Interludes

Allison had always been told she wasn't pretty. Her mother, was tall and statuesque enough to make her living as a cocktail waitress in Los Angeles. That just made it worse for Allison, who was short, plump and awkward. She'd never been popular. Never the one boys looked at.

Sam had to lean far down to kiss her. His face was earnest, and his embrace was gentle, despite the strength in his toned arms. His skin was unbelievably fair and unmarked, sheened with sweat. It had always been easiest to sneak looks at him when he was running. A pause at the chain link fence outside the school, a faked problem with her shoo, just a few seconds to steal a glance at the boy she'd been too nervous to approach. Sometimes he'd glanced back and she'd have to look away. It let her think though, let her hope. It was a foolish, a vain hope... except not anymore.

This scene belonged to a romantic novel or the secret darkness of her bedroom, not the dusty streets and long shadows of a New Mexico town.

Walking home from Piano, eyes on the ground, she'd lifted them for one instant and found Sam, sweaty and shirtless on an evening run. He'd blushed, the colour just visible in the setting sun. "Hi."

"Hi."

"You're Allison right? You watch track team sometimes?"

Allison had felt her heart thunder. It had taken herself a moment to work out how to speak. "Uh, yes, just when I'm uh, passing."

"Oh, well, seems like we're going the same direction. Do you want to walk together?"

"Okay." Alison tried not to sound too eager.

Thump thump. Thump thump. Thump thump. The sound of her heart was enough to block out attempts at conversation until he'd said. " Allison, I um... do you like me?"

Allison had thought her body would splinter. It felt like the wires and tendons that held her together had simultaneously contracted. Instead she felt a heady rush of . . . something. "Yes."

He'd taken her hands, and leaned forward, and she'd stood up on tip toes and kissed him on the mouth. She thought her heart would explode, was sure she'd pushed too far, convinced that she'd blown her one chance ever. Then he kissed back. Allison's thumping heart settled down to a flutter. It was her day dream, but no day dream could be like this. Imagination couldn't supply gentle firm texture of Sam against you, the slight feel of the breeze in her hair, the flickering glow of a newly active street light, the smell of him, the warmth.

"Oh Allison. I love you."

Allison leaned into him, and felt the joy of the world flow through every part of her.

Down the street, Juliet leaned back in the back seat of an SUV and lowered the sonic gun "Drive on." The driver nodded.

The woman across from her, completely veiled even in the tinted windows of the SUV smiled slightly. You couldn't see it but Juliet knew she was. Her social conditioning wouldn't let her escape her boss's mirth.

"What's so funny?" She ejected the sonic's battery pack and put it carefully in its separate niche in the case, then checked the gun over, fingers moving through the check sequence without even noticing. Equipment was scarce, you had to be very careful with it. Waste could not be tolerated.

"You." Lily leaned back in the black leather seats of the vehicle.

"Couldn't you have arranged for their chance meeting to happen a little later and had one of your childe do it?"

"There's only a certain amount one can pushes these things my dear Juliet. Besides it's good to stay in touch with small things isn't it?"

"No, not particularly. I have more important work to do. Stuff which will affect many more than a single teenage girl." Juliet snapped the case shut. The SUV headed out towards Lily's manor. Overhead a pair of helicopters carrying the night's air patrol went over. Juliet saw the shimmer of the crew's night vision devices as they passed. "I'd just tracked down a possible replacement for Caldwell when you pulled me off on this" she waved a hand "errand. The technocracy isn't going to leave us alone forever Lily. Sooner or later they're going to get their act together and they'll come for us."

Lily shook her head. "If you cannot imagine the life of one teenage girl then you have no map to how the world works. Microfoundations my dear Juliet. Isn't that what you people call them?"

Juliet thought about telling the vampire those were becoming discredited then realized how stupid that sounded and shut up as the vampire continued. "As for the technocracy, I wouldn't worry about them yet. They are finding that there are many things in their world far more urgent than we are."

