#vampire grace

She needed to get Grace fed as soon as possible. Going to Hell’s Gate was an option and safest for them, but getting supplies here would take time and honestly, she wasn’t sure if she wanted to risk being locked in her Samson with a hungry vampire. With the Samson outside, there had been some mild damage too, a higher mountain had wound up dropping something into the rotor blades of her bird, so taking a trip in another Samson was the problem more than anything; more waiting that they didn’t have.

But, Trudy had an awful idea. Her stomach churned at the thought but what choice did she have? Grace and Norm were thankfully linked up, allowing her this freedom to act. Her steps led her to the mass of tools, picking up one of the tools. Trudy knew this shack all too well to know where important pipes were. Internally, it was panelled off to prevent accidental hits but she knew where the panel was weak and the last technician had only done a patch-job in their last visit so that was easy to undo to sabotage and let that guy take the fall once the technicians came. It should have been reported sooner but Trudy had her priorities and she was kinda glad for her laziness on the matter.

Trudy carefully removed the panel and got to work, careful to wedge the end of the screwdriver into the seam of the tape once she got to where she needed to be. They seriously used duct tape?? Still, it didn’t stop her. Not enough to break it, but damage it enough that in a few hours, the systems would flag and they’d eventually resort to wearing masks once the pipes failed. Hell’s Gate would prioritise a flight crew to them first to get the shack up and active.

But, even as she set the panel back and set everything back as it was, her stomach churned with guilt. She was bringing humans here for Grace to eat. Trudy closed her eyes, shaking her head. Better them than Norm, right? The justification felt hollow. So selfish. But the notion of offering herself to Grace made her skin crawl. She was just one person. She couldn’t let her know she knew. Wouldn’t let Norm know either. She didn’t want to be vampire food because what if they always asked for more than she could give? They could kill her so easily. It all felt so wrong, on so many levels….

-

“How is she still alive?” Henry asked as Alma was once again put through physical tests, once she was coherent enough and rested enough since the removal from Tabitha’s body. Tabitha herself was still resting, to mentally heal from the psychic trauma. Theophania herself had been absent and the separation had been a harder toll than expected.

Thana knew why he was still bubbling on that, as he was told that Alma simply wouldn’t wake up after the transfer into the avatar. A personality was not a soul. Memory was not a soul. It had been explained to him how it worked and honestly, she understood his confusion. There was little that their technology hid from them these days. They were rarely surprised and this was not a considered variable or part of their probably scales.

Thana couldn’t help but be fascinated, watching the activity from the probes on the avatar’s head, watching how she worked, how her brain functioned in this new body. Areas lighting up as well and already looked mature and settled. Mind and body worked seamlessly now.

“I highly suspect Maya may have been involved.”

“Maya? The tree?”

“Maya is sentient.” Thana pointed out. “She is still young nor as developed as her Mother Tree but sentient all the time.”

“A tree have feelings?”

Thana clicked her tongue at him. “Not like human feelings. She’s not human, but she is intelligent. Her primary desires are inclined to that of trees; wanting UV light, water, good soil or nutrient substrate, but she interacts with our technology for alternative stimulation. She plays games if given the choice via that. She has times of respite as she’s still growing. We can connect with her for our means through her branches with our kuru or for you, her waters. She’s telepathic in that front to know our minds and intents and responds to those desires.”

Henry stared, surprise.

“Alma’s avatar is a first generation after the test-bodies. First RDA generations typically have a lot more… blood in the works than the drivers and most SciOps folk are aware of.” Thana grimaced a little at the fact. Those early times where the humans were first learning and advancing with that technology were never without blood in the shadows.

Henry looked at her, eyes narrowing a fraction and clearly sensing there was more to it. “Meaning?”

