Chapter Text
“In our most recent report from the heated State v. Umbrella case, the disgraced pharmaceutical company has allegedly released multiple previously classified documents into government care. This new development is reportedly key in determining whether Umbrella is liable for the destruction of Raccoon City in October of last year—”
Leaning over, Leon changes the channel on the radio, lip twitching with distaste. Mindless Top 40 pop songs replace the newscast easily, but he isn’t really listening to them— he’s just glad that more reports aren’t playing. He has no desire to catch up on Umbrella affairs.
It’s 1999, and closer to the turn of the millennium than Leon expects it to be every time he checks. He’s also always taken a little off-guard when he remembers what and who he is, now; no longer a rookie cop, or a too-eager greenhorn in the police academy, or even a nervous orphan in a Catholic boarding school. No, these days Leon S. Kennedy is the name of a federal agent who’s the newest member of STRATCOM.
He can’t say he expected it, or that he even enjoys it. At the end of the day, he’d taken the job for Sherry’s sake, and not really for anyone else, including himself. Even now something in him stings when he remembers it, how he’d felt backed into a corner with no way out but to say yes, if he wanted the kid to stay safe. And that, of course, was no question at all. Sherry was kept healthy and well under government care, and Leon joined STRATCOM. End of story.
Veering right, he pulls into the winding driveway that leads inside the bland, fenced-off facility where he now works. It’s not too far out of DC, at least, though it’s just as boring and flat as any other of its ilk. Low, whitewashed buildings with nearly no windows dot the expanse of carefully maintained lawn, broken up only by sparse trees and sharp, angular pathways. Leon flashes his ID at the gate and is let in without a fuss.
His office isn’t too far from the entrance, and he’s early to boot; there’s only one other car here, and he recognizes it as Agent White’s. She’s the sole coworker who he would expect to get up this early in the morning, and is by far the most approachable of his fellow agents, though her natural intensity can be a little overwhelming.
Leon goes through the motions— parking, grabbing his bag, flashing his ID again to the guard at the front desk. At the very least, he’s got little to truly complain about working here, all things considered. The pay is steady, the benefits are pretty good, and the work itself is half physical training and half pencil-pushing bureaucratic nonsense. It’s nothing he can’t deal with, and wishing for more just seems... desperate.
White is indeed already at the office when he arrives, parked in the lounge across the hall, making herself coffee. She greets him with a wave, to which he replies in kind, walking over to his desk and hanging his bag over the back of his chair.
For a while, it’s quiet in the space, with the careful, strange peace of early morning. White isn’t much for conversation at this hour, and neither is Leon, so the mutual silence is more comforting than oppressive. She sips her coffee, he goes through his files for the day, and it’s at the very least soothing in its ease.
Eventually, however, Leon perks up at what he thinks is the sound of another car pulling into the lot outside— though with no windows in this building, he has no way of confirming that. Checking the clock reveals that it’s about the right time for the last two agents to arrive, Holt and Sandberg. Apparently they live nearby each other, or in the same building, Leon can’t remember. Either way, their schedules tend to line up.
But not today, it seems. He’s been here a bit less than a year, but Leon knows the rhythm: cars pull up, five minutes later, the other two are walking through the door. Instead, there’s nothing. Maybe conversation downstairs, if he strains to listen, but the walls are thick and there’s no way he can pick their voices out from what might be nothing. So he just shrugs and returns to his folders. They’re probably just caught in a traffic jam.
Just when that thought crosses his mind, there’s footsteps in the hallway, and the office door slams open with an ear-splitting BANG! Leon jumps and drops the file he was holding; behind him, he hears White choke on her coffee.
When he sees the culprit, it’s no surprise: Agent Holt is standing triumphantly in the doorway, holding a lidded cardboard box against his skinny chest.
“Look what we got!” Holt singsongs, slamming down the box on his desk. It’s heavy enough that it rattles his leftover water bottle in place, full to the brim with stacks of paper and manila folders, as is revealed when he takes the top off and tosses it to the side. Bidden by curiosity, Leon joins his fellow agents as they gather around, leaning forwards for a better look.
Tossing her paper cup in the trash as she walks forwards, White stands from her desk and snatches a folder from the pile. She blinks in shocked surprise when she reads the front of it. “Records — Project 84416? Are these...?”
“Umbrella files, baby,” Holt grins, holding up a handful of scattered papers. “Didn’t you hear the news this morning? Judges strongarmed them into giving up some confidential shit. Enough to have every one of their investors in prison for the rest of their lives!”
He stops in his tracks when an enormous silhouette appears behind him. The office beefcake, Agent Sandberg, looms over Holt easily, and grabs the document out of his left hand without even a word. After scanning it over, he snorts and throws it back in the box, clearly unimpressed.
“Yeah, okay,” Sandberg crosses his arms over his broad chest. “You shoulda known better, Holt. These papers are all trash. Umbrella is just throwing shit at us to keep the courts arguing for longer.”
“No, come on!”
“He’s right, I think,” White interrupts, still leafing through the contents of the folder she grabbed. “These are all labeled as terminated. So if they’re projects that didn’t go through, there’s a lot less for the courts to accuse them on... I mean, genetic modification isn’t strictly illegal.”
