The Ultimate Vampire Resource and Directory

Chapter Three



Immobilised within the opaque block, Euro was more than a little frightened. If he did not answer to suit, he’d be placed back in storage, until someone decided to release him; or perhaps dispose of the rough cube that had formed round him.



Yet, if he was too forthcoming with information, there would be consequences to pay, of that he was sure: ‘But what does it matter?” he mused.



The lack of movement and choice had led Euro to become more and more frustrated.



The WildRider tried to scream, he could not. Having been transported from Evidence to Interview Two, the WildRider tried to scream, but was unable to…



He held inside an opaque block, in a room with just three items of furniture, all were white like the rest of the room. The only pieces of furniture in the room were a small table and two chairs, facing one another across it.



Both the table and chairs were bolted to the floor, as fixed as he was.



Suddenly Euro heard the hiss of the door to the small sterile room open and his panic heightened. The door closed, then he heard heels tip-tapping to his left.



Euro wanted to turn his body, his head and eyes; if he could.



Yet he could not: and what was worse was the thought that this might be how he’d be serving any sentence meted his way.



“Was that WildRider?” He heard a woman ask of herself.

“Or was that TameRider?” She added, talking to herself, as though deep in thought.



Then Simone began to chuckle, as she walked to the side of the block and Euro cursed the world, the gods and everything, everyone, but himself…



She walked round further round till she stood looking into her perps eyes still wide-open, frozen in place; and Euro wanted to scream...



He looked to the woman in front of him, recalling the warehouse where he’d seen her before and he and the Brood had been found and bound.



A very tall woman stood before him. She wore a long grey smock coat, over a short jacket, trousers and boots.



She had broad shoulders, defined cheek-bones and piercing flint grey and blue and green eyes, her white hair cut close to the scalp, puce lipstick a slash of colour on an otherwise very pale face.



She flourished a pass that proclaimed lawgiver status, declaring: “I’m Simone Knight, Detective First Class…”



Euro wanted to cry out ‘who cares, I want out of here’ but, he could not. Instead he had to listen as Simone continued to talk, almost conversationally.



“Well, it’s nice to have someone listen to me, for a change. Those two Brood associates of yours said a lot, but nothing…” she laughed mirthlessly: “Now they’re on the way back to storage, waving their little arms about, hoping that someone might not leave ‘em half an half, for the rest of their sentence, which I think will be a one hundred years, or so… Now, do your people live as long as Brood I wonder? Will you want to talk to me? Well, I guess I’ll find our soon.”



The detective stepped back a few paces, then threw a small sphere at the cube and watched as nanites ate into it and around Euro, dying as they reached his waistline.



“Now you can either talk to me… Or…?” Simone began, withdrawing another small silver sphere from a pouch on her belt, another FreezeGlobe.



Gasping for air, Euro gesticulated wildly, screaming; “No, no, no LadyCop. WildRider he speak to Law, as Law wants… Alright? No freeze WildRider Euro…”



“Yep,” Simone mused aloud, “Tamed WildRider.”

Chapter Two



Ignoring the rain that continued to fall, Simone pushed the high double-doors inward. Her collar was up, the coat-tails flapping and, Simone had slicked back her now platinum blonde hair, to heighten her prominent cheekbones further still.



She entered trough doors rarely used by personnel; but Simone wasn’t just anyone, her who demeanour spoke of confidence, as she strode toward the main desk, at the end of the Great Hall, with its high vaulted ceiling.



O’Roarke looked down as she walked across the black and white squares towards where he sat, leaving the doors open behind her.



“Little Missy, just ‘coz you’re older than me, don’t give you the right to be impolite in my house…” He was smiling as he spoke.



O’Roarke was human, sixty-nine and a half-year from retirement. Simone liked the old bastard. He made her grin and, as many knew, that was hard.



Simone turned, returned to the doors which she closed: “Alright old man?” She called back to the fellow in blue and silver, high atop the main desk, built as if it were a judges bench, albeit in three step, with the centre section where O’Roarke sat, several monitors just below the counter top, his flask at his feet.



“Less of the old you… you…” And before he could say ‘old woman’, Simone turned to him, a beaming smile on her face.



