Umbrella Sub-Lab – L1
The stairs wound down in a slow spiral, carved stone giving way to corroded steel. Every step echoed too loudly, the sound swallowed by the dark beneath them.
Jill led, pistol in both hands, her light cutting narrow arcs across the walls. Barry followed with his magnum lowered, scanning their flanks. Rebecca stayed close behind him, pistol drawn and ready for anything. Richard kept to the rail, still wounded, blood seeping through the wrap around his arm.
Jack brought up the rear, riot shotgun at the ready, his expression distant. His eyes were unfocused, as if he were seeing something through the walls that the others couldn't.
A tremor of unease crawled up his neck—his Viral Sense stirring, the infection within his veins flaring with excitement. There were infected nearby. Too many. The sensations overlapped and tangled, flooding his mind with phantom signals and pressure behind his eyes.
Drips of water fell from the ceiling and hissed against the old lamps lining the stairwell. The deeper they went, the colder the air grew. It smelled of metal and disinfectant—the kind of sterile scent that belonged in an operating room, not beneath a graveyard.
Rebecca broke the silence first. "The old map I pulled from the terminal in the medical ward said this level should still have power and security. We might be able to restock our weapons here."
Jill nodded slightly, her tone calm but wary. "If Umbrella didn't scrap it, we'll take whatever we can get."
Barry grunted quietly, checking his corners. "Let's just hope the lights work before the monsters do."
Jack said nothing. The pulse in his head wouldn't stop. The air itself felt wrong—too still, too clean.
The stairs opened into a long hallway. Jack took point, shotgun raised and steady, with Jill moving close on his right and Rebecca to his left. Richard stayed behind them, his pistol held one-handed, while Barry covered the rear.
They moved in formation—disciplined, practiced, the kind only soldiers and trained operatives knew to use in close-quarters combat. The kind built for cities, not labs.
Umbrella Sub-Lab – L4 / Surveillance Deck
The control room looked as though a storm had torn through it. Broken screens hung from twisted brackets, papers littered the floor, and technicians scrambled from one console to another, desperate to regain control of the B.O.W. that had broken loose.
Dr. Alexander Isaacs stood at the center of the chaos, fingers digging into the console's edge hard enough to whiten his knuckles. The monitors flickered with static and fractured images—one feed still replaying the fight between Jack and Lisa Trevor.
He watched in silence, equal parts awe and fear. The sheer brutality, the precision—Jack had completely dominated the old test subject, the same creature Umbrella once used to prove the T-Virus's durability. The virus was Marcus's true legacy, his grand design for forced evolution. Isaacs had only refined it, shaping it into something stronger—the T-Aegis strain.
But the man on the screen—the soldier who wielded that power so effortlessly—was never his creation. And that terrified him more than the monster itself.
My design is superior, he told himself, though the words rang hollow.
"Signal still unresponsive from Subject T-001A," a technician reported behind him. "Attempting to re-establish the neural link."
Isaacs didn't answer. He adjusted his glasses with a trembling hand, eyes locked on the surviving cameras showing Jill's team entering Level 1—five figures in tight formation. Five variables he could still control.
Then a voice, smooth and cold, cut through the din.
"You look exhausted, Doctor."
Albert Wesker stepped from the shadows near the auxiliary station, immaculate as always, hands folded neatly behind his back. His mirrored lenses caught the glow of the monitors like twin embers.
Isaacs straightened, forcing composure. "Oh. I didn't realize you were here, Wesker."
"I hear you lost control of your little pet project," Wesker said. "Care to explain why?"
Isaacs's jaw tightened. "It's just a minor setback—one we should be able to correct."
"I don't need your excuses." Wesker's tone was silk over razors. "You tried to tame chaos. You should have known better."
The words landed like a scalpel. Isaacs's lip twitched; he turned back to the screens. "My creation isn't gone. I can regain control."
Wesker stepped closer, voice dropping to a measured calm. "Then prove it. Start by controlling them." He nodded toward the monitors—Jack, Jill, Rebecca, Barry, and Richard moving through the red-lit corridor. "You've seen how Subject #199 performs under stress. His strain adapts—overpowers even Umbrella's oldest test subjects. We need more combat data from him. And you need this if you ever want to be back in the good graces of the Umbrella board."
Isaacs hesitated. His finger hovered over the command key. "If I seal that section, the T-Aegis Tyrant and the other B.O.W.s will be trapped here with us. We'd be locking ourselves in with them. You're asking me to sign our death warrants."
Wesker leaned in, a faint smile ghosting across his lips. "You're already dead if Umbrella doesn't see results, Doctor. It's all or nothing."
He tilted his head. "What's it going to be?"
The words hit like a dare. Isaacs's hand trembled once—then slammed down on the command key.
