Route: Ireland → France → The Adriatic Corridor → The Carpathian Mountains
Date: November 21–24, 2019
Mission Phase: Infiltration & Establishment
Day One: The Phantom Departure
The Ducati Panigale V4—heavily modified with matte-black thermal cowling—cut through the Irish dawn like a serrated blade.
Alen Wesker leaned forward, his chest pressing against the tank as the coastal road curved along jagged cliffs. Atlantic spray misted his boots, but he didn't flinch. He was a void in the landscape.
He wore the uniform of a ghost: a mid-length, weathered black leather trench coat that snapped in the wind. Occasionally, a gust would flip the hem, revealing the deep crimson interior lining—a flash of blood against the gray morning. On his left shoulder, the Union Jack patch was faded, the threads fraying. It was a relic of a life he had legally died in.
Beneath the coat, a black commando sweater hugged his lean, enhanced frame. His tactical pants were tucked into brown military boots that had seen mud from the Amazon to the Highlands. His hood was up. Always up. Shadows clung to his face, hiding the exhaustion in his blue eyes.
He didn't look like a traveler. He looked like a weapon being relocated.
He reached the private dock at Cork. There were no customs officers. No logs. Just a nameless cargo freighter swaying in the mist. Mateo Cárdenas Ortega came through. The ship was a ghost registry. Alen rolled the bike into the hold himself, securing it with magnetic clamps. He checked the saddlebags one last time:
* Necrotoxin Injectors: Experimental.
* Containment Tubes: Empty, waiting for blood.
* Field Analysis Kit.
* Ammunition: Enough 9mm and high-velocity rounds to turn a small hamlet into a cemetery.
He climbed into the darkness between the shipping containers, finding a hammock rigged in the shadows.
<< Transit initiated, >> Trinity's voice whispered in his earpiece, clear and clinical. << No anomalies detected. We are a ghost on the water. >>
Alen closed his eyes. The engine hummed beneath him, vibrating through his bones. The A-Virus simmered in his blood, a constant, low-grade fever reminding him that he was running out of time. He didn't fear death. He simply found the delay inconvenient.
Day Two: The Sea That Forgets
The ship moved across the black water of the English Channel and down toward the French coast. Alen spent the hours in meditation, running tactical simulations. Every port was a potential trap; every sailor a variable. He moved through the ship only at night, a silhouette that the crew's eyes slid over without registering.
<< Satellite masking holding, >> Trinity reported. << However, chatter is increasing. The BSAA has deployed a specialized unit to Eastern Europe. 'Hound Wolf Squad'. >>
Alen smirked in the dark. A cold, humorless expression.
"Chris Redfield," Alen murmured, staring at the steel ceiling with detached interest. "Always the Boy Scout. Let them look. They're hunting a bioterrorist. They aren't looking for a dead man."
He pulled out a tablet, reviewing the deed to the property he was heading toward. It wasn't just a house. It was a secret history.
The Trevor Estate – Carpathian Annex.
Built: 1966.
Architect: George Trevor.
"You were a busy man, George," Alen whispered. "Before Spencer buried you in the Arklay Mountains, you built one last secret. A sanctuary you never got to use."
It was fitting. Wesker's son claiming the legacy of the man Wesker's creator destroyed.
Day Three: The Continent Bleeds Cold
France was gray, wet, and hostile. The Ducati rolled off the ship in a nondescript industrial port near Marseille. Alen didn't wait for the ramp to fully lower before he gunned the throttle, vanishing into the industrial backroads before the dockmaster could even check his clipboard.
He avoided the highways. He avoided the cities. He rode the "Smuggler's Veins"—gravel roads, abandoned rail lines, and mountain passes that didn't appear on GPS. As he crossed the border into the Eastern Bloc, the world changed. The colors drained away. The vibrant greens of the west were replaced by the iron-gray of winter forests and the white of driven snow. The temperature plummeted.
Alen adjusted his riding posture, his enhanced reflexes compensating for the slick black ice on the tarmac.
<< Thermal sweep indicates a surveillance drone, >> Trinity warned. << High altitude. Likely a local paramilitary patrol. >>
Alen didn't slow down. His pulse didn't even rise. He simply veered off the road, dropping the bike into a forested ravine. The Ducati's suspension absorbed the brutal impact. He cut the engine and coasted under the dense canopy of pine trees, invisible to thermal optics. The drone passed overhead, blind.
The Stop: Blood and Information
Night fell hard in the foothills of the Carpathians. Alen rolled into a small, forgotten logging town. He stopped at a garage that looked abandoned. He knocked three times—a specific rhythm.
