|
934. alistairConnor - 2/5/2009 12:48:53 AM Master Petru tried to relax. The flight was going to be long.
It had all come together so quickly, over the last few days. The Board had decided that the opportunity was too good to miss : the Master Plan was to be executed, years sooner than anyone had anticipated. The risks were great; the rewards greater. And so much depended on him : Peter Brown, Chief Technology Officer of the Organisation.
The Organisation had been aiming for an invitation to the Davos summit for a couple of years now. An honorable ambition, to be sure : the outside world saw a fast-moving tech start-up, doing cutting-edge research, partnered with some industry heavyweights; but too small to have a place at the top table, in normal circumstances. A number of things had come together over the past year, to make the invitation possible : those research partnerships with several Fortune 500 companies; some well-publicised technological breakthroughs that frankly nobody understood the science of; Brown's carefully-nurtured friendship with one of the West Coast's best-known business figures. But in the final analysis, it was the financial crisis that made the difference : a certain number of Davos invitees had been either too broke, or too embarrassed, to turn up, and some wild-card invitations had been given out at the last moment.
So here he was, hitching a ride in his friend's corporate jet (this well-known friend shall remain nameless, because he is an innocent tool and victim, in no way implicated in the events that followed). He was not admitted to the inner staterooms; he was with the second circle, with the staffers, and the journalists who, like him, had been invited to tag along.
Two of the three journalists were generalists, who would be writing papers on geopolitics and global economics. The third, to Brown's irritation, was a technological writer who was very curious about the Organisation's activities. He tried to shut him down without offending him, but found himself having to say more than he wanted : unusually, the journalist was no idiot.
There was plenty of legitimate stuff going on in the Organisation that he could have talked about, but Brown's principal problem was that he, personally, was involved almost exclusively with the occult side of its work. In fact, the Organisation was a great deal bigger than it appeared (to its partners, to the municipal authorities, to the tax department, among others). More than two thirds of its employees were Coffers, vampires who never saw the light of day, and whose legal status was roughly equivalent to that of undocumented Mexican workers. Likewise, three quarters of the research and development was not only secret, but downright clandestine. 935. alistairConnor - 2/5/2009 12:49:19 AM Brown managed to break off the discussion by claiming he needed to sleep. Nothing could be further from the truth : as a Perp, he not only had no need, but was indeed unable to sleep, and had not done so for nearly thirty years. But he knew that he would have to go through the motions, to avoid raising suspicion. He wished he had paid more attention to the self-mastery lessons of that pompous twit, Mirca. If he were able to put himself into a trance state, that would be good enough to fool these people. But he was annoyed at the waste of time, when there was so much to prepare.
Although he had no staffers with him, he had two operatives infiltrated into the Davos organisation : one a humble kitchen hand, another a room-service waiter. They were already well aware of the work to be done, but would need a detailed briefing when he arrived. 936. alistairConnor - 2/7/2009 1:52:56 AM What with the commotion of Courtney's arrival, they had completely forgotten the World Health Organization's proposition. The following day, Halima briefed Cascu, who immediately began making phone calls.
The people at the WHO were very keen, and encouraged him to move quickly : if the budget was not allocated by the end of the fiscal year, it would be lost forever. They promised to expedite the paperwork, and assured him that it would be possible to pay salaries for half a dozen staff in February.
Professor Albu was the obvious person to head the project, and he was enthusiastic. "I know exactly which minister and which bureaucrats will have blocked the dossier, so that I never got wind of it. But I'll have the last laugh now. I have to retire from the university this year anyway. My wife died two years ago; my children are adults. There is nothing they can do to me now... Sorry to be so melodramatic, Sorin... I realise it's not like the old days. We won't be risking our lives."
"Well... not by defying the Rumanian government." said Cascu. "But there are other risks..."
He outlined Lara's warnings, of a militant Californian vampire organisation linked to business interests. "Does Kronen know of this outfit?" queried Albu. "He's starting to get some publicity, I'm sure they won't like that. We must warn him. And also try to enlist him for the WHO project."
Sorin broached the difficult subject of Dumitra, omitting nothing. "I'd be pleased to work with her, Sorin. She has an excellent mind. But she will have to deal with her toxicological problem first, you understand."
