Alice and co. found a wrecked bus to hunker down in for the moment. Alice, Peyton, and Terri sat, while Jill decided to stay standing and light up a cigarette.
Alice looked scandalized. "You're going to die of lung cancer, you know," she pointed out.
Jill gave her an incredulous look. "What?"
"Yeah," Alice said, nodding her head. "Smoking is bad for your health. There should be a little warning from the Surgeon General on your smokes."
"Like I give a shit," Jill said, taking another puff and blowing the smoke out, growing frustrated with the conversation. "Odds are I'll be dead by tomorrow anyway."
"I'd also like to point out that secondhand smoke can cause the same detrimental health effects that directly smoking does, so all of us are gonna die of lung cancer too," Alice pointed out. Peyton and Terri were steadfastly gazing at the floor, wanting no part of the argument.
Jill resisted the urge to grind her teeth together. She angrily stamped out the cigarette instead. "There, happy now, MOM?" she snarled.
Alice's face lit up in joy. "Yes, yes I am, my beloved daughter!" She leapt up and squeezed Jill in a tight embrace for a moment before Jill hurled Alice off of her with a bellow of disgust. Alice laughed, sat back down, and went into Serious Mode. "Okay, Dr. Dipshit on the phone said that he can get us out of the city if we save his daughter from being moidalyzed."
"I'm sorry, what's 'moidalyzed'?" Terri asked.
Alice affected a high-pitched tone. "Hey Moe, I'm gonna moidalyze ya!" She poked her fingers in the direction of Terri's eyes, who managed a perfect parry, raising her hand in time to avoid being blinded.
"Nyuk nyuk nyuk," Peyton muttered. Terri and Jill gave him a Look. "What, a man can't appreciate classic slapstick comedy?" He shook his head. "I say no fucking deal, though. We find the building with the thickest walls and strongest doors, and we barricade ourselves in, sit tight, wait for help."
Terri nodded in agreement with this plan, but Alice shook her head. "Sorry, gang, but they're gonna nuke the shit out of us in a few hours." A thoughtful look crossed her face. "Although… if we could find the main entrance to the Hive and somehow break in… maybe it would work as a blast shelter?" She shrugged. "I was in charge of the backdoor, though, so I wouldn't really know where to start looking for the front part."
"They're gonna nuke us? What yield?" Jill asked.
Alice considered. "5 kilotons? Which is only a third of the size as the one we dropped on Hiroshima. I mean, personally I'd go with a good ol' 1 meg, but maybe that'd make it harder to sell the 'nuclear plant had an oopsie' cover story." She shook her head. "Although if the American public is really fucking dumb enough to buy the idea that a nuclear plant can just explode and flatten an entire city in an instant, I don't know why they'd bother with a cover story in the first place. Just say 'Everyone in Raccoon spontaneously decided to try lighting their farts, and it didn't end well'."
"It's bullshit!" Peyton challenged. "No fucking way would they get away with that! It'd be all over the fuckin' news!"
Alice gave Peyton a big patronizing smile. "Peyton, sweetie, I know it's a bit late in the game for you to be learning this, but sometimes the bad guys win."
Jill threw in her own two cents. "Peyton, you were there at the bridge. You know exactly how far Umbrella will go."
Peyton gasped in pain as he pulled himself to his feet. "So what do we do now, huh?"
Alice cocked her shotgun. "Let's beat feet before they heat our meat," she declared. "We'll make a tweet and get picked up by the parakeet elite."
Jill placed her gun directly onto Alice's forehead. "If you make one more rhyme, I'm going to fucking kill you."
Alice smiled. "Jill, your constant attempts to flirt with me are doomed to failure. I'm a happily taken woman. Oh, speaking of, hold on." She closed her eyes and put her first two fingers to her temple like she was Professor X or something. "Okay, just had to send a mental message to my missus to make her way to the elementary school."
She left, leaving Terri, Jill, and Peyton to give one another uneasy looks. "So, she is crazy, right?" Terri asked.
"I hope so," Jill said with a sigh. "The other possibility, that she isn't, is even more frightening."
XXX
They made their way to the overpass which would take them to the elementary school. The road was fairly clear, as it had been barricaded for maintenance (and Alice could see a pickup with traffic cones or some other related bullshit loaded into its bed parked nearby).
Jill decided to bring up the Fuck This Plan argument again. "What if there is no way out of this city, and he's watching us on these cameras, like this is some kind of sick game?" she asked.
Alice's Zombie Sense suddenly tweaked her brain, in a manner far more intense than the lickers or the zombies. "Well then he can watch me spend my last moments having hardcore gay sex with my fiancee," she said definitively. She turned to the railing and looked down at the area beneath the overpass. "Oh, guys, FYI, my Zombie Sense is tingling."
