by John Shirley
She wondered if there was a supply of it somewhere in this facility. It seemed likely, but there was no time to find it—Ada’s countdown watch kept ticking ominously toward zero.
Before she realized it, the woman in red had moved on ahead, outpacing Alice. Some sort of movement attracted her eye, and she found herself staring at an abandoned NYPD police car, off to the left. Alice hesitated, wondering if she should simply toss a grenade into the cruiser. But making unnecessary noise might bring the troopers down on them. So she walked up to the car.
It was hard to see through the blood-splashed windows—
The back door of the cruiser flew open and a slavering Undead launched itself out at her, catching her unprepared, knocking her assault rifle from her hands. The rifle’s breach cracked on the street.
The creature’s hands closed around her throat, and its momentum knocked her onto the cold asphalt. She struggled to keep its jaws away from her face. It had once been a woman, but she couldn’t pick out any details. Its face was mostly a shaking blur up this close. The Undead stank, though, so badly that Alice gagged, the stench worsening when it opened its mouth wide, close to her face, preparing to rip into her lips with its festering jaws.
It was choking her, so that black specks darkened her vision, like a mass of disturbed flies. Alice grunted with effort, gripping the Undead’s wrists, prying them off her throat, forcing it back out of biting range. She gasped for breath, then used all the strength in her upper body to fling the thing off of her. It rolled over to her left.
Alice jumped to her feet, drew her automatic pistol—and froze, staring in shock.
The Undead was someone she knew. Or someone she’d known, once.
It was Rain Ocampo, wearing the tattered remains of an elegant party dress. Rain—who’d fought beside her in the Hive. Alice had shot Rain when the T-virus transformed her into an Undead. She’d blown her brains out.
This couldn’t be her.
But it apparently was. It was the Rain she’d killed—and the Rain who’d appeared in a slightly different form, too, in the strange dream she’d had of Todd and Becky and the coming of the Undead. Before she’d awakened in the real nightmare, the interrogation cell of the Umbrella Corporation’s undersea Arctic facility…
Clambering to her feet, Rain bared her broken teeth, let out a howl, and lunged. Acting on reflex, Alice fired a burst from the auto pistol, five bullets shattering Rain’s forehead. The creature took two shaky steps backward, and fell into the open doorway of the police car.
Seems like I have to kill Rain every so often, Alice thought dazedly. Twice now.
Ada came stalking up to her, frowning—she had the look of an exasperated teacher.
“What happened?” she demanded.
Alice looked down at Rain’s body. The oozing, black, coagulated blood slid in big dollops like thick molasses from the shattered skull.
“I know her,” she explained. “Her name was Rain. Rain Ocampo. But—how could she be here?” Alice shook her head in disbelief. “She died years ago…”
“You sure of that?”
“I should be. I killed her.” Strictly speaking, the T-virus had killed her. But Alice had killed her… more thoroughly.
“Not her,” Ada said, looking ruefully at the corpse. “Just someone that looked like her. How do you think Umbrella populates these test scenarios? Hundreds of people are killed each time they run a simulation. It’s pretty hard to find volunteers.”
“Clones…”
“That’s right,” Ada said. “Umbrella has fifty standard models. They take them out of the deep freeze, and imprint them with basic memories. Just enough to ensure a correct emotional response to the threat of the biohazard.” She looked at Rain’s dead face. “One time she’s a tourist in Beijing, the next, a businesswoman in New York. The next…”
“A soldier working for Umbrella,” Alice interrupted. “All those Umbrella troops. They’re all clones?”
“Of course,” came the reply. “What could be better? The perfect soldiers—limitless in number, no questions asked, and loyalty guaranteed.” With that, Ada turned away and started off again, toward the egress. After a moment, Alice followed, and as she did, memories sparked in her mind—of the clones she’d encountered, lying butchered in a ditch, outside an Umbrella base.
Clones of… Alice.
Alice corpses. It had made her sick to look at them.