Sorin knew now he had a mission. He arranged for a locum to replace him in his medical practice, and began making travel arrangements. 937. alistairConnor - 2/7/2009 2:23:51 AM A couple of days later, Hank was operational in Lyon.
The Organisation's worldwide vampire-monitoring instrumentation was still approximative and patchy, and of low resolution. The last fix he had, from the day he left California, indicated a vampire to the southwest of Lyon, with margin of error of fifteen miles. (Vampires were few and far between in France; perhaps because of the prevalence of garlic?) He had a hire car; the idea was to criss-cross the zone until he got a directional reading from his portable detector.
He tried hard not to think about the consequences of his actions, of his future. He was serving the Cause. He was prepared to die for it. He expected to die on this mission; that didn't bother him, in itself. What ate him up, what he tried not to think about, was that he would most likely die at the hands of his own people.
By not thinking about these things, he tried to keep himself on the straight and narrow course of his mission. He would accomplish his mission. All of it. And then, logically, die at the hands of Mirca, who would not leave his sister unavenged.
The other options, which he was trying, and spectacularly failing, not to think about, were less honourable, and had no more favourable outcomes. Kill the girl, but not Davidson? Mirca would leave him alone, but presumably the Organisation would send someone else to eliminate him for his failure. And not execute the mission at all? Refuse to kill, and accept death? Unthinkable. Yet he couldn't get it out of his mind.
After several hours of driving, he finally got a reading in mid afternoon. The device gave a directional signal, but no indication of distance. In concrete terms, it overlaid a vector on the Google Maps display (though he kept losing his mobile internet connection in the hilly terrain).
He could see no town or village in the vector's path. Is she wandering about, or hiding in a forest? Then, another reading from a few miles further : the two vectors crossed, right on top of an isolated house.
He drove past it slowly. Centuries old, he guessed; picturesque, rather dilapidated. A couple of smoking chimneys. After careful consideration, and detailed examination of maps, he drove several more miles, around the other end of the valley, and parked the car inconspicuously, near where the tiny country road deteriorated into a stony farm track. He was about a mile from the house. He would approach it on foot, through the woods.
But first, he needed to go Coffed. He was at the end of his tether physically, in no condition for a mission that required skill, precision, force and speed. He took the backpack, and set off down the track into the forest. Finding a suitable site on a thick carpet of fallen leaves, out of site of any passing tractors, he snapped the portable coffin into shape, settled into it, and pulled the weatherproof nylon cover down onto its Velcro fasteners. 938. alistairConnor - 2/10/2009 2:41:28 AM [I'm not sure what's going to happen in Davos,in detail.
The plot is obvious : Brown is carrying a couple of transfusion bags full of the blood of the Board members; he wants the world leaders in Davos to ingest it, and to gather organic matter from their hotel rooms... then, after brewing potions, the vampires can teleport at dawn to their victims, and take control of ... the world.
If anyone feels inspired... Good kitchen potential there, Nu!] 939. alistairConnor - 2/16/2009 12:15:36 AM The Board's ordinary business was expedited in a perfunctory manner. Everyone was restless; they were all on standby, awaiting the results of the Davos mission.
If the mission was successful, it would be probably a week before Mirka could get back with labelled bags of organic material; another couple of days to brew the serum; and then they could finally go into action. There was no way to know how many samples would be recovered, or which world leaders would fall thus into their power. There was, indeed, no formally defined process to assign Directors to victims; but all assumed that the well-defined informal pecking order would prevail, with their Chairman, Master Valeriu, having first pick.
Valeriu sensed the restless mood and decided to take the bull by the horns. He made a game of it. They brainstormed a list of names, in three columns : Political leaders; business magnates; top journalists. He stopped the count at forty prime victims. Then he took an anonymous poll : who would be your first choice?
After the count, there was a rare moment of levity when it turned out that, of twenty-three directors present, seventeen wanted Putin. 940. alistairConnor - 2/20/2009 12:22:44 AM Hank came awake slowly. Pushing the nylon cover off the coffin, he got a face full of snow. There was a good three inches of fresh powder.
