by Anton Strout
I swung the bat around in my hands, loving the balance of it.
“You might want to be careful with that around here,” he said, “considering the company.”
“Oh, right,” I said, stopping. I retracted the bat using the keypad on it and slid it into the empty holster on my belt. “Sorry. I should probably go see Brandon. I know he’s waiting to see how things went with the sample.”
“That,” Nicholas said, “and I suspect he’s still waiting to hear whether you’re going to help us with our book of prophecy or not.”
“We’ll see about that,” I said. “I’m not too keen on the whole idea of prophecies, but I think I understand a bit more of your leader now. Let me get moving.” I patted the bat at my side. “I promise I won’t stake any of you. At least not on purpose.” I started for the doors leading back to the elevators.
“Is that more of your modern sarcasm?” Nicholas said, spinning in his chair as his eyes followed me across the room toward the Star Trek doors.
“Something like it,” I said. “Yeah.”
“I like that,” he said. “You remind me of Wren.”
The warmth in his words stopped me in my tracks. I turned back to him. “Great,” I said, giving him a double thumbs-up. “I’ll be sure to let him know in the afterlife. Maybe we can get a cloud together.”
“Sarcasm again,” Nicholas said; then his eyes lit up. “Let me try one . . . umm, oh! Tell Aidan I said hello and that I hope he’s enjoying my beloved companion Beatriz.” Nicholas looked pleased with himself. “Did I do it right?”
I gave him a pained, halfhearted smile.
“Keep working on it,” I said. I spun around again, the doors opening for me as I walked out of them. “Sarcasm takes time to master . . . and if there’s one thing you vamps got, it’s time.”
24
When I arrived at Brandon’s chambers at the top of the castle, he was standing by the circle of chairs over by his viewing area. The screen was paused on a shot of Jason Priestley entering the Peach Pit, and Brandon watched me as I crossed the room to him.
“You don’t seem surprised to see me,” I said.
“Nicholas called ahead,” he said. “Is it true? Have you come to use your powers on the book?”
I walked past him and sat in one of the chairs opposite him by the long-dead fireplace. “I’m not sure yet.”
Brandon looked disappointed. “Oh,” he said. “I see.”
I leaned back in my chair. “I don’t know about you, Brandon, but I’ve had an interesting afternoon.”
Brandon stayed where he was and put his hands to rest on the back of one of the other chairs. “Did you, now?” he said, his grin showing he was at least amused by my being there. “Please . . . do tell.”
I pointed up to the painting over the fireplace of his beloved Damaris. “Do you know the name Allorah Daniels?” I asked.
What little color there was in his face melted away. The smile on his face was gone. The lord of the land looked crestfallen. “I didn’t know the name then, no,” he said, “but you can be sure I found out after the whole incident died down.”
“I’m surprised you let her live,” I said. “Not that I’m sure you would have been the victor, especially now. She’s grown up to be quite a toughie.”
Brandon came around the chair, sat in it, and leaned across to me, his eyes searching my face. “How do you know all this?”
I held up my gloved hands, wiggling my fingers. “I’ve had a very telling psychometric vision.”
“But don’t you have to touch something that belongs to a person to do that?” Brandon’s eyes wandered as the realization hit him. “You’ve seen her?”
I nodded. “Technically speaking, I sort of work for her,” I said. “Allorah Daniels is part of the Department of Extraordinary Affairs.”
Brandon fell back against his chair, shaking his head slowly side to side. “So you know my past,” he said, “and yet you chose to come back here . . . Why?”
“Well, for one thing, your people are trying their best to untangle my girlfriend from your building,” I said. “But the other reason is that I see the faith the people around you have in you. They’re not the type of vampires that I saw in that vision. You’re not the vampire I saw in that vision.”
Brandon’s eyes looked into mine. There was a darkness there. “I will always be that vampire,” he said. “No matter how I choose to act now, I will always be that man.”
“Don’t think I haven’t thought about it,” I said. “This whole kinder, gentler bloodsucker thing has taken a lot of getting used to, but like you told me earlier, if you had wanted a bloodbath, you would have had it. The Brandon I saw from twenty years ago was well on his way to it. So what changed you?” I pointed up to the painting over the fireplace. “Was it her? Was it watching her die?”
Brandon looked up at the painting for a long time before he nodded. “Centuries of stories, centuries of legend telling us what we are, how we’re supposed to be feared,” he said. “No one ever questioned it. We were what we thought we were supposed to be.” His chest rose as he let out a short, bitter laugh. “And certainly no one told me how to process the feelings Damaris and I shared for several centuries. We were prepared to take America and let the streets run red. Ours was a dark and sinister love. When all that went away, when Allorah struck her down, everything changed. Over the centuries, I had forgotten what it felt like to lose someone. The feelings that I had were conflicting. I didn’t dare continue on my path. I locked myself away in here.”
“And that’s when you came across your prophecies,” I said. “You were looking for answers in any piece of your history that you could.”
Brandon stood and walked over to the heavily geared safe I had seen before and began working its many dials. After a few seconds, it clicked and hissed open. When he turned he was holding that sacred vampire tome of his.
