G'day everyone. I've gotten into a new genre of fanfiction; Prototype! It's really sad there's so little of it but I do enjoy what is there. So, this is a mini story about Alex and what he does to prove to himself that he's not inhuman. Being a virus and not physically being human is a bummer, but being human isn't just a set of certain genes in a chromosome.
Rated T for occasional coarse language, some supernatural/horror parts about zombies, and injuries/pain.
Enjoy!
Chad Chapman checked his watch hurriedly, bouncing on his heels and toes. The street was full of busy crowds of people, all hurrying from one building to another. This man was waiting for a taxi, which would transport him from this nondescript street to his job at the metalworking factory. To be sure, it wasn't a nice shiny job that rich kids were practically forced into, but it paid the bills and put food on the table.
His hired yellow cab pulled up next to him on the street, a nerdy-looking kid barely older than 18 at the wheel. Chad wordlessly handed the boy his money, already having calculated the amount needed for the distance they were to go. He opened the door with a firm hand and climbed inside, struggling with a stubborn seatbelt while the taxi chugged back into life.
Chad was a simple metalworker, good with his hands and excited at the prospect of new designs to fold into steel and silver. He welded, he designed individual statuettes for the little shop he managed just outside the apartment and did any other job his boss required him to do. So the man knew a great deal about metal, and how much force was needed to make a dent in its surface, let alone crumple it into a lump of folds. This is why he was so terrified when the front of the car was crushed flat.
A man was crouching on the hood of his cab, only just visible through the cracked and whitened glass. He had a hood pulled over his head, a white shirt collar poking out of it and a black leather jacket over everything. A pair of jeans that looked dirty and ripped covered his lower half, and joggers that could have once been white peeked from the crater made by his landing. Of course, nothing stayed white in New York right now, with red infections covering the ground in certain areas and attacks by mutant freaks increasing with each day.
The thing on the car leaped off of it, landing on a citizen nearby that stumbled and moaned as if it was dying, and a sudden bladed fist lashed out and ripped the citizen in half, flicking out on a rubbery-looking whip attached to his arm. Chad was jibbering unintelligibly by this point, and kicked at the door that was now crumpled beyond recognition. It was a miracle that he was alive right now; the poor cab driver was crushed quite literally, and there was blood leaking from the corpse somewhere.
Flames began to lick from under the smashed hood after something rammed the destroyed cab, and Chad yelped. He scrabbled at the filthy seats in a panic, attempting to reach the back windows, to undo his seatbelt, anything to get away and perhaps save his life. He was a metal worker, not a car expert, and whatever had enough force and power to squash steel by simply landing on it was enough to make his jeans soiled.
Screeches and wails were coming from outside of his metal prison, and something leaped onto the roof with a scratching of what sounded like talons or claws. The roof bent down a little as it jumped away, and Chad scrambled to the cracked window in reluctant curiosity. It looked like a battle was going on outside, with the man he had seen before and a bunch of people throwing themselves at him... but they didn't look right. The first man looked completely human, apart from apparently being able to change his fists into weapons, but the other people didn't.
His mouth opened and closed like an asphyxiating fish, eyes wider than dinner plates. Was that a huge blade growing from the first man's arm? But wait, his arm wasn't even there anymore. It looked like steel, but acted more organic, as if it was alive. Metal can't live.
Chad shook his head, confused, and attempted to make sense of the situation. He was inside of a half-crushed cab, with a dead body and the car likely to do a Hollywood and explode in a ball of gas and fire. There were a bunch of mutants outside doing battle, and he had no way of getting out alive by himself. Therefore, he did what seemed the best solution for a weak human in a war of monsters and titans.
"HELP! HELP ME, PLEASE!"
The freaks outside paused and glanced at him, the distorted mutants looking creepily evil and the normal-looking one simply looking annoyed. The pause was abruptly interrupted when two of the mutants ran straight towards him and the rest kept slashing at their enemy. Chad swallowed and backed up in the car. This wasn't the response he was hoping for.
The two creatures reached the car and circled it, growling and breathing harshly. One of them had a crab claw thing as an arm and threw it heedlessly at the door, smashing some glass from the broken window but unable to make a sizeable dent in the actual metal.
