Chapter 20
Two years passed with deliberate, methodical slowness. Wesker spent his days, from eight in the morning until four in the afternoon, supervising the work done at the Arklay lab. Not all of the projects there fell under his jurisdiction, but enough of them did that many of the other scientists began to wonder if it was Wesker or Spencer who was really in charge.
Wesker managed people effectively and fairly, and so there were few who complained about his youth. He was still only twenty-four, almost half the age of the some of the men working under him, but few people noticed it anymore. He carried himself like a seasoned professional, adeptly managing and balancing the numerous projects going at the lab, showing great natural skill at the difficult job of handling the office politics of a large corporation. Under his almost effortless management, the Arklay lab ran smoothly and efficiently.
In the evenings, from four until roughly ten, Wesker performed his own experiments and did his own private research. Some nights, he worked closely with Spencer on some special project. Other nights, he closed himself in the library and read until midnight. His itinerary was varied, but always packed. He took Sundays off, at least most of the time. When he did, he spent it reading the news and keeping up to date on current events. Sometimes he even rewarded himself by going to the movies or watching football.
He rented a house in downtown Raccoon City, but due to his busy schedule, he was almost never there. His neighbors had no complaints, and his landlord didn’t care as long as the rent was paid and nothing was damaged. For the most part, however, the lab was his home. His fellow employees were his friends and his work was his life. And his work was very fulfilling indeed.
At the time, no one had fully grasped the staggering importance of Marcus’ work. It was revolutionary, to be sure, but no one, not even Spencer, realized just how revolutionary it was. It took Wesker almost a year to discover its hidden potential, to uncover what made it so drastically different from its predecessor, the Progenitor. Starting the research from scratch helped him avoid some of Marcus’ faulty assumptions and correct some errors he made, but it also forced Wesker to perform weeks of tests that he already knew the outcome to.
All of the leeches in Marcus’ main terrarium had been killed, but the eggs remained intact. They also had other leeches from different terrariums and hundreds of other samples. When they infected lab animals like dogs and monkeys with the leech samples, they observed side effects similar to the Progenitor. When passed on from the leeches to their victims, the T-virus infected the newly-infected hosts exactly the same way the Progenitor did. In fact, distinguishing between a Progenitor host and a T-virus host was almost impossible without using a microscope to examine the blood. It was a curious phenomenon that led Wesker and his team to believe the two viruses were almost identical.
But further testing showed that the T-virus somehow changed once it infected a host. It immediately altered and bonded with the host’s DNA, altering itself slightly in the process. This altered form of the T-virus behaved much the same way as the Progenitor. Despite Marcus’ belief that the Progenitor DNA and leech DNA had perfectly fused together, Wesker found several distinct strains of DNA within the leeches. He methodically tested them all until he was sure that he had isolated the pure form of the T-virus.
When they took the next logical step and infected a live human host with the pure T-virus, something very unexpected happened. The host became mutated to an unbelievable degree. When a human being was infected with the pure form of the T-virus, he or she mutated into a grotesque, humanoid gargantuan.
The hosts sometimes reached heights of seven and a half feet tall when full infection took hold. Their hair fell out and they lost all skin pigmentation, until they looked like giant hairless albinos. They lost almost all of their mobility, even as they gained strength and muscle, and moved like slow robots. Sometimes they fell victim to other bizarre mutations, like a third arm growing from their chest or an eyeball-like tumor growing out of their shoulder. Some test subjects developed transparent skin. Others grew hideous growths from one of their hands or feet, turning it into a club made of misshapen flesh. One of the lab assistants, Wesker wasn’t sure who, originally dubbed them Tyrants, after the T-virus.
Like the regular zombies, these mutated humans were almost impossible to kill. Fire destroyed them, but not much else did. They survived when electrocuted, when underwater, in sub-zero temperatures, and in a variety of other deadly environments. Out of every ten subjects, eight of them were mutated in such a way that made them useless for further experimentation, and were destroyed. The other two, however ...
Wesker had no choice but to intentionally desensitize himself to the work they did at the lab. He realized very quickly that it was the only way to stay sane. At one time, it would horrify him to know that living test subjects were infected with a lethal virus to turn them into inhuman monsters, but not anymore. After meeting with Lisa, almost nothing scared him.
He effectively turned off his emotions when he was at work. He refused to think of the poor souls being experimented on as anything other than test subjects. If he let himself feel sorry for them, or admit that they were committing heinous crimes against humanity, he would not have been able to live with himself. What they did at the lab went far beyond simply illegal. It was illegal, unethical, immoral, unconscionable, and many others. What they did in the lab on a daily basis was very nearly on par with the experiments Josef Mengele performed during the Holocaust.
Sometimes late at night, either in the lab or at his house, when he was alone and left with nothing but his own thoughts, he wondered how he could live with himself. Unlike Birkin, Wesker had no illusions about doing science for any kind of noble purpose. As Spencer had once told him, Wesker didn’t work at Umbrella to help mankind, he worked there to help himself. But that didn’t mean he had no conscience. Did he really excel in school and graduate college early just to do this kind of work? Is this where his ambition had brought him?
