Irons’s speech went ahead as scheduled.
Mayor Michael Warren addressed the crowd outside City Hall.
Mingling among the spectators, Huo Xiu spotted not only Warren and Chief Irons, but another familiar face as well: Sherry’s mother, Annette Birkin.
Her presence surprised him at first, but the explanation was obvious.
William rarely attended public functions when he could be working in a laboratory.
If Umbrella needed a representative from the Birkin household, Annette would naturally appear in his place.
This was also Huo Xiu’s first time seeing Mayor Warren in person.
Before now, he had known the man mainly from his statue.
Huh.
The sculptor actually did a pretty accurate job.
“Today is an important day.
The strength of Raccoon City’s police—and of justice itself—will take another step forward.
We stand at the threshold of the twenty-first century.
Raccoon City is my hometown.
When I was young, it was still a small city.
When I left for New York to attend university, I swore that once I had gained the education and experience I needed, I would return and help build my home into something greater.
“I kept that promise.
The citizens of Raccoon City trusted me enough to reelect me as mayor, and I remain profoundly grateful.
But the Raccoon City we know today is not the achievement of one man.
“I thank Mr.
Oswell E.
Spencer.
The Spencer Foundation he established, together with Umbrella Corporation, has played an indispensable role in our city’s development.
I thank the Kite brothers, whose tireless work built the subway and rail systems that still serve our citizens every day.
And I thank Chief Brian Irons.
He and the Raccoon Police Department he leads are pillars of justice in our community.
Now, please welcome Chief Brian Irons to the stage!” Applause spread through the crowd.
Huo Xiu could not help reflecting that Warren, strictly speaking, was not truly a bad man.
He was an ambitious young man who genuinely wanted to build up his hometown.
Unfortunately, he had never understood Spencer well enough, nor did he know what the mansion in the Arklay Mountains truly concealed or how it had been built.
If he did, Huo Xiu suspected he would regret it.
Huo Xiu had little interest in Irons’s speech.
Most of it was empty political language.
The only part worth noting was the official conclusion regarding the abandoned hospital.
He was genuinely impressed by how quickly the R.P.D.
had responded and processed the scene, but the stated result was nonsense.
Huo Xiu had been wearing an Umbrella-marked hat.
Any competent investigator who reviewed the route cameras could have guessed the broad outline of what happened.
Of course, no one here dared connect the incident to Umbrella in public.
The corporation was Irons’s biggest patron.
Raymond and Marvin Branagh both looked displeased.
They knew the official explanation was false.
Irons’s standing instruction, however, was that matters involving Umbrella could be investigated privately but never presented publicly.
Doing so, he claimed, would destroy confidence in the city government.
Marvin and the others understood the practical danger.
For the sake of short-term stability, the truth would have to remain sealed away until the day Umbrella no longer possessed the power to bury it.
After Irons finished speaking, Annette Birkin took the stage as Umbrella’s representative and announced new investments under Raccoon City’s “Bright Twenty-First Century” development program.
Umbrella would expand support for the city orphanage so more homeless children could receive proper education.
It would fund a new kindergarten to reduce overcrowding at the old facility.
It would also deepen cooperation with local pharmacies, improving access to more effective medicines at lower prices.
The announcements were received enthusiastically, and camera flashes repeatedly lit Annette’s face.
Most citizens of Raccoon City genuinely trusted Umbrella.
Whatever else the corporation did in secret, many of the medicines it sold to the public were effective, affordable, and difficult to criticize.
The event ended quickly.
The crowd dispersed while Warren, Annette, and Irons were surrounded by reporters competing for interviews.
As Huo Xiu left, an unexpected visitor approached him.
“Interested in a conversation?” The English was unmistakably American, except that the speaker’s r’s carried a pronounced Slavic trill.
“Sure.” Huo Xiu already had a good idea who it was, but he turned anyway.
The man stood around six-foot-eleven, exactly the height of a T-103 Tyrant.
He looked remarkably young for his age and had striking white hair.
No two bodyguards accompanied him today, perhaps because he wanted to demonstrate sincerity by meeting alone.
There was little doubt.
Only two former Soviet officers mattered prominently in this corner of Resident Evil’s history.
One was Nicholai Ginovaef, the mercenary known as Silver Wolf.
