by Tim Waggoner
She carried a single weapon, a prototype sonic disrupter that had proven effective against the more powerful mutations created by the T-virus. And as Wesker was among the strongest of T-virus mutants, she hoped the weapon—which resembled a silver handgun with a parabolic reflector attached to the muzzle—would prove equally effective against him. She’d contributed to the device’s design, of course, just as she’d contributed one way or another to just about every advance Umbrella had made in the last twenty years, whether technological or biological. But had she gotten recognition for her accomplishments? A promotion, or even a simple pat on the back, along with an appreciative ‘You do good work, Dania’? No. Others got the credit and accolades. And more, they got the power, moving up in Umbrella’s hierarchy, while Dania was left to toil anonymously in a lab.
The T-virus outbreak had changed that, though. As civilization began to collapse, opportunities presented themselves. Factions emerged within the corporation and internal power struggles began. Umbrella spent as much time dealing with these insurrections as they did dealing with the outer world as everything turned to shit. Dania, like others, decided to take advantage of the chaos to advance her position within the corporation. Unlike those others, however, she was a scientific genius—if she did say so herself—and she was able to use her intelligence to modify existing Umbrella tech to develop new innovations in her campaign to seize as much power as she could. And in the process she’d discovered something about herself. She was as ruthless as any Umbrella employee, if not more so.
She’d done well over the years, working quietly and behind the scenes at first, eventually becoming more confident until she fully emerged from the shadows to take her place as one of the major players in Umbrella’s civil war. She’d done well, too, and with each rival she defeated, she gained new followers, until she’d reached the point where she could challenge the notorious Albert Wesker himself. She’d had the resources to mount an attack on him in D.C., and despite appearances—and the unexpected interference from Project Alice—it had turned out exactly as she’d planned.
And now here she was, only moments away from eliminating Wesker and taking his place. She’d be the one to bring Umbrella’s ultimate plan to fruition, and she’d be the one to help usher in the new age that would follow. She grinned. Not bad for a one-time lab rat.
Dania had another reason for wanting to see Wesker destroyed. Despite appearances, he was no longer human, and while he’d employed his mutant abilities in Umbrella’s service, the future the corporation hoped to build had no place for such aberrations. Umbrella would have to destroy him sooner or later. She just intended to speed up the process a bit, that’s all.
As she drew closer to Wesker, she found herself holding her breath. She’d taken precautions to prevent the all-seeing Red Queen from interfering. Around her right wrist she wore a masker, a device designed—by her, of course—to conceal the wearer from all electronic detection. The masker only jammed electronic signals; it didn’t render the wearer literally invisible to anyone who might be present physically—and since it required a shitload of power to run, its battery charge lasted only a couple minutes at most. But that was okay. She didn’t need it to work longer than that.
Her heart beat faster the closer she came to Wesker, and it sounded so loud in her ears that she thought he must be able to hear it, too. But he continued sitting before the bank of monitors, posture ramrod-straight as always, body so still he might have been a wax figure instead of a living being. It was that stillness of his which made her skin crawl whenever she was around him. It was so inhuman, like a coiled snake that at first glance appeared to be sleeping but was instead watching your every move, waiting to see if you were foolish enough to come within striking distance.
She was still holding her breath as she stepped up behind Wesker. She raised the sonic disrupter, pointed the parabolic reflector at the back of his head, and fired.
She wore specially designed earplugs, but even so, the sound that blasted forth from the weapon pierced her brain like a pair of red-hot metal spikes jammed into her ears. But the pain was a small price to pay for the magnificent sight of Wesker’s head being torn apart by sonic waves and reduced to globs of red jelly that splattered onto the computer monitors and control console. She deactivated the sonic disruptor and lowered the weapon to her side. Physically, Dania’s stomach turned at the sight of the bloody gobbets smeared across the electronic equipment, but emotionally she was elated. She’d done it! She’d defeated the vaunted Albert Wesker, the Umbrella Corporation’s Biggest Bad. Now she would take his place and—
Her instincts screamed a warning then. Something was wrong, she could feel it, but she couldn’t tell what… And then it came to her. Wesker’s headless body still sat in his chair, his hands resting on the console. The body should’ve gone limp, slumped forward, or perhaps slid sideways out of the chair and fallen to the floor. And the neck should be a ragged stump that gushed blood, but flesh had sealed over the wound, leaving it smooth and undamaged.
