Tie the Noose Chapter 30

The SUV rumbled as Daniel pressed on the gas, the heavy tires digging into the barely-there roads deep in the Arklay Mountains. The engine carried a steady, low growl that he felt through the wheel and into his arms, a constant vibration that kept him anchored as the vehicle pushed forward. It was still cold, snowy in places, but the roads had cleared up enough that he wasn't having that much trouble, not nearly as much as he had been expecting anyway. The traction held where it needed to, the weight of the vehicle doing most of the work, and he took what little advantage that gave him without trusting it. It was a small mercy on a long, long drive deep into the mountains, one he didn't expect to last.

The dossier had given him a rough idea of what to expect, but the trip there, despite him starting out bright and early in the morning, had taken him almost twelve hours of slow, grinding driving through the winding valleys and pencil-thin mountain roads. Every mile had demanded his attention. The turns came sharp and without warning, the drop-offs close enough that he could feel them even when he didn't dare look. He'd kept both hands firm on the wheel the entire time, shoulders tight, eyes tracking every bend as if the road might vanish out from under him if he slipped for even a second. It almost had at least twice, and he had sworn there wouldn't be a third, for all the good it did him.

He had been forced off-road more than once, inching the SUV through churned earth and thick mud to avoid a fallen rock or a tree that had come down across the path. Each detour cost him time and patience, the tires biting and slipping before finally catching, the vehicle lurching forward in uneven bursts. He hadn't rushed it, hadn't dared to. Rushing it would get him stuck, or worse.

It was a mix of treacherous passes and heavily wooded inlets, narrow corridors carved between snow-covered valleys and icy, frozen-over creeks that looked solid until the cracks started forming. The terrain never settled into anything predictable. It shifted from packed snow to loose gravel to slick mud without warning, forcing him to adjust constantly, never letting his focus slip. The mountains pressed in on all sides, closing the world down to the road in front of him and the immediate path behind.

It was a brutal trip, one that wore at him in ways that had nothing to do with distance alone. Despite the forecast, the clouds above had thickened as the day dragged on, dark and heavy, swollen with snow that had not yet begun to fall in full. They hung low over the peaks, turning the light flat and gray, muting everything into a dull, oppressive tone that made it harder to judge distance and depth. It gave the whole drive a sense of being watched, of something waiting just out of sight beyond the next turn.

He was headed into yet another March snowstorm, one he wouldn't be avoiding. The first flakes came light and scattered, but they thickened quickly, turning the air into a drifting haze that cut down visibility with every passing minute. Unfortunate, but he couldn't put this off. Hell, from what he'd read, the place had been festering for months, left to rot and grow unchecked in a way that made any delay feel worse than the risk of pushing forward. It was going to be a nightmare and he was driving headfirst into it, but that was just the nature of the job. There wasn't going to be any going back from this one, not if he wanted the things that he needed to get.

He kept the SUV moving, steady and deliberate, adjusting his speed as the road vanished under the fresh snow. The wipers worked in a constant rhythm, clearing just enough of the windshield to keep him oriented while the storm built around him. The cold pressed in harder now, seeping through the frame of the vehicle in a way that made the cab feel smaller, tighter. He didn't let it distract him. Forward was the only direction that mattered.

In the back, he'd packed everything. Boxes of ammo, medical supplies, powdered herbs, and his weapons and his armor, making sure everything was going in with a full battery, charged up and ready to go. Each magazine was filled to the brim and he carried as many cases of spare rounds as he could store, every inch of space loaded down with supplies. Nothing had been left to chance. Based on what he'd seen, the facility was sprawling, a massive edifice with at least four separate buildings, not even including the mine. And wedged in the center of it was an open parking lot that he'd be using almost like a base camp, whether it was ideal or not.

He didn't have much of a choice, really. The place would be too big to go and clear out in one day, and as much as he hated the idea of lingering there, he needed to clear them all. At least that was the plan, rough as it was. He'd spotted a secured guard shack not far off the main causeway, a structure that stood out on the map for its positioning and construction. With barred windows, heavy steel doors, and reinforced shutters, it would make for a decent holdout point if things went bad, and it was safe enough for him to possibly rest if he needed to. Hopefully it held up despite the rest of the place going to shit. In this frigid winter cold, it would be a godsend, a place to regroup and rearm when, not if, the situation turned against him.

The facility itself was going to be a pain in the ass just to get into. A heavy security fence ringed the entire compound, stretching out farther than he expected, spanning miles around the compound, its presence more implied than fully visible through the trees and terrain. The camp itself was sprawling, far larger than anything that belonged out here, and every inch of it had been built like a prison. Just getting the gates open would be a chore, not just a matter of getting access but of making sure he didn't trigger something worse in the process. As long as there was power, he might be able to do something with it. That was the hope, thin as it was.

He'd have to close the gate behind him once he got inside. That part wasn't optional. Leaving the place open meant whatever was in there could spill out into the woods, into the mountains, into anything unlucky enough to cross its path. The thought settled heavy in his chest. Hopefully nothing had managed to get out already. But as the old saying goes, hope in one hand, shit in the other. See which one fills up first.

Daniel had long since learned.

There was no wondering about it now. No worrying. He had burned through that well weeks ago. Daniel had more than enough of that in this last month, more than enough time spent turning possibilities over in his head until they blurred together. The second-guessing had been constant, creeping in at the edges of every decision that had led up to him hiding in a hole from the people who cared about him. The training had been relentless, every session pushing him harder than the last. The exhaustive spars with John had left him bruised and aching, forcing him to adapt, to react faster, to think less and move more. The hundreds of rounds he put downrange had been just as necessary, repetition drilled into his muscle memory until it became automatic.

All of it had led to this. He couldn't be more prepared. Not without breaking himself in the process, and yet, going at it alone was going to be rough. That reality sat with him no matter how much he tried to ignore it, and it couldn't have come at a worse time.

Alyssa had been out of town, chasing her own threads, following leads that had nothing to do with this place but everything to do with the larger picture they were both trying to piece together. She was trying to make connections with her friend and the people he worked with, pushing into circles Daniel couldn't reach. She wouldn't even be back in the country for several more weeks, and even then, there was little enough that she'd be able to do here.

She had held her own at the hospital. He wouldn't take that away from her. She had pushed through the fear, through the confusion, the horror, the violation... through things that would have broken most people outright. But she wasn't a soldier. She wasn't a fighter. She hadn't trained for this, hadn't conditioned herself for the kind of sustained violence and pressure this place would demand, and while he had tried to give her as much guidance as he could, it wasn't enough. It couldn't be. She was just too disconnected from this side of the work, too new to it, too exposed.

She had her own strengths, and so did he. They didn't overlap where they needed to.

It was better this way, anyway. That was what he told himself, what he kept coming back to when the thought lingered too long. Better that she wasn't here. Better that she wasn't in danger. Better that he took on the risk himself.

He was replaceable.

She wasn't. Especially now, when she had the connections to get some kind of official support. It was desperately needed, if they could find someone not corrupt or on the take. She had corrected him more than once on just how little the proof would have mattered if he couldn't get anyone to listen to it. So she had been working on her own to get them the ear they would need once he got the proof to show them that Umbrella was gleefully dancing towards the fucking apocalypse.

No, he could take care of this on his own.

He had to.

Because he was on his own.

The delusions that he would have help, that he could bring Rebecca in, Chris, Jill, Barry, his once friends, had proven to be nothing more than dust in the wind. He had entertained it once, briefly, the idea that he wouldn't have to carry all of this alone, was just that, a dream. In the aftermath of their attempted intervention it has become clear that he's flown too close to the sun. He hadn't even seen his wings burning until he was plowing face first into the reality of it all. By the time the chance had come, there was nothing left of that daydream but a hollow echo.

