The Meridian Gamble (58 page)

“There’s a vegan cafeteria down the
hall, if you prefer.”

Though vegan sounds like exactly
what my body needs, the thought of leaving the food here is torture to me. I’m
famished by this point.

“No, this looks great,” I say.

The man behind the counter is
middle-aged, with dark hair and a mustache, but his demeanor seems friendly
enough. He smiles widely, ready to take my order.

“I’ll try the Alfredo pasta with
some chicken,” I say.

“Try the spaghetti and meatballs,”
he says, with a wink. “You’ll love it.”

“Okay,” I say with a laugh.

And as he heats up my pasta, I grab
a plate, and put some Cesar salad on it. For good measure, I take small pieces
of the chicken and steak. The chef quickly passes me my spaghetti on another
plate, and hands me a small bowl of fresh fruit, which looks delicious.

I’m weak and famished, but
something makes me look to the cook and consider him once more. And when I
focus on him in that special way, I can see it, the glow. He’s one of the
Luminos.

And he gives me another smile.

No images of the man’s past lives
flash before my eyes, which tells me we haven’t crossed paths. And as Evelyn
rolls me to one of the tables, I look around the room. No one else seems to
have the aura of my so-called people.

I wonder if the cook has heard
tales of Saga and her sins. I’ll know soon enough, I suppose, if the food is
poisoned.

Evelyn and I go to the center
tables, which is fine. I’m not ready to watch the news of the world, to see how
much time has passed, and I hardly need soap operas. My life has drama enough.
She doesn’t say anything at first, and allows me to begin shoveling food into
my mouth. And the strange thing is, even though the cuisine seems modest, it’s
absolutely delicious, perhaps the best thing I’ve ever tasted.

The Cesar salad is divine. The
dressing is light and has a peppery flavor, and the chicken is torn into moist
shreds that have a bit of seasoning, and are cooked to perfection. They’re not
the cold, hardened blocks most salads would have. The steak is filet mignon,
broiled to a degree of tenderness that I’ve only dreamt of creating at home,
and the chunk of chicken is cooked Cordon Bleu style. It’s crunchy and
delectable. I can’t imagine what magic he worked to make the food taste this
way. I shouldn’t have any more, but I take a few bites of spaghetti, and it
tastes like no pasta I’ve ever had. It must be some alchemical miracle he’s
created with the mix of fresh herbs in the sauce, or something he’s added to
the meatballs, perhaps bacon or some of the filet mignon.

Even though I’m starving, it can’t
be just the hunger that’s swaying my opinion. I’m convinced the food is even
better than the delicacies served in the vampire tower. And Evelyn notices my
appreciation.

“Are you enjoying our cuisine?” she
says, with a smile.

“It’s amazing. I can’t believe how
good it is.”

And I look to the cook, who nods
his head, and gives me another big smile. And I wave to him weakly in return.

“The cook … he’s Luminos,” I say.

“Antonio is a genius. He’s spent
lifetimes studying the culinary arts. That’s probably why this is the most
popular of the cafeterias, even though he oversees the menus in the other
areas.”

“And that’s it? He cooks for them?”

“Mainly. It’s how he chooses to
participate in the war. Not all of the Luminos venture forth into battle. For
some, it becomes too stressful over time.”

“That’s fascinating. He certainly
has skill,” I say, savoring another small bite. “And you say there are more of
them here?”

“Yes, scattered throughout the
facility. Mostly on the lower floors.”

“And what kind of facility is it,
exactly?”

“Research. That’s one of the ways
they keep it’s nature a secret. The vampires think it’s a government center,
and the Luminos who work here are on floors hidden below, for the most part.
And there are very few of them present, just in case it gets attacked.”

“And what are they researching?”

“We’ll get to that in a bit,”
Evelyn says, offering nothing more. But my imagination begins to go wild. I
picture mad scientists tinkering away, developing a super-weapon designed to
kill vampires instantly, perhaps a laser in space keyed to their unique
physiology. Or maybe they’re working on some kind of body armor, to match their
foes’ superhuman strength and speed. If there is one thing I know about the Luminos
from my brief glimpses into past lives, it’s that they’ll never stop. They will
never give up on their war.

