Alice made her way to the hospital and reflected the place looked much nicer when it hadn't been demolished by a zombie uprising. The receptionist happily pointed her to where she needed to go (the memo had arrived first this time) and she soon found herself in a conference room with Chuck Ashford, Cain (did the guy even have a first name? Or a last name? What was up with his name, even?), and… Jason… Isaacs.

"Excellent, is everyone here?" Alice said, knowing damn well that was the case.

"As per usual, Birkin refuses to show up," Ashford said. "Bloody prima donna."

That made Alice curious. Who the hell was Birkin? She shrugged internally — must be one of those minute differences in timelines that her Queen of Hearts had mentioned. "Oh well, if he's important I can go see him later," she remarked.

"I wouldn't advise it," Cain said. "The man practically lives in the sewer." His face wrinkled in disgust. "If you go see him there, you'll only reinforce his behavior."

Alice wrinkled her nose in agreement. "Cowabunga, I guess. Well, maybe I'll send a few Umbrella security types to rustle his feathers a little."

"That I would love to see," Cain said with a little smirk, and Alice had to remind herself that she should not start to like this guy, because even discounting the destruction of Raccoon City in the other timeline he had a list of sins a mile long, according to his file.

"Right," Alice said. "First order of business: no more human experimentation."

Isaacs snorted. "Under what authority do you speak?"

Alice leaned back in her chair and smiled. Oh goody, this would just be too fucking boring if they rolled over and let her do whatever she wanted. "Well, I'm the CEO of Umbrella, and I own 50% of it, and while I don't have any direct evidence for it there's the distinct possibility that I'm on a mission from God himself. Why do you ask?"

Isaacs chuckled richly. "This morning, I received a phone call. It seems my great uncle, the co-founder of Umbrella, died and left me everything… including 50% stake in the company." He leaned forward, acting like King Shit. "That means everything — and I mean everything — goes through me, or it goes nowhere. Do you understand?"

Alice tilted her head to the side. "Did you inherit all the Agent Smith shit from him too?"

Isaacs frowned. "Agent Smith? What? What are you talking about, woman?"

"You know, like can you dodge bullets?" She pulled out a gun and casually shot him in the arm, causing Cain and Ashford to recoil in shock. Isaacs screamed out in pain, and Alice shrugged. "Guess not!" She jumped up onto the table, walked the length of it, and kicked Isaacs, chair and all, to the ground, then leapt down, straddling him. "Jason — can I call you Jason? — shut the fuck up with the screaming, okay? I only shot you in the arm. It passed through your meat, didn't even nick the bone or any of your good arteries. Sure, you'll be in physical therapy for a few months because everything Hollywood told us about flesh wounds is a lie, but there are a lot worse places for a bullet to go through."

"Show him! Show him!" Cain cheered. Fuck, Alice actually was starting to like the bloodthirsty bastard.

"Here, for example," Alice said, placing the barrel on Isaacs' wrist. "I pull the trigger here, your wife end up opening your ketchup bottles for the rest of your life." She moved it to his knee. "Here, you end up in a wheelchair and have to fight Ashford for the good handicapped spot every day."

Ashford snorted. "Good luck, punk," was his commentary.

Alice placed the gun square between his legs. "Now, here, depending on the exact positioning, the bullet could easily pass through both your cock and your balls. Maybe your intestines too, who knows? How does a lifetime of urinary and fecal incontinence sound? On top of sexual impotence and infertility, of course."

"W-what do you want?!" Isaacs stammered.

"Your half of Umbrella," Alice said. "All 50% of it, transferred over in my name. Everything else you got — the money, the assets, properties, whatever — keep it, I don't give a shit."

"It… it won't be legally binding!" Isaacs pointed out. "I'll sue!"

Alice smiled at him. "You do that." She turned to Ashford and Cain. "Hey guys, can you believe Isaacs shot himself when I refused to give him his stocks back? Why would he even consent to give them to me in the first place?"

"Yes, Jason, why would you act so strangely?" Cain asked, playing along. Ashford remained silent, watching the proceedings with a mixture of horror and morbid curiosity.

Alice turned back to Isaacs. "It's not like I'm just taking them, anyway. I'll give you a cool $20 million bucks as a consolation prize. That's not bad, right?"

"That's a fraction of what they're worth, and you know it!" Isaacs snarled.

Alice pressed the gun barrel into Isaac's forehead, hard. "What's your life worth, Jace?" she asked. "After all, I can try to square things away with whoever your heir is instead." She took the hologram puck out of her pocket and set it down on the ground, where the Red Queen dutifully materialized. "Now, I'm going to count to ten, and you're either going to authorize the sale of your shares to me, or I'm going to have to call in the janitor and have an extremely awkward conversation with him. One… tw—"

"FINE!" Isaacs shouted. "I'll sell you the goddamned shares!"

Alice turned to the Red Queen. "You get that?" she asked.

"The sale has been confirmed," the Red Queen said. "Twenty million dollars transferred to a bank account in an offshore tax haven in Dr. Isaacs' name, and the shares have been put into your name."

