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"No matter where we are," Rebecca said, her eyes stinging, "we need to leave. Now."
She pointed behind her, toward the burning train cars.
Movement.
Through the curtain of fire, shapes were stumbling.
Zombies.
But these weren't just the shambling dead. They were on fire. Their clothes were melting, their flesh blackening and peeling, but the T-Virus drove them forward. They roared—a sound of sizzling meat and rage—as they spilled out of the wreckage.
There were more than a dozen of them.
"You go first," Atlas ordered, stepping between the pair and the horde. He raised his pistol. "Find the exit. I'll cover you."
"But Atlas—" Rebecca started.
"Go!" Atlas barked, but his eyes were soft when he looked at her. "I'm right behind you. Move!"
Billy grabbed Rebecca's arm. "Come on, Officer. Let the big man work."
They turned and ran toward the iron service door at the back of the lot.
Atlas stood his ground. The heat from the fire was intense, singing his eyebrows.
He aimed the gun.
POP. POP. POP.
He didn't panic. He didn't spray and pray.
Every shot was a surgical intervention. The burning zombies dropped one by one, bullets punching through their charred skulls.
He didn't feel the need to use his claws for these burning zombies. And the XP was the same.
He emptied the magazine. He reloaded in a blur of motion.
POP. POP.
The last burning figure crumbled to ash.
"Atlas! We found the exit!" Rebecca screamed from the doorway. "Come quickly!"
Atlas holstered his gun. He turned and sprinted, diving through the iron door just as the train's secondary fuel tank exploded, filling the parking lot with a wall of fire.
[The Underground Sewers]
Billy slammed the heavy iron door shut and spun the locking wheel.
CLANG.
The roar of the fire was muffled instantly, replaced by the sound of dripping water.
They were in a concrete tunnel. The air was cold, damp, and smelled of stagnation.
"This looks like the sewer system," Billy noted, shining his flashlight down the dark corridor. "I don't know where this leads."
At the end of the walkway, there was a drop-off into deep, murky water.
Rebecca hesitated, looking at the filth. "We have to swim?"
Atlas didn't hesitate. He walked past them and jumped directly into the water.
SPLASH.
It came up to his knees. He turned back, offering a hand to Rebecca.
"No matter where we go," Atlas said gently, "we can't go back. The fire will suck the oxygen out of that tunnel in minutes."
He looked at her, his grey eyes anchoring her.
"Trust me, Rebecca. It's just water."
Rebecca took a deep breath. She grabbed his hand. It was warm and strong. She jumped in.
Billy followed with a grimace.
"I hate sewers," the convict muttered.
Atlas took the lead, cutting through the water like an icebreaker. Rebecca stayed close to him, almost clinging to the back of his jacket. In just half an hour, amidst the chaos of death and fire, she had instinctively designated him as her protector.
They waded for hundreds of meters. Finally, they reached a metal ladder leading up to a maintenance hatch.
"Up we go," Atlas whispered.
He climbed the ladder. He pushed the heavy manhole cover. It groaned, rusted and heavy, but moved under his strength.
He climbed out.
He wasn't outside.
He stood in a room with dusty marble floors, expensive rugs, and antique furniture.
He reached down and pulled Rebecca up, then Billy.
The three of them stood dripping wet in the center of a magnificent, gothic hallway. It was silent, grand, and utterly eerie.
"Where are we?" Rebecca whispered, her voice echoing.
Atlas looked around. He recognized the architecture. The oppressive grandeur.
"Most likely is the Umbrella Training Facility," he noted internally.
Atlas figured this was probably the Training Institute, where they train Umbrella's support staff. And yep, there was also an underground lab. 'I mean, can Umbrella even be Umbrella without an underground lab?'
"It looks like a mansion," Billy said, wiping slime off his boots. He looked at the carpet. "Check the logo."
Embroidered into the rug was the red and white umbrella.
"It seems like this should be one of Umbrella's research centers," Billy said.
"Atlas, Billy, look at this," Rebecca called out.
She was standing at the base of a grand staircase. Above the landing, dominating the hall, was a massive oil painting.
It depicted a man in white robes, with long grey hair and a stern, arrogant expression.
"Have we seen him before?" Rebecca asked, shivering.
"It seems to be that guy singing on top of the mountain," Billy noted. "But this one seems a little older. More... human."
"This man is Dr. James Marcus," Atlas explained, his voice echoing in the hall. "One of the three founders of Umbrella Corporation. Along with Oswell Spencer and Edward Ashford."
He looked at the portrait.
"But he's been dead for ten years. Or so the history books say."
[Unknown Location – Monitoring Room]
Miles away, deep within the Arklay network.
A bank of monitors flickered to life.
On the screen, three figures stood in the main hall of the Training Facility.
Albert Wesker adjusted his sunglasses, leaning forward in his chair. Beside him stood Dr. William Birkin, disheveled and obsessive, clutching a clipboard.
"Interesting," Wesker murmured smoothly. "The rookie girl... the convict... and an unknown variable."
"Who is the big one?" Birkin asked, squinting at the screen. "He's not S.T.A.R.S. He moves differently. Look at his vitals on the thermal scan. His body temperature is... fluctuating."
