He sat in a tall, synthetic black leather chair. Before him, several holographic computer screens lay open. Several windows were minimized, allowing him to focus on the few that were, at this moment, of exceptional importance.
In one, TerraSave personnel were ushering a group of shocked and bandaged Kijuju survivors aboard some flatbed trucks bound for the nearest city, where they would become refugees. In another, helicopters full of people wearing thick, protective hazmat suits – the kinds made to stand up to heavy radiation – were tapping away at computers and observing through long telescopes the remains of what had once been a rather impressive volcanic island, but was now a crumbling of rocks sticking up above the sludgy, churning waters that now covered a just-barely undersea magma vent. The whole area was still steamy from the remnant heat of the missile, and the people kept having to wipe the lenses of their telescopes. On a third screen, construction equipment was working on excavating the charred remains of the quaternary research facility, which had been reduced to rubble by the copious amounts of C4 that had been imbedded in the walls and infrastructure of the building during its construction. He'd learned many things from studying Spencer's architecture, including how to set up a very effective self-destruct system. Another screen was minimized, and as he turned his attention to other things, he pulled it up a final time and closed it, detonating the drone that had been broadcasting the footage. He caught a brief glimpse of a peaceful riverbank surrounded by tall green grass and light, fine sand just before hitting the little red X.
Wesker leaned back and sighed. Not in dismay or exhaustion, but rather, in satisfaction. Experiments, from the simplest high school chemistry intro to the most complex viral alterations, were always flawed. Something wasn't cleaned properly, a piece of equipment was wrongly calibrated, or some clumsy oaf bumped the wrong beaker at exactly the wrong time. Perfect control of an experiment was a scientist's fancy, but they always tried for it regardless. Still, however flawed the setup of this experiment may have been, the results were conclusive. He was very much looking forward to mulling them over.
He had observed and recorded everything from the security of the quaternary research facility, and when the time came to depart, he'd taken his sole remaining assistant and all of the relevant data with him to be studied at his leisure. He had all the time in the world to do so, now that the world thought him dead once again. He smiled slightly as he swapped a few screens around, reached aside, plucked a black olive from the small dish on the edge of the desk, and popped it into his mouth.
The best work he'd ever done, he'd accomplished under the cover of assumed death. First after Arklay, then again following the Spencer Estate incident. The B.S.A.A. hadn't completely accepted the idea that he was dead the second time, though, so he'd known that the next time he encountered them he would need a truly convincing display if he was to avoid being hounded by them for the next decade or two. To that effect, he'd come up with a solution that would ensure his continued privacy, delegate a considerable amount of research to someone capable of overseeing it properly, and even give Chris and the B.S.A.A. a neat, satisfying ending that would wrap everything up nicely. With little red bow on top, even.
They wanted a dead Wesker…he would give them a dead Wesker.
The cloning process had taken some time to get right. Not so much the physical aspects – though his physiology was somewhat more complex than the average sheep's, recreating it was hardly a challenge given the resources and experience at his disposal. But mental programming proved difficult, and there was no point in creating the clone if it was incapable of passing as him. More than a dozen iterations had come and gone, none even coming close to the standard he'd sought. No, the methods he'd been using had all failed. He'd needed another method altogether.
Eventually he'd stumbled across the key to it in the most unexpected of places. He hadn't even been looking for it at the time. He'd been studying, out of interest, the background of an individual who had crossed his path years ago, during the Illuminados incident; a young woman who had caught his attention after being infected with a Dominant Strain Plaga. The way she'd reacted to it, utilizing its abilities subconsciously to such an impressive degree and at an early stage in its development had piqued his curiosity. He'd wondered what the cause had been, and had begun looking for abnormalities in her development.
Digging into her history, he'd discovered that she had, in her youth, been a part of an interesting and highly illicit drug trial, one that had been geared towards splitting young, undeveloped minds and inducing stable split personalities. The intended outcomes had not been achieved before the trials were discovered and made an end of, and the data and supplies had been stored away and forgotten.
The implications of this had not been lost on him. Seeing promise in the concept, he'd had the data collected, and had taken up the research himself. P-1 through P-9, the substances managed by the initial researchers, were abject failures…but informative ones. P-7 was the one the girl had taken, and based on the findings he'd read, it had only created enough of a disturbance between the conscious and subconscious as to result in sleep disorders, lucid nightmares, and moderate psychological trauma. An unexpected side effect of this, he'd theorized, was to facilitate a link between her and the Plaga that went beyond simple influence/command interactions. It had allowed the symbiote to more effectively discern, at an early age, the innate psychology of its host. It had been able to read her fears, hopes and desires, and act accordingly. This theory fit what he had seen rather well, and had furthered his interest in the project.
He'd taken a stab at a new serum, P-10, which had been far more effective at separating the conscious and subconscious minds in the subject. By his ninth iteration, P-18, he'd managed to quickly and reliably supplant the subconscious over the conscious. A few more iterations and he even managed to make it non-lethal in long-term trials, which was vital for what he'd by then had in mind.
