Patient Ø - File 3 - Compendiums A & B

Patient Ø – File 3


Compendium A


The destruction of the Chimera installation was complete. The days following its destruction and the Alpha wolfwere’s death I received a few reports from my own sources, I even ventured into the installation to witness it first hand.

The power supply for the installation had been cut off. I guessed that was a fail safe built into the operating system to deter scavengers. The doors stood open, but with the cold simplicity of the lighting gone, they looked more like doorways to a forbidden underground tomb, in many ways I guess they were.

It was close to pitch black down in the facility so I traversed the corridors with a wolves eyes and nose. It was not a pleasant experience. The mind has a habit of playing tricks on itself in the darkness and, despite my nose confirming for me that everything down there was dead, more than once I saw shadows shifting out of the corner of my eyes, or heard soft footsteps behind me only to be met by empty corridor when I spun to confront my fear.

It soon became obvious that it had ended just as the Alpha had said it would. What the vampires had started by infiltrating the Chimera installation and planting computer viruses to cripple its security systems, the Alpha had finished by forcing every werewolf in the city to transform and fall upon the Chimeras like, well, a pack of wild dogs.

I think it was then I realized how much knowledge was lost when the Alpha and the first vampire killed each other. The Alpha wolfwere had seemingly been able to communicate with his pack without speech, he had full control of his own transformation and could control others transformations as well.

I wandered through the corridors passing bodies of soldiers I had known. The werewolves had not been kind to the Chimera soldiers. Many were left half eaten or just dismembered, I was suddenly glad I had convinced Susan not to come. I passed a few werewolf corpses as well; it scared me that I felt as much empathy towards them as I did the humans.

The reason for my going down there was made clear the moment I saw him. General Bramby, or what the wolves had left of him, lay beside his soldiers on the front line by South entrance.

The General had stood toe to toe with the wolves and bought the time for the installations civilian population to escape with his and his soldiers’ lives. I knelt down and said goodbye to the only man in the Chimera installation who had stood up for me. When the clean up crews finally arrived and found his body I wondered would his father and brother be told he had died a heroes death? Somehow I doubt it even to this day.

With that task done I had set about the other reasons for bringing me 20 feet underground to that tomb. First I visited the armory to replenish my ammo supplies. Despite the darkness the journey was easy, before the facility operating system had shut down, the computer viruses planted by the vampires had unlocked all the security doors.

Next I made my way to Susan Green’s quarters to pick up some personal effects for her. Her Chimera uniform, although she would probably never wear it again I knew she’d want it, and a picture of Susan and her sister on holiday, they were both stood on a boat smiling at the camera. At the time I don’t think I could remember the last time I had seen Susan smile.

After that I toyed with the idea of taking some of the research hard drives to see if I could prove what the first vampire had told me; that Tinney had been trying to replicate my virus, not create a cure. I knew then it was pointless, the vampires had intended to kill me in order to tear the secrets of my virus from my body, they had no reason to lie to me.

With my stolen goods in hand I turned and left the Chimera installation behind. I left via the back door knowing it was where the civilians had escaped. I had hoped that I might find Tinney had befallen the same fate as the General. He hadn’t.



We stayed a few more days in the city, I think I could have left immediately but Susan had taken a nasty beating from her battle when trying to free me from the vampires. She was still recovering from her injuries and I wasn’t going to force her to leave before she was ready, besides, almost everyone she knew had just died, anyone would need time to grieve in that situation.

We had each amassed a small fortune during our time with the Chimeras and together we knew it would be enough money to sustain us for our journey. Susan needed to search for a way to control her wolfwere transformation, the Alpha had managed it and she was determined she would too. Myself, I had to search for a way to control the wolf’s instincts in me. During my battle to free myself I had felt more wolf than human. It scared me.

We traveled for a long time; it’s funny how Inner journeys always seem easier when it’s accompanied by an outer journey as well. When possible we stayed in human accommodation but just as often we roughed it, sleeping under the stars, sheltering under trees.

