The world was uneven.
While Vela sat in a grand conference room, listening to the Engineering Division's report on the construction progress of Militech Tower—the company's new Global Headquarters—half a world away, in Fallujah, Iraq, dawn was just breaking (Baghdad Time UTC+3, ten hours ahead of San Francisco's UTC-7).
A high-speed kamikaze drone streaked across the war-torn ruins, slicing through the pale morning light—then slammed into a civilian home.
BOOM!
The explosion roared. Bricks shattered, dust and smoke billowed.
When the smoke cleared, half the building had collapsed.
Yet the desolate city hardly stirred.
Aside from faint noises in a few neighborhoods, most of Fallujah's weary residents remained asleep, too accustomed to such violence to even wake.
But soon after—BOOM—KRAK!RUMBLE!
A chain of explosions rolled through the city, louder, closer.
Amid the thunderous noise, faint sounds could be heard—low growls, the rustle of fabric, the tearing of flesh, and the dragging shuffle of footsteps.
...
Outside the city.
Forward base of the U.S.–Iraqi Coalition Joint Forces.
"Phew." Leon S. Kennedy exhaled heavily, lowering his binoculars.
"This place reminds me of Raccoon City. How many survivors do we still have inside?"
He stepped over a sandbag, gazing toward the horizon. Explosions and flashes lit the low, sand-colored buildings of Fallujah—routine drone strikes and precision artillery fire, restrained but deadly.
A bearded man in Militech M.B.C.S. desert camo and a light EXO exoskeleton bit down on his cigarette and replied, "Hard to say, but plenty, I'd guess."
"Besides us gun-toting mutts and soldiers, anyone still in Fallujah is either a civilian who couldn't evacuate, a zealot too stubborn to leave, or a full-blown terrorist."
"And between those last two—who can even tell the difference?"
"Hell, there might even be hostages. Extremists love baiting us into traps."
After a brief calculation of the situation's mess, the man shook his head, exhaling a cloud of smoke. "Damn, what a shitty assignment."
Leon smirked silently.
"Then why'd you volunteer?"
"Who said I didn't?" The man shrugged, spreading his hands. "Yeah, it's a nightmare, but the hazard pay's good, plus a special bonus and paid leave afterward. And come on—being a vet from Raccoon City, I can't just skip this one. If Captain Victor found out, he'd never let me hear the end of it. I'd die of embarrassment."
"Classic veteran talk," Leon said, rolling his shoulders.
"You're one too, aren't you?" the man teased. "The golden boy from R.P.D. himself."
"I'd rather not be," Leon sighed. "My first day on the job, and that happened..."
At that moment, the crunch of boots on the sandy soil—crunch, crunch.
The two men turned.
Approaching were Chris Redfield, Jill Valentine, and several other B.S.A.A. operatives.
Everyone was ready to move into Fallujah.
"Hey, hero, long time no see. And hey—beautiful as ever, lady," said the bearded man, tipping an imaginary hat in mock courtesy.
"Hey, Carlos, it's been a while," Chris greeted.
"Go to hell," Jill shot back flatly.
Yes—this scruffy, dark-eyed man with unruly hair and a faint trace of Native American heritage was none other than Carlos Oliveira.
A former U.B.C.S. soldier, survivor of the Raccoon City Incident, and—thanks to Jill—one of the few who lived to experience firsthand the "affection" of Nemesis and other B.O.W. bio-organic weapons. In October 1998, he had been absorbed into Militech's reorganized Biochemical Containment Service—M.B.C.S. for short.
"Oh, wow." Carlos raised his hands in mock surrender at Jill's glare, then turned serious, extending his hand to Chris. "Chris 'Blackhand,' partner once again. Here's to getting out of Fallujah in one piece."
Chris' eye twitched slightly.
But he was used to it.
Ignoring the nickname, he nodded and shook Carlos' hand firmly.
"Where's old man Victor?" Jill asked.
Mikhail Victor. Former U.B.C.S. member, captain of D Squad, ex-KGB officer, final rank: major. He too had taken part in the Raccoon City Incident. Carlos' respected former superior, an old acquaintance of Jill's—someone she'd fought alongside, though not particularly close.
