Best of Intentions: Feed the Machine (ch. 30)

“Sweet digs,” I remarked from my Resilient Sphere as the cover was cast off from the wagon that I had been loaded inside of. Heisenberg had given up trying to break into it, and instead loaded me up into the secret tunnel that had been built under the castle that the werewolves had erupted from. Just as I suspected, I had been the target of their tipping of the hand, and after dragging me through several miles worth of manmade tunnels and caves systems, we emerged outside near an airfield. From there, we took off for a short flight of a few hours. 

“Based on the temperature, humidity, and the general lack of sun -- I'm guessing Romania?” I asked, kicking my feet up. I knew we were still in Europe based on the time traveled and the guesstimate speed. I had gotten pretty good at Geoguesser due to my endless hunt for Umbrella, so while I might not recognize exactly where I was, I had a pretty solid idea at least. 

The where in question seemed to be the Carpathian Mountains, based on my limited view in the old timey pilgrim wagon that had never heard of a suspension while it hit every bump in the road of the mountain path we were traveling down. The sky was a sea of low fog clouds that were just thin enough to reveal the slopes of the mountains. As well as our ultimate destination -- another castle. A larger one located on the top of a rock peak, leaving a single stone bridge leading to a large castle that was towers on top of towers. 

“Shut it, would ya’? Miranda told me to bring you to her. She didn't say anything about answering your questions,” Heisenberg said, still sour about the whole ‘being set on fire’ thing. Which was rather interesting, if I was being perfectly honest.

Incendiary Cloud was a Level 8 spell that got an upcast due to being an Artificer Spell. That was 12d8 damage per round, and he had been in it for about thirty seconds. Assuming each roll was around the average, that was around… two hundred damage? That wasn't an inconsiderate amount to just shake off. 

Yet, he was as good as new, hunched over in the back of the wagon, trying to ignore me once we landed in Romania and they rolled me into a van, and then a wagon. 

My curiosity was roused. Miranda was a player in this game that I hadn't known about, and by the looks of it, she was beating Umbrella at its own game. They had managed to produce a number of monsters and freaks, but never anyone with genuine super powers. I just didn't know if he was a recent development or not -- Heisenberg didn't seem like he was in the experimenting phase with his powers. He had micro and macro control over polarity, and beyond being salty about it, he wasn’t too bothered about being charred extra crispy. 

Was he created to counter Storm? Me? Or was there something else going on here? 

I knew that they had been looking to counter me. My kidnapping all but proved it -- the deliberate moving under cover, avoiding my tracking satellites? Setting up shop in a backwater corner of the world that had probably never seen a phone before, thus evading my malware empire? They knew I had a massive tech advantage on them, so they avoided fighting me where I had the advantage while setting up someone like Heisenberg. 

Luckily, I was being brought to a place where I could get some answers. 

They brought me through a run down looking village that looked like it had been built in the sixteenth century… and then modernized in the nineteenth century. There wasn't a soul to be found in the village. And I suspected that's where the werewolves came from. We moved through the empty village and brought to the courtyard of the castle, where the doors were thrown open with a wave of Heisenberg's hands while I was rolled indoors. 

It was there, in a grand ballroom, that I saw them neatly arranged. 

My nemesis immediately drew my attention, Oswell E. Spencer. He sat in a wheelchair at the center of an interesting gallery of characters. Contrasting them in his frail appearance. 

Oswell was an old man, eighty years old almost on the dot. His white hair had long since thinned, liver spots dotted his scalp, and his eyes and cheeks had sunken in. Frankly, even for his age, he didn't look good -- he looked like he was a hundred and a stiff breeze from falling over dead. Yet, there was a clarity in his eyes. A sharpness. He watched him get rolled up to him with a gaze filled with triumph and amusement. 

The man standing behind him was a familiar face. The very same face that acted as bait for this trap. 

“Albert Wesker,” I greeted him first, rolling to a stop as I took stock of the situation. “You look pretty well for a man who was riddled with bullets before getting shunted from reality,” I observed, inspecting the man who stood behind my nemesis’ wheelchair. It was the same man, down to the blacked out shades he wore. His expression gave nothing away, not so much as a twitch. 

