Location: Hangar Bay, Teach Mharcus Estate, Ireland
Date: January 23, 2019
Time: 07:30 GMT
The morning air was sharp enough to cut glass.
Alen Wesker stood alone in the center of the cavernous underground hangar, the collar of his trench coat turned up against the draft. The massive steel blast doors above had retracted, revealing a square of gray, turbulent Irish sky. He checked his watch. Punctual.
In the distance, the rhythmic thump-thump-thump of heavy rotors beat against the air. A minute later, a massive Chinook helicopter, painted in the unassuming white and blue livery of a civilian infrastructure contractor, descended through the mist. It maneuvered with military precision, lowering itself through the silo opening and touching down on the tarmac of the hidden runway.
The engines whined down. The rear ramp hissed open. A dozen men in gray coveralls moved out first—efficient, silent, carrying reinforced equipment cases. They were engineers, but they moved like soldiers.
Then, a man stepped out. He was older now, his hair flecked with gray, but the stride was unmistakably the same. Mateo Cárdenas Ortega. El Fantasma.
Ortega stopped at the bottom of the ramp. He looked around the colossal underground facility—the jet, the biological core glowing faintly in the distance, the sheer scale of the ambition. Then, his eyes locked on the lone figure in black standing in the shadows.
Alen stepped forward. Ortega didn't salute. He didn't offer a handshake. He crossed the distance in three long strides and pulled Alen into a crushing embrace. It was a hug that carried fifteen years of debt, grief, and survival.
"You really are a ghost," Ortega whispered, his voice thick with emotion. "I lit a candle for you, cabrón. Every year."
Alen hesitated, then returned the embrace, the tension in his shoulders finally breaking. "I'm real, Mateo. I'm real."
They pulled apart. Ortega held Alen by the shoulders, studying him. His smile faded slowly as he really looked at his friend. Alen lowered his hoodie.
Ortega's breath hitched. He took a half-step back. The face staring back at him was terrifying. The bone structure was rigid, perfect, and cruel—the face of Albert Wesker. It was the face of a man born to rule the world. But the eyes… the eyes were not red. They were blue. And they were filled with an exhaustion so deep it looked like it had burned out his soul.
"Dios mío," Ortega murmured. "You have changed, hermano. You look like the devil himself… but your eyes… you look like a man who has buried everyone he ever loved."
Alen looked away, staring at the concrete floor. "I don't know who I am anymore, Mateo. I look in the mirror and I see a monster. But inside? I'm just… losing pieces. My mother. My mentor. My wife. The world keeps taking, and I'm running out of things to give."
Ortega saw the cracks in the armor. He saw the boy who had saved his daughter in Mexico, now trapped in the body of a tyrant.
"Come," Ortega said gently, guiding him toward a makeshift table set up near the command console. "Sit. The work can wait five minutes. We talk."
The Confession
They sat amidst the cold steel and silence. Ortega poured coffee from a thermos he had brought, the steam rising between them.
"How did you survive Edonia?" Ortega asked softly. "The report said you vaporized the facility. John Michael Kane was listed KIA. Closed casket."
Alen wrapped his hands around the warm cup. "I was compromised. The mission went south." He spoke quietly, his voice echoing in the hangar. "The explosion… it should have killed me. A normal man would be dead. I was buried under tons of concrete. My skin was burned off. I was bleeding from a dozen shrapnel wounds."
Alen rolled up his sleeve, revealing the faint, silvery sheen of scar tissue that looked too perfect. "I looked at my arm, Mateo. And I watched the skin knit itself back together. The burns faded into pink flesh. That's when I knew. I wasn't just human anymore."
Ortega listened, mesmerized and horrified.
"I crawled through the drainage pipes," Alen continued. "Twenty-five minutes in the dark. I washed the blood off in a frozen pond. I burned my Black Wolf gear. I put on civilian clothes, put on a pair of glasses, and walked away. John Michael Kane died in that fire. Alen Richard walked out."
Ortega reached out and squeezed Alen's forearm. "That is not just luck. That is sheer will."