The door opened. The man inside was old, missing two fingers on his left hand. Ex-KGB logistics. A contact of Ortega's. They traded without pleasantries. Alen placed a stack of gold Krugerrands on the oily table. The man slid a crate across the counter:
* Cold-weather suppressor oil.
* Pre-Soviet maps of the valley.
* A localized radio scanner.
"You go to the Valley?" the old man asked, his English broken and fearful.
Alen nodded once. "Near it."
The man spat on the floor. "Bad place. The locals... they pray to shadows. They say four lords rule the dark. And a Mother who is not a mother."
"Superstition is the mask of the ignorant," Alen replied coldly, gathering his supplies.
"The snow hides the bodies," the man warned. "Don't become snow."
Alen paused at the door. He turned, the shadows of his hood obscuring his eyes.
"I don't freeze."
Day Four: The Masterpiece
The final approach was brutal. The road ended ten miles back. Alen was now riding on sheer instinct and horsepower. The Ducati clawed through snowdrifts that would have stalled a tank.
Alen stood on the pegs, his coat flaring behind him like a war banner. The wind tore at his hood, but he kept it pinned. The cold was biting, but the heat of the virus inside him burned it away.
<< You are crossing the perimeter, >> Trinity said softly. << We are now in the 'dead zone'. No cellular signals. No GPS. >>
The forest thickened. The trees here were ancient, twisted things. And then, through the veil of falling snow, it emerged. It sat on a cliff edge, overlooking a vast drop, miles away from the village proper. It was a Victorian Manor, but it possessed a dark, imposing majesty that dwarfed the Spencer Estate in Raccoon City.
Stone towers pierced the sky. Gargoyles, buried in frost, stared down with hollow eyes. The slate roof was steep and sharp.
The Trevor Estate.
Alen killed the engine. The silence was absolute. He dismounted, his boots crunching on the pristine snow. He rested his hand near the Samurai Edge beneath his coat, his eyes scanning the windows. Dark. Unlit. Unwelcoming.
"George Trevor," Alen murmured, walking toward the massive double doors. "The man who built the mansion that killed the S.T.A.R.S. team."
This wasn't an Umbrella safehouse. This was Trevor's private venture—a real estate speculation project built in the late 60s for European nobility that never materialized. George was trapped in the mansion he built in Arklay. Jessica Trevor was killed. Lisa Trevor became the test subject. But this house... this house was forgotten. It didn't belong to Umbrella. It didn't belong to Miranda. It belonged to the ghost of an architect.
And now, it belonged to Alen.
<< Perimeter scan complete, >> Trinity confirmed. << No heat signatures inside. No traps active. It is empty, Master. >>
Alen walked up the stone steps. The wood of the door was heavy oak, reinforced with iron bands. He didn't pick the lock; he had the key—an ornate iron skeleton key Ortega had procured from a collector of "macabre architecture."
He slid the key in. The mechanism groaned—the sound of metal waking up after fifty years.
Click.
Alen pushed the doors open. The air inside was stale, cold, and smelled of dust and old velvet.
He stepped into the Grand Hall. It was magnificent. A double staircase swept up to a balcony, identical to the Spencer Mansion but grander, less claustrophobic. A massive chandelier hung silent and dark.
"This isn't a house," Alen whispered, his voice echoing in the darkness. "This is a throne."
He walked to the center of the room. He could see the obsession in the architecture—the hidden panels, the intricate woodwork, the puzzles built into the very walls.
"You built this for yourself, didn't you, George?" Alen said to the empty room, his voice devoid of pity. "A place where Spencer couldn't find you. A pity you lacked the foresight to escape him."
He pulled down his hood, revealing his face—the sharp features of a Wesker, staring at the legacy of the man his "father" had helped destroy.
"Trinity," Alen commanded. "Boot the manor's geothermal heating. Establish the uplink to Ireland. This is Forward Operating Base Alpha."
<< Affirmative. Welcome home, Alen. >>
Alen didn't respond. He walked toward the massive bay window at the far end of the hall. He wiped a circle in the dust and looked out over the precipice toward the distant, fog-shrouded valley where Mother Miranda played god.
He stood perfectly still, hands clasped behind his back, analyzing the terrain like a chessboard.
"The landlord is home," Alen said coldly. "And the rent is due."
Status:
* Location: The Trevor Manor (Eastern Europe).
* Time: 16:45 Local Time.
* Mission: Setup complete. The hunt begins.