The Meridian Gamble

  Our eyes catch again, and the General looks just a bit guilty.

  “So much for things changing,” I say.

  And I’m sure Evelyn, the expert on body language, would have no trouble discerning that I’m just a bit annoyed with him.

  “I’m sorry to do this to you, Meridian. But it’s necessary. What you’re doing here today may be the greatest service anyone will ever do for the Luminos.”

  “Well, let me know if the sample doesn’t work out. If not, I’ll be able to get you all the blood you want, because the vampire you’re giving me to is one of the one’s who’s determined to change me, whether I like it or not.”

  I don’t know why I say it, maybe to lash out at him, the way a precocious daughter would to her father. But the truth is, going with the vampires somehow seems far preferable to staying here. I have a horrible feeling about what the Luminos are doing in this place, and a deep-seated need to get away from it. Even though I resent being traded like chattel, this is the best option that I have, and I’m almost glad that Roland and the others are coming for me.

  “We need to get you back to your room. For security reasons,” the General says.

  “Gladly,” I say.

  Evelyn wheels me out, and I don’t even look back to him as we leave.

  I’m on pins and needles, waiting in my room for the vampires to come for me. The Luminos want to keep me in isolation, for fear that Arie and Lenore might be able to wander around the base and find something important. But I can hear noises outside my door, the sounds of them evacuating, electrical carts zooming about and soldiers barking orders.

  After a few hours, Evelyn comes to my room, and brings me a set of scary-looking body armor. It’s black and fits me tightly, like a lycra body suit, only thicker. And there are heavier armored pieces in certain areas, over the stomach and chest. I put the boots and gloves they give me on, and am surprised at how easy it is to walk around in this gear. And against my better judgment, I get a twinge of excitement when I see myself in the mirror, because I look like a superhero. I guess for these few moments, I have rejoined them, and know what it feels like to be a badass Luminos warrior. And a part of me wishes I could stay.

  Another hour or so passes, and Evelyn returns to my room to collect me. She has the wheelchair with her, but I wave it off.

  “Are you sure?” she says.

  “I think I need to start walking,” I say.

  And though I’m a bit stiff, I feel so much better than before.

  We leave my room, and there’s a bustle of activity going on in the hallway outside. Worker bees move in a last minute panic, bringing technical equipment from the elevators down the main walkway, which soldiers now line. And far to my right, I can finally see a doorway to the outside world, which has a glint of fading sunlight coming through it. Vans are being loaded up and driven away at a frenzied pace, and I feel like we’re the last ones being left behind.

  The rays that shine through the open doorway are the closest thing I’ve seen to sunlight since before I was floating my life away in the tanks, and I long to escape into their fading light.

  Evelyn takes me to another room on the first floor, which is a command center, of sorts. There are monitors everywhere, two widescreen ones mounted on the walls, and two rows of smaller ones at which their foot soldiers sit. The General is clearly in command, but I see another Luminos woman sitting at one of the stations, so it’s not all hired help in the room. And she’s yet another one of them I don’t recognize.

  The screens that they watch show various feeds from outside the building, camera angles that focus on the road leading up to the bunker we’re in, and views of the desert and highways that must be nearby. It’s interesting, because from the video screen, I can see that the structure we’re in is indeed underground, or at least a good portion of it is. Only the curved roof breaches the surface, and it looks like an oddly shaped, very long warehouse from the outside. Another view focuses on the ramp that leads out of the doorway, up toward the surface, and a few low sentry towers that protect it. I can only imagine the confused stares it would garner from anyone who wandered nearby as to what this place could be, but I’m sure it’s on some sort of government land in the middle of nowhere, on which no one is allowed to tread.

  A man watches another monitor that looks like it detects heat signatures, and I get the impression the Luminos have no idea how the vampires will approach, that they’re covering all the angles.

  I feel useless, and there’s a platter of sandwiches nearby, which Evelyn sees me eying.

