One Week Later
Underground Laboratory
Nigeria, Africa
Kenny navigated the dark metallic corridors of what he knew to be one of Tricell Incorporated's many laboratories. But with well-worn computers and machinery, dirty floors upon which his boots thumped and the condensation dripping down the rusted walls, it felt more like a post-apocalyptic chamber. The neutral gray leather suitcase held in his right hand thumped against his thigh as he walked. Wesker emphasized treating its contents with care but Kenny knew it was safe within those cushioned airtight viles. Besides, he needed to vent his frustration for still being under Wesker's control.
"Chris, you said it would be over," Kenny said quietly to himself. "But it isn't – not in the least." The one thing in the world that Kenny promised he would never do was to feel sorry for himself despite his circumstances. He wouldn't have made that promise had he foreseen the situation he was in now. His only hope of escaping Wesker's influence had failed and Jill Valentine was as good as dead. It was as if fate itself had determined that if Kenny were to shake Wesker lose, he would have to do it himself. No more shortcuts, no more relying on others to get him out of a tight spot. He had survived on his own before – yes, he had survived Raccoon City but by no means by himself - now, he'd have to fight on his own.
He stopped in front of what appeared to be a random door that looked no different than the others lining this hallway. It wasn't even numbered. Kenny raised his security badge to the scanner embedded in the wall and the door unlocked with a soft click and slid open to reveal a lavish room that looked out of place when compared to the dark, dank, depressing surroundings of the rest of the lab. Wesker was seated on a fine leather couch one would find in a therapist's clinic flanked by potted exotic palm bushes. How they were kept alive in these conditions, Kenny didn't know. The safest guess was some form of virus. Wesker sat leaning forward, heard turned slightly talking to an elegant woman seated beside him – a woman of Arabic or East African descent clad in a white satin figure hugging dress and giant chunks of gold jewelry hanging from her neck, wrists and ear lobes. They looked to be in intense discussion until Kenny walked in, after which they looked at him momentary with a rude glance.
"I see you haven't taught your lapdog how to knock," she said, words soaked in a thick European accent.
"Better than being his bitch," Kenny retored without missing a beat. Wesker shot him with what Kenny was sure of as a warning glare from behind his shades, and Kenny said no more. He placed the suitcase gently onto a fine oak table and took a seat beside his boss on the couch. Kenny pressed both his index fingers to the sides of the suitcase that clicked unlock with built-in state of the art fingerprint recognition technology which never failed to impress him. The suitcase popped open revealing the velvet lined interior, from which Kenny extracted a syringe labeled PG67-A/W, filled with what looked like water. Wesker extended his right arm, sleeve rolled to the elbow, onto Kenny's knee. Taking Wesker's arm, he jabbed the needle of the syringe into the crook of his elbow and injected the contents. Kenny didn't have to search for the vein anymore. The injection site stood red and scabbed from Wesker's otherwise pale skin.
He smirked, as if to tell Kenny that this was the only way he could hope to cause bodily harm to him. Kenny was otherwise powerless to do anything to Wesker.
"Uroboros is nearing the pre-production phase," Excella reported while the injection was being delivered. "We expect to have it ready for a test subject soon."
"Elaborate," Wesker said through clenched teeth as he endured the pain of the injection.
"In a matter of weeks," she said. "We'll have to ensure that the test subjects are lined up and ready to go as soon as it is ready."
"That's impossible," Kenny said, brows creasing with suspicion. "The T-Virus took decades to develop and even then its undesired side effects far outweighed its potential as a bio-weapon. Uroboros has only been in development for a few years, and it's already time for tests to begin?"
"The T-Virus was never complete," Wesker added. "It was an overambitious project funded by a man with more money than seconds left of his life. He thought the more money he threw at the project, the faster it would come to bear its fruit."
"And yet Spencer never considered the kind of help he was enlisting," Excella continued. "Nothing but self-serving scientists with little regard whether he lived or died. William Birkin. Alexia Ashford. Morpheus Duvall. But I am not Spencer and Tricell is not Umbrella."
