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SpectorChris:
Yeah, sorry about the time it took, but my schedule is either having nothing to do or having tons to do.
A/N: Please remember to review with any comments, question, concerns, or constructive criticism that you might have.
Chapter 8:
Things go to Hell…er
As the mysterious figure dove at Alan and his group, Alan's enhanced senses warned him of something approaching at high speeds.
Looking up, Alan spotted the person heading their way from above and grabbed both of his companions before jumping back out of the way, carrying them with him and shouting, "Look out!"
The figure slammed into the pavement with the force of a bomb, sending Alan skidding back with the two humans in his arms to cover their faces to protect them from the dust and debris.
"You're quick," the figure said, "I am curious though why an Evolved is traveling with humans. Most of the Evolved I heard of consider themselves above humans. You just keeping them as food or some shit like that?"
"Of course not!" Alan insisted, "Besides, you're one to judge others considering you attacked us for no reason." He moved Joel and Ellie behind him.
"Don't act innocent. I know that it's no coincidence that you're here. I don't know if you're working with the government or some new Evolved faction, but I won't let you take me and Athena down!"
"You guys get out of here," Alan ordered and the two headed for cover, before turning back to the figure, "I don't know who you or this 'Athena' is, but if it's a fight you want, it's a fight you'll get!" he shouted as he charged at the attacker, his claws extended.
The figure's hands turned into hammerfists, which were swiped at Alan, who ducked under them to try and stab his opponent. The unknown opponent sent a powerful punch at Alan, but he caught it and threw his opponent over his shoulder. His opponent was slammed hard onto the concrete, but got back up an instant later, though iher/i hood fell off her head to show a black woman in her late twenties to early thirties. Her short hair was tied in a ponytail.
"For the last time, who the hell are you!?" Alan demanded of the woman.
"Fine, if you're gonna keep pretending to be stupid, I'll tell you. My name is Amaya Heller and I'm still gonna kill you!" she shouted as she charged again.
Alan hit her in the head with a roundhouse kick, knocking her away, but she immediately got back up and attacked again. Her charge was stalled by Joel and Ellie taking shots at her from cover. While she was distracted by the shots, Alan hit her with his own hammerfists, sending her crashing into the wall of one of the buildings.
Growling with annoyance, Amaya charged again with Alan matching her, but before they could hit each other again, a number of shots were fired between them, stopping them in their tracks. The two looked to see a small drone hovering nearby, armed with a small machine gun.
Amaya tapped her ear with her finger, "What's the deal, Athena?" She listened to the voice coming through her earpiece, "Seriously? Are you sure?" She stopped to listen again, "Okay, I'll bring 'em in."
"Well, what's the deal here?" Alan asked, not sure what was going on.
"Athena says you guys are alright. She got a hit on her facial recognition software and apparently you guys aren't with Blackwatch after all and have shoot on sight orders on you all," Amaya said, turning her hands back to normal.
"Gee, if only someone had told you that to begin with," Alan said, sarcastically as Joel and Ellie joined them, though they made sure to keep Alan between them and Amaya.
"So, what's the fuck is going on?" Ellie asked, "Who's this Athena you keep talking about?"
"I think that's what we'd all like to know," Joel said.
"She's my partner," Amaya said, "And more than that. I'll explain later, but all you need to know right now is that she and I have been working to take down Blackwatch. Now, follow me and keep quiet. The last thing we need is for infected to hear us after all that noise we made."
The group nodded and decided to follow Amaya through the city, still being as quiet as possible to avoid attracting any infected, headed to the Empire State building.
"Any chance the elevator's work?" Alan asked, sarcastically.
"'Fraid not," Amaya said, leading them to a stairwell.
"Jeez, that's a ton of stairs!" Ellie groaned, looking up the several levels of stairs above them.
"Come on, Ellie, we best get started," Joel said.
"How high up do we need to go anyway?" Alan asked as they started heading up the stairs.
"All the way," Amaya said, simply.
The group headed up the stairs, reaching the top after what felt like hours. On the top floor, they found the entire floor filled modified for living in with a couple beds, a small area for growing food and artificial sunlight, and pipes connected to water collectors attached to the roof. What really surprised the trio was the large amount of computer gear, including monitors, databanks, and hard drives. There was a woman at the computers, typing away on the keyboard. The woman's graying brown hair was cut short and her light skin clearly showed she didn't go out much.
"Hey, Dana, we're here!" Amaya greeted the woman to the computers.
"I know," she replied, "Proximity sensors remember?" With that, she turned around to face the group, "So, this must be Joel, Ellie, and Alan. Nice to meet you all. I'm Dana Mercer."
