Hello Grandmother,

“Are you afraid of me?” That’s an easy question to answer with a gun pointed at your head. It becomes more complicated when you know the person pointing it doesn’t need it to kill you.

The vampire bureaucracy is not happy about the note I received. Cassandra Stone, agent of the vampire hierarchy stopped by last evening, and was considerably less cordial than she was when she was threatening me to help her. Though I could clearly see the gun was almost perfunctory. It meant she wanted me dead per the request of her employers, and not for any personal reason. I offered her the box in exchange for my life. She said they didn’t want it. She said I should stay away from Dallas, I said I had no intention of going anywhere near it.

So the answer to her question starts to become, no. For the moment, the bureaucracy needs me alive, if just to see what Jakob’s killer will do next. Which means I am momentarily protected, at least from everyone except a known killer.

-1159

Hello Grandmother,

I received a note today, from the person who left me the mysterious Aztec USB device. In which they claimed to be the killer of Jakob Lawrence. They also invited me to Texas. And said they had something very important that I would benefit from helping them with. The worst part is they know my name.

Here’s the text:

Hello <Name Withheld>,

Forgive me, yours is not my native tongue. Your services are required. I have delivered to you a mystery that once belonged to my servant Jakob. You are to rightly be intrigued by it. It is the reason I had to end his live. There is a war coming, that will change everything. You are right to be prepared. I know where you come from. I have been there too. There is a place for you to go, Dallas. It is a place where those who worship me are preparing as well, for my return. They look for a sign. If you meet them, you will receive the assistance you require.

- A helpful voice

Is this real? Is it possible it could be anything other than a trap? Am I being toyed with? Or is this a game in which everyone is being played?

-1159

Hello Grandmother,

I’ve been granted a reprieve from working for the vampire bureaucracy. I guess they feel they got what they needed out of me. Thankfully, it didn’t involve draining any of my blood. I’ve been thinking about the mirror we found yesterday, the one hidden in Jakob’s library. I’ve been thinking about who could have put it there. Did Jakob have a contingence plan? Was there someone who he had a deal with to prevent the vampires from getting it? Had he sold off the last of his treasures in case of his death? And what was so terribly important about his art pieces anyways?

It would require someone with power and someone who could move about the city in secret. Someone who could break in to the lair of an Illuminati chief and escape unnoticed. It wasn’t a vampire. Is there a robot power strong enough? Could it have been the Alternate? I really don’t know that much about who the Alternate is. The rumor is that it was designed over a hundred years ago, making it one of the first robots. Over the last few decades, the Alternate has become the première designer of advances in robot cognitive processors. It has built a network of distribution, becoming almost a monopoly over the spread of robot consciousness across the western United States.

The Alternate has been instrumental in negotiating a partial truce between the vampire hegemony and the robot masses. Just by standardizing robot’s operating systems, it has made the group easier to manage. But what if it is all a ruse? Is the Alternate just preparing for war? When every side is keeping secrets from everyone else, it may be impossible to tell until it’s too late.

-1159

Hello Grandmother,

If there is anything I know for certain in the universe, it’s that the universe is a mystery. I think that’s the only thing keeping me sane while I live in the shadows.

We were permitted today to examine the gutted contents of Jackob Lawrence’s library. As someone whose done more than a little time investigating the mysteries around this man’s life, it was both tantalizing and frustrating. I remember all those lessons you taught me about how the Illuminati operated back in the day, the failures they made and the mistakes that resulted in so much suffering. I know you are not the same person now, but the you that I grew up with would have done anything to be in that room. I felt like I could feel you there with me.

And at the same time I was on the spot. I knew my neck was quite literally on the line for me to find some evidence of something. And as much as I hated helping them, I knew I was the best person to find something there.

The Illuminati spent a great deal of time and money hiding things. So when you look at an Illuminati vault, you’re not so much looking for what’s there, you’re looking for what’s missing. What was so powerful that they had to hide it somewhere else. Jakob’s library, gutted though it was, was organized around different principles of his life. There was an area for spy information, a technical lab for experiments, even a divining room for contacting spirits. But in all of this, there was no space for personal documents, no space for an individual persons life. Where were Jakob’s documents on himself? Where did he keep the files on his friends, his personal accomplishments? What did he not want the world to know about him?