Next came the issue of mental persuasion – making the subconscious susceptible to external influence while under the effects of the drug. For of course by then he'd realized that he could use this substance to fix his programming problem. Thus, P-26 was created – a serum that could be used to induce a sort of augmented conscious coma in the subject, one in which the subconscious was in full control of the body. In this state, the conscious mind was 100% suppressed, and the subconscious was perfectly susceptible to external manipulation. This would allow him to influence, or even construct from the ground up, a personality in an individual without them being aware of the manipulation. After all, it was vital that the clone not realize it was a clone – if such a thing occurred, the constructed entity would not tolerate the nature of its genesis and would stop at nothing to destroy its creator…if the original template was any indication.
Using this serum, he began his work programming an initial half dozen clones. They were placed on a steady stream of P-26 before they ever attained consciousness. He began by instilling histories in them, starting from his own earliest days, recounting his story in a continuous, uninterrupted flow, accompanied by photos of every location he could manage. He had to use a great deal of photoshop, and video and audio editing to recreate vital sounds and scenes that he lacked recordings of. His academic knowledge all had to be programmed in as well. It would have been impossible to fit everything he'd ever learned into a given specimen, so he narrowed his focus to that which was most important – general information that every decently intelligent person ought to know, everything he knew pertaining to virology…and, of course, Uroboros.
He couldn't do this all himself, as he had many other things to do with his time, so most of it he recorded. He only stepped in personally to oversee the initial programming, and whenever a topic with an intense emotional connection came up. Any hallmark moment, any great revelation in his life that had shaped his personality – the Spencer Estate, for instance, or his death and reawakening within the Arklay facilities – these things he oversaw for the purpose of instilling the exact emotional reaction to them. It was vital he deliver such things himself, as this went a long way towards shaping the clone's personality.
The first half dozen were marked failures…but like the P-1 through 9 drugs, informative ones. He refined the process considerably and created a new batch, a full dozen, each getting a slightly different psychological upbringing.
They all underwent a gradual weaning of the drug once the programming was complete, their subconsciouses were given time to interact with their conscious minds during periods of light sedation, and all ultimately awoke in the care of one of his numerous throwaway medical teams. They all were told that the Spencer Estate incident had only just occurred – it was no challenge to manipulate dates in the mental programming to support this – that Valentine had just knocked them out of the window, and that they'd struck their heads on the way down and suffered a severe concussion. This accounted for the headache, the disorientation, the general feeling that their memories were scattered and incomplete. The brain – his brain in particular – was an astonishingly efficient machine. Each time, the cloned iteration of it managed to take the massive amounts of information floating about and, within the hour, stitch together a passable homunculus of a mature and stable mind using the scattered and disparate pieces available to it.
All failures again. Some lacked his precise mannerisms, either being too crude or too fussy. He took notes. Some were too academically oriented, and only cared about research; still others were too philosophical, and resultingly too passionate. He took more notes. A very few had lacked adequate pride and confidence, and had been too passive, while far more had possessed the opposite problem, being entirely too aggressive. One had slaughtered the entire medical team outright when an unfortunate nurse had knocked a glass of water onto its lap. More notes.
The lot of them were euthanized when the survey concluded – the medical teams and the clones. Then, onto the next.
The success was found in the third batch. Out of that final dozen, three had been promising. One had demonstrated an unfortunate tendency towards excessive lenience. He'd disposed of it. Another had waxed just a hairsbreadth too poetic, and he'd feared that it had been made too philosophical again.
The last, and the one he'd ultimately ended up using, had been nearly perfect. Nearly. He'd noticed a minor temper flare partway through the trial run, but though the agitation had been a touch excessive for the situation, it had been quickly controlled, and he'd chalked it up to irritability from the 'injury'.
He'd have preferred a more accurate facsimile of himself, but a parallel development had made it all but impossible to create another batch, not without jeopardizing his work with Tricell. It had been tricky managing his dealings with the company and the clones simultaneously, and when the breakthrough with the Progenitor Virus had come through, he'd had no more time to tarry. He'd put every detail of the Progenitor Virus and the Uroboros project into the new clones, rushed his chosen specimen's recovery from behind the curtain, and sent it off to Excella.
That had been the real test. If the thing managed to fool her, then it would surely fool anyone. He and Excella had, after all, spent a fair amount of time together, enough that she was as familiar with his mannerisms as anyone in the world. He'd watched with bated breath, and had been supremely pleased when neither it nor Excella noticed anything at all amiss.
Thus, his long-term life insurance policy was instated.
Now, computer screens glowing around him, he reached for another olive and plucked the last one from the dish. He popped it into his mouth, hit a call button on the arm of his chair, and said, "Mal, be a dear and bring me the vegetable platter from the downstairs refrigerator, would you?"
"Yes, sir."