“Those early avatars are created with higher brain function. Like a living person. For the early avatars, they needed the brain to be fully developed but had not yet developed means to artificially stimulate higher brain function throughout gestation to sustain a driver link. The generation before, the avatars didn’t have higher brain function throughout gestation and couldn’t hold a link and died shortly in and out of decantering with seizures. Alma’s generation, birthed in the mid-30s were concived with higher brain function since they were needed then and there, and a week before decantering, the higher brain function is… manually terminated in the tank. Its brain heals in the week, and can take the link, becoming fully reliant on driver-connections. Once they perfected the avatar creation process with an artificial stimulator a year later, they switched over fully to avoid getting caught using ‘unethical science’ that should shut the program down as Dr Lovecrafts earlier Dark Dreamer programs had following public protests with Animal Right actavists.”

Henry nodded slowly. “So, Maya could have brought Alma back reviving the Avatar’s snuffed out consciousness.”

“It’s a hypothesis. We don’t quite know the methods used by the RDA but it doesn’t seem to matter; Alma is alive, she and the avatar are now one being. A person. She is no longer a veil.” Which was a big thing and no doubt something to write about when the people involve were up and about for it… but it still left a problem of what to do about Alma now that she had survived the procedure.

Her mind was no longer risking Tabitha’s survival and, now with the avatar body, as a sentient being that now held rights that meant she couldn’t stay with them without due cause. They had to move her on since Alma herself was not contracted to work in their business nor did they want her working with them either. Wrong training. Nor was she a prisoner either.

Sending her to the East with the others seemed… like an unwarranted risk. Theophania had mentioned the kid, Nor, almost knifing her without listening to the whole story, even. No point sending her there just to die by some angst, trauma ridden adult who had no concept or context of what Alma had been at the time of his clan’s demise.

“What’s the plan with Alma now? We… keeping her?” Henry seemed hesitant. “If I try to water tank her, she’ll shove the hose up my ass.”

Thana snorted at the imagery. “No idea. We could recruit her, or leave her at one of the doorsteps of the one of the clans. The Sarentu are aware of her past, so is the humans she lived with in Dyer’s bowl. We could drop her off and let them have her, or send her away somewhere entirely.” Honestly thought it was probably the kindest option.

The Kame’tire clan was still an option but she felt reluctant to leave Alma with that clan with how reclusive they were. Like, the clan was aware by now of their arrival in this mountain space but they hadn’t approached but she knew their eyes were on them.

The Quadruplets were with the Zeswa, so there was a chance Alma could be accepted by that clan if the clan accepted the Quads and their avatar. They should probably establish a line with those four now that they were there. They had to grow and connect with the clans and the sisters gave them that opening with the clan. Could Alma thrive there? Or perhaps further? There were still a few clans still out there in range. Somewhere new entirely could be what was needed?

Right now, too many open options and no one to discuss it. Yet.

“I don’t know just yet. Until we’re sure she’s mentally stable and grounded in that new body, we have ground to keep her here.”

“Why don’t you ask her? Like, she has no idea where she is so she can’t tell people where she was. She might choose where she’ll wanna end up.”

“Even if it gets her killed?” Alma would probably choose the Sarentu.

“Then that’s her choice to make. It’ll be her first real choice in life. Everything before was preprogramed off what was installed with the veil personality to fit the goal.”

Thana inclined her head, humming. Yes, she supposed he was right. Alma probably may surprise her and go off the grid. “You’re her doctor for now. Ask her once she’s up. I’ve got to run though some reports with Agnes”

“Reports?” Henry looked up at her, confused.

“From drones we sent out five days ago. Data readings of risky territories.” She had personally seen to that and now they finally had an active data stream from the drone. The drone was very high-tech; it took scans of the area, local flora and fauna, air readings, weather pattern tracking, geological activity and, complied data of the clan in question, tracking movements and pattern tracking. There were a lot to go through and a lot more to get.

“Nothing you need to worry about, henry.” She patted his back twice and left him to it.

-

Morgan eyed the bowl of water, noting the water level with some trepidation. Noon. Good news and bad news. Still had a few more hours until the moon was safe once out of the storm and they could be on their merry way but Morgan still had to be the one to be out first so not to be forced to go back once the guys got their guns, unless Kim or one of the others came and got him.