There was a vague concern that Umbrella had somehow puzzled out dimensional rift tech to pull all the stuff I had been tossing into the astral plane back into reality, but the odds of that were diminishingly small. Not impossible, sure, but only by a technicality. Which led me to believe that something else was at play. A twin? A clone? A vat grown child with a strong family resemblance? 

“Is this the Man-thing that holds such promise?” A woman uttered, and my gaze slid to her and… 

Big lady. 

She wore an oversized black sun hat with a cream colored dress, while her skin was a corpse pallor. There was a disinterested sneer pulling at her lips as she regarded me like a cockroach that scurried into view -- she was pretty. She was also absolutely massive at around ten feet tall. A thin pipe with a cigarette burning at one end was brought to her lips before she let out a cloud of smoke with a disappointed sigh. “How underwhelming.” 

“Your intel was worthless," Heisenberg growled as he walked forward, taking a designated chair for him and sinking into it. The words were directed to Oswell, who barely paid attention to him. “Those nanomachines you were talking about? Couldn't find a trace of them in him and because of that, I got to find out what it feels like to stand on the sun.” 

Nanomachines? 

“Of course, you wouldn't be able to manipulate them,” Oswell said with a strong voice that had a raspy quality to it. “It is too obvious of a means to defeat him. Just as he has made them invisible, he has erased their magnetic signature.” 

I couldn't quite keep the smile off my face when I heard that. The nanomachine explanation… Honestly, I had been half sure that nothing came about it. Wasn't a bad thing, of course. I had tracked some splinter organizations through them dabbling in nanotechnology, trying to replicate me. I never imagined that the little white lie would make it all the way to the top, and that he'd buy it hook, line, and sinker. 

Oswell caught my smile and misunderstood it entirely, “You have, haven't you?” He noted, sounding decidedly amused. “Once upon a time… I would have said such a thing impossible, but you… that word seems to have such little meaning. Your technology, your abilities -- you seem to rewrite the rules of reality however you see fit.” 

“If that were true, we wouldn't be having this conversation,” I replied, my gaze sliding to the others. In particular, the woman who stood beside Oswell. A woman wearing a pretty wild getup -- a golden mask with a disk behind her head, while the rest of her was clad in black robes, with an embroidered fetus at the center of her chest. Which was certainly a fashion statement. “Frankly, if that were true, I would have killed everyone in this room as a matter of principle so I can kick back and sip pina coladas from my vacation house on the moon.” 

Big lady sneered so hard that she could have pulled something. Heisenberg, however, looked wary.

Oswell smiled, “I'm sure. You have transcended the limits of mere mortals, yet you are not a god. You are merely the closest to becoming one.” But then that smile slipped off of his face, “And yet, you seem to be content merely chasing after our shadows.” 

“Ah. I suppose this is the part where you explain why you rolled out the red carpet for me,” I noted, tilting my head and keeping an eye on the woman next to Oswell. Oswell was an old school kind of man -- born in 1923, a veteran of the second World War, and in the years following, a proponent for eugenics that was eerily reminiscent of Hitler's, just less selective. Point being, while he was more progressive in some ways, there was a bit of that old school sexism in him that he never shook off. 

So, her standing next to him was a sign that she was an equal. An equal that he couldn't place behind him to be the center focus. 

“Not for you,” Oswell corrected with a rasp. “One of your compatriots, Jill Valentine or Chris Redfield. They were the ones we hoped to ensnare with the trap. Capturing you was… unexpected. A touch disappointing, if I must be honest. I expected better for you.” The guy actually sounded disappointed in me -- the kind that reminded me of my dad when I brought home a D on my report card. It was actually a little perplexing. 

“However,” Oswell shifted in his wheelchair, “Now that you are here… it is all the same, I believe. What I- what we want from you… is your mind, Rudeus Rain. Your brilliance. I am here to ask you to drop the haze of hatred that has blinded you, so you may accomplish your destiny!” 

The passion in his voice rose with every word until it was punctuated with a harsh coughing fit. Meanwhile, I leaned forward against my Sphere and pulled that over in my mind for just a few seconds. 

“Destiny,” I echoed, sounding the word out as I invited an explanation with a rising eyebrow. 

Oswell gathered himself, and there was a burning intensity in his eyes, “I know what you think of me. Of my work,” Oswell started, drawing upon himself and despite looking like a frail old man, there was a core of strength there. “But you do not understand my vision. It was not an idle fantasy that spurring me into dedicating the last sixty years of my life to this… ambition. What I saw in the second World War was humanity's nature laid bare.” 

