(Welcome to Raccoon City continuity)
"You see, Umbrella just thought that they could just pack up shop and let this town rot away while they go off and start fresh somewhere else all shiny and new -- and they almost fuckin' did it. But a couple days ago, they had a little incident. I'm not just talking a little waste or poison in the water, No, I'm talking about a real bad leak. Chernobyl, if you know what I mean. They've been trying to contain that shit but the genie is out of the bottle and I don't think it's going back in. I'm afraid, Claire, I'm afraid of what they're going to to this town and the people in it." — Ben's fears and warnings. |
Ben Bertolucci (d. 1998) was a journalist and conspiracy theorist who became involved in the Raccoon City Destruction Incident.[1]
Biography[]
Ben was an independent journalist and activist who became suspicious of a vast conspiracy involving the international conglomerate known as the Umbrella Corporation, who had been secretly developing biological weapons under the guise of being a pharmaceutical company.
At some point in the late 1990s, he met Claire Redfield through an online chatroom. Claire had her own suspicions and conspiracy about the ethics of Umbrella due to her experiences growing up in the city's orphanage (a testing site for Umbrella).
Later in September 1998, Ben stumbled upon proof of Umbrella's misdeeds and transgressions, as well as the recent leak of the T-Virus and the existence of the G-Virus (Roberts). Fearing for both his life, and the lives of the civilians in Raccoon City, he sent out a videotape confiding in Claire, asking her to blow the whistle on Umbrella's bioweapons program to the public before either Umbrella or the virus could do any further damage. After receiving the tape, Claire was unable to contact Ben for over two weeks, and thus headed to Raccoon in person to reconnect with her brother Chris, a member of the Raccoon City Police Department. Unfortunately, Chris shrugged off her and Ben's warnings as baseless conspiracy.
Later that night, as the outbreak swung into full gear and much of the towns population succumbed to the infection and became zombies, Claire took refuge in the city's police station. While looking for a way out, she alongside officer Leon S. Kennedy geared up in the station's scarce armory. Ben heard the pairs voices from the station's holding cells, where he had been locked up.
Claire sent Leon to investigate on his own. Ben was initially estatic to see another survivor, pleading to be let out as his cellmate was on the verge of becoming a zombie. Leon, however, was skeptical of Ben's pleas, demanding to know what Ben had been locked in for. This aggression led Ben to ponder why Leon (not knowing he was from out of town) hadn't fallen ill like the rest of the town, coming to the assumption that the entire department was under Umbrella's thumb and had been vaccinated.
Ben's fate.
Unfortunately, Leon wandered to close to the cell, allowing Ben to grab hold of the officer and steal his gun. Ben pointed the gun at Leon and demanded he grab the keys from the desk and unlock his cell. Leon complied steadily while Ben mocked him. Unfortunately for Ben, as soon as Leon unlocked and opened the door, his cellmate rose up and attacked him, ripping out a chunk of his neck and severing an artery, causing him to profusely bleed to death and die of shock in moments. The zombie then turned it's attention to the unarmed Leon, wrestling him to the desk. Leon was saved at the last minute by Claire. However, she immediately recognized Ben and was distraught at the sight of his body.[2]
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