The African sunset always carried a desolate, blood-red hue.
At the edge of an abandoned open-pit mine, a massive rusted crane stood like the carcass of some steel colossus.
G-001 sat quietly on the highest boom arm, his strange pupils fixed on the dying sun as it sank below the horizon.
He wore a thin white dress shirt. His pale skin looked utterly out of place against the African wind and dust. Even with countless deadly insects and predators lurking across this wasteland, not a single living thing dared approach within a hundred meters of the crane.
An absolute apex-predator pressure radiated outward from him like invisible ripples on still water.
Heavy footsteps crunched through dead brush on the ground below.
Albert Wesker climbed the rusted ladder onto the crane platform. His shaved head caught the last of the sunlight, gleaming.
"The sunsets here are slightly more interesting than the blizzards in the Caucasus Mountains." G-001 didn't turn around. His voice was hollow, stripped of anything resembling human emotion. "But you didn't leave that stinking basement just to watch the scenery with me."
Wesker stopped five meters from G-001. A precise, deliberate distance. Even with his Progenitor Virus-enhanced superhuman reflexes, standing before this pale boy, he kept his guard up on pure instinct.
"I need your cellular tissue." Wesker didn't waste words. "Specifically, I need the portion of the original G-Virus sequence inside you that's achieved perfect equilibrium."
G-001 slowly turned his head, his gaze sweeping over Wesker's sunglasses and bare scalp. The faintest hint of a smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.
"Sounds like all those toys you've been collecting aren't working as well as you hoped." G-001's voice was soft. "The Stairway to the Sun is too volatile. You rushed it, tried to force-create an entirely new evolutionary virus, but those inferior test subjects can't survive the backlash from God's ladder."
The muscles in Wesker's jaw tightened. He hated being read like an open book.
"Natural evolution is too slow, and the human body is too fragile." Wesker kept his irritation in check. "Virus purification has hit a wall. Without a stabilizing agent that can neutralize the Progenitor Virus's violent properties, my Ouroboros project stalls indefinitely."
"So you want to use me as your stabilizer." G-001 dropped from the boom arm, landing light as a feather.
He walked up to Wesker. They were nearly the same height, but the presence they carried couldn't have been more different. Wesker was a drawn blade dripping poison. G-001 was a bottomless abyss.
"You're afraid, Albert." G-001 stared into the eyes behind Wesker's sunglasses. "You're desperate for power, and not for that laughable new-world-god plan of yours. You're afraid of that man."
Wesker's fingers snapped into a fist, knuckles cracking.
"Watch your mouth, test subject." Wesker's voice dropped to something dangerous.
G-001 showed no reaction to the threat. He raised his right hand and drew one sharp fingernail lightly across his left wrist.
No blood gushed out. The instant his skin split, a chunk of tissue peeled away from the wound, dark red and unsettling, almost alive on its own. The wound sealed shut in a fraction of a second, fast enough to watch, without leaving so much as a scar.
He tossed the living tissue sample, carrying the perfect G-Virus sequence, to Wesker.
Wesker caught it and immediately sealed it into a liquid nitrogen cryo-tube he'd brought with him.
"Take it." G-001 turned back toward the desert, now swallowed entirely by darkness. "Don't disappoint me, Albert. The man called Ryan is the most interesting prey I've ever seen. Before I tear him apart with my own hands, I'd like you to use my cells to build something that can at least make him feel a little pain."
Wesker tucked the cryo-tube away and gave G-001 one long, measured look.
"You'll see. The day Ouroboros is truly complete, every rule this world operates by will be rewritten from the ground up."
He turned and walked into the night, heading for the entrance to the underground laboratory.
...
Romania. Starfire Pharma, European Division.
The village that had once been cold and crumbling now blazed with light. Enormous searchlight beams crisscrossed the valley, locking down the airspace and outer perimeter.
Ryan sat in the top-floor study of what had been Lady Dimitrescu's castle. The room had been gutted and rebuilt into a modern Star Fire command center. He held a freshly brewed cup of black tea, gazing through the floor-to-ceiling windows at the orderly camp below, soaking in a rare moment of quiet.
The sensor door slid open. Jill walked in carrying a tactical tablet.
She was wearing a gray turtleneck and fitted jeans today, trading her usual combat-ready edge for something calmer, more in control.
"Confirmation report from Carlos." Jill set the tablet on the desk in front of Ryan. "Africa, D-04 mining zone. TriCell's underground facility there is even bigger than we estimated. Thermal imaging shows they've been firing up high-capacity incinerators on a regular basis."
"Constant incinerator use means their live experiments have a sky-high failure rate." Ryan leaned back in his chair and took a sip of tea. "Looks like Wesker isn't having the best time in Africa."
Jill pulled out a chair and sat across from him. "Are we moving on it? Three of Shadow Force's elite squads are on standby. Say the word and Carlos can wipe out every TriCell lookout in East Africa and hit them directly within twelve hours."
Ryan studied the flickering thermal coordinates on the tablet. He didn't give the order.
"No rush." Ryan tapped a finger on the desk, sounding every bit like a ruthless venture capitalist. "Wesker's a great employee. He's sitting on samples similar to ours, weaker versions, but still. And TriCell's throwing unlimited money and equipment at him. A guy who shows up with his own funding to do our R&D for us? Shutting him down now would be a waste."
Jill shook her head with a helpless smile. She knew his playbook too well.
"You're going to let him perfect the new virus, then swoop in and take it."
"That's called venture capital." Ryan set down his teacup. "Keep Carlos on long-range surveillance. As long as Wesker doesn't take the virus off the African continent, let him do whatever he wants. Once his finished product is ready, we go to Africa and repossess the patent."
With the Africa intel handled, Ryan pushed the tablet aside and changed the subject.
"What about the home front. Is Miranda behaving herself? How's the Mold research coming?"
Jill's expression shifted to something complicated, like she wasn't quite sure how to put it.
"In Luis's words, Miranda's turned into a research machine running on pure obsession." Jill pulled up an internal monitoring log. "The high-end equipment Star Fire gave her completely unleashed her fixation. Ever since Ethan agreed to provide blood samples and biometric data, Miranda hasn't left the lab in a week straight."
Ryan raised an eyebrow. "Results?"
"Breakthrough." Jill nodded. "Ethan's unique antibodies perfectly neutralize the Megamycete's violent assimilation properties. Miranda and Dr. Annette have been running remote video conferences. Their research has shifted away from brute-force genetic infection. Now they're using the Mold's memory-restructuring capabilities combined with cloning technology to cultivate a purpose-built, blank carbon-based vessel."
"Good." Ryan was clearly pleased with the progress. "How's Ethan holding up emotionally?"
"Mia's been with him the whole time. Once he found out he could actually contribute to fighting bioterrorism, he's been pretty cooperative." Jill paused. "But Ethan did ask me privately. If Miranda actually succeeds in creating a vessel for her daughter, what are you planning to do with the original Megamycete core?"
Ryan stood and walked to the floor-to-ceiling windows, looking down toward where the underground laboratory lay.
"Ethan's a good man. What he's really worried about is that the Megamycete is still a threat." Ryan's gaze was steady and calm. "Tell him not to worry. The reason Star Fire is called Star Fire is because we control the technology. We don't worship the monsters."
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