The Crawford's Multiverse of Madness

Chapter 50 - Eat Zeel, Tender Alice

After getting settled on deck, the team proceeded to explore the ship one level at a time.

"Let's check inside," Chris suggested.

"Find anyone?" Claire asked after Chris returned with a confused look on his face.

"Nothing."

Luther came back after heading down the corridor "I checked the crew quarters... They're all gone. Looks like they left in hurry,"

Just as they were about to move on, Zeel and Alice heard a sound and guided the group towards it.

"This is Arcadia, broadcasting on the emergency frequency. There is no infection. We offer safety and security, food, and shelter. Fuel...power...Everything's running normally," The Radio repeated.

Zeel turned his gaze toward the computers as his nanites extracted all available data.

Then he shared his conclusion "This was set on a loop and has been running for a couple of years now. This signal started broadcasting the day of the T-virus outbreak,"

"That would be impossible since you would have to know the specifics of the T-virus before broadcasting," Chris said as he realized the problem.

Claire held her head for a moment before adding "Unless you're the Umbrella Corporation,"

"Hey, let's not jump to conclusions carelessly guys. Maybe another country set this up with knowledge bought from somewhere?" Luther added trying to be optimistic.

He would have a mental breakdown if he escaped the frying pan and jumped straight into the fire.

"Look at this. It's the ship's log. The crew launched the lifeboats three days ago. Exactly when the transmission stopped. But it says that all the passengers are still here. We have to search every inch of the ship." Alice said after pulling up the ship log and inspecting it up and down.

Zeel's intuition had been blaring ever since they touched down on the ship, but he had to wait for certain arrangements to be made that were still far from completion.

Constantly checking his Mbeamer, Zeel was overcome with panic for the first time. Though you would never be able to tell from the stoic expression on his face.

After walking around for a while, the group of four finally found a part of the ship that they could not access.

"Umbrella...of course, it is," Claire said a little reluctant to admit that Zeel was right the entire time. Even her recovered memories were substantiation.

"They were never coming to get us. This whole thing... The beacon...Was a lie. And that's not the worst part. It's a trap! That means that everyone who came before us is probably ..." Luther started stammering the more he talked, unwilling to believe everything he had placed his hopes on was now a lie.

"Wait! Where is everybody? The ship logs said that there are currently 2000 passengers on board" Chris asked.

"I don't understand either" Luther seconded.

"I think we do; Al send out a pulse," Zeel said.

After a couple of seconds, Zeel opened his eyes and said "They're below our feet, Claire, Chris wake them up. Luther, I have a separate task for you,"

"They're holding survivors to experiment on them." Alice said "Look...It's K-Mart... she's here. And LJ, Carlos and all the other survivors,"

"Bring them up. All of them." Alice commanded as the stasis pods began to rise up from below the floor, everyone inside was asleep and hooked up with wires and a beetle on their chest.