Chapter One: Lab Rat
The walls were white, painted over poured smooth slabs of the concrete wall. He was a bit surprised there were willing to pay the extra expense over a white paint. It was not like it would make any difference. Solitary was still solitary.
They had taken him back to Maryland. With his own men pointing their guns towards him, he waited on his knees with his hands on his head with BloodTox fumes stinging his eyes and throat, the spotlights glaring onto him from behind the armed soldiers of Blackwatch. Execution by firing squad. Dana Mercer was taken into decontamination trailer first, and he wasn't sure if that girl should be called lucky or not to receive Blackwatch's first class treatment. She came out still asleep in her new white hospital gown, cleaned off from whatever translucent membrane that had covered her. She was put into a circular clear plastic containment tent strapped to her mobile bed and taken away into Blackhawk Thunder Two-Fifteen that had been designated specifically for her while he was led to another decontamination trailer and was told to strip off his outer gear.
He was kind of glad since he didn't need to deal with the stink of dead infected blood on him anymore and he didn't need to strip off his body suit… at least, not yet. Even how used he was to his suit, something he had been yelled and drilled to be his second skin, it was still an uncomfortable piece of gear and was difficult to get in and out of. Amongst professionals, military crude humor still lingered. It didn't take long for the comparison of protective skin suit eluded to. A common joke amongst Blackwatch men that the body suit was designed specifically to be difficult to take a piss in it and discouraged recreation of the unwholesome type.
Blackwatch held strict standard even in that regard and would have their soldier not taking any break out in the combat field.
An hour and more later, they came back with a containment cage… that looked more like an overlarge dog kennel. No, it was even worse than a dog kennel, a solid steel box that looked more fitting for a Hunter to be kept in.
Smelled like one had died in there too.
He only grinned wryly when he stepped into his box.
"You seemed cheerful," Burchfield commented.
"I was a Devil Dog once, you know… so it's not lost on me." He gave a dry smile at his cage.
The D-Code made a snort before he gestured to someone. "Once a dog, always a dog," he said.
The cage then shut after him.
Of course, he was not allowed to step back into Blackhawk with his men. He could even understand the logic. What if he went mad? What if he became monster there and then during the transfer? It would cause a chaos with the worst outcome being a crashed helicopter with everyone dead. Best to separate and prevent the risk from happening.
Pragmatic and ruthless. What else to expect?
He couldn't resent them, just wondering when the worst was to come.
So he sat in his cage, the shaking, swing, the deafening roar of Blackhawk's engines and wind he paid no mind. An obedient dog waiting for his dreaded vet call where they might put him down or stick needles in him without understanding what the fuck was going on. Without understanding… perhaps that was why animals were terrified, while he was calm.
There was no use for panicking and worrying.
Before deployment, he was hoping his end of year leave would be approved. Kiss that goodbye.
His family waiting expectantly for his next letter? Well, Blackwatch would tell a sorry tale how their son won't be coming back home.
Not like he was close to his old man and his blue-collared older brother anyway. Six-years away, enlisted as a Marine tended to put distance between those who led different lifestyle. Another four years in a covert army wasn't going to make any difference in that regard.
The few hours of flight pondering how much he was going to lose of what simple small luxury and freedom he had did nothing but soured his mood. He had come out of his cage into Fort Detrick's airfield, the helicopter's rotors still roaring as more guns pointed at him with the newly minted tranq rifle being amidst the squad. He was escorted into the research facility that only Blackwatch personnel was allowed, led through a series of corridors, down an elevator, and was left in a room by himself.
With only a camera and speaker as his company, he was told to strip naked, give up the rest of his gears, step into some shower room and was told to decontaminate again. The jet water was uncomfortably hot and stinging against his skin this time. Tedious, strict and dehumanizing but something he and his men had went through alone or together in boot camp. A typical decontamination procedure all Blackwatch had to go through whenever if it was necessary to get out of their combat gear. He couldn't even take his time to relax since the water was shut off without his prompting. When he got out, all his gears were gone, just his new prison clothes waited for him.
