ic Caught a cold

[RobRX]

Outside Freedom Hall

June 7 2014

 

Early in the morning. The city is barely waking up. The sun isn't out yet, but hints of it can be seen on the horizon, as it change color. A lone figure, looking sick and weakened, slowly make it's way for Freedom Hall. Weakened by the effects of the serum leaving his body, Anton Bienh nevertheless continue toward his destination, while holding his weapon, in case the vampire hunter was still on his trail. He suspected that was the case, as one could almost follow him by smell alone, a side effect of having spent time inside the sewers.

 

Once at the gate, just outside Freedom Hall, he finally collapsed, shaking. "Come on, answer me!" He shouted, as he started to hallucinate, suddenly thinking he was near the Freedom Hall of his timeline, which was an underground bunker. "?$#(*! Come on guys, open the bunker, open it, they're...they're..." Bloodline blinked and remember he was at a different point in time. "Right. I'm here to seek aid. This isn't the Freedom League I know."

[Avenger Assembled]

There was no sound at first - but then Bloodline became aware of faint movement in the bushes through the hall's surrounding greenery and sensed things stirring in the grass, a defense system that wasn't his pursuers - but wasn't anything he'd come prepared for! A moment later the door whooshed open in front of his face and he was confronted with a half-dozen armed security guards, the scent of the blood freely pulsing in their veins an almost irresistible draw for the hungry vampire. Standing at the head of the group was something new, though - a short, slender fellow dressed all in white, who looked up at him from inside the darkness of a hood that didn't quite hide two red eyes. 

 

"Who comes!?" Comrade Frost demanded of the intruder, almost immediately making a snap decision when he recognized the man. Or rather, recognized his condition. "Ah, my old friend!" He patted Bloodline reassuringly on the arm, his touch icy cold even through his gloves. "Say nothing," he urged him, "and let me help you to my laboratory! Oh, you should have phoned ahead..." He made excuses to the guards as he led Bloodline through the darkened lobby to a nearby elevator. "How fortunate you are that it was I who had monitor duty this morning..." he said as the elevator doors began to close behind them.

[RobRX]

Quite used to special operations, Anton was used to the good old, time-proven trick of 'utterly bullsh** the guards to get pass them'. It was a simple, classic trick, possibly as old as history itself, at least from his point of view. A good bluff was a quick bluff, one that doesn't leave the target guessing too much and gets you out of it's sight as soon as possible.

 

"My belt..." Bloodline whispered, sounding feverish. He tapped the side of his body. "On the left, third pouch. There's a list; the serum, I need it, please. Help me..."

Edited December 3, 2014 by RobRX

[Avenger Assembled]

Frost snapped open the belt pouch with practiced efficiency and looked over the serum's ingredients. "I can have this made," he commented, "I have ingredients in my laboratory. Will you take hard stuff?" he asked seriously. "You know, good old red hemoglobin." Comrade Frost's personal corridor in Freedom Hall turned out to be an isolated section in the lower depths; he'd requested to have privacy and few luxuries and overhead the yellow artificial lights gave the other vampire's face an alien look. He led Bloodline to a decidedly sparse, old-fashioned laboratory with glass beakers and vials on the walls, and Bunsen burners prominently displayed. "Come in, sit down," he offered as the door closed behind them, pointing to a metal stool in the corner. "My personal stock is in refrigerator," he commented, pointing to a square silver box along the wall. "Dog's blood," he added with some distaste, "I generally forsake it." 

[RobRX]

"In any other circumstance, I would have shot just to be sure." Bloodline said to his currently unnamed interlocutor, admitting that normally he wouldn't have given another vampire the benefit of the doubt. Any unknown vampire was generally considered a threat in his timeline, especially given just how few of them were actually submitted to a suppressive treatment. Even then, such treatment had been proven useless on vampires who had been turned for more than a few months,

 

"But...considering I owe you my life..." The time traveller paused, having a coughing laugh. "Okay well, maybe that's not the right word. Point is, if not for the fact they let you into this place, I wouldn't have trusted you. Do I have trust issues? Heh, &%#( hell do I ever! Still, given how they let you stay here, I'm going to guess you are trustworthy. Beside, I owe you one." He looked around, while drinking the blood, which his body badly needed. Not to mention blood was required for him to even be able to heal his injuries; normally, he received transfusions.

 

"Ew, this taste worst than I ever imagined. I'm still not getting used to that horrible taste. So, we are in 2014; what's the current line up for the Freedom League? Has Captain Thunder retired yet?" The time traveller casually talked; at this point, he had hoped his actions had already altered the timeline. Not to mention he wasn't aware that time travel caused divergent worlds.

[Avenger Assembled]

"Hmm." Frost walked over and pulled the door shut, the heavy steel slamming closed with a boom and click as thick deadbolts slid into place. 

