THE VROL TRILOGY

by SK Benton

  Alicia stood in the middle of the cavernous chamber and waved sadly to Bagatelle, and within a fraction of a second she was gone, with Jennie standing in her place, looking exactly like Vasquez, which unnerved Max only slightly. Draagh quickly took away her disguise and she was again her normal, gorgeous self. Max walked up and kissed her, noting the taste of salt on her lips.

  "So, did you catch any waves?" he asked expectantly.

  "Oh. My. God! Yes! What fun. Look, I don't care that happens, but come hell or high water, you and I are surfing, and Lili needs to learn too," Jennie commanded. Max had surfed before, and had generally enjoyed sports where he could compete with himself, so he thought that was a pretty great idea.

  You got it, love. Whatever you like. How about a sailboat too? You know the romanticism of the wind pushing your boat along, alone with the forces of nature…"

  "And a mage who can command the elements. Not fair! Only if you promise to not manipulate the air currents, hun."

  As everyone started to laugh they received a comm message from Alicia.

  "I just got totally shacked right now! Green room! Tubed! Woohoo! Conditions are sick. Let's beat these bastards so we can surf every day, ok guys?"

  "What is a green room?" asked Draagh.

  "That's when you're inside a wave. It's a beautiful experience, Pops. You should try it sometime," responded Jennie, "and I need to get back. It's nearly dinnertime, and I need to make sure Lili is doing her homework and not trying to put a riding a harness on Hermes."

  "Ok guys, we're going back to the Dominion. We'll see you in the main hall at the castle," said Max, as he put his arm around his wife and took her home, now without the assistance of Socrates.

  "Did she say put a riding a harness on Hermes, or am I mistaken?" asked Michael, hoping for a negative response.

  "She said it, Michael. She said it," responded Bagatelle, by that time quite used to his niece's antics and her love for her aquatic pets.

  "Please, Father, tell me you have a protective cantus on her. If not, I shall create one. I really could not bear to see any harm befall the child."

  "Oh-ho Michael! It does appear that you have indeed fallen for the charms of young Miss Gunnarsson. She is quite addicting, is she not?" Draagh asked humorously.

  "Yes, she is an amazing child. Max and Jennie are most fortunate."

  Santiago, Luna

  In a nondescript, single family home in a middle class neighborhood, a mother was putting her children to bed, paying more attention to the younger, fraternal twins - a boy and a girl, than to her teenage son, who was busy with his homework.

  "Good night, kids. You have school tomorrow, so no giggles. Go right to sleep, ok?" said their mother.

  The two nodded while grinning, knowing that the chances of that were relatively slim, but they still wanted to make their mother happy. Their older brother, however, was a completely different story. He had plans for that night, and they didn't involve quietly going to bed.

  The mother closed the door to the twins' bedroom and went downstairs, where her husband was going over some files; typical for him, being a workaholic.

  "Honey, do you have to work this late? Why don't you come to bed and get some rest," she said concernedly.

  "You don't understand. The Chairman personally contacted me today and wanted a status report on the New Exodus fleet. He wants us to ramp up production, so I am running numbers to see what we can do."

  "Well, you're doing what's best for our family. After all, we will be the first ones to return to the planet of our ancestors! That's so exciting, honey - a new start on a new world. Our children will thanks us for it one day."

  Neither of the parents noticed when their fourteen-year-old son climbed out of his bedroom window, jumped over into a nearby tree and scuttled down to the ground. Then, instead of going out into the street, where a large transport had just parked, he went through the back, over a neighbor's fence and off to the adjacent street, where his friends were waiting for him. He bit his lip, as his nerves were on edge, but he usually did that when he was stressed or nervous.

  "Hey Kyle! Jump in! The girls are waiting for us at the club," his friend yelled out from a tube transport pod.

  Climbing in, he left his worries behind; his stressed out father, his doting mother, his obnoxious twin siblings, and the secret underground bunker he had been building.

  He was already three kilometers away when his house exploded.

  Chapter 29 - Hidden Treasures

  "Yes, there is an excavated area below the shed. Apparently it was only accessible via a biometric imprint, causing the stairwell to be exposed," the scientist explained.

  "What did you find, and whose biometrics were required?" asked Chairman Johnson.

  "It was completely empty, and as for the biometrics, we don't know yet. We are assuming it required Gunnarsson's, but we haven't been able to extract the data - it seems to be corrupted."

  "The further we go the more it seems like we have a ghost running around town, appearing and disappearing. Is Gunnarsson's genius really on that level?" queried Johnson.

  "Sir, that is unknown at this time. The programming and encryption are definitely of the highest level. That much is certain."

  "And the vids from the Gunnarsson family home, and from the mother's detention room?"

  "All we could get was imagery of the same figure in both locations. It looks like the Grim Reaper in both vids. The figure is barely visible, and blurred out, but it is there. Here, please look at this static shot."

  The scientist brought an image up on his personal console for his leader to see, and it indeed showed a ghostly figure for one frame in both locations.

