Billy reached Ivan’s side almost at the same moment as Rebecca.
He saw what she was doing and asked, anxious, “Well?
Is Ivan all right?” Rebecca’s red lips parted, and her voice shook with feeling.
“Yes!
He’s only sleeping.” It was the answer Billy wanted.
He punched the air.
“Thank God!” “But why would Ivan fall unconscious like this?” As he spoke, Billy reached out, meaning to check Ivan over for hidden injuries.
That was when a pleasant woman’s voice drifted over from the railing.
“I’d advise you not to do that.” Rebecca and Billy turned toward it on instinct.
That a leech could speak did not surprise them in the slightest.
Within the tide of leeches, a human silhouette swelled up out of the mass.
The tide bore the shape forward and set it down at Ivan’s feet.
Its work done, the tide began to withdraw, draining out of Rebecca’s and Billy’s sight at a speed the eye could follow.
The silhouette it had carried out shifted through several forms and finally settled into its true face.
“You?!” Billy’s voice held alarm and, beneath it, a note of expectation confirmed.
The white-robed man nodded and said nothing more.
He looked down at the sleeping Ivan, and the corners of his mouth curved into a smile heavy with meaning.
“Come.
This is no place to talk.” “Don’t worry.
His body is in perfect condition.
Falling into this sleep is no bad thing.” “When the time is right, he’ll wake on his own.” With that, the white-robed man beckoned, and leeches hidden in the cracks came rustling out again.
Obedient to his will, they gathered beneath Ivan and hoisted him up the way ants haul a load, carrying him forward without a single jolt.
Rebecca and Billy did not try to stop him.
The way the white-robed man had driven his leeches to save Ivan had left a deep impression on them both, and for the moment it had set their guard aside.
So the “three” of them arrived at a wordless understanding.
Billy and Rebecca gathered their gear, then followed the white-robed man off into unknown territory.
Some time later, the white-robed man stopped before a cargo cable car and clapped his hands lightly.
“Here we are.
Get on.” Rebecca and Billy exchanged a glance, then boarded one after the other.
This cable car was rather different from the last one.
That earlier one had looked less like a cable car than a train.
This one was a plain square platform.
Seeing the two of them do as he asked, the white-robed man’s brow smoothed further.
Talking with intelligent people saved so much trouble.
They were worthy of the regard he held for them.
He turned his palm to the sky and made a lifting motion.
The leeches obeyed at once, carrying Ivan smoothly onto the platform.
The white-robed man stepped aboard after them, and the cable car began to move.
It carried them toward an unknown ending.
No one spoke the whole way.
Only when the car halted and Rebecca and Billy set foot on solid ground did they see where they were: a helipad, with a helicopter parked on it under a shroud of cobwebs and dust.
Rebecca studied it for a few seconds.
It looked like a Bell 212.
Unlike the military version the Raccoon City Police Department flew, though, this was the civilian model, built mainly to move personnel or cargo.
The white-robed man directed his leeches to carry Ivan off the platform and set him down between Rebecca and Billy.
Then he walked forward, hands hanging loose at his sides, until he stood in front of them.
He turned and looked at the pair.
“No pair of sneaking little rats will bother us here.
It’s a good place to talk.” Billy had been holding in a bellyful of questions, and now they broke loose.
“Who the hell are you?!
What happened in this place?” The white-robed man let out a cold snort.
“Hmph.
You’re asking what you already know.
Haven’t you both guessed it long ago?” He waved a hand, and the leeches that had been trailing him collapsed and reformed in an instant into a bald old man.
Billy recognized him.
This was the old man they had seen aboard the train.
The bald old man raised his head and looked at Billy, and an aged voice came crawling up out of the cracks of time to tell of things long past.
“Ten years ago, coveting the fruits of my research, Spencer turned my own students against me.
William and Wesker.” At those words Rebecca and Billy understood who he was: the other founder of Umbrella, the director of the Umbrella Executive Training School, Doctor James Marcus.
“They worked hand in glove with a USS unit, broke into my laboratory, and shot me dead.” “Afterward my two beloved pupils ran their tests, round after round, and then threw my corpse into the sewer.” He bit down hard on the words beloved pupils.
“And then a miracle happened.
My darling little ones found me.” “They crawled into my body, and over the course of several years they gave me new life.” James Marcus held his aged arms before him, both hands closing into fists.
The wrinkles on his face stretched smooth.
“Out of that damp, stinking sewer, out of the result Umbrella was so smug about, I came back to life!” “And now I will make all of Umbrella pay the price for my death!” “The hour of vengeance has come!!!” “Hahahahaha!” James Marcus threw back his head and howled, and the laughter rang with pure, unrestrained satisfaction.
Billy kept his face still, quietly turning the words over.
He thought back to the discussion he’d had with Rebecca and Ivan on exactly this subject.
Then his eyes lit up.
“No.
No, that’s wrong.
You’re not James Marcus.
You’re the leeches!” “James Marcus is dead.
You’re only imitating him!” The laughter cut off.
Marcus and the white-robed man beside him both turned unfriendly faces toward Billy.
Yet deep in their pupils something else flickered, something they would not name.
Rebecca, still crouched beside Ivan and watching over him, spoke up as well.
“Billy’s right.
James Marcus is dead, and you said yourself that his body went through round after round of Umbrella’s examinations.” “If there had been even a sliver of life left in him, they’d never have dumped that body in the sewer.” “And there’s something else.
Would you tell me whether this Wesker you mention is a member of the Raccoon City Police Department?” James Marcus gave her a long, searching look.
“If you mean a blond, crew-cut little bastard who’s always wearing sunglasses, then yes, I imagine he is.” The strength drained out of Rebecca’s body at those words, most of it gone in a single breath.
“How could he…” She had suspected it for a while.
Hearing it confirmed was another matter, and for a moment she simply could not take it in.
Seeing the stunned, hollowed-out look on Rebecca’s face, Marcus lost interest in her and swung his attention back to Billy.
“Boy.
You say I’m not James Marcus?
How dare you say such a thing?
Hmm?!” Marcus covered his right eye with one hand, and his voice slid toward something unhinged.
“The hatred I carry, my personality, my memories, all of it, every last piece proves that I am James Marcus!!!” “For this I attacked the Ecliptic Express.
With the very t-Virus Spencer dreamed of possessing, I infected the Spencer Mansion, I infected the Arklay Laboratory, the Umbrella Executive Training School, the underground treatment plant!” “With hatred on that scale, you dare tell me I’m not James Marcus?!” “How dare you!” ____ 👻🔥Walnut-chan — Patre*n🔥👻 🔥 New history: Zenless Zone Zero: