Testing and Response

Testing and Response

The deal had been made, so Evenson had no reason to stay. Howitzer personally saw him out and watched him leave for a while. Only after returning to his office did he figure out what had felt off ever since Evenson left. The bastard had actually left on foot.

This seemingly unfathomable executive of the Umbrella Corporation had not gotten into a stretched Cadillac after stepping outside. He had simply walked away on his own two legs.

However, Howitzer did not begin to suspect that the Umbrella Corporation Evenson had fabricated was merely a shell company that did not exist at all. Evenson's act had been far too convincing, leaving Howitzer firmly convinced that Umbrella Corporation was a powerful and mysterious company with advanced, mature biochemical technology.

Once a person became convinced of something, even if minor details emerged that seemed suspicious and contradicted their understanding, they would still come up with countless explanations based on their own logic. They would then select the most reasonable one or several explanations to make things fit their understanding and logic. This behavior was commonly known as overthinking.

Howitzer was overthinking right now. He had come up with all sorts of explanations for why the Umbrella Corporation executive had walked, but reasons like being environmentally friendly or exercising were dismissed immediately. As for not being able to afford a car, that possibility never even crossed his mind.

In the end, Howitzer concluded that it was for the sake of keeping a low profile and maintaining secrecy. Think about it: was someone walking among a crowd more noticeable, or was a luxury car more conspicuous? If you asked people on the street which direction a stretched luxury Cadillac had gone, five out of ten would probably remember clearly. But if you asked where an ordinary pedestrian had gone, it would be impressive if two people even had a vague impression.

No wonder I had never heard of this Umbrella Corporation before. So they had been operating with such a low profile. Howitzer firmly believed in his own conjecture.

"Sir, we lost him."

Just as Howitzer was considering whether he should stop taking cars and start walking whenever he went out, one of his subordinates entered and reported some not-so-good news.

There was nothing surprising about it. Howitzer had sent someone to follow Evenson, but not to learn his whereabouts; he had another purpose. Thus, when his subordinate reported that he had lost the target, Howitzer was not angry. Instead, the sight of the man brought him a faint sense of delight, and he merely asked calmly, "How did you lose him?"

"Five minutes after leaving here, he turned into a dark alley. When I went in, he had vanished without a trace." Howitzer's lack of anger did not mean his underling was not afraid. The man sweated constantly as he answered.

"Where does that alley lead?" Howitzer asked.

"It is a dead end, sir," the subordinate said, licking his lips.

"He climbed over the wall and ran?" Howitzer continued.

"Sir, the area is surrounded by buildings. Even the shortest is fifty stories tall." At three meters per floor, fifty stories meant a height of one hundred and fifty meters. Without having seen Spider-Man, no one had ever seen a person scale such a height in the blink of an eye.

"He could not have gone down the sewers, could he?" Howitzer laughed at his own question.

"Sir, the sewer... the sewer entrance is outside the alley." The subordinate's breathing became rapid, because he realized just how unbelievable his report sounded. His boss had told him to follow someone, yet he had lost the man in less than five minutes. Although what he reported was true, it sounded like a fantasy. Could his outcome possibly be good?

"Looks like he has special methods." Yet, to his surprise, his boss did not fly into a rage and have him dragged away to be shot.

"I understand. You may leave." If such a simple method could have yielded useful clues, then he would not have failed to hear even the name Umbrella Corporation beforehand. Sometimes, following someone was not to gain clues, but to show an attitude.

Hearing Howitzer's words, the subordinate felt as though he had been granted a pardon and immediately prepared to leave. But before he could even take a single step after turning around, he fell backward onto the floor and stopped moving.

The bodyguards in the room immediately went over to inspect him. One placed a hand against his neck and said, "He is dead."

At that moment, the unfortunate man's entire body had turned a grayish blue, while his hair had taken on a sickly withered yellow. His face still bore the smile of someone who had escaped disaster, but the stiffness of death, together with his wide-open yet lifeless eyes, made that smile seem especially eerie and terrifying.

"What a direct response," Howitzer said with a sneer. This so-called surveillance had only been a test, intended to probe the tolerance of the so-called Umbrella Corporation. It seemed the other party's tolerance was close to zero.

"Take him away." Having understood this, Howitzer ordered the corpse disposed of. But after seeing the body's color, his expression suddenly changed. He urgently said, "Wait. No one touch him. Call the hazmat team up here."

Judging by the corpse's appearance and the suddenness of his death, he had clearly been poisoned. But what poison was it? Thinking of what he knew about Umbrella Corporation, it was a company specializing in creating biochemical weapons based on the human body. Since they could produce human enhancement drugs, they should also be able to create deadly biochemical viruses. When Howitzer considered the characteristics of biochemical viruses, his face turned green.

Though he did not believe the other side would want to kill him over such a minor test, one could never be too careful. So he decisively summoned the hazmat team to disinfect the area and, while they were at it, check whether he might turn into a zombie.

Just as Howitzer had guessed, this was indeed Evenson's handiwork. With his current strength, even without Hubbs, he could easily detect someone following him. This was also his response to the surveillance, telling Howitzer that he had little patience and warning him not to do anything excessive.

Moreover, Howitzer would actually feel more at ease because this man had died, since he himself would have handled things the same way if someone had followed him. If the man had lived, Howitzer might have felt that although Umbrella Corporation was powerful, they still did not dare to fall out completely with Hydra. Then he would have pushed his luck and perhaps even launched a large-scale investigation, which was not something Evenson wanted to see.

However, Evenson did not possess any biochemical virus. What he had used was a Sorcerer curse, Apocalypse Descends, a slow-acting curse with a relatively long duration.