Erasure and Affirmation (Hypernaturals 11)

Clever Name

Irvin showed he has a brain. "We are turning. I am going to be physically mid-twenties again."

"I cannot imagine that is going to be good for your marriage. A mid-twenties female, with over a century of experience, should be about the same. You, Irvin, are going to be young. The question for you is are you going to have any young male Siren tendencies as a young male Vampire. We have no idea. You'll be in Boot Camp, and you are not getting out until you can control yourself, no matter how long that takes." I said, in some glee. "Our present to you for putting your shit into me. Assholes."

"Don't worry: we'll allow spousal visits. Amber can stay there with you if you like. Not to worry: young male Vampires are very popular with female Vampires. You won't be lonely." Denise said. She looked from person to person and asked innocently, "You all have an open marriage, I hope?"

Then, to add the icing on the cake for Amber, who had called Denise and Jessica every name in the book: "Oh: Amber? Bad news, dear. Your husband will be popular, but you will be a female Vampire. Do you know how many females there are to males? Sorry. You probably should try to hang on to Irvin."

Jessica handed them a card with an address on it. "You can ride out your coma's however you like. I suggest going here right away as they have all the protocols we know about ready. Essentially, you are placed upon support. Fluids. Feeding tubes. Your body is kept alive and monitored while your DNA is overwritten to become Vampire. When your body is ready, you'll wake up, get unplugged. Go about your merry way as brand new Vampires on the Siren Assembly. We have drafted you into being Vampire representation on the governing body of the Sirens. If the Sirens cut you out, the way you did Wyatt and Giner, because you are Vampires, then we'll turn some more of them. We are fine with the entire Assembly being Vampires, but that is up to you. Only you three couples had no choice, and that is because you were here, in this country, fronting the New Jersey facility. That brings us to Ginger and Wyatt. Where are they?"

"We don't..." Amber started.

Denise shook her head and cut her off. "No, No new Vampire Amber. That will not do. I have here, with me, two Vampires than can read your bodies and scents and know exactly if you are lying or not. Morgan?"

"She was about to lie." Morgan said.

I was thinking that is an oversell of Morgan and I. We'd need Angel to be able to read them the way Denise just described. On the other hand, what do they know? Morgan is pretty good at it when she is in Cop mode.

Amber looked at me. She may not know who the other one with extended senses is, but she knows I have them. "It was the worst mistake of our lives to make you Liaison." She said.

"We thank you for it." Denise said.

"Ginger and Wyatt?" Vera prompted, a dangerous edge in her tone.

"In a detention facility in Houston." Irvin said.

"This is where Melissa was kept?" I asked.

"Yes." Irvin said.

Amber was shooting daggers out her eyes at Irvin. He looked at her and said "The game is over, Amber. Don't be stupid. We played it to win. We knew when we lost the lab to the Vampires that we were at war. This has always been the price of our ways: when we try to get even when we try to balance the scale, and we go big? Sometimes we lose it all. We did not know when and how they were going to strike. Now we know why they took so long. They took our work and made it into a weapon against us. Against... Sirens, I suppose, as it seems we are no longer going to be that."

"You seem resigned to it." Amber said bitterly.

"I told you when we lost the lab there was going to be hell to pay. You saw how they did that. It faded from Earth. Crew is that good. The task force looked everywhere. Pulled out every stop. Used every resource we have in every agency. It was gone. We pissed off Crew, and you know Crew always defends him. She is Crew Lead and is standing in our living room now. He is apparently her fiancé. We missed that completely. We attacked the Crew Leads fiancé. Of course we got our ass handed to us." Irvin nodded at me. "He was a bad target. I told you he was even before I knew that."

"He was fucking us in the ass as Liaison! We had to get him out of there! Every goddamn meeting he walked away knowing more about us than we did about them." Amber said. "He is a male. He is supposed to be the weakest kind!"

Amber rubbed her neck where Jessica took her blood, a memory of the strong kind of Vampire.

"Oh come on, Amber! Like William? 8000 years old, the equal of any female Vampire and the one HE beat to death in OUR Hall? I told you: It was dumb to pick him. No one would listen to me on that." Seems we opened up an old family fight here. "Now we are the ones that are fucked. We brought this on ourselves, Amber, and you know it. We could not let an ancient Vampire / Siren conflict die. We fought a war no one alive for generations on either side even remembers. We lost that one way back then. Now if Sirens get out of line, they will be erased again. We'll all be Vampires. You and I already are." Irvin said.

A reasonable male Siren. As Spock would say: 'Fascinating'. Not that I do not know one of those. Kuzman, over at the Bulgarian Hall, is reasonable too.

"How did you beat our serum? It should have worked." Amber said.

"Not 'your' serum any more, as you are now Vampire." Jessica said. "In simple terms, you rushed it. You lost your test subject, and your computer models were based on one sample. One Vampire. It was never going to work." Jessica said.

"Made me sick as hell." I said. "Worst Vampire flu ever. I even had to share a bathroom with her." I waved at Denise.

"Get over it! I won't do it again!" Denise controlled an eye roll.

"It was interesting work. I admit." Jessica said. "We learned a huge amount about us, and we learned also that there is a great deal more to learn. You oversimplified the change to try and target specific areas. Speed up the development time. You made so many basic assumptions that were just wrong. You rushed the science."

Chief among them, my Mom told me, is that they had no idea how the extra replication checksum machinery works. Vampires heal, regrow body parts, and have long lives because the organisms 'decided' that their path into the future was making sure nothing else could take over.

"Give me the address of the holding facility where Ginger and Wyatt are. How well guarded is it?" Denise demanded.

"I don't know it off the top of my head. It's in my phone. On the charger." Amber said.

"I'll get it." Vera said and left the room.

"How well guarded?" Denise asked.

"I don't know. I don't pay attention to shit like that." Amber said.

"When Melissa was there, there were ten or eleven Siren guards there at all times. No idea if they kept on that many to hold two senior Sirens. You going to turn them too?" Irvin asked.

"Unlike you, that will be their choice." Denise informed them.

Vera came back and handed Denise the phone. "Uses face unlock." She said.

Denise put the phone to Amber's face, who made a face, but to no avail. The phone unlocked and Denise started scrolling through the address book.

"'Holding place'. Clever name." Denise commented.

"Oh, fuck off." Amber said.

Denise pulled out her phone and called Crew in Houston.

"Sorry. I guess you are not going to get to beat that out of them." I told Vera.

"We'll see. If they hurt them, I might." Vera said. Her look to them a promise of future violence.