Occasionally during that time we met other wolves; but they always treated us with a wary skepticism. Neither Susan nor I were a werewolf and we weren’t part of their pack. They never tried to drive us out or attack us but neither did they accept us.
I was content, I think. Susan was the happiest I had seen her since becoming infected. It was hard for her when the full moon shone but we had a way to suppress her transformation, although neither of us liked using it, my blood was a natural transformation inhibitor. We were a pack, the last two members of our pack and it was perhaps because of that we formed an odd bond. I’ve never been able to describe it but its almost as if I can feel her, even when we’re apart.

Then came the time to separate for a while. It was simply the right thing to do. Susan knew she was close to where the Alpha had been borne and she had to go to that place. My path led elsewhere. I couldn’t exactly say why but my path led me to the city of my birth. I had no family there, my mother had died in labor and there were never any records of who my father was, I spent my youth in an orphanage, which no longer existed. The building where I grew up was now a casino. There was nothing left in the city to draw me there but something compelled me to visit the place for a spell.

It’s a common misconception that people who are infected with the werewolf virus do not realize it, that they are simply unaware of what happens to them during the three days a month they transform. While its true that while under the influence of the transformation those infected are driven more by base desires such as the need to feed or to reproduce, those infected are fully aware of what they are and retain full consciousness during their transformations. The truth is that the virus has a way of forcing you to change you perception on life.

Werewolves band together, after infection almost every individual will actively search out others who are infected. They form small communities, packs, and each pack will claim itself a territory. The boundaries of these territories are invisible to everyone else but not to other wolves. My senses were easily able to detect the scent markings that signaled I was in another wolf packs territory. During the time we spent traveling I had witnessed some interesting behavior. Under normal circumstances werewolves would attack and drive out werewolves from other packs. Neither myself, nor Susan had ever been attacked, while we were both wolves, the packs never seemed to consider us as trespassers. We had however soon discovered that most packs deemed it common courtesy to introduce ourselves as we traveled through their territory. With this in mind I followed the scent markings as soon as I entered the city to find the packs den.

This particular pack was denned up in a block of expensive flats just outside of the city center. The apartments were built in a square with an outside garden in the center and the ground floor was taken up by a variety of shops and restaurants, the whole place smelled heavily of wolf. For the pack to be living in such luxurious accommodation at least one of them must have been rich. It wasn’t until meeting them that I discovered that the entire building and in fact half the district was owned by one of the pack, a very wealthy, and apparently powerful, businessman by the name of Brant Dawson. Brant was the Alpha male of this pack but even so he couldn’t simply drop his human responsibilities to investigate a new interloper, so I spent the three hours waiting for him in the company of the 2 members of the pack who had been trailing me since entering the city.

“What are you?” Brant greeted me as he swept into the room I was being baby sat in. He was a tall stocky man with scruffy facial hair but wearing an immaculate well-tailored suit.

“Can’t you tell?” Even as I said it something in the way the man stood told me that perhaps my usual sarcastic humor was not the best way to deal with the situation.

“My name is Patient Ø. That’s pretty much what I am as well.”

Upon hearing my name a murmur rose from the assembled pack members and Brant waited for the noise to stop before speaking again. “Many of us here have heard stories of someone calling them self Patient Ø. Story starts with a wolf working as the humans lapdog killing wolves and vampires alike.”

I lifted my head and looked the packs Alpha directly in the eyes. “Yeah that’s me. Don’t do much killing of either anymore, trying to cut down.” I said as I lapsed back into my sarcastic replies. I was suddenly aware that many of the pack members had closed in on me slightly.

“And exactly what are you doing here Patient Ø?”

“I’m just passing through.” I said truthfully. “I don’t belong to any pack any more, I’m not here to cause trouble. Just looking for a place to sleep for a couple of nights.”

Silence held for what seemed like eternity and all sets of eyes in the room were staring intently at me. Suddenly a grin from Brant broke the tension in the room, he crossed the distance between us in two short strides and clapped me heavily on the shoulder. “Well we have plenty of spare beds for you to get some shut eye and you’ll find that many of us here would love to hear your full story.”

