Alaric III

Nanase stuck me in a room with a great view of the tropical forest and the surrounding area. It was the kind of view someone born and raised in the desert would die for, and I might have enjoyed it if I weren't locked up. Nanase had dragged me back with one hand, effortlessly carrying me like I weighed nothing. Then she plopped me in this room, which was locked from the outside.

It had all the creature comforts a guy could ask for. Everything from the holoscreen that I couldn't use, to a huge pod with the name Phantom Edge written across it in English, French, and Japanese. According to my captors, it was a virtual reality machine. Not the primitive augmented reality that was just becoming a thing on Earth, but true, realized virtual reality. That's not to say there wasn't augmented reality in Aquroya, but I was more interested in VR than AR.

Of course, most people couldn't afford a Phantom Edge, which cost twenty-thousand credits to buy, so the public at large made do with Virtual Reality Cafes, which as far as I could tell were like old-fashioned internet cafes. Despite my situation, I wanted to play it, but to utilize the Phantom Edge, you needed a linker and a memory card. Neither of which I had.

Apparently, my captors were incredibly well off. Captors. Yeah, that was a good word for them. Whoever Alaric Lightwood was, he was involved in some shady things. This whole compound was rigged with holograms, but that was outdated technology. The only place you would find holograms were in museums and in the homes of criminals who couldn't afford to counterfeit linkers.

A lot of the staff that worked here didn't have linkers. Which made me wonder how they used the holograms since that made told me I needed a linker. One of my jailers was kind enough to explain they created specialized systems for that. Whatever that meant.

So I was left alone to stew and watch the forest as the sun went down. As the sky darkened, the moon that was way too close began to shine brighter in the same. It was just the moon, not a random planetary body. It shinned in the night sky with thousands of sparkling stars.

They fed me, which was nice. Fried chicken, a whole heaping of it, a couple of bottles of soda, and plenty of dips. I wanted to ask how they knew I lived fried chicken, but I didn't get the chance. The maid vanished before I could ask her anything.

They kept me in there the whole night. It wasn't until two in the morning that I finally sleep to sleep, wondering just what kind of a strange world I had been isekaied into.

The next morning, she was there. The first thing I was aware of was the warm hand rubbing the top of my head. It woke me up from a strange shifting dream that I couldn't quite remember. I was running from something, that much I was sure of.

Her eyes were a dark blue, cold as ice. They were sharp and easy to pierce, like knives. She looked like a model, much in the same way as Nanase. She was older, late twenties, perhaps early thirties, but that didn't detract from her beauty.

"Hello, Alaric." She had a French accent, but it didn't inhibit her from being understood. "Good morning."

"Good morning," I mumbled back. This was kind of a strange scene. Why was this random woman in my bedroom? Was she watching me sleep? "Um, who are you?"

"I'm Mireille."

So this was the famous Mireille who I heard so much about.

"I'm Alaric."

She frowned. "Yes, I think you are, aren't you."

There was something in her voice that I couldn't put my finger on. It was like my name made her seem sad.

"How are you feeling, Alaric?"

How was I feeling? Other than being a little bit tired, I was feeling fine. Well, minus the intense burning in my throat. It felt like my windpipe was on fire. Like acid reflux, only worse. Every second the fire seemed to be getting hotter and hotter. I needed something to drink. "I'm a bit thirsty," I admitted.

Mireille nodded. "I thought you might be. Here, drink this."

She handed me a red cup. At this point, I didn't care what was in it. I just needed something to drink before my throat burned up. It was warm, which made it all the more inexplicable when it extinguished the fire. I preferred cold drinks, but this was enough to put water on the fire.

No, water was the wrong way to describe it. It was the sweetest thing I had ever tasted. No pastry or candy could compare, but on the same hand, it wasn't too sweet. It was perfect, just right.

As if my vision snapped back into place, suddenly everything became much clearer. Sharper. More defined. As if I had just been looking through a dirty window, it was now spotless. I could see small traces of dust floating through the air in this new, bright world. Small grains and imperfections on the wall behind her which had been invisible to me moments before were suddenly glaring at me. The bright light above me was a rainbow and I could see every color in the spectrum in it, and two extra colors I had no name for.

It wasn't just my vision. I took a breath and I could taste everything in the room, though that sweat liquid still lingered on my tongue. I could taste the stale air, and separate it from the fresh air coming in from the window. The dust swishing through the air had its own unique taste and contrary to what I expected, it wasn't terrible. There was an unpleasant chemical taste in the air as well, which made my throat irritated, but it wasn't burning as it had been moments ago.