But, he listened and looked about carefully as he picked up his cup, pouring out some of the water to lower the water level from the noon depth-notch to the ten am depth-notch. Two hours of safe time he could leave in four hours’ time. The others four here wouldn’t notice. Quaritch was taking a dump, Lyle was flat out asleep and snoring, his leg still elevated and Z-dog had found her way to some leather scraps at the bottom of a basket and had really found her calling with turning it into a hand-woven holster. She had on her new shirt, which was just a crop-top at this point since she didn’t wanna be bothered making a whole shirt.

He sighed, moving away to return back to N’deh’s mask to finish up the last pieces of decoration.

-

Ridley watched as vaguely in passing through the armoury to see a Samson being very quickly loaded up and one already with the engines hot.

“What’s up with the early trips?” The bases has another hour until patrols would restart. Ridley had plans to get Nathan and Ian and fuck off back to the reef. The buoys they had left had picked up passive movement of potential Tulkun pod and she really wanted to go see them. Thankfully, her mother had authorised both their avatars to the Reef as long as both their human forms remained in the same base. Meaning, she could still fuck her husband and they’d not break any rules in regards to their avatars. Seemed like a fair deal and honestly, she had thoroughly enjoyed her husband’s return to keep to that deal.

God, she had missed being the same scale of him. Still, his avatar’s face was still healing and while the avatar had been cleared to leave, the avatar wasn’t cleared for water-submersion for another two weeks, which was fine; Nathan could do a lot in the boat with Ian whilst she worked in the water.

She was pleased to know Colonel Harding still got a disciplinary for the damages done to the avatar. Apparently Mansk did not believe it was an accident due to Harding’s connections to the late Dr Alma Cortez and there was enough proof in an eye-witness to see that but nothing beyond that but it gave Nathan the right to transfer. Since the avatars were so expensive to make, the punishment of damage was high, even for accidents.

The new enforcement of the avatar tags still made plenty of drivers livid as fuck, herself included. It was almost like Selfridge was telling them to steal them and live in the wilds of Pandora for petty vengeance. Hell, she was actively planning to add their specialised tats onto them for future endeavours, should their… shadow employers demand their service.

The nearby SecOps guy, Garman on his uniform, looked up then to where the other one was fucking off to.

“Search for Quaritch, just for formalities really. This one is for Site 26.” Gesturing to the one being loaded up.

Ridley’s eyes flickered to it. Habitat engineers and Samson mechanics. General food supplies too and clearly a restock on top of it. “Something break?”

“Yeah, the air recycler conked out a few hours ago. Some idiot actually tried to duct tape it and it burned out. Almost caused a fire.” Garman shook his head in disbelief.

“What?!” her mother could have died in that tin-can out in the mountains. A fire in a pressurised pod in a toxic atmosphere, during a radiation storm! “Hot damn.” Her drawl came out harder than intended. “At least they made it through the storm.”

“God was looking out for them” Garman said, “Still, Selfridge is gonna blow a fuse when he hears about it.”

“Hopefully neither is us are there for that.” She bid him a farewell quickly, hurrying towards her room before she sat down at her desk and opened up the monitor. These weren’t ‘private’ as many would think but she was accustomed to knowing that but she had no intention to say anything that was important or interesting to the RDA to worry. She had other means for that.

Her hands hovered over the keyboard, lingering on her mother’s profile. Should she even open up a video call? Was she okay? Her fingers danced over the surface, not quite pressing down on the buttons.

Finally, Ridley decided, pressing down before the screen opened up, taking a second to adjust her camera as she waited, but only thirty seconds later did her monitor light up as the video call connected and opened up.

Ridley barely was able to stop herself from gasping.