Madison knew what it was to be enlightened. It was not some new age sense of oneness with the universe, nor some mystical clarity. It was a process, a now unconscious skill at processing data. The skill to do the calculations to set up a no-lag, quantum encrypted connection from Los Angeles to Afghanistan. To at one time see the real world around her, and the dusty world of Afghanistan, created for her by the fly eye of monitors all around her.

The ability to do all that and gossip about their boyfriends with her reserve pilot, Amy Wong, who was herself separated from Madison by either the distance a few miles or a meter, depending on which formula Madison used. "... the most ridiculous thing. I mean it looks good but you couldn't wear it anywhere cold."

"I know. My boyfriend bought me a pair too. Apparently they're in this year." Madison ate a chocolate covered peanut.

"Is he okay? I heard about that thing with the traitors."

"Yeah. He's fine. The re-education was very gentle. He's fine now. Doesn't remember a thing." Madison smiled. "It's hard though. I keep thinking I should treat him with kid gloves. Like, they just reverted him to an earlier state of mind. He's totally the same as ever, but I'm not."

Amy blew out her breath. "You know Maddy, you should talk to a professional about that."

"Yeah. I probably should." Madison looked at the screen.

There was a ringing tone from the monitor. The raid's commander was ready for connection. Madison accepted and her screens filled with images of the base and the surrounding land. Through helmet cameras and security sensors, through UAVs and satellites, Madison viewed one of the technocracy's loneliest outposts. Camp 2154 was a dozen bunkers made from buried shipping containers dug into a dimple in the top of a hill. Camo-nets and holograms concealed it from above, even as the natural berm did from below.

Colonel Smith stood on the stage under the camouflage netting. She was still as ever, average, bulky and sexless beneath light digital camouflaged battle armour. The lively, unnatural blue eyes that looked out from a hundred propaganda holos in constructs from London to Autochothan. Only her hair was different. Short and spiked and untidy, traced with dust.

"Alright comrades, This sucks, but there's no way around it. Missions like this one are the difference between leaving this country mission accomplished and leaving it in the hands of the Deviants. Our target is Dilawar Sadozai, a high ranking Deviant. We believe he's one of the remaining figures keeping the Tafatani and Chorus together rather than killing each other, if we kill him then..."

She paused and then looked down, meeting the eyes of her troops. "How many times have I given this speech? Over the last month we've hit every deviant we can, just to try to stop them from hitting the USA, who is also our enemy now. Just to stop the survivors bringing stories of divine miracles and Djinn back home with them. Just in the hope that we can do in a few months what we tried to do in ten years with the backing of a super power in the 1980s... and have been trying for the last ten years to do again."

"Fuck." Someone muttered over the link.

The watching was differently now. The observation had morphed from the polite attention of a briefing to the heavy regard of ones who thought they might be in the presence of evil history. Madison could imagine telling about this moment: 'the moment when Colonel Smith broke'. You didn't want to see but you couldn't look away, because this was important.

Then Smith took a deep breath and the moment passed. "I can't tell you if this will change anything. All I can tell you is that this man, this Dilawar Sadozai, needs killing. The fate of this country, the fate of the world, those can look after themselves. Just concentrate on one thing: that we will end him."

The briefing was smooth after that. They were striking deep the Afghan mountains, at a cluster of compounds and houses sited around a expansive green zone in one of the valleys. "We will lead the way with a series of airstrikes. However intelligence indicates with high confidence that the area is both heavily caved and contains potential deviant dimensional gateways. This will require each structure to be cleared."

A raised hand, a tall, rangy soldier in the block camo of a Project 841 soldier: "Won't rubblizing the structures block cave entrances and warps inside?"

Smith nodded. "Normally yes, but we have something special for this mission. The Cicada Killer eighth generation cluster munitions. They burrow through the roof of a structures and explode inside without altering the structural integrity. These are experimental weapons, so make sure your log systems are using the correct format and coding. The test team wants a report."