Damn. That would make his tracks very easy to follow. Quite likely, his car would be stuck as well. Too bad. There was nothing to be done about that; he had a job to do, and had no particular plans for later. Twenty-two years old, an engineering degree he would never finish. Too bad.
His timing was good: it was about 3 am. The crescent moon on the snow gave plenty of light. He packed up, and walked down the track until he was in sight of the house.
The laptop confirmed that there was still a vampire there. Now that he had a line of sight bearing, the detector gave him much more information. He was able to localise the presence in the leftmost upstairs bedroom, of a vampire of great power, who was currently, to his relief, in a Coffed state.
It is hard enough to kill a Coffed vampire. As for a Lit one... don't even think about it. Not unless you're a specialist like Hank... and even then, you'd be better off waiting till they go Coffed.
In all cases, as Hank knew, there would be blood. An unnatural amount of blood, at startling pressure. Also, horrible screaming, and a fierce struggle. The key to success is to strike the mortal blow while the victim is still fully cold, before they start to wake from the Coffed state; in which case, the screaming and struggling may be restricted to only a couple of minutes, and the aggressor has a reasonable chance of escaping the severe injuries or death which are the common lot of those who attack vampires.
He selected a polished cherry-wood stake, about eighteen inches long, with a sharp silver tip. He chose a rock from the ground, the heaviest one he could comfortably swing with one hand, as a hammer. He laid his pack down discreetly just off the track, and sat on it for a couple of minutes to compose himself.
Mirca had drilled him in how to prepare himself mentally in the moments immediately before a mission. To forestall any scruples or weakness, he filled his mind with thoughts of his mother, and of the better world to come, when she would be free at last. And his mission was to hasten that day...
But unsummoned came the thought : what would his mother think of this mission? The killing of this seventeen year old girl? And though he tried to blank it out, he found himself clutching his knees and sobbing silently for several minutes. But he let it pass, and, emptying his mind, entered the first-level trance that eliminated all fear and remorse, all love, all pain, but left his mental and physical faculties intact. 941. alistairConnor - 2/20/2009 12:41:08 AM It was important to enter the house discreetly. Not for fear of waking the vampire, but other people in the house could be a nuisance. There was a dog in the courtyard; he was prepared to kill it silently, but it didn't even bark, it wagged its tail and made a fuss of him, so he didn't bother. After scouting around, he decided he might as well try the front door. It was unlocked.
In the dark of the hallway, he avoided the pitfalls of various noisy obstacles, and found the staircase. Two doors upstairs; he knew it must be the one on the right. The door opened without a creak, and there was the coffin. Swift execution was the imperative : he threw open the cloak of the sleeping figure, and pulled up her pyjama top.
With his right hand, he held the silver tip of the stake against the cold skin of the vampire's naked chest, right over the heart. His left hand raised the hammerstone high.
The moon emerged from behind a cloud, illuminating the face of the victim; and in that instant, Hank hesitated. She was supposed to be blonde! Don't be a fool, he told himself : seventeen year old chicks dye their hair all the time. But this raven-haired beauty was no seventeen year old, he realised. And her skin was starting to warm... Her nipples hardened. She was hot.
Dumitra opened her eyes : "Where did you come from, vampire boy? ... And where have you been all my life?"
Hank never fully understood what happened next. He suspected at the time that he was subjected to a branch of vampire lore that his teachers had concealed from him. Or maybe the intensity of pheromones released by a rapidly warming vampire is impossible to resist. As she threw him onto the bed, she said "Oh... I have to tell you. I'm HIV positive."
"S'okay", said Hank. "I've got some condoms." What the hell was he doing with condoms on this mission, he wondered? The boy scout thing, he supposed. Cover all the possibilities. 942. NuPlanetOne - 2/20/2009 4:24:29 AM That's funny and hot! You are at the point of no return....the sex scene! Do you go into graphics? I tried it here with my 'Tony” story. Maybe webbie should jump in here as she was decidedly unsure if my graphic sex scene was effective. Or...go for it. I will try to add the food connection if I ever find the muse and time. Carry on! 943. Jenerator - 2/21/2009 3:40:17 AM <<<...Gently stirring the mustard and peppercorn glaze for the thick, juicy loin that is about to be baked to perfection - hoping that Nu will notice his muse in front of him...>>> 944. alistairConnor - 2/21/2009 12:52:39 PM [No, Nu, I don't do graphic... But perhaps Jen can? Jen, I'm still waiting for news from that English cottage... and from the NY interview, come to that. Better hurry, ladies... I need Kronen in Geneva.] 945. alistairConnor - 2/21/2009 2:00:10 PM In the hour before dawn, as they made love for the third time, with less urgency this time, Dumitra, who was never one for wasting time, questioned Hank closely about his mission, and about the Organisation.
