A/N: This fic makes lots of potentially obscure references to things in RL. I've already written a few more chapters, and I can say that there's going to be plenty of funny references. I don't own anything I reference. I know Alex is a bit OOC, I'll be rewriting this and stuff soon once I finish Chapter 5. (which should be within the next few days)
References this chapter:
A bit of Latin and unprotected birdfeeders + squirrels. Gets better later, though. Title is a reference to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness", from the American Declaration of Independence. Chapter name is the name of a song that I was reminded of when I wrote this. Heh.
[1]
Exhausted, I sat down. Killing and consuming infected was a thankless task, and though most of the time I had no problem, I was growing tired. Tired of the crimson skies and the creeping vines of the infection. The infected refused to give up, even with its head metaphorically cut off. Ordinarily, I wouldn't sit down in front of a military base and rest, but it was convenient. A concrete wall, no infected in sight.
Naturally, the virus detectors went off. A few supersoldiers came out and pointed at me. One came up and kicked me over. I let him and just got back into a sitting position. The ground-based virus detectors were shut off after a while, though a UAV kept its eye staring at me, blinking red. The soldiers left after a few minutes, and I let myself uncoil and relax. I fell asleep after a few more minutes.
For once in my existence thus far, I had a good dream. I dreamt of a normal life. Me and Dana, on a road trip. A few memories from other people resurfaced, reminding me that I had already experienced all those places through other people.
Something poked me. I woke up from my nap, and the thing poked me again. "Leave me FUCKING alone!" A Blackwatch soldier was poking me with the end of his rifle. He radioed to base about making contact, and then shut it off. I could tell from his movements that he was afraid, but he sat down next to me and started to talk.
"I- I wanna ask you s- something." Pause. "A- Actually… my superiors want me to ask you something, but they're too ch- chicken to come out and ask you in person."
I replied with an ambiguous grunt. "Figures." The soldier was easing up, the spasms from his fear fading in intensity.
"Uh… Well, you survived a nuke. The brass wants to know how you did it." The UAV was replaced by another one. I took note.
"Well, if you really want to know, I strapped that nuke on a helicopter, flew it out to sea, dropped it, and then it exploded while I was flying back to Manhattan. It took out the copter and reduced me to biomass. As for why I'm still here, a crow decided to try and eat my biomass. I reacted and consumed it, restoring a bit of my strength and allowing me to recover to what I am now." I was surprised at myself. I had just spilled the beans on my own survival, and I was… glad.
The soldier looked at me and frowned. "Well, the brass also wanted me to ask you whether you'd be willing to help out with clearing the last infected off the island… Seems the new general wants to ignore your past transgressions and focus on the more pressing issue."
"Tch. I bet they want me as a pet afterwards. You know, scare some squirrels away from bird feeders in their backyard or something. Executives always have weird habits, you know. Colonel Taggart apparently used to air guitar in the shower… Don't ask how I know."
"Wow. I heard he was weird, but not that weird. I'm sure I wouldn't be too freaked out by how you know, though." The soldier no longer had any sign of fear. Either he was completely freaked out by such close contact with a killer, or he was honestly enjoying the conversation.
"Well, you'll be freaked out." I paused a short moment, while I prepared myself to spoil the fun. "You know how I can consume people, right?" The soldier nodded. "Well, when I consume people, I take in… everything about them. Completely. Everything becomes part of me, memories, habits, appearance, skills. That's how I learned how to drive a tank and fly a helicopter, from people I consumed. Just now, when I was taking a nap, I was dreaming of taking a road trip, and I saw memories from people I've consumed about places they've gone. Grand Canyon, Yosemite, everything."
A long silence presented itself. Behind the mask, I could tell fear had returned to the soldier, and I didn't blame him. I continued, "I might not be human myself, but I've got a feeling for how people are. How many people have I consumed to date? A hundred? A thousand? I don't even know anymore."
Another UAV swooped down and blinked its red eye at me. In a quavering voice, the soldier tried to introduce himself. "Well… I- I'm Nathan, uh…, Charus. The guys c-call me Cherry." Nathan looked like a two-pound Chihuahua scared totally shitless. He got up and leaned against the wall in an unsuccessful attempt to look relaxed.
I turned on my infected vision, and I looked at Nathan. He wasn't the patchy blue and purple that most humans were, but a mix of reds and oranges. He was infected, but didn't carry the symptoms. I decided to bring it up.
"Well, your higher-ups probably don't know this, but I can tell if someone's infected or not. If I'm not reading it wrong, you're infected, but you seem to have some immunity against it. I'd offer my condolences, but I don't have much to offer except death or directions to the nearest Hive." I tried to make my voice sound joking, but it came out forced and unnatural. The voices in my head laughed. "Okay, screw that. I'm not gonna kill you. No reason to do it anyways, and I'll bet you twenty bucks that your superiors have already bet against your survival."
