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“We’ve got to keep moving!”Mark looked back at the group of people following him, a ragtag band growing larger with every mile. The kid he was carrying, a little girl whose name he didn’t even know, was still crying.“It’s gonna be fine,” he lied. He didn’t know if it would, had no clue if they’d manage to make it or if the girl’s parents were even still with the group. The exhausted looking woman had passed the kid to him, unable to carry her any farther had he’d taken her and kept going because he hadn’t known what else to do.What the hell were you supposed to do when someone handed you a little kid anyway?He was tired enough that he was tempted to pass her off to someone else, but it wasn’t like anyone else was in any better shape and putting her down and leaving her never even occurred to him“If we can make it to Beacon Tower we’ll be fine.”Another lie. Mark had no clue if the Tower had been overrun yet or not, but the League of Heroes was based out of there and if there was any safe place left in the city that was it. He had reason to hope, even if the last broadcast they’d listened to had been iffy, he’d seen various superheroes flying overhead and heard the near constant sonic booms of their passing. A few times, when one of them slowed he tried to wave them down, because if someone knew how to help people during a disaster it was a superhero.Which he wasn’t. In fact that was pretty much the farthest thing from what he was.He was, or had been, what the supers liked to call a small time thug, holding up convenience stores, breaking and entering, trying to work up the courage to go after jewelry stores or maybe a bank. His goal had been to stay beneath their notice, but when XS-Tech had started offering serious payouts for people willing to volunteer for their research projects he’d signed up because why the hell not?He’d gone through the screening process and when he’d been brought back for a second round of interviews focused on his background he hadn’t been too worried. If it didn’t pan out it didn’t pan out, there were other ways to make money. Instead he got called back yet again, this time with some really, really leading questions being asked. It sounded like they were looking to test some sort of wonder drug and he’d gone along with it. Everyone knew that XS had some shady dealings going on, but none of it had been conclusively traced back to them.Getting paid two hundred hundred bucks a day to sit around, watch TV and play videogames in a fancy hospital had seemed like a great way to spend some time, a little vacation while he figured out what he was going to do with all the money. Having to put up with getting a shot once a day was a small price to pay for it all.That the door was kept locked most of the time was kind of creepy, just like how he had the feeling that some of the people who came in with the doctors weren’t nurses, but guards. Then again, the amount of villains out there who’d literally kill to get their hands on some of XS-Tech’s projects meant that they didn’t have any trouble justifying things when he asked about it.Their reassurances were almost enough to make him ignore the conversation he overheard outside his door one day, something about how he was probably their first success because ‘none of the weird stuff’ had started happening yet.He asked about that and got a roundabout answer involving allergic reactions, rejection of the gene therapy and a bunch of other stuff. The way they got quiet when he asked about the gene therapy made him suspect that they’d only mentioned that by mistake, which got him nervous, but also excited.All he knew about genetics was that there was more than one superhero who got their powers from that kind of thing and plenty of villains. Yeah, there were also giant monsters and all sorts of weird stuff, but they’d said that nothing weird was happening with him.Mark started trying to test things, seeing if he had any signs of super strength, super speed, or enhanced senses. Stuff like that would make robbing banks a lot more viable, plow right through a wall to break into a vault or maybe run away faster than the cops could follow in their cars. Yeah it would get the attention of heroes, but he had a brilliant workaround for that – he’d dress just like a normal crook, no costume, no gimmicks, and as soon as he was out of sight he’d ditch the mask and jacket he’d be wearing.It was genius, pure genius.He never got the chance to use it.Something happened in one of the other labs in the building. Alarms had started to go off, people were running around like crazy and he’d known exactly what to do – take advantage of the confusion to slip away.For a few days he lay low, trying and failing to figure out what his powers were, keeping an eye on the news to see if anyone was looking for him.They weren’t whatever else had gotten out was a lot more pressing, some sort of virus that was pretty much rabies on steroids. It made people crazy and hungry, attacking everyone in sight.And it kept the cops busy enough that he had a fun few weeks, going so far as to rob a bank when he realized that the cops had their hands full with everything else that was going on.It was the most fun he’d had in his life, joining in the rioting and looting when things went really crazy. That was when he encountered the infected for the first time.He’d been running out of an electronics store, carrying a flat screen TV when he saw what he assumed was another bunch of looters, looking to get what he had the guys who’d broken into the store had, but as they got closer he got a good look at them.They weren’t armed and most of them looked injured.By the time he recognized