Something wasn't right. Zeus had changed his modus operandi.
That thing was always just a blunt hammer. He showed up, destroyed lives and tanks (and infected) as if they were ants, ate something and then got the hell out of Dodge.
…But that wasn't quite true, was it? Too many bases that just suddenly went dark. Too many pilots that just went suddenly missing. Too many soldiers suddenly too good shots.
Zeus wasn't quite as blunt as the REMF's tried to pretend he was. He was blunt, yes, but it was with a kind of basic human cunning the infected never had. He wasn't the hammer. He was more of an axe. Sharp when you needed it, but just as able to pound the hell outta' anything.
But this? This was all kinds of wrong…
"Ah come on, Alex. I know things have been difficult since your… whatever, but I really want to spend some time with you"
It would do you good. You have to remember you're also human. Not just a monster.
She knew he'd cave eventually. Hell, he wasn't the most pleasant person even before his… transformation? But hell if he didn't suddenly spend a lot more time with her.
Besides, a movie is just what he needed after a long day of paranoia and violence.
Zeus stooped acting like a one-man (one-thing) vanguard.
He started acting like a one-man terrorist cell.
Bases all over Manhattan would lose power periodically. Most of the time, nothing happened. But every now and then, people would start turning up dead.
That alone was a deviation from it's norm. It didn't like to leave evidence behind. It ate (or absorbed or assimilated or whatever) its prey. Compromised bases usually underwent hours of slowly dwindling numbers of personnel before he went overt. All without leaving any sign of his presence, save the absence of others.
But now? People turned up. Lots of people, in lots of pieces. Dead marines in the showers, guts looping over the shower head. Dead medics in the infirmary, scalpels driven into their ears and eyes. Bloody streaks on the walls and floors, leaving to nothing.
It was terrifying.
It could happen to anyone. Anytime. All it needed was the power going out.
She watched him more than she watched the movie. Alex never liked sci-fi or horrors, but fuck it… they were living in both these days. Just a pity she couldn't see his expression. Stupid hood.
At least she could see his eyes were pinned to the screen.
She carefully didn't acknowledge that his eyes glowed in the dark.
Even worse (for morale, that was) were his latest attempts at infiltration.
Commanders would leap of railings in the motor pool, only for their broken bodies to start slithering away. Lieutenants would suddenly sprout extra limbs and start chowing down on anything near them. Sergeants' skin would start sloughing off, mumbling about the weather and football and the taste of the air. Privates would explode into gory messes, and their half-covered skeletons would start moving around.
It played absolute hell with the minds of everybody. No-one was safe. Every position, every specialty and every rank had been infiltrated.
In truth, the only way they even knew it was Zeus was that only one person was affected at a time. Redlight didn't work like that. And nothing else (praise God) had been detected by the eggheads.
That left Zeus.
Hell. Morale had never been this low.
They lost almost a tenth of their personnel when a base lost power. Suicides, cases of soldiers going AWOL and sheer terror shut down the base for far longer than the power-outage.
Not even to mention the exponential increase in friendly-fire incidents.
It was a cluster-fuck of truly epic proportions, the kind that went down in the history books.
And the analysts still didn't have even a single possible cause for this change in paradigm.
As the two men watched their camp burn down, melting the snow around it (and that paranoia-inducing bum-bum sound began playing), Dana turned to her brother.
"So? What did you think?"
She was wholly unprepared for Alex to hug lunge over and hug her.
She let out a most undignified "eeeeeep!".
As it was, she was extremely happy she couldn't see his face, cause she could sure as hell imagine the grin she could hear wasn't pleasant.
"Dana… you just gave me some new ideas."
Dana knew that she had done something unspeakable to everyone wearing a uniform in Manhattan, but at that moment… with her brother-turned-shapeshifting-horror hugging her, it was all she could do to avoid soiling herself.
Alex didn't do hugs.
AN: Just a random plot bunny that got stuck in my head. Yes, it is a crossover with the film, The Thing (one of my all-time favourites, by the way). Yes, I know it isn't exactly 'high literature', but fuck it… sometimes random things should just be put to paper, or they haunt your sleep.
Although, I have to mention… I honestly cannot believe I haven't stumbled upon a The Thing/Prototype crossover yet. The implications are… concerning.
As always, reviews are appreciated.
~Grin-Grin