“Aren’t you worried that the
vampires might infiltrate your base somehow? That they might plant one of their
human agents in here to spy on you?”

Evelyn just smiles back at me, as
if I’m a foolish child who has no idea what she’s saying.

“We screen our people quite
thoroughly. But even if they did get in here, that’s why you’ll only find a few
of the Luminos at the facility. Their numbers are spread across the world, to
protect them. If this center was breached, the rest would change their
locations, instantly. Plus, we have one of their scanners on site.”

“A scanner?”

“One of the Luminos who has
particularly strong telepathic abilities. They all have the talent to block out
the mental attacks of the vampires, to varying degrees, but this person has the
gift to read people’s minds. We’re not sure how it works, but some of these
mental powers come back with them over lifetimes.”

“Interesting,” I say. But they
can’t be that good, whoever this scanner is, because they didn’t detect Arie
and Lenore’s presence. I have a feeling that no matter how many times the
Luminos scanners return, their skill will never match the level of the
vampires.

I finish my food, and Evelyn looks
to me.

“Why don’t we continue on with our
tour? Do you think you’re up for it?”

“Sure, why not?”

But my confidence is a false one.
I’ve never had a good experience with the Luminos in any of my lives. Each of
them ended up with me being slaughtered by them. I wonder if I’m still
notorious in their circles for being Saga, the grand betrayer? I wonder why
they even bothered to pull me from the tanks, or if it was a mistake, just some
bit of irony that I was the only one of their people who survived.

We leave the cafeteria, and Evelyn
takes us back down the hallway, to the main walkway of the center, where an
electrical cart is waiting for us. She loads me in, and puts the wheelchair in
the back, and we take off.

We drive to the end of the low
structures, offices or dorm rooms, whatever they are. The cart parks by a set
of large doors, and when they open, I see an elevator car that’s even bigger
than the freight elevator at the Quorum. For a moment, I think we’re going to
drive inside, but she gets out the chair and rolls me in. And as the doors shut
on us, I feel a sense of impending doom.

We’re going down, and I can see
that there are four subterranean levels to the compound, unless the elevator
buttons are lying. And like the vampire tower, I’m unnerved by the idea of what
they’re doing down here, which unfortunately, I’m going to discover soon
enough.

We get out on the lowest level, and
there is a man at the security desk who’s middle-aged and stocky. He checks
Evelyn’s badge, but when he sees I don’t have one, he shakes his head and
stares her down.

“I’m sorry. She can’t pass.”

“She’s Luminos,” Evelyn says,
forcefully.

And the man stares me over. He
picks up a phone on the desk and dials.

In a moment, a steel door nearby
swings open. A man comes out, younger, with brown hair and a fresh face. He’s
dressed in a lab coat, and he immediately looks my way. I notice his Luminos
glow, but for a moment, I get a flickering glimpse of someone dressed in long
robes, and I wonder where I knew him from. He’s not my uncle, but perhaps I met
him in the arena in Egypt. After looking me over, the man nods his head and the
guard waves his hand for us to pass.

The young Luminos man seems
uncomfortable as I walk by, and I’m hopeful he wasn’t someone I slaughtered on
the battlefield in my vampire days.

We enter a corridor with a series
of windowed rooms, with more people in lab coats walking about. But before we
can go too far, we turn right, and she takes me into a windowless space that
looks like an interrogation chamber, or maybe some kind of classroom. There is
only a table with some chairs, a desk and a plain white board on the wall, the
kind you write on with erasable markers.

I sit there nervously for a few
moments. And then my heart sinks to the pit of my stomach, as he walks into the
room, and leans up against the edge of the table that’s in front of me.

The General is taller this time
around. He has very broad shoulders and a muscular frame. He's almost what you
would call a mountain of a man. He resembles his name, and has an air of the
military about him, with hair cut in a flat top and an outfit of Army fatigues.
His face is a bit pockmarked, with tiny scars from having acne as a child, but
he has freaky blue eyes that are very light, almost the color of the sky.
They’re the kind of startling feature you would see in one of the vampires.

