Chapter 5- Dana

It was roughly a nine-hour sprint to get back to Rivet City, a drearily boring sprint as everything was a constant blur. Finally reaching the ruins of the DC area I slammed on the internal brakes going from 400 mph to 0 in just under three seconds however that wasn't fast enough to save the wall a small apartment building as I smashed through the decaying brick, coming to a stop in what I figured had at one point been an above-ground basement or living room. I changed my flesh back to normal density and proceeded out of the front door. Thankfully the man had been extremely accurate when he had pointed in this direction otherwise I would have likely had another hour or two of running. After punching another hole on the other side of the building and stepping outside, I found myself in some kind of alleyway and not wanting to go right nor left on ground level, I decided to go up, jumping with ease onto the two story house directly in front of me. Looking around I quickly found my target, only about a mile from my current position was the ship, still the same as I had last seen it.

The bridge was extended from the metal structure to the boat which was the same as I had left it. I leapt down from the roof landing lightly in what used to be a large two-way street proceeding directly to the boat. I began jogging toward the ramp leading up to the ship, this time however the woman that had been there when Dana and I had first arrived was nowhere to be seen. Walking up the ramp I found that the bridge was currently extended to the ship, two guards were waiting at the other side, assault rifles held in a downed position. I began walking across the bridge when the intercom speaker next to me burst into static for a moment, a male voice coming on a second later "Stay back, we can't let anyone in, currently the whole city's on lock down." The intercom sputtered static and died. I walked to the speaker and pressed the button static erupted for a second again and then I began speaking "you're going to let me in, if you shoot me I swear I will kill you" I released the button and began walking across the bridge.

Both of the guards immediately aimed at me, the one on my left shouted at me to stop, I continued walking making it about half way across before the one that had shouted at me fired a single shot hitting me in the shoulder I pushed the bullet back out almost immediately and continued walking towards them. After a second the same guy shot twice more hitting me in the chest and leg, again the bullets were expelled from my body as I continued walking towards them the one on the right stared "what?" he said, staring at me "He's some kind of mutant, full auto, now" he said and started firing along with his friend, this was enough to get me to dash forward and grab the left guy by the neck and throw him into the other guy, both flew off the ship. The bulkhead leading into the rest of the ship was closed, the door probably weighing close to a ton; which may have been a problem for almost anything in the wasteland, I however simply snapped the thing off its hinges and set it aside.

I had to find Dana as fast as I could and see what she knew about Ares, or Pariah as I knew him to be, I started where I had last seen Dana, in the marketplace. Upon entering the bulkhead I was greeted by a sight of carnage, blood and torn limbs were strewn everywhere. I walked down the short flight of stairs to get to the main floor, I walked to one of the small pools of blood and bent down to examined it; however it hadn't quite coagulated which meant that the victim or victims were killed less than twenty minutes ago. Another small splash of blood near me was distinctly older than the pool I was currently inspecting, I stood up and began to move to some of the other blood splashes figuring that… I spun around, changing my arm to my blade and taking up a defensive stance, ready to fight whatever presence I had sensed behind me. "Well, we meet again Dr. Mercer, outside of the facility this time hmm?" Ares said, stepping out of the shadow he was currently shrouded in. "What happened here?" I asked him "Simple" he responded "I hunted" he said with a smile like he had accomplished something to be proud of. "Why? How many people did you kill?" I asked "I only got 3 of them before the rest ran away however, so far 4 have come back" he said "You know you really shouldn't be killing what few humans are left on the planet, the animals and insects are much more plentiful" "That may be true, but they don't have the higher intellect that the humans possess which makes them both boring and stupid." "Usually I'd agree with you, however the human population numbers in the mere thousands now, spread across the planet, not the billions it had before the war. Meaning that they've become what they call an 'endangered species' I thought you would have been intelligent enough to realize that." I said. "Was that an insult?" "No, simply an observation" He threw me a grin and a tendril flew out from behind him, I jumped to the side however it still managed to cut my forearm about an inch deep. "Not quite ready yet?" he asked with a laugh "or are you just that slow?" "Somewhat both" I admitted healing my new wound "well then I'll see ya around, and by the way I haven't seen your sister and don't worry I won't kill more humans, well unless they decide to attack me first." "Well at least you can learn" I mused at him "also can you please just stay out of my head already?" "Na, you're too interesting, that and I don't know how to shut it off when I come within 500 feet of you, it just kind of… happens." He said as he turned and went back the way I had come from.

