Under My Heel

by Michael Anderle

  Bobcat took another careful sip of his coffee, that shit was hot. “Good fucking idea. Five bucks says he comes back with a circle or sphere.”

  William looked over at the project lead, “Why?”

  Bobcat shrugged, “Figure it is in all of our stories, so there must be something to it. Best use of space for traveling through outer space? Couldn’t tell you.”

  William shrugged, “I’ll see your five and raise you five.”

  Bobcat turned to look over at his main engineering support member. “Ok, deal. But why?”

  “His design isn’t a standard round orb and I think those are made when you don’t have a clue what you need to fly through. Since he knows our atmosphere, he will adapt.”

  “Ok, that works.”

  The two friends sat in silence while Marcus typed furiously.

  Finally, Marcus sat back, “I’ll be fucked.”

  Bobcat took a sip, “Why? Is it round?”

  “Nope.”

  William smiled, “That’s ten for me.”

  Bobcat reached for his wallet to pay up, “What design did the little alien genius come up with?”

  Marcus scratched the back of his head, “You might not believe this, but he said ‘buy something’.”

  Bobcat said, “What?” William snatched the ten before Bobcat could call a problem to the bet. Bobcat never noticed the ten leaving his fingers.

  Marcus explained, “Yes. He said there are multiple problems with manufacturing something specific for this design in the time frame that Bethany Anne wants. If we want our first version flying soon, then we can purchase a flying craft and update the engines. That way, unless we foul up too badly our craft won’t look like anything out of the ordinary.”

  “Genius.” Bobcat smiled, “I want one for Shelly!”

  William jumped up, his chair sliding backwards, “Hell yeah! That bird will be the baddest ass, of baddest ass helicopters in the world!” he started to do a dance to music only he could hear.

  Bobcat’s smile turned to a frown, “Wait, how is that going to work at speed? Shelly isn’t aerodynamic for shit.”

  Marcus shrugged, “The aerodynamics help, but you can tune the engine to facilitate creating a shield that pushes the air out of the way, for the most part. We can’t hit the highest speeds, but if the shield sphere is large enough, it would allow us to get somewhere quickly and then switch to regular mode to land.”

  William stopped his dancing. “So, we could build a huge metal box and that would fly?”

  Marcus started typing, “Yes, it would in a pinch but no one would believe a flying box, you know?”

  William started looking around their room, “Yeah, but think about all of the space here on the Ad Aeternitatem. How many boxes or … well, coffins do you think we could manufacture and fit on here?”

  Bobcat looked around, “You’re thinking single person craft?”

  William nodded, “Yup.”

  “What about pilots?”

  “We make sure everyone knows how to pilot?”

  Marcus was busy typing. “TOM says that we can have AI controlled craft.”

  Bobcat asked, “AI? Like the stuff that Bethany Anne is working with?”

  Marcus was reading, his eyes scanning text as it scrolled across his screen. “No, more like KI controlled.”

  “K?” William looked over at Bobcat who shrugged his response.

  “Kurtherian. He says he can run all operations through his ship and a powerful computer that he has access to. It wouldn’t take too much to change the engine designs to get their directions directly through the etheric. Impossible to block and instantaneous.”

  Marcus looked up at the two, “Would the men be ok with that? An alien driving?”

  Bobcat answered, “You mean piloting? Shit, they are trusting his engines to work. It should only be a short step sideways for them to believe that the alien is the best pilot. Unless, we have a pilot in which case all pilots have an itchy problem with others piloting.” He paused, thinking. “But I still want to put one in Shelly.”

  William had grabbed his pen and started drawing. “What about something where they are sitting down? I can’t believe that anyone wants to fly on their back, or their stomach. We can build the front to open…”

  “You mean like Urkel’s car?”

  “Yeah! The BMW Isetta.”

  Bobcat smiled. The Isetta. “Guys, new project name, the IZTA.”

  Marcus looked up from his typing, “What does that stand for?”

  Bobcat shrugged, “Beats the fuck out of me, but give me time and I’ll think of something.”

  William was busy pulling up old pictures of the Isetta to see if he could grab any of their engineering ideas for his own craft.

  They had a plan.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Buenos Aries, Argentina

  It had taken two days for Michael to outfit Tabitha. In those two days, he had gotten to know this young human female better than he had known any human in the last two centuries. Well, maybe a century and a half.

