Chapter 3: Mission Prep

“What do you mean you're a vampire?”, Alexis asked. She thought this was some kind of joke.

“The Professor did tell us that there were more non-humans in the unit. She's one of them”, Elaine explained.

Ophelia just stood in front of them, her arms crossed and a smirk on her face, waiting for them to talk it out.

“Yeah, but... seriously?”, Alexis asked.

Instead of replying, Elaine turned to Ophelia and said: “I have to admit I don't actually know anything about vampires. I knew there were two of them in the unit, but I don't know what to expect of them. Since you're part of this unit and looking all cute I'm guessing you aren't a blood-crazed undead monster.”

Ophelia flashed her a quick grin. “Well aren't you smart?”, she teased, then explained: “That's right. I'm not undead. I've got a heartbeat and everything. You can tell by how people here don't all want to kill me.”

Elaine conceded the point with a nod but Alexis asked:

“What's that supposed to mean?”

Both Elaine and Ophelia looked at Alexis as if she'd sprouted a second head and Elaine asked: “Seriously, they didn't brief you?”

“On what?”, Alexis asked.

“On what the monsters we're fighting are”, Elaine said.

Alexis shook her head.

“Stupid Professor”, Elaine muttered, then explained: “The monsters responsible for the Invasion are called Outsiders. They're literally from beyond the universe, things that aren't supposed to exist here and that cannot enter this world unless specifically invited. Which, by the way, means that someone caused the Invasion. It didn't just happen. Anyway, the Outsiders are the minions of the Outer Gods. And one of the three biggest Outer Gods, Hastur the King in Yellow, can call up the dead. In fact, there is no way to create undead beings other than if someone has made a pact with Hastur. So by that logic all undead are our enemy. And Ophelia here has just told us that she is very much not undead. Got it?”

“This all sounds very Lovecraft”, Alexis said in reply.

“Lovecraft was a hack who knew something”, Elaine explained. “Reading Lovecraft is like reading the Anarchist's Cookbook. If you know what's what it's fucking hilarious. If you don't and take it as an instruction manual, you're likely to blow yourself up.”

“Okay, then yes, I think I got the gist”, Alexis said. “So you're saying she's one of the good guys?”

Elaine shrugged. “As I said, I know way too little about vampires”, she said, then turned to Ophelia and said: “I'm going to assume I can't rely on my knowledge from all the urban fantasy I've read in my teens so I'm just going to ask: Can you even come along with us? It's daylight outside.”

Ophelia shrugged. “We don't go up in flames in sunlight, if that's what you're asking. We have sensitive skin, but it's not much worse than your average ginger. Well, except for the little part where we lose access to our supernatural strength and speed in sunlight. But the armor they'll be giving us at the armory is supposed to take care of that, so no worries.”

“Good enough for me”, Elaine replied. “Can I ask about the blood thing?”

Ophelia flashed her fangs again. “Normally the vampire government would give me grief for sharing this but the vampire government collapsed just like most of the others. And hey, we're supposed to build trust here, so if it'll make you trust me, sure.”

The three women walked over to one of the vending machines and Elaine used her CARD to buy them each a drink before Ophelia began to explain:

“So first of all no, we do not drink blood for sustenance. We still need to eat and drink like humans. The reason we need blood is... see, there are two major differences between a human body and a vampire body. One, where you have bone marrow we have something else, something that makes our bones tougher and less brittle, but that something can't produce red blood cells anymore. So we need to take them from other humans.”

Elaine interrupted her: “That doesn't make sense. If you drink blood, your stomach digests it. You'd have all the components you'd need to create blood but according to you your body can't create blood.”

Ophelia smiled and said: “You would be absolutely correct, if not for the second difference. We also have a second stomach, or maybe it would be more apt to call it a filter. It filters out any red blood cells we ingest and passes them straight into our bloodstream, bypassing our digestive tract entirely. We need to drink about one human's worth of blood every three months since that's about the rate at which red blood cells break down. We're kind of like supernatural dialysis patients. Unfortunately we can't substitute with animal blood but at least we never ever have to kill anyone.”

“So, if we take you along, would we need to, ah, feed you?”, Alexis asked.

“Are you offering?”, Ophelia asked with a grin, exposing her fangs.

Alexis looked at her wide-eyed.

“I'm just kidding”, Ophelia said. “They keep us supplied with mermaid blood. For some weird-ass reason mermaids regenerate red blood cells much faster than humans and they've got a couple mermaids on staff here who have offered to donate while working on their other duties.”

