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The Hive - Control Room
"Activate the base defense systems!" Wesker's hands flew across the control panels, his composure finally cracking. "Release everything. All containment protocols suspended!"
Beside him, the Isaacs clone looked panicked. "The explosives—should we detonate now while they're still—"
"No." Wesker pulled up another screen. "Wake him. Wake the real Isaacs. We need everyone for this."
On the monitors, Marcus and his team were descending deeper into the facility, and every security measure Wesker deployed just... stopped. Cameras went dark. Blast doors opened like they were made of paper. It was like watching a force of nature carve through his defenses.
Wesker hit the emergency protocol and spoke into the intercom: "Dr. Isaacs, this is a priority wake-up call. We have a situation."
Then he released the bioweapons.
The first wave came fast—dozens of infected pouring from side corridors, their movements jerky and wrong, fingers twisted into claws.
"Contact!" Jill called out, raising her weapon.
But she didn't need to fire.
The zombies simply... stopped. Hung in mid-air for half a second. Then their heads snapped sideways in perfect unison, a chorus of breaking necks that echoed through the corridor.
They dropped like puppets with cut strings.
Marcus lowered his hand, barely breaking stride. "Keep moving."
Alice walked beside him, and when the next group appeared—Lickers this time, skinless horrors scrambling across the ceiling with their exposed muscles and extended tongues—she just looked at them.
They exploded. Just came apart in mid-leap, reduced to chunks of meat that splattered across the walls.
"I'm getting better at this," Alice said with dark satisfaction.
"Yes you are," Marcus agreed.
Behind them, Jill and Ada handled the stragglers with conventional weapons, but it was clear the enhanced humans in the front were doing most of the work. Every zombie, every bioweapon, every Umbrella nightmare they'd spent months fighting—all of it was trivial now.
Jill and Ada were still getting used to their own telekinesis. They could move small objects, deflect attacks, but nothing like the casual devastation Marcus and Alice wielded. So they stuck to guns, providing cover fire and watching in awe as the two psychics cleared a path through the Hive like it was nothing.
They reached the turbine corridor.
It was a classic Umbrella death trap—a massive industrial turbine at the end of a hundred-foot hallway, spinning at lethal speed, creating a wind tunnel that could pull a person in and reduce them to paste in seconds. The walls were smooth metal, no handholds, nowhere to hide from the suction.
"That's new," Ada commented, watching debris get sucked into the blades. "Creative."
Marcus closed his eyes, reaching out with his telekinesis. He felt the turbine's mechanisms—the power transfer, the gears, the drive shaft, all the components that kept it spinning. He found the weakest points and just... twisted.
Metal shrieked. The turbine ground to a halt, smoking slightly.
"Not anymore," Marcus said, opening his eyes. "Let's go."
They walked past the dead turbine, and Marcus could feel Wesker watching through the cameras, could sense the man's growing desperation. Every trap, every defense, every carefully laid plan—all of it useless against someone who could just reach through the walls and break things with his mind.
"He's going to run," Marcus said quietly. "Another minute and Wesker's going to cut his losses and try to escape."
"Can you stop him?" Alice asked.
"I can stop both of them," Marcus replied. "I'm just waiting for Isaacs to wake up first. Want to make sure we get everyone in one go."
Dr. Sam Isaacs—the real one, not a clone—woke up in his cryogenic pod to the sound of alarms and Wesker's frantic voice over the intercom.
"What happened?" he demanded, climbing out groggily. The pod's display showed he'd been asleep for only five months. Far too early. "What time is it? Has the plan succeeded? Is humanity wiped out?"
"No," Wesker said tersely. "Get to the control room. Now."
Isaacs's face went dark. "Then why wake me?"
"Because we're about to die if you don't move."
That got his attention.
By the time Isaacs reached the control room, Wesker had pulled up surveillance footage and status reports. What he saw made his blood run cold.
"This can't be right," Isaacs muttered, staring at the screens. "When I went to sleep, Reed and his group had one base. One. They were a nuisance, not a threat—"
"That was five months ago," Wesker interrupted. "In that time, they've destroyed every Umbrella facility on the planet. Every. Single. One. Arctic, Antarctic, Europe, Japan, china —all gone. They have an army, Isaacs. An army of enhanced superhumans. They perfected the T-virus somehow, gave themselves powers that make our bioweapons look like toys."
Isaacs watched footage of the Alice Legion in action—dozens of women with identical faces, moving with superhuman speed and coordination, tearing through Umbrella soldiers like they were paper. But worse than that was the footage of Marcus.
He watched Marcus lift an armored transport with his mind and crush it like a tin can. Watched him deflect missile fire. Watched him move so fast the cameras could barely track him.
"This is impossible," Isaacs breathed. "How did they get this strong?"
"I don't know!" Wesker snapped. "I sent Ada to find out, and she betrayed us! She's with them now—"
"They're here." Isaacs pulled up the live feeds from inside the Hive. "Right now. In our facility."
