” The rusted metal cable car gave a long, piercing whine in the dark.
Click.
Its heavy doors slid apart.
Rebecca stepped onto the dim underground factory platform with the Remington shouldered.
Industrial exhaust fans roared all around her.
Rusted steel pipes twisted over one another, and filthy water dripped down their sides into the deep channels below.
The air reeked of machine oil and rotting meat.
Rebecca freed one hand and pressed hard against the radio at her shoulder.
“Leon?
Leon, can you hear me?
I’m down here.” A wash of noisy electrical static filled the channel.
No one answered.
She approached the edge of the platform and leaned out.
Ten meters below, the drainage channel ran violently, its black water rolling beneath white foam.
Rebecca drew a deep breath beneath the soaked green vest and tightened her grip on the wooden shotgun stock.
She clenched her teeth and muttered, “That monster of a man is not drowning in a little water.” She racked the pump with practiced ease—clack—chambering a shell before turning toward the factory interior.
She had not gone far when heavy footsteps sounded from a dim metal corridor ahead.
Splash.
Splash.
Not the dragging gait of a monster.
Hard-soled tactical boots walking through standing water.
Rebecca snapped the shotgun up and aimed into the shadow at the corner.
A tall figure emerged from the darkness.
He wore a standard S.T.A.R.S.
tactical vest and carried a handgun.
Beneath the flickering red light, Rebecca recognized a stern, bearded face.
“Rebecca?” The man lowered his weapon at once and hurried toward her.
“Thank God.
You’re alive.” “Captain?!” Rebecca lowered the shotgun and some of the tension left her shoulders.
The man before her was Enrico Marini, Bravo Team’s captain, missing since their arrival in the mountains.
“Listen.
The situation is completely out of control.” Enrico went straight to the point.
“Edward is dead.
The others are still missing.
I found a huge mansion on the ridge ahead—possibly another Umbrella site.
You’re coming with me.
We’ll rendezvous there with Alpha Team.” A few hours earlier, the eighteen-year-old rookie who had barely survived the helicopter crash would have obeyed her captain without hesitation.
Now Rebecca only tightened the sling against her shoulder and shook her head.
“Sorry, sir.
I can’t leave.” Her voice was calm.
“I still have a partner down below.
I have to find him.” Enrico’s thick eyebrows drew together.
“A partner?
Other than us, Bravo Team is gone.
Who have you been running around with?” Rebecca kept Wesker’s secret recruit to herself.
She simply met her captain’s eyes.
“He’s a newly hired police officer and a complete lunatic, but I won’t abandon a comrade.
Go on without me, sir.
Once I find him, we’ll meet you at the mansion.” Enrico studied the young medic.
She was soaked, her face scraped, but the evasive uncertainty in her eyes was gone.
The red lights in the corridor flickered.
At last, Enrico sighed.
“All right.
Be careful.
Remember—staying alive comes first.” He turned toward a maintenance elevator leading back to the surface.
The iron gate closed and the elevator climbed away.
Rebecca turned alone, reseated the shotgun stock in her shoulder, and strode toward the stairs descending deeper into the factory.
She had a lunatic to find.
Meanwhile, in the drainage sewer at the lowest level of the underground factory— Storm runoff had made the current unusually violent.
Black wastewater carried rotten weeds and garbage against a huge rusted iron grate.
The stench was overpowering.
Then the submerged grate twisted violently.
CLANG— Several rusted bars as thick as a wrist snapped beneath an overwhelming force from underwater and flew outward.
The filthy surface exploded.
Leon stood up from waist-deep water.
Slimy dark-green weeds and unidentified fibers now covered his black plate armor.
A knot of industrial scrap cable and weeds had tangled around his legs underwater, but he had not bothered untangling it.
He had simply forced his way through by brute strength, crushing the cables and submerged debris alike.
Leon dragged the heavy black-steel Doorstop in one hand.
Its tip scored a long white line through the sewer concrete, throwing sparks behind him.
He strode toward a raised platform where the water was shallower.
He stopped and slapped the radio control on the side of his helmet.
Only a stream of filthy water came out.
“Damn it.” Leon tore a strip of rotten cloth from the faceplate seam and threw it aside as he walked.
“How many years have these terrorists gone without cleaning their sewer?
If my armor rusts, Umbrella owes me full replacement cost.” The instant he stepped onto the concrete platform—a huge bulge rose in the oily water ten meters ahead.
SPLASH!
A Lurker, nearly as massive as the Giant Toad at the cliff but smoother-skinned and covered in purple markings, burst straight out of the water.
It did not pause.
Bulging crimson eyes locked on the black figure and its enormous mouth opened.
A five-meter crimson tongue covered in fine fleshy spines shot forward faster than the previous toad’s.
BANG!
The tongue struck Leon squarely.
Its tip wrapped tightly around the front of his chest armor.
The fleshy barbs contracted, trying to drag him into the water.
A violent pulling force surged through the tongue.
It was strong enough to overturn a car.
Leon did not step back.
He sank his weight and dropped into a deep staggered stance.
The pull forced his heavy iron-soled boots to plow two deep trenches backward through the sewer concrete.
Sparks burst from the friction.
Instead of freeing his chest, Leon released his right hand and dropped the Doorstop beside his boots.
Then both broad hands seized the slick tongue around his chest, high-carbon-steel fingers digging directly into the fleshy spines.
“Get over here!” Leon roared through the helmet.
Muscles exploded beneath his back armor and his upper arms contracted.
He turned the stinking sewer into a tug-of-war arena.
Water erupted as both arms hauled backward together.
The mutant frog weighed close to half a ton, but it could not resist the reverse pull.
Its enormous body slipped through the muck and was dragged bodily out of the deep water.
Momentum lifted the whole creature into the air and sent it flying toward the armored figure on the platform.
A heartbeat before the frog struck him, Leon suddenly released the tongue with his left hand.
His right foot shifted half a step back.
His heavy right shoulder rolled rearward as the iron-gloved arm loaded beside his waist.
The frog’s broad face hung in midair directly before him.
An uppercut exploded upward.
BANG—CRACK!
Blunt impact and pulverized bone sounded together as the fist drove into the soft underside of the creature’s jaw.
Its lower face caved in and shattered completely.
The body stopped in midair and then the rising force flipped it backward.
BOOM!
The mutant flew several meters and slammed the back of its skull against the sewer’s rough brick wall.
Dark-green brain matter and purple blood burst across the masonry.
The creature twitched twice, dropped into the wastewater, and drifted downstream trailing blood bubbles.
Leon stood in place and shook meat and slime from his right gauntlet.
Then he bent, took the sword hilt from the water with one hand, and casually rested the heavy greatsword on his shoulder.
He looked upward through the visor toward a rusted ladder leading into the factory’s central levels.
Leon started forward.
“Right.” He spoke to no one in particular.
“Time to handle the real job.
Hang on, rookie.”