The Root of all Evil

The streets were crowded, unbearably so, with the stench of humanity wafting into his face. The nauseatingly sweet perfumes mixed in with the acrid day-old piss of bums, the tobacco-streaked breaths and minty bubblegum popping, the sweat of hard work and the overbearing deodorant of bankers. A trashcan on his left let out a plume of candied rot, utterly recognizable as a dead rat festering inside. Typical.

Dr. Alex Mercer despised New York, New York. City that never sleeps. Or bathes. He loathed the swarm of people that made up its culture, that infested every nook and cranny, like maggots inside of a roadkilled dog. He preferred the openness upstate, where he had driven Karen for the fall leaves and had some photos taken. It had been a good day, a damn good day, without any racket or unwanted contact. A moment earlier a backhand had steered him aside as a waste of resources in a suit tried to hail a cab. He had fought back the desire to push that man into the incoming traffic, just like now he fought back the desire to push the elderly woman in front of him to the curb, the street trash punk into a graffitied wall.

But he didn't, not because of some flimsy social contract, much less for consideration of their oh so precious feelings. His only reason not to shove every face under the heel of his leather boot was simply that he didn't want to stand out, get arrested or get his ass beat by 'aw shucks, weren't nothin'' Hero-Of-The-Day. They were cover after all. Camouflage for the scientist gone rogue, until he got to his train and disappeared off Blackwatch's radar.

He wasn't surprised things had unraveled the way they did. It didn't take much thought to know that groups like Blackwatch do a seasonal cleaning of their projects. Knot up those loose ends, tighten some loose lips, and liquidate some assets in their human resources. Alex had no qualms about working in highly unethical, yet highly advanced groundbreaking research. None of his colleagues did either, but unlike them, he had a nose for survival and always broke for a head start in front of the pack. Nobody gets to play in the lion's cage without risking the temper of the beast. As long as the headhunters were busy with the stragglers he had some leeway to squeeze his way free.

It's been said that money is the root of all evil, but that's a load of bull. Most of his coworkers would have given up their unreasonable salaries for a single day of research so far off the cutting edge it was inconceivable as theory alone. They all knew that a cancer cure was prissy propaganda, that the human statistics on the progression of symptoms and systematic organ failure wasn't provided by willing participants. Mercer thought of it as aggressive scientific progress but he wasn't naïve enough to believe that the dumbed-down masses would feel the same way. Whether he be called immoral, amoral or sinful, for Alex Mercer greed was not his motivator, not even for knowledge.

Bumped along in a human traffic jam, he gritted his teeth and trudged forward. Dialects and slang ricocheted against his ears, the miasma of diversity congealed into a murky concept of 'them' versus 'him'. He didn't think of himself as a racist, but some accents were high-pitched rapid-fire, which grated on him just by the fact of it. He missed the solitude of his expensively soundproofed car, a newer model with noise canceling technology. Being able to go from his gated basement parking spot at his apartment building to his gated basement parking spot at Gentek was a luxury he had taken for granted. Mercer didn't like crowds, and judging by the ugly looks and side glances passersby gave him, crowds didn't like him.

They didn't really matter, inconsequential peons meant to stack the deck for humanity's continued existence. Go eat, breed, sleep and die. When another catastrophe kills tens of thousands, humanity will still have good odds for maintaining a sustainable population. They knew nothing of importance, did not hold a fraction of Mercer's potential and merit. Which is why he had to get away.

Even rushing along the sidewalk, he felt that everyone surrounding him was moving at a snail's pace, wasting time, wasting resources, wasting opportunity and growth. Sloth. An apt sound for the word, slithered off his tongue with a soft thump at the end. Alex Mercer was the antithesis of the concept, always had been. Still, there's a edge in there that cuts right through some researchers. The high-riding, soapbox lecturing conscientious protesters that never did one goddamn thing. Like that doctor guy, Ragdoll something or other, some muttered name McMullen had whispered to a general. His actions did nothing, prevented nothing, helped no one Inconsequential morality, the sin of inaction coupled with delusions of grandeur.

Mercer was not delusional. He was, is and will forever be one of the greatest scientists of molecular genetics and biotech. The glass vial in his pocket thrummed with possibility; DX-118 was his personal project, a killer virus he had weaponized further. Weaponized and tamed; all the samples at Gentek were destroyed, hard drives magnetized clean, the small rabbits with razor spikes, yet no mindless rage, euthanized without ever being cataloged into the system. The techniques he used, his intuitive leaps in gene manipulation and mutation, all of his brilliant genius was stored inside his head and nowhere else. And Blackwatch knows that, so he wasn't worried about getting sniped by a lone gunman. What did twist his stomach was the thought of a black van pulling up, men in anonymous masks and unmarked uniforms dragging him into it, the interrogation that would follow for what could be years. Wasn't going to happen, not to him. His dull witted colleagues could stick around for that information gathering session.

Even Karen, dumb gullible Karen. She was the closest he had ever gotten to caring about someone, not because of the person she is but for the image she projected. A smart mind that wouldn't embarrass him with ignorance, pretty eye candy to rest his arm around, a subdued sense of obedience that didn't challenge his authority. Same qualities that left her a sitting duck for the Blackwatch troops to pick up right at her lab. He had fucked her, but there was no love lost, nor lust either. The peak of his emotional investment was inherently egotistical. If she blabbed about what he had been snooping around and sneaking out of Gentek, let slip that he was headed to Penn station amidst the evening commuters...a special wrath broiled underneath at the thought. He hadn't let her in, but he let her get close. If she was ever to betray him, ha! She better hope they never cross paths after that.

