Disclaimer: Not mine

Continuity: Prototype AU. The nuke went off but Mercer doesn't fully recover from it.

My thanks to my beta, Tayta Malikai for all the late night discussions and brainstorming.

Prologue

Heat.

He burns.

Then- wet. It's wet. Wet, wet, wet and he's just so tired.

He's never slept before but his mind is slipping. Forgetting.

Unravelling.

Then- dry.

Dry and warm, somehow he is pushed ashore. Caught in the crashing waves, he is trapped inside his own capsule of biomass, he is pushed this way and that by the water.

There's no energy left in him now. He's lost so much of himself, forgot his own shape and he cannot escape. From his limited awareness, he feels something approach. Footsteps on the ground, vibrations transmitted through concrete. He twitches.

Consume. ConsumeconsumeconsumeCONSUME.

But he's too weak to do anything.

He slips and unravels.

And discovers how to sleep.

X

"Doctor Koenig? We have a new project for you, something we think you'll find most interesting."

Doctor Anton Koenig coldly studied the Blackwatch colonel who'd invaded his lab without warning. He actually hadn't met the man in charge before; once allocated to the Manhattan situation, he'd buried himself in his work and not stopped since. There had been meetings, the doctor knew, meetings that he'd been invited to and soundly ignored, too busy with his research. And who could blame him, the properties of the Blacklight virus were simply astounding, the possibilities were endless.

Now, it seemed, his actions had come back to bite him in the ass. Koenig did not let this bother him too much; they had asked him here, after all. He was a valuable asset, one that Gentek could not afford to lose.

"What is it? I'm making remarkable progress on the project you brought me in for. Those brutes, the D-Codes? There is so much to be done to refine them and I simply do not have the time for every little-"

"Zeus."

One simple word, yet it shattered Koenig's world.

"What about Zeus?" he asked tightly, trying not to let it get to him. "Is he-is he coming here? Has my work been compromised? Colonel Rooks we must evacuate-"

"Doctor," the Blackwatch colonel broke in. "How willing would you be to work on him?"

"...on him? Colonel, you have my complete attention."

X X X

Zeus had survived Randall's final solution.

The information was classified beyond top secret and Koenig knew that neither the colonel nor his loyal side kick would hesitate to put a bullet through his head should he turn down the project. An insane thought, as if he'd pass up a chance to study Alex Mercer's infamous legacy. Zeus was nothing like they'd ever seen before, the likes of which had never been hinted before amongst all the viruses they'd extracted from Greene's comatose body.

If they could only duplicate the results in a controlled manner…

The task seemed daunting but unlike most scientists of his caliber and knowledge, Koenig remained unphased by the monumental task he was undertaking. If, in his final moments, Mercer could accidentally unleash a shape-shifting virus in the cramped and unhygienic conditions of a crowded train station, then Koenig was already at an advantage. Time and a laboratory with unlimited resources were on his side.

Then...then they brought Zeus in.

Koenig's hard earned confidence came crashing down.

He stared at the charred black lump that had been transported into his lab by a whole Blackwatch containment unit. This...this was supposed to be Zeus? A virologist's wet dream come to life, he held within his hands the remains of the world's first sentient virus and it was nothing like what he'd imagined. He swallowed once, thankful that his containment suit hid his nervousness. All eyes were on him for guidance but this...he was not prepared for this! Rooks had been so tightlipped about everything regarding Zeus but he had completely failed to mention that the recovered remains he was so proud of were burnt to crisp. How exactly was he supposed to work with this?

Mechanically, he reached across the lab bench for a glass rod. He refused to appear stumped before his colleagues. With the rod, Koenig cautiously began to poke the hard mass. He could almost feel the collective flinch that went through the room at his actions.

A thin smile curled his lips. Well, that was why they paid him the big bucks. He certainly wasn't afraid of a test subject in his lab and at his mercy. The black mass had the appearance of Zeus's fearsome armour, the thing must have tried to protect itself from the blast. Koenig wouldn't have believed it possible for anything to remain in the face of a nuke if the evidence was not sitting on his desk.

The first layers flaked off and crumbled under the glass rod. Then, he struck a hard solid layer that no amount of tapping could get past. The extreme heat must have fused the armor into an impenetrable layer. Koenig raised his head and glanced round at his assistants.

"Damian," he said calmly, "Get a tube and take this dust away for analysis. Janet, I want this thing scanned down to the very molecule, I want to know what exactly is inside it. Lieutenant Riley, do we have anything capable of cutting through Zeus's armor?"

