Blacklight Codex
Blacklight Proper - File 000 - DX-1118 C
Subject - Pathology of Blacklight
Primary Author: Alex Mercer
Blacklight is the culmination of a decade of painstaking research and testing, a retrovirus more virulent and unpredictable than any before it. Like other retroviruses, it contains RNA and the reverse transcriptase enzyme which allows it to insert its own genetic code into the host's cells, but it is unique in both the speed of infection and what happens after the cells are infected. Core sequences in the Blacklight genome serve as a genetic skeleton key, activating and replicating previously dormant non-coding segments of the host's DNA, the so-called "junk DNA" not used for creating proteins. This genetic shuffling and activation is where the virus derives its lethality.
The virus was developed at Gentek, and under orders from Gentek CEO Raymond McMullen, the rate of replication, infection, and transmission was increased, raising the lethality by a factor of 10 from the original samples. Blacklight cells are able to penetrate and take over any form of a host cell, even immune cells and those meant to act as a barrier like skin cells. DX-1118 C can infect organisms through physical contact via bites and scratches, exposure to aerosolized viral particles in open air, bodily fluids and materials, and direct application through injection. Infection occurs along every possible route, including the bloodstream, lymphatic and respiratory systems, even nerve pathways. Infected organisms undergo rapid organ failure as the cells in their body change form and function in a matter of minutes.
Director McMullen also ordered several functions of the virus deactivated. Original Redlight samples possessed an unprecedented potential for genetic memory and retention, the virus collecting portions of the host DNA even as it twisted and corrupted it. During testing, researchers noted the, for lack of a better word, the intelligence of certain samples. Experimental tests showed that cells infected with a single strain of Redlight never activated the same set of dormant genes, a statistical impossibility. Despite the potential for genetic rewriting, these abilities were made dormant and their genes were separated, which made it highly unlikely for a random mutation to switch them back on in any working condition.
Alex Mercer, the original Alex Mercer, had that magic X-factor, that blend of genetic quirks that allowed the sample he released to unlock its full potential. That new strain, my strain, operates on a different level entirely.
Not only can it absorb genetic information and biological structures, it remembers them, remembers everything. Not only can it shuffle and activate genes, it can rewrite them. Not only can individual infected cells communicate, they can coordinate, shift and mold themselves into any shape while their hosts share thoughts and feelings as part of a Hive Mind.
Subject - History of Blacklight
Audio Recording of General Peter Randall.
Blacklight, God I wish I'd never heard of that damn virus. If only those eggheads had fiddled with their beakers and microscopes a little less while the real patriots fought and died for their sorry asses, maybe it all could have ended with a smoking crater where Hope, Idaho used to be.
Hope, that's the first page of Blacklight's blood-soaked history book. It was a huge scientific study, a cross-section of America to test the next generation of biological warfare as part of the CARNIVAL program. The residents of Hope were perfect sacrificial lambs, literally rolling up their sleeves to be injected with what they thought was a harmless simulation of radioactive fallout. The virus lay dormant for almost three years, then that's when it all went to shit. After Redlight found a perfect host in a girl named Elizabeth Greene, her new strain turned the town into a gigantic Hive. An invasion was mounted to stop the source of the outbreak, and Greene was found to be pregnant. The mother and child were taken as military assets, and Hope was wiped off the face of the Earth as part of Operation Altruistic. For forty years, Greene lay in a dormant state, the perfect guinea pig. The discoveries found in her blood spawned dozens of research projects, among them Project Blacklight headed by Alex Mercer.
Mercer, the terrorist of New York.
He was a liability, just another leak that needed plugging so Jane and Joe public could stay sleeping soundly. He started as one of the eggheads working on the virus, did his job, kept his head down. Until one day he dug a little too deep, asked a few too many questions his lily-livered self-didn't like the answers to. Bastard couldn't even die with dignity, he had to bring Blackwatch into the open and put our great work at risk.
His release of the virus inside Penn Station and subsequent actions post-resurrection as a walking WMD devastated our organization and cost millions of American lives. His misguided crusade released Greene on the island of Manhattan, opening a festering wound on the face of the Earth, a wound that had to be cauterized with nuclear fire. To put it simply, we failed. We failed, and now Blacklight's contagion is free to spread unopposed across this great nation and beyond. San Francisco, Japan, Miami, Los Santos, they will fall.
I did my duty to my country and to the defense of the Red Line. God bless America, GOD BLESS AM- End of recording by order of Alalpha Alex Mercer.
Attached Notes.
And… back in the bottle, you go, General. I apologize. Even echoes, ghosts of echoes, can be plenty loud, and I'm a regular walking Haunted Mansion.
You see the kind of people that were involved in Blacklight's genesis. You've got a front row seat into their innermost desires, their morals.
General Peter Randall, Raymond McMullen, Doctor Alex J. Mercer, they were all evil men, and every day I strive to be better than the guy whose face I'm wearing. It should be clear that Blacklight is not to be used lightly. It is not a toy, a tool of revenge, or a miracle, it's a plague designed to destroy, and any good it does has a long way to go to cancel out the bad it's already done. Nobody knows that better than me.