"Yeah, nice to meet you too," Alan said, waving slightly, "So, how are you able to get online? I would have figured all of the servers would be down once everything went to shit."
"The government's got servers up for their personal use and I can hitchhike on their signal to get into some of the less classified files. In order to get into the more classified files, I'd need direct access into their databases," Dana said.
"Can you look up a safe zone's designation?" Alan asked, hopeful.
"Unfortunately not," Dana said, sadly, "I need access to the more heavily secured databases, which can only be found in their bases."
"Great," Alan sighed, "So, where's the base?"
"Why is this so important to you?" Amaya asked, curious.
"My sister was sent to Safe Zone Gamma," Alan said, "I want to, no, I bneed/b to find her. She's the only family I have left."
Dana looked at Amaya, who nodded to the unspoken question, before turning back to her computer, tossing a flash drive to him over her shoulder, "Amaya will lead you to it. While you're there, connect that to the main databank and I'll be able to connect to it from here. Oh, and take this so we can stay in contact," she said, tossing him an earpiece.
"Hey, what about us?" Ellie asked, frustrated about being left out.
"I'd recommend you and Joel stay here," Dana said, tapping away at her computer, "That place is extremely dangerous, especially for humans. Even Amaya doesn't stay there too long."
With that, the two Evolved headed for the roof to take the shortcut to the ground floor. Once they were out of the room, Joel turned to Dana to ask, "So, what's the story with you two?"
"It's a bit of a long story," Dana said, but sensing that the question wasn't going to be let go, she asked, "Have you heard of Alex Mercer?"
"Just what I heard on the news. Said to have started both of the infections in New York," Joel said, "Related, I guess?" he asked, remembering her last name from their introduction.
"Older brother and it was one of the few times Blackwatch's story was the true one," she said, "Anyway, during the first infection, he got turned into a Prototype, a special type of Evolved, like Amaya and Alan. Anyway, by the time he ended the first infection, which he started by accident by the way, he started to change from the brother I loved. He started to wonder why he should run things, since his powers put him higher up on the foodchain, so he started the second infection to find others with the necessary genes to become an Evolved like him. He started to grow an army, filling it with Blackwatch soldiers and scientists. He eventually infected James Heller, who he ran into when Heller was on a kamikaze run against Alex, since my brother murdered his family or so he thought," Dana explained.
"I take it didn't work out well," Joel said.
"No, he tried to trick Heller into siding with him in his plan to take over Blackwatch with his family being casualties of the infection, which he said Blackwatch started, but Heller not only found out he really did start the infection, but also that his daughter was alive in Blackwatch custody. Once he found that out, Heller effectively cut all ties to Alex, but before he could rescue his daughter, Heller found Alex had taken her, believing she shared the same special genes that her father did. Alex, by that point, had lost all semblance of sanity and planned to use the girl to birth a new generation of Evolved," Dana said sadly.
"That's seriously fucked up," Ellie said, disturbed by the story.
"Yeah, I know," Dana sighed sadly, "Anyway, Heller killed him and absorbed the virus from across the city, ending the second infection. After that, he was helping me expose Blackwatch's crimes, but then the world went to shit and the government was completely taken over by Blackwatch. I'm still not sure how they managed that exactly, but knowing them it was blackmail and all kinds of bullshit like that."
"What happened to Amaya's dad?" Ellie asked.
Dana sighed, "When the Cordyceps took over, we knew we couldn't go to the safe zones and the government was still searching for Heller, so he decided to draw them off of us. We don't know what happened to him, but before he left, he turned Amaya into a Prototype."
"He turned his own daughter into that?" Joel asked, surprised and horrified.
"She was 18 by that point," Dana said, "And it was her decision. They both knew we'd have a better chance of survival if she was a Prototype."
"Is…is there a chance they'll end up like your brother?" Ellie asked, worried.
That question caused Dana to stop instantly, "I'm…not sure. I don't know if the change in his personality was purely him or if it was caused by the minds of the different people he consumed. Quite a few of them, including this one psycho bitch Elizabeth Greene, would have thought up a plan like that, so it could be either…or both. Honestly, I don't know which scares me more."
While they were talking, Amaya and Alan were using their biomass to run at superhuman speeds with Amaya leading the way to the base. Spotting the base coming up, Amaya turned and ran straight up a building with Alan following behind her.
"What's up?" Alan asked, curious about the change of direction.
Amaya pointed at the base ahead of them, "Take a look. That's the base right there."
Alan looked and was surprised to see it completely overrun by the Cordyceps infected, both clickers and runners.
"Well, shit, that's a ton of infected down there, but I think we can take them," Alan said, still feeling a little nervous.