“Even more pages have gone missing from the book,” he said. “It seems someone close to me is insistent on starting a holy war between our people.”
“Nicholas is pretty sure whoever sucked Jane into the computer and released the ferals are one and the same. I’d say the missing pages are part of a trifecta of someone forcing a bloodbath before either of our sides make contact.”
Brandon walked over to me. “So,” he said, holding the book out to me. “Will you help us? Will you help me?”
I stood up to face him, man to vamp. “You know, I’ve spent the past year debating the fine differences between good and evil,” I said. “They even teach a few seminars on it. Thing is, I’ve always suspected that what really matters isn’t going to be found in one of their textbooks or a pamphlet.” I nodded, peeling off my gloves. “If my department finds out about this, I’m as good as done, but then again, what did they expect putting me in Other Division?”
Brandon handed the book over to me. “Thank you,” he said.
“Still not sure about your whole me-being-your-savior thing, though,” I said, nervously taking the book from him. Although it was maybe twenty pounds tops, the weight of the responsibility made it seem like it was made of lead.
“I’ll see what I can read off it.”
“See what you can tell me,” Brandon said. He smiled. “I want this saboteur stopped. I’m rather fond of this city. It would be a shame to not see what happens to it over the next few centuries. It would be a shame if our two people couldn’t see it together.”
I sat back down with the book and laid it on the circular table where Brandon’s council usually met. I ignored the fleshlike cover of the book and turned past it quickly. Using care with the pages, I gave it a quick once-over. After the first few pages, English gave way to an unidentifiable tongue that I hazarded a guess was Slavic or something fun like Abyssal.
I shut the book and laid both my bare hands on the leathery cover. I wanted to gag at the thought of it possibly being bound in human flesh, but instead focused and pressed my power into it, hoping to get a glimp
se of whoever had been responsible for all the pages that had gone missing.
I felt my power snap to life as my mind’s eye opened up. Now I would get some answers. That was the last thought I had as I pushed my psychometry into it and promptly passed out.
When I woke, I was staring at the castle ceiling and my head hurt as if I had been drinking all night. I pushed myself up to my elbows and looked around. I was still in Brandon’s chambers, but now on the floor next to the toppled-over chair I had been sitting in. Brandon was staring down at me, unmoving.
“Simon?”
“I’m fine,” I said. “Just had a bad read; that’s all. I’m getting a little sick of how good a job your saboteur has been doing. Hurts my pride more than anything.”
I left out the fact that the back of my head was on fire from where I had no doubt it hit when falling over. I only hoped I wasn’t bleeding for fear Brandon might have a change of heart on the whole peace-on-earth thing with the scent of a snack in the air.
Using just one hand, Brandon helped me up from the floor like I was made of paper. “What did you see?”
When he put me down, I started brushing myself off. “Thanks,” I said. “I’m afraid I didn’t see anything.”
“Nothing?” Brandon leaned over and picked up the book from the floor.
“Nada,” I said. “The same blinding white light that guarded the cellblock and knocked me on my ass is tenfold as strong on this thing.” I shook my head to get my senses back, feeling the cricks in my neck popping. “But it has done something useful.”
“It has?” Brandon asked. “What?”
“It’s got me angry,” I said, “and motivated. I’m sick of getting punched around when trying to use my powers. It’s time I got a little more proactive . . .”
I started walking off across the room toward the heavy oak doors that led back down through the castle.
“Where are you going?” Brandon asked as I walked away from him.
“First things first,” I said, “and that’s getting my girlfriend back.”
25
Being pissed off did a lot for my clarity, or at least my sense of direction. I had no trouble finding my way out of the castle this time and back down the cobblestone trail leading out to the Gibson-Case Center. I headed off in the direction of Nicholas’s control room, stopping only long enough to grab a few cupcakes at one of the restaurants to boost my sugar back up after my battle with the book. The living statues guarding the elevators didn’t even budge as I passed them and headed up to the brains of the Gibson-Case Center.
“You have amazing cupcakes here,” I said as I walked into the main control room. None of the other vampires working there even looked away from their machines, but Nicholas Vanbrugh looked up from the console where he was working.
“Back so soon?” he asked.
“My blood is up,” I said, shoving another cupcake into my mouth, “even if my blood sugar isn’t yet. Is that a problem?”
“No, actually, it’s fine,” he said and waved me over. “I think I may have something. I think we may be just about ready.”
“Good,” I said. “Me, too.” I popped the last bite of cupcake into my mouth.
Nicholas pointed to a list of lines scrolling down his screen. “I’ve isolated several dozen nodes that have been showing erratic activity,” he said. “Flare-ups.”
“So, what?” I said. “Now that they’re isolated, what happens?”
“Well,” he said, “if the machine world is storing Jane digitally, it wants to compartmentalize her to keep her hidden. It’s what I’d do, anyway. I’ve had the system isolating all those anomalous nodes. Then we group all those nodes together and systematically reboot them until they dump Jane out. Once she’s been set back on the mainframe, Jane should be able to reassemble and all is well. In a perfect world, anyway.”
I was hesitant to ask the next question. “And what happens if it’s not so perfect a world?”