That chapter was over, whether he liked it or not. There were no reinforcements coming, no safety net waiting to catch him if this went wrong. He had accepted that, even if the acceptance sat heavy in his chest. Not that that was anything new. He'd always been alone on these operations. He pretended like it didn't ache in his chest something fierce.

Wesker lingered in the back of his mind all the same, a presence that refused to fade. They had spoken twice, and that had been more than enough. Those conversations clung to him with an unpleasant persistence, each one replaying whether he wanted it to or not. Each exchange had left him with the same crawling sensation under his skin, the sense that he had been examined from every angle and quietly cataloged for future use. Wesker hadn't wasted his words during either chat, and that had made it worse. Every offer had been deliberate, every response shaped to draw something out of Daniel while giving away as little as possible in return.

There had been a patience to it that Daniel couldn't shake. Wesker had approached him like a man testing his boundaries, probing without overcommitting, gauging his reactions piecemeal and finding just what to say to sound all the more enticing. It felt calculated in a way that set Daniel’s nerves on edge, like standing too close to a viper and not knowing if it was content to let you pass.

Daniel had been careful during those exchanges, choosing his words carefully, keeping the details to himself, watching for any sign that he had said too much. Even so, the lingering certainty remained that he had still given away more than he should have. That was the part that bothered him the most, the quiet understanding that Wesker had stolen something from him, even if Daniel couldn't identify exactly what.

That alone would have been enough of a problem, but it hadn't ended there. Wesker’s interest hadn't faded after those conversations. If anything, it had sharpened. He didn't have any proof, but the awareness sat heavy in the back of his mind all the same. Wesker knew he was doing something, knew enough to be interested, and that interest was dangerous on its own. Something against Umbrella, something that ran counter to the machine Wesker was a part of, yet the man had seemed almost pleased that Daniel should have been a nominal enemy.

That had been what unsettled him the most. Wesker hadn't demanded anything, hadn't tried to coerce or intimidate him into cooperation. Instead, he had simply offered to help, the words delivered with a casual ease that felt entirely out of place given the circumstances. There had been no pressure in the tone, no visible hook, and that absence had made it worse. It had felt like a trap that hadn't been sprung yet, one that Daniel could see but couldn't avoid without walking away from something he might need.

He didn't trust Wesker. That much was absolute. Everything he knew, everything he suspected, told him that he was playing with fire, and eventually, everything would burn. At the same time, he couldn't ignore what Wesker represented. The man had reach, influence, access to resources and information Daniel couldn't hope to match on his own. That kind of leverage wasn't something he could dismiss lightly, no matter how much it set his teeth on edge.

The contradiction sat poorly with him. Every instinct pushed him to cut ties, to put as much distance between himself and Wesker as possible. Those same instincts, sharpened by the reality of what he was facing, told him he didn't have that luxury. He was already too deep into this, already committed to a path that was dancing on the razor's edge. He was going to bleed one way or another. It was just a question of which way the blood dripped once he was cut.

He knew he was being played with, and there was no ambiguity in that realization. Wesker did nothing without a reason. Every action had an intent behind it, every interaction served a purpose that Daniel could only guess at. That uncertainty was what put him on edge the most. It meant he was reacting to a game where he didn't know the rules, against an opponent who had no reason to play fair.

The depressing truth he couldn't avoid was that Wesker was the closest thing he had to an ally right now, and that sat in his craw like a needle. He hated that the blonde bastard seemed to be more than willing to offer him any number of boons. Just shake his hand, you poor sinner, and make a deal. He had opened his coffers, showing a depth of access that Daniel wasn't sure he fully grasped, all at the paltry sum of his soul. What a bargain.

Wesker had already demonstrated what he could do with minimal effort. He had moved pieces Daniel hadn't even realized were in play, shifting attention, redirecting those prying eyes, keeping Daniel’s movements separate from Rebecca and the others. The warnings had been precise, delivered at just the right moments to prove their value without tipping the others off. Daniel wasn't stupid enough to believe it was anything but a taste. A demonstration, a controlled glimpse of just what Albert could do, like that first hit, all he had to do was ask.

A taste to get him hooked.

That was how Wesker had framed it, and he hadn't bothered to hide the fact. It was so brazenly transparent that Daniel was second guessing it from the top down. Look at what I could do for you, if only you let me. Wesker understood pressure, understood leverage, and he knew exactly how to apply both without making Daniel feel obligated. As if it would be anything but.

What his endgame was remained a question Daniel couldn't answer. Recruitment was the first thought. A quid pro quo that Wesker could use to leverage him into something compromising. The creation of an asset that could be directed and discarded when he was no longer useful. A weapon he could aim at whatever he needed gone. Each option felt plausible, and none of them sat well with him. There was also the possibility that it was something worse, something Daniel hadn't even considered yet, and that uncertainty lingered at the edges of his thoughts.

Every interaction with Wesker had carried that same underlying tension. The man had been polite, controlled, almost friendly in a weird, unsettling, creepy way. That contrast made him harder to read, even though he knew the man was running a game, and worse, he knew Wesker knew he knew, ad nauseam. Not that it seemed to bother him. Hell, it almost seemed like Wesker respected him more for sussing him out, as insane as that was.

Of course, the threat was always there, even when it wasn't stated outright. It hung behind every offer, every piece of assistance, every carefully chosen word. Wesker didn't need to say it for Daniel to understand it.

He could help, if Daniel would just let him.

He could also just as easily turn against him. The choice was his.

The bastard knew that he had all the cards in the deck up his sleeve, and while he kept playing nice, there were limits to his magnanimity, and Daniel didn't know what would happen when he reached the end of it. But then, Daniel had understood that from the start, and nothing since had given him reason to doubt it.

Daniel hadn't appraised Wesker of what he would be doing. He wasn't an idiot. Wesker had tried to talk him around to it, but Daniel hadn't been that turned around. In the end the man had just been 'disappointed' in his own words, and his door was 'always open' if he needed the help.

But at the same time, he had the sneaking suspicion that Wesker knew exactly what he would be up to and where. He might even be watching for him, waiting for him to make a move, waiting for him to step into something the prick could use to fuck him. There wasn't a damn thing Daniel could do about that if it was true.

Either way, that was then, and this was now. The past didn't change what was in front of him, and dwelling on it would only slow him down. He was barely an hour out from where the mine was supposed to be, according to the survivalist dossier, and every minute from this point forward counted. He couldn't afford to let his head drift, not toward Wesker, not toward the STARS team, not toward Rebecca. There was no space left for that kind of distraction, no room for regret over the choices he'd made or the sacrifices that had come with them. Those decisions were behind him now, set in stone whether he liked it or not, and second-guessing them wouldn't change anything.

Everything he was doing, everything he had committed himself to, came back to the same point. It was all for the cause, all for the goal he had set the moment he chose to step into this. Bringing down Umbrella before it could do something irreversible, before it could push things past a point where they couldn't be pulled back. The scale of it pressed in on him when he let himself think about it too long, the understanding of what failure would mean settling in with an uncomfortable weight.

He muttered a curse under his breath and tightened his grip, his jaw clenching hard enough that he could feel it in his teeth. It was not supposed to be like this. None of it had been supposed to unfold this way, and yet that didn't change the reality of where he was now. The path in front of him had narrowed to a single direction, and there was no turning back from it.

That realization had settled in over time, but it still hit just as hard every time it came up. There was no going back, not to what things had been before, not to any version of a life where this hadn't become his responsibility, his goal, his purpose. His obsession. The weight of that understanding was what gripped him the most, the quiet acknowledgement that he would have to give up everything if he wanted to succeed.

