Resident Evil. Retribution

by John Shirley

  “A few words outside, Spence?” he said.

  Spence nodded, put his drink on the mantel, and they went out into the hall, closing the door behind them. Alice finished the drink and brought it to the senator, who was standing by the fire, warming his chubby hands. The room wasn’t brightly lit, and the firelight danced on his features, lighting them from below, making him look quietly demonic as he grinned at her.

  “Look at that, the perfect hostess!” He saluted her with the drink, and took a long pull at it, watching her over the top of his glass.

  “Do you and Mrs. Salter return to D.C. from here, Senator?” Alice asked, sitting on the sofa. It was the only conversation she could think of, at that moment.

  “Ohhh, yes, yes, tomorrow. We’ll be staying here tonight, of course. Your husband was kind enough to invite us.”

  “Oh, well, of course,” Alice murmured. She hadn’t known they were staying. But she decided she should pretend she was in the loop. “I suggested it to Spence—we have so much room here, after all.”

  “You know it’s kind of funny, some of your servants seem like they’re more used to being bodyguards. Saw some gun bulges…”

  “Oh, well, Spence likes people to… to multitask.” She grinned. “Our upstairs maid is a crack shot.”

  “Is she? I bet you can hit any target you point at, yourself. I’ll bet you have a lot of talents, Alice,” he said. “All kinda hidden talents, a sexy lady like you.”

  Normally, Alice would’ve slapped him down for that kind of talk. But she just smiled blandly. He was a senator, and a critical contact for Umbrella. Plus her job paid her a very high six figures a year. She definitely didn’t want to lose it.

  Spence and Isaacs returned, Spence looking kind of flushed, Alice thought, Dr. Isaacs looking the same as always: like the cat who’d eaten the canary. He maintained a nauseating demeanor of self-satisfaction and superiority, whatever he did.

  “Alice,” Spence said, “a word outside…?”

  Not liking the feel of it, Alice followed him into the hall. He closed the door and looked around.

  “Well?” she asked. Before he could speak she said, “Oh, I know—they want you to make Mrs. Salter happy.”

  “As a matter of fact, yes.”

  “A happy Mrs. Salter is a happy Senator Salter? I’m not sure how I feel about that. I mean I know we’re just…” She lowered her voice. “…Just playing parts, here, but you and I have gotten…”

  “It’s more than that. The senator knows there’s something more going on here. He doubts that it’s legal, whatever it is. And he isn’t certain he wants to approve the appropriations for Umbrella’s… special projects. Umbrella is a government contractor but they’re trying to cut back on… that area of deployment.”

  He didn’t say “biowarfare” but she knew that’s what he meant.

  “And?” She wanted him to say it. She wanted to see what his expression was like as he said it.

  “And he hints that if you play nice with him, he’ll play nice with us. He won’t ask too many questions about the Hive. He’s heard that term, somewhere. He knows it’s connected to this place. And he’ll approve the appropriations for the… project.”

  Her mouth was dry. And as for his face, as he said it, he did seem unhappy. But there was no hint that he wanted her to say no. She could tell he’d made up his mind that they were both going to play the game.

  “This is… supremely sick, Spence.”

  “I know,” he admitted. “But—we’ve done worse.”

  “Have we?”

  He shrugged.

  “I have. They sent me on an assignment where I had to shoot a whole roomful of…” He shook his head. “Never mind. It’s just one night.”

  “Easy for you to say. Laney Salter is way more palatable than that bloated, bourbon-soaked satyr.” She tried making a joke. “Maybe we could switch places. He might like you.”

  Spence didn’t laugh. He didn’t even smile.

  “So… he likes to do it right there on the sofa, that kinda guy. I’m meeting her upstairs. Isaacs says we keep them both happy.”

  “Isaacs. He’s behind this.”

  Dr. Isaacs likes to degrade people… she thought. Her stomach roiled, thinking about it.

  She could walk away from this. They wouldn’t kill her for it. She’d just lose any career opportunity in the future. They’d see to that. They punished disobedience.

