Resident Evil

by Tim Waggoner

  Doc smirked. “In a few minutes Claire’s going to be dead. Along with everyone else you know.”

  A new voice—a woman’s—said, “That’s sweet.”

  Claire stood in the doorway behind Doc, and for an instant Alice thought she might get the drop on him, but then she saw that someone was standing behind Claire, holding a Samurai Edge pistol pressed to her head.

  “Look what the cat dragged in,” Wesker said.

  Doc glanced at Claire. “Sorry, my love.”

  Claire glared at him, and if looks could kill, he would’ve exploded into a million pieces at that moment.

  Doc turned back to Alice. “Now kick your weapons to me—and the detonator.”

  Alice did as he ordered. Doc didn’t bother with her gun, but he bent down and picked up the detonator. He turned to Isaacs then. “She planted explosives in the High Command cryotubes. I’ll disarm them.”

  “Thank you,” Isaacs said to Doc. “You’ve done well.”

  She glanced around the room, looking for something, anything, she might be able to use to get her out of this situation. She noted a glass wine decanter on a glass table near Isaacs, a fountain pen lying on a desk, a heavy Rodin bust displayed on a high marble table behind Isaacs. All potential weapons for slashing, stabbing, and bludgeoning. If only she could get to one of them in time…

  “Don’t bother,” Isaacs said. “You don’t make it. To the decanter, the sculpture, or the fountain pen.”

  * * *

  Computer graphics began rapidly scrolling across Isaacs’ vision as the predictive combat software in his bio-implants showed him Alice’s every potential move. He watched a virtual simulation of her reaching for the glass decanter, obviously intending to break it and stab him with the shards. But in the simulation, Isaacs was too fast, and he got to her first. He grabbed hold of her, lifted her into the air, and slammed her through the glass table with bone-crushing impact.

  He then watched as virtual Alice made a move toward the pen, but he rushed toward her, grabbed the back of her head, and smashed it so hard into the desk that the wood splintered. Virtual Alice next tried for the bust. She managed to grab hold of it and turn toward Isaacs, intending to smash it into his head. But Isaacs avoided the blow with ease, and he grabbed hold of her once more and hammered her head against the tabletop so hard that the marble cracked.

  The simulation ended and the computer software reached its conclusion:

  COMPUTER ANALYSIS OF TACTICAL SITUATION

  ISAACS VICTORY 100%

  Isaacs smiled, confident and in control.

  * * *

  Alice had once possessed a similar predictive ability, so she recognized that Isaacs wasn’t bluffing when he told her that nothing she tried would stop him. She remained where she was, but that didn’t mean she was giving up.

  Come on, Alice, she urged herself. Think!

  Isaacs continued speaking. “And in answer to your question, yes, I am Doctor Alexander Roland Isaacs. The original.”

  “The one I met out there thought exactly the same,” Alice said.

  “Of course he did. That’s how they’re designed. They always try harder and fight longer, even to the death, as long as they think they are the real thing. After all, who wants to know that they are just a poor imitation? A worthless copy?” He smiled. “Which brings us to you.”

  Alice stared at him, understanding the implications of what he was saying but not wanting to believe them.

  “Come now,” he said. “Don’t tell me you thought you were the original. How delicious. No, I’m afraid she holds that dubious honor.”

  He nodded toward a pair of cryostasis tubes. One—his, Alice presumed—was already open. The second tube, next to which rested a wheelchair, was just beginning to open.

  A woman stepped out, moving slowly, her motions stiff and hesitant. She wore a gray dress made of a smooth, silky material, with a string of pearls around her neck. Her short straight hair was gray, and her face was wrinkled, her forehead dotted with liver spots. Her large eyes were a dull blue, but they projected an intensity that spoke of the strong intelligence behind them. Despite her age, the woman’s face was familiar to Alice. She’d seen a younger version of it many times, on her numerous clones… and, of course, every time she’d looked in the mirror.

  The woman moved to her wheelchair—every step a major effort—and when she reached it, she slumped into the seat, breathing hard, as if she’d just run a marathon. After a moment, she began wheeling over to join them.

