“Come to think of it, where did James Marcus actually go?” “Feels like even the sunlight in this place has gone moldy.
The site’s clearly been abandoned a long time.” “No wonder the mission those Umbrella personnel on the train were given was to restart the Umbrella Executive Training School.” Rebecca understood that Billy was asking about James Marcus’s whereabouts.
She had a few guesses of her own on that score.
“He was probably relocated.
James Marcus was one of Umbrella’s founders, after all, and a brilliant researcher on top of that.” “Generally speaking, even setting the founder angle aside and looking purely at the second point -” “From Spencer’s point of view, however much James Marcus resented him, it would never have been worth burning the whole house down.” “Just like Ivan analyzed earlier, Spencer needs his scientific genius to accomplish whatever it is he can’t say out loud.” Billy saw it differently.
He thought of his own captain, and of that idiot of a commanding officer.
He thought of how he’d gone from a soldier with an honorable record to a man carrying twenty-three deaths on his name.
Still, he didn’t argue with Rebecca.
He just nodded.
Her reasoning held up well enough, especially through the lens Ivan had used earlier.
James Marcus’s political instincts were nowhere near Spencer’s.
His human experimentation – and probably a good deal more that never saw daylight – had almost certainly been in Spencer’s grip for years.
Under those conditions, the odds that James Marcus had been played like a puppet were not small at all.
Billy turned his attention back to Ivan, who was working through a stick of ham, bite after bite.
His eyes had gone unfocused.
He was clearly turning something over.
That got Billy curious.
He wanted to hear Ivan’s read on it.
“Ivan, what do you think?” The question dragged Ivan out of his own head and back into the room.
He didn’t answer right away.
He took a moment to sort through the threads tangled in his mind.
After a short pause, Ivan asked a question of his own.
“Where had we gotten to just now?” Rebecca’s voice was soft and clear as she filled him in from beside him.
“The identity of the white-robed man, his motive, and where James Marcus went.” Ivan gave her a slight nod, then turned to Billy on his left.
“Run me through what you two discussed.
I want it as a reference point.” Billy relayed the whole conversation between himself and Rebecca.
Ivan rubbed his palms together, then smiled at Rebecca first.
“Understood.
I think Rebecca’s read is solid.” At his approval, a sweet smile spread across Rebecca’s fair face.
Ivan straightened up and went on.
“I’d add a few things on top of what Rebecca said.” “Besides being some executive trainee, there’s another possibility for the white-robed man – that he is the leech itself.” “What?” Billy’s first reaction was flat disbelief.
Then something clicked, and he changed course mid-sentence.
“Wait – right!
Those leeches on the train took on human shape.” Seeing Billy’s eyes brighten by the second, Ivan pressed on.
“Exactly.
The leeches have a mimicry ability.
But whatever his identity turns out to be, one thing doesn’t change.
Like Rebecca said – his hatred for Umbrella.” Billy let out a long breath at the end of their analysis, a note of awe in his voice.
“It’s unbelievable.
That leeches could mutate that far.” Seen from that angle, the Progenitor Virus really was terrifying in its power.
No wonder James Marcus had thrown himself into researching it like a man possessed.
After that nobody spoke.
They simply finished off the food in their hands, and quickly.
Once everything was packed away, Ivan’s squad – restored to full strength – moved out again.
Riding on the legacy Bravo Team had left behind, they cut through obstacle after obstacle without a serious check.
From the church they came to a laboratory lined with several large cultivation tanks.
All three of them stopped and stared at what lay in front of them.
Human remains had been scattered like a canvas torn to pieces – a fragment here, a fragment there, draped over workbenches, across the floor, hanging off culture dishes.
Every member of Ivan’s squad was a veteran of hard fighting by now, and even so, their faces went pale at the sight.
Fighting down the thick reek of blood, Billy swept his gaze over the rest of the battlefield.
“Hunters.
Eliminators.
Leech Men too – B.O.W.s, all of them.” From the notes they’d recovered earlier, Billy knew what a Hunter was: the product of reptile ova fused with human genetic material.
The things possessed a certain level of intelligence.
Not up to an Eliminator’s standard, but enough to follow simple commands.
Enough to be pointed at a target and turned loose.
With their leaping power and the claws on their hands, they could tear an enemy apart.
Ivan walked over to one of the cultivation tanks.
The reinforced glass had shattered, and taken together with the assorted B.O.W.
corpses strewn around the room, the picture came clear.
In all likelihood, this had been a trap laid specifically for Bravo Team.
Ivan lifted the camera hanging at his neck and took a series of photographs of the carnage filling the lab.
When he was done he extended one finger and, following local custom, traced a cross over his chest in mourning for the dead.
Whoever Bravo Team had been, whether they’d meant to or not, the plain fact was that his own people had reached this depth with startling ease – and they owed those men and women for it.
Seconds earlier Rebecca had still been counting the mutilated bodies, running ammunition figures and the next stretch of route through her head.
Her brow was tightly drawn, her stomach turning at the smell of blood.
Then she looked up and caught Ivan with his eyes shut, tracing that cross.
The tension in her brows eased, as though something had gently smoothed it away.
She simply watched him, quietly.
Until, at some point, Ivan was standing right in front of her.
“What is it, Rebecca?” he asked gently.
She didn’t answer.
She just reached out and brushed a fingertip over an invisible speck of dust on his shoulder.
Then she drew her hand back and shook her head with a smile.
“Nothing.
I was just thinking – if Umbrella ever found out what’s on the camera around your neck, our names would be ringing out across the whole world.” Ivan followed her train of thought and pictured it.
“Ha.
By then there’d be wanted posters of us blowing around every street in the country.” Billy heard the exchange, thought of what had happened to him, and his face turned serious.
“There wouldn’t be time for that.
Before the second day was out, we’d be found with seven bullets in us and the death ruled a suicide.” “So, Ivan, Rebecca – be careful.
Umbrella will come for payback.” There was nothing in Billy’s sharp eyes right then but concern for the two of them.
He knew neither Ivan nor Rebecca was likely to back down from Umbrella.
That was exactly why he worried.
Both of them caught the worry underneath his words, and both nodded, grave-faced.
As they left the laboratory, Rebecca told the other two what she had found inside.
Learning that Bravo Team had lost at least six people in that room, all three of them tightened up and stayed sharp.
Several floors later, the sight of a cable car ahead of them brought a flicker of excitement to all three faces.
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