Authors Note: This is a little tale (and possibly a prologue, it depends on my mood…) about Albert Wesker and William Birkin's journey through their formative years and of their self-discovery. To that end, Wesker in particular is going to come across as extremely out of character at first but I ask you to bear with it: It's kind of the whole point of the story to be honest.
Hope you enjoy this tale about two perpetually lab coat wearing young lunatics.
/_Bubblegum Biohazard_\
Billy was mere moments away from losing his mind and snapping his roommates' neck like a chicken bone when the irritating, lanky blonde madman finally stopped jumping to and fro between their beds by crossing his legs mid-air, landing on his own bed with a thump.
"I've been thinking a lot about Smoke and Mirrors lately, Bill." He said to the back of his best friends' head who was studying profusely in preparation for the next quarterly exam. Billy needed to earn enough Academic Excellence Credits required to purchase a gift for his other friend Annette for Valentine's Day. Not that he was dating her or anything. That would be in poor taste in light of recent events. He just needed to make her feel special.
Annette really deserved to feel special. Well, that's what he Bert thought, anyway.
"Is that so?" Said Billy, deciding to leave his train of thought before it careened off the tracks and killed him. Better to get back to the matter at hand... "Because I've been thinking about taking off those specs of yours and jamming their arms into your eyeballs."
Bert laughed. "They're called 'Temples'." He corrected – not out of poor manners but out of a desire to educate - before continuing. "After Annette dumped me because I don't take anything seriously I was kinda realizing that no one really takes any of my work seriously and I figured out it's because I'm always acting like a moron."
Billy wounded internally from the heart wrenching memory Bert had just so flippantly brought up.
"But why don't you want to marry me Annette?" Bert pleaded, tears rolling down his face from behind circular lenses from pained blue eyes usually filled with such touching mirth. "We love each other! I know you love me as much as I love you. We have so much fun together and we're always helping each other!" I don't understand why you don't want us to be together!"
"Don't you get it Bert?" She told him apologetically. "You're always acting out, acting like such a joke and playing pranks that mess up everybody else's lives. Everyone either treats you like you're a joke or hates you for dragging them into your chaos. You may be comfortable with everyone either hating you or treating you like a joke for the rest of your life but I'm not, Albert!" She sighed. Annette genuinely didn't want to hurt dear little Albert and tear out his heart like this but he had to be told. "But if I marry you I'll become a part of you, a part of all that and I'm so, so sorry but I just..." She raked her fingers through hair that shimmered in the light of the setting sun like strands of golden honey. She smelt like honey, too. Bert liked that about her.
He liked a lot about her.
"I'm just not strong enough a woman to be by your side like that... I'm sorry."
Bert's arms fell to either side. He couldn't argue with what she was saying no matter how hard he tried. He was defeated.
William felt so deeply sorry for dear hearted little Albert at the time this tragedy had occured but his best friend hadn't mourned his loss for more than a few days, though he had mourned it hard, so why should he? Infact he hadn't just gotten over the grief of ending his relationship with Netty, he was back to his usual irritating self in no time at all.
"So you think a change in image will fix everything?" said Bill Birkin, compelled to turn around through use of his swivel-chair and face his friend who was speaking utter madness, as usual.
Things really were back to normal in chateau Birkin/Wesker…
"Couldn't hurt." He replied. "The only difference between a Dumbass and a Badass is a new haircut and a pair of stylish specs!"
"You're a Dumbass!" Billy interjected.
"Exactly!" Bert countered, taking off his glasses and looking at them thoughtfully. "But if I slicked back my crappy hair, maybe got these tinted so they look like shades and used my spare time to beef up a bit instead of piss about like I usually do, then I'd be an evil genius!"
"Evil geniuses don't use phrases like 'piss about'." Replied Billy, closing his eyes as if that act could blind himself to the sheer absurdity of it all.
"That's another thing!" Bert sprung up and approached the Skeletal Anatomy model in the corner of the room. A model that was designed (by Mother Nature if you follow my meaning, Dear Reader) to be in scale with the human male form. "Words! Names! Labels are important! They add power! For example, what's this?" He asked, pointing to the centre of the skeletons chest.