Jakob was an art collector, this much I knew. He liked to have paintings that were unique, individual specimens that were the only copies in the entire world. But there was no space for them here. It was upon revelation of this fact that the dismayed vampire curator took us to the lower levels. To the shadow gallery, where Jakob had collected his masterpieces. Except they were all gone. And not auctioned off, as the curator would tell us. Someone had stolen all of the pieces. The only thing remaining was a mirror, a magic mirror in which no mystic trickery could help a vampire find a reflection. A mirror that told every vampire in there that someone else was out there with the magical power to take what they want. And I have no idea who it is.

-1159

Hello Grandmother,

Psychics are just assholes. Maybe I need to rephrase that. Most psychics, your bendy spoon type of people, are good people, but the ones who get hired by vampires, the psychics who are good enough you never hear about them, are generally just pricks. They’ve decided they’re better than everyone else, and that justifies selling out the rest of humanity to the highest bidder.

I had another useless day as I spent most of my time sitting around while Cassandra dressed down the Hack for failing to control the city. Really I don’t blame him. He doesn’t really have the resources to accomplish what they’re asking of him. Doesn’t mean his head’s not gonna roll sooner or later if he doesn’t figure out how to do the impossible.

Meanwhile, I had to spend the day sitting across from the Hack’s snotty psychic attaché. Who I’m sure was none too happy about not being able to read my mind. Probably thought I was a vampire. But I’m a guy who likes to keep his secrets to himself, so I didn’t correct him on any misconceptions.

I’m not sure where this investigation is going, or why I’m along. We’ve spent very little time interview real suspects or following leads, and most of it in verbal sparing matches with the local heavyweights. Nothing we’ve seen has been anything that I could lend my expertise with. I’m starting to wonder here- what kind of pawn am I exactly?

-1159

Hello Grandmother,

Vampires like devouring people. I understand that they procure most of their blood through other means these days, but you can still feel the shiver up your spine when you meet one. They want to consume you.

Apparently warlord Fang (who hates being called warlord) is upset with the bureaucracy’s investigation that I have been enlisted into. So he decided to invite my vampire body guard and myself to an LA location of his to curse us out. Thankfully it was figurative and not literal. Of course, the bureaucracy’s agent who I’ve finally learned is known as Cassandra, was having none of it. Which left me wondering how quickly I’d be on the menu if all this went south.

The important lesson I took away from all of this is that deep down, all vampires hate each other. They can work together, run the world, but in the end they’re only ever competition for one another.

The world has survived a generation of vampires. But how much longer can this really last? And what the hell happens when the parasites turn on each other and it all falls apart?

-1159

Hello Grandmother,

The Illuminati really thought that they could have conscious machines that would just happily do all their work for them. It seems like they couldn’t even grasp the idea that self-aware machines might not have out best interests at heart.

That’s the train of thought that keeps going through my mind as I tour the robot slums of Los Angeles. And believe me, they’re there. You don’t see them to look at them, but every junkyard, trailer park, and back alley has a few scrappy machines trying to survive on malfunctioning hard drives and fritzy mechanical parts.

These are not places you want to be walking around unguarded. For the moment, I have a dangerous vampire agent making sure I’m not the victim of robot aggression, but it’s not exactly an easy process.

We interviewed a run-down junk dealer designated Flux. It couldn’t seem to remember if it had been an associate of Jakob’s or not. It had plenty of wrong directions for us though. I’m not sure if it’s brain was not working properly or it was intentionally misdirecting us. Neither would surprise me.

All in all I felt useless. I’m hoping my lack of helpfulness doesn’t lead to a quick draining from my neck.

-1159

Hello Grandmother,

Someone in a very high place is upset. I know this because my services have been requested by an agent of the vampire bureaucracy who is displeased with the state of the investigation into Jakob Lawrence’s death. I had only a second to wonder what you would do at such a request before my cooperation was indicated to be less than voluntary.

