A mere 48 hours had passed since the Hive had sealed up, and Rain had been dealing with a serious hitch in her effort to depopulate the Hive — namely, more of those fucking lickers had broken out of their containment sarcophagi and were running amok. They weren't attacking her directly (or any of the other zombies — and wouldn't that have made things a lot easier in a way), but they seemed to be probing for a way out. They'd nest in the so-called dining hall where they'd been interned, then leave seemingly at random to try to claw through the walls or the ceiling. One of them hovered around the sealed main entrance, the one that led out right into downtown Raccoon City, at all times. And while they didn't attack her, whenever she was in sight of one of them they'd all stop what they were doing and just stare at her, as if they weren't quite sure if she was prey or not.

It unnerved the hell out of her.

If she could just get through to the Red Queen's antechamber (where the team had left a number of weapons, explosives, and other supplies), she figured she could kill them easily enough. They hadn't eaten any fresh DNA and so weren't mutating. But every time she tried to sneak in to the antechamber, she'd inevitably run into one of those fucking things, and the staring would just scare her off.

She was lingering in a hallway close to the dining hall, trying to psych herself up for another attempt at walking past the lickers without losing her nerve, when she heard a distant grinding sound, and all the damn lickers snapped out of whatever they were doing and galloped along the floors and walls and ceiling, all beelining towards the main entrance which, by the sounds of things, was no longer sealed. Stupid bastards had to open it two fucking days after shit went down, she thought angrily, readying her fire axe and chasing behind. She wasn't going to be able to stop the shitstorm that was about to go down, but she sure as hell was going to try.

XXX

"Owie." Alice awoke in pain, and she hoped this wasn't going to become a habit. She was in a creepy medical experimentation room, and a big wide mirror on the wall showed her that tons of intravenous tubes were hooked in all over her body. "Owie owie owie owie," she repeatedly chanted, easing them out of her skin as best she could. A silly little full-torso paper loincloth preserved her modesty, and she had to wonder at the mindset of the kind of folks that would make sure she wasn't going tits out while subjecting her to horrific medical experimentation.

Oh sure, this might NOT be a horrific medical experimentation situation, but she knew she hadn't been bitten or anything, and her last memory was of being dogpiled by a bunch of hazmat-suit wearing assholes who'd needled her into unconsciousness. None of that necessitated a shitload of tubes going everywhere into her. Well… almost everywhere. She couldn't imagine how hellishly painful extracting a catheter on her own would feel. (Not to mention what a pain in the ass wearing diapers until her urethra went back to normal would be). Whatever.

The room had one door with a keycard lock, and Umbrella (who else?) had thoughtlessly left her without a key. She glanced at the mirror (likely a two way dealie) and considered smashing that in, but she'd have to unbolt the bed from the floor (Umbrella had thoughtlessly left her without a fully loaded toolbox) or else throw herself through a window, and her for-all-intents-and-purposes nudity left her grimacing at the idea of practically rolling around in a big pile of broken glass.

"Well, let's try something really stupid, that always works," she said to herself. Grabbing one of the bloody needles she'd just extracted from her body, she approached the card reader, fiddled around with it for a bit, then grew bored and frustrated and just jammed it right on in there. She was awarded with a bit of sparking action as the door unlocked and slowly swung open of its own volition. "See, told you so," she said to nobody in particular.

She found herself in a hospital, and snagged a white doctor's coat from a break room before she made it to the exit. (She'd been hoping to steal someone's lunch, but found no lunch and one vending machine that had been smashed open and completely raided. Some even stole the fucking licorice.) Apart from the vending machine and the complete lack of other people — oh, and the medical experimentation room she'd been in, can't forget that — nothing in the hospital seemed amiss.

She saw the glass in the doorframes was all cracked and spiderwebbed, though, and understood even before seeing with her own eyes that she was in a dead city. "Oh, look at that," she said deadpan, surveying it all. "Who could have ever seen this coming. I thought building a bioweapons lab under a major city was actually a good idea." She blew a raspberry.

