It's a Dead Man's World Ch. 01

This story is a bit wordy and fairly long, so if you are looking for immediate gratification, you might want to look elsewhere.

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The following story is a work of fiction. Any resemblance between actual persons, living or dead (or just confused) is entirely coincidental. Please do not copy/redistribute the story, in part or in total, without the author’s permission.

This story takes place in the fictional city of Springfield, California several hundred years in the future, so don’t go looking for it on a map. And in my little fictional world, there are no unwanted pregnancies or STD’s, except as plot driving devices. The author encourages the practice of safe-sex.

This story also consists entirely of f/f sexual intercourse.

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“It’s a Dead Man’s World” Part 1

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Eliza was bored. Bored . . . bored . . . bored. She hated gigs like this, where it was ninety-nice percent waiting and only one-percent actual action. At that moment, she was hiding in an alcove about thirty feet from a diamond the size of a volleyball that had been uncovered in South America a few years earlier. The diamond was in a bulletproof glass case with all sorts of alarms and electronic wizardry that one her partners had personally approved. Rumor had it that some well-funded religious militia with delusions of spiritual connectedness to the jewel was going to make a major play for the Heaven’s Eye (as the diamond was called) sometime that weekend. The United State government had personally come to Eliza and her team and asked for them to provide additional security for the Eye while it was in the world renowned Springfield Museum. She had smiled at that. She didn’t really like working for this or any government, so she had upped her fee, but her contact had agreed to the price. The U.S. didn’t want to look bad by being the country that lost the priceless artifact. In a couple of days, the Eye would be finishing its worldwide tour in Paris.

‘Funny,’ she thought. ‘You couldn’t have picked a stranger team to hang out in a museum.’ She concentrated for a moment, causing her incisor teeth to extend for a moment. She thought that she might still have a bit of food stuck there and it was driving her nuts. The benefit of being a vampire was that you had some control over your teeth, making things like cleaning and flossing easier.

A few centuries earlier, this whole scenario would have been a little odd. But somehow, inexplicably, things had changed. In this world, as well as the one where Eliza and her kind came from, their were legends of monsters. In this world, the monsters were things like vampires, werewolves and dragons. These were the things that went bump in the night and hid under the bed of little kids. In Eliza’s world, those “monsters” were humans. Scientists, theologians and philosophers had argued for decades about what it all meant. One thing that they agreed on was that there were more than one dimensions that made up reality. The best guess was that over the course of evolution for both dimensions, cracks had formed in the intervening dimensional wall. Occasionally, someone or something would slip through. Then a much larger, very visible crack had formed on this planet, allowing people from sister “Earths” to pass through. While panic and mayhem had ensued when the two worlds first encountered each other, it became quickly obvious that the two sides had a mutual problem: what if the crack in reality got bigger. So desperation had brought about peace faster than anything else could.

The two worlds were actually identical in geographic makeup, which surprised everyone. But there were certain things that had been quite different. Humans had all but lost the capacity for magic, and had subsequently made up for it through technological innovations. Some of the races that inhabited Terra (as Eliza’s world was called in this world) used magic as a commonplace tool, but this had caused them not to make the technological strides that humans had. Eliza herself had been living in what humans considered a medieval castle when she had crossed into this world over thirty years earlier. Humans and vampires were incredibly similar biologically. Vampires were stronger, faster and lived much longer than humans. Some vampires could live several centuries without batting an eye, and a powerful vampire sorcerer or sorceress could live for a millennium. But pregnancies amongst vampires were incredibly long as well, averaging about three human years, and only a small amount of coupling ever resulted in pregnancy. So the long lives of vampires were balanced with difficulty in creating new life. And despite human legend, vampires could NOT create new members of their kind by feeding off the lifeblood of other species and being fed off themselves. Human blood was incredibly nourishing to vampires, so humans that agreed to donate their blood or let themselves be “nibbled on” were welcome in vampire society. But humans found themselves the recipient of an unexpected benefit of their interaction with the undead. Blood siphoned through a vampire’s body was cleaned of impurities, so many vampires lent themselves to hospitals and medical organizations to aid in the study and curing of a number of diseases. By the time Eliza had made her first journey to this world, the two dimensions had actually begun to coexist quite happily, much to everyone’s surprise. Between human understanding of physics and Terra’s understanding of magic and dimensional portals, the crack between the alternate dimensions had been stabilized. The two worlds interacted, did business and explored one another.

