Dana and Alex had initially started to travel to her safehouse, or more accurately a friend’s storage room, so they could he could explain all the shit that was going on, but they had split up after he said he needed to grab a few things first. Apparently according to what he said, he wasn’t completely sure what had happened and would need to ‘borrow’ some equipment from various hospitals along with notes that he had illegally taken back to his house. After he grabbed all that, then he’d meet up with her at the safehouse and perform a few tests to see what happened and then explain that.

Meanwhile he had asked her to do one thing for him and that was to use her questionably good hacking skills and finesse with a computer to help brief him on what had happened. So for the past hour she’d been typing, clicking and reading away on her little fortress of computers in front of her, consisting of three monitors side by side, several towers below the desk so she could handle all the information she could ever need and a small pile of cokes beside her, all of which were barely illuminated by the soft glow of her computer’s screens. She had initially thought of hacking into the Blackwatch systems to see what was going on, but rethought that as she had earlier looked at some of their setups through street cameras and newsfeeds.

To do that she’d need better equipment and some of theirs to help mask her signal from them, not to mention the fact she could feel the walls vibrate every few minutes from a helicopter fly-by. That was the other reason, so many Blackwatch troops moving throughout New York that, with her luck, would instantly notice her and come knocking on her door and Alex would be caught unawares. So instead she had used not as illegal ways of checking up on news and what Blackwatch was doing.

But even that was a hard thing to accomplish for each time that Blackwatch seemed to get captured online be it article, blog or video it was almost as soon taken down. Not to mention some online rumours of ‘zombies’ going around. The facts were hard to separate from fiction when it came to this Blackwatch, some claimed they were aliens, others as bioterrorists, a racial superiority group, criminals charged with death but offered another chance and the list just went on and on.

Said list was being compiled from a bunch of online pages she had been downloading from all over the web, somehow sprouting up by the hundreds in little more than five minutes and surprisingly quicker at being taken down. Thankfully she didn’t seem to be the only one who was hunting down these pages for some of the same ones kept re-occuring on different sites, with more info tacked on each time. All in all despite whoever was taking them down, Blackwatch themselves probably, the general public was just as determined in keeping it on the web.

The bad thing about the list she was compiling kept having common themes throughout them. Unknown diseases occurring in people throughout the US, very realistic photos of ‘zombies’ and people executing them, Blackwatch troopers firing at humanoid shapes in the darkness, albeit the shapes were very misshapen. Those were the common themes it seemed to Blackwatch and the internet, but if what little her brother did mention about the virus altering a person’s DNA was true, which it probably was considering he engineered it, then it wouldn’t be too far fetched it seemed. Not to mention several unfocused pictures of a red-haired woman in what seemed to be a bondage suit. Why every picture of her and these ‘zombies’ were unfocused and hard to make out she couldn’t figure out why.

The last thing that made it all out to be like a bad movie about the government and another apocalypse was the fact that UN live, more or less a way for the world to get the biggest power’s opinions on current world events, seemed to be a lot more censored than it was. Shifting their focus from the Blackwatch troops moving all across the country, enacting martial law to an extent for the entire eastern seaboard and tanks patrolling the roads in broad daylight.

On the bright side of all this she was like a mini version of Superman now, with super speed, super strength and being capable of jumping off twenty stories and landing without a scratch below. Oh can’t forget the missile proof skin she had now, that was good too. Sighing she leaned away from the screen for a moment and rubbed her eyes, more out of habit than actual need despite staring at computer screens for almost an hour straight in the more or less dark. It was kind of weird but eh, fuck it, weirder shit was happening nowadays.

Drumming her fingers on the table she thought of where to look next online for more info when a hand rapped upon the door to the shed. Fast as lightning she sat up from her chair and looked at the metal sheeted door covering the entrance, wondering whether that was Alex or Blackwatch. Although if it was Blackwatch they probably wouldn’t both knocking, and as such she went ahead to the cover and groped for the bottom handle of the door to yank it open, after fumbling for a few seconds she succeeded in grabbing the handle and yanking it open.

To blind herself in the evening sun as the other storage units up and down the small courtyard did nothing to block it, sending her flailing backwards with a yelp. Alex frowned at her while she blinked like an owl and cussed more than a sailor, several crates of scientific equipment he needed to use sitting beside him. “Sometimes I wonder if you ever grew up while I was away Dana.”

“Fuck you cunt, maybe I’d have matured if you fucking stayed with me.” She hissed back at him, still sitting on the cold concrete floor, wondering why her eyes weren’t sore as hell, whilst Alex started moving the boxes inside the storage unit before pulling the door down to the near bottom, leaving a little room so light could get in. By the time she got over the fact of blinding suns and getting over it nearly instantaneously, she calmed down he’d already finished moving all of his things into the now cramped storage unit and was peering at the walls.

“Where’s the outlets?” She blindly pointed in the general direction of her computers and he grunted his thanks and dragged one of the crates over, ducking under the table to start plugging in his own things. “So you own a storage unit just in case of an emergency like this or something?”