The street was choked with cars that were either haphazardly parked, wrecked, or actively burning. Papers littered the asphalt. She saw a newspaper headline that read "THE DEAD WALK!" and rolled her eyes. She saw an ad on the side of a bus that read "At Umbrella Medical, we try to make teddy a little softer."

"Bullshit," Alice muttered. "I didn't even get a teddy bear."

She moseyed over to a police car, grabbed the shotgun, wondered why the absent-or-dead cop hadn't brought it with him, then cocked it. She stood there for a few minutes as the camera dramatically panned out, showing the wrecked cityscape… hahaha, but no, she was just listening to see if the sound brought about any nearby zombies. When none immediately made themselves known, she ducked back into the patrol car and began a quick rummaging session.

She quickly turned up an item of interest — a business card for an establishment called Fremlin's Surplus and More (yes, this is actually the name), located at 224 Bayliss Way. It promised, among other offerings, guns, ammo, and clothing. Having more weaponry on hand was a definite plus, but to be honest the clothing held a much stronger appeal. Traipsing about in her birthday suit when it was just her mansion was acceptable; less so in a city crawling with undead. Going around in a borrowed doctor's jacket and a flimsy paper gown was not the best call to make.

The fucking temperature definitely didn't help matters. 92 degrees, she was halfway convinced she'd died and ended up in hell. The sensation of sweat trickling down her asscrack made her crave underwear like nothing else.

After grabbing a map from the glove compartment (remember paper maps? El oh el) and checking her location vs. the surplus store, she started hoofing it. It was actually quite a walk, and she had to watch her step for lack of footwear. By the time she arrived at her destination, the sun had set. It was eerie as fuck, walking through an abandoned city with not a single soul in sight, living or dead. Every so often she tried to send out a mental message to her deceased damsel, but either the Magic of True Love had a cripplingly short range (unlikely), she'd just hallucinated the whole thing (more likely), or she just wasn't doing it right.

(There was, of course, another, far more tragic possibility, but she refused to entertain that one).

She shucked off the doctor's coat and peeled off the pathetic little paper gown (it had gotten stuck to her body with all the sweat and she had to peel it off in little chunks — ick) and started getting dressed. She'd put on a tank top and was just pulling on a pair of jeans when painful convulsions drove her to the ground. "Ooooowie oooowie," she said through gritted teeth. She watched as a mysterious mass began inching its way up her arm, under her skin. "Oh shit, just like in The Mummy," she groaned, wishing she had a knife at hand, too wracked with pain to actually be able to use it regardless.

She grimaced as the flashbacks struck her. Dogpiled by hazmat assholes. Matt carted off on a stretcher, looking scared as shit. Kaplan hauled off too, to only God knew where. "Take her to the Raccoon City facility," a voice said. "I want her quarantined, close observation."

Windex. God, they gave her that fucking Windex shit. "Prepare for exposure," another voice said. "Up the dosage. Just do it!"

She checked her pulse, just to be sure, and it was still beating strong and steady. So whatever the T-virus was doing to her, it hadn't killed her. Yet. And she still had her skin, that was another bonus. "Well, at least we won't have to worry about protection, baby," Alice murmured to the quiet shop, wondering if Rain was hearing her and she just wasn't able to transmit or whatever. She finished gearing up, strapping as many guns to her person as she could without them clinking together like she was a medieval knight or something. (She was amazed that the store's stockpile of weaponry was practically untouched, but maybe the outbreak had arisen and ravaged this part of town too quickly for anyone to take advantage of it. Whatever, at least she could come back to resupply if necessary.)

