into full view at the front of the archives of City Hall, and a confused, bleary-eyed, exhausted security guard looked at her in the beam of a flashlight, at the shoes she was near, and the man who followed her.

"Um? What is going on here?!"

Alyssa, who had fallen gracelessly and just laid there wondering why the hell she ever stuck her neck out for a stranger outside of the written word, groaned, and got to her knees, blowing the hair out of her eyes with a huff.

"The door was open-"

The flashlight beam went to her, and then, to the poor man behind her in a very long, awkward silence. The three of them were all thinking how conspicuous this was, and it had absolutely nothing to do with suspicious police reports and everything to do with Alyssa's missing shoes.

"Okay, that's enough, both of you out. Get on out. Come on, hup-"

Alyssa groaned, again, and got to her feet, brushing the dust off her knees and shoulders, and awkwardly stepped into her shoes.

"If you two wanna do all-that you can go on somewhere else. I don't care!"

"Ehh?!"

She shot Kurt a look. A look that was going to permanently get them in trouble for the short rest of their lives.

Caught.

Oh, this was bad; getting discovered rifling through the archives when he was supposed to be taking pictures and notes of everything happening at the dinner... if his camera was confiscated, the film could be seized, and there went his job and Alyssa's evidence-

"If you two wanna do all-that you can go somewhere else. I don't care!"

Kurt sat on his ankles, somewhat dumbfounded. Alyssa shot him a look, and then it registered what the guard thought they were doing.

The assumption was considerably less dire, and more forgiving. The tradeoff being that it was a thousand percent more embarrassing.

"Ah-" Kurt could feel the heat sear his cheeks and the tips of his ears, "Sorry, officer. There wasn't any sign or anything."

Silence.

"Uh. Guess we'll wait 'til we're home?"

Digging a hole.

The furrow's in the guard's brow increased tenfold, an expression of exasperation dominated the man's face as he hurriedly ushered Alyssa and him out of the archives, pausing only to let the lady grab her discarded shoes.

The entire stretch back to the main atrium felt like an eternity under the eyes of their escort, and Kurt occupied himself with cradling the camera strapped around his neck. He thumbed around the lens cap, clicking the squeeze seal as a nervous fidget.

The security guard unlatched the velvet rope of the stanchion to let them cross back into the party, with the stern warning to 'stay out of trouble'.

Alyssa kept the flashlight on the documents until a rattle came from behind them. She heard the hinge on the door creak, and cut the light, quietly collecting the files and shoving the lot of them back into the box. With the tempered care of someone who'd practiced a few good B+E's in her time, she set the box back in it's shelf spot and quietly ducked down low.

"Get down," she whispered, yanking on his coat tail.

"Hello?"

The security officer's voice carried as much as the camera shutter noise.

"Hey- whoever's here? You need to get up and out of here right now!"

"Fuck... my shoes," Alyssa said to herself, and she tensed, and began to move through the shelving units with the kind of speed that a caught thief would.

She'd ditched them at the stairs because wearing high heels all night sounded like a death sentence. Now? Probably should've carried them.

"Get down," she whispered at him, yanking on his coat tail.

Kurt took knee, keeping one hand supporting the weight of his equipment, pressing it close to his diaphragm.

Ah, shit.

The voice of the security guard echoed through the chamber, and Alyssa swore about her shoes. Kurt looked down to notice that she didn't have any, and only managed a quizzical look before the newscaster had started darting through the shelves.

"Hello?!"

Kurt didn't have much choice but to follow after, and cursed the hard soles of the cap toe Oxfords he was wearing for the formality of the dinner.

"Hey- hey wait up!" he hissed pleadingly with the woman.

Alyssa fished in her pocket, pulling out, sure enough, a flashlight. She had a couple of other things in her pockets for her own personal mission. A bit of justice in Raccoon City was always hard fought. The absence of anybody at all in these files was... something else. She clicked the end of the thing and smacked it to get a steady beam on the documents. There it was, one piece of evidence that she couldn't explain, but it wasn't good. No one could tell them it had already been digitized here, either.

"There's no fucking way this isn't something," she murmured, holding the beam steady enough to land on one name she actually recognized. Jacoby Knoll.

"I recognize that guy. He'd been sentenced for life for his murder-suicide attempt last year. File says "pending release"."

Release? There was no way. Something would've come out about the guy.

"Actually, all these files do."

She didn't know the rest of them though, they were before her first lease was signed to her original dragon of a landlord.

