Chapter 2: What Do You Mean I Still Have to Work?
Under the warm glow of the bedside lamp, Matthew lay stretched across the hotel bed in his bathrobe, eyes tracking back and forth across the System interface.
The layout was clean. Minimal. Three core functions, nothing more:
[System Pass] — [Lab] — [Warehouse]
The System Pass worked through accumulated points — earned either by completing tasks or through consistent daily effort. Once points reached a specified threshold, the corresponding Pass reward tier unlocked. The T-Virus Sample from earlier was one such reward.
The Pass operated on a seasonal cycle, updating every six months with a new theme and resetting progress. Notably, the more System points accumulated in the current season, the richer the Pass content available in the next.
Matthew scrolled through the current season's reward list and his expression shifted.
"Hold on. Is this right? What is a T-Virus theme?"
He stared at the entries. Zombie Dogs. Zombie Crows. Lickers. Hunters. Multiple Tyrant variants across several model numbers. His eye twitched.
If the System hadn't kept insisting its entire purpose was benefiting the people, Matthew would have assumed he had somehow picked up the villain's starter pack by mistake.
Beyond the Pass, the other two functions were simpler in concept. The Warehouse stored System rewards. The Lab was the interesting one.
[Lab: Spend System points to modify, optimize, or fuse items.]
Matthew sat up.
"So in theory," he said to no one, "if I had enough points, I could strip out the T-Virus's side effects entirely and just keep the useful parts."
He focused, and placed the T-Virus Sample into the Lab interface.
The moment it registered, the previously grayed-out panel lit up.
[Please select your Lab route.]
[Optimize: Spend System points to optimize the item's existing functions. Can improve performance or remove negative side effects.]
[Modify: Spend System points to apply customized alterations based on your specific requirements. Certain advanced modifications require the user to provide additional materials.]
[Fuse: Spend System points to conduct a fusion experiment between this item and another. Low compatibility between items may cause fusion failure. Additional System points can be spent to improve success rate.]
Matthew selected Optimize.
The facts about the T-Virus were well established. Zombification was, technically, a side effect — an unintended consequence. The virus's actual design goal was human enhancement: accelerating evolution and producing cost-effective biological weapons. The intelligence degradation problem was what derailed all of that, producing mindless infected rather than anything controllable.
The Lab confirmed it.
[Negative effects available for removal: Zombification, lethargy, high lethality, low intelligence, high infectivity.]
[Performance upgrades available: Stamina, cellular activity, strength, neural reflexes.]
Matthew looked at the list and felt something he had not expected: genuine excitement.
In a universe where the wealthy had technology and everyone else had whatever mutation they were lucky enough to survive, he understood exactly what happened to ordinary people. He had no intention of becoming a statistic in someone else's incident report.
Getting stronger required resources. Resources required a platform. And the platform sitting directly in front of him was the Umbrella Corporation.
I'm here at Umbrella to do exactly three things, he thought.
Benefit the people. Benefit the people. And benefit the absolute hell out of the people.
The Corporation was a minefield of internal politics and genuine existential risk, but used correctly it was also leverage. Used correctly, it was how someone unremarkable climbed to somewhere that mattered in a world full of gods and monsters.
A sharp, focused look crossed his face.
Then the adrenaline faded, and the exhaustion hit.
The transmigration itself, the inheritance decision, the System discovery — all of it had been running on nervous energy. Now that the excitement had worn off, his eyelids felt like they were full of concrete. He had more he wanted to do with the System interface, but his body had already decided the conversation was over.
He was asleep within minutes.
He woke to knocking.
Three sharp raps. Then three more. Then a voice, clipped and precise, carrying an accent that belonged firmly in central London.
"Mr. Lawrence? Are you in?"
"Mr. Lawrence?"
"Mr. Lawrence?"
Matthew dragged himself upright, rubbing at his eyes, and shuffled to the door with the unhurried energy of someone who had gotten approximately enough sleep and resented being asked to do anything about it.
He opened the door.
The woman standing in the corridor had presence. She was tall, with a figure that the tailored black suit she was wearing seemed designed specifically to complement. Dark hair pinned into a neat bun. Eyes the pale blue of ice over deep water. Gold-rimmed glasses that managed, somehow, to look both efficient and elegant at once. And below her right eye, a single beauty mark that made the whole composition click into place.
She was, by any objective measure, striking. Matthew noted this the way he noted most things at this hour — accurately and without particular enthusiasm.
When she saw the door open, the cool, composed expression gave way to a professional smile. She extended her hand.
"Good morning, Mr. Lawrence. My name is Eleanor Ross. I was your father's most trusted assistant."
Still not entirely awake, Matthew shook the hand on instinct.
"...Morning. Ross." He glanced past her into the corridor. She was alone. He stepped back and gestured her in. "What brings you here this early?"
He had no reservations about her intentions. If Eleanor Ross meant him harm, she wouldn't have announced herself with a polite knock and called his name three times. She would have picked the lock, waited for the deep part of his sleep cycle, and handled it quietly. The fact that she was standing in his doorway making small talk strongly suggested she was exactly who she said she was.
Matthew disappeared into the bathroom briefly to wash his face, then put a coffee together — one for her, one for himself — and dropped into a chair.
Eleanor accepted the cup, took a measured sip, and got to the point.
"Mr. Lawrence, as I understand it, you signed the equity inheritance agreement last night. Per the agreement's effective date, as of six o'clock this morning, you are officially one of the Umbrella Corporation's directors."
She set the cup down.
"Which means, now that you've taken on your father's estate, you'll also need to take on his responsibilities within the company. That said —" a brief, practical note entered her voice "— in the interest of keeping both of us employed, I'll do everything I can to help you get up to speed. Quickly."
She reached into her bag and produced a laptop, which she placed on the table in front of him.
"Your father kept you at a distance for your entire life deliberately. When you were born, there was a period of serious internal conflict within the company, and he made the decision not to acknowledge you publicly in order to ensure none of it touched you. The result, I know, was that your circumstances were difficult."
A brief pause. Not quite sympathy, more like acknowledgment delivered at a professional register.
"That changes today."
"This is a summary of the projects your father managed and the departments he oversaw. I'd suggest reviewing it."
Matthew, still in his bathrobe, crossed one leg over the other. He accepted the laptop with the expression of a man who recognized that adulthood had found him and was not particularly grateful for it. His eyes moved across the screen.
Theodore Lawrence. Originally a NATO arms dealer. Later co-founded the Umbrella Corporation alongside Oswell E. Spencer, James Marcus, and Edward Ashford. One of Umbrella's founding shareholders. Primary responsibility: the Corporation's security division.
Matthew's eyebrow went up.
The security division. That explained a few things — specifically, why none of the other shareholders had made a move against him yet. Either the security apparatus his father had built gave them pause, or Theodore had left some kind of insurance in place. Without one or the other, the Corporation's standard operating logic would have had someone eliminate him before the ink on the inheritance agreement dried and then divide the shares among those who remained.
He glanced at the timestamp in the corner of the screen.
2007/11/30.
November 2007. That put him roughly five to six weeks ahead of the events of Iron Man. He filed that away and shifted focus, typing Raccoon City into the browser.
The results told him nothing useful. No crisis. No incident. No record of the kind of event that should have been impossible to suppress at that scale.
Which left two possibilities.
Either it hadn't happened in this version of events.
Or someone had made very sure it stayed buried.
Matthew closed the laptop and stood up.
"Ross," he said, "you told me you'd help me get up to speed. No point putting it off. Take me to where I'm supposed to be working."