Alice left out the back… and stopped, seeing a big beautiful motorcycle parked right there, waiting for her. Sure, she'd still have to navigate the streets cautiously, since there were a lot of stalled and wrecked cars haphazardly strewn throughout the streets, but it'd still be a lot faster than walking. The keys were in the cash register. "Bingo bango bongo, I want to get the fuck outta the Congo," Alice said in celebration, keying the ignition and peeling off down the road.

The motorcycle was loud enough to draw the attention of the city's growing undead population, and she began to see them trickle into sight as she navigated the clogged roads. She found that she could… anticipate, for lack of a better word, when one was about to pop up from somewhere. She was about to pass a bus when her brain, well, tingled, and she brought the motorcycle to a sudden stop. The zombie laying in wait around the front of the bus leapt out, and it would have managed to tackle Alice right off the bike if she hadn't stopped. "Huh, am I part of the Psychic Zombie Friends Network now?" she asked aloud, urging the motorcycle forward and splattering the walking corpse's head with its wheels.

It's not like it was completely insane, of course. The Red Queen had mentioned something about extrasensory quantum something-or-other, but Alice hadn't really been listening. Plus, there was her own experience with her and Rain's souls being bound together for all time via the act of True Love's Kiss. She again narrowed her eyes and focused on re-establishing that psychic true love connection with Rain. She imagined staring into her dark, beautiful eyes…

"Oh, duh, moron!" Alice said, taking her hand off the handlebars long enough to slap herself on the forehead. When she'd become a zombie, the pigment in her irises had inexplicably fled, leaving her with the cutest baby blues! She leaned over the handlebars, narrowed her eyes even more, and kept Rain's post-mortem face in her mind's eye as she attempted to beam out another communication.

XXX

Rain made her way through the police station, its hallways teeming with her fellow undead. She'd long since given up trying to simply thin out the numbers in the city as she'd tried to do in the Hive, as it was increasingly clear that the infection had outgrown any reasonable hope of containment and quarantine. She knew the procedure for the situation inside and out (had studied up on it, hoping to one day rise to the command structure of Umbrella's mercenary squads), and knew the city was going to be sterilized, sooner more likely than later. Much as she was tempted to stay behind and minimize the risk of spreading the infection beyond Raccoon's borders, she had a gut feeling that that ship had already sailed. (And she knew that Alice would be heartbroken if she remained to be incinerated).

Hence, her arrival at the police station, hoping to secure weapons and (more importantly) full body armor. One glance at her and it was quite obvious that she was a zombie, so anything that covered every square inch of her body and prevented any unnecessary wear-and-tear on her skin was crucial to not simply being shot on sight. She'd been fortunate that she hadn't run into any living humans since emerging from the Hive, amidst the butchered Umbrella goons in hazmat suits that had been torn open and discarded like candy bar wrappers.

She'd just made her way to the locker room used by the local STARS unit. They were fresh out of guns, but the locker labeled J. Valentine had a full suite of riot gear. She'd stripped down to her skivvies and was about to start getting dressed when what she assumed was a cannon shot bowled her over.

"RING RING RING RING RING RING RING BANANAPHONE!"

Rain couldn't help but giggle (which she expressed as a grumbling gurgle, what with the whole 'damage to the frontal lobe' bit that she'd picked up rom dying). It was just her girlfriend, sending the most annoying psychic message imaginable. "Babe, if my brain had mental eardrums, you would have blown them out. Cool it, okay?"

"Sorry!" Alice replied, sounding flustered. "Oh, babe, I've been trying to get in touch with you for hours! I thought… nevermind." A fraction of the fright and sadness that had been creeping around in the back of Alice's mind made its way through, and Rain's non-beating heart ached at how worried she'd been. "Oh man, but so much shit's happened, you won't believe —"

"Umbrella cracked open the Hive, tens of thousands are dead," Rain said, interrupting her. "I'm in the police station now, looking for equipment."

Alice beamed through an inarticulate squeal. "I'll swing by and pick you up in a few, sweets! I… oh, I have no idea where the cop shop is, haha. I'll have to stop and look at my map."

