Thursday, December 12, 2013
Sunday, November 17, 2013
Friday, November 8, 2013
Antz the Endgame coming soon...
Antz - The Endgame
Zenith’s controls were lighter than a single-pilot fighter-ship.
Zenith’s responses to Jeeda’s manipulations instantaneous and without lag.
Jeeda’s commands were being conveyed through her physical connection to helm-
her only connection to Zenith. Her two hands were on the controls just
as she had always piloted and those physical commands entirely controlling the
mechanisms of the ship. It was piloting by instinct alone and it was far faster
than a mental implant could have delivered the data because Jeeda was not
piloting by thought alone. The concept
of using mental implants-the Staval called them links- for piloting the Blue-ships had been considered. The
technology was available with the open Staval data-bases and would work with
humans once adapted for humans but the idea had been scrapped. It was human instincts
which were to be counted on if the human race was to stand against the Antz and
for that to occur the recessives needed the full activation of both mind and
cells. It was this link of mind and cells which gave the recessives their
unique abilities and which would be their only chance of survival when combat
was joined with the new Antz Blue-ships.
Ahead lay the Antz/Staval Armada and towards it Zenith
rushed under Jeeda’s sure control. Jeeda’s face held an expression new to
Welby’s experience. It wasn’t the mad smile of previous eras but the smile was
there nonetheless. It was the smile of the acceptance of the challenge- but
Welby could detect none of the madness he had expected to find there. The madness he had seen in her face on
every instance they had gone to battle together except this time. Welby couldn’t predict if that would be a good
thing or a bad thing as they came within range of the Antz weaponry but he was
fully aware of what Jeeda Collins had become and he was here because he had every
confidence Jeeda would once again win the day. Despite the battle ahead and the
worrisome look of keen anticipation on Jeeda’s face, Welby was confident the
human race had created the weapons which would be the Antz undoing. If not then
Welby was sure this would be the end of the road for the human race. The
remaining human forces would be mopped up quickly with the demise of the 111th,
but if that was to be the outcome,
then Welby could think of no place he would rather be. No matter the outcome
this was where Welby wanted to be. The outcome of this battle would tell the
tale of human’s further place in the Universe. If this battle were lost so too
would the human race be lost and no place far enough to run. This was the
pinnacle battle which would decide human’s further existence and the outcome by
no means assured. Welby felt a kind of keen anticipation himself and even felt
the smallest smile attempt to tug at his lips- at the irony of the whole affair-
but it slipped away and Welby couldn’t bring it back. The cold hard truth was
that the implacable, indestructible human war machine had finally found a
worthy enemy.
Jeeda was unaware of Welby’s scrutiny. Nearly all of her awareness
was directed inward and her instrumentation all but forgotten- including the
main-screen visual feed of the Antz Armada ahead. If she had noted Welby’s scrutiny it wouldn’t have been a new experience.
When Jeeda flew into battle every eye that could find a spare moment found
itself mesmerized by the Admiral’s expression- usually that of mad glee. Welby
had nothing to do at the moment and shouldn’t have been here though now that he
was, there was little for him to do.
The battle was entirely in Jeeda and Zenith’s control.
Under Jeeda’s calm sure control Zenith twisted and floated
sinuously through the first stalks of blue fire erupting from the forward ships
of the Antz Armada- even as the alarms went off warning of that incoming fire.
With a calm ease that astonished the four others aboard- Zenith included -
Jeeda floated the massive ship effortlessly through the bolts as if somehow
they were magnetically repelled by them and the bolts themselves pushing Zenith
out of the way. With a familiarity that was scary Jeeda rode the bolts, moving just out of the way and the bolts
flashing by only meters from the hull of the ship, so that at the next moment
she might step Zenith in the other direction to avoid the bolt which arrived
just where they had been. The visual feed became a solid mass of blue fire as
Zenith closed and then the enemy was targeting Zenith with everything it had with
a clear line of fire.