The other appeared to have an extra set of arms and set about clawing at the metal, ignoring its wounds when blood began to run off its ruined fingers.
"NO! NO, GO AWAY! HELP!" Chad bawled, twisting around in the limited space to peer through the window desperately. The best solution for this problem would be if those special soldiers found him, those Blackwatch blokes.
Unfortunately they were known to shoot first, check for infection never. Considering how much glass coated the seats nearby, and how his hand was starting to bleed because of the sharp metal ridges poking from the door, they probably had a point.
Crash! The remaining slivers of glass were punched in by the crab-clawed zombie, and the four-armed one threw its freaky hands about, attempting to reach their quarry. Chad was pressed against the opposite door, which was squashed to a point that nothing could get in or out of the window.
Adrenalin surged like fire through his veins, an instinctive flight-or-fight response to danger, but there was no way to do either; the cab was devoid of anything that could kill vicious monsters, and his only possible way out was now blocked by said monsters.
Dirty and mangled clawed fingers closed on his left shoe, a delighted hiss rumbling in the four-armed zombie's throat. It used abnormal strength to draw the man to its rotting, half-open carcass of a chest, while the crab-claw zombie waiting eagerly beside it.
His arms and face were bleeding from several small wounds, some glass pieces still sticking in the crooks of his arms. The pain, however, was completely blocked out by pure, unfettered terror.
Chad kicked out suddenly and writhed, yelling incomprehensible words at the monsters with a few kicks to their faces for good measure. They flinched but mostly ignored his insults and struggling, pulling on the leg they were gripping. At an awkward angle between the door and the seat, a loud crack made Chad scream all the more, this time in more pain than fear.
"Shit! My leg's broken! Aaah!" he yelped, his face scrunched up at the electric pain in the flesh around his snapped bone. The zombies didn't care, but they managed to yank his body from the half-crushed taxi, allowing him to drop to the tarmac.
Chad gasped and clutched at his leg, ignoring the reddening sky above them. Out of the corner of his eye, the man could see that guy from before finishing off what looked like a human zombie mixed with a spider, eight spindly legs scrabbling in the throes of death.
He turned around and looked at the two that were readying themselves to eat Chad, and the icy blue eyes that scanned over all three of them made cold shivers run up the felled man's spine, pain or no pain.
Flurries of red and black matter writhed around the man's feet, and he launched into the air with the ease of a bird with a running start. The four-armed monster changed its hand's positions in order to rip its prey into more edible-sized pieces, and leaned in, foul breath seeping into Chad's jacket. Somehow he knew that, like smoke, that stench was impossible to get rid of.
Suddenly, two shoes smashed into the four-armed monster's back, crushing it into the ground with a sickening squelching crack. The crab-clawed one roared in a bestial voice, but a quick series of punches directly to its face and a kick to its chest destroyed the thing's body completely. There was silence as the two bodies fell to the ground and expelled bodily fluids quietly onto the road.
Chad stared up at the man, dark brown eyes meeting icy blue. There had been no expression on the other man's face, but now a look of confusion appeared in the crinkles of his brow. Chapman wondered where he had seen that face before; hadn't he been on television or something? A flare of pain in his leg made the felled man look down, still clutching his leg fiercely.
"Argh, damn, damn, that fricking hurts!" Chad grunted, feeling to his horror that tears were appearing in his eyes. The hooded man stayed standing long enough to make sure there were no more infected nearby before crouching down next to him. Almost against his will, Chad's eyes were drawn to the blues and he frowned at the look of concern he saw there. "Are... are you... alright?" the man asked unexpectedly, voice rough from little use.
"I-I'm bleeding. I cut my hands; see?" the injured guy asked pleadingly, holding up his bloodied arms and hands. "And my leg, it's-"
"Broken. I think you've... made that clear," the blue-eyed male interrupted in a cold, hoarse voice. His hands moved down to the break point and prodded it experimentally. Chad hissed and attempted to knock the offending hands from his injury, but they didn't move an inch no matter how hard he batted at them. "What the hell are you doing? That really..." he trailed off when the man looked at him, straight into his eyes.