Rain hurried through the act of dressing as Alice went silent. She put on the pants, the jacket, the boots, the gloves, and had just slipped the helmet on over her head when the door leading out into the hallway burst open and a woman slipped into the room, slamming the door shut behind her. Seconds later, the zombies on the other side reached it and began growling and pounding away at it.

The woman let out a relieved breath, turned around, and jumped in fright upon seeing Rain sitting there. She raised her gun. "Are you human? Are you alive?" she demanded. Rain nodded yes to both counts, only lying once. She lowered the gun, and Rain wondered who she was, and what she was doing there. Not that she could ask, of course. She had long red hair, tied back in a ponytail, and wore a red motorcycle jacket and blue jeans.

"You have any spare ammo?" she asked. "I'm low." Rain shook her head, made her hand into the shape of a gun, and shook her head. "Shit." She frowned. "I'm… not sure how we're gonna get out of here," she said, worried. "My brother told me to stay away from Raccoon, then he stopped answering my calls. Naturally, I ignored his warning, and… well, you probably know better than me what a shitstorm this city has become." Rain nodded firmly. "I'm sorry, this would probably be so much easier for you if I knew sign language." Rain shrugged — it wasn't like she knew it, either. The other woman narrowed her eyes and leaned in, staring at Rain's chest.

"My Spidey sense is telling me someone's trying to ogle my honey!" Alice angrily interjected. Rain mentally shushed her, projecting an image of herself putting her fingers to her lips and going "Shh!"

"Valentine… Jill Valentine?" Rain looked down and saw that, indeed, Valentine's name was printed on the breast of the body armor. Huh. "Oh, thank God, my brother said I could trust you. You know Chris, right? I'm Claire." She stuck out her hand.

XXXXXXXXXX

It's never really stated how much time passes between the Hive sealing shut and the Hive being reopened, but I figure two days is a nice, stupidly short number for Umbrella.

I actually just did a quick check and the set designer's name was David Fremlin. God bless you, you genius, I would have done the same thing.

They never do explain why Alice had a weird little lump traveling up her arm.

Alice's psychic powers begin to manifest in the second movie, and I don't just mean at the end when she melts that dude's brain. There are numerous points in the movie that she just magically shows up to save the day, and the only two explanations are "shitty writing" and "psychic powers". (And "shitty writing" already carries so much weight in the franchise, hahaha). I'll go into the psychic shit more when the time comes.

I kinda fell ass-backwards into this, but Rain and Alice being able to psychically communicate is also canon to the movies. When Alice is in that water tank thing at the end of Apoc, she gets a psychic message from Angie telling her to wake up. (I've come around on Extinction, but my God it could have been so much better if they really leaned hard into the psychic shit, hahaha). I'd actually forgotten that this happened until just a few minutes ago when I rewatched the whole ending sequence for the brain-melting part, haha.

And let's welcome our SPECIAL GUEST STAR CLAIRE REDFIELD! I always liked how the events of the first and third games are implied to kinda-sorta happen offscreen (or get outright derailed by Alice's story, hahaha). There's no reason to believe the events of the second game don't also kinda-sorta happen, so I figured "Why not?" and dropped Zombie Rain in there to hang out with Claire (and yes, Leon will of course show up too).

AIA will likely be nine chapters long. The main reason for it being shorter than AIR is simply that Alice doesn't appear throughout large stretches of the movie, and those scenes where she's absent… more or less… happen as they did in the movie, so I won't be repeating them. (I say "likely" because I have eight chapters written, but the last chapter ended up being like 4000 words and I'd like to split that into two chapters if I can manage it).

There's no guarantee of when I'll start writing the third entry (tentatively titled "Rain, it's Aliceing!", haha), but if I get around to writing it soon enough, I'll probably try to power through and finish it before I finish posting chapters of this bad boy. So, best case scenario, y'all start getting chapters of RIA in August.