“I believe you have a few deliveries waiting to be unpacked?” She enquired, making to fist the contraband packet of cigarettes in her right pocket.



‘I have to stop,’ Simone mused, reminding herself yet again that she should not have started smoking the weed. But it’s hard, she pondered; ‘Sometimes I wish I’d never started at all…”



O’Roarke was looking at the ledger, a large book in brown leather that contained an entry for every activity within the protectorate’s field of interest. And, a ledger like it had been kept since the power outages of the mid twenty-first century.



Hard copy was now the order of the day.



Looking up, the little man ran his hand over his bald pate, then down own the fine white hair falling down around his head. O’Roarke removed the glasses e had worn while looking up the detectives’ enquiry.



“Hey,” he called, quickly hiding his small round lens glasses away in is top pocket, “didn’t you used to have two guards with you, wherever you went/”



“Yes,” Simone admitted, looking down to the pool of water on the tiles around where she stood, “You’re right… I used to.”



“I ‘ear them guy’s are summat else. So what happened to them?” the sergeant asked.



She thought back to the turn at the underpass: “I guess you could say we had a falling out O’Roarke…”



Suddenly the desk sergeant felt very cold and, very sorry for the two Brood guards who would next be assigned to the detective.



“So c’mon old man,” Simone called, “You got my collar?”



“Yes… If you mean three perps én freeze, as it were…?” O’Roarke quizzed.



“Yes… that’s what I’m looking for… Will you have them shipped over to interview two, for me please?” She enquired.



“Okay Detective Knight…” O’Rourke began with a grin: “That’s fine…” he continued, reviewing the large ledger.



Then sliding a piece of paper from a pigeon-hole, he stamped the protectorate seal in red ink, then added; “Here’s your chit, alright?”



O’Roarke popped the paper into a small cylinder that he dropped down a hole in the desk before him.



The cylinder fed down the tube by a pressure feed, till it exited from a hole that appeared a metre from floor level.



The cylinder shot out and landed in Simone’s right hand, held palm open...

At the touch of human flesh, at ‘normal’ temperature the cylinder dissolved, leaving the chit in Simone’s hand. It took its time in her hand though, as Brood’s core temperature was less than an Earth-borne human.



She looked at the piece paper and noted the desired interview had been allocated, “Useful,” she muttered, noting that next to the room number there was a leprechaun, doodled in green.



Simone looked up to O’Roarke and tried to scowl, but found it hard to do so.



“O’Roarke, if I ask ‘who did this?’ would I regret it?” She asked.



“Aw now lassie…” he called down, “just what sort of mischief are you accusing the little people of?”



Flicking the end of her tongue against the roof of her mouth and teeth, Simone made a scornful sound, and then declared: “Uh-huh, I thought so…”



As both laughed a buzzer sounded and O’Roarke called, “Your customers ready for you, in interview two as requested… Detective Knight, First Class.”



Simone nodded her thanks; then took to corridor to the right of the desk, leading to the stairwell for the lower levels: a place few took the lift to, ‘just-in-case.’



“Customers, customers… I’ll give them customers…” She muttered, moving fast, coattails flapping.



Earlier that decade Human Rights Incorporated had decided it was inhumane to call the accused criminal or any variation thereof; until sentence had been passed. Hence the alleged perpetrator of a crime became a customer of Protectorate Justice.



“Customer,” she growled, “stupid, stupid…” Simone wanted to spit.

‘But, that’s not hygienic…’ she reminded herself.

Chapter One



Her back to the wall the tall detective peered as far round to the right as she were able, to see if her quarry were ahead.



She heard voices, but her view was obscured by a concrete pillar, one of the few remaining, in the old underground car park.



Shadows danced upon the far wall, the images of three men talking, yet what they were saying was indistinct and, it had to be heard.



Crouching down she looked ahead, her pale face and highlighted cheekbones showed well amongst the dark shadows, puce coloured-lips pursed, as Simone reached for the right monitoring device for this job, in one of the many pockets about her person.



The SeeAll was held safe with two others in a pocket on her utility belt, worn beneath the maroon frockcoat she had grown to favour, similarly to the way Captain Jason Tolliver wore his…



Simone reached into the pocket, withdrew one small cylinder; and then crouched down. She put pressure on the thumb with her index finger and flicked forward, directing the silver ball in the men’s direction.