Alice smiled. "There, Jace, that wasn't so bad, now, was it? I even put it in an offshore account for you so you don't have to pay taxes on it." She removed his belt and tourniqueted his arm. "Now, go have your arm looked at, alright? Take the day off, maybe tomorrow, get lots of rest and relaxation in, and I want you back in here bright and early by the end of the week so we can work on something fun that everyone will like. Cure for cancer, maybe." Isaacs stood up with Alice's help. "Oh, one more thing, Jason: You don't have a great uncle. You're a clone of the late, not-so-great, Alexander Roland Isaacs." Cain began roaring with laughter at the revelation.

Isaacs scowled. "You're lying."

"I'm afraid she's not," the Red Queen said. "You were created almost a year ago to make it appear he still had something of a public presence."

"It's alright, though," Alice said. "Anyone gives you shit about being a clone, just let me know and I'll kick their ass." She gave Isaacs a quick hug. "Us clones gotta stick together, after all."

Isaacs squirmed out of the hug and quickly left, leaving Alice with Cain and Ashford. She returned to her seat, put her legs up on the table, and just… watched them, for a good few minutes. Ashford started to fidget under the scrutiny, marking him as the next target. "Chuck Ashford," Alice finally said. "What drew you into the human torture racket?"

Ashford looked sullen at this line of questioning. "I did have higher aspirations," he said. "When your… mother… hired me, she hoped I could do something for her progeria, but I hit dead end after dead end. She despaired that I would ever be able to find a cure and went into seclusion, leaving me to be reassigned to… Umbrella's less than savory projects." He shot a baleful glance towards Cain. "What other option did I have? I had to consider Angela first and foremost — she's my daughter, and, well, she has what I have."

"What the hell do you even call that, anyway?" Alice asked. "I was never able to find out."

Ashford snorted. "Ashford's Disease, one of those peculiar hereditary illnesses that comes from having a family tree that believed in the purity of noble blood, and thus engaged in a great deal of cousin-fucking. Not exactly something that would get a lot of press, save for the odd obscure article in a medical journal." He took off his glasses, massaged the bridge of his nose, and replaced them. "Angela's since gone into remission, but I'm terrified that she'll regress someday. The money this job pays ensures I can care for her for any eventuality."

Alice gave him a phony smile. "Aw, that's real sweet, Chuck," she said. "And you know, I'd like to meet my sister sometime, get to know her. And ma said she'd like to have a relationship with her again too."

Ashford looked surprised. "Told you that, did she?" he grunted. "For a second I wondered how you brought the old girl around, but then I remembered I'm talking to you. I've known you for five minutes and I can already tell it was some unholy combination of badgering, threats, and outright violence."

Alice laughed heartily. "Something like that, yeah," she acknowledged.

Ashford put on a hard front. "That being said, Miss Abernathy, I'm not sure if I'm comfortable allowing you near my daughter."

Alice grinned, showing off her teeth. The Jaws theme began playing in Ashford's mind unbidden. "Chuck, Chuck, Chuck," she clucked. "Are you afraid I'm going to harm your daughter somehow? Do you think I'm going to do something monstrously irresponsible and downright evil like, oh, I don't know, inject her with the T-virus in a poorly-thought-out effort to treat her condition?"

Ashford turned white as a ghost. "Oh Christ," he muttered. "How did you know?"

Cain broke into a wide smile upon realizing exactly what was being said. "Charles, you infected your own daughter with the T-virus?" He laughed long and hard, pounding the table in front of him repeatedly. "Oh, all these years of you looking down on us, always trying to tell us to consider the moral, ethical approach, and here you are using your own daughter as a lab rat!" He wiped the tears that arose in his eyes from his laughter. "Oh, wait until William hears about this, he is going to tear you a new asshole, and I can't wait to watch." He turned to Alice and said in a stage whisper, "Birkin has a daughter — good friends with Ashford's, I believe — and she's the one thing William values more than his own work."

Alice nodded. "Yeah, most dads don't want to use their own kids as medical experiments, how about that?" Alice said. "As to how I know…" Alice shook her head. "Let me put it to you this way, Chuck: As far as you're concerned, I may as well be the Lord God Himself. I know all, I see all, and if you break my commandments, I will cast you into a lake of fire for all time." She felt blasphemous as all hell for saying that shit out loud, and sent a quick mental apology to the Big Guy upstairs. "Now, regarding Angie, have you considered shit like rampancy?"

"Of course I have," Ashford countered. "If the infection begins outpacing the antivirus, then I'll just create a stronger antivirus."

Alice crossed her arms. "And if you can't make a stronger antivirus in time? Or if you die or something? What then?" Ashford didn't have anything to say to that. "What about the nanomachines that are supposed to regulate infection? Why not give her some of those?"

Cain again burst into laughter. "You didn't give her the nanomachines? Charles, have you considered just shooting her, if you're so desperate to see her dead?"

Ashford glared at Cain, then turned back to Alice. "Angela's treatment was strictly off the books," he explained. "Couldn't exactly fill out a requisition form for one of the implants without any justification, could I? And I have… reservations… about the nanites. Umbrella would have the unprecedented ability to surveil or even control her."

