The tank driver tried targeting Alice with multiple rockets and sustained machine gun fire, but she was just too good, ducking and weaving back and forth across the road, eventually driving directly underneath a car that had been propelled into the air by one of the blasts, obscuring any further attempts to shoot her.

After putting a few miles between her and the tank, Alice patted her pocket. "You okay in there, buddy?" she asked. She felt Raiden still chilling out in there, and nodded in satisfaction.

She saw a question on the motorcycle's touchscreen: "Sync devices?"

"…Sure?" Alice said, hitting the 'Yes' button. Instantly, the display changed to a countdown timer, showing 18 hours remaining. Alice checked Jill's watch and saw it was the same time. "Oh, neat! The future is now, I guess!"

Less than two hours later she passed beneath an overpass. A sign was mounted on it: "Welcome to Raccoon City", it said in big letters. It listed the pre-obliteration population — 654,765 — and at the bottom said "Home of Umbrella." Several zombies were also hanging from the overpass. Alice started to sing.

Almost Hell, Raccoon City

Arklay Mountains, dried up former river

Life is over there, because of disease

Brings the dead to life, goddamn zombies

Country roooooads, take me hoooome

To the plaaaace I beloooooong!

Raccoon City, sure is shitty!

Take me hoooome, country rooooads!

She drove to the lip of the crater at the center of town and examined the environs with a monocular that had been in a storage compartment on the motorcycle. "This crater's a lot fucking bigger than it should be," Alice remarked. She pulled Raiden out of her jacket. "Hey, do you suppose Umbrella lied about the yield of the bomb they used?" Raiden chose to keep his own counsel on the matter. "Yeah, you're right," Alice nodded. "Umbrella would never lie." She chuckled mirthlessly, put Raiden back into her pocket, and got back on her motorcycle. She was about to pull the hand back out to start it back up, but found to her pleasant surprise that it remained unlocked. "Guess I didn't need to keep this thing," Alice said, looking at Isaacs' hand. She shrugged and put it back into her pocket. You never knew when a hand would come in… handy.

She wasn't sure exactly what she was looking for, exactly; maybe just getting one last look around the old town before ducking down into the crater, which was probably her best chance of ingress to the Hive. Part of her wanted to check out the old house, but she was pretty sure that that part of the Hive was still sealed up. And, to be perfectly frank, she wasn't even sure where it was located in relation to the rest of the city. Or even if it was still standing. Oh well. She started to sing again:

Take me down to Raccoon City

Where the grass ain't green and the girls aren't pretty —

Her meandering had brought her past a large, burnt-out shell of a skyscraper (such as they were in Raccoon City back in the day, anyway) where an obnoxious reflected light suddenly flashed right in her face. "Rude bast—" she started yelling, right as she got clotheslined by a swinging pole trap.

XXX

Alice awoke to an intense-looking asshole about to plunge a needle into her. "Whoa, buddy!" Alice said, grabbing his arm and pushing him away. "Do I look like Mia fucking Wallace to you?"

The dude grew confused. "Who?"

Alice shook her head. "Not important. Technically, I didn't see that movie either." She stood up and saw that there were several other folks surrounding her in this… debris filled room? All of them watching her, tense. "Hi, everyone," she said, giving a friendly wave. "I'm Alice, and this is my friend Raiden." She removed the bobblehead from her pocket and gave it a shake. Nobody was impressed. "Well, he wasn't interested in making any other friends anyway," she announced petulantly, replacing him in her pocket.

"Alice!" Alice turned and saw none other than Claire Redfield standing in an elevated passageway, looking astonished and glad to see her old friend.

"Hi, Claire!" Alice said with a wave. "Nice to know at least one of my friends hasn't died horribly."

It turned out they were in the same burnt-out husk of a skyscraper Alice had been passing when she'd been clotheslined, and as she and Claire ascended with the rest, she gave Claire a quick rundown of all that had occurred.

"Shit, I'm sorry to hear all that," Claire sympathized. "We knew DC went quiet and we heard some shortwave reports from out west seeing nukes flying from the silos, but we had no idea it was that bad."

"Not nearly as bad as the brainwashing bit," Alice said, clapping a hand on Claire's shoulder. "I guess that's another thing we have in common now, huh?"

Claire nodded. "My life's been considerably less intense," she said. "After Wesker dropped you off at that place… Umbrella Prime?" Alice nodded. "Chris and I were separated onto two different transports. The one I was on was headed to the Hive, which I always thought was strange since you were pretty sure it had been destroyed." She shrugged. "They didn't have any proper handcuffs to secure me with, so I managed to get loose, killed the pilot, and the 'copter crashed here." She looked at Intense-Looking Asshole and smiled. "Doc and the others pulled me from the crash," she said. "I owe them my life."