“Hold on, hold on”, Alexis said. “Mermaids?”

“Yeah”, Elaine said. She of course knew about the mermaids on staff. She'd flirted with one of them before the side effects had happened, after all. “Our monitoring division consists of three mermaids. They mostly keep to themselves since they need to go for a swim at regular intervals, but they're here.”

“This is too much”, Alexis muttered but Elaine pressed on without her.

She turned back to Ophelia and asked: “So, if I understand this correctly, you don't starve or thirst to death if you don't drink blood. You suffocate.”

“Correct.”

“Well shit. Alright, thank you for sharing. I don't have any issue with taking you along. How about you?”, Elaine asked, turning to Alexis.

“No problem. If anything, going out in a party of three feels a lot safer.”

Elaine nodded, then looked at them both. “In the interest of building trust, I'd like the three of us to share our stats with each other before we leave.”

Both girls frowned but it was Alexis who spoke up: “What do you mean 'stats'? Lieutenant General Hayworth said something like this before.”

Elaine looked at both their necks and saw that they were empty, their collars down and no CARDs visible. Then she pulled down the collar of her uniform to reveal the CARD around her neck. It looked like a very thin pair of headphones she was wearing around her neck, a thin metal frame slung around the back of her neck, with two contact bits pressed against the sides of her throat.

“This thing is called a CARD, or a Communicative Augmented Reality Device”, she explained. “You'll get one when you head to the armory for the first time. They're required to interface with your armor, but you generally want to wear them all the time. They serve the same function as a smartphone but they're way more efficient. They let you surf what's left of the internet and they let you check Base 15's database. They also let you scan things like materials and enemies and they let you access your status screen and the level up screen. As I understand you could allot your EXP through meditation but this thing lets you do it with the click of a virtual button instead of learning meditation techniques for months.”

Alexis looked shocked. “I didn't know AR technology had come so far. It doesn't have a display. How does this work?”

“It hasn't. This thing is a donation from Heaven. They're about a century ahead of us dumb mortals when it comes to technology. And it doesn't need a display because it interfaces with your nervous system. It puts the menus directly into your field of vision.”

“Alright”, Alexis said, pushing off the wall they'd all been leaning against. “What are we waiting for? I want one of those!”

Ophelia chuckled. “She seems eager.”

“Can you blame her?”, Elaine asked.

**

As they entered the armory Jeanne waved them over. Elaine had spent a bit of time getting to know the French legend and they had established a rapport between them, so she took the lead.

“Hey, Jeanne. Are you busy or can you get Ophelia and Alexis here outfitted?”

Jeanne made a few motions with her hands that suggested she was fiddling with her own AR displays before she said: “No, it's fine. Ophelia Devereux and Alexis Bigsby, here you are. I got one standard issue suit for Alexis and one V-issue suit for Ophelia. Also two CARDs for them to interface with.” She pulled out two large cases that clearly held the suits of armor and then two small cases holding the CARDs, both labeled with the girls' names. “Put the CARD on, link up with it, then put on the suit. Once you're suited up we'll see what weapons you want to take with you.”

Elaine was about to offer to help the two girls with their gear when Jeanne told her:

“I'll do that. You go put on your own suit.”

**

Alexis was in technology heaven with this CARD. It integrated so smoothly into her vision she could scarcely believe it. She was living a freaking scifi movie. Except AR technology this sophisticated usually involved having something drilled into your brain in most games and movies. But this thing just wrapped around her neck and did its thing. The craziest thing was the sort of haptic feedback she got from pressing the buttons in AR. They weren't actually there but tapping them still gave her a feeling of actually tapping something, something smooth like glass or plastic.

Once she finished gawking Jeanne helped her with the suit, which was somehow even more scifi than the CARD had been. It felt like a tight yet comfortable material on the inside but the outside was clearly covered in hexagonal scales of a material she couldn't identify. It felt like matte steel, but... not. There was also a utility belt around it that had enough space left for a gun holster or a scabbard or two.

Finally she was all suited up and saw that Elaine and Ophelia were likewise fully armored. Even though the material hugged their skin from the inside the armor panels over the torso helped make the suit not look like fetish wear. In fact, there was nothing titillating about it but seeing Elaine in the combat gear still had her going weak in the knees. And even though she didn't have the same reaction with her she couldn't deny that Ophelia looked pretty good in her version as well. Ophelia's suit came with a cowl that she could pull up even when she wasn't wearing the helmet. Of course, as they were still inside the base none of them were wearing their helmets yet.

