Carla Radames: the Fake Ada Wong of Resident Evil 6

Carla Radames is the scientist behind the C-Virus and the fake Ada Wong of Resident Evil 6. Derek Simmons, who ran the secret Family, used her as the test subject that finally produced his copy of Ada. The copy kept Ada's face but not her loyalty, and as the leader of Neo-Umbrella she set out to destroy Simmons and the world with him. (Resident Evil 6)

Who was Carla Radames?#

Carla was a prodigy. She finished a doctorate in genetics at fifteen, and Simmons recruited her straight away to make viruses and bioweapons for him. He praised her intelligence and her results, and the praise made her devoted to him. The game's file on her is blunt about it: to Simmons she was only ever a tool. (Resident Evil 6)

She began work on what became the C-Virus in 2001. A note she left in the Quad Tower in Lanshiang explains the science. She took the t-Veronica virus, made by Alexia Ashford in Resident Evil Code: Veronica, and combined it with the trait that causes sudden DNA mutation, getting rid of the brain damage that had been t-Veronica's big flaw. She called the result t-02. Hosts no longer needed years of cold sleep to adapt. The last step, she wrote, was to add G-virus taken from Sherry Birkin's body, however long that took, to make Simmons proud. (Resident Evil 6; Resident Evil Code: Veronica)

How Carla became Ada Wong#

Simmons had his own reason for wanting the virus. Ada Wong had once worked for him and walked out when she learned he was behind the destruction of Raccoon City. He became obsessed with replacing her, and Project Ada was the plan: use the C-Virus to turn a living subject into an exact copy of her. (Resident Evil 6)

Thousands of subjects died or became monsters. The problem was genetic compatibility, and the Family's resources showed that Carla herself was a good match. She thought Simmons valued her too much to risk her. He tricked her into the experiment anyway. A tape found beneath Tall Oaks cathedral, labelled as a birthday for Ada Wong, shows the result climbing out of a cocoon. Simmons's memo marks the moment: ten years and 12,235 experiments. (Resident Evil 6)

The file on Carla says the person she had been ceased to exist. Simmons trained the new Ada to look, think and act like the original, and to never betray him. (Resident Evil 6)

Why Carla turned on Simmons#

It didn't hold. A note Carla wrote soon after the change shows the split. She calls herself Simmons's loyal servant, Ada Wong, and says they're the perfect match. Then she admits that a voice inside her screams at her to kill him and destroy his dreams, and that it's getting louder every day. (Resident Evil 6)

Simmons gave his Ada money, power and a submarine base, and put her in charge of the Family's operations in East Asia. She used them against him. Under her, those operations became Neo-Umbrella, a group that answered to her. Her aim was simple: tear down Simmons and the stable world order the Family had spent centuries protecting. (Resident Evil 6)

Edonia, December 2012#

Simmons sent her to Edonia, in Eastern Europe, to check whether the mercenary Jake Muller, Albert Wesker's son, carried antibodies to the C-Virus. She was also supplying the rebels there with bioweapons. When Chris Redfield's BSAA team stormed the rebel base, she let them find her as an apparent prisoner, then infected them as they led her out. Nearly all of them died, and Chris lost his memory. (Resident Evil 6)

She then had Jake and Sherry captured at the border, reported to Simmons that they were probably dead, and shipped them to a facility in China, where they spent six months as test subjects for her enhanced C-Virus. (Resident Evil 6)

Lanshiang and her death#

Before her final attack, Carla contacted the real Ada, pretending to be Simmons, and drew her into the affair. Ada worked it out. In the Tall Oaks lab she found the tape of her own double's birth. (Resident Evil 6)

In June 2013 Carla turned Lanshiang into a war zone. She had a J'avo shoot Simmons with a dart of her enhanced C-Virus, then phoned him to gloat. Chris and Piers Nivans chased her onto a Neo-Umbrella aircraft carrier, where she was preparing a missile full of C-Virus gas. A burst of fire from a helicopter, sent by Simmons's side, cut her down and she fell from the bridge. Her followers had planned for this. A Neo-Umbrella notice reported that their leader was dead and put Plan D into action: fire the missile into Lanshiang's Tatchi district, then wake Haos, the giant creature in her undersea lab. (Resident Evil 6)

She wasn't finished. She had injected herself with the virus, and when the real Ada reached her on the deck, Carla still insisted she was the real Ada Wong. Then she mutated, spreading through the ship until it began to break apart around them. Ada fought the creature off, shattering parts of it, and killed her before escaping as the carrier went down. (Resident Evil 6)

What she left behind#

The missile turned Tatchi into a city of zombies. Haos woke in the seabed facility, where it cost Piers his life before it was destroyed. Ada finished the job in Carla's Quad Tower lab, burning her research and one last cocoon. Jake's blood went on to give the world a vaccine against the virus Carla had made. (Resident Evil 6)