By the time Grayson managed to tap into the mutamycete again, it was too late to free Steve. Rather, Grayson corrected himself, it's fucking pointless. Upon returning to the room in which Steve was confined, he found the kid thrashing and screaming and tearing at the hyphae, and Alexia leering off to the side, an empty syringe in her fingers. Steve's body folded like human origami, bones cracking and splintering as the virus worked its genetic voodoo, rearranging the kid into some new, ugly shape. Grayson stood rooted to the spot, his eyes fixed on Steve.

"Fuckin' shoot me!" shrieked Steve. Fever-sweat slicked his skin and hair. His eyes rolled up into his head, and he shook, kept twisting and bending like someone in the throes of demonic possession. Something black frothed in the corners of his mouth and foamed over his chin.

Grayson roused himself, pulling his gun. He pointed and squeezed the trigger. Part of Steve's head dissolved into a red mist, painting the rust-stained concrete behind him like a macabre nimbus. The kid's body went slack, and so did the hyphae, and his corpse slumped to the concrete floor, what was left of his brain puddling underneath his head. Grayson put the gun away and looked at Alexia. "You," he seethed, "are a fucking monster."

Alexia flinched a little, although she'd tried very hard not to, and retreated behind her usual veneer of reptilian calm. "He deserved it," she said, tossing the empty syringe aside. She strode toward him, and when Grayson didn't move away, Alexia seemed to become emboldened. The cold, unfeeling blues of her eyes met his gaze, steady and apathetic. "If I'm a monster," said Alexia, "then what would that make you, darling? A man who readily keeps the company of monsters—who readily loves a monster—is either a monster himself, or a happy accomplice."

"Or he's just fucking insane," he said, pulling away from her and starting toward the door. What pissed off Grayson the most wasn't that Alexia was crazy, but that he didn't care that she was, and what pissed him off even more was that his apathy toward her craziness had cost a seventeen-year-old boy his life. He could have stopped her, but he didn't. Steve was dead because of him as much as he was dead because of Alexia's violent predilections.

Alexia followed him out of the room. "Don't act as if you're some sort of saint," she sneered. "You're just like Alfred and I, Grayson. The only difference is that fact makes you uncomfortable."

He whipped around on her. "Don't compare me to you or Alfred," he said, hotly. "I've never murdered anyone."

"But you stood by while my brother killed people," she said.

Grayson frowned. "That's… different. They were prisoners."

Alexia tilted her head, studying him with an inscrutable look. Then she smiled without any warmth at all, and said, "Prisoners whose only crimes were trespassing against Umbrella." She leaned toward him, adding, "You also took no issue with Alfred and I killing Alexander."

He opened his mouth, closed it. "I don't want to talk about this right now."

"Of course you don't," scoffed Alexia. "That would force you to confront some hard truths about yourself, Grayson. And we can't have that, can we?"

A surge of anger worked through him, and he wrapped his fingers around Alexia's biceps, not hard enough to hurt her but firm enough to make his point, and pulled her closer. But his anger quickly transmuted into fear. The moment he'd touched her, Alexia stiffened like a corpse, her eyes rolling up into her head. Before Grayson could ask her what was wrong, a sudden whorl of vertigo overtook him, and he blacked out.


According to a glassed-in evacuation map they'd found bolted to the wall, the maintenance wing was three levels down, and there was a stairwell that could take them there. The power was partially out in the maintenance wing. Jill beamed her flashlight down the narrow concrete hallway, the beam cutting through the darkness like a knife, reflecting off dark patches of ice. A zombie dressed in a hard-hat and tattered coveralls squatted over a corpse in Rockfort fatigues, prying out wet, knotted fistfuls of intestines and shoveling the meat into its mouth. The carrier noticed them, turned its head slowly, watching them with milky eyes. It stood up and shambled forward, part of the large intestine dangling from its mouth like a sausage casing. Jill dropped it with one shot, and it toppled with a plaintive moan.

The half-eaten man started to move, rolling onto the ruin of his belly and dragging himself toward them, trawling a frayed webbing of intestines still sticky with bodily fluids. Both of his legs had been chewed to the bone. He stretched out a hand the color and texture of rotting cheese. Claire shot him in the head, and the zombie slumped with a groan, and did not move again.

"Fucking infected everywhere," said Claire. "Not as bad as Raccoon, though."

"Could've just stomped on its head," said Jill. "Save your ammo."

"I got enough to spare for now," said Claire.

"But it won't last forever, Goober," said Chris, giving her a look.

"Promise, the next legless zombie I see, I'll stomp its head, bro. Okay?"

They edged down the hallway, guns out and sweeping for targets. Nothing. As they rounded a corner, something moved underneath the floor. Jill stopped, looked at the others. "I wasn't the only one who heard that, right?" she asked.

"No, I heard it," said Chris.

