by Robert Brown
“Doctor Gregory was doing her monitoring.”
“Samuel Gregory?”
“Yes. He made the test, so we felt he would ensure us the most time before she had to be taken away from us.”
Doctor Steiner wants to ignore her remark but isn’t able to. He hears the same complaint from parents every day. It isn’t his fault children are taken away from their parents and locked away for three to four years. But this is Evelyn Cavanaugh, her husband is the territorial governor and is in charge of overseeing these operations nationwide. She should know better.
Stopping in the hall and resting his hand on a door handle he says, “You do understand that I’m not taking your child from you. It’s the law. The law your husband helped pass and is overseeing.”
“I don’t have time to play nice, Doctor Steiner. You know who my husband is, but right now, I am just like every other mother that brings her child into this house of torture. I want you to allow me to vent my frustrations and fears. If you can’t do that for me, then find someone that can.”
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Cavanaugh.” The door is quickly opened. “This is your daughter’s viewing room.”
The room is a simple affair. Like the rest of the institute, everything is white. There is a desk that looks more like a control board in a music recording studio and a microphone hanging just above it. Three chairs are close to the angled viewing glass that looks into the room below.
Evelyn walks over and sees her daughter sitting on a bed, fifteen feet below the glass.
“Can she see me?”
“No. This is one-way glass.”
“So there’s a mirror on the other side?”
“Oh no. The earlier institutes tried that and it didn’t end well. We have a non-reflective covering on the other side. You can speak to her through the microphone if you want. Her puberty guide is being put in place behind that far wall right now.”
“Is it that time already?”
“Yes, I’m afraid so.”
Evelyn grabs the microphone, and Doctor Steiner hits a button on the desk next to it.
“Lilly, can you hear me? It’s Mom.”
“Mom, hi, yes I can hear you. Where are you?”
Doctor Steiner pushes the button again quickly.
“You can tell her you see her, but don’t tell her we’re above her. It could complicate things.”
“Mom? Are you still there?”
“Yes, I’m here sweetie. I can see you. How do you like your room?”
“How do you think, Mom? There’s nothing in here but the bed and a toilet. When will I get my stuff to decorate?”
“You’ll get your things soon,” she lies. “The doctor tells me they are about to introduce your guide to you. I will talk to you for as long as you want, okay?”
“Okay, Mom.”
“Mrs. Cavanaugh, we just received the digital file on your family’s medical history, but there isn’t much available in it.”
“Our medical records have been classified. We want our privacy.”
“I understand, I simply have to verify that Lilly is your first child.”
“Ouch!”
“What’s wrong, Lilly?”
“My hand hurts.”
Evelyn looks to her side and Doctor Steiner nods and mouths, It’s beginning.
“Mrs. Cavanaugh, Lilly is your only child correct?”
Angrily looking at him for bringing up her painful past, “No! We had a son who died in the war.”
The doctor presses several more buttons on the desk and looks into the room as the far wall begins to slide away revealing the man currently assigned to Lilly.
“He was killed by the mutants?” the doctor continues.
“Yes, he was.”
Lilly sits on the bed and begins to rock back and forth, holding onto her stomach.
“But he wasn’t a mutant himself, correct?”
Walking away from the viewing window and confronting the irritating man, “My son was Lloyd Cavanaugh, you idiot! He was Cora Taylor’s second-in-command and the father of her child. Now will you leave me alone with these stupid questions so I can help my daughter?”
She attempts to return to the window, but Doctor Steiner violently grasps her wrist.
“Your son was an arch-vampire? You should have let us know. That’s not what we are prepared for today!”
She pulls her arm away from him and looks back into the room when she hears a loud familiar snap and screams echoing from the room’s sound system. The man she is paired with is huge. He is at least six feet five inches tall, muscle-bound, and heavily tattooed. He is pressing himself against the wall behind him. The expression of fear on his face makes Evelyn think that is how she would look standing on a skinny ledge of a tall building. Clinging to the wall behind her for dear life.
Doctor Steiner hits a red button and an alarm begins to sound. “Emergency in room seven, we have potential arch-type with human subject.”
Looking down at her daughter, she can see her right forearm is broken. Several more snapping sounds followed by more of Lilly’s screams of pain echo over the speakers. Evelyn watches in horror as her daughter’s bones are breaking, her arms and fingers are beginning to jut awkwardly at various angles. The man in her room is still clinging to his wall standing twenty feet away from the bed where Lilly is writhing in agony.
“We aren’t prepared for your daughter’s transformation.” Doctor Steinberg tells Evelyn after shutting off the microphone. “We are going to have to abandon the facility.”
“What the hell are you talking about? I’m not going anywhere!”
Standing at the locked door and trying to pull it open, Steinberg screams at Evelyn. “Our facility isn’t prepared for an arch-type transformation! They are supposed to occur in the wild! Your daughter won’t accept her puberty guide because she will need to feed on a vampire and we only have humans at this facility!”
