In her mindscape Enid looked up at her father and reached out and with a flick of her wrist snapped her father’s neck. He fell on top of her and she flung him off. She walked outside the hut there was so much snow she couldn’t see and then the hut was gone. She was still nine years old and barefoot she was chasing after a shadowy figure ahead of her. She would catch up and it would flicker away. She thought it was Lilith but it was Aurelia. She found herself in Rome and lost sight of her. She ran down the streets. They were twisted from her memories. The angles were wrong. She came around the corner she saw Lucius holding a knife grinning wickedly she saw Aurelia approaching she tried to scream out a warning. As Lucius was about to pounce Aurelia vanished in a flash of white light. Lucius stabbed the street then he turned into a widely grinning skeleton its jaw turning angular with fangs.

She felt strong hands on her, and she was spun around. It was Sextus. He was speaking to her but it was gibberish. Behind him she could see Mount Vesuvius erupting. She turned and started to run but the faster she moved the quicker the lava started to catch up. She reached her father’s round house again. And slammed the door shut. It was starting to fill up with ocean water. She saw her father he had fangs and his arms were lashed with silver chains she could see the sizzling. The water engulphed him and the threatened to engulf her. She struggled to keep her head above the water she could see her birth father writhing in the dark under the water struggling to be free of his bindings but never getting away. Constantly drowning, constantly burning. She pushed upwards and into the light. She was nine still but she was tread water in the ocean near the cliff where her tribe used to live. She saw a hand reach down and she held onto it and was pulled up and into the Garden of Eden.

An old man was curled up with wings that were almost complete bone. Tatters of feathers hanging from them. He reached out to her. But his hand started crumbling to dust. The tree of life had wilted and only four apples remained. The now skeletal figure with bone wings was trying to speak to her but she couldn’t understand it. She started to run and the edge of eternity pursued her. She ran through the forest and over the black sands and across the blasted bridge the whole time the edge of eternity chasing her. She ran up through Atlantis and into the Reality Core room. It was spinning out of control wobbling on its axis and it exploded she held up her hands to block the blast of shards but they froze in time. She saw a figure appear behind it, it was Eyre who smiled at her and started pulling the shards back together with her hands instead of four pillars it was the shape of a woman. She could see forces from within tugging and pulling at it. It kept pulsing with different shards of it blow out words some with bursts of the dark energy, others leaves and flowers another a geometric pattern and another with a fourth dimensional construct never quite confirming to a shape. Eyre kept stuffing the pieces back in. She spoke.

“Balance must be maintained.”

Enid reached out with her child-like hand.

“I don’t understand.”

“Love.”

Enid was starting to tear up she was trying to reach for Eyre but she couldn’t seem to touch her.

“Time.”

Eyre waved her hand, and the construct became adult Enid. It spoke.

“Time. Free will. Control. Balance.”

Her adult duplicate exploded showing her nine-year-old self with the shattered remnants of the Reality Core floating around her. She woke with a start and found her arms were bound and she was severely injured. She’d been stabbed repeatedly, and her neck was tied to something. She snapped her bonds and tore whatever was around her neck off. She looked around herself. She was naked. Chuck was unconscious and Keith was bleeding from a gut wound. There was a man standing over her with a bloody knife. He looked rather shocked when she lunged at him and sunk her teeth into his neck. She didn’t stop until he was limp and lifeless in her arms. She dropped the body. She struggled to remember what happened. She looked around and found autoinjector. She vaguely recalled…an orgy. The last one was the kid. She shook her head and rushed to Keith. She chanted in Atlantean and healed his wounds. He gasped for breath. While he was coming to his senses Enid moved to Chuck and did the same. Enid crouched into a fighting stance when she heard the door groaning like someone was trying to force it open. She was surprised to see Bee in full armor flanked by two Aurelius Corp security cyborgs.

“Ms. Aurelius. What happened?”

“Drugged…he… attacked us.”

Bee grabbed a robe and covered Enid quickly. One of the cyborgs kneeled down and checked the pulse of the man Enid had drained.

“He’s dead. What about these two? They’re witnesses.”

Enid held up her hand. Keith was still trying to make sense of what happened. Enid kneeled down and looked him in the eyes.

“Keith, we had a great night. You’re going to get cleaned up, when you’re done you’ll forget everything except that we had a glorious night of the best sex you’ve ever had. Then I was called away and I told you I’d take care of you and Chuck. You’ll be escorted with Chuck to your new accommodations.”

Enid repeated the same statement with Chuck. The two men started getting cleaned up. Bee blinked at Enid in disbelief.

“Ms. Aurelius we need to get you out of here before the authorities arrive.”