The man tilted his head and studied the black lump in front of Koenig. Unlike the rest of his men, the lieutenant did not wear a mask and Koenig watched as a cruel smile spread across the soldier's face. "How about a chainsaw?"

Koenig smiled darkly. "That would be just perfect."

X X X

The scans had come back inconclusive: there was a layer of something under Zeus's thick skin, but they didn't know what. And the outer layers that crumbled under the lightest touch were useless for any genetic analysis. So they needed to get underneath the armor and find out if there was anything hidden away inside.

It had taken a special chainsaw, one optimized for cutting through concrete in fact, to slice through Zeus's hide. Rooks had approved the request with a certain amount of enthusiasm that characterized the inherent viciousness of Blackwatch. It was nice to believe that as the blade dug in, there was some awareness in Zeus left to feel the pain.

Koenig doubted that it was actually capable of such but still, the thought counted.

When they pulled the blade back, Koenig strode forward and examined the lump. There. Underneath Zeus's thick hide, red and black tentacles writhed. Koenig was quick to poke it with his rod; the tentacles came freely away, curling up around the rod. They were not attached at all to the layer of armor encapsulating them. The extreme heat had indeed fused the outer armor to the point that the rest of Zeus had separated from it, trapped and unable to get out. There was actually very little of the virus left, certainly not enough to force its way out of the charred lump.

Koenig looked up at his assistants. "Janet, get me a containment canister. Damian, some Bloodtox but dilute it down, a thousand times. Get Zeus into storage." He moved away from the bench as theories and experiments began to brew inside his head. Lieutenant Riley fell into step beside him as Koenig headed towards his office. "Well Lieutenant, it looks like pulling me away from the D-Codes isn't turning into a complete waste of time."

The soldier's sharp eyes studied Koenig carefully. "You seem awfully sure that you can do this," Riley observed.

Koenig glanced back at him. "You think I can't?" he demanded, offended.

"Make an injectable form of the Blacklight virus to give Blackwatch soldiers Zeus's powers?" the Blackwatch lieutenant scoffed. "Look out how the D-Codes turned out."

"It can be done."

"If you insist. Just don't disappoint Rooks." There was no mistaking the pointed warning in Riley's words and the dark glint in his eyes.

Of course. Koenig didn't understand the exact nature of the friendship the Colonel had with the lieutenant but he wasn't all that surprised that the man was taking this personally. As if this project didn't mean as much to Koenig as it did to Blackwatch. "I have no intention of failing, Lieutenant," Koenig said sharply. "I take pride in my work. Failure is unacceptable."

Riley snorted at that but made no comment. He glanced darkly back towards Koenig's lab, where the last pieces of Zeus remained. "Speaking of the D-Codes," Koenig suddenly came to a stop and turned to his unwanted companion. "There were many ideas I had for them, theories I didn't get to test out before you pulled me away from there."

"Oh?"

"I wrote up a brief for it, it's in my office. A new project, if Blackwatch and Rooks has the time for it. I call it Project Orion."

X X X

Koenig threw the lab test results at his bench as he paced around in a huff. There's no denying it, the remains of Zeus that Blackwatch had recovered were useless. Radiation had mutated the sequences severely, he wasn't sure of the extent of the changes but it had been significantly altered from those taken by Karen Parker. Of course, Zeus had also mutated by itself several times since then. It was difficult to tell what was simply natural progression by Zeus and what was radiation at work. But the fact that Zeus had not recovered, that it remained a black and red swirl in a glass canister in the cold room of Koenig's lab, spoke volumes.

Something was wrong with it. No one had the faintest inklings were the fault lay, there was so much they hadn't known about the Blacklight virus before and now Koenig feared its unique abilities had been lost forever.

Rooks would not be pleased. Galloway would not be pleased either. But there was nothing he could do about it. He turned and planted both hands on either side of the lone canister on the bench and glared at it. This was supposed to be it, Gentek's holy grail and Mercer's legacy. The solution to the Infection that had spun out of control in the recent months.

Perhaps he was looking at this the wrong way. His efforts of late had stalled over the damage to Zeus's genome, knowing that he could not restore the virus to its original glory. So instead of trying to fix Zeus, he should take a different approach. Work with what he had. At the very least, he could develop a system to safely introduce Blacklight into a human without killing it. After that, he could worry about whether the person was another Zeus or not. Once a system was established...they could look at Mercer's original work and try to recreate that instead of working with the end product.