The atmosphere had changed completely as pack members swarmed round me to get a closer look. Through the background chatter I managed to pull my attention back to Brant as he started speaking to me again. “And if you find yourself with nothing to do we could certainly use your help. You see we’ve forged a sort of uneasy truce with the vampires in this city.” Brant pulled up a chair and sat opposite me. “They stick to their side of the city and we stick to ours. It may not be ideal but it stops both sides from losing any more people. Recently though a few members of my pack have disappeared.” Brant’s dark eyes stared at the floor and he fell silent for a moment. “The vampires swear they have nothing to do with it, they even tried to convince us that some of them have gone missing also. Personally I don’t believe a word they say. So maybe if you find yourself with some spare time you could take a trip over to their side and have a look around.” And with that Brant motioned someone else over to take care of me and with a quick shake of my hand swept out the room as briskly as he entered. In the space of 15 minutes I had managed to introduce myself to a new pack, find a place to stay and I couldn’t shake the feeling that I had been given a job to pay for my rent.




Compendium B


Brant had assigned me a caretaker. He was a young intensely likeable man called Charlie who seemed to have more energy than was probably healthy. Charlie almost bounced around me while he reeled off question after question about how I came to be here. I wasn’t sure if he was assigned to show me around the city, keep track of me or just find out as much about my past as possible. I assumed he was new to being a werewolf, his boundless energy and enthusiasm reminded me of myself when I had first been infected, it was then I realized I had matured at an alarming rate during the year since my infection, I honestly hoped at that point that Charlie wouldn’t lose that feeling of the whole world suddenly being new and exciting for a long time. The changes the wolf viruses put a persons body through not only sharpen the senses, but also alter the way you look at the world, it can be intoxicating at first but all too quickly I had to learn to put aside that intoxication and draw on my abilities to survive. I doubted Charlie would have to go through the same things I did, but simply seeing that in someone else made me wish I had had more time to experience it before being forced to accept it.

True to his word Brant gave me an apartment to sleep in while I was there and even provided coupons to shop at one of the food markets on the bottom floor of the building. He also provided me with detailed files on the werewolves that had gone missing and on those vampires who were in charge in their half of the city. As I had suspected this was not an interesting case I could look through if I found myself bored but more a job to pay for my rent whilst I stayed here.

So I looked over the files while I ate and then slept in a bed for the first time in weeks. The next evening I set out to investigate the missing werewolves with my caretaker Charlie just a step behind.

In my experience some people just love to talk, and be talked to, silence of any kind seems to make them uncomfortable. I myself have never been one of those people, Charlie on the other hand was. As he drove me over to the ‘vampire side’ of the city he was full of questions, asking me how I had become infected and why I no longer belonged to any pack. It was hard to explain to him that I never truly belonged to a pack and that I didn’t really consider myself a wolf. He had embraced his werewolfism wholeheartedly and could not quite comprehend that I preferred to be human, or at least call myself human.

Charlie eventually quieted down only when we were deep into the vampire territory. He was young and I expected this was the first time he had ventured to this side of the city since he had been infected. The sun had long since gone down and now that the dark had fully taken control vampires roamed the streets confidently. For the most part they looked like all the other normal people on the streets, but to me I could smell the difference and they could do the same with us, multiple sets of eyes followed us where ever we went, it was clear that wolves did not often visit this part of the city and just as clear that the vampires liked it that way.

“I’m not entirely sure what your Alpha was expecting but I’m not going to get much investigation done in these circumstances.” I said to Charlie as he stopped for a red light.

Suddenly there were two people on either side of the car. The man on Charlies side tapped on the window lightly. As Charlie slowly wound down the window the man grinned showing his bright white canine teeth, it was a show so that the man could be recognized as a vampire. The man leant on the car door and peered in at us through the window.

“Wander off the beaten path puppy?” The vampire said after a short while inciting a round of laughter from the other vampires around the car.

Charlie swallowed hard before responding. “We’re here on official business of Mr.Dawson. My companion is here to investigate the recent missing persons.”

“Is he?” The vampire looked past Charlie and glared at me for a while, I returned the stare. “You investigating all the missing people or just the wolves?”

I looked around, it was late and dark yes, but all of a sudden the street was looking very deserted, people in this city obviously knew when trouble was a foot and knew not to get involved.

