Resident Evil_ Extinction - Keith R. A. DeCandido [92]
There wouldn’t be another Angie.
Jumping down from the parking garage, she landed on the ground, bending her knees with the impact. She could feel them trying to take control, but she would not let them.
As she ran toward the tent, she could hear voices.
“She’s still coming!”
“Shut her down, dammit!”
“I’m trying, but there’s interference!”
“Boost the control signal!”
“It’s already at max! She’s resisting command protocols.”
None of the voices belonged to Isaacs.
Ripping open the tent, she saw four people. She recognized one of the security guards, Paul DiGennaro—he’d been the one shouting to shut her down—but she didn’t know the other security guard, the man in the lab coat, or the woman at the computer station.
The security guard she didn’t know raised a machine gun. Alice threw a Kukri right at his chest.
As he died, impaled on the support pole behind him, his finger spasmed on his weapon’s trigger, which was apparently set to automatic, and bullets sprayed all across the tent, taking out computers and screens and killing the technician and DiGennaro instantly.
The man in the lab coat was also shot but not dead yet. Alice grabbed him by the throat.
“Where is he?”
Then she heard the whirl of helicopter blades.
“Fuck.” She dropped the dying doctor to the floor and ran out.
Twelve seconds after she said she’d have the satellite online in fifteen seconds, Pinto said, “Online in three—two—one.”
One of the plasma-screens flickered to life. Isaacs, pleased with his foresight in bringing Pinto along, immediately scanned the screen for signs of Alice. Or anyone.
All he saw were unmoving bodies, including what appeared to be almost all, if not all, of the Super Undead. Plenty of human corpses as well, but none was Project Alice.
“Dammit, where is she?”
Pinto said, “Live feed from Project Alice coming online now.”
Isaacs nodded in satisfaction. The so-called Alice-cam would do the trick.
The other plasma screen lit up to show the interior of a parking garage. Tarnished signs that had worn into illegibility were visible on the walls. “Where the hell is she going?” Isaacs asked.
She turned and ran up a flight of stairs, putting her on the roof of the garage.
Then she looked out and down at this very tent.
“Oh, shit!” Pinto said, a sentiment Isaacs could get behind.
“Shut her down—now!” Isaacs said.
But even as Pinto entered commands, Isaacs knew that it was over. Alice had already broken the programming several times, and he simply could not trust that she wouldn’t do it this time.
Turning to DiGennaro, he said, “Stop her,” and left the tent before he could say anything.
He ran straight for the helicopter. As he climbed aboard, he said to Kistler, “Back to the base, now!”
“But what about—” Kistler started, but Isaacs ignored him and turned to close the door behind him.
As he did so, a meaty hand grabbed his arm. Looking up, he saw Gretzky.
This was a complication Isaacs did not need.
Before Isaacs could do or say anything, Gretzky leaned in and bit into Isaacs’s shoulder.
Sam Isaacs had lived the sedentary life of a scientist. Oh, he’d felt pain before, of course, most notably when Project Alice had broken his arm and thrown him into a tank. That arm still throbbed occasionally, particularly when the air conditioning in the facility malfunctioned or when it rained.
This pain was several orders of magnitude worse than anything he’d ever felt before.
A defeaning report from a machine gun cut through the pain, and Gretzky’s head exploded a second later. Perroneau had shot the Super Undead.
Isaacs could feel his grip on consciousness eluding him, and he gritted his teeth, trying to force himself awake. He let Perroneau guide him inside the helicopter, and then, after closing the door, the security guard applied a pressure bandage to his wound.
Somehow, Isaacs made his lips move. “The anti-virus! Get me the anti-virus!” He couldn’t tell if the