"I can understand that very fucking well, Chuck, believe me," Alice said, giving him a humorless smile. "But I am Umbrella now. I love Angie, and I won't let anything bad happen to her. And if that means siccing CPS on your ass and having her taken from you, I'll do it. But it doesn't have to come to that — just bring her in in the next few days — I'll be out of town, but I'll send a message when I'm back — and we'll get her all nanited up. I'm sure she'd like it a lot better than shooting up with that Mountain Dew-looking shit every few hours."

Ashford gave her a stony look. "How can you love Angela? You've never met her."

"She's my sister," Alice explained with a light shrug. "You love your family. That means, to some extent, that I love you too, Chuck, even if there are times I just want to Whatever Happened to Baby Jane your ass."

Surprise was on Ashford's face. "I'm… touched," he said, choosing to focus on the positive part of that sentence.

Alice gave him small smile. "Yeah. Bring Angie in, and you might even get an upgrade from 'touched' to 'hugged'. Now get on out of here, Cain and I have to talk." Ashford rolled out of the conference room, leaving the two of them alone.

"So, what's your deal?" Alice asked.

"I'm just a humble researcher, willing to do my part to help mankind," Cain said smoothly.

"Nice," Alice said. "100% bullshit, but nice."

"It was worth a shot," Cain shrugged.

"It was," Alice agreed. "Look, as long as you adhere to Umbrella's new principles of actually saving lives and not, y'know, committing horrific crimes against humanity, we'll be alright, okay?"

Cain considered this for a moment. "And what if I want to go work somewhere else? Tricell, for example?"

"That's when we have an exit interview," Alice said, waving her gun in the air. "My bullet exits this gun and interviews the contents of your skull."

"Ah," Cain said. "So, I'm a prisoner, then?"

"Buddy, judging by the contents of your file, you're damn lucky to be a prisoner," Alice informed him. "I could spend ten hours scraping every last inch of your skin off with a rusty razor, dump your ass in a pool of lemon juice, and God would be so impressed with my good deed that he'd let me have one free murder on the house." She leaned forward. "Know this, and be sure to tell this to your shitbird colleagues next time you see them: from here on out, it's all about atonement. You and Isaacs and Ashford and… and this Birkin, I'm sure he's done some fucked-up heinous stuff… are going to work your asses off to make up for all the horrible, evil things you guys have done over the years."

"How long will we be expected to do this?" Cain asked.

"Let me put it like this," Alice said. "…Forever. For fucking ever. I suppose I could try to give you some concrete numbers to work towards — for example, for every life you've been responsible for ending, you now have to save a thousand — but that's unbelievably crass, like I'm assigning value to human life." She shook her head. "And I'm not doing that. Each human life is infinitely valuable."

"Except for mine and my colleagues' lives," Cain pointed out.

"No, even your guys'," Alice said. "God help me, Cain, but I kinda like you, and that's not something I thought would be coming out of this meeting. So earn it! Save lives! Get therapy! Get right with Jesus, or whatever you believe in!"

Cain smirked. "There is no Heaven or Hell," he said, with the surety of an edgy middle schooler.

Alice took Cain's hands in both of hers, and looked him directly in the eyes. "You sure about that?" she asked, unblinking. "Care to find out?" Cain suddenly felt nervous and tried jerking his hands away, but Alice's hands had steel grips, and her demure gaze he soon found impossible to tear away from. After a few moments of this she abruptly released him and he went sprawling backwards onto the floor.

Alice stood up and rubbed her nose. "I think we're done here," she said, heading for the exit.

"Wait!" Cain shouted, pulling himself back up. "There's a certain project that Ashford and I have been working on that I think you will find —"

Alice raised a hand, cutting him off. "Project Alice, right?" Cain's eyes widened in surprise. "Did you think I was fucking around when I said 'I know all'?" she asked. "But no, I'm not interested in Project Me… at this time." She smirked. "I may have need of it in the future… or I may just want to go nuts with superpowers again. We'll see." She walked out of the room.

"…Again?" Cain said, confused.

XXXXXXXXXX

According to the RE wiki, Cain is a major in the Umbrella security forces. Uh, then why is he also a researcher? I guess one doesn't preclude the other, but I don't think he'll be a... MAJOR... part of the story, el oh el. (And also, his first name is given as Timothy in the novelization, but I've long had an aversion to using anything from the novels if possible. Although I do admire the elegance of making Tim Cain responsible for TWO nuclear holocausts, hahaha).

I really hope I don't have to tell you why Alice says 'Cowabunga' in relation to the sewers.

That line about ketchup bottles comes from Jason Isaacs' character in Armageddon (although it doesn't make any sense, since you can easily open a ketchup bottle one-handed. Even the old screw-top ones could be managed if you, like, squeezed it between your thighs for leverage or something.

Finally decided to just make up Ashford's disease, and call it... Ashford's Disease.

Whatever Happened to Baby Jane is an old-timey movie where one character in a wheelchair is shoved down a flight of stairs by another. It's really funny imagining this happening to Ashford.

Tricell is the biotech company run by a hopeless Wesker simp in the RE5 game. Lady, he's just not that into you!