Jack POV – Umbrella Sub-Lab – L1 / Junction Corridor
The hum of machinery still lingered in the air. The facility wasn't dead—just wounded.
Emergency lights pulsed a slow red along the ceiling, casting the hall in rhythmic flashes that made every shadow move. Power conduits throbbed faintly behind the walls, and somewhere distant, ventilation fans struggled against the heat.
Jack took point, Jill close on his right, Rebecca following just behind. Their boots clanged softly against the grated floor as they advanced, weapons raised. The air was sharp with disinfectant and ozone—sterile, but not clean.
Barry and Richard trailed a few meters behind. They stopped at the junction where two hallways split: one dim and quiet, the other lined with active warning lights and coolant mist.
Rebecca crouched beside the nearest console. Its cracked display still flickered with Umbrella's insignia, emergency prompts scrolling in faded amber text. "It's still live," she murmured. "If we route power here, we might get partial control of the lower bulkheads."
Barry nodded. "Good. Richard and I'll find the generator and stabilize the output. You three keep pushing forward. If something moves, call it in."
Jill gave a curt nod. "Stay sharp. Don't take unnecessary risks."
Richard's grin was thin but genuine. "In this place? That's the only kind of risk we've got left."
They split. Barry and Richard turned down the left corridor toward the generator wing, flashlights cutting thin lines through the mist. Jack, Jill, and Rebecca headed right, where the red glow deepened, pulsing through the steam like blood moving through veins.
The hum in the walls grew louder. Jack slowed, glancing back toward the others. Something about the rhythm of that sound—it wasn't mechanical. It was too steady. Too alive.
Jill caught the change in his stance instantly. "You feel it?"
He nodded. "Yeah."
That was all she needed to hear.
Rebecca's flashlight swept the corridor, landing on a sealed door ahead. "I think this leads to the observation wing. It should—"
The sound hit first—a shriek of metal and hydraulics. A moment later, the ceiling vents hissed, and a sudden gust of pressurized air swept through the hall.
Jill turned back. "Barry!"
A heavy clang reverberated down the corridor. Sparks exploded from the walls as a steel bulkhead slammed into place between them, sealing with a hydraulic hiss. Dust and mist burst outward in a hot rush of air.
Rebecca jumped back, shielding her face. "They've sealed us in!"
Jill hit the side console, typing fast. The panel flickered, Umbrella's logo pulsing red:
EMERGENCY LOCKDOWN – SECTOR C SEALED
"Damn it!" Jill slammed a hand against the screen.
Jack pressed his ear to the bulkhead, listening through the metal. He could hear Barry shouting, Richard coughing, muffled by distance. "They're okay," he said. "At least for now."
Rebecca caught her breath, checking the seals. "There's no manual override from this side. It's a deliberate isolation."
Jill holstered her pistol and looked down the red-lit corridor ahead. "Then we move forward. Whoever's running this place wants us boxed in."
Jack's Viral Sense flared, sharp and electric. More infected were heading their way. "Get ready," he warned. "We've got contacts incoming."
A faint clicking came from up ahead. Then another. Then dozens—a chorus of tiny legs skittering against metal.
Rebecca froze. "That sound—"
The first one dropped from the ceiling: a spider the size of a dinner plate, body swollen and twitching, eyes milky white. It hit the floor and scurried straight toward her boot.
Jack's shotgun barked once, splattering it against the wall.
More fell. Dozens of them—small, quick, spilling from vents, cracks, ceiling ducts, their legs tapping like rain on steel.
"Contact front!" Jill shouted, sweeping the line with her pistol. Shells burst, chittering filled the hall, and the red lights flashed faster, painting the swarm in pulses of blood-colored strobe.
Rebecca's voice stayed calm but tight. "Their eyes are cloudy—probably blind. I remember from biology class—spiders track prey by heat and vibration!"
Jack pumped the shotgun, firing again. "Then let's make it too hot for them."
The three fell into a defensive triangle—Jack holding the front, Jill covering the flanks, Rebecca keeping her aim steady despite the swarm pressing closer.
For a moment, it worked; the hallway became a storm of gunfire and screeches. The spiders piled over their dead, mindless, endless.
Then, as quickly as it began, the noise stopped. The floor was slick with ichor and twitching legs.
Rebecca lowered her weapon, panting. "Is that… all of them?"
Jack's eyes stayed forward. "No."
The ceiling above them groaned, metal bending under massive weight.
Jill raised her light. Webbing—thick, wet, and pulsing—stretched across the upper beams. Something moved within it, slow and deliberate.
Eight red eyes blinked open in the dark.
Jack's breath caught. "Hell naw… I need a bigger insecticide to kill that thing."