July 31, 1995 - Arklay Laboratory (based on the G-Virus entry of Wesker's Report II)
Albert Wesker stepped down onto the helipad of the Spencer Mansion facility. It had been seven years since he'd last been here - when he'd put in for a transfer and gone into the Intelligence Department, which had included a tour in the Army - and it still looked the same - right down to the oppressive July heat and the song of cicadas from the trees.
William Birkin had been loitering behind the yellow line of the helipad, having arrived first. He was still absorbed with his notes. The sallow lines of his face had deepened, but he didn't look much different, otherwise. Birkin grunted a greeting as Wesker came up to him, and turned to walk alongside, as if no time at all had passed.
The researcher was no longer a fixture here either, as they had both once been. William Birkin had moved on to his own new, subterranean facility, NEST, once they'd finally wrung the first inkling of the G-Virus from the test subject who's languished there since 1967. That subject, afterward, had somehow re-acquired a degree of cognizance - and had used it to peel off the faces of three researchers in the last several weeks. Her termination had finally been approved from on high, and they'd been the ones assigned to do so.
William was reviewing the notes as they stepped into the elevator, glancing up finally to key in his passcode, and the elevator began its slow descent to the bottom. The smaller man glanced over to Wesker. "You've met the new head? Clemens?" he inquired. "Not sure he knew what he signed up for. Get ready for an earful."
"I've heard," Wesker replied. Clemens had been noted by his department as the highest risk of a leak, but this facility was having difficulty keeping decent senior staff. The expansion, shepherded by the Bright Raccoon 21 accord Mayor Warren was bringing in, would expand and solidify their regional footprint, and signal a vast expansion in the company's influence. There were a few other cities growing in sync worldwide like this, but Raccoon City was the epicentre.
The problem was, this particular facility fostered a very specific sort of genius, and Clemen's conventional ethical qualms were wearing on some nerves already.
"Course you have," Birkin grunted. He sighed. "They've lost three researchers in the last month. The bitch peeled their faces off like -"
"I've seen the reports," Wesker replied. "It's long past time that subject was terminated." The elevator slowed to a shuddering halt as it settled to the bottom floor of the lab.
The two men stepped out, met by a tall, thin man in his late thirties, with sandy blond hair and glasses. Doctor John Clemens's face was stony. "So you're finally ending this barbarity with that creature?" He asked, face tight.
Birkin blinked at him. "You know it's slated to be put down today. I figured you'd be calmer."
Clemens' knuckles were white around his clipboard. "Anders survived his…encounter…with it, so the Colonel 'borrowed' him for extraction day."
Wesker's brow furrowed, but Birkin seemed to perk up. "That's today?"
Clemens seemed to fight to keep his face in order. "He started it about half an hour ago." His expression was pained. "Is this really the time to enable that?"
Birkin breezed past him, Wesker having to trail in his wake. "The Colonel inherited that specimen, and no one else has but it to good use. You really want to get in the way?"
Clemens blanched, but hung back, letting Birkin lead Wesker deeper into the bowels of the lab. "You're still involved with the Tyrant program, then," Wesker said carefully after a long moment. "I take it Anders has been moved into the experimental group?"
Birkin glanced at him. "Vladimir got curious about the intake report for Placidia. They're building a production plant over in Europe- someplace called Sheena Island." He looked down at himself to hunt for a pen in his lab coat pocket. "There's a hormone they need to extract, the physiology is at a close enough age to the early trials for the Episilon strain that they can trigger it and collect, so Spencer approved moving her into the program as a satellite project." They turned and entered a viewing room.
A young woman, unconscious and in a hospital gown, was laid out in the surgical suite. She looked almost exactly the same as she had fourteen years earlier, nearly undisturbed by time.
Wesker watched the techncians secure her head into a cranial brace. It was strange- Birkin had always hated that she had been maintained here at Arklay, but had been deemed as strictly off-limits for direct experimentation.
Something about that specific set of mutations- the ageless quality, increased strength, for instance- had struck a chord in the old man, and he had deemed she be treated like a museum specimen- maintained, preserved, for some far-off show-room purpose that had never come.
Birkin glanced over at him again, and Wesker realized that he was gauging his reactions. "Spencer didn't have a change of heart, if that's what you're wondering," Birkin continued when Wesker caught him staring, as was his way. "You remember how hard it was to find decent candidates even spitting distance of a genetic match before he showed up. Something related to noradrenaline release when a source is exposed to extreme pain." Birkin rolled his eyes. "Of course, the specimen has an almost spitefully high pain tolerance, and anything chemical taints the extraction. He's treating it as a puzzle."