It rolled slowly; governed by its preset the device trundled forward then left, till it was less than half a metre from were three men argued in dim light.



‘SeeAll engage,’ she thought; and immediately the detectives mind flooded with sound and vision, gathered by the small device.



Simone saw a WildRider; a brightly dressed young man with numerous facial piercings facing two solid looking smartly dressed Brood deep in conversation.



Bred to survive in extreme conditions the Brood had fought in the Corporate War and had done as they had been bred to do, survive. Now they were bored and dangerous.



The WildRiders were an outlaw street-gang, who lived near the exposed entrance to their Old City.



‘But they never come to our Mega-city,’ she mused, “for them to do so will mean problems for someone…’



The audio confirmed her suspicions: “…the shipment arrived intact Mister and Mister PoFace…” the WildRider expressed, his arms moving wildly as he spoke; “And the monies been transferred to the account, as per instructions. So, why the meet?”



The meaner-looking of the two heavy-set in smart suits snarled, “We set no meet. We believed that it was made by you…”



“Well, it wasn’t…” the WildRider explained maniacally, waving his arms, as he stared into the darkness.



A smile crossed her face: It seemed that two weeks surveillance and, some intercepted then altered compuer messages had paid off for Detective First Class Simone Knight of the cities corporate protectorate.



Standing up and away from the wall she called out to the three men, “Freeze…”

Then she threw a second cylindrical device taken from her belt.



The spherical device, named a freezeGlobe landed near the colourfully dressed WildRider and disintegrated on impact with the concrete floor…



The contents, a green gel, spread up and out, covering all sentient life covering all humans in the vicinity, before setting hard.



The WildRider looked down as the gel spread; the smartly-dressed Brood turned, as if to run; yet soon they too were covered and, the gel had set…



“Freeze I said. Well, it’s nice when a man listens to you…” Simone muttered wryly.

Chapter Twelve



Opening the door to the lift shaft, Simone entered first, then Timothy. Drexel was next, who looked to his Brood brother the forward again, to illustrate where to look.



As Timothy took his place in the middle of the disc, Drexel could see the back of his hand nearly touched the back of the detectives left.



Drexel was scandalized: ‘no Brood should mix with a human, not like that.’ But, he had his orders, to observe the detective, no matter her course of action and, when needed, deal appropriately as the situation might demand. It was simple to him.



Drexel walked forward, his Brood brother close behind and, they took their place on the disc, with Summer and the detective. The guard screen ascended and, the lift began to move upward, to the upper levels, where Drexel felt more at ease, away from the memory of The Fallen, as that brave few had become known to their long-kin.



As the disc rose and gained momentum, Timothy looked to Simone and asked again, “Is this it?” He felt totally stymied. Summer wanted help; the sort of assistance that in would have obtained from Tolliver, his mentor.



After the fist of the corporate wars Tolliver had found the young soldier’s escape pod and given the man succour, when he needed it. Then he had invited him aboard his ship and a friendship had been forged, that still existed after the elder man’s death.



Simone looked to the young man’s eyes and heart wrenching sorrow there. She wanted to hold him, to tell him that vengeance would be theirs. Yet she dare not. Not while the danger he faced was literally very near. Instead of acting as she wanted, Simone told Timothy, The podtel? Or the ship? Granted, much of the manifest is impounded, while the investigation proceeds, but, we don’t need you for now. So why not just get in and go?”



Seconds of a long silence passed before Timothy looked down to the clothing he carried then spoke again, “This coat and the ship are all I have of him, the rest just doesn’t fit. You know?”



“You’re grieving,” the detective stated, simply. It was obvious to Simone, for she too had lost someone, a man who as a youth had saved her from chemical rain, sheltering her from it beneath his coat, then led her to the workings and, deep into the Old City.



‘Even now I recall his arm over me and how his had had scarred after the rain had burned his skin as he held me, taking me to safety,’ she wanted to share what had been with the young man and, she nearly did.



Yet, with an awareness of the threat her Brood-kin posed, Simone simply sighed, as the lift ceased moving and, they reached roof-level.



