Chapter - 8 Take It Back
The lift carried us down to the center of the facility, and as soon as the doors opened, we were faced with a dozen Umbrella soldiers standing in formation, more were undoubtedly hiding in the hallway. I lifted my gun to my shoulder, aiming it at the soldiers, behind me I heard Jill and Chris following my lead.
We stood in silence, everyone waiting for someone to take the first shot. I could hear the pounding heartbeats of the soldiers, fears pulsing through their veins. "My name is Project Alice." I called. A cacophony of clicks sounded as everyone cocked their weapons. "I've been sent by the Knave to call for an emergency evac." I paused, waiting for a response. When none came, I continued. "My team has cleared the exit, all the way to the prison annex on the surface."
A couple of guns dropped an inch or two, "We have direct orders to shoot anyone on sight." The captain shouted, the guns rising back up.
I laughed, "You mean Chairman Wesker told you that your jobs are gone if you don't lock yourself in this death trap. My orders are to purge this facility whether or not you have evacuated." I could only hope these idiots believe me, we only have so much time before Chris and Jill are past the point of no return.
"Black Queen." The captain shouted, "Verify orders."
I clenched my teeth, that bitch better come through. The little girl's creepy voice came from the speakers above, "Project Alice has been charged with the evacuation of this facility Captain Jerault."
We stood in place, waiting. Everyone was beginning to tremble with the stress. I stared Jerault in the eye, daring him to defy orders. He stood straight up, and the rest of his soldiers followed suit. "Come on." I pulled Chris and Jill out of the elevator.
Jerault turned on his radio, "All active assets to the central elevator. This is an emergency evac. This facility is to be purged." He turned it off and led the way to the lift, pausing when he reached me, "Thank you."
"We all have our jobs to do." I replied. He nodded and took his men out of the facility. "Come on guys. They'll be piling out of here for a while."
"Smooth moves," Chris mumbled, "How did you know what to say?"
"Didn't Jill tell you? I used to work here. I designed security systems, and implemented them in hives all over the US. I actually thought that they had all been abandoned until you came in with the directions to this place." I grabbed a passing soldier by the collar, and yanked him out of the stream of traffic. "Where are the antiserums stored?" I demanded.
"Second left, third door." He replied, pulling away from me and rejoining the traffic to the elevator.
Jill pushed past us, following the directions given to us by the soldier and I checked the other rooms as we passed. The first door held a chemistry lab, the second was a pristine white, with an examination table covered with a thin sheet.
Doctors standing over me, talking about blood pressure, and virus progression. I tried to get out of the bed, but I was strapped down. Panic began to fill my mind, I yanked harder at the straps, flailing from side to side. To my left I saw someone… Matt, his name is Matt. He was in the same predicament as I am, but his neck was stuck full of needles. IV's of all different kinds of colors were attached to the tubes, and he flailed in his restraints. Dark objects rippled under his skin, and what looked like little black worms crawling out of a wound on his arm.
"Project Alice, go back to sleep darling." I felt a long-fingered hand on my forehead, and jerked away from him.
"Dr. Isaacs, she's not going back under."
He smiled at me and it sent a shiver down my spine. "Up the dosage. Sleep Alice, you will be needed soon, I promise."
Jill grabbed me by the shoulder, "Where the hell is this damn antidote you were talking about?"
I blinked away the visions, "This way." I stumbled into the lab, my body isn't cooperating with anything I tell it to do. It stopped working entirely when I heard that voice again.
"Welcome home Project Alice." I waited for the images to start again, but they didn't. "It has been so long since I've seen you in action, you showed such great promise, and you waste it on these… Lesser humans." The hairs on the back of my neck rose up, and I turned to see a nightmare.
Dr. Isaacs stood in front of me, towering over me, his calm gaze freezing my heart. He reached out to me, "Come with me precious." He purred. Helplessness filled my mind, stopping my heart, holding me fast. I could feel the panic ripping away my control until my body moved of its own accord, taking slow steps back. "Let me help you make a better future." Future? How long is he going to keep me this time? A year? Two? What will be left when I finally escape his hands again? What about K-mart and Claire? K-mart.. Claire.
"No." I clenched my teeth and steeled myself. His shock gave me the extra seconds I needed to jerk my rifle up to point at him, and pull the trigger. Seven bullets, two to the head, five to the chest. The gunshots rang in my ears long after they should have gone, my heart and lungs still felt frozen. I dropped the gun from my trembling hands, and turned to the glass refrigerator to my right. I want the fuck out of here. I dug through the empty canisters, looking for a few with the antiserum. Empty canisters. "Oh God."
"What is it now?" Jill snapped, "You forget to kill some more defensele-OW!" She yelped, I stood quickly, knowing what I would see, but instead of seeing anything, I felt Dr. Isaac's arm slam me into the wall.
I slid to the ground, my back screaming at me. "You should have been the future! A light in this dark world. You abandoned our cause Alice." He snarled, slapping me across the face hard enough that I heard my jaw crack as my head slammed into the corner. "Now I see the truth." His voice settled into a far deeper growl, a sinister sound that made my skin crawl. "You and Wesker, you are false gods. I am the future of this world! I shall lead humanity into the light of salvation. And your death shall be the first step."
