July 22, 2025 · Playas del Este, Havana, Cuba · 23:00 CST
The Festival de las Olas had ended, but its ghost lingered. Paper lanterns swayed on broken strings. Confetti and crushed plastic cups littered the sand. The last conga band had faded into the night. The ocean breathed steadily, dark and endless, while a warm Caribbean breeze carried the faint scent of grilled pork and spilled rum. The promenade almost empty — a few locals sweeping debris, the occasional stray dog sniffing at abandoned food stalls. Moonlight painted everything silver, turning the colourful floats into silent skeletons.
Alen stood motionless in the shadow of a narrow alley beside La Perla, the Midnight coat collar turned up. The black hair dye from the disguise was gone now — he had shed the wig in the alley after sending Cindy home, the platinum-gold returning clean and deliberate. He had made a calculation: for what came next, he wanted the full face. No disguise. No dye. He wanted Jessica and Raymond to see exactly what was coming for them.
He watched the diner's front door through the live drone feed in his earbud.
The door opened. Cindy Lennox — Cecilia Navarro — stepped out, locking up with quick, cautious movements. She glanced left, right, hugged her bag close, and started walking toward her apartment. Alen moved.
In two strides he was behind her. One titanium arm around her waist, one hand gently but firmly over her mouth as he spun her into the alley wall. Cindy's eyes flew wide in terror.
"Shh," he said, voice low and ice-cold. "I'm not here to hurt you."
He held his military phone in front of her face. Clear drone footage: Jessica Sherawat and Raymond Vester on a rooftop two blocks away, digital binoculars trained on the diner.
"Do you know these two?"
Cindy's breathing was ragged against his hand. When she saw Raymond's red hair, she nodded frantically.
Alen released her mouth but kept her pinned gently. "They've been tailing you for two weeks. The red-haired man comes into La Perla, watches you, then vanishes. The woman is new. Go straight home. Lock every door. Do not open it for anyone but me."
"Who — who are you?" Cindy's voice trembled.
"The only person who can keep you alive tonight," Alen said.
He released her. She didn't hesitate. She bolted down the street and disappeared into the night.
Trinity's voice was calm in his earbud. ≪ Jessica Sherawat and Raymond Vester are on the rooftop of the Hotel Oceano, one hundred and eighty meters south. Watching her apartment. ≫
Alen stood in the alley. He thought about what the next five minutes required. He thought about who those two people were, what they had done, and what they would do to Cindy Lennox if he did nothing. He thought about the face he was wearing and what it would do to two people who had once served the man whose face it was.
He made a decision.
He let his posture shift — not much, a fraction — into something his father would have recognised as his own. He let the face do what the face was built to do.
A faint, cold smile touched the corner of his mouth.
"Time to say hello."
He activated the Spatial-Phantom Movement. The ringing filled his ears. The blue deepened. He stepped forward and vanished from the alley like smoke.
∗ ∗ ∗
— The Rooftop —
Jessica Sherawat and Raymond Vester stood on the flat roof of the Hotel Oceano, the festival lights far below like dying embers. The ocean stretched black and endless behind them. Jessica adjusted her digital binoculars, red hair tucked under a cap.
"Target is home," she murmured. "We take her tonight. Downing wants the sample before Gideon gets impatient."
Raymond lowered his own binoculars, frowning. "I still feel like someone's been watching us. All day. Since the festival."
"You're getting paranoid in your old age," Jessica said. "This heat is frying your brain. Focus. We grab the girl, extract what we need, and deliver her to —"
A slow, deliberate clap echoed behind them.
Clap… Clap… Clap…
Both spun, weapons half-drawn.
Alen stood at the edge of the rooftop. Moonlight carved his face into sharp, familiar planes. The Midnight coat with its blood-red lining billowed in the sea breeze. The platinum-gold hair slicked back exactly as it had always been. The same jawline. The same predatory geometry. The same cold, arrogant tilt of the head that had once stood over Chris Redfield in a burning African jungle.
He was wearing the face like a weapon and he knew exactly what it was doing to them.
"You two haven't changed at all," he said. The voice was smooth, deep, dripping with mocking superiority — every syllable calibrated to the exact register that had made grown operatives flinch for twenty years. "Bravo. Bravo."
Jessica's binoculars slipped from her fingers and clattered on the concrete. Raymond's hand froze on his gun.
"Wesker…" Raymond's voice cracked. "You're dead. Chris Redfield killed you in that volcano. We saw the footage —"
Alen took one slow step forward, hands in his coat pockets, the red lining flashing with each movement.
"Rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated," he said, the arrogance rolling across every syllable with surgical precision. "Though I must admit — the look on your faces right now is almost worth the trip."
Jessica's voice was a whisper of pure horror. "No… this isn't possible. You should be dead."
"And yet here I am," Alen said, cold smile widening. "Family reunion. How touching."
Raymond pulled his pistol and fired three rapid shots.
Alen blurred. The Spatial-Phantom displacement kicked in mid-step, the bullets passing through empty air as he phased forward, after-images flickering like ghosts in the moonlight. He reappeared directly in front of Raymond, titanium hand already moving — a single precise strike to the solar plexus. Raymond folded like paper, gasping, gun clattering across the rooftop.
Jessica lunged, knife flashing from her sleeve — the same ruthless efficiency she had deployed on the Queen Zenobia. Alen caught her wrist mid-swing, twisted with casual strength, the knife falling free. She tried to knee him. He blocked and countered with a Shaolin palm strike to the sternum that lifted her off her feet and drove her into the rooftop wall.
Six seconds. Then stillness.
Raymond tried to rise. Alen placed one precise boot on his sternum and held him down without apparent effort.
Jessica coughed blood, staring up at the man who wore the face of the monster she had once served.
"I expected more challenge," Alen said, the performance still fully on, the contempt smooth and cold. "You two fought remarkably well... for insects."
His earbud crackled.
"Status on target?" Ingrid's voice.
The mask came off. Clean and immediate, the Albert register dropping away as if it had never been there. What remained was the cold precision that was entirely his own.
"Safe and secured," Alen replied. "These two didn't expect what was coming for them."
"What will you do with them?"
He crouched beside Jessica and checked her pockets. Found the phone. Scanned it with his own device.
The name in the recent messages was not Victor Gideon.
It was Frederic Downing.
Alen stared at it. He had encountered that name twice before — once in a dry footnote of a 2003 Umbrella dissolution report, once as an unverified signature on a BSAA intelligence funding proposal that had been quietly buried before reaching committee. A name that had never been important enough to flag. A name that had been in exactly the right places to never be noticed.
He understood immediately what that meant. A man who was never important enough to flag was either insignificant or the most careful person in the room.
The Revelations connection crystallised with it. Jessica had given the T-Abyss vial to a buyer after the Queen Zenobia. Raymond had handed it to her. The chain had always had an end. The end had always had a name. It had just been patient enough to never write itself anywhere visible.
"Interrogation first," Alen said into the earbud. "Then I'll handle it."
He tapped the earbud.
"Trinity. Bring the Night-Wing. Rooftop extraction."
High above, the black VTOL descended silently from the night sky. Alen loaded both bodies onto the ramp and stepped aboard.
The Night-Wing rose. Below, the festival lights of Havana faded into the dark.
The phantom was already thinking about a quiet Englishman whose name had been in exactly the right places to never be noticed.
∗ ∗ ∗