He went back to perusing the screens and, once satisfied with them, minimized the lot of them and began doing some tidying up with the mess of files that had been shoved into the portable hard drive he'd taken with him. There had been so much surveillance from those two or so days of action that he needed time to sort it all out. Videos of Chris and Sheva and their battles had to go to one folder, videos of Project: Subject to another, and all the footage of his Tricell underlings – clone included – required yet another folder. Data organization was key to drawing conclusions.
The door opened, and his favorite assistant came in, dressed in plain black slacks and a stylish, pale blouse. She set the platter on the small table beside him. He plucked a carrot stick, swiped it through the dip in the center of the tray, and popped it into his mouth. After crunching it up he said, "Thank you, my dear. That's all for now. Dismissed."
His servant bowed slightly, eyes more glazed and empty than Jill Valentine's had ever been, and turned to go. She would return to her small, clean, functional dormitory halfway between his office and the kitchen. He'd have her resume unpacking and generally making his new, temporary abode more hospitable tomorrow. He always needed to oversee aesthetics with her, as she had no naturally ingrained sense of them. If he asked her to furnish a room, it would ultimately end up nothing more than a chair with a desk in the middle or corner of an otherwise empty space. It had happened before. Still, he was quite fond of his little pet.
At a certain point in his research into the P-serum series, shortly after developing the non-lethal variety that simply separated conscious from subconscious, he'd slipped the research inconspicuously into Tricell. The scientists had ultimately taken it up and gone a different and unexpected route with it, eventually managing to create a delightful little substance, one that completely imposed the subconscious over the conscious while still allowing interaction between the two. The result of this was to provide the subconscious with access to the methodical reasoning, memory, and experience of the conscious mind without allowing it to actively influence the body. So, an individual under full control of the initial administrator could take orders, and rather than acting sporadically or irrationally as one might in a dream – when the subconscious was in total control – the subject acted in a composed and rational manner. Of course, this access to the conscious mind meant that the individual was, in fact, awake during the ordeal, but that was unavoidable.
Thus, the P-30 serum was created, which he'd taken a liking to and acquired a respectable supply of. Ultimately, he'd used it in the creation of his assistant, Mal. What made her particularly useful was that, unlike Ms. Valentine, he had no need to closely monitor the levels of P-30 in her device. If it ran out, she would go to the refilling station of her own accord and get it restocked before resuming her normal duties. This was because she had no sense of self outside of what the serum gave her. She had never lived without it.
He had cloned her from a young woman he'd passed on the street one day, whose long hair had caught on a zipper on his coat. A single hair had stuck with him, follicle attached, and he'd decided on the fly to use it to create a perfect assistant for himself. He'd never learned the original young woman's name, and had fashioned one for her clone himself. Mallory Higgs, better known as Mal. She had been a blank slate from the first, and had never shown any trace of individuality. It made her extremely convenient when he wanted to observe civilian groups without being discovered. A young woman without a personality was surprisingly inconspicuous.
Tricell had utilized the serum on Jill. This had been a surprising turn, but not one that he'd seen fit to alter. He'd monitored his clone's treatment of Jill Valentine closely. Even after the T-Virus antibodies remaining in her system from her infection in Raccoon City had given them the domesticated Progenitor Virus strain, he'd wanted to retain her as a long-term asset. To that effect, one of the things he'd programmed into his clones was a subtle desire to preserve her. This, interestingly enough, had manifested in a sort of respect, one that had driven his chosen specimen to actively protect her – even foster some mild, pet-like affection.
He hadn't complained. This had served his purpose…though he would have preferred reacquiring her after the conclusion of Uroboros. Still, to the victor go the spoils, and Chris had certainly proven victorious in this little charade. To an extent.
He crunched up another carrot stick, mind now wandering half away from the various clips playing on the screen. He was playing four at a time, categorizing each, and sliding them into the appropriate folders, the next in the list popping up as soon as the old one was gone. On one screen, Chris was doing battle with the Uroboros incarnation he'd decided to nickname Uroboros Mkono, on account of its long arms. Excella's transformation he'd decided to call Uroboros Aheri…the reasoning for that name being two-fold. Let it never be said that he was incapable of waxing poetic.
He clicked his tongue wistfully as the Mkono was set aflame on the screen. Uroboros. The baseline concept had been simple enough – a virus that would infect vast swathes of the world population and force either death or mutation upon them. It had long been his ultimate goal, some iteration of it dancing in the back of his mind for well over a decade before its realization. He had instilled the same goal concretely in his clone, who had then taken up the final stage of shaping the virus alongside Excella. He and his clone had shared the same desire: a world void of the evolutionarily unfit. To be more precise, idiots.
Sadly, far too many of the aforementioned 'evolutionarily unfit' had been on the virus development team, and the final result of his long-sought goal was not what he had envisioned. At a glance it had considerable utility; a virus that turned incompatible subjects into a force of destruction that could easily spread itself, forcing itself into every corner and crack of civilization.
