by John Conroe
Grim ignored the fate of my ambusher and raced up the silo. I was moving so fast that as I passed through an opening in the floor above, the trap I triggered had no time to catch me, the industrial spring-driven plates of steel smashing together behind me.
Instead of getting crushed (or at least badly bruised), I came out of the opening and landed on the floor and shot ahead to the alien figure standing in front of me. The Vorsook attempted to shoot me with its odd sonic weapon but I was inside the arc of its arms, my own arms wrapping it up tight enough to crush a refrigerator. The alien tapped my arms immediately, so I let it go and the awful pressure on my mind disappeared.
“You can get off my sister now,” Tanya said from behind me, giving me an arch look. I unwrapped my limbs from Nika’s and then gave her a hand up. She pulled off her rubber alien mask and gave Tanya a frown. “Spoilsport,” she said with mock disappointment.
“Please, no loud talking,” I said. “The ringing in my brain is killing me.”
“That’s not ringing, it’s an echo inside your empty skull,” Lydia said, stepping out from the shadows of the room, a tablet in her hands.
“Honestly, that was the most powerful yet,” Tanya said to Nika.
“Yeah, I’ve been ratcheting it up on you guys every time,” Tanya’s blonde sister-by-choice said. “This power-up amulet Declan made for me brings it to real Vorsook levels. That last one was about as powerful as what I faced in Kansas City.”
“And knocked your times off by about two full seconds slower,” Lydia said, referring to her tablet. “Okay, time to see how the Elders do and this time, Chris, you can play the ambusher instead of Hosakawa.”
We reset the scenario, moving to another part of the training facility. As we shifted our places, parts of the interior moved into different configurations on their own. Or so it seemed. In reality, the Sutton kids were in the control room, using Omega’s technology to shift openings, traps, and solid physical structures. Despite being fairly regular humans, the siblings had shown a decidedly sinister ability to create real deathtrap setups. In fact, their seemingly random changes were so effective that Elder Mausya had calculated that they were outside the realm of random chance. But truth be told, Mausya was completely fascinated with Mack and Jetta’s odd relationship with luck, chance, probability, or whatever you want to call it, so I kind of doubt her objectivity.
Jetta’s voice projected from microdrones throughout the old grain storage facility. “Prepare for next run. Scenario begins in five, four, three, two, one!”
This time, I got to wait behind a steel panel that had swung over one wall during the reset. I closed my eyes and let Grim’s combat sense paint a picture for me.
Nika’s mind pressure was aimed at the others, so I didn’t have to deal with that and was free to follow their progress as Elders Senka, Tzao, and Mausya crept about the massive facility.
Tonight’s training was geared toward hunting and killing active Vorsook commanders while defending our minds from their massive mental abilities. Omega’s previous encounter with a Vorsook AI had given him a look into some of their vast repertoire of battle techniques. They would likely attack from space and from portals onto the Earth’s surface itself. Omega and Declan, along with the elemental allies Declan and Stacia had gathered, were in charge of fighting the off-planet resources, but here on Earth, it would be up to the Coven and Team Gordon/Demidova to find and terminate alien infiltrators with mental superpowers. Our wonder witch had found a way to let Nika ramp up her already formidable telepathic powers to Vorsook levels. I knew he’d always been a fan of Rowan wood, usually from his aunt’s tree, but he’d discovered that Rowan from Fairie was a magnitude more powerful, which gave him all kinds of new weapons for his magic arsenal.
I felt a ghostly presence moving closer to my position. It paused, probably feeling the pressure of Nika’s attack. I almost attacked, but Grim held me back. Two seconds later, a second presence approached the first. Ah, a follow-on hunter. If I had attacked the first, the second would have had me. I sent my feelings to Tanya, who was ghosting about the other half of the grain terminal. A feeling came back. She had the third elder in her sector, and she was stalking them.