“Oh no,” Dania whispered.
Wesker’s headless body then stood and turned toward her. In a blur, its right hand snatched the sonic disruptor from her with blinding speed, and crushed it as easily as if it had been made of balsa wood. The hand opened, allowing the pieces of the shattered weapon to fall to the floor. And then, impossibly, Wesker began to speak.
“I have complete control over my body, Dania. Did you really think I’d be foolish enough to keep my brain somewhere it was so easy to get at? It is spread throughout my entire body, and I’ve created multiple chemical backups of my memory that are stored in different organs. I am almost impossible to kill.”
His voice was muffled somewhat, and it seemed to be coming from the center of his body. A second later, Dania learned why when Wesker’s hand unzipped the front of his black uniform to reveal a vertical seam running from his throat to his navel. It was, Dania realized with sick horror, a large mouth, and it was lined with sharp white teeth.
“I have to hand it to you, Dania. Your plan was quite devious. The attack on me in D.C. was led by a clone, wasn’t it? The entire purpose of the attack was to lull me into thinking you were dead so you could assassinate me here in the Hive. It might’ve worked, too—if I were human. But since I’m not…”
Before Dania could so much as take a step backward, Wesker lunged toward her and grabbed her by the shoulders. His grip was like iron, and she couldn’t pull free. And then he slowly began to pull her toward the nightmarish obscenity of a mouth that gaped wide in his chest.
“You took my head,” Wesker said. “I think it only fitting that I take yours in return.”
Dania started to scream, but then Wesker yanked her forward and shoved her head into his chest-mouth. The teeth sliced into her neck with all the sharpness and efficiency of a guillotine blade, and the last thought she had before she died was, I hope I give you indigestion, you bastard.
And then she was gone.
* * *
Alice approached an overpass, a number of bodies hanging from it by the neck. Suicides, she figured, or the result of vigilante justice. Not that there was any other kind of justice these days. One of the bodies was still moving, and given its half-rotted condition, she knew it was an Undead. She wondered if the man had been hanged before he turned or after. For his sake, she hoped it was after. Above the bodies hung a metal sign pockmarked with bullet holes.
RACCOON CITY. POP 654,765. CITY LIMITS.
Alice drove the motorcycle beneath the overpass, ignoring the bodies dangling above, her attention focused on the skyscrapers in the distance. Raccoon City had been reduced to a shattered skyline outlined against a vast pillar of steam rising up into the stratosphere, framed by the Arklay Mountains in the northwest. The government had used a nuclear weapon to destroy the city in an attempt to contain the outbreak of the T-virus, later claiming the blast was caused by an “unfortunate incident” at the Raccoon Nuclear Power Station.
She didn’t feel as if she’d come home. She wasn’t sure she’d ever had a home. She didn’t have any memories of one. But she supposed this city was the closest thing she’d ever known to home, and if she didn’t feel a warm sense of nostalgia being here, she did experience a certain solemn satisfaction. This was the place where it had all begun, and she intended to make sure it ended here, too.
She rode on until she reached Raven’s Gate, and the suspension bridge that led into the city. It was clogged with abandoned vehicles—more than a few of which had skeletons inside, as if this were a bridge between the land of the living and the land of the dead, and these poor souls had become stuck in an eternal traffic jam. Alice slowed as she passed the vehicles, and when she was nearly halfway across the bridge, she stopped and dismounted the bike, leaving the engine running because of the security system. She checked her watch.
08:07:06
It had taken her almost two days to get here. She hoped she still had enough time to accomplish her mission. If not, the last surviving humans—not counting those who worked for Umbrella—were fucked.
