The Mansion Incident

Chapter Thirty-Five

The lab room was silent except for Wesker’s slow breathing. A computer monitor on the table in front of him showed a hallway not far from where he was. Unlike most of the other security videos he watched in the past few days, this one was not a recording. It was a live view of the hallway currently occupied by the remaining four members of S.T.A.R.S. Wesker watched silently as the four of them talked together, and although he didn’t know exactly what they were saying since the cameras did not record sound, it was not difficult to figure out what the topic of conversation was.

Rebecca and Chris both produced papers for Barry and Jill to look at. Wesker had no choice but to assume they held his signature or some other unmistakable evidence. The quality of the video was far from perfect, but it seemed like they were arguing about something, or at least discussing something serious. Wesker knew it concerned the murder of Enrico and the identity of the traitor.

He never really considered the possibility that any member of Bravo would survive to be reunited with Alpha. But Rebecca was there now, and Wesker wondered what information she could give the others to implicate him. She knew that Bravo was sent to investigate a train crash, but Wesker told Alpha that they were sent to a government facility. He couldn’t even think of the number of inconsistencies between what he told Alpha and what Rebecca might be telling them now. They would have no choice but to assume that Wesker lied.

Wesker clicked off the monitor and closed his eyes, leaning heavily on the table. They would be here soon, and he would find out what they knew or suspected. His original plan to lure them into the lab to be killed might not be feasible now, since they might not trust him. And if they didn’t get trapped in the lab, Wesker could not be sure that they would be killed. And if any of them escaped to tell others what happened ...

Wesker didn’t even know what might happen. Irons might panic and lose control of the situation. Umbrella might learn everything. Wesker might not be able to get away for long. If Umbrella suspected he was alive, they would track him down.

Wesker stepped away from the table and walked slowly through the small lab, running his hands absentmindedly along the machines and lab equipment. He did so much great work there, so much revolutionary science, so much progress. Few people on Earth knew more about the extremes of biological and genetic science than Wesker. Birkin might be one, perhaps some other high level researcher at one of the other Umbrella laboratories. But Wesker felt, rightfully so, that he personally made some of the most revolutionary and important discoveries in the history of science. He did not just participate in the research at the lab, he practically created it. Truthfully, much of his research was built upon the work of others, most notably the late James Marcus. But Wesker believed that other scientists would never make the connections he made, or take the risks he took to achieve so much.

And he might lose it all. The world could lose it all.

Wesker’s mind went back to his very first day at Umbrella, all those years ago, when he was still young and confident and hopelessly naive. Back then, he thought that he was the most brilliant scientist in the world. And Umbrella seemed to agree most of the time. They promoted him early, along with Birkin, his only real peer, and put him on the fast track to management and senior researcher status at the lab. That was more than fifteen years ago. Wesker looked around the lab now, wondering about the final result of all his work. Had it all been for nothing? After fifteen years of amazing scientific achievement, was he about to lose it all in a storm of gunfire?

He wondered what would have happened if he could go back in time and warn his younger self what was going to happen in the future. If he could warn that cocky nineteen-year-old that all his hard work and dedication would end in a devastating plague and destruction of his life’s work. He wondered what would happen. Would he have chosen the same path? Would he have done anything different?

He didn’t even need to go back that far. He wondered what would happen if he could tell himself just a week ago what was going to happen. If one week ago, he could have known ahead of time about the infection at the lab and his plan to betray the S.T.A.R.S. team, would he have done anything different? Would he have made better plans? Would he have just followed Spencer’s advice and gotten away as quickly as possible? Would he have sacrificed his freedom for the greater good? Would it even have mattered?

Wesker’s aimless stroll around the lab led him to a silver briefcase lying on one of the large lab tables. Wesker flipped the latch and lifted the lid. Inside was a series of capsules and test tubes, and a single injection gun.

If he had known ahead of time, he would have spent more time on one side project in particular. For years, he fiddled around with the idea of an antidote for infection. He even mentioned it once to Birkin way back when Marcus was still alive. But little progress had ever been made, since the time from infection to death was under two hours. Even if there was an antidote, it would have to be administered almost immediately to be any good at all. Once the first symptoms of infection appeared, it would already be too late.

Plus, to make things even more difficult, the nature of the virus was such that no antidote could ever cure someone completely, since the virus itself was resilient to most biological attempts to destroy it. Anything strong enough to kill the virus would kill the host as well. The best they could hope for was some way to restrict it or contain it within the host. That meant that even if an infected person was saved, they would still be a carrier for the virus. An antidote would essentially turn someone into the most dangerous Typhoid Mary of all time.

But for years, Wesker worked on it a little bit at a time. It was never an important project, never a priority. It was the sort of wildly speculative project that could only be done in his spare time. He never even told Spencer about it. But now, he desperately wished that he had worked on it more thoroughly, done more tests and refined the process better.

