Different Effects of the Past
Chapter 12: Money Is No Object
As nervous as Vlad was about leaving a potentially unstable hybrid alone in his vast office complex, it didn't distract from the anger he felt at having his servers hacked. Nor did it take away his frustration at having to listen to his cousin telling him that it was one of his more uninspired ideas at having brought the three children with him.
"And why exactly did you let them go with you?" Valya asked over the phone.
"I didn't," he replied, "I just didn't have time to argue with them. I don't even have the time to argue the point with you right now; the Chinese could arrive at any minute."
"Vlad, you took three children with you to a business meeting, don't you think you should give them something to do?"
"Such as?" he questioned as listened reluctantly as she answered.
"Why did we think this'd be a good idea again?" Danny muttered.
"I forget," Viktoria replied.
"Hey, this was your idea."
"Was not," she shot back.
"Was too."
"Knock it off," Jazz rolled her eyes, "Vlad did warn you that we'd get bored."
"Yeah, well, he warns me about a lot of stuff, I just don't listen anymore," her brother shrugged.
"Are you bored yet?" a kind, yet amused voice asked them. It was Vlad's assistant, Elena, she'd opened the door to the empty office quietly and began to walk over to them.
"No, we're good," Danny lied.
"Oh, well, I guess that means you're okay to wait here all day and you don't want this platinum card to use in the shops then," she shrugged and turned to leave.
"Argh, wait!" Danny called quickly.
"That's what I thought," Elena smiled and handed the card over to Danny.
"So, err, Vlad gave you this, huh?" he asked.
"Mmm-hmm," she nodded, "He said you'd be trashing the place by now...looks like he was wrong. You realise he's going to be busy all day and you won't be able to see him until he finished talking to the Chinese...that could take all day. Surely he warned you."
"Yeah...he kinda did," Danny rubbed the back of his neck, "But we didn't really give him much choice."
Elena gave a small smile before speaking again, "His drivers' waiting for you outside, he'll take you into the city or back home. Whichever you all prefer," she said as Danny's phone beeped.
"Erm...okay...first off, how'd Vlad get my number..." he trailed off, reading the text.
"What's he say?" Jazz asked him.
"'Don't even think about going into the city by yourselves, your parents would not be best pleased with me, meaning I will not be best pleased with you'," he read, "Right, like I care." he added. "How'd he get my number?!"
"This is Vlad we're talking about, Danny," she reminded him as though that was explanation enough, and he supposed it was.
"Gah, that fruitloop," he mumbled, "Guess we're going out then...unless you guys wanna stay here."
"Not really," Jazz said.
"No," Viktoria agreed, "I am bored here."
"And we do have Vlad's credit card," the young hybrid grinned.
"He does owe me birthday presents," Viktoria smiled at him.
"And Christmas presents," Danny added.
"I really don't think we should spend a lot of his money..." Jazz began.
"Come on, Jazz, he's a billionaire, I don't think we could spend a billion dollars...or could we..."
"I believe we should try," Vikki laughed.
"Agreed!" Danny jumped and his sister sighed.
"Vlad's not gonna be happy when he sees all this," Jazz told them for the third time.
"Cheer up would you, Jazz, you're depressing me, and I'm actually pretty happy right now," Danny replied.
"Money can't buy happiness, y'know."
"I know that...but it can buy me a new Xbox and a stack load of games," he answered.
"And new dresses," Vikki spoke up.
"Yeah, but that wouldn't make me very happy, Vik," he told her.
"It make me happy."
"Fair enough," Danny shrugged.
"Where to now?" Michael the driver asked them from his front seat.
"I'm getting kinda hungry," he said, "How bout you two?"
"Yes!" Viktoria smiled.
Hours passed and Vlad's anxiety was only building up; instead of enjoying the power play as he usually would in a business meeting, he found himself wanting to bang his head against a wall at the stupidity of it all. He'd allowed Danny to wander the streets of Wisconsin with unstable ghost powers and he didn't have nearly enough training to control them properly if the worst happened and he couldn't stop thinking about it. He was also mulling though every possibility as to just who would choose to sabotage him in such an unusual manner.