She took a pair of binoculars from the bike’s storage compartment and started walking. Too bad there hadn’t been any guns or grenades in the storage compartment when she’d stolen the bike, but she supposed that would have made things too easy, and when had life ever been easy in the World After Umbrella?
After escaping Isaacs and his crew, Alice had driven at the bike’s top speed to put as much distance between her and the transport as fast as she could. When she’d judged it was safe enough, she’d pulled over to the side of the road to treat the wounds she’d received from Isaacs’ hunting knife. She didn’t bother doing anything with the cuts on her face and chest. Neither was deep, and while the wounds would no doubt scar, she’d add them to the collection she’d acquired over the last decade. The gash on her right arm was more serious, and since the bike didn’t have a med kit, she tore a strip of cloth from the back of her undershirt and used it as a crude bandage. She’d worry about treating it properly later—assuming she survived the next few hours.
She walked a few dozen feet on the bridge before she stopped. She didn’t stop because she’d found the best vantage point to use her binoculars. She stopped because she ran out of bridge. Raven’s Gate had been literally cut in half, and what remained of the bridge jutted out into the steaming impact crater that had replaced the center of the city. The river that had once flowed beneath the bridge had become a waterfall, tumbling into the depths of the crater to form a lake below.
She raised the binoculars to her eyes and scanned the edge of the blast crater. On the opposite side she saw a giant concrete tunnel, and inside it, a small flicker of light. She had a hunch what the flicker might mean, and she hit a button on the binoculars, bringing up a schematic of the Hive, overlaid on the tunnel. The schematic confirmed her hunch: the tunnel was part of the Hive, and the light she’d seen had probably been caused by sunlight glinting off a piece of metal.
“Bingo,” she said softly.
She continued scanning the edge of the blast crater, eventually finding a rock fall that looked climbable. It was close to the tunnel’s entrance, but it was on the other side of the crater from where she stood.
“Looks like I’m going around,” she said.
* * *
Alice rode the motorcycle through the remnants of the devastated city. Some buildings had been reduced to rubble, while others—even skyscrapers—were still standing, although they had huge chunks blasted out of them. Everything was blackened and burnt—a lifeless, monochromatic wasteland.
She wasn’t overly worried about lingering radiation from the nuclear bomb used to destroy Raccoon City. From what she understood, the greatest radiation hazard from a nuclear detonation occurred in the days and weeks immediately following an explosion. After that, the amount of contamination depended on a number of factors: weapon yield, detonation site, land formations, weather patterns… It had been a decade since the blast, and despite the ruins surrounding her, Alice felt confident that radiation levels here had returned to normal. And if not… well, she only needed to survive another few hours to complete her mission. Dying from radiation poisoning would be a small price to pay to ensure that humanity had a future.
There was one thing she could appreciate about the stone-and-metal graveyard that had once been Raccoon City: the nuclear blast had wiped out the city’s Undead population, and it appeared that none had moved in to take their place. She supposed a handful of the creatures might have survived the blast and be lurking somewhere in the ruins, but it made for a pleasant change to be traveling through a city and not have to fend off attacks by ambulatory carnivorous corpses every block. The lack of Undead was going to make her job a lot easier.
She’d almost reached the far side of the crater by this point, and if her luck held, there would be no Undead inside. Then—
Her thoughts broke off as she saw a gleam of light coming from an abandoned skyscraper at the edge of the crater. Sunlight being reflected from a pair of binoculars? She felt a cold tightening in her gut, a warning sign that something wasn’t right. She knew the gleam could’ve been caused by a dozen different things, none of them sinister, but she’d long ago learned to listen to her gut. It was one of the main reasons she was still alive.
