Ch46 Food Chain

 

After the rather spectacular devastation at the shelter, we decided to stick together. It was unclear what exactly happened, but it was likely that the vampires had infiltrated the shelter somehow, and inadvertently caused a trigger event or some other such accident. Pebbles assured me that this kind of overt action during the daytime was completely outside of their normal behavior, and as such, splitting up was no longer a safe option. Not if the vampires were acting en masse and erratically.

 

Since then, we had been following Pebbles’ original plan of driving around and hoping to hear Buzzer over the radio. I was helping by listening for the ‘distinctive whine’ that vampires made. I hadn’t encountered vampires before, but Mikey helpfully pulled up a sound file from the internet for me to memorize. It didn’t sound like anything from the horror movies Mikey sometimes made me watch, and when I pointed out that incongruence, I was quickly informed by everyone in the van that vampires were, in fact, not related to the vampires in movies. They were only named after them due to similarities in diet and behavior.

 

“So why are they swarming during the daytime?” I asked the group.

“Why else? Odd Summer. Some jagoff probably triggered a control power or something,” replied Pebbles from the driver’s seat.

“Hey, if they have a master power, that makes them the master vampire!” said Zaps.

“Hilarious,” replied Pebbles, grumpily. We hadn’t had much success in finding Buzzer so far, and Pebbles didn’t seem to be taking it well. He had taken to grumbling under his breath at any driver who slowed him down even a little, and his “hectic yet effective” driving style was now just hectic. Obviously his emotional distress was affecting his performance. But, now that I had gone through sensitivity training, I knew what to do.

 

I patted Pebble’s shoulder twice, gently. This gesture was similar to the workplace allowable gesture of tapping someone’s shoulder twice to get their attention, but used the whole hand. Supposedly this would convey that I was emotionally invested in Pebble’s wellbeing.

 

“There there, Pebbles. We’ll find him.”

 

A possible lie of course; I didn’t know Buzzer’s current status. He was most likely dead, but lying about it would hopefully help improve Pebbles’ performance until the lockdown was over. As long as Pebbles lived now, he could recover emotionally eventually.

 

“Oh get off! Of course we are!” said Pebbles, slapping my hand away exasperatedly. I was worried for a second that I had chosen the wrong action, but Zaps was snickering, so I likely hadn’t overstepped social bounds too badly, and Pebbles’ driving performance improved by about eleven percent. Not back up to his best, but better. Objective achieved.

 

“That said, this isn’t working,” continued Pebbles, after he finished grumbling, “We need a new plan.”

“Oh, dude!” said Zaps, “I could zap the van and super charge us! We could just zoom around the sector real quick!”

“…That’s not how that works.”

“You sure?”

“Considering you blew up the engine the last time you tried it; pretty sure.”

“Ohhhhh, right. I forgot about that.”

Pebbles sighed, “Any sane ideas?”

 

I considered possible options. My normal method of tracking was via scent, but that required me to know where Buzzer was last seen, and could be unreliable even if I knew where that was. My previously successful hunt of Sanguine was admittedly more due to luck than skill (I eventually came across one of his minions reeking of blood and just followed them). Attempting to listen for vampires was a better option, but also came with its own difficulties. What little practice I’d done with acoustics was limited to dampening them (due to the Banshee encounter) and sounds within the range of human speech. Plus, it relied on the vampires actually making noise in the first place. Frankly, among our little group in the van, we didn’t have the power set necessary to narrow down the search range.

 

“Pebbles, are there any cowls who might be willing to assist us? Someone with a tracking powerset?”

He considered it for a moment, “Eh, I know of a couple, but not really anyone who would help us. Not many cowls willing to step into a lockdown. If there are, I’m sure Rattleback is probably asking them already.”

 

The van fell into silence for a bit.

 

“What about heroes?” asked Mikey, hesitantly.

Pebbles shrugged. “If they come across him before we do they’ll save him. I wouldn’t rely on it though. They’ve got a whole sector to worry about, they won’t go out of their way for a minion.”

“Right, but they know where the vampires are. Maybe we could follow them?”

 

Pebbles paused, then turned slowly towards Mikey, who slowly withered under Pebbles silent stare. Then Pebbles punched him in the shoulder.

“HA! That’s what I’m talking about rookie! Minions chasing after heroes, it’s just crazy enough to work.”

 

Pebbles hit the gas and swerved around the car in front of us, pressing Mikey into his seat, and sending Zaps bouncing around the floor. Several drivers honked their car horns in anger at the maneuver.