Delightful! Ingenious! How they had failed to see the drawback of the virus they had created was a mystery he would now never solve, as the lot of them were dead.
On the recording, the construct collapsed into a seething mass of worms, burst up from the floor, and continued wreaking havoc on the room during its pursuit of the duo it was facing. One of its blows left a sizeable dent in the metal wall paneling, and smears of thick, revolting black sludge were left in its wake everywhere it went.
It was too destructive. If he'd had any doubt of that, it had been absolved upon Excella's infection. That titanic entity had been the result only of a few dozen corpses. Had no one given a thought to the monstrosity that would be unleased were such a thing to absorb an entire city?
He had never sought this world's destruction. Quite the contrary, in fact. One of the values instilled in him at a young age was a strong inclination towards environmental preservation. Was it not from the vast diversity of life on this planet that most of humanity's greatest discoveries and innovations sprang? He thought it was. The Stairway to the Sun was proof enough of that. This planet held, too, incomparable beauty and wonder. Its pell-mell destruction at the hands of humanity's surging population had always incensed him.
He wanted it to stop. Uroboros, as it had been made, would have increased that destruction tenfold before subsiding. Mass extinctions as those powerful, mindless, thrashing worms expanded from the billions of carcasses they consumed; entire ecosystems wiped out; and when all was said and done and the remaining viral constructs were neutralized, what kind of mess would that leave behind? It would be a form of pollution far worse than any landfill or garbage patch could hope to match.
He had watched his clone's observation of the first Uroboros rejection, and had waited for the objections. He'd waited for it to demand a cleaner, less damaging form of mutation, to point out all that had been salient to him from the first. And yet, the first words out of the clone's mouth when the process had concluded was,
"My. That looked quite painful."
At those words, and the amused cadence with which they'd been spoken, Wesker realized that something had gone quite wrong in the programming process.
He'd spent long hours by himself following the incident, silent and introspective, attempting to discern what would cause his otherwise perfect clone to react to the obvious prospect of global devastation with so little care. He wondered what he had done wrong.
The conclusion he'd come to had been a disturbing one. He'd realized that he had not mis-programmed the clone – not really. He had only ever sought to imbue it with precisely those attributes he deemed central to his own personality: pride, confidence, utopian ideals…and an unrelenting, vitriolic disdain for humanity.
It was in this disdain that the error lay. Perhaps a slight imbalance of traits could account for the alarming outcome, but ultimately it could not be denied that his clone was interested in more than just creating utopia. What it sought, as much if not more so than this, was humanity's suffering and destruction. These had, without his knowledge, become an integral part of the Uroboros Project. Integral enough to distract from other potentially disastrous outcomes, of which the sheer destructive force of Uroboros was only one.
Another alarming development arose when Excella put forth the atmospheric distribution concept – infecting the entire world at once. Such an idea was risky beyond all belief. The nature of the Progenitor Virus was such that its derivates were unusually susceptible to natural mutation. If Uroboros were to propagate itself on a global scale within a short period of time, mutations in the viral organism would inevitably arise, and mutants would be indistinguishable in the flood. If the wrong mutation occurred – one that drove the virus to seek out non-humans as a food source, for instance, or one that compelled it to consume compatible genomes – damage to their plan and to the world as a whole would be irreversible.
Imagine a strain of Uroboros that fed off of plant life: the world could become all but uninhabitable in a matter of weeks.
And yet, his clone had again failed to object to this potential outcome, too fixated upon humanity's demise. Perhaps its pride overrode the risk factor. Perhaps it assumed that it could single-handed undo any excessive damage to the world. Perhaps he'd been a bit too heavy-handed when instilling that god-like sense of self-worth in his clone.
In retrospect, that was almost certainly problematic, he thought now, as he watched once again that penultimate confrontation with Chris. Who would have ever thought that he could be too self-aggrandizing?
Nothing could point your greatest flaws out to you quite like a clone whose personality was intended to be an exact mirror of your own. Perhaps it was simply bad programming, but even he was not so prideful as to dismiss the implications those developments had on his own psyche. It was plain enough now to see that hatred for humanity comprised too much of his personality. A new world created on the basis of hating the old one would never be a utopia. It would not, in all likelihood, even be particularly attractive.
He would need to check himself moving forward.
At any rate, Uroboros was shaping up to become an unmitigated disaster. Furthermore, he'd seen hints of his clone's mental state degrading. It's willingness to permit the virus to be unleashed in its current state was proof enough of that. Furthermore, its temper had been growing shorter. Patience, too. Conversely, its pride had been expanding, and these trends made it clear that if things went on like this for much longer, every plan he had would be set back by a considerable margin. So when a launch date at been approximated and work began on viral missile construction, he'd set his final plans into motion.
