by John Conroe
“Eww, that’s nasty,” she said to Declan. “Perfect.”
The ring of fourteen interns put down their glasses, most looking uncomfortable if not outright distressed, and some looked like they might fall over. The staff grabbed the really wobbly ones and either walked them or carried them to chairs. From their expressions, I was sure at least half of them were going to be violently ill, but no one threw up. Sweated profusely and sucked down the glasses of soda that were sitting in front of them, but no vomiting.
Within ten minutes, most were sobering up and while they still looked miserable, I think it was due as much to Tanya’s obvious anger as Declan’s foul drink.
“So, my objective was to treat you to an experience in the city that’s hard to replicate. Getting into Plasma is much sought after and difficult to do. Most New Yorkers don’t get a chance to do it. I thought you all deserved it. I did not think that those of legal age would be feeding alcohol to those underage and by underage, I mean by US law, not your home country. Shame on me. I was naïve. You all took advantage. Shame on you. But we’ve corrected that situation and from the looks on your faces, it wasn’t pleasant. Good. Having my trust abused wasn’t pleasant for me. We can forget this happened, if… it doesn’t happen again. Next time I find Demidova employees breaking the drinking laws on my property, they’ll be fired. You can stay and make something of the experience or head back to your quarters. There are shuttles waiting outside. Up to you,” she said, then turned and walked away to greet a table of celebrities near the dance floor.
Most of the kids looked at least a bit ashamed. Some looked pissed off, like Simon and a few of his cronies, and by the glances they were shooting Declan, they blamed him.
“You know that this will just leave him more alone?” Stacia asked from next to me.
“He volunteered the mix,” I said.
“Because he’s trying to help. He’s always trying to help,” she said. “Even if it completely isolates him from the other kids.”
“You don’t think being a witch among normal kids is isolating enough? It would be like…” I tried to think of a suitable analogy.
“Like being the only werewolf on a team of all vampires?” she offered, getting up and heading over to talk to Declan.
I hadn’t thought about it like that but now that she pointed it out, their experience was very similar. In fact, he had much more in common with the blonde werewolf than any of the comp sci kids in the room.
Chapter 22 – Declan
I suppose the field trip to Plasma wasn’t a complete bust, At least the interns got to party inside the tightest club in the City. Who am I kidding? It was a bust, and most of the interns acted either pissed off or scared they were about to be fired, or both.
Almost all of them avoided me, including Grace and her girls. Probably just as well.
Still, I won’t say it didn’t sting the next day when Chet was taking me into the special project section and I got the cold shoulder.
Grace, Aleesha, and Joni were all working on something together when we walked by. Grace and Aleesha both ignored me completely, despite making brief eye contact with me while Joni gave me the evil eye. Ah well. Gonna be a long summer. Maybe Caeco would be in town for a few days? Hmm, that was probably a bad idea as well. Still…
“So Declan, what do you know about quantum computing?” Chet asked as he ushered me into a secure section at the back of the floor. The steel door required voice and face recognition as well as Chet’s ID card. Our cell phones and his watch went into the basket outside the door.
“Well, I know the absolute basics. That standard computing is done with binary bits, 1’s and 0’s. A memory cell in a computer can be either 1 or 0. With quantum, because of entanglement and superposition, you have more options. It would use qubits to achieve more computational possibilities at the same time.”
“Essentially correct. By manipulating the qubits with quantum logic gates and quantum algorithms, the computer can, in theory, solve problems much faster than a digital computer,” Chet said. “In essence, the quantum computer tests for solutions all at the same time while a standard computer follows a linear path to problem solving. The problem is maintaining the qubits. Achieving the superposition and entanglement for each qubit is the problem, as well as isolating the qubit from outside noise pollution,” he said.
“And you think my magic could help with those problems?” I asked.
“I absolutely think it’s possible,” Chet said.
A bald man in a white dress shirt and dark slacks beelined toward us, his eyes flicking over me and locking onto Chet.
“Ah, Susskins. I brought that intern I was telling you about to check out the lab,” Chet said. Susskins just looked at him for a moment, oddly creepy. He had almost jet black eyes and no eyebrows. Agent Gellan wore his baldhead like a badass, while this guy would make Uncle Fester feel uncomfortable. He studied Chet for a moment longer than was normal or comfortable, his expression almost hostile.
“Don’t we have enough interns?” he finally asked, pointing toward a corner of the room without taking his eyes off Chet. I looked where he pointed—Simon was looking at us over the top of a monitor and when Chet looked back at Susskins, Simon gave me the one-finger salute.
“We don’t have anyone like Declan,” Chet said. “Dr. Susskins heads up our quantum computing project,” Chet said to me.
