Chapter 44

September 5, 1998

"So, what do you do in that lab all day?" Jill asked her date for the evening. "Surely there's something exciting that goes on in the world of pharmaceuticals that would make someone like me interested?"

"Well," Mathew Barnes replied as he took a sip from his whiskey glass. "I'm not really supposed to talk about what goes on in the lab, but I suppose I could tell you a thing or two."

"Anything crazy?"

"Not really," Barnes shrugged. "Mostly it's just using small samples of drugs on various cells to see if there's any change in behavior or allergic reactions etc…"

"No trying to cure famous diseases or anything like that?" Jill asked. An actual look of curiosity on her face.

"I wish," the man scoffed as he shotgunned the last of his whiskey before signaling to the bartender to pour some more. "There's no money in cures, so we're limited to treating symptoms of problems instead of the source. If we cured you then you wouldn't be a repeat customer."

"That seems like something an accountant would say, not a scientist," Jill pointed out.

"Pharmaceutical companies aren't owned by scientists anymore," Barnes sighed. "If they were, then you'd have a lot more things cured."

"Wouldn't that also lead to some potential issues?" Jill asked. "I mean, scientists have done lots of awful things in the name of research."

"Sure, the ones without common sense or ethics enough to recognize a bad idea or unethical research prospect need some sitting on. But most of us are here to help people."

"Well, Matthew, I don't think this is going to work out, but I'll cover your drink anyway," Jill said with a sad smile as she pulled a wallet out of her jeans and paid for the drinks and meal with cash. "Have a great evening on me," she gave him a kiss on the cheek as she left some extra cash on the table for further drinks before standing up and walking away.

"No luck?" Alice asked as Jill entered her apartment.

"No, seems I got someone who's genuinely interested in the industry to help people as best he can," Jill sighed.

"I can't imagine that there's a lot of scientists willing to work on that sort of virus while knowing what it's actually being used for," Alice replied. "Odds are that they've seen it introduced into samples and just told that it's something unique that they want to be analyzed for specific properties and such."

"So you keep most people in the dark and still get to experiment with it," Jill understood what Alice was implying. "There has to be more to it than that though because Wesker and others graduated from an Umbrella school."

"Yeah, where Umbrella could groom and manipulate young minds to get exactly the kind of person they wanted to know about the true experiments they were running," Alice said as she finished up the dishes she was washing.

"We're not going to be able to find anything in this city, are we?" Jill asked.

"Likely not," Alice said with a sad smile. "At least not anytime soon."

"Damn," Jill said before laughing. "Well, if we're not going to be productive, we might as well do something fun."

"Get drunk and go bug Mark?" Alice asked.

"Yep," Jill replied as she grabbed a bottle of liquor off of the shelf beside her fridge. "The guy's too straight-laced for his own good anyway. He needs something to get him to loosen up every now and again."

—

—

"Nope," I said as I closed the door in Jill's face. "Come back when you're sober!" I said through the door.

"But Alice locked me out," Jill whined as she staggered before using the wall to hold herself up. " 'Sides, 'm sober enough to take you."

"Not unless you're a drunken master in disguise," I said as I opened the door and caught the woman as she nearly fell. "Come on then, we'll get you over to the couch."

"Oh! You're watching Top Gun!" Jill exclaimed as she made herself comfortable on my couch.

"Yeah, I wasn't enjoying some peace and quiet before going back to work at the elementary school tomorrow," I snarked as I handed the woman a popcorn bowl.

—

—

"One day you'll be the death of me," I sighed as I sat Jill down in my guest bedroom's bed, my apartment cleaned up from the destruction caused a few weeks ago.

"No relationships until you make it out of Raccoon City," I muttered as I gently closed the door on my friend. "Don't want to start something when you might not make it out of the city."

"Looks like I'm not sleeping tonight," I muttered as I glanced at the clock showing 2 in the morning. "Might as well be productive."

"You're up early," Jill yawned as she walked into my living room where I was doing my morning calisthenics.

"Gotta be at work in an hour," I muttered as I did weighted Russian twists with a twenty-pound weight. "Besides, gotta stay fit, I was stagnant for a bit too long."

"You had stitches on most of your side," Jill pointed out. "That's not called being stagnant, that's called healing, idiot."

"Still gotta rework the muscle back into shape there," I replied. "Too much of your core extends to your sides for me to ignore it."

"You're out of cereal," Jill said as she poured the last of my Cinnamon Toast Crunch into a bowl with some milk.

"I take it the date didn't go well," I asked rhetorically as I moved from Russian Twists to Burpees.

"What gave it away?" Jill snarked back.

"You, being drunk last night," I replied as I stood up, panting and slightly out of breath.

"No shit, Sherlock," Jill deadpanned. "Turns out my mark was one of those idealist types."

"We'll find something eventually," I said as I turned to enter my room. "Either we'll find it, or it'll find us, but we'll get something one way or another. You just gotta have some faith."