“The lights made a heart,” he said, pointing. Then he showed her. The zero was below the block of 1 through 9. The shape had been closer to that of a chevron, but you could only do so well in making a heart on a number pad.
“Oh. How is that possible?”
He shook his head. “I have no idea. She can move energy. I stopped asking how things were possible when my goth co-worker threw a man across a parking lot and killed him with a sword, and then I woke up dead.”
“Undead.”
“Whatever.”
Reginald looked at the hallway. It dead-ended to their left. To the right, at the far end, were a double set of swinging doors. He started walking. Nikki followed. The hallway led to another, to another, to another. They took path after path, then finally emerged into a huge room with enormous video screens across its entire, two-story front wall. There were rows and rows of people (Reginald had to assume they were vampires; there were cups filled with red liquid on many of the desks) behind computers facing the screen. Women dressed in black uniforms and with insignia on their chests marched back and forth, watching it all. The setup reminded Reginald of Cheyenne Mountain, the massive control room that NORAD missile defense called home.
“Holy shit,” said Nikki.
Despite the chatter in the room, every head turned toward them. Blurs came from the rafters, and Nikki and Reginald found themselves staring down the barrels of several large guns. Vampire soldiers had appeared in front of them, painting them with the red dots of laser sights. Reginald couldn’t help but be amused. Vampires using guns to defend themselves? It was all so perversely appropriate.
One of the women in black marched toward them. She looked at them, moving her gaze from their feet to their heads, taking in their arctic gear. Both had taken the crampons off their boots and were holding them in their hands. They didn’t move.
The woman made a gesture. There was a quick sense of moving air behind them, and Reginald turned to find himself staring at a broad, muscular man with a square jaw and a massive scar curving from his forehead down to his neck.
“Reginald Baskin,” he said. “Well, if this isn’t an unexpected pleasure.”
It was Claude Toussant.
V-CREWS
CLAUDE INTRODUCED THE WOMAN AS General Ophelia Thax. She was tall and blonde and thin, and her outfit looked like a parody of a military uniform that might be worn at a sexy Halloween party. Claude let the general lead the way, then followed a few paces behind her. Behind Claude were two vampire soldiers, holding their guns up, walking backward. Behind the soldiers were Nikki and Reginald, and behind them were three more soldiers, also aiming guns. Reginald couldn’t help but feel flattered by the implication of his own menace.
They moved into a conference room with a glass wall that looked out over the large control area. Once inside, General Thax — not Claude — dismissed the armed guards. They looked nervous to leave the two high-ranking officials alone with the two intruders, but she repeated the command and they dutifully obeyed, locking the door behind them.
Claude sat on the edge of the room’s large conference table, his back to the windows. The woman remained standing, as if at attention.
“You can sit,” said Claude, gesturing behind Nikki and Reginald.
Reginald sat. Nikki remained defiantly standing, but this was the wrong time to make a moral stand. They’d come here for a reason, and an apparently-very-real sense of fate was at play. They had to find the codex first, get home second, and worry about Claude third. So Reginald reached up and very gently took Nikki’s hand, urging her to sit on the small couch beside him.
“Let’s start with the obvious,” said Claude.
“This is Vampire World Command,” said Reginald.
“Obviously.”
“Which apparently is code for Annihilist Headquarters.”
Claude looked at the general before answering. She met his eye, and some unspoken message moved between them. Reginald couldn’t see much into Claude’s mind without alerting him to his presence, so he was only able to catch the surface of the thought. He saw only that he’d broached a sensitive topic, and that they were treading on contested ground.
“Semantics,” said Claude. He nodded to the general beside him. The space between the four vampires was meaningfully empty, mocking the discussion’s implied civility. “The Annihilist Faction has operated out of VWC for decades, but it is still the VWC who runs it. My people defer to the generals, like Ophelia here.” He tipped his head toward the woman beside him. Reginald expected her to be irritated at the use of her first name, but apparently they’d lapsed into the familiar. Genocide made for strange bedfellows.
