Wesker pushed open the heavy double-doors to the mansion, the hinges complaining loudly. A carpeted staircase stood directly across from him. Marble floors, antique suits of armor, glass showcases, and lacquered balustrades glittered in the incandescent glow of an enormous Venetian chandelier.
It was jarring, he thought, how similar the foyer looked to the foyer in the Spencer Estate; but Wesker had never accused any of the higher-ups of having an imagination, least of all the Ashfords—and he'd always maintained this theory that Trevor had been running some sort of wholesale deal for his designs.
A massive oil portrait, part of it burned, of Alexander and the twins hung on the wall at the top of the staircase. In front of that portrait, on the landing, stood one of the twins: a tall, willowy woman with broad shoulders, and hair so pale that it was almost white, her aristocratic features composed in a look of haughty vacancy. Alexia.
"Dr. Wesker," Alexia greeted. Whatever awkwardness she'd possessed as a child had gone, in its place a certain confident elegance evocative of Golden Hollywood starlets. She wore a dark dress that might have been black, or perhaps a very dark purple, cut in a style that had been fashionable a century ago. A ruby glittered on her neck, fixed to a band of dark leather.
"Oh, good," Wesker said, and closed the doors behind him. "Your memory's intact. I'd thought the fifteen years of stasis would have muddled it."
"I was quite sick when I'd initially woken up," she said, smiling. Her smiles, for as long as Wesker had known her, were measured, deliberate things with no warmth in them at all. She tilted her head. "Cryosickness is a hell of a thing, Dr. Wesker."
"Albert," he corrected, and strode across the foyer to the staircase. Wesker paused at the foot of it, staring up at her. "I don't work for Umbrella anymore."
"I know," Alexia said. "You're with the H.C.F."
"Indeed," he replied. "The Hive/Host Capture Force." Wesker touched the newel, propped his boot on the bottom step, smiled. "Can we chat, Dr. Ashford?" he asked, politely. "I would rather not resort to violence." He pointed at her. "You're too valuable."
"You need me to decipher Scott's research," she said.
"Among other things," Wesker agreed. He tapped his skull with a gloved finger, then said, "Your brain is what's valuable, Dr. Ashford. That's ultimately what my employer wants. Everything else is simply icing on the cake."
"And Grayson," she said.
"He's the only known carrier of the Origin virus, Dr. Ashford." Wesker paused, then added, "The only known successful carrier, that is." He motioned to his eyes, and said, "The prototype virus William gave me was his own interpretation of the Origin virus. And Scott's little venture into self-experimentation didn't pan out as he'd hoped." He shrugged, stared at her, then said, "That leaves only Grayson as a viable candidate."
"You'll get Grayson when I'm cold and dead," Alexia said, and he knew she meant it.
"I don't want to hurt him, Dr. Ashford. I don't need to. He'll go where you go." Wesker paused, then said, "So I need your cooperation. Please don't make things difficult."
"What does your bloody employer want with me, with Grayson?"
"Have you heard of The Connections, Alexia?"
She stared at him, thoughtful. Then, "Aren't they a crime syndicate? Black clinicians and marketeers."
"They're also quite big on arms-dealing and money laundering. But yes, the very same."
"Are you going to answer my bloody question or not, Albert?"
"I'm getting to that. Patience, Dr. Ashford." Wesker smiled, then continued, "The Connections have hired the H.C.F to provide technical assistance to a new project they're working on, but the work won't officially begin for another two years, in 2000. They want you to spearhead the research, Dr. Ashford. Your intelligence and your expertise are uniquely suited for the endeavor; other than insects, you're quite the ardent botanist, yes? That work you did with Henry Sarton fifteen years ago, on your pod plant—"
"Get to the bloody point, Albert, before I kill you."
"Patience," Wesker said, placidly. "The Connections has been studying a species of fungi known as the mutamycete, and its effects on humans."