Instead of the bright orange, it was a white singlet and pants. At least it wasn't some hospital gown, and they had given him a towel to dry off and plain cut underwear.
Heh, that was funny to think about.
Outside the decontamination room, more people waited for him, wearing yellow hazmat suits instead with carbine rifles still pointed at him. They led him to a room with a solid steel door that slid open, probably remote control by someone with direct feed of the camera at the corner of the door.
A short session of them taking three samples of his blood, he was then left alone in this white room. It had a bed, a metal toilet, a steady bright fluorescent light that bathed the room into a timeless zone, a camera watching in the corner, but no window and nothing else.
Solitary.
He went to bed early. It did nothing. The light too bright for his eyes.
He got up, did push up, sit up, run on spot, imagined he was back on strict schedule with training, meeting and boring paperwork to deal with. For the last ten years, his life was strict, regimented and his body and mind were not willing to give up this sudden lack of pattern. A hundred push up, a hundred sit up, a hundred side-straddle hop, a hundred squat. He found himself not winded, so he kept going.
He paced back and forth, the length of the room too short to run or sprint, so he walked. He thought about mathematic equations, he thought about facts, he thought about Marine Corps history and names of famous Marines, he thought about Blackwatch history that he had been briefed and told to memorize before promoted as First Lieutenant, he muttered the creed over and over again. He thought about all the things he had yelled at and for, the embarrassing and the insane moments that questioned his commitment living on base with his fellow Marines as their Sergeant.
He thought about his deployment in stinky hot Afghanistan that earned him a recruitment spot in Blackwatch.
He started counting.
Food never came and neither did hunger.
Boredom started to chip his steady regimented mind. Has it been an hour or more, or a half an hour?
Then he started to think of the men he had lost in Operation Ark, the stung of failure started to well up in the back of his throat. He knew these men only by four years, forced himself to train alongside them when he knew he didn't need to as their First Lieutenant. His concern should be focused on following the higher-ups of Blackwatch's command, but old Marines habits die hard. He started muttering their ranks and the squad they belonged to.
He should have ordered them all to retreat, demanded additional reinforcement regardless of insubordination, secure the tunnel with all his platoon then clear out that god-fucking-hell of a hive. But good luck receiving reinforcement when Blackwatch was trying to regroup and pick themselves up after Taggart, ZEUS, and the whole Manhattan fiasco.
He was picked, drawn the short straw amidst the chaos of Blackwatch's command in shamble. Someone had to act, had to act fast, had to secure and produce results, and his platoon was chosen in honor as an answer to this gambit despite all the risks the retrieval mission entailed. A simple pick up turned into a nightmare of battling and clearing out a Red Zone. Dependable First Lieutenant Thompson fulfilling his duty amidst Blackwatch's headless chicken moment.
He started to laugh.
There were dark sentiments, the more fanatical side of Blackwatch wanting to bite out Dana Mercer's head and have her burn with the rest of the infected. In the eyes of those who viewed containment as their life and law, Dana Mercer was simply a bio-hazard because of her proximity with ZEUS.
What did Blackwatch want with Dana Mercer anyway?
He repeated his pattern. Did his exercise, thought about facts, history, math, said his multiplication out loud, then his alphabets backward and forward. He forced himself to rest, sit on his bed, breathed in deeply, think of nothing as long as he could, before the itch to start his pattern began anew.
"How long am I going to be in here?" he asked aloud at the camera.
No answer came. Nothing. He squinted and examined the camera closely, noticed what looked like some noise detection hole in its base. He stared at the ceiling above, there was a circular speaker built into it and metal sprinklers. He wondered if this room was commonly used to roast captives right before Blackwatch's prime interrogation.
He went back to his self-formed regular pattern and went like this for hours. With boredom chipping his patience and mind crying out for new stimulation, his typical sex-starved corner of his brain wandered in. He lingered on some fantasies, some old less stellar memories of crappy high school relationship and from his time in the Marines. He was more the guy who watched from the sideline at others attempts and be amused when all went wrong. He thought about some pretty woman his mind came up and probably took from some forgotten magazine, film, or a picture on the net or someone he happened to meet. Mouth, legs, hip, naked body, sweats, and salts. Then he remembered the sensation of her finger repeatedly brushing the corner of his mouth, his first intimacy with a woman in years. He recalled the sweet coppery taste on his tongue, the lulling darkness he had spent down there in that hellhole.
