Needless to say it didn't take much for Dee to swipe off the phone and, grabbing her coat, make for the parking garage. The garage was still filled with CSI and Forensic investigators, poking into every little corner in a vain effort to determine the source of the blackened pools of blood that now lay thickly all around her car. Whatever had happened, it had been a slaughter.
Smiling at the nearest investigator, she slipped into the TR-6 and started the engine with a twist of the ignition key. Then, shifting into gear, she carefully wove her way over or around the evidence that the investigators were protecting and out of the garage, giving a wave to the PD constable holding the crime scene tape up to let her by.
As soon as the little sports car's wheels hit the pavement of the road, anxiety put lead into Dee's foot and, with a grimace, she punched the accelerator down to the floor. Possessing one of the highest ratios of engine to car size in the world, the TR-6 took off like it had been shot out of a cannon, screaming down the street like a bullet.
And the speed didn't let up as Dee made her way through the city towards the apartment she had set up for Mordecai, anxiety sending the blood surging hotly through her veins until her heart threatened to pop out of her mouth. Psionics? Werewolves? Vampires?? Where the hell were all these people coming from? Outer freakin' space?
Mordecai was hunched over the keyboard of the computer sitting the modest, yet well decorated little one-bedroom suite that he had been given, when he heard a key slipping into the outer door lock. There was a soft click as the tumblers fell into place then the door was swinging open to allow a rather frantic-looking Dee to quickly step inside, the tall redhead closing the door behind her with nervous energy.
Slowing his swiftly dancing fingers as they raced over the keyboard, he looked over his shoulder with a nod.
"Glad you could make it in one piece."
Dee nodded jerkily.
"Considering what's going through my mind, I'm pretty damn impressed too. Here." She threw the knapsack that Mordecai had packed with his gear, onto his small couch. "You forgot this in my car last night.
"Ah." Mordecai smiled and stood up to step away from the neat, stainless steel computer desk that held the late model computer he had been working over. "Excellent. I was hoping you had it and not the vampires."
Dee could feel the muscle in her jaw dance with her anxiety at the casual mention of creatures that, by all rights, shouldn't exist as she watched Mordecai step to the couch and pull the back open, quickly fishing out the silvery box he had called Paladin.
"Want to tell me what the hell is going on, now?" she asked, forcing her voice to be even despite the fact that she wanted to scream at the top of her lungs.
Mordecai glanced over at Dee and smiled.
"Absolutely. Want to have a seat? This might be a little much at first."
"You mean I haven't already been hit with a lot up to this point?" Dee asked dryly as she dropped into Mordecai's small couch. Mordecai's smile broadened slightly as he set up Paladin's holo-imager.
"Unfortunately, just the tip of the iceberg. Paladin, access personal database and download file named 'Dark Edge' to the imager and display for reading."
"Warning, Mordecai," Paladin immediately spoke up with a slight note of alarm to its characteristic voice. "The indicated file and all related material has been encrypted."
"Noted, Paladin. Decrypt the file, password: 'It's Full of Stars'."
"Password accepted, Mordecai. File is being decrypted and downloading to the imager is commencing."
"Interesting password," Dee softly commented. "A big fan of Stanley Kubrick?" Mordecai shrugged.
"The movie presented the possibility of something greater than ourselves." He smiled. "I can certainly appreciate that." Then his attention was swinging over onto the holographic display as it appeared and adjusted for reading.
"Download complete, Mordecai," Paladin informed him, "and the contained information is displayed."
Mordecai nodded as a series of drawings, some crude, others exquisite in their detail, began to scroll up the display, complete with image labels and explanatory text.
"First, before we jump into the material on the screen, a brief lesson in evolution is required." Seeing that he had Dee's undivided attention, Mordecai went on. "Paladin, freeze display until further notice."
"Confirmed, Mordecai," the tiny A.I. replied. Mordecai nodded in satisfaction as he turned his attention back to Dee.
"As you probably know from school, Dee, Darwin's theory of evolution contains the concept of Natural Selection, the primary force of evolution. However, evolution has other forces working either for or against it. One such force is the force of mutation, the introduction of random genetic change into a common genome via direct alteration of DNA by an outside force."
"Like radiation," Dee pointed out and Mordecai nodded.