His lips thinned, “The chaos. The senseless destruction. Arbitrary lines in who is worthy of salvation and who shall be condemned to death camps so horrid the Devil himself would flinch. It was then that I saw the truth -- Humanity is a vain, stupid, self destructive species that requires a righteous guiding hand else we will destroy ourselves.” He gripped the handles of his wheelchair with talon-like hands, and for a second, I thought he was going to rise from his wheelchair from the passion in his voice. 

“I'd use a lot of words to describe your company, Oswell. Righteous isn't one of them,” I interjected without any warmth. His motivation wasn't exactly a surprise. I had researched the man extensively, and it was clear that pre-War Oswell was a very different man than the one who returned. What inspired that change specifically, I didn't know, but there was a common thread amongst the various Neo-Umbrellas and that was the theme of transhumanism. 

“I'll spare you the analogy of making an omelet,” Oswell replied, sinking back into himself. “Bio-weapons was only ever a means to an end. A way to advance our research and secure the funding necessary to uplift our base nature. To make the modern human obsolete in comparison to what would come after -- an empowered humanity. A united humanity.” 

“With you at the head of it, hm?” I interjected, but he offered me a cutting smile. 

“Or you, Mr. Rain,” he replied, and I hadn't expected that rebuttal and my silence was telling. “I cannot claim to understand what you are, but I understand your nature. In the days leading up to the Raccoon City Incident, you foresaw the disaster and instead of fleeing… you stayed and attempted to midgate the damage from one of my companies greatest failures. You possess a rare moral fiber that makes you worthy of the power and influence you wield.” 

I wasn't expecting compliments. The man was my nemesis. I was expecting more along the lines of trading barbs and subtle threats, not for him to blow smoke up my ass. 

He continued, “For five years, you have fought us. Relentlessly stamping out any trace of my company or our creations. Yet, did you never once think at what we could accomplish together? You could remake the world in ways that I could have never dreamed of, yet you insist on wasting your talents merely chasing my shadows. You have all the pieces to usurp control over the world, yet you restrain yourself to only waste your efforts on me. What miracles could you create with that wasted effort? Could hunger be eradicated? Could humanity truly live on the moon or as far away as on Mars?” 

The disappointed tone was back, but it was upped by the sound of genuine heartbreak in his voice. Like he had genuinely expected better from me. And, frankly, it was pretty annoying. 

“Uplifting humanity is a side gig for me, and it's more than enough to get the job done,” I replied blandly. I had my shell companies, my various projects, and so on. “I've just been focused on removing a cancer that'd ruin things for everyone. As a bunch of psychopathic narcissists with bio-weapons tend to do.” 

Oswell, for all his many and considerable faults, at least had the decency to not argue that point. He knew exactly who his company recruited and what they had been doing for half a century. 

He could dress it up all he wanted. He could slap labels like ‘the greater good’ or ‘the lesser evil’ over it, but that didn’t change the facts. Umbrella had a very long history of illegal human experimentation. Of kidnapping random innocent people, putting them through horrific experiments that ended with the victim dying screaming if they were lucky. Then they just repeated the process over and over and over again until they got what they wanted. 

Which was usually a weapon that could be unleashed to kill even more people. 

Because, at the core of it, despite everything he was trying to convince me of -- Umbrella was the company that tried to nuke Raccoon City to cover their tracks because they infected the city with a bio-weapon. They killed tens of thousands, then were willing to kill tens of thousands more to cover it up. 

“Then become the guiding hand,” Oswell rasped, an urgent note in his voice. “Stop fighting Umbrella and join it. Lead it. Control it so you can accomplish what you were meant to do.” 

“... No,” I answered simply. 

“You've thought about it,” Oswell urged. “You are too brilliant not to see the answer. A solution to this… quarrel,” he said before a smile grew on his face, “Tell me, Mr. Rain. How long would it take you to accomplish what I have spent sixty years trying to achieve? How long would it take you to perfect the T-Virus?” 

Two months. 

Irritatingly, he wasn’t exactly wrong. The thought had crossed my mind before I dismissed the idea out of hand. It had started as a thought experiment about six months into the creation of Storm, a few months after Rockfort Island. I had been pouring over the notes found in the Arctic lab and it had dawned upon me at how long of a history Umbrella had with the Progenitor Virus. How many years they sank into mastering it, money spent on research, how many people died in the name of progress? 

