Resident Evil_ Extinction - Keith R. A. DeCandido [87]
He’d also been the one to coin the phrase Super Undead to describe them, a neologism that spread through the entire complex before Isaacs had had a chance to put a stop to it.
Besides them were DiGennaro and Lobachevski from Security Division. A pilot, Alan Kistler, was waiting in the helicopter, along with Perroneau from security.
In front of him on one of the plasma-screen monitors, Isaacs watched the satellite feed that showed the battle on the Strip. In another, he got what Pinto had referred to as “Alice-cam”—this was a direct view of what Alice was seeing, thanks to the implant that Isaacs had placed in her skull back in San Francisco before her “escape.” Below them were smaller monitors that provided various bits of data about Alice’s health.
Once they’d found Project Alice heading with Olivera, Wayne, and eighteen other survivors toward Las Vegas, it was a simple matter to place an obstruction on the only road that was still passable in that fabled city: the so-called Strip, where Project Alice and her compatriots were all but guaranteed to find it.
And now they had. The Super Undead were performing beyond expectations. It was a pity that people had to die to test the Super Undead, but given Isaacs’s long-term goals, a smaller living population was preferred.
Alice apparently had gotten her hands on some exotic weaponry in her travels. As he watched the two plasma screens, he saw her use a pair of Nepalese blades on two of the Super Undead.
Or, rather, try to. One blade became embedded in a Super Undead’s shoulder, and the other one ducked a swing of Alice’s. The follow-through resulted in the blade slamming into the wall of one of the vulgar hotels that used to dominate this metropolis, breaking off the blade’s tip.
Still, Alice fought on. Her heart rate, respiration, and EEG all remained at the same level they had been at before the fight began. This wasn’t much of an effort for Alice—or, rather, even if it was, that effort wasn’t taking a great deal out of her. Her heart rate was only a marginal percentage higher than it usually was—though that still made it far faster than normal—and her EEG remained stable.
One Super Undead fell to the ground, and it took Isaacs a moment to realize that she’d beheaded the creature with her remaining blade. It had happened so fast that Isaacs had almost missed it.
“She really is magnificent,” he muttered. Then he turned to Margolin. “When she’s dead, make sure you move in fast. I need a sample of her blood while it’s still warm.”
Margolin nodded.
Looking at the plasma-screen, he watched Alice dispatch the other Super Undead. Then she retrieved her blade from its shoulder.
Isaacs had seen enough. To Pinto, he asked, “Satellite in position?”
“Yes, sir,” Pinto replied.
“Then shut her down.”
Pinto entered some commands into her keyboard. Seconds later, Alice stopped moving, her arms going limp, the blades dangling loosely in her weakened grip.
Isaacs smiled.
Mikey Faerber knew, rationally, that no one could possibly think the world was better now than it was. Most of the population of the United States was dead, as far as he’d been able to determine, the rest of the world was only in marginally better shape, and he had absolutely no idea from day to day if he’d have such basics as food and shelter.
But he didn’t exactly miss his old life, either. He worked as a computer programmer for a bank. True, he worked long hours, but at least the pay was dreadful. He was underappreciated at his job, and his social life would have had to have improved by several orders of magnitude before it would reach the lofty heights of pathetic.
He’d been home sick with mono when the zomboids started showing up in Tampa. By the time he recovered, everyone in his apartment complex was dead, and only the dead bolt on his door had kept him safe. The next living human being he saw was a woman named Jill Valentine, who offered to let him come along with her and the others she’d picked up throughout the Gulf Coast. They went down to Key West, then headed north.