Spencer's eyes slid off him and went back to the ceiling.
"Elpis... is a consciousness," he said. "A consciousness that can be... separated from the body. If a person is perfect enough, his will can... transcend the virus, transcend evolution, become... another form of existence."
Ryan's brow creased.
"You mean a soul?"
"You can call it that." Spencer's voice was getting thinner. "But the soul is... religion. Elpis is... science. It's the... backup of consciousness. Another possibility... for life to continue."
"Those compatible subjects of yours, that's what they were for?"
"The compatibles are... vessels. Elpis needs a vessel." Spencer's breathing was coming faster now, but he pressed on. "But not every vessel is... suitable. Only the most perfect one... can carry..."
He didn't finish.
A violent fit of coughing cut him off. His whole body curled in on itself, withered hands clutching the bedcovers in a death grip. The ventilator started shrieking out its alarm, and it took a good ten seconds or more before it settled.
Ryan sat in the chair and watched the dying old man, waiting for him to catch his breath.
"So what you're saying," Ryan said once he'd quieted down, "is that you built all those monsters and killed all those kids just to find a container to hold your 'consciousness'? You wanted to be immortal?"
A full smile finally made it onto Spencer's mouth. It was faint, and it carried the weariness of a man who'd seen through everything.
"Immortal?" He turned the word over like he was tasting something stale. "No... what I wanted... was more than immortality. I just wanted to know if there was... another possibility. A path where a human... didn't have to live... the way we do now."
He turned his head, those clouded eyes meeting Ryan's.
"You're young, Mr. Ryan. You won't understand... what it's like to watch yourself grow old by the day, to watch your own hand... fail to hold things, to watch your own mind... go soft piece by piece. You have strength, you have a future, you have... everything. And all I have..."
He didn't finish.
"All you have what?"
"All I have is the answer," Spencer said. "But I don't know... if that answer is right."
The room fell into a long silence.
Ryan stood up and looked down at him.
"You want to know what I think you are?" he said.
Spencer didn't speak. He just watched him quietly.
"You're an animal." Ryan's voice was even. "You couldn't find a reason to live, so you dragged the whole world down to die with you. You couldn't face death, so you tried to use other people's lives to extend your own. You keep saying you're looking for an answer, but you haven't even figured out what the question is."
He bent down to meet Spencer at eye level.
"You want to know what my meaning in life is?"
Spencer didn't speak.
"It's so Jill doesn't have to have nightmares anymore," Ryan said. "It's so Sherry and Becky don't have to hide in bathrooms shaking. It's so Leon doesn't have to carry all that crap on his own. Not some bullshit evolution. Not some ultimate consciousness. It's so the people who are alive get to actually live."
He straightened up and pushed the chair back where it had been.
"This Elpis of yours, I don't care what it is. But I'll tell you one thing."
He looked down at the old man on the bed.
"Whatever you wanted to do with that thing, whatever secret your plan is hiding, I'll dig it up. Same as I dug up your Umbrella."
Spencer didn't get angry. He didn't even move. He just watched Ryan quietly, something in his eyes that was hard to place. Not rage, not fear. Closer to... relief.
"You'll destroy it?" he asked softly.
"Depends on what it turns out to be."
Spencer slowly closed his eyes.
"Then... do as you please." His voice was light as a feather. "Maybe... it was never meant to be made in the first place."
Ryan gave him one last look, then turned and walked toward the door.
He paused in the doorway, but didn't look back.
"Be glad you're almost dead," he said. "Otherwise I'd be sending you off to meet your experiments myself."
He pulled the door open and stepped out.
The butler was still at his post in the hallway, his expression unchanged.
"Is there anything else Mr. Spencer needs?" he asked.
"He doesn't need anything anymore," Ryan said. "Let him have his quiet."
The butler gave a slight bow and said nothing more.
Ryan walked on down the hallway. Halfway along it, he stopped and slipped sideways into a recessed alcove in the wall. A thick stone pillar stood there, screening him perfectly. He put both hands in the pockets of his coat and closed his eyes.
Breathing, heartbeat, down to a minimum.
Less than three minutes later, footsteps came from the far end of the corridor.
Light. Steady. Carrying a deliberately controlled rhythm. Not the butler.
Ryan cracked his eyes open. Through the edge of the pillar, he saw a figure coming up from the other end.
Black suit. Black sunglasses. Sure, heavy stride.
Wesker.
The shaved scalp caught the weak glow of the wall sconces in the dim hallway, gleaming even brighter than it had on the Island. Clearly maintained with some care. His expression was stone hard, jaw locked, every step carrying a fury that was being pressed down to the absolute limit.
Ryan leaned back against the pillar and watched him push open Spencer's door and walk in.
The door didn't shut.
---
Inside, Spencer had been helped into a wheelchair by the butler.
Wesker stood in front of the chair and looked down at him. His shadow fell across the old man like a black gravestone.
"Spencer." His voice was cold as a blade. "You're still alive."