Nicholas hesitated and looked kind of sheepish. “In theory, the bonded nodes could sever their ties, tearing her apart into hundreds of tiny clusters within the machine world and self-delete her byte by byte.”
“In theory . . .” I repeated.
Nicholas nodded. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Nothing like this has ever happened before, as far as I’m aware. Either way, Jane’s at risk. The longer she stays in there, the more difficult it’s going to be to retrieve her. And any way you look at it, any attempt to free her is going to be risky. I just want you to know what you’re up against. It’s your call.”
I stood there, silent. I didn’t know what to do. I had come in here all fired up, but the thought of losing Jane while in the process of saving her took me aback. I certainly didn’t want to be responsible for leaving my girlfriend stranded in Tron, but I didn’t want to kill her, either. “What the hell am I supposed to do?”
“I can’t decide that for you,” Nicholas said. He fell back to working at the console where he was seated.
My phone buzzed in my pocket. I pulled it out. The text message icon was flashing. I flipped it open.
DO IT.
I looked up from my phone. The spastic movements of one of the surveillance cameras monitoring the control room caught my eye. The camera was twisting back and forth on its flexible neck. I couldn’t identify the movement at first, but then it hit me—the camera was waving at me.
“Let’s do this,” I said, snapping my phone shut.
Nicholas looked up, surprised. “You sure about that?”
I held my phone up and waved it at him. “Pretty sure. That was her.”
Nicholas didn’t waste any time. He stood up and called out to the room. “Everyone out . . . now! I need the control center cleared.”
“Sir?” a blond-haired technician said, remaining at his post.
Nicholas turned to him, glaring. “Don’t make me ask again. Everyone clear out. Now!”
Like ships jumping to light speed, the crowd of vampires stood and blurred out through the main doors of the control room.
“You think that’s necessary?” I asked.
“For the safety of my people,” Nicholas said. “Yes. Besides, if this goes badly in here, I save a little face sending them out by not making a public spectacle of myself.
“Now, then,” he continued, his spirits seeming to rally with fond memories of Beatriz dancing in his head, “let’s see what we can do to help the damsel in distress.”
“Don’t let Jane hear you call her that,” I whispered, looking around at the cameras in the room. “Your ex isn’t the only one around here willing to give someone a good kick.”
Nicholas started tapping away at the keyboard. “So noted.”
Several windows flashed up on his monitor and I leaned over to try to follow them.
“Here,” he said. “I’ll put them up on the big screen for you. I make less mistakes typing when you’re not watching over my shoulder.”
The wall monitor central to the room blacked out the security feeds to it and Nicholas’s screen now took up the entire wall instead. Even at this size, I couldn’t make heads or tails out of it.
“Let’s pretend I didn’t go to MIT,” I said, “and tell me what you’re doing.”
“Huh?” Nicholas said, looking up. His hands were flying at inhuman speed along several keyboards mounted in the console he was sitting at. “Oh. Sorry. I’m shutting down the anomalous nodes one by one, so they should end up dumping all their packets back into the mainframe. That will hopefully allow them to regroup, and well, we’ll go from there, shall we?”
I watched the wall screen as different sequences of nodes came up on it and closed down. From their color-coding and identifying markers, the nodes looked like they came from every set of building systems.
“Let’s just hope you’re finding all the pieces,” I said, nervous. I was reminded of Star Trek episodes when the Transporter would fail and some mutant creature was formed from pieced-together crew members. I pushed tho
se thoughts out of my head as I watched and waited.
“Almost there,” Nicholas said, giving a final flourish at the keyboard. “Annnnnnd done!”
The remaining machines and consoles in the room whirred to life, drives humming up to speed. The overhead lights dimmed, leaving only the monitors to light the room. Each screen was running through series of images and machine code, all of them forming their own patterns. The sounds of the machinery were getting louder with each passing second.
“Is it working?” I asked.
Nicholas started typing at his keyboard again. “I’m not sure yet.”
After a few more seconds, the low build of Klaxon alarms started pulsing through the room in wave after wave of sound until I could feel it in the center of my brain.
“Why isn’t it working?” I asked over the noise.
“I don’t know,” Nicholas shouted back. His fingers flew like fire across first one keyboard, then another, working several machines at once. “I’m having trouble flushing her from the system. It’s as if . . .”
Nicholas’s eyes fixed on the screen as he read the code flying by.
“It’s as if what?” I asked. I grabbed his shoulder, feeling the cold radiating through his shirt. “Stop getting all Matrix-y on me.”
Nicholas shook his head and his face returned to normal. “Sorry. I was about to say that it’s like the building is fighting to keep her.”
“Fighting to keep her?” I said. “Jesus Christ. Is this when Skynet takes over?”
“Skynet?” Nicholas asked with a blank stare up at me.
“Never mind,” I said. “You probably were too busy moping through the Terminator years. Listen, just tell your super-smart building to let go of Jane, all right?”
“I’m trying,” he said, typing away at the keyboard again. “You know how hard it was to learn computers with some of the less-than-savory night classes this city offers?”
Something struck me on the back of the neck in a thin line of pain before clattering to the floor.