That Nietzsche Thing (17 page)

But this time, instead of finding bliss in
its hold, I found myself back in the living room of Vivian
Montavez’s apartment.

I knew it was a dream – a warm, safe place to
escape to – but something about it felt strangely real. That same
eerie sensation I’d felt on first stepping foot in her apartment, I
felt again. Like I was home.

I could smell coffee brewing and the sound of
bacon frying from the kitchen. I looked around and the apartment
looked the same. I looked at the city beyond the windows. It was a
sunny day. The city wasn’t burning. There was no riot here. It was
a dream, but it felt more real than reality.

“Sit down, the eggs are ready,” a woman’s
voice came from the kitchen. I knew its owner, but then I didn’t
know her either. I walked to the kitchen, pass the breakfast table
set for two and looked at Vivian standing at the stove top. “Coffee
should be ready,” she said, turning the bacon in the pan.

She was Vivian, but not
that
Vivian.
Not the Vivian I knew. It was Vivian from before she’d died. She
was wearing PJ bottoms and a sports bra, her hair a tangled mess of
bed-head. She looked up and smiled at me as she sneaked a piece of
bacon out of the pan and nibbled at its end.

“Ouch!” she laughed and dropped the rind back
in the pan. She leaned around the stove and pecked me on the cheek.
“What’s wrong? You look dazed and confused.”

“I…” I looked down at myself. I was wearing
the top half of the PJ set and a pair of baggy boxer shorts. I
was
home, I realized. This had always been my home. I lived
here with Vivian. Had for years. I opened a cupboard and took out
my favorite mug, the one with the wrestling kittens on it, and
poured myself a cup of coffee. I sat down at my place at the table
and looked out the window.

The crazy old crone with the apartment next
to us was using her window as a clothes dryer again. The Super had
told her not to hanger her underwear out there...

“Here you go,” Vivian said, sliding a plate
of bacon and eggs before me. Her eggs had gorgonzola, mine extra
pepper.

“Thanks,” I said, picking up my fork.

“Do you have to work today?” she asked as she
began to chew on her bacon.

“No, I did my four tens. I’m off until
Tuesday,” I said.

Vivian laughed. “A Saturday free. A rare
treat!”

“Mmm,” I said around my eggs. “What do you
want to do?”

“Well, there’s plenty of work to do at the
P-Patch. You can come help me.”

“Or, I can watch the game.” I smiled across
the table at her.

“Or you can watch the game.” She smiled
back.

Right then, I could think of nothing but how
much I loved her. I’d always loved her. We were happy. Young and
alive.

I never wanted it to end.

Then, like the most unwanted nightmare you
could imagine, I remembered that I was Geneing. Was this what it
was like for the other Genies? It was no surprise that they died of
thirst and hunger. To be so...happy. Was this the small sliver of
Eden that Geneing was showing to us? The simple bliss of being
happy?

It was a horrible trick.

I had to wake up, I was in the middle of a
war. There was no time for me to sit around and play house in my
imagination with Vivian Montavez. She didn’t really exist. Not this
Vivian. Vivian was nothing like this woman. Perhaps she had been
once but not anymore.

The Vivian I knew was a killer. A destroyer.
A monster.

I tried to think about Max and the Wild
Things. But I wasn’t waking up.

What was wrong?

“We have to talk, Sasha,” Vivian said across
the table.

At first I ignored her, like a TV turned to a
channel I wasn’t watching. But then I realized Vivian was talking
to me. The real Vivian was talking to the real me. Not the howdy
doody couple we’d just been pretending to be.

“Vivian?” I asked, looking at the young,
beautiful, fresh-faced girl for any signs of the woman I knew.

“Yes, Detective,” she said, sighing. “As
always, there isn’t much time. So it’s best if you just
listen.”

“How?” I said, looking around. “Aren’t I
Geneing?”

“Yes... it’s too hard to explain. All the
Genies escape to the same place, I guess. You can climb into each
other’s fantasies if you know what you’re doing.”

“Is this my fantasy or yours?”

“Does it matter?” She shook her head. Her
bed-head jiggled. “What’s important is that Cain can’t hear us
here. He has no power here.”

“But when we’re awake?”

“He hears everything. Knows everything.”

