Prototype 1 the Quest

"I am Alex Mercer." The moment I started to speak the woman, twisted in an impressive display of human flexibility to stare at me with a strange expression on her face. "Where the hell have you been? I hacked into Blackwatch and Gentek servers on your say so, and apparently got found out, when everything when to hell with the Pen Station disaster several hours ago.

And how the fuck did you do... that?! I don't care about your degree or whatever theoretical bullshit you were working on, no human can move like that."

As she finished ranting, I just knew that if Blacklight wasn't currently infused in my body my ears would be aching from the sheer volume that she had managed to achieve. Also, welcome back confusion, how I have missed you so much.

"I have amnesia. All I know is my name and functional knowledge, along some virology and genetics knowledge. I assume that you won't accept anything less than everything?"

The moment I asked the question it was already abundantly clear what her response would be as her foot starting tapping the ground, and anger began to fill her body.

"I do admit to being confused regarding our connection as it is clear that you and I share a tight connection with each other, yet I am currently ignorant of your name and the nature of said connection. I believe that if you can reveal some information, some of my memories might return."

Was it always this hard to modulate the tone of voice? It was taking extreme effort on my part to not sound like I had the worst cough in the world and I could also hear a disturbing undertone to my words. Hopefully the undertone wouldn't be audible to humans without them looking for it, but it might explain why she flinched whenever I spoke.

"Fine, you want to know who I am? I am your fucking sister, Dana Mercer. It was because of you that I am even in New York, I was fucking fine being away from you for the last few years.

You still haven't explained anything at all, and I am fucking fed up with this day in its entirety. So explain."

The moment she spoke of our relationship, I just knew I had made a mistake. Pain slammed into my mind once more as memories returned in bursts. Our childhood was awful, and I was beyond terrible to her recently. The strange thing was the disconnect between the memory Alexander and my viewpoint, he only seemed to care about Dana as a responsibility or a tool in later years. There was no real sign of family love between him and her, yet even with the memories returned I don't feel the emotions tied into them. Blacklight infusion levels are almost certainly higher than I expected if it is causing emotional response to be altered.

Looking around a bit soon resulted in finding a good place to sit down for a while, even thought I had yet to feel any form of exhaustion or muscular weakness, Dana was looking remarkably unstable. With a thought, time stilled and she and I were at the table as time unfroze from my perceptions.

As she stiffly took a seat, all the while glaring at me for some reason. Really, I only tried to help her get more comfortable with a chair, why is she glaring at me now? Now I feel awful, wait that is a new emotion that none of my memories feel, Blacklight infusion looking more and more anomalous in nature, really need to get to a lab and fast.

"Do not do that again unless you have too. Do you have any idea how fucking weird it feels? When you do whatever the fuck you do to move like that makes me feel like I am not part of the world anymore.

Now, that we are at a table, explain or I will not be letting you go to a lab anytime this month."

She was serious about the threat, which was terrible, labs were fun and I needed to figure this out before something went wrong. Also, she was still glaring at me, what did I do? Why is it so hard to understand her? It appears I am taking too much time as she is starting to tap a finger, explanation time.

"I gained awareness approximately 30 minutes ago, within a Gentek morgue on 8th avenue.

Upon awaking I was only able to access fundamental knowledge, and was able to make my way out of the building after destroying the majority of the interior.

Ten minutes later, I found a soldier, wearing the same mask style as the ones surrounding your apartment, with an exposed radio system. Due to needing more information on what was happening to me, I listened to his radio when I heard it turn on.

From it I learned that the secondary target had been located at 2215 Christopher street apartment A, assuming that said individual was either connected with the incidents or otherwise useful to aiding me, I decided to stage a breakout for said individual.

The reason I was late was due to the trooper slowing me down as I had to figure out how to deal with them, in order to stop them from trying to harm my chances of escaping with the secondary target.

I was holding him by the neck when he simply fell into a coma, after brief examination I found a circlet of Blacklight biomass on his neck in the exact place where I was holding him. The next major point came when I touched the Blacklight brand and it responded to my touch with motion. This returned to me my full intelligence and partial memories regarding the creation of Blacklight and science in general.

After that I found your street and made a plan to avoid detection to grab you and get away from the troopers outside and inside the building. To my surprise even with a moment of failure it worked out in the end. That is the explanation of how we are here at the moment.

As for the abilities, I believe the most likely scenario is that I got caught up in a super soldier experiment of some form or another. The general abilities I have discovered further support this theory, as I have exhibited the following abilities consistently since my awaking: Increased strength, durability, reflexes and senses. All of which have been enhanced to a high degree, I am not certain of the degree of enhancement that I have been subjected too, which is irritating."

