SEVENTEEN
JILL HAD TAKEN THE ELEVATOR INTO WHAT
seemed to be another part of the garden or courtyard,
although the area had been isolated, surrounded by
trees; she'd guessed as much from the few overgrown
potted plants and the welcome sounds of the forest
beyond the low metal railing. There had been nothing
to see but a rusting door set into a nondescript,
overgrown wall, welded shut and a large, open well,
like a stone wading pool. Inside had been a short,
spiral staircase leading down to another small elevator.
Which I took, but now where the hell am I?
The room that the elevator had led to was unlike
any other part of the estate she'd seen. It lacked the
strange, fetid charm of the mansion, or the dripping
gloom of the underground. It was as though she'd
walked out of a gothic horror story and into a military
complex, a utilitarian's bleak paradise.
She was standing in a large, steel-reinforced concrete
room, the walls painted a muddy industrial
orange. Metal ducts and overhead pipes lined the
upper walls, and the room was rather aptly titled
"XD-R Bl," painted across the concrete in black,
several feet high. Any sense she'd had of where she
was in relation to the rest of the estate was totally
gone.
Although it's as cold as everywhere else, at least I
know I'm still on the grounds. . .
There was a heavy metal door on one side of the
room, firmly locked. The sign to the left of it stated
that it was only to be opened in case of a first-class
emergency. She figured that the "Bl" on the wall
stood for "Basement level one," her theory confirmed
by the bolted ladder that led down through a narrow
shaft in the concrete; where there was Bl, B2 naturally
followed.
And considering the alternative, it looks like that's
where I'm headed. My other option is to go back
through the underground tunnels.
She peered down the ladder shaft, only able to see a
square of concrete at the bottom. Sighing, she held on
to the Remington and started down.
As soon as she hit the last rung, she turned anxious-
Ly and faced a much smaller room, as bland and
industrial as the first. Inset fluorescent lights on the
ceiling, a gray metal door, concrete walls and floor.
She walked through quickly, starting to feel hopeful
that there were no more creatures or traps. So far, the
basement levels had offered nothing more dangerous
than a lack of decorum. . .
She opened the door and her hope faded as the dry,
dusty smell of long-dead flesh hit her. She stepped out
onto a cement walkway that led over a flight of
descending stairs, a metal railing circling the path.
At the top of the steps was a crumpled zombie, so
emaciated and shriveled that it appeared mummified.
She held the shotgun ready and walked slowly
toward the stairs, noting that there was a hall branching
off to the left where the railing stopped. She
darted a quick look around the corner and saw that it
was clear. Still watching the desiccated corpse carefully,
she edged down the short corridor and stopped
at the door on her left. The sign next to the door read
"Visual Data Room," and the door itself was unlocked.
It opened up into a still, gray room with a long
meeting table in the center, a slide projector set up in
front of a portable screen at the far end. There was a
phone on a small stand pushed up against the right
wall, and Jill hurried over, knowing that it was too
much to hope for but having to check just the same.
It wasn't a phone at all, but an intercom system that
didn't seem to work. Sighing, she stepped past an
ornamental pillar and walked around the table, glancing
at the empty slide projector. She let her gaze
wander, looking for anything of interest
and it stopped on a flat, featureless square of
metal set into the wall, about the size of a sheet of
paper. Jill stepped over to take a closer look.
There was a flat bar at the top. She touched it
lightly, and the panel slid down into the wall, revealing
a large red button. She looked around the quiet
room, trying to imagine what the trap would be and
then realized that there wouldn't be a trap at all.
The mansion, the tunnels - all of it was rigged to
keep people from getting here, to these basement levels.
They're way too efficiently dull to be anything but
where the real work gets done.
She knew instinctively that her logic was sound.
This was a board room, a place for drinking bad
coffee and sitting through meetings with colleagues;
nothing was going to jump out at her if she pushed the
button.
Jill pushed it. And behind her, the ornamental
pillar slid to one side with a smooth, mechanical hum.
Behind the pillar were several shelves, stacked with
files and something that glittered in the soft gray
light of the room.
She hurried over and picked up a metal key, the top
of it imprinted with a tiny lightning bolt. Slipping it
into her pocket, she flipped through a few of the files.
They were all stamped with the Umbrella logo, and
though most of them were too thick and ponderous to
spend time sorting through, the title on one of the
reports told her what she needed to know, what she'd
already suspected.
Umbrella / Bioweapons Report / Research and Development.
Nodding slowly, Jill put the file back. She'd finally
found the real research facilities, and she knew that
the S.T.A.R.S. traitor would be somewhere in these
rooms. She was going to have to be very careful.
With a final glance around her, Jill decided to go see
if she could find the lock that the key belonged to. It
was time to place the last few pieces of the puzzle that
Umbrella had set up and that the S.T.A.R.S. had
sacrificed themselves trying to solve.
The twisted, gnarled root of Plant 42 took up a
large corner of the basement room, the bulk of it
hanging down in slender, fleshy tendrils that almost
touched the floor. A few of the tiny, worm-like threads
squirmed blindly around each other, twisting slowly
back and forth as if looking for the water supply that
Chris had drained.
