Everett's nerves had seen better days.
She'd made her call to the head office from the reception phone - no one really manned the desk, and anyone trying to call in knew which extensions to use. This was really one of the few blind spots in the facility's state-of-the-art surveillance system - the rest was for the labs, and for the grounds themselves. The lobby and the upstairs area were living quarters. This was a stressful enough place to work without overseeing every moment of their lives outside of the lab, and anyone approaching the facility would be documented well enough.
This place creeped her out. She'd only played valet a few times, and every time, it made her skin crawl. She couldn't place the reason, exactly. Every time she went in, there was a terrible sense of dread that she wouldn't be allowed to leave again.
For the hundredth time, she wondered if asking for a transfer would do her any good. Something in the pit of her stomach warned against pulling any attention from the higher-ups.
Blame horror movies. Blame ghost stories. Blame a million culturally-ingrained little reasons, but every instinct she had screamed at her to leave.
Ms. Ashford had not been what she had expected. Her niece, from all reports, was as tightly-wound as they came (for a ten-year-old genius), but the aunt had swept in three years prior, zeroed in on the dictator terrorizing the training facility, and just...fixed it. No disappearances, or horrid rumours, just, *fixed the problem* like a normal VP. The new lab out here was creepy, yes, but it *worked.* The scientists were all healthy and happy. The improvements showed on every level.
She'd been a little shaken the morning after that meeting, when the group of them had painted the town red the previous night in celebration. In particular, when she'd awoken in the other woman's bed. Not that her tastes never ran in that direction, but, she was a Midwestern girl at heart. Exploring that side of herself was risky for a woman of any ambition in her line of work. Marigold had simply sat up, and arched in a lazy stretch. She'd smiled brightly, and glanced out the window. "What a lovely week this is turning out to be."
It had never really occurred to her to find dissonance between Ashford's seniority in the company, and how youthful she had looked in that moment, stripped of the trappings of a glamorous lifestyle she had draped about herself. Later, when she thought back on it, she would think only of the lovely warm feeling the sight of that smile had given her.
Neither of them spoke of it, afterwards. No one brought it up at work, or made the sort of leering insinuations she had come to expect from the local executive pool. But no one had said a word, and she'd gone about her life as normal.
That lovely feeling was gone now, and a sense of dread had been building in the pit of her stomach. She plucked the card from her breast pocket, looking around. The feeling kept building.
She dialed the number. A calm dissociation settled over Everrett's mind as it began to ring.
On the third ring, and clipped British man's voice came over the line. "Yes."
"Vermillion effervescent hedgehogs?" She read dreamily from the card. What an odd thing to put there. It was almost like a code phrase in a spy movie. How funny! She stumbled over the thought, lost in the fog.
A long pause. "How bad?"
The words bubbled up from somewhere deep inside her. "Ghouls. They made...they know. Get out now." Something was odd about her intonation, the cadence of her own voice. Everett couldn't dredge up the ability to care, in that moment. This was a dream, wasn't it?
Of course it was.
The man on the other end inhaled sharply. "I understand," he said. Then, with a touch of what sounded like grief, he said "I'm sorry," and hung up the phone.
Everrett replaced the receiver slowly. A brief moment passed, and she shook her head, looking around. I must have been woolgathering, she thought.
The office had told her to return to the office once their business was completed. This was a good time to go. She had dropped the visiting executive off at the laboratory, with their many spare rooms and expansive grounds. No need to linger in this place any longer than strictly required.
Keys in hand, Kate Everett left the mansion, climbed into her car, and drove back to town.
"Goodbye, creepy mansion. Someone else can take this shift next time," she muttered to herself. Better yet, there seemed to be a heliport being completed near to the lot.
She only looked back once.
Marigold sat very still in the plush conference room chair, head bowed and eyes closed, with hands folded primly in her lap. She'd asked for a glass of water, citing a headache. An assistant had been sent to get one from down the hall, and the two researchers watched her like a hawk, as she appeared to be collecting herself. It had bought ninety seconds at most, but it was enough. Had to be enough.
Would never be enough.
The television at the head of the table continued to show a gruesome scene. A pair of rats, one infected with the 'T-Virus', the other healthy were being shown in a divided cage. A series of edited cuts showed the progression of the infection over several hours, with the healthy rat moving as far back as possible from its neighbour, who was in serious, almost mutagenic decline.
