Resident Evil. Retribution (17 page)

“I’m Becky,” the girl signed.

“Becky…” Alice murmured. Suddenly she realized that it was the first time she had heard the name— though it sounded familiar.

That strange telepathic dream…

“I’m very pleased to meet you,” Becky signed. She indicated Alice. “This is my mom.”

Alice translated.

“She says she’s Becky, she’s pleased to meet you, and…” She sighed. “I’m ‘her mom.’”

Luther looked at her with eyebrows raised.

“Her mom?”

“Long story,” Alice said, and she really didn’t feel like telling it.

Leon stepped up to them, pointing at his countdown watch.

“Twenty-two minutes left.” Everyone looked back at the collapsed archway—they could hear the sound of claws on metal and stone; the muffled squeal of frustrated mutant. Alice thought she saw the tip of a cablelike serrated pink tongue, licking out through a crevice in the fallen masonry. The Licker was still alive—and trying to break through.

“There’s no going back the way we came,” Luther pointed out.

“And we lost the map with Sergei,” Barry said, nodding.

“I’ve got it!” Alice said. She took out the spectacles Ada had given her, pulling them from a pocket of her battle suit. She unfolded them and put them on, tapped the frame, then moved her finger up and down the stem, scrolling up and down till she got to the schematics of the test floor. She studied them, seeing the glowing outlines of the buildings, the streets, the tunnels.

Her trained mind sorted through the data—and quickly found a route.

“We can take this tunnel—” She pointed at a side tunnel that led into inky darkness. “At the end there’s a service shaft that connects with the submarine pens.”

“Then let’s go!” Leon said, striding quickly that way.

Alice urged Becky along ahead of her, taking up the rear because she was worried about the Licker. The others entered the tunnel—and just before she followed, Alice glanced back. The rubble past the wrecked Rolls-Royce, was beginning to shift, to shrug about, and she thought she glimpsed a Licker’s talon.

She hurried on, wanting to get under cover now. Up ahead of them, not quite running, were the Rain clone, Barry, Luther, and Leon. Alice and Becky caught up with Leon, who had a small flashlight in one hand. A little light glowed up from the flashlight, eerily illuminating his grimly determined face.

“How did you end up working for Wesker?” Alice asked.

Leon’s response was a harsh snap.

“I don’t work for him!” He glowered over at her for a long moment. Finally he went on. “But things on the surface have changed. Everyone thought it was important to have you with us. Wesker said you knew of some weapon… something that could turn the tide.” He shook his head, perhaps thinking of Sergei and Ada. “But I don’t know if I would have risked so much, just for one person.”

“Okay, then,” Alice said. There was no time— no political room, in a sense—to push for more information. In time, it would all come out.

But as long as Wesker was involved—she was pretty sure it’d come out badly.

“Dead end!” Barry said, pointing.

The tunnel—just “window dressing,” after all— came to a halt in a wall of rough stone. But in one corner, a metal staircase led upward. Alice took off Ada’s glasses and looked up the staircase. There was a little light coming down from above.

“Access shaft to the submarine pens,” she said. “Come on!”

She led the way, wincing at the spiking pain in her side that came with every step now. When she thought she was out of sight of the others, around a turn in the staircase, she checked the wound. It was bleeding again. She already felt lightheaded, weaker than usual.

Come on, Alice,
she told herself.
Find the energy and do what has to get done. One more time…

She heard a scratching sound on stone, from back in the tunnel. It didn’t seem human. Was that the sound of a Licker’s claws, as it crept along, searching for them? She glanced back, and saw Becky hurrying to catch up with her. Alice smiled at the girl and waved.

Could she really keep Becky alive, while she was slowly bleeding out? With the bomb ticking toward an explosion, with the troopers looking for them, and with the Licker once more on their trail, the odds weren’t good.

Jill and her team hurried across the underground Metro platform, past the imitation Russian billboards on the tiled walls. Ada Wong, in handcuffs, her head hooded, stumbled blindly ahead of them.

Even so, Ada was dangerous. Very dangerous. Cuffing her hands behind her, the hood, constant surveillance—it was all necessary. Just give her a sliver of an edge—just for a moment—and she would use that advantage to cut someone’s throat.