"The captain's an old warhorse—half-retired now. He's working as an instructor at the M.B.C.S. training center in Colorado," Carlos replied.
After a brief exchange of greetings, Chris got straight to the point.
"What's the situation?" he asked.
He was referring to the latest intel Militech had gathered.
Unlike Leon, who operated directly under Militech, Chris and the B.S.A.A. were part of official government forces, aligned with U.S. and Coalition command. Upon arriving in Fallujah, Chris first needed to coordinate with local B.S.A.A. and U.S. military officers.
Though Militech was the federal government's most vital defense contractor—and its M.B.C.S. units close allies of the U.S. military, often sharing intelligence, communications, and command networks—they were still separate entities with different mandates. Appearances mattered. Boundaries needed to be respected.
Take Fallujah, for example. The U.S. military didn't prioritize the city. After initial bombings and raids in the early days of the war, their presence had been reduced to routine patrols. Even if locals killed each other in the streets, command didn't bother to intervene.
Militech, however, was a private enterprise. In addition to Pentagon contracts, it took on lucrative deals from wealthy Iraqis, providing services ranging from personal protection, household security, trauma care, and fund transfers to customized private defense.
In short: Militech didn't waste time squeezing the poor—it made its money from those who could pay. Civilized, efficient, and perfectly legal.
And business was booming.
Despite the steep fees, local magnates lined up for Militech's protection.
The result: Militech expanded its Middle Eastern influence, the rich secured their safety, and even the Interim Governing Council leveraged the situation to gain support from local elites. Everyone benefited—a three-way win.
Because of this, Militech's Fallujah field office was the first to detect a disturbing trend among the populace.
Dissatisfaction was brewing—anger simmering under the surface.
At first, no one cared. These "rabble" were just former Iraqi soldiers purged during the de-Ba'athification process, along with dismissed officials and laid-off bureaucrats. A few protests, a few riots—nothing serious.
Until a war correspondent captured footage of a creature—and the first zombie attack was confirmed. From that moment, everything spiraled.
The biohazard was no longer a rumor—it was real, undeniable.
Only a year ago, the coalition forces had been hailed as liberators. Civilians had cheered as Allied tanks rolled into Baghdad...
And now, just sixty-nine kilometers west of the capital, the city once known as the "City of Mosques"—Fallujah—had become the eye of the storm.
Sensing the shift, Militech evacuated its clients early.
The public warning notices were just a courtesy. Whether the locals listened was their problem.
They couldn't force an evacuation. That wasn't Militech's business model.
The company existed for profit—never at a loss, and never at the cost of reputation.
By April 2004, the world had a new name for Fallujah:
"The City of Resistance."
That's what Iraqi and international jihadist groups called it.
From there, Sunni insurgents launched a brutal holy war from their Fallujah stronghold—suicide bombings, escalating bioterror attacks, swarms of B.O.W.s roaming the streets.
Only then did the city's 200,000 residents awaken in horror, fleeing in droves.
The virus did not care whether they prayed to God.
When the coalition finally responded—full suppression, scorched-earth tactics—roughly 100,000 civilians still remained in the city, along with an estimated 3,000 militants and extremists.
That was when Chris and his team were dispatched for emergency reinforcement of the B.S.A.A.'s Middle East Division.
During the delay, the coalition didn't sit idle. Out of humanitarian duty, they launched rescue operations in cooperation with the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement.
From the outer perimeter inward, tackling easier zones first.
As of this morning, roughly 50,000 people had been evacuated to nearby towns and newly built refugee camps.
Of course, during intake, there were the usual cases—infected individuals hiding their wounds, families concealing bitten relatives. A timeless, universal pattern.
Thankfully, both the B.S.A.A. and M.B.C.S. were on-site. Militech contractors maintained order, while U.N. agencies and NGOs handled logistics.
With the U.S. military's chemical warfare units providing additional containment expertise, every outbreak so far had been swiftly controlled.
But anyone with eyes could see—the real problem was still inside the city.
In the world's view, the Fallujah crisis wasn't about disinfection or sterilization. The real challenge was rescue—saving lives while under the scrutiny of the global media, showing justice in action, stopping the plots of evil forces, and bringing hope.
