Vigil (21 page)

             
But then, whatever happened, they were dead anyway.

*

Chapter Forty-Seven

Fallon Corp.

The pain came and she bucked and writhed against her bonds.

             
Tom watched, fascinated. It wasn’t the first time he had seen the infection, but it was always amazing. The cure was the most virulent infection he had ever seen.

             
Marie was screaming and it hurt Tom’s heart to watch her. He prayed under his breath that she would come through. She had to come through. She had to.

             
It was mankind’s only hope. To be watching her struggle now, the focus of mankind’s evolution, only to know it could all be a waste of time…

             
Marie’s screaming stopped and she looked up at the ceiling. She took a deep breath.

             
‘My god,’ she said. ‘Is this how they feel all the time? Every day? I feel like I’ve been born again.’

             
Tom laughed and hugged her. For a few seconds he forgot that she had been born eternal only to die.

             
He began loosing her bonds as Jean’s walkie-talkie squawked.

             
Tom’s hearing was now acute. He had no trouble making out the indistinct words.

             
‘They have broken through,’ said the voice on the other end. It was punctuated by the crackle of gunfire and then, nothing.

             
‘Go,’ said Jean.

             
‘Come, too, Jean. We need you.’

             
‘No. I’ve done more running than a man with no legs has a right to. I’m done running. Marie, take the team and go. You don’t have much time. We can only hold them at the second floor for so long. You have to get to the gateway. Marie, you will have to shut it down. I’ll evacuate the survivors your level. At least they’ll have time to say goodbye to their loved ones. Rather they die in the explosion than get made into one of them.’

             
‘We could infect all of us.’

             
‘And give us false hope?’

             
‘Infect us,’ said one of the soldiers. ‘We’ll last longer.’

             
‘It won’t help…’

             
‘Don’t treat us like idiots,’ said the soldier. ‘We know what’s going to happen. We understand what needs to happen, too. You need time. We can give it to you.’

             
‘Jean? Would you? Just to know?’

             
‘Never. I will die as a man, even though I may not be whole. Do not seek to persuade me, Marie.’

             
Tom laid a hand on Jean’s shoulder. He understood. To be given the world, even for a moment before death, was a pain more than most men could bear.

             
Marie kissed the soldiers on the mouth and whispered goodbye to them. She had fought by their sides before, but there was no time for lengthy goodbyes. What words could express what she felt? The joy at this new burst of life, only to have to throw it away to save a world that had already passed? Would they cry when they realised the power they could have, but only for so short a time? No, they would not. Mankind was harder of heart in this new world.

             
She wasted no time. As soon as she had kissed the last soldier she left at a run by Tom’s side. She could feel explosions through the thick steel and deep earth, smell a new scent – the elder vampires, way above on level two.

             
They ran to the stairwell. They knew the soldiers would hold the third floor as long as possible. But it could only last so long. Even with the four vampire soldiers on their side they could not hold back the vampire army for long. There were too many of them.

             
They pushed the door open and ran through onto the third floor. Tom raced Marie along the corridor to his father’s room. He pulled on the painting on its plinth. Waiting for the elevator to rise was painful. He could feel every moment ticking by. He felt like laughing, despite what was happening around them.

             
He hugged Marie and stepped into the elevator.

             
‘Bring them down when they come. Make sure you close it after me. There isn’t time to get everyone through. You can’t be weak now, Marie.’

             
‘I know, Tom. I hope in whatever world you go to, I’m there, and you’re my father.’

             
‘I wish I’d had you as a daughter, too.’

             
He looked like he wanted to say more. Marie wished he would say more. But she knew all the words they needed to say had long ago been said. She press the button to send the elevator to the secret level and turned her back on him so she wouldn’t have to see him go.

             
Then she waited. Waited for the last of the humans to come. She would shepherd them to the depths. Then she would kill them all. If she could, she would take the vampires with them.

             
Would they scream their frustration as she killed them? She hoped so. She hoped they would feel the anguish she felt, standing there, knowing she would soon die.

*

Chapter Forty-Eight

Fallon Corp.

LHC/Hub One

Tom’s heart beat a little quicker as the elevator descended. He counted the beats.

              Thirty per minute. He wondered how often his heart would beat if he were calm. Twenty? Ten times a minute? Did the elder vampire’s hearts beat just once a minute?

             
He imagined if his heart beat any faster he would pass out from sensory overload. As it was his eyes were burning from the bright lights of the elevator, the hum of the workings, hidden from him. He reached out and touched the cold steel, revelling in its smoothness.

             
Every sense was singing.

             
The ping as the door opened made him wince. There must be some way to deaden his senses, to close some of the input out. The elder vampires must have mastered the trick. The pain would be too much to bear, day in, day out, if every footfall sounded like an explosion, if even starlight burned the eyes.

             
He stepped out into the hallway and hub one came online.

             
‘Welcome, Tom. I have been waiting for you.’

             
‘Hub One, prepare the gateway.’

             
‘Gateway is online. Destination must be inputted manually at the central terminal.’

             
‘Then lead the way, Hub One. I don’t think we have long.’

             
‘I sense much seismic activity above us. As we are not subject to fault lines or geographical shift in this region, I can only hypothesise that there have been a number of explosions. Would this be correct, Tom?’