Welby could see nothing but blue streaks of fire reaching
out from the Antz on the forward screen and Zenith dancing among them with outward
confidence. Zenith seemed to be buoyed upon waves of magnetic or some other
type of physical repulsion issued by the bolts themselves. As two magnets could
not be forced together backwards neither could the blue bolts force themselves
onto the ship- as if Zenith was being magnetically pushed away by some force
within the bolts themselves. Zenith’s velocity was slow and graceful yet the
walls of blue fire pouring around them left Welby with no doubt as to the
danger they faced. Welby could make nothing of the mass of blue which flashed
around them so he watched Jeeda because it was the emotions now visible on her
face that told the tale for Welby. Jeeda’s hands were fluid gracefulness upon
her controls and her face told the tale of her new confidence. A sudden new
confidence told by the look of retribution now written on her face, written on
a face that now knew the Antz could
be defeated.
Jeeda rolled and twisted Zenith through the barrage operating
on instinct alone. Her wholeness of
awareness was giving her an almost precognitive warning of the incoming fire
her consciousness could not fathom until Zenith was sliding through yet another
barrage unscathed and it was she who had piloted them through it. It wasn’t
precognitive ability however but her heightened awareness and reaction time that
allowed her to act before her mind could fathom what she was doing- faster than
her mind could send electrical signals across synapses much less the added
processing time of having to think it through. The Staval energy beams traveled
much faster than electricity across synapses and Jeeda’s visual perception of
the battle was little different than Welby’s though through her cognizance of
her cell’s awareness in her mind’s eye she could see the bolts coming almost in
slow motion. Then suddenly Zenith herself caught up to real-time as the fire
cleared for a millisecond and Jeeda launched Zenith directly at the Antz Armada.
Instantly Zenith’s cannons were pouring blue fire at the suddenly scattering
Antz Armada, scattering before the blizzard which was the 111th
descending upon them from every vantage and then Jeeda had her first glimpse of
the true power the Blue-ships wielded. Zenith’s first shot completely
obliterated an enemy and suddenly it was every ship for itself.
“Registering multiple entry points!’ Zenith warned but if
Jeeda heard it wasn’t apparent. Jeeda was fighting her own battle, her
attention turned entirely inward, her concentration on fighting the battle
which she was sure would end with the destruction of the Antz Armada, but it
was a battle which had just become numerically unbalanced. What was to become
an unending parade of Antz Armadas began entering real-space around the battle,
flanking the 111th as it decimated the first decoy Armada. Then they
joined the battle.
Saturday, July 6, 2013
Chronicles of a Space Mercenary - Vengeance
“Mammals.” Serrath hissed and it was only half performance as
we were assaulted by the closeness of so many of our instinctual enemies. I
felt it too, the ancient hatred of the reptile for mammals stirred within my
breast among the throngs of every variety and stripe of warm-blooded beings
imaginable and as my new instincts screamed at me of danger. There were a lot
of mammals present here but this was probably just an enclave. The Kievor could
sometimes have their quirks that way, especially when every ship suddenly
without an owner became the property of the Kievor. I had to admit I was
looking at the Kievor in a whole new way as the revelations unfolded. They had
shown me the very depths to which treachery could stoop. The Kievor were the
ultimate politicians, in my opinion, playing everybeing against themselves.
“Furred mammals.” Leethea said. You didn’t need to be a
reptile to be glad you hadn’t been born a furred mammal. “Disgusting.” The
stench was nearly overwhelming.
In fact the smell was almost an assault, a definite drawback
to enhanced olfactory abilities, I noted as we slowly moved out into the
corridor. Ostensibly to be window-shopping for whatever vice we were seeking. Few
entered the trade warrens looking for anything else and which brought to mind
the vice I was seeking. I scowled at the girls for withholding that- no matter
how great a point they had earned. The way several sheepish looking mammals
passing us shied back as I scowled I supposed I must have overdone it a bit. No
facial muscles meant move my lips and rows of sharp teeth were showing.
