by ID Johnson
“What’s going on there?” she asked out of curiosity.
“It’s a long story,” he began, “But basically it’s a Rogue attempting to track down a specific Hunter and destroy him. Sort of like your situation, only this Rogue is angry because the Hunter killed his Vampirling and he believes it was without cause.”
“Sounds interesting,” Cadence replied.
“Yeah, we think we have a location on him, but they called me in to help track him because he keeps slipping away. They think it’s poor coordination on the part of the Hunters. Anyway, we have got to get your IAC up and running so you know what the hell is going on.”
“Okay,” Cadence said hesitantly. As much as she wanted to be on the same wavelength as everyone else, she was frightened to try the implant again.
“Are you ready?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said though she wasn’t sure if that was truly the case.
“Good, alright. So the first thing we are going to do is activate just my feed through your IAC. Okay, so just like you did last night when you went to turn it off, you’re just going to concentrate on giving the command that I tell you, and then that will activate the chip. Okay? “ She closed her eyes, thinking that might help, and nodded her head. She was ready. “Alright, so the first command is “IAC Aaron On.’”
Cadence took a deep breath and mentally repeated those words. “IAC Aaron On.”
There was a small glitch at first, like when an older model television set has to warm up, but then suddenly, there he was--in her brain. When her eyes were closed, she could simply see a star in the corner of her right eye with a small “A” next to it.
“You did it!”
“Did you get that message I just sent you?” he asked.
“Yes,” she replied. Next to the A, his message popped up, but it wasn’t as if she had to read it. The words were being read to her in his voice. It was like he had implanted his voice directly into her brain.
“Good, now I’ll teach you the commands to respond. Any time you want to talk to anyone else, whether it’s me, Eliza, Meagan, whoever you think their name first, the message and then send. Any time you think the word send, you can be sure a message is going to that person unless you’re in Full Off or Full Pause mode, which we’ll talk about in a minute. Alright? So, think of something you might want to tell me and see if you can send it.”
“Will I get some sort of opportunity to check it before I hit send? Like, can I see it?”
“Yes, you can. We don’t usually have time to check every message we send since we send so many messages a day. It becomes second nature. But you can actually read it first if you want. The box where your messages appear is right above my line. Regardless of who else you have open, I’ll always be in the same place. My messages will always be louder and faster than anyone else’s because mine have top priority.”
“Alright, here goes.” She wanted to think of something clever to say, but since she was also limited on time, she simply said:
“I beat your Hill record by 11 seconds.”
“I’m aware. Congratulations.
“How does it feel to know you got beat by a girl?
“Alright,” he said, “moving right along . . .”
She laughed aloud and concluded that this might be a great way to mess with people.
“There are a few other things that you need to be aware of. You’re going to need to know how to do a Full Pause, which is the same as a Full Off, only you’re going to think Pause instead of Off. However, that’s going to be problematic for you because I can’t push you out of Pause the way that I can everyone else. I can’t push you out of Off either.”
“Why not?” Cadence asked.
“I have no idea, but I think it has something to do with whatever activated in your brain last night. So, any time you’re on Full Pause you can see who is trying to contact you, but they can’t actually access you until you allow them in by ending the Pause or by activating them one at a time. So let’s try putting it on Full Pause first.
“IAC Full Pause”
“Good,” he said aloud, seeing her flip from On to Pause on his IAC. Then she saw his name light up in her eye and she knew he was trying to contact her. “See that? Just give it the same command as you did before to turn my feed on, okay?
“IAC Aaron On”
“Nice work! You’re a fast learner.”
“You’re too kind.”
“Ah, extra credit,” he laughed. “You can also use the Resume command there instead of On to come out of a Pause but it really makes no difference. So Pause is good if you’re going to sleep, or the bathroom, or something where you don’t want others accessing your visuals.”
“Got it.”
“So if you want to see what someone else is seeing, you have to turn them on first and then just say their name and Add Visuals. That’s it. And you get full audio with that, too, like a video camera. So, you’ve got me on and there you go.”
Suddenly, Cadence’s field off vision was fragmented. Her left eye stayed completely as it was before, but now on the top half of her right eye, she was seeing what Aaron was looking at, which was even more odd since it was herself. “Woe!” she said, “That’s crazy!”
“It does take some getting used to. But you’ve got time to practice, and you’ll catch on. So, to turn it off, it’s just the reverse.”
“If I don’t turn it off, can you force me off?”
“Yes, and in fact I had to allow you in. Now, with everyone else, I can over-ride his or her decision to keep someone out. So, if we’re out on a hunt and you need to access Elliott but he’s being an ass and won’t let you on, I can see that denial pop up and turn it on for you. “
Even as he was speaking, he was sending her a request to access her visuals so she could see what it looked like. “Do you see that?” he asked.
“Yes, what’s the command?”
“You can speak while we’re sitting right next to each other, you know.”
“But this is more fun.”
“Visuals Aaron Allow”
The request had been illuminated and once the access was allowed, it faded into the background so she could see who had access but it wasn’t drawing her attention away from the visuals themselves.