Eliza herself was a reasonably powerful sorceress. She came from a line of nobility that stretched back thousands of years. She had been groomed to be a socialite and debutante, and her parents had hoped she would become the chief spell-caster of the local governor. All her teachers and friends and family had recognized the power she held. But then the inevitable had happened. Eliza had become, in human terms, a teenager.

Eliza had grown restless as her parents planned her life for her. She wanted to go out and live a little. And her parent’s attempts to find her a suitable mate had driven her over the edge. It wasn’t that finding attention for her was particularly difficult. She was five feet, nine inches tall with delicate but well-defined muscles. She had full red lips, high cheekbones, short white hair, a small chin and brilliant yellow eyes. She turned heads of both human and vampire suitors. She had a full bosom and a heart-shaped posterior, making her a radiant specimen, no matter what race you were. When she had been growing up, she heard stories about the technological marvels of Earth and some of the sights, and she had wanted to visit. She had gotten a human tutor to teach her the English, French, German, Spanish and Russian languages. When she graduated from her academic academy, her parents had promised to send her on an excursion to Earth as a gift. She had traveled all over this world and had fallen in love with it. Her own people were . . . very stuffy. They were what Americans would call “very Euro-trash.” Humans were much more blunt and less inclined towards ceremony, and her restless nature found that appealing. Then she had come to the bright lights and big cities of the United States. She knew then that she wanted to stay. Her parents had objected, her peers had acted shocked, but she had made up her mind. While visiting between worlds was common, living in the other world full time was a little more rare and required a lot of paperwork and persuasion. Her parents were fairly influential and finally managed to get it arranged, but they had made Eliza agree to bring over some “insurance,” just to make sure she was safe. That “insurance” was her friend Thug. Thug was a troll.

Trolls were scary animals to most people and vampires. Actually, they were scary to everything that had the sense to BE scared. Trolls were natives of Terra, and they had life spans twice that of humans but the pregnancy rate of vampires. You might think this would make them an endangered species. But very little endangered a troll. They averaged about eight feet in height, had shoulders as wide as some cars, huge noses that could smell quarry a mile away and tusks emerging from their mouths. The tended to be hunched over and covered with powerful muscles (Thug’s forearms were as wide around as Eliza’s shoulders). Trolls were all both male and female, capable of impregnating one another easily. Like vampires, they were nocturnal creatures who could see in the dark and could even see heat signatures given off by other creatures. They were incredibly fast over short sprints, had skin that was as tough as stone and had incredible regenerative properties. Unless you went after them with something really hot and/or fiery, very little could actually kill them. Trolls tended to be somewhat magic resistant as well. But if all that wasn’t scary enough, they also had the chameleon-like ability to sort of merge with their background and change their skin color (which was normally a yellowish-green). They had been ambush predators in the early years of their evolution, and some of their more useful traits had survived. Trolls and vampires had existed somewhat harmoniously, though interaction between the two groups had been limited. Thug’s parent had actually worked for Eliza’s father, and the two had been unlikely friends for four decades. Trolls were just as smart as any other race, but people assumed they were stupid due to their appearance. When Eliza had decided to open up her security business, she had already planned on bringing Thug on board, so her parent’s request was no inconvenience whatsoever.

As she had been trained to act as a protector, so she decided to continue along those lines in her new home. So she had started putting together an oddball team. She herself provided hand-to-hand combat ability as well as magical aptitude. Magic didn’t work quite as well in this world, but she was still formidable. Thug was definitely the muscle of the outfit but was very good at stakeouts (due to his chameleon ability and patience).

