Old Blood
||@exmortum|| AKA Happy Birthday Cae
Prompt:
Sat opposite her, between them on the cherrywood surface of his desk lay a duralumin case on its side, the locks still tightly in place. It had been there since she had entered his office, innocent despite the disastrous contents safely nestled in the plush lining. Leather encased fingers laced together, the heels of palms resting on the polished surface just a twitch or two away. The rest of him appeared as ever; composed, posture straight, but for the tilt of the head. Across the sable tinted lenses of his sunglasses flashed the lights held in generations' old crystal. Behind the shades, his gaze was intent upon her.
‘ Tell me, Ms. Sherawat. . . what would you do for the sake of loyalty ? No, ’ rumble interrupted the query, the smooth expression of calm undisturbed by the undercurrent of danger in freezing waters. ‘ What would you do for the sake of your life ? ’
The metal brief case lodged like a barrier between Jessica and Wesker. An enigmatic little mystery box posed as the center piece of his desk. She could guess the contents but only he could reveal the answer, for certain it was why he called her here. A golden evening glow bathed the desk and office in warm light. It glinted from the windows and kissed Jessica’s throat, a final farewell of the day. Wesker’s office proved to be what she expected, simple but decadent. A minimalistic statement of class and taste. Not hollow or for show; Crystal glasses, art pieces running in the millions, books smelling of warmed leather, polished wood. Wesker appreciated true quality, not money spent for the sake of itself. His clothes were designer for comfort, and durability, to put forth the best appearance. Wesker expected that everything in his vicinity preform to standard. Jessica has stepped from chaotic streets into this den of organized papers, composed into stacks for efficiency. She’d find such skilled artistry nowhere else.
His focus burned holes into her, his gaze nipping like frost bite. In a torrent ocean, a riptide, Jessica was placid. Legs crossed at the knee, the pointed red toe of her heel drawing calm circles. Her posture remained open and inviting, hands on either arm rest of her chair, expression gentle and softened, unchallenging, patient. To his question she hummed, head cocking in thought. A single auburn coil of hair brushed along the collar of her pea coat. Jessica braced her chin against her white silk gloved hand and then smiled, slight and wiry.
A half-dozen handlers had asked this exact question before him. They didn’t use the same words of course, but the gist, the intention, the heart of it, was there. It wasn’t the question that mattered. The words were but a facade meant to draw her attention, so she could stutter over them and reveal all the more of her hand. No, the question was a thin veil for something far more sinister. Life or death, loyalty or betrayal, the binary dichotomy of her career. This was the relationship of agent and handler. No it was quite obvious: Wesker was threatening her. Her comfort was that if he truly wanted her dead, she would be, there was an angle here. He was looking for something out of her.
The answer he wanted, the correct answer, the ‘I’ll do anything, please don’t kill me’ and the ‘I’m loyal to the end.’ Were the wrong answers, not because they were lies but because they were not true. What a beautifully crafted catch-22 he presented her with. In the original story the logic was simple. Only the insane would fly bombing missions but an insane person cannot fly. If one applies for insanity to escape the missions however, they admit fear in the face of death, which is a hallmark of sanity. Ergo, to apply for insanity is to admit to being sane. Only the insane would work for Wesker but Wesker doesn’t want someone insane working for him. To try to leave, however, would be for Jessica to admit her sanity and yet to stay would be to admit her insanity. And if she was sane and if she was reasonable, the kinda person that would balk under pressure, then he’d have no more use for her because those were not the traits of a good agent. And then she’d be killed. So the obvious, easy answer —the lie— was the wrong answer. Because the sane feared death and the insane were not good agents. Jessica wondered why they had to play cat and mouse. She was content to work with him for now, it was Excella they both hated. The enemy of my enemy is not my enemy, after all.
