Alliance (18 page)

And it does look as though it has not
eaten in quite a while. Its body is thin and boney and its pale
skin makes it look close to death. Yet I continue to keep my guard
up, because appearances can be deceiving when dealing with Delanian
creatures.

The arctic vampire stalks back and forth,
looking at me with its red eyes like a predator. It appears to be
looking for an opening in which to strike me, but I will not let it
find one. Its eyes focus on the hole in my chest, but I cover that
quickly.

Then the arctic vampire says, in a strange
accent, “So you're one of those J bot machines I've heard so much
about. You look like so much
clack
to me, hardly as
impressive as the rumors made you out to be.”

I run the word 'clack' through my mobile
dictionary. There are no matches for that word, either in Delan or
Modern Xeeonish, which means it is probably a vampiric word or
possibly slang. While I do not know its exact meaning, I can derive
its meaning from the context in which this arctic vampire uses
it.

“
I do not wish to fight
you, arctic vampire,” I say, my optics following its every move.
“All I want to do is stay inside this cave until the blizzard
passes. I won't stay here forever.”

The arctic vampire shakes its head,
although I am starting to think it is female based on its voice and
vaguely feminine form. “No. This is
my
cave. I won it by
right of conquest. Do you see those bones over there?”

The arctic vampire points at the
unidentifiable pile of bones I noticed earlier. “Those belonged to
the last idiot who tried to take this cave as his own. His blood
tasted awful, by the way.”

“
I did not know this is
your cave,” I say. “It appeared abandoned and uninhabited to me,
which is why I decided to stay here until the storm
passed.”

“
I don't care what you
did or didn't think,” says the arctic vampire. She bares her long,
dagger-like fangs at me. “You robots probably don't understand
things like protecting territory from enemies, so you can't
understand why I want to rip you to shreds right now.”

I tilted my head to the side. “How do you
speak Delan so well? I thought most arctic vampires were savages
incapable of speaking in anything other than hisses and
growls.”

“
That's none of your
business,” the arctic vampire snaps. “The only reason I wasn't here
when you got here is because I was out hunting and got caught in
that terrible storm.”

“
So you took refuge in
another cave to wait it out?” I ask.

“
Of course not,” says
the arctic vampire. “I would have been killed by another arctic
vampire. No, I just fought my way through the storm. It took me
hours, but I did it.”

The arctic vampire sounds proud of
herself, although I find it hard to believe that any creature, even
an arctic vampire born and raised in this environment, can make it
through a blizzard as powerful as that one through sheer willpower.
That is another hint at the strength and power of these arctic
vampires, which is yet another reason to keep my guard up and not
underestimate her.

“
You are certainly a
fearsome and brave creature if you managed to fight through that
blizzard on your own,” I say. “By the way, has the blizzard gone
down at all since I went into sleep mode?”

“
Slightly,” says the
arctic vampire. “But it doesn't matter because you won't live long
enough to leave this place on your own two legs.”

The arctic vampire lunges at me with her
claws outward. I fire more finger lightning bolts at her, but then
she vanishes into the shadows again.

She is gone for only a little while,
however, because in the next instant she leaps out of the shadows
behind me and tackles me to the floor of the cave. The impact is
harder than I expected due to the arctic vampire's
heavier-than-expected weight.

Still, I activate the electrical barrier
in my body, which causes the arctic vampire to shriek in pain and
jump off my back. I then jump to my feet and whirl around to punch
her in the face, but my blow misses when she vanishes into the
darkness again.

I look around again, even though I know I
will not see her until it is too late. I wish I understood how her
disappearance into the dark works, but even the mobile Database
says that no one knows exactly how the arctic vampires do it, so I
will simply have to keep my guard up as always. I cannot even sense
her right now, like she has disappeared into a pocket dimension of
some kind.

Then I see a flash of paleness out of the
corner of my optic and I jump back just as the arctic vampire goes
flying past me with her claws stretched outwards again. As she
passes me, I bring both of my fists down on her body, sending her
crashing into the ground.

But as soon as she hits the ground, she
rolls away and jumps back to her feet. A low growl emits from her
throat as she claws at the ground.

“
You are stronger than
you look, machine,” says the arctic vampire, panting slightly.
“Much stronger. When I saw the hole in your chest, I thought you
were too wounded to fight. I suppose I made a mistake
there.”

“
Yes, you did,” I say.
“We J bots are capable of operating even when damaged. It is
nothing more than a 'flesh wound,' as I already explained to
someone else today.”

“
Impressive,” says the
arctic vampire. “Most impressive indeed. I do not understand
machines very well, but perhaps it would not be wise for us to keep
fighting like this when it is clear neither of us will go down
easily.”

“
You mean you do not
want to fight for your territory anymore?” I ask. “Not that we
actually were, of course, as I have no interest whatsoever in
making your territory mine, but this does not seem like something I
would expect from a vampire like you.”

The arctic vampire shrugs. “While I still
do not want you anywhere near my cave, I know better than to draw
out a fight with someone of your strength and caliber. It would be
a waste of time and energy for both of us.”

The arctic vampire seems far more
reasonable than she first appeared, but I do not let my guard down
entirely. The mobile Database says that vampires of all stripes,
including the arctic kind, are often very deceptive. She is
probably saying all of this in order to get me to lower my defense,
but I will, of course, not let her do that.

“
If you do not want to
continue the fight, then I will leave shortly,” I say, glancing at
the cave mouth, where I can hear the howling winds of the blizzard
raging. “I do not have time to waste here in this wasteland. It is
of utmost urgency that I return to Xeeo and reconnect with the
Database.”