  “Meet Alicia Marcus,” Isaacs said. “The daughter of my old partner James. Co-owner of the Umbrella Corporation and a painful thorn in my side. One I now intend to remove.”

  Alice couldn’t stop staring at the woman… at Alicia. She looked old enough to be Alice’s grandmother. Hell, great-grandmother. But if what Isaacs had implied about Alice’s relationship to this woman was true, Alice had never had a grandmother. Or a mother, for that matter.

  Alicia spoke then, her voice weak and breathy.

  “Time is running out.” It was obvious that even such a simple act as speaking required great effort for her. But despite this, she went on. She nodded to Isaacs. “You have to kill him soon.”

  Isaacs smiled. “Good to see you too, Alicia.” He turned back to Alice. “Believe it or not, she’s not much older than you are. Physically, at any rate. She suffers from Werner syndrome, also known as adult progeria, a wasting disease which causes those afflicted to age prematurely. Marcus created the Progenitor Cell to save her when she was a child, but the effects didn’t last—as you can see. I’ve been waiting years for her to die.”

  “I’m not a clone,” Alice said, but she didn’t sound as confident as she would’ve liked. She thought then of how Umbrella operatives—the Red Queen included—had referred to her as “Project Alice,” as if she were some sort of science experiment. She’d always thought the term had to do with the corporation’s attempts to make her body bind with the T-virus, but if Isaacs’ claim was true, and she was a clone, she’d been a “project” instead of a person all along.

  “Really?” Isaacs said. “You must have wondered why you remember nothing of your childhood. Your father. Your mother.”

  “Memory loss,” Alice said. “After everything Umbrella did to me—”

  “No. You have no memories because you had no life. Nothing before the mansion, when we created you. Ten years ago.”

  Alice felt wild panic erupt inside her. She searched her mind, casting about for a memory—any memory—from her past before she’d woken in the manor; the Looking Glass House, as she’d thought of it then. Still, she refused to accept what Isaacs was telling her.

  “I know who I am!” she shouted.

  “I don’t think you do,” Isaacs said. “You’re nothing more than a puppet whose strings were cut. And then you wandered around for a little while thinking you were a real girl. But you’re not. You’re just a clever imitation. A facsimile. And a rather troublesome one at that.”

  “You’re lying to me.” But even as Alice said this, she knew deep down that he wasn’t.

  The Red Queen spoke for the first time since Alice and Doc’s arrival. “I’m afraid he’s not. You were created in her image. As was I. My likeness, voice, and core brain patterns were based on childhood recordings of Alicia Marcus, made by her father. Your genetic structure is based on her DNA, tweaked to avoid the wasting disease that afflicted her. I was the child she was, you are the woman she would have been.”

  Alice looked at Alicia, who looked right back at her with tired, half-lidded eyes. It was like gazing into a mirror that showed you what you would look like in the future.

  “No,” Alice said, but her voice lacked conviction.

  “You were built from my DNA,” Alicia said, her voice gaining strength as she spoke. “But you’re so much better than I ever could be. I let this happen. I let Isaacs go through with his plan. I should have fought him harder. I was weak. You cannot afford to be.”


  “Time is running out, Alice,” the Red Queen said.

  “How touching.” Isaacs looked at Alicia, then at the Red Queen, then finally at Alice. “The trinity of bitches, united in their hatred. Not that it will do you any good.”

  Isaacs stepped closer to Alicia. He still had the helix-shaped vial of antivirus, and he held it out before the woman, as if to taunt her with it.

  “You really thought I didn’t know what you were up to? I was ahead of you every step of the way. You’ve changed nothing, and you’ve saved no one. The world will still be cleansed and the Umbrella Corporation will triumph. The only difference is I can now replace you. I’ll no longer have to listen to your self-righteous whining. When you uploaded that file and corrupted the Red Queen, you turned against the corporation. When the rest of the board awakes, they won’t protect you. They’ll have you replaced, and I will assume complete control.”

  “I still own fifty percent of this company,” Alicia said, but the earlier strength with which she’d spoken was gone, and despite her words, she seemed to have lost hope.

