Chapter Text
Chapter 1
An FBI field office in the Midwest isn’t much to look at, but it’s one of the few environments left in America where people reliably wear sober suits. The sun is bright outside, and birds sing, but it’s hushed in the halls of the Bioweapon Division of the Counterterrorism Section. Thin carpet tiles muffle brisk footfalls, and the clunk of a soda can falling in a vending machine is loud. The air smells of industrial cleaner and burnt coffee.
Special Agent Dempsy hurries past potted lilies and framed prints of dead presidents, hardly hearing the familiar lullaby of phones ringing in padded cubicles. It’s rare for him to visit Kidnapping and Missing Persons, but a lot of things about today have been unusual.
One cubicle that stands out among the others. Boxes and files are piled high. The skinny analyst nestled within perches on her chair with the sort of posture that Dempsy has only seen in anime. A lot of people at the Bureau look at Grace Ashcroft and see undiagnosed autism, but Dempsy knows better. If she were living with autism, she would be much better at masking. Grace’s occasional halfhearted attempts to pass herself off as normal are more sad than competent, but she does good work when she can be bothered.
RF Requiem
“Grace.”
The two women wear lacy, pink, matching lingerie. They are not twins, although the resemblance is uncanny. Their erections jut out of lace panties, and soft sighs and whispers of fabric are audible as they press their shafts together. The one on top wraps both hands around the two dicks and squeezes, making her partner hiss. She softly pulls, and the foreskins envelop the tips. When she pulls them back, fat drops of precum gleam.
“Grace.”
Grace blinks a few times and shakes her head. She grabs her mouse and clicks to pause the video, nearly upsetting her chair as she twists to see Dempsy. Her heart thuds.
“My office,” he says, then heads off without waiting for a reply.
Grace recovers quickly. “Coming!” she calls after him. She gets up and looks around in panic, snatching a folder and a plastic bag from her desk. She doubles back and bends to check her appearance in the black mirror of her third monitor. Her blonde hair is a little wild, and her glasses are crooked. She wears the same suit as half her colleagues, but it looks stiff and unnatural on her scrawny frame.
Viscerally anxious, she tugs her flats on and hustles across the building to Dempsy’s office. He’s on his feet, not sitting behind his desk when she arrives. He’s a severe-looking man most of the time, but today he seems oddly vulnerable. Something must be wrong.
Grace is babbling the second she’s through the door. “I know how it looks, but three learning models all concluded that those two were of age, and they weren’t sisters. The resemblance to the missing girl from Springfield was strong, but it’s not her. There’s more.” She tucks her folder under her arm and holds up the bag. “The fibers here—there’s no trace of the F-virus. These women were naturally born with penises. I know it stands out that this particular studio seems to find so many, but there’s not one shred of evidence to suggest they’re using the F-virus. I think we need to open a trafficking case and look closer at these casting calls—”
“Grace,” Dempsy says, cutting her off. “I didn’t call you here for that. You give that to Daniels. I have another body with a Raccoon City connection. Same pathology as the last couple. You’re going to take a look at it. Not here in the lab. Out there. The crime scene. Someone new needs to look at this. Tell us what we’re missing.”
Grace blinks a few times. “Oh. OK.”
Dempsy picks up a folder and drums his fingertips on it for a moment, looking pained. “It’s the Wrenwood Hotel.” Grace stiffens, and he searches her face. “That’s where your mother died, isn’t it?”
Dumbstruck, Grace does something that might be a nod.
“That’s why you try to work so many sex crimes, isn’t it? It was some kind of stalker that got her. And now you’re trying to make other women safer. That’s the idea, right?” He moves closer, and she avoids eye contact, moving back reflexively. “But this keeps happening, Grace? You started out working evidence on a kidnapping, and you found traces of the F-virus. How many times have my people gotten a tip from your desk? Nobody’s using the F-virus to give women penises anymore, Grace. It has the power to spontaneously generate tissue and muscle with incredible precision. We are beyond that. This is an arms race, and these bodies? For all I know, these are guinea pigs for something new.” He holds the folder out.
Without looking at him, Grace takes it.
Dempsy’s expression softens. “I think it’s pretty messed up to send you to the exact place where you were obviously traumatized, but these are my orders. Yours now.”
Grace keeps her eyes on the carpet. Her fingers crease the folder as she grips it tightly. She feels like she’s going to be sick.