  And then again, maybe her life would be in danger. After all, Salter was a powerful man. He might worry that she’d talk about all this, in the media. He might demand they take care of her—completely.

  It wouldn’t take long. But the thought of it…

  Even if Salter had been an attractive man, she’d still have felt degraded by the whole experience. Being bartered like a cheap whore.

  “That’s how you think of me, Spence? You and Isaacs? Like I’m… some fun girl in Bangkok, always ready to ‘entertain’ the businessman?”

  “No!” He shook his head sadly. “Come on. Laney’s an attractive lady, but—I’m not feeling any better about this. I don’t like to be ‘entertainment’ either. Not that way. But we have to do it. There are billions of dollars—many billions of dollars—on the line here! Salter doesn’t like anyone telling him no. He’s really vindictive, and he’s taken a fancy to you, big time. He couldn’t take his eyes off you at dinner.”

  “Suppose I throw up my dinner on him, during all this?”

  Spence sighed.

  “You’re tougher than that.”

  In the end, she gave in. The risks of refusing were too high.

  Billions of dollars—many billions…

  That was the deciding factor as far as Umbrella was concerned.

  She kept her face neutral as she returned to the sitting room. The senator was looking at her attentively, licking his lips. Isaacs spoke as she entered.

  “Well, I’ll be off,” he said. “My car is waiting.” He gave the senator a little bow. “Good night.” As he left the room, Alice glanced at the door, hoping Spence would rush in, say, No, Alice, don’t do it, I won’t allow it.

  But of course he didn’t.

  She turned to Salter.

  “Well. How can I… entertain you?” And she dropped the strap of her dress from her shoulder.

  It took him longer to finish than she’d hoped. A good half hour. Afterward, once he’d patted her on her naked rear and left the room—closing the door behind him—she burst into tears. It was the first time she’d cried since childhood.

  It would be the last time for years after.

  Remembering that night, now, as she lay on the cot in the helicopter, Alice squirmed—and winced when the movement brought pain.

  A black female medic came in, nodded to her and, as if on cue, injected her I.V. line with a painkiller. The soothing drug almost blotted out the memory of that half hour on the sofa. The weight of him on her; the smell of him—sweat, cigars, bourbon, faint halitosis, a strong scent of deodorant and aftershave. The slobbery pressure of his lips. The moment she’d opened her eyes and seen his veiny, bulbous nose rearing over her.

  His gasping, grasping, pumping. His murmured obscenities, stubby, probing fingers.

  Bruises on her breasts.

  She almost threw up, remembering.

  But then she closed her eyes and let the drug ease her into restful sleep…

  24

  The screen in the attack room showed the prow of the submarine. It was a fairly clear video feed—Umbella had upgraded it—revealing the green-blue sea, becoming darker shades of blue as it went down. A polar bear swam by, which was exciting for Dori, and they saw a few fish, and a pair of walruses.

  Tom was tapping a control screen, causing the ballast tanks to fill.

  “You’re sure the hatches are all closed?” Judy asked. She sounded like a wife already, Tom thought. He’d been married once—his wife had been shot by a cop. But by then, she was already dead. She was just “walking around dead.”
She’d been bitten by the walking corpse of her sister Edna.

  Tom had to kill Edna himself.

  Now he was watching the gauges, and he felt the enormous submarine lurch.

  “What about… what about doing it all evenly?” Judy asked, looking around nervously as the vessel began to shudder.

  “What you mean, evenly?” Tom asked, watching the gauges.

  “I mean—making one side sink and not the other,” she said, “unless you intend to. What if we flip upside down, or…”

  “Naw, it’s all set up to spread the ballast weight evenly around the ship. It might tilt a little to the forward, but not so much. Don’t you worry.” Truth was, he wasn’t feeling as confident as he sounded.

  “Oh!” Dori said, clutching at Judy as the ship lurched again. She, too, was wearing an old Russian sailor’s uniform, a little too big for her, the pant legs rolled up. “Is it going to sink?” she asked worriedly.

  “You say that like it’s a bad thing,” Tom chuckled. “It’s supposed to sink! That’s what submarines do. Look at the screen, there—we’re going down!” He was a bit worried that they were going down faster than he’d intended, though. He needed to slow the process down.

