“Then you must start injecting us with the vaccine now.”
“There’s time. I can move fast when I’m in a hurry, even when I’m playing nurse. I know you have a medical clinic here, five floors beneath the surface. I assume it’s well stocked with syringes. If you’re still worried about the time, you can send Tom to organize your people into a line outside the clinic door. I’ll be down shortly.”
“Will the vaccine give us total immunity to the virus?” Cindy asks.
“Not this version. It’s a weak form of the true vaccine. It will stop the spread of the infection and relieve the majority of your symptoms for a twenty-four-hour period.”
“Then what?” Tom asks.
“Then you’ll need another shot. From me.”
Shaking his head, Tom pleads with his wife. “Don’t you see, we’ll be at her mercy.”
Cindy struggles to be patient. “All I see right now are black blisters forming on my hands. Go, organize our people, try to keep them calm. Alisa and I will talk.”
Tom leaves, closing the door behind him, and for once I don’t hear people listening through the walls. Cindy and I are alone. I stroll over and pick up an automatic weapon—an AK-47, an old Romanian favorite of mine. I point it at Cindy.
“How does it feel?” I ask.
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“I’m referring to me and two friends of mine outside a cave high in the Rockies. It was only eight days ago, you can’t have forgotten. Your Cradle paid us a visit. You know what happened. Shots were fired and someone very dear to me died.”
Cindy doesn’t flinch. “I was given a report on the incident.”
I’m so close to shooting, it’s scary. Despite the fact I need Brutran to complete my plan, to literally save humanity, my desire for revenge is overwhelming. I see the bullet striking her face, I see her head exploding, and the satisfaction I’ll feel . . .
“A report? You ordered the incident!”
“That’s not exactly true.”
I go to snap at her again but stop. She’s speaking the truth. “Who did order the attack?” I ask.
“It’s complicated.”
“I have time.”
“We don’t, thanks to you. Rather than drag up everything that I’ve done that you didn’t like, why don’t you state your terms and see if we can reach an agreement. Otherwise, I’ll take my husband’s advice and refuse your vaccine. And if you think I’m bluffing, Alisa, then you don’t know me.”
The woman has guts, I have to grant her that. I lower the gun. “I want to work with your Array and your Cradle,” I say.
“In what capacity?”
“I want to take control.”
“Why?”
“So I can use it to wipe out the senior members of the Telar.”
“That’s not possible.”
“You better make it possible. Or else I’m through talking.”
“I’m speaking logistically. You obviously have some knowledge of the Cradle but you’re a long ways from understanding its inner workings. The number of people who can channel the Array’s power against another human being is very small. We call them the Lens. The Lens controls the Cradle. It’s made up of only two dozen people, and all of them have unique abilities.”
“You mean they’re children who have been born and bred to be psychic mutants. They’re unique not only because they can tap into a large field of mental energy but because they’re devoid of empathy, love, compassion—and any other human quality that would prevent them from sodomizing the minds of innocent people.”
Cindy hesitates. “Yes.”
I snort. “You’re not going to defend what you’ve created?”
“No. It’s not just because we’re short on time. The situation is more complex than you know. Beside the fact that you’re not mentally equipped to control the Cradle via the Lens, you’d never be able to attack the inner core of the Telar, what Haru and his people refer to as the Source. We have tried in the past and failed. The only Telar we can harm are those who physically attack us, those we can see with our eyes. Otherwise, the Lens can’t focus on Telar who are on the other side of the world. Especially if they are linked.”
“Linked?”
The members of the Source are able to fuse their minds together and form what they call the Link. It makes them impossible to kill.”
“What if you had samples of their blood?”
“Dream on. Even you couldn’t obtain that.”
“I already have them,” I say, telling her the truth. Umara gave them to me.
“How?”
“That doesn’t matter. Just accept I have blood samples of the twenty oldest living Telar on this planet. Now I may not understand the intricacies of your Cradle but I know it aims its mental attacks using the principle of sympathetic resonance. To home in on an individual, you need something intimately connected to them. And nothing is more intimate than their own blood. Even when removed from the body and spread across the globe, it still contains the vibration of the original person. That’s why you needed my blood to attack me. That’s why you took two days to launch your attack on me. You had to send a diluted solution of my blood to every member of your Array, and as we know, they’re spread all over the world.”
“You are partially correct. I had to get your blood to every member of the Cradle.”
“You don’t keep your kids all in one place?”
“No.”
“Why not?” Unlike the huge Array, I assumed she would keep a constant eye on the Lens.
Cindy fumes. “We don’t have time for this. I can’t meet your first demand. You can’t control the Lens.”
“Why not?”
“You’re too . . . human.”
“I’m a vampire. I’ve killed more people than you can imagine.”
“Your past is irrelevant. You’re no longer a killer. But let’s not fight over this point. If you have these blood samples, then that’s reason enough for us to form a partnership. If we work together, we should be able to wipe out all the Telar.”
“All?” I say.
“Once we destroy Haru and the Source, the rest of the Telar should become vulnerable to our attacks.”
“But I don’t want to kill all of them.”
“Why not?”
“The majority aren’t evil.”
“You’re wrong.”
“Really? You’re the last person whose judgment I’d trust on this point. I bet the IIC isn’t as evil as it appears, although we both know it’s rotten at the top.”
“It’s natural to compare us to them. It’s also a mistake. They’re old. Even the young Telar are generally so old that most of them have forgotten how to feel. And you want to protect them?”
“It’s my decision to make. It’s another reason I won’t hand over the blood samples to you. You can use them but they’ll remain in my control.”
“Impossible. I told you, I have to disperse a diluted form of the blood to all the members of the Cradle.”
“Gather all the kids in the Cradle in one place. We can do it in this facility. I know you have a large underground room. That way I can keep track of the blood.”
Cindy pales and I wonder if it’s due to the infection spreading in her system, or something else. “We’ve never done that before,” she says softly.
“You’re not afraid of them, are you?”
She hesitates. “I can meet that condition. For now let’s agree to work together to solve whatever other issues come up. You can hear when I speak the truth. You know I’m being sincere.”
“I know,” I say.
“Now my people need the vaccine.”
“I’ll start injecting them in a minute.”
“You must also guarantee we’ll get the permanent vaccine when the Telar are dead.”
“As long as you agree not to steal my blood samples,” I say.
“Agreed.”
“You must also give me back my blood.”
“I’ll have to gather it.”
“And I want my friend’s sample back as well.”
“Which friend is that?”
“The one who shot Teri Raine on the mountain.”
Brutran acts puzzled. I assume it’s an act. Yet, again, she appears to be telling the truth. “So it’s Teri who died. I didn’t know. She’s a celebrity. Why wasn’t it on the news?”
“It will be. Don’t change the subject. I want the blood of the person who you mentally attacked on top of that mountain. Swear to me you’ll get it back.”
Cindy is still hesitant. “I’ll see what I can do.”
“Don’t start acting like you’re not in charge of this operation. You’re the queen bee. You have a finger on everything the IIC does. For that matter, I know it was you who planted a spy in our group.”