I decided to explore the ship for anyone who might know where Dana went. I spotted another bulkhead that wasn't too far away from the one that I had come through, the sign above it said stairwell so it seemed like the place to go. Stepping through I found the obvious stairway that the sign had referred to a single person was coming up the stairs, when she saw me she immediately turned around and ran back down. "Stop" I called out, of course she didn't listen. The chase lasted all of 10 seconds before I grabbed her by the collar of her lab coat and tripped her, her legs flew out in front of her almost comically "do you remember me? I came here with a woman and I need to know where she is." I asked the woman kicked me in the stomach and expecting that I'd let go she started to run, she went down again. "Stop fighting, I'm not going to hurt you" I said sighing at her futile attempts to get away. For the first time she spoke "if you're not going to hurt me then let me go Mercer" I recognized the voice, it was Ada from before. I dropped her "please, tell me where Dana went" I pleaded "why? So you can murder her like you did the people in the market?" she asked finally turning to look at me "That wasn't me, that was another bio-weapon designed specifically to kill me, I need to know how to even begin to kill him and that means I need to find Dana, besides if I had killed them I would have been a lot less sloppy." I said "fine, last she said she was headed to the old Jefferson Memorial where Project Purity was abandoned quite a while ago." "Thank you Ada, and tell everyone that they can resume whatever they were doing, the creature is gone." I said, turning and going back upstairs, knowing I would be at the memorial in less than 5 minutes.

Crossing the bridge I arrived at the side entrance to the memorial. Pushing the door open I entered into a long hallway, it immediately became apparent that someone or something had already come this way, a large green body lay in the middle of the hallway. Approaching I found that there was a turn off from the hallway, as I rounded the corner a turret from the ceiling immediately opened fire on me. I morphed my arm into a lance-like spear and launched my whole body at the turret, my arm ripped through the metal with no resistance what so ever, I changed my arm back and quickly determined that I was in a medium sized room with multiple doors to choose from. I decided to go to the left for a start, finding the door already open, I walked into a tall cylindrical room. A large tank-like structure was in the center of the room surrounding a statue that I assumed was of Jefferson. Locating two stairways to the right and to the left I took right one and found myself in a small chamber with an input device which meant nothing to me, this also lead into the large containment chamber that dominated the room. I entered and immediately walked to the left, and to my surprise Dana stared back from the outside of the chamber, startled she immediately pointed a pump action shotgun at me. I raised an eyebrow at her and she put the gun back into a relaxed position and waved at me, I began walking back to the entrance of the chamber. Before I even reached the small room with the input device Dana's voice echoed throughout the room "Alex! You're not dead, but where did you go and why did you…" "Could you give me a chance to start explaining before you launch into an enormous Q and A session?" I asked dryly "Yes, I guess I could but that means that you have to answer everything if you dont read my mind, and also…" she started again "You're starting to question again…" I remarked. "Ok, fine just start with why you left me at the market."

