yamata

[yamata]

An email:

Christine,

If you're going back into the field, I have something for you.

Let me know.

the email finds her like how she imagine roadkill feels, quashed viscera dragged across the asphalt, it stinks of burnt rubber. she didn't remember the stench of battle, of gun oil & spent ammunition, how tactile & cold her gear felt to hold, how it pressed itself against her skin & suffocated her, not until lune bay. christine had tried to forget the reunion too, focus on the task at hand, the massive infected heart dug out from the beached whale they brought to shore. a new variant of chrysalid, the sudden reappearance of carla radames, all the work umbrella had devoted to the crisis she had started in 2013 & how the containment of the viral outbreak in china earned them trust. she scoffs at the memory, what a massive waste of time.

her frigid fingertips reach for the keyboard & from the haze of a slow work day she formulates her response, dragging herself back to that cold winter day & a mission she thought would've made her feel alive again. the codename meant little, but to be a field operative again, a hypo gun in one hand & her rifle in the other, escaping the prison of a laboratory & seeing a virus thrive where it always meant to, oh, if only it wasn't yesterday's bioweapon & the same madwoman at the helm.

HUNK, The Umbrella Corporation has seen fit to stick me in a more managerial position these days. Remiss as I am to admit it, the benefits of being its Chief Scientific Officer are plentiful and I haven't seen the need for field work in several years. Lune Bay was a special case, I didn't expect the site to be an active outbreak zone when I drove by, nor to see my old squad-mates all playing soldiers like twenty years haven't passed. But, if you or the Guild have something I and my staff in Chicago can analyze I will take a look. If it can't be transported cross-country I can come in person. Let me know. Regards, Christine Yamata, CSO of Umbrella

[yamata]

“ are you dense? ” a rhetorical question, it's in the nature of every soldier that their mind is tuned to excel in combat & very little else, outside a hot zone they all act like drooling children barely paying attention. VECTOR's never been any different, none of the wolfpack ever where, none had her vision, & the underlying anger she has held for him since the day he brought her in is finally becoming a known quantity. “ blue umbrella does preventative work, headquarters doesn't deal with live bioweapons, just the mutagens responsible. we leave it to the BSAA, america didn't feel like reinstating the USS. ” & for good reason, given who they picked to lead the internal security back in chicago.

“ i was in town for a seminar, lucky that oregon's an open carry state. ” one has to wonder just what kimberly petty needed christine for, she doesn't seem the type to trust an authority & umbrella is a government run operation. with shén yà involved she hopes neither know why she hides military equipment in the trunk of her car.

christine gets up from the lobby chair to stretch, audible pops along her back & neck as she settles into her usual uneven posture, it's been too long since she's seen combat. at least now none of VECTOR's intuitive revelation surprises her, two decades have passed & without the structure the USS provided, her old squad have all devolved into mere mercenaries. how tragic.

“ i am supposed to be leading a research team, examining a virus up close without some BOW ready to break free from containment, not⸺ ” christine bows her head, a resigned sigh of defeat at how fate has wound the clock back, meeting VECTOR's eyes with a similar hawk-eyed look. “ the more things change, the more they stay the same, hm? nobody told our white whale that C has become a biological dead end. better make sure it stays that way. ”

"That's no excuse for you to get so rusty when you deal with these kinds of things on the regular."

Vector thinks this is the first time they have spent any amount of time unmasked around each other, though he is far more familiar to Christine's face than she is to his own. He watches her work through the stages of wondering if this was some great joke played by the universe.

He doesn't bring up how their last meeting went, waiting until she spits frustration at the situation at hand.

"We didn't expect to run into you either." His voice lingers on the we, unable to untangle himself from the identity of the guild as a whole. "We took a contract for a marine study. Hunk picked it. He said it was too interesting to turn down."