Death really got to him. "And Alice called me crazy." Chris snarked, emptying a clip into Isaac's chest with seemingly no effect. The doctor snarled like a ravenous beast and charged at Chris, his heavy steps shaking dust from the ceiling, in those minutes of death the Doctor had grown another foot in height, and a hundred pounds of mutated bulk. I ran past Jill's semi-conscious body, and jumped, pushing Chris out of the way.
The doctor hit me like a truck and both of us went crashing through the door, sending us into a huge white room, like an arena. The bloody stains on the walls only cemented the feeling. My back slammed into the floor and I kicked up into the doctor's gut, sending him flying into the wall. I rolled to my feet and looked at him, really looked at him without pain blurring my vision. The two bullet holes in his head were still there, but thick ropey flesh crawled down his face and neck on the right side. It crept down his right arm, looking like he had an infestation of cockroaches beneath his skin. The hair on the back of my neck was standing straight up, "Well if you're the future, things are looking pretty ugly."
He snarled, flexing his hands so hard that his right arm split into three thick tentacles. "I am more than you will ever be." Doctor rushed me again and I dove out away. Rough tentacles wrapped around my ankle and ripped me back so hard it felt like my head would pop off, and he whipped me into the ground. The floor cracked beneath me, and searing pain shot down my spine, but it was nothing I hadn't experienced before, well, maybe it's close to Nemesis.
"Well if you're going for brutish and ugly, you're as good as the next zombie Isaacs." I snarked, throwing myself at him. My boot smashed into the side of his face, but it didn't seem to to anything other than piss him off.
He grabbed me by the ankle again, "I am a superior being!" He snapped, and whipped me over his head, this time releasing me to go flying into the filthy walls.
I winced and hopped out of the hole my body made. "Good to know." I took a deep breath and lashed out at him mentally, yanking his head towards me while I thrust his body back. I'm gonna break your little neck.
The doctor smirked, and I was met by a wall of force, and I knew it was there as surely as if I'd thrown myself right into it. Blood dripped down my upper lip, and the air rushed from my lungs. "I am god."
Gunfire. Twenty-six bullets to be exact. Each one impacted the Doctor with barely any force, but over half of them ripped through his skull and impacted in the ceiling. I got to my feet and wiped the blood off my lip, watching him with a grin. I'd never imagined that I could give him such a thorough beating before he'd died. The fear of him left as soon as he'd reverted to an animal. "Some god." I spat at his feet. Isaac's eyes went blank, and he slowly tilted forward until he crashed to the ground. Over the massive mound that was his mutated body, I saw Chris, "Couldn't have come a few minutes earlier?" I asked, sounding breathless to my own ears.
I took a quick inventory and realized that I'd taken quite the beating. Bruises, breaks, tears, and more than a little nerve damage. If I weren't an abomination, I would have died early, but even so, this will hurt tomorrow. Chris grumbled, "Come in on a shining white steed, glowing armor, and she'd still wonder why you didn't grab lunch too." He rested his rifle on his shoulder, and walked out, shaking his head, "No respect."
I started to follow him, but I hesitated. I looked down at Isaacs and decided nothing was too much. His neck gave a loud crack as I snapped it under my boot. "Hey Jill you find that antidote yet?" I called, walking back through the damaged room, each crack in the wall matching my bruises.
"Way ahead of you. While you were playing human wallball with the freak, I got the last of it right in here." She patted her duffel, she tossed one to Chris, "Time to shoot up Redfield." He nodded, doing as he was told, and I walked over to the computer.
"We fulfilled our end Knave. Tell me about this satellite."
The girl appeared beside me, and the screen came to life with a readout that looked like those old pictures of the earth, "It holds a shallow orbit around the North American continent as if it were a North Pole, maintaining constant range for activating your neural chip. The only two people with direct access to the unit are Chairman Wesker, and Dr. Isaacs. Now down to one person."
I grimaced, "I can fix that." I closed my eyes and drowned out the questions, the voices, everyone talking around me. I focused on the satellite, searching for its influence on me. I felt the signal, watching me with its greasy mechanical eyes. I reached out, my whole body straining to keep up. Everything pulled at my attention, sights, sounds, smells, pain. They tried to yank me away from my freedom. I pushed harder, until I could nearly see the hunk of metal and plastic. I bit down on my lip and exerted everything I had left to rip the satellite in half, spreading bits and pieces across the atmosphere.
Darkness.
Ugh, every inch of me feels bloated and fat, everything aches from head to toe. I put my hand to my head, feeling the familiar curls of my hair. I opened my eyes and I was met with the sight of a colorful wire bracelet, K-mart. I sat bolt upright. Next to me someone jumped in surprise and I flinched back, "Holy shit Alice, don't DO that." K-mart exclaimed, smacking my arm.
Oh thank god. I sank back into the, whatever I'm laying on, "What happened?" I croaked.
