A/N: Sorry, I'm still getting used to this site. I've always read a lot of fanfics here, but I've never actually posted anything. The process is kind of weird, so forgive me if the formatting looks weird.

xxxxxxx

He slid open the window and hopped in, taking care to not damage the tile flooring. Last time he did that, Dana banned him from going through the window. Technically, he was still banned, but rules never stopped him from doing anything before.

Surprisingly, she wasn't in the room. She usually acted as if she had some psychic ability to tell when he came home, so her absence was gaping. He sniffed the air - she was there recently, within the last hour. Her computer was still open on some articles, and there was a half-empty cup of coffee already cold on her desk.

He stalked through the tiny apartment and slipped into thermal vision, but she was nowhere to be found. He frowned. She wouldn't leave unless there was a good reason. The both of them were recognizable figures, him being the terrorist and her being the harborer, but she wasn't the one who could change her face on a whim. Even when leaving to pick up groceries, she took special care to dress herself and do her makeup in a way that left her harder to recognize.

Her cosmetics case was open and had clearly been used recently. She hadn't been kidnapped then, at least. He debated internally whether he should follow her trail. She was deep inside a Blue Zone, so it was highly unlikely any infected could get her. Blackwatch wouldn't dare gun her down if they wanted to keep their piece in check, though an agreement never stopped them before. The most likely danger was being recognized in public and being harried.

But still, he tapped anxiously. Anything could happen if he wasn't there. A surviving Hydra could erupt from the ground and mutilate her. A Leader Hunter could rush in like it did once and take her again. Blackwatch could just forfeit the agreement and try to cause as much damage to him as possible as a final 'fuck you'. Cross could have betrayed him and sold their positions out.

As he was talking himself into a frenzy, the front door creaked open to reveal an unharmed Dana carrying a plastic bag. He dashed over, looking her over for any injuries. She smelled normal, no blood, no bruises. She held her hands up in mock surrender.

"Uh, good to see you too, Alex," she greeted with a bemused smile. "Looks like you got home before I did. That's rare."

"Where were you?" he asked, trying to keep the edge out of his voice. He didn't need to interrogate her.

Thankfully, she didn't seem to mind the rough tone. "I went out to pick up the day's newspaper. No, there wasn't anything worth looking at on it, in case you were wondering." Her expression became thoughtful. "Cross actually called me. He seemed upset that you destroyed the phone he gave you."

He scowled at the mention. "It was disposable," he protested. Then, he asked, "Did he tell you anything?"

She chuckled at his justification. "Let me go set this down, then we can talk."

He watched as she pushed past him to place both the plastic and her regular brown bag down on a nearby chair. She gestured for him to follow, then walked into the room with her computer, and took a seat.

"He was pretty sparse with the details, but he mentioned that you were going to leave the country for a mission," she said, hands clasped together and holding up her chin. "I seriously doubt he would lie about something like that, but I still find it hard to believe. Why is Blackwatch letting you leave? You are quite literally both public and private enemy number one, and at the very top of their shit list."

"They're not letting me leave," he replied haltingly. He took a few moments to piece together his thoughts into usable words as she waited expectantly. "It's the thing you were talking about yesterday. The virus in Harran. They want me to deal with it."

Her eyes widened. "What?" Her expression quickly shifted to contemplative, eyes narrowed. "…No, actually, that makes sense. Of course they'd want you to do it, that would get you out of their hair for months. They're probably hoping they could develop something to finally kill you for good by the time you get back, or that you'll keel over while over there."

He blinked. That did make sense. It was Blackwatch, of course they would have an ulterior motive.

"Okay, right," she said. "When do you leave?"

"Cross said there would be a pickup tomorrow."

"So soon?" She leaned back into her chair, looking up at the ceiling for a moment. "That doesn't sound right. I'm willing to bet they're just calling you in for a briefing. The military is a lot of things, but unprepared isn't one of them. Well, mostly. There's no way they would send you over so quickly."

He shrugged, and mulled the idea over in his head as well. She was probably right, but Blackwatch liked to be quick and efficient with everything they did. The supersoldier program they briefly had borne from his virus took them only a couple weeks to develop. The Bloodtox chemical took them even less time, finding a direct counter to him in just under that. So, if Blackwatch was in charge of the operation, he very well could be on a flight to Turkey before the next day's end.