He switched from carrot sticks to bell peppers as he copied and stored the final confrontation in multiple files, and finished off by turning all his attention to the final euthanizing of the clone. The interaction between the Uroboros Virus and his own physiology had been a fascinating one, and he vowed to look into it further at a later date. The fact that he'd had to utilize the Orbital Shango Laser to finish it off spoke volumes of its survivability. Far more durable than Plaga-mutated specimens, which were impressive enough by themselves. That the Dominant Strain had been able to make such an admirable specimen of Irving had been proof enough of that.
"Hmph," he grunted softly as he thought back on that particular fool. He'd played his part well enough, but what a pest he'd been in the meantime – and not one Wesker had been able to safely ignore. Once he'd come to the decision that it was time to conclude the Uroboros Project, he'd decided it would be most plausible to use Irving as the primary draw to get the B.S.A.A. involved. A cocaine-addled Mammonite, the man would be too scatterbrained and distracted with his two great hobbies to present a threat to Wesker's plans…so he'd assumed. He had, however, underestimated the jittery little bioweapons dealer.
Wesker had spent most of the last year in the quaternary facility. None of the personnel there were ever exposed to his clone or permitted to travel to other facilities; his clone had been programmed in advance to avoid this facility like the plague; and no one there recognized him as anything other than a high-ranking administrator – the Management, as it were. Excella had no interest in visiting the facility unless she needed to, which he made sure she never did. And Irving he'd assumed an idiot, which was why he hadn't placed as much surveillance on the man as he had on Excella and his clone, his Primary Subject.
Irving had come to the facility for absolutely no reason whatsoever one day just a few months prior. He'd said as much when they'd passed each other unexpectedly in the halls.
What brings you to the quaternary facility, Irving?
Nothing, he'd said, obviously high as a damned kite. Nothing whatsoever.
Then get back to the secondary facility and attend to your work.
It had been just Wesker's luck that, following their run-in there, Irving actually had gone back to the secondary facility…and immediately bumped into the clone.
There had followed a tense conversation. How the heck did you get back over here before me? When did you find time to change your clothes? What do you mean you haven't been to the quaternary facility today? I just saw you five minutes ago!
Thank God Irving had been so high. The clone had dismissed the man when he'd started raving about – Oh, the hilarity of the paranoid! – some sort of freaky cloning shit going on.
Cocaine often induced paranoia in the user. Irving had been given to it before in minor ways. Following this, however, he became fully engrossed in the idea that the Wesker he'd known was a clone, and that the real Wesker was overseeing everything they did with some diabolical plot in mind for all of Tricell. He intimated to those around him how even the bosses in this organization were just pawns, even Excella, even Wesker himself. There were cameras everywhere, and none of their plans could be trusted. Everything had been constructed and manipulated by an unseen hand hanging over them. Who did the unseen hand belong to? They wouldn't believe him if he told them!
Thankfully, everyone just assumed it was the cocaine talking. How droll.
Well, the man had dug himself a powder-white grave in the end, and had been unable to climb out of it. He'd sealed his fate when he'd sent that drone to the quaternary facility and infiltrated the observation room. It had been a minor risk, then, ordering Valentine to inject Irving himself, but the risk of issuing the order had been far less than the risk of Irving confirming his theories. It had all worked out in the end. Neither Jill nor his clone ever discovered the origins of the order.
He put the rest of the footage in its proper folder. It had taken about nine hours for the B.S.A.A. to call in the thermonuclear missile, during which time the clone would almost certainly have regenerated enough to slip into the ocean. There, it would have swum relentlessly until reaching land or a ship to cling to, and then have become a thorn in the side of every living organism on the face of the planet, him included. It was a good thing he'd stored a drone with a Shango targeting scope aboard the bomber before lift-off. Just in case Chris hadn't quite managed to complete his mission.
He sighed again, leaning back in his chair and closing his eyes for a while. No doubt his enemies were all doing the same in whatever private hospital they'd been shipped to. Chris and Jill would be enjoying a heartwarming reunion, the spy would be spilling all the worthless secrets he'd found on his mission, and his two little lab rats would be calling their families and relaying the joyous news of their survival. He bore them no ill will. On the contrary, he was nothing short of delighted at his test subject's success.
He made to pull up the Project: Subject folder, but instead decided to indulge himself in an exceptionally rare treat before tackling that: a long, hot shower, a nice dinner, and a nap.
What to have for dinner? The pheasant? Or perhaps the wild boar?
No, he wasn't in the mood for either tonight. He came to a conclusion, hit the com and said, "Mal, be a dear and start preparing my dinner. I had some venison shipped in, did I not?"
"Yes, sir."
"Lovely. Deer steak with mushrooms tonight, then. And a rosemary seasoning. Chop, chop."
"Yes, sir."
He stood up and headed for his personal quarters. He tried not to indulge himself too often – he had a world to save, and that would take time – but he recognized the necessity of enjoying oneself periodically. Life was a wonderful gift. It ought not be wasted.
He laughed aloud at the irony of this, and went to take his shower.
