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Wesker raised his hand and stared at Wainwright, whose face contorted into a more meek expression, and he sat back down.

“What news of Project Alice?”

Here Isaacs knew he could provide that life preserver. “Our goals remain unchanged. The original Project Alice was unique. She bonded with the T-virus on a cellular level, somehow managing to overcome it. Using antibodies from her blood”—the one aspect of Alice he’d been able to hang on to after the disaster in Detroit—“I will develop a serum that will not just combat the effects of the T-virus but potentially reverse it.” Isaacs started to pace around the table, being sure to make eye contact with each Committee member as he spoke. “The power of this serum would go far beyond the weak anti-virus we have now. For those not yet infected, the serum would offer complete immunity. And for the”—he hesitated, then looked right at Wainwright—“biohazard themselves, a partial reversal of the process. Giving back these creatures a measure of their intelligence, their memories—and curbing their hunger for flesh.”

The ripple that went through the Committee this time was far more positive. Wesker asked, “You’re confident you can domesticate them?”

In fact, Isaacs was confident of no such thing. That was the goal, yes, but there were many roadblocks. However, appearances needed to be maintained. “Why not?” he said matter-of-factly. “They are animals, essentially. We can train them—if we can take away their baser instincts.”

Behind him, Isaacs heard Slater mutter, “And if my grandmother had wheels, she’d be a wagon.” Slater had been against this entire program from the start, viewing it as a waste of time. “Sure,” he had said once, “if you can take away their baser instincts, but it’s not like that’s something you can just carve out of their brains. In fact, you try that, you lose them.”

Isaacs, however, was more sanguine. To the Committee, he continued: “They’ll never be human again but would provide the basis for a docile workforce under our guidance. We would return to the surface and create a new world order in our image.”

Some of the Committee members seemed to like the sound of that. Mercier, however, was not one of them. “Pipe dreams!” the Frenchman said, flicking his hand in a scoffing motion. “After months of experiments, you have nothing to show, and we are left to rot underground!”

“Without the original Project Alice,” Isaacs said testily, “progress has been difficult. We have been forced to try and replicate her using cloned genetic models whose growth has been accelerated by Dr. Wiegand. It’s laborious, and the results are unpredictable.”

Wainwright snorted. “Eighty-five failures, Doctor.”

Shrugging, Isaacs said, “This is not an exact science.”

“I don’t see much science at all.”

Before Isaacs could reply to the slander—as if this idiot bureaucrat knew anything about science in the first place—Wesker again held up a hand.

“Project Alice, and the subject of domestication, is of the highest priority.” Then, suddenly, the image of Wesker froze for a second, his face in a comical position for half a second, before he went on, the signal having been reacquired, his gaze now suddenly fixed firmly on Isaacs. “You will concentrate on this to the exclusion of all other research. We will expect an updated report within the week.”

For about the nine-thousandth time, Isaacs said, “Simply demanding results will not guarantee them.” This was something else he blamed Cain for—he always blithely gave timetables for accomplishments that had no bearing on reality but were fast enough to suit the whims of the Committee. Science didn’t actually work like that.

However, it seemed that Isaacs had used up whatever reassurances he could provide, because this was the first time that Wesker responded to his rational explanations with a threat.

“Then perhaps we should place someone else in charge. Someone”—again, Wesker’s signal was interrupted, then it picked up again, but the audio was now out of synch with his mouth—