 

Folding his arms before the door, he eyed Bloodline like a schoolmaster sizing up a new and questionable student at the academy. "If you do not know my name, I am Comrade Frost of People's Heroes, on attached duty to Freedom League. I am also Dr. Dmitri Peshkov. I have been dead seventy-two years since fascists tore my heart from my chest." He looked Bloodline up and down and said, "Your story, young one?"  

[RobRX]

"Well, I'm not 'that' young if you want to get technical, just stopped aging a while ago. Or rather I will stop aging, some day." He said, leaning back, trying to hold back some shaking, as he finished the dog blood. At this point, he needed to vent and, perhaps deep down he needed someone he could relate to. Something to anchor him better in the present day. "Okay, if you really want the details I don't exist. Not yet. See, I haven't been born yet."

 

Bloodline wasn't really expecting a surprised reaction from Comrade Frost, figuring that time travel wouldn't sound so fantastical to someone living in Freedom City. "Time travel. You see, there's a war coming or...was coming, I'm not sure anymore, I have no way of knowing. Point is, there's a viral outbreak and next thing you know, earth is swarming with vampires. The disease is highly infectuous, hell in fact it's in my body right now. If I was to go outside and bite someone, then I'd need to make sure that person's a goner or else we'd have an epidemic. Fortunately, I don't feed off people; that's what the meds are for, chummer. I'm like an undead crack addict, really." He laughed loudly at his own comparison, taking mental notes that he'd make such a poor role model.

 

"I'm...well, was or will be part of the human resistance. They sent me back to make sure the war never happens. Might have worked, or I might have just postponed it. Point is, it was a one-way trip so in the event my future's still waiting for me, I'm stuck here."

[Avenger Assembled]

Frost stared up at the other man as a clear image came into his head. He would freeze the time traveler solid, incinerate his remains in the waste disposal of his laboratory, and then plague and time travel problems would all be solved in a moment. But no, I am no longer that man, to solve every problem that way. "I have some experience with time travel, though not personally. Time travelers often attempted to...do harm to Soviet leadership." He was on the move now, pacing around the floor until he was directly behind Bloodline. "New future can be made, but old future cannot be killed. So no doubt comrades will be waiting for you after famous time travel victory!" he declared cheerfully. "Now hold up your arm, and I will take blood sample," he went on, holding up a big old-fashioned hypodermic needle. 

[RobRX]

Bloodline snarled at the mention of his comrade still existing, somewhere in the multiverse. One would think their survival would please him but it was very much the complete and utter opposite. "No, this is NOT why I came back! I came back so they would never have to face the horrors they endure. If what you're saying is true, then I failed the fraggin' mission." Despite not technically needing to breathe, Anton exhaled, almost in desperation and then started breathing, slowly.

 

"Look, I know I'm a danger to everyone around me; that's why I came here. Things are bad, or were bad, where I'm from. We've lost of great minds. Maybe there's someone here, with a cure. Or maybe at least a way to 'sterilize' me. If I'm too dangerous, then I don't mind getting locked up in here for the rest of my days."

 

 

[Avenger Assembled]

"Well, porheps far future time travel techniques are more advanced than what we have in slow modern age. After all, you have time machine!" exclaimed Frost, trying to stay jovial. "It may not be so bad. Now hold still." He jabbed Bloodline with the needle, which felt silvered as it dug into the vein to extract the stuff that passed for blood inside the time-traveling pseudo-vampire. "There we go, that's the stuff," he commented. "I will experiment." He headed back to his lab table to work, wishing (not for the first time) that he had a stronger background in chemical analysis. "Where have you been living?" he inquired as he set the blood sample to boil. "Since your arrival in magic time vessel."

[RobRX]

"Advanced? No, that thing was barely working and I'd be willing to bet half of it just worked because we used all the remaining duct tape we had." The machine was experimental and had never been tested. Anton wasn't an expert on technology, but based on what he had heard, several components of the machine had to be replaced while it was being 'tuned up' in order to send someone.

 

"There was no 'time vessel'. It was just a one-way trip. Well anyway, if the smell hasn't tipped you off, I've stuck to the sewers."

[Avenger Assembled]

"A shame," commented Frost. He rustled around in wooden desk drawers for a moment, their sides squeaking, before he found a device with which Bloodline was completely unfamiliar. "This is manual tape recorder. Steel tapes, as are used in airplane black boxes." That required some further explanation, which he did patiently before going back to work on his chemical processing. "Price of serum and blood," he said frankly, "is that you describe future vampire plague for the record. Leave nothing out, however inconsequential it may seem." Hmming, he picked up a test tube full of a reddish-green ooze made of a mixture of Bloodline's blood and some chemicals he'd had on his desk. 

[RobRX]

"Right." He said, looking at the recording device. "The future. Or rather a future." Bloodline said, slowly losing himself in thoughts. He might have left said future, but that future certainly hadn't left him. Not one bit.