He quickly pushed it aside, put it in the back of his mind as he always did. Frustration, while an irritating distraction a part of him welcomed in this situation, he still didn't feel desperate enough to indulge the delirious depravity side of his human brain.
He remembered a study that the brain would welcome pain than condemn itself dealing with boredom. It was a human compulsion, a never-ending drive to seek stimulant that led itself to healthy brain growth instead of stagnation.
He began to methodically click his fingers and joints, a habit he had stopped in his teenage years but now picking up again. Did the same with his toes, laughed himself how fucking desperate he was. He forced himself to sit, to breathe in and stop counting. He felt his lungs expand pressed against his chest. He held his breath.
He waited for the feeling of his chest burning, for the pressure in the back of eyes and nose, for the shaking. Two minutes mark pass, then three, four, six, eight, nine, ten…
He had to wait for a long time before the feeling came and forced him to gasp for air.
He started to get curious.
Gregory stared at his hand before he firmly grasped his ring finger and did the stupidest thing he had ever done in his entire life.
He purposely dislocated his finger.
"Motherfucker!"
"I was waiting for that," the scientist said in amusement at the footage at the man sat hunched over on his bed.
"Wait," his colleague spoke.
With a grit of his teeth, they watched him clutch his hand and breath in short rapid motion before he violently snapped his finger back in his place. A casual shake of his hand before stretching and curling it back into fist, it was back to being good as new.
"Some people can do that in real life," the scientist brushed this off-handedly.
"How many hours he's been like this?"
"Fifteen."
"No progress or symptoms?"
"None."
He was back doing his regular pattern again, stubborn to stick to it in fact lest his mind found pain a tempting distraction again. He wasn't feeling tired one bit and that was even worst.
He hasn't gone to toilet.
He hasn't felt the gnawing hunger.
What was going on with his body? Did it just… stop? Was he in some purgatory coma? He was very tempted to punch the wall even at the risk of being shot at. He forced himself to sit down, forced himself to breathe in again, to lie down, shut his eyes.
He used the pillow to cover his face and blocked the light. Even better, he turned, laid on his front, eyes facing away from the light and covered his head. He shut his eyes, slowed down his breathing and he waited.
He listened.
The walls had no padding, the floor had no carpet. It was plain stone and concrete. While he couldn't hear any noise, he could feel the slightest vibration.
Or was it his imagination?
The tap, tap, tap of some footsteps outside his room, perhaps? A part of him hoped it would lead to his room but the next minutes or so told him to not hold onto such hope. He opened his eyes, met with a pale imitation of darkness with the white glaring light seeping into the corner of his vision. He shut his eyes again and focused himself to listen for any single noise.
He started to hear the rush of his blood roaring in his ears.
He started to hear the soft ringing.
He started to hear his steady heartbeat.
His thoughts slowly wondered then turned formless, shifting to simple shapes and colors.
Into something red.
Into something terrifying. He was falling, screaming with something clutching his mid-section in a crushing grip that punched and jabbed into him whenever they stopped falling.
It hurt, she wanted to stop, she wanted to run, she wanted it to let go. Just let her go. Why didn't it let her go? She called out his name, the name she always screamed when she had a nightmare.
Alex.
My son…
A lullaby, a disjointed humming, a sense of dread that stilled him, a young woman with green eyes and red locks smiled serenely down on him from over his head. Her finger rested on her mouth with blood smeared the corner of her lips. She made a soft shhing noise as she stroked his hair to the side with his head in her lap. Sweet, gentle, wholesome, safe. Safe. Safe with us.
Mother.
But she was no longer there. A nightmare took her place, her nightmare, their nightmare.
He was a nightmare.