“The Vampire World Command,” said Ophelia, beginning to pace with her hands intertwined behind her back, “was created for two purposes. The first was to act as a kind of vampire United Nations. The various worldwide councils have never really gotten along; they’re closer to a handful of gangs controlled by warlords than civilized nations. The Soviet Council is like a tribe of barbarians. The Far East vampires haven’t changed much since Genghis Khan’s day. Even the EU and US barely talked to each other. VWC was supposed to bridge that gap and get them talking, but the endeavor failed from the start. We could never get representatives to come here and discuss ways to work together. The problem is that vampires like too much to be independent. Average American vamps have gotten good at doing as they’re told, but they’re really the only ones, and the US leadership has never cared about cooperation at levels above their own heads. So very quickly, we at VWC moved away from diplomacy and toward our other purpose: to act as a failsafe.”
“A failsafe.” Nikki repeated the words without inflection.
“The VWC always considered the human population to be a potential threat, whereas the individual councils treated humans like they were cows raised for meat. There were realities that required vampires to make themselves known to certain humans — groups like Erickson’s. We knew they weren’t stupid. They formed the AVT almost immediately after learning officially that we existed, and we suspect that armed force has grown much larger than is commonly known. We also recently found out the hard way that they’ve been hiding some fancy new weapons as well. Humans outnumbered vampires by a hundred thousand to one, and they were growing faster than we were, so in the opinion of the VWC, it was only a matter of time before they’d decide to test us. When that happened, there needed to be a body capable of responding in a coordinated manner — not as a loose collection of self-interested barbarians. That body also needed to be strong and well-trained enough to respond decisively to end the threat, in whatever form it took, using both innovative weapons and the substantial talents we already had.”
Reginald thought about the guns the soldiers had aimed at them. Those guns hadn’t looked particularly innovative, but he hadn’t been shot, and it was true that humans died when you shot them with just about anything. How much innovation was really necessary?
“The Annihilist Faction,” Claude added, shifting on the table’s edge, “had two things in common with the VWC. First, we also considered conflict with the humans to be inevitable. And second, we already had soldiers of our own. As a bonus, we also had a set of deep pockets able to fund those soldiers — something the VWC couldn’t count on.”
“So you bought yourself an army,” said Reginald. “Just like you bought one for Timken.”
Claude laughed. “Same army, different leadership. But as much as I like Nick, he’s too timid. He’s willing to do what’s necessary, but only as a last resort. The generals here were always willing to be as proactive as the situation required. So together, we made a good team.”
Looking at Claude, Reginald felt the rest of the puzzle fall into place: Timken didn’t know about the VWC, just as Maurice hadn’t. He didn’t know that his right-hand man was busy stabbing humanity in the back while he was out shaking hands. Reginald found himself recalling his discussion with Timken: the almost regretful way the presiden
t had spoken of there being no other way to save vampirekind than to turn the planet. He’d been willing to do what was “necessary,” but would his hand have been forced enough to do it without Claude’s murderous duplicity? Would the fire, on both sides, have burned hot enough without the war that the VWC/Annihilist troops had been conducting behind the scenes?
Reginald stood. Ophelia took a step toward him.
“You sick son of a bitch,” said Reginald. “You wanted this. You’ve been waiting for this.”
Claude didn’t stand. He nodded, unperturbed. “There’s no rule that says a man can’t enjoy his work.”
Reginald turned from Claude and Ophelia and approached the windows. Nikki was still sitting, her hands on the arms of her chair, her entire body betraying her readiness to spring up. He hoped she wouldn’t try. It would be both pointless and unnecessary.
He looked out at the big screens, the rows and rows of vampire technicians sitting in front of computers. Uniformed women strolled between them. He almost wanted to ask why the generals were all women, but he’d already run through the same logic the VWC must have run through when it was formed and felt confident of the answer Ophelia would give. Vampire women didn’t feel the need to rattle sabers and compare dick size. It made their decisions more logical and less testosterone infused — and in this context, much more cold.
