The doctor came to only slowly, groaning and wincing at the no doubt uncomfortable feeling of having been choked out and dumped on raw concrete floor. Alex watched him rise his hand to his head, whining, and frowned to himself. Jeez, there were some people that needed their sweet time waking up, and he hadn't even applied that much force when he dragged him out of WY.
...Maybe he shouldn't have lugged him around like a sack of potatoes? After all, not every person was either a super-powered human or Blackwatch, or Dana (Dana was the only one he ever applied gentleness to, everybody else just had to deal with it). At any rate, he was glad the guy managed to get up on his own, he'd hate having to do this without having had the chance to gloat a little.
Eisenberg groaned again and shifted more noticeable, and spidery legs clawed at Alex's arm in an attempt to break the hold he had on its tail. When his grip proved to be too strong, it gave in, almost pouting.
The doctor meanwhile managed to prop himself up, looking around in confusion. Alex didn't blame him, it was disorienting to wake up in a complete alien area, especially when one lost consciousness in a neat, clean, and secret underground area and now woke up in a rather cold, rough and mostly dark warehouse office.
Then Eisenberg noticed the open egg, and froze in panic. Alex grinned and cleared his throat, drawing attention. The doctor instantly whipped around, eyes widening when he spotted the Runner and his little passenger. Alex waved at him cheerfully.
"Good morning, doc. I was hoping you'd join me. Was a bit afraid you'd stay asleep and wouldn't even notice what was going on."
The spider thing tried to free itself again, but the few tendrils he'd snaked around it discouraged it thoroughly. Eisenberg, however, jumped to his feet and rushed to the door, rattling it with all his strength. It wouldn't open, Alex knew, neither would the wire glass windows once the man came to the same conclusion and tried prying them open. The only other door nearby led into a small storage room without any other openings.
But hey, let the guy come to that realization by himself. Alex simply leaned back and turned his arm, toying with the spider thing without taking his eyes off his captive.
"That won't work, you know. I made sure you wouldn't be able to run off before we had our little discussion. I would like to ask a few questions." He paused, and snorted amused like he'd heard a particularly funny joke. "Well, it's not like I can't get my answers anyways, but every time I just got them in the past there were APCs in the streets and gunships in the air waiting to blast me to pieces. So I learned to believe in civil conversation."
Eisenberg reluctantly turned to glare at him, his previous holier-than-you-attitude now firmly back in place. "Who are you?" His tone was cold.
"I'm hurt. All those efforts to be noticed, and you don't even recognize me."
"You-" The doctor spluttered briefly, "You are the one that destroyed all my work."
"Don't flatter yourself", Alex's voice had gone frigid, and he loosened his hold a little, so the thing tried to jump off his arm. Eisenberg instantly cowed back even though the animal didn't get very far. "I destroyed a lot of work from assholes over the past few years. You aren't anything special. Though, I give you points for using a literally uncontrollable organism, that was a really idiotic move."
Eisenberg bristled. "It was a stroke of genius", he hissed, "We already had figured out their communication. Just a little more, and we could have given them orders, and they would have followed them-"
"You wouldn't have. These things are killers. You can't put them in a cage and expect they don't go back to their nature the second your back is turned." Alex would have growled, but he just didn't feel the same burning hatred for people like Eisenberg anymore, only exhaustion. Because, really. He'd thought that Gentek had been unique with their casual disregard for human lives on their search for another potentially world-ending weapon, but ever since he'd left Manhattan, he had witnessed this special kind of idiocy again and again and again.
It was almost enough to just say 'Fuck this all' and either turn his back on humanity completely, or go rogue. Wasn't like he could be stopped anymore at this point.
He shook his head, and put his razor-like smirk back on his face. Exhausting or not, there were some perks he absolutely loved. Like gaining new abilities, or taking arrogant assholes down. Always brought a smile to his face.
"You know, I was almost impressed with the setup over at WY", he told the doctor in a casual conversational tone. "Big underground area not showing up on any official blueprints? Your bosses have some really deep pockets to get this done."
Eisenberg was inching back, trying the door again as if something had changed in the last few minutes. Alex watched him hungrily. "Almost, because quite frankly, you have been disregarding your security. Anybody could have gotten in, if they set their mind to it. And we set our minds into it, Heller and me."
