by Adam Thielen
Matthias ducked behind one of the cushioned chairs. The blast ripped it to shreds, stinging Matthias with a few bits of metal and wooden shrapnel. Without slowing, he pushed the chair toward the man. The ninja shot again as the chair reached the barrel. It tore a wide hole through the back of the chair where Matthias’s chest had been a moment before.
In turn, Matthias toppled the chair on top of the man, the barrel of the shotgun pierced the hole. He grabbed the barrel and yanked it away. The ninja kicked against the chair, rolling backward to his feet. He brandished a long knife and leapt toward Matthias. Matthias let go of the gun and grabbed the man’s wrist. The ninja tried to jerk his hand free and failed. He delivered two quick strikes to Matthias’s temple.
Matthias let go, feinting backward before jumping forward with his knee outstretched. The feint fooled the ninja, who lunged forward into Matthias’s knee, the blow landing directly on his solar plexus. He stumbled and fell backward into a fetal position, clutching at his chest. Matthias grabbed the shotgun and walked to where the man lay. He reached down and ripped the black hood from the man’s head. The ninja was another vampire. Matthias aimed the shotgun and fired as the man released a scream in protest. His face caved inward and blood splattered outward. No vapors. No sulfur. This vampire was very dead.
The pain and new wounds outstripped Matthias’s remaining adrenalin. He flopped onto the remaining pristine chair. “Did you get all that?”
Ms. Koch’s voice came through Matthias’s earpiece. “Uh… yes Matthias. Are you—,” she thought better of asking, “They have the scientist and the data. Shit”
“What is this all about, Koch?” Matthias spent the next few moments in silence.
“A corporate researcher came to me proposing this theft a month ago,” she sighed then inhaled audibly. “He claimed that there was a new tech in the wild, interacting with minds, people’s minds, while they slept.”
“Neuroscape,” he laughed. “It’s too obvious.”
“Perhaps. But I read his report. It was thorough. It was brilliant in fact. If it didn’t sound fantastic, I would have paid more attention.”
“Brilliant how?” Matthias asked.
“He didn’t just sift through data streams for keywords. He made seemingly random assumptions, then used those assumptions to find outliers in corporate activity. For example, he assumed that new technology with such implications would not be developed through a real corporation but a dummy. So he started analyzing the finances of every non-major corporation for oddities.”
“There must have been a lot of those,” Matthias countered.
“True, but when you already have assumptions of the nature of the technology and an assumption of working through a dummy, it’s much easier to filter through the discrepancies. Then he decided that the common barrier to technology that did fantastic things was energy or material requirements. The usage or procurement of which cannot be done completely undetected.”
“Okay, this guy was just really bored.”
“I only had met him one other time. He was eccentric perhaps.”
“Was?” queried Matthias.
“No one has seen him since a few days before the fiend incident began. I fear the worst now.”
Matthias wiped blood off of his nose. “So Neuroscape was a dummy using a lot of power or some rare material. Is this connected to my dream? Is this connected to Kate?”
“Your dream?”
“Right. I neglected to mention it. I encountered the fiend in a dream after it tore me a new one at the hotel.”
“Matthias, no more secrets please,” she sighed. “We believe Neuroscape is Grapeseed’s dummy. So yes in a way it is connected to Kate. The whole thing smells of something bigger.”
“They likely have someone on the inside. Grapeseed showing up to collect the fiend, now this,” Matthias said.
“Could have been Frank both times.”
“Suppose. You tracking these guys at all?”
“We have a trajectory on a helicopter that may have been them, but it’s not heading to Cupertino,” she explained. “Are you going to make it out of there?”
“Yes,” Matthias stated. “Eventually. The sun’s starting to rise, so it may be a while.”
He wondered if Frank would be back to finish him. He scooted the chair around to face the doorway to the room with his feet. With a pistol in one hand and shotgun in the other, he waited.
