Resident Evil. Retribution (14 page)

“No,” Alice admitted.

“Didn’t think so.”

Alice looked at the blood splashed on the walls. She could almost remember. But it hadn’t been her. It had been something that
resonated
with her. Almost a part of her. Yet not quite.

The girl came running back to her, her face drawn with disappointment.

“He’s not here!” she signed, shaking her head.

“Good!” Ada said curtly. “So let’s move!”

Alice took the girl in her arms.

“You tried,” she signed. “But now we have to go.”

The girl looked her mother in the eyes.

“You won’t leave me, will you?” she signed. “Like before? You won’t leave me alone again?”

“I won’t leave you,” Alice replied, smiling gravely.

“You promise?” the girl signed.

“I promise.”

She tried to smile—but her lips trembled. Alice hugged her.

“Are we coming back?” the girl asked her.

“No,” Alice signed.

“Then I need to take some things.” Without a sound she ran back down the hall.

“Just hurry,” Alice signed. “And stay where I can see you.” But the girl was already gone.

Ada checked her watch.

Alice looked at the framed pictures on the wall— of Todd and Alice at home, the three of them in the backyard, on holiday at a beach. Again the perverse attention to detail shown by the test planners. A picture perfect family life—that she’d never lived. That
no one
had ever lived.

“None of this is real,” Ada said.

Running feet sounded again, and the girl was coming down the hall, stuffing things into a backpack.

“It is to her,” Alice said.

“I know,” Ada responded. “That’s the point.” She was studying them—watching Alice with her “daughter.” Alice had the feeling that Ada saw the developing attachment as a problem, an unnecessary complication.

“She’s not your daughter,” Ada added softly, almost whispering. “She’s not even a real person.”

Alice shot Ada a glare. It infuriated her—the utter bullshit, the idea that a clone, with just as much capacity for suffering, for tragedy, just as much joy, just as much potential—could be seen as “not even a real person.”

But Ada pressed on.

“All these feelings she has for you,” she insisted. “They were imprinted. A short time ago she was a blank slate. She didn’t even know who you were.”

It’s useless,
Alice thought.
She’s too much the professional killer to let herself feel anything. I’d never convince her.

“I could show you a room with a dozen just like her in cold storage,” Ada added. Alice just stared at her, until her ally shrugged. “I’m sorry,” she said, “but it’s true.”

“Ready!” the girl signed, trotting up to them, smiling now. “I was fast,” she signed. “Wasn’t I?”

Alice tousled her hair.

“Yes you were.”

“Oh, just—come on,” Ada said. “Let’s get the hell out of this place.” She led the way through the front door, Alice and the girl followed—then stopped, staring.

Waiting on the manicured grass of the front lawn were Jill Valentine and her squad of troopers. Rain was sitting casually in the swing-set—the “Rain” clone, anyway, with an MP5 machine gun in her hand. Another trooper, sans mask, was familiar to Alice. His name was—or had been—Carlos, and he’d fought alongside her a while back. Until he had died. He was pointing his own assault rifle at her chest.

He looked exactly like Todd.

Yet strangely, Becky didn’t seem to notice…

“Welcome home,” Jill said dryly. “Nice place you have.” She picked up a fallen pink bicycle and stood it up straight. “Now, surrender, or die.”

“There’s a child here,” Alice said. She pulled the girl closer.

“Your problem,” Rain remarked casually, getting up and raising the MP5, racking it back to fire. “Not ours.”

“All heart,” Alice said, looking at her. “You haven’t changed.”

“I don’t know you, lady,” Rain said, frowning.

“So what’s it to be?” the Carlos trooper asked.

Alice glanced at Ada.

Ada looked back her, eyebrows raised.

Jill’s eye-projected IUD was explicit, its scrolling text identifying targets and prescribing action.

ADA WONG
— KILL

CLONE —
KILL

PROJECT ALICE —
CAPTURE/KILL

But past the heads-up, Jill was peripherally aware that Alice was stepping in front of Ada. Her instincts told her that nothing Alice did lacked purpose.