Evelyn tries not to hear him but the fear his words instill cause her to shiver. Her face glues itself to the scene below, tears are streaming from her eyes at having to witness her daughter’s pain and being unable to help.
A panicked voice sounds over the intercom. “Doctor Steiner, security protocol delta has been activated.”
Several loud pops resound from the speakers, and Lilly is thrashing and quivering on her bed. She exhales a long scream as the sound of breaking bones intensifies in both speed and amplitude.
“HELP ME!” the muscular man yells from inside Lilly’s room. “You can’t do this to me. It’s not right!”
The man’s screams of protest stop when they all hear the familiar crackling sound of bones as they all turn brittle and seem to disintegrate. Now the only sound coming from the room is a static, white noise. First, it is like gravel being poured onto tiles, then it fades into the sound of a carbonated drink being amplified.
There is one final snapping sound, and Evelyn watches her daughter’s body elongate and begin to regain its shape. Lilly stands and stares, the man against the wall is silent. There are small smears of blood on the wall at his side. He was scratching his fingers against it in an effort to dig his way out but too afraid to turn his back on the girl. The Shattering is complete, and Lilly’s eyes are now fixed in his direction.
The man gives one final scream as Lilly jumps at him. She is able to cover the twenty-foot distance in one leap.
Instead of attacking the man, Lilly throws him to the side and begins hammering at the wall he came through as the easiest point of exit from her captivity. With little productivity at opening the reinforced wall, Lilly spins her head around the room sniffing and scanning, looking for a way out. The man is cowering in a corner.
Finally, Lilly’s eyes fixate on the one-way glass panels designed to look like a continuation of the wall and leaps from the floor. She smashes through the glass and lands in the room between her mother and the good doctor who has noticeably wet himself.
A few seconds of uncertainty pass between the
trio. Evelyn attempts to step toward her daughter, but Lilly holds out her hand at arm’s length to prevent the approach. The door to their room rips out of the wall from the outside and a group of familiar vampires rush in. Evelyn and the doctor are picked up and rushed away while Lilly, in a blur of speed, is lead by the hand out of the room after them.
One final scream is heard from Lilly’s transformation room as it and the observation room above it are flooded with flaming chemicals designed to erase any problems or abnormal transformations that occur during The Shattering.
In the courtyard, Evelyn is lowered to the ground from the arms of her savior, and she grasps hold of her in a tearful hug.
“Where have you been? Why have you stayed away for so many years?”
Cora smiles at Evelyn. “I’m sorry. It isn’t much of an excuse, but I have been busy.” They both look briefly to the side and see Lilly feeding on one of the several extra vampires Cora brought with her. “I knew she was set to transform, and I went to your house earlier. That is where they told me you came here. I was surprised the doctors let you into the facility knowing Lloyd was an arch-type.”
“They didn’t know.” Evelyn shakes her head and laughs weakly in shock. “We had our records sealed, and the history books usually refer to our son only as Lloyd. They didn’t know we even had another child let alone Lloyd being a Cavanaugh.
“Will Lilly be okay?”
“She will be fine. They’ll take her with them when they go. She should be ready to return to you in a day or two.”
“Cora, please, I have to know, how is Grace?”
“See for yourself, she’s behind you.”
Turning around, there are four arch-vampires standing around eight-year-old Grace who smiles shyly at Evelyn.
“Hi, Grandma!” Cora places a hand on Evelyn’s back to steady her against Grace’s exuberant run and jump into her arms.
“I can’t believe how big you’ve grown. I missed you so much.”
“I missed you too, Grandma.”
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Reunion
Oregon Territory
Like times past, Cora is sitting with Greg and Evelyn Cavanaugh outside their home. Her daughter, Grace, is rolling around the yard with the Cavanaugh’s Bulldog, Mr. Darcy. The pure joy of his slobbering antics and playful pouncing with the little girl is keeping them all enthralled.
An awkward arrangement of human guards and vampires is spread throughout the yard as well. The mixture is a representation of the importance that Greg and Cora have to their respective governments.
“I’m sorry I haven’t sent Grace to see you for so long. We were traveling these last fourteen months.”
“You are always welcome to visit us as well, Cora. We haven’t seen you since shortly after Grace was born.”
“It is still difficult for me…seeing you brings back too many thoughts of Lloyd. With Grace, she doesn’t have the memories of her father, but you and Greg, your emotional connection to him make being around you almost more than I can bare. It isn’t a mature or reasonable response, but I can’t explain how out of control I feel when thinking of your son.”
“How are you doing now?”
“I would have been here for you and Lilly no matter the difficulty to myself. Something is different, though, and I wish I had arrived years ago. I think your wounds over Lloyd healed somewhat after Lilly was born.”
A welcome interruption of loud giggled laughter from Grace running between everyone followed by Mr. Darcy helps erase the encroaching sadness.
“Well, Cora, where were you and Grace traveling?”
“Europe, Asia, and all over the African continent. It was an amazing journey.”