Striding along behind, Alice remembered—all of it.
She’d broken into the facility, and found a whole laboratory devoted to developing Alice clones. Someone at Umbrella had been obsessed with Alice. Dr. Sam Isaacs had been convinced there was something special in her genes, something they could use to develop a purer form of the T-virus—both as a cure, and a method for creating the intelligent Undead. He created countless Alice clones, and became infected with a version of the T-virus. One which transformed him into a fusion of monster— and superhuman.
Isaacs had kept Alice trapped, until one of her clones killed him, slicing and dicing him in a laser-trap. So Alice had killed him—and then again, it wasn’t Alice at all.
The clones themselves were all killed when Wesker blew up the Tokyo facility. All of those other versions of herself—snuffed out. All those dead “Alices” lying discarded in that desert ditch, awaiting a mass burial.
And now these clones—killed routinely as part of someone’s little war game, their own little biowarfare “reality show.” Or trained to live and die as conditioned “troopers.” Such was Umbrella’s contempt for human suffering—it used them up like cattle.
Cattle?
It wouldn’t surprise her, if this continued, if they made clones for protein. For food…
Before the T-virus had destroyed most of civilization, there had been talk of corporate cultures. Corporations were, after all, the defining paradigm of the modern world, back in those days. A corporate culture affected thousands, even millions of people. Some were relatively benevolent. But others were sick. Pathological.
Umbrella’s corporate culture was beyond sick. It took ruthlessness to new, unspeakable extremes. Umbrella behaved like a technocratic serial killer.
At that moment, Alice realized it wouldn’t be enough to get the cure for the T-virus. No, not while Umbrella still was around. The corporation was going to have to be destroyed. Eradicated.
The serial killer would have to be executed.
11
In the control room, the dead bodies had been dragged out of the way, stacked neatly against a back wall for the maintenance bots to remove. No ceremony was needed—there were always more where those came from.
Jill tapped furiously at the keyboard, shifting through different surveillance camera views. She paused at the shot of a false building front, several blocks high, on the Moscow test floor. A messy complex of high-tech scaffolding, with cables and buttresses, held it all together.
No sight of the intruders here. Just a sense of the theatrical falseness of the test floors.
She shifted security cameras, choosing a view of Moscow’s “Red Square.” The square was apparently deserted; even the Undead were absent. Yet it seemed populated by ghosts, somehow—perhaps because the shell of the Arctic facility had been built by the Soviets. She could almost imagine the USSR’s military parades, its tanks and stiffly marching lines of soldiers in crimson and dun. She wondered what the real Red Square looked like, now. Most likely it was in ruins, with much-chewed skeletons littering the ground, Undead roaming, groaning to themselves in hunger…
On the screen, however, the façade of Red Square’s glory still stood unblemished: reproductions of the heroic paintings by Surikov and Yuon, the rebuilt Kazan Cathedral, St. Basil’s with its onion domes, the Kitai Gorod merchant’s quarter, the radiating streets, the palatial official residence of the president, the monument to Minin and Posharsky
The ghostliness actually came from the mists, she realized—cold wraiths of fog that trailed over the ground, sometime
s seeming to form human figures before disintegrating into wisps.
Wait…
There. Entering the test floor, through “Resurrection Gate,” walking across the big open space of the square. Five men, heavily armed, were moving into camera range. Jill adjusted the surveillance equipment to take her closer, and ramped up the sound till she could hear them talking.
The tall black man was checking his watch.
“One hour left,” he said.
“In a hurry to meet your lady friend?” another responded.
“Don’t worry, we meet her in the next environment…” said a third, his eyes wide as he peered around the square. His accent revealed Russian heritage.
Jill nodded to herself.
“I guess we know where to find our prisoner now,” she muttered to herself. Then she turned to a subordinate. “Trooper, where’s that welcome party?” She smiled icily. “Let’s not keep our guests waiting.”
The African-American trooper clone looked up from the console.
