12-12-2017, 12:01 AM
Jacob was out of his hair for the time being and his wounds were slowly stitching themselves together. Now was the perfect time to try and dig into the new memories, sort through the trash and the treasures. He only hoped that the simple civilians had any useful information at all, or else consuming them would have been for naught. He felt no sustenance from them…
He had long since forgotten about sleep. His body no longer needed it and even when he dared attempted such a thing, his dreams were naught but nightmares of all those he had ever consumed. Their voices were muted since coming here. He only heard screams and crying, but the individual voices, jeering him by name, had faded – much like the memory leading up to his, for lack of a better word, obduction into this strange world.
The Prototype allowed his eyes to close and listened to his heartbeat. It was not something he desired, but it was something he needed, for once: to sleep. It was less restful and more a search of the subconsciousness he had collected, walking through the minds of the consumed entities now within him.
It was like grabbing a live wire each time he found something he wanted to know. Glimpses of memories forced to the forefront of his mind, causing him to writhe both in this realm of subconsciousness and his body in the real world. He saw everything through a veil, and things seemed to flow with an element of random.
“Daddy, I want to be a Prime when I grow up!” Says the spawn of Badrun. Mercer can see, through Badrun’s memory, the way the little girl’s face should have been. He could also see, from his own memory, the bloodied stump of a neck and flattened skull laying beside her from his own.
“I’m afraid you can’t dear, you have to be born a Prime!” Badrun explained with a soft voice. He could see, through his daughter’s memories, Badrun’s strong jaw and neck, the way his eyes had a vibrant life to them. He could also see the tendrils ripping at his flesh, tearing him apart cell by cell and mutating each one into pure biomass.
The young boy appeared, as if walking into a room his subconscious had only just invented. There was another overlaid layer of gore upon the boy’s pristine features. “That’s stupid… Anyone should be able to be a Prime, its not fair if we can’t be Primes too…”
Suddenly the scene shifted to the family gathered on the couch. Jacob was there – but he did not have the same substance the others did. Jacob was a memory of a memory, mourning with his family of their loss.
Control was being pulled from the Prototype. He was slipping deeper, drifting from deep meditation to sleep, where memories turn to nightmares. Silhouettes filled in, weaving a wall of faceless, wailing people. Minds decayed by time spent scrambled in Mercer’s head. Even the Prototype’s original memories, the memories of Mercer, stood there amidst the sea of outlines.
Alex Mercer stood there, staring the sentient virus down across the blank canvas of their combined subconscious. The mind of the Blacklight virus, stolen and compiled from so many consumed, and the original host’s consciousness, fragmented from death and pieced together only in part by the Prototype’s life after his apparent reincarnation as Codename Zeus.
Alex Mercer felt ashamed… In life he was a spiteful, arrogant, borderline sociopathic bastard, but he was not this horrid. “You took my life away… I CREATED you to HELP, and you KILLED hundreds – THOUSANDS of people.”
Zeus felt confused. It could hear the screams of so many, and the turmoil it had caused, but all it knew how to do was survive. It did not need comfort, it just needed a food source and information. It had taken the body of its creator, created in the fresh corpse a living cancer, a carbon copy with nothing but improvements. “But we are alive…”
“Are you?”
“I … I think….”
“I think, therefore I am… but you don’t think. You have others do it for you. Even your mind was once mine.” Alex stepped forward, laying a hand on the mangled skull of Badrun’s little girl. “I wanted to cure cancer… not become it.”
The virus-mind felt that blur wash over the crowd. There were so many forgotten faces; lingering images of things like ghosts of emotion. It was an oxymoron, a reminder of what he had forgotten. Mercer’s hand rose, and upon it sat a crow. It had been there the whole time, and yet the subconscious only just now manifested it.
Its eyes were so dark, so hungry. It looked at the virus as it would have looked at anyone else: as food. It had the same eyes the Virus had. Suddenly, the world was seen in shades of gray and the virus was looking at Alex from its perch upon the host’s arm. It tried to speak, but only squawked.
No longer did Mercer walk through memories. He dreamt. He just another facet of the greater subconscious, lost in the tides of the lament of so many. He squawked as Alex vanished and a sea of blank faces closed in. Their rigidity was lost and so many forms splash together like tidal waves, surrounding the crow in a whirlpool of anger, fear and woe.
Nothing of the memories physically touched the crow, and it could not understand so many minds at once all it knew was the pain of trying. Glimpses of something, of nothing, of everything pry into the forefront of the bird’s brain but nothing was its own. The only crisp and clear thoughts he could see was that of Alex Mercer, the true Alex Mercer, standing within the torrent.