"Maybe," was all that came out.

"Anyways," she said. "Just in case, I think you need a means of communication. A radio would be nice, but it wouldn't travel far. A phone would be better, but it'll be monitored." She smirked. "Unless I jailbreak it. I mean, I can't completely clear it, and you'll only have one contact, but it's a start."

He just nodded along. The last time he had his own phone was when he was still Doctor Mercer, and the only times that man used it then was to call into and out of work when necessary. He had plenty of memories from his pool of biomass, though. There were just far too many different types of phones to really keep track of, with each having their own interface and style. He had no real preference for any brand, though some were definitely more popular than others.

"I'll see if I can get you one before you go out tomorrow, but if I can't, just use mine - it's already jailbroken, and I'll just text you the new number of whichever phone I get," she said. "Uh, but, try not to break it this time," she added hastily. He huffed, but allowed the side of his mouth to quirk up into a sort of half smile.

xxxxxxx

It turned out she could just walk into a store and buy one, though she ended up changing her mind while she was there. She bought the new phone for herself and handed him her old one along with its charging wire. It would've taken too long to completely set it up by the time he would leave, was her reasoning.

He recognized it as a Blackberry, and looked over it delicately, analyzing the features. He promised to be careful with it and to return it to her in one piece, though perhaps not with so many words.

xxxxxxx

The last time he'd visited the main base on his own terms was back in 2008. Twice he entered inside, twice too many. He's glided over it other times, though that idea stopped being so much fun when they installed the Bloodtox canisters and guided turrets. The kind that could track him no matter how fast he ran. While it never killed him, the bullets still stung like a bitch and tore through armors like wet tissue paper. Then, they started putting those systems on the helos… Well, that was not a fun week, to say the least.

He was explicitly not allowed inside the main base under almost any circumstances since he took the deal. Most likely for multiple, obvious reasons. The first that came to mind being personnel with too much important and secret information for him to consume.

The Blacklight detectors blared as he stalked by. They improved the design over the years to home in on his signature almost immediately, so many sneak missions were forced to be loud. It got to the point in 2009 where it was just too much trouble to mess with the military stationed there, so for a while they had a tenuous truce - he wouldn't attack them, they wouldn't attack him. And it did work. He had no reason to kill marines, only Blackwatch, and they couldn't catch him even if they wanted to.

His body prickled from the hundreds of eyes following him as he trekked through the base towards the main entrance. He kept his own strictly forward. Anything could set off the twitchy bastards. One wrong look at the wrong guy and he'd have his biomass decorating the floor of the base, though it wasn't as if he wouldn't defend himself if it came to pass. That would just make it worse, and he'd have to figure out pretty fast how to get Dana beyond the bombing wall.

He said nothing as he arrived at the gate, and waited patiently - patiently for him, at least - for it to lift. It was huge, both taller and wider than the apartment he squatted in. The base was a hangar, after all, though it was secondary to the Reagan before that blew up. It had to compensate for jets coming in for refueling and repair. There were some APCs sitting idle, parked in the corners away from the landing strips, so the hangar worked maintenance on those too. Dotted along the walls of the base were dozens of inactive Bloodtox canisters. Hopefully they would stay inactive until he left. He didn't need a repeat.

After an agonizing minute's wait, the mechanism to open the gate began to slowly lift it, inch by inch. It had to be on purpose with how slow it was. He waited, arms crossed. Eventually, it lifted enough to reveal a dozen marines on the other side, guns readied and pointed at him. He glared at the one in the middle that had a slightly different uniform with two medals adorning the chest. Clearly the commander of the group. The gun tips dropped slightly as the commander stepped forward.

He pressed the muzzle of the M27 to Alex's throat and glared with a personal hatred. Everyone nearby stopped breathing. Alex could smell their apprehension, laced with palpable fear. The heartbeat of the commander remained steady, however. Alex merely stared, hands metaphorically tied behind his back.