“It’s been eight years,” Dempsy says. “Maybe this is the universe telling you that it’s time. If not now, when? Grace?”
“Yes?” she replies shakily, swallowing.
“Are you going to do your job?”
RF Requiem
Wrenwood is the closest population center to the Raccoon City Restricted Zone. A desire to get away from Raccoon City after the incident created an unusual phenomenon: a flood of people leaving the suburbs and going east, into the city.
Heavy rain pours on Wrenwood’s narrow streets, boxed in by old, brick buildings. Neon signs give it some color, but it’s not a particularly attractive place even in good weather. The sky is gray and sullen, and the wet pavement shines with reflected traffic lights. The sidewalks are crowded with pedestrians and bumping umbrellas.
Fire escapes and an elevated train make this particular street seem even more claustrophobic. Grace is woefully underdressed in her little leather jacket, and she can only pray that her backpack is keeping her equipment dry. It’s rush hour, and there’s plenty of foot traffic.
Grace dodges pedestrians and pushes up the street, passing a city guide that uses words like nostalgia, bygone, and classic. Wrenwood is not chic or vintage; it’s decaying because its proximity to Raccoon City has made it radioactive to anyone with money. The tax base has fallen through the floor, and the city’s efforts to attract tourists seem pitiful even to someone like Grace. It’s worse than the Rust Belt and the dying gasps of small towns in flyover states.
Old bricks, crumbling mortar, and rusted metal are all the more depressing with rainwater pouring off them. The Wrenwood Hotel is aggressively awful even in the midst of the other ugliness. It’s covered in tarps and scaffolding. There was an effort to restore it after the fire, but that clearly didn’t get far.
Grace hesitates on the sidewalk, startled that she doesn’t feel more as she sees the old place. It’s because it looks so different in this gray half-light. Her eyes flick to her right, where a bus stop is covered in wet, missing person posters that are beginning to dissolve from being out in the elements for so long.
An alley is cordoned off with yellow crime scene tape. Grace stops in her tracks and takes a deep breath. None of this feels real.
“Miss?”
She looks up.
“That’s a restricted area. You can’t go in there.” A uniformed officer approaches, her cap shining in its protective bag, and water dripping from her black raincoat. At least she’s not particularly abrasive about it. “It’s an active crime scene. You’re gonna have to move on.”
“Oh. Yeah.” Grace fumbles with her bag, awkwardly producing her ID.
The officer is taken aback. “FBI? You’re here for the scene?”
With effort, Grace controls her stammer. “That’s right.”
The officer looks around, puzzled. “No team?”
Grace forces something like a smile. “Just me.”
“OK, come on.” The officer lifts the tape. Grace ducks through gratefully. Some of the rain is blocked in the alley, and the officer slips past her to lead the way. “This is the fifth one, right? These bodies with the bruises? Are we really thinking this is terrorism?” She stops and looks back. “I mean, why else would you be here?”
Grace stares past her at the building, her pulse and her queasiness rising.
“Miss? Special Agent, uh…”
“What? Oh.” Grace shakes herself out of it. “I’m just an analyst.”
“Oh.” The officer frowns, a little water trickling off her cap. “And they sent you here by yourself? Is that normal?”
“How do we get in?”
“This way.” The officer drags a blue tarp aside. “Be careful in there. Building’s condemned.”
“Yeah. Thanks.” Grace dips her head, avoiding eye contact. She splashes through, and the tarp crackles into place behind her.
She hurries down the narrow passage, past old forklifts and loading docks that haven’t been used in years. The chain-link fence separating the hotel from the adjacent properties has seen better days, and the buildings are built so close together that it feels more like Japan than the American Midwest. Grace has to duck and squeeze past junk and building materials just to get to the old service entrance. The stench from garbage bags bulging from dumpsters is almost overwhelming, and Grace can’t imagine how a sanitation truck could ever hope to navigate these tight spaces. She’ll think about anything to take her mind off where she is, but the service door at the rear of the hotel is ajar. She can’t even stall by pretending that she has to look for a way in.
It squeals as she pushes it open and enters the gloom, turning on her flashlight. It’s been eight years since the fire that put this hotel out of business. Grime and debris crunch under her shoes as she makes her way through the kitchen. It’s only when she reaches the door leading out into the hotel proper that her nausea truly rises.
