Entering the Hive

"What are you doing? I'm a cop! You can't treat me like this!"

The restrained man was Matt Addison, the man who had planned to infiltrate the Hive to find his sister in the original story. He struggled and shouted at the top of his lungs.

The commandos took orders only from Captain James and ignored Matt. After punching him, they twisted his arms behind his back and cuffed him.

Captain James approached the other woman whose identity had been confirmed, the heroine, Alice, hoping to get some information out of her. But Alice had lost her memory and could not remember anything that had happened, so he had to give up questioning her.

Meanwhile, Chad, the electronics specialist, took the police ID they had found on Matt and checked it online. Finding no record of him, he reported to Captain James, "Captain, there's no record of this man in the Raccoon City police database."

Captain James walked over with a hostile expression, drew his pistol, and pressed it against Matt's head. "Tell me. Who are you?"

"I'm a newly transferred officer. They probably haven't had time to set up my file yet. I really am a cop." To save his own skin, Matt tried once again to bluff his way through.

"The local police department is short-staffed, so what he's saying is possible. Boss, what do we do? Kill him or let him go?" After hearing Matt's excuse, Chad asked Captain James for his decision.

"Bring him along. We're heading into Headquarters."

Captain James gave Matt a cold look and provisionally accepted his story. But he did not let him leave, choosing instead to take both him and Alice into the Hive.

Although Kazuhiko Uchiha knew the plot, he neither exposed Matt's identity nor let sympathy get the better of him and persuade Captain James to let the man go. He simply watched everything unfold in silence. After all, whether Matt lived or died had little bearing on his mission.

Led by Captain James, the group opened the massive electronic gate beneath the mansion, entered the underground train station, and boarded the train bound for the Hive. They also discovered Spence Parks hiding in a compartment-the culprit responsible for the T-Virus leak.

While everyone was questioning Spence, Kazuhiko Uchiha slipped into the compartment and put the case containing the T-Virus and the Antidote into his system storage.

Once the commandos confirmed that Spence was an Umbrella Corporation employee, they decided to take him along to the Hive.

"Get off the train. Stay alert!"

The train slowly stopped in a place resembling a warehouse. Captain James jumped off first and raised his semiautomatic rifle, scanning their surroundings warily. The other team members followed one by one. Only after confirming that the area was safe did they allow Alice and the others to get off.

At the entrance to the Hive, an electronic door bearing the Umbrella logo and a biohazard symbol blocked their path. Chad, the electronics specialist, connected several data cables to the electronic lock and began cracking the door's code.

Taking the opportunity, the amnesiac Alice approached Kazuhiko Uchiha, who seemed much friendlier than the commandos. "I want to know who you are. And what exactly happened here?"

Kazuhiko Uchiha glanced at her and patiently explained, "Like you, we're all Umbrella Corporation employees. This door leads to the Hive. You're one of the company's entrance security personnel, which is why we have to bring you into the Hive with us."

"The Hive? What's that?" asked Spence, who had also lost his memory.

"The Hive is a top-secret research facility buried deep underground. More than five hundred scientists and other personnel work inside, researching classified products according to the company's needs."

Having overheard their conversation, Captain James tapped at his minicomputer for a moment, then showed the two of them the images on its screen, taking over the explanation from Kazuhiko Uchiha. "This is the route into the Hive. This is the mansion we came from. Here, we boarded the train underground, and our current position is the entrance to the Hive."

After taking in this information, Alice asked again, "Why did I lose my memory? I can't remember anything now."

By the time Captain James finished explaining that their memory loss had been caused by the gas released by the Red Queen, Chad had cracked the door's code.

Under computer control, the door slowly opened, revealing a pitch-black hall. One team member put on night-vision goggles and entered the room. Once he switched on the lights, the room brightened, and the windows in the electronic walls displayed a simulated view of the city's high-rises aboveground.

Captain James opened the elevator doors on the right side of the hall, only to discover that the elevator was broken. To reach the Red Queen, they would have to take the stairs on the other side.

They had only three hours for the mission. Once that time expired, the massive electronic gate in the mansion would close, and no one would be able to get out from inside. They therefore had to shut down the Red Queen and return with her motherboard within three hours, or they would have to wait for Umbrella Corporation's next rescue team.

"Looks like we'll have to take the stairs. Everyone, pick up the pace. We need to reach the bottom level within ten minutes."

After studying the map again, Captain James decisively issued new orders and escorted the handcuffed Matt toward the stairs.

They hurried down the stairs to the floor where the Red Queen was located, only to find the sealed laboratories on both sides of the corridor filled with water. The corpses of researchers, soaked pale, floated inside, making the scene especially eerie and horrifying.

Worse still, those flooded laboratories lay along the route they needed to take to reach the Red Queen. Getting through them now would take considerable time: they would have to crack the laboratories' access codes and open the doors to drain the water.

After ordering Chad to find another route, Captain James told everyone how the Red Queen had sealed off the Hive and used its internal defense systems to kill the researchers.

"Sir, I've found another route. We can take a different passage through Dining Hall B and reach our destination from there, but it may take twice as long."

Chad, whom Captain James was constantly sending off on errands, returned and described the route he had found.

"All right, then we'll..."

"Wait, Captain James."

Captain James was about to order everyone to take the new route, but before he could finish, Kazuhiko Uchiha, who had been silent throughout the journey, interrupted him.

Seeing everyone's puzzled looks, Kazuhiko Uchiha explained to Captain James, "Headquarters also ordered me to carry out a classified assignment in the Virus Cold Storage Room on this floor, so I need your help cracking its access codes."

Kazuhiko Uchiha had come up with the idea of visiting the Virus Cold Storage Room after seeing the Hive's true scale.

In such an enormous underground complex, there could not possibly be only the few vials of virus and Antidote that Spence had stolen. He decided to take a gamble, betting that the cold storage room held more of both.

"The cold storage room is the third room on the right. We'll need to crack three access codes to get inside."

Because of the identity the system had assigned Kazuhiko Uchiha, Captain James did not suspect him. After locating the route to the Virus Cold Storage Room on the electronic map, he frowned and asked, "Chad, how long will it take to crack the codes?"

"Boss, barring any complications, half an hour." Although Chad was confident in his computer skills, he did not dare promise to crack the codes too quickly when facing the formidable Red Queen.

"Half an hour should still leave us enough time. Chad, get started right away." After hearing Chad's answer, Captain James agreed to help Kazuhiko Uchiha complete his assignment.

"All right." Chad acknowledged the order and immediately took out his tools to unlock the laboratory on the right.

Click.

A little over ten minutes later, the first door on the right opened, and murky water flowed out through the corridor.

Kazuhiko Uchiha stepped into the laboratory first. Under everyone's puzzled gazes, he drew his Tachi and severed the head of the corpse inside with a single stroke.

"Stop, you bastard! What are you doing?!" Seeing Kazuhiko Uchiha treat the dead so cruelly, Alice immediately shouted at him in anger.

The others likewise could not understand Kazuhiko Uchiha's desecration of the dead. Their gazes turned disapproving, and for a moment, the atmosphere grew tense.