Erasure and Affirmation (Hypernaturals 11)

Fellow-Survivordom

Tobey and Simi came with us over to Houston.

"You have looked better." I told Wyatt. I was not being humorous for a change. Given the circumstances, being reassuring as possible was required.

Wyatt looked over very slowly and painfully at Ginger in the next hospital bed and frowned. "They only beat me. No reason I could see. They didn't ask questions. They... Raped Ginger. Raped her, Adrian. I couldn't do a damn thing."

"I understand, Wyatt. I truly do." I said.

"I understand your frustration at being powerless." Morgan said. I could feel that old wound near the surface for her.

Ginger is mercifully unconscious. Kept there by drugs. She has worse, well, everything than Wyatt. The thing that has her in the induced coma is a brain bleed. The guards hurt her badly. Treated her like she is Melissa, and could take that level of punishment. Melissa was a captive a lot longer, but she is still recovering mentally. Ginger not being a Vampire could not handle that level of physical abuse. Gods only know how her mental state will be.

It's one thing to dart me. To do this to Ginger is beyond the pale. I looked over at Denise and saw the set of her face said some people were just added to the list of people she will kill for free. I feel the same way. We got the ones that were here today, but there are others. Other shifts. Other people that came by for the 'fun'.

Tobey stood next to Wyatt's bed. "I am sorry we had to meet under circumstances like these."

Wyatt gave Tobey a genuine smile. "Ginger and I kept talking about going over to meet everyone in Ninovan, but we kept not going because we were afraid of something like this. We were already outliers on the Assembly. We did not realize how far outside until this happened. We were in the cold."

"Why did they take you? What triggered it?" Morgan asked.

"I don't know. The people guarding us didn't know or didn't say. They came to the house, and took us away in the middle of the night, and treated us like we are race traitors. One used that exact phrase. Adrian. It's true? You turned six of the Assembly. They are not Siren any more??" Wyatt asked.

"I didn't turn anyone, not that I wouldn't." I nodded at Denise. "My favorite Crew lead and her team did all the turning. The Siren goon squad tried to un-turn me. That is what the lab was for. That plan led to repercussions."

Denise gave my characterization a "You think?"

I continued. "When you went missing we looked all over for you. We knew about a lot of the Siren facilities, but not the one you were in."

"Siren Cops set it up. I wish I knew about those when I was a cop there." Morgan said.

"I suppose that the Assembly deciding to make the move on me to test the anti-Vampire serum is why they took you out. I guess they wanted you out of the way?" I asked.

"That makes sense in the absence of facts. An operating assumption until we can find out more." Morgan said.

"I am not sure how you were in the way, as they had you frozen out solid, but we looked and looked hard to no avail. We followed the clues you and Ginger gave us to the Siren bio lab, which we stole wholesale and rebuilt, and then we used the knowledge from there to make our answer. Attack a Vampire: become a Vampire. In the eye for an eye way of Siren things, this is the just desert.

"Does it work?" Wyatt asked.

"Oh yes: We darted them two days ago. How we found out where you were. How Denise got her team here so fast. Took us longer to set up and get over here: Sorry about that. In any case: We expect the women to be waking up from their transition coma's soon. Males are typically delayed in how long they take to go down and how long they are gone, but our medical monitoring shows a slow increase in body temperature. Blood work shows increasing viral loads. All of the Assembly shitheads chose to check into medical facilities, not unlike this one. We explained that they had experience bringing people through the transition. Small private clinics with Vampire medical staff to ease them through their worst nightmare. Becoming us." I said.

"But... You said the Siren facility was to take a Vampire's special abilities away. How did you turn that around like that?" Wyatt asked.

"The lab Ginger saw the money trail to was for that. To un-turn a Vampire. However, we had been privately working on how to do a voluntary change from human-to-Vampire. Succeeded even. What the Siren facility gave us are ways to make it better, faster, and more efficient. Better delivery mechanisms. Better ideas about what parts of our process needed to be adapted. It is much easier to turn than what they were trying to achieve. We had Evolution on our side: We were just giving the process a leg up. To turn them we only needed to encourage mechanisms millions of years in the making to be more efficient. Make it concentrated and overwhelming, rather than the minuscule amounts transferred in a bite. It verified some things we only had as theory and saved Jessica and Mom from going down many blind alleys. What the Siren's attempted is undo those changes, and in very specific ways. It is probably even possible to achieve that someday, but they rushed it. They needed another twenty or thirty years, plus technological advances in DNA manipulation to have it work. All so that they could make us powerless to stop them from abducting us and bring us to facilities like the one you were in. That was the plan. Take us down." Morgan explained.

"They wanted to make you weaker than them so they could safely rape you to death?" Wyatt asked.

"Hard to know what the plan was for after they had it working." Morgan said. "In talking to the Assembly men, since the women are unconscious, what Crew has gleaned so far is that the plan was less well-formed than that. More of a 'let's get those bastards and make them pay' rather than any specific goals. What is clear is that they thought that if they took down some high profile Vampires, to the degree that such a thing exists, they could tell Vampires what to do. They would have access to all things Vampire. Including the hidden assets and resources."

"Instead what they achieved is now they do what Vampires say or they become Vampires." Wyatt said.

"Exactly. Vampires are culturally different from Sirens, however." Morgan said.

"Meaning?" Wyatt asked.

"Meaning we'll co-opt them into maintaining the secret. Running Crew operations with Siren police coverage in addition to our own resources. Things of that nature." Morgan said.

Wyatt nodded. Winced. He looked over at Vera, who sat with Ginger looking stricken. She was holding her hand in both of hers.

"Vera? She's a fighter. Always has been." Wyatt said.

Vera looked over at me instead of answering Wyatt. "You'll take her to your meetings?"

"Yes. Of course." I said.

Vera looked back at Ginger. "Finally. Something good came out of that."

"What meetings?" Wyatt asked.

"Rape survivor meetings. I have been going a lot more recently. I came face to face with my rapist, and it turned out she... She is a freak-show. I can't even really blame her for what she did to me, but she did it, and I needed to talk about it. Rachel comes with me. Or Morgan or Jessica, if she is out of town. They can't come in. It's for survivors, and it's... Hard. When Ginger is better, we'll take her."

That did it. The damn broke, and Wyatt with it.

Vera went over to him and held him while Denise, Morgan, and I looked helplessly on.

Jessica came in. She had been reading charts and getting status. She had one chart in her hand. She stopped dead in her tracks. "What happened."

"Vera just found the silver lining to Sandy. Now he can take Ginger with him to the meetings." Morgan said, and she in no way sounded like she found that to be a silver lining.

"Ah." Jessica said. She handed the chart to Morgan. Morgan opened and read. She is not a medical professional, but she is as well informed about such things as a layman can be. She read for a few minutes in silence, punctuated by sobs. Morgan handed it to me, and I read the various test results with only some comprehension. I am the child of a Doctor, and the husband of another, and the brother of another. Medical terms are not unknown in my life. The bottom line on this one is that there is brain damage. The bleed pressure on her brain has been relieved via a shunt, but the damage will equal a lifelong disability. She may be blind.

I handed it back to Jessica. "I see. My first job in fellow-survivordom is going to be persuading Ginger to take the change too. Only way this gets fixed inside current tech." I said quietly. With Vera's new hearing, she turned and looked over at us.

Jessica silently agreed.