Older Ash called out twice toward the dark passage beyond the elevator doors, but no one answered. He frowned and lowered the shotgun slightly. "Maybe nobody's home. You think this whole place has been abandoned?" The moment the words left his mouth, rows of overhead lights flickered on one after another, illuminating the corridor in sequence and stretching deeper into the facility like someone had deliberately laid out a path for them.
Young Ash tightened his grip on the metal case containing the T-virus and antivirus samples. "Looks like somebody heard you." He stepped through the open doors first, while older Ash followed with the enchanted shotgun ready. The corridor eventually opened near another elevator surrounded by decorative wall panels and corporate imagery showing futuristic city skylines, but when older Ash pressed the call button, nothing happened.
The lights did not lead toward the elevator anyway. Instead, the illuminated path turned toward a stairwell branching off in another direction. Older Ash looked around at the empty facility and muttered, "Where is everybody? Don't these people get fired for skipping work?" Young Ash gave him a serious look. "Stay alert. If something comes at us and it looks wrong, shoot first."
Older Ash's humor faded slightly. He had survived enough supernatural disasters to recognize when a place felt wrong even without knowing exactly what was lurking inside. "Yeah," he said, adjusting his grip on the shotgun. "I was thinking the same thing."
Young Ash tested the elevator doors anyway and found they could be forced apart surprisingly easily. Behind them was a dark vertical shaft, and his enhanced vision allowed him to make out the elevator car parked several levels below. He released the doors and turned away. "We take the stairs. I want to see where these lights are trying to lead us."
They descended deeper into the Hive, passing through increasingly clinical areas filled with sealed laboratories and strange equipment. Large glass tanks stood along several walls, many filled with cloudy yellow fluid that made it difficult to see what was inside. Older Ash eventually slowed, grimaced, and looked around. "I need a bathroom."
"There probably isn't one nearby."
"I'm old. Nearby stopped mattering years ago."
He moved toward a quiet corner beside one of the large tanks and had barely started relieving himself when something pale drifted through the cloudy liquid. A woman's corpse floated forward until her face and upper body pressed against the glass, long hair spreading around her head in the fluid. Older Ash stumbled backward so quickly that he nearly lost his balance. "Jesus Christ!"
Young Ash walked over and looked from the tank to older Ash. "You done?"
"No."
"You're dripping on yourself."
Older Ash glared at him. "A corpse just floated into my face."
"It's a human experimentation tank."
"You say that like it's normal."
"In this place? Probably."
Older Ash looked offended. "What kind of world has enough secret human experimentation for that sentence to sound casual?"
"You'll get used to horror universes eventually."
They continued onward, but young Ash glanced back once before leaving the area. Inside the tank, the woman's eyes had opened. Her expression twisted into mindless hunger as she slammed both hands against the reinforced glass, revealing that she had already become a zombie.
The tank held.
Young Ash frowned and followed older Ash.
The underground train terminal had apparently connected to one of the upper levels of the Hive, while the stairwell brought them farther down into the complex. One lower section had already flooded, forcing them to move carefully through shallow water while following the illuminated route. Eventually the lights led into a massive laboratory chamber filled with white vapor and rows of heavy steel containment units.
As they passed one of the devices, older Ash glanced through its narrow viewing window and immediately slowed. Something humanoid rested inside, completely stripped of skin so that exposed muscle and raw tissue covered its body. Tubes and monitoring lines disappeared into the creature from several directions, and despite its motionless state, everything about it looked unnatural.
Older Ash's expression turned unusually serious. "I've cut demons apart and blown Deadites in half without losing sleep, but this is different." He looked through the glass again. "People did this to people."
Young Ash nodded. "Umbrella doesn't exactly have a healthy relationship with ethics." He kept moving while studying the surrounding equipment. "A company willing to build biological weapons underground beneath a city probably stopped caring about morality a long time ago."
The guidance lights continued drawing them deeper.
Eventually they reached a heavily secured room with several monitors positioned around a central control area. A reinforced door at the far end opened automatically as soon as they approached, revealing a long, brightly illuminated corridor beyond it.