He had long since forgotten about sleep. His body no longer needed it and even when he dared attempted such a thing, his dreams were naught but nightmares of all those he had ever consumed. Their voices were muted since coming here. He only heard screams and crying, but the individual voices, jeering him by name, had faded – much like the memory leading up to his, for lack of a better word, obduction into this strange world.
The Prototype allowed his eyes to close and listened to his heartbeat. It was not something he desired, but it was something he needed, for once: to sleep. It was less restful and more a search of the subconsciousness he had collected, walking through the minds of the consumed entities now within him.
It was like grabbing a live wire each time he found something he wanted to know. Glimpses of memories forced to the forefront of his mind, causing him to writhe both in this realm of subconsciousness and his body in the real world. He saw everything through a veil, and things seemed to flow with an element of random.
“Daddy, I want to be a Prime when I grow up!” Says the spawn of Badrun. Mercer can see, through Badrun’s memory, the way the little girl’s face should have been. He could also see, from his own memory, the bloodied stump of a neck and flattened skull laying beside her from his own.
“I’m afraid you can’t dear, you have to be born a Prime!” Badrun explained with a soft voice. He could see, through his daughter’s memories, Badrun’s strong jaw and neck, the way his eyes had a vibrant life to them. He could also see the tendrils ripping at his flesh, tearing him apart cell by cell and mutating each one into pure biomass.
The young boy appeared, as if walking into a room his subconscious had only just invented. There was another overlaid layer of gore upon the boy’s pristine features. “That’s stupid… Anyone should be able to be a Prime, its not fair if we can’t be Primes too…”
Suddenly the scene shifted to the family gathered on the couch. Jacob was there – but he did not have the same substance the others did. Jacob was a memory of a memory, mourning with his family of their loss.
Control was being pulled from the Prototype. He was slipping deeper, drifting from deep meditation to sleep, where memories turn to nightmares. Silhouettes filled in, weaving a wall of faceless, wailing people. Minds decayed by time spent scrambled in Mercer’s head. Even the Prototype’s original memories, the memories of Mercer, stood there amidst the sea of outlines.
Alex Mercer stood there, staring the sentient virus down across the blank canvas of their combined subconscious. The mind of the Blacklight virus, stolen and compiled from so many consumed, and the original host’s consciousness, fragmented from death and pieced together only in part by the Prototype’s life after his apparent reincarnation as Codename Zeus.
Alex Mercer felt ashamed… In life he was a spiteful, arrogant, borderline sociopathic bastard, but he was not this horrid. “You took my life away… I CREATED you to HELP, and you KILLED hundreds – THOUSANDS of people.”
Zeus felt confused. It could hear the screams of so many, and the turmoil it had caused, but all it knew how to do was survive. It did not need comfort, it just needed a food source and information. It had taken the body of its creator, created in the fresh corpse a living cancer, a carbon copy with nothing but improvements. “But we are alive…”
“Are you?”
“I … I think….”
“I think, therefore I am… but you don’t think. You have others do it for you. Even your mind was once mine.” Alex stepped forward, laying a hand on the mangled skull of Badrun’s little girl. “I wanted to cure cancer… not become it.”
The virus-mind felt that blur wash over the crowd. There were so many forgotten faces; lingering images of things like ghosts of emotion. It was an oxymoron, a reminder of what he had forgotten. Mercer’s hand rose, and upon it sat a crow. It had been there the whole time, and yet the subconscious only just now manifested it.
Its eyes were so dark, so hungry. It looked at the virus as it would have looked at anyone else: as food. It had the same eyes the Virus had. Suddenly, the world was seen in shades of gray and the virus was looking at Alex from its perch upon the host’s arm. It tried to speak, but only squawked.
No longer did Mercer walk through memories. He dreamt. He just another facet of the greater subconscious, lost in the tides of the lament of so many. He squawked as Alex vanished and a sea of blank faces closed in. Their rigidity was lost and so many forms splash together like tidal waves, surrounding the crow in a whirlpool of anger, fear and woe.
Nothing of the memories physically touched the crow, and it could not understand so many minds at once all it knew was the pain of trying. Glimpses of something, of nothing, of everything pry into the forefront of the bird’s brain but nothing was its own. The only crisp and clear thoughts he could see was that of Alex Mercer, the true Alex Mercer, standing within the torrent.
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