This follows An Old Memory in the Met Part VI, Part V, Part IV, Part III, Part II, and Part I…
Bhargavian was under bond, an oath that would expire two hundred years after it was pledged. It was not a terrible deal, as it had kept him out of trouble, out of mind, and most importantly, out of sight of the greater powers that wandered the upper eastern seaboard of the United States. There was a time that a monster like him was both a target for the humans and for those that wished to reduce competition in the food chain. Monsters are monsters to other monsters. Not just humans.
Bhargavian was a class of vampire known as an Anchorite. Anchorites were vampires semi-petrified due to sun exposure. Not every vampire makes it back to ground before the sun comes up, and not every vampire is completely eradicated in the crucible of immolating ultraviolet radiation. Some are immobilized. Some get stuck. Some get drunk or high because of a victim that was drunk or high, and in their stupor, they get barbequed.
Bhargavian had picked the wrong victim that night in 1968, although he remembered it fondly. The young man must have had a master class of drug chemistry interactions running rampant through his bloodstream. Two things had happened that night. The shaggy haired young man in the flowered shirt and linen pants had died in bliss, and Bhargavian had met the One True God In All His Glory, Praise Be, Hal-le-lu-iah!
Unfortunately, when he awoke, Bhargavian discovered that his lower half had been reduced to charcoal due to a door that had not been closed during his stupor. Vampires regenerated of course, but it was not like the movies. It was not a rapid regrowth like a lizard sporting a new tail, or a sea creature regaining a limb on the next molting… oh no, it was more like a normal human wound. Cut a finger on a man, it takes weeks to heal. Cut off a limb off a vampire, it takes decades.
So when you cut off your entire bottom half?
By Bhargavian’s estimate he still had a hundred or so more years to go before he could use his legs again. Thankfully the sun had spared his dick. Small blessings, right? But when he had pushed away from the charcoal representation of his former lower half, two things happened. First, his legs detached and crumbled to black resinous piles of ash. Second, he realized he was utterly and wholly fucked. There was no way he would survive without mobility.
What was he going to do? Chase victims from a wheelchair? Hunt from the eaves like some vampiric hunchback of Notre Dame? A legless gargoyle that would be the North American version of a drop bear? Just falling out of trees on top of unsuspecting victims? It was a recipe for self destruction, and that is all that it was. Bhargavian knew the drill.
He immediately called the Family. He put in an oath and he was bonded. But he survived. Just another cog in the great machine of Vampiredom. A bureaucrat that signed his line on the papers, did the little ka-chunk of the stamp, and pushed the paperwork on to the next station in the great machine of beauacracy. Bhargavian did his job, slept in his cubicle, and was given his ration every day at the exact same time by the exact same bondsman that served him the same exact thing every day.
“Barge.” A deft nod from the other bondsman as he pulled the thermos from the cart and set it within Bhargavian’s reach.
“Clint.” Bhargavian replied with his own nod in return, taking the thermos and stroking the side of it like it was his favorite child. A delicious, nourishing, child.
“Hard day?” Clint said.
“Not particularly. Same old, same old.” Bhargavian shrugged.
Clint snorted and moved on to continue his deliveries.
Bhargavian paused and looked at Clint’s back as he moved onwards with his cart deliveries to the rest of the department. He thought it was odd that Clint hadn’t said his customary, ‘Keep on keepin’ on‘ slogan that he used every other day.
Peculiar.
Clint had been delivering Bhargavian’s ration for what? Twenty years? Twenty-five? And he always had said the same thing, every day. The exact same time by the exact same bondsman that served his own function in the company, and by extension, the Family, every day the exact same way. And today he just forgot? Bhargavian felt the compulsion to start counting the tiles in the drop ceiling, even though he knew there were 84.25 tiles in the space above him, and he knew that there were exactly 86,296 perforations in said tiles. But the impulse clawed its way up his neck anyway.
He had to ask. He had to correct the pattern. Bhargavian spoke up with a mild sense of panic, “Clint!? Keep on, keepin’ on!?”