  Tabitha had shared how Anton’s people had found her on the dark web. How they then learned enough about her to threaten those she loved. She had been so afraid of anyone finding out that she was alive, she hadn’t even tried to reach out to her family.

  Bethany Anne and Gabrielle had shared, with her, the destruction of Anton’s group. And how, Tabitha could reach out to her family again.

  Tabitha had considered reaching out. But, after a couple of hours back in Miami, she had decided not to do it. Her parents were divorced, she had lived with her mother and had been in and out of the home for most of her teenage life. Right now, she was ok. Her mother might have worried about her. Having been gone longer this time without coming back. But letting her know that she was alive, wasn’t going to provide her any comfort.

  When Bethany Anne had asked Tabitha about what she knew of the UnknownWorld, she had held most of her cards close to her chest. She had acted the tough girl. One with a chip on her shoulder and a smart-ass attitude. It was her protection. Protection from guys who wanted more than she was willing to even think about giving. From adults who had wanted to ‘protect’ her when she was younger. She survived, by learning and planning.

  When she was in Anton’s group, she had learned enough to start searching for the truth about vampires. And with what she had found she also learned that there were Weres. Not just stories, but in reality.

  She had done it by hacking banks and financial institutions. From there, she tracked names and aliases through various companies. She figured she would need a place to start. She decided that there was one item she might be able to track … age. The people had to be old enough, she thought, to leave a trail and then she figured that they would be rich, rich, rich.

  She had kept her notes on paper. She wasn’t going to have her own files hacked as she had done to others. She wrapped her notes up in little hearts and fake stories. Her list of Michael and his children were under the heading, “boyfriend name ideas”.

  She had written scripts that would search the databases. Then they would leave the data, at drop points, in encrypted files on the dark web. She was careful when she picked up her data, always running through multiple cut-outs to keep her tracks out of any server logs.

  It had almost worked. When Michael was right in front of her, the proof of all of her hard work was staring at her. She had shrieked like a fan-girl meeting her boy-band idol. And she threw her information right out in front of Bethany Anne and Michael. It wasn’t until after Bethany Anne left that Tabitha realized she could have been in deep trouble. What if they had been worried about her hacking and data gathering?

  “Michael?”

  “Hmm?” He was reading through another set of notes he had pulled from Anton’s files. He seemed constantly focused and working to understand the notes.

  “Why didn’t you or Bethany Anne get upset when I showed you my notes on your children?”

  Michael l
ooked up from his folder. Tabitha hadn’t been bad so far, but he did find that she tried his patience from time to time. He thought about her question. “I didn’t bother because you are with me. You are about to learn more about my life than you ever could have, by hacking into databases across the world. I imagine that Bethany Anne didn’t bother because it would be the same as punishing a bear for eating a deer.”

  Tabitha thought about that, “So, she didn’t concern herself with a hacker, hacking?”

  “It is what you are, Tabitha. You are inquisitive by disposition and you have found it a security blanket, to try and control the world around you. Did you have any plans for what you would do with the information that you had acquired?”

  She thought about that, “No. I just knew that if Anton were to come after me or my family I needed to have more information about him. Once I knew about vampires I got curious, and wanted to know the bigger picture. Bethany Anne scared the crap out of me in Miami. She came into the helicopter after they took us from the bank job and I would swear she had red eyes and fangs but maybe my memory was hazy. Then Nathan got us new names and jobs with his company…”

  Her talking trailed off as she realized the import of his question. “If I had talked, someone would have found me and killed me, right?”

  “That was the rule, yes.” He continued to regard her.

  She made a face, “Kind of a douche-bag rule if you ask me. Who wrote it, you?” Tabitha’s smile dropped off of her face as she realized that Michael wasn’t smiling along with her. How was she always sticking her foot in her mouth?

  She gave him a small smile, “Um, sorry?”

  Michael returned her the barest hint of a smile. “No apologies necessary, this time. I’ve had a while to think about some of my rules in the last year. Don’t pass this on to Bethany Anne, but it was a rather ‘douche-bag’ rule.”

  “Yeah! What is it with her? I mean, don’t get me wrong but she doesn’t act all that blood thirsty and evil dead for being a wicked vampire.” She pursed her lips, “Well, except that first time meeting her.”

