Somewhere in Africa. Deep in the desert.
The surface was an open-pit mine abandoned nearly a decade ago. Rusted excavators lay scattered across the yellow sand like massive metal skeletons. But four hundred meters below ground, a secret TriCell research facility glowed under cold white sterile lighting.
The corridors reeked of disinfectant, but in the vents and wall crevices, dried bloodstains that hadn't been fully cleaned were still visible. Grim reminders of recent experimental accidents.
At the center of the lab stood a massive high-pressure cultivation tank. Floating in pale green nutrient solution was a plant specimen that gave off an eerie fluorescent glow. The Stairway to the Sun. The source of the Progenitor Virus, and a holy grail coveted by every would-be tyrant.
Albert Wesker stood before the tank with his back to the laboratory door.
The overhead lights shone down, gleaming off his bald head. His trademark black tailored suit was still immaculate, the sunglasses he never removed still perched on his nose, but his right hand hung at his side clenched into a white-knuckled fist, veins bulging across the back of it.
At his feet, a fine ceramic coffee cup lay in pieces. Brown liquid had splashed across the floor and was creeping slowly through the gaps in the expensive tile.
The click of heels approached from behind. Excella Gionne, TriCell's highest-ranking liaison for the Africa division, stepped over the broken porcelain without hesitation and stopped behind Wesker.
"Throwing another tantrum, Albert." Excella's voice carried an undisguised edge of contempt. "Star Fire's recon satellites swept this airspace three days ago. Our camouflage systems can hold for another two weeks at most. If you keep wasting time smashing cups, Star Fire's people are going to come knocking on our blast doors sooner or later."
Wesker didn't turn around. His voice was cold as ice. "Where does the Progenitor Virus purification stand."
"Seventy-three percent." Excella checked the data tablet in her hand, brow creasing slightly. "But the stability tests failed again. The seventh batch of test subjects all suffered irreversible physical collapse within twelve hours of injection. They couldn't even survive the initial genetic recombination. I've already had the remains disposed of."
Wesker finally turned. Behind his sunglasses, his gaze locked onto Excella like a viper fixing on prey.
"Three months." He kept his voice low, but the pressure behind it was suffocating. "You have the original Stairway to the Sun. You have TriCell's best equipment. And you still can't crack the genetic lock on a single plant. Excella, is everyone TriCell employs just dead weight who can only write failure reports?"
Excella took a half-step back from Wesker's fury, dodging that aggressively invasive stare.
Wesker scoffed and walked to the monitoring console on the other side of the room. The massive screen wasn't displaying current experiment data. Instead, it looped a grainy piece of footage.
Satellite imagery captured during Star Fire's operation on The Island in Spain. Fragmented, incomplete.
The frame froze on a single instant. Ryan was casually hefting a red brick he'd pried off something, looking completely relaxed, then exploded into motion too fast for the naked eye to follow.
Wesker reached up and touched his smooth, bald head.
That mark of humiliation from Spain hadn't just destroyed his meticulously maintained slicked-back hair. It had smashed a bottomless crater into his absolute self-confidence. Spencer was dead. Umbrella had fallen. He'd assumed he could naturally take the reins of human evolution and become the god of a new world.
But Star Fire was still standing. Ryan was still alive.
As long as that man existed, Wesker's prized virus-enhanced body was nothing but a bad joke in comparison. He would always be second place. Second place who couldn't even keep his hair.
"This humiliation... can only be washed away with his blood." Wesker pulled his hand back and killed the screen, then turned to Excella with an order devoid of emotion. "Initiate the Ouroboros preliminary protocol. If the current test subjects can't handle it, skip the safety testing. I need a stronger carrier."
Excella's expression shifted. She hesitated before speaking. "Albert, that technology isn't mature yet. If we force-start it, the entire area around the mine will be affected. That'll immediately attract attention from international counterterrorism, and Star Fire definitely won't sit back and watch."
"Do it."
Wesker's tone left zero room for argument. He didn't even have the patience to explain.
Excella clenched her jaw, but ultimately lowered her head and left the laboratory.
The heavy alloy door slid shut. Wesker was alone again. He stood before the massive cultivation tank, the Stairway to the Sun's fluorescent glow reflected in his sunglasses like two flickering will-o'-the-wisps.
...
Meanwhile. A coastal port city in East Africa.
On the top floor of a dingy, unremarkable apartment building at the edge of the old town. The curtains were drawn tight, every gap sealed with black tape. This was one of Star Fire's twelve temporary intelligence outposts across Africa.
In the dim room, Carlos Oliveira sat at a cluster of folding tables pushed together. He had a high-calorie energy bar clamped between his teeth. Three military-grade laptops in front of him were running at full tilt, screens flickering with complex code and constantly refreshing satellite imagery.
Tyrell leaned against the window frame, watching the street below through a single gap in the blinds. Both men wore the kind of worn-out casual clothes common among locals, but ballistic tactical vests hung within arm's reach on their chair backs, and the holsters at their waists were positioned for an instant draw.
In a region plagued by perpetual conflict and warlord territory disputes, they had to stay at maximum readiness.
Carlos hammered away at the keyboard, sifting through the latest thermal imaging from Star Fire's recon satellites. On screen, the African continent's terrain map was sliced into countless tiles, flashing past frame by frame.
His fingers stopped.
He shifted the energy bar to the side of his mouth and leaned forward, eyes locked on a coordinate zone in the upper right corner of the screen. A barren desert mining area, middle of nowhere. But at a certain window three days ago, an extremely anomalous heat signature had appeared. Nighttime surface temperature had spiked by over ten degrees and held for a full four hours, then vanished without a trace.
"Tyrell, come look at this." Carlos's hands flew across the keyboard, zooming into the area.
Tyrell walked over and studied the irregularly shaped thermal map on screen, his brow knotting up. "That's not natural heat. No signs of ground-level armed engagement either. Exhaust vents from an underground facility?"
Carlos said nothing. He pulled up a comparison dataset from Star Fire's archives and ran an overlay analysis.
A few seconds later, the computer chimed.
Carlos's eyes sharpened. "Temperature curve and radiation frequency match the leak signature from Umbrella's underground NEST beneath Raccoon City... eighty-nine percent."
They looked at each other. Both saw the gravity in the other's eyes. In the world of bioterrorism, an eighty-nine percent match was practically a signed confession that a large-scale virus lab was operating down there.
Carlos didn't hesitate. He hit the encrypted call button on the specialized comm unit on the table.
The line connected. Jill's calm, efficient voice came through, carrying a hint of static from halfway around the globe, but still clear.
"This is HQ. Carlos, what have you got."
"Jill, coordinates D-04 mining zone. Anomalous thermal fluctuations three days ago." Carlos packaged and sent the data. "Preliminary assessment says large underground bio-facility, suspected high-risk viral experimentation. Want me to take a team in for confirmation?"
A few seconds of silence on the other end. Jill was clearly speed-reading the thermal data.
"Don't tip them off." Jill's voice returned with an unmistakable command tone. "Maintain perimeter surveillance only. Do not go deeper. TriCell's been operating there a long time, and we don't know what's underground. I'll report to Ryan immediately and dispatch the nearest support team your way."
"Copy." Carlos cut the connection, bit back down on the energy bar, and glanced out the window at the brutal African sun.
"Looks like the Boss's next vacation spot just got booked."
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