"God, that's disgusting," Rebecca said.
Chris nodded agreement. Besides the control room
he'd escaped into, there had only been two other
chambers in the basement. One of them had been
stacked with boxes of cartridges for all kinds of
weapons and although most of them had been uselessly
wet, he'd found most of a box of ninemillimeter
rounds on a high shelf, saving them both
from running out of ammunition.
The other room had been plain, containing only a
wood table, a bench and the massive, creeping root
of the carnivorous plant that lived upstairs.
"Yeah," Chris said. "So how do we do this?"
Rebecca held up a small bottle of purplish fluid and
swirled it gently, still staring at the moving tendrils.
"Well, you stand back, and don't breathe too deeply.
This stuffs got a couple of toxins in it that neither of
us want to be ingesting, and it'll turn gaseous once it
hits the infected cells."
Chris nodded. "How will we know if it's working?"
Rebecca grinned. "If the V-Jolt report is on the
mark, we'll know. Watch."
She uncapped the bottle and stepped closer to the
twisted root, then upended the glass vial, dousing
the snaking tendrils with the watery fluid.
Immediately, a billow of reddish smoke plumed up
from the root as Rebecca emptied the bottle and
stepped quickly away. There was a hissing, crackling
sound like wet wood thrown atop a blazing fire and
within seconds, the feebly twisting fibers started to
break, pieces of them snapping off and flaking away.
The knotted thickness at the center started to tighten
and shrink, pulling into itself.
Chris watched in amazement as the giant, terrible
root suddenly shriveled up into a dripping ball of
mush no bigger than a child's ball and hung there,
dead. The entire process had taken about fifteen
seconds.
Rebecca nodded toward the door and both of them
stepped out into the drying basement, Chris shaking
his head.
"God, what'd you put in there?"
"Trust me, you don't want to know. You ready to
get out of here?"
Chris grinned. "Let's do it."
They both jogged toward the basement doors, hurrying
out into the cold corridor and back toward the
ladder that led upstairs. Chris was already going over
escape plans for when they left the bunkhouse. It
really would depend on where the exit led. If they
ended up in the woods, he was thinking that they
should head toward the closest road and light a fire,
then wait for help to come. . .
. . . though maybe we'll get lucky, run across the
damned parking lot for this place. We can hotwire a car
and drive out - and get Irons to do something useful
for a change, like call in reinforcements.
They reached the wood corridor and headed for the
plant room, both of them taking long, easy strides
past the hissing green walls and finally stopping at the
room that held Plant 42.
Breathing deeply, Chris nodded to Rebecca. They
both unholstered their weapons and Chris pushed the
door open, eager to see what lay beyond the experimental
plant.
They stepped into a huge, open room, the smell of
rotting vegetation thick in the damp air. Whatever it
had looked like before, the monster that had been
Plant 42 was now a massive, steaming lake of dark
purple goo in the center of the room. Bloated dead
vines the size of fire hoses draped limply across the
floor, extending out from the livid, gelid mass.
Chris scanned for the next door, saw a plain fireplace
against one wall, a broken chair in a corner
and a single door that apparently led back into
the bedroom he'd searched earlier. A hidden passage
that he'd missed and that led to the very room in
which they stood.
Must have been behind the bookcase. . .
There was no way out. Killing the plant had been a
waste of time, it hadn't been blocking anything.
Rebecca looked as disappointed as he felt, her
shoulders slumped and expression grim as she studied
the bare walls.
Ah, I'm sorry, Rebecca.
They both walked slowly around the room, Chris
staring at the dead plant and trying to decide what to
do next. Rebecca walked to the fireplace and crouched
down next to it, poking at the blackened ash.
He wouldn't drag her back to the mansion, neither
of them were up for it. Even with the extra ammo,
there were too many snakes. They could wait in the
courtyard for Brad to fly by again, hope he got into
range.
"Chris, I've found something."
He turned and saw her pull a couple of pieces of
paper out of the ashes, the edges scorched but both
sheets otherwise intact. He walked across the room
and leaned down to read over her shoulder and felt
his heart start pounding as the first words sank in.
SECURITY PROTOCOLS
BASEMENT LEVEL ONE:
Heliport/For executive use only. This restriction may not
apply in the event of an emergency. Unauthorized persons
entering the heliport will be shot on sight.
Elevator/The elevator stops during emergencies.
BASEMENT LEVEL TWO:
Visual Data Room/For use by the Special Research
Division only. All other access to the Visual Data Room must
be cleared with Keith Arving, Room Manager.
BASEMENT LEVEL THREE:
Prison/Sanitation Division controls the use of the prison.
At least one Consultant Researcher (E. Smith, S. Ross,
A. Wesker) must be present if viral use is authorized.
Power Room/Access limited to Headquarters Supervisors.
This restriction may not apply to Consultant Researchers
with special authorization.
BASEMENT LEVEL FOUR:
Regarding the progress of "Tyrant" after use of
T-Virus . . .