Bee looked to the two cyborgs that had accompanied her.

“Get these two a suite at the Paramount, make sure it’s a good one.”

Bee put her arm around Enid’s shoulders and escorted her to the skycar. Once they were inside. Bee started scanning Enid with a bio-scanner. Enid shook her head.

“Won’t work, I’m dead.”

“I guess you are. I’m so sorry I didn’t get there sooner.”

“No…no its fine Bee, I put myself in that situation.”

“No, it is not, you’re the Dark Mother. I’m not leaving your side again.”

“Bee. You have children to consider. I have no idea what your holy book says, but if there isn’t something about being a mother is the most important thing I’ve ever done, then it’s wrong.”

“We are all your children.”

Enid sunk into the robe.

“Is there any way I can get cleaned up before we go to WTO HQ?”

“I’ll take you to my place.”

“Thank you. You aren’t going to get into trouble…with the authorities for helping me, right?”

“No, we do this all the time. Executives are always doing questionable things. Not that what you did was questionable.”

“I’m not feeling guilty he tried to kill us. I needed his blood to heal my friends.”

Bee went a bit paler.

“You drank his blood?”

“I’m a vampire, or wasn’t that clear?”

“I…just…”

“You have been worshiping an immortal bloodsucking monster. The blood on my hands could fill oceans.”

“Only because of what the dark one did to you.”

Enid looked out the window and silently watching the city she had marveled at just a day before. The future was darker than she had imagined. Where she was held with as much reverence as Christ. He deserved their worship; He was truly a good being. Not like her. Bee glanced towards here and Enid glanced back.

“Something on your mind?”

“Did you truly sacrifice yourself for us?”

“I had full intentions too, but then my mother saved me at the last second.”

“Why did it take so long for you to make yourself known?”

“Time is different…in other universes fifteen minutes there could be thousands of years here.”

“Oh.”

“It’s complicated Bee, just know that if I had my way, I wouldn’t have abandoned my family.”

Bee looked forward but kept glancing at Enid.

“Ask what you want, you may not get another chance to ask your dark mother whatever you want.”

“Do you still have the Dark Sword?”

“No, it was sacrificed to kill its creator.”

“I saw a sword…”

“I forged a new one, it is blade of light. I made it to protect the ones I love. The soul bound to it did so out of love for me. Out of respect for that I try to never draw it in anger.”

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“Do you love us?”

Enid glanced back out the window, that was a tough question. She lied.

“I love all of humanity. It is why I willingly sacrificed myself. Even if sometimes…certain ones need to die.”

Bee smiled at Enid’s words. The skycar got clearance automatically but Bee had to navigate a bustle of activity as fighters and troop transports were rushing to launch. She was put in a holding pattern. Enid looked at Bee.

“Is this usual?”

“Not unless city is under attack.”

“So, something is wrong?”

“I would guess so. We had some…chatter on Aurelius that something was up earlier.”

Enid’s eyes snapped to Bee.

“What….chatter?”

“That a high level exec was hit.”

Enid blinked. She had been out when it happened obviously or surely her gift would have warned her. Perhaps the attack on her and her lovers was planned to correspond with it. She reached out and could sense the ties of blood to Eyre but she couldn’t tell where she was.

“You’re just telling me this now, my daughter is Eyre Aurelius, my other daughter was with her.”

Bee thought for a few seconds making the connections.

“I’m so sorry Dark Mother.”

Enid shook her head and opened the door and leaped into the air. Leaving a shocked Bee to watch her former passenger weave through the swarm of activity deftly and land in one of the bays. Bee lost sight of her charge.

Enid landed in the docking bay and was met by two guards who tried to approach her, and she sent them flying into walls with a flick of her hand. The door was sealed but she yanked it apart using a good portion of her vampiric strength to do so. Apparently, the future had been proofed against super strong individuals like cyborgs, but even the technology as good as it had become was no match for a truly ancient vampire. A squad of WTO guards approached her, and she sent them flying as well. More tried to block her path to the elevator but then got out of her way quickly. When the elevator opened Amee stepped out. Enid noticed a hint of fear on her pale near human face. Even with all the alien tech inside her she still had enough humanity to know the primal fear when faced with an angry goddess.

“Enid, your late.”

“You lost my daughters.”

“Everything is fine.”

“I don’t even need my gift to know that was a lie.”

“Calm down.”

“Somehow those words always have the opposite effect on me.”

Everyone in the hallway by the elevators tensed up. WTO security seemed hesitant to risk lifting their weapons towards Enid. More then one wore a stylized crucifix to the Dark Mother and realized they were in her presence. The squad leader held up his hand and all the weapons that had been raised were lowered. He looked at Amee.