Clint glanced back over his shoulder and gave his customary lopsided grin, “I knew you would notice… Keep on, keepin’ on, Barge.”
Bhargavian grinned in reply and opened his ration cautiously, concluding it was just an odd day after all. Clint must have spaced it… but at least Bhargavian wasn’t compelled to count the ceiling perforations again. Exceptionally tedious.
Clint, whom was really Al, turned back around and continued with the deliveries, trying his hardest not to shit himself. Al had doppeled the young vampire Clint, because the younger ones were easier. Their minds were closer to a human’s own, as the virus had not had a chance to completely warp and distort their brain patterns. Old vampires were another species altogether by the time the virus had completed its full work. Physiology, psychology, and all the resulting patterns of behavior were altered significantly by the thing that made vampires, well, vampires. Clint had been young enough that he only had the beginning phases, the small changes, and yet, even with that, Al had had a hard time reading the mind, pulling apart the information, and interpreting the results. Things had slipped through the cracks.
Like routines. Keep on, keepin’ on? Sheesh.
Al knew what he had to do to Clint’s job, but the interactions with the staff in the office were all completely fuzzy, like viewing interactions through a layer of reflective water on a sunny day. Bits and pieces popped out well, others were lost in the haze and wash of refraction and reflection. And Clint would not be able to be reconsulted, as his remains were scheduled for immolation as soon as the sun came up. Doppeling was never a clean process and Al hated the all consuming manic hunger that accompanied it. Eating brains was the realm of zombie movies, not the passion project of a true artist.
But Al did what he had to do. He had absorbed Clint. He had consumed him, and through the act, became Clint. It was like puppetry in a way. Fatal and irreversible puppetry. Al kept his face still, let the memory of Clint drive Clint as he continued in his job. Al peeked back at the one he had called Barge, and the old Anchorite was going to town on this small thermos, sucking greedily at the straw, and paying no mind to Al/Clint as he continued on.
‘What a close call!‘ Al thought to himself.
The old ones were dangerous. Even when they were immobile. Al/Clint turned the cart down the next hallway and figured he had at least ten more deliveries before he could find a way into the Network Operations Center, aka the NOC, of the security company that provided remote monitoring and operations for the Met. At least 90% of the staff were Anchorites. Which was both good and bad.
Anchorites don’t move much. They are confined to their spaces. They don’t get up to go the bathroom. They don’t need to go on vacations. They don’t need smoke breaks. All they need is the tools to do their job, and a steady supply of blood to keep them well enough to function. Maybe just a bit more to get what they need in order to heal and not be Anchorites any longer, but not too quickly. Don’t want to exhaust the labor pool unnecessarily. Humans may have invented value extraction, but it was the vampires which had perfected it.
One should expect that to happen with the OCD and the arithmomania that came along with the bloodlust and immortality. Numbers, and deep viral compulsions about those numbers, would obviously lead to epic MBA-level outcomes. If vampires would contribute to the Harvard Business Review (which the don’t, for a number of reasons), the world of man would immediately collapse to a singularity of efficiency that would be so powerful, humanity would go extinct due to efficiency gains.
Al shook his head at the silliness in the world. It was a constant marvel.
Getting to the NOC was easy. Clint’s keycard was the highest level of permission, because every staff member needed to be fed and it was Clint’s job to feed them. However, shutting the NOC down was a trick. Al/Clint had to get the tainted blood into every vampire’s hand, get them to drink, and hopefully have all of them collapse at about the same time.
Ideally, that is what would happen. But Al knew it wasn’t an ideal world. He had lived long enough to know that was one of the few certainties of existence. Some things were obvious… Death, taxes, and shit typically went sideways when given the opportunity.
Murphy’s law was a law because Murphy himself was probably an Elder God. He had to be there at the beginning, crufting it up for everything that came after. Murphy had to be the first. Al/Clint smiled morosely as he pushed the food cart towards the NOC. He had some other choices to think through.
He could distribute the meals, wait patiently, let the neckbiter’s hunger take the course and count on the OCD alignment to repeated behaviors for the them all to go down. Clint’s memory was fuzzy here, but it seemed like that was the obvious option, and mostly likely.