“Cadence, you haven’t turned my visuals off yet.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t make me do it for you. You get a nasty error signal.”
“Fine, but how am I going to practice this visual thingy if I can’t see what anyone else is doing?”
“I just want to see that you can give the command. I’ll let you have access again if you want it,” he said. She turned it off. “Thank you. One of the easiest ways to make sure you’re covered on a hunt is to turn on everyone’s and then just turn off the ones you don’t need. So, if you went out with ten members of the team, you could just turn the entire team on and then start turning the people who aren’t present off. It’s the best bet for making sure you don’t miss anyone.”
“What’s the command for that?
“Make sure you’re ready for it because it’s going to be a lot of chatter, just like last night.”
“Okay, I’m ready.”
IAC Full On
Cadence wasn’t sure but she may have sent him a few expletives. When the full team came on, it was unbelievably noisy. Her right eye was flooded with teeny tiny pictures as the other members of the team allowed her access to their visuals. “Good Lord!” she said as she soon had over thirty open screens on her right eye.
“I know it’s a lot. There are a couple of things you can do to make it easier, if you need to have everyone open. You won’t need to very often. Unfortunately, that’s what I’m looking at most of the time.”
“Really? How do you even function?”
“It took a lot of practice. First of all, if you put on these glasses, it will automatically split the field into your left eye as well, leaving you a
window at the top to see what is in front of you. However, you get used to looking through everyone else’s visuals at your own, and your brain really is wired to be able to do so after a bit of practice.”
Cadence slid the glasses on. It took her left eye a moment to adjust. “Unbelievable. I’m not sure that’s any better,” she admitted. “What else can I do?”
“You can prioritize your visuals. So, say you know you want to leave everyone open, just in case you need to access them quickly and you don’t want to have to wait for them to allow access again. You can stack everyone that you don’t need immediately by giving the command IAC their name and the Stack Visual. You can also move them around by saying IAC Priority 1 then their name and then Priority 2, etc.”
“Okay, that makes sense. How do I fight Vampires with all of this clutter in my field of vision?” she asked.
“You can use the command IAC Pause Visual and that will take everything out of your field of view. And then to turn it back on it’s Resume.”
“Got it,” Cadence said. She knew she was definitely going to need more practice, but it wasn’t nearly as scary as she had thought it was going to be after her experience the night before.
“I’ve got to go, but there’s one more thing I want to mention before I do. You can turn on the Newsfeed by saying IAC Newsfeed On and that will give you access to all of the chatter on the IAC, including any broadcasts from our network of Vampire watchers.”
“We have Vampire watchers?”
“Yes, they’re mostly Hunters and Guardians who no longer want to hunt but they want to be involved, or non-Transformers. So check that out tonight, too, alright?” He stood and walked over to the door. Cadence had to mentally flip a lot of switches to get back to where she was comfortable talking to him and leaving the IAC on. In fact, he was the only one she left on.
“Be careful,” she said.
“Always am,” he replied. “You can watch if you want to. Just request access, and I’ll grant it for you. You’d probably learn quite a bit that way, actually.”
“Okay,” she agreed. It would be nice to see others in action before she went out herself.
“Just remember if you put yourself on Full Pause I won’t be able to re-access you so keep that in mind.”
“Right.” She noticed they were lingering at the door again, even though he was supposed to be going right now or else he was going to hold up the plane and make them all late.
“Aaron, just kiss me already.”
As surprised as he was to receive that message, he was glad she had sent it. And she was surprised at her own boldness. But when he took a step forward, she knew there was nothing to be embarrassed about. He gently moved a ringlet of hair away from her face, locking eyes with her. He slipped his hands around her waist and she placed her hands on his chest. He leaned in slowly until his lips were just an inch or so away from hers and then paused for a second, just long enough to make her catch her breath and lean in. And then, his soft lips were on hers, gently at first but then with more pressure. She slid her hands up to the back of his head and opened her mouth. He continued to kiss her for a few seconds longer before pulling back.
“I have to go,” he said, his forehead resting against hers.
“Okay,” she said, her eyes still closed, her fingers still entwined in his hair.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” he reminded her, kissing her softly on the forehead.
She found a way to pull herself away. “Right, okay,” she said, snapping back to reality.
The thought of kissing her again crossed his mind, but he was already getting messages requesting to know his whereabouts, so he gave her one last longing glance and then slid out the door.
Cadence slumped against the door. Sometimes, too much anticipation led to disappoint. However, in this particular circumstance that was not the case at all. She ran her fingers across her swollen lips, smiling at the memory and hoping this was just the first of many kisses to come.
***
Watching the hunt had been extremely valuable to Cadence. She was able to observe how the other Hunters and Guardians talked to each other, how they accessed each other’s visuals to determine where they needed to go, and to coordinate their plan of attack. Aaron had allowed her full access to his communication screen, and she was actually able to see him firing off directives to his team members like a rapid-fire machine gun. He was sending out orders faster than she could read them. Of course, no one was actually reading most of the messages; they were sent directly into the receiver’s brain, but it was still incredibly impressive to see.