Her mother was sat on the other side of the screen, clearly very tense as she was masked up but… it wasn’t that that surprised her but the fact she was so pale. While the light of the monitor did bounce off and reflect the screen in front of her but Ridley was still able to see what was not normal. Her mother’s eyes had shadows under her eyes that had a near purple tint, same with her lips. The paleness that shocked her was like looking after a gunshot victim and they were bleeding out. Her mother’s wavy hair even looked far more ginger in comparison to the normal auburn shade. Her eyes… they almost looked black.

But she knew immediately what she was looking at now.

“Ridley?” Mother looked genuinely surprised at her call, “What’s wrong?”

Ridley composed herself quickly. “I just heard what happened at your shack. I wanted to check in.” She stated, glad her voice was strong. “Are you and the others alright?”

Mother nodded, looking a little twitchy. “Yeah, Norm and Trudy are outside now its safe and the suns out. I was gonna go out and join them. It’ll be nice to stretch my legs.”

“They’ll be sending out a Samson to sort out the shack as soon as possible. Are you coming back on their return?”

“Not today, but do need to return tomorrow to run through some data with some of the other scientists.” Mother did look a little relieved to say that. Probably cooped up too much at the shack. Honestly, Ridley didn’t like the idea of that level of confinement, even without her mother’s… condition.

“How is your avatar?” Ridley opted to ask, “I heard you got lost after a thanator run-in.”

Mother’s lip curled up. “I got help. A passing Wanderer helped me.” Yet, the way she said it, felt like there was a story there and with how she smiled, there was definitely more to it. Na’vi would not often target Thanators unless a direct threat to them or their territory. Mother did not elaborate, though it was clear something pinged up on her screen before her eyes shifted to it. “But the avatar is well.”

“Selfridge has installed ankle tags onto avatars now. Be prepared should any of the suppliers that come may have one.” Not that it’d work well. The signals were gonna cut in and out and otherwise useless. Trackers can’t work around the flux.

Mother snorted. “<Thank you, but Selfridge is gonna learn why the tags are useless for mountain work very soon.>”

“I wonder how many people will try and get transferred to the mountain shacks by the end of the week.” She could imagine a few pissed off drivers would. Selfridge did have some levy with company property, which the avatars did fall under, but it was more of the social aspects that came with the tags that infuriated. “Good luck with that, ma.”

Her mother’s face softened, her head turning sharply. “I got to go. We can… talk later?”

Ridley considered it for a moment then nodded. “When you get back, yes.” Not through the monitored line.

-

Grace sat in the shade of the field lab, eyed narrow through the afternoon light that she honestly, did miss despite the draining effect it gave but she was so glad to be outside… and feel the pleasant breeze. Both Norm and Trudy were just lying next to one of the Dapophet trees basking in the light.

She felt mildly jealous that they’d get a dopamine release from that… but her thoughts always drifted to the horrid, dry parched sensation in her throat. Their heart beatings were sounding like temping drums against her ears and the warmth from their bodies…. All so enticing. Her fangs itched to bite… and she knew it would be a short-lived, but wonderful reward. The thought of the consequences was what was helping her hold back against those urges. Feeding from people when this thirsty without another vampire present, meant she had a higher risk to kill them. Another vampire would keep her in check.

Grace could hear the engines getting closer, but she was impatient. So close… and soon she’d be able to feed and relax. God, she missed being human. Drinking water and eating food… she missed that at times like this…

Finally, she caught sight of the Samson, standing up and hovered by the airlock, still as a statue as they got closer and closer. Trudy jumped up though seemed to pale a little at the Samson’s presence as it touched down and a four people stepped out, excluding the pilot. Grace licked her lips, glad to see two of the men pick up their repair kit and some of the supply boxes.

“Dr Augustine, can you show us the damage?” the lead engineer said, holding out one of the supply boxed to her to take, so she did though she recognised the medical scrawl that made her stomach settle in relief. Solis was really looking out for her. Oh, he definitely needed a raise.

Grace led them in, waiting through the airlock before showing them off to the space in question before she set down the supply box, which had her typical amount of disguised bloodbags for the week, but there was a small removable satchel inside the box.

