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ALEXIA ASHFORD WATCHED HER TWIN DIE AT her feet, bleeding and in great pain, reaching out to touch the stasis tank with adoration in his dying eyes. He'd never been particularly bright or competent, but she had loved him, very much. His death was a great sadness... but also the sign she'd been waiting for. It was time to come out. She'd known for some months that the end would be soon- or rather the beginning, the emergence of a new life on Earth. Her stasis had remained stable for most of the fifteen years she'd needed, her mind and body un - aware of life- unaware that she was suspended in freez-ing amniotic fluid, her cells slowly changing and adapting to T-Veronica. In the past year, however, that had changed. She had hypothesized that given enough time, T-Veronica would raise consciousness to new levels, expanding areas of the mind that would surpass simplistic human senses, and she had been correct. For the last ten months, she had begun experiencing herself in spite of stasis, testing her awareness... and she had been able to see through her human eyes, when she wished. Alexia reached out with her mind and turned off the support machines. The tank began to drain, and she stared out at her dear brother, most unhappy that he had died. She could choose not to employ her emotions, but she had been human with him; it seemed appropriate. When the tank was empty, Alexia opened it, stepping out into her new world. There was power everywhere, hers for the taking, but now she sat down in front of the tank and laid Alfred's bloody head in her lap, experienc - ing the sadness. She began to sing, a child's song that her brother had liked, stroking his hair back from his drawn face. There was sadness in the lines around his eyes and mouth, and she wondered what his life had been like. She wondered if he'd stayed at Rockfort, stayed at Veronica's home, the home of their ancestors. Still singing, Alexia reached out to her father- and was surprised to find him missing, either dead or beyond her range of perception. She had touched his mind only recently, studying what was left of it. In a way, he was re - sponsible for what she had become; the T-Veronica had turned his mind to sludge, had driven him insane... as it would have to her, if she hadn't tested it on him, first. She stretched her awareness, finding sickness and death in the upper levels of the terminal. A pity. She had been looking forward to beginning her experiments again, immediately; without test subjects, she had no reason to stay. She found two people not far from the Umbrella facil - ity and decided to flex her control over substance, to see how much effort it took- and found that it was hardly an effort at all. She concentrated for just a few seconds, saw a male and female inside of a snow machine, and wished for them to be brought back to the facility. Instantly, lines of organic matter tore through the ice, ripping toward the vehicle. Amused, Alexia watched with her senses as a giant tentacle of new-formed sub - stance rose up and curled around the machine, lifting it effortlessly into the air- and then threw it back at the facility. The machine tumbled end over end, its engine bursting into flame, and came to rest against one of the Umbrella buildings. Both were still alive, she thought, and was well pleased. She could use one of them in an experiment she'd been thinking about for weeks, and would surely find a good use for the other in due time. Alexia continued to sing to her dead brother, in-trigued by the changes she could see coming, looking forward to gaining a fuller mastery of her new powers. She stroked his hair, dreaming. pqdm.com