The other was the broad-shouldered man standing here: former Soviet colonel Sergei Vladimir.
In personality, Nicholai and Sergei were almost opposites.
Nicholai was loyal to no one, calculating and treacherous, always waiting for the highest bidder.
Sergei, by contrast, was almost fanatically loyal.
Even when Umbrella reached the end of its existence, he remained with the corporation simply because it had once given him a place to belong.
He even regarded his clones as brothers.
The pain of sacrificing those “brothers” was something he could not easily express, surfacing only in the monstrous form of his own later mutation.
Knowing that made it difficult for Huo Xiu to genuinely hate him.
Sergei was also an unusually compatible T-Virus host and one of the genetic foundations used in Tyrant development, making him a major figure within Umbrella.
Two months earlier, he had arrived in Raccoon City and removed the T-011 experimental subject—the prototype later associated with T-A.L.O.S.—from the Arklay Laboratory.
He had remained in the city since.
As a senior Umbrella executive and leader within its armed operations division, Sergei had received the reports from Sheena Island and Paris almost immediately.
He knew Huo Xiu existed and had quietly watched his movements.
After consulting Spencer, Sergei chose today to make contact.
If Huo Xiu truly had useful potential, Sergei intended to recruit him into Umbrella.
“Want a burger?
Sit.
Sergei Vladimir.
I used to be a colonel.
I’m not anymore, so Sergei is fine.” Sergei’s lack of pretension surprised Huo Xiu.
He sat without ceremony, and burgers arrived soon afterward.
“Hyp Hoffman.
You can call me Huo Xiu.
Nice to meet you, Colonel.” The atmosphere was not particularly tense.
It felt more like two people making casual small talk about everyday life.
“There seems to be no pattern to your actions.
What principle guides them?
Fame?
Money?” Sergei asked first.
It was a test—an attempt to determine whether Huo Xiu was someone worth bringing into Umbrella.
There was no single correct answer.
Sergei would accept a desire for status, wealth, duty, or something else, provided the answer was genuine and delivered without evasiveness.
What he despised were hypocrisy and convictions that collapsed under pressure.
People like that had no place in the organization he served.
Albert Wesker, in Sergei’s mind, was the perfect example.
Umbrella had never mistreated that parasite, yet Wesker had still betrayed it.
Scum.
Huo Xiu’s answer, however, was not what Sergei expected.
“Justice and conviction, I suppose.” He answered without hesitation and with almost no time spent thinking.
Sergei’s interest sharpened.
“Conviction?
In what?
Christ?
Another religion?
And whose justice do you mean?
Justice for yourself?” Now Sergei was genuinely intrigued.
He respected people with beliefs, but he had no patience for those who used belief as a banner while privately caring only about business and advantage.
He needed to know whether Huo Xiu’s words matched the behavior Sergei had observed—whether the man actually practiced what he preached.
Only then could Sergei judge whether he was trustworthy enough to join them.
Huo Xiu’s capability did not need further testing.
The report from Laboratory Six had settled that question.
Character was the real issue.
Sergei had no desire to allow a second Albert Wesker to grow inside Umbrella.
“What do I believe in?
Probably the ordinary human sense of right and wrong.
That’s the justice I mean.
If I see something evil, I stop it.
If I see someone doing good, I support them.
And within whatever limits I have, I try to help the people I can help.
That’s about it.” A smile appeared at the corner of Sergei’s mouth.
Such a simple, almost childlike ideal.
It also explained Huo Xiu’s actions yesterday and that morning.
A genuine idealist.
Perhaps naïve in some ways—but if more people believed in something that simple, would the world not be better for it?
More importantly, Huo Xiu possessed the strength to turn ideals into reality.
Sergei already knew where that strength could be used best.
Umbrella maintained anti-biohazard units of its own.
In such a role, Huo Xiu could pursue his idea of justice to the fullest extent possible.
“The ordinary human sense of right and wrong…
I like that expression.
You’re hired.
From now on, we’re comrades.” Sergei stood and extended a hand.
Huo Xiu rose and shook it solemnly.
A vehicle stopped outside moments later, driven by an Ivan Tyrant wearing a wig.
Sergei prepared to leave and handed Huo Xiu a radio.
“Use this to contact me.
Once you pass the entry assessment, you’ll work under me in an anti-biohazard unit.”