Genesis - Keith R. A. DeCandido [62]
Then she heard growling.
Suddenly, the other dog being in the lab was less of an issue.
The doberman leapt out at her, and it was between her and the lab door, so that trick was not going to work a third time. And the nine-millimeter was now a useless piece of metal.
Alice saw some crates piled against a wall, and then her legs moved almost of their own volition. She ran to the crates, stepped up onto one, then up to another more highly piled one, then along the wall, building up momentum.
Pushing herself off the wall, she delivered a powerful kick to the doberman's head, breaking the neckbone with a resounding snap.
She landed elegantly on her feet, wishing she'd remembered she could do stuff like that earlier.
There had been eight cages, so she felt confident that the danger from undead pooches had passed.
However, she was still unarmed.
Sort of. Turned out her body was a lethal weapon.
She needed to find the others. The only chance they stood was together.
If they stood any kind of chance at all. Who knew what else was lurking down here. Killer bunnies? Monster cockroaches? Zombie rats?
Something worse?
Continuing through the corridors, she found a huge room full of cubicles—and movement!
Dashing into the room, she saw Matt being attacked by one of the undead. Looking around, she spied a paperweight that had a picture of a white rabbit, a girl in a blue dress, and a man with a big head wearing a large hat, as well as the inscription alice in WONDERLAND.
Alice thought that was more irony than she really needed as she grabbed the paperweight and slammed it into the undead woman's head.
She fell to the floor, unmoving, allowing Matt to get up.
However, Alice didn't spare Matt a second glance, because Alice realized that she knew who this woman was.
Lisa Broward.
They were standing in a park. There was a statue—the same one that was wrapped in plastic in the hallway right before One and his team came in. Alice and Lisa were talking amidst the fallen leaves of autumn.
"I can help you get the virus. I have access to security plans, surveillance codes, the works."
Alice hesitated.
"But—? " Lisa prompted.
"But there's going to be a price."
"Name it."
Matt knelt down beside Lisa, breaking the spell. Alice blinked, unable to remember the rest of the conversation.
What did it mean, "get the virus"?
And why was Matt now cradling Lisa's head?
"Who is she?" Alice asked.
"My sister."
Alice's response died on her lips. She hadn't been expecting that. After a second, she said, "I'm sorry."
Something wasn't right here. Correction, something else wasn't right here.
"You're not a cop, are you?"
His silence spoke volumes.
"If there's something you're not telling me, something she was involved with…" She trailed off. She really wasn't in a position to be making threats, given how little of her own memory she retained.
Still, though this entire situation down here was utterly insane, most of it made a certain amount of sense. Her and Spence, the Red Queen going mad, One's team, even the undead employees, given what little she could remember of the types of experiments that went on down here.
But then there was Matt Addison. He'd been an x-factor all along, and it was about time he came clean.
Apparently, Matt himself felt the same way. He set his sister's head down and sat up straight.
"Corporations like Umbrella think they're above the law. They're not. I'm part of an alliance of people who think the same. There are hundreds of us all over the world. Most of us will never meet, but we all share the same goals. Some of us give information, some give support, some take more direct action."
"Like you," she prompted after Matt paused.
He nodded. "If your friends had been a little more thorough, they would have seen straight through that false ID. Then all the red flags would've gone off: Quantico, VICAP, NSA, all the rest. I could never have infiltrated the Hive."
Alice understood the logic—up to a point. "So you sent your sister?"
"We needed something concrete. Anything