“Fuck.” I ran a hand across my stubbly
chin.

“Listen,” Vivian said, putting down her fork
and leaning across the small breakfast table. “There’s one last
part of Dark’s mystery left to decipher. One last task to do before
everything is complete.”

“There’s more? More than decoding his book?
More than finding Q?”

“Yes,” Vivian said, taking hold of my hand.
“We have to destroy Cain.”

“Destroy?” I replied in shock. “But,
you—”

“No, never.” Vivian interrupted.

“Then, you’re still with the NeoCons? Still
with your father?”

“I’m still with the side trying to put an end
to a monster.”

“But why get yourself killed? Why become like
he is?”

“To find out how to truly destroy him,”
Vivian went on. “Dark knew he couldn’t do it.”

“He took the Geneing. He was like me.”

“Yes, but that’s not important. He knew Cain
was invulnerable. Even to sunlight. We all are. It destroys but it
doesn’t kill. Dark could have burned Cain to ashes, and while one
molecule was left intact, he would slowly coalesce back into his
original form. It’s happened before. But Dark knew how Cain could
be destroyed. Forever. I’m sure of it.”

“None of this was in his novel.”

“No. He didn’t even trust the Rosicrucians
with this fact.”

“But how?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?” I said, incredulous. All of
that? For nothing? “But you’re sure he can?”

“Yes. I am now. Now that I’m like him.”

I sighed. Disgusted.

“Look,” Vivian forged on, anger burning in
her brown eyes. “I know we’re not real vampires. Real
real
vampires. Tebor and I. Cain said as much. The Geneing virus is a
bastardization of his blood. He considers us Nosferatu-lite. When
1768 extracted the virus from Cain, they must have modified it in
some fashion so they could control it.”

“Yes, the on/off triggers,” I agreed.

“But you were created directly by Cain. His
bite, not from 300. You shouldn’t have them.”

“No, but
Where the Wild Things
Are
...”

“Right...” Vivian prodded.

“It must mean that Cain has been infected by
his own virus...” I said, confused. “But how can that be?”

“Dark must have infected him. Cain has a
trigger,” Vivian said in disbelief.

“Cain is a Gene Genie,” I agreed. Then
laughed. “Just like us all.”

“That’s how he can me destroyed,” Vivian
added, excitedly. “If his consciousness is forever trapped here...”
She gestured around at the apartment.

“Perhaps then, he can’t regenerate. You said
he didn’t sleep like humans do. Even in death. He’s forever
awake.”

“But if he’s Geneing...” Vivian trailed off,
then came back, forcefully. “We just need to discover his
trigger.”

What were we doing? I shook myself. Plotting
against Cain? Only a few hours ago I was fighting a pitched street
battle in his name. Now I was conspiring to undo him. But I felt no
guilt. Vivian was right. Back in reality, I was under his control.
But in the fantasy of Geneing, in my own little haven with Vivian
and breakfast bacon, I was a free man. My body might be dying, but
my mind was free. Again, the idea that I was glimpsing at a little
sliver of Eden made me only the more curious about paradise.

“He’d have done it all in here,” I said,
looking around.

“Who?”

“Dark.”

“In this apartment?” Vivian asked,
confused.

“No. In his head. In his bliss. And hidden
his work, even from himself. In here he was free to plot against
Cain, but once he returned to reality, he’d have been a slave, just
like us. No wonder there was no mention of Cain’s trigger in Dark’s
writing, he wasn’t even aware of it himself. He’d have hidden it as
a cypher, unconsciously somehow, even beyond his considerable
powers of reason. But what?”

“You need to find it,” Vivian implored. “And
you need to find it quickly. Cain is resting, but when night falls,
he’ll descend on this town with vengeance. The NeoCons and the Army
won’t stand against him at the height of his powers.”

“There was nothing in Q...” I was still
thinking. “…nothing about a trigger for Cain. He must have pasted
down the cypher through the Rosicrucians orally.”

“Are you listening, Sasha?” Vivian shook my
shoulder. “There’s no time for this.”

“But once I leave this apartment,” I
protested. “Cain’s power over me will return.”

“No,” Vivian said, raising from her seat. “We
can fight against it when we’re together. If we focus on this
apartment, on this place. We still have free will, Sasha, even with
Cain’s blood in our veins.”