The doctor scowled. "This agent? I knew he was trouble from the start- how could Rykov screw up taking him out so badly?"
"He didn't screw up, killing him was genuine. Problem is, as long as I remain, I can resurrect him." Alex sighed and shifted his legs a little, scuffing his soles over the rough concrete. "He didn't appreciate it, by the way. Which was why he was so adamant about throwing all kinds of spokes into your gears. Though, you knew that, didn't you? The pheromone trap you set in return was clever, and it would have worked if Heller wasn't such a mean bastard." He shrugged. "But as it is, you just gave him even more motivation."
The grin was back, teeth shining in the low light. "And he delivered. As we're speaking, he and that little Whistleblower are ripping apart your secure systems to find whatever speck of dirt there is. You are finished."
Eisenberg bristled. "We'll see about that. My lawyers are just waiting to rebuff your findings. Illegally obtained as they are."
Alex waved him off. "What we have, we will keep. You remember that one soldier you tried to kill with your trap? Colonel Cross. Blackwatch."
The doctor's face paled. Alex's grin turned sharp. "You heard correctly. Believe me, they are going to enjoy taking Weyland-Yutani apart piece by piece." He got up in one smooth motion, towering over the doctor. "But don't worry. You won't be around for that particular mess. I got different plans for you." He gestured with the spider thing towards its egg. "You should feel honored. You'll get to experience your research first-hand."
Eisenberg hastily backpedaled, his back slamming into the wall as he rattled the door handle again. "You- you don't want to do this. I can give you answers- I can cooperate-"
Alex nodded sagely as he continued to approach the doctor. "I know. I know. Your answers I will get. And your cooperation." His eyes glowed in amusement. "Just, you don't need to be alive, strictly speaking."
He let go of the spider thing. It tensed, curled up its tail, and let out a small chirping noise.
It pounced.
"They killed my brother" the Whistleblower's voice was strained, but she didn't look up from the screen as her fingers flew over the keyboard. "Told us it was an accident."
"I'm guessing it wasn't", Heller threw in, seated at his own computer to break through the tougher encrypted data (having access to the smartest minds of their time had advantages). Some of the Wisemen were nearby, looking bored with having to babysit them. Heller thought it was a little overkill- after all, he was here, as were Frosty and his squad. Cross must have figured that the Whistleblower was indeed very precious.
Or he just wanted to make sure that everybody was accounted for and he wouldn't have to wait until all of them dragged in their ass eventually.
It was around four in the morning, but none of them was tired. Couldn't be tired, not with them sitting on what was basically a ticking time bomb. Mercer was suspiciously silent the whole time, but he was that often when he was hunting.
"My brother was a very meticulous man. He didn't make mistakes."
"So you went to WY to check things out?" Frosty questioned, glancing over Heller's shoulder to read what he had on his screen. "How?"
"Parents were divorced, I used mom's maiden name. Also got a bunch of friends, they got me a fake ID and everything." She threw up her hands. "Not that it worked any, in the end. They discovered me, so, uh, thanks for getting me out of there."
Heller nodded. "No problem. We're on the same side, and I don't leave behind allies."
She blinked. "You literally don't know me."
"Got a hero complex. I won't stand aside and watch them destroy others." Not to mention that there were startling parallels to Dana- young woman daring to take on a mega corporation for her brother? Sounded pretty familiar.
"Even when that means you got to fight the Bugs?"
"Yeah", Heller furrowed his brows. "That the official term for these things?"
"Not really", the Whistleblower admitted. "The real name is something long and twisty, so they are generally referred to as 'Bugs'. Some guys call 'em 'Black Snakes', because they got those long tails." She sighed angrily. "I should've called somebody when I first learned of these things."
"You had to secure your position first", Harrison shrugged. "We get it. Besides, if you had alerted us earlier, then we could have been in deeper shit than we are now, without Jim and everything."
The girl grimaced. "Opposite, actually, because until last year, there was only one Bug. So if somebody had known, it would have been easier to take it out."
Well, there was that. But fuck it, shit happens. Besides, security would have been tighter then. Heller shrugged. "Could be. Or not. You know when that thing stopped being one?"