She summarized : "So, we have to kill the vampire girl. Easy enough. But these other people know too much, we'll need to kill them too. The Rumanian doctor. The Arab woman. The New Zealand guy." She paused for a second. "And, to be safe, we should kill his daughters too."
Hank went soft. Dumitra laughed harshly. "I thought you were a hard man? No moral scruples, no remorse, serving a Higher Cause? But you've got a soft heart."
Then, tenderly, "In that case... I suppose we'd better prepare to face this Master Mirca. But in the meantime... fuck me some more, Boy Wonder."
946. alistairConnor - 2/23/2009 12:14:29 AM As she ate her breakfast, Halima wondered what challenges Dumitra would cause her today. She had gone Coffed after lunch the previous day, and could be expected to wake any time.
She had been apprehensive about being left alone to accompany Dumitra's drying out; with good reason. But there really hadn't been any other options.
They had decided that Courtney would be safer in Geneva, under the protection of the WHO. Albu had been positively drooling with excitement at the possibility to study the Imperative effect with a co-operative master and slave as subjects. Alistair had negotiated three months' unpaid leave with his employer, and both he and Courtney had signed contracts as lab assistants ("lab rats, more like it", as Alistair had observed, not inaccurately.)
When he had returned from Rumania with Dumitra, Cascu, exhausted, red-eyed, was visibly in shock from the realisation that his beloved was a vampire. He had handed her over into Halima's care, then took himself off to Geneva too.
In the few days since then, Halima had grown to like Dumitra, but certainly not to trust her. Sullen and depressed mostly, prone to sudden rages, projecting a palpable aura of nihilism, she was nevertheless an intriguing and engaging personality, full of piercing insights and the blackest of humour. She seemed to be sincere in her desire to break free of meth and make a new start; but it was really too early to tell. In any case, she was full of surprises.
And she proved it again that morning, turning up to breakfast with a boy in tow. 947. alistairConnor - 2/24/2009 12:47:53 AM "Ah... good morning." said Halima tentatively. "And who is this?"
"This is my lover... well, what is your name, darling?"
Hank felt a bit sullen and shy, but he was so elated with love that he couldn't be mean to anyone. "Iancu", he replied.
"Oh, so you're Rumanian too?"
"No. Yes. Not really. It's a family tradition."
Halima had been on the phone with Lara a lot, she had a fair idea how the Organisation would operate. And she knew a terrorist when she saw one. Or more precisely, an assassin, she thought.
As she prepared breakfast for them, she asked a few questions, in a conversational manner. Hank answered readily enough, confirming her suppositions : yes, he was a vampire, he was from California, he had come here looking for a vampire, but not Dumitra.
Interesting situation. Debriefing a terrorist is a delicate task, you need to decide if you want maximum information or if you're more interested in turning him around. That seemed a distinct possibility : he had failed in his mission, he had found love, could his loyalties be reversed? He was plainly on Cloud Nine.
Dumitra too. They were completely wrapped up in each other. As they had breakfast, Halima nudged the conversation around gently, encouraging Hank to continue volunteering information, filling in harmless family details about herself and Alistair to make him confortable, to draw him out.
Dumitra realised what she was doing, and felt a brief raging surge of jealousy. Had she met her match as a manipulator of men? But she was confident of her superior hold on Hank. And she smiled to herself, and decided to play along. "Come on, Iancu", she said. "Halima is wondering what you really came here for. I think you should tell her."
And so he did. He made a full and frank confession of his mission, in a remarkably detached manner.
