Someone once proposed an interesting idea: a butterfly flapping its wings on one side of the ocean might eventually contribute to a tornado in California.
Now the blue butterfly from Sheena Island had beaten his wings, and the storm brewing over Raccoon City—the storm that should have destroyed it—quietly began to change course.
That night — ruins of the abandoned hospital.
“Damn it…
Why did this have to happen the night before my speech?” Police units poured into the Arklay Mountains.
Orange barricade tape and patrol cars flashing red and blue sealed the access roads, while fire engines raced toward the blaze.
Chief Brian Irons personally led the operation.
The deputy chief, Raymond, and veteran officer Marvin Branagh were among those present.
The caller who reported the incident claimed he had been out for a walk when he noticed a fire burning in the direction of the Arklay Mountains.
The structure appeared to be the abandoned hospital that had once been shut down after a medical scandal.
Deputy Chief Raymond had taken the original report.
Irons might have been chief, but in practice he spent far more time reassuring the public, giving speeches, and accepting Umbrella bribes that funded his private appetites than he did solving cases.
Day-to-day case intake usually fell to Raymond and veteran officers like Marvin.
The moment Raymond heard which building was burning, he remembered that Irons himself had led the operation that closed it.
Had the former director ignored the police order, continued operating illegally, and caused yet another incident?
Raymond immediately informed Irons.
To Raymond’s surprise, the chief—usually indifferent to ordinary cases under the excuse of “developing his subordinates”—responded with extraordinary speed and enthusiasm.
He personally took charge and announced that they would restore the public’s peace of mind.
Only Irons knew the real reason.
Nearly every powerful figure in Raccoon City, Mayor Michael Warren included, accepted money from Umbrella.
The abandoned hospital had been part of the same web.
Irons had personally dealt with Albert Lester and knew perfectly well that the hospital had used cancer patients in T-Virus experiments.
He had even helped suppress the original scandal.
That useless fool Lester had still managed to lose control of the situation so badly that one of the journalists investigating the hospital became infected and transformed on the spot.
After that, there had been no realistic way to bury the story completely.
The hospital had to be shut down before public anger became uncontrollable.
Remembering it made Irons furious.
He had thought the closure would teach Lester enough of a lesson.
Apparently he had overestimated the man.
Now Lester had created another ridiculous mess immediately before Irons’s public speech, with a new police recruit due to arrive only days later.
Irons had planned to display the authority of the chief’s office in front of his subordinates.
Instead, this was what he got.
Only two months earlier, he had dispatched S.T.A.R.S.
to deal with the cannibal-murder cases and clean up yet another one of Umbrella’s disasters, restoring some public confidence in the process.
If he failed to resolve this incident cleanly, trust in the R.P.D.
could begin collapsing again.
Of course Irons knew what S.T.A.R.S.
had written in their reports.
That was precisely why he could not allow those reports to be believed.
If he had not suspended the unit, would William Birkin have continued cooperating with him?
Would Umbrella have kept paying him?
If S.T.A.R.S.
had been allowed to publish its investigation, Umbrella would probably have leaked Irons’s own dirt the following day.
Blackmail worked both ways.
Irons had never pretended to be a good man, but he was not stupid enough to betray the people financing and protecting him merely for the sake of his subordinates.
He had to keep matters clean—just as he intended to do tonight.
The firefighters eventually brought the blaze under control.
The building had collapsed almost completely, forcing officers to comb through the debris by flashlight in search of anything that might still serve as evidence.
“Chief!
We found a body.” After several bricks were removed, a horribly burned corpse appeared beneath the rubble.
The body had been carbonized almost beyond recognition, with scarcely a patch of intact skin and no facial features left from which an identity could be established.
Curiously, the dead man appeared to have died while holding something in his arms, though nothing remained there now.
It was the only significant evidence the search team had recovered so far.
“Collect whatever blood is still usable.
Run it against the records in our database.” Even Irons felt his stomach turn at the condition of the corpse.
Almost none of the skin remained intact, and most of the blood had been cooked dry inside the body; the technicians would be lucky to recover a small sample.
No artistry at all.
Compared with my specimens, this is just ugly.
Still, it was the only evidence they had.
The public would not accept a lazy answer built around a corpse that could not speak for itself.
Since the hospital’s surveillance system had been destroyed in the collapse, they would reconstruct the event from physical evidence instead.
Irons did not remain idle while his officers searched.
Among the broken masonry, a glint of silver caught his eye.
“What’s this…?” He cleared away the dirt and picked up the object.
A lighter—still open.
Smoke had blackened most of its casing, but after Irons rubbed away the soot, the original silver finish showed through.
The flash he had seen came from the lid.
Cleaning it further revealed the manufacturer’s mark.
Irons knew the brand.
Local stores carried it.
Ever since the Mansion Incident, his nerves had been unstable enough that he smoked frequently to calm himself.
His secretary had even dared pry into matters that did not concern her.
The woman had been smart enough to stop before going too far, but that did not reassure him.
Irons would have to punish the curiosity just enough to make his point, then destroy every piece of evidence she had managed to gather.
Neither his private interests nor his dealings with Umbrella could ever be exposed to daylight—unless the world itself was ending or Irons was already certain he would die.
If the truth came out, he would lose more than the public.
His own officers would turn against him, and his control over the R.P.D.
would collapse.
“Pull the surveillance footage.
Find out who bought this brand of lighter today.” After giving the order, Irons waited.
It did not take long for the forensic team to return with a report.
“Chief, we’ve got a match.
The victim was the hospital’s former director, Albert Lester.” Irons dismissed the officer with a few words, then grabbed at his own hair, fighting the urge to tear the report in half.
Fuck!
What was that old man Albert thinking?
He burned himself alive in there?
Was he out of his mind?
He got what he wanted, and now I have to cover for him.
Did he not care what the citizens would think at all?
Once the place had been shut down, couldn’t he have known when to stop?
Why have the problems kept coming one after another for the last two months?
Not long afterward, the officer responsible for pulling the surveillance footage arrived.
“Chief, we’ve identified a suspect.
We checked the store camera and the surrounding routes.
Only one person bought that model of lighter and then headed directly toward the Arklay Mountains.” The instant Irons saw the conspicuous Umbrella logo on the suspect’s hat, his heart seemed to stop.
Whatever this was, the investigation ended here.
If they dug any deeper, there was every chance they would discover yet another Umbrella operation.
“All right.
You did good work.” After giving the officer a few perfunctory words of praise, Irons ordered the R.P.D.
units back to the city.
The Arklay roadblocks were removed soon afterward.
The moment he returned to the station, Irons locked himself inside his office.
No amount of rare collectibles or specimens could soothe the fury boiling inside him now.
“Those Umbrella bastards—what are they trying to do?!
Can’t they keep their own people under control?!
What comes next, sending somebody to silence me?!” After venting, Irons gradually calmed down.
Cursing in private was one thing.
Openly turning against Umbrella was suicide.
Nearly everything he possessed had come through Mayor Warren and the corporation.
Therefore the hospital case absolutely could not continue, and its real circumstances could never become public.
But Irons’s speech was tomorrow, and the citizens still needed a truth—some explanation they could accept—or confidence in the R.P.D.
would suffer.
For once, Irons was deeply grateful that he had personally attended the scene.
With his authority, he could still suppress the inconvenient details.
The public would receive the truth they wanted.
“Former hospital director Albert Lester ignored a police closure order and continued operating the facility illegally.
Improper handling of equipment caused a fire, resulting in his death.
That is the conclusion.
Case closed.” Night passed, and dawn returned to Raccoon City.
September 22 had arrived.