“
Let me guess,” says the
arctic vampire, scratching her chin. “You don't know how to leave
these mountains, do you?”

I look at the arctic vampire. “How did you
know that?”

“
Because why else would
you be in my cave like this if you did not already know your way
around here?” says the arctic vampire. “I don't know how you got
here in the first place, but I can tell you have no idea how to
find the nearest Portal back to your home; otherwise, you would be
long gone by now, I'm sure. Correct?”

I nod. “That is correct. Are you implying
that
you
do?”

“
Of course,” says the
arctic vampire. She pats her chest. “I was born and raised in the
Winterlands. I know every inch of this place like the back of my
hand. From the tip of the Frozen Peninsula to the edge of the
Warmer Regions, I know it all.”

My scanners indicate that she is telling
the truth, although it is hard to tell for sure because my scanners
are not designed to detect lies from vampires. Still, I cannot
assume she is lying, because if she is telling the truth, then she
seems to be my best bet for finding a way out of here and back to
Xeeo. On the other hand, I cannot safely assume she is telling the
truth, either, so I will have to speak carefully and make sure not
to let my guard down around her.

So I say, “Are you going to tell me where
the nearest Portal is, then? If so, I would greatly appreciate
that.”

“
I will,” says the
arctic vampire. “But for a price.”

“
A price?” I repeat.
“What price? I lack any digits to pay you with, as we J bots are
not allowed to have money. Even if I did have some digits on hand,
I know you Delanians prefer physical money over digital money, so I
still wouldn't be able to pay you.”

“
I don't want or need
money
,” the arctic vampire snorts. “Paper and metal is as
useless to me as water is to you. By 'price,' I mean we will
exchange services, which I can tell you robots do not have a very
good understanding of.”

“
What services could I
render to you?” I ask. “After all, as a J bot, I serve the Xeeonite
public by catching criminals. I am not some profit-minded bounty
hunter who hires out his services to anyone who offers him a lot of
money.”

“
I don't need you to
hunt anyone's bounty,” says the arctic vampire. “Instead, I need
you to solve a problem for me and the rest of my fellow arctic
vampires here, one we have not been able to solve
ourselves.”

“
And what problem is
that?” I say.

The arctic vampire points at the cave
entrance. “Not far from here is a group of beings who have taken
over a portion of our land and made it theirs. When they first
arrived some years ago, they slaughtered dozens of arctic vampires
with little difficulty, and as a result we've left them alone, even
though we still do not want them here at all.”

The arctic vampire sounds bitter and
angry, likely due to her memories of the event. She must have been
there to see it herself, which explains why she seems so strongly
affected by her memories of it.

“
What do these beings
call themselves?” I ask. “Do you know?”

“
I don't,” says the
arctic vampire, shaking her head. “They never introduced themselves
to us. They came, staked out part of these mountains as their own,
and killed any of us arctic vampires who tried to stop them. They
wield magic and technology unlike anything I have ever seen and
they know how to kill arctic vampires easily.”

“
I believe I see where
you are going with this,” I say. I point at myself. “You want me to
go and defeat these invaders, correct? You think I can succeed
where you arctic vampires failed.”

“
You guess correctly,
machine,” says the arctic vampire. “I want you to do this because
you seem strong. Along with your understanding of Xeeonite
technology, you might be able to put a stop to them once and for
all, or at least scare them away from these mountains for a
while.”

“
What will I receive in
exchange?” I ask.

“
I will show you the way
to the nearest Portal,” says the arctic vampire. “Then you can
return to Xeeo and never have to pollute our lands with your
unnatural technology again.”

I consider her offer. On one hand, she
might be lying in an attempt to have me lower my guard so she can
kill me. On the other hand, she does not appear to be lying,
although again it can be hard to tell when an arctic vampire is
lying or not due to my scanners not being designed to work on
them.

Her offer is good; however, I need more
information on these invaders first before I agree to it. Hopefully
she will be able to answer my questions about them.

“
Why did these beings
come and steal part of your land?” I ask. “What are they trying to
accomplish?”

The arctic vampire scowls and looks away.
“How should I know? They have not even tried to communicate with
us. They've brought in loud, heavy machinery from your world and
have dug up much of the earth and rock, but none of us vampires
have ever gotten close enough to see what they are searching for.
Not that I care. They stole our land and killed our brethren and
that is all that matters.”

Based on her description, it sounds to me
like these beings might be archeologists of some sort, or maybe a
mining company from Xeeo searching for mineral deposits. The
Winterlands are speculated to have an immense amount of natural
resources, and the only reason no one has ever succeeded in
attaining these resources is because of the arctic vampires, the
extreme weather, and other dangers that these mountains present to
anyone who comes here. Anyone who succeeds in mining the
Winterlands' natural resources will become rich; according to the
mobile Database, the current value of the mountains' ores is one
trillion digits.

Assuming the invaders are a profit-driven
company of some sort, then it is possible they have received a
license from the government of Delig to dig here. Of course, there
is always the possibility that they are operating without any such
license, which would make their activities illegal, which is good
enough motivation for me to stop their activities right away. It
might even be enough to clear my name with the Delanian
authorities, which would certainly make it easier for me to return
to Xeeo.

“
By the way,” says the
arctic vampire, breaking me out of my thoughts, “if you refuse the
offer, then I will kick you out of my cave and force you to wander
these mountains by yourself. You might be able to find your way to
the nearest village with a Portal … or you might freeze to death,
if you can even die, that is. Just something to take into
consideration as you think about my offer.”