  "It looks like we have an unwanted visitor, and he is able to move around undetected. Make sure that he cannot work with further impunity," said Johnson, as he waved the scientist off and installed his earpiece.

  "Security. Status on last night's operation," Johnson demanded.

  "100%, sir. All taken care of. Do you have any further orders?" responded the voice on the other end.

  "Not right now. Stay by your console at all times."

  ###

  Kyle Reynolds peered through some thick shrubs, looking at the smoldering wreckage that was once his home. He had seen it hours before, when he had intended on sneaking back into his bedroom, only to find the house decimated. He returned to see what he had expected - Military Intelligence combing the grounds. Unaware of what exactly happened, he was sure of one thing - it wasn't an accident. Things like this happened to top-level secret government operatives on purpose. They were erased, or deleted, as it was defined. He thought that, with any luck, whoever destroyed his house and killed is family would believe that he was part of the death toll. He had a good chance, as aerial surveillance was not as robust on Luna, his home world, than it was on Azul, especially in the big cities, such as Portlandia or New Sydney. His family had moved to the medium-sized moon a year earlier when his father acquired a high-level job through the Security Council.

  Kyle was a gamer - a virtual expert at holo-games, and was considered an anti-government prepper in his world (secretly, to his friends). He was also a code hacker without peer and didn't trust politicians - at all, especially since Johnson had reorganized the leadership in the name of unity and the coming of the Artusians. Kyle had stashed physical pesos and dollars, and had an underground hideout that he was building. Using his unregistered, untraceable (and very illegal) console, he looked himself up, on a whim. The query came up empty. He, as well as his entire family, had been erased. He now no longer officially existed; he was temporarily safe.

  Seeing as much as he needed, Kyle turned and headed back to the shack he had constructed, keeping himself hidden from aerial view by staying under the shade of trees. He would contact his aunt when he was safely underground.

  Rhönen Dominion

  Lightning flashed, with the massive electrical charges momentarily exaggerating the shadows of arcane objects p
laced around Draagh's office, and causing percussive reports to follow mere seconds later. Liliana Gunnarsson sat at the mage's large, expansive table with her grandmother, as the now much younger-appearing mother of Max read through everything presented to her with great interest.

  "So you see, Abuelita? Magic is like little machines that can chew your face off, but much more efficiently than flesh-eating bacteria! These particles also have other great functions, such as the manipulation of electromagnetic wavelengths."

  "Ah, so one could then heat up their bowl of soup that had gone cold. That is quite nice, my dear."

  "Oh, but even better than that. Did you know that Papi melted a bad woman's head when he was trapped in Hollywood? Actually, using a radiation cantus, he super-heated her brain very quickly and it burst with a light popping sound… according to the way he described it," the little girl stated matter-of-factly while wearing a gleeful smile.

  "Oh yes, sweetie. I understand your explanation very well. Thank you so much for assisting in today's lesson. I am quite sure you would be an excellent instructor at the university."

  "Oh, thank you, Abuelita! I must return to my classes now. See you at dinner!" said the little girl, as she bounded off out of Draagh's study area.

  The child is wonderfully intelligent, but a bit savage, Clarisa thought, deciding to dedicate herself to civilizing her granddaughter, as another round of thunder rumbled in the background.

  The rainy season had arrived, but the people of the Rhönen Dominion worked well with nature. They all appreciated the wellsprings that would be full, as well as the green foliage that always followed. King Krynos had recently started a public works project with Max, where they designed drainage canals in not only the castle, but also in the normal towns (of which there were three nearby). Krynos knew the best way to keep his subjects faithful was to provide them with things they were generally unable to acquire or build on their own. As the king looked out the window from his expansive bedchambers, he noted that the newly-upgraded systems were working well to direct water flow off the roof to filtration tanks, and then into storage below the castle. He had this developed, not because they lacked water, but for safety. There was a large river nearby, and dozens of streams, but it would be dangerous to not have a backup supply of clean water, especially if the vampires decided to poison wells or fresh water sources.

  There had been a temporary drop in unwillingly turned normals after the death of Vladros a year prior, and a power vacuum had caused three local vampires to fight for the space that the deceased vampire leader had once occupied. Korlis now controlled Vladros' castle, and as the deceased leader had no heirs, there was no one who could bring a legitimate challenge his reign. Korlis had been concentrating on maintaining power so intensely that he had failed to maintain his population.

  He meant to correct that particular error, and quite soon.

  Vera

  The underground base on Vera had been coming along very nicely. It already had a commissary, meeting rooms, medical facilities, a huge training center, housing for a maximum of 500 and a massive 300 meter-in-diameter chamber to facilitate direct 4d slips of large groups. Draagh, Michael, Gabriel and Jessica had been quite busy with all of the building and modifications, and Krynos even had an entrance to his computer room, being that it was actually a slot outside of normal space/time. Once he figured out he could enter from the Rhönen Dominion in the 43rd century and use the room to get to the base on 29th century Vera, he was spending a lot of time on the near-barren moon. In fact, Draagh was considering locking the door on the Vera side just to keep Krynos from bursting in unannounced, which he usually did.