"Specifically that's the Manubrium." Answered Bill.
"It's also called the Sternum or Breastbone." Said Bert, turning to look at him with an annoyingly smug grin. "So which is it, Billy?"
"Err, what?" Bill was confused.
"Is it the Manubrium, the Sternum or the Breastbone?" He asked.
Billy furrowed his brows and folded his arms. "It's all of those things."
"Why?" He smiled innocently at him.
"Well... it just... is?"
"That's Bullshit!" laughed Bert. "'It is because it is'? That's Bullshit logic right there!" He became serious and approached Bill, hard blue eyes boring into his. "'It is' because we say 'it is', because we invented that name and gave it to that bone and so that's what it becomes." He marched back to the model and faced it with a combative stance. "Right, now watch this:" He raised up his right leg and struck it."Now what was that?"
"You kicked it."
"That was called the 'Jaguar Kick'."
"But you just basically kicked it!"
"It can be two things." He then proceeded to strike the skeleton with his right fist. "Panther Fang!"
"That's just a fancy way of saying 'punching a guy in the face'!"
"Mustang Kick!" He kicked the anatomy model and nearly lost his balance, wobbling comically on one skinny leg.
"That's exactly the same as the Jaguar Kick only now you're doing it with your right leg!"
Bert whirled around triumphantly and interjected.""Ah but you are calling it the 'Jaguar Kick' now?"
Bill was about to cut in, index finger raised and ready to go but found he couldn't argue with Bert's logic. "You're completely insane... but you're also not wrong..." He lowered his indignant digit feeling confusion and admiration for his roommate in equal measures.
"I can be two things!"
He hated it when Albert Wesker was crazily correct but he almost always was and that's why everyone else at the Umbrella Management Training Facility despised and tortured him.
…That and being naturally brilliant at everything he ever tried without seeming to put in even the slightest amount of effort….
...However it was why William Birkin, the boy currently watching Albert Wesker wrestle a 'donated to medical science' skeleton to the ground and his other best friend Annette loved him so much. He suspected that was even the case in regards to Director Marcus, their superior and mentor, despite his persona as the Management Training Facilities Tyrant King. Bert himself however even when so far as to consider the man his mortal enemy. (Incidentally, ominous quotation marks much on how the company came to acquire that skeleton, eh Dear Reader?)
"I want you to start calling me Wesker in public from now on, not Bert. It sounds better." He grinned mischievously. "But in private like this you can call me whatever you want." He winked. "Even 'Darling'."
Bill laughed out loud. "Fine. But you have to call me Birkin."
"Stop dressing like your popular now, Foureyes! We all know who you really are!" The gobby young girl tried to knock shoulders with Bert to send him reeling but instead it was she who bounced off. Bert had anticipated this harsh reaction to his sudden change in image by his main tormentor and her gang of painted minions. His passage through the busy corridors on route to his lessons was inevitably going to be eventful…
She angrily spun around to face the back of him and his cohort Billy Birkin in response to his blatant act of disrespect.
"Hey, who the fuck you do think you are you test-tube freak?!" The fact that Bert was one of the first children in the world to be conceived through In vitro fertilisation, or IVF, was common knowledge amongst the youth of the Umbrella Management Training Facility and a source of constant ridicule for him. "You turn around and you fucking face me right the fuck now!"
Bert smiled and obeyed.
Bill caught his arm. "Are you sure you should go ahead with this plan?" He whispered. "She is still a female after all."
"That's irrelevant." Bert countered. "Although that fact may even serve to enhance my image after all is said and done." He stopped talking to his loyal companion and spoke to the Bully before him, dramatically elongating his words to increase their intimidating effect.
There was power in it.
"It's always quite a shame when such ugly words are spat out from an otherwise pretty mouth." He stood tall and proud, a complete contradiction to the meek and mild mannerisms he had adopted when dealing with anyone other than Birkin and Annette in his previous incarnation. "It really manages to demean her beautiful image" He tiled his head ever so slightly so his eyes could be seen over his new glasses. "…and reveals the hideousness of who she truly is."