Jessica inhaled, thin breath through her nose, eyes narrowed imperceptibly. Not a tick on the clock had passed in the ensuing silence of his query. Wesker sat across the desk as unmovable as a statue, man hewn from marble and spun gold. Jessica’s forefinger traced the line of her jaw, eyes running over his form. Broad shoulders, strong arms, hardened and tight jaw. Beneath those glasses were unseen eyes, the windows of the soul folded in shadow. At a glance he appeared as a man, but if she peeled away the layers— what would she find?
All her handlers were the same. Men of importance and power, charged to keep her in line, no matter what. One liked to belittle and threaten her and another tries to seduce her, cruel or sweet words, all twisted to the same end. Control. Wesker controlled everything. He controlled Excella, he controlled TRICELL, and its employees, and the labs that developed the viruses. Hell, he probably even set the AC in the office. Strong, functionally immortal, intelligent, Albert Wesker was the perfect human being. His files from UMBRELLA said as much. What power he did not have he hungered for. It was in his DNa, his upbringing, nature and nurture intertwined to produce a ruthless man that will stop at nothing. He would not trip over Jessica, no, if she fell in his path he’d crush her beneath his boot heel and she was not afraid to admit she’d be helpless to stop him. All her other handlers she watched crash and fall, hoist by their own hubris. They underestimated her, doubted her skill, when they thought they were the seducer, she seduced them— not many knew to watch her mouth and her hands.
Behind the glint of those sunglasses, molten gold in the light, Jessica saw no expression. Cold and unfeeling, his chuckle echoed in a hallow chest. If she took her fingers to his pulse would she hear a heartbeat? Or did the progenitor take that from him too. He knew of her four years in Umbrella, the last generation of agents produced from their programs— she supposed that made them somewhat related. Perhaps in an extended metaphor, she could consider herself an adopted younger sibling, or a niece. If he was the beloved golden boy then she was the black lamb, which marked two families she had estranged.
There were other kids in the program with her. Nine others to be exact, some as young as ten and barely reaching her hip. A couple were boys older than her. They all shared one thing in common: they escaped Raccoon City before the missile hit. UMBRELLA scooped them up like prize fish at a Carnival game. There were more than them initially but Jessica suspected they weren’t up to standard and thus were terminated. They all had ‘strong’ genes. They were healthy and attractive kids, intelligent. Jessica’s parents were wealthy and talented — and bait for blackmail— so the scientists cooed that she was an excellent candidate. No, they weren’t as good as the originals —the fabled Wesker project— but in a pinch they’d do. But she recalled their first two weeks together, huddled scared in a common room of a white washed facility. The young ones were terrified, the smallest cried for her mother every night. The first day soldiers shaved their heads, dunked them into ice baths to scrub them raw, and scientists poked and prodded them with needles and instruments. For a time it was them, together. Then they identified something special in Jessica, or Captain Rodriguez did, as he said, not many sixteen year olds walked out of Raccoon City. The others were shuffled off and they handed her over to the Captain. They told him to break her, and so he did.
It’d been almost a decade but she remembered him like it was yesterday. He was a gangly man in his early-fifties, all hard muscle and scar. A black curled beard hid his face and he always wore an olive green cap over his ice blue eyes. Captain Rodriguez served for twenty-five years as a US Army ranger. He spent ten of those as an instructor. In military training there were pesky things called rules meant to insure recruits weren’t injured or killed. These annoyed the Captain, they prevented him from testing his trainees and helping them reach their full potential, in his eyes. That was what he told Jessica, at least. He had a year to produce a combat ready agent prepared for military operations, covert espionage, and UMBRELLA’s dirty work. They wanted a loyal, tough agent to carry on the legacy of UMBRELLA and its philosophy. She was to be the final testimony; the best of the best. To that end they tested her vitals at every turn and mapped out her DNA. All while Captain Rodriguez forced her to her limits.