“You are a handsome reptile.” Serrath told me as I spotted an
intriguing sign. I couldn’t read the alien script but the tankard flashing in
brilliant lights was Universal. Without saying a word I just turned in that
direction and went in without waiting to see if they had followed me. They were
big girls and weren’t we supposed to be making a reputation for ourselves?
There wasn’t a single lizard in the bar at all and everything
simply came to a silent halt when I walked in. It went from roaring party to
instant silence before I had gotten two steps into the place. Everybeing in the
place was looking in my direction and hands, tentacles and other such
appendages were surreptitiously moving closer to weapons- but most not so
surreptiously. In no position to fight fifty at once I quickly turned around
and ran right into Serrath and Leethea as they followed me in. “Looks cozy.”
Serrath said as she coldly looked over the sea of hostile faces.
“Let’s go in.” Leethea said. Together they were blocking my
exit. The silence behind me seemed to be growing deeper though how absolute
silence could get quieter was a question I couldn’t rightly answer at that
moment. Maybe Bren could explain it, if I survived to see him again.
“Just checking to make sure you were behind me.” I said as I
turned back around and began making my way to the bar. Serrath and Leethea were
right there behind me and suddenly I could smell the fear and confusion of the
mammals. They had expected me to leave and now that I hadn’t I had struck the
cord of uncertainty within them. Now within their midst I felt much more
confident- that old conundrum of how I was the most confident while under the
most extreme of stresses. If they attacked us now, in their midst, at the very
least we’d take a pile of them with us and leave a bloodbath behind us- if we
survived- and a good start to making our reputation. Reputations weren’t made
by cowering in the shadows.
The Alien Agenda
The story of Human evolution is a long and convoluted one,
yet Humans are aware of little of it that is actual fact. Their myth is steeped in incomplete science,
supposition and religious credo to help account for the absence of hard
fact. To help them deal with the
unknown.
Humankind's scientists, historians, philosophers and others
of learning proclaim a body of knowledge as fact. Mostly they are correct. Life evolved on Earth in the same manner as
it must evolve everywhere. It started
with simple protein combinations and over billions of years through single-celled
organisms into complex, through reptiles, into mammals and finally Human's
stone tool using predecessors. That is
where the story gets a little fuzzy. How
Humans made the leap from tool using apes to today's Human, in an evolutionary
blink of the eye.
The truth is not as humanity sees it. They cannot see it. They would be destroyed. Humans would not be able to face it if it
were cried from every street corner. If
they faced the truth of it, the tenuous fabric of their nebulous make-believe
reality would unravel around them and they would be left with nothing but the
stark unbearable horror of their own futility.
Of humanities doomed place in destiny.
The oblivion Fate had decreed them.
I watched humanities transformation with my own eyes. Had I not seen it with my own eyes I
know that even I would have had a hard time facing the truth of it, so foreign
is it to nature and common-sense! So
abrupt and radical has been humanities transformation. Once very
much different than they are now, Humans have been made to evolve into beings that would in the end of the
process be much like myself genetically but fully evolved to live on Earth-
while I was not. It was an induced
evolution in which the Human race had been elevated from and above the rest of
Earth’s native fauna. Our two species had
also once been very much different, Vampires and Humans, from one another
though now those differences weren’t quite as noticeable as they had been
thirty-four thousand years ago. Not
quite so different now that the Human race had come so far in the process. I had been at that time the evolutionary
advancement, they the half formed beasts only barely cognizant of the
differences between them and the other animals within the forests, jungles and
savannahs of their primitive world. The
Human race had come a long way but had almost reached the end.
That was then and this is now. Humans have been changed radically. They have been induced to evolve. They have had no more say in what has
happened to them than I have had in the life I have lived, except that their
change occurred gradually, over long eons, the transformation more controlled,
more scientific, while my own was… a mistake.
Yet Humans are still ruled by those basest of animal
needs. They had been induced into an
accelerated evolution that changed them too quickly for the hardwired
instinctual reactions of the Human animal to form an equitable balance between
new and old resulting in a race both civilized and barbaric at the same time. Like myself and all Vampires, Humans are a
mix of contradictions.
