Chapter 15
Things were not going well. Although he knew ahead of time that not all hosts reacted in exactly the same ways to all the different strains of the virus, he somehow expected not to encounter any problems. But so far, Wesker was not having any luck at all.
The two Tyrants were growing normally, relatively speaking, although one of them was getting lopsided since its torso was growing at an angle. But the third creature, the Nemesis, was not growing properly at all. Not much work had been done with N-strain hosts, but Wesker was very disappointed so far in the results.
The host’s hair and skin had flaked away, revealing puffy pink dermis. Floating in the tank, the Nemesis looked like some massive mutated newborn baby. Its face was misshapen, the skull bulged out and facial features badly distorted. Its arms and legs looked too bulky, and the hands and feet were swollen and deformed. It was nothing like the powerful albino Tyrants, it was a bloated pink freak with oversize appendages. Wesker didn’t know if it would be any use at all in tracking down the S.T.A.R.S. members, or if it would wind up a failed experiment of no use at all.
He pumped the Nemesis full of sedatives and tested their effectiveness. When he was certain that the creature would not wake up prematurely, he drained the tank and the Nemesis slumped down, propped up by the numerous tubes embedded in its flesh. Slowly, the entire tank tilted backward, finishing the drain program. Metal rods on each side of the tank rotated on wheels to slide the tank from a vertical position to a horizontal one. Wesker stood aside and crossed his arms, waiting for the program to end its cycle.
He had not slept the night before and did not feel tired now. When he had tried to sleep, he just laid on the bed, remaining impatiently wide awake. After two hours, he got up again and went back to work. He still had no desire for a cigarette, and didn’t even need coffee to keep him alert. In fact, he felt more mentally alert than he usually did, and physically, his body felt in peak condition. Despite that, he made sure to monitor his health, to keep track of any delayed effects.
The base of the tank beeped to signal that the drain cycle was complete. The entire glass tank section was now on its side, its inhabitant carefully sedated and lying motionless inside. Wesker walked over to the tank, undid the outer latches, and pressed a button to decompress the air seal around the side of the tank. And then he opened up the front of the tank like a coffin lid to look down at the Nemesis inside.
Its feet were so swollen that Wesker doubted the creature would be able to walk. It would be impossible to tell without a full examination, but he also suspected that the creature’s bones and muscles were weakened in the same way its flesh was. If released from the tank, the Nemesis might just collapse under its own weight, paralyzed by weakness. And if that was the case, then Wesker might as well just put it out of its misery and burn the remains.
Wesker wondered if he could somehow strengthen the creature’s weak body. He had a wide range of other strains and variant viruses at his disposal. One or more of them might held rebuild some of what the N-strain had effectively destroyed. Perhaps he could use some of the virus suppressors or biological stabilizers. Of course, he didn’t have much time to play around with the Nemesis, trying to tweak it with a cocktail of other viruses. He needed it to be ready to deploy in three days at the most.
Leaning against the side of the tank, momentarily lost in his thoughts, he didn’t hear the very quiet squishing noises until it was almost too late. He turned his head and then suddenly leapt out of the way as a writhing purple tentacle burst from the Nemesis’ body and swung up toward him, spitting slimy pink ooze.
Wesker rolled into his feet and backpedaled as two more tentacles flopped up out of the tank, shorter than the first. They inched along the edge of the glass tank and squirmed like huge purple earthworms. The first tentacle, the longest one, flopped back and forth, dripping pinkish fluid onto the floor. Its tip was lined with a circle of tiny teeth like the mouth of a lamprey eel, and it moved around as if smelling for prey.
“Jesus Christ,” Wesker whispered, staring at the squirming tentacle in shock.
He walked over to one of his computer tables and grabbed a pistol sitting atop a pile of notes. He flipped the safety off and walked back over to the tank.
As if sensing his approach, the two smaller tentacles retracted back into the Nemesis’ body. The first one swayed upright and pointed right at Wesker. He lifted the gun and squeezed off a single shot, shooting the tentacle halfway down its long body.
More pinkish fluid burst from the bullet hole and splashed across the outside of the tank. The tentacle thrashed violently and retracted back into the Nemesis like a spaghetti noodle being slurped messily into someone’s mouth. Wesker immediately went over to the tank and closed the tank lid. He reactivated the air seal and closed the latches, but waited for a little while before reactivating the tank’s fill program.
He had not noticed the slightly discolored muscle tissue running down the Nemesis’ arm before, but he noticed it clearly now. Watching carefully, he could see the vague purple outline moving around underneath the surface, all the way from the creature’s bicep down to its wrist. Somehow, the Nemesis had mutated tentacles that formed inside its body.
