The Alien Agenda (6 page)

I said nothing, but I was beginning to wonder how far she was going to take it, when she released him and he crumpled unmoving to the roof.  He began raspingly to breathe again, drawing in a huge first breath that caused him to cough and splutter.  He awoke then but kept his eyes cast down, refusing to look up at either of us.  This was no doubt a harsh lesson for him, who had been coddled and handled with kid gloves up to now.

“Why?”  Brid gasped out once he had caught his breath, but he still would not look up to meet our eyes, nor was he daring to look into our minds.  He really did not understand.

“Because you are going to anger the wrong Vampire once,” I said, “and he will kill you for it.”

“We should have taught you respect.”  Sonafi
said, her tone hard and remorseless.  A new severity in the way she would deal with her son.  I saw that Brid recognized it too.  Even a Vampire could be warm and nurturing to her young, but that softness was now departed.  A new Sonafi stood over her son.  “Get up.”  She said, and he slowly rose, but still wouldn't look us in the eyes.

“What do you want?”  I demanded coldly.

“The others have sent me to talk to you.”  Brid answered, hardly daring to look up.

“We're listening.”  Sonafi said.

“We want to do something to make our presence known.”  Brid said.  “We've been talking about ways to do that, but we think that if we make it too obvious, they won't come.  Or they'll find some other way to deal with us.”

“Are you their spokesman?  Why don't they just come themselves?”  I asked.  So far I had met none of the others in this group.

“They are not all in agreement that you should be allowed in with us.  There are some that fear you.”  Brid said.  “I think now I can see why.”

I glared at him but wondered if he had even noted our point.  We had only chastised him moments ago and yet here he was already returned to recalcitrance.  I continued to glare at him.  “Do these others accept your arrogant attitude?”  I wondered aloud.

“I know better than to screw with
them
.”  Brid snarled, suddenly angry.  “You're my parents!  I thought that if there was anyone I was safe with, it would be my own parents!”

I looked at Sonafi.  She looked back.

“Have we over reacted?”  She asked.

“No.”  I said.  “Life is a serious business.  I think Brid is taking it too lightly. 
Much too lightly.”

“I think you would be surprised just how serious I am about life, and not only just my own.”  Brid replied seriously.  “How I have endeavored to find a way to gain the upper hand over our enemies.  Do you know why I am accepted by the other of my group?  Do you have any idea?”

Brid's mind was closed to me and I suddenly felt the smallest needle of guilt at being barred from his mind.  While he had lived under my roof he would never have dared to close his mind to us.  We had taught our children to learn to live with one another openly, as Sonafi and I did, because through openness and honesty we hoped to bring the entire Community together, or so we have always hoped.  To find his mind closed now to me was a shocking surprise.  I did not know what he was hiding.

“No.  I guess I don't.”  I admitted.  I hadn't thought about it, but now that I did, I found that I was a little baffled.  What use did they get out of my son?  What could they have seen that I hadn't?

“All those hours I
wasted
sitting in front of the computer.”  Brid said.  “You don't recall?”

“I could hardly forget.”  I said.  “That's all you ever did.  That or play video games.”

“The video games I wrote?”  Brid asked sarcastically.  “Are those the ones you refer to?  Or the electronics I was always working on.  Maybe you refer to those?”

“You mean all those toys you tore apart!”  I said, just as sarcastically, remembering how much money Brid
’s hobbies had cost.  Money wasn't nor isn't an issue however yet the thought still crossed my mind.  I have access to nearly unlimited amounts, but it's the point of it.  I spent a fortune on electronics he wanted only to watch him tear them apart and build unintelligible objects with them.

“Yeah.
  Those.”  Brid said.

“What's your point?”  I asked, starting to become annoyed.

“He's an electronics and computer programming expert.”  Sonafi explained.  “He's an engineer of no little ability.  He can build almost anything electronic or electrical, and write almost any type of code.  I would imagine he's been accepted for his expertise.”

“At least one of you was paying attention.”  Brid said angrily.

“I guess I don't understand such things,” I said, trying not to get angry again myself, and only barely succeeding, “but how does that help us with the Others?” 

“If you can't understand, then there's no explaining it to you.”  Brid said, his anger at what he saw as the injustice of the way I had treated him coming out boldly, but i
t was becoming too much for me.

“Try anyway.”  I snarled, moving so close, so quickly, that when his awareness of my nearness registered, he recoiled in shock, but I grabbed him and would no
t let him go.  He did not try to resist.  His rebellion did not go beyond what his mouth would say.  Not now.

I felt Sonafi
’s hand on my shoulder.  “They hope to gain the technological upper hand.  I believe, as they do, that it is our only chance.  I also believe that it is possible.  I believe they can be beaten at their own game.  Now is the time.  Now is our chance.”  I released my hold on Brid.

“That's right.”  Brid said.  “Beat them at their own game. 
On the technological level.  Infect their computers.  Disrupt their ship's drives.  Possibly build weaponry that will be of some significant use against them.  We're exploring every avenue we can think of.  The problem is that we have more questions than answers, and the more we learn, the more we realize how far behind them we are.  That's why we hope to be able to infect one of them.  We need time to learn.  We understand the gulf that separates us.  Right now it's our best and only option.”

“But you and these others…
“  I let the sentence hang.

“We call ourselves the Resistance.”  Brid interrupted.

“You and the Resistance are working on some of these things?  Some of these technologies you hope you will be able to use, eventually, against the Others?”

“We're working on a number of projects, but we need time.  We hope to buy some, or even learn something, by infecting one of them.  That's where you come in.  We need your strength.  That is the only reason you will be allowed to participate.”  Brid said coldly, glaring at me openly now.  “We understand what we face.  I understand the difference between a
Juvenile and an Elder, whether you wish to believe it or not.  I am not such a fool as that.”