It didn’t matter. He was in too far to back out now, so he pushed himself even harder, delving deeper into the mysteries of the T-virus and pushing aside any uncomfortable feelings of regret or guilt. He lost track of how many people they infected. Where they came from, Wesker never knew, and he never asked. But a much larger operation was at work, because some of the unwilling subjects spoke no English. They cried out in their own language, be it Spanish or Japanese or Russian, as they entered the observation rooms to become infected.
Wesker studied them, suppressing any pity or remorse, and used them as heartlessly as he would use a rabbit or dog to perform his experiments. He wondered if it made him inhuman, if he was becoming as monstrous as the individuals he infected. He wondered about his own humanity, he wondered about his sanity. Wesker spent long hours searching himself for the faint traces that remained of his humanity, but he always found them, buried deep in the back, hidden by years of administering controlled torture.
He could turn off his humanity, but he still possessed it.
Spencer, on the other hand, was harder to figure out. The Arklay lab had experimented on live humans long before the T-virus was created. Spencer, as he often bragged, knew everything that went on at the labs. Wesker had only been the Research Project Manager for a few years, but Spencer had been in charge for decades. Would Wesker retain any trace of his former humanity after so long?
Of course, that was assuming that Spencer had been human to begin with, something Wesker wasn’t so sure about. At times, such as when getting sentimental about his former partner Alexander Ashford, Spencer could seem very human indeed. But at others, Spencer became a ruthless, callous fiend capable of the most atrocious acts of cruelty and premeditated evil.
One day, Wesker gathered up the courage to ask him, “What would we do if the public ever found out what we do here?”
“They’re never going to find out,” Spencer repli
ed, as if the question was a balloon and his answer was a pin used to pop it.
“But what if they did?” Wesker pressed. “What if someone discovered what we’re doing at this lab and told the press? What if our big secret got out?”
Spencer eyes him suspiciously. “Why do you ask? Do you suspect someone?”
“No,” Wesker said firmly. “Nothing like that. I just want to know.”
“Why?”
“Oh, come on,” Wesker said, almost laughing at Spencer’s clumsy evasion of the question. “You can’t tell me that you don’t have a plan. I mean, there has to be some kind of emergency procedure, doesn’t there? We must have a prepared course of action in case of an information leak?”
Spencer grunted and said, “Sure there is. It’s called ‘Get away as fast as you can and hope no one finds you.’ It’s the only plan I know of.”
“What do you mean?”
“Wesker, think about it,” Spencer said, getting irritated. “How could Umbrella cover up something on this scale? If anyone ever found out, there’s nothing that we could do. Denial would not suffice for long, and there’s no way we could erase the evidence. If the authorities heard rumors about our activities here and wanted to look around for themselves, what could we do to stop them?”
“Probably nothing without appearing guilty.”
“Exactly. If anyone ever found out about this place, my only advice would be to scrape together your life savings and find some third world country to hide out in.”
“You can’t be serious.”
“I’m always serious. You should know better than that by now.”
“So we have no emergency plans?” Wesker asked incredulously.
“None at all. That is precisely why the security here is so important. No one may discover what goes on here. If it ever got out, we would all be finished.”
“Not just us,” Wesker added. “All of Umbrella would be finished.”
“But it will never happen,” Spencer stressed. “Our security is far too effective. And besides, as you know, we have allies in the local government that help us keep certain details under wraps.”
“The police?” Wesker suggested.
“Yes, and several members of the Raccoon City Council. Even Mayor Warren, as you probably know. We’re working on getting one of our own people elected after Warren retires. We’re also trying to get the Chief of Police on our payroll, but it takes time.”
“Bribing city officials is illegal, if I’m not mistaken.”
Spencer waved the comment away. “Please, we don’t stoop to plain bribery. We make large donations to city projects and then lean on them. It’s actually a common practice with large corporations. We ask for favors in return for financial assistance.”
“Bribery, in other words.”
Spencer glared at him. At one time, the ice cold stare would have frozen Wesker’s blood, but he had worked with Spencer too long to be affected by his theatrics anymore. On a deep level, he was still scared to death of the man, but in general he knew that he was too involved for Spencer to truly threaten or antagonize him. So Wesker behaved insubordinately at times without fear of reprisal.
“We do whatever we have to do,” Spencer grumbled. And then, reluctantly, “But there are times when I wonder if paying them is enough. We can pay money for loyalty and never receive it. We might have to take more direct steps to ensure our safety.”
“What are you thinking of?”
“Putting someone in the police station to keep an eye on things. If our business with the Chief of Police is successful, I was planning to assign someone a position at the police station to make sure of the Chief’s loyalty.”
“Anyone in particular you have in mind?”
“Not really. It’s just an idea. We’re not sure yet if the Chief can be bought.”
“What’s his name?”
“Brian Irons. He’s worked in the RCPD for fifteen years, and his record there is spotless, but our boys have uncovered some pretty hefty gambling debts hanging over him. He’s also an amateur art collector, and he’s gone into more debt acquiring some expensive pieces.”
“That’s promising.”
“Yes. We’ll see how it turns out.”