Places like Lune Bay were left to the side, until they were reclaimed by the mountains or the sea, and someone like Christine were perfectly suited to disappear into that same scenery and study their monstrosities in peace (at least until it turned into another Arklay situation, where people were smudged out like an idle thumb over fresh ink.)

"Is it ever really the end of it? We both know how research can escape. As long as someone has need to make monsters, they will find how to make them."

He tilts his head a smidge to one side, looking at her like he was examining a bug under a slide, and shrugs.

[yamata]

“ i'm a scientist, not a soldier. ” she retorts, looking past loose strands of hair at him. the truth doesn't bite as hard as she wants to, her weapon was always a formality, an excuse to observe & study. it was strange seeing all of them without their masks on, so casually slipping into their civilian identities, a nitrile glove ripped off a hand to reveal coarse skin, a new scar she doesn't recall. christine never bothered to hide behind her codename, her rebreather covered her mouth but no other distinguishing feature, she was easy to recognize outside her military gear, even after the decades have sharpened her features.

what a wonderful reunion, as if her life hadn't been one ironic twist of fate after another, now her old squadron all amass in some dead-end town to go whaling. a marine biology seminar if there ever was one. maybe she's still delirious, bleeding out on an icy beach as her body succumbs to infection, a recollection of days long gone to shepherd her into unconsciousness. christine rolls her shoulder, her other hand massaging away the lasting burn. the pain is real enough. HUNK's first aid spray & her own vaccine have staved off the worse side effects but a detailed blood sample analysis will ensure she remains human. “ i wasn't expecting— any of this. ” she might have lost her touch, grown complacent from her position at umbrella & the comforts of chicago, coming here to a frozen shore & seeing it graced by the largest bioweapon ever recorded, a new strain of chrysalid on the loose.

“ doctor petty was right, nobody gives a shit about a place like this. ” it's what made her private post-umbrella research so easy, small towns are virtual black spots, no real authority would care about a few outbreaks unless they knew the specifics of her research, like he did. not unless you're a wanted woman. “ we oversaw the development of the C vaccine back in 2013, i developed it into a gaseous form, all of carla radames' research went up in flames, that should have been the end of it. ”

emotions are the path least traveled, even with a well paid government assigned therapist guiding her through her antisocial tendencies, all she can meet VECTOR with is a blank stare. blank being the operative word, she hasn't forgotten, the end of his gun placed at the back of her head & the shackles that soon followed, if christine hadn't made anything of her life in service to the glory of the united states of america anger would very soon bubble under the surface. instead her eyes glaze over his figure, they do not pierce, they do not intake any detail beyond a change in the lining of his armor. “ new color? ” she observes, the decades have changed little.

"Hunk's work."

Even dressed in civilian gear, the honeycomb shape of the ACMS cloak is visible under the rain coat he threw over it to protect it from the snow and sleet, though it reflects red instead of the bright blue that it had shown when they last worked together.

She gives him a blank stare and he returns the expression, emotions schooled carefully off of his face as he considers the situation. The last time they had met, he had put her in restraints and handed her off to the government.

It seemed she had made the best of becoming a canary in a cage.

"It is good to see you found your niche." His words slur slightly, dragged by the scar on the corner of his mouth. "You seem to have lost your touch a bit."

[yamata]

four eyes 2024 for @yamata

[yamata]

what a grand reveal for miss redfield this must be, is her world really so small that a new strain of the tyrant virus warranting umbrella develop an accompanying vaccine is a surprise? “ i have said before that a standardized vaccine could work in your circumstance, if you're so worried about your infection & cannot wait until we neutralize t-phobos in our labs. ” it's no wonder she comes barging in asking for the obvious, what is trivial for christine must seem insurmountable to a terrasave do-gooder. her work, umbrella's resurrection & its new mission statement, is of real import. without the technology developed here & the painstaking research into the bioweapons their predecessors unleashed upon the world these NGOs wouldn't know where to start.

claire & terrsave need christine & she has no use for a lost woman barking demands in her office, but if there was one silver lining in this exchange it's that christine has some ideas to propose to the leads of a certain off the books project in collaboration with the BSAA, a source of joy within frustration that does bring a light curve to her lips. miss redfield doesn't know her history & christine is always eager to impart knowledge on the old umbrella's greatest hits, “ sheena island, i'm sure you're familiar. the second raccoon city, i believe it was called? umbrella was extracting a specific fear hormone from kidnapped teenaged boys to use in the development of their tyrant bioweapon. ” to make them more ferocious, the files had said. maybe that's what the BSAA's new line of super soldiers need.

