A/N: Hopefully this won't mess anyone up but I hate the line spacing, I think it makes the lines harder to read, so I changed it in word. Finally, to those that wanted it, I'm going to explain what's wrong with Rain. (Also, just so its said I didn't go to sleep once I finished the previous chapter, so if something seems a little off, that's it: lack of sleep.) Please review and let me know what you think. Thanks.

My vision was beginning to straighten out but the colors...they were all wrong. The world seemed bathed in too much light. I could make out all of Rain's normally shadowed face. I regained my balance and got slowly to my feet.

"Alice?" I focused on Rain, anger flashing through my face. Why had she stuck me with the fukcin' needle?! Now, her expression had changed. Instead of the smile, there was contempt, a haughtiness that I had never seen on her face.

"Get up."

I stood.

Rain smiled. "Good."

I stood there, hesitating, wanting to speak but somehow not being able to.

"Speak," Rain commanded.

"What did you give me? And why? What the he-"

"Stop."

I stopped.

"I noticed your implant wasn't working when I had to make you drop the Sig," Rain shrugged. "I gave you a tune-up."

"Get your weapons and follow me. Don't tell anyone about what happened in here," Rain ordered, her expression blank.

What the hell? Who was Rain working for? No, wait, I knew the answer. Damn the Umbrella Corporation, first for creating the T-virus, secondly for creating the Hive and the homicidal Red Queen, thirdly for their experimentation-on me. I realized something now, too late, which should've been very obvious. Umbrella never did anything without a cause. Rain's re-appearance was no coincidence. Obviously, they had done something to her, something that involved me. All while I had been thinking, my body had been following orders and I found myself back outside, Chris looking at me curiously.

"You were gone a while. What went on in there?"

My brain screamed, Tell him! Tell him, you idiot! But I had orders. And whatever Rain had done to me had me silenced.

"Nothing. I was upgrading." I felt sick inside, with the insane urge to laugh. I really had been upgraded. I could see every line of Chris's face, as if someone had thrown a spotlight on him. I could hear his heart, tapping out a beat faster than mine. I had already assessed every possible way to kill him, deciding on which was most efficient in under a second. It was like every logic sensor in my brain had been put on overdrive. I could kill him easily and not feel bad about it-except that wasn't right. Part of me felt sick with the thought of coldly murdering him; the other part felt nothing. I would feel no regret, no grief. I was just doing a job. I wanted to scream, to cry. What kind of inhuman monster had they created? Umbrella, what have you done now?

We had been traveling for an hour when we heard the moans. Actually, I had heard them about fifteen minutes before everyone else and had glanced at Rain to see if she had heard them. She held a finger to her lips. I opened my mouth to speak anyway and found I couldn't. Even a non-verbal command, it seemed, could defeat my will. That's when I made my choice. I could either spend my life as Umbrella's pawn or I could fight it. Guess which door I chose.

I caught Chris's eye. Quickly, I made the signal for alert, trusting his S.T.A.R.s training to pick up on it. He nodded once, a slight move of his head. Apparently, commands had limits. So, if Rain told me not to speak, I could do anything else but that. It was a theory worth testing, but not now. Ten minutes later, I saw Chris's eyes widen as he began to hear the moans and shuffles of the mass of undead creatures moving towards us.

"Rain! We need to get these people up," he yelled, pointing towards the roof of a nearby building. I knew what he was thinking: we could jump the gap between each building; the zombies could not. I knew her answer before she said it.

"No." It was quiet and yet that simple word carried. Then, the zombies were on us.

Sherry screamed and so did Claire. I didn't blame them. At best, most of the zombies had been decaying for more than a day. At worst, well, one had grey matter almost falling from its broken skull. Another's eye was hanging on only by the retina. There were at least fifty of them. Crap.

I looked back at Rain and saw her strange smile. I knew what she was thinking; knew it because I was thinking it too. We were both safe because we were infected. That was why the zombies had not attacked me in the building where I had rescued Sherry, Chris and Claire. I wasn't a meal. But everyone else was.

"RUN!" I screamed, for all the good it did. Chris grabbed his weapon: a Remington pump-action shotgun and blasted the nearest zombie in the face. It went down but another replaced it. Then, I realized something else. Rain hadn't forbidden me from helping these people, simply from saying anything to them about the approaching threat. Time to test that theory.

I smiled and I knew it wasn't pleasant. In one fluid movement, I pulled the Sig from its thigh holster and shot a zombie reaching for Claire and Sherry. The little girl could only stare, wide-eyed as the monsters shuffled closer and closer. I had made a promise and no fukcing programming was going to change that. I moved in front of the zombies, blocking Claire and Sherry. Meanwhile, Chris was holding his own but he was going to run out of ammo soon enough. Rain wasn't doing anything. She simply watched impassively as the zombies attacked her people. The big guy with the flame-thrower wasn't doing too badly. The problem with zombies was that they just didn't feel pain. So even though they were on fire, they weren't falling. My eyes took all of this in; my brain working on an escape route for those who were still able to escape. Already, most of Rain's people had fallen to the zombie's hunger, their screams of pain cutting through the air. I stood still, desperately searching for a way out of this mess. There! Once again, I would be saved by a fire escape.

"Claire, now!" I yelled, hoping she would understand what I was saying. I showed no mercy for the horde of creatures before me. They were in the way and needed to be eliminated. I broke necks without a second thought, ending their undead lives efficiently. Or maybe I wasn't being merciless. I was putting them out of their misery, as Rain had once asked me to do. Claire was right on my heels, Sherry's face hidden in her back. I jumped, higher than even the best NBA star's leap, and grabbed the fire escape's ladder.

"Up."

Claire put Sherry on the ladder first. The little girl moved up the ladder slowly. Claire placed a hand on the rung and looked back at me. There, for the first time, was real fear. And, with a cold chill down my spine, I realized who-no, what-made that fear appear. Me. The freak that Umbrella had created.

I heard a half-strangled yell. Chris. I turned, seeing him nearly overrun by the zombies. Only three people remained of Rain's group: herself, the flame-thrower guy and a young woman I hadn't spoken to. Now, suddenly, Rain turned to the woman and lunged at her, aiming for her throat.

"Rain, no!" my voice sounded horrified. Once again, I felt indifferent to the woman's death and what I had just seen Rain do. The flame-thrower man also stopped, his mouth open, eyes nearly bulging from his skull, disbelief etched in every line of his face. Chris, still grappling with a zombie, hadn't seen it. I prayed that neither of the girls, especially Sherry, had seen what Rain had just done. The woman's scream turned to a gurgle as blood coursed through her mangled throat. The zombies finished what Rain had started and grabbed the woman, pulling chunks from her flesh. I aimed and shot her in the forehead. No one deserved to die like that. Well, maybe someone did.

The flame-thrower carrier had recovered from his shock. He began to raise the nozzle of the 'thrower towards Rain. Too slowly. Rain was at his side and had broken his neck before his finger even reached the trigger. Rain turned to look at me, licking the blood from her lips. Her eyes were black. In that moment, I realized that there was nothing human left in the form of Rain Melendez.

Author's Note: So this was probably the longest chapter I've ever written.

To Jesse-When I started this, Rain wasn't going to be evil, only a pawn. Obviously, I changed my mind. But I'm a woman and it's my prerogative to change my mind again. :0)

Thanks to everyone who reviewed! Once again, reviews are great, flames acceptable, just explain what/why you didn't like. Only a week 'til Halloween!