Peyton, Terri, and Jill all exchanged tired looks. "I don't see anything," Peyton challenged.
"Yeah, well, you don't have psychic superpowers," Alice pointed out.
"I'm getting sick of this bullshit!" Peyton snarled, more upset at the whole situation than at Alice specifically. He pulled back the slide on his pistol and willfully strode forward… for like two steps before he got ventilated, haha. Goodnight, sweet prince!
Jill screamed in fury as the minigun claimed her friend's life, firing off a retaliatory burst from her pistol even as she ducked for cover behind the truck.
Alice stared at the big disfigured bastard emerging from the shadows, minigun in hand, leather trenchcoat that could double as a full-sized tent with some minor alterations, and she once more recalled the last thing she heard as Matt and Kaplan were being dragged off: "I want him for the Nemesis program."
"So, that's Nemesis, huh?" she muttered to herself. "Sounds about right." She turned to Terri and Jill. "Okay guys, mosey on out of here, I've got a Hive Reunion Party to attend." She gestured to Peyton's body. "Oh, don't forget to grab his gun and pop him in the head so he doesn't come back."
Alice leapt straight the fuck off the overpass, landing on the ground below without any fuss. None of that silly ass crouching-with-one-fist-down superhero posing that would become ubiquitous in later years, no, just a little bend to her knees for something that would give any ordinary person twin compound fractures.
And then she stood there and waved. "Hey, Matty, how are you doing?" she asked. Nemesis roared in response. "Oh, that's cool. You know, leather is actually a good look for you," she said. "And hey, that minigun is fucking awesome! I'm guessing you're currently brainwashed, or you wouldn't have used it to straight up fucking murder Peyton up there." She pointed to the overpass for emphasis. "So… I'm noticing you're not trying to fill me with more lead than a Chinese toy," she observed. "Did you have a sudden change of heart? Oh, I always knew you were a big softy!" She frowned. "Hey, don't be offended, but I'm going to try something."
She lifted one pistol, aimed it at Nemesis, and watched its muscles tense up as it subtly shifted the minigun to center it on her torso, the barrel starting to spin up. "Okay, not pulling the trigger or anything, relax, Matt," Alice chided. "Aaaaand part two of the experiment…" She aimed the pistol away, then holstered it. Nemesis seemed to go into standby mode and relax a little, the minigun barrel ceasing its rotation. "Okay, cool," Alice said. "You respond only to aggression."
She looked all around, wondering where any surveillance cameras might be. "Hey, whoever decided it would be hilarious to perform insane torturous medical experiments on my good friend Matt Addison, your stupid fucking murder machine is broken! If you were hoping for some pitched fucking battle where we fought each other tooth and nail to the death, well, you know how it goes! Wish in one hand, et cetera!" She finally spied a surveillance camera by the reflection of light on its lens, and pointed both hands at it, middle fingers extended. "That's right, sit on this, you 731 wannabe shitnuggets!"
XXX
Cain stared at the computer screen in silent fury. "And there's no way to manually force him to attack?" he asked his flunkies.
"I'm trying to alter his protocols, but none of them are taking!" one technician said.
"No sir," another one answered. "There was always the concern that remote manual controls could be hijacked by unauthorized personnel, hence the reason the Nemesis program was made to be mostly autonomous and only prioritize hostile targets. Its programming specifically disallows targeting noncombatants." Indeed, who would be insane enough to walk up to a mangled monstrosity mounted with a mountain of munitions and attempt to befriend it?
"And who was the fucking imbecile who made that decision?" he snapped.
"…Y-you, sir," the flunky responded.
Cain had to try very, very hard to resist the urge to pull out his gun and murder his support staff. He was angling for a spot on the board of directors, and wantonly murdering his subordinates for no material gain would definitely be a strike against him. "…Get out," he finally hissed out.
"But sir, the subject —" his flunky tried to argue.
"I SAID GET THE FUCK OUT!" he roared.
XXX
Alice was now standing almost face-to-face with Nemesis. "Alright, big guy, how are we gonna do this?" She gently took hold of his left hand, which was still clenched in a fist. "Oh hey, so, bit of news: I can use my psychic love powers to talk with Rain! Let me give her a quick ring now."
She did her Professor X pose again. "Hey, baby! You'll never believe who I ran into on the way to the school," she said, speaking aloud for Nemesis' benefit. "Matt fucking Addison! Yeah, you'll always believe what happened to him. Yep, those bastards turned him into some kind of fucked up Frankenstein monster with a big badass leather trenchcoat and a fucking minigun and… okay, yeah, you got me, I am a bit jealous. But — no offense, Matty — his skin's all fucked up, and he don't have any lips any more, and… yeah. It makes me sad too. But hey, Umbrella fucked up and he only goes into Kill Frenzy mode when you act aggressively at him, so maybe we can try to rescue him? I'm still working on the logistics of getting this big mofo to move. Oh yeah, Monster Puberty made him shoot up to like seven or eight feet tall or something. I dunno, I'm not a carny, I can't guess heights. …Oh, you think that'll work? Great, I'll try it and let you know. Love you!"