The large arched structure of Penn station loomed ever closer. It could have been his imagination, but he could have sworn that the street shook a little as a train departed. It didn't matter. He was minutes away from getting out of New York, hop on a plane and head over to Asia. Land of exotic sights and lax regulation, where scientific advancement was a priority on a quest to topple the West from the seat of World Superpower. His pace quickened as his thoughts returned to the life he was leaving behind.

The only other person he had a quasi-relationship with was McMullen. The older man treated him as a protege, which was insulting. McMullen wasn't a dimwit, but he had been working with the Blacklight virus for what seemed like decades and had barely done anything besides supervise other people's work. No, Mercer didn't envy the man or his position, but he recognized that McMullen had a hunger for knowledge, a glutton for data, dates and stats. He knew secrets, old ones, new ones, the types that got throats cut. He knew something about Redlight, about that girl with the messed up hair that eerily reminded him of Dana.

He hadn't spoken to her in years, more of a stranger than family. He didn't want to risk getting near her after he sent her to dig into Gentek's business, to confirm his suspicions and tiptoe through the minefield Blackwatch's tech department had set for hackers. An investigative reporter, what a joke. He hadn't fought with her when she told him her plans for college, just nodded and went on his way. They had been closer siblings as children, but he grew out of that dependence during his teenage years. She had no idea how deep she was getting, but it was pointless anyway. No time to warn her, even a call could be tapped. He had expected Dana to unlock the databanks and hand over the secret files on a silver platter and all she managed to scrounge up was crumbs. A name here, a town there, a picture that may be of importance. Last he knew she hadn't been caught, but she could be under surveillance. Just another test to find out weaknesses in their system, another person to disappear once she outlived her usefulness.

Mercer kept pace with the weary mob as his shoes clicked on the marbled stairs that descended into the ticket lobby. His detachment with his sister brought his thoughts back to what society deemed evil. He honestly didn't care, but he knew that it was important to understand society in order to live in it. There were plenty of shorthand tricks to do that, like the seven deadly sins. He wasn't a greedy man, not lazy or gluttonous, he had a sex drive but he was in charge not the other way around, he didn't really envy anyone because that would require giving a shit about what they had, and even though he had a temper it was a tool not a character trait. So what did that leave?

Pride.

Yes, he was a proud man, but isn't that the American way? The perseverance of the individual over the crowd.

Here was a modern man: intelligent, healthy, cunning, driven. Handsome and masculine. A forward thinker.

Mercer learned young to hide his disinterest with the rest of humanity with simple ambition, but the truth was that he knew that he was better. Ambition had nothing to do with it as he didn't strive to be above his peers, he already had been from the get go.

His hand wondered into his pockets to pull out a wallet brimming with cash, no credit card paper trail. As though he'd make such an amateur mistake. As he reached in, his fingertips brushed the vial that radiated warmth. For a moment, he halted in his tracks stunned, then realized that his own body heat must have warmed the glass. He pulled it out and considered the swirls of red and black. Viruses were odd when it came to categorizing life. They didn't fit all of the criteria to deem it a living thing, but enough that it couldn't be classified as an inanimate object such as a transcriptase. Yet as he considered his greatest achievement, a flash of understanding brimmed in him and it was almost poetic. By itself, sitting in a fridge or a petri dish, the Blacklight virus was just a thing, but with a host, with Mercer's body it could replicate itself, produce heat, consume and grow and propagate. He was a source of life, he was the giver of life, he was a god.

He was god.

The vial was still warm in his hand when a gruff voice snarled at his back. "Hands up, Mercer. Don't fuck around." The click as the gun cocked had to be intentional, a scare tactic to remind the wayward scientist that this meant business.

Still on the high off his realization, Alex Mercer turned around grinning. A lifetime with a neutral look on his face made any emotion seem sinister or fake on it. Both Blackwatch operatives raised their weapons at the sight; it was a look they had seen before, that of a madman about to culminate his plan. They knew who he was, they knew what he had, they had been briefed on his sociopathic tendencies and narcissism.

His mood soured by the crowd parting away in screams and questions, the guns aimed at his head and chest, the rush of NYPD with their weapons out and at the ready. That snake of pride uncoiled and hissed out in his head. He hadn't done anything, they had no right to pull their guns on him. Him! Didn't they know who he was, what he had accomplished, what only he could do? His arms raised, hand gripping the vial tightly as his shoulder's hunched back in rage, his teeth gritted tight in rictus grin.

Mercer could not see himself, but in his mind he was an innocent man persecuted by Blackwatch for his curiosity. What they saw was a disgruntled employee with company property, portable biowarfare in a crowded train station on American soil in New York city.

A gun discharged, the blast echoing off the high ceilings. Why? Because the human mind prefers horror to suspense and everyone has a breaking point.

Pride is a sin because it blinds, it deafens, it desensitizes.

Mercer did not see the scores of people of all ages, races, creeds and religions that surrounded him. He did not hear the screams of confusion, did not feel the hands of a good Samaritan trying to reach his wounds to stop the bleeding because all he knew was that an unarmed man was shot for no reason.

All Alex Mercer knew was that 'they' hurt 'him'. 'They', the collective of humanity as a whole, fucked with him. 'They' were going to kill him, because he was better than 'them' and 'they' knew it and feared him. He didn't deserved to die, he was going to get the bastards that did this to him, 'they' brought it on themselves.

He shattered the vial, released his justice, gave his life to his creation and knew no more.

A/N:

For a lax catholic, I really jam in the religious imagery. Hope you like it. This is a parallel to my other story Frankenstein's Monster. Enjoy that template, Zeus. I don't know if there are many fics from the POV of the original Dr. Alex Mercer, professional asshole, but there we go.