I slowly opened the car door and got out. It didn’t take long for the vampires to circle me, surrounding me on all sides. The vampire who had been speaking to us left Charlies side of the car and walked towards me. It wasn’t the first time I’d been in this sort of situation, wolves tended to regard me with an odd curiosity, vampires with confused aggression.

“How old are you?” I quickly asked the vampire who had spoken to us.

“56.” The vampire answered after moment of confusion. He looked to be in his mid-thirties.

“Funny thing about leadership.” I continued quickly. “Werewolves claim leadership of a pack by being the strongest, who can provide best for the pack. Vampires entire dominance structure is based on age, older vampires tend to be stronger but that doesn’t necessarily make them the best leaders, yet you still follow them without question. I’m guessing you’re the oldest of this little group.”

I closed the distance between myself and the vampire with lightning speed. Grabbing him by the neck I slammed him down hard on the bonnet of the car. The other vampires started towards us.

“Tell them to stop!” I growled at the vampire I held.

He motioned to the other vampires to stop and they obeyed. “Let.. me.. go.” The vampire pushed at me with as much strength as he could muster, I simply held his neck even tighter until he finally stopped struggling.

“Now listen.” I spoke as much to the other vampires as the one I held by the neck. “The leader of the werewolf pack in this city, Brant Dawson, has asked me to look into the missing wolves. If there are in fact missing vampires and they are connected then sure I’ll look into that as well. BUT, if in this investigation I find that you vampires are responsible. I will personally make you pay for each and every missing werewolf.”

With that I let go of the vampire and stepped aside, he stood up and stumbled over to the other vampires rubbing his neck and coughing. One of the other vampires made a hiss like sound and got ready to pounce at me. Suddenly the vampire I had assaulted raised his hand to stop her.

“Some of us have gone missing as well.” He said while still rubbing his neck. “I swear it. Your leader didn’t want to believe us when we told him. Like all wolves he’s single minded, got it into his head we were responsible and…”

“That’s not true.” Charlie had left the car and now stood at my side as he shouted at the vampires. “If you vampires weren’t so secretive about your so called disappearances then maybe your story would be more believable.”

The vampire shouted something back; I didn’t hear it. There’s a funny thing about being watched. Almost like an extra sense you can sometimes tell that there are eyes following you, even if you can’t tell where those eyes are.

Charlie and the vampires were still arguing with each other even as I started looking around trying to find the source of my discomfort. Maybe it was the noise of the argument but I didn’t see it until it was too late. Something hit Charlie in the side of the neck and he dropped heavily to the floor. A second later two of the vampires dropped. As I knelt down to check Charlies pulse the other two vampires dropped. They had all been hit by tranquilizer darts; they were alive but heavily sedated. Then I spotted the source. Six figures stood outlined against the sky on the roof of a two story building not more than 30 meters away.

I slowly stood up and took a few paces towards the figures. They hadn’t fired a single dart at me which meant they wanted me conscious for now at least and I was confidant that now I knew where they were coming from I stood a good chance of dodging the darts.

All six figures were wearing heavy-duty military class combat gear, complete with flak jackets and rifles. The figure in front was a woman, she had short blond hair that reminded me of Susan back when she was still a Chimera soldier. The other figures wore masks. As I stopped the woman held up a hand to her ear and started speaking, I knew what that meant, she had a two-way transmitter earplug, definitely military but she was still to far away for me to hear what she was saying.

Suddenly the woman jumped lightly from the 2nd floor to the ground and started walking towards me. Three of the other figures jumped down and flanked her, while the other two stayed on the roof, there were still 5 rifles pointed at me.

“Negative. I’m making contact.” The woman said as she dropped her hand from her ear and stopped about 10 meters away from me.

I was the first to speak. “You could have taken me out back there before I noticed you, why didn’t…”

“I wanted to speak to you, that would be more difficult if you were unconscious.” The woman said. She stared at me so intensely it was making me nervous. “You are Patient Ø are you not?”

One of the other figures had gone to check the state of the vampires and Charlie but there were still 4 rifles pointed my way. The woman however stood relaxed, her rifle hanging by her side.

