He shook his head and spat at him. “No. What will you do?”
“You think we’re not prepared?” said Ranjit. He nodded to Evan who deactivated the earpieces. The vampire immediately covered his ears and his face creased and twisted. His mouth opened but nothing came out. The pain in his ears was so horrible that he couldn’t even scream. He grabbed Ranjit’s shoulder, then fell down and thrashed and rolled around on the floor. “That’s enough.” Ranjit said.
As soon as Evan reactivated the earpieces, the vampire’s facial contortions stopped. He gasped as the pain left.
“So,” Ranjit went on, “Are you helping or not?”
His blood red eyes looked at the General fiercely, and he nodded rapidly. “Yes, yes,” he said in a choked voice. He got to his feet and went to the door where he pricked his finger on an electronic pin. The first metal door opened. Then came the retina check. It took a few seconds. Then, a digital voice said, “Access Granted.”
The door slid up and they went inside. In the center of the relatively small white room, a large two ton computer that stored all the information stood. They saw that this computer connected to a network of smaller mini-computers. Evan went to work quickly. He sat down at the table and a touch-sensitive holoscreen appeared. These computers were in fact holodrives, or rather fiber optic holographic drives. Evan knew they were much faster and capable of storing hundreds of exabytes of information per second. They contained all the information in the library. The screen turned on and it asked for a password. “What is it?” he asked the vampire. “What’s the password?”
“I don’t know,” the vampire said. “Honestly.”
Singh asked, “Who does?”
“The one who has access to the computer is the master of the library. His name is Serayk.” The vampire said, staring at Evan who continued to search the drives of the computer.
“And where is this Serayk?” Ranjit asked.
The vampire shook his head, “I don’t know. He might have escaped.”
“Liar!”
“I’m telling you the truth.” The vampire said. “I have no idea what the password is.”
“Not to worry. We can hack into it,” Evan said, already trying his luck. “There must be a way.”
“Who is Serayk? Where is he?” Ranjit said, his dark eyes glinting and piercing the vampire’s.
“He...”
“Tell me!” Ranjit said.
“He is at the Council.”
“What?” Ranjit asked. “What Council?”
“The Council of Elders. We were warned by them about this and we took precautions. So he was commanded to be with them.”
“And where are they now?”
“No one but Regent Erik and President Daniel know at any time where the Council is. They keep moving from place to place, sometimes leaving their subjects uninformed, so that no one will keep a watch.”
“Did he tell you where he was going?”
“He was forbidden to tell us.”
“Oh, so he tells you he’s going to meet the Council but you don’t know where.”
“Yes. It’s the truth!”
Ranjit shrugged and sighed heavily. “What can we do?”
The beast spread its tentacles and John could make out its circular jaws and spiral teeth. From its mouth the squid spewed out dark acidic ink. It burned through the ground and gave off a foul odor. “Bill,” John said, constantly dodging the tentacles and acid, “Where are you?”
A plasma beam hit the beast in the back of its head. John saw Bill’s fighter pass by him.
“I’m right here!” Bill shouted and a large group of fighters followed him. He laughed and said, “Go and get your men. We’ll take care of this.”
John ran into the base and Bill and his squadron kept shooting at the monster that growled in pain and spat acid towards some ships. Bill flew into the mouth of the beast, launched a timed missile and sped back out. His squadron covered him constantly firing rounds of plasma beams that burned through the pinkish gray tentacles. The squid fell back and exploded from within the ocean waves, dirtying the landing pad of CCC1 with black ink, rubbery flesh, and blood.
In the elevator, John got a message from Ranjit, “John, we got a problem.”
“What’s the matter?”
“This computer’s got a password and obviously only one of them knows it. The vamp with me tells me that the guy isn’t around. What do I do?”
“Isn’t there anyway to crack it?”
“Evan’s trying some passwords and he has another three tries before it goes into total lockdown.”
Just like the Inner Chamber,John thought; “Okay. What’s he tried so far?”
“Let’s see...Anaxagoras, Anu-Sa-Rimh, Gareng, even Aidan. But none of them have worked.”
“Are there any inscriptions anywhere?”
“Well...” Ranjit looked around and saw that there were hundreds of tiny, almost unnoticeable inscriptions on the table. “Yeah, I can see them. There are so many!”
The elevator opened and John stayed inside, waiting. “Okay. What language?”
“Uh, well...there’s Arabic or Urdu, I’m not sure. There’s Hebrew, oh wait! There’s Gurmukhi.”
“So you can read it?” John asked, hearing shouts coming from the hall across from the elevator.
“Yeah, it says...it spells out Abiskoji-Astur. What the hell does that mean?”
“No idea. It must be some Migritic term.”
“Yeah, I guess. So, is that the password?”
“Yeah. You see, they usually have reminders or hints for passwords, for those who know where to look. They are easily traceable only by vampires.”
“Well, I’m not one,” Ranjit said defensively.
“No, I didn’t mean that. Sometimes those who need to find them do; it’s some incantation which allows only the user to find it quickly; otherwise you have to scrutinize, because the inscriptions are either too small or intricately joined together.”
“Yeah, you’re right. The Aramaic and Sanskrit are joined together.”
“There...you see. Well, try it.” There was a pause and then:
“Yeah! It’s worked.”
“Good. Now comes the final phase. Over and out,” John quickly shut off the frequency of his earpiece and ran towards the ongoing battle outside the elevator.
He saw Daniel drenched in blood. He was reaching for his father and saying, “What would you have me do?” Erik’s body had been smashed into the steel wall. Dante and Liam remained and were watching this exchange between father and son.
“What the hell’s going on here?”
“I need blood,” Daniel said to his father weakly.
“Nikolas, what’s going on?”
Nick looked at John and closed his eyes, “John, what if I was to tell you Daniel wants to join us?”
“Can you trust him?” John asked.
“He’s my son,” Nikolas said simply.
“I still don’t trust him,” Dante said.
“Please, Father,” Daniel said. His bloody tears streamed down his cheeks. “You know I will be executed for this. I have no other choice but to join you.”
“And how can we trust you? You betrayed your own father in the first Rebellion,” John said.
“So has my father; he’s played the double-agent for a long time. What about that?”
“I trust Nikolas with my life.”
Daniel’s face fell. He went down on his knees and cried out loud. Nikolas couldn’t handle it. He spoke to John in his mind. “He’s my son.”
“I know that,” John responded with his mind.
“Let’s give him a chance. I think we can trust him.”
“And if the Regnumites don’t?”
“We will see to that.”
“Alright,” John sighed aloud. “You have your chance,” he said to Daniel. “Don’t blow it.”
Daniel stood up slowly. A shy smile appeared on his face, and he bowed his head. “Thank you.”