“Right now Summer you’re a shade of your self. You are not ready, yet…” She told him as Alice spoke, “Destination reached, it is safe to disembark now.”



Timothy had heard what she had said, but it was cryptic; too much so.



He followed the detective in silence and, in silence he boarded the police car, quickly flanked by the two guards.



“Okay then, The Forest it is…” Simone said aloud, turning to look down, as the ground receded beneath them.



The car lifted slowly, turning to find the optimum path, to take them to the vast docking station, built off the shore of Olde Britain.



Then, angling the car toward a secondary stream of traffic Simone followed it through to Midtown, then back down out the stream towards ground level.



Giving control to the car Simone turned her head to look at Timothy, dwarfed by the guards either side of him; “Belt up boy!” She instructed.



She pressed a button and the back doors opened at once, surprising the guards, who were drawn out, by speed inertia and, a sudden twist of the car mid-air, as Simone took control again; and Timothy looked out the back window, in time to see the two burly guards drawn into a slip-steam cars side rotors, turning them into a bloody pulp…



Then levelling out the car, Simone turned back to look at the shocked young man, as the doors closed: “It’s nice to enjoy some alone time, isn’t it?” She enquired with a light grin, her puce lipstick a slash of colour on an otherwise pale face



The car entered the lower level at a reduced speed and Simone took a sharp right onto a dark street. Another turn took them to a derelict area beneath West Seven ramp and she manoeuvred the car through the many supporting girders, as Timothy sat stunned, his mouth agape.



They were in a rundown part of the city and there would be few would look for them here; but an alert would go out, Simone knew that.



The detective drew the car to a halt, as the rain began to drizzle.



The wheels descended and she turned to look at the young man, “I want to find out about the tapes that were blank, the Brood who took the cargo, who may have killed My Captain… I…” he blustered, before she killed the engine.



“I know, believe I know…” Simone assured the human, touching his right cheek.



“How can you?” He scoffed.



Simone turned away, to look out the front window, the night and the falling rain: “There’s something about The Captain you don’t know…”



“Like?” Summer asked, intrigued.



“You weren’t his first protégée you know…” her words drifting, as she recalled Tolliver’s kind smile, watching a droplet trickle amongst others on the window.



“I owe him and believe me, those responsible will pay… alright?” She told him with certainty.



“I can’t help then…?” Timothy quizzed.



“Oh yes, you can…” Simone told him with a broad smile, “Oh yes you can…”



Epilogue:



“Nothing your time in the force will teach you what you’ll need as you travel Timothy…” Simone had told him, he recalled as he dressed.



He wore his long, long-draping fawn-coloured leather coat, shirtless as His Captain had worn it, as he liked the feel of the rough leather against his naked flesh, finding the sensation unusual, particularly after following Jason Tolliver’s peccadillo and shaved from his nipple line, down to his waist, going inward, at the end of his ribs, tapering in and ending at the waistband of his inherited well-worn blue-jeans.



He stared into the mirror and, his unshaven face. Simone had been right he mused, ‘he was a shade of his former self’.



“Yes,” he decided, “Shade is who I am now and The Forest, a number till I find reason…”



He turned from his cabin and walked toward the starships cockpit.

“Well, perhaps I’ll find that in the stars?” He muttered, powering up the ship’s engines…

Chapter Eleven



As Drexel closed the door to the mortuary, Drexel watched as Simone handed the young man Tolliver’s personal effects: “We’ll give you a lift back to your podtel, alright?”



Timothy heard her words and nodded his head dumbly. He felt hollow inside.

Then turning to the detective he asked dolefully, “Is that it?”



Simone looked to the young man, arms held out, as he held his Captain’s belongings. She wanted to tell him more than was possible; yet to do so might endanger his life.



‘Tolliver wouldn’t thank me for that,’ she mused, moments before telling the young man, “You were brought here to identify a man. And, granted you did not formally do so, but as the investigating officer, I’m satisfied you’ve done as required of you…”



The young man’s eyes opened wide and his voice rose, “You’re satisfied? Well I’m not. There’s too many anomalies and…”



As he spoke, Simone noticed Drexel becoming tense; so shoving her hands in the deep pockets of her frockcoat pockets, the detective assured Timothy, “And the investigation is ongoing Leave this to me, alright?”