  “You should have something, Meridian. Who knows when you’ll next have the chance to eat.”

  “Thanks,” I say, softly.

  I grab a sandwich, though I’m suddenly feeling too nervous to choke it down.

  After a few moments, there’s a bit of commotion. Something is picked up on one of the monitors. The General goes over, and they switch the view to one of the wider screens on the wall.

  Two white Range Rovers are racing across the desert. Of course, it’s the vampires. They even come to rescue me in style.

  “They’re here,” is all the General says. And he looks to a soldier who stands by the door of the room, silently nodding to him. After a few moments, the man comes back with a device that looks like a disc, one of those rings that you throw, like a Frisbee. And there’s another small unit the General straps to his wrist.

  And for some reason, I’m even more nervous. I throw the sandwich I was gnawing on into the trash, and the General approaches me.

  “I need to put this on you,” he says.

  “Why?”

  “Trust me, it’s necessary.”

  He leans over and puts the ring around my neck, snapping it together in the back. It’s flat and metallic, yet somehow fits the contours of my frame. It almost looks like one of Lina’s thick necklaces, but this is no piece of jewelry, and there are small flashing lights on the underside of the device.

  And I realize it reminds me of the same collars the young vampires wear, the one Angel had on when we last met.

  “What is this thing?” I ask, hesitantly.

  “It’s insurance, should they try to trick us. Actually, it’s based on the vampire designs. We’ve started wearing them ourselves on our missions, just in case.”

  “To blow yourselves up?”

  “Exactly. We’re Luminos. We don’t fear death.”

  “Wow, this keeps getting better and better,” I say. “You’re trading me to the vampires, and now you’re putting a collar on my neck?”

  “We’re giving you to the vampires,” the General says. “But no one said anything about letting them keep you.”

  He winks at me and smiles. But I’m just a bit worried to think of what he has planned.

  On the screen, Roland and a woman get out of the cars, but his companion is wearing some sort of mask, and I can’t really see who it is. I wonder for a moment if it’s Marion, but that doesn’t make sense. This person seems taller and more lithe, and I suspect that it’s Lina.

  They each step out of separate vehicles, and I can see one of the drivers who remains behind. A shock of blond hair flashes through the window, and I wonder if it’s Angel.

  “Come on,” the General says. And we begin filing out of the room.

  We all step out into the corridor, and by now, the sun has gone down outside. I can see that it’s dusk through the open hanger doors, which makes sense, since the vampires are stronger at night. They wouldn’t have come here otherwise.

  Soldiers form two lines down the central walkway, at least 20 or 30 of them, men and women, all armed and spaced at intervals. And two figures come striding through them, fearlessly. It’s Roland and his vampire companion, or at least I assume she’s a vampire. As they get closer, I can see that they both wear catsuits similar to mine, both dark and armored, and the woman has a helmet on that looks like something from a video game. But I don’t need to see her now to know that it’s Lina. I can tell fr
om the way she walks, and of all the vampires, I know she’s one of the few who has my back.

  Lina carries a gun that’s huge and intimidating, unlike anything I’ve ever seen before. I wonder if it even fires bullets, or maybe shoots laser pulses.

  As she approaches, I hug her warmly, despite the strange circumstances. But it’s for a reason.

  “Father,” is the one word that I say, in a whisper. Because even with her vampire senses, she might not know who he is right away.

  Lina nods, and through the mask, I can see the emotion in her eyes over seeing me again. And I don’t have to look at the General to know he’s watching us with interest.

  I turn to Roland, and he also looks like a superhero in his black armor, which his white hair contrasts with. And the suit hugs his form nicely, accenting his muscles and large frame. I’m not sure if it’s the residual venom in my system, or a reflection of the past, but a familiar desire for him rises in me. But it feels like a betrayal of Adam, and I push it away.

  Despite all my conflicting emotions, I feel a bit safer now that he’s here.

  “Meridian,” he says. “I’m sorry that it’s come to this.”