“ you can see the connection to t-phobos, it's important we find method to the madness you endured, if any. ” christine is too lost in the possibility of it to notice any shift in claire's temper. it's hard to guess the thoughts of any wesker beyond misery & destruction, maybe she is giving alex too much credit. “ higher bone mineral density resulting from infection could account for you surviving unscathed, & there isn't enough research in the adverse effects of high BMD for me to recommend anything but precaution. ” a clinical, rehearsed smile bookends her diagnosis.

@rescuefield.

silence she's met with only brings more frustration, claire knowing all too well this is useless yet refusing to leave. when finally christine speaks, frustration almost turns to anger. "so you are making a vaccine." a stark contrast from what she had been told at first - no sign of mutations, everything perfectly in place compared to the last time a sample of her blood had to be taken. all lies, in hindsight. "thought we had nothing to worry about." claire thinks aloud, yet the hint of sarcasm is hard to miss; she can feel the judgement coming from the scientist, not so hidden mockery sprinkled here and there in whatever piece of info she knows about that claire is obviously missing.

"i don't even know what you're talking about." as far as claire knows, alex wesker was a sick fuck trying everything she could to keep herself immortal. it didn't work on her, and now her and other two people are paying the price... although claire is willing to admit she seems the only one actually worried - no, paranoid about the recent turn of events. "all i know is that i wasn't supposed to survive that fall in the ocean and i didn't even break a bone." a pause, crack in her voice giving away too easily her current state of mind. "everybody keeps saying that everything's fine, but i know the way i feel pain now is not the same as when i ended up on that damn island."

for all claire knows, if t-phobos actually serves its purposes at it seems then there is no reason for those in charge to demand more. "i'm not stupid, i know it's a mental thing. i just need to understand how to live with it instead of being told to stay calm while they get another vial of my blood."

[yamata]

happy birthday operation raccoon city & also dr. christine yamata

[yamata]

♡ u forced my hand

send ♡ to see what my muse thinks of yours.

○○○○○ ⋮ ATTRACTION. ○○○○○ ⋮ AFFECTION. ●●●○○ ⋮ INTEREST. ●●○○○ ⋮ LOYALTY. ○○○○○ ⋮ TRUST.

christine's interest in albert wesker goes about as far as discerning the viral cocktail he injected with himself back in arklay, people are otherwise too complex a puzzle for her to solve & psychology isn't her field (she relegates others as either her intellectual equals or simple morons & certainly feels wesker is below her given his request to transfer to umbrella intelligence, to her it speaks enough of his scientific acumen). as an expert in pharmacology & virology i feel like she would be aware of his necessity to regularly inject himself with the PG67A/W serum in order to stabilize his infection & though she'll never know wesker as more than a man in the room, an overseer of her & her staff's work at tricell who mercifully keeps to the darkness, unlike excella. her tenure at their european facilities does feature some daydreaming of examining what makes wesker a more stable host for a progenitor strain than everybody else.

the only reason he earns her loyalty is because at her core, christine's desires are very simple, she is driven by an insatiable curiosity for new, cutting edge viral discoveries that carry weight within her own field (christine loathes that her reputation is built on the antiviral aspect of her research, the inverse of her passion). give her a well equipped laboratory & staff comparable in skill & intellect to her & she'll dull away at whatever virus or parasite is put before her, but she tires of las plagas very quickly given she only has krauser's corpse to work off of.

wesker might've spun off from umbrella to build his own bioweapon empire, but christine sees in him the same crawl towards self destruction that characterized umbrella's superiors. no better representation of wesker's ideological death spiral than uroboros itself, an insult to her field, as she's called in a reply. she agrees with the other chris here, he is one of umbrella's leftovers.

