Chapter 20: Volume of Blood per Minute

The harsh white of Alice's cell blinded her when she first opened her eyes. It took several long seconds for her vision to clear enough to see where she was. Her room was ten feet by ten feet, and had very little in the way of accommodations. There was a bed, a camera, a toilet, a sink, and a light.

Instinct made her check the time; a self-destructive habit made her unsuccessful. Her wrist was still bare, but the rest of her was not. As she sat up on the small mattress she saw that she was wearing all white clothes. Her long sleeve shirt and pants were of simple cotton, but there were six metal rings sown in on the chest where the fabric was missing. She had no idea what they were for. The next thing Alice noticed was that she was barefoot, and clean. There was no blood on her anywhere. She was unconcerned that it was probably the lustful soldier that washed her.

Alice looked at the door. It had tiny slit at the bottom, and no handle on the inside. Not that Alice was worried she couldn't get free if she wanted too. She did however have to drown that desire. The blonde had to wait until Isaacs collected her before she could leave this room. Waiting was not something she was good at, especially when she didn't know the time. She could've have spent hours maybe even days unconscious, but Alice had no idea.

The blonde began to pace a moment later like the caged tiger she was. She felt that her strength had returned, though she still required food. Alice could only manage four steps before she had to pivot, and walk the length of the space again.

She'd easily go mad in here.

Time passed, Alice wished she could have said how much. Her thoughts kept on Claire and K-mart for most of it. She was already trying to work out what it would take to find and free them. Until she knew more she would have to be patient. Plus, there was the cure she had to take into account.

Is the cure worth it? Alice wondered as she turned. Would her effort be better spent rescuing the two survivors or making a cure?

Alice saw the cure for what it really was – a lie. Even if the undead could return to the side of humanity their deteriorating bodies would not allow them to live. The 'cure' would terminate them, but Isaacs had something else up his sleeve. He knew something she didn't. Using the serum to create immunity however, was a worthy goal. It could never undo the damage she had done, but it could stop the destruction from spreading.

The blonde suddenly heard footsteps outside. No one had passed her cell before, she was sure of it. She quit pacing, and stood facing the door. Alice was so ready to be out of this room, no matter what awaited her when she left it.

The white door opened. Alice was thankful not to see a white hall awaiting her. Instead it was a pearlescent grey. Standing in the doorway was Dr. Isaacs; his lab coat already on.

"Good morning, Project Alice," he greeted with cheer.

Morning? That means next to nothing to me, Alice thought. How many mornings have I already missed?

The blonde felt it polite to respond, so she didn't. Isaacs merely smirked at her silence.

"I have great news. Your blood was a success."

Again Dr. Isaacs rendered her speechless. She hadn't dreamed it would be so soon or truthfully – that it would work at all.

He continued to ramble off his findings as he motioned for her to join him in the hall. "I have yet to run full tests on the serum as a vaccine and a cure, but the lab results are promising." They walked along the corridor. Alice was listening, but she was also mapping everything she could. The hallway her cell was in was marked 4D, and devoid of nothing but other doors. She needed a better feel for this place, and she needed information.

"Isaacs?"

"Yes, Project Alice?" Again the term was one of endearment, and again it reminded her of the perfection that separated her from everyone else.

"My friends…" Alice couldn't finish the question. She wasn't sure if she was allowed to ask about them, but the man placated her just the same.

"Safe, and as long as you follow my orders they will remain that way."

Isaacs had always been a man of his word with her, but she didn't find comfort in that. She wouldn't be happy until she could see them both with her own eyes.

The pair turned a corner, and Alice saw two Umbrella soldiers guarding a door. She was so desperate to know why they were placed there. It was entirely possible that Claire and K-mart were both behind that solid door. The blonde's nostrils flared and her eyebrows drew together. She could kill all three men in an instant, open the door in another, and have her answer in a third. If she was wrong, she'd have to tear this ship apart. Alice was ok with that. What she wasn't ok with was the possibility that Claire and K-mart weren't even onboard, and that if she went manic now there would be no inoculation.

She tried to make it seem that she didn't notice the soldiers as she walked behind Isaacs. Only two guards? Alice wondered. Surely Claire and K-mart warranted more security, because surely the doctor had to know it would take much, much more to stop her. Maybe they weren't right there, but something was.

Alice was going out on a limb, but she had to try. "Can I see them?" If Isaacs was smart he would say no, and Isaacs just so happened to be a genius.

The doctor didn't stop his forward motion in the slightest, but he did seem to look off in contemplation. They reached his lab, and the blonde still had not gotten an answer. She was ready to take his silence as a refusal, but Isaacs motioned her to take her place on the operating table and then responded.

"If you are good today I'll think about it."

It was a million times more hope than Alice had since Umbrella found her, and she clung to it. It didn't exactly mean that Claire and K-mart were on the ship, but it was a possibility. She began to strip and then jumped up on the table, her bare legs again hanging off the edge. Isaacs pulled on his surgical gloves, but Alice was sure she could handle the pain today – now that she knew what might await her at the end of it.

