by P. T. Hylton
Hope was keeping to herself as well, but her demeanor seemed less upset and more reflective, as if she was going over the events of the mission second by second in her mind. Her hand occasionally went to the side of her head.
Alex touched her arm. "You okay?"
Hope nodded slowly. "I've got some ringing in my right ear, but shipshape other than that." She nodded towards Chuck and lowered her voice when she spoke again. "Don't be too hard on him. It's my fault as much as his. I should've gotten out of the way. Or taken on the vampire myself."
For a moment, Alex wasn't sure what to say. She had assumed Hope would be angry at Chuck. Alex certainly would've been. "It wasn't your fault. You stayed in formation."
"Yeah, but the vampire was in my quadrant. He was my responsibility. I should've taken him out before Chuck even had the chance to fire.”
Technically, she was correct. The vampire was in her area of responsibility. Still, that was all the more reason for Chuck to not take a shot.
"You did fine," Alex assured her. "You kept your composure. You faced off against your first vamp, and you didn't freak out. That’s a pretty good start.”
Ed and Patrick sat across the aisle, excitedly recapping the events of the mission.
"You did pretty well, Ed," Patrick said with a sly smile. "It's a shame I had to take out that vampire for you."
Ed's eyes grew large. "What are you talking about? I blew its head off while you were shooting its shoulders."
Patrick shook his head. "No, I don't think so. Did you see the angle the head fell? The kill shot definitely came from my direction.”
Alex glared at them. "You're pretty proud of yourselves, are you?"
Patrick shrugged. "First time facing vampires. We walked away and they didn't. Seems like a win to me."
Alex fought the conflicting urges to smile and to walk over and smack the man. On the one hand, she completely understood where he was coming from. Hell, it hadn't been that long ago she'd been saying very similar things to CB. On the other hand, she couldn't afford that kind of naïveté on the team.
“We walked away because there were only three of them. I've never seen vampires so groggy. You guys acted as individuals, not as a team. If there'd been more than three of them, or if it'd been nighttime, they’d be licking our blood off their lips right now."
"Captain Goddard." It was Owl speaking through Alex's earpiece. "It's time to check in with CB. You want to give him the mission report, or should I?”
Alex touched the radio on her chest. “Nah, I got it." It was as good an excuse as any to get away from her team for a bit.
She made her way to the cockpit, and plopped down on the seat next to Owl.
Owl glanced at her and grinned. "Newbies, huh?”
“You said it." Then, remembering she was the captain now, she quickly added, “They’ll be okay. They just need to get into the swing of things a little."
She hailed CB and gave him the full report, including the number of vamps they'd killed. She considered leaving out the part where Chuck had almost shot Hope, but she decided she better not start her new position with a lie of omission.
"You want me to talk to them?" CB asked.
"No. Training and discipline both fall under my jurisdiction. I'm on it."
"Good." He paused for a moment. "I hope you liked the prison."
Alex raised an eyebrow. "Yeah? Why's that?”
"Because Fleming’s pushing hard. You're going to be spending a lot of time down there in the next few weeks."
7
Jaden arrived in the conference room before the others, and he took his seat near the head of the table. Over the past few hundred years, he’d gotten pretty good at time management.
He’d purposely scheduled this meeting for shortly before sunrise, as he did most meetings with the human leaders. It allowed him a hard out, so the conversations couldn’t go on too long.
The vampires and humans in Agartha mostly stayed apart, mostly because the vampires slept all day. Many humans in the city had absolutely no contact with Jaden and his team. Jaden liked it that way. It kept things clean. The vampires did their job of keeping the humans alive, and the humans did… whatever it was humans do. It had been so long since Jaden had been one himself that he barely remembered.
The others trickled in over the next few minutes. Robert―Jaden’s fellow vampire and right-hand man―sat across from Jaden. The other two, George from Engineering and Cynthia, the human leader of Agartha, entered together. As always, Cynthia took the seat at the head of the table. Positions of power were important to humans, and it didn’t much matter to Jaden what chair he sat on. It was all short-sighted, silly human concerns to him.
Along with time management, the years had brought a bit of perspective and the ability to find amusement in the fleeting things too many humans stressed over.
After they’d exchanged greetings, Cynthia got right to the purpose for their meeting. “Our communications department let me know they’re getting low on copper. If they’re project is going to stay on track, they need more.”
“No problem. We’ll make that a priority on our next supply run.” Jaden waited for her to continue. That information could have easily been conveyed in a quick radio communication. She clearly wanted to talk about more than that. He suspected he knew what was coming next; he’d been waiting for it since the New Haven crew had shown up on their doorstep in desperate need of help.
She looked Jaden in the eye. “How long have you known about the existence of New Haven?”
There it was.
He didn’t hesitate before responding. “Ever since it was built. A hair under two hundred years, give or take a decade.”
Cynthia gritted her teeth as she always did when unsuccessfully trying to hide her anger. “So why’d you keep it to yourself? Didn’t you think the fact that we were not the last humans on Earth might have been important for us to know?”