Even though Aaron was working with a team he was not as familiar with, he was still able to pinpoint their strengths quickly, and they were able to work together to hem in the Rogue Vampire. Out of fear, the rebel charged one of the Hunters who grabbed him by the throat and squeezed, sending his head flying several feet into the air. What Cadence certainly would have found quite disgusting not too log ago actually had her cheering, and she couldn’t wait to have the opportunity to prove herself on the battlefield.
The next morning, she met Shane and Meagan at the gun range. Cadence had been disappointed when Aaron had let her know he was going to be a little bit late. She had been thinking about him most of the night, and she couldn’t wait to see him. However, she understood that he had work to do, and Shane went ahead and got started as soon as both ladies were ready.
“Alright, girls,” he said in his booming voice. Shane had the appearance of a body builder, though he had the peppy attitude of a personal trainer. Cadence didn’t know him very well, but she was beginning to like him. He had a fun personality. “Meagan, this is not your first time a the shooting range. I’m going to go ahead and let you get started on the targets over there while I run through weaponry with Cadence.”
Meagan found her way to the target practice station and Shane continued. “I’m going to introduce you to the two primary weapons you will be using to kill Vampires.” He reached over to the table next to him and picked up the first weapon, the larger of the two. “This,” he said, “is a modified Berreta 93R. It packs the same punch as the regular Berreta but we’re not shooting bullets here. That would be too dangerous. We are shooting liquefied silver ions, or LIS. Now, this is a compound created right here at LIGHTS and it will essentially take out any Vampire with just one accurate shot to the heart. Since it is a continuous stream weapon, we have to be very careful to make sure the stream ends before we swivel the weapon to engage our next target. Usually this isn’t a problem. Basically, the stream ends as soon as we take our finger off of the trigger but it is something to be aware of. LIS is not deadly to humans, or to Hunters, unless a Vampire is shooting it. It does sting when one of these two entities is hit by it. Please keep in mind, however, that since you are a Hunter, you can kill Guardians if you shoot them with LIS. You will be required to spend an extensive amount of time in our training modules learning the difference between Vampires and Guardians before we even consider allowing you to take the Berreta outside of this learning environment. Understood?”
“I have a quick question,” Cadence said, hoping for some clarity. “Why do most of the movies and books out there on monsters say that silver bullets kill werewolves but not Vampires, if silver really is lethal to Vampires?
“I have some theories on that,” Shane admitted, “But basically, the answer is they just don’t get it. Confusion, maybe. I tend to think it’s a conspiracy on the part of the Vampires. You ask Aaron that and mention a conspiracy; he’ll laugh right in your face. Bottom line is this, best way to kill a Vampire, rip his MFin’ head off. Second best way, silver to the heart? Got it?
Cadence nodded and so he moved on to the next weapon. “Now this is a modified Glock. Because of the size of the Glock, it does not shoot LIS. We load these suckers with the real deal, silver bullets. Naturally, you can imagine these weapons are highly dangerous because they carry actual bullets, which can also kill humans. So, with this weapon
, you can basically kill any entity. Which means, if a Vampire gets his grimy hands on one of these and fires it at a Hunter, they will most certainly drop-dead just as quickly as any other being. I'm sure you know by now that Vampires cannot kill Guardians, but they can kill Hunters with any weapon at their disposal. Though they usually prefer not to use guns, they can, and sometimes they do. You may or may not be aware that the original Glock does not come with a safety feature. However, ours are thoroughly modified with a top-of-the-line safety mechanism, which you engage and disengage here,” he said, demonstrating the safety to her.
After Shane took her through the steps of making sure the safety was on, how to take it off, and how to tell the difference, he showed her how to load the weapons and the best way to use the viewfinder for both of the weapons, especially since she was right eye dominant because the IAC could potentially interfere with the right eye’s ability to focus correctly. It took a little while for Cadence to become accustom to holding her eyes the way he instructed her, to and she found it much easier to aim if she had all of her visuals off so she practiced turning them on and off quickly as she shot at the targets in the gun range.
Once she had gotten used to the weapons and done some target practice, the next step was to use the practice module LIGHTS had available. This was a simulated walk through, utilizing holograms to represent all three Passels of the Ternion. So, as she listened to Shane’s instructions, Cadence realized, she would have to determine quickly who was and who was not a Vampire. If she accidentally shot a Hunter in the simulation, she would receive a 2-point deduction. If she accidentally shot a Guardian, she would be put on probation, sent back through the initial training and mandated to spend at least one week solely on target practice with no module practice. They took shooting Guardians very seriously around here, and she understood why.
The goal was to score at least 30-points on three consecutive turns through the simulation. Each Vampire kill was worth 5-points and there were twenty Vampires within the five minutes of the module. The module changed each time so it was not possible to rely on one’s memory to pinpoint where to find the bad guys without risking taking out one of the good guys.