by J. R. Rain
Governments consider the ideal soldier to be a mindless killing machine but somehow I doubt literally mindless soldiers exist. I’m inclined to agree with the Dominion here, since the Russians have also developed anti-psychic screens. It also explains how the Russian military could keep vampires away from a place. Take away our mind control and the average vampire isn’t likely to be willing to take on a large group of armed soldiers.
If the Russians have developed technology that shields the mind, that means they’re ahead of the USA. Far ahead of us. As far as I know, vampires never attempted making any technology to protect human brains from domination. Why would they bother? In truth, I hadn’t ever thought it possible… until I saw the CIA’s device. But that thing doesn’t shield the mind, it shocks the wearer. If the Russians have something that can block thoughts off entirely, it’s definitely a game changer.
So, according to everything Talia has seen, which appears to be quite a decent amount in regard to this issue, the Russian military is all over the Siberia site, the Dominion is merely biding their time waiting for an opportunity to go in there. Oh, and the CIA now knows there’s a device for mass mind control under the Siberian ice, too.
Ugh. This is going to be a mess.
Chapter Sixteen
Hesitation
The squeak of hinges distracts me from my link with Talia.
I spin to face the door, reaching for the blade on my leg… and stop short, staring in utter surprise at the blonde woman in a navy pantsuit smirking at me. She holds up my heels in a two-fingered pinch grip like it offends her to touch shoes that cost less than a grand.
“What the hell are you doing here?” I blurt.
“Please tell me the Agency bought these for you, Mina,” says my sister, Ayla. “I knew you had rather pedestrian tastes, but these are ghastly.”
I relax—a little—and let go of the still-sheathed wakizashi handle. “Yeah, they’re government issue—wait, never mind that. What the hell are you doing here, Ayla?”
She sets my shoes on the worktable near her and saunters over. “If anyone should be asking ‘what are you doing here?’ it should be me.”
“Umm…” Talia struggles at the cable ties. “Little help here?”
“My job is going on here,” I say, folding my arms.
“Same here, kiddo. Sorry.” She draws and fires a tiny silver handgun at me, faster than any Wild West cowboy ever could have dreamed.
I barely duck in time to avoid a knock-out bullet and scramble behind a rack of computers. “What the fuck?” I call over my shoulder. I’ve already got the small sword out and in my hand.
“Oh, don’t worry. I’m not going to kill you, sis. We just need you out of the way.” Ayla appears around the corner of the computer rack, gun raised and pointing.
But I’m already diving at her, slashing at the small weapon in her hand. My aim is true; the gun fires to the side as we crash to the floor.
“Ow! Shit. Watch it!” shouts Talia from across the room.
Ayla lands on her back, arms above her head with me pinning her wrists to the floor. “Oh, stop crying, Talia. It’s only a .32.”
I ignore them. “We?” I ask, staring into my older sister’s too-blue eyes. She’s got me by fifty-two years, but she only looks twenty-five by human measurement. “Since when did you join the Dominion?”
“Since I heard about them four years ago.” She rams her knee into my stomach, launching me up and over her head.
I crash down flat on my back, still holding her wrists. “You’re on the wrong side, Ay.”
My sister and I are roughly even in strength and speed, but she never went through hand-to-hand combat training in Quantico. I swing around on the floor and get my leg across her body, holding her down while twisting her arm.
“Ow. Bitch. Stop that!” Ayla reaches her left hand back, going for my hair.
I crank down on her wrist until it breaks and the gun falls from her fingers. She growls… and catches me with an elbow to the side of the head that knocks me rolling backward. I slide into Talia’s leg.
She tries to kick me, but can’t move.
My sister stands, shaking out her arm while the bones knit. “I simply cannot understand why you’ve involved yourself with human politics.”
“It’s not politics.” I grab Talia’s knee and pull myself upright.
“Excuse you,” says Talia.
I ignore her as Ayla raises her little pea-shooter again. “Look, Mina, just sit still and go to sleep like a good little girl, okay? I promise you’ll wake up somewhere safe.”
