I am so LATE! I am terribly sorry! This has been setting for a few weeks but woth all the traviling and everythign.. Ahhh so sorry! Umm okay just enjoy!
Alex had had to take deep, calming breaths the whole walk to where ever it was they were going. Once Rachel and Harley had made it down, Rachel had leaded them through a door behind the counter. Alex had originally assumed this was the shop and docks and he was pretty sure he was right, but Blackwatch had put up thick plastic walls to make separate rooms. Parlor had taken them to the left where they went down a flight of stairs to a floor with much more rooms and smaller hall ways. Harley was walking behind him while Rachel limbed in front. And the speed and proximity to these much loathed people were making Alex quite….. Animalistic.
On more than one occasion, Alex had growled. And twice now he had full out snarled at a passing solider. This had of course raised alarm and Alex then had to bat away a rod and a gun. He would simply mumbled a 'Watch it' or a 'No biggy' before shoving his hands in his pockets and facing forwards once more.
After about ten minutes, Rachel had stopped at a door with two guards stationed at it. She showed them a card and had Harley flash a badge of some kind. "And this is him I take it?"
"Yes." Rachel had answered. The guards lip tilted down into an unsure scowl. "Oh for heaven's sake! Use an I.E. if you must!" Parlor had yelled shaking her head back and forth. The guard reached into his pocket to retrieve what looked like a pocket watch. When he opened it however, he pulled out a very teched out monocle. Alex felt Harley lean forward
"I.E. Infected Eye. It shows us and identifies what virus's people might be carrying and exactly how much. We used one when you were at the coffee shop. You were a very big white silhouette in our vision. We use a much bigger one at the main HQ when-" Harley had explained before being shushed by Rachel and glared at.
The I.E. had a red lens and a silver frame. It clasped onto the guards helmet. 'It's like my infected vision.' Alex mused. "Okay. You're clear." The guards had said opening the door. Alex squared his shoulders and removed his hands from his pocket. When neither Rachel nor Harley took the lead, he looked over at Rachel arching a questioning eye brow. She simply pointed towards the door with a reassuring nod.
"The doctor has already removed the sedation and injected a counter agent. You can go in and we'll have an escort sent to you in a half hour." Rachel said with a smile. A fake smile. But a smile. Alex returned his understanding in the form of a nod took another deep breath and walked in. The sight shocked him.
"Dana…." He whispered. He closed the door with his foot as he stepped over to her bed. He reached down with one had to gently clasp one of hers and with the other, which had melted into a whip fist, grabbed a nearby chair. After he had sat down, he took her hand in both of his slightly bigger ones and lightly dragged her knuckles across his forehead. His 'heart' was in his ears again. Alex really hadn't realized how much he missed his sister. It had only been thirty four hours with him knowing she wasn't safe and he was a ticking time bomb of nerves.
After Alex had slowed his breathing he brought their hands drop on the bed and started rubbing small circles on Dana's. With his other, he moved a lock of her brown hair. Only then did he notice the bandage. There was a wrap around her head. Wraps were used for injuries. Dana had an injury. The wrap was on her head. Someone had given Dana a head injury. Alex hadn't noticed he was standing over her till after he looked at the door and looked back at Dana. He needed to calm down. Dana was less than a foot away. If he freaked out, she would be harmed.
Since he was up, Alex decided to do a thorough body inspection starting from head to toe. The heaviest of the wrapping was just above Danas check bone and the lower section of the temple. The back of the base of her scull had a small cut but it didn't look resent. On the sides of her neck was bruising that looked like a hand but it didn't look like she was strangled though, just held in place. Her shoulders seemed fine. Her torso was fine. The upper part of her arms also had some bruising for hands. And so did her wrist. Everything else was fine until Alex got to her left ankle. It had a tenser wrap around it.
He heard Dana take in a deep breath and was back at her side but she soon settled back down. Alex rubbed her cheek affectionately before going back to her ankle to make sure it wasn't broken. He started to rub around it, feeling for a fracture or break. It only felt swollen. So Alex gentle picked it up and very gently rotated it. He however missed the grimace on Dana's face and the pair grey blue eyes open slightly. It wasn't until a pink convers shoe hit him in the face that he realized Dana had awoken.
Alex stumbled back holding his jaw as Dana rolled off the other side of the bed. She landed with a groan that got Alex's attention. "Dana! Shh… It's okay. I'm not going to hurt you. They're not going to hurt you anymore. I promise." Alex whispered as he ran over to her side and helped her into a sitting position.