On the floor, Jill noticed a sealed hatch—probably led to a utility tunnel, she decided—the metal rusting around the edges. It was secured by a padlock. She heard something move again, and then the hatch heaved with a squeal of metal, and popped off its hinges. Jill sprang back and ducked, narrowly avoiding being struck upside the head by the lid. Something dragged itself up through the hatch and unfolded like a paper trick, limbs, which had been set at unnatural angles, popping back into place with a noise so visceral that she winced.

A tall, thin man, or at least what had once been a tall, thin man, loomed over them, wearing the rags of a tweed suit, a blood-stained strip of fabric, the stapled edges of it crusted, stretched tight over his eyes. He grinned like a skull, his teeth a ruin of brown and black rot. Long, spidery appendages unfurled from his back and snapped taut like a tent-frame.

"Holy fuck what is that?" said Claire, behind her.

"Something I really don't wanna fuck with," answered Jill, and before she could say anything else, the creature's limbs sawed down, and she swayed back, dragging Claire with her. The sharp, blade-like tips of its appendages cut into the floor, carving deep ruts into the concrete.

The creature roared, and its chest suddenly burst, the sewn edges of its skin coming apart and away in ragged autopsy flaps, revealing the swollen lump of what had once been its heart, beating rapidly and out of time. Jill fired her gun at the heart, and the BOW shrieked as if in pain, doubling over, spurting blood onto the ground. It stunned the thing just long enough that the three of them could slip past it, and they sprinted down the hall without looking back.

Jill could hear the BOW lumbering after them, its sharp limbs carving up the walls and floor. If she didn't keep a nice cushion between it and them, she knew those appendages would dice them into zombie chum. She twisted around and fired two shots at its center mass, and the creature caterwauled in agony. The three of them whipped around another corner, legs pumping hard, boots pounding the concrete. Jill skidded on some black ice and almost pitched sideways, but Chris caught her by the arm and righted her.

"Thanks," said Jill.

"Don't mention it, partner," said Chris.

"Maintenance room shouldn't be too far," panted Claire, flushed and sweating. She glanced back and swore, her eyes shot wide. Then, " Move !"

Jill glanced over her shoulder, saw the BOW shrinking the distance between them. It hooked its limbs into the ceiling and swung forward, but Chris negotiated a very tricky shot that would have made Barry proud, and when the bullet struck its heart, the BOW crumpled to the floor like a dead spider, wailing.

They must have hurt the thing enough that it decided they weren't worth the effort, and it gave up the chase to range for easier prey. Upon reaching the maintenance room, Jill fought the urge to pile whatever wasn't nailed down against the door, and instead turned her attention to the room. The room wasn't much bigger than a supply closet, and seemed to have served as someone's office. A shift-schedule was taped to the wall, and beside it sat a work-table wedged between steel shelves stuffed with cardboard boxes, tools, and spare parts. An aluminum desk stood in the corner of the room, a computer chugging atop it. A blue Rangers F.C jacket was draped over the backrest of the worn office chair behind the desk, its pleather upholstery ripped in several places, and duct-taped in others.

"Thank fuck the computer still works," said Jill, with a sigh of relief.

"You really think they just keep blueprints on the computer?" asked Chris.

"A maintenance guy would need the plans to repair pipelines, electrical work, and so on, so forth," said Jill, wiggling the mouse so the Umbrella screensaver went away. She frowned. "Shit."

"What?" asked Claire.

"Needs a password."

Chris glanced around the room, then at the door, then around again. He rubbed his chin, his eyes settling thoughtfully on the jacket. "Try 'Rangers'," he suggested.

Jill did. It worked. "How the fuck—"

"You don't understand how fanatical Rangers fans are," said Chris.

"I hate sports," said Claire. Then, "Hurry up and find what you need, Jill. Before that thing comes back."

Jill started snooping around the computer, and said, "I was hoping for Umbrella secrets. Nothing here except some emails between the Chief Maintenance Tech, a guy named Donald McNally, and Alfred. McNally wanted the facility's construction plans for some kinda infrastructure project. Alfred granted him temp permissions, but that was weeks ago, so I doubt they still work." She clicked on a file, in the corner of the desktop. The desktop background was a Rangers logo.

There was a restricted file in this directory, and when she clicked on it, it prompted her for administrative permissions. Jill took out Alfred's keycard, logged his employee number. The facility's construction plans came up, and Jill grinned. "Dunno what he was using them for," said Jill, hitting the print button. Nearby, the printer whined and chunked out a sheet of hard-copy. "The infrastructure of this place is shit. Probably hasn't been upgraded since the 80s."

"Donald McNally," said Claire suddenly, as if she'd just remembered something important. She looked at Jill. "Grayson mentioned him. He was looking for the guy. Said he took something." She shrugged, adding, "Described him as a Scottish guy with graying red hair, almost as big as him."

Jill realized something, then. "He was the asshole who attacked me outside the elevator. He was looking for Ashford." Collecting the printout of the facility's plans, she folded it into neat quarters and pocketed the paper. "Come on, let's go. Whatever McNally's got, we need to get it back."

"Don't forget about Steve," said Claire, angrily.

"I haven't," said Jill. "Promise."