"A mercenary?" Wesker mused. "Or a third party? It doesn't matter. They have entered the lion's den."
"Marcus is awake," Birkin whispered fearfully. "If they are in there... they are test subjects."
When the three looked at the portrait, they didn't know that their every movement was being monitored by a camera, even Atlas forgot about it.
[The Training Facility – Main Hall]
Atlas felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up.
We're being watched, he realized. 'Cameras.'
Just as he was about to signal the others, the intercom system crackled to life. Static whined through the hall, followed by a voice that sounded like wet leather sliding over gravel.
"Attention... intruders..."
Rebecca jumped, grabbing her gun.
"I am Dr. Marcus... Please... be quiet..." The voice drifted away into a low, mocking laugh.
"He's here," Atlas said grimly. "This is his territory."
They stood in the empty hall, the silence pressing in on them.
"We can't stay in the open," Billy said, his tactical mind taking over. "We need to secure a perimeter. Find a way out."
"We have to spread out," Billy suggested. "Cover more ground."
Rebecca looked terrified at the idea. "Split up? In here?"
Atlas looked at her. He didn't like the idea of leaving her, but they needed to find the key items to unlock the facility doors.
"We have to, Rebecca," Atlas said gently. "But we won't go far."
He pointed to the heavy oak doors surrounding the hall.
"I'm going to the door on the right side. Billy, you take the left wing. Rebecca, go up the stairs to the second-floor landing—keep the high ground and watch our backs. Do not engage alone. If you see anything, scream."
He put a hand on her shoulder.
"We meet back here in twenty minutes. Sharp."
Rebecca swallowed hard, but she nodded.
"Twenty minutes."
"Break," Atlas ordered.
[The East Wing – Dining Room]
Atlas opened the door on the right and stepped inside.
The smell hit him first—rotting food and dust. He was in a formal dining room. Tables were set with fine food that hadn't been touched in a decade. Mold grew on the tablecloths.
Groan…
Three figures turned toward the sound of the door.
Two were wearing tattered white lab coats—researchers who had died here ten years ago. One was wearing a security uniform.
They shambled toward him.
"You guys have been waiting a long time for dinner," Atlas quipped.
He didn't waste bullets. He drew his combat knife.
He moved forward, ducking under the first zombie's grasp. He drove the knife up under the chin, severing the brain stem.
Drop.
He spun, kicking the second zombie in the knee, shattering the joint. As it fell, he stomped on its head.
Crunch.
The third one—the guard—lunged. Atlas grabbed it by the lapels and threw it across the room into a table. He walked over and finished it with a boot to the neck.
He searched the bodies. The guard had a pistol in a leg holster. Atlas checked it. A Beretta M9. Full mag.
He pocketed the ammo.
He moved to the back of the room. A door marked [ KITCHEN ] was locked.
Atlas looked through the serving window.
Two zombies were pacing inside among the rusted stoves and pots.
"Fish in a barrel," Atlas muttered.
He raised his gun through the window.
POP. POP.
Two headshots. The zombies dropped.
He moved past the kitchen, entering a narrow service corridor.
HISS... CLANK... HISS…
He heard machinery.
He opened the door to his left. The Boiler Room.
It was empty of enemies, but the pipes were rusted and leaking. Jets of scalding steam erupted rhythmically from the fractures.
"Environmental hazard," Atlas noted. "Not worth the burn."
He backed out and continued down the hall.
He reached the end. A heavy metal door.
He pushed it open.
The Storage Warehouse.
It was dark, filled with crates and boxes draped in dusty tarps.
—---
Location: The Training Facility – East Wing / Roof / Main Hall.
Time: 11:25 PM.
Atlas walked into the storage warehouse, his senses dialed to eleven. The air was stale, smelling of old cardboard and dry rot, but beneath that was the sharp, metallic tang of the T-Virus.
Scuff.
The sound of a shoe dragging on concrete echoed from behind a stack of crates.
Atlas turned the corner, his Remington shotgun raised.
Zombie figures were waiting in the shadows. But one of them was different. It wasn't shambling. It was hunched over, its skin glistening with a sickly, wet sheen that reflected the dim emergency lights.
It looked up. Its face was a featureless mask of grey flesh.
It didn't groan. It hissed.
Atlas narrowed his eyes.
"Leech Zombie," he whispered.
The creature's torso split open down the middle, revealing a maw of writhing, black leeches instead of ribs. It screeched, a sound like tearing metal.
Atlas grinned, cracking his knuckles against the stock of his shotgun.
"Now we're talking."
The Leech Zombie lunged, its arm extending into a long, whip-like appendage of slime.
Atlas side-stepped with Agility, the slime whip cracking the concrete where he had just stood.
He didn't fire immediately. He wanted to feel the weight of the enemy.
He dropped the shotgun to its sling and drew his Claws.
SNIKT.
Three feet of silver-white bone extended from his knuckles.
"Let's dance, ugly."
Atlas closed the distance in a blur. He ducked under a second swing and drove his claws upward.
SHING.
The claws sliced through the Leech Zombie's torso, severing the connection between the mimicry leeches. The creature fell apart into a pile of writhing worms.
The two normal zombies stumbled forward, arms outstretched.