Probe

by Douglas E Roff

  The only matter still concerning him was the unintended head’s up from a friendly subordinate who might let the good Cardinal know something was afoot. The circle would be kept small and all communications monitored. Only those with a “need to know” would, in fact, need to know.

  ***

  Cardinal Bellinelli was, at present, unaware that he was under investigation. In fact, the Cardinal was so certain of the strength of his position within the Church that he had long ago abandoned recruiting spies within the College of Cardinals and elsewhere. He had sufficient existing eyes and ears; he needed no more. He believed his mission was coming to an end anyway, a belief supported by the group headed by the woman with whom he was about to speak.

  The woman, a formidable Gens warrior and leader of a newest, latest iteration of rebel movement, had burst into his consciousness well over ten years ago when she was found to be involved in the assassination of some Gens underground group leaders with their own small and nascent rebellion. The woman had killed the hierarchy of the group one at a time, but recruited its adherents to the new cause, what she called the “Black Shirt Movement”.

  Both she and he thought the name sounded badass.

  These men and women, along with hundreds of thousands of later recruits, would form the backbone of the Movement’s military faction that would grow and recruit membership all over the world. Members of the military establishment would be taught English, have impeccable backgrounds and would be able to travel to the US on business or for pleasure. When the time came, many would convene at agreed upon locations in the US and then simply disappear. They would sit tight in a wilderness or a Preserve and await the start of the coming war.

  ***

  The phone rang, and the Cardinal answered it right away. “This must be my favorite Gens troublemaker and rouser of the rabble. What can I do for you today, Saldana? Start a war perhaps? Genocide?”

  “Perhaps but perhaps something far smaller and less dramatic.”

  “Do go on.”

  “I’m looking for someone, someone who has caused a great deal of mischief within the ranks of the Collective, but I’m looking for him for other reasons.”

  “Who is this man?” Bellinelli was curious and wondered what those other reasons might be. Bellinelli was supportive of a war between the humans and the Collective; unlike Saldana, however, he was rooting for the humans to win. He would allow humanity to discover the Gens Collective and once the Collective was obliterated, he and his faction would finish by mopping up the Black Shirts and the remnants of the Hunters.

  “I don’t have a name. Not yet. We’re working on it.”

  “Why not get your brethren the Collective to track him down? Is he human or Gens?”

  “Unsure at present.” A lie, and one caught by the perceptive Bellinelli.

  “I see. Seems like not much to go on.”

  “I understand. But I’ve been thinking about that little dustup with some humans at the Vatican. I’m interested in who they are. Can you share.”

  “At present, no. We’re still investigating the incident, and the individuals involved, and it would be premature to disclose what we know.”

  “Can you share what you have? Photos perhaps?”

  “Sorry, not yet, but perhaps soon. But I should tell you there isn’t much to this. The fellow that came here is a well-known archeologist and friend to the Vatican in high places and has been for more than three decades. He was asking for Vatican records on a few small cultural groups around the world, which included the Gens from the now non-existent Village of Gensarii. I took the standard approach of silencing him once the name ‘Gens’ came up. Only after I failed to eliminate him did I find out who he really was. I’m glad I didn’t succeed now; that would’ve precipitated a firestorm here that I cannot afford.”

  “What can you share then?”

  “He heard about the incident in Gensarii, and that’s it. I’m guessing he, or likely some other academic in the US, got some pre-war records from the Federal Italian Archives and was just following up a lead for that academic. For now, he seems to have dropped his inquiry. He’s only asking for the Vatican’s help on a couple of groups, but not the Gensarii incident. I’m dropping the matter and I think you should too.”

  “As you wish.”

  “But listen, I’ll get back to you with more once it’s cleared. As soon as I have this sorted, I’ll share my intel with you. So long as I am not jeopardized in any way, of course.”

  This was patent falsehood, as Bellinelli would never share one scintilla of intel with Saldana. He wanted intel from her; he wanted her to ignite the conflagration, if not with the humans, then with the Collective. He wanted the Collective on its knees before him. Then he would deal with the Black Shirts.

  The problem for both was they had divergent interests and knew nothing of each other’s plans. One might help the other, but only so far. On the other hand, had the information been freely shared, the St. James fellow and his minions would undoubtedly now be dead, and the threat eliminated.

  However, they each wanted the other dead most urgently, and didn’t see their overlapping interests. Terrible to contemplate, as they would later discover, but that’s what spoiled the broth.

  Chapter 35

  Over two hundred years ago, something happened in the dense forests of Germany that would have an immense effect on a people of an ancient and noble heritage. They had served symbiotically with another more ancient people; that relationship had long been without issue or conflict. As the two peoples entered an era of rapid industrialization, advances in medicine and increased life expectancies, the relationship begun almost two millennia ago began to fray at the edges.

