Shifts changed, and Birkin shuffled into the room, sipping coffee from a Star Wars thermos and looking agitated and disheveled—more so than usual. Birkin glanced at him, his eyes bloodshot. "Can you fucking believe it?" he asked without preamble, and sat down at his desk. He pushed aside a stacks of papers; a few sheets of college-rule tumbled gracefully to the tiled floor. "Because I can't fucking believe it," he said, and sucked down another mouthful of coffee.
"Can't believe what, William?" Wesker asked, not really interested, but at the very least pretending to be for Birkin's sake. He shrugged off his lab coat and draped it over his chair, then grabbed his work backpack from under his desk.
"Ashford!"
"Not this again," Wesker said, shouldering his bag and putting on his sunglasses.
"She's here, Albert," Birkin said, grinding his teeth, the muscle in his jaw twitching. "In Arklay."
"I thought she was in Antarctica," Wesker said.
"She was," Birkin said. "They brought her in for some fucking project consultation."
"Which project?"
"No fucking idea."
From what Wesker had gathered about Alexia, she was an exceptional virologist, but had a particular, almost obsessive interest in myrmecology and botany. He'd heard that one of the research teams were fooling around with plant-based bioweapons, although Wesker knew nothing of the particulars—just that it was conceptual at this point, not actual applicable theory. "Likely that project one of the junior researchers is working on. Henry Sarton? The botanist."
"Guy's a fucking moron," Birkin said. "His work's middle-school science fair shit." He rifled through the pockets of his lab coat, coming up with a pack of Winstons. He fished one out by the filter with his teeth, then rummaged around his desk, grousing about a lighter. "I could make a potato clock more advanced than anything that Sarton asshole does," he said, finding a lighter at the bottom of a drawer stuffed with unread faxes.
"Did Alexia just arrive?" Wesker asked, making his way toward the door.
Birkin lit his cigarette, scowling at him. "Yeah," he said, inhaling a lungful of carcinogens, then exhaling it in acrid clouds. "Her and her brother, and that big dumb kid. The Italian."
"He's not Italian," Wesker said.
"Could've fooled me."
Wesker shook his head. "I believe his family's from New Jersey. Have a good shift, William," he said, and made his way out the door before Birkin could launch into another tirade about Alexia, and delay him from going home.
He rode the elevator up to the mansion, and found Alexia there, looking a little lost in the foyer. She was dressed like a Young Republican in a sober-looking jumper and cardigan, a ruby glittering on her tie-pin. "Dr. Wesker," she said, looking at him. Alexia was a reedy, awkward youth with an expression that was far too calculating and deliberate for a twelve-year-old. She looked less like a child, he decided, and more like an adult in miniature.
"Dr. Ashford," Wesker greeted, crossing the foyer, the hard soles of his oxfords clicking sharply against the marble. He stopped in front of her, unintentionally looming.
Alexia extended her hand. "We've never formally met," she said.
Wesker shook her hand, carefully. Her hand felt frail and thin, as if it would shatter into pieces if he squeezed too hard, her skin cool, almost waxen. "We haven't," he agreed, releasing her hand.
"Alexia!" A dark-haired boy shouldered through the door, dressed in stonewashed denim and battered high-top Nikes, bags tucked under his arms. The Italian. He stopped, looked at him, and asked, "You with Umbrella?"
Distantly, from the car parked out front, Wesker heard a door open, Centerfold playing on the local radio station, and then the door thunked shut, the music muffled now, followed by the sound of shoes on gravel.
Alexia's twin, Alfred, shuffled in after the dark-haired boy, carrying several more bags, dressed in clothes identical to Alexia's. He was tall and reedy like his sister, but lacked her cunning. A sapphire on his finger caught the light. "Alexia," Alfred complained, his cheeks flushed, "can we please go to your room already so we can put these bloody bags down? They're bloody heavy."
"They're not that heavy," the dark-haired boy said.
Scott Harman, the Ashford's butler, came in after the boys, and looked exactly as Wesker remembered him, but older, more weathered by the bitterness of life. He was a tall, built man in an expensive suit, a Rolex sparkling on his wrist. Dark hair combed away from a hard, tanned face, his sharp, intelligent eyes the pale color of diamonds, Scott looked like a mobster from a Scorsese film.
"Dr. Wesker," Scott greeted, begrudgingly maintaining a polite, amicable tone.
"Mr. Harman," Wesker replied, smiling.
"So you're like a scientist?" the dark-haired boy asked.
"I am, Grayson, yes," Wesker replied.
Grayson stared at him, knitting his eyebrows. "How do you know me? I never met you in my life, man."
They had, of course, met, but Grayson had just been a baby then, and Wesker had only been nine-years-old. "Umbrella knows everything it needs to know about its employees," Wesker said, glancing at Alexia. "Including immediate friends and family." He looked at Grayson. "Our work here is very sensitive, you see."
"Boys, bring the bags to Alexia's room," Scott said, giving Alfred and Grayson a nudge toward the stairs. "You remember where it is, right? Through the dining room—"
"We remember," the boys said. Grayson glanced at Wesker, narrowing his eyes with suspicion, then followed Alfred through the doors to the dining room.