“You should have left Grace with us on a trip like that. Weren’t you afraid of being attacked?”
“Oh no, not at all. That’s what my guards have to worry about.” A light chuckle receives a serious look of angry concern back from Evelyn.
“Believe me, I would never put Grace in harm’s way. A lot has changed in those countries over the last nine years. You must know what has been happening over there.”
Greg shakes his head.
“We haven’t paid much attention to international matters over the last six years, and I’m not sure how accurate the information from before that time is. With the absence of living or free human populations, I was told by the president that vampires largely deal with relations overseas.”
“We do, but I expected at least the regional governors would be kept informed.”
The strain of differing political interests is present in Greg’s stressed comments.
“I would appreciate knowing what is happening in the outside world, but understand my government’s reluctance in giving the people depressing information which we have no control over changing.”
“I’m sorry, I thought you would have known what was happening, but in the context of human survival rates, I do understand why my excitement over our travels wouldn’t be shared. Would you like me to give you the recent news or fill you in about more?”
“Please tell us everything you know. I think it could help me understand the direction we will need to head regarding policy.”
“Perhaps we should sit down.” Cora smiles and lowers herself into a chair while waiting for the others to join her. “Those nations whose governments killed off their children as a defensive measure against future mutations, all fell into rebellion or chaos before the first year ended. The following two years devolved into endless war, criminal attack, or mass suicides resulting from the hopelessness felt by the populations. There was a blockade set up, and no mutants entered those human areas even after requests for assistance began.
“Magnús Sigmarsson, the President of the Unified Eurasian Mutant League, decreed back then that the humans created their situation and must figure out a way to solve their own crises without mutant help. Within three years, a majority of the remaining humans in those areas had died, that is why your government stopped regular communications. The loss of hope from the murder of all the children drove the people mad, as it should have!”
Inadvertently raising her voice and shouting the words in anger prompts Cora to blush and pause.
“I apologize. I know your government and you particularly were horrified by those nations’ choices. It is still impossible for me to comprehend the decision to sacrifice their children in some vain attempt to help normal humans retain their position on the planet. Seeing Grace playing while we talk makes me feel the pain the fathers and mothers of those murdered children must have experienced. I can imagine what they went through when their children were taken from them to be…when they were taken away.
“Because the populations had dropped so dramatically, the new governments’ humans established after the chaos were no more than regional tribes or fiefdoms. Technology was an afterthought. Medicine was non-existent and access to electricity disappeared. On the other side of the world, outside of England, no human territories have remaining technology. No one will trade with them for the necessary products to rebuild their infrastructure, and they simply don’t have the population or willingness to do the necessary legwork to re-establish themselves.
“The only thing that comes out of their territory is the feeling of heartbreak and an occasional newly mutated child seeking asylum.”
“Is there something our human government can do? How long do you think they have?”
“Your government has agreed not to interfere with any human affairs across the oceans. A treaty signed years ago provides that any attempt to offer assistance to the human tribes remaining on the Eurasian or African continents would imply agreement and solidarity with their decision to murder their own children. Attempting to help them would allow mutants to go to war with humans on our continents again. That kind of war would be brief.”
“What about the vampire territories? From what I recall, most areas outside of England were slave-holding regions. Where is the moral
equivalence in allowing slaves or keeping humans as cattle compared to sacrificing children during a war?”
Cora nods, eyes squinted with understanding. “It is a valid point, but we settled those differences years ago. I made the mistake after the North American division in giving the clone blood process to Europe. They used the availability of blood substitute as an excuse to execute the remaining humans under their control. Once the children of those humans mutated, they went to war with the vampires that murdered their parents.
“The unexpected rage of those new mutants propelled their strength to levels the unchallenged mutants of Europe had never experienced. I never had to go to war to rid those continents of the slave-minded vampires; their own brutality turned against them and ended their reign.”
“There couldn’t have been very many children that mutated after the haze was gone. How did they overcome a continent filled with and controlled by vampires like the ones you fought against?”
“Most of the arch-vampires saw their powers diminish after the haze dissipated. Without mind-controlling powers, all mutants were free to choose their own path and harming humans wasn’t what they wanted in their future. Killing the remaining humans pushed the attitudes of the vampire populations against the slave-owning arch-vampires. There were about fifty newly mutated vampires that ran through all three continents and wiped out the remaining slave owners.
“Outside of the human-controlled territories, vampires and the remaining humans have been able to work together, or at least in a similar segregated fashion as we do in North America.”
“So what took you traveling over there?”
“Elections and preparations for human resettlement and land reallocation. The human population has dropped significantly in most nations, so we will be relocating people to other areas where they can live in communities together.”
“I imagine vampires will be moving into the areas which you clear of humans?”
“Yes, that is also the goal. Our numbers have been increasing while those of humans have been diminishing greatly.”
“Isn’t there something you can do to stop this, Cora? I understand what those people did to their own children was wrong, but fear makes people do irrational things. Can’t you keep the people from being moved away from their homelands?”