Reynard was just finishing up his review of the data. Chris and Sheva had passed him everything they'd found in addition to all of his own hard drives, and he was just transcribing a couple more files of interest to the data file he'd be passing along to HQ.
Report on Project W – Aug. 28, 1998
It has been confirmed that the accident at the Raccoon City Arklay Research Facility was due to the involvement of Project W test subject no. 13 (hereafter referred to as Albert). His death in the accident has made obtaining any further information an impossibility. (Albert's death was confirmed by the Information Department.)
Albert's death puts the current success rate of project W down to 18%. The quota of qualified individuals for the project has been drastically reduced and must be addressed immediately. This poses a grave situation for any progress that can hope to be made in the project. Since there is no roster of qualified individuals to replace the recent losses, it would be advisable to start selecting individuals from the pool of failed candidates. After this, adjustments can be made that will restore up to 93% of the quota prior to Albert's death.
Umbrella Information Department
Alex W.
This, he could not make heads or tails of. Evidently Wesker had been a part of some project or another, and Umbrella had taken his 'loss' rather seriously. Sadly, however, that file had been the only one of its like. There was no other information about 'Project W'. Hopefully it didn't mean the development of other individuals with superhuman abilities. If it did, the 18% success rate point was extremely worrying.
This project would require serious focus in the B.S.A.A.'s intelligence branch. More would need to be found out about it, starting with who this Alex W. was.
I really hope that W doesn't stand for what I think it stands for.
He saved this and went on to the last document, the one Chris and Sheva had acquired abord the tanker and one of the more interesting pieces of information all told.
Spencer's Journal
I just received word that Raccoon City has been wiped out. The Americans finally took action against us. I hope the irony of using the very military machine that was supposed to protect them from foreign attackers to kill their own people is not lost on them.
While the danger posed by the threat of the T-Virus spreading was very real, I don't think Americans will easily forgive their government for the deaths of over 100,000 of their own people. If the truth of this matter is ever brought to light, support for the current administration will plummet. I don't think he wants that. Even a child can see that they will come after Umbrella with everything they have. To hide their own foolish mistakes, they will blame Umbrella for Raccoon City's annihilation. It would seem Umbrella will share Raccoon City's fate, but perhaps it will be to a lesser degree. Umbrella was nothing but a tool for the research of the Progenitor Virus. Even without that tool, the research still survives. Only Umbrella's lowly employees will be hurt by its dissolution.
If the secret research involving the Progenitor Virus is protected, then I can always rebuild anew. I've already made preparations for such a plan. The research facility in Africa remains a secret, and it is there that the Progenitor Virus is produced, something that we didn't achieve until the late 80's. Only a handful of people in the company are even aware of the African facility's existence thanks to our strict regulation of the flow of information. Only a minimum amount of personnel were ever transferred from Africa to other locations, and they were always closely monitored. Director Bailey has been confined to the African facility for almost 30 years, and even that has all been for this day.
All that remains is to close that facility, and everything will go according to my plan. Once that facility is gone, all its connections to Umbrella will disappear with it. Then I will have to deal with anyone who has a level 10 security clearance, as they are the only ones who will know of the African facility's existence. Everyone else will be summarily disposed of.
My secrets will be protected. When one buries a treasure, one should not leave behind a map.
This in itself was fascinating, but not quite as useful as the printout that had been paperclipped to the page.
Personnel with access to company secrets:
Level 10
Oswell S. – Deceased
Henning P. – Imprisoned
Masaki T. – Deceased
Jenny K. – Whereabouts unknown
Carlos M. – Found - Information Obtained - Eliminated
Level 9
Brandon B. – Deceased
Frank E. – Deceased
Isabella C. – Deceased
Greg A. – Deceased
Lee D. – Deceased
Michael K. – Deceased
Ethan W. – Deceased
So much for not leaving behind a map. The fact that they now knew the names of two potentially living high-ranking Umbrella employees was good enough; but even the deceased members had value, as they would be able to run these names through their databanks, dig up as much information on them as possible, and see if they couldn't pursue any close friends or relations who might end up having information. Their homes would be gone through, any computers or other tech they'd possessed scoured…something useful would come of this. He'd lay money on that.
Once this was finished, he spent a bit more time refining the file and getting it presentable. Just as he was finishing up and pulling the hard drive out, the door behind him opened, and he reached automatically for the nearest lethal weapon.
Turning, he saw only a wide-eyed nurse. He lowered the stapler – anyone who said a stapler wasn't a lethal weapon would probably not survive long in a fight against him – and said, "What do you want?"
Her alarm turned to exasperation. "Agent Fisher, please, everyone's been looking for you for hours. The plane is ready to leave. And you were ordered to spend more time recovering and wait until you got to the main headquarters before getting to work on those data files."
"Pfah!" he spat. "As though this can wait that long! But lucky for you I've already gotten it all done." He popped an extra-large hard drive into a tough silver briefcase which already held all the original evidence, jangled it a bit, and stood up. "Alright, let's go."