I told her everything as we walked back to Rivet city, not cutting any detail out. And then finally I reached the two questions I wanted answered "What do you know of Pariah and what were you doing at the memorial?" I asked "well I was trying to find out if I could restart Project Purity, to provide fresh water to the entirety of the wasteland. However I have no idea what the code is or how to get it working and the only two people who could probably figure both out, James and his wife, died quite a while ago during a mutant raid on the memorial, the project was abandoned and never restarted. Madison thought that a fresh pair of eyes might make a difference, however I have no clue how any of it works. As for Pariah, what do you want to know?" "I need to know how to kill him." I said "well that's going to be a problem; he's been dead since before the war, Blackwatch killed him." "He's not…" I started, Dana cut me off however "now if I believed that I wouldn't be a very good informant, would I?" She said. I let out an audible sigh "yea I guess you're right" I reluctantly agreed. She began talking again "Pariah, the son of Elizabeth Greene, born in Hope, Idaho on an undisclosed date, nearest confirmed date: early 1960…" "I know all of this already, get to how he can be killed" I urged her. "What did I tell you about interrupting? And why do you want to kill him so badly?" She asked "Because he's alive and he wants to kill me" I said bluntly "Oh… well that may be quite a problem you have there, especially since Pariah was naturally infected by the virus through Elizabeth" "Yea, I know, he can read my mind when he gets close to me, Blackwatch was keeping him in a lab and training him, he apparently only complied because they told him that he could kill me and that he'd get an actual challenge from me, which he will anyways, so he's waiting until I'm back at full power so he can fight me" I finished, letting Dana think about the information. "I would suggest running, however I doubt that that would help you at all, other than that there's really nothing you can do to him. He's quite literally a perfect release of the Blacklight virus" she said "then you're telling me I have no hope of beating him?" "Yes" "what about the parasite that they used on me to take my morphing powers?" "Even if we could get a sample of the parasite, Pariah's body would reject it, that parasite would only ever work on two people, you and Elizabeth as both of you were, in essence, artificial releases of the virus, whereas Pariah is a natural release of the virus."

She stopped talking and began to pace back and forth, just like she had done in Rivet city. She was thinking, and I knew better to than to interrupt her. She stopped pacing and looked at me and said four simple words that I hated "You can't kill him" "why" "because, he is in every way better than you. Although I will attempt to research if killing or harming him is even remotely possible, there are quite a few people who owe me a favor or two." "Thank you, Dana." I said, the ramp up to Rivet City only a few feet in front of us. "Come back in two or three days and I'll try to have something solid for you" she said as I turned toward the nearest building, a 4 floor office building, and jumped toward it.

Landing softly on the roof of the structure, I began to wonder what I would do for the next three days besides dodge Pariah as much as possible. "Who's Pariah?" a familiar voice called out. I stopped and looked to my left, "I told you to stay out of my head" I said. "Ah but that's like putting a million dollars in front of someone and asking them not to take it, in the old world at least, anyways it's not my fault that you're so interesting" he chided "Yes but it is your fault for not being able to control it" "That's not even my fault, that's what Blackwatch programmed me for." He did indeed have a point. "Alright, I still need to prepare though" "That's still fine, just hurry up about it before I get bored" He said, leaping away to the northeast. He was really starting to worry me though, he wasn't just going to wait around until I came up with a way to defeat him or possibly kill him, I likely only had a week at most before he'd stop holding off. I'd also have to tell him who he actually was eventually, and I had no idea how he'd react to all of it.

I bounded off towards the northwest, intent on keeping myself preoccupied for the three days that Dana needed for whatever research she was doing. I ran for about two hours before turning back and sprinting to Rivet City again consuming every mutated animal I came across, at least I felt that I was actually doing something useful besides sitting around. I began following this route and did about 4 round trips turning the day into evening. I began running back towards the downtown area however I only got about a mile inward before I found something that surprised me, about 20 of the giant green mutants were fighting 4 people in some kind of strange metal armor, the battle itself wouldn't have surprised me except for the fact that the humans appeared to be winning. The mutants were standing in a large somewhat open plaza while the humans were taking cover behind the remains of old buildings that had been destroyed long before. I watched a while longer from a nearby rooftop as the mutants were shot down one by one until only one was left, the humans stopped firing, I was sure that they had more ammo however as the mutant slung it's assault rifle onto it's back and took out a crude club with large nails hammered straight through the wood and charged the human's position, no doubt as a last resort. Two of the humans popped out of their cover long enough to use two high-power rifles, one shot to both of the mutant's knees simultaneously made it buckle and fall over. As soon as this was accomplished all four of the humans hurried towards the downed mutant, their guns were up and sighting around them, one of them looked at me and pointed, drawing the attention of the others to my location however they seemed content that I wasn't going to try attacking them and returned their attention toward the downed mutant. I continued watching they were almost completely silent not even talking, although I had no doubt that they had built in radios inside their helmets.

