Part IV – Faces in the Dark
"Doctor, get the samples ready. We are evacuating this base."
"Ma'am?"
"You heard me. Bring what you can. Leave the rest. We are destroying everything we can't take."
"But ma'am, all this data! We can't just–!"
"Bring the data if you wish, but hurry it up. When they find us, we won't be in for a treat."
"Yes, ma'am. And do you want the weapons prepared?"
"Activate them all. Those you can't activate kill. We can't have anything falling into their hands."
Bullets poured from the sky in rain; rockets darted in swarms; cannons exploded in a blanket of fire.
"The beast is still heading west, despite the efforts of the military. However, it is showing signs of injury under the heavy bombardments."
It was a monstrous thing, with skin of black fire and volcanic rocks, as large as a skyscraper. It had too many limbs, eight of them, each the size of a battleship, crawling itself forward like a spider. It had no visible eyes, yet knew its path and its destination. It not only crawled forward, but dragged itself forward with its legs, a maw of darkness and teeth in the front that devoured anything it came into contact with. Tendrils lining what might have been its face snatched up objects at random, a tank, a large boulder, a tree. What it couldn't digest was spew out of a pore on its back, sending the massive chunks hundreds of yards into the air, forcing the helicopters and jets to swerve away.
The camera was on a helicopter, flying through the air, circling around the beast. A rock flew dangerously close.
"The creature is estimated to reach Las Vegas within thirty-six hours. Evacuation is not necessary at the moment," a reporter was saying, her disembodied voice trembling with excitement. Another barrage of bombs fell onto the monster, which did not even react to its skin being blown apart. Before it could repair the damage, a rocket artillery launched a fusillade of zipping darts, which attached themselves to the monster. Instead of exploding, however, they burrowed into the creature's inside. Finally, the creature let out a terrible howl, in pain and anger, spewing even more debris from its pore. The helicopter had to take a wild swing to dodge the flying wreckage.
"As you can see here, the military is making significant progress in killing the beast. It is expected to only reach the border of Arizona–"
The reporter was cut off as another monstrosity burst from the back of the spider. A snake's head, decorated in spikes and teeth, ripped into the air and snatched the wing of a passing bomber. The aircraft fell away, smoke pouring from its side. A tank turned its turret to fire, but the snake's jaw dropped like lightning and clenched the tank. The metal was instantly shredded, the scrape hulk tossed carelessly away.
"Situation under control!" someone yelled, off screen.
"Roger. Take squad–"
The screen was shattered by a end of a sharp whip, which slowly dragged itself back, along with pieces of broken glass.
"Mr. Morgan, are you alright?" came the voice from the door. I had learned to never say no to that question, not unless I wanted the maid to be pestering about me all day.
"Yes!" I yelled back, hoping I still sounded like Mr. Morgan. He was a nobody I snatched about three states away in Dallas, Texas, and used his credit card to check into a hotel. None of the hotel staff questioned me. After all, they had no reason to believe otherwise. Until now.
I wasn't sorry that I broke the lousy TV of an expensive hotel, even if they made everything overpriced for such a good facility. But I was regretful that now I would have to move. Mr. Morgan was dead.
"Ok! Let me know it you need anything!"
"Will do!"
I waited. The maid waited. After ten seconds, the maid must have decided there was nothing out of ordinary around, and hummed her way down the hall.
I slowly got up and walked to the window. As an afterthought, I shredded the curtains with claws. They seemed so nice that it was a shame to not destroy them. The window I didn't even bother to open, just lightly tapping the glass until it cracked, grimacing at every noise I made in case the maid was still outside. She wasn't. So I put a palm on the window, with then pushed. There was a loud, sharp shatter, and what remained of the window fell down, twelve floors, into a line of bushes. It was quite the fortune that the bushes were there, even if they looked ugly. Otherwise, people might just look up and wonder what the crazy woman was doing.
I climbed to the roof from there, painting myself a sickly white in an attempt to blend into the wall. It might have worked, or it might not have, judging from the little boy with a gaping mouth from below.
Las Vegas was a beautiful city in the night, especially seen from the top of Palazzo Hotel, the grand strip of light, the nightly people. There were more flashing lights than I could count, carpeting the entire city from the buildings to the streets in a bath of glowing specks. Cars crowded themselves in the wide streets; pedestrians ate and laughed and drank and strolled their way through the line of giant casinos. From here I saw the pyramid, the Eiffel Tower, the Statue of Liberty, a McDonalds sign, the globe. It was a wondrous sight, quite unforgettable.
I must have stayed a while, just watching. It was very calming, when I did nothing and just sat still. What a world.
"I assume you saw the news, which is why the hotel now has a broken TV and a manhunt?"
