Dr. Reuben Reed was a character featured in Dead Island 2 who served as a false protagonist and the main antagonist of the game.
Background[]
Dr. Reed was a member of the Eschaton Group posing as a Center for Disease Control researcher ostensibly focused on researching the outbreak in Los Angeles. However, he was also focused on researching Numen, hybrid humans who were partially zombie, partially human.
The Slayers first hear him during the main quest Room Service for Major Booker, where he is repeatedly broadcasting to survivors to rendezvous at the Serling Hotel at Ocean Avenue. However, the radio is in the Ballroom of the Halperin Hotel, which is locked. After acquiring The Major's Master Keys and unlocking it, they manage to make oral contact with Reed, where they reveal they are immune. Reed is overjoyed and tells them to come at once to him at Santa Monica. They are cut short when the Slayers are ambushed by Becki Russo. After defeating her, the Slayers re-establish contact, and make preparations to travel to the Serling Hotel.
The Slayers have minor radio contact with Reed throughout their attempts to reach the Serling Hotel until they finally actually make it to their destination, where Reed is very pleased to see them. After Reed takes a sample of their blood, he asks them to travel to the CDC HQ near the pier and use the DNA sequencer there, as well as to track down a blood drive kit. After they do so, Reed sets to work analysing their blood, however, when the Slayers go to check on him later, he has vanished.
After the Slayers track down his lab, they discover that Reed has previously met immune survivors and experimented on them, resulting in their ultimate loss of immunity and death. Returning to the Hotel, the Slayers witness Reed escape in a helicopter with his daughter Tisha, fleeing to Hollywood Boulevard.
After fighting through The Metro, the Slayers make it to Hollywood Boulevard, and follow a trail of Crossbow bolts left by Tisha to find the Re-Aging Clinic, which has a secret exit at the rear of the shop to a secret lab, Eschaton Beige. After making their way through, they find Reed hooked up to another DNA sequencer and blood drive, along with Tisha who is begging him not to do it. Reed reveals that he was behind the outbreak in Los Angeles, killing millions to save billions, he claims, as part of his research. He also reveals that the Slayers are "Numen", not humans, not zombies. Finally, he tells Tisha that she was grown in a lab by Reed to be a Numen, a living donor that he and the CDC could drain the blood from over a lifetime, for cures and studies.
Reed then finishes what he was doing, which was making a cure from his blood. By doing so, he has killed himself but produced enough of a cure that could save the Slayers, and make them human again. Reed then begins turning into a Mutator, which the Slayers try to fight off, whilst a distraught Tisha tries to stop them. The now undead Reed, dubbed the Reubenator, throws the Slayers out of a window onto a lab floor, following them down. The Slayers then fight the Reubenator, ultimately killing him, before escaping the lab and returning to the helicopter, now piloted by Patton, to take Emma Jaunt and Sam B out of LA, but only after the Slayer decides to use the cure on Sam B rather than themselves.
Appearance[]
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