The Bully was flabbergasted by his brutal words of wisdom. That lasted only briefly however as her fear and confusion entwined together to form its pitiable bastard child; Hatred.
"Who the fuck do you think you are, Foureyes?!" She repeated, her forceful voice faltering ever so slightly this time.
He chuckled. "You seem quite confused as to who I am, little girl." Bert removed his tinted prescription spectacles now indistinguishable from shades to all who didn't know their secret.
…. He purchased them with the Academic Excellence Credits he had reimbursed from turning in his Engagement ring…
"And as for these, they are not an additional set of eyes, sweetheart. I have two eyes, despite my nature as a 'Test-tube Freak'. They are called 'Glasses' and they allow me to see things so much more clearly than without..." Bert suddenly tensed and Bill knew it was all about to kick off and to get the hell out of the way, quickly he ducking behind one of the antique chest of draws that decorated the corridor. He didn't lack the courage to assist Albert but he did lack the pain threshold. "Here…Take a closer look."
Albert threw his specs at the aggressor. She caught them out of pure instinct rather than intentionally but that was precisely the move he was seeking to exploit. Immediately following his glasses in a sprint, he attacked the girl with a right-hook that continued to a spin into an elbow in her guts with his left whilst snatching the glasses back as the right hand concluded its journey across her face. She flew back and down to the ground with a shrill scream that drove her little minions scurrying away in all directions like startled cockroaches, minions that had been sneering and barking at Albert and William like a pack of baying Hyenas mere moments ago.
He was on top of her. "You want to know who I think I am?!" He roared, his fists slamming into her face punctuating each cruel word. There may have been pleas for him to stop in amidst her screams but with his blows snapping her head two and fro, bloodying and bruising her once beautiful appearance more and more, it made it difficult for them to be heard above the din. Finally he grabbed her by the jaw, brought what had been her face to his and bellowed down at her, into her;
"I. am. Wesker!"
"I don't know what's gotten into you, Bert..." Said Director Marcus, drumming his fingers and bouncing his knee in great agitation as he sat at his desk. Marcus never sat at his desk; he always preferred to pace with his arms folded behind his back. It meant this was a very serious situation indeed.
For his part Wesker stood stock still and emotionless. He didn't feel emotionless, not at all. He didn't know what he was feeling in his heart of hearts to be exact, there was just so much going on in there.
There was Fear; had he crossed a line and was going to get expelled or arrested or even killed? There was Hate; The Bitch had been abusing him the moment he turned up at the Facility, all that had happened was simply cause and effect. Guilt and her unlucky sister Shame were in the crowd; The Bully was still a girl, a girl in a typically male dominated environment, a girl who probably did the things she did because she was afraid of what others thought about her and didn't want to look weak and helpless in front of them all. There was Pride; what he had done to that girl felt good and had made him feel, made him be powerful; now the other students would shun him out of fear rather than revulsion and he chose to take that as a sign of respect.
...And then there was Panic and Sorrow; what if what he had done was going to hurt Bill and Netty? What if they would be punished instead of him, or he would be moved to- dear God in Heaven- a regular school? He loved them both so much... He was certain he'd lose his mind if he didn't have his best friend Billy Birkin by his side keeping him in check and helping him take on the world and also kind, dear hearted Netty with her ability to see the love and Humanity in even the most monstrous looking creature.
Wesker was paralyzed by turmoil just as much as he was through the strength of his will.
"My name is Wesker." He wrest control of himself from the clutches of emotion and corrected the Director, his words low, drawn out and far more confident than he was feeling.
Marcus stopped drumming his fingers and looked at him questioningly. "Since when?"
"Since I beat that Bully to a bloodied pulp in front of everyone."
And that was when something happened that even Albert Wesker, with his mind like a perfectly ordered web of facts and wisdom, hadn't prepared for: Director Marcus started to laugh. Loudly and heartily.
