later.
Five
William Birkin hurried through the underbelly of the water treatment plant, spooked by the echoing clang of his footsteps through the cavernous corridors as he made his way toward control B on the first basement level. The place felt cold and dead, like a tomb—which was not a bad analogy at all, except he knew what wandered behind the locked doors he passed, knew that he was surrounded by an abundance of life, such as it was. Somehow, that awareness made the distant echoes of his every movement seem that much more sacrilegious, like shouting in a mortuary.
Which it is, really. They 're not dead yet.. Your colleagues, your friends. ..Get a grip on yourself. They all knew this was a possibility, all of them. Bad luck, is all.
Bad luck for them. He and Annette had been at the facility downtown when the spill had occurred, finalizing the breakdown of the new synthesis.
He'd reached the executive stairwell at the back of B4 and started to climb, wondering if Wesker was already waiting. Probably. Birkin was running late, he hadn't wanted to leave his work for even a moment, and Albert Wesker was a precise and punctual man, among other things. A soldier. A researcher. A sociopath.
And maybe he was the one. Maybe he leaked it. It was possible; Wesker's loyalties lay with Wesker, always had, and though he'd been with Umbrella for a long time, Birkin knew he was looking for an exit. On the other hand, crapping in his own backyard wasn't his style, and Birkin had known the man for twenty years, give or take. If Wesker had caused the leak, he certainly wouldn't be sticking around to see what happened next.
Birkin topped the flight, made a turn and started up the next. Allegedly, the elevators still worked, but he didn't want to risk it. There was no one around to help if something went wrong. No one but Wesker, and for all he knew, the S.T.A.R.S. commander had decided to go home.
At the top of the second flight, Birkin heard something, a soft sound from behind the door that marked the second basement level. He paused a moment, imagining some poor soul pressed against the door on the other side, perhaps mindlessly beating his or her dying body against the obstacle again and again, vaguely wishing to be free. When the infection had originally been identified, the internal doors had locked automatically, trapping most of the infected workers and escaped test subjects. The main pathways were clear, at least to and from the control rooms.
He glanced at his watch, and started up the final flight. He didn't want to miss Wesker if he was still around.
So, if Wesker didn 't do it, then who?How? They'd all thought it was an accident; he still had until a few hours ago, when Wesker had called him about the train. That was one accident too many. Lord knew there were enough people who had reason to sabotage Umbrella, but it wasn't easy to obtain even a low-level clearance pass for any of the Raccoon labs.
What if... Wesker had said something about the company wanting real data on the virus, not just sims but hands-on; maybe they had unleashed it themselves, sent in one of their squads to pop a cork that shouldn't have been popped, so to speak.
Or maybe this is how they plan to get to the G virus. Create all this chaos, then slip in and steal it.
Birkin's jaw tightened. No. They didn't know yet how close he was, and wouldn't know until he was goddamn good and ready. He'd taken precautions, hidden things, and Annette had bribed the watchdogs to keep away. He'd seen it happen too many times, the company taking away a doctor's research because they wanted instant results, handing it over to new blood . .. and in at least two cases that he knew of personally, the original scientist had been eliminated, the better to keep him from moving to the competition.
Not me. And not the G virus. It was his life's work, but he'd destroy it before he'd let it be taken
away.
He reached the control room he wanted, an observation platform, really, that shared space with the plant's backup generator, now thankfully silent. The lights were down, but as he walked around the mesh catwalk, he could see Wesker sitting in front of the observation screens, his back outlined by the glow from the monitors. As he often did, Wesker wore his sunglasses, an affectation that had always unnerved Birkin; the guy could see in the dark.
Before he'd announced his presence, Wesker was beckoning him over, raising a hand without even looking over his shoulder.
“Come look at this.” His voice was commanding, urgent. Birkin hurried to join him, leaning over the console to see what had Wesker so interested.
His attention was fixed on a scene from the training facility, what looked like the video library on the second floor. A trainee was wandering the room, obviously infected, his fatigues stained with blood and other fluids; he looked positively wet, but Birkin didn't notice anything particularly unusual about him otherwise.
“I don't see—” he began, but Wesker cut him off.
“Wait.”
Birkin watched as the young man—a young man who wouldn't be getting much older, thanks to the T-virus— ran into a small desk at the side of the room, then turned and started back toward the computer banks, lurching as all the carriers did, the camera following the movement. Just as he was about to ask Wesker what he was looking for, he saw it.
“There,” Wesker said.
Birkin blinked, not sure what he'd seen. As he'd turned again at the computer banks, the trainee's right arm had elongated, thinned, stretched almost all the way to the floor, then snapped back into place. It had taken barely a second.
“That's the third time in the last half hour or so,” Wesker said softly.
The trainee continued to roam the small room, once again indistinguishable from any of the other doomed people pictured on the tiny screens.
“An experiment we didn't know about?” Birkin asked, though it was unlikely. They were both as deep inside as anyone outside of HQ.
“No.”
“Mutation?”
“You're the scientist, you tell me,” Wesker said.
Birkin gave it a second's thought, then shook his head. “I suppose it's possible, but . . . No, I don't think so.”
They watched the soldier in silence for another moment, but he only crossed the room again; nothing stretched or changed. Birkin didn't know what they had seen, exactly, but he didn't like it, not at all. In the complicated series of equations that his life had become, between his work and family, between the disasters in Raccoon and his dreams of engineering the perfect virus, this was an unknown. This was something new.
A crackle of static burst into the quiet, an unknown man's voice emerging from the hiss. “ETA ten minutes, over.”
That had to be Umbrella's cleanup crew, for the train. Wesker had said they were on their way when he'd called. Wesker tapped a button. “Affirmative. Radio when objective is reached. Over and out.”
He tapped the button again, and the two men went back to watching the unknown soldier, each lost in thoughts all their own. He didn't know about Wesker, but he was starting to think that it might be time to get out of Raccoon.
“Rebecca.”
She didn't answer or turn around, only lowered her weapon. Billy wished there was something he could say, but figured he was better off keeping his mouth shut. The scenario was clear enough; the man on the floor was in a S.T.A.R.S. uniform, probably a friend, and he'd been infected.
He gave her a moment, but didn't think they could afford more than one. He couldn't be sure, but the train seemed to be picking up speed. If it was a runaway, they would crash and likely die. If someone was controlling it,