* * *
Frank Kerwin was not terribly ambitious. Almost all turnings were accidental in the early post-collapse years. Not Frank’s. He sought out vampires and paid for the privilege in a time when most believed the nocturnal beings were the subjects of fiction only. Frank was afraid and becoming a vampire was his attempt to remove that fear. He woke up every night in a cold sweat in a panic. Darkness surrounded him and it would not relent. It would not relent and the feeling never dulled. He wasn’t afraid of death though. Not more than anyone else. Frank was afraid of aging, of becoming irrelevant, helpless, and pathetic. At two in the morning, more days than not, he thought of nothing else.
He found a group of relatively young vampires and convinced them that he was serious. They were a fairly jovial lot, but after considering his request, they gave him all manner of dire warnings. First the obvious: You will die in the sunlight. You will have a thirst that will never be quenched without drinking blood. Your appearance will change. Then less obvious: You will develop odd allergies. Your personality will change. Not change, so much as adjust. And finally, you will obey vampire law and answer to the council when required. He didn’t care about any of these things. He wanted strength, virility. He even wanted the paleness. Thirst would be better than the lethargy he felt during his waking hours. Bring it on.
They partially drained his body; then Frank drank their blood, a little from each one. But something strange happened after the ritual: Frank didn’t change, at least not at all like they told him he would. His skin did lighten by a few shades, but his skin tone stayed well within the range of normal. He had no allergic reaction to garlic and a muted response to being stuck with a silver needle. He was stronger, but there were regular humans who were just as strong.
In fact, the vampires were not convinced he had turned at all. They were not kind to him. They beat him and cut him to test his healing, which of course was slower than any vampire’s they had seen. When they grew bored of tormenting him, they decided a final test was in order. Frank was tied to an auto lift inside of an abandoned mechanic’s garage with the door facing east. The door was opened at five A.M. The others watched from safe cover as the sun rose in front of Frank. He was not afraid, but as the light intensified he felt the heat on his skin. It went from mild to excruciating within a few minutes. He began to scream and thrash about in agony.
What he did not do, is die. He didn’t burst into flame. He didn’t even smoke a little. The bastards left him for hours as the sun moved slowly upwards. Throughout the morning his exposed skin changed from normal to pink, from pink to red, and from red to dark red. After the first hour, his body only twitched periodically, completely drained of the energy necessary to fight or cry out in pain.
By noon, the sun moved out of direct view and only ambient light entered the garage. It was still uncomfortable, but to Frank that discomfort was almost a euphoric relief. He slowly began to recover his motor functions. He eventually wriggled free of the rope, finding that the others had retreated to an inner office to sleep. He removed the blinds and boards that covered windows in the outer rooms, thereby increasing the ambient light in the building, even within the office where the others had thought themselves safe. Having fallen asleep with only thin barriers between the sun and themselves, they had grown weak. Frank grabbed them one at a time, gagged them with a rag when they tried to yell, and drug them outside where they burned and died within minutes.
Aided by mages, the council found the charred remains of the sadistic vampires and eventually tracked down Frank. Killing another va
mpire in good standing with the council, for any other reason than absolute provable self-preservation, is grounds for execution. A summary of the situation was put before the council to determine which of them would take it upon them to perform the hearing and carry out the sentence. They read the briefing, to which some of them responded with disbelief. One suggested that he might not qualify as a vampire and therefore wouldn’t be subject to their law. A recent appointment to the council named Peter Guero said that he would assess the ramifications of all rules and violations by all parties involved.
“Do you mean that you plan on sparing this man?”
“Ramifications? Seems pretty clear cut to me.”
“Another of Guero’s projects.”
On it went for a few minutes. Sound and fury. Signifying at the end, only laziness and lack of accountability from a predictable council. Guero indeed spared Frank. The councilman took it upon himself to tutor Frank on vampire politics. He didn’t really care about the circumstances surrounding the killing. To him, Frank was unique and interesting in how muted the vampirism affected his body. He was also competent and willing to kill.
