Over the years, Vera had pulled out all the stops. Centered around the Umbrella North American California Division under her leadership, she had covered emerging industries such as prosthetics, intelligent control, semiconductors, and electronic information while making great strides toward transforming into the military industry.
Under Drake C. Simmons's lead, after her Umbrella USA California Division obtained the industry certifications recognized by the Pentagon and Department of Justice, it did not matter whether the other major factories and workshops had been built yet, or whether the next-generation high-tech weapons from Arasaka and other Cyberpunk worlds had entered production. They had to establish the framework and secure their place first.
Bullets of every caliber, concussion grenades, gas grenades, smoke grenades...
They were relatively low-tech, yet indispensable.
Using experience and technical specifications from the Cyberpunk world for improvements, Vera relied on Umbrella's own influence to break into the California market at the earliest opportunity.
Local police departments, shooting ranges, shooting competition organizers, rifle associations, veterans' associations—Vera stuffed them all in, practically giving them away for free. She did not care about making money. Backed by the markets for drones, intelligent control technology, semiconductors, and zero-generation basic prosthetics, her California Division would make the money back elsewhere.
Secure the spot first, then open up the channels.
The American soldiers discussed it among themselves. The technical sergeant who had quickly learned to operate the drone slowly walked over to the general and said meaningfully, "Umbrella's technical reserves are substantial. This consumer-grade drone is more than adequate as equipment for individual reconnaissance, and besides..."
"There's enormous room for modification in the future. Whether it's fitted with bombs for controlled drops or used as a suicide drone..."
The general nodded. Regardless of Umbrella's original intentions in designing and producing this thing, with some modifications, it would indeed have powerful tactical effects.
As long as drone technology kept advancing, its future prospects were predictable.
"The grassroots feedback on the batches of reconnaissance drones purchased previously has been positive. The Chief of Staff places great importance on the role this emerging equipment will play on future battlefields."
The general lightly extended his hand and gave Vera a brief handshake.
"Dr. Russell truly deserves her reputation as a renowned expert in intelligent control technology and ergonomics. In only a few years, she has already iterated to this extent."
After a pause, he asked tentatively, "Doctor, military use differs from civilian use. It still requires more testing to adapt to the complex environment of the battlefield. Perhaps you could help our military further improve this little darling."
Where there were civilian models, there would naturally be military models.
Making it to the rank of general in the USA required at least this much shrewdness.
Vera had displayed so many drone components for him. With a few additions and modifications, they could easily turn civilian products into military ones.
"Furthermore, if these semi-tactical items are sold to the public on a large scale and fall into the hands of criminals with ulterior motives, could they affect social stability and public safety?"
Vera smiled.
What a thing to say. How many products sold in America were one hundred percent safe? That problem probably could not be solved even in death. Were they supposed to ban sales?
In the end, Vera brushed the subject aside with phrases like "the hypothetical conditions are insufficient," "we at Umbrella have absolutely no such intentions," "please trust our integrity and bottom line," and "we trust law enforcement agencies."
In short, they would discuss it later.
Which meant discussing it some more, researching it some more, negotiating it some more, weighing it some more, comparing it some more, considering it some more, observing it some more, taking another look, thinking some more, waiting some more, and waiting, waiting, waiting...
Okay, the matter was over.
The group continued touring the production line, asking and answering questions as the atmosphere became lively again.
"If I remember correctly, the only surviving founding elder of your company is British, isn't he?"
As if casually, after touring the large unmanned aircraft production workshop, the general listened to the guide continue explaining the specifications while looking at Vera and suddenly asking the question.
"Chairman Spencer is British nobility."
Vera stopped walking. She instantly understood the implication, but her expression remained unchanged.
"However, I grew up in America. The Black Umbrella Department I oversee is in America, and the vast majority of my employees are American citizens. In the future, even more Umbrella industrial parks will rise from the land of California and even other states."
Apparently receiving a satisfactory answer, the general merely laughed, a smile appearing on his slightly plump face.
"Umbrella will surely go farther under Dr. Russell's leadership."
The corners of Vera's lips rose slightly. "I'll gladly take that as a blessing."