He knew that the business deal would be a success so he didn't deem it important enough to warrant all of his attention, however, the possible discovery of a young human hybrid did. Fortunately, Vlad was possessing of the perfect poker face so his associates were none the wiser to his internal dilemma.
"Urgh!" Danny exclaimed, leaning back in his chair, "Okay...I admit it...I think I ate too much."
"I told you that three courses ago," Jazz sighed as Viktoria giggled as Danny's discomfort.
"I...I think I'm gonna be sick..." he muttered, unhappily, closing his eyes against the harsh lighting of the fast food restaurant around him.
"Try not to be," his sister said and he had the gall to appear hurt at her lack of sympathy.
"Gee, way to make me feel better," Danny grumbled.
"You brought this on yourself,' Jazz replied.
"But it was all you can eat! I had to do it!"
Jazz only sighed again in an almost Vlad-like manner as she watched her brother stupidly eyeing up the remaining burger on his plate; Danny was nothing if not stubborn.
"Danny, just put them back! They're way too expensive, I can't afford them," Jazz told her brother.
"No way, Jazz, you want them and Vlad gave us this card to use not to stare at. If he didn't want us to spend all his money he shouldn't have given it to us," he replied, carrying a stack of heavy books while Viktoria carried the few that he couldn't manage.
"This can make up for...birthday present, yes?" the little girl smiled.
"No, he doesn't owe me anything and I really..."
"Chill out already, it'll be fine," Danny rolled his eyes, "Now, did I get everything?"
"And more besides, but I'm telling you..."
"Good," he smiled.
It was late evening by the time Vlad was finally able to part ways from the Chinese and he left the upmarket restaurant they'd journeyed to, giving them leave to do as they pleased for the rest of the night, at his expense.
He couldn't understand why, after making $10 million dollars, he didn't feel the usual rush of adrenaline; the feeling of control and power and success. Why did he feel so empty now? Usually, after such a success, he'd stay out much later with whomever he'd done business with, but tonight he felt drained rather than elated and he was relieved as his limo pulled up in front of him.
"Early night, sir?" Michael questioned curiously, walking around to open the door for him.
"Don't ask," Vlad sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose and tossing his jacket and brief case onto the back seat before joining them.
"Hey, watch where you're throwing that stuff!" Danny moaned, moving aside Vlad's things as the man himself sat down. He was disappointed to see that the older hybrid didn't display any shock at seeing them there.
"You children are determined to drive me insane, aren't you?" he scowled, "What are you doing here?"
"Well, we went to the cinema earlier but Michael said you were done so..."
"I mean, why didn't you go back to the castle?"
"...Are you seriously telling us to go to bed because it's late?" Danny scoffed.
"No."
"Good, 'cos you can't, and anyway it's not, it's like 8'o clock."
"All of this I assume, is yours?" Vlad asked, looking at the piles of bags around the surprisingly large limousine.
"Yep," Danny smiled, "We tried to max out your credit card," he said and Vlad chuckled as the young hybrid held out said card for him.
"I'm sure you made a valiant effort between the three of you," he replied, pocketing the card.
"You are not angry?" Viktoria asked.
"I just secured a $10 million dollar contract, you'll find there's very little that will make me angry after that, and I doubt that you three could spend all of my money in a single day. So no, I'm not."
"Good, because Jazz said that you would be," she added.
"Did she now?" Vlad raised an eyebrow at the elder Fenton sibling. "It doesn't seem as though that fear stopped you from acquiring a small library of your own in my absence," he said, glancing at the mountain of bagged books that he guessed were hers.
"I said not to buy them, but it was Danny's idea," Jazz defended.
"You wanted them!" her brother said indignantly.
"I also can't afford them, that's why I said to put them back."
"You wanted the books and now you have them, I really don't see your problem, Jasmine," Vlad sighed, loosening his tie.
"The problem is I didn't pay for them and I have no right to..."
"But you wanted them?"
"...Yeah, but I..." she admitted reluctantly.
"Then do calm down, for goodness sake, I doubt you sent more than a few hundred dollars on them if that's all you brought."
"...More than a few..." Jazz repeated, "That's a lot of money to normal people!"
"Not to me, please, don't tell me that that's news to you. I'm sure your brother and Viktoria did a much better job of it," he said, eyeing the bags that the young girl was clutching.