For now. Don’t take risks with the mechanics. Paz

She opened it up before she saw it, taking the whole thing before she hurried to the toilet and slammed the door after her, slamming the loo lid down to sit down and she pulled out one of the five the undecorated bags of blood and bit down straight away, not caring for the coldness as each sip and gulp smothered at the dryness of her throat….

-

Selfridge eyed the report in his hand, feeling some shred of relief that their work was actually getting somewhere. The photo of a link shack underneath a massive tree had been a hell of a lucky find. Finally proof, real proof that the defectors were still around and hadn’t fucked off to the other side of this money-making moon. It would take months, but sooner or later they were gonna get their defectors. But it seems the ones here hadn’t been at the site, no doubt because of the storm that had just passed, but were no doubt gonna be within the next couple of days once it’s ‘safe’.

He could wait another day to bring up moral on the fact that they had a defector in range.

“What’s the play, sir?”

“Set up an alarm and get a Samson parked close and on stand-by. When a defector goes there, tranq and bring them in.” Selfridge decided. “Have they gone in to know who lives there?”

“No, they don’t want to risk leaving too many signs of other people in the area. A SecOps member can recognise a tampered site better than a SciOps one. We don’t know which one it is.>”

“At least we know they’ve stolen one of their shacks, we can add a few more charges for theft of that scale, the shacks aren’t cheap. Start getting a team to add stolen shacks to their search parameters.” Selfridge added, pleased

“What do we do if they get aggressive?”

Selfridge barely spared a look up. “Tranqs unless they’re physically violent, then switch to lethal. They’ll be the ones attacking us after all. They’re the criminals we’re bringing to justice.” Quaritch would almost certainly agree with him on that. Assuming he was even alive, which Selfridge doubted. A sad loss on paper, but once the Samson finished their formal forest sweep for their human comrades and the downed Samson, he could make changes that were far better suited. Colonel Harding would probably fill Colonel Quaritch’s does quite well here. Walker can have her security gig once Harding was recalled, so that slot was filled smoothly.

-

Morgan chortled deeply, relived as he stepped into his own shack, dumping down the mask and opened up and took one of the iodine pills he had, just as precaution before he activated his monitor and radio hub.

“Sup, I’m home and RDA free!” He called through his radio, grinning.

There was a long pause, before the radio hub burst with noise.

“Everyone, cool it. One voice at a time!” Jake’s voice echoed the loudest. “Morgan, you good?”

“I’m very good! I’ve never been so pleased to have my gift of breath delayed! I’m so lucky!” he let out a huff.

“<How’d you get out of being followed by the RDA people?”

“I snuck out the cave by altering the times on the water clock back by two hours, so I have more time to slink out before they realised. I took an hour detour out of precaution and looped back to the shack. Which is empty. I assume you’re coming back late?”

“Some of us going to Hometree for the afternoon to socialise with the clan now that the storms over.” Jake said, “Honestly, we’re a looking forwards to waling about and no one wants to wake up to a newborn anymore.”

Ah, the baby. Morgan had forgotten about that.

“Are you really okay, Morgan?” Nadine’s voiced echoed.

Morgan’s eye twitched, jaw tensing. “I am well.” he opted to say, keeping his voice polite.

“Can we talk when we get back?”

Morgan huffed, not broadcasting that act before he brought the radio to his mouth. “Not yet. I’ve spend the last week with temperamental people and it’s been tense as fuck. I need to wind down from that first.” He wasn’t saying not just… not yet. He needed to unwind without an audience that wasn’t gonna try and intel gather from passing comments. “Now, I’m not gonna stick to the radio for long. I’m gonna clear up the camp and get some good fresh food on the go.”

“We have chili and peppers,” Nadine offered, “They’re in out airlock if you want some.”

Morgan’s head turned a fraction. More had finished growing? Hell yeah.

“Thank you, Sargent Reza.” He finished, to make a point.