Still holding the sword, I fling myself into a dive over the computer table. Again the gun goes off with a sharp snap. Talia screams but only out of fear. My left hand hits the floor first, and I drop into a somersault that leaves me huddled behind a shelf of boxes. I sheath the sword again. “It’s not you I don’t trust. It’s the Dominion. How did you get involved with such an insane ideology?”
“It’s not insane,” says Ayla in her usual haughty tone. “It’s the way things are supposed to be. You… you’re like the vampire equivalent of those idiots who strip naked and sit in cages on the street to protest fur.”
“PETA?” I ask.
“More like V-E-T-H,” she says, her mind as sharp as ever.
“That’s not actually funny,” I say, sounding it out in my head. “Points for trying though.”
“OETH works better since it could be pronounced like ‘oath,’” says Talia.
“Not bad.” I nod and pull the Beretta out from my shoulder holster. The idea of shooting my older sister feels wrong… but I can’t let her take me out.
“Get me off this chair,” yells Talia.
“Shut up, both of you,” shouts Ayla.
My sister tries to spring around the end of the shelf fast enough to catch me off guard… but I’m faster. I snap off a shot, putting a 9mm hole in her hand that nearly blows her thumb off. Her little gun goes flying. She roars in pain and crumples against the shelf, clutching her hand to her chest.
“Oh, you bitch… that hurt!”
“Sorry. I load hollow points.”
“Aren’t those illegal?”
“Only in New Jersey.” I walk closer, keeping the Beretta pointed at her face. “I really don’t want to shoot you even though I know it’ll only put you to sleep for a couple hours. You’re still my sister.”
“Sweet family reunion,” mutters Talia. “Will someone please untie me?”
Ayla disregards the gun I’m pointing at her face and holds her thumb into position to knit faster. “Humans are tomatoes that walk and talk.”
“You don’t understand, do you? They are real people with dreams, desires, souls… families. Not farm animals.”
“That, my dear sister, is exactly the problem.” Ayla grasps the server rack and pulls herself upright. I’m sure she adores looking down at me. Normally, we’re around the same height but, she’s like two inches taller than me in heels while I’m still barefoot.
“They deserve their own destiny as fully sentient beings.”
“No they don’t, and no, they’re not. They used to lope around the jungle collecting fruit and picking fleas out of each other’s fur. Now, they have day jobs, insurance, and anxiety. We fucked up perfectly good monkeys is what we did.”
Talia laughs, then growls. “Come on, this isn’t funny anymore. Untie me already.”
I blink at my sister. “What are you talking about? Monkeys?”
“You always were lazy as a child. If you put as much effort into doing your lessons as you did avoiding them, you’d be standing beside me.”
I sigh, then shrug. “Okay. Fair point. I hated schoolwork as a kid.”
Talia’s chair scrapes around as she struggles and grunts.
Ayla puts a fingertip to the end of my Beretta and pushes it aside. “Our kind arrived on this planet before the creatures that would become humans even had any system of spoken language. Our ancestors modified them into humans,
making them in our image over dozens of generations to be a maximally compatible food source. They went from having blood so marginally nutritious to us that we had to kill one a day to sustain ourselves, to humans we now need scarcely a full pint from.”
“You’re serious.”
“Why do you have such trouble believing that, dear?” Ayla pats me on the arm. “Too many vampire movies and novels?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. I think ‘magic’ would be less surprising than spaceships. I used to think it was too remote a chance that beings from another planet and humans would be so damn close to the same appearance. But if we really did make them…”
“Will someone please let me out?” whines Talia.
Ayla holds her hands up like a game show host revealing the answer. “Good as new. And, yes, they really are just livestock that wouldn’t have even existed without us.”
I glance off to the side. “Maybe, but it’s still no reason to wipe them out. They’re cute.”
