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In Esse In Perpetuum
Chapter Six
The only reason this is here is down to the Captain. She inspired me to get off my arse and write something. I put it off for a bit because I'm currently blundering my way through a dissertation, but Birkin-fic goodness was calling me. And besides, writing fanfiction is so much more fun. So here it is, for your delectation, after a ridiculously long period of time: chapter six.
Also, please remember I started writing this thing long before RE4 was released. If there are discrepancies, just ignore them. I'm a bit busy right now and, to be honest, can't be arsed editing right now.
I will explain myself in my author's notes at the end... grin>
He stepped forward, his boots crunching on the shards of broken glass that were practically floating in the pool of blood, made slick and black by the eerie blue floor-light, and bent down to have a closer look.
He had been speaking to her not twenty minutes earlier when that insufferable cowboy Agent Kennedy had shown up and had started blasting his way through the building. Gangloff had made straight for the CCTV room to track and radio out Kennedy’s every move whilst Wesker and the security guards, under his command, went after him. At one point, they had had him cornered, but he had escaped into an air vent. Of course, they had attempted to go in after him, but Wesker was content to radio Gangloff and wait for a location.
The reply had never come, however, and, seconds later he had descended to the monitor room to check on Gangloff after sending his men out in teams to scour the premises for Agent Kennedy and his sidekick. She had gone but had left behind a shotgun case. Unconcerned (not least due to the fact that Gangloff was infinitely capable of taking care of herself, being an ex-hired hand) he had sat down and switched the screens to display images from the upper floor. He had watched impassively as Gangloff soundlessly pursued a trench-coated man with a shotgun, blasting away like an absolute lunatic. With a ghost of a smile, he had watched as Gangloff was about to corner the man at the elevator - and with a raised eyebrow, he had watched as the tables had turned. The elevator door had opened, the man had disappeared into it, Gangloff had taken aim and then...
...and then the gun had flown out of her hands and right into the assailant's before he made his final, fatal retort as the elevator doors closed. Curious, he had wound back the tape and watched the incident again. Twice. If he hadn’t seen it with his own eyes, he would, no doubt, have dismissed it entirely as an idiotic and fanciful fabrication. But Albert Wesker never doubted himself.
Wesker straightened up abruptly and headed towards Gangloff’s office, trailing bloody footprints across the glass floor in the darkness. For a fleeting moment his mouth twisted sardonically as he thought of what the view of the carnage would be like from the floor below, a viscous pool of black blood blossoming from a mutilated cadaver already reeking of blood and bone. Perhaps, if he had time, he would take a look...
Carefully, he opened the door and entered, surveying his surroundings without a flicker of emotion. The office was almost a write-off, with several holes blasted in the walls, the desk and the ceiling where Gangloff had been a little too enthusiastic. The filing cabinets had been tipped over, their contents spilling out across the floor in a sea of paper. It was obvious that there had been a struggle. Silently, he picked his way through the wreckage and moved over to the desk. He stopped short. There was a window flashing on the computer screen that read: File Transfer Complete. Gangloff wouldn’t have done it - couldn’t have done it. She wouldn’t have had time. It couldn’t have been Kennedy either. It must have been that Trench Coat man who had been picked up by the cameras - more than likely the same Trench Coat Killer who had been demonised and plastered all over the French newspapers for shooting Sidney Parker-Jones. It was far too much of a coincidence for it to be otherwise...
Wesker didn’t even look up as two of his men entered the room.
“Yes, gentlemen?” he enquired, his tone unfathomable.
“Sir, we’ve carried out a full search of the building,” one of them answered, saluting smartly, “and there is no sign of either of the intruders. We think they may have escaped via...”
Wesker waved a gloved hand, and the guard stuttered into silence. “I did not expect them to linger,” he said derisively. “Get down to the basement and have the security tapes ready. Bring them straight up here. I want to get a closer look at them.”
“Yes, sir,” the two men nodded before marching out - leaving Wesker sitting at the flickering computer screen alone.
It was obvious why they had come. They had come for information, this mysterious Trench Coat man and Leon Kennedy. And they had succeeded, or so it appeared. Exactly what they had managed to get their hands on, however, he wasn’t sure, but he knew that it could potentially be a setback for HCF...
“Sir?”