My ears popped and I could hear people breathing. Not just Mireille, who was sitting on the bed next to me, but the three people waiting outside the door, the four people further down the hallway, and even people entering the compound. I could hear their blood pumping through their bodies, their hearts beating so hard to keep their bodies functioning. I could hear someone on the floor below me shift their weight from foot to foot.

I could hear people running through the trees, far away from the compound. I could hear birds flapping their wings above me.

My body was practically humming with energy. My senses were on overdrive. It felt like stars were exploding in my brain, everything felt so wonderful! It was like the world's best high. No drug could give me the euphoria of this most blissful moment.

"Alaric?" Mireille spoke softly. Logically, I knew she had been there the whole time, but only a small fragment of my consciousness remained aware of her. Some deep instinct that wouldn't allow me to leave myself unprotected, some analytical part of my mind was left to watch her. As long as she remained quiet and unmoving, it was content to let me indulge in this most wonderful of highs.

When she moved, when she spoke, that part of me took over and almost shut down the rest of my mind. A deep, animalistic growl built up my throat, something more akin to a lion or a tiger than a human. In a fraction of a second, my body tensed and my muscles were coiled, ready to spring.

Mireille's scent was wrong. I could smell everyone in the house, even the cats and dogs. All of them had a certain musky kind of smell, with their warm moving blood, and the constant sounds of their powerful heartbeats. Their bodies moved in sync with themselves, the rhythm of life.

Mireille was different. She had no heartbeat, yet her blood moved through her body as if compelled by some invisible force. The blood under her skin and the way it moved was unnatural like she wasn't truly alive. There was no pleasant hum of rhythm in her body, but the dark sound of a phantom violin playing in the darkness of the world. She wasn't among the living, not truly, and that made her dangerous.

Then suddenly her heart began to beat. The violin slowed and the music of her body became a pale imitation of the rhythm of life. As if someone completely unfamiliar with a dance was made to perform it, but that dance had seen it play out before him dozens of times. The dancer was skilled enough to mimic it and mimic well, but it wasn't right. I compared this to the false rhythm of those outside my door, and they were a complete match. I didn't realize anything was off with them because I hadn't been paying attention.

The dance was close enough for me to relax, the rational part of my mind returning. It all happened in less than ten seconds.

"You're alright, Alaric. I promise. No one is going to hurt you."

Hurt me? I could remember the little Asian girl, Nanase. She had become a blur and a second passed before she had her hands around my throat. She was dangerous. She could have killed me and Mireille was trying to say I was safe?

It seemed to me that my mind had fragmented. There were multiple pieces to it now, where once there had been a whole. And each fragment seemed to be able to operate independently of the other. Each fragment could think of different things, analyze, and watch while other parts focused on other things.

It was a strange experience, but I could focus on multiple things at once. It would be the easiest thing in the world to multitask now. Yet I couldn't enjoy it. Not with Mireille sitting across from me. She was dangerous, in the same way that Nanase was. Yet they expected to me trust them and drop my guard? There wasn't a chance in hell that I'd believe that.

"I know you're confused, Alaric. You must be wondering where you are and who we are. What's the last thing you remember?"

She was right. I was very confused. Nanase had said that we were in Neptune, or the island administrated by the city. A city built into a huge crater. Yet Neptune and this island meant nothing to me.

That animal part of my mind wanted to rip and tear. To remove the threat that was Mireille. Yet the rational part of me won out. There were things I was still in the dark about. Answers, I needed answers, and Mireille was the best person to give them to me.

"Please. Tell me. Was it that flight? When she turned you all on that flight?"

There it was again. The Leviathan. One of the fragments wanted to ask what the leviathan was, but I had more pressing things to think about. "I don't know what you're talking about."

Mireille sucked in a breath. "Even earlier than that? Do you remember waking up from cryo? Seeing Artemis for the first time? It must have been a wondrous sight, seeing a whole new world for the first time."

What was she talking about? I had been isekaied to the future. I had never seen Artemis that first time. It had been hundreds since humans colonized the planet. Just how old did she think I was?

"Please, Alaric. What's the last thing you remember?"

There was something in her eyes. The way she pleaded. Those eyes weren't a hospital or even angry. They were concerned.

"I was in the hospital, in Scottsdale," I admitted.

Mireille raised an eyebrow. "Scottsdale? Where is that?"

"In the Sonoran."

"West Artemis only has one desert, Alaric. The Deseret desert."

Deseret desert? That sounded pretty weird. "The Sonoran desert isn't on Artemis. It's on Earth."

