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The silence in the mansion was deafening.
Alice stood frozen, fire axe hanging loose in her hand, staring at Marcus like she'd never seen him before. Around them, bodies of Umbrella mercenaries littered the floor—every single one killed with a bullet to the head. Perfect accuracy. No wasted shots. No misses.
In darkness.
While dodging automatic weapons fire.
"Jesus Christ," Matt breathed from the doorway. Ryan and J.D. leaned against each other, too exhausted to stand properly, but their eyes were wide with shock. Even Kaplan, barely conscious moments ago, was staring.
Marcus lowered the pistol, the blue glow fading from his eyes back to normal brown. He looked... calm. Like he'd just finished filing paperwork instead of killing a dozen trained soldiers in thirty seconds.
"Marcus," Alice said slowly. "What are you?"
He met her gaze without flinching. "Someone who's done playing pretend."
"That's not an answer—"
"Why are you still standing around?" Marcus interrupted, already moving to check the fallen mercenaries for equipment. "Umbrella's going to send reinforcements any minute. We need to gear up and get out of here. Now."
The practical words broke the spell. Alice shook herself, nodded sharply. "He's right. We can talk about... whatever the hell that was... after we're clear."
They emerged from their hiding spots, stepping carefully over bodies. Marcus was methodically stripping weapons and ammunition from the dead mercenaries, building a pile of useful equipment. Matt joined him, trying not to look too closely at the precise head wounds.
"So," Kaplan said weakly, accepting the rifle Matt handed him. "Are we just... not going to talk about the fact that Marcus is apparently superhuman?"
"Later," Alice said firmly. She picked up a tactical vest, checking the magazines. "Right now we survive. Questions can wait."
"But seriously," J.D. said, voice still shaky from the virus aftermath. "What was that? I've never seen anyone move like that. The bullets were—you were—how did you dodge them?"
Marcus didn't look up from the equipment he was sorting. "Training."
"Bullshit," Ryan said flatly. "I am trained. That wasn't training. That was..." He trailed off, struggling for words.
"Gun kata," Marcus said simply. He picked up a Glock, checked the action, tucked it into a shoulder holster. "It's a fighting technique. Combines marksmanship, close combat, and predictive mathematics."
"Mathematics?" Matt echoed.
"You calculate bullet trajectories," Marcus explained, tone matter-of-fact. "Environmental factors—ballistics, enemy positions, weapon types. You build a probability model in real-time. Every shot, you know where the enemy will fire. You move before they pull the trigger. Your own shots target the statistically optimal impact points." He paused, then added: "It helps to be good at math."
"Good at math," Kaplan repeated incredulously. "That's your explanation for superhuman reflexes and perfect accuracy in a firefight?"
Marcus finally looked up, a faint smile tugging at his mouth. "Also helps to have excellent reflexes and years of practice."
Alice studied him with narrowed eyes. She knew there was more to it—the blue light in his eyes, the impossible speed, the way bullets seemed to curve around him like he was bending reality. But Marcus clearly wasn't ready to share the full truth.
Fair enough. They'd earned some trust by surviving together, but there were limits.
"Fine," she said. "Keep your secrets for now. But Marcus? Whatever you are, whatever training you have..." She hefted her new rifle. "I'm glad you're on our side."
He met her eyes. "I'm on the side of not dying and not letting Umbrella cover this up. If that makes us allies, then yeah. We're on the same side."
"Good enough for me," Matt said. He tossed Marcus an MP5. "So what's the play?"
"Gear up heavy," Marcus said, catching the rifle smoothly. "Take everything useful—weapons, ammo, body armor, tactical equipment. We're going to be fighting our way out of this city."
"Out of the city?" Ryan asked. "Where do we go?"
"Anywhere that isn't owned by Umbrella," Alice said grimly. She was securing her tactical vest, checking the pistol at her hip. "First priority: survive and escape. Second priority: get these virus samples to someone who can expose what Umbrella's done."
They worked quickly, stripping the dead mercenaries of anything useful. By the time they finished, everyone was equipped like they were heading into a war zone—which, Marcus thought darkly, they probably were.
Marcus kept his loadout simple: MP5 rifle, Glock pistol, extra magazines for both, and a handful of grenades. The others loaded up with body armor, tactical vests, multiple weapons. Even Ryan and Kaplan, still shaky from their brush with the T-virus, insisted on being armed.
"Let's move," Marcus said, heading for the exit. "Stay sharp. There might be more outside."
There were.
Three Umbrella personnel stood guard near an ambulance and an armored Humvee parked outside the mansion. Medical staff, probably—waiting to process captured survivors.
They never saw Marcus coming. Three shots, three bodies. Over before they could reach for radios.
"Christ," Matt muttered. "You don't mess around."
"Can't afford to." Marcus checked the Humvee—six seats, heavy armor, full tank of gas. "This'll work. Everyone in."