"Fuck Alex… What the hell is going on?!" Dana yelled before pinching her eyes shut and rubbing her head. "God damn it…" She mumbled. Alex began to rub slow circles on Dana's back. That seemed to have drawn Dana back and, to Alex's dismay, she moved away and stood up. It hurt, he guess, that she still didn't trust him. He felt her tense when he gave her a hug. She flinched when he tried to stroke her cheek. And when he did get a chance to show affection, she'd move away.
"I'm not sure. The boss, Rachel Parlor, needed to speak with me. But I think we're just going to break out of here and lay low for a bit. I want to get you checked out and safe." Alex answered. Dana was looking a little pale and that was concerning.
After a few minutes, Dana spoke up. "I think you should hear what they have to say."
"What?" 'Are you Crazy?' Alex reframed from asking. Maybe her head injury was a bit more serious than he originally thought.
"I think… There's something going on that's freaked the hell out of those who know. And those who don't are low class dog. Their just muscle to the higher ups. I mean they want YOUR help Alex! These are the same guys who have been trying to wipe your ass off the planet so… it sounds important is all." Dana finished holding a hand to her head and stomach. She was leaning on the bed for support.
Alex considered what Dana said. It was true. The military shouldn't want his help. Unless they wanted to experiment on him… But even then they would have just caught him or restrained him already. Then he considered Dana. She didn't look well. All pale, fragile looking. "Fine. But I want you an arm's length from me the entire time. If they try to separate us… All bets are off. Deal?"
"Sure, Whatever." Dana answered just as the door opened. Another guard in uniform came in.
"Hello Mr. and Miss. Mercer. I'm here to escort you to Miss. Parlor's office."
Thirty minutes later, Alex, Dana and the escort arrived at a conference room door. The room was long in length but not very wide or very tall. The whole left wall was a giant window overlooking the shop. There were three tables pushed together to form a lower cased 'n' with Rachel and Harley sitting at the top left corner. The rest of the tables were littered with pages. "Well hello you two. Why don't you take a seat and we'll get started." Rachel suggested giving a welcoming smile. Alex pulled out a chair that was three away from the Blackwatch officers and offered it to Dana, who was hugging herself and giving the other two people in the room hateful glares. Alex gently placed a hand on her shoulder and placed her in the chair. Once she was seated, he took the chair to her left, in between them and Dana.
"Hey before we get started, I want to ask something." Harley asked nonchalantly. Everyone just stared at him. "Miss. Mercer?" Dana directed her death glare to him. "Listen, you haven't had anything but sedatives since you've been here. The doc said you might be a little nauseous or dizzy and said that a little bit of food would do you good. So I had the kitchen boys prepare you a delicious breakfast of scrambled eggs, bacon, and hash browns. Here you go sweet heart." He pulled a silver tray off the chair to his left and passed it down to Alex, who put it in front of Dana. She then glared at the tray and pushed it away.
"Screw you and your food ass hole. If I remember correctly, you tried to chloroform me at my apartment." Dana spat out at Harley. There wasn't as much venom in her voice as there normally was and that worried Alex. "It probably has some chemical or drug in it anyway." Harley actually looked hurt but Dana didn't care. She just turned and rested her back and head against Alex's arm. Alex could understand Dana's distrust towards Harley. He himself wouldn't mind ripping his intestines out and chocking him out with them, now that he knew that Harley was one of Dana's kidnappers. But he had a point. Dana needed some food.
Alex opened the tray, grabbed the fork and grabbed a little bit of everything. He then proceeded to bite the food off into his own mouth. Everyone in the room gave him an odd look. Rachel's was a curious and flabbergasted. Harley just seemed nervous and confused. Dana's was shocked and concerned. She knew what food that wasn't fresh and raw meat did to his systems. He did too. That's why he took small bites. Alex swallowed and closed his eyes. After a few moments he looked over at Dana and handed her fork back. "It's fine. Nothing besides food and some seasonings. Now eat." Alex then looked back at Rachel "Let's get started. I don't want to be here any longer."
"Right… Okay. Over the past few months, Blackwatch has been working on a side mission. Project Crusade. It's been going fine. But last month the labs, we added a chemical agent to see if we could push its adrenaline out more. It…Had an odd side effect." Rachel explained.
"Adrenaline is only present in living life forms. What exactly are you dealing with?" Alex asked.
