Chapter 4

Records. Locked.
No data is unattainable.
Breaching.

Just today, they'd lost two workers. Some of the men were beginning to question the wisdom of this dig. This cave had been occupied by Squees, but scouts of the Sons of Adam had driven the mutants out without incident. The Sons had quickly set up base, years of underground migration teaching them to be thorough and efficient. Formations of rock rising from the ground or hanging from the ceiling were utilized as stakes, walls or defense. Any body of water (in this case, a pool that flowed in from a hole in the wall) was tested for potability, then protected.
Not two weeks earlier, having occupied this set of underground spaces for months, some of the patrol scouts had come across a soft wall. Excited, they had reported back to Kalten Brunner, their unanimously elected leader. He'd been studying the Family Trees, determining the next generation of marriages. With news of a wall that could be burrowed through, he had immediately ordered a detachment of miners to begin work on it. This was always dangerous work, as the men believed there was a possibility they would release the same deadly fumes which were purported to cause the initial NIL Outbreak. The full armor the miners wore, complete with head coverings and gas masks, made working slow but the alternative terrified the “Last Humans” more than anything else. A few feet into the soft rock, and something gaseous had released, but it was not the dreaded Death Winds. Kalten had been standing a safe distance back and would later swear it sounded like a pressurized container opening. Then his people started dying. Whatever was behind this wall was not wishing to be found. Tiny explosions, pressurized darts and blades, even automatic firearms rarely seen underground burst through the flesh, spilling precious blood. There were now several holes in the wall, but standing in front of them, let alone looking through them proved extremely hazardous.
Their first big break had come yesterday when a tiny marble-bomb frequently used for extreme security measures turned out to be a dud. After carefully ensuring it would not ever go off, the Sons of Adam had examined the sphere for information. Though tiny, the M-B proved quite useful, if for no other reason that engraved carefully into the glass was a heraldic device which told them all they needed to know.
“Atreans,” Kalten had spit. This find had only strengthened their resolve to break through to the inner chamber. If the cursed vampires didn't want them to have something, they would do anything to get it. Still, Kalten was concerned over the rising body count.
The two deaths this morning decided it for him. He brought together his council, the best years of carefully planned eugenics had produced.
“As far as I can see, there is only one thing we can do. We know the security is reacting to us as intruders. My guess is it's AI controlled, either a computer or android. Either way, it's a good bet it would permit one of its masters in.”
“What are you thinking?” the head miner, Rudolph asked, his eyes twitching (a nervous tic he'd developed ever since they'd started breaching the chamber). Kalten smiled, resolve and malice dancing in his eyes.
“We're going to kidnap an Atrean and make them open the door for us.”

~~
Journal Entry #21
Often when an administration is replaced, the currency is changed. This is true even when dealing with a change of every administration in the world all at once. The back-alley battle between the Thyestrians and my people spilled into the daylight world when the House of Atreus staged a carefully planned and executed attack, which upset the entire world order. The House of Thyestes was driven underground, their strange appearance making it impossible to gain human allies. Furthermore, having always been strong advocates of brute force over subversiveness, the Thyestrians had no way of politically attacking once the Atreans took control of the surface world's resources. In short, the Thyestrians were outmaneuvered.
The Adjudicator soon realized that a new system of economics would be necessary for society to function. Sure, most humans were going to live the rest of their meager existences as serfs, but there were simply not enough vampires to control them all, and honestly, who would want to bother anyway? At the same time, human blood was the vampires sustenance, so simply outright killing them would be counter-productive. It was therefore necessary for these humans to make themselves useful to the greater good (read: us), even if not directly serving them. Thus, the LiqNit Gun was developed and so named because scientists are not known for their creativity. The LNG worked very similar to the way doctors drew blood from patients, only more precisely and more quickly. The individual, usually a human, would set the LNG to a specific value setting and draw blood from him or herself. This was kept at sub-zero temperatures in metal cylinders surrounded by liquid nitrogen. There were many theories on why vampires needed live blood to survive; the most prevalent was that the blood itself was incidental, it merely acted as a conduit for the life force inherent in all living beings, but strongest in humans. The cause of that phenomenon was still uncertain. Freezing the blood allowed it to be stored for later consumption. The mechanism which allowed it to draw specific amounts ensured the human's safety and allowed for the trading of good and services.