Probably mine,
Jill mused,
If she can get to me.

She could see that the way was blocked up ahead by a fall of masonry. The rubble was moving a little as if something was forcing its way through. That would be one of the Lickers. She’d objected to releasing the experimental monsters from their pens, just to go after Ada Wong’s strike team. The creatures would kill allies just as likely as enemies, and they were a threat to Jill and her squadron. But she’d been overruled and the things had been set free.

It looked to Jill as if one of the Lickers had already broken through the stone barricade. The other was still digging its way out.

We won’t be going that way,
she mused. It was possible that Alice was dead—but somehow Jill didn’t think so. Project Alice was too resourceful. Trying to think like her quarry, Jill worked out the route the strike team had probably taken. She signaled to a trooper, instructing him to check his computer.

He nodded and stared into space, scrolling through imagery.

“They’ve reached the submarine pens,” he indicated. “Headed for the elevators.”

“Bring up the power grid,” Jill grunted.

“Yes, ma’am.”

He tapped his goggles, and issued the orders.

The spiral stairs ended in a concrete hallway, lit by flickering emergency lights, which gave the passage a strobe effect. Alice was feeling a little disoriented from loss of blood, and the flashing didn’t help.

Focus, Alice, focus…

They pushed through a steel door, Leon taking the lead, looking around for troopers. Not spotting any, judging from his reaction. Then they all emerged into the gigantic, echoey stone room—into the chill, where their breaths plumed, and there was the briny smell of saltwater.

“Are those submarines?” Becky asked, her eyes huge.

“Yes,” Alice responded. “Russian submarines.”

Leon looked at his watch and let out a long slow breath.

“Eleven minutes,” he said. “We’re going to be okay.” But Alice wasn’t so sure. There still were a lot of wild cards, a lot of unknown factors, that lay between them and the surface world.

Leon led the way, jogging along toward an elevator that would lift them up to the boarding level. Alice trotted behind him, holding Becky’s hand and trying to ignore the pain in her side; the way the room seemed to bounce around as she ran, as if it might start spinning at any moment. She needed food and rest. She needed blood pressure. She needed to…

Get to the elevator shaft, Alice. Put one foot in front of the other. Keep going. Do not lose consciousness. Not allowed.

The room swirled—but she stayed on her feet. And there was the shaft.

“Get on board!” Luther called to them, jumping onto the big freight platform.

“Hold on!” Barry said as Alice and Becky climbed up. He tapped the elevator’s controls. “Next stop, menswear and sporting goods.” He hit the switch, and the elevator began to rise. It looked like they were going to make it after all…

It got seven feet up the shaft—and then jolted to a stop.

The lights in the chamber went out, to be replaced by dim, flickering emergency lights. The shaft suddenly seemed like a shortcut to Hell.

“Barry?” Leon asked, licking his lips. “What is it?”

“I don’t know…”

Alice looked down at Becky—saw the fear on the little girl’s face. She hugged her close.

“It’ll be all right…” she signed.

Luther went to the edge of the platform, lowered himself from it, and dropped to the floor.

“Where are you going?” Leon demanded.

But Luther didn’t need to answer as he went to the control panel. Leon and Alice climbed down and followed—Becky whimpering as Alice left her on the elevator. The Rain clone put her arms around the little girl, whispering to her. Barry looked around nervously, gun at the ready.

Leon was staring into the submarine pens as he walked over to Luther. So far, no sign of pursuers…

“Looks like somebody cut the power remotely,” Luther said, trying to reactivate the control panel.

“Can you get it back online?” Leon asked.

Luther shook his head.

“Not my specialty.”

Leon glanced at his countdown timer.

“Nine minutes. Looks like we’re going with plan B.” Luther looked enquiringly at him. “There’s a reason we planted those explosives.”

Suddenly a shadow fell over them. Claws clicked on stones. Alice felt a chill and looked up to see a gigantic Licker clinging to the wall just below a big open-air vent. The creature was limned flickeringly in the strobing emergency light as it hung above the elevator platform. A narrow, fragile-looking iron ladder, affixed to the wall, led up to the yawning vent.

