The heavy security door ground shut behind them, sealing off William's howls and the shriek of the alarms.
Beyond it lay the NEST's deep experimentation zone. Gone were the sterile white corridors. Down here the lighting was dim, the hallways flanked by fully sealed blast-proof labs. Observation windows let through a faint cold glow, revealing rooms packed with precision instruments and row after row of cultivation tanks. Inside each one floated G-Virus mutants in various stages of grotesque transformation.
The air reeked of disinfectant and chemical reagents, laced with a faint copper undercurrent. The silence was oppressive. Only their footsteps echoed through the empty corridor.
Ada kept pace at Ryan's side, scanning each observation window. She could tell at a glance that every specimen behind that glass was a live bioweapon, the kind of thing even she wouldn't provoke lightly. Ryan didn't so much as glance sideways. He walked through it all like the tanks held nothing more interesting than furniture.
"Doesn't it bother you that one of those things could break out?" Her voice barely rose above a whisper.
He didn't look back. "They won't."
He'd already checked. Every blast door was locked down tight. The mutants inside were failed experiments, no life signs remaining. Zero threat.
Ada wasn't convinced, but they made it halfway down the corridor without a single specimen so much as twitching. Ryan moved like he'd walked these halls a hundred times before. Which turns were dead ends, which locks would open, where the traps were. He knew all of it.
The NEST was Umbrella's most classified facility. Security clearance didn't get higher than this. And Ryan navigated it like his own backyard, down to knowing which corners hid ventilation shafts.
She wanted to ask. Who the hell are you? The question made it to her lips and died there. If he didn't want to answer, asking wouldn't change that.
"Come on. Let's go deeper."
She followed him into an elevator and watched him press the button for the lowest floor. "Where are we going? The bottom level is the old Progenitor Virus research wing. It's been sealed off for years. There's nothing down there."
Ryan watched the numbers tick down on the panel. A smile tugged at his mouth.
"Nothing?" He turned to look at her. "I wouldn't be so sure. The ARK Plan. Elpis. G-001. It all started down here."
Ada's pupils narrowed to points.
The ARK Plan. Elpis.
These were Umbrella's deepest secrets. She'd only caught fragments from Wesker, never the full picture. Ryan didn't just know the names. He knew exactly where the source material was buried.
The elevator chimed. The doors slid open.
Cold air rushed in, carrying the taste of rust. Nothing like the floors above. The walls down here were scarred and pitted, streaked with dark reddish-brown stains that told the story of something brutal. At the far end of the corridor, letters had been etched into the wall, half-worn but legible: PROGENITOR VIRUS RESEARCH CENTER.
Ryan stepped out. His X-ray vision fanned across the entire sublevel, mapping every room, every passage. He knew what was here. The original Progenitor Virus data. Every experiment log for G-001. The core secrets Wesker and Spencer had buried deepest. All of it was leverage, the hardest currency he'd have when the real war against Umbrella began.
He walked straight to a dust-caked terminal in the center of the main hall, plugged in a device, and watched the download progress bar race across the screen.
When it finished, he turned to Ada. "I'm guessing you wouldn't mind a change of employer. Or let's call it... a change of partner. After everything we've been through, I'd say we're friends. Wouldn't you?"
Ada stood five paces behind him, watching his back. The image surfaced unbidden: Ryan stepping in front of her without hesitation, taking Annette's bullet square in the spine.
That broad back was worth more than every hollow promise Wesker had ever made.
"Heh." A quiet laugh escaped her, and the tension bled out of her shoulders. She holstered the suppressed pistol on her thigh. "I have to admit, your offer beats the one from the stoic in the sunglasses. Deal, 'friend.'"
The NEST's highest-priority alarm exploded to life.
"Warning: critical threat detected in core sector. Self-destruct sequence formally initiated."
"Countdown: thirty minutes."
"All sectors will undergo maximum-level lockdown. Evacuate immediately."
Ada's composure cracked. "The self-destruct is live! Once the blast doors drop, this place becomes a coffin!"
Ryan finished pulling the data card from the terminal at his own pace, slipped it into the waterproof pouch against his chest, and straightened up.
"Let's go." He turned toward the emergency evacuation tunnel leading to the train platform. "Thirty minutes. Plenty of time."
Ryan didn't look worried, and watching him, Ada felt her own panic settle. She drew a long breath, pulled her weapon, and fell into step behind him. The mission Wesker had given her was done. Not completed. Destroyed. And she didn't look back.
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