“Yeah?” Susskins asked, filling the one word with contemptuous disbelief. “The twit in the corner is top of his class. Still having difficulty coming up to speed with the math. This one is what? Twelve years old? What’s he going to add? Cream to my coffee?”
Wow. I was blown away by the size of the guy’s ego and his utter contempt for virtually everyone, Chet included.
“How about it, champ? How are you with probabilistic algorithms and eigenvalues?” he asked me.
“Not great. Did you know the temperature of that D-Wave annealer is rising like a rocket?” I asked.
Susskins looked at me with black eyes for a split second, then strode to the machine in question. He looked at it for a second before snapping out orders to the other technicians and scientists in the room.
“You know about D-Wave?” Chet asked as we both watched.
“A little bit. We’ve touched on them in class. But to be honest, it says D-Wave right on the casing. I do know you need to cryogenically cool these things down. But I felt the internal systems alarm trying to warn about the temperature issue. I think someone turned it down or closed the monitor on it or something,” I said.
Over by the D-Wave, there was much scurrying and frantic action but finally Susskins straightened up from the monitor, apparently satisfied with the situation. Then he looked my way, his creepy serial killer eyes locked onto me.
“How did you know it was heating up?” he asked as soon as he got over to us.
“I told you. Declan can add all kinds of value to this program. I’m thinking especially with decoherence,” Chet said.
“What do you mean?”
“First of all, he heard what your diagnostics program was trying to tell you. From across the room, with his mind,” Chet said, pausing to let that sink in. “Second, he can directly effect the environment around him, particularly with regard to temperature and particle activity.”
“Impossible,” Susskins stated.
“Really? That word coming out of your mouth?” Chet asked. “How then did he know what your system was trying to tell your people? How do you think we were able to secure this company’s mainframe and satellites? With his help and his abilities, that’s how.”
“You’re honestly going to press this ridiculous argument that he’s a real… what? Wizard? Harry Potter come to America?” Susskins asked.
“Born in America,” I said.
Chet smiled and turned to me. “Show him.”
So far, half of my internship seemed to be performing parlor tricks to impress nonbelievers. I looked around.
It was al
most a clean room, devoid of any coffee cups, water bottles, or other handy items. There were pens, though. Across the room, Simon was holding a pen that he had just used to make a notation of some type. I reached across and telekinetically grabbed it, pulling it to me. It traveled in a smooth line across the room, coming to an unwavering stop directly in front of Dr. Susskins, who watched it with unreadable eyes.
I applied a little heat to it and then bent it, without physical touch, forming it into an almost perfect circle, the gel tip actually melted into the plastic top, like a snake trying to disappear up its own ass. I thought it was pretty symbolic as I mentally set it into Susskins’ shirt pocket.
Shove that up your… “Impressive right?” Chet said, interrupting my train of thought.
Susskins pulled it from his pocket, studying it with flat eyes. I glanced over at Simon, who was staring until he met my gaze, then jerked back to his monitor.
The bald doctor still hadn’t spoken, but you could almost hear the gears clicking and whirring inside the stretched-skin-covered cranium as he looked at the useless pen.
Experimentally, he pulled on each side of the ring pen, trying to pull it apart, but the plastic didn’t give. Finally, he looked up and met my eyes, his creepy stare unnerving. Without breaking eye contact, he spoke aside to Chet. “I need to give this some thought.” Then he turned and walked away, as if we were never there. No goodbye, no dismissal, just clicked off from us and onto whatever task he was now berating his people over.
“He, uh, takes some getting used to,” Chet said.
“He’s a megalomaniac asshole with negative social skills,” I said. “How can you work with him?”
“It can be difficult. But he’s brilliant and top of his field.”
“And sociopathic. How can you trust him? How do Tanya and Chris trust him?” I asked.
“We keep tight controls on this floor and we have Nika scan everyone on a regular basis.”
“That’s not foolproof. I can block Nika. How do you know he can’t, too?”
“Because she says she has no problem getting his thoughts. Apparently, they make her uneasy.”
“And she’s a vampire. Think about that,” I said as we headed back out of the room. The door snicked shut like an airlock behind us.
Grace’s group glanced at us before turning their backs to me.
“Okay, okay. Duly noted. But we keep our eyes on him,” Chet said. “It’s okay. We got it handled.”
Famous last words.
Chapter 23 – Chris
“Well, I can see his point. I’d be resentful too. But at the heart of the matter is the fact that we can’t replicate the programming without him. Theoretically, other witches could possibly do the job, but it would likely take a full circle or two, and none of our sources know of any circles that have his abilities with electronics. So his magical programming is his and his alone,” Tanya said. She was sitting on her desk and the black dress she was wearing was distracting me from the conversation.
“Hmm, makes sense. Wait… what sources?” I asked, dragging my eyes back up to hers.