The rest of the paper was burned, the words lost.
"A. Wesker," Chris said softly. "Captain Albert
goddamn Wesker..."
Barry had said that Wesker disappeared right after
the Alphas had made it to the house. And it was
Wesker who led us here in the first place when the dogs
attacked. Cool, competent, unreadable Wesker, working
for Umbrella. . .
Rebecca flipped to the second page and Chris
leaned in, studying the neatly typed labels beneath the
drawn boxes and lines.
MANSION. COURTYARD. GUARDHOUSE. UNDERGROUND.
LABORATORIES.
There was even a compass drawn next to the sketch
of the mansion, to show them what they'd missed – a secret
entrance to the underground hidden behind the waterfall.
Rebecca stood up, eyes wide and uncertain. "Captain
Wesker is involved with all this?"
Chris nodded slowly. "And if he's still here, he's
down in those labs, maybe with the rest of the team. If
Umbrella sent him here, God only knows what he's
up to."
They had to find him, had to warn whoever was left
of the S.T.A.R.S. that Wesker had betrayed them all.
Everything was done. Wesker stepped into the
elevator that led back to level three, running through
his checklist as he lowered the outer gate and slid the
inner one closed.
. . . samples collected, disks erased, power reconnected,
Tyrant support off. . .
It was really too bad about the Tyrant. Ugly as it
was, the thing was a marvel of surgical, chemical, and
genetic engineering, and he'd stood in front of its glass
chamber for a long time, studying it in silent awe
before reluctantly shutting down its life support. As
the stasis fluids had drained, he'd found himself
imagining what it would have been like to see it in
action once the researchers had completed their work.
It would have been the ultimate soldier, a thing of
beauty in the battlefield . . . and now it had to be
destroyed, all because some idiot tech had hit the
wrong button. A mistake that had cost Umbrella
millions of dollars and killed the researchers who had
created it.
He hit the switch and the elevator thrummed to life,
carrying him back up for his final task-activating
the triggering system at the back of the power room.
He'd give himself fifteen minutes to make sure he was
clear of the blast radius, climb down the heliport
ladder, hit the back road toward town and boom,
no more hidden Umbrella facility. At least not in
Raccoon Forest. . . .
Once he got back into the city, he'd pack a bag and
head for Umbrella's private air strip. He could make
the necessary calls from there, let his contacts in the
White office know what had happened. They'd have a
clean-up team standing by to comb through the forest
and take out the surviving specimens-and they'd be
most eager to get their hands on the tissue samples
he'd taken, two of everything except for the Tyrant.
With the Tyrant scientists all dead, Umbrella had
decided to shelve the project indefinitely. Wesker
thought it was a mistake, but then, he wasn't getting
paid to think.
As the elevator slid to a stop, Wesker opened the
gates and stepped out, setting down the sample case.
He unholstered his Beretta, going over the twisting
layout of the power room in his mind. He had to make
another run through the Ma2s to get to the activation
system. He'd already managed it once to hook up the
elevator circuit, but they had been more active than
he'd expected; instead of weakening them, their hunger
had driven them to new heights of viciousness.
He'd been lucky to make it through unscathed.
At a hydraulic hum from down the hall, Wesker
froze. Footsteps clattered across the cement floor,
hesitated and then started for the power room at
the opposite end of the corridor.
Wesker eased up to the corner and looked down the
hall, just in time to see Jill Valentine disappear
through the metal doors, a burst of hissing mechanical
noise echoing through the corridor before they
closed.
How did she make it through the Hunters? Jesus!
Apparently he'd underestimated her . . . and she'd
been alone, too. If she was that good, the Ma2s might
not kill her, and she had effectively just blocked him
from the triggering system. He wouldn't be able to
deal with the creatures that roamed the maze like
walkways and put a stop to her prying. . .
Frustrated, Wesker scooped up the sample case and
walked quickly down the hall, back toward the hydraulic
doors that led to the main corridor of level
three. If she made it back out, he'd just have to shoot
her; it would only delay his escape by a few minutes.
Still, it was an unexpected curve, and as far as he was
concerned, it was too late in the game for surprises.
Surprises pissed him off, they made him feel like he
wasn't in control. . .
I AM in control, nothing is happening here that I
can't handle! This is MY game, my rules, and I will
accomplish my mission without any interference from
that little thief-bitch.
Wesker stalked out into the main corridor, saw that
Jill had managed to take out a few more of the
wizened, withered scientists and technicians that
wandered the basement labs. Two of them lay just
outside the door, their skulls blown into arid powder
by what looked like shotgun blasts. He kicked one of
them angrily, his boot crunching into the corpse's
brittle ribs, the dry snap of bone loud in the silence -
- except that suddenly, he heard heavy boots coming
down the metal stairs from B2, the hollow clump
echoing through the hall. And then a rough, hesitant
voice calling out.
"Jill?"
Barry Burton, as I live and breathe.
Wesker raised his weapon coolly, ready to fire when
Barry stepped into view and then lowered it
thoughtfully. After a moment, a slow grin spread
across his face
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