"Right, like radiation. For the most part, mutation happens at such a low rate that it rarely impacts the evolutionary process, mutations generally eliminated from a genome by natural selection. However, every once in a great while, a significant mutation occurs, one that is actually favored by natural selection. This 'branching' event literally creates a new species from an old one, a species that manages to be suitable enough to survive in its environment and avoid getting naturally selected out. If the mutation happens to enough individuals, then it can be propagated to the next generation, the essential stage of any branching event mutation. Identical mutation in more than one individual to the extent where a breeding population is formed."
Mordecai turned to Paladin and the holo-imager.
"Paladin, display secondary data stream, multimedia file: 'branch events throughout evolutionary history'."
Beside the screen of text, another display flickered into view to show what Dee immediately recognized as the evolutionary tree, one of the first elements of evolution that she had learned at several levels of schooling. As the tree scrolled up in front of her, passing from the roots of single-celled animals all the way up to the branches containing all modern living things, Mordecai pointed out several of the branching points.
"Here fish differentiate from the invertebrates, here, amphibians from fish. And here, reptiles from amphibians and a little further on, mammals from reptiles." He drew back from the display to fold his arms over his chest. "All branching events are where a significant breeding population was formed via simultaneous mutation."
Dee, without warning, held up her hand to hold Mordecai's explanation up for a moment, her face a thoughtful mask as her brain worked furiously.
"Wait a sec, here. Are you actually suggesting that vampires and werewolves truly exist, as mutations from mainstream Humanity?" she asked hoarsely, the pieces in her mind abruptly falling into place. Damn, it made perfect sense! Then she shook her head in amazement as she wondered if she was going crazy or not to have all this mutation stuff make sense.
Mordecai, however, was impressed.
"Ah, a logical intuitive leap, Tragedy. I'm impressed. Yes, in fact, they are. Our scientists have determined that certain introns, inactive segments of DNA containing information passed on up the evolutionary tree by earlier life forms, actually were activated in a certain sequence by the mutation. Each mutation, including the one that created psionics, has its own sequence of activated introns that created the new DNA chain to form the new human phenotype and genotype. However, they aren't the only mutations from Humanity that are out there, floating around the edges of Normal society. Paladin, reactivate primary display and scroll information."
"Confirmed, Mordecai," Paladin replied as the first display began to move once more.
"This is a file containing information on all the mutations that I've come across in my travels over the years. I've collected it in the hopes that, someday it can be used to benefit all Humanity, not just one sub-species or another."
Dee nodded as she leaned in close to scan over the information scrolling up in front of her.
"If you plan on using if for the good of all Humanity, then why keep it encrypted and password-protected?" she softly asked as she scanned over the description of the mutation known as lycanthropy, or werewolfism. Damn, that looked serious. If this file were any indication, Mordecai would've been lucky to escape with his life, even with all of his abilities intact!
"What do you think Humanity would do if that file actually fell into their hands?" was Mordecai's answering question and Dee had to laugh softly.
"Good point. An all-out genetic war, like you were talking about last night. And Humanity would have the advantage of knowing all of their strengths and weaknesses before going into battle."
"Exactly. Not even my close associates know of that file," Mordecai admitted with a weak smile. "It's my ace-in-the-hole, if I should ever need it."
"Like now?" Dee smiled thinly and Mordecai laughed softly.
"Yeah, like now." Mordecai settled back once again, arms over his chest. "I don't even want to go into what would happen if one of the mutant races got a hold of it. Several of them already totter on the edge of war with each other."
"Why?" Dee looked up from the display to ask. "It would seem that they have more in common than not. At least, more with each other than with normal Humanity."
"While that may be true, you know as well as I that wars aren't necessarily prevented by the commonality that exists between the conflicting parties. Wars are fought over resources, ideologies and, sometimes, plain greed. While the mutant peoples of the fringe, or as I call it, the Dark Edge, are sometimes quite removed physically from their human forebears, they often think much like humans do. They struggle with greed, avarice, anger, revenge and the other base emotions and desires in the full gamut of human sensation and emotion."
"Have they actually gone to war with each other? I mean, like the vampires against the werewolves and stuff like that."
Mordecai nodded.
