Douglas and Carlito entered the office.
Only one elderly man and his bodyguard were waiting inside.
Douglas knew, of course, that this particular bodyguard was a perfect T-Virus adapter.
Sergei Vladimir, a former colonel in the Soviet military, had joined Umbrella after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Research suggested that only one person in ten million possessed perfect compatibility with the T-Virus.
Sergei was that one-in-ten-million anomaly.
The old man was Oswell E.
Spencer, one of the founders of the Umbrella Corporation.
After decades of internal struggle, Umbrella had effectively become his personal domain, completely under his control.
In wealth and influence, Spencer could still be counted among the giants of the world.
He remained well below Douglas, however.
The two men played in different industries.
A pharmaceutical company could hardly go head-to-head with a military-industrial empire.
“Your super-soldier program has not gone well, and it caused an enormous disaster besides.
Yet instead of dealing with the fallout, you find time to visit an old wreck like me.”
Spencer coughed twice after speaking.
Age had steadily eroded his health.
The only reason he had survived this long was that Umbrella’s research in the field could still keep him alive.
“The fallout isn’t my headache.
That’s for the coalition governments to deal with.
You, on the other hand, ought to consider sharing some research data with me.
Umbrella’s research must be approaching a bottleneck by now.”
As he finished speaking, Carlito pulled out a chair and Douglas sat down without ceremony.
A shadow passed through Spencer’s eyes, but he waved a hand dismissively.
“You needn’t concern yourself with that.
You people moved quickly, though.
Rex is with you, isn’t he?”
Douglas’s expression did not change.
He answered in a perfectly even tone.
“Who knows?
My men didn’t manage to secure him.
CT failed to rescue Dr.
Rex as well.
Perhaps the T faction killed him.”
Spencer cursed him internally.
Killed by T, my ass.
The Douglas Group had countless respectable fronts and dirty proxies alike.
God only knew where they had taken Rex.
Spencer naturally wanted Dr.
As a researcher, the man was unquestionably talented enough to be compared with William Birkin.
Several of Umbrella’s current projects really had reached bottlenecks.
If Rex could be obtained, there was a genuine chance of pushing them further.
Sergei and Carlito said nothing.
They merely stared calmly at one another.
Carlito knew Sergei probably possessed some hidden mutated form and quietly considered what level of force would be required to kill him.
Sergei, meanwhile, could tell Carlito was a battle-hardened veteran.
In his mind, however, an ordinary human could never compare with someone enhanced by a virus.
If he chose to kill Carlito, Sergei believed it would be easy.
“Still, with your so-called super-soldier program now a failure, you must be reconsidering your position.” Spencer said it almost casually.
Douglas merely gave him a contemptuous smile.
“It doesn’t matter.
It doesn’t even qualify as a flesh wound.
I’m only an investor.
Losing a little money is a trivial inconvenience.
I came here because I still genuinely hope Umbrella will cooperate with us.”
Douglas presented himself with extraordinary sincerity.
An ordinary person might already have been sweet-talked into trusting him completely.
But Spencer was no ordinary man.
He had mastered every kind of corporate political struggle.
He could not afford even the smallest collaboration with Douglas now; give that man one opening, and being swallowed whole would only be a matter of time.
Spencer understood better than most that a thousand-mile dike could collapse through a single ant hole.
One careless step and it was simply game over.
“Then I’ll decline.
As you can see, Umbrella currently lacks neither funding nor external stability.
Our core technological research is proceeding perfectly well.”
Spencer rejected Douglas without hesitation.
Douglas had nothing more to say about the result.
So be it.
“Then I hope everything continues smoothly on your end.”
Douglas rose at once and left with Carlito.
Spencer stopped Sergei from seeing them out.
There was no friendship between the two sides that required such courtesy.
Only after they were gone did Sergei say, “Sir, is this wise?
The Douglas Group is a colossal power.
If we sever dealings with them so completely now…”
His respect for Spencer kept him from pressing the point.
In the end, no one truly understood Spencer’s objective.
He did not pursue mere wealth or political power.
He envisioned a new age ruled by a new humanity.
The possibility remained distant, but at least he could finally glimpse it.
Together with his most secret research into a virus capable of granting immortality, the resources he had already accumulated were more than sufficient for steady long-term development.
Cooperating with Douglas under those circumstances would be nothing more than asking a tiger for its skin.
Sergei did not understand any of that.
His own wish was far simpler: use Umbrella’s wealth and research power to restore the former glory of the Soviet Union.
The two men’s ultimate goals pointed in completely different directions.
When the decisive moment arrived, Spencer would abandon Sergei without hesitation.
By then Douglas and Carlito had boarded their private aircraft.
Once inside, Carlito asked, “Boss, that old bastard Spencer was pretty damn hostile to you.”
“The old fool still thinks he controls the board.
Senility has simply stopped him from thinking far enough ahead.
Let him wait for death.”
Douglas accepted a wineglass from the flight attendant and relaxed while she poured his favorite vintage.
Only after drinking half the glass did he explain to Carlito, “Spencer controls the situation because he still controls Umbrella, the pharmaceutical company.
Take Umbrella away and what is he?
An old man.
The idiot actually believes that even without Umbrella, all those core talents under him will remain loyal.
Is he dreaming?”
He finished the remaining wine, wetting his throat, and handed the empty glass back to the flight attendant.
“Without Umbrella—the hen that lays his golden eggs—who keeps serving him?
His hidden reserves of money will eventually run dry.
His core personnel will grow restless as he becomes weaker.
In the end, we won’t even need to act.
Those people will tear Spencer to pieces on their own.”
Douglas thought of the several restless figures inside Umbrella.
If decades of self-control had not restrained him, he might have burst out laughing.
He did not need to step onto the board and fight Spencer personally at all.
Those people would make the old man regret everything soon enough.
A god of the new world?
That decrepit old man?
If Spencer could become one, then anyone could.
Douglas, by comparison, was perfectly content to preserve the existing world order.
Life was already extremely comfortable for him.