Alice turned to Doc. "Doc, is that what they call you?"

"Yeah," he confirmed.

"Ehhhh," Alice said, pitching her voice up a bit and adding some fake carrot-crunching sound effects. "What's up, doc?"

"Oh, yes, by all means," Doc said, a tired look in his eyes. "It's just as funny several hundred times in as it is the first."

"Look, there's something coming towards us," Claire said. "In the same direction you came from. And it's something big."

"Ah, the bad guys," Alice nodded. "Yeah, the human race has been marked for extinction."

An alarmed look crossed Claire's face. "We can get a better look at them on the roof," Claire said. "And you can tell us more about that there, too."

On the roof, a black man stood next to a wheelchair-bound woman, who was holding a pair of binoculars up to her face. "There, to the east," the woman said, hearing the others come up behind her. "Still headed our way." She turned her chair to face them… and her face widened in shock at seeing Alice. "Alice Abernathy?"

Alice's face grew a huge grin of happiness. "Terri Morales! No fucking way! My favorite weathergirl!" She ran forward and the two women embraced. "It's Ocampo now — tied the knot with my zombie wifey. Enough about me, though, how the fuck have you been?"

"Better," Terri said wanly, gesturing to her pants legs, only one of which had an actual leg in it. "Surviving a zombie bite was considerably less pleasant the second time around. I've been doing this pirate radio broadcast the past few years, Radio Free America. Heard of it?"

"Afraid not," Alice said. "Been spending an awful lot of time in Umbrella's secret evil laboratories, it seems. But still, that's fucking cool! Nobody gonna take away your anchor position now, huh?"

Terri cracked a grin. "Hell, I'd almost completely forgotten that," she said. "But hey, enough shooting the shit, what do you know about that?" She pointed eastwards.

Alice borrowed the binoculars, staring at the twin trails of dust being beaten upwards. "Umbrella tanks, two of them. Traveling just slow enough to lead an army of zombies. They've just 100% completely gone off the rails and want to wipe out the last vestiges of the human race."

"But why?" Claire asked.

Alice shrugged. "Dr. Isaacs — there was another one running around, so this is more Clone Shit — said that Jesus was the reason for the season, but…" Alice shook her head. "I dunno. Feels like there's more to it than that."

"What do we do?" Claire asked her.

"Why the hell are we asking her?" snarled another resident of New Raccoon City, or whatever these folks were calling their little settlement. "She's a stranger, we shouldn't trust her!" He stuck a gun right into Alice's face.

"Those are very valid points," Alice pointed out. "But you kinda invalidated them when you threatened to murder me for no reason."

"Hey, hey, Christian!" Doc said, interjecting himself into the rhubarb.

"Gotta love those ironic names!" Alice wisecracked.

"Don't you touch me, Doc!" Christian growled, pointing his gun at him. All at once several people had their guns pointing at one another, amid various demands for the other person to drop their weapons.

"Hey, look at me," Doc said. "Just because you think you should be in charge doesn't make it so."

"Yeah, you should have kissed more babies during the election," Alice suggested.

Everyone gave her the typical What The Fuck Did You Just Say stare. Christian turned back to Doc. "You listen to me, Doc. You're gonna regret it. All of you!" He finally put his gun down and stormed off.

Alice leaned over and murmured to Claire. "Not gonna lie, Doc seems like a weenie. You should dump him and go with Christian."

Claire stared at Alice. "Well, at least you're still as audacious as ever," she remarked.

"So, how does a gal go about getting to the Hive?" Alice asked. "It's related to the whole 'Save humanity' thing, I promise."

"I'm more worried about our people right now," Doc said. "We have children, injured, the elderly… do we stay here and try to fight Umbrella with them? Do we try to evacuate? And what chance would they even have on the open road?"

Alice considered this. "Well, unless y'all have, like, infinity bullets or something, or an ocean of napalm stored somewhere, your chances of staying here and not dying prooooobably aren't all that good."

"This building is secure," Razor (these people never seem to introduce themselves onscreen, so just assume he introduced himself at some point earlier, haha) said.

"Did you not hear the part where I said tanks?" Alice asked. "Do you think I'm talking about, like, tanks of water or something? Tanks for the memories?" She suddenly began to cough. "Could use an air tank!" she rasped out.