  Roland says it as though he’s responsible for what’s happened, which he isn’t. If anything, I’ve brought this upon myself. But still, his remorse affects me.

  “No worries,” I utter, unsure of what else to say.

  “Let’s get this over with,” Roland says.

  And he walks past me, toward the General.

  “I’m assuming my blood will do?”

  “Absolutely,” the General says, with a shit-eating grin.

  He turns, and a young woman who looks like a medical technician approaches him, carrying a device that resembles some sort of hypodermic gun. Roland unzips a sleeve of his armor, and rolls it back. The material is far more pliable than I would have imagined. And as the girl steps closer, Roland smiles down at her. She gives him a smile of her own, bashfully, and I can tell she’s already swayed by his charisma, despite her efforts to seem professional.

  She puts the gun to his skin carefully, but when she presses the trigger, a look of concern crosses her face. The woman draws it away, confused.

  “Oh! The needle broke.”

  “You’re going to have to do this the old-fashioned way,” Roland says, again with a charming smile.

  “Excuse me,” the woman mutters. And she scurries back down one of the hallways.

  “I would have thought the Luminos would be better prepared,” Roland says.

  “We are,” the General says. And he snaps the device from his wrist, the one that’s connected to the bomb around my neck. It comes off from the band, apparently, and he holds it up to Roland with a smile.

  “We always cover all the angles.”

  Roland stares at the disc I’m wearing under duress, and he looks less than pleased. In the background, I can tell the soldiers that surround us are getting antsy. At least one of them is Luminos, but the rest interspersed around him have looks of amazement on their faces. I suspect they’ve never seen vampires before, and are just a bit unnerved.

  “Do I know you?” Roland asks the General.

  “We’ve met, once or twice. If you can call it that. You killed me, back in Egypt. Though I suspect you only thought I was a foot soldier at the time.”

  “Ah. And when else?”

  “That would be giving away too much,” he says.

  Roland only stares back at him, trying to garner what visual clues he can, no doubt. But I’m guessing he can’t crack the General’s mind, at least not without more time.

  To make matters all the more confusing, Arie and Lenore appear once again, in their weird holographic forms. They’re wearing new outfits, too. Arie has on a black suit like Roland’s, but Lenore has donned a funky getup that looks like it came from a Japanese comic. She’s in black, with a short ruffled skirt and thigh-high army boots, with aviator glasses up on her forehead. She looks like a cross between a schoolgirl and a ninja-cheerleader.

  “We have the secondary cars in place,” Arie says.

  But Roland only smiles. It seems as though he has some angles covered, too.

  The nurse comes back with a rolling medical table, and pulls out a syringe, tearing open a needle from a sterilized packet. She dabs Roland’s arm with alcohol, and tries to pierce the skin of his arm.

  “Gently, do it very gently,” he says, coaching her.

  “Shoot!” the woman says. And I can tell that the needle breaks again.

  “It’s all right, give it one more try,” Roland says.

  I roll my eyes and sigh in frustration at the General, who still has his thumb on the wretched device that could blow off my head at any moment.

  Finally, the nurse tries again, and I can see her drawing Roland’s blood up into the syringe.

  “Stop, that’s enough,” he says.

  She turns back to the table, and the General watches her, almost drooling. She injects half of the sample into one test tube, and half into another. The woman passes the tiny containers off to the General, who in turn, hands one to Evelyn and another to a nearby soldier.

  “Go,” he says.

  And they run in opposite directions. Evelyn gets in an electrical cart, and drives off to the waiting elevator doors that lead to the underground levels. The man runs down the row of soldiers. I can hear him get into one of the jeeps, and he drives off through the open door.

  And the General turns to Roland.

  “Take care of her, vampire,” the man who was once my father says.

  “I will,” Roland says.

  “I am very serious,” the General says. “She’s special, this one.”