“Well, we do know other witches. The Coven has always had contact with witches and employed their services, despite the exorbitant cost. Protecting our existence for all those centuries required magic, more this century than ever before. At least that’s one expense that disappeared with Washington.”
“But if they used magic to get rid of or change evidence before we blew the cover on the Darkkin race, then some of them had to be able to whammy electronics?” I asked.
“Yes, of course. There are other Earth witches and Fire witches, even some with both. Most of them can disrupt cameras and recording media. They can corrupt audio files and photographs, both digital and chemical-based. Even give computers fits. But listen to, understand at an instinctive level, and program? Not that we can find,” she said, straightening her dress across her legs. My eyes followed her gesture.
When I looked up, she gave me a little smirk. “Honestly, how do men get anything done? You are so easily distracted.”
“We’re motivated to clear our workload so we can pursue those distractions.” She snorted at my leer, rising to her feet like a dancer, all grace and fluid movement.
“Speaking of which, what is our next appointment?” I asked as she sat down behind her desk, hiding much of her lithe form.
“Daniel Castille—Reverend Daniel Castille, of the Church of the True,” she said, watching my reaction.
“What the hell do they want? They hate vampires,” I said.
“He requested a meeting to discuss the Church’s position on Darkkin. It was suggested that they want to come to an understanding,” she said. “I figured, what the hell?”
“So is it just you and me?” I asked.
“Darion is coming in as well, and Nika. In fact, they’re meeting them downstairs and bringing them up. They should be here any moment.”
“I’m guessing that your tablet has a fact file on the Church cued up right now? What do we know?”
“The Church of the True was formed from a prior ministry that Castille founded about seven years ago. The Select of the Lord was co-created by Castille and a lawyer named Fierro… Lyle Fierro. They attracted a small following and tried numerous tactics to grow their congregation. Never got much over a thousand members.”
“A thousand seems like a lot?” I asked.
“For a small town church, sure. For a ministry seeking to grow across state lines, not so much. Right after our trip to Washington, they changed the name to the Church of the True and started preaching against vampires. They grew astronomically in the months since. Over thirty thousand followers at last count.”
“Still just a tiny fraction of the country’s population, zayka,” I said. “Your interviews and actions have more people viewing vampires favorably.”
“But they are still growing and some of the people they’ve attracted have influence, wealth, and political power,” she said. Her cell phone chimed with her incoming text tone. “They’re here and on the way up.”
“What does the Church say about vampires?” I asked.
“That we are soulless abominations in the eyes of God,” she said. Her poker face was on but I didn’t need my Chosen bond to know how deeply that statement affected her. From the moment I met her, I had been trying to convince her that she had a soul and it wasn’t forfeit simply because she was a vampire. And now, years later, we had established that her soul was that of the Angel Lailah, and yet some yokel with a bible was still able to make her question herself. My anger was almost instant.
A knock came at the door. I moved to it and opened it, revealing Darion, followed closely by three men, a young woman in a dress, and Nika. Darion moved smoothly by me, but the man behind him stopped instantly to stare at me with a slightly fevered smile.
“Christian Gordon—Hammer of God. I am so honored to meet you,” he said, holding out a tanned and manicured hand. His face was just as carefully bronzed and his teeth were so white, I knew they were caps. Lean in the manner of a dedicated gym junkie, his blue eyes shone with the intensity of something that was either complete confidence or fanaticism. He appeared to be in his mid-forties. He clutched a very worn bible under his left arm.
I automatically took his hand, but I was still angry that anyone or anything could make my soulmate doubt herself. I may have gripped a tad too tight. He almost went to his knees. I felt Tanya’s alarm at the same moment I registered the look of pain on his face and instantly relaxed my hand.
“Oh, sorry. Slipped for a second,” I said, using my other hand to pull him back fully upright.
“Wow, you are strong! The might of the Fallen,” he said, wincing slightly as he shook out his hand. “I’m Reverend Daniel Castille,” he said, eyes still locked tight to mine.
“Well, you know who I am. This is my better half, Tatiana Demidova,” I said.
He stepped into the room and then back to the side of the door as she crossed
the room. The person behind him was a heavy man whose skin shone slightly with a sheen of perspiration despite the air conditioning. Both men stopped and watched Tanya’s approach, the expressions on their faces identical to most men when they meet my vampire in person. She has a certain impact on men. Most men.
The third guy was lean and dark, although whether it was from inherited traits or time in the sun, I couldn’t tell. He was wiry and controlled, with brown hair and brown eyes, one of which he had come close to losing sometime in the past, based on the thin white scar that ran down his cheek. He paid no attention to Tanya’s beauty, instead watching her with a wary look. The woman was young, showing a lot of leg and makeup and carrying a tablet. She, too, came up short but her expression flickered briefly with dismay, a common reaction among women.