"I did spend more than a few hundred, Mr. Vlad," Vikki said.
"Wonderful," Vlad breathed, leaning his head back against the plush leather seat.
"This is crazy," Jazz mumbled.
"What is all this?!" Valya exclaimed on seeing her daughter dragging her days shopping bags through the foyer, followed by Danny and Jazz.
"My birthday presents," Viktoria answered, "Mr. Vlad said it was okay for us to..."
"Vlad said so, did he?" she furrowed her brow as Vlad stepped through the door and laid down his brief case onto a small table before he closed the door.
"Now my mummy is madder than you were," the girl told Jazz quietly.
"Vladimir!" Valya stared at him.
"What?! You said they needed something to do," he replied incredulously.
"I didn't say give them free reign of your finances! How am I supposed to pay you back for all this? I don't even want to think about how much..."
"Not you too," he rolled his eyes, "You don't have to pay me back, I have plenty of money."
"Not everyone can have that attitude to money!"
"I can."
"I can't!"
"Let them have their fun," Vlad said calmly walking over to her.
"But I..."
Vlad spoke again only this time in Russian and whatever he said clearly had a calming effect on his cousin. She nodded after a moment and gave him a sad smile before making her way across to her daughter and helped her take the bags up to her room.
"What'd you tell her?" Danny asked quietly.
Instead of answering his godson, Vlad turned to stare at him and followed the path his cousin had taken to the grand staircase. "Enjoy your games, Daniel, and don't even think about returning those books, Jasmine," he told them and began to make his way up the red carpeted stairs.
Later that night, Vlad was sitting with his mother and Alexi in the dark sitting room, all three watching, but not paying much attention to the television
"You know you shouldn't indulge them like that," Rosalyn remarked.
"They are family, are they not?"
"Valya's going through a though time, Mikhail left her with almost nothing in the divorce, she hasn't been able to treat Vikki like that in a long time. She feels guilty..."
"I know, that's why I did it," Vlad told her, "The last thing the girl needs is to feel that guilt as her own," he said, staring down into his half empty tumbler of whiskey.
"Just don't make a habit of it," Alexi said, "Viktoria doesn't need to grow up spoilt."
Vlad scoffed before he downed the remaining whiskey and flicked his eyes across the room as his astute hearing picked up the sound of an engine making its way down the long drive to the castle.
"...Vlad..." he vaguely heard his mother say something and he snapped his attention back to her as he heard his name spoken.
"I'm sorry, what?" he questioned, still hearing the car draw closer, he even heard the cluster of heartbeats inside it.
"I said, did you tell Valya that?"
"...Yes," Vlad said slowly.
"I don't..." Alexi began a few minutes later but Vlad stood and began to walk from the room, "Where are you going?"
"To answer the door," Vlad replied, forgetting in his haste to escape the conversation that he needed to wait for the tell tale knock first. That knock came seconds after Vlad had left the room and his uncle blinked in surprise.
"How did he know there was someone there?" Alexi muttered to Rosalyn who said nothing.
"Good evening, Mr. Masters," the man standing before Vlad said. He was Chinese and wearing a sharp suit, watching as two men behind him moved one of two large boxes to the door. "My name is Fai Chung, I have been instructed to leave you with these, courtesy of my employers." Vlad stared in turn at the box and at the man before him in shock as the man spoke again. "They are fully trained, sir, their names are Iskra and Nika."
"...Iskra and Nika..." Vlad repeated, confused.
"Yes, sir, they are gifts from my company in many thanks for the work we do together."
After the man left Vlad paused for a moment, examining the heartbeats he could hear thudding inside the boxes and he opened the first to find an excitable, beautiful hunting dog. It was almost wolf like in its appearance with soft black fur and odd patches of white mixed in.
"So, which one are you?" he muttered to himself, kneeling to examine the silver tag hanging from its red collar. "Iskra," he read and the dog barked, seemingly in affirmation and licked his fingers happily. "And Nika," he said after releasing the second dog which looked almost the same as the first.
He lead both dogs into the foyer, noting that both seemed happy and eager to listen to him and found that he was being watched by his mother and uncle, both of whom must have been drawn from the sitting room by the dogs barking.
