controls, he couldn't activate the terminal.
Or maybe he's dead. Maybe something got to him.
The train railed around the curve, and this time there was no imagining; the train tipped too heavily, racing ever faster as it rattled back down, and another curve like that one, it was all over. She'd have to
go back herself, there was no time but there was no other option, either—
“Rebecca, now!”
Rebecca saw a blur to the right of the train, there and gone so quickly that she didn't know what it was until it was past—a station platform. The station platform, and that meant the only thing left ahead was wherever they stored the goddamn thing, and that meant it might already be too late.
“Hang on!” she shouted at the radio, grabbing the brake lever, twisting it as hard as she could—and something was rushing at the front window, a darkness deeper than the night, a tunnel. The brakes were squealing, screaming as the train roared into the black, broke through some flimsy barrier, wood flying across the windshield, the train tipping again, this time not tipping back.
Rebecca heard her own scream join the train's as they hit the ground and started to slide, metal rending, sparks flaring up like hellish fireworks. The wall became the floor, Rebecca slamming into it as the engine slammed into something even harder and all the lights went out.
Six
Billy woke up to pain and the smell of burning synthetics. He opened his eyes, blinking, assessing his surroundings as quickly as his muddled mind could manage, which wasn't very quickly at all. He was on his back, looking up at a high, blank ceiling. Firelight flickered all around him, shadows of rubble and rock dancing across part of a wall to his left. Somehow, he was inside.
The brakes, the train ... Rebecca?
That woke him up. He pushed himself to a sitting position, was surprised and relieved to realize he had a strained shoulder and a few scrapes, but nothing worse.
“Rebecca?” he called, and coughed. Wherever he was, the billowing smoke from the wreck was starting to build up. He, they, had to move.
He stood, cradling his right arm as he looked around. The train had crashed into a warehouse, it looked like —a giant, empty space, concrete, a scaffolding off to one side, a few hooded lights overhead. It wasn't very well lit, but when he looked down, he saw a dented train track beneath his feet, and realized they had probably crashed into the train's maintenance terminal. Wherever that was.
“Rebecca?” He called again, surveying the wreckage. There were numerous piles of blasted concrete and puddles of burning oil all around. The engine was on its side, the other cars piled up behind it, blocking what had to be a monster hole in the wall. He had no idea where to look for the young S.T.A.R.S. member. As soon as he'd activated the rear brakes he had started running back toward the front; he must have been thrown from the back passenger car...
“Uunh.” A slumped shadow stirred near a pile of smoking rock.
“Rebecca!” He stumbled forward, hoping she was all right. She had sounded panicked when she'd called, when he hadn't answered, but he'd been too busy punching buttons to talk. Now he was sorry; she was just a kid, after all, and had been scared shitless. / should have reassured her, something—He
reached the crumpled, battered body, and started to kneel beside her. She was face down, her clothes shredded.
“Billy?”
Billy turned, saw Rebecca walking toward him, her nine-millimeter in hand. She had a trickle of blood seeping from her hairline, but appeared to be in good shape otherwise—
—and the person in front of him rolled over, moaning again, reaching one bloody hand up to grasp at his face. Rotting fingers trailed across his cheek.
“Gah!” With a wordless cry of disgust he reeled back, fell on the floor. He couldn't tell if the slow-moving creature was male or female, so much of its face and body had been damaged, either by the disease or from the crash. It crawled to its knees, turning its disfigured face toward Billy. Its mouth hung open, and blood-tinted drool poured from between its broken teeth as it reached for him again.
“Get clear,” Rebecca said, and he was only too glad to comply, scrambling backward on his hands, the loose handcuff digging painfully into the flesh of his left palm, pushing with his feet. She aimed and fired twice, both rounds finding the once-human's already fractured skull, ending what was left of its life.
It settled to the concrete with a sound almost like a sigh.
Billy stood up, and they both spent a few tense seconds scanning the wreckage for any other bodies. If there were more, they were hidden.
“Thanks,” he said, looking back at the pathetic creature. She'd spared it further suffering, at least— and with two clean head shots. He was surprised and not a little impressed at her level of skill. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah. I've got a killer headache, but that's all. My second crash of the day, too.”
“Really?” Billy asked. “What was the first?”
She smiled, started to speak—then abruptly stopped, her expression turning cool, and Billy felt a pang of real unhappiness; she'd obviously remembered who she was talking to. In spite of everything, she still thought he was a mass murderer.
“It's not important,” she said. “Come on. We should get out of here before the smoke gets any worse.”
They both still had their radios, and spent a moment looking for his gun, finding it half hidden by a crushed concrete block not far from where he'd woken up. The shotgun was history. Neither of them suggested searching the train for it; the small fires were dying out, but the thick layer of black smoke that hovered at the ceiling was growing by the minute.
They moved around the vast room, finding only a single door some twenty meters from the wrecked engine and very little else. Billy hoped it led to fresh air, to freedom for himself and safety for the girl. Standing at the door, he looked back at the smoldering crash, felt one corner of his mouth curve up.
“Well, at least we managed to stop the train,” he said.
Rebecca nodded, her smile weak but game. “We managed,” she replied.
They turned back to the door. Taking a deep breath, Billy reached out and turned the handle, pushing it open.
It was surreal, watching the train crash into the basement of the training facility on a screen, hearing the dull thunder of the crash a beat later. They felt it, too, a very faint rumble in the walls all around them. In seconds, the camera lens was obscured by smoke.
“We should get out of here, now,” Birkin said, pacing behind Wesker's chair. He wasn't worried about fire, the old terminal was practically made out of cement—but a train crash was hard to miss, and not every cop and fireman in the vicinity was on Umbrella's payroll. The facility was isolated, but it would only take a phone call from one concerned citizen and Umbrella's bioweapons work would be exposed.
Wesker didn't even seem to be listening. He tapped at the monitor controls, shifting camera perspectives through other parts of the facility, searching for something. He'd barely said a word since the final transmission from the cleanup crew.
“Are you listening to me?” Birkin asked, not for the first time in the past few minutes. He was tense, and Wesker's cavalier attitude wasn't helping.
“I hear you, William,” Wesker said, still watching the screens. “If you want to leave, leave.”
“Well? Aren't you coming?”
“Oh, in a while,” he answered, his tone calm and even. “I just want to check on a few things.”
“Like what? I'd say the train is pretty much cleaned up. That's why we came, isn't it?”
Wesker didn't answer, only kept watching the screens. Birkin's hands clenched into fists. God, the man could be insufferable! That was the problem with sociopaths. The inability to empathize tended to make them completely self-centered.