"A manhunt?" I turned to give the old man a curious glance. He looked amused, perhaps at my inactivity, or the cursing of the manager when he discovered Mr. Morgan was declared dead over a week ago.
Tom Summers, that was his name. If not his humor, then his sense of rightness definitely appealed to me. He was a Loyalist, the mysterious ones who still followed Mercer to the end of the world. I told him it was a sad destiny, but he said he owed Mercer everything, when the creator himself took upon the trouble to remake him into a soldier of the future on his dead bed. I did not disagree with him, rather shocked at Mercer's own sense of morale.
"Yeah. Now they're look all over the Vegas strip for a dead Mr. Morgan. You could have imagined how the military laughed their asses off when they heard."
I smiled a little, eyes on the distance. We once again settled into silence, comfortable, but empty.
"The others want to see you." That ruined the moment.
I knew it had been coming, yet I did not want to see them. Just because Mercer himself happened to be a practical man, and that Tom was a good person, didn't mean anything about the rest of them. Some could be just as twisted as Mercer's more slippery side, or like Mother, who I had not even seen in person yet, but heard enough that I decided she was a literal hazard to everything within a mile radius.
"Tell them I'll be leaving the city, as soon as I clear this place of the Order."
"They won't take no for an answer."
I said nothing. The stars were gone, hidden away by the light and the liveliness of the city. Even the moon was barely visible, just a shadow of itself.
"They wish to know the one who had captured even the creator's attention."
"Tell them I have no loyalty to Mercer or his plans."
"They'll think you a child."
"Then let them. I have better things to do than to play soldier with them."
He sighed, frustrated. "Why won't you just see what they have to say…"
Something prodded at my conscious in the Hivemind, just a little poke, a nudge in a direction. I looked back. Connected by a pasty, thin arm was a sharp hook, its one end gleaming wickedly in the red light. On the other end of the arm was a monstrous thing. It towered above me, at least ten feet in height. Its body was cut apart in places, bashed in at others. Red veins glowed from within its body, like fissures on the horrid skin. A lopsided mouth was a gaping hole in what should have been a head, instead resembling something more along the lines of a moldy sack of potatoes.
The building I sat on no longer glowed brightly, instead smoke poured out, like an overflowing fountain. It was now day. Fires roared in the city, burning it to the ground. There were no more people, just enormous structures of biomass towering into the sky. Deformed creatures leaped from roof to roof, hungry. They seemed to dance with the shadows around them. The sun was hidden by a blanket of red clouds.
I blinked.
"… After all," he was still saying, "they trusted you enough to send someone like me to bust you out of there, so–"
"There's something here in the city," I interrupted, scanning the horizon. There was an approaching dust storm, far away, that was nothing more than a curtain of darkness in the night. I wondered what Mercer planned to do.
"Something?" He gave a nervous laugh. "This is Las Vegas. Even if you don't know what you're looking for, you'll probably find it anyways."
"I'm serious."
Now he gave me a strange look. "You sure?"
I thought about the vision. "Yes," I decided.
He was suddenly serious, eyes narrowed at the streets far below. "This city is one of the only locations with next to no infection rates. People think it's the military keeping them safe, but we all know different." A helicopter zoomed past under us, hurriedly. "The creator has plans for this city, and it's not to blotch it into the ground." He looked to the dust storm, so far away, so gloomy. "The titan won't reach here alive. It's nothing more than a distraction, a testament to the power of the virus. But as for the creator's true intentions, well, let's just say that the only person who would ever understand the creator is Mother."
Just the word itself chilled me, but I bit my lip and nodded. Somehow I thought I saw explosions and a massive movement of a gargantuan creature in the shifting sands, but then it was gone. Perhaps I am crazy.
"I suggest you go look for whatever your something is quickly. Maybe it's a sign, however you got wind of it, whether it is just a feeling or not. You know, sometimes the creator can directly plant his own voice in our heads?" As if I didn't know better. He took a pause there, nodding to himself. Perhaps we were both crazy.
"But do remember that they still wish to meet you," he said, after a length, with an air of finality.
There was no doubt that I would forget, but I nodded and said thanks anyways. Below, the numerous people and the energy of the city beckoned me to join them, to, even for one moment, celebrate my livelihood, against all the odds. But, maybe I was just paranoid, but I felt eyes on my back, gauging into my soul with teeth of darkness.
With a frustrated sigh, that something was watching my every move, that I was looking for something that might not even exist in the first place, that Mercer had more plans and schemes and plans with schemes than there were stars in the night, I let myself drop over the edge.
ooo
I glided in the air, hovering at just above the sight of the people. I had grown a pair of thin but stable sheets along both arms, allowing for distant traveling without much use of energy. However, that left me looking rather like a oversized bird, and very hard to miss, especially from the ground, so I limit its usage to night only, and only on nights without stars.