"So what you're saying," Kenny challenged, "is that everyone employed by your company has nothing but its research – your immortality - in their hearts and minds. Word's got it that even Shadowlaw has taken note of Uroboro's progress, let alone the same self-serving scientists your company no doubt employs. Who's to say nobody will …"
"We've taken precautionary measures," Excella insisted rather defensively. But Kenny's point didn't go unnoticed by Wesker who had now tilted his head in her general direction. Kenny was willing to bet that behind those dark glasses, his reptilian gaze was fixed strongly on her. She seemed to feel it too as Kenny couldn't help but grin as he saw Excella swallow nervously.
She then predictably decided to work her feminine charm on Wesker, gently caressing his shoulder. "Do you not trust me to run Tricell?" she asked in a soft, cooing voice. "I have my scientists wrapped around my finger. They will do as I ask of them."
"It's not I who doesn't trust you, my dear," Wesker said, though words obviously dripped with lies. "Kenny does raise an interesting point."
"And what does Kenny know of Tricell after serving under you and only you for all these years? He knows nothing, Albert. I am transparent to your eyes only."
"Give me a break," Kenny said, rolling his eyes as he pulled the syringe from Wesker's arm. He pressed cotton ball to the injection site.
"Or put it this way," Excella said, narrowing her eyes at Kenny, "Tricell has the funding, the talent and the infrastructure to accomplish our goals. Without us, there is no Uroboros."
"I love how you omitted 'loyalty'."
"That word is meaningless coming out of your mouth," Excella snapped. "It is no secret you are looking for a way out of this …" she stirred the air with a well-manicured finger "… predicament."
"Believe me, lady, I've tried." Kenny's admission earned an enthused smirk from Wesker.
"You will outlive your usefulness one day," Excella continued, "but Tricell will outlast you, and when that day comes, rest assured you will be appropriately disposed of."
"Sounds too good to be true," Kenny noted bitterly. "I'm getting tired of pharmaceutical companies."
"That's enough," Wesker said sternly, ending the petty quarrel. He turned to Kenny. "I want you to get a report of Jill Valentine's vital signs for the last three months. Irving should be able to provide you with the data."
"Jill?" Kenny asked, caught off guard by the strange request. "I've performed status checks on all the hostages last week already. You should have the report by now …"
"Excella and I have much to discuss," Wesker elaborated, "in private. In the meantime Jill needs to be prepared."
"For what?"
"You heard it. Uroboros will be needing a test subject soon."
From behind a wall of thick bullet-proof glass, beautiful woman slept peacefully. Blonde strands of hair floated around her face suspended in a strange clear liquid, all of it contained in a capsule that might as well have been a coffin for its subject. Kenny pressed his fingertips to the glass and wiped away some of the condensation to get a better look at her face.
It was still Jill, all right. And her familiar face, eyes closed looking so peacefully asleep brought sorrow to Kenny's heart. He'd fought tooth and nail to keep her alive, used every excuse in the book against Wesker as to why it would be in his best interest to not kill her. But just a few months later, he had run out of excuses. Chris did not come for his partner and Kenny was now being ordered to prepare Jill for her death.
"I'm sorry, Officer Valentine," he said softly, tears welling up in his eyes. "I did the best I could. I really did. Please forgive me."
He reached over to the apparatus attached to Jill's stasis pod and downloaded her vital signs. If the Uroboros Virus was to be tested on a human subject, it had to be in the healthiest possible state to see how it would perform against the immune system.
"And just what do you think you're doing here?" a high pitched voice demanded, snapping him from his thoughts. Kenny didn't need to turn around to figure out who it was.
"Orders, Ricardo," he said. "Wesker's selected the first test subject for the Uroboros Project."
"Funny, I don't recall hearing this. But what I do recall hearing is you talking to the subject." Kenny turned around to face Ricardo Irving, a shorter man around his height with large eyes and a mop of blonde hair unsuccessfully covering his severely receding hairline. Despite the Western European last name, he spoke with a thick Brooklyn accent that when combined with his high pitched voice, annoyed Kenny to no end. "Mind explaining what that was all about?"
