They went down into the basement, and that worried Sherry; basements were the sort of places where bad things happened in the movies.
The wooden stairs creaked underneath them. The steps felt really unsafe, like they'd collapse if Sherry put too much weight on them. When they reached the bottom, Sherry heard Alexia flip a switch. A sickly orange light, from a bulb dangling on a rusty chain, flickered on.
Grimy brickwork walls. A wet concrete floor. Water, from a copper pipeline above them, dripped into a large brown puddle at the foot of a bloated wooden wine-rack. The bottles on the rack were dusty, like they'd sat there for years.
"Apologies for the mess," Alexia said, her voice echoing in the space.
Sherry watched a spider skitter across the bricks, then disappear into a crack. "It's—it's okay."
"Now," Alexia said, and looked at her, "listen to me well. What you're about to see? You are to tell no one. Do you understand?" Her eyes were spooky, Sherry decided. Pale, pale blue, and seemed to stab into her head.
"Y-yes, Dr. Ashford. I-I promise," Sherry said, and meant it.
Alexia pushed in several bricks, like buttons, on the back wall. Sherry heard a grinding noise, and a secret door slid open, revealing a rectangle of bright white light. If Sherry hadn't already seen NEST, she would have thought it was cool; but a secret door seemed pretty lame compared to a giant underground laboratory.
Alexia disappeared into the light. Sherry followed her, wondering if they were going to NEST 2. An elevator paneled in chrome. She watched Alexia push the DOWN button. The doors slid shut.
The elevator rumbled, then started its smooth descent. Alexia didn't say anything the whole way down.
Then the elevator stopped, and the doors opened.
One half of the room was a Victorian study with dark red-papered walls with a golden flower print ("Fleur-de-lis," Alexia informed her, when Sherry asked about it). Huge bookcases lined the walls, and made Sherry think of her daddy's den, of all the giant books he'd kept there. A big portrait of a woman in a frilly pink dress, framed in gold, hung above a glass case that sat behind Alexia's desk. The case contained a really, really old book called De humani corporis fabrica libri septem. Sherry couldn't understand the whole title, but knew enough that it had something to do with the human body. Her parents had taught her some Latin, because scientists used a lot of Latin words.
The other half of the room was a small laboratory. Sherry could see several glass tanks through a window partition, a computer, and lots of complicated-looking machines. Giant ants skittered around in the tanks; they looked gross—like giant pimples with legs.
"Are those ants okay?"
"Yes," Alexia said, and sat down at her desk. She looked at something on her computer, her tea steaming beside a stack of papers. Sherry peeked at the papers; they were important-looking faxes. Her dad used to fax things a lot, and once Sherry had asked him if she could fax something too, but he'd told her no, it was only for grown-ups.
"Will you tell me now why daddy hated you? And those things back there—"
"Your father didn't like the fact I was younger than him, and appointed as a chief researcher," Alexia said. Then she got quiet. The grandfather clock in the corner of the room ticked loudly. Sherry heard Alexia clicking her mouse.
"That's all?"
Alexia didn't answer her. She stared at her computer screen. Sherry tried to look at her screen, mostly because she wanted to see what was so interesting about it; but Alexia caught her and said it was rude to read over people's shoulders. Sherry blushed, quickly apologized, and sat down in the giant armchair on the other side of the desk.
"Those things—"
"G-creatures," Alexia said, clicking her mouse. She looked like she was reading something on the screen; her eyes kept darting back and forth. Then, "I've been monitoring their breeding for the last several months. It started in the sewers."
"Mommy was down in the sewers. Did it have something to do with those things?"
"It was Annette's research that allowed me to stymie their colony growth," Alexia said. She finally looked at Sherry. "Your mother spent a week or so keeping very, very detailed notes about the G-creatures. She was trying to stop them."
In the sewers, when her mom had said she didn't have time for Sherry, Sherry had been convinced her mom didn't love her. But her mom had been trying to stop the G-Virus from spreading. She'd been trying to save the world.
Sherry felt tears stinging her eyes. All this time, Claire had been right; her mom really had loved her.
"Don't cry, Sherry. You're a big girl. Tears are for infants."
"We can't all be robots like you," Sherry shot back, wiping her eyes.
Alexia's face didn't show any kind of emotion. She plucked a tissue from a box on her desk and offered it without a word.
"Sorry," Sherry said, and blew her nose.
"Emotions breed mistakes, Sherry. I rarely make mistakes."
"Have you ever cried? About anything?" Sherry asked seriously, clutching the tissue. Alexia nudged over a small plastic trash-can lined with a white garbage bag. She tossed the wadded tissue into the trash, into a pile of shredded and crumpled papers.
"Yes," Alexia said, and placed a bottle of hand sanitizer in front of her.
Sherry squeezed the soap into her hand and rubbed them together, the alcohol stinging her nose. "About what?"
"Does it matter?" she said, and stood. She seemed bigger, somehow. Alexia was one of those people, Sherry decided—the kind of person who seemed to fill rooms whenever they walked into them. The sort of people, her dad had once told her, who cast long shadows.
"I guess not."
"Good girl."
"Dr. Ashford?"
"Yes?"
"Why are you monitoring the G-creatures?"
Alexia smiled, but it was a really cold smile. "Preserving buyer confidence and seller integrity," she said.
"What do you mean?"
"I am, among other things, a businesswoman, little dear," Alexia said, slowly pacing the room, the floorboards creaking slightly under her shoes. "People want to blame Umbrella for what happened. But if Umbrella cleans up their mess? Well." Alexia shrugged. "It looks good for us."
"I guess that makes sense," Sherry said, folding her arms across her chest and drawing her knees up. She felt tiny in the gigantic armchair. "But it is Umbrella's fault," she added, frowning.
"It's the fault of rogue scientists, Sherry." Alexia stopped pacing. "Umbrella's investigation committee summoned your father, but dear William decided to ignore them." She shook her head, slowly. "When William failed to comply with the USS, he was killed. He brought it on himself by exacerbating the issue, Sherry. He pulled a gun, the idiot, and paid for it. Had he come along quietly? Raccoon City would have never happened."
Sherry shot up in her chair. "Umbrella sent the bad men to murder him?"
"We didn't send them to murder him. He was asked to come quietly. Then William pulled a gun, and a rookie with an itchy trigger-finger shot him." Alexia frowned. "Martinez, the rookie, has already been dealt with. So take some comfort in that."
"They killed my dad!" Sherry snapped.
"Your father did it to himself, Sherry," Alexia said coldly. "It's nobody's fault but his. Nobody told him to try to flee the company and sell his virus to a competitor, because dear William felt he was getting a raw deal. Nobody told him to pull a gun. Nobody told him to inject himself with an unstable virus—"
"Shut up!" Sherry yelled, and darted from the chair, pushing Alexia, who stumbled, but didn't fall down. Sherry shoved her again. "Stop talking bad about him, just 'cause you hate him!" She swung at her, but Alexia caught her by the wrist and squeezed hard. "You're hurting my wrist," Sherry snapped. "Let go!"
Alexia let go.
Sherry darted past her, into the elevator. She slapped the UP button. Then the doors slid shut, and the elevator rumbled and started its ascent.
She sat against the wall and cried.