They'd changed into their arctic gear upon landing. The facility was operating on minimal power, and there was a thin glaze of ice on the concrete, interspersed with the occasional warm spot, where the vents still blew hot air.

Jill didn't like the feel of this place. She'd weathered her fair share of creepy Umbrella bases, but there was something about this one that sat rock-like in her stomach. It felt alien, like they were exploring an abandoned base on Pluto. She told Chris that, who said, "It's just the remoteness getting to you. Relax, partner."

"Maybe," said Jill, unconvinced. There was something wrong about this place. She half expected a xenomorph to come crawling out of the vents.

Ice glistened on the ground from a ruptured waterline, crackling under their thick boots. Up ahead, Jill saw a knot of wires sprouting from the wall, but as she and Chris got closer, she realized they weren't wires at all: they were tendrils, black and plant-like, and they wriggled like a tangle of hairy eels. A faint mushroomy smell wafted off them. "Don't touch that," warned Chris, his breath steaming in the air.

"Wasn't planning to." Jill watched the tendrils. When Chris moved ahead of her, the eels started to grope toward him. She put a hand out. "Don't move," she said. "Wanna see something."

Chris stopped, stood very still. The tentacles, whatever they were, shrank back slightly. "Oh," he said, "I get it."

"Yeah. They sense movement." She paused, then remarked, "They look like sundews."

"How're we supposed—"

Jill unloaded half her clip into the snarl of sundews, and they retreated through a crack in the wall.

"Least we can shoot 'em," said Chris.

"Gotta feeling they'll come back," said Jill. "God, I fucking hate this place."

They crossed the foyer of the mansion and started up the stairs. Grayson was grateful for warmth again, and if Alexander was still alive, he would have hugged the man for having enough foresight to build a dedicated power station for his home. But the heat made him sweat in his insulated clothes, and he peeled himself out of his layers once they reached the drawing room, hanging them neatly on the coat rack.

Alfred wasn't in the drawing room anymore. His blanket lay on the floorboards, forgotten. Alexia stopped, cocked her head as if listening to something he couldn't hear, and said, "There are more bloody people in this facility."

"Place is turning into Penn Station," said Grayson, pulling off his boots and slipping into a pair of shiny black oxfords that had probably belonged to his father at some point.

"I don't like it," said Alexia.

"You don't like anything, honey," he reminded her, politely.

Alexia grinned lasciviously, and said, "That's not true. I can think of two things I like." She sat down in his lap, winding her arms around his neck. "Can you guess what they are?"

"You're incorrigible," he teased.

She opened her mouth to speak, but stopped suddenly. Her face blanched. "Oh no," she said, and stood up, the kiss of gardenias lingering in her wake.

"What?"

"Nothing. It's fine," she said, distractedly. "I have to check something." Alexia took off before he could get half a what out, slamming the door shut behind her.

Grayson sat there in the armchair, staring at the door and wondering what the hell had just happened. Alfred limped into the room, freshly showered and wearing a clean change of clothes: a red houndstooth tweed blazer, white button-up and slacks, and black cap-toes. He looked at him, almost as if he wanted to accuse him of something.

"I didn't do anything," said Grayson, raising his hands as if Alfred was pointing the Walther at him. "She took off on her own."

"She looked like she saw a damned ghost," said Alfred. "Didn't even bloody acknowledge me, she was in such a terrible rush. You did something to upset her." Alfred was across the room in an instant, seizing Grayson by the lapels of his blazer and shaking him. "Don't bloody lie, you arsehole!"

"I didn't!" said Grayson, grabbing Alfred's wrists and squeezing. Alfred might have been talented in CQC, but in situations like these, when brute force was what mattered, Grayson dominated: he was bigger, stronger than Alfred. With the circulation slowing to his hands, Alfred couldn't hold on any longer, and when he released him, Grayson drove a huge fist into his stomach, and Alfred doubled over with a wheeze.

Once Alfred recovered, he waited for Grayson to throw another clumsy punch, and when he did, he moved to the side and jabbed him in the temple. Stars exploded across his vision, and Grayson stumbled to the side, barely scrambling out of the way of a gunshot.

"I," said Alfred, his eyes wild and manic, the Walther smoking in his hand, "am getting sick of you, Harman."

"Go ahead," said Grayson, his head aching deeply. "Shoot me."