"A bi-product of Elizabeth Greene." Rachel answered with hesitation and looked almost pleadingly at the Mercer siblings. This is was the moment. The moment where everything could go very wrong. Everyone had told her she should have had this conversation over the phone. When she denied, they suggested over a file that the two could read over. People had hypothesized that Alex would be mad and act out aggressively. But Rachel had thought that maybe, just maybe, he'd be curious enough to hear them out. And even if the creature was as heartless as he looked while staring daggers at her right now, his sister might convince him to help for the sake of the planet.
"What does the bi product do?" Alex asked in a small growl. Everyone could tell he was pissed. Even Alex knew he was pissed. That's why he removed the arm that was wrapped around his sister.
"We are not sure. We aren't even sure whether it realizes what it's doing. We administrated the chemical and half hour later, it….. Exploded? Well not exactly. It expanded and attacked the walls, with tendrils. Some wrapped around it, like a cocoon, most of the tendrils just killed the scientist and guards surrounding its containment cell. It walked out of its cocoon about an three hours later very weak. We have pictures of the cocoon here." Rachel said and Harvey handed them a manila folder.
Alex flipped through it. Some of the pictures were security snap shots, other were photos. There were also some charts. Alex looked at the charts first. Temperatures over the past month. Consumption rates. Attitude towards elements. Blood pressure and oxygen intake….. That caught his attention. At times they'd be similar to a child. Then they would be way over a humans doing intense exercise. And some of these rates showed it having none all together.
He moved to the security shots next. There was a security guard standing in one, the next he was turning towards the wall, gun ready. The one after, a tendril had grabbed his head and smashed it into the wall. The last was of his head and upper spinal column was being ripped off by a tendril protruding from the wall.
Alex heard Dana mumble 'Oh my God.' and grabbed a different set of security photos. These ones looked like one in an observation deck. People were watching out of a window, some were on monitors. Everything was normal. The next photo multiple tendrils and two almost club like tendrils came in the surrounding wall and the window. The one after that had people being pulled out of the room; others were pinned to the wall. The next was a big explosion from one of the clubs and a body flying back first into the camera. The last was all static.
And last set of pictures showed a bulge of what looked like a small hive sack. It was connected to the ceiling and the floor there was also tendrils the size of trees branching of into the walls and the floor. There were different angled shots of this hive. The one close up had a blood splatter on the lenses.
"Are these after or before he exited?" Alex asked.
"Before. Why?" Harvey asked grimly.
"If you look closely at the sack, there is something in there. And a lot of liquid. This report says these photographers and there guards died….. Are you sure they just didn't get infected?" Alex asked curiously.
"These shots are almost a week old. None of the reported dead have shown up." Rachel answered. "We haven't been able to get anymore shots because the structure expanded."
"It expanded…"Alex repeated rubbing his chin. He was looking at the pictures of the hive. If only he could move the blood splatter. He would love to see what was in the sake. Dana poked his elbow, wanting the pictures he was holding. HE looked at her grimly. He didn't want her seeing this. He shook his head slowly. Dana gave him her 'Really?' glare before waving the observation deck shots. Alex looked down to where he had left them and back at his sister before sighing and giving up the pictures.
A few minutes later, Dana spoke up. "Hey Alex?" Alex leaned over towards his sister. "Doesn't that….. That looks a lot like a person. Curled up. But look, that could be a head right there. This is the back and here are the feet and the calves." Dana said tracing the parts with her figure. "And if you look in this one you can almost make out two shoulders." This caught Harvey's attention and he came over. Alex just stared. There was a body and it was the same body in all shots.
"Must be the Project. I mean, it did come out of that thing." Harvey said dismissively walking away. And Alex watched him the whole way. He didn't even realized he was pissed tell he stabbed himself with his claws. 'Not an it….' An all too familiar voice whispered in his head. It was a female. Alex jumped up out of his chair and whipped around.
"Do you have any pictures of the project?" Alex asked almost hastily.
"I only brought one. And it's not very good." Rachel answered handing him a photo. The photo was another security shot but the there was a crack on the lenses covering majority of the right side. The camera was grey due to damage. But in the figure in the left side could be made out perfectly. There it was. A person. Walking with its arm out stretched using the wall as a support. 'My Baby!' Elizabeth shouted in a cracked voice in his head. A memory of a delivery room. The doctor's hands covered in blood as he explained to Alex, who was a female restrained to the bed, that her baby had not survived and was dead. Then another memory of hearing a high pitched wail of a new born and army boots on the ground.
Alex shook his head to clear it of the memory before looking down at Dana and then to Rachel. "What is it you need me to do?" He asked steadily.
Alright thats that. Umm what did you like and what didnt you like. Rate, comment, all that jazz...
Actully, I do need some help. The Project needs a real name. Any suggestions?