Resident Evil: Underworld (24 page)

The heat was still high, and the lights were blazing, but it was definitely cooler with the new ventilation— and though he stood for long seconds listening, he didn’t hear a sound that might indicate their presence. Unless it was some kind of trap…

Reston shook his head, amused by his own paranoia. Now that he’d decided to be free, to leave behind the ruins of his life, he felt a kind of elation. A sense of new possibilities, even of rebirth. They were gone, their mission accomplished, the Planet wasted.

Reston walked across the hot sands, stepping over the pieces of Scorp scattered about, finally climbing the shifting dune to peer into the hole.

My God, they managed to get everything, didn’t they?

The destruction was nearly total, the gaping hole almost exactly where the monitor wall had been. Thick shards of glass, bits of wire and circuitry, a faint scent of ozone—that was all that was left of the brilliantly designed video-retrieval system. Four of the leather chairs had been knocked off their welded mounts, the one-of-a-kind marble table had actually cracked in two—and in the northeast corner of the room there was another giant, ragged hole surrounded by debris.

And through that hole… .

Reston could actually
see
the elevator. The working, running elevator, the lights engaged, the platform recalled.

Was
it a trap? It seemed too good to be true—but then he heard a distant pounding, somewhere off by the cell block, and thought that luck was finally with him; the employees had left, the sound could only be the blasted ex-S.T.A.R.S. team. Far enough away that he’d be halfway to the surface before they could make it back.

Reston grinned, amazed that it would end like this; it seemed so anticlimactic somehow, so mundane…

…
and am I complaining? No, no complaints. Not from me.

Reston stepped through the hole, moving carefully to avoid the sharp glass.

* * *

The battle with the food animals had made it hungry, had made it crave; that there was a strong wall in Fossil’s way made it only more eager to eat, to fulfill its purpose. It pounded at the strong obstacle, feeling the matter shift, becoming less rigid—

—and although it wouldn’t take much more to get at the animals, Fossil suddenly smelled new food. Back the way it had come, food, open and exposed, nothing between it and Fossil.

It would come back after it had eaten. Fossil turned away and ran, hungry and wanting, determined to eat before the food could move away.

* * *

As soon as Fossil turned and ran, John started to kick at the steel door, realizing that it was their only chance. The incredible beating that the monster had given it made it easy, the thick metal half off its tracks already.

Claire and Leon started kicking. In seconds, they’d knocked it far enough from the metal indentation that it fell off, clattering to the floor—and seconds after that, they were running, running for the elevator, David carrying Rebecca and all of them silent. Fossil would be back, they all knew it, and they didn’t stand a chance against it.

“NO! NO! NO!”

A man, screaming, and as John rounded the corner, he saw that it was Reston, saw him sprinting down the long corridor, Fossil closing fast.

They ran, John wondering how long it would take the monster to eat an entire human. And as they reached the elevator, leapt through the doors, Leon pulling the gate down—

—they all heard the wailing scream rise to an inhuman pitch—and then cut off sharply, stopped by a heavy wet
crunch.

The elevator started to rise.

Rebecca was falling asleep, the lull of the elevator as soothing as the sound of David’s heartbeat. As tired as she was, she lifted one incredibly heavy hand to the flat black book tucked into the waistband of her pants. Reston hadn’t even noticed, apparently hadn’t suspected that she could fake a fall with the best of them.

She thought about telling the others, breaking the tired silence in the rising elevator to give them the news, then decided it could wait; they deserved a pleasant surprise.

Rebecca closed her eyes, resting. They still had a long way to go, but the tide was turning; Umbrella would pay for its crimes. They would see to it.

With David and John supporting young Rebecca, and Leon and Claire smiling at one another like lovers, the five weary soldiers trudged off the screen and out into the gently blossoming Utah morning.

Sighing, Trent leaned back in his chair, idly twisting his onyx ring. He hoped they’d take a day or two to rest before heading to their next great battle… perhaps the last great battle; they deserved a bit of rest after all they’d suffered. Really, if any one of them survived what was surely ahead, he’d have to see that they were amply rewarded.

Assuming I’m still in a position to bequeath gifts…

He would be, of course. If and when Jackson and the others finally figured out what part he was playing, he’d have to disappear—but there were half a dozen completely untraceable identities for him to choose from seeded around the world, each of them extremely wealthy. And White Umbrella didn’t have the resources to track him down. They had money and power, true, but they simply weren’t smart enough.

I’ve managed to get this far, haven’t I?

Trent sighed again, reminding himself not to gloat, at least not yet. It wouldn’t pay to be overconfident, he knew; better men than he had died at the hands of Umbrella. In any case, either he’d be dead or they would. End of problem, one way or the other.

He stood up, stretching his arms over his head and shrugging the tension from his shoulders; the satellite “pirate” had allowed him to see and hear almost all of it, and it had been a long and eventful night. A few hours sleep, that was what he needed. He’d arranged to be out of touch until about noon, but then he’d have to put a call in to Sidney—and the old tea-drinker would be nearly frantic by then, along with the rest of them. The mysterious Mr. Trent’s services would be desperately sought after, and he’d have to catch the next plane out; as much as he wanted to watch Hawkinson return and fumble through putting Fossil down, he needed the sleep more.

Trent turned off the screens and walked from his operations room—a living room with a few rather expensive adjustments—into the kitchen, which was just a kitchen. The small house in upstate New York was his sanctuary if not his home; it was from here that he conducted most of his work. Not the grandiose scheming he did on White Umbrella’s behalf, but his
real
work. Were anyone to check, they’d find the three-room Victorian to be owned by a little old lady named Mrs. Helen Black. A private joke, one all his own.