“No, actually.”
George and Cynthia exchanged a glance, and George cleared his throat nervously. “Could you elaborate?”
Jaden smiled patiently. Sometimes he felt like he spent half his time trying to get humans to think rationally. It was a battle he only occasionally won, but it was always an interesting challenge. “There are only two slivers of humanity left. Agartha and New Haven. We decided early on that it would be safer to keep them apart.”
“Why?” George asked. “From a practical perspective, wouldn’t it be easier to survive if we worked together? If we shared ideas. Resources. New Haven travels to places we can’t. It’s much easier for them to get supplies from anywhere on Earth.”
Good old George, always thinking like an engineer.
“From a practical perspective, sure,” Jaden agreed. “But we had to think more broadly than that.”
Cynthia’s eyes narrowed. “Explain.”
“At the end of the infestation, things got bad.” Jaden briefly considered how deep to delve into this topic. Some of the things he’d seen―things done by vampires to humans and things done by humans to themselves―he still didn’t like to think about. It was the stuff of nightmares, even for a vampire as old as he was. Those were dark times; times when the light of humanity very nearly went out.
After a few moments, he decided not to elaborate. It was difficult for the humans of Agartha to comprehend the scope of the pre-infestation world. Which meant they couldn’t very well understand what its destruction had been like.
“Let’s say a leader with evil intentions takes control of one city or the other,” Jaden explained. “Or maybe worse, a foolish leader. It’s not inconceivable that a city could be wiped out because of a few foolish decisions. Not with all the Ferals roaming the Earth. Now imagine that leader controlling both cities.”
“So New Haven is the backup plan in case we blow it?” George asked.
Robert smiled. “Depends on your perspective. Maybe we’re the backup plan.”
“The point is,” Jaden inter
jected, “we’ve kept the cities apart for a reason. If our people who have spent their lives inside a mountain find out there’s a city on an airship travelling the globe, don’t you think they’ll want to take a ride?”
“I know I do,” George said.
“Exactly. And the same goes for the people of New Haven. If they find out about a safe city on the surface, I’ll bet a bunch of them will want to declare their endless voyage at an end. I say we keep the existence of New Haven secret for now.”
Cynthia frowned. “I see your logic, but we’ll have to do a better job keeping any visitors from New Haven contained. Too many people know already for us to keep this secret forever.”
“Speaking of visitors,” George said, “it looks like we’re getting another one. Jessica would like to pay us a visit. She wants to work with me and exchange information. Even if the general populations of our two cities can’t work together, maybe our engineers can.”
Jaden nodded slowly. “That’s smart. And it will give us the chance to extract more information about New Haven.”
A sly smile crept across Cynthia’s face. “So you’re not above all our conniving human ways after all.”
“It’s not conniving, it’s just caution. There’s so much we don’t know about New Haven. Their political structure, the quality of their living conditions, their general outlook on life. For all we know, they’ve started a religious cult that worships the moon.”
“Now that would be information we could use,” Robert joked. “We can say the moon told us they’re supposed to give us all their food.”
Jaden ignored the comment. “Caution is the name of the game here. Ideally, we want a healthy, productive relationship with New Haven, but we have to be ready for things to go the other way. I’m going to have my team prepare the surface-to-air missiles in case of an attack.”
“Agreed,” Cynthia confirmed. “If they want to be friends, we can make that happen, but we’re not going to sit here like suckers if they try to take advantage of us. Their city is a flying fortress for all we know.”
Jaden raised a finger. “The thing about flying fortresses is that they can be shot down. I much prefer my fortresses on solid ground. If it comes to a fight, we won’t be the ones tumbling out of the sky.”
CB’s morning was not going well. He’d already had to stomach a meeting with Fleming, who’d told him he wanted more frequent reports. Never mind that CB was already up to his eyeballs in administrative work.
Work he should be doing now. Instead, he was heading to Sparrow’s Ridge looking for an old friend.
The GMT was off serving as the world’s most highly trained transportation service and delivering Jessica down to Agartha. CB hoped he’d have good news to share with Alex when she got back.
He found the man he was looking for in badge headquarters in Sparrow’s Ridge.
Kurtz’s eyes lit up when he saw his old friend. “Ah, my fellow Colonel!”
CB grinned. “Who ever thought the two of us would be running the GMT and the badges, huh?”
“Certainly not our mothers. They thought we’d wind up on the other side of the jail bars.”
CB chuckled. “Ain’t that the truth. Listen, is there somewhere private we can talk?”
Kurtz led him to an office in the back of the building. When the door was shut and they were both seated, Kurtz folded his hands on the desk. “So, what’s up?”
CB hesitated, not sure where to begin.
A slow smile crept across Kurtz’s face. “Let me save you the trouble. You want to know how I feel about Fleming.”
Now it was CB’s turn to smile. “Talk about cutting right to it.”
“Hell, Brickman, you don’t have to be coy with me. I know he had you locked up after he blew up the council. I imagine you’re not a big fan of the guy.”
“That’s an accurate statement,” CB allowed. “Where do you stand on the matter?”
