North American Vampire Council & Past Calling (Hypernaturals 12 & 13)

The Scale and the Issues

"You see?" Rachel asked me rhetorically. "You understand it. You have an intuitive grasp of the scale and the issues. You understand the underlying technical requirements. Here is one: Call it Project 'Slow Turn'. We, as a sub-species intentionally break our rule about Vampires not recruiting. It is a given that if we are to survive, the strong possibility is that we will have to. So: Crew is out there doing this. Recruiting. Slowly. Over an extended time. What happens? What are the knock-on side effects?"

"We do not need scale for that. Darts work. If we can slow turn and soft-land and therefore not over-stress the medical facilities, we can turn as many males as we turn females, give or take. We run them all, boy and girl alike, through Boot Camp. We'll find more variance in Vampire genetics. The people that have turned so far were the ones that were susceptible. When we overwhelm the immune system, as we now know how to do, the merging of our genetics with that resistant genome will almost certainly result is a wider latitude of type. Like Morgan not having fangs. I am pretty sure more Catalysts appear, just out of the numbers of males appearing." I offered.

"Huh. Did not think of that." Rachel set back and considered. I offered her my beer, which she took and sipped at abstractly. This kind of thinking requires something better than water. Which Angel knew... Sigh. Someday I will get my head around her entire talent for taking empathy and making it so predictive.

I added a few thoughts. "It's not a scientific fact or anything. Not yet. I think that it is likely to always have been a lot of Catalysts. I think William had some idea about that when he came after me. That the pogram to wipe out male Vampires was having the side effect of wiping out a reproductive path to the point that Vampires had no idea Catalysts were even a thing anymore. Or perhaps the Vampires of way back then feared the reproductive path because of William. Hmm. No. Not likely. If they knew children were an option, they would not have stopped it. My experience now is that given the choice between having and not having children, Vampires usually chose to have them. Just like the humans we are based upon. Reproductive urges are common is the various sub-species. The Sirens codified it with the Halls and their human seduction rituals. Vampires, given the chance, will usually take the opportunity."

"Absolutely." Rachel said.

"I don't think all-male turns are Catalysts. I think Catalysts in the Vampire world are like bees: Most of them are female. You do not need many Catalysts to move the genome forward. Talking to Jessica, and the idea that a gene's one and only mission is to mindlessly move itself into the future. Having two ways to conserve the genetic patterns makes sense. William was the child of two Vampires and pissed off HE was not a Catalyst. I bet his dad was. Knock on to that? What do YOU think happens when it gets ever easier to have children as a Vampire?"

"Ever harder to keep the secret." Rachel said.

"Agree. Part of why I wanted the Crew larger and cross-trained is to be ready to deal with all the contingencies we have not thought of yet. I have no idea what skills we need, so let's make everything possible. The ultimate spy school / liberal arts education. Part of why I said if we do a Project 'Slow Turn', we run everyone through Boot Camp. That's not brainwashing, that is fast education about the world and their new place in it. I am not that old as a Vampire, and I have heard over and over stories of women turning that left them out there not knowing what they were. Every time that happened, it risked Vampire exposure. Hell: Even ones that know what they are now, like Denise, keep ignoring basic things like blood need. Fighting their nature. Some parts of one's inborn nature can be fought. That so far is not one of them. You are born with the need or you are not. Morgan and I do not have it. Denise does. We need orientation. Training. Frankly: time to adapt. To sit with those like you and learn. Also, to unlearn some of the human bullshit."