  The conning tower would be underwater now, and below the ice pack. They could hear the water rushing around the vessel, causing a soft rumbling. The video screen was getting darker.

  Then it occurred to Tom that they weren’t far off the coast—so the water might be relatively shallow here. Which meant—

  CLUNK

  It sounded just like that, a metallic clunk, as they hit the bottom. The vessel rocked around them, and they clung to the nearest surfaces, Judy slipping an arm around Dori. The deck tilted—and stopped at a slight angle. A shuddering worked its way through the ship, but the deck was steady under them again, and they relaxed a little.

  “Went down a little too fast,” Tom said apologetically. He was listening for the sound of running water; for the alarms that would come if the hull was breached. Nothing. A wire-frame image on the ship’s status monitor showed the submarine tilted a little, but there were no indicators of water pouring in.

  “Look!” Dori said, pointing at the video screen.

  Tom looked—and shuddered. There was something human out there; a dark silhouette against the light-colored sea bottom. Sea grass swirled around it, and fish darted past its head.

  Human? But it wasn’t really human—judging from the red glow from the eyes.

  “It’s a mutant,” Judy said hoarsely. “Oh, God. A Las Plagas mutant, judging from the eyes. Looks like it might’ve once been a ‘Rain’ designated clone.”

  “That’s a clone, like me?” Dori asked, wide eyed.

  “Not like you, kid,” Tom said. “That thing’s mean. They get like that, only one person can control them. Chances are that person’s dead. The thing’ll kill till it can’t kill anymore. But I don’t think it can get in here, to us. It looks like it’s about twenty yards ahead—it’s got ice on its arms there, see it? We’ll go back up, to right under the ice, and head out—and we’ll leave that thing behind.”

  “It must’ve been one of those who were fighting, out on the ice,” Judy suggested. “Any way we can put it out of its misery?”

  “Nah. Not while it’s down there. This vessel was used as a transport, for Umbrella’s top secret stuff, see. It wasn’t armed, though. They didn’t want to mess with any nuclear missiles, torpedos—too unstable after all these years. They took ’em out. There’s a machine-gun emplacement up top, though, on the turret. It’s all closed off but there’s ammo for it. No way we could hit that thing with it. You can only operate the gun from outside.”

  “It looks like it’s trying to get close to us!” Dori said, and she pointed.

  Indeed, the ice-laden creature was trying to lumber toward them, walking along the ocean floor, its booted feet raising the sand like slow motion dust clouds.

  “Dammit!” Tom muttered, sitting in front of the control screen. He tapped the control for the ballast tanks, ordering them to blow half their weight. The submarine huffed, bubbles surged up, rumbling past—and the vessel groaned, as if complaining. They hung on again as it stabilized, rising—and in a few moments the mutant was gone from the screen.

  Tom blew out a long stream of air in relief.

  “Whew. Now…” He checked their depth on the bathymetry gauge. “Twenty-seven fathoms,” he said.

  “What’s that?” Dori asked.

  “It’s how deep we are. Judy teach you math? A fathom is six feet.”

  “Of course!” she sniffed. “One hundred sixty-two!”

  “That’s how many feet down we are. I’m going to keep us right about here, because I don’t want to run into the bottom of any icebergs. And I’m going to head southeast, if I can get the engine to cooperate with me.”

  “Sure you know what you’re doing?” Judy asked again. “That’s a nuclear engine…”

  “It’s a steam engine powered up by nuclear generators. Anyway—you want to live here, forever?”

  “We could fish, when we ran out of food.”

  “Umbrella will be back here, salvaging. Investigating.”

  Judy winced at that.

  “You’re right. Let’s go. But… let’s go slowly, till we get out away from the ice and the land.”

  “Now you’re talking sense. We want to get to deep water, and away from all this ice…”

  “Can you get the engine going?” Dori asked.

  “Come over here,” Tom told her. She walked over and looked over his shoulder, hunching a little, her hands on her knees.

