Chapter 5:
(June 20, 3060 AD: Londinium)
With this many people around him, Abel felt justified when he tensed at even the slightest movements from the trio of vampires. Their closeness was beginning to fray on his nerves. All Abel wanted to do was forget about this whole mess, turn around and sleep for the next ten years. Dead zone be damned, Abel had enough human interaction to last him for quite a while.
The last time he'd been in the presence of so many people was when he was just a test subject, and ever since the Armageddon broke out and Abel gained his freedom, he always limited the number of people he interacted with at once.
Abel was a pro at handling one person. He could even handle a certified man-child like Leon for extended periods of time, but in all of Abel's years, he never had to share his breathing space with three other people for more than five minutes.
And it was pushing ten days!
The fact they were underground, wasn't helping anything. He should never have offered to lead the trio of vampires to Londinium. When he offered, he was of the mind that he'd lead them through the night and find shelter in the day, but Virgil had derailed that idea.
"Our Empress made us a map of an underground tunnel," Virgil had said.
As if it wasn't enough that Leon and the Vatican were encroaching on his territory, now Abel also had an entire population of vampire's to worry about!
Bitterly, Abel trailed after the trio of vampires in the dark tunnels. He hadn't turned on the lights in hopes of scaring them off, but it appeared that they could see perfectly fine without light and had instead been worried about Abel -the supposed human- traversing in the dark.
"The architecture of these tunnels reminds me of home," Astharoshe said, breaking Abel from his thoughts.
He guessed that meant they came from an advanced society. The buildings of today were rather crude in Abel's opinion. But then, he'd been alive when buildings were made of metal and glass that were integrated with technology.
Virgil hummed, "these were built pre-armageddon, so I'm not surprised. Imagine how much more advanced everything could be if the war never happened?" He said almost sadly.
"Pft," Vanessa scoffed. "If Armageddon never happened, we wouldn't be here you moron. Now be quiet so I can figure this out," she ordered as she tapped away at the device in her hand.
If Abel wasn't certain that these three could best him in a fight, he'd have destroyed that pad within a second. It was that device which led to his tunnels being invaded in the first place. It was scary how accurate it mapped out the tunnels.
Abel peered over Vanessa's shoulder to look at the map printed on the screen. They had taken a wrong turn a fork away. The exit Vanessa had led them to collapsed several centuries ago, but Abel hadn't told her this, so it was really no one's fault but his, that they would be stuck for another hour or so.
Still, they'd be out of here within the day. Then Abel would find Esther, find out how the kidnappers had managed to keep tabs on him, murder them - or befriend them if they ended up being immortal - and retreat to… somewhere. The tunnels weren't the ideal place to stay anymore.
"This way," Vanessa said, sliding a door open to the hidden corridor and Abel clenched his fist. He shouldn't be surprised anymore. They were using ancient technology after all.
Abel silently trailed behind Vanessa with Virgil and Astharoshe to his back. He'd been deemed blind by Methuselah standard and had thus been placed near the source of light, but hadn't been given the tablet since he was also deemed incompetent of using their advanced technology. The thought made Abel scoff, but he had kept silent.
Sighing, Abel rubbed the bridge of his nose. He really wanted to slip his shades back on but knew it would seem odd to the others.
"Do you need to rest?" Virgil asked.
"No," Abel shook his head and was grateful when Virgil didn't try starting up a conversation. He wasn't sure how long they walked in silence, but eventually Abel perked up when the exit was in view.
"Perfect," Vanessa grinned as she squatted near the control panel and hooked her tablet to it.
"Do you need help?" Virgil asked.
"Nope, I got it. I got it."
And true to her word, the exit shook and the metal door slid open.
"Good thing the sun just set," Astharoshe commented. She was the first to squeeze herself through the exit before it even fully opened. "So do you hear her, Uncle?"
Hear who? Abel wanted to ask and raised a brow when Virgil tucked a strand of hair behind his ear and swiveled his head this way and that.
"Her situation would have caused a change in her heartbeat unless she's unconscious," Virgil said once he stopped his swiveling. "There are four people with heartbeats similar to hers. Two of them are sleeping, one is agitated and the other calm. I'm going to guess that the calm one isn't hers, but it's possible that she could have been knocked out, so we should also check the two that are sleeping."
"I'll go after the agitated one!" Astharoshe grinned. "Which way is it?"
"No," Virgil frowned. "You'll be going with… Shades to one of the unconscious ones."
Abel bristled, all thoughts on Virgil's inhuman hearing pushed back. He hated being bossed around and he hated the fact that he was being told to pair up with one of them. "I can go to one of the locations by myself."
"As can I," Astharoshe said, crossing her arms.