[yamata]

Send ♡ to see what my muse thinks of yours

○○○○○ | ATTRACTION ○○○○○ | AFFECTION ○○○○○ | INTEREST ○○○○○ | LOYALTY ○○○○○ | TRUST

LOW | ●●●●● | HIGH

[yamata]

not that anybody asked by here's me beating mohg (as christine) in NG+1

[yamata]

“ you are wasting my time. ” she snaps back with the force of a chain pulling tight, as if lacking any instinct for self preservation. baring teeth at a man who could & would twist her neck without hesitation, without effort. just a ring finger & a thumb pressed against her skin, breaking every single cervical vertebrae with a simple twist of his wrist. whatever viral concoction has housed itself within his cells hasn't yet removed wesker's fine motor skills but the neurotrauma common in every single one of umbrella's strains must've certainly taken hold.

whatever other explanation could there be for what his latest retrovirus?

“ i hold the distinguished service award from the american society of virology, ” she continues, boasting her accomplishments with a sense of pride & yet knowing he would never recognize her authority as anything but a farce. “ this— ” a frustrated huff escapes her, lips twisted as if the word sat acrid on her tongue. “ uroboros of yours is an insult to my field, a hodgepodge of whatever strains you could scrounge up after umbrella's collapse. ” it's RNA read like an open book, tyrant, golgotha & veronica, a mixture of the incomplete that will only wreak havoc on its host. everything she despised about her time in umbrella's laboratories concentrated into one man's ambitions, a viral strain for the weak minded fools he imagines were his inferiors. christine will remind him that she is the superior intellect.

“ it's a failure waiting to happen, there is nothing to work on. couldn't you have at least salvaged birkin's epsilon strain? i'm not even sure if you want me to stabilize mutations or encourage them, or if you even give a shit. this is beneath me. ”

→ @yamata said: “ you seriously can't expect me to work on this— it's a third rate pathogen at best, birkin was synthesizing better strains coming down from a coke binge . ”

" I do not remember asking for your opinion on this. " Noisy, this one was, and quite LOUD in her opinions. Were some of the people he employed were at least a little amusing in their rudeness, she was nothing more but a disturbance with little to justify all the noise. The mention of his colleague, his old friend, briefly threatened to stir something long dead up inside him only to yield to the same anger that had become his new normal over the last few years.

His work was, as always, only his to fully comprehend and far beyond the limited minds of those who did his dirty work for him. He could choose to explain to the woman why they had chosen this task for her, he could go on and on about it for days if given half the chance — but the fact alone that she decided to COMPLAIN rather than to do anything about her annoyance was a clear sign that he would be wasting his breath trying to make her understand.

He had been in a similar position years ago, being handed seemingly mindless and useless tasks but unlike her, he had investigated what Umbrella was really doing and had seized his chance to become part of the more ELABORATE research by any means necessary. " How about you stop wasting my time and get back to work? "

[yamata]

Tao Okamoto by Josh Olins, Vogue China, August 2013 styling: Clare Richardson / hair: Shon / makeup: Sally Branka

Fashion: Haider Ackermann, Stella McCartney, Michael Kors, Rochas

[yamata]

last thing she needs is a fucking journalist ( or some terrasave hotshot masquerading as one ) thinking they can set a foot in the door of christine's office & bombard her with a torrent of questions that drag her away from her research. blue umbrella & the BSAA are already overseeing the containment of an island in the baltic sea that this woman presumably escaped from, does she think intruding on the pivotal work of a lead researcher will speed things along? is she so selfish to demand a cure first above all others infected? that would at least be intriguing.

christine isn't about to deflect with her own line of inquiry, instead she quietly, succinctly tells the woman she is done talking. it doesn't move the needle in the direction she would like. she can see the confused irritation pinching claire's eyes & she rubs her temple knowing she'd have to endure this interview until miss redfield tires herself out. christine gets up from her chair, a hand toying with the inner fabric of her lab coat pocket. this situation is the sort of test her therapist would conjure up & she has to fashion her escape.

