The Dark Clan (4)
Genocide's hideout was a small cabin in the woods beyond the city walls.
It was cozy with a fire burning in the hearth, but below the cabin a fortress of precise mechanical devices sprawled out.
A corridor led to an armory, and on the opposite side the machinery room came into view.
"Welcome. Did the job go smoothly?" A woman with oil smudges on her face opened the machinery-room door.
Her red hair was cropped short like a man's, and a dirty towel hung around her neck.
"Oh my, and who's this?"
Jenia didn't trust anything she wasn't sure of.
"Not sure yet. Met him on the way. Where's Dr. Grain?"
"In the infirmary. Looks like he's developed a new drug."
At the end of the corridor the infirmary opened into a space larger than the cabin, lined with medical equipment.
A white-bearded, scruffy doctor who'd been peering into a microscope spun his chair.
"You're here, our assault captains."
Doctor Grain.
The physician attached to Genocide and an expert in clinical trials—he was the sort of man who claimed to know everything about vampires.
"A new face. Surely not… a vampire, are you?"
It was a routine joke, but this time the others didn't respond very warmly.
"We brought him because of that. This man calls himself the Knight of Maha—self-proclaimed, of course."
"Oh? Then all the more suspicious. Cutting down ten thousand demons isn't the sort of thing the living do."
"Cut the nonsense and check him out. Can a human whose heart has stopped be revived?"
Grain turned to Rian as if asking for an explanation.
"What do you mean?"
"Well… I'd heard about this Grain fellow on the way here," Rian said, voicing his curiosity. "They say if you hear an auditory hallucination called Smille, wounds regenerate—even from a deathlike state."
"Yes. It's like he's forgotten how to die."
Grain nodded.
"Unusual, but not supernatural. Immortality, at root, is a feature of life."
"You mean he doesn't die?"
"What is death? You wouldn't call a cracked stone 'dead.' Life arose from the inorganic. If you trace back to primordial matter, the concept of death doesn't exist there."
Rian listened quietly.
"So why didn't organisms just evolve into immortal forms? Because of viruses. Tiny things that sit between the living and nonliving inject specific information."
Grain struck his palm with his fist.
"Do you follow? If information patterns don't change, viruses will drive a lineage to extinction. Mutation alone can't withstand that. So life adopted a unique method: combining information. By merging genetic information, creating new data, the old information is discarded."
"That's death, then."
"As long as viruses exist, old information must be discarded and new information endlessly produced. That's why animals avoid inbreeding. Mixing with stale information doesn't help fight viruses."
Grain pointed at Rian.
"You said your grandfather heard the Smille hallucination too. But you don't know who Smille is."
"No."
"Maybe you do, in a way. Even if it's not in your memory, it could be imprinted in your genes."
"Genes?"
"The smaller you go, the clearer it becomes that there's no true analogue in this world. Life is just a collection of minimal information units. I suspect your case might be very old genetic information that responds to a particular stimulus."
Jenia asked, "If that information is triggered, does that mean you won't die?"
"Possible. As I said, death wasn't an original function of life."
Rian asked, "Is it possible to extract the information recorded in those genes and bring it into the mind?"
He wanted to know—who owned the Idea, and why Imer knew Ozent.
"I don't think it's impossible." Grain rose from his seat. "The hallucination you hear is genetic-level memory invading the mind. But going deeper requires a complicated process."
"What kind of complication?"
"Genetic information isn't human language. But the brain is a brilliant translator. If a specific stimulus evokes a memory, you can vary the direction and intensity of that stimulus."
Grain was an expert.
"It might be beyond what a living being can endure. Even if regeneration occurs, the pain would be real. So tell me—how far have you tested it?"
"Well… I've had my heart stop more times than I care to count." Rian glanced at Jenia as he spoke; she shrugged as if to say she believed him now.
"Ever had your neck severed?"
"Never completely detached." Rian's lips trembled.
"If I were to experiment on you, I'd start with the neck. I want to know the limits of recovery."
"I've had my brain damaged before," Rian said, and Grain shook his head.
"That's different. The body is a combination of core functions you can't rank by importance. Nonessential parts were phased out long ago. Without experience, such attempts are dangerous. I don't think you want that."
Rian was curious about the Smille hallucination, but he didn't want to die needlessly.
"I still… have things I need to do."
"Good. Consider this a last resort. Stay here and we'll try various approaches."
Rian asked, "Then what exactly are vampires? Did they trigger immortality at the genetic level too?"
"No. Quite the opposite." Grain looked at Rian.