He tore and hunted them down, cut him in half with his blade, claws and whip, crushed his chest into a pulp of flesh with his feet, smashed the back of his neck with the blade of his elbow, then reeled him in into his body of darkness. Hunt. Consume. Kill. He bared his teeth in a snarl and grin, threw his victim up as they screamed and snatched them in mid-air. A horrifying creature that stalked and killed, hunted us, hurt us, break us to pieces. Whose voices roared with cacophony of whispering minds of its victims, his anger a terrifying sight to behold. He terrified her. This was not her Alex. Her Alex would never do this, would never hurt her. He reached out with his hand, tried to brush her cheek, but his fingers were claws that sliced into her skin and cut through her body. His blue eyes cold, predatory and unrelenting.
He hurts us.
Tears us apart.
Kills us
He's coming for us.
That's not her brother. That's not her brother. That's not her brother.
Monster. Monster. Monster.
'Make it stop.' She wept and cried out. 'Make it stop!'
For a moment there, he thought he was back in that hive, back in that hellhole, back where there was only death, her and him. Her blue eyes gleamed in the dark like cats. Her breath hot against his face, she laid a mere inch away across him.
'I'm scared.' She whispered.
Why? The thought came unbidden.
Her distant eyes focused as if she heard him, could see him and realized he was there for the first time. Her fingertip reached out and hesitated before she rested it onto him and said one thing,
'Dog?'
Gregory woke up with a start, throat convulsing and he gagged, choked, coughed violently then he started laughing. He laughed, curling on his bed and rolling onto the floor. He paused for a brief moment, breathing rapidly then only had to remember the one word, dog.
He started losing it again and covered his tears-ridden face with his shaking hands. The sense of dread never left and still deep in his core.
"I'm fucking losing my-" he whispered.
"-LOSING MY MIND!" someone screamed.
The ground shook and he stiffened. He straightened, quickly rose up from the floor, his eyes on the wall when he felt the heavy crash. He heard the sound of footsteps rushed past his door.
"On the ground now, Bradley!" someone commanded.
"Not unless you tell me what the fuck is going on with me!" a man snarled.
Gregory stilled when he heard the sound of gunshots.
"On the ground now, soldier!"
Bradley? Gregory frowned. Corporal Bradley? He was in the fireteam that worked closely with him if he was not mistaken. In fact, Bradley was the one that made a grab for Dana Mercer and was swallowed in the cocoon alongside him. Simply because of being unlucky enough to be part of the three accompanying their salty First Lieutenant.
He was alive.
There were others beside him. Others that had survived that hellhole of a hive.
Which was funny, the typical protocol by Blackwatch would be to terminate him.
"Lieutenant Gregory Thompson." The white hazmat suit stated. "Twenty-nine, Caucasian, grew up in the West. No family history of disorders, your medical record shows you're quite clean. Other than that, perfectly healthy."
He sat in a shambled state across the interrogation table, circles already under his dark blue eyes and his skin a pale unhealthy shade. "This fucking sucks," Gregory muttered.
"But better than solitary, right?" The scientist humored the sleep-deprived soldier.
"Is this punishment?" he said this softly.
"No. This is testing," he admitted quite honestly. "So far you have not developed any other symptoms of infection."
"I'm clean?" he asked with dull surprise.
The suit laughed quite softly at that. "Do you know the Trojan war story?"
"It's about a stupid ancient war over some woman and an apple," Gregory answered.
"Well, basically yes. But that's not the point. What I'm saying here is… to put it simply. You are that Trojan horse. A gift too good to be true."
"A Trojan virus?" His blue eyes sharpened.
"Multiple strains in fact," he stated to the man. "Some of them the same one we found in the infected variants, but the dominant strains we found in you are completely new and different. Never seen before."
"Why am I not sick, then?" Gregory demanded.
"You see, do you understand why we're perplexed with your situation?" The scientist stated. "The changes the infected go through takes a few hours to a maximum three days. The virus we're dealing with is fast and extremely contagious. I would even say lethal… but my lab partner has different views regarding that."
"Your point?" he asked.
"We wanted to study the effects and the progress of the virus. The changes an infected go through. It's a reason we were monitoring you in solitary. But again, you've shown no progress… you and others," The scientist stated.
"Bradley?" Gregory muttered.
"You knew?" The scientist asked in surprise.
