Summary: Oswell E. Spencer defines his plan for obtaining human test subjects for T-virus research.
He had chosen Raccoon City for its isolation, its poverty, its vibrant decadence. It was a wasteland, terra nullius[1]; a chimera, neither an industrial centre nor a small town in the foothills of the Appalachians. It was a want and I can't; a kind of American East End[2].
He landed there on the recommendation of a good old Californian friend. This friend, who knew of Oswell's eternal desire to found his Motor City [3], recommended the Midwest because of its accelerated post-war boom. Cities such as Detroit had expanded relentlessly, and others such as Gary had sprung up like mushrooms. In the late 1950s, he opened the first Anzec Pharma plant in Detroit. Twenty years later, the Umbrella Pharmaceuticals plant closed due to the oil crisis of the early 1970s and the ongoing outsourcing of manufacturing to the Third World, a process Oswell hoped would be completed with Thatcher's impending election victory. Because of its terrible location and limited industrialisation, Raccoon City participated in the birth of the Rust Belt [4], becoming one of the few towns whose mayoralty was sold to foreign and domestic investors for four pounds. This attracted Oswell like a moth to a fly lamp. He took over the town hall and in less than five years, subverting the law, had his country house and training centre built. The financial boost he brought, in return for his guaranteed interference in the council, meant more jobs, more houses and more middle-class families happy with their bland lifestyles, less crime, fewer vagrants and well-fed bellies thanks to co-optation and bribery. In short, his plan had worked.
But there was another problem. The question of the Progenitor. It all fitted into the jigsaw of interpersonal relationships, favours and shell companies that would be used to carry out the second phase. With the approval of the City Council and the dismissal of the police, the disappearance of a handful of junkies, prostitutes, beggars and poor Whites, Blacks, Latinos and Asians would not attract attention if it was done with care and wisdom. He had already chosen his first "hotbed": Eastside, the city's poorest area. A rattrap of dilapidated housing, half-ruined squats and caravan parks. Its residents struggled against the common ills of unemployment and drug addiction, the wilful incompetence of the authorities, the total neglect of the federal government and an unbearable desperation. In this situation, there was one problem: rats, and he proposed the solution: a fumigation company. They would either knock on the door or find an unsuspecting person driving a large, well-equipped van. The training centre was half an hour away. Sick, crippled or healthy: it didn't matter. Marcus would process the "commodity" and some of it would be diverted to Spencer Mansion. If it worked, the next step would be Europe.
That was what had been agreed.
Notes:
[1] Literally Latin for "no man's land".
[2] The East End of London, often referred to within the London area simply as the East End, is the historic core of wider East London, east of the Roman and medieval walls of the City of London and north of the River Thames. The area was notorious for its deep poverty, overcrowding and associated social problems.
[3] Detroit's nickname, in the sense of an industrial and corporate city.
[4] The term "Rust Belt" refers to the impact of deindustrialization, economic decline, population loss, and urban decay on these regions attributable to the shrinking industrial sector especially including steelmaking, automobile manufacturing, and coal mining.