They seem to be having trouble identifying Jakob’s true killer. And the higher ups don’t like having a rouge assassin eliminating the final human secret lords without their say so.

The vampire bureaucracy doesn’t care about LA’s petty squabbles, about the robots near equal footing in this town. They just want an answer. I doubt retribution even matters to them. All that they care about is knowing the secret, having control of the darkness, and keeping it to themselves.

-1159

Hello Grandmother,

It’s hard not to be paranoid at this point. I know someone is out to get me. Someone thinks I owe them a favor, and I’m going to have no choice but to repay it. And in all likelihood, they are a vampire. So the best thing to do, to calm my nerves, while I wait for the favor to be called in, is to narrow down my possible requestors.

For the last five years, LA has been in a tango of vampire violence as different applicants have vied for role as the city’s chief prima donna bureaucrat. There have been flares of robot power, attempted takeovers that almost gave the impression the city was in a state of open rebellion, but in recent years the standardization of robot operating systems have lead to a relative compromise.

The vampire peacocking around attempting to increase the violence as of late is a creature of the night who has changed his name to Fang. He’s got a pack of werewolves that have been picking on the unfortunate during the daytime to up his reputation as a badass. But at this point, he’s going to have to work at forming alliances to boost his power past petty warlord of Century City.

Psychics have been the vampire’s means of control over their human underlings since their world conquest. It’s a group that vampires have a limited degree of leverage against, as psychics can’t read vampire minds. The bureaucrat in charge of LA’s première psychic enforcers is someone who very likely could make a play for taking over the city. Not exactly popular in the town, he’s referred to as the Hack, as he has a pension for trying to manipulate peoples lives in predictable but sometimes effective fashion. However, until LA becomes a more stable environment, his powers are limited.

The robot communities on the west coast in general take their orders from an enigmatic figure called the Alternate, which operates out of a secret compound in Colorado. The Alternate has wrested control over the Illuminati’s fleet of transforming artificially intelligent vehicles, which enforces it’s control over lesser robot factions. The “Carmy’s” leader, designated Commander Brake, has had to begrudgingly except the Alternate’s rule, but tends to assert his own authority whenever possible. For the most part though, the Alternate is only able to set up a broad distribution system for disseminating his operating system updates. The robot masses are generally ungoverned and exist in a state of chaos kept out the public by the vampire’s manipulations.

Any of these players could be the one seeking out my aid. What if it’s none of these? Who is hunting the Illuminati’s treasures? I doubt I have any hope of just returning the prize.

-1159

Hello Grandmother,

L.A. is a strange place. It used to be a desert, and from what I’ve seen in my life, deserts are places of great magic. It’s a place of used up dreams and dream factories. It’s a pivotal place to visit, if you are looking to have any kind of understanding of the magics in the world. And it’s a place of secret science, where technological wizards create wonders through mechanical trickery. On the surface, it’s a place of illusion. So you can only imagine what lies beneath.

L.A., more than any other power center in the world, is a fractured place. It’s the only city without a master in the grand schemes of Robots and Vampires. Until 2004, it had been controlled by the last Illuminati hold outs, but through the slow ravages of time the last few human rulers lost out to less mortal competitors.

But no one has been able to claim the city. Despite frequent attempts, no individual leader has been able to make the city submit. Over the last five years, many have died trying to make L.A. their own. But so far, the city has no masters. It is a place of immense power, not just because of the millions of humans that course through its veins, but because of all the dreams that reside in it. It’s a city yet to be harvested–for magic or science. And whoever does wrest control of it will find themselves at the center of every major change I see coming.

Over the last few months, I’ve made L.A. my home. It’s a microcosm of everything I fear the world becoming, and all the hopes I believe can be achieved. If I want to fight the war I believe is coming, I know I’ll learn my lessons here. I’m only beginning to understand what this place has to show me, but the more I see of it, the more I realize tomorrow’s fight begins here.

-1159