The doors slid open without any sound, revealing a corridor littered with rubble, but otherwise empty. He pushed the button for B1 again, hoping for another option, but the elevator doors didn't even close. Apparently, they could either go back to the bat and the zombies or they could explore the second basement level. Billy opted for exploration.
He stepped out cautiously, Rebecca right behind. Like the training facility mansion, the decor, the architecture, was refined and probably priceless. The floor was marble, chipped but still polished to a high sheen, the hall lined with handsome support pillars, the entries high and arched. To their left was a stairwell that led up, choked with broken rock and shattered drywall. There was another door on the left up ahead, just before the corridor turned sharply to the right.
They paused at the stairwell but it was a lost cause, the debris piled floor to ceiling. If they wanted to go back up, it was the elevator or nothing .. . though at the moment, Billy did not want to go back up.
It seemed like the constant barrage of disgusting, dangerous, frightening creatures would never end, and he was more than ready for a break.
“All those in favor of no more monsters,” he said softly.
“Aye,” Rebecca answered, her tone just as soft. She shot him a smile, but it looked strained. They started forward, boots crunching as they waded through the rubble.
Rebecca stayed by the first door as Billy quickly checked the rest of the corridor. There was one other obvious door, set with a combination lock—and a third possible door: Billy wasn't sure, it looked very much like the corridor simply dead-ended in a blue wall, but there was an elaborate shrine set up there— twin statues bookended a profiled relief of someone who looked very much like James Marcus. There was no keyhole, but beneath the bust was an empty depression the size of a child's fist, as though it were missing a piece.
Lovely. Two more puzzle locks, Billy thought sourly, walking back to Rebecca. What was it with these people? If they needed to be so goddamn clever, why couldn't they just stick to crossword puzzles?
Thankfully, the first door was unlocked. They stepped inside, finding themselves in another shabbily elegant room, this one lined with bookshelves. A stained oriental rug lay on the floor in the room's first section. The room itself was vaguely U-shaped. There were several lamps on, making it the brightest room they'd been in all night, and besides the shelves, there were several low tables and a small desk with an antique typewriter. Billy walked to the nearest desk, picked up a scrap of paper.
“ 'Trouble is unlikely, but I've taken precautions,' “ he read. “ 'To hide a leaf, put it in the forest. To hide a key, make it look like a leaf.' “
“Gee, that clears things up,” Rebecca said, and Billy nodded. Again—what was it with these people?
Rebecca looked the shelves over while Billy walked the room, noting a large hole in the ceiling around the corner from the door. It was high, but using one of the tables . . .
“Most of these are biology,” Rebecca called. “Mammalian, insectile, amphibian ...“
“Come look at this,” Billy called back. As she stepped around the corner, Billy grabbed the nearest table, pushing it under the hole. He still wouldn't be able to reach ...
“I could go up,” Rebecca said. “Look around, find a rope or something for you to climb.”
Billy frowned. “I don't know. Last time you went looking...“
“Yeah,” she said, but her expression was set. She was willing, if not eager—and they had to do something.
Billy stepped on the table, interlacing his fingers to give her a boost. She climbed up after him, put her right boot in his hands, one hand on his shoulder. As before, she was light as a feather; Billy could probably bench press two of her without much trouble. He pushed her up easily, Rebecca disappearing from sight as she crawled through. A second later, she was back at the hole.
“Seems clear, but it's dark,” she said. “Looks like a lab room, lot of shelves, couple of desks ... Let me see what I can find.”
She disappeared again. Billy waited, staring up at the hole, reminding himself that she knew how to handle herself. She'd already proven herself stronger and more capable than any number of seasoned soldiers he'd known—and if there was trouble, she could just hop back down, nothing to worry about—
Rebecca let out a short, sharp scream and Billy's blood went cold.
“Rebecca!” he shouted, his gaze fixed helplessly on the dark hole overhead.
