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The air on Level B3 felt as if the warmth of the living had been surgically removed. The cold metal walls acted as mirrors, reflecting the sterile, emotionless glare of the shadowless lamps.
The Italian researcher, whose consciousness should have been severed by Noah's strike, was now leaning against the heavy alloy door with his arms crossed. Beneath his messy hair, the eyes behind his black-rimmed glasses were no longer filled with manic rage over pizza. Instead, they held a calm that saw through everything—a look of bottomless complexity.
Claire's hand instinctively drifted toward the Beretta at her waist. Noah, however, simply closed his ThinkPad with a soft click, his movements devoid of hostility. He watched the man for a beat before a faint arc touched his lips, breaking the silence.
"Hey, pal. I was just kidding about the pineapple. There isn't a slice of fruit in the building."
The researcher's shoulders relaxed. He waved a weary hand, a characteristically Italian gesture. "You can call me Etienne."
His voice was no longer a frantic shout but a raspy, slow drawl. He spoke each word with effort, as if afraid they might miss his meaning. "You're here to investigate Umbrella, aren't you?"
It wasn't a question.
Claire's body tensed, her combat instincts priming every muscle. Etienne sensed the pressure; he raised both hands, palms outward. "I created that security loophole on purpose," he said, nodding toward the stack of pizza boxes emitting the scent of cheese and sausage. "It turns out most of my colleagues hate the cafeteria slop as much as I do."
He swept a contemptuous gaze across the 'clean' laboratory. "This place is a high-security playpen, but it isn't the heart. I've been waiting for people like you. Alone, I'm just a dead man with a plan I can't finish."
Claire's eyebrows rose. She heard a familiar tone in his voice—the sound of someone with nowhere left to go. "Plan?" her voice was low, yet clear. "Do you need us to save someone?"
Etienne's eyes lit up, filled with a mix of desperate madness and sudden hope. "You aren't ordinary people. To deduce my purpose with just a few words..." He glanced at the surveillance camera at the end of the hall, its red light blinking like a devil's eye. "This isn't the place. Come to my lounge."
Etienne punched a long sequence of commands into the control panel. The door groaned open, and Noah and Claire followed him into the corridor leading to the researchers' quarters.
The lounge area felt slightly more human—cream-colored wallpaper and dark gray carpet—but the omnipresent scent of disinfectant remained a constant reminder of where they were. Etienne walked with hurried steps, looking back with a neurotic frequency until they reached a single-person suite.
Inside, the room was tidy: a bed, a desk, and a shelf of thick textbooks. The only outlier was a photo frame on the desk. In it, a sweet-smiling blonde woman held a laughing little girl, with Rome's Trevi Fountain in the background.
Etienne poked his head into the hall one last time like a startled rabbit before locking the door. He slumped against the wood, all the strength draining from his frame. He took off his glasses and pressed hard against the bridge of his nose.
"I hope you can help me rescue my wife and daughter," he whispered, his voice trembling with a profound sadness.
Claire's heart was pierced. Her own worry for Chris and her promise to Sherry gave her an immediate, deep empathy for the man. She opened her mouth to speak, but Noah unobtrusively pressed a hand onto her shoulder. He didn't look at her; his gaze was fixed on Etienne, signaling him to continue.
Noah needed more. In this devil's den, kindness without information was a death sentence.
"My wife, Sophia, and I were classmates at the University of Bologna," Etienne began, his voice raspier now, like he was flipping through a long-sealed photo album. "We were geniuses in Genetic Engineering. Umbrella offered us the world: the best labs, unlimited funding, astronomical salaries. We were young. We believed the slogans."
He looked at the photo, a pained smile flickering on his face. "We came to Paris. We had a daughter, Angela. We were happy. Until Sophia was transferred."
A look of terror crossed his face—a fear originating from the soul. "She was moved to a core project. High pay, higher security. She said she couldn't contact me often. I was proud of her. God, I was so stupid!"
He struck his chest hard. "When she came back on her first leave, she had lost weight. Her eyes... it was like a part of her soul had been hollowed out. She had nightmares about monsters and devils. She just held me and cried. She told me her superior was a demon—a madman who profaned life every day."
Etienne swallowed hard, his throat dry as bone. "She said that for my sake, and for Angela's, she had to stay silent. That 'devil' controlled everything. If she leaked a word, we would all vanish. I believed it. I was afraid. I even told her to just... endure it."
He choked up, his voice shattering completely. "Until one day... she just lost contact entirely."
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