A flashback loses some of its power to disrupt her emotions when she knows it’s coming, but that doesn’t make it easy. She enters the dark bar on the first floor, which was once cozy with its intimate wood paneling and a little countertop with three beer taps. It’s a charred, moldy ruin now.
Grace knows she’s stalling as she gets out the file on the body and flips the folder open. The photos of the corpse covered in black blotches are appalling. He was found in a first-floor bathroom; the body had been there for days. No signs of foul play and nothing conclusive in his toxicology report. The blotches are some kind of bruising, but it’s not clear what’s causing them. There have been several bodies like this. The black discharge around the discolored eyes is particularly disgusting. Grace swallows. She knew better than to eat anything before coming here. She will not throw up.
Evidence markers are strewn across the floor, but it’s not clear what they’re meant to mark; her file includes no photos of supporting details, which is odd—but this all came from local police. A dying community like Wrenwood isn’t going to have elite law enforcement, and they aren’t going to spend what resources they have on a probable death from illness with no political implications.
The men’s room has only two stalls, and it is truly disgusting. The body has already been removed; the building is damp, and everything has been disturbed. Any useful trace evidence has already been disturbed, washed away, or contaminated. There’s no connection between the dead man and this place. And it’s difficult to imagine that he found his way in here by accident, or even on purpose; Grace is healthy, and squeezing through the warren of alleys to reach this rear entrance wasn’t easy for her. Would a sick man who’d never been here be able to do that? No. This body was dumped. Grace’s eyes narrow as she gazes into the stained stall. Or planted. Why here? Nobody cares about a condemned hotel that’s been closed for eight years.
Nobody except Grace Ashcroft.
Grace takes pictures, then leaves the bathroom. The air in the bar isn’t fresh, but it’s less foul than what’s behind her. The beam of her flashlight catches on something shiny.
A glossy photo is taped to a pillar on the bar.
Her stomach twists while her mind refuses to believe. She approaches and pulls the picture off. It’s a still image of her at work, talking on her phone. It’s heavy. Her fingers tremble as she turns it over.
LET’S TALK
ROOM 204
A key is taped to it.
The heavy metal service entrance slams shut, making her jump.
“Who’s there?” Grace demands, voice shaking. Her stammer is out of control. She sweeps her light around in panic for a moment, then yanks off her backpack. She rummages and comes up with her handgun. The little Sig .380 isn’t very impressive, but it’s what she has. She racks a round into the chamber and lifts it in both hands, but there’s no one to point it at.
Rain drums on the windows, but her heartbeat is louder.
She picks up the key from the slimy carpet, slipping it into her pocket before pushing to her feet. Gun and light in hand, she heads for the corridor, clenching her teeth as she approaches the lobby. The pistol is small, but it’s all metal. It feels like it weighs a hundred pounds, and the lobby of the Wrenwood Hotel is the last place in the world that she ever wants to see again. She glares at the door, but at least she’s too freaked out to cry.
Something bumps overhead, and she looks up at the ceiling and swallows, then pushes through.
Fire and smoke damage are all that’s changed. Old luggage carts stand where they were the night of the fire. Pamphlets lie on the floor, and fat roaches scurry away from Grace’s light.
She does not look at the floor. Instead, she points her light at the stairs, then makes her way up. It’s all wood, but the building is surprisingly solid for being condemned. Grace is light, and there’s hardly a creak as she climbs, her shoes sinking into musty carpet. She passes through a small common area on the landing that was once heartachingly cute. Now, in the shadows, everything is menacing. The smell of smoke isn’t as strong on the second floor until she gets through the door to the suites. This corridor is thoroughly ruined, and the stench of mold is much stronger.
She knows the way to Room 204; she’s been there before.
Gun up, she approaches the door, finding enough focus to check her corners before she crosses the threshold. The walls are spotted with mold, and there’s a layer of filth over everything, but the room hasn’t changed otherwise. The bed, the desk, the lamps—they are all exactly where Grace remembers them.
An old radio is on by the window, and there’s a crackling voice, but Grace doesn’t hear it. Her eyes are drawn to the bed, which is covered in photos.
She approaches with her light. Some of the pictures are familiar, and others are new: photos of her, taken without her knowledge.
One triggers a deluge of intrusive memories. Eyes wide with disbelief, Grace reaches out and picks it up. The picture shows her seated on the very bed in front of her, cross-legged in her underwear, hunched over a laptop, eight years younger.