He hadn't known what he was signing up for when he began this, not really. Going up against a megacorp was one thing. Facing down something that had its fingers in the government, into law enforcement, into places he couldn't even see was something else entirely. Layer on top of that a spreading infection, a plague that twisted people into hideous abominations, and spread like wildfire from the barest drop and it was just a taste of what he realized was a feast he would need to choke down.

He refused to step away from it all the same. Walking away would mean accepting what was coming, letting it unfold without any resistance, and that wasn't something he could live with. He couldn't stand by and watch the world burn, not when he had even the smallest chance to do something about it. He couldn't stand by and watch Rebecca get caught in it either, not knowing what he knew, not with the nightmares that lingered in the back of his mind and hid in the corners of his eyes during his waking moments.

He had no way to explain it to her, no way to show her or prove it in a way that would make sense without dragging her into the same mess he was trying to keep her out of. That did not change what he intended to do. It did not change the line he had drawn for himself.

He would protect her.

He would stop Umbrella, or he would die trying.

The thought carried a bitter edge, one he didn't bother to hide from himself. Dying in the process felt more likely than anything else, given everything stacked against him, and he understood that well enough. It didn't change the decision. Just solidified it.

He wondered what the devil would tell him when he got to hell afterwards.

He wondered what Rebecca would say right now.

He forced his thoughts away as the car reached the first of the Notice boards, the signs telling him that this was Umbrella private property, that trespassing was punishable by fines and jail time, that this was a high danger construction zone. It was all bullshit. Daniel knew there was nobody manning the posts. He would have been stopped long before then, and he knew it. There was no way this stretch of road hadn't been monitored, yet there he was.

The concrete beneath his tires had long since transitioned into gravel, and the gravel had broken down further into a churn of snow, slurry, and ice that dragged against the wheels and resisted every bit of forward motion. The SUV pushed through it with a bit of effort, but it was treacherous all the same. The incline was steep enough that he could feel it, cresting over one more hill, one more shaved-down mountain.

The gates of the facility rose up in front of him, massive and imposing. Solid steel stretched upward nearly two stories, reinforced and anchored into a surrounding structure that turned the entrance into something closer to a fortified checkpoint than a simple access point. The gatehouse itself sat recessed between two heavy parapets, their shape and positioning giving them the look of watchtowers overlooking a controlled perimeter.

The main gate had been set back into a concrete bunker, the opening framed by thick walls that funneled anything approaching into a narrow, controlled path. It was a choke point, designed to be defended if it ever needed to be. Defended from what Daniel didn't know, and from the darkened windows and dead overhanging lights, it wouldn't have mattered anyway because for all that it was layered and reinforced, the whole building had been left empty.

Bollards had been installed along the approach, heavy-duty posts positioned across the road, solid steel poles with barbed prongs meant to capture anything trying to slam through them, not that he could imagine what might be trying to punch through. The damn things looked like they could stop a tank from getting in. Or to keep anyone not supposed to leave from getting out. There was something about the design that hinted at them being there to do both.

The dossier had hinted that something had gone terribly wrong long before whatever it was they were working on managed to break containment. Something about the number of workers being brought in, the lack of people coming out, and seeing it in person only reinforced that impression. Everything about the design sat ill with him.

Concrete kill boxes had been set into both sides of the road, recessed firing positions that gave a clear line of sight down the approach. The walls themselves were lined with murder holes, and the road in had a mess of deployable brocades and spike traps beyond just the thick metal bars. And all of them pointed inwards, not outwards. It made him wonder just what in the hell had happened here, and how nobody had noticed.

Daniel brought the vehicle to a stop, eyes scanning the structures one more time as he committed the layout to memory. There was no direct way through the front. Even if the gate could be opened, it would take power, and while much of the facility was run through a central plant, the extremities seemed to have their own backup generators in case of an outage. Places like the gatehouse for example. He just had to hope nothing had happened to them.

The maps he carried pointed to a secondary route, a side entrance located off the main approach through a service access hatch. It wasn't ideal, but it was workable. More importantly, it was likely his only viable way inside with all the doors locked down. There were a few exterior entrances, but they looked more like reinforced bulkheads than security doors, and he only had so many cutting charges. He wanted to save those, so going the long way was his best option.

If he could reach the gatehouse from inside, he could restore power, bring the systems online, and use them to drop the bollards and open the main gate. Depending on how things were wired up, he might also find a working computer, maybe some kind of access or system override he might be able to use. Anything would be better than the fat lot of nothing he had right now.

The fencing surrounding the compound stretched out in both directions, heavy steel posts supporting thick coils of reinforced wire. Warning signs had been placed at regular intervals, each one indicating that the fence was electrified.

[Caution, 10,000 volts.]

The message repeated over and over, a clear deterrent meant to keep people from getting any ideas. There probably wasn't any power running through any of it, though. Something like that would need to be on the main grid, and if there was any indication of the plant being down, that was it.

He just hoped he might be able to bring it back online if he needed to. If nothing else that would be his next stop once he was situated, but one thing at a time. He'd learned not to borrow trouble when he already had one problem to deal with. Either way, standing here and thinking about it wouldn't change what he needed to do.

Slipping out of the car, he felt the familiar weight of Rebecca's handgun settle against his side in its holster. It was such a small thing, a comfort to him, one of the few he had left. He had taken the time to reinforce it, replacing the barrel and firing pins with heavier components so it could safely handle his +P+ ammunition. It was a practical change, necessary given what he expected to face, but it was also the only real modification he had allowed himself beyond a clipped-on laser sight. He had drawn a line there and held to it. The weapon meant too much to him to change it any more than he had. It was the last tangible connection he had to her, and he intended to treat it that way. 

Moving to the back and popping the trunk hatch, he started pulling his gear out piece by piece. He started with the armored exoframe, securing it over his legs and locking it into place, feeling the unit conform to his legs snugly. The weight settled evenly once it was fixed, the support structure syncing with his movement as he tested it with a slight shift of his stance. In moments it adjusted, the feeling of almost floating from the strength enhancement counterbalancing the weight it added flawlessly. From there he moved upward, fitting the Phalanx chest armor snug against his torso, adjusting the straps until it sat exactly where it needed to. The Sentinel helmet followed, the web of internal wiring checked in turn to ensure nothing had come loose during the drive.

Weapons and ammunition came next. He positioned them methodically, the loadout having barely been changed to accommodate the Mare's Leg, the rifle slid into a holster at the base of his spine. The combat knife rested strapped along his thigh opposite the handgun, secured tightly, and the combat tomahawk went into a magnetic latch on his hip, made for quick storage and retrieval. The P90 and the Saiga hung from his shoulders, their weight familiar, like two old friends finally come home to roost. Magazines were slotted into place, the contouring dispensers barely noticeable along his ribs, and the belt of grenades that hooked around his waist slid tightly into their pouches.

The gloves went on last, thick and insulated against the cold, the material flexing as he worked his fingers to settle them into place. The haptic interface came alive as soon as contact was made, the faint glow of the system reflecting across the crimson tint of his goggles. Data streamed in quietly, temperature readings, positional mapping, weather warnings, all of it layered into his field of view, with a new addition popping up almost out of his line of sight, until he focused on it.

The camera mounted on his shoulder added a subtle shift in weight that he still noticed, even after adjusting to it. It was a new addition to his setup, but he'd adjusted to it quickly, the weight awkward but manageable. The armored recording unit sat secured in his pack, protected as best as he could manage. He ran through a quick mental check on it, then let it go. It would either hold up or it wouldn't, and there was nothing he could do about that once he was inside. Again, hope in one hand and all that.

He took a moment to go over everything one last time, not rushing it, because he wanted to be ready. Spare herbs were accounted for, ammunition reserves were where they needed to be, every weapon was secured and ready. Nothing felt out of place, nothing felt loose or unaccounted for.

