Chapter 10
Landing at the Northwest Dock had been a lot easier than landing at the Southern beach had been. The harbor itself had been well berthed and appeared to be reinforced. Joseph Frost figured that was more than likely because of the tropical storm climate this region of the world dealt with.
"It's too quiet here," Vance Drew whispered from nearby as everyone was preparing to disembark.
Joseph turned toward him and nodded, seeing that his soldier's attention was actually directed toward him. Joseph had found out from Rain a few weeks back that the rumors about him and Alphonso Warner had been way off. They were actually half-brothers, which was the reason for their closeness. He'd sighed in relief when he found this out, thankful that he hadn't made an ass of himself for assuming the wrong thing, and Rain as well had been glad to have not made an accusation that had been false either.
Vance and Alphonso had been concerned that Victor wouldn't have allowed them to be on the same team because of their blood connection, probably thinking that they would be compromised and risk the rest of their team if something were to happen. Thing was, Victor knew a massive amount of stuff, more than he probably should, and because of that, he undoubtedly knew that the two were related and let it slide, which Joseph told Vance when he finally went to him to send his condolences for his loss.
"I don't like that there aren't any Umbrella staff here to welcome us with gunfire," Joseph pointed out to Vance. "The beach south was one thing, but there's actual Umbrella facilities here."
"They aren't expecting any boats," Trent said as he moved up to them. "So, they have no reason to be watching. Umbrella may be a rich conglomerate, but they don't want to waste resources by having staff at a dock when they aren't needed."
"Then we should just be lucky that they didn't have any deliveries today," Vance said.
Trent nodded. "Exactly."
Rain drove one of the Thorne Mobile Field Systems SUVs off of the boat as J.D. Salinas drove another one off behind hers. They were the smaller team, so they wouldn't need more than two vehicles, if they needed them at all. The mansion was looming in the near distance anyway.
Joseph pointed toward that very mansion. "Deja fucking vu."
Trent nodded in agreement. "I don't like this. It makes no sense… well, maybe a little."
Joseph raised an eyebrow toward Trent.
Trent noticed and smiled. "Lord Spencer had three of these mansions constructed… though this one would be the fourth. Though one of them is at a facility that people keep telling me doesn't exist: Antarctica."
"But you believe it actually does?" Joseph asked.
Trent nodded. "I do. I just never ventured down there. It's one of our targets down the line, but we need some massive preparations for that kind of cold, so I've held off on that mission for some time. The last of those mansions is actually more of a castle. Very beautiful, sitting on the edge of a cliff, looking out at the ocean."
Taking up the lead, Joseph moved down the ramp that Rain and J.D. had just drove the vehicles down. Trent, Vance, Kevin, Kaplan, Olga, Yoko, and Hamilton followed after him.
"What's the likelihood of running into BOWs on the way to that mansion?" Kevin asked.
"Depends on early alert systems," Trent replied. "I'm going into this facility blind, so I can only use previous facilities is a template." He moved to the first of the two vehicles where Rain was driving. "Joseph, Kevin, and Yoko with me. Vance, Kaplan, Olga, and Dr. Hamilton in J.D.'s vehicle." Trent glanced up to the boat and saw Captain Blake McCabe standing there. Giving the captain a short wave, he got into the passenger seat.
Once everyone was loaded up, they moved down the remainder of the dock and then onto the sand, going toward the grassy path to the mansion.
"Keep the headlights off, sir?" Rain asked.
"I'm afraid so, Ocampo," Trent told her. He clearly didn't like the idea. "The less signs of us being here, the better."
Joseph leaned up from the backseat. "Why isn't there an actual road? You'd think they'd want to make it easier for vehicles to go from the harbor to the mansion."
"I can't pretend to understand what's going on here," Trent replied.
"Do we even know who's controlling this island?" Yoko asked.
Trent shook his head. "I contacted every single source I had at my disposal. No one could give me a straight answer. They all thought I was crazy for even looking into it. Jackson Courtlandt said I was wasting company resources on wild goose chases. Sergei Vladimir laughed at me and joked that I just wanted to take a vacation to Costa Rica. He said I was making excuses to avoid continued searches to get the TALOS information active. Charles Coleman, the damn security chief for the entire company, didn't even know what I was talking about. He said the same thing that Kaplan said earlier on the boat: Umbrella has nothing to do with Costa Rica."