“You could have taken the planet any time,” said Reginald.
“Oh yes,” said Claude. “In order to be sure we’d survive, we had to ensure that we were a hundred thousand times stronger and more prepared than the humans were. It was an amazingly sharp mandate, and it made us strong quickly. We have the troops, the training, and the weapons. That big screen shows our deployment. Do you see the positions?”
Reginald looked. The largest screen showed a globe projection in the center, with certain areas magnified and expanded on smaller screens around it. From this distance, he could make out small red dots scattered across the surface of all of the maps like spilled cayenne pepper. It was exactly as he’d anticipated, though on a frighteningly more thorough scale than he could have imagined. The missing piece of information had been the Annihilists’ cooperation with the VWC, and now that he knew about it, he saw how the human defeat was as inevitable as the toppling of dominoes. But also as he looked, he could already spot inefficiencies — areas where human populations would act differently than the VWC had apparently predicted. There weren’t enough deployments in Eastern Europe, for instance, and the island nations wouldn’t fall as predicted unless the plan included air support not evident on the big map. But as his strategic mind worked through the data, a troubling question surfaced: Why were Claude and Ophelia telling them all of these details? The answer to that question — which he was growing increasingly cognizant of — was even more troubling.
“I see them,” said Reginald.
“What do you think of them?”
Reginald said nothing, trying to think his way out of the room. If he could get Nikki out of the room, they might be able to repeat what they’d done to escape from the American Council, with Reginald time-stopping to use Nikki as a deadly weapon. But until the doors were unlocked and they had room to maneuver, their options would be limited.
“He thinks you’re sick sons of bitches,” said Nikki.
Reginald turned. Nikki stood and took two steps toward Claude. But, watching, Reginald saw something that Nikki didn’t — that Ophelia had a Boom Stick weapon on her belt. He considered having Nikki go for it, but then he saw something he’d never seen before: the shaft of the weapon had a glowing window on it. His mind ran through a series of analyses. A weapon like that would be as dangerous to the user as the victim. So how could you make it safe? And suddenly, he was certain that Claude’s new Boom Stick models were keyed to a user’s fingerprints, usable by their hand only. It would be useless to Nikki.
Ophelia’s hand moved toward the weapon.
Reginald stepped forward, striding into the tightening knot of vampires. He decided to go for the conversational throat, cutting right to the chase.
“You want us to stay.”
Claude nodded. “I’d say we require you to stay.”
“We don’t want to stay.”
Claude shuffled sideways, disrupting the cluster. Nikki stepped back. Ophelia’s hand lowered. Claude gestured through the window, to the big screen showing global vampire deployment.
“Look out there, Reginald,” he said. “You must see it. It’s only a matter of time before the humans are either finished, turned, or contained. You may not like me much…”
“Oh, you’re a delight,” Reginald interrupted.
“… but you know we’re going to win this conflict. You don’t have to like me, or agree with me, or think that what we’re doing here is right. But this war is going to the vampires, and that’s just a fact. So the only remaining question — and I’ll put this to you and your superior brain, Reginald — is how efficiently it can be done. Will this conflict conclude quickly so that we can move on, or will it drag on for months and years, with many innocents being killed in the meantime?”
“Innocents like the humans?”
“Well,” said Claude, “there’s some truth to what Ophelia said, about how they are cows to be raised for meat.”
“I’m not going to help you with your… your crime,” said Reginald, his mouth curling in disgust.
“Crime?” said Ophelia, walking so close to Reginald that he could smell the blood on her breath. “Crime? You are a vampire, Baskin! You drink blood! You are a monster! Do you hear me? You are an unholy, dirty, motherfucking monster. All of us are. Stop trying to be a human. Stop trying to play both sides. We have been given a mandate, and it is either us or them. Us or them!”