  “I’m well aware of how special she is, more than you could possibly imagine,” Roland says. “And now, we had an arrangement.”

  “You’re right.”

  I watch what he does with trepidation, fearing the General might blow off my head, just to spite them. But he pushes some buttons on the control device, and the lights seem to go off on my choker. Roland removes it from me slowly. But I’m shocked. The second it’s off, he throws it upward, and for a moment, everyone watches. When it nears the roof of the structure, Lina fires on it. The necklace explodes far more forcefully than I would have imagined, which is frightening, because it could have been my head.

  And there’s a hole in the ceiling that reveals the night sky.

  From that moment on, everything happens so fast.

  I watch the General run, off down a corridor. And the soldier who’s Luminos looks to us angrily.

  “Fuck this,” he screams. And the man lifts his gun.

  Roland stands between me and the bullets, and raises his hand once more. The Luminos soldier floats in the air, and screams as he crashes through the wall of one of the offices, as bullets spray wildly from his gun. The rest of the soldiers, the ones whose minds aren’t protected, scream in pain, falling to the ground as they clutch their heads. And Lina stands with a hand to her temple, torturing them all telepathically.

  Before I know what’s happening, Roland grabs me, holding onto me tightly. He jumps, and we’re flying through the air, out the hole in the ceiling, and my stomach drops with a sickening feeling. I vaguely get a glimpse of Lina right behind us, but everything is moving at a dizzying pace.

  We’re in the desert, and Roland is running, carrying me like I’m a rag doll. The scenery moves past us, far more quickly than I would have thought possible. Bullets land on the terrain around us, and I catch a glimpse of a helicopter in pursuit, but somehow he loses the machine.

  Finally, we reach a car out in the desert, another white Range Rover. He sets me down, and I take a moment to stretch my back and roll my head about, because I feel like I have whiplash from my rough journey.

  “Meridian, we need to hurry,” Roland says.

  “Okay.”

  I get in the car, and Lenore is in the driver’s seat, dressed in her ninja cheerleader outfit.

  “Hey
, Meridian.”

  “Hey.”

  “Ready to go, boss?”

  “Punch it,” he says.

  The second the door closes, she takes off. Lenore drives full speed through the desert, and with the lights off, no less, which confuses me at first. Then I realize she can see the path ahead with her keen vampire vision, just as clearly as if it was daytime.

  As we drive, Roland looks out the windows, scanning the skies and terrain for hidden enemies. I can hear the sounds of a helicopter nearby, firing shots into the desert, and I’m filled with worry.

  “Is that Lina that they’re chasing?”

  “No, it’s us,” he says. “I’m working very hard to imprint their minds with an image of our car, to follow in the wrong direction. But don’t worry, the Luminos aren’t trying very hard to give chase. They must be more interested in their little sample of blood.”

  “And do you really think it was smart to give them that? Don’t get me wrong, I’m grateful. But I really don’t think I’m worth the risk.”

  “I do,” he says, with a smile. “And what can they do? Reverse the vampire condition? It’s impossible. And our blood is impervious to disease. Any virus they create will destroy all life on this planet, so they’ll only be killing themselves. Let them have their fun in some dark little lab, we’ll just hunt them down and destroy it all anyway.”

  Roland sounds confident, but I’m nervous over what he says, because I’m convinced the Luminos plans are far more dangerous than he realizes.

  “There are some clothes in the back, if you want to change.”

  I hadn’t even realized we were close to a highway, but the Range Rover pulls onto smooth road, and with the drive being less bumpy, I look to the rear of the car. There are two duffle bags that I unzip, and one seems to contain more feminine clothing. The other must be for Roland. I grab mine, and pull out a simple blue dress and a pair of pumps. With some effort, I start pulling off my body armor, but it’s no easy task to unzip and unfasten it all.

  Roland looks over to me and smiles.

  “I’d offer a hand, but I don’t think my mind can handle it with everything else that’s going on,” he says, with a flirtatious smile.