United Nations

"Hey."

William looked at the satellite phone and shook his head helplessly.

Back when he was still making his way through the "flower bushes," Andre had lectured him that, at his young age, he couldn't recklessly overdraw his health.

And now Andre was telling him to hurry up and find a partner?

Were partners really that easy to find?

He stopped thinking about it and sat down in front of Halsey again.

"The Spartan Program needs to be delayed for half a month before it can be implemented. In a few days, I'll have to make a trip to New York to negotiate the agreement with the United Nations."

"I see..." After hearing his explanation, Halsey gave a slight nod.

Although she was also a member of the Olympus Board of Directors, she only wanted to devote herself to research and didn't concern herself with various affairs.

That was also why Halsey had become the most mysterious director within Umbrella.

"Oh, right~" Leaning against the soft sofa cushion, she said to William:

"Give The Hive some more funding recently. I've come up with some new ideas, and they might require a little more money."

William answered without the slightest hesitation, "No problem. How much?"

He knew that Halsey was going to work on Herendine and a series of related technologies.

"Hmm~" Halsey tilted her head and thought for a while before saying several seconds later:

"Let's start with a billion... No, five billion~"

"Cough, cough!"

William became flustered when he heard that figure.

This really was spending just a billion more.

Five billion sounded like fifty dollars coming from Halsey's mouth.

Some provinces in Canada had annual gross domestic products of no more than four billion dollars.

After taking a moment to recover, William rubbed his chest and panted, "All right... I'll arrange it once the plane lands."

"Haha~ The boss really is the best~"

"Ah, just don't waste the money."

The formation consisting of an A380 and two F-22s returned from Containment Center One at high latitude to Troy Base.

As soon as they landed, Halsey was escorted back to The Hive by the USS assigned to protect her, where she continued her research.

Before Andre could catch him, William also hurriedly had Hunk take him away from Troy Base, heading for the former seaside villa's address.

Only, the villa had long since been renovated by the Engineering Team.

The villa had been expanded upward, and its materials had all been upgraded. It could accommodate Hunk's Alpha Squad and William living together.

A hundred meters diagonally beneath the villa was also a bunker combined with a "subway station."

Although William wasn't particularly fond of the heavily modified Resident Evil films, the first one had still been a classic and provided him with plenty of inspiration.

There was now a massive tunnel system beneath Halifax City, connecting the villa, The Hive, Troy Base, and other secret locations.

Moreover, many facilities were still under construction underground.

Of course, the "subway" didn't operate much under normal circumstances. Only several hundred workers and security personnel who had signed the Confidentiality Agreement maintained its normal functions.

The massive underground complex beneath Halifax City was essentially William's insurance policy.

If...

Just if.

If something appeared that couldn't be contained no matter what, and Umbrella lacked the ability to travel to other planets at that time...

Then Halifax would be the final fortress of Olympus, its elite armed forces, and even humanity itself.

To put it nicely, William was taking precautions against danger in times of safety and preparing for unforeseen circumstances.

To put it less nicely, he was afraid of dying.

Fortunately, the rewards granted by the system this time included Nuclear Fusion technology.

And fortunately, his beginner's gift pack had been Halsey.

Nuclear Fusion + Halsey = a way to stay alive

After all, William clearly remembered one of the system's statements: all living beings, even Earth itself, would be destroyed.

If he couldn't stop it, he could at least run, right?

Halsey absolutely had the ability to develop an Anti-gravity System, and even a Warp Engine could be created.

But those things required time, so William wasn't particularly anxious.

Being anxious wouldn't help anyway.

After the convoy returned to the seaside villa, William, exhausted after a full day, washed up and prepared to rest.

Date: February 1, 2007

Location: Manhattan Island, New York State.

Time: 13:37

Five days had passed since the first containment. Today was the day William would hold a meeting with the United Nations.

During this period, agents around the world had also begun discovering various anomalies one after another.

But none of them had alarmed UBCS into deploying. The equipment the agents carried with them was enough to contain them.

(The author will put pictures of the agents' equipment in the pinned post. If they don't get censored, everyone can take a look~)

For example, the Half-Cat.

As its name suggested, it was a cat that possessed only the front half of its body.

Yet it could display all the normal behaviors of a cat, such as walking and defecating.

When the agents discovered and contained it, they were only scratched because of their rough handling.

The containment-object levels were classified as follows:

1. Safe: Safe

They wouldn't cause large-scale panic and were easy to contain.

Such as the Half-Cat.

2. Euclid: Euclid

They were more difficult to contain than Safe objects. If not controlled, they would cause numerous casualties.

Such as 049.

3. Keter: Keter

They were more difficult to contain than Euclid objects. They generally possessed overwhelmingly powerful destructive force and a high degree of hostility.

Umbrella had yet to encounter a Keter-class Containment Object.

(The author won't go into detail about these three levels, or it would be padding. Those who don't know about them can look them up online~)

4. Exafanistei: Exafanistei

Greek.

It meant hell, purgatory, and destruction.

As the explanation of this level indicated, if they weren't contained, human civilization would be destroyed.

Umbrella had yet to encounter an Exafanistei-class Containment Object.

On East 44th Street at the easternmost end of Manhattan Island, New York, a convoy of twenty black SUVs was heading toward the United Nations building.

The tourists and citizens on the street took out their cameras one after another to record the convoy as a memento.

Although they had no idea who was sitting inside the vehicles.

These twenty SUVs had been dispatched by Andre's USS five days earlier and driven to New York overland.

After William's private jet landed at Kennedy Airport today, it drove directly into the airport and picked up William, Hunk, and Alpha Squad.

The United States had proposed that they handle security, but the proposal was rejected.

William and Andre still trusted their own vehicles more.

After receiving approval, the convoy successfully entered the garden beneath the United Nations building and finally stopped in a long line in front of the entrance.

"Clang-clang-clang-clang—" The synchronized sound of doors opening rang out.

Sixty USS in suits quickly got out and stood guard around the area.

Their earpieces then transmitted the voice of a USS hidden in the darkness: "All high points have been occupied. Area confirmed secure."

That was right.

The surrounding high-rise buildings were all occupied by USS snipers and observers wearing Optical Camouflage suits.

They had secretly searched the area before the convoy arrived.

William wasn't making a mountain out of a molehill.

The political leaders of the entire world knew he would be coming to the United Nations headquarters. Combined with Umbrella's highly aggressive expansion, this could provoke resentment.

Besides, the United States had experienced multiple presidential assassination attempts. They couldn't afford to be careless...

As the saying went, staying alive was the most important thing.