Summary: Albert Wesker writes about William Birkin's marriage to Annette and the Tyrant project.
July 1st, 1988
It has been eleven years since I was hired as chief researcher at the Arklay laboratory. In a month I will be 28 years old. William has become a father, and his daughter is two years old. They met in the lab. There was a staff turnover after the death in strange circumstances of a couple of scientists on our team. Strange circumstances: we used them as test subjects for the T-virus.
Annette suddenly appeared as William's research assistant. She treated him patronizingly, as if he were a teenager. Perhaps she pitied him. And William was drawn to her because of her fascination with him, and because he had never met a woman who treated him in a naturally pleasant way and valued him beyond his stereotypical flamboyance. I suppose that was the reason, because he hadn't met anyone else and William, even if he didn't recognize it, longed to fulfil the American dream. They kissed for the first time in the mansion's cemetery, hidden behind some trees, and had their first date on the outskirts of the estate.
They fucked for the first time in his apartment in the staff hut. Annette's feigned moans echoed off the wooden walls. After the act was over, William knocked on my door to find out two things: how to tell if a woman is pregnant and if I had any condoms to spare. I didn't have any condoms to spare, and pregnancy tests were available in pharmacies.
Annette was on maternity leave for six months and by the glory and grace of the European bias of our personnel policies. They were married during the fifth month of pregnancy at Raccoon City Hall. Without my informed consent, I was given the role of witness and best man. They signed the paper and the three of us went to a restaurant for dinner. The celebration consisted of William and Annette looking at each other with a mixture of concern and tenderness over the fact that they were going to have a child while working in a clandestine laboratory for the illegal production of biological weapons.
Sherry was born in the summer and Annette took over the care of her offspring for the first year. William packed up and left the Spencer mansion for good to move to a newly built middle-class suburb in Raccoon City. William rejoined the lab a week after the birth of Sherry and Annette a year later. The child was left in the care of a nanny and her maternal aunt. No news of the paternal grandparents.
Umbrella underwent a complete restructuring. After the incident at the Antarctic base, scientists at the Arklay laboratory received a circular that all projects were to be managed by the two presidents. Our baptism of fire with the new management came after the Chernobyl accident.
We were gathered in the dining room of the Spencer mansion. All around us were men with English and what I thought was Scottish accents. William was nervous. The front door of the dining room opened, and two men entered the room. A grey-haired, ageing man, about Birkin's height, with a sibylline, overbearing manner; and another middle-aged, blond-haired, full-bearded man, much taller, with an inflexible, equally overbearing demeanor. Both sat at the head of the table in silence.
I instantly recognized who they were.
The English-accented suits were concentrated behind the older man, while the Scottish-accented ones behind the blond. Neither of them introduced themselves. The older man lit a cigar. The blond man cleared his throat and began to read a paper on the table without bothering to turn to us. The old man looked at us in amusement.
The blond man announced the start of phase three.
Project Tyrant.
A super-soldier made into a biological weapon.
He ordered us to match human DNA with the T-virus. Very few humans had the right genetic code, just over 10%, and we had to find a way to increase that percentage. The blond man spoke about genetics with a fluency and specificity that made me shudder. William's hands were shaking. After his lecture, the old man put his cigar out in the ashtray to summarize the key point of the project: we needed a human subject who, infected with the virus, retained a certain level of cognitive ability to carry out simple instructions.
The suits shoved us out of the dining room. Who were they, William asked.
Alexander Ashford and Oswell E. Spencer.
William blanched.
Our bosses, I added.
Our bloody bosses.
Albert Wesker