Mutating strange body parts, such as tentacles, was far from rare in hosts infected with a strain of the Progenitor. In his years working with hundreds upon hundreds of different lab experiments, Wesker had seen every bizarre mutation imaginable. But what was strange was that these tentacles seemed unaffected by the powerful sedatives that kept the rest of the creature comatose. And more than that, they apparently went right for Wesker, not randomly, but intentionally.
Had this variant strain managed to spawn a self-aware mutation into the host body? Wesker had never heard of anything like that before. He guessed that somehow, the tentacles were just immune to the sedatives, and were acting independently of the host, like an involuntary muscle reaction.
Right on cue, the tentacles burst forth again, this time slamming into the glass a foot from Wesker’ face. He didn’t even flinch. Slime streaked across the inside of the tank as the tentacle slid back and forth, trying to find a way out. The tiny little circle of teeth closed and opened as if trying to bite through the glass. There was no trace of the bullet hole, as Wesker had expected.
Maybe he could use the Nemesis after all. It might take a bit of work, but the tentacles were an interesting new development. Wesker glanced back across the boxes and crates full of material he had taken from the labs. In one of those cases, he had a set of samples that might be made very useful. But he wasn’t sure if he had remembered to pack them.
The Nemesis’ swollen body was still a problem, but Wesker had a plan for that too. He would have to leave the warehouse to get some supplies and do some shopping. There were risks involved with that as well, but he didn’t anticipate trouble. It was always dangerous to go out in public when you were supposed to be dead, but the odds of running into anyone who could potentially recognize him were very slim. He would change his appearance just a little bit to make sure no one identified him, just in case.
He programmed in the fill sequence for the tank, and it slowly lifted back up into a vertical position and began to fill with water. Wesker walked back to his work area and tossed the pistol onto one of the tables. As he walked over toward the packing crates to look for the set of samples he hoped would be there, he heard a loud pop and a splash coming from the tank.
The fill tube had burst, and now water was spraying across the tank and onto the floor, and the water already inside the tank was draining right back out. Wesker ran over to the tank in a heartbeat and stopped the fill cycle, swearing at himself. The water spreading across the concrete floor was cold on his bare feet. He clenched his fists angrily and swore at himself, walking around to the back of the tank.
The hose had burst right at the connecting valve, and water had poured across the control panel at the
back of the tank. It would take some time to fix, and Wesker could only hope that the panel didn’t get damaged.
He turned around, and in a moment of fury, swung his fist at the edge of one of the large wooden crates stacked behind the tanks. He just wanted to release a little anger, punching an inanimate object to make himself feel better.
His fist smashed right through the thick wood and splintered the corner of the crate as if it was made of styrofoam. Small chunks and splinters of wood scattered to the floor, and Wesker stared in stunned surprise at his hand.
A sliver of wood was jammed right in between the knuckles of his ring finger and middle finger, seeping blood across the back of his hand. He held his hand up, and watched the tiny stream of blood trail all the way down to his elbow. With his other hand, he gripped the sliver of wood and pulled it out. Immediately, the puncture wound healed itself. He wiped his knuckle but there was only unbroken skin. He felt no pain at all.
It took an hour to fix the tube and valve. All the while, the Nemesis’ tentacles were flopping around the tank and banging against the glass, trying to get at him. He ignored them for the most part, but he wondered why they had not appeared before now. The only thing he could think of was that they could not emerge under water, although why that was the case was a total mystery.
When he was finally done, he started the fill cycle and watched as the tank rotated upright and began to fill with water. As he suspected, the tentacles retracted back into the Nemesis’ arm as the water level rose. In a few minutes, the tank was full of water, and the Nemesis floated silently inside, the purple tentacles writhing beneath the surface of its flesh.
Wesker walked back to the living area and changed his clothes. He needed to go out and buy some equipment, so he dressed in very nondescript blue jeans and a t-shirt. It was highly unlikely that he would run into anyone who knew him, since most of the people who knew him were dead already, but he was not going to take any chances. Someone from the police department might see him, and he couldn’t have that.
His most recognizable characteristic was his sunglasses, of course. As much as he hated to do so, he decided not to wear them today. It would be one of the few times Wesker had ever gone out in public without his sunglasses. He set them on a table and wandered into the bathroom to check his appearance in the mirror before he left.
When he glanced at his reflection, he stopped in his tracks. He leaned forward to get a closer look, and decided perhaps he should wear the sunglasses after all.