A/N: This month I've been dedicating myself to NaNoWriMo. I've picked up a second job and a family member of mine has been undergoing a degenerative disease that's been affecting the whole family in one way or another. So, I sincerely apologize for making it seem like I've abandoned this story. I have definitely not! Actually, a little over of a month ago I'd completely lost my notebook with the outline and everything and I just found it! I'd been playing Prototype the other day just to smash and devour people as a stress reliever when it really got me aggressive about finding the outline. Thank you for those of you who have stuck with me, and an even greater thank you to those who have reviewed! You remind me, keep me motivated, and give me a reason to keep writing and I really need that right now! Thank you!
"A few days ago, three military units were destroyed by missile fire into an infected building. Reports state suspected sabotage by the terrorist known as ZEUS." Joanne Foster spoke in front of the charred remains of a blasted building. Her expression was as grim as the news she was reporting. She was quite a sight in comparison to the backdrop that lay behind her. With her auburn hair up in a stylistic up do, curls and ringlets tumbling around her oval painted face, it was difficult to imagine she was truly standing in a crumbling and dying city infected with a strange and horrific disease. "Families have been notified as there have not been any survivors found. We can only hope that with continued military support a solution can be found."
"Back to you, Jim." The screen flashed back to the smiling anchorman as he began on some Midwest storm. Marian sat huddled against the armrest of her couch, tissues all around her. She'd received the phone call. She'd already lost her husband to this fiasco during the beginning. Now her brother had also lost his life. With increasing pace, she felt like everything around her was falling apart.
Well… perhaps not everything. She curled her finger through a tuft of soft hair and looked down at the little boy curled up with his head rested in her lap. Leaning against him was his older sister. Jonathan and Lilly, one thirteen and the other ten. They were all she had left and she was damned if this infection would take them from her. For now, though, she really ought to stock the kitchen. She woke Lilly and let her know that she'd be back in a few. She reminded her of all the protocols they held that had kept them alive thus far before she locked the door on her way out.
Dusk, very early morning just moments before the sun began its trek up and the air was frigid cold with the lingering of night, seemed the best time to make this journey. There was less commotion and everything still felt very much asleep. It always seemed the safest time to leave the safety of their home but still, she made as much as she could. She stopped at a long abandoned 7-Eleven where she stocked up on as much water as she could first before she began tossing cans in the grocery basket she usually brought with her. Light from the sun began spilling into the little corner market and so she began to hurry, leaving the little place and bee-lining it for her apartment complex. She moved quickly, her movements jerky and hasty as she walked. She hated it when she could hear the 'boom's of military fighting against the unnatural and horrific screams and roars of the infected.
She was nearing the door to her apartment complex when something struck her out of nowhere. She was knocked to the ground by the strategic blow to her head. When her bleary eyes looked up she saw a man in a coat and her last thought was, 'my children'.
"Nature, nurture, heaven and home
Sum of all and by them driven
To conquer every mountain shown
But have never crossed the river
Braved the forest braved the stone
Braved the icy winds and fire
Braved and beat them on my own
Yet I'm helpless by the river
Angel, angel what have I done?
I've faced the quakes the wind, the fire
I've conquered country, crown, and throne
Why can't I cross this river?
Pay no mind to the battles you've won
It'll take a lot more than rage and muscle
Open your heart and hands my son
Or you'll never make it over the river
It'll take a lot more that words and guns
A whole lot more than riches and muscle
The hands of the many must join as one
And together we'll cross the river."
- Humbling River, Puscifer
He stood as a lone monument upon the edge of a sky scraper. Outlined in the after glow of the setting sun, he appeared as a living god, a death bringer, an angel. Swathed in secrecy, one leg propped higher than the other, a hand idly rested on a knee, he peered over the chaos with a guarded expression of poise and detached observation. Below him, the last of the living virus ate itself and screams called out over the dilapidated streets. Mottled creatures tumbled over themselves as they sought out all that was left to consume and spread.
A long sigh fell from his nostrils as he slowly closed his eyes, dropping the angle of his hooded head to look at his hand. He had done this. No, Alex Mercer had. The identities were separate. Yet, if he had, why should he feel guilty? He was not human. He did not feel for humans.
Even so, in his mind were the memories of thousands. Countless voices screaming in fear, cooing in content, moaning in ecstasy, shouting in outrage, laughing with delight, and living the most mundane and the most secret moments of their lives every day within his mind. With this vast power he'd been given, this mobility granted by the death of one of his makers, had also come a price, it seemed. He could not function without it. Without consuming, he could not hold this form. He would not stop, he knew. He did not need Ragland's acceptance of that fact to continue one, and he would not accept remaining as a human.
He was not human, and he was not your normal virus.
