Responsum Nostrum

[Legatus]

[ In response to Das Ende. ]

"...Mason, reporting live from outside Raccoon Police Department, where we understand currently lies the body of wanted BOW Adam Kurgan, who until last night was the last surviving known member of the terrorist organisation, White-"

Television screens across Raccoon City suddenly cut to black. Just a moment passed - not long enough for viewers to believe that anything was wrong with their TVs - then with a crackle of static, a new image appeared. Seated in a high-backed wooden chair, in the middle of an otherwise bare room with grey walls, was the carefully illuminated mask of a man who had stolen his way onto news broadcasts in the city only twice before.

"People of Raccoon City. I am Legatus, the voice of TYRANT."

His previous messages had both begun with those same words, his voice disguised by a modulator.

"Last night, in the very heart of our city, one of its saviours was murdered." He paused for a beat. All would know who he was referring to.

"Adam Kurgan had one thing in common with most all BOWs - it was never his wish to become what he was. How quickly we forget that simple fact of bio-organic life in the face of fear. Had he wished it, he could have become the very thing for which your government demonised him and his ilk - a weapon of terror, wielded by his creators to serve their own depraved interests. Perhaps that might have been his fate, but for the one thing that set him apart from the objects of your fear. He did not wish it. He chose to use the power he had been granted to fight for you. For life. For freedom. All in opposition to the designs of Umbrella Corporation, the true evil at the heart of the entire sordid history of the past thirty years."

He paused again, leaned forward in his seat. He propped his elbows on his knees and steepled his gloved fingers. All the while, the luminous eyes of his mask never left the camera.

"President Harker, and Sears before him, would have you all forget something which must never be forgotten, and that is that you who live to enjoy this new peace owe it all to Adam Kurgan and others like him. Brave souls who fought against enemies, against evils, that ordinary men could scarce hope to comprehend, let alone oppose. It is for a simple reason that your President wants this truth to be forgotten - his impotent fear of a change that is already taking place."

He leaned back once more. Perhaps he moved only to remind his viewers that there was indeed someone living and breathing behind the mask.

"I will not condescend to you by declaring BOWs to be some new phase of human evolution. They do not come to replace humanity, or to rise above it, whatever those terms even mean. But they are here. They did not wish to be what they are. And they deserve every chance to live among you as equals, from whom you have nothing to fear.

"Adam Kurgan has been denied that chance. With the smoke of apocalypse clearing, and the hope for a lasting peace allowing him to finally hang up his sword and partake of the fruits of his own bloody labour - labour undertaken on our behalf - he was murdered in the city he came to call home. Whether by the hand of a vigilante, or a killer sanctioned by the very government which deludes itself into thinking there is safety to be found in the persecution of BOWs, I do not yet know. But I will find out, and there will be a reckoning. This is my promise."

He angled his head forward, still staring at the camera.

"I am Legatus. TYRANT has spoken."

Another crackle of static, and screens across the city cut to black.

[Legatus]

[ In response to 9 O'Clock News. ]

"People of Raccoon City. I am Legatus, the voice of TYRANT."

A mere twenty-four hours later, the same nine o'clock FNN update was interrupted with a cut to black and a flicker of static. When he appeared and spoke, there was a lilt in the mechanical voice of Legatus that almost sounded amused.

"And I am overjoyed to have witnessed Adam Kurgan's final act of service to you, interrupting last night's FNN broadcast. The images he showed you were a storyboard of his tale - the countless battles he fought, along with the other liberators of our battered civilisation, so that we could see tomorrow. Through their sacrifices, Hija Himura, the true monster at the head of what remained of Umbrella, was laid low. But to think that the mistrust and treachery with which they have been repaid would pave the way for an heir to the twisted Himura legacy to set foot in the Oval Office..."

The eyes of the mask closed, and Legatus shook his head. He radiated disdain.

"Truly, no good deed goes unpunished." The eyes reopened, fixed upon the camera. "Well, the duty of TYRANT is to redress these very injustices. Adam Kurgan may rest, but so long as his battle is not over, TYRANT shall fight it. We shall work to uncover, in greater detail, the truth that Kurgan showed to you last night, until no effort of media smearing can deny it. You will see for yourselves the corruption taking root in your government, identical to the corruption which made Umbrella the horrific threat it was, and it is my hope that those among you who still yearn for lasting peace will join hands with us in fighting to excise this corruption."

The masked head leaned back.

"I am Legatus. TYRANT has spoken."

[Legatus]

[ In response to CGN News. ]

Another nightly news update. Another static interruption. Another image of Legatus' mask.

"People of Raccoon City. I am Legatus, the voice of TYRANT."

He tilted his head. "And I put it to you, Carari Grey, that a news station that presents rumour as fact is no news station at all, but a peddler of fantastical lies. But lies must be opposed, lest they become regarded as truth, and so I appear before our city to most emphatically deny CGN's accusations, utterly lacking in evidence as they are, that TYRANT has any connection to the recent assault on the Raccoon Police Department, the vampire Maricul, or the deployment of T-103 Tyrants against Maricul on the day of her first public appearance in the city."

He lifted his gloved hands, clapped once, and the image crackled instead to what looked like a photograph of the drop pod from which the T-103 had emerged to battle Maricul. The insignia on its surface was clearly displayed.

"The image you see now," explained Legatus' voice, "was taken from live news footage of the battle between Maricul and the first T-103. This capsule was used to deploy the T-103 to the combat area, and clearly visible upon it is a symbol which has never been in any way connected to TYRANT. Our city knows us well enough by now to know the face behind which we are united, and it looks nothing at all like the symbol beneath which this Tyrant fought."

Another static buzz, and Legatus reappeared. "Similarly, no investigation will reveal any evidence of a connection between TYRANT and the assailants who laid siege to the RPD. So I will call this what it is, Miss Grey - a transparent attempt to scapegoat TYRANT for the unrest that has followed in the wake of these events. And who benefits from this attempt to cast TYRANT as the enemy? Your paymaster in the White House, of course. Or is it perhaps he who dances on your strings? We will find out soon enough, though I would not be surprised either way. After all, it would not be the first time a government and the heads of its contemporary media bodies were bedfellows, would it?"

Legatus leaned forward in his familiar high-backed chair, and stared intensely at the camera. "Very soon, Miss Grey, an opportunity will present itself to you and your network to step over onto the right side of history. I hope you will take it. Otherwise, when the world moves on to a better future, you and yours will find yourselves left behind.

"I am Legatus. TYRANT has spoken."