Abnormal Crisis

The cameo role was very simple.

It was in the charity gala scene from Iron Man 1, where William, as a noble entrepreneur, shook hands with Tony Stark.

This cameo also allowed William to meet Stark's "real person," Robert Downey Jr.

As for Megan, her role seemed to have greatly increased because of William.

She was changed from the female reporter in the opening scene to a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent working with Coulson, preparing to participate in a series of future Marvel movies.

It could be said that Megan directly obtained top-tier resources due to the kidnapping incident.

Moreover, when William left the filming location, Megan even hinted, "Boss, I've believed in Catholicism since I was young... Would you like to have dinner together sometime?"

William understood Megan's words perfectly.

She was merely influenced by the bridge effect and money power.

He politely declined her offer and, on his way, went to Marvel's headquarters to inquire about the USS and UBCS comics.

Unexpectedly, Marvel had created Abnormal Crisis!

It turned out that rumors about the Athabasca incident had already spread. Although the Canadian Government officially clarified that it was a super-bacterial outbreak in the town, many still doubted the authenticity, believing it was caused by illegal government experiments leading to the leak.

In this era of very unclear image quality, someone had already uploaded videos online of Umbrella helicopter formations heading towards Athabasca.

Netizens then speculated that the government, unable to rectify its mistake, had finally requested Umbrella's help.

And the already chuunibyo Marvel editors, drawing abundant inspiration from the internet, created Abnormal Crisis.

The main story of the first chapter was roughly as follows:

The protagonist was named Jill Valentine, the sole female member of the former 2nd Canadian Joint Task Force (JTF2).

After retiring, she returned to her hometown of Edmonton to work as a police officer, living a peaceful life.

Later, after consecutive incidents of disappearances and "cannibalism" occurred in Raccoon City, north of Edmonton, (Athabasca was redefined by Marvel, increasing its population from two thousand to fifty thousand, making it a small to medium-sized town)

The chief dispatched Jill to Raccoon City to assist local police in investigating the related cases.

As soon as she arrived at the town's police station, she was attacked by a "person" with a severely gnawed face, beginning a desperate escape for self-salvation.

At the end of the story, Umbrella's special forces unit, S.T.A.R.S., dispatched to deal with the abnormal event, arrived in time.

A Sergeant, Carlos Oliveira, repeatedly saved Jill from perilous situations.

Later, before the government's full-scale bombing, Jill and Carlos, along with other STARS members, evacuated the vast majority of survivors from Raccoon City.

The first chapter concluded with Jill looking at the distant bombed city from a helicopter.

After reading the manuscript in his hands, William could only say that these editors had truly wild imaginations.

He had merely shared the concepts of the UBCS and USS units, and Marvel had created S.T.A.R.S.

It was truly something.

Furthermore, Jill and Carlos's appearances, personalities, and other settings were similar to the Resident Evil 3 Remake from William's original world.

Jill was stunningly beautiful.

Carlos was reliably strong.

The day William read this comic was also the day after Abnormal Crisis was released.

Its sales directly surpassed those of the original superhero settings.

After all, middle schoolers and netizens in reality were extremely interested in the Athabasca incident.

Coupled with Jill's character design and Umbrella's mystique, it instantly drained the wallets of those people.

Moreover, on major websites and forums, the most discussed topic was whether Umbrella possessed special forces capable of facing abnormal phenomena.

Some even wanted to sign up directly.

Hoh.

But this was within William's expectations.

The System had said to conceal it as much as possible from ordinary citizens, but it didn't say it couldn't be revealed to society at all.

What if a containment operation became too large-scale, and global governments couldn't hide it anymore?

Allowing people to have psychological preparation through the media wouldn't be too difficult to accept and cause a breakdown, similar to the concept of various movies about fighting aliens filmed in the original world.

Then, Umbrella could use Halsey's brainwashing technology to gradually minimize the impact of the events.

Excellent.

Marvel had perfectly met William's expectations; it was time to invest more money.

Microsoft's average stock price was only $28.

Hmm...

So cheap.

Sorry, Mr. Bill Gates, the world's richest man.

Next, Umbrella began aggressively acquiring Microsoft stock, instantly becoming its largest shareholder.

This was because William needed to get the Xbox out, making Abnormal Crisis the debut game for the world's first console.

At that time, Umbrella's influence would hold a pivotal position among teenagers in North America and even the entire world.

Cultural output formed.

Actually, at the beginning of the year, the Forbes list of the world's richest people had Bill Gates and Warren Buffett in first and second place.

And William?

He wasn't even in the top ten.

William was still being mocked by Wall Street newspapers, who claimed he was afraid to let the company go public because he feared the world would know Umbrella was suffering heavy losses.

He wondered how these Wall Street simpletons would ridicule him after acquiring Microsoft.

But William didn't care about those rumors at all. Besides, it was enough that Umbrella was seen as a conscientious enterprise in the eyes of the ignorant masses.

Where there's public opinion, there's profit.

Otherwise, those newspapers would have vanished long ago.

William's original plan was to head to Hollywood on the West Coast to inspect the filming progress of Starship Troopers 2.

However, fearing that a certain crazy woman might get upset, he worked overtime for a week to handle all the aforementioned affairs in New York.

He returned to Troy Base in Halifax City on February 14, 2007.

After another face-to-face argument with that old strongman Andre, William hurried to the entrance of the underground Hive facility in the city center.

Hive Research Center, Second Floor, Employee Dormitory Area;

Under the protection of Hunk and other Alpha members, William followed a USS operative to Halsey's dormitory.

The USS operative, who was exclusively assigned to protect Halsey, led William and the others to the door and said with a slightly strange expression:

"Boss, Dr. Halsey hasn't been in a good mood lately... you should be careful."

"Hmm?"

William wondered if it was necessary for her to be angry just because he was a few days late.

Still, he nodded and said, "I understand."

He then pressed the call button for the cabin and said, "Halsey, open the door. Didn't you say you had new equipment to show me?"

However, there was no response for a long time.

Just as he was about to press the button again to remind her, Halsey's somewhat hesitant voice came from the intercom:

"Come... come in, but only you!"

"Okay."

"Swish--"

As the automatic door opened and closed, William entered Halsey's dormitory.

But upon seeing Halsey, he couldn't help but exclaim:

"How did your skin turn this color?!"