“ you were infected with a t strain that responds to catecholamine hormones, correct? we're in early trials for a vaccine but judging by the mutations we've observed, i don't see why a readily available t-virus cure shouldn't work if you're in such a rush. ” & then, as if something clicks inside her mind, christine's face lights up with a spur of the moment revelation. “ later models of umbrella's tyrants necessitated the secretions of the pituitary gland in response to stress in young men. i wonder if that is the purpose of your strain, speeding up the production of t-103s. ”

this search is endless, the information gathered in the meantime not so much. claire knew it would have led her to a lot of dead end streets, but this much? perhaps it's time to admit defeat and let it all go - neil, the plans, whatever the fuck alex wanted to do with t-phobos and how to find a cure for it. the last one especially, considering how it's ended up affecting her life in ways she could have never imagined it would be nice to at least resolve somehow before it gets out of control... but these days claire knows better than to hope and bet on her odds as they obviously are not in her favour.

@yamata : you are done talking now.

"uh?" falls from her lips, genuine confusion as she looks up to the other. okay she guesses, either the doctor knows more than claire expected or her theories are getting closer to the truth that the bigger picture hides. a pause for dramatic effect - they both know she won't shut up about anything now that they have reached this point. "well i guess it's time for you to fill in the blanks, then." claire counters, daring tone and renewed spark in her eyes. "so... what do you know?"

[yamata]

were there an afterlife she is sure this would be her purgatory, every single word is like a nail scrapped against a chalkboard. “ tricell was dead on arrival, ” christine corrects, sealing her fate & dreading the next witty retort. she isn't quite sure if mia does it on purpose or if this is just her general way of being. with a mouth like that someone should've carved out her vocal cords by now. slowly, painfully, a project worthy of miss schneider. it's a tragedy they had lost contact years ago.

by some mercy, silence follows the wake of her comment, giving her ample time to consider ending the call right there. but so very few remain to whom she can air out her grievances, people that know of the evolutionary dead end of wesker & excella gionne's monumental idiocy & christine's role in it. “ a pastiche of yesterday's bioweapons out on the market, an empire undone by two UN peacekeepers. ” & her dear research staff were all left for dead somewhere in west africa, more bodies for the funeral pyre while she slipped by unnoticed from tricell's italian headquarters. it pays to plan your exit in advance, words of wisdom from the woman that shackled christine & mia together. if only the forces that bound them together would've set her free.

“ wait— you're in chicago? ” genuine surprised colors her tone, a hint of actual emotion as fingers tighten around her phone. a stray animal was loose on her property & she knows no one else is willing to keep it in check. a wrench in her plans for a quiet afternoon that almost supersedes mia's proposal. “ you & i are no longer business partners, but if you're in millennium park i can spare ten minutes to listen to whatever doomed scheme you wanna rope me into. ”

@yamata » stop. contacting. this. number.

❝ Boo, you whore! ❞ A roll of eyes unseen. ❝ Your ass still chapped about the big TRICELL blowout? ❞ Mia eases off the throttle, gives the good doctor a therapeutic dose of ambient noise while she takes a drag. She's fucking thoughtful like that. ❝ Gionne and her blond petri dish had a dud on their hands, and you knew it. Don't blame me for backing the wrong horse. ❞ She hazards a glance upwards to gaze into the horrible chrome abyss of Chicago's latest eyesore. ❝ You know, back in my day bean meant ecstasy. Damn. Crazy your people paid taxes for this. ❞ Her fingers squash the cherry against the stainless steel sculpture, blackening its reflective finish. The smoldering remains of her cigarette fog the surface like hot breath against a cold window. A primitive current of dopamine flickers through her brain — the petty joy of leaving a mark. Her personal piss-stain on Christine's backyard.

