Chapter 23.
LANGLEY, VIRGINIA
(JULY 4, 1996)
Roger Benson was watching the fireworks displays from Boston, New York City, and Washington, DC, on three of the TV monitors in his office, when his pocket pager started beeping. Whereupon, he immediately hit the "mute" button on his remote control before unlocking the right bottom drawer of his desk. From that drawer, he withdrew a radio-telephone with built-in scrambler. A bit outmoded, by modern standards, perhaps! But, given the increasing sophistication among civilian computer pirates, these days, such comparatively low-tech means of private communication satisfied his sense of caution.
"Yes?" he said, upon picking up the receiver.
"It's Jeffries. We finally caught up to Marner."
"Really? Where's he been hiding for the past year?"
"In plain sight... as one of those omnivorous carnival sideshow geeks! Alias: 'Kent Falls.' Unfortunately, for him, the carnival got raided by the DEA in Florida. For lacing their soft drinks with too much real coke! Consequently, we had to retain the services of the Miami branch of Wolfram and Hart to bail him out. I then sent our friend, Mr. Trick, to bring him back. With a little help from Darts Five and Six!"
"Good! Although, I'm a little worried about how much those shysters are going to bill us for their services."
"Not a cent. They did this on a 'quid pro quo' basis."
"Heh! Now, I'm even _more_ worried."
SOMEWHERE IN THE PENTAGON
(SIX MONTHS LATER)
Benson and Colonel Burgess sat and watched as Special Agent Jeffries activated the portable DVD player. A minute later, the tiny screen lit up with the contents of the disc it was playing. And what they saw might have nauseated anyone and everyone else with the clearance to watch it!
But, not these two.
"What you're now seeing," Jeffries announced. "...is the operation in which Dart Three was neurosurgically implanted with a variant of the HST chip used by Dr. Walsh's people out in Sunnydale. Between this and the jabrokah gas, all memories of his old life, as Silas Marner, have been permanently erased. From now on, he'll work in the Accounts Receivable Department, at the L.A. branch of Wolfram and Hart, as their first Newcomer paralegal. Mr. William Abel Hours!"
"Cute!" grunted the moon-eyed colonel. "But, what if we ever have need of his services?"
"They'll be more than glad to lend him to us," replied the portly agent. "For a fee!"
"And all it will take to activate his old skills is the simple flick of a remote-control switch?" inquired Benson.
Jeffries nodded.
INITIATIVE COMPOUND,
SUNNYDALE, CALIF.
(APRIL 1, 1997)
"We extracted it from the body of Dart Five," said Jeffries. "Dr. Smith examined it and called it 'fascinating.' With an actual smile on his face!"
Dr. Maggie Walsh looked at the image presented on the screen of her laptop computer, as she conversed with the DRI agent via two-way secure webcast.
"I've never seen anything like it," she admitted. "What did Smith find out about it so far?"
"Well, biologically, it's some sort of parasitic planarian. But, it can bore through flesh and tissue like an earthworm burrowing through the ground. It even has a rudimentary form of sentience! Just moments before Dart Five was finally subdued with enough TASER voltage? It actually used his vocal cords to call itself 'Talamour!' "
"Fascinating, indeed," replied Walsh. "Were there any adverse effects to his body similar to how a conventional planarian would affect a human body?"
"Just the opposite. It seemed to bond with him! Dr. Smith thinks it might be a fringe benefit of the way some of the males of his people carry the embryos of their children for half the gestation period."
"A la the male seahorse," muttered Walsh.
Jeffries nodded, adding, "Benson thinks if we could find more of these things, and implant them with small enough chips, we might be able to expand the original parameters of Project: D.A.R.T."
Walsh smiled. "You mean, conscript a greater number of Newcomers... and mind-control them much better than you did Marner."
"Exactly."
LANGLEY, VIRGINIA
(MAY 21, 1998)
"How goes Project: Excursion?" asked Benson at their latest weekly meeting.
"Not so good," replied Burgess. "I just got word from Lucard Aerospace that work is falling behind on the Mars Lander due to labor union troubles. Seems the head of the local union wants a bigger piece of the action than he's already getting. So, all the union employees have suddenly come down with a case of 'blue collar flu!' If you catch my drift."
"All too clearly. Who's the head of the local?"
"A guy named Lucas Halton. Better known to Houston P.D. as 'The Wizard.' Because his rivals have a habit of disappearing... like magic!"
"Like magic, huh?"
Twenty minutes later, Benson was conferring with Quentin Travers via two-way secure webcast. The matter much too urgent to indulge his preferred method of telecommunication.
"The nickname is more apt than you know," replied the Chairman of the Watchers' Council. "Halton is the local primogen of Clan Tremere! It was he who magically incited a certain group of religious fanatics to purge the Gangrel Clan from the entire Gulf Coast of East Texas back in '91. Thereby allowing him to usurp Michael B. Puckett* as Prince of Houston!"
"Any chance of us borrowing the Slayer from Sunnydale to get rid of him?"
Travers shook his head. "She can't be spared. Things are coming to a head with Mayor Wilkins. Why not use one of your Darts to eliminate him?"
"I was hoping not to," replied Benson. "That means owing another favor to Wolfram and Hart! But, it looks like I have no other choice."
WASHINGTON, DC
(MARCH 30, 1999)
"He was named 'Duncan Shane' by a guy who's married to a Wayne Newton fan," Jeffries explained while reading from a beige folder. "But, to us, he's just good old Dart Two."
"I don't care about his autobiography!" snapped Benson. "All I want to know is whether or not he's just as good as Dart Three was?"
"Let's put it this way. The only one better than him is Dart One. A.k.a. the Scourge of Sunnydale!"
"Then, pair him up with You-know-who. Immediately!"
HOUSTON, TEXAS
(2 MONTHS LATER)
Karen Suadela, primogen of the local Brujah Clan, knelt before the new Prince of the City.
"Congratulations, Your Highness."
Alexander Lucard grinned. "Thank you, my dear."
While, at roughly that same moment, in Washington, DC, Roger Benson was similarly congratulating Dart Two. Only to have the latter respond with: "My name... is Talamour."
THE KING O' CLUBS,
BEVERLY HILLS, CALIF.
SEPTEMBER 26, 1999
(3:00 A. M./PDT)
They met in a soundproof private backroom on the second floor of the nightclub. Former Kleetzatsun on the right side of the table; and members of the Trimerez Cartel on the left. With William Harcourt seated at the table's head.
"Thank you all for coming," he began with a smile. "I would apologize for the late hour. But, I know that, for some of you, this is merely the equivalent of mid-afternoon."
The vampires in question politely chuckled. Harcourt then continued.
"When first I began studying the economic sciences of this, my people's new home-away-from-homeworld, I came across an article about a strangely named beverage that used to be very popular in 19th-century New York City. I say 'strangely,' because it was called a 'chocolate egg cream.' Yet, the beverage contained neither eggs nor cream! Merely chocolate milk... and carbon-aerated tap water. This, in turn, has inspired me to develop a beverage geared specifically for consumption by my people. Namely, sour milk. . ."
"...aerated with jabrokah."
Tbc
Michael B. Puckett: a slight in-joke. Actor S. Michael Bellammo played the father of Jason London's "Cody Puckett" in the 1991 TV-movie pilot "Blood Ties."
Sour milk: drinking it is to Newcomers what drinking alcohol is to Earthlings.
Jabrokah: the mind-controlling gas used on Newcomer slave ships (like the now-Earthbound Gruza).