Satisfied, he reached back and slammed the trunk of the SUV shut, the sound carrying out into the empty space around him before fading just as quickly. He didn't linger after that. Turning toward the gatehouse, he started forward, his path set toward the recessed access hatch along the side of the building as the fading light above shifted further toward a frigid and snowy night.


000


Finding the hatch took a few minutes of careful searching, but it was still the simplest part of the approach. It sat tucked beside an outbound ventilation duct, half-hidden by the frost and overgrowth. The locking mechanism was supposed to be a rotating handle, but the wheel itself had been removed, leaving only the recessed bolt. Daniel crouched, set his tools down, and fitted a socket wrench into the exposed hub. He leaned into it, pressing down, hard, into it, forcing it inch by inch as the mechanism cracked from disuse. The metal resisted at first, then began to give, the internal seals breaking with a slow grind.

When the hatch finally released, it did so with a sharp, pressurized hiss. A rush of hot, humid air rolled up from below, fogging against his visor and bleeding into the cold night around him. The temperature difference was immediate and unsettling, like opening a door into a living thing. He held there for a moment, letting the venting pressure settle, then shifted his weight forward and pulled the hatch fully open.

The shaft beneath was swallowed in darkness. No ambient light, no emergency glow, nothing but a flat, lightless drop. His visor compensated easily, washing the space in a muted red, but he still reached into his kit and cracked two infrared glow sticks. He dropped them one after the other. They fell farther than he expected before striking metal with a hollow clatter, their faint signatures marking the depth of the descent.

The ladder rungs were intact, bolted cleanly into the shaft wall. He tested the first few with his weight, then began the climb down. Each step echoed softly, the sound swallowed by the confined space. His sensors remained quiet. No heat signatures. No motion. No indication that anything else shared the shaft with him. It was as quiet as a grave, and that had its own implications.

Halfway down, he paused, glancing up at the open hatch above. Then he reached back and pulled it closed behind him. The seal locked with a muted clunk. He didn't intend to leave an open path behind him, not for anything that might wander in, and not for anything that might decide to follow. He had enough issues without inviting more, and in the worst case, he didn't want to be responsible for another woodland outbreak.

At the bottom, the space opened into a cramped service corridor. Pipes ran in every direction, some labeled for power conduits, others for water and waste. Thick lines disappeared into the walls, while smaller ones branched and rejoined in tight clusters, feeding into ventilation systems or vanishing deeper into the structure. Condensation clung to everything, beading along the metal and dripping in slow, irregular patterns.

The space pressed in on him. Even with the exoframe compensating for his movement, he had to angle his shoulders and pick his steps carefully. There was enough room to move, but not enough to move comfortably. Every turn required his careful attention, every step a deliberate choice to avoid catching on something or knocking loose a pipe that would announce him more than he'd already had.

He pulled up the map briefly, aligning it with what he was seeing. The corridor extended forward for roughly a hundred feet before terminating at a T-junction. The layout was simple, almost disappointingly so, but he knew better than to trust it in a place like this. His mapping software had been wrong before, and he didn't want to get lost down here.

When he reached the junction, the overhead light fixture hung dead and lifeless, its casing cracked and blackened. The corridor split cleanly, one path angled toward the sewer systems, the downward slope and heavier piping making the destination obvious. The other led toward the gatehouse, a straighter run with more structured cabling and maintenance access points. Daniel turned toward the latter. The gatehouse was the objective, and he'd have time to explore later. He already had no doubt he would need to do so anyway.

The door was another reinforced bulkhead, thicker than the last and set deeper into the wall. This one still had its handle attached. That alone felt like a small victory. He stepped in close, set his stance, and leaned into it. The mechanism resisted, rust grinding somewhere inside the housing, but it gave inch by inch under steady pressure instead of brute force. He had to adjust his footing once, boots scraping for purchase on the damp floor, before forcing the handle the rest of the way. When it finally turned, the internal bars disengaged with a heavy thunk, and he pulled the door open just enough to slip through, keeping his profile narrow as he passed the threshold.

The smell hit him immediately. Even through the mask's filters, it forced its way in, a thick, clinging stench that settled in the back of his throat and refused to leave. Rot, waste, the sharp tinge of ammonia, something chemical layered over something organic, all of it mingling into something putrid that cut into his throat. It was the smell of decay left too long, trapped and concentrated. He paused just inside the threshold, letting his breathing steady, letting the filters do their work as he adjusted to it. It was unpleasant, but not unfamiliar. He had smelled worse in the hospital, in the bunker. That didn't make it any easier to ignore.

He brought the P90 up and switched his vision mode, the display shifting as IRNV took over. A faint pulse ran across his visor as the infrared emitter activated, painting the corridor ahead in muted contrast. The walls were coated in a black growth that spread across every surface, thick in some places, thin and branching in others. It clung to the pipes, wrapped around joints, and pooled where condensation had pooled and gathered in the steamy heat down there.

He slowed, studying it. For a moment, it seemed to move, but not in any obvious way. It was a subtle shift, a faint tightening along its surface, like muscle under skin responding to a stimulus. He held his position, watching for longer than he needed to, waiting to see if this was just a trick of the light. Nothing. No reaction, no advance, no change in posture or direction. Just the shifting of the thin cilia in the stolid breeze of the corridor.

He moved on.

The accessway stretched farther than he felt it should have. The map said he was close to the gatehouse proper, but the lack of reference points made distance difficult to judge. Each step felt the same as the last. The air was still. The only sound came from his own movement and the quiet hum of his equipment.

He nearly stepped on the body before he registered it.

The corpse was wedged beneath a pipe, as if the man had tried to force himself into a space too small to hide him. A toolbox lay spilled nearby, its contents scattered across the floor in a loose arc that suggested it had been dropped in a panic. One arm protruded outward, the sleeve torn open, the flesh beneath shredded down to the bone. The wounds were deep and irregular, not clean cuts but tearing damage, as if something had grabbed and pulled it without any care for the damage it did. It was wild, brutal, and vicious, like something had caught his arm and started ravaging him, until he bled out all over the concrete.

Daniel crouched, keeping his weapon angled as he reached out with his knife. He nudged the body once. No reaction. No twitch, no delayed movement, nothing to indicate reanimation or... possibly infestation, like with the plant-men. Just dead weight. He waited a second longer, then exhaled quietly and shifted closer.

The man wore a technician’s uniform, though anything identifying had been stripped away. No badge, no tag, nothing that would give him a name or a department. Hispanic, maybe mid forties, with a weathered, grizzled look to him. He was already greying, if the streaks in his hair were any indication, and his hands were rough and leathery. A working man, Daniel assumed. He had forced himself under the pipes, leaving gashes and cuts where the bolts had torn into him, but why? There was barely any space there, and nothing to stop whatever was after him from doing just what it did. The whole thing painted a picture of a panicked, terrified man, doing whatever he could to escape, to hide. It didn't do him any good.

Up close, the details told a worse story. There were marks around the wrists and ankles, faint but unmistakable, restraints worn long enough to leave an impression. Around the neck sat a thick collar, industrial in design, with a locking bolt, and what looked like leads dug into his flesh. The dark rings around them painted a damning picture. Daniel frowned, turning the body slightly to get a better look.

He wasn't surprised to find the man seemed to lack anything resembling ID. The only thing out of place was the stone he found tucked into a pocket. He rolled it between his fingers, catching what little light there was. An opal, maybe, along with a tiny pouch of ancient looking coins, four in total. He wondered what that was about. Maybe a keepsake, or a lucky find? His now, either way. The Survivalist might find them valuable anyway. He slipped the lot into his pack and continued the search.

The toolbox yielded more. A folded work order, creased and stained but still legible. He read it quickly, scanning over it for anything useful. It was for some kind of backup generator maintenance, the man being dispatched from somewhere called Central Processing. The issue had been identified already, from what it looked like. Water damage had compromised several sensitive components, but the repairs were mostly complete. The remaining step required replacing a set of fuses stored elsewhere in the Gatehouse's storage, with a note that it was a recurring issue.

