A Favor in Exchange

They took Gwen Stacy back to her home in Queens. Unsurprisingly, her father George, was already waiting for her.

After returning the man to his father, Henry didn't go straight back to East 49th Street, but instead went to his apartment in Tribeca District.

Eleventh floor, the secret base. The two Eternals leaders and the Spartan who were supposed to be here are nowhere to be seen today. But there is still one living person in the base.

It's definitely not Quicksilver or Makkari; those two speedsters have already started their world tour.

Sometimes we're notified in the morning that we're on Easter Island, but by the afternoon we're off trying our luck in Norway to see the Northern Lights. However, it's July now, and the days are long in the Northern Hemisphere near the Arctic Circle, making it difficult to see the aurora.

The two speedsters didn't care; they'd probably just head off to somewhere else that night.

In short, seeing these two at the secret base is really a matter of luck.

The new guest at the secret base is Alice. And her surname, Abernathy, now sounds like a half-hearted joke, because she already knows she's a clone, her identity a fabrication by Umbrella.

Seeing Alice idly lounging in the computer area, her screen displaying Umbrella data she'd gotten from JARVIS, and Alice blank, unresponsive expression on her face, was indescribable.

It's like trying to find what's real and what's fake in one's memories, in order to define oneself and determine whether one is alive or in some other state.

Simply put, the question of "who am I" has always troubled this person.

Unlike in the movies, where the pressure of survival leaves no time for philosophical questions in Zombies- infested post-apocalyptic world, the overly peaceful present only gives her plenty of time to overthink things. Henry stepped forward to greet her. "Sorry to keep you waiting. How have you been these past few days? Is there anything you're finding difficult to adjust to after the surgery?"

"It's alright, except for the annoying part where you have to do some weird disguises when I go out. Everything else is fine. The surgical site is healing very well, and there haven't been any problems." Alice said, leaning lazily against the ergonomic chair, propping her head up with one hand.

As for the surgery Henry performed on her, it was to remove all the chips that Umbrella Corporation had implanted in her brain and body, completely freeing her from their control.

Those eyes were actually bio-engineered prosthetic eyes; Henry hacked into them, rewrote the entire system's software, and blocked the original connection paths. If there's an opportunity later, he could consider creating new eyes to replace them. For now, as long as they work, that's fine.

"Although I haven't publicly released the details of ' Alice Project ' online, I do have a complete copy of the Umbrella Corporation's information from someone else. I'm not sure what they'll do, so I need to keep a certain distance between my daily actions and my true self."

"Just like you?" Alice asked casually.

"Of course, you don't think everything I do here is legal, do you? If it gets exposed, it'll be a lot of trouble for me," Henry said with a smile.

"But you still let me in here. It feels like you're saying that because I don't have a legal identity, or even that I'm not a 'person,' you can get rid of me at any time."

"Haha, it's not that serious. I promised you when we first met that if you helped me, I would help you too. You helped me get into the Hive Base and find the Umbrella Corporation's information. Now it's time for me to fulfill my promise."

Arriving at the computer area, Henry casually picked a chair and sat down. "C Mei, how's the search for ' Alicia Marcus' going? Have you found anything?"

At this moment, hundreds of subfolders appeared on the screen, right in one of the folder windows.

"Looks like there are quite a few people with the same name. Which one is the most likely?" One of the folders opened automatically, and the file inside was accessed. Henry looked at the file contents and the photo. "Alicia Marcus," born December 17, 1975, currently 29 years old.

"Hey, this photo doesn't look like she's 29 at all. You could easily mistake her for someone in their 80s or 90s. Her face is so wrinkled you could trap a mosquito, and she looks utterly dejected."

"Progeria..." Alice noticed the hereditary disease listed in the health section of the document.

Henry continued looking at the personnel file. "His father is James Marcus, a United Kingdom citizen and a renowned biologist. He is also one of the founders of the Umbrella Corporation, holding fifty percent of the shares."

"However, James Marcus passed away in an accident a long time ago, and all his shares were inherited by his only daughter, Alicia Marcus. It seems she's quite wealthy."

Alice frowned. "Did Umbrella Corporation do these things with her consent?"

"I don't know. But as a major shareholder, it would be an exaggeration to say she was completely unaware. Besides, Umbrella Corporation's initial research on the virus actually started with James Marcus, in order to treat his daughter's illness."

"Like Angela?"

"Somewhat similar. However, Alicia Marcus's illness is different from Angela Ashford's. But her father, James Marcus, made the same choice as Charles Ashford: to use the T-virus for treatment."

Alice remained silent. Based solely on the written information, she could not fathom Alicia Marcus's thoughts.

Henry didn't follow the clues in the movie and blindly guessed what this woman he had never met was thinking.

He simply looked at the documents and continued, "Dr. Alexander Roland Isaacs, one of the founders of Umbrella Corporation, is now the second largest shareholder after Alicia Marcus. He is an expert in Virology and currently serves as the CEO of Umbrella Corporation. He is also Alicia Marcus's legal guardian after James Marcus's death."

The crucial recording about the "Cleansing Plan" was not found in the materials found at the Hive Base. Therefore, Dr. Isaacs has not yet been considered the final the Leader and brought to the forefront for criticism.

Alice's attention was entirely focused on the other person's whereabouts. "The information here doesn't mention where she lives. So where do you think we should look for her? What If...? Dr. Isaacs is her guardian, will they live together?"

Henry pulled up the background information on the Umbrella Corporation, saying as he read, "The Umbrella was founded in 1968 in Paris, France. It was originally a pharmaceutical company."

"The headquarters later moved to Tokyo, Japan, and has laboratories in countries around the world. The largest investment was in Raccoon City, Colorado, where the Umbrella's influence can be seen in everything from hospitals to Police Station."

"And this is the information that's publicly available. According to internal Umbrella Corporation documents we found at the Hive Base, they have a secret laboratory in Death Valley, Nevada."

"They even took advantage of the collapse of the Red Empire to buy up an old submarine base on the Kamchatka Peninsula in the Far East and convert it into a biological weapons simulation testing ground and a clone manufacturing plant. Haha, that's really something."

"Big bosses like Alicia Marcus and Dr. Alexander Isaacs probably don't live too far from their offices, or they might even live on company property, provided they have on-site accommodations."

Alice looked at the world map on the screen; several marked locations were exactly the places she had just mentioned. "So you think we should look in this direction?"

"Yes, we can start from this point. We can also pay attention to how the Umbrella Corporation responds."

How so?

Henry explained, "What If...? they choose to protect themselves, these big bosses and shareholders might find a way to come forward and explain themselves. They'll shirk responsibility where necessary and take the blame where appropriate. As long as we successfully cut off the troublesome parts, the main body of the company can be preserved. In that case, they'll surface on their own, and we can come knocking then."