Friday, 29 January 2010
Bitemarks 2.7
My teeth hurt. :( But I know people are waiting. I also notice we're getting a little asynchronous, which is why we're still with Skarletta.
Bitemarks 2.7
Skarletta awoke, the memory of her death still fresh in her mind. The frozen wastes of the Arctic. Why had she been there? The pieces were definitely coming together. Soon she would know. She got up and went to the window, peeking out through the curtain. Night had fallen and a blue led clock beside David's bed showed 12:30 am. And David himself? He was asleep on the floor. She leaned over him and sniffed. The transformation was complete. His immune system had been overpowered by her venom and now he was just like her. Well, almost. Certainly enough to suffice. She jostled him with her foot until he awoke and saw the pained expression on his face. He clutched at his stomach and groaned.
"It hurts..."
"It's the hunger." she told him, "You know what that means?"
He nodded weakly.
"Come on, get up." she continued. "We'll go feed."
They didn't have to go far to find their victims. There were people still in the streets, making their way home from whatever nighttime entertainment they'd indulged in. Skarletta waited until she detected a young couple who didn't have incredible volumes of alcohol in their bloodstream and then she and David stalked them. The attack was quick, Skarletta was too seasoned a killer and the couple offered little resistance. She showed David how to locate the veins and release his fangs. He was a messy feeder but he'd learn soon enough. Afterwards Skarletta dumped the bodies in a skip in an alley behind a restaurant.
"Let's go back." she said, "I have things I need to know."
Back at David's house Skarletta booted up his computer.
"You are proficient at using this device?" she asked him.
"Yeah." David nodded, "What is it you were looking for?"
"I still don't know. Something important. Something I was doing before..." she trailed off, looking at the various posters around his bedroom.
"Who's that?" she asked, pointing at one that showed a bald man wearing an unusual black and red top.
"Captain Picard. He's a fictional character from a tv show? Star Trek?"
"Star... trek...?"
"It's about the future, when humans have gone into space and begun exploring the stars."
Skarletta laughed.
"Dherroine? In space? Hah. Your people lack the brains for such an endeavour."
"They already made it to the moon."
Skarletta's eyes flashed wide.
"They've already left the planet?"
"Sure."
Whatever mental barriers blocked her memory of the past gave way and everything came flooding back in that instant. That was the important thing. If they'd already managed to produce craft capable of reaching the moon then her time was running out! That was what she was doing in the Arctic! The device! Her ship!
She grabbed David by the shoulders.
"My ship. We need my ship. Those centuries wasted while I lay in the ice! It must still be here somewhere."
She pointed to the computer.
"Find out who has it."
"How?"
"Karal. All who are spawned speak it. Find out everything you can about anyone involved with anything that could be linked to me."
"It's going to take time..."
"Then you'd best begin immediately."
"And what will you do?"
Skarletta drummed her fingers against her thigh. What did she need to do...? The Arctic? She thought for a moment.
"Get me some information first. Climate reports. Scientific journals. Temperatures over the last few hundred years. Air composition. Soil mineral levels. I need to know if the device was activated and... see if you can find any lists of unusual electromagnetic signals. It's always possible that some foolish Dherroine accidentally activated the device or something else on my ship that we could trace."
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Nice episode. You got me hooked again.
ReplyDeleteC.
umm the other two episodes are good too.
ReplyDeleteC.
:) Why thank you. You see now how close you were? :P But there's more. Still I was impressed that you second guessed me and predicted Skarletta's space faring origins twice. Or maybe it was too predictable. I really didn't think I'd given anything away in the story to lead anyone to suspect it.
ReplyDeleteSee the interesting thing is (from my point of view) that here we have vampires presented both as their traditional bloodsucking selves (evolved directly from the spawn Skarletta left behind) but then also as a race unto themselves, equipped with a sophisticated bio-weapon that mirrors defence mechanisms found within the animal kingdom (in this case, the reptilians) only with a venom that acts as a virus that acts not entirely dissimilar to HIV in that it first breaks down the immune system (but then rewrites certain lines of DNA). I've also introduced the concept of genetic memory (the whole learning from blood thing) giving us a race capable not only of passing genetic memory on but also reading from it in the adult stage! :O And that Ches (and other readers) is the basis for my own personal vampiric race. :) Stay tuned for more revelations but first (either tomorrow or Monday) we're back with Ed. :)
Well um you know... I think i just my intuition and the facts that Skarletta was found in the ice and that she has very 'alien' like feats. Also her flashbacks of a race called the 'Dherroine' gave me some hints of heir foreign nature.