             
‘Yes, Hub One. It would. I think we need to hurry this up.’

             
‘Follow the indicators, Tom.’

             
Tom knew the way. He still needed to see, though. He couldn’t find his way blind. As it was he had to squint to keep as much of the hub’s unnatural light from burning his eyes from their sockets.

             
He hoped in opening the gateway remotely that his father had sown the seeds for his demise. It was all he could do.

             
The door to the gateway stood before him.

             
There was a painful moment of doubt as he waited for the scanner to complete its work. Then Hub One’s voice came over the speakers that surrounded the entire secret complex.

             
‘Tom, you have been infected. Are you aware of this?’

             
The door would not open.

             
‘I know, Hub, but it’s a cure. I’ve been inoculated.’

             
‘Please wait while I analyse this, Tom. I hope you understand the delay, but security is of the utmost importance. I cannot risk infection through the gateway.’

             
‘Please hurry, Hub. There isn’t much time. Other infected are coming.’

             
Hub did not reply. It had fallen silent. Tom imagined its huge computers, hidden somewhere and no doubt shielded from all interference, whirring and clicking as it performed complex calculation, assessing risks along with known facts, cross-referencing its vast research databases.

             
He didn’t have to wait too long.

             
‘Please enter,’ said Hub, simply. The heavy steel door clicked and opened. Tom pushed through without waiting for Hub to change its mind.

             
He couldn’t hear the battle overhead, but he knew the odds were stacked against the last of the humans. They would be dying soon, but they were giving their pain to allow him long enough to do what was necessary. Such a sacrifice must not be wasted.

             
He stepped into a control room. He had been here before, but he knew what he needed to do this time. And he had a chance. A chance that could not have been granted unless a thousand strands of fate had not aligned.

             
He wondered for a moment and then typed in his destination.

             
‘Accepted,’
said Hub.
‘Dimension one, two, three…confirmed. Please enter dimension four.’

             
Tom blew out the breath he had been holding and typed a date into the computer. It wasn’t a date he had picked at random. He needed to go back far enough to make a difference, but there was always risk. He had thought long and hard about the risks, taken each one out and examined it with a cold analytical mind.

             
He typed four digits for the year, followed by an arbitrary date and time. The date and time were unimportant, except Tom chose to arrive at midnight. He did not think he would be able to bear the light.

             
‘Parameters accepted, Tom. Please step through.’

             
Tom took a deep breath and stepped into the gateway room.

             
Before him was an impossibly bright anomaly. It was a shimmering light, suspended independently of all input, hanging in the air before him. Iridescent and beautiful beyond all imagination. That man had created such a thing Tom could not believe. That it had been his father was only a hint of pain, outside of himself. It was something, like all his hopes and fears, that was insignificant in the face of the moment of creation…no, not that…the gateway to creation.

             
It should have burnt his eyes and made him insane. As it was it stilled his heart for a moment, took his breath away. He was vaguely aware that he was crying.

             
Infinite possibility through the gateway to eternity. Whether he lived or died was outside of his control. The virus might give him a chance at survival. He had no doubt that mortal man could not take such pressures. A human could never survive what lay beyond the portal.

             
Could a vampire? Would he lose himself to the whirlpool of time? Did it even work?

             
Who knew? It was as unfathomable as all physics. Theorising the moment of creation, the shape of an atom, the weight of the universe…all was guesswork. What folly for man to think he could control such forces.

             
Folly was all mankind had left. The vampires had inherited the world. Mankind’s only hope was to go back to a time before the apocalypse and stop it before it began.

             
Tom was that hope. A mixture of the two. A man with vampire blood. A half-breed. An anomaly himself.

             
He crossed himself, unconscious of the gesture, and stepped into the heart of creation.

*

The Parisian Countryside

2025 A.D.

Year Zero: Apocalypse

The watcher does not h
ave long to wait until sunrise but he doesn't look out the windows to see the light coming. He has no need to. He can feel the lightening of the sky. Sense the subtle change in the air that a new day's sun brings, whether the land is polluted or fresh.

             
He has known many sunrises. He knew times when the sun was brighter in the sky, when the air tasted virginal. He has known the crisp mountain air of centuries past, the tang of gunpowder on the battlefield, the stench of dried blood and shit. His nose, aquiline, is remarkably acute, as are all his sense.

             
As are all the elder vampires.

             
The heightening of sensation comes with age, though. The newly born vampire, conversely, can barely sense anything above a heartbeat and the warmth of flesh.

             
There is a dull metallic clank as the old man's mechanical arm falls to the linoleum flooring. In its place, a nub of a new arm searches plaintively, like a baby's fist clenching onto a mother. There is no mother, just crisp white sheets. The bloody nascent fist leaves a trail as it grows slowly along the sheet.

             
Born in blood.

             
No doubt left, the watcher, the elder vampire, prepares his silver. He could end the change now...but he had to know. Centuries gone, centuries of waiting, learning, dying and killing and yes, living.

             
He needs to know.

             
He holds a thick blade up to the brightening sky. His fist smokes when he touches the blade and his face, a map of scars and pale, ghostly flesh, crinkles into a grin.

             
The pain reminds him. Reminds him of times gone by.