"Several times, actually. Mostly localized conflicts that mainstream Humanity is never aware of. But, sometimes the fighting spills into your world and often triggers a much larger conflict. For instance, the Salem witch hunts of the 1800's were initially a battle for control of the fledgling human population of the young United States, fought between vampires and psionics. Hence the references to magic and conjuring demons." He chuckled softly. "There have been not a few wars between the psionics and the vampires, that's for sure."
"Big time enemies, hey?" Dee asked, this time keeping her eyes on the scrolling text. Just in time to read about a group of mutants that actually could breathe water. She could only shake her head in wonderment at that.
"You could say that. Our very existence is a threat to theirs. If vampires had any natural enemies, it would be the psionics. The vampires, being the oldest of the mutations, have also fought a number of wars amongst themselves. The last was a mere fifteen years ago, a bloody affair between the clans of northern Europe and western Asia. It almost spilled into the real world with its sheer brutality."
"Have any of the mutant peoples tried to integrate themselves into mainstream Humanity, instead of ghosting around its edges?" Dee again asked, eyes widening as she scanned over a piece of information about a very rare mutant strain that was able change the elastic properties of their bodies. So profound was their control that these mutants could literally change their appearance, effective shapeshifters that, as she read on she discovered had indeed made the integration jump. An answer to her own question.
Mordecai, of course, had even more information than that.
"Throughout human history, there have been attempts, some successful, some not, to integrate," Mordecai noted. "Usually gifted individuals would make the jump more successfully than an entire population." He smiled tightly. "It would seem that you Normals would easily dismiss the talents of one individual as unusual but explainable, but couldn't ignore an entire population possessing the same gifts."
"Individuals, hey?" Dee sat back as the last mutant description scrolled by, a thoughtful expression on her face as she pondered what she had just read and what Mordecai was telling her.
"Yup. Usually they would insert themselves into professions or positions where their talents were less noticeable. For instance, werewolves have a love of military service. An easy way to satisfy the bloodlust without seeming abnormal. Apparently they make phenomenal mercenaries."
"Yeah, I can see that, based on the stuff you have here, in your file." Dee nodded. "Let me guess: with the ability to summon lightning, fire and other energy out of nothing, your people tried to integrate as magicians."
"Not as many as you think. But yes, my own people generally found themselves working as magicians, soothsayers, escape artists and conjurers. A good place to hide their talents."
"You're not suggesting that Houdini was a psionic, are you?" Dee asked abruptly, eyes flying wide as she considered that possibility. Mordecai laughed softly.
"No, he was merely a gifted Normal, possessing no mutations that we know of. Other rather prominent psionics though that you may have heard of include Nostradamus and his ability to see into the future, Crius Populus, the soothsayer that predicted Julius Caesar's rise to power in Rome and the infamous Merlin."
"Damn," Dee husked disbelievingly. "Are you telling me that Merlin actually existed?"
"According to our records, he certainly did. As well as the boy-king Arthur Pendragon of the Britons. But much of what is known as the legend of Camelot was created to hide the true nature of what Arthur was trying to do in post-Roman Briton. Unifying the warring tribes of southern England in an attempt to forestall the imminent invasion of the Angles, Jutes and Saxons, an event that Merlin foresaw with his gifts." Mordecai shrugged as he leaned back against a nearby wall.
"Unfortunately for the Britons, Arthur and Merlin failed to unify the tribes and the Germanic Angles, Jutes and Saxons made short work of the scattered defenders and conquered the island of Britain."
"Holy shit." Dee slowly shook her head. "All of this stuff that you're telling me is making me question our entire history."
"I wouldn't go quite that far, yet." Mordecai smiled thinly. "A good deal of your history is correct. And the rest is enough to satisfy those that don't want to be revealed." Then his face hardened. "However, I think we need to address what hopefully won't become a footnote in the Brotherhood's revised history of the world."
"Right." Dee pushed away from the now blank display to look up at the big man. "You said that vampires bailed you out of the situation in the parking garage."
"I did. A group of what sounded like commandos of some kind, if Duffy's rather garbled description of them could be trusted, was dispatched by a vampire that I did a favor for some time ago. They arrived just in time to prevent our untimely deaths at the hands of Silvermane and his pack."