After several hours, the video, narrated by Doctor Birkin, showed the infected mouse shuddering its last breath before it collapsed.
At a posted twenty minutes later, the infected rat moaned, and climbed back to its feet. Its eyes locked on its neighbour, and it lurched forward, eyes never leaving it. She had never heard a rat scream before, as far as she knew.
Marigold watched, hardening into the certainty that she wouldn't be allowed to walk out of this place again. Little fool. What else did you expect, walking into this viper's nest? But nothing had prepared her for the true horror of it.
This was the point where she had called for a glass of water. Head down, she could still hear the tinny moans through the television, hear the increasing agitation of the other mouse. That sheer horror drove her to push harder. This was a difficult trick to pull off at the best of times, but it seemed that the burst of adrenaline in her system helped to push the message through.
A soft clink told her they had returned. Marigold opened her eyes to look dully at the glass of water. A sharp certainty came to her that there was surely more than water in that glass. She left it where it was.
On the screen, the divider had been removed, and the infected mouse had set upon the other, cutting off its screams with teeth, and blood. Moments later, they both began to wander aimlessly around the cage again, ears tracking for...something.
She looked across the table at the two researchers. A pair of security guards had stationed themselves outside the door, following the two inside.
They wore gas masks. They were also armed. Not heavily, but nonetheless.
"So," She said, trying for a conversational tone. Her voice wavered only slightly. "You have Sonnetroppe, and made ghouls. Should I be looking for a lightning rod outside, or was it left behind with Marcus?" She should be keeping the acid out of her voice. That would be the smart thing.
Birkin's face contorted with contempt. "This is a breakthrough. Of course, it's not the end goal, but all Marcus could make living matter do with Prototype was die." He actually seemed offended at the thought of sharing credit.
Because..."Your classmates?" She asked, almost gentle. Birkin stared back at her in defiance, while Wesker's mouth hardened into a thin line. This, what was before her, was monstrous, but monsters were made. That stupid, horrid little man.
And Spencer had orchestrated all of it. Or, had considered them acceptable collateral. A sharp spike of rage hit her. Long practice kept her stillness intact, though it was a near thing.
The video continued, with the voiceover detailing cellular activity and what the next stage of the work would bring. The tiny moans continued.
A wave of exhaustion rolled over Marigold, on the heels of her anger. She'd pushed harder than she meant to, and done it through her suppressants. The emotional toll would always cost more than just her peace of mind, on top of that. Any of those things individually tended to do a number on her.
The telephone at the conference table began to ring. "Ah," Wesker said, reaching to turn off the video - finally, she had been on the edge of sending the glass into it like a guided missile - and smiled, like all was well in the world. "Speaking of which, there was one guest who we've requested to be conferenced in. He picked up the receiver, hit a button to put the call on speaker, and replaced it within the cradle.
The voice seemed mildly agitated, on the other end. "Doctor Wesker? You told me to call you right away if something happened."
"I did." He kept his eyes trained on Marigold, as if waiting for something to happen.
"Well, he's on the floor, sir." A sobbing sound could be heard in the background. Something raw and wounded was bound up in that sound. "He started screaming out of the blue a moment ago. Now he's on the floor." The voice sounded more intrigued than worried. "Are you testing something? Head office won't be happy to hear that Marcus is out of commission again, even with the demotion."
"No," Wesker replied, meeting Marigold's eye with a smile that was growing glacial. "A pre-existing condition, I believe. Thank you for confirming something. That will be all." He ended to call before the other man could reply.
She looked back. "Oh dear." she said. "Do you think I ought to send a card?"
"He likely knows you're in town by now," Birkin, the skeptic, said slowly, shooting an incredulous look at Wesker.
That sick feeling was returning, compounded by the headache. What had been an affectation earlier was now very much real.
"How long?" she asked. It could have meant so many things. Birkin supplied an answer, slow and with a touch of mounting horror. "No one goes from fully functional to bedridden in the course of a phone call."
"Yes, I'm sure he was the very picture of stability while you were under his employ," she replied coolly. "He was a vicious idiot when I met him, and not much has changed since then, it seems."