"Those aren't the problem," Amaya said, pointing to the roof of the main building of the base, "Those are."
It was then that Alan noticed some strange looking infected on the roof, "What are they?"
"Flyers," Amaya stated, "The fungus resulted in them growing a sort of fungal webbing between their arms and body, creating wings. They're still blind, but their hearing and echolocation seems to be twice as sensitive as the clickers."
"Terrific," Alan sighed sarcastically, "Well, let's get this over with."
With that, the two jumped back down to the ground and burst towards the horde of infected that began to shriek at detecting new prey before beginning to shamble towards them. The flyers leapt off of their perches to swoop down on the two Evolved. Alan grabbed a street lamp, ripping it out of the concrete, before hitting three of the flyers away with a single swipe and splattering them against a wall. Meanwhile, Amaya was using her hammerfists to smash through the clickers, clearing a path for both of them to reach the main building. Alan moved in first, lifting the huge blast door, letting Amaya run inside before moving in himself and letting it slam closed with the infected banging on the door.
"Well, that was fun," Alan joked.
"You have a weird sense of fun," Amaya smiled.
"You know you're not the first woman to tell me that," Alan said, smiling for the first time in a while, "Though you are the first woman I'm not dating to tell me that."
"Well, the day's young," she flirted as they walked through the darkened halls of the base before reaching the base's databanks.
"Weren't you trying to kill me an hour ago?" he asked, before shaking his head, "Alright, let's hope this place still has power," Alan said as he started messing with the computer to make it turn on. Sure enough, it did, making him breathe a sigh of relief. He entered some commands and inserted the flashdrive. "Well, our luck's improving. Let me just give Dana access and…there!"
Dana's voice came over the earpieces, "I've got access. It should only take me a few minutes to find the data you're looking for."
"Thanks, Dana, I owe you big time," he said, smiling widely as he felt the search for his sister was coming to an end.
"Don't say that just yet. I still have to go through the data and…oh, shit," she said, horrified.
"What's wrong? I don't like to hear 'oh,shit.' That always means trouble," Alan groaned.
"Yeah, well, unfortunately, it means major trouble this time," she said, "I'm picking up radio chatter on government-band radio."
"Please tell me that doesn't mean what I think that means," Amaya said, worried.
"Afraid so," Dana said, "Blackwatch is entering the city and you can probably guess where they're heading first."
"Here," Alan said, not really being a question, "We need to leave. Now."
"That'll be hard," Dana said, "They brought beastmaster units."
"Jesus, these guys are serious!" Amaya said.
"Not only that, but General Rook himself is leading them," Dana said.
"Damn, they're really serious this time," Alan said, "I really thought we'd lost them."
"Guess not, though from what I'm hearing they've got forces heading to everywhere they'd expect your group to go including here where your sister lived I guess," Dana said.
"How long before they reach us?" Alan asked before a massive explosion was heard outside.
"Not long apparently," Amaya said with a deadpanned expression.
"Well, guess there's only one thing to do now," Alan said, looking at Amaya, who nodded in response.
The two headed to a nearby elevator to go up to the roof where they could get to the roof. When they got there, they saw the military had begun their attack on the infected. The trained soldiers were able to push through the infected while other Blacklight infected that Alan hadn't seen before, taking the form of huge, fat humanoids.
"Well? Shall we go greet our guests?" Alan asked with a smirk.
"Well, it would be rude otherwise," Amaya replied.
The two Evolved jumped off of the roof and, focusing their biomass into their legs, slammed into the ground in the middle of the horde, sending dead infected flying. Amaya changed her arm to a sword arm, while Alan changed to his flamethrower arms, burning through the Cordyceps infected. Realizing the Evolved were the bigger threat, the soldiers changed their target to the Evolved.
"You take care of the soldiers, I'll deal with those fat fucks!" Alan shouted to his partner.
"On it!" Amaya shouted as she went to show the soldiers just what the difference in danger between Cordyceps and an Evolved as she tore through them with ease.
Alan jumped and slammed down on the shoulders of one of the behemoths before shoving his right arm into its mouth and letting out a powerful stream of fire that burned through its head, killing it instantly. Jumping off of it, he changed his arms to dual sword arms and stabbed another of the behemoths in the chest, knocking it to the ground. He then proceeded to stab it several in the chest before sending tendrils out of his back to drive them into the creature to break it down and absorb it.
"All units, stand down!" came a shout over the fighting.
The soldiers, though appearing uncertain, stopped fighting and fell back to where their leader was.
"I have to admit, I didn't expect to run into another one of you freaks," General Rook said, looking at the two Evolved, "Guess it's my lucky day. Tell you what: why don't you surrender now and save us the trouble?"