Nathan sat back down, a bit less frightened, but shaken. "You can tell if people are infected? And you're saying that I'm infected, but I've got an immunity?" He shook his head. "Damn, this is gonna be one hard report to write later." We sat there silently for fifteen minutes. Another soldier came out and handed Nathan a clip for his rifle. He muttered something about being careful, then left, leaving Nathan and I against the wall of the base.
"Ya know, Mercer, I was thinking about something. You don't have to keep running. I was thinking about your situation, and I gotta say, I would not want to be you right now, even if I could kill pretty much anything with ease. Deer in headlights, right? Tell me, Mercer, are you happy?"
I almost lost it then. Happy? How could I ever define myself as happy or caring? I was a monster, bent on killing everything in my way and keeping myself alive. Everything else was secondary.
"Happy about what? Killing Elizabeth Greene? You jarheads coming this close-" I held my fingers a half inch apart. "-to nuking Manhattan, just to clear out the infection? Blackwatch almost beat al-Qaeda at their own game." I felt my biomass starting to prepare my body for combat, but I forced myself to stay calm. Deep breaths and relax. I wasn't ready for Nathan's next question.
"I heard about your sister. She's supposed to be out cold, right?"
I lost control over myself then. I sprang to my feet and grabbed Nathan off the ground. I didn't throttle him by the throat, but I still suppressed my first instinct to slam his face into the concrete wall. He squeaked out a weak plea. "Please! Don't kill me!"
After the voices in my head died down, I dropped the helpless soldier. "How the fuck would you understand Dana's situation? I checked a hundred times to make sure she wasn't infected, and she wasn't. Yet Greene's words implied that Dana was FUCKING infected!"
Nathan was silent. I sat back down and stared up at the sky. Blood red. The infected were close by, and I could already hear their thoughts through the hive mind.
"Get up, Nathan, and ready your gun. I'm not resting easy until the infected are dead and gone, starting with the ones right down the street." I left Nathan in my dust, morphing my right arm into the blade that I had grown accustomed to.
Attack. Slash. Slice. Hit-hit-hit-hit-hit. I felt blood on the sharp edges of my blade-arm, and it felt good. I let the blood frenzy in me boil over and produced the tendrils that I wanted. Another hundred infected, all skewered by serrated tentacles. I was alive and taking life away from others. Like many times before, that was all that mattered.
I heard a yell. Nathan was being grappled by a Hunter. I felt like watching him die, but then I realized that he had treated me as more than a monster. I struggled with the voices in my head on what to do.
Let him die.
Watch his blood spray all over the street.
Hear him scream.
Life is fleeting. Memento mori.
Carpe diem. I wasn't bound to an oblivious life like others, not anymore. Nathan was an opportunity for my own redemption. I charged ahead and ignored the voices, slashing down the Hunter and using tendrils from my back to set Nathan down gently on the ground. He felt light, no more than 180 pounds. The 600-pound behemoth before me stood holding its hands between us, trying to keep me at bay. No luck.
It fell victim to consumption. Nathan watched as the tendrils that had saved his life quickly took the life of another, much stronger creature. The Hunter fell backwards, dead, as I kicked its dying body and stomped on its face. It grumbled and died.
A couple minutes later, the entire horde of infected lay dead or dying on the street. I went around, consuming the more resilient who refused to die quietly. Nathan put a bullet between the eyes of any that had their eyes open. By the time he had finished his job, I was already sitting back at the base, being watched by the ever-present UAVs. It blinked its red eye at me again. Nathan hadn't the slightest bit of fear left in him.
In infected vision, I could see the virus starting to react to the adrenaline his body had released, and Nathan grew from red and orange to bright yellow and white. I quickly switched back to normal vision, and I saw Nathan's body physically changing as well. Had I accidentally stabbed Nathan when I was rescuing him from the Hunter? There was no hole in his vest, no blood stain, yet Nathan's hands had turned into claws. He looked at me.
"What the fuck?"
[/1]
A/N: Okay. Jumped straight into the plot there. Nate's BG story is coming after Chapter 5. I'll probably do a giant flashback chapter.
I can't draw people for beans, so I likely won't be drawing Alex & Nate anytime soon. If you wanna try your hand at drawing them, go ahead! I wanna know how it turns out, m'kay?
A little bio on Nate for the artists:
Cpl. Nathan Charus, 27 years old. Birthdate 27 Oct 1981.
6 years of service, 6 months in Marine Corps, remainder in Blackwatch.
Brown-red hair, hazel eyes. 5'10", appx. 175 lbs. Blood type AB+.
I had Alex cross-reference Nate to a Chihuahua. It's fitting.