“My name is Lieutenant Adell Fiord. And I guess if you’re Patient Ø then in a way I’m Patient 1.”

The world lurched under my feet and I almost collapsed. “They did it? They managed to artificially recreate my virus?” I exclaimed in horror.

The Lieutenant was shaking her head. “No, not yet. When the Chimera installation was destroyed they still had their data but all samples of your blood and tissue were lost. The project to replicate you’re condition was put on hold. But they did have enough information to start screening people for the same potential you had.”

I stood dumfounded, still trying to take in the information this woman had just presented me with. The lieutenant stood watching me intently, no sign emotion betrayed her feelings. “Your body can naturally alter the viruses too.” It wasn’t a question; I said it to cement the fact in my own mind. “Where did they find you?”

“Even once they had developed a screening technique to determine if someone had the same potential you had they couldn’t just screen everyone. The cost of such an operation for a start would make such a thing impossible. So they started screening military personnel.”

“That makes sense I guess, you would already have the training to make you a nice little compliant soldier.” The shock was wearing off and by then I was starting to return to myself, I was also beginning to realize just how precarious a situation I was in. For the first time I noticed her scent; it was faint and I think she tried to cover it but without a shadow of a doubt she had the tainted smell of vampire on her. It was also at that moment that I realized the other members of her team carried the scents of human, vampire and wolf. “They infected you with the vampire virus. They always thought that would have made me easier to control. I…”

“It was my choice.” The lieutenant cut me off. “I chose infection after they had attained all the samples of pre-infection they needed. You were infected by the wolfwere virus, it made you wild, unpredictable, unstable.” Her words dripped with hatred as she spoke of the wolfwere virus. “I chose the vampire virus because I didn’t want to end up like you, controlled by your primitive animalistic urges.”

I laughed at her, cutting her off before you could say any more. “Chose. What an interesting… choice, of words.” The lieutenant went red as I spoke. I’ve always had an uncanny ability to anger people and fueled by her obvious hatred of the wolf viruses she made an easy mark. “The scientists who studied you fed you whatever information you needed to hear to make you ‘choose’ to be infected by the vampire virus, you’re nothing but another pawn, another test subject in their studies.”

I had hit the mark; she all but shouted the next words. “I am what you always should have been. I am stronger and faster than you, I am trained in combat against both vampires and wolves, and unlike you, I don’t carry any of the inherent weaknesses of the wolf virus.”

I filed that bit of information away in my mind and switched subjects, determined to learn as much as I could from the lieutenant while I could. “What about the rest of your team? They’re not human either. You said that they hadn’t replicated my virus.”

“They’re enhanced humans.” She said with a smirk. “It’s a technique they’ve been using since before you joined Chimera, I guess they didn’t trust you enough to tell you about it.” I think it was this point where I realized there was something else going on, the lieutenant was making this petty and personal, at the time I wasn’t sure why but she had a personal grudge against me. “By regular infusions of blood from individuals infected with either the vampire or wolf viruses a human can gain a portion of the abilities an infected individual has. Their bodies have undergone the changes that make them stronger, faster. The only problem is when they stop getting infusions, the body can’t handle reverting to a normal human state, cells begin to break down.” Suddenly the lieutenant moved her right hand to her ear, she was receiving orders from her superior.

The lieutenant responded to her orders with a simple confirmation and then lowered her hand. “The Doctor has ordered me to cut this conversation short I’m afraid.”

My jaw dropped. “The Doctor? Do you mean…”

The lieutenant wasn’t lying about her speed. She was fast, she had drawn her side arm before I had time to react and as a loud gunshot ripped through the air I collapsed backwards. Luckily she had been aiming for speed and not accuracy, the bullet wound hurt like hell but had seemingly missed any major organs, I could still move. With a burst of speed only a wolf could match I was up and gone. A few gunshots ricocheted harmlessly off the ground behind me but none found their mark. I know the lieutenant started after me but more orders from her earpiece stopped her.

Alone and wounded I headed back to the only place I knew in the city, the werewolf den.




Once again couldn't fit all 3 compendiums in one file, yes i'm too cheap to buy a proper membership. Part 3 can be in my portfolio... please feel free to rate and review.