  “Now—see that green tab there on the screen? Touch that with your thumb.”

  She licked her lips—and touched the green tab. At first nothing seemed to happen. Then the submarine responded, grumbling deep within itself, whining, and then a vibration ran through it, from the back to the front. They could feel it passing through the attack center.

  “Oh, look!” Judy said, pointing at the prow video.

  They could see ice floes, up above, illuminated by light from the surface, passing by as they tooled along under them.

  They were moving, and the compass indicated that they were heading south-by-southeast.

  When Alice woke, she heard someone walking back to the rear of the big chopper. They remarked that they had just flown east over the coast of California.

  Or what once was California, Alice thought. Now it was just another wasteland, haunted by the Undead. There would be some tough survivors down there, fighting tooth and nail, struggling every day for life. And she hoped the sight of the choppers flying over would give them hope.

  But she wasn’t sure they gave her any hope. It was Wesker’s outfit, after all. Who knew what he planned? He was one of the men who’d destroyed civilization in the first place.

  She was on her way to be delivered to her greatest enemy.

  She lay there a moment, listening to the percussive roll of the rotors, aware of crosswinds buffeting the aircraft, making it jolt from time to time. She could hear voices up forward, but no one seemed to be keeping an eye on her.

  They’d have to stop for fuel at some point, and that might give her and Becky a chance to escape. Maybe Jill would help her—even go with her. Maybe not. Could be Jill would think of Wesker as her new employer.

  And why not? Wesker had access to resources. He might have partnered with one of the other surviving multinationals. Umbrella couldn’t be the only one. And if they had medical resources, fuel, helicopters, they’d provide some kind of shelter in a world still overrun by horrors.

  Were they as ruthless as Umbrella? Then again, in the world as it was now, maybe that’s how you had to be.

  No, Alice decided. There’s no world that could justify what Umbrella has done.

  Yet if Alice hoped to escape—she’d have to be ambulatory to do it. She stretched, testing her limbs, then grimaced—the “Rain mutant” had damaged her pretty severely. But rest and pain
meds had helped. And she seemed to have some of her old healing ability, though to a lesser degree than when she’d had all her powers.

  She carefully unfastened the restraints that held her in place and, grimacing with little stabs of pain, sat up. The I.V. was still in her arm—she pulled off the tape and jerked the needle out of the vein. There was a roll of surgical tape on the table, and some clean gauze. She made a bandage to stop the bleeding, and then plucked off the monitor wires. The monitor chirped repeatedly, emitting a prissy-sounding alarm.

  And the medic came in. He was a tall, skinny black man with an afro, probably from not having access to a barber, and a fuzz of beard. He wore cammie-style paramilitary togs.

  “Hey, you lay back down now!” he told Alice. “What are you doing, taking your I.V. out?”

  “Am I a prisoner?”

  “Not that I heard. Your friend Jill is walking around as she pleases. Your little girl is watching the pilots. Only reason you’re strapped down is because you were injured, and we’re going to land for a refuel in Nevada pretty soon. You’ve got to be strapped down when we land.”

  He seemed genuinely concerned for her, and Alice didn’t feel like fighting him.

  “I’ll lay down, but no I.V., I already need a bedpan.”

  “I’ll get you one of those,” he promised. “Just lay down. How’s your pain?”

  “Not bad. When I move around, though…”

  He shook his head, and looked at her as if he thought she was insane.

  “You got cracked bones in there, lady. Just take it easy.”

  Alice was feeling dizzy anyway. She shrugged and lay back down. It wasn’t the right moment. There was Becky to consider.

  The medic brought her the bedpan, waited, looking out a port, then took it away to empty. Very professional. That touch of civilized care was comforting, after so long in a world under siege.

  A few minutes later Becky came in, looking giddy, and sat on the edge of her cot, smiling and signing.

  “Mama, I was watching the pilots!” she said. “I want to be a helicopter pilot!”

  “Some day!” Alice signed, and she smiled. They continued to sign back and forth, Becky sometimes talking aloud in her squeaky way. Alice spoke aloud as she signed, to encourage Becky to learn to read lips.