It looked like a lab, one that had only been used intermittently in the last decade, and hadn't been cleaned at all in that time. There was thick dust on the floor and shelves, but things had been moved at some point,leaving signs—tracks behind chairs, fingerprints on specimen bottles. Rebecca took a quick look at her immediate surroundings, then leaned back over the hole. Billy's expression was tense, expectant.
“Seems clear, but it's dark. Looks like a lab room, lot of shelves, couple of desks . .. Let me see what I can find.”
She turned, surveyed the small room again—and realized that it was bigger than she thought, part of it hidden behind a large shelf that bisected the area. She wouldn't have noticed if not for the faint, pale, bluish light that seemed to be emanating from the hidden section. Holding her nine-millimeter, she stepped around the corner—
—and yelped, almost firing at the glowing, floating monster in front of her before she realized that it wasn't alive.
“Rebecca!”
“I'm okay!” she called back, staring at the bizarre creature. “Got a surprise, is all. Hang on.”
She stepped closer to the human-sized specimen tube, filled with clear liquid, lit from inside. There were actually four of the tubes, all in a row, each containing a slightly different horror than the one before. The things inside had been human, once, but they had been surgically altered, and almost certainly infected with T-virus. She tried to think of some description to give Billy, but they defied description; grossly misshapen limbs hung from muscular, patchwork bodies, the nearly unrecognizable faces wearing bizarre expressions of anguish and bloodlust. They were horrifying.
Past the row of humanoid monstrosities was a specimen case, filled with much smaller tubes. Rebecca leaned in, saw that each tube had a dead leech inside. She grimaced, was about to turn away—when she realized that one of the tubes was different. The leech inside was ... not a leech.
She pushed the dusty glass door aside and pulled out the anomalous tube, holding it up to the faint light. The tube's cap was glued or soldered shut, and the thing inside was leech shaped, but was sculpted or carved, and a deep, cobalt blue.
Why would anyone make a fake leech and then put it—
She blinked, remembering that piece of paper Billy had read from—to hide a leaf, put it in the forest. To hide a key ...
Rebecca walked back to the hole, held the tube out for Billy to see. “I think I found the leaf key,” she said, and tossed it down. “Or I guess I should say leech key.”
Billy caught it neatly, peered at it. “I'm pretty sure it'll fit one of those doors,” he said. “Come back down, we can go check.”
“The cap won't come off—“ she started, stopping as Billy dropped the tube on the floor next to the table. He grinned up at her, then jumped down, stomping the tube with the heel of his boot. Glass crinkled and crunched, and a second later, he was holding the carving up.
“Not a problem,” he said. “Come on.”
She chewed at her lip, looking around the lab. There were file cabinets, papers lying around ...
“You go check. I'm going to see if I can find another map.”
Billy frowned. “You sure?”
“Afraid to go by yourself?” she called, smiling slightly.
“Frankly, yes,” he said, but smiled back. “Okay. I'll be back in a minute. Don't wander too far away, all right? If you need anything, give me a call.”
Rebecca tapped her radio. “No sweat.”
He gazed up at her another moment, then turned and walked away. Rebecc
a looked around the lab once more, focusing on the larger of the two desks in the room. “Okay, Marcus, let's see if you left us anything useful,” she said, and moved to the desk, unaware that she was being watched very, very closely as she picked up a sheaf of papers and started to read.
This will not do.
He clenched his fists, furious. The children tried to soothe him, crawled across his shoulders, but he brushed them away, ignored their attempts.
Rebecca, reading Dr. Marcus's personal notes. Finding the charm that led to Dr. Marcus's inner sanctum, giving it to Billy. All they had to do was get to the cable car, perhaps pick a lock or two, and they could be on their way . . . But it seemed they would not leave the memory of Dr. Marcus alone, that they had to violate the very few privacies he'd left behind.
“Not if we stop them,” he told the children, watching as Billy used the small effigy to open Dr. Marcus's rooms, as Rebecca rifled carelessly through Marcus's private papers. It had been an amusing
diversion, watching these two, but it was over now. The world would have to learn the truth about Umbrella without them.