It was one thing to look down onto the city from the Palazzo, the emperor of the world, but quite another to fly amongst the subjects, to be one with the city. My pass brought a cool breeze to those below, so heated by their own lives that they never though once to look up at the blackest night.
But I was not on a sightseeing tour. The nudge was there, just a thread. It led me forward, towards the center of the city itself. Ahead, towering structures raced into the sky, magnificent and beautiful. The string pulled me through their cracks, high above the ground. For the first time since New York, I felt alive, empowered. As I watched the cars like ants and people like grains, I felt freedom, freedom to be what I was, freedom to be what I should be.
"Target sighted."
What?
Suddenly the tug was gone, dissipating into the air, and something else replaced it. This one was very much physical, in the form of a spear that pierced my back. Along with projectile electricity lit me up like a firefly, the great arcs of light flashing for all to see. Half spasming, half blind from pain, I tumbled forward in the air, without direction, into a wall. The wall shattered into a rain of glass, and I found myself in an empty, industrial floor. The vast space only had the narrow columns to hold up the many floors above, and only the narrow columns for shadows to hide themselves.
Then darkness cleared. I found myself looking at an armed man, his face hidden behind a visor-less helmet. In one hand was a gun of some sorts. I narrowed my eyes at him while he took a defensive stance. There was a soft landing behind me. A second man, dressed very much like the first, rolled to a stop, held in his hand a thin string connected to his chest, the other end to the spear in my back. His finger hovered on a button.
I didn't give him the chance. Lunging forward at the first man, the second man was suddenly dragged off his feet with me. However, the plan went shorthanded, as the first man reacted with lightning speed and dodged. Flames erupted from his hand as he dived, burning me. I lashed out in blindness, destroying a column of stone.
"Tactic B," said a mechanical voice, just as I compressed the biomass in my chest and crushed the needle.
I watched the second man click the button on his hand, and his confusion when nothing happened. My enjoyment was limited when another wave of flames came at me, though I used to opportunity to drag the other to me and roast him in the flames instead.
"Ahh." His must have been really heavily armored, as he was only shocked, not so much as hurt. The flamethrower man tried once again, though he didn't watch the two addition whips to the blades in my hands. One of them caught his foot and he did a flip, smashing hard into the ground.
I ducked my head in time to let a blue-glowing projectile sail over my head, then turned towards the second man, and was forced to leap aside to avoid another shock grenade. Those things are particularly nasty. Once they come into contact with any surface, they explode in a sphere of shrapnel, each connected to a power cell by wires, and then electrocute anything within a three feet radius. The pain is only magnified as the shrapnel sometimes pierce skin and flesh to deliver the shock inside.
I elongated an arm and swiped at him almost ten yards away, but he activated something else and flew backwards. The jetpack carried him out of my range, and while I was distracted, a dart lodged itself in my neck. It beeped. Immediately I ejected it with a throw, and watched it explode. Another fireball came my way. I rolled away while it scorched the ground where I was.
"Formation delta."
From the second man's forearm burst out a whip, lit up with a blue glow, electricity crackling along its length. He took a swipe at me; I hid behind a concrete column. The weapon blasted away a chunk of the structure, sending it flying away. When he swung again, instead of dodging backwards like he clearly expected, I lunged forward, ducking underneath the whip's wild arc and tackled him. My own whip rammed into his midsection, sparking against the metal plates. The armor was strong. So I entangled the man in a nest of tentacles, armed with acids and teeth, to chew him through the iron coffin.
The first man came to the rescue with another explosive dart. I was ready, catching this one in one hand and throwing it back at him. His jetpack allowed extreme dexterity, letting him dodge the explosion with an easy leap. However, what he didn't see were the arms I sent out into the room, toothed snakes that had spikes for heads. It jabbed at his calf, which buckled under the unexpected attack, though still did not physically harm him. Annoyed, another circled his helmet, cutting off his visual. He fired the flamethrower blindly, spraying the air with burning heat. His jetpack opened up, but he was not let free, so tumbled, in a crazed wrestle against the swarm.
I felt a painful shock. Looking down, I saw the second man had lit up his suit in electricity, glowing with the blanket of tentacles. I growled in anger, and lifted him into the air. His struggled were futile when I smashed him back into the ground, then into the air, and back to the ground. I could tell he was dazed, though the pain kept on coming. In a fit of infuriation, I contracted the shell that held him. As my mass squeezed, so did his suit. When the pressure reached about what would have shriveled up a human like a raisin, the suit sparked. When the pressure was enough to vaporize rock, the suit began a wailing alarm. The inside must have been painful, as the controls on the forearm crackled and died, as the jetpack on his back imploded.