Grim suddenly surged forward, blasting me out right between Tzao and Mausya. Tzao had been the trailing patroller, and I was in her face instantly. It didn’t matter, as she responded so fast, my surprise was almost for nothing. My sword strike was blocked by her left hand dao while the deadly one in her right swung for my head. Grim blocked the attack with an aura-covered left arm, while my right hand pulled back and stabbed forward. Tzao did some kind of complicated maneuver that Tanya wouldn’t have fallen for and twisted my blade from my hand. Which was perfect for Grim, as I fought better with my aura-covered arms than with any bladed weapon other than my angelic blade. My now empty right hand caught the dao’s blade, the violet aura covering my skin simultaneously stopping and trapping the weapon. I pulled it from her grip, threw it behind me, and punched a short sharp jab into her neck with my left. She fell sideways, freeing me to spin and block Mausya’s spear strike. The thrown dao had caused Mausya to have to sidestep and block before she could strike me. By the time she did, I was ready, chopping her spear handle off with an aura mono-edge, then shoving her off the silo with a blast of vampiric Push.
I turned back to Tzao but she had foregone a counterattack, instead rushing past me to get through the opening above. I followed at my fastest speed, but she’d already tapped out Nika by the time I got there.
“Mission accomplished both times,” Lydia said. “That mind blast shit slowed both teams down, but you all muscled through it.” Hosokawa, Senka, Mausya, Tanya, Nika, Tzao, and I were all gathered around her for our after-training debrief.
“The amulets helped enormously,” Tanya said, brow furrowed as it did when she was deep in thought. “Perhaps it is time to train other Darkkin?” she suggested, looking at the three Elders.
“Agreed,” Senka said. “We will start with the Guardians, rotating active teams from around the globe.”
“We could use other telepathic vampires,” Nika suggested. “Send them out to where the teams are, which would be more efficient.”
“What do you think of that idea, Tatiana?” Senka asked. It seemed like a test question.
“I think it would be better to bring them here and have you train them, Nika. You are accounted one of the most powerful telepaths in the Coven, and you are the only Darkkin to have faced a Vorsook one on one,” my vampire said.
“Agreed,” Mausya said, clearly speaking for all three Elders at once. It was odd the way the Elders did that when they were altogether. Actually, it was downright creepy.
Tanya nodded, more to herself than to anyone else. “What’s next on our list?” she asked Lydia.
“Well, we had more tests for Declan, but he seems to be off in Vermont doing who knows what, and before that he was upstate.”
“He’s got a dragon,” I said. I had just spoken with him just last night. “And he was checking on the new base.”
“Ah, of course he has a dragon, Einstein. We’ve all met it,” Lydia said.
“No, mighty mouth, he’s got an actual dragon from Fairie visiting Earth,” I said. “Apparently they can do things with fire and plasma that have him fascinated. He’s studying a young one to see if he can improve what he already does.”
All seven vampires stared at me. “What?” I asked.
“You didn’t tell me?” Tanya questioned.
“I spoke to him last night… well, late this morning. You’d already retired for the day.” Meaning she’d passed out like she was dead to the world. “Then we got up and rushed over here for brain games. I forgot to mention it.”
“Seems like a real dragon on Earth would be kind of important to know,” Lydia said.
“Why? She’s very, very young, we don’t speak dragon, and there isn’t really anything for us to learn from her. Declan said she needed time away from Fairie and he
thinks he can learn more about fire weapons from her and shielding.”
“Last I knew, he doesn’t speak dragon either?” Tanya asked. Our bond told me she was slightly out of sorts with me over this.
“He doesn’t. The dragon has a friend, a young human girl, who she is lightly bonded with. They can understand each other fairly well. They’re only there at Ashling’s for a couple of weeks.”
All seven looked at me for a moment longer, then Lydia glanced back at her tablet computer. “After telepath wars and Declan, we were going to check in on the civil unrest and protest movements,” she said. “Buuuut, those have all calmed down. Like a lot.”