She looked like she wanted to object, but decided to just accept that his orders had already been disobeyed and there was nothing she could do about it. She'd just be grateful that he was ready to cooperate again.
She led him up to the ground-level floor, where a number of antsy-looking B.S.A.A. security guards were waiting around, talking into their radios. As soon as he walked in, he saw about half of them pause in whatever they were saying, say one more thing, and put the radios down, shaking their heads in exasperation. He'd been told to deal with the data later, but given how much evidence there now was that they had a mole, he wasn't about to take any chances. He'd amassed all the data in one spot, backed it up, and now felt pretty confident that it would be delivered safely.
He tossed the silver briefcase to the head of security as the man walked up. He was a tall, bald fellow named Grant. Grant caught it, scowled, and said, "Agent Fisher, you were ordered not to start working on the data until we got everything back to HQ."
"I took the necessary precautions. Everything is fine, and now HQ is assured of a full, complete data file. All the originals of everything are in there, along with the master file in the blue USB. Now, are we ready to go or not?"
The man eyed him darkly for a moment, then scowled slightly and nodded towards the doors. "Yes, everyone is waiting. Right this way."
Reynard was led out to the tarmac, where a small private plane was waiting, two combat jets to either side of it. They were to have an escort back to HQ. Probably a good idea.
Grant nodded curtly in the direction of the party waiting to board, and Reynard went to join them without comment. His belongings, what few he'd retained, had already been loaded, or else were on his person. So had everyone else's. They were all ready to go.
Alyssa and David were on the outskirts of the group, obviously just a touch uncomfortable around all the impressive soldier-types milling about. Friends or not, they came from different worlds, and the world of bioterrorism was a scary one. It left marks on those who lived in it. As the pair saw him, however, they both brightened up and scuttled right over, Alyssa very slowly on account of her back brace.
She wrapped her arms around him in a brief, fragile hug. "Hey, Reynard. Ready to go?"
"Hmph," he grunted, nodding shortly and pushing past. She wasn't bothered. He'd been even gruffer with them when they'd come to visit him, and for whatever reason, they refused to find his irritability with their affection anything other than amusing. They'd loitered in his room for nearly an hour that first day, making sure he was alright, reassuring him that they were alright (not that he'd asked), talking about their plans moving forward, and just generally trying to keep him happy and entertained. He was not a happy man by nature. Alyssa's insistence upon folding him a small menagerie of origami animals had done nothing to alter his mood.
"Reynard," Sheva greeted him warmly as he joined the main group, flanked by his civilian duo. "We were all wondering where you were."
"Wrapping up the data files, making sure everything would get to HQ safe and sound," he replied. "I don't trust these administrator types as far as I can throw them." He didn't trust their security either, for that matter, but he kept that sentiment to himself.
"Probably a safe bet," Chris commented as, beside them, the plane started revving up. "HQ is working on flushing the mole, but we haven't found anything yet. They're buried deep."
Again, Reynard just grunted. A wise mole would bury its nose in the ground and mind its own business for the next few years. But the aftermath of a near-calamity like this was a time of extreme opportunity for everyone, so odds were they'd have at least one more chance before their traitor went deep. Hopefully, they wouldn't miss it.
And we have more than just hope on our side now, he thought, expertly keeping the smirk off his face.
"Ey, let's get aboard," came a slightly rasping Jamaican voice near the boarding ramp. "There's a storm in the air, and it's makin' mah stumps ache!"
Sheva turned and went straight to her friend, one Doug Meyers, who had finally recovered enough to make the trip, to help him up the ramp. Most of them had been ready to go by the end of the week, but they'd all agreed to wait a few more days so Doug could travel with them, and he'd needed extra time.
Josh, too, went over to offer a hand. "Yeah, yeah, keep your remaining limbs on, we're moving."
"Anyone eva tell you you're a jackass, Josh?"
"Ah, you know, you're right. I'm being so callous, I could kick myself. I'd let you do it, but—ey!"
The wheelchair-bound double-amputee turned abruptly on one wheel and aimed a kick with what was left of his leg right at his friend's crotch. Josh jumped back, but Doug was insistent, and tried wheeling after him, waving his stumps for a minute before Sheva grabbed his chair, laughing, and turned it forcibly back towards the plane. "Enough roughhousing, you two. Let's go before that storm rolls in."
Doug just grumbled, "Why, I oughta…" but it was obvious he wasn't actually angry. He'd been cracking jokes about his new condition ever since he'd regained full consciousness. Alyssa was laughing as well, and had been the only one besides Sheva to do so all week. She'd taken a liking to Doug, especially after discovering that he'd put his own life at risk delaying treatment in order to see her rescued. She and David both went over to join in the fun.
Sheva wheeled him up the ramp. As they all ducked inside to get their most injured companion situated, Chris remained behind. He stared in the direction of the well-risen sun, though not directly at it, and Reynard could see all the post-mission thoughts and worries churning around in his head. He was not at ease, nor would he be until the mole was found, the hearings wrapped up, and he was on his way to the three-week vacation he and Jill had already been approved for. He'd covertly informed Reynard that they would be spending it together on some distant island, catching up and recovering from the last few years.
