"Wait." Older Ash stared at the Kandarian Dagger in his hand, his expression changing as though he had suddenly noticed something important. He turned slightly, adjusted the angle of the grotesque bone-handled blade, then looked toward young Ash with unexpected excitement. "I can feel the Book of the Dead. When I'm holding this thing, I can tell what direction the book is in."
Young Ash immediately frowned. "Why would the dagger work like a tracking device?" The Kandarian Dagger did not possess the same obvious intelligence as the Book of the Dead, but it was deeply connected to the rituals surrounding the artifact, and Ruby had left one of those rituals unfinished. Combined with older Ash still being recognized as the Book's current holder, the dagger apparently strengthened that connection enough to give him a rough sense of the missing volume's location.
Older Ash shrugged. "Who cares why it works? For once, something supernatural is actually helping us." He tried sliding the dagger behind his waistband again, only for the nearly two-foot-long weapon to immediately interfere with his movement. After imagining what would happen if the blade slipped at the wrong angle, he grimaced and handed it over. "You carry it. Give it back whenever we need supernatural GPS."
Young Ash accepted the Kandarian Dagger and secured it more carefully. "Fine. Where's the Book right now?" Older Ash thought back to the sensation he had felt while holding the weapon. "Up and off to one side. Definitely above us."
"That means it probably landed somewhere on the surface." Ash looked toward the rear of the train car and pointed at the narrow window. "Which gives us our first objective. We get out of whatever underground facility this is and start searching topside."
Older Ash finally examined the train more carefully. This was clearly not ordinary public transportation; the carriage was fully enclosed, heavily reinforced, and built more like part of a secure industrial transit system than anything meant for commuters. "Where exactly are we?" he asked. Young Ash narrowed his eyes and answered, "Underground. Probably inside the access network for some kind of private facility."
In reality, Ash already had a much clearer idea.
The red-and-white Umbrella Corporation logo on the equipment had removed most of the doubt. The unconscious tactical unit, the woman in the red dress, the underground train, and the advanced security systems all fit together perfectly. Somehow, Ruby's dimensional vortex had thrown the two Ash Williams into the world of Resident Evil, and judging by the scene around them, they had arrived near the beginning of the first movie.
That meant the woman in red was Alice.
It also meant the train was heading toward the Hive beneath Raccoon City.
Young Ash quietly looked around and thought, Great. We traded demons for bioweapons.
Older Ash noticed his expression. "You know something."
"Enough to know we should probably go back up instead of farther down."
"Can this train take us there?"
Young Ash stepped off the bench and stomped lightly against the floor, feeling the vibration of the track beneath them. "We were moving deeper underground when I woke up, so the original boarding point was probably closer to the surface. In theory, reversing the train should take us back." He looked toward the control section. "Unfortunately, I have no idea how to drive it."
Older Ash immediately snorted. "It's a train, junior. How complicated can it be?"
He swaggered toward the controls with the confidence of a man about to demonstrate decades of practical experience.
Several minutes later, young Ash stood beside him with folded arms.
Older Ash was staring at the console.
Young Ash smiled. "Done yet?"
"Something's wrong."
"With the train?"
"With whoever designed this thing." Older Ash scratched his head and glared at the unfamiliar displays, switches, automated controls, and interface. "Why does a train need all this?"
Young Ash patted him on the shoulder. "Advanced technology from another world. It's okay to admit defeat."
Older Ash slapped his hand away. "I'm not defeated. I'm evaluating."
"You've been evaluating the same button for two minutes."
Before older Ash could answer, he glanced toward the unconscious tactical team. "When are they waking up? We could just ask one of them." Young Ash looked at the bodies scattered across the car and gave an uncertain shrug. "Hard to say. I may have hit them a little harder than necessary."
Older Ash looked at him.
Young Ash added, "They had rifles."
"That is not a medical explanation."
Fortunately, the train solved the problem for them. The speed gradually dropped, the vibration beneath the floor weakened, and the carriage finally rolled into a brightly lit underground terminal before coming to a complete stop. Young Ash looked through the rear window and said, "Looks like we've reached the end of the line."