Daniel let out a quiet breath through his nose. Nothing in this place was going to be simple, not even something as basic as getting the power back online. Still, it answered a few of his questions about getting the power running again. That being it was possible at all, which was a miracle on its own.

He folded the paper back and set it aside. It was good news for him, anyway. It meant the system could be brought online. Of course the lack of light from there implied that the poor bastard hadn't gotten a chance to finish the job. Something had killed him, and the body was several days, if not a week old. Recently then, which was disconcerting all its own. The Dossier said that this place had been out of contact for months, so it raised the question if there were still people active in the mine, and worse, why they had stayed when there was obviously something dangerous prowling around.

Something... that was still somewhere in the facility. Maybe even still in the Gatehouse itself.

He straightened, eyes scanning the corridor ahead. The silence pressed in again, heavier now that he had confirmation that the place was both possibly infested, and definitely dangerous. There was no point standing still, though. He'd known that going in, and this changed nothing. He adjusted his grip on the P90 and stared down the corridor, before stepping forward and leaving the body behind.

The door at the end had been left ajar, hanging open just enough to suggest it had not been forced so much as abandoned in a hurry. A security keypad was mounted beside it instead of a simple turn handle, though the keypad itself had been destroyed. The lead elements had been ripped clean out of the wall, leaving exposed wiring and jagged plastic where the input had been torn away. What was left of it lay scattered across the floor, ruined.

He moved through carefully and found himself in what looked like a basement level. The space opened up slightly compared to the cramped corridor, though it still felt enclosed, and heavy with stale air. Technician panels lined one wall, breakers and junction boxes labeled in faded print. Several lockers stood nearby, most of them bent, warped, or pried open, including the one marked as Supplies, which had been ransacked. In the corner sat the generator, the only thing with working lights on it, the activation diode an angry red.

Up close, the system was simple enough to understand. The fuse connectors were basic, built for quick replacement. Plug them in, ensure proper contact, seal the housing, and activate the system. No finesse required, thank God. The fuel gauge read mostly full, more than enough to keep the system running for days, maybe longer. That was good. He should have plenty of time to sweep the mine campus before he had to worry about it running out.

He began a methodical sweep of the room, checking corners, lockers, and surfaces for anything useful. That was when he found the second body. A security guard this time, uniform still intact enough to identify him. Not a lot in the way of gear, though. Some cuffs, a nightstick, and an empty holster where a sidearm should have been. He'd been slumped into a corner and half buried under some debris when Daniel had shuffled some of the mess aside and found the corpse.

He hadn't died cleanly. The damage was worse than the technician's, far worse. His face had been torn off, the jaw ripped free, leaving almost nothing recognizable. Bruising and tearing marked the rest of the body, as if he had been savaged by a wild animal, with black veins spread beneath the skin, thick and unnatural, branching outward from the torso. It looked like an infection, aggressive and active, growing through the blood vessels of the man like veins of mold through a rotting piece of fruit. Whether it had taken hold before or after death was impossible to say, but it didn't seem to matter. The guard was still, and from everything Daniel could see, he would stay that way. He took a moment to punch through the body's skull anyway with his knife. Better to be safe than sorry.

He moved on, keeping his pace steady, and found himself at the next set of doors. These were simpler, built with standard handles that locked from the inside, which was convenient. According to the map, the stairwell was just ahead. The design itself was deliberately complicated. There was no single stairwell connecting every level. Each segment required a person to move through a number of controlled points, limiting access and making it easier to contain a breach. This one would take him to the first floor. From there, he would need to locate the next stairwell to continue upward if necessary. The towers were the final tier, and he had no intention of going that far unless something forced his hand.

The gatehouse layout was straightforward on paper. Barracks, control rooms, access points to the defensive positions, an overseer's office, and the towers above. A relatively straightforward jaunt to get to where he needed to go.

The reality told a different story.

The moment he stepped through, it was obvious something had gone very, very wrong. Reaching the first floor was easy. Getting through the door was anything but. Someone had tried to barricade it from the inside. Beds had been dragged across the room and stacked against the entrance, wedged into place with whatever leverage they could manage. It hadn't been enough. The door had been torn apart, ripped from its hinges with enough force to scatter the barricade and leave splintered metal and wood in its wake. From there it was a massacre.

He paused just inside, scanning the space. There were no immediate threats, no movement, no sound beyond his own presence. It set his teeth on edge, seeing it, even through the crimson haze of his goggles. There were signs of what had happened, but not the bodies themselves. A limb lay near one of the beds, severed clean at the joint. A hand rested near the far wall. A boot still held a foot that had been separated from the rest of its owner. The rest was gone. Either removed or taken.

Daniel didn't need to think hard about which it was. If they had gotten back up, they were somewhere else by now, maybe deeper in the building, or having wandered off somewhere. Either way he would deal with it when he had to. 

The barracks offered little of immediate value. A dozen beds, a few scattered foot lockers, most of which had filled with clothing or personal effects that meant nothing to him. He checked them anyway, out of habit, and found something interesting. One yielded a small stash of antique coins hidden inside a sock, tucked away like someone had been saving them for later. This was the second time, and he was beginning to get curious about why.

It stood out. Valuable items placed in odd locations, tucked away just enough to be found if you were looking. It was getting hard to ignore. He had gotten used to finding little gems or bits of gold on these adventures of his, but this was the first time he'd had something so consistent come up. What was worse was that the coins themselves were... old. Civil War era, minted out of gold and marked as such, with a woman's head on one side, surrounded by stars, and on the other a set of laurels proclaiming it a One Dollar piece.

He had ten of them now, and it made him wonder just what they'd been trying to pull up out here. Umbrella usually meant some new biohorror that he'd need to kill, but this... he wondered just what they'd stumbled onto.

There was a bulletin board on the wall, or what was left of one. Most of the notices had been torn down or smeared into illegibility, paper soaked and stuck in place with dried blood. One posting stood out among the others, telling him that Corporate had ordered a full lockdown, no one in, no one out. The wording was absolute, with no exceptions carved out for security or staff. Even the people tasked with holding the gates were ordered to hold their positions no matter what.

It boggled Daniel a bit, that these people had been willing to lay their lives down for their corporate masters in Umbrella like that, but then he had started to assume being hired on at Umbrella needed a certain level of stupid to function. Anyone sane would have taken off the second they saw the bodies start getting back up, but apparently not these people. They had stayed till the better, bloody, probably painful end.

That said he did get a bit of a hint as to just why he kept finding these probably incredibly valuable coins, among other things. There had been a Crackdown notice talking about some kind of internal black market that had formed among the workers and staff. Gemstones, ores, coins, anything with value, really, had been popping up in violation of the policies Corporate had put down. There were notes about how anyone finding or trafficking in the 'spoils' that were found at the dig site would be immediately and harshly punished. The threats were downright draconian, too. None of that fines and firing stuff. They were listing corporal punishments, beatings, lashings, even possible 'termination' if anyone was caught letting the workers leave the premises, and Daniel doubted they meant 'of their employment'.

Nearby, two vending machines stood dark and broken open. The fronts had been smashed in, metal bent outward where someone had forced access. Inside, the contents had been torn apart. Soda cans crushed underfoot, snack bags ripped open and scattered, syrup dried into sticky patches across the floor. The damage had been... wild, strange, and stood out for just how unhinged it seemed. It was out of place.

The black growth he had seen below had spread here as well. It threaded through the ruined machines, pushing into the opened packages, clinging to the residue left behind. It seemed to favor the places where the mess was the worst, consuming the leftover sugars and exploding in its growth. And it wasn't the only place where the black slime had congregated.