 

I was pleased to see that Pebbles’ driving was back to normal.

---

Traffic lessened as time went by, likely due to people filtering towards shelter once the lockdown was announced. It made finding a police car easy, and we followed it until we encountered a hero on a reinforced motorcycle. It was Ferrosa, her metallic skin and clothing making her look like a part of the bike.

 

Pebbles followed her to a police cordon outside an apartment building, being sure to drive well back. Now I could definitely hear vampires, and Pebbles set to circling the area. All four of us tried to listen for Buzzer, switching channels on our helmets just in case Buzzer hadn’t set his to openly broadcast. Unfortunately, we heard nothing. I offered to sneak into the building and look, but Pebbles said it wasn’t worth the risk if we didn’t know for sure. Instead, we decided to follow a police car that drove away from the scene with its siren wailing.

 

We didn’t find Buzzer at the next site.

 

Or the next.

 

But to my surprise, at the fourth site outside another apartment building, our helmet radios crackled to life.

 

“God I need coffee…”

 

“BUZZER! I fucking knew it!” yelled Pebbles, causing Mikey to jump in his seat, “Where the hell are you?!”

 

“…and a donut… kingdom for a donut…”

 

“Buzzer?”

 

“…dark in here…someone turn the lights on… no wait… don’t…”

 

“Buzzer? Buzzer?! Can you hear me? Can he not hear me? Try talking to him guys.”

 

We all tried to get Buzzer’s attention, but it seemed he really couldn’t hear any of us.

 

“Can we send him a text instruction?” I asked, “Imp sent me one when I was lost.”

“Right, someone call Rattleback and tell him to send Buzzer a ping. Heck, tell him to ping us all. Make sure this is working.”

 

Mikey did so, and soon we all received texts from our masks, but Buzzer didn’t react to it from what we could hear. Rattleback confirmed that Buzzer’s mask didn’t send back a confirmation ping.

 

“Bah,” said Pebbles, “We’ll do this the old-fashioned way.”

 

The ‘old-fashioned way’ consisted of driving around the area and trying to approximate Buzzer’s location from how much static was on our radios. It worked surprisingly well; however, it also placed Buzzer’s location in a rather difficult to reach spot.

 

“So he’s inside the building surrounded by police. That’s… not the worst thing ever,” said Pebbles. “Yeah, you know what? This is good. We can just let the heroes handle it. They’ll rescue Buzzer, and then we can just pick him up afterwards,” he nodded to himself.

 

I agreed. It was somewhat disappointing that I wouldn’t get vampire samples, but if the heroes would take on the task (and the risk) then all the better. Perhaps they would have some samples at the nearest morgue I could appropriate later.

 

Pebbles parked the van a half block away from the cordon, in a spot where we had a good view of the building. It was another of the boring apartment buildings that littered E12 just past the hotels that surrounded Ashwood St’s terminus. Personally, I found the lack of tiered architecture and its labyrinthine qualities made me feel somewhat exposed, but admittedly it made hunting vampires easier from the look of things. They wouldn’t be able to escape to other buildings without descending to street level, and the cops had taken advantage of this by placing police cruisers at equal distances around the building and settling in to wait for the heroes.

 

Eventually, three heroes showed up. Ferrosa, Hydrox, and the flying super from earlier who I now knew was called Avos. They spoke briefly with some of the police, then Ferrosa and Hydrox entered the building while Avos flew along the outside, seemingly tracking their progress. Their strategy soon became apparent, as a vampire burst through one of the windows and tried to escape to the street, using its wings to break its fall. Avos quickly caught that one with telekinesis, before sending it hurtling to the ground, it’s fragile wings bent out of shape. It smashed into the pavement, then shuddered slightly as it died. This sequence of events repeated itself three more times over the course of the next ten minutes.

 

And then the heroes exited the building, talked to the police briefly, and left.

 

“Where’s Buzzer?” asked Zaps.

“He’s… probably holed up in some hidey-hole somewhere,” said Pebbles, “They probably missed him. He’ll be out soon. Look, cops are going in.”

 

Several officers entered, looking somewhat tense, but more confident now that the heroes had cleared out the building. Shortly, an ambulance arrived, and two paramedics followed the police into the building, only to exit quickly with a man in a wheelchair.

 

It wasn’t Buzzer.

 

We waited longer, but it soon became apparent that Buzzer wasn’t coming out. Some people in a black van a bit like ours showed up to deal with all the bodies, and the police started packing up and leaving in their patrol cars, until it was just one unit left. They were taking statements from a few civilians that had been brave enough to leave their homes. It was all rather casual, and somewhat frustrating for us, considering we could still hear Buzzer over the radio.