She furrowed her brows. "I know there's been a kind of...incident, last year around Christmas. You know that huge solar storm? Knocked out the electrical grid here, and the Bug got free. Some weeks after that, the Egg Pit went into use."
Frosty sighed. "Shit. So it really started with only one?"
"Yeah. It's not like you didn't already know", the Whistleblower replied. Then jabbed her finger at Heller. "You were the guy that broke into WY when the other Bugs got free, no?"
No use denying. "How did you figure?"
"Saw you up on the rooftop. Jumping to the rooftop." She drummed her fingers against the table. "I've been trying to figure out why I thought you were familiar. But now I know, you've been one of those conduits in New Marais?"
"Still am, actually", Heller commented with a grin. "Yeah, we broke in. But we didn't free these things, if you think we did."
"Wouldn't have implied that." She leaned back, folding her arms. "What exactly did you take along?"
"Not an awful lot. Just some behavioral research, some basic anatomy and development process. Something about a nest, and enough data to hint that they only had one specimen until very recently."
"Yeah. Sounds like them. They don't like leaving stuff lying around in one place. Which is why I had to hack into their servers, try and pull everything related off."
Harrison was skimming the article, frowning. "Hey, since when has this been going on?"
"No idea", the Whistleblower supplied helpfully, "Oldest signatures on the Bug research I can find are Bishop's, and Bishop's been the boss before Eisenberg, like ten years before."
Frosty sighed. "At least we can eliminate conduits from the suspect list. They only exist since Empire, right, Jim?"
Heller shook his head. "The mainstream guys, yeah, but conduits in themselves have been around since way before that. I know of one that's appeared in the 20s. And another two that have been around since Katrina. It's just", He scoffed to himself. "I'm not sure this is conduit business. I mean, why has there been only one Bug for the past decades? Last guy I knew that could create bug monsters had racked up a much higher body count in just a few years. So either that guy's out of the picture, or..." He grimaced briefly when a thought formed, "Or they're the first one, the one that's been under observation until it escaped." Bertrand proved that conduits hadn't necessarily to be human, or even of human origin. Could be things went tits-up and this particular conduit turned into a monster.
Harrison made a noise. "And it started laying eggs. In that nest under Asheville, right? The eggs that went into producing the things inside Weyland-Yutani. The eggs that only appeared like...two months ago?" The Marine had gone very quiet, eyes narrow.
Heller glanced at the man, and followed his line of sight. The second he started making sense of the data on the screen, his back started crawling because he knew what Frosty was thinking. Test Subject, gender, age, size, racial heritage, origin. Too fucking much like he'd seen through the Hivemind about Hope. Time stamps going from at least 1960 to literally last week.
Harrison grit his teeth. "Then mind telling me, why they needed Test Subjects in the decades before that?"
The Whistleblower's eyes darkened. "I told you, Weyland-Yutani has a lot of shit to answer for. And, fuck it, I don't know, but half the stuff I read looks like experiments into Mind Control, using drugs and what I think are basically mental torture techniques. Stuff like getting answers, turning normal-ass people into sleeper agents." She sighed, running her hand through her hair. "Or those pharmaceutical experiments. Weaponized diseases. They're doing it to humans they're snatching up from all over the place." She shook herself. "Doesn't seem to have slowed down much when they discovered the Bugs, though. God...it's this place."
Heller eyed Harrison briefly, then turned back to the Whistleblower. "Don't worry. It'll be over soon."
"Really?" She didn't seem convinced.
Heller snorted. Leaned back. "Yeah. 'cuz Cross is here now. And he would appreciate some more information about these things."
"So far we have acid blood, capability to climb walls, and resilience towards small arms fire", Frosty added. "Oh yeah. And hatching from an egg that was shoved down a man's throat."
He's not entirely correct.
Heller flinched slightly. The Hivemind was...off, so to speak. As if there were more voices whispering now. "You're back. I got a little worried I would start eatin' people now."
No. Don't worry. Got surprised by its genetic code. Never seen anything like it before.
"But you managed."
Yeah.
"So you'll come back."
Soon. Got to check up on something.
"Okay, come around once you're done. Did you learn anything?"