One of the guards had returned and was hovering nervously upon the threshold. By way of enquiry, Wesker raised an eyebrow and folded his arms, though this only served to make the guard more nervous and he thrust out a phone with one trembling hand.
“T-there’s a call for you, sir. It’s urgent,” the guard said quickly.
Wesker strode over to him and snatched the phone out of his hands. The guard flinched. “That will be all,” he said, quietly. Fortunately, his tone was not lost on the guard who practically ran out of the room after being dismissed. He raised the phone to his ear to hear a very familiar voice...
“Wesker?”
“Affirmative,” Wesker replied, lazily.
“I want the short version.”
“Two intruders managed to infiltrate the Paris HQ, one apparently acting as a decoy while the other stole information. As to what has been stolen and how much, I cannot ascertain - and you may have to find a new general manager,” he finished wryly, a cold smirk drifting across his face.
There was silence for a moment on the other end of the line. Then...
“Find them and eliminate them, Wesker, by any means necessary. You know what is at stake here.” The speaker paused for a second or two before adding, “There can be no complications.”
“Affirmative,” Wesker replied, before the speaker hung up without further comment.
For a moment he simply stood there, having been given his orders, lost in thought. Then, his smirk spread into a grim smile. So, he was to hunt them down, to search and destroy: both cowboy Kennedy and the equally irksome Trench Coat man. Finally, he had an order that he would take a great deal of pleasure in carrying out. They may have gotten the better of Gangloff, but they would not find him such easy-pickings.
There was a tentative knock on the door, and one of the guards he had sent to collect last night's CCTV footage entered, setting the box of disks down on the desk with his eyes fixed firmly on the floor. He left as quickly and as unobtrusively as he entered. The corners of Wesker's mouth twisted upward and he picked up a disk with a gloved hand and fed it into Gangloff's computer. Almost immediately, he skipped forward to the footage of the Trench Coat man sitting cross-legged on the floor, flicking through folders of files. The picture quality was lamentable, and the man was sitting with his back to the camera. The rest of the footage yielded no better results.
But no matter. There were a few other disks to try. His hand hovered over the one marked: Ground Floor and Reception Area. He slotted it into the D: drive. Skipping forward past hours of footage from the earlier half of the day, after a few minutes, he found what he'd been looking for. He watched himself enter the building with his escort and call the elevator that had taken him to Gangloff. About half an hour later, the front doors opened and the Trench Coat man stepped into reception, walking over to the computer and browsing the contents on the screen. Wesker made a mental note to ensure the receptionist lost her job - and, perhaps, if the offence proved suitably grave, her head...
Then Wesker's train of thought was abruptly derailed. His eyes narrowed curiously as he leaned forward and watched the Trench Coat man coming closer and closer to the camera. His lips curled in a wry smile.
Imbecile... Yes, that's right. Look right up into the camera and your fate will be completely and utterly sealed...
Then the smile on his face faltered. Not taking his eyes off the screen, he paused the footage and looked upon the face of a man he hadn't seen in eight years - one he had never counted upon seeing ever again. He took in the sandy-coloured hair, the pale, drawn features and the thin twist of a mouth. He noted, for what seemed like the thousandth time, the man's strange, watery blue eyes - appearing normal enough to those who did not know him better, but disguising, with the thinnest of veils, the devastatingly fierce and ruthless genius that, like a dark mirror of Midas, transformed everything it touched for better or worse.
He let the footage roll on and watched as one moment, William Birkin was standing there, peering up at the camera, and the next, the screen went blank. The footage ended there and the disk ejected itself from the drive. Wesker didn't pick it up. Instead he sat there, with his chin resting on his gloved hand. He was thinking.
However improbable it was that Birkin was alive (having worked for Umbrella, impossible was a word that rarely, if ever, passed his lips), alive his old colleague was. It was an unexpected twist, but one that Wesker, if he put his mind to it, could use to his advantage.
The samples he and Agent Wong had collected from the wreckage of the train, along with his other acquisition, had been sent to HCF immediately. Unfortunately, the G Virus had proven to be ridiculously unstable and the practicalities of testing the virus on subjects meant that all experimentation had been ceased. It had taken a massive amount of explosive firepower to end the infected test subjects, and after the exposure of Umbrella, locating secure testing grounds had begun to prove a taxing enterprise, even for the most well-connected of executives. Wesker had known in his bones then that something was amiss.
