The Arklay Outbreak

Chapter Forty-Nine

Wesker returned to the lab again to make some final preparations before he went back to the police station for the start of his shift. Coming back was always kind of tricky, because there was always a chance that a zombie might find its way to the entrance Wesker used. But so far, he hadn’t encountered anything on his trips back and forth.

Before he went to the labs to set up the finishing touches, he stopped at the security room and checked on the progress of the surviving S.T.A.R.S. members. Enrico had last been seen sneaking into a supply closet down in Delta lab several hours ago. Likely, he was getting some sleep while he had a chance. Ken was still crouched in the corner, where he had been for about twelve hours. Forest was still dead, and Edward and Richard were still missing and probably dead as well.

Rebecca and her partner were the big surprise. Wesker checked the video of the rail car connecting Marcus’ labs to the treatment plant, and when he turned them on he was stunned by the image of the completely destroyed car smoldering amongst the wreckage of the entry platform. It was a complete disaster, so much so that Wesker couldn’t imagine anyone walking away from it alive. They must have hit the platform going full speed, although Wesker had no idea why they would do something like that, unless the brakes failed, which was entirely possible. But why travel so fast in the first place?

A few minutes later he tracked down the video from a camera in one of the many elevators in the plant. Wesker was treated to a rather exciting video of Rebecca and her partner fighting off a zombie right in the elevator, killing it by stabbing it in the head with a length of pipe. Wesker thought he was about to watch them both get killed, but they miraculously walked away unhurt.

What surprised him most of all was that they seemed to know where they were going. The elevator they used was not the closest one to the rail car platform, and they used it to get all the way to the third level of the plant. The soldiers Spencer sent had not made it very far, and already Rebecca and her partner were that close to escape. That was certainly an unexpected twist. Rebecca, the youngest, most inexperienced member of the team might be the only one to escape. Wesker made a mental note to deal with that later.

He made his way down into his personal research labs, where all of his most important, most secret work was done. It was his last outpost, so to speak. It was located far beyond Gamma and Delta lab, closer to the huge, underground power generator than anything else. Wesker knew half a dozen ways to get there, but they were all hidden routes requiring special access codes or knowledge of the numerous hidden passageways around the labs and mansion itself. For any of the S.T.A.R.S. members to get there would mean traversing the mansion, guardhouse, all of Delta and Gamma, and taking the emergency elevator by the scenic outlook. Possible, but unlikely. Enrico was more than halfway there already. Wesker made another mental note to deal with that as well.

The central lab itself was fairly large, fifty feet to a side, with most of the center of the room taken up with computer banks and tall refrigerated cabinets for storing samples. The front of the lab was lined with glass tanks for displaying some of Wesker’s creations. Currently, only one of the tanks was occupied. It contained a seven foot tall albino monstrosity with a club hand, one of the healthiest, most functional Tyrant specimens the lab had yet created.

On a wide metal desk in the corner were two refrigerated silver briefcases filled with various samples and cultures. Certain tests and experiments he worked on occasionally, when he could find the time. A few very secret projects he worked on with the help of a few trusted colleagues who were now fortunately dead and roaming the halls of the Spencer mansion. Wesker was the only person still alive who knew of the existence of these projects, although he was sure that Birkin, just as an obvious example, would probably kill to get his hands on them. They were not complete, and they had not been fully tested, but they were the best thing Wesker had going for him. They were his Last Resort, with capital letters.

There was a secret door out of the lab room that he deliberately concealed behind a tall shelf. On the other side was a wide cement garage with a white sport utility vehicle parked there. The garage led to a steep ramp that ended at a pair of horizontal doors, like the doors covering a missile silo. On top of the doors was a thin layer of dirt and grass a few yards from a dirt road leading to the highway out of Raccoon City. Wesker had this emergency escape route built only about two years before. Again, Wesker was the only person who knew about it, except for the men who built it, who were all employed by Umbrella and by now were probably transferred halfway around the world to build secret labs somewhere else.

The SUV was packed with more refrigerated containers and boxes full of paper documentation. Most of the important files were all on computer, and in addition to the hundreds of floppy discs and CDs packed away, he also had packed entire hard drives full of information. There was a considerable amount of material at his house, but that was all secondary information that could be abandoned if need be. All of the most vital material, the very core of Wesker’s years of research, was in the truck. It amused him to think that his life’s work could fit inside a single vehicle.

And even that, the truck full of information, the things at his house, this was only the tip of the iceberg. Wesker had been busy in the past couple of days, and not just with the routine work of packing away his research, or the more complicated work of sending the S.T.A.R.S. members to their deaths. Almost from the beginning, he had been making his preparations. Now, almost everything was in place.

He picked up a phone and dialed a number that he had called twice in the past few days, but already he knew it by heart. It rang twice before the other end picked up.

“Yes?” a voice said, thick and heavily accented. Russian or German or Czech, or some strange combination of the three.

“Is everything ready on your end?” Wesker asked, skipping the preliminaries.

“I am ready. When should I begin?”

“Stay in position. I’ll call you from the police station later today.”

“I will. And afterward?”

“Just wait for my call.”

The man on the other end laughed, a deep, throaty chuckle that instantly conveyed an underlying feeling of malice and brutality. “I will wait then. But not too long. You are paying me a lot of money to do work for you, but with work there must also be fun, yes?”

“Just wait until I call. Then you can do whatever you want.”

“Yes, whatever I want.” There was that harsh laugh again, and Wesker felt himself shiver at the sound of it. What the man on the phone considered “fun” made Wesker feel uneasy, which was quite an accomplishment for someone as devoid of compassion as Wesker. He wished he’d had time to find a more agreeable accomplice, but time had been short. He had been forced to select from the bottom of the barrel, but as long as Wesker’s money was good, the man would stay loyal. Wesker would have to kill him later, of course, but that didn’t bother him. Surely, the man on the phone was planning to kill Wesker as well as soon as his obligation was at an end.

“Do not be waiting too long to call, Mister Wesker,” the man said, and hung up.

Wesker put the phone down. He would rather have done everything by himself, but he could not be two places at once. He needed hired help to do some dirty work for him. Their relationship was purely business-oriented, which suited Wesker just fine. He didn’t even like being in the same room with the man. But he would take care of some details while Wesker was busy. Unpleasant tasks call for unpleasant people.

It was almost noon. Time to go to work and brief Alpha team for their trip to the mansion. Pretty much everything else was done. The packing was nearly complete, Irons had been dealt with, and Wesker’s accomplice on the phone would take care of anything else for the moment.

Finally, Wesker could get something to eat and maybe take that hot shower he had been looking forward to.

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