Good mood officially gone, Holt scowls down at his prize. “Those fuckin’ rats.”
Leon swallows down his distaste and approaches the desk next, not yet willing to touch the box. It almost feels as if he’ll have a nightmare the moment he reads a single word, but he steels himself anyway. “Why do we have these, anyhow?”
Ever mercurial, Holt’s grin springs back, now with a distinctly sardonic edge. “Oh ho ho, it’s your lucky day, rookie! It’s our job to sort through this mess for the good folks in the Supreme Court.”
“I thought we were federal agents.”
“Unfortunately, this is what federal agents do most of the time,” Sandberg rumbles. “Write up reports for the bigwigs in between the big, exciting stuff. Which happens once a year, if we’re lucky. And besides... all four of us are still green.”
“And being green means paperwork,” White finishes for him. “Well, no better time than the present, boys. Why don’t we all grab a stack and see how fast we can shred them?”
“Whoever finishes last buys lunch,” Holt pipes up, reaching with both arms into the box and pulling out a pile. “Take yours so I can clean up my desk.”
“Yeah, like your desk has ever been clean,” Sandberg teases, but does as asked, the stack looking small in his thick arms. White is up next, including the folder she originally grabbed on her own tower, and after her, the only one left is Leon.
He grimaces slightly before he reaches in, but if any of the other agents notice, they don’t mention it. The rest of the box’s contents are a little shorter in his arms than everyone else’s, and he wonders if they did it on purpose, to give him a bit less of his past to face. If so, he’s quietly grateful.
Holt shuffles the empty box off of his desk, and the rest of them return to their respective berths, heavy sighs echoing through the room at the prospect of this titanic amount of paperwork. Leon’s desk is already mostly clear, and he hoists his own pile onto the nearest open space. Papers and folders spill down like an avalanche over the surface, each one stamped with a bright-red TERMINATED symbol over the Umbrella logo.
Seeing that logo again makes Leon’s stomach twist, too many bad memories associated with it to simply ignore. Can’t I go a day without being reminded of Raccoon City?
Taking a moment, he casts his gaze towards the singular photo frame on his desk: a last reminder of one of the few good things that had come out of that day. Him, Claire and Sherry, sitting on sticky seats in an all-you-can-eat roadside diner, dirt and ash still smeared over their faces. They look exhausted, but their eyes are bright, heady on their recent success and the simple joy of still being alive. Sherry has a burger stuffed in her mouth, and Claire is grinning widely, ponytail stuck weirdly to the back of her neck.
Claire had bought the disposable camera they’d used to take this picture; he hadn’t wanted to bother anybody, but she’d asked the waitress to snap a photo anyway. I want to remember this, Leon, she’d replied when he questioned her. It’s not every day you survive the apocalypse and make a few new friends, too. I’m going to keep it on me as a good luck charm.
When she said it like that, Leon asked if he could have a copy too, and she laughed and laughed. He had joined her, and for the first time since they’d met, the weight of the stress on both of them melted away. They were just two best friends who had taken their picture together, and in that moment, Leon had felt like it had all been worth it.
That feeling is more and more rare these days. Of course, not a week after that photo, Claire had vanished, leaving him with Sherry and her phone number, and a promise to keep in touch. To be fair to her, she had— especially after finally reuniting with that mystery brother of hers last year. But their conversations aren’t frequent, and Leon aches to see her again. A friend he didn’t even know was so important to him until she was already gone from his life.
Tearing his eyes away from the photo, he looks down at the pile of papers strewn across his desk again, and sighs. He has a job to do. And I'll call Sherry when I get home...
The moment he starts leafing through the documents, Leon realizes that Sandberg was absolutely right: nearly every single one is obviously garbage. Many of them don’t even need the termination stamp, consisting of pages of records from security cameras and logs from computer banks, nothing that could even remotely be considered inflammatory from an international company with uncounted thousands of automated systems. What few bioweapon reports are in there seem to consist mostly of flights of fancy that went absolutely nowhere, or a few pages from an overexcited researcher who seemed convinced that they had discovered a new virus, only to close up shop a paragraph later when they commented that they’d misread their equipment. Useless, through and through. His ‘to shred’ stack quickly towers over the ‘to keep’ one.
He’s flicking through a stack of financial reports from a particular vending machine in the NEST cafeteria— Seriously?— when something a bit more noticeable slides out from between a few documents. Blinking, Leon puts down the stupid list of soda prices and picks up the folder, already feeling that it’s heavier than its cousins.
Though proudly stamped TERMINATED like its peers, the text printed on the front is clearly legible: Project ε-001, with its researcher underneath labeled Dr. Chávez. However, scribbled underneath in blue ink, reads (Echidna). An oddly personal touch.
Curiosity piqued, Leon slides the papers out from the top. It’s a decently thick stack, especially compared to the other bioweapon reports he’s seen thus far. Maybe this project actually got going?