He propped his elbow on the table to keep his view steady, focusing on the strange incongruence in documentation.

Click... Tshhhh.

He waited a second longer to be sure he wouldn't streak the image, before letting himself breathe.

"Yeah, I heard about Knoll," he affirms, "No way he'd have been released, and not without anyone hearing about it. There's no way it's a clerical error."

Kurt set himself up for another snap, moving another document into the beam of the flashlight.

Click... Tshhhh.

Alyssa kicked her shoes off on the stairs and moved in her tights instead, quietly looking up and down through the shelves.

"Yeah, dickhead, me," she hissed, "My op-ed was actually decent and you misspelled 'weird.'"

She'd been pissed about it. RCN was fine. It paid her rent and for her dinner, but it wasn't enough.

Alyssa ran into the labyrinth of documents, tracing old labeling with her fingers.

"- I dunno what's going on with that. People are saying the riots that happened in New York are inspiring more of them, no matter how small the town. The place isn't big enough for armored trucks and fully kitted SWAT."

It's bad. Whatever this is is bad and she knew it. Something in her gut said ... something dangerous was going on.

"Ah-" police reports that had been filed, and copied had a copy sent to the municipal building. Her finger hit the label strip for R.P.D. and she pulled the white cardboard box out at the top to see an organizer that... was lacking and dusty.

It hadn't been touched in a long time.

"Wait... what the fuck?"

Alyssa moved the files back and forth on their track with soft hisses. Not here. Opening the file containing closed cases. It was all men. Pulling the other boxes out, there was the exact same thing. Hardly any cases, and no women. Alyssa pulled a directory out of the files, and sure enough, there was an index here containing the names of the missing cases.

"Hey, camera man, c'mere."

She placed the index beside the empty box.

It's a short stumble, only two steps down into the recess that held all the shelving, but still enough to jolt his heart rate up by a few BPM.

Kurt instinctively tucked his arm up to protect his camera, and once he found his footing, straightened up and fixed his tie. His lips tugged into a small frown.

"I did? Shit. I thought that 'weird' looked weird. 'I before E' rule, my ass."

The man sighed quietly, following along the archives as Alyssa traced over files. Alyssa wanted to work for the Press and not RCTV? And submitted an op-ed?

"I can see what I can do to get you in," he offers, "Not that the weather isn't 'real news' but guess your calling's elsewhere."

A venture.

He nodded along with Alyssa's recounting of the riots, "Yeah. There's really nothing to justify it. 'Preemptive measures' is a load of crap. Raccoon City isn't New York."

Ah.

They stopped as Alyssa pulled out a box and searched through the index. Several missing files, plain as day.

This your water leak?

"When it rains, it pours," he affirmed.

Kurt uncapped the lens of his camera, looking at the text through his view finder.

"Hm. It's a little dark in here," he starts, lowering the camera to swap out his lens, and make adjustments to slow the shutter speed, "You have a flashlight? I just need a little glow to bring out the text."

"So what, we're in cahoots now?" she whispered, watching the silhouette of a far away security official as he mindlessly stared ahead. Kurt Miller looked to be about her age, and him lifting his camera made her roll her eyes.

"Like hell the ritzy idiots out there would give a shit if you published their balls on the front page. Half the city's already got boots down their throat."

Alyssa looked left, and right, peering over the balcony and then slowly creeping back to the door she'd been working before she'd been interrupted. The little mental break was just enough to think about what pick to pop into this thing, so she fished through the little pouch for it and within a record few seconds, popped the pins, bumped it, and the door quietly creaked open.

"I'm looking for..." she paused, for once, genuinely considering the kind of guy she was talking to, "Arrest records. The R.P.D.'s handling of police cases is fishy as hell. And if I was a stupid pig, I'd be deleting shit during the transfers."

She pocketed her picks and crept forward into the enormous stretch of paper-smelling shelves in city hall, the distant music becoming muffled.

"You betcha."

Kurt fell quiet, and watched the shadow of the guard creep past, considering Alyssa's position- or rather, disposition, on the current state of affairs.

"That means there's half that don't lick the boot," he whispered back, "I like my chances."

He half whistled under his breath when she picked the door open, sincerely impressed. He thought about asking her where she learned lockpicking from, but thought better of it when she said exactly what she was after: arrest records.

I'm guessing she has some kind of history.

When she mentioned the police cases being fishy, he sighed in agreement, "No kidding. Missing persons are falling through the cracks despite the force being very large for current census."