As I finished speaking, Dana was seemingly stunned for a moment before turning to glare at me once more.

"I asked for the full explanation, and there is no fucking way that simple physical enhancements could explain the speeds you have or the fact that I am currently in one piece after moving that fast."

I should have expected her to be at least as smart as the average genius if not my equal. It appears my memories might be lacking emotional weight, but can still influence my behavior as from what I recall, I never really considered her as intelligent as myself, even though she was by far the second smartest person around. So yet another issue to deal with it seems, wonderful.

"I have no idea, I believe that I have been infused with Blacklight to a near complete degree, but I don't remember what it actually does. I have fragments of what it is and how it was made, but I don't have enough. I am also as confused about these abilities as they make no sense within the laws of physics that I know of."

Dana's eyes had narrowed as I spoke, strange considering that I had given her what she had asked for. I couldn't provide answers that I didn't have after all, she should be able to realize that as I simply waited for her reaction.

"Of fucking course, why would anything in this fucking day make any fucking sense? Augh, this is officially an awful fucking day to live through.

I have information in my computer and in a safe house back in Manhattan, mostly reports on Gentek and what the fuck they are doing.

Basically, you or someone at Gentek completed some project, that got Blackwatch called in, whom I believe to be the shadow funders of the entire corporation. Then people started to disappear, which is around when you called me to ask me to look into things. I being the fucking investigative journalist that I am did so, sent some data your way and then around 5 pm Pen Station was the origin point of a biological terror attack.

I have more complete records on my laptop than what I recall off the top of my head. What I can say is that you are definitely not part of some super soldier experiment."

Dana exploded as she let go of the control that she had been holding onto for the last while I had explained. Although, she had given me more pieces of the puzzle that was the timeline of events that had transpired. I flicked my eyes around the area that we were in and smiled as I saw a person writing on a notepad with a pencil. In less than a millisecond I had several pages from the notepad in hand and the pen from another person's pocket

With pen and paper I began writing, which was much nicer and less chaotic than thinking it in my mind alone.

Fact 1 - Pen Station suffered biological outbreak
Fact 2 - Said outbreak was considered a terror attack
Supposition 1 - outbreak was highly lethal and fast acting
Supposition 2 - outbreak caused by Blacklight release
Fact 3 - Scientists at Gentek were disappearing
Fact 4 - I was a scientist at Gentek
Supposition 3 - Blackwatch were removing loose ends
Supposition 4 - Blackwatch is rogue military group
Supposition 5 - Blackwatch hired Gentek to do biological research
Supposition 6 - research related to biological weapons and/or physical enhancements
Supposition 7 - Blackwatch most likely indirect creators of Blacklight virus


Conclusions: too little data to make clear answer possible. Too many options remain viable. Facts and suppositions indicate that sample of biological agents were removed from Gentek, reasoning unknown, result Pen Station. Possible Blacklight, yet if Gentek was researching biological weapons, too many options are possible to narrow it down. Would need to see bodies of Pen Station to make informed analysis of situation.

Return to Manhattan?
Pros: probable location of my home, Dana has a record cache
Cons: possible viral outbreak imminent, rogue military groups, group eager to kill strangers
Cons outweigh Pros heavily, no pressing reason to reenter

Bank accounts? Problematic, amnesia. Monetary Situation poor, improvement options, limited.
Dana presents the chance to potentially hack and steal money from rogue military division Blackwatch or Gentek.
Personal skills present options for Monetary gain, in possibly less than legal activities, issue Dana would not accept. Other options could be found in time.

As I finished writing, I looked up to see Dana glaring at me tapping her finger again.

"Alex, where did you get that paper and pen? Also, can you please make an effort to sound less like a poorly programmed robot."

Although her words were light, I could hear the tension underneath them. I could feel myself wilt under her glare.

"I only took a few pages from a notepad and the pen wasn't in use. I can return it in less than a second anyway.

Regarding, your safe house I feel it is an unacceptable risk to both of us to reenter Manhattan island until we know that there won't be another outbreak, furthermore Blackwatch has proven itself to be a rogue military division, which further incentives both of us to remain away from them.

I believe that if we move fast enough you should be able to set up a hotel room for us and we could lay low for several days before slinking back into Manhattan."

I tried to smile at her as I spoke as I knew that it should help, but she only groaned before waving her hand in some form of surrender. Shrugging my shoulders I flashed away returning the pen and unused paper to the people that I had borrowed from.