"I do, actually," Kenny replied sharply. But he then noted the aggression with which he spoke, and took a breath to calm down, to change his tone. "I need you to help me with some data mining. Wesker's requested Valentine's vital signs over a time span of the last three months." He turned back around to face the apparatus displaying Jill's vital signs. "Excella is saying that test subjects need to be prepped, but it really makes no sense that …"
That was when he noticed something wasn't right. Ricardo must have sensed it too as Kenny felt his presence directly behind him.
"How is this possible?" Ricardo gasped.
"There are traces of … something foreign in her body," Kenny continued, "and it's manifesting slowly."
"Magnify," Irving said, and Kenny did so. The infection took the shape of a ball with strange protrusions all over its surface. "This … this can't be right." Ricardo headed for a nearby computer terminal and began frantically typing on the keyboard.
"Looks like a virus," Kenny said, turning to Ricardo for an explanation. "I don't understand. These stasis chambers are supposed to seal their subject from exposure to the outside world. Nothing could have gotten in or we would have been alerted."
Irving held up a finger and spoke. "This means the virus would have already been inside the chamber, or inside the subject when we sealed it." He moved over to a larger computer just a few feet away from the stasis pod.
Kenny shook his head. "Still not possible. Before Officer Valentine was put in here, she received medical treatment for the injuries sustained from her fall back at Spencer's castle. Nobody detected anything then. Maybe the instruments used to treat her weren't properly sterilized?"
"This isn't some ordinary virus, Kenny," Irving said gravely, motioning for him to come over. "Come take a look at this."
Kenny walked over to the computer terminal that displayed the same magnified viral cell as he'd seen on Jill's stasis pod. That wasn't so much what concerned him so much as the brief description below the digital image."
"The T-Virus …"
"No, not the T-Virus," Irving corrected "In fact, that's not so much the abnormality as how her body is responding to it. Valentine's body is producing what can only be an anti-virus."
"She would've needed to be exposed to the virus in order to develop anti-bodies."
"And the only large scale T-Virus outbreak occurred in Raccoon City, 1998," Irving added, and then looked at Kenny inquisitively. "Unless she was present at the Antarctic outbreak, or the Sheena and Rockfort Island incidences?"
"No," Kenny confirmed, "I was at Rockfort and the Antarctic labs during the outbreak. Officer Valentine was not present. So she must have contracted the virus in Raccoon in order for her body to be producing these anti-bodies. But why did she not zombify like everyone else?"
Kenny reached into the deepest, darkest depths of his mind where the repressed memories were stored. He allowed himself to remember and the first memory that came back to him was the smell of burning vehicles crushed up against buildings, blocking the narrow Raccoon City roads. Columns of black smoke rose into the evening sky while debris littered the streets. When was the last time he had seen Officer Valentine?
"Are you all right?" Irving asked, noticing that Kenny had gone dead silent, staring blankly into space.
"I'm trying to remember," he said, distracted. Kenny remembered that Officer Valentine that resigned rather suddenly from the STARS one day and was never heard from again until … The memory came at him as a vivid image. He saw an altar of a small church, with her resting peacefully on it, a large open gash on her arm. There was a mercenary with her, but Kenny couldn't remember his name. He needed help getting to the hospital to get …
"A vaccine!" Kenny cried aloud, catching Irving off guard.
"What are you talking about?" he asked clutching his chest from the shock.
Kenny grabbed him by the shoulders and spoke quickly, like he was trying to capture the fading details of a dream he'd just woken up from. "She was attacked by a monster in Raccoon. The Umbrella mercenary was trying to help her but they were trapped in the chapel and had no ammunition. I gave him some bullets when I stumbled across them and we tried to go to the hospital together to get the vaccine, but failed. We got separated, and I don't know if he made a second attempt. But if Officer Valentine is here, healthy and producing anti-bodies, that means Carlos was successful at retrieving the vaccine. Carlos … that was his name."
As soon as he was done his verbal tirade, Kenny took his hands off Irving's shoulders, who disgruntledly brushed the off. "Sorry about that," he said. "But I remember. Officer Valentine was infected with the T-Virus and I believe Carlos procured an experimental vaccine for her. Damn … there's never been a cure to the T-Virus."
"Until now," Irving corrected. And then Kenny understood how his chance to save Jill could be renewed.