  Michael closed his folder, keeping his finger between the papers he was reading. “Believe it or not, we aren’t ‘wicked vampires’. Anton, and his brother David notwithstanding.”

  “I don’t know, rules to kill humans if they know too much seems kinda wicked to me.”

  “Really? Pray tell what would you do if four billion humans would go on a monster hunt looking to kill all of your kind if they learned the truth? Go on Oprah to talk about it?”

  “So, you think the death of the one is worth it to protect the many?”

  “Let’s take you as an example. What if you should hack into a system? An act which by definition is illegal, and bypass security measures that are meant to keep you out and then learn something that is life threatening to those who are trying to keep to themselves. Have you not argued for your own punishment?”

  Tabitha kept her mouth shut for a minute. She wanted to argue, but she did understand. “You’re saying I walked across the line that said, ‘No trespassing, death to all who enter’? And now I don’t want to accept my own responsibility?”

  “More like culpability, but yes you have the salient points.” Michael thought about it a few seconds. “Tabitha, you’re playing for keeps here. Carl wasn’t the first technician that has been killed because he worked for me. That being said, it’s been a long time between the last person to lose their life and him being murdered. Carl is a reminder that your position is dangerous.”

  “What happens if I want to quit?”

  “Do you want my answer, or Bethany Anne’s?”

  “What is the difference?”

  “Probably not a lot in the end. My method, you would probably die without knowing why. With Bethany Anne’s, you would at least know why and maybe make a couple of decisions to hide better.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I would take your memories, of us, away. Then I would set you up with enough money for you to live your life decently, so long as you don’t gamble it all away. Bethany Anne would let you keep your memory, knowing that you would be hunted. There are a lot of other groups who are always on the lookout for people who are outside of our protection. It won’t matter to them, if you know anything or not. They will grab you once they find you. Then they will do anything it takes, to pull anything you know out of you.”

  “So, I’m in a virtual prison of my own making?”

  Michael considered that, “Perhaps you might consider it that way. Eventually, you would have been caught in your hacking. You would have been ‘found and dealt with’, whatever that means. The Strictures, the rules that the UnknownWorld have lived by for centuries, are in flux and we are rewriting them.”

  “What caused them to change?”

  “You have met her already.”

  “Bethany Anne?”

  “Yes.”

  “How come I never found anything on her? How old is she that she already has so much power, when I could only find you at the top?”

  “That, my very young and nosy technician, is a story for another time.”

  Tabitha felt like her grandfather had just told her to go to bed. Her young and very scrumptious looking grandfather. “Hey, are you dating her?”

  “No.”

  “Have you dated her? I mean, you too act like you’ve… uh…” Michael’s penetrating eyes reminded her that sometimes, her mouth got ahead of any common sense. “Never mind.”

  Michael opened his folder back up, and continued where he had left off.

  Tabitha pulled her laptop over and sat it on her lap. Her latest scripts had been running. She had learned of the Queen Bitch’s guards and the operations in South America. Her first data dives had found all of the San Jose newspaper articles.

  Now, her next level of scripts had found three files. They were on a cloud service that provided ‘secure personal cloud storage’. Secure my ass, she thought.

  This was interesting, it was assigned to the San Jose reporter. She opened the files are started reading.

  “Michael?”

  “Hmmm.” He didn’t look up from his reading.

  “I found some information from a Giannini in San Jose. She has notes on Bethany Anne’s team, including notes where she is trying to figure out more about Gabrielle.”

  Michael looked up again, “I’m sorry, say that again? I wasn’t in South America for these operations.”

  Tabitha read Michael most of the notes Giannini had in her folder.

  Michael said, “She seems to know a lot about Bethany Anne and her team. I wonder why she is pulling this together?”

  Tabitha looked through the notes again, “Don’t know, but she has more information than I had about Bethany Anne… Bitch.”

  Michael’s lips had the faintest of curves. That sounded like a professional annoyance. If he could nurture Tabitha, in the right direction, she was going to turn into a fantastic intelligence agent. “I wonder how we can find out?”

  “Why not just go visit her?”

  Michael smiled, sometimes out of the mouth of babes. “What, you don’t want to try and hack your way into all of her secrets?”