They piled into the vehicle, Ryan and J.D. in back with Kaplan, Matt riding shotgun, Alice driving with Marcus beside her. The engine rumbled to life, and Alice gunned it down the long driveway leading away from Spencer Mansion.
In the rearview mirror, the mansion receded into darkness. Behind its walls, the entrance to the Hive stood silent. Sealed. Haunted by the Hunter and the shambling dead.
"Where to?" Alice asked.
"Downtown," Marcus said. "We need to get lost in the city, find transportation out of Raccoon City entirely. And we need to do it fast—Umbrella's going to throw everything they have at us."
The Humvee roared down empty roads, trees giving way to suburban developments, then commercial districts. They crossed into Raccoon City proper as dawn broke over the horizon, pale light washing over the city skyline.
Something was wrong.
The streets were too quiet. No morning traffic. A few cars abandoned at odd angles, doors hanging open. A storefront with its window smashed. Dark stains on the pavement that might have been blood.
"Look at that," Kaplan said from the back, pointing at a convenience store. Its front door was torn off the hinges, merchandise scattered across the parking lot. No people visible.
"Where is everyone?" J.D. asked quietly.
Marcus's jaw tightened. He knew exactly where everyone was. Or what they were becoming.
"It's spreading," Alice breathed. "The virus. It's already in the city."
Umbrella Tactical Operations Center
Kane slammed his fist on the console, making the technicians jump. On the screens in front of him, security footage replayed the mansion massacre—Alice and her group escaping in the Humvee, every single mercenary dead.
"How?" he demanded. "How did six exhausted survivors wipe out a fully armed tactical team?"
The technician rewound the footage, zooming in on Marcus. Frame by frame, they watched him move—dodging bullets that should have hit, landing impossible shots, killing with mechanical precision.
"This one," the technician said nervously. "The male civilian. He's... sir, he's not normal. Look at his movement speed. His accuracy. This shouldn't be possible."
Kane leaned closer to the screen. "Who is he?"
"Unknown. Not in any Umbrella databases. Security identified him as Luo Ming during the initial sweep, but that appears to be a false identity. No background, no records, nothing."
"A ghost," Kane muttered. "Wonderful."
The truth was worse than a simple failed capture. If this Marcus or Luo or whatever he called himself had training that advanced, that meant someone else was involved. Competition. Corporate espionage. Another organization with their fingers in Umbrella's pie.
Dr. Wesker was going to be furious. Dr. Isaacs would demand answers Kane didn't have.
"Dispatch all available units," Kane ordered. "I want them found and contained. Alice has virus samples—we cannot let those reach the media. And this Marcus individual... I want him alive if possible. I need to know who trained him."
"Sir, about that..." The technician pulled up another feed. "The virus situation in Raccoon City is escalating. We're receiving reports of incidents throughout downtown. Thousands of emergency calls in the last few hours. It's spreading faster than projected."
Kane's blood ran cold. "How many infected?"
"Unknown. But the Raccoon City Police Department is on full alert. They're treating it as a mass casualty event."
This was spinning out of control faster than anyone had anticipated. First the Hive outbreak. Now the city. If they didn't contain this within the next twenty-four hours...
"Contact all tactical teams," Kane said. "Priority one: secure Alice and the samples. Priority two: assess the infection spread. Priority three: prepare contingency protocols."
The technician paled. "Sir, you mean—"
"Sterilization," Kane said flatly. "If we can't contain the outbreak conventionally, we sanitize the entire city. Those are Dr. Wesker's standing orders."
They were talking about killing everyone in Raccoon City. Three hundred thousand people.
The technician swallowed hard and began typing.
Raccoon City Police Department
Officer Jill Valentine pulled on her tactical vest, checking her service pistol for the third time in ten minutes. Around her, the station was chaos—officers shouting into radios, phones ringing non-stop, the dispatch board lit up like a Christmas tree with emergency calls.
"What the hell is happening out there?" her partner asked, loading magazines into his belt. "I've never seen anything like this."
"Mass hysteria, maybe?" Jill suggested, but she didn't believe it. She'd been a cop long enough to recognize patterns. This wasn't random. The incidents were spreading—starting from the industrial district, moving outward in a wave. Attacks. Violent injuries. Witnesses reporting victims who kept moving, kept attacking, even after sustaining injuries that should have dropped them.
It sounded insane. But the calls kept coming.
"All units," the sergeant barked. "We're implementing emergency protocols. Full deployment. Body armor mandatory. Pairs only—nobody goes alone. Reports are coming in of extremely violent perpetrators, possibly on PCP or similar substances. Treat all suspects as dangerous and unpredictable."
Jill clipped her radio to her vest. Whatever was happening, it was bad. Really bad. The kind of bad that made veteran officers look scared.
"Stay sharp out there," she told her partner. "And if something feels wrong, trust your gut."
They headed for the exit, joining the stream of officers deploying into the chaos.
Behind them, the dispatch board continued lighting up. Hundreds of calls. Thousands.
Raccoon City was screaming for help, and no one knew that help wasn't coming.
End of Chapter 50
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