"Maybe one of them was lying, sir," Rain offered.
"Possibly," Trent admitted. "I'm more inclined for Sergei. He's –"
The attack came sudden, and Yoko was the only one to scream. A massive form rammed itself, full force, straight into the vehicle, and even though most vehicles would've been sent flying end over end for miles from that kind of force, this TMFS SUV took the blunt force like a champ, just sending them spinning around a couple times before coming to a complete stop.
"Hit the headlights, Ocampo, now!" Trent ordered.
When Rain turned on the lights, illuminating the general area, shock crossed all five of their faces. It took an additional moment for them to realize that gunfire was sounding off to the side. It was apparent that J.D., Olga, Vance, Kaplan, and Hamilton had gotten out of their vehicle and were engaging this monstrous beast that had just attacked them.
"That's not another Fossil," Joseph said.
"We need to get out there," Kevin told them, cocking his shotgun. He opened his door and stepped out with Yoko moving to follow after him, pulling out a handgun of her own.
Joseph nodded, barely able to take his eyes off of the beast as he checked his rifle and then got out as well.
Rain put the vehicle in park, grabbed her handgun and then looked to Trent. He wasn't moving. He simple stared forward. She placed an assuring hand on his shoulder and then got out of the vehicle to join the fray.
Trent couldn't believe what was before his eyes. He reached into the interior pocket of his trench coat and pulled out a small, red book. Flipping through the pages, he saw many different drawings of dinosaurs. These were illustrations that had been made over the years by people that had seen the InGen creatures in all of their glory. Some of the drawings were from Dr. Levine, but others had been made by many different sources, including a drawing of a Procompsognathus that had been thrown together by a little girl named Tina Bowman, despite that people at the time had believed it to have been a basilisk lizard.
"Not in here," Trent whispered to himself. "Sail on the back. Crocodilian in nature. Can't be a gator BOW type. That sail." He had to admit to himself that he was no Paleontologist. He didn't know the names of those prehistoric creatures of glory and splendor. This monster, however, wasn't a glorious creation of the past… at least not anymore.
He suddenly saw a massive tentacle rocket out of the spine on the creature's back, wrapping itself around Vance, taking him into the air as the soldiers tried and failed to shoot the thing. Within seconds, Vance had been tossed by the tentacle into the creature's mouth and devoured.
"Nemesis parasite," Trent whispered. "Someone's using the goddamn Nemesis parasite." He shook his head. "This isn't on InGen's List either."
Jumping out of the vehicle finally, Trent moved for the back. Opening the trunk, he immediately grabbed for a long case and opened it, praying that in his shock, he wasn't too late. Vance Drew had already been lost. He didn't want to lose…
A scream. Chad Kaplan.
Trent hoisted the rocket launcher on his shoulder and moved around the SUV. He barely had a chance to notice that the creature's foot had slammed onto Kaplan, crushing him from the weight.
The monster roared, and as Trent fired the rocket, he could've sworn that he'd heard the word "S.T.A.R.S." echoed through the roar, but it didn't matter anymore, as the rocket slammed into the creature, exploding through its head, obliterating any hint that there'd ever even been one.
Trent lowered the now empty launcher and dropped it to the ground. He slowly moved forward, his attention fixed on the crumpled body of Chad Kaplan. Closing his eyes, Trent took several deep breathes. "Chad Kaplan. Vance Drew. Rest in peace."
As he opened his eyes once more, Trent saw the others staring at him, waiting for orders. Pointing toward the mansion, he immediately moved in that direction, not bothering to say anything. Whoever had done all of this was about to pay.
Joseph jogged to catch up with Trent. "I know what that thing was."
"It had the Nemesis parasite in it," Trent barely said.
"It was a Spinosaurus," Joseph said. "I know that because –"
"Bobby is a kid that loves dinosaurs," Trent finished for him. "That thing wasn't on InGen's List."
"InGen's List?" Joseph asked.