The helmets looked like high tech biker helmets. A metal framework attached to the armor at the neck and a dome of black glass that could be retracted covered the entire face. Alexis put on the helmet and found to her surprise that even though the helmet was glossy black glass on the outside she could view out entirely uninhibited. She pushed a button on her AR display and the glass retracted, leaving her face free, though the metal framework that extended from her chin over the whole back of her head was still there and felt a little restrictive.

After that came the guns. Elaine picked a simple automatic rifle with a three point sling and a semi-automatic pistol as a sidearm.

Ophelia took one look at the gun selection and picked out a sniper rifle, citing her thermal vision and superhuman eyesight as the reason. At Elaine's urging she also took a semi-automatic pistol along.

Alexis couldn't quite decide on what to pick until Elaine suggested a shotgun for her. Not the double-barreled thing seen in movies but a proper Mil-Spec variant, with a spread barely the width of an outstretched hand at 75 yards. Just like the others she also took one of those sleek black semi-automatic pistols along.

After thanking Jeanne they headed out but before they reached the outer gate of the facility Elaine stopped them and reminded them of the stat sharing. She asked Alexis to go first so they could all see the baseline stats of a human. Alexis accepted and pulled up her status screen, then pressed the button to share it with her party members. To her surprise, their verbal wish to be made into a party had already been taken up by the CARD around her neck. Or maybe Elaine had added them to hers. Her status screen popped up in front of all of them.

“Alright, that's pretty much what I've been told”, Elaine said.

“Mind explaining? What's this gibberish behind 'Shard Bearer'? Lugh Lámfada?”

Elaine cringed at Alexis' pronunciation and corrected. “It's pronounced Loo Lah-Wah-Dah. It's the name of the Soul Shard you have inside you. Lugh was one of the major gods of the Irish, a great warrior king armed with an unstoppable spear of fire. The more you train the more of Lugh's powers you will be able to unlock.”

“Oh. Huh”, was all Alexis could say in response.

“Do you want to go next or should I?”, Ophelia asked.

Elaine pressed her lips together. “No, let's get this over with. This is all about trust, so I need to show you.” Then she fumbled with her menus and then pressed the button to share the screen with her team.

Ophelia and Alexis both gawked at her.

“Why are your stats so high?”, Alexis asked.

“And where did you get magic?”, Ophelia added.

Elaine let out a huge sigh. Apparently her stats had been interesting enough that neither of them had noticed the infuriating and embarrassing question mark next to her gender.

Stupid Professor.

So instead of tempting fate any further she turned the screen sharing off and explained: “The procedure that made us Awakeners also gave us superhuman powers. That put me to eight in all stats as opposed to Alexis' five. Then, when Lieutenant General Hayworth killed Brandon and gave me his stat points I was boosted by another two in all stats. That was enough to level me up, through which I got another point in everything. The magic is something I was born with but the Awakener thing has powered it up quite a lot.”

“Wait, what do you mean?”, Ophelia asked and it was only then that Elaine realized that Ophelia hadn't been there that time. The only other person who had been there was the redhead who kept glaring at Elaine whenever they ran into each other at the cafeteria.

Surprisingly it was Alexis who explained: “One of the Awakeners, Brandon Cooper, tried to rape me after the orientation ceremony. Elaine came to stop him and it turned out he tried that shit on her as well. Then Lieutenant General Hayworth came along, told him that was his third strike, and turned him to ash with this weird futuristic gun. Then he gave the stat points to Elaine.”

Ophelia's eyes widened in understanding, then narrowed and she growled: “Good riddance.” And that was all she said on the matter before she pulled up her own stat screen and shared it.

“So how does this work?”, Elaine asked. “Is the Preternatural Strength reflected in how you have one more point of Strength than Alexis or does the ability go on top of that?”

“I'm pretty sure the ability comes on top. But there's an easy way to test it out”, Ophelia said.

“And that would be?”, Elaine asked.

“Arm wrestling. If you beat me then the ability is included. If I can beat your eleven Strength then the ability comes on top.”

Elaine couldn't dispute that, so they found themselves a table to try it out on. Three out of three times, Ophelia kicked her ass.

“So it comes on top”, Elaine remarked. She wasn't put off, she was impressed.

“It's really scary to think that she has thirteen Agility and then Preternatural Speed on top”, Alexis remarked.

Ophelia stretched and said: “Now that we have that out of the way, let's get to work. I want to get some EXP and see what boons I can get from this Shard of Hecate.”

Elaine and Alexis agreed.