Another Perspective (part 3)

Room by room, Cara and Todd aimed and fired at whatever head looked to be decaying. Of course, the song of the undead cried throughout every room they would sweep through. The first few rooms were a bunch of offices that only held two or three bodies inside each of them. The next rooms were large vast rooms of boxed office tables, each one having some lab equipment all dusted and cluttered. Shattered glass on the brown carpet ground, along with stains of brown aged blood.

Cara and Todd stayed next to one another as they fired down anything with a bloodied lab coat. The undead corpses looked to have been decaying for years. Maybe over a decade of just silence of these rooms and offices. A part of Cara felt like this place had not been touched even before the Raccoon City incident. There was a calendar on a desk at the corner of the room. The latest checked off date on the calendar was October seventh in 1989. Whatever happened here was before the very first outbreak.

The thought sent chills down her spine. She knew about how Umbrella started all of this. She read the files back in HQ. She knew that this company's sole purpose was to create bio-weapons. It just creeped her out that this is the earliest discovery they have on file, of a public viral outbreak. Even if it was closed off from civilization. She was only a year old when all of this happened in this facility. That thought alone crept her out.

"Captain?" Todd touched her shoulder. Cara had a dazed look of slight shock hidden behind her cold exterior.

Cara looked at Todd and blinked a few times. She did not realize that she had just stood there and stared at the date of the calendar. She gave him a nod letting him know that she was fine, "I have to keep this date noted for our report when we head back," she said as she walked away from the desk and headed to the door out of the swept room. Todd glanced at the date and gave a shrug before he followed her.

The moment he was beside her in the hall of doors he spoke to her, "So, what are you thinking about this place?"

Cara kept her eyes ahead focused on the next doors they were approaching, "Stay focused on the mission Faulton. We're not here to share theories," She spoke with a rather cold tone to the young man.

Todd scoffed as his grin showed and spoke on, "Oh, come on! Your reports always have some sort of personal concepts and theories that you want the lieutenant to take into consideration, right? You might be missing out on a perspective keeping those thoughts to yourself."

Cara halted her step and paused and turned to face him with a very annoyed look on her face, "How did you get your hands on reports that I personally deliver to the lieutenant? Those are confidential. Classified to any rank lower than my own!"

Todd froze and his face gave a faint hue of red around his cheeks. It was obvious, he knew he slipped up. Todd looked around before his head lightly lowered like a shameful dog. He spoke softly but had honesty in his voice, "I just asked the lieutenant about it. The guy's so nice and honest with the people beneath him, I honestly didn't think it was a big deal since he was so open to telling me what your report said."

"Yet, for some reason, you didn't go ask your own captain about the report. Why is tha-..." Cara then realized why he didn't ask her first. If he is referring to the latest report, she knows exactly why, "Oh, I think I know why. You wanted to know if I reported your mishap on your last mission. The fact that you had accidentally killed an innocent."

His gaze averted downwards in more shame as he really had no way to defend himself. This soldier was being very childish. He took a second and spoke, "I know, I shouldn't have gone behind your back. It's just... The position I am in. I know how thin of a wire I'm on. I just don't want to lose this position."

Cara lowered her gun and relaxed as she spoke to him, "Neither do I, Todd, but how would you feel if I lost my position because I didn't inform my lieutenant that the youngest member of my team is prone to cause collateral damage?" Cara did not like talking down on a member nor scolding them, but Todd was now on thinner ice. She was going to have to put this in her report as well. Cara spoke again, "I can't give you advice that you haven't heard before. You have to live with the actions you've made and make up for what you've done, Faulton. This is the last time we're going to talk about this. Ok?"

Todd had this look of discomfort and disappointment all across his expression. He gave a nod, "Yes ma'am..." his voice softened as he waited for Cara to continue down the hall.

Cara was bothered by Todd. When she made the report they were just talking about, she had told Todd to take the week off, have time to cope with accidentally killing an innocent. Not only did he reject the offer, but Todd was also seemingly more worried about his position than anything else. He barely even acknowledged the fact of killing a living person. It bothered Cara. How calm he was about it. She chose not to think too much into it. Everyone is different.

They both heard a groan and a zombie waddled its way out of an office door. Cara aimed her gun and fired. The head splattered and fell to the ground, lifeless. Cara then noticed something about this place and wanted to confirm it with Todd, "As for your original question... You tell me what you think of this place."

Todd looked at his captain and then to the hall ahead of them. Todd walked ahead. Cara followed. He spoke up. His voice sounded focused and slightly confused, "We've infiltrated other Umbrella facilities before. Every one of them was different. Some full of labs, others full of offices. But every single one of them was chock-full of BOW's," he peaked into the next door and only saw a single zombie. Todd aimed and fired. The body fell to the ground. Todd stared at the lifeless decaying body and spoke, "This place is very quiet."

Cara stood behind him and nodded, "Exactly what I've been feeling the moment we entered this floor," Cara took a second to examine their surroundings a little deeper. The carpet on the ground had been torn in some places. The torn parts were not completely straight and similar scratchings were scattered across the dirtied walls. Claw markings of three. Her hand ran through the markings and she felt a pit in her stomach as she realized what was capable of this, "Whatever had this whole floor infected, is one of two very scary BOW's. I'm not willing to stand still and let it catch us by surprise. Let's speed things up here so we can regroup with the team."

Todd spoke firmly, "Understood," he really did not seem to be scared of much other than having his job on the line.

Cara took lead as they continued sweeping each room with suppressed Lead. It took only a few minutes of their time. Every room was just offices with one or two undead folks. It seemed that this floor was not going to be that difficult.

In no time, they reached the end of the hall. Kyle, Carlos, and Tucker were already at the end of the hall. Next to them was a set of blue locked double-sided doors. Above the doors were bold black letters, OBSERVATION DECK. Cara lowered her assault rifle and spoke, "Report."

Carlos answered, "The place is quiet. We could hear each other suppressed gunfire instead of the usual song of the dead," Carlos looked relaxed and pretty calm about how quiet it was, but Tucker and Kyle both seemed a bit unnerved about the idea of a quiet Umbrella facility.

Cara gestured to the blue doors, "Were you, folks, just waiting for me to open these doors, or are you getting cold feet?" she joked with a smirk.

Kyle chuckled and felt somewhat less spooked from the silence now that the captain was here to ease them. Tucker spoke with a grin, "Oh, by all means, Madam. If you wish to use your small stature to kick this door down, be my gue-."

Crash!! The set of doors cracked off their lock and swung open with one hard kick from Cara. She may have been the smallest of the team, but they all knew that she could go toe to toe with Tucker - the biggest and strongest of the team. "C'mon, ladies. Let's not waste any more time," Cara walked into the room with her gun aimed ahead of her as the boys just stared in awe.

Carlos started chuckling to himself, "Today's gonna be a lot of fun," he said to himself as he followed her along with the rest of the team.