The Vampire & the Rebel (Completed)

Part 1: Chapter 15

According to Theo, Jamie had been at his search for the entire morning. I had ordered that he be brought some sustenance because I hardly wanted someone to find his desiccated corpse in the back corner of my central processing. The place was dingy enough without adding such to the decor.

Central processing was far from my favourite corner of my home, since it looked like the den of a disorganized computer shut in on the sketchy side of sanity. It was run by one of my older humans, Wyatt, but Theo was quickly becoming the star of my technological team.

Though the aesthetics offended me, I did not complain about the ugliness of the dreary little space, because I understood that they were working miracles with what little they could manage to get their hands on from scavenging and what little we could produce. It was nearly impossible to singlehandedly create the vast supply chains that had once supported the modern world.

Sadly, I was no expert at any of these matters and so much had been lost in the wars it was a lot like archeologists trying to read ancient Egyptian, except they did not have the advantage of an ancient vampire to tell them vague recollections of the era.

It really was a shame that tech manufacturing had never caught my fancy.

If I had known we were going to fight the human suppression wars, I would have had a bunker built and preserved all the knowledge my humans would need in the future to make all the things I wanted. My lack of foresight was regrettable. I had foolishly believed that things would continue on roughly as they were indefinitely.

How wrong I had been.

* * * * *

While my human worked his way through the databank archives, I busied myself with preparing for the next council meeting, since I only had about a month left to go before I would stand in front of the council of my peers and explain to them exactly why they would be utter fools unless they agreed with me.

My tasks in preparation mostly involved hearing status updates on how things were progressing, daydreaming about Davidson's and Magnus'ss future miseries and running my clever arguments past Leif or whichever one of my humans happened to be in my vicinity.

Some of them made extremely good points, others less so. I was not sure if it was because their debating skills were substandard or due to their innate subservience to me.

I considered running my proposal by Jamie mostly as an excuse to speak to him, but my bill might soften his hostility and I did not really want that. It was bad enough that I was letting him look through my database, an act that could be misconstrued as kindness or charity.

I hoped he believed I was simply messing with him again. I did not want him getting the idea that I was some soft bleeding-heart vampire. Even more so, I certainly did not want him thinking I was trying to make him relax towards me.

It did not matter how much he intrigued me, I would maintain my dignity and his future entertainment value.

Theo came and gave me regular reports. "He's just going through alphabetically, reading the entire entry before moving on to the next."

"Poor Jamie, that sounds dreadfully boring."

"He doesn't seem to mind."

"Can you tell who he's looking for?"

He shrugged. "He seems to be spending more time on dark haired male vampires than anyone else, although he seems to read through each profile carefully."

I considered Theo's words, my mind thinking through different black haired males I could recall. I had the oddest urge to try to assist him. Perhaps it would be interesting if I did so.