Exposed pipes, sinks, the base of the toilets. The same substance had taken hold in each of those areas, creeping outward in branching patterns that followed condensation lines and seams in the metal. It made the entire room feel contaminated, and he'd trudged right through it. The pattern was there, the more he saw it but he wasn't sure what to do about it. He was sure there was a connection though. Just like at the hospital with the plants, and the bunker with the choking mist.

There was nothing he could do about it though, short of lighting the whole gatehouse ablaze and that wasn't a realistic solution. So he moved on.

The first control room hadn't fared any better. Equipment had been torn apart, the consoles ripped open, the wiring pulled free, and the screens shattered. Anything that had once been functional had been reduced to scrap. The server towers had been torn down as well, the blades left piled into a mess of circuits and cables like something had dived right into them. And it just might have, if the blood all over it was any indication.

That said he found that the lower access hatch to where the pillboxes had been located was sloppily welded shut. The door itself had been sealed by several metal bars, and the whole thing was a mess. There would be no opening that door, even with a blasting charge. God only knew why, though. Daniel touched it, checking some of the welds in the process, but it was a wasted effort. He hoped he wouldn’t need to get in there, but knowing his luck? He just sighed and moved on.

Not everything had been destroyed, though. The bollard controls remained intact, the unit a recessed switch in the road-facing wall, and he located the gate activation switch mounted to the panel next to it. The mechanism itself seemed fine, if not for the missing handle. The slot where it should have been sat empty, leaving Daniel to wonder just why it was gone. He couldn't even just shove something in there and force it, either, it had several snap-in connection points.

"Just great," he muttered under his breath. One more piece to track down in a place that was already turning into a scavenger hunt. At least he'd found the next stairwell, this one a narrow spiral that climbed up to a second floor. The overseer’s office sat just beyond, its door torn free and left hanging at an angle. The interior had been wrecked with the same level of violence as everything else. Furniture overturned, shelves and bookcases ripped down, their contents scattered across the floor, and even the overhead lights had been ripped from their sockets and strewn across the ground. In the center of it all sat the body.

Or what remained of it.

The man was still in his chair, posture frozen in the moment of death. His head was gone, removed with enough force to separate it cleanly from the spine. Blood had dried across the desk and floor in a wide arcing pattern, like it had been batted off his shoulders rather than ripped or cut, but with enough force that the tear itself was almost clean.

A pistol remained locked in his hand. The grip was tight enough that Daniel had to pry the fingers back one at a time to free it. The slide was locked open, the magazine empty. A Glock, or something close to it. He checked it quickly. It was worn, neglected, but still intact. Not reliable as-is, but not useless either. He kept it.

A name tag rested on the desk. Sergeant Jones. That was likely the man in the chair, which made him the one responsible for this section of the facility. It didn't look like that authority had done him much good in the end, Daniel noted with a snort as he pushed the body away so he could search the desk, one of the few intact artifacts in the room.

The computer had been destroyed beyond recovery, the casing cracked and the internal components exposed, with the same targeted precision as all the other electronics had been, and Daniel was starting to notice that pattern as well. He had no idea what it meant or why it had been done, but it was worth keeping in mind.

The biggest find in the room came from one of the drawers. The lock didn't give easily, and the wood had splintered before it gave, but a few controlled pries with the crowbar broke it loose. He didn't have the patience to go hunting for the key, and at this point, he didn't care to waste the time on it.

Whatever he was expecting to find, a journal wasn't it. He flipped it open, skimming the pages. Most of them talked about the day to day at the gatehouse, how there were more 'convoys' of workers being brought in now that they found 'it'. The journal never clarified what 'it' was, but there was a definite change in tone before and after they'd found 'it'. At first it had been a lot of mundane observations, new orders, changes in procedures, that sort of crap, but as things went on the doubts started to appear. He was a professional, it said, but he was starting to feel uncomfortable with the directives coming down from above. The higher-ups never clarified anything and it was made clear that questions weren't welcome. More than once it mentioned so-and-so getting removed or replaced for getting too curious, and he'd decided that keeping his head down was the way to go.

Then things started getting worse. There were references to suppression operations and crackdowns in the worker barracks, violent outbreaks of guards or miners seemingly falling sick, then getting violent, and curfews that tightened week by week. The tone kept shifting as the entries went on. What started as irritation turned into concern, then into something closer to dread. Rumors of an outbreak appeared in later pages, always mentioned but never explained, as if Johnson either didn't know more or didn't want to put it down in writing. The research facility was mentioned more than once, always in passing, always with something off about the way it was described.

Near the end, the entries became shorter and more direct. Orders were being handed down without any logic or explanation. Changes in procedures, then lockdowns, and finally sabotage, the deliberate disabling of certain access systems and control units. One note stood out among them. He'd been told to remove the spare fuses for the generator and hide them. He mentioned moving them into the watchtowers, stashing them in the parapet storage boxes. He'd also relocated the gate control lever to one of the pillboxes on the sides of the road, before sealing the control room access hatch. Fortunately there was a workaround that would take him there through the west tower. He just had to get to the east tower and cross over the rooftop of the gatehouse to get there. He wouldn't have to try and carve his way through the barricaded bulkhead.

Eventually he got to the last page, several days after the last, and it painted a grim picture. Command had gone silent, and nobody was able to get out. Stevens had tried to slip out during his shift, and someone had sniped him before he could make it ten feet from the door. It talked about the power systems flickering, and how they'd heard strange shouts and scratching noises at the doors at night. How something kept testing the underground access routes, setting off alarms and sensors. How there was something in the dark, watching them.

There was nothing after that.

"Fuck," Daniel said under his breath as he closed the journal. He slid it into his pack after a moment of thought. It might be useful later. Right now, it confirmed what he had already started to suspect. Whatever had happened here had happened fast, all at once, after they'd all been locked in here like rats on a sinking ship. He had to wonder what the journal was talking about. What had been at the doors, what had been watching... Daniel had his suspicions, but speculating didn't do him any good. He would deal with it when it came up.

The trip to the first tower was slow, careful, but uneventful. The stairwell had been located down a hall from the overseer's office, a direct ladder-climb that took him to the nest. A chair sat near the window, a radio unit beside it, and a small satellite television mounted at an angle that suggested someone had spent long hours up there. The glass was thick, floor to ceiling, and heavily reinforced, but the world past it was a wall of snow. In the time he'd been down there the storm had hit in earnest, and it was thick enough that he was blinded by it. He wasn't there for the view, though, was he?

He searched the space quickly and found what he was looking for. The fuse had been tucked into a supply box that had been recessed into the floor. The box had been ransacked, anything of value removed, but the fuse itself had sat there, half covered by an operations manual and forgotten. He took it and moved on. One down.

He stepped out onto the walkway that crossed the top of the gatehouse, taking the full blast of the frigid air and snow to the face, circling around to find the ladder down to the roof. The ladder itself was slick with ice and snow, but the gecko-grip on his gloves and boots kept him mounted even as the wind tried to rip him off, the gusts surprisingly strong. Fortunately the roof itself had been designed with the weather in mind, with two thick fences reaching up into the air. Doubly good, because the roof was a skating rink, because of course it would be.

Three frozen, snow-covered bodies lay along the path. Two were mostly intact, their chests ripped open like someone had hit them with a very large caliber round, their arms and legs curled up like they'd died in agony. The third had fared worse, the upper half of his torso a mangled mess that looked like something had exploded out of him, from how the bones and muscle had been torn apart. All three wore security uniforms, at least from what he could tell from the mess, but oddly... the organs of all three were missing, like their upper bodies had been hollowed out.

He doubted they would be getting back up, given everything, but he wasn't going to take any chances. He drew his knife and put a controlled strike into each skull, one after the other. The trench blade punched through the thick bone without any trouble. No movement followed. No delayed reaction. Just dead weight. That was all he needed to see.