On the screens, Marcus and his team walked through the corridors like they owned the place. Every defense Umbrella deployed just... stopped working. Every trap failed. It was like watching an unstoppable force of nature.
"What do we do?" Wesker asked, and there was real fear in his voice.
Isaacs grabbed a data case, started shoving drives into it. "We run. There's another exit, through the research wing. We trigger the self-destruct behind us, bury them under several kilotons of explosive—"
"That won't work," Wesker said. "I tried that at the Tokyo facility. He knew about the bombs. Dismantled them before we could trigger them."
"Then we run anyway!" Isaacs headed for the door. "Come on!"
They made it maybe fifty feet down the corridor before something invisible grabbed them.
Both men stopped dead, their bodies locked in place like they'd hit an invisible wall. Isaacs tried to move, tried to push forward, but it was like being held by steel bands that covered every inch of his body.
"What—" he gasped.
"Telekinesis," Wesker snarled, struggling uselessly. "He's got us. From hundreds of meters away, he's got us."
They hung there, suspended, as footsteps echoed down the corridor. Slow. Unhurried.
Marcus appeared first, walking casually, hands in his pockets like he was out for a stroll. Alice flanked him on one side, Jill on the other, Ada bringing up the rear. All four looked calm. Confident.
"Well," Marcus said pleasantly, "looks like the game of cat and mouse is over."
Marcus directed his captives into a nearby conference room—probably where Umbrella executives used to plan their apocalypse—and deposited Wesker and Isaacs none-too-gently into chairs. They struggled briefly, but Marcus's telekinetic hold was absolute.
"Two," Marcus said, leaning against the conference table. "We finally meet face-to-face. The real you, I mean. I've killed so many of your clones I was starting to think you were just a story people told."
Alice stepped forward, and the look on her face made both men flinch. "You wanted to see us? Wanted to capture me, experiment on me, clone me, use me to build your perfect world?"
"Well congratulations," Jill added coldly. "You got your wish. Here we are."
Wesker was sweating. Actually sweating. Marcus could see the man's facade cracking, all that superiority and confidence draining away as he realized exactly how screwed he was.
"Mr. Reed," Wesker said, voice shaking slightly. "Ladies. Please. Let's be reasonable about this—"
"Reasonable?" Alice's voice could've cut glass. "You murdered billions of people. You destroyed the world. You cloned me, experimented on copies of me, threw them away like garbage when they didn't meet your standards. And you want reasonable?"
"Everything here is yours!" Isaacs blurted out. "The facility, the research, all of Umbrella's assets—just let us go! We'll disappear, you'll never hear from us again—"
"It was all him!" Wesker shouted, pointing at Isaacs. "Isaacs gave the orders! I was just following instructions, I was forced to—"
"Shut up," Marcus said quietly, and both men's mouths snapped closed—literally, his telekinesis forcing their jaws shut. "You two bastards don't get to beg. You don't get to make deals. And you definitely don't get to play the blame game."
"Even if we forgave you," Jill said, her voice hard, "those billions of dead people won't. Every person who died screaming, every child who got infected, every family torn apart—they all died because of you."
Marcus was about to say something else when he felt it—a presence, approaching from deeper in the facility. Weak. Failing. But human. Still alive.
He glanced at Alice. She'd felt it too, her expression shifting from anger to confusion.
The conference room doors opened.
An elderly woman entered in a motorized wheelchair, moving slowly but with dignity. She was frail, probably in her seventies or eighties, her skin pale and papery. But her face...
Alice inhaled sharply.
The woman's face was Alice's face. Older, weathered by time and illness, but unmistakably the same bone structure, the same features. Like looking into a mirror that showed the future.
"Alicia Marcus," Marcus said softly. "Alice's original."
The two women stared at each other—Alice young and healthy and enhanced, standing tall in tactical gear. Alicia old and dying, barely able to hold herself upright, every breath clearly an effort.
"Hello," Alicia said, her voice thin but steady. "You must be Alice. My... copy."
Alice's hands clenched into fists. She'd known, intellectually, that she was a clone. Marcus and Dr. Ashford had shown her the evidence months ago during the base-building period, had walked her through the proof. She'd struggled with it, nearly broke from the revelation that she wasn't real, wasn't original, was just a copy of someone else.
Marcus and Jill had been there for her. Especially Marcus—he'd spent days sitting with her, talking her through it, reminding her that being a clone didn't make her less human. That her experiences, her choices, her relationships—those were real, and that made her real.
She'd accepted it. Moved past it.
But seeing the proof, seeing the actual person she'd been copied from, still hit like a truck.
"You're dying," Alice said, because she could see it—the woman was barely holding on, her body failing.