"Strictly speaking, they aren't living things. They're viruses. They inject specific information into humans to dominate them, or they siphon human information to regenerate bodies. Everything follows viral mechanisms—neither fully living nor nonliving, a half-divine, half-undead existence."
"Viruses evolved, then?"
"No. They began as creatures." Grain's thoughts went back. "Long ago… there was a bat that reached an incarnation and took on a human body."
An old anecdote.
"Like any human, he became obsessed with immortality and eventually obtained it. But he wasn't satisfied. Even if several lived forever, individuals could still vanish. That's why I can't bring myself to cut your throat."
A powerful force could annihilate a living being.
"He wanted to exist until the end of the world. So he traced life's origins backward to find the most efficient method."
"A virus."
"Yes. Half-divine, half-undead. He gave up half of his corporeal substance and in return became a virus that could never die."
Grain's eyes gleamed with murderous intent.
"That's the origin of vampires. Currently ranked third among the Ten Order—Jinma Faust, that would be."
"…You know about heaven, then."
"Not in detail. What I know comes from tracing vampire genealogy. Faust, who gained true immortality, naturally lost reproductive ability. Instead, he injected a special prion from his fangs to force obedience."
"You mean purebloods?"
"When the Jinma dwelt among our world, three humans were injected. They became the lords who rule vampire society."
Grain drew a genealogy in the air with his finger.
"The lords created dozens of Almas; Almas made thousands of Vesica. The further the lineage descended, the further from the Jinma it grew. But one day, someone in the Vesica class suddenly mutated."
"What kind of mutation?"
"They regained reproductive ability." "One Vesica fell in love with a human woman, slept with her, and she bore a child. Astonishingly, the child still carried vampire traits. We call them halflings. The purebloods call them—" Grain raised a finger. "Hybrids."
Jenia's face darkened.
"Countless hybrids spread across the world. Outlandish crossbreeds produced things like werewolves. Of course, halflings breeding among themselves was much more common." Grain glanced at Jenia. "In that process, mutants even arose among purebloods—abilities previously thought impossible."
"Like what?"
"Just as a virus has its own frequency, vampires have a special wavelength. Some evolved the ability to detect that wavelength precisely and thus trace their locations."
The main reason vampires couldn't simply be wiped out was how hard they were to distinguish from humans.
"An incredible ability."
"Right. That's how vampire hunters were born. They're silver-haired from birth. So we call them Silverborn."
Only then did Rian look at Jenia.
"Huh?"
Grain said, "Yes. Jenia is Silverborn. Her skin burns under ultraviolet, and her ability to detoxify silver is extremely weak, but her body regenerates through blood and she has physical capabilities on par with vampires." At that moment the engineer from the machinery room, Passet, entered the infirmary.
"But instead of feeding on blood, they eat human food, and they retain reproductive ability. They have no bat incarnation."
Bat mimicry, one of the vampire abilities, was a legacy of Jinma Faust's incarnation.
"Passet, is the job finished?"
"Counting bullets isn't hard. Anyway, we made some money on this run and increased the silver ratio in the alloy. The paralysis effect should be about ten percent stronger."
Powler bumped fists.
"Ha! I can't wait to fire it! I want to see a vampire's face when they get hit!"
Passet extended a hand to Rian.
"Nice to meet you. Whatever this was about, looks like the misunderstanding's cleared. I'm Engineer Passet. I modify firepower devices."
"Firepower devices?"
Catein, the drug specialist, spoke up.
"There are three main ways to deal with vampires: firepower devices, drug devices, and metal devices. Each targets a weakness."
Passet continued. "Firepower devices use silver. It slows a vampire's recovery. Drug devices use the Anticell Dr. Grain developed. And metal devices—" Jenia drew a dark metallic short sword.
"Mukgeum. An alloy infused with Obscura B."
"Obscura B is…?"
A material used in imaging recorders, so rare it was a state-controlled item.
"Vampires can't be pierced by Obscura B," Passet said. "It's unbelievably expensive—a mineral that only forms in ultra-cold dark chambers and can't be made by alchemy. That's why you don't use it for firearms and reserve it for metal weapons. A skilled swordsman can be far more effective with it than with a gun."
Jenia allowed a rare smile.
"What does Anticell do?"
"It basically coagulates blood and destroys cells. Vampires are defenseless against cell-level attacks."
Grain picked up a syringe.
"Still, fighting them requires preparation. My power packs provide analgesia and increase muscle strength. They enhance the nervous system for greater agility."
There would be side effects.
"Does everyone take those and fight?"
"No. Jenia's the exception. Halflings have something far more efficient than a power pack."
Jenia pulled out a slender device.
"Blood Q (Menthol)."
It was a tool for heating blood into vapor and inhaling the steam.