“Ma’am, I’m not going to try and stop the Dark Mother. You can throw me in a cell and fire me but I’m not into suicide. We can’t fight a goddess.”

Amee held up her hands.

“Everything is fine, we’re just having a misunderstanding. Enid, please come with me, so I can explain.”

The squads relaxed further. A few sighs of relief were audible. Amee motioned for Enid to join her in the elevator. Enid followed her. A look of resignation on her face. Amee waved her wrist over the panel and the elevator doors closed. Enid crossed her arms.

“I tried to reach you but your holo wasn’t responding. We couldn’t even trace it.”

Enid frowned.

“I was attacked. They were probably jamming it. Whoever did this knew exactly how to disable me.”

“How did they manage that?”

“I was mortal at the time…like I said I never know what I’ll be one moment to the next. Thankfully I survived the stab wounds long enough for my vampiric abilities to come back so I could heal.”

“I suspect they were lucky rather then having any true insight. Very few corporations have any clue how to deal with vampires and werewolves.”

“What happened?”

“We received a message an hour after their transport was supposed to arrive that it had never arrived. Never left our scanners. Someone on the inside duped a signal.”

“Do you know who?”

“Not yet. I was investigating when you arrived. Look Enid, you are not equipped to deal with tracking someone down in this day and age. I know you used to be able to find a cockroach that went missing from China and ended up in a seedy New York apartment but this is not your time.”

“I was so busy enjoying myself I didn’t think…”

“Why would you worry about it? She’s made the trip a hundred times. I wasn’t worried. Of course, I assumed she had a WTO fighter escort the whole way.”

“Did she leave with one?”

“Yes.”

“Did they come back?”

“No, they apparently re-routed mid trip to deal with an alert on the far side of the moon. It was a real alert, my concern is that we have fighters based on the moon that could have gotten there faster, so someone sent them after it. Comms traffic to their fighters was deleted and the pilots are now in Pluto orbit and its still another 2 hours before we have comms with the station. So, they don’t even know anything is wrong.”

“It’s the 29th century and you can’t send a radio message?”

“We use dedicated wormholes for FTL comms, they are expensive and require a lot of power, so we have one per planet. Station uses relay satellites but there is some sort of weirdness with Pluto’s make up, so they fail often. The station is just as prone to issues. Point is, even if I sent a message normal speed it’s an 11 hour round trip. We’ve only known for two.”

Enid followed Amee off the elevator. Amee waved her wrist over part of her desk and the windows around her office went dark and then a massive hologram of Earth space appeared. Amee moved her hands and the scene seemed to fast forward. Enid had to alter time to keep up with it. She did not have the benefit of Amee’s built in computers. Amee widened her fingers and the playback paused. She pointed at six dots which she zoomed into. One was an Aurelius transport and five were WTO fighters.

“This is five minutes after the fighters intercepted a ship on the night side of the moon. Yet tracking still shows them.”

She rewound the playback stopping about fifteen minutes earlier.

“That means they broke off here. We can safely assume everything after this point is a fiction.”

“Who could make this happen?”

“An external hacker would have triggered all kinds of alarms. I know tricks they do not I designed the systems. I’d hesitate to say its impossible, but I would say it is currently impossible with the tech available to breach WTO Security without inside help even then my AI’s would pick up the breach almost immediately.”

“So someone inside would have had to do this?”

“Or someone who granted a hacker legit external access. They would have had to connect them directly to our systems. They would have had to do it fast because my AI’s are good. I’m still trying to find the breech location.”

Enid frowned.

“People are always the weakest link in any security system. You’re putting too much stock on your automation. Think about people involved: Is there someone who should have noticed the fighters were still escorting the transport even after they were called away to the moon. I know you’re never supposed to attribute malice to incompetence, but someone has to be pretty incompetent to miss the fact five fighters were duplicated. If your space control is anything like aircraft control if a plane was out of flight path by meters, they would be on your ass in a heartbeat especially military air control.”

Amee glanced at Enid.

“Maybe I was wrong about your outdated skills.”

Enid shrugged.

“I was a fighter pilot and then I worked for Military Intelligence. Tech changes, people don’t. Aircraft Control folks tend to be power trippers.”

Amee started typing on her desk and tapped something. She then swept her wrist over the desk. She started speaking afterwards.

“Bring me lieutenant Jeanie Taylor. Immediately I don’t care if she’s taking a shit.”

She waved her wrist over the desk and looked at Enid.

“We’ll find them. I have every ship in the fleet searching. There will be hell to pay if we lose Aurelius’s CEO.”

