• but what if I’m not in the elevator? Maybe I can still do something to keep her alive. . . . Barry hurried to the lift and opened the gates—then slammed them closed and pushed the operation switch, sending it back to B3 without a passenger. Moving silently, he edged back toward the corner, listening.
“. . . can’t say I’m all that surprised,” Jill was saying. “But how did you get Barry to help you?” Wesker laughed. “Ol’ Barry’s got some trouble at home. I told him that Umbrella has a team watching his house, waiting to kill his precious family. He was only too happy to help.”
Barry clenched his fists, his jaw tight.
“You’re a bastard, you know that?” Jill said. “Maybe. But I’m going to be a rich bastard when all this is over. Umbrella is paying me a lot of money to clean up their little problem, and to get rid of a few of you goddamn snooping S.T.A.R.S. in the process.” “Why would Umbrella want to destroy the S.T.A.R.S.?” Jill asked.
“Oh, not all of them. They’ve got big plans for some of us, at least those of us that want to make a profit. It’s you sniveling do-gooders that they don’t want—the red-white-and-blue, apple pie, all that happy bullshit. The way Redfield’s been running around, mouthing off about conspiracies—you think Umbrel-la didn’t notice? It has to stop, here. This whole place was rigged to blow up just in case of an accident—and the Tyrant virus escaping qualifies. Once you’re all dead and this facility’s destroyed, no one will be able to get to the truth.”
Son-of-a-bitch was going to kill all of us—
“But enough about Umbrella. I had you brought down here for a little experiment of my own. I want to see how our most agile team member stands up against the miracle of modern science. If you’ll just step through that door—“ Barry flattened himself against the wall as Wesker stepped back, part of his shoulder coming into view. He put his hand on his Colt and drew it out slowly.
“I can’t believe that you’re doing this,” Jill said. “Selling out to protect a bunch of unethical corporate blackmailers—“ “Blackmailers? Oh, you mean Barry. Umbrella wouldn’t bother with blackmail. They can afford to buy people just as easily. I made all that up to get him on board—“ Barry slammed the butt of his Colt into Wesker’s skull as hard as he could, dropping him like a ton of bricks.
JILL STARED IN ASTONISHMENT AS WESKER
suddenly stopped talking and crumpled to the floor—and Barry stepped into view, staring down at Wesker’s body with a look of intense hatred, Colt in hand.
She crouched down next to Wesker and pried the Beretta from his fingers, tucking it into her waistband. Barry turned to look at her, his eyes swimming with apology. “Jill, I’m so sorry. I never should have believed him.”
Jill stared at him for a moment, thinking about his daughters. Moira was Becky McGee’s age. . . . “It’s okay,” she said finally. “You came back, that’s what matters.”
Barry handed her back her weapons, and they both FIlnEtEEn gazed down at Wesker’s sprawled form, still breathing but unconscious. He was out cold.
“I don’t suppose you have any handcuffs on you?”
Barry asked.
Jill shook her head. “Maybe we should check out the lab, there’s bound to be some cable or cord we can use. Besides, I’m kind of curious about this ‘miracle of modern science’ he was talking about. ...”
She turned and found the switch that operated the hydraulic door, noting the bio-hazard symbol painted across the front. The door slid open and the two of them stepped inside.
Wow. . .
It was a huge, high-ceilinged chamber lined with monitoring consoles, cables snaking across the floor and connecting to a whole series of standing glass tubes. There were eight of the tubes lined up in the center of the room, each of them big enough to hold a grown man. They were all empty.
Barry reached down and scooped up a handful of cable, digging into his pocket for a knife while Jill walked toward the back, gazing at the technical and medical equipment—and stopped, staring, feeling her jaw drop.
Against the back wall was a much larger tube, at least eight or nine feet tall, hooked up to its own computer console—and the thing inside filled it, top to bottom. It was monstrous.
“Jill, I got the cable. I—“
Barry stopped next to her, his words faltering as he saw the abomination. Silently, they both walked to-ward it, unable to resist a closer look. It was tall, but proportionally correct, at least through the broad, muscular torso and long legs; those parts appeared human. One of its arms had been altered into a cluster of massive, dragging claws, hanging past its knees, while the other seemed ordi-nary, if overly large. There was a thick, bloody tumor protruding from where its heart would be, and Jill realized, staring at the bulbous mass that it was the thing’s heart; it was pulsing slowly, expanding and contracting in slow, rhythmic beats.
She stopped in front of the tube, awed by the abomination. She could see lines of scar tissue snak-ing across its limbs, surgical scars. It had no sexual organs; they’d been cut away. She looked up at its face and saw that parts of the flesh there had also been removed; the lips were gone, and it seemed to grin broadly at her through the sliced red tissue of its face, all of its teeth exposed.
“Tyrant,” Barry said quietly.
Jill glanced over at him, saw him frowning down at the computer that was hooked to the tube by multiple cables.
She looked back at the Tyrant, feeling nearly over-whelmed by pity and disgust. Whatever it was now, it had once been a man. Umbrella had turned him into a freakish horror.
“We can’t leave it like this,” she said softly, and Barry nodded.
She joined him at the console, looking down at the myriad switches and buttons. There had to be a switch that would put an end to its life; it deserved that much.
There was a set of six red switches in a row along the bottom and Barry flipped one of them down. Nothing seemed to happen. He glanced at her, and she nodded for him to continue. He used the side of his hand to flip all of them.
There was a sudden, dull thump—
They both whirled around, saw the Tyrant pull back its human hand and hit the glass again. Cracks webbed out from the impact, though the glass had to be several inches thick—
“Oh . . . SHIT!”
Barry grabbed her arm as the creature drew its bleeding knuckles back for another blow. “Run!”
They ran, Jill wishing to God that they’d left it alone, panic welling up from deep inside of her. Barry slammed his hand down on the door control and it slid open as behind them, glass shattered. They stumbled through the door, terrified, Barry hitting the lock—
• and saw that Wesker was gone.
Wesker stumbled toward the power room, his head pounding, his limbs feeling strangely distant and weak. He felt like he was going to throw up. Goddamn Barry . . .
They’d taken his gun. He’d come to as they’d walked into the lab and reeled toward the elevator, cursing them both, cursing Umbrella for creating such a screwed up mess, cursing himself for not simply killing the S.T.A.R.S. when he could have. It’s not over. I’m still in control. This is my game. . . .
The sample case was down in the lab, probably being destroyed right now by one of those idiots. Tyrant, too. That magnificent creature, powerless without the adrenaline injections, dead. They’d shoot him in his sleeping heart, he’d die without ever tasting battle. . . .
Wesker reached the door to the room and leaned against it, struggling to catch his breath. Blood drib-bled out of his ears and he shook his head, trying to clear it of the strange fog that had settled into his brain.