How this system would have worked is impossible to say now, as not long after, the Outbreak began and all semblance of civilized systems, economic or otherwise, disappeared into the darkness of the Black Winter. Concepts like money became even more meaningless. However, because of their decades of decadence, and reliance on human Techniks, engineers and agriculturalists, the vampires had lost all competence for practical living. Now it seemed the humans were necessary to the vampires survival as things needed to be grown, repaired or built.

“Good business,” Denisovich concluded. With the bits she had salvaged from the Emerald City, as well as a few saved LN cylinders, she had acquired some new clothes, including a leather bodice fitted just under the chest and held on by a strap at the top and four buckles down the front. Besides appealing to her personal aesthetic (she'd never understood the ladies of court who insisted on carrying the weight of a tank around their waist for the sake of fashion), it served as a practical form of armor: diminishing the possibility of getting clawed or scratched by a NIL or mutant, without hindering her mobility. Phraestus had sharpened both her blades and given them a good polish. He'd even reinforced the handle of her saw sword free of charge and refused all offers of compensation. Wing sold her an off-white shirt spun from a substance Denisovich didn't recognize but which felt superb. From Alice Fracas, Denisovich purchased a pair of desert goggles, as her own had been damaged by acid rain and setting out into the Wasteland with faulty gear was a quick way to become some thing's mid afternoon snack.
She'd seen nothing of Jael or Kaze all morning but the mini-electrical storm from an even deeper section of the Junkyard gave her a notion why.
Perhaps her most surprising and lucrative find was a set of interlinked messenger golems. These Old Tech machines each fit in the palm of the hand and came in a variety of designs. The high nobility of the Sapphire City, as well as the neophytes of the port and the Junkyard survivors found them highly valuable as they were the only ranged means of communication. Depending on the level of technology, the golem either relayed text messages through a projector or audio messages through a speaker. Only a few years passed after the House of Atreus had seized control of the surface world before these machines had replaced telephones. At that time, they could be used to transmit real-time video messages as well, but now, not only was the recording mechanism faulty the more advanced a golem was, there was also some delay, as the infrastructure once used to ensure speedy transmission had long disintegrated. Few functioning golems remained, making them even more valuable and despite no longer retaining their former ubiquitous usefulness, they still offered the most reliable method of communication, regardless of location.
This particular set had seen easier days; what had once been a gleaming chrome was worn away to a dull gray. The remains of a black archaic cross wrapped around what appeared to be the back. Denisovich recognized it quickly, a relic of the Church.
The Church was one of the first institutions to be dismantled once the Atreans took power, for no other reason than that it had a propensity for generating members exceedingly good at killing the pires. This, of course, led to an underground resistance, which, though laughable, had obviously managed to spread out enough to require the ranged messengers. Denisovich smiled at the irony that one of her kind would now be making use of the Church's toys.
“Why exactly did you guys decide to use these instead of phones?” Alice had asked her as she inspected the marks. Denisovich glanced at her, surprised the young human would be aware of such ancient technology. Alice smiled, impishly.
“I collect a lot of old books and movies, anything to hold onto the culture from before the Outbreak. I see people holding these...boxes, like this,” she curled her middle three fingers and put her hand to the side of her head so that her thumb pressed against her ear and her little finger rested in front of her mouth. Denisovich nodded her understanding.
“I saw telephones and even computers used for communication. We took those out to ensure our monopoly on information sharing, to keep rebellious factions from organizing. Besides, golems can work anywhere in the world, even underground. There's no need for towers, lines, no need for a connection. Though, to be honest, even I'm not sure exactly how they work.”
Alice considered this. “I guess you guys thought of everything. Well, almost everything,” she added, no small amount of bitterness creeping into her voice. Denisovich's face darkened.