Trent opened the refrigerator and took out a bottle of mineral water, thinking of how Reston had looked in his last moment, staring into the face of his own demise. Lovely work, that, using Fossil against him; it was really too bad about Cole. The man could have been an asset to the small but growing resistance.

Carrying the water upstairs, Trent used the bathroom and then walked down a short hall, wondering how much longer he had. In the first few weeks of his contact with White Umbrella, he’d half-expected to be called into Jackson’s office and summarily shot at any given moment. But the weeks had stretched into months, and he hadn’t caught even a whisper of doubt—from any of them.

In the bedroom, he laid out his clothes for the flight and then undressed, deciding that he would pack while he had his coffee, after calling Sidney. Turning off the light, Trent slipped into bed and sat for a moment, sipping at his bottled water, going over his meticulous plans for the next few weeks. He was tired, but his life’s goal was finally within reach; it wasn’t so easy to fall asleep when one was about to realize the culmination of three decades of planning and dreaming, of a wish so long-held that it had become who he was…

The final strokes, though. There were still several things that had to happen before he could finish, and most of those had to do with how well his rebels fared. He had faith in them, but there was always a chance that they might fail—in which case, he’d have to start over again. Not from scratch, but it would be a serious setback.

Eventually, though…

Trent smiled, setting his water on the nightstand and sliding beneath the thick down comforter. Eventually, the evil of White Umbrella would be exposed to the light of day. Killing the players would be easier, but he wouldn’t be satisfied with their deaths; he wanted to see them
destroyed,
financially and emotionally, their lives taken from them in every practical sense. And when that day came, when the leaders had finished watching their precious handiwork crumble to ash, he would be there. He’d be there to dance in the cemetery of
their
dreams, and it would be a fine day indeed.

As he so often did, Trent went over the speech in his mind, the speech that he’d spent a lifetime practicing for that day. Jackson and Sidney would have to be there, as well as the European “boys” and the financiers from Japan, Mikami and Kamiya. They all knew the truth, they had been coconspirators in the treachery…

I stand in front of them, smiling, and I say, “A little background, in case any of you have forgotten.

“Early in Umbrella’s history—before there was such a thing as White Umbrella—there was a scientist working in their research and development sector named James Darius. Dr. Darius was an ethical and committed microbiologist, who, along with his lovely wife, Helen—a doctor of pharmacology, in fact—spent untold hours developing a tissue-repair synthesis for their employers, one that James had created himself. This synthesis that took up so much of the Dariuses’ time was a brilliantly designed viral complex that
—
if properly developed—had the potential to greatly reduce human suffering, even one day to wipe out death by traumatic injury.

“Both James and Helen had the highest of hopes for their work—and they were so responsible, so loyal and trusting, that they went to Umbrella immediately, once they realized the potential of what they were designing. And Umbrella, Inc. also realized the potential. Except what
they
saw was a financial nosedive if such a miracle were to be released. Imagine all the money that a pharmaceutical company would lose if millions of people stopped dying each year; but then, imagine what money could be made if this viral complex could be designed to fit a military application. Imagine the
power.

“With incentives like that, Umbrella really had no choice. They took the synthesis from Darius, they took the notes and research, and they turned it all over to a brilliant young scientist by the name of William Birkin, barely out of his teens and already the head of his own lab. Birkin was one of them, you see. A man with the same vision, the same lack of morals, a man they could
use.
And with their own puppet in place, they realized that having the good Doctors Darius around could prove to be inconvenient.

“So,
there was a fire. An accident, it was said, a terrible tragedy—two scientists and three loyal assistants all burned up. Too bad, so sad, case closed
—
and so began the division of Umbrella known as White Umbrella. Bioweapons research. A playground for the filthy rich and their toadies, for men who’d lost anything resembling a conscience a long, long time ago.” I smile again. “For men like you.

“White Umbrella had thought of everything, or so they believed. What they hadn’t considered—either because they were too shortsighted or ignorantly dismissive—was the young son of James and Helen, their only child, away at boarding school when his parents were burned alive. Perhaps they simply forgot about him But Victor Darius didn’t forget. In fact, Victor grew up thinking about what Umbrella had done, dare I say
obsessing
over it. There came a time when Victor could think of nothing else, and that was when he decided to do something about it.

“To avenge his mother and father, Victor Darius knew he would have to be extremely clever and very, very careful. So he spent years just planning. And more years learning what he needed to know, and even more making the right contacts, moving in the right circles, being as devious and underhanded as his foe. And one day, he murdered Umbrella, just as they murdered his parents. It wasn’t easy, but he was determined, and he’d devoted his entire life to the project.”

I grin. I say, “Oh, and did I mention that Victor Darius changed his name? It was a bit of a risk, but he decided to go with his father’s middle name, or at least part of it. James Trenton Darius wasn’t using it anymore, after all.”

The speech always changed a little, but the essentials stayed the same. Trent knew that he would never have the opportunity to deliver it to all of them at once, but it was the
idea
that had kept him going, all these many years. On nights when he’d been so enraged that he couldn’t sleep, the retelling of the story had come to be a kind of bitter lullaby; he imagined the looks on their tired old faces, the horror in their faded eyes, their trembling indignation at his betrayal. Somehow, the vision always soothed his fury and gave him some small peace.

Soon. After Europe, my friends…

The thought followed him down into the dark, to the sweet, dreamless sleep of the righteous.

S.D. Perry is the author of several tie-in novels to popular series such as
Aliens, Alien vs. Predator, Star Trek
and
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.
Perry also wrote the movie novelizations for
Timecop
and
Virus.
She is the daughter of bestselling sci-fi author Steve Perry and lives in Portland, Oregon with her husband and two children.