  The elder group had always dominated their relationship; their word was law and the junior partner was expected to do as they were instructed. However, in the early nineteenth century, the availability of traditional work driven by the elder group had slowed. The elder group didn’t permit their junior partner to engage in any outside activity, except for subsistence farming. This had rapidly come to be a burden on the junior partner, so they finally confronted the elder group with an ultimatum: allow them to branch off and do other activities to sustain themselves or they would leave the relationship altogether. There were too many bodies to feed and keep busy; however, the leadership of the elder group seemed unmoved by the plight of their junior partner and indifferent to their suffering.

  The elder group considered the root cause of the friction and rather than accede to the rather reasonable demands of their partners, decided upon a different course of action. There was no discussion among the parties; nonetheless, decisions were taken

  In a forest in Germany, and in locations throughout Europe, the elder group gathered with hundreds of thousands of their junior partner group. By the end of the week over two hundred fifty thousand Hunters of Alveti extraction lay dead in the forests of Europe. The problem of overpopulation in the ranks of the insolent and demanding Hunters was thus resolved in this manner by their Gens masters.

  Among the many dead were the forefathers of the clan Musso. They had survived as a clan only because some hadn’t made the journey to the gathering place despite having been summoned. In the records of the Gens Collective that day, the entire clan Musso, and many other clans, had been decimated by the Collective in order to accomplish two goals. First, eliminate all resistance, and any talk of exiting from this arrangement by either party. Second, if there were too many Hunters, then they should be culled. Ditto for the Gens. If there were too many, they’re numbers would also be reduced.

  The Collective, however, was lying. No decimation in the ranks of the Collective had ever taken place. Their numbers would never be reduced except for the occasional dissenters.

  A small band of Musso relatives living in remote regions of the Pyrenees Mountains, as well as other scattered families, then located and recruited the remnants of other clans involved in the their o
wn Great Cull. They came together as a community, settling first in France then to many other regions in Eastern and Western Europe. Then they organized around a core set of values and skills and bided their time. They renamed themselves the Praedators.

  They engaged in new activities and abandoned the old ways and restrictions. In stealth and single-minded pursuit of paid objectives, they were without peer. They studied all the secret societies, honed their skills then unleashed themselves on an unsuspecting world.

  They would avenge the betrayal and murder of their kind and would find a way to decimate the Gens Collective thoroughly, and as completely as possible. Now, thought Federico, that time had come.

  The Praedators weren’t foolish and, while they viscerally hated of the Gens Collective, they were aware that there were far more Gens than there were displaced and rebellious survivors of the Hunters cull. Nibbling around the edges by killing a few in the Collective would not suffice. Instead they practiced patience and a multi-generational approach to the goal of eliminating the Gens Collective from the planet.

  Federico had devised a plan and it was now set in motion. Risky as it was, it had taken shape well beyond his imagined hopes and dreams.

  ***

  Federico Musso had devised a plan to penetrate the Vatican archives as the only way he knew to contact and keep track of the Gens Collective. There had been a centuries old compact between the two that had been updated over time, but the most recent attempt at renewal had failed sometime after World War II. Nonetheless the Vatican archives were replete with current as well as dated information, so that the Vatican could always estimate number and location of the Gens worldwide. More importantly, the Vatican knew where most of the Gens were, the location of their Libraries, the location of their Preserves and wilderness haunts, their political structure and leadership. The Vatican had no real use for most of this information, but Federico Musso most certainly did.

  Revenge. Age old, deserving revenge.

  Musso needed accurate and relevant data about the Collective, or there would be no way to construct a plan for its eventual demise. The singular goal of the Praedators, since the Great Cull, was to destroy the Gens Collective just as the Gens had attempted to do with them.

  The Praedators had not had any contact with the Hunters who survived the Great Cull and the Praedators had no desire to reveal themselves either to the Collective or to the surviving Hunters. The Praedators were planning retribution for both the Collective, and the modern Hunters, so stealth, and secrecy was as important to them as it had always been to the Collective. And they had been very successful in that goal. However, their numbers were small, smaller even than the Nobilus, and even more difficult to maintain as a cohesive group. Over the years, many of the Praedators lost interest in punishing mythological beings and their fabled human lackeys. They wanted to integrate into the societies in which they lived, have children, raise a family, and be left alone.

  They wanted their kids to be doctors and lawyers, not contract killers.

  And they were even less interested in seeking revenge. Whatever had happened, happened a long time ago; this ancient grudge had nothing to do with them at present.

  The number of active and organized Praedators was humbly less than fifty thousand, almost all located in western Europe and North America. There might be triple that number in total, so those who no longer cared vastly outnumbered those who still did.

  When Musso learned of the existence of the Black Shirts and their leader, Saldana Ri, he had a glimmer of hope that he might be able to use this insurgent group to his own advantage. He put our feelers into the Gens Collective that the Vatican wished to mediate the dispute between the Black Shirts and the Collective to maintain peace and traditional secrecy. In fact, he wished no such thing. He wished to meet with Saldana Ri and stoke the fires of rebellion and civil war.