Her right hand closed over the handle of the small pistol in her pocket, ‘just in case.’

Chapter Ten



Timothy Summer stared at the face before him and felt sick, truly sick. Before him lay his Captain; his mentor, friend and on several occasions, his saviour.



He closed his eyes a moment, hoping that what he saw wasn’t there, ‘not really.’



Yet when Timothy opened his eyes, Jason Tolliver still lay on the gurney before him.

“So remind me,” he asked, “how did it happen again?”



“There was a theft from the delivery room where his men were unpacking…” the detective explained simply.



“His men?” Summer queried



“It’s what the log says,” Simone clarified. Then after a pause she asked, “So you tell me… why do you seem so doubtful?”



Deep in thought and with an eyebrow raised, the young man told her, “The old cantankerous so-an-so wouldn’t pay someone to do what he could and, he’d already told me he could manage the deliveries unpacking himself…”



Briefly he grinned, then added; “Even if he’d had to use an exo-skeleton to do the job himself, he would have. An besides… no offence, but he didn’t like Brood.”



“None taken…” Simone responded. “But, they were Brood, it was logged as such…”



“Records can be tampered,” he reminded her, the added, “What about the bay’s camera’s?”



“Ah… blank…” Simone admitted.



Timothy rounded on the detective, his voice loud, “You’re saying all the surveillance footage is gone… all of it blank?”



His face darkened and he thumped the side of the gurney, immediately regretting it as pain shot straight through from his fist to his gonads.



“You don’t just have blank on tape… you make blank on tape…” And he knew, because when he was younger Timothy had been into vid-piracy.



‘There’s someone covering something up with that blank,’ he mused.



And, from by the door, the two guards turned their weapons to face the young man and Simone called out in a commanding voice: “Stow those weapons, Now!”



The two Brood guards obeyed her command instantly.



“And yes Timothy, you’re right…” she carried on speaking as though she had not been interrupted, “records can be tampered… I’m well aware of that…”



Then smiling gently, Simone pulled the sheet back over Jason Tolliver’s face.



“There,” she told Timothy, “Now you’ve done your duty… haven’t you?”

Chapter Nine



The door hissed open with a creak, as Simone gave it a push. Finally the door opened and she reached in to the immediate right, for where she knew were the lights where.



The detective hated the place, but given her mentor’s notoriety, she had felt the need to act. So here they were.



Moments later a strip-light flickered into life and a sickening yellow light flooded the white-tiled room, with a bank of stainless steel draws at the far side.



Detective Knight walked across the room, to stand by the draws, as Timothy entered the room, flanked by the two burly Brood guards.



“There’s something, well… someone you need to see… and identify, as their legal next-of-kin…” She told Timothy in a voice that concerned him, even more than being brought here in the manner he had.



‘But next-of-kin?’ He mused, watching as the detective grasped a handle and pulled a draw out to its midpoint, displaying what was quite obviously a body, covered by a white sheet.



With sinking heart, Timothy Summer realized whom he was next-of-kin to, moments before Simone drew the sheet back from the face to reveal his Captain, Jason Tolliver.



Ashen-face and slack-jawed, the young man looked to the tall woman and stammered, “How… How did it happen? And why is here in this place”



Summer gestured with his right arm, to indicate the dirty, poorly equipped morgue, as Drexler looked to Rexler and muttered, “He don’t know… he…”



“Shut up Guard Drexler!” Simone snapped, turning back to face Summer.



“How? A robbery as he was overseeing his delivery unpacked. We suspect espionage and, there’s some evidence that there had been inside information…” the detective explained.



“And that’s why my Captain is down here,” Timothy queried, voice rising in pitch, as he gesticulated around, at the filthy tiles, the scorched ceiling and dirty work surfaces.



Coughing politely, the detective began, “Let me clarify the situation here Summer, your Captain was viewed by many as a subversive, some say a militant…”



There was a suggestion in her tone of voice and phraseology, that the detective did not share the view espoused: and Timothy picked up on that, yet said nothing, for now.