Lisa was the key, of course. Poor old Lisa, somehow immune to the more devastating effects of the virus, and therefore doomed to a life of experimentation and torture. In all their years of testing and studying, no one at the lab ever figured out why Lisa was not killed by the virus. All they could hypothesize was that somehow, her unique DNA gave her some sort of resistance. She wasn’t exactly immune, because she did suffer from some physical deformities and went completely insane very early in life. But Wesker always believed that with some careful genetic altering, they might be able to make a real cure.

Inside the capsules were specially altered variations of Lisa’s blood. By itself, the blood was no use as a cure, or even a treatment. Once someone was infected with the virus, it was too late. But it seemed possible that if someone was given a dose of Lisa’s blood prior to infection, they could develop a resistance much as Lisa had. It seemed possible, but they never took the time to study it fully. It was a long shot, and any projects of that nature always took a back seat to more important research.

Of course, the obvious problem with this experiment was that Lisa’s blood already contained the virus. Over the years, Spencer infected her with almost every variation of the Progenitor that Umbrella ever created. By injecting the capsule, Wesker would basically be given himself a loaded dose of the virus itself, tempered with Lisa’s unique DNA.

It had never been tested on a human subject before. Wesker never imagined that he would be the first.

Wesker’s eyes traveled along the edge of the table and across the lab equipment to the person sharing the lab room with him. Although calling it a person was a stretch. Encased in a huge glass growth tank was an eight-foot tall Tyrant, one of the largest specimens the lab had ever created. It was still in stasis, but Wesker had already disconnected the sedative drips and other connections to keep the monster unresponsive. Right now, the Tyrant was essentially asleep, and it would not take much to awaken it.

He gently touched the injection gun. Fifteen years of hard work, and it all boiled down to this untested experiment as a last resort.

He knew that he was going to die sooner or later. If the S.T.A.R.S. members didn’t kill him then the Tyrant would. Or Umbrella’s commandos once they tracked him down. Or the man he’d hired to take Barry’s family hostage would try to kill him when he got his money. Or for all Wesker knew, a random zombie might get him when the epidemic finally struck the city. It was inevitable. At some point or another, Wesker was going to face death. So he chose to face it now.

He lifted the injection gun out and carefully placed one of the capsules in the chamber. It worked like any other gun, but the end of the barrel was a long syringe. One pull of the trigger forced the contents of the capsule right into the subject’s blood stream.

Wesker knew the time frame of infection better than anyone. In a normal test, he would not succumb to the virus for close to an hour. He would not even show symptoms of infection for twenty minutes. But his former coworkers would be here much sooner than that. Wesker needed to make sure he had no choice, but by that point, the virus would barely have any effect on him. In all their years of testing, they never thought to kill a test subject manually soon after infection, to see if it would still come back as a second stage host. Wesker didn’t even know what would happen if he got killed in the next few minutes.

He held the gun and slid his finger onto the trigger. He placed the needle against his other arm without breaking the skin. His breathing and heartbeat remained stable. At this point, he was not even scared. It was too late for that.

He pulled the trigger and barely flinched when the needle stabbed through his skin and injected the dose of blood into his body. He held the gun there for a few moments and then slowly returned it to the silver briefcase. He then closed the lid and locked it.

Nothing, he thought idly. I don’t feel anything. No fear, no pain, no regret. It’s like all my emotions have just been washed away. I don’t even care if I survive. I’m about as human as the creature in that tank.

He rubbed his arm where the needle punctured his skin, wiping away the tiny drop of blood that formed there. Strangely, he did feel something now. Just a slight tickle under the skin of his arm. It must be some unconscious mental reaction, because he knew that he would not physically be able to feel the presence of the virus in his bloodstream. But it did feel like he could sense the virus as it flowed through his body. It started as a strange tickle, and grew to an annoying itchiness, like a rash in his blood. He started to sweat.

And then a dagger of pain shot into his chest. He gasped for breath and fell to his knees, grasping his chest with curled fingers, scratching feebly at his shirt. It felt like someone jammed a red hot poker into his heart and started twisting it. Wesker doubled over, his whole body trembling, and his sunglasses fell off his face, clattering to the floor. He grunted painfully and tried to gasp for air, but his lungs felt like they were compressed in a vice. He couldn’t breathe.

This can’t be happening. The virus takes over an hour to inflict death. Loss of motor control doesn’t start for half an hour. The virus isn’t supposed to work this fast. Is Lisa’s blood somehow acting as a catalyst? There’s no way it should cause a reaction like this. This can’t be happening!

Wesker’s body shook as if trapped in a seizure. He forced himself down and held his arms in place to keep them from flailing around. He could taste bile in his mouth, and feel the sweat pouring out of his body. His blood pounded in his ears and his teeth clenched so hard he felt his jaw go numb.

He forced his eyes open. His sunglasses landed backwards, so that now the mirrored lenses faced back at him. Wracked with pain, he looked at his own twisted reflection.

What is happening to me? What have I done?

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