So, I thought about it. I asked myself what I would need to do to accomplish what they spent half a century pursuing -- a perfected virus. One that would bring everyone to a baseline of super strength, endurance, intelligence, and health. A virus that I could infect the world with, thus rendering them immune to the other variants that Umbrella cooked up. A stable virus that would undercut anything they could hope to accomplish for decades to come. 

I didn't follow through with it because it was an astoundingly stupid idea. 

Setting aside the risk of the virus mutating in an uncontrolled environment, which was a really stupid thing to do in the first place, society would outright collapse. Everyone would have a genius-level IQ with a superhuman body capable of dodging bullets and punching through a solid brick wall. Crime would explode, governments would dissolve, wars would be waged during the chaos -- in attempting to uplift humanity, there were decent odds it would annihilate itself. Simply put, it would be putting a lot of power in people's hands who have never had power and shouldn't be trusted with power.

The second option was to selectively distribute the perfected virus to people who were like-minded and whom I could trust. Use that to build a foundation to catch society during the upheaval to mitigate the damage. But that option was discarded because it was basically just taking over the world with extra steps. 

And that was exactly what Oswell wanted. 

“Not long,” I admitted, just to rub some salt into the wound that it really wouldn't take me more than a few months to puzzle out his life's ambition, mostly because I was a petty bitch. “A few months. But that's on the assumption that I in any way agree with your goal. I do agree with your point -- humanity sucks. We are a stupid self destructive species. But robbing billions of people of their agency to make choices, even the wrong ones, isn't a solution that I will accept.” 

Oswell didn't seem surprised, though he did seem disappointed. “I did not expect to convince you with a single conversation,” he admitted. “In truth, I would be quite disappointed if I had.” 

“You make it sound as if there will be a second conversation,” I noted, tilting my head ever so slightly. As informative as his monologue had been, I didn't let myself be captured because of idle curiosity. 

“There will be,” Oswell replied, certain of it. “Unless you wish for every single major city to suffer an outbreak of the T-Virus overnight.” 

And there it was. The stick to the carrot. 

I saw the threat coming. The moment it was clear that Oswell felt like he had stacked the deck enough to invite me into a trap, I suspected that something like this was on the table. They wouldn’t have taken the risk that they were merely to take down a few of our Javelines. It simply wasn't worth the risk, so they would have broader goals. They would also have a back up threat to make sure that things went according to their plan. 

I was keenly aware of my weaknesses and shortcomings. I had walked a mile in Oswell's shoes, and I knew how he could hit me where it hurt. 

That was in a global attack. I was uncertain how much he knew, but he would suspect that I operated in a tightly formed organization. Easier to maintain the level of operational security I preferred that way. Meaning that he would know that I wouldn't have the raw numbers to deal with a world wide attack. At least not without making some painful sacrifices. 

“Not exactly making a compelling case,” I replied, allowing my annoyance to slip through. Better to let him know that his estimation was right, otherwise he would feel the need to be more creative. Though, that was likely an effort in futility. “Being willing to kill millions for the sake of your goal of a new world order… kinda undercut your point.” 

Oswell met my gaze and held it, “Billions.” He corrected. 

Right. Billions. 

“Until then, you shall be a guest in this castle,” he continued, like he hadn't just threatened to burn the world down so he could rule the ashes. “While your organization continues its work subverting our threat, you will be compelled to complete your work to prevent me from acting on my threat. A man of your brilliance… I suspect that it would take you as little as a month to be done with it.” 

He wasn't underestimating me. That was actually a little annoying. 

“And after that?” I prompted, holding his gaze. 

“I shall have a task of my own -- to convince you of the benefits of cooperation,” Oswell replied, offering a grandfatherly smile that made my skin crawl. 

Not ideal. But I had done a lot more with a lot less… and Oswell wasn't the only one with aces up his sleeve. 

So, with a deliberate wave of my hand, I allowed the Resilient Sphere to fade away, leaving me exposed to the frigid air of Northern Romania. The others shifted their posture, ready for me to attack, but instead, I threw on a winning smile that didn't reach my eyes. 

“Then show me my lab.”