"General Rook, why are you coming after us?" Amaya said, "My father told me how you let him rescue me, so why are you still serving Blackwatch?"
"I only did that because I couldn't in good conscience use a daughter as bait for the father," Rook said, "As a father myself, I couldn't allow that, but now it doesn't matter. My wife and daughter are dead. Now, I only have the life of a soldier, even if it means I have to work for those that killed them!"
"Fine, guess there's only one thing to do," Alan said, turning his arms into his dual sword arms. "Ready Amaya?"
"You know it," she said, turning her arms into her hammerfists before the two charged the remaining soldiers.
"Fine! We do it the hard way!" Rook shouted, "All units attack!"
The soldiers opened fire on the two Evolved as helicopters reached the battle as well to join the fight.
Alan jumped into the air and cut through the tail of one of the helicopters before giving it a hard kick and sending it crashing into another, making the two explode. He then turned his arms to whipfists to grab another and throwing it into the soldiers' group, killing dozens. Alan then charged through the soldiers, cutting them down by the handful before jumping up and landing in front of Rook himself before grabbing him, lifting him up off of his feet.
"You think this ends with my death?" Rook growled, "The leader of Blackwatch himself is after you! He'll succeed even where I have failed."
"Oh, shut up already," Alan said, driving his fist into Rook's chest before consuming him.
After he absorbed the general, he was hit by a recent memory of Rook's. He saw it from a first person perspective and he was standing at attention in front of a man. Alan could feel Rook's nervousness in regards to the man sitting at the desk, though not even Rook knew why he felt that way.
"I trust I can rely on you for this mission?" the man said, smirking.
"Yes, sir," Rook said, outwardly calm.
"Good," the man said, his smirk growing, "Perhaps if you'd had this loyalty, you might have been able to prevent the deaths of your family."
Rook's hands clenched to fists so tightly that they nearly drew blood, but he still just said, "Yes sir."
"You're dismissed, general," the man said, waving him off like he was an annoying fly, "I must get ready for my trip. Boston's long since been in need of an inspection."
The memory ended there allowing Alan to see that the remaining soldiers were retreating and fleeing the Evolved.
"Did you see something?" Amaya asked, reaching Alan's side.
"Just him getting the orders to come here," Alan said, shrugging, "Not much else."
"Well, let's head back to the others," Amaya said, before the two headed back to the Empire State building.
Reaching the headquarters, Alan said, "So, Dana, did you get the data?"
"Yeah, I got it," she said, typing away, "Just compiling it now."
"You guys alright?" Joel asked, "Sounded pretty bad out there."
"We're alright," Alan said, "Great thing about being like us: we heal really quick."
"I'm in!" Dana said, as she continued to type, "Let's see, what's the safe zone designation?"
"Gamma," Alan said, "Her note said she was heading to Safe Zone Gamma."
"Okay," she said, concentrating on what she was doing, "Let's see…safe zone gamma. Ah, here we go. Safe Zone Gamma was the designation of the safe zone in Boston, but oh…damn."
"What?" Alan asked, fear gripping his heart.
"Well, since I know which Safe zone I'm looking for, I was able to access their records, since they were by city names, not designations, and, well, I found your sister," she said sadly.
"Tell me," he said, though he was afraid of what he was going to hear.
"She's dead. I'm so, so sorry," she said as Alan walked to a blank wall and with a loud cry of anguish, punched it over and over, the concrete cracking from the force of the punches.
Ellie was the only one that could react and moved over to hug him.
"Thanks, Baby Sister," Alan said, his shaking with grief, before he addressed Dana again, "D-Did she get married? Did she every make a family for herself?"
"No," she said, "She wasn't married, but she died in childbirth, leaving an orphaned daughter."
That got Alan's complete attention, "What happened to the daughter? Is she still in Boston?"
"Hang on, let me bring up her file," Dana said, "According to this, she's, jesus, she's missing, presumed either kidnapped or killed in a Firefly raid. Her name is…no way, that can't be a coincidence."
"What? What is it!?" Alan asked, frantic.
"Her name…is Ellie. She'd be fifteen now. Red-brown hair. Green eyes," she said in shock.
Everyone turned to Ellie, who was staring at Alan.
"Y-You're my niece?" Alan asked in shock.
"You're my uncle?" Ellie asked just as surprise.
Alan, coming out of his shock, scooped Ellie up in a hug and spun around, cheerful tears flowing from his eyes. Ellie, finally being united with family, returned the hug.
"Hey, guys," Dana said, breaking up the touching scene, "I found something else!"
A/N: And there's chapter 8! Please remember to review with any comments, question, concerns, or constructive criticism that you might have.