"What I would give," the man spat, pushing the rifle as hard as he could. His hands trembled, not from fear but from the sheer exertion of pushing against such a solid wall. "To blow your fucking head off your shoulders right now. I don't have a clue why we were ordered to work with you, you fucking monster." His voice lowered into a deadly whisper. "You murdered my entire squad. You wouldn't remember, would you? But I do."

Alex watched impassively. He did remember. He remembered every life squirming and screaming in his biomass. But, telling Staff Sergeant Wilmot that would probably be a mistake, so instead he kept quiet. He still needed to get briefed on the OPLAN after all.

The rifle stayed for a few more moments, before Wilmot finally tore it away with no small effort. The men surrounding them started breathing again, though the tension remained.

"You put one single toe out of line, and I'll put you in the fucking ground myself. I don't give a shit how much it'll take," he snarled through gritted teeth. Alex shrugged. What happened, happened. It wasn't as if he could reverse his mistakes. Wilmot caught the gesture and stared with a renewed naked fury. Thankfully, all he did next was to jerkily point behind him at the opened gate. The venomous glare, coupled with the rest of the eyes from his men, followed Alex as he entered.

The first thing that struck him of the inside was its sterility, even with the countless men marching through it. The scent of specialized cleaning agents rankled his nose. Specialized against Redlight, it seemed, but his biomass lurched in protest with every step forward anyway. At the very least, it wasn't Bloodtox.

The group that greeted him at the door surrounded him in an escort formation with the sergeant directly behind him, rifle pressed to his back. He could admire the effort they took to make themselves feel secure, but it was bothersome having them at such close quarters.

He understood revenge. He couldn't fault the man, not when Alex certainly did deserve it. However, Alex cared a little more about his own and his sister's wellbeing than entertaining the fantasies of a traumatized man.

The group escorted him through the base, not wasting any time. He struggled to walk at a pace the group could keep up with, his instincts screaming at him to just leave already. Each room and hall they passed carried the same foul stench, some stronger than others. If he had human biology, he would've already expelled the day's meal all over their squeaky-clean floors. Luckily, his biomass wasn't in the habit of removing pieces of itself voluntarily, so he kept it together.

Eventually, they stopped outside of a door without a handle. In the place of where it should've been, he recognized a glowing biometrics security system wired for retinal scanning. No biometric scan could stop him, but then again, there was no security system on Earth that could stop him from just bashing a door down either. He elected to wait patiently as the private in front called in for permission. After confirmation, the private waved over for Wilmot, who reluctantly removed the rifle from Alex's spine and stepped forth to undergo the scan. A few seconds passed, and the scanner beeped its approval along with a green light. The group, including Alex, walked through single-file, and the private that opened the door closed it behind them.

Inside was a standard conference room. Big circular table surrounded by chairs, and a projector in the back. There was no decoration whatsoever, leaving the room plain, white, and, to Alex's distaste, sterile. There were already four men inside, but no one he recognized. The memories drudged from his biomass supplied the gaps, and their names and faces flashed through his mind. Only one of the four was Blackwatch, though he wasn't involved with Manhattan. He was one of the generals that 'helped' contain the Runner incident in Arizona. Alex shot him a menacing glare and made a mental note to deal with him later once Harran was solved.

"That's Blacklight?" one of the men, Major General Doss, asked, sounding distinctly unimpressed. Alex didn't bother answering and walked over to stand behind the seat farthest away from any of them.

"It is," the Blackwatch officer supplied in his stead, his jaw set.

"Looks different in person," Doss noted. He shuffled his stack of papers on the table and set them in front of him. He cleared his throat. "Will you be taking a seat, ZEUS?"

Alex looked over, a bit surprised to be addressed directly. "Nah."

Only the Blackwatch officer scowled at the rudeness, while the other three seemed to ignore it. The oldest one there, Lieutenant General Crockett, passed Alex a several page document across the table. It was an operation plan. He flipped through it, reading faster than most humans could, then set it back down. It held a plan for his involvement to deal with the virus in Harran, though it wasn't detailed. Were they really presenting him a CONPLAN and passing it off as the real thing?

"You made an ops plan involving me without consulting me first?" Alex asked, though he knew it would be pointless to.