them for what they were and realized that dropping the TV and running in the opposite direction was a good idea, it was too late. The infected rushed forward and all hell broke loose.In the chaos that followed he managed to get away, somehow, but he’d ended up bitten.He’d been convinced that it was the end for him, but he didn’t go crazy, didn’t start thinking that it would be a good idea to start running around eating people like the infected did. Still, it had left him badly shaken.Mark had thought he was tough, but after seeing one of them, a skinny little woman, jump a guy and tear his throat out, he realized that he was going to have to be careful.The next time he went out it was to a sporting goods store to check out the airsoft gear. It wasn’t much, but he wasn’t brave enough to try and steal actual body armor yet. Making due with that kind of outfit was a step in the right direction and would probably help protect him if he got attacked again.Even if he hadn’t been infected and maybe his power was that he was immune to the virus, he wasn’t immune to getting his face ripped off and if he had superhuman regeneration he wanted to test it in a safer way than getting mauled by a pack of crazy people.In the meantime Mark did what he could to keep himself busy.He managed to get himself a very impressive stash of cash and other valuables for when things got back to normal, money he couldn’t wait to spend. The number of credit cards he had was mind boggling, even if half of them were canceled before he got the chance to use them the amount of stuff he’d be able to buy was crazy.Except as time passed he started getting the feeling that things weren’t going back to normal for a long time.Fires had been a constant since the rioting started and they always got put out, eventually.Except one day they didn’t.Whole city blocks were burning and no one came.That was when he discovered another power of his, and a pretty lame one at that. The smoke didn’t bother him at all.It was pretty handy for picking up the stuff people left behind when they fled. Not money and valuables, but things like food and water, because those were getting pretty hard to come by.Eventually the wind changed direction and blew embers onto the roof of the apartment where he was hiding. One minute he’d been asleep, the next there was screaming and he woke up to a room full of smoke.He took his time, gathering what he thought he’d need, not realizing how bad things were until he was making his fourth trip back in, fighting against the people staggering out. Mark ignored them, at least until he got to the third flight of stairs and stepped on something.Someone actually, a guy who was crawling back up the stairs on his hands and knees. At first Mark though the guy was doing the same thing he was, then the man grabbed him, “Please, help me find my wife. She was with me but…”It was hard to tell with all the smoke, but the guy looked like he was in a bad way, like he’d fallen down the stairs.He pulled away from the guy and kept going, but it bugged him.He’d done a lot of stuff, sure, hurt a lot of people, but never in cold blood. He wasn’t one of the crazy guys who seemed to be in it for the killing and after watching the infected…Since his first encounter he’d seen a lot more of what they did and learned that far from being tough he was actually pretty squeamish. The idea of seeing someone die freaked him out.Even just letting someone die was more than he wanted to think about.“Yeah, I’ll find her,” he said, figuring that he could do it on the way back out, after he got the rest of his stuff.Except it was getting really hard to see and the building itself wasn’t looking too good. The fire was roaring, something he’d thought was a figure of speech until then.He found the woman a few flights of stairs up, clinging to the rail and screaming for her husband, or at least she was trying to scream, mostly she was coughing from all the smoke.He tried to tell her to follow him, that her husband was fine, but she didn’t listen.When he grabbed her she refused to budge, hysterical with fear to the point where she actually fought him when he grabbed her, catching him hard enough with an elbow to the ribs to knock the wind out of him.He finally managed to pull her free and drag her down the stairs to where her husband was.The guy tried to get up, but he’d either been concussed or broken a leg when he fell down the stairs and he ended up needing to drag the two of them out of the building.Outside, clear of the smoke he discovered a new aspect of his powers, the man and woman were both blistered from the heat, but he was fine.So he had an okay set of powers, better than he’d thought, but still not the sort that were anything to brag about unless he wanted to team up with someone with fire related powers.Mark passed the man and woman over to the paramedics, insisting that he was fine when they tried to put a blanket over his shoulders and an oxygen mask over his face.His want get away became all the more urgent when someone started saying something about a superhero.That was the last thing he wanted to stick around for and insisting he was fine he rushed to the alley where he’d stashed his stuff and ran like hell before the hero caught sight of him. At that point he was still considering if using his powers for profit in a life of crime was viable and he had a few ideas, maybe not good ones, but they were a start.It was only later, when things got really bad, that he realized that whoever had been talking had meant him, that in the confusion they’d mistaken him for a hero.At the time his only concern had been finding a new place to hide and he found the perfect place, a warehouse with a really nice fence around it, topped with barbed wire and locked up so that the only way in was by breaking a window.Unfortunately he wasn’t the only one who’d had the idea and he found himself at gunpoint.Not wanting to test if he was bulletproof Mark dropped the duffel bag he’d been carrying, canned food and bottled water spilling out all over the floor.