Robert Cross, the captain of the elite Wiseman unit of the elite, and secretive Blackwatch, was thinking. While he was not especially known for his intellect in regards to his other impressive qualities, namely fighting prowess and tactic awareness, he was able to apply his military focus to problem solving with great effect. In this instance he was ruminating on the implications of his most recent orders.

To locate and capture the Blacklight virus, codename ZEUS.

There were several problems with this order. While he had hunted and terminated runners in the past,he had never before dealt with something like Mercer. For one thing, its goals were unknown, making its movements unpredictable. With runners - like Greene, for example - the motivation was simple; spread the plague. This made it simple to find their location - the areas of the highest viral concentrations were where runners fortified themselves to safely direct their infected.

But Mercer was not spreading Blacklight. While traces of the virus had been discovered in locations where his presence had been confirmed, the samples had been dormant and inactive; more reminiscent of the shedding of skin and hair undergone by humans on a regular basis. It made no sense. When Blacklight had been released at Penn Station by Dr. Mercer, the virus had infected everyone and everything in the immediate vicinity, killing all of its victims within minutes and burning itself out. Or so they had thought until the virus had awoken Alex Mercer's corpse and walked off with it to do God knows what.

And yet, it hadn't done anything at all. He had seen the reports and CCTV footage of ZEUS' escape from the morgue. It hadn't attacked at all, only fled. And when pressed it had acted instinctively in self-defense. It's reactions were all wrong; from relocating Dr. Mercer's sister, to searching out Karen Parker. When applying these actions to a virus, a runner, they made no sense.

But when applying these reactions to a man...

All of a sudden it made sense. Somehow, and for some reason, the virus was unaware of its own nature. The virus believed that is was a human being, that it was Alex Mercer himself. Suddenly all of its actions made sense. Robert Cross rubbed his palm across suddenly bleary eyes.

"My God. It thinks it's the victim in all of this."

If the situation had been handled with this knowledge from the beginning, Greene and Redlight might have still been contained. ZEUS may have even come quietly if given promises of answers or a cure. Hell, the potential he had as an ally was astronomical, the tactical advantage alone-!

That wasn't a bad idea. The situation was rapidly getting worse, the infection spreading at an exponential rate. With the appearance of copperheads, and an increase in hunter and leader hunter numbers the military was swiftly becoming out matched and out gunned. The only way they would be able to destroy Greene would be with an act of God, or something similar.

Something, like ZEUS, working with them.

Robert Cross sighed. This would need to be handled delicately.