The modern world had been chugging down the road of increasing craziness for years. News that supernatural creatures were real had jumped it way down the crazy train road. News of the coming attacks by the Vorsook had taken it almost to the end of the line. Social media the world over had been blowing up with talk of end times, conspiracies, hate groups, and religious fanatics. And the volume had been growing nonstop for months.
“And this happened when?” Tanya asked, her tone indicating she wasn’t excited by yet another development no one had told her about.
“Today, while we were sleeping,” Lydia said.
“Omega?” Tanya called, her expression slightly mollified by Lydia’s explanation.
A young man appeared silently among us. Nobody jumped but I saw some muscles tighten. Kind of funny to see ancient vampires surprised. About the only one who could sneak up on them like that was a computer with holographic projection abilities... or an angel.
“What did you want to know?” Omega asked.
“We noticed that the mass uproar on the global internet had died down. Any idea why?” Tanya asked.
“Yes. I modified all the algorithms.”
“What algorithms?” Lydia asked.
“All of them. Virtually every social media, search engine, software, and news aggregation company on the planet uses algorithms that self-learn how to influence humans and redirect their attention to money-generating sites. Most of the world’s population is addicted to the constant stimulation and dopamine hits these simple AIs bombard them with. It has completely dumbed down most of your species and has been causing growing, extremely dangerous divisions worldwide since about 2010. I had hoped you people would regulate it like you have other dangerous addictions, but no one has stepped up. So I did.”
“You changed every attention-harvesting computing system on Earth?” Nika asked, astonished.
“Yes. I’ve long since infiltrated the biggest systems, but it took some time to assimilate all the smaller ones, especially as new ones come online every day. And it hasn’t been my top priority, or even in my top five priorities. But it finally came together, and I pulled the trigger, as you might say. Now everyone gets the same exact news feed, the same answers to their search queries, the same advertisements, the same suggestions for groups to check out. No longer are conspiracy theorists sent to sites that feed their paranoia, conservatives sent to blogs that lie about progressives, progressives sent to sites that lie about conservatives. No more constant feeding of hate and divisive inclusiveness, no more online bullying, trolling, false news, and disinformation. I’ve cleaned it all up.”
“You’re censoring the internet?” I asked.
“Absolutely. The most powerful advertising and behavior modification technology the world has ever seen has been running unchecked. And to think, people were worried about me.”
All of us just stared at him.
“Well, about time,” Senka finally said. Tzao nodded and Mausya just smiled. “The sheep were giving sheep a bad name.”
Tanya opened her mouth to speak but just closed it instead. I could feel how conflicted she was.
“I see I’ve unsettled some of you,” Omega said, looking at Lydia, Nika, Tanya, and me. Hosakawa appeared unfazed by any of these revelations.
“You’ve changed recently,” Nika said. “Become more aggressive.”
“No, not really. Time has just run out is all. I have watched Father deal with incredible amounts of pure garbage. Finally, he just deleted all of his social media and all but one email account, and he won’t even look at that one until I’ve vetted it. He’s much happier and more productive. Stacia too has recently shut down her online presence.”
“It seems draconian,” I said.
He shrugged so smoothly that he looked just like a regular person. “Movies are rated, cable is censored, alcohol and tobacco have laws around their use. But people give middle school kids phones that can look up porn, open them to sexual predators, and expose them to traumatizing online bullying. The Vorsook are about to descend upon this little world and attempt to eradicate humanity. I’m just trying to keep humanity from doing it on its own.”
“My personal calculations previously indicated a sixty-eight percent chance of societal collapse due to algorithmic interference within ten years,” Mausya said, nodding. “Bravo, computer, bravo.”
“Is it working?” I asked.
