Resident Evil. Retribution (7 page)

The Undead, as one, instantly turned toward her.

The J-pop girl raised her arm, pointed, and unleashed an unearthly howl. Majini tentacles exploded from her mouth, whipping frenetically. The salaryman and the kogal flanked her and lumbered toward Alice.

Other Undead, awakening from a momentary death, transformed with radical speed, getting to their feet and turning their milky eyes toward her. There were too many to fight with a gun and a chain.

A strange creaking, evolving into a rumbling, came from behind Alice. She turned, prepared to run, and saw a 109 Department Store building. It was beginning to split open, the front halves of the big structure parting like giant doors. Blinding white light shafted out from within—where nothing else was visible.

There was nowhere else to go. Once more, she accepted the unspoken invitation, and fled into the light.

Pursued by the crowd of Undead, Alice sprinted into the building, blinking, eyes adjusting to the burst of luminescence—it was like the corridor of milky, glowing glass she had left behind, but taller and wider.

She didn’t run into the building alone—the Undead were close behind her. She heard their clumsy but relentless feet, their gasping and burbling and the clacking of their jaws.

A corridor appeared out of the glare, but before she was halfway down its length, she heard an Undead pelting up behind her; lunging, pushing her off balance. Alice stumbled against a wall, then had to turn and face her adversary.

The Undead J-pop girl was out in front of the crowd of Alice’s pursuers. Having only just died, her young body was just as strong as in life—and far more relentless. There was no time to get a bead on her head. Alice spun, swinging the chain, her motion making it difficult for the creature to grab her. The chain’s lock connected solidly with the girl’s face, breaking bone. The jaw sagged down, coming to rest askew.

But she kept coming, oblivious to pain, clawing at Alice with long, brightly painted fingernails— fingernails with glitter on them. Her broken jaw wagged back and forth.

Alice shot her in the forehead, stepped out of the way as she fell, swung the chain around the neck of the salaryman, yanked it hard to pull him off balance so he fell on his face. She fired past him at the kogal, the round tearing off a chunk of her skull but not nailing her brain. The kogal leapt at her—Alice dodged, and the girl sprawled atop the salaryman, knocking him down.

Four more Undead—two men and two women— came next. Behind them, about thirty paces back, surged a horde of the things, too many to count.

Alice fired at the closer group, blowing a heavyset blowsy housewife’s head apart. The creature went down, and right in the path of three that were following her. They tripped over her, as Alice had hoped, ending in a confused tangle of limbs and snapping jaws.

Something grabbed Alice’s ankle, and she looked down to see the kogal gnashing at her leg. At that moment she was grateful for the boots. The salaryman was like a crushed beetle, limbs wriggling, trying to stand. Alice kicked the Undead girl in the face, stepped back, and fired, aiming carefully so that the .45 slug smashed through her forehead, penetrating and angling down into the salaryman’s spine.

There was the sound of clomping feet, bubbling snarls, and she turned to see the three Undead she’d tripped up, double-time marching toward her, side by side. Alice fired three times, from right to left, woman-man-man. The tall woman took one right between the eyes, spun around, and fell; the chubby little man at her side took one in the mouth, and fell backward; the third one, a big man, bald, perhaps a sumo wrestler, merely lost an ear.

And kept coming.

Alice sidestepped and jerked hard on the chain that was still wrapped around the salaryman’s neck, pulling it taut between her and the paralyzed creature, snapping his neck and creating a tripwire of steel links. The sumo stumbled over the links and went down with an impact that shook the floor. She shot him in the back of the head, then spun and emptied her gun at the onrushing horde, knocking several more of them down.

She pulled the chain free—and ran, just paces ahead of the horde. There were too many of them to fight. She sprinted full out, and up ahead saw an opening in the wall.

Not a good time to look a gift horse in the mouth
, she mused.

The horde dropped back a little, but still followed relentlessly. If she slipped and fell, they’d be on her. But she reached the opening and darted through. As soon as she did, twin doors slid shut from both sides, slamming together at the center. Immediately she could feel a lock clicking into place.

The Undead pounded on the door, but the door held…

That was the good part. The bad part was that she found herself in complete and utter darkness.