The tour ended.
The Pentagon ordered Umbrella California Division's full range of drone products.
Consumer-grade, racing-grade, professional-grade, large aerial platforms, and other product lines—worthy of the wealthy American military, every line began with orders in the hundreds. And this was only the trial deployment when drones were first adopted in 1998.
Unlike the experimental batch purchases from some time ago, this order marked a long-term partnership.
There would be large-scale purchases every year, even increasing year by year. At the end of the year, it would be submitted to Congress for review and listed separately in reports on military expenditures and defense budget requests.
Everyone was happy.
Vera saw the Pentagon delegation out of the industrial park. Dedicated personnel would take them to a hotel partnered with Umbrella, where they would be fed and entertained well. Everyone was human; no one was in that much of a hurry. They could have some fun before returning to Washington.
Tap. Tap.
Back in her office at the industrial park, her fingertips idly tapped the Pentagon order contract and cooperation service qualification certificates on her desk as the proper smile on her face slowly vanished.
"Sure enough, the pros and cons involving the prosthetics industry, semiconductors, intelligent control, and electronic information industries are too great. Not only has Umbrella caught the attention of the antitrust bureau, even Washington, which shares a father-son relationship with the British, can no longer sit still."
Umbrella was the leader of the global medical industry, and Washington had tolerated it.
But now Vera had established Umbrella's Black Umbrella Department.
Its functions covered prosthetics, intelligent control, weapons, semiconductors, electronic products, and several other emerging industries, all at world-leading levels. Its scale had visibly grown larger over the past two years, and the officials in Washington could no longer remain seated.
If Umbrella itself had not been divided into the "Four Umbrellas," with distinct factions, and if it did not maintain powerful political lobbying groups and legal teams, Spencer himself would have been summoned to attend an antitrust hearing even while sitting in a wheelchair.
The more successful Vera became, the more Washington would want to split Umbrella apart—at the very least, split apart Umbrella USA.
It was only a matter of time.
Drake C. Simmons could only delay it, not stop it. Besides, he likely welcomed Umbrella's breakup.
"Disembarking" would happen this year.
Vera's elegant brows furrowed slightly. Leaning back in her executive chair, she adjusted into a more comfortable position, stretched out her long legs, and unfolded the Colorado newspaper she had ordered.
In one inconspicuous corner of the paper, a small line read: "A serial murder case has appeared in Raccoon City. The RPD has announced that it will certainly eradicate this satanic cult organization..."
September 20, 1998.
The news was severely delayed. Without question, Umbrella had forcibly suppressed it.
"Soon." A strange thrill and sense of urgency rose from her chest as Vera gently rubbed her temples.
The time to leave Umbrella had ripened.
This was not Arasaka. That old bastard Oswell E. Spencer was already useless.
Over the years, Vera had done more than enough for Spencer and Umbrella's Board of Directors.
Cultivation?
There had not been much of that. She was not some superior product of the Wesker Project, but a naturally emerging wild genius who had happened to join Umbrella.
For every investment they had made in her, she had returned several times over, even dozens of times over.
Forget Western ideals of freedom and universal values—even in the East, Vera's act of establishing her own business and changing jobs could not be morally criticized.
Besides, Umbrella itself was dirty. The T-Virus project, the G-Virus project, B.O.W. bio-weapons... and the Resident Evil outbreak in Raccoon City that was about to erupt. She had ten thousand reasons to leave in anger.
From the moment she entered Umbrella, Vera had been preparing to run.
Whether at Umbrella Board of Directors meetings or private product launches, she had repeatedly opposed the company's unlimited investment of funds and experimental materials into biological research, never concealing her criticism and disdain.
She believed the company's strategic direction was wrong, that the direction she proposed was the right one, and that the company clung to outdated ideas while favoring impractical, excessive medical treatment.
After several years of acting, everyone paying attention to Umbrella knew that Director Vera of the Black Umbrella Department was a genius, a major contributor to Umbrella's transformation and expansion, and also the senior executive most dissatisfied with the Board of Directors' old established strategy.
It was not as though no Umbrella veterans were dissatisfied either, but Vera could make money.
