Chapter 1: Congratulations, You're Rich!
"Mr. Matthew Lawrence, have you made up your mind?"
"If you don't sign the equity inheritance agreement, everything your father left you will be donated, without compensation, to a foundation for African children in need."
Inside the presidential suite, a blonde lawyer in a perfectly pressed suit looked over at Matthew, who sat motionless on the sofa, staring at nothing in particular.
The man's voice was smooth enough to snap Matthew back to attention. He straightened instinctively, then thought better of it and slouched back against the cushions.
"Arthur, give me five more minutes. Five minutes, and I'll give you a straight answer. You've already been here all day. Another five minutes won't kill you."
His tone was flat, unbothered. Only the whitening of his knuckles around the pen betrayed anything else going on beneath the surface.
The blonde lawyer glanced at his watch. The hour hand was creeping toward midnight. Out of professional courtesy, he gave a short nod.
"Of course, sir."
Pale moonlight filtered through the gap in the curtains and fell across Matthew's face — a face that carried the faint, indefinable quality of mixed heritage, and was, by most reasonable measures, quite good-looking. His dark eyes moved to the two documents arranged neatly on the coffee table.
One was a standard estate inheritance form. The other was a thick stack of papers titled Equity Inheritance Agreement.
If it had been any other equity agreement, Matthew wouldn't be losing sleep over it. The problem was the company whose shares were being inherited.
The Umbrella Corporation.
That Umbrella Corporation — the one from Resident Evil. The global behemoth spanning pharmaceuticals, medical hardware, and defense contracting, with a sideline in biological weapons research that it would very much prefer you not know about.
Which made this a considerably harder decision than it would otherwise be.
Matthew's gaze drifted past the curtain gap to the skyline outside. Stark Tower stood lit up in the middle of Manhattan, blazing against the night as though the concept of an electricity bill had never occurred to Tony Stark. And directly across from it, another skyscraper rose into the dark — distinguished by the red-and-white umbrella logo mounted on its facade, visible even at this hour.
Don't ask why the Umbrella Corporation exists inside the Marvel universe. Matthew didn't know. He had stopped trying to work that out, because frankly he had bigger problems. Specifically: whether to sign this agreement.
If he didn't sign, the body he'd inherited had a twenty-thousand-dollar debt to a local gang — a debt accumulated over years of the previous owner's poor decisions and worse luck. Refuse the inheritance today, and tomorrow he'd probably be hauled off to run drugs for people who were not known for their patience.
If he did sign, he would become a shareholder of the Umbrella Corporation. Which came with its own set of survival challenges, chief among them the possibility of dying in an "accidental" viral containment failure that turned out to be anything but accidental.
Either way, he was in trouble.
The city lights beyond the window were dizzying.
The room felt like it was full of noise, even in the silence.
He had been thinking for a long time. Long enough that the pen in his hand had warmed to body temperature. As the five minutes drew toward their end, something settled in Matthew's expression. He took a slow breath, sat up straight, and without any further hesitation, signed his name.
Matthew Lawrence.
The moment the pen left the paper, a transparent panel blazed into existence directly in front of him.
[Ding — "Public Welfare Panel" has finished loading!]
[Please refer to the User Manual for operating instructions.]
"A System?!"
The instant he saw it, Matthew's eyes went wide. He felt like a man who had failed his qualifying exam twenty-three times and finally, against all reasonable expectation, passed. His brain produced exactly one coherent thought.
I got one. I actually got one.
"Mr. Lawrence, did you say something just now?" Arthur looked up from the documents, studying his client's inexplicably delighted expression with mild concern. He was privately wondering whether Matthew had gotten into something inadvisable while he wasn't looking.
Matthew caught himself, cleared his throat twice, and shook his head.
"I think you must have misheard, Arthur."
"Perhaps." Arthur was not particularly invested in the question. "In any case, since you've signed, shall we go over the full list of estate items?"