Its tongue extending, lolling, seeking, its muscles rippling, its exposed brain pulsing, the Licker moved down toward them, half slithering and half creeping. The enormous pink mutant got within reach of Barry, and before he could bring his gun into place, it slashed at him with vicious speed and accuracy, raking him with its giant claws. He screamed as the powerful blow knocked him back, hard, into the concrete wall. He sagged down it, groaning, his face streaming blood, his scalp torn loose and hanging in an ugly red flap.

Alice was running toward Becky, but it was too late—the Licker shot its tongue toward the little girl, wrapped it around her, dragging her from Rain’s grip. She screeched in sheer terror.

“No!” Rain yelled. She raised the gun Alice had given her, and charged the Licker, firing. One slash of its giant claws and she was flung away like a child struck by a drunken thug, spun through the air, hurling her off the elevator platform. She fell, screaming in pain, then struck the concrete below and lay there like a crushed rag doll.

The Licker dragged Becky, still alive, up the wall toward its maw, drawing her closer as it reeled in its ropy, serrated tongue. Alice aimed carefully, trying to get a shot at the Licker’s brain that wouldn’t hit Becky. But suppose she did hit the Licker, enough to make it drop the child? She was high up on the wall of the huge room now, and almost certainly would be killed in the fall.

Alice hesitated—and then it was too late. The Licker tucked Becky up close to it, like a lion dragging its prey to a den, and ducked into the big air vent high above.

Feeling sickeningly hollow inside, Alice lowered the gun. She glanced over at the Rain clone—saw Luther kneeling beside her, checking her pulse.

“She’s dead.”

Alice looked up at the vent, and she made up her mind.

Moments later Alice was on the freight elevator, checking her weapons, making sure they were primed and ready. Aware that the seconds were ticking by, wondering if Becky was still alive.

She looked over at Leon and Barry.

Leon had returned to the platform, as well, where he knelt beside his friend.

“Talk to me, Barry.”

Barry grimaced. His face was laid open, one of his lips slashed through.

“Feel like shit.”

Leon began unwrapping a sterile medi-pad from the kit on his belt. He pressed the pad to Barry’s clawed face.

“Here, this should help. Hold it in place.”

Barry reached up weakly and pressed the pad against his skin, so that the medication would be drawn through the epidermis. He looked up at Leon, locked eyes with him.

“Tell me, honestly. How bad is it?”

“You know,” Leon began thoughtfully, “I think that thing improved your looks.”

Barry laughed, and then grimaced with pain.

“Son of a bitch! Don’t make me laugh.”

Leon looked at his countdown watch.

“Seven minutes then we’re out of here. We’ll get you help topside.”

Barry nodded. Leon stood up and looked at Alice, who was walking toward the base of the ladder. He stared.

“What are you doing?” he asked, in disbelief.

“I’m going to get her,” Alice replied, simply.

Leon laughed bitterly and shook his head.

“I didn’t lose this many friends just to have you walk away!”

“I plan on coming back,” she said calmly.

Leon strode over and blocked her way.

“Don’t do this. You’re more important than she is.”

“Well, that’s where you’re wrong,” Alice said firmly.

“This is a mistake!” Leon insisted.

Alice gave him a diamond-hard, ice-cold look. A look that spoke eloquently of danger. It said,
Try to stop me and I’ll cut you down.

“Step aside,” she gritted.

He took a long, slow breath—then he stepped out of the way.

Alice walked over to the ladder—and so did Luther, offering her a small flashlight.

“Take this,” Luther said.

Alice took the flashlight and smiled at him.

“Don’t be leaving without me.”

Luther chuckled.

“Are you joking? I’m coming with you.”

Alice smiled—and then the smile froze on her face, melted away as gunfire cracked, and bullets ricocheted around them.

Luther spun, groaning, and went down.

Alice looked up and saw two Umbrella troopers, running toward the elevator shaft, firing their weapons. She drew her pistol, and fired back. Luther fired from a prone position, and Leon lit up the troopers, too. The two clones staggered back, dancing with bullet impacts—and then fell, twitching.

But more were coming, Jill Valentine and her squadron had reached the submarine pens.

“Are you okay?” Alice asked Luther, hunkering beside him.

“Clean shot…” But they both could see that his arm was mangled, broken. Alice shook her head, dubious.