The task force began to settle into their roles. The mission had become normal again, despite the Colonel's outburst. Madison could feel the brittleness of the normalcy, the potential discord that lay just below the surface. She turned back to her job, assuring herself she would not be the one to break, she would not let them down.

"Nexus, this is Overlook. Multiple ISAF air contacts along the planned route. Recommend diverting to avoid them."

Madison looked over at the repeater. Multiple, that had been an understatement. Dozens of helicopters and fixed wing aircraft were arranged across the planned route like a swarm of flying ants. The desk's computers wormed through their electronics, flagging them by units, roles, call signs, bases. UAVs, strike aircraft, medivac helicopters. Many of the latter and more arriving. She swung the camera on the primary drone to look.

Dark smoke washed out most of the image. Thermal picked the smoke out into individual columns, each with a flames and a shattered armoured vehicle at the bottom. It showed bodies too, hotter than the desert sand around them, even though they were not the temperature a human body should be. Madison's screen counted them obligingly. One hundred and twenty one dead bodies lay around the convoy.

Madison's hands reached down and she tried to peel another sweet. The process seemed unnecessarily difficult this time. She decided to think of what the US had done to her boyfriend. That helped, but only a little. "All Roc call signs, this is Nexus, there's enemy air along the route. Divert thirty degrees right for fifty miles, then resume original course. Waypoints updating now." She updated the map and sat back to watch the target.

It had been quiet for the last 0.5 kilosecond. Most of the compounds were made to appear abandoned, the deviants within apparently having little desire to involve more than a few sleepers in their affairs. The only activity had been 632 to 503 seconds ago, when a boy had left one of the compounds with a herd of goats. Madison tagged him, scanned him and classified him as both a sleeper and a non-person of interest. She wondered what he would think when he came home, then stopped herself and ran a routine to correct her thoughts. That way lay madness.

With the goat herd gone the buildings were dark and quiet. They seemed well shielded from passive sensors, and going active would only tip the incoming raid's hand. Madison watched patiently and ate sweets, exchanging quiet jargon with the others to reassure themselves they still all existed and were working. Every so often she'd glance up at the screen where the icons representing the VTOLs crawled forward. After a while she began to program the munitions, for something to do more than anything.

Finally they crossed the line. "Nexus, this is Hadaly, we are at the last waypoint. Begin your runs at this time."

"Nexus copies." Madison pressed a key and the program she'd spent so long with ran. The supporting UAVs dived slightly and released their bombs, then climbed out. The weapons fell, then split open, submunitions dropped out at ordered, precise intervals. A fractal cloud of gleaming silver streaks. The top of each house burst into dust as the cluster bombs struck it. The explosions Madison saw as light through the windows and bursts of bright thermal.

Something was wrong though. The weapons kill counters were a mass of error messages. "Talk to me John?" Madison said.

There was a momentary scramble and the click of keys on the microphone then her tech support guy's voice came back. "Nothing I can do Madison. It's not a problem with the weapon. There's something blocking the signal at source."

Madison nodded. "All call signs this is Nexus, there's some kind of jamming in the target structures. Exercise extreme caution."

The VTOLs stooped lower, weapons tracked back and forth in mathmatically perfect arcs, dust puffed around them, a sea of chaotic particles. As the aircraft reached release height, armoured figures dropped from their open doors and fanned out towards the compounds. There were short flares as they blew the doors with explosives, then moved inside, up to the compounds, each still pouring particles off its damaged roof.

"Hadaly, this is Kusnagi."

"Kusnagi."

"Kusnagi is preparing to breach the primary, this time."

"Copy."

Madison half listened, mostly tried to push through the jamming. On one screen the first member of the assault team reached up to push a remote through the window. Madison's fingers flickered across the key pad, trying one filter and tool after another.

And then her fingers stopped. The screen ahead showed primal energy. It was almost entirely washed out accept for the power packs of weapons and a web of ghost lights that covered the valley. The design led the eye down and up, beautiful really, converging into the primary structure.

