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Three months.
That's how long it took for the world to die.
Marcus stared through the windshield at the desert highway stretching toward what used to be Las Vegas, his hands steady on the wheel despite the exhaustion pulling at his bones. In the rearview mirror, he could see Alice and Jill sprawled across the converted bed in the back of the RV, finally getting some real sleep after another nightmare run from Umbrella's hunters.
Three months since Raccoon City's mushroom cloud. Three months since he'd given China the antidote formula and watched the countdown begin.
The world had changed faster than even his worst predictions.
The T-virus had mutated, gone fully airborne, and spread like wildfire across every continent. Plants withered and died in massive swaths, leaving deserts where cities used to stand. Animals either died or became something worse—infected monstrosities that made the Cerberus hounds look tame. And the zombies... they were evolving. Getting smarter. Stronger. More dangerous.
Six billion people. That's what the world population had been.
Now? Maybe a billion. Probably less.
Half of the survivors were in China—turns out giving them a working antidote formula actually paid off. They'd acted fast, implemented mass inoculation programs with an efficiency only an authoritarian government could manage, and saved hundreds of millions of their people before the outbreak consumed everything.
The rest of the world? The U.S., Europe, South America, Africa? All gone. Governments collapsed. Society shattered. The few survivors scattered like rats, hiding in whatever holes they could find.
And Umbrella? Umbrella was still standing. Still hunting. Still protected by the few remaining government officials who'd sold their souls years ago.
Marcus's jaw tightened. Three RVs, ten people, and more ghosts than he could count.
They'd been running for months now, staying one step ahead of Isaacs and his kill squads. The survivors had scattered after Mount Acre like he'd suggested—harder to track when you're not all together. But they'd stayed in contact, moving in pairs mostly, covering ground and trying to expose Umbrella's crimes to a world that was too busy dying to listen.
The exposure attempts had failed spectacularly. Every video Terry uploaded got buried, every journalist they contacted mysteriously went silent, and the few government officials who'd listen got replaced or disappeared. Umbrella owned the narrative completely—Raccoon City was still officially a "nuclear power plant accident," and the zombie footage was "terrorist propaganda designed to damage Umbrella's reputation."
They'd even gotten labeled as fugitives. Terrorists. Enemies of the state.
And then, about six weeks ago, the hunters had just... stopped coming.
Not because Umbrella gave up. No, it was simpler than that—there weren't enough cops left alive to chase them, and the military was too busy holding quarantine zones and digging mass graves to worry about ten refugees from a dead city.
The world was ending, and Umbrella had won.
But not completely.
Marcus's telekinesis had grown stronger over the past three months. Way stronger. He could sense things miles away now, maintain an invisible shield around all three RVs during the day so satellites couldn't track them, and move fast enough to outrun missile locks when Umbrella got desperate and started launching ordnance at them from drones.
That last trick had been fun—the whole team going supersonic in mid-air while a Hellfire missile exploded harmlessly below them. The looks on everyone's faces had been priceless.
And Alice... Alice had awakened.
Her telekinesis was still growing—maybe a ton of force right now, enough to lift herself into low-altitude flight if she concentrated—but it was there. Real. He'd been teaching her control, helping her develop the same shield techniques he used.
Jill had noticed. Of course she had.
Marcus rubbed his eyes, feeling the weight of the past three months settling over him like a lead blanket. The dynamics in the group had... shifted. Survival did that to people. The end of the world made you stop overthinking things like propriety and jealousy and what-comes-next, and just live in the moment while you still could.
Alice had been first. A month in, after he'd pulled her out of an Umbrella ambush by literally ripping apart their armored transport with his mind, she'd kissed him in the darkness of their temporary hideout while the others slept. Western women didn't do subtle when they wanted something, and Alice definitely wanted something.
He'd been too tired and too lonely to say no.
Jill had been more complicated—a slow burn of lingering glances and dangerous rescues and unspoken words, until one night she'd just shown up at his door and decided to stop overthinking things.
Now both of them were... well. It was complicated. They didn't fight over him exactly, but they'd turned it into a weird competition where Marcus was the battlefield. He was exhausted in ways that had nothing to do with Umbrella's hunters.
Not that the others were any better. Matt and Terry had gotten together somewhere in the chaos—turned out war photographers and security operatives had compatible trauma responses. Ryan and J.D. had been a couple since before the Hive, so that was just status quo.
Kaplan was the only one still single, married to his laptop and complaining about satellite access while Dr. Ashford tried to keep Angela's spirits up and everyone else just tried to survive another day.
Ten refugees from a dead city, packed into three RVs, driving toward their latest terrible idea.
