One phone call to HCF later, and Marigold found herself riding shotgun in the same van that brought her to this place. This time she was able to take a good look at it- tinted windows, back loaded up with fiberglass crates. The van seemed to ride high and light over the rough country back road, so she had to assume they were mostly riding empty.

HCF hadn't known, although they were hearing suspicious chatter over the police bands. Their agents in the field had been alerted. Umbrella themselves barely knew, and the blood was on their hands; it had not yet even had the chance to dry after Birkin had smeared their operatives across the walls.

In a terse voice, Wesker told her that they were headed to a temporary field office outside of Raccoon City, but it would take a few hours. She nodded. "We're somewhere in the Appalachians, right." She felt him shift in surprise and decided not to prod him. This…couldn't be an easy moment. Instead, she said, "I can triangulate where I am with a few fixed points. It's not an innate thing, and only…sometimes. It's not a precise science, but," she hesitated. Then, "this never seemed an optimal location to stage an escape from." Marigold looked down at her hands. Wherever they were going, she could at least start wearing shoes again. It seemed like such a small thing, especially now.

She reached down to crack the window open. Small enclosed spaces like this were still a lot to handle - the memory of her panic the last time she had been in here was still fresh, even with the tension…handled. Marigold paused. "There's no crank," she said, almost to herself. Wesker snorted amusement and pressed the automatic window button from his side to get her window. She flinched back from it, then stilled in an attempt to mask her irritation. After a moment she relaxed, leaning into the airflow towards fresh air.

"They started phasing them out a few years ago. This is a newer vehicle," he responded, more to the wave of irritation flowing towards him than anything she has said.

They rode on for a while. It would be close to dark before they arrived at the field office. Marigold started to nod off, then jerked awake with a start. Oh my god, a man's voice echoed in her head. It's found me.

"Pull over."

Wesker hesitated. "We need to keep moving."

"I doubt he has long, and I have no idea if this will transmit to you. Pull over if you don't want to drive into a tree." Without further argument, she fumbled with the window and closed it again. The wind would only be a distraction. The van had barely slowed to a halt when she let her head fall forward, and reached out -

Matthew Shafer, operations engineer in the NEST, had had the good luck to be in a secure area when the infected had started to tear through the NEST facility. Their vaccines had failed. Whatever strain of T-virus they carried was so much worse.

He had the very, very bad luck to be sealed from the surface. Normally, that might be fine. But now?

And…something had begun to tear through the research level. Something monstrous. Below a certain level of the facility, people at least had an inkling of what the Birkins were really doing down here. Their needs were highly specific, and the team needed to meet them. Precisely. Accurately. Without fail.

When systems were acting outside parameters, he would send off a report to head office to make sure everything that could be done, would be done, to keep things stable. That was his job. And yet not one week after filing his report, gunfire had been heard below, and the NEST had quickly become a living hell.

That thing was now hunting anyone who was left. He had lost radio contact with maintenance on that level hours ago. and his door was the first in the corridor from the stairs on the next level up. Suddenly the steel-reinforced door didn't seem like nearly enough to hold out for when rescue came.

If rescue came at all. Given how Arklay had been written off, Matthew suddenly found himself envying the stream of no-shows and transfers that had been hemorrhaging from Raccoon City over the past few months.

The door buckled as the creature outside hit the frame. Matthew had already backed into the far corner of the room, pressing hard into the far wall. Oh my god. This is it. Radio reports from downstairs suggested that gunfire only annoyed the creature, at worst. Help me. Help me.

A soft pressure in his mind, like a thin blanket. Then a soft, feminine voice in his head. I think it's going to get in.

Matthew seemed to go slack. He didn't care if this meant he was going crazy. At least he wasn't trapped in here alone. Somehow, the logic felt immutable. "G is loose. I…oh noooo." The door buckled again with a screaming sound. One more hit would take it off its hinges. The desk in from of the door would buy him approximately three seconds. The gun in his hand would likely buy him another 10 seconds of cowering miserably in his office before getting torn apart.

There's an easy way and a hard way to go. The voice whispered. The easy way is in your hand. The hard way will come for you if you wait for it.

"The water treatment plant. Something was wrong with it. All of the waste from the research - it's not getting cleared from the drinking water." Matthew Shafer said with increasing numbness. That had been the crux of his report. It felt important. It felt like meaningless trivia. It meant nothing in the face of the end, bashing at his door with primal rage.

It would get through.

He was going to die in here. He looked at the gun. Useless against anything carrying the G-Virus. But he could spare himself a horrible death, and spare others the violence his reanimation would inevitably carry.

Hurry, the voice sighed.

The door crashed open, exploding off its hinges. A hideous parody of William Birkin peered through at him.

In the end, it really was the easy choice.

— then pulled back, wheezing. The after-image of Matthew's last moments, the behemoth ducking through the shattered doorframe, burned in her mind's eye. She turned towards the driver's seat and pushed the image at Wesker. The hiss of breath told her that he'd received it.

The van sat idling at the side of the dirt road. Wesker sat, staring at her, rigid. She hadn't pushed a directive at him before, she realized. Whether he realized what had happened, what she had done, was a coin toss.

Did any of that come through before that last part, she asked. Wesker shook his head, temporarily rendered mute. The last time he had seen Birkin, the man had been pledging to make the virus even stronger. It seemed that G had become far too strong, too volatile, to handle.

For her part, Marigold seemed momentarily relieved. "Closed circuit. Thank goodness for small miracles." She tipped her head back and reached for a bottle of water in the center console. The movement was oddly sedate. Reaching that far drained her, still. Something about the G-Virus was amplifying the strength of the signal..."I didn't think any of mine were left in Raccoon. There are - always were - different grades of exposure - he must have got a small one at some point that built up." She looked at Wesker, suddenly calm. "It's started. Someone contaminated a wastewater plant days ago. It's in the town."

"You're sure of this?"

"He told me. He didn't understand what was happening."

Wesker took this in, compartmentalized it, and assessed. They were still a couple of hours from the field office. It would take some time to mobilize before anyone could move in. HCF would evacuate anyone non-critical now that they had the advance warning. William had overplayed his hand in spectacular fashion.

There was still work to do.

Shifting the van back into drive, they continued west, into the setting sun.

Towards Raccoon City.