Older Ash started forward.
Young Ash immediately caught his shoulder.
"Don't."
Older Ash looked at him. "Why?"
"Because that hallway can turn you into several smaller versions of yourself."
Older Ash stared through the corridor.
Young Ash knew exactly what he was looking at. The passage ahead was part of the Hive's lethal laser defense system, capable of projecting cutting beams across the corridor in patterns designed to kill intruders before they reached the Red Queen's core.
Older Ash slowly stepped back. "You could've opened with that."
"I just did."
Young Ash looked toward the cameras instead. They had followed the lights all the way here, which meant whoever controlled the facility had intentionally guided them to this exact location. "We've walked through half this place and haven't seen one living person besides the people on the train," he called out. "What happened here?"
No human voice answered.
Instead, the reinforced door at the far end of the laser corridor opened.
A holographic figure appeared inside the room beyond.
She looked like a young girl wearing a red dress.
Her body was translucent, built from intersecting red light and projected lines rather than flesh, while her face remained childlike despite the emotionless intelligence behind her eyes. When she spoke, her voice came from speakers throughout the room rather than directly from the hologram.
"Two unregistered individuals detected. Biological profiles do not match Umbrella Corporation personnel, authorized visitors, contractors, or registered test subjects. Weapon configuration is non-standard. Origin unknown."
Older Ash immediately raised the shotgun. "What the hell is that? Some kind of ghost?"
"Artificial intelligence," young Ash said.
Older Ash lowered the barrel slightly.
He looked back at the Red Queen.
Then at young Ash.
"You're telling me that thing is a computer?"
"Basically."
Older Ash stared at the hologram with genuine disbelief. Their own world had artificial-intelligence research in 2006, but nothing remotely close to this level of autonomy or real-time facility control. "That's disturbing. I thought most people talking about AI were just trying to get research money."
The Red Queen ignored the remark.
Young Ash stepped closer to the safe edge of the corridor. "We ended up here by accident. We're trying to get back to the surface and return to the city. Can you help us leave?"
The Red Queen tilted her head slightly.
For several seconds, she remained silent.
"Database search complete," she finally replied. "No matching facial or biological records were found among Umbrella Corporation employees, visitors, contractors, research personnel, security staff, or experimental subjects. Identity claims cannot be independently verified."
Older Ash sighed. "Great. Even the computer doesn't believe us."
The Red Queen continued.
"Current analysis indicates an 86.5 percent probability that your arrival is related to the source of abnormal events within this facility."
Young Ash's expression changed.
That percentage was far too specific to be random.
He immediately thought about the dimensional vortex.
The Book of the Dead.
The Hive's unusual condition.
Something had clearly changed here before they arrived.
Young Ash looked directly at the hologram. "Have you seen an old book made from human skin? The outer face on the cover has already been cut away."
The Red Queen went still.
Older Ash noticed it too.
After a moment, she answered, "The artifact you are describing has been designated the Book of the Dead."
Young Ash exhaled slowly.
That explained everything.
The nearby monitors turned on simultaneously.
Surveillance footage began playing.
On the screen, a damaged human-skin book lay motionless on a stainless-steel laboratory table while several Umbrella researchers in white coats surrounded it. Sensors, scanners, and other instruments had been positioned around the artifact as though they were examining a newly discovered biological sample.
The Red Queen's voice filled the room again. "The Book of the Dead was discovered six days ago in a corridor adjacent to the cafeteria on the Hive's second underground level. Preliminary examination indicated anomalous biological and material properties. Following authorization from senior research personnel, the artifact was transferred to laboratory containment for extended study."
Young Ash stared at the footage.
Six days.
That meant the Book had arrived in this world almost a week before he and older Ash did, despite all three entering the same vortex only moments apart from their perspective.
More importantly, Umbrella had gotten its hands on it.
No wonder the Hive no longer resembled the situation he remembered from the original outbreak.
Young Ash looked back toward the Red Queen.
"What happened next?"