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The interior of Umbrella's Paris branch was as cold as a digital tomb. The climate control system hummed with a monotonous, low-frequency drone, pumping sterile air—scented with industrial disinfectant and expensive floor wax—into every corner of the facility.
There was no noise here. No laughter, no raised voices. Only uniformed personnel moving like calibrated gears in a clockwork mechanism, traversing polished corridors with a hollow, dehumanizing efficiency. Glass curtain walls shut out the romantic lights of Paris, isolating the occupants in a world of pure, cold order.
For an entire week, Noah and Claire had dissolved into this ocean. They wore their dark blue uniforms with the effortless posture of veteran security staff. Noah, with his photographic memory, had already mapped every blind spot and security terminal into his brain. Claire, using her survivor's intuition, could read the room in seconds, distinguishing between the genuine scientists and the internal agents who kept knives hidden in their stares.
They were wolves in the fold, searching for the entrance to the real Umbrella.
That entrance was on B3: a massive alloy door requiring triple-verification, guarded 24/7 by a rotation of heavy security. That was the destination.
That afternoon, they sat in a quiet corner of the staff cafeteria. Noah prodded a piece of "nutritional mash" that looked like art but tasted like cardboard. Earlier, he had used his maintenance credentials to bypass a low-level office firewall.
On his laptop screen, an internal security bulletin was slowly decrypting. It was a routine threat assessment, but two names made Noah's heart skip.
C. Redfield. J. Valentine.
The bulletin classified them as "extremely high-risk terrorists" operating in Europe. Attached was a blurry surveillance grab. A tall, burly man with a back that was unmistakably Chris's. Beside him was a woman with a sharp bob and a tactical stride.
Jill Valentine.
Noah didn't close the file; he simply nudged the screen toward Claire.
Claire's fork froze. She stared at the names, and a thin mist welled up in her blue eyes. He was alive. He was still fighting. The realization hit her like a wave of heat, melting the iceberg of anxiety she had been carrying since the Raccoon City train platform. The thorn was out.
She took a ragged breath, squeezing Noah's hand under the table so hard her knuckles turned white. Noah squeezed back. Their mission had just changed. This wasn't just about Sherry anymore; every bridge they burned in Paris was a smoke screen to cover Chris's back.
The opportunity presented itself through an absurdity only found in a corporate bureaucracy.
The elite researchers on the B3 level apparently despised the cafeteria food. Several times a week, they would bypass the "nutritional guidelines" and order pizza from the surface. The task of hauling the steaming boxes through the high-security checkpoints fell to the security grunts—people like Noah and Claire.
"I can't believe it," Claire whispered as they rode the dedicated elevator down to B3. She was holding a stack of pizza boxes half a meter high. The smell of cheese and pepperoni clashed violently with the scent of her gun oil. "A company that builds bioweapons of mass destruction... but they let delivery guys walk into the core labs for a pepperoni thin-crust?"
"Maybe it's that famous European laissez-faire?" Noah suggested, his ThinkPad tucked under his arm.
"That's usually a polite way of saying 'lazy,'" Claire muttered.
The elevator doors hissed open. An icy, sterile aura washed over them. The B3 corridors were wider, the walls finished in raw, brushed steel. Every five meters, a shadowless white light made the hall as bright as an operating room.
They reached the massive alloy door, swiped their wristbands, and entered the day's dynamic passcode. As the locking mechanism groaned, Noah looked at the boxes.
"By the way," he said casually, "do you like pineapple pizza?"
Claire blinked. "What? Why would—"
The door slid open, and a roar of pure, unfiltered Italian rage exploded from the gap.
"FUCK YOU! FUCK YOU AND YOUR PINEAPPLE PIZZA! F.U.C.K. YOU!"
A researcher in a lab coat—hair like a bird's nest and glasses sliding down his nose—was screaming and gesticulating wildly. He looked like he was on the verge of an aneurysm.
Claire stepped back, startled. "Hey, take it easy—"
But the scientist didn't hear her. He was staring at the boxes in her hand as if they were a crime against humanity. "Who ordered this blasphemy? This is an insult to my ancestors! I will stuff whoever did this into a high-pressure reactor!"
As he brushed past Claire, intent on finding the "heretic," Noah moved.
It was a blur. A single palm, light as a leaf, pressed against the back of the researcher's neck, striking the medulla oblongata with surgical precision.
The roar stopped. The man's eyes went vacant, and he slumped like a puppet with cut strings. Noah caught him before he hit the floor.
Claire stared, still holding the pizzas. "How did you know he'd freak out about the pineapple?"
Noah adjusted his collar. "I didn't. I just guessed."
They dragged the unconscious man into a security blind spot. The door hissed shut, sealing them inside the "Core Lab." But as they looked around, their hearts sank.
The lab was too clean. Sophisticated instruments were everywhere—robotic arms pipetting, flasks bubbling—but the documents on the desks were about sedatives and cell inhibitors. There were no BOWs. No G-virus. No monsters. It was a high-end pharmacology lab, a front for the public-facing side of the branch.
"We've been played," Claire whispered.
Noah opened his laptop, desperately searching for a hidden subnet. A "ping" echoed in the silent room. A new email from the usual garbled sender.
[Searching for the right thing in the wrong place is futile. —T]
Noah felt a spike of cold fury. Trant was watching them stumble on the board like children.
"Let's go," Noah said, his voice flat.
They turned to leave, but as they reached the alloy door, they found the Italian researcher already awake. He was leaning against the doorframe, arms crossed, watching them with a calm, piercing composure. His glasses were back in place, and the manic rage was gone, replaced by a gaze that saw through everything.
He looked at Noah's ThinkPad, then spoke in a thick accent, every word deliberate.
"I know what you are looking for."
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