She began to ease off the bike’s throttle, but before the BMW could decelerate, a telegraph pole swung into the street without warning. Alice saw the pole coming toward her, held aloft by lengths of cable, but it came too fast, and she didn’t have time to go around it. It slammed into her, knocking her off the motorcycle. The bike continued rolling a dozen more feet before it swerved and toppled to the ground. The impact from the pole knocked the wind out of Alice and sent her flying. She hit the road hard and skidded for several feet, the rough surface cutting and abrading her skin. When she came to a stop, she lay on her side, struggling to hold onto consciousness. The trap she’d sprung had been a primitive one, but effective, and now that she’d been dismounted, whoever had set the trap would likely show up to take her prisoner—or simply kill her. She intended to make sure that didn’t happen.
She wanted to reach for the knife in her boot sheath, intending to draw it and defend herself, but her arm refused to move. A wave of dizziness came over her then, and she decided it might be a good idea to close her eyes and lie still until the sensation passed.
She lost consciousness seconds later.
* * *
Alice’s eyes snapped open, and she found herself looking up at the face of a man kneeling over her. He was in his forties, with shaggy brown hair and an untrimmed beard. He wore a dingy gray shirt and stained blue pants, and he carried a silver pistol holstered on his left hip. But the gun didn’t concern her nearly as much as the large syringe the man was holding above her. He brought the syringe down toward her chest, clearly intending to stab her in the heart with it.
Alice’s body acted before she could form a fully conscious thought. She grabbed hold of the man’s wrist, stopping the needle mere inches from her skin. For an instant, she stared at a drop of clear liquid hanging from the needle’s tip. Then she leaped to her feet, pulling the man up with her. She snatched the syringe from his hand and jammed the needle against his jugular, careful not to pierce it just yet. She stood behind him, her free arm wrapped around his chest to prevent him from trying to get away. A quick glance upward told Alice that she was inside a ruined skyscraper—presumably the one she’d seen on the edge of the crater. The interior was hollow and fifty floors above, the sky was visible. The sight prompted the first coherent thought she’d had upon awakening.
It’s a wonder the goddamn thing hasn’t collapsed by now.
But that thought was quickly interrupted by the sound of frantic shouting.
“Let him go! Let him go now!”
“Put it down! We’ll shoot!”
Alice lowered her gaze to see a half-dozen armed men and women pointing an assortment of pistols and semi
autos at her. They ranged in age from early twenties to mid-forties, and all wore ragged dirt-smudged clothes and had the thin, haggard look that all survivors of the post-apocalyptic world shared. End-of-the-world chic.
She picked out the group’s alphas right away from their stance and the way they stood slightly in front of the rest. The male was Hispanic, in his mid-thirties, six feet tall, and ruggedly handsome despite showing signs of malnutrition. He had short black hair along with a stubbly beard, and he wore a long black leather coat. He held a Heckler & Koch submachine gun pointed at Alice, and from the look in his hazel eyes, she knew he wouldn’t hesitate to shoot. The female was 5’5”, Asian, with shoulder-length hair dyed a striking shade of blue. She was beautiful in an I will empty my clip into your body if you so much as look at me wrong kind of way. She wore a dark jacket with the sleeves rolled up over a camo-patterned shirt. She pointed a distinctive blue rifle at Alice, and her steely expression indicated she wouldn’t hesitate to fire any more than her partner would.
The man fired a warning shot then, the bullets kicking up chips of stone at Alice’s feet. She didn’t take her gaze off the man, didn’t so much as blink. Instead she pressed the syringe harder against the prisoner’s throat. Her human shield spoke then, his voice surprisingly calm given the situation.
“I’d listen to them if I were you,” he said.
The Hispanic man kept his gun trained on her, but he turned to look back over his shoulder at the others. The back of his coat was emblazoned with a skull.
“See? See? I told you!” he shouted.
“Calm down, Christian!” her hostage shouted back.
All this yelling was giving her a headache. Her head throbbed and every muscle in her body ached. She wasn’t sure why at first, but then she remembered the telegraph pole swinging toward her and knocking her off the bike. The damn thing had packed a hell of a wallop.
“You were wrong, Doc!” Christian said. “I told you. I told you all—we should have killed her when we had the chance!”