"Frankly, your consent isn't a factor in this matter," said Crockett in a voice gravellier than his own. Alex scowled, but held his tongue. He'd get his shot back at some point, and it would be all the sweeter. He committed all four of their scents to memory. There would be nowhere they could run. "Let's get this show on the road. Chairman?"

The fourth man, Chairman Miller, stood up and pressed a button on the remote to the projector. The projector shuttered on, displaying a map of Harran. Crocket ambled over with a slight limp to stand by it. Alex held in a sigh, already bored out of his mind. Even unprofessional meetings were still meetings.

"Since you've already read the doc, I'm not going to rehash what it said," Crockett said. "We just need to get some things clear and understood before we send you out there." He cleared his voice and began with as commanding a voice as he could muster. "Right now, the Ministry of Defence is in charge. They don't know we're sending a superweapon, and you'd better keep it that way, ZEUS. The man they've got there, Colonel Suleiman, you stay out of his way. Let the Ministry handle the human side. That means no killing any humans. Keep it to the infected only."

He walked over to Alex slowly, putting up airs. He leaned in close, and Alex instinctually backed away. "If the Ministry finds out about you, we're pulling out, and the deal you have with Blackwatch is off. Do you understand?"

Alex nodded jerkily, only half a moment away from tearing the man in half where he stood.

"I want an answer! Do. You. Understand?" Crockett barked. Alex wasn't one of his fucking privates. He snarled audibly, causing the other three men to jump to a stand, and the entourage that escorted him there to point their rifles at him.

"Yes," he spat, seething. "I get it. No killing humans, no fucking with the Ministry."

There was nothing in the world that would stop Alex from ripping the man to bloody shreds once this was all over.

Crockett backed off, satisfied. "Good. Be ready in a month. We'll be taking you to the airfield in Drum where you'll be taken across the Atlantic in a jet. You'd best study those plans while you can, because we're burning them before you get on."

Alex's hateful glare followed the man as he hobbled back to his seat. The rest of the room calmed down along with him, lowering rifle points and thunderous heartbeats settling.

"I don't think I need to say it, but don't go around sharing those," Crockett added as an afterthought, speaking as if he hadn't just threatened him. Alex let out a low growl, but didn't snap back.

The rest of the meeting flew by without him being addressed, though he was closely watched by all members of the room. They stiffened at each movement, but it never escalated again as it did when Crockett lectured him. He didn't offer any input, and they didn't ask for any.

The general plan was to drop him into the slums of Harran and have him connect to the Hive Mind to find the Runner. The secondary plan, if that one failed, was to search for the Runner manually. The tertiary plan was to just have him kill every infected he could to pave the way through for the Ministry of Defence to deal with the problem. Simple and straightforward, though they didn't tell him what to do in the event that the final plan failed. It sounded a bit too familiar - if the Ministry was going to start pointing nukes at the city, he would just leave, find his own way home, and draw himself a relaxing bloodbath.

xxxxxxx

The window was locked, he noted as he attempted to pull it up. On the other side of the glass was Dana, shooting him a slightly exasperated look. She waved, then pointed to the front door, mouthing 'use the door!' at him. He grumbled wordlessly and hopped down to the street level with a loud thud, frightening away a pigeon in the process.

He stormed up through the building and kept his hood obscuring his face when he passed by a neighbor. Despite living there for years, he could barely recognize any of their neighbors. Humans all looked the same. Their features just blended together in his mind; He never had to remember faces anyway - their scents were identifying enough. He was certain Dana at least knew their names, though he never saw her interacting with any of them before.

At least the door was unlocked. He would have been in a worse mood if he was forced to knock. He slammed it behind him hard enough to shake the complex, and didn't bother to check if there was damage.

"I take it that the meeting didn't go well," she noted mildly above a steaming cup. She was sat at her laptop, scrolling through what were likely more articles. Or top-secret databases.

"Went fine," he growled. He was already pacing, navigating blindly through the furniture to and fro. "Got more assholes to kill after this is over with." She couldn't suppress a shudder at the clipped tone, and hid behind taking a sip from her mug.