What do you do about the money problem
[] Get Dana better equipment to rain hell upon Blackwatch
[] Simply hope that you can get into your accounts or Dana can
[] Try to find some less than savory options
[] write in

What about Manhattan
[] Write off - never returning, Dana's records are frankly too little of use to warrant the danger
[] Alex only - Dana for how intelligent she is is still only human and thus slow
[] Both of them - There is no way that Alex would let Dana out of his sight
[] Write in

AN: You can make a plan that incorporates elements of both general vote tasks, I only separated them to make it easier.

Every so often I will find myself wishing to read how another faction is fairing or reacting. When this happens I will edit this post with the Bounty that can be claimed by simply writing something that covers the topic at hand.

Bounties are by default canon to the quest, as long as they aren't too far out of the realm of possibility. Which is incidentally stretched further than for normal omakes. Furthermore more Bounties have a variable reward that is set when I create them, this reward is in the form of Evo Points.

Notes are things that modify bounties in ways that are not needed to be met, but if met will generally double the stated reward of the omake that is submitted for the bounty.

Bounties
Blackwatch Reaction to losing Alex and Dana with nothing to go on. Reward 5 Evo Points. Notes: if somewhat humorous and serious reward is bumped up to 10. (Completed by Reader John)
PARIAH: Flesh out the other ultimate being in the setting. Write a detailed report on proven and assumed abilities. Reward 5 Evo Points, Notes: Ten Evo points if you write it as a clinical report, 20 and 1 Critical Evo Point if you do that and include an Unabbreviated name that spells out Pariah when abbreviate that makes sense.
The First Fight: The world has seen the first superhuman fight on video. Write from the viewpoint of a front row civilian to the fight of the decade. Reward: 5 Evo points, if its emotionally provocative reward is 1 Critical Evo point

As I sat back down at the table after returning the items I had borrowed from others, Dana had apparently found the bag with her computer and some food that I had brought from her apartment. Although, her expression had changed drastically since a few minutes ago.

"Well, I am fucking glad to not be in Manhattan right now. Blackwatch has set up a quarantine around the entire island, under the claim that the Pen Station outbreak was a bioweapon.

The best fucking part of this whole thing is that, you are being called the terrorist responsible and I am apparently wanted for questioning.

The only good news, if such a thing fucking exists anymore, is that the government is apparently not falling over itself to support Blackwatch. So far they have been dancing around the whole thing, labeling it anything but a terror attack. The other good news is that my bank accounts have yet to be frozen, which hopefully means that if you can get me to an ATM, I could withdraw enough cash to keep us off the grid for a while.

Just to be the shit cheery on this whole nightmare, our pictures and names have been plastered every fucking where on national fucking news networks. Everyone from Fox to CNN is carrying the story at the moment.

That means that we both need makeovers, otherwise we are going to be pounced by everyone that watches the news.

Of course, for that we need money and I know for a fact that the banks will be on high alert for any large withdrawals from my accounts." I wondered why she was glaring even fiercer at the computer, as she ground out the last of her words, "We might need to use underhand means of gathering money. I would suggest targeting Blackwatch as their computer security is atrocious, yet they have millions in their accounts. In order to do that I need something a bit more powerful than this laptop."

Strange, that she seemed to be in pain even though there was no sign of injury to her body. Was this what emotional pain referred to? Interesting, although potentially problematic if she was unable to push past it.

Now, I really wished that I hadn't returned the paper and pen, glancing around to see if I could spot more. Apparently Dana was prepared and glared at me while tapping her finger on the table, before hissing "Remember, no lab time for a month."

"I can find an ATM rapidly, which will allow you to acquire money from your bank account. Which I can then use with my speed to travel between several stores to acquire whatever parts you might need, furthermore if it comes down to it I believe that I could construct a rudimentary shelter in either a storage facility or the warehouse zone, either of which would be most likely to avoid detection for a viable time frame.

However, I do plan on buying at least a few notepads and pens or pencils. As I suffer headaches whenever I try to think in my head. I expect this is due to the Blacklight infusion altering the neurological makeup of my brain in such a way to accelerate the progression of signals.

I have other concerns, regarding your safety. I am less concerned for mine due to my enhanced durability that has already been tested, you are still a normal human and I am not going to attempt to replicate my physiology on you until I have time to study my body in detail. As such, until such time you are a detriment if you are with me, whenever I am in a dangerous zone. This means that we should focus on acquiring money or shelter prior to me, returning to Manhattan to recover your records and the items you provide to me with ready cash."

A thud was the answer I got as Dana just fell face first into her computer keyboard, "You do not know the meaning of white lies do you or how to be less of a fucking robot." I just blinked at her, not really sure how to respond to that statement or was it a question. Pushing herself up she just shook her head, strange didn't see anything near her face. Maybe she got something from the keyboard in her eyes? No, that seems wrong, no matter. Time to hunt for an ATM.