All Humans are not ignorant, however. There are many enlightened souls who see
through the fog of misinformation the unequivocal truth that lies in front of
all humankind, but that most yet refuse to acknowledge because the truth is too
ugly, too vicious. There is nothing that
can be done about it so it is simply best not to believe. The Other's technological advantages are too
far in advance of humankind. To maintain
mass sanity, Humans unconsciously accept the inescapable certainty of the
inevitableness of their circumstances.
What other choice have they had?
The sun would soon be up and I would have to retreat
indoors. The old myths of Vampires and
sunlight are true. We cannot tolerate
it. Not Sol, anyway. Not Earth's life-giving star. We Vampires suppose there is a star somewhere
more tolerable to our divided natures.
To our half which is not Human.
The Others must have evolved under a star somewhere, but a star in some
way intrinsically different from Sol. Or
possibly it is that they have traveled so long within the black depths of
space, or have not lived on the surface of any world, under any star at all,
for so long that they may not be longer able to tolerate any such emissions as
Sol or any star gives. It is my belief
that the Others travel across the vast gulfs of interstellar space at will. I
presume at many multiples of the speed of light. But yet is not the Universe so
vast that even at these velocities it may take generations to make
crossings? Why else would they spend such
time and resources stealing what belonged to others?
In either case or if neither is true all that really matters
is that the Others have passed on to Vampires their inability to tolerate the
sun. This the entire point of the
Other’s interaction with humanity in the first place. Their genetic manipulations of humanity are
to steal humanity itself. Slowly infuse
humanity with their DNA to acquire humanity's tolerance to Sol and when
entirely infused slowly remove humankind from the picture, one snip of deoxyribonucleic
acid at a time, until the final result is a population one hundred percent the
Others, yet tolerant of Sol.
Vampires are also genetic manipulations. We are Breeds. Half Human and half the Others except created
without the slow indoctrination which has occurred with humanity. Mayhap the very first experiment, I am unable
to tolerate the sun any more than the Others.
Given too much of their DNA at once, I became the first Vampire. I was the only one of my kind for many eons until
I discovered how to propagate my species.
By then humanity had undergone drastic changes.
Different than I genetically Humans still possess all of
their humanity, all of their genetic heritage, the Others DNA added to the
entire helix where it could be fitted in and nothing yet removed while my own
is the product of a split; I am half Human and half the Others. A being of both worlds yet of neither!
This is the genetic inheritance I pass to Humans I transform
to Vampirism as well as my own offspring.
My blood is parasitic. It attacks
the host's cells, reproducing quickly, feeding on what it destroys. It infuses every cell within the Human host,
rewriting the DNA, destroying everything that is different, leaving only copies
of itself in its wake. It was a side effect of the Others' evolutionarily
superior regenerative abilities I do not believe they could have foreseen. They did not foresee. I am the only mistake the Others have ever
made that I am aware of. I was an
attempt to rush a process that cannot be rushed. Despite all of their technological advantage,
there were still limitations to what they were capable of doing. I was the proof of that.
“Marcel. You had
better come in.” Sonafi said from the
rooftop-entrance doorway. I had triply
felt, heard and sensed her approach. A
Vampire is perceptive in many unusual ways, but my focus was elsewhere. This was pre-dawn. If not my favorite time of the day, it was at
least that portion around which I had built a certain routine. If I was not so fond of this particular time
of the day, I was at least fond of the ritual which I had constructed around
it.
I liked to pretend that I would stand and watch the
dawn. Watch the sunrise. Of course I could not. It would cook me. Burn me to a crisp.
Not that there had never been occasions when a prolonged
delay left me exposed, unprotected from the sun's brutal rays. The memories of those incidents remain fresh
in my mind no matter how much time has passed since they occurred. I could not forget them. It had been nearly fifty years since the last
and I could remember those excruciating moments as if they had happened only
yesterday.
