Dave Elliot: Hunted, Hunter

When the novel Vertical Run is over, Dave Elliot is a changed person.  Through excruciating circumstances and several moral decisions David becomes a person that understands who he is, and what he has to do to save himself and those he loves.

Early on in the story Dave’s boss walks in his office with a gun and tries to shoot him.  After managing to knock out his boss Dave walks out of his office only to be shot at again -- this time by mercenaries that know what they are doing.  Also about this time you find out that Dave has a cynical voice in his head that he converses with.   After eliminating them and listening to radio chatter Dave realizes that he is trapped near the top of his office building with massive amounts of troops below him.

About this time Dave starts to become his former self again -- something he apparently doesn’t want to be.  Old habits like shooting a gun, and preservative thinking start to kick in, such as on page 27 “(You must think.  Thinking is the only way out.)”  Also, on page 29 Dave starts counting bullets, a tactic that would only be used by a trained army combatant.  This is a change that Dave resents though.  He has spent a lot of his life trying to be normal after his military career and being forced out of that normalness is not something he enjoys.  Dave portrays this well on page 18-19 by saying “For 25 years I have devoted myself to ordinariness…  It is how I define the word ‘good’.”

Quite a ways into the book Dave does manage to MacGyver his way out of the building and into the streets of New York.  When he does step into the streets of New York though, he is a changed man.  Gone is the normal corporate executive.  Dave Elliot is officially deadly… and out for revenge.  After figuring out a small clue (and taking out five sentries) Dave finds himself at chemical research lab where some virus he is supposedly infected with was developed.  He finds it completely barren.  Nothing is left in the heavily sanitized hallways, except for another guard.

Dave decides that his best option at this point is to return to his building and figure out why he is being hunted.  Being the person that he is, Dave knocks out the guards, leaving them alive.  When he picks up a radio Dave hears the enemy commander telling his people why Dave is so dangerous.  Dave learns that he is infected with a virus that could take out the world because of how contagious it is.  Dave accepts his fate and, after exacting his revenge on the captain of the enemy mercenaries, walks into a childhood oasis alone, and dies there, completely at peace with himself.