Rise in Revolution (Chapter Thirty-Six)

[tanadin]

 In which Xela talks about vampires, Shawn has a bracelet, and Emma follows a strange man into a dark alley.

Chapter list: https://tanadin.dreamwidth.org/650.html
World map: http://tanadin.deviantart.com/art/Kaldriel-RiR-map-594639189

Chapter Thirty-Six

Glimpse of Night

Xela’s computer setup, Sector SOV. March 26, 2272. Time instance 842N.

“You don’t really need to do this,” Emma insisted as she followed Tanadin into the building. “I can handle Caroline myself.”

“I’m aware of that, but I’d rather if you didn’t.” Tanadin shot her a knowing look. “You’d probably break her permanently. I’d rather let Nine, who’s actually in charge of her, tell her to chill the fuck out.”

“You have a good point,” Emma admitted. “But why is Nine in here?”

“Talking to Seven, probably. It’s hard to get him to leave this building at the moment. He and Xela are trying to cram as much information into their skulls  as possible while planning the ASQ attack. They’re intelligent as hell but sometimes focus way too hard on stuff.” Tanadin moved through the building quickly, easily locating the room that Xela had set up in and opened the door.

“Nine, you in here?” She peered into the room, Emma right behind her.

“Yeah, what’s up?” Nine looked away from what was on Xela’s screen. Tanadin stepped into the room, letting Emma shut the door behind them.

“Control your damn cyborgs. Caroline is causing issues.”

Nine thought about that for a moment, drumming his metal fingers against the side of the terminal. Xela hissed and swatted at him. “Sorry.” He stopped drumming his fingers. “Could you give me her unit number? I don’t have all of their names recorded yet.”

“Um…” Tanadin looked at Emma for support.

“7007-γ,” Emma supplied. Seven looked up.

Nine groaned. “Of course she’s giving you trouble. She’s a pain in the ass, that one. I’ll talk to her and see what I can do, but it’ll have to wait until we figure out a little more of how to invade ASQ. It would help if we didn’t have to teach all the cyborgs to fly, which is going to cause some delays, but-”

Seven looked at him as if he had lost his mind. “Just download the flight software from the shin units.”

Nine stared back at him for a moment before holding his head in his hands. “I’m a fucking idiot. Of course. Of course we could do that. Gods. Who decided that I would be a good leader for the Steelwings? I don’t think of obvious solutions.”

“Sometimes, that’s a good thing,” Xela assured. “The obvious solution is rarely the right one. I doubt the software will be enough to let them fly perfectly- some things come with practice, and don’t you try to correct me, Seven- but it’ll certainly help. Specifically with the landing.” Xela typed furiously on the console, bringing up a window that Emma couldn’t make heads or tails of, probably due to it being written in what appeared to be random squiggles. “They definitely need help with landing.”

Nine cringed. “Yeah, they…they do.”

“Do you ever intend to try to get the three thousands airborne?”

“We-”

“No. They’re too heavy,” Seven interrupted. Nine glared at him. “There’s too much metal on them.”

“Is that why you can’t fly?” Emma asked, looking at him curiously.

Seven nodded, a jerky and inhuman motion. “Our current type of propulsion isn’t enough to let me fly, and we have no way to modify it to work at the moment. If we-”

“As interesting as that explanation is, we’ve all heard it about six times except maybe for Emma,” Xela interrupted. “And I think she gets the idea. Last time you rambled about technical stuff, Tanadin’s eyes glazed over, and Emma’s no better.” She hesitated. “Not...in a bad way. Just...not cyborg-minded.” She spun around in her chair, teal eyes looking Emma over. “More emotional than logical.” Xela smiled, showing her fangs. “I’m glad our command is balanced.”

“Can I ask you a personal question?” Emma asked, eyes drawn immediately to Xela’s fangs.

“Go for it. If it offends me I’ll just go back to what I was doing.”

Emma made a vague motion at Xela’s mouth. “How does the whole vampire thing work?”

“Oh! Well- Seven don’t you dare steal my thunder!”