"I knew you'd come around eventually my boy!" He said merrily and rounded his desk with an outstretched hand that Albert took up and shook without really know what or why he was doing that.
His natural reaction would have been to laugh nervously back and ask 'what the fuck' but instead he managed to reword it into: "I'm afraid I don't understand."
"Spencer was just like you when he was a lad, well at least when it comes to his opinion on appearances." He explained with mirth, such a different emotion from his usual cold and stoic mannerisms. "He was the first of us to realise the importance of Smoke and Mirrors when dealing with Humans but the last of us to embrace it."
"Us?"
Director Marcus grinned widely. "Our little gang of friends. Me, Ozzy and Ed all attended the same prestigious boarding school back in England and we were all inseparably close." Suddenly he threw back his head and laughed. "Of course that was because no other bugger would have us!"
Wesker's eyelashes fluttered beneath his pseudo-shades out of sheer amazement at what was going on. The training facilities undisputed Tyrant King and Wesker's personal Nemesis was acting just so uncharacteristically… Human.
"Ozzy - that is, Mister Spencer – He'd say 'why won't they take my work and my finding seriously just because I refuse to pander to their pomp and ceremony!?'" Marcus was waving hands about in a mock majestic way to illustrate his point, mimicking the passionate argument of his old friend. "'I won't let that pack of stuffy old sycophants undermine everything I've ever strived to achieve! I won't play their stupid little games! He'd rant on and on forever if I'd let him.'" Marcuse's eyes were lowered and seemed to twinkle as he remembered how rebellious Oswald Spencer was in his youth. "I think that's why he decided to found Umbrella in the end. He was so sick of being denied entry into the 'big boys club' because of his youth and because his and Edwards's lineage in Nobility meant their great achievements and high praise for their abilities was often disregarded as pandering on the part of the professors and management." Marcus shook his head with a chuckle. "'If you won't let us play with you and all your toys in your pillow fort, I guess we'll have to go and build ourselves our own treehouse with bigger and better toys and you're not allowed to play with us.' Yes, that was Mr Spencer's attitude alright..."
Suddenly he because serious.
"Bert," Wesker jaw tightened and he was about to correct him when his Mentor and … friend did it for him. "I'm sorry. I mean Wesker. If you want to be a part of Humanity, you need to learn how to play their games. They all too often differ to the argument that jingles the shiniest keys in front of them rather than the argument that provides a better future for us all. It isn't right; I know that Wesker but it's just how they are, so long as they remain Human." Marcus stood tall now, regaining his imposing command, chin high, almost looking down his nose at Wesker and arms folded behind his back. "Suffering…. It's an orobourous that Humanity is chained to…" Marcus became misty-eyed for a moment but only a moment as he chose to confide in Wesker. "…A kind and brilliant woman whom myself and all my friends loved deeply used to say that. We hate because we are afraid and are too cowardly to learn about or except that which we fear and so we hate it for making us feel this weak and helpless. Hate makes us lash out and spread that hate like a virus into the hearts of others. We hate others –though innocent in thought and deed – who are just different from us in appearance and lifestyle and choose to wrong to them to punish them. They in turn choose to hate us back and torture innocent members of our order believing them to be villains and in turn make them think that their tormentors are all as wicked as them…" Marcus grinned a wickedly evil grin, though there was a look of disgust in his eyes that Albert couldn't ignore. "And so the sickness spreads…." Marcus's voice became low, slow and deliberate.
"The only way Humanity will progress as a species and break the orobourus of misery and suffering is if we stop dividing ourselves up into 'them and us' groups and accept the truth. That truth, Albert Wesker, is that all Humanity falls under the same Umbrella." He sighed deeply when he had finished his speech, almost as if a great weight had been lifted from his shoulders through confession. His eyes snapped back to Wesker's, burning with their old distain, a look Wesker was fast learning was all…
… All just Smoke and Mirrors…
"Now get the hell out of my office and behave your goddamn self, you violent, selfish, almost certain sociopath." Marcus then proceeded to completely ignore Wesker and return to his desk and to his paperwork.