"Kusnagi! Abort entry! Abort!"

The cyborg's arm completed its arc. The design flickered into a new shape. Madison's screen's washed out in a sea of heat and light. The nearest VTOLs pulled up hard, too late. Heat touched them and they tumbled, the orderly vectors vanishing amid the wall of heat.

Everyone was talking at once on the link, informational coherence shattered just as throughly as the physicality of the entry team. Madison just looked on for a moment, her eyes searching for some structure in the heat. For a full ten seconds she watched then...

"Cut the chatter. Begin class B mass casualty procedures, I want numbers on EOD and Casevac..." Her voice didn't falter. You had to act as if you could impose order on the world, even if you didn't believe it.

Livna adjusted her collar and raised an eyebrow. "So what do you think?" She turned slowly, not quite a twirl, then arched an eyebrow at the man next to her. She wore tight jeans and a blue dark teashirt, semi-form fitting body armour and a neck guard. Over that, a mass of webbing containing stakes, guns and various other vampire fighting paraphernalia. A leather jacket went over the ensemble. Despite the setting it was all quiet real, not that her audience knew that.

"... that you're a living embodiment of why cosplay bans are, or I guess were, stupid." His name was Mark. He was brown haired, fair skinned and had a cute beard. He was a PR guy for Electronic Arts and smart enough to be interesting without being smart enough to be threatening. Perfect.

"We're going to meet my friend here. She's pretty down, so be on your best behaviour alright?" Livna said. "She has a boyfriend and but they're having some trouble. No flirting."

He blinked then nodded seriously. "Okay sure. You're enough for me anyway." Livna checked hormone levels, skin temperature and data banks about Mark and Madison's past behaviour. No, that wouldn't do.

They stepped out of their hotel room and into the corridor. The babble of the con, electronic and sound, washed over her, her implants piping the traffic from a thousands of phones and computers to her. Livna bought a search program to primary mode, imputed parameters, checked them then let it free. A progress bar appeared on her vision, then shrunk down to a mere icon on the bottom of her virtual desktop. Her prey didn't know it yet but the hunt was on.

MAGFEST was huge this year, the sudden resurgence of the economy mostly based on entertainments. Video game and music sales were up, cosplay was the new cool. It had the syndicate and NWO analysts scratching their heads, but for Livna life was good.

They passed a woman dressed as Lara Croft chatting to another dressed as the heroine from the forthcoming Deus Ex sequel, and a fit young man dressed as Conan. Livna let her eyes linger on the them just long enough to make Mark jealous. She waited for a moment, reading his body language, pitched her voice like so and said: "You know, we should have got you in cosplay. You'd make a pretty good Nathan Drake."

"I've never known where I'd get the costume." Mark glared at Livna a bit as they took down the lift, then softened.

"Well, now's your chance. There's a how to make cosplay panel this year, one of my friends is running it, you should volunteer."

"Really now? Do you know what time it is?"

The lift pinged and they stepped out into the convention level. Livna saw Madison off to one side and smiled. "Actually it's in about two minutes. Just over there." Livna pointed.

"Oh okay. See you soon." Mark waved then vanished into the crowd as Madison came over.

"Who was that?" Madison looked wan, worn down by everything. Her disapproval showed through only slightly.

"Mark, he's a PR guy for EA. Cute isn't he?"

"You're incorrigible Livna." A beat "So, what are we doing here?" 

"Well first we're promoting my new game, Vampire Hunter." Livna waved down to her outfit. "and second, we're hunting a deviant."

Madison goggled at her. "Hunting... I don't even have a gun!"

"Don't worry, I'm not going to start a shoot out at MAGFest." The pair stepped onto the floor, Livna smiled and nodded and returned greetings. "Come on, I'll introduce you to Christina Love... Do you have any ideas what panels you want to see?" The pair circulated through the convention. Livna signed autographs and spoke at panel, Madison mostly sat in the audience. Livna could see her friend smiling and failing to relax, stern measures were needed. Livna checked the results of her hunt program. A quick visual inspection confirmed the data her ELINT system was giving her, he was a match in both patterns of life and predicted dress.