Zombies and B.O.W.s weren't the scariest enemies. The real threat was the armed extremists who could think. And to make things worse, this was urban warfare.
Chris listened silently, offering no immediate comment.
"So," he finally said, "the Fallujah incident—that's your proof Saddam had weapons of mass destruction?"
This theater, those refugee camps in the distance, the trickle of evacuees leaving the city, the Fallujah streets they were about to enter—all of it, Chris thought, had likely been planned from above long ago.
Suddenly, a wave of shouts and panic broke out among the nearby crowd.
A group of refugees had reached the forward line.
Someone within the group collapsed, convulsing violently.
"Abba! Abba!" a child cried, trying to rush forward, but his veiled mother pulled him back. Since the coalition's encirclement of Fallujah, psychological warfare had been in full swing—air-dropped leaflets, loudspeakers, warnings. The people knew about the biohazard.
"Hey! Stay back from the suspected infected! Stay back—"
Behind a modular blast wall made of sand and stone, soldiers raised bullhorns pre-loaded with warnings; others aimed rifles, safeties off.
"Urrghhh—!" The groans grew inhuman.
In the same instant the convulsing man twisted upright, scrambling on all fours—
BANG!
The bullet pierced his skull. The zombie dropped dead on the spot.
"Threat neutralized!" the shooter called out.
The refugees, shaken but alive, resumed their slow march forward.
The widowed Iraqi woman whispered a brief prayer over her husband's corpse before pulling her son away.
In war, where life was cheaper than dust, even the closest of kin had no time to grieve.
The soldiers on duty barely reacted. They'd seen it too many times.
Nearby, sporadic gunfire echoed—some close, some distant.
This checkpoint was only one of many along the evacuation perimeter.
Over the loudspeakers, a steady, rehearsed voice repeated: "All evacuees, please line up and maintain distance. Proceed in an orderly fashion for screening. Repeat: anyone with bite wounds or open injuries must not attempt concealment..."
The checks were systematic and efficient.
Three steps: temperature screening, physical inspection for bite or open wounds, and basic disinfection with suppressant spray.
Fever detection was especially vital. Early-stage T-virus infection accelerated metabolic activity, triggering abnormally high temperatures. Combined with visible wounds, it was one of the simplest yet most effective initial screening measures.
As for false positives—well, triage first, precision later.
Those flagged were separated and rechecked at the refugee camps.
More detailed diagnostics were conducted at military field hospitals and Militech trauma response posts.
"Ah! Don't shoot, please!" one man flinched as a medic aimed a thermal scanner at his forehead, mistaking it for a weapon.
"Mama! Mama!" cried a girl as soldiers forcibly separated her from her mother—feverish, her arm showing an open wound—directing her to a medical quarantine zone.
"Hel—hel—help me..." Beep-beep! The scanner alarmed. Beneath his headscarf, the man's pallid face and dull eyes told the truth—he was already fading.
A Militech sergeant in a hazmat suit and light EXO armor studied him for a moment before shaking his head. "Stage three infection. Too late. I'm sorry, sir."
He gestured, and two armored soldiers moved in, cuffing the man and dragging him away.
"No, please! Help me...!" the man pleaded weakly.
Even the seasoned B.S.A.A. members couldn't help but feel uneasy at the sight.
"What'll they do with him?" one asked quietly.
"Leave him. Let nature take its course. If he turns, they'll put him down," the sentry replied.
As he spoke, an engine rumbled to life—vroom!
A modified pickup truck pulled up nearby.
Several Iraqi militiamen in hazmat gear and armed with AKs dismounted, checked the corpse with neat, clinical precision, fired two more rounds into its head and chest, then heaved it into the truck bed.
The vehicle turned toward a concrete-lined pit not far away—the cremation trench—and drove off without a word.
"Corpses further from the checkpoint can be piled and processed later, but those near the screening zones must be dealt with immediately per hazmat protocol," a nearby officer explained as he approached Chris. "Oh, and watch out for the snipers in the city. They're lunatics—shooting corpse collectors and Red Crescent medics alike." He gestured toward the Fallujah skyline.
