His words had begun to carry a certain edge of insight, too.
Especially when he analyzed the relationship between James Marcus and Spencer – the points he raised made Billy see him in a whole new light.
Beyond that, by Billy’s own reckoning, whatever had changed in Ivan had to be tied to Umbrella somehow.
After all, most of the passengers aboard the Ecliptic Express had come from Umbrella, and the train itself belonged to the company.
That didn’t mean Billy intended to keep his guard up around Ivan.
Just the opposite – if Ivan told him to cut his own throat, he wouldn’t so much as furrow his brow.
Ivan had helped him far too much for that.
And if not for everything that had happened tonight, the illusion he’d held about Umbrella would still be intact.
He’d never have suspected there was anything wrong with the company at all.
So it stood to reason that even if Ivan really had come from Umbrella, he might have no idea what that “conscientious pharmaceutical giant” truly was underneath.
Rebecca didn’t think nearly as hard about any of it.
Just as Ivan trusted her without condition, she trusted him without condition.
Besides – a man who could still salute the dead after losing every memory he had…
The thought sent a warmth through her, and her eyes softened as she looked at him.
Faced with their praise, Ivan rubbed the back of his head, a little sheepish.
Then he dropped his hand and made a suggestion.
“I say we leave it alone.
We’re standing in the enemy’s home base – even if we went after those cameras, I doubt we could ever clear them all out.” “And I can’t pin down exactly where the gaze is coming from anyway…” Neither of them argued.
With that settled, the three of them turned their full attention to searching the ground floor of the main hall.
In the underground monitoring room, the white-robed man watched Ivan with a gaze that burned hotter by the second.
“How delightful you are.” On Ivan’s end, the three of them started with a large door to the right of the entrance.
The deeper they went, the clearer it became: this route also led downward.
“Looks like we picked right,” Billy said quietly.
Rebecca and Ivan both gave him a thumbs-up.
They pressed on, descending further, and after opening another door they stepped into a chamber that looked like something out of an ancient ruin.
Firelight played across the walls, lending the stone an oily sheen.
A sunken circular pit lay at the center of the room, ringed by six stone pedestals.
Each pedestal held the statue of an animal – a deer, a wolf, a horse, a leopard, a snake, an eagle.
None of that held their attention, though.
The moment they came through the door, they spotted a body lying dead ahead.
The chamber was laid out in the shape of the character 凸 (a raised block with a narrow section jutting from a broad base), and Ivan and the others stood in the left wing of it.
Their line of sight was cut off; they couldn’t make out what was inside.
The three of them traded a look.
Billy raised the M4A1 and put two rounds into the far door at the end of the room.
Crack, crack.
They waited nearly half a minute.
Nothing stirred, and only then did the tension in their faces ease a fraction.
Billy signaled.
Once he saw both of them acknowledge, he took point and moved to the center of the room – and his pupils shrank.
Blood spattered the wall on the left.
An Eliminator lay on its side on the floor, so riddled with holes there was no question it was finished.
By then Ivan and Rebecca had reached his side.
Their eyes were drawn, unbidden, to what lay diagonally across from the dead Eliminator.
Another human corpse – and pinning down its back, a second Eliminator.
With the two men covering her, Rebecca crossed to the body and crouched for a closer look.
Her attention settled on the patch over the left breast of the tactical suit.
When she made out the lettering, though, she frowned.
“U.S.S.?” “Does Umbrella have a unit like that?” Her reaction prompted a question from Ivan.
“Rebecca, is there something wrong with that name?” She turned to look at him and nodded.
“Mm.
I’ve never heard of any unit under Umbrella called the U.S.S.” “Their corporate security is usually handled by the U.B.C.S.
(Umbrella Biohazard Countermeasure Service).” Billy had been listening in silence.
Thinking back on the petty scheming among Umbrella’s founders, a new idea struck him.
“Could it be a black unit?
Something Umbrella keeps off the books to handle the dirty work?” Rebecca’s eyes lit up.
“That’s possible.” Remembering the shredded B.O.W.
corpses they’d passed, she went on.
“It would explain why they fight that well.” Studying the body, Ivan caught something of his own.
“They’re ruthless.
Rebecca, Billy – look at his upper body.
It’s nothing but bullet holes.” “Put that together with the state of this Eliminator, and I’d say after the thing ambushed him…” “His own teammates hosed him down without a second thought.” The two followed his gaze.
Sure enough, the man’s torso had been perforated from end to end.
Pour a kettle of water into him and it would run straight through like a sieve.
Billy’s expression turned grim.
“Then whatever grade we assigned to this so-called Bravo Team, we need to raise it.” “Damn Umbrella.
These are probably men they raised to die on command.” “Ivan, Rebecca – we go carefully from here on.
Compared to the B.O.W.s, these people are the real danger.” Neither Rebecca nor Ivan disagreed.
After that, the three of them gave the pockets of both U.S.S.
corpses a quick pass and came up with nothing.
Everything the men carried had already been stripped away.
A more thorough search never crossed their minds – that would have been an insult to the dead.
Before leaving the chamber, they looked toward the room at the far right end of the 凸 and decided to check it out.
The door opened onto a floor split by a large pit, the kind that forms when a place goes years without maintenance.
Remembering what they’d found in the interrogation chamber, Rebecca tilted her head back toward the ceiling.
Sure enough, there was a round hole up there as well.
Through the opening she could just make out the interrogation chamber above.
Ivan saw how the hole in the ceiling had captured her – and that she’d drifted to the very lip of the pit trying to get a better angle.
He moved fast and caught her arm.
“Careful.” Pulled back onto solid ground, Rebecca blinked back to herself.
At the concern in his voice, she gave an embarrassed little laugh.
“Heh, I got carried away…” Ivan said nothing, just smiled and waved it off.
Billy had already made a full circuit of the safe ground along the room’s edge.
He looked over at the two of them and pointed at the corner by the wall, resignation in his voice.
“This place is cleaner than a rat’s nest.
Not one useful thing left behind.” “Dead end.
Let’s head back to that last room and see what’s behind the door the U.S.S.
paid for with their lives.” ____ 👻🔥Want more?
P*treon: Walnut-chan🔥👻 🔥 New history: DanMachi: