"What the fuck are you doing?" grunts one of the scientists. "Are you eating?"
"Yeah," says another one, slurping up some of his ramen as he cranes over some of Umbrella's highly delicate, highly expensive equipment. "I'm hungry."
"God, you're such a slacker. I oughta shoot you before Umbrella does."
"Whatever."
"Hey, watch it! You're spilling it!"
"Huh? Oh shit, oh shit! I dropped my tofu in there!"
"You jackass! That's the fucking G-virus sample!"
"Bring up holding cell 2."
The monitor's screen flickered and switched to a feed of a sterile white capsule, the same kind used to hold all of Umbrella Corp's volatile living experiments. At first the cell appeared empty, completely blank. After a moment the camera began to adjust for contrast, and soon the outline of a quivering white shape could be seen on the floor.
"Is that it, then?" the suit asked, peering over the shoulder of one of the scientists. "That thing?"
"Yessir," the scientist replied nervously. "It's been, uh, growing steadily for a week now. It doesn't appear to be hostile. Mostly it just seems confused."
There was the sound of an opening door and footsteps, and the white outline (roughly rectangular, bigger than a bread box) raised the end of its bulk in a motion like someone raising their head. It looked surprisingly convincing.
"It shows a keen interest when anyone comes by," the scientist pointed out. On the feed, one of the other engineers, a stout lady with thick glasses and a company-issued lab coat, walked up to the glass. The white shape immediately wiggled over, and she knelt down to smile and coo at it. "It's rather popular with the staff. That's taking care of it."
"Well," said the suit, skeptically, "what does it do?"
"Do?" the scientist repeated. "Well, uh, not...not much, yet. But it responds positively to human speech and doesn't want to kill any of us, which is a first. In my professional opinion," he coughed, "I think Tofu's potential more than outweighs the cost of a holding cell."
"Tofu?"
"I mean, Subject C82. Tofu's just, you know, a little nickname. Seeing as it's made out of tofu and all."
On the monitor, the lady stood up, and motioned for the white creature to follow. Slowly it pulled itself up into a roughly vertical position. Thrilled, the lady began to clap.
"Hmm," murmured the suit. "It follows commands." He let out a low hum, and the cogs of Umbrella's think tank began to turn. "I wonder what else we can make it do."
Tofu slashed downwards quickly with his knife, tossed it to his other hand and made the motion again. Left hand, down slash, toss right, down slash, up slash, forward, toss left, down, up, forward.
The down stab was fastest for him, and he was used to it, which made it the most useful, but also-potentially-the most dangerous. Most people didn't have to worry about their right hand coming off from a particularly strong grip or a bite wound, but then, Tofu wasn't most people.
He switched to his left hand.
"He's still practicing," whispered one of the scientists in the corner of the training facility, the same stout lady who had trained him in his first few weeks of life. Tofu pretended not to hear her. "One of the mercs took to him and started showing him some moves. He's actually rather adept at hand-to-hand and edged weapons. We tried to get him started on guns, but he doesn't like the recoil."
"He?" said the suit. One of Umbrella's executive goons, Head of the Subcomittee For Soybean-Related Experiments or something probably. "How'd you find that out?" he chuckled.
"He told us," said Ms. Kim, in a stern, clipped voice. "Now let's give him some room, why don't we?"
Out of the corner of his vision he could see the suit meekly turn and follow the doctor out into the hall. Tofu was used to hearing people talk about him behind his back (or to his face, not that many people could tell the difference), but it was particularly aggravating when it was one of Umbrella's clueless higher-ups. At least the engineers and doctors stood up for him.
Tofu realized he'd been practicing his left-handed downward stab for the past five minutes. Casually he flipped it back to his right, shifted his bulk a little bit, and began again.
A brief list of Tofu's points of interest, as delineated by Umbrella's genetic engineering lab:
1. Does not need to eat. Occasionally ingests food out of curiosity or pure recreation.
2. Does not spoil or mold.
3. Despite being made of tofu, Tofu can withstand much more damage than an ordinary human being. He is quite resilient.
4. When he is damaged, his soybean mass grows back, given enough time. This and the above point are due to the effect of the G-virus on his system.
5. He is incredibly adept with knives.