Resident Evil_ Extinction - Keith R. A. DeCandido [95]
In a maddeningly calm voice, Isaacs said, “Her blood increased the creatures’ powers. But it also increased the strength of the infection. I needed it.”
“You have no idea what this will do to you.”
Isaacs smiled, though on his pale, sweaty face, it was like a rictus. “Oh, I have an idea.”
Shaking his head, Slater turned away from Isaacs’s ghoulish countenance. “You’re out of control. Well, this ends here.” Taking out his Glock, Slater pointed it right at Isaacs’s chest. “Under Executive Order 1345, issued by Chairman Wesker at 5:29 P.M. Pacific Standard Time on this date, for insubordination and gross misconduct in the field, I sentence you to summary liquidation.”
Isaacs raised an eyebrow. “Liquidation?”
Slater had to admit that the euphemism was silly. So he tilted his head, aimed the pistol, said, “Just die,” and squeezed the trigger.
Looking down at the wound, Isaacs seemed surprised. “But—”
“You always were an arrogant sonofabitch.”
To be sure, Slater shot him twice more.
For a moment, Isaacs convulsed with the impacts, then he slumped forward, eyes closed.
It was the most beautiful sight Slater had ever seen.
The world was in danger of total collapse, and that required leadership, not fostering personal agendas. Umbrella was going to lead the world out of the darkness, Slater was sure of it. But that would never happen as long as Isaacs was alive.
With him gone, things were, he was sure, going to run a lot more smoothly.
He turned to leave the lab. “Take the body to the surface,” he said to Humberg, “and dispose of it. Then bring up all the stats of Project Alice. I want to see what harm he’s done.”
Humberg said nothing. Instead, he was staring ahead, his mouth hanging open.
Confused, Slater turned around.
Sam Isaacs was standing upright, smiling that awful smile, three big bloody holes in his chest.
“Don’t look so shocked.” Isaacs’s voice sounded different—deeper.
That wasn’t the only thing different. Slater could see something slithering in his chest wound.
Isaacs raised his right arm, and then it split open. Slater felt the mustard on the sandwich he’d had for lunch rise into the back of his throat as the flesh of Isaacs’s arm peeled back to reveal several green tentacles.
The tentacles lashed out in all directions, piercing through flesh and body armor and equipment.
Two went straight for Slater’s eyes.
He didn’t have time to scream.
The corpses of four men lay at Sam Isaacs’s feet.
No, not Sam Isaacs. That was the name of a human. He was more than that now.
He was Tyrant.
That had been the name of the project that had been aborted in favor of Nemesis when Cain had brought in Alice Abernathy and Matt Addison. But Isaacs had never abandoned Tyrant, because the T-virus had, he was sure, been the key to it.
The so-called Super Undead had been the first step. The anti-virus was the next, mixed with the formula he’d developed with the late Dr. Margolin. It had done its work, changing Isaacs as the T-virus had changed Alice Abernathy.
He looked down at Alexander Slater’s corpse. It was the most beautiful sight Isaacs had ever seen.
No, not Isaacs.
Tyrant.
TWENTY-EIGHT
Peanut couldn’t believe what he was seeing.
He’d pulled sentry duty today, which already pissed him off. He hated standin’ around with his MAC-10 lookin’ like a fool. But after that crazy bitch in the Prius killed Motown and Cowboy, Peanut couldn’t really do his usual routine about how the sentry shit was stupid.
Next to him, Bee was pickin’ at his fingernail. “Yo, Bee, you see what I’m seein’?”
Bee looked up. “Looks like one’a them junkies.”
“Maybe he a zee.”
The junkie was shufflin’ toward them like he was some kinda zee, and Peanut figured his day was lookin’ up if he got to do a zee.
But then the junkie held his hands up. He had a can in one’a them. “I ain’t lookin’ for no trouble, yo! Jus’ lookin’ t’talk, a’ight?”
Aiming his Glock at the junkie’s head, Bee said, “You ain’t welcome here, motherfucker!”
But Peanut was lookin’ at the thing in the junkie’s hand. “What’s that?”
“What