Al/Clint did have an option on his person if that plan didn’t work out. It would absolutely piss the Family off, but Liz had provided him a little vial that he could throw at the ceiling if he had no other choice. Sun of the Dragon, a distilled concoction made of pure dragon fire, was flagged as a highly illegal substance in the Accords, because it was so immensely powerful to anything even remotely sun-averse. Imagine a light bulb bright enough to blind God and it put out nothing but UV light… it would give Al a really bad sunburn, but for those vampires unable to move, it would turn them into true anchors. Statues of their former selves, sitting at their desks, in their last moments wondering why the room had suddenly gotten so bright as the UV flashed into their minds right after the thought had.
The flash would last for five seconds? Enough fuel to pour on the fire of immolation for everything nominally alive in the NOC. Then Al would shut down the systems, kill the feeds, set the charge to blow after two minutes and then get the hell out of the building.
“How are you doing Al?” His ear buzzed faintly.
“Dammit Milos, you are going to give me a heart attack.” Al whispered under his breath.
“Oh you sound different. Young one, huh?” Milos teased.
“Shut up, almost there. Give me five more minutes.”
“10-4.”
“You sound like an absolute idiot, Milos.” Liz barked over the channel, barely containing her laughter.
Thankfully the chatter ceased. Al/Clint reached the NOC and slid his badge over the wall reader, waited for the scramble lock to pop up, entered the pin from Clint’s memory, and crossed his fingers. After an eternity, the door finally buzzed and the lock light went green. Al sighed lightly as he pulled open the door and wheeled the cart into the room.
“Clint!” A vampire near the door called out excitedly.
“Hey Faust. How’s it hanging?” Al/Clint replied, he remembered this one.
“It’s not!” Faust laughed. His torso was gone below the ribs, and his spinal cord was fleshy and pink, jutting through his little customized chair with a pink hemorrhoid pillow.
Clint’s memory said something about a car accident… that was fuzzy though, and Al was not going to ask. He handed over the tainted thermos and continued through the rows, handing seven more out.
However, one of the anchorites was missing. Tag? Dag? Tag! That was it. Al thanked Clint internally. “Where is Tag?”
Faust looked up from his screen. “Tag was released yesterday. Sorry, I guess the paperwork didn’t make it to you.”
“He got through his bond? I had no idea.” Al/Clint replied.
“Yeah, lucky bastard. The new guy is barely a vampire. I think he is what… Darcy? How old is the new kid?”
The vampire Darcy looked up from her wheelchair. “Brendan? Not even five years. Had a bad experience at Burning Man a few years ago. Young ones never think the desert is the worst place for a vampire to be. Can’t dig the hardpan very easy.”
Faust laughed. “Idiot. Live and learn, I guess.”
“Where is Brendan?” Al asked carefully. His nerves were starting to pick up, but he covered it by looking very carefully at the coffee cup of pencils on Faust’s desk. He started counting them with his finger tip.
“Oh, sorry Clint. Yeah, calm down. There are 27 pencils in there. 27. Brendan ran a file to the other office, he is mobile enough to run errands for us. Still has most of his legs, and his prosthetics are state of the art. Both an unlucky and yet, a lucky, idiot. I would love to be able to walk. Literally… anywhere.”
Darcy snorted. “You and me both.”
Al/Clint made a mental note of everyone that had opened their ration. The vampires that he passed on his route would already be passed out. It was like a wave of drug induced stupor… Al/Clint just surfed the wave of drug tainted blood all the way to the prize.
Faust had not taken a drink yet. Two minutes. That was the gap. Darcy and the others would start to lean forward or backward, their tongues lolling past sharp teeth, heads bouncing against their shoulders. Faust would hit the alarm and the heist would be over before it could even start.
Al/Clint fingered the vial in his pocket and tried to keep the conversation with Faust going. “So should I leave the new guy’s ration with you?”