Seven had opened his mouth to speak but sighed and nodded, sitting down in the nearest chair. Nine sarcastically patted his shoulder in a reassuring way. Seven ignored him.

Xela cleared her throat. “Anyway. Vampires like me are created when an older vampire bites a human- it has to be a human or mostly-human hybrid- and injects vanmiras, also known as vampire venom. Over twenty-four hours, it infects and replaces all of the human cells in the body with vampire cells. The bitten human usually passes out after a few minutes and doesn’t wake up until the transformation is over. The weakness to the sun and fire is immediate- a vampire who spends more than a couple of minutes outside will start to burn, and can last maybe ten or fifteen minutes without permanent damage. Longer than twenty minutes will kill even an elder vampire.

“The fangs grow over the course of about a week, but the dependence for blood starts immediately. The younger a vampire is, the more often they have to feed. It starts at about once a day, but when you get as old as I am- which, really, is not very old- it’s more like once every week. Vampires that are many hundreds of years old can go weeks without blood, but they usually feed once a week anyway. It’s uncomfortable going without for longer- like you can live for several days without food, but you’d rather eat every day, right?

“A vampire doesn’t age, so we look about the same as we did when we were turned. Sometimes our eyes get a little freaky- mine were always kinda teal, but vampirism really brought the color out in them. Vampires are, however, sterile, so if you want to be a vampire and also want kids, have the kids first.”

“What about the…” Emma made a vague hand motion.

“Hmm?”

“The…”

“I won’t be offended. It’s really hard to upset me.”

“The...lisp. Is that a vampire thing?”

“That’s a Xela thing. I’ve always had it. It has nothing to do with the fangs. Anyway, speaking of vampires and feeding, I’m hungry as hell.”

“You fed two days ago!” Nine protested.

“Yeah, well, I was pretty blood-starved for years on end! Besides, I need to get back into the habit of bottling blood. Unfortunately, most of my enchanted bottles are back in ASQ, in the same box as my laptop. I’m needing that box more and more as time goes on!”

“Bottling blood?” Emma questioned.

“Well, since it’s absolutely fucking savage to go digging your teeth into people’s arteries every time you want a snack, most vampires have gotten into the habit of bottling blood in enchanted bottles that keep it from going bad. It’s not quite as good as fresh, but it keeps us going, and is far more acceptable in polite society than just reaching over and biting your neighbor’s neck. I just need a volunteer.” She looked at the people assembled and pointed at Tanadin. “Not you. Not an elemental. Especially not a fire elemental.”

“Yeah, no. You’d probably light on fire or something.”

“That’s likely.” She glanced over at the cyborgs. “I wonder if your blood filters would improve the quality of the blood, vampire-wise. I’ve never fed off of a cyborg before, so I suppose I wouldn’t know.”

“We could test it,” Seven suggested.

“Not on me, I hope,” Nine said quickly. “I’m not too interested, thanks.”

“Oh, calm your motors, it’s volunteer only. Seven, are you volunteering?”

Seven shrugged. “I can.”

“Excellent.”

Tanadin grabbed Emma’s arm and pulled her out of the room. “Have fun with your blood bottling, guys!” She lowered her voice once they were down the hall. “I didn’t want to see that and I doubt you wanted to either. It’s disturbing as hell.”

Emma nodded and followed her outside. “I think I’ll pass.”

“Well, I’m off to go look for Shawn and see how he’s doing. You want to come along?”

“Sure. I haven’t seen him in ages.”

“Uh, about that...if he looks kinda...not great...just be ready for that.”

“Not great? Didn’t he get the hole healed?”

“Well, yes. But he’s been kinda turning into a zombie and it’s bad.”

“Oh.” Emma blinked. “Great.”

“That’s what I said. Come on, he’s maybe this way.” Tanadin led the way down the street, Emma not far behind.

It took them almost an hour to find Shawn, and it took asking several people including Hawk and a couple of very confused cyborgs about his whereabouts and directions to various places he might be. Eventually, they did stumble into him and Tanadin immediately remarked on his appearance.