Then there was Wyrm, a human hacker, programmer, and all around electronics guru. Wyrm was the cockiest son of a bitch that Eliza had ever met, but he was also charming and somewhat handsome. Eliza realized that having attractive employees helped make the business itself more attractive to its clients. Wyrm could have been an underwear model, but he was a bit too much of a techno-geek.

After Wyrm, a man named Dennis Murgo and his wife Allyson had contacted her. The couple had met while severing in the military, and both were experts in surveillance and tactics. Dennis had been with special ops while Allyson was an explosives expert. While in their late thirties, both of them were in phenomenal shape, and were perfect additions to the team.

Despite the occasional boredom, Eliza loved her job. It was dangerous and exciting, and it was the sort of job her parents hated. Within four or five years, they had earned themselves a reputation as some of the best in the world at what they did, which meant Eliza and her team took the jobs they wanted and named their own price.

She glanced over towards a shadowy area in front of some curtains where she knew Thug was sitting. Once you spotted a camouflaged troll, you could usually keep track of them. She thought she could make out where his eyes were, particularly when he rolled them. She was willing to bet he was bored too. Luckily, she had a telepathic link established with all the team-members so they could talk completely silently while they waited. Mentally linking multiple people was tricky for most magic wielders, but it was old hat to Eliza.

{{Leave it to humans to show up late for their own robbery,}} Thug mumbled mentally. Hearing Thug think was interesting. Trolls couldn’t reproduce human or vampire sounds, but they understood them clearly enough. Troll language was guttural and hard to comprehend by some standards, but their minds were clear.

{{Hey!}} came thoughts from the backroom where Wyrm was hiding and monitoring the security system.

{{Don’t pay any attention to him,}} thought Dennis who was up on the roof with a sniper rifle. {{He showed up a week late for dinner that one time.}}

Eliza smiled. Thug was dependable on the job, but occasionally got distracted. He had been having lunch next the creek next to the group’s Springfield offices when he realized he didn’t really know where that creek came from. Rather than asking or looking at a map, he had simply decided to follow it. On foot. For about three days.

{{Sure,}} Thug thought, {{ . . . just keep throwing THAT back in my face.}}

{{Leave him alone,}} came Allyson’s thoughts. {{I’d kind of wondered where that creek went myself.}}

{{That’s why they invented maps dear.}} Dennis sent his wife an image of a big smiley face with its tongue sticking out. They all got an image of Allyson rolling her eyes. {{Heads up everyone,}} thought Dennis with a sudden air of seriousness. {{Got three unmarked hovercraft with heavily tinted windows trying to park inconspicuously.}}

{{How does someone ‘park inconspicuously’?}} Wyrm asked.

{{I’ll explain later. They’re on the north side of the building. They’re getting out now . . . I count fifteen getting out, but the drivers are staying in. Wyrm, can you get me outside surveillance on the other side of the building? I don’t want to take my eyes off these guys.}}

{{Got it. Nope, I don’t see . . . wait, we’ve got another two craft in the alley. I think I understand the ‘parking inconspicuously’ comment now. They’re trying to hard to look like they’re not being sneaky. Another ten getting out. South side. They’re all heavily armed.}}

{{Shit,}} thought Eliza. {{I wasn’t expecting this much of a firefight. If they start blasting . . .}} She didn’t even need to finish the thought. They were surrounded by several billion dollars worth of irreplaceable artwork. {{Wyrm, call the cops. What kind of response time can we expect?}}

After a few moments, she got an unnerving response. {{Shit. It looks like the cops have their hands full. A bunch of fires and an explosion downtown have them all tied up. According to police broadcasts, unmarked black hovercrafts were seen nearby in a couple of cases. I think these guys set up some distractions. Traffic alone means we won’t get any official help for fifteen minutes.}}

Eliza hated it when the other guys did something smart. Fifteen minutes might not sound that long to most people, but it was an eternity when people were shooting at you. {{ Okay, }} she thought, {{we need to avoid damaging anything. I don’t want our entire fee to go towards paying to replace a Picasso, particularly since I HATE Cubist art. }} She sensed Wyrm snicker. {{ And tell regular museum security to get somewhere safe and stay there. They aren’t equipped to deal with something like this. }}

Then Wyrm had some good news. {{Allyson, you got those knockout grenades with you?}}

{{What kind of question is that?}} she responded. Allyson never went on a mission without her non-lethal capture devices.