"Marcus?" Alice's voice drifted from the back, sleep-rough and warm. "Where are we?"
"About five miles out from Isaacs' base," he said, glancing back at her. "Another hour, maybe."
She stretched, careful not to wake Jill, and slid into the passenger seat beside him. Her hair was a mess, dark circles under her eyes, but she was still beautiful in that dangerous, competent way that had drawn him in from the start.
"Kaplan and the others still behind us?"
"Yeah. Ashford and Angela in the second RV, Ryan and the rest in the third." He checked the rearview mirror, confirmed the other two vehicles were maintaining distance. "We're good."
"You know this is insane, right?" Alice said softly. "Attacking Isaacs directly."
"Yep."
"And we're doing it anyway."
"Yep."
She laughed, dark and tired. "At least we're consistent."
They'd been running for three months. Three months of Isaacs sending hunters after them—first mercs, then bioweapons, then fucking missiles when conventional methods failed. The man was obsessed, and Marcus knew why.
He'd seen the surveillance footage. Watched himself on grainy security cameras lifting into the air, stopping a helicopter from crashing, tearing through Umbrella's best soldiers like they were paper.
Isaacs wanted him. Wanted to cut him open and figure out how a human being could fly, could move objects with his mind, could break physics and biology and every rule Umbrella thought they'd mastered.
Marcus was unique. Irreplaceable. The perfect fusion subject.
And Alice? She was old news to Isaacs—they'd already started the Alice cloning program, growing hundreds of her in vats, building an army of superpowered soldiers for Umbrella's new world order.
But Marcus? There was only one of him.
Well, fuck that. And fuck Isaacs.
They were done running. The base outside Vegas was Isaacs' personal research facility, where he was holed up doing God-knows-what with the T-virus while the world burned. Intel suggested he had supplies, equipment, weapons—everything the group needed to establish a real base of operations instead of living out of RVs.
Plus, it would send a message. You hunt us? We hunt back.
"Alright," Marcus said, pulling off the highway onto a dirt road that led toward a rocky outcropping. "Let's wake everyone up. We're almost there."
Twenty minutes later, the entire group stood on a ridge overlooking Isaacs' facility, binoculars trained on the target.
It looked almost disappointingly simple—a single cabin sitting in the middle of the desert, surrounded by heavy chain-link fence topped with razor wire. Beyond the fence, thousands of zombies milled around in a shuffling, moaning perimeter. Inside the fence, in the clear space surrounding the cabin, Marcus could see a helicopter sitting on a landing pad.
"That's it?" Matt said, lowering his binoculars. "A cabin?"
"The base is underground," Marcus replied, feeling the structure beneath the surface with his telekinesis—deep, extensive, at least three levels. "The cabin's just the entrance."
"How do we get past the zombies?" Terry asked, camera already in hand because apparently documenting the end of the world was more important than living through it.
"We don't." Marcus turned to face the group. "Ashford, Angela—you're staying here with the RVs. Matt, Terry, Kaplan, Ryan, J.D.—find somewhere safe to hunker down nearby. Stay out of sight."
"And you?" Dr. Ashford asked, already knowing the answer.
"Alice, Jill, and I are going in." Marcus caught Jill's sharp look and quickly amended, "Me and Alice and Jill. We fly in directly, invisible, deal with Isaacs and whatever security he's got, then come back to get the rest of you once it's secure."
"Flying in," Kaplan said flatly. "Right. Because that's totally normal."
"It is for us," Alice said, her tone carrying that mix of humor and exhaustion they all lived with now. "You'll get used to it."
"After three months, I'm still not used to it," J.D. muttered, but she was smiling slightly.
They spent the next ten minutes getting everyone situated—Ashford and Angela in one RV parked behind the ridge, the others spreading out to secure positions with decent sightlines and cover. Kaplan pulled out his laptop and started trying to hack into the facility's external security feeds while Terry prepped his camera equipment, because of course he did.
Marcus, Alice, and Jill geared up with weapons—not that Marcus really needed them anymore, but Alice was still more comfortable with a gun in hand, and Jill was downright deadly with her Beretta. They strapped on tactical vests loaded with extra mags, grenades, and a few surprises Kaplan had cooked up from scavenged Umbrella tech.
"Ready?" Marcus asked, looking at both women.
Alice nodded. Jill checked her weapon one more time, then met his eyes.
"Let's end this asshole," she said.
Marcus smiled. Then he reached out with his telekinesis, wrapped all three of them in his power, and lifted them smoothly into the air.