"It wasn't enough," Alen said, his voice hardening. "After Edonia, I went to Texas. I bought a ranch. I found peace. I found a woman… Isabella Gionne."
Ortega's eyes widened. "Gionne? As in Excella Gionne? The Tricell CEO?"
"Her twin sister," Alen nodded, tears threatening to spill. "She was the Black Heart. She ran their networks. I saved her from a hit squad. We fell in love. We had a life, Mateo. A dog, a porch, a sunset. But she kept secrets. She was tied to The Connections."
"The crime syndicate?"
"Yes. They found us. They killed my mentor. And because of the secrets… I lost her, too. So I did what I had to do." Alen looked up, his blue eyes suddenly glacial. "I hunted them down. I killed Brandon Bailey. I burned their labs. I erased The Connections from the face of the earth. The world thinks they are still operating in the shadows, but they are gone. I finished them."
Ortega stared at him. He had known Alen was dangerous, but this… this was a different level of lethality. To wipe out an entire shadow organization single-handedly was something out of a myth.
"You really have become a dangerous man," Ortega whispered. "Seeing this lab… seeing what you are building… you are preparing for war."
"No," Alen said, standing up and walking to the edge of the platform, looking out at the gray daylight.
"Then what do you crave, Alen? Power? Control?"
"Peace," Alen said, his voice breaking. "That's the joke, Ortega. I don't want to rule the world. I want to live on a farm. I want to wake up and not check for tripwires. I want to be surrounded by people I trust and die in my sleep as an old man. But this fucking world won't let that happen. The bioterrorists. The organizations. They kill the innocent. They kill children who have a chance to live. They won't let me rest."
He gripped the railing, the metal groaning under his hand. "But this fucking world won't let that happen… Whoever comes, whoever it is… I'll kill them. I'll kill them all."
Ortega held his gaze. He grinned, a dark, knowing smile. "'Course you will."
The Blueprint
The tension broke. They looked at each other, the heavy moment passing, and suddenly both men laughed—a dry, awkward, relieved sound.
"We are two old soldiers getting sentimental," Ortega chuckled, wiping his eyes. "We have work to do. You didn't bring me here to drink coffee."
"Let's move to the plan," Alen agreed, his demeanor shifting instantly to professional command.
Ortega whistled. His team of elite engineers stopped unpacking and gathered around the central desk. Alen activated the holographic table. The wireframe of the facility glowed blue.
"Gentlemen," Alen began. "This facility is a ghost. We need to wake it up without alerting the graveyard."
Resurrection Protocol
* TIER 0 — DORMANT CORE: Umbrella Micro-Nuclear Reactor. Do Not Touch.
* TIER 1 — THE MUSCLE: Hybrid Diesel + Battery Microgrid. Silent power.
* TIER 2 — THE LIFEBLOOD: Subterranean Micro-Hydro from The Black Pond. Powers Trinity and life support 24/7.
* TIER 3 — THE MASK: Photovoltaic Slate Roof. Camouflage from satellite surveillance.
The engineers nodded. They spoke the language of volts and load-bearing concrete.
"It's genius," Ortega admitted, looking at the schematics. "It breathes. It hides." Ortega clapped his hands. "Alright, vatos! You heard the man. Tier 2 comes first. Get the water flowing. Let's move!"
As the team dispersed, the hangar filled with the sounds of industry—drills, boots on metal, the hum of heavy lifters. Alen tapped the console.
"Trinity. Transfer the initial funding to the Ortega account. Cryptocurrency. Route it through the mixing service."
≪ Processing… Transaction complete. ≫
Ortega's phone buzzed. He checked the notification and raised an eyebrow. "You pay well, Ghost."
"How much time do we need, Ortega?" Alen asked.
Ortega calculated the scale of the work. "With this crew? And your plan? We will have the lights on by March. Full operational status… complete refurbishment… by November."
Alen extended his hand. "Thank you, Mateo."
Ortega took it. The grip was solid. "We are family, Alen. And family fights together."
Alen watched the work begin. For the first time in years, he wasn't just surviving. He was building. He wasn't his father, who saw allies as tools to be discarded. He was Alen Wesker, and he was building a sanctuary for the things worth saving.