"A vampire you did a favor for?" A puzzled expression appeared on Dee's face. "I though your people and the vampires were bitter enemies."
Mordecai's answering smile was bleak.
"A long story and one that we don't really have time to get into."
"Too bad." Dee's grin was slightly mischievous. "Sounds like it would be one helluva tale!"
"You have no idea." Mordecai chuckled softly. "However, the arrival of the vampires may actually present a solution to the problem we were discussing earlier. The one regarding the use of ... what did Duffy call it? A ghost assault team, or something like that."
Dee blinked her eyes rapidly as she tried to twist her mind around what Mordecai was insinuating. Before it could fully sink in, he was saying it outright, forcing her to adjust to that.
"I think, if we play our cards right, we could convince our team of vampiric commandos to assist us in making the hit against the Brotherhood. They could be utilized at the launch point of the Armageddon Project, the New Millennium Economic Conference being held here, in Calgary, according to the project files I decoded."
"Wait just a sec, here. Are you suggesting that we use vampires in a hit against the Brotherhood? Are you mental?? What makes you think you could convince them to work with you, once a powerful psionic, against the Brotherhood, possibly the largest collection of psionics on one place?"
"You just gave me my answer, Dee." Mordecai's thin smile broadened slightly. "The Brotherhood actively hunts vampires whenever they get the chance. Ironic that the organization that wants to wipe out Normal Humanity is actually protecting them by destroying the creatures that hunt humans with the most vigor. Anyway, give the vampires a chance to strike at the Brotherhood and I think they'll take it with both hands and thank us for it!" He pushed away from the wall.
"Think of it this way: they're already trained assault soldiers, well aware of the Brotherhood and its genocidal policies. I don't have to worry about the Shield being put at risk and you don't need to expose yourself to your own authorities by recruiting people you could trust to form the assault team. And an assault team we're going to need: without my abilities, the three of us are going to need as much help as we can find to stop the Brotherhood from putting its plan into play."
"If this Brotherhood is truly as big and bad as you say they are, you won't be hearing any arguments from me," Dee said with a frown. "It's just that ... well, damn, I went from knowing nothing a couple of days ago and thinking the world was cool, to knowing all of this shit. Vampires, werewolves and god knows what else ... it's like I'm feeling my reality shatter into a thousand pieces and fall like a rain of glassy shards down onto my head!"
Mordecai nodded slowly, a thoughtful expression on his face as he walked into the apartment's tiny kitchen to pull open the fridge, pulling out a glass bottle of fruit juice. After Dee shook her head 'no thanks' at an offer of one for her, he let the door ease closed behind him as he turned back to her, opening the bottle as he moved.
"Believe it or not, I know how you feel," he said softly, taking a sip from the bottle. "A few short weeks ago, I was probably one of the most powerful members of my people on the face of the planet. And now I've been reduced to the status of a Normal. Like falling from the peak of Olympus."
"Olympus?" Dee snorted in disbelief. "Are you actually trying to compare yourself to a Greek god? That's a little arrogant, don't you think?"
Mordecai shrugged as he turned to the kitchen counter, now cluttered with a variety of half assembled devices, every one of them a complete puzzle to Dee. None of them were even remotely recognizable to her. He set down his bottle of juice to pick up the nearest one and began to work on it, shifting pieces around before slowly beginning to attach another one of the devices to it to make a strange looking combination.
"Perhaps," he admitted after a moment's worth of work. "However, with our abilities allowing us to do things that are so far and above what you Normals can do, can you blame us for adopting an air of superiority?"
"Yet you strive to protect this Shield thing, which prevents us mundane Normals from discovering your people's existence for fear that we would wipe you out, superhuman abilities and all," Dee deadpanned, folding her arms beneath her breasts. "That sort of attitude doesn't sound all that god-like. In fact ..."
Her voice trailed off as Dee's curiosity finally got the best of her.
"Just what the hell are you working on, anyway?" she asked with a frown. "And what's with all that shit on your counter top?"
"It's called a micro-forge," Mordecai explained as he continued attaching wires and fittings. "A small device that does what the name implies: it allows me to create a variety of materials for use in other devices that I plan on making."
"Yeah? A micro-forge, hey? Did you pull that one out of your little bag of technological tricks too? Like Paladin?"
