Chapter 472

Malik had clearly spent years building a formidable network of contacts.

The moment Evenson made his request, Malik agreed without hesitation.

It still wasn’t enough.

"One friend means one more road forward," Evenson said, pushing his luck without the slightest shame. "I’d like you to introduce us to a few... friends in countries all over the world. That way, whenever we open another branch, we’ll have someone on the ground to look after us."

"All over the world?"

This time, Malik hesitated.

It wasn’t because he lacked the connections. Quite the opposite.

Umbrella’s current strength had already made him uneasy. If the company continued spreading across the globe at its present pace, Malik didn’t want to wake up one day after conquering the world and discover that he’d accidentally created another power he couldn’t control.

Before a king ascended the throne, allies were useful.

Afterward, everyone was supposed to be a subject.

"I know this is going to sound unbelievable," Evenson said when he noticed Malik’s hesitation, "but neither I nor the company have much interest in power. Especially money."

As he said it, Evenson could almost feel the last scraps of his conscience crumbling away.

He quickly tried to patch the damage.

"Unfortunately, if we’re going to accomplish our goals, we need plenty of those colorful pieces of paper. And we’ll need a certain amount of political influence too, even if we don’t personally place much value on either."

"Oh?"

Malik rubbed his chin, considering the connection between Umbrella’s ambitions and political power.

Before he could reach an answer, Evenson changed the subject.

"Mr. Malik, are you familiar with traditional Chinese medicine?"

"Of course."

Malik had no idea why the conversation had suddenly veered in that direction, but he nodded.

"After all, medicine is basically divided into two major traditions: Chinese and Western."

"Exactly."

Evenson nodded.

"Chinese medicine has one of the oldest medical traditions in the world. In particular, its history with surgery goes back centuries. According to historical accounts, surgeons were experimenting with anesthesia and even contemplating procedures that involved opening the skull nearly two thousand years ago."

Malik’s mouth twitched.

Nearly two thousand years ago?

If someone had actually tried opening his skull back then, Malik suspected there wouldn’t have been much left for the patient to complain about.

Evenson continued.

"Chinese medicine played an important role in the early history of surgery. So why did Western medicine eventually overtake it in the modern era? Why did Western surgery become the gold standard while traditional Chinese medicine was increasingly dismissed?"

"Politics, perhaps," Stephanie offered. "And a certain tendency to follow the crowd. Eastern civilization was enormously influential for thousands of years, but it went through a period of decline in the modern era. During that period, a lot of people went from extreme confidence to extreme inferiority. If Western countries were so advanced, they assumed the West must be superior in everything, including medicine."

"There’s certainly something to that."

Evenson nodded.

"But medicine has one advantage over most other fields. Its effectiveness can be measured. If one system consistently saves more patients than another, eventually the difference becomes difficult to ignore."

"Then there must have been a technological gap," Stephanie said, biting her lip. "So what caused it?"

"Put bluntly?"

Evenson tugged lightly at his collar.

"Up until roughly the eighteenth century, Chinese medicine was ahead of Western medicine in certain areas by a considerable margin. But that advantage eventually disappeared. One turning point was the passage of a particular piece of legislation."

"A medical law?"

"No."

Evenson’s eyes narrowed slightly.

"That’s the interesting part. It had almost nothing to do with medical knowledge itself."

Stephanie frowned.

"What was it?"

"The Anatomy Act."

Evenson’s expression sharpened.

"Britain passed it in 1832. Its reputation isn’t exactly pleasant. Among other things, it expanded the circumstances under which unclaimed bodies could be dissected, disproportionately affecting the poor and provoking serious concerns about dignity, consent, and basic human rights."

He paused.

"Yet regardless of how morally ugly its consequences were, the law had an enormous impact on medical education."

His eyes suddenly brightened.

"Medicine is a science. More importantly, it’s a practical science. The only way to truly test medical knowledge is through practice."

He emphasized the final word.

"Lots of practice."

The Anatomy Act gave British doctors and medical students far greater access to human cadavers. They could study anatomy directly. They could experiment. They could practice surgical techniques.

And once that happened, Western medicine advanced at an extraordinary pace.

Stephanie’s expression had changed.

Evenson had been smiling while explaining it, but there was something behind that smile that made the chill creep down her spine.

Practice.

Lots of practice.

"That would explain," Stephanie said slowly, "how your company managed to develop biotechnology this advanced."

Her gaze hardened.

"Auschwitz..."

The name hung in the air.

The Nazi concentration camps of World War II had become synonymous with industrialized murder. Innocent people had been slaughtered on an unimaginable scale, while prisoners were also subjected to horrific human experimentation, including procedures that amounted to experimentation on living bodies.

The results of such experiments were grotesque to contemplate.

But there was another historical connection that made the comparison particularly disturbing.

Abraham Erskine, the scientist who developed the original Super-Soldier Serum, had fled Nazi Germany for the United States.

And Umbrella, whose biotechnology now stood at the forefront of the modern world, had roots that reached back to Germany.

The connection was impossible to ignore.

Stephanie felt a knot form in her stomach.

Evenson, however, simply continued.

"And our objective still isn’t complete."

He raised one hand, moving it steadily upward.

"The Human Completion Project has only just begun."

His smile returned.

"Which means we need more data. Much more. We need extensive research across different populations and genetic backgrounds."

"Mm."

Malik forced the corners of his mouth upward.

Now he understood.

Research cost money.

Large-scale research cost enormous amounts of money.

And research that involved ethically questionable human experimentation required something else entirely.

Power.

Political protection.

Connections.

Influence.

Malik suddenly felt that his own organization had been unfairly judged all these years.

"I can make introductions," he said carefully. "That’s about as far as I’ll go."

He wasn’t nearly as willing to make promises anymore.

Some people never really changed.

Once upon a time, these people had apparently viewed the entire world as raw material for making soap.

Now they had upgraded their ambitions.

People were no longer raw material.

They were research subjects.

Malik almost felt embarrassed for Hydra.

For an organization supposedly infamous for evil, they suddenly looked downright amateurish by comparison.

"After all," Malik continued, "for the people at the top, money is rarely the problem. They have plenty of it. What they care about is their reputation. They’re very protective of it. If what you’re doing ever becomes public..."

"Don’t worry."

Evenson waved the concern away.

"We learned the value of keeping a low profile after the painful lesson we received sixty years ago. Believe me, nobody understands discretion better than we do."

Malik stared at him for a moment.

Then he decided he really didn’t want to know what Umbrella considered a "painful lesson."