"Doctor, hand over the G-Virus." Deep within Umbrella Corporation's underground research facility, five fully armed soldiers surrounded William Birkin, the original owner of the laboratory.
"Impossible." Even with guns pointed at him, the moment he heard someone wanted to seize the fruits of his labor, William Birkin's first thought was to protect them.
Rat-a-tat-tat.
Before William Birkin's hand could touch the case containing the G-Virus, the five soldiers surrounding him immediately opened fire. William only had time to let out a scream before falling backward onto the laboratory bench, smashing all the Test Tubes and equipment on it.
"Sorry, Doctor." After saying that to William Birkin, who lay in a pool of blood, the soldier at the front immediately checked the silver-white alloy case on the laboratory table. Upon confirming that the contents were the target, he locked the case and picked it up.
"Target secured. Withdraw." With that, the five of them quickly headed for the laboratory door.
"I won't let you get away with this." Just after the five left, William, who should have been dead, unexpectedly woke up. Despite having been shot at least dozens of times, William was still alive. It was nothing short of unbelievable.
After waking up, William picked up a syringe containing the G-Virus. After hesitating slightly, his gaze instantly hardened, and he injected himself.
Roar!
As the G-Virus entered his body, William could not help roaring as his body began to swell.
"William, no!" Annette, who had rushed over from the other side of the laboratory after hearing the gunshots, cried out involuntarily upon seeing this scene.
"William." After hesitating briefly, Annette immediately rushed toward another laboratory, where the antidote to the G-Virus was stored.
"Proceed to the main control room immediately, activate the self-destruct system, then evacuate." The squad carrying the G-Virus received new orders from above.
"Understood." The squad's Captain immediately nodded.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
But at that moment, everyone in the squad felt the ground begin to shake. They immediately turned on alert and looked behind them, only to discover a strange monster charging toward them.
"Open fi—" Before the squad Captain could finish speaking, the monster rammed him away, slamming him hard into the wall beside him and knocking him unconscious. The case in his hand flew away as well.
Rat-a-tat-tat.
The rest of the squad immediately opened continuous fire on the monster, but the bullets striking its body seemed to have no effect at all.
Although these people were renowned mercenaries, it was their first time encountering a monster that guns could not harm. In their panic, they were quickly dealt with by the monster.
After disposing of them, the monster did not even glance at the case containing the G-Virus on the floor before walking deeper into the research facility.
"Damn it, William! Deploy the UBCS troops! Bring the G-Virus back to me no matter what!" Watching the scene through the cameras on the mercenaries, Umbrella Corporation's High Command furiously punched the table beside him and shouted the order.
Through the camera, the face on the monster's body could be clearly seen. It was William Birkin.
"Yes."
"William, it seems you failed. But that works out perfectly." In a secret room, Wesker watched everything unfold on the screen in front of him and revealed a cold smile.
"You can act now. The G-Virus is at..." Wesker then made a secret call and told the person on the other end the G-Virus's approximate location.
"Understood." A low female voice came from the other end of the call.
"You'd better hurry. The UBCS has deployed in force, and Sergei has ruined everything. This city isn't safe anymore," Wesker reminded her.
"Spencer, it seems even God wants you dead this time. I won't even need to interfere. All I need to do now is wait patiently. Heh heh heh heh." Hidden in the darkness, Wesker wore sunglasses as always, and a red gleam reflected in his lenses.
"Requesting support! Requesting support!" Despite being extremely well equipped, the USS troops suffered heavy casualties after infiltrating the underground research facility. On one hand, they had underestimated mutated William's strength.
On the other hand, the research facility's automated defense system, along with the Lickers and Hunters, had been released after mutated William's rampage damaged the facility.
Annette had also activated the automated defense system and sealed off the laboratory, leaving those mercenaries with no chance to escape.
To prevent mutated William from escaping and searching for Sherry, Annette understood the G-Virus's properties very well. Using her authority, she trapped William inside the laboratory. However, this also turned the many researchers and security personnel inside into sacrifices.
Because Annette had sealed the laboratory, Umbrella Corporation's High Command outside had no way to open its doors for the time being.
Even though they had higher authority than Annette.
This had originally been a safeguard against bioweapon leaks. Since they were researching bioweapons, how could Umbrella Corporation possibly neglect the security of such weapons?
To say nothing else, every research facility had a self-destruct system. On one hand, it was meant to destroy evidence in the event of an incident. On the other, it ensured that bioweapons would not leak out.
Umbrella's High Command were not fools, nor were they madmen seeking to destroy the world. Their purpose in researching bioweapons was to make money, as well as fulfill the personal goals of Spencer and the other higher-ups.
But they did not want to destroy humanity.
Even when Umbrella Corporation moved to seize William's G-Virus this time, they had intended to activate the self-destruct system afterward and erase everything. The one thing they had not considered was William mutating.
In Umbrella Corporation's High Command's plan, they would kill William for betraying the company, seize the G-Virus, destroy the laboratory, then kill Chris and the other survivors at the Mansion. This virus leak incident would be reduced from major to minor, then from minor to nothing, and Umbrella Corporation could find another place and rebuild.
