Стефани Перри - The Umbrella Conspiracy

I AM in control, nothing is happening here that I can’t handle! This is MY game, my rules, and I will accomplish my mission without any interference from that little thief-bitch—

Wesker stalked out into the main corridor, saw that Jill had managed to take out a few more of the wizened, withered scientists and technicians that wandered the basement labs. Two of them lay just outside the door, their skulls blown into arid powder by what looked like shotgun blasts. He kicked one

of them angrily, his boot crunching into the corpse’s brittle ribs, the dry snap of bone loud in the silence—

• except that suddenly, he heard heavy boots com-ing down the metal stairs from B2, the hollow clump echoing through the hall. And then a rough, hesitant voice calling out.

“Jill?”

Barry Burton, as I live and breathe—

Wesker raised his weapon coolly, ready to fire when Barry stepped into view—and then lowered it thoughtfully. After a moment, a slow grin spread across his face.

ElGHfEEn

JILL EASED INTO THE STEAMING, HISSING

room, a thick smell of grease in the heated air. It was some kind of a boiler room, and a big one; heavy, thrumming machinery filled the large chamber, sur-rounded by winding catwalks. Massive turbines spun and pounded, generating power in a steady whine as hidden ducts spat out steam at short intervals. She moved slowly into the poorly lit chamber, peering down one of the railed walkways into the fluctuating shadows cast by the towering generators. From where she was, she could see that the place was a labyrinth of paths, twining around the giant blocks of noisy machinery.

The source of the estate’s power. That explains how they managed to keep it a secret for so long, they had their own little city out here, totally autonomous—probably had their food shipped in, too. . . . She turned down the narrow walk to her right, watching uneasily for any more of the strange, pale zombies that she’d seen in the corridors of B3. The path seemed clear, but with the movement and noise created by the turbines—

Something ripped at her left shoulder, a sudden, violent slash that tore open her vest and scraped the skin beneath.

Jill spun and fired, the roar of the shotgun drowning out the hissing machines. The blast hit metal, pellets ricocheting into the empty walk. There was nothing behind her.

Where—

A lunging, blade-like claw sliced the air in front of her face, swooping down from above.

She stumbled back, staring up at the steel mesh of the ceiling—and saw a dark shape skitter out of the shadows, hooking its way across the grate incredibly fast, curving claws at its hands and feet. She caught a glimpse of thick spines around its mutant, flattened face and then it turned and ran into the thrumming shadows of the power room.

There was a door at the end of the walk and Jill sprinted toward it, heart racing, the pounding whine of the generators thundering in her ears. She was five feet from the door when she saw the moving shadow position itself in front of her. She raised the shotgun and leaned back—

• more of them!

There were two of the creatures overhead, squat, terrible things with vicious, curving hooks instead of

hands. One of them dropped down suddenly, hanging by clawed feet to swipe at her with its bladed arm. Jill fired and the creature screeched, the blast hitting it in the chest. It fell from the ceiling with a clatter, thick blood oozing out of the ragged wound. She turned back toward the entrance and ran, hearing the patter of claws against the mesh overhead. Another of the aberrant monkey-like things swung down in front of her, and Jill ducked, afraid to stop running. The thing’s strange arm whistled past her ear, missing her head by less than an inch. The metal doors were in front of her. Jill crashed into them, slapping one handle down and stumbling back into the cold stillness of the corridor. The door closed on the furious, shrill cry of one of the mon-sters, rising high over the sounds of the working machines.

She sagged against the door, gasping—

• and saw Barry Burton standing midway down the chilled, silent hall. He hurried toward her, an expression of deep worry on his rugged, bearded face. “Jill! Are you alright?”

She pushed away from the door, surprised. “God, Barry, where have you been? I thought you’d gotten lost in the tunnels.”

Barry nodded grimly. “I did. And I ran into some trouble trying to get out.”

She saw the splatters of blood on his clothing, the rips and tears in his shirt, and realized that he must have come across more of those walking green night-mares. He looked like he’d been through a war. Speaking of. . .

Jill touched her shoulder, her ringers coming away bloody. It was painful but shallow; she’d survive. “Barry, we’ve got to get out of here. I found some papers upstairs, proof of what’s been going on. Enrico was right, Umbrella’s behind all of this and one of the S.T.A.R.S. knew about it. It’s too dangerous to keep looking around, we should get those files and head back to the mansion, wait for the RPD—“ “But I think I found the main lab,” Barry said. “Downstairs, there’s an elevator at the end of the hall. There are computers and stuff. We can get into their files, really nail ‘em”

He didn’t seem excited by the find, but Jill barely noticed. With the information they could get from Umbrella’s database: names, dates, research mate-rial—

We can find out everything, present the investigators with the whole, messy package. . . .

Jill nodded, grinning. “Lead the way.”

The tunnels had been a cold, miserable maze, but the map had led them through quickly. Rebecca and Chris had reached the first basement level, both of them shivering and wet—and not a little freaked out by the dead creatures they’d passed along the way. The Umbrella scientists had been disgustingly cre-ative in their approach to making monsters. Chris rattled the door that supposedly led to the heliport, but it was solidly locked, an emergency sign next to it implying that it could only be opened by an alarm system. He’d hoped to send Rebecca out with the radio while he searched for the others. He looked down the narrow stairwell and sighed, turning to her. “I want you to stay here. If you stand by the elevator, you should be able to pick up Brad’s signal from outside. Tell him where we are and what happened—and if I’m not back in twenty minutes, get back to the courtyard and wait there until help comes.”

Flustered, Rebecca shook her head. “But I want to go with you! I can take care of myself, and if you find the lab, you’ll need me to tell you what you’re looking at—“ “No. For all we know, Wesker already killed the other S.T.A.R.S. and is looking to finish the job. If we’re the last ones, we can’t risk both of us

getting ambushed. Somebody has to survive and tell people about Umbrella. I’m sorry, but it’s the only way.” He smiled at her, putting a hand on her shoulder. “And I know you can take care of yourself. This isn’t about your competence, okay? Twenty minutes. I just have to see if anyone else made it.”

Rebecca opened her mouth as if to protest further and then closed it, nodding slowly. “Okay, I’ll stay. Twenty minutes.”

Chris turned and started down the ladder, hoping he could keep his promise to come back. The captain had successfully deceived them all, acting the part of concerned leader for weeks while the people in Rac-coon City had died—and all along he’d known why. The man was a sociopath.

It seemed that Umbrella had created more than one kind of monster. And it was time to find out how much damage he’d done.

Barry couldn’t bring himself to look at Jill as they took the elevator down to B4. Wesker would be waiting for them at the bottom, and Jill would find out that he had been helping the captain all along. He’d killed three more of the violent, springing creatures down in the tunnels before making it to the lab—only to run into Wesker, who had insisted that he lure Jill down to B4 and assist him in locking her up. The smiling bastard had reminded Barry of his family’s situation and promised again that it was the last thing he’d have to do, that after Jill was safely locked away he’d call his people off—