Another fireball shot at me. I simply let it hit. It was painful to endure and stand still, but it did let the first man think that I was incapacitated by the shocks. As he flew in at me, with an armor capable of lighting itself on fire, I absorbed the snakes back into me, so when the flaming man crashed into me with the force of a speeding truck, he hit stopped as if he hit a solid wall. I roared back, and received a mouth of flames for my troubles, which I bit down against. Seeing the hopeless situation, he pushed off my grabbing tentacle and darted away, too quick for me to catch. Through the broken window he was gone, racing far away.
Once again I looked down, and realized that in that intense moment, I had more or less crumbled the armor beneath me into a heap of scrape. The electricity must have stopped a long time ago. There was what might have been blood leaking out from several places. I had not planned to kill the man inside, instead absorb him and learn. Looked like that was done. Disgusted, I dropped the armor heavily onto the ground.
Something gleamed on its right arm while it tumbled under the harsh lights of the city. I scrutinized at the symbol. A winged star seemed to glare out, staring accursedly. It meant nothing to me. Perhaps one of those antiquated Loyalists might know. I was considering whether it was worth my trouble to take this hulk of armor with me, until I heard a tapping shoe from behind.
I whirled around, letting myself half melt into the darkness, fangs bared. I realized who I was threatening too late. He leaned casually against a pillar. At a normal glance, he might have been the new boss of the building, just coming out on a free Sunday to see his construction project, carefree in jeans and a jacket. The eyes gave him away. They were darkness itself, hidden from the world. He was looked at something on the ground behind me, perhaps the crushed metal man.
"Mercer," I said, deadpanned.
He seemed to smile under his hood, though it was hard to tell with the shadows around him. "Not happy to see me? You should know that people bow to my very presence and bless the ground I walk on." His voice was smooth, yet also nails on blackboard, like an angry cat.
"They are fools. Blind fools."
Now he smiled, revealing a row of perfect, white teeth. It was a wicked expression, however normal it looked. "Are you not blind? You have too many mysteries, my dear." He turned his eyes to me. I felt as though the very night around us was picking me apart at the seams.
I hissed at him. He only continued, now standing free of the concrete column, dusting his sleeves nonchalantly. "You have had quite a fight with those two," he noted, once again looking behind me. "And it seems like you're the victor."
"What do you want?"
"Ah, so quick to be hostile." His smile grew larger while his eyes found me again. I suppressed a shiver. He walked towards me, calmly, until I was within arm's reach. "I was only curious whether you knew of their true origins."
He was good at this game. Very, very good. He knew which buttons to push to force me one way or the other. He knew what to say to evade my coldness. I was not amused, but suddenly too curious at his words. "I'll bite. Who were they?"
Luckily he didn't brag, though I felt the slippery feeling of defeat all the same. He stared at me in the eye. There was no life there, only death, only the black void. "Blackwatch."
"Blackwatch?" I repeated, foolishly, incredulous.
"Quite the parrot, aren't you?" he chuckled humorlessly to himself, "yes, they were indeed officially disbanded a long time ago, but do you really believe the several individuals would simply let that power go?" A terrible seed was planted in my head, the dread of the unknown. "They are mere legends and whispers now, but even you see they are not weak. Their specialists are easily capable of fighting evolved and infected creatures. Their spies control the military's every move."
"How?"
"Power," he said, simply. The seed blossomed.
It took me a moment, then I realized. Suddenly I felt thoughtless. "The answer is still no, Mercer. No matter all your manipulations, the answer will always be no."
He smiled again, sinister. I should be the one feeling victorious, yet somehow he had won once again. "I thought as much, dear, but you should never stop trying."
I said nothing in return.
He finally turned his awful sight from me and onto the city outside. He seemed to raise an eyebrow at the cracked windows, though did not point it out, to which I was relieved. I watched his confident steps as he carelessly strode to the open window with the howling winds. When he looked back, his eyes were still as empty, but now hungry, devouring. "One more thing: my followers are still waiting to see you."
And I was left with a strange feeling of fogginess.
A/N
I hope you've all had a great Thanksgiving, 'cause I know I've ruined mine with turkey. :P
So here comes another chapter that I was forced to split up because of the incredibly long time it took me to write this and the fact that there are quite some stuff going on here. It might feel a bit weird because my editor was once again unavailable and I did the editing myself...
To Sano Hibiki, who I recommend getting an account because I can't reply to your reviews:
(Chapter 10) Thank you! I thought I needed some more secretive weapons than the old, stereotypical blades and stuff. As for the infected hierarchy, there's a reason she's hanging around in the twilight zone. As for what she says, don't always believe everything she says. Heck, even though she does everything I say, I still don't trust what goes through her mind half the time.
(Chapter 11) That is one question I rather not reveal. P.S. idk, either. I just kinda thought of some stuff and put it into the story.