{{Good. The south-side group is making for a door used by maintenance people. Long hallway, poorly lighted and ventilated . . .}}

{{I see where you’re going with this,}} Allyson thought. {{Can you clear me a path?}}

{{Already done,}} came the response. {{Once they’re inside, I’ll let you know when they get close to the door that leads into the storage area. Drop a couple grenades close, toss one down the hall, and you should get them all.}}

Eliza had a concern. {{How strong is the door?}}

{{Exterior is steel. Interior is wood. Shit!}}

Eliza knew it. The intruders might be able to bust down the interior door before the knockout gas kicked in, which would potentially leave Allyson in a one-on-ten situation. {{Thug, go help keep them there until the gas has finished them off. Wyrm, relock the outer door once they’re in and keep it locked until they’re finished. Dennis, disable the hovercraft so they can’t escape and then get your ass down here. Wyrm, where’s the safest place for a fight?}}

{{Outer lobby area. Currently, the front desk staff is hiding and they don’t have anything valuable there. Are you sure about this though? You’ll be on your own until Dennis gets down there!}}

{{It’s okay. I’ve got a plan.}} Then the crew sprung into action. Wyrm cleared the motion detectors, laser tripwires and heat sensors out of the way so Allyson and Thug could get to the south side of the building. Dennis took aim and used his silenced sniper rifle to disable hovercraft engines as soon as the foot soldiers had entered the building. Eliza made her way to the front lobby, where she prepared her mind for the used of magic. Magic, despite human beliefs, wasn’t about components or chants. It was about pure will and understanding of how the universe worked. And Eliza was a good student. She mentally willed the sound around her to be dampened, allowing her to move quietly and quickly. When she got to the lobby, she had a couple other tricks up her sleeve. She didn’t want to overdue it, since using magic was physically exertion, same as using her regular muscles. Things like keeping it quiet were easy. Her other magics were a whole lot harder.

Eliza’s superior night vision helped her pick out the invaders easily. And just as she expected, they all had night-vision goggles. She grinned. {{This is going to be too easy,}} she thought.

{{Don’t get cocky,}} Wyrm returned. The problem with telepathy is that EVERYTHING got shared, which also made for very few secrets within the group.

Eliza mentally prepared, concentrating on everything in the area that gave off light, from the dim red buttons of the emergency lights to the flickering of the security monitors. The intruders were weary when they didn’t find any security in the lobby. Eliza wasn’t going to give them a chance.

{{Wyrm, get ready to hit all the lights in the lobby for two seconds, then shut them off again.}}

{{Got it.}}

When it was all said and done, it was almost too easy. Wyrm hit the lights and Eliza closed her eyes while amplifying all the lights in the room tenfold. With the night-vision goggles on, the fifteen people in the lobby were completely blinded. With the noise around her still dampened, Eliza moved quickly into the room with a steel baton. She had knocked out half of them before any of them could even begin to see again. Most of them had thrown their goggles off when the light hit them, and by that point it had gone dark again. They didn’t stand a chance. She was like a whirling dervish, knocking heads and grabbing guns as she went. The last four started shooting blindly around them. Eliza almost felt bad for them at that point. Shooting in a blind panic generally led to one thing, and two of the invaders dropped to their own comrades’ gunfire. Eliza concentrated again, causing the air to become denser between her and them, then she sent a couple of telekinetic punches, dropping the two remaining attackers. That last spell had actually caused her to sweat a bit. That kind of telekinesis was hard work.

{{Got the ones in the lobby,}} she thought. {{Allyson? Thug?}}

{{The ones back here are sleeping like babies,}} came the response.

Wyrm was scanning with the security cameras. {{That’s it,}} he said confidently. {{No other points of penetration.}}