No one would turn against money.
Fine, they would treat her like an ancestor to be appeased.
At the same time, many Umbrella insiders were influenced by Vera. Thinking it over carefully, they realized... she seemed to have a point.
How many resources had the company invested before and after into those taboo biological virus fields? Yet few of the results could be monetized.
If the Cold War had not ended in 1991, allowing them to take in unemployed Eastern European military officers and luckily obtain a host body capable of stably adapting to the T-Virus, their results might have been zero.
Seen that way, the future of Machinery Ascends that Vera described was undoubtedly more credible.
Eternal Life was too distant to even discuss, but extending one's lifespan and maintaining health by replacing limbs and using bionic organs was tangible and visible.
As a result, a large number of people who had originally supported virology chose to switch sides and joined Vera's "Black Umbrella" faction.
What about Spencer?
He kept watching.
Perhaps Spencer had been both sinister and ruthless, as well as wise and decisive, in his youth. But now, for the dream of Eternal Life, the old man had become obsessed.
Vera understood Spencer's true nature very clearly.
Do not be fooled by how imposing the old man was on the Board of Directors, how he held absolute power, how he had spread such a vast operation across the world as though playing some grand game with unfathomable schemes hidden beneath it. The root of it was simple: he had gone this far because he wanted to prolong his own life.
That was why he supported Vera's prosthetic projects.
He also supported William Birkin's T- and G-Projects.
He even took the money Vera earned and poured it into the enormous sinkhole on William Birkin's side. Sunk-cost considerations played a part, but the fact that he had been hooked by the grand promises William Birkin painted for him, trapped by obsession and growing senile, was also an important factor.
Tap... tap...
Her fingers lightly tapped the desk. Having thought it through, Vera finally fixed her gaze on the red-and-white Umbrella logo in one corner of her desk.
Most likely this year, she would erase those Umbrella logos.
"After the Umbrella name becomes infamous, it definitely can't be used anymore... Ah, I've got it." A flash of inspiration crossed her mind. Seeming to think of something, Vera's lips curved into a faint smile as she took a notebook and colored drawing pens from the drawer.
Scratch, scratch.
MILITECH.
And a new logo appeared on the paper: a black background with yellow lines, a V-shaped design nested inside a square frame.
"Militech."
As she spoke the word, a chilling gleam flashed in Vera's eyes.
The vehicle manufacturing workshops had to enter production as soon as possible. Both Arasaka's and Militech's would be needed. Obtaining outdated models under the identity of "myself," an Arasaka Security executive, would not be difficult.
The prosthetics industry also needed to accelerate its pace of upgrades and iterations.
The implant devices she currently designed, manufactured, and marketed were mainly used to replace missing or damaged limbs and organs.
That meant limbs, artificial heart valves, vertebrae—these were all intended to save patients' lives or allow them to work normally after suffering severe physical trauma.
By the standards of the Cyberpunk world, these counted as zero-generation cybernetic components.
Vera needed to create genuine first-generation, even second- and third-generation cybernetic components to arm her private bodyguards.
At the same time, she needed to accelerate the absorption of part of Umbrella's private armed forces. Ideally, she would take over several U.S.S. special operations units. As for absorbing the U.S.F. guard forces, she had been working on that for a long time.
Arasaka-series weapons had already entered small-scale production, and Vera had delivered them to the U.S.F. guard forces under her control.
Her thoughts surged.
Just as Vera continued considering how to more conveniently extract greater benefits from the Umbrella that was about to collapse, knock knock...
"Come in."
"Director Russell, a man wants to see you. He says he has important information to pass on to you, something of great significance concerning the company's internal affairs." The secretary pushed open the door with an odd expression and reported somewhat doubtfully.
"Huh?"
Vera froze upon hearing that.
"What is his name?"
"He said his name is Chris Redfield."
Chapter 26: Chris, Return to Raccoon City (Combined Chapter)
Night.
Deep forest.
An eerie mansion.
The corpses of her comrade Kevin Dooley, broken bodies one after another, faces gnawed apart and torsos ripped open in a horrifying sight.
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