  Isaacs towered over the frail woman in the wheelchair, looking all powerful compared to Alicia’s withered form. In that moment, Alice hated Isaacs more than she’d ever hated anyone or anything, and if she could’ve wrapped her hands around his throat, she would’ve happily choked the life out of him.

  “And what do you intend to do with your fifty percent?” Isaacs said.

  “The only thing I can do,” she said, some of her strength returning. “You are a co-owner of this corporation, but Wesker is still an employee.”

  All this time Wesker had stood silently in the doorway, his gun against Claire’s head. He appeared unimpressed by Alicia’s words.

  “I don’t have to take your orders,” he said coldly. “My loyalties are with Doctor Isaacs.”

  “I know,” Alicia said. She paused a moment before adding, “Albert Wesker: you’re fired.”

  Alice glanced at the Red Queen, and she saw a grim smile appear on the AI’s simulated face. Alice remembered what the Red Queen had told her in D.C., that her programming prevented her from harming Umbrella employees. But thanks to Alicia, Wesker no longer worked for the corporation.

  A heavy blast door dropped down from the ceiling above Wesker like a guillotine blade. He moved with all the speed his T-virus-enhanced body possessed, but it wasn’t enough. The door slammed shut with a thunderous boom, crushing his right leg. He fell to the floor, trapped, blood pooling around him. Claire had been standing in front of Wesker when the blast door descended, and although she was knocked down when Wesker attempted to get out of the way, she was otherwise unharmed. Wesker lost his grip on his Samurai when the door slammed down on his leg, but the weapon had skittered across the floor, out of both Alice’s and Claire’s reach.

  Throughout all of this, Doc had kept his gun trained on Alice, and he smiled coldly as he pulled the trigger.

  Nothing happened.

  Doc’s eyes widened in disbelief, and Alice, with one swift move, disarmed him and broke his arm. He fell to one knee, howling in pain. Alice quickly looked around for Isaacs, but he’d disappeared.

  Bet you didn’t see that coming, asshole, she thought.

  She removed the empty cartridge from Doc’s gun and tossed it aside. She then reached into a pocket, removed a full magazine, and loaded it into the weapon.

  Doc watched her, cradling his arm, teeth gritted and tears of pain running from his eyes. “Your back was turned to me when you checked the weapons,” he said. His voice held the petulant tone of a little boy accusing a playmate of cheating at a game. “You switched out the full magazine for an empty one before giving me the gun.”

  Alice bent down and took the detonator from his hand. Even though that arm was the broken one, his fingers had still managed to hold onto it. As she stood once more, he asked, “How did you know? How did you know it was me?”

  Alice shrugged. “You’re the only one still alive.”

  She leveled the Heckler & Koch at his head.

  Doc’s tears flowed more freely as he began to sob. “Please! I didn’t have a choice. They made me.”

  Alice looked into the man’s eyes, but she didn’t fire.

  “Don’t worry. I’m not going to shoot you.”

  She lowered her gun, and Doc let out a shuddering sigh of relief—until Alice handed the weapon to Claire. Doc looked at Claire, his expression no longer afraid, but resigned.

  “Claire…” he said.

  “Sorry,” Claire said, then added, “My love.”

  She aimed the pistol at his chest and shot him without hesitation. He slumped over onto his side, dead.

  Shot through the heart, Alice thought. Talk about poetic justice.

  Claire looked at Doc’s body for a moment, her face impassive. Then she looked at Alice and gave her a sad smile. Alice smiled back and nodded before walking over to Wesker.

  The man was still trapped by the blast door. His skin was rippling, and she knew he was trying to shift his form, but it appeared he was having trouble.

  “Hard to concentrate through the pain, huh?” she asked. But it was more than that. The blood that had pooled around his leg was beginning to flow away from him in multiple rivulets, sliding across the floor and spreading out in different directions. His own blood was deserting him, fleeing his dying body like rats escaping a sinking ship.

  She depressed a switch on the detonator and a small red light came on, indicating the device was armed. She bent down, pressed the detonator into one of Wesker’s hands, and moved his thumb onto the trigger. She then stood and stepped away from him before he could attempt to attack her. Even trapped, Wesker was still dangerous as hell.

  “As long as you keep the trigger depressed, you keep Umbrella’s dream alive,” she said.