Jill Valentine led her team of troopers down the corridor to the interrogation room. The lights were strobing on and off at random, all along the hallways. She carried a flashlight, played it on the partly open door to the chamber Alice had escaped.

But how?

Jill opened the door wider and looked inside. The room was empty except for the cot and the paper gown Alice had discarded. A drawer was open, extending from the wall—yet it shouldn’t have been openable. Nor should the door—not from the inside.

She went to the drawer. There was nothing in it but an empty plastic bottle. So they’d even given her something to revitalize her.

The monitor had shown Alice wearing a black Umbrella combat outfit—one that fit her remarkably well. Who had loaded it into the drawer? Jill went back to the door, and examined it. She saw no marks, no sign that anything had been used to pry it open, or even to get to the locking mechanism. Someone had to have helped her get out. Someone on the inside.

The strobing irritated Jill.

“Get these lights back online,” she said to her second.

“Yes, ma’am,” he replied, his voice muffled by the mask. The trooper jogged off to locate the building generator, in search of an override switch.

“And contact Control!” she called after him. “Find out what the hell’s going on.”

But she had a strong feeling they knew no more than she did.

The relentless hammering continued, unabated.

Get a clue,
Alice thought, as she put a fresh magazine in the Glock.
That door’s not designed so you can break it with your fists.
Now—where was she? She turned, trying to make out something in the darkness—but to no avail. It was total.

Until it
wasn’t.

Across the ceiling, lights flickered on.

Expecting to see someone throwing a switch, she readied the automatic pistol, and tensed. But there was no one else to be seen. The room was large, echoingly empty, with a milky glass floor. There was a big red and white logo in the center of that floor— seen from above, it would appear as the shape of an umbrella. The brand was repeated, though smaller, on three of the walls. The fourth was occupied by a floor-to-ceiling window.

She walked over to it and tried to peer out. No good. It was pitch dark out there.

As she moved back across the room, wondering if she’d entered still another trap, the toe of her boot pressed the very center of the umbrella logo in the floor. Something clicked in response. The lights dimmed, and panels in the floor opened up. From them, monitors and a line of high-tech workstations began to rise slowly up out of the floor, humming as they came.

Now that’s interesting…

There were a dozen of them, all around the edge of the room—and at each one was an Umbrella trooper, sitting facing away from her. Alice pointed her Glock at the nearest one—who fell from his chair as soon as his station clicked into place.

But she hadn’t fired.

She stepped closer, looked at him—and saw that the eyepiece of his mask had been penetrated. Blood traced the cracks in the eyepiece. He’d been shot.

They had all been shot—they were all dead.

Then something else was rising from the floor—a rack of guns.

“Pay dirt!” Alice exclaimed.

As soon as it clicked into place she began to pick and choose. She chose an assault rifle as her primary shooter. Then she filled her pockets with extra clips, and strapped on some throwing knives for good measure. Before she was done, she had strapped on as many weapons as she could carry and still move effectively.

Without warning, the monitors on the workstations lit up, all showing the same image—Jill Valentine, glaring into the camera. The sound of her voice filled the room.

“Control, come in! Control, this is Security Chief Valentine! We have an escaped fugitive! I need her location! Control, respond.”

Alice watched the monitor fixedly—but as she did, she was aware of something else.

Someone slipping up behind her. Very quietly.

But…

She spun, snatching a pistol from the hand of a beautiful young Asian woman with short-cropped hair. The newcomer wore a tight red dress slit to the hip, and red spectacles.

The instant Alice grabbed her gun the woman whirled about and—with a precise martial arts strike—kicked the gun from her hand. The pistol spun through the air and in an instant was caught again by the woman in red. She smiled coldly as she pointed it at her target.

But Alice was already in motion. Slipping in under her attacker’s defensive stance, she drew a knife and pressed it to the woman’s throat…

The result was a standoff. The Asian woman in red was pointing a pistol at Alice, and Alice—all in black— had a knife against the woman’s jugular. Gazes locked and weapons gripped tightly in their hands, they glared at each other, neither making a move.

Alice kept it simple.

