September 21, Raccoon City — 8:00 a.m.
After a good night’s sleep at the Apple Inn, Huo Xiu was ready to get to work.
Naturally, he took advantage of breakfast first.
It was no token breakfast, either—certainly better than the glorified livestock feed some twenty-first-century American hotels called breakfast.
No wonder Americans love burgers and carb bombs.
Half the time breakfast doesn’t even fill you up.
City maps should be easy enough to buy; there seemed to be one available on every street.
The most conspicuous building in Raccoon City was unquestionably the Raccoon Police Department.
Converted from an art museum, the station was absurdly large.
Chief Irons had never had good intentions when overseeing its renovation, either.
He had packed the building with hidden mechanisms—partly to keep anyone from discovering the filth he wanted concealed, and partly so that if ruin ever came for him, he could drag the entire R.P.D.
down with him.
William Birkin’s underground laboratory, meanwhile, lay in the sewer network near the station.
Even while resting, Huo Xiu had repeatedly considered whether careful intervention over the next two days could prevent the outbreak altogether.
After running the scenario through his head again and again, he reached the same conclusion: almost certainly not.
William was arrogant and conceited enough that even a direct warning would be dismissed, and he certainly would not thank anyone for it.
Worse, the infection spread because rats consumed culture medium contaminated with the T-Virus while liquid virus entered the sewer system.
Small animal hosts made the transmission rate horrifyingly fast.
Even if William never suffered a life-threatening attack, a Raccoon City outbreak had effectively become inevitable.
The Arklay Mountains had already fallen during the Mansion Incident two months earlier.
S.T.A.R.S.
had destroyed the mansion and the Arklay Laboratory, but mutated organisms still roamed the surrounding mountains.
Then mutated fleas infiltrated the Raccoon City wastewater treatment facility near the Arklay region.
Workers became infected, and eventually the facility’s water supply was compromised as well.
In other words, William’s disaster would only accelerate an outbreak whose foundations were already in place.
And, frankly, keeping William Birkin alive was not necessarily a good thing in its own right.
Only then did Huo Xiu fully accept that knowing the course of events, knowing the ending, and possessing overwhelming strength did not mean he could rewrite anything he wanted.
Even after Umbrella’s destruction, any company within the Global Pharmaceutical Consortium could still become the next Umbrella.
All he could do was act within his own reach and do the best job possible.
What exactly does Daylight need again?
First, a sample of P-Base.
That should be easy.
He could probably obtain it from either Arklay General Hospital or Spencer Memorial, though with his current identity the Umbrella R&D Center downtown might be the simplest option.
Second, V-Poison.
Harder, but still manageable.
Wasps nested around the exhaust tower at Raccoon University; during the outbreak they would mutate, and that was where the V-Poison used in Daylight could be obtained.
The final ingredient was T-Blood from a T-Virus-infected host.
That might have been difficult for an ordinary person, but Huo Xiu had two obvious options.
The first was Thanatos, the Tyrant Professor Greg Mueller was nearing completion inside Raccoon University.
The second was Huo Xiu himself.
He was a Tyrant too, after all.
Thanatos was still the better option.
Huo Xiu’s own blood was dark green.
The moment anyone extracted it, they would know he was not human.
More importantly, the Hypnos cells in his body might have altered the T-Virus in ways no one understood.
A stable specimen was preferable.
Huo Xiu hailed a taxi.
Even the cab doors bore Umbrella’s logo, forcing him to marvel once again at how completely the corporation had permeated everyday life in Raccoon City.
Then again, the city’s modern rise had begun under Umbrella’s patronage in the first place.
“You’re pretty young, kid.
Already landed yourself a job with Umbrella?
That’s impressive.
Get hired by them and you’re set for life—never have to worry about food or rent again…” Huo Xiu blinked, then realized what the driver had seen.
He removed his hat.
Sure enough, the T-103-style cap carried an Umbrella emblem.
They even branded the hat?
It did look cool, admittedly, but no wonder the driver assumed he was an employee.
Huo Xiu could only smile without answering.
The driver was a middle-aged man, somewhere in his forties or fifties.
Taxi work did not make him rich, but it was enough to support his family.
He even remarked that, barring some accident, he expected to keep driving until retirement.
A short while later, they reached Raccoon University.
“I’m here to see Professor Mueller.
Could you let him know?” Raccoon University had a reputation for being open and inclusive.
Over the past few days, however, students, professors, and staff alike had grown increasingly uneasy.
Colleagues kept disappearing, and that was difficult to ignore.
Rumors spread through campus that a serial killer was targeting university personnel.
Curiously, the disappearances had stopped after a Black staff member vanished not long before.
Even so, nervous students continued speculating about what had happened.
Huo Xiu already knew the truth.
The missing students and employees had been abducted as experimental subjects, and the Black staff member had happened to be the most suitable base organism for Thanatos.
Huo Xiu was not worried about whether Greg Mueller would agree to meet him, either.
The moment Mueller saw him, there was no chance the man would refuse.
Before long, Professor Mueller emerged from the university wearing his glasses.
Apparently he had no lecture requiring his personal attendance that morning.
The instant he saw Huo Xiu, his pupils contracted—then his eyes lit up.
Huo Xiu recognized the expression at once.
It was the ecstasy of an artist staring at a masterpiece, almost like a fanatic beholding God with his own eyes.
Greg Mueller might not have possessed many moral limits, but he did possess exacting aesthetic standards.
In his view, Tyrants should never be disposable products manufactured by the hundreds.
Each one should be a singular work of art.
After the Mansion Incident, he had fled to Raccoon University with a T-Virus sample and research data on the T-002, intending to create his ideal Tyrant: Thanatos.
With an eye like his, how could he possibly fail to recognize that Huo Xiu was a Tyrant?
“Come inside.
We can discuss what you want.” Mueller suppressed his excitement and adjusted his glasses, speaking in as calm a tone as he could manage.
He no longer truly considered himself an Umbrella employee.
After the Mansion Incident, he had escaped to Raccoon University with T-002 research and the T-Virus, proposed Thanatos, and then rejected Umbrella’s demand to mass-produce his creation.
From that moment on, he had known the corporation would eventually come for him.
Since then, he had refused to respond to any further communications from Umbrella.
Huo Xiu, however, left him genuinely awestruck.
Mueller struggled to find a word beyond art that could describe what stood before him: intelligent, outwardly almost flawless, unmistakably self-aware.
A masterpiece—no, perhaps even calling him that was an insult.
This was a true new human species.
Mueller could barely imagine what kind of genius could create something so close to an act of Genesis.
He was willing to declare that, aside from Thanatos himself, no Tyrant in existence could surpass Huo Xiu in artistry or biological aesthetics.
He did not take Huo Xiu to his office.
Instead, he led him to a secret laboratory.
A single culture tank stood within.
Inside slept a black-skinned giant: Thanatos.
He was roughly the size of a T-103 and completely naked.
Although the design had used the T-103 as a foundation, Mueller personally preferred the T-002 and had incorporated several of its traits into Thanatos.
A transplanted second heart protruded from the chest beneath a protective metal plate, and enormous claws armed both hands.
Mueller casually pulled over a chair.
“Sit.
There is no one else here now.
You are not human, are you?
So tell me—why have you come to see me?”