  "Gabe, could I ask you something?"

  "Sure, Jessica, what would that be?" responded Gabriel.

  "I'm kinda worried about Pandy and Dons. Could we go to Sins and check up on them?"

  "I don't see why not. When would you like to go?"

  "As soon as possible. Maybe after lunch?"

  "We shall, then," said the archangel.

  The team had a steaming-hot lunch, brought over by none other than Krynos (which was an oddity in itself) through his personal portal via the Hub and his office. He felt quite proud of his contributions, and was enjoying his time away from Earth immensely.

  "I must say, my friend, this is excellent roasted elk," exclaimed Draagh, as he dutifully stripped the bones clean.

  "Yes, I must agree! The castle cooks are in great form these days," Krynos said proudly.

  "Jessica and I are going back to her home for the afternoon. We would like to check on her friends and, of course, the hotel. Is there anything from there we can bring you?"

  "There is nothing you can bring me, but… may I accompany you to this Old-Earth?" Krynos asked quite nicely.

  Gabriel was about to respond when Jessica blurted out, "Of course, King Krynos. I really want you to meet my family there. I know you wanted to go before."

  The archangel grinned at his friend's interruption, but still added his own thoughts, which were the same as Jessica's. "Yes, I agree. King Krynos should come with us. Sir, I believe you will like the good works we have produced on Jessica's homeworld."

  ###

  A small concussive blast blew out some dust in the middle of Santa Monica Boulevard, as three individuals - a local lycan female, an archangel, and an incredibly large lycan king who was looking around while wearing a huge smile - suddenly appeared. Krynos sniffed the air deeply, analyzing his surroundings. Before he could say anything, he heard a scream and a squeal, and Pandy went flying out of Seven Sins, nearly tackling Jessica.

  "Jessie! Oh my god! What took you so long?" she yelped.

  "Sorry hun, but we've been busy. It's a whole new world out there!"

  "So, where are you living these days?" Pandy asked excitedly.

  "We're splitting time between Earth of the 43rd century and a moon in Max's system in the 29th."

  "A moon? Like, that moon up in the sky?"

  Earth's moon was waning crescent and showing in the afternoon, as the sky was so clear and had relatively little pollution, aside from the small fires that littered various encampments throughout Los Angeles.

  "Yeah, but bigger. And there's air. We're building an underground base, so I'm either way underground or over at King Krynos' castle. By the way, this is King Krynos." Jessica smiled and nodded her head in the king's direction, and watched with amusement as Pandy's jaw dropped slightly while she looked up at the massive, bearded lycan king. Krynos wore a beaming smile and extending his hand out in friendship.

  "I am Krynos, king of a distant land, young one. I understand you a very special to my friend Jessica," he said solemnly, as he graciously bowed his head in a slight fashion.

  Pandy just stood in place, jaw agape, when Jessica punched her in the arm.

  "Hey, say hello. He won't bite. Well, not until the full moon anyway."

  "Uh… hello!" she responded, breaking out into a smile and surging forward and hugging the ancient king, much to his surprise - and to that of Dons, who had just peeked his head out of the club.

  "Oy, Pandy, whatcha doin, love?" asked Dons, who was completely mystified until he saw Jessica.

  "Oh, heya Jess! And Gabriel, right? And humongous, large, strange man whom my girl is hugging. What might your name be, eh?"

  Krynos was very kind when he met Pandy, partly because Jessica had spoken so highly of her, but she had said very little about Dons, and his approach was not something that the king was used to. Lumbering over, he stood directly in front of Dons and then simply looked straight down, glaring at the diminutive clan leader.

  "I am Krynos, king of the Rhönen Dominion. I have been alive for over a thousand years, and I have never, in my entire life, wanted to do this any more than I have, until this very moment."

  "Um, what's that mate?" Dons asked nervously, seeing that his girls were not flanking his position as they usually would in a dangerous situation.

  "Why, drink a refreshing beer, of course!
" Krynos boomed, gaining a huge smile. Shooting his hand down, he grabbed Dons' hand and shook it furiously.

  "Psyche!" bellowed the laughing king, having learned the art of bluffing for humorous effect from Liliana. Dons did his best to reciprocate the handshake, his whole arm being pulled up and down by the massive king.

  Both Jessica and Liliana practically wiped their brows of sweat after believing they were going to witness the demise of Dons. Fortunately that was not the case, so the group walked into Seven Sins to have some cold refreshments. There wasn't any music playing at the moment, but the band was setting up. Upon entering the bar, Jessica noticed Krynos again sniffing the air and then training his eyes on Lennie, who was on the stage playing around with the PA system. She quickly and stepped in front of the king, beckoning him to lean forward.

  "Vampires aren't bad here. Remember what Max said? In fact, Lennie up there is a good friend of Commander Max," she said quietly.

  "Ah yes, I do remember. A friend of Max's is a friend of mine! I shall greet him!" the king boomed.