HCF had then turned to his other acquisition from Raccoon City: Annette Birkin. They had locked the woman in her cell and had subjected her to all manner of interrogative tortures. She was numb and broken, a shell of her former self, but still she refused to talk. Her loyalty to her husband went beyond all rational thought or feeling. And as far as he knew, HCF were still trying to get her to talk. It all boiled down to the simple fact that they needed her knowledge of the G Virus. Annette had been the only person William had allowed to work in conjunction with him on his pet project - and towards the end, the two had collaborated in almost total seclusion. It did not take a huge leap of the imagination to realise that she would have known its properties almost as intimately as William had, and, as such, would have proven useful to the company.
But she would not talk.
This, however, no longer mattered. For now there was a more than adequate replacement in the form of the creator of the G Virus himself.
Wesker's orders were to eliminate Agent Kennedy and the individual he had ever-so-briefly known as the Trench Coat man, but he felt that it would be rather more advantageous if he, rather than getting rid of Birkin, were to deliver him right to the door of the Corporation. HCF was becoming stale. A breath of fresh air was sorely needed.
Perhaps Annette Birkin would prove useful after all...
When Leon was finished, the conversation, slowly but surely, once again made its way back to their one common interest...
"And Yoko Suzuki testified," Leon said, with a huge grin. "Brought the whole operation down in one go. But it was really curtains when Alyssa Ashcroft sold the story to the media. It was public property then, you know?"
"I can imagine," William said with a grim smile.
"Though the only thing is," Leon began, looking discomfited, "why the hell did I find you in an Umbrella lab."
"That," William began thoughtfully, "is a very good question. It was perfectly evident that the place was fully operational. After all, until... well... until recently it was clearly an inhabited, manned research station. There were specimens being grown for manufacture - most notably the T series and the MA3s we ran into on the stairs..."
William paused for a moment, running a thin finger over his lips in a pensive manner. Then, he seemed to come to his own definitive conclusion and added, "I don't think Umbrella are as finished as you would like to think, Mr Kennedy. Not by a long shot. The front men, the executives like Parker-Jones, may be floundering and jostling for power, but you can bet your life on it that Mr Spencer is thriving and still very much at large."
Leon said nothing but William could tell from the look on his face that he knew he was right.
"And if Umbrella are as dead as you seem to think they are," William continued slowly, "then why was Parker-Jones prancing around Paris with his new wife?"
"Not proven," Leon said, his eyes flashing with anger.
"Not proven?" William said, now looking puzzled. "What do you mean not proven? Wasn't he tried?"
"Yeah, he was tried," Leon replied with a little heat, "but the case was transferred from the US Supreme Court to the adjudication of the European Court of Justice because, or so they said, the US was too deeply involved in the case itself to give an impartial verdict." Leon sighed. "They couldn't handle the case personally because the ECJ is only supposed to mediate. So they voted to hand over the case to the Court of Session in Scotland..."
"Who have a "not proven" verdict," William muttered, anticipating the climax of Leon's sordid tale of corporate corruption. "And no doubt those who were charged appealed to the House of Lords?"
"Yeah."
"And got off scot-free? No pun intended..."
"Yeah. Most of them."
"Very clever, Mr Spencer... Very clever, indeed..." William said darkly.
"What, you think Spencer had it all planned out?" Leon asked, raising an eyebrow in disbelief.
William laughed mirthlessly. "I'm not saying he planned it all out, Kennedy, but the man has friends in high places. I don't think he's a master puppeteer, although he certainly has pulled and is probably still pulling a fair amount of strings. No. What he is, is a maverick businessman, the original heartless, opportunistic bastard with brains, cash and political clout who will form useful connections, utilise and even destroy said connections to get what he wants, to damn with the consequences." William paused for a moment, chewing on his lip as he was wont to do while mulling over perplexing conundrums such as Ozwell Spencer, before adding, though it galled him, "Spencer is a very powerful and dangerous man."
Leon shook his head in distaste. Then he stood up and began to pace the length of the cramped hotel room. He gave the bed a frustrated kick as he walked past and a small cloud of dust billowed from the mouldering bed sheets, making William sneeze.
"You know what? I think the only way to get rid of Umbrella once and for all is to get rid of Spencer," Leon announced suddenly, stopping in his tracks. "The only way to kill a snake is to find its head and crush it."