“Thus my people's arrogance becomes our weakness. Pride goes before a fall, as they say.”
Alice's eyes flared. “I don't see them doing too badly, whizzing around in that flying fortress of yours. They don't have to scratch out a living here on the ground like we do! They live comfortably, with no concerns, no worries, just let the human slaves take care of everything. All they lost was the right to strut around down here, so now they strut around up there.” Tears had started pooling in the sides of her eyes. Denisovich shifted awkwardly, at a loss for what to say.
“You are not wrong,” she started at length, speaking slowly, “It's-” She cut herself off, realizing anything she could say was meaningless. Quietly, she thanked Fracas for the golems and walked out, leaving the young woman alone with her hurt.
Denisovich mind was still doing cartwheels when she felt something bounce off her leg. Startled, she looked down, expecting some kind of attack. What she was met with instead was a very upset looking Mara Li.
“You weren't even gunna byebye?” she asked, her mouth a bow of anger. Denisovich laughed, the agitation caused by Alice's outburst pushed the back of her mind.
“Actually, I have something for you, little one.”
“I'm not that little!” Mara Li protested, puffing herself up. Denisovich poked her in the stomach and all the breath the little girl had been holding in rushed out. “Unfair!” she exclaimed, but giggled immediately after. Denisovich drew one of the smaller golems from her rucksack and handed it to Mara Li who looked like she'd never seen one before. Denisovich knelt down so she could look the little girl in the eye.
“I want you to hold on to this for me,” Denisovich told her, making her voice as solemn as she possibly could, “And sometime, if I need your help, I will call you on it, okay? You have to make sure to never lose it or sell it, do you understand? This is a big responsibility, do you think you can handle it?”
Whether Mara Li totally understood or not, she nodded gravely, before pulling at a string around her neck. Attached to it was a pouch, similar to the one Denisovich kept her LN cylinders in.
“I put all my special things in here,” Mara Li whispered, opening it up for Denisovich to inspect. Inside there were a few pieces of things Denisovich didn't recognize, and a picture of a smiling couple she assumed to be Mara Li's parents. Watching the little survivor drop the golem inside to rest with all of what remained of her former life, what might have been without the NIL's and the Black Winter, made Denisovich's chest hurt. She patted the little girl on the head and turned to leave. At the massive iron gate on the opposite side she had entered, Kaze and Jael awaited her. If they were pleased or sad to see her go, they made no sign.
“We appreciate you following our rules and behaving inside the Junkyard,” Jael started.
“You sound surprised,” Denisovich responded, wryly. Jael shrugged.
“You clearly have more self-control than the rest of your rabid kind,” Kaze explained. Denisovich's jaw twitched. Her distaste for the decadent life of the nobility in no way hampered her own personal pride.
“My “rabid kind” seemed to have no problem conquering your world in just a few short decades,” she pointed out. Kaze seemed ready to make an issue of it, but Jael just laughed.
“By such logic, the NIL's are far superior to you, 'cause the Atreans took nearly half a century to completely overcome the human race, where the NIL's took a mere decade or so.”
For the second time in a half hour, Denisovich felt distinctly uncomfortable. Though she considered the way humans were treated in the Sapphire City unjust, it had never diminished her belief in the superiority of her species. Yet, Jael was right, by all accounts, the mindless, ravenous zombies which now covered the globe were clearly the fittest race. It was a disturbing paradox.
“But Kaze is right,” Jael went on, not missing Denisovich's inner conflict, “You are a testament to the Atreans as a reasonable people. Thank you for bringing us some fresh supplies. You're welcome to come back next time you're passing this direction.”
Denisovich face colored, uncertain now what the socially appropriate response was.
“You may not be as happy to see me next time.”
Jael craned her head to one side and for the first time Denisovich heard the whir of her inner motors spinning.
“You don't take compliments well, do you?”
Pulling the goggles over her eyes and buckling her coat tightly, Denisovich's mind was already preparing for the next leg of her nomadic journey.
“My people have a saying. “Beware of those who flatter, for in such confections are hidden razor blades.”