The sun had long passed its peak by the time Jasen opened his eyes again. The clock blinked 4:07 PM. The soft weight of Jill beside him was gone, the only sign of her presence a faint warmth on the sheets and the soft scent of her perfume lingering in the air.
Jasen sat up slowly, muscles sore but relaxed. On the nightstand sat a note in Jill's handwriting.
"Had to head out. You looked too peaceful to wake. Let's pick up where we left off soon. -J"
He smiled faintly, folded the note, and tucked it into the drawer.
After a shower and a quick bite, Jasen settled back at his kitchen table, his laptop open, files scattered across its surface. His next move required precision. No more loose improvisations. It was time to act deliberately.
The sewer-based research lab beneath Raccoon City—his target.
He had the security override codes. He had the blueprints. He even had the staff schedules.
But he needed more.
He needed understanding. Leverage.
And that started with the Birkins.
Jasen pulled up his saved notes, memories refreshed by the files from Ada and the Iron Serpents. William and Annette Birkin weren't ordinary scientists. They were driven, obsessive, and insulated within their own ambitions. The lore from his past life came back to him now, clearer than ever.
William Birkin: Genius. Head of the G-Virus Project. Ruthless when pushed. Saw most others as inferior, especially those who failed to recognize his brilliance. He had grown increasingly disillusioned with Umbrella over time, particularly when Wesker was promoted above him.
Annette Birkin: Brilliant, cold, and loyal—but only to William and Sherry. She distrusted almost everyone else, and her paranoia would only worsen the closer Umbrella pushed to finalizing the G-Virus prototype.
And most importantly...
They hated Wesker.
Or at least didn't respect him.
In the back of Jasen's mind, a plan began to form. If he could approach them carefully—not as a threat, but as an ally with insight, someone with information about Umbrella's deeper betrayals, and maybe even Wesker's ultimate intentions—they might listen. Especially Annette, whose protective instincts over Sherry could be used to build rapport.
He couldn't walk into the lab directly, not yet.
So he would scout it first.
That evening, just after sunset, Jasen changed into tactical black gear—lightweight, breathable, perfect for mobility. He equipped only the essentials: a suppressed sidearm, lockpicks, a burner phone, and a small camera mounted on his jacket.
He parked the throwaway SUV two blocks from Spencer Memorial Hospital. The front of the hospital looked normal—paramedics, nurses, and a rotating flow of city residents moving in and out.
But the schematics he had told another story.
The real lab wasn't beneath the hospital itself—it was accessible through a hidden maintenance entrance in the sewer tunnels that ran behind the facility.
Using a manhole key he acquired weeks ago, Jasen descended into the tunnels, the scent of mold and rot washing over him like a thick, wet blanket. He moved quickly and silently, avoiding patrols and motion-activated lights. Some of the systems down here had already been shut down for maintenance—likely deliberate, giving him more shadows to move in.
Fifteen minutes of careful navigating later, he reached the access point: a reinforced service door flush with the concrete wall, marked only by faded utility numbers and a fingerprint scanner.
Jasen crouched beside it and pulled out the paper Ada had given him.
He keyed in the override code.
The lock clicked.
He didn't enter.
Not yet.
Instead, he placed a tiny camera inside the doorway, letting it adjust and upload footage to a secured drive. He needed to observe traffic. He needed to know who entered and exited, and at what times. He needed to confirm that William and Annette were actually inside.
He backed out of the tunnel, returned to the surface, and drove away unnoticed.
By the time he got home, he was already reviewing the camera feed. A few Umbrella staff had walked in and out—two scientists, one armed escort. And just before the feed looped, he saw her.
Annette Birkin.
Hair pulled tight. Clipboard in hand. Impatient. Her body language was unmistakable.
And behind her, entering seconds later, was a tall man in a white lab coat.
William.
Jasen sat back.
It was real. They were active. They were close.
The time for scouting was ending.
Now came the time for infiltration.
The footage had been running all night.
Jasen sat in front of the laptop, sipping dark coffee as the hidden sewer cam looped over the last twelve hours. Every time William or Annette entered or exited the secured entrance, he took note of the timestamp, their body language, who accompanied them, and whether security detail shifted.
Patterns emerged.
Annette typically arrived first, sometimes alone, often early in the morning around 7:15 AM. William followed roughly fifteen to twenty minutes later, flanked by one security escort. By 7:45, they were both inside.
Neither left until at least 6:30 PM.
They worked long hours. Isolated. Predictable.
It was the opening Jasen needed.
He prepared a small flash drive that morning, one of Umbrella's own encrypted models he salvaged from the Iron Serpents' intel stash. The drive held specific files:
Evidence of Wesker's contact with Tricell.
Records of Umbrella shifting funding away from the G-virus.
A copy of the Spencer memo declaring the Wesker Project a failure.
Surveillance stills showing RPD's arrest of Chief Irons.
Everything he needed to nudge them.
Not threaten. Not demand.
Just... leverage.
By 5:30 PM, Jasen was in full infiltration gear—dark clothes, no armor this time, just speed and silence. The burner phone sat muted in his pocket, synced to his earpiece for emergency contact. His suppressed sidearm was holstered tight, untouched unless things spiraled.
He waited in the shadows of the sewer corridor near the lab door, watching as a pair of junior researchers exited early. Shift change.
Perfect.
Jasen keyed in the override code.
The lock clicked.
He moved.
He kept low, pressed to the wall, moving in calculated bursts. He avoided the main corridors, instead ducking into alcoves, through maintenance side doors, slipping between blind spots he'd memorized from footage.
Guards were sparse here. Most didn't expect intrusion from below. It was a bottleneck, but one they believed was sealed.
Jasen reached the heart of the lab in under five minutes.
Ahead of him was a set of sliding doors, separating the corridor from a viewing room and the main lab behind it.
And there they were.
William and Annette Birkin.
Both hunched over a terminal. William moved with intensity, hands flying across the interface. Annette stood nearby, arms crossed, tapping one foot, reading a clip board with reports. They hadn't noticed him yet.
Jasen exhaled slowly, then tapped the door's override pad, causing the doors to part with a soft hiss.
The sound drew their attention immediately.
William spun, hand dropping toward a drawer under his workstation. Annette reached for her back pocket.
"Don't," Jasen said, voice low but firm, stepping in with both palms raised.
"Who the hell are you?" William demanded, eyes flashing.
Annette was already backing toward a console, likely prepping a silent alarm.
"Stop. I'm not here to hurt you. I don't work for Umbrella, and I'm not their enemy."
"Then what the hell are you?" Annette snapped.
Jasen took one step forward and reached into his coat slowly, producing the flash drive.
"Someone who knows what they're doing behind your backs. Someone who knows about Spencer's betrayal. Wesker's lies. And Tricell."
That made William pause.
"You say Wesker... like you know him."
Jasen nodded. "I know what he's done. And what he's going to do. Unless you want your research stolen, your daughter caught in the crossfire, and your legacy buried under the ruins of this city, you should hear me out."
Annette stared at him, uncertain. William looked like he was calculating his odds of surviving a firefight.
Jasen stayed perfectly still.
"Let me talk. Five minutes. Then I walk. No harm."
The Birkins exchanged a brief glance. Then William stepped back and pointed to the glass door.
"Start talking."
Jasen stepped into the lion's den.