Painful but yet alluring the sun held a fascination for me
that I could not describe. I could not
describe the fascination having never actually gazed into the sun, but it
pulled at me as much as it pushed. I
would give almost anything to be able to walk under its warm rays- those
beautiful, deadly rays. It was a dream
which could never be. It could never
more than the twisted fantasy of a delusional night walker. It could never be real.
I seemed to delay longer every day, edging farther and
farther towards that steep precipice. To
have lived an entire life denied of its warmth, the energy, the driving force
which had fueled the birth of life on Earth, was to me the most unbearable
aspect of my entire existence. The bane
of my long life, but the Eastern horizon was pinking now with the ambient light
of sunrise and I retreated before it. I could
not force myself to remain.
“Another day.” I said
as I turned to my wife. “The last is yet
too vivid.”
“I feel it already.”
Sonafi said, near haunted eyes staring Eastward at the deadly beauty of
the lightening sky. There was little of
Earthly origin that a Vampire might fear, but a Vampire was deathly afraid of
the sun.
Our fear of the sun is a learned fear, not an instinct. It wasn't instinctual for Humans to fear Sol,
certainly, while the Others had not evolved here under Sol, so they would have
no cellular memory of our star, but it became near instinctual rapidly when the
aversion was this powerful and this painful.
This painful when even its indirect ambient glow burned with a
fierceness that could not be denied.
This tableau had become ritual. Nearly every morning I stood on our roof and
awaited the coming of the dawn. Every
morning Sonafi came up to remind me to return indoors.
“How many thousands of times have you come to see me safely
indoors?” I asked as I retreated to the
safety of the roof access doorway.
“Millions,” Sonafi said, “and you have been cutting it
closer every day, again.” She shut the
door behind us and, standing so close we were nearly touching, stared up at me
with her liquid, almond eyes. Of
Egyptian lineage, olive skinned, the straight black hair and muscular figure of
her race, plus the flawless beauty, power and symmetry of movement of the
Vampire kind, she seemed a Goddess temporarily transformed to Human kind. She had nearly the powers of One, the beauty
and the intelligence, though not necessarily the pure intentions. Vampires are carnivores with an instinctual
drive to kill that went far beyond what their Human halves brought to the
union. Though Humans are carnivores, as
well, their addition was by far the tamer of the half.
We still possessed our Human consciences, after all, though
if humanity was aware of that fact, it was unclear. They feared and hated us. Despised us.
Loathed. Both wanted us dead. Both Humans and the Others and for good
enough reason. We were a threat to
both. We preyed on one while our
continued existence threatened the other.
The Others. The Others obviously
had a lot riding on Earth. They could
not afford to be exposed.
“Don't you ever miss it?”
I asked as I linked my arm in hers and we walked down the stair to the
second story. Her fingers were like
mobile bands of iron on my arm. Her grip
like that of a vice. Those hands had the
strength to rip a Human limb from limb, had done so, yet they could also be
very comforting. They were comforting to
me now. Sonafi was the one being whom I
knew with absolute certainty that I could trust with my life.
Sonafi knew what the sun looked like whereas I have never
gazed upon it. She had grown up Human. Normal.
At least she’d had that.
“I do miss it, but not the same way as you.” She replied and I could only smile. We had repeated this conversation many tens
of thousands of times, yet Sonafi answered me each and every time as
good-naturedly as every time before. Instead
of continuing the ritual as usual however, I paused to look deeply into her
eyes.
“What is it?” I
asked. This was not telepathy. I had not read her mind. This was simply body language. She had something on her mind. I led her onward to the sofa.
“We have been here a long time.” Sonafi said as we sat, in the parlor in front
of the television. Though I was a
creature of long habit, enjoying the old pursuits, Sonafi was quite
modernized. She and all the members of
our latest brood, now all departed the nest.
The television, computer, phones, the electronic gadgets of every sort which
were all just meaningless noise and static to me were her greatest
comfort. It had brought amusement to our
latest brood as well, which had been a relief in itself.
“We have been here a very long time.” I agreed.
“It has been a good time.”
“We've been here too long.”
Sonafi said.
“Have you felt something?”