“If you’re saying that the angels…”
“Fuck the angels!” she spat. “We have had to hide since the dawn of time while they infested the planet like locusts. We are the rightful heirs to this world, with the power to take it by force as evolution intended. But what did we do? Did we take what was ours? No! We hid in holes while they built their skyscrapers and mini malls and megaplexes. They made television and sitcoms and infomercials; they sat in chairs and grew soft while we grew hard.” She looked Reginald’s corpulent frame over from bottom to top, as if she’d never seen it before. “We have let them take whatever they wanted. They pollute, consume, eat, shit, befoul everything. We don’t live like they do, but does it matter? No, they fuck up the planet for us, so that we can experience their sloth secondhand. Isn’t that nice? They drag us down and we go willingly. And now, at the dawn of our triumph, bleeding-heart pieces of shit like you yell back at us, calling us murderers, as if you won’t live among us when it’s all over. You’re just like a human — willing to accept all of the benefit but none of the responsibility.”
Her fangs were out, her mouth open like an angry cat’s. “Come here,” she added. “I want to show you something.”
She grabbed Reginald by the back of his collar and dragged him toward the door. Nikki reacted, lunging forward, but Ophelia let go of Reginald for long enough to sprint forward and grab Nikki’s neck in her clawed hand.
“Nikki!” Reginald shouted. “Don’t!”
“Oh, no,” Ophelia purred, her fingernails drawing blood. “Please do.”
Nikki shook her off, refusing to engage. Then Ophelia walked toward the door without grabbing Reginald again, her point made. Reginald got to his feet, and he and Nikki followed. Claude, still nonplussed, brought up the rear.
They made their way down a long hallway, down a set of stairs, and into a dark room. Several computer monitors lined the front wall, all turned to a muted night mode. There was no external light in the room; the only illumination came from the monitors. There were three men and another general in the room. The men were sitting. The woman was standing.
Claude, with a glance at the back of Ophelia’s blonde head, dragged two chairs from the back of the room and placed them behind th
e room’s seated technicians. Reginald and Nikki sat. None of the room’s occupants looked back and only cast the briefest of glances at Ophelia. Claude stood against the back wall.
This was also so familiar. It was almost a cliche. The front room had reminded Reginald of a missile command center, and this room reminded him of commanders watching a black ops operation. And, looking toward the screens, he saw that that’s exactly what it was.
The monitors showed video that seemed to be coming from a soldier’s mounted camera — something Reginald inferred from the presence of other soldiers around the camera-wearer. The soldiers wore black jumpsuits, almost like ninjas, but with their heads exposed. They were wearing black gloves with sharp black pieces of metal at the tips. Reginald was reminded of something that was a mix between Wolverine and Freddy Krueger.
“You’re watching a V-Crew,” said Claude, squatting behind Reginald and Nikki. “A specialized unit within the VWC and Annihilist Faction’s joint army. Nick Timken’s SA troops are sloppy by our standards. They are too visible, offer too many targets, and take too many collateral casualties. Tell me: have you seen troops like this before, out in the world?”
“No,” said Reginald, watching the soldiers on the screen. They seemed to be headed toward a circle of lights. It appeared to be a medium-sized town. He couldn’t tell where it was, but wherever it was, it was nighttime.
“There’s a reason,” said Ophelia, looking back and keeping her voice low as the room’s mood seemed to require. “These Crews are much better at what they do than the SA, and are in a separate world from the Kill Squads. We don’t leave evidence. We don’t leave bodies. The others slash and burn. It was inevitable that everyday vampires would start to attack humans openly (you can’t cure stupidity, as they say) but for the official peacekeepers —” She laughed at the term. “— to be the SA? Unforgivable. But hey, they are America. They can do whatever they want, right? It doesn’t matter that it makes our officials culpable. But think about it, Reginald. You have an unmatched strategic mind. How much more damage could we have inflicted before the outbreak if all of our official actions had been done in stealth?”
Fat Vampire (Book 5): Fatpocalypse Page 10