"Thanks." Chris pulled out a zippo, offering a cigarette in thanks.
Click.
Soldiers—sharing intel and cigarettes was the universal language of war.
Jill, listening nearby, looked visibly disgusted.
She could barely contain the anger boiling inside her.
Those bastards—using bioweapons like this!
"Hey, Leon, Carlos—got something," came a voice from beneath a camouflage net. It was one of Militech's M.B.C.S. drone pilots.
Leon and Carlos immediately approached.
Jill, curious, followed close behind.
"Here—we've spotted an enemy stronghold," said the pilot, adjusting his FPV headset while guiding the drone's remote.
On the monitor before him, a 720p feed displayed a bombed-out house. Several armed men in headscarves were dragging wounded comrades inside.
A child crawled through a gap in the courtyard wall—only to be grabbed by a bearded fighter, scolded harshly, and handed off to a woman. Through a hole in the collapsed roof, they could glimpse a messy interior—tables, dishes, bottles. Clearly, many had gathered there recently.
"Hostage hideout?" Leon and Carlos exchanged a look.
"Tag it—upload to the tactical map."
"Copy."
As the three crouched beside the drone team, watching as multiple drones marked targets across the city—safe houses, strongholds, caches—a sudden alert sounded.
Beep-beep!
Outside the sandbag barrier came the rumble of engines, the chatter of autocannons.
"Zombie horde emerging from the city—estimated two to three hundred!" reported an outer recon unit. "Engaging perimeter sweep!"
"Oh no, it's coordinated! They're driving the horde toward the refugees—sniper teams, cover fire now! Wait—visual on B.O.W.s!"
"Based on tactical recognition data—confirmed Lickers, Hunters, Tyrants... unknown arthropod mutants... and—what the hell? Infected cats and dogs! All units, watch for low-ground, fast-moving targets!"
Gunfire erupted.
RAT-TAT-TAT! Jill bolted from the drone tent and found Chris standing behind a blast wall, a lit cigarette between his fingers, watching the burning city through the observation slit. His expression was grim.
"What happened?" she asked.
Chris handed her a Militech rugged tablet.
The screen played a video: a dimly lit room, a flag of Saddam-era Iraq hanging on the wall—red, white, and black with three green stars. A masked man stood in the center, shouting words like punishment, traitors, revenge, Allahu Akbar—before slitting the throat of a kneeling hostage.
"That's the captured war photographer," Chris said quietly. "They're sending us a message."
"They used bioweapons... on their own people?"
Carlos walked over, answering flatly, "To these lunatics, anyone trying to flee the 'City of Mosques' is a coward—a dog of the West. An infidel worth killing."
"Fuck!" Jill spat. "Insane."
"When do we move?" she asked, clenching her fists.
"Now," Chris replied, crushing his cigarette underfoot. "Orders just came through. It's time. We spearhead the assault. Operation New Dawn begins in fifteen minutes."
As his words fell, the roar of engines filled the air.
Humvees, Stryker APCs, M113 troop carriers, and M1A2 Abrams tanks—all mobilized under the cover of army aviation units. Hundreds of armored vehicles rolled out as B.S.A.A. and M.B.C.S. anti-terror and anti-B.O.W. specialists joined the advancing column.
Then, with the launch of Militech's high-speed kamikaze drones—BOOM!!
Operation New Dawn commenced.
...
Meanwhile, half a world away—south of San Francisco.
In the main dining hall of the Filoli Estate.
After finishing her final meeting of the day, Vela was hosting Ashley Graham and her classmates for dinner.
"Crab and strawberry salad, please," Vela said cheerfully, now dressed in relaxed homewear, motioning with a graceful hand. As the private chef described the ingredients, preparation, and symbolic meaning of the dishes—beep-beep.
Vela turned at the sound, picking up her PDA. A message flashed across the screen.
"Oh... it's begun, has it?" she murmured, smiling faintly. "Let's hope this time, the 'washing powder' fiasco doesn't repeat itself."
Then, almost playfully, she added, "Hopefully the Americans won't turn this into another Black Hawk Down farce."