The Person of Interest male, twenty three years of age, blue eyes, brown hair, name Barry Johns. He was noticeably overweight, with a flushed, ruddy complexion. His hair framed his face, covering his neck and sticking out from under his hat. He wore a black penny arcade teashirt, several very extensive electronics, a jacket, a trilby and jeans. Only the lack of glasses rendered the vision of a contemporary nerd imperfect.

<That's him.> Livna sent to Madison. 

<He's a deviant?> Madison peered, not too obviously. <Hmm. We could give him a heart attack pretty easily given his physique. I can get a microwave drone here from the...>

<We're only going to kill him if we can't do something better. Just watch ;)>

This would be the fun part, also the challenging part. It would have to wait for a moment though, she had an interview, and to do this right she'd need to change her costume. She left Madison in watching the promo for the next battlefield and slipped off to do that. Changed, she regarded herself in the hotel room's mirror. The second outfit was a long red cocktail dress, low cut and if she did say so, sexy as hell. When she'd proposed this, there had been those in oversight who'd accused her of narcissism. Ridiculous of course. A failed project could never be proud of itself, only of its accomplishments.

Livna checked her hair, then headed down to the interview. She made sure to pass the target, caught his gaze, saw him flush. The two young men from the escapist were a little too awestruck, Livna adjusted her body language to get their minds back where she wanted. She answer the usual questions, barely paying attention as she did a last scout through the targets social media tags, those of his friends, online records, buying patterns. . . See the man below, the hidden, total depression, the externalization of internal failure. She knew Barry Jones, oh yes. He modelled himself a rebel, but really he just wanted what she had. You could see it in his facebook and his twitter, his blog and his walk. Here was a man who wanted it all but didn't know how to get it.

"You're one of the most prominent women in video gaming Ms. Ingram, but Vampire Hunter has been criticised in some quarters for its focus on clothing choice for the heroine. How do you respond to that?"

"Well Steve, I think people need to realize that girls kind of like dress up." Smile for the camera, bait the hook. "Really I think it's a shame that more games with male heroes don't have sexy alternate costumes. I think a lot of women would like to be able to get James Bond ready for an important party."

Her target is listening of course, the interview is off to one side but they're still on the floor. Livna watches him through the various cameras. Sees his mouth thin, Gotcha. She answers the other questions then thanked them and got up. Walk near, set body language, hum a specific song the girl he'd always wanted had liked under her breath.

"Slut." A half whisper.

"Excuse me?" Livna glared at him, giving him the right amount of hard and soft to enrage him without letting him think of what a bad idea it would be to yell at even a minor net celebrity on a convention floor.

"I said, I'm surprised a 'gamer' girl like you needs to wear something like that to sell her 'game'?"

Hah. Livna looked at him, paused as if she was trying to decide what to say. Madison was bristling, as were most of the others near him. Speak now or someone else would. She pitched her voice like so, and: "How much must you hate yourself that you can't believe a pretty girl can dress like this and share your hobbies?"

Barry jerked. It was more the harmonics than the words. "I... I... I don't mind girls gaming if..."

A hesitation into which Livna inserted herself. "If they don't behave like girls? Are we really that scary?"

"Yes!" The harmonics of Livna's voice broke a barrier inside him and words flowed. "This is the one place guys like me have left! The one place where we're safe! You have everything! Why do you have to take this from us?"

"Your name is Barry?" Livna leaned forward slightly, pretending to read his badge. "Barry, there's no need for a safe place anymore. We won, we all won." She opened her arms. "All you need to do is join us, the world isn't so scary more. It'll be okay. We can show you how this works. Girls aren't so scary when you get to know us. Be honest, that's what you really want, isn't it?"

"I'm just... I'm just so lonely." He started to cry, Livna had him. Two of his friends took him by the arms and led the crying man away.