In the next instant the nearest Umbrella trooper was shot off his feet with a burst from Ada’s weapon. Alice herself fired at “Rain”—suppressing the trooper’s fire as she was forced to dive for cover. Then Project Alice bolted for the house, pulling the girl along by the wrist. Ada fired again, and then darted in behind them.

A spray of bullets perforated the door the split second they closed it behind them. Alice pushed her daughter down behind a sofa. The child’s head popped up as Alice put fresh clips in her guns.

“What are you doing?” she signed.

“Mommy stuff,” Alice replied. More bullets ripped through the front door, leaving it in shreds, a mere splintery frame.

Alice pushed the girl down again, turned, and fired past the archway and through the front door.

Bullets whipped over Jill’s head, and slammed into a parked Honda Civic—hitting the gas tank. The car exploded, the fireball kicking it into the air, flipping it upside down. She grimaced as the car smashed down onto the pavement behind her, flaklike pieces of exploding metal trailing smoke as they sang past.

“Suppressing fire!” Jill shouted.

“Yes, ma’am!” came the response.

“Yes, ma’am!” another trooper shouted. He signaled to the others and all the troopers let loose, firing full out from behind trees, flat on the ground, and in kneeling positions to the right and left, tearing the house apart with bullets…

In the living room Ada and Alice dived for cover as the house was put through the meat grinder by a storm of bullets. The walls were shattering, being chewed apart and beginning to sag down, their undermining threatening to collapse the entire structure around them.

The bullets were like swarming angry insects just over Alice’s head, blackening the air. She was lying on her stomach, half turned to aim out the shattered front door, where she could just make out the black trooper, reloading.

He looked up at her.

That familiar face—a clone of an old friend—made her hesitate.

And then the moment was gone as he rolled out of the way.

She fired—hitting the trooper right behind him. At the same time she was aware of Ada, crawling past her toward the kitchen, probably to check for troopers who would be trying to flank them from the back.

Alice fired out the front door again—as the house groaned, settling, still threatening to collapse, its timbers nearly eaten through by bullets.

In the kitchen, Ada dropped to a low crouch, deploying her hook gun. There was a noise from the back door, and she turned—the door was open, so the only barrier was the closed screen door. Through it she saw a masked trooper, his rifle leveled at her.

Ada fired, aiming the hook gun with pure instinct. The harpoonlike weapon went through the screen and impaled the trooper just below the sternum. He screamed—but he didn’t die. Coughed-up blood leaked from the corner of his mask as he tremblingly raised his gun to fire at her. She pressed the rewind button and braced herself, holding firmly to the handle.

The hook jerked him toward her, reeling him in, smashing him through the door and into a cabinet where he came to rest with a nasty crunching sound.

A relative quiet fell, the gunfire diminished, the storm momentarily abating as the troopers reloaded their weapons. Pieces of rubble and plaster pattered down from the shattered walls; broken light fittings swung.

Nearby, Alice fired out the door again—then slipped up closer to Ada.

“What are we going to do?”

“You can’t stay here.” Ada took off her digital glasses, and handed them to Alice. “These will show you the way out. I’ll hold ’em back as long as I can.” She peered outside, then back at Alice. “I’ll meet you at the elevator.”

Alice looked at her.

“Thank you.”

“For what?” Ada demanded. “I’m not dying for you, lady. I have a plan B. Now take this.” She disconnected the used cartridge from the hook gun, then held it out to Alice. “The less I have with me, the better.”

“I’ve got something for you,” Alice said, handing her an unprimed grenade.

“Thanks. See you at the elevator.”

Sure,
Alice thought.
If there’s life after death.

Outside of the house, the troopers finished reloading, slamming magazines home into their weapons.

“Set!” a trooper shouted.

“Advance in teams!” Jill called. She reiterated the command in hand signals.

The clone that looked like Rain called out, “Alpha team forward!” They began to advance—and as they went they opened fire, ripping the house apart with long automatic-weapon bursts.

“We’ve got movement!” a trooper shouted, peering at a heads-up on his digital goggles. “Behind the house! Two targets!”

Jill signaled a halt, and ran to the trooper. “Identify!”

There was a moment’s hesitation as he touched the goggles, zoomed the camera in on the figures.

“It’s Alice,” he said.