She should be terrified, she realised. They might be toying with her. These two could tear her apart and eat her, take her hostage, anything at all. Whose side were they on? Their own, she supposed. Their very own Republic of Two. They were capable of the worst, or the best. Should she appeal to their better instincts? Or simply offer them a family, a clan, to value and protect them?
She decided that she would lay all her cards on the table, and take the risk that they might report back to the Organisation. She explained about the WHO operation: dedicated to advancing the understanding of public health issues surrounding vampirism, it was in no way hostile to vampires, but on the contrary, was destined to promote co-operation. She herself was considering a firm offer to manage the team; she was reluctant to give up her current job. She invited him to join them.
"I'm finished with the Organisation", said Hank. "There's no going back, they will kill me if they can."
His cell phone vibrated against his thigh. It was a text message, from Peter Brown : "Abort mission. Drive to Davos, Switzerland, and await instructions." 948. alistairConnor - 2/25/2009 2:48:19 AM This was the first seminar of the new World Health Organisation Vampirology Institute, and Professor Albu was as happy as a pig in muck. The attendance was not numerous but select : Sorin, Courtney, Alistair, and Dr Ayotunde of the WHO. Dr Kronen was excused; they were expecting him in another couple of days.
Ayotunde was the head of the "Unorthodox Practices and Pathologies" section of the WHO. Outsiders generally assumed that the section was a haven of quackery, featherbedding and corruption; nothing could be further from the truth. Olutobi Ayotude was both indulgent and rigorous in his management style; he gave the most unlikely teams the benefit of the doubt, and a decent budget; but he followed their progress closely, and if they didn't come up with either publishable scientific results, or pragmatically applicable methods, they got the chop. Less than half of the programs survived beyond their first year; but he had nurtured some remarkable successes. He was currently in the indulgent phase with respect to Albu's program : polite suspension of disbelief.
"Today's subject is the history and sociology of the Imperative Effect", Albu began. "The scientific basis of the effect is relatively well-understood these days, thanks in great part to the work of Dr Kronen. I will not go into that aspect today.
"As far back as history or legend records, vampires have been feared for, among other things, their alleged power of compulsion over their victims. This phenomenon is real enough, but has been greatly magnified in the transcription and re-telling.
"The archetypal vampire habit, or compulsion, of sucking the blood of their human victims without killing them, gives rise to a phenomenon of cross-infection : the vampire ingests the victim's blood, and this blood is metabolised in the vampire's body in ways which enter into synergy with certain forces which have generally been classed as paranormal or supernatural, but which have now definitively entered the realm of nuclear physics. But I am wandering onto Kronen's territory... In short, the vampire acquires the capacity to control their subject.
"On one condition : the subject, or victim, must have been infected by certain organisms hosted by the vampire. Without entering into detail, it seems that mitochondria are the active principle. However, it turns out that the classic schema of the vampire biting the subject and sucking a certain quantity of blood, is a fairly ineffective vector for these organisms. It is estimated that only 15% of attacks result in an infection.
"However, repeated attacks on one victim -- which, at least in feudal times, may have been the rule rather than the exception -- will generally result in infection over the long term. The incubation period is itself rather long --from a few months to several years. 949. alistairConnor - 2/25/2009 3:30:21 AM The atmosphere was studious. Professor Albu continued :
"The rate of infection is considerably increased if there are sexual relations between the vampire and the subject. This was far from uncommon in the archetypal case of blood-sucking attacks. But the mechanism also holds, of course, for consenting sexual relationships, which, if they are sustained for more than a few months, inevitably give rise to the Imperative Effect.
"It follows, as you will no doubt already have realised, that vampire marriages are exceptionally long-lived and stable."
Here he got his first laugh of the day. "So, Professor," said Ayotunde, "married vampires control each other? Who has the upper hand : the husband or the wife?"
"In general, vampire marriages are fairly egalitarian", said Albu. "Vampires have differing levels of the vital force which is Kronen's domain, but this variability is evenly distributed between the sexes. In any case, this force does not, in practice, give the stronger vampire control over their spouse : it's more of a situation of nuclear stand-off: each can destroy the other, so mutual respect is an obligation."