Alexia looked as if she'd been clocked upside the head. "My research, they—"
"It was property of Arklay. I was the one who gave it to them," Wesker said, mildly. "You were studying this mutamycete with Henry Sarton. The Connections needs your expertise on the mutamycete, Dr. Ashford, as well as Harman's research—to develop a bioweapon unlike anything you've ever seen, or thought possible." Wesker started up the stairwell, his footsteps muffled by the carpet. He moved slow, as if approaching a scared animal. "We both know the Ashford fortune is dwindling; your brother Alfred drained your family's coffers in the pursuit of his personal hobbies, once Spencer caught wind of things and cut him off. The Connections is willing to pay you handsomely for your work."
Wesker expected Alexia to attack him, or to leave; but she stood there, motionless, watching him. Then Alexia said, "They want a sample of the Origin for this project, which is why they're interested in Grayson."
"Yes," Wesker said. "But Grayson also holds a few answers to some questions of my own, Dr. Ashford. He's as valuable as you are."
"What's your angle in all of this, Albert?" Alexia asked, sharp as ever. "This isn't about fulfilling a job. You've never cared about that sort of thing; your allegiances are fair weather. Money isn't it either. Money was always a means to an end for you, a necessary tool to continue your work. You have something else to gain from all of this, Albert—something personal."
"Clever as always," Wesker said, unsurprised by her perceptiveness, his features composed in a look of bored vacancy. "There's a great deal Dr. Harman hasn't told you, Dr. Ashford. And speaking of Dr. Harman… where is his research? His son?"
Alexia had told him to wait inside the playroom; but Grayson had never been a guy who could just sit there with his thumb up his ass.
He'd taken the opportunity to sneak out, while Alexia was busy with Wesker, and found himself above the old hazard disposal room, the one where the technician had died because of a malfunctioning burner.
The door had been welded shut, but Alexia had dropped Chris and Jill into the room through a hole in the ceiling. A crack had formed there when some guys were drilling a new expansion for the facility, and then an icequake had exacerbated it; but Alfred had never bothered to seal it up, because he'd been more concerned with the budgeting for Rockfort than this cold, distant place.
Grayson crouched on the lip of the crack and peered down into the room. He could hear Chris and Jill talking. "Hey," he called out. "It's Grayson. Up here."
Jill came into view, stared up through the crack as if she'd just noticed it; she was too far down for him to pull her up. "Grayson?" she said, surprised. "Holy shit. You actually came to help us?"
Chris appeared, stood beside Jill, his hands on his hips. "Harman? Well, damn. Maybe I was wrong 'bout you." He paused, narrowed his eyes. "Alexia with you?"
"You see any tentacles?" Grayson said.
"Good point," Chris conceded, his breath coming in clouds. He looked exhausted, cold. So did Jill. "Can't reach the hole in the ceiling," he said. "Too far up."
"Move one of the shelves," Grayson said. "It'll get you close enough that I can lean down and pull you guys up."
Jill and Chris looked at each other, then disappeared from view. He heard them grunting, the scrape of metal against concrete, things clattering and crashing to the floor. The shelf lurched into view. "You head up first," Grayson heard Chris say. "You're lighter, Jill."
Jill scaled the shelves like a ladder, reached the top. Grayson grabbed an exposed pipe, leaned over the edge of the crack and extended his hand. Jill jumped, got him around the forearm, and Grayson heaved her up beside him. "You're turn," Jill said.
Chris climbed onto the shelf. He was taller than Jill, and didn't need to jump; but he was heavier, and the shelf wobbled precariously underneath him, started to go sideways. Chris grabbed Grayson's hand, nearly dragged him down into the room with his weight; but Jill intercepted, seizing Chris's arm and helping Grayson pull him up just as the shelf, finally, gave way with a loud crash.
"Thanks," Chris said, climbing to his feet. "But why help us?" He looked at him. "You're with Alexia."
