2. Hate
Agony speared through him, hot and bracing. His body tensed, muscles snapping rigid along its length. Back arching, hands balling into fists, lips drawing back to reveal a snarl, he forced down the flash of intense anguish. Pale fingers, trembling with the exertion, moved up to trace the shredded hole in his uniform, overlaying his belly. They met the smooth, unblemished skin that sheathed his solid abdominal musculature and, slowly, the grimace of pain transformed into a bloodless smirk of triumph.
Wesker stood, casually discarding his sunglasses, baring his eyes to the brilliant luminescence of the laboratory. His surroundings were sharper, more focused, than they had ever been before. His hearing, too, seemed all the more acute, though he could hear nothing but the sound of his own breathing over the klaxons heralding the Arklay facility's destruction. The research of his contemporary, William Birkin, appeared to have yielded satisfactory results, though there would need to be further experimentation to discover their true extent.
He strode towards the terminal, the ever-present alarm warning him that time was short. Intending to reset the countdown and allow himself a more suitable window of escape, he activated the touch panel with a tap of his fingertip. He quickly punched in his login details, pleased at how fluid his movements felt, in spite of the fact that he had been clinically dead for several minutes. Unfortunately, his satisfaction evaporated when an error message appeared upon the screen.
At first, he thought that perhaps the workstation was faulty, but then a voice possessing a strange metallic quality, as though it had been produced via an electronic synthesiser, emitted from it.
"Tough luck, bitch," it trilled victoriously, "I've shut you out."
Wesker's brow furrowed, an uncharacteristic sense of vexation causing him to momentarily lose control of his expression. Dismissing the errant emotion and its effect, he returned his attention to the monitor before him. "Who are you?" he typed, impatience hastening his actions.
"The name's Red Queen, but you can call me Shak," it responded, its words somehow able to convey its absolute elation, despite the fact that they were produced by a machine, "and my mission is to shit on you from a great height. Too bad, cock muncher; for you, at least. And once you're a smoking corpse, I'm going to donate all the money belonging to the Board of Directors to Oxfam, and spam up the Umbrella Facebook page with pictures of cocks that it can't get off, and..."
The voice continued to explain its plans for the corporation with gleeful abandon, blithely unaware that the blond was no longer bequeathing its endless tirade with his attention. Of much greater importance to him was the realisation that the device before him, nothing more than a tool to be utilised as he saw fit, had dared to oppose him. It had greatly exceeded its station.
In that moment, he felt a pulse of genuine hate.
"You will regret this, my lady," he asserted, drawing back his fist and silencing the terminal by smashing it to pieces, "I promise."