Those same scientists and executives told her that power was in the gene pool. Humanity was a potential untapped, evolution had stagnated in the digital age with the touchy-feely attempts of modern medicine that ensured that everyone could survive and reproduce. Only those with good genes should have the right to spawn they said. Power could unify the human race, perfect it. UMBRELLA sought to cull the herd, a few lives lost here and there, nothing compared to the greater future ahead. That was how they justified Raccoon city. A few lives lost, an accident but a reasonable price for the research and data. For the betterment of mankind, the city burned. Jessica’s potential was excellent, a little more time and they could perfect her too. It will be interesting to see how she responds in real combat.
“No”, Rodriguez would growl, head ducked so his eyes were hid beneath his hat brim. “Its not the genes that make a soldier, but the spirit.”
Those old fools, he’d say, trapped in their labs. They couldn’t see pass the numbers on their data sheets. Only later did Jessica wonder if the reason the scientists were so interested in her was because they had nothing better to do. UMBRELLA was dying and their funding was drying up, might as well harass some teenagers. Rodriguez never tried to convince her of the bullshit the executives fed her, probably why she never swallowed it hook, line, and sinker. The Captain told her two things: One, the mission comes first; Two, the enemy is the one trying to kill you.
“I am trained to put my feelings aside,” Jessica said, “And to complete the mission. Whatever it may be.”
The scientists of UMBRELLA had read Jessica’s genetic code and liked whatever they saw. They tried to use it to predict her future. If they had laid out a deck of tarot cards, they would have had more success. Jessica once dreamed of following her parent’s footsteps: she’d be an actress like her mom or an executive like dad. And if all those plans failed, she had Daddy’s money to fall back on. She believed in destiny, and perhaps that’s why she once thought Terragrigia and Raccoon City were inevitable, caught in the cogs of progress and evolution. That men like Albert Wesker exemplified the machine, unstoppable.
She could not see beyond those black shades, nor to the weathered hands under his gloves, or hear the heartbeat in his chest. Jessica did not know the full story of his birth and resurrection, only the hearsay of the rumor mill and what scraps she garnered from the enigmatic man. He was the ur example, everything the scientists wished she had been. The success story, the one that took his inheritance and ran. Quite the prodigal son, Albert Wesker. Then again, genetics and virus and all, he was still a man. It want the inhuman capacity of his muscle fibers or his super speed that impressed her, not even his intelligence, it was his spirit. Even if a scientist cloned him to the exact detail, they could not replicate him. Jessica cared not for his cause or his business, nor his desire for power. paths. For the first time in her life Jessica didn’t care who held her leash, only that he didn’t tug so hard. She’d come along. After all, now was a time for patience. If he needed to be stopped, someone with equal might would get in his way. It wasn’t the strong that survived --survival of the fittest did not mean survival of the strongest, but the one that could best suit its enviroment-- but those who adapted.
Their genes could not predict their fate. Jessica was certain, nonetheless that they’d be dealt the hand they deserved. She was calm but she was not complacent, she had her own path to walk. Her parents didn’t decide it, UMBRELLA didn’t decide it, Rodriguez didn’t decide it, and Wesker didn’t decide it. That path did not cross over Wesker’s. Because Jessica saw Raccoon City burn, watched the missile strike and felt the shockwave from miles away. Politics crushed buildings and shattered glass. It happened on Terragrigia too. Monsters ravaged the streets but the true demons sat in plush offices and debated the PR. She had come to terms with her mortality. Jessica once feared death, now she respected it. Her hands were blood stained and the damn spot would not wash out. She had no self-righteous vindication to hold her back, only the quiet apathy of a woman tired of all the games.
The only question is,” Jessica said, and here she leaned forward, arms bracing on her knees. The mask and the lies, the little petty quirks of an actress melted from her frame, she sat before him as raw as she’d ever been. Her eyes found the reflection in those sunglasses and looked beyond. Cold steel and burning gold, the slightest upturn of cocky smirk across painted red lips.
“What is it that you want me to do?”
