Chapter 5-3
Her Majesty the Leech Queen
Beneath the Umbrella Labs
(Enter REBECCA CHAMBERS)
They ended up going down the same way Enrico had. Since the elevator Enrico had used would almost certainly have just led them back into the laboratory, it was the only logical choice. Rebecca had been afraid she'd run into her teammates and have to explain her relationship with Billy, but since he'd suggested it…
But they didn't run into the STARS, or anyone else. For whatever reason, none of the infected had made their way down here and whatever test subjects had managed to escape, if there even had been any, had apparently come up short against Enrico and his men. The tunnels had a certain stillness to them, and it made Rebecca uncomfortable.
Still, they sloped upward, and that fact counted for more. Billy stopped and pointed to a sign.
EMERGENCY ELEVATOR AHEAD
IN CASE OF CONTAMINATION OR EVACUATION,
PROCEED THIS WAY
"I think we may be able to use that" he said, deadpan.
"I think you might be on to something there" Rebecca answered.
They headed in the direction the sign indicated. Ahead they could see a pair of heavy iron doors, the word ELEVATOR written across them in chipped white paint.
"This is it" said Billy, putting his hands on one door while Rebecca took the other. "This is the first leg of the end of this nightmare. Are you ready?"
Rebecca nodded. "You have no idea."
Together they pushed the door open. Rebecca stepped forward eagerly, expecting to see the elevator that would lead them to the surface and freedom. Her eyes found it, sure enough (it was more of a large car on a conveyor belt and rather hard to miss), but not before she saw the thick coating of slime that covered every surface in the room.
"My God" said Billy, stepping in beside her. "Look at them."
Rebecca already was. She couldn't stop looking at the leeches that covered every inch of the room. There had to be thousands, if not tens of thousands of them. The engine of the Ecliptic Express had been covered in the same slimy carpet, but Rebecca would have bet there were far more leeches here than had been aboard the entire train.
"Magnificent, aren't they?" said an unfamiliar voice. Billy and Rebecca's heads both jerked up, searching out the source of the voice.
It resolved itself a moment later; a young man (Rebecca thought he looked to be about the same age as Billy; early twenties) in a flowing white robe tied by a simple cord of rope at the waist. A strange symbol was the robe's only adornment, but it didn't distract the eye from the obvious power of the garment's owner. He was well built and broad shouldered, with a face that would have been handsome had it not been so obviously cruel.
Rebecca gasped, her eyes widening. There was a man, in the forest. A young guy, with some crazy robe thing. He…he tried to kill me and Edward. Mat's words, spoken so long ago on the Ecliptic Express, came back to her suddenly.
"Who the fuck are you?" Billy demanded, his voice angry.
"He's the puppet master" Rebecca said. "He's the one who's been pulling all the strings all night." She pointed a finger at him. "You-you-you bastard! You killed Edward and Mat!"
The young man grinned. "And Kevin and a host of others who you'll never learn about. And that's just tonight. Tomorrow, I'll expose the whole word to my armies!"
Billy looked on in confusion. "Who…who are you?"
The young man chuckled coldly. "You have no idea, do you? No idea who I am?" He shrugged. "It's a shame. But I guess if I'm going to kill you, you should at least know why."
And then he began to change. His entire body shuddered, and Rebecca realized that his entire shape, his entire being, was not that of a person at all. He was made up of the leeches, the same as the man who had attacked her on the train.
When the transformation was done it was not a young man who stood before them, but an old one, an old man with a hawk-like nose and beady eyes set into a skull-like face.
"Doctor Marcus?" Rebecca said aloud. "But…That's impossible!"
Marcus laughed coldly; not the rich sound of the young man but a harsh cackle. "No, dear, I'm afraid it is very possible. Years ago, I was murdered on the order of Umbrella higher ups. They were jealous and fearful of my genius and wanted to put someone in my pass that they could control. They came into the very labs under which we stand and shot me down like a dog." He kept talking, but his voice and body began to change again, back to the young man (the young Marcus Rebecca realized). "They left me to die in my lab. But, as I lay bleeding out on the cold floor, something happened. Something wondrous. My Queen, the leech on whom I had begun my experiments, saw my need and came to me. From that moment on, we two were as one." He gestured around at the other leeches. "It has been a long time in coming, but finally my children were strong enough and numerous enough to make our war. We attacked the Umbrella labs here in the forest. We infected the people of the outlying houses and on the train. Soon, we'll be ready to step out of the darkness and into the daylight, and then we will bring down Umbrella!"
"It doesn't have to be that way" said Rebecca urgently.
Billy looked at her in confusion. "What are you doing?" he asked her quietly.