Time slowed to my perceptions, which is strange. I am not moving that rapidly on the large scale, only half the speed of sound, yet I could react to things faster than sound such as bullets in real time. Strange, reaction speed and movement speed seem to be decoupled to a much further extent than is normal in humans. Possibly neurological limits with the brain only able to hold a certain level of general motion, perhaps.

Should ask Dana where I lived last, might have some interesting files or maybe a computer of my own there. That could also help recover some memories, if my intuition that I still have all of my memories only they are inaccessible for some reason and likely stripped of emotional content. Regardless, no matter how interesting the physics behind this are, I need to focus on the more pressing matters.

There is an ATM, now what to do. I could simply punch it and grab the cash from it before anything could take my picture and fingerprints would be unlikely to be intact. Yet, Dana would glare at me and I dislike that as it causes me to feel something, and my memories of our childhood are less than useful as I seemed to treat her less of a sister and more of a responsibly that I had to begrudgingly take care of. No, making her unhappy will only affect my mood and I am critical to her continued safety, my emotional state can not be compromised by anything preventable.

With the choice decided, it was only a few seconds before Dana was in front of the ATM, the majority of the time being spent walking from just out of camera view so that Blackwatch if they got their hands on the feed wouldn't be alerted to my new found speed.

As the five thousand dollars finished falling out, it was back to the table that we had been using. "Dana, I am going to search for possible shelter. I fully expect to have to go for potentially unpleasant options compared to your apartment or secret one. While I am gone if you could write up a list on your computer for me to fetch later, that would be useful. Furthermore, I want 100 dollars to buy supplies such as paper and writing utensils."

Thankfully, while she grumbled, she tossed the bill over to me and I could feel a smile trying to form at the thought of all the notebooks I could acquire now, with nice fancy pens to write in them. Good at least I won't have as many headaches in the future, although they won't be enough to replace a true lab, yet a good stopgap measure is enough right now.

Flashing into a stationery store, which thankfully was rather empty at this time of night, was easy enough due to the signage that told me just what it was. Then came the part I had been looking forward too, getting the supplies, flashing between the aisles gave me all the time in the world to examine everything. Paper texture, size and more, before I came to the notebook selection which was of a good size, grabbing a few and some loose leaf paper, I made my way over to the pens and took a few.

Once everything had been bought it was time for shelter. Now that I think about it I have time to explore the city due to my speed. There might be a better option than a warehouse or storage container. As I moved through the city, I had time to examine the strange property that allowed me to move at such speeds.

Drawing out one of my new pens and some paper, scowling at the blatant disregard for several laws of motion as the paper acted as if I was standing still and it was on a table.

Preliminary Analysis of Accelerated Locomotion, (AL)
Fact 1 - AL increases travel speed without any increase in kinetic energy
Fact 2 - Fact 1 is proven due to the lack of damage on Street and sidewalk
Fact 3 - Fact 1 and 2 are impossible yet extant

Current top speed is estimated to be roughly around half the speed of sound or 171.5 meters per second.

Gained based on unknown prerequisites. Was acquiring Dana at time seeking way out, Blacklight responded to intent. Intent driven response confirmed.

AL presents as accelerated movement, cannot activate for independent motions. Restricted to full body motions. Mechanics behind speed unclear, possible inertial manipulation, would explain Dana's survival at speed.

Setting the inertia reference frame to 0 effectively, would make the carried object(s) unaffected by speed and by extension the air when in contact would be similarly affected. Proposed explanation covers all aspects of AL.

Inertia manipulation: Mandatory, Blacklight appears to be able to manipulate mechanisms previously considered to be fixed.


Tapping the pencil on the paper as I ran around the streets, it was puzzling. Nothing made any sense about this, how did a virus no matter how complex manage to evolve a way of manipulating inertia. There is no biological mechanism that I could think of that would allow for this outcome, yet it is extant, which means that there is something that does in fact allow for inertial manipulation via biology.

Putting away the paper and pencil, as I needed to focus on the more critical if less enjoyable I found myself in front of a run down area, with several moderately run down apartments listed as vacant. Hmm, this could work for us, pay in cash to prevent money trace, doubt that we will need to be here for more than a month or two at most. Price to rent, 500, good well within budget, just need to withdraw some more money, five thousand a bit too little to get the needed computer components.

