The Fall

Palmer shook his head. “I am not about to detail everything for you. Not because you might do something heroic with this information-you cannot. It is too late. The die is already cast.”

Eph’s mind reeled. He remembered Palmer’s speech from earlier in the day, his testimony. “Why do you want a quarantine now? Sealing off cities? What is the point? Unless… are you trying to herd us together?”

Palmer did not answer.

Eph went on, “They can’t turn everybody, because then there would be no blood meals. You need a reliable food source.” It hit him then, what Palmer had said. “Food delivery. The meatpacking plants. Are you…? No…”

Palmer folded his old hands in his lap.

Eph pressed him. “And then-what about the nuclear power plants? Why do you need them to come on line?”

Palmer answered by saying again, “The die is already cast.”

Eph set down his fork, swiping the knife blade with his napkin before setting it down as well. These revelations had killed his body’s junkie-like urge for protein.

“You’re not insane,” said Eph, actively trying to read him now. “You’re not even evil. You are desperate, and certainly megalomaniacal. Absolutely perverse. Is all this spun out of a rich man’s fear of death? You trying to buy your way out of it? Actually choosing the alternative? But-for what? What have you not already done that you lust after? What will be left for you to lust for?”

For the briefest moment, Palmer’s eyes showed a hint of fragility, perhaps even fear. In that instant he was revealed to be just what he was: a fragile, sick old man.

“You don’t understand, Dr. Goodweather. I have been sick all my life. All my life. I had no childhood. No adolescence. I have been fighting against my own rot for as long as I can remember. Fear death? I walk with it every day. What I want now is to transcend it. To silence it. For what has being human ever done for me? Every pleasure I have ever experienced has been tainted by the whisper of decay and disease.”

“But-to be a vampire? A… a creature? A bloodsucking thing?”

“Well… arrangements have been made. I will be exalted somewhat. Even at the next stage, there has to be a class system, you know. And I have been promised a seat at the very top.”

“Promised by a vampire. A virus. What about his will? He is going to invade yours as he has all the others-possess it, make yours an extension of his own. What good is that? Merely trading one whisper for another…”

“I have dealt with worse, believe me. But it is kind of you to show such concern for my well-being.” Palmer looked to the great windows, beyond their reflection to the dying city below. “People will prefer any fate to this. They will welcome our alternative. You’ll see. They will accept any system, any order, that promises them the illusion of security.” He looked back. “But you haven’t touched your drink.”

Eph said, “Maybe I’m not so preprogrammed. Maybe people are more unpredictable than you think.”

“I don’t think so. Every model has its individual anomalies. A renowned doctor and scientist becomes an assassin. Amusing. What most people lack is vision-a vision of the truth. The ability to act with deadly certainty. No, as a group-a herd, that is your word-they are easily led, and wonderfully predictable. Capable of selling, turning, killing those that they profess to love in exchange for peace of mind or a scrap of food.” Palmer shrugged, disappointed that Eph was evidently through eating and the meal was over. “You will be going back to the FBI now.”

“Those agents are in on it? How big is this conspiracy?”

“‘Those agents’?” Palmer shook his head. “As with any bureaucratic institution-say, for instance, the CDC-once you seize control of the top, the rest of the organization simply follows orders. The Ancients have operated that way for years. The Master is no exception. Don’t you see that this is why governments were established in the first place? So, no, there is no conspiracy, Dr. Good-weather. This is the very same structure that has existed since the beginning of recorded time.”

Mr. Fitzwilliam unplugged Palmer from his feeding machine. Eph saw that Palmer was already half a vampire; that the jump from intravenous nourishment to a blood meal was not a great one. “Why did you have me here?”

“Not to gloat. I believe that has been made clear. Nor to unburden my soul.” Palmer chuckled before returning to seriousness. “This is my last night as a man. Dinner with my would-be assassin struck me as a meaningful part of the program. Tomorrow, Dr. Goodweather, I will exist in a place beyond death’s reach. And your kind will exist-”

“My kind?” said Eph, interrupting.