Either he was a hypnotist, or there was something non-human about this man. He could silence with a glance, hardly ever spoke and apparently liked to torture people with broken bones. After staring into Chad's eyes for a few seconds, he looked back down at the leg and did something to it in one quick movement. The pain surged back up, sickening and electric, and then faded to a dull ache. The tears in Chad's eyes grew larger, but he wiped them away with the back of his hand before the stranger could notice them.
"Wait, what did you... it's not hurting as much," Chad realized, glancing up at the man with a shocked expression. "What did you do?"
"...I fixed it. Try to... try to stand up," he growled and stood, offering a hand up once his feet were flat on the ground. Chad took the offered hand after some hesitation, but yelped when his injured leg was jostled on the way up. The blue-eyed man frowned and pulled one of his companion's arms around his shoulders.
Chad was attempting to remember something; he knew this man. He had seen his face before, somewhere not too long ago. Trying to recollect past things had always been difficult for him, so Chad resorted to memorizing his rescuer's face in the hope of his finding out later. They began to stumble to the end of the street, the injured man cursing under his breath.
Eventually the man changed the position of his hands, lifting Chad with arms under his legs and one around his shoulders. Chad was a bit surprised at this, but that was nothing compared to the shock of when his companion suddenly leapt into the air, rising beyond the capabilities of any human until he was above some of the lower city buildings. Chad closed his eyes at the dizzying sight below, and curled as much into as a ball as his position would allow.
Earlier on, when the stranger had done that incredible jump to kill both of the infected attempting to eat him, Chad hadn't registered the fact that doing so was beyond human capabilities. This drove the point home. Then, an epiphany; what had been slaughtering infected and military alike, using powers to decimate both factions, and could kill with the ease of a hand slapping a mosquito?
"Y-y-you're Alex Mercer!" Chad shouted, instinctively kicking and throwing his hands out at the realization that he was being carried somewhere like helpless baggage by a mass-murderer. There was no response from the man with blue eyes, part from slight tightening of his hands. Chad really didn't understand; why was he still alive? Why was Mercer... helping him?
The rest of the journey was a mix of being terrifying and the most exciting thing he'd ever done, running fast enough to escape the mindless Hunters, landing on top of the soldiers that attempted to shoot both men out of the sky and flipping like some crazy parkouring kid over every car in their way. Chad was bewildered at this point, but Alex didn't say anything at all, not even a grunt when he had to roll to avoid a tank's missile.
After one wild ride over New York, the hooded Alex and a pasty-faced Chad skidded to a halt outside of one of the city's general hospitals. His leg was aching again, hurting a little more each time they had to land with more than a slight jolt, and the cuts on his arms and face were starting to bleed once more.
Mercer crouched down and lay his companion on the ground, being surprisingly gentle with the metalworker. Chapman still winced, his leg jutting at an awkward angle, but managed a shaky smile and a thumbs-up. "Hey, Mercer... thanks. I don't understand why you would help me, but thank you," Chad said as clearly as he was able in his condition. Alex stood up and glanced around, his eyes briefly glowing red and yellow. The man watched from his position on the ground as the glow faded away, and Alex looked back down at him, his expression impossible to see due to the sun shining just behind his head.
"I am glad that you are alive. What is your name?" he asked in a quiet voice. The hint of an animalistic growl was gone from his voice, and Alex spoke as if actually concerned for Chad's safety.
"I'm Chad Chapman. But there's no need for you to introduce yourself; you're Alex Mercer!" Chad said in an almost happy voice, grinning with bloodstained lips. Mercer snorted and began to walk away; ignoring the citizens he shoved aside without looking at them. Chad blinked and attempted to lever himself up on his elbows, watching the hooded man for as long as his position made possible, but the pain made him fall back with a groan.
As some of the people walking past stopped and rushed to the injured metalworker, gasping and yelling for someone to get a doctor, Alex ran straight up a building, horizontal to the ground as his feet dug craters into the side of the skyscraper. It took a couple of minutes to reach the top, but once there he sat on the edge of the roof and looked at the horizon.
"Am I human enough for you?" he muttered under his breath, eyes hidden beneath the grey hood.
Please tell me what you think!
~Golden Eagle