"Your father left you thirty-five properties. A twelve-percent stake in the Umbrella Corporation. Four-point-five billion dollars, after tax. Fifteen mid-sized companies..."
The recitation was long. It was also, objectively, extremely boring — which struck Matthew as somewhat absurd, given that the contents were the kind of thing people generally considered life-changing. Arthur worked through the list with the efficient delivery of a man who had done this many times and had long since stopped being impressed by other people's inherited wealth.
Around five minutes later, Arthur concluded with a mildly parched throat and a professional smile.
"In summary — congratulations, Mr. Matthew Lawrence." He extended his hand. " You're rich."
"Thank you." Matthew shook it, and reached into his pocket with his other hand. He produced several bills and pressed them into Arthur's palm. "Five hundred dollars. Call it compensation for keeping me company today."
While Arthur had been working through the estate list, Matthew had been doing his own reading — skimming the System's User Manual. The mechanics were straightforward enough. Raise the Happiness Index of employees and the surrounding population, or intervene to prevent certain specified disasters, thereby achieving a measurable benefit to the general public. Rewards issued accordingly.
Raise the Happiness Index or prevent disasters, Matthew thought.
There was a quote about great power and responsibility that seemed relevant here. He decided not to finish the thought.
On the disaster-prevention side, he was currently not equipped to do much. And disasters, fortunately, were not an everyday occurrence. That left raising happiness as the more immediate avenue. He had already been testing a hypothesis: whether straightforward, uncomplicated generosity could function as a happiness-raising mechanism. Whether, in other words, giving people money counted.
Arthur's eyes lit up at the sight of the bills. He kept his reaction measured and tucked them into his pocket without ceremony.
[System: "Arthur Bell" has experienced a small increase in happiness. System points +1. Please continue increasing your efforts to benefit the people~~]
So it does work, Matthew noted. He kept his face neutral.
Arthur, now satisfied on the professional-courtesy front, began collecting the documents from the table. Matthew looked down at the remaining cash in his pocket. Four thousand five hundred dollars — set aside by the previous owner to repay the gang debt. That debt, he reflected, was no longer the most pressing item on his agenda.
"Arthur," Matthew said, "I've been thinking about it, and five hundred really isn't adequate. Not given how thorough you've been today. A lawyer as conscientious as you deserves better than that." He held out the rest of the bills. "Four thousand five hundred. Consider it today's full fee."
Arthur heard the compliment, saw the fresh bills, and allowed his professional composure to give way to something more genuine. He accepted without argument. His three kids' formula costs, he was quietly relieved to note, were covered for a good while.
[System points +10. "Arthur Bell" feels a deep sense of satisfaction.]
[Accumulated System points: 10. Milestone reward — T-Virus Sample x1 (deposited into System storage).]
[Next milestone: 30 accumulated System points. Please make full use of your System rewards to benefit the people.]
Matthew had been pleased about the ten points. Genuinely pleased, for a full second.
Then he read the words T-Virus Sample, and the expression on his face went completely still.
"..."
System. Do you actually understand what you just said?
You want me to benefit the people. With the T-Virus.
The fact that I haven't accidentally dropped it and ended civilization is already a public service. That should count for something.
He kept his face entirely neutral while thinking this. When Arthur left, the suite was quiet. Matthew sat alone in the wide, expensive room for a moment, then focused.
A sealed vial appeared in his hand — double-helix glass, no larger than a test tube. The liquid inside was a deep, luminous blue. Under the lamplight it looked almost beautiful.
Matthew did not find it beautiful.
What he saw was something closer to Gabriel's trumpet at the end of days. One vial, introduced into a city's water supply, would be enough. The city. Possibly the planet. An unprecedented catastrophe, end to end, no survivors to count.
His grip on the vial tightened.
"Right. Better put this somewhere safe." He exhaled slowly. "If it actually breaks, there's no version of events where I walk away from that."