“That’s not even considering how I will react. You find them, or I will tear every habitat in this solar system apart until I find them. I don’t think whoever did this realized just who they are pissing off.”

Amee grimaced and nodded. Enid crossed her arms and started to pace. Something she had mocked vampires for before. Was she really a vampire anymore though? Enid stopped when she heard the door open. Two WTO security were flanking a woman who appeared to be of east Indian decent. Enid blinked at her. She had expected some blonde girl with a name like Jeanie Taylor. Amee motioned for security to leave the office. Enid took a closer look at Jeanie. She looked like she was about vomit. Enid glanced at Amee who wasn’t masking her anger towards the kid. Enid spoke first.

“Last night there were five fighters escorting my… the CEO of Aurelius Corporation. They were called off to the moon. You should have noticed that there five fighters still escorting the transport.”

“No, they weren’t called off. The commander of the watch said to tell the moon to take care of itself. So I told the moon that permission was denied.”

Amee showed the five fighters pulling off and duplicates still remaining there on sensors.

“Explain that then.”

“That’s not what happened.”

Amee’s leaned on her desk her fingers spread. Enid could tell she was about to rip into the girl so she spoke.

“So that isn’t what your screen showed?”

“No. Can’t you check the audio logs? I told the moon no.”

“They were erased.”

Jeanie took a step back looking between the two older women.

“I had nothing to do with this I swear!”

Enid held up her hand towards Amee.

“I can see you’re telling the truth, we need to get to the bottom of this so we can find out when they were attacked. So as far as you saw the trip to North America was fine?”

“Yes, no blips, five fighters all the way, I monitored it the whole time. Are you sure it went missing?”

“Was anyone acting weird last night?”

“Admiral Horton was in her office late…her and her assistant had a late meeting? I don’t know what about, and Wienke, the Commander of the watch…seemed a bit off.”

Amee looked at Enid who nodded. Amee turned her eyes to Jeanie.

“This conversation is classified. The CEO of Aurelius is safe and sound…”

“Aye ma’am.”

“You’re dismissed.”

Jeanie didn’t waste any time leaving the office. Enid looked to Amee.

“So, who else could have modified the sensor logs and deleted the audio recordings?”

“The Commander, or the Admiral. But the Admiral wasn’t involved.”

“How do you know that?”

“She’s been fucking her assistant for the last year and a half.”

“What? Why are you letting that happen?”

“She knows that I know… I basically don’t care as long as the job gets done.”

“But what about discipline, rank…”

“WTO might have a military but we’re not a country.”

“So, Commander Wienke?”

“Probably our lead suspect. Let me make a call to the moon. Must have had someone there to, blocking fighter launches.”

“Bring Wienke in, you guys have interrogation rooms or something? I’ll get him to talk.”

“Let us handle this.”

“You get him in a room with me or I’ll hunt him down myself.”

Amee frowned.

“You are as impossible as Eyre and Maria said you are.”

Amee pressed a button on her desk.

“Put Commander Wienke under arrest for suspicion of treason, I want him in an interrogation room within the hour.”

A response came through.

“We already have him on base, he was caught trying to catch a shuttle to Titan.”

Amee looked at Enid and shrugged. Enid walked out of the office and towards the elevator. A Bee moved on behind along with one of the security officers. He waved his wrist over the panel and the elevator doors opened shortly afterwards. He escorted Enid and Bee through the security check point and to a door which he opened with his wrist again. Enid walked inside and Bee followed her. Enid glanced back at her.

“You may not want to see this.”

“I’m not leaving your side, ma’am.”

Enid shrugged. She looked down at the man dressed in a Hawaiian shirt and shorts. Even for someone who lived in a dome he was pasty. She quirked an eyebrow and sat across from him. She started staring at him. He shifted uncomfortably as he looked between him. Bee gave a small gasp Wienke looked up at her and blinked.

“Beatrice, why are you here? What is this about?”

Bee shook her head.

“Ma’am he… He couldn’t have been involved, not with your daughter…he’s devout.”

Enid glanced back at Bee and then started staring at Wienke again. After that she just sat there motionless not breathing. He shifted in his seat again.

“What is this about? Who are you?”

Enid continued staring for several minutes. Sweat started to drip down Wienke’s forehead. Bee seemed too frightened of Enid to speak further. After Wienke asked for the twentieth time what this was about and was about to stand up Enid reached out her hand and without touching him slammed him back into his seat. He screamed and looked down at his cybernetic arm as it twisted slightly in the wrong direction. Enid spoke.

“That arm is the property of the WTO.”