“Who said anything about wiping them out?” Ayla laughs. “Is that what your bosses at the Agency think? The Dominion doesn’t want to destroy humans any more than farmers wish to destroy their cattle. You’ll see in time. The problem is, others think you’re too much of a threat to exist, but I believe they are being rash. None of them know how stubborn you can be—and idealistic. You really are basically PETA for humans.”
“OETH,” mutters Talia.
“There’s no need to change society,” I say. “What’s the point of dominating them if we can live among them? We’re out in the open now.”
“It’s a matter of pride,” says Ayla.
I stare at her. Something clicks in my brain. “Oh, shit. You’re the one who compromised Jake.”
“That tone.” Ayla raises an eyebrow at me. “Possessive much? Hmm. So you actually did have sex with him rather than making him think you did.”
Before I can snap at her, three men rush in the door, two hurrying around behind me, one skidding to a stop beside Ayla, trapping me in the space between two computer rack shelves.
“Okay, that’s enough.” My sister gives me the same look she used to hit me with when I was a little kid getting into trouble. “You can’t overpower all four of us. Stop being a sentimental idiot and let me show you our true birthright. There’s no reason we can’t be cordial about this.”
“Umm, hello?” asks Talia. “This girl is still tied to a chair here. And I really don’t like it.”
I take a step back, considering my options. To buy time, I ask, “Why don’t you accept the truth that humans have evolved from that point long ago? They’re not mere animals anymore. In fact, they’re not that much different from us.” I eye the man to the left of Ayla while listening to the squeak of sneakers behind me to estimate their position.
“That’s where you’re wrong, dear sister. They are quite beneath us, and they need to be reminded of that.” She sighs. “Sorry for this, but I hope you’ll come to realize that I’m only acting in your best interest here. Grab her, boys.”
I snap my arm up and put a bullet into the forehead of the guy rushing at me from in front an instant before the two guys behind me grab my arms. Roughly half his brains paint my sister’s face and chest. He stops short with a confounded expression, eyes crossed as if trying to peer up at the 9mm hole in his head.
Ayla runs in to grab my gun arm, but I let my weight hang on the guys dragging me backward and slap her across the cheek with my foot. The kick—a particularly good one—launches her over the worktable. She lands draped across the chair Talia’s tied to. Growling, the guy on my right shifts his grip to put both hands around my wrist. When he tries to yank my gun up and back, I shove my arm in the same direction, catching him off guard at the lack of resistance and put a 9mm hollow point more or less straight up his nose. His hold loses all strength.
The third night walker to my left tries to embed a combat knife in my head to render me unconscious. I duck under it, although it grazes my neck deeper than I want. Spinning out of his grip, I put two bullets in his cheek and temple. Brain, blood, and bone fragments spray all over the computer racks. I touch my neck. Yeah, ouch. Deep; luckily, it’s already healing.
Meanwhile, Ayla drags herself forward off Talia’s lap. The woman tries to grab her, but the cable ties securing her wrists to the armrests complicate things and she only rips my sister’s pocket a little. Ayla scrambles to her feet and runs for the door. I dash around the rack of computers, not quite sure if I should knock my sister out with a bullet or try talking more.
“Running scared?” I call after her.
Her feet tangle when she looks back over her shoulder at me, and she pratfalls.
“Oh, that was graceful.”
“I’m not running.” Ayla pushes herself upright, her back to me. “You are my little sister—my misguided little sister, mind you—and I don’t want to kill you.”
“Wait. You don’t want to kill? Meaning, you will if you have—”
She whirls and shoots me in the shin. The little .32 bullet bounces off the bone with a shock like someone hit me with a crowbar. Before I can even call her a bitch, she races out the door. I limp-run after her, fully intending to return the favor with a leg wound. Alas, even in heels, she’s too fast for me to catch with a bullet hole in my leg. By the time I step through the doorway into the hall and try to draw a bead on her with the Beretta, the giant concrete door is already in the way and closing.
It hits the doorjamb with a heavy thud that shakes the floor. Yeah, I’m trapped.