Older Ash picked up his enchanted shotgun. "Then we explore until Sleeping Beauty and the gun club wake up."
"Works for me."
The two started stepping carefully over the unconscious personnel. When older Ash passed the woman in the red dress, he stopped long enough to whistle appreciatively. "Now that is a beautiful woman."
Young Ash glanced at Alice. "She could probably beat you unconscious."
Older Ash looked intrigued rather than discouraged. "Seriously?"
"Please don't make that sound like a selling point."
As older Ash continued toward the exit, young Ash deliberately slowed near one of the equipment cases. He reached down as though only now noticing it, pulled out a secure metal briefcase, and casually opened the locks. Inside were carefully arranged cylindrical samples containing blue and green liquid.
Older Ash looked over his shoulder. "What's that?"
Young Ash stared at the contents for a moment. "No idea."
That was a lie.
He knew exactly what he was looking at.
T-virus.
And antivirus.
The substances inside that briefcase were among the most dangerous objects in this entire world, which meant there was absolutely no chance Ash was leaving them lying on the train. He closed the case and picked it up. "Whatever it is, it looks expensive and important. We're taking it."
Older Ash nodded approvingly. "Now you're thinking like me."
"That worries me."
The two stepped off the train into the underground terminal. Bright industrial lights illuminated concrete walls, steel walkways, and sealed access points, while a set of elevator doors stood open farther up the platform. Beyond those doors was only darkness.
Young Ash stopped.
Something did not feel right.
From what he remembered, the Hive was Umbrella's massive underground research facility beneath Raccoon City. The corporation publicly operated across pharmaceuticals, medical technology, consumer products, and defense contracting, while secretly investing enormous resources into biological weapons, advanced military research, and genetic engineering.
One of those projects was the T-virus.
Infected humans could rapidly become violently aggressive, corpse-like creatures driven by hunger and instinct.
Zombies.
If this really was the beginning of the first Resident Evil incident, then the virus should already have been released inside the Hive. The Red Queen, the facility's artificial intelligence, had responded by sealing the complex and killing the personnel inside to prevent the infection from escaping.
That made the open elevator suspicious.
Even worse, young Ash had already seen something resembling a zombie running outside the train earlier.
He looked into the darkness beyond the elevator doors and narrowed his eyes. "This is wrong."
Older Ash glanced at him. "You saying that about the zombies or the evil underground laboratory?"
"Both."
Ash tightened his grip on the briefcase. If infected creatures were already moving freely through the access areas, the outbreak might be farther along than he expected. There was even a possibility that containment had already failed badly enough for the virus to reach areas closer to the surface.
Another thought bothered him more.
The T-virus could spread through bodily fluids, contamination, and depending on circumstances possibly environmental exposure. Ash had no idea whether his strengthened body or Pollution Resistance would protect him completely, and older Ash definitely did not possess the same supernatural resistance.
He looked down at the antivirus case.
If there's even a chance he's exposed, I'm giving him one.
For now, though, there was no reason to panic.
They approached the elevator.
Young Ash spotted a surveillance camera mounted above the access point.
He stopped.
"Camera."
Older Ash looked up. "Think somebody's watching?"
"Maybe."
Older Ash immediately stepped beneath it and waved with his mechanical hand. "Hey! Anybody home? We accidentally broke into your secret underground death facility and would really like directions to the exit!"
Young Ash stared at him.
Older Ash raised his voice. "Preferably before the zombies show up!"
Somewhere deep inside the Hive's control systems, an artificial intelligence was already watching.
A holographic projection shaped like a young girl in a red dress studied the two unidentified men through the surveillance feed. Facial recognition returned nothing, personnel databases returned nothing, and neither man appeared anywhere inside Umbrella's authorized records.
The older subject carried a recognizable shotgun and chainsaw.
The younger man carried an unidentified bone-handled weapon and a secured Umbrella case.
Neither profile made sense.
The Red Queen continued analyzing them.
She tracked older Ash's mouth movements, processed his words, and determined the basic meaning of his request.
They wanted to leave.
For several seconds, the artificial intelligence remained silent.
Then she made a decision.