Suddenly I felt the guilt of my actions.  I had grossly underestimated my son, had overreacted to his childish play.  He was right in that if there was anyone he should be able to turn to in light heartedness, it should be Sonafi or I.  He had done so and we had mistreated him.  I had mistreated him.

Even though if there had ever been a time to speak up and apologize, I could not bring myself to do so.  Brid did not expect me to say anything, however, and went on without waiting.

“We hope to be able to make new readings, as well.”  Brid said.  “Knowing or expecting them to be in a certain place will allow us to set up and prepare our instruments and be in place ourselves when they do show.  Maybe even their communications, which we know nothing about, but we really aren't expecting much in that area.  Their communications are a blank area for us.”

The Others are telepaths, like Vampires.  I agreed that we would be unlikely to detect any mechanical communications.  Not when they did not need such clumsy, awkward means.  The Others had always been very careful not to let their technology escape to Vampire or Human hands.  I did not doubt the veracity of the Roswell incident, that the U.S. Government had debris from that crash site, but the Others had always been very careful in their attacks on us that they never carried samples of their technology on their
persons
when they came for us.  They came armed with cold steel, but never anything more advanced. 

I have fought the
Others more times than I now cared to count.  I knew their strengths.  They had no weaknesses.  Physically they were like Vampires.  Thirty times as strong as a Human power-lifter.  In the physical sense, they were very much godlike.  If it had not been for their susceptibility to cold steel, they would have long since done for me, but in the end, despite all their strengths, they were still flesh and blood.  They could not resist the honed edge of my blade.  I could still feel their telepathic screams ripping across my mind when they tasted that steel.  Cold steel was never palatable.  They could stomach it no more than any other and it was only that steel which had stood between us.

“How do you plan to attempt to lure them in?”  Sonafi asked.  If she felt any guilt for her participation in the drama of a moment ago it was not reflected on her face, nor did Brid seem to acknowledge any enmity.

“Oh that.  We're just going to tell them we're here.”  Brid answered, the smugness returned to his voice.  Could the hierarchical role of the Community alter itself to follow the pattern that Humans followed I wondered?  Wealth and station, thus position, were determined by intelligence, business prowess or educational level.  In a New World Order, could an Elder actually follow the directives of a much junior Vampire?  Follow the rules and laws as laid down by others.  It went entirely against everything a Vampire held as a standard.  The hierarchy among Vampires was determined by physiology, and nature, so anything else would be entirely alien.  Yet . . . !

“You're going to tell them?”  Sonafi asked incredulously.

“I know a little something about conceit.”  Brid answered. “I have little doubt they will be able to resist.  For all their technological wonders, their long evolution, they are diminished by their aggrandized conceit of their superiority that our continued existence denies.  It inflames them that we can resist them.  No.  We do not have to worry on that account.  They will come.”

“I agree that getting them here won't be the problem.”  I said.

“I wonder what kind of Pandora's Box we might open if we do this?”  Sonafi asked, and I had to agree with her, as well.  There was just no telling what we were getting ourselves into here.  What box of horrors we were opening.  What awful chain of events we might precipitate, but the die had been cast.  The wheels were already in motion.  I could not stop them even had I wanted, and I had no reason to want to do so.  It would continue with or without me.  I might as well join them.  It could work.

“It does not matter.”  Brid said.  “The Community has spoken.  You may join us, or not, but you will not hinder us.”

It was about time the Community had gained some unity, I thought.  I said; “I'm behind you a hundred percent.”

CHAPTER 5

I felt the sensation as I was halfway out my front door.  My Vampire senses were suddenly burning.  Every nerve ending in my body aflame, signaling that danger was near.  I wasted no time, not even the slightest moment.  It was possible I didn't have a moment to spare.

I continued my forward motion without pause, accelerating my perception
and my awareness, ramping my Vampire adrenal system into hyperactivity, hyper-attenuation, hyper-acceleration.  As my perceptions sharpened, as my metabolism went into overdrive, the world slowed around me.  Yet I stayed the same.

I leaped down the steps and ran to the street, halting between the front a
nd rear ends of two parked cars from which position I would be better able to defend myself.  I found my cane-swordin my hand, though I did not remember drawing it.  Vaguely, as if from far away, I heard the discarded sheath, the cane part of the disguised weapon, clatter to the concrete of the sidewalk.  No attackers visible, I moved again, diving to the middle of the street, and came up crouched in my martial stance, the cold steel held at the ready.

Vampires
!  I had known.  There is an intrinsic difference in the telepathic feel of the Others compared to that of Vampires.  The awareness of either a strange Vampire or one of the Other’s aura, sent an immediate nerve jangling warning through my autonomous nervous system, but the aura of another Vampire did not electrify me in the same manner that I reacted to the presence of the Others.  A Vampire or even a group of Vampires was much less a threat than even one of the Others posed.  If there was one, there would be others.  The Others did not attack singly.  When they attacked, they attacked in force.  If I could sense one, there would be others nearby.

These too were a group.  Sensing a group of Vampires, outside my own eccentric, extended family, should almost have been as strange as encountering a
single lone Other, but times were changing, apparently.  I wondered, as I stood there in the street, my cane-swordbared, what other new surprises the future might bring?  If Vampires could learn to cooperate, what other obstacles could we not learn to overcome?  To what other new heights might we not ascend?  The possibilities were too much to sum up with a few words.  Through cooperation might we challenge the entire Universe.  There was nothing we might not accomplish.  The very Universe could be our plaything.