These things...they're cancer.
"Don't you mean like cancer?"
I know what I said.
Heller blinked, then turned to his screen. "Cancer? What the-"
Try finding a file labeled gh2477j1. I think you guys should have a copy.
"On it. Lord, why can't they find some normal labeling-" He grumbled under his breath for a bit, until he discovered this particular string of numbers and letters. "Got it."
Just read. I was pretty surprised, too. Definitely doesn't fit with the whole parasitoid thing. Or maybe it does, though I haven't known...explains the horizontal gene transfer, however.
Heller faded him out for now, reading the article. Frosty had wandered over to talk to the Whistleblower, who was gesturing wildly at her screen. Which made things easier on his side to go at his usual break-neck speed through the text.
And, Fuck, there were pictures.
Several Test Subjects, varying in size, age and skin color.
- Introduction of 'Facehugger' Life Stage of Subject - oxygen filtration through subject -
formation of cyst one hour -
Heller leaned back, groaning. Fuck. He'd hoped he would never have to see shit like that again after he left Manhattan, but apparently that's been too much to ask.
Experimenting on animals was already bad, experimenting on humans without consent was worse.
Vivisecting humans that were experimented on...Heller had, until now, held out the hope that there were at least some decent people in WY. Now, with all the differing signatures under these papers? He supported Mercer's decision to kill everybody who ever put a foot into that secret basement.
Okay. Okay. Information first. Maiming later.
He needed another moment to collect himself before he looked back at the files. And wasn't that interesting?
He'd figured that the spider-thing (apparently officially called 'Facehugger', and, c'mon people. That's a bit on the nose) would lay an egg or maybe directly an embryo down the host's throat. Just, that would put the snake-thing into the host's stomach.
Not too strange, given that they were acid-resistant, but then they wouldn't hatch from their host's chest. Instead, these things developed directly inside the chest area, despite having been put in through the mouth.
And Doctor Moore hadn't found a single tear inside the esophagus, or the trachea.
She did find some sort of ulcer, however.
Because these things were cancer.
The spiders, they inject a cell cluster into the host, which start branching out and growing like cancer before eventually becoming an fetal parasite. Once the fetus has matured into an infant, it will emerge from its host's body, and continue feeding to finish its growth into an adult.
Which allowed these things to develop from an egg into a fully mature animal in less than twelve hours, and steal their host's genetic material in order to adapt to the environment they wound up in.
Anybody who still had doubts about their purpose could fuck right off, because these things were biological weapons, had never been natural. He grimaced and turned his attention to the others. "Hey, you find anything about where they come from?"
"Working on it. Files are badly labeled, so there's that", the Whistleblower commented. "Oldest data that specifically mentions the Bug I have is from the 80s. Mentions it came from the original Weyland-Yutani compound near Barstow."
"Meaning it's already older, and we'll find the remaining files in Barstow, then." Heller furrowed his brows. "Shit, looks like it is conduit business after all." He couldn't imagine that there were genetic engineers thirty years back capable of creating an acid-resistant self-replicating biological weapon that grew from cancer cells and stole their host's genetic data, when even today's technology was far from able to create anything like that.
Seemed they did need to contact MacGrath, get his ass over here so he could find and stop the one creating all these things. He had some sort of conduit-radar, right?
You won't need Cole's help. I'm on my way back. Call Cross, and meet me outside. Shit's about to get hot.
"Huh", Heller got up, rolling his shoulders. Turned towards the Wisemen. "Captain Santos, please contact your boss."
The Captain, who had looked until now like she was dozing on her feet, snapped to attention. Eyes narrow. "Mercer's on his way?"
"Yup. He said to prepare. Shit's on its way to the fan."
The Wisemen Leader glanced at the men behind her, before shrugging and unlatching the safety on her rifle. "Well, about fucking time."
The doctor stopped struggling not too long ago. Which wasn't too weird, because that guy was a pushover, and this tail-choke was pretty effective, he had to admit. Alex hummed and crouched down next to the prone body on the ground, eying the spider thing that had finally latched on and wasn't going to let go anytime soon.