Guero needed allies and earnestly felt that it would be a waste to put down a potentially useful asset to the council. After two months of coaching and menial tasks, he vouched for Frank to the council, asking permission to bring him in as an agent. They agreed, if for no other reason, than for the amusement of watching Frank fail and thereby take a councilman down with him.
* * *
“Welcome back, Frank,” Makida sat behind her desk, as usual. Her voice almost sultry and warm. They said that a thousand years ago, vampires had natural powers. Not like what mages wielded, who affected the material world with their spells. The power of ancient vampires was psionic in nature. Illusion, mind control, telepathy: these were their gifts. Supposedly with each generation removed from the elders, their abilities grew weaker until they were no longer detectable. Makida, Frank was sure, still possessed some of these abilities.
He didn’t know her age, and vampires didn’t discuss the matter openly. To know someone’s age is to tie their birth to a specific time period. It removes the mystique and may even make them vulnerable. Pallor increased over time, and Vampires did age slowly, but at best such clues would provide a ballpark figure.
“Glad to be,” he replied. “We have the scientist, Miller, and a copy of his project data.”
“I heard. I knew you’d get it done,” she smiled. Frank found himself slightly aroused. She looked twenty years his elder and was likely several times his age. Not that these things were all that mattered, but Frank knew his own taste, or at least thought he did. Makida’s demeanor had shifted considerably since their first meeting.
“I have to admit,“ Frank said, grinning slightly. “I am intrigued by your— our interest in this data.”
“You don’t like being in the dark. No one does.” She leaned back into her chair. Scarlet was thin, almost wiry. Her clothing was simple and elegant, fitted perfectly to her body. “Is that all that intrigues you?”
Now Frank was sure she was baiting him. Feelings of lust had crept into his mind and his member had begun to harden. “Uh. No,” he smiled awkwardly. “Guero tells me that Neuroscape was just a Grapeseed R and D front. Are we stealing our own data?”
Makida sighed. “Thompson is on board, but he failed to get us what we needed. He’s a man that can be manipulated, but likes to make excuses. A weak man.” She stood up and stretched her arms into the air, yawning like a young girl, bored of stuffy adult matters. “Not like you.” Scarlet circled the desk toward frank. “You didn’t make excuses.” She stepped close to him. Frank was paralyzed by fear and awe and arousal all working in different directions. “You got what we needed, what I needed.” The ashen woman sat on the edge of the desk in front of Frank, staring into his eyes unblinking. “I think it’s time I told you all about what we are doing. Come to my quarters in ten minutes.”
Frank found his eyes wandering her body as she spoke. “I live to serve,” he grinned as he turned to leave.
“Bring wine,” she called as he reached the door.
Episode 8: The Machine
Small glowing shards, pointed like arrowheads, materialized above Taq’s shoulders and zipped toward a pair of security drones guarding a stairwell. Taq fired ten of them in the space of a second. They left long glowing trails behind them as they homed in on the machines, bots that rested on tripods with large wheels. Armed with infrared vision and an automatic gun, they had not returned fire on the mage because he had blinded them first. The shards ripped through the metal, shredding the machines and piercing circuitry, power cores, and components, leaving them inert.
A small cloud of steam surrounded Taq’s head. He refreshed his ice crown to keep his brain from frying, reserving the freeze-cloth Tamra had given him for when he began to tire. No mistakes today, he thought. He rushed into the open room to his left where Tamra was contending with several Grapeseed security response officers.
The magnetic pulser at her feet was deflecting the bullets fired from two guards, one man and one woman. Tamra fired several shots with her rifle, hitting the woman in the chest. These corpsec were well trained at being evasive. While the pulser excluded triggering from her own gun, any pulses caused by enemy gunfire would still affect her bullets. The first man stopped firing to roll behind cover while two other men rushed Tamra from the sides and a third saw Taq at the doorway and ran at him with a knife drawn.