Scaling the ladder to the other tower, he saw that it was going to be much worse. He knew it before he opened the door, because the windows were caked with a thick layer of gore. Opening the door, the smell hit first, the scent of rot and decay infiltrating his mask as he swept the interior. The nest had been destroyed, several cracks spanning the windows from bullet scars, the thick glass apparently more than tough enough to take the abuse, but whatever the person inside had been shooting at, it had clearly won. Pieces of a body were scattered across the walls, limbs and gnawed-on bones scattered across the floor, and the hatch down had been forced open at some point, with strands of intestine strung down it like garland.

He forced himself to search through it, swallowing hard and ignoring the dried, tacky blood-dust that smeared into his gauntlets and boots. The fuse lay in a pooled mass of blood near the wall. He picked it up carefully, holding it away from his gear. It would need to be cleaned before he could use it, but the design was simple and tough, so a little water wouldn't do any more damage than had already been done.

He secured it before making for the ladder, the emaciated string of meat that hung from it half-rotten and stiff to the touch. And god did he wish he didn't know that, as he worked his way down to the second floor of the eastern gatehouse.

The other half of the gatehouse was as silent as the first, and he moved through it without stopping, already thoroughly sick of this place. The control room there was in better condition than the first. Equipment remained largely in place, the screens still mounted, labels intact. It was clear that this had been the command center meant to monitor the surrounding area if the markings showing where these cameras were supposed to be was any indication. The coverage extended far beyond the immediate perimeter, tracking the road for miles.

None of it was active.

He continued down toward the hatch door that led to the pillboxes, grateful that this one, at least, wasn't sealed. The hatch handle spun easily, and the securing bolts came loose, letting it swing open. A short set of steps later found him in the belly of the beast.

The murder holes and pillbox were set up exactly as he expected them to be. Reinforced concrete walls lined the narrow firing slits, giving an almost uncontested view of the road. A mounted weapon dominated the space, a .50 cal with a belt-fed box magazine, fixed in place and ready for sustained fire. It was the kind of weapon you might see mounted to a hummer, or a tank, meant to tear through anything that tried to push through the gate.

He stepped closer, running a hand over the pristine heavy weapon, a part of him wanting to take it with him, but the more practical side won out. The weight alone made it impractical. At almost a hundred pounds without ammunition, more with it, it was a mounted weapon through and through. Even if he could get it free, moving it through the facility would be a nightmare, much less using it for anything. Firing it without a fixed mount would be impossible, if he even could, and that wasn't even counting how fast it chewed through a case of ammo if he did. No, much as he wanted it, it wasn't realistic. Heartbreaking.

He left it where it was.

Ammunition crates were stacked nearby, box after box of the heavy .50 cal rounds, possibly as many as two dozen. It made him wonder just what they were thinking would hit them, with that level of overkill, but he guessed it was just a case of having it and not needing it. Not that it did them any good.

He searched the rest of the space, checking containers, lockers, anything that might have been used to store the missing handle. Ammo tins had been opened and emptied. Lockers had been forced. Barrels had been rolled aside or cracked open. There was nothing left untouched, but he found nothing he could use. Certainly not the part.

He exhaled slowly and stepped back. Looks like he was going to the other pillbox. He sighed, glancing at the sealed hatch on the side of the box, in a recessed stairwell. Nothing could ever be easy, could it?

There was an underground connecting passage between the two pillboxes, narrow and low, with just enough clearance for him to move through without scraping the ceiling. The air down there felt different, heavier, like it had been sitting untouched for too long, and was thick with some kind of black mist that clung to him as he entered, sticking to his armor like a soupy mist.

The first warning came from his helmet. A toxin alert cut through his audio feed, sharp and insistent, telling him something was in the air. The system flagged it immediately, but the identification protocols stalled out, throwing up notices of an unknown particulate with an unknown composition while cycling through the dozens possibilities without committing to any of them. It wasn't sure what it was, an allergen, some sort of gas, a spore, or something worse. All it knew was that it was caustic and dangerous, and something he didn't want in his lungs if he could avoid it.

He slowed his approach, scanning the corridor, and it didn't take long to find the source. A body lay ahead, another guard, but this one was different from the others. The black growth had overtaken him completely, forcing its way into every opening it could find. His mouth was stretched wide around it, his nostrils packed with it, his eyes consumed until there was nothing left but darkened sockets. It hadn't stopped at the natural entries. It had eaten through their flesh, bored new paths, spread beneath the skin until the entire body looked wrong, drawn tight and hollowed out. The flesh had collapsed inward in places, leaving him blackened and shriveled, like something that had been drained from the inside, yet somehow also wet and slimy.

Daniel stepped closer, weapon raised, and that was when it moved. It didn't jerk or lunge at first. It rose slowly, joints creaking as if the motion itself was unfamiliar, the torso lifting while the head tilted at an unnatural angle and the limbs dragged into position one after the other. Daniel grimaced, dancing back, before taking a bead on its head.

He fired. A five round burst snapped out of the P90, tight grouping straight into the head. The skull ruptured cleanly, fragments and blackened matter spraying outward as the impact blew through it, the force snapping the head back and dropping the body for a fraction of a second. Then it kept rising. The ruined head hung at an angle like its neck was broken, but the body continued to pull itself upright while thick, tar-like fluid seeped from the wounds, dripping down in slow strands like blood left out too long, darkened and thickened into sludge.

"Not this shit again," Daniel growled as he widened the distance. The thing settled into a stance that almost resembled a crouching frog. It was still shaped like a man, but the proportions were wrong now, stretched and uneven. As it moved, the ribcage split open with a wet, cracking sound, bone separating into jagged segments that peeled outward like teeth. Inside, something pulsed. A single swollen eye, slick and alive, fixed directly on him as tendrils pushed out from the cavity, long strands of blackened tissue moving with purpose as they reached for him.

He brought the P90 up and fired again, this time into center mass. The rounds hammered into the exposed structure, punching through soft tissue and striking bone. The creature staggered back under the impact, then surged forward with sudden speed that didn't match its earlier movement. A thick, tongue-like tendril snapped out, and wrapped around his arm, Daniel unable to dodge in the narrow hall, before tightening. That close, he could see that the black, fleshy appendage wasn't just all slimy muscle, and he hated knowing that. It was lined with barbs, small hooked protrusions that dug into his gauntlet and scraped across the plating beneath, pulling hard as it tried to drag him into the napping jaws.

"Fuck off!" he snapped, releasing the P90 as it tried to pull him off his feet. His hand moved automatically, reaching back and drawing the hatchet in a clean, practiced motion. The blade came free, and he drove it across his own arm in a tight arc, the edge biting through the tendril, carving through it and severing it cleanly. The cut section recoiled violently, snapping back toward the creature and slamming into its body, staggering it just enough for him to capitalize immediately.

The P90 came back up and he dumped rounds into it, shifting targets as he went. Limbs first, no effect. A leg blew apart at the knee and the thing simply dragged the detached mass back into place, the tissue reconnecting like it was on some kind of pulley. Arms severed turned into sharpened bone structures, jagged protrusions replacing what had been lost. It adapted, and when he aimed for the eye, the ribcage snapped shut the moment he did, bone plates locking over the weak point as the rounds struck and deflected, failing to penetrate the fleshy cage.

He swapped out the P90 and brought up the Saiga, as the creature tried to close the distance with its jerky, jagged limbs. He lined it up and fired directly into its chest as it got within spitting distance. The first blast tore through the rib structure, splintering bone and forcing it open and sending it staggering back. The second and third followed before it could close again, shredding the cavity wider. The fourth and fifth pulverized what was left of the protective structure, blowing it apart and exposing the eye fully. The sixth shot ended it. The round hit dead center and the eye ruptured under the impact, bursting apart in a spray of dark fluid. The creature convulsed, the entire body shuddering as if whatever was driving it had been cut.