William smiled a humourless smile. "My thoughts exactly, Kennedy. Though how do you propose to go about it? Spencer is notoriously elusive. I only ever met the man once in all the years I worked from Umbrella."
"I work for the US government," Leon said, waving a hand dismissively. "We should be able to track him down eventually."
"Oh really?" William said, folding his arms across his chest as the corners of his thin mouth formed a scornful smirk. "What a textbook example of the blind faith of the gullible, American federal agent."
"Shut up, Birkin," Leon warned, snapping round on his heel and fixing the scientist with a smouldering glare. "Just shut up..."
But William was just getting started.
"Little baby agent doesn't want to hear unpleasant truths, perhaps?" William asked mockingly. "Would little baby agent prefer to wallow in his filthy mire of self-righteousness and messianic delusions?"
The edges of Leon's cheeks had turned a nasty brick colour. To William's delight, the man was shaking with anger.
Let's turn it up another notch, shall we? Yes. Let's burst his little protective bubble and see how he fares...
"Mr Spencer has friends in high places, Kennedy," William hissed. "I wouldn't be at all surprised if a large number of them held prominent positions in the US government. After all, my old colleague Albert Wesker managed to get a transfer to the Intelligence Bureau - a department that reputedly possessed close links with the Central Intelligence Agency."
He paused for a moment to gauge Leon's reaction. The young man's face had gone a sickly pale colour and he had slumped down on the bed, his head in his hands.
That was good. There was absolutely no point in having a potential ally who did not understand the full gravity of the situation. Yes, it might be painful, but sacrifices had to be made if one was to experience true enlightenment. It was always the way. The baptism of fire, so to speak...
"In fact," William continued casually, "the US government had such intimate connections with Umbrella that I was able to contact them in 1998. Like Wesker, I wanted out of Umbrella. They offered me five hundred thousand US dollars a year if I came to work for them, four point five billion for the virus itself, and enough money to buy anonymity for myself and my family for the rest of our lives."
"No..." Leon breathed, staring, unseeing at the floor. "They wouldn't..."
"They would," William said curtly, supremely irritated that Leon refused to accept the truth. "The bio weapons market is extraordinarily competitive. The US Army must have seen some merit in attaining the virus, otherwise they wouldn't have been quite so generous. It's also cut-throat, back-stabbing and utterly ruthless. Spencer may have good friends within the US government, but that didn't stop them from trying to get a hold of me..."
William trailed off. It was clear he had done enough. Leon was clutching at handfuls of his hair and he was shaking slightly. His silence spoke volumes. But Leon was not the only one left feeling a little out of sorts. Telling Kennedy about what had happened prior to Raccoon had opened up unwelcome old wounds that stung bitterly and penetrated deep; wounds that he knew would never fully heal, even if he had all the time in the universe at his disposal. The horribly familiar feelings of guilt, hot anger and shame twisted his insides, and he sat there on the floor of the hotel room staring resolutely at the floor, letting said feelings run their course because he was certain that it would forever remain beyond his power to push them aside for even a moment.
For what felt like hours, the two men endured their own private torments in silence. Kennedy said nothing. William said nothing. Neither of them looked at one another until an alert sounded on Leon's laptop that informed him he had mail.
Leon turned his head round to face the source of the noise with a bitter smile.
"That'll be Hunnigan," he said, leaning over and lifting the laptop onto his lap.
A few seconds later, however, his expression gave away the fact that it wasn't who he had expected.
"What the—?"
William raised his eyes from the mildewed carpet and took in Leon's surprised and bewildered expression. Something was not right...
"What is it?" he asked.
"It's for you," Leon said hesitantly, slowly, as though he were afraid that someone was hiding behind the door and could hear every word he was saying. He kept glancing at the fire escape doors.
"You're joking?" William said, a terribly palpable sense of apprehension beginning to creep its way into the confines of his mind.
Leon shook his head. He handed the laptop over to William, who set it down on the floor and began to read the e-mail Kennedy had received. Leon stood up and, very calmly, reached under the bed and pulled out the cases he had brought with him. He wrote something down on a piece of paper, folded it and slipped it to William, who took it, shooting an inquiring look at the younger man.
"I'll be back in a minute," he said, giving him a significant look. "I'm just going to get something from the other room."