Time to send the children out to play.
Eleven
As he'd suspected, that dead end shrine was a door, and the tiny leech statue that Rebecca had found fit perfectly in the door's “lock.” There was a soft, hidden click and the door unlatched.
Billy studied the front of the door a moment before going in, deciding that the profile was, in fact, that of Dr. James Marcus. He wondered why the leech man they'd seen on the train had looked like Marcus; the leeches had been controlled by that obviously much younger man, the one singing outside. Was the real Marcus still around? It didn't seem likely. That diary Rebecca had found—Marcus had been raving, paranoid that Spencer was coming for him, coming to take his work, and that had been ten years ago. People that nuts usually weren't able to hold down day jobs.
Rebecca was waiting. He set the minor mystery aside and pushed past the extravagant door with the barrel of the shotgun. A quick scan for movement— nothing—and he lowered the weapon, stepping farther inside.
“Wow,” he said, hushed, looking around the room. It was an office, large, expensively fitted with built-in shelves and cabinets on one side, all dark, polished wood and beveled glass, an ornate fireplace opposite. The antique wood furniture—a low table, chairs, a big desk—was beautiful, the carpet plush, silencing his steps. He saw a door at the back of the room, behind the desk, and mentally crossed his fingers that it would turn out to be their escape route.
Much of the room's light came from a huge aquarium that dominated the northeast corner near where he stood, painting everything with watery bluish light, though the aquarium itself was empty—
—Billy frowned, stepped closer. Not empty. There were no fish, no rocks or plants, but there were a number of things floating at the top—disgusting things, unrecognizable but no less grotesque. They appeared to be pieces of human flesh, but shapeless, boneless, like deformed, amputated body parts. Billy quickly moved on, disturbed by the pale floating objects.One of the wall cabinets stood open, and Billy walked to it, scanning the books inside. An ancient photo album lay on one shelf and he picked it up. He knew he had to get back to Rebecca but he was curious, wondering if the bust on the door meant he was in Marcus's office.
The photos were old, yellowed and curled. He turned a few pages, decided it was a waste of time. He started to put the album back—and a loose picture fluttered out. He stooped to pick it up, held it up to the blue, rippling light.
The picture itself wasn't particularly interesting, a trio of young men from the thirties or forties, all looking clean-cut and well scrubbed, smiling at the picture taker. On the back, someone had written, “To James, To commemorate your graduation, 1939.”
Billy studied the photo, decided that the young man in the middle could be James Marcus.
Something about the shape of the head ... He looked familiar, somehow...
“That guy,” he said, nodding to himself. The singer from the train. They hadn't seen him well, but he had the same stance, the same wide shoulders ... “He could be Marcus's son. Or grandson.”
There was a puzzle here, and he was starting to think he'd just found another piece. If Spencer had overthrown Marcus, taken his work, wouldn't Marcus's son, or his son's son, want revenge? Maybe the viral outbreak hadn't been an accident. Maybe the guy with the leeches had done it.
Billy sighed, setting the photo on top of the album. That was all good and well, but for all practical purposes, who gave a shit? He needed to be looking for a way out.
He checked the desk for keys or maps, found nothing, and went to the room's second door, thankfully unlocked. He pushed it open, felt his hopes dwindle; there was no big tunnel with a flashing exit sign. It was an art storage room, looked like, paintings stacked against walls, a few statues draped with sagging dropcloths. One statue was uncovered, a white marble piece that looked like one of those old Roman gods, seated against one flocked wall, its dusty gaze uplifted, a hand cupped near its belly:—
—and holding something. Something green.
Billy walked over and took the small object from the statue's pallid fingers, smiling faintly when he realized what it was. It was another carving of a leech, this one in green instead of blue.
Another key, perhaps to another secret door. And this one might really be their ticket out.