 

"I suppose information like that is something the Freedom League ought to posses; the very reason the vampire outbreak hapenned is that no one saw it coming until it was too late. The infected, while feral, weren't stupid. They had an animal cunning and, in hindsight, likely had intelligent masters all along. We called it 'the culling'; in late 2015, the vampire population reached a threshold and they descended upon the cities in rabid packs, feeding off the innocents. The local heroes did what they could to react, but in such a short amount of time, their options were limited and the casualties were immense. I don't remember it much personally, but I know several villains actually joined side with the heroes to fight back the undead horde. Those who weren't immune to diseases became infected, creating rabid, super-vampires. Their declining sanity combined with their powers led to widespread destruction." He paused, looking at Comrade Frost for a moment, before continuing his story.

 

telling how the ensuing chaos caused a nuclear war. No one knows who fired first or why, but Bloodline suspected someone or something was behind the ensuing nightmare. Next came the long nights, where survivors tried to avoid the undead hordes. Then came the intelligent vampires, eager to build a new civilization, with humans as cattles.

 

"From the point in time where I'm from, a cure is impossible. The virus keeps adapting, mutating. It keeps getting nastier. Our time travel plan was one last gambit, hoping we'd be able to change history and avoid all those deaths. But apparently, that failed; my timeline still exist somewhere."

[Avenger Assembled]

"Hmm. I will speak with Feretti on subject. Porheps with you as well, Mr. Bloodline." With his Eastern European accent and standing before bubbling beakers and burning Bunsens, for a moment or two he looked very much like a mad scientist of old. "If there is cause to be found in vampire events of next year, we will see what we can see." The other man had told a grim story, but Frost had heard doomsday scenarios in his own time. "I am sure mission will be success and you will save timeline." He hmmed, tapping a bubbling beaker as the contents turned from green to red. "Another ten, twenty minutes here, and you will have batch sufficient to suppress your symptoms." He considered this situation gravely before saying, "You know, Freedom League policy until quite recently was to simply destroy vampires as obvious enemies of humanity. They go far with their beliefs in common humanity among undead now." 

[RobRX]

"I don't blame you. Truth is, I've been fairly tempted at putting that highly destructive weapon to my temple and press the trigger." Bloodline admitted, saying he had considered a cowardly way out of avoiding causing a vampire apocalypse that would ravage countless lives and possibly lead to the end of the world. At least Comrade Frost had told him that he'd be able to avoid such things as a stable time loop.

 

"I'm leaving the information and my unlife in the League's hands. Even if you aren't the League I know. Well, on the flipside, I really prefer this base. And if you are wondering, no, I was never a member of the Freedom League myself."

[Avenger Assembled]

"I am not technically member of Freedom League," admitted Frost. "Despite current circumstances - I am on assignment from People's Heroes to work with League." An assignment that had dragged on far longer than anticipated - almost certainly, he reflected, because of his opposition to the government's border disputes with the Ukraine and in the Caucasus. "I do not know how well you know history. Once League and I were fierce enemies - even warred against some in old times of social conflict. Now I stand alongside them as brother and if they do not like what I say or do sometimes,  I stand there all the same. These people, this League, they have ways of defanging even fiercest monsters." 

[RobRX]

"Look, it doesn't matter." The time-travelling (or perhaps dimension-travelling now being more accurate) said, passing a hand over his brow. "I'm a man out of time and a walking biohazard. I have nowhere else to go and no one else to turn to or trust. Most people I know who would be alive in this time period are either too young or have never met me at this point. Hell, most who were active in these days are still probably at Claremont." He chuckled and smiled at that, before the short laugh turned into a somewhat sad one.

 

"Yeah, they got a life right now. One that isn't quite as messed up. Same for my parents. Hopefully nothing I know will happen from here on." He wondered if he'd even be born in this timeline. It then occured to him that, since he was ageless, he could actually see his alternate self live his whole life.

 

"As for history lessons, well, sorry. It's not that I'm not interested, it's just that it wasn't really relevant to survival."

[Avenger Assembled]

"A shame," said Frost cooly. "But such is the way of things when all else has ended." After some more work, he came up with a beaker full of what looked to be Bloodline's familiar serum - albeit with a faintly off color and scent. "Was best I could do with limited circumstances," he commented, including a metal case with a small collection of big hypodermic needles, large enough for a horse. In fact, there was a small picture of a horse, and a brand name, on the needle's metal canister! "Suggest you visit market in Waterfront if you are looking for discreet supplier of blood - they provide animal material for Feretti's vampires in city." He studied the big time traveler for a moment, then seemed to shrug. "Contact me if you are looking for further information or assistance. Your crusade need not be alone." 

[RobRX]

"Vampire in this city?" Bloodline said, while opening the side of his weapon to check the inside, before letting out a sigh. He had hoped the weapon might make more sense to him or that at least he could tell what was smoking inside it for a quick fix. Aside from scrubbing the inside he had no clue.

 

"All right then, can I use the armory? My weapon is a bit damaged. Smells like burnt...well, you know." Of course no doubt the Freedom League didn't have an armory loaded with anti-vampire weaponry, let alone any kind of lethal weaponry. Overall there was still some adjustments for Bloodline to make about this world/time line.