“Ooh… bitch.” I stand there for a moment glaring at the door.
Entering the same code as the elevator on this keypad doesn’t do anything. Damn. Out of spite, I try ‘12345,’ but that doesn’t work either. Grumbling, I limp back to the computer room.
“I swear I won’t get in your way. Just please untie me,” says Talia.
“What’s the code to the big door?”
“I’ll tell you as soon as you cut me loose.”
“258159?” I ask, plucking it from the tip of her brain.
She scowls. “I’m really beginning to hate you.”
I’d put my heels back on, but the bullet hole hurts too damn much. Need a few minutes… so I drag myself back to the door. That code also doesn’t work, which means Ayla either changed it or used a panic code that sealed it for a while. Great. Stuck in here until she comes back with reinforcements.
I speed limp back down the hallway, looking for another way out, eventually arriving back at the computer room with Talia. Vents near the ceiling look just big enough for me to wriggle into. That’ll have to do.
Before I climb up, I take that Origin tech adapter out of my pocket and use it to transfer copies of the unedited data files to another high-capacity stick. Guess these things aren’t as rare as Jake thought. They’ve got a whole box of them here. This computer system doesn’t have any apparent connection to the outside world, nor any useful information on other Dominion activities beyond what appears to be a cryptic list relating two columns of numbers. That’s got to be access codes… for something. I copy it, too, even though it’ll become useless as soon as they realize it’s been compromised.
“Where’d all this alien stuff come from?” I mumble under my breath.
“It’s not alien. It’s Origin. They found most of it at another site in Peru,” says Talia, still straining at the cable ties. “But it didn’t have an amplifier, only a bunch of old technology. Come on, cut me loose, please? I swear I won’t get in your way.”
“You’re awfully free with information.”
She sighs. “What’s the point of me lying? You’re an Origin. You’ll just read it out of my mind anyway.”
“That’s true.”
“Are you really like what your sister said? Think of humans being so close to us?”
“Us?” I glance over my shoulder at her. She’s equal parts terrified and pissed off—as evidenced by her fangs being out. Her thoughts tell me her f
ear comes from being immobilized around an Origin she doesn’t trust not to destroy her. The reason she’s angry is pretty obvious; the girl hates being immobilized in general. Heh. She’s also pissed at Ayla for ignoring her, but wouldn’t dare say a word to her about it. “You were a human not that long ago.”
“Yeah, but I’m better now.”
The computer emits a ding, indicating the file copy’s done. I collect the memory stick and its adapter, stashing both in my vest and heading to pick up my shoes.
“Hey… please cut me loose.”
“You’re a smart girl. You’ll figure something out.”
She whines the whole time I put my shoes on and wipe the blood off my now-intact leg. When I climb up onto a table to reach the vent, she tries to bounce in the heavy chair.
“Hey… come on. Please? Woman to woman? Don’t leave me here like this. What if some guy finds me?”
“This room is a Dominion secure site. Normal humans—who you could easily mind control into both not touching you and cutting you loose—can’t get in here. Anyone who can find you wouldn’t do anything like what you’re implying you’re afraid of.” I pluck the vent cover off and start crawling in.
“What if no one comes back?” She yells. “You can’t leave me to starve.”
“Someone will be here soon… either your friends or mine. Sit tight.”
Talia lets out a scream of frustration. Maybe she’ll eventually get angry enough to snap her way free. Honestly? I don’t really care.
Ugh. Vents. I hate crawling in vents.
But it looks like it’s my only way out.
I’ll take it.
Chapter Seventeen
Off the Record
The eggheads adored the adapter and the files.
I spent a few hours with Jake, who’d awakened from his ‘change coma.’ The Agency has him set up with a healthy supply of Syn-X, which he seems to actually like—probably because he hasn’t ever tasted actual blood. He’s acclimating quite well, all things considered. Usually, people who don’t ask to be turned into night walkers flip out and get all depressed, until they realize they’re not permanently cut off from daylight like the movies all say.