"Doc!" Claire called out. Her and Doc helped Alice to a little hobo-core examination room.

"What happened to her?" Claire whispered.

"She was hit by one of the traps on the outer perimeter," Doc explained. "They were intended for the undead."

"Think she knows what the traps are intended for, chief," Alice pointed out. He handed her some shit that looked like laundry detergent, down to being served in one of those little plastic caps. "What's that?" she asked.

"Specialty of the house," Doc explained. "Have you on your feet in no time."

Alice furrowed her eyebrows. "What's in it?" Doc figured the best explanation was to take a sip of it. "…Okay, weirdo. I wasn't accusing you of poisoning it or anything, but now it's got your germs in it."

Doc sighed and put the cup down. "Alright. Drink it, don't drink it, your call."

Razor came into the room. "Doc, we need to get out of here," he said. "People are scared, and Christian's not helping."

"Did you ask him nicely to help?" Alice asked. "Try saying 'pretty please'? If that doesn't work, try adding 'With sugar on top'."

Once again, Alice was ignored. "You need to let people know what's happening," Razor insisted.

"Okay," Doc said. He turned to Claire. "I've got to go," he told her. "Hey, your friend's gonna be okay."

"Damn," Alice muttered to herself, disappointed at the prognosis.

"Thank you," Claire said, smiling at him. As he walked off, Claire sat down next to Alice. "So, what's in the Hive?"

"Apparently, the cure Beccers finished before Wesker carted her off," Alice said. "A one-and-done airborne antivirus. Destroys anything with the T-virus, or your money back." She took a deep, weary sigh. "I've got high hopes."

"Who told you this?" Claire asked.

"My girl, the Red Queen," Alice said.

"And you believed her?" Claire countered, highly skeptical.

"Uh, yeah. We're besties. She's like the little sister I never had because I was born in a test tube." At Claire's confused look, Alice waved her off. "Yeah, found out I was a clone this whole time. Kind of funny when you think about it. Not really that big of a deal."

"This antivirus, have you thought about how it'll affect you? Rain? They infected you with the T-virus, and she's fully a zombie! You release this antivirus, it's going to kill you both!"

Alice let out a weary sigh. "Claire, I love you dearly, but believe me, I've already run the calculus in my head a million times. Two lovesick dipshits vs. the entire human race? No contest, not even close." She shook her head, then in a quiet tone added: "Besides, after all this time… maybe Rain's not even part of the unliving anymore."

"Alice, I'm not…" Claire began, unsure what argument to even use.

"Goddamnit, Claire!" Alice snapped. "I'm a giant sweetheart, you know this. And part of being a sweetheart is making friends everywhere I go, despite constantly running my mouth off and doing stupid shit. And part of living in this shitass world is watching my friends and loved ones die practically every time I turn around!" She put her head in her hands. "I'm tired, Claire. I'm just… so fucking tired. Feels like I've been doing this for a million years. Is it really so wrong that I want an end to this?" Claire had no answer for that. "I just hope I get to see Rain one last time, before the end." She shrugged. "Like, maybe she's a prisoner down there or something."

"Alright," Claire said. "We stop Umbrella's assault here, we save these people, and then we go together."

Alice nodded. "Sounds good. Just, legit warning, that place is a fucking deathtrap."

"What, you've got a monopoly on suicide missions now?" Claire asked archly.

"Touche," Alice said.

XXXXXXXXXX

Hey, fun fact: According to RE1 (right at the 20:36 mark, if you like), Raccoon City has a population of 853,200, which is 200,000 more than the sign on the overpass Alice drives beneath. Good job, dopes!

Also, yeah, the crater is much bigger than a 5 kiloton bomb should be capable of creating. (Really, all this could have been solved by just going balls-out in Apocalypse and saying they were using a 1 MT bomb).

Confession time: Alice's cover of 'Paradise City' is lifted almost verbatim from Paganitzu, an old-ass DOS puzzle game about exploring ancient ruins. (Specifically, you can find an old inscription regarding Chagunitzu City, where… well, you can guess as to the quality of the grass and the women and I literally just realized that the original song wasn't talking about the type of grass that grows on your lawn haha I am an innocent babe!) (Also, Chagunitzu is the prequel to Paganitzu).

In the movie, Claire is unaware of what the Hive is. Jeez, Alice, don't you actually talk to people when the cameras aren't on your mug? Fucking meathead!

One of my friends who reads this directly compares Chaos Goblin Alice to Bugs Bunny, so it's especially funny for her to haze Doc like him.

Hope y'all didn't think I'd forgotten about Terri!