Spencer slowly opened his eyes. When he saw Wesker, there was no fear, not even surprise. He just looked calmly at the "creation" he had made with his own hands.
"Albert," he said softly. "You've come."
"I'm here to take back what's mine," Wesker said. "You owe me an answer."
Spencer looked at him and let out a small laugh. The smile was even fainter than the one he'd shown Ryan, carrying a weariness that was almost compassionate.
"Still chasing that question?"
"Why I was chosen." Wesker's voice didn't shift. "Why you turned me into this. What Umbrella existed for. What the starting point of all of this was."
Spencer was silent for a long time.
"Have you seen the Stairway to the Sun?" he asked.
"I have."
"It's a... very beautiful flower." Spencer's gaze drifted distant. "Under the sunlight... it glows. The first time I saw it, I thought... this does not belong to this world."
Wesker said nothing.
"I've been searching for an answer, Albert," Spencer went on. "What the virus is, what evolution is, what humans live for. I searched my whole life. And in the end, I found the answer."
He stopped.
"What is it?" Wesker asked.
"I intend to create a new world populated by higher-order humans, and I will be the god who rules it." Spencer's voice climbed with feeling. "My child, you were to be my heir. The next leader of the New Humans."
Wesker's hand clenched all at once.
"I'm not your child." His voice stayed level, but the veins on the back of his hand were standing out. "I'm a product of your experiments. A tool you used to prove your garbage theories."
"No." Spencer shook his head. "You are my... legacy. The best thing Umbrella left behind for this world..."
"Enough."
Wesker cut him off.
He stepped right up to the old man who had once controlled everything, and looked down.
"You're nothing, Spencer. You're not a god. Not a prophet. Not even a decent creator. You're just a coward afraid to die, paving your own road with other people's lives."
He paused.
"Like that man said."
Wesker moved, only a blur of afterimage, too fast to track, and his palm went through Spencer's chest like a blade.
Blood dripped from between his fingers. Spencer's pupils shrank sharply, the last trace of his god-over-everything arrogance shattering into despair. He opened his mouth, wanting to say something else, then slumped forward like a puppet with its strings cut.
"Goodbye, Spencer."
Wesker pulled his arm back and stood there, looking at the body that had stopped moving.
His expression didn't change. There was no satisfaction of revenge in his eyes either. Only a very deep, very cold exhaustion.
"You're nothing," he said quietly.
Then he turned and walked out.
---
Wesker's figure vanished at the far end of the hallway.
Another three minutes passed.
Ryan stepped out from behind the pillar, his footsteps quiet.
He walked up to the doorway and looked inside.
Spencer's corpse sprawled on the cold marble floor. Blood was still seeping slowly from the hole in his chest. There was no life left in him at all.
"Old bastard. Didn't tell the truth even at the end."
He leaned against the doorframe and looked at the body.
"Elpis, consciousness backup, vessel screening..." He quietly repeated each word he'd heard. "You said so much, and the one thing that actually mattered, you didn't let slip a single syllable."
He stood there a moment longer, then turned and left.
By the time he walked through the estate's gate, it was nearly dawn. A pale gray wash of light was spreading along the eastern skyline, pulling the distant ridges into hazy silhouettes.
Ryan got into the car but didn't start it right away. He pulled out his phone and called Jill.
The line picked up after two rings.
"How'd it go?" Jill's voice was sleepy, but more concerned than anything.
"Dead," Ryan said. "Wesker did it."
A couple of seconds of silence on the other end.
"You were there?"
"I was outside the door listening. Wesker didn't notice me."
"...You did that on purpose."
"Of course." Ryan started the car, the low rumble of the engine echoing through the early-morning valley. "I needed to see what he's actually after."
"Did you?"
"Part of it." Ryan shifted into reverse, the car easing back, then turning around. "He hates me. Not the kind of hate that wants to kill me. The kind where he has to kill me himself. Spencer isn't important to him anymore."
"So what are you going to do next?"
Ryan drove the car out through the estate's iron gate and glanced in the rearview mirror.
The grayish-white building was slowly shrinking in the morning light, until it became a blurred dot.
"Take a little tour of Europe," he said. "Then get ready for Africa."
"Africa? You mean the Stairway to the Sun?"
"Yeah." Ryan pressed the accelerator, and the car slid onto the winding mountain road. "Stairway to the Sun. Progenitor Virus. Where it all started."
He paused.
"Wesker and TriCell. They've got to be researching it already."
"So you're moving on it now?"
"No," Ryan said. "I'm going to wait until they've actually made some progress, then scoop the whole pot."
The car rounded the last bend, and morning light flooded the whole length of the road.
In the rearview mirror, Valley of the Gods disappeared completely between the mountains.
"Oh yeah," Ryan said suddenly. "Wesker's shaved head is even shinier now."
Jill couldn't hold back a laugh on the other end.
"You didn't take a picture?"
"Forgot. I'll get one next time."
At the end of the road, the sky went fully bright.