"Trust me" she replied at the same volume. Raising her voice, she turned to Marcus. "Doctor, you're a genius. Anyone can see that. What you've done with the T-virus is…elegant. You could do so much for humanity. But this? You've taken your God given talents and turned them into something…something evil. You want to stop Umbrella. So do we. Why can't we work together? With your help we could bring these people down." She paused. "And no one else would have to die" she said softly.
Marcus stared at her for a moment, his face unreadable. Then, sudden and whip-like, his arm shot out and slapped her across the face with enough force to knock her off her feet.
Billy had the shotgun up in a second. "Touch her again, you monster, and I'll take your goddamned head off!"
Marcus chuckled. "Your toy gun doesn't scare me. I've already died once. You will not kill me again." He looked at Rebecca, who was in the process of picking herself up off the ground. "You say we should work together, do you?" He laughed out loud. "You have no idea how the world works, do you girl? How far Umbrella's influence reaches?" He shook his head. "No. There can be only one way to end them, only one way to revenge myself." He stretched out his arms, like a preacher reaching the climax of his sermon. "The entire world must burn in an inferno of hate!"
Billy pumped the shotgun. "Not if I can help it!"
Marcus opened his mouth, probably with some other dark and dire prophecy of the world; only this time no words came out. Instead, like some sort of huge and slimy tongue, a leech slid forward.
Rebecca cringed. She saw Billy wrinkle his noise in disgust. "What the fuck-"
Marcus seemed just as surprised by this turn of events as they did. His eyes had grown wide with horror. He opened his mouth again, to say what Rebecca had no idea, but it made no difference; more leeches came out. The young Marcus clawed at his throat, which had begun to bulge and tremble, but then Rebecca figured her own throat would do the same thing, were it full of leeches trying to be free.
"C'mon!" Billy said, tapping her arm. "Let's go. While he's still doing…Whatever the hell it is he's doing."
They sprinted to the elevator trolley, vaulting over the low guard rail. Billy wiped the control panel clear of leech slime, then began pressing buttons. "One of these has to be it" he muttered to himself.
He must have pushed the right button; with a jolt the car began to move, agonizingly slow at first but faster and faster the farther it went.
Rebecca looked down at Marcus. He was still standing in the same spot; his body's outline becoming blurred as the leeches that held him together slowly began to loose whatever central control had held them together. She watched as his eyes expanded out of his head into the same sort of appendages she'd seen on the head of the crawling insects in the Training Center. The rest of his body sank into a puddle, a puddle that grew larger and larger as leeches from all over the room joined it.
The puddle slowly resolved itself into a hideous mass, somewhere between the leeches that had formed it and a huge and evil beetle. It cast blind eyes about the room, shaking the twin antennae on its head in what Rebecca assumed was some sort of sonar; it was trying to hear its way to them.
"All hail the Queen" Rebecca muttered.
Instantly the monster's head jerked up in their direction. With a roar of hunger it surged after them, onto to the conveyor belt of the elevator.
"Oh shit" said Billy quietly.
And the chase was on.
Umbrella Management Training Center
(Enter WILLIAM BIRKIN)
After much horrifying, vain searching, he had found it. The control room, the room from which Umbrella had monitored all of the comings and goings, all of the goings on and doings of the UMTC.
Hastily he made his way to the central computer and booted it up. He was amazed that, after years and years of neglect, it still worked.
The first screen that came up showed that there was an ongoing distress signal from the Hive. Birkin irritably exed out of that screen, then opened the command prompt window.
"Administrative access" he muttered to himself as he typed. "Fail safe devices. Self destruct system. Password….?" He shook his head, trying to remember what it had been. Damnation, it's been to long since I did this last. Then, it dawned on him. "Annette."
The screen flashed up a message.
PASSWORD ACCEPTED
"WARNING" came the anonymous (and to Birkin and the dozens of other Umbrella trainees, obnoxious) voice of the UMTC's automated announcement system. It had usually been used to announce meal times, curfew, and other such things. Now its final task would be to announce its own destruction. "SELF DESTRUCT SYSTEM ACTIVATED. FIFTEEN MINUTES UNTIL UMTC AND ALL LABORATORIES DETONATE."
Birkin was already out the door before she had finished speaking. Fifteen minutes? He'd have to hurry if he planned to get out. All the same, Birkin wasn't worried. He was a survivor, always had been. Of his graduating class at the UMTC, only himself, Annette, and Albert, and a small handful of others, had survived of a group of over one hundred candidates. Birkin had gotten where he was through sheer determination, cunning, and ruthlessness. It'd take more than a dumb AI like the UMTC's computer to finish him.
All the same, William Birkin made it out of the building completely before the system countdown had reached ten minutes.