"I heard him shouting," he admitted.
The scientist paused and looked at him. "You have a very sharp hearing, Lieutenant. Is there anything else you know?"
"No," he said.
"Are you sure? We noticed signs of anxiety and depression, Lieutenant. Is there something wrong?"
Gregory couldn't help but sneer. "Solitary breaks the mind. Anxiety, depression is a typical response when stripped of any form of stimulant. So yes, if you're asking if my brain is responding correctly to the situation, then I say it's been going great!"
"We apologize for the inconvenience."
Gregory snorted. "How many have recovered from that hellhole? Is it only Bradley?" he demanded.
"Concerned about your men?"
He glared. "Yes," he said softly.
"Besides you, two others. Making three, a lucky number, if you ask me," the scientist noted. "I do want to ask something, and it is to do with Bradley Kirk."
"What about him?" he said.
"Did you know he's a clinical psychopath?" the scientist asked.
"I've seen his diagnosis, yes. Wouldn't have known if it weren't for his record. But Bradley hasn't been any inconvenience. He's got ice in his vein and a pretty damn exemplary soldier for the rest," Gregory said.
"Are you familiar with his normal behavior he puts in front of others?" the scientist asked.
"Easygoing, the jokester of the group, an uncouth mouth," Gregory said and frowned. "Why are you asking?"
"Bradley suffered a breakdown after twenty-eight hours in isolation. He's… shown an extreme reaction that goes against his mental condition. He mentions hearing a woman even."
Gregory remained expressionless. "It's progressing in him?"
"We're not sure. We scheduled a brain scan for him in the meantime, which we want to do the same with you also." The scientist offered. "We also plan a full body scan and there might be intensive procedures in the future."
"Intensive?"
"We just want to sample your muscle tissues and examine your… performance," he said quite nonchalantly.
"Is this because of Brad?" Gregory grimaced. "What did he do?"
"Other than kicking down a solid steel door? Surprisingly not much," the scientist answered.
"And the third survivor you mentioned, what's his status?" Gregory asked.
"Carlos Ramirez is still in coma, I'm afraid."
"And Dana Mercer?"
"Is there a reason for asking?" the scientist said.
"Bradley was by my side when we were down in that hell," Gregory answered. "And because of that, he was dragged into that… meat-cocoon alongside me. I suspect Carlos was found in there as well?" He looked at the suit.
The scientist nodded. "Would you like to recount your tale from down there."
"We should have died," Gregory stated. "The moment the Hydras appeared, we would have easily been wiped out there and then. Fucking monsters were everywhere, it's like the tunnels grew teeth all of sudden and were about to eat us."
"What happened?"
"The tranq dart. It scared them away."
"It was effective?"
"It's better than bullets, but not effective enough. Didn't stop the monster from lashing out and crushing some of the men," he said. "It did the job."
"That's good to know."
"It didn't work for long," Gregory said dismissively. "We used it again when we tried to grab Dana Mercer."
"On another Hydra?"
"No… when we tried to get Dana Mercer out of that hive we found her. The fucking… ground tried to stop us. Sentient creep-vines but as living meat climbing on our gears. BloodTox solved that problem, but it made a grab of Dana Mercer. Covered her, cocooned her into those pustules you find growing on hives," Gregory said. "We shot a dart into it, but it fought off the… infection, then the Hydra attacked again. Killed our main guy with the tranq rifle. The rest of us were thrown off and dragged into the cocoon with her."
"No one else were chosen?"
Chosen? Gregory frowned. "No. It's just us that happened to be close to Dana Mercer. The rest of the men were setting up the demolition equipment, but the explosion didn't kill us."
"It would have if it weren't for the cocoon," the scientist said cheerfully. "In some way, the hive seems to be protecting its newborn infected, don't you think?"
Gregory made a show of disgust. "I rather shoot myself."
"I'm not surprised the dart didn't work. A Leader Hunter is capable of fighting off and recover from the Blacklight infection, did you know?" the scientist said. "The hive is a giant system with a complex immune system to support it. The stronger infected variants share this trait and are also a part of this system, the Runner being the heart of it since they are the producer of strains."