It was a little ghastly, he thought, how that thing was perched in the doctor's face with its legs clamped down tightly around the back of his head, and the tail wrapped in a crushing force around his neck. At this point, removal was likely going to end up with death of both, and Alex didn't really want that.
Well, not right now, anyways.
He watched it for another moment, taking note of how the skin flaps on either side of its tail were working. Likely pumping oxygen through the parasite into the host, to prevent him from suffocating. Well, that answers that one question he had. The others were not as easily figured out.
Alex cocked his head, eying the spider thing. Heller mentioned maturing took a few hours, but he didn't know exactly how long he had until the infant would hatch and kill its host- which would make things harder on his end. If he wanted this to work, he needed to consume it before it was fully matured.
Consuming it meant consuming the doctor too, and while he had absolutely no problems doing just that- he chose this guy for this purpose, after all- he knew that it would terminate the parasite before it would be enough for him to work with.
And going through all of this again was going to be a pain in the ass. (Uprooting that one egg, dragging it across the city, storing it somewhere it wouldn't hatch, all while making sure his target didn't wake up). He wasn't proud to admit that sometimes he was pretty impatient, especially when he got his target right there, and couldn't do anything with it.
But if he ripped him apart right now, he'd have to try and find another infant parasite to consume. If he waited too long, he'd have to try and restrain the infant parasite while also being forced to stop the doctor from dying so he could-
...Stop the doctor from dying.
He had had a somewhat functioning body, some time ago (he never liked to remember that one). He has extensive knowledge of anatomy.
Taken together, he should be capable of invading another organism without causing too much harm. Hell, he could keep a body alive even if there was no possible way it even should be. He thought of experiments, keeping hearts beating even if there was no body around anymore. Biologically speaking, that one was easy, nothing should prevent him from doing the same.
Besides, he really wanted to know how the parasite grew. He'd seen the reports they've liberated from WY, he'd talked to Heller. No holes inside the stomach, or lungs, so how did this thing get from the throat into the empty space between lungs and ribs?
And besides, the doctor was out for the count anyways. Alex placed a flat hand on his chest, and tendrils unfurled from his sleeve. They didn't hesitate any to stab right between the ribs, like they've always done with any victim he'd ever consumed- the main difference was that this time, he didn't allow the virus to spread.
But there was something at the edge of his tentacles, something that didn't belong. He knew how humans tasted. This was off.
His eyes locked onto the spider thing. His lips peeled away from his teeth in an amused grin. "You little bastard."
The very second Alex finally snuffed Eisenberg's life, maybe three hours after having dragged him into the warehouse, he extracted the parasite from its host. It wasn't even half grown yet, was a tiny thing with small nubs for limbs and still somewhat translucent skin that squirmed and squealed in the unforgiving hold of his tentacles. It was far from mature, but that was enough for him. He didn't have any patience left anyways. He watched it for a moment, before the tendrils expanded and closed around the thing in a solid shell that he dragged then inside of his own form, along with the remains of the doctor. Increasing the pressure inside of the shell was easy, and it stopped squirming soon enough. Maybe it believed it could continue to mature?
Didn't matter to him, because he focused on shoving his tendrils into the thing to begin with the consumption. And good news on that front: he'd been right on that one- as long it was pressurized, the blood barely had any effect on his Biomass. It tingled a little, and he distinctly felt a few cells die off, but he'd long adapted to stronger corrosives to the point that a full submerge in pure lye was a bit uncomfortable, nothing more.
Actually consuming the thing, however, proved itself to be a tough nut.
Whatever it was, it wasn't anywhere near human. Or anything he'd ever seen. Which made alarm signals shriek inside his head, because even the Corrupted, far removed from humanity as they'd been, had still been distinct human in their genetic makeup.
This thing...wasn't.
There was nothing familiar about it. Nothing he could latch on, nothing he could work with. Blacklight was useless against its genetic structure.
Alex grit his teeth and balled his fists.
He refused to let everything be for nothing. He needed to consume this one, he needed to get into their Hivemind. He needed to get its acid resistance, and its other abilities. And if he couldn't work with the DNA of this thing directly...he could work with what was hidden inside of it.
