The Mansion Incident

Chapter Twenty-Three

Wesker took no enjoyment from what he had to do. It was much easier for him to betray his former coworkers and send them to their deaths if he did so from a distance. It was easier to treat them like expendable tools while looking at them through a security camera. But doing it up close made him feel sick to his stomach. This little meeting with Barry proved to be just as difficult and unpleasant as he had expected it to be.

Barry Burton was a broken man. Wesker knew that threatening Barry’s family would be the only sure way to guarantee his complicity, but it broke Barry’s spirit completely. He didn’t even look like the same person anymore; his shoulders were slumped, his eyes cast downward, his entire posture crumbling so that he looked a foot shorter than he really was. Wesker felt relieved that he had no family of his own. It would only make him as vulnerable as Barry.

“Barry,” he said. “Are you listening to me?”

Barry nodded weakly and looked up. “If anything happens to them, I swear to God ... words don’t exist to describe what I will do to you.”

“Nothing will happen to them as long as you do what I say.”

“I should just kill you now.”

“Go ahead and try,” Wesker said, waving the gun for effect. “You’re smarter than that. If I don’t call that man every half hour, your family dies. And if I don’t tell him a special code word when I call, your family dies.”

“How do I know he won’t kill them anyway?” Barry asked, his voice wavering.

“You’ll just have to trust me. I don’t murder innocent people, Barry. I know you won’t believe me, but I didn’t want any of this to happen. I’m doing what I have to do, but I need your help, and I knew you wouldn’t help me of your own free will.”

“Help you with what?”

It was time for the pitch. Wesker knew that even with Barry’s family hostage, he would not cooperate fully without good reason. If he bought Wesker’s story, things would go much more smoothly. “Do you have any idea what would happen if those zombies made it to Raccoon City?” Wesker asked rhetorically. “This is the plague to end all plagues. If it spreads to the city, then it’s all over. Say goodbye to civilization.”

“And you created it,” Barry snapped.

“It was discovered in 1962,” Wesker snapped back. “No one made it. And despite the evidence you’ve seen tonight, when they first discovered it, they didn’t know it was a disease. It was supposed to be a cure. Umbrella’s been experimenting with it for forty years trying to make it into one.”

“What does this have to do with us?” Barry asked, losing patience.

“I had to bring you here, I didn’t have a choice. I couldn’t fight this on my own. But you would never have believed me if I told you what we were up against. I hoped that Bravo could handle the situation, but it was much worse than I thought. So I had to bring Alpha here too.”

“What did you think was going to happen, Wesker?” Barry said, barely keeping his voice down. “You sent them here without telling them anything! You kept all of us in the dark!”

“I didn’t have a choice! No one can find out about this place, Barry. The work they did at this lab is too important to throw away. If the police or the government found out about it, they’ll shut the lab down in a heartbeat. I had to keep it a secret until we got here. I know you don’t understand, but the virus that made those zombies has the ability to cure cancer. I couldn’t risk throwing all the research away.”

“So the ends justifies the means?”

“Something like that. My plan was to bring you all here and lead you through the mansion and the labs myself. But then everything went wrong. Bravo’s helicopter crashed and I lost contact with them. And when we got here, Brad freaked out and flew away. I wanted to tell you and Jill what was going on when we made it inside the mansion, but to be honest, I was afraid you might try something against me.”

“You were right about that.”

Wesker ignored the comment and continued. “When we split up, I went to a hidden security room and checked the monitors. I found out something you might be interested in. Chris is still alive. He made it to the mansion.”

Barry’s head jerked up as if he’d been slapped in the face. It had the desired effect. For the moment, Barry’s anger was derailed. The thought of Chris being alive tipped the scales in Wesker’s favor. “But ... how?”

“Somehow, he outran those dogs and came in through a side door. I think Enrico and Rebecca might be alive as well. It took me a little while to go through the security videos. By the time I got back to the lobby, you and Jill were gone.”

Barry didn’t say anything for a second, but Wesker knew that the wheels were turning. He was probably trying to determine if Wesker was lying or not, and if it even mattered. He was looking at the positive side, which Wesker knew he would. Barry, Jill, Chris, Enrico, and Rebecca might make it out of this nightmare alive, and all Barry needed to do to save his family was ...

“So what do you want from me?” he asked.

Wesker pulled a folded up sheet of large paper from his back pocket and tossed it to Barry. He unfolded it suspiciously and saw that it was a map of the lab area. Wesker already highlighted some locations on it.

“I marked the last place I saw Jill and the others. I want you to find them and direct them to the emergency elevator I circled. Just tell them you found the map somewhere. Do not tell them about this little conversation.”

“What if I can’t find them?”

“Use that cell phone,” Wesker said. “My number is saved on it. Just make sure no one is around when you call. And don’t bother trying to make any other calls. I programmed it only to accept the numbers in the address book.”

Barry folded the map back up and put it in his vest. He picked up the cell phone and studied it before putting it in his pocket as well. Then he looked back up at Wesker. “I don’t understand. You didn’t have to bring my family into this. What’s really going on here? This can’t be all you want me to do. You could have done this yourself.”

“I’m busy doing other things,” Wesker said. “But I’ll meet you at the elevator. All you have to do is bring find anyone who is still alive and bring them there with you. But don’t tell anyone about me.”

“But why did you have to threaten my family? You could have found another way. You didn’t have to bring them into this.”

Wesker sighed. “Barry, you weren’t listening carefully enough. I promised not to kill your family. But I never promised that you were going to get out of here alive. You, or anyone else for that matter. You and Chris and everyone else will probably die tonight. I might not even survive. The only thing I can promise is that your wife and daughters will not be harmed. Now, do we have a deal?”

Barry stared at him and stuck out his hand, as Wesker knew he would. It wasn’t much of a deal, since Barry already knew that he might die before the night was through. But as long as his family was okay, then he didn’t care.

As Wesker shook his hand, he felt another slight twinge of guilt. All he had to do was keep one little promise, and he couldn’t even do that.

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