I've got work to do, Birkin thought, looking toward the door. Work, a family ... he wasn't going to wait around for Joe Firefighter to come knocking, looking for an explanation as to why there were zombies wandering around the crash site ...
“Ah, there we are,” Wesker said, thumbing a key beneath one of the screens. It was the main lobby of the facility, built to welcome execs and grunts alike into the less-than-legal world of White Umbrella. And as they watched, a hand came up through the floor, pushing aside a square cover.
That's the old access tunnel, leads from the terminal. Birkin leaned forward, curious in spite of himself.
A man with an elaborate tattoo on one arm crawled out of the dark square in the northwest corner of the room, followed by a small woman in a S.T.A.R.S. uniform, a girl, really. Both carried handguns, and looked around the finely decorated lobby with expressions Birkin couldn't read from the small screen.
“Who on earth are those people?” he asked.
“The girl is a S.T.A.R.S. rookie, B team,” Wesker said. “No one of consequence. The male I don't recognize.”
“Do you think—were they on the train?”
“Had to have been,” Wesker said.
Birkin felt a new surge of panic. “What are we going to do?”
Wesker glanced up at him, one eyebrow arched. “What do you mean?”
“They—she's with S.T.A.R.S., and who knows who he's working for. What if they escape?”
“Don't be obtuse, William. They won't escape. Even if the facility wasn't locked down, the place is overrun with carriers. All they have to do is open a door or two, and they'll cease to be of any concern.”
Wesker's bland tone was chilling, but he had a point. The chances of anyone getting out of the facility were slim to none.
As they watched, the two intruders moved carefully around the big room, one of the only rooms in the building free of the infected, both sweeping their weapons side to side. After a thorough check, the girl walked up the grand staircase, stopping at the small landing mid-floor. There was a large portrait there of Dr. Marcus—and the girl seemed surprised by it, as though she recognized him. The tattooed man joined her, and Birkin could see him reading aloud from the small plaque beneath the portrait—
DOCTOR JAMES MARCUS, FIRST GENERAL MANAGER.
Birkin shifted uncomfortably. He hated that picture. It reminded him of how he'd gotten his real start in Umbrella, not something he liked to think about—
“Attention. This is Doctor Marcus.”
Birkin jumped, looking around with wide eyes, his heart pounding. Wesker didn't flinch, but turned up the sound on the console's ancient intercom as the voice of a man ten years dead rang through the empty spaces and corridors of the entire complex.
“Please be silent as we reflect upon our company motto. Obedience breeds discipline. Discipline breeds unity. Unity breeds power. Power is life.”
The man and woman on the screen were lookingaround as well, but Birkin barely glanced in their direction. He grabbed Wesker's shoulder, unnerved. It was a recording, one he hadn't heard since he and Wesker had still been students at the facility. Where ?— who ?—
Wesker brushed his hand away, nodding toward the screen, where the picture was fading. It seemed to blink—and then they were looking at a young man in another location. Birkin didn't recognize the room, but the young man staring back at them seemed almost familiar. He had long hair and dark eyes, was probably in his early twenties—and he had a sharp, cruel smile, as thin and cutting as a steel blade.
“Who are you?” Wesker asked, surely not expecting an answer, there was no audio set up—
The young man laughed, the sound pouring out of the intercom like dark silk. It wasn't possible—he didn't wear a headset, wasn't near any part of the com system—but they could hear him clearly nonetheless.
“It was I who scattered the T-virus in the mansion,” he said, his voice cold. His smile sharpened. “Needless to say, I contaminated the train, too.”
“What?” Birkin blurted. “Why?”
The young man's cold voice seemed to deepen. “Revenge. On Umbrella.”
He turned away from the camera, raising his arms to the shadows. Birkin and Wesker both leaned in, trying to see what he was doing, but they could only see movement in the darkness, hear something like water—
The young man turned back to look at them, his smile ever sharper—and from out of the shadows behind him stepped a tall, distinguished man in a suit and tie, his white hair slicked back, his features lined with age but powerful, commanding. It was the same face that graced the portrait in the lobby.
“Dr. Marcus?” Birkin gasped.
“Ten years ago, Dr. Marcus was murdered by Umbrella,” the young man said, his voice almost a snarl. “And you helped them. Didn't you?”
He laughed again, that dark and silken laugh, a laugh that promised no mercy as Birkin and Wesker stared, stunned into silence by the visible, living presence of a man they'd watched die a decade earlier.
The young man sang, and the many, his children, turned the camera away, manipulated the controls that allowed his voice to travel. He'd said all he intended, at least for the moment; there was much to do, many choices to consider. Things were unfolding, always unfolding in new directions.
He sang a slower song and the image and body of Marcus collapsed, reverted to the children. They gathered at his feet, coursed up and over his body, stroking him, adoring him. Waiting for him to decide what was next.
There was no plan, beyond Umbrella's destruction. He had and would continue to employ whatever means came to hand—the virus, the many, the false images that the many were capable of creating, like Marcus; he had been for Albert and William's benefit, had undoubtedly left them afraid and confused.
The young man smiled. How fortuitous, that they of all people should be witness to the downfall. With luck, he would have the opportunity to see them expire, to stand by as they had once stood by, pitilessly watching their mentor in his last struggling moments . . . Though their deaths were meaningless in the grander picture. What mattered was that Umbrella would soon be no more.
He considered the man and woman from the train, how he might use them now that they'd entered the complex. His first inclination had been to kill them, to keep them from interfering, but that seemed a waste; after all, wasn't Umbrella now their enemy, too? They would fight for their lives, fight to be free—and if they succeeded, they would draw immediate attention to the disaster, what he had always seen as the cross atop Umbrella's grave. Destroying their laboratories, killing their employees—they could always build new labs, hire new people. Oncethe spotlight of the international press turned toward Umbrella, however, their ruin would be complete ... And the world would finally know his name.
The facility had been locked down, of course. It had been designed with almost as many door puzzles and concealed passages as Trevor's mansion, built a decade earlier. Oswell Spencer, one of Umbrella's co-founders, had been obsessed with spy movies and books, and as paranoid as any megalomaniac, which made for an extremely secure lockdown. There were hidden keys, doors that wouldn't open without missing pieces, even a room or two designed to trap unwary intruders. It wouldn't be easy for anyone to escape.
But there were other false men seeded throughout the complex, men created by the many, each prepared to infect any and all who came near; they had helped spread the virus in the first place. He
could use them now to open the training facility, to collect keys and unlock doors, to ensure that the man and woman would at least have a chance to survive. It was a slight chance—the false men weren't the only virus carriers roaming the halls—but they had already proven themselves to be more resilient than most.
The young man laughed, thinking of Albert and William, wondering what they were thinking; James Marcus's brightest students, working damage control for Umbrella. After all these years. It was an irony beyond measure.
The children cooed, covered him, delighted in his laughter and sang their own sweet song, a song of chaos and interdependence as their cool, slick bodies, filled with the blood of his enemies, merged and enveloped him.
“. . . breeds power. Power is life.” The powerful voice faded, the great hall falling silent once more. It had to be a recording or something, it didn't sound live, but someone had turned it on—and she thought she had an idea of who. She turned her attention back to the portrait of Dr. Marcus and felt a shiver run down her spine.
“Well, that was creepy,” Billy said.