Even though they were alone and the door was shut, Kurtz leaned forward and spoke softly. “Fleming killed his political rivals, took control of the city, and is hiding the crime. I’m the top badge in New Haven. How the hell do you think I feel about him?”
“Good,” CB said. “I figured as much. If he thought he could buy us off with promotions, he’s got another thing coming.” He paused. “When you say you’re against him, how far are you willing to go?”
Kurtz thought about that a moment. “As far as I need to. But it won’t be easy.”
“I know. The public loves him.”
“It’s not just that,” Kurtz said. “He called me in yesterday and gave me a list of badges who are being reassigned to the Resettlement project under your old pal Firefly. Nearly half my people. And it just so happens they’re the ones who aren’t big fans of Fleming and his plans.”
CB’s face went pale. “You’re kidding me.”
“Afraid not. It’s sort of genius, really. He sends his political rivals to the surface. If they survive, great, his plan for Resettlement worked and he’s a hero. If something happens… well, that’s very sad, but at least it wasn’t his people that got it.”
CB put a hand to his mouth. “This is insane.”
“And it’s not just us,” Kurtz continued. “The way I hear it, Fleming supporters just happen to be getting promotions in nearly every department in New Haven. You ask me, we need to take him down.”
“My thoughts exactly,” CB agreed. “I’m working on Firefly. But we need hard evidence if we’re going to convince the people a military coup is the answer.” He paused a moment, studying the other man’s face. “Why are you smiling, Kurtz?”
“Because I know something Fleming doesn’t. There’s a hidden security camera in the council chambers.”
CB’s eyes widened as he took in the implications of his friend’s words. “We’d be able to see who planted the explosives.”
“Exactly. The tape holds months’ worth of video. We just have to get it from the camera without anyone noticing.”
“That I can handle,” CB said.
Jessica looked at the broken fifty-caliber automated gun with amazement. The team had destroyed it when trying to gain access to NORAD. She had assumed it was a normal weapon. Now she saw how incorrect she’d been.
It turned out it was a railgun.
The engineering behind it was amazing. It used an electromagnetic catapult design to hurl its ammunition at an incredible speed. It used only a minimal amount of energy and took away the need for gunpowder, something that was always difficult to acquire.
And this was just one small example of the technology she’d seen in this place. And she’d only been here a few hours.
Coming to Agartha had been so much better than she expected. She’d spent most of her time with George so far, and they’d instantly connected. She could talk to him in a way that would have gone over the head of anyone on New Haven. It was amazing how liberating it felt to talk with someone on her mental level.
Beyond that, she genuinely liked the man, and he seemed to enjoy their conversations just as much as she did.
George spoke, interrupting her thoughts. “What do you think? Would you like to help me rebuild it?”
She was so surprised at the offer, it took her a moment to answer. Letting her help rebuild the weapon would give her an intimate knowledge of the technology, knowledge she could take back to New Haven and theoretically use to advance their weapons arsenal.
“Yes,” she said as soon as she recovered from the surprise.
“Excellent,” George said, genuine excitement in his voice.
Agartha had a much stronger focus on technology than New Haven, and it was taking Jessica a while to adjust to their reality. Everything in New Haven was focused on the perpetual movement of the ship and efficient use of resources. But here the priorities were defense and comfort. The best part was that the Agarthans seemed happy to share. Jessica couldn't wait to take all of the knowledge that she had gained back to New Haven.
She�
��d seen some amazing things. A classroom filled with young children learning pre-infestation history. An automated vertical farm filled with rows and rows of plants being nourished by grow lights; a place that George said fed everyone in the city despite its surprisingly small size. Even an auditorium George said was used for performances of ancient plays.
For her own part, Jessica had gone back and forth about how much to reveal about New Haven. In the end, she’d told him that her city was in a confined space where they needed to maximize usage of every square foot, just like Agartha. If he was annoyed by her lack of candor, he didn’t let on.
“Can I ask you something?” she asked as they stood over the damaged railgun.
“Of course.”
“What do the vampires here eat?” She paused a moment, then quickly added, “I’m sorry if that’s a rude question. I’m not sure the of the etiquette. The only vampires I’d seen before coming here were more the rip-your-face-off type rather than the have-a-conversation type.”
“Not rude at all. Perfectly logical.” He started walking toward the door. “Come on. I’ll show you.”
She followed him through a twisting corridor to a door with a large red cross on it. He swiped his keycard, then he ushered her into the room.
“Since the sun’s still up, we’ll have the place to ourselves,” he said.
The room was refrigerated, and the cold prickled at her skin. Or maybe it was the sight of shelves lined with hundreds of bags of blood.
“What is this?” she asked over the hum of the cooling system. “Where’s it come from?”
“It’s donated. The people volunteer to give a little blood every month or so.”
“You’re kidding.” She turned slowly, doing mental calculations. There had to be hundreds of gallons of human blood in this room.
“You mentioned our focus on efficiency. This is just another example. We need vampires to help us survive, and we help them survive. All without the loss of life.”