Resident Evil. Retribution by John Shirley Page A

awakened in the mansion, out in the country, near Raccoon City.
    She wondered if there were anyone left alive there— really alive.
    Don’t think about it, she told herself. It just led her to agonize about her part in the spread of the T-virus. She’d protected Umbrella, as their head of security, while they were developing the biowarfare pathogen in the Hive. She hadn’t known what they’d been up to, at least for much of the time—but still, was her ignorance just an excuse?
    She’d failed to stop Spence from releasing the T-virus in the Hive; she’d failed to keep it from getting out of the Hive into Raccoon City. And she’d failed to stop it spreading through the world.
    Stupid to blame yourself. But she couldn’t help it. She never spoke about her feelings. Rationally, she knew it wasn’t really her fault. But still—she felt the weight of it all.
    There weren’t that many people left alive who were capable of doing anything about it. Those few who remained had the fate of the human race in their hands. They had to take responsibility. There was no one else to do it. No excuse for standing on the sidelines…
    There was a cure for the T-virus. It worked if it was injected into people early enough in the viral incubation process. But Alice had none of the formula—not at the moment. But if she could get that formula, could get it out to protect people from the T-virus, then it might make up for her past sins—for serving Umbrella.
    She wondered if there was a supply of it somewhere in this facility. It seemed likely, but there was no time to find it—Ada’s countdown watch kept ticking ominously toward zero.
    Before she realized it, the woman in red had moved on ahead, outpacing Alice. Some sort of movement attracted her eye, and she found herself staring at an abandoned NYPD police car, off to the left. Alice hesitated, wondering if she should simply toss a grenade into the cruiser. But making unnecessary noise might bring the troopers down on them. So she walked up to the car.
    It was hard to see through the blood-splashed windows—
    The back door of the cruiser flew open and a slavering Undead launched itself out at her, catching her unprepared, knocking her assault rifle from her hands. The rifle’s breach cracked on the street.
    The creature’s hands closed around her throat, and its momentum knocked her onto the cold asphalt. She struggled to keep its jaws away from her face. It had once been a woman, but she couldn’t pick out any details. Its face was mostly a shaking blur up this close. The Undead stank, though, so badly that Alice gagged, the stench worsening when it opened its mouth wide, close to her face, preparing to rip into her lips with its festering jaws.
    It was choking her, so that black specks darkened her vision, like a mass of disturbed flies. Alice grunted with effort, gripping the Undead’s wrists, prying them off her throat, forcing it back out of biting range. She gasped for breath, then used all the strength in her upper body to fling the thing off of her. It rolled over to her left.
    Alice jumped to her feet, drew her automatic pistol—and froze, staring in shock.
    The Undead was someone she knew. Or someone she’d known, once.
    It was Rain Ocampo, wearing the tattered remains of an elegant party dress. Rain—who’d fought beside her in the Hive. Alice had shot Rain when the T-virus transformed her into an Undead. She’d blown her brains out.
    This couldn’t be her.
    But it apparently was. It was the Rain she’d killed—and the Rain who’d appeared in a slightly different form, too, in the strange dream she’d had of Todd and Becky and the coming of the Undead. Before she’d awakened in the real nightmare, the interrogation cell of the Umbrella Corporation’s undersea Arctic facility…
    Clambering to her feet, Rain bared her broken teeth, let out a howl, and lunged. Acting on reflex, Alice fired a burst from the auto pistol, five bullets shattering Rain’s