  Wesker’s flesh stopped rippling, almost as if he were conceding defeat. He looked up at her for a moment, his face pale from blood loss, and when he spoke his voice was filled with a mixture of hate and something that might’ve almost been admiration.

  “I should have killed you in Washington.”

  “Yeah.” Alice turned and began walking away. “Big mistake.”

  She stepped over to the control console and saw Isaacs on one of the screens, a live security feed displayed by the Red Queen, she guessed. Isaacs ran across the illuminated bridge, the vial of antivirus clutched in his hand. Alice checked her watch.

  00:05:10

  00:05:09

  Alicia rolled her wheelchair over to the console, and Claire and the Red Queen joined them.

  “He only has to evade you for another five minutes,” Alicia said. “Then the Umbrella operatives around the world will act and the last remaining human outposts will fall.”

  Alice looked at the Red Queen. “Plot us an intercept route. And the fastest path to the surface once we have the antivirus.”

  “Already done.”

  A map of the Hive appeared on a screen next to the image of Isaacs running. On it, Isaacs’ location was indicated, along with a route to the surface. Alice looked at it a moment, and when she was confident she had it memorized, she turned to Alicia.

  “Come with us,” she said.

  “Not possible. I’d only slow you down.” Alicia sat up as tall as she could in her wheelchair, the movement obviously an intense effort for her. “If you release the antivirus, it will kill all organisms infected with the T-virus. You know what that means, don’t you? For you?”

  “I know.” Alice might not have her powers anymore, but the T-virus—although inert—was still in her blood. The antivirus would be just as deadly to her as any Undead or mutation.

  “Alice, you can’t!”

  Alice turned to her friend. “I don’t have a choice. Everything has led to this. One life for the life of many.”

  She’d spent her entire life—which spanned a mere ten years—fighting and killing. She knew nothing else, was good at nothing else. And when the world was saved, when there were no
more monsters to battle, what purpose would she have then? What kind of life could she hope to make for herself—a living weapon with no more wars to fight? If she had to die to save humanity, then so be it. At least then her life, such as it was, would’ve had meaning.

  Claire shook her head in denial. “This isn’t right. There has to be some other way!”

  “You know there isn’t.”

  The Red Queen broke in then. “Four minutes and thirty seconds left! You must hurry!”

  Alice gave Alicia a final look before nodding to the Red Queen, then she and Claire took off running in pursuit of Isaacs and the antivirus.

  * * *

  Alicia watched Alice run and envied her strength and grace. Because of her disease, she had never run like that—not since she’d been a very young child, anyway—and she wondered what it felt like to be so strong, so free. She was glad that one version of her knew what it was like to be healthy, but then she thought no, Alice wasn’t her. She was her own person. At most she was like Alicia’s twin sister, and although they had only just met, Alicia couldn’t help feeling proud of her.

  When Alice and Claire were out of earshot, Alicia smiled.

  “I knew we were right about her,” she said.

  * * *

  Isaacs sat behind the wheel of the transport, operating it with his one remaining hand, leading the Undead horde toward the crater. The vehicle bounced and juddered over the uneven terrain, and although he wanted nothing more than to jam the accelerator to the floor, he forced himself to go slowly. The Undead would have difficulty negotiating the rocky debris here, and he didn’t want to leave them behind. He needed them for what he planned to do next.

  After killing Brenner and taking over her transport, Isaacs had told the crew of his plans and—after exchanging a series of alarmed looks—they’d promptly deserted, abandoning Isaacs and the transport to take their chances in the streets of the ruined city. Contemptible cowards, he thought. But he didn’t need any of them. He and he alone would serve as God’s sword in the final battle.

  One or more of the deserters must have contacted the commander of the second transport and informed him or her of Isaacs’ intentions, for that commander, just as cowardly as the rest, cut loose their human bait, and drove off, leaving the Undead they’d been leading to join Isaacs’ horde. This was fine with him. While he would’ve loved to turn the horde on the deserters, the Lord would see to it that the unfaithful troops would pay for their cowardice in the end. Right now, he had a job to do. Alice was in the Hive somewhere, and he intended to bring down the full power of God’s holy wrath on her and her companions.