  Three years after making Saldana aware of his existence, the two sat down to a conference in Vienna. Each lied and dissembled as to their true motives, but it was Musso who came away with the actionable intelligence he needed.

  Musso was made aware that the Collective had plans for a war with the humans; perhaps the Vatican and the Black Shirts could collaborate to slow down or prevent the apocalypse? What Saldana wanted was everything the Vatican had on the Gens that could affect them.

  Bellinelli certainly had the knowledge she wanted but Saldana believed he had zero intention of sharing it or anything about the Human. Still, Bellinelli’s attempt on the lives of the parties who had come to visit amply demonstrated that he had no use for outsiders mucking up his work.

  Musso was, unfortunately, thinking small and had no concept or clue of the bigger picture. His plan was to leak what he thought was relevant information, lies and half-truths to the Collective, and the Black Shirts to stoke the drumbeat of civil war. If the Black Shirts had a secret plan for the destruction of the Collective, he would appear to side with them.

  Musso’s overall plan was simple: let the Black Shirts take out and humble the Collective, then he would follow on by announcing to the world that the Gens Collective existed and that they were planning the complete destruction and utter annihilation of the human race.

  Genocide. Global genocide.

  Humanity would then mop up what was left of the Collective and roll up the Black Shirts. It would be an orgy of death, and he would finally have the revenge he and his people had wanted for over two hundred years.

  What he didn’t know was that the Collective and the Black Shirts agreed on one fundamental value: that humans had to first be seriously and substantially culled, not by combat in the streets, but viruses and serums, and then combat in the streets.

  Bellinelli accidentally knew, but wasn’t actually aware of, the identity of the Human. He knew of the St. James fellow but little more. Bellinelli was confident that this St. James wasn’t the Human, if for no other reason than this Dr. St. James was too old to be him. He never considered that there could be more than one Dr. St. James.

  In any event, Bellinelli was now aware of the identity of the St. James group who seemed to be nosey academics, nothing more. Furthermore, he had no intention of ever turning over that information to the Black Shirts or to the Collective. It was a fortuitous decision for Edward and his family; had that information fallen into the hands of either the Black Shirts or the Collective, Edward and everyone associated with him might already be dead. Bellinelli didn’t now want St. James dead; given his long contact with the Vatican, it would raise suspicions leading right to his front door.

  The Vatican’s policy on sharing any information about the Gens had always been simple: never do so under any circumstances. Period. It had been Vatican policy to suppress knowledge of their existence and deny any connection to them. And it had never been the policy of the Vatican to kill archeologists and academics.

  That was new. That was Musso. That was Bellinelli.

  Chapter 36

  She arrived by helicopter at the secluded clearing somewhere in the dense forests of the Olympic National Forest. The Black Shirts had chosen the Olympic Peninsula as the perfect training ground for their military and the best locations for undertaking Lab tests of their various Serum Project formulas. The locations chosen were also not far from the Buckhorn Wilderness, selected for its remote location and size. The Black Shirts could bring in hundreds of thousands of Gens soldiers, train them at remote facilities in human form, then ship them off to hunt and forage without detection in natural state. The National Park and the Wilderness areas were adjacent and capable of supporting more military than the renegade Gens currently numbered.

  In North America, at least.

  They had replicated this same pattern in South America, several large locations in Asia and in smaller, but still numerous locations in Eastern and Western Europe. When the time came, supported with forged identity papers, the Gens military would transform to human state and begin their Great Migration to their destinati
ons around the great cities of the world.

  Saldana Ri had decided that the promise of ridding the world of all humans was a great recruiting tool, and an ambitious undertaking, but one that was logistically impossible. Her view of Armageddon was to attack every capital city of every country in the world, together with the next top one thousand cities no matter where located, give or take fifty or so, and unleash a combination of E-5 virus and natural state Gens military. The carnage and death would be breathtaking, but the ensuing chaos would lay the foundation for a New World Order.

  The Black Shirt leadership would then offer a vaccination to the rest of humanity worldwide to stop the genocide. She would force the humans to the bargaining table and seek concessions for the way the world needed to look in a post apocalyptic Planet Earth. She expected retaliation, and a vigorous human counterattack, but the collective armed forces of the world would’ve had no Gens cities, bases, or installations to attack. The Gens military would simply exit the cities thus decimated and return to the wilds undetected.

  There would be losses, heavy losses for the humans, but at least half of the human population worldwide would receive the vaccine and survive. Saldana estimated that the Great Cull would take no more than six months from start to peace treaty, though the devastation would go on for some time longer than that. And, there would be a treaty provisions requiring the humans to vacate certain of their homelands in specified parts of every continent to make way for the new Gens civilization that was to occupy those territories.