At Taq’s proximity to Tamra and her polonium, his magic was severely dampened. Each spell opened a small invisible rift into the ethereal plane. The closer the rift, or ether that flowed from it, to Tamra, the less effective the spell would be. He reflexively used telekinesis to knock the man back. The man lost his balance but quickly popped to his feet and charged again.
The two men reached Tamra while she had been firing at the first. One grabbed her arm and the other tackled her, knocking her rifle to the ground. Both began to pummel her. She fought off their blows, but several were getting through.
Taq closed his eyes and clenched his fists. He crossed his arms around his waist then threw them outward. A large telekinetic shockwave originated at his feet. Even dampened, it threw the men off of Tamra and pushed Tamra a shorter distance. It knocked the man with the blade back yet again. Now Taq felt the heat outstripping his ability to cool himself off.
Tamra’s polonium was now fully charged. She rolled with the force and slid on one knee between the two men. She discharged onto both at the same time, frying them.
Taq grabbed Tamra’s rifle and shot the man with the knife. The man behind cover emerged and shot at Taq. The pulser was too far to fully deflect the shot, and it hit Taq’s left arm. Taq spun and fell.
Tamra ran to the pulser and kicked it toward the last of the corpsec. She followed it, ducking left and right as the man tried to adjust his aim to compensate. On his third attempt she lunged forward and connected with a straight right punch to his face. He stumbled back. She grabbed his gun and wrist with both hands, then elbowed him in the face and yanked the gun free. It was locked to his fingerprint. She spun it around, holding it by the barrel and brought the butt down on top of the man’s head. He fell but was still conscious. Tamra hit him repeatedly until he stopped moving. Blood slowly pooled under his head, flowing from his forehead and nose.
Taq groaned in pain and scrambled to his feet. He and Tamra left the room and Taq sealed the door shut, but he knew it wouldn’t hold long. He grasped his wounded bicep and grimaced.
“Shit. Can you get the bullet out?” Tamra asked.
“Need to numb it,” he said through clenched teeth.
“Keep pressure on it. We need to keep moving.”
Earlier, Tamra had found a wheelchair for Kate, who was still too weak to walk. She had waited for them, hidden in another room, armed with a pistol. Having returned victorious, the three now hurried to the stairwell.
“Taq,” said Kate. “
There’re ghouls everywhere.”
Taq looked at Tamra. “What do you mean, everywhere?”
“It’s making headlines all over the world. Some outlets are calling them zombies. They look like the thralls Winter had with him, but they are all over the place. The reports are the only thing airing on news streams now. It won’t be long before they start bringing in experts to blame GMOs, vaccinations, corporations, mages, and vampires.”
“Not in that order,” said Tamra. “Vampires exposed themselves when the government collapsed, knowing that public concern over their existence would be a low priority and difficult to control without a centralized agency. But things are different now, and this will get ugly.”
“Morrison,” uttered Taq.
Kate looked up at Taq. “Maybe.”
“What is a Morrison? Is this the dream stuff again?” asked Tamra.
“Morrison is hard to explain,” started Taq. He started from the beginning, with the shooting of Drew and Amy. Then with the investigation and images of Kate. Kate explained the house she was in and meeting Taq. Taq told them both of his attempt to apprehend Morrison and his subsequent failure.
“I don’t understand any of this,” Tamra shook her head.
“Even Morrison doesn’t seem to, and yet if anyone is behind this, it’s gotta be him.”
“We’ve got to go back,” Kate said.
“I can, but you…”
“I can always die again.” Her voice was flat.
“Don’t do that,” Taq said. “Don’t even say that.”
No one else was inside the stairwell. Bringing up schematics stored only in the building’s maintenance network, Kate discovered that the compound had its own hypertube one floor below. Where it led it did not say. “We need to go down, not up,” she told them. “There’s corpsec outside the building. I don’t see any other way.”