He possessed an intelligence beyond that of the flu or HPV. He could pick and choose his victim. He could feel their existence as he ended it, and he would carry them forever within him. They would be immortal to him. He raised a hand in thought and clenched the fingers tightly, feeling them there, feeling the tendons tense and pull the digits together. All the mechanisms of being human, he could isolate these things and appreciate it. After dropping the nuke in the ocean, he'd come to that conclusion. He learned what he really was, what it really felt to be what he was, and he never wanted to feel that again.
But could he remain in this state of liminality forever? Could he accept this unexplainable between space? Not quite human, not quite virus? Then what was he? The questions that no one could answer save for himself boiled in his gut like a wicked, sick thing coiled and threatening.
He moved slowly to the other side of the building before nonchalantly stepping from the ledge. Weightlessness grabbed him but it was as natural to him as walking was to anyone else. His arms lifted in the drag from falling, but he otherwise remained as he was until the ground swallowed him. There was an indentation around him where he landed, and he leapt from it in a hop and fell into a jog that slowed into a walk. There was no one in the area. The island was slowly consuming itself as the virus remained trapped, unable to find anymore suitable hosts as the ones it was contained in slowly over mutated and decayed.
With his hands in his pockets, he continued his walk casually a few blocks down. Many blocks down, actually, and night had fallen by the time he reached a bar. There was no sound to attract any infected. This was a quiet place tucked away and hidden in the hopes that people could still have a place to come to that would allow them a small respite away from their realities.
Too bad he knew where it was.
Or not, because he was here on some form of the obnoxious mission Cross and his crony had in mind. In his own personal opinion, which didn't seem to matter much to anyone else, ZEUS didn't find it wise to cram his already foul tempered possibly contagious self into a stuffy room with people attempting to escape the outside and the infection with it. However, Cross, or Lt. Morris more likely, seemed to think of no possible way any of this could go wrong. Anyway, Mercer was slightly interested, in the off chance it would happen, in capturing and re-directing that Foster woman before she found them. He wanted his and Ragland's safe house to remain just that for as long as he could help it, and a nosy reporter wanting a story showing up at his door step wouldn't not assist him in that goal.
He sloughed his way down the steps, actually uncomfortable with the situation. Morris was sitting on the rails of the stairs, and when the soldier, dressed in more casual base clothes and a loose camouflage jacket, saw him, his face cracked into a smile. Alex stared, unsure why anyone would be so happy to see him. Nevertheless, he did not mirror the smile. His sharp blue eyes peered out from under the hood as if to say 'to the point, please?' Eric Morris knew that look well, and did not waste time.
"Besides looking to get laid, we're supposed to be listening in on to what people are planning for the riot. Apparently there's been word on it." Eric whispered quietly as the two stood close. It didn't surprise Alex that the soldier wasn't uncomfortable standing so close. He wasn't the only one after the nuke had dropped. A winter of sorts had been causing awkwardly colder weather than it should have been in odd bursts and being Alex he was naturally a walking furnace.
It made no difference to ZEUS. If they wanted to stand in breathing, coughing, sneezing distance at least this time they couldn't blame him for whatever illness they happened to catch.
"You just want to get laid," the virus nearly growled, disbelieving of how he'd gotten sucked into this. He shoved passed Eric and went to the door, saying the password he'd gotten from the mind of a frequent visitor (that wouldn't be so frequent anymore).
Inside it was more like a 1930's underground bar. It was quiet, people spoke in hushed whispers. There was a pool table and a small radio played very softly, but mostly people sat around to drink and eat stew from a large communal pot. Eric bee-lined for the bar and Alex naturally followed him. The virus was undoubtedly slightly awkward in such close proximity to creatures he wasn't supposed to be maiming.
A cheery young girl not even nearly legally of age to drink came over to top them off. Eric prattled an order and Alex just offered to copy him, looking down at his folded hands on the bar counter.
"Drop your hood, dude." Eric muttered, glancing behind Alex. Thinking that maybe some behavior of his was suspicious and attracting attention, he followed his companion's line of sight as he pulled down his hood. His sharp blue eyes met a slightly familiar wide pair of blue ones. Mercer quickly realized he'd been yanked into a ploy as the girl smiled and began walking over. Alex turned a mutinous glare, that could have melted a tank, on Eric when the girl sat down beside him.
"Hi! Joanne Foster! Who might you be?" Alex raised an eyebrow and turned slowly to examine her, now realizing why she'd looked so familiar. Eric grew very still beside him, hardly breathing as he began to recognize the familiar predatory behavior. Naturally, a crooked grin caught one corner of ZEUS's lips, pulling them up in a devilishly ornery way that he was in no control of whatsoever.
