Ninovan (Hypernaturals 10)

It Has to be Amazing

Inside the hall, I saw Simi and Tobey looking at a layout of Ninovan that is much more drawn to scale than what we had done, and it looked color-coded now too. They also had lists that looked like names, color-coded as well.

"Good morning, sleepyheads. I hope you slept well." Simi greeted, her eyes flicking over some visible fang marks on Jessica's neck.

"It was short, but it was sweet." Jessica looked at the maps from the other side of the table. "You have been busy."

Tobey tapped the name list. "We have been trying to figure out which people are in the most technologically modern housing so we can move them first. Then we looked at the available housing list and tried to match up people that live and love together to houses. This big house you mentioned last night? The one with six bedrooms, we filled that with this group of Astrals and Sirens that we know prefer to be together most of the time. Even in a place like Ninovan, people tend to group. That is the names highlighted in purple here..."

That is how it went for hours. Organizing and grouping. Like a wedding with a lot of guests, only far worse.

We were in the RV taking a break for lunch when Denise, Anne, and Carol arrived, with a bunch of other Crew members that had been recruited. They have an eighteen-wheeler parked up the road, waiting for them to survey the route that would get it in without being photographed. If they could not make that work, then they would disable, redirect, or hack some cameras. Road cameras are easy since either we or Sirens have people in place that work in government infrastructure.

I like that we are working together, Vampire and Siren, at this at that level.

After greetings, Denise took and looked closely at my hands. "Adrian? What did you do this time?"

Jessica offhandedly told her "Nothing major, Denise. Adrian had a rival male Vampire to dispose of is all. Guy thought he could compete for my body. You know. The usual stuff."

That froze all three Crew solid. Aggressive males require dealing with.

"Relax." Jessica said when her tease hit the mark so hard. Even these three who have known me since forever wore stiff postures and faces. "Have a seat, and we'll fix you some lunch, and tell you what's been going on."

That led to a very interesting group storytelling event. I cooked, and Vera, Angel, Morgan, and Jessica explained things, lending all sorts of perspective, personal point of view, and color commentary.

When it was over, Denise told me with a wry expression "Well, my old lover, looks like we are going to have to keep an eye on Alexander for a while. If he goes over to the dark side because of this, we are going to have to corral him."

The 'old lover' is a reference to when Denise and I were pretend lovers on a date. An operation to try to figure out what the HPA was up to. The use of the word 'Corral' caught my attention. Corral, not kill.

"Corral? Meaning Boot Camp is on? It's ready?" I asked

"Boot camp is on. Ready to be ready." Denise confirmed. "Boot Camp received an expanded scope when the Council was done cooking it. Mission creep if there ever was one, but a good kind of scope creep. Now it contains in it the idea that it can be remedial. A 'time out' if you will. That is for Vampires that need to chill out for a while. See your old pal and biggest fan-girl Cert for details on that. She is the first remedial resident. The council converted her probation to an open-ended remedial. She is going to take longer than two years to get her head back in order. She is a fucking mess. Killing for a thousand years does that, I suppose."

"That is awesome! I am happy Cert is going to get a rest too. I know she hates my guts and maybe she always will, but maybe this will help. I am very happy that the males that came to us from Tulsa, and their situation has led to this! Perfect!"