October 14, 2025 · The Frozen Lotus Temple, Mount Song, Henan Province, China · 09:10 CST
The room was dimly lit — the blue glow of multiple monitors doing most of the work, casting sharp shadows across the desk and the man behind it. Alen wore the black leather trench coat, its high stand-up collar framing his jaw, left open over the black turtleneck and dark buttoned vest beneath. The glossy leather caught the light in the specific way quality leather did — quiet, not performed. His black trousers were precisely tailored. The polished shoes caught the monitor light from below. Black leather gloves, fingers moving across the keyboard with clinical efficiency.
Silver-framed sunglasses. Cold blue eyes behind them, scanning encrypted data line by line. The silver handgun on the desk to his right, settled there by habit rather than anticipation.
He was reviewing John's diagnostic data before departure. Every system check, every structural confirmation from the four years of work in the sub-level laboratory — running through it the way he ran through everything important, completely, once, without hurrying. The T-103 cardiac architecture. The limiter removal. The cognitive assessment logs. The communication development across twenty-seven months of patient work that Umbrella had never thought to look for.
Everything nominal. Everything as it should be.
John stood near the far wall, patient in the specific way he was patient — the large frame utterly still, the HMD sunglasses tracking Alen at the desk, the white coat hanging to the floor. He had been waiting without complaint for thirty minutes because Alen had asked him to wait and that was enough reason.
Alen looked up. He looked at John for a moment — the full, direct attention he gave things that mattered.
"Are you all right?" he said.
John reached for the black notebook on the equipment shelf beside him. He opened it. He wrote in the large, careful block letters he had developed over two years of building his own language from scratch, and he turned the notebook toward Alen.
I AM FINE. Beside it, the small circle with the upturned corners he had invented for himself — his version of a smile.
"I know you are," Alen said, without hesitation. "Go load the crates into the Night-Wing. Everything marked for Donegal. You know which ones."
John nodded once. He turned and walked toward the cargo area, his boots quiet on the stone floor, the white coat shifting with each step. Unhurried. Purposeful.
Patrick appeared in the doorway a few minutes later. He was dressed for travel — civilian clothes, the grey pullover that still did not quite fit, a small bag in one hand. He looked at the monitors, at the trench coat, at the silver handgun on the desk, with the expression of a man who had spent forty years watching Albert Wesker occupy rooms and who was still, after four months, recalibrating the difference.
"Everything is prepared as you instructed," Patrick said. "Where exactly are we going?"
"Teach Mharcus," Alen said. He closed the last data window. "County Donegal. Ireland. The original facility of Dr. James Marcus — the man who co-founded Umbrella alongside Spencer and discovered the Progenitor virus." He stood, picking up the handgun and holstering it. "He built his laboratory in his homeland, underneath his family's property, and Spencer never found it. He wanted his own empire. Spencer killed him before he could complete it. I found it."
Patrick was quiet for a moment. "You found James Marcus's private laboratory."
"It took time. The facility had been sealed since 1978. But yes."
"And your master — Spencer — he never knew it existed."
"Spencer thought he knew everything Marcus built," Alen said. "He was wrong." He picked up the coat from the back of the chair, shrugged it on, and settled the collar. "You will see it today. I think it will surprise you."
Patrick looked at him with the careful expression of a man reserving his judgement. "I am becoming accustomed to being surprised," he said.
∗ ∗ ∗
Rebecca was standing at the doorway to the corridor when he came through. She had the specific quality of someone who had already confirmed everything twice and was waiting for the last piece.
"Jake and Yoko have landed at the hospital," she said. "They are settled. The medical team reached the facility on the twelfth — two days before Jake and Yoko arrived, as planned. Everything necessary is in place. The team has reviewed Manuela's file and the first-phase protocol is ready to begin on your confirmation."
"Confirmed," Alen said.
"Then we move."
He went through the living area. Cindy Lennox was standing near the kitchen counter, arms folded, already waiting for this conversation. She had the composed, practical quality she always had — the woman who had survived a T-Virus outbreak in a convenience store at midnight and had run the kitchen at the Frozen Lotus Temple for two years without once requiring anyone to tell her what needed doing.
"Listen," Alen said.
"I know," Cindy said. "Linda stays here with Marcus and her daughter. Zoe stays. I stay. Jill and Claire are registered in the access protocol — Trinity will verify them at the door. If anything escalates, Trinity locks down the facility and I do not argue with it."
"Yes."
"Kaiser's feeding schedule is in the app. Freya's is pinned on the kitchen board." She paused. "I wrote it twice because I know you worry."
Alen looked at her. Kaiser — the black hawk eagle, whose enclosure on the upper level had been one of the first things the temple had been fitted with, whose specific, imperious relationship with everyone in the building except Alen remained one of the more consistent features of daily life here. "Thank you," he said.
"Go do the work," Cindy said. "We will be here when you get back."
He almost smiled. He went to find the others.
∗ ∗ ∗
The cargo area of the Night-Wing held everyone in the specific, organised way of people who had done this before and knew where to stand. John was already at the aft loading position, the crates secured and checked — he had done it faster than Alen had expected, which meant he had been paying attention to the loading sequence for longer than anyone had explicitly explained it to him.
Donna Beneviento stood near the starboard hatch. Ruby was beside her, holding the carry bag that contained Angie with both hands, talking to Patrick in the specific, unhurried way Ruby talked to everyone she had decided was hers. Patrick was listening with the expression of a man who had been adopted by an a girl and was not entirely sure when it had happened.
Rebecca was already in the co-pilot seat.
Alen did a final walk — cargo secured, hatches sealed, systems nominal, John in position. He stopped at the forward hatch before boarding.
Five months. Everything they had built here — the vaccine protocols, the Elpis sequencing work, the eighteen months of White Queen restoration planning, the surgical precision of the Manuela treatment architecture — all of it moved today from planning to execution.
"Mission Hope begins," he said. Quietly. To himself, to the mountain, to whoever was listening.
He boarded. The Night-Wing lifted off the mountain and turned west.
— END OF CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE