Who: Alice projectalice & Abigail Whistler playlistfighter What: First patrol for Test City PD. When: Tuesday, March 7, midday Where: Outside Test City Police Department Rating: Audience Discretion is Advised Warnings: Foul language, probably talk of violence, neither of them are supernice. Status: Closed/Completed GDoc
~*~
Police work was nearly second-nature to Alice by this stage. All she knew was the fight. Defending others had become her only reason to live besides the fact that the T-Virus was unlikely to let her die. She healed so fast because of it---the thing sought only to protect itself, not her, but Alice knew she was going to have to accept it was a part of her. She might only be its host to some, but it was different insider her. All their scientists had talked about how it bonded to her in a way it never had with any other subject.
None of them knew why.
Neither did she.
Explanations were often the least important aspects of any investigation. The most important was getting onto the scene fast. First looks were important because that wasn't about a first impression; it was about being there before it had become trampled down by all the dozens of sets of feet who wanted their chance to prove themselves the best detective on the block. That first hour after a crime had been committed was the one which mattered the most because it was the one in which the truest evidence could be found and the best leads led to the most accurate suspects. The first twenty-four hours on a case might not explain why a crime had been committed, but they would invariably lead to all the facts if the investigation team was worth a damn.
Alice was willing to do her part in Test City. There was no reason not to seeing as she was stuck along with everyone else. The place had given her Carlos though it had taken Becky. She could---she could live normal for a while. It might only prove to be pretense the way the suburban life she'd witnessed in the test environment Umbrella had been running had been. It might be nothing at all. Some game. It was still a way to earn herself as much of a vacation as she'd ever get in life.
Never look a gift horse in the mouth, right?
"Let's hope this isn't a routine patrol. At least not for me."
Her patrol partner for the day was another woman which was odd. Typically they liked to pair them with men so they could have an equal team. It was rare to be in a place where they believed a pair of women could be equal to a pair of men. Given Alice's particular abilities, she imagined they didn't view her the same as any other female officer. Smart of them. She was a one woman army. It did no one any good to consider her normal.
"I'm thinking happy thoughts of boring sidewalks filled with boring people doing mundane things. I've had enough excitement for my lifetime. I'm Alice. In case they didn't tell you. Are you ready for whatever Test City has to throw at us as officers of the law?"
~*~
Being a cop was fine with Abby. She wanted to do something to occupy her time, and it helped that she wouldn’t have to answer any questions about being armed. She preferred her bow, but the handgun they provided was serviceable. Abby had already put in some time at the gun range, getting used to the weight of it and how it handled in various conditions. Being good with her weapon meant the difference between life and death, for both herself and her partner. The uniform was honestly the most uncomfortable part of the job, but she’d deal with it as necessary.
Doing patrol was probably going to be boring here since there weren’t, to her knowledge, any vampires running around. This place was far safer than her home, and probably safer than the homes of some of the others as well. The Sheriff seemed like a good sort, battle tested instead of some bureaucrat that didn’t know shit about being on the streets. Her patrol partner even seemed to have her shit together, which made Abby hopeful that this place wasn’t going to be as big a clusterfuck as she thought it would.
“Same,” Abigail replied with the nod of greeting. “I could do with a little boring after back home. Abigail, but most people call me Abby.” They fell into step together, patrolling on foot for such a small community. They’d be fine for the handful of hours their shift was. “After fighting vamps for so long back home, I’ll take regular humans any day. Even if I do have to wear this get up.” Uniforms weren’t exactly a thing for the Nightstalkers, but they were important for cops, being a symbol of peace and justice. “What about where you’re from? What did you have to deal with?”
~*~
Alice thought of all the possible answers she could have responded with in relation to what she'd had to "deal with" in her own home. None of them were palatable to say aloud. She could have talked on the humans who had devolved to the point where they were nothing more than animals who wanted to see the weaker animals torn apart by those affected by the T-Virus or about the T-Virus itself and how it'd turned people into monsters who were beyond most everyone's worst nightmares. There was Wesker who was an infected the same as her only not because he was a mutation far more grotesque or Dr. Isaacs who'd become even worse than Wesker.
What about the clones? Should she mention those instead? Were they monsters? None of them had asked to be created in Umbrella's labs. They were all people who had no idea they weren't people. Their deaths had felt real to Alice. Their lives had felt real to her. She had wanted to save Becky more than she'd wanted to save herself and Becky was only a genetic construct created in a lab to try to weaken her resolve against them. They had literally resorted to the level of engineering a child from her DNA and that of Carlos Olivera's to force her to stand down yet she hadn't been able to even then because they had to be stopped.
No matter what the cost.
"I don't think it's worth talking about. Mostly? I suppose you'd say I dealt with the worse humanity had to offer. There were some people left who were good. It was possible to find some good. Mostly? My world had been destroyed by the greed of mankind. A corporation called Umbrella had unleashed a virus on the world. It bonded with me. I volunteered for the experiment thinking I was in the right. I thought I was doing good. I was their head of security. I was wrong. We were all wrong. I never want to go back."
She straightened the uniform shirt which bagged on her thin frame and grimaced. They hadn't thought about women on the force one or two they'd decided one-size-fits-all was the way to go. Alice figured they'd be lucky if they weren't mocked by the first criminal they attempted to apprehend purely for her unprofessional appearance. Her hair was neat. That was one thing she'd managed. Everything else was a mess. What had she been thinking? She was like a child playing dress-up.
"I look ridiculous in this, don't I? I feel like it's---that holiday where people dress-up. I can't remember the name. Too much has happened. I wish they'd consulted me for gear which would be easier to move in."
~*~
Abby figured she and Alice had a lot in common, given her response. Whatever Alice had faced in her home, it was probably just as bad, if not worse, than the vamps that had made Abby’s life hell for the past few years. She was glad that the vamps were behind them, that the Daystar virus worked. Blade was probably still out there somewhere, but at least she didn’t have to worry too much about Zoe in the grand scheme of things. Without the vamps, what else was there that would hurt her? They could’ve been a family, maybe a real family. Abby knew she and Hannibal could’ve done a good job of raising Zoe for Sommerfield.
That was for another world’s Abby to deal with. Test City was not a place where Zoe could stay at the forefront of her mind, because otherwise she’d go insane. Being a police officer would keep her occupied. Having a good partner for the job would also be key, and Alice seemed like at least they’d have some shared life experiences, even if they weren’t from exactly the same places. “Sounds like it’s probably a good thing you got pulled to this place,” she replied. “I’ve got to say, this place is a little...too suburban, you know?”
Living with the Nightstalkers hadn’t exactly made it easy to mingle with normal people on a regular basis. Abby fidgeted a little, way too uncomfortable with the uniform. “At least we’ll look ridiculous together. My uniform back home was cargo pants, doubled up sports bras, and a tank top. Thank god I can wear my boots, otherwise I’d probably have a word with the Sheriff.” It had taken a long time for Abby to break in her boots, but it was well worth it because they were another weapon in her arsenal if it came to it.
“Halloween, you mean. Where I’m from, they decided to slut up the girl costumes, so you’d probably end up with Officer Hottie Sexy, or Sexy Bad Cop. Interchange bad with dirty and that’s another costume, too. Really, you’re not missing much when it comes to Halloween,” Abby explained with a laugh. “We’ll see how the uniforms go, but it’s not the worst thing in the world, all things considered. Maybe we’ll get lucky and some new uniforms will appear, some that fits better for us.” The sheriff was probably reasonable, and if that was the case, they’d probably be able to make the case that they needed uniforms that were actually suited for them.
“Either that, or we can have a word with the Sheriff. Although honestly? I’d rather things are quiet and we don’t have to deal with too much crazy around here. That’d be nice.”
~*~
Too much crazy was the name of the game in Alice's life. She hadn't been normal since her first recruitment by Umbrella. They'd trained her to be an act-first-ask-questions-later person. Alice couldn't number the deaths which had been doled out at her hands. The numbers---they hurt to think about.
She'd hurt too many people. Some of them had deserved to be punished for their crimes. They had done wrong. There were many who were only casualties of war though and Alice didn't want to be a one-woman-army. It didn't feel as if that was what she'd signed on for when she'd agreed to test the T-Virus for Umbrell. Who knew what had been her motivation at the time? Her memories were better. She remembered everything about waking up infected, the scam with her old partner, the tests Umbrella had ran her through as if she were a rat running a maze.
Alice didn't remember everything however which was her biggest secret.
"I wouldn't mind my own gear. I have a feeling this makes the locals more comfortable however so we may not get very far protesting the uniforms. Like you said: it's a little too suburban."
Alice didn't want to talk about her experiences in suburbia inside one of Umbrella's test cities. They had made something similar to this place to run their experiments with their cloning program. It had failed. Every time. No one could replicate the bonding with the T-Virus Alice experienced. It was as if the damn thing had been made specifically for her, geared to her DNA. She didn't want to be that person. She didn't want to be their perfect puppet. Thinking about it made her want to fall to her knees on the ground to hold her face and scream and scream and scream.