"Vlad...where did these come from?" his mother asked.
"My Chinese business associates," he answered, kneeling back down now that the door was closed, so that he was able to stroke the animals soft fur.
"They...they gave you dogs?"
"Yes."
"Is that...normal?"
"It's not unusual for them to give gifts but those gifts aren't usually alive," Vlad answered, "Nor do they typically give them Russian names."
"They seem very well trained," Alexi noted.
"So...how did they know that you'd like a pair of West Siberian Laikas?" Rosalyn asked,
"I might have mentioned it in one of our meetings. I've been toying with the idea of acquiring one for a while."
"Now you have two, if you choose to keep them," Alexi said.
"Well, it would be bad manners to return a gift from the Chinese," he said simply, not looking up from the dogs.
"They like you," his uncle remarked, "And...you like them."
As though embarrassed by the statement, Vlad stood almost instantly and brushed the dog fur from his black trousers, "Yes, well," he coughed, "They are...as you said, well trained."
In the quiet darkness of his lab in the early hours of the morning, Vlad hovered over his computer screens pensively and he hissed in slight surprise when an automated voice jostled him from his thoughts.
"Your recent equations regarding cloning are incorrect," the female voice spoke, "They will not function."
"I know that," Vlad replied tersely.
"Attempting to clone a human is unwise, and cloning a human ghost hybrid is impossible," the voice added.
"Perhaps."
"Then why persist in this?"
"ANII, my dear," he inhaled, "Do be quiet," Vlad said simply.
The voice that conversed with him was called 'ANII: Artificial Networking Intelligence Interface' and she was perhaps Vlad's greatest creation to date. 'She' roamed the lab and the castle as a bright blue and green hologram from one of the many computer panels. It took on the appearance of rapidly moving formulae and symbols in a sphere with rings moving around it like an orbiting planet. However, because of his near constant staff, she had little freedom, except in the lab but even that had been compromised lately; Vlad had instructed her to remain hidden whilst he'd been training the younger hybrid.
"Have you traced the signal yet?" he asked after a moment, "ANII?"
"Apologies, sir, it was my understanding that I was to be quiet."
"Very funny, I don't remember programming you with so much sarcasm," Vlad sighed.
"Human memories can be vague."
"Oh, indeed?"
"Yes, sir, in fact, statistics show that..."
"The signal, from where did it originate?" Vlad carefully pronounced each word.
"It is impossible to trace."
"What?!"
"The signal is impossible to..."
"I heard you!" he snapped, "But it's not possible! You have the best programming on the planet!"
"Indeed, sir, but the fact remains; I am unable to trace the signal to its source." Vlad seemed to pale at this conclusion and the automated voice continued, "It is my belief, sir, that this leads to only one possible conclusion."
"I programmed you with everything I know...based on what he taught me. He has access to a technological company good enough to rival my own...but I didn't think he'd...why would he..." Vlad said slowly, "My...father...did this," he breathed.
"Most probably, yes."
"...Ah... " he sighed.
"What will you do?"
"I..."
"Might I suggest that I continue to test this theory?"
"How exactly will you do that? The signal cannot be traced, I have no access to my father's work, I..."
"The hunter ghost, Skulker could be of assistance."
"If I wanted the house smashed to pieces, then yes," Vlad scoffed. "No, I'll go myself...tonight...now, I suppose."
"And what am I to do?"
"Analyse whatever I find, as always, and stay quiet. And make sure you keep track of Daniel's Ecto signature, I don't suppose we've done nearly enough to stabilise it yet."
"Why is it necessary to conceal my program from the castles' other inhabitants?"
"You've asked me that before," Vlad said, morphing into his ghost half.
"There has never been this many people here before," she replied.
"Exactly, which is why you'll stay hidden. They're human, they don't need any more reason to ask questions about me. My mother already knows there's something...different about me, and my uncle doesn't need to suspect even that. We don't need them to know that I possess a sentient AI as well as everything else."
"Very well, sir."
*1 I just couldn't resist giving Vlad an AI, I've been playing too much Mass Effect 2 lately. I remember in one episode, Vlad does have the hologram of Maddie, I think it's in an episode after 'Masters of Time' which means I can change it.
