Placing the pre-portioned balls of ground meat one by one onto the griddle, Andrew, with precise control over his strength, used a round press to swiftly flatten each one into a patty of perfect size and thickness.
Pressing the patties not only shaped them but also accelerated the Maillard reaction.
After lightly seasoning the meat with a sprinkle of salt and pepper, the patties—a blend of chuck and brisket—began to release a rich, savory aroma under the high heat.
The surface cooked quickly, searing and locking the juices inside, while the sixty-forty meat-to-fat ratio and the addition of onion purée guaranteed a perfect texture.
He cooked them until both sides changed color, placed a slice of cheese on top of each, then covered them to steam, waiting for the patties to cook through completely.
He buttered the buns and toasted them on an empty spot on the griddle. The waiting time was perfect for preparing the other toppings.
Just as Andrew picked up a tomato to slice it, the sound of a door opening came from behind him, followed by a soft rustling.
Thinking it was Wise coming to help, Andrew gave an order without even turning his head:
"Perfect timing. Help me tear off some leaves from the head of lettuce I washed."
After a few seconds of silence, a pair of slender hands silently reached out from the side and began clumsily peeling leaves from the lettuce.
It was only then that Andrew realized the person wasn't Wise, as he had assumed, but Anby, who had been cleaned up by Belle.
Having bathed, the girl no longer looked as disheveled and miserable as she had in the laboratory. The grime on her face had been washed away, revealing her clean features.
Her long confinement in the lab made her snow-white skin appear even fairer than a normal person's under the moonlight, looking all the more delicate with a faint blush beneath the surface.
As Anby drew closer, a faint, pleasant scent drifted on the night breeze, her white hair, now dry, giving off a lovely fragrance.
The body that had moved with such sharp precision in battle now looked utterly adorable clad in green dinosaur pajamas.
But even though the pajamas were loose, her full, firm chest still pushed against the fabric, lending her figure a vibrant, youthful energy.
Watching Anby's serious, focused expression as she worked, her cautious movements made it look less like she was tearing lettuce and more like she was disarming a tricky bomb.
Andrew couldn't help but chuckle at the sight, and he lightened the touch of his knife as he chopped.
Bathed in the combined light of the garage and the moon, the busy Anby temporarily set aside her worries and her identity, becoming just an ordinary girl again.
No missions, no training, no experimental data collection, and no need to worry about how to protect her sisters from increasingly harsh elimination criteria.
This was the kind of life ordinary people experienced every day, but for Anby, today was her first true taste of it, and she cherished every single second.
The video store and the research institute. In her life, Anby had only ever truly existed in these two places, but the experiences they gave her were worlds apart.
She turned her head to look at Andrew, who was assembling the first batch of burgers layer by layer, and couldn't stop herself from asking the question that had been weighing on her mind:
"Andrew, what... what is a free life?"
Placing the final top bun on a burger, Andrew turned to meet Anby's questioning gaze. He pondered for a moment before answering:
"A free life isn't about being able to do whatever you want. It's about being able to not do what you don't want to do."
"Not do... what you don't want to do?"
Andrew's words struck her like a bolt from the blue, like a ray of light piercing the dawn, and a world she had never known suddenly unfolded before her eyes.
"But... as a soldier of the Silver Squad, I have a duty to carry out the orders I'm given."
The conflict in her heart made Anby hesitate, but in the end, she still offered a faint, quiet rebuttal.
Seeing that Anby was completely stuck in this line of thinking, Andrew recalled her resistance—weak, but definitely there—when she faced Wesker's final command.
"That order you received in the institute, the one with no reason behind it... if I gave it to you again, would you carry it out?"
Anby thought about it seriously for a long time. Her own feelings and something deep within her made her resist that command intensely. After a long pause, she finally gave a slight shake of her head.
"I would... but my first target would still only be myself."
Though her pupils wavered and her voice trembled, Anby showed no sign of taking back her answer.
Looking at the girl's expression, Andrew couldn't help but sigh. The long-term obedience training had made even their acts of defiance so fragile.
With their combat skills, escaping the institute shouldn't have been that difficult—though they couldn't have turned it into an annihilation mission like he did.
Still, at least the seed of resistance was there. For that, he really did have Wesker to thank.
"But in a situation like that, the right thing to do is to resist. To fight for your life, and fight against me for giving the order. As human beings, no one ever has the right to take another's life without reason."
But all of this was still completely foreign to the Anby of now. She had no concept of it, and thus, couldn't understand.
Humans can't understand things they've never seen.
"But... we're clones, not humans. The only difference between us and a Bangboo is that we're made of flesh and blood."
Andrew completely rejected that answer, stating firmly:
"No, you are human. You have human bodies, human thoughts, and human feelings. You possess everything it means to be a person. Calling you 'non-human' or 'flesh-and-blood Bangboos' is just an excuse those monsters made up so they could disregard life with a clear conscience."
He gently ruffled Anby's hair again and continued:
"So, it's okay if you don't understand. For now, just trust me. Trust the me who believes that you are human."
Andrew's words were still too difficult for Anby to comprehend. Why resist? Why refuse an unreasonable order?
She didn't get it. As a soldier, was there anything wrong with unconditionally carrying out orders, regardless of whether they were reasonable?
But out of her trust for Andrew, Anby committed his words to memory,
Trust. Anby was willing to trust this man who had done nothing but help them since they first met, to believe the earnest words of the man smiling warmly before her.
Seeing Anby remain silent, Andrew knew she simply didn't understand.
After all, without actual experience, empty words meant nothing.
"It's alright. It's okay if you don't get it now. In time, you'll come to understand."
Andrew ruffled Anby's hair one more time and continued:
"So for now, while you're still figuring things out, just rely on me. If nothing else, I can definitely protect a few of you without any problem."
______
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