Resident Evil. Retribution by John Shirley Page B

eyes, spun around, and fell; the chubby little man at her side took one in the mouth, and fell backward; the third one, a big man, bald, perhaps a sumo wrestler, merely lost an ear.
    And kept coming.
    Alice sidestepped and jerked hard on the chain that was still wrapped around the salaryman’s neck, pulling it taut between her and the paralyzed creature, snapping his neck and creating a tripwire of steel links. The sumo stumbled over the links and went down with an impact that shook the floor. She shot him in the back of the head, then spun and emptied her gun at the onrushing horde, knocking several more of them down.
    She pulled the chain free—and ran, just paces ahead of the horde. There were too many of them to fight. She sprinted full out, and up ahead saw an opening in the wall.
    Not a good time to look a gift horse in the mouth , she mused.
    The horde dropped back a little, but still followed relentlessly. If she slipped and fell, they’d be on her. But she reached the opening and darted through. As soon as she did, twin doors slid shut from both sides, slamming together at the center. Immediately she could feel a lock clicking into place.
    The Undead pounded on the door, but the door held…
    That was the good part. The bad part was that she found herself in complete and utter darkness.
    Jill Valentine led her team of troopers down the corridor to the interrogation room. The lights were strobing on and off at random, all along the hallways. She carried a flashlight, played it on the partly open door to the chamber Alice had escaped.
    But how?
    Jill opened the door wider and looked inside. The room was empty except for the cot and the paper gown Alice had discarded. A drawer was open, extending from the wall—yet it shouldn’t have been openable. Nor should the door—not from the inside.
    She went to the drawer. There was nothing in it but an empty plastic bottle. So they’d even given her something to revitalize her.
    The monitor had shown Alice wearing a black Umbrella combat outfit—one that fit her remarkably well. Who had loaded it into the drawer? Jill went back to the door, and examined it. She saw no marks, no sign that anything had been used to pry it open, or even to get to the locking mechanism. Someone had to have helped her get out. Someone on the inside.
    The strobing irritated Jill.
    “Get these lights back online,” she said to her second.
    “Yes, ma’am,” he replied, his voice muffled by the mask. The trooper jogged off to locate the building generator, in search of an override switch.
    “And contact Control!” she called after him. “Find out what the hell’s going on.”
    But she had a strong feeling they knew no more than she did.
    The relentless hammering continued, unabated.
    Get a clue, Alice thought, as she put a fresh magazine in the Glock. That door’s not designed so you can break it with your fists. Now—where was she? She turned, trying to make out something in the darkness—but to no avail. It was total.
    Until it wasn’t.
    Across the ceiling, lights flickered on.
    Expecting to see someone throwing a switch, she readied the automatic pistol, and tensed. But there was no one else to be seen. The room was large, echoingly empty, with a milky glass floor. There was a big red and white logo in the center of that floor— seen from above, it would appear as the shape of an umbrella. The brand was repeated, though smaller, on three of the walls. The fourth was occupied by a floor-to-ceiling window.
    She walked over to it and tried to peer out. No good. It was pitch dark out there.
    As she moved back across the room, wondering if she’d entered still another trap, the toe of her boot pressed the very center of the umbrella logo in the floor. Something clicked in response. The lights dimmed, and panels in the floor opened up. From them, monitors and a line of high-tech workstations began to rise slowly up out of the floor, humming as they came.
    Now that’s