He began to prep for drawing more of her blood. This time using a tourniquet to make the veins in Alice's arm more pronounced. The doctor set up a needle in each arm, and her blood began to pour into the plastic bags hooked up to the tubes around the needles.

Isaacs started to explain, his accent pronounced like he'd never even spent a day outside of his home country. "The main ingredient for the serum is your blood. I can't fabricate any good amount of it unless I get all the blood I can from you. A normal human can survive losing about forty to fifty percent, but something tells me you would live no matter how much I pulled from you."

It wasn't very long in and Alice was already feeling feint. Isaacs withdrew the needles, and her skin healed the puncture holes in a matter of seconds. The doctor handed her a bottle of water.

"Drink, we need to replenish your blood as fast as possible. I want to take all that I can from you today."

Alice brought the container to her lips, and swallowed the liquid down. It was her first fluid intake since her drunken stint in the woods. She was still quite dizzy, and the fog was making her bold.

"Tell me something doctor. You keep mentioning a cure, but you and I both know that would never work."

Isaacs seemed interested as Alice continued to drain the bottle.

"You are correct, but it is possible to give those creatures back some manner of intelligence and memory to curb their hunger."

Alice cocked her head to the side. "There's more you're not telling me."

"It is Umbrella's intent to use them for a docile workforce."

Her eyebrows rose. "Slaves? Ha. No respect for the undead," Alice said deeply amused.

"Indeed." Isaacs chuckled and collected the bags of her blood. He walked them out, and was back a little later.

The rehydration was finally having an effect. Alice's head was clear though she could tell her blood was not fully replenished. Still, she was ready to start again, and she knew Isaacs would be happy to hear it.

"I can go again."

"As I anticipated."

He prepped her veins again, and just like before set up two extraction points. They went on this way for ages it seemed. Alice was getting weaker and recovery took longer each time. She was driven to the point of shaking and nausea. The pain, while dull in most places, was slowly taking over as her brain suffocated from the lack of oxygen that blood provided.

"Last time my dear."

The blonde could hardly register who was speaking to her, but he sounded fatherly. While his words were not comforting the sound of his voice was. The final pints of blood were drawn from her veins, and the man spoke to her again.

"You were very good today, but I cannot reward you."

Alice knew that was bad news, but she couldn't recall why. Again a man in a combat suit had to carry her back to her cell. She hated seeing the white, but thankfully pain and exhaustion stripped the consciousness from her in the first few seconds after being placed on her cot.

The blonde woke again to the same brightness. It was as if the light in her room never went off. Alice would've given anything for a window, but the pessimist in her assumed that if she had one it would only give her view of the murky abyss.

Eventually, Isaacs came for her. When the doctor greeted her it was without any indication of how long it had been since they'd last been together, and again she was struck by the fact that she had no sense of time. He had made sure she'd eaten before they began their session, but the food mostly made her queasy.

Alice began to measure the time she was awake by the amount of pain she was in. The more pain – the closer she was to the end of her 'day.' Isaacs was always chipper, but Alice grew silent as their appointments carried on. Before every bloodletting Isaacs would walk her past the guarded cell, and her heart raced, but by the time she was carried back she was too out of it to even remember that there was something behind that door.

Claire and K-mart seemed more like figments of her imagination than actual people, but when she roused herself from the blood loss induced comas she thought of them right until Isaacs opened her door. He started coming for her sooner and sooner, and it left her little time to remember the sound of K-mart's voice or the color of Claire's eyes. With every ounce of her altered blood lost, she was losing herself.

Alice's hair had grown almost a half inch, but the more radical change was that it was beginning to revert to her natural brown. Being out of the sun coupled with the constant stress her body was under was making her skin pale. She hardly remembered what she was doing anymore.

Isaacs talked often as he exsanguinated her. His rants always did have a funny way of making it into her brain, and sticking. She learned the name of the ship they were on – Arcadia. Its purpose was not protected by the doctor. The ship was for research, and there was next to no place safer for that than in the middle of the ocean.

He spoke about Umbrella's shortcomings too, specifically those that had to do with the head of Umbrella – Wesker. He was a man wholly driven to pound humanity into the ground with his haughty demeanor and big plans.

One session, Isaacs discussed his need for test subjects for the inoculation, but Wesker was denying him use of the Umbrella employees on the ship and refusing the doctor's requests to capture more survivors. This seemed to piss the doctor off immensely.

Though he hurt her, his was the only human interaction Alice received. She'd come to rely on him like a father. The voice and pair of eyes she used to think of as often as she could didn't have names to go with them. They were no longer real; Isaacs was all that mattered to her now.

She was his slave, completely. Dr. Isaacs's first mistake – through all the time they'd been together – was letting that get to his head.

:( Poor Alice