One of them, which I assumed was the leader of the group was in the process of tying the mutants hands behind its back which meant two things, one, that they had heavy lifting gear and two, that they were part of a larger group, likely military, that wanted to interrogate the creature for some reason. I decided that if nothing else, at least meeting a new group of people would pass the time. I dropped off the office roof into a side street and began walking towards the group, the guy whom I still assumed to be the leader got up from the downed mutant and walked over to me clicking a few buttons on the side of his helmet and finally spoke "Hi, did you need something civilian?" The voice was definitely male however was muffled and slightly warped no doubt by the helmet he was wearing. "No, just curious about what you're wearing, what you're doing, and where you're base is." I responded "Civilian unless you have super mutants chasing you I have no time for questions." "Why not?" "Because we need to get this guy out of here and back to base, now bye" without another word he turned back to the mutant and began walking, I walked right alongside him. "You've answered one of my questions now where's your base?" "Civilian I have to order you to leave" he said in a flat monotone as something like a helicopter combined with a jet appeared in the sky "Alright, the vertibird is here let's get this thing on it and head out" The others appeared to be still in the radio-only mode or whatever they called it and simply nodded, the one that I was talking to turned back to me, this time he pulled out his pistol and aimed it at me "I won't ask you again, I need you to leave now, you have 5 seconds." He clicked the same buttons on the side of his helm and probably went back to radio only mode, I decided that I had a better strategy for finding their base. I ran back to the alley at human speed, once I was back in the darkness of the alley I leapt back up to the office building I was at before.

I waited and watched as the vertibird or whatever landed next to the mutant, the armored group went to the side of the aircraft and opened a hatch on the side, revealing a wound up cable which one of the soldiers grabbed and proceeded to attach to the cuffs on the mutant, after that a hatch door on the back of the aircraft opened, the entire group walking in. I changed my arm to an adhesive whip-like form, the aircraft took off upwards; I aimed and launched my new arm out towards it, multiplying the cells in the arm at extreme speed. The end of my arm caught on the top of the aircraft, I immediately started reeling myself towards it by compacting the cells that I had multiplied and then re-absorbed them into the rest of my body. I landed as softly as I could on the roof of the craft however the whole thing went down a few feet and bobbed back up, the pilot apparently didn't care however which suited me just fine. Immediately after we cleared the tops of the buildings we turned to where the bird had come from which was in the general direction of Rivet City, I decided to take precautions and change my form to look like one of the soldiers hopefully that would be all I needed to be able to get into whatever base that they had without much hassle.

We touched down outside of some kind of large building next to water dropping the mutant a few feet off the ground and landing right next to it, the cable detaching itself. I quickly jumped off toward the water, landing right at the edge and began walking at human speed toward the group getting off of the vertibird "So where's he going?" I called out. The leader once again stepped up to me "Soldier if you had the clearance to know then you'd know, and what happened to your weapon?" "Lost it" I replied trying to at least sound respectful like a good little soldier "well then get over here and help us drag this thing inside" "Yes Sir" I responded and grabbed the thing by the leg and began dragging it towards a large shutter door "Soldier, are you on psycho?" "No Sir, just good exercise and diet" I said quickly completely forgetting to hide my strength "you realize that thing weighs about 400 pounds?" "I didn't, but now I do thank you Sir" "hmmm, fine then soldier just get that thing to the courtyard, and then resume whatever it was you were doing." "yes sir" I said continuing to drag the mutant towards the opening shutter door, apparently they had also hit the mutant with a tranquilizer. Directly inside the shutter door was another set of double doors, rubble spanning the distance between the two, two of the other soldiers walked ahead and opened the doors as much as they would stretch, and I was barely able to fit the whole thing through the cement frame, once I was inside however I immediately found that I was likely already in the courtyard, which was an enormous open area various people in different armor than the rest of the soldiers were training, either with weapons or hand-to-hand combat some of them were doing push-ups or conditioning.

