Chapter 14
Marcus was still working when he heard the bell for the elevator down the hall. Dressed in only dirty gray slacks and a sweat-stained white undershirt under his lab coat, he was busy entering information into his computer’s graphics program. He wanted to get a three-dimensional visual representation of the new Progenitor mutation. The process of compiling the data into a visual image took hours, and Marcus spent all night entering it instead of sleeping.
The security guard turned into a zombie, just like all the others, drastically changing Marcus’ original ideas about the results of the combined DNA. It seemed that even though the Progenitor was no longer technically present in the leech’s body, it still infected the host with an almost identical disease with identical symptoms. The guard had reanimated according to the exact time scale the Progenitor was set to. Marcus could not account for the apparent likeness of infection, but he knew for a fact that it was not the Progenitor infecting the host. It was something else, something brand new.
In his hastily-scribbled notes, he called the new variant the T-virus.
When the elevator bell rang, he was in the middle of entering the information to create a diagram of the virus in order to compare it to the original Progenitor. His head snapped up at the noise and he rose from his chair.
Instinctively, he knew what was happening. It dawned on him as if by inspiration. They were coming for him, coming for his work. Even though he was the only one who had the access code for the elevator, he knew that someone in a position of authority could get the codes directly from the computer system. Someone like Spencer. He had ignored Spencer’s calls and deadlines for long enough and now they were coming for him.
He felt like a deer caught in an oncoming car’s headlights. They were coming to get him, coming to take away everything he had worked so hard to accomplish. They would steal it from him and throw him away now that all the work was done. They didn’t care about him, Spencer didn’t care about him, they only cared about results and progress. They only cared about the work he had poured years of his life into. They were just going to waltz in and steal it right from his hands!
They were going to steal his precious leeches!
Marcus could not let them. He might have been willing to part with all the physical data surrounding the experiment, but he knew that they would not stop there. They would not stop until everything was taken from him. They would strip him of his privileges, of his entitlements, of everything he had worked so hard to obtain. Spencer was sure not to stop until there was nothing left to take.
Marcus ran to a table on the other side of the lab, knocking to the floor most of the items and papers scattered on top. Before sending the dead security guard’s body to the treatment plant, he took the man’s gun. He didn’t know why at the time, but now he was glad he had done so. They were not going to take his life away without a fight. He grabbed the pistol off the floor along with the spare clip and headed out into the hallway.
“Doctor Marcus!” someone shouted.
With a start, Marcus recognized Wesker’s voice. He should have known it was going to be Wesker that they sent against him.
Marcus braced himself against the door frame and pressed the barrel of the gun against his cheek. He hadn’t fired a gun since his short stint of service in World War II. Could he hit what he aimed at? He fumbled with the pistol and disengaged the safety. He didn’t know how many bullets remained in the clip or how to insert a new one once it ran out.
“Doctor Marcus! We want to talk to you!”
Wesker’s ambition was sure to be his undoing, but Marcus didn’t believe that he had volunteered for this mission. It seemed infinitely more likely that Spencer put him up to it, or even forced him to do it. Spencer had no qualms with taking advantage of a new employee and sacrificing him for what he deemed to be the greater good. Wesker, no doubt, had been pushed into this. And he was a smart one, so he probably knew he was in over his head.
Marcus couldn’t dwell on it, though. Wesker might not want to be here, but here he was and there was only one possible explanation. He was here to steal Marcus’ work, to take away the only thing that mattered. And Marcus couldn’t let him get away with it. It didn’t matter that Wesker was another innocent victim of Spencer’s manipulations, he was here to rob Marcus of his life.
Marcus leaned into the hallway and raised the pistol. He pulled the trigger and the gun fired twice, jerking his arm up into the air. The soldiers down the hall ducked for cover and Wesker leaped to the floor. The bullets went wide, and one of them shattered a fluorescent light above their heads. Bits of glass rained down as the soldiers raised their guns and opened fire.