I asked quietly, knowing she would not have been so calm if she had, yet
my hand strayed to the hilt of the weapon resting on its stand behind the sofa,
anyway. It was a Japanese katana of such
antiquity that were the Japanese to become aware it existed, they would
assuredly insist on its return as a National Treasure. It had been the gift of a Human with whom I
had spent long years of intellectual discourse.
One of only few Humans I had ever entrusted with my secret and a man
whose memory I would carry with me always.
He had been a Human whose honor and integrity had been above reproach
and he had been a good friend to me- a man I had learned much from- and a very
enlightened man for his era.
The Others are both telepathic and technologically superior
to humankind, but Vampires are not Humans.
We cannot be taken against our wills through the telepathic suborning of
our conscious minds. We Vampires are too
sufficiently similar to the Others to be manipulated in the same ways they
manipulate Humans. The very same way
Vampires manipulate Humans- through a direct interference with the Humans'
cerebral cortex. Both we and the Others
could interact with Humans without leaving a memory of interaction through
subconscious telepathic suggestion. The
way a hypnotist can if the subject is suggestible enough. Except that Vampires and the Others do not
need a suggestible subject.
“No. I have felt
nothing.” Sonafi said reassuringly,
reaching out a hand and placing it on my own.
“It is just a feeling.”
“Your feelings have often been more than just
feelings.” I said. “Are you sure that is all there is to
it? Just a feeling? No more?”
The reason I made such a point of my question was that Sonafi had
proven, through the long years, to be especially attenuated to the Others. She was our early warning detection sentinel
in a very real way. She could almost
always be counted on for an advance warning, sometimes earlier than other
times, however.
“I just fear that we grow complacent.” Sonafi said.
“It has not been so very long, after all.” She meant since the Others had found us last.
I looked around the house we had called home for fourteen
years and felt its loss like a physical blow.
Sonafi was correct. We had
remained stationary for far too long.
I was the oldest Vampire.
In a very real sense I was the cement which bound our loose society and
perpetually hunted. Fourteen years
without discovery is a long period, one of the longest, but it has also been
becoming easier to hide within the human population as that population swelled,
we few more easily missed in the crush of overwhelming Human numbers. More easily missed but I was sure not
forgotten. If we remained stationary too
long we would eventually be found. We
always were.
“Where will we go?” I
asked. “I have dreaded this day. I hate to leave.” Now would it be as easy as it once was,
merely to pick up and go? We would
require the aid of other of our kin to make that possible, I am not
technologically inclined. I have not
well made the transition to the modern world.
A creature of long habit, I read, I write, I ponder philosophically,
delving into the deeper mysteries of the world, the Universe, Time, Physics and
Mathematics, subjects which hold endless fascination for me and probably why I
find little time for modernization.
The youngest Vampire generations, like their Human
counterparts, brought up with these mediums, the computer, cell phones, the
internet and all of the other technological wizardry of this the modern world,
had become as technically literate as some of humankind's finest scientists,
programmers, engineers, biologists, geneticists, and the whole plethora of
Human endeavor. We had been endowed with
the technical inclinations of the Others and with our forced daily hibernation,
the time to pursue those studies. We
need varying amounts of sleep, like Humans, but generally far less than the
entirety of the daylight hours. For
those of us so inclined, and that is a great percentage of us, we are afforded
ample opportunity to pursue these endeavors.
Documents and new identities would not be a problem.
We were already getting too old for the identities we were
using anyway. Our apparent longevity set
us at odds far more than our aversion to the sun. Many Humans were night-lifers,
third shifters, but none did not age!
They all aged. All but us!
“I thought we might return to the Old Country.” Sonafi suggested. “It has been a very long time. I yearn for its old familiarity. The comfort of its superstitions and
fears. The hysteria and undercurrent of
constant suspicion.” At this she smiled,
her long eye teeth overly white and prominent.