❝ Listen. I can make this conversation worth your while. Something educational. Call it enrichment, a gift — whatever you want to. But I guarantee it'll pique your interest. ❞

[yamata]

hey

write other wolfpack members

[yamata]

❛ THE DUSTY TOYBOX   ›   ACCEPTING .

in the brief seconds between idle chatter her mind wanders, looking back upon the road taken, cracked asphalt & molten rubber. she remembers it well, the desolate cold of the interrogation room, the filtered sterile air that greeted her when the black bag was taken off her head. unceremoniously dragged off in some nondescript van in broad daylight just a few hours after setting foot in chicago, dazed from a thirteen hour flight & barely conscious enough to recognize the mark of the american government. it seems they saved their best welcoming committee for their most treasured assets & it was only when a file was slid in front of her eyes that christine understood why, the need for all this shadow & secrecy. a familiar logo colored blue, an irony so potent in that revelation even she could see the discomfort in her captors when she burst into egregious laughter.

they promised her a chance at redemption, for umbrella & america both to greet the new decade with a suite of anti-bioweapon technology. to earn back public trust & international funding, who better to lead the charge? as if her life wasn't already one great big pantomime she had no say in, pulled around by rope & chain from corporation to corporation to handle all their dirty work. everything they couldn't do because they lacked her expertise, her experience. even albert wesker didn't know what to make of the decomposing plaga in his possession & she had to reengineer its cellular structure using pure guess work.

at least now that authority is hers, the smoldering ruin of umbrella was rebuilt where their old headquarters once stood & the halls christine haunted in her youth glisten with a new sheen of white paint. everything here is hers to command & she can laugh in the face of that redemption, hovering over the one man who wants to believe in it more than anyone else. luis serra navarro, some vagrant who snuck out of spain about three years ago, thinking he could paint over his past with messy brushstrokes. christine notes the jitter in his hands as he's handling a vial, the uncertainty, the dread of being back with umbrella after running away from it like a sniveling coward. all she wants of him is an answer to a simple question, just what exactly is he trying to do?

@untodeath : “ i’m trying to start a new life . ”

christine cackles at his response, a mocking smile curving her lips. it was about as pathetic as she expected, nothing less from this rat of a man she has to share space with. if only luis was there when she was working with that shitty fucking parasite, he might have earned his keep. made the hell she endured under wesker & excella go by a little bit faster, that research was beneath her. all he has left is licking his wounds & she asks, “ ⸺why? ” it's an impulse she cannot fathom, remorse & regret, useless pitfalls on the path to progress.

“ don't you have any pride in your work? nemesis fell in raccoon city but it held the most promise out of everything the tyrant project had to offer. ” & the wolfpack had to wrestle for umbrella's control over the creature, another distraction they couldn't afford, but a worthy price to pay for christine to witness its might & glory. “ or do you really believe the crap they spin about a new umbrella to mop up after itself? i wouldn't hold my breath. ” what a foolish notion it was, as if the ghosts that reside in this building's foundation will ever relent. history will repeat by drip feed & she will watch in muted self-satisfaction, every researcher under her will commit the same mistakes & she'll have her life back, no matter the cost.