Alexia looked at Scott, then him, and said, "Am I missing something important?"
"No, princess, nothing," Scott said, giving her a gentle push toward the dining room. "Go get settled in for the night, and make sure you tell those boys to get their asses to their room, and to bed. Got an early day tomorrow."
Alexia looked between them again. The girl was sharp; Wesker knew she sensed the tension between Scott and him as readily as a shark smelled blood in the water. But Alexia was intelligent enough to know that asking questions would be a waste of time, and said, "Scott, I'll see you in the morning. And you, Dr. Wesker." She paused, scrutinizing him closely. "Good night," she said, and walked off.
Scott turned to him, once Alexia had gone, and pushed Wesker up against the wall as if he meant to mug him. He was surprisingly strong, and Wesker couldn't help but wonder if Scott's unnatural strength was a side-effect of self-experimentation, or if it was simply genetic, a physique sculpted by years of physical labor under the Ashfords. Or, Wesker thought, perhaps a bit of both.
"If you say anything to Grayson," Scott said through clenched teeth, "I will put a fucking bullet in your head, Albert." He leaned in close; Wesker smelled mint and cigarettes on his breath. "And you stay away from Alexia. Understood? You filled William's head with shit already. I don't want you doing the same to my little girl."
Wesker didn't struggle. Just smiled. "You act as if that girl is innocent," he said. "There are rumors, Scott. About what happened to Alexander."
Scott punched him. Colors crystallized and exploded in Wesker's vision, and his jaw hurt. "Stay away from Alexia," Scott warned, letting him go.
Wesker rubbed his jaw, then straightened his clothes and sunglasses, which had gone slightly askew. "Duly noted," he replied, without meaning it. Alexia needed guidance; with enough work and patience, Wesker could weaponize the girl against Spencer. William had proven to be too unmanageable, too willful and set in his ways. Alexia, however, was young, malleable, eager leave her mark on Umbrella and show her colleagues that she was every bit as competent as they were, despite her age. And Wesker could use that to his advantage.
And, Wesker thought, she was an Ashford—a legitimate heir to the Umbrella Corporation who, should something unfortunate happen to Spencer, would take over the company. A child wouldn't be hard to depose. Or, at the very least, wouldn't be hard to control. Alfred would have arguably been easier to manage, Wesker knew, but Alfred was stupid, lacked his sister's ambition and cunning. And ambition and cunning were of the utmost importance in this Long Game.
"I'm warning you," Scott said. "Stay away from Alexia." He gave him a hard look, then stalked off and vanished through the doors to the dining room.
Wesker chuckled, then left the mansion and drove home.
Over the next few weeks of that particularly humid summer, Alexia had become a popular novelty among the Arklay researchers, with the exception of William, who spent most of his time avoiding Alexia and complaining about her to anyone with the patience to listen. Wesker had gotten to know Alexia quite well in those weeks, and made it a point to speak with her whenever he could, to sow the seeds of what eventually would flower into Spencer's demise.
They were in the dining room with the other researchers for lunchtime, where Wesker, absently poking at his overcooked steak and potatoes, said, "A poker-face is a necessary survival tool in Umbrella." He looked at Alexia.
Alexia sat opposite him, enjoying beef wellington and a fruit cordial made by her butler. "I believe I understand. Still, please elaborate, Dr. Wesker," she said, without looking up from her plate.
"Umbrella is a pit of vipers, Dr. Ashford," he said, setting down his fork and knife. "Do you see these people? Your colleagues? They'll stab you in the back, then throw your corpse under a bus for a pat on the head from Spencer," he said, conversationally. "So you can't show any weakness. Cultivate your poker-face. Betray nothing to your peers. Kinesics is a loud language, Dr. Ashford."
"I see." Alexia looked up at him, forking a piece of beef wellington in her mouth and chewing thoughtfully. Swallowing it, she asked, "And what does my face say?"
"That you're eager," Wesker said mildly, straightening up in his chair. Motes of dust hung motionless in the sunlight filtering through the window behind him. "And eagerness can be exploited."
"What of feints?"
"Pardon?"
"Feinting. Sleight of hand. What if I'm intentionally appearing eager, to mislead my opponent and catch them off-guard? Eagerness can be exploited, as you said, Dr. Wesker. I, for example, can exploit someone's eagerness to control me, just as readily as they can exploit my eagerness to prove myself. It works both ways."
Wesker stared, narrowing his eyes behind his sunglasses.
"You look pensive," she remarked, smiling.
"Simply processing your words. You make a very good point, Dr. Ashford." Wesker smiled, put his elbows on the table and bridged his fingers, watching her.
"In aikido, practitioners user their opponent's momentum against them," Alexia said, cutting another piece of her beef wellington and forking it into her mouth. Then she sipped her cordial and said, "But I'm simply countering your points for the sake of discussion, Dr. Wesker."
He nodded, unconvinced. "My ultimate point, Dr. Ashford, is that, in order to succeed in Umbrella, one must stay ten steps ahead of everyone else. To play a successful Long Game and outwit your opponents. It's a great deal like chess." He sipped his can of Coke, then said, "You play chess, I trust."
"I do, and I'm very good at it," she said.
"Good. Then I'm sure you'll do just fine, Dr. Ashford."