She reached over to him when he got close, but he flinched back hard. Just beneath his false skin, his tendrils were roiling and twitching violently. He wanted - no, needed - to hunt soon. Needed to get the pent-up rage out. Needed to smash something, destroy something, mutilate something.

Her hand faltered, then she reached into her pockets to pull something out.

"You left your phone here," she said, and held out the Blackberry for him. He took it from her slowly, gingerly, and stuck it into a pocket.

"...Sorry." He couldn't take it out on her. She didn't deserve that.

She just calmly smiled, though it was strained, and set the cup down onto her desk. She turned her chair to face him fully. He let out a frustrated sigh and let himself down onto the couch, this time laying on his back. …It had been a long time since he last laid down. He sunk into the cushion, it creaking dangerously from his density. It wasn't the most comfortable or expensive couch in the world, but it was still theirs.

"You want to tell me what happened?" she asked. "Or would you rather have some quiet?"

He grumbled, staring at the ceiling. There were long cracks leading across much of it. Water damage from the upstairs neighbor, supplied memories of the type of pattern from his biomass. He flipped and turned the day's experience around in his head, trying to extract words from it to form a comprehensive story.

"I'll be gone in a month," he ended up saying. The phone pressed against his biomass uncomfortably, a foreign object touching coldly on his feverish flesh. He plucked it out and placed it onto the nearby coffee table where it couldn't bother him. "Don't know when I'll be back."

She rested her jaw into her cupped hand and hummed tonelessly. When it came to anything other than working on a project, the both of them shared the trait of slow, awkward wording. She was still several times better at it than he was, though he wouldn't say it aloud.

"At least you aren't gone yet. I'm glad I was right about it being just a briefing," she said after a moment. He nodded from where he lay. "They're probably just ironing out the rest of the details. Things like your travel accommodations-" He scoffed. As if Blackwatch would give a shit; they're just going to throw him out of the plane as soon as they can. "-and whatnot. They're also most likely contacting the Ministry of Defence that they're sending someone, because I can imagine what kind of diplomatic mess it would be if no one knew you were coming."

It would be a mess. For all involved, especially him. His biomass squirmed, and his chest split open. His tendrils flailed openly as he reached in and pulled from its grip the sheaf of papers they handed him earlier. Dana stared in open horror at the sudden display, her smile turning so strained it became tugged and flat.

"Uh-"

"Here," Alex interrupted, his flesh knitting back together. He tossed her the CONPLAN, and she barely caught it before it hit the floor. He shuddered. Disgusting shit - it still had some of that disinfectant on it. He had to create a wall of hardened mass on the inside to surround it so it wouldn't touch him as he carried it back. "These are the plans. I've already read them."

"...Right," she squeaked, face white as a sheet. Her heartbeat thundered in his ears. "I'll- look… at them."

He cocked his head from where he lay. What had her so worked up? …Oh. Right. The visible tendrils fell under the 'creepy as fuck' category.

She cleared her throat, looking pointedly away from his direction. Her heartbeat calmed only as she began scanning through the leaflet, though she remained the picture of tenseness.

Her brows furrowed. "Alex, are you sure these are the right plans?" she asked softly. "They're missing a lot of detail - nothing like what Blackwatch usually whips up."

He nodded. "Joint operation with Blackwatch and the marines. Probably a concept plan."

"A CONPLAN only a month away from takeoff for an operation of this magnitude?" she said incredulously. "That's really weird. This is moving fast, even for them." She fell into a thoughtful silence for a few seconds, then piped back up. "Well, it could just be that this is only what they're willing to share with you while they work behind the scenes. But this is setting you up for failure. These 'plans' don't tell you anything!"

"It's what I've got to work with," he replied simply. Of course they were setting him up for failure. But he had no real choice in the matter unless he wanted to figure out how to escort Dana across the Hudson River without her being blown to pieces. He had considered that option in the past - tried it himself using several different methods. All of them earned him a massive explosion to the face and a brief but melting dip into the river.

She sighed, and grimaced. "You should bring this up with Cross when you can. We need to figure out what the hell is going on before you leave the country. Since you have my phone, he might try to reach you that way."

He just stared at the ceiling. Somehow, the energy that normally coursed through his entire body was absent. Was this what being tired felt like?