“Don’t,” she said, eliciting a reply.

“My name is…”

“Ada Wong,” Alice interrupted. “Operative for the Umbrella Corporation and one of Albert Wesker’s top agents.” Contempt twisted her lips. “I know exactly who—and what—you are.” She pressed her blade, fractionally, and a small drop of Ada’s blood trickled down her neck.

Ada didn’t even blink. Nor did she pull the trigger.

“The real question,” Alice said, “is why I shouldn’t just cancel your contract right now.”

“I don’t work for Umbrella anymore.”

Alice shrugged, just slightly.

“I don’t care. She angled her blade, readying it for a quick slash… Then she heard a chillingly familiar male voice. An impossible voice. The voice of a ghost.

“You can kill her if you like. But then you’ll never get out of this place.”

Glancing past Ada, Alice saw the face of Albert Wesker, framed in the monitors. He was wearing shades, as per usual, dressed in black, and grinning with wicked wideness.

“Wesker…” Alice shook her head in wonder. His duplicated faces flashed across the row of monitors.

“How nice to see you again,” he responded pleasantly.

“I killed you!”

Wesker shrugged apologetically.

“A clone.” He smiled. “You didn’t really think I’d put myself in harm’s way, did you?”

Alice looked again at Ada… at the gun in Ada’s hand.

“Now,” Wesker said, “be a good girl and put down the knife.”

“I let you out of that cell,” Ada said. “I led you here. You wouldn’t have made it this far without me.”

“Why would you want to help me?” Alice asked.

“I have my reasons. Let’s just say, for the moment, your interests and mine are in alignment.”

Alice shook her head.

“I’m not going anywhere until I know where we are, and exactly what’s going on here.”

Wesker sighed.

“You are in the prime Umbrella Testing Facility.” He chuckled and added, “The belly of the beast.”

Alice lowered her knife. Ada lowered the gun and stepped back. But each woman kept a wary eye on the other.

“Explain Tokyo,” Alice demanded flatly. “I saw it destroyed.”

Wesker adjusted his shades.

“What you just saw was a detailed re-creation. Nothing more. It goes on for a few city blocks—that’s all.”

“I was outside…”

“Were you?” Ada asked. “Saw the night sky, did you?”

“It was night,” Alice insisted.

“Stars? The moon?” Alice didn’t reply, and Ada added dryly, “I thought not.”

Around the room, a series of monitors flickered, then showed downtown views of Berlin, Tokyo, New York, London, and several other cities she didn’t quite recognize.

“The testing floor,” Wesker said, “is a mile across. Three hundred feet high. The ceiling is black. It’s
usually
night in there. But isn’t that when the monster comes out, anyway?”

Alice still wasn’t convinced.

“It was raining…”

“Sprinkler system,” Wexler replied, sounding almost bored. “Fitted to the ceiling for climate control. They can even make it snow, if they want to.”

It all began to sink in.

How many mock cities were there, here in this facility? And why?

“Why build such a place?” she asked.

“Simple,” Wesker said. “The Umbrella Corporation derived its primary income from the sale of viral weaponry. Something that’s impossible to test in the real world. So Umbrella re-created the center of New York, simulated an outbreak, then showed the results to the Russians—and sold them the virus. Then they simulated an outbreak in Moscow… and sold it to the Americans. An outbreak in Tokyo…”

“They sell it to the Chinese.”

“An outbreak in China…” Ada added.

Alice nodded.

“They sell to the Japanese.”

“Everyone had to have it,” Wesker said proudly. “The Umbrella Corporation built a new arms race. Only this time it was biological, rather than nuclear. Highly profitable…”

Alice glanced around the control room, a chill tightening her skin as she imagined it. She stared at the doomed cityscapes displayed on the monitors. She hadn’t known about this, back when she was Security Chief of Umbrella. The corporation was notorious for keeping its most secret projects on a “need to know” basis.

Most likely they’d realized she was having doubts about the corporation’s T-virus research.

“And this,” Wesker went on, with a flourish of his hand, “is where it all happened. Umbrella’s greatest investment—their greatest creation. Like I said, the belly of the beast.”