Wesker simply smiled, bowed his head a little and left. That was first time ever he had exited the Directors office without making a scene out of it or trying to have the last word.
Having the last word was unimportant. It was having the best word… that was the real trick.
As his young charge left his office in an uncharacteristically well behaved manor, James felt his heart swell with pride. Albert Wesker was one of the most stubborn and uncompromising individuals he'd ever known and he had feared that that inability to differ to others would cause that boy never to mature and excel in life.
He had thankfully been wrong.
Don't misunderstand the Directors intent, Dear Reader. Marcus wished very much that his pupil never lost his relentlessness and will to succeed; he had simply wished the boy would learn to temper those impulses with a little self-control once in a while.
And now it would appear that little 'Bertie Wesker', that rough diamond he had stumbled across out of a mixture of coincidence and curiosity, had finally learnt the trick of Smoke and Mirrors that he would need to lead – and by definition – bend others to his will. It made him so proud but also a little sad….
James Marcus, for the first time since her funeral, allowed his mind wander back through the years to the memory of the brilliant young woman long gone from this world. A woman that he, Ozwald and Edward had loved dearly.
Long shimmering blonde hair and amber eyes filled with both strength and kindness, Jillian Wesker had been perfect to them in every way. 'All I want more than anything else in the world is to make everyone else happy' she would say when asked why she did the work she did. 'but everyone seems to want nobody but themselves to be happy…. And that makes me sad...'
They didn't want Jillian to ever have to be sad for even one moment longer than was absolutely necessary.
To this end, their gang had believed in and had followed her not unquestioningly exactly but in the firmest confidence that she would figure out all the answers in the end and do what's best for everyone. That's why they loved her. When the matter came to her love – her romantic love at least - she had chosen Edward Ashford, Ozwalds best friend and heir to the prestigious Ashford dynasty and went on to bare him twins. Twins that may or may not have biologically been hers if you understand my meaning, Dear Reader. I don't honestly know myself; the bodies of the Ashford twins were never recovered after the conclusion of Rockfort Island incident. Because of this, D.N.A tests couldn't be performed that would confirm or deny if those children were indeed Weskers' or the result of Project Veronica.
Despite her choosing to pursue a relationship with Edward, they all still loved Jillian Wesker and cared for her right up until the bitter end of her life. After all, they all wanted her to be happy.
When she was happy, Jillian Wesker was like the light of the morning sun spilling into every corner of the world and spreading warmth and love wherever she went. It was in that way that Bert Wesker –the boy Marcus had rescued from a miserable, downtrodden childhood and let him adopt his beloveds name as his own in order to overcome the trauma of his past - had reminded him of her.
They differed utterly, on the other hand, in how they responded to negative attention and situations. She often reacted with sorrow and self-loathing. He almost always retorted with hatred and torture.
However, even the ways in which Albert Wesker expressed his affection and friendship made him very dangerous to know…His idea of 'spreading the love' amongst his associates and the company that raised him usually involved… pranks. Pranks that were always incredibly clever in design but poorly judged in intent and consequences that would usually leave their victims emotionally scarred for life.
Marcus didn't believe anyone involved would get over the horror of 'mischievously Bertie Weskers' latest little joke.
The Umbrella Pharmaceutical Consortium had been hosting a formal function for Raccoon City's elite as well as high ranking officials from The Company in order to promote better co-operation between the megacorp and the local law, legal and leadership institutions. …One grand ballroom filled with the best, brightest and most powerful men and women the two establishments had to offer…
...The urge to create chaos must have been so utterly intense for Bert Wesker that it must have caused him genuine physical pain not to act upon it, despite pleadings for reason and good judgement from his loyal friend Birkin.
His plan had entailed a re-plumbing of the Umbrella Waste Management and Disposal Facilities pipelines so that instead of filling with water, the reservoir of the sprinkler system for the grand and bustling ballroom had filled with a certain other liquid…. This liquid was comprised of unclaimed cadavers of vagrants and discarded limbs and organs from either botched surgeries or lifesaving operations all treated with an advanced chemical decomposition process creating a meaty, gory, utterly unbelievably foul smelling ichor.