Then it collapsed, and not at all cleanly. The structure lost cohesion all at once, the form buckling and swelling outward before giving way. Flesh, bone, and whatever the black substance was broke apart into a sluicing mass that hit the ground and splattered, dissolving into a thick, shifting pile of slime that twitched once before going still. Daniel stood there for a second, breathing steady, eyes still on the remains.

"Not this shit again," he muttered, quieter this time, running the numbers. Half a magazine from the P90, six shells from the Saiga. That was what it took to put one of those things down, and that was only because he had found the weak point. The eye in the chest, between the ribs, that was the key, and the thing had been smart enough to protect it. To adapt to him as he tried to put it down.

He didn't like that. He didn't like that at all. He reloaded as he thought about it. The creature's movements were controlled and efficient, and it seemed to recover quickly from any kind of damage that wasn't immediately debilitating. Slugs might do better, more penetration, more force, enough to break through the armored ribcage, but he'd have to see next time, because, he knew, there would be a next time. If that didn't work, he would have to rely on something stronger. He had incendiaries, electro rounds, even grenades. Anything that bypassed the armor it could generate over its body. He'd just have to wait and see, and hope there weren't many more of them.

"Goddamn," he muttered under his breath, knowing how likely that was.

He moved on, sidling past the slime on the floor as he cleared the rest of the connecting passage. The second pillbox was intact, and the search didn't take long this time. The handle had been stored in a secured container. He broke the lock off unceremoniously, thoroughly done with this shit. The handle went straight into his pack, along with a small pouch that held more of the same antique coins he had been finding scattered throughout the building, bringing the count to thirty.

The return was uneventful, and that alone felt like a small victory. No movement. No new threats. None of the bodies he had passed earlier showed any sign of getting back up, and he took that for what it was worth. The water still worked in the barracks, mercifully, and while he was gingerly avoiding the built up slime, the pipes were clear and intact. He washed off the blood and residue, clearing away anything that could interfere with the connection, then dried it thoroughly before moving on. It didn't need to be perfect. It just needed to work.

The basement was unchanged when he returned. The body in the corner hadn't moved, but he kept an eye on it anyway as he crossed the room. The last thing he needed was for it to decide it wanted a piece of him when his back was turned.

He installed the fuses, secured the housing, and pressed the activation switch. The generator kicked on with a rising whine before settling into a steady, mechanical rumble. Power began to flow back into the gatehouse, systems waking up one by one as the infrastructure came back online. Slowly the panels all began to light up, and the lights above flickered into a fluorescent white that washed out the shadows. Piece by piece he heard the facility start to wake up, and he braced himself.

He didn't move right away. His attention stayed fixed on the body across the room, watching for any sign that the change had triggered something else. A twitch. A shift. Anything. Nothing happened. He let out a slow breath, tension easing just enough to think clearly again. This was the part where things usually went wrong. The part where flipping a switch woke everything up.

Still nothing, as one minute passed, and another. Slowly, Daniel began to unclench.

"Alright," he said quietly, more to himself than anything else. He made his way back up to the control room, slotted the handle into the lever assembly, and tested it. It seated properly with a solid click, the mechanism engaging smoothly.

He pulled it, and pressed the button beside it.

The system responded immediately. Outside, the bollards dropped with a heavy mechanical shift, and the main gate followed, groaning as it opened for the first time in what had to be months. Chunks of ice and slow fell from above, shattering on the road below as the road was illuminated by the overhang lights, and with a raucous rattling, it dropped into the ground. 

He headed out, taking the now-open outdoor access hatchway, crossing the cleared approach, and heading straight for his truck. The engine turned over cleanly when he started it, the familiar vibration grounding him as he guided it forward and through the opening gate. As he passed through, he gave the structure one last look, taking in the damage, the silence, and everything it implied.

This was only the beginning.

He already knew the rest wasn't going to be any easier, and there was no point pretending otherwise. The job was in front of him now, and there was only one way it was going to go. Come hell or high water, he would get it done, or die trying.


000


"Captain." The word snapped Jacob MacKinnon out of his thoughts. He lifted his head and looked at the USS soldier across from him, but the man wasn’t looking back. His attention was fixed past MacKinnon, drawn to the figure standing on the catwalk, staring out across the valley like a statue carved into place. "Captain, reports are coming in. Lights at the gatehouse."

MacKinnon gave a short nod, slow and controlled, his jaw tightening as the words settled in. They’d been waiting for this. Watching for it. Preparing for the moment something finally moved out there. The plan hadn’t changed. It was simple, clean, and brutal. Secure the power plant. Shut it down. And when the Interloper showed himself, they would be ready. Ambush him, pin him down, capture him if possible, kill him if it came to that. There wasn’t any room for failure this time.

Taking the plant had already cost them more than he liked to admit. Good men, trained men, lost to the horrors that had infested this place. Sacrifices, he told himself, necessary ones. That didn’t make it sit any easier. What made it worse was knowing the finishing blow, the final piece of the operation, was going to involve that bastard everyone kept whispering about. Mr. Death. The name alone was enough to sour his mood.

MacKinnon’s gaze drifted back to the catwalk. The man hadn’t moved. Not once. He’d been standing there for hours, just watching, like he could see something the rest of them couldn’t. It got under MacKinnon’s skin in a way he didn’t like. It got under everyone’s skin. They all knew the stories. Knew the reputation. No matter what happened, he walked away. Always. Everyone who went in with him didn’t always get the same courtesy. That was just how it went.

Still, things were different now. They had what they needed. MacKinnon and his men weren’t walking in blind anymore. They had their new weapons, the P90s, the ammunition to feed them, the armor to keep them standing. They weren’t the same unit that the Interloper had cut apart twice before. That bastard wasn’t taking anything else from them. Not this time. He wouldn’t get lucky again.

Jacob would make damn sure of it.

Until then, they waited.

He heard the boots before he saw him. Heavy, deliberate steps that carried through the structure without any hurry behind them. Then the man stepped into view, broad and solid, moving with the kind of certainty that you only got surviving hell and all its demons. It had that unshakable, ineffable inevitability, one that only came with a mountain of corpses. And here he was, Umbrella's boogeyman. The unkillable Mr. Death.

He stopped just inside, his head turning slightly until those red lenses fixed on MacKinnon. There was nothing human in that stare. The gas mask hid everything that hinted at a man, leaving only the cold impression of something that didn't understand mercy, didn't know fear. The MP5 hung from a sling across his chest, worn like an extension of his body. The combat knife rode at his side, the karambit tucked into his belt within easy reach. No new gear. No upgrades. No interest in any of it.

He’d turned all of it down.

The classics were better, he’d said. More reliable. He didn’t need some shiny new piece of hardware to do what needed doing.

The dismissal still burned.

MacKinnon felt it every time he looked at him. Every time he thought about it. But he swallowed it down, buried it under the one thing that mattered more. Revenge. That bastard out there had taken from him, from his unit, and it was going to be paid back in full.

Time didn’t matter. They could wait. They would wait. The moment would come.

And when it did…

Jacob was going to enjoy every second of it. He’d skin that fucker alive, peel him down to bone and sinew, and roll him through that black shit that had infected everything else in this place. Let him feel it. Let him choke on it. Let him understand exactly what he’d walked into.

Then, when he was done, he’d cut his throat. Orders be damned. He’d stand there and watch the light drain out of his eyes, watch the life leave him piece by piece, and leave what was left behind to rot and twist into one of those things crawling around out there.

Oh yes. MacKinnon was going to have his revenge.

He was going to get his payback, and he was going to make it hurt.