Author's Note: Hunters Ahoy! Also, our first sighting! Makes you wonder how Alex attacking the Infected would look to an outsider. No one ever guesses amnesia. My chapters seem to be getting longer and longer...
Cole wandered for most of that night, staying on the rooftops whenever he could. He'd found that a few quick zaps would down most of the zombies below, but they came in such numbers that he didn't want to risk them overwhelming him. Then there were the more heavily mutated ones, the ones that had their limbs sharpened into blades and rudimentary claws, covered in blood and barely looking human. These moved faster, lasted longer, and sometimes followed him up the sides of buildings, moving with unnatural speed. They were few and far between, but the thought of running into them kept him alert long into the night, along with the tortured, thunderous screams of some distant beast that he made his priority to avoid at all costs.
As the sky lightened and the sun poked above the horizon, Cole noticed that the number of zombies was trailing off. Citizens, normal people began so show up, and the sound of gunshots could be heard ahead. He didn't stop to ask anyone what was going on, and no one noticed him in turn, both parties attention focused on staying alive and dodging the blows of the oncoming monsters. He just kept running like the others, every so often climbing up a wall to get a better view of where he was going. On one such scouting trip, he spotted a single tank and several marines making a stand against the horde. Citizens scrambled desperately over the wall of bodies their gunfire had created, certain that beyond this line of defense lay safety. Once he was within their view, he stopped actively using his powers, blending into the crowd. He wasn't sure what their reaction would be, especially in such a tense situation.
He passed the marines without incident, being led with the rest of the refugees to a safer, more fortified area near one of the temporary bases the military had set up. The atmosphere was a blessed relief from the crawling horror he'd just come out of, but he couldn't help but feel uneasy here as well. Unmanned drones circled overhead, doing precisely what, he couldn't quite tell. Military trucks and tanks were constantly rolling down the streets, and hardly a moment passed when one couldn't hear a helicopter overhead. It was stiffing, to say the least. He would have to find a way to sleep, for a little while at least, as he was exhausted from the long night.
After taking his short nap on the roof of a building near the base, he started his investigation proper. Cole highly doubted that the military would just hand out information on this Alex Mercer, even if they knew that he was capable of fighting him. Besides, considering his past experiences, he didn't entirely trust the government in these matters. In his mind, it was better that he work alone, to track down Mercer himself. Still, he was without a lead at this point. Rather than wander aimlessly about Manhattan, he decided to have the military help him, though not directly. Jumping across the rooftops, he headed for the nearby base, landing silently atop it. The only structure on the roof was a large device with four glowing green lights, one on each side. It made no change in his presence, and had no cameras attached, so he ignored it for now.
Below him, the troops milled about. Cole couldn't hear their transmissions from here, but it didn't matter. All he had to do was wait. If something big happened nearby, he would be able to tell just by watching the deployment of the soldiers below, watching to see if they started leaving in droves, accompanied by tanks.
Hours passed, but the level of activity remained constant, and Cole was starting to doubt the supposed ingenuity of his plan. He was considering other tactics when an alarm went up. Just as he had hoped for, the marines loaded up and the armored vehicles all started to roll out. Cole climbed down to street level as discretely as he could, and soon began trailing the attack force. They moved faster than he could run, but all he had to do was follow the freshly crushed cars and tread tracks. They led him out of the military occupied zone and back into zombie territory, or infected, as he had learned they were called. It was a bioweapon after all. As he followed the trail, he briefly thought of his own safety. All the troops he'd seen had been wearing gas masks of some sort. Was this thing airborne? He hoped like hell it wasn't. His immune system had been boosted by his contact with the Ray Sphere, but he wasn't certain of its limits. He put the thought out of his mind for now as he noticed that the tread marks now ran parallel to a raised set of train tracks. He climbed swiftly up and began grinding along the rails, using the opportunity to catch up.
He sped along at a rapid pace, always keeping an eye on the trail below in case it swerved and took a turn away from the tracks. Electricity crackled and arced in a gaudy show as he made his way towards whatever had caused such a disturbance.
A bellowing roar echoed off the buildings surrounding him, followed by several, less powerful calls, one terrifyingly close behind him. Urging himself onward, Cole only let himself a brief look back. Crawling unnaturally along the side of a building was what looked to be a pinkish, hairless gorilla, perhaps with a bit of large cat mixed in, and it was following him. Cole picked up his pace, hoping to outrun it, hearing it crash onto the tracks behind him with another scream. Its bounding footfalls and heavy breathing, despite his best efforts, grew louder and louder in his ears. In a final, desperate effort, Cole leapt of the track, spinning around in midair to face the beast, firing off bolts of electricity into its eyeless head. The creature let out a final, ear-piercing shriek before collapsing onto the gravel, dead.
Feeling proud of himself, Cole briefly examined the fallen beast. Its skin was wet and smooth, covering a lean, well muscled body. Its head lacked eyes as far as he could tell, having only two black, sunken patches where they would be. The copious amounts of blood surrounding its mouth made obvious what this thing ate. It might have been human once, but Cole doubted it…
He was about to continue on his way, following the tanks, when he spotted a dark figure in the distance ahead, running along the tracks. Moments later, the figure was joined by an even larger, more dog-like version of the creature he'd just killed, running on all fours. The pair approached him at blinding speed, closing the gap between them at an astonishing rate. The first of the two, a man in a black jacket and grey hood, sprinted past him, shoving him brutally to the ground as he passed. Stunned by the blow, he laid where he was. The hulking beast pounded by his prone form moments later, obviously more interested in the man than him, snarling and bellowing as it passed. Cole turned his head to watch them go picking himself up slowly, and as they faded into the distance, he caught sight of the man's left arm transforming, lashing out and striking the creature, almost like a whip.
"Mercer…" He growled. He was about to give chase when the man leapt off the raised tracks several stories into the air, ran up the side of the nearest building, and disappeared into the urban maze that was Manhattan, the beast in hot pursuit. Cole grumbled in frustration. He was simply too slow to follow him over long distances. He cursed under his breath and headed in the direction Mercer had went anyway.
Something struck him as odd, though. Alex Mercer was the one who had started this infection in the first place. Why was he attacking the creature, and why was the creature attacking him? One would think that the person who had released this disease wouldn't be trying to harm one of its victims.
Perhaps… he thought as he jumped down from the raised tracks and back onto the streets, Perhaps it was an accident. Or there's more than one superhuman involved here…