Then it had simply been a matter of lighting a match….
Albert had thought the whole thing hysterical. Marcus had observed Bert on his secret cameras with no small amount of disgust, rolling around on the dirty carpet of his shared dorm room in tears with laughter. Birkin had been quietly watching his friend get it all out of his system from his position at his work station, chair turned to face the centre of the room before he tried to even talk to the boy.
When Bill Birkin had calmly and quietly explained to him that it was an extremely emotionally traumatic event to be unexpectedly and so completely saturated in what had essentially been someone's loved ones, Bert's demeanour changed instantly and entirely.
Albert had been in tears in James Marcus's office pleading with him for punishment, that he had no idea what he had done would so seriously disturb and hurt so many blameless people. He had begged Marcus to order him to personally apologise to each and every one of the hundreds of individuals he'd horrified.
James knocked that idea on the head right away. Many of the people subjected to his evil prank were powerful and pissed off enough to take a rather terrible revenge against Wesker, personally or with the aid of 'professional avengers' as the case may be. He'd told Wesker that the safest thing he could really do right now was go back to his dorm with William and reflect on what he had done and for god's sake, don't tell anyone he was responsible for that nightmare. He'd complied, barely. Watching him over the cameras sob pathetically for hours in a ball of tangled bed sheets had been difficult for him but Marcus had to make sure he didn't do anything stupid. Birkin had been there with him reading a book in his bed next Berts, (a book that the young man hadn't noticed was upside down, fancy that?) but he was very good at giving Birkin the slip if he really wanted to. Marcus had to keep an eye on Wesker for all their sakes.
Yes, Albert Wesker had finally started to mature, or at the very least imitate maturity which was just as good, Marcus supposed. Bert was always gallivanting off campus dragging Bill along for the ride despite all the countermeasures implemented to prevent that exact thing from happening. The future leaders of Umbrella had to be protected from being soiled by the wickedness and selfishness of the people in outside world. The Facility was in the middle of the woods at the base of a mountain range for a good reason after all and dragging Bill out into his crazy world over and over, however well-meaning he always was, was a selfish and reckless act. Marcus had given up on punishing Wesker who never really bought anything with the Credits he was awarded so didn't really care when he had them deducted for bad behaviour and instead decided to punish the whole class. That had made Bert take note…Amongst others…
He'd really been quite a source of constant stress for Director Marcus, even going so far as to have a detrimental effect on his physical health. But now, well… maybe Albert Wesker and William Birkin wouldn't be the death of him after all.
Authors Note: BOOM. Foreboding. If there's one gimmick in writing that I love more than anything else in the world, its bitter irony.
Read and Review! Even if you submit just a smiley face or a frowny face to show if you liked it or not, the acknowledgement would be very much appreciated!
I'm in two minds as to whether this should be a stand-alone or a prologue to a chronicle of Weskers life or not (because it's not as if that's ever been done before, amirite) but if that's the case, I had an idea for a twist ending that'll blow your mind.
Some points I want to clear up so you don't have to embarrass yourselves in the comments. I know IVF wasn't invented at the time Wesker was conceived but I figured the Resident Evil universe would have developed that technology significantly sooner than our world. They have spray cans that can bring you back from the brink of death and weeds that can cure almost any organic poison regardless of its composition, after all.
Wesker calls that girl 'sweetheart' rather than 'dearheart' because dearheart is a term of endearment to him but sweetheart is a derogatory term, which is what he was going for.
You might be wondering why I typed 'Oroborus' instead of 'Uroburous', well I figured the reason it begins with the letter 'U' in Resident Evil 5 is because of Umbrella and its roll in regards to raising Wesker and Wesker has kinda realised that he can't escape Umbrella as it was made specifically to create him and he can no more escape Umbrella than he escape himself. Urobourous was his way of dealing with that.
Again, even a smiley face submitted will serve as validation for me. Thank you in advance.