Day One
Administrated T to four leeches. Their single-minded biology makes them perfect candidates for this research, but they may be too simplistic to adapt. No immediate changes observed.
The word four was underlined. In the margin, someone had scrawled “change sequence” in a spidery hand, and circled it.
It was part of a lab journal, mostly dates and numbers. Rebecca had been about to set it back down when she'd seen that several phrases and words had been underlined on one of the last pages. She read on, looking for more of the marked passages.
Day Eight
A week now. Rapid growth to double their former size, signs oftransformation emerging. Spawning successful, their numbers doubled, but cannibalistic behavior has been initiated, presumably due to increase in appetite. Hastened to augment food supply, but lost two.
Numbers doubled and two were underlined.
Day 12
Provided them with live food but lost half when prey fought back. However, they are learning from experience, beginning to exhibit group attack behavior. Evolution is exceeding expectations.
Lost half was underlined.
There were no more marked entries, but Rebecca skimmed on, disturbed by the success of the strange experiment.
Day 23, leeches no longer exhibit individual traits, can move as a collective. Day 31, breeding at a fantastic rate, eating everything offered now...
The last entry painted clearly for her just how far into madness Dr. Marcus had slipped.
Day 46
A day worthy of remembrance. Today, they began to mimic me. They recognize their father, I believe. I feel such strong affection for them, from them. Do they love? I think they do. It's us, now, only me and my brilliant children. No one will take them away from me.
With all that I've learned, they wouldn 't dare.
“Hey!”
It was Billy, calling up through the floor. Rebecca set the papers down and walked to the hole, kneeling next to it.
“Did you find anything useful?” she asked, looking down at him.
“Maybe. Catch,” he said, tossing something small up through the hole. Rebecca caught it. It was another of the leech keys, this one green.
“Is there a door up there with a bust of Marcus on the front?” Billy asked.
Rebecca shook her head. “I don't know. Not in this room, anyway. I've been reading more about his whacko experiments. Want me to go take a look around?”
Billy hesitated. “Why don't I come up, we can both look. Just let me find another table or something ...“
“I
'll be careful,” Rebecca said. “Didn't you say there was another door down there? Maybe you should try and get it open while I see if I can find the keyhole for this thing.”
“It's a combination lock,” Billy said. “Unless you have a set of picks handy, I don't think we're going to get it open.”
Rebecca sighed. Too bad Jill Valentine wasn't with them. She was on the Alpha team, and according to Barry, she could break into anything ...
. .. “change sequence.”
Billy nodded, and Rebecca edged back from the hole, hurrying to the desk with Marcus's notes.
She quickly read through the marked passages, did the math as she hurried back. Four leeches... Doubled... Lost two... Lost half...“Try ... four-eight-six-three,” she said.
“Wild guess?” Billy asked.
Rebecca smiled faintly. “Probably. Just check.” She held up the green leech carving. “I'll see if I can find where this goes.”
Billy nodded, reluctantly, and Rebecca stood up, started for the room's door, not sure if she was being brave or stupid. She didn't really want to do anything alone, not since her encounter with the primates, but as long as she was already on the first floor, it made sense for her to take a look.
The lab's door opened into a short corridor, three doors besides the one she'd come through. The first door, on the right, was locked. The second door, around a corner and also to the right, was open, but a quick glance inside showed nothing but a large, empty room, a small office set to one side. It was too dark to see much else. Rebecca closed the door, relieved that she was already two-thirds of the way through her little search, and went to the last door, at the end of the corridor.
Also unlocked. Rebecca pushed it open, saw yet another door only a meter in front of her; to the left, the room opened up into what appeared to be the same lab she'd started from ... It wasn't, but with the way the rooms were oriented, it had to be connected to the first lab. Maybe they'd split it up at some
point-A movement. There, near a table by the connecting wall, was one of the infected, a gaunt,
sallow man, his eyes blank, his mouth open and hungry. He shuffled toward her, making a soft gurgling sound in the back of his throat.
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