"I am," Grayson agreed, and stood up. He was taller than Chris, built bigger. "But you guys were my colleagues, my friends. Felt like I owed it to you. End of the day, I'm technically Umbrella—or, at the very least, Umbrella-affiliated—and what happened in Raccoon City, to S.T.A.R.S and the RPD? I feel guilty. Like it was partially my fault."
"You aren't a researcher, Grayson," Jill said, looking at him, something soft in her eyes. "What happened wasn't on you."
Grayson wanted to say he'd always known Umbrella was shady: he'd known about Rockfort's prison camp, about the laboratory under the Spencer Estate, about NEST, about Wesker being a researcher at Umbrella long before that information had come to light. And he'd never said anything. Now Grayson had an opportunity to go on record with two former members of S.T.A.R.S, to tell them everything—and again, he said nothing, because he wanted to protect Alexia, to protect his father, to protect the memory of Annette Birkin.
It was easy, he knew, to reduce Umbrella to some faceless, omnipresent evil, especially after everything Jill and Chris had seen and been through; but Grayson had seen the individual faces, the individual lives, that comprised the entity of the Umbrella Corporation. He'd seen Annette's marriage troubles, then her, naked, in his bed, telling him that she loved him, not William, and how much she'd loved Sherry, even if she'd been bad at showing it; he'd seen Alexia, at twelve-years-old, dancing to Depeche Mode in her laboratory when she'd thought nobody had been looking, and then had seen her face, at 27-years-old, contorted by orgasm, and had felt her strong, wet thighs; he'd seen Alfred, at twelve-years-old, play with his tin soldiers and imagine elaborate wartime scenarios for them, and then, at eighteen-years-old, he'd seen him emulate the pastel fashions of Don Johnson, getting drunk on some beach in Florida because Alfred had wanted to see and experience the real Miami…
And then Grayson thought about all the innocent people who'd died in Raccoon City, and for a moment, the humanity he'd seen in Umbrella, in the lives of its employees, shuddered like a mirage. But Grayson still said nothing.
"I know," he said, finally. "Survivor's guilt, maybe." He glanced over his shoulder, half expecting Alexia to materialize from thin air. "We need to get Claire," he said, and looked at Chris. "You were Air Force, right?"
Chris nodded, confused. "Yeah, why?"
"Because Wesker's plane is sitting in the hangar," Grayson said. "If you guys can beat him to it, you can get outta here. There's no other way outta this place, short of waiting for Umbrella to bring in supplies, or a transport, and attempting to hi-jack their plane; but it'll be heavily guarded, and there's only three of you, and you'll all be tired, hungry, cold, and probably low on ammo by then, if not already dead." He shrugged, glanced between them, frowning. "In which case, might as well just try your luck walking to the Australian base seven miles from here. Alexia destroyed all the snow-trucks."
"What about you?" Jill asked.
"Alexia's a valuable asset," Grayson said. "The company'll send someone for her, but there's no telling when that'll happen. But when it does, I'll hitch a ride with her."
"You should come with us, Grayson," Jill said. "You don't belong with that bitch."
"My place is with Alexia, Jill," Grayson said, meaning it. "I wouldn't abandon her for the world. I love her, and I'm gonna stay with her. Even if it means Alexia and I freeze to death in this shithole before someone comes. At least we'd be freezing to death in this shithole together."
Jill looked hurt, but said nothing. He hadn't meant to lance her through the heart like that, but his feelings for Alexia were deep, powerful, to the point they almost bordered on obsession; and whenever Grayson realized that, it scared him.
"Sounds like a plan, then," Chris said, either oblivious to the tension in the air, or altogether ignoring it. Then, to Jill, "Let's get my sister." He looked at him, and said, "But you said 'we'. Why would you wanna come with us to get Claire, Harman? If you're so damn bent for Alexia, figured you'd just go back to her right off."
"Alexia's keeping Wesker busy," he said. "Besides, I got some stuff I wanna say to Claire."