The invisibility shield snapped into place a moment later—a trick he'd perfected over the past three months. The shield didn't just bend light; it scattered radar, blocked thermal imaging, and even dampened sound. To any electronic surveillance system, they simply didn't exist.
They rose higher, clearing the ridge, and Marcus accelerated toward the cabin. Alice's hand found his, and he felt her telekinesis reaching out tentatively, trying to match what he was doing.
"Feel it?" he murmured. "The way the shield wraps around us?"
"I think so," she said, concentrating. "It's like... pushing the light away?"
"Refracting it," he corrected gently. "Bending it around us so it continues on its path without registering our presence. You're getting better."
Jill just held on tighter, clearly not thrilled about flying but trusting Marcus enough to not complain.
They crossed the zombie perimeter in seconds—the infected below never even looked up. The facility's external cameras swept back and forth, seeing nothing. The helicopter's emergency transponder pinged silently into the empty desert air.
Marcus brought them down gently on the roof of the cabin, boots touching the metal surface without a sound.
"We're in," he whispered into his radio. "Going dark."
Kaplan's voice crackled back: "Copy. Don't die."
"Wasn't planning on it."
They found the roof access hatch easily enough—standard security door with a keypad lock. Marcus didn't bother with codes; he just reached into the mechanism with his telekinesis and shoved, feeling the locking bolts shear apart under the force.
The hatch swung open. Below, an elevator shaft descended into darkness.
Alice peered down, then looked at Marcus. "You're kidding."
"What? It's an elevator."
"We're flying down an elevator shaft?"
"You got a better idea?"
She didn't, so down they went.
The shaft was deep—maybe fifty feet, straight down through rock and reinforced concrete. At the bottom, Marcus could sense the doors leading into the main facility, could feel the power lines and ventilation systems and the faint vibration of machinery.
And he could feel people. Not many—maybe a dozen, scattered across three underground levels.
One of them had a presence that felt... wrong. Bright and angry and wrong, like a star going supernova in slow motion.
"Isaacs," Marcus breathed.
They reached the bottom of the shaft. Marcus forced the elevator doors open with a thought, and they stepped into a sterile white corridor lit by fluorescent lights.
Alarms started blaring immediately.
"So much for stealth," Jill said, raising her weapon.
"Screw stealth," Marcus replied, dropping the invisibility shield. "Let's make an entrance."
Isaacs stared at the security monitors in disbelief.
They were here. In his facility. In his base.
Three months of hunting them—three months of watching them slip through his fingers, survive his kill squads, evade his missiles—and now they'd just walked through the front door like they owned the place.
No, not walked. Flown.
He'd watched them descend through the elevator shaft on the security feed, three figures floating in defiance of gravity, and felt something between rage and exhilaration surge through his chest.
Marcus Reed. The flying man. The impossible subject.
And he'd brought Alice and that Valentine woman with him.
The feed showed them moving through his facility now, cutting through his security teams like they weren't even there. Marcus didn't even use weapons—he just gestured and men went flying, crashing into walls with bone-breaking force. Alice fought with brutal efficiency, every shot a kill, moving like some kind of superhuman predator. Valentine covered their flanks with the precision of someone who'd survived worse than this.
His men didn't stand a chance.
Isaacs looked down at the vial in his hand—the G-virus serum, still warm from the centrifuge. Months of work. Months of taking the T-virus and pushing it further, enhancing it, making it better.
It wasn't perfect. There were still flaws, still risks, still a chance the transformation would go wrong and turn him into some mindless creature like the Nemesis.
But he was out of time.
They were coming for him. The flying man and his companions, cutting through his facility like a knife through butter, and in minutes they'd reach this room.
He could run. Take the helicopter, evacuate, rebuild somewhere else.
Or he could fight.
Isaacs had spent his entire life in pursuit of perfection, of evolution, of becoming something more than human. The T-virus had shown him the path. The G-virus would take him further.
And if Marcus Reed thought he was special just because he could fly...
Isaacs smiled and injected the serum.
Pain hit him like a freight train—white-hot agony racing through his veins, his DNA unraveling and rewriting itself in real-time. He screamed, falling to his knees as his body began to change.
His bones cracked and reformed. Muscles bulged and twisted. His spine extended, his hands morphed into claws, and his mind... his mind sharpened and fractured and expanded all at once.
The last rational part of Dr. Sam Isaacs, brilliant virologist and Umbrella executive, watched his reflection in the monitor and thought: Worth it.
Then the beast took over completely.
A roar echoed through the facility—something between a lion's bellow and a demon's shriek—and in the security room, Marcus Reed stopped walking and looked up.
"Oh hell," he said.
(End of Chapter)