Pansies. Several years of unrelenting strain and hardship followed by a little acute PTSD and suddenly you need a vacation.
Well, he supposed he couldn't blame them. Actually, he'd gotten a week off for this shit-show, and though his had been mandated rather than requested, he hadn't protested nearly as strenuously as he usually did. His face still looked like he'd been snogging a meat tenderizer, after all.
"HQ is working hard on flushing the mole," Reynard remarked as they both squinted and looked away from the sun, which had just emerged from behind partial cloud-cover. That storm was rolling in fast, and the sun was covered again soon after.
Chris nodded. "Yeah, I know."
Reynard smiled wryly. "Doesn't provide much comfort, does it?"
Chris sucked in a long, hissing breath, then let it out in a sigh. "Nope."
Reynard shrugged. "Eh, well, everything will sort itself out eventually. As for the data we managed to bring back, I think it will go a long way towards helping us flush out the rest of Umbrella's remains. You know one of those papers you grabbed had a list of top-ranking Umbrella officials, both deceased and living?"
Chris looked a little perplexed at the casual shrug and change of topic, but let it slide. "No, didn't get a chance to look all of it over. If there's that much, maybe we should delay our vacation and—"
Reynard waved a hand. "Go enjoy yourselves. B.S.A.A. Intelligence will do a better job with it all than you could. Go do whatever it is 'partners' do when they get half a month alone together on a beach."
He cleared his throat and clenched his jaw. "It's not like that."
Reynard chuckled a little as he saw Jill Valentine walking up out of his periphery, just close enough to hear the conversation, with both hands on her hips. "If you say so," he said.
"What are you two talking about?" Jill said as she stepped around in Chris's line of sight. He hadn't heard her coming, and he started a very little and ran a hand through his hair.
"Talking about the mole," he answered promptly. "And that vacation. What do you think, snorkeling? Hang gliding? I've always wanted to learn how to surf."
"Oh, yeah," Jill said, eyes flashing. "I think we can manage a bit of sport in our down-time."
At this point, Alyssa's voice came floating down to them over the now-steady whine of the plane engines in an awkward shout.
"Hey, guys! Uh, Doug says it's time to go. Please!"
There was more shouting from inside the plane, and she looked back, ducked her head, turned back to them, and yelled again. "Uh, actually Doug says, 'Get your lazy asses in here!'" She coughed into her hand. "Please!"
Laughter rang out in the plane. Chris was glad to take this opportunity. He started over at once, eager to duck out of the conversation. And because he turned away, he didn't catch the look Jill graced him with. It was a very openly appraising look, with enough heat in it to make Reynard think that maybe their partnership was about to ramp up a notch. Just maybe.
She looked at him and winked, then said, "Always good to see you, Reynard," and started up the ramp as well.
"Likewise. Hey, I want to be there for your debriefing, if you don't mind. I'm sure you got lots of good intel during your internment in hell."
"Oh, yeah. Don't worry, I'll get you a front row seat."
They stepped on and got themselves seated. Alyssa was next to David, right behind where Chris had chosen to sit. Jill went up to sit next to him, turned in her seat, and began chatting with the pair. Sheva was sitting beside Doug while Josh was in front of them, also turned in the seat to chat, and rather than sit next to him, Reynard took a spot by himself in the very back.
Here he pulled up his computer, got it situated in spite of the 'Please put away your electronics' message from the pilot, and just before the plane started rolling down the runway, he sent out the one-time ping that would tell him the current location of that briefcase he'd handed off to Grant, the head of the B.S.A.A.'s North American branch security team.
The briefcase should have been in the cockpit of the plane they were on. Instead, it was in the rear of the security jet to their right, which would be landing at a different runway, and would be met by more B.S.A.A. HQ security upon landing, rather than a squad of trained agents.
The ping went off once, died as the tracking program deleted itself and became untraceable, and Reynard laid back and smiled.
OoO
I was so happy when I heard those dialogue clips from Umbrella Corps. Wesker was - is the best villain in the RE series. That said, it always seemed strange to me that Wesker, otherwise extremely intelligent, would think that Uroboros would be capable of achieving the kind of Utopia he sought. That's one of the reasons I went with the cloning route - It could account for the clear psychological instability. That, and it was by far the most entertaining way to write the story. I mean, what's more fun than writing Wesker?
Writing TWO Weskers.
Far-fetched? Sure. But hey, there are only so many ways Wesker could have survived taking a rocket to the face while standing in an active volcano, and until the verdict comes in from CAPCOM, we fans have full creative liberties. I mean, we always have full creative liberties, but more so when the story is up in the air :D
There are still a few tidbits to wrap up. I'll see you in a few days :)
Best,
The Topaz Dragon