“Shawn! You look...great, actually. How did they get rid of the green?”

Shawn held up his right arm, showing what looked like a bracelet made of metal links with a small skull dangling off of it. “Geek made and enchanted this for me. As long as I’m wearing it, I’m normal me, but I can’t use any of the magic that I just learned that I have yesterday.”

“No shit you have magic, Shawn! Did you really not notice?”

“I’m oblivious, okay?”

“Do I have magic?”

Tanadin looked her over several times. “I don’t think so, but you could develop it. It’s not like every magic user is born with the ability to cast spells.”

As Tanadin and Shawn argued about the obviousness of magic, Emma silently wondered what kind of powers she might develop. I wonder if it’s random or if it has anything to do with your personality. Does Shawn have anything to do with ice? I’d assume that ice is cold- well, no shit, Emma- and uncaring, and that seems to be the total opposite of Shawn. Hmm.

She jerked out of her thoughts when something small hit the back of her shoulder. She turned around, ready to yell at someone, but only saw Cataclysm hiding behind the edge of a building and watching her. He motioned her over and flared his wings slightly.

Emma glanced over her shoulder at her bickering friends before shrugging and following Cataclysm.

Great. I’m following strange powerful demon men that I barely know into dark alleys. This will go well.

Once they were out of sight of Tanadin and Shawn, Cataclysm turned to her and spoke. “Sorry to drag you away like that, but you looked like you weren’t really paying much attention.”

“Not really. What did you want?”

“Well, I, um...dammit, I knew I should have rehearsed this better. Look, okay. I don’t really know how to say this, but about forty years ago, I looked into an artifact of great power that shows you something important in your future, and it showed me you. Specifically, you when I was helping you stand up after Caroline knocked you down last night. I’m not totally sure what it means, but it means you have something to do with whatever happens to me.”

Emma looked at him oddly and raised an eyebrow. “If that was your attempt at a pickup line, you need practice.”

“What? No! I’m serious!” Cataclysm protested. “I looked into the Mirror of Ripples and it showed me you!”

“Okay, okay. Sorry for being a bit suspicious when a guy I barely know pulls me away from my friends into a dark alley.”

“It’s daytime!”

“Dark compared to the street!”

Cataclysm crossed his arms, conceding the point. “Fine, okay.”

“So...what does this mean?”

“What?”

“This Mirror thing. What do I have to do with your future?”

“Um, well.” Cataclysm shuffled his wings. “I...don’t know? I was hoping you had an idea.”

Emma’s attention was caught briefly by the movement of his wings. She resisted the urge to reach out and stroke the feathers and forced herself to focus on his face. “How would I know?”

“I don’t know!” Cataclysm held his head in his hands. “Just...if anything occurs to you, let me know, I guess? I don’t know how these things work! Last time someone saw a person in the Mirror, they got beheaded and I got thrown directly into Hell!”

“Wait, what?”

“Shit,” Cataclysm mumbled. “Nothing.”

“Why would it matter if you’re thrown into Hell? You’re a demon, aren’t you?”

“Ye-es, technically.”

“Technically?”

“I wasn’t always. I’m done talking about this.”

Emma itched to ask further questions but swallowed her curiosity. “Okay. Sorry.”

“It’s fine. At least you haven’t asked any of the really offensive questions.”

“Offensive questions?”

“About my eye, my wings, was I an angel, where did Kyir get his scar, what’s with the scars on my back, that sort of thing.”

“You have scars on your back?”

“You won’t ever see them. I don’t take my shirt off for that reason. Too many questions.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. It’s my own stupidity that caused this in the first place. That and my shitty everything.” Cataclysm growled and shook himself as if to clear the thoughts. “Whatever. You don’t want to hear about that.” He spread his wings. “I’ll see you around, Emma.”

He took to the air and flew off across SOV. Emma watched him go until he was out of sight, and reluctantly returned to her bickering friends.

Her encounter with Cataclysm had been strange, but if there was anything she was now sure of, it was that he was one of the most tortured people she had ever met.