“That's not one of the things I have particularly
missed.” I said. The superstitious people of the Old Country
had often been as dangerous as the Others themselves. But that was something I had brought upon
myself and not really a natural state for Humans. I was Vampire born, not transformed, and I
had rampaged unchecked for centuries. I
had done horrible things. I had killed
indiscriminately, like a rabid animal.
The enmity Humans felt for me was well earned.
In those earliest years of my existence Humans and I were
very much different. I did not see them
as anything more than a food source. No
different than any of the other animals I preyed upon, even though I could
recall my birth of them. It had been no
more than one more of the many things I did not understand. Like a reptile, I came to this world fully
prepared to fend for myself. From the
very first moment! I can only thank
providence that it was the custom of my mother's people that the woman went
into the woods alone to give birth and also that I was in the shade of the
canopy of branches above when I came out and not within the sun's direct glare.
The shock I had seen on her face, the confusion I felt at
that moment, when I realized I was rejected, had haunted me for more years than
I cared to count. It was the reason I
had predated the early pre-Humans, when the forests were full of easy
prey. I had hated them and I had made
them pay.
Those earliest Humans knew true terror when they thought of
me. I was relentless. I hounded every Human settlement within
thousands of miles. I had nothing but
time, after all, and it became much like a game. I would kill randomly. One here.
One there. Keeping them always on
edge.
It was while persecuting those earliest Humans that I
realized, suddenly, that I could understand them. Having listened to their seemingly meaningless
noises from the outskirts of their caves, their villages and their camps when
they traveled, one day I simply made the mental leap that they were
communicating, and I began to study them.
After that it was only a matter of time.
Then it was that I quit persecuting Humans. Suddenly I was more intrigued than angry.
They had begun to change as well by then. They had begun to look more like me, but I
had not noticed. I had been living like
an animal. I knew only the thoughts of
the predator. Yet suddenly my mind had
been awakened. Vast potentials opened
before me. I began to study them and to
learn. It was during this intense study
of Humans that I first saw the Others. I
heard them in my head before I actually saw them. I heard dozens of voices in my head all at
once, wordless yet completely understandable.
They heard me, as well. They were
suddenly aware of me as I was aware of them.
This was before I learned how to control myself. Learned how to control my thoughts.
“This is the modern era.
Humans have put their superstitions behind them.” Sonafi said, but she wasn't really pushing
the issue. The New World had been good
to us. We have thrived here. I could think of nothing which would convince
me to return to the land of my birth. I
had ceased to hunt them, but the Humans of the Old World would never forget
me. I had hunted them too long. Verbal histories had been passed down. The fear those earliest Humans had felt for
me was still strong in the peoples of the Old World. We may have been forgotten here in the United
States, but we were still remembered there.
My eyes shifted to and lingered momentarily on the detail
and craftsmanship of the exquisite weapon under my hand. It was the finest blade I had ever seen and
made by my friend. He had been the
finest blade-smith who had ever lived. I
had offered the gift of eternal life, but he was only one of the few who having
been made the offer had declined.
Hamaterara Cumosachi had been his name and a Human who had nothing to
fear from the afterlife.
I well knew that Hamaterara would have nothing to fear in
the afterlife, and he had assured me of my own goodness, even knowing how I
fed, but I have always wondered how God will greet me when my day does
arrive. Could those things I had done
before the dawning of reason ever be forgiven?
I returned my hand to my side, my attention to my wife.
“They will never put us behind them. We have done too much.” I said.
Nor was it only what I had done personally. To add to my crimes I had unleashed a wave of
Vampires I confusedly had thought would become my new family. I had been wrong.
“You are probably correct.
I do not know that I would ever wish to return to those turbulent
times.” Sonafi said. “We were never safe in those days. Always running and always looking over our
shoulders.”
“It may not be good that we grow complacent, but it has been
restful.” I soliloquized.
“I don't think you will ever really grow complacent.” Sonafi told me. “I do not believe you are capable of complacency.” Her eyes flickered to the Katana on its stand
behind the sofa and then back to my own eyes.