Horizontal Gene Transfer. He'd consumed Eisenberg. He knew Eisenberg's genetic code. He could find it, entangled inside the thing's makeup. Nearly unrecognizable and quickly being assimilated into the thing, but familiar enough to work with if he was quick. He focused on those tiny bits of information, slipping Blacklight to where he could sense the human part of its DNA, swapping Eisenberg for himself, like the Trojan Horse. The thing's system didn't seem to realize the switch and started to attempt to assimilate Blacklight instead of human.
The second it started adding the virus to its system, the virus came to life in a violent manner. Tearing through its cells at a rapidly increasing pace, Blacklight consumed every last bit of the foreign body. It must have noticed, because Alex could feel it thrash briefly before it was overwhelmed, and its genetic code was slowly assimilated.
It still took a large chunk of time to fully streamline it and add it to his own, much longer than what he'd ever experienced. He'd once consumed a field of archae bacteria which he'd found in one of the Yellowstone hot springs- far away from his comfort zone as organisms on the opposite end of humans, which he was actually made for (which were, coincidentally the reason for his already impressive acid resistance). But back then including their genetic code to his own hadn't taken more than fifteen minutes, already impossible long for Blacklight standards.
This one...Alex wasn't too sure. It was early in the morning, he figured, hours after he stepped foot in the warehouse. The loss of time was worrisome, but not overly so. It wasn't unusual for his consciousness to shut down when he was altering his genetic code, but usually it were minutes, not hours.
And he was sore, to boot. Grimacing, he started rolling his shoulders until his Biomass began moving normally. By then, he tuned back into the Hivemind, instantly noticing that it was...more.
More voices.
Voices he couldn't understand clearly, or even hear clearly, but there.
The creature's Hivemind, he realized the next second.
He spread his influence back to Heller, to see how he was proceeding, quickly learning that he too was gathering knowledge.
Good. He could return to the compound now. Or...or do a little experiment himself.
The locked door shattered when he plowed through it, as did the ancient concrete when he pounced off the floor to get to the rooftops. Four in the morning was the time the city was dead, but he could see a few people down there.
He stopped abruptly, eyes narrowing. There was a blue halo around the people he could see, and white ones around several smaller forms. Animals, he figured quickly.
Controlled by and orients itself with Pheromones, he remembered from Eisenberg's research.
His lips pulled away from gleaming teeth. Holy fuck, it actually worked. He'd consumed the infant parasite, and gotten its abilities.
All of them, though? He needed to check that one first, so he turned away and leapt across the buildings towards the abandoned water cistern. His feet cracked the ground when he arrived, and his eyes instantly adapted to the near darkness. Unlike before, he could see much better in the dark, allowing him to see the ridges and tubes that ran along the nest's material, even without having to switch to infrared vision.
The Bug sitting in a corner introduced itself with a bright red glow. Family, the snake thing in him declared. Prey, Blacklight whispered.
Alex agreed with the virus more than he did with the animal's instincts.
He approached the black thing, noticing how it stirred as he approached until it unfolded its form and stared into his direction. In confusion? He wasn't so sure, but alone the fact it reacted to his presence when it hasn't before meant something changed.
Good, he wanted it a bit more interesting.
His claws came out with a metallic screech, and the thing froze for a full second. A second too long, because Alex already lunged to the front, talons seizing the creature like a vice. He didn't give it time to defend itself, and jabbed his feeding tendrils right into its armor. It instantly started thrashing, screeching as thick yellow acid poured out of the wounds. The Blacklight Biomass remained unaffected, and dug in deep. The black things twisted, shrieked in pain even as more tendrils emerged from its shell and enveloped it quickly.
There was a hollow crack and its screams turned more panicked until it was rapidly cut off by the wet slap of Biomass rearranging itself across its body.
In an instant, the Hive's volume exploded. Alex hummed and let its voices wash over his body as he listened, feeling a little nostalgic for the voices of Redlight in Manhattan, before he turned and walked back outside. He'd heard Heller's thoughts, noticed which direction they were going. He smirked to himself. You won't need Cole's help. I'm on my way back. Call Cross, and meet me outside. Shit's about to get hot.
Finally, we can take this off. Included some pieces of lore I'm sure I've seen somewhere, but I can't remember where.
Onwards to actually taking out the threat!