"And?" Gregory asked, sounding bored.
"The dart may be capable of hurting the infected lethally, Lieutenant. But it's another to say it's capable of interfering with a giant system and with a Runner in its present."
"There was no Runner in present unless you're saying Dana Mercer was."
"Is. Or in the making. The odds of another Runner produced in this outbreak comes to no surprise what with the number of lives taken by the infection. But to think it would be another Mercer. The strains we found in you and in others, we found in her with more new strains never seen before," the scientist said. "Even then, her case is unique."
"What difference does it make?" Gregory scoffed. "A Runner is a Runner."
"Plenty. It is in fact very difficult to replicate the result. You have to take into account the host genetic combability with the strain for one and to find the one person with the lucky genetic pot out of millions is resource extensive even for an organization like Blackwatch. Not to mention Redlight's 99.999 mortality rate makes that chance of surviving the process even more slim."
"You're saying Runners are like a freak of nature?"
"A freak of nature that keeps happening again and again through the four decades ever since the Pandora's Box was opened in 1969, an incidental process one we still poorly understand," the scientist said. "But for the first time ever,
A Runner had managed to pass its torch to another."
"Pariah, are you still upset from moving here?"
The six-year-old boy shrugged as he watched the documentary scene on the T.V.
"Care to tell me what you are watching?"
"Beehive," the boy clipped and made no move nor a change of expression when his caretaker sat down beside him.
"Anything interesting you've noted?"
"The mother doesn't produce milk," he mumbled.
"Mother? You mean the queen bee? Well, that makes sense. All the energy needs to be spent on laying eggs, she's got none to spare for producing milk."
"But what if she produces her own milk? For the baby queen."
"Well, kind of inefficient I would say since the worker bees do that job for her."
"Maybe not milk… maybe a cream?" The boy mumbled nonsensically. "Do dogs like cream?"
"The hive makes and feeds the queen for her, Pariah," his caretaker pointed out. "The queen just lays the egg into the queen cell."
"But that makes the baby queen more special than the other baby queens then." The boy smiled quietly. "She's the only one that got to drink mother's milk while the others didn't."
"I don't quite understand the logic?"
"Mother chose her," he mumbled as he watched the screen emptily. "Mother didn't choose other, but she chose her." His green eyes suddenly narrowed. "The drones are useless, all they do is sit and wait around, why can't they leave the hive?" He sounded a bit bitter when he made that comment.
"Well, the conditions have to be right before they can, Pariah."
"When will it be right?" the boy grumbled.
"When it's spring, where other virgin queen bees will be available. If all else fail, they still get kicked out before winter anyway. Like you said, drones are no benefit to a hive if they cannot produce results in a time of need. They can't even defend the hive from invaders, they've got no stingers." His caretaker slightly laughed.
"So if they're useful they can stay, right?" the boy asked.
"I suppose," his caretaker said.
Pariah frowned and looked away from the screen. "Let me think about it," he mumbled.
"Well, I'll leave you off with your thinking then, but do pay attention to the documentary. A lot of your questions would have been answered if you had listened."
"I am listening," the boy said sullenly. "Can I ask you a question before you go?" He looked up.
From the clear visor of her helmet, she made a surprised expression.
"What happens if a predator wasp comes across a queen bee?"
"Depends, does she have a hive with her?"
"She's been taken away from her home, but she's got her guard dogs, does that count?"
"It takes a large swarm of a hive to kill a single wasp, stingers are not enough. She will most likely get eaten by the predator."
"Her dogs are garbage then," he muttered before turning back to his screen.
His caretaker just stared before she made a shrugging motion at the camera in the corner. But at least he wasn't sulking anymore from being moved to Ft. Detrick and he was coming around talking to her.
"I'll be seeing you later, Pariah."
He didn't reply even at the sound of the door hissing open.
"Dogs are useless anyway," she heard him mutter.
AN: In the next chapter…
Lieutenant Gregory's Body: All Runners are Queen!
Lieutenant Gregory's Brain: If she BREATHES she a THOOOOT!
Lieutenant Gregory: …woof.