"Excellent, keep me posted." Tobias' short phone call ended with a dark laugh from deep in his throat, rising into a full laugh as he slid his thumb back across the screen to make another call. "Chris, assemble the team, we're tracking Ricardo Irving here in LA. He's involved with an off-record case I'm working on right now."
"You called in a favour, didn't you?" Chris didn't even need to verify the target. He was on the top ten bioterrorists list for the BSAA, right under Albert Wesker, Jack Krauser and the ever elusive HUNK, A.K.A 'Mr. Death'.
"Yes I did. Assemble the team at the base in my office, I'll be there shortly to brief everyone." Tobias hung up and turned to Rize, who had snuck up behind him and wrapped her arms around his chest and propped her chin onto his shoulder.
"Those favours of yours are worthy of legend." Rize teased him, but gave her husband a stern glare. "If I even smell a hint of smoke on you when you get back, we're getting a divorce."
"To be fair, it's not an assault, it's an arrest. I need Irving alive, and then we can sic Sere on him once we've gotten what we need from him." Tobias smiled at her. "Or you could do the honours..."
"Get him first, then we'll cross that bridge when we get there." Rize replied. "I love you."
"I love you too." Tobias replied, kissing his wife before she let him go.
"Fuckin' favours, yo." Carlos was the first to speak after Tobias explained the arrest mission details. "Glad I don't owe you none, those things are scary."
"You're a survivor of Raccoon City, and a former member of my Syndicate too. If anything, I'm the one that owes you, Carlos." Tobias tapped his finger on the live drone feed that was tracking Irving. "Now, Irving's currently en route to a motel in preparation for his assignment we suspect he's received from Wesker. Our mission is to get him captured, unharmed, so that me and my family can beat the ever living fuck out of him while we interrogate him. We're going in full gear, he's known to carry weapons, both ballistic and biological. Gear up and meet me at the Humvees in fifteen minutes."
"What about police and local government?" Chris asked.
"Alice and Motoko are handling that as we speak." Tobias replied. "Let's go!"
Yuuki, Jake and Sherry were walking along the walking paths that bordered the sandy beach when they heard the sounds of multiple diesel engined vehicles approaching from behind them. They all turned, and went pale.
"Those are BSAA Humvees..." Yuuki stopped right in her tracks upon catching sight of a soldier in one of the Humvee's roof turrets... He had an activated T-13 Exo-Suit. "Oh fuck, it's my dad!"
Fumbling for her phone, she called him and he answered on the first ring. "Dad, I can see you guys, what's going on?"
"I called in a favour, I've got a known bioterrorist being tracked as we speak. Me and the team are making an official BSAA arrest. His name is Ricardo Irving."
"Sounds like a douche to me." Yuuki commented to herself, then relaxed about the whole thing. "Alright, one step closer to Wesker."
"Exactly. Now, I'll call you after it's all over, okay?" Yuuki gave a hum of agreement, so he bade her goodbye and hung up.
"Whoever it is, they're fucked, aren't they?" Jake asked, and Yuuki nodded.
"Yeah, he's fucked." Yuuki nodded. "Some fucker named Irving."
"At least nobody's shooting at us this time..." Sherry pointed out, and they both nodded in agreement. "C'mon, let's keep going. Your dad's a professional, he'll be fine."
"That's what I was told when he went to Eastern Europe, Sherry." Yuuki sighed, remembering how her father survived the napalm strike but faked his death in the process to shed light on Neo-Umbrella.
"Sir... Irving's been arrested by the BSAA."
"I didn't anticipate he'd be so careless, after his extensive track record." Wesker sighed, idly examining the single vial of the new viral weapon strain that Irving had smuggled to LA from Africa, where he had a formerly abandoned Umbrella research facility converted into a viral weapon facility.
Unfortunately, he only had one dose, the rest had been compromised by Africa's own BSAA agents - who also completely destroyed the facility as well - so it was a Hail Mary last resort to use this new virus...
The C-Virus.