Sitting up she glared at his back, his lab coat still adoring his shoulders and trailing down his back onto the floor. “Because I’m fucking rich to have a hidey hole, it’s a friends storage unit that they didn’t need anymore but had still paid for a couple months in advance. So what’s all that crap of yours supposed to do?” She asked walking up behind him and looking over his shoulder.

He didn’t turn but rolled his eyes nonetheless. Reaching for a microscope he placed it upon the ground next to him along with a stack of papers. “They’re to help me narrow down what strains of the virus we’re infected with. But before I start explaining that you mind giving me a recap on what’s going on?”

Chuckling lightly she backed away slightly to give Alex some room as he started unpacking more things, more of which she started to not recognize with each passing moment. “Okay first up Blackwatch, or, to be politically correct, the President has enacted martial law all along the Eastern seaboard. Equestria has come under recent fire about the attack on Gentek despite heavy evidence it wasn’t magical in nature and as such many ponies are targeted by various racial groups. UN Live has suffered under censorship under the pretext that it’s for America’s security. There has been online articles and videos pointing to ‘zombies’ and various conspiracy theories about Blackwatch. And finally the last tid-bit of important information is that a red-haired woman in fetish clothing has been appearing up and down the seaboard with no reason behind her showing up.”

Alex paused, his back to her. “Hey what’s wrong Alex?”

He sighed and moved from his earlier crouching position to a sitting one and looked at her. “Quite basically we’re fucked, that’s what.”

Dana frowned, that was an unsettling answer from her brother, the man who had everything planned out in his head before he even knew he had a plan. “Why’s that?”

He slowly stood up and started to pace back and forth in the storage unit. “Let me give you a rundown of what that virus Gentek has been flaunting really does. As you may or may not know a virus is a ‘thing’ that rewrites DNA inside a cell and replicates so that it can thrive. Redlight or Blacklight as mine is called, takes it to another level, completely re-writing an entire organism’s DNA turning them into a creature capable of things that it shouldn’t be able to do.

“Those zombies you saw on the internet are the results of the virus, what happens to a human when they’re mutated. Tumours that act as armor, erratic bone growth to serve as claws to rip you apart, extreme muscle mutation to allow for speeds past a speeding car and lifting hundreds of pounds. Noses like that of canines to pick you out from their fellow kind and to top it all off they seem to have some type of hivemind which defies all logic.” His voice steadily rising in volume, hands waving in the air.

“That woman in fetish clothing is Elizabeth Greene, codename Mother, the center of this hivemind. She’s been dormant for as long as I’ve worked at Gentek but her body produces so many strains of the virus all of which could wipe out humanity instantly,” He capitalized on that with a snap of his fingers. “Or ones that could potentially cure any disease or in my case allow me to re-write our DNA so that the Conversion Serum doesn’t affect us beyond making us immune to magic. With the added benefit of strength and speed.

“If she’s somehow running amuck across the entire seaboard then all types of strains are entering the environment. Harmless ones that boost your immune system, ones that turn you into a paranoid foaming maniac or her most common and unique one being that of turning people into zombies.” He turned towards her and looked her in the eyes. “That is why we are fucked.”

It took Dana a moment to realize the implications of what Alex had just said, anger and disbelief flashing across her face, the tightening of her jaw and fists, eyebrows creasing and breathe quickening. “You’re fucking telling me that the personification of disease itself is fucking wandering around unchecked?”

He nodded, cupping his chin in thought as the light from under the door slowly darkened as an unseen cloud moved in front of the setting sun. “And that’s why I brought all this equipment here, we’re obviously not zombies or trying to spread the disease around like her and as such this strain we’re infected with might not just be an answer to the pony problem but might allow us to stop her ourselves.”

“You fucking want us to stop her? What if we get infected or something!?!” Dana shouted throwing her arms to the side as if highlighting the woman in question.

“You can be infected with multiple strains but the one we have will, I can nearly guarantee you, continue to be in dominance and as such, not mentioning our speed and strength, we would be perfect candidates to stop her. Besides I read some reports they gave us before she went comatose and they all suggested she knew how to handle the military, two individuals with the same powers as hers though she wouldn’t know how to handle. I may not like Blackwatch or the world in general, but I’ll be damned if somebody else sends it all to hell.”

Dana sputtered, not knowing how to respond to any of the shit happening. “B-but…” Before she could actually think of anything Alex grabbed her shoulder and brought her close, smiling down at her.

“Hey now come on, you trust me right the genius behind most of the virus strains? Believe me when I say that you and I can handle this.” She smiled back up at him and hugged him, burying her face in his shoulder.

“You know I missed you Alex.” She said still smiling into his shoulder. He said nothing as he just held her there, his eyes staring intently at the book that lay on the ground with his notes on the virus.

Author's Note

It's nearing the end of the set-up and nearing the war that will consume the world, and change it forever. Hehe play on words right?

Anyways I'm going to submit this to Rage Reviews and see if I get any pity medals. I like medals.