"Dr. Levine gave me this book," Trent replied, pulling the book out of his trench coat for a moment before placing it back. "It was supposed to be beneficial while we weren't in contact, but that didn't work out."
Joseph could tell that Trent wasn't actually like the Victor Darius that he knew, just from his mannerisms and the way he was speaking. "Victor what –"
"Not Victor," Trent corrected him. "This mission isn't going to be won by Victor Darius. Trent has to take over." That said, he continued moving.
Joseph fell back, shock crossing his face. He turned to the others as he moved in pace with them. "Watch Mr. Darius. He isn't taking this well."
"I don't think any of us are, Commander Frost," Olga said from the back.
Joseph nodded. "We've lost two brave men. I know that, but we have to stay on mission and believe in each other. We can't lose anyone else."
As Trent moved up the stairs of the mansion to the front door, it didn't escape his notice that they weren't attacked again. That Spino-Nemesis was apparently just a watchdog. That had been their early warning system. There weren't many lights on from the windows of the manor, and it was clear that the entrance wouldn't be lit, but he knew that whoever was inside would know they were there. The rocket launcher's explosion alone, regardless of the roars from the creature had been more than enough of an early warning. Nevertheless, he would finally know what the hell was happening on Isla Tacano.
The double doors opened with an ominous creak. Trent moved in, pulling a handgun from his hidden holster. The foyer was, as he had already deduced outside, dark. Light from the moonlight outside, shining through the windows, was the only thing illuminating the space, but from that little bit of light alone, Trent knew that this foyer looked remarkably like the main foyer at The Spencer Estate that no longer existed outside of Raccoon City, which also no longer existed.
A motorized noise sounded out as the rest of Trent's team moved into the foyer. The sound was coming from the top of the grand staircase several feet away from them.
Once the last person, Olga Danilova, was inside, the double doors instantly slammed, the loudness echoing throughout the entire hall.
"I knew someone would eventually discover Isla Tacano," a frail, wicked voice stated from the darkness. "But I never imagined it would be the mysterious board of executives liason Mr. Trent."
Trent lowered the handgun. "I know that voice."
A light at the top of the stairs faded in, revealing the wheelchair bound Lord Ozwell E. Spencer. He cackled, putting his hands into a tent on his lap. "How fun to see the realization fall before me that Umbrella is getting very close to figuring out our little secrets."
"Lord Spencer," Trent hissed.
Joseph Frost moved up beside him. "Well, at least you finally found him. Maybe now's the time to ask about Chili."
"Chili?" Spencer asked. "Spreading company secrets to the riff raff, Mr. Trent? How very unbecoming of you. The rest of the board would not be pleased. Though, I must say, these people that you're with, they don't look like Umbrella Special Forces to me. Either you have this off the books, or these men and women aren't Umbrella at all."
"Some of us used to be," Rain pointed out.
"Rain Ocampo, yes?" Spencer asked.
Rain was taken aback by that as shock crossed her face.
"Yes, my dear, I know who you are," Spencer revealed. "I actually know who all of you are, and at least one of you is supposed to be dead." He pointed toward Joseph. "Killed by my attack dogs outside of my estate near Raccoon City."
Joseph's lips quivered.
"Don't let him get to you," Trent said. "He's trying to distract us."
Someone moved down a side set of the stairs to Spencer wearing a suit and a lab coat. "Why would he want to do that? Could it be because you don't know what you've walked into?"
"Edward Ashford," Trent said, shaking his head. "So, you did survive?"
Ashford grinned. "Yes, my disappearance was simply that. People I was strongly connected to were being murdered. I had to get away and discover who was doing it. Sadly, I'm still at a dead end on that."
"I could tell you, if you guarantee the safety of the rest of my people," Trent told him. "I know who ordered the deaths of James and Helen Darius as well as James Marcus."
"But I'm not dead," another voice stated in the darkness. A man with long, flowing blond hair, wearing an ugly looking ceremonial dress robe stepped down the other side set of stairs, joining Spencer and Ashford. There were leeches crawling around on the dress robe.
"Only now do you begin to understand," Spencer said. "The founders of Umbrella reunited."
Trent shook his head. "That's not James Marcus. That's an imposter."