"Just drop that off in the center there" the leader said from behind me "yes sir" I dragged it over to the supposed center of the courtyard right next to a large circle made of metal was, it didn't appear to have any significance however. "Where's the boss?" I asked the supposed leader. He looked at me quizzically "who, you mean me? Lyons? Sarah?" "Um sure just point me to this Lyons guy" He suddenly took on a harsh tone and serious demeanor "ELDER Lyons you mean? Right soldier?" "yes sir, sorry sir I'm a little tired" "he should be in the A-ring Lab, spends almost all of his time there now a days" "Thank you sir, I'll report to him immediately" I said and walked to the first door I found, upon getting closer I could make out the words B-ring stenciled in capital letters over the door. I walked to the left instead, quickly spotting another set of double doors. These marked with the same style sign above them, moving closer I discovered that this sign read "A-ring" instead. Passing through the doors I found that two more soldiers were standing guard just inside "Could you point me to the lab?" I asked "What are you a tourist? It's down the hall to the right." The other slapped the back of the first one's helmet "don't fool him, he probably just transferred, it's to the left" "thanks" I said and turned to the left.

After a few seconds I found myself in the entrance to the lab, this time instead of just soldiers there were people in robes too, likely scientists of some kind. In the middle of the room was an enormous robot, however I wasn't even sure if it worked or not. I walked up to one of the red robed figures "where's the elder?" I asked "hmm?" the man appeared distracted by whatever he was examining on the desk in front of him, I looked over his shoulder and found that he was fiddling with a plasma rifle, a pile of electronics and random parts next to it. "Where is the elder?" I asked a little more forcefully which made him turn to face me "he's down on the ground floor talking to Rothchild look…" he pointed toward the base of the large robot in the room where another red robed person was talking with an old man in a blue robe. "Now go bother him with your questions and leave me to my work" he said going back to working on his rifle. I walked down a set of stairs, metal like nearly everything else in this place, and said "Elder Lyons?" the two robed people in front of me stopped talking and turned to face me "yes?" inquired the one in the blue robe. I grinned to myself "I was wondering if you could help me out with a problem that I have?" I asked and changed back into my duster form, the two in front of me were completely stunned for long enough to complete my transformation and have a small dagger-like arm around the old man's neck. The other robed person yelled "Guards!" running up the stairs that I had come down "who… what are you?" asked the person I was currently holding hostage, I grinned again "you know I've been asked that so many times that it's really getting old however if I told you what I told the others before the war you wouldn't have a clue what I meant so I'll make this really simple, I'm extremely deadly and my name is Alex Mercer" I finished my small monologue just as about 20 soldiers armed with plasma rifles appeared in all directions on the upper railing.

I let the elder go "Don't worry I'm not here to kill anyone, I just needed to make an impression, as I said I need your help." Instead of running Lyons turned to face me however before he could say anything one of the soldiers shouted "Shut up and get your hands behind your head" now this guy annoyed me. Without a word I sprint-jumped at full speed over and behind him, and before he could even turn his head I had my arm changed to my long blade with the point just an inch behind his head. Everyone in the room stopped and attempted to follow the blur of my movement which had happened in about two seconds, when the guy whom I was pointing at finally turned around his face was right at the point of my blade. "I don't take orders" I stated changing my arm back to normal and jumping back down to the elder, slow enough however that everyone could keep up with my movement. "What is it that you want?" Lyons asked "simple, you help me when I need it and I'll try to make sure that whatever world you now inhabit doesn't become devoid of life." "What do you mean?" "There's another one of me, however he's more underdeveloped and unrestrained, it's extremely complicated, but just know that if I don't kill him he'll likely slaughter the rest of the human race." "Can you prove this?" "No, but perhaps I could help you out with some heavy work for about 2 days and you could provide whatever info I may need to kill him." "Very well" he said to me and then turned to the soldiers on the level above us "all of you, it seems we have an ally for now, so you may return to whatever you were doing" at this he turned back to me "it appears your talents are stealth based however do you have any others that I should know about?" "Think of me as the ultimate weapon, killing is my specialty, stealth only helps me accomplish that sometimes." He thought about what I had said for a second before nodding "and you think you're good?" "The best" I reassured him. He appeared to think for another second before nodding again "then I have a job for you, although it won't be easy…"