<Pickup Team'll lift him before he leaves> Behind her, Madison was smiling. Small victories perhaps, but enough small victories might add up to something.

Vampires, Rose had noticed, especially older vampires, seemed to come in two flavours. They were monstrously ugly or they were unreal in their beauty. Take the Laurence Bloom, the Camerella ambassador who sat across the table from her. His pale face and dark hair were things of unreal beauty, complimented by a style of dress that had clear roots in his life as a eighteenth century dandy, rather than the austerity of a modern suit. He sat with his back to the window, apparently confident in the bullet proof glass for protection, framed against the city lights. It made Rose think of a painting, with the distant thrum of the public dining area and the soft music of the live band merely adding to the atmosphere.

Despite herself, Rose found herself fascinated his teeth. There was no way an individual from the seventeen hundreds should have had such good dentistry. Had they regrown after death?

"I've been told I have a good smile before but this is the first time I've had a lady regard it with so much interest."

"I'm sorry, I find your people fascinating." Rose allowed herself to blush.

"Is that why you were made in our image?" Laurence quirked an eyebrow, then smiled. "I feel, my dear lady, that you are quite capable of using that knowledge against us."

"You invited me out Mr. Bloom."

"I have a weakness for dangerous lady hunters. It is the fear of death that has made humans build civilization, and makes them strive to greater heights. We kindred suffer it not, so we must induce it. Besides, you're extremely beautiful and charming."

Rose's dinner arrived, along with a glass of what looked like red wine, but Rose knew was not for her companion. He sipped at it as she ate, occasionally making light conversation. It was hard not to be charmed, the vampire's small talk had a gift for timing and the wit of a poet. Rose quickly found herself laughing along with him.

"But Laurence, should you really say things about your negotiating team?" Rose covered her mouth.

"I'm sure my friend's dignity will survive you knowing that story. After all I'm not telling you about the time with the horses. Besides," his voice was light, harmonics designed to pull a sting. "We both know that you need us for these negotiations more than we need you. As charming as some members of the technocracy are, you're losing right now."

Rose made herself frown, not too eager. The social system was a game like any other, like poker, you couldn't show your intentions too soon: "let's not do too much shop talk."

"Of course not, I just didn't want you to get the wrong idea. You're very charming, but when I'm on the floor I represent not myself but the Camarilla. We have our own interests after all."

Rose put down her spoon, she'd just finished the last of her food. "Well, I hope that getting to watch me eat makes you go a little easier on us."

Laurence opened his mouth to reply. In that moment, Rose's eyes picked up a discrepancy, the waiter behind them was hot, but in the silver tray he held there was no reflection. The Sabbat began to turn, one hand moving up towards the small of his back. Rose saw the muscles bunch, grip, the shadows in the room rising all around him... and Rose shot him.

The vampire screamed as green fire exploded through him and crashed backwards into the wall. Laurence was rising too, hands coming up. Rose wondered for a moment if he was attacking, then saw a reflection in his eyes. She ducked to one side as he kicked the table past her into the second assailant as she came through the door.

The woman put her shoulder into the table and slid backwards as it fragmented around her. Rose snapped off a shot at her. The second round in the carousel was a hyperoxidant, and the vampire flash burned. Rose's muscles were straining slightly, she'd moved way too fast there.

<<Ludlum this is Camilla. Code four. Out>>

Laurence cringed back from the fire, then showed fangs in a smile "Mm. Well not exactly the end of the night I had hoped for, but still. I think we'd better leave." There were screams from below, the noise from the restaurant converted from merriment to panic. There was a burst of gunfire.

"There's a secure room on the floor above. We'll bunker down there. I assume you have your own backup."

"One of my charming lady friends should be around to help me out. Please, lead the way."

Rose stepped out, checked carefully and ran across the corridor, before beaconing Laurence across. Rose was struck by the vampire's fluid grace. He moved just like she did in combat state.

Cross

Faith