Rexel spoke, “Drexel is one of them. He saw a Discovered Channel that said his kind brought about the end of the Old Cities.”



“Ah Drexel, the Oracle of modern Delphi eh?” Simone opined scornfully.



Her derision was lost on the two guards, but not on Timothy Summer, who smiled.

Simone liked that.

Chapter Eight



Simone smiled softly at his intervention and, Timothy’s heart sank: it was apparent that she was playing some sort of game and, he was but a pawn.



“Why is that?” Simone asked, walking quicker than she had.



“That noise, its roaches. A lot of them and…” Timothy had seen the monsters years earlier, when Jason Tolliver had taken him into the bowels of the old city, to see a mall; or what remained of it. They’d gone with two others, who never left the old city.



Even now, Timothy Summer could close his eyes and recall how the mass of them had swarmed over his comrades, stripping their flesh from them as they lived, till that very last moment of death. Their screams lived on, in Timothy’s dreams still, all these years later.



Simone reached for his jacket sleeve had pulled, “It’s the room two up on the right.”



Their pace increased, as did the noise overhead and panting behind, Rexel and Drexel huffed and puffed, to keep up.



“You’d almost imagine she’s a human, the way she acts sometimes, so devious like,” Drexel muttered aloud, his words carrying in the quite of the corridor.



“Is that right Detective, are you Brood?” Summer enquired, as Simone keyed in her ident-card, so the half-destroyed systems might recognise her.



Having watched the neck muscles tighten on the woman’s neck at the guards words Timothy was intrigued to hear her answer.



“Yes I am,” She told him, turning to look at his face as she did so, pleased to see a neutral response; pleased that she might have been right and that her former mentor had taught his young protégé something that could be of use to her.



‘Either way,’ she mused, ‘he is kin to me; ‘it’s just… not the right time to tell him. Definitely not now…’

Chapter Seven



“It’s a Trogg,” Simone hissed, as she turned to face Summer and the two guards.



The Troggs of the Old City came in many various sizes and genus, some were even bipedal and humanoid, but all had lived underground all of the lives among the irradiated earth of the past. And their environment had affected many of the Troggs, to the extent that their physiology and behaviour had been radically altered through long-term exposure, making some of them very dangerous indeed.



Drexel poked Summer in the back with the barrel of a snub-nose blaster, saying to him, “Looks like you might need this. You know how to use it?”



“Yeah,” Summer responded, gratefully accepting the weapon, as something growled from somewhere ahead of them and Simone responded with a volley of explosive rounds fired rapidly.



He watched eye-wide as a giant black rat came from the shadows and leapt toward the Simone Knight, who calmly levelled her weapon towards the belly of the animal, as it powered through the air.



Letting loose a second volley of shots the rounds tore into the large oily-looking rodent, tearing it open, spilling outward its bloody contents.



And, as the animal fell just beyond were Simone Knight had been standing, Drexel and Rexel began to fire their weapons.



After a few seconds Simone turned to her guardsmen and screamed, “Stop!”



Then as the guardsmen eventually did as she ordered, the detective turned back, to continue walking…



“So what do you think of Old City then Summer? Does it match your expectations?” The woman asked of him, curious what he might answer.



Timothy replied carefully, after all, having knowledge of the Old Times was a punishable offence, for the majority of society.



“Quite intimidating, the little I’ve seen of it,” he told her, looking to the giant rat, it’s bloated form oozing a viscous green and red bile, from the stomach wounds that it had taken from Simone’s weapon.



“Intimidating? An interesting choice of words, considering that I know you know a lot more than you’re saying, young man…” She spoke so the guards did not hear her and Summer realised that there was more to the detective than had first appeared.



As the small group walked on into the darkness a skittering noise sounded from above: “We have to move Detective Knight,” Summer snapped, ignoring the fact that she expected an answer. She had been right, he did know more than he’d let on.

COMMENTS

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Chonrie
04:59 Dec 05 2013

This Journal Is A Very

Diffrent Outlet. One That

Is Strange. Amazing.

Each Of Your Words Are,

So, In Control. Well Thought.

You Are Very Patient.

Can't Wait To Read Others.

Huggs And Kises.

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POST COMMENT