Marcus ducked back behind the doorway and covered his ears as the roar of machine gun fire filled the narrow corridor. The far wall exploded in a flurry of bullet holes, and sparks shot across him like microscopic meteors. The second it died down, Marcus stuck his arm back out and fired once more, his arm shaking. At such an awkward angle, the recoil of the gun hurt his wrist. Another volley of bullets followed, and Marcus felt their impacts rattle the wall.
“Marcus!” Wesker screamed over the gunfire. “Throw the gun away!”
“You won’t take it from me!” Marcus shouted back, his voice trembling. He discovered his face was wet with tears. “You’ll have to kill me!”
“Don’t make me do this!”
Marcus stuck his arm out again and fired twice before the gun clicked empty. He tossed it to the floor and ducked back into the lab room. Gunfire erupted once more, blasting what remained of the wall to pieces. Smoke drifted up from the riddled wall panels. His ears rang with the deafening noise.
Desperately, he turned to the glass terrarium, where the leeches, attracted by the cacophony, lined up against the glass, watching him expectantly. He pressed his hand against the glass, clenching his jaw in determination, his eyes wild, tears still streaming down his face.
“This isn’t over,” he whispered. “They won’t take you away from me.”
He heard the soldiers surge down the narrow corridor like a wave, their booted feet stomping heavily, weapons raised as they moved to the end of the hall.
They rounded the corner in unison. Marcus barely had time to look up and raise his fists before they opened fire, showering the room with bullets. He felt one hit him squarely in the stomach, and he lurched forward before another struck him in the chest, and another, and another. He stumbled backward with the force of the shots as the walls around him seemed to explode with dozens of bullet impacts. The entire doorway lit up with flashes of gunfire. Distantly, he felt another hit his leg and another tear through his side as he sailed backward and crashed into the terrarium.
The glass shattered immediately, weakened by the numerous bullet holes already perforated through it. His body shattered through the glass and stood upright for just a moment before sliding to the floor and crumpling over, his white shirt now stained with growing circles of dark red blood.
The leeches, freed of their prison, oozed and jumped out of the terrarium. Wesker cowered behind the soldiers, screaming for them to shoot the leeches. Marcus twitched his finger, trying to stop them, even as his life slowly ebbed away. The soldiers concentrated their fire on the leeches, blowing them apart before any of them could get close enough to threaten them. Marcus tried to speak, tried to whisper, but failed. Darkness enclosed his vision.
And then all was silent. Wesker walked forward gingerly, stepping around the splattered leech bodies littered across the floor. He knelt in front of Marcus, who managed to look up at him.
“I’m sorry, old man,” Wesker said. “It didn’t have to be this way.”
With his last ounce of strength, Marcus whispered, “Yes ... it did ...” And then, his body finally went completely limp and his head rolled back, eyes staring up at the ceiling. His blood pooled across the floor, almost reaching Wesker’s shoes. When Wesker noticed
, he carefully stepped back.
The soldiers slung their guns back over their shoulders and stood at attention, and Wesker realized that they awaited his orders. He stuck his hands in the pockets of his lab coat and forced himself to remain calm. “Call security, get them over here. We have to clean this up. Who knows what those things were infected with. Two of you stay here and make sure nothing moves. The rest of you sweep this whole lab.”
The soldiers saluted him smartly, the gesture almost making him laugh it was so terribly out of place after such needless violence. As instructed, two of the men stood guard at the door, guns trained on the room to confirm that everything inside was dead. Belatedly, Wesker turned back and looked at Marcus’ dead body.
“Watch him closely,” he said, looking at the dead leeches lying around. “If he moves, shoot him in the head.”
“He’s dead, sir,” one of the soldiers replied. To his credit, he said it matter-of-factly, and with a straight face. There wasn’t a trace of confusion or amusement in his voice.
“I know that,” Wesker said. “But he might not stay that way.”