[yamata]

protest has proven a fruitless endeavor, erstwhile reminders that she doesn't posses a doctorate of medicine have yielded only hushed laughter & a wagged finger pointing her in the direction of the examination room . the same veiled complimented delivered to her like a knife to the gut . it did ring true, christine yamata's expertise on viral infection is unlike any other, but there is a detail always omitted that threatens to bruise her ego . no living specimen has made it off her operating table alive, those that even saw the glow of halogen bulb were lucky, she has satiated her curiosity on subjects writhing on the floor on which she found them .

anything graced by her scalpel was either a corpse or soon to be & it makes her wonder, so uninterested in the proceedings of a routine checkup that she has focused on the buzzing of the neon light rather than the interviewee, what would happen if only one of them left this room alive ? they deliver their favorite dog to her all beaten & bruised from some rescue operation in spain, singing tall tales of a cult & its parasite, a new discovery for america to sink its teeth into . the excuse would be so simple, adverse side effects from an yet unobserved infection, a sudden burst of anger & a thirst for her blood that necessitated self defense . the picture of him splayed on the floor, pouring crimson onto white marble, satisfied a craving she hasn't indulged in since she's been put on watch . curving her lips into something that could hardly be considered a smile .

christine's eyes dart upward from her papers, cynicism met with burning malcontent, expression now vacant of anything but the malice of her time being wasted . “ we would be if you could answer me like an adult, rather than injecting sarcasm into every single sentence . ” her pen clicks, accentuating the point made . it's not the only weapon available to her at the moment, but even if christine didn't feel the urge to slice his throat she is sure they would end up trying to kill each other eventually .

“ you were the host of an unclassified helminths parasite, correct ? even if removed it's important you tell me any strange symptoms you might've experienced since the infection . anything from lumps under your skin, blurred vision, to seizures, confusion & an inability to focus . you could be experiencing neurocysticercosis . ”

@yamata TO CONDOR ONE. BLAIR WITCH STARTERS.

“ no point in dwelling on the past. ”

Never mastered the dreaded art of small talk;  but every so often,  he would find himself giving it a fair shot.  Somehow,  most attempts turned out futile  &  therefore each time he was reminded that silence indeed was golden.  Double-edged blade as well.  The quiet he couldn’t get along with.  It was oppressive,  smothering,  rarely bringing out the best in him.  Shrouded by this opaque veil rendering his breathing irregular and shallow,  what else could he count on to break himself free from the silence’s sticky webs?  Small talk.  The air heavy and dense,  merely muddled by the fizzling and clicking of machinery and the gentle murmur of pages flipped.

Leon’s always been reticent and not too chatty,  especially in the strangers’ company.  Yet in those last months when he was treating himself to a secluded vacation in his rundown flat,  he might’ve weaned away almost completely from human contact.  With his arms crossed in front of his chest,  the chair weeps as he leans back.  Kennedy’s wary gaze doesn’t really meet hers,  but it keeps floating around like a disoriented moth searching for a gleam to cling to.

“  I didn’t mean to bore you,  pardon me,  ”  he shortly retorts,  hushed voice not lacking cynical notes.  Brooding on what once was and what could’ve been is all he knows,  and apparently all he can make conversation about  ( or more like conversation’s poor mockery ).  Ashy blue eyes gander from underneath knitted brows right at the other,  the benefit of the doubt they hurled into his cracked hands before delegating him here for a routine checkup slowly slipping out.  If it were up to him,  he’d rather wrap it up that very second.  But in his field,  nothing is ever up to him.  “  Are we done with this riveting questionnaire?  ”

[yamata]

one thing i'm fudging the numbers on a bit w/ christine's history is that umbrella's chicago headquarters was for their american subsidiary which was a holding company overseeing the activities of umbrella's american laboratories (most of which are located in raccoon city), not a building in which any science was actually done . so i'm flubbing the canon here to state that their front as a pharmaceutical company & the majority of their development on their drug line was done by chicago based researchers unrelated to their bioweapons development program hidden in raccoon city, mostly cause i believe umbrella's higher ups are stupid enough to employ an unnecessary amount of cloak & dagger & have people on their payroll who just think they're a pharmaceutical company with no cruise liner subsidiary, prison camp & fascist dictatorship located on a small island where umbrella was doing qanon but real