"Hardly at all, I imagine." Wesker almost seemed apologetic. "Spencer's rather perplexed that you could hide something like this for so long - he seems to feel there was an exposure early in the project - but I doubt he looked too closely, considering how much your contribution brought to the company. Anyone who truly did would pick up the pattern. He seemed genuinely upset at the thought, but I doubt he was truly surprised." He looked her up and down. "How long was the masquerade meant to last, I wonder?" He sighed when she remained silent, and stood. "Well, there's time enough to untangle that part."
She thought of her father.
Her niece, and nephew. Her brother, who had warned her not to push her luck for much longer. She hoped they got out in time. They still might, if this visit was only meant to test their theory.
Rockfort Island. "Tell me more about the headaches. They usually come with a spike in the exposure factor."
Oh.
Heh.
The two researchers had stood quickly, apparently signally the guards at the door to hold the exit as they. moved to the other side of the glass. "Boys?" She called at their retreating backs. They paused in the doorway. "Are you sure about this? It won't go the way you think it will." She seemed to relax, rising slowly as the guards held their positions. She gave them a rueful little smile. "Everyone thinks they're more clever than anyone else around," she continued, almost to herself. Birkin shot her a startled look, then shut the door behind them.
A steel-tipped fountain pen laid by her hand, inlaid with the Umbrella logo. She picked it up thoughtfully, smiling at the guards as if they had just arrived for tea. A hissing sound above her head told her that some sort of gas was being released into the room. She'd have to move fast. "Gentlemen," she said, "I do apologize for this."
Reaching down, she hefted the heavy table up to flip it over in the direction of her would-be assailants as if it were made of matchsticks, and began to advance upon the door.
Time to let go.
Something was wrong with her eyes. The room swam in and out of focus while she stumbled along the corridor towards the exit.
Somewhere along the way, she'd lost her pen.
(the guard rushing towards her, his comrade crying weakly, struggling to free his broken legs from under the table. A lateral hammer blow embedded the lethally sharp tip through his temple)
Their reinforced door of the conference room had been reasonably strong, but it was easy to forget about walls. She'd made her own exit with very little fuss, to the horror of onlookers.
(stepping through the hole, covered in drywall dust and splashed in the blood of the guards. She'd make a very effective poltergeist if she weren't so damned grim. Her glasses are abandoned and cracked on the floor. Her smart blazer, ripped while she was 'remodeling', now discarded. A small combat knife had been tucked into a sheath at her back- good tailoring had made it easy to miss. Should anyone here survive, they'll start screening guests for weapons after this)
The two researchers had called for backup quickly. On her right, a vaguely familiar-looking brunette in her late thirties came rushing past her, throwing herself at the guards with fury, tearing at their weapons and helmets with her bare hands. More running footsteps followed. Someone screamed to lock down the level.
While the gas hadn't quite taken her down, it had had some effect. She felt oddly drunk, weaving and pushing her way through the corridor towards the elevator, towards the exit. To hell with it. She might as well earn her punishment.
Someone fired a shot. A sharp pain passed through her shoulder. She looked down to see a trickle of blood from the wound, rapidly closing. She turned toward the terrified gaggle of guards, swaying slightly on her feet. The moment seemed to stretch out unbearably between them.
One of the arriving guards stepped up and shot the frenzied woman attacking them in the head, snapping the rest out of their fugue. The footsteps were getting closer; screams rang out above them, on the administrative level.
Marigold looked up, startled, "'S a new one," she muttered. She'd suspected that this could happen, but it had been a theory. She had worked so hard to make sure it was only ever a theory.
The freshly murdered operations manager, a woman she'd had drinks with at a post-meeting social three years earlier, stared lifelessly at the ceiling, with more above ready to follow her into the abyss. The ones upstairs would follow her without a second thought. Because of her.
She really was a monster.
The room was starting to spin. Had to keep moving. The headache was progressing to the point where she was seeing spots in her vision, and that was never a good sign. It seemed to be eating the entire world.
A tall man in a labcoat and gas mask (cold) flashed in her periphery. Before she could respond, she felt a sharp pinch at her neck. Someone stepped firmly on the back of her knee, pushing her to the ground with a firm hand wrapped around the back of her neck as she lost the battle to stay upright.
She'd managed her human contact through clinical means and barriers of all kinds for years. Overtaxed and desperate, the hand pressing on the back of her neck made her cry out in shock. Marigold barely felt the restraints on her wrists clamp down as she tipped over the edge of consciousness, and the world quite suddenly went away.