Mordecai smiled faintly.
"No, not exactly," he replied somewhat evasively, continuing to work.
To be truthful, the big man was having a hard time explaining it to himself. When he had awakened this morning, he had found his mind full of the information that he had downloaded from the space station's Artificial Intelligence. Including technical information and data on everything from the machine pistols the guardians were using with deadly effect against him to devices like the micro-forge and the two or three other machines he was in the midst of constructing.
While he usually kept a sense of what happened in his visions, usually in the form of sensation and impression, never before had he returned from such a journey with the detailed information that he now held in his cranium. The only explanation that made any sort of sense at all was that somehow his mind, separated from the rest of his psionic abilities by his injury, was still able to tap into the probabilities that continually swirled around reality, side eddies along the river of time.
Almost as strong as the current that swept the river of time along, his consciousness must have been somehow pulled into one of the eddies that swung loosely along the river, not connected to any one temporal location. And, before his mind would withdraw itself from the eddy, he had awakened into a future possibility.
The explosion that he, as Dr. Lan Hollis, used to rupture the passageway connecting the arrival lounge of docking pad 7 with the rest of the giant space station was enough to pull his consciousness out of the eddy and back into the main time stream. There he had regained consciousness in his actual body with the information he had pulled from the station's A.I. still intact in his mind.
Of course, that being said and done, any usefulness that he could derive from the vision, other than further confirmation of the Brotherhood's success because of his failure, depended on whether he could utilize the new information in his brain. The big man grimaced at that thought as his fingers worked by themselves to rewire the control unit that would make the micro-forge function properly.
Dee frowned at the vague answer, crossing her arms beneath her breasts as she watched Mordecai work. It was amazing that a man with hands that big, could do such delicate work. And fast, too: in the time that she had begun watching him, he had attached the micro-forge's biggest, most important-looking piece to what appeared to be a power plant of some sort and was already partially done in rewiring what was likely a control assembly with its myriad of indicators and control surfaces.
Still, she had other things to worry about rather than how quickly Mordecai could build one of his high-tech toys. There was still a helluva lot of work to be done, police work to be exact, before they were in any position to move against the Brotherhood. For starters, they had to find out just how pervasive the Brotherhood presence was in the city. Then they could take measures on reducing, if not downright eliminating, that presence. And in order to get back on track, she just might have to do something a bit radical.
"Well, you just play with your toys, my friend," she said firmly as she stood, mind made up. "I've got some police work to do. Speaking of which: where's Duffy?"
"In the bedroom," Mordecai answered with a motion of his head to the short hallway attached to the south wall of the living room. It led to both the apartment's tiny bathroom and the equally tiny bedroom. "Sleeping off the effects of having the living shit scared out of him."
"Nice." Dee grimaced. "Before I go and get him, just one question."
"Which is?" Mordecai didn't even bother to look up from the control assembly, now almost completely wired.
"Now that I've had a chance to see your Dark Edge file and all the mutant freaks that are running around out there, outside the knowledge of normal Humanity, I want to know this: are there any of these mutant races other than the werewolves and the vampires, that might to have a vested interest in all of this?"
"What do you mean?" Mordecai glanced at her with a frown before returning to his work. "They all have a vested interest in this. Remember what the project states about all non-psionics? Termination."
"Right. No, that's not what I mean. I mean are there any other groups that will actively interfere in what we're doing? Either for or against."
"Ah." Mordecai actually paused to put the device he was working on, down onto the counter, a thoughtful expression on his face. "Now that is a good question. As far as I know, the only two groups that have heavily integrated on any sort of level, are the vampires and werewolves. The werewolves even more so than our blood-sucking friends. But that doesn't preclude the possibility that some other group may be operating out there, with an agenda of their own."
"Shit," Dee hissed in dismay as her brain immediately started putting scenarios together using the information from the former psionic's Dark Edge files. "And a multitude of mutant abilities to make our lives more difficult."
"Exactly." Mordecai picked up the device once again. "If anything, becoming a Normal has taught me that I need to keep my head down most of the time. To prevent it from being blown off!"
"Nice," Dee growled again. "A good piece of advice, ironically enough, considering that it came from you!" And then she was gone, down the hallway to retrieve her sleeping partner.