“Beginning now,” he said. The screen in front of him flashed:
MOSCOW SCENARIO 12B ACTIVATED.
“Welcome wagon has been arranged,” the trooper added.
“Good,” Jill murmured.
The trooper’s screen, previewing scenario 12B, showed a variety of monstrous creatures: T-virus variants, mutated test subjects, including the Las Plagas Undead… and Lickers.
Seeing the Lickers, Jill shuddered.
“I hate those things,” she muttered. She turned to the other troopers. “Now let’s move out. We have a fugitive to run down. And a traitor to kill.”
It was night in Red Square.
No—it was merely shadowy in the mock-up of Red Square. But it felt real to Luther.
“Can’t believe how real all this looks.”
“That’s the point,” Sergei said. But his words rang hollow—the usual cockiness wasn’t there. He seemed spooked by this reproduction of a hallowed place from his home country.
“Always wanted to visit Moscow…” he intoned. Then he tensed.
They heard vehicles approaching, engines gunning, wheels screeching on streets.
Leon signaled a halt, scanning in the direction of the sound.
“Defensive positions!”
At the other side of the square, six motorcycles skidded to a halt. Luther stared at the riders. They weren’t quite human—he could see that from here. But they didn’t look Undead, either. For one thing, while their skin looked cold and dead, they didn’t have the extreme decay. And their eyes glowed fiery red. And another thing—they could ride motorcycles. No Undead had it that much together.
So what the hell are they?
Whatever they were—they weren’t friendly. They were all armed, and one of them even had a chainsaw, which it started with a guttural roar. It scraped the blade along the surface of the square, yielding a shower of sparks. And it grinned hideously…
“What the hell are those things?” Barry echoed.
“I don’t know about you,” Sergei said, “but they aren’t giving me a warm and fuzzy feeling inside.”
Leon put a fresh clip in his assault rifle.
“They’re infected by the Las Plagas virus. Depending on the strength of the infection, the subject retains motor skills, some degree of intelligence.” He shrugged. “It can also develop unnatural strength and speed.”
Barry snorted.
“Always with the good news.”
We’d better take them out quickly, and get the hell out of here, Luther thought to himself. He opened his mouth to speak…
When more vehicles pulled into the square—flatbed trucks and pick-ups mounted with heavy machine guns and rocket launchers. The plague soldiers, as Luther thought of them, were dressed in tattered Russian military uniforms. And every set of eyes glowed hellish red.
“Aaaaand it gets better,” Barry remarked dryly.
A plague soldier on a flatbed truck racked back the slide of a machine gun. To Luther, it looked like a small cannon.
“Fall back!” Leon yelled. “Everyone fall back!”
They ran for cover.
Alice and Ada strolled down the middle of a deserted New York street. Bodegas, brownstones, and shops crowded each side of the street. Cars were parked in neat rows. Dimly visible in the distance, two figures were coming toward them.
Alice reached for her holstered auto pistol.
Ada put a hand on her arm.
“They’re okay.” She waved—and instantly one of the figures waved back. Something about it seemed strange.
As they drew closer, Alice realized that they were approaching a giant mirror. It cut across the street, reflecting the cars and buildings—and the two women. Ada gestured toward the mirror.
“The edges of the test environments are all like this,” she said. “Gives the illusion of depth.” They moved close to the glass, and Ada waved her hand over it. Suddenly an illuminated keypad appeared on the reflective wall.
“Most scenarios,” Ada continued, “are run at the center of an environment. The test subjects may glimpse this from a distance, but rarely get a chance to reach the edges.” She tapped the keyboard, keying in a number, and a mirrored door appeared in the glass. “After you…”
Alice stepped forward.
“Through the looking glass.”
They stepped through the door and found themselves facing a large steel wall. Ada went to a set of stairs and started to climb.
“This way.”
As they approached the top of the stairs, Alice paused, looked up—and saw a blue sky.
