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#I don't own anything, promise O.o#

*NB: Anything written in Italics is the thoughts of said character.

Chapter 17

Alice never thought that a city could be this quiet. There was nothing, no bodies of the recently eaten or of the undead. It was quiet. The quiet turned cold, seeping into her bones and making Alice shiver from the inside out. Leon was walking with a shotgun cradled in his arms, his head pointed straight ahead, making it appear that he didn't feel the need to look from left to right to scan the area for incoming death.

Chris fell in a little behind Alice. Just before they left the hotel, Leon asked Alice a question that made Chris glare daggers at him. He simply asked if she believed in life after death. She didn't answer. She couldn't. But it didn't stop her from thinking about it right now. She checked and rechecked her guns and made sure that she had a few extra clips hidden on her person, and made sure that she had enough knives on her that could take down the biggest mofo that Umbrella threw at them.

Yet her thoughts kept being pulled back to Leon's question. Does she believe in life after death? If Alice was being honest with herself, it happened to be quite obvious that she's not the religious sort of person. How could she be if her kill record was pulled up? She shot people she knew and loved. She shot people she didn't know, all in the name of survival. It was made clear by Carlos' clone that if the three of them went to the Umbrella facility there would be no heroics, there would only be survival. The question of if they would be the ones surviving was the one she pushed from her mind.

They had to survive. Alice had to get Chris back to the ship where Claire was waiting for him. Leon had all those people waiting for him back at that camp. She didn't have anyone to go home to, but it didn't matter to her. Alice bit her lip as they moved across an intersection with haste. This time Leon looked around. No one could blame him for being careful. Once they were a block away from the intersection, Alice allowed herself to think again. Someone once said that a person shouldn't threaten a person if they were afraid of losing. Threaten when you are aware (and open) of the fact that you could lose it all, and still go for it.

The moment Alice realized she was willing to lose it all, was back when Carlos, her Carlos, died. When he gave himself to save the last remaining people in the convoy. She couldn't say goodbye the way she wanted to. It was all in haste. There was no time to get teary-eyed about someone dying. Death is still all around and no one can possibly cheat death. Except Alice. She died more times than she felt willing to count. But Umbrella kept bringing her back. The more she wanted to let go of this shitty world, the more she kept being pulled back.

Alice glanced back at Chris. He didn't deserve what she was doing to him now. He had built up an attachment. Attachments equaled pain and regrets. Alice couldn't allow herself to grow attached to him. 'How do you grow attached when your heart died along with someone else?' Her mind yelled at her. How can one know the answer? Alice was willing to die a week ago for what she saw as the only way out. But now? She didn't seem to be so sure. Everything came out quite clear. Carlos' clone made her heart ache for the man, the real man, the man who knew her, the man who pointed a gun right back at her with a grin the size of Texas.

Leon made her laugh when she didn't want to, when she didn't feel like doing anything but stare out of the window and plot the doom of Umbrella. He made her feel like Matt did, way back when. She didn't know Matt for more than a day, but they protected each other, leaned on each other and when she had to kill him, Alice felt like she was killing a little part of herself with him, even with his death by being smashed to death by a helicopter, he did it for her. He protected her, like he said he would.

Chris didn't look at her, even though Alice knew that he was aware of her eyes on him. He refused to let her die, but he didn't see. Her death would save so many people, but he didn't see it that way. When she was still in school, her history teacher told Alice about the leader of a village who had to choose between the king killing his new wife or fifteen villagers. He chose the villagers over his wife and said that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. He saved the lives of fifteen people and sacrificed his beloved wife.

Why couldn't he see that this is what she was trying to do for them? Yes, the fifteen people did not keep him warm at night or bear his children, but they made him sleep easy after the tears had fallen for his wife. It sounded idiotic to Chris, and even to Alice and Leon, but it had to be done. There was no way around it. 'Death comes for us all in the end' was something Carlos had whispered in her ear one night while on patrol when they were Detroit. Some things never change.

"It's like they are herding us to the Umbrella facility." Leon said, just loud enough for Alice and Chris to hear.

"Seems like whoever is in control down there wants Company." Chris grinned and pulled his gun from its holster.

"Well, we did promise to kill them all. Let's not disappoint them." Alice grinned and shot out in a full run. There was a hungry 'uuuuh-ing' she could barely make out. The undead were still roaming around, but at a bit of a distance from them. Alice could hear the two men running after her. Leon let out a barking laugh that made him sound a bit mad, but Alice only grinned at the sound. They were ready now.

There will only be survival… quite right.

:::

"Is the machine ready yet?" A voice boomed over the electronic box on the wall. They were being rushed again. The subjects must be getting closer than had been anticipated.

"Not yet, sir." The voice of a young man, no older than 25 replied.

"Hurry up. We don't have all day." The voice boomed back. There was a soft click as the intercom was turned off.

"You know, stalling just pisses them off." A young woman whispered as she shuffled closer to the young man.

"I know. It isn't like this might just save the human race or destroy it completely." The young man replied.

"I know, but I- Jim, don't stall this any longer. This has been tested on the last clones we had left, and the program concluded that the machine would only word with the original project Alice."

"I know Cara, just… don't you think that this has gone on long enough?" Jim replied, pointing to the three people strapped to padded tables.

"It's all we have left Jim. We agreed to leave it in their hands, not take the fate of the human race into our own." Cara whispered in desperation.

"I can't Cara. Not when there is so much at stake." Jim replied, pulling Cara's hands to his own. "You do know what he asked us to do, right?"

Cara nodded and looked down at their clasped hands. Umbrella always had a few tricks up their sleeves. But this, this was by far the riskiest, and the biggest one that may just blow up in their faces. Not even counting the fact that they turned the whole world into dead walking. No, this was far worse. This could kill all of them, and then they would be screwed and dead.

"Will you do it Cara?" Jim asked in a hushed voice. Cara only nodded in agreement.

"I'll do it." She whispered back after a few minutes.

"This has to work, and it will. Don't doubt him… or me." Jim let go of Cara's hands and turned back to the computer screen where he was currently programming minute loopholes into the program.

Cara leaned forward and kissed Jim's temple, steeling herself for what was to come. This had to work or they were even more doomed than the outside world. "Just be safe." She whispered in his ear and moved back to her station before Jim could reply. She knew the Umbrella officials were right outside the blast doors and may have even listened to their conversation. They may even torture them when their work was finished, but that didn't matter now.

She was focusing on survival, that's all she had on her mind. Survival was running through her mind, even as she heard the minute blast and felt the floor shaking beneath her feet as a few dust particles fell from the ceiling onto her keyboard.

Jim turned to look at the side of her face, just as the intercom was activated again, and that annoying voice boomed in their ears.

"That program better be ready, because they're here."

:::

A/N: Sorry for the very long delay in getting this out and sorry it's so short. RL kicked my butt and I hit a major writers block. I hope you are all still with me, and you don't hate me too much for going off with this one a little bit.

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