“Oh, of course not. I will drink it. Guilty as charged. Put it on his desk.” Faust waved, returning to his monitors, watching the Met like the unsleeping hawk he was. One of many. Eight to be exact. Damn arithmomania. Al/Clint put the last thermos on the empty desk and turned back to his cart, miming the action to continue back on his route.
Faust had yet to open his ration. One minute. Al’s panic went up ten notches. Less than 60 seconds.
Al pulled the vial from his pocket fingering it cautiously, running his finger tip along its slick surface. The black glass was like volcanic obsidian, but it felt like he was holding the sun in his hand made of fragile gossamer. One flick of his wrist and everything in this room was going to be charcoal. Al eyed the desk he would attempt to dive behind.
Thirty seconds.
Faust burped. Al/Clint whipped his head to discover Faust had hammered his ration in mere seconds. ‘Oh thank the Old Ones‘, Al lamented internally.
Darcy’s head dipped, and then the next one dipped, and the next. Faust looked confused at first, but then his eyes unfocused and his head rolled backwards with the others.
“FUCKING HELL.” Al whispered heavily into his comm.
“You burn them?” Liz asked with a hint of glee. “Was it spectacular?”
“I did not.” Al replied with a disgusted tone. “Eating one was worse enough. Cutting the feeds in three, two, and one…”
Shirin spoke up. “I see the comm line offline. It’s disconnected. I am shutting down this end.”
Al watched the board, and sure enough, the large dashboard on the big screen started throwing errors. Al went back to the cart, pulled the small explosive packages from underneath, and walked to the door at the front of the NOC. He badged the door, hit the scramble lock there with Clint’s PIN code, and pushed the door open to the server room. A wave of ice cold air hit him in the face along with the omnipresent hum of many racks of servers doing their seemingly omniscient blinking.
Again, irony struck him that the human world had created magic without realizing it. Making rocks think with lightning. The humans call it science. Let’s be honest, it was dark magic. Some Gods would be envious.
He placed a package on top of each server rack. The thermite would burn consecutively through each server until it reached the floor and melted through into the subfloor concrete. The racks would collapse downwards as they went. That part would be spectacular.
Thankfully, Al would miss all of it. He hit the timers, started to close the door behind him, and turned to find the Burning Man newbie staring over the room with wide bloodshot eyes.
“What happened? Are they o-o-o-k?” The young vampire that must have been Brendan stammered loudly. “I have to hit the button right? The red one? Is that it? Who are you? This big red button right!?”
“Shit.” Clint/Al replied. He pulled the vial from his pocket and chucked it at the wall behind the young one, diving backwards into the server room, landing on the raised floor roughly.
The flash from the shattering vial of Sun of the Dragon nearly burned his eyes out from behind his clenched eyelids, and that was with the door nearly closed, a mere crack allowing the blast to flash into the server room. Al gave it a good five count and stepped out cautiously to find every single vampire in the room a smoking pile of ash.
“FUCK-ING HELL.” Al repeated into his comm, this time with significant marked emphasis.
“NOW YOU BURN THEM?,” Liz picked up on it immediately. “I will ask again, was it spectacular?”
“My eyeballs hurt.” Al grumbled. “Charges are set and I am getting the fuck out of here.”
He pushed the cart back into the hall, closing the NOC door behind him. He noticed that his doppel had slipped to reveal his black on black right hand in its natural state. He used it to his advantage, pulling the scramble lock and the reader free from the metal reinforcements, and shattering them in one squeeze. He pushed his hand under the lip of the cart and headed back the way he came.
All the vampires were sleeping. It was like a daycare for vampires. Naptime. It was kind of cute if you ignored the fact they all had reddish brown stains around their lips and overly long tongues hanging past sharp teeth.
The first explosion was like a heavy cough overheard on a subway platform. The second, third, and fourth were successive, and each was a bit louder than the previous. At least the packages worked as expected even if the vampires in the NOC hadn’t. Al touched the side of his face, realizing it was starting to blister.
“Son of a bitch,” Al muttered angrily.
“I knew it was going to be spectacular.” Liz laughed, her voice tinny and far away.