Looking down at the screen, Wesker saw another patient in a hospital bed, strapped down. They were minimally conscious, though clearly on some heavy pain medication; Lisa's latest victim. Looking back to the observation window, something clicked. "You're using pain stimuli. She can't be comatose for that."
Birkin sighed, residual annoyance from years past. "Grade 4 to a grade 3 coma, heavy 2 at worst. Anders won't survive his injuries, so he wants to get a reading on how her…thing…works in a controlled environment. He would have been exposed a few hours ago, apparently."
"Hmm." Wesker looked down into the surgical theatre, expression thoughtful. "I'm surprised this didn't occur to you."
Birkin's face went stony. "Spencer thought I wasn't objective. And you obviously weren't." Ah. While no one called Birkin on the malfunctions to the tank in the early years, Birkin had felt quite comfortable with his increasing insinuations of why Wesker had been so quick to catch the issue.
Wesker caste a mildly contemptuous look in Birkin's direction. "Far be it for anyone to let consequences stick to you," he replied mildly. Then, "It hardly matters anymore. That young girl died from her own research like anyone objective might have guessed would happened."
Birkin glared at Wesker for poking a sore spot on his ego (as if it weren't all sore spots), then rubbed his eyes. "I have enough shit to worry about as it is. "The mayor's releasing that 'Bright Raccoon 21 plan, and we're dealing with a ton of construction over at NEST while they get ready to announce it next year." He looked over at Wesker. "Weird trying to picture you as a cop, even if you do act like one."
Wesker gave a faint smirk. "Someone has to keep an eye on you now that you're amongst the general populace," he commented dryly.
"It's going to be a mess, but the mayor is using Umbrella funds, and is thoroughly bought and paid for, so he wouldn't be a bother. Someone has to manage Irons now that there are more researchers in the general population. He'll actually have to get his appetites under control," he added with a sneer.
A heavily accented voice crackled over the intercom. "While the chatter is interesting enough, boys, you should be watching the monitors, assuming this isn't just your weekday matinee," Sergei Vladimir said, directing nervous technicians to make a few final adjustments. A line had been inserted up the specimen's nose, secured by the brace and with the respirator. "We're set to stimulate the pituitary gland for the beta hetero nonserotonin hormone. It's a little unusual- normally it's extracted from the gland itself, and the subject doesn't make it. This one here has a stable regeneration factor- quite fun! But a pain in the ass, sometimes. We refine the process here though, and save the stock for the industrial-scale operation."
A table of…implements…that had a near-surgical appearance lay in a table next to Sergei. They weren't surgical in a functional respect. The techs around him had a deadened look to them, like they'd steeled themselves to think of the subject as cordwood. "Lisichka here is a tough little thing- surprisingly so. Some of my research suggests that the pain tolerance was built up over time, rather than being innate." a note of something like admiration was in Sergei's voice when he stated this. Though it does mean we have to work a bit harder for this." He slipped a bit between the specimen's teeth and began to get to work.
The woman's eyes flew open for a few brief seconds- a few techs tensed up- before they rolled back in her head, body straining against the restrains with a creaking sound.
On the monitor, Anders started screaming, and fighting to get out of the restraints despite his weakened, mangled state. About twenty seconds in, the man died of a heart attack.
Clemens had drifted down toward the extraction room in spite of his disgust with the whole affair, stopping himself from going in. Barbaric. This whole floor needed a serious overhaul in how it approached things, but no one seemed to want to hear it.
He had paused just outside the door when Wesker had brought up the girl Birkin hated so much- Alexia, that had been her name. Alexia Ashford. This specimen had strongly resembled…
John Clemens had been around just enough to know the rumours, muzzled but not stamped out, of the elder generations of that family and that knowledge, what was happening down here, was likely incredibly dangerous for him to have. Even he had heard of Rockfort by now. He might be seen as naive for clinging to basic ethical guidelines, but he wasn't suicidal.
He drifted back a few more steps into the hallway and waited for the assistants to finish with their…session.
It took a while. Finally, Birkin emerged looking serene, though Wesker was clearly tense. Interesting. But not something worth addressing today. "Finally. Can we please deal with your Nemesis cast-off, now?"
Birkin smirked at him, and turned to Wesker. "Well, at least we can put that bitch down. Let's get this over with."