Alfred kept the gun on him for what felt like an eternity. Then his expression relaxed, and there was a flicker of some softer emotion in his eyes. He holstered the gun, helped Grayson to his feet. "I'm sorry," said Alfred. "I… don't know what came over me. I don't want to shoot you, Grayson."

Grayson wasn't sure what to say. He wasn't used to any sort of kindness from Alfred, and he'd always assumed that, for Alfred, mercy was something other people had that he didn't. "It wouldn't have killed me," he said.

"I know," said Alfred. "Please, don't tell Alexia."

"Too late. Alexia already knows," said Alexia, from the doorway. She walked over, took the gun out of Alfred's hand and pointed it at him, at his head. Then, very dispassionately, she said, "If this happens again, if you so much as entertain the notion of shooting Grayson," and she trailed the barrel of the gun along Alfred's jawline, pressing it into the soft underside of his chin, "I will kill you, dear brother." She was expressionless, her eyes as hard and cold as ice. She took the gun away and pushed it into the holster on Alfred's hip. "Am I understood, Alfred?" Her tone suggested it was a rhetorical question, and Alfred nodded.

"I'm sorry, Alexia," said Alfred, as if he were a penitent. He sank to his knees and took her hand into both of his, and kissed it.

"Good," said Alexia. "We have a matter to discuss, Alfred. Get up, and come with me." Then she looked over at him. "Are you all right, Grayson?"

"Yeah, peachy," he said. "Head's just a little sore."

"Alfred and I need to have a conversation. Privately."

Alfred gave him a smug look, as if he'd won a competition.

"Don't look so smug, brother," said Alexia, dryly. "I'm not fucking you. In fact, I fully intend to finish this discussion as quickly as possible so I can fuck Grayson. Turns out I have a libido that would make Zeus look chaste in comparison." She peered at her brother, who wore a look that suggested someone had just slapped him across the face, and now it was Grayson's turn to look smug—and he made sure he radiated it. "This is about that experiment you helped me with fifteen years ago," said Alexia, and she swept a hand toward the door. "Shall we, Alfred?"

The twins left without another word, but before they'd stepped out of the room, Grayson saw them exchange secretive looks. He wondered what they could be talking about, and felt a small pang of jealousy. Jealous that there was something he didn't know about Alexia, but Alfred did.

Grayson put it out of his mind. At least Alexia wouldn't be focused on Steve and Claire, and that was good; he had to revel in whatever small graces he could, because there were precious few, of late. Up until Alexia had returned to him, the last three months of his life had been a steady plunge through the nine circles of Hell.

"She said she was coming back to fuck me," he said aloud, to make himself feel better.

The laboratories up until this point had been nondescript, uninteresting. But Wesker had followed a trail of destruction to a much older lab. This part of the facility looked as if it hadn't been touched for years; the technology was old, machines and instruments he remembered using in his days under James Marcus's tutelage.

And that was where he found the BOW, squatting in the middle of the laboratory. It looked like a man in an old, tattered suit, scraggly clumps of reddish hair still clinging stubbornly to the curve of his gaunt skull, and to his jawline. His skin was the color of rotting cheese, scabbed and necrosed. He was holding something, a thing that looked like a black snake bristling with short hairs. Wesker suspected it was one of those tendril-like growths he'd seen around the facility.

He inched closer, trying not to make a sound.

The man in the suit dropped the thing in his hand, began scenting the air like a dog who'd whiffed a cat. He bared his teeth: a wet, brown ruin of rot. His eyes, although covered by a soiled strip of cloth, were crusted around the edges. It can't see.

"Al… fred," rasped the thing, its voice like a death-rattle.

Wesker reverse-gripped his knife, slinking closer.

"A… lexia?" questioned the BOW.

Albert was certain there was no real intelligence behind those words: synapses sparking then fizzling out, vestigial memories bubbling up to the surface and popping. But how interesting that it's calling the twins by their names.

The creature stood. Its back heaved and burst in a cloud of blood, several razor-sharp, spider-like appendages unfurling and snapping taut.

Well, thought Wesker, now I know how that thing tore Beta apart.

The thing stumbled toward him. Perhaps it heard him breathing, or maybe it smelled him. When one sense was gone, the others sharpened to compensate for the loss. He decided to dispense with the cloak-and-daggery. Wesker bolted toward the creature, knife out, and noticed its chest: it was split open, and he could see its heart, swollen to three times its size and beating out of time.