"I had a debt to repay, so I did the delivery for Wesker to clear it. It was supposes to be a whole crate, but it got seized over in Africa. Some fuckin' white haired arms dealer bitch with this young silver haired, red eyed kid with a scar on his cheek blew the whistle on me, so I grabbed one of the vials and bailed. Just my luck to get the BSAA's super-soldier to be the one to catch me over here."
"You delivered the vial to Wesker, didn't you?" Tobias had his feet up on the steel table, his arms crossed. Both of the chairs and the table itself were welded to the floor, and Irving's hands were handcuffed directly to a sturdy steel bar, likewise welded in place. He didn't react when Irving described Koko Heckmatyar and her young - compared to herself - bodyguard, Jonah. She was still kicking ass and selling ballistic weapons, it seemed, even after all these years.
"Dead drop, I took the vial to an arranged spot, put it where I was told, and I left. Youse just happened to catch me on my way out of the country." Irving answered. "Hey, I'm just a delivery boy, I got no authority with that prick. What good does questionin' me do you?"
"You've just confirmed a new biological weapon is in the country, delivered by your hands no less. You're on our top ten list, and you have ties to Wesker. So, that leaves me to order you to give all contact details, locations, names, everything you know about Wesker and Neo-Umbrella, otherwise Sere's going to enjoy torturing you a little too much... right, Sere?"
"I always enjoy it too much, sweetie." Sere materialized from her invisibility, perched on the table's empty space in a very sassy manner. "So, delivery boy... What'll it be?"
"O-okay, okay! So here's what I got..." Irving quickly buckled and started to talk. He'd heard rumours of this crazy woman's methods, and they scared the shit out of him.
"I'm in."
Motoko had made quick work of the Umbrella database, but now that she was armed with the intel provided by Irving, she found a backdoor that took her straight to another hub of data, cleverly hidden inside mundane files and reports.
"Definitely has military-grade security programs, but since I'm using legit codes and passwords, I'm fine. Just in case I'm caught though, I have stronger defensive barriers than their attack codes can generate." Motoko reported as she expertly collected the data without leaving a trace. "Hmmm, that's a clever trick, for sure."
Her comment caught Tobias' attention, so he looked up and asked. "What's so clever?"
"That submarine Yuuki's been tracking, it's the physical location of all of these servers. It's got a skeleton crew aboard, all of the sub's weapons are gone. It's not a military one like we'd initially thought."
"That makes her job much easier, and certainly more enjoyable." Tobias smirked, he knew what she'd do during her next recon visit when she found out. "Anything about this C-Virus that Irving delivered?"
"I haven't found them yet, but I did find several more persons of interest in the city, plus key locations related to Neo-Umbrella as well." Motoko replied, then hummed in thought. "I think I've got something. It's just been uploaded to the servers."
"Take your time, I can wait." Tobias knew better than to rush this process. Motoko was connected covertly using authorized access, that was by no means a simple feat.
"It's research data..." Motoko didn't have the time to read everything, but she gathered that it pertained - in general - to the mutation-like process of some insect's chrysalis. "It's ours now. Oh, it looks like more's being uploaded."
"Get what you can. You're saving it all locally, right?" Tobias didn't recognize most of her hacking equipment, nor did he care. All he needed was a way to view and examine the data himself.
"External storage unit. It's the one on my left." Motoko wasn't able to move her body while hacking, and her speech was done without moving her mouth, to save on her cyberbrain's processing speed. "Got the new data, more research notes. Similar theme to the first... Oh my, there's a video file now."
"I think that's the last of it, for now at least." Tobias trusted his gut instinct. There wasn't anymore after the video.
"Once I get it, I'll clear my tracks and disconnect. Then we can go over what we've found." Motoko fell silent after that, still keeping her presence unnoticeable. She got the video and cleared her tracks in the database before disconnecting herself safely. She blinked before reaching up to pull the cables out from her neck. "Alright, we're clear. Let's get started on this intel."
