Over the course of centuries, Reginald knew he could maximize the limited potential he’d been given and achieve speed and strength relative to humans, but he’d never be able to lose weight or surpass the strength of a vampire currently stronger than him. Was that also true of thought? Were the world’s vampires frozen with a set amount of intelligence at the time of turning and incapable of truly evolving and innovating?
Reginald was still laughing. Brian and Nikki didn’t seem to appreciate the joke (or get it; they had vampire minds, after all, har-har) and stared at him as his eyes started to water. But Reginald found the situation hilarious. Hilaaaaaarious . Here they were, forty years down the road, and nothing had changed. The population looked exactly the same, and they were all still using the same technology — not just in the cities, but all the way at the top, in the military and government. The world had hit a stand-still. Perusing vampire history in the absence of human innovation was like reading the same page of a book over and over again.
“Well, hell,” said Reginald, wiping his eyes. “ That’s your problem. They’re pressing buttons while you’re sharpening sticks and wondering why the moon runs away every month. Oh, you are soooo fucked.”
But beneath the laughter, as it dissipated, Reginald felt himself sober. This had been going on for forty years. Forty years. If the humans had evolved while vampires had stagnated, what surprises might they have in store after forty fucking years?
They made their way to a room in what seemed to be the basement of the building. Then, after Reginald promised to stop mocking Ophelia and their entire race, she gave them updates on the existing incidents.
They’d heard from ambassador Karl Stromm in Geneva. Karl reported that the EU Council had finally gotten back on its feet after the sun blocker incident, in which over five hundred vampires had burned to death. Geneva had gotten used to working 24 hours a day, but the city had once been unblocked like every other city besides New York, and it still had tunnels and tube walkways between most of the important buildings. (They did not, however, have many shielded cars in the city, having deemed them unnecessary. Reginald had to fight not to laugh when he heard it.) Most of the actual Council had survived and was back at work in the way most cities handled business: operating mainly at night, keeping to one location during the day.
There were also some reports of the biological weapon Lafontaine had demonstrated in his video. All of the institutions that had been under siege were still under siege, and several times a sole guard or worker had been released at night, then run screaming for the fences. In each case, the vampire had been discovered with a strange black gunshot wound that wouldn’t heal, and in each case the vampire had been dead within an hour. Rumors of these incidents were beginning to filter onto Fangbook, and several news outlets had gotten footage of the wounds while covering the human-controlled facilities. A simmering sense of panic was starting to brew.
As he listened to the reports, Reginald’s jocularity turned to frustration. He wasn’t sure whose side he was on — human or vampire — because both sides were wrong. The two species could coexist; they’d done so for millennia with humans mostly being none the wiser. When he and Nikki had been young before the war, they’d always “sipped and shipped,” taking only enough blood from the humans they fed on to nourish themselves and then glamouring the humans into forgetfulness. Yes, they had been parasites, but they had been relatively harmless as far as parasites go. Fewer and fewer vampires had found killing their prey acceptable, if for no other reason other than that improved human police procedures made murder difficult to get away with. And of course, adding in what he’d recently realized, Reginald
Reginald was still laughing. Brian and Nikki didn’t seem to appreciate the joke (or get it; they had vampire minds, after all, har-har) and stared at him as his eyes started to water. But Reginald found the situation hilarious. Hilaaaaaarious . Here they were, forty years down the road, and nothing had changed. The population looked exactly the same, and they were all still using the same technology — not just in the cities, but all the way at the top, in the military and government. The world had hit a stand-still. Perusing vampire history in the absence of human innovation was like reading the same page of a book over and over again.
“Well, hell,” said Reginald, wiping his eyes. “ That’s your problem. They’re pressing buttons while you’re sharpening sticks and wondering why the moon runs away every month. Oh, you are soooo fucked.”
But beneath the laughter, as it dissipated, Reginald felt himself sober. This had been going on for forty years. Forty years. If the humans had evolved while vampires had stagnated, what surprises might they have in store after forty fucking years?
They made their way to a room in what seemed to be the basement of the building. Then, after Reginald promised to stop mocking Ophelia and their entire race, she gave them updates on the existing incidents.
They’d heard from ambassador Karl Stromm in Geneva. Karl reported that the EU Council had finally gotten back on its feet after the sun blocker incident, in which over five hundred vampires had burned to death. Geneva had gotten used to working 24 hours a day, but the city had once been unblocked like every other city besides New York, and it still had tunnels and tube walkways between most of the important buildings. (They did not, however, have many shielded cars in the city, having deemed them unnecessary. Reginald had to fight not to laugh when he heard it.) Most of the actual Council had survived and was back at work in the way most cities handled business: operating mainly at night, keeping to one location during the day.
There were also some reports of the biological weapon Lafontaine had demonstrated in his video. All of the institutions that had been under siege were still under siege, and several times a sole guard or worker had been released at night, then run screaming for the fences. In each case, the vampire had been discovered with a strange black gunshot wound that wouldn’t heal, and in each case the vampire had been dead within an hour. Rumors of these incidents were beginning to filter onto Fangbook, and several news outlets had gotten footage of the wounds while covering the human-controlled facilities. A simmering sense of panic was starting to brew.
As he listened to the reports, Reginald’s jocularity turned to frustration. He wasn’t sure whose side he was on — human or vampire — because both sides were wrong. The two species could coexist; they’d done so for millennia with humans mostly being none the wiser. When he and Nikki had been young before the war, they’d always “sipped and shipped,” taking only enough blood from the humans they fed on to nourish themselves and then glamouring the humans into forgetfulness. Yes, they had been parasites, but they had been relatively harmless as far as parasites go. Fewer and fewer vampires had found killing their prey acceptable, if for no other reason other than that improved human police procedures made murder difficult to get away with. And of course, adding in what he’d recently realized, Reginald
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