"There's three possible locations and four of us, two will have to pair up and since Vanessa and I work efficiently alone, that leaves the two of you. Astharoshe, you're headstrong and rush into everything. You're strong but never think ahead. And you," Virgil turned to Abel, "may be strong in your own right, but you don't have the strength of a Methuselah which Astharoshe has. I have a feeling you have the patience that Astharoshe doesn't have, so I ask that you two work together. You'll balance out your strengths and weaknesses."
Abel had to admit he had a point. Didn't mean he was pleased with it. Up until vampires became a thing, Abel had been the strongest living being on the planet.
"Fine," Abel and Astharoshe huffed together and shot twin glares at each other. "Which way?" they added, which caused Abel's lips to thin in annoyance and Astharoshe to flash her fangs.
This partnership wasn't going to end well.
Abel ignored the smug looks on the twin's faces.
xxxx
Caterina drummed her fingers against the wood of her desk. Like the name suggested, the Dead Zone was a dead end. Caterina had gone there in hopes of establishing an agreement with the vampires but couldn't find a trace of them. Besides the floating meteor in the sky, nothing would suggest that there were any aliens on Earth and after several days of circling the area below the meteor and scanning the land for any signs of a hidden civilization, Caterina had decided to pull out.
Good thing too, since Leon was starting to get on her nerves with all of his perverse attempts of hitting on her, and William was beginning to get fidgety without his daily fix of tinkering with some gadget or other.
Caterina adjusted her monocle and turned back to her latest project; getting in touch with the leader of the vampires. Unlike her brother, she was sure that they weren't all bad, and was of the opinion that being comrades would be better than declaring war.
However, just because she was seeking an alliance with the vampires, didn't mean she wasn't making preparations in case they attacked. Already, Caterina had William and Tres designing ideas of UV lights to be installed into the underground base Leon had shown them.
The bang of her door slamming open jolted Caterina out of her thoughts to eye a frazzled looking professor.
"My Lady," William awkwardly rushed to bow as he nearly tripped over his feet to approach her desk. Caterina had never seen him this animated unless he was talking about lost technology. She warily leaned back as William bombarded her with words and spit.
"Look here," he shoved a picture under her nose. "And look at this!" William hefted a large case onto her desk and opened it to reveal a rifle with white dusted around the hilt and trigger, making fingerprints visible. "The prints match!" He frantically pointed to the picture of the hand panel from the tunnels to the rifle.
Caterina had never questioned the sanity of one of the smartest men in all of Rome and Londinium, but at this moment she found herself wondering if William had finally lost it. It was already known that the rifle had belonged to "Four-Eyes" and that "Four-Eyes" had been the one to show Leon the underground tunnels.
"And look!" William fished a small gadget from his pocket. Caterina recognized it as the solar panel that William had always carried with him. Unlike his usual gadgets that were initialed with W.W.W. this one was signed with A. Nightxxxx. "It's the same fingerprint!" He hastily unscrewed part of the backing which held a data cube that was dusted in the same white that the rifle was.
For as long as Caterina has known William, the man always kept that solar panel well protected and handle the data cube with such care that he never got his own fingerprints on it.
"I'd recognize this fingerprint anywhere!" William slammed his hands on her table, but not before slipping the gadget into his pocket. He was visibly calming down now, but Caterina could still see how ecstatic he was at having learned a little more about his hero.
A. Nightxxx was a mysterious line of lost technology that tended to surface every decade. It was always something new, and it was always something that advanced the technology world by leaps and bounds. In fact, if it wasn't for the limited supplies, Caterina would bet that the world would be as advanced as it was pre-armageddon.
Caterina frowned, it wasn't her usual steely gaze, instead, it was sad. "I'm sorry, Professor, but he's dead." She hated breaking her friend's dream like this, but she wouldn't lie to him. But when William just smiled wider, Caterina paused.
"And that's where you're wrong. Remember that footprint I took a picture of when we first went into the tunnels? It matches the footprints of Leon's friend. It wasn't even a day old, Caterina. It was fresh. He's not dead."
"We found a body, William."
"True, but the corpse was burnt beyond recognition."
"Leon identified it."
"But he also said his friend has silver hair. I checked. That corpse had wisps blonde hair and we're still looking for Clergy Charles Dayton."
"Who has blonde hair," realization struck Caterina. "Was he connected to any of the other Clergymen that were killed?"
William nodded. "He was apart of the same sex ring, and stole money from the church."
Caterina rubbed her temples. "Don't be too pleased. Your role model is still a criminal."
"I prefer vigilante," William said with a hint of smugness.
A/N: Hey! I updated! It only took me a year XD