Author's Note: This is the sequel to "Unnatural Evolution". If you haven't read part 1, please do so now. This is a very short chapter, and is nothing more than exposition. There is much more to come. I promise.
A helicopter began its descent on an adequate patch of ground, a rare level area that had little rubble. It was one of three helicopters landing on a mass of land formerly known as Manhattan Island. It had been a little over two weeks since a terrorist attack completely leveled the city, and Marines had been sent there to escort a science team in evaluating the effects of the attack.
The sight they came upon was unexpected.
The city was completely leveled. This was expected. What was surprising were the three technically fresh corpses lined up in the only clearing the helicopters could land in.
The bodies were immediately transported off the island, to a base morgue.
"What do we got?"
"Three bodies, recovered from ground zero."
"Post attack, I assume."
"Obviously."
A mortician and an officer were going over the field team's recent discovery; three corpses found at the sight of the most recent and tragic terrorist attack on American soil.
Each corpse was stripped of their clothing, which were identified to be radiation suits.
"Cause?"
"Radiation poisoning."
"Approximant time of death?"
"About three days ago."
Each corpse was sewn shut, having already been examined extensively.
"Any new theories on what they were doing there?" The mortician removed his mask, not bothered by the smell of the bodies.
"Just bullshit. The team found pieces of equipment near the bodies, but no one could identify it."
"Why not?"
"It was all fried. Circuitry was completely burned out."
The mortician put a gloved hand on a body's face, its features nearly unrecognizable.
"Shit… None of this makes sense. What the fuck were these guys doing out on ground zero?"
"We wont know. Not until it comes crashing down on top of us."
My name is Alex Mercer. Over two months ago, I unleashed an unstable weaponized virus in Penn Station, killing hundreds of civilians, and infecting my own lifeless corpse. I woke up in the morgue. I hunted, I killed, I consumed, and I became. I got the answers I didn't want, and I paid the price for my own selfishness.
One week after I stopped General Randall's operation, codename Firebreak, I came across a Blackwatch soldier guarding a road block. I killed him, but before I could consume him, I was stopped.
In the two weeks that followed my killing of that soldier, he began his own hunt. He got answers he didn't want, and aided in the aversion of Armageddon in the process. Elizabeth Greene, the monster I failed to kill almost regained control of Manhattan. Without the help of the nameless soldier, I wouldn't have been able to kill Greene.
It wasn't enough. One of us had to die in order to obtain complete control over the infection Greene had spread. One of us had to be consumed.
It was almost me. By creating a powerful enough impact, he crippled my body, consuming almost 85% of my biomass, fourteen percent vaporizing on impact. With only the tiniest fraction of my body left, I burrowed into the ground, burrowed in deep enough to escape a nuclear blast that leveled what was left of Manhattan, and vaporized the soldier known as 242.
The infection was gone, and all of Blackwatch had been destroyed.
At least almost all of it.
Two weeks after the blast, a team of scientists had been sent to what was left of Manhattan to evaluate the effects of the attack. The official story was complete bullshit. They were sent to specifically find any of the three blacklight runners. One scientist found me, a mass of cells desperately fighting for survival. I held enough sentience in that form to stay incognito. I infected and consumed that man, taking his form to bypass a far too lax security check to the helicopter out of the area.
One Blackwatch trooper; a pilot who knew far too much for his own good. He gave me enough information to find a heading. I left the rest of the science team to rot, and now I am hunting a man named General Stevens.
A coward, a politician, a traitor.
I'm going to track him down. And I'm going to make him pay.
The helicopter was just beginning to run out of fuel as I descended into an unassuming group of buildings, a factory with various storage sheds surrounding it. General Stevens wanted absolute security, to the point of putting his remaining men in danger. There was no greeting party, no helipad markings. Even the helicopter I had stolen from the evaluation team was a civilian model, the pilot in plain clothes.
I saw the warehouse he had chosen to hold up in. General Stevens had to incredibly naïve to keep his security so lax, to think his life was no longer in danger, to just assume I had died, performing the bare minimum in order to find me.
I exited the helicopter, still wearing the flesh of the plain clothes Blackwatch trooper.
The warehouse doors opened from the inside, the sound echoing in the dead air of the old factory.
Two soldiers stepped into the opening, fully geared up with tactical vests and gas masks, each one armed with an M4 carbine.
"Freeze! Hands up."
I complied, waiting for them to start their idiotic system of identification.
One of them stepped closer to me, rifle still aimed at my face.
"When we hunt?" The first question.
"We kill."
"No one is safe?"
"Nothing is sacred."
"We are Blackwatch." He lowered his rifle, stepping to the side to allow me in.
I walked into the warehouse, only giving a nod to the other trooper. The inside of the warehouse was nearly barren, a set of monitors and advanced computers in the center of the building. One person was studying the monitors, standing behind someone sitting at a desk, the sounds of keyboard strokes echoing in the empty structure.
I stopped a few paces behind the man, standing at attention with a salute.
"Sir."
The man turned around, revealing his face. Images of Blackwatch meetings surged forward, connecting the face with the name General Stevens.
"At ease. Report."
I put my hand to my side.
"The evaluation team found no traces of blacklight on the island."
"The team?"
"Executed and disposed of."
"The equipment?"
"Fried."
"Good." He turned back around, looking at the various monitors. "But incorrect."
"Sir?"
"The Marine Corp found the evaluation team. They had not been executed and incinerated as they should have been. They died of radiation poisoning."
I felt my muscles tense.
"Not only that, but there were only three bodies."
He turned back to me, tossing a paper file in my direction. The folder was stamped with the Marine Corp emblem, the words autopsy report under it.
"Care to explain, soldier?" His last word almost sounded like an accusation.
I felt my disguise melt away, my legs in the process of running forward. Despite my aggressive movement, I saw no hesitation in the general's eyes.
I felt something sharp and metal pierce my back, a fluid entering my body and immediately reacting with my cells. I turned to slice my attacker in half, every fiber of muscle in my body locking up.
The Blackwatch trooper behind me held up a large, fierce looking syringe. In my moment of biological hesitation, he stabbed me a second time, right in the chest, unleashing the remaining fluid into my body.
Pain spread out from the injection point, seizing my body in intense pressure and searing pain.
I remembered being infected by the weaponized cancer by Captain Cross, the pain it caused as it fed on me.
This was on a completely different level.
It was as if every single moment of pain I had ever experienced, whether personally or through the many people I had consumed was brought to light simultaneously. It was becoming so intense that I could feel the minds within me screaming in response, as if they too could feel it.
I dropped to the ground, coughing up what looked like blood, feeling whatever had been injected into me writhe with a life of its own.
I couldn't move, I could barely think.
I saw the boots of General Stevens enter my view.
"How naïve you must be." The last thing I saw before the darkness was General Stevens' boot on its way to my face.