Koenig's face tightened and he glared at the canister that sat on the bench before him. Red tendrils swirled lazily around, ignorant of his anger. Rooks would not be happy. He wanted to see results with Zeus itself and was convinced that the answer lay there. Koenig drummed his fingers impatiently against the bench's surface.

A combined approach, then. He'd find a way to introduce Zeus into a Blackwatch solider and be done with it. Koenig didn't doubt that there was no way to recreate Zeus's powers using the severely mutated sample, but it would technically fulfill what Rooks had asked from him. Then, the doctor could move on to more promising projects and actually accomplish his goals. A safe delivery system would be useful in future lines of research so it would not be a complete waste of time.

Now, to see if he could persuade Rooks to give him the test subjects he needed.

X X X

"I don't think you understand the scope that you're asking me for. Recreate Zeus but in a test-tube form to create a new generation of super-soldiers?"

"Is it too hard for you, doctor? They assured me you were at the top of the field."

"Top of my- this has nothing to do with it. You have given me substandard samples to work with!"

"We gave you Zeus."

"You gave me what was left of him." An incredulous laugh. "He was at ground zero of a nuclear blast. Do you know what it did to his DNA? It's damaged, hideously mutated."

A pause. "Unusable."

"Then make it work, Doctor."

"I don't think you're listening to me-"

"I don't think you've realized that you do not have a choice."

A nervous swallow. "I- I'll need test subjects. Medical records of all your men and more. I need a genetic profile that can work with Blacklight. Mercer was unique, a one in a million chance and finding another like him- I need as many records as you can find."

"Anything you need Doctor, all you have to do is ask."

X

Of course, it had to come all crashing down. Theory was always easier than the practical.

X

"I need results Keonig, not failure! Those were good men, good Blackwatch soldiers and you wasted them!"

"And I need men with the right genes! You pushed for the experiments to go ahead, you insisted that they should take place even though I said that they were a waste of time and would not work!"

"You are not trying hard enough!"

"You have not given me the resources I need! Blackwatch troops, Blackwatch profiles but you won't look anywhere further! And you need to look further! I told you, Mercer was one in a million and I have been over and over your records of Blackwatch, Blackwatch, Blackwatch and more Blackwatch and -I'm sorry- but that one is not IN Blackwatch."

"Are you seriously suggesting we use a non-Blackwatch troop for this experiment? We cannot risk a Z-Code soldier running amok. That is why we agreed that Blackwatch men would be the best for this."

"Well, then I'm very sorry to disappoint you Colonel but I've been over your damn records and there is NO ONE there. You might as well shelve the project and send me back to somewhere more useful."

A pause. Rook glared at Koenig from across his desk and the doctor barely dared to breath but really, it was not him with his back against the wall. Either option suited him but he was tired of pursuing useless lines of research when he lacked the resources he needed and there were other projects to be working on. The ball was in Rooks' court now.

The Colonel eventually straightened. "...Perhaps then we should try the marines."

X X X

LOADING MILITARY RECORD

JAMES HELLER: SERGEANT (123-65-1658)

LAST TOUR: IRAQ, 2009 - INTERRUPTED

AWARDED: PURPLE HEART, SILVER STAR, IRAQ CAMPAIGN

WIFE, COLETTE HELLER: DECEASED

DAUGHTER: AMAYA HELLER: DECEASED

KILLED BY CIVILIANS INFECTED WITH MERCER VIRUS

SERGEANT HAS REQUESTED POSTING TO RED ZONE

LOADING PSYCH REPORT...

PSYCH ASSESMENT:

POST TRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER

NO REGARD FOR OWN SAFETY

HOMICIDAL FIXATION ON ALEX MERCER

RECOMMENDATION: DENY POSTING. PLACE ON INDEFINITE LEAVE

LOADING SITUATION REPORT…

35% INCREASE IN INFECTED POPULATION

52% INCREASE IN RED ZONE CASUALTIES

NYZ OPERATION: DETERIORATING

REASSESSING TROOP ASSIGNEMENTS…

JAMES HELLER, SERGEANT (123-651658)

STATUS: REINSTATED. ASSIGN TO RED ZONE

X X X

"Doctor Koenig, have you seen this?"

"What is it Damian?"

"That last batch of genomes we went through from the UMSC? We found a match."

"Let me see that…oh my. Get me Rooks."