 

“…If I get out… gonna buy a whole evening with Amber, she’s nice…”

“God fucking damn it!” said Pebbles, roughly. He started to get out of the van, “Useless fucking C’s. One damn job…”

“Pebbles?”

“I’m going to go get him. Zaps, you’re with me. Tofu, Mikey, stay with the van. If you think you see trouble, circle around the block away from it.”

“Pebbles, I can find Buzzer,” I offered.

“I need you to stick with Mikey. One power per group.”

“Yes, but I can track Buzzer, so it would be better for Zaps to stay.”

“I’d rather have you rookies out here where it’s safer.”

“The major threats have already been cleared from the building, and I have the ability to find Buzzer quickly. We go in, get Buzzer, and get out,” and maybe grab a sample or two.

 

Pebbles sighed, and looked over at the building. The cops had finished with the civilians and were driving away, leaving the street to empty as people fled back into their homes or left to get to an emergency shelter. He rapped his knuckles on his helmet a few times before coming to a decision.

 

“Fine, fine. But if anyone asks, you waited in the van.”

“Pebbles, Sandra will know if I-“

“Yeah yeah, shut it before I change my mind. Zaps, you’re with Mikey then. Mikey, whatever you do, don’t let Zaps drive.”

“Aw, come on Pebbles. I promise I won’t shock the van.”

“I mean it. Tofu, let’s get this show on the road.”

 

I exited the van, leaving a disappointed Zaps and nervous Mikey behind, and walked with Pebbles to the building. The apartment we approached looked nearly identical to the one where the Espada had kept Jasper, down to the beige paint. I expected navigation to be easy.

 

We reached the entrance and found it locked, so Pebbles stood aside and gestured for me to open it. At first, I tried to imitate Jasper’s method of opening locked doors by slipping tendrils into the keyhole and trying to move the ‘tumblers’, but Pebbles’ frustrated foot tapping convinced me to just brute force it (there was some kind of device blocking the tumblers anyways).

 

“So how are we doing this?” he asked as we entered.

“I’ll track him by smell.”

“Like one of those dogs in the movies?”

“Maybe? Hopefully not.” The only dogs I’d seen in movies were the ones in ‘The Thing’, and those had gotten eaten, not tracked anything.

 

We scoured the first floor of the building, making sure to go by each entrance, and almost surprisingly, I picked up Buzzer’s scent quickly.

 

“He came through here.”

“Shoot, you can really smell him? You sure it’s him?”

“Yes, I think he threw up. It’s distinctive.”

 

And it was, but I also smelled blood.

 

I tracked Buzzer from the entrance he used to a stairwell, and then up to the third floor. There were obvious signs of a fight here, and several doors had been pulled off their hinges. Looking past the caution tape put up by the police, we could see the inside apartments were a mess. One civilian poked their head out, but slammed their door closed again when they saw us. Our attempts to knock and question them about what happened were met with only silence. I had to convince Pebbles to stop pounding on his door before the police were called again.

 

We searched through the rooms. From the sight and smell of it several civilians had made a stand here along with Buzzer. From the amount of blood I wouldn’t be surprised if someone died, but we could still hear Buzzer on the radio, so we knew he had survived this encounter. We just couldn’t find him.

 

I began slowly backtracking, searching for a trail that led away from the blob of scents that surrounded the destroyed apartments. Finally, I found an offshoot back on the first floor. It was lucky that Buzzer threw up, because I might not have found the trail he left over the nearly overpowering smells of blood, urine, and another oily substance that smelled strangely sweet. The odd thing was that this new trail didn’t smell of Buzzer’s blood, and it soon became apparent why when we reached the second entrance the trail led to. This entrance was destroyed, simply battered inwards, and outside was a scene of destruction. There was an overturned van in the street, and the building across the road had nearly all of its windows broken. We quickly retreated back into the building before one of the multiple cops still in the area could see us.

 

“We’ve been going backwards.”

“What?”

“Buzzer’s scent is weaker here than where we found the trail,” and it lacked the smell of his blood. Buzzer must have gotten injured in the fight, although I didn’t want to tell Pebbles that considering his mood. “He must have entered here, tried to barricade himself, then fled out the other entrance when the barricade failed.

“Makes sense I guess. If he came out here he’d be with the C’s. Come on, let’s go back.”

 

We backtracked through the building to where I originally found the scent. It led outside the building, and I found that all of the scents I picked up in the apartments were detectable out on the street. The trail went along distinctly until it abruptly stopped along an empty section of sidewalk.