Jill frowned. Two targets
behind
the house?

So Alice and the clone kid were running, while Ada stayed behind to keep the squad busy.

Okay. One kill at a time.

She pointed at the house.

“Take this bitch out!”

Ada looked out the back way, saw Alice and the girl slipping away—and saw a trooper coming around the side of the house, aiming at their backs. She chuckled

He figures he’s got the drop on her.

She fired her auto pistol, unloading half a clip into the guy, just to make sure. He spun around, yelling in pain, and fell. He tried to crawl for a moment or two… shuddered… and lay still.

She turned, looked through the archway toward the front door—and saw a line of troopers running toward the house, blazing away. Bullets ripped through the walls—and a big section of the living room collapsed, burying the sofa and coffee table, spewing a cloud of plaster dust.

Ada fired out the front door with one hand, while with the other she prepped the grenade and threw it out the front door. It bounced—

Ada grinned, seeing the troopers dive out of the way. The grenade blew. Someone screamed. She saw a severed arm go flipping past the door, pinwheeling blood.

Smoke obscured the scene for a moment. Then as the smoke cleared, she saw the “Rain” clone shouldering a portable missile launcher, smiling maliciously as she aimed it, adjusting the sights.

“Damn!” Ada blurted out.

She slapped a clip into the auto pistol, and aimed it at the wooden floor, fired it in a tight pattern, concentrating her fire, cutting a kind of manhole in the wood. There wasn’t much left when she was done.

She jumped on the spot she’d drilled with bullets. The wood collapsed under her, and she dropped down to the ground underneath—a thin covering of dirt over the concrete that was part of the test floor.

She got to her hands and knees, flattened, and began to creep along in the crawlspace under the floor. Crawling for her life.

Up above, she saw the launcher fire, envisioning in her mind’s eye the missile load as it split apart into six mini missiles—which impacted on the floor, not far behind her. Ada felt fire singe her feet and ankles. Shockwaves banged her around, and the house disintegrated.

Smoke and fire and debris swirled… and she felt a heavy weight press down on her back.

Alice looked over her shoulder when she heard the detonation—and saw the fireball rise. Could Ada have survived that?

“They’ll be coming!” she signed to the girl. “We have to hurry!” They continued running along the sidewalk, cutting between houses, then down an alley.

She had a stitch in her side. Or something worse. The pain was increasing, was viciously throbbing, burning… Alice reached down, felt her left side—and found hot blood pumping out. She was wounded. She’d caught a bullet somewhere in the fusillade back at the house.

She pressed her hand against the wound, trying to staunch the flow of blood and encourage clotting.

It hurt like a bastard. And every step made it hurt worse. But she kept going.

She always did.

As they ran, the young girl panting, Alice glanced over her shoulder—saw someone back there. They were being followed.

Up ahead, Alice saw herself appear in a mirror wall, the girl beside her.

They ran up to the mirror, gasping. Alice paused, turned away so the girl wouldn’t see, and checked the injury in her left side. It had clotted—was no longer bleeding. For now. But it ached and she’d lost some blood. She hid the wound under her clothes, and turned back to the mirror wall, where the girl waited.

Alice strode to the wall, and opened the door. They stepped through, and found themselves in a Moscow train station. She looked around in a kind of sickened fascination. Was there no end to these proving grounds? Was there no end to the perversity of this place?

Dori and JudyTech were in a utility passage, hurrying along over dusty concrete, under the aluminum pipes and fluorescent tubes tracing the narrow ceiling. They’d passed some unarmed bio-lab personnel— though no one had challenged them.

Dori had changed into the clothes JudyTech had brought her, so she was wearing a tight-fitting combat outfit, complete with a trooper mask. So was JudyTech. It was hard to breathe in the mask. She hated the smell of it, and the way JudyTech looked in the trooper mask. Both wore the inactive scarabs, and it scared her to see the one attached to JudyTech, even though Dori knew it had no power over her.

“There’s no time for us to get out before the flood starts,” JudyTech said as they reached the end of the passage. Her voice was muffled by the mask. “The only way is to be able to survive underwater…”

The door was standing slightly open, and they both peered out.