Apparently, this one was part of the Botanics unit, as its first page states. Bioweapon ε-001 is a genetically modified floral specimen designed to consume and recreate the structures of living animals through parthenogenesis. Research headed by Dr. Anthony Chávez. Project approved on April 15th, 1997.
What follows is a detailed report of the development that followed after April 15th. Scattered throughout are scratchy, handwritten notes in that same blue ink, written with such familiarity that Leon can only imagine that they’re from Dr. Chávez, who seems to be working alone. His comments are professional, but undoubtedly enthusiastic, his passion behind the project bleeding through with every word.
It doesn’t take long for the first photo to appear: on the very second page is a somewhat grainy but immediately identifiable image of a row of plastic pots, each one containing a healthy amount of soil. The caption underneath tells Leon that the pots contain ε-001 specimens A through F, the first viable seeds that have been produced so far. He skims through more, and only a few entries later, the page reports that every seed spare for ε-001-E failed to sprout.
ε-001-E becomes the core of the project after that. Leon continues to read, revealing more and more pictures of the only surviving seedling, starting out as nothing more than a few green tendrils poking out from the soil. Chávez quickly names the survivor Echidna, with obvious affection. It grows swiftly, developing bulbs and thorns in its little case.
Something starts happening, however, as Leon keeps going. There’s something in the back of his mind, lingering like a tick, and he’s halfway through the document when he realizes what it is: familiarity. Déjà vu sticks at the back of his throat, getting thicker and thicker as he reads on, finding more photos of ε-001-E as it gets older, develops a golden glow inside its bulbs and a strange crimson rosehip-head on a long vine.
And, eventually, he flips the page and reveals the biggest photo of the bioweapon yet, blown up nearly to the size of the paper. Leon can barely hold it. His fingers shake as he traces over the image, recognition rocking through him so fiercely he forgets to breathe.
He knows this plant. He knows this plant intimately.
Pictured in glossy ink before him is none other than the tangle of vines from the Raccoon City sewers.
It’s obviously still juvenile— nowhere near as large, with its pistil underdeveloped and bulbs far fewer in number— but even at this stage, it’s unmistakable. The plant he encountered in those tunnels, the plant that had called him to it, had rendered him mindless with pleasure, was ε-001-E.
“Echidna...” he mumbles under his breath. He hasn’t forgotten the plant, of course. It sticks in his mind like every bad memory from that day, standing out in the current of trauma as a brief respite from the horrors he had been trapped in. For that short instant, when Echidna had him in its embrace, Leon had been safe and cared for and happy, and the experience lingers with him every late night he’s spent alone ever since. The one thing he can’t truly regret.
With trembling hands, he flicks through the remaining pages.
The report, ever-detailed, shows that Umbrella had been disappointed in ε-001-E’s development for months on end. Chávez’ notes become more and more sparse as in-report he vies desperately for Echidna’s survival, allowing it to be used as garbage disposal for the waste from other bioweapon projects. Nothing works. Echidna is labeled for termination while it is still young.
But, finally, Leon reaches the last page. It contains a singular update, curt and cold: ε-001-E has been removed from its specimen room without proper clearance. Dr. Chávez has left the company. Project terminated.
Of course, that hadn’t been the end. Leon knows that better than most. No, Echidna had survived in the sewers to be burned with Raccoon City, and with it the last of Chávez’ dream.
Despite himself, Leon feels... mournful. He doesn’t know anything about this mysterious doctor, but he knew his creation, and Echidna didn't deserve to die like it did. It makes him feel foolish, thinking back on a bioweapon with such fondness, but he can’t help it. No matter what the report in front of him says, it’s overwhelmingly clear to him that Echidna had been made with love, and it had treated him with care. Even though it’s long gone, Leon can’t bring himself to look back on the plant without affection.
Taking a deep breath to steady himself, Leon closes the document and picks up its folder to slide it home— but then he notices something he hadn’t before. Weight lingering inside the manila, even with its content in his hands. Curiously, he tips the folder over again, and, with a plastic-y clatter, out tumbles a handful of cassette tapes.
Scribbled on the label of each one, in handwriting that is now familiar, is the name Chávez.
Leon stares at them, gears clicking in his mind, but eventually, the only thought that pops up in his head is, I have a cassette player at home...
“Hey, rookie, you listening?”
Blinking wildly, Leon looks up. Standing by the office door is White, Holt and Sandberg, all three watching him. White is pulling her coat over her shoulders.
“Where are you going?” He asks, and Sandberg chuckles good-naturedly.
“Threw in the towel on this less than halfway through. It’s just too many words in one day for my thick skull, I guess,” Sandberg shrugs, even though Leon knows full well that the man had aced every single one of the written exams they’d all taken before being placed in this unit. “So I’m buying lunch, ‘cause I gave up first. Do you want to come along?”
Leon looks back down, where the tapes lie teasingly on his desk, promising... something. More information. Secrets, unheard of for over a year, if not longer; now that the memory of the plant is newly fresh in his mind, Leon finds himself craving them. He needs to know more.
Before he can think too hard about what he’s doing, he swipes the tapes into his messenger bag with a single move of his arm and slings the leather strap over his shoulder, standing to go. “Yeah, okay. Where are we headed?”