And then he left with the two cases, closing the door behind him with a muted click.
Alone in the room, William blinked owlishly, took a deep breath and began to read.
"This is not for you, Agent Kennedy, but I am afraid it is the only way that I shall be able to reach young William. Being an individual possessed of such a curious nature, you will no doubt read this before him, but I would very much appreciate if you passed along the message.
Now, William, my wayward son, I shall make this brief because both yourself and Agent Kennedy are in, shall we say, rather grave danger.
First, however, I must confess that you disappointed me with your little antics regarding the US government, and for that reason, you must understand why I had to curb your freedom. I allowed you far too much, and you were becoming positively spoiled. I sincerely hope that the events of Raccoon have taught you a lesson in loyalty and humility and that you will make the right decision when the time comes.
Ideally, I would desire to place further stress on the above, however, necessity dictates that I must inform you of the presence of one Agent Jack Krauser right outside your hotel room window. He is preparing to eliminate Agent Kennedy and to take you prisoner on behalf of HCF International.
This cannot happen. Both you and Agent Kennedy must make your escape. There will be a helicopter prepared for your arrival at my hangar at Beauvais airport.
Regards,
Ozwell."
By all accounts, William should have been incensed at the audacity of the man in thinking that he could still manipulate him; at his arrogance; at his condescending, oh-so-self-assured insolence; at his mockingly paternal tone; at his quiet but overwhelming confidence that everything would go according to his plan; and at the fact that this was the man who was ultimately responsible for everything that had ever went wrong in his entire life.
But William wasn't angry.
Instead, he started to laugh. It came gradually at first, in fits and starts. Then it washed over him, the floodgates opened and he couldn't stop. It was the sweetest, most perfect release. He was vindicated. He was vindicated, and it hadn't all been for nothing. At a stroke, it had all become hilariously clear.
Spencer had realised. He had realised and he wanted the G Virus. There had only been two people in the world who knew where it had been hidden. Annette was gone. She was gone and he was the only one left. No doubt they had extracted samples after recovering him from the wreckage of Raccoon, but they would have found nothing useful. Just as Albert had done for HCF, no doubt.
Albert Wesker, on their last fateful meeting before the Arklay incident of July 24, 1998, had warned him that Umbrella did not play games. Not with anyone. Little did he know, however, was the fact that William Birkin had not only been playing games with Umbrella, but had continued playing right up until his assassination in September.
There had only been two people in the world who knew where it had been hidden, and he had hidden it very well, indeed. As if he would have created something as unstable as the G prototype he had, in a fit of madness and intent on retribution, injected himself with! No. The finalised G Virus had more subtle, more profound effects...
Yes.
William Birkin was very much looking forward to meeting his old colleague again.
He was still on the floor laughing when Kennedy came back in, tears streaming down his cheeks. Then a hail of bullets came shrieking through the glass doors and he felt the younger man dragging him bodily out of the room, slamming the door shut behind them. He was shoved unceremoniously down a flight of stairs and they made their escape through the front doors. There was a car waiting outside, the engine thrumming impatiently, ready to screech off at high-speed. The door was open and he was thrown in. A split-second later, Kennedy dived into the passenger seat and snatched up his pistol from its holster.
"Take us to George's place, John! And step on it!" he yelled, training the gun out the window in the direction the gunfire had come from.
The wheels screeched and the car took off, which was fortunate, because seconds later, the whole place exploded.
First thing's first: Annette Birkin. Why? Because this is my "fun project" and I'm an incredibly selfish person when it comes to "fun projects". I had this idea of her writhing around, as mad as a hyena on crack, in a cell in some shady, underground HCF cell and it had to be done. No question. So I decided to use Leon A/Claire B, even though I believe that the canon ending (as much as anything in RE can be called canon) is a mixture of each Leon and Claire scenario. Besides, the bit when Sherry comes across her mum on the catwalk is priceless. I like a bit of emotional agony, especially when I get to write it.
Secondly: Wesker is the only living sample of the G-Virus? Why? To that I say: "why not?" I think that'd be a pretty good plot twist if I was writing for Capcom ahem>
Thirdly: Hoped you liked it. And thanks again to the legendary Hello Captain. Go read "A Hymn for the Things we Didn't Do." It rocketh muchly.
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