"How dare you!" A female voice called out from the darkness. "Our father knows exactly who he is!"
All of the lights in the foyer faded in at that moment as horror crossed everyone's faces. There were in fact three people standing on the upper balcony above the grand staircase, but surrounding them were…
"Velociraptors!" Joseph exclaimed, his breathing intensifying. "There's so many of them."
Trent shook his head. "Not just Velociraptors. See those things crawling around on them? Those are leeches. Massive, T-Virus infected, leeches." He pointed toward Marcus. "The Marcus imposter is controlling them, just like the ones that are on him."
"That's because James Marcus controls his leaches." the Marcus imposter said, spreading his arms wide. "Isn't James Marcus The Leech Queen?"
"How could our father control these leeches if he wasn't our father?" one of the two females up above said. She had neck length blond hair and wore a red dress and black biker shorts combination along with black combat boots.
"You look younger than you should, Alicia," Trent called up to her.
Alicia Marcus nodded. "I have William Birkin to thank for that." She pointed toward Yoko Suzuki. "Not to mention everything you did for him."
Yoko moved forward, suddenly angry. "What is that supposed to mean?"
"What I feared when I realized who you were," Trent told Yoko. "Everything that Birkin did to you and the others from Raccoon University was for Alicia Marcus. She was aging quickly from a disease called Progeria. The woman you're looking at, she's supposed to be twelve years old."
"And I don't look a day over thirty," Alicia said, shaking her head. "Regardless, the process was stopped, and I live." She gestured toward the other woman up there. "I got to see my sister Evelyn give birth." She then gestured to the boy nearby. "Simon is going to rule Umbrella someday. The lot of you, however, are going to die here."
"Now, now, let's be kinder to our guests," Spencer stated with a chuckle. "We do get so few here. She's had to spend a lot of time around Umbrella and Biosyn staff, so she doesn't remember how to speak to others."
"Biosyn?" Trent asked. "So, after Chili, the rumors, all the covert operations, were all true. You were working together, behind Lewis Dodgson's back for some reason, to get the InGen technology."
"Lewis Dodgson was a short-sighted fool," Spencer told him. "He had no vision, and Jeff Rossiter knew it. Dr. Dodgson just wanted to make money off of InGen's creatures."
"Isn't making money what all companies want?" Joseph asked.
"Not when you're more concerned with being a God," Spencer boomed.
Trent shook his head. "The rumors of your lack of sanity, it appears, were true."
Spencer chuckled. "You're in no position to be questioning my resolve, Mr. Trent." Spencer turned his head toward the Marcus imposter. "Activate your Leech Raptors."
Opening his mouth, the Marcus imposter began singing, but that wasn't what Joseph had his attention on. There was something red glowing underneath the dress robe. He couldn't tell what it was, but when Spencer gave the order, the red pulsating had started. Whatever that was, it appeared to be the key to controlling him.
Up above, the Velociraptors hissed and screeched as suddenly the leeches' movements on the creatures intensified, and before their very eyes, the creatures all turned an oozy black, just like the color of the leeches. Their movements became more erratic as they swayed around, their clawed arms moving above their heads, going back and forth, whipping around as they jumped onto the banister.
"Stop this, Lord Spencer," Trent advised. "You don't know who you're dealing with."
"I've seen the eyes of your friend there," Spencer stated, pointing once more at Joseph. "I know that Albert Wesker has those same eyes. You've been playing a good game for a long time, but I managed to get the upper hand on you with your third acquisition from Raccoon Forest."
Trent's eyes widened as he suddenly realized who the Marcus imposter was. "No. How the hell did you –"
Before anything else could be said, the Leech Velociraptors all bounded off of the banister, jumping for Trent's team. "Scatter!"
Everyone moved off to escape the drop attack, Trent moving toward the left wing of the mansion with Rain, J.D., and Hamilton. Joseph took off toward the right wing with Kevin, Yoko, and Olga in pursuit.
The Leech Raptors swayed from side to side as they stalked after their prey.
Spencer cackled wickedly and clapped his hands together. "Joseph Frost, my dear Mr. Trent, become lost in my nightmare."