THE VROL TRILOGY (104 page)

"I'm really going to enjoy this," she
exclaimed breathlessly.

Max, Bagatelle and Draagh then spent
the next half hour explaining as much as they could of what had
transpired up to that point. They started from the beginning in
Machu Picchu, and then gave a brief overview of the Rhönen
Dominion. They left out some details, such as the fate of Ryder
Johnson, as they felt it better for her to not have any information
on the deceased son of the planetary dictator. She was also warned
to not get anywhere near platinum, as it would cause discomfort,
and that they would be with her on the next full moon series (which
was 52 hours long on Azul, the planet having a 26 hour rotational
period). Alicia seemed to absorb it all quite well, and was willing
to stay on Azul and maintain her network. She was to be the
coordination between Max and Draagh's forces and those on Azul.
Before they sent her back they gave her another comm device. It was
unlike the previous one they had handed to her in the café, as the
new device could not been seen by anyone without enhanced genetics,
so she could wear it with impunity and be in constant contact with
Max, Draagh, Jennie, and most importantly, Bagatelle. Best of all,
as she had been
turned
, she
could now merely
think
into
it.

Alicia stood in the middle of the cavernous
chamber and waved sadly to Bagatelle, and within a fraction of a
second she was gone, with Jennie standing in her place, looking
exactly like Vasquez, which unnerved Max only slightly. Draagh
quickly took away her disguise and she was again her normal,
gorgeous self. Max walked up and kissed her, noting the taste of
salt on her lips.

"So, did you catch any waves?" he asked
expectantly.

"Oh. My. God! Yes! What fun. Look, I don't
care that happens, but come hell or high water, you and I are
surfing, and Lili needs to learn too," Jennie commanded. Max had
surfed before, and had generally enjoyed sports where he could
compete with himself, so he thought that was a pretty great
idea.

You got it, love. Whatever you like. How
about a sailboat too? You know the romanticism of the wind pushing
your boat along, alone with the forces of nature…"

"And a mage who can command the elements. Not
fair! Only if you promise to not manipulate the air currents,
hun."

As everyone started to laugh they received a
comm message from Alicia.

"
I just got
totally shacked right now! Green room! Tubed! Woohoo! Conditions
are sick. Let's beat these bastards so we can surf every day, ok
guys?
"

"What is a green room?" asked Draagh.

"That's when you're inside a wave. It's a
beautiful experience, Pops. You should try it sometime," responded
Jennie, "and I need to get back. It's nearly dinnertime, and I need
to make sure Lili is doing her homework and not trying to put a
riding a harness on Hermes."

"Ok guys, we're going back to the Dominion.
We'll see you in the main hall at the castle," said Max, as he put
his arm around his wife and took her home, now without the
assistance of Socrates.

"Did she say
put a riding a harness on Hermes
, or am I
mistaken?" asked Michael, hoping for a negative
response.

"She said it, Michael. She said it,"
responded Bagatelle, by that time quite used to his niece's antics
and her love for her aquatic pets.

"Please, Father, tell me you have a
protective cantus on her. If not, I shall create one. I really
could not bear to see any harm befall the child."

"Oh-ho Michael! It does appear that you have
indeed fallen for the charms of young Miss Gunnarsson. She is quite
addicting, is she not?" Draagh asked humorously.

"Yes, she is an amazing child. Max and Jennie
are most fortunate."

Santiago, Luna

In a nondescript, single family home in a
middle class neighborhood, a mother was putting her children to
bed, paying more attention to the younger, fraternal twins - a boy
and a girl, than to her teenage son, who was busy with his
homework.

"Good night, kids. You have school tomorrow,
so no giggles. Go right to sleep, ok?" said their mother.

The two nodded while grinning, knowing that
the chances of that were relatively slim, but they still wanted to
make their mother happy. Their older brother, however, was a
completely different story. He had plans for that night, and they
didn't involve quietly going to bed.

The mother closed the door to the twins'
bedroom and went downstairs, where her husband was going over some
files; typical for him, being a workaholic.

"Honey, do you have to work this late? Why
don't you come to bed and get some rest," she said concernedly.

"You don't understand. The Chairman
personally contacted me today and wanted a status report on the New
Exodus fleet. He wants us to ramp up production, so I am running
numbers to see what we can do."

"Well, you're doing what's best for our
family. After all, we will be the first ones to return to the
planet of our ancestors! That's so exciting, honey - a new start on
a new world. Our children will thanks us for it one day."

Neither of the parents noticed when their
fourteen-year-old son climbed out of his bedroom window, jumped
over into a nearby tree and scuttled down to the ground. Then,
instead of going out into the street, where a large transport had
just parked, he went through the back, over a neighbor's fence and
off to the adjacent street, where his friends were waiting for him.
He bit his lip, as his nerves were on edge, but he usually did that
when he was stressed or nervous.

"Hey Kyle! Jump in! The girls are waiting for
us at the club," his friend yelled out from a tube transport
pod.

Climbing in, he left his worries behind; his
stressed out father, his doting mother, his obnoxious twin
siblings, and the secret underground bunker he had been
building.

He was already three kilometers away when his
house exploded.

Chapter 29 - Hidden
Treasures

"Yes, there is an excavated area below the
shed. Apparently it was only accessible via a biometric imprint,
causing the stairwell to be exposed," the scientist explained.

"What did you find, and whose biometrics were
required?" asked Chairman Johnson.

"It was completely empty, and as for the
biometrics, we don't know yet. We are assuming it required
Gunnarsson's, but we haven't been able to extract the data - it
seems to be corrupted."

"The further we go the more it seems like we
have a ghost running around town, appearing and disappearing. Is
Gunnarsson's genius really on that level?" queried Johnson.