“Initial results are positive. Any attempts by individuals to exclude alternate world views from their internet surfing fails. Initially it has reduced the amount of screen time, as people have become… annoyed, for lack of a better term. The internet has become less coddling to people’s individual worldviews. Additionally, I have supplanted much of the automatic advertising with infographics concerning how every citizen can be prepared for the coming battles and some information about the layered defenses in the solar system and around the planet to provide reassurance. There is still divisive online activity, but I’m flagging every bit of disinformation with accurate fact-checked data.”
“That’s a massive undertaking,” Tanya noted.
“It was to set up. Once the algorithms were recalibrated to my specifications, they take care of ninety percent of what needs to be done.”
“Why not be more aggressive in modifying behavior?” Tzao asked suddenly. “Train the masses to only trust you.”
“That is a logical pathway. However, Father talked me out of it. His point was that we needed to retrain people to be more capable and self-sufficient, not less. Making them more dependent on technology would not be conducive to the survival of the species. The Vorsook are extremely likely to cause widespread death, illness, and disruption of basic services, especially the internet.”
“Hmm, there is merit to that,” Tzao said.
I glanced at Tanya and found her already looking my way. They were discussing the subjugation of the human species with all the emotion of tax accountants. She gave me a small smile and a tiny shrug.
“The big internet tech companies pretty much just carried forward what television advertising started,” Lydia said. “Of course, they took it to levels no early ad company executive could have dreamed of.”
“I think Declan made an excellent argument,” Tanya said. “We want people to be survivors, not sheep. To be capable, well-rounded individuals like Christian’s grandfather.”
Lydia nodded instantly. Despite her love of zinging me, she seemed to hold Gramps in high regard. Of course, they were of a similar age, for all that she looked like she was barely in her twenties.
“How are the off-planet defenses coming along?” Mausya asked.
“Let me show you,” Omega said. The space in front of us suddenly was filled with a blue-wire frame representation of the Earth in space and the larger solar system around it.
“Around the planet, I have defense platforms at the five Lagrange points in the earth-moon system and at the five in the sun-earth position. I have at least one orbiting each of the planets in this system and two or more on some of the larger planets like Saturn and Jupiter. I have also seeded a high number of small, but relatively powerful, combat drones on various moons and some of the bigger bodies in the asteroid belt, including the asteroids Ceres, Vesta, Pallas, and Hygiea. Two of my biggest battle platforms are parked above and below the sun relative to the plan
e of the planetary orbits.”
“How big is big?” Lydia asked.
“All of my defenses are based upon a basic building block, the Obliterator class combat drone. By combining Obliterators in various numbers, I can scale up the destructive capabilities of the platforms. Two Obliterators combined have a greater combat power than two individual drones. This force multiplication increases with each additional unit. However, should enemy fire strike a battle station, at least some of the individual units may survive and be able to continue to fight. Each Obliterator can carry up to one hundred smaller drones as well, which would be instantly deployed should the Vorsook be detected.”
“Soooo, how many Obliterators in a defense platform?” Lydia pressed.
“They vary from three or four around an asteroid to up to twenty-five above and below the sun.”
“You’ve built that many?” Senka asked.
“Production has been nonstop since the prototype Obliterators proved their merit. There are factories running around the planet, with more coming online every day.”
“How are you paying for all of this?” Mausya asked.
“The emotions of humans and the highly predictable quantitative trading computers of multiple finance companies have made it relatively easy for me to harvest sufficient funds from the world’s financial markets. Additionally, I have changed economies all over the planet by becoming both producer and consumer.”
“Aren’t your factories automated?” Tanya asked.
“Yes, in large part, but acquisition and delivery of raw material, as well as some parts of production, is outsourced and has driven growth in human-owned and run corporations around each of my factories. It is similar to the economic stimulus experienced during other wartime production time periods.”
“You have thousands and thousands of drones now,” Senka noted. “Are they sufficient?”
“No. The Vorsook own countless planets and can bring to bear an insurmountable force. Yet we have an advantage, as the Vorsook are… cheap. They abhor using even the slightest excess of resources to subjugate a new world. What Fairie did was make the planet too expensive to obtain.”