“Hey man, it’s all yours,” he held up his hands, ready to offer them the backpack full of cash he was carrying if it meant they’d let him go.The person holding the gun looked down and for a second he considered knocking it out of their hand, until he realized that they were a woman and that there were two terrified looking kids watching him. Not just him, but the food.The woman looked at him, looked at the kids, and continued aiming the gun at him.“I’ve got more outside,” he offered, realizing that he was bargaining for his life, “Cash too. Just let me go. You really don’t want to shoot me.”She nodded and walked him over to the door at gunpoint, motioning for one of the kids to unlock it.Then she walked him around the side of the building to where the rest of his stuff was.He handed it all over to her, figuring that he could always get more, somewhere.Because if he was careful he could go to areas where most people didn’t dare go, areas where packs of infected prowled the streets.Except something happened and somehow she ended up apologizing to him and offering to let him stay with her as long as he didn’t try anything.So he did stay, set it up as a new hiding place and spent his days much the same as he had before, looting and finding what he could, though the fun had long since worn off of it.He managed to find some actual body armor, like what a SWAT team would wear, and that made him pretty ballsy, enough so that he ended up taking some stupid chances and accidentally saved a family along the way. He’d literally run into them, running from a bunch of infected.He brought them back to the warehouse and tried to explain, except the family he’d saved kept interrupting, in the process letting slip that he’d actually tackled one of the infected to keep it from attacking them. Then he’d ended up needing to prove that he hadn’t been bitten, because anyone who got bitten quickly succumbed.He hadn’t been, that time at least, but in the process they all saw the old bite marks on his arms from previous encounters with the infected, some of them just scars, because it turned out that even though he was immune to the virus and resistant to heat and fire, he didn’t have super healing.It took a while for it to sink in that he was immune, making for a very tense few days, but after that it was business as usual, at least until he had another accident and ended up drawing the attention of a pack of infected that had a kept bunch of college kids trapped in an old apartment building for a week. He managed to lead them around until he found a tall enough building that he was able to run to the top and then trick them into running off the roof.Dangerous as they could be, the infected weren’t that smart and he’d figured out some tricks for dealing with them.The kids had thanked him, going so far as to offer to share their stash of booze and beer with him as a reward and how could he say no to such generosity?The liquor stores had been some of the first places hit by looters and it had been over a month since he’d last had a good drink.The whole thing kind of made him wish that he’d gone to college because it turned out that some of them weren’t that much younger than him. Somehow, maybe because he’d had too much to drink – he’d never had mescal before, but the shit sure was strong, he ended up inviting them back to the warehouse with him.Somehow that ended up being the start of it, them actually getting organized and deciding to make a run for Beacon Tower. There was enough of them that they had a chance, especially if they had weapons, so the next few days were spent collecting and improvising weapons in preparation for making their move. At the request of the college kids he got a radio and sure enough there was a broadcast from the Tower, promising safety and evacuation for any who could make it, for as long as the Tower could hold.That last bit was ominous and they knew that they’d have to act soon.So they made their move and it turned out that they weren’t the only ones. Scattered groups of survivors, fighting their way, street by street, to safety.Along the way another group managed to lead a pack of infected straight to them, but they managed to fend them off. The kid’s mom had been one of them, an exhausted and bloodied woman.She’d looked desperate and he couldn’t be sure if she’d fallen behind the group or, knowing what was going to happen to her, run off as far away as she could to keep the rest of them safe.Mark looked up, saw yet another hero flying overhead and pointed to them, “See, we’re fine! The League is still here and as long as they’re around we’re good!”He just wished that one of them would land and take over, or at least tell him what to do. Superheroes always knew what to do in situations like this because he sure as hell didn’t, even if just as many of the people in the ever growing group were looking at him as were looking up.Word had gotten out that he was immune and that he’d rescued a bunch of people and his trying to explain that it was by accident, that the powers he had were useless had only made things worse.Once they heard powers it didn’t matter what else he said. They just didn’t get it that having powers and saving people didn’t make him a hero.Heroes knew what they were doing, they didn’t stumble around, relying on luck and hoping for the best.At least he didn’t think they did…