"On... Earth?" Mireille repeated. It took a few moments for that to sink in. I heard twin growls, every bit as catlike as my own echo from outside. That animal part of me took over and before I knew it, a growl was creeping up my throat. The ones in the hall cut off immediately.

Mireille didn't seem to notice. "Earth? Earth is your last memory?"

"Yes. One of the staff of the Artemis Group wanted to speak to me. Then I woke up here... What was in that cup?"

Had they drugged me? With what? Super serum?

She ignored my question. "Alaric, I don't know how to tell you this... You haven't been Alaric Forester in a very long time."

Of course, I hadn't. I had died and been reborn, but the way she said very long time made me pause. "What do you mean?"

"Alaric, you were on the Artemis Group's Thirteenth Flotilla From June 2024 to March 2250, when the Artemis Flotilla arrived in the system."

I didn't die? But the light? That meeting with the official... What was that?

"You were in cryo for two hundred and eight-six years."

"Eighty-six? You said the flotilla arrived in 2250? That would be two-hundred and thirty-six years."

"The Thirteen Flotilla arrived in 2250, but only the early colonization staff were awakened. To build the early colonies, three of the four continents were colonized. It wasn't until January 1st, 2300 that the first wave of colonists were awakened. You were part of that first wave."

"Okay, say I believe you. I was taken out of cryo four hundred and thirteen years ago. How am I still alive?"

Cellular regeneration had been in its infancy, and that technology remained on Earth. If I was a colonist from the very first wave, there was no way I should be alive.

"From our records, you lived in a medical facility for a year. They had been trying experimental treatments to no effect. You and a group of other patients were being transferred to a better-equipped facility when Ginevra attacked the plane. She was one of the first two progenitors, turned by the leviathan. She turned everyone on that plane into her knights."

"Okay, you lost me." Though Nanase had called herself my knight. Could that be the same thing?

"The leviathan is an alien creature. We're not sure if it's native to Artemis or not. It's the size of a mountain and its nature is completely unknown to use. It has interacted with humanity four times since we landed before retreating into the ocean. Each time it mutated those it interacted with. Ginevra and Nguyen were part of the initial colonization team and they were the first to come into contact with it. It mutated them into the first progenitors, the very first strixes. I suppose that would make us alien-influenced vampires."

Vampires? Like the creatures that went bump in the night? Burned or sparkled in the sunlight? "You're telling me that I'm a vampire?"

"Vampire is a name riddled with thousands of years of superstition and fantasy. We were given the name strix."

"Call it whatever you want, you can't expect me to believe I'm a vampire?"

Why not? a part of me. You believed you had been isekaied into another world. Was vampire really such a big deal?

I told that part of me to shut in.

Instead of trying to convince me, Mireille picked up the empty red cup and pulled the lid off. Inside was a red liquid that looked suspiciously like blood. "Oh my god... Did you make me drink blood?"

"We strixes need human blood to function. Without it, we knights will get weaker until we fully desiccate. A progenitor-like yourself becomes so weak, that they're rendered little more than human. You can get to the point where you no longer require blood to function. Though this takes upwards of two weeks to reach that point. It can happy. The only way to regain your powers is to die or drink blood."

"When you say die..."

"A human death. Your strixself will reemerge, though ravenously hungry. You will be little better than an animal until you feed again."

"So... What. I'm an alien vampire?"

"Yes. You've been that for four hundred and twelve years. Though you were a knight for the first ninety-nine years of your life."

"... Nanase said she was my knight. What is a knight?"

"The creation of a progenitor. When a progenitor feeds their blood to a human, they are turned into a knight. A servant, if you will."

"Then... How did I become a progenitor?"

"Ginevra and Nguyen were the first progenitors. Ginevra could only change those of the opposite sex, males. It was the same for Nguyen, but with females. They killed each other, and once they died, their knights became progenitors. When a progenitor dies, their knights assume that roll."

I tried to digest that. It sounded like something out of a bad Sci-Fi novel. Alien vampires? Really? "You said the leviathan made contact with humans four times. Did it mutate others?"

Mireille pulled out a metal device: a linker. "Before that, may I?"

She held out her hand. I reciprocated the gesture and put it on my wrist. "You activate it like this." She gestured with her own, touching her thumb and pointer fingers to the side.

I followed her lead, and my linker lit up. Linker Portal System: Online. A feminine voice said in my head. Before I could ask what was going on, a display appeared in front of my eyes. It almost looked like a game screen, but not quiet. It was just a little different.

"The voice is the directional voice every linker uses," Mireille said. "Right now, you should see the displayed. That's the linker interface. It's Augmented Reality, though far more advanced than anything you would have had on Earth."

***

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