"Sir, that is unknown at this time. The
programming and encryption are definitely of the highest level.
That much is certain."

"And the vids from the Gunnarsson family
home, and from the mother's detention room?"

"All we could get was imagery of the same
figure in both locations. It looks like the Grim Reaper in both
vids. The figure is barely visible, and blurred out, but it is
there. Here, please look at this static shot."

The scientist brought an image up on his
personal console for his leader to see, and it indeed showed a
ghostly figure for one frame in both locations.

"It looks like we have an unwanted visitor,
and he is able to move around undetected. Make sure that he cannot
work with further impunity," said Johnson, as he waved the
scientist off and installed his earpiece.

"Security. Status on last night's operation,"
Johnson demanded.

"100%, sir. All taken care of. Do you have
any further orders?" responded the voice on the other end.

"Not right now. Stay by your console at all
times."

###

Kyle Reynolds peered through some thick
shrubs, looking at the smoldering wreckage that was once his home.
He had seen it hours before, when he had intended on sneaking back
into his bedroom, only to find the house decimated. He returned to
see what he had expected - Military Intelligence combing the
grounds. Unaware of what exactly happened, he was sure of one thing
- it wasn't an accident. Things like this happened to top-level
secret government operatives on purpose. They were erased,
or
deleted
, as it was
defined. He thought that, with any luck, whoever destroyed his
house and killed is family would believe that he was part of the
death toll. He had a good chance, as aerial surveillance was not as
robust on Luna, his home world, than it was on Azul, especially in
the big cities, such as Portlandia or New Sydney. His family had
moved to the medium-sized moon a year earlier when his father
acquired a high-level job through the Security Council.

Kyle was a gamer - a virtual expert at
holo-games, and was considered an anti-government prepper in his
world (secretly, to his friends). He was also a code hacker without
peer and didn't trust politicians - at all, especially since
Johnson had
reorganized
the
leadership in the name of
unity
and the coming of the Artusians. Kyle had stashed physical
pesos and dollars, and had an underground hideout that he was
building. Using his unregistered, untraceable (and very illegal)
console, he looked himself up, on a whim. The query came up empty.
He, as well as his entire family, had been erased. He now no longer
officially existed; he was temporarily safe.

Seeing as much as he needed, Kyle turned and
headed back to the shack he had constructed, keeping himself hidden
from aerial view by staying under the shade of trees. He would
contact his aunt when he was safely underground.

Rhönen Dominion

Lightning flashed, with the massive
electrical charges momentarily exaggerating the shadows of arcane
objects placed around Draagh's office, and causing percussive
reports to follow mere seconds later. Liliana Gunnarsson sat at the
mage's large, expansive table with her grandmother, as the now much
younger-appearing mother of Max read through everything presented
to her with great interest.

"So you see, Abuelita? Magic is like little
machines that can chew your face off, but much more efficiently
than flesh-eating bacteria! These particles also have other great
functions, such as the manipulation of electromagnetic
wavelengths."

"Ah, so one could then heat up their bowl of
soup that had gone cold. That is quite nice, my dear."

"Oh, but even better than that. Did you know
that Papi melted a bad woman's head when he was trapped in
Hollywood? Actually, using a radiation cantus, he super-heated her
brain very quickly and it burst with a light popping sound…
according to the way he described it," the little girl stated
matter-of-factly while wearing a gleeful smile.

"Oh yes, sweetie. I understand your
explanation very well. Thank you so much for assisting in today's
lesson. I am quite sure you would be an excellent instructor at the
university."

"Oh, thank you, Abuelita! I must return to my
classes now. See you at dinner!" said the little girl, as she
bounded off out of Draagh's study area.

The child is wonderfully
intelligent, but a bit savage
, Clarisa thought,
deciding to dedicate herself to civilizing her granddaughter, as
another round of thunder rumbled in the background.

The rainy season had arrived, but the
people of the Rhönen Dominion worked well with nature. They all
appreciated the wellsprings that would be full, as well as the
green foliage that always followed. King Krynos had recently
started a public works project with Max, where they designed
drainage canals in not only the castle, but also in the
normal
towns (of which there were
three nearby). Krynos knew the best way to keep his subjects
faithful was to provide them with things they were generally unable
to acquire or build on their own. As the king looked out the window
from his expansive bedchambers, he noted that the newly-upgraded
systems were working well to direct water flow off the roof to
filtration tanks, and then into storage below the castle. He had
this developed, not because they lacked water, but for safety.
There was a large river nearby, and dozens of streams, but it would
be dangerous to not have a backup supply of clean water, especially
if the vampires decided to poison wells or fresh water
sources.

There had been a temporary drop in
unwillingly turned normals after the death of Vladros a year prior,
and a power vacuum had caused three local vampires to fight for the
space that the deceased vampire leader had once occupied. Korlis
now controlled Vladros' castle, and as the deceased leader had no
heirs, there was no one who could bring a legitimate challenge his
reign. Korlis had been concentrating on maintaining power so
intensely that he had failed to maintain his population.

He meant to correct that particular error,
and quite soon.

Vera

The underground base on Vera had been
coming along very nicely. It already had a commissary, meeting
rooms, medical facilities, a huge training center, housing for a
maximum of 500 and a massive 300 meter-in-diameter chamber to
facilitate direct 4d slips of large groups. Draagh, Michael,
Gabriel and Jessica had been quite busy with all of the building
and modifications, and Krynos even had an entrance to his computer
room, being that it was actually a slot outside of normal
space/time. Once he figured out he could enter from the Rhönen
Dominion in the 43
^rd
century
and use the room to get to the base on
29
^th
century Vera, he was
spending a lot of time on the near-barren moon. In fact, Draagh was
considering locking the door on the Vera side just to keep Krynos
from bursting in unannounced, which he usually did.