He followed her inside the space, the smell of old lignan wafting off of the papers collected on massive shelves.

"Not to mention a shit-ton of military equipment being brought in. I know the militarization of police is happening all across the country, but for Raccoon City? It seems a little... much."

He tilted his head when she pivoted the conversation to ask if the Times was hiring anyone that could actually write, and he laughed a little-

Alyssa Ashcroft knew her stuff enough to know that for every up there had to be an equal and dizzying down. The house always won in gambling. Why would gambling on Umbrella be any different?

It was one reason why she went to the dinner. The other was Betty Blossom. Alyssa had spent seventeen and eighteen working nights alongside a number of other callgirls, and during that time she locked horns with the R.P.D.'s head hog, Irons. Betty had been grabbed off the corner a few times by pigs, and every time she'd said something weird about the police chief. And then she was gone. Alyssa couldn't prove anything, but there was still this nagging feeling. Irons arrested her, and that had to be on municipal record. If it wasn't, then she knew.

If she was a woman-hating psychopath like that, she'd destroy a paper trail right when the reports were being digitized.

She'd worn her iconic red pantsuit for the occasion, knowing she'd be recognized as the "weather lady" on TV, and brought flats for snooping. Maybe the Times would run a freelance condemnation of the pig police chief of she found enough evidence?

Who knows.

Alyssa was crouched precariously on her toes, evading the edge of the balcony, her lockpick set already in action in the keyhole of the archive room door. The pins were giving her enough trouble to straighten up, stand, and lean against the balcony banister with a huff.

Click, tshhhh.

The sound of a camera catching a candid of her made her blood freeze, then boil. A man was standing under her, lens trained on her, also in off- limits territory. She kept her voice down, restrained, while the piano and low drone of voices blotted most of the rest of the noise out.

"This just in- fuck you! I don't remember giving you permission to take my picture, buddy!"

The guy ran to the stairs, and she snatched her picks out of the door, hiding them immediately.

"It's Alyssa Ashcroft! RCTV. I know you- you did the gentrification piece that somehow got a headline in the RC Times despite you prolly needing an editor. Who invited you?!"

Goddamn it. Why was he COMING UP THE STAIRS?

Kurt let the expletive roll off of him. He'd been called worse by worse-looking people by doing exactly what he did: being nosy and persistent.

He came up the staircase, looking over his shoulder for any of the event security that should have been posted up, given that there were several important people here and restricted areas. With none in sight (for now), he ducked behind the banister with Alyssa, and outstretched his hand to shake.

"Yeah, that's right," he affirmed in hushed tones, "I broke the story to the Times about the impact the quick projects had on displacing people in urban communities."

It was a good headline, and it got papers sold- even if the result of the story wasn't what Kurt had hoped for. These projects continued on, and seemed like they would continue, so long as Warren was mayor and speeding things along in the name of 'economy'.

With Umbrella's money backing it, of course.

"I'm here on behalf of the Raccoon Press," he informs, "I'm here to take relevant pictures of the event and report on the mayoral agenda."

He lifted his camera with a slight nod of his head, "I thought since part of the agenda was pushing into the digital era, I might as well get a picture of the extent of this 'water damage' making this necessary. A picture's worth a thousand words, right Alyssa?"

On July 23rd, I, alongside the rest of Racoon City's Special Tactics and Rescue Services Bravo Team, discovered a Military Police vehicle in the Arklay Mountains. The vehicle was overturned, and military personnel were found at the site of the vehicle, along with the body of an unidentified male. All were observed to be deceased. Utilizing the court order for transportation found on the scene, this body was identified to be former Second Lieutenant Billy Coen, who was court-martialed and sentenced to death on July 22nd. It appeared that during Coen's transport, the United States Marine Corps MP was involved in some sort of motor vehicle accident.

Several deformities were noted on all of the corpses, consistent with being mauled by unidentifiable large wild animals. Injuries on all bodies were not compatible with life.

The following day we returned to the site of the crash to locate and recover the bodies of the MP officers and Coen. However, the bodies of all individuals were missing from the scene.

I suspect the corpses reanimated into zombies and migrated away from the vicinity.

I suspect wild animals may have carried the corpses away from the vicinity.

Military authorities have requested the transfer of Coen's remains, however, due to the circumstances described above this task is not possible.

I am requesting that this investigation be suspended for the time being and that the case be closed until further notice.