Amused, I could not help the smile which rose to my lips, or help
noticing the fascination with which she beheld it, and the teeth my smile
revealed. Even a Vampire could not
resist her fascination with another Vampire's teeth; so white and milky,
flawless and symmetrical, ideal and perfect, like everything else about a
Vampire. If it weren't for our aversion
to the sun, we would be the most perfectly crafted creatures on the face of
this world.
“We don't need the superstitious peoples of the Old World to
keep us vigilant.” I said. “We have the Others for that. I can remember every visitation as if they
had only occurred yesterday. I would
never be able to forget the Others. Not
ever.”
“Nor I.” Sonafi said
softly, vehemently, the memories flooding her mind. A mother does not soon forget the children
she watched murdered right in front of her own eyes, no matter how long ago it
had occurred.
Even if I were somehow ever able to become complacent, I
would have Sonafi to remind me, to keep me vigilant. I had sometimes even to walk on eggshells
around my own children. Sonafi became
almost mindlessly ferocious directly after child-birth. I was sure to keep my distance during these
times. Though I love her dearly, I
cannot fail to notice the look of insanity, the pure primal madness, which
comes into her eyes when she is guarding her newly -born.
Were it up to me entire, I would engender no more offspring,
the entire Vampire race already sprung from my blood, my loins, to begin, but
Vampires are not plagued with the same genetic deficiencies as Humans, the
genetic influence we received from the Others much more complex, older, more
evolved, there can be no problems with inbreeding, nor do I have control over
Sonafi's reproductive cycle. Unlike
Humans, a Vampire woman consciously controls her fertility. I wouldn't have a say in the matter even had
I wanted. I did not attempt to dictate
to Sonafi. It would do no good if I did
and our relationship is one of mutual respect, so I don't. She makes these decisions and I abide them,
for good or bad.
My part in the process is a brief one, relatively. Then I tend to steer a wide berth around her,
especially right after she has birthed.
She will look at me in a way, sometimes, that makes me think that it is
a struggle to recognize me, her instincts rising and trying to take complete
control of her. It was losing children
to the Others that changed her. Something
of her had been intrinsically altered.
“I see that you are determined that we should relocate
somewhere else.” I said to steer the
conversation away from the old hurts.
Our offspring are born ready to fend for themselves. They are born ready and willing to
fight. Ferocious. Independent.
But no match, when they are young, for the Others. The only reason the Others had not eradicated
us entirely was our too similar likeness to themselves. They can no more tolerate the sun than
we. When they come, they must come in
the night, and the night is the Vampire's friend. We are the night walkers. The night is our home as much as it belongs
to the Others. The old legends are
absolutely correct about that, at least.
“Will we never return?”
Sonafi asked.
“Never is a long time.”
I said. “I admit I miss the Old
Country. The New World does not fulfill
me the way the Old Country did, but here there is only one enemy.”
I was descended of the race of Humans who would later become
the fierce nomadic Kurds. Black
hair. Light brown skin. Dark blue eyes. Nowhere could I go in this new land without
generating curious looks. I would never
be fully at home here, but neither would I be persecuted or hunted by its
Humans. Not unless I stirred them, and
then like a swarm would they attempt to rise and engulf me.
“There are hundreds of us now in the U.S. How long can we remain unnoticed?” Sonafi asked.
“And then what? Where will we go
then? Imagine a television show 'Most
Hunted' with us as the guests of honor; 'Root out the Night Walkers in your
neighborhood!' We wouldn't stand a
chance.”
“They have television in Europe and the East.” I pointed out. “Plus they remember us.”
“I guess you have a point.”
Sonafi agreed reluctantly, a smile that revealed her own milky,
predominant teeth warming her mobile face.
I had successfully changed the subject.
Diverted it from those old anguishes.
It would never matter how many children had come before or after. My Sonafi would never forget those which had
been lost to the Others. Once they left
the nest, they were on their own and Sonafi divorced herself from them, but
while within the nest, while still young and defenseless, they were Sonafi’s to
guard, and she did so jealously.
The Alien Agenda
The Alien Agenda
Friday, June 14, 2013
Sunday, June 2, 2013
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