 

“It stops here.”

“What? But there’s nothing… ah shit.”

 

The trail led to a manhole cover.

 

“We better move quickly. Smells disappear fast down there.” I moved to pick up the cover.

“Whoa, hold up Tofu. You aren’t going down there.”

“Why not?”

“Like I said earlier, senior members only. Sandra will rip my head off if I bring a rookie sewer diving.”

“But how will you track Buzzer without me?”

“…Ah. Right. Ha… let me think a bit.”

“Pebbles, are you alright? You are hesitating more than usual. Can I help in some way?”

“Jeez, the kid is worrying about me,” he sighed to himself, “I’m fine Tofu, I’m just a bit on edge. Usually Buzzer is the one to handle the details.”

“Ah. Then should I present my analysis of the situation?”

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

“…Pft, sure. Hit me with it.”

“Buzzer is likely in the sewer. It’s possible that he hid there of his own volition, but it is more likely that he and other civilians were kidnapped by the vampires to be used as rations. Thus, his rescue is time sensitive. I’ve been on multiple hunting trips into the sewers and am confident in my ability to navigate them unharmed, as well as deal with any organic life I come across. Furthermore, I-

“Alright alright, jeez. I get it nerd. You’re channeling your inner Trebla.”

“Pebbles, using ‘nerd’ and similar words in a derogatory fashion is to be avoided according to company policy.”

“Good lord, they did a number on you. After we get Buzzer, remind me to sit you down and tell you about the things they don’t teach you in that fufu class. But for now we got a bonehead to save.”

 

Mikey drove the van over once Pebbles called the others on the radio. Pebbles needed to retrieve a few odds and ends from the van, including a metal ‘baseball bat’ and a small med kit. Zaps wanted to go with me instead, since he could ‘zap those bugs into oblivion’, but Pebbles denied him.

 

“One bonehead has to stick with the domino.”

“So why don’t you stay, and I’ll go with Tofu?”

“You and Tofu… in the sewer together… unsupervised…”

Pebbles looked back and forth between Zaps and I. Several times.

“Nope.”

“Ughhh, come onnnn, I want a turn,” Zaps complained.

“Careful what you wish for Zaps,” Pebbles responded.

 

I reconfigured my body into my preferred combat form while Pebbles prepared. So much easier and smoother with flexible chitin as my skeleton, and foldable muscle that stretched effortlessly. I just flexed a few muscles and my pieces reconfigured, almost no micro unit shifting required, which meant no wasted calories (wonderfully efficient). I was eager to give my new upgrades a trial run after the time spent training with them.

 

Pebbles confirmed he was ready, so I lifted the manhole cover, and climbed face first into the tunnel.

 

---

 

“Ah, over here. I picked up the trail.”

 

The tunnels under E12 were about what I expected. We weren’t far enough away from E13 for the local ecology to differ greatly, and the architecture was more or less the same unlike the surface, but what did make a difference was the smell. The scent of human waste was nearly overpowering, and made tracking difficult. I was forced to use alternate means, such as marks in the scum, or finding splatters of recently spilled blood.

 

I found it interesting that the overall smell of the sewer triggered a slight feeling of ‘disgust’ in me. Apparently this was another of Human.exe’s pre-packaged ‘instincts’, because the feeling vanished as soon as I turned it off. It was no wonder Nicole was so desperate to ensure the nessies’ survival; food wouldn’t be nearly as tasty without them keeping the air fresh.

 

“Damn, how deep do you think they went?” asked Pebbles, looking down the vertical tunnel I’d found. This one had a spiraling, rusted metal staircase which descended into darkness. Likely a leftover from a cowl hideout judging by the strange iconography imprinted into the metal. I doubted public services would have bothered with artwork in a sewer.

“It’s hard to say, but I doubt they went much deeper. My friend Nicole said she only ran into vampires in the upper levels, since the lower ones are too dangerous for them.”

“Wonderful.”

 

I went down first, using the concrete walls to support my weight more than the rusty staircase. Pebbles was likely threatening its weight capacity as it was, and the water dripping down the tunnel made footing precarious. Hopefully there wouldn’t be too many other humans with Buzzer. They would likely insist on bringing them along when we left, which would be complicated if we were running.

 

We reached the bottom, and I continued leading the way. This tunnel was rough-hewn (more evidence of being a former lair), and intersected with several side corridors, most of which looked to be in decent repair. Some of the lights were even on, which meant I could easily see the blood smears that led down the hallway.