Why had this become her life?
How could one wrong choice have fucked everything up so badly?
"Mostly? I'm trying to think of this as a second chance. One I don't deserve. I'm going to do the best I can to fight for it all the same. It's all I have to gone on, after all. You? What's keeping you going in this place? You got Hell to go home to? Someone here who won't be back there when you go home? Kids?"
Alice had many of those things to motivate her. If they'd brought her Becky? She'd have done anything for this place. It would have owned her in a way Umbrella never had. Test City would have been able to give her a chance to be someone real rather than only a quasihuman death machine. Under those circumstances? Alice would have danced to whatever piper's tune they wanted to play as long as they wanted to play it with zero protests from her.
~*~
The suburban feel of the place was what bothered Abby the most. The apartment complexes, the starchy uniforms, and the blandness of it all just screamed that it was a trap to her. She didn’t like feeling unsafe or unsteady, but it wasn’t like she had much say in it. “Yea, they probably wouldn’t take too kindly to me walking around with my crossbow. I’d need different arrows, anyway, and ammo.” Silver tipped explosive arrows and bullets designed for vampires would absolutely kill a human, but they were meant for vampires. “It’s a great piece of weaponry, but not really an everyday thing for around here.”
Their walk was an easy one thus far, and it seemed fairly quiet. That, in and of itself, was suspicious to her, but Abby did her best to push it away. She was going to have it, if she wanted to make half a life for herself here. That seemed like what Alice wanted to do, and that was something they had in common. Maybe this place wasn’t so horrible, if it was willing to give her a job with someone she actually had a pretty good shot of being friends with.
“Probably a good way to look at it. Home is actually pretty safe, far as I know. I’m worried about Zoe, though. Her mom died in a vamp attack, and I promised I’d look after her, if anything happened. Hannibal and me, we’re all she’s got now. We made the world a safer place for her, but now I’m left hoping she’s still safe, and that she’s got people looking after her. Test City took Hannibal and I from different points in time, though, so I’m at least reasonably confident that it’s some version of us looking after her." Abby glanced at Alice with a slight smile. "Reasonably being the key word."
That was the weight on her shoulders, for the most part. "This place just feels so unsteady, like I'm waiting for the ground to come apart beneath my feet. I don't trust it, even if I'd be better off if I did," she confided. Maybe it was stupid to feel that way, but she couldn't help it.
~*~
"Trust should be earned, not freely given. I learned that the hard way. You're right to be concerned. None of us have any idea how we came to be here. No one has any real answers to any real questions. We're all in the same boat yet we're rowing with different oars. It makes for a strange pace in a strange place. Nothing good in that."
Alice shrugged. There were so many unanswered questions at this point she couldn't list them all. She knew she didn't trust this place any further than she could throw all its residents at once. It was all too similar to the simulation cities Umbrella had orchestrated for Alice to be comfortable in Test City. They were working on gaining information from a position of having no information at all which was the only positive she could put forth.
"We'll make it here. That's what's important: we will make it here. This place? It thinks it's ready for us. It's not though and we're going to bring it up to speed as fast as possible. It's not a matter of faith. It's a certainty. We're too diverse, too gifted as individuals, too much to be pushed into the little pigeon-holes they want to put us into. We are more."
She said it with all the certainty in her soul. No one was going to get a leg up on the entirety of the populace. Their sheriff alone was someone Alice would hesitate to start a war with unless she had all the facts in place. They had people who were very, very different from standard humans and others who weren't human at all. Aliens existed in this place. How could the beings running it underestimate them so much? How could they possibly believe it would work out in their favor rather than that of the residents?
There were no easy answers. There were so many questions yet not nearly enough answers. Alice wished she knew something more enlightened to say. She wished she had more solid answers. She wished she had fewer questions. She didn't wish she were home.
This place was a blessing for her.
"Myself? I feel blessed to be here. I don't want to go home. I will fight to stay. Everything else? I'll take it one day at a time the same as if I were home. This place doesn't want me to have to express myself the way I do when I am home. I'm not afraid. I'm prepared and that makes me dangerous. Very, very dangerous."
Alice looked at the sky briefly and a streak of fire hissed through a cloud, burning it away to nothing as her smile lit up her face in its wake.
Test City had no idea what it was in for bringing her inside its city limits. No idea at all.