"You've been out for two days," K-mart said, flopping on top of me, and snuggling in. "I was starting to get worried that you wouldn't wake up."
I smiled and rested a hand on the back of her head, "Not even a coma would keep me from you." I teased, "We can't have you corrupting the world with your crazy ideas about civilization."
She grinned up at me, "If you're feeling good enough to tease me, then you are just fine to get up. Come on, I have some people you've gotta meet." She hopped up, ever full of energy, and dragged me out of bed. I won't say I actually needed the help, but with the way my legs shook when I put weight on them, it was probably best that she did force me up. I followed K-mart outside.
The sun was blinding, even with half of it already below the horizon, "Did we have to use the west facing doors?" I grumbled, shading my eyes. "Where the hell is my hat."
"That hat became mine when you left it behind." A vaguely familiar voice said to my right.
I looked and saw Claire Redfield. God damn… Claire. A vixen in red if I've ever seen one, form-fitting red vest that had to be hers before the outbreak, olive cargo pants that matched my hat, and my hat on her head. She's gorgeous, a smoky voiced angel. I allowed her a small smile, "It looks better on you." I admitted.
She grinned, "I'm glad to see we agree on something. You picked a fine time to wake up though, Olivera is going to be pissed he carried you in there and you wake up after he leaves."
I laughed, god I don't think I've laughed and meant it in so long. "Maybe I was avoiding that ugly mug as long as I could. He's not exactly my type." I joked, "So where is he anyway?" I turned full circle, looking for him, I could still feel Claire's gaze warming my face, but I ignored it. There were over a dozen people walking around, enjoying the dying light, and unpacking sleeping gear. Olivera was riding an ATV shoving stick things into the sand. Chris and Jill were huddled over the beginnings of a fire, feeding it. "Scratch that, what the hell is he doing?" I asked Claire, looking back to her.
I could have sworn her cheeks turned pink, "Setting up the perimeter." Her voice and heart rate remained the same, must be a trick of the light. "The motion detectors all hook up together, and they warn us of movement from anything bigger than a cat. It's saved our asses more than once."
I nodded, "Makes a lot of sense." Over by a big truck, a man was sitting on the bumper, handing out food to the rest of the camp. "Who's that?"
"That's Otto!" K-mart broke in, reminding me she was still there, "He has some kind of magic with cans, he always knows exactly what's in it just by shaking it!" Of course that's the kind of thing she would geek out about. I smiled, "OH! And then there's Betty, the nurse, she's been helping me to get you all bandaged up, and of course with all the nosebleeds, you could have lost a lot more blood if she hadn't been helping me."
"Nosebleeds?" I frowned. "How many have I had?"
"At least four a day." Claire informed me, "Betty was getting worried. She has been going through rags like nobody's business because we can't afford to use the gauze." Claire looked worried too. "Three days of it has pretty much cleaned us out. We've got a couple of the kids searching for water, or clean linens to use. The plan was to wash them and reuse, gross as that sounds."
Panic spread through my body like ice water to the veins. "No." I snapped, sharper than I should have.
"What? Alice we have to recycle what we can."
I grabbed her arm and dragged her out of earshot of the others, "No, you can't." Oh god, "Please tell me you haven't already." Three days, so many things could happen in three days.
"No we haven't." Claire tried to yank her arm from my grip, "What's the big deal?"
"The big deal is that I am infected." I hissed, wanting the smack her for being so careless. K-mart I understood, we had been together so long, that she mostly just ignored my abilities, or accepted them as normal, or whatever goes on in that head of hers.
Claire went pale, "Oh god. I-I forgot, you were just, I mean.. You look so, oh my god, I could have killed everyone."
I lifted her chin, "You are going to show me where those rags are right now, and we are going to burn every one of them. You understand me?" I want to kiss her. Here we are talking about the risk of infecting this big group of survivors, and I just want to kiss her until the fear haunting her eyes is long gone. Fuck me.
Claire nodded, a shadow of something flashing in her eyes before she'd turned and gone, stalking to the ambulance parked by the food truck. She pounded on the door, "Betty, open up Betty."
A peppy black woman opened the door with a look of concern, "Hey Claire how's Alice?"
"Fine thanks." I replied, "But we need everything you have that touched my blood, and we need it now."
She raised an eyebrow, and looked to Claire. Claire nodded, and Betty went back, "Well I'm glad you're awake now girl, but you need to work on that healing thing of yours. This morning you looked like death, now you look ready to jump right into things." Her voice was a little muffled, but she had no problem projecting her voice, and when she came back with the plastic bag full of rags, I snatched it.
"Perks of being me." I replied. "You positive this is everything?"
Betty frowned at me, "Yeah girl. That's all of it. You want to tell me what's going on here Claire?" Her fearless leader looked to me with the expression of a woman who never compromises, suddenly faced with the need to compromise a big part of her moral compass to keep someone safe.
"Tell her, she deserves to know." I took the bag and burned all of it, even the plastic. Jill and Chris gave me strange looks, but Chris seemed to trust me, and Jill… Well she's not exactly predictable on her best day.