"Progeria," Alicia confirmed. "Accelerated aging. My father—James Marcus, one of Umbrella's founders—spent his life trying to cure me. The T-virus was supposed to be the answer. Instead, it became this." She gestured vaguely at the facility around them, at the apocalypse outside. "Isaacs killed my father and stole his research. Turned it into a weapon. And here we are."
"Why are you here?" Jill asked, not unkindly. "Why stay with the people who did this?"
"Where else would I go?" Alicia smiled sadly. "I'm dying. Have been for years. They kept me alive because I was useful—the original genetic template for Alice, for all the clones. And because..." She looked at Wesker and Isaacs, and there was pure contempt in her eyes. "Because they thought I'd be a useful hostage if they ever needed leverage."
Alice moved closer, slowly, like approaching a frightened animal. "I'm sorry. For what they did to you. To your father."
"Don't be sorry for me." Alicia reached out with a trembling hand, and Alice took it carefully. "I'm sorry for you. You were created to be experimented on, used as a template for an army, treated like property instead of a person. At least I had a childhood, had my father's love for a while. You woke up in a lab with nothing but Alice Cooper playing on loop and questions you couldn't answer."
Alice blinked. "How did you—"
"I have access to some of their records. I've watched you, over the years. Watched you escape the Hive, survive Raccoon City, fight back against them." Alicia smiled, and it transformed her face despite the age and illness. "I'm proud of you. Of who you became despite everything."
Then Alicia looked past Alice to Marcus, studying him with sharp, intelligent eyes that reminded Marcus uncomfortably of another dying person he'd known in another life.
"And you," Alicia said. "Marcus Reed. You're not what I expected."
"Few people are," Marcus replied.
"They're terrified of you, you know." She glanced at Wesker and Isaacs, still frozen in their chairs. "Every report, every surveillance footage—you're the anomaly they can't explain. The variable that broke their predictions. They thought they'd control the apocalypse, use it to reshape the world in their image. Then you appeared and started breaking their toys."
"I have a habit of messing up evil plans," Marcus admitted.
Alicia laughed, a dry crackling sound. "Good. They deserve it." She turned back to Alice. "I need to tell you something. I don't have much time left—days, maybe a week at most. But there are things you should know. Memories. My memories. My father's work. Everything that made Umbrella what it is."
"You want to transfer your memories to me?" Alice asked.
"If you'll accept them. They're yours by right—you're me, after all. The better version. The one who lived while I died." Alicia squeezed Alice's hand. "But I wanted to meet you first. See who you'd become. And I wanted to tell you..." Her voice caught. "I wanted to tell you that you found something I never had."
Alice frowned. "What?"
Alicia glanced at Marcus, at Jill, at Ada. At the team standing behind Alice with absolute loyalty and trust.
"Love," Alicia said simply. "Real love. People who see you, all of you, and stay anyway. My father loved me, but I was his project, his cure, his purpose. You..." She smiled again. "You found people who love you just for being you. Congratulations, Alice. You have good friends, good partners, and someone who really loves you."
She looked directly at Marcus when she said it, and Marcus felt the weight of that gaze—a dying woman recognizing what she saw between him and Alice, acknowledging it, accepting it.
"My father is gone," Alicia continued quietly. "Died trying to save me. But you..." She squeezed Alice's hand one more time. "You get to live. Please. Live for both of us."
Alice's eyes were wet. She carefully, gently, pulled Alicia into a hug—mindful of the woman's frailty, terrified of breaking her.
"I will," Alice whispered. "I promise. The nightmare's almost over."
Alicia nodded against her shoulder. "Good. That's good."
In their chairs, Wesker and Isaacs watched with growing horror as their last bargaining chip turned out to be worthless. Alicia wasn't their hostage. She was their witness.
And she'd just sided with the people who were going to end them.
Marcus watched the reunion between clone and original, between two versions of the same person who'd lived such different lives, and felt something settle in his chest.
This was why they'd come here. Not just to kill Wesker and Isaacs—though that was definitely on the agenda—but to give Alice closure. To let her meet the woman she'd been copied from, to understand where she came from.
To let her choose who she wanted to be.
Alicia pulled back from the hug, studying Alice's face one more time. "You're stronger than me. Braver. Better. I'm glad. I'm glad you exist, even if it means I'll be gone soon."
"We have doctors," Alice said quickly. "Dr. Ashford, scientists—maybe we can—"
"No." Alicia shook her head. "I'm done. I've been done for years. But you..." She smiled. "You're just beginning. So go. Save the world. End this nightmare. And remember that someone who shares your face is proud of everything you've done."
Alice nodded, tears streaming freely now. "Thank you."
"Thank you," Alicia replied, "for being the version of me that got to live."
Marcus stepped forward, gently resting a hand on Alice's shoulder. She leaned into the touch, drawing strength from it, and together they stood facing Alicia Marcus—the original template, the dying woman who'd started it all.
The nightmare was almost over.
But first, they had two executives to deal with.
(End of Chapter)