One Robot

Steve, Tony, and Natasha stepped out of the underground train and arrived at the entrance to the Hive's underground research facility. They only needed to go farther down and push open the heavy iron door to reach the Hive's underground supply warehouse.

Hidden cameras slowly turned inside the walls, their unlit electronic eyes fixed on the three intruders.

Before long, the cameras stopped working. Tony had used the access he'd seized earlier to cut off the relay that transmitted their footage.

A hundred meters beneath the Hive lay an underground chamber unknown to ordinary people. It had been converted from a natural cavern, and its independent air circulation and self-sufficient water systems had turned it into a completely enclosed sanctuary.

The sanctuary consisted of several sections: a hibernation area for Umbrella shareholders and senior employees, a warehouse for supplies, and finally, a private office belonging solely to Dr. Isaac.

The office was built into the cavern and decorated in the style of European nobility, making it look like a room in an ancient European manor.

There were two hibernation pods in the room, reserved for Umbrella Corporation's two largest shareholders. One belonged to Isaac; the other belonged to Alice, the daughter of Marcus, who had founded Umbrella Corporation alongside Isaac.

Alice was a pitiful woman suffering from progeria—the old woman in a wheelchair whom Duncan had seen at the shareholders' meeting. She was also the real-life counterpart of the protagonist of the Resident Evil film series.

Alice's hibernation pod was running, but Isaac hadn't entered his own. He sat behind a solid wood desk, savoring the whiskey in his glass as he watched the monitor before him.

The image on the monitor was enlarged, frozen on a shot of Tony looking toward the camera.

Isaac stopped drinking. His gaze at Tony's armor was full of menace. After a few breaths, he set down his glass and muttered, "Looks like the little guy who escaped has caused me quite a bit of trouble..."

His decision to let Duncan go had come back to haunt him so quickly.

The other Umbrella bases must have been attacked by now!

Isaac took Tony's armor for a secret research project by the American military. The situation now meant that America and the United Nations had discovered his plan to end the world and were preparing to move against Umbrella Corporation.

"Activate countermeasures. Keep them upstairs."

A little girl in red appeared on the screen and spoke in a cold voice. "Equipment disconnected. Unable to activate countermeasures."

Isaac frowned, immediately set down his glass, and contacted Umbrella's core armed force, the Special Operations Force. He also ordered the release of all Biological Weapons inside the Hive and had the ventilation system direct a special gas toward Steve and the others.

A high-tech robot of unknown capabilities and enemies already at his doorstep had robbed Isaac of his usual composure.

That flashy suit of armor had put him under considerable pressure.

Isaac considered himself the savior of the world because he knew human society inside and out, from its cultures to its technology.

Even if the American military had secret research projects, his position as Umbrella's executive director let him find out all about them. That gave him the confidence to devise his plan to end the world.

After comparing the strength of both sides, Isaac had concluded that Umbrella Corporation could carry out this insane plan.

Even though the preparations had been rushed because of Duncan's disappearance, the plan still had a chance of succeeding that was practically one hundred percent.

Tony's armor had shattered that belief. There was high technology in this world that he didn't know about.

Look!

A robot! A robot capable of fighting independently alongside a squad!

The American President had no reason to exist. If they had technology like this, why not make it public? Why keep it hidden? What were they plotting?

Isaac's hands flew over the virtual keyboard on his desk, issuing one command after another. The commands were sent through a wired network to the designated departments, then relayed onward until the orders reached their destinations.

The Biological Weapons hidden in the Hive's underground base began to thaw, and the bioweapons slumbering inside awoke.

In a laboratory at a hospital in downtown Raccoon City, a hideous humanoid monster opened its single eye.

Several helicopters took off into the sky and slowly headed for the Hive.

Raccoon City grew even livelier!

Duncan, meanwhile, encountered a group of police officers escorting civilians to safety.

These people were clearly less numb than the officers guarding the roadblocks. They still knew to ask who he was.

Duncan's gaze fell on a short-haired Black woman in a police uniform. He felt a little stir of attraction—not that he was actually falling for her. He just thought she was beautiful and had a great presence, with a sort of... wild beauty.

"We're..."

Under the watchful eyes of the group, Duncan repeated more or less what he'd told the others before, leaving the police officers and civilians only half convinced.

The two groups soon parted ways. Duncan continued toward the city center, while the officers escorted the civilians toward Meimen Bridge.

As Duncan strolled around, he somehow ended up at Raccoon City General Hospital, where the infected were especially active.

Even after several hours, plenty of people were still there, helping the police kill the infected. Some infected people's relatives watched their loved ones get shot and then slumped to the ground, wailing and causing trouble for the police and the kind-hearted civilians.

All in all, it was still a pretty chaotic place. There were many patients inside the hospital who couldn't be moved easily, and they had to wait for an ambulance. Quite a few police officers were stationed there.

Duncan and his companions drew plenty of attention when they arrived, but Duncan ignored everyone, looking around for Alice.

He'd only been hoping to get lucky, but to his surprise, he really did spot a woman who looked a lot like Alice!

The woman had messy blond hair and wore a hospital gown. She held a police shotgun and stood barefoot in the street, idly surveying her surroundings.

The zombies moved slowly. Even though the sky was dim, it was still easy to tell from a distance whether something approaching was a person or a zombie, which made defending the area much easier.

As Duncan watched Alice, she sensed his gaze and looked over at them.

Their eyes met across the distance, and Duncan immediately walked toward her.

Alice didn't seem very wary at the moment. Even when she saw that Duncan wasn't dressed like an ordinary person and that he was accompanied by a group of heavily armed men, she didn't retreat in alarm.

"Are you Alice?"

Alice looked at Duncan with curiosity. "Do you know me?"

"Oh, I suppose you could say I do!"

Duncan's expression turned a little strange as he looked her up and down. Then he spotted a ring on her left ring finger and pointed at it. "Could you take off the ring and let me have a look? Also, why are you here?"

The plot might have changed because the virus had been released early. Now he wanted to find out how far it had veered off course, learn more about the situation inside the Hive, and assess things.

Otherwise, he was afraid a nuclear bomb might suddenly appear overhead and reduce the city to rubble!