deep, cackling laugh from the room beyond the entryway.
Without a word, she and Billy walked away from the door, both of them holding their weapons tightly, stepped around the corner—
—and froze, staring at the vast sea of life that surrounded them, that seemed to cover every square inch of wall, that dripped and crawled across the ceiling, the floor. Leeches, thousands of them, hundreds of thousands. The room was a large one, high and wide, split by a small corridor that ran along the back wall. Incinerators lined a central construct that rose to the ceiling, openings in the metal showing flickers of fire. There was a big metal door on the south wall, set back into a recessed doorway, which appeared to be the only other way out—if they wanted to run through all those leeches, which Rebecca most definitely did not. The cavernous space was bi-level, a catwalk encircling the central construct, an open fire at one side of the upper walk casting a flickering glow over the black, bubbling sea that washed across the room's every nook and corner—and on the walk, a lone figure, a tall, broad-shouldered young man, laughing, his strong, strange voice carrying in the salt-scented, rotten air.
“Welcome,” he said, and laughed again, a leech curled on each shoulder, others trailing down his extended arm. He was surrounded by the creatures. “So glad you could join us. You're the guests of honor ... After all, this is your wake.”
Rebecca only stared, stunned into silence, but Billy took a step forward, raising his voice.
“You're his son, aren't you? Or his grandson?”
Rebecca knew immediately who he was talking about, and found herself nodding. Ofcourse...
“That's right,” the young man said, smiling widely, a fiendish smile. “In a way, I'm both.”
He made a shrugging motion with his arms—and changed, the transformation rippling over his body like water, like a movie effect. His long, dark hair shortened, turned white. His youthful features melted into aged ones, lines and creases forming, his eyes changing color, the pupils enlarging. In seconds, he was no longer the young man, though his smile was just as cold, just as brutal.
It was Billy's turn to be silent, as Rebecca breathed out the name, unable to believe that it wasn't another trick, another false face. “Dr. Marcus?”
The man on the catwalk nodded, and began to speak.
“Ten years ago, Spencer had me assassinated,” he said, the memories flashing through his hive mind, the children remembering for him. The images were blurred and dark, indistinct in shape and color, but the feelings were as clear as they had been on the day he'd lost his life.
He had been expecting an attack for some time, but it had still come as a surprise. He'd been working in his lab, the children playing in the pool at his feet, when the door burst open—and then there was gunfire, loud and final. He remembered the pain as he fell to his knees, clutching at the holes in his chest, his gut—and remembered seeing two familiar faces, the men walking into the room, his brilliant
disciples, his best students watching as he gasped his last breaths. Albert Wesker and William Birkin, both smiling, smiling!
He remembered the sense of loss, the incredible anger that clawed to the surface of his dying mind as his body fell, splashing into the pool, the children scattering as everything went to black ...
... and then the memories changed, became the thoughts of the many. He could see his own face and body, half submerged, pale and ugly in death, but loved, so very loved by the hive mind. He had been their God, their creator and teacher, their father. They swam to him, wormed between his sagging lips, wiggled and strained to enter the gaping holes that had been blown through his poor flesh.
Marcus found his voice, telling the two stunned watchers what they needed to know, to understand. “They left me to rot, took my notes and closed my lab, leaving it all to the ruin of time. They didn't understand, you see. Time was what was needed. It took years for the T-virus inside my queen to reconstruct, to evolve ... And to become the variation that created what I am now.”
He smiled, relishing their mute awe, enjoying his moment in the sun of their wonder. “So, you are correct. I am Marcus, but I'm also Marcus's son, and grandson—and every other extension, all other offspring, the union between Marcus and his queen. My queen. She lives inside of me. She sings to her children.”
At the intensity of his joy, his triumph, the children surged toward him, swam up his legs, tickled their way across his most familiar form, that of James Marcus. He reveled in the feeling, laughing aloud at the revulsion that crossed the faces of his two young guests. If only they knew! The phenomenal rapture he felt as part of the hive, its leader and follower—Marcus's death had freed him, had made him far greater than his human life ever would have allowed.
“I scattered the virus,” he said. “The world will know, now, what Umbrella has done. What Spencer and his stupid greed have contrived. Umbrella will burn, but Marcus will be hailed as a god for what he created. I am the archetype of a new man, far superior to the lonely pattern of humanity; the world will seek me out, will beg to join the hive, to unite as one mind, one all-powerful being!”
The man, Billy, spoke again, his face curled in loathing, his voice tight with it. “You're dreaming. You're a sick, twisted freak, whatever you are—and the world will seek you out, but only to kill you, to put an end to your insane delusions!”
Such a fool, so self-righteous in his own stupidity! A great anger rose in him, in the children, tainting his joy. He could feel his body quake with it. “We'll see who's going to die,” he said, his voice trembling with anger—
—but it was no longer Marcus's voice, he had be-come the young man again, the children's vision of Marcus as a youth. He frowned, not sure why he had changed, or how—he had not wished it, had not sung or willed the shift in form.
The children swept through him, swollen with his anger, ignoring his inner commands, and for the first time since he'd crawled from the pool only a few months ago, since the hive had given him his new life, he had no control over it. The many would not listen, wanted only to smite the intruders, to squash them.
The young man felt them rising to his throat, spilling out like bile, choking him. He tried to hold on, to exert his influence, but the anger was too big, too all-encompassing. He was changing, becoming something entirely new, and his struggle for domination was washed aside, lost to this new thing.
The queen! He could feel her consciousness filling him, her creative power surging forth, carried by the children to every part of his metamorphosing form. She wanted to kill, to destroy the two humans who dared to judge her, and she was far stronger than even he had imagined.
The thing that had once been Marcus had no choice but to surrender, to become the most powerful player of all. To become the queen.
Marcus started to change once more, in a way that seemed to surprise him as much as it surprised Billy. Leeches began to pour from his mouth, gagging him, dozens of them sliding out in a rush of slime, hitting the floor like fat raindrops. The young man's eyes were wide, his expression one of disbelief as he continued to choke out the slick fall of leeches.
As soon as they hit the floor, the creatures rushed back to the young man, swarming up his body, attaching themselves, burrowing into him. Round shapes moved beneath his skin, tunneling, changing the shape and texture of his flesh. His clothes melted away as the leeches continued to swarm, giving his body a strangely rubbery appearance, his arms and legs starting to look like great masses of fat worms twined together. His face elongated, stretching, the skin tearing to expose ribbed striations of purplish muscle tissue, throbbing, turning thick and wet with goo.
Next to him, Rebecca drew a sharp breath as the Marcus-creature lost its human appearance entirely, its whole body made up of those fat worms now, stuck together by dripping webs of clear slime. It grew in size as well, the leeches near it joining the multitude, adding mass and height. Long, stringy tentacles shot up from its back, whipping around like streamers in a high wind, the color of inflammation, of infection.
“The queen,” Rebecca breathed. “She's taking control.”
Billy pointed the Magnum at the growing creature—
—and the thing flew upward, leaping straight into the air. It hit the ceiling with a huge, wet smacking sound and clung there a moment, dribbling thick fluids to the floor far below. Except for having four limbs, it no longer looked remotely human.
Billy fired at the ceiling but it was already gone, dropping to the floor in front of them, condensing slightly as it hit the ground like some giant rubber toy. It— she—stretched out again, towering over him and Rebecca, those dark tentacles snapping around toward them, reaching for them.
He and Rebecca both stumbled back. Billy felt his boots sliding as he stepped on any number of the leeches