Flashing throughout the building showed that it was even better than I expected, it had absolutely no television sets in any of the apartments, apparently this was a very much poor region. Combined with some slight investigation, showed that this place probably did a good amount of its transactions in cash. As the safe filled with money showed, either way this would be a viable place to lay low while dealing with the hassle of Blackwatch and Gentek.

Stepping through the doors to the only office in the entire building, I found myself in a somewhat larger than expected room. Letting go of my focus was strange, I could almost feel something reapplying to my form as the world lurched in a strange manner If that is what Dana felt when I moved her and it was being mitigated by my infusion, how discomforting was it for her? No matter, here comes the probable landlord with several keys on a ring, "Rent or buy?" His voice was jagged as if he didn't speak often, yet this was shaping up to be better than I had hoped.

"Rent." Was all I said, folding my arms as the landlord stared at me, "Apartment 4A, rent is 500 per month, 1000 per month if hiding." The man growled as he threw the named key to me, irritating, no matter 1000 per month is still easily in our reach, if it came down to it I could simply lock him in a room and leave him there for a while. In a flash I had returned to Dana grabbed exactly one thousand and two hundred dollars, before returning before the second was over.

"1000." Was all I said as I handed the stack over to the probable criminal, but nothing he should be able to do would harm me and if he tired to harm Dana, there would be a heavy price to pay for that. Somehow he seemed to notice my thoughts as he minutely flinched before nodding rapidly and retreating into his shadowed corner of the office.

Stepping out of the office at normal speed, it was strange walking at a normal pace compared to AL, in the AL state movement was effortless with only gravity holding me to the ground, it was as if friction didn't exist, or perhaps I was simply somehow out of phase with normal space. Yet, more theories to test once I get a lab day, time expanded and space shrank as I raced into our new home for the near future.

It was grimy, small and in disrepair, however that didn't matter it was off the books and in a place that would be the last place that Blackwatch would look for us at. In all a good staging ground, and based on the landlord's demeanor it would be a simple task to bring whatever I wanted into the room, provided it wasn't too illegal.

Space reasserted itself with a jolt when I let go of AL, and slide to a stop right before Dana who had just been working on her computer for the last few minutes.

"Acquired us a base to work from, located in a possible criminal apartment complex or one on the other side of the law. Rent only one thousand per month for us to be hidden, searched the room and cleaned it."

Dana squeaked when she heard me speak, before lifting her head to glare at me. Effect follows cause and so I wilted under her glare, why is this happening to me. And now she is tapping her finger and glaring at me, great.

"Alex, alert me when you return next time. As for your actions, I dislike the idea of living near criminals in all likelihood, but we are nation wide infamous so no fucking choice. Take me to this apartment and once I am safely there go out and find me these items." Dana angrily growled at me as she all but shoved a scrap of paper into my hands. The list was completely covered in parts crossed out or circled, to the point where the paper had no empty space left that was usable.

Groaning, as it became clear that Dana planed to make use of my speed to create a computer that would have the best hardware possible while, remaining only medium sized. Shaking my head as I picked up Dana and the laptop, before taking them back to the new apartment, where they were placed on the chairs. Interesting, the moment they were on the chair and table respectively they lost the effect of the anomalous affect as I could see friction returning to them.

Now it was time to go for errands, zipping all over the city was not that enjoyable and even moving at half the speed of sound not that fast either. Apparently, I could only count how many flies were in the area so many times before it began to get boring. Which promptly came around as I ran straight into a motionless mosquito that just happened to be at the right elevation to run into my forehead. Pain rattled my body for a near imperceptible amount of time focused on my forehead as the mosquito tried to drain my blood, only for it to be drawn inside of me. Wait, how do I know that? Hmm, residual memory from the mosquito I see, interesting and that answers another question of my biology. Although, how is Blacklight moving around without muscles, that is one of the stranger parts of this whole experience.

Thankfully, that is all over as I escape Dana's old safe house with everything in a large bag that I borrowed from a sporting goods store. It will be replaced the moment I unload everything back at the apartment. Flashing through the streets of Manhattan showed that Blackwatch was stepping up their numbers, and beginning to become ruthless in response to being questioned by civilians. Then I was back to the apartment, with everything unload and the bag return in pristine condition.

Gently moving Dana off of the chair and table, I took her place beginning to piece together the amalgamation of a computer that she had given me the part list for and the blueprint for how to construct it. Although, this thing will have more computing power than most server banks from what I can see with how she had maximized every single point of the device. Seemingly, hours later the work had been completed, the new computer outfitted with a new OS and everything that it needed, I let go of the strange ability and let time and space reassert themselves.


What to do? (Note that Dana is going to sleep due to the stress)
[] Just wait until Dana wakes up
[] Leave to do some experiments
[] Write in