The cause of all this was the Ecliptic Express Incident. Everything stemmed from Marcus's attack. If he had not controlled the Leech Virus to attack the train and the Training Facility, Umbrella's actions would likely still have remained top secret, and Raccoon City would still have been the happy Raccoon City it once was.
The earlier incidents around Raccoon City involving Zombies and Zombie Dogs attacking people were not what Umbrella Corporation wanted either. Those had also been Marcus's doing.
Marcus wanted revenge against Umbrella Corporation, but he dragged Raccoon City into the Abyss in the process.
Speaking of Marcus, he had been one of Umbrella Corporation's founders. However, more than a decade ago, he had been assassinated by his companion Spencer and his two disciples, Wesker and William Birkin.
The reason was simple: Marcus had been using Umbrella Corporation's researchers and staff for virus experiments. Spencer, Wesker, and William Birkin were not good people either, and they also experimented with viruses on humans, but they were not as deranged as Marcus, directly targeting people within the company.
That was an extremely dangerous thing to do. Umbrella Corporation's employees all had families and relatives. If the occasional experimental accident caused casualties, Umbrella could resolve it easily enough through its power and wealth. But if a large number of people died, it would not be so easy to cover up.
From the moment it was founded, Umbrella Corporation had been conducting all kinds of experiments on the Progenitor Virus. Naturally, this included human experimentation. The reason they had never been exposed was because Umbrella Corporation was extremely cautious.
There were plenty of people to use as test subjects: homeless people, illegal immigrants, and orphans. These were groups that attracted little attention, and even if they disappeared, few people would care.
Moreover, Umbrella Corporation cooperated with the government, which gave them plenty of prisoners and death row inmates to experiment on. There was no need to take such a huge risk by using ordinary people as test subjects.
Billy, as a death row inmate, had been sent to Raccoon City to serve as an experiment. He had even been an elite soldier.
Unfortunately, Marcus ruined everything. In a way, Marcus had saved Billy's life, yet he ended up dying miserably at Billy and Rebecca's hands. It could be considered karmic retribution.
The wheel of fortune turned, and now it was William's turn to be betrayed by Umbrella Corporation. The only difference was that he dragged all of Raccoon City down with him.
"Bastards! Damn it! Those people all deserve to die! Cough, cough." Inside a deserted ancient castle, Spencer sat in a wheelchair with an IV drip. After hearing his subordinate's latest intelligence report, he was so furious that he nearly coughed up blood.
Umbrella Corporation had painstakingly grown to this scale, with countless branches and secret bases around the world. The plan had been on the verge of completion, yet such a disaster had occurred. How could Spencer not be furious? He did not have much time left.
The Umbrella Corporation of this world differed greatly from the original work. When Spencer and the other two first discovered the Progenitor Virus, they had taken it directly to the greatest scientist of the time, Dr. Abraham Erskine.
Dr. Abraham Erskine was indeed extraordinary. By studying the Progenitor Virus, he developed the Super Soldier Serum, creating two enhanced humans: Red Skull and Captain America.
The original plan had been to use the Super Soldier Serum to create a large number of enhanced soldiers and defeat the fascists led by Red Skull, who possessed all kinds of weapons far beyond that era.
Unfortunately, after Captain America's enhancement was completed, the Doctor was assassinated. He left behind no formula, only a single vial of serum.
Afterward, countless scientists tried to use that vial to reverse-engineer the serum's formula, but they all failed and even wasted the entire vial.
Of course, those scientists were not all idiots. They did achieve something: a weakened version of the serum. Though it was far inferior to the serum Captain America had received, that was already their limit.
And the injections carried enormous risks.
While many people worked to recreate Dr. Abraham Erskine's Super Soldier Serum, Spencer and the others set their sights on the Progenitor Virus because they knew the Doctor had developed the Super Soldier Serum by studying it.
Umbrella Corporation was established afterward. Unfortunately, despite paying countless costs, Spencer ultimately failed to develop an Enhancement Serum like the Super Soldier Serum that had no Side Effects at all.
The reason Spencer invested vast amounts of manpower, resources, and effort into researching the Progenitor Virus was not merely to develop bioweapons for profit. That was only incidental.
Spencer's true goal was to gain immortality through researching the virus, then become a god who ruled humanity.
Unfortunately, as time passed, research into the Progenitor Virus never made any major breakthroughs. This made Spencer extremely anxious, because he was growing older and older. Although Umbrella Corporation's formidable scientific capabilities had kept him alive, that was merely treating the symptoms, not the root cause.
Under such circumstances, Spencer would not care if Umbrella ran into trouble or even went bankrupt. But if the research stopped, he could not ignore it.
Aside from Umbrella Corporation's situation, what angered Spencer even more was the Doctor's secrecy regarding the Super Soldier Serum. After Red Skull became the first successful enhanced human, Spencer had gone to find the Doctor, but the Doctor had ignored him completely.
However, Spencer was still Spencer. Once his anger subsided, he quickly came up with a remedy, hoping to minimize this incident's impact on Umbrella Corporation.
P.S. Please point out any typos whenever possible. Simply saying there are mistakes makes them hard for me to find. It is difficult to spot problems in my own writing.