"And in the case of a, er, morganatic marriage -- between vampire and non-vampire?" asked Alistair. "I suppose the vampire has complete control?"
"Quite", Albu approved. "To return to vampire marriage : once the Imperative Effect is in place, it is permanent. Marital harmony or otherwise is not guaranteed; the peculiar intimacy of the vampire marriage seems, anecdotally, to have been a great source of misery in all historical periods. Vampires are notoriously hard to kill, which explains the relatively low spousal murder rate. The only cure for the Imperative effect, short of death, is exile; historically, this is a recurrent phenomenon. This has not been scientifically studied, but it appears that the minimum distance to escape the Effect is of the order of a thousand miles.
"Needless to say, there is no such thing as divorce for vampires." 950. alistairConnor - 2/25/2009 3:33:00 AM Courtney stood up. "You're wrong about that, Professor. Vampires can get divorced."
Everyone turned to look at her, surprised. She stammered : "At least, they can in California."
This provoked general hilarity. But Courtney was close to tears. Albu held up his hands for silence and gave her the floor : "Please continue, child."
"My mother went to New Zealand to escape an abusive relationship. She was manipulated by her husband, and she refused to manipulate him, on moral grounds. Then she met my father in New Zealand, and married him... That sounds like bigamy I suppose, but she was only married with the vampire rite in California, there was no civil marriage... I don't know whether that makes it better or worse... Anyway, she left my father when I was ten... she couldn't help controlling him, and she couldn't bear that."
She was overcome by emotion for a while. The men shifted uncomfortably in their seats; Sorin eventually gave her a hug. She continued : "She took me back to California and negotiated a divorce with her vampire husband. She never told me how it worked, but it seemed pretty complicated. I had to stay with friends for a couple of weeks while she was preparing for it, then I attended the final ceremony. She looked ill : she'd lost weight, and quite a bit of hair, it took weeks to recover her health afterwards. Some sort of vampire official made them sign some documents and then made them recite something I didn't understand, sort of a poem.
Then he pronounced the divorce. I remember that part clearly, he said:
Lara Panaitescu, Peter Brown, your bond is dissolved.
"And that was that." 951. Jenerator - 2/25/2009 2:53:31 PM [Alistair, I don't write as well as you, Nu and Webbie. I am afraid if I jump in, it will wreck your story.] 952. alistairConnor - 2/27/2009 9:26:47 AM [Jen,I'm honoured to be bracketed with the other two... but don't fret, just spit it out. I've got the feeling that Kronen, with his geeky charm, is quite the sexual adventurer. And this will doubtless prove to be crucial to the plot. So even an apparently gratuitous sex scene will contribute to the development of the story... just do it! we'll tie it back in.] 953. alistairConnor - 2/27/2009 9:45:17 AM [attention : clumsy flashback ahead]
Hank got up abruptly and left the table, explaining "Text message. From my mother."
Dumitra and Halima looked at each other; their eyes met; they smiled. "So, is this love?" asked Halima.
"I think so, yes." She was radiant.
They had already cleared the decks with respect to Sorin, the previous day. It had been a stormy, intense conversation:
"He still loves you. Do you love him?"
Dumitra wept silently. "Yes, yes I love him. But it is an impossible love. It can never be. He is not hard enough."
"You mean he is weak?"
"No, no, Sorin is strong. But too gentle, too respectful."
"You need a man who will slap you around?"
Dumitra laughed, and wept. "Maybe."
"And how did you manage to conceal the fact that you were a vampire? You were studying the subject together..."
"Oh you know, love is blind. You see what you want to see. And I was careful. Very careful. We used condoms..."
"Yes, his blood test for the Imperative effect was negative... that's quite remarkable!"
"I didn't know myself that I was a vampire, until puberty."
"But your parents...?"
"I am an orphan. Yes, I grew up in an orphanage, a big one in Bucarest, in the seventies and eighties. Not a happy childhood, no.
"When I was fifteen, and needed a coffin, I didn't know what was happening to me. I ran away from the orphanage. I thought I was going mad. I nearly died. In the end, by instinct, I broke into a funeral parlour, and collapsed into a coffin. When I awoke two days later, the undertaker raped me."
|
 |
Go To Mote #
|
|