But what truly fascinates me is the
glow about the man. It’s more vibrant than any of the auras I’ve seen before,
so radiant it’s almost beautiful. I wonder if it’s because he’s come back so
many times, or because I know him the best of all of them. And as intimidating
as the General is in his military garb, the bright aura casts him in a more
gentle light, and almost makes him look like an angel.

He greets me with a broad smile,
which is another change in this lifetime. The General doesn’t seem so grim as
he did in the past.

“Meridian Gutierrez? I’m Colonel
Anderson,” he says. “But I suspect you realize by now that we already know each
other.”

“Yeah, you’re my dad,” I say.

And he smiles, though it’s almost a
wince.

“Yes. Yes, I am.”

“Colonel? Is that a promotion?”

He laughs.

“No, I’m still knows as ‘the
General,‘ which is actually the higher rank. But I’m a Colonel in the U.S.
military this time around. I’ve been working to integrate some of our
operations with the Army. It’s a tricky thing, however, since so many of the
vampire agents have infiltrated the government,” he says. “This is actually a
military base, which we’ve used to mask some of our efforts.”

“So I hear.”

And I wonder for a moment if I
should have said that, if he’ll be mad with Evelyn for revealing secrets to me.
I have no idea what their relationship is, but luckily, he doesn’t seem to be
upset with her.

And as he stands before me, the
images quickly begin to flicker through my mind. He becomes my father in Egypt,
the man in London who shot me. Even worse, it’s not just a visual thing, but
the emotions come rushing back, too. And I don’t just vaguely remember them, I
feel them intensely, the love I held for him as a child, mixed with resentment
over being trained as a weapon. I experience again the terror that overcame me
in London as he raised a gun my way. My stomach clenches up, as the bullet
seems to enter it once more.

I shake my head, forcing the visions
away.

“You’re experiencing the past
again, aren’t you?”

“It’s all come back to me, just
recently,” I say, unsteadily. “At least a good chunk of it. But it can be hard
to control. Weird images shuffle through my mind at odd times.”

“That’s right, you haven’t spent
very much time with us. No one’s taught you how to properly use your gifts,” he
says. “I find that candy helps. Or a nice piece of chocolate cake, when the
memories become too much. Heavy foods that ground you, like biscuits and
chicken potpie. Ice cream works too.”

“Great, now you tell me,” I say,
rolling my eyes. “I could have been pigging out this whole time.”

And he gives a small chuckle, as
Evelyn smiles.

“I always carry a little something
with me, just in case.”

The General pulls a small Snickers
bar out of his shirt pocket, the kind they hand out at Halloween, and offers it
to me. But I hesitate. Even though I’ve eaten their food and they’re being nice
to me, I can’t shake the feeling that it might be poisoned, or a trick. This
man has caused me so much pain in the past that I can’t help but to expect that
he’ll do it again.

“I think maybe I’ll pass,” I say.

“Well, you let me know if you
change your mind. Or we’ll get you something else that might help.”

He takes the chocolate back, but my
refusal hangs heavily in the air, and he seems just a bit wounded. The moment
of silence is deafening, and even Evelyn Lewis looks between us with interest.

I don’t know what it is, my
exhaustion from my ordeal in the tanks or my anger at feeling like their
prisoner, but I begin to get defensive. I don’t want to play games with this
man, not after all we’ve been through. And I start to snap.

“So, can we get to the point? You
know, the part where you shoot me in the head? Or are you going to torture me
first, to get information about the vampires out of me?"

“No,” he says, patiently. “We’re
not going to do any of those things.”

“But I’m still Enemy Number One,
aren’t I? Saga, the Great Betrayer. You’re biggest disappointment, maybe?”

And my words hit him harshly, like
a slap in the face. He sucks in his breath, softly.

“In some circles of the Luminos,
perhaps. You are certainly well known amongst us as having taken part in one of
our greatest defeats. But I don’t want you to worry about any of that. The past
is the past, what’s done is done. We have had meetings about you, Meridian. And
it was decided long ago that we would try to bring you back into the fold if
given the chance. You are welcome to rejoin us, and truly become one of the
Luminos, if you like. And as far as disappointments go, the only one I’m
disappointed in is myself.”