She turned back to Nemesis and gently took his clenched fist in both hands. "Okay, Rain suggested that music might work to soothe the savage beast. And hey, I already figured out the savage part, so my work's already halfway done!" She gave him a big cheerful grin. "Okay, my memory's still… well… fucked, I dunno how well I can sing, so let's find out together. Hope it doesn't count as a lethal attack on your eardrums, amirite?" She winked at him.
Tale as old as time
True as it can be
Barely even friends
Then somebody bends
Unexpectedly
"You know, maybe they wouldn't have bended Unexpected Lee if he'd called ahead of time to let everyone know he was coming," Alice observed, interrupting herself. A strange choking noise came from Nemesis' mouth, and his fist unclenched a little. Alice narrowed her eyes as she stared at him. "Was that… was that a laugh, Matty?" she asked, giving him a tentative half-grin. She cleared her throat and continued.
Just a little change
Small to say the least
Both a little scared
"Well, we're both more than a little scared, ain't we?" she confided in Nemesis, before continuing.
Neither one prepared
Beauty and the seven foot tall hardcore killing machine
Nemesis made the strange choking sound again, and its fist fully unclenched. "There we go, Matty," Alice said, beaming up at him. She locked her eyes onto his one eye, and wasn't able to stop the water works — happy that she'd broken through to him, miserable because this good, innocent man had had his life so utterly destroyed by Umbrella in so many hideously unfair ways. "Alright, let's go meet up with the others. We're on our way to the elementary school, to save this little girl." Nemesis — Matt — nodded acknowledgment, and they started walking on, hand in hand. "Don't forget, the others will probably try to attack you on sight, but you're a bit of a toughie now, so just give me a chance to cool them off before your… programming, conditioning, whatever it is, takes over and tries to slaughter everyone." Nemesis grunted. "…I hope that was a yes. I don't have a psychic love connection to decipher your weird little vocalizations."
After a few moments, Alice began singing again.
I was working in the lab, late one night
When my eyes beheld an eerie sight…
Nemesis let out an anguished groan, and Alice didn't need a psychic love connection to decipher what it meant.
XXXXXXXXXX
Seriously, 5 kilotons really is Babby's First Nuke. Google the website 'Nukemap' and you can punch in a bomb with a 5 kt yield and you can see how freaking tiny it is. You could be standing at ground zero and, with, like, an hour's head start, be at a safe distance as long as you kept up a brisk walk!
Also, 'nuclear plant go boom' really is an embarrassingly bad cover story. People know how nuclear plants explode! It's nothing remotely like how a nuke explodes! This is general knowledge! Plus, seismic sensors and… I wanna say air pressure sensors?… can detect a nuke going off, and that's not exactly technology strictly regulated by Umbrella either. Hell, the government can detect the flash of a nuke from space if they have a satellite looking down at it! Since this movie came out in '04, they could have easily had Umbrella blame a vaguely Middle Eastern terror group for nuking the town. (The only reason it's not actually a plothole is that it's realistic that Umbrella has enough power and influence to force the story down peoples' throats and suppress anything contradictory. Then again, I'd love to see this universe's Al Gore produce An Inconvenient Truth 2: Zombies Are Fucking Real).
In the movie, Alice stares into the shadows beneath the overpass and mutters "Nemesis…" to herself. Alice, hon, where exactly did you hear that name, other than your own memories? And how did you make the connection between the name 'Nemesis' and the hulking monster with weapons out the wazoo? (I mean, the guy DOES look like he'd be a Nemesis, so I'm willing to let this one detail go). And Alice, if you know this guy's Nemesis, and you previously recalled Matt being hauled off and drafted into the Nemesis program, how the hell did you not make the Matt-Nemesis connection until you were impaling him on a piece of metal?
This leads into a hypothesis I have formed: Canon Alice is a big meathead who ignores anything that she cannot punch, kick, or shoot. I'll be talking a lot more about this hypothesis at the end of 3!
AND WE GOT MATT BACK! Gosh, isn't this exciting? When I began AIA I wasn't sure exactly what I'd be doing with Nemesis, until I started writing the scene, realized (my) Alice would instantly make the Matt-Nemesis connection, and completely ignore fighting him in lieu of trying to break through to him.
Next chapter: More reunions! Angie! Maaaybe one or two surprises, hahaha.