Vivian pulled me up to my feet, away from the
breakfast table.

I resisted, shaking my head. “I’m not ready.
I don’t even know what I’m looking for. Can’t we wait just a few
more minutes? Finish breakfast?”

“No, Sasha, it has to be now,” she pulled
hard on my outstretched arms. I pulled back, pulling her in close.
I took my opportunity. I’d only get one.

I kissed her.

She kissed me back.

After a long, perfect moment, she pulled
away, taking a breath. “Wake up, Sasha,” she said. “And sailed back
over a year, and in and out of weeks...”

“No!” I screamed.

“...and through a day, and into the night of
his very own room...”

Chapter 24

I awoke in the stationary store’s basement,
snapping suddenly back to attention. What few Genies I still had at
my command were sprawled out on the floor around me. The sun was
starting to set outside the tiny, barred window that faced onto the
street.

There was hardly any time left.

I climbed painfully to my feet.

I found my pack of Kools in my bomber jacket
and knocked out a cigarette. I stepped across the blissed-out
Genies and climbed the backstairs to the alley. In the evening
light, I lit my smoke. All I had was minutes and no idea of what I
was looking for, or where to find it.

I smoked my cigarette slowly. It was, at the
very least, something to do.

Out on the city streets, I flagged down the
first Stryker I saw. It was cutting across an avenue, heading up
the hill, but it obliged me by making a U-turn and training its
weapons on me. I put my hands into the air and waved my badge at
the six wheeled armored car. When I bellowed that I wanted to see
Special Agent Constantine, a hatched popped open, and a young
Corporal popped out.

He gave me a ride back to the Feds’ mobile
HQ.

I could feel the pull of Cain’s will tugging
on my mind, but while I focused on Vivian and breakfast in her
apartment, I could fight against it. But not for long. Cain’s
fingers dug deep into my mind. Into my soul. But Vivian’s kiss
fortified me.

I would need Vivian beside me if I was going
to see my task through.

Constantine’s Cobra Commander Missile Command
Center sat in shambles. Sometime in the assault, Genies had made it
through the perimeter. The Feds had made some attempt to clean up
the mess in the daylight hours, but burned out cars and broken
equipment still littered the street in front of the City Hall.
Constantine’s occupying forced had worked to raise their banner of
Competence, Community, Compassion over the door to the Town Hall,
but the Genies had torn it partially down. Now, just the tattered
remains of three gargantuan C’s flapped in the breeze over the
grand doorway. I looked up at them and contemplated the hubris,
smoking my Kools.

“Where the fuck have you been?” Constantine
called from the door to his mobile HQ. He’d traded his dark suit
for body armor and fatigues, his centimeter assault rifle slung on
his back. He trotted down the trailer’s short ladder and across the
street of spent brass and rubble. He eyed me warily. “I thought you
were dead.”

“No,” I shook my head and threw away the butt
of my spent cigarette. “They took me. Made me take them to Elton.
He’s alive. Awake.”

Constantine nodded. “I know.”

“Then you know…” I turned to squint at the
setting sun. “…that they’ll attack when the sun sets.”

“Yes, we’re ready.”

“No, you need to pack up, Special Agent. You
can’t win this battle.”

“The Genie threat has been contained,” he
said, angrily.

“Genies yes but they were just the appetizer.
The main course is this evening.”

“Reinforcements are arriving from
McCord-Lewis. Armor. Air support.”

“It won’t be enough. Not against Q.”

Constantine paused. “Then it really is him?
Elton?”

“Yes.”

“Some of the reports...” Constantine joined
me, watching the setting sun. “It just doesn’t seem real.”

“You need to fall back, regroup.”

“No,” Constantine said with an air of
inevitability. “We fight here, or we’ll always be retreating. The
farther he travels, the more Genies will flock to his cause. The
longer he’s alive, the more followers he’ll create. Right now
there’s just him and...those two from the van?”

“Yes.”

“Their ranks will never be this small again.
No, Detective, we fight here, tonight. Or the end of the world is
upon us.”

“You can’t fight the devil, Special Agent,” I
said.

“We can and will,” Constantine countered. He
turned and started back toward his mobile HQ.