ReplyDeleteBut yeah i guess it was intuition or maybe a lucky guess based upon memories of movies like
"The Thing" from John Carpenter. Very scary movie.
Your concept of Skarletta is very well thought out. I guess she is on par with the girl from "Species" or even "Alice" or the "Predator" :)
Nice work. Me likes.
Though one little feature is abit unrealistic. Genetic memory. I cannot think how it should be possible how the DNA code of blood cells should be able to transport the complete memory of mankind or a specific memory of one individual. But hey it is often used in Vampire stories. So i reckon it is some supernatural power and not explainable by science. :)
C.
Some good points. I'm in too much dental pain right now to write the next bit (bad side of a high metabolism, painkillers don't last very long) but I have just about enough clarity to adress your points.
ReplyDeleteFirstly, the Dherroine are what she calls humans. The bigger clue was really that the vampires speak their own language (Karal) which is also how they refer to themselves. This is what suggests them to be a race distinctive from humans although really, Skarletta is the only real Karal. All other vampires were spawned by her (or her spawn) meaning they were humans who became Karal. But there'll be more on this issue.
As for her alien "feats" well it's standard vampire fare. But it's worth noting three distinct features. The fangs/venom which we've already mentioned is similar to reptiles. Her immunity to the cold (cold-bloodedness is another reptilian staple) and fast healing (Think of the regrowth of tails). All this is suggesting a race that evolved not from primates but from a more reptilian base. Where humans lost the hair of their ancestors, Skarletta's people have lost their scales? :) There's also the violent mindset. I dunno how much you know of psychology, particularly Freudian stuff and putting aside the validity of it for the moment but the R-complex was supposed to be the area of the brain that dealt with issues of survival and instinct (And what Freud believed made people violent I think). Then there's the limbic system which is the mammalian section and then the neocortex which controls the higher functions of intelligent thought. Now although Skarletta is clearly intelligent, there's definitely a lot of R-complex behaviour there.
Check out any article on the Triune brain system for more info on that. To be fair, my knowledge of it is sketchy at best so I haven't intentionally drawn parallels with that in the story.
The Thing! Lol. I'd forgotten about that but now you mention it, I can see the similarities with the opening scene and that movie. Maybe that was subconscious on my part. :)
On par with the girl from Species? :O You flatter me sir. I can see similarities though, especially behaviour wise. The kind of detached regard towards humanity, hmm yes. Haven't heard of 'Alice' and I think the Predator is really a different league. The Predators are really a race of highly intelligent and noble hunters who made the 'mistake' of treating us as lesser beings back in the day. Skarletta is more evil than that. Although... it kinda depends as Predator's continuity is far from clear! Certainly in the AVP crossovers the predators show no interest in hunting or killing humans, seeing them more as we might see insects, ie no real threat. Yet in the very first Predator film (And in the Predator Vs Batman crossover) the Predators were most definitely hunting the humans. I always preferred the AVP style predator myself.
(Continues due to character limit)
Genetic memory. Well this bit depends. I am writing a work of fiction after all but the basics of the science are there! Consider this. If I have a baby right now and ship him off to France, he will learn to speak French despite being English, right? This is due tot he baby mimicking the sounds around it to begin forming its language. This would imply that language is learned and not part of our genetic code... YET! When I think in my head, no matter what I'm thinking, I'm thinking in English, just as you most likely think in German. So... when we were first born, before either of us had a language... how did we think? Hmmm? How can you think if you have no language to think in? Take it a step further... how does someone born deaf, who has never heard a single sound, think? O_O With no language they are still able to think which would imply some basic linguistic functionality (or capacity) passed on via the human genome? It's because of this that I haven't allowed Skarletta to absorb specific victim based memories, or the concepts of advanced technology such as the internet, but certainly the ability to grasp the basics of the language through hearing it spoken! Essentially a much faster form of how a baby learns to speak. You'll notice Skarletta didn't speak for a while, but after hearing just a few words she was able to start grasping the language. I guess I've taken the idea of how babies learn language and simply accelerated the process as it applies to her. So it's not *as* far removed from reality as it might first appear.
ReplyDeleteWe're also ignoring the very simple get-out clause that I could use such as the discovery that she has an advanced microchip in her head or something. :P Don't worry, I'm not gonna, but there are other possibilities. :)