“It’s day!”
“It’s a sky dome,” Ada said, shaking her head without stopping. “Just paint.” Sure enough, looking closer, Alice could see the edges of the painting. “Doesn’t hold up too well if you stare at it for long,” Ada added. Alice hurried to catch up with her.
“How did people believe it?”
“When they were running a simulation, no one was looking at the clouds.”
They reached the top of the stairs and passed through a door, into another set… an iconic suburban neighborhood. It was familiar to Alice. But she wasn’t sure why. Some faded memory of a dream…
In front of them was a four-car pile-up—at the foot of a sign announcing the gateway to the SUNDOWN MEADOWS gated housing project. One home was a blackened ruin, and the wreckage of a helicopter poked out of a nearby garage. In the middle of the intersection was a crashed Prius, upside down like an overturned turtle.
Alice found the sight disturbing, but she wasn’t sure why.
Ada looked around, frowning.
“This is our rendezvous point.” She looked at her countdown watch, causing Alice to peer over her shoulder. Less than fifty minutes remained.
“Where are they?” Ada murmured.
Alice caught a flicker of movement from the corner of her eye. She turned, saw a curtain dropping at the upstairs window of a large house.
“The house behind us—there’s someone moving,” she said quietly. “Upstairs window.” Ada turned and looked, but the movement didn’t repeat.
“Maybe,” Alice whispered, “that’s where your friends are. Maybe they’re keeping their heads down. It’d make sense. The troopers can’t be far off.”
Ada frowned dubiously, but she led the way across the street, to the big house. They hesitated on the porch, weapons in hand. Alice reached out and turned the knob, pushed the door inward.
The anteroom was a mess. There was a wreckage of hall furniture and broken banisters—and the body of an Undead, once a man, impaled on what remained of the staircase.
Then Alice saw something else in the debris—it was her.
“What is it?” Ada asked from nearby.
Alice was lying dead on the floor. Her face had been ripped apart, but there was just enough left to identify her.
Her mouth felt papery dry.
“They used clones of me…”
Ada nodded slowly.
&
nbsp; “Of course. You were one of the basic models.”
“Basic models…” Alice shook her head in disgust, then looked at her companion. “Why would your associates be in here?”
“We don’t know that they…”
There was a creak of floorboards, a bumping sound from upstairs.
Alice drew her pistol and started climbing. Her mind was racing, though, making it difficult to focus.
Have I been here before? She shook her head. No. It’s impossible.
She passed a rotting Undead and looked carefully, half expecting it to come alive. But it seemed to have died for good. Finally she got to the top of the stairs— where there was more disarray. An overturned table, clothing strewn everywhere. She walked down the hallway, feeling strangely drawn to explore it. She’d definitely seen something at the window.
Maybe just an Undead.
She hoped it would be something else—maybe Ada’s team. Maybe a survivor.
Not likely…
She reached the door to the nursery—it was slightly open. No sign of a baby, or the family that once lived here. But there was something… someone.
The closet.
She moved past the broken crib and, licking her dry lips, she put her hand on the louver doors. Slowly pushed them aside—
The Undead leapt out at her. It knocked her back, tackling her, and they crashed heavily to the floor. Alice straight-armed the creature, knocking it back from her just enough that the mandibles emerging from its gnashing, reeking jaws snapped the air an inch from the end of her nose.
When the thing tried to force itself closer to her throat, Alice twisted, brought a knee up, and flipped the creature over so it crashed into a dresser, splintering it into a million pieces. She rolled the other way, got to her feet just as her slavering opponent was up, charging at her.
She fired, blowing off the top of its skull, and stepped aside to let the corpse fall limply beside her. Then she heard a scuffling sound from behind.
Spinning, she was startled to see a little girl in the closet, pushing aside the blankets that had hidden her, jumping up and rushing at her. Her first instinct was to shoot it, but she stopped herself—it wasn’t an Undead charging her. It was a healthy human child.
